I haven’t had guests to stay for some considerable time, in fact the last few times I had guests to stay it was because we were too drunk to find taxi ranks for them to get home, and before that was when I was still old enough to refer to guests staying over as ‘sleepover’ (as opposed to ‘slumber party’, for which I still someday wish to host).

I therefore find myself in the rather nerve-wracking position of being a host to a guest, but even more nervously as an Ambassador of the United Kingdom (of England and those other places that we never really conquered, but more duct-taped on). You see, I shall be playing host to Miss Muppet Baby, an internet friend and all-round amazing person, who happens to also be of the Canadian persuasion.

I wanted to be a good host and so decided to do some research in to the lifestyles of Canadians, both in their own domestic environments and whilst traveling, and I thought I would share these findings with those who stumble across my blog.

Feeding Canadians

An important role of a host is ensuring that your guests do not starve to death whilst in your home. Not only is it an unpleasant mess to have to clean up, but can lead to some embarrassment went trying to explain the situation to the guests family. It is therefore necessary to ensure that the correct food and drink is available to the residing Canadian.

Of course, I at first had no idea what the typical Canadians eat. I tried referring to television, noting a reality TV show about a Canadian law enforcement officer living and working in a city in the United States. However, in every episode that featured Officer Fraser shopping for groceries, I never actually saw him unpack the groceries. All I could see was a loaf of bread sticking out of the top. Surely Canadians ate more than just bread?

I decided to ask the wisest sage of all about Canadian dietary habits, and posed the following to the collective minds of the Internet:

“What do Canadians actually eat?”

Is it like ‘people food’ or do they need a special kind, like with some pets?

The responses, mostly from Americans, were more about comparable meals between the US and the UK, especially regarding breakfast. This left me in rather a pickle, because I didn’t want to poison our Canadian friend with ‘people food’, that would be worse than starving her – mostly because people might think it was bad cooking, instead of a foreign biological dietary system.

The solution came from Muppet Baby herself, who, as well as letting me know that Diet Pepsi ‘is the shit’ (which I’m told is a good thing, as opposed to ‘is shit’), told me:

HA! All I need is cheese and bread….seriously.

Which just goes to prove that one should never doubt Due South as evidence of Canadian lifestyle.

Canadian Comforts

Environment is important to guests. Keeping a home neat and tidy not only gives a good impression, but creates a safe and welcome place to stay. In that regard I’m rather screwed, because I’m a guy still in his 20′s and therefore my existence is defined by how squalid I can keep my apartment.

However, a few nice touches can bring about a sense of home to visitors and make them forget that by walking through a front door they have been magically transported back to the dark ages. It is therefore important to create the right ambience in the home, aromas and sounds can trick the mind in to ignoring the eyes.

The technique for aroma is to remember that Canada is a country full of snow, pine trees, polar bears, moose and Mounties, and to try to recreate the aromas in the home. To achieve that effect, I was happy to find Alpine Fresh air freshener (with a pine-y smell usually kept for truck cabs and public lavatory urinal cakes) and scouting through the Christmas box, Glistening Snow candles.

I would suggest holding off on the other elements – bear, moose and Mountie – until the guest arrives. If the guest shows signs of homesickness then these additional aromas can be skillfully added as required. For bear aroma, diced meat left outside for a few days and then slipped under a mattress will provide a suitable proxy. For moose, find a bull and rub it with the guests favourite sweater. For the Mountie, the smell of any burnt-out electrical device will double as that ‘just tazed’ fragrance.

The technique for sound is to be subtle. Sudden blaring noise will unsettle the sensibilities of your typical Canadian and may require you to lay down layers of shredded newspaper in the event of increased nervousness. Instead sound should be played at a low, almost whispering, volume and left on a constant loop to ensure that at all times the guest is calmed. In this way it will act like New age whale song or a babbling brook in a summer meadow.

The sounds chosen should be close to every Canadians heart and should remind them of home. A trip to iTunes or Amazon should enable you to build up a decent sized playlist of Canadian music to play on an unending loop for your guest.

Due to their successes, most Canadians would no doubt be pleased and relaxed to hear the musical stylings of Celine Dion, Bryan Addams, Nickel Back, Justin Bieber and Avril Lavigne being piped through to them as they fall asleep, eat breakfast, use the household amenities or rock in a huddled weeping ball in the corner.

The Little Things

The final touches around the home can also make a good first impression.

Hiding the porn collection, adult DVDs and fetish accoutrements is a polite gesture, and one that can make the home feel less like the den of some perverse deviant and more the residence of some creepy loner with a hidden secret obsession. It is, after all, well known that everyone likes a person with a sense of mystery about them. It should also be noted that as a polite host, it is good manners to let the guest be the one to suggest roleplaying the Mountie and the arrested Polar Bear, and that breaching established etiquette is embarrassing and awkward to all involved.

A candy bowl filled with prescription medication left out on the coffee table will bring that ‘feel of Canada’ back to them faster than the maple syrup lurking in the kitchen cupboard. If prescription medications are in short supply, then applying food dye to store bought vitamins and writing brand names on the surface can often pass undetected. If all else fails, check your email account for the latest savings on v1agra or v1c0din – in and of itself, a very good combination.

You’ll notice that I have refrained from adding in some cheesy deviant pictures to illustrate Canadians or objectify the girls of Canada. This is purely because I don’t want MB to spray me with Bear Mace in public whilst screaming “Pig, you die now!”. Instead I’ll leave you to drool with me on the following thoughts: Maple leaf patterned bikini. ‘Mountie’ costumes. Oversized hockey shirts. Anna Paquin.

Naked man hospitalized after drinking game leads to prosthetic leg being set aflame

LAS CRUCES, NM
A 47-year-old Dona Ana County man is in a Texas burn center after a drinking game left him nude on the side of the highway with his prosthetic leg in flames.

Sheriff’s deputies learned that the victim and friends were drinking Monday and had made a bet that whoever drank the least would be set on fire, according to a news release.

The victim told investigators that since he drank only six beers, the least amount, he agreed to let his friends set him on fire.

The victim, who has a prosthetic left leg made of plastic, said his friends set his leg on fire, which spread to his buttocks and lower back area, causing severe burns.

Not being able to stand the pain, the victim disrobed. His friends then decided to take him to the hospital but became “nervous and dropped the victim off” on U.S. 70, the release said.

Witnesses reported seeing an individual walking on a U.S. 70 bridge with his leg on fire. Another witness reported that the victim was naked, while other witnesses reported that the victim was struck by two cars and even attempted to jump into passing vehicles as well into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer.

When questioned by deputies if he had asked his friends to stop at any point in time while setting him on fire, he stated “no, he lost the bet” and therefore did not attempt to stop them.

The man was taken from MountainView Regional Hospital to a Texas burn treatment center.

(Source: Naked man hospitalized after drinking game leads to prosthetic leg being set aflame, Las Cruces Sun News, 09 July 2010)

Having been a young and impetuous youth I can appreciate bar bets that involve eating strange foods, making passes at the ugliest girl/boy/dubious gender/animal mascot in the bar or stripping off, running the circuit of the Disneyland Paris hotel you are staying in and then returning to find that your roommates have passed out in the room with the door locked.

I often wonder how some of these bar bets can reach this stage, especially after so few beers are consumed, where the idea of immolation becomes a totally awesome idea. I also wonder how this can happen with a 47 year old, and all I can think is that the redness of the flame is only matched by that of the neck.

Personally, I think that they should have gone for a theme with the drinking game though. If the end result is someone is going to be set alight, then all the drinks should be those that are bought out aflame. This might have something to do with me getting a case of giggles about the idea of a bunch of middle aged to elderly rednecks getting out of their rusted pickup trucks, entering a bar and ordering flaming sambuca.

I have to admit though, if I ever had a limb replace, the temptation to set fire to a prosthetic body part as a joke or bar bet would always be present. Difference would be, I’d be doing it planned, and then solving the problem by throwing the affected appendage away by making it look like I ripped it from the socket.

…but that’s just me…

It’s a hard life being a member of faerie folk these days, especially for those Lords and Ladies of Irish descent it would appear. Leprechauns have always had a reputation for being mischievous and sneaky – a sort of squat ninja with a whoppee cushion and stale whisky breath – but recently these crafty little characters have taken to being a lot more anti-social.

I’m sure an educated fellow with a university degree in socio-economic theory and ethno-politics in folkloric culture would be able to provide a detailed analysis of reasons behind this, but as I don’t happen to have one of those fellows around I’ll just have to resort to tabloid measures. So, I think this is in part down to the effect of the exchange rate between Elven Gold and the Euro, as well as global warming affecting frequency of rainbows.

Unsurprisingly, like the mundane people of the world, when the chips are down the Fae have started to walk on the wrong side of the tracks and have taken to lives of crime to support themselves.

Boulder Police Investigate Lewd Leprechaun

BOULDER, Colo. — The first call came in around 1 p.m., as Boulder police were told about a man dressed as a leprechaun doing weird things in a grocery store parking lot. When police arrived at the King Soopers at 30th Street and Arapahoe Avenue, they found the leprechaun had vanished.

“He was jumping between cars, using his finger like a gun and he was also flipping people off,” Boulder police Sgt. Fred Gerhardt said. Firefighters who were shopping at the grocery store saw the man and called it in.

A security person at King Soopers said he looked through the store’s surveillance video and the man was not captured on security cameras.

The leprechaun was described as bald with a green jacket and was “dressed like a leprechaun,” according to Boulder 911 dispatcher.

Police treated the case as more of a welfare check, but at this point it appears they’ll need a lot of luck to find him.

(Source: Boulder Police Investigate Lewd Leprechaun, The Denver Channel, 30 June 2010)

It’s no shock that the police have been able to catch him, when everyone knows that part of the magical nature of leprechauns is that they are only ever caught out of the corner of the eye and able to turn invisible as soon as you take your eye off of them.

This may seem no worse than your typical chav or teenage brat, albeit much shorter and more likely to be drunk on Guinness than on cheap cider or special brew, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg and – dare I say it – the top o’ the morning.

Leprechauns, you see, were also the shoe makers to the Fair Folk, but with all the economic problems in this world even the most trendy pixies are starting to cut back on their footwear shopping. This also hasn’t been helped by the cheap knock-off shoewear that is made abroad using Azizi labour.

With the decrease in business, leprechauns are finding it harder to fill their saving pots, they have to make their money somehow. Sadly, this has led to an increase of leprechauns being involved in more violent or threatening crimes.

Leprechaun shot dead in St. Patrick’s Day shootout

A man dressed in green and carrying a large-caliber gun held up a branch of the First State Bank in the Nashville suburb of Gallatin on Wednesday, said police spokesman Sergeant Bill Storment.

The costumed man – wearing a green top hat, vest and shorts and a fake brown beard and wig – had previously gone into the Fifth Third Bank next door, according to its manager Sharon Riehemann, when the bank lobby was crowded with lunchtime customers.

‘He started to come in, then looked at his watch, then turned around and left,’ she said. He then walked toward the other bank, and then a couple of minutes later he ran out of the bank with a blue bag in his hands, Riehemann said.

Police said two men were in the car that sped away, and that they fired at police during the chase, disabling one police car. Storment said the two ditched their vehicle and ran into a field near a subdivision. They were killed while exchanging fire with officers, he said.

No officers were injured, and money was recovered from the suspects’ vehicle, he said. There were no injuries at the bank. Storment said police are still trying to identify the two men.

The case was reminiscent of the December 22 robbery in Nashville when a man dressed in a Santa suit – including hat, beard and moustache – held up a SunTrust Bank, demanding money from the teller at gunpoint. No arrests have been made in that case.

(Source: Leprechaun shot dead in St. Patrick’s Day shootout, Metro, 18 March 2010)

So now you know the risks, I hope that you will all be careful out on the streets and I can only hope this doesn’t strain leprechaun/human relations or lead to an increase of cops unfairly profiling innocent leprechauns. I’d highly advise using increased caution when trying to get Lucky Charms, because you’ll never know who is packing heating and who is packing clovers.

Eyeborg: Canadian Rob Spence replaces eye with video camera

Rob Spence, a Toronto-based film-maker, lost his right eye in a shooting accident on his grandfather’s farm when he was a teenager. Now 36, he decided some years ago to build a miniature camera that could be fitted inside his false eye. A prototype was completed last year, and was named by Time magazine as one of the best inventions of 2009. He calls himself “the Eyeborg guy”.

The eye contains a wireless video camera that runs on a tiny three-volt battery. It is not connected to his brain, and has not restored his vision. Instead it records everything that he sees. More than that, it contains a wireless transmitter, which allows him to transmit what he is seeing in real time to a computer.

The current model is low resolution, and the transmitter is weak, meaning that Mr Spence has to hold a receiving antenna to his cheek to get a full signal. But a new higher-resolution model, complete with stronger transmitter and a booster on the receiver, is in the works. He says: “Unlike you humans, I can continue to upgrade.”

The eye was built with the help of Steve Mann, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert in “cyborg” technology – the blending of natural and artificial systems with technology. Mr Spence also has a version with a red LED light in the eye, like the robot from the Terminator films.

As a film-maker, Mr Spence wants to use the camera to record “truer” conversations than would be possible with a handheld camera. “When you bring a camera, people change,” he says. “I wouldn’t be disarming at all. I would just be some dude. It’s a much truer conversation.”

His subjects would only become aware that they were being filmed after the conversation was over. Then he would give them a chance to sign, or not sign, a release form permitting him to use the footage. He says: “There’s ethical issues with that, but I am a filmmaker. If you’re averse to it, that’s fine, don’t sign the release form. I won’t put you in the documentary.”

(Source: Eyeborg: Canadian Rob Spence replaces eye with video camera, The Telegraph, 02 July 2010)

I have to say that I have an auto-worship for anyone who has a creative mind, whether it be film-making, drawing or technical geekery, but there is something about Mr Spence that throws him on to my “OMG, this guy is awesome” list. Let’s just review a few of the best aspects of this clipping:

[He] decided some years ago to build a miniature camera that could be fitted inside his false eye. / [It] records everything that he sees. More than that, it contains a wireless transmitter, which allows him to transmit what he is seeing in real time to a computer. / As a film-maker, Mr Spence wants to use the camera to record “truer” conversations than would be possible with a handheld camera.

The very fact that the guy had the chain of thought that leads to “well, I have this empty socket and my camcorder is kinda heavy…heeeeey” is in itself brilliant. I can appreciate this view as it’s the sort of process that lead to me choosing between handsfree camera kits and spyglasses – but instead of just doing it for boring vlogs, Mr Spence is doing it for serious business.

He does raise a very good point about interviewing people as well. There have been many times I’ve recorded someone who delivers lectures in front of thirty or forty, but who starts to clam up or change style as soon as a camera is brought in.

It does of course raise the issue of what happens in areas where filming is not allowed. Having myself been told off for filming in a shopping area, and having seen videos where police have been called in to stop people filming in train stations, I wonder what challenges may come of this.

He calls himself “the Eyeborg guy”.

Indeed his Twitter handle is Eyeborg and it’s a wonderful play on words. As far as names based on the persons visualising attributes goes, I hope it becomes as widely acclaimed as He-Man’s Tri-Klops, Blinky the Three-Eyed Fish, Eye-ful Ethel and the legendary phenom that is Photog.

He says: “Unlike you humans, I can continue to upgrade.”

That statement alone increases his awesome score to over nine thousand.

Mr Spence also has a version with a red LED light in the eye, like the robot from the Terminator films.

Because if having a camera eye was not great enough on its own, then the only way to improve is to have a brightly glowing red orb pulsating at anyone foolish enough to stand before you.

If you were reading back at Christmas time you may recall that I started and never managed to finish the Great Advent Rip-Off story. Suffice to say, I survived that dilemma and managed to not become a rabbit permanently. I do regret not finishing it, but I know that I don’t have the time or inclination to go back and writing up all the rest of it, just as much as I know that I wouldn’t want to leave it until later to finish. I did have the suggestion given to me to leave it until Christmas 2010 and continue the story, but I can’t tell that I wouldn’t just get through five entries and burn out again.

Instead, I thought I’d give my thoughts and feelings on the Playmobil Advent Calendars from my experience. Before Christmas, I bought four different Playmobil calendars with the intention of opening them each day and running a story. Most people only saw three of the calendars, but I actually got: Woodland; Cops and Robbers; Fairy Tale, and; Pirates. I only got as far as opening up to Day 5 on all but Pirates, which itself remains unopened.

What is the Calendar?

Getting a Playmobil calendar is a bit like getting the old LEGO bucket o’ bricks, but instead of knobbly blocks you get random figures and miscellaneous items. It really is a crapshoot at times, because you can end up with a cool new character or an obscure shapeless thing that will have to wait for another box to open to make sense – commonly this is things like branches to trees or something from a farmyard.

Whilst this might seem frustrating and, at times, cheap by Playmobil, it is actually surprisingly good value as far as helping kids build up a collection of toys. Single figure Playmobil can cost close to £5, but the Advent Calendar costs £10-15, usually includes two or three figures plus twenty odd bits of kit.

As an example of what you get for your money, this is a list of what was in each of the calendars:

Cops and Robbers: 1x Criminal figure, 2x Cops figure, grappling hook and briefcase, axe and torch, gold coins, walkie-talkie and gun, a dog, 2x nightstick and handcuffs, a street light, a ‘wanted’ poster, a pedal bike, a wheelie bin, a kitty, a raven and three mice, a hat, a barricade, barricade lights and a megaphone, stopsign and traffic cones, a motorbike, a helmet and ‘stop’ paddle, a toilet and sink, a bench and accessories.

Fairytale: 1x Fairy Woman, 2x Fairy Child with wings and hats, magic wand, doves, copious amounts of flowers, parasol, shrubs, shrub archway, pond, frog and lillypad, flower basket, butterflies and net, unicorn, carriage, gold chest, mirror, shells, giant clam shell.

Woodland: 2x Patch of ground, birds, a big tree, 2x pine trees, feed box, baby deer, doe, reindeer, baby raccoon, big raccoon, boar, baby boar, baby badger, badger, mice, fox cubs, fox, vegetables, a row boat, Santa.

Pirates: 1x Pirate captain, 1x Pirate, palm tree, monkey, booze barrel, bucket and pan, tools, map and weapons, dead tree, hammock, a dog, a parrot, lantern, roaring fire, cannon, sea life, message in a bottle, row boat, treasure chest, gold chest, gold coins, flag and compass, kitty.

As you can see, this is actually a quite nice amount of loot from a calendar and much better than the miniscule, unfulfilling chocolate you’d get in a traditional calendar.

Setting up the Calendar

The builder will need to fully open the box and then using the cardboard dividers, fit together a grid pattern inside the calendar box. The instructions in the box will then show which pieces go where, and provide diagrams to show how to assemble pieces so that kids get things pre-made.

This is probably the bugbear of the calendar, in that all the work has to be done by the person giving the calendar. It is a real shame that Playmobil couldn’t have come up with a way to sell the calendar pre-set and ready to go.

As previously mentioned, there is also a cardboard backdrop that can be made up, but because it is made of flimsy cereal box card, it doe have a habit of bowing and flexing – an attribute that makes it very difficult to get things to stand up on.

Verdict

Despite the set-up hassle, this is an excellent idea and very good value for money. It’s got the advantage of being a lasting Christmas in itself, as every day is a new toy. It might seem a bit more of an expensive option than a traditional, cheap chocolate calendar, but it’s healthier and it feels much more magical and meaningful.

Anyone with young children, I’d highly recommend getting one of these calendars when they come out ahead of Christmas 2010. Even if I don’t write anything about them this year, I’m certainly going to be fighting to get them again.

When I was a kid, Action Force (or G.I. Joe stateside) was one of the big things for years. It was watched religiously on video cassette, it was read and re-read in comic book form like it held mystic secrets, and it was collected obsessively and in some cases competitively.

There’s no avoiding the competitive side of collecting, kids would try to get the rarest characters they could and parade them around. Vehicle collectors were revered, and owners of the massive vehicles had secured playground sainthood.

I was exceptionally lucky, I had two older brothers who weren’t much older than me and who still collected toys for most of the time I did, and when they gave up collecting ownership would fall to me. Three boys with Christmas and Birthdays to increase the pile. Three boys and a single collection of figures and vehicles.

There were of course rules though. The figures may be shared, but there was always the understanding that original ownership remained – and we were all very good at remembering who had what. There are a lot of good stories about the politics of toy collecting in the childhood of our clan and the major diplomatic incidents that fell out of them, but we’ll focus today on the one that is relevant.

It’s still talked about today. It was one of those crucial moments in diplomatic relations and was a definite convention breaker.

It wasn’t long after the cartoon series – or what limited parts were available on tape in the UK – had introduced the character of Serpentor to our young minds, as well as Sgt Slaughter (or named Sgt Slammer on several odd occasions). The parental units had chosen to take a drive and were heading to the Sainsburys supermarket. I had opted to go along, because I was no dummy, I knew that Sainsburys meant that I could spend the entire time in the toy department of the nearby Martin McColls. McColls was just a convenience store, but they dedicated a huge section to toys, which was often home to the rarer figures – even ones you’d never get to see in the main stores in the town centre.

During those days, it was pretty common for parents to just let kids “look at the toy aisle” and we were never any trouble in the aisle alone (when parents got back, then we were nightmares, because we’d had 30-45 minutes staring at toys we wanted). I walked in and for the three decades it took for the time my parents got back, I stared at the boxed glory before me. The single box without any duplicates. The one box I must have. My idol. My Captain. My Emperor.

Serpentor with Air Chariot.

My folks returned and I left the store clutching in my arms a newly purchased Serpentor. I took it home, already tearing the box apart and trying to hastily assemble the kit and reciting words from the cartoons to what most have been irritating degrees.

Oh, happy days. Happy, fantabulous days. Happy, fantabulous days and joyfullified nights.

Suffice to say, I was able to strut around. No-one else had a Serpentor, and given that it was the most golden thing around, it was so glaringly obvious to everyone that there it was. It was made all the more excellent when one of my friends at the time, and a major other collector, got Sgt Slaughter and his tank. It was just perfect.

Cut to a few years later…

My eldest brother is boarding away from home, his collection is mine. My older brother is now ‘too old’ for Action Force, despite still playing with them when the doors were closed like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs, and was now more in to woodwork, metalwork and electronics thanks to Secondary School.

Two events happened, I’ll leave you to work out which order they occurred:

• I discovered that the collection of Action Force, as well as Star Wars was slowly decreasing, but couldn’t find out what was going on.

• My older brother was given a soldering iron by the parental units to encourage his school interests.

Can anyone say cause and effect?

One day, I was looking for my Serpentor to lead Cobra’s forces on their final assault against the Action Force stronghold under the bed. It was strange, I usually left Serpentor with the Air Chariot and accompanied by at least one armed bodyguard. Searching the house, I saw nothing, but smelt…oh, I smelt…

In the driveway outside, in front of the garage, my brother stood. His body blocking from my view all but the edges of the workbench.

I’m sure there’s something in the Geneva convention that forbids the application of a soldering iron to a military leader’s chest until the whole thing bubbles and burns away.

Oh, the humanity.

Cut to the present…

It’s almost 20 years on and the pain is still there, but thanks to the miracle of the internet and eBay I managed to track down my saintly leader.

There have got to be better ways to travel.

But, there he was.

I also got a Silver Mirage (the most breakable of all Action Force vehicles) and some merchandise posters.

The same type of posters I would lay out everywhere and daydream over for hours.

So, as I tweeted earlier today: @guisedugal would just like to say: Screw you, I have Serpentor and an Air Chariot now.

Our shared bedroom was covered literally from floor to ceiling with the posters and centres of the comics, and where the space wasn’t big enough for a full-sized poster there would be cut outs from adverts on the latest of the toyline. It was the sort of thing usually reserved for serial killers and stalkers.

We didn’t have that many of the vehicle sets, but we had enough of the smaller sets to outmatch the majority of our friends, but that didn’t really matter to us, because MASK was the perfect mid-ground between our other two childhood major fads – GI Joe and Transformers.

MASK had things that transformed, but unlike Transformers kept the same scale and didn’t require a degree in engineering to get it between modes. MASK had characters that seemed like typical soldier-ish and terrorist characters, but were simply defined and limited in number. It also had secret weapons and powers in the form of masks that the characters wore.

One of the best parts to MASK that kept my brother and I discussing it until…well, not until, because we still talk about it, was the levels to which you could make the masks and vehicles of MASK a reality. It was always one of those discussions that led to compromises between what was ‘ideal’ and what was ‘practicable’.

It wasn’t until a few years though that we started to take it seriously again. Bringing us back to realm of “fictional weapons vs. real destruction” was the TV show Monster Garage, the shows premise was to take a vehicle, turn it in to something else while still making it look like its original self.

The only way it could have been better would have been if the stock vehicle was also supposed to be a giant robot, but then I’d likely be writing about a different show. Oh, who am I kidding? If they’d made giant robots that transform on that show I’d be down the junkyard scouring for an axle that would work as an extra limb.

Monster Garage instead made things like a Volkswagen Beetle that could travel over a swamp and a hearse with a pneumatic digger in the back, which are perfect when you compare MASK vehicles had things like a motorbike that could launch it’s sidecar in to water (Pirana) or a van that had a pop-up turret at the back (Jackhammer).

It was just the boost I needed to start considering weapon systems that would actually be achievable using modern technology, which leads me to todays piece (you knew I’d get there eventually). To be deemed achievable, the goal needs to be that that the main part of the weapon can fit in a helmet, but will still be counted if it requires the user to carry a bit of extra kit – for example, ammo, fuel.

#8 – Dolphin

Barely even worth a mention, worn by leader of the good guys Matt Trakker, it’s a helmet that allows you to breathe underwater. You know, like a miniature scuba tank?

In fairness to Dolphin, it may be a rather sucky and simple mask but in the toyline it was part of the ‘adventure packs’ which were carded character, mask and miscellaneous pieces that were pretty cheap to buy.

#7 – Ultraflash

Ultraflash was one of the very early masks and was one of those used by Matt Trakker. It didn’t get used that much as it was only really seen when Matt was co-driving the Rhino truck, and as leader he was much more frequently seen in his flying car.

Ultraflash “disorientates with a blinding flash of light”. Basically, this one is that guy at the party who wont put his camera away and suddenly springs up right in front of you to take a snap.

#6 – Shroud

Another one of the Matt Trakker masks, this one enables the user to unleash a cloud of fog or smoke. If you’ve ever been paint balling, you’d know how easy it is to get hold of smoke grenades. This is basically the same thing but released through nozzles in the mask.

#5 – Venom/Mudslinger/Streamer

Three weapon masks that shoot liquid or semi-liquids. The problem isn’t the firing, as it would just be a matter of syringe-like ejection, but more what is being used as a weapon:

• Venom is the mask of VENOM leader Miles Mayhem and it spits corrosive acid (or in some cases poison). Which isn’t so bad, as long as it doesn’t dribble down him one ejected from the mask.

• Mudslinger is the mask of VENOM agent Lester Sludge and fires globs of mud. Not so bad a weapon if used for distraction, but overall useless.
• Streamer is the mask of MASK agent Julio Lopez and it fires thin strands of glue or tar, which wouldn’t really be that effective unless aimed for the eyes or mouth. Tar would have to be heated though, and that would just be crazy. There’s another weapon, Lava-shot, which Matt Trakker uses to fire molten lava but that’s just too stupid.

#4 – Whip/Arrow

This one may require a little compromise between the spirit of the mask and the easiest to achieve. There are two masks that I think this could apply to, the first is Whip worn by VENOM agent Vanessa Warfied and the second Arrow worn by MASK leader Matt Trakker. Whip would lash out with an electric whip, whereas Arrow shoots ‘thunderbolts’.

I think what the end result of this is couldn’t be more obvious; Air Taser. With a battery pack to send the charge and fireable darts to deliver it, you are able to give a nasty shock to anyone in range. The air tasers are already pretty compact too.

#3 – Buckshot/Stilleto/Sawblades/Totem

This one actually has two different firing mechanisms, and is purely down to choice. The three masks that I think this applies to are Buckshot worn by VENOM agent Floyd Malloy, Stilleto and Sawblade worn by VENOM agent Sly Rax and Totem worn by Nevada Rushmore.

Buckshot was used to fire high speed ball bearings. Stilleto fired flechette darts or harpoons, whilst Sawblade fired, well, saw blades. Totem, in a manner that not at all was intended to stereotype the Native American user, fired miniature explosive totem poles.

The main problem with these masks isn’t the firing mechanism but the ammunition storage. Buckshot is the easiest of them all to store, with Stilleto’s flechettes taking a second, but as they get bigger it gets harder.

There are two primary firing mechanisms I’d suggest, the first is the compressed air canister method used for paint ball guns and the other is the typical high-speed card launcher (which uses two spinning wheels and pushing an item between to launch it).

#2 – Torch

Torch was the mask of VENOM agent and all-round dunce, Cliff Dagger. Torch was simply a hefty helmet that ‘breathed fire’. This is perhaps the easiest to do in reality, all you need is something flammable and something aflame. A simple propane tank will give a nice spew of fire that will make Ricky Steamboat and Dhalsim quake.

For a more artsy look, and in a form of tribute to our friend DJ D, have a look at Rammstein live and their dragon masks (around about the 3 minutes mark).

#1 – Spectrum

Spectrum was the most often seen early mask worn by Matt Trakker in the first season of the toyline and cartoon. Spectrum was an uber-mask in that it did more than just one thing. Spectrum’s powers consisted of radio interference, shrill noise, free-fall and the ability to see in different visual spectrums.

• Radio interference devices are quite common these days through bootleggers, and many can be purchased as pocket-sized devices.

• Shrill noises can easily be transmitted through speakers mounted in the helmet.
• Free-fall could be achieved by utilising the jumpsuit that Matt uses, for example by fitting it with underarm restrained flaps of a wingsuit that can be released by verbal command.
• Infra-red and other imaging technologies are already fitted to cameras and goggles for military use, as well as in the public domain.

So, that is my take on some of the masks of MASK and barely scratches the surface of how truly awesome those masks really were, let alone how brilliant the vehicles and characters were. I might have to cover MASK and VENOM again at some time.

The cartoon and toy line Centurions is the current wistful remembrance of mine, to the best of my memory it probably only survived in the UK for one summer as I only remember a few episodes being screened on morning tv during the school holidays and barely any of my – or my brothers’ – friends having the toys that went along with the series. In part the toys were the problem, which is unusual in most cases, as usually the toys are readily available but the cartoons are never or rarely shown leading to no-one knowing what or why they are buying.

In the case of Centurions, the toys were not just bulky and bigger than most toys, but also easily the toy with the most losable parts. I know from the few friends who had Centurions that the cost and value were hard sells to parents, as Centurions were basically macho Barbie dolls. You bought a figure, then bought his matching accessories, then bought his friends and their accessories (or their rivals, of course).

It does pain me to make the Barbie comparison, but it’s true, buying the ‘Depth Charger’ Sea Assault Weapons System for Max Ray was just a matching way of buying Skipper her Jet Ski with dolphin friend.

Those accessories weren’t cheap, but they were used a lot in the cartoon series where the default kit was brushed aside, and so kids expected to have a piece of the right kit.

For one of the few times in my childhood, the Centurions actually had me preferring the good guy toys to the bad guys – not overly difficult because the bad guys in the series looked like they were constantly trapped in ironlungs. Most of my friends liked the character that was being marketed as being most likable member, Ace McCloud – not surprisingly a pilot and womaniser – though a few liked the Burt Reynolds moustache-wearing sea guy, Max Ray. Very few would go nuts for ‘the yellow guy’ or ‘land guy’, Jake Rockwell. Unsurprisingly, I really liked Jake, not because of the character, but because he had the equipment I liked best.

Ace’s weapon systems were all about strapping rockets and wings to his body and firing himself at the enemy in a way that really no-one can emulate without leading to questions in ER about how a drunk guy got that entangled in a shopping cart and why there were so many charred firework remains around him. Max’s weapon systems were all based on being under or atop water, which was ok in most cases where the attack wasn’t in the desert, the city, the mountains, the prairie, indoors…

Jake’s weapon systems mostly involved him being surrounded by the type of guns that have to be riveted to the floor, though he also had some pretty mobile accessories – his Hornet system, for example, featured a miniature helicopter and Swingshot had tank-treads. My favourite unit was Wild Weasel though.

Wild Weasel was a motorbike that surrounded Jake, but that when he reached his destination could flip up and become a stationary ‘big gun’ system.

To me, Wild Weasel had everything, it was fast and cool as a bike, but was powerful as a ‘shooty-thing’, whereas all the other characters just had things that would propel them in to the enemy like a bullet shot at a cake. Albeit, a bullet of heroism at a cake of evil. Evil and marzipan, because marzipan is vile.

How does this tie in to my misty-eyed feelings about concept vehicles that glimmer and die?

Well, imagine if you didn’t have to suddenly flip between the horizontal nature of the bike to the vertical position of the ‘shooty-thing’ in some clunky fashion, but could just seamlessly go from pursuit to assault. I know I’ve mentioned before about Toyota and the iUnit that can take you from a speedy recliner to a slow office chair, but I missed a trick on Yamaha’s contribution to awesome mobile units.

Never actually realised in the physical form, most of the Yamaha Deus Ex Machina was kept to CG representations of how it might work, but just the merest glimpses of it’s shape and structure makes me giddy.

You harness yourself in a semi-standing posture, supported by a sturdy frame, and using joysticks you drive yourself around on three wheels. As you increase speed the frame lowers you in to a sleek profile that seems to just skim fluidly and as you slow it raises you back up.

Where do I stand on this? Armour it up a little and you’ve got a movable battle platform for carrying personal weapons around without needing a jeep. It would be like a mall cop on a Segway with a gatling gun, but sleeker and sexier, zooming through the urban sprawl to the target zone and then slowing down to pacify the unruly.

German throws puppy at Hells Angels bikers then flees on bulldozer

A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria when he made a rude gesture at a group of Hells Angels, hurled a puppy at them and then escaped on a stolen bulldozer.

The 26-year-old drove into the grounds of the motorcycle gang members’ clubhouse north of Munich on Sunday, according to reports in local media.

The young man, who was not identified, then dropped his pants, threw the puppy, and then fled.

After making his getaway, he stole the bulldozer from a construction site, and attempted to drive it to Munich. However, it was not fast enough, and his snail-like pace caused a 3-mile traffic jam near the southern town of Allershausen, according to a report in the English-language newspaper The Local, which cited the daily tz.
He then fled to his home nearby where he was apprehended by the police.

“What motivated him to throw a puppy at the Hell’s Angels is currently unclear,” said a spokesman for local police. He said the student had lately been suffering from depression.

The puppy was now in safe hands at a local animal shelter, the spokesman added.

(Source: German throws puppy at Hells Angels bikers then flees on bulldozer, The Telegraph, 15 June 2010)

Ok, so a guy walks straight in to a Hells Angels bar? Gutsy. Same guy moons a bunch of bikers? Tough. Same guy steals a bulldozer as a getaway car? Hardcore! Same guy threw a puppy at the bikers before making his escape? Wait, what?

The real question I want to find an answer to is the breed of dog used for the puppy grenade. A basset hound, with all it’s flappy skin, would have too much resistance in motion that it might even fly backwards. Breeds like golden retrievers or labradors don’t really seem that threatening as a projectile weapon. I’d also think that stocky breeds like a bulldog or st bernard would be a hard throw, and great danes or dachshunds would have a difficult pitch.

To me I think the logical choice is something small and compact, probably a yappy breed – chihuahuas seem to fit the bill – but I wouldn’t discard a long-eared breed like a King Charles spaniel, enabling a two-handed toss over the head for a maximum distance.

Of course, we can’t let those pesky Germans get away with all the explosive animal bio-weapons, and so I propose the next logical step: the Molotov Cat-tail. That’s right, the Molotov Cat-tail, just pitch one of our highly trained kittens at your opponent, the Cat-tail will bond with the opponent using high-tech Cat-tail Latching Adhesion Widgets (C.L.A.W.’s) and then begin a furious shredding action resulting in deep pain and burning sensations.

For an added bit of fun, if you look at the photo credit on the Telegraph site, I’m sure you’ll be amused (thanks, Rex, have a Bonio).

In this way, there are people who get noticed for the things they do and the inspiration they give, most of the time they are given a gentle mock or others are given accolades, but still their existence is cherished for that little bit of extra fun they bring to the world.

I was saddened this week to hear of the passing of a very interesting gentleman who had been featured on this blog twice for his exploits. Mr William Lyttle from Hackney, otherwise known as the Mole Man, passed away in the accommodation he had been moved to after being evicted from his home. Rather sadly the news didn’t reach me by an obituary or any profile piece, but seeing an article on The Guardian website looking for people to divvy up his estate too.

Mr Lyttle came to national (and indeed worldwide) notice after he dug a series of tunnels under his £1m home, which caused a 8ft hole to appear in a nearby pavement. Hackney Council would later find a web of tunnels and caverns, some 26ft deep, spreading up to 20 metres in every direction from his house.

Mr Lyttle is one of those people that I wish that I had the skill, the resources and the luck to have been able to get to know more of, as even in his comments following eviction seemed to create such a character and charm. The Guardian newspaper reported:

For his part, William Lyttle denied that he has burrowed under his neighbours’ homes, although he admitted to more than 40 years of “home improvements” on his own land. He told the Guardian the council’s efforts to prevent him from re-entering his property breached his human rights.

“I first tried to dig a wine cellar, and then the cellar doubled, and so on. But the idea that I dug tunnels under other people’s houses is rubbish. I just have a big basement. It’s gone down deep enough to hit the water table – that’s the lowest you can go.”

His face lights up when he relates stories about holes under the towpath on Regent’s canal or secret underground train networks. “I once dug a little tunnel out into the road for the cameras. But that’s it,” he insisted. “Tunnelling is something that should be talked about without panicking.” The metre-wide openings seen by the few people who have descended down the shaft in his back garden, he said, were shadows
(Source: After 40 years’ burrowing, Mole Man of Hackney is ordered to stop, The Guardian, Tuesday 8 August 2006)

If you want to read a little more about Mr Lyttle, my blog entries on the subject are News Of Heroes And Villains…Across England! and Arch-villain Mole Man Fined.