The Rugby World Cup - The hottest club in town

A controversial entry, especially from an Englishman – but I am going to talk about the Rugby World Cup. Now that the dust has settled on the 2007 Rugby World Cup, it’s interesting to review a tournament that saw the underdogs shine, the big boys fall and a number of coaches end-up on the management merry-go-round. In my opinion there were really only ever two teams that were going to win this tournament, The All Blacks or The Springboks, but I’m sure there are many other people that had another opinion.



After talking at length (great length) with a number of friends from a number of different countries about the tournament, we began comparing it to the line to get into a club. In this metaphorical line, you have all the countries competing for glory at the tournament, and it goes a little something like this.



The Springboks are right at the front of the line, they are going to get in this club come hell or high water, standing behind them is the All Blacks who are pretty damn confident that they are going to get in the club, especially as they are second in line. Then you’ve got the French, they are also super confident especially as the owner is French. As for the order of the rest, it doesn’t really matter, but rest assured that the Aussies, Irish, Welsh, Scots, English and Italians are all near the front.



Unfortunetly, the club is a little full and only one will be considered for entry – here’s what happens next.



The Aussies muscle their way towards the front, but along the way they get a bit too loud and the bouncer tells them there’s no chance, so it’s off home
The French and the All Blacks start buttering up the bouncer hoping for a speedy entry
The Springboks don’t move – They are confident they are going to get in
The Scots, Irish, Welsh and Italians decide it’s all too much and decide to head home
The English and the Argentineans slowly sneak next to the Springboks when The French and the All Blacks aren’t looking, telling the bouncer that they’re all mates
The bouncer tells the French and the All Blacks that they might as well go home as they are at the back of the line
The Argentineans get nervous about lying to the bouncer about being mates with the Springboks and throw in the towel
The English hold firm, insisting that they are mates with the Springboks, “I’m with that guy”
The Springboks tell the bouncer that they are definitely not mates with the English and head on in to the club


So, while the Springboks head inside for drinks and dancing, the rest head home for a cup of hot chocolate!

300 - It's a mega-man movie

6 packs? 6 packs! Pah! These guys have got 8 and 10 packs and a full complement of guns to boot! I'm of course talking about the movie 300. If you haven't seen it - go rent the DVD. It's all action, kick-ass battle scenes and cool one liners, like "Tonight we dine in hell"!

Alright, so this is a blokes movie, but there's nothing wrong with that. Girls have the romantic comedy section, we have bloody tales of 300 Greek blokes fighting against 2 million Persian blokes - sounds bloody fantastic, doesn't it? I have to admit though, halfway through watching it, I did find myself getting more and more excited as the fight scenes got even more bloody and complicated, even adding in a few one liners of my own, such as "have a chew on that my son!"

It was at this stage that I started to think about the beef advert for children that's currently on air. It's the advert with the brother and sister talking about their likes and dislikes with the girl looking all sweet in a fairly outfit talking about how she liked the colour pink. The boy on the other hand describes how he likes boxing by standing up and punching an imaginary man, adding his own sound effects "duff, duff! Biff, biff! Smack! Wallop!". So I thought to myself - Us blokes are all still that kid and movies like 300!

The other thing that made me think of the beef advert for kids was that although they disagree on everything else, they agree in the end that they love their mum's beef, in a similar way that me and my missus agreed that we both thought the movie was great. Probably for different reason of course...did I mention the 8 packs girls?

I wish Harry would just Pott off!

The world and its dog is reading the last book in the Harry Potter mega-franchise, all except me and a few mates I know. The sensitivity around this has baffled me to the point of being disturbing. As soon as the book came out, I only wanted to know one thing - who dies!? I tried asking a few people that were reading the book what happens in the end, the response was a mixture of looks of disdain and downright madness, with one person even putting their fingers in their ears, singing "la, la, la, la". Not one TV or radio journo has dared to even utter the ending, until one brave soul by the name of Johnno Coleman let it slip on national TV yesterday. When I say, let it slip, he actually joked about it and made up a bogus ending. The show's response to this was to initially suspend him, then today hold a phone poll for viewers to vote on whether or not he should have his job back. Let's get this in perspective, they didn't hold a poll on whether the government should be doing more to fight global warming, or if whether there needs to be a bigger crack down on drugs in professional sport, nope - something far more important - Should Johnno Coleman get his job back after daring to even joke about telling people the ending of the book. My solution to this - I'm getting right behind Johnno. As of today, I am going to go up to every person I see reading Harry Potter, and say "He dies in the end, he kills two innocent puppies, the girl becomes a crack addict and the fat bloke dies of a heart attack". "So there, wasn't that interesting anyway, welcome back to the real world".

Is sleeping in on the weekend really bad for you?

A sat on the sofa this morning watching the news, or what passes for the news, when a so called expert came on. This expert claimed that sleeping in on the weekend was actually bad for you. My first few thoughts were as follows - so, it's bad to drink more than one beer, it's bad to spend too much time with your mates, it's bad to eat red meat, it's bad to watch too much sport. Great, not only have they sucked the fun out of life, they are now about to take away my weekend morning sleep-in - which by the way still sees me out of bed by 8:30am. My take on all this - I don't care one some expert says, I will have my weekend sleep-in and my fellow men, I suggest you do to, if for no other reason than this - The sooner you get up, the sooner she'll have you doing things you don't want to do.

I don't like the cut of your jib

It's winter and it's cold - Time for a coat. This is easier said than done when you're a guy. I've been looking for a suitable coat for some time, with no joy, while the girls have plenty of choice when it comes to winter fashion, it seems that we boys are limited to a handful of options at ridiculous prices. During my search for a winter coat I have realised there are a fair few preconceptions when in comes to us guys, the first is that they think we are all shaped like an oil drum. 9 out of the 10 coats I have tried appear to have been tailored for beer kegs, it seems the word "cut" means absolutely nothing when it comes to winter coats for guys. The second thing I have found is that they assume us guys don't want choice when it comes to our winter coats - I must have seen 100 plus coats for girls, but just 10 for guys. The last and the most annoying thing I have discovered is that there is a "man tax" on winter coats, I kid you not! I have seen coats for girls ranging from as little as $20, the cheapest winter coat I saw for a guy was $199 - what do I say? Tough luck to us boys, we just have to suck it up. But don't worry, revenge is just around the corner - we'll wear the same T-shirt all summer while the girls will be spending hard earned cash on countless outfits ;-)

Stupid people that think they are smart

They have to be the most annoying people in the world. It's practically impossible to hold a sensible conversation with them - you feel that you're having one of those drunken conversations with your mate where you get all serious about ridiculous issues, the generally go alone these lines "How can you say that the salted peanut is superior to the roasted peanut, that's a ridiculous claim!". The problem with having these kind of conversations when you're not drunk is that they hurt your brain.

I had the misfortune of having such a conversation with a stupid-think-I'm-smart person yesterday. I called up an estate agent and asked if they could send me a tenancy application form for a property we are viewing on the weekend, to which I was told they couldn't do it. "Why?" I asked. "Because you have to view the property before you can apply". "Yes....I understand that, I'm coming to have a look at it on Saturday and rather than go home fill in the form then drive over to your offices and return the form, I thought I could fill it in and hand it over if I like the place". There was a moment of silence before her response. "You have to view the property before you can apply". OK, am I missing something here? Do you understand what I have just said or not, clearly not, so I reiterated my response, to which I got the following response... wait for it.... "you have to view the property before you can apply". It was at this point that I noticed that every time she said this, she made her voice sound that little bit more authoritative and knowledgeable. At this point I decided to give up and take what was left of my brain and go about my day. The take out - stupid people think that if they say the same thing again with a more serious tone that it will make sense - I've got news for you, if you're talking crap it doesn't matter how serious you say it, it still doesn't mean anything - look at most politicians.

You know you're getting old when...

The band that all the girls loved when you were a kid have a comeback. I remember laughing at my older sister, Alison, when all the "best of the 80s" stuff stated coming out - "it's official, you're old now" i said, "You'll get yours" she said - I thought, what does she know, she's old. Well, that one came back round and took a massive chunk out of my ass didn't it!

As I sat there this morning watching Take That perform their comeback single on TV, I realised - it's happened, I has finally happened, I'm getting old. As if to add insult to injury, the presenter bellowed out "it's been ten years since your last performance"....bugger it has been ten years. I distinctly remember the hatred that every teenage boy had towards that band, every hit song they had just grew the hatred even more. But fast forward ten years, I sat there on my couch, eating my breakfast and humming along, thinking, this is quite good - another sign of old age - losing your taste in music.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Rubbish.... You're all thinking "what a lazy git". Well you'd be wrong. I've actually been pretty damn busy, the appropriate insult would be "what an inconsistent git" - I feel more comfortable with that. Anyway - stay tuned for some more updates.

2 is not the magic number

We live in a society obsessed by health, so much so that we have numbers attached to every aspect of our health - how much we should weigh, our blood pressure, how much water we should drink, how many pieces of fruit we should eat and so on. It's the last numbers that interest me the most, the ones about the water and the fruit - how on earth are you supposed to do this?

I tried drinking 2 litres of water a day and spent most of my time in the toilet. And the fruit - I only have three meals a day, when am I supposed to squeeze all this fruit in. This focus on water and fruit is a massive departure from the standard bloke diet of beer and meat, with a few fries thrown in - making it practically impossible for us to adopt. In comparison to the average girls diet of nothing and rice cakes, water and fruit probably seems quite appealing.

My thoughts - beer is wet so it obviously contains water and we drink plenty of that and there's no substitute for a good old lump of meat, as our mate Sam Neill quite rightly points out- "red meat, we were meant to eat it." Genius Sam, just genius.

The Principle

At the weekend, I found myself defending a decision I had made with the answer "yes, but it's the principle". It got me to thinking, what does "it's the principle" mean to us blokes? Is it a deep held belief that we harbour, an ethos or a set of values held as firmly as a bodybuilders butt? It's something that we say all the time and we often use it to defend a variety of decisions ranging from how many beers we're going to drink through to a major career decision. In reality, it's just an excuse for us to be stubborn and pig headed, if we actually stopped an thought about it for a second, "it's the principle" actually translates to "it's my ball and I'm going home!" So, next time you catch yourself saying "it's the principle" you'd better be talking about Mrs Krabappel's on/off again boyfriend, Seymour.

Man Bags - Just a figment of her imagination

Like most blokes, I have a shoulder bag, or satchel if you will, that I have all my necessities in such as my wallet, keys, work folders... you get the picture. Anyway, I was rather shocked at repetitive references to the said satchel as a "Man Bag".

Do people really think that men are as obsessed with their bags as women are? Do they think we go out in search of the ultimate shoulder bag, wrestling with each other at the sales for the "cutest" satchel? The answer is no. Yes, we're a bit more obsessed with our looks than generations gone, but it's all about practicality - just like the briefcase of yesteryear - only not as stupid looking.

So no next time someone refers to your bag as a "Man Bag", politely tell them that you don't dance round it, it took one minute to pick out, you got it from the first shop you went to, it contains no more than five items at one time and it is possible for you to leave the house without it if so required.

DVDs are bad for your balls

As we head towards the weekend and thoughts of getting up late and siting around in your underwear start to creep in, the question pops up - what am I going to do tonight, or in the case of many couples - what are WE going to do tonight? As parents the choice is fairly limited to nothing, or a DVD. DVDs are the staple form of entertainment for most parents, providing a welcome escape from watching adverts and crap TV - the problem is, the compromise.

Most blokes look for guns, war, fast cars or a bit of childish comedy, in fact there are probably a fair few blokes that secretly love the Fast and the Furious trilogy, not me though, not enough depth for me....However, our better halves are looking for a bit of romance or some lighthearted comedy - both of which a bloke would probably give up a ball for if it meant that they didn't have to watch them. So, I ask this, is it not a conspiracy against blokes that they went and combined them??? I mean come on! You don't see us mixing genres, that would just be stupid, we'd end up with War Comedy or something...wait a minute we could get Martin Sheen to play George Bush and....

But seriously, blokes beware the Romantic Comedy section, your balls are far to valuable.

Is Green the new Black?

As a kid, I remember getting dragged out to the yard to help Mum and dad with gardening and I hated it, I couldn't think of anything worse. To the young me, it was some twisted form of torture designed to separate me from the pinnacle of modern entertainment - the almighty Commodore 64. Fast forward 20 years and I found myself facing the prospect of "tending" to my garden and the childhood memories came flooding back, only this time it wasn't my beloved Commodore 64 that I was being separated from, but my long-time love, the cricket. After the first hour or so, I found myself really enjoying it and before long, I'd spent the whole afternoon working in the garden and I hadn't missed the Cricket once...Blasphemy you say, and I hear you, I really do - but the fact is, it really is quite enjoyable. There's something about working with your hands that makes a bloke feel good and it's really addictive. After that first episode, I've been out in the garden almost every weekend, doing this and that, and I'm even going to lay 16 square metres of new turf this weekend. So is gardening the new thing for blokes, should we all get out there and get a bit muddy? Put it this way, it's a great excuse for a few sneaky cold ones in the afternoon.

The (Con)fusion

We all want our faces to be nice and smooth don't we? We'll, if you're REALLY serious about it, you'll have to get the new Fusion razor from Gillette. After seeing the over-stylized, extremely American advert on TV I had to go and have a look at the website. Once on the site I got a virtual tour from a "scientist" called Cassandra, who clearly knows what she's talking about because she has both of the instruments vital to any scientist - a clipboard and white coat. Cassandra reliably informed me that the Fusion labs (yes, they have labs) have created this razor with the "comfort" of five blades on one side and the "precision" of one on the other. Hmmmm, I never knew that dragging 5 blades across your face could be comfortable - goes to show how much I know! The structure of the razor also raises two questions for me: Is the side with 5 blades not "precise" and the side with 1 blade not "comfortable"??? Why not come to a happy medium and say have 3 or 4 blades - now that's just crazy talk! I'll leave you with this gem for the TV advert, the side of the razor with one blade is for "those hard to reach spots" - Now, I'm not an expert, but I don't have any problems reaching any part of my face, do you?? Anyway, check it out, Cassandra's not bad looking for a "scientist" http://www.gillettefusion.com/us/

Is it OK to give blokes flowers for their birthdays?

We have a birthday in our office today and the girl in question was given a bunch of flowers, which looked pretty nice...I guess. It got me to thinking, what do Men get for their birthdays, can you give a man a bunch of flowers? In a world where equality is all and men are more in touch with their feelings that ever before, I can't help thinking...no. Despite our "evolution" I really don't think men care about flowers and are in fact actually rather baffled as to why women like them. If you think about it, what you are essentially doing is removing vegetation from its rightful place, wrapping it in a bit of paper and presenting it to someone. I mean, it's a bit useless isn't it, you can't eat it (unless you're a bit strange) so what's the point? Because they look pretty?? Pah! Give me a cold beer any day and take your flowers to the hospital.

WhoManYouMan

I was in a training session at work about Digital Influence and the question was asked, do you blog? Nope, I thought..... but why not? I'm not an idiot, I have a few interesting things to say, why don't I give it a go?

Fine, I thought...I will. But rather than talk about doing the laundry, I thought I'd talk about something I know - being a bloke. So this blog is going to be a blog by a bloke, for blokes, about things for blokes.