This year I figured I’d do something a little different, so I decided to sign up for Dry July, a month-long event where people abstain from drinking for a month in order to raise money for cancer charities. I’ve occasionally had my friends say that my imbibing has, at times, a piscine nature, so I […]
Mass Media Misogyny (oh, and a bit of right wing bias as well)
I would absolutely love it if there were such a thing as fair and balanced journalism somewhere. Here in New Zealand we have two main news organisations; the New Zealand Herald, and Fairfax, who are mostly known for the website Stuff, who have a massive hard on for the current ruling political party, National. Of […]
Colin Craig needs better lawyers
Colin Craig decided to give his lawyers more money today. I don’t know if he has them on retainer, or if they’re hourly, but whatever, I expecting they’re making a mint from him. After The Civilian received legal notices accusing the satirical blog of defaming him, it seems he is getting a little trigger happy […]
The problem of anonymous creepering
You know, guys on social networks are really quite terrible. It never really occurred to me really how terrible they are due to the design choices that most social networks take. You see, most of the time you need to opt in on seeing something posted by a particular person. If you haven’t explicitly followed […]
I’m never gonna know you now, but I’m gonna love you anyhow – On Elliott Smith
Ten years ago a man died. Stabbed twice in the heart, he was taken to hospital and after twenty minutes pronounced dead. To this day it’s never been confirmed if the stabbing was self inflicted or otherwise. That man was Elliott Smith. Ten years ago today he died. I wish I’d known about him at […]
On sexual health
It finally happened. I was in possession of some condoms long enough that they expired. It was a couple dozen that I had put into a drawer after a visit to the STI clinic. If you haven’t been to the STI clinic at Waikato Hospital, or well, any kind of sexual health clinic, when you […]
An open letter to Judith Collins
A tweet of yours turned up on my twitter feed today, and having a day off work I actually caught it. This tweet is captured for posterity below: So anti-GSCB hackers have closed down Government MPs websites proving what they could do to people’s bank accounts. — Judith Collins (@JudithCollinsMP) July 29, 2013 I would […]
On Privilege and Discrimination
A few weeks ago there was a big thing here in New Zealand about a facebook page starting up. This page was called “The Pakeha Party” and after a few days it had racked up over 50,000 likes (because everyone knows that likes are totally a method of deciding the will of the people). For […]
On Disconnection
I was going to spend a good chunk of my Sunday off doing a bit of research for a piece that I figured was going to stretch out at least 2, maybe even three posts (since I give myself a loose thousand word limit on my posts), but right as I figured I’d better stop […]
An Anecdote
Back in my early 20s I guess I identified as a goth (of course, no real goth would say that they are, and anyone who does call themselves a goth isn’t, the same argument as being a hipster, or being ‘cool’). I’d moved out of my parents house into my first flats (shared houses, whatever […]