I recently had the opportunity to try out a sample of Green Lantern movie toys from Mattel, the Colossal Cannon and an action figure.  My children John and Chloe were anxious to assist. The box arrived and I removed the two items.  The action figure was Stel, a robot type figure from the movie that I don’t remember seeing in the comic.  Unfortunately he proved unpopular and has languished unloved. The big hit was the Colossal Cannon, and...

This morning my daughter was awake as I went downstairs to make breakfast: she’s an early riser,she loves Naruto and she is the only one in the house who sees me leave for work standing there playing with her Naruto costumes. I had the bacon going and the eggs on the counter ready to crack.  She asks me “Daddy, are those farm fresh eggs?  Did you get them at a farm?  Calliou’s friend gets his eggs from a farm”. Say...

I was watching It Might Get Loud on the weekend: a documentary type film about technique and influence from The Edge, Jack White and Jimmy Page. While chatting Jimmy Page mentions he was a studio musician when Shirley Bassey recorded Goldfinger.   It was done in a huge sound room with hundreds of musicians: she did the song in one take and then collapsed.  Wow. Have a listen to the song and give this nugget some thought.

I’m a regular McDonald’s diner for lunch or a quick breakfast.  On October 5th they started their Monopoly game: on certain food items you receive two game pieces.  Emblazoned everywhere around the store and on the food items is the following from their home page: The asterisk will lead you to the details which state the odds are for food prizes and diminish as the game progresses.  In the first nine days I acquired...

Picked up A Prisoner Of Birth at a bargain book warehouse; I knew Jeffrey Archer’s work and needed some new reading material.  Two days later I had finished the best book I have read this year.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb: If Danny Cartwright had proposed to Beth Wilson the day before, or the day after, he would not have been arrested and charged with the murder of his best friend. And when the four prosecution witnesses are...

Let me start by saying I’ve read all the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, seen all the black and white Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce movies and Jeremy Brett BBC series from the eighties.  The new Sherlock Holmes film shares the character names only with these and is recreating it as a franchise.  And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sherlock Holmes is a new film starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson. ...