Dr S-Who-se Thursday, Oct 25 2012

I have a Cat in a Hat now.  Cats in Hats are cool.

I’m The Doctor, but don’t ask Who

Just meet my old girl, dressed in blue

You may find me a wily old fox

And not a madman in a box.

 

Travel through time, and travel through space

To anywhen, and anyplace.

From Big Bang to Big Crunch

To farthest star then back for lunch.

 

Remember, I never ever use a gun.

So when danger comes I’ll just shout RUN

I sonic open the strongest locks

But I am not a madman in a box

 

I’ll wear a scarf, or fez or suit

And piece of salad, or Converse boot.

Destroyer of Worlds, the Bringer of Darkness

The Oncoming Storm (All me, not Harkness)

 

You’ll see pits and quarries that all look the same

Monsters of ice, beasts of flame

There may be homicidal pepperpots

Who are scared of a madman in a box

 

Fixed points in time cannot be changed,

For reasons mad, weird or deranged,

There’s one more thing, now let me think,

Ah yes, you must never ever blink.

 

So as I travel through time and space

With Sarah-Jane, the Ponds and Ace,

Through the thrills, the spills and shocks,

I most definitely am a madman in a box!

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Olympic abbreviations in full Wednesday, Aug 8 2012

Times/Distances
WR – World Record
OR – Olympic Record
PB – Personal Best
SB – Season’s Best
MSLH – Mum Still Loves Him
PBD – Plucky But Doomed
LFYW – Last Four Years Wasted
JPE – Just Plain Embarrassing

Athlete Specific
CYNHO – Country You’ve Never Heard Of
NRSIAW – No, Really, She Is A Woman
MBOD – Must Be On Drugs
AICIDWG – Amnesty International Case If Doesn’t Win Gold
(NB, this was introduced in 1989, following the removal of GOG – Gold Or Gulag)

Event Specific
Beach Volleyball – Women
NA – Nice Arse
BOC – Bit Of Cellulite

Basketball
FT – Freakishly Tall

Diving – Men
PFMAW – Porn for Middle Aged Women.

If you ‘know’ any more, please add!

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Man Rules Thursday, Apr 5 2012

A collegue emailed me this.  I said to her “Did this really need to be written down? Really, like it isn’t obvious?”

 ”At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down   

The rules

These are our rules!

Please note… these are all numbered “1 “ON PURPOSE!

1          Men are NOT mind readers.

1          Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl.  

If it’s up, put it down.

We need it up; you need it down.

You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.  

1.         Sports on TV:  

It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides.

Let it be.  

1          Crying is blackmail

1.         Ask for what you want.

Let us be clear on this one:

Subtle hints do not work!

Strong hints do not work!

Obvious hints do not work!

Just say it!  

1.         Yes or No is a perfectly acceptable answer to almost every question.  

1.         Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do.

Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.  

1.         Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.

In fact, all comments become Null and void after 7 Days.  

1.         If you think you’re fat, you probably are.

Don’t ask us.  

1.         If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one  

1.         You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done.

Not both.

If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.  

1.         Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say “during commercials”…  

1.         Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.  

1.         ALL men see in only 16 colours, like a Windows default settings.

Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a colour.  

Pumpkin is also a fruit.

We have no idea what mauve is.  

1.         If it itches, it will be scratched.

We do that…  

1.         If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” We will act like nothing’s wrong.

We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.  

1.         If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, expect an answer you don’t want to hear.  

1.         When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine…Really.  

1.         Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as football or motor sports.

1                    If when you ask us what we are thinking we say nothing, it means we are thinking of nothing.  This is perfectly possible.

1.         You have enough clothes.  

1.         You have too many shoes.  

1.         I am in shape. Round IS a shape!  

Thank you for reading this.

Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight;

But did you know men really don’t mind that?  

It’s like camping.

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How to seduce a writer. Friday, Mar 9 2012

Good advice from Neil Gaiman.

In my experience, writers tend to be really good at the inside of their own heads and imaginary people, and a lot less good at the stuff going on outside, which means that quite often if you flirt with us we will completely fail to notice, leaving everybody involved slightly uncomfortable and more than slightly unlaid.

So I would suggest that any attempted seduction of a writer would probably go a great deal easier for all parties if you sent them a cheerful note saying “YOU ARE INVITED TO A SEDUCTION: Please come to dinner on Friday Night. Wear the kind of clothes you would like to be seduced in.”

And alcohol may help, too. Or kissing. Many writers figure out that they’re being seduced or flirted with if someone is actually kissing them.

http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/18932682858/as-requested-by-too-many-people-making-the-last-post

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Especially for my Daughter-In-Law Sunday, Dec 4 2011

zombie cheesus chocolate bunny 

zombie cheesus chocolate bunny

zombie cheesus chocolate bunny

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How Men learn Tuesday, Nov 15 2011

When Men are inexperienced with the female mind, Woman will ask “Should I wear this dress or that dress”, and the young Man will answer “That one.” Because she looks beautiful no matter what She wears. This is wrong, because Woman will then say “What’s wrong with this one. Don’t you like me in this one, are you saying it makes me look fat?”

As he ages He will learn the ways of a woman’s mind, and will confidently say “Which do you like?” This is wrong, because Woman will say “Why can’t you ever make a decision. Why don’t you take an interest in what I look like?”

Then as he grows older, Man becomes wily, and He answers “What shoes/jacket/bag are you going to be wearing/taking.” And this is the right answer, because She thinks He is showing interest.

After some years Woman begins to suspect. And then the Man becomes wise, and when She asks “Should I wear this dress or that dress” Man knows to say “You’ve worn both of those so many times. I will buy you a new dress. And shoes. And jacket.” And he may be poorer, but at least he gets a few months peace and quiet this way.

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“LIFE- The MMRPG” A letter of Complaint. Friday, Nov 4 2011

Sir,

I have been playing your ‘First Life’ game for some years now and I wish to register dissatisfaction with some of the so-called features.

1) Lack of manual/in-game help/tool tips.
I realise that you boast an ‘extensive training mission’. What you fail to mention is that this will take approximately 1/3 of the promised 75 year content. Additionally there is little guidance even during this so-called “Schooling period”, and the training is mostly trying stuff out then having other characters telling you are doing it wrong. Even experienced players would welcome tool tips during actions – for instance when reaching for your third alcoholic drink a warning bubble saying “May impare your judgement of interaction with opposite sex” would be helpful.

2) Lack of Save/Load function. 
Given the lack of in-game hints the lack of a Save Game function would appear to be a major omission.  When attempting an action, the failure of which would have negative consequence, it would handy if we could return to a point just before so we can avoid the effects of making a poor choice with no guidance too many times.  This would particularly useful during the ‘Teenage Romance’ sub game, for which there is no documentation.  Frankly all the Romance sub-games are difficult and confusing, and prone to leaving you frustrated.  The Rom-Com training package glosses over much of the difficulties.

3) Effects of other players. 
I note the IPCC Yahoo group has found a bug within the global interaction algorithms.  Apparently this could cause the game world to end prematurely based purely on the actions of other players on different servers.  Even if this is fixable, it is apparent that servers in Africa and Asia are suffering DDOS attacks by resource usage elsewhere.

4) Random Character generation.
Not only does this make it near impossible to achieve some tasks against some players who ‘got lucky’ during the generation process, but that In-Game Credits are not accessible to all, leaving some downloads unavailable to most people- for instance “Sports Car” and “Big House” are two that spring to mind.

5) Non Linear Game play.
“Do boring/repetitive task or starve” doesn’t really count as open-ended.

6) Experience Points
Referenced frequently by the ‘Job’ sub-games, but there is no onscreen count to let you know how you are doing.  Though they appear to be influenced by various tasks/games, there is no indication at the rate of accrual, so you can’t tell whether the amount of XP is worth it.  Additionally some of these sub-games appear to over- or under- award XP: For instance “Art History” and “Engineering” in the ‘University Zone’ often cost the same number of credits, but rumour on the Fan forums is they award different XP.  Is this true?

6a)  Rumour on the ‘Buddah’ Yahoo group is that there is a kind of XP called Karma.  Is this true as it is not referenced in any of the training/instructions?  They claim this allows a second character to be started.

7) End Game routines
I am approximately half way through.  According to more experienced players game experience dramatically reduces during the later stages, with your character becoming slower and less responsive.  It has also been found that the graphics and sound settings deteriorate making it hard to follow the action.  Did you know the ‘Hair’ colour setting can change spontaneously to ‘Grey’ and in male characters even ‘Flesh’?  Additionally there are a number of bugs which can cause parts of the programme to just stop working altogether.

8.) Power-ups/Health Packs
While it is clear that some servers receive too many ‘Weapon packs’, there is a distinct lack of power-ups.  I have repeatedly smashed any number of boxes, crates and other containers, and have yet to receive even one extra power.  Additionally there are no health packs being generated.  Did you mean these only to be available from players who have taken the “Doctor” quest?

I understand that in any product this ambitious there will always be a number of problems.  Do you have any plans to produce a patch we could download?

Yours Sincerely

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My Life – a Venn diagram Wednesday, Oct 5 2011

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My Dad – the worlds best Alternative Medicine therapist? Wednesday, Aug 24 2011

When I was young, in the 70′s, I used to get pains in my legs.  My dad would cure this with his special ointment.

He successfully treated growing pains with Old Spice aftershave…

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Well, that’s good to know. Wednesday, Aug 24 2011

According to Twitter, the Met police are not following me.  Bit of a relief that.

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Wargamer’s Rhapsody Monday, Jul 18 2011

With apologies to Freddie Mercury…

Is this Renaissance?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a leadslide,
My escape from reality
Put out my figures, but your army’s bigger, oh crap,
I’m just a poor bloke, I need more miniatures,
Because I’m easy meat, and paint too slow, don’t roll high, always low,
Any way the dice fall doesn’t really matter to me,
to me

Oh-no, I just killed a man,
Charged him on too far ahead, rolled my dice, now he’s dead
Dammit, the game had just begun,
But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away
Oh-no, oo-ooh, Didn’t mean to make them die,
I’ve got to play this game again tomorrow,
With no men, with no men, coz nothing now can save me

Too late, my reserves are gone,
I’ve got Artillery on my ranks, and his cavalry on my flanks.
Goodbye, ev’rybody, I’ve got to flee,
Gotta leave you all behind and quit the field
Oh hell, oo-ooh, I don’t want to lose,
I sometimes wish I’d never played these rules at all
Coz nothing now can save me…

I see a little silhouette of a man,
Minus 2, minus 2, on your combat roll
Agincourt and Crecy, very, very messy
(buy more lead) buy more lead (buy more lead) buy more lead, buy more lead At a show, ow, ow, ow.

I’m just a poor Colonel, everybody beats me
I’m just a poor gamer with a lone sentry,
Spare me my figures from your huge army
Hard to paint, easy lose, will you take a draw
Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let him draw!) Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let him draw!) Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let me draw) Will not let you draw
(Let me draw) Will not let you draw (Let me draw) Ah
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
(Oh Phil Barker, Phil Barker) 5th edition lets me win
Pendraken has an army put aside for me, for me, for me…

So you think you can flank me and use that old ruse
So you think you can charge me and leave me to lose
Oh, damn it, no matter how much I plan it,
Just gotta pack up, just gotta pack up my men now
Nothing ever works, Anything I try,
Nothing ever works,
Nothing ever works, for me
(Any way the smoke blows)

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Can Time Travellers commit adultery with their own spouse? Tuesday, Jun 21 2011

You know those odd random thoughts you get, that sort of buzz annoyingly round your head like a wasp too stupid to fly out of an open window?  Here’s one from today.

If you go back in time, and arrive home, pretending to be the younger you, and have sex with your husband/wife in the past, are you cheating on your Now-Spouse?  What if you travel to before you met, and seduce the young future spouse?

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I’m going to get a Super-injunction Thursday, May 26 2011

No one is allowed to say I haven’t had sex with lots of beautiful women.

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Running out of superlatives Sunday, May 22 2011

Having listened to my son speaking to a freind this morning, I wonder what the youth of today will do when the do encounter something that is, actually, ‘awesome’.

Or come to that, how will they convey when something is ‘literally’ true (as opposed to “I literally died”. Really – you are a zombie then?)

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Complete History of the Soviet Union… Wednesday, May 11 2011

as seen through the eyes of a humble worker.

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