Author: Richard Irvine

Zombie / Xmas gift guide 2006


I love me some Zombies, and can’t wait to finish writing this shit so I can get back to Resident Evil 4. At my house, nothing says Xmas like getting drunk and shooting at some re-animated rotting flesh, so here’s my top five Zombie gifts for this special time of year.

5. Sean Of The Dead. Yeah yeah, it’s a couple of years old now, but if you don’t have it, get it. If you have it, get Spaced for added Simon Pegg / Edgar Wright action.

4. Mob Zombie. This game is played with a specially designed portable PC – you walk around the room to avoid the zombie hoarde on screen getting at your brain. Just the thing if it rains Xmas day.

3. Zombie Survival Guide. Tagline: Organise Before They Rise. Perfect for beach reading while working on your sunburn. Can Zombies swim?

2. Dead Rising. Must. Get. XBox 360. Dead Rising is based on the Dawn Of The Dead premise – a Zombie attack goes down while you’re out shopping, and it’s up to you to get creative with the consumer goods to control the outbreak. Park benches, beach umbrellas, dumb bells, you name it, you can use it to mow ’em down. I’m heartened they’ve included a shot gun, though, it’s the knife and fork of any Zombie attack.


1. Zombie Portraits. Send this bloke in Canada a photo of yourself, and he draws you as a walking corpse. It’s just fantastic, and the kind of thing those loser portrait drawers at Leicester Square and the like should look into. How about getting a Zombie-fied drawing of a your normal living room portrait, and swapping it to freak your xmas guests out?

Down in Albion


Poor old England. Just when they were getting back in the series, they came out to bat on day five like Victor Meldrew trying to get a barman’s attention: “Do excuse me… dreadfully sorry, do you mind awfully if I… Blimey, whatever are you doing with my off stump, old chap?” and so on. Ten runs in ten overs is admitting defeat before they even got going – now the series is realistically gone, you’d have more luck getting Ian Chappell along to yoga than making a comeback.

The Aussies love winning, and it’s hard to see a way back against this all consuming Aussie tide of feel-good pom crushing fun for all the family, roared on by a commentary team more one eyed than the Toxic Avenger. Even the token pom Mark Nicholas has flipped, with unprovoked arse-lickery like “You have to admit the Australian’s bowling today has been top drawer”. (Where the F**K did that come from Mark? Are you in a cage with Bill Lawry’s pidgeons?) Coach Duncan Fletcher’s biggest mistake wasn’t his choice of spinner, it was winning the bloody thing last year.

Bonus link: The best of Warney. Not Safe For England Fans right now.

Mark, Mark, Mark…

A Waikato University study has found Mark Ellis reinforces traditional male chauvinist attitudes to women. I’ve found that most of the time he reinforces being a cock.

Depressingly, every third NZ male wants to be Mark Ellis. Here’s how:
1. Make sure you went to Otago Uni in the early 90’s. Sorry, ‘Tago.
2. Get naked a lot and run really fast. It doesn’t matter where, but make sure you get it on tape.
3. Have a troupe of no-names tagging along to laugh at everything you do as though their lives depend on it. See also: Knoxville, Johnny.
4. Spend your journey to work working on your eyebrow raises.
5. Go on TV drunk, that shit is HALARIOUS.
6. Make some extremely unusual choices with your facial hair and clothing.
7. For a signature move, say something unintelligable and then clench your jaw, combined with the eyebrow raise. Don’t say anything after that. The public laps that shit right up.
8. Don’t be as clever, or as good a bloke, as Ric Salizzo.
9. Interestingly, take drugs with all your celebrity mates.
10. Go to league and be shit.

Indoor Football with Zinadine

I’ve played 6 a side football at various YMCAs around Auckland for the last four years or so. In Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby talks about acting your footballing fantasies in these games, that even though you’re a puffing, aching, sweating mess of a man that’s lumbered off an office chair to play, you can still feel like your footballing idols for a few minutes every week. This is true, and pathetically, I still remember and sometimes re- live some of the goals I’ve scored – including each and every one with my left foot.

Anyway, here’s some footage of ol’ short-fuse himself joining a 5 a side game – the last 30 seconds are pretty goddamn spectacular in a low key kind of way.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zZYRH0bdwc]

Ticketmaster’s ghost in the machine

When I list my favorite things, ticket vending agencies come roughly between Asthma and Jackie Clarke – extremely annoying and physically painful. This year’s encounters alone include missing the first ten minutes of the Chiefs v Crusaders match in a ‘pick up’ queue, and a last minute dash across town to collect Air NZ Cup tickets before the office closed. Both time there were hefty booking fees, which is kind of like paying a bus to splash muddy water on you.

During a (fruitless) hunt for Wellington Rugby Sevens tickets this morning, I got an insight into Ticketmaster’s dead, black heart, as these encryption keywords revealed the disturbing truth about their inner workings.

ScreenHunter_1

Yes, that’s ‘Stalked’…

ScreenHunter_2

and ‘shooty’. What kind of operation are they running here? I think we should be told. Here’s some other words you may see on Ticketmaster’s site:
Woe
Pestilence
Berserk
Gouge
Guantanamo
Workshy

Blog Holiday

I’m on holiday in Europe ’til early October, so this here blog will be fairly quiet I imagine. Sporting highlights while I’m away possibly include:
– Watching football in a London pub
– Arguing about rugby in a London pub
– Buying football stuff at exorbitant prices
– Possible San Siro tour

Good luck!