November 30th, 2006
Following on with my top 10 television cars I thought I might do the film cars too. This time though I’m going to break up the entries in separate posts otherwise I won’t be adding anything new for another week!!!
The first car that I’m going to include is one that always fascinated me as a child and now when I look back it’s not THAT impressive but it still sticks in my mind.
Number 10 is the Star Car from The Last Starfighter.
The Star Car was driven by Centauri an intergalactic talent scout who visits Earth after a young man named Alex beats the high score on the Starfighter arcade game. It turns out that the arcade game is actually a training / recruitment device intended to spot skill full Starfighter pilots.
The Star Car looks like a bulky version of the Delorean from the Back to the Future movies and like that car has the gull wing doors. The really cool thing about the Star Car though is that it doubles as a space ship. The wheels fold in and the back opens up to reveal rockets.
It was built by the legendary Gene Winfield who also did custom builds for Blade Runner, Star Trek and Robocop amongst others!I couldn’t find out too much more information about the Star Car - they don’t have it on DVD in Australia So I can’t even check to see if there was anything on the commentary. At any rate I like the car and it comes in at number 10!
Happy to hear suggestions or guesses for the next nine - I’ve already locked them in but I’d like to hear if I’m along the right lines!!!
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November 27th, 2006
10 - The General Lee
Ahhh the General Lee I read that there 306 of these cars during the Dukes of Hazzard run and only 26 or so still survive today in various conditions. Hardly surprising considering this car did more air time than most planes. The wonderful thing is if you have the DVDs and you slow the landing you can watch the car actually bend in two.
Great if only to point out that there is an alternative to using the door!
9 - Magnum PI’s Ferrari
The Ferrari 308 GTS is an icon due at least partly by the fact that our favourite moustached, short shorts wearing PI Magnum drives around in one. Originally the producers were going to get a Porsche 928 but since they won’t modify their cars they went with the Ferrari and the rest is as they say history.
8 - The Flintstones Car
I love the fact that you can almost buy anything on eBay (I say almost). Recently someone was selling a Flintstones car that actually runs which I found amusing considering if you take a box and cut out the bottom, stand in the middle, pick it up and walk then technically the car is actually running as intended!
There’s no point in linking to the ebay auction cause it’ll disappear and I’ll look like a tool who made it all up - so here’s a photo instead.
7 - The Homer
You have to love the genius that goes behind the Homer car. Lot’s of horns cause you can never find one when you need it! Bubble roof and giant sized cup holder - oh and one of those things on the end of the antenna that helps you find your car in the car park everyone should have one of those!
This was the car designed by Homer Simpson that ruined his brother’s auto company.
6 - The A Team Van
So what do you do if you’re on the run from the law and the government for a crime you didn’t commit. You get yourself a big bad black van with a red stripe down the side that goes hullava fast!
That’s what.
Ahhh the A Team van, BA’s pride and joy!
5 - FAB 1
It’s simply the name. The greatest name for a three-ton pink Rolls Royce with six wheels, hydrofoils, and grill-mounted machine guns. Apparently Rolls Royce actually endorsed the Fab 1 as long as it was clearly identified as a Rolls. But then they built an actually model and it was huge, so much so that it’s rumoured that Rolls tried to buy the model and bury it.
Now the movie Fab 1 was made by Ford and you’ve got to feel that’s just a little of a come down.
4 - The Whomobile
When you’re a banished Time Lord stuck on earth you’ve got to be able to get around to fight dinosaurs and spiders. This futuristic car was the replacement to the earlier Dr Who car Bessie a heavily-modified yellow Edwardian roadster. Not satisfied with the Whomobile as is, he modifies it to fly - couldn’t put doors in but made it fly.
3 - Mystery Machine
Wow two vans made this list! I don’t have anything against them but I’m just not a van kind of guy. Of cousre this isn’t just any old van - this is the Mystery Machine. I found a reference to it as it’s described in a role playing game:
The Mystery Machine was bought by Daphne’s money, fixed up by Fred, equipped by Velma, and decorated by Shaggy and Scooby. For this reason, your whole gang sees the Mystery Machine as being an essential part of Mystery Inc’s lifestyle and work.
I was always under the impression it was Shaggy’s van.
2 - KITT
Only a car this cool could contain the glory that was David Hasslehoff’s boofy hair! Knight Industries Two Thousand a sleek, black, customized Pontiac Trans-Am. The car was heavily shielded, tonnes of weaponry and a rather protective personality. Who would have thought so much crime could be fought from the drivers seat of car? No problem couldn’t be fixed with a good turbo boost! The ultimate showdown? KITT’s evil brother CARR or was it KARR??? Now I don’t remember! I do vaguely remember a truck version at one stage too.
1 - The Batmobile!
The greatest car ever made for TV - the converted Lincoln Futura. It was originally a concept car and when the producers for the Batman show required a batmobile within a very short timespan the concept car was snapped up and transformed into the awesome Batmobile. This is an easy number 1.
Now any I’ve missed?
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November 27th, 2006
Whenever someone says that a movie or a game should be banned my gut reaction is always against it. I don’t like a society that can’t deal with the darker side because parents are unable to police what their children watch or play.
The PS2 game Rule of Rose is raising quite the commotion though amongst parent groups, has been banned in the UK and created a lot of controversy in Poland.
Rule of Rose is a psychological horror game that revolves around a 19 year old girl (for some reason before I read her age I thought she was a lot younger) Jennifer who is sent to an orphanage after her parents die. The orphanage is run by a little hierarchical group called the Red Crayon Aristocrats. The young girls who make up this group are, from what I can ascertain from the preview the most twisted set of young female bullies since Heathers!
The gameplay is driven by you controlling Jennifer who is in turn controlled by the Red Crayon Aristocrats as she runs around looking for objects to please the Aristocrats and secretly trying to get away.
Now I haven’t played the game so I’m only going off what i have read and the preview I watched online so I’m not going to tell you that the game itself is disturbing but that trailer was plenty disturbing!
Now this is the tricky part - an R rating says that people under 18 can play the game (I believe in the UK it was given a rating of over 16). The reality of that though is there will be a number of children playing this game because some parents don’t care what their kids play. So is the answer banning a disturbing video game?
If it were a movie rated R I wouldn’t even blink and say you can’t ban it. As long as we’re not talking snuff films or child pornography then each to their own. However what made me sit and think when I read about this was sensations I myself have felt whilst playing a game.
A film is a detached medium that you observe and definitely get caught up in but you don’t have any choice or the illusion of choice at the least. You are watching a story unfold and you don’t get to decide what a character does in the movie.
A video game you direct and experience the central character. If the character is required to kill something or steal etc then you are the one who is directing the character to do it. You don’t generally have a choice that you can apply your morals to in the majority of games - do I kill that baddie or do we sit down and try to sort out our differences.
I like a good violent game like the next gamer, the punisher is one of my favourite games right now but are there just some places you don’t go in a video game? Someone said that this game won’t frighten you so much as disturb.
Children being sadistic and violent - I read of sexual undertones in Rule of Rose however I can’t say I’ve seen any indication of this first hand. Is this a image that shouldn’t be made into a game?
If you ban this though where do you stop?
I haven’t any answers for you on this one!
Take a look at the game’s website and tell me what you think - is it really that bad or just an effective horror game!
Rule of Rose
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November 26th, 2006
I’m a semi big James Bond fan and when I read some time ago that for this film Mr Brosnan’s services were not going to be required and that Daniel Craig would be the new Bond I thought back to the last two Bond films and thought yeah why not those films were stinkers (better than your average fare being Bond films but average at best).
But then information started leaking out about how it was going to be and I visited some anti Craig sites and began to become quite negative about the new film.
Whilst all this was going on I began reading the Fleming novel because I knew nothing of the story and I hadn’t read an Ian Fleming novel before.
Finally I saw Casino Royale and I’ve got to say if you are a Bond fan having trouble with the film just wait it out till the end. The end is the pay off! I wound up reflecting on the whole movie after it finished and decided that I liked it. Didn’t like the theme song absolutely loved the score.
I’m now more looking forward to the next Craig bond film which I believe is already being put together - even if this film fails to meet your expectations it will at least set you up for a great sequel that I’m sure is coming!
What did you guys think?
What’s your favourite Bond film? I think mine is still Goldeneye - though this new one is now up there!
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November 24th, 2006
I’m very excited to announce the launch of the Coast to Coast Kombis blog is now completed and up and running. Iain has written a great opening post - normally I would advise to have a couple of posts ready to go before launching but his introduction was too good to sit on!
This is Iain’s first blog and it would be great if everyone could take a couple of minutes to duck over and check it out and maybe leave a comment of encouragement and let him know the blogging community aren’t that scary!
The layout I previewed here the other day was trumped at the last minute and I’ve put together a more straight forward look and feel that better reflects the mood of the blog - tell me what you think!
Better still tell Iain what you think!
Coast to Coast Kombi Blog
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November 23rd, 2006
I’ve added a recent comments plugin to the sidebar here and over at Crypt Hunter, I think it’s a good way to draw a little more attention to a post and hopefully garner a couple more comments.
I was reading a survey and one of the questions is:
Do you prefer more comments or more unique visitors?
And I was surprised after giving some thought to this that I would prefer less unique visitors and more comments on my blogs - especially over at Crypt Hunter. What do you guys prefer? (ooooohhh shameless plea for more comments!!)
Also I’m looking around for a plugin for WordPress that will generate links to random older posts on the sidebar - anyone know of one?
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November 23rd, 2006
Well I’m happy to say that the xmas layout I was working on for Suthern’s Place has been done and delivered to Kellie. I’m not totally happy with primarily the layout that I used, it was a bit buggy and I found most of my time patching things up!
I think I just kind of forgot how close the Christmas period is so I cut a few corners with it and Kellie is going to customise the sidebar directly herself which is nice of her! I’m pretty happy with the graphics which are custom built for the design including the penguin who is named Picard (great name for a penguin).
Here is a brief preview of the design which you’ll be able to see over at Suthern’s Place after Kellie finishes modifying it.
Another blog I’m working on for a client is the Coast 2 Coast blog which of course is the business blog for Coast to Coast Kombis that I’ve mentioned here a couple of times of late. It’s a great learning experience for everyone involved and when we get a few posts ready I’ll pop the link in so everyone can deliver on the business blogging promise of more visitors!
Another brief preview won’t hurt here is the corner image that the site is using:
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November 21st, 2006
I’m very happy to say that I’ve started work on a Xmas theme for Kellie over at Suthern’s Place. I wanted to start on the weekend but I’ve just been really busy with working on the business blog for Coast to Coast Kombis - but more on that later!
Kellie has been very cool (um no xmas pun intended - besides it’s hot here in Aussieland) and given me the opportunity to ’surprise’ her. Sometimes when a client says that it can be a nightmare and other times it’s an exciting challenge that you get to put a little of yourself into. I try and focus on the latter!
We did discuss the basic outline though and it’s going to have a “snowmen, santa, penguins dressed as snowmen type of thing” with “wintery blues.. and reds”. Which is great because I was really itching to do something like that!
I’m also lucky that Kellie is using wordpress so it makes it a little easier as I’m more experienced with it!
As I mentioned in the previous posts I’m going to chronicle the development of the look and feel here and so take a look at the first custom built ‘character’ for the design! I like to treat each element as a character when I’m building something like this and go so far as to name the elements.
Almost a life time ago I was working on the Anvet Direct website and designed all of the animal characters there and one of them is modelled directly off of one of my pets. (please note that I’m no longer working with that site so if you do have any comments or suggestions about the store itself please contact Anvet - all the animation is me though as well as the Pet Space Invaders - (adapted off a flashscript anyway) - so feel free to comment about that!!)
For this though I haven’t really had a chance to refer to Mr Penguin as anything but Mr Penguin so of course Kellie can call him whatever she wants or you guys should suggest names in the comments! 
He’s my base model for any penguins and from here I’ll dress him up in xmas clothes (or of course as the terminator when I get bored - hey why don’t you guys suggest movie characters that I can dress him up like too!!!!).
As I wrote the line above I got Terminator Penguin stuck in my head and in order to kill the thought and got some actual work done - the dark and robotic fellow to the left is the result. Fine. Don’t giggle. He kinda looks like a Terminator penguin. Maybe a Neo penguin???
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November 19th, 2006
I have a fascination the the Universal Studios Monsters. Not so much the new versions of them but the classic 1930/40s films. Dracula, The Wolfman, Creature From The Black Lagoon, Frankenstein and of course the Invisible Man.
I just recently sat and watched my copy of The Invisible Man and it served as a reminder of how much I love these films.
I’m working on a series of paintings each one featuring one of the Universal Monster Pack. I’m probably going to focus on their faces in a simplified manner.
This sketch was done as I’m just getting used to the look of each of the characters that I’m going to feature. I was actually quite happy with this sketch though you’ll notice some hasty scribbles around the neck area.
I originally just put him in a suit with an oversized jacket when I realised that the core of the character representation also has him wearing a scarf around his neck and tucked into the jacket collar. Like it was the coldest day on record and he’s trying to shut it out. Of course we already know that he’s trying to shut in the invisibility!
Sorry about the quality too when we moved for some reason our scanner went missing and I refuse to either:
- Buy a standalone scanner for nearly three times the price that they were or
- Buy a three in one scanner, printer, copier because I already have a printer I’m quite happy with!
I don’t understand why standalone scanners are so expensive and you have to buy the printer combos now! We will be probably getting the combo because it winds up cheaper in the long run (madness!!!).
At least you get the idea from the picture above.
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November 18th, 2006
When you’re running a business blog it’s important to remember that your blog’s first goal is to supply your reader with a positive exchange - something to read that will interest them and allow them to get a feel for you and your business. You shouldn’t launch straight into the sales pitch. Who wants to read a catalogue for a blog?
Take a digital camera for instance read the two posts below and tell me which one is more likely to make you buy from this company:
Post 1
CANON DIGITAL IXUS 800IS
The compact Digital IXUS 800IS combines IXUS style with advanced photographic features. Experience sharper flash-free shooting with ISO 800 and a 4x optical Image Stabilizer zoom lens.
- Key Features :6.0 MP CCD
- 4x optical zoom with optical IS
- ISO 800
- Elegant design
- DIGIC II and iSAPS
- 2.5″ LCD
- 16 shooting modes and My Colors
- Widescreen recording and 30fps VGA movies
- PictBridge and Print/Share button
Visit My Store to buy now!
Post 2
We were pretty excited today to open up the new shipment of Canon digital cameras because we got a chance to take a look at the new IXUS 800IS (who comes up with these names!).After having a play with it around the store I’ve gotta say I’m pretty impressed with what it has to offer. It has a great stabilizing system which makes it so much easier to take those shots. Probably would’ve liked it if the red eye reduction was a little better but on the overall it’s a solid camera.
I took the camera home and let my son have a go - which was probably not the best idea on a monday night when everyone at home is busy busy busy. There’s my son wondering around the house snapping candid shots much to our constant surprise.
If you’ve bought one we’d love to hear what you’ve thought - hey send us in one of your prized shots! If you’re thinking about buying one why not come into our shop or better still you can have a look at some more technical stuff here at our online store!
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