The Official Nonsense Thread

[Caspin]

Well we did it again - made it through another week. Yay us!

Tonight I'm off to see Treasure Island, which should be about right for my level seeing as it's suitable for 10 years or older. I do love a good pirate adventure (they always have such good hats).




The NT put it on as their child-friendly Christmas production but it runs through Easter as well so I thought I might as well take a look. These things are often wasted on the youth.

Enjoy your weekends everyone.

[Caspin]

Treasure Island was really good! You don't normally see such an age range in a theatre audience but (for once!) everyone behaved impeccably, probably because nobody could take their eyes of the stage (which was constantly moving in order to form an inn, a ship and then an island). They had hung lots of lightbulbs from the ceiling and these lit up to form constellations to navigate the ship by.




Oh yes - and the feathers of a pirate's parrot fell on me!

[Wandarine]

So much for NPC-aging in TS2. I married a sim I had known since childhood and her aspiration is to grow up. Wonderful.

[Caspin]

Some dodgy goings on in your game there, Wanda!

Today's my last day at work before the Easter break. I'm really looking forward to having a week off!

Did you all see that at the moment you can play Pacman on Google maps? I think it's a temporary thing. Here is a map of London in normal form:




Click on the Pacman button and then you get to gobble your way through the streets of the capital, being chased by ghosts!




I think they should leave that feature on permanently.

[Wandarine]

Hehe, I tried playing that with the streets in front of my office (I'm back to work since monday). It didn't work. It's probably only available for really big cities.

[Caspin]

I think you're right, it only picks out the bigger streets as well. I still quite like it though.

I'm trying to catch a train north, but as usual things are not working out very well. A proportion of central London is currently being evacuated because there's a big fire under the pavements (and apparently fire is coming up through manhole covers!) and someone has sadly been hit by a train on the railway line that I need to use. All the relevant trains are delayed or cancelled. I think I might amble over to the station anyhow and pass the time observing people go into meltdown and possibly I might treat myself to some fish and chips.

[Minty]

Yesterday was nice. A decent slap up meal with those members of my family I like & the televised debate for the general election turned out to be better than I thought. I'd visions of it being "The Weakest Link" from the way it was set up & the ginger dominatrix wannabe in charge.

Sturgeon & Farage looked the only two who looked comfortable & believed what they were talking about (although Farage's tendency to stand still staring at the audience with a Mr Bean face when others were speaking was bizarre). Clegg swung from being painfully bad to scoring more than a few hits. The rest though were varying shades of awful.

Cameron's mouth opened, he made noises, but said nothing and Milliband dripped insincerity with every word. Even when they only had a minute to speak, all those two did was serve up more waffle than a Sim with Level 1 cooking. The Plaid Cymru leader sounded like she was reading train announcements, but the Greens must have wanted to curl up & die watching Bennett mess up again. 24 hours before, the Scottish Greens leader Patrick Harvie tore Labour and the Tories to shreds in a TV debate up here - for all the good it will do them because no one votes Green outside of Holyrood elections up here.

This election ought to be the Greens breakthrough moment, taking at least another two seats. All the preparation over the last ten years & taking the Euro Seats to boost the coffers have been thrown away by having a lame duck leader without a clue how to deal with the PR side of leadership. Lucas was a natural, Bennett however is a natural disaster. They really need to merge the four separate Green Parties in the UK into one & get Harvie in charge or they'll end up back to square one all over again.

My hope was at this GE, the SNP, Plaid, the Greens & UKIP would do enough damage on the mainland to ensure no Lab/Tory coalition with the LibDems & NI parties would be enough. The SNP look like mission accomplished, UKIP are wait & see, but Plaid & the Greens will be lucky to hold what they have now. All this talk about "the new rainbow politics" drives me nuts - if Cameron or Milliband get in to do whatever they like unchecked yet again, it'll only resemble rainbow from being full of Bungle!

Was so tempted to get Cities, but resisted.

[Caspin]

Glad you got some tasty scran and managed to unearth some bearable relatives!

The general election has me quite worried. I can't bear to watch or read any news without access to factchecking resources, as both the politicians and the press seem incapable of accuracy. Only a few more weeks to go, then at least it will be done and we can see what shade of shine we have to put up with for the next few years. I think if the SNP stood candidates down here in England they might get some extra votes!

Another train journey tomorrow. Hopefully less delayed than the last one. Had a great last day of my visit watching Marine beat Skelmersdale 1-0. They do seem to be playing better under the new manager and there were lots of spectators, about a hundred more than I expected. I was a bit puzzled to see loads of scarves of different teams hung all round the ground. I know Marine supporters like their flags but I'd never seen such a glut of scarf bunting before! Also the mix of teams represented made no sense. Later I found out it's a charity endeavour to make a scarf chain to win a Guinness world record and then it will be auctioned and the money raised given to a kids charity. So far the chain is two miles long!

[Caspin]

Yay my train is on time and there's wifi and sandwiches!

Speaking of food, I saw something truly grim yesterday. A bloke at the footy had a cup of bovril (the horror) and a Kit Kat. I only noticed because I was ogling his son's sausage roll and his wife's pie and peas. She'd had the peas, which were mushy, put on the lid of the pie and then glued them down with the most solid gravy I've ever seen. I was quite alarmed by this because it would surely make the top of the pie soggy and I like a crisp pie top. Also she was eating it with a wooden fork. Those things always make me nervous because of the splinter risks. I prefer to carry a steel camping spork with me for such occasions. What was I talking about? Oh yes, bovril. Anyway, this bloke gets his Kit Kat and DUNKS it in bovril. I nearly threw up all over the stand.

[Caspin]

The end of the week again - it is nigh! A short week, though, in work terms.

Tomorrow I am going to see Oppenheimer. I missed out on seeing it in Stratford but happily they have conveniently transferred it to London for me. Apparently they are going to demonstrate the detonation of an atomic bomb on the stage. I suppose there will be some mad lighting effects and possibly loud noises. I will prepare myself for this and sit in a state of readiness, then jump out of my skin regardless. It always happens and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just jumpy and that's that.