What an embarrassing day to be a New Zealander.

Don't you dare kill Louisa after that whole "I'm getting out / two days until retirement / here's a picture of my girl back home" speech in the first episode Slow Horses season 5, I'm rooting for those two awkward sad messed-up idiots who will never ever get it together

His name is Steven and he's a LOOSE CANNON

<softest of whispers> I dunno guys the Mandalorian trailer looks fun to me

"What kind of Mickey Mouse outfit is this?"

Sorry, but not sure I see any media "agenda" in NZ coverage around Kirk. Yes many NZers didn't know him, but his death has been a catalyst for big things to happen in the US (we'd not heard of George Floyd either, but events around his death were well covered). Looks to me like ... the news?

Technologically advance a band: Stickpeople

I like how this makes it sound a bit like the stoat was taking part in a sponsored charity fundraiser.

A good one to think about. The Simpsons Barry Community Arrested Development Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Bojack Horseman Blackadder The Mighty Boosh 30 Rock Scrubs (Some recency bias maybe but hey, comedy is a zeitgeisty art form.) ...damn, also Archer, Brookyn 9-9, Rick & Morty, Party Down...

The thing about Bird of the Year is, we have a lot of excellent birbs, and undoubtedly some of the less-apprciated underdogs (underbirds?) could use every vote I could give them, but I am afraid I find it simply impossible not to vote for the kea.

What a time to be alive. www.pcgamesn.com/indiana-jone...

It me. But yeah, we're out the other side of that model. Their only remaining principle is the supreme importance of being in power.

Report: You To Be Fired For Reading This Headline About Charlie Kirk

I know pointing this out has no effect, but the last week or so really has seen the US right take their already amazing achievements in the field of hypocrisy to a whole new level. The very bleeding edge of hypocrisy. Feats of hypocrisy our hypocrite ancestors could not have imagined possible.

Me: why don't I have time for things any more? Also me: <is simultaneously watching 11 television shows>

thespinoff.co.nz/media/13-09-... I do not disagree that there may be a broader case to answer, but it may also be worth drawing attention to the most recent 4 covers of the ODT weekly sports pullout.

Yeah, I hate it when this happens

So: 1) Israel has bombed Qatar 2) Nepal is having a violent uprising 3) The Polish airforce is apparently busy shooting down Russian drones in its airspace Shaping up as another great day for us here at The World

More accurate Simpsons soothsaying (1997)

As a father who has been through a break-up, my take is: 1) Even the speculative thought (let alone prospect) you could lose access to your kids is hugely distressing 2) Anyone who thinks kidnapping said kids is in anyway an acceptable or appropriate response to such feelings can get in the sea

Movie idea: an ordinary Londoner must go on the run from assassins after they accidentally stumble across the identity of Banksy.

Don't say sorry to me - say sorry to his KIDS #NewZealandValues

Degree to which man's first post-working-week beer is making him go "...ahhhhh!" possibly cause for concern, say doctors

Nicola Willis: But think of the extra work for administrators! www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

Tom Clancy's Holes

Let me tell you folks, if you live your life in a city without owning a car at all, the strength of the conviction with which people believe it is essentially impossible to go to a shop without being able to park almost directly outside it will never cease to be utterly bizarre to you.

I learned about this this morning from our upcoming Arts pages of all things, and crikey, what a fascinating (and obviously terrible) thing in several aspects. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_...

Rock Looked Way Cooler Wet

The media is biased! That thing they said isn't even true! It's obvious when you, like me, are a 100% objective reader who knows literally everything.

Yes the internet tends towards Default American, but dunno that those in the US get how odd it is for the rest of us that occasionally our timelines are entirely seized by something like you all apparently having a national meltdown over <googles> the logo of a restaurant none of us have heard of.

Things you can monger: 1) War 2) Fear 3) Hate 4) Rumour 5) Cheese

Assume I'm not the only NZ renter steadily accruing multiple copies of the bits of the furniture kit that let you anchor it to walls, since drilling a hole is anathema to property managers. I wonder how many potentially saved lives we collectively have in kitchen drawers in our quake-prone nation.

Best of luck to media colleagues. Other industrial negotiations are higher profile (understandable), but worsening conditions and increases below the rate of inflation have quietly been pretty standard in our industry for a while. Nice to see a stand. www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

Not to add to the discourse, but… It’s ‘toe the line,’ not ‘tow the line.’ It’s ‘free rein,’ and not ‘free reign.’ It’s ‘eke out,’ not ‘eek out.’ It’s ‘sleight of hand,’ not ‘slight of hand.’ It's ‘Anchors aweigh,’ and not ‘Anchor's away!’

Having not watched any of the Netflix stuff, Daredevil: Born Again was a decent watch, but it had a real "where's Spider-Man?!" * problem. Hard to not keep thinking thoughts "well Fisk is in real trouble when Thor shows up". * Am aware the answer may be "in space!" or something

lol @stuff.co.nz using ChatGPT for writing their articles but forgetting to remove the "?utm_source=chatgpt.com" from the generated links 🙄

Will assume hopefully that we are now on a countdown to the probably delightful moment that will occur when someone brings this to the attention of Jack Black.

HOT TOWN SUMMER IN THE CITY

Deb is not only 100% right, but really put this post into the stratosphere for me with Bane of Arthropods.

By my count this is at least the third time the current government has successfully used a kerfuffle about parliamentary procedure to utterly derail discission on the much more important issue that led to the kerfuffle in the first place.

1) Ew 2) The missing definite article here had me wondering what on earth people had been up to in the Coromandel.

Important statement of concerns about the embrace of genAI by universities (mine? definitely! yours?) by Comms and Media scholars in Aotearoa NZ auckland.scoop.co.nz/2025/08/stat...

My partner and I have been watching Daredevil: Born Again, and *last night* we watched an ep where Fisk, a hulking criminal who is now an elected leader, decides he is going to personally take over the police, and I said "this is a bit topical, sadly" but in honesty I was thinking of ICE, so, uh

I understand (and have indulged in) the urge to dunk on the latest stupid/terrible gen AI thing, but starting to wonder if it just spreads the desperate effort to present it as ubiquitous and inevitable, a la amplifying RW idiots. Maybe we just let some of these things quietly, inevitably fall over?

I missed this a couple of months ago, but it's a good, succinct summary of how the ubiquitous "the bottom has dropped out of everything" feeling of late has manifested in the games industry in particular. aftermath.site/summer-game-...

The world: Well we're not gonna find a worse democratic leader than Trump Netanyahu: Hold my beer

The first hit is free. www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/08/...

Blue sky bubble etc, but having looked into it, feeling a bit stuck by the fact that every "ethical" Kiwisaver fund seems to be very invested in Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and NVidia. (Apart from anything else it would be nice to avoid taking the bath on these that it seems we're probably headed for.)

Sometimes ads on screening services remind me Travolta is out there still making films no-one's heard of, and I have to stop for a sec to wonder what it's like to become an in-demand movie star only to vanish, almost randomly become an in-demand movie star anew, and then fade away *all over again*.