The green-eyed monster

Time for a blog, I've done like an hour's worth of vaguely thesis related stuff and deserve reward. Damn it, I wish I was a harsher taskmaster. Self-discipline, I'm lacking it. Ah, what ya gonna do.

Other websites (you know who you are) are starting to make this one look a bit paltry. I'm definitely in need of a links page of some kind, and possibly some pages for some ideas I've had as well. And as I've said, I'm getting pretty sick of the old rusty dome thingy, although it is pretty cool. But at this stage of the year I can't really justify spending the time on it. That is to say I can't justify it, but I might spend it anyway. We will see.

The good news on the thesis front is that every time I log on in 'research' mode and surf around for a bit I find about a thousand different sites pertaining approximately to my subject matter, and muchos muchos grande informationos (thanks Dan, you downloader of weird stuff), whether this be academic comment / news about blogs, or just blogs themselves that are really good examples of what blogs can be used for. The bad news is I have to try and process this mountain of information and make something relevant and coherent out of it. Ah, the internet - the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems (thanks The Simpsons), or my problems anyway. In thesis terms it is simultaneously my greatest enemy and my closest ally.It gives me the goods and then smothers me with its overload of internet loving (no, not that kind of internet 'loving').
I loves it and I hates it.

Joke by Letterman on 'The Late Show' last night: "Well, we left it too late, and it looks like we've been caught napping, because over the long weekend Sweden invaded Iraq, so there's a missed opportunity." Ha. Later they set out to see how many people dressed as aliens could walk into a coffee shop. After ten they ran out of aliens, and so over the course of the show also sent in a cowboy, a dog, a bear, 2 monkeys, Moses, a dinosaur, and 'Fat Spiderman', although curiously the other patrons of the store were only weirded out and left when Ronald McDonald showed up. Amusing.

Hamish demands updates via e-mail, good to see you alive and well in London there Hamish, try not to go down any mineshafts lest you disturb dragons that bring about the downfall of civilisation. To sum up the exciting events since you left: nothing. Oh, there was a pretty good party at the house of James. I was master chef. Later I proved everybody wrong by not throwing up. All in all a good night in fact.

In recent playings of Trivial Pursuit the question 'Which actor has appeared in 7 of the top 20 grossing movies of all time?', the answer being Harrison Ford. In going to find out this afternoon what the not-so-obvious 7th one was (if we assume the 3 Star Wars movies and 3 Indy movies were in there) I discovered that poor old Harrison has now been seriously displaced by some recent big films, obviously made after that edition of Trivial Pursuit. He's now only in 3 films in the top twenty, the 3 original Star Wars films, with Indy 1,2, and 3 coming in at 49, 83 and 25 respectively, and his next biggest one The Fugitive at 55. (and can we add here, who are the people that went to Titanic 43 times, making it the biggest money earner by a factor of around 100% over Harry Potter? Who among us is partly responsible for the fact that Home Alone earned 533 million dollars? And that Armageddon earned 554 million dollars? Hang your heads in shame, people. Don't worry about Independence Day and its 811 million though, because that was entirely Tim's fault.)
So he's taken a blow. And who is he tied with on 3, in terms of actually appearing in movies ? Box office superstar Jeff Goldblum. Oh dear Harrison (although Jeff's got, er, nerd chic.). The runners up are:

Will Smith 2
Ewan McGregor 2
Bruce Willis 2

BUT the number one bankable star, appearing in the most top 20 movies is: the voice of James Earl Jones, with 4 appearances.
Excellent (Guess the 4th).
So, the moral of the story is, when making a movie, get James Earl Jones to be the narrator, and you have a 20% chance of making stupid amounts of money (note: no maths, or indeed Latin was used in the construction of that sentence).
Here endeth the lesson.