Alabama - Mahjong Solitaire

Alaska - Master Qwans Mahjongg

Arizona - 2

Arkansas - 3

California - 5

Colorado - Snake Snacks

Connecticut - Add Em Up

Delaware - 1

Florida - 1

Georgia - 2

Hawaii - 1

Idaho - Wild Wild Words

Illinois - 2

Indiana - 3

Iowa - 3

Kansas - Master Qwans Mahjong Deluxe

Kentucky - 3

Louisiana - Cursor Grabber

Maine - The Black Knight

Maryland - Marble Match

Massachusetts - 1

Michigan - 2

Minnesota - Gold Miner Classic

Mississippi - 1

Missouri - High Wheels

Montana - Speed

Nebraska - 1

Nevada - Mr Carrot Face

New Hampshire - Huckleberries

New Jersey - Tower Blaster

New Mexico - Easter Eggin

New York - 6

North Carolina - 2

North Dakota - Santa Ski Jump

Ohio - 3

Oklahoma - Save The Shoppers

Oregon - 1

Pennsylvania - 2

Rhode Island - Super Bob

South Carolina - 2

South Dakota - 1

Tennessee - Spider Solitaire

Texas - 2

Utah - Hook Line & Sinker

Vermont - Jewel Miner

Virginia - Pixelfield

Washington - 1

West Virginia - 3

Winsconsin - 1

Wyoming - Valentiner

Zombie Bash

Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, South Dakota, Texas, New York,

Iowa, Mississippi, Arkansas, Ohio, North Carolina, California, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Oregon

Nebraska, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Winsconsin, Arizona

 Grab Mart - Jagerm7, Mayswan, Barg1, Kenzie_snorgles, tctc1, dewgal_747, yankeegurl21, selinakyle, lady187, wooddoc

I killed the puter....yeah Misty, again.

Luckily this one was a quick fix. Only about two hours, and yet again it was the missus who got woken up to fix it. She's done that about 4 or 5 times now, saved us a fortune in repair bills. I used to joke with her that she should take it up for a living but its beyond a joke now. Albeit with some help occasionally (not from me, I'm too busy sitting in the corner and gibbering nervously) she is very very good at it.

So this blog is brought to you courtesy of the missus, mind you she'll extract her revenge, I suspect she is up there now sharpening her elbows. And to be fair I sometimes don't give her credit for the things she can do. Anyone who can survive 4 years with me has gotta have summat going for them ;-) So Jo, I do appreciate you, especially in times of crisis.... like 'I've killed the computer again' but not just then, for the time I brought Max back with his bad paw and you helped straight away, for the times I've been sad and you've rallied round, for all the times (and there have been MANY) when I didn't know how to handle the kiddies....

I know sometimes you think I take you for granted, and maybe some of those times you're right. But I do appreciate you and I do love you. I'm just terrifically bad at showing it ;-)

Tell ya what, I'll let you win a game of Minesweeper Flags. One day. A long long way into the future ;-)

Cheers

Charlie

It does ya know.... ;-)

The dancing pig is a well known face in our house. Only cos the missus will keep trying to beat me at Minesweeper flags. Yes thats right. Not that she is competitive at all...not much. Mind you it gets worse when there are no MQM tournies around. Strange that.... *lol*

What else is strange is the difference between the other people in the household. Me? I'm not competitive at all, I can take it or leave it... apart from chess, don't like losing at chess. Anything else I'm very easy going on.

The missus is terrible. She gets these 'nemesi', not sure how she picks them. But she always has a handful and they always have to be beaten. Once she has beaten them she generally loses interest in the game. She went through Rockets, the Santa games (now that was a painful week), Black Knight and several other games. The only reason she has lasted so long on MQM is cos Sammy keeps beating her. Unfortunately she won't actually play many good games though. I mean the classics like Knuggs and High Wheels just not good enough for her...no it has to be esoteric and strange...like Santa Snow Boards or Santa Pinball or Santa Ski Jump ...btw she likes Xmas...in case you hadn't gathered.

James is too easy going. I don't think he gets the idea of competition. It really doesn't occur much to him. Which is a relief in a way cos of how obsessive he gets over things. I've a feeling he either soon be beating my scores or driving his mother up the wall. Hang on he does the latter anyway, which I can cope with ;-)

Natty on the other hand takes after his mother more, has to win. Unfortunately he has yet to learn how to do so without breaking the rules. Or learning to lose gracefully. If he ever manages to learn either I will be very happy, not to say quite frankly amazed.  I'm also banned from sending him challenges *looks smug*.

Which just leaves Max, who is DEF his mothers pup. Can't abide anyone playing unless they are playing with him. And has to win, shouts very loudly if not allowed to, which is only a slight improvement on his mothers 'elbow to the ribs' tactics. But any balls, bones, squeakies he has to play tug with....and win.... Only one thing distracts him and thats food. Oh and buried treasure. Can't abide having his bones underneath anything like a blanket or mat... drives him bonkers...

And the dancing pig? Its my msn victory wink, seen all too seldom ;-) Except at Minesweeper flags.... *is probably gonna pay for this....*

Cheers

Charlie

.... should be safe with that one, I don't think her musical knowledge extends back that far!

But anyway, now the new year is finally here (yeah yeah I know) I'm starting to think about Challenge 3. I've been racking my brains in order to construct a format that is both interesting and competitive. And I think I may be onto summat.

Instead of three teams, a selection of teams, each comprising 6 people. No subs, the top five in each game count towards the team points. Given the interest in C2 I'd therefore anticipate about 6/7 teams. So one more proviso, no one in the top 7 of C2 may be in the same team as someone else from the top 7. (otherwise you'll get Chris and Tubs wiping everyone!)

So....

Each team to be named by its participants and to have six members.

Each game to be played and the top five from each team have their points added to the team total.

No subs.

Whadya think?

Cheers

Charlie

And I seriously doubt anyone will understand that reference, which is prob just as well since it would get me hit.

Well Clan Rabbit is now fully reassembled. Jo came home on the first, which was welcome, with mother and sister, which wasn't. Its not that I dislike them, they just make me nervous. Then again so does the missus, so not sure how that one works. Oh yes I am. I know when to duck with Jo. Sometimes. She just wanted to collapse the first day, so we went out together yesterday, just the two of us, which was nice. Except Jo ate the last Cinnamon Waffle and I had to go without pudding. But we don't often get time just the two of us. For wich I accept a fair amount of the blame (before she starts!)

Then the kids came home yesterday, I'd like to say after a week without them I was calm and relaxed and managed to take their idiosyncracies in my stride. Note the 'I'd like to'. Roll on the 5th *grins*. Apart from that all normal. The house now looks like a bombsite again, the pooch is on the settee, the kids are arguing.... anyone wanna swap?

Cheers

Charlie

...is one of my specialities. I seem to be one of these people with a knack of saying/doing the wrong thing just at the wrong time. So its with some trepidation that I'm anticipating tomorrow.

The missus is coming back. No no, I'm not nervous about her. Well I am actually, but thats standard. What with Sophia trying to talk her into alternative uses for frying pans, especially given that she needs no encouragement to brutalise me, especially whilst she is allegedly 'sleeping' as my ribs will testify.

No, its the accompanying people. To whit, one mother and one sister. Now despite the mother being poorly recently, and indeed having many admirable qualities, she still retains one less than desirable, if understandable quality. She doesn't approve of me. I get the impression that the sister doesn't either, which is fair cos quite frankly I don't ... think I should leave that one there. ;-)

Which is all well and good except for two small problems. One the state of the house. I've been living a bachelor life for three days. Can you imagine the state of the place. And she (the missus) is very houseproud and wants me to at least tidy before they come back. Now, here is a tip for all you unmarried females out there. IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THIS. Bearing in mind the procrastinatory abilities of men, three days of bachelorhood living takes at least three weeks to clean up. And by that time the resultant mess takes 3 months to clean up by which time....you get the picture?

Oh we could do it quicker, but the car needed mending, or a book needed reading cos it needed to go back to the library or we just wanted one game of HW that didn't actually have a STW in it or we had a vital experiment concerning mold growing to take care of first..... All of which means you are extremely lucky if we can lend a hand.... But I have! I've worked my socks off. Stop with those sniggers of disbelief please. I took in mind the mental scarring that accompanied the missus's first visit to my bachelor pad all those years ago. The bathroom mirror is spotless. The rest of the house could do with some work, but the mirror is absolutely spotless.

Which just leaves the second problem. People skills. As in I don't have any. Certain events have happened over the past year which means that there are lots of secrets floating around. In short Mi and Mo have secrets I'm not supposed to tell Si. Mi and Si have secrets I'm not supposed to tell Mo. Doubtless Mo and Si have secrets but fortunately I was spared that lot. But me being me, I'm gonna have to be very careful, cos I get confused easily and family politics is not my strong suit. I think I'll make drinks and food and slope off. Getting a rollicking for being anti social would probably be better than letting loose one of the secrets by accident.

The former just means being shouted at. I dread to think what the latter would mean, but doubtless Jo might start to take Sophia's advice. So yeah thats my plan for tomorrow, reclean mirror, polish mirror, re-polish mirror, make drinks, make food, slope off and hope I don't put my foot in it anywhere......

Well, no more than I usually do anyway.

Cheers

Charlie

And here we are again, a nice quiet day, well mostly... Max is feeling very territorial during his convalescence, I guess its self protection really but he seems much more...vocal....barks at anything at the mo.

Spoke to Jo a few times, when I rang her. I think she's forgotten me sitting here and is just partying away *sniffs*. Got interrogated. I decided to do a stew see, do several days worth at once, saves me cooking too much. But Jo was quite evidently sceptical about my cooking skills and interrogated me on the steps I had taken, the steps I was taking, what steps I would be taking....etc etc. You'd never suspect I managed to cook for years before I met her, albeit a somewhat limited repetoire I admit.

The kids are having fun.....of the torment each other variety. Jo hasn't got Nats mobile number, cos he got a new phone for xmas you see. I wonder who got that for him and should have taken down the number? Huh? Huh? So she is reliant on James for news, but James is tired (they never get much sleep up there) and when he gets tired he gets grumpy. Grumpier. So she prob had a right earbashing off him. In fact both of them will prob be monsters when they get back, too little sleep, not enough proper food and adult supervision of the 'well they are both still alive' kind.

Speaking of monsters, I'm catching up on Buffy Season 5. Already half way through though *sniffs*. Might have to squirrel a few pennies for S6, don't think S5 is gonna last till next Xmas *lol*. Apart from that? Just lazing around and making sure people have enough challenges... I got a list see.....everything for Jo, MM, Knuggs and HW for Tubs, Word games for Chris, HW and Pixel for Sophia...... who else can I torment?

*grins*

Cheers

Charlie

....which went missing around 1970.... ish.. *grins*

Well I'm downstairs in the cold again. No I haven't been thrown out (tempted as the missus might have been). The computer has been moved downstairs again cos Max is poorly and can't climb stairs. Its not fair to leave him alone all day so I'm working in the lounge. And freezing. Its ok for him, he's sprawled on the settee (which he shouldn't be on!) in his fur coat.

The latest catastrophe started in early december. Max had already had a problem with his left hind leg where it hadn't developed properly. In april he had an op where they resectioned his leg, turned the lower half to where it was supposed to be, deepened the groove that the tendon sits in and stapled over the groove so the tendon couldn't slip out any more. But, they said, at least the right leg is ok. Ha! A squirrel had the temerity to shoot past us on a walk. Max shot after it into the undergrowth. I called him back and when he came back he was obviously in pain and looking at me with that expression that dogs do so well. That 'Dad will fix it' look.

Well obviously I couldn't, I tried to get him home. He couldn't walk on it, in the end I have carried him (he's heavy!) and half pushed him, crying my eyes out everytime we stopped. Straight to the vets where my fears were confirmed, his right leg had gone. So he had another op on the 8th and looked forward to another two months in the cage. Although from both our point of views I doubt the semantic validity of the term 'looked forward to'.

Fortunately his recuperation has been much better this time. Last time he was a poor wretch for weeks. This time he's able to control his bladder and bowels and psychologically seems much chirpier. Perhaps he understands that it will be fixed, he just has to wait. But obviously he's getting spoiled rotten. More so than usual cos Christmas was...well....fun :-(

We were supposed to be going to the mother in laws for a week. But with Max out of sorts that wasn't possible. There was no way that, in addition to all the other stuff we just had to take (evidently they don't have supermarkets in Dorset!?) we were going to fit Max's cage into the car. So they came here, quite gracefully I thought. We brought in an extra 3 months supplies for a small army (when I say small I mean the combined armed forces of Europe). Apparently, according to the missus, it was all essential supplies. Now we won't go into the missus's definition of essential but lets just say I'm glad we had some transport otherwise my back would have been creaking as much as our bank account.

And then James got a bug. Lets just say both ends and leave it there shall we, I'm sure the parents amongst my readers don't need more elaboration and if you ain't a parent I don't want to scare you into permanent celibacy. And, being the generous soul he is...., decided to pass it round. Instead of yuletide carrolling and the clink of glasses our house echoed to the sound of bowls being well used and the washing machine going 24/7.

Which was bad enough on its own (the look on mother in laws face actually made me feel guilty about all the nasty things I've said about her before, I've never seen anyone look so pale and drawn). But it also meant we had a surplus of food, to the tune of about 95% of what we'd brought and a couple of hundred quid. So Max is having roast turkey at the mo. And roast beef. And roast chicken. And pretty much anything he can lay his paws on (Labs are notoriously greedy).When he finally gets the all clear he's gonna have to go on a very strict diet. In the meantime, he's developed a sympathy limp. He's not overly steady anyway, but its amazing how bad it gets when food is around. And he always manages to get that extra pathos into his expression as well.... very def his missus's dog ;-)

But thankfully everyone recovered, the kids have gone to Brum for a few days, the missus has gone down to Dorset to look after mum. Its just me, Max and a puter...and several years worth of rations. Ah...peace and quiet...I can play MQM in peace without the missus yelling at me...

There is only one problem.

I miss her. :-(

Cheers

Charlie

Yes I know its not even December yet, you know its not even December yet. However the rest of my family.....

I've got the missus mithering about Xmas and what we can afford. Which is basically nowt. But we'll manage, myself I'm more worrying about spending so much time at the Mother in Laws. Rem I've always told you she doesn't approve of me? Hasn't changed. And the missus's bright idea to solve this? We'll stay longer this time....ARGHHHH. So longer without a decent puter, being looked down on and generally patronised, mind you I'm getting in practice with teen chat and pool social.

Then I have James. Agonising over what to get his mum (when he's already got it thanks to me, and its no surprise cos he blurted it out), what to get me (some ear muffs would be good, his instrumental is easier on the ear than his singing, but then so is the missus having root canal surgery), what to get Nat (a gag perhaps?), what to get Jon (I'm forbidden to talk about this one). He's also worried about moving, his upcoming gig, life, the universe, being too worried.....

Then I have Nat. Well, I suppose its typical kid, doesn't care about others, his overriding concern is what he is going to get for Xmas (lump of coal for kids that had been naughty wasn't it?), why he isn't getting his full pocket money (cos he hasn't done his chores) and what he can get away with (not much the mood I'm in).

Then I have Max. Who loves me to bits. Usually several as he chomps on my arm. Thats unless someone else has food... He is a very clever dog. He understands much of what I say, he just chooses to ignore it. Unfortunately for him he's not very good at it. The wagging tail is a dead giveaway. Its 'Yeah dad I can hear you, but I'm too comfy, don't make me get up', which he gets away with most of the time, but not when he's lying on top of me! He's heavy! Actually he's supposed to be banned from the furniture now. But he has this habit of sitting by the bed and placing one paw on it, then looking longlingly at the bed, then at me, then at the bed etc, until I get the hint. Yes until I get the hint, doesn't try it on with mother, oh no.

Guess who is the soft touch round here?

Cheers

Charlie

i.e. Apathy Strikes Again, surely apathy wouldn't strike, it would just lie back indolently and let someone else do the work? Unless of course its meant in the withdrawal of labour sense in which case its still semantically inappropriate since it wouldn't then affect me.

Can you tell that the BIOTD is stuck again? And that I'm feeling rather apathetic? The move we had organised fell through, still no closer to finding a solution for Jo, if anything further away. I ought to be inspiring and motivating her and the kids, instead of which I'm struggling myself. Even things which I usually enjoy are starting to annoy me. Well not so much they are starting to annoy me as the Windows Update which affected them is starting to annoy me. Yeah there is a story there, but its painful and it would make Tubtui and Ketty laugh their lil cotton socks off :-(

So wading through the depths at the moment. Wanting to do whats right and usually ending up feeling bad about doing it. Hey ho.... anyone got a spare get up and go they don't need?

Cheers

Charlie