William Shatner

As a life long trekie I admire the legend that is William Shatner, his cameo appearances and unique character have kept him beloved for many a year. In particular I love his advertisement for World of Warcraft, in which he plays a Tauren Shaman, and Mr T -Night Elf mohawk - and Ozzy Osbourne - Undead Mage -star along side Shatner with equal awesome-ness. Casting a host of geek idols to lure in new gamers is a stroke of genius on WoW's part.


But I must say his name in the papers recently is far from top form from old Bill. He didn't attend the première of the recent Strek Trek re-make movie, at which he would have been a treated like the Star and ledgeand he truly is, instead he sulked at home because Leonard Nimoy got to appear in it and he didn't.

I've seen the movie; its an expensive blockbuster with immense attention to detail, amazing sound effects and brilliant CGI graphics. It has an interesting story line, involving time travel (hence Nimoy's appearance) and Chris Pine did a great job living up to the heavy expectations of Trek fans by portraying James T Kirk beautifully. I suspect that also had more than a marginal role to play in Shatners sulk, my advice to him is: man up Bill and enjoy the shiny new thrill ride that is Star Trek : )

MSN virus and BCC

In the midst of the worm virus which 4 of my friends have now suffered with in the last month I have decided to blog about it. This worm is not damaging but more annoying. It logs into your msn account on messenger for a few seconds and sends links to people in your lists. It often says something like “this is funny” or “photo of you” followed by a link. In one case I experienced it then download a worm (I didn’t luckily) to your pc causing damage but this most recent one simply asks you to log into msn and stealing your log in details.

A simple way to slow down virus and nuisance scams is to use blind carbon copy when you send out forwarding bulk emails. Bcc send emails without letting a 3rd party know all of the address, avoiding the risk of viruses and scammers getting hold of these addresses. It also makes the emails easier to read for recipients, without having to scroll past the hundreds of addresses before reaching the message.

I myself was ignorant to this feature intill recently and have since taken it on bored when ever I send emails. I know how easy it is for viruses to spread and if I had one on my pc they would steal the addresses as they were sent electronically, just some thing to think about!

Stonehenge building work

Success from Arthur Pendragon! Some say the neo-druid is crazy old eccentric but today his stubborn campaign to keep Stonehenge free from developments has paid off.



His was protesting to keep from building a £65bil visitors center on the heritage site and to close the A344 which brings unsightly and polluting traffic very close to the site, after he has been successful. Architecture minister Barbara Follett today announced the visitors center will be built 2k away from the site at the same time as a government announcement on the closure of the A344. Although I do enjoy coming over that hill and seeing the silhouette of our most ancient national treasure I welcome the change and believe the site will be all the better for it.

Celtic Neopaganism refers to Neopagan movements based on, or loosely inspired by, historical Celtic polytheism. It is widely varied and there are a lot of variations on teachings orders and rituals: essentially it is about appreciating the ecosystem and acknowledging we are all part of and dependant on the earth and the seasons. The Druid order has never been more popular with tens of thousands turning up for solstices and moots (meetings). I for one know nearly a dozen pagans, which is 2nd most popular religion found in people I know, 2nd only to Christianity.


Summer solstice at Stonehenge 2007

I am very glad about the news regard to building works to improve the beloved ancient site and am grateful to Arthur for his hard work and determination. The 55 year old certainly has an interesting character, he has no permanent residence and instead lives on the hospitality or his friends and family. He is continually an inspiration for eco campaigns and alternative political causes. Hats of to you!

Bagheera

On May Day we adopted Baggy. He is very friendly and sometimes vocal, he loves fuss and is a big tart! He is black and has a slim face (maybe some Siamese in him) and is quite big but not fat, just long and slender. We have called him Bagheera, which is Indian for panther as used in The Jungle Book. He does looks like a little panther and in the Disney movie Balo the bear calls him baggy for short so it fits in more ways than one ; )



Baggy came from the RSPCA center down the road. We went there 6 weeks before and were quite taken with Baggy but he came with a 2nd girl cat. We couldn’t commit to 2 cats at once so we left. On the 2nd of may we went back and they were still there! They didn’t come from the same home and the staff had decided that very day to separate them. Of course we wanted to take Baggy home straight away!



We have been slowly introducing Mr Toffee and Baggy, the first meeting went well. I don’t anticipate any problems as Mr T came from a house with 3 curious cats and wasn’t bothered by them. He has settled in well, he seems very happy and comfortable, we are very glad to have the new addition : )