Bongo Below

Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo...

Sounds like the cast of a triangle in a soap opera. 

Speaking of soap operas... I recently finished up one named OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE.

My neighbor watched most of the six seasons with me. On days I was feeling rough and stuck home resting, I would turn it on. 

It's filmed in New Zealand so we learned new kiwi lingo. Like what it means to root somebody or saying "I'd be keen to do that".

If you're really keen, then you're heaps keen. 

Grab your togs, let's go swimming. I'd be heaps keen to get wet.

If you're cold, forget the sweater, what you need is a jumper. 

To be knackerd is to need a nap. 

Spend more time at your bach and if you're lucky, yours is on or near the coast. A bach is a second home, a holiday place you own or rent annually.

You got that mate? Aye?

When your holiday money runs out you have bugger all. 

Kiwis would say where I live now is out in the wops. Which is to say the middle of nowhere. 

If you've run out of room for more luggage in your car then it's chocka. If ya crash your car or it breaks down, then it's munted. If you were drunk when it happened then you were munted too. 

If the repairs is pretty easy, then it's a piece of piss. But if you're having a party it's a piss-up. 

If you want someone to mind their own business then you yell piss off. But if you're being unreasonable, then you're taking the piss.

If you forgot your togs then you say "Aw, stink one".

I will tell you more in the nek minute. 

You can tell I am having a mare day when I watch TV (mare is a difficult time).

Packing a sad, is having a tantrum!

Chuck on our gumboots and let's walk through the cow farm.

If it's choice then it's awesome or top shelf. 

And if you think I'm a dag, then you think I'm funny!

Southerners say bullshit but kiwis say spinning a yarn. 

Southerners keep their beer in a cooler but Kiwi's keep theirs in a chilly bin. 

Bowling round, means you're coming to visit. 

Heaps means lots and Kiwis love this word heaps and heaps. 

If you thought that funny, then it was a crack up.

Maori words are thrown in with the Kiwi slang such as pakaru (I like pakaru heaps) but pakaru describes heaps of my belongings in that pakaru means broken. 

If he spat his dummy, then he was angry in a childish way. That dummy is what we call a baby pacifier. 

So if you want to learn heaps more then watch Outrageous Fortune for free with Amazon Prime. 

I would say this is an adult soap opera. Not really suitable for children at all or else you will be explaining heaps. Each episode blends into the next one. Some leave you with shocking cliff hangers.  

It's well written, the characters are distinctly unique. It has some real dark comedy thrown in that kind of sneaks up on you. 

Trivia... one actor plays two very different twins. 

Ironically Outrageous Fortune takes liberty borrowing liberally from Shakespeare. Even the title was snatched from the famous "To be or not to be" speech which states: "To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles.

The youngest child Loretta is also used in photographs of her deceased grandmother. The air-head older sister sometimes refers to things vanishing just like the Bahamas Triangle which of course there is none, it's called the Bermuda triangle but it's funny they make this subtle air head reference more than once. 

When they referred to one character's Mazda Bongo van, I thought it was a reference to his predilection to smoking weed, sometimes out of a bong.

But the joke was on me, they really do make a Mazda Bongo Van.