The late 90’s was all about sitting up late at night with SBS on mute, waiting for Weather Woman or Chinese Ghost Stories.  That moment where all the waiting was finally rewarded with a brief flash of tit or – no way – is that vag?  That moment was always spectacular and well worth the effort.

Let’s travel forward through time a little and look at how far we’ve come – and yes, I know how dangerous it is to use that word in an article about porn you damn perverts.  Do me a favour (those of you who aren’t at work), as a demonstration of the point I’m about to raise, go to http://www.redtube.com.  Click through a few pages and I guarantee you that you will find at least one video featuring some, or all, of the following:

• Gagging
• Bondage
• Donkey punching
• Spanking
• Rimming
• Fisting
• Footing (!!)
• Choking
• Double penetration

Now, I’m not saying there is anything particularly wrong with any of the above.  If you’re into any or all of that stuff, go for your life.  The problem is – it’s kind of becoming the norm.  It’s becoming harder and harder to find porn that is literally just two people going at it.  I don’t want to see some pretty girl turn into a panda faced buffoon while some gigantic african penis is rammed down her throat.  I just want to see hot chicks get fucked.

During my… uh… research for this post (I’ve been researching this post long before blogs existed, by the way) I’ve found that European porn is typically the number one fornication destination if you want plain old vanilla sex.  Australian porn is pointless because it’s only legal to sell X-rated material in the Australian Capital Territory and (I believe) the Northern Territory so any porn you get is R-rated.  American porn is… well BangBros, Brazzers and Max Hardcore.  Interesting when you consider that Americans tend to be the ones that are considered prudes, while the Europeans are considered more sexually aware.  Australians are probably not really considered at all.

The internet has taken away from us the more innocent types of porn but it can still be found – it’s just less common.  However, there is one thing that the internet threatens to eliminate.  That thing is: woods porn.  Woods porn is the term used to describe the mysterious stashes of porn found in the woods, by teens of all ages, all over the world.  It’s a proud tradition, passed down man-to-man. For decades men have been discarding their old porn mags in the woods waiting for the next young fellow to stumble across it and begin his own journey of discovery.  Some of you will know exactly what I’m talking about, others may have never stumbled across such a stash, but they do exist – for now.  I can’t see the men of the future leaving stashes of DVD-ROMs or hard drives out in the woods to be found by some lucky lad, nor can I see such devices surviving the harsh weather even if they were stashed in the woods.

This whole post has been very whiny and depressing, so it’s time to go upbeat for a moment and consider whether there’s something productive that can come of all this.  What can we do about this sad state of affairs?  It’s easy: go buy a porn mag.  No seriously, do it.  Go buy a porn mag, pop it in a plastic shopping bag and go litter in the middle of the woods.  Not too far into the woods, just far enough that some curious person may happen across it.  Do your part to continue the tradition.  Don’t put some mag full of fisting and gagging in there.  Put something vanilla and accessible.  Think “my first porno”.  You’ll be doing your town, your state and your country – hell, the world – a favour by doing so.

If we work together, we can save the porn – and the children too I suppose.

It took a few days for the winner to come forward.  On the 27th of February the winning ticket was presented to the lottery’s Security Director by Melbourne man, Joseph Franck, who waltzed in with two Melbourne lawyers by his side.  You see, Franck had cheated the lottery, but here’s the catch: he had done it in a completely legal way.

Let me explain how lotteries generally work.  You take the total number of possible combinations (in this case 7,059,052)  and multiply it by the profit you make on each ticket.  The number you come up with should always be more than the maximum possible amount that can be won.  But the Virginia State Lottery had foolishly neglected to go to such lengths.  In their lottery, each ticket cost $1.  This means that a keen investor could purchase every single one of the possible combinations, and make around 20 million dollars profit on the purchase.  This is exactly what Franck did, with the help of 2500 other investors.  The investors were primarily from Australian and New Zealand, however there were several international bodies involved as well.  Together they raised the seven million necessary to buy every combination.

The trouble doesn’t end there.  Somehow they had to figure out how to work around the logistical nightmare of actually purchasing all those tickets and submitting them in time for the draw.  The group hand-filled out 1.4 million lottery slips – each one catering for five combinations, meaning they wrote down all 7 million combinations by hand.  The slips were then split up among 125 separate groups that had been placed at different locations ready to start purchasing tickets.  At this point the group had to submit and purchase 7 million tickets with just 72 hours remaining on the clock.

When their time ran out the group had only managed to lodge 5 million of the possible combinations and they had to simply hope that the winning combination wasn’t one of the 2 million that they were unable to submit.  The draw went ahead and after several days of searching the elated group discovered that they had indeed won the lottery and – more importantly – they were the only ones who did so.  This meant they received the full $27 million.

Naturally the Virginia State Lottery tried to hold out on awarding the group the winnings, but after a month of legal squirming the group was finally awarded the prize.  With an initial expenditure of just $5 million, the group had just won themselves $22 million in pure profit.

And that’s the story of how some dudes from Melbourne trolled the lottery.

Stargate: Universe

Robert Carlyle as Dr. Rush

I’m a major nerdo loser and as such I’ve always loved Stargate in both its original form and its spin-off, Stargate: Atlantis.  In comes the new series in the Stargate franchise, Stargate: Universe.  This series has taken a much grittier approach than it’s predecessors and has a couple of big names attached (Robert Carlyle and Lou Diamond Phillips).  Add to that the fact that there is no longer any other Stargate to satiate the fans and you have a recipe for a potentially successful show.

I should say that the show so far looks to be a little unsteady and if you are expecting to get into this one just be careful not to get your hopes up.  The acting isn’t brilliant (aside from Robert Carlyle, but even he is slightly off on occasion), the editing seems a little frenetic and tough to follow, and the plot is… well, slow.  Barely anything has truly happened in four episodes (counting the two hour premier as two episodes).  That being said, I’m willing to stick by this one and see where it goes – it does have a lot of potential but it has dauntingly huge shoes to fill so the ride from here could be bumpy.

FlashForward

FlashForward: Not a documentary

Shunned by some viewers for its casual disregard for realism (it’s a sci-fi about everyone in the world simultaneously passing out and having premonitions, come on people how much realism are you really after here?) I am taking the “lets wait and see” approach to this one as well.  Similar to Stargate: Universe it doesn’t exactly have a stellar array of actors, but the show’s premise alone is intriguing enough to impress and leave this observer wanting more.  If you are immediately drawn out of shows with bad acting and the occasional plot hole you might want to give this one a miss.  That being said, I’m in the school of people who think that many of the plot holes are actually deliberate mysteries waiting to be covered in later episodes.

At least do yourself a favour by giving the pilot episode a look.  The final scene alone will leave you with a near irresistible urge to find out what the fuck is going on.

Dollhouse

Eliza Dushku is hot and also an actor in Dollhouse

Okay so this one isn’t technically a brand new show, but season 2 is starting up and I’ve only just found out that the show even exists.  If you haven’t seen this show you should check out the first season and see what you think while the second season is still young.  The cast is fantastic and a little off-beat in that deliberate “we’re not taking ourselves seriously” kind of way.  On that subject, I think that is the main reason this show appeals to me.  It stays fairly light hearted while maintaining an uneasy edge to it that keeps you engaged and genuinely interested in what’s going to happen next.

The premise of this show is a little strange, and hard to wrap one’s head around since it just seems a little bit silly.  The “Dollhouse” is a place people go to have their memories wiped completely during a process whereby they are turned into “Actives”. These Actives are then like a blank slate (the show refers to this state as “tabula rasa”, a neat little nod to John Locke that makes incredible sense given the context) that can have any personality implanted into them, complete with memories and knowledge.  Rich folk then hire these Actives for various purposes – the main draw being that the Active remembers nothing of the ordeal afterwards.  At any rate check this one out, it’s neato.

Naturally, Alvin was in front of his computer awaiting that familiar new email sound. He could practically see the email before it even arrived, and opened it as quickly as he could. He couldn’t believe it. He was in the beta for Starcraft 2. The client weighed in at a hefty 12.5GB but he wanted that game badly. He immediately twittered his elation, facebooked his excitement and blogged his amazement. His friends from across the globe began checking their own emails, finding the same email sitting there, waiting…

In an unprecedented move, Blizzard had invited everyone they had on record.

Meanwhile, Alvin had eagerly sat through the download which had seemed to take an agonisingly long time. The progress bar ticked slowly to 97%… 98%… 99%… the sweat gathered on Alvin’s brow as he steadied his hand over the “Open” button, ready to start the install. Ready to become the world’s first player of Starcraft 2 Beta.

100%! Alvin clicked with all the speed his SC1 trained reflexes allowed. Another progress bar and then… a glorious ToS. Never had Alvin been so happy to see a ToS screen. He quickly clicked his way through the installer, stopping at nothing, accepting all the defaults – his carefully organised hard drive be damned! Finally, the installer had done its task. The Starcraft 2 Beta was installed and ready to fire up. Alvin held his breath and in tandem with millions of people across the globe he double clicked the icon. The hard disk whirred into action, millions of HDD LEDs flickered in harmony as everyone’s monitor went black – the dark before the dawn as the introductory cinematic loaded. In that moment on millions of computers around the world, a beautifully crisp high definition video began to play and Rick Astley began to sing Never Gonna Give You Up.

It was Monday, September 21st, 2009 – the day Blizzard rickrolled the entire world.

SC2 will never be released