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.