Geez this recession business is some serious shit isn't it?
Or so we're told. Someone is always telling us aren't they? There's always an expert on something, somewhere prepared to tell you just how bad it is. I really wish they wouldn't though; those people stuff it up for those of us that really do know it all. But no matter how grim it's going to get, I can't help but think there are some positives to a global recession.
Like how finally we will have a solution to the rampant consumerism that seems to plague just about everybody. With the prospect of job losses and cost cutting we can expect discretionary spending to reduce. With the pinch going on financial intuitions - especially finance companies - we can expect interest rate on hire purchases and personal loans to be high. Loan shark high. If that doesn't curb the desire for the sufferers of status anxiety to feel they have to buy the latest in flat screen TVs to match the neighbours, then what the fuck will aye?
Of course more and more finance companies are going bust because the investments they have made with your debt have fallen through, so the neighbour who still owes a packet on the latest in flat screen TV that he bought with the help of the finance company, is going to lose it as the creditors try and recoup some of the investors money. Suddenly that old cathode number that sits out in the garage or the shed and served every bugger so well for so long is not too shabby after all.
Upgrading the iPod to the latest colour range won't be an option, nor will be the next generation in cell phones; the ones that have a built in toilet. That PC of yours that just doesn't seem to download the streaming porn quite as quick as it use to will just have to do you for a few years, you'll just have to burn your favourite Red Tube clips to disc.
Electrical appliances will have to be repaired, not trashed at the first hint of trouble like the old video player that chewed your stick flick just as it was getting to the threesome bit, again. Those that specialise in small appliance repair will have the kind of brisk trade that their grandfather used to tell them about when he first started the business back in the 50's. Shoes and clothes will have to last more than one season and people will finally start to question whether or not $15 to see a movie that will be out on DVD in a few weeks is money well wasted.
Boy racers like my neighbour will find that not only are their ridiculously loud Jappas more expensive to buy, but the finance and insurance costs of just such a motor will be more than they save by living at home, wanking their days away on the couch until Mum comes home. Those with menial jobs and who spend their apprenticeship at the garage out the back sniffing the old CRC cans, might be reduced to car pooling when they do the Courtney Place circuit because their minimum wage won’t stretch to meet the on going costs of keeping their wanker’s wagons on the roads. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Restaurants and cafes will do it tough because their patrons will have to stay home and heaven forbid learn to cook. Home Economics classes at secondary schools will overflow with new entrants because chances are it will be the only feed that some of those kids get. There is a shortage of Home Ec teachers in New Zealand, a sure sign that for too long now the art of cooking and knowing the basics has been lost on a generation that has everything offered to them pre-pared, pre-sliced and pre-packed for consumer convenience.
Companies are realising that the ridiculous concept that is the corporate lunch and having a 'coffee meeting' is not only a waste of money it's a waste of time. The same companies will look to cut costs and unfortunately that will mean redundancies, no surprise given that usually a figure of about 75% of a companies expenditure is on wages. Those that keep their jobs will find that their email and internet usage will be closely scrutinised as firms look to maximise productivity. No emails and Facebook? Crikey. What will Generation X,Y, or whatever fucken letter we're up to do at work all day? Actually work?
Yep, even a recession has its positives.
Showing posts with label Status Anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Status Anxiety. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, November 3, 2008
Fugazi Facebook Friends
I finally did this week what I’ve been putting off for a while; I removed ‘friends’ from Facebook that weren’t actually friends at all but status seeking people I used to go to school with. It was a decision I didn’t make lightly because I for one have been burnt by the Facebook burn that is removing ‘mates’ without their knowledge, but enough was enough.
One guy I went through my entire school life with added me as a mate. He and I did time on the dark dangerous Naenae streets where blood is thicker than water and people died for the colour of a headband, but fuck it, I was friend 264 so clearly he didn’t think to look me up when he first signed up to the ‘ol FB. I don’t doubt he’s still a stand up guy – he is by all the outstanding causes and groups he likes to add himself to – but we haven’t said boo to each other even after we’ve been added so what’s the point aye?
Life’s too short to spend all day trying to read through the actions of people you used to know just so you can see the ones you do. I signed up to Facebook to a) post anonymous nude pics of myself on young girl’s profiles and b) to catch up with mates overseas. Now I‘m as curious as the next guy to see how the hot girl from school turned out, but once it’s obvious that she isn’t then it’s highly likely that you’ll have as much in common with her now, as you did back then – bugger all. And you can bet she’s not going to appreciate your nude shots no matter how tastefully done they are.
Apparently you can’t post objectionable material on Facebook. But if I post nude pics on the page of someone who wants to see them i.e. Dougal Macca and we make them private so that only we can view them, are they really objectionable? If a fat girl falls in the woods is it really still funny?
A psychologist from one of Europe’s biggest mental health recovery organisations believes that at least 10% of Facebook’s 110 million users are addicted to the site. I think some of them appear upon my list of friends actually. He reckons that:
“The acquisition of friends is like any other fix but it’s competitive. You judge yourself by how many friends you have online. You go out of your way to amass friends and that means people bend out of shape and become something they are not.
To appear successful, you go and put yourself in credit card debt by buying clothes and handbags. If you’re an addict you need to do things to fix yourself and make yourself feel better. People in recovery look for ways of being ‘fixed’ and these websites can act the same way.”
NB: The clinic will help you rid your addiction if you’re part of the ten percent – but at a cost. I’ll save you the cash right now – turn the PC off, go outside and get a life. Simple.
Now eternal optimists and self help gurus will try and tell you that you can never have enough friends. They’re also the type likely to try and tell you that drinking your own pee is ‘cleansing’, so there you go. I don’t necessarily disagree with the first statement but there is such a thing as real friends who you see, contact or interact with regularly and Facebook friends who can be virtual at best.
One of my ex class mates tried adding me the other day, as friend 207 but I had learnt my lesson from the last time she tried something similar, on Old School Mates or some gay site like that which is the poor cousin to the likes of Facebook and Bebo. She had emailed me only to garner a response which I duly did and I never heard from her again. Until the other day but now the shoe is on the other foot and it’s me making the decisions. Luckily for me she is not as hot as she once was so the decision was easy; delete!
So if you’re reading this and you were a Facebook friend and find that you’re now not, I make no apologies. I really just got tired of my profile being fill of you talking shit with your mates, none of whom I know or care about and you inviting me to join groups or applications that I know or care about. You may have even let yourself go since College and thus my interest in maintaining a virtual friendship dropped considerably after viewing your pics.
But if you want to add me as a friend again maybe I could send you some of mine that I have on file…
One guy I went through my entire school life with added me as a mate. He and I did time on the dark dangerous Naenae streets where blood is thicker than water and people died for the colour of a headband, but fuck it, I was friend 264 so clearly he didn’t think to look me up when he first signed up to the ‘ol FB. I don’t doubt he’s still a stand up guy – he is by all the outstanding causes and groups he likes to add himself to – but we haven’t said boo to each other even after we’ve been added so what’s the point aye?
Life’s too short to spend all day trying to read through the actions of people you used to know just so you can see the ones you do. I signed up to Facebook to a) post anonymous nude pics of myself on young girl’s profiles and b) to catch up with mates overseas. Now I‘m as curious as the next guy to see how the hot girl from school turned out, but once it’s obvious that she isn’t then it’s highly likely that you’ll have as much in common with her now, as you did back then – bugger all. And you can bet she’s not going to appreciate your nude shots no matter how tastefully done they are.
Apparently you can’t post objectionable material on Facebook. But if I post nude pics on the page of someone who wants to see them i.e. Dougal Macca and we make them private so that only we can view them, are they really objectionable? If a fat girl falls in the woods is it really still funny?
A psychologist from one of Europe’s biggest mental health recovery organisations believes that at least 10% of Facebook’s 110 million users are addicted to the site. I think some of them appear upon my list of friends actually. He reckons that:
“The acquisition of friends is like any other fix but it’s competitive. You judge yourself by how many friends you have online. You go out of your way to amass friends and that means people bend out of shape and become something they are not.
To appear successful, you go and put yourself in credit card debt by buying clothes and handbags. If you’re an addict you need to do things to fix yourself and make yourself feel better. People in recovery look for ways of being ‘fixed’ and these websites can act the same way.”
NB: The clinic will help you rid your addiction if you’re part of the ten percent – but at a cost. I’ll save you the cash right now – turn the PC off, go outside and get a life. Simple.
Now eternal optimists and self help gurus will try and tell you that you can never have enough friends. They’re also the type likely to try and tell you that drinking your own pee is ‘cleansing’, so there you go. I don’t necessarily disagree with the first statement but there is such a thing as real friends who you see, contact or interact with regularly and Facebook friends who can be virtual at best.
One of my ex class mates tried adding me the other day, as friend 207 but I had learnt my lesson from the last time she tried something similar, on Old School Mates or some gay site like that which is the poor cousin to the likes of Facebook and Bebo. She had emailed me only to garner a response which I duly did and I never heard from her again. Until the other day but now the shoe is on the other foot and it’s me making the decisions. Luckily for me she is not as hot as she once was so the decision was easy; delete!
So if you’re reading this and you were a Facebook friend and find that you’re now not, I make no apologies. I really just got tired of my profile being fill of you talking shit with your mates, none of whom I know or care about and you inviting me to join groups or applications that I know or care about. You may have even let yourself go since College and thus my interest in maintaining a virtual friendship dropped considerably after viewing your pics.
But if you want to add me as a friend again maybe I could send you some of mine that I have on file…
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Good Times In The Gold Coast - Part One
The ClubDes family took a break in that northern most of New Zealand outposts last week, The Gold Coast. It’s a great place and has a lot going for it; its hot, dry, has beautiful beaches, beautiful people and is almost devoid of Emos. I only spotted the one the whole time we were there and even he was tanned!
It’s one of those places where girls in bikinis greet you almost the moment you step off the shuttle. Man they’re everywhere and hey that’s okay by me. I don’t mind if they’re at the fair on the waterfront, in and around the hotel, in the mall and of course on the beach, so long as they extend the same courtesy to me and my thong.
Functionality doesn’t appear to be high on the list of prerequisites though when girls in Oz pick their cozzies. Many of the young ladies who I witnessed spending the day at Wet’n’Wild spent most of their time readjusting or holding up small bunches of fabric that just couldn’t maintain the support that one needs when being fired down a tube of pulsating water at some ridiculous speed. As it was I spent half the day trying to retrieve my board shorts from my anus so I’d be genuinely surprised to find any young lady that didn’t need exploratory surgery at the end of the day to recover their skimpy little bikini bottom from their bottom.
One young lady in particular had on a fantastically frilly number that no doubt looked great in the pages of the magazine from which she picked it out of, but really had no place being in a wave pool. I spent the entire ten minutes of one such wave session trying to keep an eye on my son only to be distracted by her arse crack which would appear after every passing wave. Unfortunately she was in the direct line of my sight the whole time, but fortunately it was not the kind of sight that required me to be at least up to my waist in the water. I’m surprised the lifeguards didn’t ask her to get out before a small child was sucked up in there.
But the need to imitate each other that I noticed seemed to afflict most Aussie girls didn’t end with their choice of bikini. Aussie girls really only do the one look and its best described as falling somewhere between high fashion and trying to look like the girls of The Hills. Many young ladies I noticed – and this is during the day mind you – had such a thick layer of make up on that I can only imagine that it had been applied with a trowel and would have to be removed by a water blaster.
Many girls had on extremely short skirts, commonly just an oversized mens shirt worn with a belt, that they then had difficulty remaining comfortable with while wearing, often trying to pull them down whilst walking. Needless to say sitting down or getting up in one was a complete write off and as such I saw more breakfasts than I recall ordering. Wearing elevated heels to make the legs look longer didn't seem to help much either.
In one of my previous blogs I referred to a study done last year that showed Australian girls as being some of the highest scorers, internationally, who feel under increased pressure to conform. And I’m beginning to understand why. Twenty years ago, when I was a horny teenager, the world got its collective rocks off over naturally beautiful Australian women like Elle McPherson. Aussie soaps like Neighbours and then Home & Away etc had us fellas running home to have a quick wank after school before the sister got home because the girls on those shows were like no one else on TV. But now it seems Aussie girls, or at least those on the Gold Coast, appear to have lost that sense of identity and are busy trying to all be like American girls.
Aussie fellas only do the one look and it’s that ‘just got out of the surf’ look, which put another way is the ‘just got out of bed look’. Given the distinct lack of surfers I actually saw surfing I suspect it’s more of the latter but the girls over there don’t seem to mind, which just goes to prove my theory that these days it’s getting easier and easier for guys to do nothing and still pull chicks – even in Aussie.
It’s one of those places where girls in bikinis greet you almost the moment you step off the shuttle. Man they’re everywhere and hey that’s okay by me. I don’t mind if they’re at the fair on the waterfront, in and around the hotel, in the mall and of course on the beach, so long as they extend the same courtesy to me and my thong.
Functionality doesn’t appear to be high on the list of prerequisites though when girls in Oz pick their cozzies. Many of the young ladies who I witnessed spending the day at Wet’n’Wild spent most of their time readjusting or holding up small bunches of fabric that just couldn’t maintain the support that one needs when being fired down a tube of pulsating water at some ridiculous speed. As it was I spent half the day trying to retrieve my board shorts from my anus so I’d be genuinely surprised to find any young lady that didn’t need exploratory surgery at the end of the day to recover their skimpy little bikini bottom from their bottom.
One young lady in particular had on a fantastically frilly number that no doubt looked great in the pages of the magazine from which she picked it out of, but really had no place being in a wave pool. I spent the entire ten minutes of one such wave session trying to keep an eye on my son only to be distracted by her arse crack which would appear after every passing wave. Unfortunately she was in the direct line of my sight the whole time, but fortunately it was not the kind of sight that required me to be at least up to my waist in the water. I’m surprised the lifeguards didn’t ask her to get out before a small child was sucked up in there.
But the need to imitate each other that I noticed seemed to afflict most Aussie girls didn’t end with their choice of bikini. Aussie girls really only do the one look and its best described as falling somewhere between high fashion and trying to look like the girls of The Hills. Many young ladies I noticed – and this is during the day mind you – had such a thick layer of make up on that I can only imagine that it had been applied with a trowel and would have to be removed by a water blaster.
Many girls had on extremely short skirts, commonly just an oversized mens shirt worn with a belt, that they then had difficulty remaining comfortable with while wearing, often trying to pull them down whilst walking. Needless to say sitting down or getting up in one was a complete write off and as such I saw more breakfasts than I recall ordering. Wearing elevated heels to make the legs look longer didn't seem to help much either.
In one of my previous blogs I referred to a study done last year that showed Australian girls as being some of the highest scorers, internationally, who feel under increased pressure to conform. And I’m beginning to understand why. Twenty years ago, when I was a horny teenager, the world got its collective rocks off over naturally beautiful Australian women like Elle McPherson. Aussie soaps like Neighbours and then Home & Away etc had us fellas running home to have a quick wank after school before the sister got home because the girls on those shows were like no one else on TV. But now it seems Aussie girls, or at least those on the Gold Coast, appear to have lost that sense of identity and are busy trying to all be like American girls.
Aussie fellas only do the one look and it’s that ‘just got out of the surf’ look, which put another way is the ‘just got out of bed look’. Given the distinct lack of surfers I actually saw surfing I suspect it’s more of the latter but the girls over there don’t seem to mind, which just goes to prove my theory that these days it’s getting easier and easier for guys to do nothing and still pull chicks – even in Aussie.
Friday, November 16, 2007
A Mans Home...
Once upon a time, houses were for living in. Now they’re a form of currency and if you have several of them you’re a right smug bastard. If you don’t have any, you’re fucked.
We don’t own our house because I refuse to pay an extra thirty grand over what its worth just because the present owner knocked down the wall between the shitter and the shower. It used to be the only reason you did that was because you liked the smell of shit whilst you showered, or it turned you on to watch your sister shower. Now you can actually make money out of your perversion and what’s more, a homosexual man with an uncanny sense of colour coordination and a black belt in Fung Shui will appear on a TV show telling you to do so.
The housing market really blew its load a few years back when the rampant consumerism the experts refer to today as ‘status anxiety’, reached its zenith and there was no more money to be made from ramming bling, home entertainment systems, cars or having children up peoples arses. The only thing left to fleece was folk’s houses. Oh sure, children still rank high on the ‘must have’ list though. These days it’s important that one owns an orphan, preferably an African with some sort of disease, but an Eastern European or Asian one will suffice. Best not to refer to ‘owning’ it though, ‘rescue’ or ‘liberate’ is a far better way of admitting you paid ten grand to a corrupt gun running drug lord for the privilege.
At this point, some very important folk like those that make TV shows, publish magazines and write newspapers collectively put their heads together and decided that property was the new black (Or Eastern European or Asian) and started a saturation campaign of DIY home improvement shit. Now it’s all over the fucken place. You can’t even turn on TV without some home improvement program hosted by some washed up celebrity ramming his or her big ideas down your throat. And if it’s not DIY, then it’s a weight loss program. Why not combine the two and have the fatty fatty boom booms lose weight by renovating houses? That’s one less hour of shit on TV anyway.
I love how these shows suggest things like hiring furniture and artwork to make your place more appealing to potential buyers. They do so because a) it’s their way of saying you have no fucking taste and b) they are paid by or have supply contracts with the pricks who rent out furniture! If I was selling my house I would tell them to lick my ring – if somebody wants to see what their furniture looks like in my house then they better pile it all onto a trailer and bring it with them to the open home. And TV shows make it all look so easy don’t they, with their big budgets and endless experts who in real life charge $500 an hour to tell you that your taste in furniture sucks.
Owning a home now is no longer about owning a home at all, it’s all about renovation and flogging it off to some daft cunt for far more than it is worth. Not surprisingly when this actually happens, the vendor cracks an almighty chubby over an overpriced sale and the extra cash they just made. But this hard on lasts only until they have to buy their new house and a small thing called karma whacks it back down to a flaccid state when they have to shell out far more for a house than it was worth. It sure is a vicious cycle this housing biz.
Stay at home Mums and dole bludging bums fucken loved the housing boom too because they’ve now all got jobs as Realtors. Whereas they used to have clean schools after hours or do paper runs to pay to make ends meet, they now need only do a two day course on how to use MS Office, the photocopier and booya, they’re facilitating 6 figured cash transactions. All of which makes the person selling your house, or selling you the house, about as knowledgeable as the deadbeat at Farmers when you ask him to point out the benefits of one stereo over another. Honestly, you’ll get more info off the box then you ever will by asking the guy in the purple polo shirt. Don’t even bother trying to ask the same question at The Warehouse.
Which is fair enough, they’re discount stores and they save money by employing morons, but I think you would be justified in expecting a little more know how from someone employed to sell houses. But then you don’t have to be qualified to sell houses, par se. The guy who owns the real estate company and takes most of the money you pay Sheryl to market the house does, but Sheryl herself doesn’t. He drives a big fuckoff shiny, four wheeled drive, top of the line Beemer too, if you hadn’t noticed. It has a personalised plate that says something like ‘REALTR’ when it should read something like ‘TITWNK’. And does this guy take a pay cut if your house doesn’t sell for as much as Sheryl promised you it would? Not likely.
What ever happened to the notion of owing a home that had a decent yard for the kids to play in too? I grew up with a full size trampoline, decent size pool and a small creek in my back yard, but that was just Naenae for you. Now when you buy a house in a newly developed part of town you’re lucky if there’s enough lawn for the cat to cack on. Even then the wanker who owns it is trying to sell that bit separate to the 64 members of the same Sri Lankan family who all live in the one town house over the back fence. They can't wait to build that extension that will mean you can't even open your back door fully!
Yep, the housing market these days is a lot like Monopoly really. Only Monopoly is a board game and the housing market is real life and the only actual thing they have in common is whether you’re playing Monopoly or playing the housing market, there’s always a fat bastard in the middle with a chubby fist full of cash – yours!
We don’t own our house because I refuse to pay an extra thirty grand over what its worth just because the present owner knocked down the wall between the shitter and the shower. It used to be the only reason you did that was because you liked the smell of shit whilst you showered, or it turned you on to watch your sister shower. Now you can actually make money out of your perversion and what’s more, a homosexual man with an uncanny sense of colour coordination and a black belt in Fung Shui will appear on a TV show telling you to do so.
The housing market really blew its load a few years back when the rampant consumerism the experts refer to today as ‘status anxiety’, reached its zenith and there was no more money to be made from ramming bling, home entertainment systems, cars or having children up peoples arses. The only thing left to fleece was folk’s houses. Oh sure, children still rank high on the ‘must have’ list though. These days it’s important that one owns an orphan, preferably an African with some sort of disease, but an Eastern European or Asian one will suffice. Best not to refer to ‘owning’ it though, ‘rescue’ or ‘liberate’ is a far better way of admitting you paid ten grand to a corrupt gun running drug lord for the privilege.
At this point, some very important folk like those that make TV shows, publish magazines and write newspapers collectively put their heads together and decided that property was the new black (Or Eastern European or Asian) and started a saturation campaign of DIY home improvement shit. Now it’s all over the fucken place. You can’t even turn on TV without some home improvement program hosted by some washed up celebrity ramming his or her big ideas down your throat. And if it’s not DIY, then it’s a weight loss program. Why not combine the two and have the fatty fatty boom booms lose weight by renovating houses? That’s one less hour of shit on TV anyway.
I love how these shows suggest things like hiring furniture and artwork to make your place more appealing to potential buyers. They do so because a) it’s their way of saying you have no fucking taste and b) they are paid by or have supply contracts with the pricks who rent out furniture! If I was selling my house I would tell them to lick my ring – if somebody wants to see what their furniture looks like in my house then they better pile it all onto a trailer and bring it with them to the open home. And TV shows make it all look so easy don’t they, with their big budgets and endless experts who in real life charge $500 an hour to tell you that your taste in furniture sucks.
Owning a home now is no longer about owning a home at all, it’s all about renovation and flogging it off to some daft cunt for far more than it is worth. Not surprisingly when this actually happens, the vendor cracks an almighty chubby over an overpriced sale and the extra cash they just made. But this hard on lasts only until they have to buy their new house and a small thing called karma whacks it back down to a flaccid state when they have to shell out far more for a house than it was worth. It sure is a vicious cycle this housing biz.
Stay at home Mums and dole bludging bums fucken loved the housing boom too because they’ve now all got jobs as Realtors. Whereas they used to have clean schools after hours or do paper runs to pay to make ends meet, they now need only do a two day course on how to use MS Office, the photocopier and booya, they’re facilitating 6 figured cash transactions. All of which makes the person selling your house, or selling you the house, about as knowledgeable as the deadbeat at Farmers when you ask him to point out the benefits of one stereo over another. Honestly, you’ll get more info off the box then you ever will by asking the guy in the purple polo shirt. Don’t even bother trying to ask the same question at The Warehouse.
Which is fair enough, they’re discount stores and they save money by employing morons, but I think you would be justified in expecting a little more know how from someone employed to sell houses. But then you don’t have to be qualified to sell houses, par se. The guy who owns the real estate company and takes most of the money you pay Sheryl to market the house does, but Sheryl herself doesn’t. He drives a big fuckoff shiny, four wheeled drive, top of the line Beemer too, if you hadn’t noticed. It has a personalised plate that says something like ‘REALTR’ when it should read something like ‘TITWNK’. And does this guy take a pay cut if your house doesn’t sell for as much as Sheryl promised you it would? Not likely.
What ever happened to the notion of owing a home that had a decent yard for the kids to play in too? I grew up with a full size trampoline, decent size pool and a small creek in my back yard, but that was just Naenae for you. Now when you buy a house in a newly developed part of town you’re lucky if there’s enough lawn for the cat to cack on. Even then the wanker who owns it is trying to sell that bit separate to the 64 members of the same Sri Lankan family who all live in the one town house over the back fence. They can't wait to build that extension that will mean you can't even open your back door fully!
Yep, the housing market these days is a lot like Monopoly really. Only Monopoly is a board game and the housing market is real life and the only actual thing they have in common is whether you’re playing Monopoly or playing the housing market, there’s always a fat bastard in the middle with a chubby fist full of cash – yours!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Your Body Is A Wonderland
Why have testicular implants never caught on like the boob job has?
I always ponder this, funnily enough, whenever I handle kiwifruit. Surely having a couple of giant walnuts bouncing around in the third sock would be the ultimate in virility advertising? Nothing says ‘baby maker’ like carting your two veg around in a wheelbarrow that’s for sure. But the negative would far outweigh the positive I suspect. Them bad boys would bounce around and slap each other silly with any movement vaguely resembling exercise and as we all know, no one wants to handle bruised fruit. Not to mention the very real risk of accidentally sitting on one of them. I can imagine in some parts of the world you probably pay good money for a teste up the ringer but I wouldn't be all that keen to find out why, even if it were my own.
So it will never catch on like having fake milkers. We fellas just don’t care about our assets that much that we’d have them enlarged. Clearly it’s not high on the wish list of you sheilas either because if it was we’d all be doing it, especially if we thought it would result in us getting some. Like watching Greys Anatomy with you – we don’t do it by choice you know.
I was watching a show on the box the other night on cosmetic surgery and some bird who rated herself as all that and a bag of chips was having the fat hack sawed off her thighs in an attempt to appear more attractive. It didn’t help that she had a face for radio I thought or the personality of a soggy malt biscuit, but clearly to her it was her fatty thighs holding her back. I can never get over just how brutal and primitive cosmetic surgery is, especially the liposuction. I’m surprised the doctors don’t just cut to the chase and angle grind the fat off.
I’m not a fan of surgically altering what you’ve got – unless you’re a Mongol and surgery is the only option of having less folk heckle you, then that’s fair enough I suppose. But for pure vanity is it really worth it? Botox for instance, in its purest form is one of the most poisonous naturally occurring substances in the world and even though the stuff they inject into the eyebrows is watered down, that’s still a hell of a lot of faith to put in some geezer who calls you ‘darhling’.
Some guys are even having it injected in their scrotes in order to decrease the wrinkles apparently?! What the fuck? It’s meant to be wrinkly fellas, if you want smooth then get a fagina I say. Hell I don’t even let the wife near her retired wedding present if she hasn’t trimmed her nails and yet these guys are willingly waving needles around the man purse? It’s just not right. It’s all fun and games alright until someone ends up in the emergency room with a coke bottle up the arse with the excuse “I slipped on it whilst in the shower”.
And bleaching the anus – that’s when you know that this shit (no pun intended) has gone too far. Who came up with the idea I wonder and what were they doing in order to have this epiphany? Sure, there’s nothing I like better than giving myself a good ‘ol cheeks apart brown eye in the mirror each morning either, but I’m quite happy to let toilet paper do its thing or in the are case of a truly melted Picnic bar, a baby wipe. But bleaching the damn thing? I think I’d prefer deep heat and the broomstick to be perfectly honest.
No, cosmetic surgery is definitely whack in my book. But actually working your body to become a better you – now that I’m all for and not only will they become fitter and physically stronger, but the self esteem that these people so often lack will often appear too I reckon.
There’s no quick fix with exercise though, like everything worth doing you have to keep at it and stay motivated and to do so has to come from within yourself and if you’re lucky enough to have them, from a supportive network of friends, family and colleagues. Why spend your hard earned money having some sadistic bugger plane the fat from your thighs or paint your date with bleach in order to impress people who don’t really care anyway?
Because life’s too short I reckon to have botulism injected in your eyebrows or your sack, or your man berries enlarged to the size of kiwifruit. Work with what you’ve got and enjoy it. Your body is a wonderland and even if you don’t think so, someone is longing to take that ride.
Yes, even if you have a brown anus.
I always ponder this, funnily enough, whenever I handle kiwifruit. Surely having a couple of giant walnuts bouncing around in the third sock would be the ultimate in virility advertising? Nothing says ‘baby maker’ like carting your two veg around in a wheelbarrow that’s for sure. But the negative would far outweigh the positive I suspect. Them bad boys would bounce around and slap each other silly with any movement vaguely resembling exercise and as we all know, no one wants to handle bruised fruit. Not to mention the very real risk of accidentally sitting on one of them. I can imagine in some parts of the world you probably pay good money for a teste up the ringer but I wouldn't be all that keen to find out why, even if it were my own.
So it will never catch on like having fake milkers. We fellas just don’t care about our assets that much that we’d have them enlarged. Clearly it’s not high on the wish list of you sheilas either because if it was we’d all be doing it, especially if we thought it would result in us getting some. Like watching Greys Anatomy with you – we don’t do it by choice you know.
I was watching a show on the box the other night on cosmetic surgery and some bird who rated herself as all that and a bag of chips was having the fat hack sawed off her thighs in an attempt to appear more attractive. It didn’t help that she had a face for radio I thought or the personality of a soggy malt biscuit, but clearly to her it was her fatty thighs holding her back. I can never get over just how brutal and primitive cosmetic surgery is, especially the liposuction. I’m surprised the doctors don’t just cut to the chase and angle grind the fat off.
I’m not a fan of surgically altering what you’ve got – unless you’re a Mongol and surgery is the only option of having less folk heckle you, then that’s fair enough I suppose. But for pure vanity is it really worth it? Botox for instance, in its purest form is one of the most poisonous naturally occurring substances in the world and even though the stuff they inject into the eyebrows is watered down, that’s still a hell of a lot of faith to put in some geezer who calls you ‘darhling’.
Some guys are even having it injected in their scrotes in order to decrease the wrinkles apparently?! What the fuck? It’s meant to be wrinkly fellas, if you want smooth then get a fagina I say. Hell I don’t even let the wife near her retired wedding present if she hasn’t trimmed her nails and yet these guys are willingly waving needles around the man purse? It’s just not right. It’s all fun and games alright until someone ends up in the emergency room with a coke bottle up the arse with the excuse “I slipped on it whilst in the shower”.
And bleaching the anus – that’s when you know that this shit (no pun intended) has gone too far. Who came up with the idea I wonder and what were they doing in order to have this epiphany? Sure, there’s nothing I like better than giving myself a good ‘ol cheeks apart brown eye in the mirror each morning either, but I’m quite happy to let toilet paper do its thing or in the are case of a truly melted Picnic bar, a baby wipe. But bleaching the damn thing? I think I’d prefer deep heat and the broomstick to be perfectly honest.
No, cosmetic surgery is definitely whack in my book. But actually working your body to become a better you – now that I’m all for and not only will they become fitter and physically stronger, but the self esteem that these people so often lack will often appear too I reckon.
There’s no quick fix with exercise though, like everything worth doing you have to keep at it and stay motivated and to do so has to come from within yourself and if you’re lucky enough to have them, from a supportive network of friends, family and colleagues. Why spend your hard earned money having some sadistic bugger plane the fat from your thighs or paint your date with bleach in order to impress people who don’t really care anyway?
Because life’s too short I reckon to have botulism injected in your eyebrows or your sack, or your man berries enlarged to the size of kiwifruit. Work with what you’ve got and enjoy it. Your body is a wonderland and even if you don’t think so, someone is longing to take that ride.
Yes, even if you have a brown anus.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Facebook vs Bebo vs Who Gives A Shit?!
People keep sending me invites to Facebook. It’s the site that ‘sends’ the invite of course but either way, it’s getting on my tits.
Facebook is the new Bebo which is nothing to write home about as far as I’m concerned because Bebo is quite stink. Facebook is the new way to annoy the fuck out of someone who doesn't subscribe to the 'you're not cool if you're not on it' theory. Maybe it’s that I just don’t get it but there’s something about sites like Bebo and Facebook that I don’t trust and it’s not just down to the fat paedophiles pretending to be 15 year old boys who frequent them. Call me frigid (my wife does) but I just don’t think it’s kosher to put that much of you on display to potentially, millions. It’s like the old saying, don’t put on the Internet what you wouldn’t feel comfortable putting on the supermarket notice board.
Which is a shit saying really because who puts anything on the supermarket notice board anyway?! But you get my drift.
Maybe it’s the anonymity of having potentially millions view your stuff that makes it so appealing. Read that line again and it probably doesn’t make sense a second time either but it’s actually quite breath taking and some of my best work. It’s called being poignant. Allow me to illustrate my point: A guy at my work has a Bebo profile that has revealed that he prefers a spot of rimming. News to us, the people he spends ten hours a day with but it sure does explain a few things and obviously for him, it’s easier to be honest in the face of a million strangers than it is to be openly gay amongst 20 colleagues. He’s a big fan of High School Musical, apparently.
These sites are a great way to communicate with friends people tell me. No doubt, but you know what, so is talking face to face over lunch or coffee. How about taking the time out from posting the latest pics of you pissed at yet another dead beat party to actually meet your friends, in person? Sites like these are the new text message, which was the new email, which was the new note passed in class when the teacher wasn’t looking, which was the new - wait for it - way of talking to someone face to face! That’s the IT revolution for you.
What’s the real point of these sites I wonder? Well actually, there’s two points. One is to deliver soft porn to those too cheap to sign up to a hard core sight. In my one and only visit to Bebo I was awestruck by how easy it was to click my way through an entire generation of adolescent girls and their personal photos. Now I’m as big a fan of girls in various stages of undress as the next guy, but afterwards I actually felt for once in my life, like a dirty old man. I wasn’t invited to view these photos, I knew none of the people in them but through the wonders of the virtual world I managed to view the intimate moments of most of them. About the only thing I couldn’t do online is leave a little something special in their undie draw.
The second reason is because all those girls want to be noticed. By someone, preferably by the hot guy at school whose name is all over their schoolbooks, but by someone, anyone. So they add photos of them with their mates getting pissed, or getting ready before going out to get pissed, or the morning after they got pissed, just so someone will notice. Someone will notice alright, they’ll notice that you get pissed easily and frequently. Is it any wonder with so much personal stuff on show that it’s not long before the one hand surfer comes a knockin?
I love the photo of possessions though. Here’s my cool stereo or here’s my cool shoes. Who gives a shit?! In my day, if a mate had something you liked, you pinched it. My mate Bruiser had his entire G I Joe collection decimated in roughly a ten minute period the first and last time he bought them to school. My collection conveniently increased by about a third that day.
Here’s the sticky tissue that really gets me about these sites though – how do they make their money? Everyone is in it for the money, that’s just life Jim, but these are free to join sites, so where does the income come from? Banner ads? Have you ever clicked on one? So then what do they do with all that info they have on all their members when no one clicks on enough banner ads to make it profitable? I wonder. I wonder a lot.
I’m going to sign up to Facebook alright, because a perv’s a perv and it’s always better when it’s free. But the only pictures I’m going to use on my profile are going to be of my genitalia. It will be all very tasteful though, I won’t cheapen myself. I’ll have a courtesy trim before hand and ensure I optimise the lighting to best effect and I’ll mix up the angles a little, a few undersides here and there, some nice point of view images. I wonder how many hits I’ll get from my friends. At least one initial hit I suspect and then as alluring as I’m sure my pink bits are, I suspect no one is going to be particularly interested in my profile. Which says it all really.
Except maybe the guy at my work.
Facebook is the new Bebo which is nothing to write home about as far as I’m concerned because Bebo is quite stink. Facebook is the new way to annoy the fuck out of someone who doesn't subscribe to the 'you're not cool if you're not on it' theory. Maybe it’s that I just don’t get it but there’s something about sites like Bebo and Facebook that I don’t trust and it’s not just down to the fat paedophiles pretending to be 15 year old boys who frequent them. Call me frigid (my wife does) but I just don’t think it’s kosher to put that much of you on display to potentially, millions. It’s like the old saying, don’t put on the Internet what you wouldn’t feel comfortable putting on the supermarket notice board.
Which is a shit saying really because who puts anything on the supermarket notice board anyway?! But you get my drift.
Maybe it’s the anonymity of having potentially millions view your stuff that makes it so appealing. Read that line again and it probably doesn’t make sense a second time either but it’s actually quite breath taking and some of my best work. It’s called being poignant. Allow me to illustrate my point: A guy at my work has a Bebo profile that has revealed that he prefers a spot of rimming. News to us, the people he spends ten hours a day with but it sure does explain a few things and obviously for him, it’s easier to be honest in the face of a million strangers than it is to be openly gay amongst 20 colleagues. He’s a big fan of High School Musical, apparently.
These sites are a great way to communicate with friends people tell me. No doubt, but you know what, so is talking face to face over lunch or coffee. How about taking the time out from posting the latest pics of you pissed at yet another dead beat party to actually meet your friends, in person? Sites like these are the new text message, which was the new email, which was the new note passed in class when the teacher wasn’t looking, which was the new - wait for it - way of talking to someone face to face! That’s the IT revolution for you.
What’s the real point of these sites I wonder? Well actually, there’s two points. One is to deliver soft porn to those too cheap to sign up to a hard core sight. In my one and only visit to Bebo I was awestruck by how easy it was to click my way through an entire generation of adolescent girls and their personal photos. Now I’m as big a fan of girls in various stages of undress as the next guy, but afterwards I actually felt for once in my life, like a dirty old man. I wasn’t invited to view these photos, I knew none of the people in them but through the wonders of the virtual world I managed to view the intimate moments of most of them. About the only thing I couldn’t do online is leave a little something special in their undie draw.
The second reason is because all those girls want to be noticed. By someone, preferably by the hot guy at school whose name is all over their schoolbooks, but by someone, anyone. So they add photos of them with their mates getting pissed, or getting ready before going out to get pissed, or the morning after they got pissed, just so someone will notice. Someone will notice alright, they’ll notice that you get pissed easily and frequently. Is it any wonder with so much personal stuff on show that it’s not long before the one hand surfer comes a knockin?
I love the photo of possessions though. Here’s my cool stereo or here’s my cool shoes. Who gives a shit?! In my day, if a mate had something you liked, you pinched it. My mate Bruiser had his entire G I Joe collection decimated in roughly a ten minute period the first and last time he bought them to school. My collection conveniently increased by about a third that day.
Here’s the sticky tissue that really gets me about these sites though – how do they make their money? Everyone is in it for the money, that’s just life Jim, but these are free to join sites, so where does the income come from? Banner ads? Have you ever clicked on one? So then what do they do with all that info they have on all their members when no one clicks on enough banner ads to make it profitable? I wonder. I wonder a lot.
I’m going to sign up to Facebook alright, because a perv’s a perv and it’s always better when it’s free. But the only pictures I’m going to use on my profile are going to be of my genitalia. It will be all very tasteful though, I won’t cheapen myself. I’ll have a courtesy trim before hand and ensure I optimise the lighting to best effect and I’ll mix up the angles a little, a few undersides here and there, some nice point of view images. I wonder how many hits I’ll get from my friends. At least one initial hit I suspect and then as alluring as I’m sure my pink bits are, I suspect no one is going to be particularly interested in my profile. Which says it all really.
Except maybe the guy at my work.
Monday, September 17, 2007
When Car Ads Go Bad
Here's a little something that left me a wee bit moist this week. Ford NZ have chucked a spaz because the latest road safety ad features one of their cars skidding off the road and down a bank.
Obviously the marketing guys at Ford shit themselves upon seeing it for the first time, they thought their worst fears had been realised – someone had leaked the out takes of their last ad campaign to the media. When they realised that it wasn’t they went into what promotions people always do in a panic situation, they initiated full bullshit mode.
The poor sheila who was obviously out of the room when they had the ‘so who’s going to front up to the media with this crap’ vote, spent several minutes on last nights television news pointing out that thanks to the anti-dandruff-traction-stabiliser thingee that comes as standard on all new Fords, this accident would never happen and therefore the advertisement mis-represented them unfairly. They had, she pointed out almost believably, received several calls from concerned Ford owners.
Really? Several calls you say? I would like to know what these owners called about. It’s a pretty sad day when after seeing an ad on TV you decided to call the manufacturer of your car. A product recall due to spontaneous combustion might do that, but a road safety ad? More importantly I would like to know how they knew the number to ring. These are the same organisations that are notoriously impossible get a hold of when you’re looking to lay a claim after your car spontaneously exploded into a ball of flames and yet, on a lazy Sunday night, several frantic people were able to contact them and express their concerns that the car in the ad looked a little like theirs? I don’t think so Ford.
Let’s read between the lines here. What Ford is trying to tell us is they don’t think that their cars crash and therefore we should excuse them from contributing to road safety. They forget that the weakest link in all this is the driver. Yes, the technology that goes into car safety has come a long way but as yet, no braniac has yet invented a system that fully negates the unpredictably of the munter behind the wheel.
I put car manufacturers right up there in this lack of moral responsibility they exhibit with tobacco companies, McDonalds, the oil companies and the guy at our cafeteria who put onions in my mate Big Gay Rays ham, cheese and pineapple toasty. He didn’t have any pineapple, so he figured onion would be a good substitute. By the way, Ray’s not actually gay. He says he’s only in it for the bumfun.
Here’s where a car company like Ford has the average munter fooled. They make fast powerful machines and market them as super cars that will never fail you. They make ads where the very relaxed, fresh from a colonic Joe Average driver throws his car around mountainous S bends like he just don’t care. Now the law says that they have to show a disclaimer in their ads and they do, but they make it as tiny and as blurry as legally possible so you can’t see it. It reads something like this:
“This ad was made on a closed road that our professionally trained driver of several years experience had 64 days to practice on. We worked out before hand just what we needed to do in order not to fuck it up. Joe actually drove this stretch of road 43 times and never once did he get out of first gear thanks to maintaining the 10kmh speed restriction recommended by our stunt co-ordinators. Then we fast forwarded the whole thing to make it look like he was doing a 110kmh. Enjoy your 60K metal casket, dumbass.”
And they have the gall to pack a sulk over an ad that features an unbranded model of theirs in a road safety campaign?! Will they lose sales over it? I doubt it. I suspect that the guy who traditionally buys this type of Ford doesn’t actually pay any attention to any road safety ad. He’s far too busy rushing to make his next colonic. And after all, she’ll be right.
Ever notice how the owners of Fords and Holden’s tend to be fat buggers? I’m not one to unfairly generalise, but think about it next time you see one puffing his way from out behind the wheel in a car park. I often wonder, did he get fat by working at a desk job all these years to make enough money to buy the thing? Or did he buy it because he needs the power to transport his weight around? Does he in fact have a tiny chopper? Both my neighbours own one and yes, both are big individuals. One dude is a lady though so it can’t be a case of penile dwarfism, although she is a bit mannish and I have my suspicions.
Ford New Zealand, proud to be behind the All Blacks, but not road safety. Nice one.
NB: Incidentally my mate Skids loves Fords, but he doesn’t actually own one. So you’re alright by me Marcus.
Obviously the marketing guys at Ford shit themselves upon seeing it for the first time, they thought their worst fears had been realised – someone had leaked the out takes of their last ad campaign to the media. When they realised that it wasn’t they went into what promotions people always do in a panic situation, they initiated full bullshit mode.
The poor sheila who was obviously out of the room when they had the ‘so who’s going to front up to the media with this crap’ vote, spent several minutes on last nights television news pointing out that thanks to the anti-dandruff-traction-stabiliser thingee that comes as standard on all new Fords, this accident would never happen and therefore the advertisement mis-represented them unfairly. They had, she pointed out almost believably, received several calls from concerned Ford owners.
Really? Several calls you say? I would like to know what these owners called about. It’s a pretty sad day when after seeing an ad on TV you decided to call the manufacturer of your car. A product recall due to spontaneous combustion might do that, but a road safety ad? More importantly I would like to know how they knew the number to ring. These are the same organisations that are notoriously impossible get a hold of when you’re looking to lay a claim after your car spontaneously exploded into a ball of flames and yet, on a lazy Sunday night, several frantic people were able to contact them and express their concerns that the car in the ad looked a little like theirs? I don’t think so Ford.
Let’s read between the lines here. What Ford is trying to tell us is they don’t think that their cars crash and therefore we should excuse them from contributing to road safety. They forget that the weakest link in all this is the driver. Yes, the technology that goes into car safety has come a long way but as yet, no braniac has yet invented a system that fully negates the unpredictably of the munter behind the wheel.
I put car manufacturers right up there in this lack of moral responsibility they exhibit with tobacco companies, McDonalds, the oil companies and the guy at our cafeteria who put onions in my mate Big Gay Rays ham, cheese and pineapple toasty. He didn’t have any pineapple, so he figured onion would be a good substitute. By the way, Ray’s not actually gay. He says he’s only in it for the bumfun.
Here’s where a car company like Ford has the average munter fooled. They make fast powerful machines and market them as super cars that will never fail you. They make ads where the very relaxed, fresh from a colonic Joe Average driver throws his car around mountainous S bends like he just don’t care. Now the law says that they have to show a disclaimer in their ads and they do, but they make it as tiny and as blurry as legally possible so you can’t see it. It reads something like this:
“This ad was made on a closed road that our professionally trained driver of several years experience had 64 days to practice on. We worked out before hand just what we needed to do in order not to fuck it up. Joe actually drove this stretch of road 43 times and never once did he get out of first gear thanks to maintaining the 10kmh speed restriction recommended by our stunt co-ordinators. Then we fast forwarded the whole thing to make it look like he was doing a 110kmh. Enjoy your 60K metal casket, dumbass.”
And they have the gall to pack a sulk over an ad that features an unbranded model of theirs in a road safety campaign?! Will they lose sales over it? I doubt it. I suspect that the guy who traditionally buys this type of Ford doesn’t actually pay any attention to any road safety ad. He’s far too busy rushing to make his next colonic. And after all, she’ll be right.
Ever notice how the owners of Fords and Holden’s tend to be fat buggers? I’m not one to unfairly generalise, but think about it next time you see one puffing his way from out behind the wheel in a car park. I often wonder, did he get fat by working at a desk job all these years to make enough money to buy the thing? Or did he buy it because he needs the power to transport his weight around? Does he in fact have a tiny chopper? Both my neighbours own one and yes, both are big individuals. One dude is a lady though so it can’t be a case of penile dwarfism, although she is a bit mannish and I have my suspicions.
Ford New Zealand, proud to be behind the All Blacks, but not road safety. Nice one.
NB: Incidentally my mate Skids loves Fords, but he doesn’t actually own one. So you’re alright by me Marcus.
Friday, August 10, 2007
The Fat Of The Land
Obesity is such a dirty word these days you can almost see the grease dripping off it. Many years ago, when the majority of the population weren’t fatty fatty boom booms, obesity was a clinical word that no one really used because very few of us came close to being obese. Now it’s like saying someone is Caucasian or dark skinned: “Oh you can’t miss Dave, he’s got brown hair, is obese and wears short shorts. The ones with the slits up the side…”
Now there’s more theories on just how people become obese than there are anuses in the world - and that’s a lot. I’m not about to launch into a deep and meaningful essay on the physiology of genetic obesity because I am not qualified to be that boring.
The crux of the problem as I observe it, is that obese people eat too much crap food and do too little quality exercise. Which, if you’re an adult is your prerogative, but when you see it happening to children, then you quite rightly look at their parents and ask “What the hell are you doing to your kids?!”
Incidentally, I have termed a new phrase which I call Parental Vacancy. It is a mindset that is developed easily and in fact, a lot of parents do it so well that they’re now actually over qualified. For those wanting to partake, simply do nothing. Because that’s how it works! NB: I will quite possibly explore this bit of ground breaking philosophy in a later blog, as I need to make up more of the details!
Here is the method of a classic Parental Vacant (PV) when it comes to guarding the calorie intake of their child:
“I work long hours because I get paid so little. I come home so tired that I let my children watch cartoons and play their video games whilst I prepare cheap and easy food that has very little nutrional value.(Repeat for every meal because PV is busy all day either preparing for, or winding down from, work). When we do the weekly grocery shop, I let my kids choose their food because they know what they like and they get the stuff in a green wrapper – because that makes it healthy.”
Which all sounds about as solid as you know that kid's stool is going to be thanks to all the fat and sugar inside the stuff in the green wrapper.
How’s this for a theory? Calories are cheap, exercising is expensive.
Perversely the gym fraternity help aide the obesity issue by making exercise expensive. No really. How much does your gym membership cost per week? Could what you do at the gym not be replicated with a few free circuits around the local park? Could you Roid Ragers who join a gym in order to bench press a small car, not invest in a set of home weights? Surely the initial outlay will recoup itself in the long term? Why do those gyms keep charging so much? Because you lot keep paying it. Being seen at the gym it seems, is far more valuable than what you do there.
This doesn’t help Tubbs sitting at home on the couch watching Cartoon Network. But he’s in the same boat, because playing any sort of organised sport these days is expensive and if Mum, Dad or the chain smoking nanny is too tired to take them outside to a park / playground / pool, what chance do they have? Organisations that run organised events charge the earth because they can. The alternative is free, but enough of us ain’t buying it.
Here in NZ the Government is trying to ban food advertising aimed at children from all after school TV. It’s a good start, but not nearly enough parents are vocally supporting them and we should be because the subliminal message that this advertising implants in a child’s mind is as good as anything McDonalds rustles up with their Paedophile clown. Throw in a parent taking no notice of the nutrional value of what their kids choose at the supermarket and that expensive cartoon advertising campaign that showed the sugar bar in a green wrapper? It just paid for itself.
Parents - engage your children and make the time to keep them active. It will be good for all of you if you do. Take an interest in what they eat and look at the food you shove down their throats as an investment in their future, not a chore. Be alert at the supermarket and put those reading skills of yours to action. Don’t buy stuff simply because it’s a green wrapper. Buy milk, not cheap sugared water. Don't pay for expensive sporting organisations because you think it's the only option, because it isn't. Hey, your parents did it with you and you turned out okay, right?
Unless you’re Dave in the short shorts. But there is no excuse for the slits up the side. You can't blame your parents for that.
Now there’s more theories on just how people become obese than there are anuses in the world - and that’s a lot. I’m not about to launch into a deep and meaningful essay on the physiology of genetic obesity because I am not qualified to be that boring.
The crux of the problem as I observe it, is that obese people eat too much crap food and do too little quality exercise. Which, if you’re an adult is your prerogative, but when you see it happening to children, then you quite rightly look at their parents and ask “What the hell are you doing to your kids?!”
Incidentally, I have termed a new phrase which I call Parental Vacancy. It is a mindset that is developed easily and in fact, a lot of parents do it so well that they’re now actually over qualified. For those wanting to partake, simply do nothing. Because that’s how it works! NB: I will quite possibly explore this bit of ground breaking philosophy in a later blog, as I need to make up more of the details!
Here is the method of a classic Parental Vacant (PV) when it comes to guarding the calorie intake of their child:
“I work long hours because I get paid so little. I come home so tired that I let my children watch cartoons and play their video games whilst I prepare cheap and easy food that has very little nutrional value.(Repeat for every meal because PV is busy all day either preparing for, or winding down from, work). When we do the weekly grocery shop, I let my kids choose their food because they know what they like and they get the stuff in a green wrapper – because that makes it healthy.”
Which all sounds about as solid as you know that kid's stool is going to be thanks to all the fat and sugar inside the stuff in the green wrapper.
How’s this for a theory? Calories are cheap, exercising is expensive.
Perversely the gym fraternity help aide the obesity issue by making exercise expensive. No really. How much does your gym membership cost per week? Could what you do at the gym not be replicated with a few free circuits around the local park? Could you Roid Ragers who join a gym in order to bench press a small car, not invest in a set of home weights? Surely the initial outlay will recoup itself in the long term? Why do those gyms keep charging so much? Because you lot keep paying it. Being seen at the gym it seems, is far more valuable than what you do there.
This doesn’t help Tubbs sitting at home on the couch watching Cartoon Network. But he’s in the same boat, because playing any sort of organised sport these days is expensive and if Mum, Dad or the chain smoking nanny is too tired to take them outside to a park / playground / pool, what chance do they have? Organisations that run organised events charge the earth because they can. The alternative is free, but enough of us ain’t buying it.
Here in NZ the Government is trying to ban food advertising aimed at children from all after school TV. It’s a good start, but not nearly enough parents are vocally supporting them and we should be because the subliminal message that this advertising implants in a child’s mind is as good as anything McDonalds rustles up with their Paedophile clown. Throw in a parent taking no notice of the nutrional value of what their kids choose at the supermarket and that expensive cartoon advertising campaign that showed the sugar bar in a green wrapper? It just paid for itself.
Parents - engage your children and make the time to keep them active. It will be good for all of you if you do. Take an interest in what they eat and look at the food you shove down their throats as an investment in their future, not a chore. Be alert at the supermarket and put those reading skills of yours to action. Don’t buy stuff simply because it’s a green wrapper. Buy milk, not cheap sugared water. Don't pay for expensive sporting organisations because you think it's the only option, because it isn't. Hey, your parents did it with you and you turned out okay, right?
Unless you’re Dave in the short shorts. But there is no excuse for the slits up the side. You can't blame your parents for that.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Choose Life?
I have just seen an ad on TV for presliced cheese. Not the individually wrapped kind we've always had, that ain't real cheese anyway (it's plastic), but a packet of cheese that is, well, sliced. So you don't have to.
Cheddar cheese - a malleable substance - and a knife. It's not exactly open heart surgery is it? But then that's modern life. It's all about convenience, choice and having the time to do the things you enjoy. Or at least that is what the advertising always tells you. Problem is, we're so busy trying to keep up with all the choices we think we have to make, that we find we have no time left to enjoy them.
Personally, I enjoy cutting the cheese - and I don't mean flatulence, although I do get tremendous enjoyment out of that. Not so much the act itself but the discomfort it brings others when you squeeze out a warm one, now that's gold. We have one of those wire cutter thingees that make it dead easy to slice cheese and in today's society where everything is already done for you, I take immense pride in delivering an even slice of cheese, every time.
You know where all this convenience is leading don't you? In the future we won't actually eat, because it will be too inconvenient. We'll simply have available to buy, preformed and prepacked stools that we can then drop down the carzie and flush away. Think of the precious time you will have saved by not eating. Or shitting.
But is too much choice an inconvenience?
A recent report found that an ever increasing number of Australian teenagers are feeling incredibly stressed in their lives trying to keep up with their choices. Which is ironic given that their generation has more choice than my generation ever dreamed of. In fact they have so much choice now that they simply do not know what to choose. Man, that is whack.
Of course the same social rules apply now as they did back in my day, it's important to look cool whilst stressing - but what is cool? One teenager's cool these days is another teenager's lame. So who or what do you choose?
Incidentally, I was cool before my time. I had Doc Marten shoes long before it was cool to have them. They were so rugged that the soles didn't bend on them for three years. Kids heard me a mile off as I slapped my way across the pavement. I longed for Nomads like all my mates and took to scuffing the shit out of my Docs so that I could get a pair. By the time I did, Nomads were gay and Doc Martens were the shizz. Those Nomads, that interestingly were hand made by an Indian man who lived up the road and who sold them door to door from a suitcase, lasted me for years.
I had a satchel too, way before it was cool to have one. I got hassled for having a man bag. The spastic (who couldn't walk good) with a handbag. By the time I got rid of the damn thing, guess what was the must have item of the constantly aroused pubescent teen at my school....
With choice comes convenience. Everything in today's world is disposable. The TV, the PlayStation, the iPod, the boyfriend, the wife. Why hang on to something that may have the slightest flaw when an upgrade is just a click away? You know what - the iPod isn't even the best MP3 player on the market for Christs sake - but it's cool and convenient to have what everyone else has, rather than making an informed choice. Because that means having to make an effort.
The institution of marriage is the classic example of the disposable lives we lead. When things get a little interesting, why would you choose to develop some testes and try to work things out, when it's easier to call it quits and find someone new? After all, there's an Internet full of Next Door Nikkis 'waiting to meet you'.
I recently had two young employees hand in their resignations after being with us for only three days. Their reasoning: The role was too technical. It was a level entry computing position, the only technical thing about it was that the keyboard had more buttons on it than their cellphones. I suspect I'll see them working down my local KFC any day now.
Is it any wonder then, that people, bombarded with so much choice and so much convenience, turn in increasing numbers to the likes of Methamphetamine, alcohol, or porn to fill their lives rather than develop the life skills needed to make decisions? Those three things are much easier to choose. Tune In, turn on, cop out.
Wasn't life easier when you only had three TV channels to choose from and not the sixty three you have now? When the only porn you had to call upon was the girls in their undies in the Farmers catalogue? When your Mum didn't work two jobs and go to the gym and actually took the time out to teach you how to cut cheese? I think so.
Cheddar cheese - a malleable substance - and a knife. It's not exactly open heart surgery is it? But then that's modern life. It's all about convenience, choice and having the time to do the things you enjoy. Or at least that is what the advertising always tells you. Problem is, we're so busy trying to keep up with all the choices we think we have to make, that we find we have no time left to enjoy them.
Personally, I enjoy cutting the cheese - and I don't mean flatulence, although I do get tremendous enjoyment out of that. Not so much the act itself but the discomfort it brings others when you squeeze out a warm one, now that's gold. We have one of those wire cutter thingees that make it dead easy to slice cheese and in today's society where everything is already done for you, I take immense pride in delivering an even slice of cheese, every time.
You know where all this convenience is leading don't you? In the future we won't actually eat, because it will be too inconvenient. We'll simply have available to buy, preformed and prepacked stools that we can then drop down the carzie and flush away. Think of the precious time you will have saved by not eating. Or shitting.
But is too much choice an inconvenience?
A recent report found that an ever increasing number of Australian teenagers are feeling incredibly stressed in their lives trying to keep up with their choices. Which is ironic given that their generation has more choice than my generation ever dreamed of. In fact they have so much choice now that they simply do not know what to choose. Man, that is whack.
Of course the same social rules apply now as they did back in my day, it's important to look cool whilst stressing - but what is cool? One teenager's cool these days is another teenager's lame. So who or what do you choose?
Incidentally, I was cool before my time. I had Doc Marten shoes long before it was cool to have them. They were so rugged that the soles didn't bend on them for three years. Kids heard me a mile off as I slapped my way across the pavement. I longed for Nomads like all my mates and took to scuffing the shit out of my Docs so that I could get a pair. By the time I did, Nomads were gay and Doc Martens were the shizz. Those Nomads, that interestingly were hand made by an Indian man who lived up the road and who sold them door to door from a suitcase, lasted me for years.
I had a satchel too, way before it was cool to have one. I got hassled for having a man bag. The spastic (who couldn't walk good) with a handbag. By the time I got rid of the damn thing, guess what was the must have item of the constantly aroused pubescent teen at my school....
With choice comes convenience. Everything in today's world is disposable. The TV, the PlayStation, the iPod, the boyfriend, the wife. Why hang on to something that may have the slightest flaw when an upgrade is just a click away? You know what - the iPod isn't even the best MP3 player on the market for Christs sake - but it's cool and convenient to have what everyone else has, rather than making an informed choice. Because that means having to make an effort.
The institution of marriage is the classic example of the disposable lives we lead. When things get a little interesting, why would you choose to develop some testes and try to work things out, when it's easier to call it quits and find someone new? After all, there's an Internet full of Next Door Nikkis 'waiting to meet you'.
I recently had two young employees hand in their resignations after being with us for only three days. Their reasoning: The role was too technical. It was a level entry computing position, the only technical thing about it was that the keyboard had more buttons on it than their cellphones. I suspect I'll see them working down my local KFC any day now.
Is it any wonder then, that people, bombarded with so much choice and so much convenience, turn in increasing numbers to the likes of Methamphetamine, alcohol, or porn to fill their lives rather than develop the life skills needed to make decisions? Those three things are much easier to choose. Tune In, turn on, cop out.
Wasn't life easier when you only had three TV channels to choose from and not the sixty three you have now? When the only porn you had to call upon was the girls in their undies in the Farmers catalogue? When your Mum didn't work two jobs and go to the gym and actually took the time out to teach you how to cut cheese? I think so.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
A Rove By Any Other Name....
I hate to start things off with a character assassination - but this one's been overdue for quite some time...
Australian talk show host and cardigan wearer Rove McManus is not funny. Nor - on the whole - is his show. I've given it a lot of thought and I've done my research - forcing myself to sit through several episodes in the pursuit of fairness and thus ruling out the slim chance that I was 'catching him on a bad night'.
There are some amusing moments on his show, on occasion, but they usually don't involve Rove or any of his regular guests who like their host, are unfunny. Roves mate Pete (and I'm guessing this is how all the regulars got to be on the show, cause they're Roves mate) is decidedly unfunny. He is rotund and looks like he should be funny, but isn't. His biggest claim to fame is the voice over he looped through the annoying James Blunt song that just made it, well, more annoying. Pete gets a lot of camera time on Rove. Shame he's not funny.
So why is it that so many people think Rove is funny?
You see here in New Zealand we have a group of people who like to spend their time imitating our most populist creatures - sheep. This group of 'trendsetters' (a group predominantly made up of whats left of the Friends TV show fan base) like to have whatever is being marketed as the next big thing and thus buy / watch / follow it in such numbers that it does indeed become the days hottest property. Not by quality, but by sheer weight of numbers succumbing to its marketing.
Rove and his TV show is a big hit with this crowd. I suspect they download him onto their iPods so that they may watch it in between periods of listening to their favourite radio station, 91zm. A station that unashamedly promotes itself as being a big fan of Rove.
Which in itself would be okay, if their influence didn't force itself over into the mediums I enjoy - all of whom do their best to play it cool and act all independent but are so subconsciously scared of missing out on what ever threatens to collectively float the boat of this small country that they almost inevitably buy into the hype too.
No one has any balls over here anymore.
One man who made like he did for a wee while was a current affairs presenter by the name of John Campbell. Now I like John - he's a local lad, is quite funny at times and makes a good argument. Well he used too, when he was the heir apparent to the 7pm current affairs viewing audience crown and was fighting tooth and nail to get it. But now that he has his hands firmly on the jewels, his have almost disappeared, leaving a pale imitation of the street fighter that used to ask the hard questions of his guests. Those guests have been bumped from the lineup and their places taken by regular appearances on the Campbell Live show from the likes of - wait for it - Rove McManus.
The two have quite the affinity for other it would seem. John wishes he was as popular with the sheep as Rove appears to be. Rove likes John because 'there's no one in Australia like him' which to me lends itself to more questions than it does answers on just why Rove digs John so much.
The irony to all this is that once upon a time we Kiwis found nothing more annoying than an unfunny Australian. If that unfunny Australian was annoying too than that meant instant removal from the Christmas card list. Personally I think Rove's unfunniness makes him annoying, so he's off my list for this year.
So both men get the big channel change from me these days when their respective shows come on the telly. It is after all the simplest way to avoid the subject, but with so may sheep wanting to be in on the hype in this day and age, is it really that easy to escape the celebrity any more?
If enough sheep tell you you're 'soooooo funny', does it actually make you funny, even if you're not?
Australian talk show host and cardigan wearer Rove McManus is not funny. Nor - on the whole - is his show. I've given it a lot of thought and I've done my research - forcing myself to sit through several episodes in the pursuit of fairness and thus ruling out the slim chance that I was 'catching him on a bad night'.
There are some amusing moments on his show, on occasion, but they usually don't involve Rove or any of his regular guests who like their host, are unfunny. Roves mate Pete (and I'm guessing this is how all the regulars got to be on the show, cause they're Roves mate) is decidedly unfunny. He is rotund and looks like he should be funny, but isn't. His biggest claim to fame is the voice over he looped through the annoying James Blunt song that just made it, well, more annoying. Pete gets a lot of camera time on Rove. Shame he's not funny.
So why is it that so many people think Rove is funny?
You see here in New Zealand we have a group of people who like to spend their time imitating our most populist creatures - sheep. This group of 'trendsetters' (a group predominantly made up of whats left of the Friends TV show fan base) like to have whatever is being marketed as the next big thing and thus buy / watch / follow it in such numbers that it does indeed become the days hottest property. Not by quality, but by sheer weight of numbers succumbing to its marketing.
Rove and his TV show is a big hit with this crowd. I suspect they download him onto their iPods so that they may watch it in between periods of listening to their favourite radio station, 91zm. A station that unashamedly promotes itself as being a big fan of Rove.
Which in itself would be okay, if their influence didn't force itself over into the mediums I enjoy - all of whom do their best to play it cool and act all independent but are so subconsciously scared of missing out on what ever threatens to collectively float the boat of this small country that they almost inevitably buy into the hype too.
No one has any balls over here anymore.
One man who made like he did for a wee while was a current affairs presenter by the name of John Campbell. Now I like John - he's a local lad, is quite funny at times and makes a good argument. Well he used too, when he was the heir apparent to the 7pm current affairs viewing audience crown and was fighting tooth and nail to get it. But now that he has his hands firmly on the jewels, his have almost disappeared, leaving a pale imitation of the street fighter that used to ask the hard questions of his guests. Those guests have been bumped from the lineup and their places taken by regular appearances on the Campbell Live show from the likes of - wait for it - Rove McManus.
The two have quite the affinity for other it would seem. John wishes he was as popular with the sheep as Rove appears to be. Rove likes John because 'there's no one in Australia like him' which to me lends itself to more questions than it does answers on just why Rove digs John so much.
The irony to all this is that once upon a time we Kiwis found nothing more annoying than an unfunny Australian. If that unfunny Australian was annoying too than that meant instant removal from the Christmas card list. Personally I think Rove's unfunniness makes him annoying, so he's off my list for this year.
So both men get the big channel change from me these days when their respective shows come on the telly. It is after all the simplest way to avoid the subject, but with so may sheep wanting to be in on the hype in this day and age, is it really that easy to escape the celebrity any more?
If enough sheep tell you you're 'soooooo funny', does it actually make you funny, even if you're not?
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