Star Wars: Starring Kurt Russell as Han Solo ?

Like many, I'm a great fan of the Star Wars films. More so the original unaltered trilogy than the prequels and CGI'd edited originals. Although all have their fans. This is Star Wars after all.

What made the Originals so special, in my opinion, is the quality that Harrison Ford brought to the role of Han Solo. He made the character an iconic figure in movie history and without him, who knows how successful the film would have become otherwise. This argument will always remain one of much heated debate.

A lot of Actors auditioned for the role of Han. Below is Kurt Russell's attempt.

Interesting. A bit flat I think and I'm not sure how seriously the young Kurt is taking the audition. If only he then knew how much money it could have potentially earned him. Oh well, i don't think his career has gone too badly despite this.

Not sure what become of the chap auditioning as Luke here... maybe he become a Storm Trooper. :op

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Spoof Emails

Is there no end to these Spoof Emails I receive each day?

What is a Spoof Email? Surely you know. Surely you've received them. You haven't? Well, I guess you must be the only one. I'm kind of jealous.

A Spoof email is an email received that pretends to be sent from somewhere else in order to get information from you. They are predominantly, if not totally, sent by fraudsters looking to steal your identity or take over your bank account to extract funds. Some coding will alter or disguise the email address they've originally been sent from.

These fake emails will be made to look like they're from financial institutions such as world banks, but also heavily include PayPal and eBay. If you suspect a Spoof email regarding the last two you should forward them either to Spoof@ebay.com or Spoof@PayPal.com.

Typically the Spoof email will announce some sort of minor or major disaster that needs your attention. There will be a link for you to click to be taken to the site...

DON'T CLICK IT, YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO A DUMMY SITE THE FRAUDSTER HAS SET UP. THEY WANT YOU TO TYPE IN YOUR USER NAME AND PASSWORD SO THEY CAN STEAL THEM.

Remember: No financial institution will ever send you an email with a link to click in it that takes you to a sign on screen.

How the Fraudsters obtrain your email address in the first place is one of heated debate, but presumably it must have been leaked from somewhere. Data Protection is supposed to protect all your details given to any company. They are not supposed to give them out.

Be careful. Some of the Spoof emails are a lot more sophisticated than others. Some are riddled with spelling errors, some are very professional. Remember... never click on email links. Instead, go directly to the Financial Institutions website and check your account status there or phone them.

Spoof emails I have received today are from three banks I have no account with and are even based in a different country. Desperate stuff.

Always be vigilant and don't let the Fraudsters win.

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The largest population in the World and Taobao.com

You may have heard of the country, China?

It's a little unknown place with a population of around 1.3 billion. Er yes, the largest population in the world in fact. In fact around 20% of the planet. My basic Maths says that's 1 in 5.

1 in 5 represents a huge market for trade and potential customers wishing to purchase products.

Never a company to miss an opportunity, eBay tried to open a branch of its Auction website in China. It failed. With such a huge potential customer base, I hear you ask, how did they fail? The answer... Taobao.

Taobao is an online market place founded by Ma Yun (Jack Ma) in 1999 and is part of the Alibaba group. A Chinese company, that already has such a strong grip on the Chinese marketplace, that nobody, not even the mighty eBay, can seemingly get a look in.

So... with such a strong marketplace and huge world customer base, why doesn't all and sundry list their items there? The one stumbling block? A pretty big one actually... the whole site is in Chinese.

Want to get rich? Learn several forms of Chinese is my tip. Admittedly not an easy task, but in decades or maybe just years to come, it could well be worth the effort.

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How tough is it to animate South Park ?

South Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Ok, you may probably already know this.

South Park has become a huge success around the world. The look of the show seems pretty basic. In this predominantly two dimensional world, Trey & Matt originally animated the show using card construction cut-outs and stop-motion video. This is a very time consuming process and now, with the aid of computers, the process is a lot lot quicker. However, the show still keeps intact the basic look and feel that it did during it's original airing.

Much of South Park's success is due mostly to the ideas and script writing than the sophistication of the animation. If the animation were changed, it would probably ruin the whole feel of the show and there would probably be uproar!

So how hard is it for an individual on a budget of near zero to create an animation of the same level of South Park? Granted, anything of any decent length is going to take quite a lot of time to produce.

I decided to quickly see if could make something pretty basic in limited time using what I had available. I didn't have any cardboard cut-outs to use, but just really a laptop. Using the basic Paint package and Windows Movie maker, I made the below short and very basic animation.

Yes, it will not win many awards, and was created in under an hour. It shows though, if you have quite a bit of time on your hands, it would be possible to create something quite good. And of course... there are much better software packages out there than Paint and Movie Maker!

Kick Ass!

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Family Fortunes - We surveyed 100 people (Honest)

We surveyed 100 people and asked them have they ever been surveyed for the TV show Family Fortunes. The top one answer is up there. Yes, the Top answer is No.

Have you ever met a person who has actually participated in one of these Family Fortunes surveys? My guess is, no. The TV show has been running in the UK on and off since 1980 and in the US as Family Feud since 1976.

Who and where are all these people answering the surveys during this large period? Must be tens of thousands of them. Maybe they're kept on some secret island somewhere. Judging by some of the answers given, some have quite clearly gone utterly mad.

Or maybe it's just the contestants who are mad.



Er yes, it's definitely the contestants, my mistake.

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Dead or not Dead, that is the Twitter Celebrity Question.

The answer is probably "Not dead".

I've noticed a rather macabre trend perhaps starting to develop on the micro-blogging network, Twitter. This is the trend for fake reporting of Celebrity deaths. It is somewhat disturbing.

When Michael Jackson sadly passed away in June of this year, his death was one of the most mentioned things on Twitter for over two months. It became the number 1, "Trending Topic".

After this something really odd happened. A rumour started from an individual or individuals that the actor, Jeff GoldBlum, had died. Although completely false, this topic soon become a top trender also. It became such a problem that Mr Goldblum had to come out and publicly announce that he was still alive. Most people believed him.

It would outwardly appear, that if a user is bored on Twitter, they may invent a story that a famous celebrity has died in order to get it into the Top Trending Topics list. This seems pretty desperate stuff and I hope it isn't something that's going to continue... but alas it probably will do.

The latest fake celebrity death to trend is Kanye West. It's a bit tricky to know what to believe anymore. If anyone reports the death of Elvis Presley, I for one, won't believe them.

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Re: The Y Factor

And so it continues...

Just had to add a further comment to the previously posted Blog after watching the X Factor results show this Sunday. It's got to a point now where nothing really surprises me anymore. The Y Factor is alive and kicking and doing very well for itself thank you. Why? Why? Why? Best not to reason with it.

John and Edward are most probably... no... most definitely the shows worst ever finalists, but they went through as expected. They are with out a doubt, the most talked about act and the reason why a great percentage of the public watch each week. But do they have the X Factor? Are they the most likely to go on and become long-term recording artists? Why am I even asking myself these questions? The answer is staring me in the face in big bright capital letters. They read, No!

Ok, while it is pretty amusing seeing this kind of act progress each week, it becomes rather shambolic when the best act ends up in the bottom two sing off. It doesn't seem that Danyl Johnson is very popular with the voting public, slightly less popular than Gordon Brown in fact. That's not very popular.

Danyl managed to work his way through this week at the expense of Girl band, Miss Frank. This would have been a major wake up call. John & Edward are more popular than the previous bookies favourite to win the whole show.

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The Y Factor

It happens every year with these TV Talent shows. One act is so awful to such an infinite level, that they progress much much further than any sane world would normally allow. But... we don't live in a sane world do we? The proof is there for all to see.

Previous World-Class terrible acts that have featured on the X Factor have included Chico and the Cheeky Girls, but twins John & Edward, this year, have taken the art to a whole new level. When it come to the genre of awful performances, they are surely Galactic if not Universal Class.

But... they are entertaining. This is the Y Factor and they have it in huge great big spades. Each week I cross my fingers they will be voted through, just to see the car wreck they will perform the following week.

If they win the whole competition, Simon Cowell will surely break down in a flood of tears. Good Luck to John and Edward! I probably won't be buying any of your albums though.

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The B of the Bang... and arthritis

The sprinter, Linford Christie, always said to get a great start in sprinting, you had to go with the B of the Bang.

He was referring to the starting pistol and launching yourself on the very same moment that it went off... the first sound... the B of the Bang.

I think the athlete I was controlling in the below game of Athens 2004 launched quite some time after... missed the Bang completely and started instead in some other word some way off camera. The word may have been Crapola. He went with the second a of Crapola.

I've never been very good at these type of video games where your success is governed by how quickly you can repeatedly pound some buttons. On the plus side however, I probably won't be crippled by severe arthritis in my fingers in later life.

Yeah!

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Life the Universe & everything according to two Random People

If you have a mind that tends to daydream, drift away and wonder the biggest questions of the Universe and creation, then the last thing you should do is meet somebody who thinks in exactly the same way.

Trust me on this.

By yourself you would perhaps drift away in your thoughts and hypothesise losing a few minutes of time. With somebody else, you will ramble on for hours and hours and end up with even more confusingly deep questions and ideas than before.

I tend to spend a lot of time on a computer these days. To prevent "Brain Explosion", midday I often go for a walk. This tends to work pretty well. I refresh my mind of all poisons and come back recharged ready for Round 2.

On one of my recent Screen-Break walks, I bumped into Dennis.

After briefly sharing a joke about some Ducks that were feeding, I somehow ended up in one of the longest conversations of my life. Don't misunderstand me, I quite enjoyed it. We discussed everything... the Big Bang, Chaos theory, Linear Time, the Hadron Collider, Planet formation, Solar flares, past lives, curved time, dark matter, reality, human perception, quantum mechanics, spacial wormholes, singularities, mass, gravity, atoms, neutrons, photons, light speed, God, Aliens and maybe a few other things... oh yes, and ducks. Dennis was a very clever and intriguing fellow.

What should have been a brief 10 minute walk ended up lasting over 2 hours. Was a bit behind after that. Should have paid a bit more attention to the concept of Linear Time. :o)

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Video Racing Games - Just how real do you want it?

I recently found myself in a daft conversation (yes it was at the Pub) regarding Formula 1 games and their realism.

The point was made that a certain game was pretty bad as it didn't feel very realistic. Well... just how realistic do you want it? The games can never be 100% realistic otherwise only professional Formula 1 drivers would be able to successfully play them... and they probably have a lot better things to be getting on with... apart from Jacques Villeneuve.

Anyway, as long as they look authentic with cool engine sounds and graphics and are fun to play, I think that's the most you can ask for. If I had to drive a real Formula 1 car, I would probably be extremely tired by the end of Lap 1, fall unconscious on Lap 2 and wake up in hospital 3 weeks later. A game that could provide that level of realism wouldn't be very popular.

A point conceded though, F1 05 on the PlayStation 2 is maybe a bit too easy. Ok, it's your turn to go up to the Bar. Mine's a pint of Fosters.

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The High Street Strikes Back ?

During my regular trips to the Post Office these last few years, I haven't helped but notice the grim emptying of all the shops. One by one it seems, once vibrant store fronts being replaced by empty dead shells with mountains of never to be opened post shoved through the letterbox. It's pretty depressing stuff.

Running a real life bricks and mortar shop these bad economic days seems incredibly tough. The biggest empty store along our Local High Street is the old Woolworths. It's a very large store which probably no Company believe can make work. Along the relatively short stretch there are around 8 or so smaller premises that have not seen life for many many months. You can tell things are bad when even the Charity Shop closes down!

Rents are high and spending traffic is low. This is not a good formula for long term business prosperity.

Maybe it's just because Christmas is looming, but today, I was pleased to see that two of the smaller empty shops had new ownership and were planning to reopen. Brilliant. Could this be the first signs of recovery for the High Street? Too early to tell maybe. The first is a Shoe shop and the second a Toy Shop. Good Luck to both of them. If starting a real life physical shop, this time of year must definitely be the best moment to start.

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Deal or No Deal... still

I've been watching a lot of Deal or No Deal recently. I'm amazed that such a simple concept is still surviving since its first airing 4 years ago back in 2005. Since this time, the show has now given away over 18 Million pounds. Remarkable.

For those that somehow haven't seen it, the show is centered around 1 contestant each day who selects a gradually decreasing number or 22 random boxes with money in them. Future contestants then open the selected box and what ever sum is revealed inside is scratched from the game. Values contained range from 1p to £250,000. At certain stages, The Banker phones in and makes a Monetary offer based on the Money remaining for the Contestant to stop playing. Presenter, Noel Edmonds relays the offer then asks, "Deal or No Deal?". Obviously, the longer you can keep the Big Money Boxes in the game, the larger the offer.

Of course... the whole thing is utterly random, but that doesn't stop Contestants forming strategies and Noel reminding them to think more following a bad run. You're completely in the lap of the Gods with this game unless you resist greed and accept the Bankers offer at some point.

Wonder how you get to be on the Show? Maybe they will read this and I will get a special invite... maybe.

Here's how NOT to play the game. She should have thought a lot harder about her strategy. :oP ---- WARNING: Some Bad language.

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Asda are Great Value... from a certain point of view

As the wise old jedi from Star Wars Ben Kenobi once sad, "Everything is dependent on a certain point of view."

Fictional tripe some may say, but not me however. The Universe and everything in it is totally dependent on your own personal perspective of it. We are all on the same journey from birth through to death, it's just that some people are in First Class travel, some in Economy Class, a few stuffed in the Cargo hold and a much greater number holding onto the wings outside for dear life.

Yes... very interesting.... so why the Asda logo picture? Well... it's all to do with that certain point of view again or more accurately an advertising point of view.

An advert was on TV today for Asda supermarket boasting that around 1400 of their items were cheaper in store than another leading Supermarket. Great, you may say, lets shop there then. But hang on, Wait! 1400 out of how many items are cheaper? 1400 out of 1400 sounds pretty good, but what if it's 1400 out of 10,000? That would actually mean, most items are more expensive in Asda. So you see, these advertised figures mean nothing as they are arbitrary and cannot be compared to anything.

Supermarkets are very competitive in their pricing these days and are constantly changing to stay competitive against one another. So in summary, it's probably best just to go to the closest. At least you save on Petrol.

Er yes, that's what I say.

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