Hello Computer...

SO I'm going to assume that since you've made it to this blog you've all heard of the Great Wall of China, yeah?
Working from there, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that around 98% of you know about the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
We're then going to take a great leap forward and make mention of the Great Firewall of China as well - you know, the one that doesn't let you look at anything the Chinese Government doesn't want you to. For all the advancements the People's Republic of China has made economically in the last 20 years, their modern-day version of an ancient wonder is a reminder that people there don't enjoy the same freedoms most in the Western world do.
Here in Australia, it seems as though the Federal Government has also decided to remake an old classic, with the announcement yesterday that their controversial Internet censorship plan will go ahead after recent trials.
Now this plan in theory isn't a bad idea; certainly the premise behind it - to keep people from accessing materials they shouldn't, including child pornography - is worthy. Anyone found downloading these kinds of things should be taken out in the street, paraded in the stocks, put on the racks, hung, drawn, quartered... and whatever else the CIA uses down in their Cuban outpost before watching their heart being torn out from their chest.
The problem with this kind of technology is that hackers and degenerates have a habit of being a step or 36 ahead of even the most advanced government. While this doesn't mean that governments should give up trying to stop this despicable trade, their focus would be better spent on advanced detection techniques.
The other concern with this Australian proposal is the potential for perfectly legal websites to to blacklisted. Earlier this year reports came out that the potential "blacklist" contained Wikipedia entries, Christian websites and a Queensland dentist. How long before other websites are caught up in this "safety net"?
It's been suggested that the project will allow children to surf the net without coming across any of those naughty pictures that probably make up around 66.6% of Internet content, although there is a much easier way of stopping this. It's wild, crazy, and could take a while to fully kick in, but here goes...
HAVE PARENTS SUPERVISE THEIR CHILDREN ON THE WEB!!!!!!
Now I know this may go against the whole "it's someone else's fault and they should do something about it" variation of modern parenting that apparently has taken over, but surely to goodness if parents are watching what their kids are looking at, there wouldn't be a need for the Government to do what Frankie Goes To Hollywood do here and ruin one of the great originals with an un-needed and unwanted remake.

TOM!!!

WATCHING VH1's Top 50 film soundtracks (I'm not proud, I'm unemployed) today brought home a very interesting point.
It wasn't how Mental As Anything's Rock and Roll Music managed to make it into the countdown and yet Dave Dobbyn's Slice of Heaven (the alternative New Zealand national anthem) at the time of writing hasn't, but rather how many songs were from Tom Cruise films.
Seriously, think about it. The Beach Boys Kokomo from the movie Cocktail; Kenny Loggins' Danger Zone and Berlin's Take My Breath Away from Top Gun; and even Bruce Springsteen's Secret Garden from Jerry Maguire.
Could explain the success of Cruise's earlier films: they weren't just there to watch the little man act, but to be the first to hear the summer's hottest hits. Think Video Hits with something resembling a plot.
It all becomes clear...

PS Up to number 8 with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in the Grease Megamix (if I hve to tell you the movie you shouldn't be allowed on the internet without parental supervision), and realised no Blues Brothers either. Who makes these charts?!?

PPS Number 7 Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On. Why would you do that? Why?!?

PPPS Number 6 is beloved of females everywhere, Time Of My Life from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. I'll let that go through to the keeper.

PPPPS Number 5 is alive - Eminem's Lose Yourself from the 8-Mile soundtrack. Egads! A recent track that isn't a f&%king ballad!

PPPPPS Wet Wet Wet with their shyte shyte shyte song from Four Weddings and a Funeral: Love Is All Around. The dishes need doing, yet I can't turn away...

PPPPPPS The later version of Lady Marmalade from the Moulin Rouge movie. Yeah, ok.

PPPPPPPS Number 2 is a pile of the same, with Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, that sappy piece of rubbish from The Bodyguard that sat interminably at the top of ABC's Rage for goodness knows how many weeks when just about anything else would have done.

PPPPPPPPS The moment precisely no one's been waiting for: the number 1 film soundtrack song as voted by VH1. Right. Well. I'd tell you, but I've been working so hard, I'm punching my card and doing the dishes. Footloose. WHERE WERE THE BLUES BROTHERS?!?