If you have ever watched a Space Combat and thought to yourself – ‘that’s complete rubbish, it’d never be like that’ – the chances are that you were probably right. One thing Hollywood has never really let get much in the way is accuracy – particularly when it comes to Space. If you are interested in how the business of war in space might actually take place, there is a fascinating article on the topic running on Gizmodo at the moment written by Joseph Shoer, a Ph.D. candidate in aerospace engineering.

Continue reading The Physics of Space Combat

The good people over at io9.com have compiled a chart documenting the rise and fall of various themes within sci-fi and fantasy TV shows since the 1970’s. The five trends documented are Aliens & Mutants, Robots, Magic, Space Travel and Time Travel. The chart provides and excellent overview derived from 300 shows showing how trends have come and gone.

Continue reading An excellent chart showing the rise and fall of Sci-Fi TV

Nerds love Monty Python, right? I mean, there’s even a programming language named after the group… Well, in another case of “there’s nothing new under the sun” it seems that Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot Sketch” is perhaps a little bit older than previously thought. A scholar of Ancient Greece by the name of William Berg has translated a joke book written in the 4th Century CE containing 265 jokes by the comedians Hierocles and Philagrius. This comedy pair compiled a list of jokes called “Philogelos: The Laugh Addict”.

In Monty Pythons sketch, a man attempts to return a dead Norwegian Blue Parrot to a particularly difficult shopkeep. In the ancient Greek version, it’s a dead slave. Obviously, times have changed, but the joke is surprisingly similar. Other jokes, it seems, have also withstood the test of time, appearing in modernised versions around the world also.

From the Telegraph’s article:

Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game.

One joke goes: “A man tells a well-known wit: ‘I had your wife, without paying a penny’. The husband replies: “It’s my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?”

Brilliant… who would have thought that the roots of British humour were so old?

You can see Monty Python’s sketch on Youtube here:

The original joke can be found here in electronic book format.

Its no secret that Microsoft (Bill Gates in particular) has not been a big fan of Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ad campaign. Their solution to the problem was to hire Jerry Seinfeld for $10 million dollars and get him to appear in a ad or two with Bill Gates. The first of these ads has been released. The ad may be a little, well, subtle. Maybe the only thing the marketing company they hired could think of was “Maybe if we get them thinking about our ads, they might stop thinking about our products…” I suppose we’ll have to wait and see if the advertising strategy works…

I love this one. There should be more antique flintlocks used in cooking…

In keeping with Friday tradition – I present to you another happy Muppets moment…

Running over two years for 27 episodes, Dungeons and Dragons is a classic example of cult TV was an attempt to bring the D&D franchise to a wider audience. During its run it was criticised for being too violent, having occult content and generally being misunderstood by adults.

The quality of the animation, voice-overs and music are excellent. The stories are really quite original too. The only drawback might be trying to get your head around the weapons and character classes of the characters if you are used to the D&Dverse.

Perhaps the most interesting little tidbit about this show – Eric the Cavalier is voiced by Don Most, or as most would know him, Ralph Malph from Happy Days.

The show is available on DVD in the UK and USA, but for some reason we have to wait here in Oz for a while longer…

As I have mentioned previously, we are going through the entire Buffy show again. We had just started Season Three and were watching the first episode where Giles is looking for Buffy who has gone missing. There is a scene where he goes to visit Buffy’s mum. At this point Miss T bursts out laughing. I ask her why, and she says.

Miss T: Why are English people like Vampires?

RupertG: I don’t know… why?

Miss T: Because they won’t come into your house unless you invite them, and they don’t like the sun.

Just thought I’d share…

Of all the muppets, the Swedish Chef is my favourite. Him and the Pigs in Space. In this instalment, the Swedish Chef shows us how to make doughnuts…

I recently rewatched The Simpsons episode “Simpson Tide” (season 9, episode 3G04) in which Homer Simpson joins the naval reserve and gets command of his own nuclear sub. Due to a bungled command decision Homer fires the commander of the vessel out of a torpedo tube into an enemy sub.

This got me to thinking about the Homer Simpson body count. A few memorable deaths spring to mind – Frank Grimes for example. Hans Moleman on numerous occasions. And of course, Flander’s wife Maude…

Without counting the Treehouse of Horror episodes, there must be many more that I have neglected. List the ones that you can remember in the comments please and I’ll try to get together a list…