The Official Nonsense Thread

[Minty]

Oh good, someone with two computer screens. I've always wanted to know what the point of doing that was. Can you split one program to run in one window & another in the other? Please explain what the advantage of this is.

For eyes, I'm a fan of Optrex, not least of all because I shed eyelashes the way cats & dogs mould hair once the central heating is on.

I'd forgotten all about Sims Medieval having fatal flaws in it. It used to be something they taught creative writers that their characters each needed to have one fatal flaw as a dynamic with the other characters & their environment to make them act in a manner that may not be in their own best interests in the long run. I'll give George R R Martin his due in working this very well.

I have wondered whether EA used Sims Medieval as a testing ground for TS4 code routines dressed up as a new game. They seems so couldn't care less towards its fanbase. There was a few over at Bear Mountain Creations (RIP) that liked it a lot, but EA treated them like they didn't care.

What can possibly go wrong with dragons? As Skyrim & Middle Earth found out, the big problem with dragons is when they grow to the size of something Americans use to bomb the nearest "rogue state", they develop bad habits, in particular the habit of enjoying finding humans crunchy on the outside & chewy on the inside.

Here's another GOT game to play: who is likely to ally with who?

What's left of the Starks:

It has to be Stannis. There's no one left that will ally with them, & Danys will never forgive the family that helped put her in exile.

The Greyjoys

With the Iron Islands right off the Westerlands (the Lannisters territory), & the Boltons threatening them, they'll have to back someone before they end up exterminated. Seeing the war as an opportunity for plunder was incredibly rash - only nine years after they last rebelled, & with the Lannisters having too many allies of convenience needing rewarded, the prospect of taking over the Iron Islands after exterminating the Greyjoys root & branch is a carrot Tywin's certain to dangle to many.

Stannis seems the obvious one in the short term, in the long term backing Danys may be better. Their power comes from the sea, the fatal weakness her forces cannot master. A Targaryn-Greyjoy alliance although small would be formidable - land, air & sea power. The downside would be a force of Ironborn & Esso "barbarians" would probably unite the entire of Westeros against it at an instant.

The Tyrells

Their alliance with the Lannisters is too shaky as neither trusts the other. They've potential good terms with what remains of the Starks via Sansa, so allies in the north will be found. Stannis is out of the question after murdering Renly, but the Targaryans are possible as they stayed loyal to them during the rebellion until King's Landing fell.

Varys

Very hard to see him back anyone in the end bar Danys. Despite earlier wanting her dead, he likes nobles that care about the common people & have their interests at heart, which is why he & Tyrion hit it off. Once reports filter back about her freeing slaves, that I reckon will be enough for him - a former slave who was brutally treated - to switch sides & be her double agent at Kings Landing.

[Caspin]

Agree with you about Varys and Daenerys - that is an alliance that could well happen. It's quite cunning to make an army of slaves, since the number available seems to be enormous, but without you enslaving them, so they fight for you for the right reasons. No clue about the other possible alliances - there are bound to be twists and turns and unexpected happenings (possibly resulting in me turning prematurely gray). Yara needs an ally most of all, I think, because her daddy and the other folk on the Iron Islands seem a bit dim, so even those already on her side aren't worth much and she could do well to make new friends.

Re: two screens. Yes, you can drag programs onto the secondary screen. It's become useful since the office became allegedly paperless, or at least paper-light. Say you are writing a report and need to refer to data/graphs, you can be typing away at your report on one screen, while looking at reference material on the other screen, rather than printing it all out or else having to switch between different tabs all the time. For the type of work I do, I need to compare documents against templates and add information to them from a variety of other sources, which can sit on the second screen for me to look at without losing sight of the main document. It's not essential to have two but it is really handy. I was working on a different single-screen computer yesterday and was constantly clicking between different several programs every few seconds and it drove me crazy (and hence the RSI I am sure).

I was one of the people that liked Medieval. It was not a great game, but it was an easy one to play and a nice distraction while TS3 was misbehaving. There were some funny things in it - like the grumpy chickens outside the trader's house, or playing the physician and chucking buckets of leaches on people.

Tonight I shall take a break from GoT speculation and head out to see "The Weir" at the theatre. It's got ghost stories, is set in a pub and one of the actors is Ardal O'Hanlon - triple win!

[Minty]

Ardal O'Hanlon, great! Big old mad ghostie thing, so it is!

(Read the above in a Father Dougal voice for the right effect!)

I see they're now trying to claim "new" evidence about the famous Muhammed Ali vs Sonny Liston fight being fixed by the Mafia. It was no secret that Liston was in the hands of the Mob. What was a secret however was that he was a complete wreck at least eight years older than billed (he was easily in his forties at the time of the fight) & had been heavily shot with cortisone before fights for years to allow him to still take part. Ali meanwhile was the current Olympic gold medallist in heavyweight boxing.

Four years after the farce of the two Ali bouts, Liston was dead, the autopsy noting advanced lung disease & hardening of the heart muscles.

[Caspin]

That was a great play. It was nice and short, no interval, all just one scene really. Plenty of laughs, some spooky tales and some food-for-thought moments.

Ardal O'Hanlon was great in it, of course. I saw him do stand-up comedy at the Fringe in Edinburgh once, sometime in the late 1990s it must have been. He was so sweet and funny. Every line he delivers either makes you giggle or smile.

I am completely stunned by the fact that people in the UK can currently see the Northern Lights. I have always wanted to see them. I can't from where I am, but the pictures are amazing. I'm feeling quite tempted to jump on a train and go to Norfolk!

[Minty]

The Northern Lights appeared away down at Gloucestershire. I think the chances of seeing it were dependent on local weather conditions. My brother said the weather down in Cambridgeshire meant they only got to see any of it at five in the morning (they'd got up early to get a washing done before work - don't even ask, I didn't!).

Saw a cut scene from GOT season 3 I've never saw before, with Tywin Lannister fishing & Pycelle (he that always looks like he could do with a bath) sucking up to Tywin to get back on the small council. Eventually Tywin loses his temper & tells him to drop the act or he'll end up "in the dirt" before nightfall, whereupon Pycelle quits the dithering faithful old retainer act & completely changes in voice & stance to one far less frail & physically feeble than he appears. It's pretty shocking as he admits he acts in that way because kings & dynasties come & go, but he survives them all because none ever see him as a threat, & he doesn't want them to see him as anything else.

I can see why they cut it out, it jars with him reverting back to his act later, but it's a scene I wish they'd kept in as it throws in the truth that he's not the Lannister toadie he makes himself out to be, or some wise old retainer, but a conniving old toad allying himself with whoever is the biggest bully in the playground to protect his own hide, rather than thinking of the good of the realm or even the Lannisters.

Good to see Harriet Harman & Patricia Hewitt getting it in the neck over the old National Council of Civil Liberties affiliating the disgusting PIE back in the 70s & 80s. I've never liked those two, who always struck me as the sort that would steal the rings off your granny's corpse before it was even cold after giving you Bambi eyed sympathy over your loss. Hewitt in particular as a government minister was prone to the Thatcher style "we know what's best for the little people" patronising tone.

Think Hearts can forget it now. 20 points adrift & the best we can hope for is Rangers going bust again before next season, which isn't so unlikely. Their fans are something else - there was calls for a season ticket boycott unless those in charge showed some financial responsibility, only for the fans to start a boycott unless those in charge promised to spend big money on players, the exact opposite reason for the initial boycott call! I think I'm more interested in the Football League Show these days, some cracking games in the lower two divisions & they'd slaughter a lot of the top tier Scottish clubs.

[Caspin]

But I must ask - why don't they get a washing machine with a timer?

I started watching the cut scenes on the DVDs, but found that I'd seen them. I thought that maybe they were left out when the episodes aired on TV but were left in on the DVD. Anyway, I didn't notice any new scenes in the compilation. However I've not seen the one with Tywin fishing so maybe there are some new ones in there and I should have kept going. Pycelle is a horrible character. There is at least one other scene (that was left in) in which he shows that he's not as decrepit as he pretends, so maybe they though the fishing one was just overkill.

My teams are doing well at the moment, apart from Hearts of course. Liverpool have played some goal-filled games in the last few weeks and my little home team have done all right as well.

What is Football League Show?

My internet is still on the blink. An engineer was here for nearly two hours last week, fixing faults on the line and repairing stuff. He fixed faults in the phone line that I wasn't even aware of (I thought the crackling was my cheap old handset), so that was some sort of achievement. Apparently there's lots of water damage to the box out on the street that all the wiring comes from, no surprise after this wet weather. Yesterday the wifi was off most of the day and the log shows some tenacious person in India (or a robot) constantly resetting the hub for hours! Today it's been fine most of the day. Temperamental bugger.

Think I'll go and watch a bit of GTA5 before it's time to make meatballs.

[Minty]

I suppose setting a timer would require reading the instructions, which my family aren't renowned for when it comes to white goods.

The Football League show is on very late on Saturday nights on BBC 1. I watch it later in the week through the On Demand service. Some cracking games to be had as well as some laughs, like the player that missed an open goal which would have gone some way to making amends for the two own goals he scored earlier.

Sorry to see you're still getting problems with your internet. Hope you're getting a rebate on your bill for all this downtime!

[Caspin]

I think the internet at home is now fixed. A specialist engineer came out and replace the modem and the home-hub-whatsit and did some more checking. I was worried that he was going to say that re-wiring was necessary (because all the wiring on the building is old and in shocking condition) but he seems to have spared me from that woe. It'd better be super-fast and reliable as promised, from this day forward!

Ah, own goals. Some people specialise in those!

You might like to watch a match at my home ground. We have three scores - goals scored by the home team, goals scored by the visiting team and number of footballs lost over the fence into the gardens of the neighbouring houses. You can guess which number is usually the highest!

[Minty]

There used to be a club called 3rd Lanark (Queen's Park's derby rivals) who were famous for booting the ball out of the ground early on so the match ball would be replaced with an old one that had been whitewashed, in order to reuse the same "new" ball over & over again. They were actually the club that introduced the rule now standard in football that a brand new ball must be used to start every competitive match!

Years ago, I was at a Junior football match where someone had tied their rottweiler's lead to the metal posts skirting the spectator standings while they lit up (the smoking ban in public ventures never being upheld at Junior games, even if the police are around, who are more worried about neds sneaking booze in). When the ball rolled the dog's way, it decided it could do a better job than either side. With one quick lunge the lead came loose & the dog started bulldozing the ball along the near edge of the park & up the field, much to the fan's amusement, especially as members of both teams could be heard shouting to their mates "No, YOU get the ball off it!"

My eyes are driving me nuts, going to have to get the Optrex

[Caspin]

These sorts of things are why I will always prefer watching the little teams when it comes to football. Players no good? Send on the pets!

Did I send you my eye strain over wifi? Or have you been too long at the computer yourself(or been revising GoT on telly)? My eyes are better this week and the RSI in my hands has lessened after I stopped working too many extra hours. I am very happy about this.

Me --->

Hope your eyes feel better. Go to sleep. That'll fix 'em!

Went to see Jeeves and Wooster on the stage last night. It was a giggle and the audience were well-behaved for a nice change. There was some excellent dancing at the end.

Bed time. Night-night.