Nintendogs is inexpressibly lovely. Animal Crossing is also great, even though the entire premise is that you're shipped into a new town and forced into slavery by a crooked, money grabbing raccoon.

Not played the DS version of Viva Pinata, but the 360 version is great, so it's probably worth a look.

Get an R4 cartridge and pirate games, and I'll come around and steal your bikes. ;)

If he is genuinely ill, then it is fairly appalling that he's been executed. My mother was diagnosed as bi-polar, and she's done some proper bonkers things over the years.

The council contacted my dad, asking him to get my mother to stop sending them letters, because it was scaring the girls in the office whenever they saw a letter with her handwriting on. She once wouldn't let my brother go to school, because she was convinced their was a bomb underneath the car. She told us that my dad was going to be arrested by the secret service. She wanted, at once stage, to become a nun. At her worst, she was getting 'secret' messages from newspapers and the TV, and would make phonecalls at 3am, then cut through the phone cable (and leaving me, aged 15, to try and deal with the police).

Unlike 'physical' ailments, mental illness can be hard to quantify, hits different people in different ways. If you've never had any direct experience of it, it's easy to dismiss, to question how someone can't see the consequences of their actions. But if someone's having 'an episode', then they don't think 'normally'. The leaps in logic can be quite astounding.

It does seem odd that, given his claimed past actions (bonkers emails, etc), that he has no medical record. But then again, mental illness still carries such a stigma that a lot of people don't seek help, or their families try and deal with it quietly.

There was a really creep episode of Bergerac one, I think it involved hooded satanists. Absolutely terrified me.

Also, the Emperor from Star Wars, and Zelda from Terrahawks.

Far more impressive fears than my brother's clown phobia, he wouldn't even go into McDonalds until he was about 14 because of Ronald McDonald…

Is this where somebody blames Thatcher and demands that someone wields a set of Boxxers?

He posted an identical post on Bike Radar. :/

What's the similarity between Gareth Gates and Harold Shipman? Neither of them can finish a sentence.

Wouldn't catch me living in Burntwood. I've heard about the locals…..

Now now, the high schools only get firebombed very rarely!

myla

Sweet merciful Zeus, just looked at that site. Lovely stuff, but…

FIFTY ODD QUID FOR A PAIR OF KNICKERS?!

i'd be inclined to get a few of these puppies installed

Or one of these puppies

Three – my school friend's dad (gassed himself in his car), a friend that was in the year below me at school (threw himself in front of a lorry), and my ex's best friend (threw himself off a building).

My school friend was tragic, but not a great surprise – he'd started smoking weed and taking all manner of mind bending drugs from the age of 14, by the time he was 18 he was diagnosed schizophrenic. He'd been let out of hospital three days before he killed himself, even though he said he would. :/

The other two were a complete shock.

This has very little to do with the original topic, but it makes me laugh.

Daily Mail-o-matic

If anybody's looking for a good 360 deal at Xmas, this one might be worth a look –

http://gamestation.co.uk/Consoles/Xbox-360/Xbox-360-Elite-Console-with-Call-of-Duty-Modern-Warfare-2-and-Gears-of-War-2/~r418077/?cm_mmc=gsdnews-_-wk4309-_-bundles-_-x360bundle

Just shy of £200 for an Elite with Modern Warfare 2 and Gears of War 2. Mmmmm, sequel-tastic!

Mrs Toast any fule kno that heat sensors should be in kitchens not smoke alarms. Someone is not competent to spec an alarm system!!

To be fair, the smoke alarms are just outside of the kitchen rather than in them! :P It probably wouldn't have been an issue if the kitchen door had been closed. Which I think it's supposed to be, as it's a fire door – it has signs saying, "Do not keep open"…

We've also got signs above the taps, saying, "CAUTION! HOT WATER!". The water boiler goes one better, with, "CAUTION! BOILING WATER! PLEASE HOLD YOUR CUP CLOSE TO THE NOZZLE!"

We have so many signs that people occasionally add joke ones to see if anyone notices. We ended up with the lyrics to "Never going to give you up" on the aforementioned water boiler…

Do the AC units have to be turned off and all door knobs wiped after use?

We actually have people spraying down all of our door handles with disinfectant spray at the moment, since the swine flu hysteria started. We also have signs warning us not to leave toasters unattended, ever since someone did and it set off a smoke alarm. The admin department actually confiscated the toasters for a week after that…

We have big tubs of coffee and tea though. People using wet spoons is annoying rather than dangerous, I would have thought?

Heh Padowan, it took me a minute or two to figure out what was going on with your kitties, I thought they were conjoined at the spine at first glance!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4253849.stm

"I am in no way a violent person"

Uh huh….

Also a high scorer, I imagine.

I'd say 360 every time, unless you want Blu-ray or Uncharted/Little Big Planet. Although you have to pay for the full Xbox Live service, it's a lot better than PSN – better interface and, most importantly, less issues with lag. You get what you pay for, and I think Sony have realised this as they recently mentioned that they're considering bringing in the subscription model for PSN.

On multi-platform titles, the 360 versions tend to run smoother (less issues with framerate, texture tearing, jaggies, pop-up)and also tend to have shorter load times (unless you do the full installing on the harddrives, then they're pretty similar). Unless it's a PS3 exclusive, the vast majority of devs still use the 360 as their default development platform. And there's some devs that tend to avoid the PS3 like the plague (like Valve, couldn't be doing without me Left 4 Dead!).

The gap in performance is decreasing though, as devs get to grips with the PS3. And, truth be told, a lot of people wouldn't actually know the PS3 versions are inferior unless they had a 360 version running alongside at the same time.

Best to play it safe and get both. It's the only way to be sure!

63%, fail!

Pretty shocked, actually – where were the questions like, "Is it acceptable to serve Yorkshire Puddings with roast chicken?"

Led Zeppelin
Queen
Alice In Chains (with Layne Stayley, new vocalist is awesome though)
Metallica (up to Black Album era)
Arcturus
Rage Against The Machine

The problem i have with Torchwood is that the Captain Jack character is overtly homosexual without it adding anything to the actual script.

It's not the first time the main character in a sci-fi/fantasy show has had romantic attachments – Kirk with his numerous alien ladies, Buffy with Angel, Riley and Spike, etc – why should it be any different for a show where the main character is bi-sexual?

I thought it was an integral part of Captain Jack's character – that he's a massive flirt, has a roving eye, and gets around a bit. It's a bit like criticising James Bond's womanising as not adding anything to the script. Why's he nobbing that woman when he should be making things explode and using cool gadgets?!

Nope, no kids, but I am a comic book geek! :P

There was Hulk Vs Wolverine and Hulk Vs Thor, which were two straight to DVD type affairs, fairly nicely done. There's also Wolverine and The X-Men, which was a series, no idea if it was any good though.

The original X-Men Animated series had an awesome theme tune. Not as awesome as Ulysses 31 or Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors though…

The Batman Animated series was great too.

Oh wow. :/

We paid less for our venue (£3k for exclusive use of the hotel, all of the rooms included), but slightly more on the food (about £36 per head). It was actually a great deal compared to other places we looked at – one place was £19,000, and wasn’t anywhere near as nice. :/ Everyone loved it, had a great day in beautiful surroundings, fantastic memories and photos…although my mother still complains that we didn’t have any canapés for the guests when the photos were taken. -_-

I always thought that "Lady's Mimsy" was quite a nice term for it

I'd never heard that term before, until my friend in London started killing herself laughing at a huge advert on the side of a bus for a kid's film called "The Last Mimsy".

You should be able to get surgery to make them larger – being able to glide around like Dumbo would be an awesome party trick!

I don't think any trail centres on Forestry Commission land enforce helmet rules – they have signs saying that they 'strongly advise' people to wear helmets when cycling, but no hard rules. Not sure how they'd enforce it even if they did.

I've seen people riding Glentress and Llandegla with no helmets too, so I think it's fairly common across trail centres – most people wear helmets, a few don't. Bit silly in my opinion, but it's their choice.

From what I've read, the best companion for a rabbit is another rabbit of the opposite gender, but neutered (unless you want lots of rabbits!).

Why is it miserable? If it looks a bit hacked off at being cooped up a lot, would giving it a bigger hutch/bigger run (fox proofed, of course) make it happier?

Or, have you considered allowing it into the house? I had a housetrained rabbit as a kid, he was awesome, more like a rabbit shaped dog. He liked the theme tune to The Bill, and hated Phil Collins.

Letting it loose is obviously a no-no, domestic rabbits aren't likely to survive in the wild for very long. Perhaps you could learn to live with your bunny's disapproval?[/url]

Mr Toast has a XL 2008 Meta 5.5, it's been ridden fairly heavily over the past two years with no cracks. He loves it to bits – with all the other bikes he's had, they've had bits swapped in and out or been sold on, but the Meta's pretty much as it was bought – new wheels and grips, and I think that's about it. Think the only gripe he has with it is that he wishes it was a bit lighter.

He did have to claim one frame on warranty, due to a crack caused by a manufacturing fault. That was his carbon GT Zaskar though…oh, the irony!

Actually, is that ironic? Ever since that Alanis Morrisette song, I can't tell the difference between what's ironic and what's merely unfortunate…

We have a Wii upstairs in our daughters playroom and were considering getting another for the lounge, however I've managed to convince both the daughter and the mrs that we need an X-Box instead.

Will it provide decent entertainment for a 9yr old girl and as a family toy, or is it likely to just satisfy my desires for gadgetry?

Whilst it's not as kid friendly as the Wii, the 360 still has quite a few more games aimed at a younger audience. Including Viva Pinata, which is ace.

Both the 360 and the PS3 are trying to jump on the arm waggling motion controller bandwagon with the Natal and Wand respectively, so expect lots of Wii-style minigame titles with shinier graphics in the near future!

I loved the Lord of the Rings films, but I did get cross with what they did with some of the characters.

Eowyn – They completely changed her character – she went from being a cold warrior to being a complete and utter wet blanket.

Faramir – the whole bloody point of the character was that he was the opposite of Boromir! Good natured, selfless, strong willed, yet seen as the lesser brother by their father.

Denethor – went from being a slightly more sympathetic character in the books to being just plain batshit crazy and a bit more plain villain in the film.

Not too bothered though, they did an amazing job with a book that's bloody hard to make a film out of!

"The secret to a happy marriage is choosing a wife who is smarter and at least five years younger than you"

So women should pick a man who's five years older and a bit dim – shouldn't be too hard! :lol:

My husband is lovely, (very) tall, dark and handsome, awesome sense of humour, smart, and six months younger than me. We get on just fine. ;)

I did have to compromise on the fact he likes Nine Inch Nails instead of proper metal though, and doesn't like Star Wars.

I’m really not sure how many teenage girls get up the duff thinking, “Oooh, I’ll get a house now”. When I was at school, there were nine – NINE – girls who got pregnant between 1993 and 1995, all between the ages of 13-15.

One (who was 14) accidentally got pregnant because her boyfriend (also 14) told her that he was sterile and couldn’t father children, so they didn’t need to bother with contraception. She was planning on keeping the baby (with her family’s support), but ending up going for an abortion because her boyfriend said he’d dump her if she didn’t. He dumped her anyway, two days after her abortion. I’m sure he grew into a lovely bloke.

Another (who was 15) deliberately got pregnant because she thought her 26 year old boyfriend was planning on leaving her. He did anyway. She’s now nearly 30 and has five kids (last I heard a couple of years ago), all by different fathers. She loves babies, but gets bored with them when they become toddlers, so normally ends up leaving her mom to look after them so she can pop another one out. :s She’s never lived in a council house or housing association property though, she’s always lived with her parents.

All of the others got pregnant accidentally, most had abortions, a couple of them had their kids, but raised them with their parents. I don’t know if they walked into council/social housing as soon as they hit 16, but it certainly wasn’t a factor in them getting knocked up. I think they were just young and stupid, and had that stupidity taken advantage of. It was kind of a status symbol amongst a lot of my girls in my year to have a much older boyfriend – there were a lot of 13-15 year olds going out with guys who were in their mid –twenties to early thirties. :/ And you were considered to be a bit of a weirdo if you were still a virgin at 15.

Alexi Laiho has a huuuuuuuuuuuge forehead. Good band though.

Her morals are fine. B was an aberration from what she's said – totally unexpected.

She’s cheated on her partner of over ten years…with a married man. Given that you describe the affair as ‘intensive’ and that she’s considering moving to his country to be his bit on the side on a more fulltime basis (possibly with the view of hoping he’ll leave his wife), it doesn’t sound like it was a one-off or a mistake she regrets. I’d hardly describe her morals as ‘fine’.

Option A: If she doesn’t think the relationship is worth saving (via counselling or whatever) she should ditch him.

Option B: Is married. Unless she wants to be a morally questionable trollop, she should ditch him. End of. Even from a more pragmatic point of view, if he’s cheating on his wife with her, he’s probably got other totty all over the shop. Even if he left his wife for her, he’ll probably cheat on her once he gets bored.

Option C: She doesn’t fancy him, and moving in with him would be unfair on him, and basically prostituting herself. OK, maybe not that unfair on him, if he’s OK knowing that she’s imagining that she’s elsewhere. If she’s cheated on her long-term bloke with a married man, I doubt that starting a relationship with a bloke she doesn’t fancy is likely to be a long and faithful one.

In short, she should WTFU, stop sleeping around behind her bloke’s back, particularly with married men – if she’s unhappy with the relationship, she should end it, for both their sakes. She sounds like she needs some time being single to figure out what she actually wants from life, instead of basing her emotional and financial wellbeing around a bunch of unsuitable men.

There's been a few instances of PS3s carking it around the 2 year mark – sometimes it's heralded by the "Yellow Light of Death" or an error code.

Although the rate of PS3s dying is a lot lower than 360s (thank god), Sony generally refuse to fix them for free, normally asking for £90 – £180 for repair costs.

If the seal's broken, you're probably screwed on the 'official' front, you'd be better off finding an independant company to have a look at it, not sure where would be best where you live.

Mr Toast's parents had three Westies – Molly, the mother, and after a few years they got her to get jiggy with another Westie, and produced Annie and Rupert.

On the disposition side, all have been lovely dogs, fantastic temperament, very obedient and very sweet. Molly was a bit more aloof than the others, liked to pootle around the garden by herself. Rupert occasionally gets a bit snappy around male dogs if they start sniffing his sister, but normally backs off fairly quickly as he's a coward. Annie is an adorable teddy, will walk in front of your feet and quietly roll onto her back for fuss, and is very docile. Although she can be positively murderous towards small rodents, which is always really bizarre to witness.

On the health side, it's been a bit more complicated. Molly sadly died at the age of 11 due to a rare, very aggressive cancer. Annie has also had (non-hereditary) breast cancer, but seems to be fine now, touch wood. Both Rupert and Annie have had quite bad skin conditions that kicked in when they were about 6, shortly after their mother's death. Annie's cleared up, but Rupert's still lingers and needs medication and special shampoo.

On the grooming side, they don't shed as much as a Jack Russell! I was actually surprised how little Westies shed. Think like any long haired dog they whiff a bit if they get wet and aren't washed/dried properly. They need trimming every so often, otherwise the heat can be uncomfortable for them (and they look untidy!).

That said, they're not actually that small, and I think they still need plenty of exercise and company. Toast's parents' dogs have a huge garden to run around with, are normally never without human company for more than a couple of hours, get taken on daily walks through the forest, and also have each other for company.

The only other Westie I know of is Toby, who belonged to a friend's parents. He was a little shit, always yapping, jumping up people and trying to hump stuff. However, he spent a lot of time alone as they were out at work, and he had to stay outside in a kennel during that time. They actually had to give him away because the neighbours complained about his incessant barking – he got given to a retired couple, and apparently calmed down a lot as he always had company.

House of the Dead is supposed to be good, as is Dead Space: Extraction.