The Thread Of Randomness

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I used to know someone called Carl, you can imagine how I pronounced their name every time, Caaaaaarrrll!

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So, I decided to be middle class, and went to a nice restaurant for 'fine dining'.
Oh wow, being middle class is apparently so dang weird & effort! Waiter came over with a wine list, I know nothing about wine, nor did the person I was with, so we just pointed to one and went "that one", with zero idea of how to pronounce it. The waiter does a small bow and disappears gracefully, returning about 2 minute later looking really proud for some reason, and presented the wine bottle, in case we thought he'd just... tapped it off the toilet, or something? Anywho, he then poured a small glass and asked for us to check it was good (...no idea what that meant, that it wasn't spoilt or corked, I guess? If so, if you have any doubt in your own product, you can maybe give yourself that job, they probably knew far more about how wine should taste than us?), Me and the friend were kinda just staring at each other for 5 second doing the look of "no u" with your eyes, eventually i figured if i didn't do it we'd be there all night, tasted the wine and it tasted of... wine? so i said yes, that's fine. Then in one graceful action the waiter beamed wide as he did on his arrival and placed the bottle on the table.
Now don't get me wrong, the food was nice the wine was... wine. But wow that was a whole heap of stuff for a drink. I think me & the friend will stick with pubs and greasy spoons

In all honestly me and the friend very rarely drink wine, so we wouldn't have been able to tell if it was corked wine, wine I didn't like, or the most poisonous bottle of poison ever from taste

[Chrill]

I love those places And yes, the purpose of tasting the wine is to ensure it is not corked or in another way spoilt.

In regards to the wine list, you can often just go for the House Wine. They are often, but not always, the cheapest but they are also a decent standard in any serious restaurant.

I've come to learn I like dry Rieslings. Other than that, I often go for the House Wine or just have a beer. They'll always have beer even in finer locales!

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In regards to the wine list, you can often just go for the House Wine. They are often, but not always, the cheapest but they are also a decent standard in any serious restaurant.

Yes, I was basically not reading anything other than the price of each one and randomly picked from the cheapest, hah.
I was very out of place in such an establishment. Usually I'm at a place where you just scream your order across a loud bar, although Wetherspoon do have an app to order stuff and then it just magically arrives later, so that is nice. Shame about the company & owner though, I don't go there off my own back anymore. Same for a company named Brewdog, I had one bad experience with a rude bar staff member and like, well that entire company has lost my wallet for life, hah.

In other news because of my Multiple Sclerosis I can barely walk anymore, and the NHS are like "...nah we have to just let fail, we can't just amputate the broke muscles and give you a fake leg to walk on normally" so that was nice. What a rosy future I am looking at, at least unless Physio can pull some miracles out, because what they're doing currently is just causing pain and 0 gain after 2 month so, yay.
Also confusing online is that half of people are like "oh no, you have to do the exercises are unbearable painful, no pain, no gain!" and the other half are like "no no, just do what you can until you hit that pain threshold, and stop and rest before any more". The internet being confusing as always!

[Chrill]

Also confusing online is that half of people are like "oh no, you have to do the exercises are unbearable painful, no pain, no gain!" and the other half are like "no no, just do what you can until you hit that pain threshold, and stop and rest before any more". The internet being confusing as always!

I'm more of a "Don't do the exercises, you could get hurt" kind of guy.

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Also confusing online is that half of people are like "oh no, you have to do the exercises are unbearable painful, no pain, no gain!" and the other half are like "no no, just do what you can until you hit that pain threshold, and stop and rest before any more". The internet being confusing as always!

I'm more of a "Don't do the exercises, you could get hurt" kind of guy.

Realistically speaking so am I, but my situation seems to be "use it or lose it", with my muscles in a state of atrophy, quite elevated speed of it too. Mostly as everything got too painful to do... a lot of things, so I entirely stopped doing them, so apparently my brain went "...i mean we're not using them, so lets stop feeding 'em!". I gotta do so many things to try getting ankle muscles back to a state of usable over more than 250 metres without nearly falling over (or worse, falling over).

I used to be a teen and 20s guy (yes, I was in my teens once, surprising!) that would just not be able to sleep so walk and walk until I was tired. I once managed to go straight over the Pennine Hills from Holmfirth where I used to live, and kept on walking overnight and next thing I saw was a sign for Ashton-under-Lyne Post Office, about 17 mile according to google, and now I can barely walk 500 metres/0.5km/0.3 mile. Health Service have realistically said the chance of doing 16 mile over the hills is not realistic to expect so, that's pretty crushing

[orudge]

I’m so sorry to hear that, I can only imagine how hard this must be for you.

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I’m so sorry to hear that, I can only imagine how hard this must be for you.

Thanks, and yeah its certainly not where I expected to be age 33, heh.

The National Health Service/NHS is doing all they can, but muscle mass is barely growing even with fairly intensive physio. MRI's show fairly low relapse rate presently, but unfortunately even the MS nurses have admitted its an entirely random process, it's not possible to feed me stuff to entirely guarantee no further relapses, and its also impossible to accurately predict what the next relapse does, it's all a bit of a calamity. I sometimes feel like I'm essentially a time-bomb to myself.
I do miss just wandering outside and having an adventure whenever I feel like it. It's kinda odd needing to have to plan most excursions, even down to how much I carry home from the shop depending on how my leg feels that hour >.<

I'm hoping to get a car at some point to ease my ability to go places, as I am still able to drive as good as I ever could, but its a big expense in the current situation.

[CTarana45]

Last Train Standing? I'm curious as to what will the last train buyable in 2051for the US Set!

Christopher Tarana

[Martin]

Last Train Standing? I'm curious as to what will the last train buyable in 2051for the US Set!

Christopher Tarana

I never get anywhere near that in my games nowadays, I think I tend to start again before things get (too) over-complicated.

I was about to say this is my first post in this thread, but then found one from 2008.

[DrWho42]

party down is back lol

[orudge]

I never get anywhere near that in my games nowadays, I think I tend to start again before things get (too) over-complicated.

I’ve been playing my first proper game of OpenTTD in probably 11 or 12 years over the past month or so - have got from 1920 to 2000 just now using NARS (sub-arctic), it’s been fun. Sucks up a lot of time though!

[dol422]

I never get anywhere near that in my games nowadays, I think I tend to start again before things get (too) over-complicated.

I’ve been playing my first proper game of OpenTTD in probably 11 or 12 years over the past month or so - have got from 1920 to 2000 just now using NARS (sub-arctic), it’s been fun. Sucks up a lot of time though!

I'm lucky if my games last more than one day. I usually start a game and then want to try something new or play a different way

[Martin]

I’ve been playing my first proper game of OpenTTD in probably 11 or 12 years over the past month or so - have got from 1920 to 2000 just now using NARS (sub-arctic), it’s been fun. Sucks up a lot of time though!

You’ve given me a push there, definitely sub-arctic next, I keep intending to play one but somehow keep starting temperate games!

I'm lucky if my games last more than one day. I usually start a game and then want to try something new or play a different way

That’s the other thing with me too, I often realise I could have done something better.

[CTarana45]

For my Birthday, My son went to an antique store! He a ACE Hardware delivery truck bank and a Check from The Pittsburgh And Lake Erie Railroad. The dated June 22, 1984, and for the amount of $289.40!

Christopher Tarana

[Pilot]

I never get anywhere near that in my games nowadays, I think I tend to start again before things get (too) over-complicated.

I've had the same game going now for 6/7 IRL years, and the game year is now 3046. I keep rebuilding sections multiple times to cope with how complex my network has become!

[orudge]

You’ve given me a push there, definitely sub-arctic next, I keep intending to play one but somehow keep starting temperate games!

It’s certainly a bit more challenging - I’m playing with Pikka’s Basic Industries too, on a 512x512 map, and having to haul things up huge mountains especially in the earlier days could be quite ‘interesting’. Also the trees everywhere - have had lots of fun with local authorities who hated me due to building a big old line right next to their towns knocking down loads of trees in the process, oops. I also included two AI competitors, something I don’t usually do, which has also made it a bit different for me.

I now have something like £1.5bn in the bank so if I want to terraform half the mountains to make my network more efficient, I can (and occasionally do), and it can be quite satisfying to gradually optimise things. Though I have quite a few bottlenecks - towns seem to grow more rapidly than I remember, and there are areas where I have tracks threaded between towns that are now huge metropolises of 30,000+, with random industries and stations sandwiched between them too. All rather enjoyable though. I’ll perhaps try to post some screenshots soon.

I am debating going back to temperate for my next game and doing a “old school” game of the built in vehicles, industries etc - something I’ve probably not done in about 20 years! Ever since TTDPatch introduced NewGRF there have been so many interesting sets to try, so I haven’t really played standard TTD in a very long time. Ah, the days of hauling coal around on 400mph maglevs…

[Martin]

@orudge, yes, I’ve definitely come up against the tree problem in my new sub-arctic game, I don’t think it would feel quite the the same without grappling with local authorities! I have just found with two towns close together I’ve been quite happily building parts of my station then strayed into the other local authority area and then couldn’t, for a second or two I wondered what was going on there.

Please do post some screenshots, it would be great to see those.

@Pilot, wow, I really didn’t even know you could go that far. Of course I’m now starting to want to get more complicated (again)

[Chrill]

I now have something like £1.5bn in the bank so if I want to terraform half the mountains to make my network more efficient, I can (and occasionally do), and it can be quite satisfying to gradually optimise things. Though I have quite a few bottlenecks - towns seem to grow more rapidly than I remember, and there are areas where I have tracks threaded between towns that are now huge metropolises of 30,000+, with random industries and stations sandwiched between them too. All rather enjoyable though. I’ll perhaps try to post some screenshots soon.

You definitely should! I start a game about once per year but rarely make it enough to take screenshots of them!

[CTarana45]

I'm studying Japan's Railway system the same way I did Britain's and the US!

Christopher Tarana