Wieners of the Quake Week

Hello everyone! 90% of people have been supportive and kind and tactful and generally awesome over the last couple of weeks but some haven't and I wanted to have a big vent and swear a lot. It is a pretty vitriolic post so if you don't feel like Righteous Anger perhaps go and read something else. This is good.

Here is a Special Edition of everyone's favourite semi-regular feature!


Wieners of the Week - Quake Edition

Team Harden Up - This is a small and dick-faced team, and most of their vitriol is directed at Wellingtonians who have been spooked by having a couple of earthquakes last week. Yes, Wellington's quakes have been small by Christchurch standards (as many quakes now are) and yes, I made a joke about it on Twitter ("Oi, Wellington! Hands off our earthquakes!") but telling justifiably scared people to harden up? Don't be such a blatant fuckstick. Same goes for people advocating a 'you're not affected, get over it' stance for the less affected citizens of Christchurch. Funnily enough, none of Team Harden Up are from Christchurch or Wellington. How unexpected. I would like to pick them all up and plonk them down in aftershock central and then, as they sprint for the doorframe at a rumble, laugh gaily and cry, "Harden up!" before hitting them with a brick. We have a lot of bricks lying about at the moment.


Ken Ring - I have been trying to write about this in a grown-up fashion for some time now but I just can't because I keep getting angry. If you want to read the bit where I get angry at Ken Ring I moved it right to the bottom of the post* so you can skip it if you'd rather. It's right under the amusingly shaped carrot. If he's right about the March 20 quake then it will be a lucky guess.


Bad Media - Great, now I have Bad Medicine stuck in my head.
For the last couple of weeks Christchurch has been stuffed with media people like a giant brick turkey. That metaphor really didn't go as well as I hoped, but my point here is that while 90% of the media have been sensitive and tactful in their coverage, every so often you'll open the paper or flick on the TV or radio and interrupt a reporter having a Big Media Wank over a pile of bricks, presumably in the hope of advancing their flagging career through gazing deep into the camera and grabbing a passing crying baby by the face or whatever. There's a limit to how patronising a page 3 byline allows you to be and the odd one or two of our journalists have leapt joyously beyond that limit. Wieners.

Second half of this one is ordinary people who have popped up in the media to grasp frantically at their 15 minutes of earthquake fame. There were some shockers on Close Up this week who were bitching about not having received an EQC payment from the September quakes. Yes, ok, EQC probably fucked up the paperwork somewhere and that would be frustrating, but taking advantage of the current topicality of quakenews to put EQC (who, incidentally, have far higher priorities right now than paying for repairs to inhabitable properties) under media pressure and therefore coast down the rubble into a larger payout than was originally expected? Way to go. You can always tell the quake hanger-onners because of their irrelevant comments and frightfully smug look. There was an earthquake! But more importantly, I'm on TV!

Little bit too much smug smirking to camera from media and citizens alike. It's a crisis, people, not your goddamn fifteen minutes.


LITERAL MOMENT: Brazil has now produced a wiener-shaped passionfruit. High five for reaching what is quite possibly the pinnacle in amusingly-shaped fruit.


*Fuck Ken Ring.

Fuck Ken Ring because contrary to popular belief (the belief of KR himself) he has not accurately, concisely, and specifically predicted previous earthquakes, and that is what earthquake predictions need to be. Vague suggestions of earthquakes, delicate prods at quakeness - saying "This week it is more likely than usual that there will be an earthquake in the South Island" - are not useful. Despite reports to the contrary (the reports are from Ken Ring) he didn't predict the most recent quake. I know this cause a friend of mine, who abhors the quakes, booked flights out of town for his next major prediction... and she booked them for March 20.

Also, fuck Ken Ring because even though I know he's spouting bollocks from his moonhole I also know that on March 20 I'm going to find it very difficult not to be slightly spooked - and I'm near the unspookable end of the scale. What about all the people who hate quakes? Oh, yeah, let's terrify them. Especially the ones in ruined homes, with family and limited funds, and no way of leaving the city. Unless you know 100% that there's going to be an earthquake - which your complete lack of previous accurate earthquake predictions contraindicates - then it's completely irresponsible to predict one. Shut the fuck up, Ken Ring.