Nobody likes a Smartass

The Monkeys Vote Bananas

2011-10-24T14:34:00.001+13:00

"Are you watching the game on Sunday?"

How many times can a man be asked this question in his short turn on this earth? Never enough, is clearly the answer we're looking for. I have spent my entire teen and adult life dancing around this topic. I've yet to find a way to make it work.

"No," I say, with a disarming smile. A hooked eyebrow of mild disapproval is the inevitable response. More smiling on my part. "I'm just not really a sports guy," I explain, knowing full well that this never works. I always delude myself, praying it'll be enough, but no. I'm expected to account for my deviant answer. More smiling; more praying.

I'll admit it. I'm not a sports guy. I don't like watching sports. I hate ESPN, I can't stand being in sports bars, and women screaming at a TV for their favorite team makes me go a big rubbery one. I have as much interest in watching sports as the average Mormon has in reading the Koran.

Most of my family loved sports; they tried to get me to watch. They tried for years and years and years. To no avail. Ten minutes of them hollering their heads off at the TV, while some jack-weed announcer gave a verbal breakdown of a player scratching his crotch did nothing for me whatsoever. Time and again, we'd try to make this work; time and again, I'd get bored, ask to be excused, and be off to read Cyrano de Bergerac or make Dungeons and Dragons maps, or walk down to the pizza parlor with my nerd friends to play Tempest or Defender. Even back then, I just didn't get the point.

Now this is a big fat no-no in average-Joe American society. I was a sort of social outcast in this respect. Superbowl Sunday for me was just a chance to steal beer and hit on the girlfriends of suckers while they shrieked at the game. The world series made as much sense to me as a geometry proof, and as for the Olympics: isn't this just a world-wide dick-measuring contest brought to you by global conglomerates? As for Hockey: ice is not a sporting venue; it's something a bartender puts in your drink.

So after 35 years living in the US, I'm now living overseas, as is best for commie faggot lefty America-hating asswads like me (or so all the Fox News message boards tell me, anyway). But it's no different here. Sure the sports are different, but in the end it's all the same. I fit in with crowds of sports fans like a turd in a pan of milk.

At least in the US, years of brainwashing by parents, teachers and the media gave me some sense of what the hell sports were all about. Now, I'm assaulted on all sides by sports which, while frighteningly familiar in their screwiness, are even less approachable to me than American sports, as if this were possible.

I'm a stranger in a strange land, expected to take in the likes of...

Cricket: Cricket, for god's sake! I can't imagine something less in my realm of understanding. I might as well be on acid watching a game invented by the aliens from Avatar! This game of British invention from the times of the Empire was exported to their colonies as a way of baffling the subjected natives into submission. "You play this game how?!"

Best I can understand it, it's a lot of guys in white cardigans using half a kayak paddle to wallop a red leather-bound cue ball and run back and forth between some sticks. Due to its innate insanity, cricket is rife with lunatic fans across the globe, who are as obsessed with the game as Tea Baggers are with Obama's birth certificate. Apparently, the games run from three to five days, each day's game running for six hours. It boggles the mind. I watched a full thirty minutes of it once at a neighbor's house, and walked away feeling I'd cheated myself out of 20 minutes of my life. The other 10 minutes I spent in my host's john, pleasuring myself.

But as baffling and harebrained a game as it seems to me, at least it's a manly game, right?

To be fair, not all cricket players look like this. Some of them look downright fruity.

Rugby: Rugby, for me, has a lot of affinity with American football. Most Rugby players are probably slobbering and howling for my blood at this statement, but it's true. That's not saying I'm going to watch it. Semitic Zeus forbid! A whole bunch of massive dudes in cleats and short-shorts tackling each other over an over-sized bit of leather for 80 minutes. I lived in San Francisco, bub. If I wanted to see that, I can attend the Folsom Street Fair.

I'll give Rugby it's fair shout:, though. It's a lot faster than American football, and without the armor-like plastic pads and helmets to protect these guys. You get hurt in rugby, you STAY hurt. No being led off the field for 10 minutes then back in after half time. A three hundred pound Samoan dude lands on your unprotected neck, you'll be lucky you don't end up pulling a Stephen Hawking for the remainder of your days.

Yes, if I had to choose between rugby and American Football, I'd choose rugby. Well, if I HAD to choose, I'd rather watch back-to-back reruns of Barney the Dinosaur, but that's neither here nor there.

Another thing rugby has going for it is the rule for viewers. American football requires me to have memorized an encyclopedia of statistics and names to be accepted by rabid fans. Rugby watching seems bent around constant consumption of alcohol and yelling without reason or understanding of what the hell is going on. When I told someone I didn't understand (or care about) the rules of rugby, he smiled and replied: "What's to know, mate? Ya' yell when everyone yells; ya' cry when everyone cries, and above all, never stop drinking." Now who can argue with that? Bring on the Barney reruns!

The funny thing is, I have nothing against sports. Not playing them, anyway. I think it's great to get out and run around, have a bit of fun, drink a cold one on a sunny day, ogle your teammate's girlfriend in her bikini top while you "accidentally" trip him when he's about to score. That's the true sportsman in action. While some viewers of sports do this, the number which don't far outweigh these few. Viewing is the new action; cheering on others is our new self-approval.

But we've relegated our own victories, however slight they may be, our own chance to excel and to be a part of something real, in favor of cheering for someone else's victories and successes, to consume others' victories as if in some way they are actually our own. In the immortal words of the Roman satirist, Juvenal:

"… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

Juvenal was referring to the Roman Republic's trick of showering the common riff-raff with cheap wheat and gladiator-style "circuses" for them to jeer and whoop and get loaded on bottom-of-the-barrel wine. Roman politicians stole public opinion from a populace by handing them cheap thrills and manufactured triumphs, distractions that would make them happy long enough to vote them back into power.

This well-written editorial piece by Anthony Hubbard says it better than I ever could:

Will the Rugby World Cup affect the election result?

Let the games begin!

The Monkeys Vote Bananas

2011-10-24T14:28:00.000+13:00

"Are you watching the game on Sunday?"

How many times can a man be asked this question in his short turn on this earth? Never enough, is clearly the answer we're looking for. I have spent my entire teen and adult life dancing around this topic. I've yet to find a way to make it work.

"No," I say, with a disarming smile. A hooked eyebrow of mild disapproval is the inevitable response. More smiling on my part. "I'm just not really a sports guy," I explain, knowing full well that this never works. I always delude myself, praying it'll be enough, but no. I'm expected to account for my deviant answer. More smiling; more praying.

There was a time in my dumber, more youthful years that I'd attempt to explain my position on no sports watching. I've learned a thing or two since then. "Let me explain to you why I'm a social pariah, with no interest in watching dudes trample each other over possession of a leather ball." I haven't yet come up with an answer which states my opinion without insulting theirs, but at least I know now to let whoever it is squirm under my haiku-like answer, rather than vice-versa.

My parents loved sports; they tried to get me to watch. They tried for years and years and years. To no avail. Ten minutes of them hollering their heads off at the TV, while some jack-weed announcer gave us a play-by-play of a player scratching his crotch did nothing for me whatsoever. Time and again, we'd try to make this work; time and again, I'd get bored, ask to be excused, and be off to read Cyrano de Bergerac or make Dungeons and Dragons maps; walk down to the pizza parlor with my nerd friends to play Tempest or Defender. I just didn't get it.

And on it went, straight on into adulthood. Ever did I dread that ice-breaker question forever on sports nuts' lips. Ever did I smile and throw out my unforgivable response.

So I spent 35 years of my life in America, a sort of social outcast from the sports fanatic realm. Superbowl Sunday for me was just a chance to steal the beer and hit on the girlfriends of suckers while they shrieked at the game. The world series made as much sense to me as a geometry proof. The Olympics was a world-wide dick-measuring contest brought to you by global conglomerates. And don't get me started on hockey. Ice is not a sporting venue; it's something a bartender puts in your drink, or you put on your eye after you tell a sports nut his favorite player looks like a woos to you.

So after 35 years living in America, I'm now living overseas, as is best for commie faggot lefty America-hating asswads like me (or so all the internet messageboards tell me, anyway). But it's no different here. Sure the sports are different and, according to the people who live here anyway, far superior. I should watch them, they tell me. It's part of our culture, our shared cultural heritage.

I'm now assaulted on all sides by sports which, while frighteningly familiar in their screwiness, due to cultural differences, seem even less approachable to me than American sports. At least the American crap was drilled into me since childhood through parents, teachers and the media, so that I can fake some modicum of understanding. "Yep, those Redsocks sure know their tackles and touchdowns!" That's right, isn't it?

Overseas, I'm a stranger in a strange land, expected to take in the likes of...

Cricket: Cricket, for god's sake! I can't imagine something less in my realm of understanding. I might as well be watching a game invented by the aliens from Avatar! This game of British invention from the times of the British Empire was exported to their colonies as a way of baffling the subjected natives into submission. "You play this game how?!"

Best I can understand it, it's a lot of guys in white cardigans using half a kayak paddle to wallop a red leather-bound cue ball and run back and forth between some sticks. Due to its innate insanity, cricket is rife with lunatic fans from across the globe, who are as obsessed with the game as Tea Baggers are with Obama's birth certificate. Apparently, the games run from three to five days, each day's game running for six hours. I watched a full thirty minutes of it once at a neighbor's house, and walked away feeling I'd cheated myself out of 20 minutes of my life. The other 10 minutes I spent in my host's john, pleasuring myself.

But as baffling and harebrained a game as it seems to me, at least it's a manly game, right?

To be fair, not all the players look like this. Some of them look downright gay.

Rugby: Rugby, for me, has a lot of affinity with American football. Most Rugby players are probably slobbering and howling for my blood at this statement, but it's true. At least I can understand the idea behind rugby more than I can cricket. That's not saying I'm going to watch it. Semitic Zeus forbid! A whole bunch of massive dudes in cleats and short-shorts tackling each other over an over-sized bit of leather for 80 minutes. I lived in San Francisco, bub. If I wanted to see that, I can attend the Folsom Street Fair.

I'll give Rugby it's fair shout:, though. It's a lot faster than American football, and without the armor-like plastic pads and helmets to protect these guys. You get hurt in rugby, you STAY hurt. No being led off the field for 10 minutes then back in after half time. A three hundred pound Samoan dude lands on your unprotected neck, you'll be lucky you don't end up pulling a Stephen Hawking for the remainder of your days.

Yes, if I had to choose between rugby and American Football, I'd choose rugby. Well, if I HAD to choose, I'd rather watch back-to-back reruns of Barney the Dinosaur, but that's neither here nor there.

But given that Rugby only lasts around 80 minutes, while American football games appear to go on for the better part of three fucking hours, I'll take the one that minimizes my time having to endure the entire mess. Another thing rugby has going for it is the rule for viewers. American football requires me to have memorized an encyclopedia of statistics and names to be accepted by rabid fans. Rugby watching seems bent around constant consumption of alcohol and yelling without reason or understanding of what the hell is going on. When I told someone I didn't understand (or care about) the rules of rugby, he smiled and replied: "What's to know, mate? Ya' yell when everyone yells; ya' cry when everyone cries, and above all, never stop drinking." Now who can argue with that? Bring on the Barney reruns!

The funny thing is, I have nothing against sports. Not playing them, anyway. I think it's great to get out and run around, have a bit of fun, drink a cold one on a sunny day, ogle your teammate's girlfriend in her bikini top while you "accidentally" trip him when he's about to score. That's the true sportsman in action. While some viewers of sports do this, the number which don't far outweigh these few. Viewing is the new action; cheering on others is our new self-approval.

But we've relegated our own victories, however slight they may be, our own chance to excel and to be a part of something real, in favor of cheering for someone else's victories and successes, to consume others' victories as if in some way they are actually our own. In the immortal words of the Roman satirist, Juvenal:

"… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

And what if he is...?

2010-09-01T11:48:00.003+12:00

The news these days is chock full of American babble around the latest paranoia: Is Obama a muslim?

This issue has been hanging around since the man was running for office.

The woman (with some of the most FUCKED UP hair I have seen in a long time) says to McCain: "He's an Arab". To McCain's credit, he corrects her, but the point she's trying to make stands. She's trying to call him a Muslim.

(Note to everyone who agrees with hairdo: the "Arab" world has 10 - 25 MILLION Christians, so get your terms right. You're after a religious slur, not a racial one)

This has carried on as an underlying theme of the Obama presidency up to today: After what was a disastrous decision on Obama's part to get involved in the whole "Muslim Center at 9/11" thing, now a majority of hillbilly and right-wings in the US are "sure" he's a Muslim and wants to impose Sharia on the US.

http://politics-and-world-5678.blogspot.com/2010/08/is-obama-muslim-some-gop-believe-obama.html

Where does this crap come from? I (like so many others) thought this invented controversy died with him becoming president, but no.

His recent snafu which brought this back to the forefront is actually his own fault: the man and his advisors should have known to keep out of this Muslim Center near the World Trade Center debate. He should have known this would be a can of gasoline on the already burning tire fire that is this stupid debate. Since then, polls show (polls, yeah THOSE are an accurate gauge of the truth. 62% of people know that), that a majority of republicans believe Obama is a Muslim.

So I've been pondering: why all the wondering if he's a Muslim?

Is it his name? It's probably part of it: tough name for an American president in post 9/11 times: Barrack Hussein Obama. Ouch. Does sound pretty damned Arabic. And do you know why? Because it IS an Arabic name, at least in part.

Barrack = Blessings from God (Semitic)

Hussein = Good, handsome, benign (Arabic)

Obama = Ultimately, it beens bent or crooked (Swahili)

Everybody with a copy of revelations on hand, read into his name! There's gotta be SOMETHING about this guy in there!
http://www.zimbio.com/Obama+Religion/articles/2/Bible+Revelation+Truths

The guy's name is part Arabic, part Swahili, part Semitic. But what's in a name? We can play the same game with the last president's name:

George = farmer (Greek)

Walker = An early name for a fuller, a person who cleans freshly woven cloth (?) (Old English)

Bush = Dweller near a bush or thicket of bushes, also someone who dwells at the sign of a bush (a wine merchant, apparently) (Old English)

So we have a Blessed handsome bent guy, or a Greek-English farmer / wool washer / wine merchant. Go look up your own damned name. You're probably even stranger still.

I think the fact that his name "sounds" Muslim" is enough for most conservatives.

Is it the whispers that he's not actually an American citizen? There's the conspiracy theory that he wasn't a natural born citizen, that his birth certificate was somehow faked by a hospital in Hawaii. Yeah, 49 years ago, his mom and dad thought: "Let's meet, have a child in Hawaii and fake a birth certificate, then split up and never have contact with each other again, so our half-white, half-black child can grow up, scam the system and become president!" Sure. Occam's Razor would uphold that.

Do people think he's Muslim because his dad was born in Kenya? Well at least now we're using reason. That IS suspicious. A man's father born outside the United States? Why, anyone from outside the US is suspect, no matter what. And to top it off, his father was, yes, born a Muslim, but later became an Atheist (GASP!) A Muslim Atheist! I bet he was a member of the Nazi party too, and a whole bunch of other things we don't like.

Or is it ultimately (and this one is gonna get the usual "NO!" from conservative whitey) that the guy is black? I see the people at those "Tea Party" rallies. White skin dominates the landscape. I never once heard any old fat white ladies claiming John Kerry or Al Gore were Arabs. Funny that.

Why can't these people believe the guy is a Christian? He's said it publicly like a couple dozen times: "I'm a Christian". How much plainer must the guy say it? He was baptized in the Trinity United Church back in 1988! His mother wasn't religious, and his father was an atheist. But as for Obama, he's CHRISTIAN. Must someone make this any more plain? Shall we have t-shirts made up? Apparently so. Going to a Christian church for the last 22 years isn't good enough. Maybe a 100 years of church will do it.

So let's come down to it: even if, somehow, someway, it turned out to be true, in some freaky friday, parallel universe gone upside down, Obama IS a Muslim.

So what?

Does it really, really, REALLY make ANY FUCKING DIFFERENCE? He's already 1/2 way through his term as president. I don't see any federal law stating we all have to pray towards Mecca five times a say. He's not forcing anyone to wear burcas. He isn't hanging around with Osama Bin Laden. He isn't shutting down churches or crashing planes into things or setting up Sharia. He's done nothing to even hint at such a thing in any way shape or form. What he IS doing is his job. He got American troops out of Iraq, he's trying to get the economy going again. He's trying to overhaul the corrupt healthcare system. And even if you don't agree with his policies, his decisions or his politics, you have to admit: he's trying to do his job. Every day, he's trying to make things right. And it's no easy trick, given the state of things. He's attempting to re-stabilize the country that Bush and his cronies bankrupted. Yes, they did this. They fucked us all. Face facts:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/cost-of-the-bush-era-11-point-5-trillion.aspx

I say the problem is that many Americans (white, trashy ones, in particular) believe their country to be "at war" with Islam. This growing band of protestant jihadists have used the tragedy at 9/11 to justify a growing xenophobia, islamophobia and ultimately, racism in the name of protecting "their way of life". And the thought that Obama is one of them just raises their perma-suspicion of anyone foreign, anyone with liberal sensibilities and yes, anyone BLACK.

I have news for you: we're not at war with Islam. This isn't the 13th century. Onward Christian Soldier is a stupid fucking song. Most Muslims, like most Christians, and like most everyone in the world (stay with me now: they ARE people), just want to be left alone to worship as they like and raise their families. What they DON'T like is America dropping bombs on their houses, murdering their families, setting up military bases in their countries, propping up dictators favourable to American interests, and otherwise using the last 60 years to make lives of much of the Arab / African world downright fucking miserable.

There is no God, Unbeliever!

2010-08-05T11:36:00.005+12:00

Lately these billboards and bus ads have started to spring up around New Zealand. If you live here, you know the ones I mean.

These billboards / bus ads have been brought to us by the Atheists of New Zealand.

http://www.nogod.org.nz/

Hey, thanks for that. As if coke ads and movie posters weren't bad enough. Now I've got to read your personal beliefs as well.

I could really care less about the overtly contentious nature of the billboards. I know it's supposed to spur me into action ("WHY YES! I AM AN ATHEIST AFTER ALL!") but all it really does is irritate me.

Couple of things to the folks at nogod.org.nz

1. The use of the phrase "There's probably no god" indicates agnosticism, not atheism. If you're going to put up massive billboards with big annoying bold-faced type on them, try not to be so fucking wishy-washy in your wording. You're atheists, for god's sake. You're trying to offend religious types here. Put some backbone into it. Imagine a cola ad: "This is probably a good soda you might like, or not". It doesn't work. Take a page out of the advertiser's handbook: grow a mo and stand by your convictions (product), not wobble near them.

2. Whoa. Color choices. Clash city. Obviously a man made these ads. No self-respecting woman would toss around green, pink, red and orange with such utter lack of good taste. It's like a clown college was consulted for the site design (say THAT ten times fast). Tone it down. You don't believe in God; it's okay to believe in good taste.

3. I hate to break it to you guys, but religious people don't worry if there's a god or not. They "know" there is a god. They don't sit around worrying about it. They have faith. For the agnostics of the world, I can't speak for all of us, but I don't lie awake at night, sweating and crying into my pillow over this. I do enjoy my life. Maybe over in AtheistLand you enjoy life oh-so-much more. Perhaps your pancakes taste better, your booze gets you drunker, your laughter is so much more laughy than mine is. Who can say? But I doubt it. I reckon you were just being smug, self-important jerkoffs.

4. On your website (as pink and red and green and orange as their tacky billboards. MY EYES!), you can find out more about Atheism / Humanism. Okay, so I went to find out more. This page is nothing but a link to Wikipedia. Cheap asses. Atheists don't believe in God OR copying and pasting. Also, there is a link to the "Atheist Manifesto" (didn't that word die with Karl Marx and the Unibomber?!), which seems to say little more than "Bad shit happens in the world, and God doesn't do anything about it, so there is no God". It's basically a lot of sour grapes against Jehovah. That was the whingers manifesto as best I could figure it.

Look, I've seen this crap before. As much as none of you will admit it, you're a cult, a church, a religion. In America and here, religious groups put up these kinds of posters, show up at your house, smile and ask if you've heard of this or that, and otherwise attempt to lure you into their cult / church / mosque / wikka circle / tackily-coloured website. And that's what we're talking about here, isn't it? A religious group. Sure it's the religion of No God, but that's what these people are about.

I know atheists who are perfectly fine with being atheists and don't need to bug the rest of us about it, just as I know religious people of the same bent. But they come few and far between. Then there are the fundamentalists, the proselytizers in all their annoying forms. People who are so insecure in their own beliefs that they have to try and lure the rest of us into their whatever it is to feel good about their choices.

Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Jew. Ultimately, if you're bothering me with your belief system in a public space or at my house, then you're a pest. I don't care if you believe in God or not. What the hell do I care?! What I do care about is you eye-soring my public spaces with your tacky signs and shoving your belief systems down my gullet. Piss off.

STOP BUGGING THE REST OF US WITH YOUR CRAP AND LET US ENJOY OUR LIVES

What the hell is it with Jehovah?!

2010-04-27T16:29:00.002+12:00

You know, religiously speaking, Jehovah has proven himself to be a major asshole.

I'm serious. After careful consideration, it is my opinion that Jehovah is a jerk of divine magnitude who needs a celestial enema. Wars, plague, hatred, destruction. The end of the world, the murder of millions, not to mention Stephen Baldwin (God help us!)

Ree-er! Ree-er! Ree-er! Douche bag alert!

Religious types: Sure, get mad, scream and yell. Tell me I'm doomed, I'll burn in cauldrons of flame etc. etc. etc. I've heard / read / seen all this before. I get it. I'm damned. God rejects me because I haven't accepted his "true" faith into my heart.

I don't think it's that. I don't think it's because I'm a sinner or haven't accepted him or eat pork or any of that. I think its because I've figured out what a fucking jerk he is.

Why don't you ever hear Buddhists threatening holy war against the unbelievers? "You've insulted the Buddha! I'm going to dynamite myself in a crowded hospital! I'm going to open fire on an abortion clinic! I am going to flood the internet with damning videos full of scripture quotes which will bore you to death!" This doesn't happen. Buddhists are too busy being PEACEFUL to do this crap.

You don't hear about Taoists cursing the beliefs of Zen, or Jains preparing for Holy War against Gnostics.
This doesn't happen.

Radical Zoroastrian websites? No. Ultra-right wing Sikhs militias looking to overthrow the government. Maybe (I don't know a lot of Sikhs) but again I doubt it.

Wars and slavery around the world caused by Santeria, Candomble, Voodoo? ZERO.

And yes, there are radical Hindus, but comparative to their numbers, they are few and fucking far between.

So that covers with a broad stroke most of the rest of the world's religions (forgive me if I missed yours).

Now let's talk about Jehovah (Yahweh, Allah, you know who I mean). Abraham being the first jerk-off to listen to that fucking crackpot in the sky, and then ramble on about whatever the fuck he saw. This led to other mad ramblers (Moses, John the Baptist, Jesus, Mohammed. The list goes on) taking up the "And He Saith Unto Me" torch, mostly to get people to pay some coin and to keep kids from fucking around at the dinner table.

"The LORD sayeth unto me, THOU shalt consume ALL of thy VEGETABLES and SIT UP STRAIGHT!"

Now look, I have always been interested in religions. Religions are cool and yeah they're a little fucking weird. I have read the bible a grand total of three times. I've read the Koran twice and have read plenty of passages from the Torah. What I get out of it is the following:

1. Whoever wrote this crap has a problem with run on sentences.

"And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth."

2. God likes making sure humans eat, crush, kill or otherwise fuck up anything (and I mean ANYTHING) in their path:

The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands.³ Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

Yikes! Eat everything and everything will fear you! How many hillbillies in Arkansas have used THAT one to justify the slew of automatic rifles in their basement? "The Lord says everything will fear and dread me!"

3. And remember always, if one of your friends has second thoughts about God:

They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.

Whoa. That ain't friendly.

4. There's nothing in science (bah!) which religion hasn't already covered off:

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Now what could Darwinists find wrong with that?!

I could go on quoting, but what's the point? Sure, the Christian or Muslim or Jew can name passages and scriptures up and down the street talking about mercy and compassion. But its not actually their game, is it?
From the Crusades all the way down to modern Sudan, we are talking about one fucked up proto-religion that has spawned a whole slew of angry, butcher-happy crackpots. And who's at the front: Jehovah.

Jehovah is quite possibly the cruelest, most despotic tyrant in the history of cruel, despotic tyrants. This bearded king on high has played a hand in everything from the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Turkish genocide of its religious minorities, to the Holocaust to the persecution of the Palestinians to the modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the genocide taking place in the Sudan. The worshipers of one of his three primary religions are by and far the most vociferously violent gaggle of blood-thirsty goons ever known, and still we are all told "ours is a religion of peace." Not with that dick in charge, you aren't.

Can you imagine living in a town where this guy was mayor?! Him all the time ordering you to do this, do that. Get him this, get him that. Force you to slaughter the next town over and rape their women and take their cattle? Always looking in your fucking window, even when you're on the can, making you feel guilty and crappy about everything you do, unless it includes killing or judging or calling his name out the window saying what a swell guy he is. This guy wouldn't get re-elected. Shit, he wouldn't even make it on to the ballet. "Hi there. I'm Yahweh. I'm running for Mayor. My platform? Absolute and total obedience from you and everyone you know. Plus eternal damnation if you fuck up in any way." Next!

Look, like most people out there, I don't give a rat's ass what religion you follow. I'm not like that Richard Dawkins imbecile. I honestly don't look down on anyone who believes what they believe. But straight up: you might want to take a step back and look at the big guy you're so busy praying to. Are you actually worshipping the universe's biggest dickhead?

Could be so.

PS: Anyone who laughed even once while reading this : see you in the cauldron.

He's too hefty for their flight...

2010-02-17T14:54:00.005+13:00

Kevin Smith is squawking up a storm on Twitter about the fact that Southwest airlines just booted his big butt off of one of their flights because he was too fat.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/15/kevin.smith.southwest/index.html?hpt=C2

Now those aren't the words they used. They were more polite. PR and all, they're not going to call the guy a tub of guts in a public memo. It'd be funny as hell if they did, of course, but that's neither here nor there.

He's turned the whole incident into a public circus on the internet to scream out his unhappiness at this indignity. The shame! The ignominy! How much can a rich, reasonably powerful Hollywood director take from a "welfare airline, food-stamp airline" (his words, not mine) before he has to devour a chocolate-covered stewardess or something?

Isn't Silent Bob supposed to be Silent?!

What's worse, he then goes on to insinuate that they booted him off the flight because one of the employees for Southwest doesn't like his movies. Yeah. That sounds plausible. Happens to Scorsese and Eastwood all the time. "Hey, there's that high-profile director guy. I don't like his movies. I think I'll risk my job and future chance of having a job by throwing this famous guy off of our flight because I didn't like his use of lighting." Sure. They run thick with the anti-director plots over at old SouthWest. That and fat-guy scanners.
Kevin Smith says he'll never fly Southwest again. I'm sure this comes as a major relief for the lady who was sitting next to him. He had two seats booked, but the airline bumped him to an earlier flight (bastards!) where he only got ONE seat. One seat, can you imagine? Is this Soviet Russia? Are we living in the middle ages, for god sakes? Does Milos Forman get treated like this?!
No, but then again, Forman didn't snap a toilet a couple years back for being so big!
Don't take my word for it; have a look on the web for pics of Smith from 1998 to present. Sure we all put on some weight over time, but whoa!

Earlier
Jay and Silent Bob era
Later...
His Dom Deluise period
And just a year or so ago
Lawd have mercy!

Boy's gettin pretty hefty, by even Houston Texas standards. Maybe he needs one of those flying palaces like Jabba had in Return of the Jedi.

Seriously, if Kevin Smith really wants to get back at Southwest and NOT look like a fat idiot, maybe he should shut his pie gobbler, ditch the Twitter-whinging, drop a few (few?!) pounds and then fly Southwest again. Running his mouth off at them just makes him look like a bitter Sir Eats-A-Lot. Sure he's Sir Eats-A-Lot but no need to look bitter!
This new, svelte Kevin Smith could then get thrown off for totally valid celebrity reasons (drunk and punching people, throwing up on the kid next to him, freaking out on mescaline and having to be restrained in one of the johns, etc).

Just a thought.

Horror Film Fandango: Survivors of the Zombie Apocalypse

2009-12-15T12:13:00.002+13:00

In our last installment, we talked about zombies and about how generally pathetic and not-so-scary they actually are.

But while the hordes of undead go hither and thither, aimlessly bumping into one another and weakly pawing at plate glass windows in their feeble attempts to get at the living (they can't break plate glass but are capable of punching through walls once the living begin screaming in terror. Go figure), the remaining few living people must bravely carry on the struggle for human survival. And struggle they do. Just not very well, nor with much grace, or skill, or intelligence.

Is it me, or is it only inept Darwin Award nominees who manage not to get torn limb from limb in the opening zombie salvo? Do zombies instinctively go after the smartest people first and leave the cheese heads to muddle through afterwards?

Either way, you must pass certain basic qualifications to be amongst the last bastion of humanity.

A.) You must have one of the following jobs: cop, gas station attendant, scientist, cheerleader (sooooo toast), drug dealer / pimp, hooker, priest (you have to mention the apocalypse every time you're in a scene), waitress, retired military and /or average stupid high school student. Without these, forget it. Check your brain at the door. You're soon to be devoured.
B.) You must be absolutely incapable of running faster than the average toddler, and if you're a woman, you have some sort of autonomic nervous disorder whereby you fall down a lot when you run.
C.) You must have a ridiculously over-active curiosity for dark places, alleys, abandoned warehouses and back rooms.
D.) You must have tremendously bad aim.
F.) If you're not a cop, ex-military or priest, you must have emotional fits as regularly as most people go to the bathroom. If you're a woman, you must be perpetually on the verge of loud tears.
G.) Your ability to drive a motor vehicle at anything less than top speed is inexplicably non-existent. Also, you crash a lot.

H.) You must be incapable of understanding logic when you hear it and make every decision with your "guts".

I.) You must be a god-fearing Christian. Well except the priest. He's lost his faith. He'll get it back and then get devoured.

So now how do you survive, beyond shotgunning everything that stumbled and groans, and crashing every car you can find? I think I can help.

Given the survival rate of most characters in zombie movies, perhaps some simple rules on surviving the terror and madness of the dead coming back to life are in order:

1. Don't stand by stupidly and gawk at the zombies. This seems obvious, but apparently not. How many nimwits have lost a chunk of their neck or arm because they gawked too long as the dead calmly came over and bit down on them?
2. Friends and relatives gone grey and groaning, no matter how much you loved them, are not going to respond, no matter how many times you say their name or plead with them to recognize you. To them, you're now the Friskies or Tender Vittles. Do everyone a favour and blast em.
3. Leave all major urban centers behind. Why is this not obvious? People live in cities. LOTS of people. Thus, when they die (if not devoured outright), there will be LOTS of zombies. Get a car, hit the freeway (should be pretty clear of traffic), and haul ass out of town. Head for the woods. Couple of zombie rangers are the most that'll trouble you; maybe a zombie hiker or two.
4. Here's an important one: when operating a motor vehicle, consider slowing down. Remember: you're in a car. They're zombies. They can't catch you when you're on foot. Any speed you go is a guarantee you'll leave them in the dust.
5. If you're in a car, and the undead are approaching, run them down. Don't swerve, don't dodge. RUN THEM DOWN. Car + zombie = squishy squishy. Good math.
6. Use your ammo wisely, except if you're in America. Then open fire to your heart's content. Shoot things that you already shot. Shoot things that you may have missed. Shoot things you know you may or may not have seen before in the haze of shooting and shoot them too. Someone tells you to stop shooting, shoot them.
7. Never expose your deepest secrets at night. The undead are invariably attracted to your personal moments. The second you start blubbering about your dead family or your faded dreams of being a pitcher for the yankees, crash! Zombies are coming through the windows and you're too busy wiping tears to save yourself. If you want to get all emotional about stuff, do it on the road. Hand in hand with this, if you're a guy, don't sleep with the cheerleader. Straight up. Sure she's hot; sure it's been a while, but they'll be chewing a hole in the back of your head before you can get her panties off and the last sound you'll hear in this world is her annoying screech of terror.
8. Any plan involving a "final showdown" with the zombies at an abandoned warehouse or old barn is just plain stupid. More than likely, the ex-military / cop came up with this plan, and should be dismissed without another thought. Don't listen to that guy. He's a drunk! Someone's gonna die in this "final showdown" and more than likely, it's gonna be you. You and the cheerleader.
9. If unsure, shoot it again. If there is a chance it can get back up, remove this possibility through responsible gun usage. Shoot it again. And again. And again! This can't be stressed enough. Shoot. It. Again.
10. Most important of all: if you see zombie Michael Jackson ala Thriller, run for it before he starts singing and dancing. He is to be considered a super zombie and thus too dangerous to face alone.

That's it for now.

Horror Film Fandango: Zombies

2009-12-14T10:54:00.000+13:00

I went to a zombie Christmas party on Friday.

You'd be surprised how many people 1.) were actually dressed up, 2.) had zombie costumes ready to go and 3.) had been to a zombie-themed party this year already.

Not that dressing up like a zombie or having a zombie costume on hand is that big a deal. How tough a costume are we talking about, right? Get some old clothes, rip 'em a bit, throw some dirt on them, show up to the party really hungover or directly from your job . The illusion is complete.

As for #3, I suppose it's because zombies are one of those things that just work for a costume/themed party. They're a little scary, a little funny, a little creepy and a lot stupid. Its like most of us after a couple drinks. Oddly, after a couple of drinks, all the zombie makeup looks pretty normal on everyone. Zombies aren't really that scary to begin with, so dressing up as them at a party seems a pretty innocuous thing to do.

It seems to me that zombies rank at the bottom of the horror film food chain. I don't think most of us are all that scared of zombies, not in the same way other things that go bump in the night scare us. It requires hundreds of zombies to become really scary, and even then, if you're even a reasonably good runner, you're pretty well safe. Zombies can look a little freaky, even outright gross, but scary? Scary is something which intends you harm and actually has abilities to make it happen. Zombies have what? They'll stumble after you and groan and not die when you shoot them in an extremity? Their clothes are tattered? They smell? I have those powers.

Now as a kid I was terrified of them, the shambling undead, wandering aimlessly everywhere, seeking to consume human flesh. I think we all feel this way when we first see the rotting corpses, the empty eyes, the grey and green skin, the long-drawn moan of the damned.

It wears off quickly. One can only watch so many shuffle-footed groaners wandering around shopping malls and gas station parking lots before some of the initial freakiness wears off. How many low-watts have to wander into some dark alley and get cornered by a slow-moving crowd of ghouls before the cliche loses it's lustre? The inanity of the undead and those who have survived to fight them begins to raise an eyebrow or two.

First up, zombie diet. Why human flesh? What exactly is it about human flesh which zombies crave? Is there a mineral or something? Vampires and blood. Sure that's been explained with enough pseudo science to make it almost plausible. Werewolves even have a certain sort of sense. Wolf, angry, maim, kill. But no one has ever come up with a viable reason for human flesh being the one and only foodstuff of the undead. Won't other meats do? Why aren't the butcher shops and burger joints overrun with the walking dead? Zombies in droves battering down the local Burger King's doors to get at that one last Whopper; hordes of zombies with cash in hand at the meat counter of your local supermarket.

I suppose it's only living flesh they crave. And yet, you never see the undead attacking cattle or chickens or anything. It's always people they attack. Living people. To be fair, animals are quicker, more apt to run for it when the dead come after them. Are there zombie chickens?

It seems to me zombies would have a much easier time of it if they weren't so picky. Surrounded by all kinds of zombie flesh, they only want living flesh. Think about how much easier a time they'd have getting a meal if they were just a tad less picky. Grab the guy next to you, take a bite, stumble on. And what about a freshly-turned zombie? Would he / she do for a snack? Are we to understand that only living people are good enough to eat?

I suppose this must be maintained to keep up some semblance of a horror aspect to zombies. Can you imagine vegetarian zombies? What's so freaky about that, right? Head down to the local organic food store and you can see that.

Zombies eat flesh and groan and wander in huge numbers because, let's face it, from a horror point of view that's all they've got. Dealing with aimlessly stumbling slow-witted morons is, in fact, a daily part of life for most of us. Without the actual walking corpse and flesh-eating part, these creatures are more irritating to most people than actually menacing. Throngs of imbeciles getting in your way and making your life difficult is how many of us descibe a bad day. This is why we love a good zombie movie after such times: to watch the heroes beat the crap out of hundreds of these dumbasses for taking too long in line at the bank and for cutting us off in traffic. No one (except Blade, that is) gets to kill hundreds of vampires or mobs of werewolves. Zombies, they're the extras of the monster world, the red shirts. Zombies are like half a step above Godzilla movie extras. Squish two or three hundred, no big deal. There's more where they came from. Why hasn't anyone made a Godzilla vs. the Zombies movie? Or better still, a Zombie Godzilla movie!

For next time, those who must live amongst the undead and how hopeless deserving of death they are.

American't: Part 1 - the Dimwitted Right

2009-12-09T10:03:00.000+13:00

Obama's presidency is like a comedian's dream. The man has been in office for under a year and he is somehow a constant center of animosity, which is always funny. It doesn't seem to be so much for what he's saying (he's a pretty dignified and well-spoken guy), but for the insane reactions on both sides of the political line to every last fucking thing the guys does.

I don't even live in America any more and I can't click a news link without finding this or that video of a protest group of goggle-eyed, angry right-wingers screeching about Obama and his failed politics. Actually, it goes further than this.

Fox News appear to have OD'd on viagra they're so hard for Obama. I don't even watch the news (ever. period. wake up. stop wasting your lives), and yet somehow every news website I pass by on my way to my morning video game review or porn site is full of stories about how this news company is perpetually making noise about Obama. Aren't news organizations supposed to be reporting news, not eternally commenting on it.
People I've never heard of (nor would ever have cared to, given the kind of things I've seen them write, heard them say) have crept into celebrity through their anti-Obama rhetoric. Names like Dr. Jack Wheeler (does anyone actually still use the term "Moslem", or is it just me?!), Sean Hannity (this man's voice grates like rusty nails on the hood of a car! And every video clip I've seen of him indicates he is aging at a preternatural rate. He looks like the millionaire bad guy at the end of the third Raiders movie, aging before our very eyes) and the wicked witch of the right, Anne Coulter (whoa. Don't get me started on her. I assume everyone knows she lives in a gingerbread house, right?).

Rush Limbaugh (is he still alive?!) is braying his way back into every angry person's heart with his blustery, blubbery rant and rave against the tides of permissive liberalism. Blah. Blah. Blah. Didn't we already do this with Rush back in the 90s? Isn't he like the conservative equivalent of Howard Stern? And somehow, in all the crazed anti-Obama noise, Sarah Palin has managed to creep her way back from the political and media grave. They tout her like she's the last person to tell it like it is, even if she didn't and doesn't and was all but run out of office on corruption charges. Go Sarah go! You speak for the people. Well, the stupid ones anyway.

These people have risen to stardom on their pandering and ugly rhetoric and will stay there because of it, as there will always be bushels of angry right-wing Americans who believe themselves somehow "under attack" by the "elite" (the elite being the poor non-whites, the college students and a bunch of ineffectual leftist intellectuals). These media whores are allowed to exist because they fill in the vacuum of common sense and political activism with angry grousing and poisonous invectives. This is much more effective than actually getting involved in the political system.

With this in mind, my favourite lately from those who do dare to have a political voice (and we must applaud them their enthusiasm, if nothing else) are the Tubes of right-wing protestors at the "Tea Parties" against Obama. Ooooh, this is just chock full of good stuff. They're almost as ridiculous as left-wing protestors (almost. We'll come back to them).

Watch a couple of these. Believe me when I say there are plenty more where these came from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UASS1qFAIQ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVzDztPno-Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OemUugDSeWk&feature=related

The most commonly quoted statements from participants of these small but virulent crowds seems to be :
1. Obama is a terrorist
2. Obama is a communist
3. Obama wasn't even born in this country
4. Obama  hates America
5. Obama  is a muslim (sorry, that's moslem. see #1, since apparently these two go hand-in-hand)
6. Obama  is a fascist (not sure how this jives with #2, but okay...)
7. Obama  is worse than Al Qaeda
8. Obama  is a MEMBER of Al Qaeda
9. Fox news is the only unbiased news station on the air. (Wow)
10. Obama is the anti-christ.

Now leave it to the far right (and by "far right" I mean people who fall just shy of joining the sheet-wearing "secret" society) to become stupid enough to believe even half the things on this list.

I honestly don't believe most of the people in these videos believe this stuff. If you were to get them one-on-one, sit down over a beer and ask these things again, the majority of them would rescind their rally-fired statements. The other minority, the ones who DO believe he is the anti-christ and have scripture to prove it, these people probably already own their own wearable sheets, if you catch my meaning.

No offense to average, intelligent American conservatives (there are still some out there, right? PJ O'Rourke isn't drinking alone, is he?): You can believe what you want about the politics of Obama. That is the beauty of democracy. If you dislike the politics of another party or of an elected official, you can squawk about it. There are a number of intelligent commentators out there who have very well-formed opinions, cogent arguments, rational points of view. I don't have to agree with them to appreciate the excellent construct of their arguments.

Unfortunately for the Republican party, no one is listening to them. These people are conservative intellectuals, and in the era of post-Reagan conservatives, there is nothing a conservative is to fear more than an intellectual.

To these folks I say: distance yourselves, while you still can. Don't join rank and file with the idealogues and hate-mongers. Make a voice for the sane conservatives in America and leave these people behind. I'm not a conservative by a long shot, but it is painful to see the once great Republican party dissected from within by talking sock puppets and religious dimwits. I don't know about you, but I consider it a good rule of thumb that once the use of the anti-christ enters the conversation, we're dealing with people who are, to quote one of my university philosophy professors, "unattainable through the rigours of logic".

What we're dealing with are the howling bag ladies of the right-wing psyche, embarasing every conservative with an IQ over 100. Instead of intelligent dialog, what we see are two types of imbeciles: the ultra conservative rich white guy types, sitting on panels and making snide remarks about the "failed politics" and so forth but without putting forth any reasonable or realistic alternatives. And the average conservative on the street, people who dwell in the no-mans land where reason and fact do not reside, only bitter emotion and passionate squawling.

The conservatives I still know, they are sickened by this entire mess. They don't like Obama or at least not a number of his policies. I can respect that (note, I can respect this WITHOUT agreeing. American't, it's okay to disagree without having to consider the other person a demon of some sort). But siding up with either the sleaze merchants who hawk their conservative bile or the torch-and-pitchfork villagers from the Frankenstein movies gives them the holy heebie-jeebies.

But not to be too unkind, we must at least respect (that might be too strong a word) what these people believe they are doing.   I am referring of course to the average joes in those videos. Dumb as they might seem (or be, whatever the case may be), these people are being honest about what they believe in. They believe they are the final bastion of their true America, marching as to war, against what they see as the fall of their beloved nation, the rise of the dark ones. It is an age-old struggle in America and one founded in apocalyptic rhetoric. Some of them, like the self-righteous nurse who tells the reporter how she "works in the trenches" (please), have a bone to pick with anyone who isn't them, others are just flat out racists. Yet most of these people just seem like average folks who want to have their say. The fact that a number of them are as dumb as popsicle sticks doesn't detract from their right to say what they feel or the heartfelt conviction with which they feel it. Most of these people are honestly saying how they (sort of) feel. Anger can be a good thing when channeled properly. Three cheers for the folks willing to participate in their system.

This is utterly different than the glitzy sleazebags that flock the airwaves with their sounds and visions. These people should be ashamed of themselves. Their opinions and chatter are designed for one purpose only: to sell shaving cream, to guarantee higher ratings, to get their corpulent heads on the air. They are put there by corporate media moguls to play on the fears and angers of people, not because they actually think that way or really feel that way. They are the rock stars of the conservative vitriol circuit, touring your heart and mind with scripted dialog meant to boost advertising sales.

For next time, we'll take on the left, and have a good time with them.

Boozing in NZ, Part I

2009-10-16T10:15:00.000+13:00

In yesterday's DOM Post, I read an opinion piece on stemming the tide of binge drinking here in New Zealand.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/2965316/Stemming-the-tide-of-alcohol/

The author, Professor Doug Sellman, is the director of the National Addiction Centre in Otago.

If you haven't read the piece, or couldn't be bothered clicking on the link above, let me summarize:

Professor Sellman is making the case that alcohol consumption, particularly in young people, is high (no pun) in New Zealand for the following reasons:

Alcohol is too easily obtained, and is sold at a "discounted rate". Raising prices and limiting the places where alcohol can be purchased is the first step to stemming the tidal wave of boozehounds.
The alcohol / tobacco industries are targeting younger viewers with images of drinking and smoking in an effort to raise up little addicts, increasing their greedy fat-cat profits. By following the path adopted by the French, known as "Loi Evin", whereby no advertisements for alcohol or tobacco are allowed on television, radio and cinema, we can guarantee our youth are not exposed to the lurid imagery of tippling. Alcohol sponsorship of cultural and sporting events should be banned, and marketing targeted towards young people should be out-and-out prohibited.
The government is in bed with these alcohol-pushing sleaze-merchants and we need to send a strong signal to them to create legislation to protect our society, our children and our future.

Now before I get started, I want to point out that while I was reading this article online, I notice that the ad placed next to this op-ed was a banner for Absolut Vodka. (take a look!)

Let's take a moment to laugh hysterically at the irony of this. The ad targeting system for the site probably read the words "Alcohol" on the page and put in a booze ad. That's awesome.

Now let me address Prof. Sellman's arguments.

Let's start from the top and work our way down, shall we?

First and foremost: Alcohol is sold at a discounted rate in NZ? I'm the guy writing this and I can't believe what I'm reading. DISCOUNTED RATE?! In comparison to where, exactly? United Arabs Emirate? An alcoholics anonymous meeting? Perhaps Prof. Sellman thinks $16 is reasonable for a 6-pack of decent beer, but for the rest of the earth, this is a travesty, an abomination that insults the very nature of beer. Beer is just fermented wheat juice, right? They don't put in gold flecks or anything? I did some quick lookups around the globe for average beer prices. Here's a rough idea for westernized countries.

NZ 6 pack of Monteith's $15.99 NZ

US 6 pack of Sierra Nevada $8.99 US

UK 6 pack of Guiness £12.99

CAN 6 pack of Lakeport $14.00 CAN

Norway 6 pack of anything £24.00

Yes, there are countries more booze-pricey than NZ, but all-in-all, $15.99 is pretty damn high by most people's standards.

Now of course the first thing out of everyone's mouth is the obvious "But you have to factor in the exchange rate", which of course is nonsense. Exchange rates are important to currency brokers and tourists. Nobody else cares. When you live in a place, you earn that money and you spend that money. It does you no good living in London to hear "You know, you might earn jack shit here, but if you were in Waziristan, this would be great money!" What we're talking about here is a relative scale of money earned to it's spending power in your nation. Dollar for dollar (pound for pound, euro for euro), booze is expensive here. Ironically, the places where it's more expensive tend to be the countries which have adopted the "Loi Evin" strategy. Huh. Go figure.

As for the second point, that booze is all prevalent...

Again, where is this man living? Does he have an apartment inside the Mill or a Liquorland? Alcohol is not ridiculously easy to get here. By the way he tells it, it's lying around in piles for anyone to collect at their whim. Yes, there are bottle shops. Yes, you can get beer and wine in the supermarket. There are even a handful of dairies which sell the dreaded devil's brew (insert collective gasps of shock here). Is this the prevalence to which he's referring? The regular places human beings buy alcohol? Next thing you know, they'll be serving the stuff in restaurants, offering it in pubs! What next, I ask you!

When I first arrived on the fair shores of NZ, you'd have been lucky to find a dairy which sold beer or wine. Forget about spirits. For those you have to drag your sorry ass to a bottle shop and pay through the nose just to look through the glass cabinet. Luckily in recent times you can actually pop into a dairy and get a bottle for something slightly less than a week's salary. The beer section of most dairies has an armed guard. And we're not talking about ALL dairies. We're talking some, maybe 40%. The number really isn't that high, and it looks like even these might be on the chop:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/567578

In America you can buy beer nearly anywhere, as you can in the UK and most of Europe. Wine as well. Hard alcohol can be purchased in most stores which sell food or petrol, including the 7-11 chain. No one bats an eye at it. Yes, we have alcoholics in America. Yes there is binge drinking in Australia and Canada and lots of other nations. Yet alcohol consumption per capita is still higher in NZ than in the US, Canada, Australia, and a large swathe of other countries.

http://www.alcohol.org.nz/NZStatistic_170102.aspx

Is it access to booze causing this? Hardly. Unless you're hosing people down with it on their way home after work, the ability to buy liquor doesn't mean people are going to buy it. People buy the alcohol because they want it. I can stock the shelves of every store in this country with jars of putrid fish heads; it doesn't mean people will stop and say "Oooh, look dear. Putrid fish heads. I need to get some because I can and they're here."

As to the conspiracy theory portion of the op-ed proclaiming that the evil liquor industry is targeting young consumers with their wicked, misleading ads like some corporate pedophile with a liquor-laced candy treat is spurious at best.

I am the first to say corporations need to shoulder some responsibility, but stop and think a moment: when you were a teenager, did you drink because of ads? I didn't. I drank because my friends drank. I drank because I wanted to be more adult. Because I liked getting buzzed. Because I wanted to get in some girl's pants. I drank because it was a right of passage, a stage between being a young adult and actually being an adult. I'm not saying it's right or it's fair or it's okay. I'm saying it's a fact. Deal with it.

Much behaviour around drinking circles back, unfortunately, on the older generation, the teenager's parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, teachers and so on. Talk all you want about the evils of drinking and smoking, but as far as I'm concerned it's monkey see monkey do. All the evil corporate ads in the world never would have gotten teenage me to eat brussel sprouts, but when I saw adults partying it up and having a hoot of a time, shit. Looked like fun. Might as well join in, just without the dull adults to bore the whole thing to tears. Plus I really, really want to get in that girl's pants.

If we're looking to place some blame, take a stroll down Courtney Place in Wellington or Ponsonby in Auckland on a Saturday night. You can't throw a bent bottlecap without nailing a gaggle of men or women out on the major piss and making no bones about it. It's not about socializing, or dinner with friends, or dancing the night away. These are the punctuation marks in the evening. Booze is the reason, plain and simple. It is the alpha and the omega. Go out, get loaded, stumble around, make out with strangers, stumble home. All the parental speeches and legislation in the world aren't going to undo that damage. Kids aren't blind: they see you and your friends whacked on wowwy sauce weekend after weekend, they figure it's cool, or at the very least they can lord it over you when you try to whip out the morality speech.

I'm not trying to judge here. I'm a libertarian at heart when it comes to personal behaviours and consumptions. You don't hurt me or anyone else, do what you want. Sex, drugs, booze. That is the whole point of being an adult: you lose the freedoms of childhood, so you might as well get the cheap thrills of adulthood. But we need to face facts here: you stumble around every friday / saturday night with your mates bumbling hammered, and do you figure your kids aren't going to follow suit?

The people of New Zealand are reasonable, intelligent people (no one mention Palmerston North!). Nobody would mind banning booze ads in movies or on TV. We ignore them anyway unless there's partial nudity involved. But if the government even thinks of banning sponsorship and sales of piss at the rugby, Prof. Sellman better get his ass into protective custody. If it goes down like that there will be a queue of furious drinkers as long as the South Island ready to kick his sorry ass clear to Antarctica.

Finally, are we really going to take another pointless journey down legislation lane? With very few exceptions, attempting to legislate bad habits out of people has invariably ended in failure. More laws and higher taxes always sound prudent when spoken with authority, but don't be fooled. The problem of binge drinking can't be dissolved with the solvent of legalities. People don't drink too much just because it's legal. People don't stop drinking because it's more expensive or more prohibited. People in Saudi Arabia travel hundreds of miles to other countries so they can have a beer, for crying out loud. Prohibition only leads to more drinking.

New Zealand has plenty of laws around drinking, plenty of taxes for beer and wine and spirits. People who imagine even more will some how quell peoples' urges or counter their behaviours are sadly mistaken.

God, after all that, I need a drink.

Confined by the rigours of capitalism

2009-10-13T13:30:00.000+13:00

Monday mornings are for waking up with that most undeniable urge to call in sick.

I'm not sick, of course. Don't be stupid. What fool would waste a perfectly good sick day on being sick?! Where is the fun in that? Lying around, coughing and blowing your nose until it's raw; drinking weak tea and feeling miserable? If I want that, I'll just be hungover, thankyouverymuch. That's what all good people do. No, even if I am hungover, Mondays are for lying on the couch, eating taco bell, shooting at aliens with a game controller and otherwise wasting your life.

I personally love calling in sick on Mondays. It's like a religious holiday you give yourself through deceit and guile. So in this way, it's just like every other religious holiday. Plus, who can deny the sighing satisfaction of lying back in your bed, knowing every other sucker out there is at the office slaving like a schleb while you're kicking back eating day-old bbq? You can't buy that kind of happiness, but you can lie your way to it.

I'm in good company with calling in sick on Mondays. According internet statistics (the most reliable source of data anywhere), two-thirds of people who call in sick on a Monday aren't. I like that statistic. It lines up well with my behaviour: 2/3 of the time I call in sick I'm not.

Normally, I don't normally ascribe to a "follow the crowd" philosophy, but in this case, it's clear the majority knows what it's doing. Use Mondays as they were meant to be used: dodging work and getting paid to do it.

If you've never skipped out on work by playing sick (yeah, right), then let this old hat warn you: it's not all sunshine and lollipops. Calling in sick on a Monday can be a double-edged sword. There are consequences which you'll need to manage. If you screw it up, you'll be working late nights and weekends for months. I bear the scars of many a self-imposed three-day weekend early in my work-dodging career. Learn from my mistakes and let this old pro guide you through the process.

Calling in sick on a Monday is the easy part. Most rookies imagine quite the opposite: going face to face (or voice to voice anyway) with a boss to explain how you're under the weather, in need of fluids and rest and just CAN'T make it in, that's enough to send most beginners scurrying for cover.

Trust me: the calling in part isn't tough. You just need a little nerve, a well-practiced hack and a shot of rotgut right before you start talking (gives you the scratchy throat). These three guarantee you sound crappy enough to fool the best of them. A few other rules are:

Keep it short. Don't explain things. Don't tell anyone how you started feeling sick on Friday after work and how it spread to your ears then your nostrils and how your chest started feeling plugged. The more you talk, the clearer your guilt is. These three words are plenty: "I'm really sick". Hack, splutter, lie and hang up. Oh, make sure they know it's you too. All that deception is wasted if your monkey ass has to call back and explain "by the way, it's Bill Peters, from Project Management."
This may sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how many dumb-asses get caught because they're just too goofed up by the idea of an extra day off: eliminate ALL evidence to the contrary of your sickness. Turn down the video game or hip hop CD or whatever you have cranked up in the background before making the call. It dims your chances of getting away with your crime if you're telling the boss' secretary how sick you are while your friends are yelling "chug! chug! chug!" in the background. Take your call into a back room.
Space 'em out: again, sounds really obvious, but don't call in sick on Monday after Monday. Put at least a couple months in between each one. Throw in a Wednesday here or there to throw the man off the scent. Give your boss a little credit. How can he / she NOT notice that you get a cold every Monday morning and are miraculously healed come Tuesday?
Hold back the maniacal laughter of having gotten away with it until AFTER you've hung up the phone.

The great thing about calling in sick is the obvious fact that of course you can't be openly refuted. No boss or HR manager can come right out and say to you on the phone "You're not sick! Get in here!" Sure, they'd love to. They know you're not sick; they'd love to bust your ass and call you to the mat for flaking off. That guy in the mail room saw you Saturday night in that bar doing tequila shots off that girl's cleavage. Your facebook page has you smoking a cigar and crumping Sunday afternoon at the game.

But that's the great thing here. They can't. They can't actually say it. No way, Jose. Not on the million to one chance that somehow, some way, you actually ARE sick. They have to suck it up and everyone knows it.

See calling in sick is the easy part. Tuesday, on the other hand...

After your free day of XBox and porno, of greasy fast food and another viewing of Die Hard, Tuesday does eventually roll around. Now you have to pay the piper.

This is where your acting skills have to crank up to the next notch. I'm talking real acting here. You try and half-ass it, try and throw out some Sara Jessica Parker bullshit, your ass is owned.

You have to put on a believable show of being " still a little sick". This is harder than it sounds. You have to show that yes you were sick and the tail end of it is still dragging you down.

This can't be half-baked. Your best friend would have to buy it, or the jig is up. Cut to Tuesday morning, you need to be coughing a little, blowing your nose, making good for the cameras as you sigh and heave your way to your desk. Too much Titanic overacting, and you'll catch more than one pair of eyes rolling. Not enough, and you're in pursed lips city. "She doesn't look that sick to me!" This is the razor's edge, people. Get zen with this. Whatever that means.

Guaranteed your boss will make sure to stop by and ask how you're feeling. The ball-buster knows you're a big fat phony. Take it in stride: brave-face a smile and say "much better, thanks". He'll smile and say that's great, but all the while he'd love to be able to prove you were at the track or boinking that shot cleavage girl. He'd give his right arm to throw down a photo of you at KFC with red eyes and a stupid grin. But don't lose your composure. Get back to work quietly and slowly. Sneeze from time to time. Leave lots of crumpled up tissues lying around. This is a guarantee to keep even the bravest at a distance. Nothing is more repugnant than a pile of gluey-looking tissues near at hand. If you've got hair spray at home, give some tissues a quick squirt then leave them lying in balls on your desk. This gives just the right glossy sheen to bring out the hypochondriac in even the healthiest office specimen.

For the rest of the day, you have to keep this front going. I've got it down to a pretty steady science. You need to fix yourself a lot of tea, slump a lot, sneeze into your lunch when people are watching (if you can get people to rush out of the room, you know you've got a really convincing act going). If you're a practiced veteran like me, you can even pull out the old "I think I need to go home early" trick.

But this is where you have to be careful. All too often the overconfidence of a successful early performance leads to your downfall. Start off swimmingly with your faux malaise, next thing you know you've forgotten the whole ruse and you're bullshitting with so-and-so from marketing, laughing, reading the paper in the break room, etc. Don't be a dimwit. Keep the gambit on course at least through the day. I've seen great performances turn to keanu reeves in the little buddha with one fuck up. Most important here: don't act too sick (too sick is like how you felt when you saw keanu reeves in little buddha), but don't "come round" too fast either. Let the sickness hold on at least through Wednesday afternoon.

Clearly, this is a long time to keep up the infirmity, but what did you expect? This is the real lesson to be learned with dodging work with a made-up infirmity. You scammed a free Monday out of the deal. Sure you didn't work, but you have to do something to pay for that free time. Nothing in life is free.

Playing sick is just a hell of a lot more fun.