Posts by st ephen
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I see a Rugby World Cup merchandising opportunity here. Personally I spent my Hipster Years deliberately avoiding The Exponents, so I'd find a T-shirt with their complete lyrics very helpful in crowd situations.
But otherwise (and without going beyond where the original post ended with The Verlaines) maybe:
I love this imported German beer
They know how to make it over there.with Michel Tuffrey to knock up the obligatory can of sponsor's product.
And the follow-up:
Totally written-off but there's laughter at chaos...with Ewan McDougall to do the honours.
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The Sydney airport line costs an arm and a leg to use compared with the other lines in Sydney. It's also a fair old trek with your luggage to the station from the arrivals area.
Then you end up downtown with your luggage and guide book surrounded by throngs of commuters and throngs of smack addicts hustling for 'train fares'.
Of course, Auckland wouldn't be like that, would it? -
I don't think it's the designer of PowerPoint *TM* that is going to hell, so much as whomever designed the default templates.
They're what encouraged people to write speeches on PowerPoint and doomed so many presentations to the onslaught of bullets, and the full death-by-powerpoint experience.
That said, I suspect the use of bullets in general prose and formal writing went up as a result of the commonality of bullets in ppt - my instinct is that we see more now than we would have 20 years ago when "proper sentences" were expected in formal documents (like formal letters/cabinet papers and so forth)
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One of those bitchy travel writers once described ESOL teaching abroad as a refuge for dull people with no talents, abilities or achievements beyond the fact that they happened to have been born into a native-English speaking community.
So, nothing to brag about then. Perhaps 'having sex for money' falls into the same category, regardless of any perceived moral dimension?
(That's not to say that there aren't particularly brilliant teachers or sex workers or used-house salesmen or whatever. But maybe introducing a higher hurdle for entry into the work-force would help raise job status...) -
Unemployed, immigrant and "Maori or Polynesian" are also popular.
Ah yes, as in the recent ODT article about the dangerous Maori on the loose. Good of them to let us know so precisely who we should be wary of. Oh, but wait - they included high resolution, frontal and profile colour photos. So we can see that we only have to be wary of fair-skinned Maoris with rosy cheeks and reddish hair - and with half their face covered by a tattoo of a bulldog...
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It's funny how the naive press is praising Paul as a psychic rather than condemning him as a match-fixer. Can't they google "La Piovra"?
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did anyone notice how some Uruguayan players on the sidelines appealed for a hand ball in the last minute of time added on?
Yeah, but what I noticed more was that Uruguay spent most of extra time with three players in the penalty area waiting for the ball to be lobbed in, but for some reason they all stayed on their feet. What was all that about?
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Basketball is another game where deliberate 'cheating' is not just part of the game, but has been raised to an art form. I'm not exactly a fan, but the last minute (or rather, seconds) of several close NZ games at the Athens Olympics were incredible. The clock would restart with an opposition player in possession and immediately the Kiwis would rugby tackle him to the floor. Without the foul, the opposition could simply wind down the clock. With it, there was a chance of two missed free throws and regained possession for the match-winning three-pointer.
This sort of thing is an intrinsic part of the game now, even if the people who wrote the rules didn't see it coming. Opposition fans would understand this - opposition spectators with no previous knowledge of the game would be outraged. You really can't transfer standards from one sport to another. I suspect that tripping is seen as despicable in rugby precisely because it is so common in football.
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"The trick seems to be to be really sick when you have one."
Or deaf. My brick seemed to be wrapped in a thick towel. Still a little unnerving to have my head in the dryer while that brick whirled around, though.
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Speaking of which... now that NZers have a new-found appreciation for technically inferior teams sticking to a limited game plan and playing out of their skins to achieve an unexpected result, will we see a bit of love for the French effort in the last RWC quarter-final?
Thought not.