This move has been forced on me by the continuous abuse of the forums by spammers, who post link laden comments in an attempt to leech off this site’s good search engine rankings. A few weeks ago I was forced to change the settings so that I now have to approve all new member registrations, in an effort to restrict the number of junk accounts being created. However, I left the Comments and Feedback and the Bug Reports forums open to guest comments, as I didn’t want to make it difficult for anyone to make casual feedback.

Unfortunately, the number of spam comments has continued to far outweigh the legitimate entries, so I have decided to remove the open forums completely. Even though the forums are not very active, I really hate having to make changes because of the actions of spammers and so called Search Engine Optimisers. These people are bottom feeding scumbags, who pollute the web with rubbish while leeching off the hard work of other people; much easier for them to try and take advantage of another site’s search engine rankings than to put the work in creating a site that will be indexed well itself.

…we’re going to go about our lives. We’re going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we’re going to work. And we’re going down the pub.

So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the f*** out of our city.

Thanks to Russ for the link.

This morning news reports put the official death toll from the Indian Ocean Tsunami at a staggering 125,000 souls. The pictures of the tidal wave, and the devastation left behind are horrifying and heartbreaking. Businesses and individuals around the world are donating huge sums of money to help the disaster relief agencies cope with a seemingly impossible task. GMTV reported that the UK public has donated £35 million so far.

If you want to make a donation, you can do so quickly and easily on the Disasters Emergency Committee web site.

The last figure I heard for the death toll was 60,000. I simply can’t get my head around an event like that. There are devestating natural disasters, disease and famine wiping out people all around the world, yet human beings still feel the need to kill each other in huge numbers because of religion, prejudice and greed.

When will we grow up?

We have had a fairly quiet time this year, with Elaine and I choosing to stay at home for our first Christmas as a married couple. It wasn’t quite the romantic affair we had hope for though, as our kitten Stitch thought it would be fun to try and drag the entire contents of the table onto the floor. We stopped him just before a full glass of champagne went over the edge. He then went upstairs to reek havoc, so we had to bolt our dinners so we could keep an eye on him. As soon as we poked the last bit of food down our necks, he immediately settled down on the sofa for a nap, his job as Bringer of Mayhem successfully completed for the day.

On Christmas Day, my Mum and her husband John came round at about 10.30pm for a video chat with our family in Canada. It was great to see my Aunt Jackie and Uncle Derek. I can’t remember the last time I saw my auntie, and I haven’t seen my uncle since he came to the UK 16 years ago, so it was a real treat. Hopefully, now we have the link working, we can keep in touch more regularly, though the time difference makes it a bit awkward to get everyone together at the same time.

So, to the dipsticks whose response to the threat of Global Warming is “It will be nice to have it a bit hotter”, welcome to the future!

At the moment, we have Lou about to buy the farm in the Bush after losing his wife and all his money, Karl and Susuan Kennedy have split, seemingly for good this time, Evil Gus is causing problems for Max and Steph, Sky is distraught after confronting the man who killed her mother when she was a child, and Toadie seems about to come a cropper at the hands of cod Mafia boss Rocco now that he has faced up to his feelings for Sindi.

When will it all end? This is not why I watch Neighbours! I want, sun, sea, eternal optimism and impossibly perfect Australian girlies. Bring back the pool parties with Nina and Lori! Get Steph back in her leather bike gear! Get Sindi and Izzie down to the beach for a bit of bikini clad surfing! Restore my faith in the Australian Dream!

I know at that time of its cinema release, some reviewers criticised casting Tom Cruise as Nathan Algren but I thought he, and the film as a whole, was superb. The attention to detail in the customs, costumes and locations was excellent (to my non-historians eye at least). The story is, of course, blatant in its disregard for historical fact, but to criticise it for that is to miss the point entirely.

What The Last Samurai sets out to do is to capture the mood and spirit of the age; to explore and explain the philosophy of the Samurai for a modern Western audience (no easy task). It tries to show the conflict between the historical brutality of ancient Japan, and the necessity of embracing modern technology and foreign influence that has made Japan such an economic force in the modern world, and it does this faultlessly. The bruising bokken training sequences and savage sword fights demonstrate the unequalled skill, grace and ferocity of the Samurai, but ultimately are as brutal and tragic as the horrifying scenes of carnage at the hands of the American trained soldiers armed with Gatling guns.

Tom Cruise pays the role with great physical skill and energy, and manages to hold his own against the superb Ken Watanabe as Lord Katsumoto. I am not ashamed to admit that the tragic but inevitable outcome to the final battle had my lip trembling more than a little.

It is great to see Timothy Spall in such illustrious company too. Sadly, the usually brilliant Billy Connelly’s Irish accent was crap. Sorry Billy.

I can’t download songs from iTMS yet, as it is only available in the US, but as far as I can tell the “usage restrictions” imposed by Apple seem extremely liberal, and surely only the most anti-establishment information terrorist can have any objection?

The newly modified DRM allows unlimited burning to CD/DVD of any tracks you download (provided you modify the playlist), and you can have the track on 5 authorised computers at the same time. Hardly seems Draconian to me, and if the record labels will only sanction digital downloads with DRM, I would rather it be Apple’s.

iTunes is a fantastic application that is always on if I’m in the office, and I can’t wait for iTMS to make its way to Europe.