Jerry O Connell rips the piss out of Tom Cruise

Here's the vid...

(h/t dlisted)



And just in case you missed the original...

RIP Heath Ledger

Loved him in Brokeback and 10 things. A great actor. Allegedly died of a drug overdose. It's a familiar story. RIP Heath.

A Cambodian at Cannes

Congratulations to Rithy Panh on winning the 2007 France-Culture prize for Cinema to honour his body of work at the Cannes film festival yesterday.

He's a Cambodian filmmaker whose family died in the Khmer Rouge work camps. His films focus on the aftermath of the genocide in Cambodia. They include Rice People, S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, and the Burnt Theatre.

Don't panic!

Celebrate Towel Day!

It's the day dedicated to the genius of Mr Douglas Adams. Carry a towel around with you today in whatever manner you fancy -

you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

Celebrate the author who gave the world such memorable quotes as

"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space

We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere ... and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

To summarise the summary: anyone capable of getting themselves made President should by no means be allowed to do the job.

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes.

Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't.

[Trillian] is one of the least benightedly unintelligent life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.

I'll stop there but the whole thing is eminently quotable from the radio series to the TV series, the book and the movie. Do yourself a favour and jump aboard the Heart of Gold.

Solar power is the answer?

Here it is - the solution to global warming and oil prices. It is solar power. It is clean, cheap in long term and provide resources in the developing world where already they are suffering the effects of global warming.

Could it work? Admittedly the big oil businesses would have no more work and billionaires need their toys. It would involve much international cooperation when the current mentality seems to be "a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face" (Blackadder).

Here's hoping that we won't be living in Waterworld when my nephews are all grown up. That is not a pleasant prospect.

Travel

Well I've finally arrived in Ireland after quite the journey. I left the Penh on Tuesday at 8am local time and 33 hours later I arrived in Cork. I arrived in Bangkok without issue and wandered around the terminal admiring the "design" and wondering at the thought that went into it.

The flight to London was delayed - mechanical failure - but I would still have enough time to catch the connection. I confess to boredom while waiting the extra two hours to board. Bloody twelve hour flight and they showed appalling movies, of which the latter beggars belief. So I'm bored and restless and there is still six hours left in the flight and I await the next glorious piece of entertainment which was this. Of course the subject was interesting and informative but it was so overacted and full of sentimentality that I got bored early on.

We land at 10pm - three and a half hours late - and I miss my flight. I don't know where my luggage is and I'm tired what with the activities of the night before. Thank you Thai Air - posh hotel room and two meals and a booking on the next flight out. That turned out to be 9.50 next morning. So I was in heaven staying at a hotel I couldn't afford and thinking that few airlines would do that for passengers nowadays with the low cost revolution.

Amazingly my luggage survived Heathrow and I am once more at home in a cold country.

Everything is damn expensive.

Yesterday

Lunch at Freebird to which B showed up having narrowly avoided crashing with helmet-less C on the back of his bike. He got a blowout at 60 kph. Luckily he knew enough not to grab the brakes which is probably what I would have done. Now I know - don't brake with a blowout.

I went to "New World Beauty" recced by J. It was fantastic - I got my hair fixed. It is now a delicate / flaming auburn which I love, rather than a crappy shade of mousy brown.

Movies and beer with B as usual.

On a more serious note - I am being invaded by ants. Everywhere I turned the feckers are there. I spray and spray and spray but to no avail. They turn up repeatedly for the past four days in the sink of the upstairs bathroom. That is weird - are they after my toothpaste or perhaps a spot of mouthwash? I do not understand for what they search up there. Their lust for the kitchen can be easily explained but the bathroom... Colour me perplexed.

D's last trivia

Oh D and I went to trivia and didn't win which was a pity as D is leaving Cambodia for good on Sunday - quite annoyed about that actually - her departure rather than the quiz. Was knackered but she decided that she was coming back to mine to drink some more and bitch about boys. Of course disastrous text messages followed (and you can never take them back) and I knew I was going to wake up morto but the mood we were in, there was only one thing for it - Dirty Dancing, staple of dumped girls everywhere. We oohed and ahhed at the gorgeousness that was Patrick S and the naiveté of the Jennifer G.

Sunday

Well after a delicious breakfast in "The Shop", it was definately time to sleep. D and I planned to get four hours and then head to the "pav" for a bit of sun, pool and sleep. I woke up at the appointed time but D needed more so I just headed out to forage for food and bevvies.

Saw M + L and M at "Flavours" which is not entirely surprising because the only way M could live there more is sleeping on the floor. Ate, drank and was merry until the night before started catching up. Zzzzzzz

Once home I fancied some light entertainment so I popped in Pirates of the Carribbean 2 and was I ever disappointed - tired gags, lack of originality, fundamental misunderstanding of the character of captain Jack Sparrow etc.

Memo to film moguls - "Special effects do not a good movie make". Learn it, live it!

After that monumental disappointment I headed to bed, mourning the character of Jack Sparrow - formerly the best pirate ever.

Wednesday morning

I have changed offices because of the new Programme Officer which is fine - glad he's here. It's lovely to have another Irish person with whom I can talk. However now I'm in an office which is used for a conference room. That is fine but you have to go through mine to get to the other Programme Officers office and nobody closes the door. If you walk into someone's office and the door is closed do you not close the door after yourself. I spent most of my time closing doors and it can get irritating. Oh well such is liff (geddit?)

Watched American Dreamz which is bloody hilarious although it gets the usual Liberal/Conservative bashing on IMDB. I think a friend of mine was offered the role of Omer back in 2003 but refused it because he did not want to be typecast as a terrorist. It sounds exactly like the role he was on about in New York.

Apart from that, here it rains and I have stopped using air con at night - it's given me a cold. Might go for a massage at lunchtime as the new chair in the office is backbreaking.

Laterz