I was looking at issue 185 of Fortean Times today. There's an article on one Charles B. Horn in that issue, who has a unique idea where some of the spam, including porn spam, we all get comes from. He claims its an attempt by an alien civilisation to communicate with us.

Hey, don't look at the screen like that, I didn't make this up, honest. Horn even has a website, altho' its rather short on content at the moment. As you can imagine I had to look at the cover date on the magazine to make sure I wasn't looking at their April issue.

Today's big news on the entertainment front is of course the death of Marlon Brando. Its kind of ironic he died today, as our local paper had a gossip column report that Brando was in financial trouble and might lose his house.

Brando was another one of those celebs who in the later years of his life became more famous for being famous than any work he actually did of late. It had been years since he'd been involved in a truly worthwhile production, and was more famous of late for his considerable girth and penchant for outrageous statements. Things weren't helped by personal tragedies, with his son Christian being convicted of in the death of his daughter Cheyenne's boyfriend in 1990, followed by Cheyenne's suicide in 1995.

But Brando will likely always be remembered for his role as Vito Corleone in The Godfather. Ironically the studio didn't want Brando in the film, as he had a bad rep after problems during filming of Mutiny on the Bounty years earlier.

Another unfortunate bit of news comes from the Star Trek front. James Doohan, who played Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the original series, is believed to be suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's, at age 84. This is especially sad when you consider that he has a 4 year old daughter.

There was also a report this week that William Shatner will be making a guess appearance on Star Trek: Enterprise this fall. Can you say stunt casting? Its pretty obviously a gimmick to try and help the ratings of the poorly performing series, which may be gone by the end of next season if things improve. No word yet on who he's actually going to play, but if it isn't James T. Kirk one of Kirk's anscestors is a good guess. Shatner is going to be awfully busy for the next little bit, as he'll be starring in a spinoff of The Practice, set to premiere this fall.