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.