So only a short while after my previous post, the Large Hadron Collidor is now out of action, after it broke and attempted to partially destroy itself. It’s been rather up and down lately with financial institutions dropping like flies and merging all over the place to keep themselves going, followed by various government rescue plans and self-congratulatory praise over dealing with such things. (Seems a bit premature if you ask me.)

Meanwhile, in the alternate, gaming, world, there’s a patch for Spore, that promises to reduce the insanely high frequency of the random attacks in the Space stage, and the release of Star Wars : The Force Unleashed, which promised to be good but on reading reviews sounds like it would probably be glitchy enough to annoy me immensly. I’ll probably wait for Lego Batman, or get Crysis Warhead instead.

Okay, I really should rename this section to just cheap stuff, as this week’s thing isn’t plastic either.

Today’s Cheap (not plastic) Thing is -

A Star Wars Episode I Jar Jar Binks mug tastefully decorated in green with hideous printed images of Jar Jar all around it. Click on the link to take a look at this fine object, which comes in at 9cm in height, almost the exact size as last week’s object.

Jar Jar Binks could possibly win the award for “supposedly good character most detested by people who consider themselves true Star Wars fans ever”, if there was such an award. Brought in from the planet Naboo, Jar Jar Binks is a stupid idiot that lolls about with a silly walk and speaks in some dire kind of accent that I have no suitable words to describe. Essentially the naffest character ever to hit Star Wars (and that includes those things in the bar that played in the band), Jar Jar was a complete waste of space probably added for some kind of comic value and succeeding in this for all the wrong reasons. So, my cheap stuff this week sees Jar Jar immortalised in cup form. It really is as cheap and tacky as it looks in the picture. Jar Jar came to me for the bargain price of one pound exactly. (Strangely enough even though the mug box clearly shows 4 different designs of mug, the Jar Jar one was the only one available, and in great quantity too.)

I’ll have more cheap stuff next week, and I have some things in mind that will surpass even this achievement of high levels of crapness.