Be Excellent To Each Other

Well, same thing that possessed him to buy a BMW? (no offence db! Or Mr Chris)

Presumably the dealer threw in breakdown cover when he bought the car?

It's true. I was impressed, but I think they probably offer a stupid sliding scale of customer service depending on what you spend. They literally sent two guys in a truck to extricate the car and they didn't charge. The thing is this is his wife's car and he buys a new one every two years. You'd look after that kind of customer as well, I suspect.

Might have 'flu. Fuck. Feel like shit. Took some pills, now have tummy ache.

I've still got the tail-end of the Influenza-type illness I had. The same one that ruined my Christmas completely. Still have the temperature fluctuations and the green nose discharge, which is really distressing. Just get well soon if you do have a bug, y'hear? Take plenty of vitamins, or something. (Not that those probably help, but the morale-boost can be worth it.)

Now I've said that, one of my mates just kicked some of the door trim off the Mundano

Ha, I have a friend with a newish 7 series Beemer and it's possible to knock the electric seat switches off if you're clumsy getting out.

Completely anecdotally I was in a BMW dealership a couple of years ago perusing their wares, as I occasionally do for shits and giggles. While I was chatting to one of the salesmen a front foglight fell out of brand new 7 series BMW unprompted with no-one near it. I did point this out to the salesman and he scurried off to find out why. It transpired that the service department had nicked the retaining clip a week prior to fix another car in for service and hadn't told anybody in the showroom

Annual ritual: watch blues brothers. GET.

I am filled with awesome.

Mrs k is heathen.

Idly browsing the various game sales everyone has started in a bid to compete with Steam (and to be fair, a lot of them are quite good, and a lot less fiddly to navigate), I've come across a game that's rated so poorly that I am tempted to buy and play it just to see.

From the blurb:



WANT.

Edit: Oh my god, I've just found a video of it in action. The blurb mentions this at the top of the list of its features:



Not only is "3D!" the best thing they could say about it, "freedom of vision" is literally it - you can't actually move. You're rooted to one spot and can only swivel around to look around you, then click on a path, which takes you 20 feet in that direction, to another immobile position, from which you can jump to another path. It's like something from a 1995 amiga game trying pathetically hard to be Doom. Make me not buy it

Buy it!

Just looked at the clock and it was.1:11 on 1/1/11

So then. I've just come home from a NYE party at the boyfriend-of-my-girlfriend's-best-friend's house and, well, he has a proper pinball machine. And a MAME cabinet. And I've just had a great time, kicking absolutely every fuckers arse at Street Fighter II Champion Edition. Old Bastard Power: Go!

I want my own MAME cab now. And a pinball machine.

I wonder if I can leave the missus and move in with him instead?

I just bought one of these off eBay: Arcade Cabinet

I'll be turning this into a MAME cabinet forthwith. I'm pretty sure the seller of that one has others for sale too.

My buddy built a MAME cabinet. If you need any advice, I'll get him on here.

I think he said he used one of these for the controllers: http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-joy ... sb-cables/
Expensive, but by Christ are they good.

The house I was at last night is literally just around the corner and he's a great bloke, so I might see about popping round there some point soon and asking exactly how he set his MAME cab up. It's an impressive beastie alright. From what I gather (we were drinking a fair bit, so memory slightly impaired), he bought a broken arcade machine from eBay and gutted it, sticking a PC in place of the electronics. I really don't know how he's set his up though, as the MAME front-end boots up immediately when you power the machine on. The front-end looks very similar to that of the Xbox port of MAME (but the screen seemed too high-resolution to be from an actual Xbox), plus this front-end doesn't just boot up the MAME emulator with your chosen game but also a SNES, Megadrive and Dreamcast emulator (possibly others too, they're the systems I remember seeing it emulate). I didn't actually see it boot at any point mind you, he just showed me the hidden power/reset button on the top of it so I could quickly restart it if it crashed (as it apparently does from time-to-time), so for all I know it loads Windows first then automatically loads the front-end.

It had some very neat touches too - the six-button joysticks appeared to be the originals from the machine and the coin slots also work for adding credits in games running in MAME, although he left the coin slots unlocked, so you could open the mechanism up and press a button inside to add credits instead.

Anyway, I want one.

Today myself and the missus went to see Phantom Of The Opera in the West End. Loathe as I am to support the nefarious plans of probable Innsmouth resident Lloyd-Webber, it was really fucking good.

Was there a thread not so long ago about the best blogging sites to use? I've had a quick search of the boards but can't seem to find one.

Wordpress, baby!

There are quite a few threads about which blogging platform to use on The Blog Hub (I see you are a member - welcome aboard!).

It usually boils down to Wordpress or Blogger/Blogspot for most people. I will go through the threads and merge them into one for you tomorrow, for you to have a proper read through, as there are quite a few bloggers who have been blogging for years on there.

Thank you Mimi, I will have a proper look on there tomorrow when I'm not on my phone. I've signed up to Wordpress, so will have a nosey around on there too.

OK, I merged the two main threads and ear-burned you to the thread so you should be able to find it next time you are on.

If you have an idea of the kind of features you are looking for then it might be easier to point you in the right direction. For example, I find self-hosted Wordpress to be the most flexible platform, but if you want a blog that is freely hosted by either Wordpress or Blogger, then there are certain things that you will not be bale to do with a Wordpress blog as it doesn't tend to like 3rd party plug-ins (which is why so many ravellers get in a huff that their progress bars do not work).

Anyway Ouch, 1am. Should go to bed.

Come on Giantmonk, Monkey. Enough excitement for one day.

Feeling a fair bit better, but awoke with a tummy ache this morning. Probably due to beers over the past few days.

all of it, plus maybe the very spicy pizza I had yesterday.

I'm glad I've taken the boozing easy this Christmas and New Year. I've eaten like a horse though.

Not actually drank anything alcoholic since Christmas Eve. Way too many takeaways though.

Yesterday's two pints, four tins and two bottles of Crabbes was considered 'quiet'.

Still, there's always next week to abstain. We're off to the pub later, given the company heavy drinking guaranteed, if we can get the wives out of the way.

I've dreamed of having a MAME cabinet for years. I think this could deserve its own thread in time.

I built mine about 8 years ago - every home should have one.
Things have moved on a bit since then, but I'm sure I can remember a few helpful pointers.

http://www.techangel.co.uk/articles/mame/ is something I wrote for a friend's website that you might want to cast your eye over.

Good lord. He just gets creepier and creepier, doesn't he:

My mum used to child mind for the couple that used to butler/pa) for him.

Malc

I saw Phantom of the Opera in Las Vegas... it was mind blowing!

My expectations were very low but it was amazing. Like watching a film, but real life.

Out of 500 odd employees, there are only seven of us here since it's still the holiday. It's so weird! I am spending the day up a cherry picker wiring in new lights in a big White suit with mask because of asbestos. My nose hurts.
Can't wait 'til tonight; going round to my sisters house where I'm going to cook a curry for her family (not the new wee baby, he'll just have milk ) and then have a drink. Can't wait to see Stephen (Cookie) and baby Aidan and to have a drink with my sister, brother in Law, our friend and Jen. Then off tomorrow before work starts back proper on Wednesday. All feels right with the world

Work starts again tomorrow. I can't even remember what it is I do, but I know I don't like it.

Change then new year, new job?
I'm off till Thursday so will be thinking of you lot that will be at work tomorrow while I have a lie in

I'm still ill from walking back in the cold on new years.
When are we changing the names back?

Fuck sake. I updated to Sketchup 8. It's now complete fucking broken and unusable on the mac. Avoid.

Some point this week. 6th is twelfth night, isn't it?

Have you tried the HP plugin?

No mate, what does that do?

Same here. fml

Booked an extra day off work tomorrow, to postpone the inevitable...

Went for a New Year's lunch with my friend. Gourmet Burger Kitchen was rammed full so we went to Walkabout where I was presented with a kangaroo burger so overcooked that I couldn't even bite through it.

I've eaten in Walkabout a few times over the years, but was genuinely surprised when I went to the one in Shepherds Bush one on the way to a gig last year, and how well they had managed to completely destroy food.

Generally it's decent... big juicy burgers, lots of trimmings, Victoria Bitter... I'd never go there for a night out, but for a quiet weekday lunch it's good. Except this time. Strewth!

I love Lady GaGa/Sonic mashups:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrLxBRMNAzg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4ex1I4SFZs

Sorry, was a very poor pun about Sketchup sounding like a type of condiment

#cutid1" class="postlink">Too late for Christmas but theres some truly hideous nativity sets here.

Right. What the fuck is with all the new names?

Count yourself lucky I didn't change yours back to something like "DickPieOfDicks". Dick.