Yes I am a leftwing pinko

And I find this video fucking hilarious. Some of the political satire surrounding this election is awesome. There are some kidz dropping bombs with their mash up skillz big time.

Sorry is not an apology

So according to John Howard saying "sorry" about something doesn't equate to an apology? What a peculiar little man.......

Wave of Bloggeration part deux

I have been fortunate enough to work with an awesome guy Kunaal over the last 16 months. Kunaal is exceptionally gifted technically and is a legitimate tech geek (in the best possible sense). Unfortunately for me and my colleagues he is moving on to other employment. I thought it was timely to throw a link his way as he's been blogging for a while (way more frequently than me) and think he's pretty good at it. So here you go here's a link to K'mans blog.

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Ten things I learnt about the Mentawais

Australia's Surfing Life magazine recently ran a great article by Tim Baker about the Mentawai Islands (in Indonesia). I had the immense good fortune of going on my first trip there in October. I thought in the true spirit of slacker commentary I would steal the concept of Mr Bakers piece and kind of mash it up with my own opinions on this over exposed surfing paradise.

1. As was pointed out in ASL A Skipper who surf's is critical. Our trip was unfortunate to have a rotund sweaty dude piloting our vessel who didn't surf. His care factor in terms of the waves we were getting was limited. I felt jealous of the guy's on the boats like the Indies,the Barrenjoey or the Huey who had skippers who not only surfed, but ripped and were tuned into the conditions. This probably lead to their guys getting better empty surf.
   
   



2. Booties are important (for the average surfer at most breaks). We've all seen copious footage of pro's getting tubed and destroying HT's and Macaronis sans booties. For the average guy a surf at these joints can result in your hooves being hacked apart by the beautifully evil reef. Alpha and the Gooch discovered this on our first surf at HT's when only wearing one booty each they tore lovely holes in there footsies. This lead to a fun time as I got to scrub Alpha's wounds out with a Tooth brush and hydrogen peroxide whilst he squealed like a girl and the cougar hit him in the face to distract him from the pain.
   



3. Take loads of boards. Having a range of boards ensures that you can derive fun from what ever conditions get thrown at you.
   



4. Pin tails and rounded pins rule up there. There is something about the feeling of surfing a refined pin tail or rounded pin in good clean powerful surf that cannot be beaten. I took a new 6'3" DHD rounded pin which was unridden and fell in love with it.
   



5. Give money to Surf Aid. if you haven't heard of them Surf Aid is an awesome grass roots charity started by a Kiwi doctor Dave Jenkins. We were wandering in Tuapejat while our tubby wolf larsen wannabe refuelled the boat and came across surf aids local office. Dr Dave was in a planning meeting but graciously made time to chat to us about what they were doing. Surf Aid has made a huge difference in the lives of the locals in the Mentawais with their malaria prevention work and are now moving into teaching the locals about other areas like better building practices and sustainability and permaculture. This is what charity is all about and I couldn't think of a better organisation to give $50 to (apart from Medicin Sans Frontiers)



6. Good waves is to surfing progress what water and sunlight are to plants. The feeling of improving your surfing is what all surfers are chasing (from the top pro's to the masses of flailing backpacker kooks at bondi). I'm not busting 540's or anything but my trip has definitely helped me refine a few style issues and make me a little sharper.
   


7. Watching your mates get good waves is almost as good as them watching you get good waves. Seeing the cougar nail a late vertical forehand top turn on a four footer at Macaronis was one of my highlights of the trip. Also seeing Alpha's wave selection, fearless charging at HT's and general approach improve was another highlight.
   


8. Getting barreled in front of your friends is what its all about. One wave at ****** (censored) I managed to secure a fun little barrel and then backdoored another little section while the cougar was paddling up the shoulder hooting madly. It was a very good day.
   


9. Take a good quality SLR with a paparazzi grade zoom. Most of the indo photos on this blog are courtesy of Brian an American guy form Santa Bruta in California. Brian had the foresight to bring a kick ass camera that captured some awesome shots. All surfers are closet egotists and we all secretly like to see photo's of ourselves on waves.
   


10. Its still prone to earthquakes. There was a quake while we were crossing between islands. It felt very strange and was quite disconcerting. In my biased opinion I would avoid land camps like the plague as the chance of another big quake is high. In the land camps that I saw there wasn't a lot of high ground. This means that any tidal wave action would obliterate you.
    

A reminder for my friend the cougar

This post is a reminder for my friend the cougar (who answers to other names in real life) to e-mail the list of all his friends so myself and the true Iron Chef can book his Bucks Party activity (a nude drumming workshop on a boat followed by Celtic nose whistling and dolphin hugging if you must know)...........

Boycott British Airways

British Airways have recently banned the carriage of surfboards and a few other items due to supposed baggage handling issues (excerpt below from their guidelines)

"Due to the large size and handling complexities, some sporting equipment cannot be accommodated through the airport baggage system or within the aircraft hold. Therefore we no longer accept the following equipment at check-in as part of your sporting equipment allowance.

hang gliders
windsurfing boards and sails
surfboards
kayaks or canoes
pole vaults
javelins"

Now I'm not sure of the motivation for this decision but I figure that as long as my total luggage weight is under the allowance I should be allowed to travel with my boards. If BA aren't careful they might find themselves at the middle of a bad PR shitstorm as micro publishers like myself vent and say nasty things about their business, like "I will never ever fly with BA again for business and or leisure and I will actively recommend to everyone I know to not fly with them until they revise their wayward thinking about surf travel".

It will be interesting to see BA's response to bad vibes that are being directed towards them online.

Radio Silence

Long time no type. I have been preoccupied with other biz over the last little while mainly two weeks in Indonesia on a boat surfing awesome waves and then a few weeks recovering from my post travelling stress disorder*. Holidays are awesome and coming home is awesome but getting back into the frantic frazzled 180bpm city vibe sucks the big one, Especially after chillaxing for 12 days on a boat in the tropics.

Anyway this post is not the full wannabe indo pirates tale more an effort to get back online and into the habit of downloading the words and ideaz in my brain. In other news it appears that this blog has been indexed by the big benevolent G (Google) which means I may be getting traffic from very confused visitors who were looking for hot sheep action but instead got my abstract barely literate ramblings.

Laters

*Post Travelling Stress Disorder is a term I coined (maybe plagiarised) that describes the feeling of getting home and seeing things with a fresh set of eyes. It also explains the malaise and questioning that takes place after a good trip like "why do I have to work every day?", "Where is Kasta my lovely indonesian chef?" and "How do you people put up with surfing such shitty waves?"

Oceanic Addictions

As I have previously mentioned one of the reasons for starting this blog was to channel some of my creativity and energy that would have normally been eaten up by surfing as mentioned in this post. Anyway my ear is about 90% good and my ENT has allowed me to get back in the beautiful brine at the bottom of my street. I have only caught a few waves in the past few weeks but the joy has been overwhelming. Fuck even just paddling lights up my soul and floods my lobes with serotonin. Today due to a lack of swell me, Alpha, The Cougar and my bro went on a paddling mission around the headland from one metro beach to another. The reason for our faux watermanly efforts is that me Alpha and the Cougar are heading to the Mentawaii islands in two weeks on a surf charter to reacquaint ourselves with the barrel and try to avoid losing too much skin to the reef. Paddling fitness will be a prerequisite for a good time so we figured a few hours at sea would be a good down payment on (hopefully) some filthy steaming indo pits.

I sit here typing while sucking back on a crisp ale relishing the specific slight ache in my shoulders that only time on a surfboard can deliver, while secretly hoping that my ears can cope with the heavy smashings they are going to endure in two weeks. I cannot wait for the near future where both ears are fixed and strong and I can get back into my daily fix of saltwater therapy - oh the joy I will feel.

Oxygen thief with a handy cam

Sometimes I worry for the future of the planet - especially when there are morons with access to technology like this dude. Crying over the plight of Britney Spears is like claiming that Kate Moss was sniffing vitamins and was set up, or that Mel Gibson has never emptied a liquor cabinet and treated our Semite brothers with disrespect............

Rolling in the RS4

Sometimes this blog feels like a small child that has been left in the basement to play with fireworks, explosives, power tools and firearms - so much potential but oh so neglected.

I had the absolute sheer joy of piloting a fuck off bad boy vehicle at the weekend. Due to a trusting and benevolent employer who is having a few license issues I was allowed to swipe his black brand spanking new bad boy Audi RS4 convertible to head up the hunter valley for the weekend with my significant other.

For those not in the know this car is the thinking mans muscle car. Where your average bogan gets wet for a shitty commodore with a V8 or a boring vintage Mustang your modern existential contrarian gets a jolt of visceral joy from the RS4. Driving this biatch with the top down, fat bass heavy tunes blaring on a Saturday arvo in the sunshine was pure egomaniacal rev head joy. This car eats up the road like Roseanne Barr with the munchies and sticks to the tarmac like its on rails. The best part of the whole deal is the roar the finely tuned v8 makes when you (carefully) floor it in sports mode out of the lights or onto the motorway. The sound of those 8 cylinders purring makes you feel like Audi have captured and shackled eight of those dragons from lord of the rings and stuffed them under the hood and they are not happy about it. Driving this car has ruined me for life as its unlikely I can get one any time soon being that its worth about a third of the price of my house.