Morning all,

I turn a brave 31 this weekend. going to see how much dead cow and red wine it's possible for one man to consume...

Anyone playing/played TF2?

http://kotaku.com/5594177/dont-we-all

First ?

Dear god it is to be!!

Spartacus blood and sand

Anyone watched this? Pretty homo erotic, lots of swearing, cock and violence. But I guess it's aguilty pleasure. Very like 300, some of the swearing though is honestly laughable.

Demon's souls

I ventured to 4-1 and killed a few skeletons, even the black one. Just used soul arrow, and ran away again and again.

Picked up that item(can't remember the name) and also the talismen of god.

How can I increase my magic slots? Or I am I stuck with the one as a soldier?

ginger second?

Happy Birthday Loser, go easy on the red, lest you get a bad head.

loser

DAMM YOU

Good Morning Everyone

Hadn't managed to get on the Xbox all week due to various reasons like the wife being very persuasive, hot weather and children that take an hour to go to sleep. Once the children go to sleep I have been too tired to switch on the Xbox.

Managed to get a reprieve last night as the wife wanted to go to bed early in preparation for a friends Ann Summers party. So jumped on the battlefield about 9:30pm and joined 7-8 other Chatterboxers playing Conquest.

Thanks to Decal, Kins, Seren, Happy, Silky, Tjvs, Blackout for the games and it was destruction as usual. Lost the penultimate game but Kins and I stayed on for one more game and we won Atacama Desert by 200 or so tickets. We decided to quit while we were ahead....

Spending the summer playing some old PC games. Nearly completed GTA San Andreas, and just started call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth. Primitive graphics by today's standards, but great games to play.

Happy Birthday Loser!

Mmmmm... bacon egg and red... mmm...

@ gaming- a couple of rounds of BFBC2 with Shadow, we got crushed, which is a pretty unusual experience recently, a few level 40+ players in the opposition, some woeful people on ours, i managed top 3/4 places which is rare.

@ hiphopblog- cheers Limni and the others, trying out some KRS-1, and had forgotten about Busta Rhymes, going back to some of his stuff. BTW, what do you think of the Herbaliser's 8 Point Agenda?

@ dollies- right, if people who are interested in marines let me know, I have a (all terminators) grey knight w/ force halberd, a captain with minigun, one with close combat power claws, and an inquisitor. Oh, and 2 original marine scouts. All are metal, from ~1989.

Morning all

Cheers to everyone for the MW2 last night, I won't list everyone but it was a great turnout, 14/15 of us.

Highlights:

idobsyn's swearing reaching ever more poetic levels
Riot Shield only game on Scrapyard - you cheaters know who you are...
Managing to stab SirG whilst in last stand on Storm

Nice one lads. 8 months after release and NaN Thursday's show no sign of slowing.

Ah BFBC2 NaN-rollering. Good times. Good times.

Morning all! It is, as ever, sausage sandwich friday here in the Atom Mill. I have to do a 40 minute presentation to finish off my chartership at half ten too. To psych myself up I re-read my report card from my RADA audition aged 13. it claims that, whilst not up to their standards, I am a

Natural Raconteur

Dog Blog

Oscar was uncerimouniously decamped into the kitchen to sleep last night and did not much care for it. After an hour of barking and whining, so loud I could barely concentrate on Frasier and my Duvel in the living room, he nodded off. So much so that he wouldn't get up to go to the toilet in the night without some pretty severe encouragement. He's a trooper.

Morning All,

No time to even lurk this week, its been a mad one.

Gaming this week has consisted solely of MW2. I need to break my bond with this and get round to finishing RDR.

Morning blogerinos

@HammondOrgan- from the PC v Console article

A new blog enemy? Doesn’t seem in the same league as Candleberry or CaptainJackson. But his insistence that he is correct over the 360 controller, and failure to see that people are purposefully trying to get a rise out of him would certainly fit the MO.

@Newbies

Answer the blogging question please…all this chat without observing the niceties of the blog will not stand.

This aggression will not stand

@Gaming

None again. Fully intended to fire up the grill but other things got in the way- I did try Dwarf Fortress….not for me, impenetrable…kind of cool in a weird way but I just couldn’t invest the time. Also it didn’t help that the world it created for me seemed to have no rock that wasn’t by an aquifer, and I couldn’t work out how to actually create my fortress. So my dwarfs just milled around. I did manage to build a farm (I think). Mental. I do like the music though.

@Painting people- all others look away now

I’ve been experimenting with the Army painter system, with an eye on using it on the Skaven in the new WHFB box- using a brown spray primer, painting in the blocks of colour (no highlights, washes etc) and then using the strongtone dip. I wasn’t sure as they were very shiny after the dip (which is essentially a woodstain type thing) dried, but after using the anti-shine varnish they are looking pretty good. I’ll try and post some pictures up on LO sometime this weekend. Not a technique I’d usually use but for quickly painting up a horde army its great, took no time at all to paint 20 rats.

@ english

i think i have 20 skaven from the original warhammer regiments boxed set, circa 1988. Interested? Probably postage only.

MOrn....bleuh,

Half 1 finish on the booze last night + half 8 start, which I'm late for, = I feel like I've been scraped off the bottom of someone's shoe.

Gaming

Managed a couple of matches on PES against the baby dragon. Cheers Goody, you showed me that a Rocky style PES training montage is needed to get up to scratch. Lost the first match 2-0, and then the second 1-0 to a really dodgy set piece. Had lots of pressure but everytime I went to shoot there was a defender there. How does he do this witchcraft?

Right, I'm off to rest my head on my desk for an hour or so

@Loser - Happy Birthday.

@BB Season 2 - played my game with Rusty last night and it finished a 3-3 draw. For me it was frustratiing finish to what had started out as a good game. I was 3-1 up and in touching distance of making it 4-1; all the players were in the right position, I had RRs left to use and the rolls I needed to make gave me a high chance of success. First action ws a dodge, I needed to roll a 2 or above and I rolled a 1. I re-rolled and rolled a 1. It was sick, really, really sick. Rusty scored after that to make it 3-2. In the final few turns of the game, the ball was on the floor, I had three players around the ball and Rusty dodged, picked the ball up, dodged twice ran the ball down the pitch and used to Go For Its. During that run he rolled four 6's and never used a re-roll.

I didn't even really have a lot of bad luck and I'm very happy with the way I played this time - the Witch Elfs were outstanding in this game, I had three players level up, I caused 2 CAS. It was a good, tense game. Very enjoyable.

I think I've confirmed my position in the cup now so I'm looking forward to more games.

@BB - Swiss league 0 i see my prediction has come true and I'm playing McBegbie again. At least we know how each other plays.

English

No time to even lurk yesterday, but I was reading a Charlie Brooker article elsewhere on the Guardian site last night and Hammondorgan was stirring up some people on there. Seems he has stubbled across the box now. This could get interesting...or not

Greetings and salutations

NaN Thursday

Awesome as ever. As Artie mentions, the 'riot-shields-only-unless-you-have-Ben-in-your-name-so-you-can-shoot-people' game was warfare that was a joy to watch.

I also finished a distinctly mid-table 6th on the early Rust FFA and that is a huge achievement for me. I am mediocrity.

I was on the side that got gubbed senseless in headquarters on Vacant. The celebrations from idobsyn when we got our first points at 200-0 down were a short-lived joy to behold. He is a commentary legend - some of the stuff he utters has me in stitches. The way he and SirGigg were tearing WillyDribble apart in later games was pure gold.

Anything else?

No. Proceed.

Hello.

Very little gaming last night. Fired up DF, but only had enough time to notice that EnglishRed Tangakgusil has started carving statues of cats. Maybe his misses them. I don't seem to have any cats. But, if English makes enough cat statutes, we can hopefully trade them for food.

Morning All

took a break from the gaming last night, instead I spent the evening helping the wife make up some window boxes for our flat, as the nice people down stairs have done such a good job with the potted plants and flowers out the front that we thought we should make some effort to spruce up the front of the building. They seem very happy with the effort, I had no idea I had such green fingers. The cats however just wanted to eat the flowers......

I spent the rest of the evening with the broken leg cat sat in my lap purring his head off, watching Celebrity Masterchef (not impressed so far this year, nobody has cooked anything that looks that special), Location Location Location (who are these smug people who can afford £400k houses and yet not have a clue what it is they are looking for?) and Mock the Week (this is sorely missing Frankie Boyle)

got to reseal the bath this morning, the sealant is coming away from the tiles again.

As Pokemon put it, glorious NaN for make benefit of gamesblog action.

Seren, Silky and myself landed in a game with a bunch of losers, who literally were in capable of taking a flag. The 360th Regiment NaN would moving in, capture and kill, hold for a while before moving on to assisst our team, only to see the flag recaptured.

However, we traded the crap out, and got mediocre in the form of Decal. Just joking... So Decal, Pokemon, Blackout, Tjvs and Kins joined and we literallly crushed all before us. Classic NaN rolling in action, eventually pinning the team back in their base. Shawshank may have joined but he's not friends with anyone so we couldn't tell...

The good news is my KDR is now above 1! Pulled back a 700 kill deficit.

@Riad

Art imitating life! I was going to ask if someone could name a dorf after me. Cheers buddy!

@Stackhaus

Hopefully we can get him to add some bloggers as friends on Xbox live and they can shoot him in the back of the head in MW2 or something, like we did with CaptainJackson and Killzone2. See how good his progressive triggers are then.

@Alex

Yes please! cheers mate that would be excellent. I keep meaning to message you on PSN about that stuff but it keeps slipping my mind.

Morning tossqueens

Games

Downloaded Limbo last night.

***Possible Spoliers***

By christ, it's fucking wonderful. No music, minimal sound, no exposition, apart from your little character waking up on a beautifully designed and realised monochrome forest floor. Even early on, some of the puzzles take some serious thinking. There's quite a lot of trial and error, but the checkpoints are many and you really don't mind retrying the things you have to (and you will have to). It has a very Burton-esque (Tim, not Richard, or the clothes shop favoured by Partridge) feel to it. It's also very macabre, and the brief glimpses of other human life you get do not bode well for later in the game. The atmosphere it creates is unique; hauntingly beautiful and really quite disturbing in equal measure. Oh, and if, like me, you are something of an arachnophobe, you'll find one section utterly, pant-soilingly terrifying. I hear it's very short, but unless I finish it after a short play tomorrow, this won't be too great an issue for me. Worth 1200 MSP, in my opinion.

***Spoliers end***

Masterchef

I love Jenny Powell, and have done since she presented No Limits on BBC2 back when there were only four channels. I am sad that her latest appearance on our screens was so short-lived. Boo-hoo.

English

Just read the PC vs Console article and comments...fine work! Special mention goes to Hum for mentioning teh ceLL. as well.

And I want to know what Treble got moderated for!

Morning all

@Loser
Happy birthday! I'll be marking the same milestone next month with a trip to the O2 arena to watch In the Night Garden with my 3 year old niece. Your celebration sounds better than mine...

Barely any time to lurk at the moment, let alone post. Starting a new role in my organisation, so I've got a hell of a lot of technical reading to do. Still, a busy job is better than a quiet one in Dave's Big Society.

@Cam
Spartacus is awesome. The swearing is reference quality. I'm only 4 episodes in, but my favourite line so far has to be

Being a gladiator is like thrusting your (self) into the mouth of the devil

I love Jenny Powell, and have done since she presented No Limits on BBC2 back when there were only four channels. I am sad that her latest appearance on our screens was so short-lived. Boo-hoo.

Me too! When I was a yoot Jenny Powell and Michaela Strachan rocked my world.

I'd still throw a fuck into either of them, to quote Judge Phelan

@Treble - what were you moderated for on the PC vs Console thread?

@PC vs Console thread - again we say with the force of hindsight just how far ahead of the game the Dreamcast was. I remeber Playing Quake III Arena, online, using the dreamcast mouse and keyboard. It was a joy to play.

@ English

Off to a meeting for an hour but take a look at above post also. I have put my email addy on the wiki if you like, can give more details as required.

English

just read the PV v Console thread

Particularly liked:

HammondOrgan to Hum

It is not my job to teach you the difference between a processor and a controller. Suffice to say if you can't tell the difference between a shit and a sandwich - don't eat any sandwiches.

Wonder what Hums having for Lunch?

Morning

No gaming for me last night, girlfriend is moving in for a month so had to clean up my rathole tenement bah.

No one answered yesterday (swines) so i'll ask again, are the Mass effect 2 packs any good? Overlord in particular?

Booze blog

1L of Absolut in Sainsbury's for ca £15? yes please

PV should of course read PC

@PC vs Console thread - best bit for me was EnglishRed's

Camping Twat

@Destry

I was loving Hums work there, it was so obviously a trolling but HammondOrgan just took it hook line and sinker

@Trebles moderation

Wasn't that the post where he offered to have a fist fight each and every PC gamer, and promised to beat them all?

lovely stuff.

@PC Console thread

I've got to assume the 'box goes unmoderated. Either that or Treble must have been offensive on an industrial scale considering some of the things that go un-deleted in here....

HammondOrgan

Loving his work......

Riad

I see we have the pleasure of combat in the Swiss league. Are you Free Sunday? The wife is working so I'm free all afternoon

Morning folks

I spent a whole evening on the xbox last night, not a hacksaw, scalpel, glie or paint in sight. Got myself Darksiders and Nier in a 2 for 30 deal, Darksiders dominated my evening- what a wonderful game it is, some tricky bits but nothing too outrageous. I love how The Watcher sounds a bit like Starscream as well. Nier took a while to get going but I found it quite pleasant once it built up momentum. I thought about getting FF13 instead but realised I've yet to be arsed finishing an entire FF game (I get bored of them VERY quickly)

@English
The shop near me sells the Armypainter stuff, I think for something like Skaven it's a must. Painting 150+ rats to a decent standard would drive any mortal man to madness

English

Good man! Strachan was a bit day-glo for my liking, though. She was best on the animal show where she had to dress down a bit and look a bit dirty. Filthy, even. The Really Wild Show, was it?

Morning all!

@Pokemon:

wife wanted to go to bed early in preparation for a friends Ann Summers party

Sounds filthy. What kind of "preparation" is required for these things?

@Cameroon:

Demon's Souls: You can increase the number of Magic slots by raising your Intelligence stat. According to the wiki, you get a second slot at level 14 and a third at level 18. There's also a ring yopu can pick up in 1-3 that gives you an extra slot (but you lose it and the ability to use any spell assigned to the slot when you take the ring off).

@gaming:

Just a little spell late on. Made my way as far as the boss fog gate in 2-1 before calling it a night. I'm still finding NG+ a lot harder than my first run and I'm doing the levels in the same order so far. My soul level is 78 - is that particularly low for a NG+ run? I've done 1-1 and 1-2 so far yet I got killed by the fire lizards and the bloody dogs - humiliating. I also had 30K souls at stake so it was a relief to get them back!

Hardcore. And there's me thinking you didn't have it in you.

Right, now let's take it to the max - 5, 6, 7, 8 ..

Ey up mi duck

I believe that is the correct parlance with our Midlands friends. Regional dialect has never been my strong-point. I've sought direction from my sensei. Feelers have been put out. 2011 may come to be known as the Great Year of Change, the one they spoke of. I need to take care of business.

It's a big one. If I head up north, up Scotland way, I won't have to change how I speak. Also my upbringing served to instill a distinct cultural pull towards Scotland. Not to mention the fact that it's impossible to get a decent battered-sausage supper in England (this is a fact).

I'm not going to lie to you, I'm torn. Luckily time is on my side. I'm strong as an ox (and a handsome beast, I may add).

Gaming - No, but I promise I'll play some games tonight. Now get off my back.

Last night's tea - Cheese.

Film - I watched Bloodsport for the 103rd time. I believe it's my destiny to someday fight in the Kumite, and ultimately to win it.

PC v Console thread - I was moderated for some reason. Never in my life have I been so affronted. That was uncalled for. If any PC / 360 gamers are reading this, the challenge still stands. I'll let Tip O'Neill and Bobby Sands do my talking for me.

Back in a bit.

Morning folks.

As Artie and Jeff have mentioned some quality games of MW2 last night, a full private lobby full of NaN players is a sight to behold and we had some fantasic games. Idobsyn's commentary was indeed a highlight, I think it was on carinval late on when he started to lose it, called the other team whores was most amusing in context.

Thanks to all who showed up, new and old including StiltD (who was nowhere near as bad as he had made out, I call fakery!) and, as always, SirGig for organising the rabble.

@Artie
that riot shield game was brilliant, the most I've laughed playing MW2 in ages. I must confess to using my pistols at times, I was under the impression this was allowed. Also Ben made me.

@Jeff
I remember the headquarters game well. It was painful. Highlight for me was SirGig swearing off the mode for life, and following idobsyn round a corner to witness him emptying a whole clip into a wall. Amusing.

'sup bitches?

Dwarf Fortress - has got it's claws into me. I've posted some stuff on the wiki about it here if anyone can be bothered reading it.

I couldn't put any screenshots up though.

My main problem is around mud/farming. CaptnDuck's videos are obsolete now you need mud to farm, and the DF wiki isn't fantastic on the subject.

Is there any way to get mud on an indoor, rock floor so I can grow mushrooms? I am seriously concerned about the prospect of flooding my fortress.

Even outdoors, the best advice I've seen is "divert a pond into your farm". How? You can't mine outside.

Riad - any chance of using your Wordpress account to upload to? I can email them to you.

Riad - that should say

any chance of using your Wordpress account to upload screenshots to?

@Treble

Those are the worst fist names I've ever heard

@Dwarf Fortress

Don't make me go down this road people... I'm wavering.

A mere one hour until my disciplinary hearing for alleged abuse of work internet to watch World Cup games. Lucky I'm writing this from my phone...

Morning all

BB Swiss League
Uberwald First XI are shoring up the bottom of the league nicely with a 1-0 loss to Henry's orcs, should heed my own advice regarding touchlines. Suffice to say I won't be using any form of undead in season 3. Still making the odd mistake using FUMBL, damn Cyanide for holding my hand for so long. Looking forward to the re-match Be4ch, it'll be next week though.

BB Season 3
Should have my inevitable defeat to MrBrow done either this evening or Monday night.

penguinbill
New to these parts? Answer to the question?
I've played most of the DLC for ME2, all apart from Overlord. Kasumi is a good new character but her loyalty mission is quite short so not really worth the outlay, I'd only go for her if your a completionist. The Firewaker pack is free so that's a no brainer. I've heard alot of good reports of Overlord though.

Morning you chat smugglers,

No gaming last night as was out on the beers and having a posh curry at the Cinnamon Club. Lovely food and top company meant a great time was had by all. The TV link was playing up when we got home so positioned a mirror so we could change channel on the living room sky box from the bedroom. Very Partridge, Hayers would have been proud.

Happy

You should go into the meeting with your face painted in a St George cross. They'll never be able to discipline such a brazenly patriotic Englishman.

@RedDread

Yes it was the Really Wild Show where she caught my eye. She looked filthy in every sense of the word.

It had everything that show, Strachan for the Gents and Chris Packham in his shorts and Nutkins with his mangled hands for the ladies.

morning

Second reddread, Limbo is sublime, something very haunting about it, possibly my favourite thing about this generation is arcade releases.

@happysocks good luck! think i got away with mine!

I jolly well say, these pills just aren't doing it for me anymore.

Morning.

I knelt on a nail sticking out of a board. Fucking stupid of me, should have checked the floor.
Long story short, I have a hole in my knee, and am having to use a crutch to get about.
It's shit.

@gaming
Some more RDR, finished LV10 Sharpshooter, am at the point where I need to knife two cougars. This will prove impossible.

@alexp76
8pt Agenda is a fine, fine track. One of the best from The Herbaliser. The Sensual Woman also deserves plaudits..
As a young 14-15yo lad I met Blade in the crowd at the gig once he'd done his MCing bit.
Fucking ridiculously nice guy. Legend.

BTW, you still have those old marines? Or did EnglishRed pip me?
I'll pay you in butter and morphine.