Passing the time

[Redfraggle]

Ive just been playing PacMan. I loved that game and had it on my Atari.

[Bunnylump]

You make me feel so OLD!! I never played on these games!

[Redfraggle]

No not really - I worked in a video arcade as a teenager so Im a bit of a hustler when it comes to video games.

I am old - Im a granny!

[Bunnylump]

Just because you're a granny it doesn't make you OLD. You're a whipper-snapper! (Isn't that a funny phrase? I wonder where it comes from?)

[Redfraggle]

Not tonight. Tonight Im a jelly baby - Im all tired and de-stressed. Im also going fishing tomorrow - well Ivan is - Im taking a book and my cauldron

[MBH]

LOL - and I grew up in a seaside town and 'lived' in the arcades during holiday times. I can still surprise some of the kids when I take them on at their own games on the computer

A paste from the Word Detective:

"Whippersnapper" is a somewhat archaic term, rarely heard today outside of movies, and then usually from the mouth of a character portrayed as chronologically-challenged and hopelessly old-fashioned to boot. A "whippersnapper" is an impertinent young person, usually a young man, whose lack of proper respect for the older generation is matched only by his laziness and lack of motivation to better himself.

One might imagine that the term derives from the understandable temptation among more productive citizens to "snap a whip" at such sullen layabouts, but the whips in question actually belonged to the whippersnappers themselves. Such ne'er-do-wells were originally known as "whip snappers" in the 17th century, after their habit of standing around on street corners all day, idly snapping whips to pass the time. The term was been based on the already-existing phrase, "snipper-snapper," also meaning a worthless young man, but in any case, "whip snapper" became "whippersnapper" fairly rapidly.

Though "whippersnapper" originally referred to a young man with no visible ambition, the term has changed somewhat over the years, and today is more likely to be applied to a youngster with an excess of both ambition and impertinence.

[Bunnylump]

There you go then Fraggle. I'm calling you an impertinent ne'er do well!!!

Im taking a book and my cauldron

~And there was me thinking you were a secretary in a school. I'll have to stop calling you names in case I end up in the cauldron...

[LAT]

Oh I do like to get a bit of education in the evening.

[Redfraggle]

Oh yes - that's me alright - impertinent and I am a witch - There. Ive come out of my broom closet!

Actually, when I was in school - the cookery teacher said I was Rude, Bold and also very cheeky!!! She was the witch and blamed me for making HER custard spill all over the cooker - so I just her that it wasn't me - it was in fact her cos I had watched her do it. Just like that!

I got thrown out of the class after that episode and I havent cooked since!

[Bunnylump]

Well that's as good a reason as any, I suppose.

My mum's cookery teacher once asked her (when she was mixing up a dough)

"what are you doing there girl, gardening?"

my mum replied

"Well I AM making ROCK cakes miss". She got in TERRIBLE trouble for that!

[Redfraggle]

That is excellent! I would've been thrown out of your mum's class too cos I would've laughed out loud at that one.

[Bunnylump]

That's the worst thing, isn't it? When you want to laugh and you can't. I makes you laugh even more. I was telling MBH - I was in a geography lesson, and the teacher was drawing a diagram on the board. He was saying "here's the magma chamber" (drew a round blob), "here's the magma vent" (drew a thick pipe coming up from the blob), and THIS is where the lava erupts "(drew a spurty bit at the top). I was in with a class of year 7s, and I was trying SOOOOOO hard not to laugh. My shoulders were going up and down and tears were pouring out of the side of my eyes!!

[LAT]

And I remember where we were when you told me that one - we were having such a great exchange of tales we had to stop until we found a loo!!

[Redfraggle]

Im laughing out loud - I think Ive just woken my mum next door!

Actually yesterday in school a big 'scary mummy' came into school looking for her son. It was 3.30pm and all the children had gone. I told her this and then asked her ' Who does he play with?' (thinking that he had gone off with a chum. She glowered at me and then replied 'NO ONE. HE PLAYS WITH HIMSELF!'

You could've heard a pin drop in the office. Once she went out the door we all fell about laughing.

[Bunnylump]

Oh dear!! It does make you feel better when you have a good laugh, doesn't it?

And yes, LAT, I came perilously close to needing Tenalady that day!!!

[Redfraggle]

Goodnight folks. Im roasting now - Ive laughed so hard.

[Bunnylump]

I'd have thought you'd have been quite cool in that little red dress and no knickers. Just shows how wrong a person can be!!

[Scurra]

This one may be tricky because it's in Japanese! But you don't need to be able to read the text to play it.

http://www.hojamaka.com/game/mamono_sweeper_easy/

It's basically Minesweeper with a clever twist. The "mines" are monsters, with levels from 1 to 5 (as shown at the bottom of the game screen) and you can only kill monsters of your level or lower. As you start out at level 1, therefore you can only kill monsters of level 1. If you try to kill a monster of a higher level you lose hit points (you start with 10 - as shown in the top left hand corner) and if you reach 0 you die and the game is over.
But each time you successfully kill a monster, your experience increases and when you reach the next level you can then kill bigger monsters...

So when you click on a square, it shows you the total level value of all the surrounding squares, rather than how many of them contain "mines". You can mark squares (as you could in the original) by pointing the mouse at the square and then using the A and D keys to change the number value in it so that you can remember what level monster is there, and then go back and kill it when you've reached a sufficient level. It's a bit fiddly but it works.

If you like Minesweeper, then this will keep you on your toes nicely. It's got the same "random click at the start" problem, but after that it's a lot of fun. (And the bigger levels are a real challenge.)

[giraffe]

That's a real improvement to minesweeper. Managed it at the third attempt, took me a couple of goes to get the hang of how it works

[clvrlad]

that was good