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The Banter Page
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If you're wanting to get something off your chest, make general comments about the server, or post lonely hearts ads, then this is the place for you.
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Lovely birds.
[BtD] I am unable to upload photos at work, but will do so tonight.
Dujon mustard
Dujon]:o) What rotten cluck! I'll be very happy to supply you with fresh eggs if I ever make it down-under or if someone invents a way of sending food as email attachments.
Cats are an endangered species here in Warwickshire. I witnessed a Buzzard attack on our own cat a year or so ago. The local Buzzard population is booming and There are reports in local papers of missing or mauled moggies. The chickens, however are safe. I hope. I think.
Boolbar] Yipee! And thank you.
Safe chickens
They may be safe, but I'll have to be careful.
Being buzzed ...
[BtD] Where abouts in Warks ? I used to live on the Staffs / Warks border, and spent many a happy day driving around the county.
We've started to get buzzards occasionally in & around Tring - (whereas I'd not seen one there for the previous fifteen years). I also saw a kite (of the feathered variety) fly over our house last year - I think it was just on a recky mission coz. I've not seen one since. But they're certainly spreading their territory from the Stokenchurch area northwards - loads round Thame now.
The Birds
[BtD] I like the picture caption at the top of that report :"The cyclist is planning to protect herself from attacks". Looking at the picture I assume that the cyclist is planning to disguise herself as a buzzard.
Who put the red in Celebdaq? err... no, that doesn't work... whatever
*finds all sorts of interesting things crawling around on the trading floor* OMG - I had completely forgotten I was supposed to be making money.
absent mindedness
*cackle*
elevation, elevation, elevation
You remember I told you my colleague was leaving? The boss and I just went out for lunch and a chat. We're restructuring... I get to be manager, get a pay rise etc etc...YAY!!!!
Yey!!
[pen] First you get a hen named after you, and now this. Yey!
promoting
[pen] Yay! That's excellent. Well done. Hope its a significant one!
modesty...
[Lib] 'Kin 'ell. I've only just thought about that. It's 20%!!!
Pen buys the next round
Yay! Well done! However, your namesake hasn't layed an egg yet.
egg-nog , anyone?
I'll admit I'm chuffed to bits. What's more, I may just be able to flog my tent (sleeps four, dark green tunnel tent, used once) to my soon-to-be-ex colleague who has snatched not only a hot-air balloon ride in the Northampton Balloon Festival on Friday, but also a last-minute ticket to the Stafford V Festival this weekend. Jammy sandwiches, virtual beers, Pimms and shandies all round. Unfortunately, unless BobTD starts squeezing chickens' heads, there's no egg-nog.
Yay!
[pen] Congrats!
Defining wobbly
Yes, what Penelope said. I can't believe she actually ate the thing though. [BtD] Nettles are great. They're terribly healthy. The Victorians would sell them at market as a vegetable. I used to pick and eat them frequently, partly for my obsessive healthy eating drive and partly because I was incredibly poor. You have to pick them as they are growing, not when they're old and raggedy late in the season, and you pick just the top four leaves. This means that you have to pick an awful lot to get a decent quantity. Then the best thing to do with them is steam them. They cook extremely quickly. You might think you would have to cook them for ages to kill the sting, but in fact the sting goes almost instantly, so you can treat them essentially as spinach. They taste similar but with a pleasant velvety sort of texture.
joining in the back-slapping and hoping for a pimms
Superb skills penelope. Sounds as though the promotion is well deserved. Hope the new responsibilities won't gobble up your 'online chief crescentess' time, though.
Whoops!
Forgot to add my congratulations. Well done, pen. [Chalky] I thought one of the management skills is "delegation" which, as I understand it, could be used to free up plenty of time for the same.
Delegates
[rab] Better that than delegating someone else to play, certainly.
Orangeless
Cross-posting of course, but a note for Orange MC players - the server which hosts Orange will be down for repairs at some time between 4:30pm and 7:30pm ET today (that's 21:30-00:30 BST). The outage should be for 20-60 minutes, and is to replace a broken CPU. Hopefully Orange will be a bit less sluggish afterwards, too.
Re: Orangeless
It's back. Not that it went away for long in the end.
A delegation of minions
[rab] Good point about delegating - and delegating someone to make moves on my behalf (especially in MC where you know my skills don't shine) has given me an idea. I'm going to be involved in the interviewing for the underling position(s) [tbc], so maybe I could ask the applicants to make a move in one of the games here, then you can all judge whether they deserve the job or not!! Whaddya think guys???!!! Do I have the skills to be a manager or not, eh? :o)
Filet Minions
Have a care before introducing professional colleagues to MC before you know them well. For one thing it gets harder to post cross rants about the bastards in the office in the Advice game.
Filet-o-Fish
[pen] I suggest a game of 'Straight face'.
pokered
[rab] Straight face? I guess it means anything but, but would you explain? :o)
Delegat-hen
[pen] Get BtD to stick a tube map in the hen-house. When pen-the-hen pecks at a station, that's your move!
[BtD] Did you get my email(s)? Hen pics are online!
Beef swellington
[pen] On the contrary. The aim of the game is to maintain a straight face while your opponent says things to bring this state of affairs to en end.

Meanwhile I'm trying to cancel my contract with the Carphone Warehouse. If I have to listen to Connected being played down a tinny old phone one more time...

Henpics
[Bb] url?
Me again!
It's amazing how long it takes for a salesperson to realise that the reason you want to buy something from elsewhere is that their opponents give a better deal and nothing they can offer matches up...
url
BtD is somewhat busy - so using some left over bits of HTML and sticky backed plastic, may I present . . . Big Clucker!
Geoshity
Ignore those pesky errors that pop-up. Geocities is the only upload place I can access at work - and they bung their own code on top.
chick flicks
[Boolbar] No pesky errors when I looked. Just three surprisingly pretty hens in a very clean place. Penelope's obviously a heart breaker, Flerdle looks mischievous and Lib rather enigmatic. So now we've had the individual mugshots, how about panning back so we can view the whole Big Clucker House and its environs?
slipping up a bit
[Boolbar] Sorry, I realised after I posted that you are the technical chief who enables the picture viewing. My camera positioning instructions should have been directed at Bob the Dog, the producer of the show.
Long distance chickcheck
Chalky] Acknowledged. As Boolbar says, I'm not at home at the moment, but I will try to upload a floor plan and more photos. Saskia is looking after the chickens while I'm away, she says they are being very good girls. No eggs yet. I'm not worried about the lack of eggs because the chooks are still very young and need to settle in a bit more. However, Penelope is looking particularly perky and her wattle appears to be turning red. Whatever that means.
wattling daubs
I know *exactly* what it means but I'm darned if I'm telling you.
a toast
[pen] Many congrats, both on your chicken namesaking and the promotion. I suggest you ask prospective employees one of two questions. 1) Would they straddle or strile in a half closed farkle situation if blue tokens were wild?, and 2) What's a good rhyme for "chihuahua"?
None
[blamelewis] Ah, the old trick question! [Hidden Text]You can't have a half closed farkle situation when blue tokens are wild, unless the blue tokens became wild after the half closed farkle situation arose. In this second case both straddles and striles are impossible until the farkle is fully closed. See Ackerman's thesis on half-closed farkles, a good bed-time read.[/Hidden Text]
None
F*ck. I would have fallen for that one.
Cickcheck
Day 9: Flerdle has grown in my absence and is now bigger than Penelope. Lib and Pen are probably about the same size now. Chickens were freaked out by a glider that went over our house, Pen making a dash for cover whilst Lib and flerdle tilted their heads this way and that in an endearingly quizzical fashion. All chicken eating well, they seem to like carrot - fed them the dried head of a sunflower yesterday - but they didn't really get the hang of it and the seeds had to be pulled out for them. At about nine o'clock, they tramped up their little ramp and waited for me to lock the pop-hole. They are such good girls!
Day 10: Still no eggs. Estimated (with help of a calendar) that first egg may appear on 26th August (Day 21), although a friend of mine suggests that they won’t really get going until mid Sept. I am very busy at the moment, but I will try and draw up a plan of living quarters and maybe upload it to a Big Clucker website (which for me is a big step, never having done anything more adventurous with HTML than this!) Looking for reasonably priced no-ad site host. Any suggestions?
chuckyweb
There are several sites like this one which try to recommend free site hosts. As they say, free sites usually come with little or no help and most have annoying adverts/pop-ups. I've used Vispa for 2 years now and have had no problems (except in the first week when they were down for a day). Their on-line help was adequate for my needs. There must be many other free ad-free site hosts out there, some of which may allow you to have your own webby addy (like www.bigclucker.com instead of www.bigclucker.isphostname.com).
Slooooowwww....
BTW, is it generally half-slow on the internet today - I can't get into MCiOS or eBay (due to timeouts) but this site is speedy.
None
. . . and no sooner do I type that, when MCiOS springs back into view. eBay is still way too slow though.
Again!
Ebay is now OK. Hmmm, it seems the moment I post something here, it ceases to be true.
Gosh, I am lacking in money.
living on air
Glad flerdle is doing so well. Have been at home sick for last two days, able to do a little work remotely, but generally bleurgh. *totters back to bed for a while*
sickbay
*sends flerdle a mug of virtual hot chocolate and best wishes for a speedy recovery*
Hennery
It seems to me that after all this chicken related discussion, this should be renamed the Bantam Page!
Eggstraordinary
crack'd
[Rab] How complimentary to have one's ideas confirmed as good ones prior to having them!
Reasonable, ad-free hosting
[BtD] I think I could probably be persuaded quite easily.
None
Although image-heavy pages (like the one blob presented) would probably kill my connection quite quickly, so somewhere with more bandwidth might be better.
Bantam?
[Thos, rab] "Sorry, old man, we don't understand your bantam!"
Blowing trumpets
For the second time, Dujon has hit the high point of Celbdaq - don't worry, fans, at 0600 BST this will change. Disappears back into left field chanting "percentages, money, percentages ..."
None
Have made a surprising discovery. Chickens love grapes. And porridge. Not mixed.
oooooh, hot chocolate!
[pen] Thanks, much appreciated. Am still not well, and not particularly enheartened by a visitor yesterday saying "Oh, I had that for six weeks" :-o

But that didn't stop me from going to the football today (my second AFL match, and why complain when someone shouts you? Just rug up warm); hopefully some really nice photos... telephoto gooooooood.

Few words
Sorry folks. Mini Cheddars. Bit confused. Two words? Really, penelope. Wrong game!
Oof!
I've been kneecapped!
Chopping
[rab] You and several others by the looks of it. Bravo all. I'm finding it tough to make any headway this time round, but I'm not bitter . . .
But what about the chooks?
Ooooh, strawberries have started to come into season here! Yay!!!
[penelope] I don't see the problem there. Oh, and your hot chocolate remedy works a treat.
I'm back!
...and looking forward to regular posting!
Advance notice
I've just ordered new disks, one of which is for the web server. At the same time as moving to a new disk, I'll be taking the opportunity to upgrade to newer versions of the OS and web server.

This is the first of 3 or 4 planned outages during the remainder of this year, and will incur the largest downtime - I hope to keep it under 24 hours but promise nothing. If anyone has a problem with the machine being down on a particular day this week, let me know, either here, or by email to an address that should be fairly obvious. If I don't forget entirely, I'll point out the cause for outage at MCiOS and/or Orange at the time.

As an aside, the other planned upgrades are: a UPS, more RAM, and yet another disk.

On another note entirely; Rab - it's really quite annoying that the HTML checker insists on apostrophe pairs inside title="". Still, I guess that's what ' is for; I'm giving up my contractions for nothing or no-one. Nothing or no-one!

Indeed
[Nik] Point taken - I'll have a look at the HTML checker and see if I can get it doing something more sensible viz the quotes. Will you be upgrading MySQL too? Not that - I think - I need any of the features of the newer version when I finally upgrade, but just curious.
Also...
[Nik] Obviously if you drop me a line indicating when it'll go down, I'll arrange for a backup to be made of the game data at that point. I'm away for the bank holiday weekend, but with sufficient warning can set up a cron job to do the business, so it's irrelevant really.
Calm down!
What are you saying, like? Don't trust me to not destroy all the data, like? Eh? Eh? A benefit of switching disks and installing fresh is that the current disk won't be modified at all during the process, so data should be safe, although I'll be dumping /etc, /home, /var and /usr to CD anyway (a slightly neater variation of which will become a weekly backup to CDRW). I might go to Apache 2 and Mysql 4; I'll have a look at their feature lists and see if it's worth the risk.
Just A Minute - 2003-Aug-11
In a complete change of subject, did anyone catch last week's Just A Minute? What the hell were they saying about celebrity colonic irrigations?
JAM Last Week
[Dr Q] Which bit? "I'm A Celebrity, Get It Out Of Here"?
Getting Nik's back up
[Nik] Well - I didn't anticipate any loss of data but I never thought having too many backups was ever a problem! I'm using MySQL 4.0.12 here without difficulties. The main bonus is subqueries (not that I use these at the moment) but there is a slight difference in the way certain priveliges work, so you might find yourself saddled with some additional admin overhead if you were to upgrade. I know nothing of apache 2 - last I heard it was "experimental" which I understand to be a euphemism for "best avoided".
Toxic celebs
[DrQ] The JAM reference: IIRC, around the time of the Aussie Jungle Japes, a group of D list celebs 'volunteered' [paid obscene amounts of money] to go abroad for a filmed Celebrity Detox Week [Ch4?]. Along with most of the viewing nation, I didn't watch it but in an effort to generate interest, the red top coverage glorified in the contents of alleged celebs bowels after CI. I'm told it was a load of sh*te and believe none of them have worked since.
Ding! Dong!
The disks is here! Expect angrycake.com to fall off the world in approximately not too long.
*pulls the big red shutdown lever*
Right I'll close the games so as not to confuse everyone...
*yanks big red lever*
*big red lever clatters to floor*

*ACME Maintenance Squad drives off faster than you can say 'Spare any change?'*

*proffers new red lever*
What cowboy did this, eh? Me you say??
Good to be back
As you can see I've tightened a few screws here and there. If you notice any bugs, tell me.
Woo-hoo!
Our long international nightmare is over -- MC5 is back! Well done, rab & Nik.
Minor layout bug
[rab] See Mini Cheddars for an example -- the last word before an <hr> gets right-shifted.
Oh
Not on my browser it doesn't... probably just a small tweakette required somewhere. ETF March 37th 2008.
grrr
It was justified text wot woz doing it. Now disabled which is a shame cos where it worked I quite liked it.
Jubilation
Welcome back, Rab!
It's back! It's new improved bluey whiteness! Horrah!
Layout bug
It was doing it on mine (Mozilla Firebird 0.6/Linux), which turned out to be a pain because I'm running it at 1600x1200 with small fonts, which required me to shift my eyes a relatively long distance....
Aye, Cone
[rab] Nice new look - particularly fond of the "Stance" heading (Len Ganley, anyone?). I'm afraid I find the icons a little murky, though... there doesn't seem to be enough contrast between the grey background and the ochre/blue foreground. Indeed, I cannot distinguish them at all using peripheral vision (which slows down mouse navigation). Maybe this looks better on your PowerBook LCD, but on my PC CRT it looks grey and blobby (haven't connected my iBook to the net for four days, so don't know how it looks there).
Bluey whiteness
Yea! Its back and its prettier! Well done all concerned.

Current score:
Penelope: 3 eggs
flerdle: 1 egg
Lib: 1 egg

What a fantastic start there from Penelope.
hmmmm
I actually find this font slower to read. Just so you know.
ooooh
It seems to look different at work... hmmmm
Hokey-cokey
[Dunx] I agree with you about the murkiness of the icons. They were designed in a dark room on an LCD display, and I'm looking at them on a CRT right now. I might apply some transformations to them later.

[flerdle] I used to use your browser default font, but now have requested a sans-serif one. In principle you can override it, but in practice it might be more sensible to go back to the browser default.

[all] Keep your opinions rolling in.

New look
Love the refit - although I agree with Dunx that the buttons are murky. But a really nice feel to the site now.
[rab] Well, the buttons look better on my iBook screen! Something I will certainly need to remember next time I do some graphic design work... there is something in the OSX settings panel somewhere to change the colour balance to match that of a CRT; don't know if that would help.
Chook update
Penelope: 4
flerdle: 1
Lib: 1

Go for it Penelope! (Perhaps it was the promotion wot done it).
Henquiry
How can you tell who laid which egg?
design
Very nice, although the transparencies still aren't displaying properly under IE.
Transparently
[Projoy] That's not my fault. OK, so it is my fault that I insist on using those new-fangled PNGs rather than the old-school GIFs. I think I know of a workaround, but will be fiddly to apply.
Hey! It's working!
I'm sitting in the kitchen, with not a wire in sight, posting this. Hurrah!
Range
[rab] Sounds like you get better range than I do/did. What base station are you using?
Big range in the kitchen
[Dunx] I suspect it's because I live in a smaller house than you do :) For the record it's a LinkSys Wireless Ether-G, or similar (the one that's a four-port ethernet hub and a wireless access point). It's in the next room, I would guess about 10m, with a wall and a half in between.
Four bars, though, even on a Titanium-clad patlop.
Titanium-clad patlop
Would you like to borrow my NS4 compatibility dandelion for that?
Egg Identity
Boolbar] Two ways to identify egg layers - a sensitive art!
1. We know that a chicken is about to lay because she gets all busy looking for somewhere to go. They lay inside the chicken house ('cos they like privacy) so we see them go in. The only confusion could occur if they lay at night or if we get flerdle and Lib mixed up.
2. Egg colour. As a chicken gets into laying, her first eggs will be small and pale. Libs, being the last to start are small and light brown and flerdles are medium and tan. Pen, being a different variety, lays speckly eggs.
font fickleness
[rab] What font are you using? I wonder why it looks different at work. I've worked out what the trouble with speed of reading is - the letters in this font are quite crowded (upright strokes are close together, and overall the space between letters is small) and rounded letters like p, g, u, d are quite large, in comparison, and quite squarish, which makes them more difficult to distinguish quickly. I'm not advocating a return to serif, just noticing things about whatever it is you've chosen. I will cope.
Font affront
[flerdle] I ask for 'sans-serif'. You may be able to change your browser's default sans-serif font. I could specify 'helvetica' which might make more sense, but I'd need to check my CSS book (which is at home) to find out how to do it properly.
The Great Egg Race
Lovely. I've just had me summer holidays - two days in Lincs with my Mum. I'm back home, there was a queue on the M25 and it's raining. What's worse, now I have to empty the vacuum cleaner with all the sucked-up spiders in it. :o(
Love nest
[penelope] Tricky. One could imagine them all jumbled up inside the cylinder and thinking 'as we're stuck in here for a while - why not?' - then mating like fury so when you do the emptying bit, a whole new generation of spiderlets bent on evil revenge, burst forth with the taunting cry 'ner ner ne ner ner' . . .
[pen] More likely the spiders nuked it out and ate one another so now there is one single spider left - a very LARGE spider with LONG legs.
'racnids
Pen] Just stick 'em in a bag and send 'em to me. Chickens love spiders. And woodlice.
Re: Font. I dunno about anyone else but I like this font more than the previous one.
the lesser of two weevils
[BtD] I would gladly send you all my spiders. For some reason (too embarrassig to go into here... well OK, he was a boyfriend of mine a long, long time ago), we 've always called woodlice 'jonathans'. And I have lots under all the plant pots in the garden. Can I borrow your chickens for a couple of days?
Guess what time it is?
Having decided to not rebuild the server again, I'll be taking it down for ten minutes later (this evening, tomorrow, never) to figure out what sort of RAM I need, and also to take out the old disk and screw the new one in. This process should be painless, requiring no software changes at all.
While I remember
I'm going away tomorrow (Sun 31st) for just under a fortnight. I may have sporadic connectivity from there but one can't really rely on it.
Have a good one. I'll try not to ruin everything in the mean time.
Celebdaq Update
Congrats in advance to Uncle Korky for his upcoming first kneecapping.

Ahnold is now over £200/share with no end in sight. Even Becks couldn't top that.
Spiders
[penelope] But why did you suck them up in the first place? Spiders are on our side!
Boris
[Breadmaster] I embarked on a spider-killing spree after being dumped. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Arachnids
penelope you are CRUEL,
I am sure that flerdle will back me up here - I get spiders in the house, in summertime mainly, which are 6" to 8" across the legs and varied in body size - some are an inch or two. Whilst I detest spiders - in fact the larger ones give me the heebie jeebies - I catch them and toss them outside. So, in future, behave yourself! "Four legs is better than two..." or was that something else? ... :-)
Hairy legs
[Dujon] Sounds like you've got some Huntsmans. Huntsmen. Whatever. Greeaat big black hairy ones. I've only seen them to about 4 to 5 inches across, managed to trap one in the bathroom at a former house under a plastic container - the tok of it against the sides was fairly alarming, and spiders don't really worry me. I put it outside.

[Dujon, again] Are you in Sydney?

Why I ask, is...
Cross-posting alert to people south of the equator: See "To be a Pilgrim" here.
spiders
Having Charlotte's Web read to me at a young age has led to a life-long, well, liking if not loving of spiders; so long as they're on their webs I don't really mind. We had one on the inside of our kitchen window and we put up a sign and my mother insisted on calling it Fred. A stupid lodger murdered it in an overly helpful cleaning frenzy, which also involved her throwing out numerous useful items..
It is back
Have not been able to access this site due to very slow (interrupted) download. Anyone else had this problem?
Dujon/flerdle] Chickens would probably love big spiders too. Would they travel well by air?
Pen] Saskia reminded me of something I've now put in 'The Beige Allegro'. Ring any bells?
hrmmm
Probably illegal to export them. You'll just have to selectively breed some over there, I think. Or send your chickens on holidays.
Eight-legged friends
I believe that the huge hairy ones that occasionally hurtle across the living room carpet are called "Wolf Spiders". I really like them and always leave them alone, because they keep the place clean and are rather cute. It may be an urban myth, but I heard that their venom is actually poisonous enough to kill you, but their jaws are too weak to bite through your skin, so they're harmless (unless you let them bite you on a wound, of course). Could this really be true?
Wolfspiderman
Breadmaster] I've never heard that one, but my Dad has been bitten by Wolfspiders many times. He claims it is akin to an ant bite. Congrats on your publication by the way.
Huuuuuuuuge
It seems difficult to get information about the precise toxicology of the spider venom. Or I'm not looking hard enough. No matter. A factsheet about huntsman spiders is here: huntsman. I think up here we tend to call all large black spiders "huntsman" spiders. A factsheet about Australian wolf spiders is here: wolf. The legs seem quite different, and huntsman spiders seem to be larger.
Why can I never prevent myself looking at pages about spiders? I'm going to be creeped out and itchy for hours, now.
Miss Tuffett
There are also Harvestmen which look like spiders but aren't... they're the really skinny, ethereal- and anorexic-looking things.
Cheers to Dr Q with regards to my minor success in Celebdaq. Now I fully understand what happens on a kneecapping. Call me naive, but I never realised that they took all of your existing shares away and you had to start form scratch again. Hmmm... well, as you can imagine, that was a bit of a surprise... On the up-side, I've now got a lovely green wad next to my name. On the downside, I had oodles of Arnie...
When I got kneecapped the first time, I got instantly bored and stopped doing anything on Celebdaq. But that's just me.
celebdaq
I am number one, I am number one, I am number one..(again). I would like to thank Mick Jagger and Stella McCartney for aiding me, (and others for getting kneecapped.) MWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*peep*
We want more chicken photos!
Chickflicks and goodbooze
fl] Sorry - I have been very busy recently + I still use non-digital technology. Will do what I can. Just to say that the Chickens are thriving, lots of eggs (gorgeous yellow yolks). flerdle made a bid for freedom recently in desperation as she attempted to get at her porridge. When the garden vegetables have stopped and I've dug the ground (late September) I will let the chickens have completely free-range. They will dine on slugs eggs, centipedes, leatherjackets and other destructive pests, fertilising the ground as they go.
Continuing in the Good-Life tradition, I recently tried brewing Honey Beer to an C18 recipe (the chickens ate the mashed hops). It has a 2nd fermentation in the bottle and so every so often there is an explosion in the pantry as a cork pops out. This is no bad thing as I can have a little sip to see how it is progressing. My God it is strong. It is almost revolting, but oddly, once tasted it leaves you wanting more. Probably needs time. Has anyone got any recipes I can use it in if it turns out to be crap?
Honey Beer Gone Wrong
[BtD] I understand that once gone wrong, Honey Beer makes an excellent nappy soaker, paint stripper and fingerprint remover (that's removing fingerprints from your fingers, not from surfaces). I'd wear marigolds if I was you.
celebdaq
I'm still rolling along on the Ahnold bandwagon...right along side the Madonna/Britney Dividend Express. :)
Calling in from Ambleside
This is some really weird font here. Me no understand. Must sort out my CSS on the return. The school is going well but I need to return to listen to a guy from Sunderland explain density functional theory. More dispatches later. ttfn, rab.
Chickens
[Btd] Our neighbour has decided to install some chickens, too. He was banging and sawing pretty much continuously last weekend (while we were unboxing all our gear) and now there are gentle warbly chicken noises coming from his garden. No rooster, fortunately.
chick-chicks
Isn't it odd your neighbour didn't mention it before? "Oh, by the way, I'm getting chickens too!" I don't know, it just seems slightly odd to me.
bok bok bok
[rab] See! See! Not just me
[snorgle] You'll find it was Bob the dog who's Chicken Man.
I currently live in what would be classed as "inner city" (20min walk to the middle of the CBD), but it's quite low density still - blocks of units, but many individual houses. We really only have one person-neighbour (going anticlockwise: church, multistorey carpark, cliff and shop, more shops, neighbour in large house). Some friends have kept chooks (complete with renovated gardens for same), and I did hear about someone with a sheep, up in the hill just a little over. They used to take it for walks, on a leash.
[snorgle] Not really - we were moving in while the chicken coop was being built, so I suspect the decision must have been made a good while before we could ever have met the neighbours concerned.
We seem to have lost Thraxwhirl from the realms of the Celebdaq league...
f**k-a-doodle-do
[Roosters] One of my lovely neighbours has roosters, introduced a couple of years after we moved in. His attitude is "if you don't like it, move" but said in a more unpolite way.
bleary mornings
[Boolbar] Gun with silencer?
[flerdle] That's a good idea. But what about the roosters?
Dunx - chickens
whoops! I wasn't paying attention, and I'm awful at names - I often have to read back in books to check who is who again. We get quite a lot of horses running wild near me as there is a traveller site not far away. The local paper ran an article where a Belfast man now living in the area said he wanted to move back to the Garvaghey Road in Belfast as he felt it was safer, because his garden was constantly invaded by wild horses. Bit of an over-reaction, if you ask me. He said the police wouldn't help once they were on his property. I can't help but wonder if reporting the horses to a horse welfare society might be more likely to get a reply. He could say that they were in danger, and not just from him! (they do gallop all over the roads..).
Rooster booster
I have noticed that the gentle warbly chicken noises you get from hens has an oddly soporific effect. I have considered recording it to sell as a new-age aid to meditation…(Page goes all shimmery)
Are you stressed, anxious or hyper-tense? Why not try Bob the dog’s natural free-range homeopatic massage emporium! Yes! You too can experience deep massage set to the natural sound of real organic chickens. And for that full holistic experience, why not try the gentle scouring action of a detox colonic irrigation using the purest natural Honey Beer? Guaranteed to remove lethargy. Guaranteed to remove sensation.
honeytrap
Oh dear . . . every time the phrase 'Honey Beer' pops up on this page, I can't help but think of a porn star [y'know - add the name of your first pet to your mother's maiden ... etc etc].
Top Billing
[Chalky] Dusty Jaines. eeeek
Best girl's name ever come across in the course of my work (according to a male colleague...) Stella Foster
Comotose
[BtD] I'm with you, my friend. I do not have the pleasure at the moment, but a quiet Sunday afternoon with blue skies and chickens/hens going about their business is a most wonderful dream. Of course, if penelope's Stella Foster was in attendance - or either of them, actually - it would make the experience even more fulfilling. ;-)
Rev Canaan Banana
add the name of your first pet to your mother's maiden to make the name of a porn star? Mmm, I doubt that Snuffy Mander would be very popular. As for odd real names, I once heard of a Basil Crapster.
Khala Lamb
... hmm... not really.

and Beryl's would be Peter Ridge, most uninteresting.

One of my school/student friends was called Michel Joseph Thomas LeBlond de Tedesco. And he insisted on giving his full name on all official forms. I remember the Inland Revenue once sent him a post-reply form asking "Is Michel Joseph Thomas LeBlond de Tedesco one person or two?", to which he answered in the reply section "Yes." - and, strangely, they never followed it up.

a.k.a. Gigi Coates
Shouldn't really draw attention [because I've been contributing] but The Facial Nightwear Game don't 'arf crack me up. I really do LOL.
more wine please
Congrats to snorgle at No1 on Celeb MC. Unfortunately snorgle I wasn't around the last two weeks, so when I get round to it there will be a small break in the tables.
Ooops!
[Inkspot] Oh yes. Someone was meant to be screen saving those tables . . . . .
overcooked celebs
It's such a waste - hitting the million mark on a Tuesday - just after kneecap day and with a whole week to pick up dividends and do . . . well, nothing. Mind you, if Arnie's share price plummets unexpectedly, I could easily summon up some enthusiasm and check my portfolio - but that is unlikely, now some bozo has chucked an egg at him and he's picking up half page features in 'The Times'.
font
Is it just me or has the font changed? It's gone a diet and is all squished up!
fount
[snorgle] it's not just you.
Knowledge
Flerdle, how are you chook?

Regarding your RSVP apropos a pilge in Sydney: Regrettably I shall be unable to attend such a bacchanal - I live some 75Km west from 'The Bridge' and work 7 days a week. Should people (?) be prepared to come out here to the 'sticks' I could probably free up the odd hour or two - but it'd have to be pretty close to home base. ... :-(
A font by any other name ...
I run reasonably high resolution on my monitor (1280 x 1024) and it's pretty big and 'blocky'. What it must look like on a lesser resolution I shudder to thing. (Sorry, only being constructive) ...... Heads for the coop in the fond hope that he's not laid an egg!
Fumbles
'thing' s/b 'think'
Better?
[Font] Is that better? I don't see why the IE default sans-serif font should be so grim. I assumed that not being too specific about the font would be helpful, as it would allow people an element of customisation. The trouble is it seems that (on this version of IE at least, or the way it's been set up for public use) there's no way to change the default fonts, so you're stuck with something MS thinks is kewl.

There are two further ways that one, and only one, browser gets this totally wrong. (Can you tell which one it is yet?) Firstly it refuses to acknowledge the button backgrounds of the buttons are transparent. It also fails to put a border around the page. The latter is hardly a disgrace, but the former is very irritating. I will try and sort this out when I escape Ambleside, as well as doing the demurkation.

Meanwhile... crikee! This is the first chance I've had to sit down and catch my breath since last Sunday evening. Each day follows quite a harsh routine, with lectures from 9 til 12.30. Then in the afternoons we run up some hills to try and prevent the three-course-meal waistlines expanding too ridiculously before another lecture and a tutorial which is the point where I field questions about subjects I last learnt about four years ago when I was a student at the very same school. After dinner there can be a talk (one of which I gave) before running to the nearest pub and downing four pints of beer.

So today I've caught up on my sleep. Weather permitting I'll be doing a big walk tomorrow, and then it starts all over again for another week... It's fun, but I haven't been so tired since, um, about four years ago when I was a student at the very same school. (Err... we got that bit -- Ed.)

font
It's back the way it was now, anyway. Nice stream of consciousness there, Rab!
no change, actually.
[rab] Glad you're getting so much exercise :-)
The text in the Name and Apropos boxes is different to that in the final display, and that in the Stance box is serif. I think I'm just going to have to live with it.

[Dujon] What a shame. Dunno about a "baccanal" though - if we could ever get our act together, at most it would be four of us (and any surprise unknowns), and I don't drink much! It's been settled, I'm heading down thataway in the first weekend in October, but won't have a car, so I can't make it up the hill, as it were. I'm mainly going to be in Dapto visiting a friend (err... whee?). Ah, well, at least I tried. I might return to the area before January, but am really unsure about that.

Whatever happened to...
!York? I have been cast into the wilderness since its unceremonious demise. Am I back on track here?
Welcome Back Tujmeister!!!!!!
!York went the way of the Dodi back in February. A mysterious entity named called "Mordac" is apparently going to set it up again at some point; as for now, everyone's migrated to here, Orange or MCiOS. YAMCS is also kaput

Anyway, welcome back, and here's hoping you're back for some non-stop hot MC thrill-seeking :)

Tuj!
Welcome back Tuj! Hope you enjoy the new look of MC.
[rab] I'm using IE6 and the border is there, the buttons have transparent backgrounds, and the font was fine even when everyone said it wasn't.
[Tuj] Horrah! You're back!
Celebdaq update
Ahnold's incredible rise has tapered off, but, in his words... "I keep coming and coming; I'm coming all the time!"

Tuj!!
Welcome back - long gap but glad you are back. This site has sort of filled the !York gap for me.
Arty-farty
Hello. There's probably not much point telling you about this as the exhibition finished today (sob!) but nevertheless.... On saturday I wandered to Liverpool to go to the Tate gallery there. There was an exhibition on by Janet Cardiff which was truly mindblowing. Is a little bit difficult to explain but it was an audio thing. Thomas Tallis wrote a 40 part motet (unaccmopanied song for 8 choirs of 5 voices each) and Ms Cardiff has recorded this on 40 microphones and it is played through 40 speakers at head height around the edge of the room. So you stand in the middle and get the full picture and then can wander round the room listening to each part. It is wonderful! I'm sure it'll go on to other galleries, so look out for it!
Well, nice to be recognised...
Mordac... sounds Arthurian. As I regrounded here I'll probably stay, having not really got into Orange, MCiOS etc. Let the games begin!
40 part motet
[Lib] Yes - I raved about this in another place back in April. I believe it's going to be at the Whitechapel Gallery, or some such, very soon, and I concur - go see it!
[Tuj] His full name is Mordac the Preventer, and he may or may not be a figment of Simons Mith's imagination...
Spem
I have several times performed the Tallis in the round - that is, with the eight choirs surrounding the audience. Only then do you get the full sense of the way the music travels through the performers - sometimes working its way round the circle, sometimes bouncing back from side to side. It is a work of the most astounding technical virtuosity - the forty parts are all truly different and independent, yet the resulting complex is very, very nearly entirely free of parallel fifths (a sort of technical shibboleth in Renaissance music) (we found one once, but I can't now recall where it is!). It is said that the piece was conceived to be performed in an octagonal tower in the (long-vanished) Nonsuch Palace, with a choir in a gallery on each side of the tower. (One quibble with the Tate website's description - Spem is hardly a piece of secular music ...)
Spem, Spem, Spem, Spem...
[Wol] Do you, like all other singers of my acquaintance, derive enormous and, for once, highly justified amusement from its name?
Spam in Aluminium
Wol Breadmaster] I have no idea what you mean ;o) In my artstudent days I composed a piece of music for four suspended washing machine shells. I wired them up with loudspeakers and played through music composed using recorded church bells heavily distorted by volume so that they resonated as they swung. The piece was divided into four movements which progressed from shell to shell. The idea came from a play on the word cycle.
[BtD] Wring Out The Bells?
Wonderful ...
What is it with singers and their puerile witticisms? Sometimes I think all those jokes about sopranos are justified! (Q: How do you put a sparkle in a soprano's eye? A: shine a torch in her ear ...) Sperm in Ovum; Lo, the Full Frontal Sacrifice; O Slap your Glands Together; I mean, they're just not funny, are they? </snigger>
Watty, re: Mordac] I can see nothing's changed around here then!
Report
[Boolbar] This means I can now officially support those versions of IE on which this page works properly. Which is probably some sort of oxymoron or something.
IE6
For the record, this page has always worked fine on my IE6 too.
IE6 et al
Same for me, also in Safari.
IE6? Feh.
No apparent changes on Mozilla Firebird/Linux.
Old MacDonald had a farm, IE IE 6
With a woof-woof here too. I've just been having a cool glass of my Honey Beer. Why has this page gone all woozy? Your my blest frwend you are . . . . . . .
Change any subject you don't understand, just like BtD did...
Is it me, or are there pretty much two games of face PJs going on here? Yon Centurion Three has a distinct flavour of it. See you've finally got round to shoving all those cryptic crossword clues somewhere ;)
I forgot to put deodorant on again this morning. Is this what being a busy manager is all about? *whiffs*
me too!
[pen] AArgh, I've done it too! Thanks for reminding me as I'm still in the building where I live so can rectify the situation (and my next port of call is likely to be a changing room at one of the clothing outlets in the monstrosity of the Trafford Centre, so you've reminded me just in time!). *phew! Lib breathes a sigh of relief and mentally appreciates Pen's managerial skills*
Academia
The notion of deodorant is academic given my lingering state of insobriety hanging over from last night. Oh dear. One day I will grow up. The amusing thing is, of course, is that I'm about to give a tutorial.
Odourising Trafford
[Lib] Surely being stinky (sorry, 'glowing', or whatever is you female sorts do) around the Trafford Centre is the best way to assure yourself of not being squeezed to death? Oh, but how I hate that place.

Hm. Three (any more?) of us in the Manchester area - the stuff of a micro-alterna-pilg. And there's a Mornington Crescent to boot (photos of which I never did get developed, and as such are probably degraded beyond use now).

The area
I believe _tim_ and JLE reside in these parts, though I haven't seen the former around for a while. Hangover just about gone now. What a day...
More Magic
After a week wallowing in the bowels of the Celebdaq mini-league and a trip to Britany I have managed to climb on top of snorgle to No1, for this I'd like to thank David Blaine. Can gil get there next, after I've been kneecapped?
Now that Arnie is dropping I hope that Darren and Graham III will return to the fray.
Manc-y-ness
[Manchester] Yay! Lets have a Manchester Pilg! Yay!

[Trafford centre] Had a v good shopping spree and the Trafford centre was surprisingly quiet (although I did wonder whether there was a by-law stating that EVERYONE must be pushing a pram), but I had a nasty experience. Whilst trying on a top I somehow managed to get poked in the eye with the clothes label (the cardboard one). I found this rather surprising as I wear glasses and had my eyes shut. Anyway it hurt and I cried. I pulled myself together and got on with my shopping. 12 hours later its still very sore, so I've just meandered down to A&E and got some drops, don't seem to help much though. *Lib saunters off, feeling slightly silly that such a small injury causes her so much grief*

[Lib] I once managed to scratch my cornea with an overhead projector. Don't ask...
Mini-Burgers
Looking at the most recent Mini Cheddar I'm reminded of something known as the "Noisy Burgers Equation".
Eye too
Lib/CdM] One speck of lime fell into my eye from a badly rendered ceiling once. I have never experienced pain like it. Once in hospital a well-meaning nurse gave me a routine eye sight test despite the fact that I couldn't even open the affected eye. My good eye was so full of tears that I couldn't see the A at the top of the card. She told me that I needed glasses. Logical I suppose. Get better soon Lib - in my experience the drops do help - eventually. If it is any consolation, your namesake has just laid a fabulous egg. Her eyes probably watered a bit too.
Eye's to the Right!
[BtD] Glad Lib's laying well, it is rather exciting to have a namesake! And you'll all be relieved to know that my eye is feeling lots better tonight.
forgetful
And thanks for the sympathy! It worked wonders!
Eyiiiiiieee
[Eye] I have a small tear in my cornea. If my eye dried out overnight (central heating, restless night, alcohol) then when opening that eye in the morning the lid would pull on the tear making it worse. I couldn't face any change in light intensity for a couple of hours without the feeling of a sharp needle in the eye. Liquid tears for the best part of a year did the trick. NEVER use eye cleaners like Optrex though. How did I do it? Would you believe a poke in the eye from a sharp stick?
Trust me, I'm sort of a...
[Boolbar] Recurrent corneal erosion, if you want a name for that; not uncommon, and as another of our correspondants will tell you, v painful. Artificial tears (lubricants), preferably unpreserved, used regularly, are really the only thing that helps.

[Lib] Get thee to someone with a decent slit-lamp biomicroscope :-) So cool, eyes seen really close... but you're probably fine by now. Owwww, anyway.

[BtD] Lime and other caustic burns can be REALLY bad. *shudders* (oh, and if anyone was wondering about first aid for them, force the person's eyes open and wash wash wash. Oh, and wash. Forget about those piddly little bottles of eyewash, shove their head under a tap/hose/shower. Stay there for 20 minutes, the caustic action keeps working even if you've apparently flushed it all out.)

Oh, and another thing - heed the warnings on eye drops to discard after opening (unpreserved) or a month after opening (preserved). Trust me, I *know*.

err... and when I said "force"...
... I meant, gently hold. but make sure the eye is open. They will thank you later. Honest. *resists posting pictures of what can happen if you don't*
[flerdle] Ta for the name. The only fun part of it was visiting the Doctors who shoved some fluorescent dye in my eye to see what was going on. I had green glowing eyes for the next hour.
Fun dyeing
Oh yeah, that stuff is fun, and it stains clothing wonderfully. If you blow your nose, your sn... anyway, fluorescein (the dye) also glows under UV light. Something not to mix with contact lenses, because they absorb it.
Glow in the dark eyeballs
flerdle] Even more reason to do it - especially as halloween is just around the cornea (waak waak).
Severe eye injury
I just suffered one right now -- I brought up www.bbc.co.uk and right there was Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. My retinas decomposed immediately in defense....
Concrete Evidence
[Boolbar] Being the other correspondent which flerdle speaks of, I can agree that it's bloody painful. The offending item was a corner of a piece of concrete board, and so I agree with flerdle that there was a good chance of there being some nice cuastic damage there too. It's been fifteen months, and I'm getting less frequent and less severe pain now, but still... I'd really rather not have to deal with it.

One unexpected benefit of our new house is that because it has aircon, we have no need to run fans in the windows and so I no longer sleep in a breeze which stops my eye drying out so much.

Top tip: drink water before going to bed, then some more after you've been to the loo in the night.

Manchester Pilg
"Manchester will celebrate a Europe-wide transport initiative - In Town Without My Car Day - on Sunday when part of Deansgate will be closed to traffic." This seems just the sort of thing to stagger around drunk during. Anyone? I can be in town between around 12:15 and 21:00.
Well, sort of without
Is one fully participating in this pedestrian and velocipedic celebration if one drives most of the way to town and then proceeds on foot? How much walking distance does it take to cancel out the sin of driving?
car-free day
[Nik] I wonder if someone will go mad and drive through the ribbon? :)
Angry Cake Walk
Aha ! Further to discussions in the Lock Cup, I googled mc5 and discovered the angrycake link - the rab.org one don't work no more.
blob
Hello! waves
Walking and rabbiting
[Nik] I would love to join you but am flying off to Dresden on Sunday morning. [Blob] It does you know, you're probably trying to go to the wrong place: http://www.rab.org.uk/mc/ redirects you here.
Blaine baiting
snorgle it looks as if my prediction of last week was out and gil ran out of steam. But I see that rab your playing the long game with a couple of slow burners.
But the League is nicely poised for some upsets tomorrow's divi payout especially from Dujon who got the jump on me buying the same stock but an hour or two earlier.
Momentary outage
(Where 'momentary' is defined as 'any period of a few minutes or so'). That was meant to happen. I finally got around to removing the old disk completely. Much quieter without it, and the various bits screwed back on. There's still going to be a further outage, for RAM, and RSN, but given my propensity to not do things, that could be days, weeks, or aeons.
Outreach
[Nik] I don't spect anyone else noticed. I got a range of Awuga! Awuga! alerts, which did little but alert me to the fact that these pages deal better with error conditions than I thought. Which is a reason to be cheerful, to those of you who are listening.
Mm, that caused me a bit of a panic. Turns out I'd forgotten to start mysql during boot, though. Whew.
Noticing
I noticed, but only because I couldn't get here for one iteration of my Crescent polling loop. No deaths occurred.
mysqld
[Nik] The message was surprisingly informative :)
Blaming Blaine
[Inkspot] You doing some inside trading? I deliberately traded to get my quids under the £1M mark the previous week - no point in being kneecapped unnecessarily - and hoped for a 100% + weekly run in order to 'earn' two green wads. It worked - fine - but how do people get 500% + ??? I thought I was sitting on top % most of the week! So much to learn, so little time ...
Missed Birthday
I've been away (working!) in Cornwall so I've missed a Birthday. Many Happy Returns Boolbar!
Middle-aged? Who me?
Oddly enough I almost missed it as well.
Bool] 93 is'nt middle aged. Or have I got that wrong?
Yes, you have got it wrong - it should be isn't not is'nt.
I wo'nt make that mistake again!
... although I believe the correct term nowadays is middle youth. I'll look it up once I've found where I left my pipe and slippers.
celebdaq
[Dujon]You're right to blame Blaine - I had about £60000, sunk it all into Blaine at just over £2 a share. The share shot up, and the publicity was massive so I got over £400 thousand in dividends! That's why my percentage was so high, but it's going down now. I'll be kneecapped Monday as I have £1.6 million, so I'm trying to daytrade my £830 thousand dividends to top £2 million by Monday. We'll see how it goes. Blaine is still pretty cheap, so I might sink my £10 thousand into him again..
Away
Although I expect to log on tomorrow sometime, I should warn that I am in Dresden the next two weeks. This will probably make no functional difference, as I think I'll be getting a desk with a puter on it.
Slurring
[Shnorgles] Oil accept that fer moment - good luck an' all = shleepy time nar - the battle of the virus (virii) has been fought; we're in a stand off at this pint (!) in time. ... hic! shee uer layder.
hair of the dog that bit you
Dujon - are you sober yet? ;)
[Dujon] I had to double-check that my name wasn't attached to that; I'm in the middle of my regular saturday afternoon 'see what I put on the internet last night' routine. Thankfully, it seems I restricted my drivel to text messages and phone calls, this week. Mostly talking to people in Pirate, and demanding they do the same, I vaguely remember.
Bright eyed and bushy tailed
Nice to know I'm not the only one, Nik, and thanks for your enquiry, snorgle ... :-) I've spent the last couple of days fighting computer viruses - Urrgh. In the end I re-installed everything on the boot drive and changed my anti-virus program! I was celebrating last night as I was so pleased to back up an running ... sad innit?
pop-ups
[Dujon]Congrats! I am convinced that when I went to download something, but changed my mind, I actually downloaded some kind of spyware or something. This is because I'm getting the same pop-ups again and again, even when I don't have microsoft internet explorer open. I did run a spy-ware remover (it needed 2 goes!), but maybe the website recorded my ip address? Believe it or not, the ads are all for a pop-up remover! One said that there might be spyware on my system, so I should buy their product. AS IF...
pop-off
[Snorgle] You don't need to have your browser open to receive those blasted things but, to the best of my knowledge, you do need to be on-line (though I'm prepared to stand corrected.) They have been a recent phenomenon for me, starting to appear in the last week or two; I just 'x' them. I shall see if my latest virus/firewall combo stops them from appearing - only time will tell.
messenger popups
[snorgle] no, it's not spyware, it's just a new kind of mass-market spam which appears to use Windows Instant Messenger rather than email. (Although I've several times told Instant Messenger not to receive messages, an instruction which it cheerfully ignores.) Feel free to simply delete the messages and ignore them, and if you find a way of suppressing them, please post it here so we can all know ;-)
pop-up hell
I have windows XP at home and ticking the nice firewall check box that goes with the dialup doodah stopped those pop-ups. Sorry, can't help otherwise.
Pop-ups? What are those?
Mozilla Firebird + Linux. Haven't seen a pop-up in almost an entire calendar year. Mind you, it tends to cut down on the usability of cricinfo.com.... :)
pop-up weasels
No, its not the windows messenger spam, because I'm on windows 98. I checked on www.grc.com, and tested for that anyway, and nothing came up. It's got a couple of links to websites selling programs to spam people this way, which is quite interesting. One of them has a page explaining how to turn off your messenger service as well, so I guess they got complaints! I may try firebird..
pop-up-tastic mate
Hmm, I've not seen anything like that. Of course, I use Opera on my computer at home with Win98 or Mozilla and Mandrake, and at work, although I use the browser supplied on the computer (Internet Exploder) I have a crippled version of WinXP (which I have spent a great deal of time and effort crippling - finally, Windows Messenger got the message and pissed off).
not speaking
I've lost my voice - well the interesting part of it anyway. All I'm left with is the raspy bit that makes me sound like Mariella Frostrup but without the knowledge of the arts, or the looks. So right here is the only place I'm going to talk today :o)
Madeupname
I didn't know who Mariella Frostrup was so I googled her and found this. Is this what you meant by knowledge of the arts Pen?
[BtD] Yup.
*waves to penelope*
mute
*waves to flerdle and opens mouth as if speaking but no sound comes out*
xwds
Has everyone given up on the crossword game ? Pity if you have - I was enjoying it before I went away on holiday - and then got frozen out of here. Ho hum. Never mind.
sneezy
I think it's going around pen, I'm off today as I only slept 2 hours last night because my damned nose keeps dripping! I hope it wears off for tonight..
Attishoo
[snorgle] You hope it wears off ? Well if you rub it too hard it just might !
Top banana plus
Wahay - I'm no 1. Thanks to Johnnie Vegas. Shame Frank Bruno's not listed.
[penelopeeee] Good to see you back, albeit in trappist mode - which, when you think about it, doesn't really make much difference in here. Did you have a nice break?
[Everyone with missing voices & drippy noses] It's a nasty virus, this early autumn cold - made my mum quite ill.
[Blob] I fear you may have to tempt the experts back into the Vault with some fiendish clues. Haven't had much time lately, besides, I'm only a learner.
breaking up
[Chalky] Lovely, thanks. I'm fitter, browner and wiser than I was before. I was working as a volunteer for the National Trust, something I've done several times before and they seem to like me. I have been asked four times now if I would consider being an assistant project leader and I'm starting to break under the pressure. There's something coming in the post and a nomination form has already been sent off. Whoops. :o)
blob - atishoo
that sounds like a line from a song..
celebdaq'n
Who's Johnnie Vegas, and why am I glad I bought 86000 shares of him when he was under £2/share?
Dive! Dive! Di... no, hang on, never mind.
Mysql failed to start during boot, again, despite me adding the relevant whoojits and doodads. Odd. Still, back again, for a while. Hopefully the new memory won't be flaky.
[DrQ] Johnny Vegas is brilliant, but indescribable (yet not indescribably brilliant, I just can't be bothered).
HAPPY HAPPY!
Hello, I'm smiling lots today. Why? Well, 1) I'm on holiday 2) I found a favourite top that was eaten for a few months by the wardrobe monster and 3) I'm reunited with my laptop (which is more your austin allegro of a model compared to rab's whizzy apple thing, but I do love it dearly) having mistakenly 'Lent' it to my brother a year ago. Has taken me ages though to put the settings back how they should be! But is nice to be reunited with my first (computer) love.
First love
My laptop is at the computer hospital, and I'm bereft without it. Looking around for some other means of distraction, I've discovered a strange kind of primitive "disk" made of sheets of thin white stuff with black markings on them, mimicking words on a screen. I'm not sure what kind of machine I need to read them, as they won't fit in the video, but they're propping the table up very well.
rant about my colds
grrr... I HATE colds! I'm sudafed AND sinex and they're not having any effect. At least the pain-killers work..but I'd rather be at work, feeling reasonable well. That's 2 nights now I've only got about 3 hours sleep.
last rant
er..I'm ON sudafed and sinex obviously, although if I take any more tablets I may turn into one.. :D [BM]Try your visual interface for that format.
codes
[Snorgle] I find decongestants just dry up my membranes, which is exactly the opposite thing you need to happen with a cold - you're snotty because your body is trying to get rid of the infection via mucus. (sorry to those that have just breakfasted.) There's a foolproof remedy for sleep. You need: Olbas Oil, a thick teeshirt, a lemon, a bottle of whisky and some honey. Apply several drops of Olbas Oil around the neck of the teeshirt. You will be sleeping in this tonight. Boil the kettle. Put two generous spoonsful of honey into a large mug, pour on boiling water and stir until the honey dissolves. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the mug, and top up with a generous slug of whisky. Breath in the steam and drink the honey, lemon and whisky as hot as you can. Go to bed, wearing the eucalyptus-flavoured teeshirt, and sleep like a baby. Works for me - good luck!
hot toddy
Sounds good to me! I've already been using lemon and honey, as its delicious, but I don't usually drink whisky. I think I may try brandy instead. I'm sure I've got olbas oil around, somewhere under a pile of tissues..
knockout!
[Snorgle] Excellent. I think it's a combination of the steam clearing your tubes immediately before bed, the vitamin C and cleansing action of the lemon om your throat, the soothing of the honey (and it has healing qualities too), the topping up of fluid intake for the night, and of course the immediate knock-out effect of the brandy or whisky which sends you to sleep before you know it. I once gave this to a flatmate who was distressed because she was so uncomfortable with a cough and a cold... she hated the idea but I bullied her into drinking it and within five minutes I heard snoring coming from her room. :o)
Grüsse aus Dresden
Hello from Dresden. I came prepared for vast expanses of brutalist architecture and am pleasantly surprised to find large open spaces, old buildings (the opera house is particularly fine), not to mention fabby restaurants and bars. German cities have a tendancy to be a bit thin-on-the-ground nightlife-wise, but not this one. The conference is going well, although I don't think I'm whoring myself around as much as I should be given that my contract runs out next year. Oh well... [Blob] Re crosswords - I think there's still demand. Once we're back up to full numbers I'm sure things will continue again. And, to be fair, you weren't frozen out, you just lost the URL. Which is not the same thing at all. [Colds] Hmmm... feeling a little funny today in the head and throat department but I am not getting a cold. Oh no.
avant-garde viruses (or is it virii?)
Viruses are stupid. Ok, so they barely register as life forms, but if they did useful or interesting things, then maybe our bodies wouldn't go into overdrive to eject them. They could, for instance, turn our fingernails red, (without pain or swelling) or make our hair go an interesting shade of turquoise, and everything would be fine! But oh no, they have to and reproduce by making us miserable. I say we should ban them until they get their act together!
snooooooooooooooooooooooze..
I'm back in work, as I was able to sleep last night. I don't know if it was the brandy, honey and lemon, or just that the cold is getting better anyway, but I'm happy. I can't function on 3 hours sleep. I probably would have taken today off too, but I'm supposed to be covering for my manager tomorrow, and I needed to get up to speed. At least it's quiet this morning.
at home today and feeling a bit chatty
[penelope] So. This NT assistant project leader thingummy. Would that be full-time? Like a proper job? Would you have to resign from your shiny new PR job? Like a *BIG* decision?
[snorgle] I've got a sniffle-in-the-nose and a tickle-in-the-throat which is a bit worrying. Especially as it's my daughter's thirteenth birthday tomorrow and our home is going to be invaded by nine [yes NINE] newteens for a 'sleepover'. I must be bonkers. Brandy, honey and lemon now top the shopping list.
[rab] Nice to hear news of Dresden, me ol' china. Although I lived in Germany for 11 years [child of the forces], the cities of East Germany were but names with disquieting connotations and never to be visited. The closest I came was a longish spell in Berlin which I remember as a gloriously spacious city. Even though I was young, I still have a sense of the amazing architecture and the night-life. However, the salutary reminder of its isolation from the west came during my train journeys to boarding school which crossed the eastern zone. At the checkpoint, the window blinds would be firmly lowered and we were instructed to stay in our seats and not move under any circumstances. The train travelled really s-l-o-w-l-y, just to add to the tension. I really must return to the area if only to rid myself of these residual childish fears.
It's back!
For any fans out there, announcement on the BBC News page: Doctor Who to return in a new series, scripted by Russell T Davies, and produced by BBC Wales.
Trusty
[Chalky] Nope, not full time - just the odd week or weekend on a voluntary basis, mopping up teenage tears, giving tool safety talks and eating instant soup. Nice to be thought of as being capable though - I never even thought I was grown up until now.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
PANTSMC IS DOWN!
more posh pants
DrQ]Lets hope its just an upgrade.
Although I have not seen Graham III around the boards for a while, my congrats on going to No 1 on Celebrity MC , together with that evil_edna you've turned the table upside down. (Do you think that will entice Darren back? I do hope so.)
sheepishdaq
Hullo folks. Haven't been online much, though have now at last got a modem sorted on my home computer, so have been updating my celebdaq thing occasionally. Once I have a job sorted so can justify spending ages on the internet I'll probably be seen a bit more around here...

Oh, and thanks for the congrats...
gurt haaaairy beasties
NIK - DO NOT GO TO THIS PAGE!!! Most likely this is a Lycosa godeffroyi, seen this morning on the way to do the washing, downstairs. The ruler is actually a little closer to the camera, so the scale isn't perfectly accurate. A medium-sized common wolf spider.
beastie
DAMN that's big! It looks sort of velvety, was it really hairy?
arrow_circle_down
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