Easy listening

The other day I met up with me ole mate Gary up on the tailings dam at work, which is a bit of an odd place to meet up, but we tend to cross each other's path up there quite often. It's almost like a regularly scheduled meeting. Gary is old school Waihi and has been around Waihi since Christ was a corporal. I met him in the stores firstly and the most important thing that you need to know about Gary is that he whispers. I've known him for almost four years now and I've probably only ever understood about half of everything he has ever said to me. In person, it's not so bad because you can infer things from non-verbal communication, just like when you travel to a foreign country and you don't speak the language, but over the phone it's absolutely hopeless trying to understand anything he's saying! Mostly, you try and pick up key words, such as, "rugby" "last night" "good" "computer" "requisition" "Ph" "pick up" "soon". That last sentence is just a bit of insider stores humor but that's really the way it goes.
Anyways, Gary plays in a band (bass, not the singer) and he's downloaded one of their songs to youtube which can be found to here. He's hoping to appeal to the masses of Finndego readers out there (all 25 of you!) in hopes of becoming the next Justin Bieber. He assures me that of the 20 hits that he's received that 18 of them are of him checking if their are any more hits. I have feeling that I know some of the people in his band through Keri Ann's Waihi Art School connections but I'll have to wait until our next meeting up on the dam.
For those of you wondering what's happening with the radio thing. It is happening and I'll keep you up to date as things progress. In honor of that, and the fact that Gary has never beaten me at virtual rugby, here is my own little playlist of things that I have been listening to lately. Enjoy!

To Union or not to Union

When I got my job in the Mill I had to decide whether or not I would join the Union. Even though the whole work force are members of the Union, I still felt as if I needed to do my home work and have a good ole' think about it. To be honest, prior to this, I was neither for nor against unions, in general, so it was kind of hard for me. In the end I decided that in this case it was easier to swim downstream and that in the end, I had no objections that would overrule that idea. (Aside: I have two uncles, where one of my lasting memories of them together, is their arguments over white and blue collar workers. Neither of their arguments were very convincing so I was never convinced either way but I just remember their "discussions" about the subject.
Apropos to this, a while back, in this very blog, I started a series of posts called "Guess who's coming to dinner". My fifth and final guest was to be my personal hero Jon Stewart but I couldn't link to any of his shows because I was outside of the US. It was a bit of a bummer because I thought he could really bring the whole group together and act as a sort of MC for the evening, in my own little world. I mean really, the people who have missed out on an invite include among others Ali, Obama, Dave Groehl, Lou Reed, John Cusack and Queen Beatrix.
What do Jon Stewart and Unions have to do with each other, you ask? Well a few weeks back I saw this piece (I'll place the link at the end of this post) and I thought it was brilliant. In typical Jon Stewart fashion Stewart asks America, why are you so stupid? As usual America either doesn't understand the question or doesn't know the answer.
As America crawls further and further into the fetal position, Stewarts's show has actually become more and more important. I don't know if any of you watch but it is starting to fill what I find to be an important role in American society as a "bullshit detector".
I'm reading Richard Dawkins "Greatest Show on Earth" right now which is his argument for evolution. Why should he feel the need to even write this book now. Well, because in the latest polls 44% of Americans believe that the world was created by God in the last 10,000 years. Actually, that number has been steady for the last 10 years and I think it's important that the likes of Stewart point out that during the last election, 3 of the 7 Republican nominees for President did not believe in evolution. I wonder if heaven has a union? Here is the link as promised.

My mate Brett and the Wildebeest?

The kids are getting old enough now that they are getting interested in watching things other than The Wiggles, Little Einsteins and Special Agent Oso. We've been watching more Discovery and National Geographic lately, which is great because I love Discovery and National Geographic! Almost as much as I like Nina from Imagination Movers! You dads know what I'm talking about! Anyways, Fletcher was way enthusiastic about telling his mom about the "giant crocodile that ate the wildebeest in the river!" He's only three and can get quite excited about these things. It got me thinking about the victimization of the poor wildebeest. Fletcher only knows what a wildebeest is because they get eaten by crocodiles, whom he thinks are really cool. Little does he know that basically the whole animal world likes to eat wildebeest. Personally, I've never tried it, but I'm sure it's quite nice. Lions,leopards,hyenas,cheetahs and crocodiles all love wildebeests. I'm almost sure that if one ever made it to the ocean, a giant orca would come right out of the ocean and grab one and pull it back in and play a game with it, flipping it around and kicking it with it's tail like one of those toys at a seaquarium. My point is, I'm sure that the wildebeest is a noble animal and I'm sure they try to do the right thing in their life, like being a good herd member, procreating, wandering thousands of miles on their annual migration across the savanna, crossing rivers that aren't meant to be crossed and running the gauntlet every time they want to get a friggin' drink. We all love watching the wildebeest giving birth and the miracle of nature as this little calf, within 20 minutes of being born, struggles to it's feet and takes it's first wobbly steps and soon is strong enough to join it's mother in returning to the herd. Unfortunately, it doesn't make it, as it is set upon by a pack of African hunting dogs and is torn to shreds so that the hunting dogs can feed their own newly born pups. And so we justify the loss of the wildebeest calf for the gain of the hunting dog pack. For that is truly the lot of the wildebeest isn't it? Birth,run, eat grass and be eaten.
This brings me to my old mate Brett. Brett, was for about 9 months, my roommate in Korea. You know how you sometimes have relationships with other people and it's not quite even. Like how, sometimes, the other person isn't really good for you or your not really good for that person. Well, Brett was like that but I still haven't figured out whether he was good for me or I was bad for for him or vice versa. We really were quite toxic for each other but only in the way that "something" always seem to happen. We got along great and never fell out at all, but there was always this feeling that the sum of our mischief was always greater than it's parts, if you know what I mean.
It's a bit weird, but most of the followers of this blog know someone else who follows this blog. It's mostly all friends and family and there is a lot of crossover as to who reads this but no one here has ever met Brett. Brett was tall and skinny and wore those big ugly "John Hughes" glasses. He was geeky and clean cut with a hair cut only an evangelist could love. He was also morally and ethically degenerate which totally belied his exterior appearance. He had, and I'm not making this up, a hole in his chest. In the middle of your chest where your breast bone is he had a hole large enough to fit your fist into. It is, to this day, the most singular weird thing that I have personally ever seen on a human being. Just weird.
I forget where he was from or what he did but we were roommates and we were good friends. It's not always like that in the military. Sometimes you have good friends and sometimes you get people that you barely talk to because you have absolutely nothing in common and it just doesn't click.
Anyways, Brett and I used go out a lot and we would hit a few of the regular spots in town. Invariably though, "something" would happen and after a while it would happen too often to be a coincidence. I can't go into detail of too many of the "somethings" but I can give a brief summary of a few:

Entering a hotel where we weren't guests at. Going into a room, deciding we didn't want to stay. Threw a sink out of the window(as you do) and trying to escape down the fire escape. Losing my wallet as I tried jump a fence and getting caught going back to get it.

Inciting a riot at a Korean baseball game by mooning the opposing fans. Apparently they don't appreciate that sort of carry-on there.

Brett got a master key (long story) that worked on every GMC vehicle on the base. The NCO bar was WAY on the other side of the base and we would "commandeer" vehicles to get us home and leave them in the neighboring dormitory for someone to find.

Getting kicked out of a charity fun run for taking a taxi.

Scaring new arrivals (him and I would pick them up at the airport) by running through toll booths and speeding past cops. (Local cops weren't allowed to stop military vehicles, but the new guys didn't know that.)

Wearing statutes that we bought at the market as necklaces. What we didn't know was that they represented fertility and we wondered why ladies were coming up the whole night wanting to rub our statutes.

We used to go to Seoul (pop. 15 million) and get on the subway and get off at a random stop and go exploring. Normally, we would bribe a local with booze and cigarettes to show us around. One time, we met a student, who we took out to a restaurant. When we came out the street was lined with riot police and at the adjacent park an anti-american rally was going on. We stood quietly at the back until Brett yelled "Yankees go home!" and then we had to run like hell to get out of there. Bad vibe.

Osan (the base) would often hold joint exercise with the South Korean Army to simulate an attack from the North. During certain phases we would be confined to quarters and with nothing to do we would go up on the roof to watch the boys play their games. When that got boring we would start water bombing the "invading forces" if they got within reach of our range. The dorms were officially off limits but if those special forces could have got a hold of us we were dead men.

These are just a few examples, none of which I am exactly proud of, but are only really the tip of the iceberg. Brett and I had a mutual friend Joe, who after enough of our antics said that in the future he would go out with one of us but not both of us (this was after the riot at the baseball). And that was it really. Apart things were generally pretty tame but when we were together it was just unusual how weird things would get. I'm not proud of these things, but they did happen, and they are part of the story. The only thing I'm trying to figure out, is if I was the friggin' wildebeest in this whole story or if we were just two old crocodiles. I'm not quite sure yet nor how I'll tell that story to Fletcher just yet.

10 Things I think I think.

To borrow a skit from my 43th favorite columnist, Peter King, I'm just going to throw some things out there and see what sticks. Here are 10 things I think I think:
1. Just when exactly did peanut butter become so deadly to children? I don't remember any of this when I was a kid. Was it there then and my parents were just trying to protect me by not telling me? Did they perform secret tests on me just to make sure. Or more sinister, has the peanut butter industry changed what goes into peanut butter making it cheaper to produce (the conspiracy theorist will be thinking GM peanuts) but more toxic to kids. Nevermind all the warning labels e.g. "May contain nuts". Mrs Finndego freaked on me when I went to put a muesli bar in the kids lunchbox. "You can't do that! It's not allowed!" It's just crazy

2. You know, I go to the deli at my supermarket and I get my 200g of ham. They weigh it, throw it in the bag and plop a barcode sticker on the bag. I get it home and I want to make myself a sandwich. Do you think I can get that fucking sticker off without tearing the bag to shreds? Not a chance. Can't we make a sticker that I can open the bag, get my ham out and reseal the bag. Is it that hard? Really?

3. Speaking of that, I'm a dirty filthy smoker and I like to roll my own cigarettes. I get those papers that have two dispensers, so to speak. I try my hardest to balance which side I take a paper from. I take one from the top and then I'll take one from the bottom etc. Anyways, at some stage before I get anywhere near the last paper either the paper from the top or bottom disappears into a black hole somewhere only to be found again after great strife and struggle. You smoke to relax and having to struggle pulling a paper out like that is frustrating. It's 2010 for christs sake. Can we not sort this out? It really chaps my hide!

4. Can we please stop hero worshipping people who can kick/throw/hit a ball really far. I'm imposing a new "Hero" rule. It's really simple.If you are a sports star you have to do something ELSE completely different really well too. I know Alex Rodriguez just hit his 600th steroid induced homerun recently but if I'm truly going to acknowledge that achievement I'd like to know that he also has his sights set on completing his Phd in Linguistics in the offseason or that he will be spending that time competing at the World Rowing Championships. I'd like to see him spending some time in southern Sudan sorting out their needs with the help of his 10 year US$275 million dollar contract. Guys like Ted Williams who was one of the 5 best baseball players of all-time spent 6 years of his prime years flying fighter planes in two different wars. Not only that, he went on to become a world class fisherman. Edmund Hilary, after conquering Everest went onto driving a tractor across Antarctica and then spent the rest of his life raising funds and building schools for Sherpas in Nepal. Something like that I'm thinking.

5. Never underestimate the value of a warm, dry house. That's all.

6. I know they recommend an aspirin and a glass of water before you go to bed as a cure for hangovers. My only problem is that I am always too drunk to remember that before I go to bed! So I'm not really sure if it really works at all.

7. I love it when my kids try to be helpful. It's never always convenient at the time but it's still cute all the same. Fletcher likes to get my work clothes before I leave for work and put them by the front door. He'll get my lunch too and bring it to me. Then he'll want to zip up my jacket. He'll give me a big hug and ask me what I'm doing that day. He loves it when I have to drive the loader! Now, if I could just get him to be so enthusiastic about cleaning up after himself.

8. New Zealand played a test match against someone tonight in Netball. I can't tell you who it was because I didn't watch it, because Netball is boring. There, I said it. There is a sport out there that features really attractive women wearing short skirts and lots of jumping around that I find really boring. I do, however, have a few ideas on how to improve the sport:
a. Three words: Randomly placed landmines
b. Make goal defence and goal attack switch position every quarter. Make these girls play defence too. (Note: the netball courts in town are by my house and in New Zealand netball is a winter sport. I see these poor girls outside in the pouring rain freezing their bums off and half of them are just standing around waiting for play to come their way.
c. Similar to above. I'd eliminate the zoning where certain players are limited to only certain parts of the court. Make it a bit more basketballish.
d.I'd establish a ice hockey-like penalty box where teams would have play a girl down for constant infringement. Because I've taken the court zones away, if you lose your goal defence some one else would have to come in and defend goal attack, probably a midfielder opening up the whole court.
e. All shots from behind the line are worth three points but only in the last three minutes of each quarter.
f. I'm still not really sure how the possession rule works in netball because sometimes the team that makes a goal gets the ball back to start the next play and sometimes the don't. I would eliminate this and alternate possession to the team that just got scored against.

9. Just been thinking about energy and power companies. Everyone knows that we pay for our power at peak rates and off-peak rates depending on our usage during certain times of the day but from what I understand there is a huge disparity between peak and off-peak pricing. Couldn't someone invent some sort of power accumulator or battery pack that I can charge up with off peak power at the lower rate and then have it kick in during peak rates and replace the expensive power or at least supplement some of it. It would also be nice if it could act as a surrogate generator too if the power went out for a few hours. Just an idea. The power companies would probably just increase off peak power pricing if there was too much uptake of the idea so nevermind. Can't beat "the Man".

10. Been reading a lot of science related books lately. I found Stephen Hawkings "Brief History of Time" for sale at the library for 50 cents! I've thinking about things on the large and very small scale lately. I've saved this last one because it may be hard to get your head around and I didn't want to blow your mind right at the start. Here's the question, just don't ask me for the answer. Atoms are, at the center, made up of a nucleus right. Around that nucleus orbits an electron. In drawings, the scale of this relationship is always wrong, as it is always too close. In reality, if we were to enlarge the nucleus to the size of a marble the orbit of that electron would be more than 2 miles! from the nucleus. That's a long way. There is a question in here, I'm getting to it. Now atoms combine to form molecules and these become the building block for everything around us including you and I. If on the atomic scale there is so much space between the nucleus and the electron why do I have to open a door instead of just walking through it. With all that space between my atoms and the door's atoms surely there is plenty off room for us to glide pass each other? Have think about it and I'll give special recognition to whomever gets me close to an answer.

What the hell! Let's do some links.

1. Because, it's never to early to start thinking about Christmas shopping.

2. Has anything really changed in the last 48 years? Nope.

3. You know, I'm fairly desperate for one of my hometown teams to win a championship but I'm not sure I'm this desperate yet.

4. And here's me thinking he was the God of Love.

5. Need more proof?

6. Wanna "Get what's yours!"? Call this guy.

7. Dreams can come true. Even for embalmers.

Looking Forward

I spoke in an earlier post about having two projects that I had in mind and I've had no luck with one but tremendous luck with the other. The first was to be an art/science piece that is turning out to be a bit more work than I planned on. I'll have to put it on the back burner for now. I'll keep the idea under wraps for now because I think it will happen at a later date and I am still enthusiastic about the idea but I'll need more technical help. Maybe I can go to the Smallest Art School in the World.
The second idea might be a winner though. I have approached the local radio station "Gold FM" with an idea for a show that I had in mind. I got the word from them last Friday that I could go ahead with development of the idea and at this point I hope to have my own radio show up and running within a few weeks/months(not sure at this stage). It will be an interview show where the guests will bring a playlists of songs that are special to them and we'll discuss the meaning behind some of the songs and hopefully inspire other people to remember special times and places through music.Luckily the shows will be pre-recorded just in case I start dropping F-bombs as I'm prone to do when I get excited! It was inspired by Finndego's Greatest Hits post that I did a while back. It would just be really helpful if I knew anything about radio, but I don't, but I think Glenis and Brian from Waihi Gold are the perfect people for this. They are old hands at this sort of things and still seem open to new ideas and I'm really looking forward to it.
In honour of the occasion, I've done another playlist. This playlist can be served with either beef or lamb with a green salad and a strong red wine (I recommend either merlot or pinot noir) to wash it down.

Top 100 best magazine articles ever

I've been getting a bit of reading in lately which has been great. I've finished Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion", which I found fascinating. Sadly, the effectiveness of this book is probably nil in regards to convincing people that organised religions are a sham. I don't want to discuss it too much but it has been my experience that no amount of "evidence" from either side of this argument is sufficient to convince a significant amount of people to cross over. He makes good arguments and I do recommend it to anyone but really it didn't change much about the why I feel.
Before that I had read "E=MC2, The biography of the worlds greatest equation" by David Bodanis which is great. I love science books that can break things down into ways I can understand it without dumbing it down too much. The bits I liked were the stories of the people before Einstein that led to his equation like Emilie Du Chatelet, Micheal Faraday, Ernest Rutherford, Fred Hoyle etc etc.
I've almost finished "Bad Science" from Ben Goldacre which is about the way science is perverted to suit either "Big Pharma", the media or snake oil salesmen. It's good but only read it if your into it.
The other bit of reading that I've been getting is from the magazines but namely the big three when it comes to good articles and writers. The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Esquire. I like it because it's usually great writing, I can cherry pick topics that interest me and it only takes me about half hour and when I finish I feel smarter!
Well some people over at kk.org have put together an unofficial in no particular order Top 100 list of the best magazine articles ever written. Good on them! I plan on working my way through them over the next few months. My plan is to print a few of them off at a time and get through them where I get most of my reading done these days. The toilet or as I like to call it "My panic room" whenever it gets too much.
While I'm on the subject. Some but not all of you will be familiar with the debacle that was Lebron James decision on his future team( Google "Lebron James The Decision") if you do want to get up to speed. His announcement culminated in the now famous line "I've decided to take my talents to South Beach". Apparently, in the states this is now the most popular way of saying you need to go to the toilet. That got me thinking of my own monikers for having to go and whether it gets into my top 5. My current top 5 is:
5. "Gotta see a man about a horse." (old favourite, everyone in the world knows what your talking about)
4. "Need to drop a deuce." (somewhat "urban" in a rapper sort of way. I use this one when I'm trying to appear hip with the young kids of today.)
3. "Going fishing for some brown trout." (doesn't actually make sense in any way and can be confusing but whatever)
2. "Need to pinch a loaf" (Downright rude. Good for the shock effect. Just too visual really)
1. "Going to drop the kids off at the pool" (not really funny now that I have kids but it was always my favourite and still makes me chuckle. I know, I know I'm a horrible person.
Where does "Taking my talents to South Beach" stand in this group. Personally, I love it. It's new and now and has a great flow to it. My only problem is that it's only funny in America. Here, no one would have a clue what I was talking about. I'll put it in at 3 and I'll try it out and see what sort of reaction I get. It could fall quite rapidly but I'll see if it gets any traction. You never know, I might start a new trend here.

Tour De France

I was going to wait until the end of this year's tour to do a post, but after last night's stage the tour is virtually over anyways so why wait? Before I go into the tour itself, a little side note about my own personal virtual tour, which is also virtually over, thank god!
My mate Ivo has invited me for the last two years to take part in a virtual tour where you pick a team and score points for their actual results. Well, really it has been a disaster. The main problem is that everyone picks from the same pool of riders (I've argued for a drafting system, but that would be too hard to organise). Anyways, in any given tour that are sure fire guys that you need in your team and that everyone else will also have (e.g. Contador,Schleck (both),Cavandish,Husvold, Menchov and Cancellara). Unfortunately, I didn't have Cancellara in my team (actually I did at one stage but substituted him for Bradley Wiggins to try and get a point of difference from other players (Dumb!). Of course Cancellara won the first stage and carried the yellow jersey for a few days, killing my team in the first few days. Great! The two most bothersome things for me about this are: 1. I did an inordinate amount of smack-talking pre-tour about how I was going to destroy Ivo this year and 2. my team's chances were decimated by a guy named Fabian. That really hurt.
Now back to the real tour. I don't know why I like following the tour, it's a bit difficult to explain but I'll give it a go. I naturally started following it back in Holland where everyone is bike mad (not necessarily bike-racing mad but still).For myself, once I got into the tour I was a demon on the bike path. I'd be timing my sprints to get past unsuspecting riders so that I could beat them to the next telephone pole or sign post or whatever my finishing line was. If I couldn't quite make it there was always the next telephone pole or sign post or something( Hey! the guys in the real tour cheat,why shouldn't I?) I even pre-dated Lance with "The Look" as I would ride away from these pretenders.
It's great, for a few weeks in summer, you can come home from work, crack a beer, jump on the couch for an hour and a half and watch a 120 guys go out and kill themselves for virtually no reason. In the weekends, you even get to watch the whole stage which might last 5 or 6 hours. Now here is my key to being able to follow a tour that last 3 weeks and 3500 kms. The announcers. Stages normally follow a script. Start,breakaway,shuffling,peloton hauls in breakaway, sprint/climb. The great thing about this is that there is drama inter spaced between all of this and the announcer needs to be able to convey this. I would compare this to 5 day test cricket, which without a good commentator to spot the small things that happen ball to ball is about as exciting as calculating tax(boring AND painful). Mart Smeets (dutch announcer) was always a bit over the top in this regard (ie everything was dramatic) but he was genuinely happy to be their like a giddy school girl at a Justin Bieber concert. (OK maybe not that bad but that's exactly the type of hyperbole that he would use actually!). Watching for developments,telling stories of the olden days,explaining what's actually happening in the moment is all part of the package. Of course he's been doing it for years and I may have been it bit spoiled. I went to Florida to visit my mother one year during the years that Lance Armstrong was dominating. This was being covered on American television (only because Lance would win and I'm dead serious about that. I doubt that the tour will be covered in the states next year after Lance is finished). Anyways, listening to the announcers was excruciatingly painful because they didn't have the history, they dumbed everything down to their audience and the three most important things for them to talk about were 1. Lance 2. Lance 3. Lance. It was horrible and totally put me off. I don't even know who the announcers are that I watch here in New Zealand, but they are quite good (I think they are an Australian and an Englishman). The only problem is the time difference, as usual, with any world wide event that you try to follow in New Zealand. I can catch the first hour or so of a stage or my other option is to catch the replay of the last 2 hours the evening after, when I already know the result. Less than optimal, but at least I enjoy the way the announcers bring it. I can get into it again.
As far as this year's tour has gone, I think that it has pretty much gone to script. Contador had to be the favourite as long as something bad didn't happen to him. We got about 15 minutes of supreme tension the other day when Cantador,Schleck,Van den Broek,Menchov and Sanchez (the top 5) found themselves riding together all alone. When Schlek made his move, how inexplicable (just weird!) was it that his chain would let go at that exact moment. Don't get me wrong, it would have been exciting to see what would have happened but I truly feel that even if he had ridden away from that group the four of them would have pulled him back on the descent, just as much as they rode away from him when he was trying to play catch up by himself. The most exciting thing now is that it really bodes well for next year. Schleck will be a true contender to Contador especially if he has Frank with him. Andy will be more determined while Contador may be susceptible to a bit of complacency and most importantly the roles of Andy as the underdog and Contador as the villain will be set. It will be an epic match of testicular fortitude which of course is a perfect description for the Tour de France as a whole. Would you want to be a testicle after 3500 kms on a hard seat?

The Fallout

I've had a full day to digest everything and to be honest it's not all that bad. Sure Holland lost but I've convinced myself that it was fair result. I watched down at the local pub here in Waihi with about 20 people and all of them supported Holland except for one guy with a Spain shirt on (and I had invited him.) Oh well. I had a feeling that things weren't going to go well about the 60th minute so I was able to reconcile everything from that moment on. After the game I was definitely bummed out but I went home and got the kids dressed up and took them out for a walk around the pit here in town. They have a way sorting out for you what is really important (e.g. does fog smell?,what's a gingerbread man made from? can I drive a dumptruck when I get bigger?) you know the important stuff. The only thing that I could come away with after the game is the potential damage to Dutch Football's reputation. I've always met heaps of people who supported their own team and then Holland because of the style of play and their history. That they are always good and still almost always underdogs put them in a good position to build a loyal foreign fanbase. I defended Van Marwijk's style because it was getting the results and at the end of the day that's what is about but as this tournament went on I heard more and more comments about how dirty they were (not normally heard) and how Robben liked to fall over too easy (also not what they are usually known for but everyone does it too.) With the way the final played out with the fouls, yellow cards and cynical play and I think a lot of people will remember that.
Later in the day we went to visit our friends Nikki and Martin where we were going to a dinner party later on in the evening. I wasn't really up to it but I like Nikki and Martin and their friends where we were going to for the party but I really thought it could go either way. I could be really snarky and sarcastic as I tend to be sometimes or I could forget about the football and be my normal charming self. We had a great night with great food and good grown-up conversation and I don't think I insulted anyone which was a good thing. We only found out this morning that when we came in that one of the ladies who we hadn't met prior mistook Martin and I for a "couple". Sure, we came in together and sat next to each other at the dinner table (coincidence, but I prefer sit next to someone I don't know anyways a it's a better chance for conversation) and both of us looked absolutely stunning(I had my Brokeback Mountain shirt on,maybe that was a mistake looking back.) but other than that I don't where she would have got that idea. But, anyways, I thought it was hilarious but I'm not sure Martin was so amused and I'm not sure what Keri Ann nor Nikki thought. I have pretended to be gay twice in my life and I don't recommend it for the faint of heart. The first time was with my mate Jim at a country bar("U caint wear un hat less it's un cowboy hat") in San Antonio. We danced across floor arm in arm as 400 rednecks grabbed for their gun. We had to run out of the place and jumped over the car "Dukes of Hazzard" style and make a quick getaway. The second time was to try to get a girl to sleep with me hoping that she would try and "turn" me. Didn't work and I spent the night looking like a dick so that didn't help the cause. Ticked that one off the bucket list!

Best Street Name Ever

I actually preferred Hell on Wheels Ave. but whatever dude. Then again, I live on Smith St. I'm pretty desperate for a cool street name. Thanks, Boing Boing!

OK, I'm officially nervous now

I was a bit tight during the last ten minutes of the Brazil game. My alarms went off when Sneijder said that they were going to bring the Cup home after winning a quarter final! I felt a little bit better against Uraguay when Giovanni decided to make an appearance. (Note: this is an absolute good thing! Two people who should not get noticed on a pitch are referees and left-backs. Was that his first shot of the tournament?!). I felt nervous excitement as we crept ahead 2-1 and elation when we went to 3-1. Now here is where my "diehard Red Sox bad karma mojo" kicks in. I am actually more optimistic being behind than in front. No team prior to 2004 could kick you harder in testes than the Red Sox. Since they won it all in 2004 I considered myself a recovering panicker but this run by the Dutch team has taken me out of remission. I tried to explain this in one of my first post here. Fans of Holland and New Zealand should understand a bit of what I'm saying about World Cup Semi-Finals but some people prior to the match always see it half full where I see it half empty.
Anyways, bad mojo kicked me hard in the groin area as soon as Robben missed that sitter 5 minutes from time by trying to be too cute and then getting taken off smiling and hugging his coach,assistant coaches,bench,trainers,photographers,4th referee,groupies and ball boys. Bad karma for me all around really. I didn't need the last 5 minutes of that game at that moment in my life.
We are through and that is a good thing. I hope actually that we get Germany. The karmic ramifications are huge. I don't need to go on about what they are but just don't mention the war. '74 is good enough for me.In 2004, the Red Sox had to go through this when they came back from 3-0 down to the Yankees. Holland needs Germany to be there or not? I'm off on Monday (game time at 0630 here) which is a bit of a bummer. I always feel guilty drinking at 0700 but I feel I'll need a few. I'm going to invoke the "Bloody Mary Rule" which is the only acceptable drink that can be had before noon. What happens after that, I feel, will be up to Van Bommel,Sneijder and Van Persie (oh God no!).

Here I am!

You guys would have seen a distinct lack of posts in the lasts few weeks. There are a number of factors that have contributed to this. The main culprits have been the World Cup, MySky (recordable TV), Mrs Finndego hogging the computer for her art school project,a few good books,that work thing, a general lack of motivation (not ideas) due to the onset of winter and reassessment of what The Finndego is. I realize I've been getting a bit preachy lately and I'm struggling between writing about what's going through my head but at the same time not putting people off. Like my old man commented a while back "I'm not seeing much entertainment value here." In the end my head will probably win out but I'll try and strike a balance, but some of you might have to get your cheap thrills somewhere else.
I've got a few projects I'd like to get started on. The one that is Finndego based is interviewing some persons of interest and finding out what churns their butter. Of the other two, one is art/science based and the other is music/community based. Those two are still in germination phase which just means I've had an idea but haven't done anything about it yet. I'm exited about the ideas just not so sure about the execution (not my strong point sometimes). As/if we progress, I'll keep you up to date and my even require some of your help.
I do need to dump some of the random shit that has been going through my head so let the dumping begin:

The World Cup: Except for New Zealand, pretty disappointing really. I did see that the goalies where complaining about the balls pre-cup (as they always do) but it seemed to me early on that it was the strikers who were struggling to keep the ball down. I think that there haven't been that many goals from distance nor any nice curled free kicks. Normally, by this stage, you already have a few goals that would be contenders for goal of the tournament but except for the goal of South Africa against Mexico in the opener I can't think of any. Feel free to comment if you think I missed one.
The first three games I watched live had USA, Holland and New Zealand playing on consecutive days. I thought there was a nice bit of symmetry there for me.
I used to support USA Soccer but I've gone off them since this tournament has started. I'd still like for them to do well, but at the same time I've found the supporters have become insufferable in a typical American sort of way. Having England first up probably didn't help and the build up was huge. All the American press I read was full of puffing out of chests on how we beat England back in 1950(!) or how we beat them in the Revolutionary War! Thank God we weren't playing Japan or Germany! It could have got ugly.

I've fallen in love with Tony Heyward, the head of BP. When I wake up in the morning I'm not sure what I want first. My cup of coffee or to go online and see Tony kick the people of the Gulf square in the nuts once again. It's like watching an old lady walk into a glass door. It's still funny no matter how many times you see it.
I briefly flirted with the idea of boycotting BP but the only other petrol station in Waihi is Mobil (as in Exxon/Mobil, as in Valdez) so there you are. That leaves me with biking to work then and that's just not going to happen. I had an ongoing discussion with a colleague at work where she felt we should support BP more. The logic being that BP only supplies us with a product that we require and that our outrage is pointed at the wrong person. If we didn't need this oil as much, BP wouldn't need to be in the Gulf of Mexico in the first place. I read a report that said that if Americans drove 4.5 miles less per day that would completely negate the requirement for deep sea drilling in the gulf. That may be true but I think the logic is a bit screwed. Oil companies drill this prehistoric goo from thousands of feet below the surface of the earth using highly specialised equipment in often remote locations. It is then shipped or piped to a refinery that starts a whole process of turning this into a usable product. That product is then shipped again to our shores where it is held until a truck takes it to my local BP. I can buy a liter of that product that started out thousands of feet below the surface of some desert or ocean thousands of miles away for about NZ$1.72 per liter. I can go into that same BP and buy a liter of Putararu tap water which is about a 150 kilometers from Waihi for NZ$3.00. I'm just sayin'.....

Purple Reign Part Deux

Went to a party last Saturday and was discussing Prince and my recent post. One of the guys brought up this old video featuring the troika of James Brown, Micheal Jackson and Prince! It's seems to be a video of a James Brown concert. The Godfather decides to call out Micheal Jackson to come on stage and then after Micheal does a bit, Micheal tells James that he's got to call up this cat called Prince. You can see James going "who?". When Prince comes up he totally goes off the hook right up until moment he accidentally falls off stage. Awesome, Cool Fail if that exists.

Dr. Wakefield is the Anti(Immunisation) Christ.

My colleagues at work will be familiar with my stance on immunization(I'm for them,or maybe not exactly that, let's just say I'm not against them). I touched on this issue in my misinformation post and now I've found someone who's done a graphic comic about the whole idea( don't ask me why,he obviously has a bit of time on his hands). Look I'm all for conspiracies. I'd love to find out if Lady Gaga has a penis or if Lance Armstrong used PED's or even if Bush rigged the 2000 election but I would prefer if we left the kids out of this one. Here's a quick update for those not up to speed with this issue.

Purple Rain

I saw this video not too long ago on The Best of Saturday Night Live. Prince had obviously come out of his hyperbolic chamber, had the studio fumigated for alien bacteria, had a shaman perform a cleansing ceremony, brought in his high priest to perform an exorcism on the rotting corpse of Sheena Easton and put on a kick ass performance that made me think, what a shame this guy went all weird on us because he still fucking rocks. I think Dave Chapelle (or Charlie Murphy) said it best in this piece about the power of TAFKAP back in the day.

Where are you?

Last night, while I was working, I had a thought. Here I was, a little boy from Worcester, Massachusetts,in a loader, at a gold mine in New Zealand, in the pouring rain, while my partner and two boys slept, proofreading a paper, in English, from my best friend in Holland about Leprosy in India. I thought, if I ever write a book I'm going to call it "How the hell did I get here?".

Snookilove

I don't know if you guys know of, watch or have seen Jersey Shore but I'm absolutely loving it. I know, I know. My last post was about wrestling with the very existence of God and now I turn around and profess my love for one of these idiotic MTV reality big brother knock off television shows, but I can't help it. It's like crack to me. Actually, I don't know what crack is like. It's like a ten piece meal from KFC. So good when you're eating it but you feel horrible afterwards. Jersey Shore is my guilty pleasure, my ten piece meal. Anyways, a quick overview for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about. Put 8 Italian-American kids("guidos") in a house on the Jersey Shore for a summer and make sure the cameras keep rolling. I know we've all been down this road before and this model is a little tired so I'm at a loss for words as to why I'm so addicted. My main theory is that MTV tweaked this particular show in one tiny little way that has made all the difference in the world. Most reality type shows throw in mix of personalities to stir the soup so to speak. We all know this. Jersey Shore doesn't do this. All the personalities are the same! They are all shallow,self-centered,cocky,spray on tanned, hair gelled maniacs. I think the result is that when they go in a direction there is no one who pulls them back and they end up going to extremes that aren't born out of conflict but out of common purpose. Each of the characters do have one sort of characteristic that that separates them from the rest. For example, Mike "The Situation" D. is the ladies man that lives to "creep" on girls. Pauley is a sweetheart that would take a bullet for the team. Sammi is a....well, a bitch, really. I was originally smitten with Jwoww. She seems to make sense when she talks (as in she uses whole sentences), she's got attitude (which I like) and she would make the world's hottest bouncer if she ever decided to do that. As the the series has gone on though, I have slowly fallen truly,deeply madly in love with Snooki. I can't help myself. Like Pauley she is a sweetheart, she talks nonsense, is unlucky in love, likes to have fun be seems to find trouble and somehow has stolen my heart. I confessed my Snookilove to Ms. Finndego last night. She took it quite well. It went down better than the last time she told me that she would leave me in second for Sting. She asked me who I would leave her for and I said I quite liked the girl who cut her hair. That didn't go over well. So I'm trading up for Snooki and she can have Sting and go save the Amazon with him. I going to eat pizza with Snooki and spray on each others tan and I'll spend my days just trying to figure out what the hell she is trying to say. Holla!

Bothering God

Prayer for the modern man:
Dear God(if you exist)
Please save my soul (if I have one)

-Fons Jansen

I don't believe in bothering God. I'm not religious in the first place, so I don't think that He would be of much help. Also, I'm sure he's quite busy these days and I would hate to be a nuisance. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who do bother Him these days and I'm sure he has his hands full. To be honest, He probably hasn't had a decent break since that faithful Sunday a few thousand years ago. I wonder if he regrets that? Maybe He could taken a little more time to finish things off just right. Dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s, if you know what I mean. Anyways, we'll never know and who am I to question Him really.
I guess the age old question of whether He exists at all will never be answered, but let's assume for arguments sake that He does. What does He do with his day? As busy as he is, He probably wishes that he made the day a lot longer than it is. He probably has a lot of prayers to answer in the first place. Does He prioritize these in any way? Pope,cardinals,bishops,priests,nuns,believers,non-believers for example? By non-believers I mean those ones who have gotten themselves in the shit (trapped under a log or lost at sea for example) and suddenly start asking God for help even though they've only seen the inside of a church for weddings or funerals. You never know, God may give these people a higher priority than others since they are possible new members.(Note: I tried this once when I got really drunk and was throwing up in the toilet. I told Him that if He would make me feel better I would never drink again. He didn't help me. I'm sure He heard me but probably thought I needed to be punished. He's like that sometimes). Anyways, it's sort of like when you call up customer service on the telephone but you're getting nowhere. One way of getting through is to hang up, call back and follow the menu for "New Customers". You'll get helped quicker that you can say The Lord's Prayer. But I digress
Getting back to my point about whether God actually exists. My first question would be: Do you think God has changed at all? I wouldn't believe that to be true. He's God, why would he? Then why over the thousands of years that we have followed Him and believed in Him have we changed the way we worshipped Him? Would that really be necessary? Why are there so many different denominations that claim to have followed His true word. He gave us the Ten Commandments and they haven't changed at all nor have there been any amendments that I'm aware of. Are the Jehovahs getting into Heaven but not the Baptists? Or is it the Lutherans or the Presbyterians or is it the 7th Day Adventists because I'm confused. If I did want to join the league I'd have a hard time choosing which team I'd try out for.
The only one that ever actually made the most sense to me is Deism and that basically died out about 200 hundred years ago. Deists, in a nutshell, believe that God created the Universe and then walked away and left man to sort it out for himself. This to me seems like a good idea. 300 years during The Enlightenment man had virtually no way of explaining the natural world around him. This was in fact nothing new. The caveman probably looked at lightning or the stars and in wonderment attributed these things to a higher power. That had gone on for centuries. Then the Deists came along and said "Right, we believe God created all things great and small but we also believe that he left it up to us to be self-determining". The thing I like is that you still have to be good and righteous but you do it for yourself and no one else. A religion for grown-ups really. You didn't have to believe in miracles or prophecy but you still had to be good because God created you. It explained away the mysteries of the universe and didn't feel the need to scare little children of the possibility of eternal damnation.
There are two reasons though why this perfectly good belief system died out. Darwin and Newton. These two guys ruined it for everyone really. Now not only do you have to decide which team you want to play for but whether you're going to play the game at all. All those Deists out there probably saw the logic of what these two guys were saying and were mostly free thinkers themselves (Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were two noted Deist.) and decided they didn't need God at all, we have Science! Here's where I think the Deist missed the boat. I'll try and explain trough an analogy:

Jed had lived his whole life with the fear of God within him.
The Bible told him everything he needed to know.
Jed lived in a trailer park along the banks of the Mississippi.
One day the rains came and the water came over the stopbanks.
A firetruck came by and the fireman told Jed he needed to evacuate.
Jed held up his bible and said "No need. God will protect me"
Later on when the water started to come inside Jed's trailer
a boat came by to pick Jed up and take him to higher ground.
Jed held up his bible and said "No need. God will protect me"
Later in the day when the floodwaters had gone over the top of Jed's trailer
and Jed had fled to the roof a helicopter was sent out to rescue him.
By the time the helicopter arrived only his head and right arm
still clutching his bible were to be seen above the water.
Still, Jed waved the helicopter away and said "No need. God will protect me"
That was the last we ever saw of ole' Jed.
When Jed finally entered the Pearly Gates and met his maker
all he could ask was "God, why didn't you protect me?"
God's reply was "Well, I did send a firetruck, a boat and a helicopter!"

And so it came to pass that the Deist also missed the boat. If the Deist believed that God had created the universe and then walked away why wouldn't He had used science to do all that creating? Both Darwin and to a lesser extent Newton were very religious men who grappled with what they were discovering and what it meant to their belief system. If a Deist had just come up to them and said "That's just the way God drew it up" would that not have lessened any fears about the battle between science and religion so many years ago? Sure, they still would have had to fight the established church who would not want to have given up there right as God's middlemen but who knows. It makes perfect sense to God to create the universe and then walk away and then give man the free will to go out there and try and figure out how he did it. It's not hocus pocus! My God, I think I'm turning into a Creationist! Please God help me! On the other hand, nevermind, I'll just go have a drink instead.

The Toy Box

Mrs. Finndego has a few things going on in her life that we are really positive about. Her recent etching course has panned out into a full blown business proposition from her teacher John Mulvey. Originally called the Smallest Art School in the World and now tentatively called The Toy Box, John's vision calls for an art space where people can come and do art. It's that simple. It's sort of supposed to work in three different ways. 1. People can come off the street and use the space and the studio at their leisure. 2. John will tutor specific courses (etching,printing,life drawing etc.) for tuition. 3. There will be accommodation where people can come and stay and also have use of the studio. Mrs. Finndego aka Keri Ann aka Girl Friday has been asked to help out in exchange for free studio time and mentoring from John (in addition to copious amounts of plum wine). Since it's all early days and there is a lot of work to be done I wasn't planning on saying anything about it at this stage but John has put it out there in his blog here and we are really excited about the possibilities. We'll see what the future brings.

The Dutch Club

Here in little ol' Waihi they have their own Dutch Club. They meet every last Friday of the month at St. Johns Presbyterian Church. I decided to go today for the first time. I was a little nervous. I was worried I might have to stand up in front of everyone and do the obligatory "Hi, ik heet Mark en ik kom uit Amerika" speech. On the drive over, I was trying out different versions, talking to myself in Dutch. I probably sounded like a complete idiot. Two things were in play here:
1. I'm not Dutch. My entry/exit story is complicated and I didn't want to babble on trying to explain. I'm guilty of being a Nederphile (I made that word up, please don't confuse it with any other word.) Would it be OK with them if I sat in on their little meetings? Even though I don't have a Dutch passport I still feel a little bit Dutch. Would that be enough? I thought I could convince them of that and it wouldn't be a problem. At one stage in my rehearsal, I even considered using Joop Fischer's line " Ik hou van Nederland, Ik ken geen beter land" (translates: "I love Holland, I don't know of a better country"). Unfortunately, the next line is "Waar je rustig langs de weg kunnen plassen" (translates: "where you can easily piss on the side of the road") and it would be my luck that someone would actually know the song and bring that up. I didn't need that first up. In the end, I got myself all mucked up and decided that I would just wing it (usually not my best option!)
2. My Dutch language skills are deteriorating. It's been almost ten years now and I struggle sometimes. My mate Ivo will call me unexpectedly and our conversation will go something like this:

"Hello, this is Mark"

"Hoi, met Ivo"

"....................(me switching to my dutch brain)......... He! Ivo! Hoe is het!"

" Goed, met jouw?"

".....................(trying to form a full sentence now) ((remember Mark, first verb in second position in the sentence, all the rest at the end!)).....Uh, Ik ben rugby aan het kijken. Jouw?

" Goed."

Eventually, I warm up and things start coming back to me and I can have a normal conversation but for a while I'll stammer and look for words, throw in an English word if I can't the Dutch one and struggle to get my point across. I was worried that I might get the same thing here at the Dutch club and look like a complete idiot.

Anyways, I got to the church and found where I needed to be and there was a group of eight people standing around with a cup of coffie and a cookie (dead giveaways for Dutchies). I asked if I was in the right place anyway and introduced myself and everyone was really nice and actually I needn't have worried. Firstly, no one asked my to stand up and make a speech and secondly we spent most of the time talking English!

It was lovely anyway to talk to Ruud and Ans and Gerard and Bas and the rest. They were all lovely people and made me feel welcome although there wasn't one of them who was within thirty years of my age. Most of them had come to New Zealand in the 40's and 50's and Nederland was very far away indeed. I heard that they used to get 75-80 people at their meetings back in the old days but that members had moved away or were too ill to come or dead. I really did enjoy my koffie en koekje and I do look forward to next month. I wonder what they think of Hans Teeuwen? In Dutch but really no translation necessary.

Misinformation: The Devil's Volleyball

With an issue as complicated and confusing as Misinformation (after the jump look at the examples) it's difficult to know where to start. For me the confusion only started fairly recently. It's funny how having kids can change your perspective on so many things but suddenly you start caring about things you never cared about before. All of a sudden you start looking into things and you realize how much bullshit is out there that you never even paid attention to before. When it came time to get Baxter's first immunization shots the midwife gave us a booklet about immunization and the pros and cons. Inside were two pamphlets. One, said that immunization was safe and of great benefit and the other said that immunization was dangerous and of little effect. We hadn't even got rid of that "new baby smell" off of Baxter and as new parents this wasn't a great way to help us make an informed decision because one of them was full of shit.
A lot of the big issues today are rife with misinformation whether it be Healthcare in the States (Obama's death squads), Genetic Modification (using rat testes in drought resistant wheat), Foreshore and Seabed (NZ) (Maori's will charge us to use the beach) or Climate Change (chose either the deniers or the exaggerators.) I believe in the effect of man made climate change but don't try and scare me with 6 meter sea level rise and 3 billion people displaced. Mate, you had me already at 1/2 meter and 500 million displaced. The only reason people tend to exaggerate is to pull in people that they haven't been convinced already. When it comes to climate change though, if you haven't convinced people already you're not going to. Don't worry about them, let natural selection sort them out.
Now lately, the mining debate has come up in New Zealand. The local paper ( I'd link to them but they haven't yet caught on to the interweb) has been full of letters to the editor about mining. I may be on one particular side of this argument but I do have a brain and I'm not afraid to use it. To see the bullshit that has been written just frustrates me for a few reasons. If a person makes good points, has sound arguments and makes ,what I feel reasonable assumptions, I'm inclined to believe them. That's not me being gullible or anything but people who tend to do those things tend to be right. Veer from those ideas and start personalizing or passing on someones idea as your own or say that you read something on the Internet and my bullshit meter starts going off. Rehash old ideas or as I said above exaggerate beyond reasonable belief and you start losing me pretty quickly. All of a sudden this misinformation starts turning into disinformation and you start to get into this territory.
What bugs me the most when I read these letters is that I know that they are false. I could never do public relations because I'd be calling "Bullshit!" all the time. I don't like to be wrong but I can accept that I can be, but what bugs me the most is when I know I'm right and I fail to convince someone of that. Wait, that came out wrong. It's not about me being right, that's not the point, but I don't want the other person to have the wrong information or believe something that isn't right because that bugs me. If someone says that Redwoods are the largest trees in the world, I'll say "No, Sequoia's are the largest, Redwoods are the tallest." I can't help myself, even if people will think I'm a smart-aleck-know-it-all prick. I can't let it slide. That's the price you have to pay for good information.
And don't even try and tell me that we didn't land on the moon because I will go all Buzz Aldrin on your ass!!!!

Shock And Ore

60 Minutes New Zealand has done a piece about gold mining in New Zealand in response to the government's recent release of it's report of precious metals held within conservation land here. You can watch the video here. They were on site for two days filming so you can get a could look of where I work. Like most reports I've seen lately it is slightly imbalanced reporting with more weight given to the scaremongers amongst who think that there will be huge open casts mine dotting the landscape. Let's just say that at this point you're more likely to see nuclear power plants dotting the countryside than opencast mines. I won't go into too many details about what I dispute about the report but suffice it to say that some of the arguments are old and tired. I'm already planning another post about misinformation which seems to be the modus operandi of opposing sides to most of the more complicated issues here. It's funny sometimes that Newmont here in Waihi get a lot of the coverage. We aren't the biggest mine in New Zealand and there are already mines in operation that are on conservation land (82!) but little ole Waihi keeps getting the face time. I'm sure it has nothing to do with being only two hours from where the major newscenters are based in Auckland. But I digress. Anyways, enjoy the video if you haven't seen it already.

The Strip Joint

I have no particular affinity for strip joints. They are reason number 12 why I'm glad I don't have girls. The last time I visited one was about 7 years ago for a mates stag party. They are a fantasy world that often brings out the least in people. That said, when I was 18 and in Guam I gladly swam in that fantasy. Try and tell an 18 year old that he shouldn't go to a place where he could drink beer, play pool and see boobies. There is a difference to being 18 and 40. If your 40 and still going to strip joints, just stay at home and play Dungeons and Dragons with your mates and I'll have more respect for you. I thought if I would go to one now, I'd want to know how I could make the most it, in my own way. So, I've come up with my Top 5 Most Awkward Songs To Get A Lap Dance To. I don't want to be there, the girls don't want to be there, so let's make it as uncomfortable as possible. So here they are:

5. Macarthur Park - Richard Harris "Someone left the cake out in the rain"

4. 2112 - Rush "20 minutes of Geekitude"

3. Once in A Lifetime - Talking Heads "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was"

2. I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers "And I would walk 500 miles!"

1. Luka - Suzanne Vega "No Comment"

Naturally, I made a playlist in case your not familiar with the songs or if you want to put your man off lapdances for the rest of his life.

The Better Half

Living with an aspiring artist isn't always easy. Lucky for me, Keri Ann finally decided to seek professional help. She took a course in etching/printmaking recently that's just been completed. Her tutor John Mulvay posted his thoughts on the whole process here. Keri Ann's print is titled Paper Doll and can be found at the bottom of the page. While the first up results were OK, Keri Ann loved the process. Sourcing the design, working with and the actual etching of the metal, choosing the format and working the press entralled her. Cover her with ink, acid and terps and she's as happy as a tornado in a trailer park.

For the boys

"Rugby reminds me of American football for Dummies. I find it rather boring. One has to admit it doesn't take a great deal of intelligence to play rugby.
In American football coordination, saavy, atheleticism, and the ability to second guess the opponents intentions are all factor's in determining a victor. The luck factor also play's an important role. An example of the luck factor would be a tipped ball being intercepted and run back for a touchdown"

That was a comment placed anonymously in my post about Jonah Lomu. I could tell right away that it could be only one of my readers: My Dad. He'd be the biggest American football( hereafter known as football) fans I know of that reads The Finndego. So I had him up about it and here is the conversation that ensued:
Me in italics and the old man in bold

Is that you commenting on The Finndego? The poor grammar, spelling and nonsensical arguments make me think it was you. Just kidding, but I do disagree with the points made and I want to find out who it is. Mark

Why what did they say?

Comparing rugby and football but I disagreed with argument. I hate the commenting on blogspot. It's more difficult than it should be. You sure it wasn't you?

What makes you think that I would do such a thing ? So tell me what is nonsensical about the guy's arguement. Now you should know by now I am quite knowledgable when it comes to football. I know nothing about rugby except they get in a bunch and play grab ass with each other.

I sent 10 things that I liked about rugby over football and he responded below them.

1. Games are over in 90 minutes. There is an eighty minute clock with very little stoppages. The action can stop but the clock keeps running and no time outs. No 3 1/2 hr games where the last 5 minutes of game clock takes 35 minutes.

Ya , so you have 80 minutes of sheer boredom and a bladder full of urine.

2. 15 a side with six on the bench but only 3 substitutes allowed.

Irrelevant.

3. While like football there are specialist body types for some positions everyone plays offense and defense. When the ball gets turnedover, that's it you gotta go tackle someone

So the game was made for someone with my mindset and athleticism.

4. No pads

Doesn’t bother me either we never had them when we where young. Unfortunately for you adults got involved in your game. Don't ever do that to your kids.

5. When a guy makes a regulation tackle he doesn't jump up and do a silly dance. One reason is because the ball is still live and the other is because generally they see themselves as sportsmen and not entertainers.

Well that’s the end result ogf the civil rights movement.

6. The game didn't go professional until 1996. Before then it was completely amateur.

To me it still is.

7. Because there thirty guys on the field it's pretty hard to break the defensive line. It's very tactical and it's all about keeping lanes and field positioning and tactical nous and counterattacking when possible.

Same with American Football , but by having separate plays our game becomes more like a chess match. Don’t forget if you know what the other team is going to do you will almost always be successful. That is on both offence and defense. That my son is one reason why there are so many upsets.

8. It's tradition after the game for the guys to go into each others locker rooms and drink a beer and swap stories. That's a holdover from the amateur days.

Our tradition was to find the bastard who clipped ya and clip him. When you were a kid and our softball team played for beers there was no spiking people and all that crap. Once we got into a league I for one turned into TY Cobb. I wouldn’t shake hands after the games either because I didn’t like them before during or after.

9. It's international. NZ,Australia,South Africa, England have all won World Cups while France,Wales, Ireland and Scotland are all good and each country have slightly different ways of playing the game. Their own style so to speak.

It may catch on but I wouldn’t expect a big following, I had to endure a game before going sky diving up in Maine with a friend it didn’t do nothing for me.

10. It still cheap to go to a game.

That’ll change

I feel like I'm trying to turn a born again christian! Look at a game of football like you've never seen one before or better yet try to explain agame to someone whose never seen one. If you can't explain a game in 5 minutes to a someone it's probably not even worth it. The NFL has the largest rule book of any major sport. You've got about 18 minutes of live ball action out of 3 1-2 hours of viewing. How is that a good thing? TV timeouts!? You are being brainwashed by the networks who sell advertising into believing this is a good thing. I'll watch games because of history but on my cable we also get a replay of the days game cut down to 2 hours. It's much better. When was the last time you ever went to a game?

Look at what the announcers call the intangibles that can turn a game. A fumble, a tipped pass, a dropped punt, weather, injury etc… Good play calling is just as important as the ability of the athletes involved., especially at the professional level which is much more sophisticated than a pick up game.
Balance has to be considered a an offence that scores 35 PPG is good , but not good enough if the Defense gives up 42 PPG. Speed and size matter but again intelligence and exploiting the oppositions weakness’ can also turn a game. Thus you need a good passing game to have a good running game and vice versa. You need smart and fast corners and safety’s , You need big fast and strong linebackers , to go along with your big line. If a team find a weakness you’ll know real fast. That’s what ended Bledsoe’s carreer

But Pudge, a lot of sports are very similar to that. There is nothing special about trying to exploit your strenths or the other teams weaknesses. What I like about rugby is the organisational skills required to keep attacking and defending in fluid play. A rugby team may think it has an advantage in it's forwards and keep pounding the ball up the middle until the defense weakens and draws in more defenders and then wait to swing it outside. This may take several play the balls before the defense is trapped and vunerable. You may counter that football does that play to play which they do, but they've got four coaches up in a box with cameras and phones down to the sidelines and quarterbacks who aren't even allowed to call their own plays. In rugby all this has to happen in the moment and all the players must regconise what is happening instintivley. Not only that all the players are touching the ball and offloading in the tackle and they require tremendous ball skills and hand eye coordination. A lineman's role is to be fat and block this guy or that one while the defensive lineman must fill this gap or that one. In rugby EVERY player requires some of the skills of a linemen,running back,quarterback,wide receiver,linebacker and safety. The percentage of each is divived unequally through the different positions but even the biggest of front rowers must possess the skills of running the ball, catching the ball and tackling. Oh did I mention that most football teams carry two players on their roster whose sole function is to kick the ball at the end of a possesion. Ridiculous.

The funny thing is, I tried to get him to have the same sort of email conversation with me when Massachusetts lost it's Senate seat to the Republicans but that didn't really happen. Talk about football though and it's on like Donkey Kong. I know that it will bother him to no end but I'm going to declare myself the winner but somehow I have a feeling it won't end here.

Next Week: The Finndego vs. Sarah Palin on shooting large mammals in high heels, Obama's Death Squads and molecular biology.

Wonderful Indifference

Here's a video that I got off of Boing Boing of this wonderful self-taught African guitar player. As much as the amazing talent blew me away, I was almost more blown away by the absolute indifference of the performer. Too cool for school!!

For The Ladies

On a scale of 1 to 10 my love of women is a ten and my understanding of women is about a 0.5. The man who ever figures them out will be richer than Bill Gates overnight. They are life's eternal mystery and unfortunately the answer is not 46. It's maddening how maddening they can be. If God is man (debatable) women are the test. If I ever make it to the Pearly Gates, St. Peter won't ask me if I lived according to God's will he will ask me if I lived to women's will and I will say "Yes... but not without a fight". Does that make me righteous? Maybe.
I love them for their ability to care, understand, love, succor, organise, feel, communicate. I hate them for their ability to make all of those things so difficult. Their is a reason that they do the things they do, I just wish I knew why.
I've had 2-1/2 relationships in my whole life that were worth a damn. There is an argument there that I've been noncommittal, but my argument would be, that actually I have been very committed when the feeling was mutual. I'm prepared to put in what the other is prepared to put in, but somehow I never felt like I had control of that negotiation. I'm not saying that I felt like a puppet, but more like the choices I had to make were put on the table for me and then I had to make the choice. Somebody tell me I'm wrong and that's not the way it is. Therein lies the reason why I think there should be more women politicians. It's this innate ability that women have of making men think they have a choice when they actually don't that makes them the master negotiator.
Every movie I've ever seen where the bank robber takes hostages, the FBI negotiator has always been a man. In the beginning, they always play hardball. They threaten to send in the SWAT team or turn off the power or turn up the air conditioning. They will tell the hostage taker that he is having to hold back the snipers because they've got an itchy finger or if he comes out now everything will be OK because nobody's been killed yet (has that line ever worked yet). Soon they'll soften their stance and say that they are trying to organise a bus to take them all to the airport, where a plane will be waiting to take them to Cuba. (Two things here: That's obviously not gonna work, it hasn't worked in the previous movies so why is it gonna work in this one and why do they always want to fly to Cuba? Is their some sort of hostage taker retirement home there?) Later in the piece when the negotiator starts getting desperate because nothing is working, the tables start to turn and all of a sudden the hostage taker starts getting his demands met. Maybe it's just pizza in exchange for a few of the elderly or sick hostages or even the pregnant one who just went into labor. 12 hours later, they will meet face to face in a standoff at the front door of the bank, Mano y Mano, with all guns trained on the hostage taker and the place will absolutely reek of sweat, testosterone and pizza and it will all be very dramatic. In my reality, the women negotiator comes in offers pizza right away, which will be delivered by the hostage takers mother(definitely not the girlfriend!). Mom and the negotiator will have him crying into his pizza within 15 minutes and we'll all be home by lunch. Not a very good movie all the same but at least everyone get's home alive.
In conclusion, my respect for women is immense. So much so that I'm almost ready to become a lesbian myself. Barring that impossibility, I've done the next best thing. I've done a playlist! As always, the list is incomplete but hopefully there is something in there for someone. Love you all!

This Sporting Life: Jonah Lomu

I love rugby. Everyone knows that New Zealanders love their rugby too, so why should I be different. I liked soccer when I was in Holland and baseball when I was in America. That's just the way I am. The All Blacks may possibly be the most the single most popular entity in New Zealand ever. They have the the highest winning percentage of any professional team ever at 74.49%. The other 25.51% of losses have mostly come at semi-finals of World Cups. To be honest though, I never knew that much about rugby before I came here. The one player I did know was Jonah Lomu. If there ever was a world rugby star then it was Jonah. In all rugby playing nations he was revered execpt for possibly New Zealand. It's quite hard to try and explain the relationship between New Zealand and Jonah. It's not necassarly "tall poppy syndrome" that is quite prevalent here but more of people here not knowing how to or where to place him. This is probably because he was such a unique player. Big, strong and fast, there hadn't really been anyone like him before. Wingers in rugby were lean, light and quick. One on one against an opposing winger was almost unfair for Jonah. Unfortunately, rugby isn't played one on one but 15 against 15. Given space to roam or bringing the ball into contact against smaller players is really where he came into his own. To an unendearing New Zealand public he always had fatal flaws. He couldn't play defence or wasn't any good under the high ball, are the most common ones. The funny thing was, in England,France,Ireland,Scotland and Wales he was almost godlike. It's a well known fact that he turned down multiple offers from the UK and France to go and play for clubs there (something a lot of other All Blacks have done) but he is hardly ever credited with staying. Of course, with New Zealand's rich rugby history they have always had great players and I really feel that if they ever made an alltime XV Jonah would somehow miss the cut. Players like John Kirwan or Jeff Wilson (great players by the way) would probably get the nod on the wing and that might be fair enough. I'm really just trying to say that while I often hate sometimes how sport is commercialized and sold, in this case no one has been more important at selling the All Blacks "brand" than Jonah Lomu. Jonah did things the "right way" just like a lot of the other greats. He played hard, no one doubted his commitment to the All Blacks, he was humble and fronted up to criticism. He spent a lot of time promoting the game worldwide and has never gotten himself into any real strife. It only came out in his later career that he was suffering from a debilitating kidney disease that would eventually see him require a kidney transplant. Yet somehow, he's never gotten himself into the pantheon of great players and I wonder why. All I know, is that before I knew rugby I knew Jonah Lomu.
I got a few clips off of youtube that cannot be missed. Most people in New Zealand will have seen them a million times but it has to be done. Just like Van Basten's goal against Russia or Fisk's homer in game six these are the ones you remember.
1. The Classic - Has anyone's career been more defined by one play than Jonah's or Mike Catt's than this. I threw in French commentary to spice it up.

2. The Favourite - I love this one because when I first saw it it I was right in the middle of trying to explain the rules of rugby to one of my dutch friends. Basically, I was trying to say how in rugby you need to stay with your support players because in rugby if your isolated you could lose the ball at the play the ball area. Then this happened. I just said, "Unless your Jonah, of course."

3. The Commercial - I always loved this commercial. I love the van hit at the end. I don't know who came up with the idea of this commercial but I always thought it was very original.

By the way, for those of my readers who don't know the All Blacks or rugby at all let me just say that this is one of the coolest things in sport because even if you don't like sports you'll feel something watching this. And here's why they do it.