I am NSFW (but this post is!)

So guess who accidentally wore an inappropriate t-shirt to work today?

If you guessed me (by which you meant me not you), you'd be right!*

I bought a new Cleatis Preston shirt at the Paris Texas sale yesterday. It had a cool Asian-style demon on the front wearing a truckers cap and surrounded by stereo equipment and other decoration.

Cool, I thought and, after showing Amy, innocently purchased the shirt.

Fast forward to today when I wear my brand new shirt to work. Glancing at myself in the bathroom mirror (ok, checking out my new shirt in the bathroom mirror) I notice something, the "decoration" is actually cannabis leaves! And they're all over the damn thing!

I scurry out of the office to meet Amy for lunch. I can see she's looking more closely at my shirt. "Um, is that...?" "yes" "Oh, and he's smoking a doobie too!" "what!"

That's right, the demon has a giant joint (or marijuana cigarette) hanging out of his mouth. Sigh. Hence I have been wearing my sweatshirt at work despite the warm temperatures in my office.

The shirt's artist, by the way, is a guy called Spanky from Thailand and I really like his stuff (note: my the design for my tshirt is close to the bottom)


*just to clarify it was me, not you, that wore the inappropriate shirt, unless you did too.

Bang Bang

One thing that bothers me in films is when there is a stand-off with guns (or rather one character has a gun and other does not), someone will, in order to emphasise a point, cock their gun.

Now I know nothing about guns so i have to ask: what does cocking the gun do? If it means the gun can now be fired then why was the second character worried before? If it means the gun can be fired faster then, again, what's the point? Is the difference between half a split second and a split second that noticeable in a gunfight?

I just saw this particular scene standard in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was possibly the worst use of it as the pistol involved was an old pirate version that requires the hammer to be cocked in order to fire at all. So when the scene starts the pistol is only dangerous as a blunt instrument.

So why is it always in films? Because it always has been, because it's a good expression point in the middle of a scene, because ... because ...

... actually if I could answer that I could write a formula for film cliches.

More music

In a continuation, here are the songs I listened to on my way home (not having a great day mood wise, still the sun and the rhythmic jellyfish I watched for a few minutes was very relaxing).

Real Gone Daddy by Jim Flaherty’s Caravan [Rockin Bones]

Oh Yeah! by Baby Joe [Baby Joe]

Everything Man by Talib Kweli [Ear Drum]

Happy Anniversary by Little River Band [Greatest Hits]

What’s Mine is Yours by Sleater Kinney [The Woods]

Pilots by Goldfrapp [Felt Mountain]

Whiskey Bottle by Uncle Tupelo [No Drepression]

Soul Time Strikes Back by Supergroove [Postage]

Dangerous by Busta Rhymes [Turn it Up!]

My Friend by Groove Armada [ The best of…]

Ex Factor by Lauryn Hill [The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill]

Canards versus Cuntards

I'm not in a very good mood today.

Le Canard Noir removed by quacks (story not as funny as pun suggests)

My Morning Walk

You don’t care but here is an iPod shuffle list that I had this morning on the way to work. I accidentally hit play instead of select and then instead of selecting the playlist I wanted I let the iPod decide what I should listen to. It was a good wee list too and made the morning a bit nicer.

Unguided by The New Pornographers [Challengers]

Take on Me by A-ha [Searching High and Low]

Garden by Pearl Jam [Ten]

I’m so Ronery by Trey Parker and Matt Stone [Team America: World Police soundtrack]

Stadium Blitzer by The Gourds [Stadium Blitzer]

October Song by Amy Winehouse [Frank]

Bum Like You by Robyn [Robyn]

Breath by Pearl Jam [Singles soundtrack]

Peppermint Twist by Joey Dee and the Starlighters [Billboard Top 100 1963(?)]

Anti-Gay Phone Call part 2 by Eugene Mirman [a comedy piece and well worth listening to]

Dirty Man by Joss Stone [The Soul Sessions]

Juggle Tings Proper by Roots Manuva [Brand New Second Hand]

Candy by Iggy Pop [A Million in Prizes]

If you are a pedant or a stalker you can tot up all the times of those tracks and figure out how long it took me to walk to work this morning.

I also dodged a bullet in that the next song was Central Plateau by Twinset [Flavour Country] and while I like Twinset (and they are very nice live) I just don’t like that album at all (which does beg the question, why is it on my iPod?)

Finn Higgins

Someone I know is missing, any help would be awesome.

Details at the Wellingtonista.

New Depths for Bad Remakes

I thought I’d have a listen to the “new” Thriller. Big mistake.

25 years ago, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones put together the greatest album ever. Ever. This year, as a tribute to this great accomplishment, Thriller has been re-released. And what do you do when your re-release something? That’s right you add remixes.

Perhaps it was his recent legal troubles, perhaps it was his creepy weirdness, but Jackson’s collaborations (and it does sound like he may have been in the studio for some of these) seem poorly chosen. Anyway here’s what you get:

First up you get some unreleased Vincent Price audio which is awesome, though mainly because it’s Vincent Price asking if you can “dig it?”.

The next four songs are a slog as Jackson collaborates with the worst bits of Black Eye Peas (remember when they were good?) Will.I.Am and Fergie. That tells you how good the tracks are. Will.I.Am turns The Girl is Mine into a one-sided affair where Michael Jackson sings and then Will just says how she loves how he “rocks”.

Akon shows up for Wanna be Startin’ Somethin’ and turns it into a cover which is ok, except that it’s a bad cover.

I had high hopes for the Kanye West Billie Jean remix but…it just falls short of what it shouldv’e been. And Kanye can’t help but add in his own vocals but instead of owning a verse or two he just throws in a few off hand “uh”s, “yeah”s and “number one”s.

Then the last track is For All Time. A track that wasn’t good enough for the album 25 years ago, so why add it now?

Sigh.

In the meantime I’ve also been listening to Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool. It’s much better. As is Daft Punk’s Alive 2007.

Also check out Daft Punk and Kanye West performing at the Grammys. Too fucking cool, check out the “Tron” suits.

New Depths of Bad Journalism

Unsurprisingly this comes from the Herald:

An image from Mars taken by NASA's Sprint Rover shows an image that resembles a figure walking among the planet's rocks.

A magnified version of the image has been posted on the internet. Bloggers have been debating whether the image points to evidence of alien life on the red planet.

The so-called "Martian Bigfoot" has been around for weeks now and was roundly dismissed by bloggers, not "debated". Unless you count conspiracy theory loonies.

See the Bad Astronomy Blog for all the details (also note the date of the post, Jan 21).

But Jeebus, Herald, get your shit together!

Man of the Year

“He’s connected, a good conversationalist, interesting, well-read, opinionated, accomplished, well traveled and has a healthy net worth,”

Of course you know who the above quote is about: Marc Ellis (that’s why he couldn’t spell “travelled”).

Something fishy is going on here. For the last two years Marc Ellis has been named “Man of the Year” by M2 magazine (somewhere between Maxim and GQ but for kiwis, so it’s bound to be good right?). In 2006 he was voted in by readers of M2, described as the emerging kiwi men. “Marc Ellis is not only the Best New Zealand Man as chosen by the emerging man, he’s the perfect example of one… But as past indiscretions have shown, he’s not perfect – something that helps him inspire such empathy and respect from other New Zealand men.”

And then he won again this year. In a year when Flight of the Conchords are the hottest thing in New Zealand and around the world, having won and been nominated for multiple awards including Salon.com’s Sexiest Men line-up.

Ellis’ contributions last year were to advertise his various ventures. Did he actually do anything that wasn’t just self-aggrandising stunts?

This is so wrong it’s suspicious. I’m not accusing M2 of picking Ellis for some financial reason, but I’m thinking that something is (how do you say?) up.

Then again maybe M2 just has the wrong impression of its readers: [our readers, the emerging man] will go to the cricket to have a few Tuis with his mates and hang out in the terraces, then scrub up to go to Cirque du Soleil with his wife that night and have a Heineken at the bar.

Drunks who will actively drink Tui all day and then show up drunk to a night out with “the missus” and promptly go to the bar and order a Heineken because they think it’s a fancy beer, then make “witty” comments throughout the performance. Yep, that sounds like a Marc Ellis type to me.

Invisible Ferry

Invisible Ferry
Originally uploaded by hadyn.green.

When LOLcats spill over into real life. You'll have to look very closely at the sign to pick it up