Written by Joshua Drummond, Grant Burns, and Courtney Mellor
Does all the sudden sunlight confuse you? Do you emerge blinking from lectures, your eyes scalded by the nasty natural light? Does your pale skin crisp and darken when exposed to solar rays? Never fear! Learn how to deal with the expected – and unexpected – terrors of the Hot Months, with the ultimate Nexus Guide to Summer!
Many Hamilton students have the option of escaping to their home towns when summer rolls around. But if you’re one of those poor unfortunate souls who has to spend summer stuck in the Tron, we have some suggestions for you:
• Swim, but not in the Waikato River. Hamilton can get very hot. A membership at a swimming pool – the Uni has one – is a brilliant way to keep you and your friends cool. If this can’t be arranged, a simple children’s paddling pool in the yard will help the flatties wet down excess heat, and may also be used for jelly-wrestling. Swimming in the Waikato River will cause you to die, so don’t.
• Play a tonne of video games. One good way to stay cool is not go outside. Fortunately, video games prevent both boredom and sunburn. There are some brilliant games on the way: see the Phat Controller page for some and the Internets for many many more.
• Learn an instrument. A key way to impress the opposite sex is to be able to whip out a gee-tar (or even a jazz flute) while sitting around the campfire, and belting out a tune. Recommended learning: Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Split End and Crowded House, Sublime, NZ reggae and dub classics, Bob Dylan, Flight of the Conchords. Not recommended: Nickleback, James Blunt, anything you hear on The Edge, and Led Zeppelin (unless you have a really great voice.)
• Create a work of art. Hamilton, as has been pointed out, is a great big grey blank canvas. Come up with some witty street art, and spread the graffiti love. Note: this is probably illegal.
• Get a summer partner. If you’re single in the Hamilton summer… it sucks to be you. Rectify this immediately. Find someone local, single and semi-legal who is also stuck here – the 7th form of the local girl’s and boy’s high schools will suffice – and shack up with them. Once the summer is over, they can be married, or dumped with a minimum of inconvenience.
• Learn Italian. This is very easy. It is a well-kept secret that Italian is not an actual language. All that is required to speak it is a mastery of gesticulation and the ability to add the suffix –eeeya and -a on to every other word you say. All together now: flail wildly while saying “It’s-a meeeya, Mario! Lets-a play!” Now go to an Italian restaurant and place your order.
• Take up a religion. Religion’s big secret? They’re all the same! All they require is suspension of disbelief, and, sometimes, common sense, rather like watching a superhero movie – only the movie is your entire life. Luckily, you can switch religious belief on and off like a light switch. We recommend taking up Roman Catholicism and combining it with Italian, as described above.
• Start a band. It doesn’t matter whether you can actually play an instrument or not. Hamilton is always short of Exponents covers band, and because the Exponents were piss-poor excuses for musicians, their songs are very easy to play. Gather some mates, and pub fame and sing-alongs will soon be yours.
• Dig a hole. Hamilton is not, as some might uncharitably describe it, a hole, but it could certainly do with more of them. Holes provide valuable shade and dirt. Filled with water, they may be swum in, or used for mud-wrestling matches. Filled with sharp faeces-smeared stakes, they may be used as burglar and politician traps. Dig one deep enough, and you might find treasure or a lost kingdom. There are literally tens of uses for holes. Why not dig your own?
• Build an Ark. There is a 1-1 chance that a large meteor will hit the Earth at some point in the future. There is a roughly 3-1 chance that the meteor will strike water. Therefore, we may reason that all the people not building arks in the summer are stupid. Don’t fall into the common trap of not building arks. They mocked Noah, but now he’s universally revered as the Saviour of Earth and all the dinosaurs.
• Turn in a Sociology paper. It can be about absolutely anything and make as much sense as a Dan Brown plot, include any number of made-up words, and no one will care, or even notice. Indeed, it will probably fit right in to the existing sociological academic spectrum, and you’ll soon be flown out to conferences all over the world, lecturing on Feminist Cyborg Post-Marxist Family Guy Theory by way of Focaultian Discourse.
• Start and play an obscure sport. Nexus recommends a number of obscure sports that are yet to see a Waikato following. They are: Bear baiting, Brockian Ultra-Cricket, Calvinball, Quidditch, Dwarf-tossing, and Lacrosse. Quidditch is preferred by wizards, Lacrosse by P-addicts, and Brockian Ultra-Cricket by anyone from the fifth dimension or higher. Calvinball is the easiest sport to start, as there are not actually any rules.
• Eat out. This requires no explanation.
• Go to the beach and/or a summer festival. Possibly the most sensible explanation here. We’ll see you there.
The biggest and loudest music festival New Zealand has to offer is a very easy place to get lost in and confused by. The Big Day Out is held at Mount Smart Stadium on January 16th with Neil Young headlining and The Prodigy, Arctic Monkeys, The Datsuns and others supporting. And here’s some tips if you’re going: • Slip, slop, slap, and wrap – even bogans aren’t immune to sunburn and heatstroke.
• Stick together with your mates and always agree on a meeting place – you’ll be surprised how easy it is to get separated.
• Decide who you want to see and when they are playing so you can get a good view – there are over 4 artists playing at one time in different places at the BDO, so choose wisely.
• Make sure you wear a comfortable pair of shoes – trust me, jandals, or bare feet, are a bad choice for large crowds and mosh pits.
• Never eat, drink, snort, or inhale anything from someone you don’t know – BYODrugs.
• Always have a condom handy.
• Not a good idea to carry large amounts of cash.
• Make sure you have accommodation and transport sussed before you go – buses are much easy to use rather than bringing your car.
• Choose your toilet times carefully because they always have a long line – for guys I recommend you use the bushes if you only need to slash.
Uni and Her Ukelele
San Francisco’s neo-vintage, pop raconteur/chanteuse Uni and her Ukelele hit the NZ stage this November on her first tour to the South Pacific.
A singer/songwriter for over a decade now Uni (Heather Marie Ellison) competes for the limelight with her prima donna ukelele ‘Sally Luka’ in her new experiment.
Uni’s lo-fi folk-pop first album ‘My Favourite Letter is U’ dropped in 2006 with a great response and her EP ‘I’m On My Way’ introduced her rock side with hits like the title track ‘Twinkle Twinkle’.
“The overall effect is the musical and sartorial equivalent of sucking on a jawbreaker while drinking whisky straight from the bottle.” San Francisco Weekly
This performance would make a rather splendid night out with a group of girlies and a bottle of bubbly and, best of all, it’s free!
When: Thursday, 20 November
Time: 8pm
Where WEL Energy Trust Academy of Performing Arts, Hamilton
Style Christchurch – NZ Cup and Show Week
If you’re heading down to the South Island to find a replica of the man off the Speight’s ads, old or young, here’s an event you can head along to distract from the lack of males which is a prestigious event on the Christchurch calendar.
Style Christchurch is a 80’s glam themed fashion parade in a dramatic theatrical setting, the unique Designer Collection Show is being staged at the iconic 1000-seat Edwardian heritage building Isaac Theatre Royal.
The Designer Collection Show is the official fashion event of the New Zealand Cup and Show Week and the first major highlight of the week.
It will present Summer ’08 and Winter ’09 collections by 11 of NZ’s top designers including Nom*D, Huffer and Sakaguchi.
When: Thursday, 6 November
Time: 8pm
Where: Tamaki Heritage Village
Lindauer Melbourne Cup Day
Start off your summer holidays at this bubbly-inspired race day event at Ellerslie
Ellerslie will feature 1- on-course races, live simulcast coverage from Flemington, the Melbourne Cup Style Award for the best dressed male and female, Lindauer Powder Room (sniff sniff?) and a ‘birdcage bash’ after the last race.
Tickets can be purchased online www.elerslie.co.nz or over the phone (09) 522 3824
A good opportunity to get really boozed around swanky people and not feel bad about it (Thanks Lindauer)
When: Tuesday, 4 November
Time: 11.30amd – 8.30pm
Where: Auckland Racing Club, Auckland Central
Cost: Free!
Queen of the Whole Universe
Here we go; this one is for the fag hags or for those to consider themselves to be ladies
This very queer beauty pageant which is now in its fifth year and has donated oodles of money to charities like NZAF, Body Positive and Positive Woman and has become a ‘must see’ on the Auckland calendar.
The beauty pageant involves most of the 50 cast males dressing up as girls and representing countries or planets, all with one mission, to take home the coveted crown.
When: Saturday, 15 November
Time: 8pm -1045pm
Where: ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland Central
Cost: Tickets vary in price depending on where you sit $69 - $35
Even if you don’t consider yourself a fag hag this could be a very entertaining event to head along to, something a little zesty….
David Beckham and LA Galaxy
The Auckland Regional Council has confirmed David’s second visit to NZ with his LA Galaxy team at Mt Smart Stadium.
A bit of eye candy if you can’t find any boys at the beach… and it’s free!
When: Saturday, 6 December
Time: 7pm
Where: Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland Central
Girlfest 09
That’s right is a whole 3 day festival just for girls….
But it’s in Australia.
Still, if that sounds like a bit of you check out the website www.girlfest.org and find out for yourself what’s really going on across the ditch.
Merry summer!