All TrueBen Morrish (700)    Ben Morrish   http://alltruism.blogspot.com International Starwars Day - May the Fourth be with you!Posted Saturday, May 03, 2008 (12 days 21 hours ago.) Viewed 64 times. 
Yes, it's May the Fourth, the most appropriately dated International Day of all time - International Starwars Day: May the Fourth be with you ! Starwars has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, cultural phenomena of the last 31 years. Since its release in 1977 people have been enjoying the space opera that is Starwars, now comprising of 6 films plus some spin-offs (Ewoks, Droids, Clone Wars, numerous computer games and more). Some people even liked Jar Jar Binks, but they should not admit this in front of any hardcore Starwars fans since to them Jar Jar is anathema . Many a grown man still harbours fantasies involving lightsabers and Sith Lords. Men between about 5 and 55 who deny having such fantasies are either liars or genuinely didn't see the films while they were young and impressionable enough to be instilled with the secret desire to be a Jedi Knight. 
The Jedi religion has won many converts in the real world, with 0.7% of people in the 2001 UK Census declaring themselves as Jedi, and according to the survey results, Jedi was the third most popular religion in Scotland. New Zealand had the highest per capita population of reported Jedi in the world in 2o01, with 1.5%. This would have made it the second most popular religion in the country, but tragically the spoilsports at Statistics New Zealand didn't count allow it to count officially. I sense that they may have been infiltrated by agents of the Sith ;-) Starwars has also been parodied on many occasions - some of the best include: Spaceballs 
Family Guy - Blue Harvest 
Weird Al's "The Saga Begins" 
Watch the video to "The Saga Begins" on Youtube. Definitely a hit I reckon! I'll leave you all with perhaps the ultimate home-made lightsaber action this side of Tatooine - The Starwars Kid. Remember, today (and today only!) you too can don your Jedi robes and give your lightsaber a good twirl without shame . Happy Starwars Day everyone....May the Fourth be with you! 
Permalink Comments (1) All True Top 10 Inventions of All Time - Because Sliced Bread Ain't All ThatPosted Sunday, April 27, 2008 (19 days ago.) Viewed 991 times. When people are particularly impressed with a particular invention, they often say "wow, that's the best thing since sliced bread". I've never understood this, as sliced bread really isn't that amazing when you think about it. We've had bread for millennia , and knives too. We can easily slice the old-fashioned non-sliced bread should we so wish - it doesn't require lengthy training or unusually advanced manual dexterity. In short, we've had the capability to achieve a slice of bread for thousands of years (although for cultural reasons people generally didn't bother until recently - they often used bread as a kind of edible plate - no washing up to do, genius! I suppose we have the Earl of Sandwich* to blame for the fact we now have to eat our bread off flat discs of baked clay). The only advantage humanity has gained from the invention of (pre) sliced bread is that we can now make sandwiches slightly faster. Hardly earth-shattering I think you'll agree, unless you're a caterer or a parent who has to make sandwiches for a dozen kids each day (in which case you might want to learn more about the invention of contraception, see below). Since sliced-bread is a distinctly disappointing invention, I will present 10 of the greatest inventions of all time, so as not to leave you with a cynical attitude to inventions in general. 1 - Sanitation - Specifically soft toilet paper , clean running water and flushable toilets. A world without these is just too unbearable to think about. Shudder. Bears may do it in the woods, but thankfully we can do it in the privacy of a locked room, with a scent of our choice in the air and maybe a newspaper too. And we can clean up afterwards without having to first find a suitable bunch of leaves and then evict any lurking insects from them. Truly one of humanity's finest inventions!  2 - World of Warcraft - because male teen-aged loners need people skills too! Members of this demographic are statistically unlikely to venture out into the world until their twenties, however much you try and coerce them to. But when they do finally get dragged kicking and screaming into the World Out There, they'll need people skills. How can they get these when they spend their formative years with minimal contact with people outside their immediate family?  World of Warcraft,
that's how! It may only be a virtual world, but the players are real
people, and they can talk to each other. Hell, they might even
encounter members of the opposite sex..truly a broadening of their
life-experience!There may be a few downsides when these WoW-raised chaps are released into the wild world, such as getting into trouble when they ask a new female colleague at the office if she wants to join up for a "5-man" later, but such minor problems are insignificant when compared to the social and organisational skills that can stealthily be ingrained in them through WoW. 3 - Effective contraception - because love is important, and like all important things, it needs to be made right. A badly made car won't get you where you want to go. The same applies to badly made love. Contraception (especially barrier methods which also protect from STDs) allows us to practice, without worrying too much about unwanted consequences. Practice makes perfect, and perfectly made love is groovy baby yeah! As an added bonus in our over-crowded world, its good that we only bring new people in when we're ready and willing to make a good job of raising them. 4 - The Internet - because its good to share ideas. Even silly ones. Silly ones can then be shown to be silly, and we can keep the good ones (until a better one comes along of course!). Also, it helps people communicate with others outside their normal groups, and might one day help us overcome our local and national prejudices and actually stand together for a better world. Super! 5 - Comfy chairs - in the days before we invented chairs (and stools, sofas etc) you had to either remain standing all the time, or sit on the ground, which in most places is bumpy, muddy or otherwise quite unpleasant.  You'll notice that in the popular picture of the ascent (actually the descent) of man, all our ape ancestors were standing and walking along. Now we can stop all that nonsense and have a nice sit down in a comfy chair!And maybe a cup of tea as well. We can now do all of this whilst wearing clothes too! That's what I call progress! 6 - Cups of tea - although the full power of tea to resolve any crisis and remove all stress seems to work only on the English (who can't function more than about 3 hours without a cup of this delightful infusion), tea is one of those things that is both healthy AND tasty. Mmm, feel those anti-oxidants surging through your system!  When an Englishman comes back from a hard day at the office, he can relax in the knowledge that a nice cup of tea and a sit down will make it all better. If there's a biscuit with it, so much the better!7 - Cooking - this covers all kinds of food (and drink) preparation, from heating to mixing, blending and maybe even adding just a touch of lime. Imagine if we could only eat truly natural food - that would give us raw meat, raw vegetables and raw fruit if you were lucky. All washed down with a nice sip of river water. Unless you are a hard-core salad or sushi fanatic, this would be distinctly unpleasant!  Luckily
for us, we have access to the wonders of cooking - biscuits, cakes,
soups, pasta, roasted meat,cooked potatoes and all kinds of other good
things. Yummy!8 - Electricity - because its the closest we can get to magic. It makes almost everything in our modern world possible. If we want light, heat, music or interactive computer games, hey presto - flick a switch and there you have it, no effort (and only a modest fee) required. Its not magic, but it's not far off!  9 - The Discovery Channel - because there's just so much to learn about sharks and Nazis!  10 - Top 10s / Top 100s - these are a fantastic invention. For those who compile them, its a quick n easy way to make content, be it a tv show, a music chart or even an article on the Internet (cough). For the viewers / listeners / readers, its a nice light piece of entertainment to while away a few minutes or hours. Winners all round! At least until they become recursive....eek! Right, that's my Top 10 Inventions...now I've gotta grab a quick sarnie and run to catch a bus... thank goodness for sliced bread! * Actually the Earl of Sandwich didn't invent the sandwich, but our name for it did come from his title.
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