More Sex Detective Bullshit Relationship Advice

I love checking out relationship advice columns online.  They're always being run by some collection of self-proclaimed experts who either have credentials in loosely related fields or have published an overtly femminist/mysoginistic instruction manual on how sexual relations work.  Me, I wouldn't have a clue.  I'm more of an expert on how relationships don't work, but unlike all these other people I'm not pushing a product.  In fact, it may come as a surprise to absolutely no-one that Kidd Vengeance isn't even my real name ('Steele Bonemaster' as a blog was already taken), the same way that Sex Detective is not a real thing.  But this is the internet, kids, a fantasy playground where all is but a fanciful illusion.  With boobies.

During my cyber travels into the minds of humans who are seriously too lazy to work shit out for themselves, a few commonly restated questions to do with how men and women head-fuck each other come up.  I've tackled the whole dishonesty thing before, but the underlying problem in most cases involves someone lying blatantly to him or herself.

"I was in a relationship with a fantastic girl for over a year, then recently we decided to mutually end it.  However, she's a great person and we both want to remain the best of friends.  Does that ever work out?"

What!?  Hell, no, dude.  I mean, okay, you'll meet all sorts of delusional people who'll tell you how they became besties with their ex.  These people are clearly insane or drinking paint.  Sure, if you don't see each other for 10 years and then reunite to form some sort of civil acquaintance, then more power to you, but you've described your break up as 'recent'.  Also, don't lie straight to my face.  No one 'mutually decides' to break up.  Ever.  You're just trying to cover the fact she dumped your ass, loser.  But, if you think you and her can still become BFFs then I want you to try the following, highly perverse thought exercise.

Mental Litmus Test

Picture yourself walking in on your ex having sex.  I'm not talking about the adequate, cutesy, lovemaking shit you used to share.  I'm talking hardcore, rabid gorilla sex, where she's making sounds you never heard before, in between begging him to cum on her face.  Also, the dude sending her to heaven through her spasm chasm is known to you.  Picture a good mate, a hated enemy, your brother, the local priest, whatever.  You quietly retreat out through the back door (kinda the opposite of what he's doing to her, got it?).
Do you feel:

A: that embarrassed, dissonant combination of disgust and arousal, but on the whole are happy that your new 'best friend' is copping some decent jack-hammering for a change?

Or

B: filled with despair, rage, grief and overall jealousy, only you're too impotent to act on it because of the whole 'still be stupid friends' agreement?

If you chose 'A' then congratulations, you're one of the 1% of high functioning sociopaths who can lie cleanly to yourself.  If you chose 'B' then you have your answer.  Not only is it almost impossible to remain close friends with an ex after a recent break-up, it's also downright unhealthy.  And if she was the one to suggest such a bag of shit to you then screw her sister/mother/fellow cheerleader, send her the footage and set her straight.

"What's the deal with Cougars?  Why are older women after younger guys, and why are guys my age becoming Cougar hunters?  It's as bad as the whole old rich guy/young girl thing!"

This is not a new thing, buddy, it's just that mass media has turned it from being creepy to trendy through TV, movies and websites.  During the '90s it happened all the time, only much more discreetly out of different norms and peer expectations.  The 1990's was the Decade of the Rogue for this Sex Detective.  Adopting a 'quantity over quality' philosophy to sex, I slept with about 50 women, and I'd say about 40% of them were older than me, sometimes 10-15 years older.  If you're a guy in his early 20s looking for uninhibited, experienced fun with someone mature enough not to create dramas afterwards, then you should check out some Cougar action instead of bemoaning it, you dumb fuck.  Or wait until you grow out of it like the rest of us by around age 30.

The Cougar is sexier, better experienced and less inhibited than young girls.

Just ignore the extra body hair.

Conversely, the whole older geezer/young chick thing has more biological reasoning behind it.  Sure, there are some gold-diggers out there, but contrary to popular wishful thinking (due to unpopular people always resenting popular people), a lot of these 50-60 yo cashed-up dudes end up in great relationships with 20-30 yo women.  Why? 

Like I said, biology.  A successful, experienced older man represents alpha-male status - he's successfully bested his competition over the last 30 years and has the trophies to prove it.  He's not having a mid-life crisis (that's just when guys try to be younger than they are) because he's accepted his maturity with grace while still maintaining his health and well-being.  He's a proven quantity of stability and (thanks to Viagara) virility.  Also, he's pretty much retired, having worked his ass off, and now has time to spoil that special someone.

These geezers are attracted to younger women for fertility reasons.  There's no actual shelf-life for male fertility, but women run on a limited biological timer.  If an older guy wants to one day leave a legacy for his years of success he will, by absolute definition, hook up with a young hot chick.

"I hear and see a lot of press about how women prefer bad boys to nice guys.  What's so wrong about being a nice person?"

I know, right?  It's getting to the stage where a guy with a hockey mask and a bike lamp necklace can't even hire a couple of low-rent prostitutes without getting negative attitude from a pimp.  Look, I'll give you some back story and then maybe you'll understand.  Last decade generation X went through a fair bit of hetero-male polarisation.  The Western world had adopted an insane policy of political correctness.  Some guys joined in while the rest of us remained to become the cunts we proudly are today.  The whole place got cluttered up with SNAGs (sensitive, new-age guys) and general nice guys as a result.  Active feminism was on the decline so many, so-called men tried to give themselves honourary vaginas and fill the void.  Meanwhile, many women were donning power suits and hitting the career market thanks to the opportunities generated by their feminist ancestors.  Single parenting also became socially acceptable and even admirable.  In other words some men deliberately became pussies while some women finally claimed well-deserved power over their lives.

The '90s female power suit - like this but with tits instead of guns.

Okay, so onto your question, pussy boy.  Women don't prefer bad boys to anything except a nice guy, because at least a bad boy can be fun sometimes and doesn't cry after sex.  Look at all the male heroes on TV - how many of them are sweet, sensitive, fuzzy, polite types?  Fuck all.  They tend to be confident, forthright, tough and cutely flawed in some way (with the exception of Sea Patrol where they're flawed in every way).  Knowing full well that women have at least twice the consumer influence on retail markets than men, advertisers and TV networks develop these male characters for this very reason.  Smallville, Supernatural, House, The Shield, Rush, all macho-based dramas, of course, but they were never designed for men because men don't give a shit about buying toiletries, cereals, drapes or whatever the hell else is being advertised during these shows.

There's always a time for being nice, but usually that's at work so you don't get fired, or in front of a magistrate because some pimp beat you up for making a perfectly safe and reasonable proposal to a couple of ungrateful bitches.  There's also a time for being bad, mean, crazy, upset, selfish, charitable, scared and brave.  But most of all just try being a man who knows when to engage the correct mode of behaviour at the time.

Fuck you, Carlo, I'm taking my business to someone who

appreciates my waders and my needs.

Unbearable

Pandas, they sure are cute, but let's face it, they're lazy, hardly ever fuck, and don't even taste that good (too stringy, and they're a bitch to skin).  Seriously, what kind of bear eats wood instead of meat as a calorie source?  The average panda has to chomp through 20 kilos a day of bamboo just to find the energy to take a nap.  That's because when it comes to nutrition, bamboo has about as much to offer as cardboard.

Check out the Adelaide Panda site.  It's full of great panda facts (like...they eat and sleep most of the time) and personality profiles (one sleeps slightly less than the other).  Why do humans insist on projecting human behavioural traits onto non-human things?  There's also the translation of their adorable names.  'Funi' means 'Lucky Girl', a cutely optimistic name for any member of an endangered species.  'Wang Wang', on the other hand, translates as 'Net Net'. 

Net Net?  What the hell does that even mean?

Anyway, it turns out that I was remiss in assuming that all these emobears did was eat and sleep.  There is a group of zoo volunteers who organise 'enrichment' activities.  It's pretty much occupational therapy for bears.  Or playing with toys.  You know, just like in the wild.  Wang Wang loves to play with...I dunno, three balls and a rope, I guess.

Or an elephant's love beads, I'm no expert.

Meanwhile, Funi gains enrichment by:

getting her head stuck in a bucket.

The crowds love this shit, but I can't help but feel that the zoo had to chuck some toys/janitorial supplies at the bears because 6 months of the eating and sleeping novelty was wearing thin.  And the zoo needs people to pay good money to see these critters.  Nowhere on the site does it mention just how many million dollars it costs to build the enclosures, train staff, grow 140 000 square metres of bamboo, conduct specialist medical care and buy head-sized buckets for the pair.  And that's not including the seven figure panda-rental fees paid to China for the privilege.

You can pay normal admission on the off chance to briefly view the enclosure and no guarantee of seeing the pandas, or you can do what I did today and not see them on pandacam instead.  But if you're serious about seeing the world's most boring bears then you'll fork out for a proper panda tour.

The Panda & Friends Tour

For a mere $130 you and 49 other customers can rock up early in the morning for 3.5 hours of visiting the other type of panda (the red ones nobody gives a shit about), then taken to watch the real pandas get out of bed, before being dragged away for a tour of the zoo and all the animals you didn't come along to see.

Funi & Wang Wang's red-headed step-brother, Derek.

VIP Panda Tour

This here is the real deal.  For an entire hour you get to visit Giant Panda Headquarters (no shit, that's a real thing) and stare at the beasts through glass while some zoo keeper lectures you on how bamboo works.  And all that for just $495.

Hang on, you mean that I don't even get to arm wrestle a panda for that price, let alone live out my dream of fighting one in a gladiator pit?  But I even brought my trident and Net Net net, you fuckers.

It promises to be a once in a life time experience.  But for that price I figure I can afford other unique experiences that don't involve some keeper telling me repeatedly that pandas eat fucking bamboo.

Like a pair of waders and a couple of very open-minded hookers, for a start.

Oh, and don't forget to look up the panda blog.  It only gets updated every month or so, but let's face it, that's how often a panda probably does something even mildly interesting.

Sex Detective vs Dr Phil, part two

Holy fuck!  I clicked onto a random part of his website and some hitherto inanimate Dr Phil pic came to life and started talking to me.  Don't do that shit, Phil, it scares people.  Like a pop-up sex ed book for molested kids.  What's worse I refreshed the page and he then refused to so much as twitch, which makes it look like I'm the crazy person.

Anyway, I'm not quite done with Phillip MacGraw.

Round two, Phil: you've got the weight, but I've got the crazy!

Cliches

Dr Phil has a lot of these, snappy little catch-phrases and one line wisdom droppings.  Slogans and analogies that make my cognitive centres scream in pain.  And that's not including his quaintly absurd cultural offerings.

"We have a saying in Texas: 'If a bird-hound's in heat...... spin the possum...... Mexican toes...... vaginoplasty receipt.'  I think y'all know what that means, right?" 

The audience applauds while I'm still trying to work out if he's lamenting his oral virginity or planning to invade Poland.  Either way, I'm not about to base life decisions on Texan folk proverbs anymore than I would nazi limericks.

"The greatest predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour."

In other words we're doomed to repeat our mistakes, which is kinda contrary coming from a guy dedicated to changing behaviour.  People change behaviour all the time, Phillip.  They find religion or lose faith.  They get hooked on drugs or kick habits.  They like vegemite then switch to peanut butter.  And occasionally some middle-aged citizen with a spotless record wakes up one day and takes an assault rifle to work.  But in your binary, monochrome world there are only two possible formulae:

Future behaviour = past behaviour = bad

OR

Future behaviour = past behaviour + Dr Phil = good

"If he does it to you, he'll do it with you."

He's aiming this one at cheating husbands.  Again.  In fact most Dr Phil case studies of infidelity involve compulsively lecherous husbands.  I could argue about this being a disproportionate representation of male douchebags, but that's actually the whole point, isn't it?  When 80% of your demographic are bored housewives your business model demands that hard-working, middle class men be demonised as frequently as possible.

"Do what works for you rather than following some standards you might have read in a self-help book or heard from a well-meaning friend."

What the fuck, Phil baby?  I've seen your online store.  All you sell are well meaning self-help books full of standards.  Oh, you mean books written by other people.  Sorry.

Relationship Rescue!

Apparently at some stage Dr Phil drugged 6 couples and unlawfully detained them at a haunted summer camp in order to save their marriages or summon the Devil or something like that.  After forcing them to watch one of his many re-education videos he set them a bunch of dehumanising tasks to perform in the false hope of regaining their freedom.

At the end of day one of the "Relationship Rescue Retreat," Dr. Phil assigns some homework for the six couples to complete individually.


•Write one page about "the current deadness" in your life.

•Write one page about "the current loneliness" in your life.

•List 20 times you asked for or needed love and were denied.

•List 20 times someone asked you for or needed your love, and you denied them.

•Write a 65-item "bitch list" about your partner. 

That's not therapy, it's documented forensic evidence for a multiple murder-suicide pact.  Also, sixty-fucking-five items for a bitch list?  That figure seems as strange as it is excessive.  Or maybe not.  I checked a couple of other 'homework' style approaches Phil employs - 'Finding your authentic self', and issues to do with jealousy - and the load was similar when it came to compiling lists.  Can't you see what's happening here?  He's not helping people become empowered by exploring their issues, he's punishing them by making them write lines on the blackboard!


Your Authentic Self

Do you know who you are?  According to Phil you don't have a clue.
No, Phil, I was not aware that I was secretly suffering some sort of dissociative identity disorder.  Of course I have a fictional self - at the moment I'm a narcissistic and somewhat disturbed blogger called Kidd Vengeance who claims to be something deliberately creepy and meaningless called a Sex Detective.  It's a satirical vehicle for critiquing popular (and unpopular) culture.  But I'm also me, a guy who works full time, pays his bills, hangs out with mates and girlfriend, and a thousand other things that consitute my lifestyle.  I rarely get confused about this and rock up to work wearing a hockey mask and a bicycle light around my neck.  KV's role as a petty, angry social vigilante is just a cathartic, fictional aspect of me.  But you've devoted a fair bit of your site to claiming and then solving what you assume is a pandemic of existential crises.

Are you living a life that is more in tune with your "authentic" self (who you were created to be) or your "fictional" self (who the world has told you to be)?
You probably weren't even aware that these versions of your "self" existed!

 
This concept receives mucho airplay on his site.  It's extensive and yet mind-bogglingly simplistic, like fully functional, free-thinking humans can be processed like cheques, not unlike what the Dr Phil accounts department will be doing when you buy all the instruction manuals and work books necessary to find out who you really are.  Life scripts, unconsiously inherited beliefs, self-labeling, internal dialogues, personal truth and a whole bunch of other excuses for why you might be a bit of a dick.  But people continue to lap this shit up, and only for one simple reason: 'it's all about you.'  People thrive on being made to feel important, even if the attention they receive is only generated by themselves.  The fact remains that there's a statistical probability you will never be rich, famous or even particularly successful, and deep down we all know this.  And most of what we use to rate success (financial gain, material security, social status and so on) pale in comparison to the gauge used by folks in poorer, less self-absorbed parts of the world - survival.
 
 

It's time to get real about your life, son: you inherited the belief that food matters.

 
Phil argues that you should be defined by your core, true self, and not by what you do in life and your role in relation to others.  Thing is, we already know this.  Occupations, hobbies, relationships, addictions, perversions etc are never used to to define a person, they're used to describe them.  I don't need some mass printed text of bullshit to guide me on the path of self-discovery because there's nothing to discover. I already own me.  I colonised me the moment I spawned from the hatching pod of my mothership, and I've been expanding my internal evil empire ever since.  Trying to make me over-think my identity by selling me the psychological equivalent of a colouring-in book might actually detract from my 'too busy not being a pussy' time.  I can't deconstruct all the crap he puts into discovering Your Authentic Self, but there's one section that I really had to flag:
 
Defining Your External Factors

According to Dr. Phil, you can trace who you've become in this life to three types of external factors: 10 defining moments, seven critical choices, and five pivotal people.

What is with all these arbitrary numerical values?  Especially when there's no parameters in place?  Do I accumulate 10 defining moments by age 16 or 60?  Do I only get 7 choices ever, or is that a minimal quota?  What if I can only find 3 pivotal people, do I have to recruit 2 more, like in Amway? 


Sex Detective Conclusion

None of this makes sense to anyone not diagnosed with a serious mental illness or developmental disorder.  Your psyche is not a Lego set that requires a Dr Phil manual to rebuild.  Life and who you are in it is a rich tapestry of experience, interaction and persistent self-learning tempered by your individual neurological structure, and even that can change.  You are a dynamic, complex system designed to fail and succeed on a regular basis, because both are equally important parts of growing up and gaining knowledge.  There is no 'true you', there is only you.  And there is always at play a little thing I like to call the Sex Detective Rule of Trade-offs: you will never be good at everything.  If you're a successful workaholic, your family life will suffer.  If you're good at polyamory, you will suck at monogamy.  If you're good and rich enough to market self-help books and syndicated television programs, chances are you're not that much of a therapist. 

Thousands of clinical psychologists gain their doctorate each year and still turn out to be crap.  There is a trade off price for everything you do and don't do.  Being told you have limitless potential is a lie, or at least an unattainable truth.  Exploring your dreams is not nearly as useful to your life as knowing your limitations.  Fucking up almost always occurs when someone thinks they are better than they actually are.

Phillip MacGraw is not a practicing psychologist any more, having withdrawn his licence in 2006.  His weight-loss products don't work, and his advice on just about everything is too simple to treat what are actually quite complicated scenarios.  This isn't just my crazy opinion either - just google 'Dr Phil + lawsuits'. 

Sure, I offer bullshit advice all the time but I do so freely because it's worth every cent.

Sex Detective vs Dr Phil, part one

You know why I despise Dr Phil?  Yeah, apart from him being everything I'm not - rich, successful, famous, well-marketed, Texan, bald and fat.  No, what shits me is what he represents: just the right mix of simplistic truth and twisting lies that sells so well to people who have forgotten how to think like fully functional adults.  Phil is a great believer salesman in instantaneous behavioural modification.  "You've gotta change your life!"  "Take charge of your life today!"  "Today is gonna to be a turning point in your life!"  But like all salesmen, his solutions weren't warranted until he told you there was a problem in the first place.  It's Dianetics and infomercials all rolled into one.  Do you have a troubled teen?  Is your relationship on the rocks because of lies?  Does your kid hate vegetables?  Is your ass suffocating your head?  Then buy one of my many books that tell you how to live your life, because you obviously can't be trusted to work it out yourself, moron.


What Would You Do?
I had a peek at his blog today in order to tackle the hard questions on offer.  Today's biting provocation into the heart of your soul was this: What would you do if you only had 24 hours to live?  Many respondents droned on about forgiving rapists, surrounding themselves with family, or praying to their imaginary friends or something.  Personally I found the scenario bizarrely disturbing.  I could only come up with two viable reasons why it would present itself.

1. I was already dying horribly from something and the doctors just gave me the expiration date, in which case the best I could wish for on my last day were every happy drug they could pump into me.

2. I was being held hostage by some assholes who were real sticklers for punctuality, meaning that I had a whole day to piss and shit myself in between begging and sobbing.

"Hey, guys, what would YOU do if you only had 24 hours to live?"

"Rape you 48 times, now shut up and keep walking, imperialist scum."

But even assuming I was otherwise healthy and unrestrained when the news broke, I'd be so fucked up by the prospect that I doubt anything sanely worthwhile would occur to me.  I guess I probably wouldn't go to work for a start.  Not too sure I'd be all nostalgic and remorseful either.  No way would I waste time contacting every family member and close friend to let them know - why the hell would I put the people I love through that grief?  I'm actually not always a very nice guy, and by telling me I'm dead by tomorrow kinda disinclines me to keep that flaw in check.  In fact I can almost guarantee that over the next 24 hours there would be a lot of 'closure' heading towards every cunt who ever pissed me off, mainly in the form of highly ironic practical jokes.  And by 'jokes' I mean 'fists'.  It would be a 24 hour smack-fest.  A knock at the door followed by a falcon punch without preamble or explanation.  Balls or ovaries, I wouldn't discriminate, just punch, punch, punch til the timer on my cortex bomb ran out.


Keep It Real, dude
But aside from inciting pointless fantasy scenarios, Dr Phil likes to dish out simplistic relationship advice for folks who need a crash helmet to navigate a stairwell.

Do you ever lie? Or are you in a relationship with a liar? Dr. Phil offers steps to change your behavior, and in turn, change your relationship with a dishonest person.

Everyone lies, Phil, even you.  It's not only one of many innate human traits, it's essential for people to function in society.  Bad people lie for careless gain, good people lie to help others.  Some people even lie to sell shitty self-help books on their TV shows.  Deceit is just as valid a survival ability as any other.  It's not the lie itself that harms, it's the reason behind it.  But, no, that's way too cynical for the audience.  Instead you offer them insanity.

Be Real with Yourself and Your Partner
If you lie to yourself, you’re the filter. You’re the way the world gets to see you, so if you’re distorting, then you’re totally lost.

Technically these are legitimate sentences oozing out of his self-righteous head, but fucked if I can make sense of them.  Put the word 'dude' at the end of his sentences and suddenly you realise it's just '70s stoner philosophy as typically discussed while waiting for the pizza to arrive.


A Family Affair Fucking Train Wreck

Ed hates his wife, but she wants to save the marriage as punishment.

Six months ago, Ed revealed to his wife (Kandi) of 12 years that he'd been having an affair. That news was shocking enough, but shortly after he dropped another bombshell: The mistress is pregnant.

Ed is a doctor (a real one, not like Phil) and yet possibly the stupidest man on television.  His family, his really pissy looking wife most of all, think that by exposing Ed's shame publically on Dr Phil, some ageing Texan therapist can fix this shit.  Hey, do you wanna know what men do when women pressure them with shame for fucking up?  They continue to fuck up more, often in new and interesting ways.  Compound this pressure with half an audience of rabid women and you turn an otherwise conventional marital abortion into a national disaster.  He's confessed to fucking at least one of his nurses, and unless this mistress did her medical training in the Vatican, she deliberately allowed him to impregnate her.  Still, Dr Phil reckons he can help with some vague, hick advice on marriage saving.

"There definitely is a plan and a way to work through this. But both of you have to say, 'I'm just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other'."

Sure enough, the marriage is doomed, no matter how many feet get put where.  Ed moves out (gets his ass booted) leaving his wife and their 3 kids behind.  Of course Phil will claim this is because they failed to follow his advice.  That's what we call a non-falsifiable claim, or unprovable bollocks.  Look, the guy was getting his on the side, hoping for just a fling, but ended up in a shit storm of his own making.  I'm guessing the guy is great at his job - the medical bit, I mean, not necessarily the nurse-fucking bit - which means he probably sucks at other stuff like monogamous, healthy relationships.  Instead he turns soft-cock, telling each woman whatever bullshit they want to hear at the time until one or both of them make a decision (eg: get the hell out) for him.  Why?  Because he can.  He knows damn well he's got 2 broads fighting over him.  Many modern women are competitive on levels we guys cannot conceive but are happy to exploit if we are weak enough to do so.

Ed adopted a victim mentality the moment he fessed up to Kandi.  He wanted to get away from her, but lacked the cajones to file for divorce.  Instead he simply had to continue to be a lecherous dick until she threw him out.  The public shame forum that is Dr Phil just solidified his victimhood status in his own mind.

The Sex Detective would certainly adopt a different approach.

SD: "Ed, it's obvious to me that you hate your marriage, otherwise you wouldn't be fucking some other chick out of boredom or spite, or, from what I've seen of your wife, pure physical revulsion.  Divorce her, dickhead."

Ed: "But my kids - "

SD: "Will be fucking fine, just like every third kid in their class living with divorced parents right now."

Ed: "But I think I still love my wife!"

SD: "Can it, fool.  Love's a verb, not a noun.  It's a doing word, and you ain't doing shit, pal.  Divorce her now, and if you still feel that way about her on a few years time you can always marry her again, okay?  Pussy.  [Turns to audience] Next we have a mom whose emo kid likes to cut himself in his room, so we're going to give her some carpet cleaning tips.  Stay tuned."

Click here to see Part Two...

Universal Piece of Shit

As is typical of crap cover art, nothing this awesome actually happens.

Holy shit, I just hit the motherlode of manky films.  Universal Soldiers has nothing to do with Jean Claude Van Dam.  It's way, way worse than that.  Another fine product from The Asylum, this movie tells the tale of a team of marines and scientists battling to survive on an island while being hunted by military cyborgs.  That sentence is the coolest and most dishonest thing you will ever read about this plot.  What really happens is that a bunch of amateur actors spend a weekend in the Southern Californian countryside wearing camping gear fatigues and carrying what are clearly toy guns.  They are being stalked by what appear to be homicidal glam rock fans who like to climb trees and kill their prey by throwing sharp bits of wood at people.

Military Inaction

According to Universal Soldiers, the best way to deal with a survival crisis is for everyone to march slowly out in plain sight then stop every 5 metres to have a screaming match.  The cast literally do this, taking it in methodical turns to freak out and step on each other's lines.  Subordinates are yelling shit at superior officers, scientists are yelling abuse at soldiers, and I'm pretty sure I saw one girl yelling at a tree.  But the acting is not my real grievance here.  These people were certainly paid gas money just to make noises.  No, the real gripe is a total lack of attention paid to detail.

I'm a bit of a gun nut hobbyist.  I like to know how they work and what they can do.  I've never been in the military, and the closest I've ever gotten to a live fire scenario is blatting off rounds at the local pistol range.  But for a military themed action film, the producers and cast seem to know so much less then me.  Within the first few minutes one marine is complaining about how low he is on ammo, despite the fact he is wearing a double bandolier of the stuff.  Yes, I know that no armed force has issued bandoliers since the 19th Century but - hang on, upon closer inspection this soldier is wearing bandoliers of empty brass casings.  My bad.

One unlucky grunt is packing a combat shotgun, or at least a Taiwanese toy factory version that's been resized for ages 6 and up.  They don't even bother to post-edit in any muzzle effects for it.  Instead the poor guy is seen simulating imaginary recoil out of synch with the occasional sound effect.  At one point, while trekking aimlessly around with the others, he even throws the gun down in disgust saying "This won't do any good!"  I'm not sure if that was a line or if he was just berating the props department.  Either way his commanding officer orders him to retrieve the weapon, just in case they get in a water pistol fight later on.

Then there's the other two marines armed with the heaviest fire-power the team can muster - a pair of plastic molded M-16 assault rifles.  Unless you really know what to look for, these rifles seem pretty genuine until they are fired in battle.  Once again, no post-edited CGI, so instead what they have to do when discharging the guns is attach what can only be described as black-painted party poppers on the end.  From my tenuous experience with The Asylum studio I have concluded that all their films share the same half a dozen toy guns, and that they simply can't afford a professional armourer to organise blank-firing replicas. 

They also can't afford any army consultants to explain, well, anything service related.  Like rank.  At one point, after Major Expendable is dispatched by a thrown stick, the squad's burly sergeant declares that he's taking comand, despite the lieutenant standing right next to him.  That same sergeant then, during a later imaginary ambush, orders his obviously disinterested troops to "Fall out!" and flees behind a tree for cover.  "Fall out!" is what you say when dismissing a parade, Sergeant Panic.  "Fall back!" is the universal command for 'run away and hide!'  In between yelling confusing orders and contrary tactical advice, he spends most the time running away from things he can't see while doing the same types of tumbling safety rolls that I used to when trying to impress Joanne Gladigau in year 5.

Military Cyborgs: part man, part machine, part animal?

There are 2 antagonist cyborgs stalking our heroes, a pair of army experiments to make super soldiers.  They look like a couple of Borg who got lost on the way to a KISS concert.  According to the somewhat baffling snippets of exposition, these volunteers have been biologically altered to be stronger, faster and more stupid looking than anyone else in the film.  At one point one of the characters who isn't even a scientist explains that the cyborgs can change shape and size through molecular control, which would've been kinda cool if they so much as bothered to do so while on camera.  In addition to having bits of metal arbitrarily welded to their faces, these guys apparently also have animal genes spliced in, presumedly to help them with their embarrassingly obvious wire climbing and wire flying abilities.  Oh, and like I keep saying, they are the masters at chucking wood at shit.  Even the third, ultimate cyborg - a 50 foot tall cartoon robot - uproots and hurls a telephone pole because, you know, a giant military warbot with inbuilt weaponry might give the tax payer the wrong idea.  The next logical step is to create a Transformer that turns into a catapult.

I haven't mentioned any plot holes yet due to lack of plot to perforate, but the supposed mission required to rid the island of killer cyborgs is to "reboot the mainframe".  Hmmm, unfortunately the film makers don't quite understand what a 'mainframe' usually is.  According to them it's a dusty old CRT monitor and keyboard sitting in the corner of a disused utility shed.  They also think that 'rebooting' means switching off all power on the island for a few minutes while still randomly tapping on keys in the dark.  Anyway, this convoluted process manages to shut down one cyborg, while being ignored by the other, and also activates the superbot.  Nice try, flesh-sacks.

Happy Ending (for the viewer)

Almost everyone dies, but who cares because the only hot chick survives.  How?  By pulling out the radio hidden in her ass for the last 80 minutes and calling in an air strike on the megaborg thingy.  The airforce arrives by using stock footage of 3 completely different types of fighter jet then firing a cartoon missile into the metal giant's chestoid area.  But wait, the pretend explosion had no effect!  Luckily for Pfc Perky the killdroid is standing next to an electricity sub-station so she fires a round into a transformer and the ensuing lightning bolts fry that fucker but good.  Because, fuck you, that's exactly how electricity works, okay?

I gotta admit, plenty of scenes in this flick had me laughing hard.  The cyborgs somehow being in two places at once, marines dying in depressingly horrible ways, and scientists turning on the troops because all the director wrote in the scene notes was "do some sort of plot twist now".  This movie managed to score a rating on the IMDB of 1.4 out of 10, but you can bet that it will still turn a profit for The Asylum and get screened on the Sy Fy channel.  These guys simply don't give a shit.

Sex Detective Crosses The Line

I heard about this site on the radio a few weeks ago.  A bunch of voice actors pretending to be teens or concerned parents or possible pedophiles asked controversially obvious questions like 'when is it okay to hit a girl?', 'is it okay for my teenage daughter to text naked pictures of herself?', or 'do I have to have sex if I don't want to?'  Well, if you're not sure if it's 1952 and suspect that any of these answers might be less than a resounding 'No, you fucking savage!' the you might want to visit Crossing The Line, the new goverment website designed to inform humans on how to deal with teenage relationships and stimulate meaningful discussion.  Of course, when I say 'the government' what I mean is that Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) threw a hundred bucks at some emo work experience kid and asked him to build a website.  The parameters were simple: keep the backgrounds to bland pastel, and don't get carried away with the interactive features.

ASO 5 Webmaster - Raven Darkheart

I don't really like teeagers much.  In my former career I spent over a decade as a youth worker which gave me plenty of time to learn what there is not to like about them.  Before that I was a teenager myself and still thought they sucked.  There weren't any online answers for my teen sexuality and relationship issues, but then again most of my questions would have run along the lines of 'why do girls kiss like they're eating a Big Mac?' or 'what's the fucking story with this constant boner?'

Sharing The Line

In the '90s the government secretly created a pre-digital positronic android designed to infiltrate behind enemy lines and cause ruthless, dispassionate mayhem.  Unfortunately their creation was programmed in Linux and immediately turned into a pretentious pussy, so the military traded it to FaHCSIA for a bunch of state wards to do the same job.  That andoid is now chained to a computer in a hidden bunker and has ben redesignated as the Share The Line blogger who, in its own words is:

a writer, commentator and social media lover, who loves life, people and relationships but realises that in 2010 the boundaries within relationships are more unclear than ever before.

This thing generates the fairly harmless scenarios intended to evoke discussion from those who visit the site and let them chat about whether or not their own problems involve 'crossing the line.'  The responses posted in the comments section are then published for everyone to see.  Commentators usually manifest in 3 forms: some kid with severe literacy problems, or some parent who wants an insanely easy answer to the complexities of raising a teen, or some verbose first year Social Work student who think they can prescribe convoluted solutions to the evils of the world.

Goverment Scenario Example

So, let's see what typical teen dilemma the STL blogger 2.0 presented for the launch of this site - teen pregancy? date rape? drug-induced gang violence?

Please be all three.  Please be all three.

I found myself considering something kind of shocking the other day. I was actually on the verge of hacking in to someone else’s email. I didn’t do it in the end. But it was seriously tempting, and it would have been scarily easy to do.


I wasn’t planning to read their emails (or at least that’s what I told myself). I just wanted to see who was emailing them, and how often. It was all brought on by jealousy, I have to admit. And a big fat dose of paranoia.


They say all’s fair in love and war. But is it fair to look at someone’s email in-box if you don’t actually read the emails? Or is that crossing the line?  

Seriously?  Sounds pretty lame, but, okay, whatever.  I guess my years of experience working with teens can allow me to draft a suitable response.  For a start you talk about 'hacking', but unless you're an experienced coder with a specialisation in decryption algorithms and access to some pretty impressive resources, I'm going to assume that you really mean 'steal someone's password'.  Otherwise I might need to inform Gmail, Yahoo and MSN Live that their empires teeter on the brink of collapse due to your superhuman 'hacking' skills.  As for whether or not it's fair to read just the banners of someone else's email, well you've kinda fucked the morality bitch anyway seeing how you already stole their password and logged into their secure account, you stalking psycho.

Real Teen Scenario

Like I said, many commentators who actually fall into its intended 12-20 yo demographic tend to respond with scenarios of their own, some depressing as all hell, some uplifting tales of courage, and some clearly bizarre.  Once again I get to employ countless hours of hard-earned youth-working skills to tackle the tough issues faced by today's youth.

The uther day i ran outta toylet paiper and askd my frend for a tee towell she toold every1 at skool, is that crossin the line?

What the fuckin- I mean, who the hell makes their friend watch them go 'toylet' in a kitchen then wipes their ass with a tea-towel?  You weren't crossin the line, you disgusting little muppet, you literally shat all over it.  You're the sole justification child psychologists use to charge parents $150 an hour.

Drawing The Line

Disgusted with what passes for teen problems nowadays, I moved onto the Gallery where site visitors get to use some sort of interactive art tool to create self-expressive pictures for all to see.  I've known a few highly talented young artists in my travels so I was eager to see what was on offer.  Until I came to this...

Christ, I don't even know what I'm looking at, and the portarit titles don't help much either.  I had a look at the process.  Apparently you can upload an image of yourself then use their software to draw over your pic with an uninterrupted line to make a clumsy doodle tracing of yourself.  I'm not sure why anyone over the age of 6 would find this fun, let alone how reducing your features to a spastic squiggle boosts self-esteem, but the results are hilariously depressing.  It seems pretty much the opposite of youthful artistic expression, summing up beautifully the government's perception of teen issues.

Parents & Teachers

If you're a concerned parent or teacher who doesn't understand why teenagers carry on like a bunch of teenagers, then this is the section for you, provided you like your advice to be overly simplistic and often worthless.  I picked one of the four advice documents at random - Bullying. 

After the 3 minutes it took to read it 3 times, I still wasn't sure if they were anti or pro bully.  What I did learn was that whoever wrote it graduated from Social Work in 1987 and never bothered to keep up with current events in their field.

...know that bullies operate out of a place of low self-esteem, inadequacy and feelings of powerlessness and this can often be changed with help and understanding.

Developmental and child psychology have come a long way over the last 20 years and if there's one thing we've learned it's that the above statement is bullshit.  Bullies are are quite the opposite of insecure.  The problem isn't low self-esteem, it's artifically high self-esteem.  Throughout their life they were always praised and encouraged and never challenged by role-models on their behaviour.  They have been shielded from failure and taught to expect to assume power around others.  This inflated sense of entitlement means that they stop treating peers as equals.  The bully who robs your lunch money and takes an almost homoerotic pleasure in flushing your head is not some domestic abuse victim, he's a narcissistic, borderline sociopath spoilt into believing that other people simply don't matter as much as he does.

I gave up after that.  It's great for the government to let kids and others have their say online in a site moderated to regulate flame wars and possibly educate the masses about how rape is actually wrong and that feelings are important, but teen advice comes down to this basic understanding: teenagers are proto-humans caught in a phase where their bodily chemicals are outracing their brains.  The pre-frontal lobes take about 20 years to fully mature and that's the part that controls our ability to reason cognitively and predict the long term consequences of our actions.  I don't care how intelligent some kid is, he's doomed to be an impulsive idiot or an emotionally retarded depressive in his teens.  It's how they're built.  They are almost pre-programmed to cause problems because they literally aren't mature enough to plan effective solutions.  Teens are selfish, volatile, rebellious and sometimes outright douchebags, just like the rest of us were back then.  There's a more than even chance they will be sexually active by age 16, as well as experimenting with drugs and/or alcohol.  And there is literally nothing anyone can do to stop this without causing some major psychological damage down the track.  The fairy tale morality of childhood is behind them, while the real, experiential ethical codes of adulthood have yet to be reached.  I like to think of the hardships and trials faced by teens as a form of innoculation to toughen them up in readiness for those adult challenges yet to come.