Metalmickey

Ugh! I say again... ugh!

I used to operate fairground rides on Palace Pier in Brighton. Man, if you ever looked under it and saw the state of the rusting supports and rotting planks, and then considered how many tons of creaking whirling metal dwelt on top, you'd shit yourself. I think it's all been replaced by now though due to some sort of hugely overdue legal enforcement. Heh, 'health and safety' day used to give the managers the willies! I could operate 7 kinds of ride. Then the day before the inspectors came round, they asked what kind of training I'd had on what and when and from whom, and concluded that for tomorrow only, I only knew how to operate 2 kinds of rides... capische?! I want to go to San Fransisco! I had clam chowder on pier thirty-something once. We'd spent the entire night of Christmass Eve on an unfeasibly crowded Greyhound coach coming down from Oregon, only to find out that the mate supposed to be picking us up was still in LA and wouldn't be back for another 8 hours. We decided to leave our bags somewhere and wander around aimlessly and half-asleep, and my friends and I got warned that we were entering 'the wrong side of town' and should turn back by a friendly local about 15 mins later. On New Year's eve, we got called faggots by a random doorman, and I took a photo of some random person being arrested and pissing themselves out of fright. Umm, I realise that things kind of sound downhill after the chowder bit, but it was all good fun, I assure you Other highlights included under-age drinking with faked passport photocopies, being the only drunk people in an entire nightclub, and seeing a strip club for the first time.

I watched the DVD a few months back with a few friends. It was... different. The sort of film that I'm really glad I saw, wasn't like anything else I've ever seen, and made me think for a bit. Then I got bored of thinking about it and probably wouldn't see again It's very slow-moving, and probably appreciated more by those who actually think a bit deeper about direction, alternative interpretations and other critic type stuff rather than just watching for the story and ideas like simple ol' me...

How about a Rayman game? I've never played them myself, but I imagine they'd provide a kid with some good solid platform action? A Rachet & Clank 2 demo I have looked promising too. I don't know any of those games in the suggested list apart from the Incredibles though, and although it's not a great game, it might be fun if he goes crazy over the film, which is apparently pretty popular... Anyone seen it? Treesus, they sell those SEGA 6-in-1 controllers at the Toys-R-Us 5 mins from work. If only they had some way of using 2 of them to play the games 2 player, I'd have got one

Sufferin' Sucotash! I don't think I've ever heard the word varmint before except from out of the mouth of ol' Yosemite Sam. Come to think of it, what does sucotash(spelling?) mean too??

Heh, I've hardly made any posts except in the idle banter section Pre-orders, yeah. I only ever pre-order if it means I get a bonus offer or heavily reduced price. No other point as far as I'm concerned as I don't care if the shops don't have any stock of a game I need till a week after the initial release date. Only exception so far is for (the Euro edition of) World of Warcraft, where demand for initial copies seems could be significantly over their planned server capacity so if they sell out, they simply won't ship any more unless they get more servers in place in time.

Surely the plural of Lego is still just Lego? You can't have 2 'Legos', can you? If you buy a second set, you either have 2 sets of lego, or just more Lego than before. If you wanted to find out who owns the most, you'd say "Who has the most Lego?" not "Who has the most Legos?" ...etc. I'll shut up now

Folks, when it comes to folding t-shirts like a ninja, this is how it has to be done!! Guaranteed to make your life at least 0.008% more funner than that other suggestion

He's in an empty room because the room is actually just a cardboard box and there's no room for anything else in it. It's sitting in the middle of a field in the evening as the clouds roll in and it's raining. Pollution and filth is soaking through the box, his unkempt, matted hair, through his greasy skin, and right down to his twisted and hobbled bones. A thin shaft of moonlight pierces the blackness of his den, spearing the edges of his confines through the small window he had punched through the side. The rope was an old rope. Old, but thick, and had spent many years tying him to the post in a schoolyard out in the badlands where nobody goes. The worn stumps of his 3 remaining teeth bear grim testament to the man's determination to free himself yet, for some reason, he cannot bring himself to rid himself of this last remnant. Lost now, and in a world utterly decayed, the vestigial piece of rope remains his only link to memories past. And yet, even as the weeks go by it frays on as if, now rendered purposeless by the madman's grim sacrifice, it now resigns itself to the inevitable decay it had put off for so long. Fire, so bright and enchanting, so tantalising and magical; the first match dies even before he fully registers its birth. The second, a gift! So he was not dreaming. So pure and bright, ever the saviour to wake him from his reverie. Eager to preserve it's warmth and light, he places the second match on the ground, only to shriek and curse as the sodden floor of his cubicle puts it out in a breath. This time, the third, he holds on to the match with both hands, so tightly that he screams even as his own fingertips start to blister and the box fills with the acrid stench of burning flesh, dirt, and nail. The blisters pop and the flame is extinguished. It will be several days before he can bring himself to light another match. ...oh! Waitaminute, am I late?

Damn straight! I mean, hell, I'm sure Babar could mix it up and get on down with some o' that funky jazz shit if he'd wanted to... but on his own trunk??? Like the man said, he's a king! Ain't never heard of no king playing jazz on his own trunk before! I know I wouldn't, an I ain't even king!

I know you say 'we', but I can't help imagining if you'd just said 'I' I may well be working from the 29th till the 31st December since I haven't booked my remaining holiday yet and it's getting a bit late. For Christmas though, it's my family's turn to go visit my Aunt & Uncle's house. Does mistletoe really only apply exactly at midnight? I always thought it was just a general thing for the whole day of Christmas and New Year, er. Oh well, can't remember the last time I saw some actual mistletoe. Also, don't break legs. They take a long time to mend. I broke my left leg when I was 5 and was on my back with my cast leg in traction for 6 weeks, which went over more than the entire Christmass holiday that year :\ When the cast came off, I needed a mini-zimmerframe for a few days as my legs had turned to strawberry flavoured jelly. Also, I think I'm ill

Heheh, I'm quite content with the potential dimensions and... err, turgidity(?) of my penis thanks Hmmph, I was actually just suggesting that while Trep's the one who wanted to discuss your hair in the first place, it may have actually been his fault you quickly changed that close-up avatar after he said that your hair didn't look good I personally have nothing critical to say about your hair, not having spent time studying it. Still, put up a recent pic and we'll see what kind of freakish face the guys can turn it into as revenge I'll make an honest comment

Hmm, but didn't she change it again after you commented on... how much better her hair could look if she got it styled differently

Actually, lots of people who live in the countryside don't have the choice... My dad's been wanting broadband for a year now, but my parents live in a village in the middle of the south of England, and the entire village is too far away from the nearest exchange for the phone lines to support an ADSL signal. There's no cable connections outside of major towns and cities either so cable modems are out too. Apparently next February, a new exchange is being installed and my parents' village will be right on the border of what's supported as far as signal strength is concerned, so here's crossing fingers...

I have a friend who feels compelled to very slowly tear apart beer mats into hundreds of tiny white, fluffy pieces of card whenever we happen to drink in a pub which has them. On a random whim, I decided to collect fine beermats from around the world and present them to her on random occasions, so that she always has a selection of the cleanest and most exquisite international beer mats to rip up whenever she finds herself in a matless pub. So far, she's had beermats from 5-star Indian hotels, Raffles from Singapor, Amsterdam coffee shops, and a couple of English ones that were apparently 'beer mat of the year' according to the crap on the back. Oh, and she definately recieved a Monkey Island one too at some point, though I'm sure she would be saving that one for a very special occasion (Thank you Spaffy )

Heh. Yeah, that option's always been there. Apart from the friends network thing being shite, Steam's always worked fine in the 5 months or so I've been using it, and I think it's a great idea... for online only games anyway. It's a nause forcing people to go online just to activate something that many people will only be interested in the offline single player for though, but I guess they're just doing what they can to encourage people to buy legit copies of it, so I expect we'll see a lot more of this kind of thing in the future...

Yay! Go valve I'm all for this kind of thing. Sounds like the tricksey little pirateses got bamboozled for a change. Pulling fast ones and being sneaky is much more fun and interesting to read about than boring (and inevitable) copy-protection workarounds

Heh, I think I'd get on well with whoever programmed you guys

All I took in was the toes on your right foot... raw and tender morning... changing out of your pyjamas... large, cosy and warm... stiff, prim school uniform... and things getting wild and sexy after 6. Was there anything else to it?

I remember being very amused at the first spam that invited me to "enlarge your breasts" via some sort of rub-on cream or something. I mean, if they marketed it to everybody, then presumably it was not gender-specific. I wondered if any men had actually responded and if it worked. Then I probably had some confusing thoughts and deleted the email The sneakiest subjects have to be those along the lines of "Sorry about the other day" or "I haven't seen you in a while". Bastards, they used to get me to open them for a while. Yeah, I'm sure the gibberish at the bottom is to fool spam filters by using non-spam terms and phrases, whilst simultaneously hitting you with the 'v1agra' schpiel at the top. Another thing I hate is the way many of them seem to assume you live in the USA. All those damn 'make money from home' emails that only apply to Americans. I've never received a piece of unsolicited spam that assumed I lived in England... or even Europe!

Shame you don't like racing games. I never did either, but the Gran Turismo series really is something else. It's solely responsible for turning me from someone who literally knew and cared nothing about cars, and had no interest in real or simulated cars whatsoever, to someone who's got Gran Turismo 3 & Prologue, Colin Mrae 2004, and NFS: Underground, and a £50 logitech USB steering wheel with strong force feedback and pedals. There's now nothing I like better than drifting a well-simulated car round a dirt track, or haring round monaco in some ground-hugging supercar! Anyway, I also like: Metal Gear solid games, ICO, Tekken Tag, Onimusha 3, and maybe the Final Fantasy games should get a mention too (though I don't own any myself, so I'm not getting more specific than that). Yeah, and what the others said, they all sound good too, though I don't most of them P.s. Apart from giving GTA3 as an example, wtf is a "cool ass fucker" game? I'm not familiar with the genre... On second thoughts, perhaps that's a good thing

Agreed. I really don't like the thought that my ability to play the single player HL2 may rely completely on: 1. The PC I want to play it on having an internet connection. 2. The Steam servers being up and running fault free. Plus, I'd also like to lend it to lesser gaming friends who don't necessarily have broadband (like my dad, who lives in a village too far away from an exchange to make broadband even possible). Hence, I'm going to try very hard to get my hands on a retail version of the collectors' edition, though all the UK sites are being bloody annoying and giving ambiguous information like "Half-Life 2 (DVD-ROM) £25.99" I mean, is that the standard 6 CD version, or the collectors' DVD edition (which should also cost more)??

I think selfishness and the basic (natural) self-centred nature of most people is the root of pretty much all sin, so I'd just simply get rid of that, so that people see themselves with a little more perspective. Hmmm, or I'd maybe even things out financially, halve debt and redistribute some wealth. Nah, that'd only get back to the way it is now in a century or so. Ah, I used to think about this sort of thing a lot more when I was younger, must be growing up finally I used to try and dream up different ways of forcing the truth to prevail over corruption and dishonesty via superpowers or magic spells, etc. Yeah, magic, that would be cool

So... is this one of them super speed gorrillas? Well anyway, I reckon the bear would be able to move in, grab the gorrillas feet, jump onto the gorrilla's back, rip it's legs clean off, and shove them in the gorrillas ears before the gorrilla had time to say "Fuck me, that's a bit harsh! I'm still drinking me pre-fight cup of tea "

Ah, jolly good. Well in that case, I can now also state categorically that... I liked it