fondue

Hmmm. Mark, Susan = Nu-Skam(m)ers?

So pleased. The Yule Lads came up in our festive quiz at work. Surprisingly, I was the only one who knew door sniffer was real...

Oh, and the other thing that whole discussion reminded me of was a weapon in an old Amiga game (Starglider 2) called the Time Warp Cube. From the manual (esp the second paragraph): Sadly, they never reveal the name of that soap opera.

Interestingly, there's actually a board game called Tragedy Looper... Apparently this came out 6 years ago. Or will come out 6 years ago. I can't be sure.

Agreed wholeheartedly! "Jake" was especially hilarious.

And stream it when you do.

I'm about 5 hours in and it's just so nice to play. I'm going to Remo my way through it, first sure - the writing is too enjoyable not to.

So, a car full of - and driven by - mosquitos? When they all cram onto the windscreen, could they effectively act like a simple LCD screen, thus creating Cars style eyes when seen from the outside of the car? And given their ability to synthesise speech, is this how Cars begins?

Oh, I know - it's purely an irrational annoyance! Though it is odd how it's ONLY herbs, but not herbivore, herbaceous, Herby, etc. Language is weird, and I realise this more and more every day as my daughter is starting to learn to read - the English language really is such a mish-mash of different linguistic heritages. It reminds me of this passage (misappropriated to Mark Twain):

Maybe when people pronounce SH instead of S, they are using all the H's that disappeared when pronouncing Herbs (probably my most fume-inducing word when spoken by Americans).

Talking of the topic that's a la mode, averages, I mean, surely all Nielsen need to do is switch to the median audience size and that'd solve the problems for networks and Nielsen alike?

So the monkeys aren't our first point of defence against the robot uprising? I'd have thought robots would be trained to kill all humans, and so having a stronger, more agile army to call upon could only help us not lose immediately.

Maybe it's just a UK thing, but we call them orange segments - slices invoke an image of a much thinner slither of <whatever> created with a knife. Before a trip to San Francisco a couple of years ago, I was after restaurant recommendations, and one of my friends recommended The Stinking Rose, a garlic restaurant. We didn't go (too many other places to try first!), but was wondering if any of the Thumbs had?

How you managed to avoid calling the time travelling reverend robot 'The Sermonator", I'll never know.

My brain, after listening to you segue from discussions about Jaws to your endorsements, filed them away as endorsals. Fin.

Great 'cast gents; Nick, you somehow end up with just the best stories - I'm not sure I should be driving whilst listening any more, as the "So I was sat on my sofa" almost made me lose it. And, oh god, the toothworm! But, to the email about reliving your life from 3 years old but being aware of all you'd done the first time around is explored rather wonderfully in "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August", which I endorse heavily. From the blurb: "No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now." Interestingly, the first time Harry is relives his life, he goes quite mad - which makes a lot of sense; imagine everything you do having an innate sense of deja-vu but you don't know why. Perhaps one for the Idle Book Club?

Oh, and I have the "getting other people's email" a load too - the burden of a very common name, and nabbing it first on twitter and outlook.com. At least I'm not called something like George Osborn though...

Breckon is an unusual name, eh? And yet TWO of them have set up an estate agent in Oxford (snapped this the other day before listening to the cast casting that 'cast)..

Really enjoyed listening to the Deus Ex chat - I played the first game a LOT when it first came out, but haven't picked up any of the sequels (though may well get Mankind Divided, as Chris is playing it exactly how I like to, and if he's finding it so rewarding, then that bodes well). However, I was struck by a couple of his comments as they made me consider the temporal expectations that games lay on us. Now, I don't know if there's a day / night cycle in this game, but assuming not, Chris says he's been playing it for about 12 hours, and was a little disappointed at things like news reports being repeated often, newspaper headlines not changing, people not fixing massive holes in their walls. Unless there are some other visual cues that time is passing much more quickly than in the real world, it's unlikely these kind of things would actually change over a 12 hour period. Go switch on a 24 hour news channel, and in half a day's time it's very likely they'll continue to be running the same stories, almost verbatim. This morning's newspapers won't have changed. And - given how many buildings appear to be having holes punched in them - it's no surprise that most people find it hard to find a builder at such short notice (they're clearly all working flat out fixing the problems caused by all those other blasted "augs"). Gametime (the temporal flow in time) has always struck me as an interesting concept and how expectations are set and players so accepting. After all, even games like (say) Mass Effect 3 where you're flying around saving the galaxy, all happens within a couple of days (48 hours av. completion time), which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it like that.

Ah, I guessed this may be true - though I was a bit doubtful as

THANK YOU!! xx I'm a bit worried - this game has finally seeped into my dreams and I'm seeing blobs & lines everywhere I look now. Is there a cure? I was going to take my temperature to see if there was anything actually wrong with me, but instead of putting the thermometer in my mouth, I traced my finger up the side of it and was disappointed it didn't sparkle

Gah! A while ago I found a room , but now I can't find the flipping place again - anyone got any idea? It's driving me crazy!

*applause*

First thing that came to mind was the Independence Day style level in Starfox 64 - haring around*, chasing stray enemies, it really felt like being part of bigger battle. It was just such there was no level select. * that pun just slipped out

Humanity.