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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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Way out West
A three legged dog walks into a bar.

He goes up to the barman and says "I'm lookin' for the guy who shot my paw."
None
Must be the wireless, then. And I've got a car to make remotely roadworthy this month as well. Fiddlesticks.
Remoteness
[Nik] Make sure you use the FM band, and preferably PCM for the control signals. Best of luck on constructing a suitable speed controller!
Celebdaq
I'm having a bit of a 'mare...
Hmmm
I haven't been paying much attention to the 'daq recently, for reasons which should be fairly clear. Really stuck as to who the current long term bankers might be...
daqsodding
I picked the wrong Williams sister this week... way down, dropping like a stone, all is lost, we're all doomed :o(
I be back
Arnie goes up, then Arnie goes down. Looks like that 'Bouncy' singer is the in thing.
Hasta la vista
[Boolbar] Hmmm... Guess who had heavily invested in Arnie...
Me me me
[Uncle K] Me. But I did so last week, so he hasn't fallen below my purchase price . . . yet.
more shares please
With my two accounts I'm still trying different strategies, mtp so far since Friday has bought and sold Henman/Sernena Williams/Arnie/ and now Beyonce. I have been lucky to time it just right in selling all/buying just after 9am. It was very noticable that as soon as Beyonce began to rise Arnie fell of the edge. The rule changes were meant to encourage day-to-day trading and divis greatly reduced payout now to be the square root of any payout so for most celebs it will be zilch, last weeks the results were so poor they have not been posted.
The other slow moving acc. has a clutch of celebs, I hope one of which will rise but with a static market and a prospect of very little divi's it is likely to continue to slide.
Eh?
[Inkspot] Rule changes ? What rule changes ?
Staggered
I am absolutely staggered that someone's been attempting to read the furcation game via a mobile phone WAP connection. Maybe the next challenge would be to do the next move as a series of SMS texts.
I'm being watched!
I admit, it was me. WAP is free and internet is not. On my phone The furc game is 95 pages long (the average length for this page is about 25 pages, which is long enough to scroll trhough). I only got to page one, as was wondering how long it was. Stop spying on me rab! (Do you know where I live? and more worringly can you get my mobie number from your source? Hope not!)
Txting
[rab] SMS Crescent has a certain appeal.

[Lib] I wouldn't worry - one of the pieces of information recorded in the server logs is the user agent being used to browse a particular page, and that will be where rab got his info. The only other identifying information is your IP address, and for a WAP device that's far more likely to be the address of a gateway machine somewhere rather than something which would identify your phone.

clarity!
[dunx] Thanks, I can relax now!
rude cages
Boolbar]A few days ago daq towers changed the rules following several weeks of strange results which started with Get Me Out of Here and continued through to Beckham, they announced them on 30 June with a brief statement to share holders, at the same time the revised dividends were posted. During the past few weeks celebs like Prince William and Beckham were paying out substatial divis that distorted the market leading to huge rises, but to my mind those were extraordinary circumstances.
Spying
[Lib] What Dunx said. FYI the clue was the text 'Google WAP Proxy/1.0' in the logfile. I look at the log now and again partly cos I'm curious to find out how often the site is accessed (as opposed to how often a move is made, which is recorded in the game files), what browsers people use, which search engines pass through and how often, and occasionally to check that no-one's trying to break in.

Mind you, if you want me to spy on you, just leave you mobile number and I'll see what I can do :)

increased roots
Another statement and changes to dividends, due to uproar from the crowd, daq towers have amended the payout to slightly reward those that hold on to shares rather than playing the day-to-day by increasing the amount of payout per share, but this will still be cut be sqare rooted. There's hope for my BB swag bag yet.
Is that the time? best shut down and go home for tea.
stalking
[rab] My phone number is 0898 69 69 69. Feel free to stalk me!
Husk
[Lib] You have an unexpectedly husky voice.
Always wondered
What is on the other end of 0898 696969 ? I've seen it many times used as a spoof phone number.
Wonder no more!
Just dial it and see :) It'll only cost £4.95 per minute.
None
[matt] That's why I'm still wondering.
Daq and darn
Bugger! Losing money fast...
more hot tea
Sometime between 8 and 9 in the morning seems to be the 'opening' time for dealing. Today I waited till 8.30 while the cuppa was cooling down at my desk, Sven was starting to drop and Arnie was twitching with a rise of 6p, it was time to sell all and buy the big guy. Since 8.30 the value of 13860 shares has risen from £123,449 to £132,098, but all this selling will give a low divi payout on Friday. On the weekend I may have to cash in the shares before I go to bed as the big movers do very little between midnight and 9.am but the price may have crashed by the time I get round to trading mid morning.

Vote either Steph or Cameroon but keep in Lisa, her disruption to the house has got to continue.

BB4
[Inkspot] But aren't all the other HMs just ignoring her?
evictions
Yes they are ignoring her, Nush and Scott have paired so are Steph and Cameroon with Ray being pal to everyone. The basis being to break up S&C, if Cam goes how will Steph cope. But I think bringing in an outsider late in the game is always awkward for that person. Tim was lucky last year as Alex was shunned by half the house, and it was earlier in the game but he was never fully accepted. Guests like Gae are allowed as non threatening.
0898
Boolbar] That reminds me of a story I heard about a sexline entitled "Hear me moan". A man tried to take the proprietors to court after he rang it and got a recording of a woman complaining about the lack of help she was getting with the housework. Trading Standards refused to prosecute saying that the man the man "got what he deserved".
Lock Cup
Played
bad joke
There's a mummy mole, a daddy mole, and a baby mole, all living in a mole hole. One day, daddy mole sticks out his head, and says "MMM! I can smell Maple syrup!" So mummy mole squeezes by him and sniffs, smiles and says "Oh! I can smell honey!" Poor little baby mole can't squeeze through, but gamely tries, sniffs and complains "Aww! All I can smell is MOLASSES!"
Celebdaq aside...
...why is Sean Connery not listed?
Lock Cup
I think we need the referee over at rab v. Blob fairly urgently.
ImpostCeleb
Because I'm still quite new and rather pathetically unknowledgeable . . . apart from the obvious, who is who - in our League??? [What I'm really saying is much respect to 'moreteaplease' who has not only managed to amass a whole series of important looking green boxes and a red one, but has held me off the top spot for a few days now - during a period of time where I've suckseeded in buying and selling at JUST the optimum momento.]
Imposing
moreteaplease = InkSpot 2; ffish = GrahamIII 2 (G6?); evil_edna = penelope; sigmundfreud = gil; RadiantAndBeautiful = me (obviously).
None
Sorry, there's obviously only one GrahamIII (or is that three?).
Expose-a-daq
Cheers rab.
tip top tea
What a way to finish the week of exhausting of trading, Chalky it will be over to you next week as such large 7 day gains are almost impossible to maintain, and because of the day2day trading I had no divis.
However the Inkspot account with its spread of BB housemates came up trumps, all the divis have gone into Mrs Beckham ...so make way coming through.
None
[Chalky] Great word in the cheddars, btw. Have tidied up the accent so we can all enjoy its full splendour.
Bad tempered imposters
Did we ever sort out exactly who was whom in B.T.I.?
None
Whats it to you, puffin-head?
Lockage
[Blob] May I volunteer?

[rab] Could you put a link to the Lock Cup pages on here so it's easier to get there from here?

Blockage
[Blob] Forget that - obviously JLE did the honours.
Downtime
Tsk. Server was down for ~two minutes just now. Sorry about that. I had to unplug the power strips as I was moving furniture that I'd trailed the cables through. Bah.
Downtime
Spiked by paranoia (no-one posting since just before my announcement) I'm posting from elsewhere on teh intarnet to verify to myself mc5 is actually visible. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
The full monty: 02:44 Sun 13 Jul 2003
You're fine, Nik.
None
Not now, though. The disk on the DNS/Mailbox just died. Thankfully, it's mostly only mail that's affected, and I got it back long enough to copy everything not broken off. Hopefully I can figure this out...
Stuff
[Dunx] I'll try and do that before going on holiday, which is tomorrow... so if anyone else has any burning issues regarding this site, let me know by about lunchtime. Ta
Um
Actually, no I can't. Presumably due to the difficulties noted by Nik above I can't access the server at the moment except via these web pages.
None
Mm, sorry about that. sshd won't come back up on that box. It's unconnected to the mail box strife, except that both stem from having to power down on saturday. That'll learn me.
Dokies
[Nik] Right you are

Meanwhile, has anyone ever been anything other than 'cordially' invited to something?

Cordiality
[rab] What, like "reluctantly" invited, or "resentfully" invited?
come as you are
Hmm... I may have had an invitation with menaces before now, but it's not something I'd like to go into detail about
Guilty M'lud
I have been 'invited' to court to appear as a witness.
"You're crap, basically."
I remember being 'invited' to leave Geography at the end of my fourth year at senior school on the grounds of ability...
Downtime
I didn't do it</bart>
Bobs Pot review
Saskia and I have just finished reading 'The Order of the Phoenix'. We read it out loud, taking it in turns to read alternate chapters. We lead a fairly isolated life and have been fairly well distanced from the hype that accompanied the launch - I heard a little about it on the radio and chose not to read too much about it on the Internet. My expectations were not high as I feel that JKR has set herself a near impossible task - that of creating a series of books aimed at a gradually increasing age group - set against the biggest hype ever to accompany a children’s publication.

We were very pleasantly suprised. The book was virtually unputdownable. It is funnier and more sophisticated than the last one and because it builds successfully on the background of the previous books, it left us gagging for more. I am now aware that most reviews have given it 4 out of 5. Possibly because we read the book together and aloud (it works very well like this) or because we missed the hype I’d give it 5/5 and more if I could. OK, so it is not Tolkien or Pullman but it is vintage JKR and a thoroughly great read.
potter/daq
Well that was a conversation stopper! I enjoyed it too, although I felt the end was a little anti-climactic.. that tends to be how the books are though, as it has to end again at the next summer hols. Anyone else confused with celebdaq? They keep changing the rules, although I'm not doing too badly at the moment.
If it works, don't fix it.
[snorgle] My tactic of ignoring celebdaq for a couple of weeks seems to be doing very nicely. Only evil_edna seems to be doing better.
ignoramus spondoolio!
[Boolbar] I ignore it too - I've been trading only once a week or so. I'll admit I picked the wrong Williams sister to win Wimbledon tho, and I've steered clear of the whole BB celeb thing too.*cackle*
Just passing through
I'm afraid I'm going to hijack the chat games for a moment, just in case I've missed anyone out
<fanfare>:
The first (well, first properly organised) MC trip to the Proms takes place this coming Sunday. Feel free to just pitch up and find us, or get in touch (details at other end of link) to make more concrete plans. Thank you. We now return you to your usual programming.</shameless cross-posting>
Jesus in a box
Which pretty much describes the roadside sights in Malta. The roads themselves are very bumpy, although should you wish to visit Hasan's Cave -- a little tunnel that takes you out to a viewing window over the sea, and marked only by a crone pruning the trees and hiring out torches for 30c apiece -- you will find it well signposted from across the island. If, however, you seek, say, Valletta (the capital) then navigation can be somewhat more tricky. A lovely break though: I really didn't think I'd enjoy the heat and the Scally Airways' last minute deal dodah, but it was fab.

[Watty] On account of the above I've ended up spending a shedload of money and am not sure if I'll be able to make the prom after all. I'll email you when I've reached a decision. Hope this doesn't blow things out of the water.

Celebdaq
*** ALERT FOR INKSPOT ***

In a fit of madness, I have decided to 'field a second XI' in the financial shenannigans that is Celebdaq. If convenient, please arrange for DORIS_NEWBOLD (User ID: 3376674) to be inserted forcibly into the league. Let's face it - she can't do much worse than UNCLE_KORKY...

Oh dear
Just looked at my portfolio.
League
[rab] Forget your position - you're still phenomenally richer than I am!
Position
Despite being about the only person in the country left who gives a sh!t, I nevertheless feel the need to share my thoughts about the likely BB4 victor (which may have some bearing on the daq at the end of the week).
  • Steff is most easily dispensed with, both in terms of this discussion and the competition. She's very pleasant is Steff, but wet as a fish and unlikely to appear on the front cover of FHM so won't attract the lad vote like Kee-at did last year.
  • Scott, on paper, is similar. Although my ability to judge the attractiveness of other men is legendarily bad, I can't believe he's that much of a pin-up. He seems to be the housemate's favourite: I believe he was up for eviction only once, and right at the start. Nearly all the evictees have remarked that he's like a 'best mate' in the house. However this kind of thing rarely goes down well with the viewing public (Dean? Liz?). Except the dull one did win BB1 so I guess there's some possibility he might make it.
  • Ray has probably the strongest personality, but is therefore likely to be the kind of person you either love or hate. This lack of all-round appeal may count against him, and is mostly down to his fiery temperament. On the other hand, I would guess he'll get the chick vote on account of being Irish, tall, probably the best looking one of the lot and because he's a bit of a lad.
  • Cameron has, without a doubt, played the best game in the house and on these grounds deserves to win. Although clearly unpopular with the housemates (he's been up for nomination almost every week) and sections of the public (who either get offended by him being a Christian, or being a Christian and not "behaving like one") he's survived the public vote several times so it would seem like the public don't dislike him. I would quite like to see a bible-reading, near-teetotaller to win BB since it's almost the complete opposite of the kind of person you'd expect to win. On the other hand, people who've survived many public votes in the past (Paul, Jade) didn't go on to win, so the form's not good.
So, in short, I reckon Cameron or Ray are most likely to win, whilst Scott has a gnat's chance. I imagine Cameron and Jon will attract continuing media coverage once the thing's all over. Since the latter has been delisted on the daq, it's not rocket science to work out where my investment has gone...
celebdaq
Sounds complicated to me. I've got loads of Nush, who I intend to sell once I collect my divvies, and sink into Arnie, probably.
BBdaq
1. Steph - no chance.
2. Scott - the invisible man; in with a great chance.
3. Ray - Psycho IV; too unpopular outside the house to win.
4. Cameron - Likely to just have the edge over Scott.

I too have sunk loads into Nush, Cameron, Ray and Scott, and aim to sell high fairly soon. Nice to see my investment in Arnie from a few weeks ago is now reaping dividends.

Anyone seen Inkspot lately?

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