Monday, 31 August 2009

1791 Lost weekend, Games, Titanic

For a brief moment on Sunday lunchtime I thought I had unintentionally deleted the file of completed MySpace Blogs from 2008 onwards from the desktop. I was relaxed because I only recently made a copy on disc and guessed that the more likely explanation was than had unintentionally transferred the file to within another file, and which proved to be what had happened. I would not have been surprised if I had deleted the file such was my relaxed and lazy condition of the morning. I had gone to bed late for the second night in succession having plated free games on the internet I had searched for these having enjoyed playing the undeleted Acer games on the lap top as they are good test of visual awareness and manual dexterity and understanding as well as seeing what is there and responding to the immediate rather than reflection. However it is important to also remember the sequence of the games and the pattern of variations.

My enthusiasm for games originated with one of the he earliest consoles sold on the market. This had a simple green screen and was marketed as a tennis game. However it was quickly evident that whoever had one of the two sides had the advantage and won. On progressing to the Commodore sixty four the games had to be loaded from tapes. They varied from a game of cricket to Alice which had several levels and was very enjoyable, to patience a game which in its different forms I have been playing for over twenty years. I then moved to the green screen Amstrad era of the 256 and 512 and concentrated on word processing, spread sheets and databases without games of any kind. The purchase of an Amstrad with colour screen, TV and Telephone link introduced to the game of patience called hearts where I had a spell of completing 0-10000 in sequence. I invested in joystick for Fury and shootem game. The Joy stick has an old connection as the hand held games player. However they still work on the Amstrad Integra.

My exploration of free games on line led to the discovery of a replica of Deal or not Deal in which there are 25 cases and you select one hoping it contains 3,4,5, 750000 million dollars to 1million or settle for the offer from the Banker which he raises or reduces according to the whether large amounts remain possibilities against the smaller ones of under $5000. Having played about a dozen times only once did I deal for a sum lower than in the case 19000 instead of £50000, whereas in accepting offers of between 30000 and 25000 these were all major good decision with the amount in the case $10000 at the most.

I have played three other games with a monopoly games taking up over an hour last night until it ended just as I was about to reap the reward of being able to cheat a fictitious human opponent when I was invited to purchase the full edition as the trial has ended.

There are two sites with hundreds of games which one doe snot have to buy although one offers the opportunity of a full screen. On this there the game of Zuma shooting game which is also available on the lap top and another shooting game with duck and terrorist penguins! Before going to bed I tried to become a master chocolatier but sleep beckoned I shall investigate further when I have made progress on other matters. The playing of game sums the weekend which at best can be recorded as a lost one, without memorable new experience or work productivity.

I had some good fortune after lunch on Saturday, I had walked into the town centre to purchase some glue to finish the kitchen floor from Wilkinson’s. At the entry there was a sale of back to school items and there was some pockets of the better quality usually 95 pence fro 50 but £1 for two in the sale which is super value. I then discovered there was a new supply of the 40 page display albums with eight blue and six black available. The problem is that this became a heavy load even with the back shoulder bag. I thought it was worthwhile checking the time of the 500 but to the Lawe Top just across the flat of Market square and although it only operates once an hour on Saturdays, one was due within five minutes excellent. This is the first time I have used the bus and wondered about the route. It goes up the Roman Road to the road before the school and then turns horizontally to Law Road, going up to the turning circle before going down to the Park. I had a short walk down hill from the stop.

I needed some joy as Durham were blitzed by Sussex in everyway last night after losing the toss with a glued pitch with Sussex 277 for 6 and then collapsing with James Kirtley taking five opening batsmen for 26 and all out for 84 in only 24 of the 40 overs. Although they had rested some key bowlers and Benkenstein Mustard Smith Chanderpaul and Coetzer where there with Ben Harmison Breeze and Plunket are also able to bat so there is no excuse except they knew they had to go for the runs. Afterwards I watched a couple of episodes of Taggart back to back one with the Mark McManus which took me through to 2am.

There was additional joy on Saturday afternoon when Warrington won the Rugby League challenge Cup at Wembley after blitzing Huddersfield by three tries to 1 in the first fifteen minutes. Huddersfield made mistakes in what remained an open contest during the rest of the first half. The game tightened during the second period and Huddersfield came back at one point but never were able to make significant challenge with the final result

However Sunderland lost 1.0 to stoke and on Sunday Manchester rain prevented the kind of rout which Durham experienced at Sussex as England were 4 runs for two wickets in response to Australia’s 145 for their 20 overs. The large crowd had paid a lot of money for this miserable outing. As expected the three first division games ended in draws so that unless Durham lose all four remaining games gaining say 20 bonus points and making a total of 296 and Notts and Somerset win of their three remaining games, including games against Durham at the Riverside to overtake them. The position could be settled this week as Durham take on Somerset on Tuesday. Notts take on Yorks on Thursday so by Sunday the championship could be Durham’s. Hopefully the weather will improve.

The weekend also provided the opportunity to compare two films about the sinking of the Titanic, Fortunately the ship was only two thirds of its maximum occupancy because there were only lifeboats for one third of the capacity. However because of the criminal negligence of the chairman of the line and the captain and his senior crew less than a third of those on board survived when in fact it should have been as high as 50%given the space on the lifeboats it carried. Of course the ship should never have hit the iceberg if warnings has been properly dealt with and the ship had travelled at a more reasonable speed until it engines had been run in. It was badly designed with its emphasis upon 1st Class passengers 329 who paid something like $80000 £50000 dollars for the crossing. Just over 60% survived. There were also 285 second class passengers with 41% surviving but only 24.5 of those in third class 710 and under 24% of the 899 crew. 706 of the 2223 on survived.

That more first and second class passengers survived than third also a deliberate decision taken by the ship’s management at the time. A night to remember had the affable and inoffensive Kenneth More and highlighted the fact that third class male passengers were only allowed on deck after the lifeboats had put to sea. Titanic the 1997film with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio has become the best grossing film world wide and won 11 Oscars. It is romantic and sentimental love story fantasy which nevertheless does cover some of management negligence and upper class snobbery of the day.

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