Back On Tour

I must apologise for my lack of whinging. I have been partaking in some pretty heavy time travel and only just got back next week.

In that time I had one of those momentous weekends that live long in the memory. Like this time last year I took 24 of my favourite female footballers to a tournament in Taupo and it was, in a word, emotional.

As anyone who coaches will know, tournaments are a special time anyway but our group is a pretty special one and there is nothing more rewarding than seeing those you take rise and overcome the challenges they face (on and off the field) with the confidence and skill you’ve helped to install in them.

This is particularly the case when those you coach are girls, because if there’s one thing that is really tough to do these days it’s growing up as a teen girl in the world we live in. In our group the girls are able to put those pressures aside and really grow and express themselves as equals. That’s the bit I love about coaching, I really do.

Mrs ClubDes and Junior were there with me this time round too and that made for an extra special time of it because they usually don’t get to share in that with me, so I really did have the family on tour with me, in more ways than one.

The weekend wasn't a complete success though.

No group of girls mentioned how cool my boots were this year so perhaps it's time for an upgrade. You know it is actually when he-who-lays-out-the-cones-at-training aka Bruiser has three flash pairs to your one...jammy bugger.

Grab One.

This week on Grab One:

Seriously?! And is 'Snip Vase Clinic' the singular most un-original name of anything ever?

Besides, if you were to 'grab one' and squeeze real hard you'd probably save yourself 275 nicker anyway. Now ain't that a kick in the balls?

That would do the job too, I suspect...

Class on Parade

The All Blacks victory parade culminated in town this week and once again proved that there ain’t no party like a Welly street party. The day’s events also bought out the finest in our future leaders and the new cast of ‘16 and Pregnant’:

Outstanding stuff. There were similar gems of wisdom from a contingent of Queen Margaret girls too which lead to a hilarious letter in the DomPost, the likes of which I love to read:

"I trust the parents of the QM girls featured on the front page are proud of the result of their daughters expensive schooling.."

Mind you, the only thing more slightly disturbing than the literary promiscuity of the girls was that the person holding this sign was a FELLA:

Piri rubs on the lotion or he gets the water.

All this parade needed to make it totally complete was for the ABs to throw sweeties to the masses, but alas that kind of thing has been outlawed because it’s all fun and games until someone get s a Mintie in the eye.

Wet streets jam packed with horny teenagers, some of them girls with crude banners, yes; lolly scramble, no.

Speaking of which, The Chef has been AWOL all week with an ailment that can be best described as ‘jizz eye’. Quite what predicament or Twister position he got himself into to suffer such a fate we couldn’t really say, although the mind boggles at the thought of it.

It was good to have him back on deck eventually and how did we herald his return? We turned the office lights on real bright. That’s just how we roll in Harden Up Land.

As you were.

Now Is The Hour

Thank god that’s over. I suspect we’ve still got a good couple of weeks off rugby news leading all news, but the end is at last in sight.

Now if you’ve clicked on this hoping that you’ll be reading a witty rugby World Cup review with more in-your-end-o then a group of very camp gay men, then sadly you’ll be disappointed. Personally I’d rather catch a case of snake pubes, or even demon penis.

I did enjoy the Hayley Westenra bit though, hasn't she blossomed into a lovely singer? Although I noticed the cameras panned up from the blossoms pretty damn quick, which is probably a good thing because the missus came in at that point and I had my baguette out and everything.

Anyhoo, I will ask this final question of the RWC: Which is the most disturbing aspect of this photo?*

1. That John Key is in the pic like he somehow helped win the trophy; smiling like the smarmy prick who knows (that thanks to the ABs) he just gained himself three more years as PM?

2. And just why is his drink so frothy whilst a very satisfied Andrew Hore is almost asleep next to him?

3. It looks like Hore brought his own slab of Ranfurly Draft too. Which is not a question really, just awesome.

4. Or is it that Dan ‘Ladies Man’ Carter drinks his beer from a glass?

Oh and not to mention this, the strangest handshake you’ll ever see between three fellas; John, Ritchie, Bernard and a three way reach around.

*Full credit to Bruiser and Stu who contributed to these questions. I would’ve though of them eventually but probably not because it's only rugby...

Stop, Collaborate and Listen.

If, like me, you are of a certain age, then the name Vanilla Ice is something that usually leads to much sniggering and smirking. Add to the fact that his real name is actually Rob Van Winkle and shit gets a whole lot funnier.

Having said that, I don’t know of any Caucasian male that didn’t break some moves in front of the mirror whilst lip synching to ‘Ice Ice Baby’ in the hope that it somehow made us as brown as a brown mans cape, just like our mates who loved rap. Hell I even know a few of the brothers who did the very same thing.

He may have cut like a razor blade and sliced like a ninja but cool he wasn’t; at least not when you saw him. There’s that old joke that everyone was into Vanilla Ice until they found out he was white and then no one, least of all the black dudes, admitted to having ever been into him in the first place.

Because a middle class white boy singing about a drive by didn’t really cut it in terms of street cred back then, but those crackers doing so today – with some considerable success – really do owe Vanilla Ice a huge vote of thanks for breaking the ground for them. Ridiculed he might be, but you would be hard pressed to disprove that he started a movement.

Of course with great success came great temptation and Ice used and abused with the best of them. Eventually he turned his back on pursuing just a musical career and returned to his original love and area of promise; extreme motor sports like motocross and jet skiing, something he had considerable success with by all accounts. For real!

Along the way Ice took to getting involved in home improvement and real estate, which leads me to the point of this blog. That interest got turned into a reality show ‘The Vanilla Ice Project’ where he and his crew flip a destitute Palm Beach house into a million dollar resale, something that he’s been doing regularly for the last ten years.

He’s even written a book on how to invest in real estate and you just know it’s got to be good because ff there was a problem yo he'll solve it, check out the hook while his DJ revolves it.

The Project is in essence, a home improvement show and god knows there’s enough of them fuckers, but its Vanilla Ice y’all and he brings to it all the hollahs and jive talk one would expect from a white man who’s spent most of his adult life in the world of rappers and...shit.

It makes for some great TV when the guys doing the reno turn up in a Rolls Royce and a hot rod truck, amongst other bangin’ rides. In one episode Rob takes matters into his own hands and blasts out the dilapidated pool, puts down a sweet patio and installs some unexpected, but killer features like Tiki torches and a fire bowl. He makes it rock’n’roll when others just make it.

Yep, Ice and his crew put the "sweet" back into the master suite alright. It’s funny yet imminently watchable at the same time. Ice comes across as very articulate and with a real sense of energy and cost conservation in his work.

Trust me, as the man himself would say with gangsta hand gestures, it’s worth a late night watch even if you didn’t listen to Ice Ice Baby like a million times and I know you did. We all fucken did.

So check it; The Vanilla Ice Project, my new favorite show and my latest man love moment.

Hollah!

How Not To Mow Lawns 101 - Epilogue

Oh it's one of those electric fly mower thingees. Well that explains it. Might as well try cutting up cardboard with those plastic scissors they give toddlers for all the fucken use that's going to be....

What a rookie.

How Not To Mow Lawns 101

Now I’m not usually prone to taking discreet photos of the neighbour’s property but in this instance I just had to.

Oh sure, there were those images of her next door and the time she was sunbathing topless out the back and yes, the pics did look like they had been taking through a freshly drilled glory hole in the fence. But I stand by my statement that I just happened to have my camera in my pocket whilst hanging out the washing that day and it did indeed drop to the ground and took several very focused, high resolution shots of her as it bounced on the pavement. True story.

Thankfully she moved out after jacking up (or possibly off) with one of her many gentleman callers. I wasn’t too disappointed with that because as regular readers will no doubt recall she had a teenage son who had a penchant for low riding pants, cars with big bore exhausts and females with Hepatitis.

And those who have seen said accidentally acquired images will also know what I mean when I use the expression “two cricket balls in tights”.

Our new neighbours moved in a few weeks ago and are quite lovely, British, fresh of the boat and are settling in nicely. They’re renting the gaff but are the types of tenants a landlord loves to have; tidy, conscientious and keen to do a spot of gardening on a nice day.

Not that the upkeep of the grounds has ever been a priority of the owner. Previously he sent Mr Green around only when the lawns reached knee height. Which has always lead me to believe that either he has no idea about how hard it is to cut that length of grass or he’s tighter than a straight mans anus with his money.

Thus the lawns there hadn’t been mowed for sometime and being the lover of a well mowed lawn that I am this quite understandably got on my tits and so, for the last few weeks, I have been trying to talk my way into mowing theirs for them at the same time I did ours.

Frustratingly they’ve been out or indulging in a spot of afternoon delight (because they do look the type) every time I’ve knocked on the door and I haven’t had the chance. Mrs ClubDes reckoned I should just mow it but they have a toddler and the last thing I want to be known as is ‘the crazy guy next door who mowed our lawns without asking whilst we were rutting like wildebeest as baby slept’.

It was rather fortunate then that our paths should cross the other day as I was departing for football with the girls. I offered to run the mower over the front line the next time I had it out but the bastard both broke my heart and turned me on a little by revealing that he had just bought a mower himself.

He had tried a bit of trimming too, only he showed his complete lack of inexperience by trying when the grass was as moist as the Sonny Bill Williams fan club. We both shared a man laugh at that point but alarm bells should were well and truly ringing; No one would be that clueless to try and cut a lawn at that state, would they?!

He fucken was, did and has left it in a state that can be best described as a shambles. He hasn't even followed the basic of basics which is that the tyre should always be inside the line of the last pass. They teach that stuff on Blues Clues for fucks sake. I shouldn't really be surprised after all he's probably lived in some attached townhouse all his life that had a concreted over garden, but it annoys me now every time I look at it.

So much so I'm tempted to run my mower over his lawn at any moment, afternoon delight or not.

Just look at the state of it.