issue 23

Issue 23 路 2 October 2006

You, Me and MP3s 路 MP3 Players 路 Other things that might be interesting

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Handy tips for students: DON’T waste money on expensive ipods. Simply think of your favourite tune and hum it. If you want to “switch tracks”, simply think of another song you like and hum that instead.

RAPPERS: Avoid having to say “know what I’m sayin’” all the time by actually speaking clearly in the first place.

DON’T waste money on expensive paper shredders to avoid having your identity stolen. Simply place a few dog turds and used nappies in the bin along with your old bank statements.

WORRIED that your teeth will be stained after a heavy night drinking red wine?

Simply drink a bottle of white wine before going to bed to remove the stains.

MURDERERS: Need to dispose of a body? Simply parcel it up and mail it to yourself via NZpost. You will never see it again.

DRIVERS: If a car breaks down or stalls in front of you, beep your horn and wave your arms frantically. This should aid the car start and send them on their way in an efficient manor.

DEPRESSED people: Instead of attempting suicide as a ‘cry for help’, simply shout ‘Help!’ thus saving money on various pharmaceuticals, rope or other suicidal aids.

SINGLE men: Convince people that you have a girlfriend by standing outside Glasson’s with several bags of shopping, looking at your watch and occasionally glancing inside.

McDONALD’S: Make your brown carrier bags green in colour so they blend in with the countryside after they’ve been thrown out of car windows.

WOMEN: Don’t waste energy faking orgasms; most men couldn’t care less anyway.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Contributed by Gary Oliver. Someone give that man a Rialto pass!

FUN TIMES

Party Review

By Skot and JR

Hamilton - where it’s happening. Well, if you’re emo anyway Ever since Lucas won Rockstar Supernova emos throughout the world let their fringes down and celebrated, knowing they were one step closer to being accepted in society. From being constantly labelled as fags or wannabe goths to being confused with the emu, these guys really have it tough. I thought getting to review one of their parties would open up my eyes and let me see that once I got past all their eyeliner and nail polish they were just like you and me. Some how I think I didn’t quite achieve this, but I’ll let you decide for yourself. Incidentally, if an emo ever called you a ‘Nemo’ they are mocking you.

JR and myself arrived to the party with the sound of AFI blaring out of an old school radio. I heard whispers of the word ‘Nemo’ throughout the bunch.

Looking at the state of some of them I was thinking to myself that maybe they had watched one to many fish cartoons.

As we both sat down with a few beers and joined in with their conversation, one topic became paramount - to be emo you must hate your parents, whether you hate your dad for not letting you wear your sister’s makeup or sit writing poems about how your parents have destroyed your lives. Somehow I think if a dude wore his sister’s makeup he would be destroying his own life, but that’s just my option.

I can’t really be bothered boring you with the rest of the night’s events. Well that, and that I don’t want to talk about man on man love. It really was a shit party and I’m not going to publish any of their photos. I did however take a picture of an extremely drunk and happy chap outside the party that I will publish instead! My apologies go out to Caroline and her dress up party on Saturday night, heard I missed out on a great time!

Top three quotes I heard after the party

I’m just gonna keep on, keeping on Come on baby, it’s my birthday

Party Rating: 1/10

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Rick James, Bitch

Txt me anytime (after 7am) 0274 279319 and JR and myself will review your party.

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CREDITS EDITOR

Dawn Tuffery nexus@waikato.ac.nz DESIGNER

Matt Scheurich graphics@nexus.npl.co.nz

CONTENTS

Tony Arkell admanager@nexus-npl.co.nz 021 17 66 180 NEWS EDITOR

FEATURES

17 20

ADVERTISING MANAGER

You, Me and MP3s MP3 Software – Playing The Field

Joshua Drummond news@nexus-npl.co.nz MUSIC EDITOR

Articles 21 Bar review continued – Some of the ones we missed 25 Making Music in Htown 32 Ramadan 41 Hakinakina pics

8-13 Fee Setting Meeting NZUSA Candidates Battle of the Bombays Clever Law Boffin Wins Doohickey Short Shorts Nexus Haiku News Mr Safety Bigglesworth

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

REGULARS AND OTHER NONSENSE

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BOOKS EDITOR

Michelle Coursey FEATURE

Neville Bartos and Nick W COVER ART

NEWS

04 Jerk Jokes

35 Femme Fatale

05 Party Review

36 Magic 8 Ball

07 Editorial

36 Word Freak

14 Lettuce

37 Boganology 101

26 WSU columns

37 Classic Rock Review

24 Gig Guide

38 Uncle Jim

30 Notices

39 Comics

31 Killing Time

42 Citric

31 The Player

43 DVDs

33 Average Joe and Jane’s Gym

44 Books

33 Restaurant review

45 Film

34 Horse Appreciation Club

46 I’ve Got 5 On It

34 Muscle Man’s tips

47 Busted

35 Chuck and Benjo

M. Emery htownslut@gmail.com

Matt CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE:

Andrew Neal, Mazzy, Olivia Miles, Boulanger, Te Puna Tautoko, Petra Jane, Jeff Rule, Skot, Waikato University Muslims Club (WUMC), Brie Jessen, Burton C. Bogan, Leigh McGeady, The Panther, Chuck and Benjo, Special K and Vitamin C, M. Emery, Gary Oliver, Hazazel, Kazuma Namioka, Joe Citizen, Josh Drummond, Matt, ASPA, AKA, WSU. Nexus: Download it

www.nexusmag.co.nz The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily the views of Nexus Publications 2003 Ltd, any of our advertisers, WSU or APN Media.

Nexus is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA).

To contact Nexus: Email nexus@waikato.ac.nz Ph 07 838 4653 Fax 07 838 4588 Mail Nexus Publications, Private Bag 3059, Hamilton

Editorial

By Dawn

He piko, he taniwha I haven’t downloaded music for a fair while because my net connection isn’t up to it and I haven’t had time anyway (damn you, Caniwha the Taniwha for sucking my time). But here’s what would be the ideal scenario for me when I do get around to it again.

Musicians and listeners sign up to a central type of system that lets people download single tracks by paying a nominal amount, say 50c, per song. You could use a credit card or have an account similar to the one you have on Trademe and keep it in credit. Associated sites could access that account when you downloaded songs, and pass them on to the artists directly.

Older music could be loaded on by whoever owns it.

Looking at the options available, it looks like most of this exists except for the centralisation and the degree of nominal-ness - $1.75 or

Designer’s Wank

By Matt If there’s one thing I like, it’s a good deal.

Just recently Games Plus had a sale on some old Xbox games (they’re probably trying to free up shelf space for the 360 titles) and games were going for $10 each! Craziness. I picked up Top Spin and PSO ep 1+2. It’s been ages since I last properly sat down and played games but I should have been keeping it up as it’s a good way to relax and unwind.

Don’t say I never say anything nice about Coke though. Here goes: I’ve been spending long empty nights cutting up cans and poking wire in my fingers in the name of art, and I’ve found Coke cans are much the easiest to use and have a nice uniform red colour, ideal for taniwha designs. V cans are also good, in a greener way, but you get fewer scales from one can. While I’m on that topic, cheers to the student village people who drank stuff out of all the cans I used last night, the WSU people whose V and Red Bull cans I regularly yoinked over the last two months, and also to the nice folk at the dump shop in Frankton who let me raid their huge can stocks even though they make money off them. Have you been there? You really should.

Faxed Head, Converge, The Locust, etc bands from a million other genres had I not procured them from overseas sources. If I have the money and I find a familiar artist in a physical store, I’ll buy it. Sometimes I’ll order it online if I know I can’t find it in a store. Speaking of great music, Upsett Records is a great place for rare and obscure music. I asked the dude up there the other day if they had any Old Man Gloom and he did and it was the exact CD that I wanted to buy.

Except I didn’t because I am poor.

I like to own CDs as it means I have a reliable source to make a digital rip of. I store all my music on my computer electronically because I don’t want to have to always shuffle through discs on my desk. CDs are also great for the extra things like booklets, or maybe sometimes they’re “enhanced” with some data stuff like music videos or whatever. Those are neat... when they work.

It’s particularly good if you’re a masochistic arty type like me but don’t want to spend too much on your old taps and spoons and wooden things. And it’s like rummaging at the dump without the alarming (but intriguing) textures and smells. Pictures of Caniwha coming next week. Feel free to send in pictures of your own art creations to go with it, especially the projects that literally made you bleed until you wondered why you were bothering. Hooray for art. Go see the student work at the Academy (details on the gig guide).

Kudos to Toll for giving the Overlander another chance. Someone must have passed them a Nexus.

Would say more, but I’m so sleepy. Will go home, leave the magazine to the tender mercies of an exhausted Matt and a high-on-Coke Josh and check back in the morning.

Even though MP3 is so handy and so cheap to buy a track by itself (even collected albums are cheaper than the equivalent on CD) I could never really bring myself to buy any music that my only copy exists in a digital format. For me, it’s not reliable enough.

I really like going to gigs and listening and watching live music. I get to see how people play their instruments – perhaps learn a thing or too – and you get to hang out in a cool environment (which I’m gonna complain about being too loud at times. That’s where trusty ear plugs come in). If a band that is performing has some recordings on CD or other alternative vessel to purchase, if I’ve got the money I’ll do it. I’m all for supporting the music people and being of that ilk myself, I can sympathise with their cause. It really is an art you have to suffer for.

I’ve ranted enough.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

I guess I could mention some stuff on this week’s topic. MP3s are great, CDs are great.

With a lot of music I like to listen to it first then buy it and I do that via downloading the music first. There was no way I would have been introduced to the delights of Lightning Bolt,

so seems to be the going rate. Amplifier.co.nz seems to be ably servicing the home market and you can grit your teeth and try Coke tunes if you’re after the international flavour.

7

Get, Set, Fees!

By Andrew Neal

The inaugural Fee Setting open meeting, designed to “get dialogue flowing” between the university council and students, was held at the banks on a hot Wednesday afternoon last week.

There was a reasonable student turnout at the forum, which was the first of its kind to be held at Waikato University, with some “good questions” being raised about fee increases for next year and student involvement in the fee setting process.

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The council representatives included University Council Chair John Jackman, Chief of Finance Andrew MacKinnon and a range of other councillors. Hamilton East MP David Bennett even came out to have a say.

representative on the council, despite there being two representatives for every other department - including staff – “when students were the main stakeholders of the university,” which drew applause from the crowd.

The Council’s reply was “One good representative is better than two average ones” and that the council worked on consensus rather than votes.

They assured the crowd that the student voice was well projected by WSU President and Council member Sehai Orgad.

Students raised questions about “where fees actually go” and how the University intends to improve services, after council members stated that the fee increases were imperative for improving the university and compensating for the devaluation of University resources.

John Jackman opened the proceedings with a few comments on and vowed to “respond as best we [the council] can,” to student questions. The main issue for students seemed to be the 3-4% undergraduate fee increase and a “fractional” increase for post-graduate fees as described by

The reply from staff council representative Sally Sleigh was that the council was reluctant about increases but were needed to preserve the University for future generations. Andrew MacKinnon listed the Universities expenditure as

Jackman.

follows:

Jackman also stated that “fee increases cause students pain, but not having fee increases hurts other parts of the University”

•

• •

•

Megan Moffet, from the WSU Executive raised a question about why there was only one student

$180 million is the total revenue of the University $100 million of that is spent of wages $15 million is lost each year through devaluation of University property The rest of the money is spent on the

• • •

operations and running costs of the University Where does this money come from? $28 million comes from domestic student fees $35 million comes from international student fees

• •

•

$20 million is received from research grants $8 million comes from University residential halls $78 million is projected to come from the government next year in tuition grants

The University council projects that next year they will achieve a 3% profit to invest back into University services.

WSU President Sehai Orgad said that it was “exciting” to see the University Council interacting with students about key issues like fee setting.

“It was really great to see some key players from council come down and see what it was like to stand up in front of students and debate the main issues with them.”

She said that the move, the first of its kind at the University, would set a new precedent for Council’s dealings with students. “I think this will provide a new playing field for students and council, where we can demand council come down to our level and face up to what they’ve been saying behind closed doors. [The meeting puts] bodies to the statistics that lead them to put fees up each year.

They need to realise and remember who their key stakeholders are and the realities of that.”

2007 NZUSA Candidates Revealed

By Richard Bol (Craccum) Nominations for the two vacant positions at the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations closed Tuesday last week, with an initial set of three candidates for the second Co-President position, and one contender for National Women’s Rights Officer (NWRO) in the running. However, the three contestants for Co-President were soon reduced to two – Giarne Clarke (currently President of Christchurch College of Education Students’ Association) pulled out soon after candidates were announced, leaving the race up to Xavier Goldie (Education Vice-President at Auckland University Students’ Association) and Toni Spiro (President of Wellington Institute of Technology Students’ Association). As the sole candidate for NWRO, Natalie Absolom (Co-President of Otago Polytechnic Students’ Association), has only No Confidence to beat.

The candidates face election by tele-conference on October 12th, and must achieve a two-thirds majority (52 votes out of 78) in an electoral college of NZUSA’s student association members. The second Co-President position and NWRO were left vacant after an earlier inconclusive set of elections held at NZUSA’s September conference, which saw the resounding re-election of current Co-President Joey Randall. Giarne Clarke named her dedication to sorting out the amalgamation of both the Christchurch College of Education and the University of Canterbury and their two respective student associations as the reason for her withdrawal.

In support of his candidacy, Xavier Goldie argued for his ability to be an “honest, frank communicator”, and his experience as AUSA’s Chief Delegate to NZUSA in the past two years. Goldie also referred to his “solid campaigning experience, which is needed for NZUSA’s Living Allowance campaign.” When asked why he did not run in NZUSA’s first round of elections, Goldie explained that he was occupied with other issues, and had not had “enough time to talk to the constituents, which is crucial if you want to enjoy the confidence of support.” Unfortunately, due to an intensely busy schedule, Toni Spiro was unavailable for comment in the limited time available.

Current NZUSA Co-President, Conor Roberts, said of the nominations, “It’s good to see a diverse range of candidates put their hand up for NZUSA. We have a very robust democracy here which ensures that the best person, in terms of their ability to represent students nationally, will get the job.”

By Joshua Drummond

Waikato University have beaten Auckland University for the seventh year running at the 18th annual Battle of the Bombays sports competition.

At stake was the coveted Don Llewellyn Shield, which has been held by Waikato University since 1999. Contenders competed on the Waikato University grounds in six sports disciplines ranging from basketball to bowls. Each side had a netball team made up of members from the Executives of their respective student organisations, as well as specific sports like volleyball, touch rugby, soccer, table tennis and netball.

Waikato won five matches to Auckland’s three in a “hard fought” competition, taking out the Men’s volleyball, the mixed touch rugby, and the WSU vs Auckland Student Union Executive netball match.

Waikato won the bowls and women’s volleyball by default, as well as playing against a Wananga team in the Men’s Basketball where Waikato won handily, 68 – 57. Auckland managed wins in soccer, table tennis and women’s basketball.

Clubs development officer Phil Gilbert said while he’d been slightly disappointed by the amount of sports on offer (down from a high of 12 sports in previous years) but that this year’s teams had played “hard out.”

“They were up to the usual Waikato standard of rocking up, playing hard and enjoying themselves as much as possible,” he said. Gilbert described the Battle of the Bombays as a “bit of a pilot for the Uni Games” while remaining a “friendly, casual competition. “People who play in the BoB might get a bit of a taste for inter-university competition and opt to play in the Uni Games event, which is coming up again next year,” he said.

Full Results: Waikato 5 wins / Auckland 3

(& one non–match in Men B/Ball)

Results: Men B/Ball

no Auckland Team (Waikato Uni Men played a

Wananga side, winning 68-57)

Women B/Ball Netball Volleyball (women) Volleyball (men) Touch Mixed Soccer Table Tennis Bowls

Auckland win 35-28 WSU Exec 22-8 over Auckland student Exec. win to Waikato by default win to Waikato, 2 sets to1 (Teams mixed) win to Waikato (Teams mixed) win to Auckland 1-0 win to Auckland win to Waikato by default

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

In relation to her qualifications for the NWRO role, Natalie Absalom cited her work alongside the current NWRO, Jennifer Jones, and also said that her life experience as a single mother in tertiary education made her aware of how both men and women deal with higher learning. This knowledge led Absalom to recognise that “there is not a homogenous student out there.” Absalom shrugged off any worries about whether she would be successful in her candidacy. “You don’t put yourself forward to be successful, but because you think you can do the job well.”

Bombay Mix

Clever Law Boffin Wins Doohicky A 23-year-old Waikato University Law School student has won a $5,000 scholarship for his dedication to his academic career and his contributions to the Law School’s Maori community.

Cain Kerehoma is this year’s recipient of the Kamira Henry (Binga) Haggie Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded annually to the most deserving, all-round Māori student studying at the masters level in the Law School. Kerehoma, who is originally from Levin, belongs to Ngāti Raukawa.

“Cain’s contribution to Māori students in the School of Law is just phenomenal,” said the Law School’s Māori Liaison Coordinator, Moe Edmonds, who supervised Kerehoma in his work as a mentor to fellow Māori law students. “I always called on him if I ever needed help. He got along exceptionally well with his students and was

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

always in demand.”

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Kerehoma also is an intellectually gifted student, said Craig Coxhead, a Law School Senior Lecturer who supervised Kerehoma’s honours work.

Kamira Henry (Binga) Haggie Scholarship winner Cain Kerehoma (center) with Noki Haggie (left), Waikato Law School’s kuia and Binga Haggie’s widow, and Law School Dean Prof John Farrar (right).

“I was really impressed with Cain,” Coxhead said. “He had an excellent ability to critique and examine, and then put his own thoughts into it.”

The Kamira Henry (Binga) Haggie Scholarship was established in 1999 to recognise Binga’s (as he was commonly known) role as the Law School’s foundation kaumatua. He served in that role from 1991 to 1996, when he retired. He died in 1997. His wife, Noki Haggie, is the kuia for the Law School and serves on the panel that selects the scholarship winner.

For the last three years, he worked as a Māori Law Mentor, helping his fellow students navigate the personal and academic challenges of their law school papers.

“It was really rewarding to be a mentor,” Kerehoma said. “I took on the job as a way of repaying those who had done that for me.

I feel really privileged to have been given the opportunity to do that work.”

Prof Farrar and Noki Haggie presented Kerehoma with his scholarship at a ceremony last month.

Kerehoma said he was humbled to receive the Kamira Henry (Binga) Haggie Scholarship.

Kerehoma came to the University of Waikato in 2001. He earned a bachelors degree in law and Māori before going onto his masters study in law.

“I am honoured and privileged to be associated with it,” he said.

Unitec’s Oakley Creek Bombed

By Rory MacKinnon An explosion heard near Oakley Creek believed to have been caused by a petrol bomb has seen at least one student stood down until police have investigated the matter further.

On Monday, August 28th, students staying at the Accommodation Village reported a loud bang and smoke coming from the direction of Oakley Creek at approximately 12:50am. Shane Norris, a student living off-campus, says that the explosion was loud enough to wake him up in his Herdman St home, off Great North Rd. “I actually thought it was a quarry blast at first.

Then I thought, ‘hang on, there aren’t any quarries around here’. It was a bit of a shock, yeah.”

Security were alerted shortly afterwards, and subsequent investigations by the local constabulary indicate that the noise was caused by a home-made petrol bomb.

Police believe a Unitec student is responsible, and the case is likely to go to trial later this month.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Xbox 360 Stretches Popular Franchises in New Directions

“Microsoft has built an amazing living canvas with Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, which allows the storytellers of our time to express themselves in a new medium. They have fundamentally changed

In addition to demonstrating its leadership in the next-generation of games through exclusive alliances, Microsoft Game Studios announced “Halo Wars,” an all-new real-time strategy game based on the legendary “Halo” universe and built exclusively for Xbox 360 by Ensemble Studios, the creators of the “Age of Empires” series. “Halo Wars” places the player in command of human UNSC armies as they deploy for mankind’s first deadly encounter with the enemy Covenant forces.

Overlander keeps on chuggin’ The New Zealand Herald reported that the Overlander train service between Auckland and Wellington is to continue operating, albeit with cutback schedules.

Toll NZ has announced that the service will be kept running two or three times a week after taking into account public support for the service.

“This will meet the needs of the majority of customers,” Toll chief executive David Jackson told the Herald.

Continuing the service allowed Toll to look at other funding options, he said. Green MP Sue Kedgley told NZPA the Overlander had been given a “stay of execution”.

“I’m pleased that the service isn’t stopping on Saturday and certainly some sort of service is better than nothing,” she said.

“But basically what we need is an upgraded, well-marketed daily service that tourists and New Zealanders can enjoy.”

Token Waikato University Press Release Content Prospective Waikato University graduate students had a chance to explore everything from studying

law to writing software at a Graduate Study Information Session on Thursday, 21 September.

Graduate advisers from all schools and faculty at Waikato University offered advice and discussed study options with current students, members of the community and other potential students.

“There was an impressive number of current final year undergraduate students interested in continuing on to graduate study,” said Fiona Mannington, the graduate/postgraduate student recruitment adviser who organized the event.

“There also was a diverse range of people from the more mature market who were curious about study options at graduate level.”

Gould to be honourable doctor Former Waikato University Vice-Chancellor, Bryan Gould, will be awarded the degree of Honorary Doctor of the University of Waikato at the Law School Graduation Ceremony at the Founders Theatre on 19 October.

Gould served as Waikato University’s ViceChancellor from 1994 to 2004. Under his leadership, several major initiatives were undertaken, including the construction of the City’s WEL Energy Trust Academy of Performing Arts, the establishment of the School of Maori and Pacific Development, and the creation of the Waikato Innovation Park. In 1995, Gould shepherded the University through the process of returning to Tainui the lands on which it stands.

In sport, Gould instigated the annual rowing eights “Great Race” between Waikato and the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as now the University of Washington in the United States. In 2004, a women’s eights event was added, with the winning team being awarded the Bryan Gould Cup. “The profile the University enjoys today is in no small part the result of Bryan Gould’s leadership as Vice-Chancellor,” says present Chancellor John Jackman. “He was always comfortable in the public domain and became a regular and influential commentator for education. His voice was often heard on the radio and he regularly wrote columns for various publications.”

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Microsoft Game Studios announced a partnership with Peter Jackson “to herald in a new age of interactive entertainment”. Jackson, his partner Fran Walsh and team are developing two games exclusively for the Xbox 360. The first project is to co-write, co-design and co-produce a completely new and original chapter in the “Halo” universe in collaboration with Bungie Studios. The second project is an entirely original property from the team in New Zealand that will not only bring a whole new interactive story to life, but will also “captivate new audiences that have yet to discover the power of interactive entertainment,” according to Microsoft. In addition, in collaboration with Microsoft Game Studios, Jackson and Walsh are creating Wingnut Interactive.

how people think about games,” Jackson said.

“My vision, together with Microsoft Game Studios, is to push the boundaries of game development and the future of interactive entertainment. From a movie-maker’s point of view, it is clear to me that the Xbox 360 platform is the stage where storytellers can work their craft in the same way they do today with movies and books but taking it further with interactivity.”

11

NEWS

When you’re wired on caffeine and lack of sleep, writing the news in 17 syllables seems like a really good idea!

Overlander to continue running

Maori Party ‘was offered

Screech is the guy

Overlander, not going strong

$250,000 to support Labour’

From Saved By the Bell,

If people don’t come

They should have taken the cash

Living in his own private hell.

It won’t last long.

Joined with Labour, And had a tu-meke bash.

prostitution law, Copeland says

Greens call for nutrition

Geeks around the world respond

Prostitutes are getting loot

labelling on takeaways

“Fucken cool!”

Are run by gangs, and

Know what we’re eating,

Are Asian, to boot.

Say the Greens,

Schwarzenegger signs law

Christ, damned do-gooders, stop your bleating!

to fight global warming Looks to future,

Teacher who drove five times over limit tells of shame

EU and Iran to continue nuclear talks

Sees world burning,

Oh, teacher, teacher

The EU: cool with

“Ahh, my eyes, the goggles do nothing!”

Against the wall?

Tehran’s ambitions

Who’s the drunkest driver of all?

for atomic munitions.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Screech hopes sex tape will lift profile

12

Peter Jackson to create two Xbox games Jackson making games times two

Asian gangs exploiting

Ahahahahaha! This week I am happy, for I have brought down a criminal! Tremble at the might of Bigglesworth, foolish criminal bastards!

Well. I think I might have. Maybe. I’m not actually sure. But I’ll give you the short version.

I awoke from a well-earned sleep at sometime in the afternoon and pulled open the blinds – to discover a man immediately outside my window, in the act of what I can only describe as “sneaking.”

He and I regarded each other in some shock before he gained composure and scooted off in the direction of the gate. I headed for the front door to head him off, and opened it to behold him standing rather awkwardly on my doorstep.

“Hello,” I said.

He was tall, brown-skinned, long-haired and dishevelled, with eyes that darted at everything except me and hands that flickered in a kind of unholy dance – clasped behind him, in front of him, waving about, wringing anxiously. The net effect was like a life-sized, lightly stoned puppet on loose strings. If a puppet could hawk and spit, that is, which this bloke did regularly.

“Yawrr, haaaark – spit – urr,” said the man.

Communications now initiated, he went on to tell me he was looking for someone who could tell him about his car, which he said had been stolen from right outside our flat.

“What kind of car?” I asked.

“A hatchback,” he said.

In between spitting bouts and odd noises which I can best describe as a cross between a moo and the cry of a dying cat, he told me he thought his “ex” may have nicked the car. “Have you called the cops?” I asked. He made some more noises at the mention of the police, said “nah,” lurched speedily out the gate, and made his way I know not where.

It took me about five minutes to ask myself the following things: 1) Why hadn’t he knocked?

2) Why was he peering into windows?

3) Why had he left so fast?

4) Why was he looking for a car in my backyard? His “ex” must’ve been one strong bitch, or my fence had holes and my backyard cars that I didn’t know about.

5) Why was his cover story so incredibly crap?

I pondered these questions for a bit then called the police. I was put through to the burglary squad, who were immensely interested and helpful. They asked me for details and a description, and sent a squad car, which I saw winging its way down the street mere minutes later.

That night a house down the road was broken into.

And the next day the police rang back to say that a bloke who fitted the description I’d given them had been arrested for burglary, and did I want to press charges for him trespassing?

Now, I must stress, I don’t actually know if the bloke they arrested, the bloke I saw, and the burglary are all connected. But the thing is, there have been over 20 burglaries and car break-ins in the wider Hamilton East area over the last few weeks, and Ray Hayward at Uni Security tells me that car thefts/break ins on campus are on the rise again (with two being broken into at Orchard Park.) He says to be on the lookout for mystery people lurking in car parks, being dropped off and wandering around aimlessly, or just being there for no apparent reason. If you see anything, give Security or the cops a call.

So the moral of my little story is what? Be evervigilant. And a suspicious, paranoid bastard. And should you be these things, you too might catch a crim.

Maybe. Sort of.

Sincerely,

Damn straight, I said.

ARE YOU: Paranoid? Suspicious? Edgy?

Do you snoop on people? Are you an incurable gossip? Do you hate injustice and love freedom? Let us know!

You have 2 issues to do so.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Got some news you think should be in Nexus? Or just want to write news? Let us know! Just contact us any of these ways: Call: (07) 838 4653 Email: news@nexus-npl.co.nz Txt: 027 413 8878

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Send yours to nexus@waikato.ac.nz, or post it in the Lettuce section of the forum.

Which, incidentally, is going off - www.nexusmag.co.nz/forum. See responses and opinions to letters online and if you’re registered you can reply with your thoughts!

Lettuce Policy

Nexus welcomes and encourages debate through the letters page – serious or otherwise. Letters should be no more than 250 words and received by 5pm on the Tuesday before publication. All letters will generally be printed so give it a bash, but the editor retains the right to abridge or refuse correspondence.

Bad spelling and grammar will not be corrected. Pseudonyms are acceptable but all letters must include your real name and contact details even if you don’t want them printed (and they won’t be printed!). We discourage the use of pseudonyms for serious letters.

Letter of the Week Boo to second hand smoke Hi NEXUS :D My first year at wonderful Waikato Uni is drawing to a close, and its now that I’ve decided to send in my first email to *NEXUS* No offense to smokers, but I’m really sick of second hand smoking. So much that I drew a comic.

I don’t like the smell.

I can’t breathe.

It’s going INTO my lungs.

It goes through my clothes and my hair.

It dulls my eyes.

It ruins my lie-down moments at campus.

So please, make my day, make thousands of other students’ day, say something about smoking in public. (you even get to use my comic! drawn with black ink pen, enhanced with a red brush in photoshop - wow) This isn’t protesting against smokers. It’s protesting against on-going second hand smoking -- IT HAS TO STOP! Yours Non-smokingly, Amy

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Congrats Amy, you’ve scored yourself a free $5 voucher to use at Campus Kiosk! Watch out for the smokers hanging around the courtyard there...

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Coca Cola bite back Dear Editor First of all I’d just like to say thanks for the entertaining read in Matt’s designer’s word article. “Cock-faces”… had me in hysterics for an hour. I don’t actually think I’ve heard anyone called that since primary school.

There seems to be a growing number of people who are willing to mouth off at the big, bad multinational that is Coca-Cola. However, what annoys me is the fact that most of these people have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Maybe they should have paid more attention to primary school and one of its core messages…. Do your homework.

Coca-Cola is distributed throughout New Zealand through Coca-Cola Amatil NZ (Ltd). We are a Kiwi company, proud of our culture, our people and our commitment to New Zealand through employment and sponsorship. By the way, this year at Waikato University alone we have supported the Blues Awards, Interhalls, Social Sports, Orientation, Uni Open Day, Uni Games, International day, Battle of Bombays and Uni Golf Day. But that’s not the issue is it? No. Instead of focusing on any of the positive things that we have done for the University, you turn your attention

towards a wall!

“Coke-bashing” is probably not going to stop any time soon. After all, we live in a country that celebrates tall-poppy syndrome. But as an editor, surely you have to uphold the basic journalistic principle of remaining un-biased? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. At the end of the day, it all reflects on you, the editor. Your call…

Yours Sincerely, Aimee Driscoll Corporate Affairs Manager Coca-Cola Amatil NZ (Ltd)

Editor’s response: Hi Aimee, thanks for your letter and I’m glad Nexus is making you laugh. We aim to please. Personally I’m not quite sure Coke qualifies as a tall poppy – surely it’s more of a steamroller/plough? Naturally my personal editorial grumblings about Coke were directed more at the multinational itself rather than its NZ distribution company. The reasons for this opinion and whether they’re based in fact would take an article in themselves, and is something we may look at in future issues. In a balanced manner if possible, as befits a feature article.

However, editorial comment does not necessarily have to be ‘balanced’.

And while CCA’s support for university

LETTUCE events certainly sounds positive, it didn’t happen to affect me that week.

I commented on the wall because it’s in my face and appeared to spring up overnight without any obvious student consultation. As editor of a student magazine I like to encourage and include vigorous debate about on-campus issues. That comment did just that, with people speaking out in both opposition and support of the mural in our online forums and in the following issue. – Ed.

I personally have “Ginger hair”; Now NZ has come up with all these nick names for us, personally I find these none of these nick names offensive, it’s a fact “I have red hair”.

And congratulations to those of you who have the intelligence to realise that, yes, my hair is different to yours.

I even refer to myself as a ginger and laugh it off.

These names all make a link between my hair colour and something of similar colour, so here’s one for you shitheads, yes shithead your hair is the colour of shit, so in a nation of shitheads ginger doesn’t seem so bad.

So in a nation of predominantly shitheads I will continue to sit back

accurate, if not sensored. I was lucky enough to spend two years at Otago, the best two years of my life, and i can honestly say that the minority that you refer to who don’t drink like fish in Dunedin are not that, they are the definite majority. Granted nothing is as carnage as O-week but it never stopped there, it was a constant party excluding a few four week breaks around exams. But these students do succeed, do achieve, and probably take a lot more out of their experiences there such as people skills, and life experience which is equally as important as ‘grades’. Now the reason you may not be able to relate to this is that you have probably not spent any time in Otago as a student, and your only experiences are from Waikato. Waikato university has no culture, no atmosphere, no carnage, and to desribe my it in one word would be boring. It is for this reason that the studentville program focused on Dunedin, because nothing happens anywhere else. Nothing compares to Otago student life, and only those who have experienced it can truley relate to it. And saying that people want to actually watch students on tv swatting? Get real pal.

Keep you uneducated opinions in you head where they belong. I lived in Studentville and it was Fucken Awesome!

Mat, Once a Scarfie, always a Scarfie.

red ‘rent o kill’ suits laying rounds into pigeons sleeping up the tops of the k block building with a sniper slug gun, stuffing them into a bag, hi fiving one another over a “great shot”. What’s up with that shit!? When walking around the baron concrete jungle that is the whak a chang uni the pleasant murmur of the pigeons and them fluttering past is a peaceful, pleasant occurrence .So why the fuck is the uni hiring white trash to pop them out of the sky?

Yours sincerely The weasel

and enjoy watching people call me “names”, thinking there insults when in it’s a fact, that is who I am and they are nicknames that I have no problem with. I am proud of my hair colour it is who I am and it separates me from the masses.

PS. check out the back page of last weeks nexus the model for the miss outback final has been photoshoped (now they do this to make them look hotter) and they gave her red hair, obviously insinuating that red heads are HOT!!!

Yours truly, Fanta Pants

Poor Pigeons

Chuck and Benjo

In defence of Studentville Oh Benny, how little you know..

The actions that were depicted in Studentville regarding student behaviour in Dunedin is extremely

Gingas bite back In my defence, I am no longer a “ginga ninja”. Although I have spent much of the year as a ‘strawberry blonde’, my hair is now a much more natural colour. That beeing said, I was and still would be a proud ginger and have no issues with declaring my love for gingas the world over. There are some ridiculously good looking gingas in the world (Josh Homme aka Queens of the Stone Age is an extremely attractive member of the fanta pants club) and I have the Top 5 lists to prove it. Socially unacceptable it may be, but us (wannabe I may be) scarlet harbingers of the apocalypse know where you live Chuck...

Keri Trim from the school of Ed.

‘Ginga’ doesn’t bother him, you shithead!

Step up the offensive factor I’ve got to admit; last weeks Rage in a Cage column was most dissapointing.

As a student magazine its your job to offend enough people to get mentioned in the real media and attract some attention to our uni.

You have the right idea, picking on people because of the way they they look, but c’mon; Gingas? Dear lord!

Of all the minorities they’re the least able to fight back! Why didn’t you select a proper target like all our slit eyed overseas students, towl heads, fags, bible bashers or horis? I can only hope this letter causes enough offence to save your mags tarnished reputation.

This just won’t do; we’re competing against Salient here and we’re almost out of semsester to fuck around in.

Cheers, Zib

They like us, they really like us. Mostly.

Dear Ed, I just wanted to commend Nexus on the art and graphics in last weeks Nexus (22-25 Sept). The cover was brilliantly done (hats off to the artists, Josh and Matt), and the clever little ‘Town Stereotypes’ pics were amusing. Its a marked improvement from standard set by the usual ‘Comix’ (this week it was Count Hamula), which are unimaginative, depraved, and just plain blerg (technical term for un-funny rubbish).

Regards, George

Sex, Christians and whales In reply to Craigs letter, I’d just like to say, that saying Christians don’t hate anyone denies the fact that Christians are an outright diverse lot, ranges from the hippy end of the spectrum to the really wierd end where all the destiny church leaders hang out. A good movie I suggest you watch is “Kingdom of Heaven”, it’s a good story of the Crusades because it shows the similarities between Muslims or Christians, and the divisions and shows that indeed, Christianity does not define your morals, it’s up to the individual. There is only one religion I have heard of where you can be pretty darned sure that it’s members don’t hate anyone, it’s called Buddhism.

Aggression is a funny thing, it helps to calm some situations, but can enflame other situations. For example, Green Peace could do with a bit of aggression to show those whalers that they’re serious, how long can people just sit around and talk about solutions before they take action? Till all the whales are gone? Till the ozone layer hole gapes open causing cancer to run rampant around the world? But, on the flipside aggression has meant that the middle east has been a battle ground as far back as the crusades, or even farther.

The point is, conflict is how we learn, but wheteher or not we learn from the conflict is more important than the

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

In regards to the young fellow who had their laser beam broken into, Some smug prick also performed a heinous crime on my beautiful stream lined ford laser. The bastards plummeted into the side passenger door at some incredible velocity whilst it was minding its humble business in the gate 1 car park leaving one huge dent. obviously a purposeful hate crime by some stupid Holden fan with a matching gay shirt and wallet or some of the worst fucking driving I’ve seen in a long time. But pay shmay i just kicked the crap out of it from the inside and now it looks good as new... well not really but now the door can open again. Also on the way to the labs the other night i saw to men in

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LETTUCE conflict itself.

Pre-marital sex... well... seeing as some couples who may have been together for years and years and years cannot legally get married, I’d have to say that yeah, it can mean something, possibly more than couples who have been together only a short time but are married. True, sex can mess up relationships, but it can also strengthen them.

It all depends on what the relationship is built on.

Sometimes there can be a clearcut line between love and lust, sometimes the line begins to blur.

Who are either of us to say which is better?

Rodgort T. Tarinbourn

You can party with good grades Dear “Benny” (what the fuck!!!!)

In response to the opinion posted in issue 22

(Hamilton club review issue). What fucking bullshit!!!

I’m guessing you’re a 5th year who is over uni and hasn’t got any for a while, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t know how to have fun and still study!!

Over 1000 students were at that toga party. I must say that would have to be the majority. Yes we are mainly talking about first and second years. But I ask what the fuck are you doing at uni if your not gunna have fun? It has been a tradition for fucken years now retard, and of course our parents know what we do, they were young too!

They know what we do, it was the same in there day and will be for many years.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

I think the show is great, it shows the fun you can have at uni and still study. I’m telling you now I’ve done all the shit you see on that show and so has 90% of my hall. And fuck yea I’ve passed everything with nothing lower than a B. For fuck sake the typical student does party a lot. What are you trying to say that students that party hard are not going to succeed? Maybe you should ask your doctor that went 2 Otago what they did in their first years!! When you decide to stop being such a fucking grandma tossa that puts down all students who know how to have fun and still succeed then maybe you will realize what life is about.

Having fun and learning something on the way!!!

From the crew at Block 2 Student Village……………..FUCK YEA!!!!!

The creation of sorely needed social activity at Waikato

By Artists Kollective Actionistas So by the time your eyes see this letter in the harsh light of a Monday morning, voting for the Waikato Student Union exec is over. But really, is the WSU so important in its current form? Does the WSU foster some of these social aspects that university life is supposedly famous for? I think not. Some people are quite right in feeling a little short changed considering they pay ~$80 a year for a sausage and a beer (give or take some things that go unnoticed like SJS). Then again, what’s the point of criticism without a little constructiveness?

Remember high school? Yeah, those youthful years of your life where alcohol was so wickedly fun (because of your general lack of access to it), where guys and girls would sit on the opposite side of the room at the disco just because you were too shy to talk to that cute guy/girl from Kahurangi house, oh the good times. Speaking of houses, I think our university should have houses. Entirely arbitrary divisions across our student body. Currently there is no real division between our students which leads to a lack of a competitive spirit across our student body, and a general lack of togetherness between students. After all, it is hard to feel as part of a unique group of 10,000 students.

You could argue that there are shades of student division already at the university, i.e. the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences. However, this still groups people with similar dispositions together which ultimately doesn’t serve to raise student competitiveness, only segregate students into their respective schools.

Instead, I propose the creation of six colleges based on the model used at Lancaster University in the UK. Five undergraduate colleges would evenly share the number of undergraduate students at the university, while the remaining college would be for graduate students. I also recommend that all staff become members of the six colleges, with their membership being distributed evenly. Essentially, everyone either studying at university or working at university will be a member. These six colleges can be given the names of important locations in Waikato history. There would also be a general theme to each college, one college known to be more sport-focused than others, one college known a college of ill-repute perhaps, just a background tale that gets people to think about their college as more than just their name on a mailing list, but as something to be proud of, to defend the honour of, and as a lifelong bond between themselves and other members.

So why is this better than what we have now? At the moment there is a general lack of organized social activity at university, because well … managing 10,000 students’ social activities is a difficult task.

Managing 1800 or so students is a far more manageable task, and also has the potential of creating cross-college social events such as sporting, debates, balls and anything else a particular college wants to do for its students. This also involves staff taking a more active role into the collective spirit of the university and hopefully allows students to think of their lecturers and tutors as more than just that, but as college partners and friends.

We often hear of stories of the great student atmosphere at Otago, and the lack of it in Auckland, but what can we do? Continue to rot in apathy, to see university as a place where you go to study, then leave? Or decide that the future is certainly brighter, and perhaps a little bit of separation from your fellow students doesn’t necessarily lead to less social interaction, but in fact gives you the opportunity for more social interaction.

So what college are you?

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There’s another Opinion piece on page 22...

By Neville Bartos Worldwide the music industry is on the edge of monumental change. The Suits are desperately clinging to their ever slimming pay checks, even going to the absurd measures of taking legal action against their only source of income, consumers. The major record companies are shutting the gate as hard and fast as they can but their eyes are so clogged up with decades of dollar signs they can’t see that the horse bolted about 5 years ago. We’re talking, of course, about MP3s.

The internet has completely transformed the culture of the way information is shared, and music is no different. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last 10 years, pay quick attention. Mp3 is a form of compression. Very basically if takes your big fat music file, removes the bits your ear can’t hear, and then squishes the rest into a little music file, around about a tenth of the size it was before. So now it’s small enough to email, upload or download on/from the internet, or throw onto an mp3 player to listen to while you ‘jog’.

Chuck D’s new business ventures are good examples of the future trend of the music industry at large: cutting out the middle man. His online service delivers ring tones, video and other hip-hop content to mobile phones. He runs an online record label. His web portal links directly to free mp3s. This is where The Suits are losing the plot, they refuse to innovate. The really ridiculous thing is that they should have started almost a decade ago.

In 1999 Ben Sawyer, the author of MP3 Power!, said “Right now, record companies are trying to fight technology, but eventually the companies will have no choice but to embrace the changes in the way music is made and consumed.” He and many other observers like him predicted the impact mp3s would have on the music industry, and somehow The Suits missed it. Recently, technology investor Mark Cuban laughed while going through the notes of a speech he made in 1999. He erroneously predicted the death of mp3, but only because of the technology itself, not the impact it was making culturally. Cuban imagined that internet speeds and global broadband uptake would see streaming media and better compression ratios overtake the popularity of mp3. Aside from this slip up he was dead on with his prediction for The Suits. Cuban wrote “...the structure of music and film distribution networks will dissolve in the face of Web-based distribution.”

I can’t for the life of me figure out why the brains behind the money at the record companies didn’t sit down and determine a way to make this technology work in their favour. But I can’t figure out why all politicians are fat, either. I guess there’s no accounting for greedy idiots. So they continue to sue their own consumers and scream at the top of their lungs that their product is being stolen at ever increasing rates. To say nothing of their fiddling the numbers to make downloaders look bad, of their lobby groups that influence the way laws are made, or of their painful inability to release anything better than the next rehashed R’n’B single.

The truth is that not only is the internet the future of music distribution, it is also the future of music marketing. I spoke to a member of a NZ band currently signed to a major label and asked him what his thoughts on mp3s and downloading were. He told me the band has made essentially nothing

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Where this starts to affect you and me is that the big fat record companies and their big fat lawyers don’t want you listening to their music for free, so rather than innovate they clutch to the shredded remains of a dying business model. This is why companies are still issuing ‘legal’ mp3 downloads infested with dreaded DRM. Digital Rights Management is a means by which the copyright owner restricts the way you can use the product you buy. This works for the corporation because they don’t want you to share the file illegally; but it’s broken because the consumer is unable to fairly use the product in a way that is convenient to them. Conversely most artists (and of course consumers) would prefer no DRM at all which means the artistic output is able to be shared and enjoyed by all; but this is broken because a cash flow has to come from somewhere. Public Enemy’s Chuck D recently described the current DRM wranglings as “just a lot of fucked-up shit”.

The future of music

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YOU, ME AND MP3S from their albums. Album sales pay only for the album recording, marketing and packaging with a pittance left over. Where the real money lies is in playing live and selling merchandise. He told me the more that people share their music for free the more people are likely to come to shows, which means he gets to make a living. His summation? The more downloading the better.

Now if his record company heard him talking like that they’d come down on him like a ton of bricks. Why? Because The Suits want to get paid. Noting a pattern here? Can you see who illegal mp3 downloads are really hurting? I’ll give you a clue, it’s not the artists. Record sales continue to decrease and yet people own more and more music, and for sharing good music you are being criminalised. The dollar trail in the music industry is broken and we can only hope as a new era of music distribution begins the real winners will be you and me, and the artists who gift us with songs.

internet, go purchase a copy when it comes out. You get to own a copy of the music you love and it means you’re helping the artist to make a future album, if not spend a bit more on groceries. On top of all that sometimes it’s nice to have the packaging. You know, the artists actually put a lot of effort into getting a nice piece of art in your hands.

Buy mp3s. Excuse me while I go have a big sarcastic cry that we don’t have iTunes yet. Fuck them. We already have a fantastic mp3 store right here in NZ called amplifier.co.nz. It’s NZ owned and operated, has an inspiring selection of mp3s and sells legal, DRM-free mp3s to listen to. On top of all that you can feel good that the artists are getting paid a nice fat percentage of your sale.

Share mp3s with people you know will like bands they haven’t heard of before. Ask your nerd mate about how P2P networks and torrents work. Use a cool Google search hack like g2p.org. Find music you like, listen to it and share it. Artists want their music heard by as many people as possible. Enjoy

if you take a CD you own and convert the music to mp3 for your iPod, well that is breaking the law. Yes, you are a terrible person, go sit in the corner.

At the moment in NZ it is currently illegal to make copyrighted music available to others. It is also illegal to format shit. So if you take a CD you own and convert the music to mp3 for your iPod, well that is breaking the law. Yes, you are a terrible person, go sit in the corner. So with the legalities in mind where does this all leave you and me – good mostly honest kiwis that love music?

Here are Neville’s recommendations:

it and pass it on.

Go to live shows! Artists in NZ will continue to offer a bunch of their music to you for free because they want people to go to their shows and have a great time. If you like a band’s music, go see them live.

Buy music you like. If someone lends you a song or album and you dig the music, go buy it. If you download a leaked copy of an awesome LP from the

Listen. Hear that? That is the sound of history changing, of The Suits shaking, of you and I slowly taking over.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Firstly, pay attention to your rights. The legal situation regarding mp3s at the moment is insane and illogical. Stay informed of what the law is and where the future of music and technology is headed. You hold the cards here.

Don’t turn them over to The Suits.

On top of everything don’t be a cheap-arse. Remember that The Suits are deadly and evil but that all artists love making music and want you to hear it. Apart from your top 40 hit makers most musicians struggle to make ends meet and have given up a great deal for their art, for your enjoyment, so throw them a bone when you can afford it. And then sit back and enjoy the ride.

AMPLIFIER.CO.NZ

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TXTTUNES.CO.NZ

By Nick W Once you’ve downloaded all of your legal or illegal mp3s, you’re going to need some way of listening to them on your computer.

If you bought any mp3 player, such as an iPod, an iRiver or a Creative, then chances are you’ll be using the default software that came with them.

If you don’t have an mp3 player, or you want an alternative means of listening to music, then the internet provides a wide range of choices.

These range from the simple mp3 players with nothing more than a playlist and a play button, to full blown media centres with more options for customisation than you’ll ever need. To help sort them out, Nexus has compiled a list of the most popular players currently available.

An Apple a day First up is iTunes 7, arguably the most popular mp3 player among the simple folk of the world.

Part of its popularity can be attributed to the fact that it is dead easy to use. Everything you need is contained in one large window, there are no hidden menus or options – it’s all very clean and simple. Ripping CDs and downloading Podcasts is simple, and the latest version of iTunes also allows you to buy high quality TV shows and stream them directly to a Video iPod.

Use this program if: You like things simple, and don’t mind being told what to do.

Micro Management In direct competition with iTunes is Windows Media Player 11. It has many of the same features with a few differences, such as the ability to play video files and .wma music. On top of this, the Media Library is easier to manage, if you want to buy music online you have a range of stores to choose from, and if you want to customise the look of the player there’s plenty of skins to download straight from Microsoft. The downside to this is the clutter. Unlike iTunes, which thrives off simplicity, Media Player chooses instead to bombard you with menus, options and features which most people don’t need and would never use. While Media Player may be a more fully featured program, it just can’t compete with the simplicity of iTunes.

Use this program if: You like your software packed with features and don’t mind a bit of clutter. www.windowsmedia.com

Sadly Overlooked Up next is Musicmatch Jukebox 10. Unless you own a Philips mp3 player, chances are you won’t have heard of this. I had heard bad things about Musicmatch, so I was surprised to find that it’s a simple, easy to use, almost bare bones media player. There’s not much I can say about it that I haven’t mentioned in previous paragraphs – It organises your music very nicely, you can copy from CDs or to them, you can download skins to change the look, and you can buy music from the Musicmatch store. Sadly, there’s nothing that makes it stand out. It has neither the simplicity of iTunes nor the features of Windows Media Player so although there’s nothing inherently bad about it, there’s nothing particularly wonderful about it either.

Use this program if: You want to try something different. Who knows, you may just like it. www.musicmatch.com

Hail to the king, baby Sadly, all of these media players pale in comparison to Winamp.

First released in 1997, it still reigns supreme as the best media player out there. If you want simplicity, it provides you with a playlist and some playback controls. If you want to get a bit more complicated, then you can play with the comprehensive and incredibly easy to use media library. You can build smart playlists that automatically add songs based on your preferences, you can watch free Internet Television, listen to Internet Radio, download free music from the Winamp site, and copy music to your iPod. Hell, if you have a gamepad for your PC then you can use it as a remote control and change tracks while lying on your bed. The only downside is a minor learning curve for newbies, but after a couple of hours it becomes second nature and I guarantee you’ll never look back.

Use this program if: You want nothing but the best. www.winamp.com

Other Choices Foobar (www.foobar2000.org) Nothing but a playlist and a few playback controls, this excellent program defines the word bare-bones. dbPowerAmp (www.dbpoweramp.com) The spawn of Satan. Ugly, featureless and a drain on your computer.

Sonique (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonique) Once hailed as a Winamp killer, now a forgotten relic of the Napster Era.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Sadly, if you like to do things your own way then you’ll find plenty of problems with iTunes. It moves things around, renames files, and leaves you with very few options of your own, so if you like having your music organised in a specific way you may find this very irritating. On top of this, the latest version needs nothing short of a supercomputer to run smoothly, and if you have less than a gig of RAM you may want to give it a miss.

www.itunes.com

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By Josh, Vitamin C and Matt

The Castle Whenever I mention The Castle to some people, I tend to get blank stares as replies. I explain “It’s on Ward street, just down the road from the Slateen Kebab place”. It’s not hard to miss (well, maybe it is) but the outside entrance is painted all bright yellow brick-like.

The Castle has recently been host to various shows in Hamilton such as the annual Circle Jerk, This Night Creeps’ final show, some Metal gig and various exciting Mole Music shows. Infact, these shows were the only reason I went to The Castle although they have other reasons for you to go there namely Karaoke, pool and, uh, some arcade machines. It’s a huge space down there and a neat set-up for shows as there’s a big enough area to dance in and another area for people to sit down on couches and socialise it up.

They’ve got a small bar down there – not all that fancy but they do have a wide range of drinks. One such concoction is called the Golden Dragon and I have it on very good authority that it is an excellent drink and that you can only get it from The Castle.

The other interesting thing about The Castle is that the stage they have for performances is glass. You can see right through it (hence it being glass).

Now that is swank.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Altitude Chances are you all know about the Altitude as well, but the interesting thing here is the variation in popular opinion of the people who go there. A quick sample of some people scattered around the place includes “We come here for the hip-hop”, “I’m here for the rock”, “The bitches aren’t too bad here”, “My friends told me it was cool” and “My mum told me I’m cool”. It seems that it’s all about what time you go there as to which music you are going to be busting it out to/putting up with. There’s a bunch of stairs to go up as you go in, so that helps with burning off the calories from your bourbons and Cruisers, and once you get up there you have biggest single dance-floor in town. The whole place is one big room which makes for a really cool atmosphere when it’s packed, although when it’s empty it really feels like there’s a “The Hills Have Eyes” thing going on….

THE CROWD AT ALTITUDE

LIVE GIGS LIVE GIGS. Altitude is the premier live music spot in Hamilton, anyone remotely big will be playing there and it absolutely goes off. The Exponents gig at the start of the year there was fucking awesome. There’s no better way of putting it than ‘fucking awesome’, if not ‘extremely sweaty’.

When we were in the lovely people there showed us around the DJ booth upstairs, which required going up more stairs past a hell of a lot of autographs all along the walls from all the bands that have played in Altitudes history. The sheer number of CDs up there is amazing, there’s a hell of a lot of depth as well as breadth to the music selection, although most standard Friday/Saturday nights it seems you’ll mainly get the rotation from the harddrive of the computer. And I got to do the buttons for the lights during Thunderstruck when I was up there. How ‘fucking awesome’ is that? Very ‘fucking awesome’. The drinks prices are pretty good compared to some of the other larger clubs, in fact I think they are ‘fucking awesome’. This review was brought to you by the words ‘fucking awesome’. I hear that some of the nicer patrons around the Altitude are ‘awesome at fucking’. So go there.

Now.

Axces I’ve actually been a customer at Axces since it opened (I still can’t spell the

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CONTINUED BAR REVIEW

name properly), and it has been interesting watching the development of the place. It used to be kind of quiet, I’d go in and play pool before work but after some renovations and an absolutely bitching launch party with Jaegermeister a little while back it has been getting bigger and better. If you’ve ever wondered why town has been so dead this year on Fridays, evidence would suggest that everyone is at Axces. The place seems to be targeted at the metal crowd, with a bit of the heavier rock as well. If anyone knows Crazy Jacks in Tauranga, it’s similar atmosphere except in a club setting. Live music is also big here, there’s been some great bands doing covers and originals, and a Battle of the Bands was held recently. I think. Slipping

the while ball look TRIPPY!) Join the regulars in flailing dances with your own hands! Watch as the lasers give you permanent cataracts! Lose yourself in mysterious passages to nowhere! Engage in games of find-the-toilets! Feel the texture of the walls! Feel the texture of the patrons! Feel the texture of the bouncers! Feel the texture of a broken nose!

Tongue were playing the other night and they are pretty damn awesome, they had the crowd going hard out.

(and if you’re uninitiated, you’re a tool. Get out of your basement and go and check some things out, damn you) Monkeyfeather is an upstairs bar located opposite Altitude. It plays dance music. If you can’t dance, it doesn’t matter.

In fact, it’s kind of a plus. The harder you flail, the more people respect you.

(I have it on good authority that my associate, Jim, who flails harder than an epileptic breakdancing robot which is on fire and is being attacked by Jedi pirate ninjas with tasers and lightsabers, was treated as a kind of golden god by the patrons at Monkeyfeather before being escorted out by bouncers who were starting to worry about him breaking the floor)

Monkeyfeather Woooo! Woooooooo! Woooooooooooooooooo! Look at all the pretty lights and listen to the block-rockin beats! Witness the hot-ass bar girls do body shots off each other! Play at the world’s only strobe-lit pool table! (makes

There is a pool table, and there are tables and chairs in groovy little booths, but Monkeyfeather is about one thing only – dancing your little heart out.

It’s the only club in Hamilton that caters exclusively to the raver set, and it’s good for this very reason. Go there and have a thrash. Watch out for getting lost in the endless dungeon-like corridors by the entrance or being mauled by strangely touchy-feely patrons.

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The crowd seems to be the castaways from Soundproof and Six Feet Under.

The bar team is pretty cool too, friendly service, decent prices and such.

There’s an outside bar with outside seating so you can all go and suck on your cancer-sticks while still purchasing your cancer-drinks, and relaxing on the cancer-seats. There’s also an inside booth with beer taps where you can pay a tab at the bar to have the taps activated. That way you don’t have to interrupt your drinking with all that getting up and cancer-walking to the bar.

Pretty cool idea. Cancer.

Get the idea? Monkeyfeather is quite an experience. We arrived there sort of midway through the night. Turns out we sort of knew the bar-girls from a previous night in town where we’d drunkenly “interviewed” them. Well, that was our excuse for talking to them, and we’re sticking to it. For the uninitiated

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hard-fought battle for a Multi-Employer Collective Agreement which allowed for united national bargaining, University staff joined forces with Vice Chancellors and lo!

There’s something about University fees

By A Disgruntled Student University assignments grades students on the ability to answer set questions accurately and without too much tangential bullshit. Why can’t our University Council show us the same courtesy? Instead, we saw feats of logical acrobatics at Wednesday’s Open Student Meeting on fee-setting, lots of feel-good platitudes without any substantial answers.

We need to provide value for money education.

It’s a great pity that student fees have to rise each year, our Councilors told us, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Government funding per domestic EFTS has dropped in real terms over the last several years. The money has to come from somewhere.

But the money is coming from somewhere.

EFTS-based funding has dropped partly because the Government funding model has changed to include the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF). It’s simply not accurate to look at changes in Government funding on the per-EFTS grant alone.

And if the Council is really so concerned about student fees, why haven’t the council lobbied Government for more money? If we’re to believe their dismissive answers, Finance Minister Michael Cullen has told Universities there simply isn’t any more money to be had.

And that’s the end of the matter...or is it? It’s a familiar argument, it’s almost exactly the one used against staff pay claims last. But after a

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

A review of

Doctor Cullen found $26million per year he didn’t know he had. Imagine what other loose change might have slipped behind the Government’s couch cushions.

I suspect the University Council’s real reluctance to look for funding from Government rather than your pocket, is a matter of ideology. It suggests they’re disposed towards a user-pays business model for tertiary education. It also explains why the only attempt to give a straight answer wasn’t to any of the questions posed by students, but to a patsy question posed by National MP David Bennett.

If the council isn’t going to lobby Government on our behalf, then we need a concerted campaign to lobby our Council. Let them know you as students expect to be put ahead of their ideology.

Demand to know how putting untargetted TV advertising above staffing levels provides ‘value for money’ education. After all, it’s your money they’re spending.

By Matt

Happening 14 – 19 September, Tempo was an event hosted by those kind people from Hamilton Community Arts Council and involved seminars

The other talk I attended was on touring around New Zealand. The guests were Blink who runs the A Low Hum Presents tours, Brian McMillian

and also new music distribution technologies to utilise such as Amplifier.co.nz, txttunes and iTunes. The release of a compilation CD

given by a panel of music industry pros imparting knowledge and experience to hopeful Hamilton musos at the Meteor theatre. Various seminars were on and the ones I had visited proved to be most informative.

who performs in Cornerstone Roots and promotes Soundsplash, Scott Pearson who is the drummer from Elemeno P and Goff Van’t Hoff who is tour manager for Bic Runga and Brooke Fraser. These guys offered some great pieces of information on touring and Blink showed off his baby publication “Local Knowledge” which is a free booklet (or should I say, bible) on touring, with in-depth information on the various large and small cities of New Zealand. An online PDF version is available at www.alowhum.com. Another interesting piece of info was Scott Pearson mentioning that Elemeno P were signed up to a label via sending them a 3 track EP with a short blurb on who they were.

celebrating Hamilton’s vibrant music was a highlight too.

The talk given by representatives from independent music labels (or related bodies) provided helpful tips on how to best present yourself or your band to a music label, information on what an independent label in New Zealand does for their signed bands and why people who obsessively hound music labels tend to not get signed. Speakers were Andy Murnane from Dawn Raid, Phil Brokelmann from Loop Recordings, Andrew Matai from Powertool Records and Renee Jones from the Independent Music New Zealand.

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Other talks on were on marketing, business skills

Tempo was a gem of a thing for the HCAC to put on and being in a band myself, I found it most relevant and informative.

AREA 07: Hamilton Music Compilation CD

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

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Check out the uni events calendar at events.waikato.ac.nz and the events section of www.nexusmag.co.nz/forum for more events and info. Have a listen to any updates or changes to events on Contact 88.1FM

Monday 2nd October Free dance classes in the Dance Studio Karen Barbour, Lecturer in Dance in the School of Education, will hold weekly free classes in contemporary dance on Mondays, 9 - 10.30am.

Tuesday 3rd October Hamilton Film Society meets at 8pm every Tuesday at Victoria Cinema. Student subscriptions are $85 full year or $45 half year. 3-screening Flexi tickets are available for $25. Tonight the Hamilton Film Society meets to watch ‘Andrei Rublev’, directed by the legendary Andrei Tarkovsky (USSR, 1966). This is Tarkovsky’s most revered work, part biography of a renowned 15th Century Russian icon-painter and part historical epic Blood, Sweat and Beers kicks off again for ’06.

Loaded Hog and Hamilton City Hawks presents Blood, Sweat and Beers, a 5km fun run or walk beginning at the Loaded Hog, Hood Street.

Registrations from 5.30pm for 6.05pm start. All finishers receive a beer, wine or OJ. Spot prizes are available from the sponsors. For further information phone Pauline 856 9758 or Melissa 839 2727

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Wednesday October 4th Mmm, $3 steak on rice…

Wed. 4th October, Cultural Hour - come down to the village green, stalls in the name of health, $3 deals for lunch (vouchers), and prizes for participation. Get some Health and Disability Awareness in ya.

Lunchtime Concert at the Academy - 1pm James Tennant and Katherine Austin Duo (cello & piano) perform music by Beethoven, de Falla and Prokofiev.

Jazz band Zebra play at The Cook, Cook Street, Hamilton East every Wednesday night from 8pm.

12 @ 12 offers 12 minutes informal performance

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once a week to a passing audience free of charge. It has gained a loyal following from staff and students who bring their lunch and enjoy a mixed bag of items from singing, to jazz guitar, drama to improvised dance. This event takes place every Wednesday at midday at the School of Education, downstairs foyer, with all welcome.

For more information contact Viv Aitken at viva@waikato.ac.nz

Thursday October 5th Hamilton Chamber Music Society presents: Diedre Irons & Richard Mapp - duo pianists Both these guys are renowned pianists and have performed extensively in NZ and around the world. The student price is affordable too.

Starts at 8pm (and please note change of date from 23rd September). Tickets: $35, $30 Concs, Students w ID $10 @ Ruptus Jack and Ash Road are playing at the King’s Arms Tavern, Auckland 8:30pm (R18)

Friday October 6th @ Oh man, this show is going to be amazing!

Cannibal Corpse are playing with special guests Ulcerate at 420 Krd, Auckland (R18). Tickets are available from Real Groovy and Ticketek.

Sport Waikato challenges your workplace to enter in the Sport Waikato Victoria St Mile. Grab your workmates and walk or cycle the one mile length of Victoria Street. Dress up in something that reflects your organisation and be in to win a $100 morning tea shout for the best dressed team.

Sport Waikato will enter all participants into Push Play Nation where you will be in to win a range of prizes. The programme starts at12.30pm sharp.

You can enter as many competitors as you like and there is no charge. Register your team by providing your team name, names of participants and a contact phone number and address to email kerryj@sportwaikato.org.nz or phone Kerry 838 2657. Any of our writers up for a Nexus effort? Give Dawn a yell.

Auckland events are marked with an @ symbol

Saturday October 7th @ Auckland bands End The Day, This City Sunrise and Tomorrow comes In Silence are playing with my favourite ginges band In Dread Response and Hamiltonians Trigger Theory.

This show is being held at the Ellen Melville Hall, Auckland 8pm (AA) @ Army of Darkness are releasing their record.

Joining the celebration are my good friends and awesome band Das Raven, and StreetKunt. You can catch this show in the Galatos basement, Auckland

Sunday October 8th @ International bands Taking Back Sunday, Thursday, Anti-Flag, Underoath, Senses Fail, Saosin, Parkway Drive, are being joined by New Zealand’s Cold By Winter, Cobra Khan, The Rabble, Tomorrow Comes In Silence and more to bring you the Taste of Chaos Tour. This show is happening at the Saint James Complex, Auckland.

The show is all ages and tickets are $70.

Visual Art Everyday Devices Calder & Lawson Gallery, Tuesday 3rd – Friday 27th October Sculptural and Installation works by Gaye Jurisich “Everyday Devices” is Gaye Jurisich’s second major exhibition within the space of a year that focuses on three dimensional objects. This exhibition complements the large scale outdoor work ‘The long lei love biscuit’ that Jurisich is currently installing at Connells Bay Sculpture Park at Waiheke Island. This pattern of working parallels her work earlier in the year when her exhibition at Whitespace developed beside her installation at Waitakaruru Arboretum and Sculpture Park. When working in the outdoor arena an artist has to consider the architecture, the walls and floor of the gallery, as features. Thus the work becomes more architectural in focus.

Everyday Devices is evidence of this.”

(Excerpt from catalogue by Robin Woodward)

referred to in Aussie, have been laying down a self produced album with the majority of their tracking taking place at Dudley Studios here in Hamtown.

Bass maestro, Michael Taylor, fills us in on The New Caledonia in the studio.

By M. Emery.

Several Hamilton Bands are currently or have recently been working on recordings. I caught up with several of them to see how they are getting on. This week I spoke to Dynamo Go and The New Caledonia.

Dynamo Go Indie popsters Dynamo Go have kept a busy schedule of making demos, writing music and playing shows since their formation in 2005. Lead songwriter Gian Perrone fills us in on their new EP Folly, Vice & Madness, recorded at now-defunct Station Studio in Te Rapa.

Are you collaborating with producers or engineers?

Yep. Geoff Doube from the Shrugs produced and Regan McKinnon (who operated the Station Studio) engineered.

Do you enjoy the recording process as apposed to performing live?

Yeah, recording has a certain artistry to it, which is easy to lose in the excitement of performing live.

You can sit in a studio and work with a song until it feels right, whereas you only get one shot at it live.

What is your motivation for recording this EP? Fame, riches and gallons of hot sex. That and because it just feels like progress as a band.

Hearing your songs all shiny and recorded on a CD is very rewarding, and knowing that other people can listen to them too is even more exciting.

How were your recordings funded?

Crazy get-rich-quick schemes, mostly, which is to say, out of our own pockets. We had a little bit of money lying around from gigging, which went into it. The rest of it was from our respective day jobs.

Is all your music written/prepared before you enter the recording studio?

Yeah. We’ve been playing most of the songs on the EP live for months. We did end up changing things around and dramatically changing the character of some of the songs during the recording process, but we try to be fairly organised so as to keep the overall cost down.

When can Hamiltonians expect to hear the result of your endeavours?

November, probably. Provided that we hurry up and get our shit together.

The New Caledonia The New Caledonia have been thrilling audiences across the North Island for a couple years now with their intense prog-influenced instrumental attack. Recently The ‘Donia, as I’m sure they’ll be

What is your motivation for recording this album?

To put down in stone our musical progress to date and to allow our music to reach a wider audience.

Does one band member have more control than others during the recording process or do you work as a democracy?

We are a very democratic band, everyone has respect for each other’s creativity. We try not to let our egos get in the way of the music.

How were your recordings funded?

Well, co-owning the studio we are recording in has its perks!

Is all your music written/prepared before you enter the recording studio?

About 80% of it is. We have done some rearranging in the studio and added some more instrumentation but largely it’s what we have been doing live.

When can Hamiltonians expect to hear the result of your endeavours?

Mid November, fingers crossed.

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Have you encountered any difficulties in the recording process?

Nothing too bad. Raising money to record with was a bit of a strain, but we got there.

Does one band member have more control than others during the recording process or do you work as a democracy?

I’m a recording dictator. I’d like to think that everyone had their fair say, though. Having Geoff as a producer was great in this respect though, because Geoff is almost always right (and when he’s wrong, he’s less wrong than the rest of us).

Do you enjoy the recording process as opposed to performing live?

We love performing live and for that reason we recorded the core tracks (drums, bass and guitars) live. We did it that way to capture the energy and spontaneity that contributes largely to the New Caledonia’s sound. The recording process has allowed us to experiment a little more with instruments and sounds that we can’t use live so in that way it’s been quite an evolutionary process for the band.

Next week: Amy Racecar and The Shrugs.

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WSU Prez

Vice President

OPEN THANK YOU LETTER

2007 on campus

Sehai Orgad

This goes out to all every one who voted.

Thank you for a successful election in terms of student voter turnout - although it may still seem a rather small proportion, we have still made a huge increase on the past few years in numbers. Thank you to all of the candidates that stood for election (boy, this is starting to sound like an Oscar’s speech!), especially the BOC crew who kept EVERYONE on their toes and made this election one of the most exciting ones that this campus has seen. I look forward to working with those candidates who did make it, as well as keeping in touch with those who didn’t in order to collaborate further on ideas to raise student awareness and involvement.

And finally, a HUGE thank you and hugs and kisses go out to all of the people that supported me in the past couple of weeks; From getting up in the wee hours of the morning to put out flyers in lectures and posters up on notice boards and writing chalk slogans to just offering hugs, good vibes and Red Bulls when I REALLY needed it, thank you my peeps. I love you long time, I’ve got your back, and know that you got mine. And yes, that’s right….THAT’S HOW WE ROLL! I am so excited about next year and the team that has successfully been elected; roll on the REVOLUTION PART II.

Carl Gordon

The University administration has some major decisions to make about its future. The most pressing involves a scandal that many are trying to bury. Others are not doing enough to ensure that justice is done. If it isn’t properly dealt with, enrolments will decline yet again, leading to fewer staff, even narrower academic programming, and poorer services for students.

In spite of the “we’re all having a great experience” propaganda, the University has largely failed to deliver on its visionary promises, or its Charter, due to strategic and marketing limitations, and below-par administration. Major improvements are needed, and the January 2006 external academic audit of the University provided another long and damning list of failings.

Also needed are revised University discipline regulations regarding plagiarism, and ensuring that the University’s Campus Development Plan (including the so-called Student Hub - which is mainly a commercial development) does not use millions of dollars in student levies from Campus Services Ltd or the Students’ Campus Building Fund Trust to help pay for a University facility.

In contrast, WSU is planning improved services for students. Those who are active in the organisation, whether on the 2007 Executive or not, should support the Executive, help with their skills, knowledge and good sense, and ensure

that it stays on the straight and narrow.

This will be aided by an updated Constitution, a Strategic and Business Plan, adherence to sound procedure, and General Meeting oversight.

People on campus sometimes forget how different the cultures of WSU and the University administration are. WSU is generally like a family – large and often fractious, but one in which people can and do work together in spite of differences and occasional spats. The larger aims of WSU – to meet the needs of its members – tend to keep it from degenerating into serious infighting. Differences usually get worked around, and things get done for the greater good. It’s not perfect, but it does work. Bad decisions get made, but the good ones predominate.

The University’s administrative culture is, in contrast, relatively dysfunctional, and even good people find it hard to make improvements.

Differences often get very personal and bitter.

Changes are needed. But the bureaucracy gets in the way. Always.

But WSU can make a difference, through its commitment to its members, and via its informed and principled input into the University system.

Support WSU!

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Environmental Officers Enviropene and Envirowhets Chur, our enviropeepz.

We got invited to a movie the other week called “An Inconvenient Truth” which some of you might have heard of. It is more a documentary than a feature film. The movie follows Al Gore (lost US election to George W Bush) as he goes around sharing the message about high carbon dioxide levels and how it has contributed to global warming. If you get the chance go and see it. There was a review of the

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movie in the Nexus two weeks ago so yeah, take a look at issue 21.

A late congrats to all those who got voted on to the WSU exec for 2007. As some may have figured out Enviropene and I will be your education officers; so yes - we will be re-branding next year to become Edupene and Eduwhets.

successful appointment to the WSU exec and environmental portfolio for next year.

Until next time.

We especially congratulate Katy and Clare for their

Mature Students’ Officer

Maori Students’ Officer

Vince

Renee Rewi

STOP: THIEF!

Well, you have had your say, and though it saddens me to leave (not!), you know life goes on and for me I happily return to my studies leaving the political era of my life behind.

Earlier this semester it was necessary to request vigilance in the ALMS Commons Room and sadly it is necessary to address this issue again.

However, previously I pointed out that the ALMS supplies were being removed from the Commons Room, whereas on this occasion I have discovered that the money in the honesty box has been inappropriately and dishonestly removed!

There is a person entering the Commons Room and consciously choosing to STEAL YOUR honesty box donations! YOUR money is being stolen, YOUR resources are being abused, and YOU are the only people who can assist in finding a resolution to this issue.

I’d like to ask all students who utilise the facilities in the ALMS Commons Room to keep a vigilant eye on the honesty box.

TO THE THIEF: WSU has Hardship resources available to ALL students who find themselves in desperate need of assistance (be it financial or otherwise). Stealing cash is utterly unnecessary – no matter what the circumstances! You are literally abusing the resources of students fervently striving towards valuable academic pursuits, students who work diligently and who contribute what little amount they are able! Quit the crap and look to legitimate assistance rather then engaging in inappropriate behavior!

To ALL Students:

Ok, what’s up? Apparently there are students out there who are still struggling because they have forgotten the golden rule – ‘If you don’t know, ask’. The probability that these students may fail or have an even harder time than is necessary to complete final exams increases daily. An example is the first year law students completing their moots – we who have been there before know the strain the last weeks have placed on you along with the non-attendance of lectures just to ensure that your synopsis got done. You probably have other assignments to hand in along with the final draft of your synopsis to do as well, and the tricky part is, you also have finals to get ready for one week after the break. However, how many of you bothered to sign up for the extra tutorials being run for your convenience during the break? Not many I bet, and yet reality has not set in. You now have to regurgitate all these lessons and still you believe you are doing well. So what lesson have you learned?

None, because if you survive and pass all your papers all is well. The old story is that ‘C students make good lawyers’, is this a positive result to look forward to?

The moral of this story is that you reap what you don’t ask for – you see, there are people out there who are breaking their own backs just to ensure you pass and yet for some they don’t exist unless you are in deep trouble. I suppose that’s the nature of being human - never being able to see what is in front of you unless it is on a dinner plate with all your own favourite trimmings

The WSU has begun serious consideration of an end of year celebratory event – planned for the final week of lectures. SO please feel free to speak with your WSU representatives OR maybe attend an executive meeting. Perhaps if you’re

and cheese sauce. Therefore, take every opportunity open to you and use it well.

too shy to do either, then you might prefer to write into Nexus with ideas?

To Mr Glen Delamere, thanks for the comments. However, I cannot wait till it is your turn and look forward to this support you talk about that is indeed DESERVED! If you read this and found that it remotely resembles your study, remember – you came to learn at university and not to play.

Have a great week - one and all!

Phone: (07) 856 9139 Email: wsu@wsu.org.nz Visit: www.wsu.org.nz

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

It would also be appropriate to remind ‘returning’ students intending to transfer from the Student Allowance to the Student Hardship Unemployment Benefit of the usual one week transitional ‘stand-down’ period. So try to be as best prepared as possible. In so saying, don’t forget that your WSU will assist students as best possible where possible. Feel free to come and speak with us should you require assistance.

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International Students’ Officer

Disabled Students’ Officer

Sonja In Europe there are now the first political parties established which only have one goal: to legalize download of music through file sharing programs.

Most people would call this piracy.

Living on the other side of the globe and therefore far away from my CD collection, I can understand the convenience of mp3 files and how easy it is to restore my music library if my current iPod has (again) committed suicide with all my favourite music on it. I am quite sure that it is not legal in New Zealand to use file sharing programs or other download sources to restore your (previously bought and then lost, due to that *#$%*&% mp3 player) music collection. The same probably applies to your favourite TV shows or movies.

We all know the weapons of the entertainment industry that ruin G4 Powerbooks with the copy protection or refuse to play because of some useless country code. Personally I loath the country coding. Half of my DVDs are from Europe and therefore code 2, the other half is coded for Australasia and for some reason my DVD drive only allows to switch the code 5 times before it is set for all times. WHY do they do this? Well, the good news is that one can fix that with some software, so I wonder why the manufacturers are still bothering with it.

a bad day or a cold. As with most products from Germany, especially food, they are awfully hard to get here. But when I have travelled to some shop and finally got myself some original food and am back home, sitting in front of my computer, watching my favourite fairy tale movie, then I know that it was worth it, going out there, paying that money, driving that distance to have a quality break.

So before you break down, have a quality break, too. Make your parents to send you that stuffed toy from when you were 10 or go with your friend to that original <insert country here> food place and buy some expensive imported stuff you get for almost free at home and enjoy it. It feels better and is the reward the TLDU people are talking about in their ‘organizing your studies’ seminar (it’s true – I asked them).

So for everyone who isn’t organized: http://tldu.waikato.ac.nz/index.shtml For everyone who needs some comfort food: www.yellowpages.co.nz And for the people who need to get rid of the country coding: www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

Jeff Maori Health & Disability Awareness Event – Wednesday 4 October 1-2 pm This awareness event will take place at the Village Green (previously known as the banks/shops) during campus cultural hour and will have a “market day” feel to it. We will have tables set up for you to view resources by a range of organizations as well as information about the support and services available to students on campus. There will be good, cheap food and prizes for taking part, so come along and check it out.

Funny opinions in last week’s Nexus, some of our students don’t yet understand the concept of research, but best of luck with all your endeavours anyway Ben. Thanks for the opportunity.

Big ups to all those who remembered to have their student ID on them at the polling booth in the election, congrats to all who are in, and congrats to all those who didn’t make it as well (your grades won’t suffer like the rest of ours). Gotta maintain that positive focus all.

Who’s been to the Rock Shop lately? They’re not Deja Voodoo, Rock Shop rocks more than they do!

I need to watch movies from my childhood or old

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

TV series from German TV, now available on DVD. It makes me feel comfortable when I am having

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That the WSU provides various services such as Advocacy, Scholarships and Grants, Hardship Loans and various other entities such as Campus Movies, Student Job Search and facilitate the Clubs and Societies on campus.

Not to mention they have a telephone that is free for students to use!

Nearly time to kick back and study up for exams, bring on a summer break.

If you find you’re ever in need of any of these services, come up to the WSU reception which is located in the SUB building and talk to the friendly staff and volunteers who are here to help and represent you – the students.

GLBT Officer Megan I have been the GLBT Officer on the Waikato Student Union for 2 years now and this will continue until the end of December. The WSU elections are over and there is at present nobody elected to fill my role next year. I shall not be taking on the role again; I would actually like to finish my degree. It makes me quite sad, however, to think of the position being empty. There is hopefully a candidate for this role in the bi-election next year. Don’t worry though because ASKEW (the queer friendly group on campus) can be contacted if you need someone to talk to or want to make some new friends.

The position has the responsibility of running Pride Week, and other events.

There is a UniQ conference in the middle of the year, and you are part of the national UniQ group. Most importantly though, the position means that there is an openly queer person on campus that anyone can go and talk to.

It’s a real gift to be able to share another’s life and see them grow and change as a person. Being the GLBT Officer has given me a wonderful opportunity to see the lives of many people as they have done this. I am so proud of the young and confused people that joined Askew last year and are now taking leadership roles. It has been a big journey for all of them and the confidence they have now is immediately obvious.

University is a chance to grow and learn academically and as a person. If you are thinking about your sexuality or becoming more involved in the Queer community, I encourage you to join Askew. The mailing list has 110 members at the moment and it is easy to join by emailing askew.waikato@gmail.com and asking.

Sports and Recreation Officers Paora Mato – Joint Officer Well, it’s been a while since I wrote an article so firstly - congrats (again) to the successful candidates for WSU 2007. Congrats also to those who missed out - good on you for running. I see the numbers of voters are still increasing so it would be safe to assume more students are taking notice and getting involved.

It’s a busy month for the study, assignments and exam prep for me and the only mission in the short term is the upcoming Blues awards. Hopefully we can assist the recipients with the cost of their tickets but we are still liaising with the VC at the moment.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Congrats to Te Roro o Te Hiko for taking out the interschool Hakinakina – I warned you fullas we were serious (even though I couldn’t be there). I hear the haka were pretty massive too. Congrats also to those who competed in the Battle of the Bombays. It was a fairly depleted event by all accounts (I wasn’t able to make this one either) but the event was enjoyed by all.

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Send your notices of 100 words or less to nexus@waikato.ac.nz, or drop into box at WSU reception. Deadline is 5pm Tues.

Notices are free for students to advertise!

Easygoing Flatmate Wanted: Rent $95 p/w. Food, broadband etc extra.

Huge lounge and deck. Off street parking.

5min walk to management. To live with 2 guys.

Available mid October.

Phone Troy: 856-1134 or Txt: 027-330-8825 Free Stripper!

Now I have your attention, we have a room for rent $100 (incl. EVERYTHING but food), new flash house, big room, friendly people. Check it out and join the crew. ph/txt 027 637 0006.

Want a flat? My flatmates and I are currently in a three person flat which we would like to leave early after exams, we are very negotiable about the changeover date, anywhere from the 1st November to the 31st December. The flat is on York Street and is quite close the the university.

We are currently paying $240 pw in rent ($80 each). If you are interested in having a look through the place you can text/phone Adam on 021 2531625 or any of us on 8592460. You could also email madfool.tiot@gmail.com if you prefer.

Up to 4 people required to fill 5 bedroom house in Aurora Terrace. Warm, sunny double storey, open plan living, with dishwasher. 5 min walk to Uni. Male or female, working or uni student. More info ring/txt 027 4667768

Wanted!

1 or 2 easygoing flatties (pref guys) to live with 3 easygoing 3rd year chicks in 5 bdrm place opposite gate 1. Move in early Nov. Cheap as rent, nice rooms, good parking. Call or email Nikita new6, 0274743296 or Tannis tpd4, 0212326471.

Need petrol money?

You can earn a $20 MTA voucher just by participating in our driving project. We are looking for males aged 16-17, 20-21, 25-26 or 30-31 who have held a restricted or full license for at least 6 months.If you are interested, email driving project@waikato.ac.nz Anyone interested in tennis coaching? I’ve previously played a premier club level, currently have a community tennis coach qualification, worked as the junior coach for Tatuanui tennis Club, worked as an assistant coach for Lugton Park Tennis Club and currently working in part time with Waikato Tennis. I can offer coaching at a reasonable rate. Any level of player but would be more beneficial for those starting out. I’m a third year student so would fit lessons around lectures and available weekends. Send me an email if you’re interested. Cjl9@waikato.ac.nz

Trade Union members is now available for all Waikato Students Union students. Waikato

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

University is the first tertiary institution in the world to receive this free service negotiated by the Waikato Students’ Union.

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Official Launch of AIL for all Waikato University Students, in Association with Waikato Students Union.

There is no better time than now to get a valuable service as a member of WSU. It is FREE and EXCLUSIVE for Waikato Students’ Union members..!

Also - FREE BBQ and entertainment.

Why would you say no to a free $1000 benefit to you and your family?

Yes, what you heard is right. If you are a member of Waikato Students Union, you are eligible for free insurance for you and your family. A service which was only available for

Come and Visit the AIL stall at Village Green this Wednesday from 12.30 to 2 pm to sign up and know more about additional benefits.

Casual sex partner wanted!

If you like sucking balls and don’t want the hassle of a relationship, then count me in too! (except for the balls part). Interested people please send photos to 8ballknowsall@gmail. com. I have attached an image to show off my sexy smouldering looks.

Talk - Larry Ross [QSM], founder, Nuclear Free Zone NZ, will talk about: “Nuclear Threat to Iran??: Why YOU should be concerned and how WE can be a more effective Nuclear Free Peacemaking Nation.”

7.30PM, 5 October, Methodist Centre, London Street, Hamilton. ph 950 1003

Amnesty International Uni Club Meeting 1pm Wednesday 4th October Downstairs in the union building One of the last meetings for the year. Come along even if you haven’t before. Come enjoy some great conversation about human rights and how important they are to you. Hey, you might even learn something relevant to your exams.

Ever wondered what an A pass for an assignment would feel like?

We can sort out your sentence structure, spelling and punctuation problems and turn your assignments into fluent, clear, literate prose.

Visit us at www.editwrite.co.nz When you write wrong, we right the wrongs.

COLUMNS

Only two things are infinite: the universe, and human stupidity, and I’m not so sure about the first.

Not a truer turn of phase has been spoken; one it seems, that is especially pertinent to the managerial team at ‘Pak ‘N Save’ in Henderson.

If I was asked to provide a working definition of ‘manager’ it would read as one who is accountable for exercising delegated authority over human and financial resources to accomplish the objectives of the organization within the greater market.

In addition to functional responsibilities of the position, the manger’s role is to lead people,

‘Pak ‘N Save’ in Henderson.

If you didn’t think twice about the picture, you may be surprised to learn that Jenaya’s stylish highlights are in fact scandalous. According to her manager Kerry Stanley: “Our company is a conservative enterprise and as such we have a conservative approach to such matters as we don’t like to antagonize our customers.”

The letter continues, “I am requesting that you change Picture credits: FIONA GOODALL / Western Leader the color of your hair to a more natural look to conform with the rest of our staff by

recognize and reward achievement, manage performance, manage change and promote the corporate values, ethics and culture of the organization.

Recently evidence has surfaced to support the theory that the managerial creed of the Henderson branch of ‘Pak ‘N Save’, is actually the antithesis of my proposed framework. The young lady pictured, Jenaya Johnston, works as a check out-operator at

September 22. Failure to comply with this request will leave me no choice but to start disciplinary action.”

What the hell? Has anyone actually been ‘antagonized’ by hair highlights before? Unless Jenaya has a rainbow colored head on the side not shown, or an array of four letter words shaved in there, it looks pretty damn ‘natural’ to me. Even if the latter was true, this wouldn’t offend me so

-Albert Einstein

much as make me laugh hysterically.

Kerry, perhaps you should spend a little more time focused on the presentation of your supermarket instead of your employees.

Complaints registered from customers for any reason would warrant some attention, but going out of your way to issue a written warning for something as trivial as hair color is taking things one step too far. For demonstrating infinite potential in the order of stupidity, this week, ‘Pak ‘N Save’, Henderson gets the Einstein / Killing Time one-finger salute.

If any of the managerial staff are going to be around the Waikato in the next week, and are even remotely interested in marketing, public, or employee relations, swing past the university at some stage. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of talking points within a particular presentation the philosophy department has to offer…

What: What’s the Buzz? Marketing and the Corruption of Friendship Date: Friday 6 October 2006 Time: 4:10 PM - 5:30 PM Location: I.1.01 Contact: henson1@waikato.ac.nz

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

Guitar Hero PLAYSTATION 2

Reviewed by Vitamin C I’ll open up with a line from Burton C Bogan a while back, who thought that musicians wouldn’t enjoy Guitar Hero. Without making any real claim to being a musician, I’ve been playing guitar for 2 and half years or so and this game rocks. Myself and the guys I’ve done gigs with spent a weekend with the plastic replica Gibson SG, and after a few minor adjustments from a real guitar we were busting it out in no time.

The easy mode is fine for learning, because it only sticks to 3 fret buttons, and it still gives you opportunities to feel like Clapton or Steve Vai. Move up to normal for more buttons and a richer experience, hard if you are man enough, and extreme if you can do a note-for-note rendition of Cream’s ‘Crossroads’ or Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Texas Flood’. Not easy with plastic buttons that

are equally spaced, as opposed to the frets get smaller like on a real guitar. The game does support hammer-on and pull-off, the whammy bar takes its rightful place during your long chords.

I’ll leave you with a brief list of songs to whet your appetite and make you buy it. Thunderkiss 65, Smoke on the Water, More Than A Feeling, Noone Knows, Take Me Out, Spanish Castle Magic, Higher Ground, Ziggy Stardust, Iron Man, You Got Another Thing Comin, Symphony Of Destruction, Killer Queen, Ace Of Spades, Cowboys From Hell, and Bark At The Moon. If that doesn’t wet your panties, go play Britney’s Dance Beat.

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Guitar Hero is the latest in a line of peripheralthemed PS2 games, in which you need a funky-monkey controller to play properly. In this case, it’s a guitar, complete with 5 fret buttons (the things you mash your fingers on to make the MEEDLYMEEDLEMEEEE! noises) a strumming bar thing that moves up and down (for the JUGGAJIGGAWUGGA parts) and even a whammy bar (for the WAAHwaahWAHH bits). The object of the game is to play well-known songs and

get points and look cool. You’ll know what to play from the onscreen cue, which is a view of a fret-board (the wooden bit of a guitar) with little circles scrolling towards you, and when they get to the line you strum the strummy bar thing while your fingers are holding down the fret buttons that correspond to the little buttons. If that doesn’t sound easy, it’s because it’s not at first.

Rating:

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In The name of God The Merciful The Beneficent The month of Ramadan began on the evening of September 24, 2006.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar (which is a lunar calendar) in which Muslims are commanded to fast. It is this month in which Prophet Muhammad (PBUH*) started to receive verses of Qur’an from Allah (meaning God in Arabic) through the angel Gabriel.

Every able-bodied Muslim is required to fast in the month of Ramadan. This is one of the Five Pillars upon which the “house” of Islam is built. Ramadan is the month in which God first revealed His final message and guidance for mankind to the beloved Prophet Muhammad. This message has been perfectly preserved both orally and textually in the form of a Book, called the Qur’an (The Reading/Recital).

The Islamic fasting starts from dawn until sunset, food, drink, and sinful acts are strictly prohibited during this time. For those who are sick, elderly, or on a journey, and women who are pregnant or nursing are permitted to break the fast and make up an equal number of days later in the year. Those who are physically unable to do this, they must feed a needy person for every day missed.

The purpose of fasting is to help develop self-restrain, self-purification, God-consciousness, compassion, the spirit of caring and sharing, the love of humanity and the love of God. This is an act of worship, a communal worship, and obedience to God, thanksgiving, forgiveness, spiritual training and self-examination. It elevates the human spirit and increases ones awareness of God, as it strengthens the will-power to rise above the lower desires. *PBUH: Peace Be Upon Him. When name of any of the Prophets, Ibrahim, Noah, Adam, Jesus, etc, is said, Muslims are ordered to send peace and blessings on them.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

For more information contact Waikato University Muslims Club (WUMC)

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E-mail:

waikatomc@gmail.com

Website:

www.geocities.com/waikatomc

O who believe, fasting is decreed for you as it was decreed for those before you; that you may learn self-restraint.

[Quran: Chapter 2, verse 183]

REVIEWS

This week – Average Jane does weights Ok, I confess. I’ve never been to a gym to do gym stuff in my life. But in the interests of science and interested students wanting to shape up for summer, I’m joining Average Joe as his female counterpart and bravely venturing further into the Uni Rec centre than ever before.

First up, the assessment. The gregarious Koro checks out my general health stats and fitness goals. Which are? Well, I’d like some upper body strength. And some middle body strength.

I thought regular running would score brownie points. However that’s cardiovascular fitness, and I soon learn that this is quite different to being able to, like, lift things. The 10 minute warm-up on the bike is no problemo, but as soon as I ask my puny arm muscles to do anything more, they flake pretty quick, giving even girly arms a bad name.

Koro (AKA ‘Canons’) then shows me around the

weights room and demonstrates a routine to follow that makes sure none of the muscles get off easy. I’m on the floor with balls, on machines with pulleys and throwing lumps of metal around in no time.

A note for the ladies: many of the weight routines will apparently require you to sit up straight and clench your shoulder blades together, and the result of this is that your breasts will stand perkily to attention in true ‘I must, I must, increase my bust’ style. Try not to worry about this.

So I find myself standing in front of the mirror sticking my bosom out and looking at my reflection, as you do. Damn it, I’m usually walking past the window sniggering at people who do this.

But anything to increase my press-up stats and maybe beat Joe Average in an arm wrestle.

Things I’ve noted so far: - Hitchhiker’s Guide was right - a towel is a real

handy thing to have with you. In fact if you don’t have one I hear they’ll kick you out of the gym and make you do press ups on the road while throwing Swiss balls at you.

- Don’t drop the weights down too quickly as it makes a LOUD NOISE. - According to Koro, girls don’t need to worry about suddenly getting big ugly muscles when weight training because that takes several years and doesn’t happen to everybody anyway.

First impressions of the gym? More agreeable than I predicted. There was a definite stretch in the arms the next day, but it felt constructive rather than painful. I’m quite keen to get back in there for another session, and looking forward to checking out the different classes on offer.

Next week – I try some circuit classes and do lots more weights. Hopefully. And Average Joe updates you on his progress.

Interested in joining Joe and Jane at the Uni Rec Centre? Go in and see the friendly staff or if you’re more of a lurker type, check out www.unirec.co.nz

Restaurants

By Hazazel

Go Vino of food, spirits etc). The wines are all listed at takeaway prices, with a $5 corkage if you want to drink it there (still a lot cheaper than restaurant prices!). House wines are chosen at the whim of the waiter, but I was delighted with

three dessert options between the four of us: tiramisu, berries with white chocolate sauce, and White Stone blue cheese with dried apple & honeycomb. All were nice, but the cheese and honeycomb really stood out - a great

are small dishes of food, invented in Spain as snacks used as lids (tapas) to keep the flies off one’s drink. How one then kept the flies off the food, I’m not sure. Anyway, they have evolved into quite trendy little appetizer-size dishes (fun to share) which can accompany one’s drinkies, or (ordered in profusion) make up an interesting meal. We headed to Go Vino the other night with a couple of friends, and were offered a seat outside until one of the cushy couches inside became free. A large proportion of the place is taken up with shelves of wine (over 130 kinds!), as they are still predominantly a wine bar (despite having a small but quality range

my sweet riesling (Tohu. Superb!).

combination.

After perusing the menu over some bread and aioli, we decided to share six dishes between the four of us: smoked salmon and gnocchi (great), chicken cacciatore (a wonderfully seasoned rendition of this classic dish), seared lamb with a rosemary crust (served medium rare - very pink and squishy, but delicious and tender), fried scallops on caramelised onion (I’m not a fan of shellfish, but these were so plump and meaty!), skewers of wild pork (meat onna stick - always good!), and roast capsicum stuffed with feta (fantastic!). We also split their

Priced at around $8-12 each, the dishes were all quite small, but very good quality. All in all, including one drink each, this light but delicious meal worked out to around $27 each.

Go Vino has a slight cliquey vibe to it, but the staff are friendly enough and very knowledgeable, and the food and wine is great.

It’s a small place, so bookings might be a good idea. See their website www.govino.co.nz for more info.

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Though I’m quite fond of wine, I don’t frequent wine bars, so I’d never been to Go Vino (now on Vic St next to La Commune) before its recent reinvention as a wine and tapas bar. Tapas, as those who remember Guernica will know,

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COLUMNS

By The Panther Tip # 0: I have found in my 25 years of wine tasting experience that wine makes you drunk, but only if you drink it. Have you ever thought to yourself “I like getting drunk but don’t want to pay those exorbitant Pak n Save prices”?

Well now you don’t have to, just visit www.redbinwine.50megs.com and you will see step by step instructions on how to brew 50 litres of wine for the price of

Hey numerous readers! Wassup haha. There are a lot of people out there who really love horses! They are so cute! Really! I have a horse called Sprinkles, and she is all grey all over except for her white bits, which are in little dots all over her body it’s so adorable. So you can see why she is called Sprinkles! It’s because she pees everywhere, haha. My name is Cathy (that’s why I use Vitamin C as my pseudo-name, because I really like their music) and my friend is Katy and we have started a Horse Appreciation Club (HAC for short so you can remember it!). It is so great!

We get together and talk about horses and write stories about things that could happen when we go horse-riding and appreciate horses. If you want

three bags of sugar. They will also send you free alcohol samples…mmm free samples. Oh yeah, this is meant to be muscle building tips. Umm…I guess you could carry your big red bin full of wine.

to join you should just email us! Kathy’s Dad’s friend Jim set us up an email account and a website for our horse club, it’s www.horse-country. com/jriders/vetcentric.html. We just send him photos of us with our horses and from our horse club sleepovers and he photographshops them and puts them on the internet for us! And he lets us call him uncle! He’s so cool and friendly and makes great cookies.

Tip # 273: In honor of the soon to be released Black Panther movie starring Wesley Snipes I give you the way to build muscle the way a panther does. i) First you will need a skintight black suit. I use black women’s stockings. However, they are transparent in the light.

ii) Claws. I suggest steak knives or …sharp pointy things.

iii) Now all you need to do is lurk outside the Outback and select a sack of meat to attack. iv) Attack said sack of meat. It sounds easy but you will build up quite the sweat. Let me tell you, they build them large in the ass area.

v) Enjoy the succulent fatty meat – mmm, fatty meat.

vi) With in a matter of days you will have muscles like The Panther (me)

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

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and the panther (species).

Tip # 69 : Like all great masters of their art I have decided to pass down some of my secrets of musculation to an apprentice. I have chosen Macca from the Classic Rock Review to have the privilege of studying my techniques of flexing and sexing. He is a small lad with a slight frame of 150kg of muscle but after a few years of study under me he shall become 295kgs of throbbing man flesh. Yeah, this sounds kind of fruity - just so you know, we’re not gay, just muscled. When this old muscle man dies there shall be young blood to carry on the great work I have started. I know that no one can ever live up to the legend that is The Panther, but Macca is a pretty good second fiddle. And as such ‘Macca’ is no more - he is now honored with the name ‘Panther Junior’. All I ask for is a few hundred statues in my likeness and every time the wind blows to hear it whisper “the panther”…

Management is so hard! I just got back from my Management maths class, the lecturer is sooooooooooo boring. I think he might be gay or something, I mean he really seems to like maths. I wish I could do my Communication paper again, the one with the puppets. That was cool because I could just sit there and txt my friends! Haha! One day I’m going to run a horse farm where people can ride horses around and have horse sleepovers with them. We’ll have a giant bedroom and it will all be free so lots of people come! I’m doing a Finance paper too and I think I’m doing pretty well so I’ll be able to make lots of money at the same time. My ex-boyfriend is a dick - he doesn’t even agree with me about anything. I hope you are reading this, you emo!

OMG guess what guys I was in the Nexus office today (Tuesday) and I heard that ginger people are getting upset after the Chuck and Benjo column!

I think you should shut your jibberjabber holes haha. I am ginger and no I’m not proud because being proud of your hair colour makes you a cockknocker but getting upset about being mocked for it makes you just a sad little emo fartsniffer haha. See you laters guys, hope you come visit us at our horse club!

XXX from Cathy

COLUMNS

The new trend of the ‘MILF-Hunters’!

Sport and Leisure Students

The saying goes ‘big girls shouldn’t play with little boys’. Well, this seems to be no more. The concept of a ‘Toy Boy’ has become more and more common. I’ve noticed many of my friends have been dating younger guys, and many guy friends have been hooking up with considerably older women.

This is a popular trend amongst celebrities, with women such as Demi Moore and Cameron Diaz stepping out with their much younger partners.

Hey there! Once again, we’ll take an axe to the fixed idea of a certain group in society and butcher it until it bleeds. This week, we look at sport and leisure students.

So what is it that makes older women (or MILFs) so appealing compared to their younger counterparts? I spoke to my male friend who has experienced such encounters, and he spoke about why it is so appealing.

He says older women are more confident in themselves, and less body-shy than younger women. This means they’re more confident during sex and know what they enjoy. Young women will be reluctant to get undressed being all coy and shy, but older women will rip off their knickers themselves in anticipation of a good fuck!

everyone else. Some argue, however, that this is because, they are in fact superior to everybody else with their incredible bodies and great physique.

But actually this argument is untrue.

In his experiences, my friend has found older women to be more aggressive in bed, and keen for kinkier experiences. He said ‘One of them had fake tits, it was quite intimidating because she was like ‘rrroawrrrrr, look at me!’. It is commonly thought that women reach their sexual peak later in life, so they are better matched sexually with younger men. The greater experience often means women will have more tricks up their sleeves. ‘One woman put a condom on me with her mouth - that was awesome!’

Besides the fact that older women have a greater sexual prowess in the bedroom, there is also the kinky appeal of the naughtiness of the situation.

My friend found it a great novelty going home with a MILF, and said he thought to himself ‘You big slut, you’ve been married before, you’ve got three kids…it’s kind of cool’. During one experience he woke up in the morning and looked at her bedroom dresser at the photos of her children, and he thought to himself, ‘Yeah! Those kids are only half my age!’

To finish, here are a few more reasons why older women are appealing: - An older woman will never accuse you of using her. She’s using you.

- Older women are experienced. They understand that sometimes, after 12 beers, a guy just can’t get it up. A younger woman may need some time to grasp this fact.

- An older woman will never wake you up in the middle of the night and ask you, “What are you thinking?” An older woman doesn’t care what you think.

I bet you boys might start looking at those mature students a bit differently now!

Nevertheless, sport and leisure students are quite easy to spot. Next time you’re down by the banks next to those filthy lakes, take a look around.

Look for the students in the very very short shorts that do not do much for them, and who are also wearing a rather tight (but not so tight as to constrict “performance”) t-shirt, possibly with a logo for either some brand of alcohol or perhaps a sports team. The males can usually be spotted with a homohawk, in honour of everybody’s favourite soccer player – David Beckham. Sport and leisure students are sometimes clad in track-pants, to re-iterate the idea that they’re “active” and “sporty”. It’s almost as if, in between classes, they’re ready for an impromptu game of rugby should the occasion call for one.

These students believe in the importance of good diets and general healthy living.

Yet, they’re the ones boozing every Saturday night and stumbling around, getting ready for a drunken fumble with some girl/guy in the Outback toilets. Yes. Healthy living, isn’t it?

The reason we have decided to take issue with these students is that the bulk of them smack slightly of “we were in the 1st XV back at school and we refuse to grow up”. It’s a tad alarming. This is, after all, the future of New Zealand and we do have a lot to be worried about if the future leaders of our country can’t spell properly. Now, this isn’t directed at the 25% of sports and leisure students who do work hard. This is aimed at the other 75% who are bumming around, giving the subject a bad rep, and then leave with nothing to show for it but a really nasty STI.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

The sports and leisure student is usually the perfect specimen of a human being. They have great bodies and are usually perky as heck. The flipside of that is that they are horribly elitist. They exude a sense of superiority over

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COLUMNS

‘Communication’ “Give of every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”

William Shakespeare

Communication is a huge part of our lives; it is something we partake in daily, whether consciously or not. While there are things which we deliberately choose to communicate, there are also many things which we communicate without realising we are doing so. These things aren’t communicated by words, but by many other things, our accent, our body language, the tone of our voice. You make think that the essence of communication is words, but I beg to differ. I think (and of course, everyone thinks differently), that communication is not so easy to define and separate into parts.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

The word ‘communication’ is made up of two parts, the verb ‘communicate’ and the suffix ‘-tion’ which derives a noun from a verb.

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The verb ‘communicate’ and its derivative ‘communication’ are from the Latin verb commūnicāre which means “to make common to many”, to “share, impart, divide.” It is, however, uncertain as to exactly when the words were borrowed into English.

The earliest quoted date on Oxford English Dictionary Online for ‘communication’ is 1382, in the form comynycacioun, which, while spelt very differently from the word’s modern day spelling, would still sound basically the same as it does today. In the example quoted from 1382, the word means communication in the sense of “the action of communicating or imparting”.

The earliest date for the word ‘communicate’, however, is considerably later, 1529 to be exact. In this example ‘communicate’ means to “impart (information, knowledge, or the like)”, “to…convey the knowledge of [something]” or to “inform a person of [something]”. This is the meaning we use today.

It appears that when it was first borrowed ‘communicate’ meant to transmit, to share with or impart to someone else something, not specifically words or information, but other things as well. It could be a quality, knowledge or a material thing, or something such as a feeling, as this Middle English sentence from 1538 exemplifies “God, that…communycatyth hys gudnes to al other” (George Starkey). In Modern English it reads “God that communicates his goodness to all others.” It seems that over time the meaning of ‘communicate’, and with it ‘communication’, has narrowed in definition to include only the transmitting and sharing or ideas through the medium of words.

I am not sure that you will agree, but to me it makes sense that ‘communication’ is derived from the Latin verb meaning ‘to make common to many” or to “share” or “divide”. When we communicate we intend to pass on a message to someone; we intend to share knowledge or a point of view with a particular person.

I think, perhaps, the fact that communication involves making something common to many, and sharing, is the real essence of communication.

COLUMNS

By Burton C. Bogan

Mulletica Inspired by CJ’s column last week, I thought I’d talk about Metallica. Opinions are divided on whether they are or ever were Metal legends, but regardless of where you stand on the ‘Metallispectrum’ you have to admit they made a pretty big mark on the Metal community. Now once again I could list a whole lot of facts about various band line ups and what have you but you can go look that up on Wikipedia so it’s a waste of time listing them here. So instead I’ll talk about me again.

Bogan I had the time of my life (and I never felt this way before, yes I swear). But there were some freaks there. Waiting at the queue to get in I heard a very mannish croaky voice say “Is this the place where we get felt up?”. I turn around to see Elvira and Rodney Dangerfield’s ‘female’ love child standing behind me, eagerly waiting to be frisked by security. The tent itself was packed.

HLAH opened and I felt really sorry for them when they got booed off, but we were being made to wait a long time. Then in a burst of pyro, on came Metallica singing ‘Fuel’. I was halfway back but still I counted approximately seven people around

My first time seeing Metallica live was when they came to New Zealand before the Big Day Out appearance, which was somewhere between 1995 and 1998? It was the first concert I ever went to and was at the Supertop. Now as a Junior

me passing out from the heat. Then one dude thought that he’d get a better view and climbed to the very top of the one of the tent supports.

Not a good idea when you’re hopped up on goofballs and about 50 or 60 metres up in the air. He ended up spewing and a fountain of terror

ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits Reviewed by Macca

Anyway, the good news is that with C.J. lost in the bush somewhere (that’s not dodgy again, is it?) we can review ABBA! That’s right all

you three readers, this weeks album is ABBA Gold – Greatest Hits.

The album topped the UK album chart on 4 separate occasions - in 1992, and three times in 1999 - six and a half years apart, and was the only album in the UK’s Top 100 sellers in every year from 1992 to 2000. There’s good reason for this too, every song from 1 through 19 is pure gold.

The album starts off with ‘Dancing Queen’, a song that everyone knows.

I bought a pair of Metallica dog tags that used to hang pride of place round the rear vision mirror of my red, beat-up and rusty ’81 Corona.

I was the man, and it was all thanks to Metallica.

This song features in countless movies (Summer of Sam and Muriel’s Wedding, for instance) and was frequently played at all 427 of those 80s theme parties earlier this year. This is somewhat stupid as it was recorded in 1975.

After about the first 10 songs, song number 11 comes on. It’s entitled ‘Chiquitita’ and is in my opinion the best song on the disc. The video clip (not included on the album) is second to none, with ABBA singing outside in front of a big snow man.

You only need to look at Benny on the piano to see how happy these people are. That’s the beauty of the music, the shear joy that they write and record with. Maybe some of you emos could listen to some ABBA

and cheer up somewhat. Burnzy’s favourite song is track 15 called ‘Does Your Mother Know’. The title says it all. 8/10.

On another note, I found a real awesome website called Red Bin Wines, you’ve gotta see it to believe it. The site is redbinwine.50megs. com - check it out!

Competition!

This weeks winner is Geoffrey Churchill. Awesome.

To thank our loyal readers, this week we’re giving you the chance to win one dozen bottles of Tui. Just tell me your favourite classic rock song. Easy.

Email to cjw37@waikato.ac.nz by midday Tuesday.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Well… it’s been four days now, and still no sign of C.J. Last Thursday he went hunting. More specifically, he went to find Panther and deliver a loving blow to his sack (didn’t intend it to sound that dodgy, sorry). What I can tell you ladies is that impacts into the groin can leave a man paralyzed for extended periods of time. I should know, after my balls collided with a flying paint ball once - yeah, I prefer not to talk about it.

splattered all over those in front of me…luckily I was outside the blast radius. I ended up getting knocked out the side of the mosh and thought I’d better rest so I stood at the very back with the Elder Bogans and got handed a joint (hi mum!).

There I was - a skinny white guy standing among these huge Maori Bogan bikers, smoking pot and talking about how much cooler ‘And justice for all’ is. I thought I was so cool. Then on the way home

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ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006 PUZZLES & ACTIVITIES

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COMICS

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

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STORY TIME

Disciplinary action at St Peter’s circa ’88, as recalled by The Wez It was called THE WHACK. Kids would say “I just got THE WHACK” or “James got THE WHACK last night and cried for ages” or “I heard the whole class is going to get THE WHACK”. It was so terrifying and encompassing it was afforded full caps. When you said it you said it with respect. When you said it you stopped what you were doing opened your eyes wide and said it slowly.

It was never laughed about unless you were taunting an enemy as in “ Ha ha, you’re going to get THE WHHHAAAACCKK and it’s gunna hurt like a bastard and you’re gonna cry for mummy like a little baby!” We often would pretend that we knew that someone was going to get THE WHACK for something they had done that they did not think the housemaster knew about. We would tease the person the the point of terror convincing the guy that he had been told and soon the call would come. Once a guy got so scared and overwhelmed with dread he went and handed himself in to the housemaster, telling the housemaster that he was there to get THE WHACK for stealing the a granola bar from another kid. He got THE WHACK sure enough. Too this day that poor bastard doesn’t know we never told on him.

THE WHACK came in three forms. There was Sloppy Joe. He was a well worn old slipper and was used for first timers, small kids or minor offences. He was a friend you could trust, he didn’t make you cry unless it was with relief or unless you were one of the frail weak children, who were crying most of the time anyway.

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

There was Claudius. He was a large, old and dangerous looking roman sandal filled with golf balls which were wrapped in a stocking . This gave it alot of weight. He was an uncaring

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disciplinary menace that you couldn’t predict and was used the majority of the time. From his efforts, crying and sometimes little screams were assured unless you were really hardened. When he hit you it sounded like a pistol going off behind your head and sometimes would knock you to the ground. He was experienced.

According to legend he had been delivering THE WHACK since the school opened in 1936.

Then there was THE CANE. THE CANE was so scary that just the mention of it could cause a kid to cry and shake. I know one kid who ran away because someone told him he was going to get THE CANE. THE CANE was a brutal cane made of rattan and was used only for the worst of crimes.

I once saw the toughest kid in our part of the school crawling on

his hands and knees along the hallway, white and ghost-faced, dribbling and gasping like something from a horror movie. He crawled along about 20 meters of hallway into the bathroom where he vomited on the floor and then lay in it screaming for about 2 minutes. All because of “three of THE BEST”.

THE BEST referred to the hardest most punishing hits that the housemaster could deal.

The housemaster once told us that any kid caught wandering around after lights out woudl recive two of THE BEST. THE BEST was only delivered with THE CANE. The above kid had received three of THE BEST for mooning the housemaster’s daughter.

I could see why the housemaster delivered this only late at night or when the school was empty. Everyone else was at the chapel while this happened and I was the only one who saw this kid in his sorry state. He told me later that if I told anyone he would “crush my balls like grapes”.

I received THE WHACK three times a term, for a total of 24 WHACKS in all.

The majority of my WHACKS were administered for hurting other kids. I had to punish the guilty as I will detail later.

I had a friend who would wait outside the office when I was getting THE WHACK. He would taunt me with “You’re gonna cry, you’re gonna cry – you’re crying, I can see it! You’re crying!” when I wasn’t crying. This taunting would kick the loneliness of an uncaring world in on me and more often than not I would head to the bathrooms to cool my hot burning ass cheek in the sink with the cold tap on full blast, then crawl into my locker and shut the door after me so I could be alone in a dark little misery hole.

One day the time came for my taunting friend to get THE WHACK and I saw him looking round to make sure I didnt see him going into the office to recieve it. When he came out I was standing RIGHT THERE. With a big evil and satisfied smile on my face. He said “SHUT UP!” and burst into tears of loneliness and pain.

That made me feel good.

At some point, not long after getting THE WHACK for the first time I bent my mind to activities of cunning and evil.

Next week – part 3

Photos and report courtesy of Te Puna Tautoko www.waikato.ac.nz/tautoko With such a huge turn out in Semester A for the bi-annual Māori Sports Day, the second Hakinakina of the year arrived with huge expectation riding on its shoulders. Luckily, Hakinakina B ‘06 delivered the goods!

Eight teams from across the University converged on the lower fields to battle it out to take home the title of supreme sports stars of Waikato University.

The tables outside the Don Llewellyn Bar were laden with prizes for the victors, thanks to the efforts of the Pro-Vice Chancellor Māori office and friends. Sustenance was also on offer in the form of fresh fruit, fresh water and a complementary sausage sizzle that ran throughout the day.

The line up of included teams from Te Ranga Ngaku, Sport and Leisure Studies, Computing and Math Science, Te Tohu Paetahi, Te Timatanga Hou, Te Aka Matua, Te Whakahiapo and LDS. As in previous years, touch and netball were the sports of choice, and pretty popular choices they are. With each team playing two games of touch, two games of netball and the novelty ‘sculpture challenge’ in the last round, the refreshments on offer were well received.

A beautiful day and fun had by all. Congratulations to the days big winner Te Roro o te Hiko, the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences mean effort.

1st Place: Te Roro o te Hiko 2nd Place: 3rd Place:

LDS Sport and Leisure Studies

Sportsmanship Award: Te Whakahiapo Male Player of the day: Willie Brown Female Player of the day: Serenity Taniwha

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Touch rugby, netball, and hakas in the house! Too much whanau, see you at A Semester Hakinakina 2007.

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By M. Emery Upsett Records are canceling all upcoming shows and this weekend’s Guest Stabs Host, Dial, The Carthaginian Solution and Das Raven show will be the last one as of this writing. Upsett Records have received numerous noise complaints and the Hamilton City Council has now issued them with a last warning. Upsett may be liable for $1000 fines if more complaints are received. The complaints are coming from residents in the Pascoes building apartments. Why do people move into the city, especially in a nightlife area, and expect it to be quiet? The closure of Upsett as a venue will be a severe blow for the youth of Hamilton who may now turn to glue and aerosols for entertainment on weekends.

The last nine months have seen Upsett host bands from all over New Zealand and the world and it is likely that without a decent venue like this Hamilton will be deprived of many touring acts. The local music scene will also suffer, and it is a shame that some of the cash spent on the recent poorly attended Tempo music week wasn’t used to support this venue or establish another one. Upsett Records are contacting the Hamilton City Council to find out more about the recording of sound levels and hope to still host the occasional matinee show. The Upsett shop will still be functioning 6 days a week so get in there and support these fellas who offer a refreshing break from the corporate retail warehousing that is dominating Hamilton.

If you feel upsett by this revolting development, I fully encourage you to write to the Hamilton City Council. Don’t just complain, but articulate why it is a shame this is happening and how it is going to greatly disadvantage the local music scene and the gig-going youth of Hamilton.

Hamilton City Council, Private Bag 3010 , Hamilton 2020, New Zealand 48May have a new single out - ‘Nervous Wreck’. When the first 48May single ‘Fightback’ was released, I was visiting Hamilton with my scum-metal band ANGEL HAMMER. We went to visit some friends and they happened to be watching the premiere of the video. Funnily enough one of the members of 48May was there watching it with us. I thought it was a pretty decent American sounding song and the video of the band in a gymnasium done up in gridiron gear was certainly a curiousity. At one point in the clip the 48May guy who was watching it with us was on the screen running across the gymnasium. That was the point when one of my metal friends decided to inform the room, “That guy runs like a fag!” I tried to gesture to him that that ‘fag’ was in the room with us, but my metal friend was resolute, “I don’t care, he does run like a fag!” Ah well. I look forward to seeing the video for ‘Nervous Wreck’.

A gig guide/zine in the mould of The Fix is in the works for Hamilton’s music and arts scene. Still in the planning stages, hopefully it will come to fruition before the end of the year.

Tadpole Tadpole

Reviewed by Brie Jessen Faced with an album called Tadpole featuring an intricate design of pink flowers and skulls on the cover, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. This self-titled album is the third album of New Zealand band, following Medusa and The Buddhafinger. I had heard of Tadpole, but hadn’t heard any of their music so I was beginning to wonder what I was in for. Expecting heavy rock, which is not to my taste, I was pleasantly surprised.

The album is definitely rock, but it is gentle enough to have on in background and still be able to concentrate on other things. However you could also turn it up and get lost in the music.

The album features the singles ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Too Hard’ which were released earlier this year. ‘Yesterday’ has a catching beat and an unusual take on a typical rock melody. ‘Too hard’ starts off like any rock song and ends up in pretty much the same place with a few twists along the way. Overall I was a bit disappointed in the album, as most of the songs sounded the same. However it is still a good album, and one that I think will grow on me - it just lacks variety. I personally think it is great casual party music, good for the background, but not too distracting to prevent conversation.

The Mars Volta Amputechture

Reviewed by Ben Thomson I didn’t think I’d ever want to watch or even listen to another man masturbate, but Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (bandleader/composer/guitarist of The Mars Volta) has so many weird tricks and interesting ways to get himself off that I may have proven myself wrong. Listening to this album, is kind of like watching A Scanner Darkly, it just makes you want to get out there and try it yourself. Luckily there’s a whole sub-culture of people that play along to Mars Volta records, just check out www.youtube.com.

Amputechture is the third release from the Self Indulgent Masturbatory Progressive Juggernaut that is The Mars Volta. This is their first album not based around a singular theme. They liken this to the idea of Twin Peaks, “Storylines not necessarily linear or in any way connected, but all told in the same voice.” It could also be likened to the structure of 90% of other albums.

There really are some brilliant moments on this album though; soaring highs, guttural lows, breathtaking interplay, infectious grooves and choruses, everything you’d expect from a great Mars Volta album.

I highly suggest seeing them live.

The Mars Volta is coming to Auckland on December 8. It should be amazing, unless someone throws urine at them.

By Kazuma Namioka

Extras

U2 – Zoo TV: Live from Sydney

Ricky Gervais’s follow-up to The Office, about the life and times of an actor who never has any actual acting work and gets roles as an extra instead. The humour is similar, though there are fewer jokes and more of the really long, awkward moments. A new element for the show is the inclusion of various actors playing themselves (from small-time to A-list – Samuel L. Jackson is there, but I’ve never heard of Les Dennis), and their antics were some of the golden moments in the show. Kate Winslet keeps going up and up in my esteem; Patrick Stewart is priceless. Some of the more human moments come from the friendship between Gervais’s character Andy and fellow extra Maggie (played spot-on by Ashley Jenson), who rib each other and conspire together to get them through the struggle of their inconsequential roles and demeaning work.

I think I understand the deal with modern art a bit better now. You get it on the news every now and again; an artwork is representing us overseas or the artist got a grant or cash in some form and humans are getting riled up over it, because any way you look at it it’s just a dunny that brays or a bunch of beer crates. But if everyone liked it, that would be missing the point. Seemingly everyone in the whole world loves U2 and therefore every commercial radio station plays them. You hear them everywhere. That in itself makes them unappealing. To say they are popular and therefore bad is shallow, but by their universal acceptance they are rendered mundane. They aren’t especially bad, just boring, like potatoes.

Extras comes with a second disc of, well extras. They call them special features though, to stop shit like the above from happening.

There are deleted scenes, which are still well worth watching. The bloopers reel makes it obvious that Gervais’s biggest fan is himself; he can barely contain his laughter over any little joke, and it seems the scenes they used were the only ones he didn’t ruin. His laugh is all high pitched as well, and when he talks when he’s laughing it sounds really weird. At first disturbing, but then hilarious. A bit like the show itself really. Films don’t do comedy any more, so thank goodness there are still funny people in television.

The above is probably all personal preference-related and best ignored. If the only song you like is their one about a bloody Sunday, well, it’s not there, but there are plenty of other songs besides, 2 hour’s worth. They don’t deal in bars and town halls either; the stage is an enormous, elaborate set-up with big-arse screens that Bono leaps around in front of (the theme is television). They have a costume change as well, maybe a couple, where sunglasses are traded in for face-paint. Can’t be all bad I guess, they were on The Simpsons. Then again, so was Britney. And, uh, Hitler.

Sorry, I shouldn’t rag on potatoes.

REVIEWS

Books Bunny Tales:

Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion Izabelle St James SOUTHERN PUBLISHERS GROUP

Reviewed by Pheobe Meryll Admit it, who doesn’t want to know about what it’s like to live inside the Playboy Mansion?

Initially a book like this slyly exudes a similar attraction to a women’s mag in a waiting room; the knowledge that inside lies a wealth of guilty gossipy pleasures.

Although, there was nothing subtle about what made my boyfriend notice the book’s cover. Gee, she’s got some nice, round…eyes.

Oh, all Hef’s girlfriends get surgery, says St James matter-of-factly. They also seem to bicker incessantly and living with the insecure manipulative creatures sounds horrendous.

I found Bunny Tales a fascinating account, although not for the reasons you’d assume. The requisite chapter on sexual hijinks is there, with cursory candid details, but it isn’t particularly erotic. Understandably enough, an eighty year old guy, even with Viagra and money, isn’t up to much in the bedroom except attempting to nurture his ego/reputation and it all comes across a bit sad and sordid. St James mentions that during her two years living in the Mansion she probably spent a total of fifteen minutes actually having sex with Hef. The rest of the time? Going to A-list parties and leaving early, having clandestine meetings outside of the 9pm curfew, taking note of what expensive gifts the other girls get for Christmas.

So far, so gold digging bimbo, would tend to be the general consensus. However, St James offers an interesting angle on the scene, having lived the standard ‘nice girl’ life in Canada and then worked hard for a BA and a law degree. It could be you or I in that situation, if we had such nice…eyes.

Although it’s quickly absorbing, Bunny Tales is not great literature. The conversational tone is appropriate on the whole, but there are inconsistencies of attitude and content.

The author is by turns cynical and ingenuous, or bitchy and then decrying bitchiness. Sometimes she can’t seem to decide if she’s having an amazing experience or hating the restrictions, and still seems self-deluding at times. But the strength of the story lies in the fact that she’s a reasonably smart modern woman who chose to spend time living a hedonistic fantasy life and the minutiae of that life can’t help but be intriguing.

Read this book if: you fancy a glimpse into another world.

Lords of Chaos: The bloody rise of the satanic metal underground

By Michael Moynihan & Didrik Søderlind Dirty Work

By Nigel Cox (1987)

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Recommended by Jeff Rule

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In spite of its suggestive title, Dirty Work is devoid of graphic sexual detail. For those of you who read on beyond this proviso, you will find an award-winning novel made full by vivid characterisation and a strong evocation of time and place. Little wonder, then, that it won the Bucklands Memorial Literary prize soon after publication in 1987 and why it was re-published this year. Cox’s recent Tarzan Presley was also a runner-up in the Montana Book Awards. Cox, who died earlier this year, was a prolific writer who completed his last novel in the last week of his life and whose work is an eminent addition to New Zealand fiction.

The plot is set in 1980s Wellington and follows the experience of Gina, a hotel worker and weekend-trapeze artist, as she starts a new job at the impeccably scummy Happy World hotel. This is an account of inner worlds, within Gina, within the Hotel, and is highly readable and insightful. Cox shows a rich understanding of human nature and has a clear appreciation of a Kiwi (and Dutch) dialect in the way he writes. This is a substantial book, both in its content and form – a sizeable read that ends all too soon.

Recommended by Burton C Bogan Goths love Scandinavia. Why? It’s because it’s where some of the heavyweights of Black Metal originated.

Bands like Mayhem and Burzum have been ‘instrumental’ in the scene…and they’ve burned churches. By the year 2000 more than 100 European churches were set alight or desecrated by people believed to be Black Metallers.

This allegedly started with the Dark Circle, which sounds like a gothic reggae band, led by members of Mayhem and Burzum. This book chronicles Black Metal from its early beginnings with Venom, through the Dark Circle, and out the other side with various international Black Metal and occult organisations.

It includes interviews with a range of musicians and wider fans and also an impressive range of photographs.

research there are a few problems with it. First off it’s very theatrical, given the nature of the music that may be understandable but I think this can implicate the authors as criminal sympathisers. Secondly, I question whether a giving a person like ‘Lord Grishnack’ a forum to share his views is appropriate given that he’s a nutty white supremacist fruitcake. In the interviews he even starts combining atavism with aliens! People like this give Metallers a bad name. But overall this is an entertaining read as long as you don’t take it too seriously. Moynihan has been accused of being a neo-Nazi sympathiser but I don’t think he is as this is reasonably well balanced read and he is critical of interviewees.

I originally read this book and thought it was brilliant. However, on further reflection and after doing some Bogan

Read this if: You take the Black Metal scene very seriously, or not seriously at all!

REVIEWS

Films Water RIALTO CINEMA

Reviewed by Joe Citizen Set in India in the 1930s, this emotionally powerful film details the lives of widows, who, according to Hindu scripture, have three choices when their husband dies. They can throw themselves upon the funeral pyre, marry the younger brother or shave their hair and enter an ashram. Functionally, survival depends on

of daily life poignantly provides a surrealist edge created by the juxtaposition of the mundane. This Indian epic spans across Gandhi, colonialism, nationalism and tradition. It is the story of women waiting to die because they have been discarded from their former lives and of a man who dares to love outside the rules. Don’t be confused, this is no Bollywood love story, this is a sobering and compelling masterpiece.

in support of the film being made.

Directed by Deepa Mehta and shot in Sri

There is a simmering anger that pervades this film, an impact that is felt afterwards when you close your eyes. It describes with gentle subtlety and a sublime sense of history - by interweaving the story within a nationalist context, this modern anachronism is illustrated as a reminder and

begging or prostitution and this story weaves an intricate path around love, taboo and anger as

Lanka, the production was dogged by sabotage.

Protesters against the film burnt and attacked

not a fusillade of rage. The result is a rich and intricate film made for a sophisticated and

it unravels hypocrisy and inequity in the guise of religion.

sets, one opponent attempted suicide to demonstrate his disapproval and Mehta’s effigy was burnt across the nation by fundamentalist mobs that disagreed with her criticism of religious practice. In response the local government closed the production down in the name of ‘public safety.’ During this time George Lucas took out a full-page ad in Variety Magazine

informed audience. Don’t be fooled by its laconic pace or its insistence on not spelling out every cultural detail, this is a tragedy of monumental proportions and the overall effect fizzes away in the mind for days afterwards.

Stunningly lush cinematography competes for attention as the viewer is transported into a world where life and death stand next to each other on the banks of a river. Every shot is a breath-taking composition in which the minutia

Rialto

By Leigh McGeady

A triumph of filmmaking. Easily the best film of the year.

Check

Ok here’s one for all you who like films with a bit of grit that you can really sink your teeth into. Brick begins its season with us on the 5th October after finishing its time within the film fest circuit.

To watch this film you are going to need to understand some of the lingo used in it. So I will give you a few of the words used and a brief illustration of the context they are to be used in.

Ok, here goes: Blow: to leave, depart; e.g. “Did she blow last night?”

Bulls: cops; e.g. “What first, tip the bulls?”; also, as a verb, to turn over to the cops; e.g. “I bulled the rat.”

Burg (or Burgh): town, city; e.g. “He knows every twobit toker in the burg.”

Copped: stole; eg. “She copped the junk” Dose: to take drugs; e.g. “He dosed off the bad junk and it laid him out.”

Duck soup: easy pickings.

Gat: gun.

Gum: to mess things up; e.g. “Bulls would only gum it” Heel: to walk away from (and show your heels to); e.g. “I’m not heeling you to hook you.”

Hop/Jake/Junk: drugs.

Pick: a ride in a car (as in “pickup”); e.g. “Did she get a pick?”

Reef worm: a stoner (abbrev. of ‘reefer’). e.g.

“He’s a pot skulled reef worm with more hop in his head than blood” Scape: a patsy to take the blame (abbrev. of ‘scapegoat’).

Scraped: begged off of, cadge from; e.g. “Ask any dope rat where their junk sprang and they’ll say they scraped it off [name]…”

Shamus: a private detective.

Shine: to wield (as with a weapon); e.g. “He shines a blade”.

Sprang: Originated; e.g. “His gat sprang from Tugger’s gang.”

Take a powder: to slip away; e.g. “Why’d you take a powder the other night?”

Yeg: (generic for,) a guy; e.g. “They’d probably find some yeg to pin it on.”

ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

Brick stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Mysterious Skin, 3rd Rock from the Sun), Lukas Haas (Last Days), and Emilie de Raven (Lost). GordonLevitt plays Brendan Frye, a loner, someone who knows all the angles but has chosen to stay on the outside. When Emily, the girl he loves (de Raven) turns up dead, he plunges into his school’s social strata to find out the ‘who’ and ‘why’, with the same single minded devotion to his self appointed task as the hardboiled heroes of old. This mystery film has some great characters that you’ll either love or loath such as the sociopathic sexpot who is the queen of the drama geeks, the chief of police who is also the vice-principal, the trusty operative who is a nerd in coke-bottle glasses, the heavy who is a 26-year-old drug dealer living with his mum and of course the femme fatale who is the head

cheerleader.

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YOUR VOICE

Megan 1. No. 2. I have some, not much. I have a crappy computer with no Broadband. Morally, I think it’s ok for personal use but not commercial.

3. (The phone rings with ‘Suddenly I See’ and answers that question nicely) 4. Generally, no. I have to really like it. I think CDs are overpriced for what they really are. I could buy a pair of pants for $30, or 3 from the opshop.

5. Bring back sudoku. They’re great for doing during lectures, which I now go to.

Jacob 1. I have an iPod. And an Mp3 player.

2. I don’t think it’s good, but I do it.

3. It’s by Cherish…(Jacob searches his Mp3 player, to no avail. “Sounds a bit gay” interjects a companion.).

4. Only for old music.

5. Ideas for a family-centred Christmas (laughs). Cheap summer activities that are fun.

By Dawn Homare 1.

2.

3.

4.

iPod Yeah, I do.

Chain Hang Low? Sometimes. At the Warehouse. It’s good if you can’t find a song you want online.

5. The NPC final? Sports reporting.

1. Do you have an iPod/Mp3 player?

2. Is it ok to download music without paying for it, and do you?

3. Last song you listened to/downloaded?

4. Do you still buy CDs? 5. What exciting things should Nexus’ final 2 issues have in?

Riini 1. I have an Mp3 player on my phone 2. Not really. But it’s good if you’ve got no money.

3. ‘You and Your Hand’ – Pink.

4. Sometimes. Having the genuine CD is good.

5. Better jokes. But I think it’s really good as it is.

Realistically, fees should be...

Put up by the rate of inflation (about 3.5%) ISSUE 23 / 2 OCTOBER 2006

23% / 5 Votes

Anything up to the fee maxima limit (5%) 14% / 3 Votes

Reduced - there’s no way a degree should cost that much To vote on the weekly polls, point your internet browser to:

www.nexusmag.co.nz/forum You don’t need to sign up to vote, either!

But signing up will make you cooler...

14% / 3 Votes

Education should be free, man 4% / 1 Vote

Education should be free, man, but I can’t be bothered protesting so just bill me 38% / 8 Votes

Leave the fees the same as they are 4% / 1 Vote

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