It's the start of the year as we know it

Happy New Year everyone! *streamers and sparklers and champagne corks*

Now that the dust has settled on the awesomeness that was 2010 (I honestly can’t remember a lot of it, but I have been assured that it was “an alright year”), we can look forward to having another “alright” year in 2011. Are we saying two-thousand-and-eleven yet, or are we still twenty-eleven-ing things up? Vote now.

Here’s what happened in 2010 : some guy made a website that spilled the beans on Bigfoot or something, some chick didn’t quite sail around the world but we all pretended that she did, they changed the actor who plays Declan on Neighbours, no one made jetpacks and someone tried to make me cry by saying that the Tyrannosaurus Rex had feathers and looked like a massive drag queen.

So what's in store for 2011? I have consulted Todd the Psychic Dinosaur and he reckons it's going to be a doozy.

Sees all and knows all

Here’s what we should look out for this year:

Music:
* Altiyan Childs will not earn enough money to buy himself a real name.
* Everyone will tell Coldplay to “cheer the fuck up.”
* Lady Gaga will admit that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing either.
* Aussie hip-hop stoner metal bands will flood the market.
* John Farnham will perform his farewell tour “Dumptruck of Money” to critical and financial acclaim.
* The number of bands who have cleverly taken their name from food wrappers, road signs and instruction manuals will rise.
* Barbershop Quartets will place highly on charts all over the world.
* Prince will remain silent, thus ensuring he is a “superstar” forever.

Lifestyle:
* One word: Robots
* The iPad 2 will be released and people will still be unsure as to what it does, but will definitely need to buy one.
* The word “douchenozzle” is going to be huge.
* Grandfather clocks will make a brief, but massive, comeback.
* People who bought a 3D television will be openly mocked and they’ll realise that spending $4,000 on a new telly just so they could watch Avatar was actually a bit stupid.
* The letter Q will begin appearing in bogan names, and add a nice aesthetic to the superfluous Y. For example, the name “Kate” will be spelt “Qayte.”.
* Viking helmets and beanies with flaps will be popular in winter.
* I will once again try to wear a scarf and not look really awkward.

Movies:
* I’ll pay another $18 to see a new Transformers movie, even thought I know it will be really, really shit. Even Shia LeBouef didn’t like the last one.
* Due to the success of The Social Network movie, films about MySpace, youTube, ticketek.com.au and mylifeistwilight.com will take over the cinema.
* The Hoyts cinema in Woden will be studied by palaeontologists as a ‘window into 1998.’
* Hollywood will flex its creative muscle and start producing more movies containing: superheroes, 80s tv shows, cartoon franchises, bestselling novels, vampires, wizards, talking animals, sequels, prequels, sidequels, remakes, relaunches, and reboots after people complain about all the original ideas polluting the theatres.

Celebrity:
* Justin Bieber will discover cocaine, and the world will rejoice as he chews his own face off on live television.
* The term ‘celebrity chef’ will be downgraded back to ‘chef’ after people realise that watching a dickhead prance around a kitchen yelling at a wok is actually a bit shit.
* Warney will deny rumours that he has a ‘sex addiction’ because it’s a made-up term. He just likes rooting.
* Oprah Winfrey will die of natural causes after a crowbar is found wedged into her head.
* Kim Kardashian will do… something.

Dinosaurs:
* Still extinct.

Happy New Year, douchenozzles!

We didn't want the Ashes anyway...

Thank Christ the Ashes Test series is over. (You're welcome). Australian cricket sure has hit a new low and as such, I deem it necessary to give a few pointers of advice to Cricket Australia and the team of girls who represent this once-fine country. Yes, I know every bloke and their goat has done this before I got around to it, but fuck - I've only just come out of an Australian-cricket-induced coma and need to get a few things off my ruggedly hairless chest:

• Get rid of the bowling, batting and fielding coaches. Appoint one coach for all. These players are supposed to be the best eleven cricketers in the country. If they don’t know how to bat, bowl or catch by now, then fuck em – stop paying them to play cricket and send them back to their backyards until they learn. Few things in life will prepare you for the rigours of the five-day game than facing an older brother or cousin with a half-taped tennis ball in his hand and an electric wicket-keeper at both ends.

• Forget about sports psychologists. Stop being a pussy. If you can’t hit the ball, lying down on some fucking idiot’s couch and telling him about the time you had a dream where you thought you were David Schwimmer isn’t going to help that. Take your fucking bat, grab some idiot with a ball and tell him to piff it down at you over and over again until you can manage to hit it off the pitch.

• Stop being dickheads and rushing off to fucking gallery openings and catwalk launches for your shithouse fashion label after a game. Stay in the dressing room and get pissed with your team and learn a bit of camaraderie.

• Don’t pick dickheads who have played a handful of games and taken even less wickets as your frontline spinner. You wouldn’t pick some bloke that no-one’s ever heard of to be your opening batsman, so why would you pick him to bowl against some of the best batsmen in the world?

Following the debacle of the Sydney Test, I have once again likened the members of the team to a pack of girls:

Phillip Hughes = Olsen Twins.
They don’t look like they came from, or belong to, this planet. I hope they head back home soon.

Shane Watson = Justin Bieber.
They both worry too much about their hair and less about what they actually do for a living. Show me proof that Bieber is a guy.

Usman Khawaja = Dido.
Dido’s first few CDs were met with massive success. She even went so far as to put a recording studio in her house. Then no one ever heard from her again. Ussy has potential, but probably shouldn’t install a baggy green cleaning machine in his lounge-room just yet.

Michael Clarke = Kirstie Alley.
Remember when Kirstie Alley was mildly attractive and destined for big things? Yeah. Those were good days. Enjoy your retirement, Clarkey.

Mike Hussey = that chick from Gossip Girl.
You know late at night when Gossip Girl comes on the TV and for some reason you don’t turn it off? It’s because of the hot blonde chick.

On a side note - the last time I blogged about Mike Hussey I compared him to Natalie Portman. Since then, I understand that Nat has come out as saying that she is pregnant. I think the most disappointing thing about this is that Mike Hussey had nothing to do with it.

Brad Haddin = Julia Gillard.
Both got to where they are by default and will only be there until we can find someone better.

Steve Smith = Liz Hurley.
Liz and Steve have both been boofed by Warney, and neither live up to expectations. Unless Ms Hurley has a time machine, she will probably never make it back to where she should have been following her stellar performance in Austin Powers. As for Steve… well, he probably needs to stop squinting like Stuart Macgill and start bowling a bit more like him.

Mitchell Johnson = Megan Fox.
When Megan Fox exploded on the scene, she was nice to look at and had the world at her feet; now she’s a mess of collagen, plastic and Brian Austin Green. There was a brief period where Johnson looked like he might also get married to David from 90210 (the original series) but even that guy knew a useless fucking cricketer when he saw one.

Peter Siddle = Joan Cusack.
Not conventionally pretty, but funny enough that she doesn’t have to be, and no one tries harder. I’m sure Sids would prefer to be likened to her more successful, rich and attractive sibling, and if he’d played better then he might have been.

Ben Hilfenhaus = Ke$ha.
Releases the same song over and over and is somehow still getting paid for it, despite it sounding shitter and shitter. Stop going through the motions, Hilfenhau$, and I might like you again.

Michael Beer = that chick from Alice in Wonderland.
Both were plucked from absolute obscurity to fill important roles that they actually occupied fairly decently. Alas, they were both in shithouse, overrated productions and may be remembered forever for them.