Swollen Pickles

On the weekend I think that perhaps I became the only person in Australia to have watched Harper's Island through to its conclusion. I have to say, Harper's Island became a guilty pleasure for me, and once it drew me in, I was hooked. In Australia, the series started out in the 9.30pm slot on Sunday nights, but only lasted a couple of episodes before being given the shaft. I believe it ended it's run

For those that don't know, Harper's Island is a 13 episodes thriller/mystery/horror series that can probably only be described as a cross between Scream and Beverly Hills 90210.

It begins with a large group of family and friends arrive at Harper's Island for the wedding of Henry Dunn and Trish Wellington. It continues with a bloody rampage by a serial killer, and ends with only a handful of guests surviving the wedding from hell. Somehow, the killer is linked to the main character Abby Mills, who is the typical 'girl next door' type, who is also best friend of the groom.

I could try and explain it more, but in doing so I'd probably either a) spoil it, b) do the show an injustice or c) both. If you want to know more, watch the trailer from CBS below.

Harper's Island seemed to really struggle to find an audience, which I think is kind of sad, as it is one of those rare shows that comes along that isn't either set in a hospital, courtroom, medical clinic or police department.

To be fair though I guess the first three episodes did require a little patience on behalf of the viewer, and were by far the weakest of the series. From there on in though I found Harper's Island to be guiltily addictive viewing. In my opinion the show really kicked up a gear with episode five, with the death of one of the more prominent characters.

I get the feeling that Harper's Island will be one of those shows that garners a strong little cult following, and will probably find itself an audience among the DVD box set crowd. If you want to watch a series that doesn't outlive it's welcome and that will keep you guessing until the last episode, give Harper's Island a shot... if you can find it out there.

ROCK ISLAND IL MATCHCOVER FLAT HARPER HOUSE HOTEL

0 Bid

US $1.50

2h 23m

For some reason this afternoon I started singing "Cities of Gold", my own interpretation of the "Mysterious Cities of Gold" theme song. Raise your hand if you watched Cities of Gold as a kid... Cities of Gold was one of my favorite cartoons from the 80's. It was set in the 1500's and followed the adventures of a little Spanish kid called Esteban. Esteban hooked up with a little group and joined the search for one of the Seven Cities of Gold in the hope that he'd find his father there.

The show was a little like Indiana Jones with a few science fiction elements thrown in for good measure. The series was produced in 1982-83 and ran for a total of 39 episodes.

Check out the opening theme. Watching it causes me to regress to a five year old version of myself.

When I was looking up Cities of Gold I found out that a movie version is potentially in the works. Apparently Movie Plus Group acquired the rights to the story from NHK in 2007 and announced that they would be producing a full length feature film based on the original story. , with the intention of looking at a sequel if the film proved successful. The film was supposedly going to enter production in 2008, but I'm not sure whether or not that eventuated. Further details can probably be found here, although I can't confirm that, as I don't speak French.

Three new seasons of 26 episodes each are also rumored to be in progress, with production supposedly beginning in late 2009, with the first season set to hit the screen in 2011.

Something I didn't realise until yesterday was that the people behind Cities of Gold are the same people that brought the world Ulysses 31. Ulysses 31 was another cartoon from the very early 1980's. It borrowed heavily from Homer's Odysseus, or basically just supplanted that story into the 31st century. The post-it not version of the plot goes something like this. Ulysses angers the gods by killing the giant Cyclops, which he did to save some kids. As punishment, Zeus freezes the crew of Ulysses ship, the Odyssey. The only way that Ulysses can save his crew and return home to Earth is by finding the Kingdom of Hades.

Ulysses 31 only ran for 26 episodes, but they were all quality! :p

Check out the Ulysses 31 opening theme...

Thank you for joining me on this trip down memory lane. If you want to check out more theme songs, go read up my "Top 10 TV show theme songs that will change your life: Part 1" and "Top 10 TV show theme songs that will change your life: Part 2".

I can't pick up a paper, turn on the TV or listen to the radio without having to hear about the Australian finale of Master Chef, and quite frankly I'm sick of it. As an Aussie I have far bigger issues to deal with, like the daylight robbery currently being committed against our cricket team in England.

The second Ashes test being played at Lords has been punctuated by one umpiring blunder after the other. While Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin have put Australia within striking distance going into the last day of play, England are just another dodgy umpiring decision away from taking the win.

When Clarke and Haddin got together the score was 5 for 128. Not a good looking score card, and even worse when you consider that 3 of those 5 wickets should never have been given out.

Exhibit A: Simon Katich

Simon Katich is given out off what is clearly a no ball. Andrew Flintoff clearly over stepped the mark, the umpire missed it, game over for Katich. In fairness it was probably a poor shot for Katich to have played, but still, there's no way he should have been given out.

Exhibit B: Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes edged a ball to slip, at which point England captain, Andrew Strauss claimed a "dubious" catch. By dubious, I think the commentators meant, "the ball hit the ground before it was picked up by Strauss". The replay really tells the story. Rather than refer the decision to the third umpire, as happened in England's innings, and after some argy bargry, the umpires decided they'd just send Hughes on his way. Bottom line, terrible decision and terribly inconsistent piece of umpiring.

Exhibit C: Mike Hussey

If there's ever a batsmen that needs a bit of luck to go his way it's Mike Hussey. I'm not sure that there is a batsman going around at the moment that can stake a claim to Hussey's title of "Batsman dismissed most due to umpire error".

In his latest stroke of bad luck, Hussey was given out caught behind even though he didn't touch the ball with his bat. Countless replays, using all the technology at hand, super slo-mo, "Hot spot" and "Snicko", showed the same thing. Hussey's bat hit the ground, while the ball skidded through without hitting anything.

Thankfully Clarke and Haddin made it through to the end of the day's play and gave the Aussies a fighting chance. I'll be tuning in tonight to watch the conclusion, but I hope that the outcome is decided by the players and not by dodgy umpiring decisions.

Here is a must see clip for any aspiring tight ass out there, featuring Hamish and Andy as seen on Rove Live. It's an educational little piece on the art of "Freeating". Freeeating is the ancient art of stealing left over food from kids, scrounging tasty morsels from rubbish dumpsters and stealing food samples.

So, if you can't be assed trying to make extra money, you can always try saving money...

Raise your hand if you remember the 1980's cartoon Silverhawks... Even though it wasn't the longest running series in history, it still occupies a special place in my heart. As a young fella, I wanted to be able to sprout metal wings and fly. Amateur psychologists can make of that what they will.

For those unfamiliar with Silverhawks first hit TV screens in 1986, and developed by Rankin/Bass as a "space" equivalent of the mega-hit ThunderCats. The series focused on a small band of space police called... SilverHawks. The SilverHawks were a group of part bionic, part human heroes fighting crime and the evil forces of space crime boss MonStar and a whole bunch of far out crazy creatures and bad guys.

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Perhaps you've spent the past week tossing cookies. Perhaps you've been on long service leave.

Perhaps your recovering from extreme rhinoplasty. Perhaps your trying to figure out exactly what is going on in LOST. Perhaps you've been living under a rock.

Perhaps, just perhaps, you haven't heard.

Here's a song writing master class from Stewie Griffin.

FAMILY GUY PETER VS CHICKEN 24X36 WALL POSTER 24401

US $5.95

15m

For many years now it has been assumed that Karl Stefanovic, co-host of Channel Nines early morning Today program, is a robot.

In fact, many people believe that Stefanovic is actually C3P0, a human-cyborg relations droid constructed in Queensland, and the first Australian droid of its kind. This was confirmed on Wikipedia (so it must be true), however Stefanovic's entry has since been heavily edited, with many conspiracy theorists suggesting that it is the result of a cover-up instigated by Channel Nine and Scientology.

Other theories suggest that is programmed with a "white-anting" chip and is programmed to infest himself in an organisation then bring it down from the inside.

On Monday morning however, Stefanovic cast doubt over his robot status when he appeared to host the show, displaying some of the signs associated with intoxication.

The fact that the Logies (Australian TV awards) were held Sunday night, and the after party no doubt carried on well into Monday morning, may well have contributed to his uncharacteristically human performance.

Personally, his uncharacteristic behavior has not convinced me that he's human. I suspect his behavior can be attributed to one of two things.

Either someone spilt a drink on him at the Logies and he short circuited, or he has undergone a software upgrade, most probably to Windows Vista, and is experiencing some instability issues. If that's the case, I'd recommend that Channel Nine re-format the system and install Windows XP instead.

MIcrosoft WINDOWS XP PRO SP2 FULL Brand New Retail Box

1 Bid

US $99.99

39m