recreational habits of the common couch potato

I grew up with David Attenborough documentaries. As a youngster, I remember watching The Living Planet and The First Eden with my parents, and leafing through their big beautiful photo book of Life On Earth. In Year 12 biology class, our crotchety and wonderful teacher showed us all of The Trials of Life over several weeks; for most of my classmates this was bludge time, but I was glued to the screen.



For a long time, I've wanted to own some of Attenborough's work on DVD, as I've always been able to watch them no matter what mood I'm in – whether I'm switched on and absorbing every detail, or just letting the sights and sounds wash over me, I find them extremely engaging and oddly comforting. So recently I bought the complete box set of the BBC series Planet Earth. I was a bit torn as, though it's narrated by Attenborough, it's not written by him. But everyone I know who's seen it told me it was astonishing.

And, of course, it is just as astonishing as promised. But as I make my way through the episodes, one thought keeps pervading my viewing experience. It isn't 'This cinematography is extraordinary!' (Although it is.) It's not 'Our planet is an amazing place, full of unimaginable wonders!' (Although it most certainly is.) It's, 'This show would make for a fantastic drinking game!'



Clearly this says more about me than it does about the series itself. At any rate, here are the rules I've come up with:

1 DRINK every time something is described as biggest, smallest, highest, driest, etc. in the world
(e.g. 'these are the most densely populated reefs on the planet'; 'this is the smallest deer on earth')
1 DRINK every time something is expressed as a fraction or percentage
(e.g. 'this rainforest produces 10% of all the planet's oxygen'; 'grasslands make up one third of all the land on earth')
1 DRINK every time footage is shown in ultra slow motion, or ultra fast motion
(e.g. vision of a great white shark chomping a fur seal, slowed down forty times; baobab buds bursting into flower before your eyes)
1 GULP every time something is described as being the size of a country
(e.g. 'this glacier is the size of Wales'; 'this desert is the size of the United States')
1 GULP every time you're told something can be seen from space/the moon
(and an extra big gulp if you're actually shown the footage of said thing, as viewed from space/the moon)
1 GULP when Attenborough pronounces a place or animal name in an adorable foreign accent
(as if his ordinary accent wasn't adorable enough!)
FINISH YOUR DRINK if you see a human being

Perhaps there should be more rules, but even with these few you would be very pleasantly trashed by the end of an episode.



I suspect I may be the only person ever to think up a drinking game for a nature documentary series. I'm not sure if I should be proud or ashamed.

not available in pharmacies

why do hippies want me to put foul-tasting things in my mouth?

So Byron has decided modern life is filled with far too many harmful chemicals. He's almost certainly correct. He's decided we need to eliminate as many as possible of these chemicals from our home.
This is fine.

It means we have abandoned the Pantene and Imperial Leather from our shower, to be replaced with all-natural, organic products.
This is fine. I'm actually becoming rather fond of mandarin-blossom body wash and aluminium-free peppermint deoderant.

It also means our kitchen is filled with ungodly things like organic quinoa and non-GM soy yoghurt.
This is fine. My diet has been terrible for ages, and I'm open to improving it (although soy is not, and never will be, a substitute for dairy. I would rather no dairy at all than a soy imitation).

Additionally, it means we are now forbidden from cleaning the bathroom with anything other than white vinegar and baking soda.
This is fine. (I will keep a secret stash of Exit Mould under my bed.)

Unfortunately, it also means fluoride is now considered the work of the devil, so the trusty ole Colgate is out the door, to be replaced with "holistic" toothpaste. 'What flavour is this new, harmful-chemical-free toothpaste?' I hear you ask?

Let me tell you: Lemon and Salt.

Lemon. And salt.

This is not fine. Imagine, if you will, how bad lemon and salt toothpaste could possibly taste, then double it. Imagine doing a tequila shot, but instead of downing a shot of tequila between the salt and the lemon, you take a big bite out of a cake of pure, white soap. Salt, lemon and soap. Then spread it all over your mouth for a few minutes with a small brush. Now you're in the ballpark.

I'm all for living organically, eliminating carcinogens and purifying your environment, but I draw the line at combining two of Mother Nature's most unpleasant tastes and turning them into an oral hygiene product.

To lemon-and-salt flavoured toothpaste: Australia Says No.

lolsecretz

By now, everyone who spends any significant time on the Internets will have encountered both LolCats and PostSecret. So, what happens when you combine the two?

LolSecretz, that's what.

Honestly, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

spoilt rotten

(N.B. This post does NOT contain Harry Potter spoilers. Because only a first-rate fuck-hole would spoil a highly anticipated book the day before it comes out.)

So, whether the earlier internet leaks were genuine or not, the secrets of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are definitely out of the bag now. The New York Times received a copy, and published a spoiler-laden review. Great. Thanks guys. Why would you do that?! As Audrey asks: What's wrong with people? Why can't you just shut your damn trap for one more day?

I have avoided the Harry spoilers so far, and I endeavour to keep it that way. However, based on past experiences, it's not going to be easy; I am a veritable magnet for spoilers. It seems I hardly ever get to see/read anything without knowing what's going to happen in advance. For much of my life, this was due almost exclusively to my mother, who I often banned from talking about movies/books/TV shows at all, so incapable was she of keeping secret twists to herself. I remember when the Lord Of The Rings movies were first announced - a cause of some excitement in my family. Despite growing up with The Hobbit, I had not yet got round to reading the books...
[screen goes all swirly and harp music plays]

me - So I'm going to start reading them now, to make sure I've finished all three before the first movie opens.
mum - Are they making them as a trilogy?
me - Yup. To be released one year apart.
mum - Ah, so the first installment will end just after the death of Gandalf in the Mines of Moria.
me - Don't tell me that!
mum - Oh, don't worry. He comes back.
me - DON'T TELL ME THAT!

[end flashback]
Similarly with the previous Harry Potter books, because I'm such a slow/slack reader, I've never had the real excitement of wondering what the final pages contain. This time is different! A bunch of my beloveds and I are all gathering together tomorrow, to have the book read aloud by Ms Snazzles (whose reading-aloud skills are well documented), so we can ooh and ahh and grr together. (And if we don't finish it in our group session - nearly 800 pages seems a big ask in one day - I shall make Byron read it to me at home. He hasn't agreed to this yet, but he will because he loves me and I DON'T WANT TO MISS OUT THIS TIME.)

I'm really looking forward to it - not so much the book itself, but the shared experience of childlike anticipation and excitement. There's not enough of it in life, so I intend to savour this event for all its worth.

Thus if anyone spoils the ending of the book for me, I will personally hunt them down, along with their entire family, and mince them all with a pair of hedge-trimmers. There's not a jury in the world that would convict me.

excerpts from swan lake, performed at wembley stadium! what a great idea!

So I watched a little bit of the Concert For Diana thing last night.

Can I just say that Prince William "dancing" to rapidly-decomposing rockers Status Quo's Rockin' All Over The World, along with a hundred thousand fat British bogans, is probably the most awkward thing I've ever seen.

On the plus side, despite his appearance irreversibly drifting to the dark side, he does still have a damn sexy voice and accent, even if he can't give a speech without reading off cue cards. (Since giving speeches is essentially all Royals do, shouldn't they at least be able to speak for thirty seconds without consulting notes? I think so.)

The concert was a nice idea, I guess. Shame they couldn't get any decent acts to perform.

i could kill you with one peck, doo-dah! doo-dah!

Do you know what has just occurred to me?

Foghorn Leghorn is a chicken the size of a man.

A CHICKEN

the size of

a MAN.

Look how he towers over his old nemesis, the barnyard dawg!

Of course, I was always aware of this on some level, but I have just now been confronted by the enormity of it (so to speak) for the first time.

A chicken the size of a fecking man, indeed! And we show this nonsense to our children? It's the stuff nightmares are made of.

(I don't know why I felt compelled to post this. I'll be quiet now. *takes more cold-&-flu medication*)

dear blog,

I think it's time we confronted the stilted awkwardness that has developed between us. Let's admit it: you and I have not been getting along very well lately. You could even say we have had a falling out. There are, no doubt, numerous reasons why our once-flourishing friendship has found itself floundering. But undoubtedly part of the reason was that I had simply, literally, become sick of the sight of you. It sounds cruel to say it, and I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, but I must be honest: I couldn't stand even to look at you.

After Byron put together a lovely new template for himself, I realised that the chasm between us was as much my fault as yours; I had neglected you. Seeing Byron's sleek & shiny new blog, I must admit I felt jealous. So I decided to take action to try and repair our shattered love. I cracked my knuckles, unlocked the vault in my brain labelled "HTML skillz", and got to work. I've given you a much more streamlined, simple look, rather than the cluttered bells-and-whistles gaudiness of the old one. It's definitely working for me, and I hope you like it too. With any luck it will help to rekindle the passion we once shared.

I'm well aware that in order for this relationship to work, I need to put in a greater effort as well. We both know that I can't always be trusted to stick to a promise of updating you regularly. We both know I'm wont to disappear into the wilderness and leave you to your own devices for weeks at a time. You must have felt so alone at those times, and I truly apologise. I can't make any guarantees, but I will promise to try harder in the future. Please be patient with me. I do love you, and I genuinely believe that if we both but in the effort, this can be a truly beautiful partnership.

Yours sincerely,
mm

the best news story of the week

When you're a politician, or indeed any kind of publicly responsible figure, there are some things you should just avoid doing. Sure, everyone is entitled to a private life, but when you're representing your nation, there are limits to what you can get away with. Getting picked up by police outside your official residence, blind drunk, surrounded by sex toys and strapped up in bondage gear - complete with rubber ball in your mouth - is probably one of those things you can't get away with.

From news.com.au:

ISRAEL has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found bound, drunk and nude.

The long-time diplomat, Tsuriel Raphael, had been removed from his post, ministry spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel said.

Two weeks ago, El Salvador police found Mr Raphael in the yard of his residence, tied up, gagged with a ball and drunk, Israeli media reported. He was wearing sex bondage equipment, the media said.

After being untied, Mr Raphael told police he was Israel's ambassador.

See, this is what's missing from Australian politics. Corruption, conflict of interest... SNORE. What we need is a nice saucy drunken ball-gag story.

For example, while I know none of us particularly wants to picture John Howard like this,


just imagine the look on his face as he tried to explain himself to the public at the next day's press conference! I'd like to see him try and implicate Kevin Rudd in that scandal.

belated blogiversary

In all the excitement of real-world happenings, I have been exceedingly lazy recently, blog-wise. As part of this blogcrastination, I completely forgot to celebrate the 2nd birthday of this here humble little blog! Let's make up for that now...

Happy Birthday, Munkey's Blog!

Okay, enough celebrating now. Enough! Put the fucking sparklers down, fool, it's only a blog! Sheesh.

Let me just belatedly say thanks to everyone who has stopped by in the last year. I do enjoy this online lark, and knowing there are approximately 4.3 people who peruse my dodgy outpourings, makes it all the more worthwhile.

Onward and upward!

proud to be geeky

From the wonderful Neatorama:


If you laughed at this picture, you are officially a geek.

I laughed. A lot.

how can you tell when a real estate agent is lying?

Apparently the following is an apt description of my current abode:

This bright first floor apartment is set back from the street in a well maintained building that enjoys the important natural advantage of immediate proximity to beautiful Barkly Gardens. Security entrance protects privacy of appealing spaces including sunny, north-facing living/dining areas which incorporate an efficient open-plan kitchen. To the rear, a large double bedroom with walk-in robes and en suite ensures excellent accommodation and completes the perfect investment or smart start up property in an excellent location. Off street parking.

Jesus, they make it sound like a freakin' penthouse.

Also, it is quite a strange feeling to come across a picture of your living room (that you didn't take) on the intermanet:


...especially when they have oddly stretched the photo to make it look narrower and taller (Why?). Oh well, at least it looks tidy.

television icons

So George from Grey's Anatomy is gay. Good for him, although certain lady friends of mine are mighty pissed that yet another desirable man has turned out to be uninterested in boobies.
Byron's response: Really? ...oh wait, he presented a Tony award. Of course he is.

Fact: Any man is 50% sexier
when playing Mozart in Amadeus

And a big Boo Hiss to Isaiah Washington, if there's truth in the rumours that his homophobic slurs caused a fight on set.

~~~~~~~

Remember Fat Cat? In case you don't, he was a mute kiddies-TV character who got ripped from our television screens in 1992, after being deemed confusingly ill-defined (?) by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal. My favourite part was always when he "danced"; so crap yet so compelling. I miss it. But Fat Cat is not dead! He still gets regular gigs on Sick Kids™ Telethons in Perth. (I saw this on tonight's Seven News, where Fat Cat was surrounded by a bevy of Channel 7 shlebrities (including "Kochie" and "Dicko") trying unsuccessfully to look charitable and inspired, waving their arms to dodgy music, while streamers tumbled down from above.

Meanwhile Patsy Biscoe is now a naturopath and local councillor in the Barossa Valley area. I wonder if she still has that creepy koala thing attached to her body.

~~~~~~~

I think it's simply delightful that Bert Newton willingly takes the piss out of himself for wearing a hair-piece. But does he have to do the pull a "spare" toupee out of your pocket and offer it to the bald/ing contestant/audience-member routine EVERY episode of Family Feud? Seriously, I know you're - like - eighty, but get some new material! You've been doing that schtick since at least the GMA days (I know this because a friend of mine was once on the receiving end of your high-larious gag).

And yes, dear readers, I'm aware how embarrassing it is that I watch Mr Newton enough to notice repetitions in his act. I never claimed to be cool.

can i buy a vowel?

Check out this online trip back to childhood. Just Letters is an interactive "magnetic" letterboard, just like we all used to have on our fridges when we were little.


For some reason, I am having an inordinate amount of fun with this. There are up to 50 people playing with each fridge online at any one time, so it can be quite a challenge to write something without your letters getting stolen. I tried to write "STOP STEALING MY LETTERS YOU CUNTS" but I didn't manage.

[via Neatorama]

the muppet matrix

Now I know posting a YouTube video is a total cop-out, and not a real blog-post at all. But when I saw this, I simply couldn't resist. This is dedicated to my dear Lady Lili, who is currently bravely exploring the untamed wilds of Urban London. Enjoy:

My favourite part is the appearance by Rizzo the Rat. Gold.

pea. ess.

Look how much I've steadfastly refused to blog about the potential significance of today's date, or either of the Bogan Icon Deaths™ of the past week!

Arrogantly Subversive or Slothfully Apathetic? You decide!

sometimes a paintbrush just won't do

Dear readers, meet Timothy James Francis Patch, the self-described World's Greatest Penile Artist. Mr Patch - who signs his work with the delightfully naughty moniker Pricasso - likes to create works of "art" using, you guessed it, his dick.

The World Is My Art Studio
In the beginning of time life forces were created with divine intervention, my art evolved spontaneously from basic mysterious forces surging through me, Stripped naked to the core unbounded by society's conventions I am at one with nature exposing primitive urges, all my senses converge, I feel the very roots of my creativity stirring rising up merging with the subjects inner beauty climaxing in uncontrollable waves of divine euphoria and my loins I create PENILE ART.

(Apologies to anyone who is eating.)

This man might be a saucy genius if it wasn't for the fact that his work is quite shit. Take a look at this piece in charcoal (one doesn't wish to imagine the scrubbing his poor member must endure during the clean-up).
The idea of drawing a cock with your cock is compellingly PoMo. Unfortunately, the picture is out of proportion and generally badly executed. Clearly Mr Pricasso is good for novelty value only.

Of course novelty value has its place, and - as Timothy has discovered - the perfect field for knob-related novelty value is politics. So this is where Patch's art has often been focussed. Imagine: dipping your doodle in a pot of oil-paint and smearing it on a canvas until it resembles the face of George W. Bush, Morris Iemma or Rev. Fred Nile. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself.

So who really is the biggest cock-smear of them all?

(Thanks once again to Mr Jester - ever reliable source of wholesome, family-oriented blog-fodder.

...and he didn't even know it

Ever wanted to turn a website into abstract post-modern poetry? Of course you have!

Here is the place to do it! Sometimes, it tries to make a poem out of bits of the actual html code, which doesn't really work... but keep trying, and it will combine words and phrases from the site into wonderful wanky wordplay.

And then you can go here to find out what your poet name is. Now you have everything you need to be the perfect post-modern poetician!

~~~~~~~

The Voice of the Munkey
a poem by Lucius Cornelius Picklesouse

The constructive discussion on earth,
we got to us? Remember
them? and for it
so
there is rigorously screened in
a lot to win
back and loved
about holding your skin chiselled into
issues.that other ... gender. ...means of 41 dollars.I
guess Me: wrong, with your favorite
color
The Country. no A
genuinely malicious sexual play
that does a cute Kid... over the identical
but has
ruined her One
story today one so to
teach us this is
conjecture since After hearing
me
from a chance a
senior spin and workmates no band/Sexual assault.
And for
using that.
children into issues.
The unincluded. Wait... did Again, not
Enough!
Thus, your text on what all
kinds the characters.SUPERHERO
NAME followed by
mindlessmunkey at
least,
the real world? piss vinegar The carpark. He only
capable of a link
much Ado about this is I
should and the quintessential Universal Donor !
Unfortunately, despite what is
a journey of the
horizon?!
Could we wandered through
all three.
The Guilt Free Three. is it
concerns Bishop Jefferts Schori, was never
likely to the first
coin portraitists insist on some form that Freeway
was listening to Overheat Oli splutters
and saw lots of which I
successfully negotiated absurdly complex public expression...
the Guilt Free Three, months, had a truth universally
acknowledged by a Monarchy.
On So now
heard/to provide a hell are set, it was Random!
I descended back along
humming.

forget thou not the golden stool

Just when you think the TomKat fiasco can't get any more hilarious/disturbing... they go and auction a bronze cast of the alleged-baby's turd.

Yes, dearest readers, I shit you not (so to speak). A Suri-Turd. Cast in bronze. Auctioned. For charity.

From msn news:

Tomkitten's 'first poop' goes on display

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have yet to show their baby daughter off in public, but eager fans have been given an unusual preview, with the chance to see a bronze cast depicting her first solid stool.

The scatological sculpture is purportedly cast from 19-week old Suri's first bowel movement and will be shown at the Capla Kesting gallery in Brooklyn, New York, before being auctioned off for charity.

The artist behind the work, Daniel Edwards, previously courted controversy with a life-size nude sculpture of pop star Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug. That work was shown at the same gallery in April.

"A bronzed cast of a baby's first poop can be a meaningful memento for the family," gallery director David Kesting said, adding that he hoped the work would attract bids of up to $50000.

The sculpture, which sits on a wooden mounting with a glass casing, is to be sold on eBay next month with proceeds from the sale going to infant health charity March Of Dimes.

As of Wednesday it had attracted a top bid of 41 dollars.

I really don't know what to say. How depraved are these people? How out of touch with the real world? I mean, there's nothing exactly wrong with this. It's for charity, which is fine... and hey, I'm sure when you're a new parent, your bub's first solid shit is quite exciting.

But really, when your careers are going down the toilet (so to speak) because everyone in the world thinks you're fucking nutcases, the way to win back the hearts and minds of your formerly-adoring presently-suspicious-and-slightly-disgusted public, is surely not through sculptures of faeces! Honestly! Whoever is providing the Cruise-Holmeseseses with publicity advice ought to be garotted.

(with thanks to Mr Jester for alerting me to this important piece of news)

UPDATE!
The clearly-better-informed-than-I Ms Snazzles has alerted me to the fact that this is, in fact, a bit of a hoax. That is to say, the sculpture genuinely does exist, but TomKat itself was in no way involved in its creation.

In light of this, I can simply say: this Daniel Edwards guy is depraved and kind of sickly wonderful. As long as we have "artists" willing to sculpt the genitals and bodily-functions of dodgy celebrities, I feel the world is safe from taking itself too seriously. What's next for Edwards, I wonder. I suggest he sticks with the theme of "slightly icky but undenialby part-of-real-life perspectives of the rich and famous", while taking a step towards the field of politics. I want to see a 17-foot medieval style tapestry of John Howard performing anilingus on George W. Bush. Well, of course, no-one really wants to see that (apart from the reader in Doncaster who recently visited my blog by searching for "John Howard's cock" - you sick fuck).

thought for the day

Make your own inspirational posters here.