Posts by Robyn Gallagher
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Everyone in a band should read this blog and think about.
I got an email from a friend once, urging me to see some band playing at the Kings Arms. "They're a really great local band," the email claimed, "so go and support local music!!!"I didn't go because I realised that if they were from any other country, touring here, I wouldn't see them because I just didn't really enjoy their type of music.
By urging audiences to support local music, it sort of suggests that these bands aren't good enough to command audiences on their own, and I don't think that's helpful.
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<Desc = "Comment related to the frequent misconception of linguists as grammarians (see Frank Haden, Max Cryer, etc.)">
Ha! I studied linguistics at university because I thought it would be all about grammar. (I didn't investigate more thoroughly because I was more concerned with leaving Hamilton) I soon discovered that it was essentially maths with words. I could never get my head around it and failed all the papers I did.
I don't know why people get so upset about the verbing of nouns. English is a mongrel; the rules are there are no rules. You can do funny things to words in English and they still make sense.
The one thing that never changes, though, is the syntax behind the sentences. Evn txtng teenz stick 2 da saym syntax dat we use n forml riting. Boring!
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I actually interviewed MC Hammer while he was wearing lyrca cycle shorts. True story.
Yes! That's what the very late '80s and early '90s were all about - black lycra. While MC Hammer and the lads wore the genie pants in the video, all the girls wore black lycra.
Oh, you know what this thread needs?
Man, check out the dancing. It still is awesome.
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All together now to the tune of What a Friend We have in Jesus:
You're assuming we know the tune of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"?!
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Two differently worded questions, leading to very large majorities, respectively, for and against the amendment.
I'm against the controversial anti-smacking bill, but I support the anti-kid-hitting bill.
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One summer, when I was about 7, we went camping in Whitianga. The first day I'd run down the beach and had a lovely swim. It was all sunshine and beach and sand and ticking about a dozen 1980s/Kiwiana/holiday boxes.
The next day I was helping Mum wash some clothes. The camping ground had an old-fashioned washing tub and wringer. I was feeding some clothes through the wringer when suddenly my left hand started going through the wringer.
My instinct was to pull away from it, but the tight rubbery rolls of domestitude were pulling the other way. It was a girl versus 1950s technology tug o' war.
As all this was going on, Mum was trying to figure out what to do. I think eventually she pulled the plug on the wringer (take that!), but it still had a rubbery grip on my wrist. The emergency release spring - which, the camp owner later claimed, would always come unsprung when you didn't want it to - initially refused to give up my hand. But eventually, with a bit of banging and swearing, I was freed.
Off to the emergency clinic, and my hand was X-rayed. A bone had sort of moved out of placed, but nothing was broken. My left wrist, hand and forearm were then set in a demi-cast, with plaster on top and a bandage wrapped around it.
For the rest of my Coromandel beach holiday, I spent most of the time with the sea splashing at my feet, keeping my hand dry. This proved tiresome, too much of an effort, so in the end I went off and made my own fun. A valuable skill, which has served me well to this day.
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I had the impression that the pictures of people at parties and features on "trips you can do into the wild, wild country beyond Ponsonby" were the core of the mag.
Well, the pictures of people at parties have always been part of Metro. But they were doing it when no one else did, and with the photographer's knack for taking delightfully unflattering snaps, it wasn't your typical society page.
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How many of us, even us pros, wrote as much 10 years ago as we do now?
Back then, I was very involved with various online communities. Today I still am, but I write more. Now more and more people are online, I'm able to connect with those who are more likely to share my interests.
In 1997 the closest to PA System was the nz.general usenet group, but I eventually left that because of all the shouting (and some guy ferociously objected to my quoting style).
Rich said:
I find it ironic that a traditionally lightweight lifestyle mag (Metro)
Metro wasn't lightweight in the '80s. Under founder Warwick Rodger's editorship, it had really really long investigative articles. That was the era that brought us the "Unfortunate Experiment" expose. (I can't believe I used to read Metro as a pre-teen and teenager!)
In fact, has Metro ever been lightweight?
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I just found 42 mortgagee sales listed on Barfoot & Thompson.
Some of them look like investment properties that are probably being given up because of an increase in interest rates and/or a lack of tenants. (There's an Mt Eden village art deco flat. It looks nice in the photos, but in reality it's right next door to a service station. Yuck!)
But other ones look too big to be rentals/investment properties. So what is it that drives someone living in a lovely family villa to end up having the bank sell their house? Interest rates? Bad financial planning? Too many lattes?
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Fear of a female interwebs
This will be my 276th comment posted on PA System. I don't know for sure, but I suspect most of the comments I've made have been more on social rather than political topics (though sometimes there are overlaps).
Politics and sports are two things that I have very little interest in, but I can, if I try, find an in to these topics via some sort of social connection.
When I first got on the interwebs back in '95, I don't remember it being male-dominated. There always seemed to be 50-50 mix of the sexes (either that or women were smaller in numbers but louder).
There was also the old school journal girls (shout out to 2 Joanna!). It seemed that in the pre-blog days, most people who kept interesting personal websites were female (or gay guys). There were guys out there who kept websites, but very few were writing frequently-updated interesting ones.
Now there seem to be more guys out there writing stuff, and stuff that's interesting and worth reading.
But there are also plenty of arseholes out there who have an opinion and would like you to be aware of it, whether it's about how awful George Bush is or how awful American Idol is.
If the 'net - our kool thing - becomes spoiled by male, white corporate oppressors, it's not the end of the world. It just means that 'us girls' need to work a little harder. And we can take Chuck D's advice from that awesome song and tell it like it is.
Fear, baby