The Jetstar flight attendant I had recently invented three new words that were broadcast to the passengers:

"Oriltude"

"Mobular Phones"

"Disembarkcation"


I was impressed.

GOODS

Tail Coat - $1095
Silk Stripe Trousers - $395
Waistcoat - $395
White Pique Shirt - $429
White Pique Bowtie - $150

GOODS TOTAL:
$2464

Ouch.

So I have reconsidered and decided instead of going full White Tie to take it down a notch to the more utilized Black Tie. No tails but I figure if I'm buying PART OF THE MOON it may as well be for something I'm going to use more than once a year.

Because most of what makes up Black Tie is the same as White, I expect it to be around the same price.



Not as elegant as the tailcoat of course, but still worth it:

I'm constantly feeling like I'm on an edge at the moment.

I have eight days to submit my portfolio, of which I have done... nothing. This is the crunch time, the time where I'm sitting and really, REALLY questioning whether this is the path I want to take. I know I have passionate feelings towards this industry but I kind of feel like maybe there's a better, less...conventional(?) way of going about it.

I'm going to speak with a very influential and inside force by the name of Murray Crane tomorrow. I'm going to him for two reasons. First, I want to put together a full White-Tie ensemble and I want some advice, some prices and some goal targets. Costs will mean that it will most likely be months of saving but I think it will be worth it. I have a "Black & White" Christmas party at work coming up and it would be perfect for such a thing.

Here is an image of the impeccable Mr Fred Astaire in full White Tie with some chums:

  

The other reason I'm going to see Mr Crane is to ask him for some more information about getting to where I want to be. I have thought this over so often that it almost bores me but I need this to either confirm my path or change it. I am hoping it will confirm it and I may have a slight bias towards that outcome but if I do not come away feeling confident I will re-evaluate and change it. There's no way I'm committing so much money and time to something I am not 100% on.

I anticipate by this time tomorrow I will be sleeping soundly with the knowledge of a decision.

Seven days.
 

I have become increasingly estranged lately from the "open collar" phenomenon that has gripped the planet since the beginning of casual Fridays. This is where a suit is worn with a shirt that does not have a tie or the top button done up. In nearly every case, a man can look far better with a tie or even just with this button up.

I will agree that there are some versions of this style that looks snappy. I have a couple of shirts that do look OK like this and I attribute it to them having more of a "sharp" collar. For example (try to ignore the douchebag):



This is OK. I mean I personally would prefer to see it with a tie, but it still looks sharp.

Unfortunately most people in business that I have seen (CEOs, upper and middle management etc) wear it more like this:



Again. Douchebag, and for more than just his dress sense.

The collar is too small, it looks bent and out of shape. Not to mention the fact that it would probably choke him if he did it up. This kind of style is commonly created with button down shirt collars as well (shudder). They look terrible without the top button done up.

The above pictures of Mark Bryers show what a lot of people in NZ are now wearing, I see it every day. It seems to me like becoming CEO or Upper Management means that you're now entitled to lose the tie, lose the style, not give a fuck. For people who can be faces of the company, it would make a lot more sense to me to look sharp.

The problem (at least in New Zealand) is that CEOs want to look as if they could be your average, friendly, approachable douchebag that can relate to the common man. The paradox is generally in the way they act and also the fact that they are most definitely NOT the common man. That and that it's very difficult to maintain a professional image as well as a leisurely look.

I digress...

It's not just wealthy business men that fuck it up with this collar choice. Here's a picture of Brad Pitt and George Clooney with it too:



These two are generally regarded "warhorses" when it comes to menswear in Hollywood. They both normally opt for classic Tuxedos at awards shows and are sharp in leasure suits, casual wear as well.

Pitt's is better than Clooney's crumpled heap of fabric but is still pretty shocking. Sure, they may be in some tropical country but that doesn't mean style has to lose to practicality or that I have to like it.

Undoubtedly the worst version of collars are the ones that go over the jacket like some kind of Tony Montana wannabe:



I would never be able to take anyone that wears this kind of collar seriously. Admittedly, the worst part of this photo is not the collar or even the douche wearing it, but the diabolical fit of that jacket. Jesus Christ.

Anyway.

Here is the counter argument for an open collar:



Gary Cooper. Game over.

Gawf as Fuck 2 coming soon to a liberated brothel near you.

Mr Freeman and I ventured to the end of the earth in order to experience Oblivion v2.0, AKA "Live Bar" last night.

On the way up Victoria Street I was saying I had this dream that in an attempt to distance itself from Oblivion as much as possible, James decided to paint everything white, in effect creating an inverse version. On the way up the stairs we noted that the stairwell had indeed changed from black...to white. The rest of my dream involved inverse people as well but that didn't eventuate, unfortunately.

Upon entering we quickly established that we had doubled the number of patrons which was not such a great feeling. It was about 21.10 and I was expecting (maybe a little optimistically) a smattering of people at the place considering opening night was merely hours ago.

I chatted to DJ K Rock (Dave) for a while as Nick went to the bar for a classic Jack & Coke super-combo knockout. Brief catch up aside, I asked him what kind of music we'd be expecting. Incubus was playing at the time and he said "a variety" with emphasis on the fact that there won't be so much metal, as if he remembered when I moaned about it at a house party a while back. This was welcomed, but I kind of expected it to mean a greater variety of alternative music, not just a variety of all music.

The most obvious difference is the new red booths they have set up where the atrocious seating used to be. There are four booths along the left hand wall each with a red light underneath them. There's also one "master booth" adjacent at the far end, opposite the DJ. For lack of a better solution, I was satisfied with this idea with a minor qualm being the tables at the booths only extend half way out. That means only about four people can put their drinks on them at any one time. I would say each booth could seat about eight, maybe ten people, four to five on either side.

I found the booths to be OK, they're definitely not luxury seating and weren't the most comfortable things ever but they did the trick. I probably wouldn't take a girl there to have an intimate conversation or anything like that. They're not very private and also look awkward for sex. Yup.

Nick and I sat in the "master booth" because we're masters, and had a pretty good view of everything going on. I can't really speak for the others but I would say they would be all right for gazing too.

The inside decor still smelt of paint and looked pretty roughly done too. I think it was a pale blue colour but I'm not certain. There was no interesting pieces of art or anything, but they have now got big mirrors along the left hand wall above the booths. I am a fan of mirrors and I do think they helped the place a little bit but they weren't amazing.They also have these stupid multi-coloured lights by the bar that smack of a cheap, viaduct hole. They actually reminded me of "Shadow Lounge" on K Road which is closing down after being open for only a couple of months. They have removed the pentagram from the dance floor but otherwise the place looks very similar to Oblivion. I don't remember seeing those stupid statues to indicate the toilets but I'm not one hundred percent on that either.

The toilets were exactly the same but cleaner and with a lock on the door that actually works. Still no mirror for the guys room which is a bit annoying but not a major. I don't know how good the girls room is because I'm not a rapist. The stage and basically the whole right-hand side of the bar is the same as well.

To be fair, the place does look better than Oblivion. I mean it is a little bit cleaner, a little bit classier, a little bit brighter. Overall though, the key words there are "a little bit". There are no sweeping changes that make you think you're in a totally sweet new bar. The bar itself I never had a problem with except for the limitations on alcohol. I mean it looks good, it's clean and professional, no problems there. It's just the rest of the place looks so... plain. Nothing interesting, nothing that stands out and defines the place.

The music was disappointing too. I didn't go to a place to listen to tired 90s tracks mixed with some all right stuff. They did play a lesser-known Placebo track but that was about the extent of anything decidedly alternative. They didn't actually play any metal the whole time I was there. I have a sneaking suspicion they might think the whole reason Oblivion failed was because of metal.

By the time I left the place there was probably about... thirty-ish people there. A third of them were people from our booth-posse that came later and the rest looked to be supporting the other bands that were playing. Basically the same kind of crowds that Oblivion would draw, so nothing to write home about.

Overall the place did nothing to inspire me. The most striking thing about it was how similar it resembled cheap, thrown-together clubs that you find in small-town NZ. The biggest improvement I found were the booths but as I said, they're not intimate and overly classy, they're just better than the ratshit seating they had previously. If you just want somewhere nice with booths, you may as well go 200 metres down the road to Suite.

Live Bar will have to stage some pretty fucking good events to get me there again. It's not an alternative bar anymore, it's just a weird mix of things that don't really go together so well. It's not a classy bar, it's not a rockers hole, it's not a viaduct hangout, it's not a pumpin' club, it's an awkward mix of all.

I can't recommend it.

I should have known posting a status update that went against a) marketing and b) females would be taken the wrong way and ransacked by the very group I aimed to represent.

This is not misogyny!

My idea was to draw light to the fact that female marketing executives (probably with a male or two on board) are increasingly portraying men as either stupid, ridiculous, weak or useless members of society. They do so despite the obvious sexism and it's pissing me off.

It annoys me partly because they're doing exactly what the crusade of feminism set out to eliminate. It's as if they have now attained power and are using it to get back at us for the patriarchal society that has existed for so long. Is that really the way to the true ideal of feminism: creating equality for both sexes?

Do schools advocate punching the bully back? Would we let the Jewish slaughter the Germans? Of course not. So why the double standard?

What is the point of telling people to stop sexism (which is still rife) if it's not going to be demonstrated by the teller?

I feel that the true soldiers of feminism are being let down by groups of women that weren't ever really committed to it in the first place. I have a sneaking suspicion that the women that are doing this are the ones that didn't care either way and are just using their "new" power abusively.

It's no secret that women still have a long way to go in order to break through that "glass ceiling" but I strongly feel that this is not the way to do it. Naturally there are the hardcore out there that would disagree and think men should be trampled, beaten, kicked out of society but I can't see how that would benefit the human race as a whole. That's something that should be emphasised, the human race as a whole.

Surely that should be the one thing that matters the most, not which faction of it is more successful or better than the other.

This made me feel fucking ill.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10572666

So I have discovered a new community of lepers online at gsmarena.com. I had been searching for the specs of my current phone to compare it to the one I am going to buy when I discovered this little gem:

"i like the camera of this phone... u zoom alot an can see alot... it has 3 mega pistols... i use from 2006... it very goods.. i take aroun 1000 photos from that an i no delete becoz it has very enlarge memory box... i lik phone 226... bcoz u can even cook prom that,,, i call my mother an ask recipy for cook food... it the is very easy... i very happy... gd pone.. bravo.. i lau my pone"

THREE MEGA PISTOLS! This phone doesn't actually have a camera at all... but shhh...watch...

reply:

"u say tht u were usin ths cell since 2006
bt it was announced in d year 2007"

THAT'S what struck this guy as odd?

Hey never mind that he's suggesting that you can cook from it because you can call your mother and ask for a recipe. Never mind that in order to zoom on a camera phone it needs to actually HAVE a camera.

Words escape...

I read a particularly eye-opening and disturbing perspective of Dubai and some of its people last night. It highlights the cracks that are forming with the recession but more importantly it's ecological instability and the way the people are treated.

The author's perspective is formed by interviewing randoms living there but you get the common idea that everyone tries to ignore the fact that the city is being built and run on slavery. It's not apart of a democratic state (it's still the middle east) but people amazingly turn a blind eye to maintain their lifestyles.

This particular extract made me feel a bit ill:

My patience frayed by all this excess, I find myself snapping: doesn't the omnipresent slave class bother you? I hope they misunderstood me, because the woman replied: "That's what we come for! It's great, you can't do anything for yourself!" Her husband chimes in: "When you go to the toilet, they open the door, they turn on the tap – the only thing they don't do is take it out for you when you have a piss!" And they both fall about laughing.

God, some people are revolting.

Anyway, article is here: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

It's not short.

It gets better the further you scroll down. Trust me.

http://gamu-toys.info/sonota/sw/obama/obama.html

One day, this coat will be mine.

I really, REALLY like autumn and its cooler temperatures.

Style-wise it's not so much of what there is, but what there isn't. And by isn't I mean:

I don't really see the appeal in the longer coats that seem to be "in" with grooms at the moment.


Most of the pictures I've seen are for day weddings, so why not just go for full morning dress? It's far more elegant.

These longer coats are just all out of proportion and make the wearer look like a kid in dad's clothes.

Compare:





Hurry back to the prom, three douches.

Even though I bitched at the time, to be honest I was rather impressed to be called on a couple of sartorial faux pas I made last night. If people in New Zealand really do care about such things, it won't normally be talked about.

A little white lie I told around the drinking table has now been blown way out of proportion. Actually, I just think it has. It might not have been but I certainly didn't improve the situation last night.

Lesson learnt... or still coming, I'm not sure. Oops!

Overall though, last night was a raging success. I had a fantastic time frolicking in tophat, tails and cravat. Especially walking into BK, that was special.

I should be asleep but my body says no. Hello youtube.

"A MetService weather station at Whenuapai Air Base has recorded the hottest temperature reading ever in Auckland.

Temperatures peaked at 32.4 degrees Celsius during the 3pm hour, equalling the previous high recorded in the Auckland Domain in February 1872 - 137 years ago.

Niwa climate expert Jim Salinger said today's reading was the highest since official Niwa records began in September 1868."


'nuff said.

Fred Astaire reminds us how well men can dress and dance.

I just about went postal and stormed away from the party on Saturday night. It wasn't her fault, despite the fact that the cola and rum that was running down my face and stinging my eyes came from her glass.

I completely failed to see the warning signs. I instigated the transaction without paying proper attention to what I was saying. I forgot to observe the mannerisms of someone I don't know at all. Too comfortable in the setting to check first. My fault.

Drenched and breathing slowly, I felt that familiar feeling beginning to bubble. That one that sprayed plaster and wood into the hallway, that left my knuckles bruised and bleeding and fucked with my self-image for weeks.

I take humiliation well.

I remember in high school having my shorts pulled down in the middle of the courtyard by one of my hilarious (and evidently sexually frustrated) friends. I was in the middle of a conversation so I took a sip of my drink while I waited for the laughing to subside and ignored the manouevre completely. I stood in the middle of the courtyard with my spiderman boxers commanding the attention of all for about five minutes while I finished my fucking conversation.

Saturday was similar, I made some crack about the rum tasting off and otherwise ignored it for a bit. The problem this time was the rage inside of me threatening to manifest in something to exacerbate the situation. I was so angry that I had not controlled myself that I just sat there seeing blood red. Nothing else in the world mattered. I couldn't think or speak properly so I just sat there battling the urge to eject.

I have stormed out of parties in vicious moods before, so I was feeling a lot better when I managed to reign in those urges. It felt like a small victory, a bit of a rush even. I was pleasantly surprised that by losing control I had triggered something that forced another part of me to gain it.

The girl apologised profusely afterwards and I indulged my ego a bit because fuck, it wasn't about her. She was just a reference point. An event.

I retired to a strangers bed later with the sticky syrup in my hair, on my face, on my neck, on my clothes on my mind. And I slept like a fucking baby.