How to Build a Computer

I got all this stuff just to play with the boxes.

Oh hai there!

"Hai" - You

It was my birthday this week; my 21st to be exact. What with it being a big deal and all I was asked what sort of big deal present I wanted. My totally reasonable and attainable answer: I asked for HAL-9000. I mean, that's not that bad. I did cut it down from demanding Deep Thought and golden goose eggs.

"We're afraid we can't let you have that." - My Parents

By HAL-9000, I meant I wanted a super awesome PC to play reeeeally pretty screensavers on when it's not running Netflix. Also I wanted it to look like HAL. Now, I have absolutely no experience or knowledge in computer building other than the fact that it definitely requires at least two RAM, so the job was handed to my kind, benevolent brother to handle. Now, ah yes, it says here that, as a sibling, I am contractually obliged to state that he is indeed a smelly poo face who looks like a really sad badger; but he is actually quite good at computers, so he gains one point for that.

Brother: 1, Malodorous Melancholy Caniform-Likeness: 592

This brings us to the first, very important rule of building your own computer:

Rule Number 1 - Get Someone Else to Do It

You'd think that building a PC would have reached jigsaw levels of simplicity by now, with everything fitting nicely together and working in perfect harmony like all the animals in a Disney forest. No. To put it simpler: N. Every plug is different, every make and model works with some and doesn't work with other different makes and models, it's all very complicated and I swear the companies that make this stuff enjoy watching poor sods like me suffer by numbering all of their products in completely illogical ways. Say last year, Big Computers Inc. releases a new graphocapacimory card or whatever; they call it the XT449-alpha. That's confusing enough, why not just name it Bill? But then what they do is, the next year, they'll call the new model of exactly the same thingamabob the WIKY610-Agamemnon. There's no continuity! WHY? Why do you hate me, MSI? I suggest that from now on, we name all computer components the same way we name hurricanes; A-Z names. With that said, here's all the crap that went into my compyooter:

MSI Z97 Gaming Motherboard
Intel i5 4690K Quad Core Processor

16Gb RAM (2x 8Gb)
MSI GeForce GTX960 Graphics Card
2Tb Hard Drive
Other sundry bits like fans and tiny little hamster wheels.

So, with a great deal of help from my kin, the components had been chosen. Now was the simple task of putting it all tog- oh, who am I kidding; this bit is equally as over my head. All the computer crap was in Edinburgh and I in Dundee, so he sent me regular photo updates of the build as it happened.

Rule Number 2 - Watch From Afar

I have to say, it all looks very flashy. Here's the metal skin of my soon to be robotic slave:

It's got a window in it so you can watch it learn how to feel.

First thing's first is putting in the power supply:

The green arrows are to remind me where the hell everything is in two months time.

Then the motherbrain, with the processor plugged into it:

The best thing about the motherboard is that it came with a "Do Not Disturb" sign.

I KNOW WHAT THAT IS.

What was next...? Oh yeah, RAM.

Sexy, sexy RAM.

Then, as far as I can tell, my brother just sort of balanced the graphics card on top of everything else.

Just behind it are a bunch of tiny spinning plates.

Lastly was the hard drive (and the cooling I believe, but I wasn't sent any photos of that), which isn't the most interesting picture ever so I'll skip it. Oo, and because I refuse to leave the past I demanded at least one means of reading physical media; a floppy drive was vetoed so I got this new fangled Dee Veedee thing?

Witchcraft if you ask me.

And that's everything all crammed in! Hurrah! My total contribution to the process: 0.

Rule Number 3 - Make it Look Cool

Now for the awesome bit: turning this-

"O hai."

-into an awesome, evil, red-eyed AI. Step one: spray paint the edges of the case's front panel silver.

Incidentally, the graph of "Use of MS Paint" over time for this post is an exponential curve.

Bless him, me bro even went so far as to spray the hard drive racks red like the memory room in 2001; sadly there is no photographic evidence of them in situ as of yet. Next, very delicately and with great precision, bash a hole out the middle of the case.

It appears he used a hacksaw blade wrapped in masking tape. Safety first kids!

All you've got to do now is shove a big red button in the middle and print out a HAL-9000 sticker. Sadly, the plan to make the button turn the PC on when you press it had to be scrapped due to too much awesome computer shit taking up room inside the case, but it still lights up!

"I'm feeling much cooler now."

And that's my new computer thingy. I'm super happy with it, and want to thank my brother for slaving away at it for the past three weeks and to everybody who put money towards for my birthday; I am a very happy nerd right now.

The Martian: A Review

So, there's a new Ridley Scott movie coming out starring Matt Damon. In fact, it comes out today. What a crazy random happenstance! Sadly it's not being shown anywhere near me so I can't do a release day review like I was hoping to...buuuuuuuuuuuuut I did, in my excitement about the movie, buy the original book by Andy Weir and devour it in 48 hours. For that reason and absolutely nothing to do with getting Google pings for The Martian, the new Ridley Scott movie with Matt Damon in it, I thought I'd let you know how the book is before you go off to see the movie adaptation with Matt Damon what was directed by Ridley Scott.

I hear there's this film based on this book...

OK, enough tomfoolery; to the review! I actually first heard about The Martian, book or otherwise, from our good old friend Randall Munroe, who writes xkcd:

This is the second most informative site I read.

Naturally I looked up the trailer and lo, it was awesome. Then I promptly forgot about the whole thing until the beginning of the month when I finally decided to buy the book before the film came out, cause I'm that asshole who likes going to a movie and whispering to my neighbour "actually, in the book, they did this..." in every scene. I go to the cinema on my own a lot now, no idea why...

The story is very simple: Mark Watney, a botanist and engineer on the third manned mission to Mars, ends up stranded on the planet and presumed dead after an evacuation during a sandstorm goes wrong. That's...it really. The book follows his, wait for it, desperate battle for survival (aw yeah, I'm a super original journalist) against the harsh Martian environment armed only with spare parts and lots of duct tape. Think of either the bit in Apollo 13 that the comic mentioned or that part in Castaway when he opens all the FedEx parcels to make tools, then spread it over 300 pages. It's awesome. Really, in retrospect, Watney's part was made for Tom Hanks, not Matt Damon, but y'know.

There's even loads of occasions for him to pee on screen again. 

Now, the premise of a scientist tinkering with pipes and machinery for a whole book either sounds like the best thing ever or your worst nightmare; but have no fear, Little Miss I-Hate-Cool-Things, cause Andy Weir has your back. In the hands of many writers, describing constant problem solving, no matter how life-or-death-high the stakes may be, would eventually stagnate into a tedious "he did this, then that happened" rhythm. Weir manages to counteract this, firstly, with a splendidly witty yet realistic character: Mark Watney is quite simply the most charming young man ever to get stranded in space. He can be rattling off back-of-the-napkin calculations about how soon his food is going to run out while simultaneously pondering the mammal-wrangling capabilities of Aquaman and how silly Dukes of Hazzard is. Weir has managed to create a character with all the background and knowledge he'd need to survive his ordeal while making sure he's as relatable as possible to the audience.

The long and short of it is he's wonderful; and I have a feeling a lot of that comes from Weir himself, who is the nerdiest human alive (a computer programmer born to a particle physicist and an electrical engineer, with a love of role-playing games) and simply adorable. Lookit him!

He looks like Stephen King got fused with a 19th century chimney sweep.

Watney makes all the big science jumbo digestible for us plebs, but even so a whole book of one guy tinkering might tire after a while. Weir has countered this by chopping up the big long sections of sciencing with what's going on back home on Earth. And what's going on is everyone is losing their collective shits, that's what. Imagine that reaction when someone realises they've left their pram at the supermarket, but exponentially larger.

"MY BABY!!!"

You might recognise this extract from the movie's trailer:

"If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do."

Every story has a moral to it, and The Martian's is certainly that when it really comes down to it, people can put aside their differences to help someone who is really in need. Yes, it's a bit hokey and sentimental, but... Yeah, it's just plain hokey. Even so, it's nice to see someone having a bit of optimism in their writing, and the parts of the book showing Earth knuckling down together to get Mark home are some of the most satisfying parts of the novel. We're all too bloody cynical and it's about time we enjoyed a bit of gultless pie-in-the-sky idealism; I take back the hokey thing. I'm sorry, Andy.

"S'alright, guv."

What about the meat of the book though? The science in a hard sci-fi novel has to be good; and golly, it is splendid in The Martian. I mentioned a minute ago that Watney acts as a bit of a filter for the audience to help understand everything that's going on, but that's really just a round-a-bout way of saying that Andy Weir should get a job as a lecturer. He's a wizard when it comes to explaining the complexities of biology, engineering, space flight, programming, and god knows what else. You'll finish the novel feeling like you could apply for a job at NASA (note: maybe don't) with the way he manages to gradually lay more and more complex information on you like a delicious knowledge sandwich.

"Mmm, science."

Right, I think I should stop there. This book is fun, interesting, and even surprisingly touching at points. The science is understandable but meaty, and Andy Weir is wonderful. That is all.

The Magical Music of Steven Universe

Now, before I begin waxing lyrical about yet another cartoon that I've fallen in love with, I'd like you to listen to this:

Isn't that just pure joy to your ear holes? The very first note seems to manage to encapsulate a perfect mixture of care-free fun and epicness and the whole thing is 22 seconds of the aural equivalent of diabetic shock. This is Steven Universe at its very core; a great big ball of sweetness with a surprisingly awesome chewy interior. I mean, just look at it; the pinky muted pastel colouring is deliciously gorgeous and the art itself is so fulfillingly crisp and well framed. Hell, I bet I could pick a bunch of random shots from episodes and they'd all look splendid. Oh look, I just did:

I am actively chewing the screen looking at these. If you aren't too, you're soooo weird.

Ahem. So yes, Steven Universe is beautiful; we on the same page? But a show merely being pretty isn't enough; there must be a reason I've gathered you here today to talk about this particular curiosity. And you would be right, sceptical character from an Agatha Christie murder mystery; almost...too right... I'm on to you...

I guess the first thing I should talk about is the show itself which, on the surface, doesn't do much more than many of its Cartoon Network counterparts. The 11 minute episodes follow a monster/mini-plot of the week structure very similar to Adventure Time, with a season-wide (of which there are only one and a half so far) overarching plot that burns slower than an epic put-down in Morse Code. It's also got a healthy share of weird that seems to be a mainstay in most shows of this ilk. There are three things, however, that put Steven a cut above its collective peers. First is, very simply, its unfathomable adorableness.

"Fear the extent of my squee!"

I haven't experienced such concentrated joy and child-like lust for life in a character like Steven since I started re-watching Barakamon just to get a cute fix. But it's not only him; either through wonderfully imaginative animation or moments of dazzling emotional clarity, almost every character in the show's gradually expanding cast provides a moment that'll plaster a grin on your face that could rival the disturbing permanence of Joker gas. Plus, the very premise of a show about a little boy with a pink pet lion going on adventures with a bunch of magical gems is the very definition of saccharine (note: I do not have a dictionary to check this, but I'm, like, 60% sure I'm right).

Oh yeah, Steven has a pet lion. Called Lion.

He's the pink one.

Number two: the writing is brilliant; I brushed on it in the last paragraph as a matter of fact (see: the last paragraph). Taking a cue from anime like Sailor Moon and such (I sooooo don't watch that show from time to time...), the tone of Steven can go from syrupy goodness to heart-rending emotion in a second. And, much like Adventure Time started exploring themes of abandonment, broken relationships and loss in later seasons, Steven shares its time among equally as unexpected a series of heavy topics.

At it's heart, the show is about family, and even more particularly about a family dealing with the loss of someone close to them. Steven has grown up without his mother Rose, a Gem, and with a father who, despite loving him dearly, doesn't have the capacity to care for him; and so his custody is thrust upon the Crystal Gems, who are still reeling equally as much from the loss of their leader, who ceased to exist to bring Steven into the world. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Beach City deal with issues from over-bearing parents and fathers who work away all the time to having to work the family business or just learning what it means to grow up. What's brilliant is that we see all of these tensions and family dynamics through the eyes of a little boy, who we get to watch grow up as the show goes on. Surprisingly quickly too; at the beginning of season one he's an annoying kid getting in the way and by the end he's holding his own as a crystal gem and even helping those around him do better for themselves.

Every good kid's show makes grown adults cry from time to time.

A lot gets said about this already, but I'll add my voice to the fray: how awesome is it that the cast is pretty much entirely women? There's what, like 3 principal male characters in the whole thing? And that's counting Lion. And guess what, people who expect the world to end if an all-female show ends up being great; it doesn't even seem to try. It took me watching the show a second time round to even notice that all these amazing, splendidly fleshed out characters (Peridot excluded; cause fucken hell, she needs work) were girls. Trust it to be created by the woman responsible for making PB and Marceline's (implied) romance canon in Adventure Time.

Ah yes, number 3. The music. This is especially relevant as one of the best songs yet aired in this week's episode. Skip to about 1:15:

Actually, you know what, I'm just goanna finish this post off with the best music from the show. I'll try my best to limit myself to three...if I can. Before we leave you, listeners, I just have one thing left to say...

The gist of the whole post.

OK, give it up for Steven Universe, everybody!! *woooooo*

Maybe one more...

5 Handy Life Lessons You Learn Working at a Bar

A standard night at the joint.

If you aren't already aware, I work in a bar. You know, what sells drinks and stuff. Rhona works in a bar too. Lots of other people work in bars, and some of them run lifestyle blogs with pastel-coloured backgrounds covered in cupcakes where they write grammatically-inept, obnoxious list articles about what amazing, fulfilling life lessons you learn working in a bar. Others post lists on BuzzFeed, featuring no words, only mildly related gifs with a title above each.

I, however, am so different, self-entitled and far more unique compared to you common folk in every which way that I am going to do neither. We shall blaze our own path of glory through the hell of list articles and burst forth into the sea of completely identical and just as easily accessible list-shaped content, to be lost in the swell forever. I'm going to tell you about the skills and knowledge that come from working behind that most sacred of wooden platforms that can be transferred to your everyday life.

Prepare yourselves, for these are the lessons taught only by the tap, the harsh truths of the back-bar that might well be just what you need to MacGyver your way out of a sticky situation in the future:

1. Soda Water is Your Best Friend

You've been to a bar before, I assume. If not, you've at least offered your patronage to some sort of fast food place, be it a Subway or MacDonald's. Either way, you'll have likely tasted the wonders of post-mix soft drinks; that uniquely awful mix of weird syrup and crap soda water that's apparently the same as drinking an ice cold bottle of Pepsi.

This loathsome contraption right here. 

You might be surprised to hear that this little doohickey actually does more than just serve refreshing cavity water; in fact, it is the first and most useful tool in the barman's arsenal of gadgets against that most insidious of enemies: stickiness. The plain soda water (usually found under an ominously large button labelled "CARB") from these guns is used for everything, from keeping fruit fresh once it's been cut to cleaning out the measures so you don't get hint of Chambord and Aperol in your vodka coke. It's most important job, however, is actually to clean out the glass cleaners.

"Who cleans the cleaners...?"

Round the back of every bar in the world, there will be a row of massive glass washing machines which work by firing lots of hot water at the establishment's shitty glassware until it looks less filthy than when you first put it in. These machines get gungy faster than a bukakke porn star, filling up with loose straws, bits of dirt, cigarette butts and god knows what else; eventually the filters in the bottom of them end up resembling that slime monster from Spirited Away. What we do is pull those filters out and chuck 'em in a bucket of soda water to soak for a few hours and all that grime slowly bubbles off, forming a lovely film (buy Oilatum today!) on the surface of the water. Fish them back out, give the more stubborn patches a quick scrub with an old toothbrush, and sling the lot back in the glass wash; job's a good 'un. All in all, there are two lessons to be learned here:

1 - Soda water will clean anything.
2 - Everyone is disgusting (see entry number 2)

2. Everyone is Disgusting

We are vile creatures, we really are. That's not even regarding this post; human beings are just horrible. But we reach a new level of gross, both as patrons and publicans, when it comes to being around booze.

"Who would have thought being in close proximity to this stuff would impede my judgement?!"

Quick quiz. If you're sitting at home making yourself a drink and you spill something, do you:

a) Clean it up

b) Throw a napkin on the spill and walk away

c) Look expectantly at the nearest person to clean it for you

Two of those options happen at a bar; and neither of them are a). Customers will knock drinks over, leave rubbish anywhere they can think of, shove random crap in their lipstick stained glasses, cover (as in absolutely coat) the toilets with toilet paper, sanitary towels, nappies, drug residue, and just generally be absolute lazy pigs. I once spotted a pair of people sitting on a patch of grass, smoking, with their discarded butts littered around them and an unused ash tray literally within arms reach on a nearby table. It took me actually handing it to them to get them to use it. Then there's the folk who almost seem to be running interference on you; like those who will be sitting at a table, finish their drink, get up, and, instead of just leaving it there for us to collect, shove the glass in a nearby bush. Like elbow deep in there. Why? Why do you do this to me?

A re-enactment of what is likely going through that person's mind. 

But we get our petty revenges, oh yes we do. Because you may be disgusting, lowly public, but we are disgustinger. Oh my are we terrible. It's not just our glass washing facilities that are filthy, it is our very selves. Have you ever sniffed a barman at the end of their 10 hour shift? I'll save you the experience. Don't.

Even the most hygiene-conscious barkeep cannot keep on top of the constant onslaught of muck that gets thrown at them. You restock the bar, you have to go lug about some filthy boxes; you change or roll a keg, your hands end up looking like a chimney sweep's; you go walk around the site fishing items out of the foliage, you make friends with a healthy dose of spit, ash, dirt and bird poo; you lean on the damp, sticky bar; you touch the bar taps and measures and bottles that a dozen other grimy-handed colleagues have also touched. There is not one part of the job that doesn't involve getting at least a little dirty; and if, like me, you work on a temporary site with no immediate access to running water... Yeah.

I guess the lesson here is don't shake hands with a barman.

"You can let go now."
"It appears I am stuck..."

I have learned, however, that if you're looking to clean your beleaguered hands with something other than shitty alcohol gel, rub an ice cube for a bit. Works a treat.

3. Money Keeps You Alive

I make good money at my job, I do. And, unlike some countries where your basic human rights are shunned spectacularly, I don't get taxed on tips. That means no-one is obliged to give me any more than they have to for their drinks. That said...

Uhoh...

If you buy some drinks that tally up to £4.95, or any other amount that results in small change, why not just leave the 5 pence? It's nothing to you and, frankly, it's nothing to me, I'm not going to remember someone who hands me shrapnel; however, that tiny token means so much more to the person who just served you than its face value. That pittance says you know you're going to spend your evening enjoying yourself, and you know that person is going to stand exactly where they are and make sure you do. It's a metaphorical pat on the back if you will. Now to those of you who say "you shouldn't need patted on the back when you're already paid to do it", I'll agree but also remind you that I'm not telling you to do this, it's just nice. It's an action that costs you very nearly nothing, but is simply good to another person; and shouldn't we all try to make each other's days a little brighter? It's not a one-way system either, you know.

"Quid pro quo, Clarice."

That 5 pee quite often turns into a measure overflowing a little bit, a better garnish, and a much more genuine smile from the person wishing you a good evening. Money shouldn't be everything, and it definitely shouldn't be a motivation to do better at what you should already be doing well, but in the context of the barman/customer dynamic it's a token of appreciation that helps remind the sleep-starved, paper cut-riddled husk on the 14th hour of a shift that they want to. Tips stop us from collapsing into an exhausted heap, not through their value, but by splashing us with a little milk of human kindness. Oh, and if you ever tip a member of staff on floor duty while they're picking up cigarette butts and performing topiary cupectomies, that's you just earned a fast track into heaven, you wonderful creature.

4. Always Have at Least Two Pens Handy

There are three more things that are essential to have on your person when working behind a bar. The first is a bar blade; those things are wonderful. The only issue with them is that you will be guaranteed to have it swiped by another, likely bar blade-less, member of staff; often from your pocket while you're working. The second is a pen. And the third is another pen, for when exactly the same fate befalls your first pen as did the bar blade. I swear, sometimes it feels like bars have a similar recruiting strategy to the Night's Watch.

Incidentally, this is my ID photo.

Pens are great, though, so always have a spare for when the first invariably goes missing. They can open the tape on a box just as quickly as a pair of scissors, be used to write (holy shit, that's what pens are for?!) down random crap you need to remember (stock, weird orders from management, names of staff members you keep forgetting cause there's like a hundred of them), and, most importantly, they are the best procrastination tool around, save for juggling a few mangy looking limes. Working on a bar has a habit of being extremely busy for the majority of the time and deathly boring the rest. I got through two puzzle books while chilling about waiting for stuff to happen last year, including the fucking word searches; no-one chooses to do a word search if they can help it.

They are the middle child of the puzzle world.

With a pen at hand you can doodle to your heart's content and keep on top of your various odd duties with ease. Speaking of odd duties...

5. Routine, and then More Routine

You know how in the Holocaust the Nazis made the people in their work camps pick up heavy rocks and move them needlessly from place to place just to keep them busy? Working on a bar is nothing like that because, christ, who would be so insensitive as to compare pointless tasks at work to the greatest example of human suffering in modern history?!

Not this guy. Nuhuh.

Bar work has its fair share of really stupid shit to do, which will obviously vary from place to place, but wherever you are you will very quickly learn the universal truth that half the crap someone makes you do has absolutely no purpose whatsoever. So you stack all the chairs at 1am to unstack them again at 9 the next day; makes sense so you can sweep under them. Why do I also have to take all of the flower pots on the tables and put them together on one, though? They don't get cleaned, they just get moved every evening and put back again every morning. Why do I have to wander around with a stick and poke the grass back down through the decking? It's grass.

I have no quarrel with thee.

Why do I have to lug cleaning supplies to and from the toilets for the cleaners to use when there is a cupboard in there full of the stuff? Why do I have to take all of the bottles out of open boxes in the store room and put them all together in a different crate also in the store room? I just don't understand. Nothing makes any sense any more. I should just resign myself to the fact that I will never understand what is going through the mind of my manager.

That's it. That is the greatest lesson bar work can teach you. Eventually you will grow to accept the cosmic absurdity of existence and learn to live your life free of the confines of mortal toil. Pulling pints is the path to ultimate enlightenment. Join me, brothers and sisters! Worship the one true God! Praise be unto it's glory, the infallible Soda Gun!

One day we will all be drinking the Great Post Mix in the Sky...

Movie Props: Film Stuff We Really Want

Hi everybody! It's summer time! And that means no more uni work and many, many afternoons spent watching TV I've already seen and producing various baked goods. This may also now have taken over work as the primary reason I've not actually written anything but shush, I have earned my cookie time, y'hear?

No-one can take me away from my cookie. NO-ONE.

As a special summer treat, us folks at The Pop Culture Cynic have been asked by them peeps over at Invaluable.com, the on-line auction site for all your odd antique and memorabilia needs, to come up with a list of movie props we would love to get our slimy, jam-covered hands all over. Those of you who have been around a while might remember the guest post we had a while back looking at great nerdy goods you can pick up for affordable prices; well this is less cool stuff you can actually buy and more our dream team of spectacularly awesome movie bits and bobs that we'd love to display in our six story mansion made out of gummy bears. We've put together 5 pieces of film history that we'd love to have, so sit back and join us in groaning loudly at not being able to own any of this:

The Pop Culture Cynic's Top 5 Filmy Things

Why didn't he just hide the hammer inside the tunnel rather than in a bible?

1. Andy Dufresne's Rock Hammer - The Shawshank Redemption

I thought I'd start my list with an instantly iconic item from one of the most universally adored movies of all time. No, not Kurt Russell's chin from [insert Kurt Russell movie here], but the adorably tiny rock hammer that kindly helped Andy Dufresne escape from Shawshank Prison in that movie with Rita Hayworth in it (spoilers). This movie is pretty much impossible not to like, even with all the brutal beatings and gay gang rapes, and it's IMdB rating proves that; to have anything from this film would be a privilege, but that hammer would be the icing on the Morgan Freeman's face-shaped cake. Plus, you could keep it inside a bible because of course you'd have to.

Although...

A close second would have to be that beautiful tin hidden under a rock in Buxton, Maine. It's aged, beautiful, and ever so vintage looking; it even has a White Star liner on it! I'd love to keep my cuff links in a tin like that.

"Oooh, yeah. You're so dirty, aren't you?"

I would ride everywhere screaming "NYEOOWW!"

2. Ramona's Rollerblades - Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

The only reason I've not yet done a Film Favourites post on Scott Pilgrim is because I've not devised a method of condensing my love for this movie down into few enough words for normal human beings to consume. When that hurdle has been scaled, we'll have it, but until then I'll just keep re-watching it every two weeks and weeping quietly to myself.

Now there's a lot of cool merch to pick from in this movie, like any of Scott's nerdilicious t-shirts, the band's instruments, or any one of Ramona's beautifully coloured wigs; I, however, have gone for one of the more awesome but very underused items in the aforementioned lady-person's roster of goodies: her rollerblades. They turn up in like one scene, scorch the very Earth, and then vanish completely for the rest of the movie. I WANT AWESOME INTER-DIMENSIONAL FIRE BLADES TOO.

Although...

There's always the coolest fictional arcade cabinet ever devised to choose from too. Who wouldn't want to have this thing in their house, making every moment of their life that more awesome simply through its very presence. Every family dispute would boil down to a game of ninja Dance Dance Revolution (Ninja Ninja Revolution); that's a household I would be proud of.

"Just put the fucking bins out!"

If you're feeling cheap, just paint an old tin of ham black and make a fake
certificate of authenticity.

3. The Film Reel - Cinema Paradiso

More people need to see Cinema Paradiso. That's the long and short of it. Any person with even an ounce of film buff in them will get major feels for this movie all about the relationship between an elderly projectionist and a little boy. It is equal parts beautiful and heart-breaking, as any good film should be, really, and the final scene when Toto watches the film reel his old friend left him is just...excuse me... *sob* Straight up raw emotion is what it is.

Although...

That sign. That gorgeous neon sign. Give it to me.

Right above my front door, please.

Here is the full scene in all its glory.

4. Hynkel's Inflatable Globe - The Great Dictator

Charlie Chaplin's best movie is City Lights, and I will challenge anyone who disagrees with me to a hilarious 5 minute long boxing match to determine who is right. That said, there's not many iconic items to be had in that particular movie, so to fulfil my requirement of at least one Chaplin item I've gone to his second best film, the Liberal coup de grace to both the horrors of fascism and Chaplin's own career, The Great Dictator.

If it were possible, I would just have an original reel of the whole movie, but that's not technically a prop so I discounted it. Then, there was a bottle of Chaplin's golden voice reciting that spectacular closing speech; again, not actually a thing. So, I went for the scene that had me giggling at its iconic silliness all the way through; the crazed dictator gleefully juggling an inflatable globe around his office is simply satirical perfection. Sure, it's probably deflated and horrendously fragile by now, but that's a keepsake if ever there was one.

Although...

I am tempted by the mustard pot in the elaborately silly obligatory food scene. Fill it with cream and serve strawberries with it.

Public Safety Announcement: Please inspect condiments thoroughly before applying to any comestibles.

Are you ready? Then let's play Round One of...Scalp or Scotty Dog!

5. The Scalp of O-ren Ishii - Kill Bill: Volume 1 

No, I'm not picking a Hattori Hanzo sword. That would be too obvious, and there's plenty other awesome things to choose from in Kill Bill. Like, for example, the scalp of the infamous American-Chinese Yakuza boss, O-ren Ishii.

Oo, wait, maybe the Pussy Wagon's keychain... Or a Crazy 88 mask... Or Elle Driver's eye patch. Oh my days, there's so much choice! Oo, oo! How about The Bride's yellow jumpsuit? And this is without even considering Volume 2...

Although...

I want the headstone of Paula Shultz. Anything that was involved in a scene where someone literally punched their way out of a grave, I want.

"Must...have...cool stuff!!"

So there we have it, my list of countless bits of cinema gold that I would love to have. If you've got any goodies that you've always wanted, or if you happen to know a guy who knows a guy who could get me this stuff, feel free to tell us below. It's been good fun thinking up some fun and unusual bits and bobs for this article, so thanks again to Invaluable.com for the idea; maybe they'll even send me some priceless movie artefact in thanks. That'd be nice...

Many thanks.