Your Sunday night pre-Monday smile

It certainly makes me chuckle.

First Lines : The Return

It's the sequel to the game the was shamelessly ripped from the pages of other people's blogs and sites. Yes, it's guess the work from the opening lines, only it's films rather than songs. Simply name the film from the opening line or exchange.

We have 15 for people to name and in there we have unashamedly easy ones and. some unashamedly hard ones. A couple of quick tips, in the list there are three outright comedies, two scripts from one Quentin Tarantino, six films that can be classed as science-fiction/fantasy, the oldest film on the list is twenty seven years and the newest from last year.

I will be surprised if all of them are guessed but also outraged if the easier ones don't go!

So get guessing.....

1. "Hello, my name is Marty DiBergi. I'm a filmmaker. This Is Spinal Tap

2. "A philosopher once asked are we human because we gaze at the stars or do we gaze
at the stars because we are human? Pointless really." Stardust

3. "In Jailhouse Rock he was everything rockabilly is about. I mean he is
rockabilly. Mean, surly, nasty, rude" True Romance

4. "Are we spinning yet? All right, nice. Chelios, how we doing baby?" Crank

5. "Three of a kind, let's do this."
"That's it, three guys?"
"Two guys on the roof. Every guy gets a share" The Dark Knight

6. "I've finished my play."
"Well done."
"Have you seen mummy?"

7. "Lock onto him R2. Master, General Grievous' ship is directly ahead." Revenge Of The Sith

8. "Way out west there was this fella. Fella I want to tell ya about. Fella by the
name of Jeff Lebowski" The Big Lebowski

9. "Your breakfast sir."
"Pork bellies. I have a feeling something exciting is going to happen in the pork
belly market this morning" Trading Places

10. "A story. A man fires a rifle for many years and he goes to war. And afterward
he turns the rifle in at the armoury and he believes he's finished with the
rifle" Jarhead

11. "Go back inside and shut the door. Julie get me some water for my wash up and
then get inside with your sisters" Inglourious Basterds

12. "Earth, birthplace of the human race. A species much like our own, capable of
great compassion and great violence. For in our quest to protect the humans a
deeper revelation dawns." Transformers 2 :Revenge Of The Fallen

13. "Brendon?"
"Emily"
"Yeah. How's things?"
"Status quo" Brick

14. "USS Kelvin, go for starfleet base" Star Trek

15. "I go nothing sir. No sign of Niobe or Ghost Nothing but blue pills" Matrix Revolutions

Excuses

Well, November is proving to be a bit rubbish isn't it folks? Firstly I shall blame the switch to a new computer with Vista making setting my internet back something of bore and a chore. (grrrr)

Second to this I shall blame being lazy which in turn I blame indirectly on the fact it's darker than the cold dead heart of my colleague Squid outside for about 15 hours a day now.

On a side not, while I still believe 'You Only Live Twice' is the best Bond film by a considerable distance re-watching it recently you can't help but think, 'My, god they'd never get away with this now'. You see the depiction of the Japanese is er to put it kindly, 'stereotyped'. Let's not even mention the part where they Oriental-up Bond himself!

Still, internet connection should (hopefully) be sorted by the end of the week so things in theory will pick up.

Save The Environment With SpaceSquid

Whilst I was lounging in boats on holiday and desperately trying to forget that any of you exist, I had the chance to observe a bewildering array of seabirds perch on rocks, or fly about a bit, or scare toddlers with their Hitchcockian flocking.

Now, obviously, seabirds are evil. Despite this, though, they are our cousins in nature (albeit horribly vicious and twisted cousins who shat on my maths book when I was in Y2 and never apologised), and as such must be protected from environmental catastrophe. It is our civil duty. Just recently the quiet little archipelago where I spent my vacation was hit by a tanker packed full of M&S merchandise. Every gannet and guillemot within a mile radius found themselves tangled up in red and white tea dresses and comfortable Y-fronts. Which did at least keep them warm, though many of the younger birds were heard complaining how unfair it was that the last Primark vessel had passed by without difficulty.

Next time, they might not be so lucky. Next time it might be one of those dirty great oil supertankers that crashes, pumping out liquid gold into the Atlantic, ruining both the birds' beautiful plumage and their nefarious plans at the same time.

This, obviously, is a tragedy. A fully-deserved and amusing tragedy. I thus present five possible methods for dealing with such crises in the future. The most popular plan will be dispatched to Gordon Brown by the end of the week.

1. Crew tankers entirely with strippers.

Pros

• Immediate influx of volunteers to engage in clean-up;
• Breasts;
• Wave of relief across country as embarrassed parents finally get to say "She might take her clothes off for complete strangers, but look how nice she scrubbed-up this razorbill".

Cons

• Sudden shortage of clear heeled slingbacks and hot pink thongs likely;
• Attempts to clean oil with tongues will leave many perverts seriously ill;
• Seabirds themselves liable to be ignored by all but the most disturbing sex-pest.

2. Include presents and other goodies inside each tanker hold, turning a clean-up operation into a lucky dip.

Pros

• Will finally allow Tonka to empty those warehouses that have been filled to bursting with Go-Bots since the mid eighties;
• Makes accidents particularly welcome at Christmas, which is exactly when tanker crews are at their most mindless pissed;
• Will appeal to the under sixteens, making it an important first step to re-legalising child slavery.

Cons

• Today's children will be unimpressed unless their prize shoots real missiles, or transforms into three different types of tank, or something;
• Daily Mail will run article insisting that hundreds of toddlers will end up burning to death;
• Hundreds of toddlers will end up burning to death.

3. Force random sea-birds to swallow diamond rings. Save the environment, maybe win some jewellery!

Pros

• Jewellery is sparkly;
• Hard-up suitors now just one filth-smeared skua away from being able to propose;
• Noel Edmunds has expressed an interest in presenting tie-in TV show.

Cons

• Diamonds are expensive. Probably cheaper for oil executives to just buy boats that don't keep crashing, and we all know how that's turned out;
• Each bird saved will then be brutally killed and searched for treasure;
• Awkward to explain to girlfriend that her new ring was gouged from the belly of a cormorant.

4. Genetically engineer flame-retardant sea-birds and just set oil slick on fire.

Pros

• Looks pretty;
• Everyone gets to sing Firestarter and think they're the first person to do it;
• Plenty of fried fish to eat. Fish aren't endangered, right?

Cons

• Difficult to positively sell fire since the Hindenburg disaster;
• Fire bad for global warming. Probably. I don't know how it works, really;
• Fire-proof seagulls liable to usurp mankind as dominant life on Earth.

5. Remove dependency upon oil by encouraging development of alternative fuel sources.

Pros

• Immediately ensures oil spills a thing of the past;
• Ends dominance of major oil companies and their governmental shills;
• Don't need to keep slapping around Middle Eastern countries.

Cons

• Will make Al Gore intolerably smug.

Outside the window...

...no expense spared

Lego + Star Wars = Awesome

Top of the 'why didn't they have this when I was young list?' it's the genius that is the combination of Lego and Star Wars. One of my favourite childhood toys combined with my favourite IP. OK, yes we had Space Lego and had it's cool little guys in the blacked spaceships who you could pretend were Darth Danish but to actually have a tiny little Darth Vader with a his own saber that lights up when you push his head down, that's something else. That's a whole new level of cool.

And it is true that Christmas before last was brilliant because I spent two whole days assembling the Lego Star Destroyer my sister wrestled away from a disappointed looking child in Toys'r'us. And it is true that my keys are currently guarded by a wee Lego Imperial Bodyguard (and a now faceless Lego Spiderman).

Also surprisingly addictive to play is Lego Star Wars : The Complete Saga for home video consoles. Either that's a great piece of game design or I do actually really enjoy playing games designed for six year olds (frankly I'm not ruling that out at all.)

So to sum up ; Lego + Star Wars = Awesome.

Do Your Part!

Sigh, it is a wet sunday

Well the rain is once more pouring down outside the window (yep, British summer time is over people Autumn is here) and it's a lazy Sunday morning. But what is to be done? Watch a film? Play a game? Watch some sport? Go back to sleep maybe?

Yes, Our Front Room is wracked by indecision.

Frankly the sport only leads to one feeling badly unfit as you watch super-human types cycling round velodromes quick enough to start hurricanes with their tail winds or people who must be related to fish swim 400m in the time it takes us to get across the room. (At least Phelps turns out to be a genuine genetic freak). Football later in the day is a possibility but that does involve going outside.

Playing a game is hampered by being in one of those moods where you just can't decide what you feel like playing. Then spend twenty minutes picking something, play it for five minutes and decide you aren't in the mood for it. Curse fickle Sunday thought patterns.

Film watching suffers from pretty much the same problem. Do you want a character drama, a comedy or some 'Bayhem'. If only Micheal Bay's Shakespeare In Love actually existed it would be perfect Sunday afternoon entertainment.

Well that ramble is over, time to go and end up not doing anything in particular for the next few hours.

Today Outside the Window...

..a desolate wasteland filled with near skeletal killers with no mercy and a desire to hunt down everyone who isn't them and make them thoroughly miserable. Surprisingly it isn't Middlesbrough town centre. It is in fact the terrifying future of the Terminator series, (unless of course you really dig robots - then it's the really quite exciting future of the Terminator series). , a franchise which is now responsible for more parallel time lines than theoretical physicists playing with their super strings could ever hope to match.

Makes Back To The Future look positively straight forward as three films present at least four different time lines whilst the TV show (surprisingly a fun little show to watch) creates a fifth that ignores at least one of the others.

Still, whilst we're here might as well try get hold of one of those reprogrammed ones - could well be useful round the house (you know for opening jars, doing the vacuuming, killing the neighbours, walking the terma-dog featured below), wonder what kind of warranty they come with?

Today Outside The Window...

..it's the Tardis. And the er strange scale is down to a worm hole and that scaffolding is to do with repairing the dent left by that dumb 'ol Titanic spaceship thing. Right, time to show Davros how this shit is done..."Doctor? Why are thou Doctorrrrrrrrrrr....!"

Beware of the dog...no really!

The future is a bitch, literally.

Sick

Well, it seems half of the Front Room's computing ability is sick. The Squid's terminal has finally been taken to the computer vet and is being kept overnight for observation.

If all goes well there will be a shot of new life in the beast, if all goes badly it's going to the great blogosphere in the heavens and if all goes strangely the PC will be fine and the Vice squad will come round with some interesting questions.

So everyone think of Spacesquid's awesome mechanical demon this night.

A Celebration

Hooray! The electronic speaking box informs us that most paedophiles are men under 24 years old. Our Front Room has passed out of the danger zone! And without raping a single child between us!

But where, I ask you, is our reward? Hmmm? Society hates paedophiles, so surely it must love the non-paedophile. Why are we not being showered with gifts to celebrate our total refusal to abuse even the most alluring of kiddies?

Frankly the laissez faire attitude betrayed by "the man" when it comes to rewarding those with a clean score-card, toddler abuse-wise, is both sickening and confusing.

Is there anyone there?

Well? Hmm? Are we just rambling along to ourselves here? Probably doesn't matter if we are, just keeps us from terrifying the neighbours.*




*The neighbours are Cthulu on one side and Autobots on the other. Seriously. It's true.

Seriously.

A Terrifying Vision Of The Future

For a long time now my greatest fear has been that I will die alone. Recently however that has been overtaken by the far more terrifying fear that the people of this country will elect a giant homicidal insect as our next PM.

Too far-fetched, you say? Au contraire, mon ami! It makes perfect sense! What is the one natural resource we lack most in this country right now? If you said "bees", then take a bow (partial credit is available for those that said "titties"). The stripy ingrates are fleeing this country in droves. Oh, sure, back when they were still building up their supplies of royal jelly they were happy to stay here, collecting welfare cheques in the form of pollen, shitting out baby bees once every twenty seconds in council estate hives; but now that they've completed constructing their international honey empire, it's adios muchachos as the six-legged whiners head off for tax havens around the globe.

The bees are gone, and people are desperate to bring them back. Desperate enough to encourage bee immigration by electing a psychotic arthropod as our premier? We can't take that chance!

Already our election process itself is under threat as more and more independent observers are replaced in the night by cockroaches in lounge suits. Just last week I had to hang up during a "random" political phone survey when I distinctly heard the sound of rotting meat being softened by vomit coming from the other end of the phone line. And it won't be enough to just elect an insect; oh no. This insect will have to be tough on crime! It will have to stand up to the terrorists! It will have to slap around all those welfare-state cheats I keep reading about even though no-one you've ever met has ever seen one. And, I admit, there are other ways to do all that without using it's gargantuan mandibles to chop people in half, but that wouldn't be the insect way!

On the other hand, even a grotesquely enlargened mass murdering stag beetle would be better than Boris Johnson.

Today's Burning Question No. 2

If Optimus Prime has sex with a vending machine, is that the Cybertronian equivalent of beastiality?

Today outside the window..

..it's sunny Hyrule Field. Where horses roam, small elves save the world and there's a rupee under every bush. A land of opportunity indeed.

Today, outside the window...

..it's Eternia, land of He-Man, Skeletor, big cats and annoying floaty wizards. And yes, we fully intend to open the window and shout "IT'S THE GUY IN THE PINK SHIRT! THE PINK SHIRT YOU IDIOTS!"

Today, outside the window...

Frankly the suburban scene outside Our Front Room's window is just too, well, normal and really quite dull. (Apart from the time there were three emergency vehicles parked outside but that is a whole different story).

So, from time to time I like to imagine various differing views outside the window, often matched to suit mood. Anything from marching herds of dinosaurs with the bands to go with to the lost city of hotties with the giant chocolate waterfall.

Today it's a bit Dante's fiery sweetie circle of hell. Which, I know doesn't really make any kind of sense but then I find that's quite a rare occurrence, people who stay too long in Our Front Room often end up slightly, er , off kilter reality wise.

Stay tuned as I'm sure some kind of television will be ranted on later, it's only so long you can stare out of the front window before the family across street starts to worry about their daughter's safety.

Antone Sergy Romanov Putin Oligarchy Vladimir Adbramovichi

Below we present the first in a series of diary entries form the Russian legend that is Antone Sergy Romanov Putin Oligarchy Vladimir Adbramovichi

It was the cold winter of '79 and I was once more in the motherland when the Polit bureau called me once more to serve.

"Antone", they say, "you are the finest one amongst us to proudly wear the red star"

"Yes" I say.

"We need you to help us" they say.

"Yes" I say.

"Good" they say.

"Yes" I say.

"You must help us retrieve an important thing, a valuable piece of proud Russian history" they say.

"Yes" I say.

"What is?" I say.

"Is unique example of russian genius" they say, "it is orignal code for Tetris" they say.

"Yes" I say.

"It will be hard to retrieve" they say.

"Yes" I say, "where is?" I say.

"It is land of most-hated capitalists" they say, "it is in the land of Yankee. Stored in the vaults of Fort Knox, as seen in British imperalist polit-film Goldfinger" they say.

"Yes" I say.

"It is guarded by a battlion of america's finest men" they say, "but you must hurry for the Japanese also chase this precious artifact with their deadly ninjas who are as demons in men"

"Yes" I say.

"You will need to break into the Fort, avoid the America pig-dog GIs and evade the deadly Japanese before stealing the artifact and be returning home surely fighting off CIA agents and thier lap dog gentlemen spy lackeys. Though we, can-not provide you any arms nor assitance Antone, the mission is to be so secret that we can not possibly help".

"Yes" I say.

"Can you do it?" they say.

"Is no problem" I say.

And so began the odessy of Antone.