No Added Sugar

Death.

2011-11-21T17:09:00.000-08:00

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

I guess in everyone’s life there comes a time when they are faced with mortality. This week, I had a couple of family members pass away. Both of them were probably a little young by modern standards, but neither lost out on a chance to live a full life. Both were lucky enough to have children and grandchildren, had many friends and will be sorely missed by their families. I’d like to say I knew them well, but with that intergenerational barrier the relationships were distinctly one of ‘whanaunga’ – which we can liberally translate to mean ‘extended family’.

Coupled with this, a recent friend of mine has become starkly aware of their own mortality, and finding its steely glare to be a little too much to bear. This fear prompts many questions around spirituality, consciousness and a desire for an eternal life of any kind. This has had me thinking quite a bit about what I want from my life, and why our actions should define who we are.

For those that find solace in spirituality and religion, the thought of passing from ‘this world’ (as they put it, clearly I am not of this persuasion) can often be a little less scary. The promise of life eternal can grant believers a feeling of relative ease as the end of tangible consciousness comes to an end (I say relative, because I think we all fear death on some level), because the life they lead on earth is/was merely just a portal to something better.

BUT... Even the strongest of believers acknowledges that their time here amongst the rest of us has a finite timeline.

The fear of death is not only a pragmatic one (being afraid of the actual act of dying and potential suffering), but it is also the hugely egotistical and personal acknowledgement that your chance to make an impact on the world or those around you must come to an end. In the rarest of cases people leave a legacy that extends beyond a generation, but for the most part we all just become links in the chain of evolution.

One of the biggest ideological problems I have with religion is, and this is especially true with the Judeo-Christian and Islamic faiths, that this life is all but meaningless compared to the next. That one’s whole existence should be aimed at setting up the next – an eternal reward for a life of subservience and dispelling of critical thought. This removes any context from our lives and can often produce horrible results.

However, I am not here to discuss religion.

My main concern with many people, and I am often just as guilty of it myself, is that we lack perspective. There is so much life to be led, so many experiences to be had, and so much happiness to be gained from the world around us, but our own lives and troubles seem to stand in the way of that. Everything seems too much to handle, or stressful, when it doesn’t need to be. Whether you are a believer or an atheist like myself, it is important to give your own life context – because nobody else can.

If you are not doing something to improve your quality of life, measured only by your own standards, then you are doing it WRONG. If you value love and relationships you should be working on those things. If you value activism and the environment, then get off your ass and do something. If you value a career and the bling, then I hope you know enough about the world to be able to make it big, but are also DOING something about it.

The real tragedy comes not from death, but from a life unfulfilled.

RIP: Splotch & Brownie.

The world has lost 2 of its real characters this week

CPW - Day 4

2011-08-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

Ok this one's hopefully going to be a bit quicker - it was a simple recipe, and it's late! Tomorrow's recipe is way more complicated and I need my beauty sleep. Anyway, tonight's recipe was a nice little Asian style ginger/soy chicken dish. Delish.

WHAT.

About 1kg chicken, thigh cutlets are best - bone IN.
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tbslp oyster sauce
2 tblsp sesame oil
2tbslp apple cider vinegar
Fresh chilli - seems like every dish I cook is spicy, so I toned it down here. 2 chillis, no seeds
4 large carrots
1 bunch of spring onions
Garlic
Ginger - about 2 inches
Brown rice
Bok Choy
Cornflour

(Pic fail once again... *sigh*)

HOW.

This recipe is super easy. Season and brown off your chicken. While this is happening, slice carrots on an angle, about .5cm pieces. Finely slice spring onions and garlic. Peel and grate your ginger. Add about half of that vege mix to the bottom of your crock pot. Here is the generic browning pic! Haha

Once it's nice and coloured, add the cutlets in to the crock pot one at a time - try not to let too much fat come in, there can be quite a bit of fat left at the end of the day's cooking from this tender meat. You could even pat them down with paper towels if you so desired. Anyway drop them into the pot one at a time, and cover with the rest of the veges.

Combine all your wet ingredients and pour over the top. Again do not be tempted to add more liquid. This is plenty. Whack the lid on, turn it to low and walk away... I left this recipe in the cooker for about 10hrs... The chicken was crazy soft.

Bok Choy is pretty easy to cook too - finely chop some more garlic, combine in a mixing cup with a good dash of soy sauce, 1tsp of oyster sauce, 1tblsp of fish sauce and some rice wine vinegar. I actually keep most of this shit in my pantry but if you don't have one or two of the ingredients it's not a big deal. Then add a dash of water, you want about half a cup of liquid all up. Add some cooking to a hot pan, and throw in your bok choy. You'll need at least 4 bunches for 4 people, and make sure you cut the bases off so the leaves are separate obviously! Once it starts to heat up you'll see the leaves begin to shrivel, add in the liquid and let it reduce and steam the leaves.

Serve the chicken on some brown rice with your bok choy on the side. Boom boom, shake the room

Whilst not as good as last night's recipe, it's still great, and was a nice variation from the Western style comfort food. Wasn't spicy at all, but had that air of ginger about it for some tang.

7/10

Crock Pot Week - Day 3.

2011-08-10T04:12:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah... Day 3 of CPW brings us 'pulled' pork.

What is pulled pork Nathan? I hear you ask. Well, when you slow cook a big chunk of pork it pulls apart to delicious, moist, stringy pieces of meat which is great for such things as burritos - you can buy a pork 'carnitas' burrito at Mexicali Fresh. They are delicious.

My plan was to do a pulled pork sandwich or roll of sorts - and I recently discovered some very tasty Ciabatta rolls from the supermarket, so they seemed like a natural choice. They make a good portion size, and have a great texture and flavour. To match the pork I made a coleslaw for the roll, and served it with a balsamic tomato and bean side salad. It was pretty damned awesome, if I do say so.

WHAT.

Big cut of pork, you want shoulder or rump. I grabbed a cut about 800g (incl. fat)
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup ketchup (there's an awesome Tuimato sauce on sale in NZ now. Do it.)
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Big tblsp of mustard powder
About the same amount of garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika (used in Monday's recipe - definitely worth buying!!)
1/4 cup brown or raw sugar
Chilli flakes - to taste, I used about 1tsp which gave it a nice, mild spice
Salt, pepper, cooking oil (as usual)
White onion
Red onion
Half a cabbage
1 large, or 2 small carrots
Dijon mustard
Mayonnaise
Sour cream
Crushed pineapple - small can, about 250g I think
Cherry tomatoes
Round beans
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Ciabatta loaves

(Sorry for another shit pic, I tend to be doing this first thing in the morning so a bit all over the place!)

HOW.

First you want to remove the skin from your pork. Don't be afraid to keep a bit of fat, but the skin itself does not do well for slow cooking and will be a bit gross at the end. It's easy enough to trim off, and obviously try not to cut off any of the precious meat!

Next up, you guessed it - brown off the meat. Fire up your pan to full temp as usual. If you are unfortunate enough to have a ceramic cook top or you struggle with achieving maximum heat, then make sure you get your pan on early. Don't be afraid of it getting too hot, because obviously that won't be a problem! Don't forget to season the meat before it goes in the pan, and fry fat side down first.

The browning process will take at least 5 minutes, so you have time to cut up your white onion and half (of your half) of the cabbage (yes, that means a quarter of a whole cabbage). Don't worry about doing it finely, just rough cuts about half a cm all the way through. Dump the onion and the cabbage in the bottom of the crock pot. Once them meat has a bit of colour, throw that in too.

Next, combine all your wet ingredients except for the chicken stock into a cup. I have one of those measuring cups that allowed me to measure out the liquid. I don't bother measuring with dry ingredients, but I have found that cooking with the slow cooker retains a lot of liquid, so probably needs to be reasonably measured. Tuimato sauce, Worcestershire, apple cider vinegar (essential, don't use other kinds, especially not MALT.). Then add your spices and give it a good stir with a fork. Throw it over your pork / cabbage / onion.

The reason I didn't use the chicken stock in the original mix was so that I could put it into the mixing cup to help clean out all the good spices and flavours that might be stuck in there. Like so:

About a a cup. But you could definitely get away with less, this recipe will produce a lot of liquid at the end. Throw it all in to the pot - it will look like there is not enough liquid, but do not be tempted to add more. There is plenty.

Lid on. Cook for at least 10hrs. I think in the end I had it in for about 13! Owing to the fact that I had footy training and my flatmates wanted to wait for me. Good cunts. When you come back to it after 10hrs or so, your pork should still be in large chunks, but it will be really moist and soft. Just break it up with a fork and ensure it's stirred through the liquid entirely. Really get stuck into it. It should look a bit like this:

Coleslaw is EASY. This is a great recipe that is perfectly suited to this dish. Finely chop (as finely as you can) the other 1/4 cabbage and the red onion. Grate the carrot(s) into the mix. In a separate bowl add a large tblsp of the Dijon mustard, 2-3 tbslp of mayo, 1 big tblsp of sour cream (that's all I had left from Monday haha!), and about 2 level/small tblsp of the apple cider vinegar. AGAIN do not use a different kind of vinegar - it costs like $4 from the supermarket - buy some. Also drain the crushed pineapple and add it to the bowl. Stir it thoroughly and then dump it into the veges - stir that thoroughly and you have yourself an excellent coleslaw. Usually I wouldn't put pineapple in it, but it goes great with the pork, so take my advice damn it! It's fucking delicious.

The salad is even easier, and you can have it warm or cold. Cut the ends off your round beans. I could only find 'strawberry' tomatoes at the super which are a little larger than your average cherry tom, so had to cut them in half. Heat pan to a medium-high, add some olive oil this time (try not to let the pan get to max heat here, olive oil works better at slightly lower heat), then add your tomatoes and beans. After about 1min of cooking, add in a generous splash of balsamic vinegar. Just enough to coat everything in the pan. Cook off for another 1-2min, then put it in a serving bowl.

To serve, make sure you toast your ciabatta. It's just better. I fan grilled on max heat for a couple of minutes on each side. Too easy. When you're taking the pork from the cooker you WILL find that it has a lot of liquid - just use tongs or a draining spoon and let the majority of the liquid drain off. Be generous with the meat, this recipe could do 6 rolls. Spoon on some of the coleslaw, and top with the other half of the bun. Add some of your side salad, and serve with your favourite beer.

It may not look like much in the pic, but this meal was proper awesome. If you're going to repeat anything from this week's slow cook escapades, then I think this is the one. Great combination of flavours and textures. Consensus in the flat that this one was the best yet, and for a hearty, home cooked, winter meal I don't think you could ask for too much more.

9/10

(I'm hesitant to mark it that high, but I had to mark it relative to the others, so perhaps the others should be slightly lower!)

Crock Pot Week - Day 2.

2011-08-09T02:26:00.000-07:00

Alrighty!

Day 2 of CPW has lamb shanks on the menu. A traditional winter favourite, but actually not something i have cooked before, or really even eaten that much. I've had it a couple of times in London pubs, but haven't really had a the chance to have it home cooked too much. Thankfully my flatmates had a 4-pack of shanks delivered as part of a meat order from Grab One (keep an eye out there, great pack for about $60 with shitloads of meat). Anyway... on to the important stuff... the food!

WHAT.

4 x lamb shanks (no idea what they weighed, plus we can only fit 4 in our cooker)
2 onions
Button mushrooms
Garlic
1 large carrot
Dry red wine (got a great Gunn Estate Pinot Noir on special for $10 down from about $18)
Balsamic vinegar
Wholegrain mustard
Fresh rosemary (so much better than dried, don't skimp)
Fresh parsley
Salt (quite a bit) & pepper, cooking oil
Beef stock cube
Cornflour

(Sorry about the shitty pic, doesn't have a few ingredients in there)

HOW.

Brown your lamb shanks. Much like last night's recipe, do not be afraid of the heat - you are not trying to cook the shanks at all, just get a nice caramelisation on the outside. Brown it up! Season with plenty of salt and pepper before putting into the pan.

You want a good 3-4min on each side on full heat. Whilst you are doing that, you want to take your 2 onions and cut them into wedges. I read a few recipes online that recommended I find mini onions, like the ones they pickle, but they weren't readily available at the supermarket. When you're cutting your wedges try to keep the bottom of the onion in tact, this helps them hold together and gives quite a different sweetness to their flavour, I think. Like so:

Next you also want to make sure your carrot is nicely diced into approx 1cm pieces, and your garlic is finely chopped. I'm a big garlic fan so use a lot of it in my cooking - I think I used about 4 cloves this morning. From there, throw 4 of the wedges (one onion) into the crock pot, and keep the other 4 ready to go into the pan with your other fresh ingredients. Remove the shanks from the pan and put them in your crock.

Into the pan go your carrots, garlic, onion wedges and mushrooms. Do not clean out your pan or empty out the oil, it all adds to the flavour. Also bear in mind I went to the trouble of selecting nice, small button mushrooms so that I didn't have to cut them. The bite sized mushrooms have a nice texture to eat, I think. Don't forget to season.

This should take about 5min tops, so during that time you want to combine about 1 cup of the red wine, a generous splash of balsamic, 3tblsp of wholegrain mustard and your finely chopped rosemary. It will look like a disgusting soup. Add it to your pan, with everything still on high heat. Adding liquid to a hot pan like this will help you get the delicious flavours off the bottom - "de-glazing".

Once you've sizzled this off for a couple of minutes, pour it all over the top of your shanks, chop up half your parsley and add that to the mix too. Put the lid on, and you want to cook it on low for 8-10hrs.

Now here's where a bit of cooking experience came in handy. When I came home about 10hrs after cooking, I found a couple of things. Firstly that there wasn't *quite* as much liquid as I wanted, and the liquid I did have was a bit watery. So I took the shanks out of the pot, plated them on the mashed potatoes...

(Served with some yummy mash. If you're always wondering about how to make creamy mash, then just experiment a little. Try not to add too much milk, and add a bit more butter. Don't be afraid to "over" cook the potatoes, and make sure the water is heavily salted. Also add 3-4 cloves of peeled garlic when you're boiling. Final tip is to add in an egg when you're mashing, and really get stuck in. All of this produces a nice creamy texture. I also added a chopped handful of the remaining parsley to add a bit of extra flavour. Yummy.)

To thicken the sauce and add some flavour I put a tbslp of cornflour and half a beef stock cube into the bottom of a mug, added about 1/3 of a cup of boiling water and mixed to ensure no lumps. Added it to the shank-sauce and through it all in a saucepan on HIGH... Not ideal but I had to work quickly owing to the fact that I had plated up the shanks & spuds already. Anyway you'll find that your sauce will thicken up nicely and reduce a little over a period of about 5min or so, and your shanks won't get too cold. then just spoon the mixture over the top.

Although not the best picture, it was fucking delicious. This recipe was absolutely perfect for 4 people, having one generously sized portion each. The lamb was so tender it fell off the bone, the sauce was just right (in the end!) and the spuds were velvety and decadent. Universal praise.

8.5/10

Crock Pot Week - Day 1!

2011-08-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

This week I am going to do 5 nights of recipes in the Crock Pot, or slow cooker. Winter here has been reasonably mild, but with a bit of a turn to the colder recently, it's nice to have some comforting meals for dinner. The Crock Pot is an awesome way to prepare a hearty winter meal with not too much effort, although it obviously requires you to be prepared in advance of the following morning. I'm hoping to get a decent variety across the 5 nights, although the temptation is obviously there to make variations on a stew every night! There are 4 of us in the flat, so usually I'll be cooking for 4, although most of the time there will be leftovers.

So the first night I'm making Chilli. Or some people call it Chilli Con Carne I suppose. Beef based, nice and spicy.

WHAT.

Prime beef mince - I used about 600g
250g Beef & Garlic Kransky (or similar smoked sausage)
Garlic
Onion
Capsicum
Tomato paste
2 x canned tomatoes
Jalapeño chillis (I used about 2 tblsp, these are the pickled kind)
1 x can of black beans
About 20-30g Dark chocolate (darker the better, I used 85% cocoa)
Smoked paprika
Cumin
Ground coriander
Chilli powder
Raw sugar
Sour cream & fresh coriander for garnish
Cooking oil, salt & pepper etc for seasoning (this stuff goes without saying obviously!)

HOW.

Make sure you pre-cut your fresh ingredients in advance - it makes working with a hot pan a lot easier. I also pre-sliced the kransky into about 1cm pieces (no pic sorry).

Fire up your pan - don't be afraid of the heat, especially with mince meat, otherwise it can tend to release too much liquid and start to stew the meat. You want it to brown really nicely. Get it cracking hot and brown off your beef. It doesn't need to be cooked thoroughly, you're just giving it a bit of colour and flavour. Make sure you season with salt and pepper whilst it's cooking. Then empty it into your crock pot.

In the same pan (don't clean it, but you might need to add some more oil), throw in your fresh ingredients and your sliced kransky. Again you don't really need to cook it thoroughly, so throw it in on high, soften up your veges and get some colour on your sausage. Then dump that in the pot too.

Once it's all in the cooker, you need to throw in your dry spices and canned ingredients. This is about personal preference really, I don't like to work to strict recipes or amounts of this kind of stuff. Smoked paprika is a really nice spice and adds a level of flavour that is sometimes missing from our cooking. I used about 1tsp each of smoked paprika & ground coriander, and about 2 heaped tsp of chilli powder & cumin. Don't forget to chop up your jalapeños and finely grate your dark chocolate (hat tip to Mr Towgood for finding this mystery ingredient). Throw these in with about a table spoon of raw sugar - the chocolate and sugar will offset a bit of the saltiness and enrich the tomato flavour. Then finally your canned ingredients & tomato paste. Give it a bit of a stir, then turn that sucker on LOW, and leave it!

I ended up cooking it for about 10hrs - if it's on low you really don't have to worry about it overcooking. There is plenty of moisture in there and it could easily go on for hours as long as you leave the lid on. I served it with some brown rice and garnished with sour cream and freshly chopped coriander.

I must say it was pretty delicious. Got all round praise from the flatties and thoroughly enjoyed myself also.

8/10.

In Sickness, and in Health.

2011-07-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

As I sit in my chilly Auckland apartment, under two hoodies, full of the bot with only a blanket & cushion to cuddle, I’d like to reflect on the challenges and politics of love in the “teens”. Many who know me assume I am a total cynic when it comes to matters of the heart, and some would even say I am destined to be a cranky old spinster likely to father illegitimate children spawned of blurry, unmemorable drunken escapades. Personally I'm sure that I am a hopeless romantic - with raw experiences of emotional destruction and heartbreak fuelling a genuine desire to find that illusive ‘one’ that the overwhelming majority of us can only imagine. No doubt the truth is nestled neatly 'twixt the two.

But I digress.

My standard status as 'the single guy' for the huge majority of my adult life often affords me the opportunity to discuss matters of the heart. Probably more than I would previously have been comfortable with as a younger man, it must be said. I have had many conversations on the subject, ranging from insipid to colourful and insightful. A couple of years back I came to the conclusion that the nature of modern relationship politics is vastly different to what people are really willing to admit.

We now live in an era of short attention spans, high consumption, and with very little thought to genuine privacy – at least the way the older generations would think. I really believe a change in mindset needs to be adopted by 'our' generation, and we need to stop putting the same pressures on ourselves that, perhaps, our parents (and certainly our grandparents) would have. That the standards of relationship success are so vastly different to what they used to be, but no one seems to address or admit it. Consider the amount of relationships people enter into these days (not just marriages), and then consider the subsequent failure rate of those relationships. Logic tells us the overall failure rate of what people deem to be relationships would be comfortably over 90%. Yet we enter into new relationships with doe eyes and renewed hope that this next person will love and understand us better than the last, and maybe somehow we will meet that fairytale ‘soul mate’. Statistically, of course, that hope is little more than naive idiocy. Granted, there are exceptions, and I suppose it is these exceptions that give people genuine hope.

To me, the reasons why so many more relationships fail than previous generations are obvious. As individuals our lives are so much different for a start, but our own expectations of ourselves and others have also changed. As individuals... our sphere of influence is much, much larger than it used to be. Even before the Internet became engrained in our collective psyche and the can opener that is Facebook took to our previously private can of life worms, we lead lives of bigger workplaces, increased communication, urbanisation and travel. We just know so many more people than we used to. Large work places, cheap travel, free communication, huge universities and now of course social networks mean that we are now interacting with more people (and thus potential partners) than ever before. It is, of course, natural to compare all of these potentials against one another and want the best for yourself – but like modern music, when you are spoilt for choice, too much of it becomes disposable... Disposability and short attention spans often mean ‘relationships’ don’t even make it to the first hurdle, let alone over it.

This same factor, unfortunately, influences longer term relationships too. If you’re loving and committed enough to make it to 5 years these days, you will have likely overcome some pretty big challenges and temptation. The idea that there is only ‘one’ person out there for us amongst (nearly) 7 billion people is pretty outrageous considering you could feasibly meet, or at least interact with 30,000 people over the course of your (approaching) 100 years of life seems, well, quaint?

We’ve all seen the divorce statistics – your marriage is more likely to fail than it is to succeed. Of that, there can be no doubt. And those are the people that even take that leap of faith to GET married – the ones SO in love that they’re (momentarily) willing to commit their whole lives and very being to another person. Many are just too apathetic to even bother, and who can blame them? In Canada this week Statistics Canada took their last ever record of marriage and divorce rates. Marriage is becoming less relevant because relationships are increasingly disposable, and people are all too aware that there could, for whatever reason, be a drastic change of heart and marriage/divorce is a mistake that they would rather avoid.

Many people will read this and assume that the view is a bleak one. That we’ve lost traditional values of love, and have lost the depth of emotion and commitment really required to be successful lovers, and thus valuable human beings. Personally, I actually see this as a good thing. We are more open and socially liberated than ever before – sure, our values have shifted, but I think it is for the better. Too often would we see in the past, people picking at the dead carcass of their love, hoping to salvage some scrap of meat from the unrecognisable skeletal remains of what was once a blubbery, fat relationship. Now I believe our new outlook and expectations allow us to have a much broader range of experiences of love. We may endure more heart ache, but we may indeed experience more love than what we previously could have.

To see a (relatively) young couple reach ten years of a relationship is basically unheard of. I think this should change what we perceive as a successful relationship. We shouldn’t be placing so much pressure on ourselves to find someone who’ll be stupid enough to love us, no matter what we do, for the rest of our lives. We change careers, we make new friends, we emigrate to different parts of the world, we have a myriad of life changing experiences – we should be mature enough to realise that old values of religious marriage should not be the end goal. We should be looking for rich experiences with amazing people who teach us new things about ourselves and make us happy. If that happens to be for 15 minutes, 15 weeks or 15 years, each are equally valid.

We have an entire generation of children brought up in broken homes (myself included), and I do not believe it has an inherently negative effect on kids. As long as people can be mature and do the right thing by their children, they will raise well balanced kids with which they have fulfilling relationships. It’s only the bitter and twisted parents that use their children as leverage in the bitter attrition of post marital war. You are more likely to feel richly rewarded and content as a parent than you are as a spouse. As Larry David put it “The best situation is being a single parent. The best part about is that you get time off, too, because the kids are with their mom, so it's the best of both worlds. There's a lot to be said for it. You get married, you have kids – you should plan this from the beginning. We're going to have these kids, then we'll get divorced when they're four. All right, six."

Don’t get me wrong – we should still look for love. Even I share that naive belief that maybe one day someone will walk into my life and be willing to put up with all of my bullshit (and I theirs) for the rest of their life. But I think our focus should be on happiness – if a relationship comes to a natural conclusion we should be ok with the fact that it has ended – I don’t care if you’re 16 or 60, we live in a world where you can always find happiness if you want to find it.

Fear not, lonely hearts club, your next one night stand, fling, 3-monther or meaningful relationship is just around the corner. Embrace it tightly, pash it on the mouth, but make sure you understand it’s ok to let it go when the time is right.

Orcon

2011-05-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

Not a very interesting blog for most of you, however I think it's important to air these kind of things. We've been without functional internet at home thanks to our useless ISP. Here's the letter I wrote:

To whom it may concern, I am writing to you now out of immense of frustration with your company, and on the verge of seeking an alternative provider. Almost 4 weeks ago on Friday April 29 I noticed our internet slow to below dial-up speed. The connection was unusable for even the simplest of tasks such as browsing or checking email.

An initial phone call was placed to your customer service helpline with the resulting correspondence; I was informed firstly that if a technician were to be called out and the fault was with ‘our’ modem (which we pay a monthly hire fee for from your company), then we would incur an approximate $100 fee for the call out. This strikes me as poor service for a number of reasons, the most obvious being of course that it is your company that rents us the unit, but second and most importantly, because I was informed by your customer service representative that even if I had wanted a technician to come and inspect or repair the unit, that Orcon were completely unable to give us a time frame in which I could expect that to happen. An apparent indefinite time frame in which we are expected to go without service, or even any information whatsoever.

Absolutely no time frame in which a technician could come to assess or repair a service?

In my entire life I have never encountered such a lack of support for a service of any kind. If it were telephone, power, gas or any other service it would be fixed within 24hrs. Granted there would probably be a cost attached, but the simple necessity of a service provider giving support for its service seems, to me at least, to be one the most basic tenets of operating a business. Anyhow, at that time I was instructed to download and run a diagnostics package, which I did. Since I was given no instructions on how to follow up on the diagnostic activity, I awaited a phone call from your technical support which I did not receive. The next day, after receiving no word from Orcon I decided it would be prudent to purchase another ADSL modem, because at approximately $100 I'm no worse off than if we'd had a technician come to fix the modem that we (again) rent off you... It turns out that this didn't fix the problem, and here began the additional financial cost of the ongoing and unfixed fault, as well as the stupendous inconvenience of having 3rd world internet access (even by pathetic New Zealand standards).

After several days of failed phone calls to your helpdesk attempting to glean information about our problem, I was instructed to run the diagnostic tool again, and after once again receiving no feedback, assistance, or the slightest hint of an approximate time that a technician might think about coming to repair our near non-existent 'service', I decided to call the help desk again. As a result I found out that our diagnostic procedure had not been even registered, despite being completed successfully at my end. Thankfully owing to that particular phone call it was then logged in the system.

We did, however, have slightly better feedback from the team of guys running your twitter account over the following weeks. After a couple of truths were mentioned about your abhorrent lack of service on my twitter account, we received a sympathetic gesture and promises of 'follow ups' that have amounted to little more than zero. Whilst I appreciate the sincerity of the gestures displayed by the individuals, it's little more than PR management and if we can't resolve the issue I will continue to do my utmost to recommend to others that they stay away from your (non-existent) service.

As a consequence of the public airing, I believe our 'profile' has been changed twice now, each with extremely minor improvements to perhaps make our internet function at an almost usable level. I am not sure how many more 'profiles' you have that you can try to put us on, but it seems to me that this is nothing more than a delay tactic and that your company has continued, by and large, to show no genuine interest in fixing our problem.

Now after almost 4 weeks, I have received only one piece of communication that was initiated by your company. Instead, usually, I am forced to endure excruciatingly long wait times on customer service help desk numbers only to be told the same stuff every day; that Orcon don't know what the problem is (and are now seemingly unwilling to fix it??), or care about customers enough to think that scheduling a serviceman or technician might be an appropriate response to a major fault. Sometimes if we're especially "lucky" we can get an answer phone message telling us that nobody is able to take our call, but someone will 'call us back', presumably once the backlog of dissatisfied customers clears from the lines.

Aside from the general inconvenience of being unable to access banking websites, check email, messageboards, Facebook or other networking sites, blogs, picture storage, data backup, news websites, web based apps like tweetdeck or RSS readers, or a myriad of other day to day browsing requirements, we are currently unable to access paid and/or free packages that rely on internet access such as NHL hockey & NBA basketball video subscriptions and access to gaming subscriptions that are unable to be played offline. Currently we estimate the sunk cost of those services to be approximately USD$100 and counting – and this is without stating the actual disappointment of paying for these services and having them made inaccessible without information from our internet service provider as to when we might even be able to watch them.

Currently our browsing speed can only be described as ‘erratic’, and even at its best is painfully slow and difficult to manage. Slow loading of gmail, yahoo or facebook (at times the loading is so slow that we can’t even log in to banking sites to perform the most basic tasks), streaming videos is (and has been the entire time) slower than dial up speed – to buffer a 5min youtube or ESPN video takes over an hour, and that is at lowest available quality. Probably most importantly, one of our flatmates also works from as a web programmer, and since this fault has been unable to work effectively from home. Leading up to that time he had been completing up to 25hrs a week, over and above his regular working hours. The cost of this is difficult to estimate in terms of project delays on top of missed hours of work, but none the less he is out of pocket significantly because of this delay. Up until this fault we had found Orcon’s naked plans to be the only ones to service our needs. Getting away from a fixed landline to reduce unnecessary costs, and also having the necessarily high data cap limit that we require for our many services. It is a sad reality that we are going to have to seek an alternative provider because previously there has been no other provider that even comes close to fulfilling what we see as our monthly requirements – a sad indictment of New Zealand ISPs as a whole. That said, we are unable to continue on with this current arrangement, especially not at such a great cost, in both sunk expenses and lost earnings.

Unless we are unable to establish a repair protocol and time frame for our line within the next 48hrs, we will be terminating our relationship with Orcon and signing with another ISP. Given our complete lack of information or timing about our fault I believe this to be the only fair course of action. If this is the case we will be seeking compensation from Orcon for the loss of services and income incurred up until this point.

Over the course of the last 3 weeks I have had discussions with friends who have had similar problems with your services and queried them about how their situations were resolved in attempt to find some insight to our own problems in the absence of information from Orcon. One possible solution was someone realised that it was the cabinetisation in their neighbourhood that had slowed their line down, and was asked to be put onto the Telecom wholesale network as an outright solution to the problem. I would at appreciate this option being investigated to solve our issue. At very least we require a technician to come and review our situation with a look to immediate repair – I would think that given we pay for the most expensive consumer plan available and the absurd length of time we have been left almost without service or genuine information this should be a priority.

I'll keep the post updated if they bother to respond, but given their ambivalent reaction thus far, I'm not holding out much hope.

NT

Ken Ring.

2011-03-03T21:55:00.000-08:00

I don't really blog that much. Mostly I only write something when I have the time to write about it properly, or I think something is important enough to have a rant about. This probably results in long rants that no one wants to read, but at least I feel better for getting it off my chest. Anyway, a lot of this post comes from other stuff I’ve written and read over the past few days.

Recently here in New Zealand we suffered a tragedy to our second largest city. A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck 10km from the heart of Christchurch, levelling the city and killing at least 150 people (as the death toll currently stands - but this is almost certain to rise with roughly another 200 still missing). In times like this people look to superstition or a 'higher power' to explain what has befallen them. We saw this in Haiti and many religious extremists suggested it was merely God's wrath for Haiti 'selling its soul to the devil' as American evangelist Pat Robertson put it.

But, I digress. Here in New Zealand we have a gentleman called Ken Ring. Ken is a weather "predictor" and he uses a bunch of nonsense (mostly, but not exclusively the Moon) to make loose, vague 'predictions' about weather phenomena. Every so often Ken springs into the media limelight here in New Zealand, usually around a storm or some other phenomenon (such as this earthquake) that he claims to have predicted. You can find his website here.

If you’re willing to part with your hard earned money, you'll see the variety of tricks he uses to convince people of his unscientific and largely unfounded claims. Unfortunately he has claimed to have predicted the Christchurch quake, and has now sprung back into the media - sparking a huge media furore and another groundswell of fools believing his coincidental nonsense. Of course altogether too quick to forget the other 90% of the time he predicts things that never come true or simply gets wrong. You can see the interview staged by John Campbell here:

http://www.radiolive.co.nz/John-Campbell-vs-Ken-Ring-/tabid/439/articleID/18900/Default.aspx

This has become somewhat of a media debacle due to Campbell’s overly emotional, ill-handling of the situation, but he has since apologised to Ken Ring and invited him back on the show to properly explain his point of view (goodness knows why). Ring has declined that offer.

No doubt this has been debated ad nauseum, and thankfully information is pretty easy to find. In general, people of the scientific persuasion get worried about the likes of Ken Ring because he undoes so much of the grounded, evidence based work that they do. The biggest worry with someone like Ring is that the general public seem not to notice that he is doing all of this for money. Everything on his website comes with a fee attached, and so does his book. His information is not available for everyone to look at, unlike the GNS or any other scientist who actually does the work for no other ulterior motive other than the truth.

It is a horrible time for many in New Zealand, and it is a classic trait of a hack and a con man to crop up and feed off peoples' grief when times are tough.

Anyway a few things to note -

1/ Ring didn't predict this earthquake- he got the date & size incorrect, despite predicting an earthquake to hit most days in February, and the location vague at best

2/ His claims to have predicted this earthquake are a straight faced lie

3/ No geologists or meteorologists put any credence in his beliefs and theories. Not one...

4/ Most people who believe Ring have not done any reading about him, the subject, or even attempted to read his website (mostly a waste of time unless you're prepared to spend a few hundred dollars on his 'theories'

5/ This most recent quake was an aftershock, not a standalone earthquake - that information is for all to see on the GNS website (for free)

6/ The GNS make forecasts for the numbers of aftershocks (like this most recent one) on their website, which included broad location & magnitude (5+) predictions for the most recent quake

Anyway – some actual information... the next link shows some really useful stuff; like just how many earthquakes Ring 'predicts' and gets wrong. There is an excellent graph showing the lunar cycles and plotting all of the aftershocks against that graph - showing no real correlation other than coincidence.

http://sciblogs.co.nz/the-atavism/2011/03/01/ken-ring-cant-predict-earthquakes-either/

There is a great quote in the comments below as well:

"Ring has a ready-made market for his speculation not just because laypeople reject or don’t understand the difference between his work and science but also because no-one else is predicting earthquakes at a time when people would desperately like the claim to predict earthquakes to be a genuine ability. Ring’s positioning of what he does as “opinions”, not predictions, still enables him to make money and garner fame/notoriety, because he’s positioning himself where science doesn’t go."

The next link is a couple of experts replying to the questions around the prediction of earthquakes. The scientists do not refer specifically to Ken Ring, but that is who they are talking about.

http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2011/03/01/i-predicted-the-earthquake-scientists-respond/

Here's another good link on Ring's weather predicting 'skills' - this has abbreviated and extended analyses of Ken Ring's methods, and just how many major events and weather systems he has missed not only in New Zealand, but in Australia too:

http://www.sillybeliefs.com/ring.html

For me it keeps coming back to the money. Ring is not a scientist, he's just a public machine trying make money. Not entirely relevant but highlights the credibility of the man - he co-authored a book in 1999 about how to read your cat's future by reading the palms on their paws... I'm not joking here, he actually believes you can read a cat's paws, and is *still* selling that crazy book. You can find it here.

So when he's not telling us that Saturn's alignment is causing earthquakes, he's busy reading cat palms, or performing as a magician clown at children's birthday parties (again I'm not joking)... And this is a man that people are trusting over centuries of built up geological and meteorological evidence and method. It just baffles me - especially considering the fact that he almost never gets anything right.

Here's another article that, whilst not related directly to Ken Ring, talks about confirmation bias and the desire for people to dig out patterns and form their own opinions on things despite all evidence to the contrary. It's a little long but is a really interesting read, and is related very closely to this subject in terms of its psychology: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/09/11/the-texas-sharpshooter-fallacy/

The majority of people are willing to believe things that are told to them without gathering any actual information about it. We see it in so much crap all around the world... Conflicting religions, star signs, tarot cards, feng shui, mood rings & power crystals, psychics etc etc - the list goes on. People now think they can pick and choose what is scientific based purely on emotion and what they would *like* to believe - a classic case is this whole MMR vaccination debacle.

Anyway - the point is that in general the public are misinformed when it comes to scientific matters, and with things like earthquakes people are looking for a reason behind them. A method to predict them would eventually save them from all of this potential heartache, but that does not excuse lazy thought and acceptance of nonsense. The sad thing is most people don’t care and see Ring’s breed of profiteering as harmless, much like tarot cards and numerology. The simple fact is that he is a scaremonger and if people chose education over believing such bullshit, we would all be better off. It frustrates me greatly that people think they can pick and choose which parts of established science that they want to believe, based purely on emotion and hearsay... especially when all it takes is one step back from the picture and a little bit of investigation.

My top 10 TV shows.

2011-01-05T16:38:00.000-08:00

I like to think of myself as a bit of a student of pop culture. I studied Film, Television and Media at university and have had a keen interest in various different forms of media over the years. Throughout university I was really into film and the relative depth of analysis that we were forced into as part of our studies - all of the best writers, directors and (especially) actors were involved only with film, and for someone to cross over from television to film was nearly unheard of.

However I feel that is changing, television now has many facets that are on par with film, and whilst it still remains far behind in terms of production, there are some aspects where I feel an investment in a TV show will reap far greater entertainment benefits than a film. In particular the depth of character and long story arcs enabled by TV's extended time frame really draw in viewers and leave them wanting more.

I have watched a shit load of TV over the last few years, often opting to watch the next episode of my current soup du jour instead of sleep. This list is a brief overview or review of some of my favourite shows, and why I like them so much.Off the top of my head I tried to compile a list of shows that I have watched at least one full season of, and came up with this:

Scrubs, House, The Sopranos, 24, Prison Break, The Office (UK), The Office (US), Extras, The In Betweeners, Skins, Luther, Parks & Recreation, Sons of Anarchy, Dexter, Californication, The Wire, Avatar – The Last Airbender, Archer, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Community, How I Met Your Mother, Gossip Girl, Glee, Chuck, Heroes, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights, Leverage, Weeds, Bored to Death, Heston’s Feast, Summer Heights High, 7 Periods with Mr Gormsby, Kyle XY, X-Files, Arrested Development, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, An Idiot Abroad, Entourage, Jericho, Boston Legal.

Most shows I have watched all episodes, some are fairly new & finding their feet, and others I wasn't a huge fan of, so gave up after a season or two. Also, I have not included the various documentary series that I have watched (The Ascent of Man, BBC Planets, BBC Planet Earth, Louis Theroux series, Stephen Hawking's Universe etc- probably another 15 or so). There are also a few shows that I have started that come highly recommended, which I am yet to get through a whole season of - Boardwalk Empire, Battlestar Galactica (2003) and Deadwood. I expect these 3 shows to be right up there in terms of quality due to their widespread acclaim, am already enjoying what I have watched. Lastly, it's not going to be a 'top 10' in the sense that there is a #1, I'm mostly just wanting go over my favourite 10 shows. I actually wrote a list of TV icons on a messageboard a few years ago, so some of this info has been taken from that.

1. Scrubs

Scrubs was really the first show that I sat down on watched series by series, instead of catching the occasional episode on the box. It lasted 8 real seasons (the 9th was a flop, owing to wholesale character change by the moronic ABC network), and was really aimed mostly at 20-35 year olds. It centred on the adventures of a character called JD (played by Zach Braff), and his journey through his final year of medical school internship at Sacred Heart Hospital. An insecure and eccentric Gen-X type character himself, the show focuses very much on modern moral quandaries, and tells the tale of a handful of tightly interwoven characters as they grow into adulthood. Some of the best comedy in the early seasons comes from his unwavering desire to befriend his mentor, Dr Cox, and Cox's subsequent ongoing rejections and petulant rants toward the new interns. JD was also much of a dreamer throughout the whole series and the show would often jump to a zany day dream as he would drift off from the reality of his life. Overall, it is really just a coming of age story of a group of young people dealing with the things that most of us deal with. Career, love, insecurities and growing up. At times dramatic, but mostly light hearted, quirky and very endearing.

2. The Sopranos

Heralded as one of the best shows of all time, and for good reason. As I mentioned in my intro, television has become a much more credible and well produced medium, and shows like The Sopranos are the reason for this. The story of Tony Soprano, his family and his organised crime syndicate was told over 6 seasons from 1999-2007, and had more depth and character than any show had really been able to capture before it. This was a landmark show for the HBO network, and many networks have looked to emulate similar commercial and critical success with TV franchises of their own. It was nominated for outstanding drama series Emmy every year it was on air. At times the show was as subtle and as gritty as it gets, while still other times it was in your face with the raw reality and slowly dying dealings of the New Jersey mafioso. The show was always much, much more than the tales of a 'king pin' - Tony Soprano was merely the head of a small band of meagre men; and grappled himself with depression, insecurity and doubt. The final scene of the show was one of the most talked about, and analysed pieces in all of television - a brilliant display of tense yet subtle writing, and a genuine demonstration of marketing know-how by a television network. We owe so much of current television's overall quality to this show, I think any fan of the medium should start here.

3. The Office

Some people will have only watched the US version (now into season 7, over 130 episodes), while others will tell you that you should only ever watch the UK version, and leave it at that. The truth is they're both wrong, so I'll cheat here a little bit and encourage anyone to watch both. The UK version was groundbreaking- it took the mockumentary to a new level, placing the viewer right into the most awkward of office situations - a boss with delusions of grandeur and a bunch of no-hope paper salesmen, each with their own bizarre personalities to make you cringe like never before. David Brent is the hypocritical, delusional and self promoting middle manager that everyone imagines to be in his type of position, only much worse than most could dream up. He wants to be everyone's friend and mentor. He imagines that everyone finds him very funny and loves being around him, yet still respects him and looks up to him as a boss and even a father figure. He is, of course, spectacularly wrong- his employees find him tolerable at best and often irritating. He believes himself to be amazingly talented at everything from sport, to music and comedy. One of the key aspects of Brent's personality is his complete obliviousness to how other people actually see him, and he lashes out strongly whenever his carefully-built veil of ignorance is pierced. A landmark for comedian Ricky Gervais, who has experienced worldwide fame, wealth and popularity ever since, with sold out international comedy tours & DVDs, roles in Hollywood movies, and has gone on to produce a number of other shows (including the very funny 'Extras' and 'An Idiot Abroad'). The show's success allowed it to franchise (and translate) overseas - most notably to the hugely successful US version. Both shows owe much of their success to the enigmatic lead actors - Gervais in the UK, and in the US the main boss is played by Steve Carell, a man now hugely famous in film & TV across the globe. The US version is a lot more quirky, but such is the case when a situational comedy like this extends well into its 7th year.... It started off as a direct emulation of the British version in the first 2 or 3 episodes of season 1, which was clearly a bad idea that they abandoned in favour of a bit more slapstick and brash American style. Watching The Office will provide you with hours and hours of laughter, guaranteed.

4. Prison Break

For me, Prison Break redefined the meaning of suspense. At that stage I hadn't watched any '24' and this was the first attempt at a real action packed, suspenseful thriller... and what an introduction. Following on from shows like the X-Files the overall story of Prison Break is one of corruption of the highest order. Initially, a genius younger brother (Michael Schofield) gets imprisoned with his older brother who he believes to be framed. By tattooing the prison plans in a cryptic design on his body, Michael uses his unmatched intelligence to break out of a maximum security prison. Not only full of action and suspense, Prison Break is filled with rich and interesting characters on both sides of the law - and despite initial network concerns that the show would lack longevity past season 1, the following seasons proved to be a huge rollercoaster ride that combined the corruption and espionage of 24 with the thrilling adrenaline of The Fugitive. I recall losing more than one night's sleep to Prison Break marathons - it is the ultimate in addictive television.

5. House

House is what they call a Situation Drama, where every episode is based around a single problem or conflict. Based at the fictional (obviously) Princeton Plainsborough Hospital, House and his medical team diagnose and attempt to treat obscure medical conditions beyond the capability of anyone else... on the planet. Played by the incredibly talented and charismatic Brit, Hugh Laurie, Dr Greg House is an anti-social, manipulative and bitter middle aged doctor, who uses his brilliance and pain from an old accident as a pair of crutches to excuse his absent social skills. His callous and uncaring demeanour have carried the show through 7 seasons of high drama and comedy. As the show marches on it has developed many long stories and underlying themes, and individual episode problems have taken somewhat of a back seat - House tends to come across on a season by season basis, a real time investment to get the whole reward, but ultimately worth it in the end. I'm still dumbfounded by Hugh Laurie every time I watch an episode, remembering of course that his natural speaking voice is distinctly British. There are few actors on television that can rival the longevity and success of Laurie.

6. The Wire

The more I think and hear about it, the more I believe that The Wire is the best drama to ever grace the small screen. Unmatched in its critical acclaim, it seems sit above even The Sopranos and Deadwood in its universal popularity. The Wire shrugs off a lot modern TV conventions, and chooses to deliver its powerful punch through a raw and gritty look at a city slowly being choked of its life and spirit. The 5 seasons of The Wire each tell a slightly different story of the gradual, and seemingly inevitable decline of Baltimore, Maryland. Many people who are turned off 'cop dramas' often cite that as a reason not to watch this show (I did in the past), but that's really no excuse... The Wire requires no feigned mystery or clunky episode plots to drive the narrative; it even begins with the true story of Baltimore gangster Avon Barksdale, and is more often than not shot on location in real environments around the city. Tales of drugs, corruption, betrayal, destitution, media, violence, crime, homelessness, hopelessness, tragedy and redemption play out every day on the streets depicted in The Wire. No character is immune to the churning cogs of decline, and eventually every story plays out again despite the best intentions of the characters within the whole. You won't find built up cliff hangers, Macguffins or other bad plot devices. What you will find is an expertly crafted story, complex and difficult characters, superb acting and an unforgettable viewing experience.

7. Arrested Development

"It was far too clever for Americans" - Daniel Towgood

That says it all in an instant really. The video above outlines how the show really missed the American public, or really they missed the real humour of the show. Despite poor ratings, its cult following manged to get Arrested Development through to its third season, before inevitable cancellation amidst intense ratings pressure. Not before it produced some of the funniest moments in television though. Personally I think AD is the most original comedy to ever come out of the US, and probably the funniest. From a land that has given us such gems as Two and a Half Men (sigh) and Everybody Loves Raymond (double sigh), and creates a culture that allows those shows to last for the better part of a decade, we have to take the ratings with a fairly significant grain of salt. Given the fact that the US has also produced a huge wealth of great comedy and drama over the years, I'm wary of being too harsh, but let's be honest it's not a culture that embraces the 'quirky'. The proof comes more from the 6 Emmys and being named in Time Magazine's Top 100 TV Shows of all time. Anyway - AD is a show about the most dysfunctional family you can think of - The Bluths are a formerly wealthy family that time and time again prove themselves to be little else than completely crazy. Even in their most sincere attempts to be normal they manage to present themselves as entirely strange. The variety of stories and themes in the show make it difficult to give a real overview, but if you have an affection for fringe comedy, then I suggest finding yourself a copy of Arrested Development.

8. Boston Legal

Rarely does a spin off show out shine its original to this extent - although I can't confirm totally having not watched any of The Practice (hah!) - but Boston Legal seems to leave its predecessor in its wake. The Practice was a legal drama, and in its 8 seasons won 2 Emmy awards. Boston Legal was a lot more light hearted, often verging on being a straight comedy. In 4 seasons BL was nominated for 22 Emmys and had 5 wins. The show itself was was centred around the exploits of Allan Shore and Denny Crane, although much of the story is told by an ensemble cast. Never before has a show brought the 'bromance' into light like Boston Legal - Denny and Allan share many profound moments over a stogie & scotch on the balcony, but that's not really what gave the show its charm. Boston Legal was littered with rich and interesting characters, and managed to walk the fine line between eccentric and relevant. Many an episode was based around current events, and social commentary became an important part of its nearly 100 episodes. Situated in Boston, MA, Boston Legal represents a part of American Culture that all too often goes unmentioned by people abroad. Liberal, clever, witty and self deprecating it has a depth of humour and intelligence rarely seen by legal dramas or comedies on the small screen.

9. Dexter

Having just finished its 5th season, Dexter is Showtime's most successful programming franchise ever. The finale of season 4 was the single most viewed episode of television in the network's history. The reason for this is obvious - Dexter is simply awesome. The show is set around a central character called Dexter Morgan who, by day, is a mild mannered forensic analyst for the Miami Metro PD, but by night is a vicious vigilante who hunts down criminals and ritually executes them on his killing table. Much of the show's drama comes from Dexter's internal struggle as he constantly battles his 'dark passenger' (his name for his inner demons that drive him to murder), and his ability to keep his habits hidden while leading a normal life. When the show begins we get introduced to Dexter as somewhat of a cold hearted and emotionless sociopath - his desire to kill had been channeled away from innocents by his (now dead) father Harry. We meet Harry through a series of flashbacks that walk us through Dexter's troubled childhood, and it really gives the viewer a sense of empathy that you wouldn't ordinarily feel for such a character. Each season sees a huge amount of growth in Dexter's character as he runs up against a new ally or nemesis, and the potential consequences of his actions create a level of tension that other shows struggle to match. I know a few people who refuse to watch Dexter week by week, and wait until the whole season is ready to watch in a marathon, such is the tension and excitement at the end of each episode.

Dexter just scrapes in as my favourite current drama ahead of Breaking Bad, another superb show that was very close to getting on this list!

10. Entourage

Entourage is truly the ultimate boy's show. The first season was based loosely on Mark Wahlberg's experiences (he is also an executive producer) as a kid from a poor city neighbourhood making it big in Hollywood. The story is based around the adventures & exploits of 4 main characters; Vince, the main man & Hollywood star; Eric, the brains and emotional rock of the group; Johnny 'Drama', far less successful actor & eccentric older brother; and Turtle, the stoner tag along. As Vince comes into millions of dollars the whole 'entourage' all move to Hollywood and begin to live the life of kings, celebrity status, VIP treatment, women, drugs and excess surround them, providing a lot of humour and a fair amount of drama too. The show's real nugget (pun intended) though is Vince's agent, Ari Gold. Played by Jeremy Piven, Ari is a petulant, driven and aggressive character that takes no prisoners at any stage of his life. He hurls abuse at those around him and will to absolutely anything to gain more wealth and power. Time after time we see Ari fly into a rage caused by a failing negotiation or deal, and his venting really gives the show an x-factor that it would otherwise be lacking. The show has completed 7 outstanding seasons, and has announced that a shortened eighth will be its last. There is talk of a feature film after the final season, but that is unconfirmed at this stage. Entourage, like many comedies, has shorter length episodes and can be thrown on at any time - and in true blokey fashion has a precession of beautiful women gracing every episode... not the least of which is one of the hottest women on the planet, Emmanuelle Chriqui, who plays Eric's girlfriend Sloan. A show like Entourage could only be made in today's era of celebrity adoration, and I think it's an interesting social commentary on the way we view money and celebrity. Definitely worth the 8 season time investment!

Well that's it - there were a few tight calls, but I think I've given a pretty good list of my favourites, but more specifically the range of shows I like to watch. If you haven't seen any one of these shows I definitely recommend getting onto it asap!

DIY Degustation.

2010-07-01T02:22:00.001-07:00

Despite the serious nature of my previous posts, the whole blog won't be quite so heavy! Many of you will know that despite being a strident atheist, general sceptic and somewhat of a nihilist (my new thing as of today) - I do enjoy a tipple and a great meal. I love to cook, entertain and try my hand at a decent wine when I get the chance. My friends will also know I like to pull together the team for a good night out, day's activity or night on the lash , so I recently came up with the idea to invite a bunch of people around to my house for a degustation style dinner.

Now, as I am not really flush with cash I can't really afford to put on a 7 course dinner for 14 people, so I thought I would challenge everyone to bring a delicious meal with, of course, a matching bottle of wine. If you're unfamiliar with the degustation experience, read the wiki. For some highly recommended authentic options here in Auckland you can try The French Cafe, Dine by Peter Gordon, or Mollies (when you're lucky).

Anyway, our version was a little less sophisticated, but I can't imagine the posh versions being any more enjoyable. We had great company, great food, and delicious wines to match. And in the end it's those experiences that make any good dinner when you go out - no matter the cost. The concept was to invite 7 pairs of people (be they couples or mates), and each was to bring a course of food that they prepared themselves with a matching wine. Of course this required a little bit of research, but 5 minutes on the interwebs will provide you with a glut of recipes and another 45 seconds will give you an idea of what wines will go with your allotted course.

The format was thus:

Entrée 1 Soup (Although this was originally planned as a cold entrée)

Entrée 2 Warm

Entrée 3 Warm

Main Course 1

Main Course 2

Dessert

Chocolate/Cheese platter

An email was sent out beforehand to ensure that everyone knew where their course fitted in, and the rest was (fairly) easy! I was going to rate all of the meals but I wouldn't want anyone to accidentally finish up last, because everyone actually did a great job. Here's how it went down in the end:

Entrée 1 - Roast Vegetable Soup with Crusty Bread

I was going to attempt to get all of the recipes off everyone for this blog, but since there has been a bit of a delay between event date and this post that has fallen by the wayside. None the less... the roasted vegetable medley compiled for this little number was seemingly standard at first glance, but the resultant blended soup was a revelation. One of the tastiest, creamiest soups I have ever tried and got the evening off to an awesome start. It was matched with the excellent Cable Bay Chardonnay - and even the Chard haters in the group enjoyed the pairing. Presentation was great and well thought out by Mel.

Entrée 2 - Surprise & Delight Mushrooms

Ollie and Yuan had a feeling that their course might have had some noses turned up at it if they announced all the ingredients, so we were dished out a plate that was a slight mystery. A great blend of flavours - a meaty Swiss mushroom, shallots, garlic, fresh herbs -and the mystery ingredient? A snail... Escargot! Personally I think this was my favourite course. Annoyingly our oven didn't cook everything evenly so the first one I had wasn't cooked sufficiently, but the second was epic. Matched with a Waipara Hills Sauvignon Blanc which was pretty without being awesome.

Pancetta wrapped Zucchini w/ Feta & Basil stuffed Mushroom

Speaks for itself - bacon is always a winner, and although I'm not a huge fan of basil, the sharpness of the feta cut through it nicely. A side of mayonnaise as dipping sauce ensured it was a great hit. Emma insisted it was the best course and kept pressuring for a vote all night. I'm glad we didn't - as I said earlier I think it better that we just enjoyed the night and didn't make it a competition! Rangi and Emma had easily the best wine pairing of the night though with their Saint Clair Pinot Gris. Usually I'm not a big fan of these girly wines, but this one went down so well with the saltiness of the bacon and the creaminess of the mayonnaise, it really was awesome.

Main Couse 1 - Miso Chicken with Edamame & Corn Salad

Personally this was a close run second for my favourite course of the night. Although I am a little biased towards the Japanese flavours. Black Miso marinade over succulent chicken thigh pieces went down an absolute treat with a Shingle Peak Pinot Noir, and the Asian-infusion salad underneath. Everyone loves a bit of Edamame!

Main Course 2 - Spicy Barbecue Ribs on a Potato Gratin

This was mine and Dan's course. I think everyone expected me to do something wanky and complicated, so I wanted to go low brow and do a bit of comfort food. The trick to doing the best ribs is to actually use Beef Short Ribs. Pork ribs are delicious but ultimately not as meaty and more of an appetiser than a main. Make sure the short ribs are boiled off first to soften up, then they're baked in the sauce made from scratch. Garlic, onion, canned tomatoes, Jack Daniels, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, oregano, fresh chili, chipotle spice (and one or 2 other things I plucked from the fridge). The gratin was made from thinly slicing kumara and potato, and layering it with leek, onion, tasty cheddar cheese and fresh cream. I decided to pair it with a Solar Viejo Rioja. A nice dry Spanish red to compliment the richness of the barbecue sauce and cheesy potato.

Dessert - Cheesecake

Unfortunately Cat and Ian had a bit of a rough day and didn't have a chance to put together their desired course of Banoffee Pie, and at the last minute she had a bring along a bought cheese cake. None the less it was yummy (one would hope so being from The Cheese Cake Shop). It was paired with a Gewürztraminer from the very popular Nelson vineyard Seifried.

Platter - Chocolate & Fresh Fruit

I expected by this stage that everyone would be a bit boozed to enjoy a memorable course, and although everyone was quite boozed - I was wrong. Steph put together a yummy platter of home made chocolate & rum balls accompanied by strawberries and apples. Was a great way to finish an awesome meal, and their wine pairing was also a favourite - the Penfold's South Australian Cab Sauv.

That was it for the food, but the highlights continued... Rangi and Emma managed to cause quite the fuss when attempting to change the tunes. A tumble and a smashed glass had some humorous results. The occasional attempt at a food fight was quashed by yours truly, and thankfully we eventually made it out to town without too much trouble.

Overall an awesome night. Everyone came well prepared, and although we had to do some dish and cutlery management between each course, we had enough cutlery and crockery to accommodate 14 people over 7 courses. No doubt thanks to the help of Ben, Dan and Hayley who all did more than their share of cleaning over the night.

Skinny models & retouching. No shit.

2010-06-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

Right so there has been a lot of hooha over the past few days with Australia making moves to ban 'ultra skinny' models from catwalks, and now a voluntary system for admission of 'retouching' in their magazine photos. All under the seemingly admirable guise of alleviating the public's pangs of body image issues created by the previously unattainable or unreasonable standards set forth by designers and publications. Get a brief overview here.

For me this is a bit (insert cliché...) 'ass about face'. Whilst I appreciate and indeed share concern for those young people said to be protected by these changes, I fear this is not really the only motive. Amongst the many changes include requirements for clothing labels to include sizes to reflect the wider societal needs - i.e making clothes for fatties. Instead of educating the youth about health issues, nutrition, excess and exercise, they're choosing to punish an industry that has always been based around ideals. Being a model is not about being 'average' - it's about making things look good so that people want to buy them. It is, after all, a business.

One of the main concerns is also the publication and advertising for 'rapid weight loss' and cosmetic surgery etc. Unfortunately the issue of cosmetic surgery is a different one which I won't discuss at the moment, to save from drifting away from my point. The whole reason these drastic diets and parasitic, poorly constructed weight loss companies advertise and continue to thrive is because Westerners are getting fatter by the day. We live in a culture surrounded by sugar, convenience food, over processed carbohydrates, 'food science' (and yet again another important discussion) and takeaways - and yet people sit in dumbfounded wonder as to why they can't lose weight. They sit on their couch every night after stuffing their faces full of McDonald's, coke and chocolate cake, and wake up in the morning complaining about how they can never win their 'battle' with weight loss.

This is not to say that concerns over body issues are not legitimate or important. My point is that instead of fixing the root of the problem, we are more concerned with treating the symptoms. Any medical professional will tell you that management of the symptoms is no cure. If we don't equip everyone with the ability and the knowledge to control their body, and then thrust them into a world full of fat building, heart disease inducing brands then we end up in this current situation: our societal waistlines are growing - but we appear to be more worried about how we 'feel' about it than actually fixing it.

The other crock is this nonsense of a 'healthy BMI'. The Body-Mass Index is a load of shit and is an appalling reference tool for anyone muscular. It makes no reference to the amount of fat stored in your body, and no reference to its relationship with the amount of muscle making up your overall body composition. A muscular person can easily fall into the 'overweight' category whilst having a very healthy body fat percentage.

So we take skinny models out of the public eye. Then what? Everyone feels better about themselves but we continue to get fatter, and fatter, and fatter. We don't tax the takeaway companies, there is no tax relief or incentives for companies producing healthy products (invariably they are more expensive than crap food), and the government and media are focussed on peoples' feelings. Feelings which, as I have pointed out, stem directly from a lack of education and inability to control their body. Being 'skinny' or 'muscular' are not unattainable goals - every day, every soft drink and every meal is a choice and your body is the sum of those choices.

Obesity and its related issues are a FAR greater concern and health burden on society here in New Zealand and indeed almost universally across Western society. America, the UK and Australia lead the way in the morbid obesity statistics yet we seem so protective over peoples' rights to be fat and not be criticised for a lifestyle of lethargy and excess. Instead people would rather punish an industry that has ALWAYS based itself on the ideal and aspirational. Do we punish the excessively beautiful for being in magazines because we will never look like them? People make choices with their wallets and their votes - if they didn't find skinny and muscular models aspirational then there wouldn't be a market for it.

Fix the cause of the problem, don't just put a band-aid on it.

Astrology etc.

2010-03-30T01:30:00.000-07:00

Now those of you who read a lot of blogs or are into your science at all probably won’t need to be told all over again that Astrology, Numerology, tarot cards, psychics and all sorts of superstitious nonsense has no basis in reality, but there are way too many people out there who believe all of this crap, so I thought I’d have a bit of a rant about it. It does get blogged about and debunked quite a lot, so my apologies if you were hoping for some new insight and don’t get any here. This is a bit of a long one too, with some videos – so settle in!

If you type ‘astrology’ into google you get about 26,000,000 results. ‘Tarot’ produces another 15,000,000. Feng Shui gets 13,000,000 – and so it goes. There are hundreds of millions of results for utter crap of this nature - a terrific glut of useless misinformation proliferated almost endlessly across the web. I’m going to focus on astrology here because it really is a bit of a drain on society (I’ll explain later) - there are quacks and con artists at every turn making a buck out of this babble. You can read profoundly inaccurate statements about your day, week, life and personality in most widespread periodical publications, and an unthinkably large sector of both Western and Eastern societies place a completely unwarranted amount of importance in the position of the stars at your particular time of birth.

There are actually lots of different kinds of astrology. It is a little bit like religion in that sense: if you take into account the litany of conflicting information, it is easy to figure out that there cannot possibly be any truth to it. After all, there is no logical reason to choose one type of nonsense over another. People just hang on to what they thought was true when they were younger.

The Skeptic’s Dictionary define astrology simply:

“Astrology, in its traditional form, is a type of divination based on the theory that the positions and movements of celestial bodies (stars, planets [except the one you are born on or those in other solar systems], Sun, and Moon) at the time of birth profoundly influence a person's life”

Essentially that there is a magic force from the endless eternity of space that significantly affects every facet of our lives here on planet Earth. That might seem a bit over simplified for those of you who believe this stuff, but the facts are undeniable – unlike the crap spouted by astrologers. I will touch on a few areas that I see are the most obvious, but the evidence against the claims that proponents of astrology make is really endless. They fail every single test, even the ones they design themselves, and produce no more concrete results than you could expect by random chance. Funny that, isn’t it?

Fact: Statements made by astrologers or psychics are bogus- even when they’re right.

If you’re vague enough and say the same things often enough, of course there will be some people for whom that ‘prediction’ rings true. Here’s a link to a video from Derren Brown, one of my favourite astrology sceptics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haP7Ys9ocTk

Cannot embed sorry. It is really worth the watch though, if you have the 8 minutes to spare. He demonstrates essentially that most people both see, and want to see the many of the same characteristics in ourselves; and we are more than willing to ignore the blatantly obvious errors in favour of the random chance statements that apply to us. This applies to all superstition and pseudo-science like psychics, numerology and tarot cards etc, although many psychics rely on other trickery (such as cold reading ) to con you out of your money.

The glaring, fundamental error in the zodiac/horoscope.

If you were born at any time in the last 100 years, and those chances are pretty good, you were born around 2000 years after the zodiac was first invented. In case you weren’t aware of the way the Earth is situated and exists through time, its axis and some other small factors constantly alter our position in relationship to the night sky. It is a slow process - especially when compared with the blip of existence that is the individual human life. It happens to have thrown us ahead about 1 place in the zodiac calendar. Here is a very simple explanation by a children’s TV presenter in America. Bill Nye – The Science guy. This one’s a short one so have a peek.

That’s right – even if the nonsense published in books and newspapers every day, week and year WERE true, it actually turns out you were not born under the ‘star sign’ that you thought you were. Aside from the fact that everyone’s signs could be easily interchanged and have the same amount of random success, the programmed information that you have become conditioned to believe is of no relevance to you UNDER THEIR OWN DEFINITIONS.

Here’s another video (about 9min) from everyone’s favourite atheist – Richard Dawkins. It’s an overreaching video about all the perils of astrology, but has references (obviously) to the stuff I’m talking about all through it:

Some science

I read a pretty great and accessible space/science blog called Bad Astronomy that often discusses issues of pseudo-science, myths and misconceptions. I’m going to be lazy and quote a decent chunk here (have edited to make it shorter), because he’ll put it better than me, but if you want to read the whole article (more scientifically based obviously) you can read it here.

“There have been studies, tests, experiments, all sorts of things to check this claim. The bottom line is, their claims are wrong. How do I know? Because of a thoroughly researched, well-documented, and referenced paper, which shows precisely where astrology fails all its tests. This paper is titled Is Astrology Relevant to Consciousness and Psi?", and was written by Geoffrey Dean, a long-time astrology researcher, and Ivan Kelly, a professor of Educational Psychology and Special Education at the University of Saskatchewan. As they say in their own paper abstract:

Many tests of astrologers have been made since the 1950s but only recently has a coherent review been possible. A large-scale test of persons born less than five minutes apart found no hint of the similarities predicted by astrology. Meta-analysis of more than forty controlled studies suggests that astrologers are unable to perform significantly better than chance even on the more basic tasks such as predicting extraversion [sociability]. More specifically, astrologers who claim to use psychic ability perform no better than those who do not.”

In other words, astrology doesn't work. They detail the cases of people born at very close times and locations, what they call "time twins" (say, two babies born within minutes of each other at the same hospital). Astrologers, of course, would predict many similarities between time twins. But, as Dean and Kelly phrase it so succinctly, "The strong similarities predicted by astrology were simply not there".

This paper goes on with a very careful analysis of the studies, and also very carefully tries to discuss any flaws astrologers might bring up (for example, they use an astrologer's own definition of what a time twin would be). Simply put, the paper is devastating to astrology. It's also not terribly hard to read. Give it a try! I laughed out loud many times when reading it, it was so matter-of-fact in its dissection and eventual destruction of astrology.

Why should you care?

As Phil Plait (Mr Bad Astronomy) puts it: “. Uncritical thinking is tearing this world to pieces”

You may believe that somehow the location of a star a million light years away from Earth has some bearing on your short time here. You may think it’s just a bit of fun to read your horoscope. You might believe that some psychic can tell you when you’re going to get married, or you may even believe that a random shuffling of cards has some effect on when you’re going to die. The bottom line is that none of these things have any basis in reality, and none of them have repeatable, testable conclusions. All cultural superstitions are plagued with generalisations that prey on the naivety of the masses. Believing any of this crap is genuinely hindering our progress as a society, and it is costing us all money – directly or otherwise.

People actually believe that astrology is somehow related to the important sciences of astronomy and cosmology. If you don’t know the difference, the distinction should be obvious – astrology is a system of cultural myths created by less intelligent civilisations as an attempt to explain the world around them. The myths are no different to the religious ones. They are inconsistent and utterly implausible. Astrology and the zodiac principles ignore genuine science, and do nothing to describe the true majesty of the universe we exist in.

The sooner we eradicate myth and superstition of this nature from our psyche and replace with genuine education - the better off we’ll all be. We need to stop believing people who tell us they have all the answers – because the more questions you ask, the smarter you will become.

This blog barely scratches the surface of just how fraudulent and blatantly false the world of astrology and other pseudo-science is. Below is just a little bit more info, but I encourage everyone to do as much reading and research as possible when it comes to anything remotely questionable!!

Additional reading and watching:

http://skepdic.com/astrolgy.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology

http://www.astrosociety.org/education/astro/act3/astrology3.html

Derren Brown on cold reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btP_vy5cQq4

AC Grayling on myth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6oOLJ_zbm0

Michael Shermer on strange beliefs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k

An Anthem for Everyone.

2010-02-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

Hi all, here is the first REAL blog post. It's a bit of a cheat as it's for another campaign I'm pushing, but is something I'm very passionate about - and all New Zealanders should at least take a serious look at.

Below is a positioning statement that we are basing our ongoing PR off, and we'll be looking to take this as far as possible... so if you know anyone who'd be interested in spreading the message, don't hesitate to contact me. Anyway - here is the content!

An Anthem for Everyone

As Kiwis, we all have the right to feel very lucky. New Zealand is a place of great cultural diversity and richness. Migrants from all over the world come to New Zealand to enjoy a peaceful, accepting and egalitarian lifestyle.

A key factor in New Zealand’s cultural success has been a willingness to embrace new ideas about equality very early. Indigenous relations are stronger in New Zealand than in any other colonised nation and we were the first country in the world to give women the vote.

In such a secular country, where the majority do not have strong religious views, having a national anthem that explicitly mentions one specific religion seems curiously old fashioned.
This is secular issue with real importance to our sense of national identity – to celebrate the rich variety of religious and cultural perspectives.

Since 1976, New Zealand’s national anthem has been the Christian hymn – ‘God Defend New Zealand’. Originally a Christian poem written by a Dunedin Freemason in the 1870s, it was given a melody shortly after that. However, more than 100 years passed before it was officially accepted as New Zealand’s national song. It currently holds the same status in this country as ‘God Save The Queen’.

Unlike the flag, which has a long history in our country, ‘God Defend New Zealand’ has no such heritage. If such a song were submitted as our national anthem today (only 34 years later) it would almost certainly be rejected on the basis of religious favouritism.

According to census statistics and trends, more than 40% of people in New Zealand do not identify with the Christian God. Their beliefs vary from agnostics and atheists to the devoutly faithful of a multitude of religious beliefs. As we move forward shaping our culture and identity, it is becoming even more important to hold strongly to our diverse and secular ideals.

In 2007, a government initiative was set in motion to ensure our diversity was embraced and protected. It was called the New Zealand Diversity Action Programme, and it brings together any organisations taking practical steps to:

• Recognise and celebrate the cultural diversity of our society (diverse)
• Promote the equal enjoyment by everyone of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, regardless of race, colour, ethnicity or national origin (equal)
• Foster harmonious relations between diverse peoples (harmonious)

Diverse, equal and harmonious: those three words encapsulate what society in New Zealand should be. To demonstrate that no one would be left behind, the government publically state that New Zealand is a nation that has no official religion.

It is time for us to have our National Anthem changed.

It is time for us to have a song that represents all New Zealanders.

It is time for the New Zealand government to honour their own words and put no single faith ahead of other beliefs.

We need a song we can all sing with pride, connection and a sense of belonging… an Anthem for Everyone.

Off the back of the Diversity Action Programme, the NZ govt made a public statement, entitled the Statement on Religious Diversity, from which came a definitive and public statement that no religion would be showed any favour in this country. All beliefs treated equally.

The following link is a great resource that outlines the SoRD & the DAP, the organisations currently endorsing the programme, its foundation speech given by Prof
Paul Morris at the National Interfaith Forum, its subsequent 2009 revue, and other direct links relating to equality of belief for all:

http://www.hrc.co.nz/home/hrc/racerelations/tengirathenzdiversityactionprogramme/statementonreligiousdiversity/statementonreligiousdiversity.php

If you're interested in the cause, search for 'Anthem for Everyone' on Facebook and show your support, or enter into some discourse.

Or you can visit our website at www.anthemforeveryone.co.nz and find the Facebook link there.

This is an issue that really touches all of our lives and should be something that is seriously considered amongst rational and egalitarian thinkers of all faiths.

NT

First time round.

2010-02-14T23:04:00.000-08:00

Hi all, welcome to my blog.

Inevitably I will be writing these whimsical thoughts to noone for the first little while. A humorous indictment on one's ego I suppose. None the less, I like to write and am known somewhat for, if nothing else, having strong opinions.

In the blog I'll attempt to share everything from great food recipes and wine recommendations,to scathing analyses of religion and pseudo-science. I'll also write reviews of TV shows, products, movies, albums and general characters I think are worth mentioning. If, eventually, you like what you read - remember to tell a friend to tell a friend.

So much of our lives and interactions occur in the digital world these days - email, Facebook, twitter, Buzz, RSS, social forums, online communities and of course blogging. I love the idea of sharing information between like minded individuals, or even to cause a bit of a stir amongst those who share opposing views. I would consider myself a very strong atheist, and a sceptic. I imagine much of my future content will be based around that!

Stay tuned.

NT