2017-10-01 09:14:27

Welcome to yet another of our famous monthly chat topics.
Well famous ish anyway. For anyone who hasn't seen these before (they're not that famous), this is your place to chat about pretty much anything going on in your life each month.
Games, books, films, school, work, relationships,  all of those happy fun and  cuddly things, ---- or indeed sad, depressing and    spiky  things as the case may be for you.

For me, while the relationship side of things is still most definitely cudly, other aspects are less so.
As I said at the end of last month's thread, unfortunately my  laptop is playing silly buggers turning off the wireless  capability for no reason, so I'm having to borrow my lady's to check the forum. This means not much by way of games or indeed email at the moment though since we are hopefully going to get a carpet  next Saturday which is the first step in deboxifying the living room of our new house, setting up my desktop should follow relatively quickly I hope.

If not , hopefully we can take my laptop back to the firm I got it from and get the model number and function key commands to turn wireless back on.
Actually I hope the problem is that simple, but we'll see, certainly the network is working.

In other news, last night I went to the first band concert here in  this new town, disconcertingly for those in the states called Newark, though the one in Nottinghamshire, not the one  close to new Jerzy (I have been to that one, or at least to it's airport and they're very different).

Newark  over here is a rather quiet little market town, but one conveniently on the trainline in the center of the country where it's possible to get most places, which makes it A, conveniently small to walk about and B, easy to visit other parts of the  country from.

Exhibit A I demonstrated last night by heading to the theatre for the first time for a band concert.
This was a concert by a wind band, which is similar to a brass band.

for those only familiar with the American style marching bands, British bands are rather different. Back in the  industrial  revolution going right through up to the eighties and  nineties, every small mining village and  factory town in North England had a band who played a lot of popular classic stuff.
The mines and colearies are gone, but the bands are still around.
They don't march but give concerts in halls, churches etc, accept anyone with an instrument (they used to be pretty much men only but that's long since changed), and are usually rather fun performances.For a good look at a band and some of the north English culture, see the film Brassed off.

Last  night the band, being a wind band was basically like an  orchestra  without a string section and played a lot of  fun stuff from War of the worlds (the Jeff Wayne version), to Pirates of the carribian, Swan lake and even a beatles medly and bohemian  rhapsody by queen as well as a few more standard things like Colonel  bogey.

It's nice to have a theatre within walking distance and the staff are rather friendly, though I missed my lady since she was still feeling unwell so couldn't come with me which was a  pest since she would've rather enjoyed it I think.

Oh bwell, since I saw my first Christmas advert last week (they're getting earlier every year), that means the  buying season is approaching, which generally means more concerts etc, so I'm sure we'll be back, hopefully at some point as  performers if we're lucky.

Well that's probably enough for a col and grim morning, or at least it is here, so hope everyone else is having fun.
Hopefully when my desktop is up and running I can get back to the db, trying new games and doing generallywhat I usually do on a more regular basis, though as with a lot in my life currently moving house is proving  getting in the way of most everything.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-01 13:09:36

Dark,
Wow! I didn't know there was an old Newark, so the one in New Jersey should be named, New Newark.
I hope you're getting a dog friendly carpet.
Their claws sometimes can get snagged in a looped carpet so a cut-loop Berber carpet is better.

2017-10-01 23:11:25

Hi,
@Dark: hope the move goes well. The band concert sounds interesting!
I recently got back from Feel The Force Day in Peterborough. This one wasspecial though, because it was Feel The Force Day 5.
I felt honoured to be there, meeting all the characters again, and I met a person who I'd wanted to meet for years, who goes around as Captain Jack Sparrow, it was a lovely surprise because it's only taken four years, haha!
It was good seeing some people from the predator group as well, but unfortunately some of them couldn't make it this year due to other real life commitments, and I did miss them.
There was also a halloween style room with lots of toys in there that made sounds, and even fellow forumight SightlessKombat was there and joined us for a chat for a while. I received an Ultimate Source Shadow Jago figure based on Killer Instinct, as a gift from him that he purchased from the states.
There was a very funny moment with a dancing stormtrooper who was playing Prince music, I started to boogie along to it.
One of the other really funny moments was during the scary room. The founder, JJ, showed up in a costume inspired by the Disney princesses. I don't think I've laughed like that for a long time.
I got to have a photo on the Iron Throne of Game of Thrones fame, I was so surprised at how big it is. You are sat right back on the throne, feet almost dangling down, two swords next to you hanging out the throne where armwrests would normally be.
I also spoke to a few guests who were there, and one of them was from Force Awakens and told me about how it was filmed, saying there were two BB-8 droids on set.
Speaking of the princess characters, they were there again, accent and all, and I got to meet some new people helping out as these characters. One of them was Belle and she asked if I wanted to hear her sing, so I asked if she knew Something There, and when it came to the Beast's part, I think I surprised her because I started to sing along. We then spoke about some theatre shows as well.
I met a voice actor called Mark Silc, and I will hopefully be featured on a podcast as well, we saw someone who  recognized me because I was commenting on the podcast's Facebook page, and he let me get interviewed! It is called TGP Nominal.
At the end, we saw Elsa. I was saying that I'd seen the other princess characters, but was wondering if Moana was around. She said that the person helping out as Moana had left. But then she surprised me because she said that the Moana costume was still here and asked us to wait in one of the quieter areas. Around 10 minutes later she appeared as Moana, and she did this so that I could feel the new costume, which is why we had to go to a quieter area so she wouldn't get swamped.
I was told that she normally wouldn't do this for other people, so this was a lovely surprise to end the event on, because it really did turn out that the person helping out as Moana had gone, and the person showing me the costume is normally Elsa and does not swap out.
Finally, on the way out, we met a Deadpool costumer. This was awesome because the guns had triggers that you could push in and out, and the swords also popped in and out as well. There were loads of different things to feel on the costume.
All in all, another amazing Feel The Force event, something I count down to every year.

2017-10-02 14:28:01

It is named: Newark Liberty International Airport
The airport is 7 miles from the Statue of Liberty and 9 miles from Manhattan Island.

2017-10-02 14:28:51

@Aaron that sounds very cool, I'm actually sorry we missed it,  we really couldn't have made it this year, oh well there's always next time.

The concert was fun, and yes Phil, the carpet is dog friendly. 
The good news today is that I've managed to fix the wireless on my laptop. It turns out there is a really annoying inset button above the f6 key which I must've caught by mistake. What is weird is to get it working after turning it off I need to run the  trubble shooter, but I don't intend to turn it off again, ---- well not unless I need my laptop on a plane anyway.


What is odd about the two newarks is  they couldn't be more different. Over here  Newark is a rather small town with lots of old houses and  12th century castle, it's also famous for having a major battle hear during the English civil war (the roundheads and cavaleers, the one with oliver  Cromwell in the 17th century).
Other than that though it's a surprisingly quiet place, where as what I saw of the new  jerzy version was very different big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-03 18:38:54

Hey everyone,
It's great to be back on the forum after a long absants. My month has been rather uneventful so far; I've returned to university for my second year and although it's only my third week I'm already facing a group presentation and 2000 word reflective essay this coming friday. sad Although this has of course meant that I've been conducting a lot of research and spending way more time than I should be on referencing I've nearly finished and I have a couple of fun things coming up in the mean time. I'm going to a concert at Manchester Arina tomorrow night with some friends to see the country band Lady Antebellum and I'm very much looking forward to it. it's by far the largest concert venue I've ever been to and it will definitely be an interesting experience.
I'm staying over in Manchester tomorrow night and will probably shop on Thursday before coming home and turning my mind to work once more.
I hope everyone else is having a lovely October so far! smile

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. -Abraham Lincoln

2017-10-04 05:37:00

Hi Lauren, great to see you back here.

It's odd there is a time a two thousand word essay would sound like a lot to me, after my phd thesis (close to eighty thousand words at last count with 90 books listed in the bibliography and about 80 footnotes), it doesn't sound so bad, though I likely wouldn't have said that  the second year of my own degree big_smile.

For me, my victor stream has died again! which is really annoying. Luckily it's still under guarantee so hopefully humanware will get the thing fixed, still I'm mildly disappointed it's had the same problem for the second time.

In other news not a lot new accept that we managed to find an actually nice and surprisingly cheap pizza place using the magic of google, Hurrah!

It's amazing though how nice after all the running around moving house etc just spending a day or two curled up with Mrs. Dark reading books together can be.

I'm now reading colien Mcculla's first man in Rome, the first of her series about the Caesars and the republic.
The first book begins with Caesar's father and uncle, Gias Marrius and Cornilias sulla.
The details and characters are fun, albeit I do wish there wasn't quite as much of the author telling us what people are like, and the book is a little slow owing to the massive amounts of background and only occasional character scenes, with some of the politics and business stuff getting a little dry given the amount of it.

Still, I have noticed that the actual bits of plot are good and hopefully there is going to be more of this as the book goes on. My lady did say the first book in the series wasn't the best, so I'll continue and see where it goes, it has had it's moments, I just wish I didn't have  to expend so much patience to get to them.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-05 12:55:33

yo all.
It was the same as the previous month, accept that I now have mutch better entertainement with CSI seson5, and I can finally watch it some more, didn't have that mutch the last month. Basicly nothing new, nothing old, everything is there, on one place. I am currently thinking about learning python, because it seems to be the easiest programming language after BGT, And I don't want to be crashed into a wall when I find out that BGT cant do something completely normal. smile
As for MacBook aer, there seems to be someone selling it in Belgrade, so we musst drive to there to even manage to get it. What's good that second hand so it's mutch, mutch more cheeper then in our regular stores, MacBook aer witch in USA costs about $1000 is in here about $2000. No, I am not joking in the leest. Plus, it's by now very ergent, because I am just waiting for my computer to play it's last squiw before it reaches it's sad end. lol
How ever, I still need to have windows on it, and it seems that we are going to buy one with 128 gigs and I don't know is it worfe while installing windows on it or should I use a virtual machine. I was never fan of those things, not just that all that is eather payed or totally in accessible, so I am now deciding what should I do. Plus, it seems that my router doesn't support upnp, so I cant even host a server, even if it may be pointless to run a server on a machine like this.
Sadly I wasn't able to join in with the IOS11 beta So I got it the last week or so. And, well, it wasn't that big as I hoped. Thanks goodness so the playroom3 is soon coming and I cant wait what's new in this huge redspot releace so I still have something to wait for.

If life gives you communism, become a communist dictator.

2017-10-07 12:43:29

Dark,
Well, ever since the first of October I thought AudioGames.net was down.
Each time I tried to go here my Vista computer hung up.
I finally tried my Windows 8 laptop and discovered that it might have been my old computer that was the problem.
So I got 31 topics to check on, and it's good bye for good old Vista, RIP.

2017-10-07 22:23:56

Hi Phil.
I'm not sure what was happening there, though since I had my own issues with my laptop's wireless  silly beggars I possibly just missed that detail.
Well the big news  is that I now have an actual living room with carpet and chairs and living roomy things, and also my desktop is back up and running! hurrah!
Since I've been sitting on a less than comfortable folding chair using my laptop on a folding table in the corner of a mostly empty upstairs  thus far, this is a great relief, quite aside from the fact that we now have actual speakers for music playing and a desktop for watching dvds plus a screen.
Admitedly, all the actual dvds are still packed in cardboard boxes, but hay at least now when they're unpacked I can do something more interesting than playing tetris with them big_smile.

I've also started playing junction gate which really does look rather fascinating.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-16 13:19:01

Well a couple of things to report today which people might find hopefully interesting.

The first is, as English people will know, we now have started getting new ten pound notes. Like our new fivers, these are made of plastic, and do feel a little like shop receipts.
Fortunately, the government in their benevolence have decided to braille the notes so all blind people know what they are. that is why on the left hand edge of every  plastic ten pound note you will find in Braille the very helpful message gg.

Why gg? I have no idea, I've heard of being asked to "pony up" when required to pay, but I never thought the government took it literally, or maybe it's supposed to be an indication that, as Tony the tiger would say having money is gg gg ggrrrrreat!

Either way, I'm sure everyone is pleased that the government  done such a great job of their accessibility.
I'm now wondering what's going to happen when they decide to do the 20 pound notes? Will that be hh? or maybe g g g?  Time will tell big_smile.

Also in other news, my victor has been returned, however I'm well annoyed with humanware since they charged me a massive  bill despite it being in warrentee because apparently the water sensor was activated! also the problem that it shuts off if moved when on batteries is still! there. This is really frustrating, especially as I had to pay nearly two thirds of what the victor stream cost in the first place to get it fixed, and!  this is the second time in the year I've had this machine that it's gone wrong.
Really I thought better of humanware, but at this point they're showing themselves to be the quite typical money grubbing access company, using any excuse to gouge the customer as per usual.

On the plus side, I have now finished first man in rome which was rather good, albeit a bit dry in places and am celebrating my victor's return (at huge cost), with a massive doctor who fest. The monthly adventures have been quite interesting, The blood furnace was rather fun in terms of evil aliens  nineties Liverpool and I was amused at time in office dealing with the fifth doctor as president of galifrey, however the best thing thus far has been torchwood.
big finish are actually doing a series five, and while they don't seem to be continuing the lose ends from miracle day (though some implications seem to suggest they're going to deal with that in the monthly adventures plot with the committee), series five has a great premise, a bunch of aliens living in Cardiff and torchwood having to deal with post brexit racial feelings, recession and having no resources.

I really like the new characters and the plot is extremely compelling as well as being very Torchwood. Torchwood has always been an awesome series and Bf are carrying it on amazingly well. I particularly like the way the monthly stories have dealt with other aspects of Torchwood, like Torchwood during the second world war or during America in the fifties, as well as telling stories from the perspective of different characters.

The house is now getting rather more fixed, which has let me play a few more games. I'm hoping the space explorer game will prove fun, and I really did! enjoy HEARtREAd, and would definitely recommend it, sort of like pappasangre with an anime plot, even though the gameplay was relatively easy.

Hopefully this will mean I'll be back to playing more games and updating the site again in the future, heck I still want to play coffee mud.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-19 09:21:04

Going to check out our new band rehersal place today. The plan is to start with six hours of rehersal each week. I want more, and I'm not the only one, but that's something to expand upon when we've gotten into it.

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2017-10-25 21:33:27

@Lord Lundin, hope your rehearsing goes well.

For me it's time to check in again since I've a few things to share.

Firstly I'm pleased that we've had some site updates out and that I've been able to try out new games, it's always good to be on  edge of what is going on, and hopefully site updates will be a bit more regular now that house related things are sorted, albeit my IPhone still has no battery which makes playing Ios games a bit difficult. I'd like to check out the Alteraeon Halloween stuff if I can, though whether I'll have time we'll see.

In other newsI have continued the doctor who fest with lots of fourth doctor stories and all of the time war stuff.
I'm still not sure the time war is a story that really should be told, but it is interesting to see someone who isn't the doctor being a bastard in the doctor's universe, even if I still think retconning the hole war was quite ridiculous. As with Riversong Bf seem to have restored faith in the war doctor even if the plot that introduced him was appalling.
I also liked the fact that the last two fourth doctor stories actually bought us a really alien alien world, an entire planet made of gelly like substance where people could walk as long as they didn't stay still and where the local civilization had wave walkers, who walked across the slowly moving jelly sea with balloons to keep them up.
Nice to see a really distinct planet, and one that even had a good  in a foil for Romana, though a shame she had to turn out to be a bit too eeeevil

I also finished One salt sea by Seanon McGuire with my lady and sent off a review. A trifle disappointing, especially what happened to October, though I'll not say what I thought here given that hopefully the review will be up on fantasybookreview.co.uk soon and people can read for themselves.

getting away from books and audios and so on, to celebrate my lady's birthday we went to Turtle bay last Monday. This is an awesome west indian restaurant with a lot of unusual stuff.
Wehad some amazingly nice cocktails, and some extremely good, if very spicy stew made of beef cheeks, some chicken wings with a great jerk sauce, plus some of their great rum cake.

it's always nice to try stuff from a different culinary traditional, albeit I don't know how authentic the food at Turtle bay is, still it's spiced very differently and certainly not what we usually have and thus a nice change.

This weekend we have a firework display in honour of guy forks failed attempt to blow up parliament, sort of amusing given the amount of hot air parliament is generating over brexit they'd probably set off the gun powder themselves if someone tried it now big_smile.

Hope everyone else is having a good October.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-25 22:15:28

Dark,
You wrote that your IPhone still has no battery.
My wife just got a backup battery case for her iPhone 7.
Maybe such a battery case would fix your iPhone's dead battery problem.
Battery cases for older iPhones should be sold at  a reduced price.

2017-10-26 04:17:14

Hi Phil.
When I said my IPhone has no battery, what I actually mean is that it has a battery, but the battery basically lasts about ten minutes flat, so right now my so called mobile phone only works if it is plugged into the wall big_smile. This also means getting a spare power pack to recharge the battery on the go would be something of a waste of time.

I could get a new battery but that would cost eighty pounds and! require a full reset of the phone, which is rather loopy, especially considering that now basically the worth of my IPhone five is apparently about fourty quid anyway.

I will probably look at upgrading somewhere in the Christmas sales, though whether to a seven or eight I am not sure, albeit I'm tempted to get the eight just for system longevity if nothing else, it is not really an expense I want at the second, but it is what it is, and given my IPhone 5 has had some pretty intensive use over the past five years I can't complain too much, though it does make it rather difficult to try out IPhone e games when I'm constantly tied to a power point.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-26 14:24:32

Dark,
My wife's Apple battery case for the iPhone 7 runs down the backup battery first before running down the iPhone's battery. It plugs into the phone's lightning plug and has another lightning plug for re-charging.
I thought backup battery cases for the 5 would be discounted by now.

2017-10-29 03:55:50

Oddly enough phil when I asked at the apple shop they didn't mention those, they only mentioned the portable recharge unit.
Maybe they didn't have them for the IPhone 5?

Still while I do confess that financially it's a pain in the arse getting a new phone right now, it is still something I need to do, not the least because my IPhone game playing has been rather curtailed recently and there are many games that need adding to the db, word war, blackbox, the blindfold games, the rest of the 3 minute interactive gamebooks etc.

We had an extremely nice weekend being as on Friday we went to an early fireworks display with my parents which was fun. It's a little early for fireworks, but hay, and we get more next week.
it does seem a little  odd celebrating a failed terrorist plot in which most conspirators got off scot free accept for the poor patsy who literally had to light the fuse who ended up being burned alive and then vilified for his trouble.
On the other hand if he'd succeeded there would probably be no united kingdom and we ight even be at war with Scotland and hay I probably wouldn't have been born given I've got Scottish grandparents and great grandparents on both sides big_smile.

Not a lot else to report unfortunately, though I'm still continuing with my huge doctor who fest, catching up with jago and Lightfoot.
This is actually a really fun series and quite appropriate for this time of year given it always has ghostly or horror elements and is set in the 1890's. It's odd, I hadn't actually seen the Doctor who classic story, The talons of Weng chyang which featured Jago and Lightfoot before I ran across them in the big finish collection, but I did really appreciate seeing them again.
Hay there is something for the odd couple of a quiet Victorian pathologist and a overblown and verbose theatrical impresario running around investigating mysterious goings on which occasionally run into bits of Doctor who lore as well as Victoriana.

The last story indeed had a meeting with Bran Stoker and  origins of the Dracula legend that he based the book on big_smile.

Mrs. Dark and I have also started reading Bruce Cameran's A dog's journey. We enjoyed the first book, even if it was a trifle overblown in places because Cameran does get dogs rather right,  it's going to be interesting to see where the second one goes, it'll be some light relief after some of the fairly grim stuff we've done together recently.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)