issue 13

14 July 2008

PG 15

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Do people get lazier over winter?

Don’t count on it – there’s a good scientific reason for people’s reticence to do stuff over the gloomy months, and that reason is: Hibernation. Chances are humanity’s ancestors took a winter-long kip. In fact, there’s nothing stopping you from spending three months in bed, just like a bear. Three letters: ACC. Simply feign an “injury” like RSI, or a “disease” like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – easy, these days – and you’re sorted. Socialism wins, again!

Are the politicians “living like students” this week really living like students?

Reply hazy, try again – the politicians are outside of Magic 8 Ball’s psychic reach. The Labour ones are too arrogant, and the National ones are too slippery, and the Maori party one is absolutely choking with mana.

With the advent of robot musicians, can an apocalyptic future ruled by sentient metal overlords be far away?

Cannot predict now – but if I could, it’d go like this: The humans will be dead. The humans will be dead. They’ll use poisonous gases. And poison our asses. (Actually our lungs.) BINARY SOLO. And so on.

Does David Bennett’s scooter make him any cooler?

Yes definitely – but you’d be hard pressed to get cooler when you’re already a politician who shows up to O’Week rocking a Federation shirt, sports a Vin Diesel haircut, adds students to his Facebook page, and

Last week’s entries for the Caption Competition were of such stellar quality that they roused the great beasts from the Uni Lakes, who stole to the home of the Vicechancellor, deep in the night, and from his great throbbing mind extracted terrible secrets.

Armed with this knowledge, they took the forms of Roy Crawford and University Council members, and now the University is run by them. Now it is up to you, the students of Waikato, to thwart this evil. For some reason, this involves sending in more captions. Yes, this

dodges policy questions with all the adroitness of a greased eel on ice. When National does get around to announcing policies that aren’t “moar internets” or “less govermentz0r” you can bet they’ll do it from Facebook.

Will eight consecutive listenings to the Donnie Darko soundtrack make me see demon rabbits and travel through time and narrative ambiguity?

Most likely – just make sure you bring back the lotto numbers. And don’t get smooshed by a jet engine from the future. Or something.

Does the (de)construction at the Banks mean the Student Hub will be finished sometime before 2020?

As I see it yes – and it will be so futuristic it’ll look like it’s from a 70s sci-fi movie, specifically the wobbly balsawood set which houses the evil robot omni-mind. It will also, hopefully, feature several zeppelins and robot butlers.

Will Labour bribe students again this election, this time with a Universal Student Allowance?

Reply hazy, try again – I don’t think even Labour knows this yet. It’ll go like this: If they think that a universal student allowance would get them in government for another term, then yes. Wait and see.

Send questions for the all-knowing 8 Ball to nexus@waikato.ac.nz!

caused all the trouble in the first place. Shut up. Just do it anyway.

Here’s last week’s winner: Mickey learnt the hard way that no means NO! Congratulations, Kurt Kirby! Come up to the Nexus office to receive your voucher of Burger Fuel goodness!

Mickey learnt the hard way that no means NO!

Here’s this week’s picture.

Send entries to nexus@waikato.ac.nz or txt to 021 235 8436! Include the word “caption” in the subject line. Keep entering, keep eating, thwart the malevolent forces of pure evil.

3

Karnage Kolumn!

Hölle ja! Yeow!

Heading off on a bit of a tangent in today’s kolumn, I’ve decided to expand on the theme and ideology of the karn, and delve into the depths of drinking and how we go about the gorgeous process.

What do you shout to your peers when you are getting O.T.P (on the piss)? What terminology do you use when describing the level of intoxication you are trying to achieve? These questions spark thought amongst you I hope, and maybe your thoughts will be reflective amongst the years of hard data and research I have compiled in my times as an alcohol-indulging student.

The phrase studied is the basic expression, ‘I’m gonna get so drunk tonight’, and the following variations echo this statement.

Some classics that have the theme of violence and destruction are; I’m gonna get destroyed

I’m gonna get ripped

I’m gonna get annihilated I’m gonna get smashed I’m gonna get slaughtered Some of the stock standards that relate to trade work include; I’m gonna get hammered I’m gonna get plastered Some goodies that involve a state of intoxication that could actually eventuate include;

I’m gonna get comatosed (common occurrence)

I’m gonna get legless (ouch!)

I’m gonna get shit-faced (ew!)

I’m gonna get fucked up (lets hope so) Some that reflect other living things or creatures involve; I’m gonna get maggot I’m gonna get animal Some further variations of the

I’m gonna get chopped

I’m gonna get munted

I’m gonna get sloshed I’m gonna get punished is a new one I have heard in the last week or two and for several reasons I find this phrase both appropriate and inappropriate at the same time. This would have to be one of my p.favs along with maggot but let’s be honest people, you could say anything really. So go talk some smack and come back to me with any keepers or beauties.

Hope you owned B-Semester Fiesta ladies and gents, continue your form on and look out for the Hori 440, coming to a Uni near you.

1.Ever been for a ride in an emergency services vehicle? Why? 2.Who will you vote for this year?

3.Do you think there should be a Universal Student Allowance?

4.What should they put in place of the shops that got demolished?

5.Who would win in a fight: Jesus, Satan, Mohammed, Buddha, Goku or Moses?

1.Yes. Cop car. For dressing whoreishly.

2.National 3.Yes. Free money for the win! And National will give us that!

4.A roller disco.

5.Goku. The others have religion, but Goku can burn ya face

1. Yes, a paddy wagon. Breach of liquor ban in Hamilton 2. Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party 3. Fuck yes!

4. 24 hour strip club and massage parlour. Lol. 5. Satan. He’s the patron saint of kicking ass

1.No 2.Barak Obama 3.No, but Uni should be free 4.Hooters 5.Jesus, he kicks arse for the lord…I mean himself.

1.Yes, an ambulance 2.Vote tactically – Maori Party 3.Yes 4.Torture chamber and whipping station, no wait, we already have a library.

5.Buddha – He’s a big fat man and besides, no one escapes the Buddhafinger!

1.Ambulance – Emergency sex change 2.McGillicuddy Serious Party: The Return of the Scotsmen 3.Yes 4.Comic Book Store and Spacie Parlour.

5.Satan…all hail Satan… (incoherent quacking)

Burton C Bogan – Community Psychology

FEATURES Editor: Joshua Drummond (nexus@waikato.ac.nz) Design: Talia Kingi (graphics@nexus-npl.co.nz) Advertising: Tony Arkell (admanager@nexus-npl.co.nz/021 176 6180) Assistant to the Editor: Andrew Neal (news@nexus-npl.co.nz) Music Ed: Carl Watkins (toezee@gmail.com) Books Ed: Kelly Badman Film Ed: Art Focker

15 Emergency!

News Guy Andrew Neal ditches one silly hat for a bunch of other silly hats and goes cruisin’ with the Hamilton Emergency Services

NEWS

8 Ball, AJ, Emma, Vitamin C, WSU, Kirril, Carl Watkins, Chris

8 – 13 BSEMESTERFIESTA or whatever, Politicians live like students, SGM, Campus improvements, Eat art for lunch (not that Art, the other kind) The Man cracks down on NORML students at Otago, Robot band

Parnell, Burton C. Bogan, Nick Sicklemore, Dawn Tuffery, Louise

plots world domination, Vault, Police Report, and the Nexus Haiku News

Contributors

Blackstock, Kelly Badman, Jed Laundry, Dr Richard Swainson, Josh, Andrew, Talia, Matt, Grant Burns, Mammoth, HCAC, Flash Medallion, Kirril, Art Focker, Andy Fyers, vitaminC, Dave Snell, Craig Height, my Smash Bros crew (you know who you are and I will kick your asses)

Nexus is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) Because it means we get to name-drop.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS PUBLICATION ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE VIEWS OF NEXUS PUBLICATIONS 2003 LTD, ANY OF OUR ADVERTISERS, THE WSU, APN, THE EDITOR, OR ANYONE. IF WE GET A UNIVERSAL STUDENT ALLOWANCE I WILL END UP OWING QUITE A LOT OF PEOPLE MONEY. STUPID GAMBLING INSTINCT

WANT TO ADVERSTISE WITH NEXUS? EMAIL nexus@waikato.ac.nz OR admanager@nexus-npl.co.nz OR call 07 838 4653 OR 021 176 6180

NEXUS IS LOCATED AT Ground Floor, Student Union Building, Gate One, University of Waikato, Knighton Road, Hamilton

PHONE: 07 838 4653 FAX: 07 838 4588 EMAIL: nexus@waikato.ac.nz POSTAL: Private Bag 3059, Hamilton

REGULARS AND RANDOMS 03 Caption Competition 03 Magic 8 Ball 04 Karnage Kolumn 05 Bogan Low Five 06 < 07 Editorial 14 The Big Picture 22-25 WSU 26 Lettuce 28 Flash Medallion’s Puzzle Page of Fighting FIre with FIremen 29 Notices 30 Procrastinatio di procrastinatio 30 Lectern 31 Sports Thoughts 31 Agony Art 32 Boganology 101 32 The Nerdary 33 The Phat Controller 33 A River Runs Through It 34 Book Review 34 Comix Review 35 Moving Pictures 35 Movie Review 36 DVD’s Review 37 Citric 38 Gigs 38 Garfield Minus Garfield 39 BUSTED

Let the bribes begin!

By Joshua Drummond The WSU opted to go the “transparent bribe” route to getting students to come to the Special General Meeting of Wednesday, 6th July, offering free beer and pizza. Not that I’ve got the slightest problem with that. I ate adequately of the pizza and managed to acquire several extra beers more than the proffered “one,” using the clever subterfuge of hiding

Bennett’s speech was much better received, not hard, given the competition, and he was the gleaming image of the populist National party John Key – help from insidious image-marketing firms notwithstanding – has constructed. He cracked a joke about riding scooters around – he’s purchased one for the challenge – and,

half-drunk cans under my seat – a technique that I suspect many other students used.

That was half an hour ago and now I’m trying to dilute the effects of day-drinking on a (nearly) empty stomach by writing my obligatory editorial. I keep hitting the wrong keys, but I’ve got the strong memory of Student Politics In Action to keep me going.

excellently, has gotten himself a job bagging groceries for the challenge (and if you want to have the unlikely experience of having your groceries bagged by a backbencher, go to Vege King on Heaphy Terrace). This news was greeted with cheers. It was like a snapshot of the national zeitgeist. It would seem all National has to do to win the election is sit pretty and not say anything stupid. Disgust with Labour was palpable.

The SGM part of the SGM was a formality, a change in the wording of an obscure part of the WSU constitution which had to do with transferring leftover assets in the event of the union being dissolved.

The discussion of the motion was entertainingly offset by an impromptu dart-throwing competition that had been set up near the back of the lecture theatre. Once the meeting had met quorum– cheers, beer and pizza – and voted in favour of the constitutional amendment, the real meat arrived. In the form of Dominoes “Meatlovers” Pizza, Speights Gold and Waikato Draught, which was (stupidly) handed out before the meeting’s main announcement; the Live Like A Student Challenge.

Which is bizarre, considering that four short years ago Labour offered the then-unprecedented step of wiping interest on student loans for students who remain in the country, which, very likely, won them the election. The student, (and ex-student with loans) vote is an immense bloc – there are around 500, 000 in the country, an eighth of the population – and when they vote as one, it changes things. Then there’s the fact that students will very likely be worse off under the nearinevitable spectre of a National government. A thin promise of a loan amnesty for medical students and promised tax relief is of no help to the average student.

The sound of chewing nearly drowned out WSU President Moira Neho’s announcement, perhaps the most momentous of her student politics career, of the fact that three MPs – National’s David Bennett and Labour’s Sue Moroney and Nanaia Mahuta – and one would-be MP, the Maori Party’s Angeline Greensill, have signed up to “Live Like A Student” for a week.

But. Politicians who, whichever way the election goes, will likely form part of the next government, are Living Like Students for a week, kudos to the WSU. It’s a possibility that this experience, and the closer relationship it should bring to the voting students of Waikato University and New Zealand, could influence government policy. Perhaps it’ll inspire some decent policy for students, rather than the electioneering and cynical offerings of late. Maybe students will finally be treated as more important than the unemployed. Maybe we’ll see an innovative solution like marks/merit based allowance funding. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a whiff of the long hoped-for Universal Student Allowance in the air. I’m on the record as saying it’ll never happen, but you should never underestimate a government on the ropes. The way Labour’s going now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they used a universal allowance as a bribe.

Could this win them the election? Maybe.

The MPs were given the opportunity to speak about this, and Moroney, whose name, it tipsily occurs to me, contains the word “moron,” decided to skite about the fact that Labour raised the “student allowance” (her words – it was actually the weekly living costs loan) by a whopping five dollars. She may as well have thrown live, venomous snakes into the audience. Hissing, screaming and booing drowned out whatever it was she said next. Someone shouted “Five bucks – Fuck Yeah!*” National MP for Hamilton East, David Bennett, grinned and lapped it up, as well he might. What did she think would happen? That the students would applaud this miniscule, mocking concession to their financial lives? No. They yelled, they screamed, they threw more darts, and I thought I caught a glimpse of the student politics of yore, when students were Angry and Protested about Important Things.

It’s a reminder than students can bring about change – if they speak loudly enough. Given that people generally begin making more noise when a recession kicks in, there’s a very good change something might actually happen. There’s an election coming up. Use it. *It might have been me, actually. Damn free beer.

NEWS ISSUE 12

May 19 2008

news@nexus-npl.co.nz

B Semester Fiesta damp but defiant Whatever the hell that means Words and Photos Andrew Neal

The Waikato Students Union’s ‘B Semester Fiesta’ went off last week featuring archery, clubs day, live music, comedy, pizza, beer and parties.

Night events were held at the Don Lewellyn bar on campus, which hosted a comedy show, Guitar Hero challenge and a quiz night. .

Activities were held at non-traditional locations around campus with the usual Orientation location, the Village Green, unavailable on account of the Banks shops being demolished.

The ‘Fiesta Partido’ party at the cowshed area on Thursday night had a reasonable crowd in attendance for some free beer and tequila provided by the WSU and Latin club.

“It was great the number of people we interacted with, we were getting out into places that don’t see too much of us,” says WSU Executive Director, David West.

Clubs day was the usual hit with students who were able to check out clubs catering for a huge range of interests, from the inevitable Christian and Pagan groups to the Mediaeval and Amnesty International clubs.

Activities for students during the day were held all over campus and ‘Midday Mash’ events featured games where students could win prizes and the ubiquitous sausages for anyone passing by.

“I think we did well to influence people’s opinion of the WSU, show them that we’re actually useful and contribute constructively to the student body,” says West.

‘Café Sessions’ of free acoustic music at a range of venues were well received and even saw one student jump up on stage with one of the performers and jam along on a harmonica.

Events were concluded with an after party at Bar101 with live band Anomaly.

8

David Bennett and Sue Moroney are launched into the “Live like a student challenge”

by WSU president Moira Neho at the WSU Special General Meeting.

Politicians Live Like Students Booze-fuelled, riotous antics sure to follow

By Andrew Neal

Hamilton politicians are living off noodles and Weet Bix this week as they compete in the “Live Like a Student Challenge” organised by the Waikato Students Union.

MP for Hamilton East David Bennett was equally enthusiastic, acquiring a scooter for lower fuel costs and getting himself a part-time job in a vegetable shop.

Labour’s Sue Moroney and Nanaia Mahuta, National’s David Bennett and the Maori Party’s Angeline Greensill will be living off a student budget in an effort to “gain a greater understanding of student issues” from July 17 to 24.

“Food, I think, will be the biggest challenge, it’s so expensive these days, but transport I can maintain that I think,” he said.

“We wanted to get students more aware of the general elections and we wanted to show that students don’t have enough money to live on, and this is one way we are getting politicians to understand this,” says WSU President Moira Neho.

Participants adopt the profile of an “average student” – single, under 25, flatting, ineligible for the Student Allowance, signed up to Kiwisaver, and having a part time job that pays minimum wage and works ten hours a week. They have to stick to a budget of $202.52 a week, and will be blogging their experience on the WSU website, (wsu.org.nz) where students will be able to leave comments and suggestions.

There are strict rules about costs and expenditures for participants, with political perks like free food counting against participant’s total spend.

In addition to their blog on the WSU website, participants are required to keep a diary of their expenses. There will also be ‘speed bumps’ which will see surprise expenditure at some stage during the challenge.

Challengers are also expected to attend a social event. Bennett says he wants to go the netball – “I don’t know if I can afford it” – and Moroney says she will go to a movie and make a bet on a horse race.

Students (and anyone else) can follow the challenge, as well as offer questions and comments on the participant blogs, at wsu.org.nz

“People can only understand the issue if they have hands-on experience.

I think this will be really enlightening,” says Labour list MP for Hamilton East Sue Moroney.

9

Shops get smashed Not with a whimper but a bang

By Andrew Neal

The recent demolition of the banks and shops area is just the first step in the upgrade of many of the University of Waikato’s amenities.

The first stage of the project is due to be completed in 2009, with the Banks shops being rebuilt with a higher, wider roof with glass on both sides to “allow the flow of light and views of the lake through to the bus stop area.”

Design team leader, Alec Couchman from project architects Warren and Mahoney Ltd, says a key driver behind the project is making the campus a more attractive place for students.

10

“The nicest part of the campus is in front of the shops looking out to the lake. It’s sunny and you have a lovely view of the trees. What we want to do is extend that feel,” he says.

The roof of the shops will be extended into a gull-wing shape and extend further onto the grassed area and the outside the shops will be changed.

The shops rebuild is part of a larger campus improvement that will see the library and rear L Block area remodelled into the fabled “student hub,” and should be completed around 2010.

The side of the library S Block and A block will be turned into a multi storey glass atrium with

a covered stairway through to the other side of the building.

The atrium will also feature over hanging student study areas and shops in the lower levels and a water feature that cascades down a newly designed stairwell.

The computer labs in the basement of the library will be moved into another extension on the B block side of the library feature four stories of computer installations and Wi-Fi internet throughout.

The new buildings are also designed to be ecofriendly making strong use of natural light heat and cooling to lower power usage.

Art films for lunch

SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: May cause nausea, bemusement

By Andrew Neal People will be amazed, astounded and possibly even confounded at artistic film screenings – to be held over twelve weeks during cultural hour on the University of Waikato campus, according to organiser Martin Rumsby.

Screenings are held in I1.05 1pm Wednesdays and are free to enter for students.

“People will come and we’ll blow them away,” said Rumsby.

This week’s showing is a film called “Alien Anomalies Under America” and is supposedly

a super-hyped version of American Right Wing Paranoia.

“It’s basically a version of 20th Century history, where aliens invade America from underground tunnels and cause all the problems, such as killer bees,” says Rumsby.

Rumsby spent a lot of time in the nineties travelling from town to town showing films, sometimes even hitchhiking sometimes to make the next session.

Rumsby says Hamilton has a lot of good experimental film makers and the final screening at the end of the semester will feature a work by local experimental film maker Emit Snake-Beings.

Snake-Beings is currently in Barcelona exhibiting his work.

Rumsby currently works at ITS on campus and at some stage hopes to do a PhD looking at experimental film in the Pacific Rim.

Cannabis protesters arrested on campus

By Ben Thomson and Amy Joseph (Critic)

Otago NORML President Abe Gray and two other members of the cannabis law reform group were arrested on campus last week.

Police officers approached Gray while he was manning the NORML stall at the Radio One Market Day on Thursday.

“The University’s Proctor’s office received two complaints during the day,” the University’s Chief Operating Officer John Patrick says.

“Those complaints were referred to the Police.”

Critic understands there were three uniformed police officers and two plainclothes officers at the stall. They told Gray that he was suspected of possessing cannabis and utensils, as complaints had been made that he had been seen smoking a cannabis pipe.

Gray told Critic that there was no evidence that the substance he had been smoking was cannabis, and that he did not consent to a search. He did not recall that the police invoked the Misuse of Drugs Act before arresting him for obstruction.

He was taken to a police car on Albany St while complaining that the police were being unfair and physically hurting him. NORML

member Daniel said that Gray appeared to be in so much pain that he was close to tears.

police officer, while Carey placed himself in front of the car. They were both arrested.

“He was protesting innocence the whole way,” says NORML member Bert Holmes.

Police told the Otago Daily Times that the men face a range of charges from resisting arrest and possession of utensils for smoking cannabis, to obstruction and disorderly behaviour.

Green MP Meritia Turei was coincidentally on campus and witnessed part of the incident.

She is unhappy with both the University and the police response.

“Initially I saw Abe getting arrested by two very large policemen who had him in an arm lock where both his arms were being held behind his back and his wrists bent,” she says.

“He was in pain and asking for him to stop hurting him and for people to intervene to stop him from being injured. He did not want to get into the police car.”

“It’s questionable whether having someone else say they saw him smoking, or somebody smoking, is reasonable grounds [for a search],” Turei says.

Gray called to his supporters, who were following him, to intervene as he was lead to the squad car. David Carey and Julian Crawford, the Dunedin North candidate for Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, tried to prevent the police taking Gray away. Crawford jumped on the police car and then onto a

Gray told Critic that he was charged for possession although he had no cannabis on his person. He also says that the police confiscated a large sum of money that he had been carrying as he had been in the process of switching banks on that day, money that the police claimed could be from the sale of drugs.

Gray says he was kept in the police station for nearly five hours, without being given any food or water, with some time spent barefoot in a cold cell smeared with blood and faeces.

The University has said that it would be inappropriate for the University to comment further given that the matter is now with the police. The three arrested students have been issued trespass notices covering the Union lawn and quad area, and will appear in court next month

11

Musical robots take on the world “Once again without emotion…”

By Andrew Neal

Local all-robot band the Trons have leapt to success in recent weeks, receiving almost one million hits for their first video on YouTube.com and getting “great feedback” from their concerts.

The video clip of the Trons playing their first ‘single’ “Sister Robot” currently has over 930,000 hits. The band were also featured on TV3’s Nightline programme and on the front page of website wired.com.

“It’s been pretty crazy... I never really expected it. The best thing is that it has all been really positive. I guess part of it is it just puts a smile on people’s faces and gets them thinking about other crazy stuff that is around,” says band manager Greg Locke.

The band’s gigs in Hamilton were received very well, giving the band a strong fan base in Hamilton and around the country.

“At gigs it gets a bit mad though. I was dismantling Ham once to get him into the van and was carrying his big horn head and there were people genuinely distressed at his decapitation,” he says.

Despite the groupies, Locke says the band was formed on a mutual love of music; “The development of the band has been primarily to make songs, just the fact they are machines adds another whole element to it. So music really is a big part... but it is just also about having some fun and doing something a bit different,” he explains.

University Sells Out Students Vol.15 No 1 March 3rd, 1982 At the University Council meeting on Wednesday 3rd 1982, decisions were made to substantially slash the 1982 University Budget by a staggering $628,000! The council said the cuts were due to decreasing enrolment. Reductions were made by 3% in salaries and 10% for other expenditures.

Protests were organised in response, but turnout was dismal due to students being on holiday and the cuts went ahead with little Council debate.

Chancellor Tompkins, chairman of the council, uttered an ironic statement after the deal was done, “there is a real need for consultation 12

The band has written and preformed about ten songs at their concerts and have recently had a video made by Hamilton video maestro Emit Snake-Beings.

When asked if the band would like to put out an album or EP, Locke said that they would be keep to release a DVD to keep the visual element of the band intact but also said a CD would be great too.

With such quick success it’s entirely possible that tensions may rise in the band, but Locke says the Trons have their ‘feet’ firmly on the ground.

“I haven’t noticed any change in their attitudes at all. They just hang out in the lounge like usual,” he says.

with students.” However, the appeal for budget cuts was made, finalised, and came into affect before the beginning of the academic year; the majority of students had no idea.

Nexus investigated why and where the cuts would take place. $200,000 has been cut from buildings and grounds, including closing the library on Sundays. Additionally, non-academic staff salaries have been reduced by 40% - around $100,000. This affects students who rely on tutorial income to pay for their higher levels of study.

The University Council accepted the hefty reductions to non-academic staff before they were even required to do so. They also ignored a statement from the University Grants Committee that showed Waikato University has the highest ratio of non-academic to academic staff than any other New Zealand University.

Nevertheless, the cuts went through and life goes on as unjustly fair as it is. But, isn’t it also ironic that the Waikato University Council prides itself on its slogan: the student point of view.

East Hamilton Police Burglary Report

7th - 14th July 2008

12 burglaries occurred in the Hamilton East in the last week: their locations are shown on the map.

While it is excellent to see the break-ins are down, from the average of 18 from the previous weeks, the map clearly shows that offenders are back, working in their usual area in and around the University.

Most of these burglaries are occurring while students are in class during the day, or while out late at night in town. The offenders are mostly breaking or jemmying open lounge ranch slider doors or bedroom windows. Once inside they’re ransacking bedrooms, pulling out drawers looking for valuable items.

asked why they didn’t ask me what I was doing. They replied that they have strangers walking around their property all the time, during the day and night.

These strangers are often theives who are looking around your flats, trying to find a way to break in. These offenders are still taking laptops, digital cameras, and gaming consoles.

Security Advice: If you go out, please lock and hide your valuable items away; offenders know your house and how to break into it.

Information on how to protect your home is available from the East Hamilton Community Policing Centre on Clyde St.

Last week I went to see a burglary victim in York Street and walked around the outside of the property. The student saw me through a window and left me alone, a few minutes later I spoke to them and

If you have any information that might help Police with these burglaries please contanct the University Constable, Nick Sickelmore, at Nicholas.

Sickelmore@police.govt.nz

No plans for instant move to universal allowance - Hodgson “It’ll be gradual,” Hodgson said “We’ll go universal when you’re dead.”

Assault complaint laid against Veitch Inside Veitch’s head: “Well, that was a bloody waste Of a hundred grand.”

Shell, Gull and BP drop prices after oil falls They can afford it,

Four cents a litre won’t hurt Their record profits Pope praises Canberra for apology Ignoring historic facts The Pope then went on To dub kettles “black.”

Nude Aussie teacher to sue over sacking She’ll appear on Rove Saying “I’m naked all the time Under my clothes.”

UK to help Nigerian govt We’ll bail you out We’ll do it for free! - just send us A small transfer fee.

Anwar claims conspiracy after arrest on sodomy allegations Should use Clinton excuse: “I smoked his cigar But never did anal.”

13

Since we are university students, I thought I would start you off with a little multi-choice question: (No, this is not an exam, and sorry, no bonus marks are on offer—just some sustenance for your brain.) Which politician made the following statement during a public speech a little over a month ago? “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power.

Everything.”

A) The Prime Minister of Israel B) John McCain C) Winston Peters D) Barack Obama Although the Israeli prime minister is the only one of the above to face a genuine, albeit minimal, threat from the Iranians (not that he isn’t short of nukes of his own), he cannot claim credit for this war-mongering statement; and while Winston may have a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, he too has not got that carried away.

Surely it must be McCain then. He’s a Bush buddy, a take-on-the-Middle East kind of man. McCain has not avoided hard words regarding Iran, but in this case, he too misses the prize.

What, do you mean to tell me that peace-loving Obama is ready take on Iran? Yes, and I am referring to the same Obama who has campaigned as a consistent opponent of the invasion of Iraq (or, if you’re a Bush fan, “Operation Iraqi Freedom”). Actually, anyone following closely will know that Obama, since getting elected to the senate, has consistently voted to fund the war in Iraq, and now that he is not restrained by efforts to gain the democratic party’s nomination, his commitment to an “exit strategy” of limiting the US military presence to 16 more months once in office is already starting to weaken as he seeks to pull moderates for the general election.

So, neither Obama nor McCain are going to pull out of Iraq in the near future, and both are seeking to outdo each other regarding how hell-bent they are on confronting Iran, militarily if need be. Aside from the abject insanity of an attack on Iran, we now see that a perceived key difference between Obama and McCain has vanished, and anyone wishing to vote for a non-interventionist candidate will have to look elsewhere. (Even according to the US’s own National Intelligence Estimate, Iran abandoned all nuclear weapons back in 2003, and who knows what they will do if provoked by an attack—certainly not roll over.)

The other side of foreign policy, and even more important as far as New Zealanders are concerned, is trade. Here too, we observe an illusion of choice. Apparently, McCain supports free trade agreements and Obama opposes them, but when you delve a little deeper, this distinction dissipates; and both are merely using trade for political gain.

Firstly, McCain opposes free trade when the countries don’t fit the archetype of the American populace—Iran and Cuba, for example—and secondly, he and his political peers with big-government mindsets do not 14

even understand free trade. The North American Free Trade Agreement, which McCain supported and wants to expand, was so packed pull of bureaucracy and sold out to vested interests that the written agreement exceeded 22,000 pages.

Obama fares no better. His complex, hypocritical, and economically naïve views on trade are a maze of sugar-coated rhetoric.

While saying that trade is critical for the US economy, he proposes an array of burdensome interventions, and he wants to lobby the World Trade Organization to adopt “fair trade,” which is merely an ill-defined euphemism used to justify counter-productive government manipulation.

Obama also wants the WTO to “stop the unfair government subsidies… and non-tariff barriers” of competing nations; but he has proposed even more non-tariffs barriers of his own, and he hasn’t dared to suggest relinquishing the myriad of American subsidies.

Let’s forget foreign policy and focus on domestic issues.

Isn’t McCain a conservative Christian—anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage? McCain’s Christianity is irrelevant when Obama touts his own Christianity on a regular basis, and McCain is not even pro-life. He wants the federal government to fund embryonic stem-cell research, and favours exceptions that would essentially amount to the situation we have right here in New Zealand. These two issues may, to a limited degree, divide the republicans and democrats; however, under George Bush, the Republicans have had majorities in the senate and the house, and little to nothing has been done to stop abortions or impede several states granting homosexual marriages. As the Economist magazine also points out, “conservatives hate [McCain]” for his weak stance on illegal immigration and his willingness to work with liberal political opponents.

So what are the key differences—the wedge issues? Surely there must be good reasons why people are willing to get out and campaign for these two guys. They must be fighting about something.

Really? I hate to break it to you, but below the mass hysteria and interparty demonization, they are few and far between. Why else would the media be spending half of their time discussing the colour of the candidates’ skin and latching onto silly issues such as whether Obama chose to wear a flag-pin on his lapel?

One could go down issue-by-issue and show how Obama and McCain are two sides of the same coin, and I invite anyone to put forward key political or moral principles that distinguish the two. These two men have got this far not because of their principled consistency and honesty, but because of their slick political manoeuvring—shifting positions if need be, and always finding a way to extract votes.

Fergus Hodgson has a B.A. in economics from Boston University. He currently studies political science and tutors macroeconomics here at the University of Waikato. Feedback is welcome and sources are available via flh2@waikato.ac.nz.

EMERGENCY Ohotata

Don’t panic in an emergency.

I te wa o te ohotata kaua e mauri rere.

A day in the life of the people charged with keeping us safe Andrew Neal

“We’ve had things like a

We are on the lookout for shoplifters in a silver Hilux when a call crackled over Constable Nick Sickelmore’s radio for a “Burgs on,” meaning “burglary in progress.”

Sitting in traffic on Clyde Street didn’t seem the best vantage point to start a chase but when three other cars screamed pass through the traffic lights adjoining Peachgrove road, it was on.

child with his hand stuck in a letter box, fires, obviously. The other day we had to help a pregnant girl who was stuck in a tree.”

If this was a trashy action film I’m pretty sure the words “Light it up!” would have been said. Sickelmore, blasé, cited, “That’s close to us,” hit the lights and away we went. By “away” I mean screaming along Galloway St. towards the gardens, along the median strip at around eighty kilometres an hour. It’s Tuesday lunchtime.

Lunchtime at the Chartwell fire base was considerably more relaxed. The Saturday day shift is generally quieter for the guys at the fire station. “There’s less people are at work, less electricians working, that sort of thing,” says Station Officer Peter Reddish. Most of his day was taken up with watching Discovery channel and equipment checks.

The search for an ‘average day’ with Hamilton emergency services was a journey all over the city and featured a range of characters who have devoted their lives and time to the benefit of the people around them. I spent time with the crew of the Chartwell fire base, a community constable, paramedics and helicopter pilots over the course of a couple of weeks. In this time the idea of the ‘average’ and normal working day diminished

quickly, giving way to the idea that the business of saving lives is extraordinary work, done by very every-day people.

Highs and Lows “I have a pet thing where I say that everybody’s job has highs and lows” says Hamilton St. John paramedic, Jeanette Fowler. It would be easy to imagine that a paramedic would be more of a roller coaster ride than a lot of other jobs, but Fowler says there are plenty of similarities with the daily grind.

“Our job’s no different and we do the same thing, but our highs are higher, with our successes and our saves, and our lows are lower because we’re dealing in human lives.”

Highs and lows can come at any time for any of the emergency services; callouts come with no warning forcing them to respond to any situation. There is always a lot to be done around the base for all the services, but routine jobs are put on hold when the call comes.

“Even when we’re not on shift, we’re always on call, we’re kind of tethered to the beeper,” explains Waikato Air Ambulance pilot Loren Haisley. An ex- US military helicopter pilot, he has a genial, smiley demeanour – and huge broad shoulders that lets you know he’s not kidding when he explains the ways he can capacitate you.

On average the Hamilton Air Ambulance crew flies around 60-70 missions per month and can be off the 15

RESCUER Kaiwhakaora

ground inside five minutes. Calls generally come through from ambulances when the patient is too critical to be

For You are our rescuer.

Ko Koe hoki to matau kaiwhakaora. out, but some other locations – some of the little rural places….”

taken by a ground paramedic crew either because of accessibility, the need for specialist care or travel time.

When the Tamahere coolstore tragedy struck in April this year, one of the fire fighters injured in the inferno was taken by the rescue helicopter to the Middlemore burns unit in Auckland.

Fowler has been involved with St. John for 21 years and at the Hamilton station for around 14 and has definitely experienced all the ups and downs of a life saving others.

“In my earlier days sometimes you had shifts where you only had 1 or 2 jobs. Doesn’t happen anymore!” she laughs.

“You definitely have to be able to think on your feet,” quips pilot Simon Lewis, who sports an unlikely striped beanie and sunglasses, but was kind enough to don his flight suit for a few photos in the flight simulator.

“When a call comes through to the helicopter base there is already two hours fuel, stretchers and the medic pack in the helicopter,” he says. St. John paramedics are paged from Road Ambulance crews and, depending on the type of emergency, a doctor from the hospital Emergency Department (ED), of Waikato hospital rushes to the helicopter base.

Travelling with community constable Nick Sickelmore, who is also the Campus Constable at the University of Waikato was meant to be a quiet morning that would offer an insight into the extent of burglary and theft in the Hamilton East area – especially in student flats. On Mondays and Tuesdays Sickelmore visits the sites of breakins and does his best to educate often blasé residents about the importance of securing their homes and flats.

All Hamilton permanent St. John station staff crew the Westpac helicopter. A key number of staff are also trained on long-line rescue and can be dropped off in areas to offer assistance and even winch patients into the helicopter, if need be, but it’s not for everyone.

“Those that like heights!” laughs Fowler. “Does it sound like I like it? Noooo… You’re not going to get me dangling on a piece of string!” St. John crews can often be sent to different areas to cover shortfalls, and often have no idea where they will end up during a shift.

“You never know where you’ll end up” The highs and lows of a daily shift can vary with workloads that can increase exponentially or drop off at a moments notice. Warren Rosser, Public Relations and Communications Co-ordinator for St. John in Midland Region explains: “It’s just the nature of emergency services, it’s so unpredictable. You know, some days can be absolutely frantic and there’s never a day where we’re not called 16

Nearly every flat visited that morning had a laptop or mp3 player stolen, and nearly every one had easily access points.

There was one house that had a number of windows open and nobody home, one window with beer crates stacked underneath it and another with a table directly below it. Part of the morning was spent stopping a number of people on bicycles without helmets. You wouldn’t believe the crap kids will come up with when confronted by a police officer to avoid admitting they just thought they were too cool to wear a helmet.

As Nick drove down one Hillcrest street, one helmetless rider took a look over his shoulder at the police car and took off rather quickly across the road and down a side street. Sickelmore accelerated and cornered the youth. The cyclist was asked why he had tried to get away in such a hurry after spotting the marked police car. He said it was “because I wasn’t wearing a helmet.” Of the seven or so people we stopped that day for not wearing helmets, he was the only one to receive a fine for it.

Shortly after that incident the call came through about the burglary in progress. It turned out that the original

“Sickelmore, blasé, cited, “That’s close to us,” hit the lights and away we went.

By “away” I mean screaming along Galloway St. towards the gardens, along the median strip at around eighty kilometres an hour”

call was for someone acting suspiciously and running out from behind a property. The police had set up a cordon around the park to block potential escape route. Sickelmore talked to a number of bystanders for information and told them to keep an eye out for anyone matching the description he was given. A call came through that ‘Delta’ was on the way. “That’s the code for a dog team,” Sickelmore explained.

After about half an hour of searching the offender unfortunately never surfaced.

“You never know what you could be called to,” Sickelmore said later. “I could be called to an armed robbery in progress at any time.”

Behind the Scenes There is quite a lot to the job of the emergency services that the public may not be aware of. For Nick Sickelmore and the rest of the Hamilton East Police, it is educating people as well as responding to calls.

“A lot of the other services are reactive, but my job is to try and be preventative as much as possible,” he says.

The driver drives and operates the pump. At the Chartwell station it’s Jimmy, a guy who is in his mid to late thirties and looks like he should have a moustache but doesn’t. He had a tendency to steal the newspaper every time I turned away from it to talk to someone else.

“You gotta like each other because you spend ten hours a day around each other. We’ve got a good crew here. If you’re around people you like then it’s a good job,” he says, as the crew does an equipment check.

Once on shift, crews cannot separate or leave the base without being together.

He gives me a go on the hydraulic equipment for rescuing people from cars which is incredibly heavy making, it understandable why these guys are built like tanks.

“Usually in an accident, [car] doors won’t open, we have to cut the whole side off, we also have pillars that push the whole dash forward and essentially split the car in half,” he explains.

Time Out For fire crews there is a never-ending list of duties and tasks they have to perform. The Chartwell fire house received 1500 calls last year and the Hamilton central station received 2000.

“Obviously the most important part of job is the emergency role, the rest our duties fit around that,” says Peter Reddish. He explained the other roles that the fire service fulfils. This includes everything from educating groups of school age children, keeping certified for first aid and line rescue, testing hydrants, thorough equipment tests, assisting with evacuation procedures and even keeping in shape (a requirement that can see fire officers disallowed from riding in the trucks if they don’t pass their annual physical test).

The range of callouts that the fire service receives can be as varied as their other duties.

“We’ve had things like a child with his hand stuck in a letter box, fires, obviously. The other day we had to help a pregnant girl who was stuck in a tree, and yes, we have done cats in trees as well,” Reddish explains.

Equipment and maintenance checks need to be done every shift. At the Chartwell station and most stations around the country, fire departments work in teams of four. Each person has a specific role to perform. If a fire officer wants to swap a shift then they have to find someone who is the same rank and position as them to fill it. Sixteen officers are required to operate in the Hamilton area at all times.

18

With crews often working long shifts, (Willy, a burly Scottish guy, was working 24 hours that day) and spending nearly all their time at the base, there are a few creature comforts. Sky Digital, recliner couches, magazines and a big screen TV inhabit the Chartwell fire base lounge, all paid for by the fire crew’s social club which crews pay into from their own money. Discovery Channel and Animal Planet seem to be favourites for most of the crew. The bedrooms are somewhat similar to those at a student hall of residence and in the garage lives a gym and walls covered in children’s artwork, faded fire safety posters and the order of service from Derek Lovell’s funeral, killed in the Tamahere coolstore fire.

The ambulance crews also have a house that backs onto the base, complete with kitchen, bedrooms and a large lounge. While ambulance crews don’t have to spend all day at base like the fire fighters, it is often an important space for reflection and maintaining a healthy work attitude. With the extremes of the job it is important for ambulance crews to spend some time out to get back to normalcy.

“That’s what the house, our station and our time back on station allows us, it allows us time to try and relax, watch the TV, do some education, do some paperwork, station duties, those everyday mundane things and I guess we need mundane things in our lives – one to operate as a service, and two to come back to normal!” says Jeanette Fowler, who despite being a highly experienced and busy paramedic, takes time out to help her fellow ambulance officers with peer support counselling.

For the air ambulance pilots it is important to spend their down time maintaining their skill levels. The Bell 222 B helicopter is fully singlepilot instrument flyable and crews have to be on top of their game.

The simulator at their base is specifically developed to allow full flight training and often pilots from other bases come to train on it.

[The helicopter] is the only one in New Zealand that can fly with one pilot in the soup,” claims pilot Simon Lewis. He says that all flying has its challenges and that decisions have to be made eliminating outside factors and focussing on the task at hand.

“You’ve got to be able to think on your feet, you know keep the pressure off yourself and focus on what you’re doing. We can’t be focused too much on what’s happening in the back, it only goes so fast,” he says.

Despite these pressures, the crew are completely laid back at the base.

Volunteers pop in and out; they watch videos of air shows and even take time to play with Microsoft Flight simulator.

For the people that work in the business of keeping us safe, from others and ourselves, the pressures are huge, and yet every one of them was more than happy to share their stories about their successes, their failures and what it means to give your life to help other. Of course, these people aren’t entirely selfless. The rewards are definitely there too – as Simon Lewis explains: “My first job was a guy out a Kawhia who had fallen through a window and severed his femoral artery. He [clinically] died once at the scene, was revived with plasma en route, died again in the hospital and it looked like for him to survive he would lose his leg. A week later he walked into the base with his wife and thanked us.”

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19

Prez Sez

By Moira Neho

Welcome back, whanau, I hope you’re all relaxed and well rested for B semester. I was looking at my calendar the other day and it seems like we are almost at the end of the year already. Where the heck is Maui when you need him to slow the sun?

While you were busy trying to keep warm over the break the WSU directors took to the streets in protest against the government’s lack of support for tertiary students. WSU directors took their place with other student unions around the country and marched up Queen Street to tell the government that we need a Universal Student Allowance – interestingly enough, The Press reported that Pete Hodgson (Tertiary Education Minister) instructed the Ministry of Education to work out what the cost would be to deliver a Universal Allowance. We will be

Student culture lives! (At Tauranga)

By Olivia Beattie

On Tuesday the 15th I ventured over to the Tauranga campus with Olivia for Re-orientation. It amazed me how many students turned up to the BBQ at the campus and stuck around until they had class again.

The enthusiasm of the students could be seen oozing from them as they keenly participated and supported participants in the pizza eating competition. This amazed me because they are sizeably smaller than our campus in Hamilton and yet more of there students turned up to and stuck around the BBQ for a longer amount of time than anyone did to our BBQ here on Hamilton campus on Monday of re-orientation.

However we have thousands more students than them at our Hamilton campus so a BIG thumbs up to our Tauranga campus for turning up and sticking around. It was good to see ya!!

Service Spotlight Glen Delamere

Don’t miss out as it’s closing soon – the Waikato Students’ Union Sole Parent and Caregiver Awards for 2008 are up for grabs. There are two awards for $1000 and you need to have your application in by 5pm 18 July. All of the information for the awards can be found on the Waikato University website under scholarships. But for those who like the short version, here it is; you must be a sole parent/caregiver, been at Uni for at least one year, enrolled in B semester on year you receive award.

More important you can be nominated by fellow students, staff or even self nominate, so no excuses.

22

looking for more information about that report and will let you know details ASAP. Live Like a Student Challenge is now underway. The blogs are looking good (www.wsu.org.nz) and it’s interesting to see how David, Sue, Nanaia and Angeline are getting on. Make sure you log on and check it out. You can also leave comments in response to their blogs so if you have some helpful tips for them don’t be shy to share.

Last but not least, you guys rock. 300 of you packed out L1 for the SGM and voted unanimously for the constitution amendment. Because of that we now qualify for charitable status and won’t lose loads of your money on taxes. Thanks again!

Q and A

Whetu Taukamo

The Waikato Student Union (WSU) has finally finished reconstructing our out-dated website. Go and check it out www.wsu.org – our old one just wasn’t up to scratch, and we can now unveil the new beast. Now it has a brief run down of the remaining WSU events for the remainder of the year; an overview of our services that we run for students; a live link to the NEXUS magazine (which should be operational soon: rumour has it temperatures in Hell are dropping fast –Ed) a page where peepz can start blogging us; our contact details, details how your special interest group can become an affiliated club; the WSU board of directors profiles aren’t fully functional but most of the other stuff is all goody in the hoody.

Anyways, do you have any questions for us? This section is about answering any questions and offering feedback – send questions to president@wsu.org.nz. Or, of course, you can use the website.

Event Recap I attended an event over the course of the B-semester Fiesta, truth be told I attended several, but let’s focus on the action at the cowshed.

I was fortunate enough to be a party to some rather unique musical machinations. Electronica extraordinaire thanks to ghost, their contributors, and ContactFM. As the courtyard crowd swelled towards 60, the beats per minute of 160 were strangely therapeutic and relaxing.

ContactFM was sharing the love over the airways. The sounds were strangely augmented by the workers in the distance, adding to the industriality. Or was that industreality? Speaking of reality and airwaves, NZonAir funding has recently increased their budgetry allocations to b-net radio. Now from $400,000 to $500,000/annum, yet Waikato is failing to be allocated their share towards the frequency WSU owns, due to said frequency failing to attend to legislative requirements. If you have any feedback on this or any other events, get in touch with Jeff, on 0276899513 or jph17@waikato.ac.nz

Sport Results with AJ

Rugby – Varsity (W.U.R.F.C) Premiers won against Southern United (qualified 1st for semi-finals) B’s won against Southern B (qualified 4th for semi-finals) U21’s lost to Hinuera (14th of 14) U85’s won against Te Awamutu (4th of 9)

34-10 22-0 15-25 30-3

Soccer – Unicol A.F.C Mens A’s drew with Claudelands A Reserves won against Wanderers C D1 lost to Te Aroha D2 lost to Cambridge D1

2-2 1-0 1-7 0-6

(10th of 10) (5th of 10) (7th of 10) (9th of 10)

Womens B1 won against Morrinsville B2 won against Wanderers B

2-1 2-0

(1st of 13) (10th of 13)

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Well well well, both football and rugby codes had a good weekend on the 12th/13th of July and it’s a bit of a pleasant surprise to see the Varsity boys and the Unicol peps pull out some solid wins and rise up the table. I’d like to congratulate the Premiers and B’s for their strong wins to cement their spots in the promotion-relegation semi-finals, good luck to both of those teams and hopefully I’ll be reporting back wins for the boys.

23

B r e t s e Sem a t s Fie

Txts to the Editor!

Nexus now has a not-so-new TXT-in service! Send Letters to the Editor - via text - to 021 235 8436. They can be about anything – but if it’s something in the magazine, so much the better. We’ll print the best ones, so get texting! There’s a prize for text of the week as well. We don’t know what it is yet, but it will be awesome.

Don’t forget: You can send Busted pictures in by pxt! Send us your best snaps of you or your mates in Busted-type situations to 021 235 8436.

Do it.

He likes the way they move it, move it I like the way the University Property Management team think, they spend lots of money on something, then throw it away and start again with something else.

They must be the ultimate believers in the disposable society mentality, (and a bottomless bucket of cash). An example of this being the replacement of the paving outside the old banks, (which are now being demolished), with some very nice new decorative paving, which took a lot of time to install and cost a bundle of money, only a year and a half ago. This said paving is now becoming landfill.

Sad, possibly untrue, rather funny Dear Sports Jocks: Saying Waikato has the best sports degree is like saying Africa has the best AIDS. Sincerely, Jake.

Objectivity objection Usually I don’t get involved in the whiney bitching that happens in Lettuce, but

LETTERS POLICY: Nexus welcomes and encourages debate through the letters page, serious or not. Letters should be kept under 250 words and be received by Wednesday 5pm on the week prior to publication. We’ll print basically any letter, but the editor reserves the right to abridge or refuse correspondence. We won’t correct your spelling and grammar either, so it’s up to you how much of an idiot you look like. Pseudonyms are okay (all correspondence must include your real name and contact details – they won’t be printed if you don’t want them to be) but if it’s a serious letter we’d prefer you to use your real name. Send letters to nexus@waikato.ac.nz

Didn’t the UPM team know about the plans for the hub at the the of doing the paving, or didn’t they give a shit, after all its only money (and its not even theirs). Maybe they’re just exercising their social conscience by continually spending lots of money in an effort to create jobs and keep the economy ticking over. Whats next, spending lots of money tiding up Oranga, only to demolish it a year later and replace it with a McDonalds, (no they’ve had one of those and it didn’t work), maybe Burgerking or KFC. That would make sense, NOT!!!

UPM do not seem to have a long-term integrated plan for the University as a whole, everything is an add hock mix and match. They have visions of what they want for bits and pieces, but this seems to involve a lot of hit and miss. Here’s a suggestion, decide what you want in an area, spend the money once, and

leave it alone for a decade or two, and don’t waste money on short-term quick fixes, just to replace them soon after.

Here’s an idea if you want to spend money on something for the long term good of the campus, how about a pedestrian underpass between Management school and outside the library, under Knighton Road. The current crossing is a hazard to both pedestrians and vehicles, and its only a matter of time before somebody gets seriously hurt or killed there with the increasing volumes of both types of traffic in the area. It would also provide a sheltered connection between the two sides of the campus. What do you think, a good idea?

We’ll see.

considering this was a different one from the usual Christians or Smell by Oranga (are these two linked?) ones I thought I’d unleash my inner bitch. I actually think that Maria’s letter while well meaning was pretty insulting to women. Women play video games, women like sport, women study, women drink, women have sex, women are interested in what’s going on in Zimbabwe, women are interested in internship oppotunities - all topics that were in last week’s Nexus. How is this

male orientated again? I’ve been involved in Nexus for about three years now (fuck that long) and there have been, and are currently, awesome women contributors on a range of topics. The discussion about the size 14 thing is unfortunate but again it was taken a little out of context due to some wording issues, and its one person’s opinion (also interesting is that you make a comment about Moira’s weight in here as an example, you might think of apologising to her). We’re allowed

Brad.

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to have opinions, even people in the media.

Although you sound like you disagree when you later mention objectivity - something that is a fantasy concept desperately clutched at by scientists and traditional media theorists. You must have had a problem if you decided to write in. And as for lack of content, as Nexus Ed. said, sometimes we have to beat people off just to get our articles or columns printed due to the huge amount of submissions... sometimes literally.

BURTON C BOGAN

Rentacop Speaks the Truth I have the interesting position of being both a student, and working with the security at the university.

There have been a lot of negative comments lately as to the job security do and how it could be better.

I notice the amount of building going on around campus. It is strange how the university is willing to spend so much, which we the students pay to attend, on building when our very safety may be at risk.

During the nights that I have been on campus, I know that a lot of the paths are poorly lit, if at all. Also, cameras in the car park areas would greatly lower the rates of break-ins to cars (especially gate 1).

An interesting fact I picked up: this year until end of May there were more then 740 thefts from vehicles in Hamilton. Hamilton east, in particular Knighton road are the worst. Surely catching the people breaking into your cars is an appealing thought to you.

How is it that with all the money we pay to attend, the university doesn’t do a better job of allocating the funding and protecting its most valuable resource, us students?

I’m sure there are ways to help bring this about more effectively, if there are I am sure the security team, and hopefully senior management, will be all ears.

I shall keep you posted about the security situation if I hear more.

Thanks for your time,

Damn dirty tree-huggers Dear Old Man J Go get fucked, you old hippy! It’s called university because you come here to learn, not to come get high and drunk. Sure, that stuff exists, but it’s not really appropriate to be doing on campus, is it? You’re old, you should know better. Or should you? Maybe all that weed you smoked in your earlier years has fried your brains and you haven’t realised the key thing that’s wrong with your letter.

You are old and no one likes to smoke pot with old people. I did once and it was the least fun I’d ever had. And I will be the one to fetch your slippers. Just you wait.

Young Man F

Your friendly neighbourhood security guy

UW SP ORT

northern tertiary

CHALLENGE 08

THEY HAVEN’T EATEN PROPERLY FOR DAYS. Estelle and Eugene haven’t been budgeting and have run out of money for food. They have heard it is possible to get emergency food but don’t know what to do.

The University branch of Citizens Advice Bureau can give you information about this or other inquiries you might have. They have heaps of pamphlets and a huge data base to help answer anyone’s questions.

Visit them at the Cowshed from 1pm – 3pm daily during semesters or phone 838 4466 extn 6622 or 0800FORCAB. There are several places in Hamilton that can provide food parcels. Hamilton Christian Food banks will give a food parcel (order before 12.30pm and no parcels on Wednesdays), but first you have to apply to WINZ for an emergency grant or entitlement letter. A community card is needed for food parcels at most other food banks which are usually operated by churches. The University Budgeting Advisor may supply food vouchers to students in need.

FRIDAY 8 AUGUST 2008 > $25 p/pERSoN

REGISTER NOW! $25 per person. Includes bus to Waitakere Stadium, lunch and entry fee.

Sports include: • Ultimate Frisbee • Basketball • Netball • Soccer (7 aside) • Touch Rugby • Volleyball

unisport@waikato.ac.nz

UW SPORT

M A N AG E D BY

S U p p o R T E D BY

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RANDOM STUFF Need help typing your assignments? I will type what you write. I do not proof read or check for grammatical errors, but will type your assignments as they are written and your writing must be legible. $6.00 per typed page neg. Text 027 369 7714.

To 021 205 3289, I will remove this notice for $50.

Dance Projects. For Uni students as well as the community. Keen dancers are welcome mainly for teenagers and adults. The classes are taught be Heidi Vit (dance graduate from Brisbane).

They are held on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6:30-8:00pm starting 21st of July at The WEL Energy Trust Academy of Performing Arts( Gate 2b Knighton Road, University of Waikato Campus). Register and pay by the first three weeks. So if you are

Freeloader.co.nz

interested or have any queries contact Karen Barbour by email on: karenb@waikato.ac.nz or phone 07-855-0236!

Where Students Buy and Sell No listing fees, success fees or registration charges, its FREE. Perfect for finding flatmates and buying and selling text books. www.freeloader.co.nz All management students now have there own bebo page! pick up hot chicks off it and share tutorial answers! just go to http://www.bebo.com/BMSRepresenT and join the revolution!

Student Life Tune In Prize Winners Ipod: Lucy Johnston Phone Card: Matthew Owen Phone Card: Preety Wraich Phone Card: Will Rohoma Check out the website www.tunein.co.nz

CONTEMPORARY DANCE

2. UNITY DANCE CLUB- If you are a Waikato University student and a keen dancer you can become a member of the unity dance club for a small joining fee of $30. There are free dance classes on Monday and Thursday mornings as well as discounted workshops and performances from outside dance organisations. If you want to become a member then contact either Karen on: karenb@waikato.ac.nz or Kirsty on kirstydollz@ hotmail.com!

ROOM AVBL!!

Aurora Tc, 5 mins walk to Uni. $125 rent + $11 power $3 phone $5 net to live in a large elevated quiet house with heat pump, big sunny decks, fully furn, vege garden, lots of storage!

Live with one friendly couple and 5 month old puppydog, Fish &2 men.

Must be friendly and tidy :-D Email me now!! lb51@waikato.ac.nz

Flatmate wanted , $105 includes rent, power, gas, phone and broadband.

House is fully furnished, except bedroom. 3 existing flatmates, 2 girls and 1 guy.

5 min walk to uni and Hillcrest shops (warehouse, red rooster, liquor king and the hilly) Available now, call or txt Becks on 0273658815.

Flatmate Wanted

FLATMATES WANTED

room available, choose from 1 of 2 rooms, 5 flatmates, 3 girls - 2 boys, all 19-20, uni/tech students, drinking flat, 10min from mngt, 2min from dairy, bakery, bustop. supermarket + fastfood 2 min drive away. READY TO MOVE IN ASAP - txt Kelly 0273467279 cheers

Flatmate wanted

WANTED

Medium size bedroom, $72.50 a week plus expenses. About a 10 minute walk to uni. All three current flatmates are Vegetarians who like to game, two full time students and one full time worker (two males, one female). If this interests you please phone or text Sarah 0277278529

SNOWBOARDERS WANTED!!

Any snowboarders who are wanting to network and share costs for trips to Ruapehu, willing to ditch classes and spend time doing something constructive. Please call, Adam 021 362 949. Snowboarders ONLY!!

CLASSES-Presented by Karen Barbour Send notices to nexus@waikato.ac.nz before Wednesday, 5 pm. Placing notices is free for students. We don’t always have much space, so get in quick! Notices cannot be any more than 75 words. We will not accept handwritten or non-electronic notices or dictation over the phone – that’s stone-age shit. If you (somehow) don’t have access to email or a computer, come into the offices and use one of our computers to type up your notice. Ta. Oh, and we hear that personals ads work terrifyingly well, so give that a go as well – fun for everyone involved.

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When you are out in the job market, competing against other university graduates and people who already have job experience, one of the more useful things to have on your CV can be research skills. It is highly likely that an employer will be looking for someone with keenness and demonstrated ability to learn rather than expecting to find a person who already has the exact knowledge that they require. If you look ahead to the kinds of jobs you might hold in your career, you are often going to be in situations where you need to adapt to new challenges, and quickly acquire new skills and knowledge. At a time when knowledge is increasingly freely available

heavily prescribed course content, or get preoccupied with learning basic skills. Every year we see students that get to the end of an undergraduate degree and they are still a little unformed, and haven’t quite clicked into their own groove. Your time at University is likely to be one of the few periods in your life when you have the time and space to practice at developing new knowledge and skills, while having the freedom to fail without too many consequences. Enrolling in an individual research paper at undergraduate or graduate level (for example, a directed study, dissertation or thesis) can be one of the best ways to do this.

discipline. The old distinctions, say between practical kinds of projects in the applied sciences and more abstract forms of critical inquiry in the humanities, are increasingly irrelevant. What matters more is being able to find innovative and appropriate ways of investigating a specific topic. On the more practical side, student research tends to operate with a zero budget, so contact the Scholarships Office to see what kinds of scholarships are available (you’ll be surprised

(especially online) our marketable skill centres not just on an ability to find information, but being able to develop a research plan, critically assess information sources, and communicate your findings in useful and appropriate ways.

These kinds of skills are inherent to University study (that’s what essay writing is really about), but often you are constrained by having to fit in with tight deadlines, or

There are a number of things to consider for an individual research project.

Most importantly, what counts as ‘research’ and how it might be conducted are both extremely broad categories these days, and you shouldn’t be afraid to think outside the square.

Chat with potential supervisors to get help on thinking through project ideas, and don’t be afraid to approach people outside of your

with how many offer a few hundred dollars, which can make all the difference to you trying something ambitious). Another useful approach is to work with your supervisor to find an organisation or business that needs research done - it’s a great way to make contacts, and if you do a good job they will remember you.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m sick of failing at life. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a complete loser – quite the opposite (my Mum tells me I’m the coolest guy she knows), I am, by nature awesome. Unfortunately, by nature I am also lazy. I am the panda of life, I sit there, eat, look cute and generally have people look after me…and artificially inseminate me.

So, what has this got to do with you? Well, life has recently failed for me and I am sick of it. I am setting myself some hefty goals this semester and writing about it. Perhaps you will learn from my mistakes.

But doesn’t that sound boring? Yes. Well what will I do to make it more interesting? I’ll tell you. I’m going to stop failing at life and become a real person, with absolute minimal effort. I still wanna drink on weekdays (before breakfast), I still wanna sleep in and I will continue to refuse to wear pants before 7pm (this once led to a very awkward funeral…and wedding).

Before I tell you how I will achieve this, I want to tell you why I want to change.

Last year, I managed to secure myself a fantastic job. At one of the Top 4 accounting firms, in Copenhagen, Denmark, in a position it would take me a few years to work my way up to in New Zealand. The company promised to train me further and fly me around the world.

And although I can’t find it in my old contract, there was probably mention of hookers, blow and a personal jet equipped with puppy lasers.

To top it off with a golden handshake written into my contract that would finance an around the world trip or an exuberant lifestyle in a location of my choosing. My life was set before I even graduated. Retirement was imminent.

“What happened, then?” you ask, lustfully.

“I failed the one paper I needed to get the job,” I reply, sensually.

I lost my job, and I’m back at Uni to do one paper. And have a lot of debt because I thought my salary would kick in one month.

So I’m sure you can see why I want to change.

The problem is, I have less will power than your granddad’s bladder and a willingness to work that is easily beaten by the same man’s sphincter. So I am turning to the internet – and you – to help me through this. Every week I will try something that promises to overhaul an aspect of my life without requiring any real will power. Then I’ll write about it, and you will read. Nexus will keep me accountable.

Next week I will give you a review of a diary system that I conceived that will overcome my habit of “forgetting” about things I need to do.

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In coming weeks I will also tell you about how I plan to raise something like money for travel, get super buff, start eating that meal I keep forgetting (“breakfast,” I think it’s called) and other stuff I find myself deficient in (Love?

Iron? Ability to fly?)

I love the Olympics. Always have. I’m not sure exactly why they resonate so strongly with me, especially given that other than football I wouldn’t bother to take a passing glance at the results of any of the other Olympic sports in the years between Olympic Games.

For the most part the majority of Olympic sports are mundane spectacles.

But add the drama of a once-in-every-four-year event and some nationalistic fervour and sports fans the world over glued to the TV watching diving, gymnastics, synchronised swimming, running… so long as one of their countrymen

This year, New Zealand’s big hopefuls for the Olympics in Beijing are Mahe Drysdale and Valerie Vili. Both are red hot favourites to gold medals in the men’s single scull rowing and women’s shot put respectively. The EversSwindell sisters seem as though they have fallen way off the pace after only making the B final at their last regatta.

Other hopes for a gold medal include Rob Waddell and Nathan Cohen in the double sculls rowing, and Ben Fuohy in the K1 1000 kayaking.

Nick Willis in the 1500m will be worth keeping

outside chance at a tournament which often doesn’t feature all the world’s top players.

(or women) has a chance of winning a medal, that is.

I can remember getting up at 5am, during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, to watch the final of equestrian, not because I gave a shit about equestrian and how many fences they could jump, but because we might win a gold medal.

Suddenly I was hanging on every rail.

an eye on. He is a chance to make the final and while he is long odds to win it, the prospect of a New Zealander getting a medal in the 1500m is enticing.

The U23 soccer team (feat. Ryan Nelsen) will be worth a watch – if they make it out of their pool it will be an achievement. Tennis player Marina Erakovic is now ranked inside the world’s top 50 women players and will be an

“It’s pretty tough to turn gave a shit about down a million dollars a equestrian” season,” was his blunt assessment of the situation.

No rubbish about needing to secure his family’s security. He did it for the money and he’s not scared to say so. Good on him for being honest.

Agony Art desires your questions on all things sensual and sexual, so he may provide… answers. Send questions to adr7@students. waikato.ac.nz!

girlfriend for her mother. Particularly if she lives at home and their house has especially thin walls. Milf’s are ok, but only if said Milf is no blood relation to anyone you’ve already nailed.

Worse than mother, of course, is father. I’m not even going to try opening that can of worms that is the ‘Dilf’ scenario. Until next week at least.

Dear Agony Art I recently broke up with my girlfriend, only to find myself attracted to her slightly younger sister, with whom I work. Is this legit or is it a bit too shady for my own good?

Xristof Dear Xristof This is a surprisingly common situation to get into. I know several guys who have fallen for their ex-girlfriends younger sisters and had long and happy relationships, full of loads of sex and awkward family gatherings. A guy I worked with years and years ago actually dumped his girlfriend of six months for her (much) younger sister, then dated her for about four years. It’s not the worst situation you can be in at the end of the day. The worst situation you can be in would be dumping your

Wishing you good things Agony Art Dear Agony Art If you were to ‘self-fellate’, would it make you gay? Also, if you could do it, would you?

Jim the Muppet I personally would not. I’ve heard enough about the flavours inherent to the hooded man-dagger to be well aware that it’s not an experience I would enjoy. There’s also a slight fear on my part of becoming addicted to licking my own lollipop. It’s nothing to do with

On another note, an item on TV One sports news one evening last week caught my attention. It featured star St “I can remember George-Illawara Dragons’ getting up at centre Mark Gasnier who has 5am, during the signed to play rugby union in Atlanta Olympics France for $1M a year. in 1996, to Asked why he had chosen to watch the final leave the Dragons, Gasnier of equestrian, was refreshingly honest.

not because I

my sexual tendencies and everything to do with having an addictive personality. Honest.

As far as it being ‘gay’ goes, I would say it certainly does not. If sucking your own todger made you a homosexual, then surely every man on Earth is already gay for having put his own hand on his own wang, right? It’s your own damn body and you can damn well pleasure it how you please. Except for sticking things up your butt when your run off the knuckle children. That’s way totally gay.

My advice to you James… I mean Jim, is this: If you have, in your physical repertoire, the ability to apply mouth (or even just tongue) to cock, go nuts. Get it? Nuts! Just make sure that no one ever finds out. The world isn’t ready for that level of ‘awesome’ just yet.

Secretly jealous of you Agony Art Send questions to adr7@students.waikato.ac.nz!

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A Funny Thing Happened…

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the airport. I was flying back from New Plymouth – yes, flying to New Plymouth, they have planes – where I was speaking at Youthfest on Boganology.

My connecting flight to Hamilton from Auckland – yes, my travel arrangements get weirder, I flew to New Plymouth via Auckland – was delayed for quite a while. So I was sitting there pretending like I was doing something productive on my laptop, when really I was playing Street Fighter. Most people seemed to think I was writing, except for kids, cause kids are smart and see computer and instantly think video games. So a bunch of kids were watching me play. Anyway I put down my laptop and was sitting there next to this chick who was texting,

chick came back and the woman walked back to her seat. Wondering if I should be offended, I pondered what this chick’s problem was. Then I saw it, a rather large Christian cross hanging around her neck. I would pay good money for the photo of the two of us sitting side by side! But this lead me to think, okay I’d be a little suspicious of somebody with a Jesus cross round their neck, but that wouldn’t altogether affect my level of “Wondering if I should trust or greatly affect how I talked to this person – assuming they resisted the urge be offended, I pondered to preach. Yet this chick was judging me… although isn’t that what Christianity’s what this chick’s problem

wearing my Team Satan 666 Hoody (available from www.myspace. com/brutaliteesnz). The girl must have decided to use the facilities, but instead of asking the chirpy little Bogan to look after her stuff, she crossed the room to ask a middle aged woman to do it. The woman said yes, looked at me, and then walked over and sat right next to this girl’s stuff. I went to reach for my laptop to type this in my thesis notes as an observation, and straight away the woman’s eyes jerked upwards and stared at me as if I was making a grab for this chick’s stuff. The

about?

My room is an absolute mess. Normally I have crap piled on my desk, but today the crap has found it’s way to the floor. Unlike some days though, today is a particularly good day, as it just “Sleeping is optional, concluded a weekend that I look forward to: the World Cyber Games NZ Qualifier (aka xLAN).

was” Prejudices and sterotypes are an interesting thing. Particularly when you’re sitting next to an atheist Bogan and you have bottles of duty free in amongst your stuff. Apparently you should never trust a Bogan with your booze, even one with a big stupid grin on his face who owns a laptop and plays Street Fighter…

of us from waiKato who are crazy enough to volunteer, but we all love it. Especially when Zapman (aka Daniel [congrats, 4th ever plug!]) starts to be... himself. I’m the network administrator, and It’s no small job running an enterprise grade network comprising of computers you’ve never seen or configured before.

and very few people For those not in the know, it’s an annual event held in Auckland. The winners of some selected tournaments go on to compete in the APAC of it. Many cans and finals, and then the world finals (this year held in Germany). It’s held on the weekend before the cans of energy drinks second semester starts back, people come on Friday and leave Sunday afternoon. Sleeping is are consumed” optional, and very few people get over 12 hours of it. Many cans and cans of energy drinks are consumed. This year we had 760 people, so after crew, tournament computers and expo people, this adds up to about 850 computers.

About 900 amps of power was being constantly used, and you thought your last power bill was bad!

get over 12 hours

It’s not all tournaments though; as many people come to just have a few fun games with their friends. And not to mention, there are quite a few

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I strongly suggest anyone with an interest in computer gaming to come along next year, although you have to get in fast as seats sell out quite quickly. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. Ok, I’m going to end it here before my brain really goes to mush from tiredness (apparently, according to Word, this is 7th grade level writing... I’m very disappointed).

And, finally, yes I did dance again. Four times. Only one of them was any good IMO, I was very disappointed in myself, but if you wanna laugh head over to my site (http:// jlaundry.com) and you’ll find it.

Hopefully. If I can get this damn video file to encode properly.

Super Smash Bros Brawl

By Joshua Drummond I’m probably preaching to the choir with this one. If you have a Wii, given the console’s lack of success in New Zealand, there’s a good chance you’re one of the Nintendo faithful and already own the game.

If you – somehow – own a Wii and don’t own this game, you really should.

Super Smash Bros Brawl is the gimmick concept game everyone always wanted: Nintendo characters beat the shit out of each other. Of course, with the game in its third iteration you’d expect a huge roster of characters and gameplay perfection. SSBB delivers both. The idea is

There’s also the heavy nostalgia factor. Most people who’d buy SSBB have probably spent a decent swath of their lives entrenched in Nintendo lore, and because of this, the game positively drips spectacle.

Pick a favourite character and cheer as their signature move totals someone else’s favourite character. Final Smashes, a new addition to SSBB, are great fan service as well as a fantastic gameplay mechanic.

That being said, if you’re new to Smash Bros, I recommend starting slowly. I haven’t played a game amongst newbies where someone hasn’t said “What the hell is this?” because of the game’s frenetic pace and visual clutter. It’s fantastic once you’re used to it, but it can be offputting if you’re not. Luckily, Brawl has introduced the “story mode” of Subspace Emissary, an attempt to a.) give some semblance of story to the game, at which it fails wonderfully, with the best non-sequitur

classic Nintendo simplicity: Characters fight using 2-D mechanics (think old-school Mario) and lack health meters. Instead, they acquire damage – shown via a display down the bottom of the screen – and the higher the damage, the easier it is to knock characters off the screen, which is how you score points. It’s wickedly easy for non-gamers to pick up and have a muck-around with (and, probably, get hooked) but for the serious player, there is almost limitless depth. It’s an irony unique to gaming that one of the cutesiest-looking fighting games is also one of the deepest.

Don’t let Pikachu’s adorable face fool you; this game is evilly hard to master. Played with friends, as SSBB should always be, the game will provoke wilder fury than any hard-core LAN.*

cutscenes to grace a game, ever, and b.) give newbies a chance to get familiar with the game mechanics. I’d played the previous iteration of the series, Super Smash Bros Melee, to death, and so Subspace Emissary was a chore for me. However, newbie Vitamin C played through it, and remarked that it was a great introduction to the gameplay mechanics that had previously bewildered him. It must have been, because he’s now regularly beating the shit out of me every time I play him. On that note, I really have to wind up this review and go play the game with a few mates. No, really. It’s pure gaming crack. If you own a Wii – or even if you don’t – you absolutely must buy this.

You may not have heard the excited chatter on the streets, or seen a poster, but Def Leppard are coming to town! Town being New Zealand. This is notable because after all, if Hamiltron (Where the Grass is Greener) was a band, it would be Def Leppard. Just the other night someone from Auckland asked me to play some Def Leppard, and commented that they are “very Hamilton”. Obviously there’s the whole ‘skinny white guy with long hair wearing a singlet and ripped jeans’ image being projected by both parties, but things run a little deeper.

Both Hamiltron and Def Leppard have hilariously mispelled names, and both mean nothing anyway when spelled correctly. Deaf Leopard? That is neither rock nor roll. Both are well known for their dubious claims to fame, be it “Most futuristic city that still has cows” or “Band with the oddest number of limbs”, but the real similarity is that people want and expect only one thing when it comes to either. I’ve had Leppard requested a few times recently, probably due to the upcoming concert, and the interesting thing is that even though people ask for the band, what they really want is the song. You know the song. If they received something other than that one song they know and love, they would probably be very frightened, alienated, and a little slacked off. Hamilton is the same. When people wake up and decide to leave the house, they are asking for Hamilton, but what they actually want is that same comfortable safety net where they know all the words and every drum

beat. No-one has the balls to open the door and ask Hamiltron to pour some sugar on them (I don’t. Sweet RoboChrist no.) but that’s the equivalent.

*Dave: Kirby sucks, Pikachu rules. Accept it.

So we get the people who spend their days walking up and down Vic street, heads down, trying not to touch anybody, stoically soldiering past the tormented cries of the brain damaged street kids and office workers and sanitation staff and homeless folk, pretending they’re outside of it all because they’re just on their way to get coffee. And they love it. People revel in the grey drudgery and they revel in casually complaining about the price of milk, clutching their petrol discount receipt while they carry a bag of groceries out to their SUV. Why? Because it makes them feel better. “Everything sucks – but hey! I’m not doing as bad as it would seem.” Why don’t you live a little? Summon up the courage to walk to the dairy (carry a knife though). Go try an Asian supermarket and then spend your savings on a litre of cola. Listen to Animal or something (That’s a Def Leppard song by the way). Break your routine, because that’s what is going to do us all in when it comes down to it.

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Famous Kate Langdon HarperCollins Publishers

Price: $24.99 Reviewed by Louise Blackstock I’m a girlie-girl. I wear stilettos, I cried at The Notebook (although I know guys who did that), and I paid blockbuster pricing to see the Sex and the City movie (and damnit, I enjoyed it too!). So I should be the target audience for this book, right?

Let’s hope not, because I thought it was crap.

Famous combines a stunning amount of predictable chick-lit situations with a collection of annoying characters. The plot involves

HELLBOY: DARKNESS CALLS

By Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo

Reviewed by BURTON C BOGAN It’s a comic, it’s a graphic novel…IT’S A COMIC BOOK! If it walks like a duck…anyway, I digress. HellBoy is a comic book whose stories revolve around the main character of the same name. Hellboy is a demon brought to Earth as an infant by Nazis, who apparently took time out from genocide to investigate the occult. He was rescued and raised by a scientist from the American Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). As demons do, he grew up to be a big devil, complete with tail, horns and the whole nine yards. He is generally a gruff and sarcastic character, who enjoys beating the crap out of various other demons and witches.

This series of comics has spawned two movies, 34

Samantha Steel, a vapid JAFA who has the “perfect” life (advertising exec, designer clothes, and loads of bubbly in her fridge) who sleeps with a super-famous football player without realising who he is. Apparently Sam didn’t know because she never watches sport, but come on- every girl in New Zealand knows who Daniel Carter is, so you figure Sam would know about this guy. Anyway, turns out he’s married with a pregnant wife, and the paparazzi find out, hounding Samantha for months until she’s forced to escape into the wop-wops, where she meets a handsome country boy. If you can’t guess what happens, you’re probably their ideal reader.

There are so many things wrong with this plotline that it actually hurts to explain them.

The rugby player, Alistair Ambrose (Langdon seems to think alliterative names are the height of sophistication) garners more media attention than David Beckham- something pretty unlikely in this small town we call New Zealand. The paparazzi would never stalk someone for months about a story like this, either. And it wouldn’t be in the newspapers, it would be in Woman’s Day.

her previous boyfriend for daring to eat cake on her white sofa.

Putting aside the fact that we’re meant to believe a studly rugby player has the first name Alistair, this book is still filled with cringeworthy moments. “Hilarious” anecdotes include Samantha’s botched Botox, botched bikini wax, botched fake tan, allergic reaction to Tahitian vanilla beans, “Dress Catastrophe” when someone wears the same dress as her (dear God, NO!), and her ex-boyfriend’s sex change (he ends up better looking than Sam, to which her reaction is “how completely and utterly pants!”, whatever the fuck that means). Oh yeah, and she’s a total alcoholic who can’t go a day without some “bubbles”, but this of course is never addressed as a serious problem. And someone gets pregnant via sperm donation, and someone else adopts a Vietnamese baby. Because it’s not a chick-lit novel without crap like that.

I dare you to find one character that isn’t a complete stereotype, particularly the people in the small town who haven’t even heard of coffee beyond a filter. It doesn’t help that the main character is a heinous bitch. She dumped

So basically, this book is bad. But most reviewers don’t say that, because they’re all excited about a Kiwi writer doing chick-lit.

I don’t want to be too mean to Langdon, because I’m sure she’s nice. But please, Langdon, don’t ever write about this character again. I think a brain cell died with each page.

starring Ron Perlman, one of which is due to come out in NZ shortly.

Overall, this storyline is confusing. Some witches were hung in the good old Salem type days, come back to get Hellboy, which results in him being the guy in the crossfire as various groups continue to battle and piss each other off as they have done for centuries. At least that’s what I think was happening; it’s all a bit confusing. Sometimes segments of dialogue have to be re-read to try and work out what’s going on, and multiple characters interfering with Hellboy keeps things complex. However, what makes up for it is the extremely stylish artwork. Battle scenes, and there are many, are extremely well done. The monsters can be a little boring in this particular story, but again the character work is excellent. This is particularly true of Hellboy. I like anti-heroes

(which we’ve established in columns and various other bits and pieces in Nexus,) so I really like Hellboy. Sarcastic, violent, but somehow seems to get followed by kittens!

He also regularly files off his horns to try and fit in. Right. Nice try. To be honest I’d just grow big fuck off horns but oh well. This adds to his humanitarian personality, I guess. He also regularly insults his antagonists during battles which, kudos to the writer, is actually really funny.

The overall package is slick and stylish, and while this particular story line was pretty confusing for joe-average hung-over Bogan, I still really enjoyed reading it just to see what trouble this quirky little demon would get into next. Highly recommended for anyone who’s into comics (or graphic novels if you want to appear more socially acceptable.)

The work of Fritz Lang The silent classic “Metropolis” has been much in the news lately. The discovery of a supposed complete print has been hailed as a significant milestone in the on-going project to restore Fritz Lang’s 1926/1927 work to its original, immense running time. This comes a mere five years after the last re-release, a version which was digitally cleaned up as never before and which wisely included intertitles indicating where footage was missing, making the plot comprehensible for the first time in three quarters of a century.

through a labyrinth was unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in silent cinema.

Lang’s 1920s career had an impact on the medium that cannot be overstated. His influence on Hitchcock is obvious. The British master of suspense once singled out Lang’s 1921 supernatural thriller “Destiny”, in which a woman bargains with death for the life of her lover, as being of special significance to him. One can also imagine its importance to Bergman, particularly the Bergman of “The Seventh Seal”.

The great Spanish surrealist Luis Bunuel says in his autobiography that “Destiny” ‘clarified my life and my vision of the world’, that it directly resulted in a sense of cinematic vocation.

of knights, dragons and bloody battles, setting the standard for the likes of Lucas and Jackson.

His espionage thrillers, “Dr Mabuse, the Gambler” (1923) and “Spies” (1928) are proto-James Bond films, complete with omnipotent Goldfingerlike villains, inventive gadgetry, and sensual seductresses.

The 2003 “Metropolis” went a way to changing my mind about the film. While all the schematic weaknesses of theme, tonal inconsistencies, and over-acting remained, Lang’s visual sense was revealed in breathtaking detail. By this I don’t just mean the celebrated scenes of robot creation, or mass flooding, or even the iconic images of automatons toiling at giant clocks. The real revelations were in the more intimate moments, instances of hand held camera work and delicate lighting. A chase sequence

Years later, upon meeting Lang for the first time, when he himself was seventy two and the German well into his eighties, Bunuel immediately asked Lang for his autograph!

Lang’s influence goes far beyond the art house world of the auteur though. “Metropolis” is clearly the template for all science fiction films that followed as well as a dystopian vision that pre-dates Orwell’s by two decades.

Lang’s brilliant exercises in Teutonic mythology, “Siegfried” and “Kriemhild’s Revenge” (both 1924), have epic grandeur, conveying a world

In one other crucial aspect Lang is the harbinger of modern cinema: extreme length.

All those who think that with “Lord of the Rings: The Return of King” Peter Jackson offered up far too much of a good thing should remember that Fritz Lang’s original, 1923 cut of “Dr Mabuse” was three hundred and thirty two minutes long!

Auteur House stocks some Fritz Lang films. The University Library has others.

KUNG FU PANDA Directed by Mark Osborne & John Stevenson Voices of: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ian MacShane, Angelina Jolie

Reveiwed by Art Focker Here’s a film which is, at heart, a classic children’s story. A fat, day-dreaming youth (who thinks his Dad is boring), runs away from home to become a long prophesised warrior and defend his home town from destruction by an enemy with infinitely more skill and muscle tone (not to mention pants) than him. Oh, and everyone is a talking animal.

I love children’s movies, especially the computer generated variety. Since Antz and Shrek, I am yet to see a Dreamworks film which doesn’t entertain. Maybe it’s the bright colours and epilepsy-causing scene changes or maybe it’s the slightly adult humour and the recognisably famous voices from Deadwood and Rain Man, neither of which anyone else in the theatre would have seen. Oh yeah, that’s

right. I went to see this movie on a rainy day in the school holidays.

Awesome for me.

If I were a child reviewing Kung Fu Panda (based on what I overheard from my tiny and cute theatre pals), the review would sound like this “Panda! Ha ha! His bottom got hit!”

Children can be cruel and detect the subtleties of humour just as easily as we fully-grown folk can. Everyone in the theatre sounded like they were having a hard time keeping the frozen coke inside of their bodies, so the film is obviously a hit with the children. That said, is it able to impress the larger members of the cinema going public, namely university students?

The humour, just like every other Dreamworks film to date, is varied and

intelligent enough to buy the laughter of the adult audience, especially those familiar with Monkey or other 1970s Kung Fu classics.

Children, as previously mentioned, can feel content laughing at talking animals getting hurt in slightly crude ways.

The voices match the animations well, but may not sit well with everyone. I, for one, hate Jack Black, classing him somewhere between David Spade and Pauly Shore as far as ‘funny’ goes. Meanwhile, the other big names in the cast (Seth Rogen, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, David Cross and Lucy Liu) in the cast are given so few lines, that I didn’t have a clue who they were until the credits rolled.

Well worth a look, provided you enjoy the proximity of children.

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Southland Tales Directed by Richard Kelly

Reviewed by Chris Parnell Southland Tales was the film that Richard Kelly made after Donnie Darko, so if you are aware of Darko then you’ll understand why hopes were high for this one. This time around, the naturalism and character intimacy of small-town America are replaced by Kelly’s personal commentary on the country as it is today. This can be quite jarring, and it comes at the cost of the quirky yet touching moments from Darko, but it’s worth getting through. As an example, most of the dialogue from the living, breathing stereotypes who populate the film sounds like it is literally what Kelly has to say about the issue in question, stripped of the usual disguises of subtlety, tact, or effort.

The intellectually offensive sledgehammer to the face serves a dual purpose. Obviously it allows Kelly to put his thoughts out there, and to say what, at the end of the day really does need to be said as often as possible. The sinister purpose is that it seizes your attention from the very start, and you are likely to be so engrossed in how bad it seems/is that you will completely miss the real plot. That’s right: secret plot.

Going by the marketing and the ‘Making Of’ feature, it seems that this other plot has been intentionally concealed, so even mentioning it can be spoiler-y. I don’t really want to say too much about it, but for the purposes of a review here goes. If you have seen Darko and get it – by ‘get’ I mean went and read The Philosophy of Time Travel – then you are in the right place to appreciate the puzzle, which is delivered by escalating the same engaging elements of thriller, sci-fi, and existentialism that made Darko so amazing. If you enjoyed Darko but think you might have missed something, you will get lost quickly.

all with the beautiful surreal scope of Darko’s more trippy scenes, a highlight being Justin Timberlake’s war veteran lip synching to ‘All The Things That I’ve Done’ by The Killers. Most of the film is set during the day, and been shot vibrantly in 70mm lends it a very cartoony feel, which might help you take the content with a grain of salt. There are layers and layers of stuff to explore here – homages to various sci-fi tropes, intentionally awful soap-opera dialogue (often delivered, hilariously, by The Rock,) terrible CGI which somehow looks perfect. There are scenes of utter surreal beauty. A levitating ice-cream truck and a zeppelin share the screen to a backdrop of a rioting, celebrating Los Angeles in one standout scene, set to the single creepiest, best version of “The Starspangled Banner” ever. Richard Kelly clearly wants you to be WTF’d out with every new scene. Ultimately, the film will provoke a reaction from anyone, and even if that’s anger or ridicule then it’s achieved something – like all high art.

Southland Tales is available from EZ DVD Hamilton for the special price of $31.99. Buy it and receive with a free Donnie Darko soundtrack!

(Tertiary students only - present ID to be eligible. Only while stocks last)

On the technical side the soundtrack shines, with Moby bringing some quality original work to the party. A couple of musical numbers surface,

Competition!

Nexus has two copies of the stellar, haunting Donnie Darko soundtrack to give away. To enter, simply email (nexus@waikato.ac.nz) or pxt (021 235 8436) Nexus with a picture of you doing the “Donnie Darko face.”

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Like that. Winning entries will be published only if entrants want them to be. Entries must include full (real) name and contact details.

It only took my little fingers to blow you away Hey, I bagged their album but the live Shihad is an altogether different monster. Arguably New Zealand’s best live band, Shihad play with enough energy to run your heater through several winters. They’ll be shaking the glass in Altitude Bar this Thursday, July 24; tickets are available at CDs 4 Nix and at Ticketek. The ‘Had will be ably supported

by The “crazy but not dumb… not too young” Mint Chicks and Luger Boa, a hard as nails new rock band formed by ex-D4 Jimmy Xmas. MC for the night is the hellarious (roll the) Dai Henwood. So get yer mullet ready or borrow a friends cos it’s gonna be one hell of a hair-shaking night.

Samuel Flynn Scott and the Bunnies on Ponies play Auckland’s Whammy Bar on Friday, White Swan Black Swan provide support.

Samuel Flynn is of course one third of Phoenix Foundation, and his solo work has included writing the film score to Eagle v Shark and two albums, the second of which, Straight Answer Machine, he is promoting with this mid-winter tour. His backing band includes the ubiquitous Craig Terris (Cassette) on drums, Tom Callwood (Little Bushman) on bass and vox and Matt Armitage (formerly from Odessa) on guitar, keys and vox. The music is described as “oozing irresistible melodic pop tunes” and with that band line-up one can assume that it will sound pretty damned juicy.

That’s all I got this week but don’t forget to check out the gig guide for more stuff to do and see.

Song of the week is “Bleed” by One Man Riot, which I listen to off the album Year Zero. Go and buy it now. Go on.

COLDPLAY

SIGUR ROS

Viva La Vida (or Death and all his Friends) (Parlophone)

Meo suo I eyrum vio spilum endalaust (EMI)

The last couple of weeks I’ve been talking about music using cooking metaphors and it shows no sign of stopping this week with Coldplay’s burnt offering Viva La Vida. To my ears there is just too much going on for what are on the whole very simple folksy rock songs. This overcooked treatment bears out in the production with bass that takes up too many frequencies and drones, instruments in the background that jingle jangle and endlessly reverb to fill up every bit of available space. The result is songs that don’t breathe as much as they could – this is the Eno effect.

Respite is given in the tender moments with Chris Martin singing softly over piano and light accompaniment as in the beginning of “42” and, mercifully, the song ends up as a fairly uncomplicated rock song. The single “Violet Hill” is another standout track for the exact same reason – it is not stretched beyond what its parts can endure.

It means “With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly”.

One of the links between Sigur Ros and Codplay is that for their latest recordings they have both used producers who have worked with U2.

For Sigur Ros their man was the legendary Flood who helped make the late 80s U2 so singable and anthemic. The effect is similar here for a band that has in the past been content to sound purely cinematic, the music shifts from soundscapes that linger only as long as you hear them to songs with purposeful structures and bonafide earworms. And with a plethora of singalong lyrical tunes you may even find yourself picking up some Icelandic along the way.

As you would expect there are plenty of well-written songs on this album, and there is an undeniable progression from what has preceded it. You’ll need to swim carefully so as not to drown in the deep pool of sound, and you’ll like it more and more after subsequent listens, but chances are it won’t monopolise your listening device as much as either of its predecessors.

The whole album is cohesive, thought-provoking and runs inexorably toward the closing chord. Unlike their more fancied contemporaries they do not let the process control the purpose of the song, for instance heavy reverb is prudently placed and backing instruments are used practically rather than for the sake of it. A particular standout is “Ara batur” (row boat), which was recorded live in one take with the London Sinfonietta and London Oratory Boy’s Choir, making a total of 90 people playing at the same time. It may get a bit samey to some ears but this is dexterous and intuitive songwriting, a brilliant album.

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Listings courtesy of Mammoth and the Hamilton Community Arts Council Shihad, The Mint Chicks + Luger Boa @ Altitude 30 Alexandra St HAMILTON CENTRAL 24 July DOORS OPEN 8pm Squirrel Skin Slippers + The Mechanists @ La Commune Cafe 244 Victoria St HAMILTON CENTRAL 24 July DOORS OPEN 8pm Fuel Festival of NZ Theatre Our Stories On Stage! The ingenuity, inspiration and diversity of Kiwi theatre is sitting on your doorstep and waiting for you to tackle it front on. Check Fuel’s website for full programme.

Tue 24 Jun 2008 - Sat 12 Jul 2008 Cost & Time: Various Where: The Meteor and Academy of Performing Arts, Victoria Street and University of Waikato Further details: Fuel Festival 0800 3835 200 www.fuelfest.co.nz Sharpie Crows, Malenky Robot, Damsels, Punchbowl @ 121 Tristram Street

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25 July DOORS OPEN 8pm

31 July DOORS OPEN 8pm

The Finn Brothers in Concert @ Wel Energy Trust Academy of Performing Arts University of Waikato Gate One, Knighton Rd

StonerDoom Tour @ Ward Lane Ward Lane, Hamilton 1 August DOORS OPEN 8:30pm STARTS AT 9pm

HILLCREST 26 July DOORS OPEN 7pm STARTS AT 8pm Trash to Fashion Awards 2008 @ Founders Theatre Cnr Tristram St & Norton Rd HAMILTON NORTH 26 July DOORS OPEN 7pm STARTS AT 7:30pm D Couture Fashion Parade @ Xquizart 15b Hood Street, Hamilton 30 July DOORS OPEN 7pm Billy TK Jnr and The Groove Shakers @ Biddy Mulligan’s Irish Pub 742 Victoria St HAMILTON CENTRAL

Spark 08 International festival of media, arts and design @ Wintec Student Hub 4 August DOORS OPEN 8:45am FINISHES AT Fri 8 Aug 5pm Subjects to Hand: Joanna Paul Drawing When Joanna Margaret Paul died in 2003, she had been working for nearly four decades as an artist and poet. While highly respected in both spheres, she never received the acclaim she fully deserved. Hundreds of drawings left in her Wanganui studio had never before been seen. Until their re-discovery.

Sat 31 May 2008 - Sun 10 Aug 2008 Cost: Free Time: 10am - 4.30pm daily Where: Waikato Museum, 1 Grantham Street

Send BUSTED pics to nexus@waikato.ac.nz and/or to 0212358436! Our Export Gold comp from last week is still running - send us your pictures to win a great Export Gold prize pack!

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