debate issue 16, 2010

issue 16 2010 i

where are pc vs mac they now?issue 16 JuLY 2010 debate

scott pilgrim competitiion

90s checklist 1

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on the cover “90s” Illustration by Tamsyn Solomon

editor Samantha McQueen samantha.mcqueen@aut.ac.nz

printer PMP Print Ltd.

designer Nonavee Dale nonavee.dale@aut.ac.nz

all rights reserved This publication is entitled to the full protection given by the Copyright Act 1994 (“the Act”) to the holders of the copyright, being AUCKLAND STUDENT MOVEMENT AT AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY INCORPORATED (“AuSM”). Reproduction, storage or display of any part of this publication by any process, electronic or otherwise (except for the educational purposes specified in the Act) without express permission is a break of the copyright of the publisher and will be prosecuted accordingly. Inquiries seeking permission to reproduce should be addressed to AuSM.

sub editor Jared Van Huenen contributors Mike Atkins | Jo Barker | Deborah Bennett | Lynda Brendish | Benjamin Brooking | Alicia Crocket | Amy Donohue | Vinny Francesco | Tenani French | Brendan Kelly | Andrew Judd | Selena La Fleur | Jaimee Low | Hayley MeGehan | Katie Montgomerie | Meg Rivera | Heather Rutherford | Mystery Shopper | Brittany Sisam | Tamsyn Solomon advertising contact Kate Campbell kate.campbell@aut.ac.nz publisher AuSM – Auckland Student Movement @ AUT (Inc.)

disclaimer Material contained in this publication does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of AuSM, its advertisers, contributors, PMP Print or its subsidiaries.

DEBATE IS A MEMBER OF:

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AuSM Gig Guide Editorial Creative Corner Letters/Wordfind Winterfest Photos Sports Prez Sez / AuSM Update PC vs Mac Debate How To / Recipe Rob Schneider 90s Kid Checklist Back In My Day 90s Gaming Where Are They Now? Hollywood Remakes Top Pop Princesses Music Retail Reviews Columns Agony Aunt / Website of the Week Suggestions / Horoscopes Fashion What Are You Wearing / Scott Pilgrim Competition Reviews Spot the Difference Micro-celebs

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and the AUT Christian Fellowship

Mon 2 August Milo Monday City Campus from 730am Free Feed: Sausage or falafel on bread Manukau 12pm Social Dodgeball Manukau Campus 12-2pm Tues 3 August Free Feed: Sausage or falafel on bread North Shore Campus 12pm Social Basketball game Manukau Campus 2-4pm Pub Quiz Vesbar 6pm

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12 pm

Wed 4 August Fish + Chip meal deal Vesbar all day Free Zumba Class City Campus WC202 530-630pm

Fri 6 August Thank God it’s Friday DJ and drink specials Vesbar 530pm

Thur 5 August Boxfit Classes (free for all) City Campus WC202 745-845am Free Feed: Sausage or falafel on bread City Campus 12pm Free Zumba Class City Campus WC202 12-1pm Social Touch Manukau Campus 2-4pm

Next week….

Macaroni & cheese @ Free Feeds North Shore and City Campus AUT Futsal Champs Kicking off 10 August NZ Uni Snow Games Wanaka 28 August

I

was walking up Parnell Rise the other day, when I noticed a girl chatting on her iPhone. Now this scenario doesn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary.

Everyone seems to have an iPhone, Blackberry or some other smart-phone device these days.

In fact, I’d be more impressed if someone rocked a Nokia brick in Parnell, jamming out on the original Snake. Respect. What is disturbing is how true it is that EVERYONE seems to have these phones. The aforementioned girl I was talking about? She was 12 (and not like Justin Bieber “I look 12”. Like actually 12). Do you know what kind of cell phone I had at 12? None. If people wanted to talk to me, they had to call me up the old-fashioned way – on a landline.

When looking back on the decade you grew up in, you instantly conjure up fond feelings of nostalgia, which in turn lead to discussions among friends about the clothes you wore, the music you listened to and the crazes you were swept up in. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 20 or 80; mention the word childhood and everyone swoons with whimsy.

My childhood years were firmly in the 90s, so I can’t help but take a trip down memory lane whenever someone plays the Spice Girls or I come across a VCR of The Lion King.

I bet those two references alone have got you going? I can see your idealised fantasies now. You’re talking to the person next to you about Hey Arnold, Doug, Sailor Moon or any of the other afterschool/Saturday morning cartoons you watched as a child. You’ll go home from uni and reminisce with your siblings about how you used to battle each other at Sonic on your Sega Mega Drive, or traded Oddbod and Pogs cards like they were going out of fashion. Depending on whether you are a compulsive hoarder, you may still have your Knuckleheads, Furbies and Yikes stationery (which looking back, was so impractical).

If you were older in the 90s and more in tune with the world around you, you might recall where you were when you heard about TuPac, Kurt Cobain or Princess Diana’s deaths.

The jokes made during the Bill Clinton sex scandal may suddenly pop into your brain while you are supposed to be learning about string theory or Karl Marx. Your wardrobe may have an ode to this long-gone decade; a couple of flannel shirts and vintage Doc Martins (which come to think about it, isn’t much different to what is going on today).

Or perhaps you’ll groan about this visit to yesteryear, arguing that we should be looking forward to the future, rather than revisiting the past. Perhaps images of bull rush and manufactured bands make you gag, just like seeing a kid on a leash makes me recoil in horror.

Whatever your stance, this issue is about the 90s, or more specifically, the pop culture of the 90s. Of course, there will be things that I am going to miss, and yes, 36 pages really isn’t enough to look over an entire decade, but I want to know what you think of this issue (as well as all the other issues that come out every week). Our letters page has been sorely lacking these last few weeks and I want you guys to change it. So pick up your Yikes pencils, or open up Windows 95 and send me a letter. My mail box (inbox) will be waiting.

RECEPTION City Campus Level 2, WC Building 921 9805 8am-5 pm Mon-Thurs 8am-3.30pm Fri North Shore Campus Level 2, AS Building 921 9949 8.30am-3pm Mon-Fri Manukau Campus MB107 921 9999 ext 6672 9am-3:30pm Mon-Thurs MANAGEMENT Sue Higgins General Manager 921 9999 ext 5111 sue.higgins@aut.ac.nz REPRESENTATION Veronica Ng Lam AuSM Student President 921 9999 ext 8571 vnglam@aut.ac.nz ADVOCACY Nick Buckby Liaison Manager 921 9999 ext 8379 nick.buckby@aut.ac.nz MARKETING Rebecca Williams Marketing Manager 921 9999 ext 8909 rebecca.williams@aut.ac.nz EVENTS Barry Smith Events Team Leader 921 9999 ext 8931 barry.smith@aut.ac.nz MEDIA Samantha McQueen Publications Co-ordinator 921 9999 ext 8774 samantha.mcqueen@aut.ac.nz

Sam

SPORTS Melita Martorana Sports Team Leader 921 9999 ext 7259 melita.martorana@aut.ac.nz VESBAR Zane Chase Vesbar Manager 921 9999 ext 8378 zane.chase@aut.ac.nz

For a full list of contact details plus profiles of AuSM staff and student executive visit: www.ausm.org.nz issue 16 JuLY 2010

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Jaimee Lowe I love the 90s

Hayley McGehan Childhood

Untitled

by Deborah Bennett Don’t hug him Don’t kiss him Don’t let him in your house.

Don’t take him To too many Places.

Don’t get too close Be wary, friends, Friend is he.

Those fellas I think They think You fancy them Before you do.

Danger.

Friendship is sweet Funny ideas Not so.

Don’t let it be.

“And above all else Guard your heart.”

Our wise Heavenly Father Says.

Protect Yours and His. Friendship is sweet.

Make an appointment with your future.

University Career Services 09 921 9899 | www.aut.ac.nz/careerservices

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debate letters policy:

Letters longer than 250 words may be subject to editing. Letters are printed as they are received – spelling and grammar will not be corrected. All letters must be in before 12pm Wednesday.

The editor reserves the right to decline letters without explanation. the views contained on the letters page do not necessarily represent the views of AuSM. Send your letters to PO Box 6116, Wellesley St or debate@aut.ac.nz

Letter of the week wins two movie tickets to any movie at Event Cinemas!

Dear AUT students, Sadly, we received no letters this week, meaning the double pass for Event Cinemas is still sitting in my desk, screaming “please someone, win me”. (I think that’s what they said. I can’t be sure as they are muffled by the spot the difference vouchers). Rather than have a blank half page where the letters should be, I’m going to write a letter about just a few of the many things you guys could write in about. And hopefully people are like how I was at university, where I always read the letters section because I wanted to read some cracked up opinions.

Dear students who use the Symonds St pathway, Do not hold hands and walk in a horizontal line, especially when there are people trying to rush past to get to classes or work. Same goes with staircases and narrow hallways. Stick to the left hand side, just like driving. Love, user of the footpath too.

To the person who broke the social contract the other day, Please don’t make elevator rides even more uncomfortable by facing the back of the elevator. And turn down your rap music. It hurts my ears and I’m a few metres away.

Dear debate.

I always read you each week when I’m in class. I get it from the city library on my way to my 11am class on Monday. I was upset when I walked past there last

Monday and there was no debate there and it stayed like this the whole day!

Is debate no longer coming out on Mondays? (Ooooh look, I can even answer my own question).

Thanks for pointing that out Sam. Last week the printers had a bit of a disaster with one of our files (which were submitted on time) and they weren’t fixed until Sunday, which meant production had to be delayed by one day. They hit stands early Tuesday morning. If debate is ever late again, check it out online – it goes up the Friday before. www.ausm.org.nz. I know, it’s a shameful plug, but it’s the digital age.

Oh my, I have singlehandedly proven that I am capable of having a conversation with myself. Not just secretly, but in print. Please give me the help that I need by writing into debate. You don’t need to dust off a biro and waste precious refill. Just email me at debate@aut.ac.nz with letters in the subject line. It can be a compliment, a complaint, a general whine about Auckland traffic (who doesn’t love one of those) or your thoughts on the latest sports/movies/political stunts out there.

Waiting with much anticipation, Sam



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We want the best people to be part of our multi-media organisation. The scheme is now in its fifth year and already those chosen are making their mark not just in newsrooms but in the likes of the Qantas Media Awards.

The successful applicants are chosen by editors and editorial leaders throughout Fairfax after they prioritise the Fairfax Media organisations they would like to work for. After undergoing exceptional training at one of our five preferred journalism schools – the University of Canterbury, Massey University, Wellington, the Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), Aoraki Polytechnic, Timaru, and the Auckland University of

Technology (AUT) – interns join their chosen newspaper or website.

We will reimburse the fees of those who pass and provide challenging work afterwards in our newsrooms. As well, we provide ongoing training and opportunities to advance.

We are seeking highly motivated people from all walks of life to join us.

A relevant tertiary qualification is preferred but we will consider candidates who have minimum qualifications of NCEA Level 3 or the relevant life skills.

For further information and to apply online at: http://www.fairfaxnz.co.nz/careers/internscheme.html before noon on Friday, august 6, 2010.

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issue 16 JuLY 2010

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A lot of New Zealanders don’t appreciate

cycling. In fact, we regularly hit cyclists with our cars in an expression of this lack of appreciation. While that is actually a serious issue for another day, the Tour de France is not a serious issue. Not on our TVs anyway. It is, perhaps rightly, marketed as the most gruelling sports challenge on the planet. In our country however, we tend to wonder why they don’t just drive to Paris instead of fucking around on bikes up all those hills.

Perhaps this is why we’re not that good at it.

The Tour de France is an odd monster. It began in 1903 and has run every year since, excepting the 10 where European relations weren’t too flash. In those years, a number of people have died on the tour, while only four of those were actually competing. Perhaps the most unfortunate of those was the young Frenchman Adolphe Helière, who drowned on a rest day outside of Nice in 1910. The most recent fatality was in 1995, when Italian gold medallist Fabio Casartelli crashed headfirst into a concrete block at 88kph, causing the mass introduction of modern helmets throughout the Tour.

Twenty spectators were killed when a supply van crashed into a bridge in 1964. This remains the highest Tour de France death toll, despite numerous fatalities involving crashes, motorbikes and victims as young as seven and as old as 60. It’s a wonder the thing hasn’t been called off with the sheer levels of danger involved (riders have been clocked at 127kph and the sheerness of some of the downhill sections is amazing).

Like all major sporting competitions, the Tour de France has not remained immune to cheats and weirdos. Doping has proven to be the major issue over the last 20 years, but some of the exclusions from past years are, to put it lightly, hilarious.

Maurice Garin was disqualified in 1904 because he preferred to ride the train as opposed to his bike. He is best known for winning the first race in 1903 but, after he won again the next year, people began to wonder why he was so successful. When crowds found out that he was catching trains, they beat him up.

In 1925 the whole Tour threatened not to race because organisers were threatening to make them all eat the same amount of food each day. What the fuck. My favourite is definitely the strike of 1978, when the whole Tour rode slow all day until the end, where they got off their bikes and walked over the finish line. This was in protest to organisers making them get up too early in the morning.

I said earlier that we’re not that good at it, but that’s not entirely true. Julian Dean, our only really good road cyclist, achieved the pinnacle of his Tour de France career last month when he placed 2nd in stages four and 18 and third in stage 20. Not bad for a Kiwi boy from Waihi. Unfortunately, we heard the most about Dean after Australian (typical) Mark Renshaw “moved Dean with his head” coming up to the finish of stage 11. Head butting is not uncommon in cycling and Renshaw was only doing his job (as a support rider for Mark Cavendish), but he was kicked off the Tour for doing so; an act which brought a smile to the faces of most patriotic Kiwis.

Looking at the Tour history, you can forgive our riders for not achieving the dazzling levels of success that our European friends enjoy. Of the 97 Tours to date, French riders have won 36, Belgians 18 and the Spanish 12, leaving the U.S. in fourth with 10 (coming

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from only two riders, Armstrong and Greg LeMond). The rest of the wins are all from other European countries. So, we can deduce that Asians, Africans, most Americans, Eastern Europeans and especially us Islanders are decidedly average at riding bikes for a job. Which, as I mentioned earlier, is probably no skin of the noses of most New Zealanders. Sports without balls are, to be euphemistic, not embraced as much as we’d like to imagine.

But with the success of Dean and the very exciting introduction of our first ever high-performance cycling team, Pure Black Racing, things are looking up for professional cyclists in New Zealand.

That has to do wonders for those aspiring to be on the world’s biggest cycling stage in years to come, if only because there – on the spiralling mountains and the French Riviera, they can ride two abreast all they want.

Disability Resource Service The Disability Resource Service offers information and a range of services for Deaf and disabled students, including: •

Advice on scholarships, grants and funding

•

Information and advice regarding specific learning disabilities, assessments and supports

•

Assistance to access specialist equipment or software

•

Study materials in alternative formats

•

In-class and examination supports

•

Access to designated parking areas

Contact us for more information: City Campus: North Shore:

(09) 921 9999 extension 8262 (09) 921 9999 extension 7778

disability.office@aut.ac.nz www.aut.ac.nz/student_services/disability

Greetings my fellow AUT Titans, As another week passes us by and the stress dial of uni life catches up with us all, it is times like this I remember how important it is to ask for help when things start to overwhelm us. There is no such thing as a dumb question and so don’t be afraid to ask if you need help with ANYTHING! AuSM is here for you and more importantly that is why my job exists – to help represent you in all areas throughout our university.

If our new office on the city campus hasn’t caught your eye yet, especially with the stand out red that we have recently upgraded to, then you should definitely come check us out. We have all our services available, as well as Student Job Search (SJS) there now. We hope you like it and look forward to any feedback you might have.

By now orientation would be a distant memory with more pressing and important matters at hand, such as your first assignments for this semester. We hope you enjoyed the Winterfest that we put for you and that you managed to make some good friends and have an amazing time to mark the last semester of such a great year 2010!

Now is also a very special time for AuSM where we open up nominations for the AuSM Executive Council of 2011!

This is a great opportunity for student leaders to put their name forward for the fight for student voice and run for the different portfolios and faculty representatives that require student input with decision making around the university. I know that it might sound a bit scary but I assure you that being part of the Executive Council will provide you with good governance experience and will contribute to the greater good of our fellow students. If you are interested in running for a role or you would like to know the nitty gritty, you are more than welcome to come see me. I would than happy to sit down with you and tell you all about it. If you know a friend who you think would do a good job then make sure you look out for our AuSM email we will be sending out shortly and nominate the person you think will do a great job.

In the midst of our time here at uni we often overlook what the student association does for us and the services they provide because we don’t know differently. But all these services came because students many years ago recognised the power of a collective voice. So don’t forget, VOTE IN OUR AuSM election for 2011!

I wish you all the best with the week ahead, don’t forget that I am here and still need some friends this year so pop by!

Ia Manuia, your fellow president signing off for this week Veronica Ng Lam AuSM President 921-9999 ext 8571 veronica.nglam@aut.ac.nz

Veronica

Put Your Money Away If you haven’t registered for your FREE AuSM student discount card yet – do it.

AuSM has secured more than 120 discounts at places you visit all the time. Save money on books, clothing, shoes, food, entertainment, haircuts, furniture, electronics and everything in between. Register on our website or fill out a registration form at your nearest AuSM office.

Work experience at The Edge The Edge is looking for an enthusiastic Chinesespeaking student to assist with a marketing campaign for a children’s show - The Secret of Dongting Lake.

The job would involve translation of the press release, distribution and follow up of the press release and making contact with Chinese community organisations to promote the show. This is an amazing opportunity to secure some valuable work experience in the field of marketing and PR! If you are interested email nigelg@the-edge.co.nz

issue 16 JuLY 2010

Movie Madness The new Event Cinema Student VIP cards are in stock. Buy a card for $15 and get $10 films all year plus a free film on sign-up.

We are hard at work sorting out another AuSM movie screening for you. If you haven’t already been to one this year – don’t miss out. AuSM provides the film, popcorn, drink, spot prizes and lots of other treats for everyone who comes. Keep your eyes glued to our website for details.

AuSM Special During August and September you can stay at the AuSM Lodge in National Park during the week for half price. Plus all bookings go in the draw to win a Candleman Snowboard! Email patrick.waller@aut. ac.nz or phone 921 9999 ext 6672 to book.

Going Going …..

Lockers are going fast on City Campus. Visit the AuSM office if you would like one.

Discounts for part-time students We have had a lot of feedback from part-time students who do not qualify for a tertiary monthly pass.

We have been lobbying ARTA for a few years now to get the discount extended to cover part time students - however as any uptake on this would involve further ratepayer funded subsidy we have not yet met with success. If you would like some more information visit www.maxx.co.nz/information/pricing-passes/tertiary-student-discounts-.html or www.maxx.co.nz/assets/pdfs/0906 - Tertiary Description.pdf We will keep fighting for you!

Free social sport AuSM provides free Zumba (Thursdays from 12pm) and Boxfit (Wednesdays from 5:30pm and Thursday from 7:45am) in the student lounge WC202. Everyone is welcome to give it a go.

Let Us Help The AuSM Advocacy Team offer free, confidential and independent advice to all AUT students. If you are experiencing problems with your course or faculty contact Nick (ext 8379) or Becky (ext 8311) for some assistance. They can also help with Studylink issues, provide legal information and issue food parcels. Drop into the AuSM City Office for an appointment or email nick.buckby@aut.ac.nz.

AuSM Classifieds Why force your notice to compete for attention on campus notice boards when you can advertise free on the AuSM website? Whether you are advertising a text book, looking for a flatmate or just want some friends AuSM classifieds are the easy way to let people know all about it.

Tournaments AUT Futsal Champs kick off August 10 at the North Shore Fitness Centre. If you are not involved come along and support the players. AuSM has also launched a new social netball competition on the North Shore.

For more information, contact melita.martorana@ aut.ac.nz.

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are macs really better than pcs?

by Vinny Francesco “No one will need more than 637KB of memory[1] for a personal

computer. 640 KB ought to be enough for anybody.”

For those who aren’t aware, this is the infamous opinion by Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft when, in 1981. To contextualize that, one gigabyte (GB) is the minimum memory required to operate Windows 7, Microsoft’s latest operating system. One GB is 1028 megabytes. One MB is 1028 kilobytes.

So according to my calculations Bill Gates was off by 1651 times (1651x 640) the original predication. Do you trust a man with such impeded personal vision?

Many Mac enthusiasts would be quick to say the personal computer suits those who view the technology as just another piece of equipment that creates better living. There are, of course, those who view computing as a hobby or even a profession, and are a little bit more discerning and technical about the technology we choose. Of course, it is not as though all Mac users love their computer, and all PC[2] users only appreciate it in a mundane way. However it is true that Apple has a prestigious historical reputation.

Apple reinvented their personal computer and popularised it at a time of overwhelming monopoly. It’s safe to say, Microsoft is more family than friend.

It’s the “default” operating system we chose without a choice. We require a computer for our everyday life in society, and it is easy to see why many adopt an “if it aint broke, don’t fix it” mentality. In other words, it does the job, what is all this fussing about? Why bother with some “other” operating system?

It is well known that many artists and members of creative industry, such as musicians or film-makers, go for the Mac over the PC. This is very business savvy on Apple’s behalf. It is silly to think that “consumers” use computers for exactly the same reason, in exactly the same way. However it is easy to understand, given the broad definition of “modern necessity”. How we can be lazy in our attitude towards computing, when we have so much to worry about, so to speak. This is called “consumer inertia”, arguably something many computer users are struck with.

The personal computer is like a world of its own. Computerland even has its own languages, made out of numbers instead of sound. Computerland has access to the internet, a wacky world of information. Computerland has complex geography, with power supply, graphics card, processor, hard drive, disk drive, screen etc. That is the hardware. Then there is software, including games, codec’s, publication software (i.e. Microsoft Word), and operating systems. And of course the most essential ingredient, the human agent. It’s hard to get your head around how all of that translates into your personal computer.

In a nutshell, for those who are interested in “computerland”, Mac computers are very appealing. As a brand, Macs are seen as being very cutting edge, and in tune with the practical application and business of the personal computer. In truth, as a user of Windows, who has used Mac computers a few times (and those really old 90s Apple computers) I find it difficult to say which reigns supreme. But props have to be given to Apple for providing a competitive alternative to Microsoft’s hegemonic monopoly over computerland.

1 Memory means Random Access Memory or RAM. It’s sort of like short term memory for computers.

2 PC means personal computer. A personal computer is comprised of hardware and software, and is often customisable.

Note: Macs are technically personal computers. Macintosh is an operating system which is only found on Apple Mac computers. Windows operating systems often come pre-loaded onto computers from various companies, which components come from a variety of companies, and can also be loaded onto Mac computers. Most computers will run Linux, a very ancient operating system popular with people who take computers seriously. Microsoft has a monopoly because most pre-packaged personal computers come with a windows operating system, which means they are often viewed as the default personal computer.

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by Jared I don’t like Macs. Nobody really does. Apart from the select few

designers and artists who have a genuine, hardware-based need to use Mac computers, there are very, very few people who need to use Macs, and even few who even know the difference between a Mac and a PC besides the shiny silver exterior. People don’t like Mac computers, they like Apple products. They like the Apple brand. They like shiny things and Steve Jobs and his stupid black turtlenecks and his shitty faded jeans and his shitty sneakers.

You know what it is? Contrarianism.

People went nuts when Apple released Macs. They were about four times the price of PCs when they came out and rich white people saw another rich white person trying to get even richer and thought, “Yeah. I wanna be different! I’ll spend 10 grand on a desktop computer”, and they did. In droves. And Steve Jobs did get richer, so now he can afford cashmere turtlenecks. Though he’s such a tightarse little shit he probably still buys them bulk from Wal-Mart. Not that Bill Gates is any better. The difference is, Bill Gates doesn’t claim to be.

I guess when you’re one of the richest men on the planet, you don’t need to constantly have speeches and forums and online fucking conferences explaining your feelings and how hard you and all your ‘friends’ at Apple have been trying to make everyone’s lives better. My point, in case I’m not being clear, is that it’s just a computer. And that is why people that love Apple are dickheads.

Here’s how the branding team at Apple want you to think. Microsoft is the scary 80-year-old man who lives down the road who yells at you for kicking your ball over the fence and occasionally forgets to wear pants. Apple on the other hand, want you to think of them as your cool multiracial friend who likes to skateboard and tell jokes.

In reality, Microsoft is more like your Dad. He’s been around forever, and he’ll always get the job done, despite being a little old and not always up with all the new talk. Your Dad most definitely does not like Justin Bieber. Apple is some weird anaemic kid that your Mum pays you to hang out with, because instead of making friends he prefers to play Warcraft and wank. Over Justin Bieber.

I spend all of my university computer time using Macs, ‘the pinnacle of design computers’, and I can honestly say that while I’m no Photoshop/ Premiere/Flash expert, a Mac has not once been more useful than my HP laptop. Not faster, not more functional, not easier, just better looking. And, for the same specs, about four or five grand more.

There’s the old argument about how Macs never break and PCs get all virusy and pop-uppy and shit, but with a basic programme like Norton (which doesn’t take up as much RAM as everyone says it does) you can eliminate all of that, and it normally comes free when you buy a new computer. A small price to pay for a computer that has things where you want them to be, and has function firmly ahead of form.

While I don’t think Macs are that great considering they’re overpriced, some people have learnt the ins and outs of them and use them proficiently.

Fair enough, I have no issue with that. I have an issue with people who sit in lectures with their brand new $5000 MacBook Pros and whisper to their friend “how do I find the add/remove program screen?” Actually, even then I don’t have an issue. Because it’s their five grand. At least that’s better than the snobs who say things like “I don’t know how to use a PC”. Don’t be ridiculous.

EVERYONE knows how to use a PC. And that, my friends, is the point.

So all you mental Apple fans can go sit at Starbucks and update your blog with how awesome your iPad is, while simultaneously struggling not to drop it on the floor because iPads are useless, slippery pieces of shit. The end.

Café culture:

A fattening addiction?

by Alicia Crocket Nineties food, according to Google, was all about

pre-packaged snacks and sugary drinks in various forms. What I most fondly remember from the 90s was the beginning of coffee and café culture in NZ. It amazes me that NZ has become one of the leading coffee nations in the world in such a short space of time. All it takes is a trip overseas to discover just how amazing and reliable our coffee is. So much so, that the flat white (our very own Kiwi invention) has been exported and was introduced into London by Starbucks and other big chains this year.

For a self-confessed coffee snob like me, coffee is the most important determinant of a café experience, but for many people it’s the food that clinches the deal. I think NZ has perfected the art of having delicious and fresh meals and snacks available in cafes. No other country I’ve been to has served the beautiful brunches we take completely for granted in NZ. Scones and muffins are by far better here than other places and the selection of speciality sandwiches always means there’s something I want.

Alas though, in one area NZ café culture has let me down - portion size inflation. In the 90s when cafes started up, coffees were 250ml max. These days if you order a coffee, you have to specify small to get a 250ml coffee. Many cafes use a 350 - 500ml cup as their standard size, while others offer coffees in pint-sized takeaway cups. Who needs a pint of beer, when you can have a pint of coffee? To give you an idea of how much “extra” you might be getting from your daily coffee hit, a grande, blue milk caramel mocha with cream from Starbucks has all your daily sugar recommendation and half your daily fat allowance!

Coffee isn’t the only thing that has suffered portion inflation in the last

decade. The serving size of food has also significantly increased. Your average plate of Eggs Benedict with bacon and Hollandaise sauce gives you more than your daily fat recommendation and approximately half the calories most people should have in a day. Snacks have also significantly increased in size, with muffins nearly doubling over the last 10 years. This increase means that rather than being a quick snack at morning or afternoon tea, muffins are now more equivalent to a lunch sized meal.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though. The happy news is that, if you’re like me and a café meal/coffee happens only when I find someone else to pay for it, then I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Well, if generally you have a healthier diet anyway. It only becomes a concern when you pop in for a large, full fat, three sugared coffee with a buttered muffin every day. You’re adding huge amounts of calories, fat and sugar to your diet that probably isn’t necessary. If you want to keep your café fare within limits, some things I suggest trying are: have a smaller coffee get a trim milk coffee (that removes nearly all the fat and nearly halves the calorie content), reduce sugar in your coffee gradually by ½ a teaspoon a week/ month, Share your muffin with a friend Don’t have the butter/margarine, if you warm the muffin or scone it should be lovely and moist So enjoy the great café culture that NZ has, but keep in mind that sometimes you might be getting more than you bargained for.

BBQ Sauce Serves 5 / Gluten free Dairy free Cost: Sauce by itself $0.50 per serve BBQ chicken pieces with rice $1.83-$2.62 per serve (frozen chicken pieces are cheaper) BBQ chicken breast with rice $2.52 per serve Do you want to recreate that summer feeling without having to stand outside in the pouring rain trying to BBQ? Well, this quick and easy BBQ sauce will get you on your way to remembering what summer is like and all that you’ve got to look forward to. This sauce is incredibly versatile and once made will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks. In this pic I’ve marinated chicken breast chunks and then oven baked them for 15 minutes.

This sauce is a combination of about five different BBQ sauce recipes that I found online (from food.com and bbcgoodfood.com). I wasn’t happy with any of the recipes singley so I started combining elements from each recipe to create my own favourite sauce. ingredients 1 tablespoon oil 1 small onion, finely chopped 2 cloves or 2 teaspoons garlic, finely chopped 1 ½ tablespoons paprika ½ teaspoon minced chilli (or to taste) 1 teaspoon cumin 1 teaspoon mustard 1 tablespoon vinegar (or 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar for vegetarians) 1/3 cup of Worcestershire sauce (or 3 tablespoons soy for vegetarians) 1 cup tomato sauce ¼ cup brown sugar

issue 16 JuLY 2010

Directions

1.

Use a large pan to make this as it spits so you want plenty of room in the

pan

2.

3.

4.

Heat the oil and sauté the onions and garlic until they are soft Add paprika, chilli and cumin until fragrant

Add remaining ingredients and bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes

5.

6.

If you want a thinner sauce add ¼ cup of water to the mix

Cook uncovered at 180°C for 20-30 minutes or for about five minutes in the microwave. Your pie is ready when the bottom centre feels hot.

Notes: If you’re vegetarian and don’t use Worcestershire because of the anchovies in it, substitute with half the quantity of soy sauce and use double the amount of balsamic vinegar instead of normal vinegar.

Can be used as a sauce accompaniment (for meat or vegetables). Or use as a marinade for meat (oven bake, BBQ or fry in a non-stick frypan).

If you’re cooking bone-in chicken pieces make sure they’re cooked all the way through to the bone before serving.

13

Rob Schneider: One of God’s little punch lines

by Brendan Kelly

“I try not to have too much of an ego. I’ll do anything.”

-Rob Schneider on why everything he does is so second rate

“I don’t have any paparazzi following me or have to deal with that stuff. I’m never in the tabloids. I prefer that.”

-Rob Schneider pretending to be happy that no one considers him a real celebrity

I am usually fairly open-minded when it comes to films.

I don’t immediately criticise or judge a movie based solely on the director, or the actors, or the fact that it has Cuba Gooding Jr. in it.

Most of the time. However, in the cinematic world of today there is one creature who has the ability to instantly deter me from watching whatever mindless heap of shit he has become involved in. Rob Schneider has this ability. Because Rob Schneider is a heinous little goblin.

Schneider was reportedly born to a human woman on October 31, 1963; however his true origins are still hotly debated. There are two main schools of thought regarding the origin of Schneider. The first is that he was uncovered during an archaeological dig in Northern Ireland, and is in fact the world’s only remaining leprechaun. The second theory is identical to the first, however the logic of this theory states that Schneider cannot be a leprechaun, because unlike a leprechaun, who according to mythology can grant wishes and may have access to a pot of gold, Rob Schneider has absolutely nothing positive to contribute to the human race. For this reason the only classification as yet given to Schneider is “annoying”.

Regardless of how he arrived, Schneider entered this world the approximate shape and appearance of a cotton ball dipped in oil and then rolled around on the floor of a barber shop. He was around fifteen and a half centimetres tall upon arrival, which has almost doubled as he has matured into adulthood. As he grew, Schneider became increasingly strange looking and thus began to perform stand up comedy while still in high school. At the age of 23 he was recruited as a writer by the popular TV show Saturday Night Live, and this gave the uppity little dwarf the opening he needed to break into the world of real people.

Schneider set his sights on becoming one of us. Relying on his bizarre physical appearance, grating voice and a collection of racist impersonations, Schneider set out to reach the top of the comedy world. When this failed, the persistent little bastard decided to garner fame for himself by weaselling his way into the films of the more popular, more talented Adam Sandler. With repeated cries of “You can do it!” and the reinforcement of several negative racial stereotypes, Schneider has become a real force in today’s cinema. This is a serious

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and troubling turn of events.

Now that the funny bullshit part is complete, here are some legitimate reasons to believe that Rob Schneider is an unbearable little twat. Unlike most actors, Schneider appears to take criticism extremely hard and personally. When LA Times film critic Patrick Goldstein said in an article that Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo was overlooked for an Academy Award because “nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic”, Schneider wittily responded by calling him a “real scumbag”. Schneider’s biting comebacks would again be put on display when similar criticisms were expressed by Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times. Schneider – ever the wordsmith – dubbed him an “ass”.

On top of his dubious background, Schneider has been accused of racism several times during his career. His portrayal of a Chinese minister in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry has been heavily criticised due to obvious racial stereotyping, as has Schneider’s role in 50 First Dates as Ula, a Hawaiian layabout. Schneider defends these criticisms by referring to his own ‘Filipino’ (pfft) background, as if this somehow gives him open access to make fun of all ethnicities and races.

Rob Schneider. He’s not funny, he’s not witty, he’s not handsome or charming or clever. He may or may not be of the leprechaun persuasion. He is definitely a racist. He may be a Nazi, although nothing I’ve read anywhere has even remotely suggested so. These are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed (in this article). Every time you watch a Schneider movie, or chuckle mindlessly at one of his infantile jokes, you are fuelling the fires of ineptitude and vulgarity.

You are promoting racism and cruelty to hundreds of small animals.

And you are allowing this talentless, hirsute, miniature lumberjack to become the future of comedy.

So Mr Schneider. I don’t know what publications D-list celebrities peruse in their down time, but it’s worth a shot. If your beady little eyes do happen to waddle over this article, take a fucking hint. Stop making movies. We don’t want you anymore. You will receive no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

You know you’re a 90s kid if…

You can’t have an issue about the 90s and not have a page dedicated to all the nostalgic fads that a large chunk of AUT’s student grew up with in New Zealand. Everything from the cartoons you watched on Saturday mornings, to the games you played, and the phases you were obsessed with will be covered. Grab a pen and put a tick beside each one that you can identify with. Then we’ll find out who are the true 90s kids among us.

You can’t resist finishing the line “iiiiiiiiiinnnn West

Philadelphia born and raised...”

You could fight anything with a gang of Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant

Ninja Turtles Watching TV on a Saturday morning was actually worthwhile

You cried when Mufasa died in the Lion King

Your film collection was on VCR

You thought Mr Bean was funny

You thought rollerblading was a sport. And you rocked at it.

You knew all the tricks for Chatter-rings

You know all the moves to the Spice Girls song, Stop.

You didn’t need Farmville or iPhone apps because you had Tamagotchis and

Sea Monkeys to look after

A $1 mixture of lollies was bursting at the seams

Bull rush was still legal in schools

You pretended to be one of the Olsen twins

Your dose of horror came from reading (and watching) Goosebumps

You have seen every single episode of Friends at least twice

Popsicles were 50 cents

Fights ended with “I know you are, but what am I?” or “talk to the hand” Wearing matching t-shirt/legging combos were cool

Your computer knowledge was playing minesweeper on Windows 95

You know the Macarena off by heart

You have mastered a Yoyo

Sega Mega Drives or Sega Master Systems mean something to you

Gameboys were the most technical portable gaming device out there

The blurry pixels of a Super Nintendo was all the graphics power you needed

You remember when going to the movies was $5

Saving the environment was cool because Captain Planet did it

You ever wondered why Arnold (aka football head) wore a skirt

You ever owned a pair of jelly shoes

You can name each Spice Girl’s favourite Chupa Chup

You knew how to skip double dutch

McDonald toys were worth collecting to participate in

You wanted to be an American Gladiator

Hot Wheels cars were your ultimate ride

You ever pretended to go “super saiyan” on

someone Topic: Improving the Usability

Bowl cuts on boys were normal of the Library Website Jason Gunn was in his prime

Scrunchies were the ultimate hair accessory The website is the Library's virtual face to the world and is the main way that users access

You had a crush on one of the Backstreet Boys Library services, resources and information. It is vitally important that it meets the learning,

You’ve ever tried to find Carmen San Diego or Wally. teaching and research needs of AUT students and staff.

You ate those small bags of Bluebirds chips just for Feedback from the 2009 Customer Satisfaction Survey indicated that the usability of the

the Oddbods cards Library website is of high importance and an area for improvement. For this reason, the Library invites students and staff who are active users of our website to participate in a focus

You fought with your friends over who was what group session in the first week of August to provide us with feedback on specific issues. This

Power Ranger feedback will help the Library enhance their understanding of how the website is being used

You sincerely wanted a Furbie and identify how its usability can be improved in the future.

When $1 actually bought something Details of the focus group sessions are provided below:

Decisions were made by going Session 2. Undergraduate Students - North Shore Session 1. Undergraduate Students - City Campus

‘eeny-meeny-miney-moe’

McDonalds happy meals were only $3.95 Date: Friday 6 August Date: Wednesday 4 August Georgie Pie was the fast food of choice Time: 10.00am – 11.30am Time: 10.30am – 12.00pm (Morning tea will be provided) (Morning tea will be provided) You wore socks over leggings scrunched down Venue: WA608, City Campus Venue: AG127, North Shore Campus Puffa vests and metallic silver were staples in For further information and to register: Please email For further information and to register: Please email Bridget Bridget Cameron (bcameron@aut.ac.nz). Please indicate Cameron (bcameron@aut.ac.nz). Please indicate the

your wardrobe the degree/programme of study in which you are enrolled. degree/programme of study in which you are enrolled.

You owned (or knew someone that owned) the original Pulp platforms Session 3. Postgraduate Students - City Campus Session 4. Academic Staff - City Campus You read Harry Potter before it was cool

Invitation

Client Focus Groups

Total 90s Rating issue 16 JuLY 2010

Date: Wednesday 4 August Time: 11.30am – 1.00pm

Date: Friday 6 August Time: 12.00pm – 1.30pm

Venue: WA608, City Campus

Venue: WA608, City Campus

(A light lunch will be provided)

For further information and to register: Please email Bridget Cameron (bcameron@aut.ac.nz). Please indicate the degree/programme of study in which you are enrolled.

(A light lunch will be provided)

For further information and to register: Please email Bridget Cameron (bcameron@aut.ac.nz).

15

19 July, 2010

t the ripe old age of 31 I try not to hang on the past, but things were pretty sweet as in the 90s.

Back in my day food was cheap. A $1 mixture of lollies was bursting to the brim, you could get a Happy Meal for $3.95 and there was the huge commotion in New Zealand about Georgie Pie. This is a memory that my generation will cherish. My grandparents had World War II, my generation had Georgie Pie. Do you realise that Georgie Pie not only had great tasting pies but they were only 75 cents each! Seventy-five cents for a delicious mince and cheese pie!

Oh my goodness. But then they put the price up to $1 and McDonalds muscled them out. Gutted.

R.I.P. Georgie Pie. We will remember you.

In the 90s, rollerblades were still cool. We would blade down to the local skate bowl and the skateboarders would stop to watch us.

If you could go backwards on your blades, you were a legend. There was even a movie made about rollerblading – Airborne – starring Jack Black (he’s a baddie). It’s a story about this surfer guy from California, who moves to the cold of Chicago and isn’t cool until he takes up rollerblading and wins a race.

Surfer Guy: “Chill Brah” Jack Black’s character: “Did he just call you a piece of underwear?”

There were only a handful of really famous bands in the 90s because the record companies still had blanket control of the music industry. Some of the 90s bands are still going strong. Some are defunct (or deceased). Music was a big deal in the 90s. What you listened to was where you put your stake in society. There was a pretty good selection of self expression through music: 1. If you listened to Rage against the Machine, you were “angry”.

2. If you listened to the Smashing Pumpkins, you were “depressed” 3. If you listened to Nirvana you were “angry and depressed”.

Life was simpler in the 90s.

Back in my day we had cassette tapes which were way better than LPs. I was sceptical about the hype presented about CDs, though. “…are they really all they’re cracked up to be?”

“Oh, yeah man, you can totally tell the difference between a CD and a tape.”

I had to dub my mate’s CD onto a cassette because external CD burners were about $900 each and when you’re putting $2 of petrol in your car, believe me, you’re not too fussed music quality. It was okay though because in the 90s it was still okay to release REALLY low quality albums. You could buy a Nirvana CD for $20 or a local band’s garage recording for only $10. A no brainer. I think I even dubbed a song called Georgie Pie by an Auckland band called Krusty.

Horrible quality, great music. Loved it.

Gaming was also a no brainer. You’ve got the big names: the original Warcraft or the original Doom. The best way to get a game was to go to your mate’s house and dub their game onto floppy

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disc. With PKunzip.exe I could compress Doom onto 6 discs. Then I would take my entire desktop to my cousin’s place and we would connect our PCs via serial cable. It usually took between 30mins and two hours to get the stupid computers to link up. Then we would play Doom till our eyes crystallised over.

Travel was a much more pleasant experience. Especially when it came to air travel. There was no such thing as 9/11 and security wasn’t so tight. Would you believe I carried a box of 16 high pressure CO2 canisters (for an air gun) from North Carolina, x-rayed through Tennessee, Tulsa, Denver, LAX and onto Auckland airports, without being asked to remove them from my carry-on! Mind boggling when you consider that bottled water is contraband these days. The CO2 was for my .22 calibre air pistol that was also in my checked luggage.

The 90s were not kind on fashion. Fashion was in limbo during that decade. I think that growing up in the 90s has left me hamstringed when it comes to what to wear. I have to look at the Hallensteins website to see what the cool kids are wearing these days. But clothes were a little like music selection in the 90s. There was grunge... and that’s about it. Even the metal heads looked grunge.

There was a lot of grunge so it didn’t really matter what you wore. As long as it was from a second-hand shop, you were alright.

So the 90s were a good decade. I’m sure that like the 80s, the 90s will have another go. If we are careful to follow what Marty McFly does in Back to the Future II we can’t go wrong (especially when it comes to fashion). I’m still hoping for a hover board, but it’s not 2015 yet.

The Games of the Nineties Oh What a Decade.

by Jared

No person that grew up in the 90s could ever

argue that it sucked. Because it was awesome. Just looking at popular shows like the Fresh Prince and Captain Planet, you might think that the aforementioned awesomeness was the result of TV genius (remember that show Step by Step with Suzanne Somers and her 800 kids?). However, it’s not until you look at the gaming industry from 1990 onwards that you can truly appreciate just how revolutionary that period was. I argue that without games, the 90s would have sucked. Just consider the fact that basically every popular current game has its roots somewhere in the 90s, whether it be a side scrolling shooter or an RPG on your Game Boy. Ahhh the glorious days of the Game Boy. Released in 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy without much of an idea as to how successful it would be. Atari had just released the Lynx, which was markedly better. It had a backlit, colour screen as well as the ability to form networks. Despite that, Game Boys were $100 cheaper, which proved to be a massive draw factor. Sega released their Game Gear not long after, which while competitive, failed to provide a meaningful speedbump for the Game Boy juggernaut. Twenty years on, Nintendo have shipped a staggering 118 million units (including the Game Boy colours and Game Boy pocket) – a success that can only be attributed to the totally awesome games they had.

Tetris remains the highest selling individual Game Boy game ever.

I was a little young in 1991 to appreciate the Tetris fad, but I sure as shit did not miss out on Pokémon (Red, Blue and Green sold 31 million copies, a million more than Tetris). Pokémon took the world by storm, and by the end of the 90s it was still going strong; a Game Boy Colour with Pokémon Blue was a treasured wee device to a young lad in 1998.

Those were the good old days, before games got too serious and self involved. Well, kind of. Doom for MS DOS was released in 1993 and in a few short years, cemented itself as (big call) one of the greatest first person shooters of all time. And first person shooters were a fan favourite. As games progressed we saw more versions of Doom and Quake, followed by the much anticipated Duke Nukem 3D. Duke Nukem was fucking awesome. I’ll never forget going over to my mate Brett’s house to blow up strippers with rocket launchers. It issue 16 JuLY 2010

was the first game to really push the censorship buttons, and we’ll forever be indebted to the Duke for that. Also in the first person shooter category was the Rainbow Six series which, believe it or not, began in 1998. The Tom Clancy inspired series is the Godfather of all tactical spec ops FPS games. Modern Warfare 2 has Rainbow Six to thank for its 40 trillion copies sold.

Speaking of big sellers. Released in 1991 for the Amiga (Commodore’s family computer), Lemmings has, to date, sold over 15 million copies worldwide. The sadistic nature of humans was satiated by the ability to throw hundreds of fictional creatures off a cliff. Drawing on this sadism, it’s interesting to note that the company that produced Lemmings went on to become Rockstar North of GTA fame.

Computer games were the big go in the 90s. Testament to that is the fact that they survived, and even flourished, even after PlayStations were released in 94 and the world went nuts over consoles. The SimCity franchise was massive. Not only did it lead to five extension titles, it was the precursor to the highest selling PC game of all time, The Sims (in 2000, so nearly a 90s game).

Moving about as far away from the quiet world simulated world as possible, was the explosion (both on computers and arcade machines) of fighting games. Street Fighter II (a.k.a. the best fighting game of all time) was released in 91. It was the father of all fighting games, predating Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Dead or Alive. It remains the best selling fighting series ever and it still has prevalence at GameZone in the Metro building across the road.

I’ve probably covered about 2 per cent of the gaming industry from the 90s; it’s just too big to get on one page. Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider changed console gaming forever, Sonic is the 8th most successful franchise ever, a few spots below Need for Speed which is, undoubtedly, the most loved racing franchise today. And that’s the interesting part. Most of the games I’ve mentioned in this article still exist. Even the old boys like Doom are being re-made for modern consoles and computers. And that’s how you know that 90s games were the best. They were encapsulating in their day, and for a lot of them their day is still going.

Shit, I didn’t even talk about sports games.

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The 90s were certainly a decade that most of us are familiar with. Where the 40s had Hitler and the gang and the 60s had the Beatles, we too have our own set of icons who defined the era. During the height of their success everybody knew their name and what they were up to (definitive of true fandom; Twitter had yet to be conceptualised at this point). But what happened to them after the scandal, the nude photos and the domestic violence lawsuits died down? Here’s a look at some of the most popular people of the time and where they are now:

Geri Halliwell

The former pop star jumped hearts around the world as the feisty redheaded Ginger Spice with the rest of the Spice Girls. She had always caught attention with her outrageous stage costumes (maybe not so much by today’s standards) but it was her surprise decision to leave the rest of the group in the middle of a tour in May 1998 that really caught our attention. Depression and differences with the group were the official reasons for the split, but all conspiracies aside, we were all sad to see Ginger go.

Where she is now – Geri went on to release her solo album Schizophonic in 1999, with the single Look At Me selling more than one million copies. Her solo success did not end there; she released another album in 2001 that did just as well as the single. Come 2007, she announced that she was going back on tour with the rest of the Spice Girls for their reunion shows. She is now into acting and has come out with a novel , Ugenia Lavender. In true pop star style, she had a baby girl named Bluebell Madonna but speculation still abounds as to who the father is.

Michael Jordan

Who doesn’t know this guy?

His name is right up there with Marilyn and Madonna.

He was hailed as one of the best athletes of all time, wearing jersey number 23 for the Chicago Bulls. His legendary slam dunks from the free throw line have cemented him in basketball history. If you haven’t seen him play, you should have seen the ads. He contributed largely to the success of Nike’s Air Jordan line, first out in

18

1985. He was absolutely everywhere, the prima donna rock star celebrity of the basketball world, with the divorce and gambling problem to match. And for the spritely young things who weren’t old enough to appreciate basketball, he was the star of the Looney Tunes movie, Space Jam. Where he is now? These days Michael can be found playing golf for celebrity charity tournaments and he owns the Michael Jordan Motorsports Company, a professional closed-course motorcycle road racing team. At the moment he is a minority stakeholder for the Charlotte Bobcats. He also spends time with his family in Chicago.

Aaron Carter

Ah, the proto-Bieber. He is the format by which young musicians are created. Pushed into showbiz at the age of seven, Aaron got his record deal after performing a live version of The Jets’ Crush On You. Aaron’s cute-asa-marshmallow appeal lured in screaming female tweens, all of them probably just as rabid as those who met Justin Bieber at the airport earlier this year. He is the cookie-cutter child pop star we all recognise, down to the manager screwing him over for thousands of dollars in royalties.

Where is he now? - As puberty caught up with him, Aaron started venturing into hip-hop and rap, particularly in his 2001 album Aaron’s Party. It went tripleplatinum, selling 1.5 million copies. He dabbled in film for a while, with a few appearances in movies, both in front of the camera and behind as a voice actor. He also did a stint on Dancing with the Stars in 2009 and was booted off in the eighth week of the show. Which in my opinion, is probably the absolute end of his career. Where on earth could you possibly go after Dancing with the Stars?

Dolly the Sheep

Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned by a fully adult donor through nuclear transfer.

She was cloned by the team of Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Dolly is particularly important to modern biology because she was the proving point that it is possible to clone mammals from fully adult donors. Her name is taken from Dolly Parton, as the DNA sample she came from was taken from the mammary gland of a Finn Dorset.

Where is she now? – Her taxidermied remains now reside at the Royal Museum of Scotland after she was euthanised for having extreme arthritis and a progressive type of lung cancer. She lived a fruitful life however; she was mated with a stunning hunk of Welsh Mountain ram and had six lambs in total.

The Olsen Twins

You can’t have a 90s issue without mentioning the Olsen twins. They captured the hearts around the globe as Michelle Tanner in Full House, which ran until 1995. Everyone remember the ending? Michelle fell off a horse and got amnesia? Amazing.

They also dominated the direct-tovideo business, with such iconic family films like It Takes Two, Passport to Paris and Billboard Dad. There wasn’t a teenage girl around who wasn’t immune to wanting to be an Olsen twin. From the short hair flicks to the blue or pink tinted glasses, everyone was either a Mary-Kate or an Ashley.

Where are they now? –When the two turned 18 they also took over their company Dualstar, which is worth more than $US1 billion.

Ashley hasn’t done a film since New York Minute in 2004, while MaryKate has had roles in Weeds and Samantha Who?, as well as starring on the upcoming Beastly movie.

They both have a keen interest in fashion and had a clothing and beauty line in Wal-Mart in America and they recently launched a highend couture label called The Row. Perhaps the most scandalous news since the twin’s departure from the screen is Mary-Kate’s anorexia battle, which she entered rehab for in 2004. .

Where is he now? – While hosting What Now with Gunn it was revealed that Thingee was an alien from another planet. He made the decision to return to his home planet in 1996 and hearts broke around New Zealand. Don’t worry though, he has made guest appearances since then; most recently on TVNZ’s 50 year special.

And there is his Facebook fan page, which has more than 10,000 fans at present.

Monica Lewinsky

Everyone is familiar with the name Monica Lewinsky. In 1995 – at only 21 – she interned at the White House, where she was working closely with the then president Bill Clinton. From 1995-1997 she has intimate relations with President Clinton. There was the famous line “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and he famously lied under oath about the sexual affair. He argued the term “sexual relations” in court and said that oral sex was not sex.

Where is she now? – After the scandal, Lewinsky was a hot commodity for the media. In 1999 she was interviewed by THE Barbara Walters and she published a book called Monica’s Story. She also released a line of handbags under her name, which last until 2003. She was an ambassador for Weight Watchers and hosted a short-lived reality show called Mr Personality in 2003 but by 2005 she had had enough of the limelight and she moved to London to complete her Masters. These days, she is rarely seen in the public eye.

McDonalds Young Entertainers

Back when we were too young to understand how overexposed Jason Gunn was, we used to indulge in McDonald’s Young Entertainers, a teenager talent show that premiered in 1997. Jason and his team of “super troopers” would perform each Sunday at 6.30pm, and their job was to make the actual contestants less nervous.

Where are they now? – After being cancelled in September, 1999 because of poor ratings, the troop went their separate ways. Ainslie Allen, the group’s leader, moved to Sydney when she was 22 to pursue singing. She has a band called Ainslie Allen & The Jets, but they haven’ t hit the big time, so to speak. Arguably the most successful of the troop is Drew Neemia, who hosts C4’s Select Live, as well as formerly hosting Sticky TV. Michelle Ang, who was an original super trooper, but left before the show’s cancellation, has had television roles in Xena: Warrier Princess, The Tribe and most recently, Outrageous Fortune in 2005. The Walmsley siblings – Michael and Holly – have disappeared off the radar mostly, but an internet search suggests that Holly is now married with a baby and Michael completed a Masters at Waikato University.

Thingee

Even though Thingee was first introduced to audiences in 1987, he rose to stardom in New Zealand in the early 90s, along with Jason Gunn. They monopolised after-school ratings with their Son of a Gunn show, which had the notorious eye-popping incident (Thingee’s eye fell out during a live broadcast. YouTube it for nostalgia and a shitload of laughs).

issue 16 JuLY 2010

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D g . n s i liv pe ha at i t y c n h e a t r l m a s and is he ail Sa n e o m i m e n i e , s p h issue 16’s t riences, o e e s u e s Is expe r of th r e u h o t i y e want . te to u b i r t n m at 4 p want to co If you aut.ac.nz e@ debat

Contributors Required. news hounds, political gurus, feature writers, reviewers, columnists, sports writers, opinionists, photographers, cover designers, cartoonists, humourists...

debate is your oyster.

For more info, email Samantha McQueen on debate@aut.ac.nz or drop in to the AuSM city campus office for a chat.

20

Making over the 90s - is it really time?

by Samantha McQueen

Everyone knows Hollywood has little imagination.

If you look at your television or cinema listings (minus Inception, of course) you will be see a whole bunch of shows that look remarkably similar to something else you saw not so long ago. Killers (starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl) is sadly reminiscent of every other spy action film out there. Combine Knight and Day and Mr and Mrs Smith together and you have Killers. If you watch Twilight, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries back to back, you’d be forgiven if you couldn’t tell which apart. All revolve around a love story between a vampire and a human, all vampires wish they could just fit in, and two can go out in broad daylight without being burned alive (although one sparkles like a disco ball).

However, more TV shows from the 90s are popping up on our screens again, begging the question – is it really time for a remake?

The most obvious of these is Sex and the City, which began in 1998 and ended in 2004. Ten years after the first season premiered, the big wigs in Hollywood decided to make the much-wanted Sex and the City movie. Now, this movie was a critical flop, but fans of the series flocked to the theatres to catch a glimpse of their old friends. What I don’t get is why they decided to prolong the torture and make a second one, where the fashion wasn’t fabulous, the city wasn’t New York and there was little sex. The whole series has now been tainted by the bigwigs desire to make some quick cash. Some series just need to be left so fans can come to their own conclusion of what happened.

Going back further into the 90s, Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 were two of the biggest shows from that decade. It made stars out of Heather Locklear, Shannon Doherty, Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling and was watched by teenagers around the globe. To compare, it’s like our generation watching… oh wait, Melrose Place (the remake) and 90210, which still has all the aforementioned stars in it. The new Melrose Place – whose biggest star was Ashlee Simpson – tanked in the ratings and despite guest appearances from a lot of the original cast, it was cancelled after one season. Oh, and Ashlee Simpson was killed off. 90210 has done a lot better ratings-wise, but the original cast have been booted off for the next season, because the creators want to hash out old storylines on the new cast focus more on the new cast. Does this mean they’re going to try for a Friends or a Seinfeld remake? Gosh I hope not, I’m quite satisfied with the reruns of Friends on TV 2 – there’s something oddly comforting about it.

Movies are getting the remake treatment as well, which begs the question – have you run out of 80s movies to remake yet? Scream 4 is currently in production, with a lot of the core cast (you know, the ones that didn’t get killed off), and the Yogi Bear movie poster was released last week. Nylon magazine in America did an article based around the ultimate casting for a remake of Clueless. Um, you can’t remake Clueless. It’s a classic 90s film about pop culture in the 90s.

You can’t replicate that* in the… what the hell is this decade called?

The onesies? Plus, you can’t replace Alicia Silverstone with VANESSA HUDGENS. That makes me want to vomit a little. But the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was Beastly, a modern day remake of Beauty and the Beast. Funnily enough, that Vanessa woman is starring

issue 16 JuLY 2010

in that as well. Dear Hollywood, it’s over. You sicken me. Love Sam. Luckily it can redeem itself with the actual Beauty and the Beast being restored into 3D (playing at Hoyts for a few sessions from the 12th!).

Why don’t you do more of that Hollywood? You seem to love 3D movies? Why don’t you just dig up the most popular movies of the 90s and give them “the Avatar effect”. Forrest Gump in 3D? Braveheart?

Once Were Warriors?

It’s been 11 years since we said “ciao” to the 90s, but somehow that doesn’t seem long enough. Give it a few more decades and then starting bringing up Speed and Notting Hill remakes. Actually, just don’t. * If you were to try and recast Clueless, who would you pick to replace all the leads? Email debate@aut.ac.nz – I’m so keen to hear your thoughts.

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Top 8 Nineties Pop Princesses

(And no, Britney Spears isn’t featured)

by Amy

8

Mandy Moore

Putting Mandy this low breaks my heart a bit. But Mandy only released her debut album So Real in December 1999 and it doesn’t seem fair to have her higher. Plus, she starred in A Walk to Remember in 2002 and released Coverage in 2003. A delightfully manipulative film and a solid covers album started what I think is a comparatively respectable career so in the wider scheme, Mandy is my ultimate pop queen. Just not the ultimate 90s pop queen. She also has nice, shiny hair.

7

Paula Cole

I don’t know anything about Paula Cole except that she sang the Dawson’s Creek theme song. I think this qualifies her as a musical legend. It, at the very least, helps me to forget that I despise the name “Paula” with an unjustified passion. Sample lyrics - “I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over, I want to know right now what will it be”. Normally I don’t approve of impatience. Fortunately, I do approve of vagueness.

I think.

see, if seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints, and all the prophets?”. At primary school, we used to have “Christian living” classes where we would learn about religion. In retrospect, they should have just played me this song.

3

Alanis Morissette

The scariest thing about revisiting Alanis is how dirty/intense her lyrics are. In an attempt to shed her popstar beginnings, girl got nasty. Most worryingly though, my mother let me sing along at the top of my lungs in public to lines such as “is she perverted like me, would she go down on you in a theatre”. I also thought the line “of the cross I bear that you gave to me” was “of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me”, which seemed like a nice gesture to seven-yearold me. Plus, I think it’s safe to attribute any of our generation’s feminist leanings to Alanis’ independent spirit. She sassed Uncle Joey good.

2

Mariah Carey

For my seven-year-old self, this was some deep stuff. Metaphors made this really hard to understand - surely if you chased waterfalls, you would drown? And why would you stick to rivers and lakes? Why be involved in bodies of water in the first place? The girls of TLC didn’t help my stunted mind by constantly performing the song around liquid (YouTube the video, if you care).

Catchy song though, as well as instigating my desire to be lead singer Chilli when I grew up.

For some odd reason, I have zilch opinion on Mariah. I like her songs though. They are catchy and fun. I also like the urban myths which swirl around her. In the 90s, there was a series of false yet widely-believed quotes released which were aimed to prove the singer’s stupidity. In 1996, a fake interview was spread which featured Carey saying “When I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean, I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff”. A few years later, she was supposedly asked about the death of King Hussein of Jordan but didn’t realise Jordan was a country, instead believing basketballer Michael Jordan had died. LOLZ. Although it worries me that people genuinely believed journalists would ask Carey about world politics.

5

1

6

TLC

Jewel

Sometimes you remember things being a lot better than they are. Jewel is one of these things. So is The Neverending Story. Jewel’s Wikipedia page claims she has sold 27 million albums worldwide. She was so popular in the 90s, more than a million people bought her, uh, book of poetry despite it getting “mixed reviews” (translation - it sucked). I thought she was a gentle musical vessel of truth and twang. Until I listened to Pieces of You a few weeks ago and had to turn it off. If you want to retain your pleasant nostalgia of Jewel, I would strongly advise you do NOT go on a trip down memory lane.

4

Joan Osborne

Joan Osborne had a nose piercing. Man, they were so rad back in the day. And unlike TLC’s confusing lyrics, Osborne was deep in a very straightforward way. She asked about God: “What would you ask if you had just one question?” and even “would you want to

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Lisa Loeb

I hope it’s okay to quote Wikipedia because I don’t think I could explain this any better. “Loeb’s big break came when she was discovered by actor ETHAN HAWKE, who lived in an apartment across the street from her in New York City. They met through mutual friends in the NYC THEATER COMMUNITY. Loeb gave Hawke [a demo of] Stay (I Missed You), who in turn gave it to director BEN STILLER during the making of the 1994 film REALITY BITES... Hawke also DIRECTED a rare one-take video of Stay”. Obviously I capslocked some parts to emphasise how drenched in COOL Loeb is. But SRSLY, I challenge you to find something with more 90s cool than Lisa Loeb - it cannot be done! Plus, I recently re-watched 90s classic She’s All That and realised the moral of the story is that glasses=ugly. Seriously, re-watch it and it’s not even a subliminal message; it’s painfully blatant. But Loeb has worn glasses her whole career and makes four-eyed ladies like me feel happier. Take that, Freddie Prinze Jnr!

I

f someone told you they liked “old music”, what sort of music would you assume that they liked? Or more specifically: what era? My theory was the dividing line between “old music”, and “new music” was in the early 80s. In the early 80s MTV changed the way we consumed pop music, and turned it into a visual thing. Musicians didn’t have so much of a visual presence before then. Therefore artists with a visual presence throughout their career were new artists, regardless of how old they were (Madonna or U2), while those who predated visual music (even if by only a few years) were old.

That was a perfectly good theory. It was proven time and again by the fact that new Madonna and U2 videos got prime time coverage. Furthermore, it had the backing of people who actually remembered the early 80s. I’d tell baby-boomers that old music was everything before the early 80s, and they’d scoff, and point out that I was born in the early 80s. So I’d explain my reasoning, and they’d admit they thought the same way (though they didn’t know why) and that was the time when something had changed.

The problem with the theory is not that it’s wrong, but that it may not be all that relevant any more. To this generation, a dividing line in the early 80s might simply be a distinction between old, and really old. For instance, The Rolling Stones have just announced their 50th anniversary tour. That’s not old, that’s really insanely fucking old. That’s half a century. No one should’ve survived being in a rock band for 50 years. This generation will grow up not knowing The-Rolling-Stones-are-old jokes, because the fact of The Rolling Stones still existing is far too impressive to make jokes about. Making a joke about how old The Rolling Stones are would be like making a joke where the punch-line is “the great wall of China is the only manmade object visible from space”.

For all the things that happened in music in the 90s, this is the one thought I cannot get over: The 90s was a time when The Rolling Stones were still old. They were unremarkably old men who were, lovable, but only in small doses. Bob Dylan too. People actually called Bob Dylan a has-been in the 90s. He was just an old man who’d written some great songs two decades before, and hadn’t done much since. Both had made some terrible albums in the 80s, and in the first part of the 90s, and they were clinging desperately to relevancy and dignity. They weren’t cultural icons who could make Christmas albums and sitcom vehicles, and still walk away with honorary doctorates and knighthoods.

I haven’t even mentioned David Bowie yet. Roughly a decade younger, and with a visual presence well ahead of the bell-curve, Bowie had somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and found himself in the 90s fighting irrelevancy along with Dylan and the Stones. But boy did he have some fight left in him. In the 90s Bowie was on fire, even if everything he touched was a critical and commercial flop. He tried Pixies tribute bands (who sounded nothing like the Pixies, but never mind), collaborations with Nine Inch Nails, and rap interludes, never managing to be deterred by the lack of success in any of it. issue 16 JuLY 2010

Relevancy in pop culture is a funny concept. Sometimes it can seem quite meaningless; What in pop-culture is relevant? That’s a rhetorical question; it’s all pointless, and that’s the beauty of it – art for art’s sake. But what relevancy means in this context is being able to anticipate changes as they happen, in order to make something new, rather than following the consequences of those changes. This was Bowie’s problem, he was following those changes, and he was following them so closely that it was very noticeable. If the Pixies, or Nine Inch Nails already exist, what point does an older guy who sounds like them have?

I mention David Bowie’s 1995 album Outside at every possible opportunity; my copy of it is exceedingly well worn. How good Outside began to sound a few years ago was my first hint that the march of time had escaped my understanding of it. Had Outside been made in 1992, rather than 1995, it would’ve anticipated the whole industrial/gothtronica thing, rather than just jumping on a bandwagon. Fifteen years later, what difference do those three years make? Outside is now old, but so is Pretty Hate Machine, it only seems natural that they should sound alike.

I started off talking about the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. These two took the opposite track to Bowie, going gently into the good night. They played it safe, recreating their sound of yesteryear over-literally, as a result while their oeuvres of the time weren’t well received, they’re not fondly remembered today either. Dylan redeemed himself late in the decade with 1997’s Time Out Of Mind, and The Stones waited till 2005 to do the same with their last release A Bigger Bang, but it was too little, too late.

The moral of the story is that music is a young person’s game. Old rock stars are not cool (cool may not be what matters to you, but that’s a discussion for another time). But sometimes, if they’re very lucky, they can get to be cool again after years of cocaine abuse has forced them to stop touring because of a bad heart and a deviated septum. It’s a bit like that episode of South Park where Abraham Lincoln visited Kyle in a dream and taught him how ugly people grow up to be better people, because they have to work for everything that they have, and Kyle says “You mean I have to wait to grow up to be happy, that sucks”.

I like to think of Outside as the album they’ll play at 90s theme parties in the year 2020. Because it was the result of band-wagon jumping, it sounds like a caricature of the 90s, rather than being characteristic of the time, but Voodoo Lounge, and Empire Burlesque sound like nothing. Call me cynical, but I doubt Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan have another decade in them (Bowie might, if he takes it easy, and drinks plenty of orange juice). While it’s true that dying almost always rehabilitates an artists’ coolness, if waiting till you’re old to be happy sucks, waiting till you’re dead would be much worse.

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You’ve seen the sign at Huntly, you remember the awesome lolly bins and you may have even been a recipient of some choice Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles clothing your mum got you from there for your birthday.You love it, I love it, and 22,739 people on Facebook love it too. DEKA. Mean. And in the spirit of the debate 90s issue, I’m going to try to add as many random 90s sayings and quotes as I can throughout, just coz I can.

Browsing through the posts on the “Back in my day, we shopped at a place called DEKA” Facebook fan site, I can’t help but feel nostalgic. Though I remember the place as being a little skody actually, especially the Queen St store, I still have warm feelings for those lolly bins. I thought about it, and I couldn’t really remember why it had closed. How could this much loved retailer of the 90s have disappeared, leaving in its wake that monstrous sign in Huntly, and nothing else? I did some investigating, just like Inspector Gadget used to do.

DEKA was started in 1988 by LD Nathan who owned Woolworths at the time too. In 1987, the stock market crash had put NZ (and the rest of the world) into a recession (hmmm… recession, that word seems to be going around a lot now too). It was created for the company to survive the recession and sold branded products at low prices. They started off with 90 stores.

Then lots of selling and buying started. First DEKA bought Farmers and then DEKA and Farmers were sold to an Australian company – Foodlands. So we can blame the Australians. “How RUDE!” (Stephanie Tanner in Full House).

Nah, just kidding. Kind of.

What really happened was The Warehouse. In 1997, they opened their first really big store (75, 000 square feet) and grew. They opened a 100, 000 square feet store in 2000 and their sales were more than $1 billion that year too. Whoa.

So The Warehouse killed DEKA. “Omg, they killed Kenny” (Stan from South Park). Well, almost, but not quite (just like on South Park). You see not only that, apparently, the excuses made from the owners were that DEKA was making a loss because it wasn’t different enough. I don’t know how, but they were losing over $6 million a year by 2001. Part of it could be the shoddy stores they had at the time. They hadn’t spent any money prettying them up for ages and the owners said as much actually. Maybe they should have learnt a lesson from Will Smith in Men in Black when he said “You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good”. So when it was time to fix them up, they decided instead to close them down and convert them into Farmers stores. So there you go, the demise of DEKA was first because Australians bought it, then because The Warehouse tried to kill them, and finally because Farmers ate them for breakfast. Mystery solved…and in the immortal words of Forrest Gump “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get”.

Westfield Albany Sylvia Park 63 Ponsonby Road 22 Morrow St Newmarket Online shopping: www.redcurrentathome.co.nz I saw a guy walking up Queen St recently with a Winnie the Pooh beanie on, it was so life like that it was as if Winnie the Pooh was eating his head…no jokes. That has absolutely nothing to do with my review this week but I just thought I’d share. If I ever find out what retailer sells those hats, I’ll let you know, because I’m sure they have a load of other Disney characters you can buy, and you can have whichever one you want to eat your head.

Anywho, I went to Redcurrent this week. There were no Disney characters in sight, though the store is colour coded so it makes me just as happy as when I watch a Disney film. I like blue…I go to the blue section. The nice thing about this store is that it has products at a range of price points. As it’s still freezing outside, I look at the gloves first and they are only $14, in just about any colour you can think of. I then turn to these weird looking pillows that are covered in feathers…yes covered in – not full of – they are around $200. I think I would rather get out the glue gun and stick some feathers on my existing cushions at home than pay that much, though my mum might not be happy with me if

I did that.

This is the store for gifts though and especially self gifts. They have those little metal things that you clip on the side of a table to hang your handbag there so it doesn’t sit on the grimy floor. They have loads of handbags by Sabine, and one day I’m going to get a really well paying job and will actually be able to afford one, I should have asked if they do HPs on them. They have gorgeous blankets and slippers and dressing gowns too, pashminas, wallets, mirrors, jewellery, furniture and kids gears. It takes me ages to get around the store because there is just so much to look at. It is a really girly store I have to say, so sorry about that guys. They also have a range of travel related stuff, again all colour coded (actually, these would be a great gift for guys). They have leather passport holders, baggage tags and travel wallets; I’m slowly building my collection of these. I love these stores; although some things in them are ridiculously expensive, they are gems for wasting time in, impulse purchases when you are feeling low, and presents for people you have no idea for.

This review was written by a graduate in Retailing. If you are interested in retail and why people buy, take a look at papers in the Retail major in the Business School. You don’t have to be a business student to take the papers, so check out the website today!

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by Vinny Francesco

by Selena La Fleur Language about language

New messages: 2 New smiles: 4

How do you introduce an article about language itself? I toiled with a textbook introduction i.e. etymology, definitions, sociology etc. However that seemed a bit bland and tasteless; it lacked flavour. After thinking about how I should greet you, the reader, I decided it would be fitting to start with “greetings”.

Salute, wave, handshake, hug, kiss, mooning, “the finger”, “hello”, “howdy”, “g’day”, “what’s up”, “ahoy”/”avast!” (if you’re a pirate), “what’s crackin”, “hey”, “freeze!” (if you’re a cop), “good morning/ good day/good afternoon/ good evening”, “how are you?”, “hey, what are you up to?”. These are all greetings, and mostly relative only to the English language.

Greeting or “greet” traces its most recent lineage to “gretan” meaning contact (i.e. attack or welcome). Beginning with the Germanic “grotja” (to resound), later changing into the Germanic “grætanan”, which became the Old English “graetan”. “Graetan” means cry, however “greeting” in modern English is a type of address.

Interestingly enough in some Scottish dialect greet still means cry or wail. Also apparently regret (i.e. wailing) is derived from the word greet. These days greet basically means initial meeting.

Of course greeting is more than just words, another aspect is body language. For instance look at the handshake. Typically a handshake is done by/between males, but it is also standard practice in much of business and “professional” environments. A hug is typically done between/with females. Then a kiss is generally reserved for loved ones. Different levels of intimacy for different roles.

Sometimes with greetings there is a time and a place when it is or is not appropriate. For example, some Australians might prefer the colloquial “how the fuck are ya?” to the regular “how are you?”

Of course there would be a number of scenarios and roles where this might not be socially acceptable, for instance a restaurant maître de, a shop greeter, a telemarketer. A Nazi salute may be frowned upon in a synagogue, formal occasions of the elite, and so on and so forth.

Some say first impressions are important, if this is true, then surely greetings are very important. For example, you might be a bit of a joker and rub your index finger along the palm of the person you are shaking hands with. That may be all good with your drinking buddies, but your date might not be as appreciative. A firm handshake is often seen as a sign of prestige. Subtleties such as this (body language) are very important in competitive scenarios (think: business deal, game of poker).

Perhaps the most fascinating is who we do and don’t greet.

Generally only those within one’s social network are greeted.

Of course, there are occasions when greeting outside of social network occurs i.e. becoming acquaintances. For instance, during the first week of school your class members will be strangers, and perhaps gradually over time you will be greeting some of them quite frequently.

What is the purpose of greeting? Are greetings really necessary?

Why not just launch into your agenda? Partly it affirms individuality i.e. greeting a group of people individually. Physical greetings introduce the sense of touch, which can help to build rapport with others. Mainly though, it affirms other people as being part of your social network.

Joining an online dating website during study break probably wasn’t the smartest idea I’ve had. Everyone was procrastinating with Facebook during this time; imagine having that AND two other social websites to check up on. I was starting to book the computer labs so I could check if I had received any new smiles instead of learning important theory in the library. Within 24 hours I had already received two messages and four smiles. The beauty of dating websites is the computer does all the matching up for you, based on how you answered the questions when you initially signed up. So basically, not only are you hanging out in your pyjamas in the privacy of your own home sifting through profiles, but a machine is picking and choosing who you have most things in common with.

My understanding of new age dating was expanding rapidly.

However, with the excitement of being matched up with someone so quickly came the disappointment when you clicked on their profile and a) They didn’t have a photo (Cardinal rule for an online profile, YOU MUST HAVE A PHOTO otherwise there is no point is there?) or b) They have a photo, but as it turns out, he is the same age as your dad, separated with kids and looking for bit of fun. So, I took matters into my own hands and decided to do a refined search for single males in the Auckland area aged 18-25. Some good-looking specimens showed up so I sent them a smile and a quick hello. I received a message back almost instantly with the question “what on earth is a good looking girl like you doing on here?” and “surely, you have no problem meeting guys?” Understandably, many of us would think people who use online dating websites lack confidence, can’t score a real date or are just butt ugly. In hindsight, this is probably true for a percentage of people on these sites, however there are people online who are just too busy to go out and meet new people from different social circles. For me, it wasn’t the fact I was desperate to find a boyfriend or to go on a date. It was merely a case of trying something new (that is not completely acceptable) and to find a person I could connect with online and in real life. We’ve all heard of those success stories in the US of how people find true love online, well I want to dip my fingers in the online dating pie, dammit.

I clicked on the instant message and scrolled through this guy’s profile, and low and behold he had more than one photo, which was a good start. His profile didn’t really jump out at me and the username choice of ‘oddkevin10’ let him down a bit. Odd Kevin was the same age as me and from the Shore. He seemed chatty over the site so we decided to exchange e-mail addresses, and then the deal breaker came when he asked for my number and if we wanted to meet. Shit, what am I getting myself into? With exams drawing to an end, we set up a time and place to go on our first date. If only my mum knew I was meeting strangers on the internet, she would have a fit!

issue 16 JuLY 2010

25

Dear Agony Aunt, I recently started having sex with my boyfriend. We are using condoms as I am not sure that I want to go on the pill. The problem is he is too embarrassed buying condoms and leaves it up to me. I don’t want to buy them either, they are really expensive. Where can we go for cheap condoms without having to ask for them?

From Too Shy

Dear Agony Aunt, I have been told by my doctor that my iron stores are low and I need to eat foods that are rich in iron. Can you help me with this? I am a vegetarian so meat is out of the question.

From Veggie

Dear Too Shy, You can get free condoms from Health Counselling and Wellbeing. They are discretely placed on a table by the door so you can grab a handful on your way out or there is basketful in the toilet that you can help yourself to. If you can get over your shyness and speak to the nurse she can give you a prescription for up to 144 condoms for $3. Cheap enough! You can also get a $3 prescription from any Family Planning Centre.

Dear Veggie Often young women need extra iron because of blood loss during their periods or because they are not eating enough iron rich foods in their diet over a long period of time. The best source of iron is found in red meat, liver, oysters, sardines, mussels and other meat sources. These meat sourced foods provide the body with haem iron that is easily absorbed in the body. As you don’t eat meat you need to find iron from vegetable sourced foods. Vegetable sourced foods provide the body with non haem iron that is not as easily absorbed. The good news is you can actually improve the absorption of non haem iron by including food in your meals that enhances non heam iron absorption and avoiding foods that inhibit or interfere with iron absorption.

Tips to improve iron levels in vegetarians Eat foods with an excellent source of iron - pumpkin seeds, breakfast cereals, cooked beans and lentils, canned beans, baked potatoes with skins, enriched pasta, and canned asparagus.

Include foods such as citrus fruits, orange juice, capsicum, broccoli, brussel sprouts, tomatoes, tomato juice and white wine with meals as these enhance iron absorption.

Avoid drinking red wine, coffee and tea with meals, these inhibit iron adsorption.

Eat spinach, rhubarb, whole grains, and bran and soy products with iron absorption enhancers for example cereal with fresh kiwifruit and/ or orange juice, tofu with lightly cooked vegetables and orange juice.

For more information contact:

www.dietitians.org.nz www.healthyfood.co.nz

by Samantha McQueen

failblog.org This website is really an excuse to forget your age and laugh at really immature stuff. It’s set out like a blog, where every entry is a photo of a scan of something that can be looked at as a massive fuck up. For example, when I jumped on last Thursday, there was a newspaper scan; on one side there was an advertisement for kitchen knives, and right next to it was an article about a woman who stabbed herself. It’s terrible irony, but even so you can’t help but smile at this misfortunate placement. Signs and media fails seem to be the biggest entries on the site, but there are also the classic assing over fails, and the creepy family photo fails. The one that gave me the biggest chuckle was a photo of a limo parked outside a 99 cents store. It’s the little things.

26

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

words by

Tenani French

ILLustrations

Samantha M

by

You will have some Inception inspired nightmares this week. Gutted.

cSkimming

Watch it!

Reel Late with Kate

Finally we have our very own weekly movie show to enjoy! TV3’s resident movie buff Kate Roger fronts the show that bears her name to discuss all things film from the past seven days. Featuring movie news, interviews and reviews you’ll be left itching to head to the cinemas after this fun and fresh new show. A great effort by TV3, I’m eagerly looking forward to the rest of the series.

Reel Late with Kate airs Sundays, 10.25pm on TV3.

Hate it

Changes to employment law

Sure, we shouldn’t pull sickies all the time but I’d like to preserve my right to a “mental health day”. Even genuine illness-related absences are being put at risk by these changes. The government’s proposal to require employees who take even one day of sick leave to provide a medical certificate will be a huge hassle. If you wake up one day and find yourself sick you’ll have to quickly arrange to see a doctor and obtain a medical certificate, putting your health further at risk by venturing outside (isn’t that the reason we don’t go to work when we’re sick in the first place?) as well as absorb the cost of seeing a doctor. You might decide it is less hassle to just go to work sick (putting your own and others’ health at risk). Stupid rule. Next.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Uni is hotting up, literally. Start planning your summer outfits now to avoid confusion in a few months.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21) People will like you more if you give them stickers.

Sounds crazy, but what have you got to lose?

CANCER (June 22-July 22) Keep this copy of debate in your bag until at least Thursday. Toilet paper is at a minimum around campus.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Your stars have aligned perfectly with the sun to tell us that you will probably encounter a challenge this week. Also, you may eat something at some stage.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Overcome by it!

iPad hype

As I walked up Queen St this morning from Britomart to AUT Tower I found myself confronted with an interesting sight. About five shops were plastered in white posters proudly declaring that the “iPad is here”. These shops were overflowing with customer activity and a steady stream of people were walking out with heavy iPad-sized bags and lighter wallets. I get it, it’s a cool device, and although tablets have been around for ages Apple has created something that works well and is relatively affordable, but seriously? Why all the hype? Sure there is the likelihood that we will run out of iPads for a while but we’ve lasted the past few thousand years without them. Hell even a year ago most of us didn’t know what a tablet computer was, and when we found out we had no idea what we’d use one for (I still don’t).

Chill out, play Pac Man on your iPhone and wait for the crowds to dissipate, iPad’s not going anywhere.

Scared of it!

Crowds at music festivals

Sad news this week: Nineteen people were crushed to death and a further 342 injured in a crowd surge at the Love Festival in Germany. Apparently the partygoers were walking through a tunnel that served as the only entrance to the festival venue when police decided, due to overcrowding, that they would not let anyone else in. Confusion set in and the thousands of people who were already in the tunnel ended up pushing to get out as crowds continued to stream in. Eventually people started falling and being walked on. Bodies were reported to have been strewn across the ground. I’ve had a scarily close call with an out of control crowd in a confined space at Rhythm and Vines in 08 which was conveniently covered up by the organisers. Let’s just say stressed out (probably high) concert goers don’t like to be in a small space with thousands of other people in a similar state. Crowds man, they freak me out.

If there’s something you think the student masses of AUT need to know about, send us an email to debate@aut.ac.nz with Suggestions in the subject line.

issue 16 JuLY 2010

You’ll get a lot smarter if you start reading books. And trust the universe, you need to get smarter…

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) It’s the week of the nashi pear! If you can find and eat a nashi pear before Friday, you will turn into a Pokemon.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) Always copy-paste. Never cut-paste. It’s a dangerous world.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) You are quite awesome this week, capitalise! Build a sandcastle or write a new song for Ne-Yo.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Calling people up and heavy breathing is not flirting, just ask the police. Speaking of police, don’t iPad and drive.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) You need to be more arty, more creative. Carry around a whiteboard and draw shit. Don’t wear a beret.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Green is the colour of the week. Be careful though, if you dye your hair green you might get beaten up.

Just a thought.

27

Looking

fly

in the 90s

H

aving been born in 1986, my actual experience with 90s fashion has been pretty slim. Basically from my personal experience, 90s fashion can be divided into two parts: wanting to wear leggings and scrunchies so I could look like my best friend, and wanting to wear platforms and mini dresses so I could look like a Spice Girl. However, here is my attempt to rediscover the joys of 90s fashion that I, being a little kid, only caught the tail end of.

We all know the 80s quite well; the fluro, the shoulder pads, the big permed hair, the leg warmers. Fashion in the 90s was largely a reaction against the outrageousness and flamboyancy that was the 80s. One of the most memorable fashion fads from the 90s was grunge.

It hit the fashion scene in 1991 as a result of the rise of the ‘Seattle Sound’ aka grunge music. Bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains were the forerunners of a look that lasted the majority of the 90s and finally put the lid on the 80s exuberance. Bright colours were replaced with plaids, flannels and sludgy browns. The silhouette was baggier, sloppier and a lot looser fitting. Hair was shaggy, long, straight or dreaded. Clothing was haphazardly layered. Denim was ripped, frayed and dirty. The overall look was androgynous, unwashed, with the ‘appearance’ of not caring how you looked. One particular grunge trend had men wearing flowery cotton dresses. Women could wear them too but only if coupled with Doc Martins or combat boots and long dreaded hair.

Marc Jacobs was one designer who helped bring grunge into high end fashion and therefore, the mainstream. He was appointed creative director for label Perry Ellis in 1988 following a lot of fashion industry buzz. In 1992 he presented a landmark collection for Perry Ellis that people still discuss today. Grunge was still considered an underground fashion movement, but Jacobs was the first to put it on the catwalk. He sent his models down the runway in flannel (made out of cashmere of course), baggy, oversized, ripped, torn clothes and Doc Martins while the rest of the fashion industry was still focused on tailoring and extreme glamour. The media loved it, but the powers that be at Perry Ellis could not envision their customer paying $1000 for a ripped cardigan, therefore Marc Jacobs was fired shortly after. However commercially unsuccessful, the collection did have a resounding effect. In a

28

classic example of an underground fashion trend ‘ballooning up’ into the high end and mainstream, grunge was here to stay for the rest of the 90s at least.

At the other end of the spectrum, the other force dominating the 90s fashion scene was the ‘Supers’. That is the fantastic four; Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford. These women were followed by Claudia Schiffer, Helena Christiansen, and even Kate Moss. They took modelling to new heights, never before could anyone in the modelling profession command such exorbitant fees. Linda Evangelista even once claimed that she “won’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day”.

And how did the supermodels influence fashion? In 1991, Gianni Versace sent Linda, Naomi, Christy and Cindy down the catwalk altogether. He understood that with their celebrity power and sensuality could sell just about any clothing they were made to wear. And that they did. Many designers who worked in the 90s, such as Alaia, Versace, Calvin Klein, and Valentino, largely owe their success to the influence and power of the supermodels in the 90s.

During the seconds half of the 90s, even I, as a little kid, started to catch on to the fashion trends. One trend I personally embraced was those little sparkly butterfly clips. Girls would buy as many of them as possible and cover every square inch of their heads until they looked like giant… um… well I’m sure you can imagine. When the Spice Girls made it big I wore platforms, cargo pants and mini backpacks just like everyone else. The TV show Friends sparked one of the biggest hair trends for the 90s. Every girl went to their hairdresser and requested the ‘Rachel’, inspired by Jennifer Aniston’s character. For men, the grungy long hair style was still around, but now it took on a floppy Dawson’s Creek feel. At the same time, the boy band phenomenon, with bands such as the Backstreet Boys and 5ive were also a huge influence in fashion. Guys would spike up their hair with gel just like the band, and puffa jackets, quite often in metallic silver, were seen on both girls and guys.

As much as I can appreciate and admire 90s fashion, it freaks me out a bit when I see people still rocking the 90s trends today. For instance a woman wearing plastic butterfly clips came into my store the other day and she was complaining to me about how hard it was to find a decent white shirt. I’m sorry but I just cannot take you seriously when you have lots of little plastic butterfly clips in your hair. Yes, the 90s was a great time for fashion. Some trends I would be happy to see return, some already have, and some I have mentally destroyed all memory of. But now that we have all miraculously survived Y2K we can appreciate the 90s for the ‘slammin’ decade it was.

Fa Niamthanom

Juliette

Elle Pugh

Diploma of Fashion (2nd Year)

Bachelor of Photographic Design (2nd Year)

Bachelor of Communication Studies (2nd Year)

Jacket: Karen Walker Dress: Karen Walker Boots: Country Road Bag: Marc Jacobs

Faux leopard coat: From London Boots: Costume National Bag: Marc Jacobs Top: Dotti

Batwing top: Supre Faux fur coat: vintage Skirt: Asos

issue 16 JuLY 2010

29

Inception Directed by Christopher Nolan Film Review by Jared

Reviewing Inception is a task for the unluckiest of

writers. In fact, reviewing any film that entails such massive amounts of hype and controversy is no enviable assignment. Those two elements combined with the complete adoration of 90 per cent of the population make for a difficult stage upon which to cast one’s opinions. It’s a bit like going to church and trying to have a genuine conversation about whether God exists. On that note, reviews aren’t conversations, they’re what I think. And I think that Inception is, for the most part, amazing.

It’s important to be tentative with the word masterpiece. Once you’ve said it you can’t really take it back and masterpiece is, essentially, the highest praise you can give a piece of art. What I will say is that maybe in 50 or 60 years when Christopher Nolan is no longer with us, we will look back at 2010 and say, for sure, that Inception was a masterpiece. Probably not though.

I googled the phrase “my review of Inception” and got 35,000 exact matches, which is rather indicative of the way Inception was marketed. From the first time we saw the promotional trailer build to its dramatic crescendo (around six months ago) the online community has been going nuts with wild theories about Chris Nolan’s first film since The Dark Knight.

To put Inception in a genre box is hard, and would probably be to its detriment. Like Nolan’s Batman films, Inception is dark and gritty and serious, but with a very real human element. It’s an action film wrapped in humanity, at times only barely visible through a thick layer of mind-fuck and, just for good measure, continuous existential curiosity. Strangely enough, I don’t think that’s why it’s so interesting.

Humans love dreams – not because they’re weird or funny but because they’re mysterious. Inception takes that mystery, that unknown element, and not only makes it tangible but implements it as the background of a two and a half hour film. The amazing, gravity defying fight scenes and the city-bending CGI all take place inside dreams, a concept which continues to intrigue as Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb chases his last chance to see his kids. Banned from U.S. for supposedly killing his wife, Cobb and his colleague Arthur (Joseph GordonLevitt) form a team designed to infiltrate the subconscious of an energy tycoon’s son (Cillian Murphy) and convince him to break up his father’s empire, ensuring the success of Saito (Ken Watanabe) and his business.

That’s about as simple as I can manage as far as a plot description goes and, even as I read it, it feels as though I’ve just described the Matrix by saying “It’s about computers and stuff”. At one stage the film takes us into the fourth level of the subconscious – that is to say a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream. I don’t know whether I’m more amazed that I understand that, or that someone actually thought of it in the first place.

The ending is designed to provoke thought and in that respect, it has been successful. Inceptiontheories.com now has a huge number of submissions regarding the plot, the ending and the idea of dream infiltration as a whole.

Just watch it.

30

The Runaways Music from the Motion Picture CD Review by Mike Atkins

You and I do not have the same taste in music,

probably. For that reason, songs that don’t seem all that obscure to me might be obscure to you. If you’ve never heard I Wanna Be Your Dog, by Iggy & the Stooges, then those weird sleigh bell noises, and guitar that sounds like it’s being bowed with a pool noodle might be the wildest thing you’ve ever heard. But it’s old news to me. I’m not bragging, I’m making an excuse for why I’m most interested in the portion of this album which is covers by Kristen Stewart, and the wee moppet from Charlotte’s Web. The thought of someone walking out of a cinema going “but got damn dose actors sung purdy. I wanna buy a CD of them singing as the people they were pretending to be, even though the movie doesn’t even pretend they weren’t lipsyncing” is downright perverse. But stranger things have happened, so I’ll put the ridiculousness of it out of my mind for a moment. If a Hollywood sized budget went into making Dakota Fanning sound like a singer you’ve probably never heard of, anyway, what’s the difference to you between that and the real thing?

True fact: if you break an antique vase, you’re not allowed to glue it back together in such a way that you can’t see the cracks, because that would mean you were trying to pretend it was never broken. I suspect it is for similar reasons that Stewart and Fanning’s tracks are in between real Runaways’ tracks. It’s not as if you can’t tell the difference, if you cared enough to look for the differences. The real Cherie Currie had a deeper, throatier voice than Dakota Fanning does, and the Stewart/Fanning tracks were clearly recorded on more advanced equipment.

But if you just relaxed, that would all fly right over your head.

That’s because while Dakota Fanning hasn’t got Cherie Currie’s voice down pat, she’s got the essence of it, and she’s put everything into capturing that essence, and then some. She was a smart casting decision: Cherie Currie was Fanning’s age when the band was formed, and only someone that young could straight-face the line “with a pinch of rock, and a dose of roll...”. It’s quite amazing, how faithfully dangerous, her version of Cherry Bomb is. Kristen Stewart is less good at doing Joan Jett’s charming Billy-Idol,-but-a-girl thing, but that’s only because she’s not relaxed about not actually being able to sing; it was punk for god’s sake.

It’s actually a few of the old originals that let the CD down. Sweeney Todd was a one-hit-wonder in the 70s, whose one hit was forgotten; while it’s fun, it doesn’t really deserve to be dug up. And the MC5’s version of James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s World has nothing on the original. The rest of those songs were well chosen, and awesome, but predictable. I’m pretty sure there’s a law that stipulates I Wanna Be Your Dog and David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel have to be on every movie soundtrack, but hearing them is never a bad thing. It’s just a shame that whoever put this soundtrack together couldn’t have been more lateral in these decisions, to match the fact this is probably the first airing the real Runaways’ songs have had in decades.

Assassins Directed by Oliver Driver

Theatre Review by Katie Montgomerie

Assassins is a musical based on the story of a

combination of would-be assassins and the few that accomplished their dream of killing their respective president. These nine individuals then meet together in a carnival that is beyond time as assassins from the past and future meet to “Shoot a President” in a carnival game and relive their own experiences as successful and unsuccessful assassins.

This production by Silo theatre is directed by Oliver Driver and features some standout performances. Gareth Williams who plays the Balladeer and Lee Harvey Oswald was fantastic in the role as the Balladeer. His blond hair, blue eyes and twinkling smile making him seem like a true embodiment of “the American dream”, which he tries to promote throughout his songs (which are numerous and all sung extremely well). However, in the last act he changes from the almost sickening wholesomeness of the Balladeer into a very convincing and disturbed Lee Harvey Oswald, a shift I believe really demonstrates his versatility.

Australian Mitchell Butel was definitely believable in his role of John Wilkes Booth but what was truly amazing about this actor was his voice. Whether speaking or singing Butel was wonderful to listen to and right on the mark with his southern accent and his challenging musical numbers.

Although the rest of the cast were well chosen and performed admirably, I believe another that deserves mention is Cameron Rhodes, who was fantastic as a deranged Samuel Byck. Rhodes was typically outstanding in this role and maintained his hold on the audience’s attention throughout his long monologues and musical numbers. The great thing about Rhode’s is that although he seemed to be playing to the audience and deliberately being comedic to get some laughs, he made this work with his character and really pulled off the “crazy Santa Claus” without going overboard.

I could go on for pages about the accomplishments of individuals in the cast as they were all fantastic (and especially the band!) but I can’t mention everyone.

Although the show was wonderful, one criticism I have to make is on the pacing of the show. At times the pace of the show became so fast and erratic it became challenging to follow what was happening in the story. Oliver Driver may have chosen to do this to heighten the carnivalesque atmosphere present throughout the show by injecting a sense of chaos. However, from an audience member’s point of view, I found this to be too much at times and felt that if the pace was slowed down in some areas just a tad, the clever one-liners would have had more impact.

Overall this is another successful production by Silo theatre and I would recommend it to anyone with a penchant for black humour and Stephen Sondheim’s impressive musical scores. Go with a large group as the cabaret seating makes it possible to seat five at a table and you even get table service!

Student tickets are available as always at $25 however this does not include cabaret seating so if you want to sit at a table you’ll have to fork out the $55 but you do get the best seats. Book in advance though as this musical is proving to be extremely popular!

issue 16 JuLY 2010

The Room (2003) Written and directed by Tommy Wiseau Film Festival Review by Lynda Brendish

Let’s be completely honest, The Room is an awful

– truly terrible – film without a shred of story or acting ability evident in the entire 99 minutes of its running time. So it’s a good job no one actually goes to see it for the plot. The film is so unintentionally bad it spawned a cult following.

As far as any sort of loose ‘storyline’ is concerned, basically you have Tommy (Wiseau) completely oblivious to the fact that his fiancée Lisa (Daniel) is having an affair with his best friend Mark (Sestero). That’s pretty much it, except for some subplot involving a neighbouring kid, Denny, and a drug dealer but that’s never really explained. Also, some randoms turn up and start having sex in Tommy’s living room, but that’s never explained either. Oh, and Lisa’s mother has cancer.

Trust me, none of these are spoilers.

But, as stated, no one goes to see it because they think it’s good. Thanks to its notoriety, screenings of The Room have evolved into full-fledged audience participation rituals. If you’ve ever been to a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or maybe a Buffy Once More With Feeling sing-a-long, you’ll have some idea of the carnival atmosphere involved.

Essential preparation for any first-time viewing of The Room is reading The Onion AV Club’s viewer’s guide (www.avclub.com/articles/a-viewers-guideto-the-room), so you’ll understand some of the common traditions at the screenings. Like fans yelling along with their favourite lines (“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” featured on the trailer, gets the biggest reaction). Or when, at Denny’s every entrance, the audience screams “Oh hi, Denny” in a deadpan voice mocking Wiseau’s robotic delivery, or many of Lisa’s whining lines are responded to with “because you’re a woman!” in reference to the casual sexism of the film.

And then there are the plastic spoons, piles and piles of them thrown at the screen every time random spoon artwork is shown.

Probably the most hilarious thing about the entire movie is that it’s so obvious Wiseau meant this to be his dramatic masterpiece (although he says the humour is all intentional). But as far as drama, character development or any semblance of continuity, The Room completely fails. Characters appear and disappear without ever having been introduced; subplots do the same without explanation (see: Lisa’s mother’s cancer). To say Wiseau did the opposite of everything he would have been taught in film school (if he had gone), would actually be giving him too much credit for knowing how a movie should be put together. If it wasn’t for the audience participation aspect, there is no way anyone could sit through the entire thing.

Hollywood hopefuls often have a single-minded determination about them, and in successful cases that pig-headedness is viewed as evidence of genius. In Tommy Wiseau’s case it’s evidence of his delusion. The man fundraised $US6 million and blew it on this. The irony is, that in making something so fucking godawful, and the cult following it has inspired, he may well just have achieved his Hollywood dreams. Or at least made the money back.

31

Question 1

What is the name of the mineral that the humans sought in the movie Avatar?

Question 2

What animal rids itself of excess salt by sneezing saltwater out of its nostrils?

Question 3

What is the next letter in this sequence, seen every day: ZXCVBN?

Question 4

Who currently holds the record for the most tries scored for the All Blacks?

Question 5

What is the most attended or watched sport in the world?

Question 6

In the film Mary Poppins, Mary said she would only stay until what happened?

Question 7

Five James Bond films have titles with only one word. Three of them are Thunderball, Moonraker, Octopussy. What are the other two?

Question 8

What was the first Maori language song to hit No. 1?

Question 9

What is one of the two Maori names for the South Island?

Question 10

What is the answer to this riddle: What has no voice but cries, has no wings but flutters, has no teeth but bites?

1) Unobtanium, 2) Marine iguana (lives on Galapagos), 3) M (Bottom line of a standard keyboard), 4) Doug Howlett, 5) Soccer, 6) The wind changed, 7) Goldfinger and Goldeneye, 8) Poi E, 9) Te Wai Pounamu or Te Wako o Aoraki, 10) The wind.

32

he t t o Sp e c n e r Diffe

Correctly identify the FIVE differences in the two photos then circle the and drop your entry into your nearest AuSM office, or the box on the side of the red debate stands, or post to debate PO Box 6116 Wellesley St before 12 pm Thursday. What’s up for grabs? A $10 voucher for one of the cafes at your campus.

The Counter, Beanz Cafe, Lime Cafe or Manukau Cafe! Nom nom!

issue 16 JuLY 2010

33

Kabir Sengupta Bachelor of Graphic Design

What do you miss most about the 90s?

Being young How would a fight to the death between The Backstreet Boys, Five and N*Sync go down?

Backstreet Boys would win because they had way better music What is your favourite TV show of the 90s?

Wonderyears Where in the world was Carmen San Diego?

Who is that? Is that a place or a person?

Growing up, were you a ninja turtle, a planeteer, a power ranger or a Pokemon master?

Ninja turtle – I was Donnatello

Damien Rabaud Bachelor of Graphic Design

What do you miss most about the 90s?

Definitely Captain Planet.

Undisputed.

How would a fight to the death between The Backstreet Boys, Five and N*Sync go down?

They would start fighting and they wouldn’t get anywhere so they would have to join forces to take down Michael Jackson What is your favourite TV show of the 90s?

I would have to say Captain Planet Where in the world was Carmen San Diego?

Locked in my closet Growing up, were you a ninja turtle, a planeteer, a power ranger or a Pokemon master?

I was always the black ranger

Brittany Boyes-Hannaford

Bachelor of Communication Studies

What do you miss most about the 90s?

The arcade games How would a fight to the death between The Backstreet Boys, Five and N*Sync go down?

Hopefully they all die. But I think either some sort of fourth band would mutate and win or Five will win because they had the piercings What is your favourite TV show of the 90s?

Full House Where in the world was Carmen San Diego?

AUT Growing up, were you a ninja turtle, a planeteer, a power ranger or a Pokemon master?

Definitely a ninja turtle

Anja Love Bachelor of Communication Studies

What do you miss most about the 90s?

McDonald’s toys How would a fight to the death between The Backstreet Boys, Five and N*Sync go down?

I don’t think it would ever end because they’d just be too weak What is your favourite TV show of the 90s?

Sweet Valley High Where in the world was Carmen San Diego?

I have absolutely no idea who she is Growing up, were you a ninja turtle, a planeteer, a power ranger or a Pokemon master?

Ninja turtle

34

Catherine Selfe Bachelor of Communication Studies

What do you miss most about the 90s?

The crazes How would a fight to the death between The Backstreet Boys, Five and N*Sync go down?

It would be like a nuclear explosion What is your favourite TV show of the 90s?

Sailor Moon Where in the world was Carmen San Diego?

Belmont Maccas Growing up, were you a ninja turtle, a planeteer, a power ranger or a Pokemon master?

I’m not gonna lie, I was a power ranger

Alice Dominikovich-Murray Bachelor of Communication Studies

What do you miss most about the 90s?

My childhood How would a fight to the death between The Backstreet Boys, Five and N*Sync go down?

Five – they’re more ruthless than the other ones What is your favourite TV show of the 90s?

Pokemon or Dragonball Z Where in the world was Carmen San Diego?

Was she ever found? I’ll just say Paris Growing up, were you a ninja turtle, a planeteer, a power ranger or a Pokemon master?

Planeteer. I was the heart

issue 16 JuLY 2010

35

Review What if Darwin’s theory of natural selection is inaccurate? ≥ page 25

Global views on world events | guardianweekly.co.uk | 2-8 April 2010 Jakarta diary Indonesia rethinks its relationship with Washington → page 9 Le Monde Following a Russian trail from Baba Yaga to Peter the Great → page 37 Comment Amartya Sen explains why Thomas Hobbes was wrong → page 19 Science Our ancestral cave has suddenly become more crowded → page 32

Earth hour ... a Chinese junk on Victoria Harbour as Hong Kong’s lights were dimmed Daniel Sorabji/AFP/Getty

Trillion-dollar question: ETT N 0 future of climate talks 5 6.2 9 $ . e 4 c $ pri r e Y v L o c N al O m r o e N c i Y r A p D S S R B U U H T t n Y e R E n V a E Perm OUT Books Lessons from the man who shaped the modern newspaper → page 41

Fund would help poor adapt to warming Scepticism clouds future of negotiations John Vidal, Paul Harris and Robin McKie Observer

Some of the planet’s most powerful paymasters returned the focus to climate change this week with an aim of raising at least $1 trillion to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to an altering world.

The British prime minister, Gordon Brown, along with Ethiopian president Meles Zenawi, directors of several central banks, the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, the economist Lord Nicholas Stern and Larry

Summers, President Barack Obama’s chief economics adviser, were to meet in London to discuss the issue.

The world’s top financiers have been asked to work out how to raise $30bn a year immediately and $100bn a year from 2020.

The Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, convened by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, will consider everything from placing levies on international aviation and shipping, to enlarging carbon markets, introducing financial transaction taxes and using the International Monetary Fund’s special reserve currency. The group has until November to report back to the UN Framework convention on climate change summit meeting in Cancún, Mexico.

Success in establishing a radical developing world finance plan is seen as crucial to the success of the meeting,

where there is a chance the global climate talks could conclude. “Finance is a prerequisite for a climate agreement,” said Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . “Developing countries are very sensitive about this.

Talks will collapse without strong and secure financing in place.”

“The prices we pay for our goods do not reflect one key cost: the damage that their production does to the planet’s climate system,” said Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics. “We need to find ways to extract payment from those who cause that damage and then use that money to fund developing nations so that they can protect themselves from the worst effects of global warming.”

The finance discussions mark the effective restart of the global

≥2

Development Does Africa need more people to boost consumption? → page 45

Incorporating material from the Observer, Le Monde and the Washington Post

1 4

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