Thoughts on airports. Airlines and waistlines

Why is it that just about every new airport that gets designed ends up being based on the shape of an aircraft wing? Boring. Don’t airport architects have any other ideas? What about other flying based themes? If I designed an airport it would be in the shape of an in-flightt meal. They are so cool with their little compartments. It would look amazing from the air. The container of water could be a giant glass carpark. The main course would be the main terminal the knife and fork could be a huge sculpture or water feature and in keeping with the in-flight meal tray theme the cheese could be a small yellow building that no one is ever able to open.

I have an idea that could revolutionise air travel. Everyone is into fitness right. So why not replace the seats with exercycles. People could pedal while they fly. It would be healthier than sitting on your arse. The whole deep vein thrombosis thing would be solved. You can get more exercycles into a plane and seats so that would be good for the airpline and no one want to eat while they are working out, so the airline would save money on the food as well.

EXERAIR – A healthier way to fly. Shrinking the cost of airtravel and your arse.

The Australian Navy's big boob.

Good bless you Australia. You loveable larrikins. If the world was throwing a party and you weren’t there I would be the first person on the blower, ‘Where the bloody hell are ya?’
The Aussie navy has been paying for their lady sailors to have boob jobs. It is thinking like that that earned Australia the nick name ‘the lucky country’. Not so lucky if you’re an Abo or a farmer or a refugee looking for asylum. But if you have a missus in the Australian navy with a small rack. Bingo! You just hit the jackpot brother.
Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said “We do consider the broader needs of our people, both physical and psychological.” Good on ya Andrew and everything you stand for.
The more cynical amongst you might say he was considering the needs of men stuck at sea for long periods of time looking for something a little more interactive than a poster on the wall, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. We hear a lot these days how an important role for the armed forces is to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the people in the countries they go to. Well what better way to do that than to send a boat load of fully stacked Aussie chicks ashore. How can you wage a war of terror when you are busy perving at the Shelia holding the M16 in the blue camo bikini?
Of course the Australian navy could have avoided all the ruckus in the press if they had simply explained that the ladies didn’t have breast enlargements. Instead they were having revolutionary new internal floatation devices attached.
The biggest hoo haa over the boob jobs came from other navies. It seems that there is a very competitive wet t shirt competition operating amongst the naval forces of some of the biggest nations in the world and there were concerns that Australia was trying to stack the odds (so to speak) of taking out the 2007 title. The Australian Navy denies this and has issued a statement saying the ladies will not be entering the competition. And it’s not just the Australian Navy that is have been looking into plastic surgery. It seems the Australian army were considering offering their men penis enlargement operations for the same ‘physical and psychological’ reasons but there were so many they decided it would be cheaper just give them bigger guns.

The Surge report that has congress in a spin.

General Patraeus testified to a congressional committee last week on the progress in Iraq. Some of the committee members thought it was a bit odd that the general started his presentation by handing out free sunglasses but everyone agreed the lovely rose tinted lens made for comfortable wearing. And things only got better. The generals general message to the crowd was that the Surge has worked its tits off. Violence is down, Iraqs armed forces are improving, Baghdad is more peaceful. In short, it is all good ladies and gentlemen. With the update on Iraq over so quick but the audience still enjoying their sun glasses General Patraeus went on to update them on some other big events. He reported that Global Warming is over and the planet is starting to cool down again. Britney Spears comeback performance at the MTV music awards was a huge sucsess and very well received by the audience. Burt Reynolds has decided to stop doing crap movies simply for the money. And Posh Spice has been a hug hit in America. Yes folks, it was a 5 star effort from a 4 star general.

My Italian design disaster.

Some clever Italian design guy realized that the shape of Italy would make a very handy bottle opener. Brilliant! But you would expect a cool design idea like that, from a country that prides itself on great design. What was even better about this was it also doubled as a fridge magnet. Now the fridge is where my beer lives and the opener is for the beer so having the two living as neighbors is brilliant. It saves me the walk across the kitchen to the draw with the unmagnetised bottle openers.
Just one problem. The hole that you put over the bottle cap is slightly too small. So rather than whipping the top off in one quick often practiced manner it take three or four attempts to loosen the little sucker.
How hard is it to make a bottle opener that works? Bottle caps aren’t like railway tracks or power points. They don’t have different gauges and types around the world. I know. I have opened beer across this lovely planets and I have never seen a bottle top come in anything other than the standard international agreed bottle top size. That’s why they sell so many souvenir bottle openers in airports. Because the souvenir people know it is a gift that can be used anywhere. Am I to believe that the Italian bottle opener fridge magnet design team didn’t bother to test their creation? What about the launch party? Didn’t anyone think to serve beer? Was it just wine? My grandad told me the Italians had lots of experience drinking beer. Every time they changed sides in the war they celebrated by opening a few bottles.
How can a bottle opener designer hope to have any credibility if he doesn’t open a fricken bottle of beer at least once. It would be like a group of Jehovah Witnesses starting up a business making Birthday cards.
I have been devastated by the performance of my Italian opener. Quite frankly it has left a bad taste in my mouth, although that could be the case of Sri Lankan beer I have had to work my way through this week. I don’t really rate Sri Lankan beer, but their country would make a nice ergonomically shaped bottle opener. Italy’s fuck up could be Sri Lanka’s gain.

Rugby World Cup 2007. Packing down with the future.

The world’s third most popular sporting event has rolled round again and the pressure is on for the famous All Blacks to bring home the silverware. They are without a doubt the best rugby team in the world between world cups. We just need to get thew timing right.
Being a tiny little island at the bottom of the world we place great importance on anything that gets us attention. The Americas Cup and Hobbits have worked for us from time to time, but rugby has been our main source of pride. Things got off to a good start with our game against Italy. I was surprised the Italians didn’t try to swap sides and come out with the All Blacks at half time. But it wasn’t really the work out the men in black need and I worry that they aren’t really going to get a decent run in their pool matches. We play Portugal next and they aren’t even putting their top team on the field. I wonder if they have Port in their sipper bottles? They’ll need it. If we have to play Portugal B I reckon the AB’s should only field players who have a letter B in their first name. Or perhaps give the Portuguese a head start. Maybe 10 minutes on the field by themselves at the start of each half.
Good to see the Japanese back for another hiding but at least they are starting to field a team of biggish looking blokes. Speaking of the Japanese there is a story going round that last week in New Zealand they found a Japanese player left over from the 87 world cup squad. He had been stuck in a very isolated part of New Zealand near Hamilton and thought the tournament was still going on. I reckon the Japanese should give up hiring old All Blacks as coaches and get their top scientists to build a team of rugby playing robots with laser beam eyes and electro magnets they switch on for a real solid bind in the scrum and hydraulic springs in the forwards legs for the lineout and built in cameras that play footage back to the ref so he doesn’t have to go upstairs, and boots that are welded on so there are no delays in play with boots coming off or undone laces
That would be cool team and I imagine its fans would be a healthy mix of anti sport computer nerds and rugby heads. And at the end of the day is rugby all about bringing people together? That’s why its called union.

New releases by Bin Laden and Britney.

The titan of terrorism and the princess of pop are back and it has been a while. After wisely waiting till after Elvis Presley’s 30th anniversary these two big names are making a quest to hit the headlines again.

While Britney’s time off from the music industry has been documented every sticky step of the way, Binny has opted for a more quiet approach spending time at his luxury cave complex in the mountainous Pakistan Afghan border region. No messy divorces for Mr Laden the biggest controversy of the last few years was to become the face in an advertising campaign for a range of all terrain dialysis machines. A move that some of his fans labeled as a sell out. But with that behind him he his back, like Miss Spears, to doing what they do best.

You have to change and evolve to keep the audience interested these days and like Britney, Bin laden’s stylists have gone for a new look. The coloured and shorter beard makes him look younger. Rumour has it that Britney’s team was also considering a beard till they found out Bin laden had beat them to it.
Britney will kick off her come back with a performance at the MTV awards. Bin Laden was lined up to present ‘Best Video filmed in a cave, but opted instead to be guest speaker at the launch of the 2007 model AK47.

There is one big difference between Britney and Binny of course and that is the length of their respective releases. Britney’s ‘Gimme More’ comes in at the standard 3 to 4 minutes while Bin Laden has gone for an epic 30 minutes. Time will tell whether this was a wise move when success depends on the buy in from those short attention spanned Gen Xers.
In the end the audience will decide whether Britney and Bin reclaim their status at the top of the popular people pile or slip down into the slope into Hasbeenville. Hopefully not matter how fierce the professional rivalry between them they can still take time out to visit each other’s tour buses, share a Mojito and non-alcoholic pina colada and talk about what a loser that Kevin Federline is.

Living the flashdance dream

My sister is like the Jennifer Beals of Christchurch. No, she isn’t trying to get into dance school, and she doesn’t have leg warmers and her boyfriend isn’t an American with a Porsche, he’s a pom with a Subaru. BUT, she is doing a welding course.

Welding is a great skill to have. I would love to learn to weld at night school like her but my current night school class in drinking beer and sitting on my arse doesn’t finish till 2018.

When the apocalypse happens people with skills like welding, fishing, building, first aid and skinning dogs are going to be the valuable members of society. People like me, ‘writers’ will be kicked out of the small fortified villages that spring up along with the car salesmen, parking wardens, Venetian blind installers and IT experts will be forced to wander the ‘dead zone’ where, against all odds, some of us will survive and form an unlikely alliance then hundreds of years later our mutant offspring will attack the fortified villages looking for food and some kind of obscure metal ore or oil that will have become the most coveted thing on the planet……

But back to sis. So yeah welding. I guess the family will be getting welded picture frames and welded nameplates and chunky welded jewelry for birthdays and xmas for a few years. That’s cool, there’s always some sucker on the net that will buy that junk. The other weird link with Flashdance I wanted to mention ties back to the 6 degrees story I wrote a while back. The guy in the film who was Jennifer Beal’s boyfriend and drove the Porsche was the dad of my brother’s flat mate back in the mid 90’s. Freaky eh. So in closing I just wanna say Take your passion and make it happen.’

Bono’s mate Pop Corn.

I call him corn man because he is a little man made of corn. I spied him on a packet of chips in the pantry about 1 oclock in the morning. Inanimate objects with arms and legs tend to catch my attention in the early hours of the morning. Seems odd that the corn people would let an old corn cob like his represent them. I mean he’s got a cane. He’s not Corn, he’s Pop Corn. Couldn’t they have gone for a younger more healthy guy. And the other disturbing thing is he isn’t wearing any pants. I understand that with pants on you wouldn’t see his corn but this guy in on a product kids buy. My daughter has them in her lunch. Is that really appropriate? I think corn man might have got the gig because he is mates with Bono from U2. Couldn’t help noticing he is wearing Bono’s jacket from U2’s Live Aid gig in 85 and Bono’s hat from his Joshua Tree era. With connections like that no wonder the corn chip people signed him. Sweet.

The evolution of the Nigerian email scams

Times are tough for the Nigerian email fraud industry. Hit rates are down as the world gets wise to there little games. I hear the Xmas parties at Nigerians biggest email fraud companies were a little less flashy last year. Gone were the gold leaf painted dancing elephants. The swimming pool of jelly that the children could dive into and grab Bratz dolls and Teenage mutant ninja turtles. With business drying up they have had to come up with new ways to trick greedy westerners into parting with their cash. The email I got last night must be the result of one of the company’s late night brain storming sessions.
For a start the email came from Mike Ego. I’m guessing the Nigerian research shows this is the perfect western name. The subject was ‘I am very Happy’
Now you tell me what western guy or gal wouldn’t open an email with the title ‘I am very happy’ especially when it comes from a guy called Mike Ego. If you met a guy called Mike Ego you would remember. SO, it stands to reason that if you cant recall a guy called Mike Ego that is because you were pissed when you met him. And that means you were having a great time. So Mike is therefore, by association, a great guy.
So far so good and Billy Boowimbewewa or whoever came up this strategy is to be congratulated.
When you get into the email it mentions money and a partner in Hong Kong. Nothing at all about dodgy old Nigeria. Hong Kong. That is full of hard working Asians. They’re too busy making money to waste time scamming westerners right? That’s Billy Boo’s theory. Up till this point Billy is looking at Nigerian Email fraudster of the year at the Nigerian Email fraud Awards or the NEFA’s but then you read the person you have to contact. Jhon Uba. I think they meant John. Honest typo happens all the time. But UBA? I smell a Nigerian. And that is why Billy will probably be busted back down to the mailroom. And I don’t mean email I mean dirty old snail mail. Tough break kid. You almost had me.
It is back to the drawing board for the scamsters in Nigeria and I cant wait to see what they come up with. I got an email about the NEFA’s and I sent my money to book my airfares, ticket to the ceremony and hotel. Apparently there was a mix up with the booking and I over paid but a nice Mr Woolawoo contacted me and said he will sort everything for me. All I had to do was send him a fax with my bank account details and my signature so he can refund the money for me. Those Nigerians are always so eager to help.

Dear friend,
I am very happy to inform you about my success in getting those funds
transferred under the cooperation of a new partner from Hong Kong.
Now, I want you to contact my secretary on the information below NAME;
Mr JHON UBA EMAIL; johnuba01@yahoo.se

Ask him to send you the total sum of $1,500,000.00 in cashier cheque
which i kept for your compensation. contact my secetary immediately and he will send the amount to you without delay. let me know immediately you receieve it si that we can share joy after all the suffering at that time.

Regards.
Mr MIKE EGO

Stiller and Segal.

Why do Ben Stiller and Steven Segal play the same roles in every movie they do? Wouldn’t that get a little boring? I thought actors become actors to play different roles.

I’m gonna write a movie about an ex Special Forces commando who has retired to enjoy the quiet life. He is a gentle giant and acts like he wouldn’t hurt a fly but isn’t afraid to walk into a bar full of good old boys playing pool and tell them to stop hassling the drunken kid with the limp and the stutter.
When the peace and quiet of the town is threatened by the baddie with the big house on the hill who has lots of armed men who drive round in pick ups, the ex commando has to take action. This action involves teaming up with the local Dentist. A young nerdy but strangely endearing big city boy who moved to the town to find Miss right and turns out to be as awkward with an M16 as he is with the ladies. After spending the whole movie following the commando around complaining about how he should be doing root canals rather than blowing up old gold mines that are full of stolen missiles that are going to be sold to terrorists, he actually has to dig deep within himself, shoot a baddie and save the commando and in doing so he and the audience realise he can be a tough guy. He also ends up scoring the town hot chick that was shacked up with the town baddie.

So after I write this movie I am gonna send it to Steven and Ben’s ‘people’. I’ll probably call it ‘Under Siege and under anesthetic’.
The trailer will probably go something like this….
“One man had spent his life staring into the jaws of death. The other just stares at jaws. These unlikely misfits must team up to save and town and in the process discover that friendship can spring from the most unlikely places.
Introducing this years hottest action duo……….”

I bet ya Segal and Stiller jump at this movie. And if they don’t I reckon I can make it by editing scenes from all their other movies anyway.

Whatever happened to the man from Atlantis?

There have been a ton of retro show re runs over the years, but I don’t ever recall seeing The Man From Atlanis. That was a cool show. Must have pissed him off that because of his webbed hands he could never wear gloves. Remember the episode where the Man from Atlantis was lying back in a lounger reading a magazine on the bottom of a pool? Genius. Straight after the show I went and chucked mums big metal framed lime plastic banana lounger in our pool, sunk it to the bottom and weighed myself in place with a couple of rocks. The old man hit the roof when he found out because the lounger scrapped the plaster and when I tried to read mums Woman’s Weekly it just fell to pieces and clogged the filter. Disaster.
Speaking of retro shows, remember episodes where characters from another show would make guest apperances? Mork from Mork and Mindy on Happy Days. That was weird. The sci fi thing was popular because the Flinstones and the Jetsons visited each other as well.
Speaking of the Flinstones. Do you think Fred could kick Hommer Simpsons arse? Easy I reckon. Plus he’d have Barney to back him up. Who would Hommer have? Ned? Maybe with Mo he would stand a chance but that Barney looks like a nuggety little dude. And hung like a stallion if the smile on Betty’s face was ever anything to go on. Starsky and Hutch meeting Bo and Luke Duke. That would have been a cool episode. If they had a fight I reckon Starsky and Hutch would kick the Dukes good old boy arses. Starsky and Hutch were from the mean streets, Bo and Luke were pussies. But there would never have been any problems. The cops from the big city would have played it really cool with the two cousins because they would have been too busy trying to get into Daisy Dukes pants. Not that there was a lot to get into eh.

Turkmenistan. Name change or sex change.

I had never really given a thought to Turkmenistan until last weekend when I met a guy form there. Then today in the paper I see the Prime Minister of Turkmenistan is in town on a visit. I see the signs, I get the hint. The universe is telling me ‘Peter, draw attention to the plight of the poor population of Turkmenistan. So here it is. I feel sorry for Turkmenistan. It reminds me of Alexis Arquette the not as famous sibling of Patrica, Rosanna and David. Did you even know that Patrica, Rosanna and David had another brother? Well they do and he’s a transvestite. And that’s the link with Turkmenistan. When you are surrounded by bigger more famous relations than you it is hard to stand out. There are just so many stans in the region. Afghanistan and Pakistan hog all the limelight. But Borat recently put Kazakhstan on the map and it just makes me feel sorry for the people of Turkmenistan. Even the front of their name is already being used by someone else. Apparently stan means state, but if I were the Prime Minister of Turkmenistan I would make some drastic changes.

Maybe not as drastic as Alexis. It is hard for a country to have a sex change. It would be really expensive and everyone at the United Nations would laugh and say mean things about them. And no one would want to sit next to Turkmenistan in the general assembly. Anyway, it didn’t out that well for Alexis. The most famous member of the Arquette family is probably David and that’s because he married Courtney Cox from Friends. A country like Turkmenistan probably doesn’t have the cash or the flash to marry a cast member of Friends, so perhaps the simplest solution is a name change. Cut that little thing right off and toss it away. (Which might be what Alexis did too.) Remove the stan. While they are at it they might want to loose the Turk bit as well. That aint working. Keep men, so there is a connection to the old name, but add woman to give it equality. Men and woman? Ok, it needs a bit of work, but that’s why you pay flash London branding agency loads of money. They’ll come up with a cool name and a logo. Then the hard work begins. Some poor sod will have to go around and write the new name on all the Turkmenistan souvenir tea towels, fridge magnets and oven mitts that are on sale at the airport. That is the main reason countries seldom do the name change thing. But in the case of Turkmenistan I think it is worth it.