Chips

If television has taught me anything, it’s that it’s important to be yourself. Call a spade a spade, wear your hat forwards when everyone else is wearing theirs backwards and read Harry Potter when everyone else is on Twilight.

Why then, are we being taught to do the opposite of that in the world of chips?

Chips, or as they are slowly becoming known, crisps, go well with a couple of beers. I am quite an advocate of a pint and a pack of chips on a lazy Sunday afternoon as the sun beats down with the last rays of warmth for another weekend and I heartily advise that you follow suit. The flavour of chip that you munch while you toast the oncoming week is a highly personal one – they all have their place in the world, even original (or “plain”) flavour. But what happened to me last weekend will shock and annoy you. Well, it annoyed me; you probably won’t give a shit.

I asked for a packet of Cheese n Onion chips; I could see the yellow packet winking at me from behind the bar. Mildly Attractive Bargirl says, “We don’t have Cheese n Onion.” I was shocked. “What do you have, please?” I ask. Mildly Attractive Bargirl lays out the selection of chips on the bar for me to peruse. The shiny foil packages were less bright than I remembered them being, and there was something odd about the labelling. Gone was Cheese n Onion, there wasn’t a Chicken option, Salt n Vinegar was no more and Barbecue flavour was strangely absent. Fuck, even Plain had been replaced. I looked at the chips, then at Mildly Attractive Bargirl and then back to the chips. She shrugged apologetically and continued (in my mind) to mentally undress me.

Vintage Cheddar and Red Onion.
Moroccan Spiced Chicken.
Sea Salt & Balsamic.
Grilled Spare Ribs.
Rock salt.

WHAT. THE. FUCK. I know everyone’s being a massive food-wanker lately and refusing to eat anything that hasn’t been blessed by Jamie Oliver and Matt the Cravat from MasterChef and isn't infused with Wagu goodness on a bed of aioli mash and roasted pig’s dick with pumpkin seeds (organic, please), but these are fucking CHIPS, people. You reach into the packet, grab a few slices of fried potato, shove them in your gob and wipe your hands on your pants. It’s a universal chip eating method; it’s the same way the Queen eats them, the same way the homeless bloke who spits at you at the bus stop eats them, the same way you eat them, the same way I do. It’s a fucking chip, for fuck’s sake. Rock salt? Vintage cheddar? In the real world, it's salt and cheese flavouring.

And for the record, Vintage Cheddar and Red Onion tastes suspiciously like Cheese and Onion. You can imagine the surprise on my face.

Round Nine: Half Assed Blogging

What a great photo. It's just like being there.

Good ol’ Rep Season. It’s a tipster/blogster’s dream. It pretty much means I have to work half as hard for the same pay… which is still exactly nothing.

I honestly don’t know or care about who’s playing in the Australia vs New Zealand game, nor the City/Country match, but I do know (through my extensive reading of headlines in the paper a few days ago) that the Aussie players are firing up because they’re “only” getting $6,000 as a bonus for the priviledge of being named as one of the best 13 players in the country. Personally I reckon $6,000 is pretty good for an extra 80 minutes at work, but that's just me.



Manly vs Dragons
Manly are at home and are traditionally difficult to beat at the Brookvale Fortress (a full stadium of Manly fans all baring their single tooth while they grunt and shriek is very intimidating) but for me, the Dragons are the team to beat. And Manly won’t beat them. Sorry, Manly.

Knights vs Titans
It’s the CLASH OF THE TITANS… and the Knights. This can really only go one way, and that way is for the Titans to win. Unless the Knights do. Or it’s a tie. Then there are three ways for this game to go.

Storms vs Broncos
I’m going to assume that the Storm will have a thOUsand players in the Australia match on Friday night who may not be man enough to play another game on the same weekend (diddums). But whoever turns up for them will be more than good enough to pound on the Broncos. Poor Brisbane - you used to be good (when you cheated the salary cap).

Roosters vs Cowboys
The Roosters will hit a speed bump called the Cowboys this week. As we all know, speed bumps are a great way to get some wicked air while driving your car through suburban streets or in shopping centre car parks. That’s pretty much what’s going to happen in this game, too. Look for the Chooks to rack up at least a half-century.

That was way too easy.

Tip tok, don’t stop - something something bloggy rock.

MasterDrinkers

As soon as the juggernaut of The Biggest Loser ends, the juggernaut that is MasterChef begins. Don’t try and pretend that there’s no irony about watching twenty fat fuckers try and halve their body weight in 12 weeks and then watching three other fat fuckers show some Peter Russell Clarke wannabes drown their food in oil and salt for another 12 weeks. However, these are two shows which have captured the imaginations of the Australian public, so what else is there to do but switch on, crack a stubbie and drink to it?

MasterChef Drinking Game

You will need:
- 1 television tuned to Channel 10 at 7:30pm
- Enough alcohol to (a) quench Lindsay Lohan’s thirst, and (b) make her attractive again
- The ability to withstand the wank that is MasterChef

The judges
There are three judges who vary in belly girth and ugliness. If they were women, they wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the screen. The fat bald one is George, the fat one with hair is Gary and the super fat one with the cravat is Matt.

- drink every time George raises his voice for emphasis at the wrong time.
- drink every time George raises himself onto his tiptoes while talking.
- drink every time George gets way too close to the food he’s preparing.
- drink every time George drops food from his mouth while eating or spits while talking with a mouthful of food.
- drink every time a joke is made about Gary being fat.
- drink every time Gary suggests something to the other judges (“Let’s eat!” or “Let’s score this dish!”) followed by “shall we?”
- drink every time Matt looks as if he’s about to vomit after eating.
- drink every time Matt’s fucking cravat is mentioned.
- drink for every time the three judges talk about how a piece of food “takes them away to another place.”
- drink whenever the judges interrupt someone cooking to ask them a stupid question and then tell them to “hurry up” as the time runs down.

The contestants
There are about a thousand contestants, ranging from some guy to a chick with glasses. None of them are chefs by trade, but all know how to cook the bejesus out of a pufferfish, so I’m thinking they might have some inside info that we don’t know about. Keep an eye out for Claire – she acts like she’s just come from the auditions of “So You Think You Can Dance” and was told that she’s rubbish and now has a point to prove.

- drink every time a contestant cries.
- an extra drink if they cry due to the food “affecting them” in a “personal way” or
- if they’re crying because “it’s just too hard.”
- drink when the contestant fucks something up while cooking.
- drink whenever the contestant vows not to let being kicked off the show stop them from achieving their dream.
- drink every time the contestant is obviously being told to say that they can “taste the acidic citric flavour cutting through the sweet velvet essence” (or equivalent) when all they’re really doing is eating lemon pie with vanilla ice cream.
- drink whenever the contestants get to meet a “celebrity chef” and they all act like 12 year old girls at a Justin Beiber concert instead of a bunch of grown-ups meeting someone who’s a slightly better cook than they are.
- drink whenever a contestant claims that they’re “not ready to go home yet.”

If you can make it through one episode without passing out, you’re a better man than I. Bon appetit!

Warning: Objects in this picture are as wanky as they appear

NRL Round Eight: Ignore my iambic pentameter please.

Jarrod Sammut isn't playing in the NRL this year after being poached by the New Zealand Ballet

In the interest of keeping tipping fresh and hilarious (and I’m bored and don’t want to do work today), this week I am going to write my tips in limerick form.

Broncos vs Knights
The Broncs and the Knights both suck,
Two teams who are down on their luck,
They can’t pass nor catch
Who will win this match?
Honestly I don’t give a fuck.
(but for the record, I’m tipping Brisbane)

Eels vs Bulldogs
There once was a man named Hayne,
Who last year was top of his game.
But his form is down
The Mayor of Struggletown
But I’m tipping the Eels all the same.

Warriors vs Raiders
They’re bad and mean
The Green Machine.
At least the first line is right
But on Saturday night
They’ll be back in the winning routine.

Titans vs Panthers
IT’S THE CLASH OF THE TITANS and the Panthers
Both teams are, to be perfectly Francis,
Playing out of their skin
I’m tipping Panthers to win.
Hold me closer, tiny dancer.

Cowboys vs Storm
The Storm are playing for pride
And the Cows are just along for the ride
Will Thurston’s facial hair
Inspire the Queensland flair?
My tip is Melbs to take this in their stride.

Dragons vs Sharks
Nothing much rhymes with Dragons
Which is a problem, because I used the word “Dragons”
As the first line
In this rhyme
Which means the second and last line also have to rhyme with Dragons.

Tigers vs Roosters
There once was a guy from Easts
Who pissed on another guy’s feet
He ran from the cops
And broke into a shop
And set fire to someone's arse on NYE.
(Go Tigers, but my tip is for the Roosters)

Rabbits vs Manly
Last week, South Sydney were down
Until half-time turned them around,
Manly lost fightin’
To a clash of the Titans
This one is game of the round.
(Go Souths).

I’m not going to do that again.

Boom shake shake shake the room – tip tip tip tip Boom.

my essay

wun day many weaks ago i played hockey and had beer and then i say to my freinds "i have to go home now" and i got in my car and on the way home i stoped to buy some bred and some milk for some milk sammiches and then i thort "i should buy more beer to have at home" so i bought a six pack of beer to have at home and the girl at the register piched up the bred and scanned it and then she picked up the milk and scaned it and then piked up the six pack and she scanned it but she did'nt scann the six-pack barcode she only scanned a single beer that was in the six-pack and then she said "that will be $9 please" and i says "oh that is cheap here is $10" and she gives me a dollar change and she coold tell that somethink was wrong but when she looked at the receet it said ‘bred and milk and beer’ and then she lookt inside the bag and it had bred and milk and beer in it so she gave it to me and i walked out of the shops and i was happy that i only spent a few dollars on six beers and i didn’t mind that she put them all in the same bag and even though the bred was a little squashed it was the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.

Round 7: Magic Eight Ball Magic

Tipping made easy

Last week’s tips didn’t quite all work out as well as I would have liked them to. The Raiders were only 30 points away from causing an upset, the Storm were too busy thinking of ways to spend an extra $700,000 to realise they had a game to play, and the Rabbitohs decided to go back to being shit. This week though, it’s serious. There’s pride and guts and balls and other shit on the line here. I’m so serious about this week that I’m trusting my Magic Eight Ball to come up with the winners.

Bulldogs vs Broncos
“Will the Bulldogs beat the Broncos?” My Magic Eight Ball has declared this one as “Hazy, please ask again later.” I’m on a tight schedule here, so I asked it again immediately. “It is so.” Can’t argue with that. Doggies by a dozen. A good start by the Ball.

Cowboys vs Eels
"Will the Eels beat the Cowboys?" I ask the Ball. “Don’t count on it,” is the reply. I feel bad for going against the Ball, but I'm going to anyway. Fucking Cowboys.

Panthers vs Tigers
This should actually be a good game. I asked the Ball whether it would be, but it said that it was unlikely. That’s a shame; they’re both playing good footy right now. “Should I tip the Panthers?” I ask the Ball. “My sources say no,” is the reply. Fuck it; I have a feeling about them, so there’s my tip.

Sharks vs Knights
I’m going out on a limb and saying that the Knights will thump the Sharkies… but let’s see what the higher forces say: “Will the Knights win?” “Cannot predict now.” “How about now?” “I predict no.” I reckon this Ball is a bit fucked, actually. This was a bad idea. I’m tipping the Knights.

Raiders vs Rabbitohs
The Raiders and the Rabbits - two teams who put on a great display of sucking last week. Who will pull it back together in time for this clash? “Raiders?” I ask. “It is certain,” says the Ball. I’d better double check this result, so I ask it, “Rabbits?” “Outlook good,” says the Ball. Fuck you, Ball, you fucking fence-sitting fuck. Raiders for me.

Dragons vs Roosters
“Is Todd Carney a fuckbag?” I ask the Ball, more for shits and giggles than anything. “Ask again later,” is the response. I’m beginning to hate the Ball. “Will the Dragons win?” I ask it. “Better not tell you now.” Now would actually be a good time, francisly speaking. “Should I tip the Roosters?” “Yes, definitely.” I think the Ball is now playing with my emotions. I’m tipping St George. This experiment hasn’t really worked.

Storm vs Warriors
Ok Ball, let’s try again. “Storm to win?” “Reply hazy, try again.” Things are very hazy in there indeed, it seems. I give the Ball a quick polish and ask, “Are you still hazy?” “As I see it, yes.” I could be waiting a while for this thing to unhaze itself, so I’m just going to tip the Storm and be done with it. To hell with their salary cap shenanigans, I reckon they’re going to be fairly pissed off. I almost feel sorry for our Kiwi cousins.

Manly vs Titans
It’s the CLASH OF THE TITANS… and the Sea Eagles. This game could also be a decent contest, if Manly’s form last week can stick around. What do you think, Mr Ball? “Yes, definitely.” Well that’s just lovely. “Do you think the Titans will win?” “Outlook not so good.” Finally a good call from the Ball. However, I am going to tip the upset and go for the Titans. Sorry Ball.

Should I have put more faith in the Ball? “My sources say no.” Awesome.

Tip tip hooray!

Here fishy fishy fishy

Ah Australia. We are fairly blase about the dangers that our wildlife offer sometimes. So much so that when a certain species of fish who eats snakes, birds and rodents, loves the shit out of blood and can grow to a metre long, pings over here from Papua New Guinea, they are declared a “pest.” According to the Animals and Shit in Australia Scale which I just invented, this puts them on the same level as mosquitoes, cane toads and Daryl Somers. "Fishzilla" as it has been dubbed by some champion of the media, can live in poor environments, which makes them quite suitable to thrive in Queensland. They have also been known to walk on land, incidentally putting them above many people in Queensland.

Honestly, when a flesh-eating fish arrives in our waters and we dismiss it as a ‘pest’, perhaps it’s time to have a good, hard look at just how awesome we are.

Damn pesky fish

Round Six: When Foot Meets Ball

After five rounds of league, we’re starting to see which teams are actually any good, and which ones are filled with players who are waiting to finish their contract so they can be bought by a better club for more money and not get injured. And then there’s the Sharks, who are like the Little Red Engine Who Could’s retarded cousin the Little Red Engine Who Couldn’t. I’d feel sorry for the Sharks if they didn’t deserve being hated.

Tigers vs Bulldogs
I don’t think anyone in the world should need to consult the Magic Eight Ball for this puppy – the Tigers should quite comfortably desmolish the Doggies by around twelve billion points. If the Dogs get close at all, Benji Marshall will lock the brakes on Kimmorley’s wheelchair and put an end to any thought of a resurgence.

Titans vs Dragons
It’s the CLASH OF THE TITANS… and the Dragons, which is one of a few decent games this weekend. This is a tough game for me to pick, because I hate both of these teams quite a lot. But I hate the Titans more, and I also think that the Dragons are a better team. That wasn’t that hard at all, actually.

Knights vs Cowboys
Hurm. One of the most overrated players in history is coming back for the Knights this week (Gidley), while an equally overrated (but also slightly more talented) player in Thurston is out for the Cowboys. Gidley reckons he should be picked as captain for the NSW State of Origin team; personally, I’d like him to play a game before big-noting himself too much. I wouldn’t even pick him as the kid who runs the team out for the kick-off. Um… I’ll tip the Cowboys. I don’t know why.

Roosters vs Raiders
Raiders fans will be salivating at the thought of this game, as bad-boy Todd Carney faces up against his old team for the first time. Hopefully Josh Dugan will piss on his face in backplay at some stage. The Chooks have no chance (NO CHANCE) against a red-hot Canberra outfit (they do, but I’m not fucking picking them)

Warriors vs Panthers
“The Warriors show great potential, but need to concentrate more. They are easily distracted and lack direction, and their results often show this. When they apply themselves to task, they excel in their work, as seen in their previous game.”
“The Panthers have shown themselves to be a dutiful team this year, quietly achieving good results with a minimum of fuss. With further encouragement, the Panthers could become Chief Justices of the Supreme Court.”

Broncos vs Sharks
Oh god, who cares? No one, that’s who.

Eels vs Rabbits
The Eels are playing terribly badly at the moment. They reckon they’ve fixed this problem by making Nathan Hindmarsh co-captain with Nathan Cayless. I’m not entirely convinced that picking captains just because their name is Nathan is going to help anyone, but I’m willing to be proven wrong. I’m sticking with the Wabbits though.

Storm vs Manly
Neither of these teams are setting the world on fire this year, despite the Storm dropping their first game last week. To be perfectly francis, I’d like to set both of these teams on fire. But if that doesn't happen (I'm busy this weekend), Jamie Lyon coming in for the Sea Eagles will no doubt have a major influence on Manly's ability to lose the game. I’m picking the Storm, unless Billy Slater’s metamorphosis into becoming a rat finishes – in which case he will be busy teaching ninjitsu to some turtles in a sewer and will no doubt be unavailable for the game.

The transformation is almost complete

Time keeps on tipping, tipping, tipping into the future.

Round 5: Turning points

I'm pretty sure this kick isn't going where he intended it to

There comes a time in every celebrity tipster’s life (I use both the words ‘celebrity’ and ‘tipster’ fairly loosely) where he must wonder why on earth he even thinks about trying to pick a winner in rugby league. Let it be known that Round 4 of 2010 will go down in history as “a shit week” for everyone (I also use the term ‘everyone’ fairly loosely), and Round 5 will be “redemption.”

Dragons vs Broncos
The Brisbanes aren’t travelling too well this year, which is great to see. As long as someone’s keeping the Raiders off the bottom of the ladder, I’m happy. I don’t care who it is, really. St George should win this by at least 8,000,000 points, unless the football gods play another prank on us this week.

Titans vs Storm
It’s the CLASH OF THE TITANS… and the Storm. The Titans will be buoyed by the fact that a movie called “Clash of the Titans” opened for them this week, but perturbed that it’s not very good. The Storm will be buoyed by the fact that they are a much better football team than the Titans and this should prove to be a more considerable advantage in winning the match.

Rabbits vs Knights
According to Centrebet, the Knights are at $2.75 to win. It wouldn’t be the most ridiculous way to spend $10. But I’m still tipping the Bunnies; I think they’ve just started to hit their straps. They might also be buoyed by the fact that their owner/saviour/secret lover Russell Crowe is Robin Hood. I know that would buoy me. I’m using the word ‘buoyed’ a lot today.

Bulldogs vs Warriors
Seriously, both of these teams can go and get fucked. They play well, they play shit, they play mediocre. I can’t keep up. Fuck them both in the ear. Flip a coin. Warriors are paying $3.15. That’s not bad actually. Save your $10 from the Bunnies game (above) and spend it on the Kiwis instead.

Cowboys vs Tigers
It was nice of the Tigers to turn up in the second half last weekend and ruin my day. Despite that, I’m going for the Tigers to win again; I have a gut feeling. I’ve also had three coffees today and am feeling a bit squishy in the stomach which might have something to do with it, but I’ll trust it anyway. Also, I don’t like the Cowboys on general principle.

Manly vs Sharks
Hmmm. Sharks are paying $3.70. You could take your $10 from the NZ vs Dogs game and put it on them instead, as they might just spring another surprise this week after notching their first win against Parramatta. But Manly SHOULD win this one, if the law according to Des Hasler goes to plan. Coach Des is the absolute epitome of why everyone hates Manly. One-eyed arrogant prick.

Panthers vs Roosters
There’s been an awful lot of hype about the Chooks lately – and good hype, not the kind they’re used to – and not much about the Panthers. I don’t really know if that will have much of an impact on the game, but it sounds like a nice introduction into ‘underdog status’ and phrases like ‘playing to prove a point.’ I’ll leave that up to the paid journalists though. I’ll tip the Roosters this week.

Eels vs Raiders
The Eels are paying $1.35 and the mighty fucking Canberra motherfucking Raiders are $3.30. Take the $10 you were going to spend on the Manly game and put it on the Green Machine. I’d really enjoy it if the same Parramatta who got smoked by the Sharks last week turn up again. I’d also like it if the same Raiders outfit who smashed the Tigers in the first half last week turned up again. And if Rachel McAdams and Natalie Portman wanted to come around and play Nintendo with me, that would be nice too.

Tip me over, pour me a stout.

You can find the perfect blend

If anyone is still wondering how Paul Robinson keeps on getting laid regardless of how much of a prick he is, this picture explains all.

It has been way too long since a Neighbours update, and Ramsay Street is fucking BUZZING. If I knew more about computers, I’d get the word ‘buzzing’ to shake and shit, but I only just learnt what a bit-torrent was the other night, so I’m going to cut my losses and thank Jeebus that I’ve somehow managed to log onto my Googleblog.

Anyway. Neighbours. BUZZING. Let’s see what’s making news in Erinsborough.

Breaking news:
Corey Worthington eat your heart out: Police were called to the home of Steph Scully a few nights ago when a party thrown for the sometimes-Scottish-son of Paul Robinson got out of hand after sometimes-Scottish-son posted the party details on popular networking site Facebook. The reason for the party is unknown, as sometimes-Scottish-son is currently laying low after causing Robinson’s hotel millions of dollars in damage. There were also reports that someone vomited in the bathroom, possibly due to an overdose of potato chips and lemonade, as no persons at the party were witnessed to be drinking alcohol.

Tens of dollars worth of damage: A one-man rampage swept through Ramsay Street when the sometimes-Scottish-son of Paul Robinson smashed pot plants and knocked over wheelie bins. Unfortunately, it was bin night and everyone’s rubbish receptacles were full, causing milk cartons and at least one newspaper to spill onto the road. Sometimes-Scottish-son later apologised for the act, saying that he had been "tipped over the edge" after having called his mother in Sydney earlier to ask to come home, and being denied. Sources close to sometimes-Scottish-son's mother claim that she runs a successful pot plant store, and having him nearby may provide too much temptation for his violent tendancies.

Love nest: A mere seventeen seconds after losing his wife to a brain embolism following a horrific car crash, Declan Napier’s love life has definitely improved and he has officially ‘moved on,’ according to sources. Kate Ramsay (not a made-up name, apparently) has been seen sharing very awkward kisses with the handsome father-of-one, who apparently won his role on Neighbours after winning a competition run in Dolly Magazine. Not one to rush this new relationship, Declan has been quoted as saying, “We’re taking it slowly,” as he moved his furniture and month-old baby into Kate’s house. Kate’s housemates (younger brother Harry, 15, and younger and more annoying sister Sophie, 7ish) had little to say about the two newest members of the household. One must wonder how they can afford new clothes, video games, school fees, movies and shit-tins of coffee without having a parent in the house and their only income arriving in the form of Kate’s part-time job at the local shop.

Buns in ovens: Don’t tell Libby – Steph slept (although not much sleeping was done, if you know what I mean) with her best friend’s husband and is now pregnant with his baby. To keep Steph’s good name, former fiancé Toadie Rebecci is going to somehow take responsibility for the child. His dedication is extreme in that he even broke up with his fairly attractive girlfriend to maintain the deception to everyone else, despite not having actually told anyone about the pregnancy yet. This reporter (me) is confused. Although Steph is only about six minutes pregnant and not having the slightest hint of a baby bump, she has felt the child kicking. I don't know a whole lot about pregnancy, but I reckon I’ve got fossilised bricks with more life inside them than Steph. She's such a sympathy whore. And also general whore.

Weather:
As usual: The weather is always perfect, unless there’s going to be a flood (whereby it rains) or a savage fire (whereby it doesn’t).

Sport:
Soccer World Cup Cash-in: Questionable antics from the newly appointed coach of the under 9 soccer team, sometimes-Scottish-son of Paul Robinson, has led to his sacking. The kids of Ramsay Street are devastated and bookmakers have increased their odds to almost unbackable lengths to win a single game, let alone the coveted Ramsay Street under 9 soccer team Cup. Supermum Libby has put aside her failed marriage and ugly children to help make this team of spazzies a team of champions. Following some tremendously well-edited and choreographed soccer clips, it turns out that Sophie Ramsay is quite good at soccer, and Libby's ugly son is quite good at dancing, leading to his departure from the under 9s soccer team to pursue a career on stage. He has already been called a “flaming homosexual gay homo poof” by Lucas, and an "ugly flaming homosexual gay homo poof”by me.

Comeback kid? Declan Napier was seen talking to former AFL team the Erinsborough Dingoes this week, sparking rumours that this wunkerkind child prodigy was going to make a comeback to the game. These thoughts were quickly put to bed after he admitted to not being interested in the sport anymore and preferred spending time with his boy-pal at an amateur magician's night - was this the case of Neighbours' writers being retarded on purpose, by accident, working a private joke into the script or trying to get their amateur magician friends on tv? Whatever it was, it filled in a few minutes of airtime, a paragraph on this blog and showed that Declan seriously has no mates at all.

Predictions for upcoming weeks:

• Steph will lose her baby.
• Whatever Libby’s ugly child is named will win the respect of his peers through the art of dance, in what will be a blatant rip-off of Billy Elliot and that episode of the Simpsons where Bart does ballet.
• A new family will move in. They will be a couple in their mid-to-late 20s. He will be a policeman, she will become a bartender at Charlie’s. They have a secret past that they are afraid will bring them down.
• A tragedy will rock Erinsborough. I think sometimes-Scottish-son of Paul Robinson might get taken hostage or fall down a well or something.

Round Four: How Canterbury ruined Easter

Raaaaa

Welcome to Round Four, sportsfans. Woo. This week’s tips will be short and sweet (and early) because I’m going to be as hungover as a goat tomorrow.

Storm vs Dragons
This has the potential to be an absolute cracker-fucking-jack of a game, but it will most likely become the most one-sided match of the round. Which way will it go? Both teams are undefeated, but the Storm are playing some fairly lacklustre footy at the moment; the addition of Cooper Cronk might help spark them. WAIT WAIT WAIT. That sounds way too informative. Dragons are big and spiky and breathe fire and nothing nothing nothing can defeat a large, fictitious monster (except for a bigger fictitious monster who pisses lightning). My tip is the Saints.

Roosters vs Broncos
Both of these teams were retarded last week. And I mean that in a totally non-politically-correct way, they were both fully fledged flailing spastics who didn’t have the co-ordination to lick a window on the fucking special bus. Todd Carney proved himself to be back to his good self by playing as if he was coming off a thousand eccies (I wonder why), and the Broncos showed their appreciation to the crowd by flinging shit and pissing on them. The Roosters will probably win this dribble-a-thon, but it won’t be pretty. Fuck I hate this sport sometimes.

Sharks vs Eels
The Sharks are attempting to avoid the honour of having the game’s longest losing streak this weekend. Good luck to them, but I’m afraid that it’s a done deal. Eels by approximately a million or more.

Cowboys vs Titans
It’s the CLASH OF THE COWBOYS… and the Titans. Something doesn't quite sound right there... Um. Titans have lost their only good player, which puts them on level pegging with the Cowboys, who never had a good player. The Cowboys are used to not having anyone with skill on their team, so they should win this puppy.

Warriors vs Manly
Warriors.

Raiders vs Tigers
The lads from Canberra will be hosting the girls from Balmain this week, and the Green Machine will be in full force to fuck up the shit of the Tigers in no uncertain terms. Put your motherfucking house on it, bet your children and mortgage your grandparents. This is a certainty.*

*not a certainty

Knights vs Panthers
I reckon the Panthers will be silent assassins this year, sneaking around and knocking off the bigger and better teams. This week, they’re playing the Knights, who are in no way bigger or better than them (they’re probably better than the Sharks, but that’s about it). Panthers to continue their sneaky ways this week with a million-point victory.

Rabbits vs Bulldogs
It’s Easter, so I really should tip the Bunnies. But I won’t, because they will lose.

If you liked it then you shoulda put a tip on it.

NRL 2010 - Round Three: The Raiders Fall from Grace

I wish I played for the Cossacks... or dressed up as their mascot...

Hello and welcome to the Tip'O'Drome for NRL Round 3. I honestly can't think of anything of interest that's happened during the week - I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. According to reports, Sonny Bill Williams is looking to rejoin the NRL. I would love to see the big guy back here trying to resurrect his career, and after being rejected by every single club in Australia, packing my groceries at Woolworths. And if that fucker squashes my bread, I'm going to fucking crowbar the shit out of him.

Round Three awaits!

Wests Tigers v Parramatta Eels
I don’t rate the Tigers much this year, which is sad, because I certainly do like saying the word ‘tiger.’ I’m going to back the Eelies to win, based mainly on my hatred of Lote Tuqiri, who has come back from ‘the game they play in heaven’ about 80kgs overweight. I guess the ‘running game’ doesn’t necessarily require an awful lot of running.

St George Illawarra Dragons v North Queensland Cowboys
The Dragons will piss this in. The Cowboys just don’t seem interested in playing these days. It’s fine when I don’t feel like doing much work at my office, because I can just sit on the net or write awesome blog entries and no one really cares (or notices), but when the Cowboys decide they’re going to phone in a day at work, it doesn’t quite work out that well.

Penrith Panthers v Melbourne Storm
The last time I was attacked by a wild panther in the jungles of Borneo, I won quite easily and was a little disappointed with the lackluster efforts of the big cat. The last time I was in a storm, I got quite wet. Storm to triumph this weekend.

Manly Sea Eagles v Newcastle Knights
Ummmm… Manly. I don’t know why, I just have one of those feelings deep within my belly button. I know, it sickens me as well. Manly. Yuck.

Gold Coast Titans v Canberra Raiders
I know I should tip the Raiders, but after a good win last week, they’ll be thinking they’re giant killers and will turn up to the game a little bit pissed after spending way too long at Cocktails n Dreams drinking vodka slushies and abusing underage girls.

Brisbane Broncos v Warriors
Broncos. I think the Warriors have probably already won more than they expected to all year.

Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs v Sydney Roosters
The Dogs SUCK SOOO BAD. They are seriously shit. I wouldn’t tip them even if their table service was excellent and they gave me free garlic bread. Fucking Roosters to win.

Cronulla Sharks v South Sydney Rabbitohs
I’m tipping the Bunnies to finally fucking beat someone. If they can’t get their arse into gear to beat the Sharks, then there’s no help for them at all and they should be forced to watch that really shit Russell Crowe film where he drinks a lot of wine and spends way too much time reminiscing about his life when he was Freddie Highmore.

Good luck, tipsters!

Broom broom!

Every time I open a newspaper these days, there are a thousand stories about a Toyota that’s developed some kind of glitch whereby the ABS brakes aren’t bluetoothed to the CPU and therefore the cruise control onboard computer isn’t responding to the manual override commands. Invariably, this means that the car is sent into hyperdrive down a freeway and crashes into a large metal pole. If that was your car, I’d say that such an event would pretty much ruin your day and possibly your pants.

This would never have happened in my day. With my first car, if something in it broke down, it didn’t move. It didn’t grow artificial intelligence and attempt to kill me, it didn’t lock into a GPS signal to try and destroy a government facility, and it didn’t develop self-awareness and a sense of loathing and drive itself off a cliff to end the pain and torture of its own existence. It just didn’t move. The last time I drove it, the radiator blew up and the it shuddered to a steaming halt of not-moving-car-ness. The brakes still worked but the accelerator didn’t; kind of the way God intended it to be.

When you get your licence, you should also get a 1986 Ford Laser. A hatchback with a faded paint job, key marks down the sides, a de-mister that doesn’t work, a tape-deck and a fucked-up driver’s side door lock that requires you to get in through the passenger side. It has a top speed of around 130kph, but anything over 110 makes a horrible noise in the engine and the car begins to shake violently. There are no voice-activated CD changers, no moisture-sensitive windscreen-wipers to clear the rain, no space-aware braking mechanisms, no automatic height-adjusting mirrors, no computer-memorised seat positions, no auto-correct steering and no collision-detecting sensors – this is a car that you have to fucking learn how to drive before you hit the road. God forbid your tilt-sensitive coffee holder misfires and spills your soy mocha latte.

NRL 2010 Round 2 - Canberra's Revenge

These two legends showing us the Raiders' home and away jerseys pop up about 50 times when I type 'NRL 2010' into the Googlebox. I'm not sure why they need a different 'away' strip, as no other team would contemplate lime green as a colour.

Yes, I know it’s been a long time since my last non-footy-tips-related post. There’s some radness coming, trust me.

Chill, Winston.

Round one may not have quite gone to plan, but I blame that on the teams I tipped, rather than my tipping. They let me down, the bastards.

Dragons vs Bulldogs
Well the Doggies did what doggies do best last week – licked their own balls. I have hated them for a while and that’s not going to change anytime soon. St George to win by about six thousand.

Rabbits vs Titans
It’s the CLASH OF THE TITANS and the Rabbitohs. The Titans are kind of named after the Titanic, which was kind of named after the Titans, which were defeated by the Olympic gods, none of which played rugby league for the Bunnies. Ergo, henceforth, thus, the Titans will probably win.

Warriors vs Sharks
Jay La’gaia is on Home and Away and may be hooking up with someone who is way too young for him (I saw it on an ad). This should be enough to inspire the mighty Kiwis to dominate the hapless Cronullas.

Knights vs Storm
It was a dark and stormy knight… and the storm won.

Cowboys vs Panthers
I lay in bed awake last night and contemplated what would happen if a cowboy actually had to fight a panther. Would he lasso it and hog tie it and spit tobacco and eat pork and beans? Or would he be killed and dragged into a tree and eaten later on? It was a tough choice, and it gave me nightmares. In the end, I think the popular choice would be for Willie Mason to be eaten by a large jungle cat, so I’m running with that.

Eels vs Sea Eagles
Manly failed to impress anyone (even their wives, girlfriends and rape victims) last week, and with their only good player out for six months due to a broken leg, impending jail time and a nasty case of syphilis, the Parramattas should have no trouble in coming away with the points here.

Roosters vs Tigers
I hate it when the Roosters play well. It’s probably the worst thing in the world – worse than floods and famines and earthquakes and disease and Miley Cyrus (I watched my first Hannah Montana episode last week and was left utterly confused by its popularity, somewhat bewildered by how deep her voice is, overjoyed with the reappearance of Billy Ray Cyrus, and bemused by the ugly seven-year old Puerto-Rican kid who claimed to be a ladies’ man and proved this by line dancing), but I’m tipping them anyway.

Raiders vs Broncos
At lunch, Australia are 93/1 against New Zealand. Katich is looking in great touch and Ponting is scratching around like the venereal disease that he is, and should fall to Vettori very soon. Raiders to win by an embarrassingly large amount.

Flip em and tip em!

Round 1 - NRL 2010. WOOT!

This is definitely a ball.

The league season kind of snuck up on me this year, struth be told, but I’m here once again to guide you through the ins and outs of who to tip for 2010.

The first week of a season is a lottery – no one really knows what the teams will be like, and watching the Footy Show last night sure hasn’t helped, as everyone was given the same memo: “Yeah, [new player’s nickname] is really fitting in well here. [New player’s nickname] brings [youth/experience] to the team and he’s really excited to be a part of the club. [New player’s nickname] is really looking forward to having a great season, and our team will rely a lot on [new player’s nickname].”

My hot tips: Cronulla to win the spoon, Storm to win the premiership (again) and the Raiders will not do too much to bother anyone. The Roosters will have a fucking dismal season and everyone in the Titans will get arrested for separate incidents. Willie Mason will do nothing like he has for the last 20 years of his career, Braith Anasta will also continue his fine run of uselessness, Todd Carney will get into a lot more trouble, since he is in a much bigger place with way more people to rape and piss on and a whole new city in which to get drunk and bashed. Whoever’s coaching the Broncos will get fired, and Lockyer will take over as captain/coach and retire because he's not good at being either.

Eels vs Dragons
I’m tipping the Eels, because I hate them slightly less than I hate St George. That's all.

Broncos vs Cowboys
Remember how last year, the Raiders beat the Broncos by 60 points? That was awesome. But they’ll win this game.

Bulldogs vs Knights
Welcome to Struggletown, population: Knights. I remember when they were good. It actually wasn’t that long ago. I like their jumper, at least.

Panthers vs Raiders
I’m not tipping against my beloveds this year, so this should be the first step in a year of walks in the park for the Green Machine. Bet your house on it (but only if you have another house to live in first. It would be a shame if you ended up homeless because of my tips, and I'd feel slightly guilty about it).

Sharks vs Storm
I’m pretty sure even the Sharks players aren’t expecting too much from this season, and they should be soundly belted by the Mexicans.

Titans vs Warriors
It’s the CLASH OF THE TITANS… and the Warriors. It’s Friday arvo, and I haven’t heard about any kind of massive police movement at the Titans’ training session, so I’m assuming they’re all ready to play. And they will win. Because the Warriors are no good.

Rabbitohs vs Roosters
If there’s not about seventy fights in this game, it’d be a wasted opportunity. In between fisticuffs, the Rabbits should overpower the overpaid, overrated, underachieving Bondi boys.

Tigers vs Sea Eagles
This could actually be a good game. But because it involves Manly, they’ll ruin it somehow (by turning up, probably). My money is on the Tiges to win, but it’ll be a close one (72-68).

If you can’t grip it, don’t tip it! Until next week…

Winter Olympics Update #2 (I still haven't thought of an amusing title)

The commentary on the Lympics has been pretty good thus far, with only a handful of fuck-ups from that guy who normally does the AFL and Wipeout, and Grant Hackett has done an exemplary job of pretending to be someone with a personality.

But there are a handful of events that even past competitors can't really help out in. Captain Expert competed in the luge in nineteen-dickety-two, and he seemed to run out of ways to describe the event.

Regarding Frederich Scholl of Germany: “Look at his position here; he’s really quiet in the sled and is really pushing through the corners.”
And this, about Nigel Zoduku, the Nigerian competitor: “He’s really pushing through the corners and is so quiet in the sled.”

One of these people won gold, and one of these people competed in an old shopping trolley. I did not witness either of them screaming (as mentioned above, they were both “quiet in the sled”) which is probably a good start for someone taking up the luge; there’s nothing as disconcerting as an athlete who closes his eyes, yells for a while and asks someone to “tell them when it’s over.”

My “Go Aus” moment du jour came the other night when Eddie kept throwing back to the “controversial” ice-skating/dancing/whatever pairing from Russia, who opted to dance an Aboriginal-themed performance . Ed went on about how rude it was for the Russki’s to be ripping off ‘our’ culture, then blasted the Swiss team for dancing in a Bollywood style, followed by an attack on the US pair for doing the famous Spanish dance, the tango. I’m glad that Australia is so proud of their Aboriginal culture to try and protect it like this. I’m also glad that the land down under didn’t have anyone in the finals, or we’d be treading on some toes by performing the Nutbush.

The death of cricket

Australian cricket’s ‘night of nights’ was held on Monday, revealing Shane 'Fuckface' Watson to be the best player in the country, meaning that less people cared about the award than usual.

Watto got up on stage with his 'I’ve just been kicked out of Short Stack' hairdo, had a cry and said something about “that’s why they call me Mr Glass,” and made out with Michael Clarke in the men’s toilets afterwards*.

This award ceremony got in the way of Hayley Bracken’s wife’s tits making their first public appearance. Clearly when you pay that much for a set of cans you wish for people to see them.

*may not have really happened, but is fairly likely

Winter Olympic Update #1 (aka Make Up Your Own Hilarious Title)

Ah. The Winter Olympics are upon us once again. I am waiting for Canberra’s hosting duties of the Autumn Olympics, as it really is a pretty city when the leaves change colour and clog up the drains.

Australia has never been the strongest competitor at the Chilly Games, and for good reason – we aren’t exactly renowned for our chilly climate. But that doesn’t stop us from having a good old go at skiing and shit every four years. After all, it’s more about being involved that pushing for Olympic gold and glory, right? Right.

That said, I was watching the coverage on the marvellous Channel 9 the other night when the head of Eddie Maguire was giving the results of the million-billion-kilometre biathlon race (or something). The biathlon is one of my favourite events at the Winterlympics – it combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting, whereby you have to hit a tiny little target after puffing your way around Canada for a while. It’s the kind of exertion that would make you vomit all over yourself and wonder what the hell you’re doing when you could quite easily just be in the pub vomiting on yourself and having way more fun.

Anyway, apparently some champion from Sweden or Norway or some frozen wonderland in the world broke a record by several hours (possibly minutes or seconds, the details escape me), before Eddie gives the best piece of “Go Aus!” I’ve heard since the Fortnight of Frosty Sports began:

“Jurgen Fnurgen of Sweden took gold in an upset from favourite Yorgen Vlaard of Norway who finished in the silver medal position, with Italian Mario Luigi collecting bronze, edging out Australian skier Wayne Digby who finished 77th out of 78 competitors with a time roughly equivalent to Halley’s Comet’s orbit.” Edging out indeed.

Well done, Wayne. I’m assuming you beat the guy from Tunisia who’s never seen snow, doesn’t own skis, threw rocks at the target instead of shooting and had to fight off six grizzly bears during his race.

I’m not saying that Wayne didn’t have a Pharlap’s-heart sized attempt at winning this race; I’m just wondering how big this edge is that Maguire will have us believe holds 76 better athletes than our home-grown trooper, Wayne. If it’s half as big as I think it is, the ice-dancing finals will truly be “edge of the seat” viewing.

Minutes from the latest Man Meeting

Guys, can I please have your attention? Thanks. I’d like to call this Man Meeting open; thank you all for coming.

We are here today to discuss a few revelations in man-ness that have been brought to my attention recently. These are very important, I’m sure you’ll agree, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say we have a mole in our midst. I remind you again, gentlemen – women must never know about these things.

The first problem is that a few of you have asked if you can bring your girlfriends to these meetings. The answer is no, and you have all been fined one slab of beer for even thinking such nonsense.

Next, and this pains me to say it, but there are a lot of women out there who are understanding the finer points of sport; they are appreciating cricket, for fuck’s sake. A five-day Test match that doesn’t necessarily provide a winner has always - ALWAYS - been a man’s game. And now there are chicks who not only know what a doosra is, but they have shown you how to bowl one.

It used to be ok for women to have a passing interest in cricket; that’s why we invented T20 and 50-over cricket; that’s why Shane Fucking Watson is in the team. They are NOT supposed to follow it like men. I have passed this onto the ICC and they have agreed to slow down Test cricket a bit more, and see if the women can still maintain interest.

This next point is a bit embarrassing for us all – women have caught onto the fact that we don’t know as much about cars as we say we do. There have been a lot of men being caught out by looking under the (pause while ChairMan looks through previous minutes) "bonnet" of a car… is that right? Yes? Ok. We can’t look under the "bonnet" and say that the flux capacitor is shot. We are going to need a new piece of jargon shortly to use in its place. A pamphlet detailing these words as well as some safe parts of the engine to touch so you can get grease on your hands so it looks like you've done some simple tests on the car will be sent out next week.

Someone, and I will not name names, has spilt the beans that guys don’t really like going to strip clubs as much as they do on TV. This particular person has admitted that strip clubs are filled with unattractive, drug-addled hookers and are not worth the price of admission nor the $10 beers they have on offer. Remember this, gentlemen: A buck’s night without boobs does not count as a buck’s night, regardless of how much fun we were having before we got dragged out to watch a bored stripper grind on an old man’s face. The informant has been fined two cases of beer and must endure a Reese Witherspoon movie marathon.

Finally, there are several guys that will also be receiving fines over their current man form; I’ve got reports of men crying during Grey’s Anatomy. THIS. WILL. NOT. BE. TOLERATED. For those who didn’t know, the only times you are allowed to cry during a film are as follows:

- Top Gun, when Goose dies.
- Lion King, when Mufasa dies.
- When John Coffey dies in The Green Mile.
- The original 1986 Transformers movie when Optimus Prime dies. Note: HE DOES NOT COME BACK.
- Whenever any dog dies in any movie.

This next one is a new addition to the list:

- in Castaway, when Wilson falls off Tom Hanks’ raft.

This is still being finalised, so don’t get too comfortable.

Gentlemen, we are a proud and ancient race, and our survival depends on our secrets. Anyone found spilling those secrets will be forced to watch motor racing, Monster Trucks and jelly wrestling, and do a convincing job that they actually like it.

That is all.

Meeting closed

another reason why I hate tennis...

Some whinging little bitch called Bernard has had a whinging bitch about having to play tennis at “way past bedtime.” Sorry, what? Back in my day, seventeen year olds would be able to make it to 2am and then play tennis and still have enough in them to steal a car and thieve newspapers. Maybe this kid just needs to hang out with Andre Agassi some more.

James Cameron's AVATARAHONTAS

AVATAR has some highly impressive special effects

No doubt everyone in the world has seen Avatar already; it is behind only Titanic in terms of box-office takings at time of writing, although this might have something to do with the fact that tickets to this puppy cost four times as much as a regular film.

So here’s the flick in a nutshell: Paraplegic bloke gets chance to walk again if he can infiltrate alien species in order for humans to mine the fuck out of their house.

In the mix, he falls in love, rides a big ol’ dragonny-pterodactyl thing and manages to piss off at least two intelligent species. He’s been pretty busy.

The story steals all of its themes from every other good movie, dumbs it down a bit and then beats it in the head until it is made retarded. Somewhere in the future, humans are exploring the planet Pandora, which is home to a race of eight-foot Smurfs, and is also rich in unobtanium, an element that the humans really really want for reasons known only to them. To properly communicate with the Smurfs, humans created the Avatar program, where alien/human hybrids are created and controlled by dudes in a lab. One of those dudes is Jake, who is given a special assignment – move the Smurfs from the mining area, and he’ll get his legs back. Nice idea. Unfortunately…

The way it all unfolds is fairly predictable. Lessons are learnt and a hero is born. If you’ve seen any big-budget movie before, you pretty much know how it’s all going to pan out. That’s not to say that it’s not worth sticking around for, as it is a visual feast that will leave your eyeballs a bit bloated and possibly sweaty. Pandora is indeed a beautiful world in which to live, although I doubt that anyone there would ever be able to sleep, because everything on the planet either glows fluorescent colours or is the size of a small house, angry and hungry. Still, it does look spiffy and is pretty cool in 3D.

As is my regular beef with movies, there’s just not enough to it. For a 3-hour movie that was green-lighted in 1997 and began production in 2004, you’d expect the characters to be nicely fleshed out, the dialogue snappy and plot holes to be filled in. While the alien scenes are without doubt the main focus, the human interaction needs to be sharper, as the humans are the ones who are actually moving the story along. But they’re as transparent, two-dimensional and paper-thin as a transparent and paper-thin two-dimensional character, and the scenes that could have been the emotional crux of this film – the idea that Jake could walk again as a human – were sadly underdone. At least he looks pretty.

I give Avatar two blue whales.

an overdue rant

Sorry for the recent lack of additions to the blog thing – I know how much you depend on me to fill you in on the highlights of the world and I apologise for not giving you frequent updates as to how awesome I am, but I’ve been working on a few outside projects that involve beer and do not relate in any way to being coordinated enough to use a computer.

Things that have annoyed me recently:

TV commercials:

The stupid Ford ad with the chick who’s driving around with her dog and using her voice activated car. I’m sorry, but this is just going too far. Are people that retarded that they can’t drive and adjust the temperature gauge or change CDs at the same time? The only time that talking cars are awesome is if they transform into 50-foot robots or fight crime with David Hasselhoff. And what the fuck kind of CDs does that chick have in her car? “The Best Dog Songs Ever: Volume #4”? I’m also pretty sure that it’s illegal to have a dog unrestrained in the front seat of your car, and even more so if it’s intelligent enough to work the voice controls of your vehicle. Fuck it, Ford should just make a car that is able to be driven by dogs. I’d probably be impressed by that.

Sport:

I still hate Shane Watson. I don’t care how well he’s playing at the moment, I still hate him like I hated Andrew Symonds, like I hate Karmichael Hunt like I hate soccer.

Pop music:

All of it. It’s all rubbish right now. It can all go and get fucked. Whenever I make the mistake of watching Saturday-morning music show (I don’t know which one I watch, it’s hosted by some bright young scamps with good hair and hope for the future), my ear-hairs are greeted by the most absolutely appalling songs I have ever been privy to since I tuned into Video Hits the week before. I try to make an effort to remember the names of the artists, but that information constantly gets replaced by more important things (about dinosaurs), and I doubt that I’ll ever hear the names of any of those people again anyway. Britney Spears brought the “slutty teenage girl” into vogue in 1997. Thirteen years on, nothing has changed; if anything, there are more Spears clones out there than I can poke a stick at. I’ve even got my special poking stick ready to go, sharpened to a point for such an occasion.

Help lines:

Stupid robot voice-activated fucking things. "Press 1 for a kick in the balls, press 2 for a scorpion being shoved into your eyeballs, press 3 for more information about our website, press 4 to have these options repeated." They only ever give you four choices that you can make, and none of them are what you actually rang up about. They also have the most annoyingly-voiced people in the history of the world to speak on them – if they have to have voice recordings to help me through life, it should be the voice of Optimus Prime, Robocop or Sean Connery giving me direction.

TV, maths and beer

Hello sun. Thanks for fucking FINALLY turning up. I was starting to get a bit worried that you’d forgotten about the world this year.

There’s an ancient mathematical formula that comes into use for the phenomenon commonly known as “Summer”:

P + H = B

where P is people, H is heat and B is beer. If it’s really hot, you can make it H2, and it can become P3 or P4 if you have more friends. The more P you have, the more B you’ll probably require though.

Maths is easy and fun. Stay in school, kids.

Following the success of Ladette to Lady, I am pitching my own reality TV show (because we’re running out of them); one that will hopefully revolutionise the way the universe works. Welcome to

Drinking Beer

You would imagine that drinking beer is an easy thing to do, but you’d be wrong. DEAD WRONG. That’s why I have this TV show to show you how to do it properly. Remember those six gay guys who told heterosexual men what they’re doing wrong in their lives? Like how they gave great advice to them on how to impress their lady friends, because it’s common knowledge that all gay men know what women want? Remember the massive success of that? Notice how those six guys are still relevant in all that they do, and how men everywhere are still wearing pink shirts with argyle vests and decorating their houses with shit art and taking tango lessons instead of playing football?

With “Drinking Beer”, I will be as life-changing as those six pioneers of social advancement and self-improvement.

Episode #1: The shout

Invariably, if you are drinking with a group of people, there will be a “shout”, whereby people buy drinks for everyone in expectation that they will be “shouted” back later on. If all goes to plan, everyone buys everyone else a beer and equilibrium in the drinking stakes ensues. By “shout three”, however, it may become obvious that several people within your party are slower drinkers than the others, and when “shout four” is announced, the slow-pokes of the table are still sipping on their third drink.

It is impolite to request another beverage if you have more than half of your current drink sitting in front of you, and just plain rude to skull up for the sake of being included in the next shout. You snooze, you lose (until the next round).

Lesson #2: The Jug

Many places offer a jug or (if you’re American) a ‘pitcher’ of beer. This jug will usually have the quantity of around three or four glasses, so please buy accordingly. If you have five people, you will require more than one jug. It is very impolite and unAustralian to give your shoutees a half-filled glass in order for everyone to have a drink. Unless you are Jesus and you’re trying to feed thousands of people with half a dinner roll and a trout, you are way out of luck; you’re just going to have to fork out for more drinks. Sorry. However, if you are Jesus, we should hang out, I like your water into wine trick (and your beard).

Lesson #3. Being drunk

After a few rounds of drinks, you may start to laugh a bit more at jokes that really aren’t funny, tell your friends that you love them and occasionally knock things over. With the consumption of tasty, tasty alcohol, you have become a bit pissed, my friend. When someone looks at you and you’re grinning like an idiot and trying to work out how to text message your mum about how you just ate a coaster so she’d be proud instead of disappointed, they may point out that “you’re drunk.” Your natural reaction to this statement is “noooo, I’m fine, really. Nah, I’m not pissed, really. Honestly, I’m not. Seriously.” Your friend may become somewhat bored by you repeating synonyms of “truthfully” and talk to someone else. If you really want to convince them that you’re not drunk, don’t try to capture their attention before saying, “No really, I’m not drunk. I’ve only had a few, I can’t be drunk. I’m seriously not drunk man, really.” Don’t prove your sobriety by dancing on the table or bar either.

Just accept the fact that B = D; there’s nothing wrong with that.


Nothing wrong with that at all.

home sweet home

I have been living in the same place for about 3 years now, and am yet to meet my neighbours properly. I see them in my apartment complex almost every day; we pass each other on the way to the mailbox or the rubbish bins and smile happily at each other (despite the fact that they keep dobbing me in for noise complaints at 3:00 in the afternoon for eating Corn Flakes too loudly). Other than "can you please turn your iPod down?” and “sorry, but your blinking is keeping me awake,” our entire conversational history can be summed up by "Hello."

It has officially passed the time whereby we can actually have a conversation now; all we’d be able to say is, “Fancy that, we lived next door for three years and didn’t realise we had a common interest in spaghetti!” And I’m not interested in discussing pasta strings with them. Now we’re just trying to out-wait each other and hope that someone way more awesome moves in.

an open letter to the man in the lift

Dear Man in the Lift At Work Today,

You may not remember me; my name is Mister Evil Breakfast and we shared something special on my daily pilgrimage to the seventh floor today – your phone call. For some reason, you decided to use the “speaker” function on your phone to make a call so that everyone around you (aka me) could listen to it. The time between pressing the button in the foyer of the building to when the elevator actually arrived was happily filled with the stilted conversation between you and your friend about his wife having tennis elbow. Your comment that perhaps she wasn’t actually playing tennis but was giving out hand-jobs behind his back may have just crossed the line of good taste. However, I was a fan of the several seconds of silence that followed, which you broke by asking, “are you still there?” as if you’d just gone through a tunnel rather than suggest that his wife is a dirty tramp. The breaker came when we actually entered the lift and he asked if he was on speaker phone, to which you almost gave the game away by stammering “n-n-n-n-n-n-n-no.” There’s nothing more reassuring than someone turning a one-syllable word into eight. I appreciated the wink you gave me afterwards. Part of it said, “I think I fooled him” and part of it said, “That shirt looks nice, what are you doing for lunch today?”

I am not entirely sure why you decided to share that particular conversation with me, but I thank you for it. If I see you again, I’m probably going to stab you and then call your friend so you can say, “I’ve been stabbed and am bleeding to death” to which he can then ask, “was it with a cock?” or “that time of the month eh?”

You’re a dick.

Love,

Mister Evil Breakfast

take me home

Drinking is an important part of my life – this may have some bearing on why money is not as prevalent as it could be. But with great drinking comes the great responsibility of getting home, and unless you enjoy being in jail or driving your car off walls, you should hop in a cab.

From here, you will need:

Mister Evil Breakfast’s Guide to Catching a Taxi Home Because You Have Had Too Much To Drink And It Would Be Socially Irresponsible Not To Mention Totally Illegal For You To Drive Home In The State You're In (MEBGCTHBYHHTMTDAIWBSINTMTIFYTDHITSYI)

Conversation:

I have learnt that there are only two things you should ask your cab driver:
1. What time are you on until? and
2. Have you had a busy night?

Nothing else matters. I’m pretty sure cab drivers are all-consumed by their jobs, so it’s common sense to only talk about driving cabs. Don’t mention sport or music or whether he likes blondes or brunettes – if your conversation veers away from driving a taxi, he will lose interest and possibly crash and you’ll both die. It’s not like you talk to your friends about anything except their jobs, right?

Whenever I converse with my cabbie (about cab driving), I find myself putting on a bad Scottish accent. I have no idea why. I am not Scottish. I think it has something to do with me being drunk. So when I jump in and say, “Och laddie, tekmeholm!” (Please Mr Taxi-man, take me home), he will turn around and say, “Where are you from?” to which the reply (as above) will be, “Have you had a busy night?”

The downside of “being Scottish” is that you have to keep up your ruse until you’ve reached your destination as you don't want the driver to think you're taking the piss. The #1 rule of accents is that as soon as you put one on, you will receive a phone call and you’ll have to answer it in your accent. So if I ever answer your call with a stupid voice, it means I’m drunk and in a taxi.

Destination:

I approach taxis like I approach haircuts – do whatever you have to do, don’t ask me questions about it. I can’t see my hair, so I don’t really care how it looks; and I’m in a cab because I can’t get home myself. I’ll trust a hairdresser not to fuck up my ‘do, so I’ll trust a driver not to take me to Adelaide. Don’t ask me which road I want to take, I really don’t know the best way home - I am blind drunk and Scottish, and obviously not from around here.

Don’t forget to stop into 24-hour Drive-Thru McDonalds on the way - you need your cheeseburgers, and you should be nice and offer one to the driver as well.

Payment:

Yes yes yes, a twenty-minute drive home has somehow cost this driver a whole tank’s worth of petrol. Just pay the man and shut up.

Even though you’ve given your driver a cheeseburger, it was considered a gift and he will not accept that as partial payment for the drive home, especially since you had to drive in the opposite direction to go to McDonalds and then spent another ten minutes in the Drive-Thru lane asking him, “Have you had a busy night?” in a Scottish accent.

Take the safe option and catch a cab home

File under Shit-On-A-Stick

I have a rather large collection of job application rejection letters that all say the same thing: “Thank you for your application. Unfortunately you were unsuccessful in this instance but your details will be kept on file for future positions.”

Really? You’re going to keep my details on file, along with every other dickhead who applied for a single position within your company?

I can just imagine the director thinking about hiring another person to expand the business. “Cheryl, can you please bring me the ‘not good enough’ files? I want to employ someone who’s a bit shit.” Or maybe, “Cheryl, remember that guy who applied for the sales role? Call him back; I need someone to rub ointment onto my haemorrhoids.”

Deeveedee review

1. Everyone loves a sport film; whether it’s the underdog victory that comes with the Mighty Ducks, the kid from the street doing everyone proud in Rocky or the mindless stupidity of Days of Thunder, people will always find something oddly compelling and watchable about others overcoming adversity and proving themselves through sporting achievements.

2. Everyone loves horror films, whether it’s Freddy Krueger haunting your dreams and ruining a franchise, Jason swinging his machete and ruining a franchise, or Chucky still trying to become human again to ruin a franchise, scary flicks are popular, cheap to make and successful.

3. Everyone loves cricket. The thought of two teams battling it out for five days with the distinct possibility of neither one winning gets people moist and sweaty in the nether regions. The very concept of the batting team “playing for a draw” for two or three days is enough to make even the most casual of cricket observers bar up. Throw in a dirty moustache and Mike Hussey’s form slump and you’ve got the world’s greatest sporting event.

With these three Play-Doh balls of magic, it was only a matter of time before someone smooshed them together to create the film “I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer”. Yes, really.

This Aussie-made hacker-slasher basically centres on a bloke who tracks down the guys from his schoolboy cricket team who teased him and gave him a massive wedgie. When two dudes on opposite sides of the world turn up deadened (one beaten to death with a cricket bat when he was in the pisser, and one impaled on a cricket stump in his garage), the only thing that links them is that they were in the same cricket team twenty years ago, so the police do the sensible thing and round up the rest of the lads and put them all in the same place.

Since being bullied by his team-mates, the Killer seems to have been sitting in a tub of “Tall Gro” and collecting stumps, as he is now about seventeen-feet tall and has an endless supply of cricketing paraphernalia with which to stab people. My personal favourite item was his modified ‘box’ - it got me thinking about Ricky Ponting and what I’m going to do when I finally manage to kidnap him.

It’s not that this movie is bad – any film that requires its hero to don full batting gear to fight the villain is worth at least a $4 DVD hire (plus a couple of bucks in late fees) in my books – it’s just that I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer is a bit retarded. The acting is shithouse, the characters are completely fucked up (such as the bloke who ducks out of the safehouse to shag his missus; but instead of just having the regular sex, he makes her blindfold, handcuff and gag-ball him. Of course he’d do that. Why wouldn’t you indulge in something that leaves you absolutely defenseless when you’re being hunted by a maniac?) and the one-liners leave you wondering whether or not it was actually meant to be funny. Incidentally, I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer is the winner of the “Golden Shower Award” for the most gratuitous nude scene in cinematic history.

After watching this film and meditating on it for a while, I am still undecided if I actually enjoyed it. It is ridiculously stupid and formulaic, yet had me reaching for another Milk Arrowroot biscuit to dunk in my coffee until the final scene. Let’s just say that this movie is the best cricketing-based horror film that I’ve ever seen and leave it at that.

I give I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer two leg byes.

With ball-tampering of this magnitude, this guy could captain Pakistan

a load of old beard

"Upon shaving off one's beard." The scissors cut the long-grown hair; the razor scrapes the remnant fuzz. Small-jawed, weak-chinned, bug-eyed, I stare at the forgotten boy I was.” – John Updike

We are about to witness a very important milestone in the history of the world.

Dear Readers, I have been chosen by a greater power to fulfil the destiny set out for all men. I’ve known octogenarians who have not had a chance to achieve this particular feat, but I, a mere thirty years old, will cross this single item from my list within the next fortnight.

I am about to finish a can of shaving cream, and purchase some more.

I’ve bought shaving cream before, but can’t actually remember ever finishing a can. Traditionally, shaving cream is purchased when the previous can is taken away on holidays and lost, left behind when moving, borrowed and never returned, or tossed away with the arrival of an electric razor – it is not usually used and then replaced.

I am both nervous and excited at the thought of putting a fresh can of lathering goodness into my shopping basket with the 2-minute noodles, gaffa tape, sprinkles and chicken salt that are my groceries and seeing the look on the face of the check-out operator. Their eyes will open in hope, that this customer has finished a can of shaving cream before he buys another one. And I will humbly nod in silent recognition of my achievement and accept their quiet praise.

Shaving cream – is it just a foamy substance in which to spread upon one’s face and scrape off with a thin, sharp blade, or is it a message from a higher being, congratulating me on my commitment to finish the can and thus granting me a passage from adolescence to manhood and then to a deity? Upon purchasing my can of shaving cream, I will be transformed.

If I die suddenly and unexpectedly, I want everyone to know that I died a happy man.

Also, if nothing happens, it’s probably just ‘cause God is busy and he’ll reward me later. Or, it’s just because, you know, all I did was buy some shaving cream. Either way, I’ll be happy.

This is one option of fast-tracking yourself to reaching the pinnacle of your life, but I reckon it's cheating.

brown paper packages tied up with string

As I get older, I have learned to look back on my life and take stock of all that I’ve experienced over the last 30 years, or however old I am. Here’s what I remember:

- Prince Charles getting married.
- Live action Transformers movies (x 2).
- Australia losing the Ashes (twice, thank you Ricky Ponting).
- Willingly renting “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and expecting it to be “half decent.”
- Me vomiting on myself. A lot.

These are all tragic moments in my life, but as of last weekend, I have a new contender for the #1 spot. Welcome to the list – Rove McManus interviewing his wife, Tasma Walton.

If there could possibly be a worse moment in entertainment, history, science and nature, geography or any other Trivial Pursuit category this year, then I’d rather not be involved in it. Rove has cemented himself even further into the “retard” category with this stunt, and has officially dropped below Daryl Somers and Eddie Maguire in terms of being a good host of a TV show.

The interview began somewhat poorly with Rove asking Tasma, “What have you been doing lately?” to which the ever-raunchy Tassie responds with, “You, most recently.” WOO. The world is jealous that you’re having sex with a muppet, Tasma.
“Tell us about your book,” says Rove.
“I strip down to my underpants, dip strawberries in chocolate and listen to Prince CDs,” says Tasma. Intriguing. Congratulations on losing any book sales you were planning on making following this train-wreck of a television appearance.

Somewhere along the line, Rove performed the mating dance of a lyrebird and they talked about their wedding night, when Rove split his pants whilst attempting to do the splits, Footloose-style. (“Easy access for me!” pipes up Tasma, in another display of hilarity, sexiness and absolute regard to the family of Rove’s first wife, recently-deceased Belinda Emmett – remember her? No, neither does Mr McManus apparently).

What’s wrong Rove - couldn’t you steal any more jokes from Letterman this week? Did you run out of jokes to make about Vegemite? Next time, interview someone half-decent, even if they are related to you. Your brother's probably got something interesting to say that isn't about fucking you. Biggest waste of time this year, and that counts the 45-minutes I spent on hold to Vodafone before hanging up and going into the shop to be served in 12 seconds.

Why didn’t I turn the TV off, or change the channel? Because I was severely hungover and lacked the muscle control (or strength) to lift the remote.

Fuck you, Rove. What the?

zzzz

There are many thing in life that are boring. Going to work meetings, going to work conferences, being at work, waiting to go home from work… the list goes on. Some people describe this sensation as “boring as batshit,” signifying that batshit holds the upper echelon in the boredom ranks. That’s a big call, considering that there are a great number of things that people might find boring.

My problem is that when you think about it, batshit isn’t that boring. For a start, it comes from bats. Bats are pretty cool; I mean they hang upside down and eat fruit or drink your blood. They use sonar when they fly. They turn into vampires. They fight crime. Batshit can be used as an ingredient in gunpowder.

Let’s compare that to other types of shit:

Birdshit is boring. It’s all over the place and gets stuck to your car.
Dogshit is boring. If you step in it, it gets into the tread on your shoes and you stink.
Catshit is boring. It’s so boring that you make your cat go into another room and shit into a box, that’s how bored by it you are.
Cowshit is boring – it’s big, but otherwise fairly uninteresting.
Peopleshit is commonplace and no one wants to see it.

So the next time you’re sitting around at work and someone says, “Hey man, what did you think of that report?” don’t answer with, “Boring as batshit,” because you’ve since learned that there are many things more boring than the droppings of our flying rodents, so you should say, “It was as boring as the dry birdshit that's on my windscreen, which has been smeared everywhere because I tried to clean it with my windscreen wipers. And FYI, it can’t be used as gunpowder.”

Then you can go and have a coffee.

My 6:30PM hell

It’s been a harrowing time in Ramsay St of late. Because of the complete retardation of the characters at the moment, Neighbours is even more of a chore than usual. I find myself becoming incredibly frustrated by the pissweak characters and storylines to the point where I look forward to it ending so I can watch The 7PM Project. Yeah. That’s how bad it’s been.

The recent shittiness of Neighbs began with the marriage of Paul and Rebecca. Notwithstanding the fact that their daughter-in-law died the previous week, they were determined to carry on with their nuptials regardless, despite Paul still searching for a best man the morning of the ceremony. After asking his lawyer (Toadie), his doctor (Dr Karl) and a random guy from work (unnamed extra), he finally settled on asking his daughter. Way to prove you’re a popular guy, Paul. I still love you though.

So everything’s going well, the ceremony is without incident, until… Lynne turns up. I fucking hate Lynne. She is just shit. I want to stab her. So she interrupts the wedding and announces that she and Paul are still married. Apparently their divorce wasn’t quite settled, so Lynne’s cunning plan to get some cash from Paul (I’m hoping it’s cash, because if this is her plan to woo him, she’s totally going about it the wrong way) is to turn up in the middle of his wedding and blackmail him until he hands over half of whatever he’s got.

Picking on the owner of a newspaper is a bad idea, because the next day he ran a front-page story with a picture of bag-lady Lynne with the headline “Dirty Whore” (not really, but close). The Erinsborough News is the highest circulating newspaper in existence, by the way. You also don’t need a degree or experience to be a journalist for it, they will run stories purely based on speculation, hearsay, gossip and rumour and the editor also requires a second job as a dishpig at the local café to pay her rent.

Anyway, I hate Lynne and I have no idea what’s going on now. The last I heard, she borrowed money from her daughter, bought the house next door to Paul’s place and then fucked off to Scotland or something. I hope she gets eaten by a cow. Moo.

The other major “storyline” in Neighbs at the moment is the shitstorm that is Zeke and Sunny. Zeke has developed OCD, and we know this because he keeps lining up pens and pencils, stacking his fridge in military formations and ensuring the safety of others to the point that he threw out a pair of high-heeled shoes so no-one wore them and broke their ankle. He’s a Samaritan, is our Zeke. A little, retarded, emo-monkey Samaritan. He has also fallen madly in love with Sunny, the most annoying person in the history of the world (yes, Mr Football, even more annoying than Summer). Sunny is just shit.

Sunny arrived in Dr Karl’s house as an exchange student from Korea. Korea is either on another planet, far away from the place we call “Earth,” or is stuck in a time warp and they are still in the 16th Century. Either way, I wish she’d get in her spaceship, make sure her time circuits are working and fuck off back there. She shits me. This week’s in-depth view of Sunny is about the fact that she finds it a natural instinct to literally run away from any problem (real or imagined) that she encounters:

(a) When it was revealed that she had to kiss Zeke in a play, she ran away from school and was about to hop on the next flight back to Korea. Sadly, someone stopped her.

(b) When she had “those” feelings about Zeke, she ran away to hide the fact that she has braces on her teeth and he would not want to kiss her. I’m assuming her plan was to hide for the two years that it is going to take for her to have perfectly straight teeth. Eventually she was talked out of her cave and brought back to civilisation.

(c) When Hot Donna found out that Sunny was writing love poetry to her on behalf of Ringo, she kissed her. Sunny got angry and ran away, screaming and crying that Donna stole her first kiss. It was kind of the way that you’d kiss your granny after she said that she had just given your grandad a blowjob… and he’s been dead since 1986.

(d) When “the gang” were at a music festival in the middle of nowhere and Declan walked in on her and Zeke about to kiss, she yelled at both of them and ran away, to the point of leaving the festival and falling down a cliff. Unfortunately she survived.

(e) When her relationship with Zeke became known to Karl and Susan, she ran away to hide the shame that she brought onto her family. Susan found her (I wouldn’t have bothered looking) and asked if they were “being careful.” Sunny realised that this is parental code for “sex” and ran away again. When found once more, she yelled at Zeke for pressuring her into sex. It was the first time that it had been suggested, and he wasn’t even the one who brought it up.

(f) When her father found out that she was in a relationship, he said that she was no longer allowed to stay in the same house as him. In traditional Sunny form, she ran away until the problem resolved itself by Zeke moving out of his own house to make her more comfortable.

(g) When Hot Donna was organising the school dance, Sunny (who was part of the planning committee) created a petition to NOT have a school dance. Her reason? She doesn’t know how to dance and would have found it embarrassing if someone tried to dance with her. When Hot Donna asked why she was sabotaging the dance, Sunny ran away.

Someone’s obviously found her since then and brought her back into Erinsborough, because she’s still hanging around and uglifying the set. Last thing I saw was her leaving the microphone on during Zeke’s radio show and bagging out Dr Karl on air.

Run, Sunny, run. Don’t ever be found.

In this shot, Sunny is caught between her two favourite past-times: running away and falling over.