George W. Listens...!

Potato prints!

I just had to link to this.

A brief history of art featuring Mr Potato Head.

Excellent work.

Video Mash-Ups!

Theres a new trend developing amongst mash-up artists. Instead of mixing music tracks together, they're mixing films together to make all new trailers for films that don't actually exist.

This one is a remix of Leonardo DiCaprio movies to make a trailer for "Titanic 2: The Surface."



You can also see Sleepless in Seattle re-mixed as a stalker movie or "Back to the Future" and "Brokeback Mountain" re-mixed as the first gay cowboy time travel film Brokeback to the Future.

I love this idea, but what other films could be mashed?

It's a Wonderful Life of Brian
Licence to Kill a Mockingbird
Raging Bullitt
The Princess Bride of Frankenstein
All the President's Men in Black
Groundhog Day of the Jackal
Remains of the Day the Earth Stood Still
Singin' in the Rainman

I'm ready for my Close-up Now, Mr DeMille.

Well I never...!

There's a report in this month New Scientist that researchers from the University of The Bleeding Obvious (well, Amsterdam anyway!) have looked at the words that bloggers use. Amongst the amazing facts they have unearthed is that the word drunk appears in blogs more often at the weekend.

What other revelations are they likely to have discovered?

The word "Christmas" appears more often in December
Blogs by teenage boys link to porn sites more often than any other group
Students use the word "shower" less than other bloggers
The word moron occurs most often in blogs about George Bush
French speakers use "bonjour" more than others
"Done a poo" appears in posts by Scaryduck more often than any other person
The Welsh use less vowels than other people
Sunderland fans hardly ever use the word "goal"
The words "mutton" and "lamb" appear most frequently in blogs about Madonna

Next months study: Why do men look at pictures of naked women?

Smashing Game!

Not only is this one of the most irritatingly tricky games I've come across, It's also one of the most addictive.

Run at ice blocks and smash them out of the way by timing your punch perfectly.

Well worth persevering with just to get the success banner at the end.

Ice block Game

Prepare to lose a couple of hours as you try to get through all of the blocks. I did!

Happy Easter!

Enjoy the Spring Chocolate Festival.

Image from GPB: Not Quite Right Photography

For the Sick!

For poorly Misty. On my birthday: three facts, two deaths and one birth.

Facts
1633 Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition
1866 First daylight robbery in the US (attributed to Jesse James)
1894 Auguste & Louis Lumiere patent the cinematographe

Births
1938 Oliver Reed
1960 Pierluigi Collina

Deaths
1542 Catherine Howard (executed)

There's a chickensoup-o-gram on it's way to you.

Apparantly, the Welsh film industry is to receive additional funding to step up production. They are going to remake many well known films, but this time with a Welsh flavour. The following are planned for release this year.

9½ Leeks
Trefforest Gump
Cwmando
The Lost Boyos
An American Werewolf in Powys
Huw Dares Gwyneth
Dai Hard
The Wizard of Oswestry
Cool Hand Look-you
Sheepless in Seattle
The Eagle has Llandudno
The Magnificent Severn
Haverfordwest Was Won
Austin Powys
The Magic Rhonddabout
Independence Dai
The Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch That Time Forgot
Seven Brides from Seven Sisters
Welsh Connection
Welsh Connection II
The Bridge on the River Wye
Lawrence of Llandybie
A Beautiful Mind-you
The Welsh Patient
The King and Mair
The Sheepshag Redemption
Breakfast at Taffynys
Look You Back in Bangor
Evans Can Wait
A Fishguard Called Rhondda
Where Eagles Aberdare
Dial M For Merthyr

There's lovely, isn't it!

This has been making me laugh all day.

Leave It... He's Not Worth It!

So we're out on the town, ... well, city to be precise... well, Cardiff to be exact.

It was a works leaving do. Not normally the sort of thing I'd go on but the girl who was leaving was a friend and some the people who were going out are good company, so I figured what the heck. The problem was the others. The ones who are the main reason why I don't go out on these sort of night.

In one camp you have the lads, Hair gel so thickly ladled on that their heads are in danger of being classified as rock formations, still young enough to think they can handle their drink (Bacardi Breezers *tossers*) and still attractive enough to think they can pull anything that takes their fancy. In the other camp you have the girls. Hair spiked, tossed, curled, straightened, coloured, primped and sprayed; make-up layered; bottle of Vodka hidden in the handbag. These girls are almost wearing clothing that would make a monk howl at the moon, and they're drunk... so very, very drunk.

Enter a group of lads, rugby players possibly judging by the size of them, valley cowboys defintely judging by the clothes and the accents, that and the fact that they have about six teeth between the four of them. These boys are not pretty, but that doesn't stop them trying it on with our girls. There's a bit of flirting going on but it's clear that the girls are just toying with them, the phrase "gopping" is whispered once or twice.

But these lads have got it in to their heads that they're on to a good thing here, even once the girls have tired of playing with them they continue to try it on with an admirable persistance that only the drunk and deperately horny can display. One of the rugby lads grabs one of the girls and swings her round and she loses it... big time.

"Fuck off you wanker" she screams in his face (classy girl, convent school you know)' " I wouldn't snog you or one of your disgusting mates if you paid me!" There's more shouting, more screaming, a bit of pushing. The words troll, greasy and hideous float our way.

Just as this lad seems to be reaching a scarlet-faced, bulging-eyed peak of fury one of our younger boys tries to diffuse the situation;

All right boys"' he says, "no need to get ugly...."

There's a silence as we take in what he's just said - and then we piss ourselves laughing.

A punch is thrown but the bouncers soon sort it out and the Valley Boys are on their way. Our lad is sat down nursing a bloody nose.

"What the fuck was that for?" I heard him say.

He'll learn!

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Back to the subject of films.

I was watching Lost in Translation a couple of days ago with some friends and we started to debate the merits of Bill Murray. Now, for me Bill Murray is one of those actors that I will watch in anything. i look at the list of films he's made and think to myself, "yup, I could watch any of those", the one abberation seems to be the Garfield films but (thank God) that's only a voice-over so in my book it doesn't strictly count.

But you consider the films he's made that are at worst watchable and best classics; Lost in Translation. Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, The Life Aquatic, Broken Flowers, Scrooged, What About Bob, Caddyshack, The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore, Ed Wood, Tootsie..... all good films, all watchable, all improved by the appearance of Bill Murray.

It's said that there are a number of directors who won't work with him because he insists on improvising, which often means the scenes he shoots bear no resemblance to those scripted. However, those directors who do work with him are mostly of the opinion that, more often than not, whatever he does is an improvement.

One day justice will be done and he'll walk away with an Oscar... until then he'll just keep making consistently good films.

Ladies & gentleman, I give you Bill Murray.

If I Ruled the World...!

An irregular series. The laws that I would pass if I were in charge.

The Caravan and associated irritants (disappearance of) Law 2006

It's spring now and, as all normal road-using folk know, this can mean only one thing. Any trip anywhere nice for the next six months will involve - at some point - a lengthy wait behind Mr & Mrs Throwback and their freakshow family driving at 10MPH under the speedlimit in a 15 year old Volvo towing an off-white hutch on wheels.

(Obviously sometimes this is replaced by Mr & Mrs Middle-Class with Jessica and Sebastian in a Black 4x4)

To bring some sanity back to Britains roadways I propose the following law.

(1) All caravans are banned from using the roads from 6am to 10pm.
(2) All caravan parks should be hidden from view from any public road, pathway or vantage point using natural materials (or high explosives)
(3) All caravans must be painted in a colour that matches their destination to enable them to blend in to the background
(4) Static caravan parks can only be developed away from areas of natural beauty or even natural mediocrity.
(5) Any caravan found breaching any of the above rules is fair game and the owners liable for a kicking.
(6) The phrase "caravan" is to replaced by the phrase "Wank-Shed-on-Wheels". (I.e. "Murial and I were thinking of taking the Wank-Shed-on-Wheels to the Cotswolds for the weekend.")

Thank you. I feel better for that.