Monday, January 31, 2005

Jim's Travels

This is a series of emails sent to me by my friend Jim Coe who left New Zealand to travel a bit and then maybe join the British army. I have editted them to be more story-like and less email-ish.

ENGLAND

Who knew?

Date:

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:40:31 +1300

From:

James Coe feat Marky Marx and the funky bunch

Who knew that there was both a Pall Mall and just a Mall? I didn't!

And hands up who thought that Piccadilly Circus was an actual circus, with lions and trapeze and all that?

I didn't.

Anyway, today... you can put your hands down now... today I have been walking around the whole freakin' day. I got up surprisingly early considering my jet lag. Actually, I fell asleep last night during the Brit awards, only to awake in time to see a lacklustre performance from the Darkness before they won best album. Isn't it funny how the bands that perform at the ceremony often clean up the awards? Mmm, no matter.

Today I let my feet do the walking. I walked all the way up the King's Road to the city, stopping at every Starbucks on the way. By the time I got to the Palace it was time to go home.

No, I'm kidding, but there are a lot of Starbucks here. I don't know why I told you that, there are pretty much a lot of Starbucks everywhere. I was also kidding about going into Starbucks as well, in case you didn't realise, sorry.

So yeah, I walked around, to the Abbey and Houses of Parliament. Bloody tourists everywhere. Went up Whitehall, around, up to Trafalgar Square. Went to the National Gallery, but the place is huge and non-linear. About halfway through I had to leave. My eyes were hurting from looking too much. I may sound like a Phililstine, but after a couple of hours your van Dyks start looking a little like your Peter Paul Rubenses.

Went up Charing Cross road, to the famous (read: overpriced) bookstores, right up to the British Museum. Again, it was a case of sensory overload and I only saw a little before I could handle no more. I saw the Elgin Marbles that the British nicked from the Parthenon and the giant human-headed winged lions that the British nicked from Assyria and the Rosetta Stone that the British nicked from the French who were about to nick it from the Egyptians. Pretty much the whole collection in the enormous building was nicked by some nobleman or other and then 'laundered' by donating it to the museum. Anyway, international law and ethics aside, it's very impressive and I must go back tomorrow.

Went down Oxford and Regent St to Green Park and the Mall, by which time I was getting sick of walking and got the tube most of the way home, the tube being a total rip.

Life inside the cubicle part 5

(Written in early 2003, the previous post (LITC:part4 also written in 2003-blame my memory)

As many of you already know, I am something of a “sports buff.” By this I mean that I have the good sense to keep sport roughly three to six feet from me at all times and (if possible) contained within a television. I had an exercise regime once; however this was an evil regime and I had to overthrow it. Seriously though, there is a big season of rugby ahead of us, and with this one sentence most of the girls who may be foolishly reading this, have now stopped. However they should start again because all that a new rugby season means is a chance to rate our sporting ‘hunks.’ I am of course referring to an article in the Dominion Post which discovered that Wellington rugby players were well below the Aucklanders in terms of sex appeal. What does this have to do with rugby? Well, in the end more Auckland players were selected for the All Blacks. “Sex sells” is the catch phrase of the NZRFU for 2003. Notice how droopy old Christian Cullen was dropped for pretty-boy Douglas Howlett III. You may argue that the reason more Auckland players were selected is because Auckland made it to the final and Wellington did not. You may even be right, but what you are not, is right.

You see, the cunning plan of the AB selectors has been to pick the sauciest of NZ playing elite in the hope that France or maybe even Australia will field a team of women. These ladies will then be blown out of their cleats when our oiled-up boys hit the field. Dancing around the star struck girls will be easier than getting into a waterfront bar fight and they will all surely be lining up to get “tackled” by super-hunks like Carlos Spencer and Anton Oliver (that is a rugby joke, Anton is uglier than…well, everything).This sex-technique of the NZRFU starts at the top, by the way, with dirty old John Mitchell, always fluttering his long eyelashes at you and talk of hugging his players for comfort, what a dreamboat.

This phenomenon has gone so far now that the news website Xtramsn.co.nz has a page dedicated to “Sexy Sports Stars.” This is what the page has to say about new AB Daniel Carter: “he is damn fine”, they also say: “He's exciting on the field, and we're sure he would be very exciting off it too.” Many other top sports people are listed as “damn fine” on this webpage: Shannon Paku (Auckland rugby player); Anna Scarlett (Netballer); and Kimi Raikkonen (F1 driver) who is also listed as “red hot” and “good under pressure” (which I am sure is a double entendre). These sporting celebrities do not want to be called “fine”, unless one is talking about their performance on the sporting surface of their choice; they want to be known because they are good at sport. If all one has to do to be selected for a national sports team is have a nice butt or a good set of whatever then why bother playing sport at all (I have both of those attributes and I don’t play sport). Hang on a second was that my point? No, right, got it again, my point is that are they still attractive when they are not winning? No. This is why the Hurricanes were less attractive than the Blues, because they were losers and nobody likes losers.

So here is a revised NZRFU plan, just in case the opposition do not field teams of girls, make the team look like winners before they even hit the field. Below I have given a brief example of on-field dialogue

Ugly English Player 1: Righto boys here they come let’s give ‘em ‘ell

Ugly English Player 2: Oh no Bill, look at ‘em, their bloody beautiful, how we gonna beat them then eh?

Ugly English Player 1 (Bill): Christ, your right lets give up now.

Also it seems that rugby players get the most attention in this area of New Zealand sport-sex-appeal, (with the exception of Bernice Mene and her undies). Why not other sports, like bowls? Think how easy it would be pun about “rolling the balls from their hands” and “trying to hit the Jack.” Or maybe horse racing? You could say things like “he rode her to a stunning finish” or “no whipping was necessary for him to come first by a head.”

And when it comes to world coverage we are stuck arguing about David Beckham’s hair or something about Anna Kournikova or about two dogs getting married in Connecticut. “What’s that?” you say, “Dogs? Married? Mike Hosking?” Yes, that’s right Mike Hosking has put a temporary stop to all this celebrity nonsense by suing a bunch of “women’s” magazines so they will stop showing photos of his kids and instead show photos of him ranting about the photos of his kids. And he is right, (you never heard me say that), if you want to see “damn fine” men and women there is plenty of porn on the net (apparently), leave our sporting elite alone to just play their games and bring back glory and trophies and what-not. I’m going to do my bit by watching netball without thinking “pass it to the cute one.”

P.S. this is the link to the dog marriage story

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20030603_283.html

Life inside the cubicle part 4

(Written in early 2002)

Well, it was inevitable. Pack up my brain, stick it in a postbag and send it to someone who can use it, I don’t need it anymore. Why? I have an XBOX. That’s right; I gave up all my free will for the ability to play games and DVDs on my TV, which already shows enough junk.

If you are a male you understand immediately the dangers of owning such a device. With its Sirens call of beeps and fight noises it lures its victims to the “controller” and once there, you are in its power. Of course I am not making a gender discriminatory comment, all I am saying is women are generally too smart to even go near the damn thing. Men also are genetically disposed to have large, lightning fast, agile thumbs and slow dim-witted brains that can be easily confused by flashing lights and pretty saleswomen. I blame the repression of women throughout most of recorded history. If women had had suffrage and equal rights from the beginning we men would have had more shopping experience and would be able to shop with complete objectivity and clinical precision instead of always buying the biggest or newest thing being sold by a pretty saleswoman. The thing about XBOX and PS2 type things is that they do not need the aforementioned pretty girl. I bought my particular slave box from a small rotund slightly sweaty man. He didn’t even have to do anything, he just stood there and people gave him money. People like me. Still there is an upside to this digital mania, the good feeling that comes from performing heroic deeds.

I spent a lot of my weekend saving the earth from destruction by an alien race, all the while trying to make a meagre living on the world snowboarding circuit. And thank god I was. I didn’t see any other people defending our way of life from those alien invaders. My girlfriend didn’t understand and tried to stop me from my lifesaving quest to do other things like eat and sleep. Pfff, things like that worry me no more for I wield the power of the X, um, box, um (sigh).

My girlfriend was right though, she saw the small rotund slightly sweaty man and knew instantly that before he received his XBOX he was a tall athletic ruggedly handsome man, and she saw that the same thing might happen to me (pause for laughter). Again this is because women have inbuilt genetic warning devices, pieces of genetic code (that men do not have) that say, “If you buy that you will never leave the house again” and “I do not believe that I really am defending Earth from alien invaders, I believe that this is just some kind of false imagination device meant to trick me out of my money.” Of course women are not really like that; women in reality are just as stupid as men and buy far stupider things than men. Botox is a good example, (slogan: it’s as easy as injecting pig botulism into your face). Has anyone noticed the resemblance between XBOX and BOTOX. The names of course not the products, although how long will it be before we are required to inject ourselves with little “controller” genes in order to play games and watch DVDs.

I believe that there must be some kind of relationship between the numbers of X’s in a product and its market desirability. For example XXXX beer is one of the highest selling beers in Australia (Statistics Department of My Brain) and XXX material on the internet is generally the most highly sought after. So maybe the X to $ correlation is just determinate on the Y-chromosome which is just dumb because to make a (funny) point it should be the X-chromosome that counts.

A more pressing concern is a recent report of a man who imported into this country all the parts he needed to build a cruise missile. Note that he was a man; no woman would do that due to genes. Home handyman Bruce Simpson had all of the parts come through customs without any alarms being raised. He then posted how he intended to build the missile on the internet, http://www.interestingprojects.com/ . Now Bruce is not a terrorist, his neighbours describe him as “that Arab larrikin”, but when you combine this news with the news that Japanese officials were worried that components from PS2s could be used to guide missiles, you receive a more chilling image and a hell of a segway. Non-terrorist home handymen across the country firing legitimate missiles at unimportant patches of ground have their pride and joy hijacked by unknowing “controller” wielding people like you and me and I’m still not very good at using the controller. The main question in my mind at the moment, well the one that pertains to this piece of writing, is: why do you want to build a cruise missile, they only hit vans full of reporters? Still it must be better than sitting on the couch.

Tomorrow: How to hook up an XBOX to your work computer.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Overthrow The World: Stage 2

The editor of www.varsity.co.nz, Neale Jones, has very nicely asked me to do an occasional rant for them. My first column is up here. In it I expand on my earlier post about the controversy over swastikas. I also muse over the current campaign to change the NZ flag. Clearly such a change is only warranted when there's a major overhaul in the society, like if we change to fascism or wot not.

If you have a spare half hour or so (and even if you don't) take look at www.snopes.com. It's an urban legend database that's actually worth your time. Barbara and David Mikkelson put a lot of effort into regularly updating the entries and do a great job. The design of the site could be snappier, but it's by no means difficult to navigate. Start at the 9/11 rumours and work your way out.

The Patriot (this is not about football)

This is about New Zealand.

(Please check the recent listings for the NFL posts)

We rock! We rock sooooooo much. Our summer may not have come during the holidays, but hoooweee when it did show up, man, do we know how to put on a nice day. And hot? Basically, it's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut.

What else makes us special? We are second only to Finland at geography and I have a feeling that the Americans are cheating (they used be ranked in the 100’s). Have a go if you’re hard enough, but try not to drag our average down.

Just quickly, speaking of Americans, which world leader rocks the hardest, I think you know. Maybe he’s just reminding who his boss is?

And another reason NZ kicks ass? No one seems to be taking Don Brash to heart.

He’s grey. He’s emotionless (slimy snake-like smiles are not emotions). He comes complete with a wind-up key and pre-programmed with the failed social policies of yesteryear. Don Brash is: the AUTO-CRAT in Orewa II: Attack of the Clones

He probably shouldn’t have mentioned the adoption thing. Who are National’s policy advisors anyway? They made Bill English look like a chump and I’ve met him, he’s a nice bloke.

That’s the other thing about NZ, even the idiots are nice guys (except maybe those “un-PC Good Bastard” idiots down on the West Coast).

Well that’s enough. I don’t like to get too close to ranting.

Have a great day!

Life in the Cubicle: part 3

Written in 2003, before I had a blog and before we had copious amounts of overwhelming public evidence that the US should never have gone to Iraq.

Oh yeah. This is what life is all about, kicking back after a hard day at ‘work’ with a coffee (your third over the legal daily quota) and a little yellow book called Cooking with Kenny. Kenny Rogers that is! (For the kids, Kenny Rogers is the guy who sings after Paul Simon on We Are the World. Don’t ask what We Are the World is).

I was sent this Pulitzer Prize nominee by good friend of mine Dave Miller, who has a child now and really should have known better. The books first chapter is mainly about; knowing when to grill ‘em, knowing when to turn ‘em, knowing when to slow sauté and knowing when to run. Seriously. The book also contains an unhealthy, by anyone’s standards, amount of pineapple.

There was pineapple in the coleslaw, pineapple all over the barbeque, pineapple upside-down cake, and finally a big bowl of pineapple pieces, beside some dish that unfortunately would have caught fire if pineapple were added. The chapter named, and I am not making this up at all, ‘Teen Party’ contains various recipes for a Hawaiian themed get together, including various pictures of an aqua green tape player and a scatter of cassette tapes. And which singer have the kids chosen to lead them through this difficult time of life? Tropical Kenny Rogers of course.

The reason for the abundance of tropicana was explained when I reread Kenny’s introduction. He could not thank the people at Dole Tinned Fruit Corporation enough for (surprisingly) giving him large amounts of money to make this book of (again surprise) pineapple related dishes. However, what may have come as a shock to both multiple Grammy Award winner Kenny Rogers and members of the Committee for Subtle World Domination at Dole is an article printed in the Seattle Times on Friday March 14^th2003 (sorry I can’t find the link again). It states that the US government is purchasing five handheld devices that can detect whether a tin-can contains grapefruit or pineapple. The device called a PASS and retailing at $20,000 each will be used in Iraq for the detection of chemical weapons and anything packaged in natural juice. You see, as the Iraqi army retreated from their enemies they removed the labels from all the cans thus disabling the normally hyper-efficient US armed forces.

Sergeant: What’s that soldier?

Private: Gee Sarge, I think it’s a can of delicious and refreshing Dole pineapple pieces in natural juice, but the label’s been removed

Sergeant: Good God don’t open that can, it could contain boysenberries in heavy syrup. Just sit tight, we’ll have to wait for the PASS corps to get here

Private: (scared) Sarge, is this what hell is like?

Sergeant: Yes son it is

Disclaimer: I do not really think that the above conversation actually happens in real life or in the army.

The PASS works by using ultrasound (literally “better sound than usual”). Here is the explanation straight from the Seattle Times.

“Ultrasonic signals, for example, travel the length of three football fields a second through the air, but 14 football fields a second through water. Through steel, the signals zip along at 58 football fields a second.”

When will Americans adopt the metric system and measure everything in car lengths?

Apparently the PASS can also tell Coke from Pepsi. This will be helpful to the army as its sponsorship deal is with Pepsi.

There is a problem, however, for the strong young patriots of the PASS corps; it seems that Iraq annoyingly destroyed all of its weapons of mass destruction before the war, just like they were asked to. Bastards!

Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld announced that it was “possible that they [Iraq] decided that they would destroy them [Weapons of Mass Destruction] prior to a conflict.”

The question was then, well what are you doing in Iraq? US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had the answer. "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,” Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in Vanity Fair magazine's July issue.

I have two burning questions (as I am sure you do devoted reader), 1. Is your name really Wolfowitz? 2. Why did the US Deputy Defence Secretary do an interview for Vanity Fair? Really the most important question is what does this have to do with Kenny Rogers? The answer, nothing as far as I can tell, but there is something funny about how he holds those BBQ tongs and he does have a beard. Kenny Rogers – Tropical Terrorist? Probably not, but there is something disturbing about the fact that now, under the rule of Shiite Muslim leaders, the showing of soft porn films in Iraqi cinemas is now illegal. “Um, so?” many of you are asking. Well this means that they are watching Sylvester Stallone movies now, or rather they are not, as movie audience numbers plummet. Soft porn was apparently one of the biggest draw cards in Saddam’s Iraq, people loved it. “Now really,” you are saying “this started out as a nice little piece about country legend Kenny Rogers and it has now degraded to discussion on the popularity of porn in pre-war Iraq.” The truth is that I was hoping somehow this could be brought back to pineapples.

So let us dispense with the segways and just say this. What about a TV series starring Kenny Rogers and Paul Holmes (name selected at random). This idea was also sent to me by Dave Miller, whose sanity I now fear for. I have changed the original concept a little. Paul Holmes and Kenny Rogers, driving around in a Chevrolet truck through the United States, with Kenny’s dog, Hooper. The guys can solve tinned fruit related crimes, sleep together in ditches, have sing-a-longs, shoot guns at Paul Holmes, and every episode they can somehow include a situation where Paul and Kenny need to cook something, describing in great detail the recipe, and saying at the end of the programme where the book and Dole pineapple can be purchased from...

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Lost the Post

I wrote a post this morning but there was ANOTHER technical glitch and it was lost to the ether.
If anyone finds it please tell me.

This is worse than the Eighties! I may as well pick up my phone's hand set and place it on a large biege external modem in front of my Apple II. Even Matthew Broderick never had computer problems this bad!

OOPS!!!

Sorry, the same post has gone up twice under different headings.
That was one part newbie blogger and one part technical problems.
Christ! Sometimes it's like working in the Eighties!

Oh woe for those Steel men!

Pittsburgh. AKA Blitz-burgh. AKA The Pit.

What apt nicknames. The latter because “Big” Ben Roesthlisberger would like to crawl into a pit and die. The former because the Steelers decided to abandon their normal well-designed game plan and adopt a blitz-heavy plan (at least it contained more blitzes than I would’ve expected). Perhaps they thought, like countless other teams, that they could pressure Tom Brady. Check out his stats, Brady is actually just on the good side of average, but what makes him a better QB than his stats suggest is his unflappability [NOTE: Tom Brady’s comparative stats have him in the top ten of quarter backs this year, please note that Billy Volek (TEN), Tim Rattay(SF) and Brian Griese(TB) should be considered much better QBs considering the team around them]. Now I know that the Steelers have a base 3-4 defence and so a linebacker crossing the line is not really a blitz. But on many downs I saw five and six guys cross the line. Also these were on long yardage downs. Tom Brady can’t be shaken on a pass rush and if you do sack him make sure you get your helmet right into his back (or maybe his elbow or knee) because otherwise he’ll just jump right back up and throw a 60+yd pass.

Pittsburgh has the fourth best pass defence in the NFL. So if the Steelers didn’t blitz they would have had a better chance of stuffing New England’s drive. Grrrrr. Pittsburgh also blitzed after every penalty that went against them. I can only assume this was caused more by “I’m gonna get you for that” mentality from the player’s point of view.

I must admit that I didn’t see New England’s normal ignoring of the rules. Although at one point there was a small scuffle between a Patriots OL and a Steelers DE that was broken up by the referees. Maybe Ref they were arguing because the OL was HOLDING tightly onto the DE’s shoulder pads?

Well enough of the sour grapes.

The game start temperature was -11.76C but no snow fell. Either way the Pats seemed to feel at home. And perhaps it was also because the Steelers were making them feel welcome. Down by 14 points near the end of the third quarter the Steelers had 1st and goal. Run, short gain. Pass, too high, incomplete. Run, no gain. 4th and goal, 14 points down against the reigning champ, a run or a pass if not successful will pin your opponent against his own goal line and you have the best defence in the league. Instead, it's a field goal. Maybe, I thought, it's a gonna be an onside kick? Nope. Pats drive for a field goal of their own, eat up lots of time and it's game over for the Pit. As the Steelers kicked their 3 points I heard a commentator (despite being in a noisy-ish pub, you can always hear a stupid commentator) say: "This is a good idea for th Steelers". How much does this guy get paid? Sigh.

The Pats first TD came from this play:

First Quarter Patriots16:49D.Branch 60 yd. pass from T.Brady (A.Vinatieri kick) (1-60, 0:09)

What an unromantic description. Here’s what really happened. The Steelers had 4-1 on the NE 49. Perhaps because they listened to me (I was saying they should go for it), the Steelers went for it. The Bus up the middle, no gain (NE were waiting for the run). The Bus fumbled and Mike Vrabel recovered. On the Pats first snap, they line up with a heavy formation, the Steelers were in a nickel man-defence. I don’t remember it being a play-fake but none of the Steelers backed off like they should’ve. David Givens apparently was the primary receiver on the play and ran a 5yard “in” route. He was surrounded by linebackers, but Deion Branch ran a “post” route up field and was single covered and made an amazing over the shoulder catch for a 60yd TD!!! (The exclamation points are necessary, I was a very cool play).

Back to the Pit.

Ben Roesthlisberger, offensive rookie of the year, the man whose name is so long that in Madden 2005 it is shortened to “Roethlisbergr”, threw three (3) interceptions. These interceptions lost the game for the Steelers.

If I was Bill Cowher that would be kinda cool. Also, I would have Big (Gentle) Ben watching game tape all off-season, tapes of Donovan McNabb. Big Ben, to me at least, is comparable QB to Donovan McNabb. They were #5 and #4 respectively in the league for passer rating. Both are big guys: Ben: 6’5” 241lbs; McNabb: 6’2” 240lbs (to put that into perspective DE Jevon Kearse is 6’4” 265lbs). If the Steelers can craft Roesthlisberger into a McNabb they’ll get their Superbowl, if they can get Roesthlisberger to where McNabb is now by next year, they could get two.

Other things for the Pit to remember: New England is a good team, but not that good. They were 17^th in the league in pass defence. Everyone seems to be real scared of the Pats secondary, but they gave up 212.5yds per game (Tampa only gave up161.2). At 6’5” Plaxico Burress is taller than a lot of CBs and Safeties so pass him some lofty ones. Also make sure that you watch Antwaan Randle El.

New England played really very well on Sunday, but it still felt like a Pittsburgh loss rather than a Patriots victory. Maybe it was because the Patriots seemed to have no personality. They felt like a group of robots or an un-erring computer opponent in Madden. Pittsburgh had the old “war horse” carrying the ball, the young sergeant making the calls on the field, the moustachioed old general on the sideline, and the new-old Steel Curtain. The Patriots had…um…the whiney brat who threw a tantrum last year and now gets what he wants?

Wait a minute; I said no more sour grapes. Well, let’s all just look forward to the Superbowl.

See ya.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

The other Championship Game

Pittsburgh. AKA Blitz-burgh. AKA The Pit.

Well enough of the sour grapes.

The game start temperature was -11.76C but no snow fell. Either way the Pats seemed to feel at home. The Pats first TD came from this play:

First Quarter Patriots16:49D.Branch 60 yd. pass from T.Brady (A.Vinatieri kick) (1-60, 0:09)

What an unromantic description. Here’s what really happened. The Steelers had 4-1 on the NE 49. Perhaps because they listened to me, the Steelers went for it. The Bus up the middle, no gain (NE were waiting for the run). The Bus fumbled and Mike Vrabel recovered. On the Pats first snap, they line up with a heavy formation, the Steelers were in a nickel man-defence. I don’t remember it being a play-fake but none of the Steelers backed off like they should’ve. David Givens apparently was the primary receiver on the play and ran a 5yard “in” route. He was surrounded by linebackers, but Deion Branch ran a “post” route up field and was single covered and made an amazing over the shoulder catch for a 60yd TD!!! (The exclamation points are necessary, I was a very cool play).

Back to the Pit.

Wait a minute; I said no more sour grapes. Well, let’s all just look forward to the Superbowl.

See ya.

Life in the Cubicle: part 2

When I asked for topics last time I was not expecting the huge flurry of answer I received.

Yeah, just the one, but still an interesting one. José has asked me write about “commercial advantages of paraell universives”. José is a very good friend of mine, budding author (of things that will actually make money) and a hell of a good guy. However like the biblical character Samson, take away his spellchecker and he is powerless. So I assumed that what he meant was either “Parnell Universities” or “Parallel Universes”. The latter is funnier (God I hope so), so I’ll look at that.

Parallel universes, for those not in the theoretical physics loop, are what people use when they want to create a situation where they are cooler than they actually are. This is why physicists invented them. As I have previously mentioned weird stuff often happens (LITC episode 1) and these parallel universes often get the blame. The cool thing is that because it’s “theoretical” physics you don’t have to prove a damn thing. “Oh that chupacabra must have come from a parallel universe where the little goat-suckers evolved instead of Humans”, “Oh, really prove it”, “Blow me”. Physics labs are full of conversations just like this.

According to an article in Scientific American you have a doppelganger in a parallel universe only 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 28 metres from wherever you are at the moment. That is over 50 car lengths. So now we know where they are the question is; how can we make money out of this?

A worrying thought is what if another universe has already thought of this. These universes split from each other every time we make a choice, theoretically, so we should aim for the universe that decides not to take advantage of this opportunity. Thinking about this too much may cause your head to hurt a little after a while (this is the reason physicists have such large foreheads).

What we have to be careful of is that now the theorists are saying there are also duplicate universes (i.e. an exact copy of ours) only 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 118 metres from wherever you are at the moment. This is roughly the length of a trip from Wellington to Auckland on a hot day with no air-conditioning.

I know what you’re thinking, “For Godsake man get to the money!” Ha ha, in time my impatient friend. First let me share more from the Scientific American article sent to me by an observant reader. Well, ok the reader was me but still here it is.

Quantum Dice:

Imagine an ideal die whose randomness is purely quantum. When you roll it, the die appears to land on a certain value at random. Quantum mechanics, however, predicts that it lands on all values at once. One way to reconcile these contradictory views is to conclude that the die lands on different values in different universes. In one sixth of the universes, it lands on 1; in one sixth, on 2, and so on. Trapped within one universe, we can perceive only a fraction of the full quantum reality.

You can only be thinking the same thing as me, (once you stop thinking “what the hell, did he expect us to read that whole thing?”), that’s right, GAMBLING, or to be more precise cheating. Imagine playing craps, I know many of you are playing craps (or “throwing dice”) as you read this, up comes dirty old ‘snake eyes’, all you have to do is zip 10 to the power of 10²⁸ metres down the road to where you actually rolled a 7. I know more than one jaw has hit the floor. Also if you are a ‘worker’ like me, feel free to skip off to lunch early and come back two hours later knowing in your heart that, theoretically, you are still at your desk ‘working’ hard. “Jenkins, you were at lunch for 3 days!” “Yeah but at the same time I was here going over the OOLATROP proposal”, “What?! Prove it”, “Blow me”.

So really the spoils of parallel universes are, theoretically, there for the taking. We really only have to worry about ourselves figuring it out before we do and showing up at the same craps table as ourselves both claiming the winnings while the chupacabra croupier wonders where we both came from, theoretically. My not-so-big forehead hurts.

A very late Friday post

A sharp sudden rumbling on Friday morning. What could it be? A 5.5 Richter scale earthquake situated 20km or so beneath my fair city? (Actually the quake was under Upper Hutt, which is neither fair nor a city nor where I actually live).

Maybe it was the sound of 40,000 people jumping out of bed “happy as Larry” that they were going to the Big Day Out and not the Long Day at Work.

No my friends I believe that was, in the words of Agent Smith, “the sound of inevitability”.

Philadelphia has been to the NFC Championship four times in four years. They are the only NFL team to do so. The problem, and the only reason they have not been dubbed a “dynasty”, is that for the last three years they have lost. For Philly fans this is the equivalent of preparing for the sneeze that never comes, for four years!

On Sunday (Monday NZ time) they finally sneezed. So to speak.

How do you beat Atlanta? Um, I don’t really know because I had to move house and missed the game. Here though, is what Marv Levy of NFL.com thought:

Philly's fundamentals

After losing three straight NFC Championship Games, the Eagles finally came out on top with a 27-10 win over the Falcons. But I don't think they did anything that much differently in this one than in the losses.

Each game is an entity in itself, there isn't something that all of a sudden you do differently. The Eagles were the stronger team and they prevailed. They played magnificent defense, they didn't turn the ball over, they didn't seem to let things phase them and were completely into the game.

For all the talk about strategy and tactics and the emotion in the game, the Eagles won by playing fundamentally sound football. They tackled, they flowed to the ball, they understood their assignments and they kept backside leverage on Michael Vick. Philadelphia executed its plan and really had every player committed to it. It's not always what you do in a game, but the way that you do it.

This game was very much affected by the wind and the Eagles did a magnificent job of dealing with it. Wind is the biggest weather factor there is in football, more than rain, snow, ice or anything else. It doesn't necessarily change your game plan, but it limits you because you really only have two quarters where you have the wind and can execute all your plays. When you go against the wind, you're trying to do things that burn the clock without giving up much to the other team during that time. The Eagles played into the wind as well as any team I've seen. Donovan McNabb even had a 45-yard pass into the wind in the second quarter to set up a touchdown.

One area where the wind may have helped the Eagles was in the defensive coverage. Philadelphia played a lot of single coverage, leaving its cornerbacks one-on-one. When you do that, you're taking some risks outside, but the Eagles matched up pretty well. The wind helped them by limiting the Falcons' ability to throw downfield into the wind. By playing so much single coverage, the Eagles were able to commit more players to the line of scrimmage, which helped put more pressure on Vick, who was sacked four times, and stop the run. Atlanta had the top running attack this season but was held under 100 yards.

Staying on running games, it may have seemed strange that the Eagles got the ball to Brian Westbrook only six times in the first half, but that's largely because they didn't have the ball that much in the first half. Their second touchdown was set up by a long pass and they didn't have many long drives to involve Westbrook in. But what matters is how many touches Westbrook had when the game ended, which was 16 carries for 96 yards and five catches for 39 yards. You don't always spread things evenly over the course of the game. Usually runners on a team that's winning will handle the ball far more in the second half than in the first as they try to grind it out.

Overall, you could see why both teams were in the NFC Championship Game. The demeanor of those teams was very professional. Any celebrations were truly spontaneous, just being happy over a big play. Each team had put in a lot of thought about their opponent before the game, and each player had thought about what part they were going to play. It was so apparent that these guys conducted themselves like pros and like champions. It really shined through to me.

What I can tell you is what, very rotund, Eagles coach Andy Reid said when asked what memory he would like erased from Philly’s last three NFC losses: “My waistline”.

Funny Drawings For The Intelligentsia

As promised here's a few links to some of my cartoons.

I've been doing Fountain Funnies for a couple of months now for the student website varsity.co.nz. Initially it was supposed to be something a bit like the wonderful Doonesbury by Gary Treadu, however along the way it became a catalogue of the indignities and triumphs of flat living. Nonetheless the political stuff does rear it's head occasionally. Have a look here, start from the bottom and work your way up.

Currently Hadyn and myself have our strip Kow and Magic Chair published weekly in The Groove Guide, a local foldout outlining gigs for the week and so on. I've whacked a few here. Have a nosey and let us know what you think. We'd really like to know if we're not the only ones who think it's funny.

Monday, January 24, 2005

What'll It Be Wanganui?

The weekend papers reported on a minor kerfuffle in Wanganui between the artist Wayne Youle and members of the local RSA. According the Herald, Derek Lessware, 71, who survived the Nazi bombing of London was outraged by Youle's "This is not a swastika nor is it a Walters" which depicts swastikas with stylised koru "bulbs" on each arm of the symbol. Mr Lessware contacted Mayor Michael Laws (who I've always thought looked like a wet cat) and urged him to remove the offending artwork from the show at the Sarjeant Gallery because:

"If there is a symbol that represents what was
wrong with the 20th century, that would be
the one."

Lessware also received support from John Campbell the national president of the RSA and the veterans' group RIMPAC.

Youle defends his work saying it was designed to highlight the way symbols are changed and twisted by different cultures. The swastika, of course, was used for hundreds of years as a symbol of good luck long before Hitler decided it would look good on his belt buckle.

I really have to throw my hands up in the air and let fly with a great big "Huh?!" The swastikas used by Youle are about as far away from Nazi swastikas as you can get. There's not a hint of the infamous red and white and they're not even tilted at an angle like the Nazi swastikas were. Yes, Mr Youle means to conjure up memories of the Nazi swastika, but even if he hadn't been as restrained and instead hung up an original 1945 Nazi flag adorned with Hitler's missing nut: so what?

Has Mr Lessware and the Jewish Council (who also threw their two cents into the brouhaha) written to Colombia Pictures to protest the use of Nazis in Hellboy? Or e-mailed Steven Speilburg to request that for the thirty-fifth anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark he remove all the Nazis and replace them with cell phones? A reasonable person might suggest that the use of Nazis in movies where they're depicted as B-reel baddies are infinitely more irresponsible than a poor Canterbury artist trying to point out how cultures colonise symbols.

But the reasonable person never makes for good copy. You could almost smell the drool in the ink on Sunday. The Herald's story began by stating that Laws had been asked to "tear down" the work which "glorifies Nazi Swastikas." I know that the first paragraph in a news story is supposed to act as bait for readers, but it is necessary to stoke the fire by being deceitful? Later in the story it's stated that Lessware asked for the work to be removed. There's a big difference between tearing something down and merely removing it. And nowhere in the piece does anyone suggest that the work glorifies Nazi Swastikas. Perhaps Mr Lessware did, but the only quotes you get from him are the sort of rabid verbal fist shaking that the news media love. Well done Mr David Fisher, you've got a long and successful career ahead of you; just keep sensationalizing every little thing that comes your way. If I was Mr Youle or the management of the Sarjeant Gallery I'd be rubbing my hands and mentally planning out the extensions to my house.

Like a cunning mandrill Laws has, despite being caught in the middle, come out without offending anyone. Today the Herald reported that Laws refused to remove "This is not a swastika nor is it a Walters" noting that there is no legal motivation to do so:

"Clearly the artist involved is out to shock and test
the bounds of good taste but that in itself is not
illegal."

He avoids raising the ire of the arts community and, thank God, drawing this crap out till we're all sick of it, but also cosys up to Lessware and the vets going: "Yeah I know, I totally agree with you, but what can ya do?" He might alienate some artists by calling the work "childish," but I think the total population of artists on the electoral roll in Wanganui levels out at five, so I don't think he's too fussed.

Meanwhile in Europe there's been talk of banning all fascist insignia. A motion to do so was blocked two years ago by Britain and Italy, but it's being resurrected by Prince Harry's choice of fancy dress up. It was a pretty stupid thing to do. I wouldn't go to a party dressed as Hitler and I'm just some punk from the street. Have you noticed though that he's heir to the throne (if he tops William), sitting on a pile of old money (the best kind) and at a stonking party with hot chicks yet he's nonetheless dancing by himself?

Friday, January 21, 2005

American Football: NFC Conference Game 2005

Most commentators are saying that Philly and the Pit are going to lose these games. Are they basing their decision on fact? On the teams' recent form? Maybe on injuries and play-by-play break-downs?

Nope. The call comes down to this. Both Philly and the Pit are Pennsylvania teams. Is there a Pennsylvania curse? In the last decade, the Steelers and Eagles have hosted six conference championships, losing five. Then again, since the current playoff format was adopted, home teams are 16-12 in conference championships, a .571 winning figure that is almost identical to the regular-season home-field advantage. It's much more worrying if you consider that Philly and the Pit have lost 7 of their last 8 conference games, reguardless of where they are

Lets look at the match-ups for real.

Atlanta Falcons at Philadelphia Eagles:

Last year, and the year before that, the Eagles lost because they couldn’t catch passes and couldn’t run. This year Freddie Mitchell is catching the ball and Todd Pinkston is too. Brian Westbrook is healthy now and is running like the Duce Staley replacement he was supposed to be.

Speaking of rushing, Warrick Dunn of Atlanta set a career playoff rushing high (106 yards) by the end of the first quarter of last weeks game against the Rams. Atlanta had set a team playoff rushing high (239 yards) by the end of the second quarter. And we all know about Mike Vick (102att-902yds this season, averaging 7.5yds).

The Eagles’ rushing defence is ranked 16^th in the league giving up an average of 118.9yds per game. So despite pundits telling the Falcons to air the ball out a bit keeping it on the ground might be the safe option. Especially if you consider that Mike Vick (passer ratting: 78.1) is not a precision-passer like Peyton Manning (121.1) or even Brian Griese (97.5) and that the Eagles passing defence is ranked 12^th, allowing only 200.8yds per game.

Philly’s game plan of throw-throw-throw might just work though. Atlanta is ranked 22^nd against the pass (can you name one Atlanta DB without looking?) and 8^th equal with Baltimore against the run.

The one factor that I think will spur on the Eagles to a victory is the fact that loosing one more NFC Championship game in a row could destroy a franchise that has just spent so much money on Jevon Kearse and Terrell Owens. What more could they do? The Eagles have the most NFC players going to the Pro-bowl; Donovan McNabb is at the peak of his career; and they showed they could beat one of the best teams and catch passes without T.O.

All I ask is that they do not annoy the Football Gods with any stupid antics like punting on 4^th and 1 from the Atlanta 30. I also hope that the Philly Cheerleaders live up to their “who needs clothes” attitude. If this happens then: “By Grabthar’s Hammer, They Will Be Avenged”!

NFL Game times on SKY

Date: Mon 24 Jan 2005 09:00AM
Duration: 180 Minutes
Channel: SKY Sport 3
Genre: Sports
Censorship: G
Synopsis: Join sky Sport for LIVE NFL coverage of the NFC Conference Final as the Atlanta Falcons take on the Philadelphia Eagles from the Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia.

Date: Mon 24 Jan 2005 12:30PM
Duration: 180 Minutes
Channel: ESPN
Genre: Sports
Censorship: G
Synopsis: NFL Playoffs - AFC Championship Game. Pittsburgh Steelers v New England Patriots from Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

There may be replays on ESPN very very late at night (~11pm).

Beware the "Ides of January"

For our northern hemisphere readers (hahaha only two days old and I assume we have readers at all!)
Beware Monday January 24!!!
This has nothing to do with terrorists.

Life in the Cubicle: part 1

As Jose’ once aptly put it, “Ah ha, do I sense the desperate fumblings of a man trapped in an office with nothing to do?”

Yes he does. Although “desperate fumblings” sounds like the type of thing high school kids do on dates. Jose’ is referring to a case I found on the internet wherein I discovered that the CE of Zespri is Tim Goodacre. Goodacre, get it? Of course you do it’s a simple agricultural connection. What may be harder is the following.

I have seen an image of Jesus in the Beehive. I am not lying. The bottom three levels (above the fat bit at the bottom which I assume is for the politicians to sit and gloat and they generally need all the gloating room they can get) yesterday were hit with just the right lights and cloud formation so as to reflect to my eyes an image of God’s son. Albeit a Jesus wearing some sort of futuristic sunglasses, but definitely some long haired guy with a goatee. Go ahead make jokes and laugh if you want, but one fact remains, I am very bored. But seriously I am not quite sure what to make of it. Does this obscure image imply the presence of a higher power or just the old ‘humans are built to see faces everywhere’ piece of psychology. What worries me most is, as I started writing the bells of the cathedral across the way have started ringing, and not just for midday. Man they are annoying. Where was I? Oh right God. If Big G is “out there” then why would he show himself through a vague representation in an ugly capital building in the Antipodes? I don’t know and maybe that’s why he’s God and I’m me. God doesn’t work from a cubicle. I’m sure Heaven Inc is open plan and everybody has those scooter things and Frappacinos.

Also yesterday I saw what at first (and first was like a minute) I thought were UFOs. I saw three glowing ovals moving in arc pattern, sort of like when a firework explodes (which was my second thought). They then floated horizontally in a strange manner; this was quite a strange thing to witness. The ‘main’ one then narrowed and I was able to see that they were in fact seagulls caught in the glow of the sunset. Side on to me their black wings were invisible and the glow was such a bright yellow I could not make out any detail (it was still hard to see them when I knew they were gulls). It is of little wonder to me now that people all over the world have seen strange things. For a brief time yesterday I believed I was seeing UFOs and that I would be branded as a mad man. As it is I will just have to be branded the madman without getting to see any UFOs.

My main thought when I saw those Gulls/UFOs was if they were actually UFOs what I would have done. Because I am currently at work this thought has returned. As a keen timewaster I used the British UFO Research Association, they were surprisingly no help. The best you can do is report it apparently.

Aliens: Greetings Earth-Man we bring technologies beyond your comprehension

Me: I will have to report this

Aliens: Er…(uncomfortable shuffling) look this was just meant to be a social thing

Me: Sorry there’s no other way

Did the Greatest American Hero “report it”? No way! With hair like that the authorities would have no choice but to lock him up. Did Richard Dreyfus report it? Yeah and look what happened to him, actually he had kinda the same hair, (this is important this means something). Maybe Jose’ you and your curly locks are destined to meet aliens. Still better you than, say, Paul Holmes (name picked at random).

Aliens: Greetings Earth-Man we bring technologies beyond your comprehension

Paul Holmes: Yes, but look, how does this affect… blah blah blah self indulgent wank blah blah balh…

Aliens: Destroy him Kremlar!

Kremlar: Yo-ho Penguin! (or words to that effect)

As you can see my train of thought has derailed somewhat.

What I think I was getting at was, I do not always have things to do at work and so I think it would be a good idea for you guys to send me stuff that I can write about mainly for mental health reasons. I do not know if this will be humorous or not, looking at what I have written more often it will be not, but it will be, and this is important, something to do. I will try to do one a day. Yeah I know, stop laughing, but I am really bored and this only took me about an hour or so. It will contain no specifics about work coz I don’t wanna get in trouble.

Ok then. I’ll see you all later then.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

First Nervous Blog

Wow,
My first blog. This is quite exciting.

I wont go into what I did during the day because, lets face it, unless you are Red Adare (RIP), your day was probably kind of dull.

I have just noticed that my old buddy Jose' pipped me to the post. So to speak.

This is because I also have a real job that not gives me money (and bandwidth to blog) but fills up what was once my spare time with, well, work.

This is just a quick "hello" by the way. Tomorrow I will post some stuff I did last year. I called it "comedy" you can call it whatever you like.

Also tomorrow my first sports column. Yay!

[José] Blogger Alienates Audience

Welcome to Grabthar's Hammer! It's a pleasure to have you here, just take off your shoes at the door and please don't touch the wall hangings. As indicated previously my personal nurse Hadyn will be using this space as a forum for American sports, specifically American football (or Gridiron as it's also called. Which term is more frequently used and therefore appropriate in causal conversation, Hade?).

As for myself I must admit a varying indifference towards sport in general (whittling being the exception). I have been known to watch a rugby game on the telly and, occasionally, a superbowl or two. But sport (televised or otherwise) was never really my thing. For the longest time I suspected my aversion to sport was the result of realising the inherent irony in flopping my morbidly obese body on a couch to watch athletic gods writhe in physical exertion, a concept which I can only appreciate in the abstract.

It was only during the America's Cup regatta of 2003 that I realised what sport was missing. As I watched Skipper Dean "Karloff" Barker watching his Cup hopes gurgle to the bottom of the ocean, it became clear why so often sport failed to arrest my attention: sport, I decided, does not make enough use of cannons.

If cannons were used to their full potential in the various sports codes of the world it would revolutionise the dynamics of human competition. America's Cup racing would no longer be the jaw-slackingly boring contest it currently is if each boat was armed with a compliment of six cannons. Instead of a competition that requires 3D computer graphics to entice the smallest spurts of excitement, we would have a titanic sea battle the climax of which would be the arousing image of a boat full of rich people sinking into the deep.

Imagine the defensive line of the Raiders forcing back the Buccaneers (their thematic enemies) with a broadside of cannon fire.

Close your eyes and muse on the sensual scenario of Kournikova lighting the fuse on a massive cannon at Wimbledon and firing a cast iron tennis ball the size of Rodney Hide's head into Capriati's face.

I think I've made my point.

So, no … yeah I won't be writing about sport. Rather I'll be continuing the fine blog tradition of pontificating about anything that takes my fancy. So expect grammatically interesting treatises on the sinister nature of perforated Salvation Army donation envelopes and several photo galleries depicting the history of French ceramics through the use of dioramas made solely from reject chupa chups.

In my next post I'll whack up some links to my various comic strips. Nice.

Grabthar's Hammer