The Eight Ball [8Ball]

Dennis Storm - 69 bra's unclipped in 60 seconds - legend

Dennis Storm is a legend.  He holds the Guinness World Record for unhooking the most bra’s with one hand in a minute with an astonishing 69 bra unclips!!  That’s 1.15 bra’s PER SECOND!!!  Just think of the practical applications for this?  Okay there are not many but I have one!  If he was at a lingerie fashion show he could pretty much run past all of the models and unclip all of their bra’s without them even knowing he was there or that it happened.  He’d be like the phantom bra unclipper!

Actual street names removed in case someone actually executes this well thought out Burglary plan!

Everyone loves Google maps but not as much as your garden variety burglar.  In the past they had to engage in the risky practise of scoping out properties security and entry/exit points to plan their burglary operations.  Now they have a birds eye view of every property in their town.  They can perfectly plan their burglaries, available blind spots, whether they can 3 point turn their Burgle Van™ or whether they should use the Getaway Car™ option and burgle on foot and charge down a bank or some such with the loot.

Thanks Google!

I have not had the use of my Ring Finger for about 7 weeks now and most likely won’t have it for the next 6 at least due to breaking it YET AGAIN (this time the top knuckle one week after the bottom knuckle had finally healed).

During this time I have become acutely aware of how useful this finger is.  It’s probably the best finger to break out of all of them because it’s actually fairly useless.

Use #1:
Typing the letter W on your QWERTY keyboard.  I have had to train myself to use my middle finger to do this and have been doing so for so long now I imagine I won’t be able to convince my brain to use my ring finger to perform this function once it heals!

Use #2:
Holding a wedding ring.  While not physically essential, apparently you have to wear a wedding ring on this finger or your wife will waste you.

Use #3:
And this is THE MOST important and most taken for granted use.  You know when you need to hold the edge of your sleeve when you pull a jersey or jacket on so the sleeve doesn’t ride right up your arm?  THIS is the finger that does 90% of that work!  Without it, this task is virtually impossible!

Use #4:
Holding pills.  Another one I’ve really taken for granted.  When you put a pill in your left hand and put the lid back on the jar you do so by clutching the pill with your ring finger and pinky while you put the lid on with your middle, index and thumb.  If your ring finger is munted like mine the pill just falls out and lands on the floor

On the right of the upper joint you can see a big crack that goes the whole way through

It looks like most of the bruising is on the front knuckle (the one I originally broke) but you can see the top knuckle has swollen up a lot

Let’s put this into perspective.  Italy are football GIANTS for those of you that know absolutely nothing about football and are wondering what all the fuss is about.  Here are some quick easily digestable facts to put it all into perspective for you:

• Italy are ranked #5 in the world, NZ are ranked #78
• Each Italian player earns on average NZ$3,000,000 per year.  Each All Whites player earns on average NZ$70,000 per year
• Italy has 132 fully professional football clubs, NZ has 1.
• Italy has over 3500 professional football players, NZ has 25
• Shane Smeltz has a better goals per match ratio than all but 3 Italian players of all time.

Italy failing to beat NZ is down right embarrassing really.  GO THE ALL WHITES!

Figures were released in NZ today stating that NZ tax payers spent NZ$6.3 million on inmates wages last year, a figure that the general public is supposed to find quite startling considering many current prisoners victims are currently out of pocket because of that individual’s actions.

People are asking the question, “Why are we paying prisoners at all?! They should work for free!”.  And yes maybe they should but unfortunately even prison is driven by economic and market forces.  Sure there are some people in this world that would rather be working than being stuck inside all day bored out of their skulls but then there are a lot more who would rather do that than work for nothing!  This is New Zealand remember!  People are suggesting that we follow the same model as the UK and not give prisoners a wage during their first sentence 3rd.  Good luck with that in NZ!  Those inmates would simply find a reason NOT to work until they were able to get paid.

Remember we’re not talking a lot of money here.  Most jobs in the prison only pay about 5c an hour, the most trusted and longest hours ones can pay up to 40c an hour.  This is usually only JUST enough to buy a 50g pouch of tobacco for the week, something that an inmate with no friends of family would quite likely work very hard for to ensure they continue to be able to afford it.  Most of these jobs are limited so if the inmate doesn’t do it well there are plenty of guys lining up to take their place.  But on the same token, if this job wasn’t paid they’d sooner stay at their unit and play table tennis and chess all day instead.

So to address the 6.3 million we paid in their wages.  What this does not consider at all, is how vertically integrated our NZ prison system is and how by paying the inmates to perform all the duties of the prison to enable them to be almost entirely self sufficient, the prison has the luxury of spending almost no money at all outside the prison.  How many UK prisons have to buy IN the food to feed their prisoners?  How much does it cost to feed their prisoners in a year compared to their wage costs?  In NZ, about the only things you feed a prisoner that aren’t produced at one of the prisons are condiments such as butter and jam and dishes such as pasta, weet bix and porridge.  All the fruit, vegetables and meats are cultivated on site and processed by the inmates for a fraction of the cost of paying a commercial company to do so or by purchasing it wholesale.

Let’s face it, most NZ inmates are there because they broke the law because they’re too lazy and uneducated to make an honest living.  How are they going to reintegrate back into society eventually if our prisons refuse to pay them to learn a trade?  They’ll be bums in prison and when they get out, they’ll re-offend because they still haven’t learned anything to allow them to make a living without crime.