Andrew Sutherland has worked every job you can imagine as well as some you can't such as toga-wearing barman and professional Australian Rules footballer.
The Gold Coast Titans have just signed their seventh Storm player – Beau Champion – who will be replacing their last Storm signing, Joseph Tomane.
They certainly think a lot of Storm players. Wanted Steve Turner, took Jake Webster, Sam Tagatese, Ian Donnelly, Chris Walker and Nathan Friend, tried to poach Cam Smith and Kevin Proctor, and then got a young homesick Joseph Tomane to sign for them before he’d even started negotiations with Storm.
The latter event was a real shame because Craig Bellamy was beginning to solve Tomane’s defensive problems. If he had achieved his goal, and history suggests he would have, Tomane was destined to become the new G.I.
The Titans, like most NRL teams, don’t bother developing young talent and have left Tomane languishing in the Queensland Cup while going out and recruiting another centre from … you guessed it, THE STORM.
Homesickness has always been a problem for Melbourne with all its players coming from NSW, QLD or New Zealand – made worse if players’ partners aren’t prepared to move with them (which with three year deals really astounds me).
This is why the Storm should have had salary cap concessions from the beginning.
It’s sad to watch excellent players like Champion and Chase Stanley depart for family reasons. But as Bellamy stated it just gives someone like Elijah Niko an opportunity.
Hopefully in the coming weeks a particular young star will re-sign with the club because Melbourne is his home – Gareth Widdop.
The Storm will continue to develop young players and give older ones a second chance at NRL level while the rest of the competition will continue to poach.
Germany and Japan were once famous for making war machinery.
When they weren’t allowed to do that anymore they became even more famous for manufacturing cars and stereo equipment. But now, bless them, it’s … sex androids.
The Japanese have always had a finger in the pie of the sex doll industry. As far back as the seventeenth century they were pumping out intercourse cushions with satin-lined entry points. In the 1930’s and ’40’s while designing the Zero fighter plane they had someone out the back producing sex mannequins for lonely submariners.
Accused of perversion, the Japanese raised the valid point that they were only following in the footsteps of the Dutch who crafted leather puppets, or ‘dutch wives’, for use by their sex starved seafaring traders.
Navigator Willem Jansz (c. 1570–1630), the first known European to land in Australia, left his ‘spouse’ behind where it was found floating in Cape York’s Pennefather River by the local Yupungathi people who mistook it for a wallaby carcass and while eating it remarked: “uula uula bunana limi tata” (“Christ, it’s tough!”).
Due to their seriously ageing population, the Japanese have been busy designing robots to look after their old folk. Initially they looked like Meccano toys and Daleks but as the technology has evolved they have become increasingly life-like.
The new generation have soft latex skin, dexterous movement, and are interactive. They can perform household and caring tasks like preparing red jelly dumplings and taking a look at your varicose veins. They can also answer your questions (“Sorry, Mrs Ichikawa, haemorrhoids aren’t my specialty”).
But it was the Germans who were the most eager to embrace android technology for the production of bedside (or bent-over-the-kitchen-table) companions. One of their companies, First Androids, strangely chose to produce one with a man’s name. Andy (40″ 22″ 34″) comes with a “blowjob system”, a “tangible pulse,” and “rotating hip motion”. Why does it have a man’s name though?!
The latest and most advanced sex android, though, has been developed by an American – Douglas Hines , founder and president of the company TrueCompanion.
His Roxxxy TrueCompanion is endowed with a G-spot and is capable of powerful orgasms. She also has programmable personalities ranging from deferential and helpful (“Sir, may I help you unburden yourself?”) to fiery and independent like the Jill McBain character in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West (“If you want to you can lay me over the table and amuse yourself, and even call in your men! No woman ever died from that. When you’re finished all I’ll need is a cup of boiling water and I’ll be exactly what I was before – with just another filthy memory!”)
Emily, a feminist blogger, has expressed outrage over the development of such beings:-
“She can also talk about sports! It’s a guy’s dream, right? A woman who is there for sex and to talk sports, but who isn’t actually a real woman. This continues to make me sick, and I’d really like to meet one of the men who are actually purchasing these robots…..now there are actually robot dolls that men can choose instead of real women. Honestly, it makes me sick”.
Hold on there a minute Emily.
There is a rather large elephant in the room: that 18 inch dildo in your bedside drawer. Dildos are the pinnacle of sexual objectification. At least sex androids can talk! You don’t hear a peep from a dildo – nothing – not even a whispered sweet-nothing. There is no attempt to humanise them and they don’t give flowers.
Mechanisms for the sexual gratification of women have a long history with vibrators powered by steam engines and a 1926 German designed pedal-driven masturbation machine.
There is a book that has been on the local bookshop bargain table for some time about home-made sex machines with names like the Thrill Hammer and the Thumpstir made by men in suburban garages for their partners (whether their partners actually want them is another matter). The front cover shows what appears to be a dildo attached to an outboard motor – or is it a Whipper Snipper?
And TrueCompanion now has Rocky; a male with the head of George Clooney, the physique of Sonny Bill Williams, the stamina of Steve Moneghetti, and the wit of Woody Allen. He can also prepare a divine mushroom risotto:-
” This is the male sex robot you have been waiting for! Being well equipped along with two inputs allow him to please all takers! Preorder now for a base price of $1,495.00 upfront and the balance of the $6,495.00 plus shipping and handling is due before we ship him to you. He is ready for action to please you – Talk or Play – It is up to you!”, says TrueCompanion.com.
For a company that uses “electrical engineers, computer science experts, artists, beauty and makeup professionals as well as robotic engineers all working together” it’s strange they didn’t think a sound technician was required for their video demonstrations.
Hines, who looks -not surprisingly- like Family Guy’s Peter Griffin, is talking in an echo chamber, with Roxxxy (who looks like a rugby front rower in a negligee) sitting splayed on the floral settee next to him:-
“I could also ask her questions about … err…like for instance …about the weather … about how she’s feeling and … just …err … general chit-chat … (turning to Roxxy) Do you like it in the ass?”
What are the chances of that? The Thoughts of Andrew Sutherland 