The Hori Project - One nights babysitting widened my education

One nights babysitting widened my education

One night I'm sitting down to enjoy a quiet evening at home while the missus and the mother in law go to the pictures. I read the evening paper right through, from the overseas news about shooting coots into space to the ads for used cars and how to cure dandruff. I'm just about to go to bed when a knock comes at the door.

It's the pakeha wahine from up the road.

“Hori” she says “I'm in a jam. We've promised to go to a party and our baby sitter has let us down. I wonder if you would be so kind as to sit in our place and look after little Cedric. Cedric is a dear little chap and will give you no trouble”

Well spare me days! I have had some jobs in my time from being on the business end of a popper drill to driving a bulldozer, but py korry, I haven't had a go at this babysitting racket.

“OK” I tell this lady, “I'll give it a go but I've never been in this kind of job before”

I go up to this place and this lady she says:” There you are Hori, There are some sandwiches and some reading matter. There's a bottle of beer in the fridge so help yourself”

And off this dame goes and leaves me to it.

I have a gink at the sandwiches and they measure exactly one and a quarter inches by three sixteenths in thickness – just enough to make you hungry.

Well, I tell myself I will read something, so I pick up a Ladies Home Journal dated 1948 and a book of plays some pakeha joker called Coward – a punk name for even a scribbler.

A few minutes later who should show up but little Cedric.

“Hello little man” I say “ I thought you had gone to bed”

“So what?” he says “The mum and dad are out, so I've come to keep you company”

This little joker is aged about five or six but has the look of a panelbeater or a used car salesman just about to make a kill.

“You're a Maori, ain't you” asks Cedric

“Yes, boy, I'm a Maori and proud of it” I tell him

Then this kid says, “Do a haka”

“Sorry son” I tell him, “I don't feel in the mood to do hakas”

“Well then, poke your tongue out” he orders.

To please the kid I put the tongue out.

“Shucks!” he says. “That's not a Maori tongue. It's white and looks like Dad's after he's been to the smoke concert”

Then this kid asks me about a hundred questions.

“Do you keep tadpoles?...Do you like flies with their wings off?...Why do goldfish open and shut their mouths all the time?...Why do women talk all the time?...Why does dad always say 'OK dear, you win...Why does mum say she has nothing to wear when she is always giving her clothes away to those collectors?”

“Well, son” I say, “it's about time you toddled off to bed”

“Right “ says Cedric “but you must tell me a story”

“Ok Cedric” I say “one story and then you go to bed.”

“Once upon a time,” I begin “there were three bears. The father bear, the mother bear and the baby bear - “

“Crikey,” this kid says “don't pull that old stuff on me! Tell me about the dame in the night club in Auckland who wore the plastic skin-tight. Mum and Dad know the story but they say they won't tell me about it till I get older”

Then the kid starts off again with more questions. “Do you know Mrs Smith up the road? Well, she had to get the dose of goo for hydatids. Mum says she is a lady dog and all dogs have to get this dose”

I just listen.

“What do you like for the big race on Saturday?” asks Cedric, changing the subject before I could work out about the lady dog.

“Well,” I tell him, “I think Firefly will be hard to beat”

“He won't start” says Cedric “Dad backed him last week and he told mum he was dead”

This kid seems to know plenty.

“Do you like night caps?” asks Cedric

“Never wear 'em” I tell him

“Struth, you don't wear 'em, you drink 'em. Dad has a cupboard full of them over there” he cracks back.

I tell you this boy knows plenty.

“Dad always says 'Well, well I think I'll have a night cap before going to bed' and he has a pop at all these drinks in the cupboard” Cedric goes on

I feel I could get along with Cedrics old man.

“I like the green one that tastes like peppermint” says Cedric “but perhaps you'd like the white one that Mum says is only water but is good for the kidneys”

“Well, my boy” I say at last “you'll not have any of this plonk, so go to bed or I'll slap your bottom”

“Ha ha” says Cedric “Dad is always saying he will do that, but he never does”

“Well, I'm not your dad and I mean what I say” I tell him.

He doesn't seem impressed, so I pick him up and put him across my knee and give him the plurry hard slaps.

Spare me days, this kid says as I put him to bed “I like you Hori. You're a good joker. Now you can tell me that story about the three bears”

I start to tell him this story and have just got to the part where Goldilocks is discovered when I look at this kid and see he is fast asleep.

When Cedrics Pop and Mum come home they ask if he gave any trouble

“No trouble” I tell them

“Did he get up?”

“Yes he did. Said he wanted a night cap”

“How did you get him to go back to bed?”

“That was easy. I just smacked his plurry bottom”

“Did you really do that to our Cedric?”

“Yes I really did” I tell them. “And someone should do the same to you for letting him drink that plonk. How do you expect him to grow to be the big man if your going to ruin his belly with that rubbish? How do you expect him to deal with the half-gallon jar when he grows up if his inside is eaten away with plurry night caps and things?”

That rocked 'em a bit and I let it sink in.

Finally I say “Cedric and I get on alright together. Send him to my place some time and I'll give some good Maori tucker like the crayfish, the pigs trotter and the pickle onion.

I guess that rocked 'em even more.

List of Lamentables

I'll put my hand up and say I'm phoning this one in.  It's been another draining week at work, I don't know what it is but as soon as I get there all my energy just disapeers and I spend half the shift trying not to fall asleep.

But enough about me.   Here is a small list of things that the world needs more of.


Lamentables:
General lack of flying monkeys
swash bucklers
sarastic talking pets
duels of honor
creatures of ancient magnificence
Tesla coils that spark and explode at  just the right time
life on the moon and/or Mars
Star Trek Transporters
Mad Scientists
Worthy Adversieries
Undercover Daleks
Sailors that say "Yo ho ho" and mean it
Pirate shirts
Possessed instruments
Frankenstien, Dracula and The wolfman threeway cagematches
Godzilla vs King Kong
Laser eyes
Literal Dragons and their slayers
Sarcasm and humour detectors
Zappy laser guns
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon!
That one ring
Pyrokinetics that work with the fire department
General ban on remaking movies badly
Vegetable Lamb
Giants and assorted Titans
Faster Than Light Drives
Golems
Chess matches with Death
The devils music

The Analysis of Rumplestilskin or How to make Child Traffiking pay!

Introduction:

Here's an interesting tale about the importance of telling the truth and the trouble that lies can get a person into which is a perfectly proper lesson for a young person to learn.

What a pity then that, once some digging is done, the actual lesson of this weeks story is totally different.

The Story:

Right then, it starts off simple.

A woman had a daughter which, rather predictably, makes her a mother. Now the girl is a top class spinner and to make sure that everybody knows it mother starts bragging that her daughter can spin anything, even straw into gold. (1)

Eventually word of the daughters “ability” reached the ear of the king who accepted them as gospel truth and he placed her in a room with a spinning wheel and a massive mound of straw, he promised dire consequences should the straw not be gold by the morning, (2)

She laments at the Olympic level, as daughters often do when they are in a situation such as this but suddenly a man appears and offers her a way out. All she has to do is promise him her first born child and he'll spin the straw into gold.

She agrees and come the morning the straw has been magically spun into gold (3) The king is pleased and the important thing is that nobody gets killed.

Over time the daughter marries and has a child (4) when the man makes his appearance and demands the child she, understandably, doesn't want to give her baby up (5). Being a sporting fellow the man gives her a chance to keep the child. He tells her that he will return each night for three nights and she must call him by his proper name, if she can do this then the baby remains hers but if she can't then the baby will go with him. (6)

The daughter goes through the baby name book but the mans name isn't in there. The next night she goes through the dictionary because People have some very peculiar names sometimes (7) but none of the words are even remotely close to the mans name

Now we cut to the woods because unbeknown to everyone else the daughter has sent her servants out to the wildest parts of the kingdom to find out the names of things that are better left unnamed (8)

One of the servants sees the man in front of a tiny house having dinner and singing a merry little song about the girl, the baby and the fact that nobody will ever be able to guess that his name is actually “Rumpelstiltskin” (9)

The servant hurries back and whispers the mans name in the daughters ear and on that final fateful night the man turns up and she goes through the pantomime of guessing (10)

When he warns her that this next guess would be her final one she drops the bomb on him and asks “Your name wouldn't be Rumpelstiltskin would it?”

He curses and stamps his feet, stamping so hard that he breaks a hole in the floor and sinks in it up to his middle.

Everybody cavorts with joyus abandon because the little man has been thwarted and they begin living happily ever after.

Questions:

• Exactly Why didn't the anybody tell the king that she couldn't spin straw into gold?
  You might have egg on your face but hey who doesn't look foolish at least once in their lives?
• Exactly how intelligent was the king?
  “Hello we live in a horrible neighborhood and the mice eat better than we do. Our debts are crippling but the one ray of sunshine in my life is that my daughter can spin straw into gold”
  “That sounds perfectly logical. Bring your daughter to the castle at once”
• why didn't she take the straw and that damned spinning wheel to the market and sell them for whatever she could get?
  If the intelligence of the king is anything to go by she probably could have turned it into gold that way.
• With the ownership of a baby on the line why is he out in the woods singing a song with his name in it?
  It could have been that he was arrogant enough to think that he had won but he could have been rehearsing for his part in the Disney movie of this story with the obligatory 80's power chords.
• When she agrees to the naming contest why does Rumpelstiltskin think that she'll keep her word this time?
  She could have held this thing over his head for years “Maybe I'll give you the baby if you fill the stable with gold. Maybe I'll give you the baby if you clean the house for me” the possibilities are endless (11 )
• How did Rumpelstiltskin get free?
  Presumably someone pulled him out of the floor because you don't want to be stepping around him all the time. (12)
• If she had bargained for her first born child and she really wanted children why didn't she simply adopt one?
  It would have solved the problem in the short term but the happy couple would have to be very careful from then on.

Conclusions:

It is fairly obvious why Mr Stiltskin never got the law involved in this affair. Although the daughter is obviously in breach of contract, to whit 1 room of gold for one baby, It would be impossible for him to get any sort of fair hearing in any courtroom because no judge would want to award in favor of an obvious child trafficker who would spirit the baby away never to be seen again. (13)

I do feel that he picked the wrong time to make his demands. In almost every cartoon or book that I've seen of this particular story he makes his appearance just as she has put the child to bed and from what I can see it's solely so that he can scare her when she turns around.

If he had thought about it he might have gotten better results if he had shown up at three in the morning after they've spent a really bad night with a baby that just won't go to sleep.

I'm not saying that he would have gotten the child there but his request would seem that much more attractive.

As a matter of fact I imagine that everyone involved in this case would have been willing to keep the matter out of the eyes of the law and after it was all over Rumpelstiltskin would have been out of pocket after having to pay for a new floor. (14)

What then is the actual lesson of this story? You know, the one that the kids are going to actually take away from it all?

• Always tell the truth?
  Unfortunately no. None of this would have happened if the mother had just admitted that her daughter couldn't really change straw into gold.
• If you bargain away your first born child for a room of gold then don't be surprised when it comes back to bite you in the bum.
  A little better.
• If you're the only person that knows the secret mystic words that would lose you the contest then keep your trap shut.
  Far too obvious
• If you make a deal that you don't like then you are perfectly justified in trying to weasel out of it any way that you can. (15)
  There we go.

Notes:

1. This is where the drama happens.
2. Presumably this event has made the papers and maybe onto Television so quite a bit of sponsorship money would have been at stake.
3. Then woven into a golden lariat for Wonder Woman.
4. The father barely rates a mention in all of this so sometimes she marries the prince and sometimes doesn't.
5. Which is breach of contract right there but because she's the goodie in all of this we're supposed to be on her side.
6. Even though the baby is already his but lets not stare directly into the plot holes.
7. I'm looking at you Tiger Lilly and you, Blanket Jackson.
8. Like Broccoli.
9. A major blunder here methinks. although it's a good bet that if she hadn't guessed his name correctly there would have been some kind of A-Team ready to go.
10. Having exhausted the baby name book and the dictionary she draws on the works of H P Lovecraft but good luck with the pronunciation of some of those things.
11. Endless to the point where he simply takes the baby and gives her 13 hours to find him, But that's another book entirely.
12. He'd be trying to bite everyone's ankles all the time as well
13. Except at the troll markets where he is on special at the local Deli.
14. But that's perfectly fine because he's the baddie.
15. It didn't work for Faust but maybe you'll get lucky.

Rugby Rugby Rugby!

The Rugby World Cup starts tonight and even if you're not a fan of  the game.  Anywhere you are in the world just from Buckingham Palace to Gilligans island, You must tune in to watch the opening of it for two reasons.

Reason 1:

The Mighty mighty All Blacks take on Tonga.  The Tongans asked for permission to respond to our Haka with one of their own and even though I've been sitting on a dance fighting joke for ages I'm just going to say that it's going to be O for Awesome!

Reason 2:

This one doesn't always happen but it's great when it does.
Directly after the kickoff there is going to be a moment when the opposing teams pretty boy manages to get underneath and catch the ball on the fly.  There is a stunned silence in the commentary box because this is the first time he's done something other than smile at the cameras and make sure his hair is on the right way round.

He'll look down at the ball and then wave to all his fans to thank them for coming to see him play

His fans are screaming at him to get moving down the field.

He'll wave to his mother who travelled so far on her bicycle to get here today

His mother is screaming and pointing at the coach who is shouting at him and generally using language that is most unsuitable for any gentleman.

Finally he looks down the field and the camera zooms in for an extreme close up so that we can all see his moment of realisation at the sight of an unstoppable wall of All Blacks bearing down on him.

He wisely snaps the ball away and the game truly begins

I should also like it noted that we are playing with a distinct handicap this time since we have left Whizzer Wal Footrot out of the team.  It's understandable of course, If we'd left him in then it would be a walkover for us and no fun for anyone else.

I picked up the latest Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Novel in the library.  We're up to 20 books in the series and there is no sign of the train slowing anytime soon.
On the one hand this is good because it presents werewolves and vampires as beings that are inheriently dangerous.  Unlike Twilight which shows them as little more than teenagers so whiny that other teenagers instinctivly avoid them. [1]

On the other hand the last few books haven't been that wonderful and I'm really starting to think about not bothering with the rest of them.
At the very start of it all she was a tough independant woman who had the ability to raise the dead.  Although she works as an animator privately many of the books center on her helping the police on their more bizarre cases and more often than not was the only voice of common sense in the room.  Admitedly most of her suggestions began with "I've got a shotgun" and it says something about the situations that she repeatedly found herself in that this was the path of common sense.

She was courted, rather unwillingly by Jean Claude a vampire of note but threw him over for Richard a dual classed werewolf/science teacher combination but threw him over for Jean Claude, willingly this time, then both of them at once, then nobody.
At the present time she has ended up with a stable of men, weres and vampires.  None of whom, it should be noted, sparkle [2]

What I find Irksome:

• The overall story just doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

She's pretty much living the dream by the time of the current novel.  She's got money, is surrounded by a small army of men and assorted creatures of the night and generally wants for nothing.
In short she is pretty much perfect and thats something that I don't like in a main character.  It's the flaws that make them interesting which is why villians always get songs with powerchords and catchy lyrics while heros are stuck with sappy love songs.  A bad temper is not a flaw is what I'm saying.

• "You mean that..."

All too often in these books people will talk about the matter at hand and the conversation will go something like this:
"That werewolf needs to be killed and I must hit with a silver bullet if it's going to stop him"
"You mean that the bullet needs to be silver in order to kill the werewolf?"
"Yes, if the bullet is not silver then all your going to do is make him angry"
"Wow you know it seems that in a world where werewolves and other monsters exist I would have known about this crucial weekness that the werewolves have.  I mean I don't even have to be any sort of monster hunter since it's modern day St Louis and I can get classic werewolf movies, almost all of which reveal this secret method of killing them, from the video store and buy silver ammunition from any gunshop"

The phrase "you mean that..." is repeated over and over again in these books and if it were only once or twice for some important information that the reader absolutly needs to know or the plot won't make any sense then I could forgive her but it pops up so much that you can pretty much guarentee that anytime any sort of new information is given then the reader will get another round of it.[3]

• Almost all the police resenting her.

She's the expert in things that go bump in the night and often gets called in to assist the police.  Some of them don't like the fact that she's a woman, while others are resentful of the fact that she gets in the papers.  Still others simply don't like that she's physically stronger than them.

All this is fine but over the last few books I've noticed the same scene between her and the police which goes along the lines of:
Supervising Officer calls her into his office or over to a quiet spot of the crime scene.
Asks her a few questions about her conclusions thus far, allowing us to sit through another series of "You mean that..." and occasionally pouncing on her contradicting guesswork.  Eventually he will bring up a case she worked on, usually from a previous book, and that detective/officer/person X "says something bad about you"

The something bad is usually that she's had to bend or break the rules, which she has, in order to get the job done and this she will sit through without admiting to anything or setting the record straight but then the whole sex question comes into play and this she will shoot down quickly.
Finally to end it all the officer will say something bad about her personally which she will respond to with a threat of official action which is justified given how the officer is more or less harassing her about her personal life.
But she's never had to follow through with these threats because thats enough to make the officer back down and establish to the readers that Anita is a tough woman trying to get the job done and this is just one more layer of bull that she has to wade through.

• She's just too powerful.

I'll allow that in the series quite a bit of time has passed and in that time she's gone from strength to strength.  Starting out, as I noted above, as an animator who raises the dead and helps the police out and finally ending up with her present day situation where she is:
Jean Claudes live in sweetie which gives her access to vampires as and when needed.  Although they allow for a certain level of bitchiness from the occasonal vamp who doesn't see why he has to take orders from a mere human [3]
Leader of the were leopards, who have gained a much stronger group because of it.
Very tight with the werewolves.  Thanks to Richard who has taken over the cities pack of werewolves
Queen of the weretigers.  This one is an ongoing plotline so I'm not 100% certain on all the details
One third of a triumvirate between Richard, Jean Claude and herself.  At first the only effect is their individual powers being boosted when they are together and more so when they are touching.
One third of a union between Asher (vamp) Nathanial (wereleopard) and herself (human) although this one was created accidentally unlike the first one
A Panwere.  Which means that she is carrying 4 different strains of lycanthropy but unable to fully shift yet.  So far she has been immune to lycanthropy but there's always a possibility that she will shift one day.
Succubus daywalking vampire.  I'm not joking.

I'm not begrudging her any of these abilities.  Each of them have come with a price that needs to be paid and each time she gets a shiny new power it's usally a great help in stopping the latest big bad to roll into town.  Unfortunetly this translates into

Big Bad arrives and starts making trouble.
Anita gains new powers/abilities  that assist her in stopping the Big Bad.
The reputation spreads and Big Bad +1 arrives to make trouble in new and interesting ways.

It's a never ending cycle but, if she doesn't do whats necessary, then people start dying and say what you will about Anita she's never been a fan of people dying.  But at the same time I think that the earlier books were better simply because she didn't have the semiphenominal nearly cosmic power that she presently does.

And just before anyone reading this starts thinking that this is just me moaning about things I don't like here's the flip side of the coin about he series.

• She isn't all knowing.

Yes she's up with the play in regards to most things and is an expert in her own field as well as being someone that the monsters will go to before they'd go to the police themselves but she admits to not having all the answers and doesn't suddenly recall that the current Big Bad can be defeated with a strange combination of cat hair and Grateful Dead Albums [5] due to reading it in a newspaper three tuesdays ago.

• She's kept her humanity.

Even with all the powers and abilities that she has gained and/or deals with on a daily basis she has never lost her humanity.  This translates into a very strong character who very rarely backs down from things that could eat her head with a nice white wine. This is especially true when she has to play vampire politics, which she hates.

• The sex.

Due to the fact that Jean Claude is an Incubus and she is a Succubus means that there are lots of steamy bits in these tales.  Also adding to this the amount of times that she is required to feed the ardeaur, which is less of a double entendre and more of a side effect of the triumvate mentioned above, makes for alot more steam heat.  But Laurell K Hamilton puts alot of sex into her books and writes it well.

• The wereleopards.

She managed to inherit them because she killed their leader who was trying to kill her at the time and is fair enough.  The previous leader had made a right mess of the group and they were one of the lowest groups in the city.  But she took them under her wing and they benifited in this becomming much stronger and healthier all round.  Except for Elizabeth who activly betrayed them to the vampire council and paid the ultimate price. [6]

• Her humor in inappropriate situations.

Like Jim Butchers Harry Dresdon novels.  Anita he will often attempt to make a joke at the worst possible momment.  If she's hanging around vampires they generally won't get it since she'll make a pop culture reference and the vampires have never really been the kind to stay at home watching the telly of an evening.  There is a small runnig gag of the series is that one of the bad guys will get the joke when nobody else will.

• The Weres in general.

Alot of tension is generated by the fact that, historically, the different groups of weres didn't work together.  Each belonged to their own seperate community and while they might say "good morning" to one another they wouldn't band together in their time of need.  But after the abduction of several werecreatures they were able to put it all aside and ask for help.
The upside of this is that the Furry Coalition was created and although it hasn't figured largely in the novels as yet may do so in the future.
The downside of this is that she was infected with the panwere virus by the latest BigBad to hit town.

• The research

From the specs on the firearms to the individual characteristics of the wee beasties.  The research has obviously been done and that aspect really shines through since you do feel that "Yes, this is something that a person like her would know" rather than other books where the vital piece of information is something so obscure that even trekkies would scratch their heads and wonder at the level of geekiness required to know something like that.[7]

Notes:

1. It's a post about vampires.  Of course I'm going to do Twilight jokes.
2. Except for some of the strippers and then only occasionally
3. I can think of no point to this except using it to win obscure pub trivia contests
4. Cue the "You mean that..." for the next three pages
5.  (It's the way I'd want to go) 
6. But nobody minded because Elizabeth was always a nasty piece of work.
7. True story, I know someone who once proudly pointed out that the ships being displayed on Voyagers viewscreens were actually displaying the Enterprise.

Real life is stranger than fiction.

Here's a couple of things that happened this week:

Thing 1:
I broke up a fight in the carpark at work last week. A few punches thrown but nothing really major. Was three pages into the incident report before realizing that nobody was wielding claymores.

Yesterday I was talking about it with one of the plant workers and he insisted that one of the women got knocked out. I told him what actually happened and he wouldn't believe that I was actually there, I'm only the security guard for the plant so of course I'm going to be where the fight is.

Especially considering that it's right outside my office! Some people Oy!




Thing 2:
Staying with work for a moment, a sheep managed to escape the pens and made a break for freedom but was caught by the boys in the stockyard.  My entry in the log stated "Swiftly Sidestepping Stockyard Staff Foil Fleecy Felons Flight"

Thing 3:
Finally away from work and back at training.  NAAMA is coming up at the end of October and this promises to be much fun.  This is a major reenactment camp spread out over four days with fighting, drinking, jousting, carousing, more drinking, feasting and general revelry [1]. I'm slowly getting my stuff together in the way of garb, armor and the like.
I won't be fighting since I haven't been graded yet but instead will stand ready and vigilant to be the camp gofer  [2]

I had a 2 major wins recently with Trademe. [3]   The first was a brand new tent that went for $40.00 and the second was a blackberry phone that I scored for $80.00
Normally I'm not a fan of online auctions, preferring to examine something closely before parting with the folding green but this time I'm trusting to luck.

Now I told you that story so that I could tell you this one.

Yesterday I was walking around town and spotted a second hand store with some knives of varying quality in the window. I went inside and asked about them which led to the following conversation:




"Can I look at the knives in the window?"
"No prob.  I got heaps out the back, what do you need it for?"
"I'm going to be going camping in a few weeks and I just need"
"Say no more!" Steve reached underneath the counter and brought forth a machete so big Conan the Barbarian would say "Oh come on that's a bit much"
"It's a little big" I said, feeling proud that Conan and I were in agreement "I mean I'm not going to be hacking my way through the jungle or anything"

The temperature dropped slightly and I gave that nervous laugh that one gives in the hopes of covering up the faux pas [4]
 "All right" he reluctantly put the machete to one side "what about this then?"
He produced a heavy knife almost identical to the one Rambo had used to hold off every single communist in the history of ever. [5]
"No, that's no good either.  I just want a little blade, for cutting ropes and things"
"No problem, no problem" he said although his tone indicated that there was a problem and he gazed at my wallet with the kind of undisguised longing that usually requires a lengthy courtship [6]  "I got this one"

From out of the back of the shop he produced a thing that might have been a knife in the same way that chickens might once have ruled the earth as dinosaurs.  I could describe every gadget that this monster had but it would be quicker to say that the only things that weren't included were a telescopic sight and targeted nuclear response capability.
"This is what you want yes?"
"No" I told him flatly "why can't I have one of the ones in the window?"
"Those aren't for sale!  That's my sons collection.  Display only!"

I left in a huff and he went back to admiring his machete and wondering why his till never magically filled with money.  Thanks to the magic of the Interweb I found an auction for a simple little knife and made a bid.  Result?  I now own a simple little knife

Take that Steve, if that is indeed your real name.

Notes:

1. There might be some drinking going on as well I'm not certain.
2. "well gee my uncle who owns the theater said it would be all right"
3. New Zealand version of Ebay
4. But it only serves to bring even more attention to it.
5. The fourth Rambo movie he made.  I personally feel that he should have left Rambo: First Blood as a stand alone movie but thats a post for another time.
6. and at least one cunning/wacky plan for getting around the chaperons