Goodbye Dunedin

Well, this is it folks. I'm leaving tomorrow, and this is goodbye. God only knows for how long.

Rather than write a long and maudlin response, I'm going to transcribe one. See, I have a series of journals, and everytime I feel in the mood to write, I grab one and do so. However, the one I grab is usually at random, so there's often a gap of years between entries. They work as time capsules summarising my moods so I can read them later. This is one I wrote the other night.

I'm glad it rained today, in my final week in Dunedin. If it had been glorious and sunny it would have seemed somehow false, a facade, not the Dunedin I call home. Because the Dunedin I loge is not sun. It is not shorts. It is not hot, dry days that make you want to sit outside and drink beer. My Dunedin is the rain and the cold, the vicious southerly that tears through your bones, and makes you wear every piece of clothing you own. The Dunedin that makes you take a coat during a sunny morning because you know the rain is just out of site.

She's cold, infested and uncaring. And I love her.

I've lived in Dunedin longer than any city in my life. Six years! My God, I'm practically stable.

I have to go though, even though it's home. And once I've gone, I can never return, not really. I've seen them try, back for a weekend. The city rejects them. They are foreigners again, they've lost against her hyperfluidity. But still, I need to leave. I'm starting to lose touch with the town. I'm too old for the students, too poor for the professionals. I don't belong anymore.

I'm sitting on my balcony, eating chocolate and drinking whisky. I think that's a pretty good description of my time here: booze and sugar.

She's half barren, my city, with her students gone, left deserted till March. The recent high school graduates take this time to lay stake to the streets, to temporarily take over, and feel the power of youth and booze, before relinquishing it back to the uni students and going their own way.

It's quiet here. I can almost hear the city breath.

This whiskey sends shivers down my spine.

I don't want to sleep, sleep will damn me. Lose me. Bring me closer to goodbye.

Goodbye Dunedin. I never once threw up on your streets, nor threw a bottle at your housese. I've respected you, and you me. I'll miss your closeness, your acceptance, the wonder you provide in the smallest thing. I will never forget this city. Nor will I ever truly remember it.

12/12/07
Dunedin
1:10AM

Peace out, cats and kittens. I hope summer finds you, and that you all get where you're going.

TB/Ac

Help!

As loath as I am to link-whore, I just found this amazing. It's a take of the Beatles lip-synching "Help". After watching it, I gotta say

John Lennon is the proto-emo!

Look at his hair, artfully swept to one side! His soulful eyes! His black wardrobe! He's the emo before emos!

And poor Ringo just looks miserable. Though I suppose he doesn't really have much to do, what with there not being a drum kit on set.

Dear Australia...

Thank you. Thank you so much for getting rid of John Howard. The man was not only Undead, but totally evil as well. Finally, after 11 years, he's out of power. I'm practically giddy with happiness!

Fingers crossed that Rudd doesn't end up being a tool as well!

-Tim

I am not streetwise. I do not have the knowledge born of the rough avenues, of the east-ends and wrong-sides-of-tracks. I know no lingo. I have no contacts. I am not streetwise.

But I am something else.

I am citywise. I am countrywise. I am nation-state wise.

I come not from the rough streets, but from the rough nations. I do not call a small neighbourhood home, but whole nations, even hemispheres.

In my mind it is not gangs or corner stores, but armies and trade deals.

I am not streetwise.

I don't care about neighbours, about mayors, about yard work.

People ask where I come from, and I can say, truthfully, everywhere.

My antecedents are from half the planet, and they stand as a wedge, the point on my shoulders.

I am historywise.

I know what happened in Belarus on 9/11/01

I perceive why it is good that we didn't take Gallipoli.

Whenever anyone asks where you're from, what do they mean? Do they mean where have you lived the longest? Where you were born? Where your family comes from? What your ethnic descent is? Why does it matter?

I am not streetwise.

I am planetwise.

I am a citizen of the world, and it is all my home. Its states are my suburbs. Its ideas are my cities. I move about it freely, both in person and in spirit.

This world is my country, its nations are my streets, and it is to them that I am wise.

I am a citizen of the world. And so is everyone else.

Thank God for the fourth estate!

Well, after all that dicking about, and the Police and Maori groups yelling at one another, but refusing to be transparent, it took the media to reveal some of this. Thank GOD! So, the Dominion Herald yesterday (Nov 14) put out a news article leaking some of the police evidence. Apparently there was talk about the assassination of John Keyes (if he got in power (which he unfortunately probably will)) and George W. Bush (if he came to visit). Also the camps in the Ureweras talked about how to blockade themselves against police, how to use Molotov Cocktails, and the ousting of Pakeha farmers.

Well, shit. As much as I dislike the NZ police force, this is some pretty damning evidence. Were they in the right?

However, a couple of things about this bug me.

Firstly, while I applaud Fairfax media for their release of this information, I'm worried about their bias, and the selectiveness of their release. We have no idea of the context of the quotes, and the level of seriousness associated with them. Is it just two jokers on the phone laughing about how they could knock of John Keyes? Or are they seriously plotting it? Were they seriously talking about kicking Pakeha farmers of their land, or was it just pie in the sky discussing? Without a context it's hard to judge. Goodness only knows that when I was in high school, my friends and I discussed how we would barricade the place and protect it if anyone tried to attack. We weren't particularly serious, but it was a fun enough exercise, and completely harmless.

So once more, I end this with a plea for more information. Let us see for ourselves exactly what's going on here.

The Fallacy of Exams

I have issues with Exams. Major ones. In my mind, the entire exam process is flawed.

See, exams force you to cram a huge amount of data into your short term memory, which is then regurgitated in a test setting, and then forgotten. These are either spewed forth as individual factoids, or as wrote learned essays. Neither tests your actual knowledge of the subject, nor your understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the course. It's perfectly possible to do well in most papers just by aping the lecturer. Hell, if you go to tutorials, pay attention, and attend all the lectures, you can do damn well without ever having to do a reading. God knows it worked for me for most of my undergrad career.

The other thing that pisses me off about exams, is that it inherently denigrates the subjects by forcing you to completely deal with them in two or three hours. If a 13 week paper is so simple that the entire thing can be successfully summarised in a three hour exam, then why does it take 13 weeks to teach it? Exams force you to dumb down what you've learned into a form that can be recalled and used in a high pressure environment, and then forgotten. It completely loses all the complexities and details you've been taught, in favour of broad context statements. It essentially defeats the purpose of sitting the course. If it can be written in three hours, surely it can be taught in three hours?

TB

The Finnish school shootings and KMFDM

The talking heads at TV3 news have decided to latch on to the fact that the Finnish shooter listened to KMFDM, as did one of the Columbine shooters as the factor linking the two horrible tragedies.

What the hell?

Seriously, do we as a nation honestly believe that is the music that drives people to these acts? Can we really think it's as simple as being able to blame the bands they listen to? Is there not something here that should have shown things were more markedly wrong, like when he posted on his website what he was planning to do, and when he was planning to do it?

And it's odd that KMFDM should be singled out, as they're a band with a social conscience who are surprisingly anti-violence.

Isn't it that people who are feeling alienated and violent are more attracted to this type of music, rather than this music turns them to violence?

Anyway, my thoughts go to those affected by the shootings.

And I'm going out leaving you with a few sections of KMFDM's song Dogma

We fear that pop-culture is the only culture we're ever going to have
We want to stop reading magazines
Stop watching T.V.
Stop caring about Hollywood
But we're addicted to the things we hate
...
Ask not what you can do for your country
Ask what your country did to you
...
We owe so much money we're not broke we're broken
We're so poor we can't even pay attention
...
You are more than the sum of what you consume
Desire is not an occupation
You are alternately thrilled and desperate
Skyhigh and fucked
Let's stop praying for someone to save us and start saving ourselves

Peace out.

BREAKING NEWS: Hotdogs to be made R18 in response to recent reports of high cancer risk from processed meat

First they took the cigarettes, and I didn't care, because smokers smell like arse, and I don't like them.
Then they took the sun, and I didn't care, because I'm pasty anyway.
Then they came for my bacon...

bollocks that for a joke.

I'm sure that by now, everyone is aware of the recent study by the World Cancer Research Fund showing a major link between diet and cancer. In fact, you can download the entire 500 page document, if you want. And apparently processed and red meats are the big risk factors.

Well, that's a hell of a downer, seeing the cultural love for burgers, hot dogs, bacon and the like.

Does this mean we'll start seeing age restrictions on the purchase of red meat? You'll need show ID before being allowed to purchase a pie?

As facetious as I'm being, it raises the issue of protecting people from themselves. We feel the need to stop people smoking and drinking before they're 18, because of the damage that they're doing to themselves. That said, that's only because the damage is far more severe while they're still developing. Well, it is with alcohol. Is that also true of cigarettes? Do they also have a worse effect on the young? Will there be any evidence of processed foods being in a similar situation? Perhaps instead of getting drunk on your 18th birthday, you'll go to McDonalds, and stuff your face with burgers. Kids will scarf salami behind the bikesheds.

But it's also a quality of life issue. There are few things in this life better than red meat. Rare steak. Lamb stew. Prosciutto. Pastrami. Souvlaki. Am I honestly willing to lose all of these to lower my chances of cancer? Even though I have a really good chance of getting the big C anyway, due to a family history. Will eating less of these foods really change my odds much?

Or should we just eat it all, and enjoy it? Perhaps trusting the doctors of the unknowable future to save us?

I don't know.

Please give me more information, governmental people

There are two major issues in the news that, right now, are driving me insane due to lack of information.

Firstly, the whole situation in Chad. The Government of Chad is saying that these French (and Spanish) nationals are kidnapping these children, who still have parents, and are not from the Sudan, and possibly selling them on for organ harvesting and to pedophiles. What? The hell is that about? That sounds mighty suspicious, but if they were trafficking these children for such means, you think they'd be doing it a bit more surreptitiously than that. So, what's the real story? Was this aid organisation intentionally taking these kids, knowing full well that it was illegal, and they weren't orphans? Or were they trying to help, and just a bit useless? Is there anything behind these accusations of the organ harvesting and pedophilia? Or is it when a Government lays pointless charges against western workers in order to get them out of the country, like calling aid workers spies? The French government hasn't been particularly helpful in combating these charges. What the hell actually happened?

Likewise, the Anti-Terror raids of about two weeks ago. The police are saying these were training grounds for separatists, who were learning military tactics and firearms use. The locals say they were just learning how to hunt and track. Who do you believe? The NZ police are notorious dicks, especially with regards to the manner in which they treat Maori. But they claim they have substantial evidence, backed by over a year of surveillance. Yet in the time since the raids, they haven't presented any of it. Instead, we are left wondering why they targeted these groups, as they haven't shown anything concrete to indicate there was a solid Terrorist threat. Instead, in the interim, there have been large protests against the actions taken. It seems to me that if the police had brought forth the evidence in a timely manner after the arrests, and explained to the public why they thought there was a threat from these groups, people would have been a lot more understanding.

Instead, we're left scratching our heads, wondering what the hell just happened, and why they won't tell us if this is a credible threat. If there's someone out there training in a paramilitary manner to attack the people of NZ, I can agree that that's a reason to send in the police. However, without any such evidence, no conclusions can be reached. What the hell actually happened?

So, I plea to Governments: be transparent! Show us your evidence! Explain what's occurring! Don't leave your people in the dark.

-TB

Sugar high...

And I have searched both far and wide
And I’ve explored the deepest caverns of my mind

Last night I had a halloween party. Yes, it was a Wednesday. Don't judge me. I was a good boy, I didn't drink too much. And there was a massive, massive stack of sweets, courtesy of a friend who does some work for Cadbury, and provided a couple of kilos of sugar.

To try and find an explanation why
I get this funny feeling deep inside

I only had a few drinks, but I ate way too much sugar. Then I didn't sleep last night because of that. I woke up this morning, my head aching, my mouth gritty, my face sweaty, my eyes swollen shut. I though, this isn't right, I can't be hungover. I drank almost nothing. Then it hit me. A sugar hangover. I haven't had this much of the sweet stuff in me since I was wee and living in America. I was having the worst case of sugar crash imaginable.

When you kiss me goodbye
And when I lick between your thighs

And I still have a massive mound of leftovers. This cannot end well.

sugarhigh.....sugarhigh.....sugarhigh.....sugarhigh....shhhhhhhhhhhhhh
-Sugarhigh, Coyote Shivers

I can haz itenerary?

Yes, finally got my tickets sorted for my travels to America! Now I can start sorting out who to bludge off!

If anybody cares, it looks a bit like this
San Francisco Jan 16
Oregon 19 Jan
Minneapolis/Wisconsin Feb 2
NY 10 Feb
Philadelphia 17 Feb
Boston 24 Feb

After that? Who knows? It's going to be a hell of a trip, that's for sure!

Dear Dunedin Landlords...

Ignoring the obvious issues with the landlords of Dunedin, I do have one thing I'd like to say.

A studio apartment is not a room with a toaster and a kettle. A studio apartment, by definition, needs its own bathroom and cooking facilities. Cooking facilities are not a microwave, toaster, kettle and fridge. You at least need a sink and a hot plate. Taking an old flat, doing minimal low quality renovations, bunging in some furniture than charging through the nose does not make this okay! This is not a fucking studio apartment! In fact, studio flats are meant to be cheap! Instead, you add $80 a week for "unlimited heat". Fucking hell, if I were to spend an extra $320 a month of heating, my flat would be like the bloody Sahara! For the life of me, I cannot understand how these dickhead landlords can justify charging that much extra for a furnished room with marginal facilities and unlimited heat. It's fucking ludicrous. And the whole thing survives solely by taking advantage of foreign students who don't know any better.

Fuck you, landlords of Dunedin. You're a bunch of dicks.

Good lord, this is embarrassing

Well, at the request of Ms. Orchard, the comic I mentioned in my first post. This is quite honestly one of the most embarrassing things I've ever posted online. Keep in mind, I was a wee bairn of only 18 years, full of rage but not talent. This was before I had completely converted to the path of writing.

On the history of the Internet, Interactivity and Democracy

This is taken from an email conversation between myself and the wondrous Alex Franzen about her podcast on Virtual Politics. I thoroughly suggest you download and listen to it, because it's a damn interesting audio-article about the new political equality afforded to the users of the Internet.

In response, my views on the history of the internet and its links to interactivity and democracy.

...
The Internet, in my mind, has gone through three distinct paradigms
over its history.

Originally there were the BBSs and usenet groups. These were, essentially, places were people would post information and talk to large numbers of people. They were precursors to the modern forum software you see so heavily across the internet. They were interactive and democratic to the extreme, as all the content was user generated. However, it only reached a small percentage of the population.

Then, once the Internet started spreading, there was the evolution into passive browsing. Information was presented to you. The Internet was interactive in the same way reading a newspaper isn't interactive. You went to websites and listened to what other people had to say. The people who made those websites. There was no free exchange of ideas. Sure there were little buttons you could click, and little things you could do, but it was essentially a pre-packaged experience.

And now we have the so-called Internet 2.0 phenomenon, where once again it's all about user generated content and everyone being on an equal footing, but now there's a user base large enough that this spreads universally. Like you said, a random YouTuber has just as much chance of getting their views heard as Kucinich. Everything is linked
through spider-ine networks of friends, memes and messages passing throughout the internet, and allowing for something resembling democratic conversations, warts and all.

I think I see parallels between the history of democracy in America to this as well. If you look at the early days of campaigning, where candidates actually had to travel to areas to get there votes, to actually meet the people, when there was no effective wide means of disseminating information. You had a chance for true discussion, but
only on a small and local level.

Then came radio and TV, where the advertising became passive, and you accepted the words without any real chance to debate them, except with those immediately around you.

Finally the two paths converge in the Internet, with something vaguely resembling equality of discussion.
...

-TB/AC

I shall not stumble...

I had surgery. Nothing big, a bit of fixing some breathing problems on my nose. Was laid up for a while on a wonderful cocktail of painkillers that made me sleepy and floaty. Those, combined with a drug patch on my left shoulder, have left me feeling decidedly light headed, and wobbly on my feet. So my excursion to the Critic party on Friday promised to be difficult, what with the uncertain balance, and extremely easily damaged nose. And then the wondrous Alex Papanastasiou provided me with a cane. My goodness, it was fantastic. I could stroll down the boulevards with something to lean on should the need approach me. And what conversations it struck up! I felt almost popular! Though everyone assumed I had a trick knee or something, but nonetheless...

So, unnatural hate for the world. And a cane. Who does that remind everyone of...


He's my hero, that man.

I might have to start carrying a cane everywhere, just because it's awesome.

You know, it's been a week since my reveal (two since photos of me were published) and not a single person has commented on the fact that I'm Arthur Curry. So much for being a campus celebrity!

Peace in,
-Tripod Arthur Curry

My secret revealed!

And so I have been unmasked, for secretly Arthur Curry was in fact a bastard of a decidedly lesser extent!

To those of you who have actually read my columns, welcome back! Here you shall find the tales of travels over a time span to follow, where I hurl myself at the nation of stars and stripes, and see what arises.

For those of you who have yet to encounter my infamous hate filled tirades, well then, look no further than here.

Seeing as this is my first post, I should perhaps recount how this column, and my eventual small-town-notoriety came about.

As I had written for Critic extensively as the Games and Tech editor, I was privy to the email requesting new columns for 2007. And so, an idea that had been percolating in my head for some time was slowly brought forth. It was originally part Spider Jerusalem's I Hate It Here and part Matt Groening's Life In Hell, and had evolved from a comic I drew in first year called "My Private Hellhole"*. Fortunately, my wondrous Editor, Dave, demanded a point and some structure to the column rather than pointless ranting. Instead, we hit upon making it a column calling Otago students to task for their stupidity, their douchebaggery, and for their belief that this was all their right as a scarfie. And so the title was decided, a play on the concept of Manifest Destiny that has caused so much strife during the expansion of America.

And thus was a great thing started.

Of course, I did need a pseudonym, considering the blatantly inflammatory things I planned on saying, so I settled for Arthur Curry, being the most badass of super heroes: Aquaman! Plus, a nod to those of a geeky inclination.

And I was very good about keeping that identity secret for the first half of the year. In fact, almost no one knew. Then I realised it was boring without feedback and adulation, so I told my friends. Chaos and entertainment then ensued with their assistance.

So that's the story of Arthur Curry and Manifest Density. Hope to see you next time for more fun and learning. Well, maybe not so much learning.

-TB/AC

*said comic was me ranting about the Carrington in a rather unpleasant manner. And it was hideously drawn. Suffice to say when the administration got their hands on it, they were decidedly unimpressed, and threatened to kick me out. Bastards. I have held a grudge to this day. If anyone cares, I can post the offending item.