Am I a stereotype?

I find a lot of wasps tend to think of second generation Italian Australians as loud, violent, clubby, sexist, illiterate midgets. These people are not right, but neither are they entirely wrong. In fairness, I’m 5’6’’ and have never been arrested for a violent crime.

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Sharpest tools in the box (razor reviews)

Gillette Daisy

Product claims that “spring mounted blades adjust to [my] curves”. Is this product calling me fat? What an awesome start to a non-existent relationship. The blades, in any case, do not spring; the head merely pivots. Its function is satisfactory in this regard. “Lubrastrip” allegedly contains “grapeseed oil”. Unnoticeable. “Tear drop handle designed with a woman in mind”. Indeed? I see it is merely a pointed, rubberised stick. Apparently Gillett had a woman with very low standards “in mind”. Results are nevertheless pleasing.

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The water myth

Listen well, my moist-faced friend: if you believe that the endless consumption of water will cultivate and preserve your soft, dew-like complexion, if you believe that two litres of water a day is an eternal truth, if you believe that too much is never enough, if indeed the precious Evian is delicately poised at your lips even now, stop, calm down, breathe, go to your safe place, because what I am about to tell you threatens to destroy your worldview.

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When Star Trek isn’t awesome

Because Star Trek: TNG is the greatest franchise, not just of Star Trek, but of anything whatsoever of all time, it’s easy to forget just how many episodes of this series actually blow.

Let’s take a random example: the episode “Lonely Among Us”. It’s a typical day on the Enterprise when they pass through some gas and pick up a sentient being, which becomes trapped in the ship’s circuitry, and somehow breaks down the ship’s helm. When the sentient being leaves the helm’s console, the helm completely recovers power, leaving Wesley to ask LaForge, “Hey, what gives with the helm recovering power for no reason whatsoever?” To which LaForge says, “Yeah, whatever.” Hmm, thank you Chief Engineer Brain Squad, remind me to ask you nothing ever again.

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Don’t get chumpatized

King of Kong was originally conceived as a documentary in the tradition of Spellbound — a handful of obsessive social retards gather together for a seminal event relying on meaningless skills, this time starring competitive arcade gamers — but filmmakers Cunningham and Gordon “always held out hope to find some form of man versus man, mono-e-mono competition”. They rapidly discovered that in the classic arcade gaming community microverse “all roads lead to Billy Mitchell”, Donkey Kong world record holder, Pacman world champion, a captain of industry, hot sauce baron, the greatest arcade gamer alive, and omnipotent totem to the scorekeeping collective known as Twin Galaxies. (Also looks like Nick Cave. Sort of. They share an evil beard.)

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Atreyu: what became of thee?

People born in the early-eighties, and those eras that shoulder it, tend to recall children’s films of their time as unusually dark and awesome. And, in their own minds, they are correct.

The key releases in that canon, as you will no doubt recall, were: Dark Crystal (1982), The Neverending Story (1984), Return to Oz (1985), Labyrinth (1986) and Willow (1988). Others would try and put a film like Ladyhawke (1985) in there; I will not on the grounds that it is the worst film I have ever seen (Michelle Pfeiffer is a woman by night and a hawke by day, Rutger Hauer is wolf by night and a man by day, some bullshit happens, the whole thing is explained in a speech I couldn’t be bothered listening to by Leo McKern in the role of annoying old man who lives in a hole and waits to deliver critical information at inconvenient times).

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