I’m sorry - I said I wouldn’t post that much more about the Writers Strike but, frankly, it stirs me up no end. So read it, don’t read it. I don’t care - it’s on the internet so it’s only for promotional purposes anyway.

The title of this post covers pretty much how Michael Eisner sees the current state of affairs regarding the availability of movies and TV shows over the internet. In an interview with that well known bastion of journalistic integrity and impartiality, Fox News, Eisner, former CEO of Disney, called the current Writers Strike “a stupid strike” claiming that the profit from digital content is “a piece of a nonexistent flow, which won’t be nonexistent, but it will be nonexistent for the next three years.”

Now, Eisner was CEO of Disney up until September 2005. A year later, Disney started selling movies through iTunes. You know, that popular application which lets you buy music, movies and TV Shows over the internet. In November 2006, a little under 2 months after beginning internet downloads, nearly half a million Disney movies had been sold - approximately $4 million worth. After 3 months, the number of downloads had skyrocketed to 1.3 million. In May of this year, current Disney CEO Robert Iger claimed that movie downloads had been surpassed by downloads of Disney TV shows which had reached a figure of 23 million since they had been added to iTunes. Even Disney’s own website now streams 100 million videos per week to over 6 million unique users (and you can make the most of this target audience by buying advertising space on the website).

Eisner suggested that the Writers should be striking outside Steve Jobs house as Apple are obviously screwing the studios out of a fair share of the pie. Perhaps he should have had a quick chat with Robert Iger because, according to Ars Technica,

Disney CEO Robert Iger said that this was because Mickey and Company were quite pleased with Apple’s movie pricing and the margins they were seeing. Although the pricing of a movie on the iTunes store is lower that that of a physical DVD, Disney is making about the same amount of money on each movie it sells there.

The internet - too new to be profitable.

More Writers Strike - I’m sorry, but this video is too outrageous not to share.

Quick recap: the AMPTP (which stands for Fucking Greedy Bastard Megacorporations*) does not want to pay writers residuals for media that is distributed over the internet. There argument is that the internet is too new and that they need 3 years for a study into - well, I don’t know what. How to use YouTube I guess. Their predominant concern appears to be that the internet may not be the cash cow that the writers claim it’s likely to be.

This video shows the heads of most of the major media outlets justifying this concern:

Spread the word.

(Via United Hollywood)

*Is a googlebomb out of the question at this point?

Dragon Claw Fire Horde? Sign me up!

This article is also well worth reading.

Still don’t get what the WGA strike is all about? Tim Kazurinsky explains it on WGN News:

You may have noticed over there ( –> ) that there’s a little badge I’ve put up. Good innit! Took me all fucking morning to make because I am that shit hot with graphics software. I digress.

The Writers Guild of America are on strike. You may have heard about this in the news. If you already have an interest in screenwriting then you will probably know more about it otherwise you may only know what you’ve heard or read from your other news sources, most of which say something along the lines of “The writers are on strike because they want more money”. Essentially, this is true - certainly in the case of residual payments (i.e. royalties) from DVD sales. Writers would like to get double their current payment for the sale of a single DVD unit which, for a $20 sale, would amount to 4 cents.
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The other day, driving home from work, I had an idea. An invention idea. The sort of idea you’d go on public television with and propose it to a bunch of rich business types who will then offer to lend you money in return for a share of the profits or something.

The idea was simple: a small, secure container that you could put your car key in; but it had a built-in breathalyzer and you could only unlock the container if the alcohol content of your breath was below the legal limit. I also reasoned that you might have to include some sort of fingerprint ID check too so that you couldn’t just find a random sober person to open the box for you. The point was to make sure that temptation was removed - even well intentioned people get to the point of drinking where they’re way over the limit but are convinced that they’ll be fine.

Anyway, there’s this article in the news: a proposal to introduce in-car breathalysers into the vehicles of convicted drink drivers that will prevent the engine from starting if they are over the limit (although no mention about how to prevent just getting a sober person to breathe into it for you yet. Is the technology to ID people by breath only - a la Alien Resurrection - available yet?)

Sometimes I amaze even myself with my own genius!

Another in the “I’m not sure what I think about this” series.

Ben Affleck’s directorial debut is a film called “Gone Baby Gone” and is based on a Dennis Lehane novel of the same name. The film has just been premiered at the Deauville Film Festival is due to be released in the US next month and is slated for a November (according to IMDB)/December (according the BBC) release in the UK.

Except that now it’s been put on indefinite hold for a UK release by the distributor, Buena Vista. The reason? Because the story is about a missing 4 year old girl and has similarities to the Madeleine McCann case.
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With all the brouhaha surrounding Gordon Ramsey not catching fish and Bear Grylls not sleeping under stars, I still can’t understand how the red tops get away with irresponsible and misleading “journalism”. There’s recently been alleged reports that a Great White Shark was spotted off the Cornish coast and The Sun had blurry footage recorded by some holiday maker of said shark leaping out of the water after a pod of dolphins.

This, of course, sent that particular rag into a feeding frenzy of mockups and spotters guide and the usual rubbish that you expect. What tipped me over the edge, however, was their helpful spotters guide to the “Worlds deadliest sharks”. The Great White, of course, was top of the page. I’m just surprised they didn’t do a comparison image to show how it dwarfed a double decker bus or even St Paul’s Cathedral. It also features the Tiger shark, which is a very aggresive shark and will have a go at just about anything, the Bull Shark, which is also very territorial and aggressive, and the Mako (shortfin in this case) which is large but less aggressive and rarely, if ever, attacks humans.

However, there are two other sharks on that diagram - the Nurse Shark and the Sandtiger or, to give it the more common European name, the Grey Nurse Shark. If you look at the diagram, the Nurse shark looks to be as long as a Tiger and nearly as long as a Great White (the largest ever found being 6.4m in length). The average size of the Nurse is half that - anywhere between 2.5 - 3m (maximum of about 4m). They are dangerous to humans in the same way that dogs are - if you piss it off or provoke it then it’ll bite you. Which, if you ask me, is fair enough. Most of the time, especially during the day, they can be found in shallow waters resting on the bottom doing nothing except sleeping. At night they hunt and they can be dangerous and you should be careful - especially if you happen to be a crab or lobster or even a small fish. When I learnt to dive in Thailand, we saw a lot of nurse sharks and they did nothing as we swam around them and we even stroked its tail while it lay sleeping. They are beautiful creatures and certainly not one of the deadliest of its species.

The Sandtiger, on the other hand, only averages 2.5 - 2.8m long. The Shark Foundations database entry for the Sandtiger/Grey Nurse Shark lists it’s likely danger to humans as, wait for it, “harmless”. Not even “mostly harmless”, simply “harmless”.

It angers me to see such blatant crap passed off as fact. I know some of it must be tongue in cheek but - and I’m aware of how snobby and patronising this must sound - does the average Sun reader really take everything they read with a pinch of salt (insert appropriate fish and chips gag here) or do they know that some (most) of it is just crap? People decry video games, cartoons and rock music for leading our youth astray but here’s a national newspaper just feeding our nation false facts. And it’s(allegedly) sending a journo out with dive gear and speargun to hunt the supposed Great White which is, if you haven’t been keeping up, as listed as an endangered species.

When I’m ruler of the world, I’m going to have a big pool full of sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads and I’m going to feed this fucking lot to them. Of course, the sharks would be Nurse Sharks coz they’re so damned cute but hopefully the laser beams will lacerate, eviscerate and mutilate. Or maybe just burn them badly. I’d even settle for giving them an extremely annoying itch!

Anyone who’s been reading this over the last 3 or 4 years (don’t let the limited archives fool you!) will know that my recent Highland exploits are not the first time I’ve ventured out on a weekend, determined to work up a sweat and get muddy and knackered by taking part in an event with a very dubious sounding name. There’s been multiple Tough Guys, a couple of Hellrunners, a Grim challenge, a Mountain Marathon that went well and one that went not so well and various other little races. People like Lyle and Pix have occasionally had recourse to call me a nutter or a loon for doing these things and I admit freely that it’s a character flaw of mine: a selfish desire to prove myself both physically and mentally by pushing myself to do these events.

In four weeks time, I’m going to be doing something else but this time the reasons for doing it are not so selfish. I’m taking part in Trailwalker 2007, an event organised with the goal of raising money for the Ghurka Welfare Trust and Oxfam, who help organise and co-ordinate it.

The Ghurka Welfare Trust was set up in 1969 in order to provide financial, medical and community aid to alleviate hardship and distress among Gurkha ex-servcemen of the British Crown and their dependants after they have returned to their homeland of Nepal. Some of you may well have read about the recent case of Tul Bahadur Pun, a Ghurka soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross. I know Razorhead blogged about it. Well it’s people like him and other former Ghurka’s who this charity helps.

Oxfam is a charity that most people are aware of. You may not be aware of everything they do and think they just send food to famine victims in Africa. They do a lot more than that though - they set up HIV and Aids awareness and diagnosis programmes in countries like Thailand, help tackle urban poverty in Russa and setup schools and community housing for the poor and outcast indigenous communities in Bolivia amongst other things.

So what’s Trailwalker then?

Well, as the name suggests, it’s a walk. As part of a team of four (made up of myself, my mother, my brother and a family friend), we’re going to be doing a sponsored walk. Now before you tut and sigh and say “But Dragon, you’ve just spent a weekend running up and down mountains in the Scottish highlands - a walk isn’t going to be much of challenge!” I should remind you that this is me. This isn’t some 5km or 10km walk I’m going to be doing. For that matter it’s not even 25km.

In a little over 4 weeks, on Saturday July 14th, we will be walking 100km along the South Downs way, from Petersfield in Hampshire to Brighton in East Sussex. And we have 30 hours to do it.

By taking part in Trailwalker I’m hoping to raise money for both these charities and I’m asking you, yes you, to help by sponsoring me to do it. Maybe you can only afford to sponsor me a pound, maybe you’ll put 10 pounds in. That’s only the price of a couple of bottles of wine or four pints of beer and hell, it means you’re sponsoring for a mere 10p a kilometre. But every penny and every pound that I raise will be helping someone who desperately needs it. And if you’re feeling extra generous, perhaps you could mention this on your blogs and ask some of your readers to contribute too.

You can sponsor me online on my BMyCharity page which is here. However, if you’d prefer to use PayPal or even another method instead, let me know and I’ll set something up.

Please dig deep and together we can make a difference.

I don’t need to comment on the logo for the London olympics. What I do want to bring your attention to is the BBC website where today they were asking readers/viewers to submit “alternative” entries for the logo. You can see most of them here.

The one that’s missing, however, was fortunately screengrabbed and posted on Flickr. It looks a little like this:

It got pulled from the website but not before being broadcast on primetime BBC news:

Don’t ask me to explain it if you don’t get it - you’re better off not knowing.