Douglas Copeland originally pigeonholed my generation as "Generation X". As in that kak subject of maths, the X stands for something unknown. Basically he pigeonholed us as a generation unable to be pigeonholed. We’re the first generation (since generations started being studied by marketers) to be practically “lost”. We’re almost a non-entity. Wedged solidly between the Boomers and the next bunch (the sprogs being punched out now, some of which are our children), we don’t really have a motto, or a call to action, an ethos, or a cause. It’s almost depressing thinking about us.


We’re the most suicidal, most depressed, most abusive of substances, most apathetic, least committed, most philandering, most incarcerated, least predictable. We don’t vote, we don’t care, we are self-obsessed, vain, shallow and disgustingly materialistic. Our entire existence is simply consumerism. We know more about celebrity than we do about calculus. Our collective intelligence is borne out of so-called revolutionary educational systems that have basically left us semi-literate and primed to fill humdrum slots on the great capitalist conveyor belt. Dreams dashed, ambition muzzled. We leave the stench of nihilism everywhere. Nihilism you ask? Nothingness, my guy. We’re so apathetic we couldn’t be assed to get off the PS3 to be anarchists. We’re barely human. Some robots have been known to show more human-like behaviour.


We cannot enjoy the sexual revolution our parents’ generation fucked so hard for, because all they did was release the horrors of rampant teen pregnancy, carpet bomb abortions, Rohypnol, Viagra, unparalleled divorce rates, STDs and the killer HIV. Thanks guys.


The drug revolution was supposed to expand consciousness, spiritualism and open our minds and souls to newer, exciting experiences in touch with the earth, the galaxy and our futures. 12 year old school girls are now shacking up in Hillbrow hotels as crack whores. Cocaine is an after-dinner mint. Ecstasy pills are called disco biscuits. Yummy, schnack, schnack, schnack. Drain cleaner is an ingredient in one of the most popular insufflated (that’s the proper term for schnarfing – see education notes above) drugs heaving through our collective nightly outings. Expand your consciousness? Only druggies could think of that.


The generations before us destroyed the last bastions of institutionalised racism and sexism. Thanks for that one too folks, we’re all flippen equal now but totally confused about who the fuck we are. Am I male? If so, am I a metrosexual, an ubersexual, a retrosexual, one of the guys, detached emotionally or in touch with my feminine side? Black people that embrace western culture are coconuts. White people that like hip hop are wiggas. Women are dykes, bisexual, sapphosexual, bicurious, sexually liberated, slags, ho’s, bitches or they have lots of cats. By wiping out traditional gender and race definitions and abhorring them as negative we have all lost our identities and culture.


The melting pot is dark green like sickly hyaena vomit and thick as hot tar. It’s not a fucking rainbow dammit. The global village and “it’s a small world after all” have diluted everything. We can be in New York tomorrow, chat over the net to Australians, e-mail from the jet to Kazahkstan, catch a bullet train to France, the Chunnel under the sea to England, a Ferrari at 300km/h on the Autobahn in Germany. Basically, we’ve got it all and we’ve got it now…


Now what?


Nobody knows what the fuck we’re all about. Not even ourselves. The minute some marketer thinks he’s got us in his crosshairs, we move the goalposts. “Oh no you freaking don’t!” we say to the bastards. We’re individuals. The problem with individualism is that it doesn’t work. As individuals we can only accomplish so much. As individuals we have summarily annihilated collective anything. There’s no collective reasoning, no collective cause. We take two steps forward, five sideways, three back and we then do the hokey pokey and turn around… if we wanna.


Our music is a perfect reflection of the multiple schisms and dissections within our generation. Nobody knows what music we like - is it rap, punk, progressive, hip hop, industrial, hardtrance, minimal tech, world beat, retro hippie crap or none of the above? Even within each so-called genre is a myriad of different sub-genres. Nothing defines us the way rock n' roll did the boomers.


What the fuck man?


Indeed the bleak picture I have painted above may have many of you feeling stomach-churningly lost, depressed and alone. I have however, deliberately left out one glaring factor that can, will and already is pulling us together in ways never dreamed of. It’s technology of course. Just over a decade ago the Internet was “new” to most of us. In that short time we have all become cybernauts. The Internet is no longer cyberspace. We now call it home. Our tenacious individualism that threatened the very breakdown of the thin strands that hold societies together, although preserved, is now corralled on the Internet. We have come together, as individuals. We were straying, losing focus, just being, consuming, breathing and dying. Now we celebrate the death of Generation X. Typically, we cannot be pigeonholed, we WILL redefine ourselves. We once were lost but now we’re found… on the Internet. We are now: Generation @. A generation that will redefine the term: technocracy (tek-nok-ruh-see) - A type of society marked by the dominant role of people with specialised technical skills, particularly engineers. You see, we are now the technical elite. We are the leaders in this world. We were there from the start. We grew up as it grew up. We know the ins and outs. We can leverage this awesome tool of technology to create the world that we, as individuals, wanted.


We’re individuals. The problem with individualism is that it doesn’t work. As individuals we can only accomplish so much. But now we have the tool that brings us together. Together we stand, divided we fall.


That’s where our generation is @.

Well Britney seems to be up the bloody spout again, so her innocence is down the drain for sure. In fact, any woman whose break-through song involves dressing in a schoolgirl outfit and singing “Hit me baby, one more time” should never have been deemed innocent in the first place.

Heat magazine drivel aside, let’s explore your sexual history. Makes you nervous doesn’t it? Bet you have a number of skeletons (and perhaps 12” Anal Invader dildos) in your sexual closet. When it comes to one’s sexual proclivities and past experiences there is no doubt that revealing the full extent and details to your current interest would make temperatures rise… and not in a good way.

Consider the scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral where Andie McDowell’s character rattles off her list of 33 lovers without breaking a blush, much to Hugh Grant’s foppish jaw-dropping surprise. You see what is at play here is the fuzzying of edges that surrounds sexual history. Women lie about it with skilled understatement and men lie about it with thinly-veiled machismo.

This particular social custom is nicely summed up in American Pie 2.

Guys:

Stiffler to Kevin: When a girl tells you how many guys she's slept with, multiply it by three and that's the real number. Didn't you fuckers learn anything in college?

Girls:

Jessica: If a guy tells you how many girls he's hooked up with, it's not even close to that. You take that number and divide it by three, then you get the real total. OK, so if Kevin is saying it's been three girls it's more like one or none.

Vicky: None?

Jessica: The rule of three. It's an exact science. Consistent as gravity.

So… she’s not that innocent. I’m sure this little fact will have your poor chest-beating maleness raging with the green monster of jealousy. It’s real kak guy, but that’s the way it is. Additionally, when she blinks innocently at you after a particularly raucous session and says she’s never had her hair pulled while being rogered from behind… she’s lying dude. Basically she’s done it six ways from Sunday, and twice on Tuesday, and perhaps the number of people involved would not technically be called a couple… perhaps gang is more accurate. Yup, your innocent little virgin lady is not that innocent. Deal with it.

Women lie for two reasons: Firstly, due to social pressures that still (yes, still) label a sexually experienced and empowered (demanding even) female as a slag. A woman of lax virtue. So she protects her virtue and claims to be an inexperienced girl. Secondly, women know how weak men’s egos are. Mentioning that time she fucked two guys at the same time… and loved it, is not going to make you feel uber-confident is it? You’ll be a terrified, whimpering little wreck. Of course, any girl who blatantly declares this to her new boyfriend is being a tad insensitive, so it’s probably best that you don’t know. If you don’t know, it can’t hurt you.

However, if you are to fully explore the wonderful, juicy sexual landscape that lies before both of you I think that sexual openness is essential. Don’t go blathering on about it. Just be open and honest about things. Jealousy is a tough beast to muzzle, but you must. So, when next you ask your darling a little question about her sexual history, such as: “Babe, have you ever had sex in a public place?” and she replies: “Not really, but the thought excites me”, then times that by three. She’s done it in public, probably been seen doing it in public, and she’s gagging to do it again. Make her dreams come true.

The path of least resistance is my preferred route. However, when two paths diverge in a wood, I invariably take the one less traveled by, because I like to do things differently. It spices life up a bit. Now that brings me to an impasse in my metaphors, since the path less traveled is more often than not the path of significant resistance. But out of singlehood or coupledom, which would you think, as a guy, would be the path of least resistance?

The single man sees life from a very simple point of view: Beer, rugby, Playstation, cars, and spading – hopefully leading to banging uglies together with a fit specimen of the opposite gender (of the same species). He barely accepts the fact that banging uglies together may lead to coupledom. This is a kind of quid pro quo situation. Women don’t usually just invite men into their pants (regularly) without expecting some form of partnering. If getting his greens means he has to be attached then he will just have to put up with it, and travel that path reluctantly.

Of course this is the viewpoint of the single man and usually the one that is commitment phobic, is still too attached to his mommy, or simply has never been able to successfully hold a relationship together for very long. He sees the path less traveled as a dark and scary place. A road he must travel begrudgingly to get to the holy grail of punani.

However, once this path has been traveled a couple of times, he learns (hopefully) that coupledom and its benefits far outweigh the single life. Sure there’s the adjustment and certain handbrakes on his freedoms, but let’s consider the following in terms he will understand: Being single is like buying a Lotto ticket every week. You’re holding out for that big win, but you either get nothing or some piffling amount in return. A total waste of time. In a relationship, you’ve won the Lotto. You’re dipping your wick as regularly as you could please… and with a partner of your choosing. Not some beer-improved swamp donkey.

Take the Durex Sex Survey as an example of the benefits (in easily understood terms for the male brain):
* Couples living together report having sex 146 times per year.
* Married couples have sex 98 times per year.
* Single folks are having sex the least at 49 times a year.

So… my guy, your praising of the single life and all the honeys you’re getting is a tad off balance now isn’t it? Your shacked up mate is bonking away like Woody Woodpecker on an ephedrine overdose, while you probably polish your turtle while watching the soft porn on ETV every lonely Friday night.

Of course, this isn’t as easy as it seems. You can’t simply find a worthy partner to hold your hand down that dark and scary path of coupledom. They’re damn hard to find… well the good ones at least.

So where does that leave the single guy? Still on the hunt I’m afraid, but hopefully more determined to make the next one work, so that he too, may actually be able to boast that he’s a stud, instead of some lonely masturbator.

Men are so primitive. If you can call it that. I prefer simply… men are men. Nevertheless, when it comes to our betties there is an ownership issue. As much as women protest, and methinks they doth protest too much, men do in some way consider their girlfriends and wives as possessions. It’s not as heinously misogynistic as it sounds. We’ll tune our mate; “Hey check that’s my new bint”. The emphasis on MY and that ‘my’ implies that the chick is ours. We hoard our girlfriends with Golum-like obsession: “My precioussss. Silly Hobbitses will never get preciousssss. She’s mine nyeeeheeheehehe!” Even God himself demands that you not covet your neighbour’s wife, and hence my lack of guilt when perving with my binoculars at the fluff two houses down.

However, as much as we would like them to be chained to our bedposts for the rest of their lives, we have to let them out of the house and into the unfaltering gaze of other men. This unfortunate situation is then exacerbated when we enter the abattoirs. By that I mean meat markets, more commonly known as clubs. Dress to impress they say on their flyers and women take that shit seriously. Although somehow they don’t look like they’re dressing to impress their fellow females. You take one look at her and she’s flaunting more skin than a shy nudist at Sandy Bay. Dress to impress? More like undress buddy.

Of course, no greater compliment can be given to a guy than sauntering into a club with a fit hunny secured to his arm and having the entire male population turn as one man and gaze stupefied at her beauty. But that also means: “Game on”. He will then spend his entire evening fending them off like a shepherd protecting his last sheep from a pack of hyenas driven crazy by hunger.

“Oooooooooh, I absolutely LOVE this song!” she will cry and clap her hands together quickly, “We just HAVE to go dance!” That’s like telling George Bush he has to parachute into Kabul once the troops have retreated. The dancefloor is hell for the boyfriend. There’s his prize beauty, undressed to impress and now out in the open, swaying her hips suggestively and doing that thing that girls do when they say they are dancing. It looks more like making love to the sound waves seeping out of the speakers.

Now beer goes through you like a hot bullet through a ripe melon. He must go and wring out a kidney at some point. His buxom dancing queen will say, “Okay hun, I’ll be here dancing.” That’s why there are never queues for the dude’s commode. We’re in and out of there faster than you can say zip, let alone button-fly. As we return, the scene is all too familiar. There she is aglow in the glitter-ball light, and literally encircled by at least 3 or 4 lone wolves on the prowl and one will already have made her acquaintance and told her she has beautiful “whatever comes into his mind first”.

What is it about a woman dancing? I should know. I have been out with three dancers. These are the women that men nudge their mates and say: “I’d hit that like the fist of an angry god!” It even happened to me. There I was sitting patiently sipping my beer, as the boyfriend of a dancer does, and she was doing her Coyote Ugly thing on the bar at the erstwhile Mansfield’s in Illovo, when some guy nudged me, pointed at her and said words to that nature. I nearly went Manson on his ass and I don’t mean Marilyn. It happens all the time. Even with your mates: “Dude your chick dances really well!”. Suggested as a compliment, but I’m a guy too you vacuous moron. I know what that means, you sick fuck. It means: “I’d hit that like the Blitzkrieg on Poland!”

So what can a guy do? Beats me pal. Roll with the punches and take it as a manly compliment. If you're the one doing the complimenting, then don't beat around the bush with “Your girlfriend is really pretty”, be a man and say: “Dude, given half a chance I’d be in there faster than Malema at a ZANU PF buffet. You are one lucky guy, let me tell you, and that makes me jealous because I'm weak, and if she’s faithful to you then you’ve earned my respect as a man.” Well that’s the way I like to see it.

Daaaar dah dahdah daaaar dahdndahndah, daaar dahndah daaar dah, daaar dah. I was playing air guitar and shouting that after I came up with today’s blog heading. If you hadn’t guessed already, those are (my interpretation of) the opening bars to Dire Straits’ ‘Money for nothing’ off the Brothers in Arms album. Classic I tell ya. Okay, well, ahem. Back to the writing of the column then. But it does lead me in to the phenomenon of groupies. The song laments the fact that these rockers get legions of willing females to engage in all manner of depraved activities and all with no strings attached. Money for nothing and your chicks for free. “Look at them yo-yos”, “Banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee”, “Little faggot with the earring and the makeup”. Exactly… how the hell do they do it? Those poncy poodle rockers with makeup and perms had women creaming their seats, whilst us lowly normal guys had to beg and plead for a fondle, let alone 10-in-the-bed drug-fuelled romps.

The groupie is a special creature. Whereas you might have to fork out large amounts of moulah to an attractive prostitute to fulfill your sexual fantasies, and even then she scolds “But I don’t do greek”, with a groupie you just say: “Bend over and let me hit that ass like a high-hat!” and she obliges willingly and even gratefully. There is not a man amongst us that would deny that the idea of a groupie is not entirely a kak one. Yeah, yeah, pelt me with tampons, but I’m just being honest. Men have come a long way since our cavemen days. Do I hear a collective “Pfffft!” from the female readers? In those days our trusty club would secure us a mating partner with a soft thud on her cranium and that’s just the way it was. Why I say we have evolved is that men actually derive an enormous amount of pleasure out of the fact that the woman actually wants to sleep with us. Not just that, but she is willing and takes pleasure in the activity herself. That is what turns us evolved men on.

Now groupies give men all of that and more. They are certainly willing. They will do anything your testosterone-crazed brain wants to do. They will even boast about it afterwards, even if you were the worst shag of her life. The groupie relationship works for men, because it strokes our fragile egos. Perhaps, in a world that is actually run by women, we get that little taste of what it was like to have the power…. Way back when.

Chicks for free. That’s an interesting line right there. It implies that chicks are not free… and they aren’t. Engaging in a sexual relationship with a woman costs. Before you bust an ovary, hear me out. I’m not talking cash here, although that is one way to do it. What I’m talking about is a reciprocal arrangement. It costs time, effort, emotion, caring, and love. If a man is not willing or able to put that in, then he won’t get much out. I’m not saying that men invest for sex… er… but suddenly that there looks like it could have some truth in it. I don’t know, go and blaze a blunt with an anthropology student and get back to me after you talk that through.

What the hell am I getting at? Sorry, I don’t plan this shyte before it comes out I kinda just go with the bowl-splattering flow. Spontaneous prose is what Jack Kerouac liked to call it, but now I’ve just gone and befuddled you even more. Let’s get this straight: Groupies offer men a purely physical form of no strings attached sex that meets their immediate sexual needs and fantasies. Is it a healthy relationship? Well sexually, for the guy, yes. For the girl, I’d hazard to guess no, but she perceives that she is getting something out of it that is worth the sex. Is it a meaningful relationship? A resounding No. It all boils down to the whole alpha-male thing really. These girls simply perceive these dudes as being alpha-males, which means they wanna bonk them stukkend, because alpha-males can supply a better start for their off-spring. Although Jack and Kelly Osbourne are certainly proponents for a counter argument.

So we haven’t come far then have we? At the end of the day it is just: “banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee”.

 An interesting topic fell on my plate recently as an acquaintance related a tale of his latest sexual conquest. The two had been together for a month or so and the one night they were enjoying an evening at home with a bit of wine. So far, so good. Sounds like a great recipe for some serious sheet-grabbing a bit later. As predicted the two end up nekkid in bed, in the throes of unbridled passion. Suddenly, the once demure young lass screams out: “F**k me like a b*tch!”

To tell you the truth, I was a little taken aback at this sudden flexing of sexual muscle. Holy Mary of Blessed Virgins! Firstly, this statement would not have been out of place in any one of the man’s porno collection. It would have been expected, but right here, right now, in his bed, naked woman, saying it to HIM. You can imagine the surprised whites of his eyes showing up glaringly in the dark of the room as his mouth opens and shuts silently like a stoned goldfish.

You see this little statement of sexual confidence totally threw him off balance. He honestly did not know what to do. I mean sure, he’s seen the pornos and what they do when the high-heeled, gartered porn queen says “F**k me like a b*tch!”… the oiled, eye-poppingly endowed muscle man then fucks her like a bitch. But how the hell is the common man supposed to know how or why or what to do?

Women are complicated creatures as it is. Sexually, we perceive them as some massive mainframe with a Windows operating system that crashes at the least provocation. Men sit there trying to plug that in, twiddle that, fiddle there, poke that, tweak here, perhaps a light spank on the back… but still the darned thing doesn’t boot up. This situation is like the Little Shop of Horrors when the beast-plant screams: “FEEED MEEEE SEYMOUR!” Skriks the living ba-jayzus out of us.

This may seem weird to women. They think we’re just born knowing how to “take” a woman. You know, bend her over the couch and roger her feverishly. But, as with any form of sexual prowess, this needs to be learnt and frankly the amount of times some woman has said “Fuck me like a bitch!” to any man can be counted on one hand most probably. This scenario has played out in his mind many a time though as he imagines he will skillfully flip her around like he’s making a balloon animal and satisfy her raging desire. Not so… unfortunately.

The media and society have slowly and successfully been nurturing men that are gentle and most caring about a woman’s needs. He’ll romance her for weeks with candlelit dinners and picnics, listening intently to her innermost thoughts and drinking in her intelligent conversation. He’ll then smother her with butterfly kisses and spend hour upon hour on foreplay, before slowly and kindly sliding inside her at the perfect moment to coax her deftly to orgasm, while skillfully toying with her clitoris. This is apparently what women want. This is what men today think that women want.

Indeed this sort of gentle romanticism and lovemaking is definitely what women want… but not all the time. Sometimes, she just wants to be rogered good and proper… or in the above case, she wanted to be fucked like a bitch. “Desperate Housewives” and “Sex in the City” have heralded the arrival of the OPENLY sexually confident woman.

A new survey says 82 percent of Baby Boomer women (born in the 40’s and 50’s) are very or somewhat confident sexually. The researchers suggest sexual confidence and self knowledge increase as women go through life, based on the lower confidence scores for younger women.

The Generation X women (born in the 1960s and 1970s) were right behind the boomers with 81 percent, but Generation Y women (born in the 1980s and 1990s) scored far behind at 64 percent. The national survey, the Elexa by Trojan Survey of Women and Desire, says nearly two-thirds of women agree that having good sex is a priority in their lives. While sexual attitudes, needs and desires differ between life stage and ethnicity, all generations desire more sex, as voiced by 60 percent of sexually active women wishing they were having it more often.

What this survey says is that women get more sexually confident with age – and the majority want more sex… yeehaw. It’s well known that a woman peaks sexually in her thirties… although 40 is the new 30. Nevertheless, I would argue that more and more women are becoming more and more confident from a younger age. The media and their peers have given them this right. It’s okay to be like that now… just pick up a flippen Cosmo. Previously women were worried about being judged as a slapper or being seen as sexually aggressive, but now they are taking ownership of their sexuality and literally asking for it the way they want it. If she feels right then and there like being a dirty girl who just wants to be fucked like a bitch… well then hey, she asks for it.

What does the man do about it? Well he steps up to the plate dammit. As much as he’s been practicing his slow and sexy tongue technique he also needs to be able to read women correctly and know when she wants him to grab a fistful of her hair, kiss her so hard her lipstick smudges messily all over her face, rip off her thong and give it to her like a man!

So you’re lounging on the couch at the better-half’s pad waiting for her to dolly herself up for a night out. We’ve all been there. Hopefully she’s kind enough to offer you a beer and switch on the sports channel while you endure this tradition. So you’re happily sipping the amber nectar, watching the day’s highlights, when in she swans. You give her the once over, down the last few sips and pick up your car keys. Dingdingding! Okay, first faux pas my china. This is where it gets complicated, so pay attention. Your first and immediate reaction should be: “Wow babe, you look gorgeous tonight!” Those six words will save your hind most times. Try alternating with hair and shoes and you’ll score even more points. Add something like: “I can’t wait to tear that off you later!” and, well, your statement will come true. These compliments should be your mantra, my man. We all get sloppy at times though, so lift your game. The reason being that if you manage to keep your girlfriend’s confidence way up there and totally gobsmack her with a compliment right away, you will avoid a phrase that strikes fear into the heart of any man.

If you just glance in her direction and go: “You look nice tonight” or “You look pretty” (Dude, never ever refer to her as pretty. Her grandmother used to pinch her cheek and tell her that. Nice and pretty should be banned from your vocabulary. Replace with stunning, gorgeous, beautiful, sexy), you may end up having to face this question: “Does my bum look big in this?”

Male brain: Houston. We have a problem.

A big, hairy, mean mutha of a problem. Especially if she’s already cornered you by following it with: “Come on, be honest. I always want you to be honest with me, and you must tell me if you don’t like the way I look or if my bum looks big in something. I would hate to go out in something that made my bum look big.” Honesty. It’ll screw you every time. Especially if you try and cushion the blow. “Nah babe, your bum looks okay, but I think those Guess jeans look better.”

Male brain: @#$%

So how to answer? It’s difficult. If you have a babe with an ass that fills hospitals with whiplash victims, you’re still in the dwang. Every woman I know does not like their bum. That’s why I buy that toilet paper that says “Love your bum” Hopefully the positive message will rub off… er… so to speak. Your best course of action here is to change sides. By that I mean the only way to survive is to think like a girl. Don’t try and get clever and say something like: “Darling, that mauve does nothing for you, you should never wear mauve.” Just try and sound like you know what you’re talking about. Don’t splutter a defensive answer right off. Take your time. Look at her intently. Ask her to walk away from you and turn around. Then stroke your chin and smile. Okay, don’t over do it now and say: “Daaaaamn, but I would certainly hit that!” Rather go: “Baby, I think what you’re wearing compliments your bum perfectly.” Nice and easy does it. You can’t over do it, or she’ll know you’re lying. You can’t under do it or she’ll freak. Tough, tough call, but hang in there. Pros will get to the point where they can add in the heels for instance and say: “Baby, I think what you’re wearing compliments your bum perfectly. Especially those heels. They accentuate (okay, maybe not such a big word for her usually single syllable man)… They make your calves look more defined too.” That’s right. Now you’ve moved attention away from the contentious derriere and made her go: “Hmmm, he’s right, they do make my calves look great.” Insider secret: a woman’s calves are probably the only part of her body she doesn’t have an issue with... er okay, scratch that… has less of an issue with. Of course, don’t forget that crucial word ‘more’ before the defined, or you’ll get: “What do you mean? You think my calves aren’t usually defined?” and she’ll stomp off down the passage in a huff.

Of course, it’s never that easy though innit? All women are different. You can never apply a blanket recipe to avoid disaster. Remember your Scout’s Motto: Be prepared. Before you get there be prepared for the question. This means you won’t be blind-sided, step onto the defensive back foot, and splutter out some idiotic nonsense like: “But baby I’m biased, I love your bum in everything” because she’ll whip straight back and say: “You haven’t answered my question! Does my bum look big in this?” and you’ll be blinking like a deer in the headlights.

"Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." - George Santayana.

This rings true even more so in a consumerist society, where products, fashion, trends and music are literally force fed to the voracious public. Our hunger for trends and our pitiful thirst for being trendsetters ensure that the marketing gimps are never bored. It’s become so easy to bleat: “TREND! Coming through, watch out there pal. Yup, it’s the latest trend buddy. Check it out. TREND! Coming through.” And suddenly the lemmings are jumping on the band wagon.

How the marketing gollums get away with it is pretty simple. They just leverage off basic human emotions like greed, vanity, and nostalgia. This last one – nostalgia – is what drives the 2 decade cycle. Every 20 years there is a sudden upsurge in all that epitomized popular culture 2 decades beforehand. Right now we’re smack bang in the middle (although tapering off thank God) of an 80’s revival. It began at the turn of the millennium really. Suddenly Atari shirts were cool, Chuck Norris, the A-Team, the Hoff, Airwolf, and whichever other cultural icon you can think of has been ripped out of its grave, dusted off and suddenly made cool again.

Funnily enough, the coolness comes from the cheesiness. It’s as if we take the decade and all that was kak about it, sprinkle it with a heavy dose of irony, and hey presto it’s suddenly uber-chic.

The reason for all of this is quite simple. We’re getting old. Here we are approaching our 30’s and we’re a bit tired of all the responsibility and crap that comes with age. Jobs, houses, taxes, 8-5, traffic, insurance and all that shit our parents used to deal with. We suddenly get all misty-eyed as we remember our days popping wheelies and coming takkie on our BMX’s. We’re choking on responsibility and the asthma pump to our problem is a massive dose of retro-cheese. Of course all that stuff you were embarrassed to admit you liked in your teenage years is now all of a sudden very cool to admit. Hell, I know grown men that buy life-sized light sabers online for R1000 and then run around going “KSSSSH, KSSSSH, MWARM, MWEEERM, KSSSH, KSSHHH!” and we all think “Dang I want one too!” Er, did I just admit that?

Ah, remember those teenage days? I was still a virgin. Now that's a freaky thought. Think about it. You had never had sex before, but dang you would have seriously considered selling your left nut for an opportunity. No wonder I was polishing the turtle every opportunity I got. I was a champion wanker in those days… *ahem* but that's enough about that. Or at least make it third person Dickens you idiot. *ahem* Okay then, all teenage boys choke cyclops until he pukes at every chance they can get. Mixing up a fresh batch of baby batter was literally a hobby. We were all swimming in hormones and without the necessary means or skills to be able to alleviate that affliction, we turned to our only ally – self love. Kept us sane really. Even the guys at veldshool knew about this pandemic. They honestly put blue stone (copper sulphate) in our morning coffee. It was witnessed and I tested the theory myself. I took the dorm copy of Scope to the head and proceeded to ogle the lovely starry nipples of the ladies and… nothing, nada, pass the Viagra please. It was very strange because in those days you could spawn a chubby just by hearing the name Cindy Crawford.

But none of these times compare to what happened the first time we got to fondle a real booby. Wow! That could easily have caused a little mishap in the undie department. Yup… in those days we had a hair trigger on the splooge gun. First base, second base, third base… oh… oh… man custard.

Those were certainly the days though, embarrassing as they may have been. In those days, a party was more like the beginning stages of a full-on swinging orgy. You would end up French kissing or (“graunching” as we called it) practically every girl there. Glandular fever also saw this as one helluva party. Funny how everyone that went to that one party seemed to have caught glandular fever huh?

The best game I can remember from these days was ‘spin the bottle'. Sigh. Never has a little boy held his thumbs so hard and prayed to every conceivable god imaginable and wished upon every ancestor and star he could possibly think of, just so that the darned bottle points towards pony-tailed Penny. I think Lotto winners know what I'm talking about when I say that the feeling when it points to her is possibly one of the sweetest experiences in the world. Okay, second to actually kissing her. Butterflies in your belly, sweaty-hands shaking and then touching your lips together it seemed like the whole world had disappeared. You could hear the blood rushing in your ears.

It seemed so life-changing… and perhaps it was. Why does a little trip down memory lane, remembering your first tentative sexual experiences, make you feel so good? It's all about discovery and wonderment. What I suggest is for you to spin the bottle, turn your jaded perspective around, and remember what it was like to discover new things… then go out and find something new to do… even if it is sexual. A rut is simply a grave with the ends kicked out.

I have wide and varied interests and opinions. Many of them would be considered arbitrary. I am often called a 'fountain of useless knowledge', or lately Wiki-Rob. Of course, this leads me to feel that most of the world suffers from a poverty of intellect on the grandest scale. People are literally starved of knowledge. One such subject, which will invariably mean bugger all to most people, is the conclusion of a rather long-standing and contentious debate about the definition of what constitutes a planet.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) concluded (in 2006) two years of work defining the difference between "planets" and the smaller "solar system bodies" such as comets and asteroids. I have always held the opinion that Pluto had no right being called a planet and I used to prefer calling it a planetoid. This is for a number of reasons, greatest of which would be its orbit. It is highly tilted and rather eccentric with respect to the other 8 traditional planets (technically referred to as a large orbital inclination and eccentricity). It is neither terrestrial nor jovian (gas giants), but rather made of ice and rock, and its distance places it in the Kuiper Belt. I have always therefore contended that Pluto is actually a planetoid, the term given to large objects dwelling in the Kuiper Belt, an icy debris field of comet-like bodies extending billions of miles beyond the orbit of the distant planet Neptune.

However, the IAU has decided on a new term to distinguish these objects - Dwarf Planet. Which then places a relative sub-category within the definition of planet.

This problem arose simply because no one truly new the definition of a planet and what makes something a planet. It simply means 'wandered' in Greek and whenever a 'big thing' orbiting the sun was discovered by astronomers it became a planet.

The current official definition is: "IAU Resolution 5 for GA-XXVI" that states "A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet."

However... Charon, traditionally Pluto's moon has also now been included into the planet list.This is because the centre of gravity for Pluto and Charon is between them, not inside either one. So technically, Charon is not orbiting Pluto but is orbiting the centre of gravity of the two bodies, and just like that BAM a moon becomes a planet, even though our own moon and many others of say Saturn or Jupiter literally make Pluto look like a small fry.

It'll all take some getting used to, but I for one am glad that I no longer have to argue with dimwits about the subject. Arguing with anyone that Pluto was not in fact a planet has gotten me helluva worked up in the past and now finally I can claim to have been right (and wrong) all along. It is a planet according to the new definition, but falls more appropriately into the subcategory of dwarf planet. Although I don't see what was wrong with the term planetoid. At the same time planetoid is often confused with asteroid objects.

Pluto dodged a bullet and remains in the 'planet' category. Although, I still maintain that it exhibits far too many incongruencies when compared to the other eight for it to belong in the planet definition. So even though this new definition may bring some settlement to the argument, it seems it will not go to bed properly.

Nevertheless, we are looking further and further into our galaxy and learning more and more. I'm intensely interested, not only in the world around us, but in the worlds arounds us. Hopefully one day our species will be inhabiting those worlds.

Okay, you can wake up now.