Morgan Avery

I might like going serious with my shorts, but that doesn’t always stop me from including gun play, no matter how improbable.

Completed another 48hours short film over the weekend, this is by far the best one with my own team (Ladies, oh ladies). Here’s a photo of “blood” spatter on the guest bathroom wall after one shot. The clear bit on the right is where the actor was standing.

 

I had a domain name lying around, purchased as the punch line to a joke, and decided to do something with it. So without further ado, I present: The Glossy Sex Prison.

What is it? Well it’s a gathering point for all of my favourite pictures, unfortunately mainly lifted without attribution from wherever I found them on the web, and piled up by my magpie-like self.

I’ve got maybe 600 things to add (or maybe 6000, or maybe who knows), most of them very funny, some are very cool, some of them very dirty, subscribe and I’ll give you a prize.*

I’ll keep publishing them until I forget.

*Prize offer may not be honoured.

We were travelling out to The New Zealand Beer Festival at Ellerslie Racecourse, and figuring there was a better than even chance we’d be having a drink or two, decided we’d follow the advice on the festival website and take the train rather than driving.

We headed down to the conveniently located and smartly appointed Britomart transport station, arriving at the platform with plenty of time to spare only to find not the expected waiting train, but an empty bit of track. Speaking to the (very helpful and friendly) chap standing on the platform with a clipboard, we were told our train was leaving from a different platform nearby. And the train wouldn’t be a traditional train it would instead be a “rail bus” and it wouldn’t be leaving from a platform it’d be embarking from a “bus stop”.

In other words, we were told to take a hike. Not in so many words of course, like I said the guy was very friendly. But this is ultimately the message we were getting from Maxx, the operators of our beloved city’s rail network: “you want to take the train? nice, get on the bus and like it.”

And not only were we taking a bus, but it wasn’t leaving on anything like the same schedule of the train we were expecting to take. No, we were going to have to go and stand on the side of the road for half and hour. Our “rail bus” wouldn’t even be leaving until 15 minutes after our train should have arrived at our destination.

Shall I sit in the front seat? Shall I sit in the back seat?

Didn’t matter what seat we chose, because the bus smelled like piss from end to end, so it was a grim aspect with which we finally commenced our journey to the beer fest.

The rail bus really does just look like any other bus doesn’t it? Well that’s what people at the various bus stops we visited on the journey thought as well. Sure seemed surprised when they were told by the conductor that their bus transfer wouldn’t work because this is “a train”.

It’s not a bloody train! Of course they were confused!

It was a relief to see the back of our piss smelling rail bus.

Yes, of course now I know that the train had been magically transformed into a bus because they’re performing maintenance and improvements to the rail network, and they might be doing a bloody stellar job of that, but as with so many other organisations they’re not getting the communication right. After being redirected to the bus stop we discovered that the totality of signage directing rail passengers to the bus was an A4 printout taped to a pillar. The guy on the platform knew that the beer fest was on, so the higher-ups certainly should have known it, and made vastly better accommodations than they did.

Credit where it’s due for the great attendant on the platform, and whatever Maxx are failing at with communications, it’s simply inexcusable for a bus to smell like piss.

On the plus side, I’ve figured out what Maxx stands for.

M Mobile
A Auckland
X CANCELLED
X CANCELLED

What terrible misdeed must we have we done as a city to deserve these abominable operators?

It’s certainly no Christchurch Gallery, and of course what’s on the inside is the most important thing, but the detailing on the new exterior is absolutely gorgeous.

Selena could school us all. But here’s something even she was quite excited by. She had a kahawai on the hook, when a large mako shark went for it in a sudden violent attack, leaving half a fish on the line, with its guts hanging out.

New Zealand’s next Governor General has been announced as Jerry Mateparae, he will succeed Sir Anand Satyanand at the end of his term in August this year. Mateparae is the current chief of New Zealand defence, and was announced by John Key last year to be the next head of the Government Communications Security Bureau – who are, basically, spooks. He appears to have never taken up that post (it sounds like he did take up that role, a month ago), but it doesn’t matter because one of his previous role was even more bad ass, you see something not many people have been talking about is that Jerry Mateparae is a former member of New Zealand’s most elite military unit, the NZ Special Air Service. It’s easy to tell, as you can see in the picture below he wears the Winged Parachute on his right shoulder, which is one of the crests of the unit.

Where have we seen that before? Well let’s just have a look at the right shoulder of Willie Apiata, VC.

I reckon it’s official, New Zealand is shortly to have the most badassed Governor General to be found anywhere in the Commonwealth. And I think we can all get behind that, don’t you?

 

— UPDATE 2:45pm —

It was suggested on twitter that this Winged Parachute merely denotes that the wearer is parachute qualified, I believe that this badge is the “ordinary” NZ Defence Force parachute badge:

While this one is a special pattern, for NZ SAS members only:

I do not wish to pretend to have a great deal of knowledge in this area, but I believe this to be correct.

Be careful you don’t look into my eyes lest you lose your mind.

I rigged up a tiny video camera to a cheap parafoil kite and flew it at Bastion Point, the video is pretty difficult to watch (lots of jerky movement doesn’t make for a restful viewing experience), but there are some fun stills to be found. Here you see the shortcomings of the sensor, add a bit of sudden movement and it bends the horizon and starts rolling Bastion Point and the Hauraki Gulf up, Inception style.

And here in a slightly different mounting location, showing the complexity of the string rig that keeps the foil together. That’s Selena on the left, and your fearless hero with arms outspread like an anteater on the right.