Sports Review Footy Tipping
ROUND 6

Richmond v Hawthorn
Friday 7:40pm @ Telstra Dome

Kangaroos v Western Bulldogs
Saturday 2:10pm @ Manuka Oval

Essendon v Sydney
Saturday 2:10pm @ MCG

St Kilda v Brisbane Lions
Saturday 7:10pm @ Telstra Dome

West Coast v Fremantle
Saturday 7:40pm @ Subiaco

Geelong v Adelaide
Sunday 1:10pm @ Skilled Stadium

Melbourne v Carlton
Sunday 2:10pm @ MCG

Port Adelaide v Collingwood
Sunday 3:15pm @ AAMI Stadium

Post your tips in the comments. Entries close Friday 7:40 pm. If no tips have been entered by this time you will allocated all the 'away' teams. If for some reason, comments are not working, you are welcome to send me your tips via e-mail or SMS.

Progressive Scores
TBA

Sports Review Footy Tipping
ROUND 5

Richmond v Adelaide
Friday 7:40pm @ Telstra Dome

Carlton v West Coast
Saturday 2:10pm @ Optus Oval

St Kilda v Kangaroos
Saturday 2:10pm @ Telstra Dome

Brisbane Lions v Hawthorn
Saturday 7:10pm @ Gabba

Sydney v Melbourne
Saturday 7:20pm @ Telstra Stadium

Collingwood v Essendon
Sunday 1:10pm @ MCG

Port Adelaide v Western Bulldogs
Sunday 3:15pm @ AAMI Stadium

Fremantle v Geelong
Sunday 4:10pm @ Subiaco

Post your tips in the comments. Entries close Friday 7:40 pm. If no tips have been entered by this time you will allocated all the 'away' teams. If for some reason, comments are not working, you are welcome to send me your tips via e-mail or SMS.

Any new tipsters are welcome to join, you will start the season with a progressive score of 11.

Progressive Scores
Matty 22 (4)
Peter 21 (3)
Damo 20 (4)
Pierre 17 (5)
Belinda 16 (4)
Kate 15 (5)
Em 15 (5)
Tony 14 (5)

TV Week Logies Rant 2004
Okay, so what the hell am I doing up at 1:47am when I have to get up for work in just over four hours time?

Simple, my heart is pumping more sugar than blood after I enjoyed a redcurrant skullcap (uber-sweet mocktail with juices from about ten different fruits you've never heard of) with my meal tonight. But more on that later, time for a rant this year's Logies, of which I caught saw the last thirty to forty-five minutes of.

Bert Newton's annual bit was good for a few laughs as usual, but what was with the winners?

Three awards to McLeod's Daughters. Well let's go and shear some sheep and root some blokes to celebrate. Two to Home & Away popsluts and two to The Secret Life of Us - yes, well done gang, pity you got the chop in favour of reality "megahit" The Resort. And After The Deluge? If I'm not mistaken, didn't that "CrashBurn"? Even the overseas winners were crap: CSI and Friends?: Pass the originality, please.

Oh, and let's not forget: Rove Fucking McManus.

Okay, I've got nothing against the guy, and respect him as a successful comedian and businessman, but most popular personality from this country? His TV show isn't terrible (well, Rove Live anyway, Skithouse is another story), but his generic style of infantile humour isn't exactly hilarious. I mean, good on him for having a go, there aren't many variety shows left in this country these days, but his show offers little more than a carbon copy of a promotional celebrity wankfest (Jay Leno) minus most of the laughs. So maybe that's a little harsh, he's worth the occasional view if there's nothing else on, but Gold Logie material? You've gotta be kidding.

But when you look at who Rove was up against, you can't blame the voting public:
Delta Goodrem - Okay, an International star on the music scene, but what has she done on TV apart from Neighbours?
Lisa Chappell - Who?
Georgie Parker - Might be the greatest actress in the world, but she's on a crappy Seven drama so who the hell cares? (Actually should have won it in 1992 for the little-known role of Despina Hatzipapadopoulos - the replacement character on Acropolis Now when Effie quit).
John Wood - Maybe the most "deserving", but Blue Heelers should've been put down years ago.

When you've got the above four as alternatives, perhaps Rove isn't such a bad choice. The real question that needs to be asked is who comes up with the nominees? Answer: TV Week. So they pick whoever's popular with their demographic: which I'd hazard to guess is mainly housewives and grannies, with a sprinkling of pre-pubescent teens.

So who would I nominate? After a lot of thought (five good long minutes), I've decided on the following short list, from which I encourage readers to vote from. Also feel free to nominate anyone you deem worthy.

And the 2004 Gold Anti-Logie nominees are...

Shaun Micallef
The anti-Rove. Tonight show humor that is out there without appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Larry Emdur
For having the patience and sense of humor to spend day after day hugging hysterical housewives, while simulatenously flogging shitty prizes and being yelled at by an overweight lunatic and still manging to keep that winning smile. I guess the bimbos in bikinis help a bit.

Lara Sacher
Because one, she's hot, and, two, she's on Neighbours. That's the only two prerequisites Delta meets, and Lara has the additional attribute of actually being a current full time cast member.

Shane Crawford
He's got the looks, he's got the charisma, and his acting talents aren't that far behind the average Aussie drama star are they?

Tiffany Cherry
Come on, who would you rather spend a few minutes watching as boundary rider, her or Dipper? And because "Tiffany Cherry" just *has* to be the name of a porn star somewhere in the world.

Ian Smith
For teaching us that drinking alcohol and perving on women should be encouraged, but repressed. Long live Harold, Madge would be proud.

Sandra Sully
Shoe-in for the title of "NewsMILF of the Century". Her intermittent misappropriations... mispronounciations, rather, elevate the already alliterationtastically amusing Ten Late News to cult status.

Vote now. Winner announced soon.

What's stuck in my head
BRIDAL TRAIN - The Waifs

I'm sure you've all heard this by now, wistful folk song with a really noticable Austraylan accent. Tag line is something like "all the gurls across Astraylya marrieed to a Yank-ee saila"... Sounds out of place on the radio, but really gets stuck in your head.

Sports Review Footy Tipping
ROUND 4

Carlton v Essendon
Friday 7:40pm @ MCG

Melbourne v Port Adelaide
Saturday 2:10pm @ MCG

West Coast v Brisbane Lions
Saturday 4:10pm @ Subiaco

Geelong v Richmond
Saturday 7:10pm @ Telstra Dome

Adelaide v St Kilda
Saturday 7:40pm @ AAMI Stadium

Kangaroos v Sydney
Sunday 1:10pm @ Manuka Oval

Collingwood v Fremantle
Sunday 2:10pm @ Telstra Dome

Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs
Sunday 2:10pm @ MCG

Post your tips in the comments. Entries close Friday 7:40 pm. If no tips have been entered by this time you will allocated all the 'away' teams. If for some reason, comments are not working, you are welcome to send me your tips via e-mail or SMS.

Any new tipsters are welcome to join, you will start the season with a progressive score of 6.

Progressive Scores
Matty 18 (7)
Peter 18 (8)
Damo 16 (5)
Pierre 12 (1)
Belinda 12 (1)
Kate 10 (1)
Em 10 (3)
Tony 9 (4)

Who Wants To Be A Gay Anaesthetist?
Stay tuned for the acting debut Australia of Australia's most ubiquitous media personality...

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire is coming out of his shell to fill the most colourful vacancy in TV soap.

McGuire is the new Dr Pink, the gay anaesthetist in cult Footy Show spoof Bulger MD.

Host McGuire filmed his first scenes opposite would-be special friend Hank Bulger (Shane Crawford) at the Nine studios yesterday.

Good for you, Eddie. However, you've got a long way to go to catch up to the antics of your northern Footy Show counterpart "Fatty" Vautin. If I saw Fatty in the street, I'd be more shocked to see him in a suit than in high heels and a miniskirt.

Sports Review Footy Tipping
ROUND 3

Brisbane Lions v Collingwood
Thursday 7:40pm @ Gabba

Kangaroos v Carlton
Saturday 2:10pm @ MCG

Essendon v West Coast
Saturday 7:10pm @ Telstra Dome

Sydney v Geelong
Saturday 7:10pm @ SCG

Port Adelaide v Hawthorn
Sunday 1:10pm @ AAMI Stadium

Western Bulldogs v Melbourne
Sunday 2:10pm @ MCG

Fremantle v Adelaide
Sunday 4:10pm @ Subiaco

St Kilda v Richmond
Monday 2:10pm @ Telstra Dome

Post your tips in the comments. Entries close Thursday 7:40 pm. If no tips have been entered by this time you will allocated all the 'away' teams. If for some reason, comments are not working, you are welcome to send me your tips via e-mail or SMS.

Any new tipsters are welcome to join, you will start the season with a progressive score of 5.

Progressive Scores
Pierre 11 (4)
Damo 11 (4)
Belinda 11 (4)
Matty 11 (6)
Peter 10 (5)
Kate 9 (4)
Em 7 (5)
Foz 5 (4)

Sex for HECS
From the Hun, erm, the Herald Sun, not the pr0n one:
UNIVERSITY students are working as strippers and prostitutes to pay for their higher education.

A survey by Melbourne University lecturer Dr Sarah Lantz found at least 40 struggling students worked in strip clubs, escort agencies and massage parlours.

Hilarious headline, but seriously, why would anyone sell their body to pay off HECS!? The whole point of HECS is that you don't have to pay it off in big chunks, you get 3%-6% taken out of your paycheck once you start earning a certain level. Great research there, Herald Sun.

Shock: AFL revealed as pr0n distributor!
From the AFL.com.au:

The AFL has announced a recall of all Auskick CD roms which have been distributed in this year’s AFL Auskick pack due to an ‘inappropriate image of a topless woman’ appearing in the product.

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said that the AFL was alerted late last night of the incident and that an advertising campaign asking all parents to destroy the CD or to return it to their Auskick coordinator was being launched via all major newspapers.

“It’s inappropriate. It’s an image of a topless woman. That’s not the message we want to send out to our Auskick children participates,” Demetriou said on Thursday at AFL House.

Okay, I missed all the TV news and football shows last night - can someone tell me if this was real or just an April Fool's joke, and if it was real, was it taken in a toilet cubicle with a former Kangaroos captain in the background?

Review:The Butterfly Effect
Remember that feeling you got the first time you watched The Matrix, Fight Club or The Sixth Sense?

If you do, chances are you will experience something similar while watching The Butterfly Effect. I won't give away too much about the plot, except to explain what the butterfly effect is. Chaos theory is the idea that one seemingly insignificant event - for example, a butterfly flapping its wings in a rainforest on the other side of the planet - has the potential to trigger off a series of events leading to a significant or even catastrophic event - say a hurricane on the this side of the planet.

I guess the plot isn't really quite as complex as The Matrix or Fight Club, so you should be able to grasp what's going after about the first half hour.

As well as chaos theory, the film also looks at how the human mind processes and recalls memories, which is something I have a fair amount of interest in.

The main character (as an adult) is played by Ashton Kutcher, and played surprisingly well. I think it's an understatement to say that his role in That 70s Show doesn't really give him a chance to show off his acting abilities. Cute blonde Amy Smart is also fairly good, although I've only seen her in lightweight fare before too (Road Trip, Rat Race).

While being primarily a thinker, there is also plenty of suspense to keep things interesting, and the cast of characters really grow on you by the film's end. Great the first time round, and will also be interesting to watch the next time with foresight of what's going on.