Each of these children has put in enough effort to earn a treat, except one - the little one who is wasting everyone's time, perhaps deliberately.

Yesterday was Halloween and if you live in a suburban area you would have experienced trick-or-treating. Unless you’re some kind of angry hermit, you probably don’t mind the knock at the door and the chorus of children announcing their intention to strip you of anything with a sugar content above 50%. You might even send your own little scamps off on trick-or-treating adventures.

I’m all for fun. I don’t mind the concept of trick-or-treating, but yesterday proved to me that today’s kids wouldn’t know a trick-or-treat if it snuck up from behind dressed as Freddy Krueger and scared the living shit out of them. Call me an old stickler, but I thought that the idea of trick-or-treating was to put some effort into a suitably impressive costume, which earns you the right to knock door-to-door demanding treats. If the homeowner doesn’t pay up, then you perform a trick, some mildly irritating or inconvienient mischief.

Not these days. These days, what we experience is a watered-down, politically correct version of trick-or-treating and Michael Myers would turn in his grave, if anybody could ever get him to stay in it.

So many kids knocked on my door yesterday who were wearing costumes that I’d be kind to describe as absolutly pathetic. I’m talking a plastic Dracula mask, and their pyjamas. It’s an arduous task explaining to a six-year-old that what they are wearing does not qualify as a costume, but lame, half-arsed attempts do not earn anyone the right to come knocking on my door demanding lollies. Not this Halloween, not any Halloween – I don’t care what your mummy told you or how disappointed you are. This ‘everyone gets a prize’ mentality that seems to dominate our society’s interaction with children these days does not wash with me when it comes to trick-or-treating.

As for the tricking side of things, forget about it. Yesterday there came a point after about the twentieth knock on the door when, even after purchasing multiple bags of special body-part shaped gummy lollies (see, I’m into it), we ran out. Still more knocks came. My girlfriend and I alternated between hiding and pretending we weren’t home, and awkwardly explaining that we had run out of lollies. Each time a group of unsatisfied children were vacating the property I peered out from between the blinds to try and catch the little bastards out while they performed what I thought was the inevitable – the trick. But there were no tricks. Not one of the six groups of kids who missed out tried to perform any sort of trick on us. Again, pathetic.

During the course of the afternoon and evening we encountered teenagers who were clearly too old to be trick-or-treating, nevertheless going door-to-door, dressed more like they were turning tricks, than earning treats. One was holding a longneck of some pre-mixed drink in a brown paper bag and told us that she would accept money in lieu of lollies when we said we had run out. What a lateral-thinking problem solver she was. The answer was of course ‘no’.

You see, I spent many years in the UK, where the infiltration of Halloween into the culture is much further along than here in Australia. I have memories of our front door being covered in flour and water by a Frankenstein in retaliation for not providing sweets (you can call them that in the UK and not get beaten up). I have memories of my older brother dressed in a hockey mask bursting out of the front door with a terrifying roar and a large kitchen knife to scare away a group of vampires and werewolves that were about to smear dog poo all over the handles of the car.

These days if they tried to smear anything anywhere on someones property, they’d call the police, which is also what would happen if you pursued children from your home with a kitchen knife. All this adds up to an empty, soulless version of Halloween and unless as a society we’re willing to put some effort into our costumes and sit down with our kids and educate them as to the correct trick-or-treating procedure, then I’ve handed out my last gelatine eyeball.

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This guy is almost as happy as I was when I got my new iPhone.

Your response to a malfunctioning iPhone is a fairly reliable indicator of whether or not you have your priorities right. If you shrug your shoulders and even rejoice over the freedom from work calls and emails that the malfunction affords you, then you can be reasonably certain that your responses to life’s little problems are healthy and are unlikely to contribute to your risk of heart attack or stroke. If a malfunctioning iPhone is a source of face-reddening frustration, a sharp increase in blood pressure and a string of potty language, then can be equally sure that you are too easily provoked by minor setbacks.

I am well and truly in the second category.

My iPhone was a mess. A number of faults had rendered it useless. Imagine my delight when Apple told me that I was to be responsible for covering the cost of repair because the unit was three months past its twelve month warranty. I felt like dancing a jig of glee, all over Steve Jobs’ face.

I had purchased the iPhone new only fifteen months ago. It is valued at over $900. As a result of nothing more than regular use, it had degraded to the point where it was now a fault-riddled embarrassment that I would be better off without. It reminded me of that time Gretel Killeen tried to host the Logies.

Adding to my unhealthy purple hue was the fact that I purchased the iPhone through Optus on a two year contract. I had nine months left to go before the contract ended (enough time to gestate) and was without a functioning handset.

As I wandered the street in search of the nearest bell tower from which I would mount my revenge, the words ‘consumer rights’ echoed in my head. I hit Google and discovered that under the Trade Practices Act, if someone in Australia sells you something, it must function for a reasonable amount of time. What is reasonable is a matter of perspective, based on a number of factors including price, purpose and any commitments or inferences that were made at the time of purchase.

This has fascinating repercussions for consumers, retailers and manufacturers. It means that warranty periods specified when you buy a product become meaningless. It means that there is no need to purchase extended warranties. It means that if something is valued at over $900 and was sold on a two year contract (say, an iPhone), then it is reasonable to expect that it will last two years. It does not matter that the manufacturer’s warranty is only for one year. Statutory warranties apply to whoever sells you a product, not who produces it.

I strode into my closest Optus store, armed with my rights under the Trade Practices Act, confident that the shop’s staff would be impressed by my consumer savvy and inevitably concede that given my findings, they have no option but to cover the cost of repair.

“Statutory what? The warranty is one year. See, it says so here on the warranty card. You’ll have to pay for the repair.”

Unfortunately for Optus, no matter how disadvantaged they were by their representative’s diminutive capacity to comprehend the relatively simple concept I was trying to express, the exchange constituted ‘approaching the retailer with the issue’. This is all I needed to have done in order to be eligible to make a complaint to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.

When you complain to the TIO, you are given a telephone number for a special department at whichever company you have placed the complaint against. The company in question is also charged an administration fee by the TIO that increases according to how long the complaint remains open, regardless of its validity. This provides great incentive for phone companies to settle these complaints as quickly as possible.

I placed my complaint via the TIO website and was emailed with Optus’ number a short time later. I telephoned them and left a message, detailing my complaint.

It was less than ninety minutes before Optus returned my call, offering me a brand new iPhone, no questions asked. In fact, because the model I had was obsolete, I was offered the latest you beaut’, whizz-bang model.

I did my best to maintain an air of arrogance and indifference, careful not to seem grateful for receiving the restitution that I was due. Behind my cool, composed front, I rejoiced in gleeful victory. I could not believe that it was that simple to make Optus yield completely to the power of the statutory warranty.

However, no major retailer can afford to encourage this sort of behaviour among their customers and it was made clear to me that my phone was being replaced as a gesture of goodwill, not because of anything to do with statutory warranty.

Of course not. Huge profit-driven corporations are renowned for their warmth and generosity of spirit. I have no doubt that Optus’ CEO himself skips gaily down the main streets of Australia’s communities every day, giving out free hugs, helping the elderly cross the road, scratching puppies behind the ears and of course, providing free iPhones to each passerby, just to spread love.

Then it occurred to me that by accepting the iPhone after this distinction was made, I was not scoring a win for consumers everywhere, just for myself. A more noble man might have remained steadfast and firmly informed Optus that he ‘was not accepting the iPhone unless it was recorded as replaced under statutory warranty’. I am not that man.

I am however, a man with a shiny new iPhone and a satisfied grin and you can be too. All you have to do is demand compliance to the Trade Practices Act the next time that you buy a product from a retailer that follows the ever-increasing trend of stocking goods of substandard quality, thinking that they have cleverly guaranteed a repeat purchase in twelve months time.

Imagine the possibilities. Irons made to last more than twelve months. DVD players that still work months after the warranty ends, and of course, mobile phones that outlast contracts.

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Scott says this happens all the time at his place.

Isn’t it always the way? Your car breaks down on a dark and stormy night, you and your friend find an isolated house nearby, the guy who lives there is really messed up and uses you to satisfy his debased psychosis by surgically connecting your face to your friend’s rear-end.

That’s how it goes for Lindsay and Jenny, characters from the new torture-porn film The Human Centipede (First Sequence), which is now showing in a limited number of Australian cinemas.

Torture-porn is a term coined by US film critic David Edelstein. He first used it to describe the 2005 film Hostel, a real family favourite about rich sadists who pay huge sums of money to be able to live out their torture fantasies (drilling through people’s nipples, taking a chainsaw to various limbs, everyday stuff like that) on kidnapped backpackers.

In traditional pornography, any non-sexual content is simply a means to get to the sex. The handyman knocking on the door and the horny housewife insisting that her plumbing needs a thorough inspection is really an unnecessary formality before they get to the reason you’re watching the porno, which is of course, the rooting.

The same thing goes for the torture-porn genre, which includes the Saw movie franchise. Any intro, story or acting is largely superfluous when compared to the core of the film, the gratuitous torture scenes.

Like sexually-focussed pornography, torture-porn is often judged by how creatively the filmmakers approach the subject matter. The Human Centipede (First Sequence) certainly takes a creative approach to human suffering. Whether that’s a good thing or not is a matter of opinion.

According to the publicity, the idea for a film about a diabolical surgeon who connects three people mouth-to-anus to create what he inaccurately dubs a human centipede came from an in-joke between the film’s director Tom Six (he’s Dutch) and his mates. The joke was all about punishing paedophiles by sewing their lips to the arses of fat truck drivers. No mention of what the poor truck drivers had done to deserve having a paedophile sewn to their bottom.

I have to confess that I haven’t seen the film and I don’t want to. It’s not that I’m against it, far from it. I don’t believe in most censorship and as long as there is an ‘R’ rating attached and enforced, Human Centipede (First Sequence), with all its sickening, twisted, mouth-to-anus surgical action should be available for anyone of age who wants to see it.

I just don’t see the point of me watching it. I have an extremely sensitive gag reflex. I can’t even watch Bondi Vet without being grossed out, so there is certainly no point in me watching a torture porn film. I partially watched the first Saw movie, fast-forwarding through most of it, but I got the idea.

I did watch the trailer for The Human Centipede (First Sequence) many times. I also showed it to several other people because the voyeur in me loved to watch their reaction. Amazement, disgust and confusion were the most common.

One of the world’s most famous movie critics, Roger Ebert, declined from giving the film a rating. He wrote in his review, “I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is.”

And what it is, is a movie about connecting people mouth-to-anus. If you want to see a film about that, go and see it. If you don’t, then don’t.

Grant Hardie is from Monster Films, the Australian distributors of The Human Centipede (First Sequence) and says he loves the movie.

“It pushes all the buttons that you want pushed when you go to see a horror film,” he said.

“When I watched it I realised that a lot of the criticism that was levelled at the film was because of the subject matter and because critics didn’t get it.”

When it comes to horror, give me Michael Myers wearing a William Shatner mask doing his best to hack into Jamie Lee Curtis with a butcher knife any day, but there are plenty of people who disagree. I’m certain they’re all sickos, but it takes all sorts, which is proven by the fact that Human Centipede (First Sequence) even exists.

You might be wondering what’s with (First Sequence) in the title of the film. Yes, the sequel is already in pre-production. Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) will see our dashing doctor return to the big screen, this time having the more ambitious goal of connection twelve people mouth-to-anus.

This is one movie franchise that truly takes arse kissing to a new level.

(If you haven’t experienced the Human Centipede (First Sequence) trailer and you want to, click here to view the trailer on YouTube. You have been warned.)

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Excuse me, you are paying for these martinis together, aren't you?

Nothing makes me feel less welcome when dining out than the arbitrary ‘NO SPLIT BILLS’  statement so often found on the bottom of menus, and on walls and cash registers in cafes and restaurants everywhere.

Any establishment that has this notice may as well have a sign that says, “NO DINING WITH OTHERS WITHOUT HAVING TO ENDURE A DEGRADING AND AWKWARD PROCESS OF NEGOTIATING WITH THE OTHER MEMBERS OF YOUR PARTY”.

What exactly do the owners of these establishments think happens when a group of friends goes out for a meal together? Do they think that one person pays for everyone? That we all leap out of our chairs, waving around our credit cards, fighting each other back for the right to pay double, triple or maybe even ten times more than the cost of our meal, just so we don’t force the staff to endure the increased intellectual burden of keeping more than one account per table?

I don’t know in what circles restaurateurs themselves are dining, but that’s not how it works here in Normalsville, Australia. In this town, unless you’re dining with a flamboyant drug dealer and you have tits you could crack a walnut on, everyone pays for themselves.

For a group of diners who have unknowingly sat down for a meal at one of these non-bill splitting restaurants, assuming no one has recently come into any significant money, there are two options.

The first is the equal split. Divide the total of the bill by the number of diners, and everyone pays the same. The benefit is that this is the lesser of two awkwards. Of course, if you’re a vegetarian or don’t drink alcohol, you’re screwed. This also means that anyone in your group who is on a budget and deliberately ate light is also screwed, and won’t be able to feed their children for the rest of the week.

The second option is the ‘pay for what you ate’ system. While this ends up fairer and accommodates the vegetarians, teetotalers, low income earners and tight arses, it reaches ‘earth-shattering’ on the awkward scale. Not only must everyone give a full and honest account of what they ate and drank, then calculate the exact value, but issues arise when it comes to garlic bread, bottles of wine and other shared items.

But refusing to split the bill doesn’t just benefit the establishment by saving the staff from having to make a few extra calculations. The less obvious, but far more lucrative reason that a restaurant will only offer one account per table is that diners are more likely to take the path of least awkwardness and simply split the total evenly. Every clever restaurant owner knows that the total on a collective bill is likely to be higher than the sum of a number of individual bills.

This is because when a bill is shared evenly across a group, the other people pay the majority of the cost of any item you order. So if there are 10 people dining and you order a $30 steak, you will only have to pay for $3 of it, the remaining $27 is paid by the rest of the party. Since it’s fun to get something for nothing, it doesn’t take long for people to figure out that they should order up big, especially if everybody else is.

So splitting the bill not only costs a restaurant time, but it also costs revenue. That means that a dining venue that cheerfully agrees to help you out by making the split should be celebrated as a bastion of genuine dedication to customer service, and is safe to attend with a party consisting of vegetarians and non-drinkers. Why you would want to put yourself through dinner with people like that, is a different issue altogether.

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Oh shit, some plonker has mentioned the accent in Robin Hood again.

As a society, it’s been a while since we were truly religious. It’s rare that you find someone who still believes the stories of gods and goblins that were conjured up in the good old days to control the superstitious masses and provide a basis for things like monarchs and wars. A few people still say they do, but very few indeed strike me as acting like they really believe that their every thought and action is being judged by an all-knowing, all-seeing deity.

But we need something to believe in, it takes the spotlight off what’s lacking in our lives, so as a society, we now worship celebrities.  Magazines and gossip sites are our bibles, couches and movie seats our pews, big screen televisions, stages and cinema screens, the alters upon which we worship.

Since there are so many celebrities, I think we can assume our society is polytheistic. Like other doomed civilizations that have worshipped multiple deities, not all of our gods are equal. Some are ‘a-list’, some are ‘b-grade’, and others are reality television stars and breakfast radio announcers.

Imagine my delight when one of the a-listers, Russell Crowe, spoke to me. But this was no holy communion, Russell was displeased.

I know what you’re thinking, I’m imagining things, I’m lying, I’m clearly not rich or interesting enough to have met a celebrity for long enough to caused personal annoyance. While all this is true, on this occasion I’m for real. It was made possible because Russell is an active Twitter user.

What an age we live in. Thanks to social media, I can come home from watching Robin Hood at the movies and, despite the confusion caused by the accent, turn on my computer, tweet the star of the film and get a response, however irritated. This makes Twitter the new Tower of Babel. It sure beats joining a fan club or writing away for a signed photo.

So what did I do to bring this god’s wrath upon me? Did I mention the whole Robin Hood accent thing? Yes, but that was ages ago and I don’t think he saw it.

Perhaps I made a reference to one of his films that lacked a certain something, such as – State of Play, Tenderness, A Good Year, or pretty much any film other than Gladiator, LA Confidential or Romper Stomper? I most certainly did not, I’m not a sadist.

Here’s what happened. It all started one week ago, last Wednesday night Australian time, when news first broke of the leadership spill in the Australian government. Twitter burst into life with talk of the events unfolding in Canberra. Even people usually more interested in tweeting about Justin Bieboid suddenly turned their attention to our nation’s capital and swapped opinions limited to a maximum of 160 characters regarding the Gillard versus Rudd issue. Amazingly enough, Australian politics began to trend worldwide. It was an exciting moment for social media in our sunburnt country.

In the midst of it all, old Attitudius Maximus logs on and starts tweeting some shit about the Rabbitohs or something equally insignificant compared to what was happening in the ACT.

So, ever-witty, I saw the opportunity to have a bit of a dig and tweeted:

‘@russellcrowe Sorry Russell, but we are a little focused on the whole who will be the PM thing at the moment.’

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so presumptuous as to question a celebrity-god because it wasn’t long before a reply came from Russell’s official, verified account, like a burst of thunder from the sky:

‘@ProHumanWrites is that right? but you took the time to dribble that. Hello plonker.’

I was so happy. It might have involved name calling, he might have a reputation for taking himself far too seriously, but Russell mother-fucking Crowe tweeted me. High five.

He also reminded me that the word plonker exists. I like the word, I like the way it feels when you say it. I hadn’t heard it since I last caught reruns of the BBC comedy series ‘Only Fools and Horses’. Because of Russell, I’ll use it myself.

Although I am now blocked from Russell’s Twitter account, I have great memories of the time I joined the ranks of the bellboy who copped a telephone to his forehead, the radio announcer who teased him about the accent in Robin Hood, most NRL referees and numerous film critics across the world, as people who really piss that plonker Russell Crowe off.

Again, high five.

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1. Don’t leave it to Bieber – the highs & lows of YouTube stardom