Why I didn’t go to church today

I’ll give you a hint – it’s the same reason I don’t go to church at all (in addition to the obvious ones, where there is no such thing as God, and all religion is inherently false and quite contemptible)…

Heh. If you like that, you’ll love these…

The big three five

As many of you are no doubt aware, Monday after next I’ll be turning 35. Dave too – funny that. Anyhoo, I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few weeks, and must admit I’m surprised at how little I actually give a shit about this ‘milestone’ year in contrast to the previous ones…

I vividly remember the card my mother sent me on my 18th birthday, reminding me to be careful as I was now old enough to be tried as an adult. It felt like such a big deal to be legally an adult, despite the fact that, while I was now eligible to vote, marry, get drafted, go to prison, and enter into binding contracts, I wasn’t about to do any of those things. The drinking age was still 20, so I was still just a kid in the eyes of the only people that really mattered (bouncers). And in hindsight that’s all I really was – a kid.

I know turning 20 hasn’t been much of a big deal since that the drinking age was lowered to 18, but it was back then. I remember proudly presenting my driver’s license to a doorman at a club in Auckland, only to be refused entry because the licenses at the time showed the month but not day of birth. “Your birthday could be next week, ” he grinned, before waving me inside. I kept the “fuck you, door monkey” to myself on that occasion, partly due to my keen sense of self-preservation, but mostly because most of my mates were still underage. I was 20 now, and they couldn’t keep me out anymore (this was before they invented Spy Bar), but there was a definite sense of loss at the end of my teens. I was convinced for years that 19 was the coolest age I had ever been – best physical condition, least responsibility, most active socially… and then it was over. Twenty. Gotta grow up now, hey son? (Turns out that I didn’t – 20 was also the year that I got expelled from university, but that’s a story for another post).

Turning 21 was a big deal, but it is for everyone I suppose. For me it was the beginning of a big adventure, and a fantastic, chaotic chain of events that has added inestimable richness to my life. I moved to Queenstown and went snowboarding every single day for a whole season. I met a guy in a bar who offered me a job in Auckland, which lead me back to University, a first-class Master’s degree, and an amazing career. I have no idea what my life would be like now were it not for some of the choices I made at 21, and it’s both comforting and frightening to look back at how flippantly some of those decisions were made.

When I hit 30, the only big deal as far as I was concerned was that it seemed like such a big deal to everyone else. We had a big party (interesting way to find out that your Dad really knows how to handle a gun), but I distinctly remember the anticlimax when it dawned on me that the day after was exactly the same as the day before. I was officially into my fourth decade, but I didn’t feel any different. Ironically, this was the first of the ‘big years’ where I felt young and stupid but actually wasn’t. I have since reasoned that the yearning for my late teens that I felt in my early twenties is something akin to a veteran’s reminiscence of battle. Fuck that – I wouldn’t be that stupid again for all the tea in China! How in the hell I escaped death and/or imprisonment is beyond me.

So now, as I approach the big three five, I’m finding that I actually really like who I am, where I am, the choices I’ve made (even, and some might say especially, the bad ones) and what lies ahead. My one regret isn’t for myself and the lost opportunities of my youth (although I do agree that the indiscretions a man regrets most later in life tend to be the ones he failed to make when he had the chance), but for the many friends I’ve had over the years who never got the chance to grow old at all. I close my eyes and try to picture the face of an old school friend who died in a motorcycle accident when we were at university. On the one hand it’s disturbing how hard it’s getting to recall what he looked like. Was it that long ago? Could we really have been that close, if I’m forgetting him already? Will I fade from memory like this when I’m gone? On the other hand, the face I do remember is still just 21 years old, and that’s what bothers me the most – he should be 35 too!

So on the 19th of January all you young pups can feel free to point out the spare tyre I’ve grown, and kid me about the heat radiating from my cake (hint hint Simonne!). You can do all that and more, because I really don’t give a shit. I’ll be thinking about how grateful I am to have the opportunity to celebrate yet another milestone birthday, and toasting the memory of friends who weren’t so lucky.

Have yourselves a great weekend.

I told you so

As someone who has submitted and reviewed CV’s on several occasions over the years, one of the major challenges I’ve encountered is in differentiating the great ones (including mine) from the not so great. Buried in any pile of resumés there is always to be found a few rock stars, many Joe Averages, and a depressing number of muppets. It’s normally pretty easy to filter out the muppets, but it’s often hard to discern the rock stars from the Joe Averages – they tend to have the same or similar academic backgrounds and experience, helped in no small part by the fact that Joe Average tends to do a very convincing job of blagging his accomplishments, while rock stars often (foolishly) rely on the facts speaking for themselves.

Some people try and use design to stand out, but sadly that just makes it look like they’re trying too hard. I mean, sure – you don’t want so hand in a CV written in crayon on toilet paper, but once you get past neat and professional it gets a little embarrassing. If you must send in a hard-copy, use only white, A4 paper with a single staple in the top left-hand corner. Do NOT use binders or plastic folders – if your CV is so long that it needs binding, you’re showing your prospective employer that you can’t hold down a job and/or don’t understand brevity. Either way, they won’t want to know about you.

So how do you make sure you stand out?

One trick that’s worked for me is to include a set of professional insights – half a dozen thoughts about the industry you work in, and what you think the next year or so has in store. You don’t have to make out like you’re some kind of oracle, and it really doesn’t matter if your predictions are a little off. Provided you don’t say anything too stupid, it always makes for good conversation in the interview, which you must have if you’re to have any shot at all of being hired. It also shows the employer that you’re not just some clock-punching automaton making a career out of getting by – show ‘em you really get what you do, and the job is yours for the asking.

Anyhoo, while doing some reading yesterday I was reminded of one of the predictions in my current CV, and – sadly for millions of people – it looks like I was bang on the money.

A substantial ‘adjustment’ will take place in tech stocks this year. That’s right people – we’re headed for another crash. Google will take a big hit, down to $400 US or below.

Exhibit A: Call it a ‘global financial crisis’ if you like, but a crash is still a crash

Exhibit B: Google shares are currently trading at $334, down from a 52-week high of $747.24 and $649.25 at the start of the year (when I made the prediction).

I wish I’d managed to predict myself into a new 911, but it’s been a pretty good year for me so I can’t complain. That said, (obligatory dig at the dyke) there are some rough times ahead and we need a firm hand on the tiller. Party vote NATIONAL on 8 November please!

Confessions of a lady basher

The media circus arising from allegations that Tony Veitch had assaulted his former partner, Kirsten Dunne Powell, bothered me right from the start. Let me start out by declaring that I fully support the Women’s Refuge position on domestic violence. Not acceptable. All violence is deplorable, and for any man to use his – let’s face it, this is normally the case – superior strength to inflict physical and/or emotional harm on someone he’s supposed to care about is… it’s fucking wrong, no question about it.

But that doesn’t mean our compassion should only be directed towards the woman, and that’s where I start to get antsy. When word of the Veitch allegations broke, people commenting publicly on the issue tended to end up (whether they liked it or not) in one of two camps – you either flat-out condemned him, or you were a fellow lady basher. Is it really so black and white though? Can you (should you be able to) sympathise with an alleged abuser, offer him some degree of compassion and understanding, without you both being tarred and feathered? Apparently not, which is how we ended up with a witch hunt.

A little background…

When I was 19 years old I began a relationship with a woman I’d met at work. She was older than me, pretty close to my height, and while she definitely wasn’t ‘man-ish’, had been a gym-fanatic for many years so was very muscular. She was also a redhead, so I probably should have seen it coming. As relationships often do in one’s late teens, things were great to start with but waned over time. After about ten months I ended the relationship (or so I thought) and moved on (or so I thought). It started with her phoning me out of the blue (‘Hi, just wondering what you are you are up to’), progressed to her turning up on my door step at odd hours (‘Hi, just passing by and thought I’d pop in’), and ended up with her sitting in her car outside my work most nights (we were no longer working together) , watching me finish up in case – God forbid – I went home with a waitress. I tried to be the nice guy, tried to understand that she had had her heart broken and do whatever it took to help her, but after a while it became unbearable. I asked her to leave me alone, without success. I stopped going to my old haunts and hanging out with mutual friends (formerly my friends), I asked the police to intervene, but was dismissed out of hand. Nothing worked – I was being stalked and there was nothing I could do about it. I can honestly say I feared for my life.

One night about four months after the stalking started I went out after work and arrived home with *a guest* at about 1am. I didn’t see her car, but apparently she’d been waiting outside my house for hours. I’d been in bed for maybe five minutes when the front door of my house was kicked in, followed immediately by my bedroom door. The lights came on and there she was – screaming (‘Time to go, bitch!), kicking, and dragging my guest out of the bed by her hair. I jumped up, ran for the door, broke the hold she had on my guest’s hair, and knocked her to the floor with a right-hook.

Next day. Phone rings. All day. Highlights include nearly all of our mutual friends (now her friends) calling to tell me what a scumbag I was. Most of these people have never spoken to me since. I also vividly remember her calling to say she’d laid a complaint with the police (thankfully this turned out to be bullshit) and that I would soon be arrested. She also dropped by that afternoon to show off the black eye I’d given her, just to make sure I knew what she’d shown the cops. I was fucked. The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that the first person to hear about all this was my mother. I had called her in tears, right after the incident, racked with guilt and unable to comprehend how I had managed to do something so totally contrary to the way I had been brought up. Mum’s response?

Next time you see that bitch, smack her again and tell her I said hi!

(Mums are awesome)

Why am I telling you this? Because, as much as I’m not sure I wanted to learn it this way, here’s what it taught me:

• There are always at least two sides to every story; and
• In some circumstances it’s ok to hit a woman

  (The latter point still doesn’t sit well with me, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true)

Turn your clocks forward a couple of years. I’m now 22, back at varsity and totally loving my life. I start dating a woman I’m working with (a little advice for you, don’t ever dip your pen in the company ink), and we end up living together – we didn’t ‘move in together’ a such, I just ended up spending pretty much every night at her house. We both worked nights (but not the same nights), we both had friends (but not the same friends)… pretty soon we started to drift apart and one of us (her) realised it but the other one (me) didn’t.

To this day I don’t know if this was something I’d subconsciously picked up from my previous relationship (with the stalker) or just a latent trait kicking in when the going got rough, but I didn’t handle the deteriorating relationship well. The more time we spent apart, the more I tried to be with her. Every mention or inference of another man drove me crazy. We argued all the time, said the most hurtful things to each other, and – despite the fact that she started staying out till all hours (I was convinced that this was because of me, as opposed to her simply wanting to spend time with her friends) – I continued to spend every night at her house.

One night things came to a head. We both had the night off work, but when I got home from varsity she wasn’t there. Her mobile was on but went unanswered all night. I sat there waiting by the door until her key hit the lock a little after 3am. All my months of suspicion and insecurity boiled over. On a conscious level I was venting, but on a subconscious level I think I wanted her to feel all the hurt and insecurity I’d been harboring for so long. We argued. We cried. We broke up and I stormed out. But I wasn’t done. When I reached the letterbox I turned on my heel and, when I found the front door locked, kicked it open. I don’t remember what I had to say that was so important, but I said it. And while she was trying – rightfully so – to usher me out of her house I shoved her backwards and into a wall – not very hard, and without causing injury, but how much damage do you have to do for it to be a fucking stupid thing to do? I’ll spare you the details of the aftermath, suffice to say that it turns out this woman had a much kinder soul than I’d given her credit for, and the Student Health counseling services are worth every penny of the extortionate U of A fees I paid borrowed for over the years.

This was a horrible experience and, again, I wish I could have come by the insight some other way. But nobody’s perfect – hell, we’re supposed to make mistakes, provided we learn from them. So here’s one of the things I learned:

• Sometimes good people do bad things

There, it’s done – I’ve just openly confessed my two darkest secrets. We all have skeletons in our closets, and I have many more – but none worse than these. I’ve shared them with you for a couple of reasons. First of all, I’m no longer ashamed of them. While I’m far from proud of my actions, if I could go back and undo what I did I’m not sure I would. I actually quite like the man I’ve become, and who am I but the product of my (good and bad) experiences?

Second, I’d like to challenge you all to attempt a similar introspection. All you fine upstanding folks who cried out for Tony Veitch’s head when the rumors first surfaced – have you ever done anything you’re ashamed of? No? In my opinion, anyone who’s never crossed the line between right and wrong most likely has no idea where it is. Do you think Hilter had a guilty conscience? What about Osama Bin Laden? The rest of us sinners hopefully learn one or both of the following from our transgressions:

• How not to make the same mistake in future; and
• Other people are just as capable of fucking up as we are

So I was really vocal in supporting Veitchy when the rumors surfaced, and I still am. And it’s not because I’m ‘a fucking man too’, or ‘a lady basher like him’ – it’s because, regardless of how it came to be, I am a better person than those that wouldn’t.

Putting the cat among the pigeons

Following this week’s rant about the Shell ad, I decided to do a little background reading on what the doomsday scenario looks like for our depleting oil reserves. I was looking for a reliable estimate of how much oil is left (40 to 50 years, apparently), but I also found quite a lot of seemingly credible authorities (example) arguing that oil is not a fossil fuel (formed from the decayed remains of dinosaurs etc) and may actually be produced by the immense temperatures and pressure deep within the earth’s core.

I’m not saying I’ve decided to add ‘oil denier’ to the ‘man-made global warming denier’ moniker I so cherish, but I do find the idea intriguing and well worth looking into further. Is it plausible? Could it be that oil is a naturally-occurring mineral, or is filling your gas tank little more than (dinosaur) grave robbing? What are the implications of oil being a renewable resource? The first one that springs to mind is that people like me who dare raise such a possibility are liable to get ‘whacked’.

I’m going to look into this further, and hopefully find enough evidence to make up my mind one way or another. Ah, sweet library – will be great to see you again!

What about you folks? Am I nuts, or have I hit something you’ve wondered about yourselves? Would be interested to know what you think.

In case you’re wondering, my main motivation in writing this is how much it pisses me off how people think that repeating their opinion / belief over and over again makes it factual. Case in point is this whole ‘man-made global warming’ thing. I know we’re all being told over and over (and over!) again that we’re the cause of the recent ice age drawing to a close (not sure what ended all the previous ones – must look into that), but where is the credible, irrefutable evidence? ‘Al Gore said so’ just doesn’t do it for me, I’m sorry, and repeating it ad nauseum won’t change my mind – but it may get you a black eye. Think for yourselves, people!

The day the Internet stood still

Trey Parker and Matt Stone have produced some outlandish stuff over the years, and many have decried South Park as nothing more inane drivel and toilet humour. What the critics can’t seem to grasp is that beneath the bleeding Madonnas, Paris Hilton whore-offs and chicken f&^%ers is some pretty astute socio-political commentary and brilliant satire.

The creators of South Park seem to take great delight in pointing out the elephant in the room, which as Jon Stewart said is something the news media should be doing a lot more of but which sadly seems to be the responsibility of comedians these days.

Anyhoo, I came across this clip this morning (full episode here) and it really struck a chord with me. Think about it – how different would your life be if you woke up in the morning and the Interweb wasn’t working?

*shudder*

*UPDATE*

Ok, so Viacom managed to get the clip pulled less than 6 hours after it was posted, and right now there aren’t any other versions at YouTube. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t watch it – it just means you have to search further afield and provide ad revenue to a Ukranian pirate instead of the content owner. Oh well.

View the entire episode here