UKCasual

Ah shit, here we go again...

Go on, tell us what you've been playing this past week!

Tuesday, Tuesday. Up here in Scotland (specifically Edinburgh) it's the last day of the school holidays. To any other parents north of the border - we've done it, folks. The end is in sight. Looking forward to tomorrow's hectic early morning followed by a day of bliss.

Anyway, TV and Tunes Tuesday! Whatcha watching and listening to? Recommendations for movies, TV shows and music please!

Personally I have the last episode of Strange New Worlds, which I'm saving for tomorrow lunchtime and then it's sayonara Paramount +. We've also just finished the reboot of Quantum Leap, which was cheesy but fun.

Music wise. Well, I'm a gen-xer so I've been listening to the remasters of the Lush albums. Long live shoegaze, the only correct style of dancing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of marmite. But I'm not an animal. I have it on toast, or a bagel, or maybe a toastie if I'm feeling reckless.

But my son wants marmite sandwiches. Sandwiches! How is it possible to spread marmite on bread without the bread disintegrating? Is there a technique that in my five decades on this earth I have not been able to master?

Slowly catching up.

I went out for a curry with some friends last night, have a fairly straightforward day at work today then a pizza this evening and have a day booked off on Monday: I have some DIY lined up over the weekend.

Should be a good showing of the Perseid meteor shower this weekend too. It peaks tomorrow, but it looks like it'll be cloudy. I might spend a bit of time in the garden this evening though, since it is supposed to be clear, and see if I can spot any.

My complaint is that we have a tiny window of gorgeous weather today and I’m inside really busy at work!

It's time again to tell us what you have been playing...

Bonus question: what was the last game you completed?

So the family and I are on holiday in Greece and we're on a bus ride to see some place and we go through a long tunnel. I naturally go "oooooooooooooo" as we enter. My family look at me in shame, the rest of the passengers just look...

How goes folks?

Good weekend I hope. Get up to anything interesting? I’m at the tail end of a long weekend so once again I’ve let the weans sleep in and am using the time to get in about some Baldurs Gate 3 in peace.

Summer holidays are getting old - weans have their pc’s in living room and hearing my boy all day yesterday spout utter nonsense in discord was seriously ripping ma knittin’, as they say. Only another two weeks!

And there's still this much battery left. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. I wasn't expecting it to still have any power left at all. I suppose with the sim out, all it was doing was powering the clock, but still! Unfortunately, I've had to retire it as my network won't connect on it anymore.

What are you up to? Out and about or avoiding Storm Antoni?

Anyone fancy a moan about the Dartford crossing?

Woke up this morning to a £35 penalty for forgetting to pay the toll charge.

I swear they make it as easy as possible to forget...

I almost preferred when you had to toss coins into a hopper...

End whinging.

Kickin' in the front seat or sittin' in the back seat: which is it today folks?

Workwise, it should be ok today, then - rain permitting - I have a bat monitoring session this evening. That might be pushed to next weekend though (I'd get to watch the Perseids at the same time, if it was, by the look of it).

And then out to an open air production of A Winter's Tale tomorrow night - also rain permitting and the forecast is currently saying it won't.

What have you got lined up?

I'm off on holiday tomorrow and will have basically no internet for over a week. So naturally I'm downloading all the media I can think of, just in case of downtime.

Thought it might be fun to solicit some musical suggestions from you lot to help expand my mind. So here we are. What's your ultimate all-time #1 album?

My tastes are pretty eclectic* so feel free to suggest basically anything, and maybe I'll update after holiday and judge what I thought of them all. Or maybe not, you know, that sounds like potentially quite a lot of effort.

Cheers in advance!

* mostly on the alternative / rock side of things but also love various kinds of dance sub-genre on occasion and of course the genre-that-isn't-a-genre-at-all, Eurovision

Happy Wednesday folks!

What have we all been watching this week?

I finished season 2 of This Fool which was great.

Currently sitting on my arse watching episode 7 of Hijack which has been a brilliant wee surprise. Not usually a fan of scary airplane stuff but this has me hooked.

Righteous Gemstones season 3 finished up this week too. Love a bit of Danny McBride and this season has been phenomenal.

Can’t forget What We Do in the Shadows - hilarious as ever.

After growing my beard out for maybe 5-6 years, trimming it myself and generally keeping it looking “reasonable” I thought I’d treat myself and go get it trimmed by a “professional” first thing before a day full of webex meetings.

Now admittedly it was maybe a bit What year is it?, but it was well taken care of. Wee dude even commented on how it was one of the softest he’d cut.

Then he fucking trimmed it to fuck, into a big sorcerers point while I just sat there aghast. Absolutely scunnered.

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Forgot my hands don't really work first thing, and the bottle of laundry juice was brand new and heavy.

Luckily I've got two loads to go on and managed to scrape this lot off the bench with my hand into a spare one of those cup things. But urgh, the kitchen floor is all a bit Ghostbusters 2.

Smells nice, like, it's got that going for it.

I had a good Sunday lunch at the pub and a relaxed afternoon yesterday, have a relatively sane looking week lined up at work and then out for an outdoor Shakespeare play (rain permitting) on Friday.

It's Saturday! For many of us, probably the best day of the week. Even if it turns out to be crap then we still have Sunday waiting in reserve.

So, what are your exciting plans for this, a traditional drizzly British summer weekend?

We were planning another two day camping trip, but with thunderstorms forecast at our destination, I think as a family we have all decided to dump that concept and just doss around instead.

So I was at a seaside arcade over the past week. Spent some time spamming the 2p slots machines and tickets are firing out of this thing. Go to exchange these at the kiosk and notice that you can get quite a few domestic appliances on the back shelf (13,000 tickets for a toaster, £5 of 2p slots got me 80 tickets).

Are people actually skillful enough to game the system and win these over just going to Argos? Or do gambling addicts just collect tickets over time to exchange for a toaster after a few months as a consolation prize?