MUTOPIA

Quick and Dirty Guide to NCEA - by Hewligan

The NCEA is made of two types of standards - Unit Standards and Achievement Standards. The difference between them isn’t really very important (basically, a Unit Standard is either Achieved or Not Achieved, while in an Achievement Standard you can also get Merit or Excellence if you do well). A standard is made up of a list of things - called elements - you can do. If you show that you can do all of the things listed in the standard, then you have achieved it.

Dirty P Users - by Hewligan

The dirty, filthy P users will all die a horrible, lingering death at my hands. Why?

POP! Culture - by Hewligan

I was at a friends house, and we were talking. One of his flatmates was playing music on his computer as we talked. Then “Ebeneezer Goode” comes on. My friend proceeds to tell me about how shocked he was when he found out what the song was about.

Un-Politically Incorrect - by Hewligan

Right, so we've all heard how Paul Holmes is a screaming mysogynist racist - or at least plays one on the radio. Personally, I'd like to see him fired, but then again, I thought that before his little 'coming out party,' too. However, that's beside the point, since I've just come across an even more interesting turn of events.

Idiot Box- by Hewligan

So, a couple of months back, I bought a big TV. Now, up until my early twenties, I watched a fuck of a lot of telly, but for the last few years, I’ve hardly watched any. Still, there’s a couple of shows I’d hate to miss, and so when I found myself facing the prospect of having no TV, I bought one. Since it was on special and all, I bought a big one.

Suffer the Little Children - by Hewligan

So, recently, this turned up on the message boards, along with an article about someone who had actually visited the Tranquility Bay school.

Go on, read it. I’ll wait. I know it’s a bit long, but it’s well worth the effort.

Fathers Day- by Apathy Jack

Okay, when I first started the grueling uphill climb towards a job in the education industry, there were a surprisingly large number of people telling me what a good and noble thing it was I was doing. Specifically because there weren't enough male role models in today's schools, and we needed more men in teaching.

Well, nice of you to say, I always thought, but, in essence, bollocks

Guns don't kill people - People kill people... with guns - by Apathy Jack

Got into one of those message board conversations I find so distasteful a while back. Talking to some Americans about gun control. My point was a simple one - How can a reasonable, intelligent society condone the mass availability of murder weapons?

Lots of arguing, a fair amount of name calling (a couple likened New Zealand to Nazi Germany when I told them that we didn't allow mentally ill people to buy assault rifles over the counter) and some irritating patriotism later...

More Fashion Advice From Mr. Ransome - by HORansome

Pop quiz: Name three 19th Century fashion trends.

...

They're all named after figures in the British monarchy, aren't they?

Death by Silence - by Hewligan

So, recently I read the story of a guy who having met another man in a suicide chat room, decided they should meet up and do the deed. Suicide, I mean. Anyway, he backs out, but the other guy goes through with it.

Then he's arrested and charged with assisting suicide. When he doesn't show up at court, the police go over to his house and find that he's hanged himself.

Tom Stoppard and Me - by HORansome

Like Henry Carr in 'Travesties' I have become obsessed with pants. I own cotton, PVC, polyester, black, red, gray, pinstripe, tight, flared, bagged and piped. I am the pant king. I cannot simply buy a pair of plain black pants (or if I do I feel the need to supplement them with something else a little flared). But it's alright; I'm writing again.

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't be bothered doing that. - by Apathy Jack

The future wasn't supposed to be like this.

Warren Ellis made the point once that the future was never meant to be this boring - godammit, by now we were meant to have flying cars and robot servants.

Russian Brides - by HORansome

Have you ever tried a Russian bride?

Nor I. But they want us. They want our prosperity, they want our hope, they want our seventy-three flavours of ice cream.
If you were trapped in a collapsing economy where sex appeal was your only tradeable commodity, what would you do?

Yes, we are all Russian brides to-be.

Fuck you, I’m still cool - by Hewligan

I’d like to say that I’m not even remotely embarrassed that I went to Chicago last night. I’d like to say that, but I would be lying. I mean, maybe I’d be a little less embarrassed if the spotty little teenage arsehole who sold me the ticket hadn’t given me a look that suggested Heironymous and I shared something more than an appreciation for musicals. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. But there’s always that little part of your mind, that part with the horrendous memories of what being a teenager was actually like, that is actually capable of caring what someone who doesn’t yet qualify for the adult minimum wage is thinking.

We're Back, Baby - by Hewligan

We're back, and we're bigger and better than ever.

mutopia has a new home at www.mapfortheblind.org. And to top it off, we've got a flash new discussion forum, and a complete absence of ads. Well, maybe we'll stick some ads around the place at some point, but they'll be ads we put there, and they'll probably be for other stuff around here.

Dangerous Habits - by Apathy Jack

You know what I like? I like it when something appears on the news or in the papers saying that yet another area of society will be declared smoke free. The best part of it is the great moral outrage provoked in the smokers I know. They get themselves all worked up, and I'm sure some of the emphatic oratories about smokers rights that they embark on would be quite stirring if they didn't lose their breath, dissolve in hacking coughs and turn purple halfway through these inspirational monologues

That Which We Leave Behind - by The Pope

Wandering, as my Papal mind is apt to do when Morthos and Hieronymus get into their unique mud-wrestling debating style, I thought two things that may, or may not have been, contrary, possibly even contradictory (although that later attribution I think is incorrect in several war-creating senses).
The first thought was due to an iterant TSV editor getting in contact with me over some written materials of a few years before. My thought was 'What a pity so much 'Doctor Who' is now lost to us, never to be rescued.'
My second thought, held only a mere five hours later as I got on a ferry (I like to stagger the effects of a common cause so as to appreciate them singularly) was 'Isn't it strange that I don't feel anywhere near the same sense of sadness as to the missing plays of my favourite Greek playwright, Aristophanes?'
Hmm, not so contrary after all. In fact, quite complimentary. Damn.
Anyway...