Seriously just stick to eBay

The Bellend of the Month for November 2015 is Trademe. My account there was closed on the 18th for no apparent reason. At time of writing, the account is still shut out with no explanation whatsoever as to the delay, and the process has been held up simply because they're more obsessed with proper procedure than doing the right thing, which would be to admit they made a mistake in not sending me an email about the closure the second it happened and to reopen my account. They are officially worse than ISIS, and should not be doing that sort of thing to other people's accounts.

A goal apiece for red and fox

Manchester United played out a 1-1 draw with Leicester City at the King Power Stadium in a hard-fought match, as Bastian Schweinsteiger netted his first goal for the club. Jamie Vardy was undoubtedly the story of the day as he scored for the 11th game in succession – a Barclays Premier League record – to put the Foxes in front on 24 minutes, before Schweinsteiger levelled proceedings on the stroke of half-time. A draw is better than losing but this is two points gone begging. Loser van Gaal has one job as manager - crush nineteen other teams and bring back the Premiership. Is it really that hard?

Backwards compatibility for the PS4 at long last

Veteran gamers are rejoicing at the news Sony is working on a way to play PlayStation 2 games on PlayStation 4 consoles. "We are working on utilising PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation. We have nothing further to comment at this point in time," Sony said. An emulator recreates the digital environment in which a program is read, in this case a PlayStation 4 console will render a PS2 game playable on the PS4. The blunt and long-called for announcement from Sony has inspired more questions than answers. How will the emulator go live? Will it be only available on a new released PlayStation 4? Will gamers need to download PlayStation 2 games from the online PlayStation Store, or will they be able to play original disks on their PS4? And will the games be played in HD or in their original quality? Further details about the emulator are sketchy, but the idea of having access to the entire PlayStation 2 back catalogue will make any gamer's eyes water. But what about the PS1 and PS3? Will their games be coming to the PS4 anytime soon? And will this be offered for PS1-4 games on the PlayStation 5 if and when that one is launched?

There's brown gold in them there stools

A group of researchers just put a price-tag on poo. Extracting biogas from the world's annual human waste output could be worth the equivalent of up to $14.3 billion (US$9.5b) in natural gas, according to a report released by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health. Which means we could all be sitting on gold mines. "We recycle the nutrients in human waste effectively via agriculture in many places, yet the potential energy value of human waste has been given much less attention to date," co-author Chris Metcalfe of Trent University said in a release. "Challenges are many but clearly there is a compelling, multi-dimensional financial case to be made for deriving energy from waste." Such fuel can come in the form of methane-rich biogas, generated by the bacterial breakdown of faeces in an oxygen-free environment. The residue could then be dried and charred into sludge, an energy source akin to coal or charcoal, the authors write. The report authors calculated the low and high assumptions for how much biogas and sludge can be made from the average amount of waste humans produce, and then the monetary value of the fuel sources' energy equivalents. The result: turning people's poo into fuel could be worth between US$1.6 billion to US$9.5 billion. The higher figure equals roughly the fuel needed to power households in Indonesia, Brazil, and Ethiopia. So just do it already and we'll have no need for polluting fossil fuels.

Gigatown becomes Refugeetown too

Dunedin has been picked as the new settlement location for refugees flocking to New Zealand shores. A Government assessment - carried out by the New Zealand Refugee Resettlement Strategy Senior Officials' Group - chose the South Island city as a new settlement location based on its employment, housing, local community, and support services. An extra settlement location was needed following the Government's decision to allow 750 Syrian refugees in New Zealand before the end of 2018 in response to the ongoing conflict in Syria, Immigration New Zealand general manager Steve McGill said. There are currently five spots in New Zealand where refugees are settled after a six-week reception programme: Auckland, Waikato, Manawatu, Wellington, and Nelson. Dunedin was considered alongside New Plymouth, Hastings and Napier, Invercargill, and Tauranga. "Dunedin has a strong set of services and is a well-connected city where a number of government agencies have a presence," Mr McGill said. Let's just hope the new arrivals can stand bagpipes.

Climate change - is the obscene profit worth the price?

A mock weather report looking 35 years into the future has painted a stark picture of a wintry New Zealand, ravaged by extreme conditions including both drought and flooding. Just days before world leaders meet in Paris to discuss a global climate change deal, a futuristic fake MetService forecast for August 14, 2050 has appeared on social media. TV meteorologist Chester Lampkin shows that winter temperatures that day ranging from 12C to 20C - up to 3C warmer than normal for a winter's day. It shows showers and thunderstorms across Northland, Auckland, and Hamilton, with 70-90mm daily rainfall causing flooding and closures to an "underwater" Northern Motorway, North-Western Motorway, and Tamaki Drive. Coastal flood warnings are in effect for Auckland's coastline. Most of Canterbury, meanwhile, is parched and under a fire risk. The simulated footage showed the Hurunui District in North Canterbury to be at high fire risk. At tourist hot-spot of Hanmer Springs "300-500 firefighters" are fighting a massive wildfire. "Just a year ago, we were talking about extreme rains for this part of New Zealand, and now we're talking about drought and fire. We keep going back and forth in the extremes of the weather," said the meteorologist in the 4.55 minute clip posted on the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) YouTube channel. The video ends with a message from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud who say climate change will "increasingly affect our day-to-day weather". "But we don't have to wait until 2050 to witness its impact," he says. "Already today, many parts of the world are experiencing more intense rainfall, floods, storms, heatwaves, droughts ... we have to minimise these negative impacts and the best way to do that is to rapidly and significantly reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases." There are many ways to help - swap out the gas-guzzler for a hybrid, plant a few trees to help turn some of that excess CO2 into oxygen, stop spraying that awful "shower in a can", recycle, basically anything that will repair that hole in the ozone layer.

THE BIG REVIEW: Caitlyn Jenner

Where every cellphone gets a bargain

The Warehouse has launched it's very first prepay mobile phone plan in stores across New Zealand today. Warehouse Mobile, which has been established as a virtual network operator and partnered with 2degress for technical support, promises customers the lowest standard of prepay rates, flexible plans, and a cheaper prepay option. The plan offers a minimum top up of $10 every 31 days, 250 minutes of calling time, 6c per MB of data usage, 4c per minute talk time to any network, and 2c texts. Warehouse Mobile's number range is 0284 and other numbers can be ported from different providers. I'm staying with Skinny until Warehouse Mobile can beat Skinny's $46 combo - that gets you 2.5 GB rollover data per month, and unlimited calls and texts to anyone in New Zealand or Australia.

What the Watford?

Despite a raft of injuries, picked up before and during the visit to Watford, Manchester United earned a dramatic 2-1 victory at Vicarage Road with Memphis Depay scoring on his return to the side and Bastian Schweinsteiger playing his part in an injury-time winner. In a game dominated by Louis van Gaal’s men in the first half and controlled by the Hornets in the second, Memphis's fine first-half goal and an own goal from Troy Deeney, who had equalised for Watford, secured a vital win and, at least temporarily, took United top of the table. David De Gea’s part in the win cannot be overlooked either after a string of top saves from the Spanish stopper. The Reds better keep it up if they want the silverware.

Brace yourselves, New Zealand - 2012 is coming

Central and local Government must start planning now for a potentially catastrophic sea level rise, opposition parties say. They're reacting to a report by Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright which warns thousands of homes may have to be abandoned and infrastructure worth billions could be lost. The report says it's uncertain how much sea levels will rise, and how quickly, but it's happening. "We're talking about people's homes, which are also their financial security," said Labour's climate change spokeswoman Megan Woods. "The fact is that over 9000 New Zealand homes lie less than 50 centimetres above the spring high tide line." The report says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change has projected that the sea level around New Zealand will rise about 30cm in the next 50 years, and continue to rise for centuries after that. Seriously, guys, cut your emissions.

And that's why you should get a Mac

Not. Fair. At. All.

Happy 30th, Calvin and Hobbes

THE BIG REVIEW: Stealing exam papers

A woman charged with stealing exam papers from the University of Otago has had her court appearance adjourned to next month. The 23-year-old is charged with burglary and has name suppression. She was due to appear in Dunedin District Court this morning, but was granted a registrar's adjournment to December 1. The 98 exam scripts were stolen from the Clocktower Building on November 7. The scripts had been completed by students taking at least six papers, mostly on the day of the burglary. The scripts, stolen from a secure area of the building which contains the registry office, had been recovered but were in an unusable state, so some students had to resit their exams. That is just not fair. If I were in charge, I'd give a 100% mark on all the affected scripts. And if you're one of those students who got a resit, please use this opportunity to do more study, especially if you don't think you did well enough to pass the first time.

Medicine sure has changed

Apologies for the delay. The mobile app wouldn't publish it. The post didn't go up until 24 hours after the stated time.

Clarkson to be shifted down a gear in court

Jeremy Clarkson is being sued for racial discrimination by the man he punched. Clarkson was sacked by the BBC earlier this year after getting into an argument over food with Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon. During the incident - which saw Clarkson rant at Tymon for 20 minutes - Clarkson punched his producer and called him "lazy" and "Irish". Now Tymon is suing Clarkson and the BBC for racial discrimination over the incident, and I can safely say that it bloody well serves him right. He shouldn't have done that.

#jesuisparis

The night was chilly but thick with excitement as the big match between France’s national soccer team and archrival Germany was underway at the national stadium in a northern suburb of Paris. President François Hollande watched with the crowd as the French players pushed the ball across midfield. Then came the sharp, unmistakable crack of an explosion, overwhelming the roar of the crowd. A stunned moment passed. Players and spectators seemed confused, and eventually the awful realization swept through the stadium: Terror, for the second time this year, had struck Paris. The symmetry could not be more jarring. A Parisian year that began with the bloodshed and chaos of the terrorist attacks at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and later at a Jewish grocery now had an even deadlier coda: With events still fluid and exact details unclear, the authorities said more than 100 people had been killed in a series of attacks across Paris. And you see why Islam has been given such a bad name in recent years.

Much better use for a house of worship if you ask me

Seriously people IT'S JUST A CUP

The best BJ to hit Middle Earth

And no, I don't mean blowjob. American ice cream chain Ben & Jerry's is coming to New Zealand, it has been announced. Kiwis will be able to taste the iconic ice cream in December, when the company opens its first New Zealand store in central Auckland. There will be 18 classic Ben & Jerry's flavours available, including Strawberry Cheesecake, Choc Chip Cookie Dough, Chunky Monkey (banana ice cream with fudge chunks and walnuts), and Phish Food (chocolate ice cream with gooey marshmallow swirls, caramel swirls, and fudge fish). I'll be up there to see what all the fuss is about once I've paid off just under NZ$10,000 worth of debt and saved up enough money for what will be my fifth time in Auckland.

THE BIG REVIEW: Dads on Facebook

Another dad has joined Facebook, and it wasn't mine. It was Barack Obama. In his first post, Obama took Facebook users on a walk through his back yard at the White House and calling on Americans in a video "to preserve this beautiful planet of ours." "Not only do I want future presidents to be able to take walks like this," Obama said in a video post on his profile. "I want to make sure that the American people are able to enjoy the incredible national parks, incredible beauty, the mountains, the oceans, that have been one of the greatest gifts we've ever received." The President chose Facebook because "at a time when nearly three in four adults online use Facebook, this feels like a great place to do it," he writes. Meanwhile, the "Barack Obama" Facebook account, which has over 45 million followers, continues to be run by Organizing for Action. Obama, who first joined Twitter in May, has been more active on social media as his second term nears its end, hosting Twitter Q&A's, interacting with stars of the U.S. Women's National Soccer team, inviting teen clockmaker Ahmed Mohamed to the White House, joking with Bill Clinton, and even revealing his guacamole recipe preference. To follow him, click here.

This dude is set to become the next Epic Meal Time

Check him out here.

Two goals equals a welcome three points

Manchester United are back to winning ways in the Barclays Premier League with a 2-0 win against West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford. After long spells of fruitless first-half pressure from the Reds, the breakthrough finally came early in the second period when Jesse Lingard fired home a super finish, bagging his first goal for the club as his star continues to rise. Juan Mata then secured the victory from the spot in injury time as United stayed fourth in the league, notching a sixth clean sheet in seven in the process. Putting points on the board is impressive, but nowhere near as impressive as this: Spyro the Dragon is coming to television. In an Investor Day presentation leading up to BlizzCon on Friday, Activision Blizzard announced Activision Blizzard Studios, a new division of the company focused on creating original films and TV shows. The first film project announced for the studio is “a robust cinematic universe” based on the Call of Duty franchise, planned to include “a series of Call of Duty feature films as well as the possibility of television adaptations.” No timing or additional information was revealed. The first release is expected in 2018 or 2019. An animated Skylanders television series is also in the works, titled Skylanders Academy. The show is currently in production (though no network has been announced yet) with Futurama writer Eric Rogers serving as showrunner. Skylanders Academy will star Justin Long as Spyro, Ashley Tisdale as Stealth Elf, Jonathan Banks as Eruptor, and Norm Macdonald as Glumshanks. Harland Williams and Richard Horvitz will also join the cast. It'll suck. Insomniac are the only company that should ever be trusted with anything Spyro. They knew what they were doing.

What got bigger must now get smaller

After the release of four larger iPhone models in 2014 and 2015, Apple is rumoured to be working on a smaller "budget" handset for next year. The iPhone 6 and 6S both have 4.7-inch screens, while the iPhone 6 Plus and 6S Plus are 5.5 inches, much larger than the first generation iPhone, which was just 3.5 inches. But according to KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple plans to launch a 4-inch model (the same size as the iPhone 5, 5S, and 5C) in 2016, as there is still demand for a small-sized iPhone. Of course there is - case in point: I still have the same iPhone 4S I've had since 2011. But I think they should put out four models so as to really give the consumer a choice: 7S being the size of the original models, 7M being the size of the "5" models, 7L being the size of the 6 and 6S, and the 7XL being the size of the 6 Plus and the 6S Plus. And they could also look at waiting two or three years between each generation so as to cut down on e-waste. It's just not sustainable the way things are going.

Nakedbus exposed for the scrooges they are

Nakedbus has refused to refund a passenger's ticket even though the bus was over an hour late and the company gave no delay notification. Sonia Kalekale arrived at the stop in Manukau in south Auckland well before her bus was due to depart for Hamilton last Friday evening. However, a full hour past its scheduled departure date, the bus still hadn't showed and the company hadn't contacted her about any delay. "I had no way of knowing if the bus was ever going to show," Kalekale said. Angry she couldn't make it to her friend's birthday party in Hamilton, and not wanting to wait in the cold and dark any more, Kalekale went home. That night, she wrote an email to Nakedbus requesting a refund for the trip. Nakedbus refused to play ball. "We apologise for the delay ... [but] Unfortunately we will not be able to refund this to you," the reply said. I'm not a lawyer but this looks like a breach of the Consumer Guarantees Act to me. Sonia bought the bus ticket with the express purpose of attending a birthday party. Late bus meant missing the party so no point going to Hamilton after that. As prescribed in the Act, the service Nakedbus were providing was not "fit for purpose." Without being bothered looking up the Consumer Guarantee's Act, I'm sure it'll also say something like you're entitled to a refund for "not receiving a service substantially similar to what was purchased". Pretty good argument that buying a bus ticket that departs at 8:15pm (when the bus was scheduled to leave) is quite different to buying one that departs at 9:26pm (the time the bus came; 10 minutes after Sonia left).

Gang promises to be orderly and well behaved

A Mongrel Mob gathering in Hastings involving 400 past and present members will not be "just a big piss-up", according to the president of the local chapter. Rex Timu promised Saturday's gathering of past and present gang members would be orderly and well behaved when he spoke at an application for a special liquor licence today. The gang is holding a gathering on Saturday that involves a motorcycle "memorial run" to various cemeteries around Hawke's Bay, then a "celebration" in a paddock behind the Te Aute Tavern, south of Hastings. The event, which was three years in the making, will also mark the 50th anniversary of the Hastings chapter's formation. If the application is declined there is a Plan B, but it won't be a very good one. It would involve the 300 attendees gathering at the chapter's gang headquarters, which is a house in the Hastings suburb of Camberley, and neighbours were unlikely to be happy about that. So this may well be just one of those times when the naysayers will just have to sieg heil to what the Mongrel Mob wants. And speaking of sieg heil, I'd advise the Mongrel Mob, who are largely Maori and have been known to use that phrase, to be careful around that phrase because the man who first used that phrase would have put them all in concentration camps.

Dwayne Popeye Johnson

But seriously, guys, Robin Williams was the better Popeye.

THE BIG REVIEW: 5 million

That's how big Wikipedia is, the internet's biggest online encyclopedia and the source for millions of pieces of late-night homework, is. It now has more than 5 million articles in English. The website announced it had passed the milestone on Sunday with an article on Persoonia terminalis - a rare shrub native to eastern Australia. In 14 years, Wikipedia has racked up around 3 billion words, 18 million references, and 30 terabytes of data - equivalent to 510,000 hours of 128 kB/s audio. At 300 words per minute, it would take more than 19 years of non-stop reading to read Wikipedia in its entirety. However, it is still nowhere near a level that would see it cover all human knowledge, according to estimates. More than 104 million articles would be needed to cover the total range of the human race's information according to Wikipedia user "emijrp", who is running a project to find such an estimate. Here's to the next five million.

Just what happens when you raise prices too much

Another scoreless draw, another two points gone begging

Manchester United were held to a third successive goalless stalemate, on a frustrating afternoon against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. Seriously, a trained chimp would be a much better fit for the team right now than Loser van Gaal.