A shoppping trolley full of home-taped VHS videos

What else could we possibly add?

Grand designs: Smoochness

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the laziest of them all?

But CLEVER lazy.

A quick trip to my home town

Actually, I was in Orewa, New Zealand for two weeks, but rarely left my mother's abode.

Partly because I spent an unhealthy amount of time playing, cursing at and then repairing my ancient computer collection, but equally because Orewa is one whole giant Smooochest omninbus of the old, the used, the redundant and the just plain embrarassing. For sale.

But on the eve of my departure, I did take my camera out for just a wee glimpse of this quaint little cove of disappointment.


Ike's Emporium has been the home of smooch goods since forever ago. Even in the 80's it felt dated and brown and like a member of the family you'd hate a friend to encounter.

Just some of the things available for purchase at Ike's included....


Small vials of petroleum jelly found on a high shelf in a container you can't properly see into.


A basket of knobs, wooden.


The last container of a deodorant called "Be Yourself" even though the initials are truncated to "BU" for no readily explainable reason.


A plentiful amount of tiny racial soaps.


After Ike's I took a visit to the Orewa Hospice shop. Now, there are actually many fine second-hand stores in the general Hibiscus Coast region, but the worst stuff seems to end up in the Orewa establishments. The Hospice shop is staffed by many wonderful people, bright rays of sunshine on a slate-grey, chilly Coast day. However, I only wish they can find a few items of worth to stock their store with, so that people might want to buy them and then they can afford a new sign:


But it's not just the sign that's seen better days, take a look at some of the 'bargains'...


VHS tapes (mouldy).


Horrifying vinyl records.


A... a... er... whatever the hell that even is.


And a desk, which someone did buy, but apparently on the proviso that the store can find all of it.

And not to make myself appear to be anything other than my town's spawn, I took these photos with a camera purchased in 2002, and all the while holding a meat pie and a caramel slice (obtained from the ever-reliable Saigon Bakery).

Planet of the Apes with a synopsis for Sister Act 2.

Thanks to contributor Legon Takeru, we can all enjoy these humourous pirate DVDs, with bad cut and paste jobs, incorrect pictures and movie summaries, and general lack of attention.



More can be found here.

The lives of young NZers as told by goons

Some acquaintances of mine, Appleseed and Dunny D, are in the business of making tunes about the futility of New Zealanders, be they "celebrities" living above their means, or the average youth, desperately trying to live out a life they see from overseas media.

This one is called "The Bitchuation" - content may offend, so if you are mild-mannered, perhaps give this one a miss.

N to Z-list celebrities.

New Zealand is quite a small, and isolated country.

Probably too small and isolated for it to contain any "celebrities" in the common vernacular.

Oh sure, there are New Zealanders who are well-known overseas.

But local celebrities? Surely not.

Well, in one sense you could make the argument we don't. Despite how the media works.

I lead you to this, a new website of interest and mirth, Bleak New Zealand Celebrities

A display of people in NZ known by most of the population, for various reasons, but as you can see, they don't exactly "live in an elite circle" socially.

Take this example from one of our local cricket players, finding a rather mundane way to use the networking tool, Twitter :




Or this, from a popular young band:



Not exactly what dreams are made of.

Thanks to ex-pat Si Jae Hwan for for passing this on to us here at The Smoochest. I share it with you.

Insert your own "that kid looks a right wally" joke here

Not sure what the deal with the Spock hands is either.

Thanks to Riddimiz for this contribution.

Don't judge an old computer game by its cover

I mean really, you misspelled "mega" ?

(And before you ask, yes this is taken from an online auction. They'd have been better off taking everything out of the box and putting it in a plastic bag.)

Potential smooch purchase in aisle four

Now I'm a fan of the Green Bay Packers (an American Football team, in case you're wondering) and these folks are obviously excited about supporting the team as they head towards the Superbowl.

But look, right at this particular moment in time, you can pinpoint a smooch transaction about to go down.

Does that lady NEED this shirt?

A grey marl, creased t-shirt?

Clearly too big for her?

Tsk tsk.

Tiddy Bear

On the plus side, there are plenty of close ups of tiddys.
On the minus side, EVERYTHING ELSE.

p.s. The swivel design is PATENT PENDING, so don't go appropriating it!

Another smooch Kiwi

Thanks to Milk Bubbly for the find.

More of a handbrake than a parachute

WHAT IT IS: "ZAMBESI Silk Parachute Trousers"

DETAIL OF AUCTION:"Zambesi Silk Rami Pants.

Size 08.

High waisted gathered trousers by arguably New Zealand's best designer.

Colour is a dark muddy green/grey/brown.

I have had these for a couple of years but have worn them less than 5 times - they are a bit long for me. I find a Zambesi 8 is more like a 10 in trousers. They look best with very high boots . . . yeah baby.

Great condition. Off to a longer legged home!

See my other listings for more things your size . . . "

PRICE: There's a bidding frenzy on, going from $1 up into the tens of dollars.

QUESTIONS and ANSWERS:

Question: hi :-) the pants aren't the muddy brown and turquoise plaid kinda fabric from winter 08 are they? feltmountain (16 ) 3:40 pm, Fri 10 Dec

Answer: Hi, no they are a single all-over colour, a dark khaki shade. 4:09 pm, Fri 10 Dec

Ricky G gets in on the act

You'll be pleased to know that ersatz-"Chubby Funster" (not my words) Ricky Gervais has posted an item of smooch nature on his blog here: Week one hundred and forty nine December 2010

It's a cereal named "Good Friends". Really.

A piece of shrit

WHAT IT IS: "TIE DYE BLUE VELVET SHRIT DRESS"

DETAIL OF AUCTION: "very cool shirt dress.
Beautful electric blue tie dyed blue vlever. Never seen anything like it before, looks really good on, and everybody loves it!

Best fit: 8-10 for a dress look, 12 for a shirt
Condition: Good pre loved condition

Ask any questions :)"

PRICE: Start your bidding on this shrit/shirt/dress whatever it is at $8

COMMENT FROM SELLER: None

"Pre loved" is a winner.

Do seventeen poos in your pants

....and never notice in these comprehensively, ungainly awful pants.

We don't Thneed this

Contributor Ruban brings us a real peach here, a real piece of Human Smooch Ingenuity, where people manage to conceive and design something that the next person would have harmlessly laughed off as a nonsensical thought.


To quote from the engadget website "Uh, er, that's the Body-laptop Interface. The idea is to provide the user "privacy, warmth, and concentration" when using a laptop in public spaces. It's just a concept for now"

Well if it does become a reality, at least you won't need to go online to find out that the person across from you in the coffee shop is a complete fuckwit. Actually, maybe they could turn this into something beneficial - a punishment to the types of people who most moronic, antagonistic comments to Youtube videos.

One size fits all

Even when it doesn't.

Thanks to Corsi for this, Corsi is in fact the king of sourcing smooch caps and headwear. we will have a feature on these very soon.

Smooch skateboarding

Thanks to Cook'n for this one. I chortled.

The offending shirt

occurs at 0:32 into the video.

If you dare skip ahead to 6:42 you will see one of Steve Coogan's finest roles.

The Belittlest Petshop

Pets.

Pet animals.

Rather than see these as domesticated animals, who's purpose is to provide company and good feelings to humans, people ever so increasingly treat these animals as though they were actual humans.

But not just human acquaintances which they treat as equals with equal respect.

They seem to treat them as very feeble humans, such as a newborn baby or a quite elderly person.

I find this irksome.

However, I find the products sold by and to these sorts of pet owners, truly amusing.

See here:


Colour-coordinated pillows


There are several varieties of these dogmess devices on offer. A mere $150 US for the "system" and you can piss away another 65 buckaroonies for a replacement piece of fake grass for your pooch to poo on.


Oh, because one of my main fears at might is the condition of my pet's neck. Must remember to book my shitzu in for a shiatsu.


Steps OR the ramp. So versatile. You could just use your hands, but no, pay $200 dollars instead.


I mean, come on.


Ah this baptismal pet font is a particularly bold offender. Water's unpleasant taste? It's a cat, it drinks out of muddy puddles and licks its own bum. It is not a creature alarmed by unpleasant tastes.


"Turn the entrance to the corner and no one will know."Cats already find it humiliating going to the toilet, now you want to make it contort around a fake pot plant because you don't want people to ask about why the fake pot plant's pot has a door in it? How is this in any way a convenience?


Pets. They are like babies.


The middle product boasts it can rid pets of their "tear stains", I kid you not.


Handy if there's another blitzkrieg, your pet has its own camp stretcher. The pet will probably have better canned food than you though.


Pet Wheel-Away. PET WHEEL-AWAY. Are you laughing? Because I am.


That step-by-step pet potty training DVD must be obtained for comedic worth.