Male librarians

I got forwarded this very funny link today - 30 guys who look like lesbian women

Below are some of my favourites - Jack Osbourne, Chief Joseph and Johnny Rotten

Back in Black... Ice

The last couple of days of been listening to AD/DC's new album Black Ice on the way to work. To be blunt you could call it a standard paint-by-numbers Acca Dacca effort - the tracks could just about be off any album featuring the new vocalist, Brian Johnson. I do like how he is forever known as the 'new' vocalist - it has been 29 years since Bon Scott died and they made Back in Black with Johnson!

But hey, Black Ice and the Acca Dacca formula kinda works - so why change? Maybe too many bands try to 'evolve'? Angus still pulls out amazing new riffs and AC/DC know what they do kicks ass - so why mess with it?

Mind you, I did have a laugh at how the formula has reached over into the track names - four tracks feature the word 'rock' - Rock N Roll Train, She Likes Rock N Roll, Rock N Roll Dream and Rocking All the Way. Apparently it rocks.

Check out the track below - Skies on Fire, you'll get the idea.

The T-mobile dance

Hat tip to senor Weston for this.

T-Mobile's fantastic telly advert - give it two years and I guarantee Saatchi's come up with a 'great new idea' along the lines of this for another telco!

Watch the ad first, and the making is below it



Making of

Four years

I went looking for a video yesterday and after not being able to find anything new, I came across Spike Lee's When the Levee's Broke - which I thought would serve as a suitable reminder of how shocking the Bush administration was and how good it was to be rid of them. Turns out I was on the money.

Katrina/Rita is right up there with state sanctioned torture and unnecessary wars as the blackest marks against Bush.

It's imperative that Obama puts this right - and rebuilds the levees to the same standard as those in the Netherlands. Rachel Maddow was talking about this a few weeks back - in Holland they build them to withstand a 1 in 1000 year storm - the New Orleans levees are being rebuilt to withstand a 1 in 100 year storm. By way of example, both Katrina and Rita were 1 in 300 year storms - put simply the new levees will fail again in the face of another Katrina.

Surely as a good start a decent part of the stimulus package could go down there?

Anyway, with the wonders of Google street view you can actually take a look around the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans - see below.


View Larger Map

Now I'm not 100% sure when the street view was done - but for fuck sake its been four years! If you scroll out you realise how close it is to the middle of New Orleans. So disgusting.

Long weekends

I ended up spending the long weekend over in the Wairarapa - checked out Castle Point and the Wings over Wairarapa show which featured some very cool Red-Bull-esqe air racing... and some very ordinary commentary from Jim Hickey. Honestly he was an unwelcome blast from the past.

But anyway check it out - the old Cannon camera is still rocking it.

Voltaire and Dauth

A recent article on current blog du jour, Kiwipolitico, talking about how the fifth Labour Government shouldn't be mourned by the true left because it didn't go far enough on several issues and condoned other 'evils' such as the anti-terror raids in 2007, the Foreshore and Seabed Act and not clarifying the legislation around abortion (the latter which I hadnt picked up as an issue at all btw???) has got a few tongues wagging.

This afternoon I was listening to a podcast of Air America radio which had a talkback piece on whether President-elect Obama was smart to be so inclusive of the right. One of the callers basically said because of some of Obama's appointments of republican figures - he was bad and his presidency will be a wasted opportunity. Essentially the same premise as the criticism that Kiwipolitico was making.

One of my previous bosses would often pull out his favourite Voltaire quote - The perfect is the enemy of the good. Like the host on Air America (who attributed it to his mother!?) who used it in the Obama context - I feel that it fits this argument around the fifth Labour Government.

What I think Voltaire was getting at was that attaining perfection becomes infinitely more difficult the further you go along. There are always going to be the unseen fish-hooks, pot-holes etc etc that trip you, so at some point, you have to cut your losses, and realise that doing tangible 'good things' is actually better than continually traversing a seemingly neverending road towards some sort of utopian perfection. If it's 'good enough' (so to speak) - then get on with it.

Was Labour perfect? Absolutely not. But it's simplistic to say that it was a government of missed opportunities just because Clark sometimes took a pragmatic approach rather than seeking leftist-perfection. The reality is, we now have the savings scheme that we should have had for over 30 years, we have an infinitely fairer tertiary student loans system, the lowest unemployment rates for nigh on a generation - especially amongst Maori and Pacific Islanders, cheaper and more accessible primary healthcare, a new pride in what it means to be a New Zealander, probably the most significant investment in infrastructure for 50 years and so on.

Sure it wasn't perfect - but it was pretty bloody good.

Cactus in the Gardens

It is big time actually. Following in the footsteps of the likes of the Uke orchestra, Holly Smith, Little Bushman etc etc, Adam and Sam's band - The Family Cactus played the Botanic Gardens tonight as part of the Summer City series. They have stepped up a notch since I last saw them at Mighty Mighty a month or two back - he's clearly been working on his Thom Yorke wail too! lol

Anyway it was a pretty cool gig and check me out - below is a short video I took - apologies for quality etc etc

Incinerate

As an indication that I didn't expect the Koromiko Chainsaw Garden Massacre to be particularly exciting I unfortunately didn't bother to take a before image prior to the rampage. How short sighted was I?

As you can see with a shitload of cutting, swearing, digging, ripping and waterblasting - its come up ok.

Prior to the thunder being brought down on the front yard there was a mammoth flax bush and several other weeds, trees, and that fucking creeper. Basically it was sooo overgrown that the path in the foreground was totally covered as was much of the other concrete areas. The oddest bit had to be discovering an incinerator right out front? Now it's not quite an ancient inca temple nor was there the feeling of exhilaration that one might feel when opening an Egyptian tomb - but still... an incinerator!

Baarghh you people! Anyway to celebrate the great incinerator discovery - have a watch of Sonic Youth's Incinerate from the album Rather Ripped - great song!

What about gay marriage?

An informational filim from 23/6

Some resolutions

Ok so we're back - resuming transmission for 2009. Not that I've really been anywhere or had any great reason for not updating the bloggage, but I have been feeling somewhat bad/lazy on some level (no really...) for not having gotten around to doing any updates.

I have been kinda busy... well there has been golf, stuffing my face, beer drinking and a mixture of b-grade and actually good dvds as well as some constructive activities - ripping out a creeper, waterblasting, painting, ripping out half the garden and so on.

So I thought I would make my first update a resolution one. I don't normally do resolutions so I have made them relatively straight forward. Here they are as follows -

actually finish the house off - replace the shit-spewing drains and the kitchen in other words

complete that bet with Nick

oh and stop using the edge of the kitchen bench to open beer bottles with crown caps... as pictured.

Simple right?