Because I know you're all wondering

Alice bought me a lemon yum-yum today, whilst Izzy had to have her knife confiscated at dinner time for 'wanton messing'. Pistachios are in season again and making strong headway as we go into December and must surely be a hot-tipped favourite as the influence of a 1Kg tub makes its presence felt.

Time for a tea break.

Rule your own island nation

Baali bomb mastermind may be using hypnotic techniques to evade capture:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/top-terrorist-may-be-master-hypnotist/2005/11/22/1132421661698.html


Eh, a hypnotist using his powers for evil, how about that Phil?

*Cough*Terrorist.

I'm sorry, OK? I apologise in advance.

A Jelly Baby walks into a bar and starts talking to a Smartie. After a few beers the Smartie says "Hey, a bunch of us are heading to that new club, fancy tagging along?"

The Jelly Baby says "No mate, I'm a soft centre, I always end up getting my head kicked in".

"So?" Smartie says. "Don't worry about it, I'm a bit of a hard case, I'll look after you".

Jelly Baby thinks about it for a minute and says "Fair enough, as long as you'll look after me," and off they go.

After a few more beers in the club, three Lockets walk in. As soon as he sees them, Smartie hides under the table. The Lockets take one look at Jelly Baby and start kicking him, breaking cola bottles over his little jelly head, lamping him with little sugary chairs, and generally having a laugh. After a while they get bored and walk out.

Jelly Baby picks himself up and wipes up his Jelly Baby blood. He then turns to Smartie and says "I thought you were going to look after me?"

"I was!" says Smartie, "But those Lockets are f** king menthol".

Hulk Smash

During a recent water break at jitsu...

Me: So Sensei, been doing anything fun lately?

Sensei: Well, I bought some plate mail, I'm just polishing that up.

Me: Plate mail? Really? I mean, can you wear it?

Sensei: Wear it? I can sprint in it. (Proceeds to run up and down the hall to show me just how fast).

Me: Wow.

Sensei: Goes great with my studded mace.


Yes friends, when society collapses, I'm going to be glad to count a feudal warlord among my close associates.

Next week: We go to Ikea to get the components for a trebuchet.

Diabolic Edict

(Alicey is reading about cadavers in her science textbook.)

Alicey: Cadaver, cadaver... cadaverous bloom!
Mattgreen: A cheesy green and black spell used for creating large amounts of mana... mostly by Tim Hall.
Alicey: (laughing) Oh yeah... I wonder what happened to Tim Hall?
Mattgreen: I hope he's lying dead in a gutter somewhere. Or has become an alcoholic. Or both.

Caylus and other cool games

The boardgames club I go to on Wednesday nights is great fun:

http://www.halesowenboardgamers.org.uk/

You can keep tabs on what we are playing and how I score.

Caylus has been the game of the moment for the last three weeks. It's pretty new and there doesn't seem to be much in th eway of fixed lines of strategy published for it. Boardgamegeek has quite a bit of information on it, with teh general concenus that people need to play it more. The object of the game is to help a king build a castle by donating building materials to him. In return he grants favours by way of victory (prestige) points, cash, materials, or cheap building upgrades. You can build more in the village as well as shipping to the in order to get you more prestige, generate more cash or win more favour with the king.

The castle is built in three stages, timed by the movement of a bailiff through the village (which can be meddled with, should you wish). Game ends at the end of the third stage. There are so many different ways to score prestige points and screw the opponents with vast amounts of money. It's a fabulous game. Takes a bit of time to really get a feel for it but no player is ever rolling in every commodity so it's quite easy to force an advantage and stop a player in the lead from scoring for a turn or two.

Takes a a couple of hours to get through but it's a deep game and there's hardly any down-time between turns.

I've come to notice a trend about games I like playing repeatedly since going to the that i'll elaborate on another time: basically I like games where there are a few different ways to win. Caylus certainly fits the bill. I might have to get a copy.

Snacky treats

Mattgreen, Izzy and I are going to the Good Food Show on Saturday 26th November at Birmingham NEC. We've also got a spare ticket to see Jamie O at 5.15pm if anybody's interested.