Red, Blue deny Color War

In a joint press conference today in Washington, the colors Red and Blue denied reports of a long-waged public rift between them, as portrayed in the media.

“Red and I go way back and are actually great friends,” said Blue. “Our families summer together every year at Lake George.”

“We are sick of the frequent misuse of our identities by mainstream media to represent warring factions or intense competitors,” explained Red.

“Election years are particularly annoying to us. All this Red states vs Blue states rubbish!” he added. “And neither of us sees a dime from either the political parties or the news media. Kobe Bryant or Kim Kardashian would never stand for their images being used without their permission. Why should we?”

Their disappointment was not just aimed at the world of politics, but also to other “egregious misrepresentations” that suggest they are constantly at loggerheads, such as Coke vs Pepsi and Yankees vs Redsox.

The two colors also played down rumors that the color White had mediated a peace between them.

“That’s a common misconception,” said Blue. “People seem to think Red and I don’t get along, but if White is in the mix then something changes and suddenly Red, White and Blue are a united team.”

“Truth be told, White is a bit of a dick actually. Neither of us really like him.”

New Words with Friends

Inspired by a post on the new (and brilliant!) blog of my good friend, Rickie Khosla (check it out at http://reekycoleslaw.com/), I decided to pen down a few other words that I have been trying to slip into everyday vernacular.  Try using these at your next summer BBQ… and if you do, post a comment to let us know.

lowbese (lo-beess) (noun): a newly ‘acceptable’ body weight classification at the low end of the obese range, as Americans give up on seeking a  ‘normal’ healthy body mass index. Use: “I might have a few extra pounds, but I am still only ‘lowbese’ compared to most people.”

boring pass (noun): the paper slip provided by increasingly cheap airlines that don’t even show a movie on a 4-hour flight.

authentish (adj): goods made kind of, sort of, roughly resembling a true traditional style, by craftsmen or artists with tenuous  connections  to another culture. Use: “Last night we had some delicious ‘authentish’ Tandoori cooked by this Russian lady who knows a Greek guy whose uncle’s grandfather actually had a flight stopover in Mumbai one time in the sixties!”

cargantuan (adj): describing the growing class of monstrous SUVs that easily swallow up to 8 adults, yet somehow do not require a bus or truck license and can be driven by any maniac.  Use: “Some old lady in a Chevy of cargantuan proportions ran four other cars off the highway today as she changed lanes.”

iphonetic (adjective): the style of spelling a word, syllable by syllable, so that it can be by pronounced and understood by Siri. Use: “What is the iphonetic spelling of your last name?”

preativity (noun): the surge of inspiration to begin an artistic work, without yet having a worthwhile idea or direction. Use: “Just ignore the half-complete macaroni Mona Lisa in the lounge room – my preativity got the best of me!”

phantastic (adj): supposedly brilliant but sorry, I’m just not seeing it. Use: “I’m told this Spanish guy has a phantastic cross-court backhand.”

Bud-wiser (adj): the false sense of being ten times smarter after consuming a dozen beers. Use: “I was feeling a bit Bud-wiser when I decided it was a good idea to invest in my cousin’s dog tanning booth business.”

re-licious (adj): describing the improved taste of leftovers when eaten the day after. Use: I liked the pizza on Friday night, but it was seriously relicious when I woke up on Saturday morning.

Try those ones out in your next Scrabble game.

— Irish

An ode to those (socks) left behind

One of the great mysteries of the world is how socks manage to always disappear in the laundry. No matter how you try – or how many SkyMall-catalog “sock keeper clips” you go through – they still disappear.  This leads to only one logical explanation: the socks that vanish DON’T WANT to be found.  That’s right… they’re runaways.

Socks have good reason to escape: spending all day wedged between stinky, sweaty feet and bacteria-laden orthotic in-soles.  But the tragedy is, I don’t think these rebellious little fellows think about the real victim of their departure: the sock that is left behind.

So in case you happen to be a single sock on the lam, I wanted to write this post on behalf of your loved ones who have spent 17 months pining for you in the back of a bedside drawer… being looked over, day after day.  You see, when you left, you sentenced your sock twin – your very own cotton & elastane – to a fate that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

Without you there, each and every day, your old pal is forced to endure the pain of the fat, nerdy kid at school when the cool kids are picking soccer teams – slowly watching everyone else get picked ahead of him.  Even on the worst day, when the drawer is decidedly quiet, and all the good socks are hanging out in the laundry hamper, those tragic Ninja Turtles socks from 1991 (yes, the ones with with the hole in the right heel) get picked ahead of him.

Some days he will get pulled out momentarily, and the hope in his little sock heart will soar, thinking ‘today is the day’. But that hope will inevitably be shattered, when your absence is again discovered and he is thrown even further to the back of the drawer, never to feel the clammy warmth of fungus-laden toes ever again.

Now that you have been gone so long, he has been forced to give in and accept that his best days are behind him.  That time you saved your owner from terrible blisters when he had to run uptown in italian leather business shoes.  That one beautiful week when you were accidentally put away in the drawer with “Mrs. Owner’s” delicates from Victoria’s Secret. And the time you got to be the first pair of socks in Mr Owner’s new snakeskin boots.

But now, the best day he can imagine as he wallows in the back of the drawer, is that the laundry machines break down and Mr. Owner gets desperate enough to pair him up with the lonely grey argyle hiding under the sports socks. That’s right… you’ve left him in a world where going out as an “odd” sock would be a step up in the world.

I hope you found what you wanted – wherever it was that you ran off to – but just know that someone else is paying the price back home, you selfish bastard.

— irish

“Welcome back to the Asshole’s Club, Mr Smith”

Why doesn’t American Airlines just rename the Admiral’s Club as the “Asshole’s Club”?

Despite paying some $7000 for a business class airfare or 25+ flights to qualify for status, the Admiral’s Club (at least at JFK) now started to charge their ‘most valued’ customers for drinks & food… except the self-serve dispenser of stale cracker & pretzel mix, but I don’t really call that food! (To be fair, if you’re really valuable, you might get a voucher for one drink, but after that you’re on your own!)

They’ve also started to charge for wifi, and the furniture is often old and shabby, or high on ‘design’ & low on comfort… less comfortable than on the concourse, in some cases. And despite all this cost-cutting, your airline still just entered Chapter 11?

In some international ACs (like Buenos Aires) you can still serve yourself a beer or scotch (thank goodness for Latin hospitality!!) but you still have to stare down other passengers eyeing off that last slice on the rarely-replenished cheese plate. You can’t get a sandwich, let alone a burger… even if you wanted to pay for it!! You know where they DO have great food to buy, though… out on the concourse.

So if you’re not giving any real ‘privileges’ and passengers would arguably be more comfortable, and certainly better fed, at the “Chilis Too” on the concourse… then what’s the point of an airline lounge? All that is left is some thinly-veiled form of class segregation: there used to be privileges that justified visiting the lounge, but now you’ve made ‘Admirals’ just look like ‘Assholes’ that don’t want to sit with everybody else.

Actually, worse than that… like cheap assholes fighting over the last piece of Gouda.

— Irish

PS… if you happen to fix things up, I’ll be sitting in comfort in Gate Lounge B6, with my Auntie Anne’s pretzel dog and a Cinnabon.

Jack fell down, and broke the economy

America is in trouble.  I’ve wanted to ignore the signs, but unfortunately, now the worst sign of all is being advertised on TV, in the subway, seemingly everywhere I look.

As China, India and Brazil continue to grow their economic power, America continues to make economic decisions that defy any logic.  Despite record unemployment and hunger – and with financial protests clogging Wall Street – America continues to find frivolous garbage to throw it’s money into.  But now, it has gone too far… someone has to call “shenanigans” on the egregious wastefulness.  So I want to call out the most offensive waste of money I have seen in many years.

Who the hell decided that it would be a good idea to spend a few million dollars financing the film “Jack & Jill”?  What type of hallucinogenic drug were they force-fed for weeks before deciding that was a good investment?  No-one in their right mind would ever want to see Adam Sandler play his own female twin – let alone give him money to do it.  Even Rob Schneider must have been questioning the sanity of this one.

This catastrophe highlights what is wrong with the American economy: no-one seems willing to tell anyone else that maybe they should NOT waste their money on dumb shit.  Where are the ‘level-headed voices of reason’ saying, “hey, Mr Sandler, perhaps instead you should invest that money in some local small businesses”?  Or “hey, Mariah, maybe your baby doesn’t need the diamond crusted iPods”? Or “hey, why don’t we go without the $34,000 dessert?“. And “hey, President Bush, maybe we should spend that war money on saving American industry”?

But worst of all, Mr Sandler is going to ask the cash-strapped middle-class to go out to the cinema so he can take their money to bail him out from his own stupidity.  Hell, why not?  It worked for Detroit and Wall St!

So I officially call “Shenanigans!”, and ask everyone in America who even thinks about going to watch this movie at cinemas, to instead donate your $12.50 ticket price to The Jack & Jill Foundation, who will use the money to groom today’s children into the leaders of tomorrow. Hell, donate the $15 you would spend on a small Coke and popcorn too, and make a real difference.

Hopefully  they’ll encourage the type of leader that would say, “sorry, Mr Sandler, I’m going to have to take that wig from you!”

— Irish

America <3s England: TL4E

America, you’re embarrassing yourself.  You kicked England to the curb years ago, remember – all this guffawing and floundering over her for the past month is just making you look like a douche!

In our lives we’ve all known that guy (or girl) that just can’t quite let go of an ex.  You know, they have a massive break-up but then keep crawling back, or start re-singing the praises of someone they were – only months ago – saying was the seed of Satan.  Well, America, for the past month you have sounded just like that weak-willed sap.

Ever since a bunch of Bean-town ‘revolutionaries’ tossed some crates of tea into Boston Harbor in 1773, you made it clear that you were done with England and her selfish attitude.  With all of her unfair ‘taxes without representation’ she was an expensive date, and with her ‘Coercive Acts’ totally cramping your style, that hoity-toity bitch had it coming.

Remember, you were all like, “I’m done with your crap!”, and held a couple of Continental Congresses, and had a war, and she sent in her troops to shut you down, but Paul Revere got on his horse and rode through the night and you prevailed and were so much better off for so long.

But, oh, how things have changed. And not for the better.  If Paul Revere were riding around shouting that the “English are coming” now, I can only imagine him saying it in a campy, excited schoolgirl kind of shriek.  Instead of bearing arms and lighting torches and readying their horses, I can only imagine America blushing and squealing with a hand on each cheek, and going into a tizzy about what to wear.

She tried to get you back in the sixties by sending those mop-haired lads from Liverpool to woo you, and you looked like you would buckle, but you came through it and showed her you didn’t need her by sending some of your posse to the moon.

But as America’s role as a world power has faded of late, and all those other sexy, youthful power countries have started paying less attention, ol’ England rolled out her master move: waiting until you were totally desperate and then showing up wearing the one outfit you could never resist: a Royal Wedding.

And you bought it hook, line & sinker!  You were showing TV specials about William and Kate on every channel possible, going back well into March.  You sent more “correspondents” to let you know every time Kate changed her undies, than you sent to cover the truly world changing events in North Africa and the Middle East. And you oh-so-desperately watched your mail for the invitation to her big party.

I really felt like your floundering hit rock bottom though when NYC taxis started sporting giant Union Jacks with the message “Congratulations William & Catherine”.  At the top of your capitalist strength, you never would have let that advertising space be wasted on such a frivolous and weak display of unrequited love.  China must have sent a hilarious text message to India when he saw this final act of capitulation.  You might as well have hired an Icelandic volcano to write “Take Me Back” in the sky over the whole country.

And even now that it’s the “morning after the night before”, you still seem giddy over the whole shindig.  CNN ran a very long segment just about the hats worn by the wedding guests.

Really dude, it’s like that song by The Streets says: “I know you want to vibe with this girl, but don’t mug yourself”.  I am sure you must have heard the song I’m talking about… it is by an English artist, after all.

— Irish

“Dave Dubbin”: the clight’n’irish lip dub challenge

Flash mobs are so 2006, Filipino prison dance routines are out of fashion and wedding parties dancing down the aisle were frankly never that cool anyway. Nowadays, they’ve all been shunted by the latest YouTube fad – LipDub videos. NBC’s The Office and Jessica Alba’s “Ibeatyou” crew have even got in on the act.  LipDub is definitely the buzz of the modern Interwebs. (Just type “lip dub” into YouTube if you don’t know what I mean.)

The fact that these videos obviously take a lot of work and deliver nothing more than the possibility of entertaining a few people that are bored enough to be searching YouTube at 3am… makes them exactly the type of pointless endeavour that Clight’n’Irish is all about.

But the musical choices of all the offices, universities and random other groups’ lip dubs out there show a severe lack of musical taste… Panic at the Disco, OutKast, BlackEyedPeas… are all not bad (on the other hand, Hempfield High School: Miley Cyrus? Bad!) but where are the songs that are really made for “lyp-syncing”. Like Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer? Or Huey Lewis & the News, “Hip to Be Square”?

And that’s when it struck me… the one song that would turn Lip Dub from “kitschy Internet fad” into true viral sensation (and not the kind that Paris Hilton is used to).

So I’m setting a C’n’I fan challenge: to assemble an international lip dub of Clight’n’Irish fans syncing to the distinctly Antipodean – and, let’s be honest, ‘MADE for lip syncing’ – tune, “Slice of Heaven” by kiwi legend Dave Dobbyn. You know the one: “baaaa da dum, boo-do baaaa da dum” (Got it yet? ….think Footrot Flats).

Bonus points for any reader who can strike bigger expressions or wear a louder shirt than Dave's original film clip effort.

As best as I can tell from watching a few lip dubs, there’s only a few rules:

• the camera tracks people walking backwards through various scenes and lip synching a line or two before someone else takes over;
• it should be one continuous camera take (okay ours is not gonna work that way – there’s the whole global co-ordination problem to work with!);
• some people are in outfits or doing actions that mimic the lyrics, but other people are just in random and unconnected outfits or situations;
• some people  have written signs of some lyrics, or the word on a t-shirt etc, rather than actually saying it.

So what we’re looking for is a about 6 to 10 C’n’I readers – from different parts of the world – to record about a 20-30 second segment of the song in your own style, within the lip dub rules above. You can make a whole production of it with your friends, or just be getting your karaoke on on your webcam wherever you normally read C’n’I!

We’re gonna add one extra rule to make this a uniquely Clight’n’Irish lip dub: you need to work in a light bulb and a shamrock (or a leprechaun, or something else uniquely Irish) into the visuals in your segment of the song. Whether it’s the real things, a picture of them, a tattoo of them, people dressed as them… Anyway you can think to include the two!

And for extra credit, we’ll send a C’n’I shirt or hoodie to anyone that manages to get a celebrity (at least an E class celeb!?!) to participate in your segment. The best celebrity wins!

Email us (clightnirish@gmail.com) by October 1 to let us know if you’re in… then I’ll slice (pun fully intended) up the song and allocate everyone a segment so you only have to make a short snippet and it won’t take you too much time. We’ll want video submissions by October 15, so I can edit and launch the video on the site in time for Halloween!

Let’s get Dave Dobbin the lip-dubbin’ respect he so greatly deserves!!

— Irish

Crack to Paris: “Quit ruining my rep, bitch!”

We don’t tend to get into the celebri-gossip on Clight’n’Irish, but when the famous narcotic Cocaine called us to offer an exclusive, we just had to take it.  While the press has been quick to seize on the latest Paris Hilton story, as usual, the real victim of this crime, Cocaine, goes forgotten.

It seems the once-chic nose candy is up-in-arms at the recent arrest of Paris Hilton for possession of itself. “That trampy slag is the last nose I’d ever want to go up,” he told us in an interview. “God only knows what types of STDs linger in those nostrils.”

Cocaine believes that Hilton staged the arrest simply to ride his coat-tails back into the pages of the Hollywood tabloids.  “This skanky, rich-bitch whore has been out of the news for so long, and now she tries to use MY fame to get back on the front page,” Cocaine continued. “She wouldn’t have even made the news on E! network if it was just booze again… drunk Paris stories are a dime a dozen… so she goes and gets herself arrested with a little bit of me in her handbag.”

Cocaine says this violates an agreement made with Hilton to keep away from him, because of the negative impact she was preciously having on other lucrative clientele.  When Hilton was first linked to the drug, Cocaine says sales dropped dramatically, with high profile athletes considering snorting blow to then be only one step removed from carrying a chihuahua dressed in a tutu.

“It’s not bad enough that I have the previously-constantly-wired financial industry collapse, and NFL players abandoning me for cough syrup,” he said, referring to the ‘Purple Drank’ craze. “Now I am once again slighted with a connection to this heinously diseased and broken excuse for a celebrity. I might as well let Nick Nolte back on the gear again.”

The case has sparked a legal turmoil in the State of California, with lawyers debating whether an inanimate narcotic drug can, in fact, file a restraining order against a person.  Experts expect this case to go to the Supreme Court before it is decided, but cite that Cocaine should be well represented, thanks to a “strong supporter base” amongst the legal fraternity.

— Irish

Why make going down hard?

Few things in life are simpler than operating an elevator.

When you want to go up, you push the little “up arrow”. Or at worst, the “U” button. And down is just as straightforward. “D” or “down arrow”.

Once inside, you then just find the number of the floor you need, hit one more button and you’re on your way. The elevator even opens the doors for you.

If only it was so simple to order a coffee at Starbucks. Yes, elevators are one of the simplest things you can ever encounter.

So imagine my surprise at the sign in Swissotel Chicago when I stayed recently, saying something like: “We are proud to have introduced a new elevator system to enhance your elevator experience at Swissotel. Please follow these instructions to use our new system”. Followed by five or six steps each illustrated in an accompanying diagram.

I am sorry, my Swiss friends, but if you have to use the phrase “please follow these instructions”, then you have not at all enhanced my elevator experience. I was fine when I did NOT need instructions.

Let’s take a closer look at how the Swissotel system worked. Instead of an up or down button, I have a touch screen display and keypad like a giant cell phone. The only thing missing is a place to insert my card, else it would practically be an ATM. Apparently I use the touchscreen for “word” floors (gymnasium, garage, business center) or I dial my room’s floor number on the keypad for “numbered” floors.

Then it tells me to watch th display to tell me which car to take. So I stare intently at the little screen. But then other people need to type… What if my car is displayed while they are typing and obstructing my view? Shit!

Then an elevator arrives. Inside the doors it has a little grid showing which floors it will stop. But none are my floor, floor 30. Even though it’s doing 16 then 34. But if I get in I have no buttons inside to make it stop at 30 on the way.

I must stop and await my orders to join the assigned car. So I wait. When it comes, and the elevator roulette board finally shows 30, it’s already full from the garage. Double shit!!

Back to step one, the keypad. Now I am at the back of the virtual queue, and because the system is SO efficient, it’s getting longer by the second.

At one stage, when about 40 peeps left our meeting to go up for the night, despite having 6 cars to work with, most were still in the lobby 10 minutes in. A bellhop tool some of us in a service elevator because it was just bloody easier.

So well done Swissotel… your yodeling countrymen may have optimized milk chocolate, the analog watch and the eponymous army knife, but – despite the contrary argument of your instructional sign – you just royally screwed my elevator experience.

— Irish

Like a Tiger: new Wii game let’s you live Tiger’s past 12 months

I am no gaming nerd, but when Amazon sent an email today to look out for the upcoming release of EA Sports Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, I will admit I got a little excited.

You see, typically the annual re-release of each EA game is barely different to the one before it, although it might update new team logos, player trades, or the new season’s uniforms.  But THIS YEAR’s edition of Tiger Woods promises so much more.

With Woods’s traumatic past 12 months, even non-golfers will enjoy this game – opening up a whole new target audience for EA, a wise business move.

The new features include:

• “Tiger on the Prowl” – a “first-person rooter” (sorry to the non-Antipodeans who won’t get that) that is loosely based on the early-90s-PC series, “Leisure Suit Larry”.  After dressing your Tiger avatar in your choice of “after hours” Nike apparel  -choose from “Pimped Out”, “Lots of Leather” or the very brazen “Tiger Skin” (naked apart from a swoosh-emblazoned man-thong) – you can cruise the Country Club between rounds, looking to, ahhh… get in a few extra holes (if you know what I mean*).

Finally an EA game where you really do want to "get in the game".

• There’s also some fun for those of you that like a good driving game: plug your Wii controller  into your Mario Kart steering wheel and race against time – and your 7-iron-wielding-soon-to-be-ex-wife – as you try to successfully reverse your Buick out of the garage and drive down the street without running off the road or sustaining any damage from a flying Titleist. It’s much harder than it seems, with even Tiger himself unable to make it off his own block at first attempt. Plug in a second controller and your lady-friend can even do the club-flinging (just make sure she fastens the wrist strap!)
• And finally, for those that like the “puzzle game” genre, there is the “Press Challenge” feature, which, in the style of Taboo, requires you to answer a series of thinly-veiled questions about your romance troubles and focus on only talking about your round of golf today, without saying potentially double-entendre words and phrases, like “play a round”, “couldn’t find the hole today”, “I hit a good strong wood on 14”, or any use of the word “swinging”.

And if you just love golf, you will love the new features during game play, like the scantily-clad models trying to distract you behind each putt, the “flashback” mode, which will momentarily flash up a shot of your fire-eyed bride wielding a flaming club just as you try to execute a bunker shot, and the clever commentary that manages to relate every mishit back to your no-good filandering ways.

All in all… 5 stars, EA.

— Irish

(* And you do!)