A Million Little Fibres (Mark II)

Moving Back

2006-10-07T16:23:00.000+01:00

I have now moved back to my original url

http://banjoduellingbattlescorpions.blogspot.com/

A Kind of Anniversary

2006-10-03T10:55:00.000+01:00

Posts have been a bit scarce lately with a mixture of apathy & illness rearing its unpleasant head. However, it was recently pointed out to me that this blog/site in one form or another (I'l looking at you Blogger-Beta)has been around for just over a year. So...

More like last week but never mind :)

"Its not the East or the West Side...": Star Wars Gangsta Rap

2006-09-19T15:14:00.000+01:00

Star Wars may have turned to the crap-side in the last 30 years or so but it has produced some brilliant fan parodies. The Star Wars Gangsta Rap is one of the better ones..

The Original Video:

The Special Edition (in slightly better quality):

Performed 'live' on Stage (and ratherly lamely):

On a related tangent, according to this interesting blog article, 'The Coming and Dramatic Decline of Youtube', Youtube who host these videos are heading for a big fall...

Gangsta
Star Wars

Han Fired First

2006-09-17T16:56:00.000+01:00

After recently watching the re-released (cash-in) original theatrical DVD of Star Wars it is pleasing to once again see Han fire first. Screw the lame Lucas Greedo 'fired first' Special Edition rubbish

As it should be:

As realised with cutting edge STAR WARS Lego:

As 'realised' with a twist in the upcoming 30th Anniversary Edition:

Star Wars
Han Solo
Greedo

New LOST Season 3 Promo

2006-09-16T09:31:00.000+01:00

Narrated by 'Henry Gale'...

Lost

Middle Class Guilt and the Sci-Fi Channel

2006-09-13T17:32:00.000+01:00

Stef Zucconi in a recent blog post, replete with fine photographs, recently touched on something which has been bugging me lately me, especially whilst I eat my dinner watching the Sci-Fi Channel - Middle Class Guilt. Every single break during Star Trek @ 7pm, & most of the channels other programming, has adverts for every laudable charity imaginable: Children-Animals-Water-Oxfam-The Rice Pudding Protection League you name it they have an advert. All it takes is "Just" £2, £3 or £10 a month to assuage your pampered, guilty, sci-fi loving conscience whilst you sit eating & watching frivolous junk on a cheesy cable channel as millions starve or get thrown down stairways.

I guess somebody out there assumes that Sci-Fi/Star Trek viewers are idealistic, thoughtful, sentimental types with high amounts of disposable income, slightly dumb, and therefore susceptible to this 'noble' and assiduous form of 'emotional blackmail'. You never know, they might be onto something. However, as one advert and campaign laudibly but rather illogically proclaims in absolute terms:

"Together we can put a stop to Child Abuse.FULL STOP"

Any rational or remotely critical person, Sci-fan or otherwise, should be able to understand in reality regardless of whether the problem is environmental or societal, money and regular donations to a charity isn't the magic bullet or panacea that makes the bad things go away 'FULL STOP'. Especially when the campaign in question tackles something so complex and emotive as Child abuse.

I don't have a problem with genuine charities, sadly I don't really care for the type of patronising, emotional blackmail, in our increasingly 'dumbed down' popular western capitalist culture, which simplifies complex issues whilst providing materialistic solutions such as £10 a month and engaging in empty sloganeering like "I'm in".
I know its a cliche, but ultimately attitudes, perceptions and inequalities across all social classes & peoples , let alone the middles classes and Sci-fi fans, need to improve and become a bit more enlightened to properly address these and other woes, rather than having charities begging for money on the pretense of providing definitive materialistic solutions to intractable social and societal problems. Utopian sentiments perhaps, but people and the world need to change.

Star Trek
Charity
Guilt

CSS, Blogger Templates and Internet Explorer 6

2006-09-12T22:15:00.000+01:00

Just lately this blog has been looking a bit odd in IE. Although I would implore IE users to use Firefox because its vastly superior and one of the best things I've ever downloaded, about 60% of this and my previous sites visitors use IE and would have seen the right sidebar at the bottom of the page.

To cut a long and tedious story short this is due to IE being rather crap at understanding CSS. In my case this little bit of code in the template sorted the whole visually unappealing mess out so my blog looks the same in IE as it does on Firefox:

In the content part of the stylesheet/template add the command highlighted in red. Save your template and republish. It effectively stops lines of text in the content/main/sidebar spilling over out of their boxes and pushing stuff like the sidebar down.

#content {
width:660px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:0;
text-align:left;
word-wrap:break-word;
}
#main {
width:410px;
float:left;
or here
}
#sidebar {
width:220px;
float:right;
or here
}

Of course, this solution might not solve the problem, somthing else in your posts or template is at fault, but its worth a try.

BTW any body mistyping http://www.wherehasalltheraingone.blogpsot.com into their browser will find this wondeful site...

Silent Scream

2006-09-11T19:16:00.000+01:00

This one goes out to all the Bloggers in Blogger Beta Limbo :P

Slayer
Silent Scream

Blogger-Beta Lockout

2006-09-09T12:59:00.000+01:00

Two weeks ago after a failed migration to Blogger-Beta I was locked out of my old blog due to some inexplicable technical error. After following 'Team Blogger' guidance and many emails (which they replied to with useless automated replies going on about how I should try out Beta's 'exciting' new features) I've gotten fed up of the wait and the ominious silence regarding a fix. So here it is, almost 50 weeks since the creation of my previous blog http://banjoduellingbattlescorpions.blogspot.com's new sister blog http://wherehasalltheraingone.blogspot.com/

I could rant on and on about 'Team Blogger's pathetic excuse for 'customer service', the stupid, blase and at times highly contradictory advice they give on the Blogger Help Group via somebody called 'Blogger Employee' (when then can be bothered to break there habit of deafening days of silence on Blogger-Beta status) but I won't. Lifes too short, being a free service they don't do SLAs, and I simply can't be bothered to waste any more energy on the subject. Instead, I carry on wasting their webspace.

Naturally, I'll say this:

THINK VERY CAREFULLY ABOUT ACCEPTING AN INVITATION TO BLOGGER-BETA

I'd had a bit of fine Irish Whisky before I made the decision and it made discount my normal reservations about beta products. What was the worst that could happen ?

Of course the more conspiratorial minded visitors to my blog would argue I shouldn't have made potentially litigious comments about the sexual nature of the new movie Megatron's mouth immediately prior to migration...

Blogger
Blogger Beta

REBORN

2006-09-09T12:48:00.000+01:00

Here are Slayer performing one of my favourite tracks from their album Reign in Blood, the aptly titled Reborn to 'celebrate' the opening of my 'new' Blogger-Beta free blog...

Enjoy...

Slayer
Reborn

Steve Irwin RIP :(

2006-09-04T21:20:00.000+01:00

A legend in any lifetime