Sunday, November 02, 2008
Grand prix... Masa was champion when he crossed the finish line. And then...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Nudism... and taboos!
That nudist resort where I went as a boy
was okay till my organ began to deploy.
When puberty started to rear up its head,
my untimely erections would make me turn red.
When girls were equipped with what nature endows
then my southerly region could get quite aroused.
The problem you have when you go for a walk
is that girls like to tease till you're hard as a rock.
It's hard when a game that you played as a kid
causes nasty effects that the nudists forbid.
Just try to play Twister and dodge a disgrace
when opponents keep sticking their boobs in your face.
The wheelbarrow races I wouldn't advise
for you have to grab hold of a girl by her thighs.
A copious crowd always gathers to watch
while your you-know is grinding away at her crotch.
Now one of the guys had a way of relief
when his obstinate member was causing him grief.
He'd go in the lake where his girlfriend would be
and she'd lend him a hand where nobody could see.
And now that I've reached this cantankerous age
and I have to exist in this suit-and-tie cage,
I often return to that fountain of youth,
the place where my member was often uncouth.
But now I parade with no pretense of tact
for I'm HOPING my organ will start to react.
Here's the code, HTML: - stripped out completely.
and god knows how much of that will appear in the final piece. But what follows below (nothing!) is what Blogger's editor left...
Multimap: gets stranger and stranger...
For example, the maps. I know I used Multimap to navigate a journey to East Sussex six months ago, and it was incredibly detailed. Yesterday, I tried again; the map has changed. It's about six years old - houses which were on the old map in blade-of-grass detail - gone! - just a vague blur which shows a building site (maybe).
Or the red circle. Six months ago, you could move it. So, if you wanted to send some directions, you could find the approximate area with a search (find, say Manor House Tube) and then focus in on the lake south of there. Then move the focus circle. bingo! - a URL for exactly the spot. Well, either I dreamed it, or it's been hidden, or taken away. Gone.
And what about the "I can't find this address" feedback button? I know it used to be there! Today, looking for a really well known landmark (the Welsh Harp lake at the London end of the M1 motorway) the only place it could find is a farm called Welsh Hook in Dyfed. And no feedback form at all.
Let's see what this "open API" thing is, and find out more...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
How to pronounce magic words...
If you're a fan of the famous computer game, "Adventure," in which you can spend hours exploring a cave full of treasure and peril while haunted by sepulchral voices, the above will sound familiar and perhaps take you back a few years.
If not, you can find out more at the links below.
Plugh is a magic word used in several text adventure games, including:
- Adventure (the original)
- Radio Shack's Haunted House (for the TRS-80)
- Pyramid 2000 (another TRS-80 game that was basically a clone of Adventure but took place amongst the pyramids of Egypt)
- Raaka-Tu (yet another TRS-80 adventure game)
- Bedlam (and even yet another TRS-80 adventure game - also available on the TRS-80 Color Computer)
Somehow, however, plugh never quite retained the fame it deserved. Instead, it fell into the shadows of another more famous magic word: xyzzy.
Oh, and the origin of "plugh" is tackled. Some claim it means "plughole" truncated to five characters (why?) but the webmaster adds: "I never really did know how to pronounce the word, plugh, so if you happen to know, please tell me!"
He adds:
Someone recently posted an old usenet article written by Don Woods as follows:
From: Don Woods
Date: 1997/02/27
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: XYZZY
Alas, Crowther was responsible for XYZZY and PLUGH. I
think I remember him saying that he'd generated them at
random, but I don't remember how (or even if) he pronounced
them.
For my part, I say "zizzy" and "ploog". I'm actually rather
emphatic about the latter, since it's supposed to be said in a
hollow voice. I've heard some people pronounce it "plug", "pluh",
or even "pluff", and when I imagine the hollow voice trying to say
those I keep thinking the poor voice is going to break down
laughing... (A hollow laugh, naturally. :-)
On the other hand, PLOVER was my addition, and since it's
keyed to the name of the bird ("an emerald the size of a
plover's egg!") it ought to be pronounced like the bird. But --
aha! -- being ignorant on the topic, I always thought the bird's
name was pronounced ploh-ver. It wasn't until I saw the
discussion here that I thought to look up the word, and found
that both pluh-ver and ploh-ver are accepted, but pluh-ver is
apparently preferred. Oh well. But if you pronounce it pluh-ver,
don't blame me if the magic doesn't work!
-- Don.
The web site creator adds: "Many years ago, my cousin and I were so into these games (especially Adventure) that we wrote a game language and several adventures that used this language."
You can play these games on-line at:
http://www.skyrush.com/explore/
Related links: