Chris D.

Escapist Ruminations: Japan TL;DR: the puzzle scene in Japan is 🤯

While you’re there would you please play all of enigmida.substack.com/p/escapist-r... for me and report back? (Substack, boo, but the content is good…)

*pew pew pew* *airhorn*

Thank you for scrambling to find somewhere to put tonight on. Tonight was a lot of fun... and a bit easier than other recent months.

Is that one of the cafes where they put the food that you ordered on a model train and get it to you that way?

You have given me a cartoon theme tune earworm and thus score a point

Arlo kitten in front of my work computer

With pleasure:

WHAT YOU SAY .ᐟ.ᐟ

F-f-f-f-freestyler, “rock” the microphone.

The received wisdom I get, with yourself as one of the major sources, is that while there is very good value to be had within the cities, visiting and staying in the more rural parts there is rather more costly. Does this match with your experience, please?

Yeah, I was thinking 33 points, but same thing.

Does that mean that your magic number is currently 33?

I actually get/got on well with my landlord, at least until the roof started leaking (very rarely and only a bit). I think there's a chance that it's actually the letting agent's idea to ask for so much, but the fact that it might be tied in with the roof leaks makes things worse.

They know I'm going to be leaving when I find somewhere else so they can save both themselves and me a load of hassle by accepting a bit less than they propose, especially as I shouldn't be here for too much longer. This place is nice but bigger than I need.

Yyyyeah there are. I reckon it's 70% likely they'll take a fair bit less. They could use a section 21 to get me out but it'd probably take 6-9 months, or they could try a section 8 but I think would have a tough job convincing a court I've damaged the place too much. Still £££ & hassle though.

...and it puts us fourth in the latest table.

That's a metafourth, or something.

Well Newcastle lost as well and it's not Asif we were expecting to get anything from this so, y'know, not the worst

100 locations is a huge milestone! I remember when it was only two...

Given the success of Densha de GO~!! and family there has to be a Japanese train driver tabletop RPG out there somewhere.

(or even better still a LARP....)

There's a physical comedy sketch in that. A row of businessmen (of any gender) reading a broadsheets, then someone reading the same news on their mobile phone, then someone reading the news on the 4k monitor that they're holding, and even that quite isn't as big as the broadsheets...

Presumably a _very_ specific sort of bondage movie?

I would say “Upton Park represent, pew pew pew” but I’ve had to travel east-west from just south of the River and I chose Jubilee line plus bus so your point is well taken, maybe better than you think.

Have you tried cheating?

Is there another noise that isn’t that noise but sounds like it should be and yet is easier to fit in? I’m thinking of slapping your open mouth, that sort of thing. Maybe it’s a bit more Mick Foley than Jack Foley.

If you do give it a go then I hope it scratches your itch… or, if you decide to leave it a third of a century behind you, that’s cool too, but at least now you have the option.

Speedball | Rebellion

There's a 99% chance you'll know about this already but just in case you don't, there's a more-or-less remake of Speedball 2 that came out of Early Access this week: rebellion.com/games/speedb...

(Haven't played it, no connection to it, but did enjoy your episode and that bit in particular.)

TBF it's a good name.

As you'll have seen from your timeline study, fictional Philbin's show finished before factual Philbin debuted, so maybe a complete coincidence, maybe factual Philbin is a FOAF of the scriptwriter. The odds of that, for a name that's hardly Jane Smith, must be crazy.

Mother, these days.

By coincidence I saw the UK Starlight 9 days ago. Set, actors and theatrecraft were fab, sound balance was a bit off and I couldn't make out the lyrics well enough, which hurt the storytelling. Glad I could get a cheapo GBP 20 ticket, well worth it, but I was hoping for better.

I grew up there! As did Chris Rea ("Fool If You Think It's Over", 1978, who died last month).

The local paper says they're more specifically from Thornaby-on-Tees, which is Middlesbrough in the same way that the Dallas Cowboys play in Arlington. Thornaby's the roughest place I ever briefly lived.

Bonus points for not saying “can do it on a cold wet Tuesday night in Stoke”, and not just because it’s Wednesday rather than Tuesday.

The real ones know that Flist is a name that has been used meaningfully for decades already in another context and find its reappearance needlessly confusing.

Meet the 1894 Yale Bulldogs, the first college football team to go 16-0 Indiana could complete a 16-0 season with a national championship win over Miami on Monday night. But it won't be the first team to accomplish the feat.

That Guy, on a point of extreme pedantry to the point of parody because he's making a ridiculous comparison purely for effect rather than believing the point he's purporting to make, would point out www.espn.com/college-foot...

Badumtish!