His voice is one of the most distinctive and well known around, yet hardly anyone knows what he looks like.

Meet Hal Douglas, the man behind virtually every major Movie trailer from the past three decades. From Waterworld to Meet the Fockers, from Independence Day to Corpse Bride, Hal's gravelly timbre has been an instantly recognisable constant.

But as one online video illustrates, Hals job is not as easy as some might imagine...

In a hilarious spoof trailer for the Jerry Seinfeld movie "Comedian", a fussy sound engineer overules Hal on all his most popular sayings , such as "It was a time.....He was a man.....In a Land..."

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This weekends recommend is the the Galway On Ice experience in Leisureland Galway, a spectacular indoor marvel of music and fun.

With the recent release of REM’s live DVD recorded in Dublin, now is a good time to get better acquainted with the band. And no better place than the blog created by one Matthew Perpetua.

Matthew is a dedicated REM fanatic who has set himself an unusual mission to post an entry about every song on every REM album. Matthew has now entered 133 chronological missives ranging from the personal to the poetic.

As an introduction to one of rock’s most enduring and eccentric bands, this is a good place to start and a unique perspective of REM’s vast back catalogue.

The only thing missing is an explanation of Michael Stipe’s fondness for weird face paint.

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With gender equality a given these days, its hard to believe now but there was a time when it was considered that a woman's place was in the home.

We've come a long way since those dark old days, so now that the glass ceiling has been shattered, maybe we can look back with thorn tinted glasses at just how far we've come.

Nowhere were these attitudes as prominent as in advertising. One newspaper ad from the 1950's selling a new twist-off bottle top beamed the tag “So simple, even women can use it”.

Another advert from Hotpoint suggested their new washing machine was so good, husbands needed to remind their wives not to spend all of their time in the kitchen.

And what would today's career woman make of the 1960's poster campaign for a Lawnmower depicting a Doris Day lookalike with the slogan ”Ladies; as easy to use as a Vacuum cleaner”?

In these days of equality it tends to be men who are now the targets of humour. An American advert for reinforced roofing asks why hurricanes like Katrina are named after Women. Their answer; like hurricanes, women are wild and exciting, but when they leave they take your house, your car and your boat with them.

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In brief synopsis, Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic The Shining is a story about a psychopath’s attempts to correct a family who are caretaking an isolated hotel. Or is it….

That depends on your sense of perspective. Because with some highly judicious digital editing, the addition of a jolly voiceover and a suitably breezy backing track, Kubrick’s scare-fest has been reinterpreted as a rom-com feel good movie about a writer struggling for his muse, and a boy lonely for a father.

It’s one of many movie mashups rendered in trailer form and now being screened on todays site. Visit the site for an alternative view of your favourite Hollywood moments. Scary Mary portrays Mary Poppins as an evil protagonist with supernatural powers and the pretend sequel to Titanic ties together elements from 23 movies and sees DiCaprio’s character Jack Dawson brought back to the surface and thawed out for further adventures.

And, the good news is movie mashups can be interactive. All you need is a decent spec laptop or pc, some basic video editing software and you too could be creating your own genre swapping mini epics – and here’s one for starters. Imagine the cast of Father Ted in one of cinema’s most iconic scenes..a burning beach, choppers circling overhead and a stripped to the waist Father Jack utters those immortal lines I love the smell of....DRINK FECK ARSE in the morning

Movie Gold.

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Straight from Mini Bytes HQ, your Weekend Recommend is the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Weekend offering the chancing to re-discover the works of Ireland’s ploughman poet.

Before you cock your snoot at the idea of a poetry weekend, let’s re-examine Paddy’s credentials courtesy of his website.

Far from being uncool, some say PK was a bit like an olden day JT. Both courted controversy, Justin with Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction and Patrick with Tarry Flynn – a book which was banned on original publication.

Both are multi-talented - JT as a writer, singer, actor and restauranteur and when he wasn’t mining the land for prose PK was minding the goal for his local GAA team.

Finally, Patrick’s Kavanagh’s work is said to have a lyrical, melodic quality and perhaps he could have been a singer if only he hadn’t lacked the confidence – well so would you if you came from a place called Mucker.

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Internet searching and google are like Peter Andre and Jordan rarely separated. With a user base well into billions, Google is the established first port of call for anyone and everyone searching for any or every thing.

Without it, many of us would begin to display symptoms of IIW, or internet information withdrawal caused by the big dull void where our search engine used to be. This column may be tapped out by a real human being on a real keyboard but really it’s google doing the ghost writing.

All that may be about to change thanks to Wabbadabba the site that lets you search and win. Every time you plug a query into the wabbadabba search engine you are automatically entered into a draw to win something free from an amazon voucher to an lcd tv.

What sounds too good to be true seems to be good and true. Results might not be reliable as google’s page but that’s a quibble in light of the prospect of free stuff.

Googling is so 2006. Join the revolution and Wabbadabba doo.

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Air travel was once the height of sophistication, however in these security concious times, its sunk below the ass and cart in terms of comfort.

So be grateful for the aeroplane flight attendants, whom with enviable humour and patience line up like a synchronised Olympic YMCA rain dance team and dutifully point randomly at where the aeroplane is most likely to break apart on impact.

Although its for our own safety, truth be told we do tend to zone out after a minute or two.

Not so the passengers on a recent flight from LA to Chicago, where a flight attendant with a promising future on the pantomime circuit serenades his passengers.

Belonging more on the catwalk than the runway, check out this online video where he dispatches his duties with the sarcasm of a Jewish grandmother and the delivery of a Vegas pro.

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This weekends recommend is Ireland’s biggest ever motor sports event the first World Rally Championship in Ireland running from Thursday onwards.

The only female entrant will be Emma McKinstry hailing from Banbridge. If spoof sports presenter Alan Patridge were to interview her, how might he handle it?

Partridge is a man who's favourite Beatles album is The Best of the Beatles, and who thinks that U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday is about the boredom of Sabbath afternoons. So it was always likely that confusion would surface when Radio Norwich's finest custodian of the faux paus was unleashed on Britains top lady rally driver Susan Herper.

This online video has Alan sprouting more double entendres than James Bond as a snooker commentator, describing Susie in her vehicle in his own inimitable words:

"It’s a great model and it goes like a bomb. And the cars not bad either."

However Susie soon gets the upper hand as she brings Alan for a drive in her racer, where he turns a nasty shade of green.

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If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery the makers of Youtube should be as flat as a pancake. The almost overnight success of this online video vault has created a raft of clones.

Previously, we’ve given column space to Godtube (compiling religious reality vids) but there’s also Rutube (for Russian Residents) and SupportTube not to mention MojoFlix, Selfcast TV, Yahoo Video and Vimeo.

And now... Blutube.

The name might imply necessary parental discretion but unless your kid has an unusual aversion to high speed car chases this shouldn’t be necessary. The blue in the title refers to the colours of uniforms and the videos in question are all police related.

Uploaded by cops themselves,the site features in car camera footage, training videos, dumb robber manouveures and high speed pursuits all filmed from the official side of the thin blue line.

If you’re a fan of bad American cable tv then this is the site for you. Look out for the video of the suspect who before he can even walk the line in a drunk and under the influence test falls flat on his face. Or watch Ali G take a forthright approach to learning law enforcement with the Philadelphia constabulary.

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Here At Mini Bytes HQ, we’ve occasionally waved an exploratory antenna in the direction of weird inventions bringing you some of the webs more entertaining creations.

But none come close to the silliness pioneered by the Japanese.

Todays site features details a catalogue of entrepreneurial misfires which are ingenious in their stupidity - the type of gizmos that should never have progressed beyond beer mat doodle.

Consider the Babymop a baby suit that doubles as floor mop. The self explanatory noodle cooler (or miniature fan to you and me) attaches to the eaters chopstick. Detachable Suction cups are designed to prevent commuters falling over while dozing on subway trains and the all day toilet roll dispenser helmet dispenses toilet roll..all day !

It seems there is no end to the inventiveness of the Japanese mind and no beginning to it’s usefulness. There’s a reason why cockroach swatting slippers, portable zebra crossings and combined occidental-oriental footwear for men haven’t made it to a shop near you they are much better suited to the kitchen bin than Dragons Den.

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This weekends recommend is the Tralee Circus Festival in the Siamsa Tíre Theatre, bringing together jugglers, acrobats, trapeze artists, clowns and pirates.

We've all heard of Pirates of the Caribbean; now here's Pirates of the Can of Beans....

Welcome to the world of Puke the Pirate, an on-line video game that puts the up-chuck back in chuckles.

Puke is a pirate who's found an old map locating buried treasure. But he's no swashbuckling hero like Jack Sparrow. Instead Puke overcomes his enemies with his god given gastronomical resources, launching lunch and odour in a blitzkrieg of barf and flatulence.

Traditionally Pirates longed for nothing more than wind in their sails, but Puke is happy once the wind is always blowing from the South.

Its enough to shiver the timbers of even the most hearty buccaneer, but by the time good 'ol Puke finds all the treasure, he's laughing all the way to the bank.

Or at least we hope that's what the sound is....

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"It is my major goal to suppress humor, which results in laughter, which releases bad stuff into our air." So says Nobel Peace Prize bagger Al Gore. Or, to put it more accurately – so says todays spoof website purpotedly reporting the tubby one.

In case you weren’t aware, global warming has become the major issue of our times, and Senator Al Gore its most ardent campaigner. But so says the site Gore’s next big target is not carbon emissions, but laughter. Apparently, when people laugh they release more CO2 than usual into the atmosphere.

Theoretically the Simpsons could be causing more environmental harm than gas guzzlers and bovine emissions combined. Conserve energy all you like but remember - every time a syndicated Seinfeld re-runs another yard of polar ice cap dissolves.

So, Al wants to stop the humour and save the planet. And he isn’t the only one. Some concerned Actors have set up HaHa - Hollywood Against Humorous America. Their mantra; Laughing is a crime against the environment.

And as anyone who's watched Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller's latest flicks will know, they seem to winning the the war on humour.

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Ghosts, gremlins, goblins and their spooky ilk have lots to answer for. They’re single handedly responsible for the rise of a movie genre for which the phrase straight to dvd was invented - the horror movie.

Without these scary spectres there would be no halloween which in turn would mean no nasty trick or treating, no stinkbombs through your letterbox, no monkey nuts clogging up the kitchen and your family pets life expectancy being vastly extended.

On the positive side, at least they’re not vain. Despite their infamy, creatures of the dark rarely make any concessions to fashion. Frankenstein never thought of donning a cashmere scarf to cover his neck extrusions and Dracula paid no attention when fashionistas insisted that brown was the new black.

When it comes to technology, things are slightly different. Apparently bored with the dusty seclusion of basement seances, modern day ancient spirits are choosing to manifest themselves in consumer electronics namely the Ipod.

According to todays website, ouija boardists claim that the iPod can not only provide the traditional letters and numbers of the board, but spirits are now able to pick songs, or playlists, to convey their messages.

Yes, believe it or not your innocent looking Nano could now be used as a key to the gate to the world beyond. Placing your fingers on the Click Wheel and reciting some occultish type chants could lead to messages to spirits communicating through the medium of song.

The malignant spirit using the Ipod Ouija can only work with the tunes at their disposal which could cause a problem with a limited playlist. For example, imagine if the ipod consists only of Kylie Minogue’s greatest hits.

How difficult would it be to instil The Locomotion or I Should Be So Lucky with any meaningful sinister intent ?

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