(and, for the benefit of Adam, who won’t ‘get’ it: a wireless network, being wireless, doesn’t have cables – this is geek humour that even you can understand)
Adam will no doubt correct me on this, but I didn’t think there could be such a
thing as ‘Post-Modernist Geography’ until I saw this young lady’s page on
it. Read the page.
Thanks to those of you who have been forcing hugs upon Claire for the last 24 hours. She seems a lot happier now. Having finished her first two exams seems to have helped, too. =o)
The new Troma Night website is now up and running. All existing Stars are requested to go and
register for the new site to retain their Star status. And give suggestions for Saturday’s films while you’re there, using the new “What Shall We Watch?” feature.
The following post originally appeared on the then-newly-revamped Troma Night website. This archive copy is copied back
here for posterity:
This document was originally published on the first Troma Night web site. Changes made during this re-posting are shown in italics.
What happens at ‘Troma Night’?
The weekly ‘Troma Night’ is organised, rougly, by the following stages:
Hype
The first stage of any week’s ‘Troma Night’ is the build-up of hype amongst the stars. It usually starts three or four days in advance, and is characterised by
people suggesting films and generally getting excited about what they are soon to experience.
Claire getting excited about the prospect of watching ‘Caution: Children at Play’
Cleaning
Dan & Claire’s flat almost always looks like a bomb has hit it. As a result, one of the first things that needs to happen is a good tidying session. Kit’s
always good for this, as he’s pretty much treated as slave labour all the time and being allowed to watch DVDs in exchange for his help is the highlight of the week.
Kit tries to start the vacuum cleaner without also starting a fire – Claire and Dan’s vacuum cleaner is a little unsafe…
Booze
Alec undoubtedly arrives later than everybody else, having phoned-in from the off-license to check if anybody wants anything while he’s there. Kit mumbles that
he wouldn’t say no to free beer. Sometimes, other people place requests. Once everybody arrives and the drinking and conversation have begun, the party is underway. Adam brings
another six pack of Fosters and drinks four cans of it, thereby slowly adding to the stacks of the stuff in Dan & Claire’s fridge, which nobody but him drinks. Either everybody brings
Pringles, and we’re all stuffed before the pizza arrives, or nobody does, and we complain at their absence.
Pringles and beer
Pizza
We usually get as far as the first DVD menu before somebody suggests that we order pizzas. Unfortunately this means that we have to listen to the theme music
from some Troma film (which, almost without exception, is tacky) on a loop until we’ve all agreed what pizzas we’re getting and ordered them. This track then remains embedded within
our brains for all time, clogging them and preventing more valuable information from entering, in a similar manner to carbon monoxide in red blood cells
Stacks of pizza boxes after Troma Night VIII
Eventually the pizzas arrive, and we eat them. This is a good thing. Paul, despite being a vegetarian, eats the pepperoni one.
Mmm… pizza…
Movies
Kit and Dan show their appreciation for good beer and bad films
With the DVD player(s) hooked up, we begin the screenings. We typically watch two or three movies in a single sitting, back to back, seperated by a 15-minute
break for those who wish to go to the toilet or engage in idle chit-chat. A third movie tends to put us at about 1:30am, by which time we’re usually exhausted. And if not… there’s
always more alcohol!
Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m about two-thirds of the way through the development of the new Troma Night
website (between bouts of revision). Should be ready within the next 12 hours. Fab.
If you’re a Troma Night person, go visit www.tromanight.co.uk tonight (Wednesday night).
I’m working (at long last) on updating the Troma Night website. Going OK so far, about a third of
the way there. Am contemplating pulling a long, late night and seeing how much of it I can get done at once. Ideally I’ll have it all sorted for next Troma Night, on Saturday –
including the new webcam feature! We’ll see…
In other news, Claire’s looking a lot happier now that she’s put the revision to bed for the night.
[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]
[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]
Claims tiredness. Suspect she’s stressed about upcoming exams. Hope that it’s one or the other.
A handful of my friends keep posting entries to their ‘blogs rapidly, in
quick succession. Have you heard of putting things in the same entry?. Save your friends from scrolling themselves to death!
In other news, my new soundcard arrived, giving me an audio system which doesn’t (a) short-circuit and cause my computer to crash from time to time, (b) give me quite painful electric
shocks when I connect things to it and (c) gives me stereo sound all the time, without switching to mono for no apparent reason. In addition, I have a ‘front panel’ with heaps of
cool-looking connectors, MIDI ports, etc. And a few tweaks later and it works fantastically with the …
I was back with Reb (the ex- I complain about); we were living together in a place in Aber. But I was secretly plotting to kill her so that I could escape with a pretty female train
ticket inspector (entirely a figment of my imagination), who’s name I forget – could have been Louise. I remember a little a rather complicated scene in which Reb and I found ourselves
on her train, and the plan nearly come out.
In any case: as far as I remember I woke up without having managed to murder Reb. More’s the pity.
We watched three Studio Ghibli flicks – Spirited Away (hadn’t seen this before: really quite impressive, but not quite a Totoro-beater),
Tonari no Totoro itself, and Princess Mononoke. Everybody and his dog brought beer, so we all got pleasantly
sloshed; the pizza was great, we still have mountains of Pringles (mmm… revision food), and altogether the night was just fab.
Ruth brought her boyfriend: GBH, or TNT, or something like that. I’m pretty sure we called him every three letter acronym under the sun during the course of the evening. He’s now the
third Troma Night Partner to be brought along: let’s see if he ever comes back (none of the others – Kit’s …
[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]
[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]
Well, they give me money, so I can’t complain too much, but regardless…
My student loan should have been credited to my account on Monday (12th). Paul got his on Sunday! But when mine hadn’t come through by this morning, I got a little concerned. So I
phoned them up on the enquires number listed on their web site.
“You have called the Student Loans Company. For enquiries regarding your student loan, press 1. To change your bank account details, press 2. For any other enquires, press 3.”
I press 1.
“If you are calling on behalf of a third party, we must advise you that they must cal personally owing to customer confidentiality. If you have any general enquiries, please visit
our web site at www.slc.co.uk. Thank you.”<click>
WTF?
I call again, and this time press 3. Some confusing buttons later, I get through to a nice Scottish woman called Alison. It turns out that they had the incorrect sort code for me (and
they had known this for several months [sort code had come up invalid upon entry] – but hadn’t bothered to phone or write to me). How had they gotten the sort code wrong? Well; they’d
read one of my …
[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]
[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]
Got my assignment finished in the end. Next stop: up to campus to deliver it.
I’ve got a fab Civ3: Conquests game on the go: I’m Premiere of the the Russians, and it’s 1856AD. I landed on the moon in 1812AD, and I’m now half-way to building an interstellar
spacecraft. Damn I’m good at this game.
Unfortunatley, the Celts (with whom I share borders) have become jealous of my progress and have launched an invasion, which, while technologically inferior (mostly consisting of
riflemen on horseback and on foot, and a handful of automatic weapons – compared to my M16s, TOW missiles, and jet aircraft) is a sizeable force and caught me very much off-guard,
hitting me at a couple of weak points and capturing two cities, putting them in a good position to attack Moscow. I’ve begun conscription, drafting in citizens to military service to
defend our country, and been pulling forward the military I have towards the front line… but this isn’t going to be pretty.
The AI in the game at the higher difficulty levels is really something. During my invasion of Spain in the 16th Century, the Spanish retreated deeper into their heartland, destroying
key roads as they …
