Be Excellent To Each Other

Don't worry. I'm wiring in a USB extension lead so I can carry my Xbox camera throughout the house. Someone has to volunteer to watch me.

Well I think I'm going to give up on this. It's very nearly a great game, but its unbalanced difficulty spoils it. The game is split up into chapters and oddly, the first one is the hardest. At the end of the first part, you switch characters and don't see that bunch again till part three. At that stage you only really find out if your party is up to scratch - if not (as mine wasn't first time round), you may as well start again.

So I started over after 15-20 hours and with hindsight did a lot better in the battles. Unfortunately, the characters I've got left simply aren't good enough so I'm faced with starting over again. I think I'll play Rock Band instead.

I've got all five seasons you can borrow if you want, on a "you bend or scratch you replace" policy.

Isn't it a shame when someone you think is a decent, intelligent person turns out to be a right wing, climate change denying, Fox News supporting fruitloop?

Anyone see 'Diary of a Mail Order Bride' last night?

We had a not-that-fit Russian woman who'd moved to the UK for six months to live with 'Dave', in Lancashire, to see if she'd fit in. Dave, with his delightfully sunken panda eyes and thinning Leisure Suit Larry haircut, spent all day in the pub drinking and smoking. Svetlana (or whatever) was horrified that 'he is drinking beer out of BIG GLASS and guzzles it! Fucking alcoholics, fucking them all'. She also hated English food and every time we saw her she was other complaining that he was a slob (which he was) or doing the housework. Suffice it to say, she fucked off back to Soviet Russia as fast as her hammer and sickle could carry her.

We then had a man who I'll whimsically refer to as 'Ten Gallon Tex', a 51 year old property developer from Buttfuck, Texas. Unable to find a suitable bride back home (all Texan women my age are either fat or have loads of kids, or both, he claimed) he went to St Petersburg on a £4000 'matchmaking' holiday. Things didn't work out well for Tex. The first 'date' was a golddigging slut who, after dinner, tried to take him shopping. Ten Gallon declined and retired to the hotel bar to neck tequila. At the party the following night, he met a freakishly tall woman who he quite fancied but she apparently got a better offer and dropped him like dissident into pit in gulag ah hah hah hah! Perhaps is because Tex is look rather like Kane from Command & Conquer only old and a bit sagging? Tex at least emptied nuts as got taxi out of party with two girls and one is wank him much while riding, him enjoy this but says looking for wife, not whore. Tex give up and fuck off back to enormous house to drive enormous truck (both of which bring pictures of to flaunt at Russian hotness) in enormous state.

Finally, we had Liuda (pronounced almost the same as 'Ludo'). Ludo lived in darkest Siberia with father Parcheesi, mother Operation, and smoking hot 16 year old sister Battleship. Ludo had recently become engaged to some bloke (let's call him 'Dodgy Darren') who was a part-time bouncer in the UK. Darren, who looked like he should be sitting in a rusty transit van approximately three inches from your rear bumper, somehow could afford to go out to Soviet Russia not once but twice to meet with Ludo. This was his second visit, as he sought their blessing to put his ring on her finger (in more ways than one, probably). Chipmunk-like Ludo was delighted and Darren arrived in a sinister Aeroflot plane to the snow-swept airport and was driven in a decaying taxi to the imposing Stalinist tower block where her family lived. After serving him a traditional Russian lunch (which seemed to consist of strawberry puree, chicken and lots of vodka), Parcheesi and Operation were concerned that Darren didn't speak Russian, and that Ludo barely spoke English. Her older sister, Monopoly, had also come to welcome them and agreed this didn't quite seem right.

In the end, Parcheesi and Operation had to bring in an interpreter to grill Darren, who told them everything they wanted to hear (including a chilling mention of a pre-nup) so that they would agree to send their apple-cheeked daughter off to spend the rest of her life having her anus fondled by some drooling unqualified pervert nearly twice her age. It worked, and a wedding date was set for Prague in six week's time. Darren fucked off back to England to try and get a few more up-against-the-walls in with drunken slags in the club where he worked, while Ludo cried lonely tears and got fitted for her wedding dress.

I have to admit, I felt sorry for a lot of the people in this show. The blokes because they (apart from Dave) seemed fairly decent but couldn't meet the unrealistic expectations of their local attractive women... and the Russian women who were forced into this because apparently so many Russian guys died in Afghanistan and Chechnya that you either marry rich Western husband or spend the rest of your life in front of a webcam with a variety of vibrating implements and your childhood friend Anya licking your foo.

No, but I did see Charlie Brooker's new show on C4, which was excellent.

I'm going to employ Meaty to watch every programme I can't be arsed to watch - his descriptions would be much more entertaining than the shows themselves.

I've been to Russia a few times, and it's horrible. Moscow was alright, for an afternoon, but once you have seen the Kremlin and Red Square, and St Basils and Lublianka, that is about it, really. I have also been to Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Vostochny, Ekaterinburg and Novoryssisk. Each place is more grim than the last. There is nothing redeeming at all I can think to say about them. Other than yes, some of the women are fit.

The plane which flew me to Novoryssisk (which isn't that far from Chechnya) was a sight to behold. I was in business class and this consisted of a table and four chairs bolted to the floor. You know, like a picnic table. The seatbelts may as well have been a length of rope and the inside of the plane actually frosted up. All of it! It also wasn't pressurised.

I have spent the worst times of my life in the former Soviet Union.

I fucking hate Russia with a passion.

No mention of Zangief then? Shame...

Who's this Captain Tib chap that the posh folks go on about?

Not been to Petersburg? Beautiful city, other than the bugs in the water

I went to St Petersburg in 2000. Apart from the pretty bits, it was pretty grim.

My mate had his wallet stolen by the taxi driver on the way to the hotel. Things went downhill from there.

Nope - managed to avoid St Petersburg. I was supposed to go late last year, but I managed to swerve that one and go to Singapore instead.

I wouldn't mind seeing St Petersburg, as people who have been said it is beautiful, but just the thought of going back to Russia chills my blood. Just seeing something written in cyrilic gives me a panic attack.

Ho ho! That reminds me of an old American Airlines advert where a guy walks through the ridiculous and opulent first class on a plane to his seat in economy. Economy is bare metal walls with peasants huddling on benches with goats. Tinny music strains from an old gramophone (the turntable turned by a peasant's finger).

Please don't give Ryanair any more free advertising

Someone posted a link to two Scottish guys who cover songs in a kind of nu-wave folky way, and I've had one of their songs stuck in my head all morning. But I can't remember who they are, and I can't find them through the search. Any help?

"Aa would pay £2 a month, and aa would pay £2 more..."

I love you, Chinny

Can't find the consumables thread but I've just emailed SVP to ask what the fuck is going on with their abortion of a new website and why has their address changed from Devon to Scotland.

If they've changed hands and are no longer going to be consumable specialists they can frankly GTFF. According to my accounts software I average a grand a year of consumables with them so if they still want that money they can explain themselves.

Why do some people insist on leaving those shitty little protective pieces of plastic film on gadgets? I've been moaning at Miss Malabar for a couple of weeks now to remove them from her G1; she even left the one over the camera lens, the idiot. Except it has somehow fallen off and now she's blaming me. I've assured her if I'd taken it off, I'd have removed the rest, too.

I thought that was pretty wise.

Maybe I'm just a snob, but putting an even cheaper piece of plastic completely not designed to be used as an optic material in front of your already-cheap lens is a bit pointless.

A better idea is to not keep your phone in the same pocket as your keys, etc.

I'd be staggered if you could tell the difference with a lens of that quality though.
It's something to test when I get a new phone

There's a labs plug-in to put the 'beta' image back in case you were missing it

Possibly not. Anyway, it looks tacky! Her lovely, matt black G1 is covered in cheap tatty plastic with small air bubbles.

There's a labs plug-in to put the 'beta' image back in case you were missing it

Now I've said that twice.

I have no idea how that happened.

Great, now they all see how bad my typing is when I try to write fast.

My sides.

They are rent asunder?

I love the occasional little insights into Grim and Gaywood. You two make such a cute couple. The kids would be horrendous, though.

Brilloiant.

quicxck, someone s;tich me backup

That is brilloiant.

"Jes tae be teh man who'd pour yon glue en tu the locks on yor door..."

You are very bad men.

...and this is new to you?

They're just walking backwards!

I'm walking backwards for christmas, across the Irish Sea.

Walking backwards could be the hottest internet meme of 2009! Like Sidetalking. Remember that?

Stop Press: Jack Tweed has announced that he'd like to open a restaurant. If we're quick we can trademark the name "Jade's Kebabs".

Anyone online for japes? anyone? muuuuhhhhhh. Braaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiins.

I've ordered more Space Putty.

Is that like sideboob? Sideboob is SO 2008. 2009 is the year of underboob!

Cue music!

You "made love" to the first batch?

I guess they haven't updated all the themes yet


DavPaz's Gmail, today