OM NOM NOM NOM!!!

Did man really land on the moon OR was it an elaborate ploy set on a sound stage?

Is the US Government hanging onto an alien corpse they picked up in Roswell, New Mexico?

A conspiracy theorist might say “yes indeedy” to the above, but others may need a bit more convincing…but after you read this, you will never take anything at face value again!

This week, regular contributor to ‘Sesame Street’, Cookie Monster turned 40 years old, so it’s only fitting that I finally reveal to you what I first learned nearly 30 years ago.

You’ve probably noticed that Cookie Monster puts away a fair few cookies, he does so by way of song (The irresistible ‘C is for Cookie’) or by counting out the number of cookies on his plate (Let’s say there are 4) and then rearranging them to see if the amount has changed (For the record; the amount hasn’t changed – there are still 4 cookies there.). These distractions disguise the deception that follows next.

Cookie Monster goes mental (living up to the ‘monster’ part of his name) and starts devouring the cookies – or does he? In the age of VHS, I could never quite establish just how much of the cookie was being swallowed and how much was simply hitting the floor, but now with DVD (and more recently Blu-ray) we can slow the footage down frame by frame and discover that in fact Cookie Monster is not consuming a single crumb.

It all makes sense now doesn’t it? You’re kicking yourself as you read this? …Well here’s something else you probably never thought about: If Cookie Monster had been digesting even a fraction of the many cookies he has supposedly eaten over the last 40 years he would likely have a severe weight problem – at least that’s what we’d expect. But I have never seen C.M.’s torso, it’s always been conveniently hidden behind a bench or table…and behind that table is some well-toned blue felt…believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see - I say!...Oh, and happy birthday Cookie Monster.

Next time: Why ‘Oscar The Grouch’ was Orange in the first episode of Sesame Street, but has been green in every episode since.

Mama-se, mama-sa, mama-coo-sa

Today, the King Of Pop died.

Like most people my age, (early thirties), I've experienced a few of those days where 'you never forget where you were when..." and to be fair this was one of them for me.

I know some people aren't fans of MJ, then again I'm not a fan of our national game (rugby), but I can appreciate people's passion for it. I am a fan of Michael Jackson - I would never go so far to say a die-hard fan, but I have at some stage:
a) Thought I could dance like him.
b) Anticipated every new song/video with great expectations.
c) Owned all of his albums, though admittedly a few of those are now in a second hand bin somewhere, (this has less to do with the quality of the album and more to do with the compilations generally being a lot more fun to listen to).

At the time of writing this - it's only about 6 or 7 hours since the news came through - and already so much has been said about Michael's impact (positive and negative) on the world.
And for all the spectacle and controversy, it was my own experiences linked, albeit very indirectly, to Jackson that I remember the most.

I remember the day Mum took us shopping for music, I bought The Eurythmics 'Revenge' on cassette, and my brother bought Thriller on vinyl. Upon getting home and taking turns at playing the two albums (we only had one stereo back then), I quickly became insanely jealous of my brother's music purchasing decisions as I realised just how much cooler MJ's album was. It was the first time that music had got me REALLY excited, I love almost all the songs off that album to this day - 'Human Nature' is my fave - if you're asking.

Our family took a wee while to get a VCR, but my Aunty and Uncle had brought one back from japan just as they were being released here in NZ. I recall the afternoon I got to go around and have my first VCR experience. There were three options to view, Cyndi Lauper 'Girls Just wanna have Fun', MJ's video for 'Thriller' and 'Return of the Jedi' - I thought I'd get the music videos out of the way first.....I watched Thriller first, the other two came about an hour later - once I'd calmed down from those yellow eyes MJ flashes to the camera at the very end of the video - the scared me shitless for weeks!!!

In the early 90's I became fascinated with basketball - I sucked at it, still do to this day, but in '91 MJ released a song called 'Jam' which starred Michael Jordan in the video - I became pretty fanatical about a song featuring two MJ's and I remember shooting baskets all summer with that song playing on my walkman or stereo.

The photo, (see above), is my ticket to MJ's concert in Auckland, on Monday 11th of November 1996, if I recall correctly, it was his second show, but I didn't care - lining up at Just Jeans to get the ticket, then at Ericsson stadium for what felt like days, was just something you had to do in this situation.
I'm not gonna get into hyperbole about the concert; it was dubbed for the most part, poorly sung in others, but man-alive - there was some supreme staging and choreography, THAT, you can't deny. I hold no grudge about MJ's lack of live singing ability, many successful singers are best in studio - true back then, and certainly true today.
What I remember more than the show itself was taking the wrong exit out of Ericsson and pitch darkness trying to meet a distant relative whose place I was staying at - the show finished about 11pm - I didn't find my ride until about 1am!

Buying the wrong album....gutting
Getting the bejeezus scared out of me by a music video.....gutting
Failing epically at basketball....gutting
Getting lost in Auckland...gutting
But, all these are experiences, experiences that are indirectly linked to an amazing talent, an amazing talent that is now gone forever...now that's gutting.

What are we teaching our kids?

So we're in recession, it's not the first time - but if we play our cards right - it might be our last.
But in order to 'play our cards right' - we have to be a little more vigilant about what messages we are sending future generations - especially when they are children.

The other day I was at the local hospital getting my annual check-up, in the waiting room was a children's playmat not too disimilar to the one pictured here, the main difference with the one I saw at the hospitale is that this particular 'road-map playmat' had about 15 blocks with all sorts of businesses and services; a hairdresser, a drive-in movie theatre, a fire station, a hospital (not the one I was waiting in, however how weird would it have been if it were the same one? It would be like a dream within a dream!) a fast food place, a church, a police station and three carwashes.....hold up, wait a minute...THREE carwashes??? What the hell does a town that size need with three carwashes? Seriously, how fucking clean does this community's automobiles need to be?
I don't know about you, but I've never used a carwash, not because of any particular objection to them, but just beacuse I have always washed my own car, that's what my father did, and his father before him - so I'm going to imagine that it's fair to say that most people 'manually' wash their cars - which brings me back to my point; this town cannot sustain three carwashes, one carwash would struggle, three is just asking for trouble.

The other problem with this children's playmat was that on the entire 15 blocks there were no more than NINE parking spaces, where the hell is everyone else supposed to park? Is it like musical chairs where everyone just keeps driving around - guzzling petrol that they can barely afford until someone reverses out? I guess maybe that explains the three carwashes; something to do while you're waiting for a carpark to become available.

Good on the makers of these playmats for giving our children something to do - (I would've loved one of those for my matchbox cars back in the 80's), I just hope the children playing on them aren't our next town-planners or our economy might just come undone again.

Lost in translation

Flo-Rida is a hip-hop artist who has been doing big things lately with hi top 40 single 'Right Round' - I thought I would take the time to find the meaning behind the song by translating each line.....


You spin my head right round, right round
You turn my head around 360 degrees, twice.
When you go down, when you go down down
When you perform oral sex upon me
You spin my head right round, right round
You turn my head around 360 degrees, twice.
When you go down, when you go down down
When you perform oral sex upon me
Hopped out of that house with my swagger
Left my place of residence whilst walking in a trendy manner
Hop in that with girl, I got places to go!
Got in the car with a woman who is driving, I have an appointment.
People to see, time is precious
I have several of the aforementioned appointments – my diary is full today
I look at my crowd and they out of control
My friends are refusing to take any direction from me
Just like my mind where I'm going
My brain appears to be shutting down the more I travel in this automobile
No women, no shorties, no nothin but clothes
No females, no girlfriends, I can only see apparel here
No stoppin now, my Pirellis on roll
We will continue to drive, my Pirelli-brand tyres are moving in a forward direction
I like my jewelry, that's always on gold
I wear a range of watches, chains and bracelets - all of which are gold
I know the storm is comin
The weather forecast is for thunder and lightning
my pockets keep tellin me it's gonna shower
The part of my jeans that usually hold my keys and wallet are also providing a similar weather report
Call up my homies that's home
call up my friends who are currently at their homes
Then pop in the night cuz it's meant to be ours

Ummmm….I have NO idea....well, I tried……..

Piggy-wiggy flu

Advice from a website regarding the Swine Flu

'Influenza is very easily spread through coughs and sneezes. If you have influenza, avoid public places and close contact with other people. Always cough and sneeze into a disposable tissue. Put the tissue in a rubbish bin and wash your hands well afterwards.'

Very good advice if you ask me, and not limited to just the swine flu. It's advice that should be followed but let's break it down....

Influenza is very easily spread through coughs and sneezes.

Yeah, it's also very easily spread by the person who rolls into work sniffing every 5 seconds and telling you, in no uncertain terms, how crap they feel and how they "hope you don't get it"....The great thing about this, of course, is that you can actively put a face to the flu once it infects you.

Always cough and sneeze into a disposable tissue.

As opposed to a reusable tissue.

1. Put the tissue in a rubbish bin.
2. Wash your hands well afterwards.

If you are wiping your nose with your hand, please go straight to step 2.

Say cheese!

I am from New Zealand, the home of Lord Of The Rings movies, Flight Of The Conchords, people who talk really fast and Sir Edmund Hillary....if you're not from New Zealand you'd be forgiven for thinking that we have it all; quirky ideas, ingenuity as well as amazing hills and Hutt valleys.....but the truth is, we've had to be patient for some things...

When I was a kid, movies would start screening here about 6 months after they were initially released in the U.S. - of course back then you had no idea certain movies were even being made because there was no internet, no spoilers - in fact the only way you could've had the ending of 'The Empire Strikes back' spoilt for you - is if a homing pigeon dropped in a note to tell you that Vader is Luke's dad..

Even in the present day we've had to wait for stuff, only last week here in New Zealand we got our version of the 'Next Top Model'. 'New Zealand's Next Top Model' is Tyra Banks-less but the girls seem fun, bubbly and a tad naive - and I'm sure the winner will be the next person modelling tops here in NZ as the show's name promises.

Yep, we've been a patient nation - so you can only imagine my near-orgasmic like surprise when I saw a new product advertised on Sunday night on TV....new to us....not new to the rest of the world....Ladies and Gentlemen MR. CHEESE IS HERE!!!!!

Mr Cheese is cheese in a can, much like whipped cream in a can - that's right AEROSOL CHEESE!....One word 'FIIIIIINALLY'.

How many times in my life have I been at dinner parties where cheese platters have been brought out and I've had to politely wince my way through eating a slice of Camembert....Eeeeeew! Now there is Mr. Cheese...I can literally spray the cheese of my choice (Mr. Cheese comes in two flavours: tasty and mild) onto a cracker.

All of this is very exciting, and it's clearly excitement that we've been denied for many years in this country, the Mr. Cheese TV commercial is glorious and can be found on the net - it features a sexy-girl on roller skates (no, we're not up to roller-blades in NZ yet), spraying the cheese onto the foods of everyone she passes - let's see you do that with a kilo of Edam! And as if that's not enough, there are two guys playing chess with the cans of Mr. Cheese (the cans are red or yellow depending on the flavour) I don't know how exactly they are deciphering between rooks, kings, queens and pawns - but who cares they are having fun and shit, so am I - Mr. Cheese is here!!!

Having aerosol cheese really sends New Zealand flying up the ranks of developed nations and maybe even higher when you discover that Mr. Cheese does not require refrigeration - that's right - forget about the round-trip back to the fridge, you can leave Mr. Cheese at room temperature, next to the remote control or even leave it lying in direct sunlight - now that's convenience!

So there we go - patience pays off and next week the Sega master System is released in stores here....

Planet Earth Number Two - and there's nothing I can do...

...I've just written Bowie's next song, not that he needs my help - Bowie loves his outer-space ballads; Space Oddity, Starman....um....the song from Labyrinth - Bowie went through a space phase in the seventies (or should that be 'phaser' - he he he....ha ha ha HAH HAH HAH ha...yeah) , but not even Bowie could've imagined that in his lifetime - we'd be out seeking earth-like planets....but guess what? We are!

This past week, NASA (which stands for Never-Assume-Spock's-Alive) launched a space craft into the nether-regions of space to search for planets that we could some day inhabit. The whole mission thus far has cost about $591 million (US) and you don't get much change out of that, (although any change you DO get would be gratefully received).
$591 mill - its nice to know that a recession hasn't stood in the way of us playing out a dirty little Buck Rodgers fantasy.

The Kepler is a flying telescope, (not as cool sounding as the Millenium Falcon), and it's on the road for 3 years searching out planets just like ours....yep, that's it, we don't want something different, we want another one the same as what we already have - kinda like going to a restaurant and ordering the same meal everytime.

I dunno about this, I mean a whole new planet sounds pretty cool at first - but then the more you think about the more of a hassle it sounds....

First, let's say we find a planet that seems to have similar qualities to Earth, the instruments show that the air is breathable.....imagine the person who draws the short straw and has to take their helmet off for the first breath to make sure the instruments aren't lying - f*** that!!! If your oxygen readings aren't quite right you might find your eyes popping out of their sockets (Refer scene from the movie 'Total Recall'.)

Once the atmosphere's been sorted you then have to move heaps of stuff from Old Earth (known from this point on as 'Earth One') and new Earth (known from this point on as 'Barry') - it's hard enough moving flats or houses, let alone moving planets. (Add to that, no-one ever wants to help you move because it's usually the weekend.)
There's no way you are going to get everything moved in one trip, even if the space shuttle is towing a trailer from the service station and has a mattress tied to the roof - it's going to take a while to get everything from Earth One to Barry.

When you're all moved in - friends from Earth One will want to come and see you, what happens here? Do we use a passport still? Instead of saying you are 'going overseas' do you now say you are 'going overspace'? I guess there is one plus - you wont have to sit through the evacuation procedure on the flight there as the only place to evacuate to in an emergency is cold dark space. (Refer scene from 'Total Recall' again.)

Then you've got to consider the length of a day etc - what if you end up with 3 hours of daylight and 25 hours of darkness? (Have I mentioned it's a 28 hour day on Barry?) - think of all the moths!!!!

A new world?....sounds like too much hassle to me, I'd rather stay here on good ol' Earth One - a world with plenty of things wrong with it; melting polar ice-caps, pollution, war and 'Dancing with the Stars'....but the world I know.

R.I.P. Travis.....

And I'm not talking about the band 'Travis' from Scotland, although whatever happened to them??? - they were great!

Travis the Chimp has been on my mind all this week, (I have been eating bananas like nobody's business), at the time of writing this, it has been about 5 days since the 14 year-old, 200 pound Chimpanzee viciously attacked the 55 year-old friend of his owner and was subsequently stabbed and shot until he was no more.

Some are saying he was sick with Lyme disease, some say he was confused and aggravated, and others claim that a lifetime of essentially being raised as a human caused the horrific encounter - and while I have no expertise with which to add any useful analysis - it's that final point that does get my head-buzzing.

Travis, for all intents and purposes, WAS raised as a human - he was a movie and TV star, he wore nappies, he apparently even knew how to navigate the Internet.....but here's where the problem lies; Travis never basked in the glory of an acting career like a human would, he wasn't spared nappies after his first few years of life - like humans are, and when he discovered the audio of Christian Bale's outburst on the Internet- he had no way of communicating this the way a human might.

My point is, if you're gonna raise an animal as a human, you better be able to give them all the experiences and opportunities a human gets - from eating and sleeping, to paying overdue fines on late DVDs and uploading wacky photos to face book.

The case of Travis the chimp made me shudder for more than the obvious reasons, it also made me think of a situation in 1982 which could've so easily gone the wrong way. That year - a boy named Elliott discovered a visitor in his family's shed, at first, his brother Michael thought it was an iguana, it wasn't - it was an unknown species from another planet. Elliott befriended the creature and christened him 'E.T.'

There were plenty of circumstances here that most likely parallel Travis's situation; E.T. was dressed up like a human, taken trick-or-treating, and developed a love for M&M's, Beer, Bert & Ernie as well as Gertie's 'Speak and Spell'. E.T. was absorbing human behaviour at an alarming rate and worst of all Elliott wanted to keep him - Hell, I wanted Elliott to keep him. But who knows where this may have lead, if Elliott had had his way who's to say that in 1996, (when the alien was 14 years into living like a human) E.T. wouldn't have suddenly flipped out and torn Elliott limb from limb because he had never been allowed to use the phone to call home - like a human is allowed to.

I don't want to colour your impression of E.T. - I don't think it would've ever come to that....but maybe that was the tragedy of Travis....no-one thought it would've ever come to this.

Thrifty Thrills In a Time Of Recession....

Unless you've been living under a rock, (and let's face it who does that other than the Fraggles?) you will know that there is a recession happening, (this will mean the Fraggles will no doubt receive a nasty surprise the next time they come above ground for doozer sticks and radishes.)

The recession, the 'R'-word, the credit crunch, the economic down-turn - whatever you want to call it's fair to say that it's a double-whammy of suckiness, firstly it destroys people's livelihoods and secondly it consumes our nightly news to the point where we can no longer rely on a 'feel-good' human interest story at the end of the bulletin about pandas, dolphins, kakapo or Chris Brown.

One moment we are being told to save our pennies, the next we are being told to spend at large to get the economy going again - I have no idea what the hell to do - if I did I wouldn't be sitting here writing a blog about it.

When times get tough, if you can, you should seek to enjoy the little things in life, and by 'little things' I'm not talking about smelling flowers, listening to birds singing or children playing - I'm talking about your cars' indicator.

I've come up with a little game, that works best when waiting on a red-arrow at the traffic lights. The idea is that you search through your pre-set stations on your car stereo and keep going till you find a song that matches the beat or rhythm of your indicator, it's not always easy, but then again neither is the board-game 'Operation'.

On Tuesday I found a song that matches my car indicator perfectly - Kings Of Leon's "Sex On Fire" did the trick and the timing, the symmetry - EVERYTHING was there! Now - don't get too discouraged if the Kings' ode to firey intercourse doesn't work for your car, keep persisting - you'll find your song. (Although if your indicator matches anything by The Prodigy or Meatloaf - that may be a sign your car is about to fail it's next warrant.)

The best part about all of this is that this game costs you only a few drops of the overpriced petrol you put in your car....petrol which is probably gonna get even pricier thanks to the 'R'-word....time to come up with a new game.....