"Naruto" online games and "Ben 10" online games

Roll up! Roll up! Play them while they're hot!! Play free Naruto, Ben 10 and Ben 10: Alien Force Flash online games right here (and every player gets free Naruto, Ben 10, Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien wallpaper pictures too):

  Naruto: Star Students

  Naruto: Star Students 2 - Ninja Survival

  Naruto: Battle for Leaf Village

  Naruto: Shadow Clone Battle

  Ben 10: Cannonbolt Pinball

  Ben 10: Alien Force - Humungousaur Force

  Ben 10: Alien Force - Forever Defense

  Ben 10: Power Splash

  Ben 10: Spore Attack

  Ben 10: Critical Impact

  Ben 10: Krakken Attack

  Ben 10: Underworld

Sorry about the cheesy intro, hope you like the games. Check out my Cartoons, Movies and TV Fun and Games Page 1 and Cartoons, Movies and TV Fun and Games Page 2 for even more free top-quality cartoon games and wallpapers.

It's a good job John McCain didn't win yesterday.....

.....because it has been widely reported in the news today that (according to Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron) Sarah Palin, McCain's Vice Presidential candidate, thought that "Africa was a continent and not a country", thought that "South Africa was just part of the country as opposed to a country in the continent", and perhaps worst of all "was unable to name the countries involved in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was a major campaign issue". Oh dear.

Actually, perhaps it is a shame that she and McCain didn't win, because I for one will miss George Dubya's frequent "Bushisms" (see my post yesterday about them), and I feel certain there won't be any noteworthy "Obamaisms" or "Bidenisms". Regular "Palinisms" would have kept the White House fun rolling along for another 4 years, and they might well have been very plentiful going by the quotes attributed to her above. :-)

Oh well, we'll just have to make do with a boringly competent President and Vice President then, won't we? (Hopefully!)

George W. Bush - funniest US President ever?

Very well done to President-elect Barack Obama, what a great result! Now please really do change the world for the better, just as you promised.

So, it's almost time to say goodbye to good old George "Dubya". It was fun George! Well, your frequent "Bushisms" were fun, anyway. Here, in reverse order, and thanks to Yahoo!, are 20 of outgoing President George W. Bush's daftest quotes:

20. "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law." - Nov. 28, 2005

19. "We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans." - Sept. 6, 2000

18. "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." - Dec. 19, 2000

17. "Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness." - Aug. 30, 2000

16. "I think we agree, the past is over." - May 10, 2000

15. "I understand small business growth. I was one." - Feb. 19, 2000

14. "This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating." - April 23, 2002

13. "I want everybody to hear loud and clear that I'm going to be the president of everybody." - Jan. 18, 2001

12. "One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures." - Jan. 3, 2000

11. "I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose: you disarm, or we will." - Oct. 5, 2002

10. "I just want you to know that when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." - June 18, 2002

9. "I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein." - May 25, 2004

8. "I firmly believe the death tax is good for people from all walks of life all throughout our society." - Aug. 13, 2002

7. "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again." - Sept. 17, 2002

6. "The truth of that matter is, if you listen carefully, Saddam would still be in power if he were the president of the United States, and the world would be a lot better off." - Oct. 8, 2004

5. "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." - Sept. 29, 2000

4. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." - Aug. 5, 2004

3. "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" - Jan. 11, 2000

2. "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." - Jan. 27, 2000

1. "They misunderestimated me." - Nov. 6, 2000

You can take a look at a comprehensive list of "Bushisms" from the past eight years over on the About.com Political Humour site.

Oh, and have a great Guy Fawkes Night back there in the UK everyone - please be careful with all that fire and gunpowder!

More new free movie and cartoon games

Here are the latest new online games in my Disney and Pixar Flash Games site, including games based on Pirates of the Caribbean, Lilo and Stitch, the Lion King and (my favourite) Ratatouille:

  Pirates of the Caribbean: Jumping Jack

  Lilo & Stitch: Peanut Butter Express

  Stitch: Experiments on the Loose

  Lilo & Stitch: Stitch Tiki Bowl

  Timon and Pumbaa's Bug Blaster

  Ratatouille: Choppity Chop!

There are also some new games in my Shrek and Other CG Movie Games site. Have fun!

How many planets are there in our solar system?

It's a simple enough question, right? The answer is 9, surely? Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

Well that's what I thought, anyway, based on what I learnt at school back in the 1970s, and have read ever since in science books and the like. But apparently, back in 2006 (and I only just found out about it, so please forgive my ignorance if you already knew) it was decided by "the powers that be" that Pluto is no longer a proper planet, but is in fact a "dwarf planet", so there are now only 8 major planets in our solar system, not 9.

If this sounds crazy, confusing, or even perhaps makes you a bit angry to hear that Pluto is no longer officially considered to be a true planet, please bear with me for a few minutes and read on...

Pluto's reclassification was decided by the International Astronomical Union (IAU for short; the world "governing body" of all things astronomical) after very protracted deliberations during the IAU's 2006 General Assembly, and if you click on this Wikipedia "dwarf planet" link, you can see what happened and why.

In short, quite a few new "heavenly bodies" were discovered outside the orbit of Neptune between 2000 and 2005 (called trans-Neptunian objects, most of which were found by teams led by a brilliant Caltech astronomy professor named Mike Brown), all of which are planetoid in form, and one of which - named Eris, discovered in 2005 - is actually larger than Pluto.

At the time of its very surprising discovery, Eris was nominally classified as our solar system's 10th planet due to it being bigger than Pluto. But this led to some heated debate within the global astronomical community, because really Eris is only similar to Pluto and is quite different to the other 8 major planets, and also because Pluto itself is only really similar to Eris and not the other 8 planets (Pluto has always been a bit of an "oddball", with its very small size compared to the other 8 planets, and its non-standard highly eccentric and highly inclined orbit), and this is what eventually led to Pluto's reclassification.

It is still a controversial topic in some quarters, in the public domain as well as between some astronomers and a few other scientific groups. Again, please read the relevant Wikipedia article. It is all explained in great and excellent detail there, it all makes perfectly logical sense, and there is no point in my trying to reproduce it all in further detail here. Please read it, digest it and learn something new and really cool! :-)

So, to answer my original headline question, and in summary, the new (almost) universally scientifically accepted definition of our solar system, as of September this year, is as follows:

There are 8 major planets orbiting our sun: the 4 rocky inner-planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, and the 4 gas giant outer-planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (which are separated from the inner planets by the asteroid belt);

and... wait for it...

There are also 5 dwarf planets orbiting our sun: surprising little Ceres, which is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, good old Pluto, and the lovely new trio of Haumea, Makemake and Eris.

Additionally, there are also a number of other trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) that don't currently fit into the dwarf planet category (such as Sedna, for example), plus a huge number of asteroids and comets, all also orbiting our sun.

It is fully expected that many more dwarf planets/TNOs will be discovered in time, as our technological ability to detect them improves, and so it is quite clear that we live in a far more dynamic solar system than the classic and rather static old "9 planets and 1 asteroid belt" model that was pretty much the standard until relatively recently. Currently the new definition looks a bit like this (click on the picture to see a larger version of it):



Personally, I love the new definition of our solar system. If you really think about it, Pluto is still considered to be a type of planet, just a new special type that is distinctly different to the major group that it formerly belonged to. I really like the fact that, if you (perhaps over-)simplify the new definition a little, there are currently 13 known "planets" in our solar system, with likely many more still to be discovered/classified in the future. Wow!

Jonathan Ross - Does anyone actually like him?

With reference to the current big fuss in the British media about Jonathan Ross following his and Russell Brand's offensive telephone prank calls on Brand's Radio 2 show on October 18 (see these two Yahoo! articles for more information: Ross is suspended and Ross may not return to the BBC), all I've got to say is this:

Good! I don't like him at all, and I hope he is finished as a public media figure. How on earth did such a rude, arrogant pig like him ever get to be such a grossly-overpaid "star" anyway? And what on earth were the BBC doing paying him millions of pounds of licence payers' (i.e. taxpayers') money every year? An absolute outrage and an utter disgrace!!

More "Nice-but-Dim" Beckham fun

(With reference to my Beckham-related post yesterday)

Here is a short but entertaining article that appeared in Yahoo! earlier today:

(Quote)
Beckham: Young players are spoiled
Eurosport - Thu, 30 Oct 15:32:00 2008

David Beckham has said that young players are being spoiled because there is too much money in the game.

The LA Galaxy star, who is worth an estimated £125 million, revealed that he believes players lack the hunger of former stars when they break into the first team of their clubs.

"It used to be that when you got into the first team then the rewards would come, whereas young kids these days are earning so much money at such a young age," he said.

"You want that hunger there, you want the hunger to be rewarded. Unfortunately, that's not the case these days. They can all afford to buy their own cars. That's the bad part - to have that at such a young age."

Serie A giants Milan have confirmed that talks regarding a proposed loan deal for Beckham are set to begin - and that the former England captain could sign as early as next week.
(End quote)

He's having a laugh, isn't he?! When he was a teenager, long before he became a mega-rich superstar, he got paid a small fortune by various sponsors (McDonalds being one of the biggest, of all things - no worries about "hunger" there then!) because he was, at that time, being promoted all over the place by the FA as their "England star of the future". Actually, he's got a point hasn't he, because look at what all that money did to his career! Oh dear.

All men are the same, we can't help it! (But most of us aren't this obvious about it)

This series of snaps from back in August of David "Nice-but-Dim" Beckham doing what any man would do in the same situation keeps making me laugh every time I look at them (because only he would be so obvious about it, surely?), so I thought I'd put them here in case you haven't already seen them:

I am sick and tired of the greed and profiteering of big corporations!

BP (British Petroleum) today announced that they have made record profits of US $10 billion (GB £6.4 billion) for the last trading quarter, a rise of 148% on the same period last year! (See this article in Yahoo! for details.)

What a bunch of greedy fatcat @*#%s! (Please excuse my bad language there, but I am livid about this outrage!) All the BP directors should be thrown into jail for crimes against humanity!! They have made unbelievably excessive profits out of the oil crisis earlier this year, a crisis which caused, and continues to cause, huge financial suffering to millions of UK people (and which is now growing even more serious with the current global financial crisis and looming recession).

As far as I am concerned, every single penny of all that fatcat profit should be taxed away from BP and then shared out equally among all the people currently alive in the UK. Given a UK population of around 60 million, that works out at around £167 for every man, woman and child, which should help recompense them all a little bit for how much they have obviously been ripped off by the likes of BP over the cost of petrol and diesel this year.

Good grief, when will the greed and madness endlessly sweeping the world ever end? Perhaps we need a "Day the Earth Stood Still" event to sort things out...

Best ever year for Disney movies? (In terms of success, if not always quality)

Walt Disney Studios have had an up and down year this year - almost entirely up in terms of both the quality and success of their movie releases, but with one particularly notable down (in terms of quality, anyway).

They started the year brightly with the US box office number 1 movie, the daft-but-fun "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets" (which was released and first went to number 1 at the end of 2007). They then released the fairly enjoyable "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert" movie in February, which also went to number 1 at the US box office. That was followed by yet another US number 1 in May, the well made but slightly disappointing Narnia sequel movie "Prince Caspian".

Then came the utterly enchanting "WALL-E" from Disney's Pixar Animation Studios, one of the loveliest cartoon movies ever. In June it too became a US box office number 1 movie. Lovely! But then Disney completely spoilt their "year-to-date quality record" by releasing the appalling "Beverly Hills Chihuahua", which somehow managed to be the US number 1 movie for two weeks running earlier this month. Good grief! Must have been something to do with the ongoing Global Financial Crisis, lol!

Currently Disney have yet another US number 1 movie (their 2nd this month and 6th - count 'em: six number 1's! - this year) with the reasonably enjoyable "High School Musical 3: Senior Year". That will be followed on November 21st by the promising-looking CG cartoon movie "Bolt".

Given that Pixar's John Lasseter has been overseeing the development of Bolt, and that John Travolta provides the voice of the eponymous star character (with Miley Cyrus also providing voice talent in the movie), it seems likely that this will also be a US box office number 1 upon its release. If that does turn out to be the case, it will be Disney's 7th number 1 movie of 2008 (and Miley Cyrus's 2nd - she's only 15, and will be 16 two days after the release of Bolt, bless her). But even if it doesn't make it to the number 1 spot, Disney have already had a mighty fine time of it this year. I can't find any definitive information to confirm the fact, but I feel sure it must be their best ever year, in terms of the number of number 1 movies, if nothing else. :-)

I have to say that I love Disney and Pixar - they bring a lot of joy into an ever-increasingly tumultuous world. Okay, so a lot of the purely Disney stuff is really cheesy, but it is always fun (Beverly Hills Chihuahua aside). And everything from Pixar has so far been pure magic.

Interestingly, after trawling around all over the web for current and historical information about Disney and Pixar movies, I discovered from a number of news articles that appeared on September 24th (don't know how I missed them at the time) that Pixar's "Cars 2" movie will now be released in 2011 and not the originally intended 2012 (having bumped 2011's planned "Newt" back to 2012 instead - see my post from June about the original release schedule here). Make of that what you will, but it seems to me that there is perhaps a hint of this having been money-motivated, given the massive merchandise sales that resulted from the first "Cars" movie. I really hope that's not the case though. Still, for now things seem to be fine, and next year's Pixar offering "Up" sounds like it will continue where "WALL-E" left off in the quality stakes.

To help keep your mind on happy fantasy things and away from unhappy real-world financial crisis-type things, here are some quality Flash games based on Disney's better movies of the year (each game includes desktop wallpapers plus links to even more games based on their respective movies):

  National Treasure 2: The Platform

  Prince Caspian - Target Practice

  WALL-E: Space Race and Space Ball

  High School Musical 3: Pinball

  Run Bolt Run

As always, you can find these and dozens more great Disney and Pixar games at my (cleverly named) "Disney and Pixar Games" site. Enjoy! :-)

P.S. Okay, so there must be some of you out there that actually liked Beverly Hills Chihuahua, otherwise it wouldn't have been the US number 1 movie for two weeks running at the beginning of this month, would it? For those of you who are fans of this very silly movie, here is a very decent Flash game based on it:

  Beverly Hills Chihuahua: Follow That Smell

More about the Global Financial and Economic Crisis

(This is with reference to my previous post on the subject, which you can read here: England, Thailand and the Global Financial Crisis)

I have long been a fan of GlobalIssues.org, it is a long-standing, reputable and often shocking site (in terms of explaining the truth about what is really going on in the world), yet one which also gives hope that there can be a better future. Go and read the latest headlines there for yourself right now, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

In particular, read this brilliant article about the Global Financial Crisis that is still in catastrophic progress even as I write this post (stock markets crashing again everywhere - and here's a great site for getting up-to-date values of all the world's stock exchanges).

I think it is the most excellent and insightful article I have yet read about this entire disaster, and consequently I feel there isn't much more I can say on the matter. I just hope that this madness stops quickly and that the greedy people who caused it all in the first place are made to pay for it through the most severe punishments possible.

Free online platform game recommendations

If you're bored, or depressed about the ongoing Global Financial Crisis perhaps, and want something fun to cheer you up and pass some time away, try these two excellent free Flash platform games based on Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie series:

  Pirates of the Caribbean: Cursed Cave

  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dutchman Depths

You can find them both, together with loads more fun and cheerful Disney games, at my Disney and Pixar Games site (which also links through to all my other online game sites too, for an extra bit of boredom-relief).

England, Thailand and the Global Financial Crisis

What a disastrous end to an epic week! October 10th, 2008 - henceforth to be known as "10/10", no doubt. The day the world finally had to wake up to the fact that having a global economy means that when there is a problem in one economy, it will quickly become a problem in all other economies due to their implicit global inter-connectivity, regardless of the claims of some rather foolish national leaders who until very recently were denying that their particular countries would be affected by the "Anglo-Saxon Problem" (are you feeling it now Germany? Japan? Arab Nations?).

An unprecedented global financial crisis such as this needs rapid, radical, globally co-ordinated responses to resolve it - and so far it has received none of real worth other than a rather paltry (though unique in history) round of worldwide interest rate cuts on Wednesday. The consequence of this virtual inaction at the highest levels is that (quite predictably) the entire global economy has now imploded, with stock markets all around the world suffering from massive drops of 20% or more over the course of the week. It's a good job the weekend has arrived to put a brake on things, although quite what will happen on Monday morning when business resumes is anyone's guess. Even if the belated G7 and Group of 20 meetings that are taking place over the weekend come up with any really good plans of action, I think it will not really help much in the short term now, and that things will get worse for a while yet before they can start improving. Oh dear. Life in England and Thailand may never be quite the same again.

One thing that has been puzzling me more than anything through all of this, given my dual English and Thai life, is the GB Pound to Thai Baht exchange rate. Today the rate is around 58 Baht to the Pound, which is really low compared to recent years - earlier this year for example it was 68 Baht. Although the UK economy is under severe downward pressure at the moment, history shows that Thailand (with its export-driven economy) is traditionally the weaker of the two economies in times of economic woe such as now. That the Baht is so strong against the Pound therefore seems to me to be rather at odds with general long-term reality. Weird.

Like pretty much everyone everywhere, I am now suffering some financial difficulties, although thankfully I have no loans and no credit to worry about, so I will get off much more lightly than most people during this crisis I suppose. I am truly sorry to see that so many hard-working people will lose so much now through no real fault of their own. That this all seems to have been initially caused by the unbridled greed and stupidity of a relatively small number of fatcat bankers and financial traders in the US and UK (and replicated at least in part in other countries too - again, you know who you are!) is what really cuts the most here. These people must be made accountable for what they have caused, and must be severely punished (including having personal bankruptcy forced on them all in my opinion) in order to set an example so that it will not happen again.

I was heartened to see that the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said he wanted to see the perpetrators punished, though I doubt any such punishments will be anywhere near severe enough if and when they are meted out. These few tens of thousands of greedy, selfish, stupid people have almost destroyed the entire world economy for goodness sake! They are global financial terrorists! They have done far more damage than anything Osama Bin Laden has ever done!! Make no mistake - many people will die as a direct result of this disaster, either through despair-driven suicide, stress-induced illness, increased violent crime, or a sudden lack of medical funds and facilities in poorer countries. And millions upon millions of people everywhere now face severe financial hardship for many years to come. So the greedy fatcats that have caused this must be made to pay a very heavy price, as swiftly as possible - no excuses!

WebRing.com - a great place to find what you're looking for

If you're looking for a different way to find interesting websites than using the same old search engines over and over again, try using WebRing.com for a change.

I've been using it for over 10 years and it has always been an excellent resource for finding really cool sites. It consists of tens of thousands of sites connected together into groups (rings) organised around popular themes such as "Disney", "Cartoons", "Games", "Super Mario" and so on.

I manage the very popular and long-standing Lilo and Stitch WebRing, and I recently created a brand new ring that I hope also proves to be popular: The Computer-Generated Cartoons WebRing.

SpongeBob SquarePants online fun and games

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you already know that I love cartoons and video games. SpongeBob SquarePants is one of my many favourite cartoons, even though I am much too old for it according to convention! :-) I especially loved the big movie a few years back, it was very surreal and really funny.

There are some great free SpongeBob online video games on the web, and here are some links to the best of what's out there for you to try for yourself:

SpongeBob SquarePants online games and wallpapers in my Dan-Dare.org site

SpongeBob SquarePants games at SpongeBobOnlineGame.com

The SpongeBob Online Games Blog

Free games featuring Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, Ice Age and more

I have created another new section in my ever-expanding group of fun and games websites, this one being for games related to computer-generated cartoon movies such as Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, Ice Age, Horton, Open Season and so on (i.e. "non-Pixar" movies):

Shrek and Other CG Movie Games

I designed it to compliment these and other existing site sections:

Disney and Pixar Games

Sonic and Mario Games - Page 1

Sonic and Mario Games - Page 2

Wedding Photos

A bit late I suppose given that I got married two months ago now (see here), but never mind - a few photos of my wife Su and myself in traditional Thai wedding costume can now be found here, if you're interested in seeing them. :-)

Virgin Comics buyout and renaming

Virgin Comics, which published the recent adventure of Dan Dare that ran from November last year until July this year, was the subject of a management buyout on the 24th of this month and has been renamed to "Liquid Comics".

It is unclear at this time what will happen with regards to any possible further Dan Dare stories.

A bit of an eco-rant!

I don't normally (if ever) get political in this blog, but perhaps I should make it a regular feature. After all, politics is one of my favourite subjects, at least in so far as I'm interested in issues like: why do the citizens of the UK and the US seem to believe they live in free democracies when clearly they do not? (fraudulent presidential elections, tricked-and-lied-to electorates, lobbied-and-paid-off politicians, unelected prime ministers, CCTVs everywhere even in school toilets, etc., etc.), and why do people everywhere seem to think that just saying they are green and that they care about the environment is the same thing as actually being and doing those things in truly meaningful ways? You get my drift, I think...

Anyway, this article just caught my attention in Yahoo: Nature's Budget Has Run Out For This Year. Take a look at it and have a good read of it, hopefully you'll find that it makes sense just as I much as I do, and hopefully you'll also know that there isn't a darned thing can be done about it..... except try and live your life by consuming and wasting as little as you possibly can! Every day, all year, every year! Simple really.

I mean, it's really simple. Stop buying things you don't need (this week's fashionable clothes items and/or accessories, the newest must-have techno toys, tiny-bit-better mobile phones, trinkets, baubles, bangles, pretty shiny things, any other kinds of useless junk), and stop eating and drinking junk packaged in tons of plastic too. You, me (I do it all already), everyone can save the planet that way. Don't wait for everyone else to do it first before you do it, start for yourself and be a trend-setting go-getting green planet-saver!

Oh, and if you can, please try not to fall into the "it's okay, I recycle" trap. Really, think about it. Isn't that a lot like not really caring what you're doing? You may recycle, but are you sure what you send for recycling actually gets recycled, and if so in environmentally sound ways? And even then, wouldn't it just be a whole lot better to stop using up so much stuff in the first place, and save all the effort of making the junk and then recycling it later. Less is more: less junk used and discarded is more resources saved = planet saved, surely.

Here is another tale of ecological woe in today's news, as if more were needed really: Methane Escaping From Arctic Sea Bed.

A final thought from me on all this for now: It seems to me that the vast majority of adults in the world are parents (of children, obviously), so how is it that the world is getting into such a huge environmental mess? Surely even the big bosses of the businesses that are helping to create the big mess (i.e. all consumerism-related businesses, i.e. most businesses), with their neverending drives for more profits from more sales from more advertising from more production, are parents too in most cases? How then are they, and every other parent, going to explain to future generations what it is that is going on right now? Don't they care, these parent types? They seriously should, don't you think?! ;-)

(Oh, and by the way, I've no children and don't want any, I don't own and don't drive a car because I use public transport and my legs instead, I don't buy endless consumer items either on credit or for cash, I replace things only when they are truly worn out and broken, I don't buy more food than I can eat, I buy virtually no pre-packaged food, I live in small but comfortable shared accommodation, and consequently from all that I have a really low eco-footprint plus low living costs and not many worries, just in case you are wondering. I have no glass houses so I can throw stones! Truth be told, I don't really need to care what everyone else does to the planet, given that I choose not to be a parent. Except I do care. Very much.)

Be a Pinball Wizard - play these 10 brilliant online pinball tables

I love a good game of pinball, don't you? If you do, here are ten really cool online pinball games for you to try out:

  WALL-E Pinball

  Ratatouille Pinball

  Prince Caspian Pinball

  National Treasure Pinball

  Flushed Away Pinball

  Ben 10: Alien Force Pinball

  Mr. Men and Little Miss Pinball

  Illuminati Pinball

  Pepsi Wild West Pinball

  Old-Skool Flash Pinball

Movie games, Cartoon games, Sci-Fi games, Anime games, Video games

Since my previous post was about my large online collection of wallpaper pictures, I thought it might be useful to also list a few links to my equally large collection of very closely related online games:

Cartoon, Movie, TV, Sci-Fi and Anime Games - Page 1

Cartoon, Movie, TV, Sci-Fi and Anime Games - Page 2

Disney and Pixar Games

Sonic and Mario Games - Page 1

Sonic and Mario Games - Page 2

Hopefully you will find it all to be very entertaining..... :-)

More free Desktop Wallpapers than you can shake a stick at!

If you are looking for free high quality non-watermarked Sci-Fi Wallpapers, Movie Wallpapers, Cartoon Wallpapers and Video Game Wallpapers, then you have come to the right place..... :-)

I like to change the background wallpaper picture on my Windows desktop every month or so, to keep it interesting. As a result of that I have collected (and in some cases created) a lot of wallpaper pictures over the years, mostly related to my interests in sci-fi, movies, cartoons and video games. I have added the very best ones to my group of entertainment websites, just in case any of you out there might also be interested in them.

Here is the current list of them all, as links to 1024 x 768 pixels screen size pages - there are alternate versions and larger sizes for many of them (plus there are also free Flash online games included with almost all of them, just for the extra fun of it):

Star Wars
Star Wars R2-D2
Harry Potter
Sonic the Hedgehog (x 5 alternate versions)
Sonic Heroes
Shadow the Hedgehog
Super Mario Bros. (x 5)
Mario Memories
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
PoKeMoN (x 3)
Puyo Pop Fever
Super Monkey Ball
Donkey Kong
Mega Man
Crash Bandicoot
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed
Wacky Races
Tom and Jerry
Looney Tunes (x 2)
Futurama
The Simpsons (x 3)
More Simpsons
The Simpsons Movie (x 2)
Thunderbirds Movie
TMNT Movie
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Power Rangers S.P.D.
Power Rangers Mystic Force
Transformers Movie
Transformers Animated
The Matrix (x 2)
Hellboy II - The Golden Army (x 2)
Batman Begins
Batman - The Dark Knight (x 2)
Superman Returns
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 3
Hulk
The Incredible Hulk
Star Trek (x 3)
Star Trek Ships of the Line
Star Trek USS Enterprise (x 4)
The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
National Treasure - Book of Secrets
Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End
The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian
Toy Story 2 (x 2)
Toy Story 2 Little Green Men
A Bug's Life
For the Birds
Monsters, Inc. (x 2)
Finding Nemo (x 2)
The Incredibles (x 2)
Cars (x 2)
"Real" Cars
Ratatouille (x 3)
WALL-E (x 3)
Walt Disney / Mickey Mouse (x 2)
Winnie the Pooh (x 2)
Lilo & Stitch (x 2)
Chicken Little
Meet the Robinsons
Ice Age
Robots
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who
Shrek
Shrek the Third
Shark Tale
Madagascar (x 2)
Flushed Away
Bee Movie
Kung Fu Panda
Open Season
The Ant Bully
SpongeBob SquarePants (x 2)
More SpongeBob SquarePants
Catscratch
Danny Phantom
Avatar
Naruto
Ben 10 (x 2)
American Dragon (x 2)
Camp Lazlo
Dexter's Laboratory
Astro Boy
The Smurfs
Mr. Men and Little Miss
Garfield
Garfield Movie
The Muppets
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Felix the Cat
Betty Boop (x 2)
Dan Dare (x 4)
South Park
Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas
GTA IV (x 2)

(See this wallpaper site for visual links to some of the above.)

So there you are - wallpaper, wallpaper, everywhere! Enjoy! :-)

The new Star Wars CG movie might be rubbish, but the original trilogy still rules!

Yesterday I reported that the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars film has been widely slated in the media, with a unanimous "thumbs down" from all the major film critics. No-one it seems, other than the producers, has anything positive to say about it. Oh dear!

At least the original trilogy of Star Wars films - Episodes IV, V and VI - is still considered to be one of the best film series ever. Phew!

It's always worth watching the three original films again even after all these years, and you can do that for free, in a rather unusual way, right here:

Watch the entire "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" movie as an animated GIF

Watch the entire "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" movie as an animated GIF

Watch the entire "Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi" movie as an animated GIF

I guess you may possibly have already seen them because they have been around for a while now, but like the proper versions of the movies, they are certainly worth watching more than once - they're great fun and very clever, aren't they?

Here are some more great free Star Wars online goodies for you if you're interested:

Star Wars Animated GIF Movie Clips

Star Wars Movie Series Images and Music

The new "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" movie gets a big thumbs down!

Yesterday was a bit of bad day for me, given that I'm a huge fan of Harry Potter and Star Wars. First, there was the news that the release of the new Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", which I have been looking forward to for ages, has been delayed from this November until July next year (see here). Oh dear.

Now it seems that the new Star Wars CGI movie, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which I have also been looking forward to for ages and which was released yesterday, is not very good at all, going by all the negative reviews I've read of it today. Oh dear, oh dear. There is an excellent article which sums it all up over on the MTV website, which you can read here if you wish.

Still, it's been a really great year for movies so far this year, notwithstanding the above. WALL-E is my favourite at the moment. If, like me, you like movies and games you'll find loads of movie related games, including a large WALL-E collection, on page 1 and page 2 of my Cartoons, Movies and TV Games website...

The "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" movie has been delayed

According to a story that has just appeared on Reuters, the release date of the sixth Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", has been pushed back by production studio Warner Bros. from November this year - the new scheduled release date is now July 17, 2009. Oh no! I was so looking forward to seeing it this year!

Apparently, Warner Bros. said it had decided to make the change to bolster its release schedule for the lucrative summer moviegoing season - a period that can account for as much as 40 percent of Hollywood's annual box office receipts.

Warner Bros. President Alan Horn said the studio was also still feeling repercussions from the three-month Hollywood screenwriters strike that ended in February but which has "impacted the readiness of scripts for other films".

"We know the summer season is an ideal window for a family ... release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first instalment", Horn said.

The studio said the change of date would not alter production plans for the final, two-part Potter movie adventure, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". The release date for part one is tentatively set for November 2010.

"Deathly Hallows", the seventh and last story from British author J.K. Rowling about the boy wizard and his friends at Hogwarts School, was published in July 2007. The series has sold an estimated 400 million copies, and the books have been translated into more than 60 languages.

See my Harry Potter Movie Series Gallery and Harry Potter Book Series Gallery pages for more information - both pages also include some Harry Potter online games to play.

Kind people and an extremely worthy cause to support

I shall make the assumption that you have a kind and caring heart. I feel quite safe in making this assumption because I have found that the vast majority of people do have kind and caring hearts, despite what is often portrayed in the popular media about an increasingly mean society - that's just negative spin to sell more papers! (And you know which paper I'm talking about in particular if you've ever read the Daily Mail! Oh dear. Each to their own, I suppose.)

Anyway, on the basis that you are indeed a kind and caring person, please can you spare 5 minutes or so to visit the Macmillan Cancer Support website here and read up on who they are and what they do - you will, I promise, find it well worth the small effort. Then, please make a donation of any amount you can afford via their very secure web server - no matter how big or small your donation, it is vitally important because it is our donations alone that enable Macmillan Cancer Support to do the wonderful work that they do.

Thank you.

I was reminded of this truly worthy cause by a very kind and helpful person named Phil Payne - cheers Phil! If you are a website owner and you have any problems with your site in terms of search engine rankings, Phil is one of the best people to speak to about it. Visit his site here, or look him up in the Google Webmaster Help Group here.

Got married yesterday!

This is just a quick note about it, as I'm currently much too busy to write anything else!! ;-> I'll post some wedding photos at some point in the future.

"Cristiano Ronaldo is a modern slave", says Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA

According to an article in Yahoo! today, which you can read here, the controversial president of FIFA, Joseph "Sepp" Blatter, thinks that the Portugese-born Manchester United footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is like a "modern slave" because he cannot move to another football club (Real Madrid) whenever he wants due to his current contract obligations to United.

I'm sorry, but that is absolutely the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard anyone in a position of responsibility say, ever!!

23-year-old Ronaldo currently earns around $250,000 per week in wages, and like everyone else born and living in Europe is free to do pretty much whatever he likes when he likes, except break legally-binding, freely-entered-into business contracts. Clearly he is not forced to live a terrible life of great hardship and degredation, and so clearly he is nothing whatsoever like a slave!

Also, when everything Blatter reportedly said yesterday is fully considered, it seems very much like the FIFA president is saying that Ronaldo and all other players should not have to honour their contracts with their football clubs. What an utterly astonishingly stupid thing for him to imply! That would be the end of club football if that became a reality.

Blatter is well-known for being a pompous buffoon with a particular bias against anything to do with English football, and with this latest idiotic outburst he has further demonstrated his unsuitability to be the head of world football. Quite how he managed to become president of FIFA in the first place, and remain in the position for ten years so far, is a complete wonder. (Actually, it isn't really such a wonder - search Google for "Sepp Blatter corruption" to see for yourself.) Clearly, I need to copy his example in order to be more successful in life. Good grief, he should be sacked immediately!

(And just in case you are wondering, I'm not biased towards Manchester United, quite the opposite in fact - I am an Arsenal fan, and so it would actually be better for me if Ronaldo was to leave United.)

Free Disney and Pixar online games

To make it easier to find all the Disney and Pixar games that are scattered around my various fun and games websites, I have just created a new site index page that lists them all together in one convenient, easy-to-find place. You can view it here...

FREE Disney and Pixar Flash Online Games

Just for the extra fun of it, all the games listed on that page also include wallpaper pictures that can be used to decorate your computer's desktop background. Enjoy! :-)

Virgin's Dan Dare comic in a new book + a free gift!

Virgin Comics have just announced that they are compiling the first three issues of their Dan Dare comic into a special hardcover edition, complete with all Gary Erskine's artwork together with all the different cover artwork. The price is $13.99, and you can order it from here: VirginComicsStore.com

For a limited time they are offering a free Dan Dare iPod skin worth $15.00 with every order of the book (see here for details of the skin). Nice!

Meanwhile, the seventh and final issue of the Virgin Comics series will be out next month - don't miss it!

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and the other Narnia stories

Walt Disney Pictures/Walden Media's "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian", the second movie in the Narnia series, was released in the US on May 16th, and will be released in the UK on June 26th. I read all seven Narnia books as a child and loved them, especially the first three, and I have to say that I also really enjoyed the first movie in the series, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" - it fully lived up to my expectations. I shall make a real effort to see the new movie, although I want to watch Disney's other new movie, "WALL-E", first.

I have added a few Narnia Flash online games to my Free Fun and Games website for you to play, in case you are a fan of the series like me - two Prince Caspian ones are listed below:

  Prince Caspian - Pinball

  Prince Caspian - Gryphon Attack

C. S. Lewis's wonderful series of "Chronicles of Narnia" books can be a little bit confusing in one sense, because the third book written and published - "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" - is actually the fifth in the series in terms of the internal story chronology. It will also be the third movie to be made, currently scheduled for release in 2010, and from that I think it is reasonable to suppose that the movie series will continue to be produced in the book publication sequence - movies of all seven books are planned.

Many of the books in the Narnia series feature stories that follow on in a different sequence to the one in which they were written and published. This is completely different to another very famous series of seven books, the "Harry Potter" stories, which all follow each other sequentially in terms of both the internal story chronology and the dates they were written and published.

To help clarify the situation, below is a list of all the Narnia books in their original publication sequence annotated with their internal chronological sequence:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) - 2nd story
2. Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951) - 4th story
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952) - 5th story
4. The Silver Chair (1953) - 6th story
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954) - 3rd story
6. The Magician’s Nephew (1955) - 1st story
7. The Last Battle (1956) - 7th story

There are conflicting opinions about which sequence is the best one to actually read them in. For me, the publication sequence works best, for the simple reason that it is the one in which the stories were created by C. S. Lewis.

Retro games sabotaged for fun

Back in January I reported on what was at that time a great new little site, www.RetroSabotage.com. Five months later, the site has now grown into something of an internet phenomenon, being widely praised in a variety of respected journals including Edge magazine. I am happy to have played a small part in helping with this meteoric rise.

The site is brilliant, totally unique, and is now a good deal larger than when I first reported on it. It presents a number of very funny "sabotages" of some of the all-time classic early video games, and if you like a good laugh and old games, go and check it out now...! :-)

Planned future Disney/Pixar movies

Following on from my WALL-E post yesterday, I thought it would be interesting to find out what movies Pixar Animation Studios currently have confirmed for future production. It is a very interesting schedule indeed (you can see the press release I found here), and is as follows:

Due for release this coming June 27th in the US and July 18th in the UK is, of course, "WALL-E".

Next year's Disney/Pixar movie will be "Up", a story about Carl (Ed Asner), a 78 year-old man who has always dreamt of exploring the world and living life to the full but who has never actually done it. Upon meeting an 8 year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell, the two become unlikely friends and set off on the thrilling adventures that Carl has always longed for.

In 2010 the Disney/Pixar movie will be "Toy Story 3", a follow-on to the 1995 original movie and the 1999 first sequel. The casts from both the previous movies are set to return in a new story which will involve Woody, Buzz, Jessie and all the rest of the toys being dumped into a day-care center after their owner Andy departs for college.

In 2011 there will be a huge break with tradition because there will be two Disney/Pixar movies in the same year for the first time ever. The first of these is going to be "newt", a story about the last two blue-footed newts in the world (whose home is in a college science lab) who must overcome their dislike of each other in order to "get it together" and save their species. The second, due for release around Christmas, will be "The Bear and the Bow", a new fairy tale (Pixar's first) set in a mythical Scottish realm.

The final Pixar Animation Studios movie currently confirmed for future production is scheduled for release in 2012 and is "Cars 2", a sequel to the 2006 original which reportedly involves Lightning McQueen, Mater, Sally and the other main characters from the first movie "going international". It seems probable to me that this will involve McQueen moving away from the US racing circuit to try his luck on the European circuit that was briefly mentioned in the first movie.

So, lots to look forward to there then. Personally, I am really happy to see that there will be new Toy Story and Cars movies because the previous ones are amongst my all-time favourites.

WALL-E, and other Disney/Pixar movies

So... it's almost time for the release of the annual new Disney/Pixar movie, which this year is the highly-anticipated "WALL-E". As always (see my similar post last year) I am really looking forward to this latest offering from the geniuses at Pixar Animation Studios. The trailer for it (watch it here) looks absolutely amazing and hopefully the actual movie will be just as good. Early reviews for it are overwhelmingly positive, which certainly bodes well...

To celebrate this happy almost-upon-us occasion, there is now a collection of 34 Flash online games in my Free Fun and Games website based on WALL-E and all the other Pixar movies, some of which you may have seen before if you are already familiar with my site, some of which are completely new. Here is a list of 18 of those games (links to the other 16 games can be found within the ones listed below):

  WALL-E: Space Escape & Cup Shuffle

  WALL-E: Scrap Shoot & Trash Tower

  Ratatouille: Rat 'N' Roll Pinball

  Ratatouille: Grab the Grub

  Cars: Tractor Tippin' & Ramone's Coloring

  Cars: Lightning McQueen's Desert Dash

  Cars: Luigi's Casa Della Tires

  The Incredibles: Thin Ice

  The Incredibles: Top Trumps

  Finding Nemo: Cruisin' with Crush

  Monsters, Inc.: Mike's Memory Game

  A Bug's Life: A Bug's Land

  Toy Story: Catch That Moving Van

  Buzz Lightyear: Operation Alien Rescue

  Toy Story: Bowl-o-Rama

(Note: All the above games also include related desktop wallpaper pictures as an extra bonus for you!)

Dan Dare online at the Science Museum, London

Further to my post in April about the wonderful new Dan Dare Exhibition at the Science Museum in London, there is now a really interesting online story about the exhibition that you can read here at the museum's offical site: Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain.

Danny Dare

When I started this blog in May 2006 I gave myself the nom de plume Danny Dare, just for the fun of it since I am a huge fan of Dan Dare. However, for some reason a lot of people seem to think that is my real name, so I have now changed my Blogger profile to display my real name of Peter Inns, in the hope of avoiding any future confusion. My posting name will still be Danny Dare though. I hope that clears that up! :-)

The slaying of St. George by the Labour Party

On April 23rd I posted an article about it then being St. George's Day, the national day of England. I opined about how it was pleasing to see that it was now growing in popularity after some long years of decline and virtual neglect. So imagine my surprise today when I saw this article on the web highlighting how incredibly unimportant the day still seems to be to this increasingly tiresome UK Labour government (from the AFP news agency, June 11, 2008):

(Quote)
LONDON (AFP) - A minister has admitted that the government spent a mere 230 pounds promoting St George's Day over the last five years.

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge confessed that her department spent 116 pounds on promoting England's national day this year, two pounds more than in 2007 -- and absolutely nothing in the previous three years.

The admission provoked outrage from at least one patriotic member of parliament.

"I think it is a shameful indictment and it needs to be changed," said deputy Andrew Rosindell, who is chairman of parliament's all-party Saint George's Day Group.

"We must be the only country in the world that spends nothing or virtually nothing on celebrating its national day. It is a great pity.

"I was expecting it to be low but not that low. Other countries in the world such as Australia and the United States spend a lot of time and effort in promoting their national days and we should be doing more.

"There needs to be a change in the culture of government in the way it approaches something like this."

Saint George's Day, which falls on April 23, is an annual non-event in England.

It is generally punctuated by breweries trying to cash in and promote a party atmosphere; left-wingers saying that patriotism should be reclaimed from the racists; a variety of English eccentrics; and everyday folk wondering why the English just don't seem to bother.

The fact that Saint George's Day is not a public holiday only adds to the general lack of interest.
(End quote)

Good grief, what an utter disgrace! I don't think matters are much helped by the fact that so many members of the Labour government are actually Scottish - see this article in The Times from June 1st for proof, and a possible future resolution, of that exceedingly thorny issue.

An excellent example of what is wrong with England these days

That this is a headline story in some of the English media today (or tomorrow, depending on your time zone) is, to me at least, highly indicative of why England is not the international power that it once was (and I quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland for a pertinent online example):

(Quote)

Cheryl Cole joins 'X Factor'
Cheryl Cole has won the battle to follow in the footsteps of Sharon Osbourne as the new 'X Factor' judge.

(End quote)

Really, who cares!?! Why is it so important to English people to know that a marginally talented pop singer, who is foolish enough to remain married to the amazingly self-serving, philandering and mediocre footballer "Cashley" Cole, has become a judge for a TV talent show that invariably showcases people with even less talent than either her or her husband possess? (As if that was actually possible.)

There is a new English "disease", and it is the seemingly inexhaustible obsession English people now have with "celebrity".

Really people, will you please just get over it and concentrate on the really important things in life, like: Why aren't England in the European Football Championships currently taking place in Austria and Switzerland, despite having fantastically overpaid players like Cheryl Cole's husband playing for them? :-)

Oh, wait a minute... of course, it's because England have fantastically overpaid players like Cheryl Cole's husband playing for them. Players like him have no real incentive to play their hearts out for their country any more. Playing for their super-rich club sides, posing as models for fashion designers and fizzy drinks manufacturers, being seen to be fully living the "celebrity lifestyle" in every conceivable way - these things are always going to be far more important to them in these celebrity-obsessed times.

Of course, Cashley and his type always give ample lip-service to the national team (they've got to try and protect their media images after all, especially given their frequent off-the-field misdeeds), but that is seldom followed through with any real conviction on the football pitch - they're clearly too scared of getting injured and being unable to play for their club sides and pose as models for one thing.

And let's face it, back on the "celebrity" side of things, "Posh and Becks" were and still are a sad joke (although at least Becks has always been a half-decent footballer), "Jamie and Louise" should never have been considered as being newsworthy in the first place, and there was no need whatsoever to inflict the dreadful "Wayne and Waynetta" (sorry, "Wayne and Coleen") on the world. That "Cashley and Cheryl" now seem poised to take over the title of "top English celebrity couple" says it all really (assuming Cheryl really is silly enough to take Cashley back). Oh dear.

Who wants to see a Dan Dare movie get made?

Me, for one! I would love to see someone take a chance and make a Dan Dare movie. It's long overdue - Dan is an all-time classic science-fiction character, and his arch-enemy The Mekon is one of the best alien "bad guys" ever created (see my DanDare.org.uk site, which is all about them both, if you don't believe me).

Really, there should be a trilogy of movies based on Frank Hampson's mid-1950s trilogy of Dan Dare comic-strip stories that comprised "The Man From Nowhere", "Rogue Planet" and "Reign of the Robots" (the last movie would also need to include the follow-on short story that was also produced by Frank called "The Ship That Lived", for the sake of full story-arc closure).

These 50 year-old stories are of such a high standard, and were so far ahead of their time when they were created, that they would need very little alteration to bring them fully up-to-date. They could be real classic movies if produced by someone like Steven Spielberg.

There is an excellent article about this very subject over on the Coventry Telegraph newspaper's blog site, written by David Bentley. If, like David and me, you feel that there should be a Dan Dare movie, there is a potential way for you to help get one made: read David's article and then leave a comment at the end of the article saying that you want a Dan Dare movie to be produced - this will show the people who have the ability to get such a project off the ground just how much we all want one.

You can read the article and post a comment here: Dan Dare revived in new exhibition and comicbook - now we want a movie!