Things To Do At Easter When You're Bored

Well my Easter weekend sucked, how about yours?

You see we’re renovating. I say ‘we’ but really it’s the missus who does all the work, I’m just on clean up duty and here’s one of the things they don’t tell you about redecorating; it’s fucken messy, amongst other things.

It’s actually a shit of a job and personally I can’t understand why anyone would even start but then they don’t tell you that in all the TV shows and ads that make it look so appealing. It’s all so easy when it’s someone else money, time and labour.

It’s not our first foray into the DIY. We’ve done a few rooms now and yep, every single one sucked just as much as the other and yes, it might very well be one of those things where you’re supposed to sit back once it’s all done and enjoy it but I don’t; I just recall how bloody back breaking it was and wonder just what the fuck we were thinking to start all this?

Because once you’ve done room you have to do them all. Because now they don’t match, or in the often seen worst case scenario, you’ve stuffed the first one up so bad you have to fuck ‘em all up to match.

This past weekend was the turn of the open plan lounge kitchen ensemble. Not the kitchen refit mind you, because that particular bonding experience is still to come, no this was just walls and ceilings. Which meant sanding. By the shitload.

Of course I know a thing or two about being caked in fine sand. The five weeks we spent in Khe Sanh back in the summer of ’69 (piss off Bryan Adams) left us with more sand in our crack than a fattie on the beach. Of course it was hot too so we literally sweated our tattoos off so it didn’t take long for the sand to harden and in some cases, seal the buttocks right up but that was a mixed blessing cause it meant you avoided having to take a dump (cause Charlie could smell a dump a mile away, especially if you had had the rat for dinner) and the accidental games of stand up sodomy that happened in the officers mess.

To her credit Mrs ClubDes did tell me to piss off for the weekend but I did what most fellas do whenever the other half offers any advice, I considered it, briefly and assumed I knew better and didn’t. Thus the long, wet weekend was spent with the family camped into two rooms, only one of which had a TV. It was like a hotel, only without the exotic locale outside.

Now I love the fam more than life itself but in that enclosed environment things started to get very David Bain I don’t mind telling you.

Of course it meant passing through the dust storm that was the main living area anytime we wanted to eat or drink but that’s okay, I like my tea like I like my cheeks; sandy. Speaking of which, have you seen there’s a new flavour of tea called ‘New Zealand Breakfast’? So now you can sit and have your breakfast, in New Zealand and drink a tea that supposedly tastes like you’re drinking...tea...in...New Zealand.

So feeling slightly emasculated but yet relieved that this type of thing is one of the only times I can honestly play the sick note and not have to do the graft, I was reduced to the clean up, which is not the smartest move for someone with respiratory issues. Who would’ve thunk it aye?

Thus Easter weekend finished with one almost completed living area (we still have to paint the fucker) and me on oxygen. The lesson to be learned here class is if you’re contemplating home improvement, don’t. Ever.

Besides, there has to be a better way of having a 48 hour running argument with a lot less effort.

The Taste of Yellow & Teabagging Dead Men

Have you seen the latest in the series of Yellow Page ads that try hard to not be the scripted advertisement that they are?

The first was about some bird having to make a restaurant in the tree tops. The actress - yes that's right, she was an actress - made it on to our trampoline one week on account of her tightey whitey effort in the first ad. Ridiculous concept that but they knew you just can't beat a girl in a tightey whitey and the reason is simple; because we boys will try our darnedest to spot some Bruce Lee's (hard nips) each and every time. Tea in a tree? No thanks but if you're selling puppies I'll take the two with pink noses.

In the latest incarnation, some actor - yes that's right, he's an actor - is trying to discover what the taste of 'yellow' is and make a chocolate bar out of it. What is it with the fat bastards over at Yellow Pages and food do you think? First a restaurant and now choccies. Personally I think they should dunk a copy of the Yellow Pages in chocolate and make him eat it, now that would make for some interesting telly.

Do you want to know what my take on what yellow tastes like is? Well, first thing every morning, thanks to my my gnarly lungs, I cough up a ball of phlegm so thick you could plaster your walls with it and guess what colour it is? That's right. Try wrapping that in chocolate, you tit. Actually it'll be easy cause it's so gelatinous it usually sticks to anything.

Is there anything you can't yet do in a video game? The latest in the now long and boring 'Rockstar' series of games is 'DJ Star' where you, the budding DJ, spin a turntable shaped controller. Now all you need to do is get your mates round and have one turn the lights on and off, one flick water from a bottle all over the place and one constantly yell at you 'play the Macarena, play the fuckin Macarena', then you'll have yourself a rad rave. For the full affect you can get a whole bunch of chicks who spend their day clothes shopping at Supre to come round too, get pissed and chunder everywhere.

I've seen a lot of people play the Rockstar games and I'm yet to see any of them look half as cool as they think they do. Its Simon Says on a guitar is what it is and having Metallica playing along with it doesn't make it any cooler. I can't help but think that if only the millions of kids tuning it and coping out on their consoles actually learnt to play a real instrument instead then the chances of the series getting to 'DJ Star' would have been greatly reduced.

But I suppose can't really blame the makers of such a game for cashing in on what kids have always loved to do; play air guitar with a tennis racket, cricket bat or for those just-got-out-of-the-bath moments, their diddle.

First person shooters are stuffing it up for everybody too, not because they glorify violence because lets be honest, what doesn't do that these days? No games like HALO do absolutely nothing in preparing the youth of today for the apocalypse that humanity will soon force upon itself as a result of too many first person shooting games. The highlight of the game, as my homeboys Lillian and BigGayRay tell me, is to teabag your opponent when he's down for the count. Shit in my mouth. Teabagging a dead man?

We didn't survive three consecutive tours of Vietnam by slapping our gnads on the foreheads of deceased VC. Charlie was into some kinky shit but that wasn't one of them. Gloryholes in the showers, yes, Earl Graying dead guys, no. Have you actually ever tried teabagging anything? It's not easy (so I'm told) so how the youth of today plan to do that when locked, loaded and all the safeties are off is beyond me. You pull out those bad boys on the battlefield and somebody is going to put their weapon up your arse and pull the trigger till it goes 'click'. Maybe someone will make a game of that someday?

Kids huh? Why not smack one over the back of the head with the Yellow Pages next time you come across one playing Rockstar or HALO, it'll do them good.

No one ever got teabagged playing Simon Says