Sideswipe: Couch with a view

Taking time out. Photo / Supplied

Young and unencumbered by convention: Lisa went up Mt Eden on Sunday and saw these blokes enjoying lunch with a view while relaxing on their couch - they brought it in their van!

Well over rugby ...

Barbara Hines of Whangaparaoa wonders if anyone else, at first glance, read the weloverugby.com url in yesterday's front page about hotel prices for the World Cup as "well over rugby"? "About sums it up!" she quips.

Time for a name change

A reader writes: "After reading the article about the poor service provided by 'service' stations, a couple of us at the office decided these bastions of modern society may as well be renamed 'bread & milk stations', based on the comments made by the management! Continuing to call them service stations would be misleading indeed."

Sushi stunt earns short shrift

A California sushi restaurant has been offering free edamame (side of green beans) to customers if they say "Me love you long time" (a line originally uttered by a Vietnamese prostitute in Full Metal Jacket) to the waitstaff. Critics of the promotional exercise say it's in bad taste and plays into the cliché throughout Western popular culture of Vietnamese women as prostitutes. The stunt requires people to copy a racist caricature probably in a piss-taking accent and shows cultural ignorance - since when is Vietnam known for its sushi? (Source: Jezabel.com)

All in the blood

Matthew writes: "One of the photos from John Key's recent 'secret mission' to Afghanistan shows him wearing a flak jacket, attached to which is (presumably) his blood type: O+. Decisive and confident - I suppose so, but so are 38 per cent of the rest of population, according to the NZ Blood Service. And he is also agreeable, sociable, optimistic, vain and rude, according to Wikipedia on Japanese blood type/ personality type parallels, which seem to fit, in my opinion. Although I object to the profiling of people by blood type because of its racist origins (links to theories of Aryan and Japanese superiority), I am happy to live with being B+ (a wild, active, flamboyant, free-thinking doer), even if at times I am selfish and irresponsible."

And light sabres too?

Silent electric cars could soon be fitted with Star Wars-style sound effects to alert pedestrians. The European Commission plans to bring in rules that manufacturers must ensure a minimum volume of noise in place of the "warning" sound of an engine. But rather than simply replicate the brum, brum sound of an engine, some makers are keen to use sounds more akin to Star Wars. For instance, a spokesman for Lotus Engineering says the new Evora 414E Hybrid makes a sound similar to Han Solo's Millennium Falcon spacecraft. (Source: Daily Mail)