Former Grunt Wins iPod

Former Grunt, who served with me in special ops in Panama and the Gulf War, has won Apollo, my iPod recently offered up as the prize in a competition here in Whopper's Bunker.

He sucessfully answered American Dad as my new animated comedy fix. A panel of three judges voted that he completed the tie-breaker: I want an iPod engraved with the name of my hero: Colonel Creedon because- with "After he's eaten by alien bugs on a distant world, I'll be able to flog it for a mint!" as the best of the lot. But it was a close race.

In addition to the iPod, Former Grunt also gets countless* hours of entertainment preloaded in the form of episodes of 2IGTV and free technical support from VerTecX21.

Join me in congratulating Former Grunt on his win and thanks to all who participated.

*Can actually be counted

2IGTV Episode 32

Mark has no Wii (Sorry I just had to use that - What the fuck were Nintendo thinking?). Snipes is arrested! Damon would be Kirk. New Star Trek animated series? Raimi wants a Shadow! Eragon: Try to cross Star Wars with Lord Of The Rings and you get a pile of steaming shit.
We also discuss The Punisher 2 and the dangers of Wii (snigger!). We also completly spoil the latest episodes of Battlestar Galactica for those that haven't seen it yet and tell you what we are (and are not) looking forward to in 2007.



Download it now!

This time: they even shot the dog. - Part 4 in my "Shoot First, Questions Never" series!

A leeching student accused of robbing a man of two new Playstation 3s on the day of release of the console was killed by police sent to arrest him earlier in the month.

Peyton Strickland, 18, was killed at a house he shared with three roommates. "If this boy would've come to the door, opened the door, we probably wouldn't be talking," New Hanover County Sheriff Sid Causey said.

Roommate Mike Rhoton said Strickland was unarmed, but was likely holding a video game controller in a threatening manner when he went to the door as it was breached by officers.

Asked if the deputies felt their lives were threatened, Causey said that anytime you have a high-risk entry like that, you feel that your life is in danger. He declined to say what made the arrest high risk.

The sheriff said the robbery victim had waited three days in line to buy two Playstation 3 units for $641 each at a Wal-Mart. He was unloading the units at his campus apartment when one man beat him to the ground while another took the PlayStations, Causey said.

Strickland's dog, a German shepherd, also was shot to death. That is however more of a loss than the waster student as many German shepards can be productive in military, police and security occupations.

Police seek robber disguised as Commander-In-Chief

They'll never suspect it was me.

Yet another insane reality TV show

Erik Estrada and other lesser celebrities have apparently been sworn in as reserve officers of the city police department in Muncie, Indiana, allowing them to carry badges and guns as part of a reality television series.

About 200 people were packed into a Muncie City Hall auditorium for the Tuesday ceremony to swear in the former CHiPs star, along with La Toya Jackson (lesser known sister of Michael and Janet), Jack Osbourne (scruffy offspring of The Lord Of Darkness), Wee Man (of Jackass antics) and Trish Stratus (a WWE bimbo).

"Roll call is at 6 o'clock," Muncie Police Chief Joe Winkle told the celebrities. "Do not be late."

The CBS show, Armed and Famous, being filmed in this east-central Indiana city, population 66,000, follows the celebrities as they enforce the laws alongside city police officers.

Estrada joked with the crowd that people may not recognize him as an officer because he would not be wearing his toupee. He pulled up the back inch of his hairpiece and wiggled it, drawing laughter from the crowd.

WIN! The Colonel's iPod!

As was recently detailed: A sentence of my recent Court-Martial was that I offer my old iPod (which I named Apollo, after the Greek/Roman god of music) up to you lot.

Apollo is a 4th Generation iPod (with no video functionality) and it is well outside the warranty date, it survived this procedure which invalidated the warranty anyway and but has worked flawlessly since then. There are some nicks and dents and the rear mirrored panel is scratched from use as visible in the photo below. I only replaced my iPod due to 20Gb being insufficient storage for my music. Battery life is still a good 6 hours or more on standard settings. The engraving on the rear of Apollo reads:

Colonel Creedon
Apollo - VerTecXneT

iPods operate in two modes. Audio mode is the normal operation of an iPod where you listen to music/ podcasts/ audio-books on it through headphones. Disc mode allows the iPod to act as an external hard drive and allows data to be stored on it. You can only transfer audio files to listen to in audio mode to an iPod through the iTunes application on your computer. You can transfer data in disc mode to and from an iPod from any compatible computer with or without iTunes.

Included with Apollo are:
-a USB data transfer/power cable (you must have a powered USB 2.0 port on your computer to charge, put audio on or transfer data to and from the iPod).
-the original software disc with a version of the iTunes application which I recommend be updated via a broadband connection as soon as possible.
-the instruction manual in which I've crossed out some sections as they are no longer applicable.

Not included with Apollo (but were included originally):
-a firewire cable and mains power adapter. As Apple no longer supplies these as standard, I didn't get one with Corellon (my new iPod), so you'll have to charge Apollo with the USB 2.0 cable supplied. Alternatively you can get a mains power adapter here.
-the famous "white headphones". Er yeah! You want my earphones after they were in my ears for a couple of years? That's right they ain't white anymore baby! The good news is any standard headphones will work with an iPod but if you want to complete the iPod experience you can get your own pair here.
-the warranty card. Now useless.

Pre-loaded on Apollo will be recent episodes of 2IGTV ready to listen to in audio-mode (and will also be loaded in disc-mode in case you erase the episodes from music-mode).

In accordance with the rules set by the convening authority of the Court-martial and suggestions by yourselves I have created a competition so that one of you; my loyal readers can win Apollo itself.

The rules are simple:
1. You must answer the following question:
What relatively new animated comedy series has The Colonel recently "discovered" and is busy watching the boxed DVD set? Hint: The answer is "discussed" in the latest episode of 2IGTV.

2. Complete the following tie-breaker using less than 20 additional words:
I want an iPod engraved with the name of my hero: Colonel Creedon because _____________.

Answers must be E-mailed to colonel.creedon(a)yahoo.com [where (a) = @] to arrive no later than December 18th at 00:00 GMT. At that time, once the answer to the question is verified as correct and you meet the requirements listed below; your tie-breaker will be E-mailed to the judges who will deliberate and select using a numerical point system the tie-breakers in order of their preference from the list. The tie-breaker with the maximum votes, including my own, will be the winner.

Entrants must be physically (as few will be mentally) over 18 years of age as of 10th Dec 2006. Only entrants who have posted a comment (using whatever handle) to the Colonel's Eagle, Whopper's Bunker or 2IGTV blogs between December 9th 2005 and December 9th 2006 are eligible. Only one entry per person regardless of multiple personalities. Entries from those with known ties to the U.S. Democratic party, those from people representing any liberal media, paying members of "peace activist"or "environmental tree-huggers" or any of Afghan, Iranian, North Korean or especially French origin will be automatically printed out on soft toilet tissue and "used" personally by the Colonel (i.e; they will not be considered).

So listen to 2IGTV and complete your tie-breakers now, you only have a week, get cracking, that's an order!

2IGTV Episode 31

In this episode we discover David Eick (not the one that's the son of God) will develop Them! and Ron More is to remake the remake of The Thing. Peter Jackson will do The Hobbit, oh no wait; he's not going to, he is, he's not.... ahem!
Is Eccleston a Hero? Why are Paramount banking on Eddie Murphy? and Gibson is a vain cunt- but he's right!
In technology: Thousands of British iPod "criminals" will soon be transformed into law-abiding citizens - find out how.
Finally find out what new animated television comedy the Colonel is watching- it could win you his old iPod, and discover who Jon Fraveau has exclusively given the Iron Man script to play Pepper Potts.

All this and (not) much more in 2IGTV Episode 31 available here now!

Complete Twat is Biggest Bond Fan

A James Bond fanatic has changed his name by deed poll to match his hero's - and has ridiculously used the title of all 21 films as his middle names. David Fearn is now known as:

James Dr No From Russia With Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty's Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live And Let Die The Man With The Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View To A Kill The Living Daylights Licence To Kill Golden Eye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond.

The 23-year-old council worker told The Daily Mirror he wanted to prove he was one of the world's biggest Bond fans, but in my opinion, has only proved he's one of the world's biggest tossers.

"I can't wait for the first time somebody asks what my name is," he said. Well I wish I was around him for the 515th time someone asks him his name and he looses the plot or simply gets fed up and shortens it to James Octopussy Bond or maybe just Pussy.

"You wanna live forever?"

That's a question I scream at new recruits as I push them out of an aircraft on their first solo jump.

Casper Van Dien, the star of the original Starship Troopers, will be returning to head up Starship Troopers 3, which will be directed by series writer Edward Neumeier, writer of Robocop.

Plans are apparently afoot to shoot next year. Van Dien will return, now as Colonel John Rico. There'll be some new bugs, draft riots and religion will all play a part in what will undoubtedly be an irrelevant "plot". Oh and "the Federation has a new weapon."

Hopefully it'll be a sequel to the original and not Hero Of The Federation (Yes there was a Starship Troopers 2).

Production is scheduled to begin next March.

Obituary: Shirley Walker

Another great musical talent has been extinguished. Shirley Walker, composer of much of the music from Batman's animated adventures, the Final Destination movies has died of an aneurysm at age 61.

Walker was the first woman to receive sole composing credit on a Hollywood studio picture, on Memoirs of an Invisible Man in 1992 and won a Daytime Emmy for her work on the animated Batman series.

Once a piano soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Walker's first credit was as a synthesizer player on Apocalypse Now. She went on to work as a conductor and orchestrator for Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer, working on such features as Days Of Thunder, Batman, Dick Tracy and Backdraft.

She wrote robust themes for sci-fi, action and superhero series, including Batman Beyond, Spawn and Space: Above and Beyond. In 1996, she scored John Carpenter's futuristic action film Escape From L.A. and a year later, Robert Butler's Turbulance.

For me, Walker will be best known for one of the greatest scores to an animated motion picture- Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm where she rewrote Batman's theme and created a whole language for her choir to sing:- their own names and the names of Warner Bros. executives backwards.

Ryan Keaveney has an excellent resource including sound clips for Shirley Walker here.

Batty Old Biddy Shot Dead - Part 3 in my "Shoot First, Ask Questions Never" series!

Narcotics officers in Atlanta were justified in returning fire on a 92-year-old woman they shot to death as they tried to serve a warrant at her house. Neighbours and relatives (most-likely drug-pushers) said it was a case of mistaken identity. But police said the woman, identified as Kathryn Johnston, was the only resident in the house at the time and had lived there for about 17 years.

Assistant Chief Alan Dreher said the officers had a legal search warrant and announced themselves but a shootout erupted when they were refused entry and broke down the front door. He said they were looking for a man who sold drugs to undercover agents at her home earlier that day and were justified in shooting as they were fired upon.

- Left: Kathryn Johnston in happier times before the righteous kill.

As the plainclothes officers approached the house, a woman inside started shooting with an old rusty pistol (apparently in perfect working order), striking each of them, said Officer Joe Cobb. One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were thankfully conscious and alert.

Sarah Dozier, the woman's niece, said that there were never any drugs at the house. "My aunt was in good health. I'm sure she panicked when they kicked that door down," Dozier said. "There was no reason they had to go in there and shoot her down like a dog."

I disagree.

Sources: Cnews, Fox News

The Invincible Iron Man

Next January, Marvel Studios and Lionsgate will release the feature-length animated adventure The Invincible Iron Man on DVD. Following the style set by the recent Ultimate Avengers DVD movies, Iron Man will follow the exploits of Tony Stark as he fights against the Mandarin, a resurrected Chinese emperor.

Special features announced are: An Alternate Opening Sequence, "The Origin of Iron Man" featurette, "The Hall of Iron Man Armor" featurette, A Look at upcoming Marvel Animated Feature Dr. Strange and a Trailer Gallery.

According to the Lionsgate press release: "Past and present collide in this epic adventure that reveals the origin of Iron Man. While raising the ruins of a long buried Chinese kingdom, billionaire inventor Tony Stark digs up far more than he bargained for. He unleashes an age-old prophecy that foretells the resurrection of the Mandarin, the emperor of China's darkest and most violent dynasty. In order to confront the destructive force, Tony creates an armored suit infused with high-tech weaponry. To stop the evil that he himself has raised from the earth, Tony must become his greatest invention ever—Iron Man!

"The newly born champion must travel to the four corners of the earth to battle the Mandarin's henchmen, the Elementals—four magical warriors who harness the power of the elements—earth, water, wind, and fire—with deadly chemistry. But is the Iron Knight, as he his known in the prophecy, strong enough to defy fate and turn back the malevolent forces hell-bent on earth's destruction. "

OK, so it's not faithful to the accepted origin of ol' Shellhead but it might be what people need to eradicate the memory of the Marvel Action Hour Iron Man :)

The Colonel In Crisis: The Aftermath

The officer formerly known as Captain Rabb (tee hee) has kindly posted the entire transcript of my recent court-martial. So now you can see for yourselves the wonderful US Military justice system at work.

Thanks to all who supported me during the stressful and emotional time during the trial- you will not be forgotten. And to all those who did not support me and even aided the good Captain: You certainly won't be forgotten either, mark my words.

As for me- unfortunately my previous SOCOM assignment was set by statute as an O-6 billet, and therefore I had to relinquish that to a full colonel. However I've a new billet with SOCEUR that I can't tell anyone here about- but I'm okay with it. The UN Security Council are less strict thankfully and have asked that I also remain as Special Operations Director of UNETIDA which means I still have access to an impressive array of modern weapons, vehicles and technology funded by all the UN member states so we can protect them from the threats posed by aliens.

Pat Kenny is an insufferable arsehole and a piece of shit!

Well at least according to this "gentleman" making a modern-legendary performance on last Friday night's Late Late Show...



... It wouldn't have happened in Gay Byrne's day (according to Gay Byrne himself the next day rather churlishly).

Paris Pukes Rather Than Sing Own Song

What a headline eh? It's true!* Apperently at some rap performance by Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter, she shocked the Las Vegas nightclub revellers when she got up to perform but ended up vomiting on stage instead.

Joshua Radin was among the guests who went to a nightclub... "Paris Hilton was sitting next to me the whole night. She must have pulled a compact out of her bag every six minutes to stare at herself and pose..."

Radin continued that Hilton had been imbibing straight vodka for hours. When Jay-Z left the stage, she got up on stage prepared to lip sync two of her "songs", vomited on stage and then just left.

Sheer class.

*May not be true. Dont sue me.

2IGTV Episode 30

So important an issue; Mark doesn't even bother to report that the Microsoft Zune was released. Instead he uses his amazing mind powers to guess what the Colonel's topics are in this hour-long 30th episode and succeeds in guessing that Ron Moore (left) thinks Star Trek would benefit from a BSG-style reboot. The non-existent rumour that Sin City 2 is not going to happen is eliminated. Bryan Singer eyeing Wolverine. Hugh Jackman eyeing The Amateur. Discover what Heath Leger's been reading and who's been cast as the new Bloodrayne, Sarah Conner and Officer Poncherillo in their respective productions. Christopher Walken in you'll-never-guess-who-he's-portraying-now shocker! We report on why the PS3 is extremely bad for your health. Robert Downey Jr. on Iron Man and our respective views on Casino Royale: The Best Bond Ever. (And much more because I know I've left a few things out!).

Get it here.

Bush Bottlecaps The Colonel

Colonel Creedon’s flight to Washington yesterday was unexpectedly diverted to Texas by an Executive Order. President George W. Bush, currently on yet another holiday at his Crawford Ranch wanted to personally deliver the Colonel’s recent court-martial sentence.

On arrival at The Western White House, the Colonel was greeted by President Bush who asked the Marine officer for his eagles; the rank insignia of a full-colonel which Creedon relinquished to his Commander in Chief who (after waving at the latest batch of anti-war protestors, presuming they were well-wishers) in turn presented Creedon the silver oak-leaves of a Lieutenant Colonel. “I don’t like doing this to any of you folks” began Bush. “If it wasn’t for folks like you, there’d be no-one to keep the bad folks off my lawn.”

The President said that he’d always wanted to meet the Colonel and was sorry that it was under these circum- stances. “I’d much rather be giving you a medal for beating that Navy-boy at his own game- Aw Hell: I’m the President and I can do whatever I want- have a medal!” and with that as if from nowhere, Bush produced a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal and presented it to the astonished Marine officer.

Later, President Bush said that while he won’t be in office for much longer, he hoped that the Marine would go out and “do something batshit-crazy – but not get killed” so that he could award a Medal Of Honor to a living veteran. “The world needs heroes” Bush concluded “And I hope that the man in charge after me, whomever he may be – even in the unlikely event he’s a Democrat...” (this brought some giggles from the assembly) “... would take the same honour in returning this Marine his eagles as I have had in presenting him this medal today.”

At this point the Colonel speculated that the next President may be a woman. “You never know sir!” he added. Both men paused looked at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing at the absurdity of such a ridiculous notion as a female President of the United States.

The Colonel In Crisis: Final Part - Clipped Wings

Well thankfully the final authorised punishment wasn't too harsh:

"as a result you are to receive a reduction in grade to O-5 for 48 months without promotion selection and to enter a training programme which will correct the violation of the Marine Corps Regulation within 12 months. Both sentences to commence concurrently on November 21st 2006.

Furthermore you are to use whatever means at your disposal to donate without possibility of monetary gain or re-imbursement, your MKIV Apple iPod to a worthy cause by Dec 31st 2006- and under the assumption that there are none more worthy than the weirdos who frequent your online blog".

Hey, anything’s better than prison after you lot described it to me :)

The Jedi are at it again!

Two British Jedi, Umanda and Yunyun are delivering a protest letter to The United Nations Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland asking that the UN officially recognise what is Britain's fourth largest ‘religion’ with 390,000 followers after the last census.

"Like the UN, the Jedi Knights are peacekeepers and we feel we have the basic right to express our religion through wearing our robes, and to be recognised by the national and international community".

They want the UN International Day of Tolerance, which takes place annually on November 16 to be renamed the Interstellar Day of Tolerance’ to reflect millions of people across the globe who have chosen to follow the Jedi code as a religion and truly reflect social diversity.

See the full Daily Mail article here.

Star Trek Enhanced

I'll go out on a limb here and presume that everyone reading this (who cares about it) knows that CBS-Paramount have this year begun to rebroadcast some episodes of the original Star Trek series with some CGI-upgraded SFX shots in a similar vein to what God did in the past few years with the original Star Wars Trilogy. The new CGI footage is mostly limited to external shots of the Enterprise and any other space vessels, planets, space pheonomena, battle sequences, galaxy shots and landscapes (which previously came courtesy of matte paintings) are given more shading, depth and computer-generated believability. The original Alexander Courage-composed score has been rerecorded in stereo and also redone is the opening titles with new digitally recorded score and remastered Shatner monologue.

While the episodes shown are in an order shosen by the fans, they are currently only showing the butchered (syndicated) 40-42 minute edits. However, I've come into some infomation that this remastered Star Trek is only the first step in a larger overhaul of the original series. Apparently the full-length episodes are being restored before editing for syndicated time slots and will no doubt grace HD-DVD at some point in the future.

CBS Paramount executive vice president David La Fountaine said that the episodes are being reworked in both standard definition and HD, with new CGI space shots and matte paintings produced in widescreen. "We may not get this opportunity again, so we would be foolish if we didn’t do it," Le Fountaine explained, saying that fans would have to wait to see the complete versions until all 79 episodes were completed in 2008.

I myself am not all that impressed with their efforts. Unlike Star Wars where God himself was able to edit and redo some of the FX work which he was unhappy with, the Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry has been dead for 15 years and people are "fiddling" with his creation. I'm all for new Star Trek and I'd even accept new actors protraying Kirk, Spock and Bones, but I don't think the original series should be tampered with in this manner even if they are redoing everything almost exactly shot-for-shot.

I can't deny however that the new FX do seem to look much better on the superior quality display equipment we have now in the 21st century- I've taken the liberty of capturing two near identical frames from my original series DVDs against their new enhanced counterparts for you to judge for yourself.

"Star Trek redefined science-fiction and constantly pushed the envelope with concepts that were ahead of their time," John Nogawski, president of CBS Paramount Domestic Television, said in a statement. "By giving the series a digital upgrade using the best technology available today, it will continue to be a leader in cutting-edge television programming as we introduce the series to a new generation of viewers."

Sources: Trekweb, Trektoday, Yahoo, SCI-Fi, TV-Guide, Startrek.com