Why is it that on shows like the Grammy’s, some presenters… like Adam Sandler in this case, feel the need to conjure up some dumbass story like… ‘oh I didn’t think this was a formal thing so I just threw some jeans and and a Tee on… and then I uh’ like got here and everyone looked uhh so great so I uhhh haha convinced this dude backstage to uh ha ha give me his clothes in return for me saying out to tv-land “It’s okay Frankie, do your time and when you get out we’ll sort Joey Joe Jackson well good” haha haa haa… so anyways I’d like to present Santana… ha… ha…

Ummm it wasn’t funny.

It was uncomfortably staged. And kinda lame.

Seriously, has this sorta painfully forced gag ever worked? Why Adam Why? Stop it. Now.

Forget Adam Sandler.

Please bring back Billy Crystal for the Oscars… and the Golden Globes… trot him out for the Grammy’s… weddings, partys and anything… that’s right! Billy Crystal should also cameo as a guest front man for that obscure Aussie indie band with that great song “Father’s Day”. Why isn’t this so? Make it so I say.

and on presenting styles. Please explain Quentin Tarantino. Did he really need to  present the way he did? Like a a full implementation nuknuk. And follow up question… the sunglasses… other than the I-AM-A-STAR thing… why?

and the third Grammy question since I am banging on about the Grammy’s – Taylor Swift album of the year?

What the Frackleberries is that all about? It’s an okay album but seriously are you trying to tell me that it was a better effort than the Beyonce ‘put-a-ring-on-it’ spankbanking crediting music clip song or the efforts of the sensational Black Eyed Peas or the awesome effort by Dave Matthew’s Band… tough competition and yet “Fearless” got the gong. Why?

Sometime my Questions are looking to hook up with Answers. Sometimes I’m just looking for questions to perfect-match with my preset answers…. other times I am standing on a huge question mark wondering why I have Midnight’s mystery car keys. Jeeeeez it would be handy to have an opportunity to pose those questions that dog me and someone much smarter and more insightful than me could kinda answer them thereby saving me the aggravation of having to really think for myself. It’s Australia Day tomorrow and I am an Aussie toiling away in China. Is this too much to ask for?

Australia Day 2010 is well and truly over as this “Ask VoodooLogic Anything” column goes to press. Yes, sadly we have to wait another whole year for the opportunity to do very little at all to celebrate The Greatest Nation In The Universe™.

And what makes Australia so amazingly great? Well, the answer is pretty obvious — we invented just about everything, or at least just about everything that was worth inventing.

A Partial List Of Things Invented By Australians:

• Vegemite
• Cricket
• Swimming
• Rock’n'Roll
• The Bikini
• Democracy
• New Zealand
• Paul Hogan

In fact, in just about every field of endeavour you look at, you will find an Australian standing there, can of beer in hand, looking just a little smug, because he or she did it better, then went home to shear 300 sheep and plow the South Forty, all before lunch.

Of course, the reason why the rest of the world doesn’t understand or appreciate the fact that Australia is The Greatest Nation In The Universe™ is because we are, at heart, a nation of Quiet Achievers. It is not in our National Identity to make a great deal of fuss about our successes, unless it happens to be at the Olympics or if we’ve beaten South Africa at Cricket.

But back to Australia Day itself — the interesting thing about Australia Day as a celebration is that when it’s Australia Day in Australia, it’s also Australia Day everywhere else. Simultaneously!

That’s right — in the distant reaches of space, where light, gravity and 3G mobile services bend into some twisted, unknown dimension, January 26th is still Australia Day; and you can bet your last can of beer that, Out There, some Methane-Breathing Tentacled Monster turned to another Methane-Breathing Tentacled Monster on Australia Day and said, “Fwoar, check the Tentacles out on that Methane-Breathing Monster. Crikey! Hur hur hur.” [1]

And thus, the truly wonderful thing about Australia Day is that it’s just as applicable to, for example, some poor bugger slaving away in a tiny office in China as it is anywhere else, although it is possible that this person will experience Australia Day in a slightly less fulfilling way, since the rest of us have taken the day off and, as a nation, have buggered off to the beach.

***

So, to answer your question, which we have to admit, we didn’t really understand: it’s not too much to ask for at all.

If an Australian can’t take Australia Day off, regardless of where he or she happens to be, and also regardless of what the local cultural, professional and legal requirements are, then there’s something truly bloody wrong with that. Also, we’d like to add “Strewth!” and “Fair Dinkum?” to our assessment, although possibly not in that order.

We’d like to suggest that should you find yourself stuck in another country on some other future Australia Day, you should make sure you have a jar of Vegemite to hand, you have a few frosty tinnies in the eskie, you have some zinc cream across your nose, you wear an akubra with some corks bobbing from the brim, and you pause every 10 minutes or so to blow some righteous and culturally appropriate tunes on your didgeridoo.[2]

Beauty Mate,

The Ask Voodoologic Anything Team

The end-product of all of this terrified dedicated labour is a new and completely ground-breaking service called, “Ask VoodooLogic Anything.” [1]

Yes, that’s right, people — for the first time in the history of anything, VoodooLogic is throwing open its doors on 80 combined years of confusion and incompetence, and there is now way we are going to allow our utter ignorance of almost everything to get in the way of providing the answers you least expect!

To celebrate this Profusion Of Confusion [2], we are going to kick off our inaugural segment with the following question, sent in by D. Saturday.

How was your weekend?

Gripping stuff, D. Saturday, but still a question we feel equal to answering.

To get a better understanding of exactly what makes ‘a good weekend’, we coaxed two of our software developers into a sealed lab and locked the door.

Inside the lab we supplied the essentials for a good weekend: 2 Bon Jovi CDs, a disco ball, a small gas bbq, and 3 metric tons of beer [3].

For 48 gruelling hours we observed our test subjects via closed-circuit tv, and we were shocked, amazed, and not a little sickened by their rapid descent into barbarism. For one thing, it turned out that they both really liked Bon Jovi…

***

If our research across those two terrible days taught us anything, it was that ‘a good weekend’ apparently means getting horribly drunk, slow-shuffling to ‘Living On A Prayer’, telling someone you barely know that, ‘no, no, no, I really really love you, you know?’, losing control of your bladder while still fully clothed, and getting into a grudge fight using bbq utensils before eventually passing out.

If this is the yardstick by which all good weekends should be measured, then I think it’s safe to say that our weekend was ‘Okay’.

Sure, there was no Bon Jovi. Yes, there was no BBQ or knife fights, and sadly no-one passed out from alcohol related poisoning, however:

• There was a nice drive down to the seaside
• There was a chance to help out a friend
• There were some rewarding bits and pieces to do around the house
• And best of all, there was a chance to have a nice nap on Sunday afternoon

What could be better than that? [4]

***

We hope you’ve enjoyed our first installment of “Ask VoodooLogic Anything”.

If you have questions you’d like to see answered by the VoodooLogic team, please feel free to post them in the comments below. If Murray @ Midnight gets off his ass sometime soon, we might even have a form you can use specifically for posing the great questions of our age. We cannot, however, promise to provide any great answers.

Until next time — or at least until we have coaxed our software developers out of the lab, since currently they’re demanding we send in more beer and a third Bon Jovi CD — Happy Voodoonosity!

The Ask VoodooLogic Anything Team