I want my MTV

I miss C4, but at the moment there is a programme on called Coco Lounge, playing a selection of video favourites. I’ve heard Cyndi Lauper, Deelite, B52s, and a few other classics. OK overplayed classics, but better than religious programming. The selections sound eerily familiar because I think the VJ is the same guy who was playing at the RSA last night. There was a disco ball, and a number of unashamedly gay anthems playing as if we needed more proof that the army is totally camp. The one thing I found particularly intriguing about the venue was the chalk board outside, advertising Prince Charles on Friday night. Or was it Saturday? Bears investigation.
Also worth further examination is an utterly trashy show they played this evening about 10pm. It was called moonlight, and was all about a vampire private investigator. It was not quite up to the giddy standards of my most favouritetist vampire policing show Forever Knight, but it could be a viable late night but I don't want to go to bed option. Anything beats infomercials that don't feature Chuck Norris or the Slam Man dance crew.

More is more

I am going to have to consider buying some music while I am here, but I don’t know that the stores will stock the type of glorious variety that I have enjoyed at some of the fine local establishments. I knew a number of people would be jealous when I told them about the Island style remix of I want to break free. How appropriate it was that it was at that moment the gentleman in speedos decided to cut loose to the bar to order his beach side cocktail. Freedom indeed.

Twins

If I needed further proof that I will never escape Dunedin I have found it. Doppelgangers. So far I have seen what looks like a number of former Arc employees, and Forbes gunning it down main street on a scooter. If I see a Regantard and a doof explosion my life will be complete.

Club Tropicana

Most people who know me were surprised that I decided to go to Rarotonga. You can’t wear a coat in Rarotonga they cried! It’s full of nature! What will you do there?
Well I’ve found I could probably get away with wearing a coat but I am bemused by the other points. Indeed, there is a lot of nature and I don’t think I am appreciating it as much as I am supposed to. Today, for instance, I went for a walk along a beach. I was most put out that my feet got wet and sandy, something you don’t get from looking at the travel brochure images. If this had happened in Dunedin I expect I would have squealed like a stuck pig, but the water was pretty warm so I dealt with it, merely shaking my fist at the sea once. The scenery does look like a post card, all designer blues with contrasting white, oh all right, pale beige sand. Thank heavens the tourists helped kill the feeling that I was in an extended tv advertisement for the Cook Islands. They came straight out of Benidorm. Upon entering grounds of The Point, a glorious dining establishment & resort, I was treated to a middle aged man flaccid on a banana lounger at the pool side. When seated at our table there was a panorama of slightly dumpy, pale tourists and their crispier counterparts strapping it all up into bikinis and thongs, reclining for all their worth in front of the beach (but fenced apart from it).
So with the strains of kill all the white men in mind I trudged along the beach. It all seems a bit profligate doesn’t it? Walking for pleasure? I am used to scuttling to places desperately trying to make sure I am not late. People are more interesting than scenery as a rule. I am such a non-entity I can usually observe to my heart’s content. Yet today I couldn’t help but think I was being watched as much as I was watching. I filled the role of flabby undesireable, an anaemic blot on the beach frontage the resort goers paid $400 or so a night to enjoy (No children allowed). Oh well, I guess I was out of the way quickly.
Tomorrow there will be a cruise ship in so I expect that will make me look comparatively fabulous.

Wild turkey chicken

I had been warned, but words cannot describe the feeling evoked when that first rooster sets in chain a call and response/Mexican wave of crowing outside my window. The ball firmly lodged in another’s side of the court a volley is set in place with a strangled deflating version which is somehow indicative of masculine, roosterly dominance. Yeah, bet all the honeys dig it. The cow apparently does, because it too is adding lusty vocals.

You may be wondering, where are the oversexed farmer’s sons -sons of the soil- Seth and Ruben?

Oh, another rooster, striking back with a telling blow. A double crow. The interloper from around the other side of the house must be on the ropes and reeling.

House guest rules

It’s always a bit disconcerting being a guest. I am very much used to all my gadgets and accoutrements to hand so there is always something to do. I have a stable of flatmates to converse with, and when they don’t want to converse it’s ok, I know that I damn well pay amenities and I don’t have to leave. But being a visitor…I have to be on best behaviour. I can’t sit staring into space as I usually do, in case someone thinks they need to suggest entertainments for me. It’s Sunday, and everything is closed. Almost everything actually, the Raro fried chicken outlet is open 24/7, for any chicken emergencies. I don’t think there is a lot I can do to get out from underfoot. Let’s face it, guests are irritating for the most part so it’s difficult not to feel like an imposition. Surely the hosts have better things to do on their days off than take yet another person to see the same sights they took the last person to see? Aside from that, I have not been very urbane, witty, or charming so I guess I will have to try to up the game for the rest of the week.

Megatropolis

Today I skulked along into town for some souvenir shopping. There is something weird about being set in a tourist area; all of a sudden you get a feral impulse to purchase purchase purchase! What, not everyone has a crappy item yet? Well, let me get them a face cloth from Rarotonga! The real problem is that if you buy something for one person you begin to get guilt for not buying a shitty item for everyone else. Then you get buyer’s remorse when you think that it will likely sit, unwanted, collecting dust. Still, didn’t seem to hinder anyone else in their fever of consumption so I joined the tadpole race of obese tourists clogging up the arterial routes of town. Didn’t find anything for myself thankfully, so the bomb of ephemera will scatter throughout Dunedin sparing my room.
As a special treat we attempted to source food in a local café, in a stroke of originality called The Café. We got so far as to have our frothy flat whites, but sadly the island lifestyle was to the detriment of our ordered food. The order was lost somewhere in between table and counter so, alas, it never made it. No doubt to wizened old surfey waiter had more important things to think about, like the bodacious waves and the tatas on some of the honeys in the café. Or perhaps the music just had him rocking out too hard – Straightjacket Fits and the Mockers? Too much, almost, even for me.

Deadline

I have been promising, or threatening people with this for ages so here it is, finally. The Deadline article that disturbed me. It is rendered even more disturbing by the fact he took it out of the vaults and reprinted it. See for yourselves:

As it turns out, Tana Umaga was not the only one having trouble with his ‘man bags’ this week. Having ended my delivery day at the end of a long week I quickly put down my two ‘man bags’ used for my delivery (large leather sacks of a non descript nature, of equal proportions and weight, that I love to swing around). I then elected to have an Emersons (Dunedin’s real beer) or three before moving off home. Or at least that was the plan. At this point, unbeknownst to me, things began to go wrong. While stopping off at a bar to undertake my one last job for the day I let my man bag hang down at my feet some where in the depths, where all is dark and gloomy and it pays not to look down.

In an equally dim lit (or if you prefer intimate) environment I became engrossed in the curse of all mankind – text messaging. Fuelled by not enough to eat, a beer too many and the startling discovery that I no longer have 20/20 vision I inevitably sent a highly embarrassing text to the wrong person. To be precise, one of my business clients. Attempts to rectify the situation and convince said client that I was not a sex starved Australian cricketer were only made worse as I had sent them half the intended message so even my apology was not making much sense. It was at this crisis point (after moving out of the bar having grabbed my ‘two’ man bags roughly, without looking) that I got a tap on the shoulder. A rather irate gentleman was understandably not impressed by the fact that I ad just walked off with his partner’s bag, a large black leather sack, of nondescript nature roughly the same size as the man bag I drooped over my shoulder.

Escorted back to the bar by some codger convinced that he had nabbed the leader of an international man bag burgling ring, I was not overly worried, believing that when we got back to the bar the finding of my other man bag, where I had left it, would make it clear to Inspector Clueso that it had been a genuine mistake. It is, however, at this point that the more astute readers will realize why I talk of putting down my ‘man bags’ at Inch, but make no use of the plural when describing how I entered the second bar. Yes in the interim I had become just like Hitler who as legend has it only had one man bag. Luckily however having managed to call the bartender at Inch and secure the fact that my second bag was not a work of fiction, combined with the mediation skills of the bartender and the not so hostile members of the offended party, I managed to escape being lynched, by my…er, man bags.

The moral of the story is clear; never take your eyes of your man bags. Try not to do anything too complicated when you have yet to stash your man bags some where secure. If you do find yourself drunkenly fondling some one else man bags in a darkened environment be sure at least to know their first names beforehand to save you from embarrassment later. Yet, in the end if all else fails and the cops do get called, take a leaf from Umaga and put you’re an bags on Ebay. At least that’s one way to pay the court fines or meet some new friends.

And That’s The Bottom Line

I don’t know where begin on this, so I shall not even start at the moment. I typed it up as it appeared in the paper, and the irregularities in expression, italics and grammar are not mine. Don’t know what that story about Umaga selling the bag on Ebay is about either.

Shortland Street

So it is a couple of weeks behind here, but the boy racer story line is completely gripping hee hee hee

Friends

Cook Islands television. I knew that we could not always have the glorious Miss Tahiti contest televised every night, but the pickings are slim. Looks like Friends is on tonight instead. Maybe I need to go back to reading Biggles? It's a pretty gripping point in the story. Will he manage to evade the Germans this time? What is that rascal Von Stahlein up to? At any rate, the computer is about to overheat so I better chisel myself away from the internet.

Oh sweet internet.

Man, I'm one of those sucky tourists who just sits in the hotel and does nothing to immerse themselves in local culture. Pretty much like most of the other tourists here. Never mind, maybe tomorrow I will start the ultra consumer binge. Any requests?

Airports

Are a great place for people watching. Auckland seemed filled with uncomely honeymooners leading me to fear for our future generations. I confess, sometimes the idea of eugenics both thrills and excites me. When I was trying to heave myself from the domestic terminal to the international one I was stuck behind a footballers’ wives wannabe bint, bitching loudly into her cellphone at some lucky man. Their children, Merlot, Amuretta and Tyrone, will no doubt be more attractive than the ordinary but have a fatal weakness for tanning salons and bleach. I can just imagine them all whining in unison.

Entertainment, Raro style

This evening we escaped the one channel of television viewing. Of course we were back in time for Shortland Street, but we dodged some of the Sunday Christian viewing. In preference we went to watch a plane take off at the airport. This seems to be a local hobby, much like watching when ships wash up on, or attempts are made to rescue ships on the reef. The airport security is pretty casual so the view was panoramic. Many people licked a finger to try to ascertain wind direction (so they could knowledgably predict the direction the plane would take off in). Some even waved, and I am happy for the passengers on the plane that they could not see the pilots wave back.

Then I waited for the impassioned bus driver/ scooter drivers to hurl themselves vent-a-terre racing the plane, just like in Top Gun, and maybe the end credits when the plane took off. But that didn’t happen and no-one told Iceman that he could be wingman anytime.

Busy busy bee

A number of things have stood in the way of my adequate dispatch of blogger duties. There have been tantrums about trade me, accommodation manoeuvres, gainful employment . Not least among my distraction has been packing for Rarotonga. Ever the optimist I have dragged along a lot of gear, including my computer. It has all backfired a bit though, I had anticipated a free for all wireless connection, or a router I could just plug into. No such luck, so I just have to annoy the people I am staying with and use their computer. Shame, I had typed a few updates already on my computer. I guess I will post them eventually anyway. In the mean time, I have seen a lot of obese people on scooters, and realised that ex-pat life here seems to be rather casual - we are going for drinks on Monday! Outrageous.

Let you all know when I turn native.

South seas paradise

Last call

Final episode of the Prisoner. So sad, so bereft. But it isn't all horror, for I have located the Avengers, which shall be a comfort in my time of need.

Teacake, Teacake, TEACAKE!

Who said economics and taxation weren't exciting?
That really takes the cake?
That's the way the cookie crumbles?
It'll be a bun fight I tell ya?
Icing on top?
Was the announcement made by a crumpet?
Stud muffin?

Baked buttery goods mumblemumblemumble

Yep, looking forward to the next season

So, evidently is Brett.


Image found on Evil Beet Gossip, looks like a rich trawling ground there.

Ewwwwwwwww!

No Brett! They won't both be your girlfriend, and I don't understand what the appeal of Heather is. Heather, of the nuclear yellow frock, bouffant "fuck me hair" " (hell no, it'd break) and stillettos?
Actually, considering Brett Michaels I am more surprised he considered the other.
Hang on...
I was just looking for an image and stumbled upon a spoiler. Oh well. You will have seen it by now anyway. How could Heather not have won? She looks like Brett Michaels. What with the wonders of modern television maybe she IS Brett Michaels. Except with smaller jowels.
Oh well, happy blood sugar level disasters guys, and thank the lord all kissing footage will end hereon in. Wave your lighters to the beat, finally Every Rose Has Its Thorn will be played to completion.
Glad Heather got the last word though. She is such a trashy bitch, but boy does she tell it like it is. I suppose she will have gone onto a successful career from this anyway.

You'll usually find me hanging round the hall/ toilet at parties

You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties lyrics

I'm no good at chatting up and I always get rebuffed.

Enough to drive a man to drink I don't do no washing up.

I always reached the stuff piled up

a-piled up in the sink.



But you will always find him in the kitchen at parties.



Me and my girlfriend we argued and she ran away from home.

She must have found somebody new and now I'm all alone



Living in my own. What am I supposed to do?



That's why always find him in kitchen at parties.

you will always find him in the kitchen at parties.

You will always find him in the kitchen at parties.



Then I met this debutante I said I like new wave rock.

She was into french cuisine but I ain't no cordon bleu.

This was at some do in palmers green

I had no luck with her.



You will still find him in kitchen at parties.

You will still find him in kitchen at parties.



At last I met a pretty girl she laughed and talked with me.

We both walked out of the kitchen and danced in a new way.



And now I've done my time in the kitchen at parties.

I've done my time in the kitchen at parties



He's done his time in the kitchen at parties.

He's done his time in the kitchen at parties.

Sir Bob

First of all, isn't it funny how name fashions change? It's been in my mind a little lately. Well, the post previous. And on the weekend I heard the song "da doo ron ron ron" or whatever the hell it's called. It has the line Somebody told me that his name was Bill. At which the whole room launched into a discussion of what a turn off that was. Or my name, for instance. I am fortunate to have the sopriquet that was the most popular name for girls in the states, 1975-1985 or there abouts. Will it be that in a couple of decades time my name will be synonymous with nana? Well, it will be refreshing change from its current overtones of vapid slag.
But I want to take a moment to celebrate the success of a man who transcended an unfortunate name, an unfortunate look, and an unfortunate predilection for bevvies. Let us celebrate sir Rob Muldoon for services to the Rocky Horror Show, late night scary TV and the beautification of NZ politics.
I give you Sir Bob.

New Zealand's answer to Macchiavelli.

Overheard in Dunedin III

"You didn't hear it from me" *flamboyant hand gestures* "but Layton just balloons! Poor thing." Ah huh huh huh huh huh!

Body fascist post

I am watching TV because I have been assigned a job. I am to video prison break. I have never watched prison break, I saw enough Wentworth in Mariah Carey video clips. But in the run up to the show I noticed the following:
-David Boreanaz has piggy current eyes
-Daniel Craig has creepy eyes, like a sea gull
-Everyone in prison has a mighty man-sized jaw
-News presentations are more effective if you have a cami under your blazer
-It is always the time and place for flirtacious banter
Quite a lot of learning for one short 10 minute stint. But I can't focus on all that right now, I have things to do, items to package and send. Poof to consume. Cups of tea to guzzle. And I suppose I ought to accost the cat I am looking after as well.

Mullets

Today I saw a number of mullets, in both South and North Dunedin. Nothing to compete with this one:

but special never the less. I was on a mighty opshopping mission. I found a few delightful things amidst the dross - an early 1970s Playboy label jacket (from the shade of brown I don't think it was Hugh's label either). I got a lovely fondue kit, some gloves, an early 80s vita fresh bag in two tone green, several pairs of trousers, a flask, a polyester suit and a knitting bag. And a belt, and a saucer. I didn't manage the new wardrobe I desperately needed, but it was a respectable haul for all that. Maybe tomorrow at volunteer work I will find what I need?

C4, it is time to up the game

I never even knew there was a video!

Passport dramas

Some of you may have been *privileged* to hear me bewailing my passport issues. To cut a long story short, my passport was in my bag so I would not lose it. Unfortunately my bag and I travel a lot of places, frequently in the rain. This led to an unhappy outcome for the passport despite my best efforts with the press in the bindery. It is looking a little sad, a bit miserable, and the ink on some of the unfilled pages has bled. Naturally they are unfilled, I never go anywhere.
I have been trying for the last while to sort out whether the passport is still useable. So I finally managed to get to the Department of Internal Affairs - don't you just think the work place that plays together stays together?- in Dunedin. I was told back up, we don't actually deal with passports, we can tell you nothing. Try contacting Christchurch. What bloody use is that? My passport and I will present ourselves at Chch? To be told (since the decision rests with the official sighting the passport at the airport) that they don't know if it would be acceptable. No doubt they would see the document and see a nice profit of $300, plus the opportunity to change it for one that would expire in 5 years, not ten.
Isn't it refreshing I can moan about the government as well as work?
Anyway, I have decided I will risk it, travel to Rarotonga, and hope they let me in. How concerned they would be over 6 days I have no idea, surely using the same currency counts for something!
So I'll let everyone know if I am stopped at the airport and treated like a criminal. It would be a refreshing change, to be thought of as an important, potentially threatening individual rather than ignored. I'd feel like underground.
Besides, at least I would have a new topic of conversation.

Posting videos is a way of adding empty content

But no-one could object to Stevie Nicks, except perhaps for her performances to troops in the gulf war conflict. Shame about the bad video quality though.


Tomorrow I will be going to volunteer work, perhaps I will look for an outfit so that I can emulate Stevie, especially viable in Rarotonga where the diaphonous look would be practical yet dressy. And if I get exposed to enough sea salt etc, I may have an inadvertant bouffant!

I'm too white to get the point of this

But it sure is an hilarious concept.



Brooke, you need to get Georgina back & form a posse.

Ahhhh

It may be shameful, but I still like going to something awful. Here is a bewdiful article on facebook.

Fire. I bid you to burn

We had a fire alarm at my work the other day. It was pretty much how these things usually go. The alarm starts sounding, everyone waits for 5 rings to see if it will stop or not. Then they turn off their machines, drop off their bags, grab a coat or whatever. Commence egress by descending internal stairs. Alarm stops, so does traffic flow. Presumably we were waiting for the other plane to crash into the building. Recommence exit, gather outside, watch the 3 or so appliances. OK that bit was entertaining. I had to pressing questions, why appliances? And did any of the firemen have moustaches? I don't know about the former, but yes to the latter. Stand around and then drift back in before given the official nod, noting that cars still are entering the car park. Pause in a moment of thanks giving that the council fleet & bookbus did not explode. Wait for the lift, finally reaching desk and a good afternoon whinge about how people don't know what they are doing in these alarm practices.

Heaven help us if we ever have a real fire.

Housework update

Quite aside from the bleating comments on my trade me auctions (Its impossibe {sic} to see enough detail in your one pic) I do sometimes wish I had a digital camera here. I would take a photo of our kitchen. The bench isn't too bad, largely due to the concerted efforts of one other flatmate and myself, but the microwave. The microwave, oooooh lordy, that's nasty. It belongs to my brother, but looking at it I don't think he will want it back. Imagine Jackson Pollock using it as a canvas, except he had only one colour and that was lamb scours.
I have left the microwave door open, for that is the passive aggressive's way. Yet no good ever comes of these waiting games, because the culprits just exclaim loudly how disgusting the place is and leave it, convinced that they had no part of the mess making. Hang on a minute... maybe I'm one of them too?

Kosho

I have been trying to find photographs of Kosho, the peculiar martial art that takes place on 2 trampolines divided by a pool of water. I wanted a picture of particpants with their white crash helmets and red robes over blue trakkies. But a photo won't convery the clumsy, slow, fight scenes the way a video will. Perhaps not so much fighting as flailing, bouncing and pursuing each other around the trampolines. Here it goes, and stay tuned because next I may manage to find footage of #6's bitching exercise equipment in the forest. You'd best be sitting down if I do, there is a lot of homoerotic grappling in the undegrowth and some time devoted to heads being crushed between mighty thighs.



Incidentally, when I hear the opening cymbal noise in this video I automatically start thinking of Jungle Boogie. Rather spoils the effect.

So tired

and yet I long to watch more of the Prisoner. It was such a treat last night, the character may be getting less and less appealing, but the incidental stuff is great. Clearly the protagonist is one of those individuals who, when faced with anything inconvenient or displeasing, talks louder and more pompously. Anyone really as individualistic and as smug as that in real life would be unbearable. Unless, of course, they also had his exercise regime which came up in the episode I watched last night. Oh the sixties, with the incredibly unflattering 2 piece blue track suits. The gladiatorial trampolining in red robes and white crash helmets. Inpromptu sessions on the uneven bars and cooling off afterward with some casual water skiing. Wheeee! I could not tell if I was watching the Prisoner or an advanced hair commercial.
Only, in an advanced hair commercial you would never get set upon by a group of ruffians in primary colours. All ruffians should be forced to wear primary colours I think.

Won't someone think of the office?

Today I got an e-mail delivered through work, a "friendly" reminder about office chairs. I have to share a workstation because desks are at a premium. 4 days of the week I am at one desk, but on Thursday I sit at another computer entirely.
Simple, you would think. But you have not factored in the special and pressing needs of the delicate flowers of the office. Namely, I need the support and comfort that only my own chair can give. It has been molded, it cups, caresses my backside and makes working a truely a pleasurable experience. Or something like that.
So on Thursday I migrate, I go to another desk and sitting there waiting for me is a random chair. All well and good. However, I don't always know where the chair comes from & when I end up working late I don't like to spend my lunch break trying to find out.
We-ll, evidently there have been complaints. Outrage which culminated in a rather patronising sounding email (it is hard to tell from email though) about how much easier life would be if everyone thought of the needs of others. People spend so much goddamn time thinking of their own chair needs I expect they couldn't think of anyone else & yet I am criticised for not sleuthing around for the chairs home when I had run 1/4 hour into my lunch working unpaid overtime? How utterly selfish of me.
It's all a matter of those who can complain loudly (and oh they can complain) receiving all the support from supervisors. I wonder if it has anything to do with my circ background? We are, after all, the subnormals and drones. Yet most probably it is a matter of those who loudly decry their needs being seen as diligent workers. If you are less focused on the job, treat it as a means of getting money rather than a vocation, it isn't seen as honest. It's cause enough to be seen as an undesirable element. Shame on me, if only I would just "consider others" when sharing workstations, "life would be so much easier".