LIKE A BOST

The future. Immense and unknowable. Truly, who can predict what is is to come? Me. I can.

1. By this point, all New Year’s resolutions will have failed.

2. Gun control is tentatively introduced in America following the tragic death of Grumpy Cat, who was caught in cross fire whilst touring an elementary school.

3. Facebook users around the world add a Grumpy Cat filter to their Facebook profile pics in support.

4. Fine dining will reach its peak, as restaurants introduce fully deconstructed menu items, such as “Deconstructed maple bacon”, consisting of a map to Canada and a live pig, which is getting away.

5. #cleaneating will also reach its peak, as vegans resort to inhaling essence of cucumber water through bamboo pan pipes for all their nutritional needs.

6. Staff at trendy cafes will thoughtfully raise customers to the ceiling via rope pulleys, allowing them to take better Instagram shots of their latte art.

7. Peace in the Middle East – The reign of Bashar al-Assad comes to an end after the Syrian dictator is killed in a gorilla attack. 

8. Do you mean “Guerrilla” attack?

9. Nope, actual gorillas whilst seeking shelter in the state zoo.

10. VR will enter the mainstream living room, allowing people to simulate going outside, sunshine and the resultant melanoma.

11. Rising sea levels will tragically claim the infinity pools of rich jerks living on Sydney Harbour.

12. Apple will release a new tech to their product line: The Xbox. “Yes, we totally invented it” CEO Tim Cook will claim.

13. All the Kardashians finally receive life bans from the NBA after triggering an on-court fist-fight amongst the Houston Rocket’s starting five. 

14. A social media viral hashtag campaign will finally raise awareness of, and fix, all the world’s problems forever.

15. 23-year-old University grad, Liam Bertridge of Liverpool, will post a lengthy solution to global wealth inequality between the West and “the rest” to Facebook, getting more than 80 likes.

16. Liam’s solution to how he'll afford to move out of his parents’ house meanwhile, will remain elusive.

17.The cheerleader half-time shows will continue to make dads sitting with their family uncomfortable.

18. Buzzfeed finally fully transitions into an image depository of shirtless men, as intended.

19. Someone, somewhere, will be offended by a tweet.

20. A rise in “healthy body image” hash tagging causes an over-correction in eating habits, resulting in Western obesity rates rising from its current 60% of the population to “total”.

21. A more “rounded” former body builder, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will enter the presidential race.

22. “I’b like to run for Presibleb of the Unibleb States of Ameribleb. Blrb-blb-bleb.” The former The Rock will annouce from a beanbag chair.

23. The Presidency however, is surprisingly won by Survivor host, Jeff Probst after beating Donald Trump through a hedge maze in a battle of former reality-TV hosts. Tyra Banks fails to place.

24. Miss Universe host, Steve Harvey accidentally announces himself as the winner.

25. In the Rio Olympics, North Korea elects to send only their finest athlete, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, who is disqualified from the 100m hurdles when the starter gun spooks his horse.

26.The Olympic basketball men’s final is abandoned after Steph Curry’s 20th 3pt shot of the match causes the ball to burst into flames.

27. All the medal ceremony national anthems will be remixed by David Guetta with “sick beat drops.”

28. Vladimir Putin anoints himself as the cover model of every edition of Men’s Heath Russia.

29. Hacker group, Anonymous claims victory over ISIS after successfully swapping all their Twitter profiles to dick pics.

30. After being rescued from Mars, a black hole and World War II, in his latest film Matt Damon’s character is heroically rescued from awkward small-talk at an office picnic.

31.The MTV VMA’s descends into farce after Miley Cyrus strikes Nicky Minaj with a dildo.

32. Nicky responds the next day with “shade” on Twitter.

33. Whilst trying to take a more spectacular Snapchat selfie, high school senior Jennifer Smitherton of Orange County, is eaten by a bear.

34. Controversially, an internet artist “re-imagines” Disney Princesses as having “jobs”. And yet, the internet doesn’t “break.”

35. Despite the incessant bleating of click-bait writers, science confirms that the only things that can actually “break the internet” are “solar flares” and “Electro Magnetic Pulse” weaponry.

36. Kim Kardashian asks her Instagram followers where she can buy “An Electro Magnetic Pulse weaponry”.

37. Later that day, Kim Kardashian is revealed as the new face of Lockheed Martin.

38. In an attempt to keep the British Monarchy ‘relevant’ in the modern age, Dan Blizerian is hired to run the Royal Instagram account.

39. The Royal Instagram account is aborted after Prince Harry jokingly hurls a porn star off the Windsor Castle ramparts and into the moat.

40. Coconut Oil is found to be the only cure for ice-cream headaches, hiccups and getting annoying songs out of your head.

41. The campaign against sugar reaches new heights after it’s revealed to be the leading cause of diabetes and white privilege.

42. Urban hipsters abandon beards for not being ‘feminist.”

43. In place of beards, male hipsters confusingly start wearing bras in solidarity ironically.

44. However, they are immediately attacked on Jezebel by feminist “Free the nipple” campaigners.

45. Former President Barack Obama spends his first month out of office live tweeting a tour of wine country with Sir Patrick Stewart.

46 Apple tweaks the auto opt ins on the new Apple Watch after Taylor Swift accidentally live streams a lengthy bathroom break on Periscope.

47. Man it’s hard to think up 50 things.

48. OK, just two more. How about…

49. Screw

50. Flanders

It's going to be an exciting year!

“They don’t make ’em like they used to: racist.” “Back in the good ol’ days… polio.” “When I was your age… wolves ate grandma.” It’s dangerous to play the nostalgia game as every single era has its share of terrible, terrible awfulness. It’s generally best to avoid claiming  ‘Your day’ was in any way superior to today. For most people, today is the best time to be alive: Endless information at your fingertips, electricity, sanitation, motorized transportation, going to the supermarket in lieu of stabbing a cow personally. Today, annual doctors appointments hardly ever end in amputation anymore (“In-grown chest hair, eh? Well, we’re going to have to take that torso I’m afraid.”) There’s been a distinct reduction in slavery. We have nice, hot winters. Emojis. Yep, most people living in a wealthy nation, relatively speaking, don’t have much to complain about.

That being said, I believe everyone has the right to irrationally despise three things without explanation. You didn’t ask, but mine are:

‘Inspiring’ Upworthy/Buzzfeed “news” posts about acts of kindness/ shutting down body-shamers/ whathappenednextwillbreakyourheart! that try to shine a positive light on the world. Fuck your positivity. #faithinhumanityrestored

Instagram.

The annual media columnist deriding sports fandom with a tweedy “Why don’t we celebrate doctors and scientists like we do athletes!?” neigh. OK, then. Ancel Keys stood where on the Diet-Heart Hypothesis, exactly? Which journals, specifically, do you subscribe to? Archaeologist and paleontologist: which does what? Gravity affects time how? Caltech or MIT: which institute has more Nobel prizes? Is the Large Hadron Collider a collider of large hadrons, or is it a hadron collider that is large? What’s a hadron?  *picks up megaphone* WHY AM I SO LOUD NOW? Yeah, you don’t celebrate doctors or scientists.

The above aside… what a time to be alive! Knowing everything I have access to now, there isn’t a single point in the past that I’d rather live in. Did you know, that it’s not technically possible to write a novel or screenplay set before 1950 without a “his/her mother died in childbirth” plot device?

Lady Gwendolyn: “Darling! I’m with child!”

Lord Duke Count Von Thistle-Thwick: “Oh, huzzah! You get some rest. I’ll write the mortician.”

True story, bro. And yet everywhere you look there’s this nagging insistence that everything used to be better. Astonishingly, I encounter it most frequently amongst “youths.” For instance, image tweets of Toby Maguire captioned “Kids of this generation will never know this was the real Spiderman.” In my head, 2007 only ended a few weeks ago. Katy Perry, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift all had solo albums out then. Seriously, what’s changed since then? Nothing for nobody, that’s what!

I have memories. I can reminisce about the Adam West era of Batman, which predated even the Michael Keaton (whom I think is now dead) era, in that it was filmed in the 60s but was still on on after-school-TV into the 90s. I remember when Saturday Disney was Tailspin, Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers, and Duck Tales. When video games could be fixed by blowing on them, thinking Lara Croft was way hot even though she was just triangles, when everyone turned in identical homework copied from Encarta ’95, and when O.J. Simpson was just a hilarious goof in cinema’s only successful trilogy: the Naked Gun films.

I’m a 90’s kid, which means I did almost all my of schooling – 1st to 10th grade in my case – in the actual 90’s. Being born in the 90’s does not make you a 90’s kid as you didn’t experience it a meaningful way. For example, I was technically alive for nearly all of the 80’s, but I can only remember three things: A birthday party which may or may not have been mine, a later birthday party which was definitely mine, and helping landscape the front yard of my childhood home by pushing a little plastic wheelbarrow around, falling down etc. I was not aware of the collapsing Soviet Union.

The 90’s were not a superior decade. Consider the state of Lara Croft in 1996:

Can you imagine being 14 and only having this to work with? And before even that, furtively mashing up/down/button combinations on a Super Nintendo because someone at school swore that it unlocked a ‘nudeality’ of Mortal Kombat’s Sonya Blade? (You’re a fucking liar, Kyle Kowalski.) Dial-up modem noises that would call your parents into your room at a sprint.  Really fat, yet really narrow TVs with only five channels. Roller-blading, toBlockbuster Video, to rent a VHS. Art of the 90’s, such as appeared on t-shirts, snap bands, and educational video screen wipes were all of the same shapes and squiggles:

We had to fast-forward through songs on cassette! And, there was no app to summon pizza! The horror.

But the 90’s did do one thing that was singularly amazing. The Simpsons.

Na-na-na-na-na-na LEADER! I’m going… to stalk… Lenny and Carl. Push her down, son. Neaaaarrrrrrrrd! Hi, Super Nintendo Chalmers! Compu-Globo-Hyper-Mega-Net. I choo-choo-choose you. I stand by my racial slur. He was a zombie? ♫ Heyyyy, there!♫ Blim-py boy!♫ Flying through the sky so fan-cy free♫! The kids can call you ‘Ho-Ju!’ It was the blurst of times?! Marge, is Lisa at Camp Granada? They’ll grow back, right? That’s tough but fair. Boy, go with the man. Judge a pig competition? But I’m no super genius! Or are I? Me fail English? That’s unpossible! Groin-grabbingly transcendent! “Millpool.” ♫ See my vest! ♫ See me vest! ♫ Made from real Gorilla Chest!♫ Oh, they have the internet on computers now. Lower those eyebrows! And theother one… Where’s-my-burrito! Where’s-my-burrito! Well excuuuuuse me, for having enormous flaws, that I don’t work on! I was saying ‘Boo-urns’… I’m special! “Old man yells at cloud.”

This list. Is not even close. To capturing every line I know and love. I will blank on the names of my own children before I forget even one of the above quotes. And I feel good about that. The Simpsons of the 90’s wasn’t a ‘show’ from my childhood that I merely ‘enjoyed’. It’s not ‘Step-by-Step’ or ‘The secret world of Alex Mack’ (who was hot BTW). The 90’s era Simpsons is so intrinsically linked with my growing up that it feels like a fundamental part of my personality. You may scoff, but it’s real. My sense of humor is born of it. Every day, I’ll read or hear or see something that brings up a quote from it. Without it, I’m not entirely sure I would have turned out the same.

Amongst the best 24 minutes of my life was “The Summer of 4ft 2”. Aside from providing several of the biggest laughs I’ve ever had:

Nothing, and I sincerely mean nothing else I’ve seen or read since, has captured so perfectly my own search for identity amidst the hazy endlessness that marked a true childhood summer. As the family drove away and Lisa read through the year book inscriptions left by her new friends, I remember thinking “She’s… like me…” Sweet, merciful crap! I’m crying!

"Plans this weekend?" Booooooooo, Wendy! Boooooo! :(

Making 'plans.' Doing 'stuff.' Just 'getting out there!' and 'living-life-laugh-crying-emoji!!!' Are all things I'd mostly prefer to really not if it's an option. I already have to do 'stuff' all week, like wear pants outside of the house because I have job. Like a grownup. My weekends are for nothing. Really, really dedicated nothing. Professional-level nothing. I've spent so much money on video games that it's completely illogical, nay negligent for me not to dedicate myself to them whenever I can. Games are 'cost-per-play.' The more time you put in, the more value you extract. I need cost efficient joy. Like a grownup.

"Plans this weekend?" though, was a completely acceptable question to ask during a long pause in conversation, which I worry happens more to me than most. Because my brain is potentially weirder than most, its immediate response is to think something forcefully awkward like:

Q: "Plans this weekend?"

A: "Stock piling arms for the coming revolution! Will you join my harem of wives?"/ "Quite contemplation of the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior." *touches your arm* /*Simply smiles*, *then touches your arm*

What I actually said was "Not spending money." And I really meant it. Over the last few months I'd been unloading my aggressively medium salary on city-style unnecessaries, like bespoke business shirts (why not off the rack, jerk?), eight course degustation dinner celebrations (you used to like birthdays at McDonald's, jerk!), and a more elaborate, noiseless, water-efficient washing machine (ooohhh! You have 'delicates!' You sensitive, pansy jerk!).

But the problem, is that spending begets spending in the same way that Facebook begets self-righteousness. A week earlier I'd bought specialty, (fair trade of course), coffee beans (what's wrong with Nescafé, jerk? etc.).

But realized a little while later that 'whole beans' won't work with my home espresso machine (YA JERRR..."Shut up, it was a Christmas present!"). Unlike expensive French Champagne or, I dunno... Boost Juice, you can't just stomp the beans down in the bathtub. You need a proper coffee grinder. And apparently they cost at least fucking $200 and I'm way down the keeping up appearances rabbit hole.

A significant part of becoming 'urbane' or possibly 'a city hipster assface' means suddenly acquiring an interest in a whole range of specialty items, made special by their 'stories'. At bars, eventually you stop asking for 'house' spirits with a mixer/'ruiner' of sickly diet soda, you start asking specifically for Scotch, specifically-ly single malt because that's what the guy ahead of me with the pocket square did.

I myself ask barmen for 'Laphroaig, one ice cube please' even though I pronounce it wrong (La-Frog??), based entirely on my once reading up on the 'tasting notes' (spicy smoke, citrus fruit, nuances of thong panties 'large') which I can't really detect (it's a bit like... 'burning') because it makes me feel like a big shot, compared to the bouncy teens asking for Red Bull with a straw. Straight (or 'neat-o') spirits are also lower in sugar, which I assume also makes them paleo.

It's the same with coffee. Through my university days I was strictly a Latte attempt at a man, as anything with any less frothy, yummy milk made my face sideways each sip. But as I matured or at least got less athletic, really milky coffee began to taste like tiny Baby Huey - Oh, make way! Make way for Mr. Buttercup! - and I began taking it 'black'. 'Dark,' like my soul and 'sophisticated,' like Sean Connery on a horse. Without the milk to blanket the bitter with fatty, buttery warmth, the coffee is exposed. 'Naked' even, like your roommate, who didn't realize you were home. It's in this nekkid (tee-hee!) state that you have to care about the 'tasting notes...'. And for the tasting notes to ring with any sort of truth at all, you need a proper coffee grinder. For fucking $200.

I, like a senior confused by a chain email, naively assumed a $50 spice grinder or my Nutribullet (I inherited it) would do the job, but various coffee blogs laughingly advised me to scrub the pigshit off my cowboy boots and 'get real, idiot'. Blades, such as thoses used in food processors, 'pulverize' the beans into randomized gritty boulders and atoms, resulting in a flavor profile called "what did you do??" or so say the bloggers. So I got a 'conical burr' grinder that promised consistent, even grind that would unlock the secret essence of... The Roast. I got the weirdest boner reading the box. It cost motherfucking $300. Shhhhhit. But I got it home, and now I can taste the shade-grown rain forest every morning. Like a champ. I guess. Possibly like a chump.

YOU SAID THERE'D BE A BUNNY RABBIT! I sure did, and here he is.

His name is Cookie, but I call him fat almost every day. It's entirely possible he's just very, very, very fuzzy and preciousandIlovehim, but in this age of superfoods and how to burn belly fat click-bait, I worry he isn't putting in enough cardio. As well as unloading too much money on having "nice things" for not much reasonable reason, I've also been spending much more than a reasonable person should do on fitness. I subscribe to Men's Health, ingest protein powder, creatine, Vitamin D, fish oil and L-Carnitine. I own a jump rope, a power band, compression shorts AND three - three! - compression shirts, one of which is Spiderman-themed. I've even gone grocery shopping in my active wear. I know. I'm a jerk. But I live in Sydney. \_(ツ)_/¯

But now I'm taking a stand. A stand against faux-authentic Instagram and its look what I want you to think I have obsessivism,

against CBD afflueznea. I'm starting a fight club.

Ah, the leap, the acceleration into open space, the sweat, the speed, the crack, of bat striking ball, the ripple, of net catching leather, the sudden, torrential storm OF APPLAUSE THAT FALLS UPON THE FIELD LIKE A THUNDERCLAP AND SHAKES THE EARTH AS THE CROWD ROCKS BACK AND FORTH AND ROARS! The slapping of butts. Oh, no this isn’t tea time at nanna’s house my poor, misguided friend. This is sports.

Nearly nothing else can sway my mood as high or low as abruptly as sports can. For agony? Striking your hip against a table corner, dropping a whole pizza cheese-side down, ‘reply all’ instead of just ‘reply’, running full tilt into someone else’s flatulence on the home stretch of a half marathon, when ctrl-z doesn’t work, when a mac user wants to talk to you about how macs don’t have ctrl+z, hearing The Kardashian’s has been renewed for another season; these are all terrible, terrible, terrible things to endure, but besides dropping your phone down a street grate, near nothing else can bring up as true a sense of abject despair as a sports result not going your way. Is it stupid? Oh, yes. It’s the stupidest, and yet… I cannot look away.

I’m an Australian, and like many other Australians, I get into sport; my favourite brand of emotional manipulation being rugby. The recent Rugby World Cup was case in point. The national team, a traditional power in world rankings, had, like ‘Revenge’, been relatively mediocre in recent seasons. But in a World Cup year, when it really counted, they fielded a team of true POWER, toughness and speeeeeed. Men with boulders for shoulders, thighs that could fill out cargo shorts like bike tights, that could fling passes half across the field at thumping chest height, and accelerate through tackles like a cannon ball careening down a hill. Did I picture myself being carried like a baby from a burning building by David Pocock?

Only when I closed my eyes at night. This was a good rugby team. Early on, they rolled the supposed strongest team in Europe, England, and found themselves in a knock-out game against an underwhelming Scottish squad.

Scotland as a nation, plucky though they are, haven’t won anything since Braveheart, and in this game they were supposed to give way like a kilt in a hurricane. Australia scored with regularity but yet, somehow, a series of improbable events kept the bagpipe brigade in the game, and, with just three minutes left, a Scotsman intercepted a wayward pass and highland danced down open field. And fucking scored. To take the lead! I, on the other side of the world, reacted like The Ring girl had just climbed out of my TV.

As I lay facedown on my living room floor, 4 in the morning with hair askew and mouth agape, I just thought “This isn’t… fair.’ Despair descended like fog and actually blurred my vision, unless it was tears. I went through all five stages of grief in 60 seconds, before being resuscitated by a dubious penalty call that allowed Australia to kick the winning points on the last play of the game. The next day, Australians around the world compared notes like they’d survived The Day After Tomorrow. It’s emotional, man…

But it shouldn’t be. Not really. My girlfriend is of this opinion, as is my mother. And so am I, but then, there’s something elemental about live sport that amplifies all emotion to child-like levels. I’ve only jumped off my couch in joy three times in my whole life, twice whilst watching soccer and once when Joffrey died on Game of Thrones. Technically still a game. It’s in the title. But whilst I and sports fans around the world obsess over the inconsequential, really dedicate ourselves to the point of losing sleep, we brush off stories of true human hardship, of war, of poverty. We’re sad about them, but relatively speaking, barely blink at all. It takes something truly horrific that feels close to home to slap us a sense of perspective.

A Friday night, a friendly soccer match between France and Germany. Two explosions are heard outside the Stade Francis in Paris, marking the beginning of more than one hundred murders that night. The stadium is evacuated, but as they exit, the fans link arms and sing a defiant La Marseillaise. Meanwhile, bombs detonated across the Middle East, as they have done for decades. But this is a humour blog. I don’t know the answers, and won’t pretend here that I do.

¦

¦

PAUSE

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I do know a lot about sports though. A stupid amount frankly. For example, I can recognise and name no less than 250 of the 377 active players in the NBA, plus dozens more who’ve since retired. I’m not proud at all. It’s a horrible waste of my addled mind since I routinely blank on the names of everyone I know, including people theoretically dear to me.

Q: Hey, introduce me to your friend! Who is he?

A: *blinks* I… don’t know… shit. *checks Facebook friends list*

Often I’ll check my watch, someone will immediately ask me the time, but their asking will have caused me to immediately forget what time it is. So I have to check my watch again, which has suddenly become much harder to read, so I lie.  

But I can tell you the Lakers’ starting five from three years ago  (Howard, Gasol, Artest, Kobe & Nash you idiot). It’s like being a nerd, but about something pointless.

Or is it? *arches eyebrow* No, it is mostly pointless. But there is a genuine sense of community that’s brought about by sports. Nationalism of course, at the very top, and then there’s localised pride in pro and school leagues, where parents proudly fight! parents of the other team. For the children. And then there’s the  micro pride of the company sport team. My technical job title is “Online Media Manager”, but my spiritual title, is “SPORTS GUY!” which requires me to oversee the company’s various teams of variously coordinated keyboard warriors into shorts, as well as serve as the Player-Manager of the mixed basketball team, ‘The Online Predators’. ‘The Hmm, what? Nothings.’ How good are we? No.

But we do have the distinction of winning more games than we’ve lost for two straight seasons in Division 4 (of 4), in a city gym best known for accountant fist bumps. Being the office Sports Guy is my absolute favourite thing. Side note; every time middle class white people bump fists, Donald Trump becomes more powerful. So stop it.

Moooo? Lenny, you were supposed to be ‘E’!

Sports brings people together like nothing else can. Where else in life, really, will you find 20,000 people voluntarily sitting together wearing the same shirt and not doing the whole “Hey, I thought we’re supposed to text each other what we’re wearing-HAHAHAHA-Awwwwkward!” thing? Is it the army? I think it might just be the army. Sports, at a surface level, appears to be a divider of people. This shirt versus that shirt. But, when the worst happens, sports is a uniter.