(EDITOR'S NOTE: Please welcome our first Belfast correspondant for Freedom Haters, Mr. Ruaidhrí Ward. You can check out more of his writings at his blog page, or keep watching Freedom Haters for more from Mr. Ward.)

(EDITOR'S NOTE, PART 2: No, that's not Mr. Ward on the left.)

There was a time when Government Information ads were cuddly, friendly little animals, looking out for us by sending second rate English Glam Rock stars to belittle us before instructing us to look both ways before we crossed the street.

 Anyone remember this one from the one and only Alvin Stardust? 

Oh jesus....we'll never hear the end of this.

The Australian Broadcasting Company reported this weekend that a "priceless" piece of moon rock given by the US to the Dutch government was a fake.

It wasn't a moon rock, just a piece of petrified wood.

Apparently this isn't the only fake floating around, as NASA admitted they'd also given fake moon rocks to a number of other different countries.

Conspiracy nuts must be crapping in their pants.

Come on, NASA, you guys aren't making this any easier...

Hello again. Another old hard-to-find movie (at least this one is available on DVD) from a classic TV director. This time, it’s Ted Post, who, like Richard L. Bare (“Wicked, Wicked”) and Buzz Kulik (“Bad Ronald”) worked on Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” in the 1960’s, as well as episodes of “Gunsmoke”, “Rawhide” and “Combat!”. He was also the director of the mutant-laden second “Planet of the Apes” film, “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”.

“The Baby”, made in 1973, which I hadn’t seen until recently, therefore, held a lot of potential. I knew very little about the film except that its marketing promoted it as a horror film (“Pray you don’t learn the secret of ... The Baby”). Plus, the poster has a beautiful blonde woman wearing a teddy, while holding onto a teddy. How freaky is that?

Well, “The Baby” isn’t quite what I was expecting. I guess I pictured something like "It's Alive" (creepy, monster baby that eats people) or some twisted man-child living in a basement, as is hinted at in Edgar Wright's fake "Grindhouse" trailer for "Don't".

Here's what I got instead ...

Hey kids!

Have you ever wanted to answer that burning question - "Who in the world has been eating nachos over the past few hours?"

Well now you can!!!

Introducing our handy-dandy "Who's eating nachos map". It's our first Freedom Haters mashup!! We're Web2.0!

Using Twitter and Yahoo Pipes, you can see who's life was so empty that they had to let the rest of the world know they were eating nachos.

This is the 2.0 version. It didn't like to embed when posting a Google Map, so we went ahead and just put up the yahoo "badge" there. 

Hopefully this will be able to meet all of your real time nacho tracking needs.

I finally got a chance to see The Running Man.

It's only been about TWENTY TWO years since it was released.

But that's not going to stop us here at Freedom Haters from reviewing the movie.

We're like Ain't It Cool News...IF IT WAS AROUND IN 1987!

The year is 2017. The biggest game show in America centers around killing people. Convicted criminals are set loose in a ruined urban landscape (from the earthquakes of 1997) and chased by a group of hunters called Stalkers.

If the criminals (called - natch - Running Men) elude the Stalkers, they get to live out their lives in tropical splendor.

Now, seriously, I've never, EVER seen this movie. I remember when it came out. I like Ah-nohld. I like Steven King. But, for some reason, I never saw the movie.

So this is my take on seeing this movie that was first released in 1987 in 2009.

• Arnold is a great Terminator. He might be an ok governor. But he is a HORRIBLE actor. The non-action scenes alone prove this.
• Reality TV in 2009 is way scarier than anything they dreamed up in this movie. One of the other popular shows of the future is called "Climbing For Money". In this show, a contestant climbs up a rope to grab money and get away from Dobermans. This doesn't even come close to The Cougar.
• Apparently the TV newscasters in 2017 look exactly the same as chicks from the Duran Duran Rio album.
• WTF happened to Maria Conchita Alonzo? That's got to be strange to be the costar of a movie and then nobody know who the f**k you are a few years later.
• Richard Dawson does a pretty good American accent.
• Did I mention that Ahnold is a bad actor? Let me just reiterate that point.
• Even in 1987, Ahnold's catch phrase "I'll be back" was already being used by the Governator for self parody.
• They actually did use the phrase "digital video", during a scene when Maria was looking through some film archives. She found some incriminating evidence on a video stick. But then, just a few scenes later, Richard Dawson is awarding someone in the audience a complete set of "Running Man" VHS tapes.
• The coolest scene - and the one I remember from the trailer - is where Ahnold is being shot into the game set through some kind of high tech pneumatic tube. Couple of problems with this:
  1) No one in the home audience in the future gets to watch this scene
  2) For some reason, the tubes are lit up in cool colors. Seems a bit unnecessary considering that the Running Man contestants don't really need to see where they're being pneumatically shot to.
  Actually - the whole thing was stupid because it would have been way less trouble for them just to drive them to where the game was being played.

UPDATE: Ok. So I was just going back and putting in some links. I actually didn't even finish watching the movie, because, frankly it was pretty boring. I only found out these bits of trivia because I glanced at the IMDB entry.

• It was directed by Starsky from Starsky and Hutch!!!
• This movie and Predator are the only two movies to feature TWO governors of American states!

Enough of my yakkin! Here's some video!!!

Thus far, I have been losing my one-man war against the absurd. Well, as of today, that's in the past!

Apart from holding on to the "Reverend" title for social purposes, I have completely detached myself from the Society Of Kneeophytes, and I've let go of foolish conspiracy theories.

In celebration, and as a sort of penance, I have decided to devote myself to the debunking of ridiculous notions.

Following are a few stupid myths and superstitions that can forevermore be dismissed as nonsense.

You're welcome.

Anyone who says they can't make good nachos in the UK doesn't know what they're talking about.

At left you can see our nachos from last week.

Guacamole (Homemade because the guac here sucks for the most part)  - check

Green Onions (over here "Spring Onions") - check

Salsa (Old El Paso!) - check

Corn chips (Sainsbury's brand) - check

Cheese (in this case Irish mature cheddar. It works suprisingly well) - check

Lettuce - you bet your ass!!!

So there they are.

It can be done.

NOW WHY CAN'T RESTAURANTS HERE GET IT RIGHT?!!!!

We are available for consultaton....

Freedom Haters infiltrated KRON 4 TV this week in order to promote the new web series, The Infiltrator, on Strike TV. 

Yes, there's nothing in the world like sharing quips on the KRON TV couch for TV viewers on an early Sunday morning.

Here's how it went down in all its TV glory:

 

 

 

 

If there's one thing I've seen a lot of since relocating from Texas to Ireland, it's rain.

Right now in Belfast, for example, it's 68 degrees and I can see my breath outside.

Yesterday in Austin it was 101 degrees.Apparently it's been like that for two months now.

So, while I feel for my Texans back home, I decided to give them the gift of rain.

In lamp form.

The rain lamp was popular in the late 60s and early 70s. Apparently for a while, they even had one at Disneyland.

It uses a pump to send mineral oil down a number of fishing line strands. In the middle of the lamp is usually some kind of statue.

Here's an article about the inventor of the rain lamp.

And for you folks out there in Austin - a very special video.

Enjoy. Keep your chin up. October is only 2 more months away.