Time and place

Today was of course ANZAC Day which saw lots of people get up in the early hours to attend dawn services. I missed the services this year to watch Sri Lanka slaughter NZ in the Cricket World Cup semi finals. Over the last few years there seems to have been a growing interest in remembering our war-dead and the deeds of our forefathers (as Americans would call them!).

However this year the Wellington Dawn Services was disrupted by idiot protestors who reportedly blew a horn through the speeches and one set fire to a New Zealand flag. Naturally like most extremist protests they had mixed messages as to what they were protesting, and were frankly ill-informed.

The protest was organised by rent-a-protest group Peace Action Wellington (that nutty American woman leads them) and a new group Radical Youth (how very). They were protesting (and I quote) "New Zealand's War Machine" and how they had "invaded" Afghanistan, Timor Leste (East Timor) and the Solomon Islands and also protesting that "Sedition" should be removed as a criminal offence.

Firstly, Timor Leste only exists as a nation because of the work New Zealand and Australia put in, and the force we sent there - it would still be part of Indonesia if we hadn't gotten involved FFS. Secondly the other two "invasions" by our "War Machine" are actually UN sanctioned Peacekeeping missions - aimed at reconstructing the two nations. Retards. What should NZ have done instead? Left the Solomons in turmoil? Just stand on the sidelines like Switzerland turning a blind eye to injustices?

What pisses me off more though is their timing. Frankly I don't care if people want to protest anything and everything the government does (or doesn't do). But how dare you use a solemn occasion like a dawn service to pull off some lame stunt like they did. The New Zealand forces in both World Wars made the ultimate sacrifice for us and to act like such ignorant fools in front of veterans make me sick.

If you want a laugh - go and read about our vicious "War Machine" on their daft site here

Dare I say it - Farrar actually had quite a good idea - locking the leader of Peace Action Wellington in a room with Fred Phelps (the extreme right-wing US "Rev" who goes around protesting the funerals of US servicemen - as the US army now allows gays - so all servicemen deserve to die). Farrar's right - what's the difference? Phelps aptly named website is here - godhatesfags.com

Empire Australia's 100

Empire Australia have done their 5-yearly top 100 all time films. These always tend to be dominated by the two trilogies - Rings and Jedi, but hey they're still fun.

I dont agree with much of this top 100, the top 10 is a little obvious and some of the films that missed out should have easily be in there - Raging Bull, The Graduate, Chinatown, Fargo, Easy Rider, Exorcist, Trainspotting hell even Blue Velvet missed out!

So here goes the top 20 of Empire Australia's 100 all time films 07 (2002 result in brackets)

20. Back to the Future
19. Fight Club
18. A Nightmare on Elm St
17. Braveheart
16. Grease
15. The Godfather
14. LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
13. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl
12. American Beauty
11. The Matrix
10. Goodfellas (2002 - Shawshank)
9. Amelie (2002 - Gladiator)
8. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (2002 - The Godfather)
7. LOTR: Return of the King (2002 - Titanic)
6. Donnie Darko (2002 - Empire Strikes Back
5. A Clockwork Orange (2002 - Silence of the Lambs)
4. Aliens (2002 - The Matrix)
3. The Shawshank Redemption (2002 - Pulp Fiction)
2. Pulp Fiction (2002 - Schindlers List)
1. Star Wars: A New Hope (2002 Star Wars: A New Hope)

And the stats! (the best bit)
Number of Empire 100 films I have seen - 85 (Ive seen the whole top 20)
Number of Best Picture Oscar Winners - 20 (Note Return of the King is the only top 10 film to win this)
Number of Best Director Oscar Winners - 18
Number of films by decade - 00s - 21, 90s - 22, 80s - 25, 70s - 18, 60s - 5, 50s - 4, 40s - 3, 30s - 2
Actor with most films on the list - Harrison Ford (6)
Director with most films on the list - James Cameron and Steven Spielberg (4)
Number of new entries compared to 2002 - 38

Nevermind the Sex Pistols Here's the Bollocks

While grazing in Slow Boat Records yesterday the wonderful staff put on a new album by California band, Artichoke - which on the basis of hearing two tracks, I bought!

As you can see from the cover - its a full cover version of the Sex Pistols seminal Nevermind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols - in a kind of folk music style!

Their version of Anarchy in the UK is what sealed the deal for me - listen to a sample here. God Save the Queen is also an absolute ripper - sample here

Fantastic - check it out!

Armageddon

While on comic books etc, I went along to the annual Armageddon Expo at the TSB Arena today. Naturally I bought some merchandise that I didnt necessarily "need" but hey its all good! I picked up a hard-copy version of Frank Miller's 300, and a Voltron t-shirt. Kick ass

Also while there I wasted nearly an hour listening to the Q and A session with Billy Dee Williams. Billy Dee who? you ask?? Lando Calrissian from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi thats who. Frankly the guy's a nutter. Apparently there was life after Lando (although his IMDB file might beg to differ) Lady Sings the Blues was "very sucessful" and then there was his art, and fragrances which he spoke at length about. Yeah, he claimed he had a fragrance a few years back and is "going to work on another" his first was as popular as Liz Taylor's Obsession (sic - I think he means Passion). He was entertaining on one answer - Q. Were you annoyed that you didnt get to use a light-sabre? A. No because I had a cape! Other than that he was incredibly boring and un-interesting so much so - we were literally laughing out loud at how painful it was!

Anyway not a bad one overall and less smelly than previous years - so every cloud eh?! (normally the abundance of teenage geeks tends to create a somewhat unpleasant aroma).

Prepare for Glory!!

Last night I checked out a film that after seeing the trailer some time ago I wasnt that excited about. Oh how wrong I was.

300 absolutely rules and kicks the living shit out of Gladiator! Stylish, beautiful, brutal I think best describes it.

Of course 300 is the famous (and true) story of the Battle of Thermopylae (of course if you dont know the story clicking that link could be a spoiler). Spartan King, Leonidas, lead only 300 men against around 2 million persians under Emperor Xerxes. Now its true there were only 300 Spartans, but modern consensus says there were around 6000 Greeks in total - the Spartans did lead them though and pretty much all that was left in the end.

Anyway Thermopylae is still looked at as the way for a small force to defend itself against a large army. Basically the Spartans positioned themselves in "the hot gate" at Thermopylae, which is essentially a gorge. They drew the Persians into the thin gorge, where the huge size of their numbers didnt matter.

Of course this film is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel (comic book), and while it obviously glamourises a lot of the action, and is pro-Spartan, you really appreciate the heroic element of the battle, and the idea of serving one's state before oneself.

I thought this was a great telling of one of the great heroic stories. I definitely recommend it.

Thats not mine... honest

Oh how unfortunate, the "suspicious" package that caused a bomb scare at the Auckland Airport international mail centre actually turned out to be a "harmless" sex-aid.
Herald story here

And in other news (and you know its funny) Heather Mills, formerly Mrs Paul MacCartney fell over during her routine on the US version of Dancing with the Stars (her latest money-making venture). Thats karma baby!
Stuff story here

Lastly, John Key showed his hypocritical side this morning on bFM in his interview with Mikey Havoc. Havoc was actually pretty good on the smacking bill stuff, but it was the party pills where Key really shone. Apparently we should ban them now as BZP is bad. However three or four weeks ago they were all the rage with Matt Bowden, the main party pill lobbyist in NZ "popping" up in almost all the gossip column photos of Key's fundraiser in Auckland for hip-young under 40 year olds. One can only assume that Matt didnt offer enough of a donation?
Listen to the bFM interview via Scoop here

You daft racist

The good old Herald eh? Their frontpage headline is a classic today (unfortunately theyve obviously realised so I can't link to a web version).

"Gunman who killed 32 people was a Chinese Immigrant"

The gunman behind the deadliest shooting rampage in American History may have been a 24 year old Chinese man....."

No he wasn't. Try Korean- or are asians all the same? Why not go the whole hog and just say "Chinaman" instead?

God we have a lazy media.

And then there were four

Havent been on here for a couple of days - been too busy with the Wii! Let me just say the Godfather game is a hell of a lot of fun. Nothing like beating the living shit out of virtual people huh?!?!

Anyway I realised this morning that I had neglected to talk about the great Cricket tournament that is rapidly drawing to a climax at the moment. Here goes!

The real Cricket World Cup begins now as we enter the knockout phase - New Zealand still has one game to go (against Australia) before the semis which we have already qualified for. We're pretty much through all the bullshit rounds, and left with only the games that matter.

England were again an embarassment this morning getting done by an underperforming South African team in what was effectively a quarter final. Meaning the top four will be Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

All going well we will overcome Sri Lanka, in the semis - they have stars but overall NZ is a better balanced side so I think we should win and then in theory we will face Australia again in the final.

Australia are of course head and shoulders above everyone else as favourites, but they arent unbeatable. If we forget about how great they are focus on the fact that we can beat them and that in reality we are only two good games of cricket away from being World Champions.

As the Chappell Hadlee series proved - anything can happen in the crazy nonsensical great game!

A moment of madness?

In one of those spur of the moment decisions that will shock some people - Ive entered the world of gaming... well kind of. Ive bought a Nintendo Wii!

What's more - I love it! Ive only played the free sports games that came with it so far, but loving the boxing and tennis. I got owned in the golf by a friend of mine though. Still, Ive recorded 5 knock outs in the boxing - 5-0 win-loss record so far! Kick ass.

Big ups to Nintendo too for broadening the gaming market by coming up with a console that anyone can use!

Im loving the Wii. If you havent tried one or hate conventional gaming consoles (like me!) I definitely urge you to check it out - You look like a prick jinking and jiving around your living room pulling off mac-daddy aces in the tennis - but its sooo much fun.

You just know its gonna be good

LaToya, Tito and Jermaine Jackson are going to be judges on some new show in the states based on American Idol - but looking for the next "family act". Brilliant! Michael and Janet aren't involved though... unless of course youre counting LaToya as Michael - It is a little hard to tell the difference!

Jermaine is my favourite Jackson, he's the one who always gives his opinion and "the family side" when ever Michael/LaToya or Janet fuck something up, he also looks like he sprays Armour-all on his face. Thats what we need on TV!

Top 5 Beatles albums

Angus laid down another of his challenges today - top 5 Beatles Albums, so here we go. Starting at number 1.

Chuck Maurice

Hat tip to the Spare Room for finding this little gem!

Jeans designed to have an extra hidden gusset between the legs so you can kick people in the face more easily! If only Chris had these back in 1994 - his huge round house on that poor little 8 year old might have come off and wouldnt still be a laughing stock to this day!

I just know Angus is cracking up in Japan just thinking about the roundhouse!

The Worst of Wellington

Todays Dominion has a feature on the Worst Buildings in Wellington. Most of them I agree with so I thought I would list them here with some of the comments from the paper and of course a few of my own!

11. Circa Theatre (adjacent to Te Papa), criticised for having its back to the city, and not making use of its 360 degree site. To be fair the new paint job makes it look worse than it did originally and I think there are worse buildings - the Museum Hotel! (Disagree)

9th Equal. Environment House and Defence House, these are awful and completely lack any sort of design at all - brand spanking new and are basically just boxes with windows - missed opportunities. (Agree!!!)

8. Lyall Bay Megacentre, I disagree with this, its better that buildings of this kind (Warehouse etc) are tucked away in an industrial area like this - if it were closer to the city I would agree but in this case its harmless. (Disagree)

7. Renaissance Apartments, these are probably better known as the weird plain box style apartments on top of Burger King in Manners Mall. So plain and boring on top of a stunning building. (Agree)

6. Galleria on Tory, the ugly building tacked on top of Harvey Norman and the gym. The balconies have picket fences - ridiculous. (Agree)

4th Equal. Marickian and City Lodge Apartments, ugly box-like characterless structures built very cheaply - targetting students. Cheap and nasty the sad thing is there are plenty of other examples - the ones next to the Southern Cross! (Agree)

3. Courtenay Apartments, you will know this by sight if not by name - the ugly mint green apartment building with its crude attempt at blending in with the heritage listed building below. Prime site - awful building. (Agree!!)

2. Queen's Wharf Events Centre and Shell Office Complex (previously the Retail Centre), I always think criticism of this is a little harsh - yes its not pretty as such, but neither are the old sheds in the same area! I like the way Shell are using the old retail centre as their NZ Head Office - all open plan, very cool. Still this could have been built elsewhere, or at least built in a way that wasn't quite so inward looking. (Agree but further down the list - Overseas terminal is worse)

1. Wellington City New World, criticised for being built the wrong way around. If you swapped the carpark and building around you would have a direct view from the Basin to the waterfront. Poor use of space, plain characterless warehouse on a huge prime site, just blocking views. A supermarket could have easily been incorporated into the bottom of another development. Just plain ugly. (Agree!)

A joke that got peoples heckles up

I just read an interview in this week's Listener with Ana Samways of the Herald's Sideswipe column and the Spare Room blog (see the links column in the side bar) . In the interview she tells a joke that apparently led to all sorts of outraged emails and letters - I thought the joke was fantastic.

Here goes: Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail, and with his odd diet he suffered from bad-breath.

This made him a super-callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Apparently Gandhi jokes are a bit of a no-go area!

Pretty intense

I finally got to see Guillermo del Toro's much heralded Pan's Labyrinth last night at the Penthouse. Frankly I was blown away. It wasn't entirely what I was expecting - I was thinking it would be something 'magical' and a little Jim Henson-ish - kind of like Labyrinth. But this was on a whole other level.

Such intensity, I was litterally rivetted to the seat. This is an absolute must-see and makes a mockery of the Oscars - how on earth this didnt win Best Foreign Language Film I dont know - let alone Best Picture!.

At the other end of the spectrum I also recently saw Jonathan King's black-comedy/horror - Black Sheep. The trailer calls it the "Violence of the Lambs" - its kind of like Shaun of the Dead but on a NZ sheep farm - and with sheep as the Zombies. The effects were of course done by Weta. Hillarious - and very New Zealand, I really enjoyed it.

And finally yesterday I revisited a classic Aussie film - Hercules Returns. Its the story of a guy who buys a Cinema, and on opening night his competition sabotage everything by organising an Italian language version of the film Hercules. So the projectionist, cinema owner and their PR woman get a microphone and improvise the script. Its hillarious with characters like Labia from the town of Chlamydia and her lover Testiculi. IMDB calls it "Pant wettingly hiarious".

So on the whole three pretty good films. Pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Attention, attention all personnel

I went for a walk today down what can only be described as the coolest road in probably the whole world. (castle! radar! big fucking birds!)

I did the three km walk from the Brooklyn Windmill up to the Hawkins Hill Radar to mark Easter Monday (well kind of) - Anyway pics below








(Full marks to anyone who got the lame reference in the title - it's a Radar station and Radar used to say that on M*A*S*H.... oh forget it!)

Off to the Flicks

A new - New Zealand based film site has been launched - Flicks.co.nz and it actually looks pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

To mark the launch they are asking people to log in an list their most loved and most hated films. They have also asked high profile NZers to do the same - Helen said her favourite film was The Motorcycle Diaries, but she didnt name a film that she hates. John Key on the other hand picked an absolute cracker for his favourite - Johnny English. I kid you not. His most hated film - The Exorcist (probably one the best horrors ever).

One little gem that I did find on the site was this - deleted scenes from Borat! - you have to check out the Sexy-Drown-Watch piss-take of Baywatch. Fair to say both Borat and his manager feature running in that swim suit.

Anyway, make sure you log on and list your favourite films.

My Favourites:
Amelie, The Big Lebowski, Do the Right Thing, The Godfather Part I, Sling Blade, Trainspotting, Pulp Fiction, Dr Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, Chasing Amy.

My Most Hated:
Titanic, Magnolia, Mullholland Drive, Battlefield Earth, Tombstone.

A poll of sorts

I got an email this morning from Barack Obama. Well me and probably thousands of other people! But anyway I like this news style of "e-campaign" where the candidate "emails you" with an update of how things are going - and asking you to "join with them" (read - give some money!). Essentially its just a regular email newsletter - but from a voters point of view - it reads way better.

Senator Obama was just letting me know that they have raised over US$25million towards the campaign - an incredible amount of money! 23.5 of this is eligible to be used in the primary campaign. As an indication of how huge these numbers are - at the same point in the 2000 campaign, Al Gore had raised US$8.9 million.

How this compares to others is almost like a poll if you will. Heres how they stack up. (all USD)
Hillary Clinton (D) - 26 million
Barack Obama (D) - 25 million
Mitt Romney (R) - 23 million
Rudy Giuliani (R) - 15 million
John Edwards (D) - 14 million
John McCain (R) - 12.5 million

What makes Obama's haul all the more impressive - is that there were twice as many people giving money than any other campaign. Over 100 000 people gave to the Obama campaign, Hillary was next best with just over 50 000. Some other stats - over 5000 community meetings have been held for the Obama campaign, 50 per cent of their donations were online.

This is fantastic "grassroots" campaigning by Obama, and I continue to be impressed!

To finish I'll leave you with some words from Obama's email

"This milestone for our campaign proves something I learned as a community
organizer long ago: that together a whole lot of ordinary people can achieve
something extraordinary."

On this day - "free at last"

Just watching Campbell Live, they did their "on this day" thing - and I thought todays was worth acknowledging - in 1968, on this day Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee. So to mark the day - here's some words from his most famous speech in August 1963.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

"This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."

Not sure what the term is?

What sort of person would get their recently deceased father's ashes, mix them up with cocaine and snort it?

Apparently the lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones is the sort of person. Article here

Is there a term for that? Necro-crack?

The Reynolds

I finally got around to getting the free John Reynolds work from the Free NZ Art exhibition block mounted - and im pretty happy with the results!

Ive put it up in my office which given what it says (pictured) and its caused a few laughs etc around the office - and the boss got a kick out of it so thats a pretty good result too I guess.

More information on the philosopher - Soren Kierkegaard

Apologies for the picture quality, but it was only taken on my phone.

PS. Was anyone else shocked that Chris hasn't fallen for the story below?

Google continues the revolution

You may have seen this already if you use Gmail. Anyway Google have just launched another fantastic new feature on Gmail - Gmail Paper. Its basically a hard-copy version of your email that Google will send out to you for free. A great idea, especially for people who still like to receive proper physical mail. (and its environmentally friendly!)

Check it out here