[Darren] Costumes. Gabriel will either be a giant flower or a fox, Bismarck will be a slightly camp military type.

[rab] Does being 'darlinged' give you a hangover the next morning? ;o)

[Chalky] I seem to remember [from my O-level history (over 25 years ago, eeek)] that OvB introduced Kulturkampf where he sought to reduce the power of the Catholic church in Germany, fairly successfully. He also tried to "kill socialism with kindness" - which was an interesting concept that mirrored Tsar Alexander's ill-fated attempts at liberalisation in Russia. Blimey it all comes flooding back ...

Bismarck was great. He seems to have been prejudiced against more or less everyone apart from upper-class Protestant Prussians - remember he referred to Disraeli as "that old Jew" in a tone of grudging respect! And he had a dodgy tache too.

[pen] Is it supposed to?

[rab] There seems to be a problem with Stations Revenge. There have been a few attempts at killing it so the unmasking can begin. Is it possible for you find out what the problem is and post the cure?

[Bismarck trivia contributors - thanks] Yes - it was an enlightening bit of research, however, I still can't find out the proper name for his trademark pointy topped helmet. Or indeed what type of creature nested in his 'tache.

Whoops. The reason why the game won't end is quite amusing, if you know anything about Perl regexps. I'll put the fix in tonight - will need to check it works first, so am nervous about doing it in situ...

[rab] in situ as opposed to ...?
[Inks] Further to my abrupt 'Why kill it?' - um.. it's still quite new - it's moving along at a steady pace - not every 'move' has been made yet - I just think there's some mileage in it compared to a couple of the other MC games.
and another thing ... ROSIE!!

[Chalky] I was just curious, but I am more than happy to carry on playing, are you?

[Chalky] I think he means he's deeply worried someone might try winning the game while he's working on it - big bangs, flashing lights, tape spewing on floor, "MALFUNCTION - DOES NOT COMPUTE," sparks, demolition of The Institute, "the reactor's gonna blow," alarms, emergency lighting, "dive! dive! dive!" and so on.

This new Chorkee - is it Chalky without glasses? Or perhaps the bizarre offspring of Chalky and Uncle Korky? Or maybe a very small Cherokee?

[Inks] Yes indeed, which should tell you that it wasn't me trying to end the game .. or SO YOU THINK ...
[Darren] Gosh. Joking apart - is it possible for a computer/server to malfunction to such an extent that it really would explode or even spark and sizzle a bit?

[Chalky] If the power supply goes, then yes. If they're overloaded, they will often overheat, and sometimes (like mine did last year) go "pop" and stop working - that's if you're lucky. Some will actually explode when they're overloaded. Some will simply make a loud bang and smoulder. Others may suddenly start pumping out more voltage than your machine can take, which could cause other things to go bang. So if you do a bit of home modification, do take care that you don't overload your PSU.

Oh, and buying a home fire extinguisher suitable for electrical fires won't go amiss either.

Stations' Revenge should be winnable now... The downside is that you're no longer able to specify the winning move as a Perl regexp. Not that you were ever supposed to, of course.

I have tidied my bedroom - the change is amazing! And I just cleaned out my mouse in the office - again, a huge improvement. My coffee this morning was good too. Just needed to share that with you...

[pen]So just the belly buttoon fluff to tackle next. But where to do it. In private or at the office desk.

[Inkspot] No, do it in public. Sell tickets.

Some people already show off their belly button fluff.

(Boolbar) Tried the link. Amazing. You can find anything on the net, it seems. This rather discreet oldie is perplexed that anyone would want to put their name to such a site. But I did have a belly laugh, you might say.

Today was another First Date Day. And it was good. :o)

I've been on a boat. man it was relaxing. anyway.

[pen] yaaaay!

[ZK] hello! how's lovely birmingham?

[simons mith] I've been told that technique by my director of studies before. problem is I'm fantastically lazy.

[Chalky] when I murdered my old computer (before the lovely laptop, before the faithful mac, there was the evil HP that had to be destroyed) I switched it from 240V to 115V.
*BAANG!!!*
*smoke*
*fuses trip out*
"(nights), WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON UP THERE?"

...but what happened to Reverse 11?

Any ideas for games in the slots? I was trying to think of something new and exciting, though I'm sure something old and exciting would be as good if not better.

(Tuj) I found Clerihews Who (on MCiOS) quite agreeable. Not new and not exciting, I admit.

Rab and I had a funny online chat the other day, and I remember thinking 'This would make an interesting game' but I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was. It might have been something along the lines of 'Best Excuse' or 'Customer Complaints'.

Morning all. From the logs, the reason for the server disappearing is that 'the peer' (ie the ISP) is failing to respond to echo requests. The actual reason I don't know - the ISP not responding, the line dropping, etc. I've extended the interval between echo requests and increased the number of attempts, which may help. It was already set to immediately re-attempt connection up to 25 times, which it appears to not be doing, annoyingly, but I've changed that to 'unlimited' anyway.

[pen] Was it something to do with "Autoglass Mobile" and how they're not, but they know someone who has a mobile?

Hm. The outage over the weekend may have been caused by a massive outage in BT's Manchester centre, which it seems is rather a large single point of failure.

is it bad that I didn't notice?

How about a nice game of "imaginary crescent"?