Kill Them Already!

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I'd be a millionaire by now!!!
Then again, what was that joke about the blender and the kitten??
Anyone?

Merry Christmas!

Dearest family and friends, a very Merry Christmas to everyone.

May all your wishes come true this year!

Automated Phone Services

How many of you have been victims of the automated phone services (henceforth on this blog known with the acronymn APS)? No, they're not computerised aliens taking over the world, but they very well will be soon! Neither are they Automated Power Supplies, far from it in fact.

These dastardly disembodied mechanical voices, usually female, try to make you feel at ease (as in fantasy-ease, nice, soothing, excellent radio DJ kind of voice, but probably with a face that could sink a thousand ships!) while you listen in and key in the correct digits on your phone to get you to the correct department.

Most banks, offices, ticketing agents, factories with thousands of departments, the list goes on and on. Soon, nobody human will be answering the phone except these voice boxes. Some leave the sneaky option at the end of all the 9 options, to speak to a human being, aka operator, press zero. In other words, after 10 options, this sneaky option is the loophole for those who can't seem to decide which of the other 9 options you called them for or the category you fall under.

One of the best APS I've ever encountered was in London. I was booking air tickets for my trip to Denmark. The APS did the normal and usual thing of telling you that your call is important to all, please continue holding, blah, blah, blah... but with the added bonus of telling you your queue number! You are number 12 in the queue, please continue holding and we will attend to you shortly. Every 10 seconds or so, it will refresh, soon you're number 5 in the queue and then number 2 and then someone actually answers your call after that - ingenious!

The potential of this added feature defied all laws of customer service and will definitely cut down our waiting time. I just wish that they will buy and implement the system in this country, it could save our lives! Instead of having being put on hold for god knows how long, and then having the operator answer your call, only to press the wrong button to disconnect you. Some of these imbecilic operators are hard-pressed for time, perhaps they have a quota to answer as many calls as possible or get fired. And I thought they should put their heart and soul into attending to their customers, after all, we're the most important. Say something wrongly or provide bad service and we boycott your company and publicise your pathetic state by word of mouth to friends and family, far and wide.

Today, I was put on hold for a call placed to a famous and popular banking service from America, well at least I think it's America with all those mergers and takeovers, I don't really know which country owns which bank anymore. Anyway, I held on and waited (there was some music played thank god) for almost more than 10 minutes (I never knew I was so patient, or was it desperation?) because that particular banks Internet banking services added a new security feature that needed you to get a PIN number from them. Unfortunately, today was the due date for credit card payment and the operator could only get the PIN for me in 3 working days. I waited again to get him to transfer me to their customer services, another 10 minutes mind you, and he answered saying that they are very busy. Fancy that, he could have told me that 10 minutes ago, so that I try to call back later. And my cellphone battery was dying.

Can you imagine, if you had lost your credit card overseas, all desperate and worried, and you want to report it lost to your bank. In the 10 minutes that they put you on hold, whoever stole your credit card can go on a shopping spree at all the expensive shopping outlets nearby and chalk up a ginormous amount of debt with your card, before the bank can even answer your phone call to disable your credit card. On top of that, you incur international phone charges for being put on hold for so long. Does the bank pay for these charges? I think not!

Looks like it's time these companies look into improving their APS and not just talk about improving it, but do abso-fucking-lutely nothing about it. In the end, you, as a company will lose all your customers to another company that can provide better services to their customers.

I just hope that imbecilic operator who disconnected me is reading this. I had a good mind to call your superiors to get you fired.

Be thankful that I didn't.

Rantings Of The Week

Maroon 5 needs a new album. I'm sick of listening to She Will Be Loved and This Love over and over and over again. It's not like they have any lack of talent at trying to produce a new album. It's not beyond them. They seem to have canabalised off their 2001 album Songs About Jane long enough, something new and refreshing and in the right direction would be nice. Or have they really run out of ideas and steam to do so? I sure as hell wish that radio stations across the world would ban This Love and She Will Be Loved just like they did Jame Blunt's You're Beautiful. Some of these songs are just overplayed with too much airtime. Either that, or the radio stations haven't done any updating or book-keeping of their song machines.

"If only the post office was as efficient as the weather service!" Quipped Doc Emmett Brown from Back To The Future 2. I can't say anything for the weather service here. I have been waiting for almost 2 weeks for a parcel from Down Under. I wait all week faithfully for 2 weeks and absolutely nothing. Then when I decide that today they won't come, and I step out for lunch, they drop by to deliver the package!! UGH WTF!!!

The details on the redelivery slip says that they came 5 minutes just after I left for lunch. Of course, when I get home and find the slip, I'm jumping up and down - insane with madness! (I can now appreciate the phrase!)

Furthermore they have this fantastic automated phone system that doesn't allow me to get my parcel redelivered tomorrow. It says that I need to give them at least 2 working days! Utter rubbish! I make a booking, just in case they're closed, and call their operator (a human being, not a mechanical Dalek voice) who was kind enough to reschedule everything to be delivered for me tomorrow from 9am to 1pm. A huge 4 hour window in which I have to sit at home and wait for my parcel to arrive all over again and can't go out to do anything.

Tough luck huh?

Torchwood

BBC Three has announced that it will make a Doctor Who spinoff, Torchwood, the centrepiece of its fall schedule, launching the sci-fi crime thriller series in October 2006.

Spinning off of one of Doctor Who's most memorable characters, Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), Torchwood will be set in present day Cardiff (that's Wales to you lot) and will surround a group of covert criminal investigators called the Torchwood Institute, an organization commissioned by Queen Victoria and tasked with investigating alien technology. The team will be headquartered at The Hub, located beneath Cardiff Bay, the site of the TARDIS' landing in Boom Town and the location of the rift discussed in The Unquiet Dead.

Created by current Doctor Who writer/producer Russell T. Davies, Torchwood stars John Barrowman as bisexual time traveller/con man Jack Harkness and Eve Myles as former police officer Gwen Cooper. Astute Doctor Who fans may remember Myles from the Who episode The Unquiet Dead, where she played the role of the similarly named Gwyneth. (Whether Gwen and Gwyneth are the same character has yet to be confirmed, but the fact that Myles' previous Who episode dealt with the rift adds credence to that theory.)

Joining Barrowman and Myles are Bleak House's Burn Gorman, who will play Torchwood Institute medic Dr Owen Harper, and Absolutely Fabulous' Naoko Mori, who will reprise the role of Dr Toshiko Sato from the Doctor Who episode Aliens of London.

Doctor Who writer/producer Russell T. Davies has written the first of thirteen episodes. He'll be joined on the series by writers Chris Chibnall, co-creator of Life on Mars, and P.J. Hammond, creator of 1980s cult classic Sapphire & Steel (which starred Mori's Absolutely Fabulous castmate Joanna Lumley), among others.

Torchwood is, of course, a clever anagram of Doctor Who and was originally used as a codename for the current incarnation of Doctor Who, before taking on a life of its own during the series. Also of note is that all the characters have already shared a same-sex kiss, in one way or another, indicating that the show moves into the bisexual realm, making it ground-breaking on TV, at least in the UK, I seriously doubt it will ever be shown here.

Already the seven episodes till now have shown some fascinating developments with the team. However, there are sources and forums that rate the series as a no-brainer, stating that the characters have no depth, this is complete hogwash. Each episode develops the characters brilliantly, their humanity, how they deal with the unknown and aliens being on Earth, the alien tech that they find. Although it looks like they're fumbling through it all, making it up as they go along, they do go on along nicely, making mistakes as humanly possible and learning and evolving in the process, that's the beauty of this series, the stories have twists and turns, unlike the typical American series that have a fixed way in which things must happen and the eventual outcome.

So, it's farewell to Mulder and Scully from The X-Files' brand of sci-fi crime thriller. Enter Torchwood, where anything and everything mysterious and alien doesn't have to be a government conspiracy that hinders your investigations over and over again till the end of nine bloody seasons. This series is at least a team effort, real-imaginative story-telling, light visual effects and closure at the end of each episode.

9 out of 10 stars

Doctor Who?

It seems as if television is running out of ideas. All the old, old series are popping back into mainstream television and coming back into our lives. First, it was Battlestar Galactica, now, Dr Who.

I've never watched a complete episode of Dr Who, bits and pieces of it maybe, but never a complete episode. I think mainly because the stories, at that time, were really overly fantastic and me being so young, at that time, didn't take too well with stories with too much imagination and the dry British humour, which I was never accustomed to. However, I do remember the blue police box TARDIS and Tom Baker walking around in with his scarf and coat, before switching channels.

I guess in those days, the 1980s, props and TV tech weren't as fantastic to sustain my interest, either that, or my interest and imagination wasn't so wild yet and has only recently matured with age. The latest season has good techs and visual effects.

I have to say that in this latest series, the storylines stretches your imagination beyond its limit. There were times when I expected the hopeless situation to be so utterly hopeless that nothing will do, when something new gets injected into the story, be it a character or some sci-fi gadget to get them out of that painful situation. Of course, the writers have it well thought out and don't make the escape too ridiculous.

Morales and ethics are explored throughout the series and also how to enjoy life and live it to the fullest. Not so much like Star Trek, but just as well. The aftermath and consequences of what the Doctor did in an episode are reflected upon in a later episode. You will see that the Doctor did what was right to correct the mistakes and helps humanity out of slavery (for example), but doesn't stop to consider that in doing so, he leaves them vulnerable to attack and outside suggestion and right back into the "slavery" he got them out of.

This new series is loaded with British wit and humour, at times, I didn't see it, but it's there and it's hilarious once you spot it and soon I learnt to appreciate it.

I enjoyed the concept of a time traveller travelling backwards and forward in time and is over 900 year old. At the same time, the concept that the Doctor can talk to any race and have a decent conversation with them is most refreshing. The Doctor is also exceptionally knowledgeable of all things in the universe, which is most helpful in his travels when he can recognise technology from different species.

The venerable science fiction program Doctor Who returned to British televisions in 2005 after a 15-year absence and delighted the majority of fans and critics with its adherence to the adventure and charm of the original series, while making admissions for a new generation of viewers (hipper editing and score, CGI effects). Thirteen episodes were generated, all starring Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor and pop-singer-turned-actress Billie Piper as his companion Rose; acclaimed writer/producer Russell T. Davies (Touching Evil, Queer as Folk) oversaw the show as chief writer and executive producer. The new series proved so popular that the BBC agreed to revive the program for second and third seasons - though without Eccleston, who has since been replaced by David Tennant. This six-disc set comes with all 13 episodes plus the battery of supplemental features now customary to all Doctor Who DVD releases.

Eccleston is very engaging in the title role, bringing a manic curiosity tempered by occasional bouts of gravity (which befit a personality with a long and dramatic a lifespan as the Doctor's) that hew closely to the (arguably) most popular Doctor, Tom Baker. Piper is equally adept as department store clerk Rose--she's afforded more of a back story than most of the Doctor's sidekicks have received in the past, and she more than handles her own alongside Eccleston. Highlights among the 13 episodes include the season opener, Rose (which sees the return of an old foe, the Autons, and their controlling force, the Nestene Consciousness); the revamped Daleks in Dalek and the two-parter Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways; a trip to Victorian England to aid Charles Dickens in The Unquiet Dead and of course, the arrival of the tenth Doctor at the conclusion of the action-packed Parting of the Ways. The episodes strike the right blend of quirk, excitement, and imagination, thanks largely to the engaging performances and the guidance of Davies, whose admiration for the show and its history is evident throughout.

Christopher Eccleston's Doctor is wise and funny, cheeky and brave. An alien and a loner, his detached logic gives him a vital edge when the world's in danger. But when it comes to human relationships, he can be found wanting. That's why he needs Rose. From the moment they meet, the Doctor and Rose understand and complement each other. As they travel together through time, encountering new adversaries, the Doctor shows her things beyond imagination. The only quarrel I had was that the storyline where Rose ended up back with her mom and boyfriend Mickey was rather irritating. But I guess, in every show, family always play an important role in guiding the character.

I was impressed with the series, which sustained my interest throughout. At the same time, I was very impressed with the Daleks. I've been often told by friends that they were one of the Doctor's most deadly nemesis. I didn't believe that the Daleks were anything more than metal dustbins shooting light rays. Boy was I wrong! In this series, the creators have made them utterly deadly. Their disembodied mechanical voice will send shivers up your spine exclaming their favourite phrase "EX-TER-MINATE". The reintroduction of the Dalek Emperor and how it now thinks of itself as a God is extremely interesting.

At present, I'm awaiting the DVD release for season 2, although Amazon.com and some other websites are selling it at a hideously expensive price for the number of episodes in the complete season collection!

I highly, highly recommend this series to anyone (not just Dr Who fans) who are willing to just jump in, sit back and let imagination do the rest, for the fantastic storyline and script-writing and of course, for the fun and excitement of travelling to the when and where in the universe and losing yourself there.

9 out of 10 stars

Stargate Atlantis

I didn't think much of Stargate Atlantis, expecting it to be another franchise to make money from the original Stargate movie. I was wrong. At the same time, my friends told me that the storyline in Atlantis was related to Stargate SG-1 and I started to have second thoughts about watching it. Bear in mind that Stargate Atlantis still hasn't reached us, so I had to settle for the DVD series.

Stargate Atlantis starts off where Stargate SG-1 left off at the end of Season 9 where they found an Ancient outpost in Antartica thinking that it was Atlantis. At the same time, a new gate address is found and it has 8 symbols, meaning that it's a gate address in another galaxy. A new team is assembled to head to this new address. However, there's also this new catch that the new team has to at least have this thing called an Ancient Technology Activation (ATA) gene that allows members of the team to activate Ancient technology.

Again, this new team walks through the gate and sets up shop in Atlantis, however, things get out of hand when they arrive. They realise that they don't have enough power as the ZPM (Zero Point Module) is depleting and this power problem remains a hassle for them throughout season 1 and into season 2 and 3 (I think, haven't gotten there yet).

They encounter friendly and deadly new races and the deadliest one of all, the Wraith seem almost impossible to defend against. This race defeated the Ancients and feeds of the life energy of humans. They were in hibernation when the Atlantis team woke them up after they killed the Hive Keeper. So the theme throughout season 1 is them making new friends, and new enemies (The Genii) and all the while dodging attacks from the Wraith and looking for new power sources.

The characters in this series are interesting. Major John Sheppard reminds me of Jack O'Neill from SG-1, not as funny, but just as resourceful and smart. Dr Elizabeth Weir the expedition team leader is a natural and level-headed leader. She's able to make difficult decisions which turn out to be right. Dr Rodney McKay, the resident scientist has a huge ego and always thinks he's correcet, when actually he's not. Dr Carson Beckett is the Irish bloke resident chief medical officer, who has the nicest accent and is afraid to use his ATA gene to activate Ancient technology.

I found that several plot points repeated and it was almost like watching an earlier season of Stargate SG-1, especially when the 3 hive ships start approaching Atlantis, which almost reflects the Goa'uld arriving in their hatak to conquer Earth.

The new stargate is different in that, the inner wheel doesn't rotate to the correct glyph before locking. In the Pegasus galaxy, dialling the stargate is much faster as the correct glyph moves around the stargate electronically and locks on faster. However, this also means the incoming wormholes also get dialled in faster and prevent you from dialling out.

Overall, this was an enjoyable introductory season to watch in all manner of Stargate entertainment, which has the format of mixing sci-fi with action-adventure and a touch of comedy.

8 out of 10 stars

Best Bond Ever

I have to say that I was impressed when I went to watch the latest Bond movie Casino Royale. It had all the perks of an action movie, with the spy intrigue and the works.

Daniel Craig has erased all the critics expectation of him under-performing his role as James Bond. I guess, they like to compare all the Bonds constantly and always remind everyone that Sean Connery was the best Bond, blah, blah, blah. Daniel Craig has brought an edgier, tough, sexy, hunky and blonde Bond into the mix and it has altogether turned out rather well.

There are, in every Bond movie, Bond girls. This time, you have none other than Eva Green aka Vesper Lynd, who was last saw romancing Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven. Eva Green has a soft beauty to her, although most of the time she's seen with deep eye shadow, she's exceptionally photogenic and has a charming and lovely smile, not enough, dare I say, to launch a thousand ships, but just enough to play a Bond girl lusciously.

The other actress worth mentioning, who's not considered a Bond girl, is Dame Judi Dench. She brings out the sort of authority seen in a lady boss, not quite the dragon lady kind, and at the same time, motherly figure to James Bond's character. She chastises Bond on making mistakes but encourages him at the same time when he's learnt his lessons.

The gambling scenes had just the right tension eased into them to make them believable, perhaps they should show Casino Royale constantly in our casinos when they're up and running in the future?

Despite of that, I do have a few quarrels with the movie I've listed below. However, these are my quarrels, you have to watch the movie and find your own!

Beware, if you haven't watched Casino Royale yet, stop now, spoilers ahead!

1. This is the only Bond movie in which both Bond girls died! UGH!
2. The lengthy plot had too many twists and turns, some of them were rather disjointed, and not well connected edited to connect them seamlessly. This caused some confusion at times, especially who's who, who's the villian etc.
3. The villian's girlfriend usually dies, they never did show how this one died, or if she lived.
4. The Bond villian, Le Chiffre, wasn't evil enough. He lacked charisma and looked pale and weak, bleeding through his eyes. He was a prodigy, but he lacked the tenacity and ego that Elliot Carver had or the focus and resources that Gustave Graves had.
5. The MI6 computer implant in Bond's wrist could scan and tell you the type of poison in your system within a span of 2 minutes or less. I think it was a deriavative of Digitalis, but I can't be sure.
6. The Aston Martin DS5 was destroyed! How could they destroy such a beautiful car?
7. The Aston Martin DS5 comes with defibrillators and antitoxins? Probably in Bond's world only, ours will probably have sunglasses, tons of CDs, street directory, car user manual and parking coupons.
8. There was no Q or any gadgets. Other techie stuff were in the form of SONY notebooks and Sony Ericsson handphones, nice!

Ultimately, a great Bond movie to watch, with added ingredients of male machoism and hand-to-hand combat, that will re-energise the Bond franchise. I was actually getting sick of listening to Pierce Brosnan's sexual innuendoes, probably more from bad script-writing than the actors themselves having to say those lines.

8 out of 10 stars

You Will Lose Everything

One of the many, many Harry Potter posters for the movie Order Of The Phoenix.
Out on 13 July 2007

Batman Versus Wolverine

Are You Watching Closely? Whether it’s making a movie or writing a review, or any creative endeavour in general, the methodical choice of what the audience sees or read weighs heavily on the mind of the artist. But every trick is more than the sum of its part, and that’s what ultimately The Prestige is: the perfect ending thought unobtainable moments before it hits. Spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk if you haven't watched the movie.

Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) are rival 19th century magicians. They start out as friends and colleagues, until Angier holds Borden responsible for the tragic loss of his wife, a lovely magician’s assistant. Angier and Borden soon are drawn into an endless cycle of sabotage and espionage upon each another until Borden invents a new trick Angier can’t replicate. This drives Angier to travel to the ends of the Earth, seeking out Nikola Tesla himself (David Bowie) to build a machine to compete with Borden’s trick. Angier’s return engagement gets deadly though, leaving one magician dead and the other accused of his murder.

This is where the story gets interesting. The machine that Tesla creates for Angier actually creates a doppelganger - an exact copy - of anything placed at its centre. What Angier has done in order to make the trick work so well, is that he has placed a water tank under the trapdoor at the centre of the machine to catch and drown the doppelganger, while he gets transported some 60 feet behind the audience in the circle seats. Angier does not reveal this till the end. However, he himself doesn't know if he's the real Angier or the doppelganger, probably because the copy is so exact. We are told and later shown, that he performed over 100 acts, so there are over 100 doppelgangers each in over 100 tanks, that have been placed under a derelict theatre to hide the truth from everyone. He has blind stage-hands working for him so that the secret of the trick is never revealed to anyone else.

The most prestigious element The Prestige has going for it is the cast. Bale and Jackman are both amazing actors able to depict the intense obsessesion of their characters. It's no surprise Bale nails the passionate and accented Borden, but it is a surprise how adeptly he nails a magic trick of his own right in front of the movie-goer’s eyes. Jackman on the other hand is able to play with the audience’s sympathizes, for both the death of Angier’s wife as well as Jackman’s own track-record of more clean-cut protagonists.

Michael Caine plays Cutter, a veteran trick-maker who takes Angier under his wing. Caine seems right at home in the 19th century, and his performance gives credibility to the insight and motivations of magicians. Scarlett Johansson's Olivia, an assistant caught between both Angier and Borden, is introduced later. Although Johansson's performance gives Olivia and her relationships real emotional weight, her character winds up a bit underused in the grand scheme of things. David Bowie's Nikola Tesla is perhaps restrained from what we tend to expect from the rock star/actor, but this was necessary for his role. In a lighter role, Andy Serkis of Gollum fame from Lord of the Rings, played Tesla's aide Alley. Although Alley is considered more a peripheral character, Serkis' energy and charisma ultimately makes him something more.

Based the novel of the same title by Christopher Priest, The Prestige is directed by Batman Begins and Memento director Christopher Nolan. It is cleverly directed in such a way that you have to literally watch closely to every dialogue and every scene, which presents clues and answers to the entire movie.

The Prestige is a wonderous movie filled with magic tricks and plot twists to mislead the audience, with a touch of science, which leads it into one of the most prestigious film endings of recent memory.

Highly, highly recommended to anyone who's looking for a smart and magical movie, with excellent acting to enjoy.

8 out of 10 stars

Update: A 2 in 1 Movie Poster For The Prestige

Harry Potter Is A Star Wars Rip-Off

I've always suspected it, but now hard solid proof has emerged that once and for all shows that J.K. Rowling (aka the great plagarist) stole her entire concept for Harry Potter from George Lucas' "Star Wars". For shame lady, for shame.

The following document was taken from Rowling's purse at a London airport. See for yourself below.

Many Bothans died to bring us this information.

Chanting Down Babylon

Evanescence shall always been known and remembered for their songs Bring Me To Life and My Immortal. Having said that, I thought the band broke up just before receiving their Best Newcomer Award at some MTV show? Then Ben Moody left and members of this band just keep vanishing and getting replaced. Taking notes from Duran Duran perhaps?

The Open Door, I wonder what they're referring to, perhaps their rejuvenated band that might just open the door to more movie soundtrack opportunities? This album was number 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart the first week it was released, big deal. It was attributed to the success of their first (and best) album Fallen and the long wait to get another album out, fans must have been hungry for more Evanescence music. What? They couldn't turn to other groups? You would think that listening to Fallen and now The Open Door, that there would be some evolution in their music, a new direction perhaps, especially after they had so many band member replacements, more new ideas would come into the picture.

Song after song after song just sounds similar! From Sweet Sacrifice to Call Me When You're Sober. The guitarist just strums the same few chords and rhythm over and over again in all the song tracks, almost like a machine gun firing in moderate staccato, utterly no imagination at all. Snow White Queen started to see some new direction in the rhythm of the music, but then it started going back to square one with The Only One. The same guitarist strumming the same rhythm in the chords again. Sigh. Listening to the whole album, I really didn't have any idea if I'd moved onto track 2 or 3, especially with such similar rhythms. Perhaps they were just recycling the rhythms from Bring Me To Live in their Fallen album, which fans seem to love so much.

The only saving grace in this entire album is Amy Lee's beautiful voice, but she needs a new lyric writer, the same screaming, yelling and moaning just doesn't do her voice justice. I strongly believe she should leave the band and start doing her own solo CDs, which I'm sure there are tons of fans out there who want her to do just that! I also believe she should try trip hop!

I know Gothic/Alternative/Rock/Pop/Whatever should sound almost like that, but with some form of imagination, it wouldn't be so tiresome to listen to! 1 star for effort, 1 star for Amy Lee's voice, the rest was just ear vomit!

[Nicole] I've already used my CD as a frisbee and surprisingly it sails rather well through the air and oh, hey, look, a dog caught it between its jaws.

Crunch!

2 out of 10 stars

Hallowed Are The Ori!

When Stargate the movie came out, I thought that it was a most interesting concept. Of course, the movie didn't do very well at the box office because it had a bad plot. I was amazed when they decided to create a Stargate series. This series based itself on the plot of the original movie and expanded upon it. Creating more worlds and more storylines for us to enjoy.

Fast forward to 9 seasons later. Stargate SG-1 is hailed as the longest running sci-fi series ever to hit the television. The characters and storylines are fantastic and after about 7 or 8 seasons later, they've finally found a way to topple the Goa'uld system lords who were based on the Egyptian Gods. However, with season 9, they've moved into the realm of the Arthurian legends, and have made it even more interesting to realise that all mythology on Earth were influenced by aliens, sounds almost like Scientology doesn't it?

In season 9, a new thread is introduced, one that transcend the Goa'ulds. This thread comes from that of the Ancients. The Ancients are a group of possibly humans who ascended beyond the physical to another plane of existence. They are extremely powerful and advance. Of course, before they ascended, they left behind quite a lot of undiscovered knowledge and artifacts that SG-1 has been gathering and using. For everything in this universe, there's a good and bad, right and wrong, ying and yang, call it balance if you must. For the Ancients are the good ones, while their evil ones are called the Ori (pronounced Or-eye).

This sounds like a sort of parallel between the TV series and real life, except not so extreme. With their Book of Origin, rejection of free will, and goal of subduing all heretics and unbelievers, the Ori resemble extreme fundamentalists of various stripes. On the other hand, when the U.S. military talks about crusades and "ridding the galaxy of evildoers," parallels to the Bush administration's war on terror are obvious and unavoidable.

Problem is, while we know that the Ori are relentless, devious, and bloated with the pride that always attaches itself to false gods, we can't actually see them. They have semi-human apostles, called Priors, who spread "enlightenment" and bad mojo (not to mention plagues of carnivorous bugs) all over the universe. They have mighty ships that that leave the good guys in dire straits in the climactic battle that ends the season (typically, little is resolved, leaving viewers to salivate for Season 10). But the Ori themselves are kin to the all-knowing Ancients, who exist not in recognizable physical form but as energy; unlike previous villains, from the Goa'uld to the Replicators to Stargate Atlantis' Wraith, when it comes to the Ori, there's no there there. Meanwhile, the writers' replacement of the ancient Egyptian iconography used in earlier seasons with various aspects of Arthurian legend (Merlin, Knights of the Round Table, sword in the stone) is sometimes cool, sometimes merely hokey.

The series has introduced Ben Browder as Lt. Col Cameron Mitchell and Claudia Black as Vala Mal Doran, both formerly from Farscape. They both bring such life and comedy to the series that it will have you in stitches. Vala is the vixen, her alliances shift back and forth and you never know whether or not you can trust her. Ben Browder brings the kind of fun akin to Richard Dean Anderson when he's acting and their on-screen chemistry with the other cast is amazing, it almost feels like Ben Browder has been on the series since the beginning. In season 9, she appears in the first 4 or 5 episodes in the beginning and last few episodes at the end. Both actors are a most welcome addition to the Stargate series. Of course, I almost forgot Beau Bridges, who plays Major General Hank Landry. He also adds his own bout of humour into this series. Honestly though, I prefer him to General Hammond, the other bald, fat General who was in charge of SG1 from season 1 through 8.

In the middle of the series, we learn the truth about the Ori. The Ori do not ascend their followers and only need worshippers from which to draw their powers. In some way, they draw on the worshipping itself that gives them more and more power, in effect, using everything and everyone, twisted for their own agenda. Sort of like how Bush draws power from all the people he lied to in order for them to vote for him.

I particularly love the way they made fun of the religion of Origin and how false Gods shouldn't be worshipped. There are no Gods in the universe, looking down at us and protecting us, and that human beings bow to no one. Hopefully this series drives this message into the thick skulls of the people of Earth.

Another thing I noticed about this season is that they have created something like a flowing story arc, which spans across all the episodes. Usually Stargate has a story arc, but usually the episodes are rather self-contained, with adventures here and there.

I recently found out that Stargate has been cancelled after 10 seasons of running and that 2 telemovies straight to DVD will be created to end the Ori storyline and another time travel tele-movie. I don't know if it will do as well, but I'm just enjoying the storylines in the meantime. Let's hope that some of the characters get to jump over to their spin-off Stargate: Atlantis and perhaps make a more permanent appearance over there.

Overall, season 9 is a pretty good prelude-cum-interlude to the final season 10. I wish it would go on, but they would just find more and more things to say, more and more legends and myths to write from. It will never end, it should never end, but all good things should end while they're ahead.

I highly recommend this series to anyone who's a sci-fi buff, looking for a TV series with a great adventure and good cast of characters and character development.

9 out of 10 stars

The Very Bottom Of The Barrel

I've been a Dune fan for a really long time. It all started when I was young, browsing around the bookshop, where the covers of the Dune novels always fascinated me. At that time, I didn't know what the story was about, but I did know it was sci-fi and probably one of those that caught my eye. I think I'll always remember the title God Emperor of Dune, I couldn't comprehend how an Emperor could also be God, that was one of the first sci-fi mysteries that mystified me.

Fast forward to present day, I've read all the Dune novels and have a complete set of all of them, which includes the most sort-after Dune Encyclopedia, which was painstakingly found in London. Looking back, I can't believe I turned into quite the fanatic when it came to Dune. I searched the Internet for forums, websites and reviews. There were also arguments and different interpretations to the story.

The long-awaited Dune 7 novel that Frank Herbert failed to finish before he died was released in August 2006. I rushed to get my hands on a copy of it. The hardcover version was expensive, so I settled for the tradepaperback edition from the UK. I just finished reading the book (I took my time to read in between the lines all the details!), and had mixed feelings about how the story continued after Chapterhouse: Dune, Frank's last novel before he died. I didn't know whether to feel elated, angry, sad, or disappointed. I'm reviewing the novel below, it will definitely contain spoilers, so if you haven't read the novel yet, do NOT proceed further!

The first thing that struck me was that the novel was written for kiddies. When Frank Herbert wrote any of his novels, there was a certain amount of mystery and intrigue which you had to read between the lines to find out more. It wasn't blantantly spelled out for all to read. Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson spelled everything out for us, almost to the point of patronising their readers. It was most infuriating to have every single thing laid out for us, in this case, there was no longer any mysteries in the stories, expect the ones that they created.

Next, the character development was hideously abysmal. I can't believe that Duncan or Murbella or any of the other characters are all the same. Nothing much has changed or could it have in the time span since Chapterhouse: Dune. They brought back so many gholas it was ridiculous. What will the gholas do? Why didn't they create new characters? Was it so difficult to do? All the characters had 1 dimensional qualities and they were cheesy. Duncan having an addiction to Murbella? What on earth is that about?

Moving on, every chapter seems to have a reference to one of the prequel novels, or one of Frank's Dune novels. I prefer Frank's Dune novels, they were very grounded and had so much depth that you had to dig for information. The prequel novels were just as scratching the surface, to fill in all those gaps that Frank neglected to talk about. In some way, the prequel novels destroyed the mystery of Frank's 6 Dune novels. At the same time, I was confused when reading Hunters of Dune, whether it was a prequel, sequel or a very long summary of the entire history of Dune.

Even the plot went round and round, Duncan was being chased around and around by Daniel and Marty with their ever-present tachyon net, that seemed to stretch all across the universe to ensnare them. Even folding space and escaping it didn't seem to distance the no-ship from the net's limitless ability to catch them. What kind of net is that?

The unlimited us of labels, Mother Superior evolved into Mother Commander, probably justifying that Murbella commanded both the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres. Proctor Superior, Matre Superior and the list goes on. In the prequel novels, they had Primero, Segunda, Viscount etc. All these labels, I'm guessing, are Kevin J. Anderson's doings. If you have read his other novels (and how he destroyed the Star Wars Universe!) you'll know that this was his evil work! Giving labels to all those characters didn't make them big, they just hid the fact that they couldn't write anything more about them, so attach something to them. It was disappointing!

Almost three quarters through the novel did I seem to appreciate that it was gaining a little bit more momentum. Many answers at last! The revelation that the Honored Matres are Tleilaxu females that were rescued from Tleilax and gained awareness instead of remaining as axlotl tanks was interesting, but a little too convenient, as I thought they were either Bene Gesserit renegades or Fish Speakers or a combination of both. But I shan't fault them, perhaps this was already written in Frank's outline. It will explain a great deal as to why they destroyed so many of the Tleilaxu planets and their Masters.

I was disappointed to find out that Daniel and Marty, the old man and woman, who were first introduced at the very end of Chapterhouse: Dune, turned out to be incarnations of Omnius and Erasmus. According to the final chapter in Hunters of Dune, they could change their flow-metal bodies to suit the needs of themselves, changing shape, changing faces, like Face Dancers, except without the Bene Gesserit detecting them.

I sincerely hope that Sandworms of Dune, the finale, would answer everything and would be much better written than Hunters of Dune. I suspect that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are already scrapping the bottom of the barrel as to fresh and interesting new ideas for the Dune universe. Let us hope that they wouldn't cash in by writing more novels to destroy Frank Herbert's great work.

I recommend this book only to Dune fans who're out to find closure to one of Frank Herbert's sci-fi masterpiece.

5.5 out of 10 stars

Goliath

Terrorism. Acts of Oppression. The threat of nuclear war. What if one madman aboard a vessel could end these fears forever?

Commander Rochelle "Rocky" Jackson is aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan when the "unsinkable" naval vessel and its entire fleet are attacked from the depths and sunk by The Goliath: A nuclear submarine Rocky helped design almost a decade ago, a top secret DoD project cancelled when the schematics were destroyed by her former fiancé and U.S. Army Ranger, Gunnar Wolfe. Powered by its five jet-pump propulsors and hydrodynamically shaped to be virtually undetectable under water, the sub has one more feature that separates it from all other vessels on the open seas: SORCERESS-its biochemical computer brain.

Rocky eventually learns that the Goliath's plans were not destroyed but secretly sold to the Chinese. Having constructed the $8 billion dollar warship, the Chinese become victims themselves when the sub is hijacked by the project director, Simon Bela Covah, a computer genius and a man with a sad past who once served under Rocky's command at the Navy's Undersea Warfare Center. The attack on the carrier fleet indicates that Covah is hunting down warships in an attempt to arm himself with nuclear weapons.

Simon Covah and his crew share a common bond: They are all victims of violence and oppression. Covah, a Russian, witnessed his Chechan wife and daughters brutally murdered at the hands of his own people as he was tortured. Now the computer genius has one mission: to rid the world of oppressive governments while forcing humanity to disarm. To accomplish this, he plans on giving the world a real lesson in Armageddon. Armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy North America, Covah issues his Declaration of Humanity to the world. If his demands are not met, consequences will be paid. Could the threat of violence forge a lasting peace? But there is another player in this life-and-death chess match. Unbeknownst to the Goliath crew, Sorceress has become self-aware, and is developing its own agenda. You'll have to read the novel to understand how scary a self-aware computer's agenda can be!

I've never read any of Steve Alten's novels. This one has gotten me hooked! It's like an underwater adventure the likes of Jule Verne's 20000 Leagues Under The Sea. I have always entertained the idea of a stealth boat, in this case, it's a stealth submarine along the lines of Seaquest DSV, but totally different.

Also, the idea that a computer becomes self-aware and the process leading it to its descent into madness is most illuminating. The more Sorceress couldn't understand, the more it experimented and slowly it moved to human experimentation, which led to the death of several, if not all of the crew of the Goliath. As a machine, it is devoid of feeling and pain, so there's a certain amount of violence in these pages that are almost gruesome to the point of Hannibal Lecter!

I've always enjoyed the notion that one day, some vigilante will take matters into his own hands and create a crusade to destroy violence in the world. This book highlights the extreme of what someone like that would do. Bomb the hell out of the country to scare them into submitting to disarmament terms, like in this novel, it almost makes you wish that it applied to the current volatile situation in the Middle East.

The love-hate-forgive relationship between Rocky and Gunnar was not exactly the best, but then again, all novels with these plots always seem to be uneasy and cheesy at some point. Also, the need for bigger and bigger ships, submarines and whatever electronic being run by computers begs the question of whether or not they will eventually achieve self-awareness and take on a life of its own.

A highly, highly recommended underwater adventure novel.

8.5 out of 10 stars

Death & Blame

In my line of work, if you make a mistake, somebody dies. Sometimes directly, but mostly indirectly. However, even if it's not your mistake, they always try to find a scapegoat to blame all their problems on. It's the way of the universe I guess. It's so sad that the people who are directly responsible don't get punished and worse, they get away with it, while the most innocent mistake the scapegoat makes can get fired for doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong place. It's so sad. I guess, sooner or later, as they say, what goes around, comes around x10!

Order Of The Phoenix

Dumbledore's Army (DA), movie stills from
Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix

Dante's Inferno

I try this test on and off, usually around my birthday every year. It was getting better a few years back, Level 7 I think, but lately, it's Level 8 again. I don't think I'll sink any lower, but I'm trying to. hehehehe...

Oh hell...

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the
Eigth Level of Hell
- the Malebolge!

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Extreme
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	Extreme
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Extreme
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very High

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

Mother Of All Jams

Today, I was stuck in a massive traffic jam. The worse part of it was that all roads heading from north to south have to pass through 4 major expressways and they were all jam-packed with drivers trying to avoid jams from all of them. The one I'm taking doesn't charge toll and is the most direct and fastest route to my office.

When I left my house at 0730H this morning, I turned on the radio and found out that there was a big accident involving a trailer, a car and a motorcyclist 3/4 of the way down closer to work. I wanted to take another express route, this one charges toll, so heck. The radio then went on to say that there was also an accident on this one with the tail-back all the way to blah and blah. Sigh, I've run out of options here. I followed the usual route, travelling at an average speed of 25 to 35 km/h. I could have gotten out of my car and run to work faster, but let's not go there.

When I was halfway to work, I decided to take another route that runs perpendicular to the usual route, and then later turn back and make a big round. I know, at this point in time, I was desperate to get to work on time, and I could almost make it.

Taking this new expressway, I saw an exit that could take me to work through a short-cut. I took it. I regretted it. This short-cut turned out to have another huge traffic jam. There was no way to make a U-turn back onto the expressway, and I had to get off at the next intersection which was far, far away to take another route to work. I called in to work to tell them I was going to be late, I wish I could have said I was turning back and going home.

I was basically navigating with the street map and driving at the same time, trying to see which small lane or short-cut could get me through all this jam. It was a most infuriating morning. By the time I got to work, I had been on the road for 2 whole hours! I could travel to another country by plane and be there in 2 hours for crying out loud! The usual travel time to work is 40 minutes!

Here are the things that made the traffic jam worse:

1. An accident or a breakdown anywhere along the route. The vehicles, depending on which lane, just sit in that lane, blocking traffic and everyone has to change lanes to go around them and avoid them.
2. Radio annoucements help to alert you to traffic jams, but I think that they also cause them to a certain extent. Everyone will be taking the same route to avoid the jam, thus creating another jam and so on and so forth.
3. Idiotic drivers who change lane whenever there's a gap in front of the next car to get ahead. These asshole drivers cause people who are driving to brake to let them in, thus causing a slow-down.
4. Having buses or heavy vehicles along the route. These vehicles are generally slow, they are slow to accelerate and slow to change lanes. Slowness is not acceptable in traffic.
5. Having too many intersections with no traffic lights to control the traffic flow out onto the main expressways will just slow everyone down. This is because drivers from the intersection tend to cut into the fastest moving lane to get ahead. When they do this, everyone has to slow down to avoid them.

I wish there was another way to avoid these jams, but with the number of cars on the road here increasing, I really doubt that it can be avoided, if ever. I know that my friends overseas tell me that in their country, their traffic jams don't move, the cars just sit there for hours, the whole motorway is almost like a gigantic temporary car park for rush hour traffic!

Perhaps we need a helicopter service here. I think if I start that, and charge a $50 fare for those who need to take my helicopter services to work, I'll be richest person on this planet.

But in the end, I guess I just have to be thankful for small things.

Futuresex | Lovesounds

The long awaited second album from Justin Timberlake, titled Futuresex/Lovesounds is simply amazing! I was fortunate enough to get a preview of the entire album. Justin has not only drawn you in with his amazing innovative rhythms but also his bordering of music between pop, rock, R&B and hip-hop.

The first single Sexyback is already topping the charts at number 1 in Australia and America (Billboard charts Pop 100, Top Digital Download etc etc etc all at No.1). Lyrics for this song is limited, but it's the electronic rhythms and sounds that draw you in and dance to the beat or at least turn up the volume to listen to something different and unique.

If there was ever any question about whether sexy was in need of reviving--a doubtful proposition at best, given the sheer volume of JT's gyrating counterparts--he lays it to rest instantly over a small but insistent Timbaland-concocted beat. On that track, Timberlake's appeal is his sweet but newly thuggish-sounding voice--here's a good kid gone bad, and he's determined to convince us of it not only by tossing a few well-timed motherfuckers our way but also with such lyrics as "I'll let you whip me if I misbehave."

The rest of FutureSex will feel familiar to anyone who picked up 2002's brilliantly funk-flecked Justified: "Love Stoned/I Think She Knows Me," shifts from Michael Jackson-esque paranoid trilling to pulsating guitar rock; "Chop Me Up," a collaboration with Three 6 Mafia and Timbaland, gives up the grit rap-style but still manages to recall both Prince and Stevie Wonder; "My Love," with T.I., mines classic Timberlake territory with meltaway lyrics like "I can see us holding hands walking on the beach/Our clothes in the sand"; and the straight-up but groovy lament "Losing My Way" asks, searchingly, what may be the silliest question a squeal-inducing pop star has ever posed: "Can anybody out there feel me?"

There are times when Justin blends in his beat-boxing rhythms, which he does oh-so well, into the music which creates the human touch to all that electronic music and static-music. Although his lyrics are not as fantastic as song writers like Rob Thomas or Richard Marx, his ability to blend and bend the sounds in the music to suit his audiences is enough to pull you in to buy this album. I can forsee that most of his songs will definitely become timeless dance-floor anthems once remixed by all those DJs out there.

Justin Timberlake has definitely up the ante and changed the direction of the music industry by continuously challenging and changing the face of music. This album has moved away from his dirty pop music he created when he was with NSYNC into the electronic realm.

I highly, highly recommend this album to anyone who is willing to keep an open mind to how the direction of music should go in the future - an amalgam of sound.

9 out of 10 stars

Prison Break

I thought that this TV series was going to be another boring one. Intelligent TV series don't get any better than this. All those stupid reality series were just spreading on TV like a cancer that won't stop. There are only a few good reality series out there, but we're not here to talk about that.

Don't get me wrong, TV series like Lost are good, but somehow when mysteries drag on and on and on through 2 seasons with so many character developments and so many changes, they tend to wear you out. At the same time, watching a TV series with a continous plot week after week just makes you forget what happened in the earlier episodes, especially when something develops in the later episodes. Another example will be the TV series 24 (which I daresay didn't deserve to win the Emmy's this year!) which you have to watch in 24 hours, otherwise, it's just a waste of time trying to figure out what happened in episode 1 or 2 when you've reached episode 23 or 24.

Anyhow, Prison Break is just plain addictive! This series is about how Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) cooks up a really elaborate plan to get himself into prison to free his innocent brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), who is on death-row. The reason why he so confidently enters prison to break his brother out is because he got his hands on the original prison blue-prints and ultimately has the entire blue-prints and escape plan tattooed onto his body.

The cast of characters is unique to any prison environment. And one of my favourite characters is Theodore Bagwell aka T-Bag (played by Robert Knepper), who's a murderer, a sexual predator and a white supremacist. The actor who portrays him goes through many changes and is very skilled at portraying the mannerisms of his character to perfection. I won't spoil the series by revealing too much.

The character developments here are so much more straight-forward than Lost. And with all good TV drama series, like The X-Files, all you have to do is throw in a huge conspiracy with the government and it becomes a classic. My only quarrel with the show is that the character Michael Scofield gets to move about the prison a bit too liberally. Granted that it is possible, but if you watch the series, some of it is rather improbable, but it's entertaining nonetheless to see how they cover up for one another.

I purchased the DVD mainly because I wanted to do a marathon and didn't want to wait for it to be telecast here. It was suppose to have started in April 2006 here, however, they chose to telecast Lost Season 2 first instead and I couldn't wait. Now all my friends and colleagues are just getting their queue number to borrow this set from me. Heck, even my parents want to watch it!

I highly recommend this series to anyone who have previously enjoyed prison breaks along the lines of the movie The Shawshank Redemption. This series will leave you at the edge of your seats and wanting more! Breaking out of prison has never been so innovative, exciting and entertaining altogether!

9 out of 10 stars

Battlestar Galactica Complete Season 2

I just received my Battlestar Galactica Complete Season 2 DVD in the mail a few days ago and have been on a marathon to watch the entire series in one sitting! However, I failed to complete the marathon in one sitting, so I had to settle for watching the entire series in a week.

I was aching and dying and couldn't wait for the USA Code 1 version, that was split in 2 parts, titled Season 2.0 and Season 2.5, to be released on 19 September 2006. They were pricing it differently, and in order to appease fans, they decided to break up the release of the DVDs into 2 sets, which at the same time, cost much more!

I got mine set from Australia which is Code 4 and it is the COMPLETE season, no 2.0 or 2.5, just the whole thing, plus it was so much cheaper too! In this season, the stories are so much more interesting. The psychological warfare is still there, but it's been distributed throughout the entire fleet, not to spoil too much for everyone. I must say that the Cylon's religion of there being only one God is most intriguing. There was a scene in which Number Six tells Dr Baltar that you have to believe in the Cylon God, because there is no after-life, there is only oblivion. And how Dr Baltar's staunch atheism gives way to a fanatical belief not only in the Cylon God, but in his own status as an instrument of God.

Bringing Helo and the Caprica-copy of Sharon back to Galactica and the impact on the entire fleet as her pregnancy comes to term. This was a really powerful story arc because you get to see how much a mother, not just the Cylon-Sharon, will go to protect her unborn child. At the same time, the introduction of a few more models of the Human-Cylons at the beginning, middle and end of the season. Also, there are factions within the Colonial fleet that are interested in peace with the Cylons instead of the ongoing chase and war. This is touched upon briefly in the finale 2-parter where they find a planet suitable to colonise as New Caprica, and later the arrival of the Cylons and how they broker an uneasy peace, but at a high price - the enslavement of humanity on New Caprica.

This DVD set also has the episode Pegasus at it's extended running time of 56 minutes instead of the telecast 42 minutes. I must say that the entire Season 2 has very human elements. The topics that are touched upon are family, religion, love, sacrifice and politics. These are the topics that most sci-fi series seem to shy away from, or that they only touch on a few of them and not the rest.

This is why Battlestar Galactica is the top rated sci-fi series at the moment. So, here's hoping that it will last as long as Stargate SG-1 which has the current track record of 10 seasons, after it just got cancelled.

Let's not jinx it!

Click here to watch Battlestar Galactica Season 3 Preview Trailer
(The music playing in the background of the trailer is Nickelback's Savin' Me)

9.5 out of 10 stars

Top 10 Ways To Destroy Earth - No.1

Hurled Into The Sun

You will need: Earthmoving equipment

Method: Hurl the Earth into the Sun. Sending Earth on a collision course with the Sun is not as easy as one might think; even though you don't actually have to literally hit the Sun (send the Earth near enough to the Sun (within the Roche limit), and tidal forces will tear it apart), it's surprisingly easy to end up with Earth in a loopy elliptical orbit which merely roasts it for four months in every eight. But careful planning can avoid this.

This is impossible at our current technological level, but will be possible one day, I'm certain. In the meantime, may happen by freak accident if something comes out of nowhere and randomly knocks Earth in precisely the right direction. Earth's final resting place: a small globule of vaporized iron sinking slowly into the heart of the Sun.

Earliest feasible completion date: Via act of God: 25 years' time. Any earlier and we'd have already spotted the asteroid in question. Via human intervention: given the current level of expansion of space technology, 2250 at best.

Source: "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers," by Grant Naylor

Feasibility rating: 9/10

Top 10 Ways To Destroy Earth - No.2

Eaten By von Neumann Machines

You will need: a single von Neumann machine

Method: A von Neumann machine is any device that is capable of creating an exact copy of itself given nothing but the necessary raw materials. Create one of these that subsists almost entirely on iron, magnesium, aluminum and silicon, the major elements found in Earth's mantle and core. It doesn't matter how big it is as long as it can reproduce itself exactly in any period of time. Release it into the ground under the Earth's crust and allow it to fend for itself. Watch and wait as it creates a second von Neumann machine, then they create two more, then they create four more. As the population of machines doubles repeatedly, the planet Earth will, terrifyingly soon, be entirely eaten up and turned into a swarm of potentially sextillions of machines. Technically your objective would now be complete - no more Earth - but if you want to be thorough then you can command your VNMs to hurl themselves, along with any remaining trace elements, into the Sun. This hurling would have to be achieved using rocket propulsion of some sort, so be sure to include this in your design.

So crazy it might just work.

Earth's final resting place: the bodies of the VNMs themselves, then a small lump of iron sinking into the Sun.

Earliest feasible completion date: Potentially 2045-2050, or even earlier.

Source: "2010: Odyssey Two," by Arthur C. Clarke

Feasibility rating: 8/10

Top 10 Ways To Destroy Earth - No.3

Pulverized By Impact With Blunt Instrument

You will need: a big heavy rock, something with a bit of a swing to it... perhaps Mars

Method: Essentially, anything can be destroyed if you hit it hard enough. ANYTHING. The concept is simple: find a really, really big asteroid or planet, accelerate it up to some dazzling speed, and smash it into Earth, preferably head-on but whatever you can manage. The result: an absolutely spectacular collision, resulting hopefully in Earth (and, most likely, our "cue ball" too) being pulverized out of existence - smashed into any number of large pieces which if the collision is hard enough should have enough energy to overcome their mutual gravity and drift away forever, never to coagulate back into a planet again.

A brief analysis of the size of the object required can be found here. Falling at the minimal impact velocity of 11 kilometers per second and assuming zero energy loss to heat and other energy forms, the cue ball would have to have roughly 60% of the mass of the Earth. Mars, the next planet out, "weighs" in at about 11% of Earth's mass, while Venus, the next planet in and also the nearest to Earth, has about 81%. Assuming that we would fire our cue ball into Earth at much greater than 11km/s (I'm thinking more like 50km/s), either of these would make great possibilities.

Obviously a smaller rock would do the job, you just need to fire it faster. A 10,000,000,000,000-tonne asteroid at 90% of light speed would do just as well. See the Guide to moving Earth for useful information on maneuvering big hunks of rock across interplanetary distances.

Pretty plausible.

Earth's final resting place: a variety of roughly Moon-sized chunks of rock, scattered haphazardly across the greater Solar System.

Earliest feasible completion date: AD 2500, maybe?

Source: This method suggested by Andy Kirkpatrick

Feasibility rating: 7/10

Top 10 Ways To Destroy Earth - No.4

Meticulously And Systematically Deconstructed

You will need: a powerful mass driver, or ideally lots of them; ready access to roughly 2*10^32J

Method: Basically, what we're going to do here is dig up the Earth, a big chunk at a time, and boost the whole lot of it into orbit. Yes. All six sextillion tons of it. A mass driver is a sort of oversized electromagnetic railgun, which was once proposed as a way of getting mined materials back from the Moon to Earth - basically, you just load it into the driver and fire it upwards in roughly the right direction. We'd use a particularly powerful model - big enough to hit escape velocity of 11 kilometers per second even after atmospheric considerations - and launch it all into the Sun or randomly into space.

Alternate methods for boosting the material into space include loading the extracted material into space shuttles or taking it up via space elevator. All these methods, however, require a - let me emphasize this - titanic quantity of energy to carry out. Building a Dyson sphere ain't gonna cut it here. (Note: Actually, it would. But if you have the technology to build a Dyson sphere, why are you reading this?) See No. 6 for a possible solution.

If we wanted to and were willing to devote resources to it, we could start this process RIGHT NOW. Indeed, what with all the gunk left in orbit, on the Moon and heading out into space, we already have done.

Earth's final resting place: Many tiny pieces, some dropped into the Sun, the remainder scattered across the rest of the Solar System.

Earliest feasible completion date: Ah. Yes. At a billion tons of mass driven out of the Earth's gravity well per second: 189,000,000 years.

Source: this method arose when Joe Baldwin and I knocked our heads together by accident.

Feasibility rating: 6/10

Top 10 Ways To Destroy Earth - No.5

Sucked Into A Giant Black Hole

You will need: a black hole, extremely powerful rocket engines, and, optionally, a large rocky planetary body. The nearest black hole to our planet is 1600 light years from Earth in the direction of Sagittarius, orbiting V4641.

Method: after locating your black hole, you need get it and the Earth together. This is likely to be the most time-consuming part of this plan. There are two methods, moving Earth or moving the black hole, though for best results you'd most likely move both at once.

Very difficult, but definitely possible.

Earth's final resting place: part of the mass of the black hole.

Earliest feasible completion date: I do not expect the necessary technology to be available until AD 3000, and add at least 800 years for travel time. (That's in an external observer's frame of reference and assuming you move both the Earth and the black hole at the same time.)

Sources: "The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy," by Douglas Adams; SPACE.com

Feasibility rating: 6/10