Sideswipe

Ad agency Whybin TBWA & Tequila sent out this very clever brain-teasing Christmas card. Sitting in a bag of water are a carrot, two stones and a pipe. What is it? (answer at the end of Sideswipe)

A special police announcement especially for the silly season: Communications Centre national manager Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald hopes everyone has a happy and safe Christmas and New Year but would like to "remind people that the 111 emergency number is not to be used as just another plaything when they tire of their Christmas gifts". Other reminders include a handy checklist of appropriate times to call 111, such as when "a person or people is/are seriously injured or in danger" or "there is a major public inconvenience (e.g. a State Highway is blocked by fallen trees)". The message also provides examples of non-urgent calls, whereby 111 should not be called, such as:

"Can you put me through to lost property."

"I have had a power cut and I have no candles."

"Do you know a good stain remover."

These examples are NOT emergencies and can either be resolved without police involvement or by telephoning or visiting your nearest police station, the message asserts. (Omitted from the list "I'm stuck at Piha, I think I've been drugged and I don't feel safe".)

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Santa the pusher: What's the hottest item on primetime TV advertising in California a week before Christmas? Drugs, says a travelling Sideswipe reader. Pain relievers, diabetes, upset stomachs, throat infections, chronic dry eyes ... the spiel is relentless. Personal favourite is the drug you must have for Restless Leg Syndrome. "Spookily, at that moment, my own leg grew restless ... to boot in the television screen."

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Last year, in an attempt to reach the "kids", the White House revealed President Bush had downloaded My Sharona by the Knack on to his iPod. On Fox News this month the network's anchor Brit Hume interviewed George Bush about his iPod. Here's the Washington Post's transcript:

Bush: Beach Boys, Beatles, let's see, Alan Jackson, Alejandro, Alison Krauss, the Angels, the Archies, Aretha Franklin, the Beatles, Dan McLean. Remember him?

Hume: Don McLean.

Bush: I mean, Don McLean.

Hume: Does American Pie, right?

Bush: Great song.

Unidentified male: ... which ones do you play?

Bush: All of these. I put it on shuffle ... I've got the Shuffle, the, what is it called? The little.

Hume: The Shuffle. That is the name of one of the models.

Bush: Yes, the Shuffle.

Hume: Called the Shuffle.

Bush: Lightweight, and crank it on, and you shuffle the Shuffle.

Hume: So you - it plays ...

Bush: Put it in my pocket, got the ear things on.

Hume: So it plays them in a random order.

Bush: Yes.

Hume: So you don't know what you're going to get.

Bush: No.

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Mixed message: According to an NZPA story, police are gearing up for an increase in drunken trouble on Christmas Day and New Year's Day this year because they both fall on the weekend. "Police have told people to go easy on alcohol and drugs and take time out to calm down if things get out of control," says the report. Go easy on the drugs? Righto.

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Kristofer Kringle, an international toy distributor popularly known as Santa Claus, approved elf-penned legislation on Monday that grants greater benefits to often-neglected "special wants" children. "Old policies failed to reward the world's children for dreaming big, but no longer. Children with special or unusual wants shall see them all fulfilled on Christmas morning," Kringle said, in an announcement met with strong support from parents of the developmentally entitled. "My children were all born with special wants," said Glenda Froman, mother of three. "After years of whiny suffering, they'll finally have their wish: Xbox 360s in every room, matching ponies, and a rocket-powered bicycle they're allowed to fly inside the house." (A brilliant take on the season from satire website the Onion, www.theonion.com)

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Ways Geeks Celebrate Christmas

1. Printing out "One Year of Free Computer Service" certificates to give to the family.

2. Explaining to children how it would be physically impossible for Santa to deliver all the presents.

3. Devise a computer-controlled system to detect and prevent household members from trying to peek into their presents before Christmas.

4. Decorating the tree with SDRAM and CPUs burned out from your last overclocking experiment.

5. Programming the Christmas lights to flash out "I hate this holiday of unbridled consumerism" in binary.

6. Rewriting Christmas carols in Tolkien's elvish.

(Source: www.bbspot.com)

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Do they know it's Christmas? Blogger Tris McCall describes the song as "the most condescending piece of patrician propaganda in the history of limousine liberal art. Merit there was in the original Live Aid project, to be sure. But now it's 20 years later, Geldof and Midge Ure are M. I. A., Eritrea has officially broken away from Ethiopia, and we're still hearing this compendium of ridiculous generalisations about Africa in heavy rotation every Christmas season. Let's recap: Africa is a 'world of dread and fear', there's no water flowing, bells ringing there are the 'clanging chimes of doom', nothing ever grows in Africa (what?!?), there's no rain or rivers or, um, water flowing, and above all and most importantly, NO SNOW. Biologically laughable and factually preposterous, these misrepresentations still reinforce the nagging popular conception of Africa as a huge continental garbage can, populated by stone-age morons who have yet to grasp the rudiments of agriculture." (Source: www.trismccall.net)

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Christmas craziness: What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks?

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The name of a cancer-causing gene has been changed from "Pokemon" to Zbtb7 after Pokemon USA threatened legal action to keep scientists from referring to the gene by the game's name, according to an article in science journal Nature. In January's issue, geneticist Pier Paolo Pandolfi of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York describes the cancer-causing POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic gene, calling it Pokemon. The gene in question is part of the POK gene family that encodes proteins that turn off other genes. POK proteins are critical in embryonic development, cellular differentiation and oncogenesis, according to the National Cancer Institute. (Source: www.news.com)

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A reader would like to give a scrooge award to National Bank New Lynn. "While waiting in the lengthy queue I had plenty of time to look around and could not find one Xmas decoration in the place. They had a tree, but it was completely bare. Considering how much money they make from us they surely could come up with a few pretty baubles."

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And our final swipe at our esteemed police force: One Auckland constable spent nearly 30 minutes after pulling over one of two motorcyclists out for a Sunday jaunt along Auckland Quay St on the weekend writing up a ticket for the rider of a Harley-Davidson V-Rod with the personalised plate iROD. The officer alleged the lower case letter i should have been a capital. At the end of which he produced the ticket, citing inappropriate display of a registration plate, for $200.

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Answer to brainteaser: A melted snowman.