The Chat Thread II: Chat Harder

Following a really dull cricket match (shush, there's a gradation of dullness), and there's a suggestion that the match could do with a bit of WWE spirit: the coach charging out of the dressing room, clotheslining the new bowler*, grabbing the ball, and crushing the batsman's** toes with a fast one. Thought some of this forum might appreciate that.

* Person hurling ball.
** Person hitting ball with plank.

Full contact cricket is something I could endorse.

Missed a trick by not including this one:

All of you kind folks who sponsored me to go to prison: here's the write-up I did for the paper. It was a good experience, and between us we made an amazing £26,000 for SOS Africa, which should build a whole new classroom in South Africa.

There are many more amusing pictures on facebook, for anyone interested. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1048180398548966.1073741839.236965409670473&type=3

This looks suspiciously like fun, Drunka. Where's the gang violence and corrupt guards?

How much did you raise in the end?

About 300 pounds, with all the paper sponsorship on top of justgiving.

Also, fun fact: that's my Facebook profile pic

Great to hear, Drunka! Well done to you and your co-criminals.

Just had one of the strangest experiences of my life. I went to the Co-Op to do some shooting shopping and on the way back passed a bridal shop, like normal. A lady poked her head out of the door and got my attention. "Are you any good with spiders?" "Depends how big they are," I replied, heading into the shop. There were three workers in there and they pointed at the location of the little beast. I say 'little' - he was definitely too big for me to deal with comfortably.

Once flushed into the open, the lady who'd got my attention began bashing the spider with an umbrella, half successfully. Another person dropped a cup on top of the creature and we stood back. "Now what?" someone said. "Have you got a bit of paper?" I asked. I slid it under the cup and took the whole outside, where the spider was deposited to 'happily' run away. I gave them their stuff back and went on my way, feeling like Mad Max.

Ah, the topic of spiders again.  Fully aware that Drunka will probably come in with "BUT THEY'RE CREEPY", (nope, see below, sorry sir) I feel so sorry for the order.  The vast majority in the UK are utterly harmless and don't deserve any of the ire they get.  

Which is a way of saying, not impressed by the woman with the umbrella.

Hey! I've said many times that even though I'm scared of them I draw the line at killing them. Cup and paper extraction normally does the trick for me.

Top work, zero! You must have felt like the coolest dude walking out of there.

Ah fair enough, sorry Drunka. I rescind my earlier comment.

Nah, squish the wee bastards I say.

Cup and paper extraction?  Good luck finding a spider down this side of the pond small enough for that, especially in the summer, squish them all the way!  I'm just glad we don't see the Huntsmen species where I live as those are a real nuisance to deal with.  And a warning, if you're afraid of spiders do not search what those are.  Trust me.  All you need to know is they can get as large as an adults palm, although I'm not sure if they can get even larger in the tropics, but I think they can.

It's a bit different if you live in Australia though! They're actually dangerous in your country.

Only some of them, like the redback spider and Funnel Web spider, (the latter only being in the eastern states and therefore not really any of my concern). Huntsmen for example are typically harmless, nightmare fuel because of their size, but harmless otherwise. Same with brown spiders. Not sure what the twenty cent coin sized ones that pop up all the time and run around crazy fast are but I suspect they're probably sort of harmless as well (not going to test my theory about that of course).

Found my old Newgrounds account today, and it's full of fantastic reviews of flash animations and games. My personal favourite was for a Runescape flash video:

Jay in 2007 wrote:

You ruined it.

Newbiescape was one of the best Runescape parodies, until this pile of bull came along. You have ruined the series so you better improve or Newbiescape will be remembered for this rubbish submission.

Brutal. Also, cringeworthy.

On a happier note, it made realise I'm coming up on 8 years since I joined the ol' NGamer forums. Mad.

I thought you were pretty mature (given your age) when you joined NGamer, Jay - probably more so than I was. Maybe less so on Newgrounds, where you're surrounded by less mature people.

Eight years is a goodly haul - here's to eight more!

Yeah, I remember people being really surprised when they found out I was young 'un. I wasn't obviously immature - I mean, I could spell and write a decent post on the forum. Plus, the forum was, and still is, filled with good folks so I was probably more inclined to fit in and not write guff like that Newground review.

When did you join up over on NGamer, Balla?

It would have been Christmas Eve 2005, so I was 16.  An intelligent 16-year-old is a horrible thing, because they have ideas above their age.  Looking back (if I could after CVG's shutdown), my typing was fine - it's what I said that was the problem!

Last night I went trick or treating for the first time. I'm 35.

I've still never been

Started my first day of training at Sky today. Woo, employment! Boo, getting up early (something I've not really had to do for 4 years).