Jenga

Today has been a surprisingly enjoyable day thankfully because there was very little on the TV to keep me occupied and I haven't yet managed to get back into 'work mode'. Some friends came round for the afternoon/evening and we ended up playing Jenga and Wii for most of it after the initial boring catch up chat was out of the way.

Amazingly I got through both rounds of Jenga without knocking it over! There were some very wobbly times admittedly and on the second round it was person after me who made it fall. I don't know why but whenever I play Jenga - or any other game requiring a steady hand for that matter - my nerves get the better of me and my hand starts shaking like a pneumatic drill. There were ten of us in total so we ended up using two sets and had the choice of which tower to play each turn which made the game last a lot longer and seemed to somehow make it more exciting. I am always astonished at how long the thing manages to stay up and even when there are eight or nine people before your next turn, you think that toppling is inevitable and yet it comes round another couple of times.

The only decent telly tonight was Outnumbered which is probably one of the best sitcoms made in the last ten years. Co-written by the genius that is Andy Hamilton the beauty lies in the comic performance of the kids who are often only given the start and endpoints of their conversations and asked to make up a lot of their comments. This leads to highly realistic although very surreal dialogue between the kids and the parents. The other good thing about it is that there is no tacky laughter track in the background which I think spoils a lot of these things - especially when the laughter is every couple of seconds over some very unfunny jokes.

Lastly, I have decided it is time to replace my ageing laptop. It has served me well for many years now but alas its time has come and can no longer cope with the pressures of modern life. For the past couple of days it has been struggling to cope with playing music and browsing the internet at the same time resulting in long pauses and intermittent sound. It cannot play high definition video and normally struggles with standard definition consuming at least 90% of the CPU when using the iPlayer. Seeing as it is Christmas and the sales have now officially started, I am on the hunt for a new one before the VAT increase on the 1st of January, so far I have a found four potentials from one retailer so I am expecting a long list to start with.