Sorry DoleBots, John Key is Your New Internet Dalai Lama For a While

That 92a thing is dead, because someone told this guy that people hate it. Maybe ***YOU*** told him that? by blacking out your cat's twitter? If so you must be pretty happy right now. By the looks of it this had more to do with pressure from ISPs who - amazingly - don't want to be legally obliged to force their best customers not to give them money anymore.

So coming soon: probably another IP law that will suck really bad. But it maybe wont be as bad as that last one. Although fuck. It could be the same damn thing but with a "more independent adjudicator" overseeing everything. My money is on a law about how John Key owns your genetic code, and how he wants the tar.gz of it sent to his inbox within a week of conception, unless you're not white, in which case he can take it or leave it really.

Also: Who the fuck authorised that photo? Did the guy with the smarmy Tory stencil-set stay home that day with the hangover? Fuck. What a man.

New Zealand Non-Event Mentioned on Obscure Internet Talk Thing

Remember this thing? About this thing? It got briefly mentioned, and owned, on the internet's premiere venue for conspiracy theories, restaurant reviews and meaningless uses of the word 'fractal'.

It actually got mentioned everywhere. But a No Agenda mention is the exact equivalent of the whole of New Zealand guest-staring in seven Simpsons episodes, back when people still watched it.

Being a thing on a topic sheet for braindead technology gabfests will soon be what the entire New Zealand economy does. The End.

Minister Accepted Half Jar of Homemade Salsa Dip for Whole of New Zealand

There's a whole bunch of things that make New Zealand an embarrassing place to live. Or think about. Or hear about. Or see on a map. Like that thing we do when ever some other country acknowledges us briefly by making a film here or tolerating one of our bland musicians (the thing we do is called collectively pissing our pants). Or how we shuffle around drunkenly, trying to convince people that we can fix stuff with fencing wire when no one cares because, well, who possibly could?

Worst of all though has to be our pathetic political scandals. There was this guy, who leveraged his position of power in parliament as an associate cabinet minister to STEAL FROM AND SEX UP EVERYONE IN THE MOUTH- get someone to help paint his house . Yeah. He also turned his carport into SOMETHING COOL LIKE A NUCLEAR a garage. That is what you call a failure of imagination. Start a hilarious resource war. Kill 1000 hookers. DON'T get some dude to do your bathroom tiles for free. That shit makes us ALL look bad.

The most recent example is Dunne - a party leader and in the cabinet for real like a proper politician. Now I don't claim to have actually read anything about this (in fact, I claim the exact opposite). But basically what happened is this guy, who gets to do laws and drive in limos and stuff, is now mired in a shocking FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR scam. $5000. New Zealand dollars. The most unappealing of the dollar-denominated currencies.

Now I'm not sure what exactly is going on here. But I guess we need to pay these people a lot more money. I mean, if we're going to be ruled by these clowns we might as well spare ourselves the collective indignity of watching them whore themselves out for free car-wash tokens and cut rate double glazing.

Anyway, the house painting thing was when I basically gave up on New Zealand news. Wake me when someone rich kills someone. Or that Jesus guy finishes his walled city.

Accuracy in Reporting

I'm just going to stop this totally unwarranted assault on a proud New Zealand BEARDFACE principal right here. First off, I'm calling out P Wolf's self-hating crypto-racism as exactly that: John Rodgers spent upwards of nineeleven billion dollars on positive badges, and also fruit for lunches, and I think that if he wanted he should have been allowed (no, forced) to spend twice that amount every god damn day.

He also had the vision to know that Marlborough Boys' College might as well stop teaching math and english and book-shit like that and be turned into a restaurant training facility of some sort. The seven people to move from the school into work all did so by holding up a restaurant and using the stolen food to barter their way down to Christchurch and into some loosely organised team of mad-maxesque prostitutes.

But seriously imagine being put in charge of whatever parole-jumping sex offenders (with 220 'points' in "teachin+etc /22334") washed up on the field every few years. Just keeping them from beating the kids and doing one another's wives appeared to be a seven-times-full-time job. As for teaching... add in the fact that every single student was a functional illiterate meth baby from some failing farm in a nearby valley and well... badges are the least of your worries.

However he does seem more than a little confused about what video is:

Principal John Rodgers dismissed the video as nothing more than a "trivial piece of graffiti on a wall in town"

Music Watch: Special Charity Edition

Here at HAB4U we like to throw the occasional bone at those left behind by time and technology. So here's a bump for local battlers Stiff who, while they may not have a dot com, are still out there at least three weekends a year working it.

With the support of the HAB4U community I'm sure they will eventually be able to live the alt-metal dream of writing a chorus so rich in melody and easily-relatable emotion that they will be played on The Rock, causing people with jobs and BBQs to buy their single (via a compilation called "Explosion Ward #4"... or "Rock Against Carbon").

Judith Tizard to Pirates: I Suck.

Speaking of politics, what the fuck? For all I know this has been all over the local papers and TVs (I've been busy watching the US... they have this show on now about a zillion year old man and his thick jailbait daughter. Also some Muslim dude is about to get a job? Anyway...).

Frankly I wouldn't read a New Zealand newspaper if one floated into my bed on Sunday morning, and for some reason the only way to get bacon into my mouth was to glance at it. That's not the point though. The point is that Judith Tizard wants to shut off everyone's internet forever because the poor geniuses that green-lighted Sione’s Wedding caught channel-conflict and died. Also some artists had to get mortgages on their homes or something.

To the artists: Harden the fuck up. You may have to supplement those taxpayer subsidies and grants by doing something slightly more creative than pawning your shit off to moronic publishers and distributors who then drip feed it out to the public in ways they clearly no longer value.

Also since when was the creative life a stable middle-class "I own a house outright, imagine the drama if I had to borrow against it" sort of profession? [ED: well... kind of since forever, but your point that they're a bunch of babies still stands] Where's the heart?

Tizard and company: You're the worst people ever. This obvious BS was addressed NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM select committee NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM 'big content' NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM learn to internet NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM etc.

Artist's rendition of Tizard explaining to one of my daughters why she can no longer see her online boyfriend:

[ED: I have to suspect that this absurd cosiness between the Labour cabinet and lazy chump content distributors is related to the completely batshit insane idea that the movie and music industries are somehow important to the New Zealand economy, in a meaningful or long term way - an idea pedalled by politicos in a sad attempt to get in with the cool kids finally. I don't know... maybe non-dying businesses throw lousy parties? Anyway if our associate commerce minister and cabinet want to fret about the economy and intellectual property law then how about allowing us a credible biotech sector? Also: NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM]

MusicWatch: New Tiki album profits to fund research into sex with self

Best spiteful photoshop ever.

Not just is he clearly New Zealand's greatest sound man, being able to put stuff 'through the echoes', and even EQ them. (Which is pretty clever and super original, especially when you're mixing for a band with 'dub' in the name.) But he's also a singer-songwriter powerhouse. We saw glimmers of this in his groundbreaking flows (rudeboy! yeah! ... don't give a care!) on various tracks for Salmonella and Concord Dawn (ahead of the curve A+R choice man). But it took him playing an acoustic guitar in a church dedicated to himself, Elvis style, for anyone to really get it through their thick skulls that this guy is a fucking musical genius.

So anyway, we're all clued in on the music genius thing now. But do you know about the research? Keeping one step ahead of the game, he has also been devoting considerable resources to biotech start-ups which he hopes will one day allow him to actually make out with himself, rather than whatever it is he thinks he's doing right now. Presumably this technology will involve cloning of some sort. I don't know. Ask a scientist.

Postcript: People who complain about the shitness of musicians who are plastered all over the TV are quite retarded. What? You're trying to prove to everyone that you're too edgy and real for commercial radio? Or MTV? Wow. Learn to music. But still... I can't help it.

Important Note: No amount of bitching about a crap NZ musician will top the time one of my fellow bloggers bought the artists CD, smashed it, scanned the debris, and sent them an email of it. Presuming it wasn't a lie, that sort of ended the game, especially since with CDs dead there's nothing left to smash.

Blogs of the Now: New Zealand Edition

With all our recent success, and the securing of an exclusive dot com domain, it would be easy to forget our HAB4U roots. That's why I want to take some time to prop some struggling New Zealand bloggers.

First up is Shoel, who for the last few months has been posting links to major news and magazine sites, with no commentary or explanation, and calling that a thing to do.

The irrepressible kindof is just owning the Olympics:

Oh, yeah, you earn your medals first before you could judge others, isn’t that all about for the games?

The so called news and expression freedom in China the west wants is to be able to humiliate China, the only price is that it causes Chinese hatred to the west, which the west media would never report to the own people, oh, no, they do not!
Shame!

And finally we have Wellington's Viggi, who has been getting a bit down on herself:

I have been having insecurity issues [....] Who i am! I think i have never felt more distanced from those around me, more displaced from my environment. I struggle for respect, liking, recognition, appreciation.

Also:

I certainly do NOT like my menstrual fluids being tampred with for the sake of few extra bucks - these are my sexual organs people!

Yeah. I know.