The beginning of The Count of Monte Cristo was extremely boring, but gets so good once you get past it.

> rather a checkbox than a brief CPU-intensive hashing session.

oh is that why my raspberry pi 5 can't browse websites anymore without freezing for a minute.

hopefully in 20 years we'll get another

oh behave

I noticed I'd been doing the "Not X, but Y" thing. Kinda annoying to keep having to stop myself from doing it.

my brother who never really had much interest in computer games, could always get the high score in any game I was playing eg pinball, racing

I'd spend ages to get a point above his score, and he'd come back and get an even higher one.

He did the same thing to my dad with solitaire, my dad plays it everyday and was proud of his high score. Then my brother who was just visiting, beat my dads highscore by a huge margin, and years later my dad is still annoyed he can't beat it.

> The British Army was very upset that ragtag riflemen in the American colonies kept running into the woods and shooting from behind cover instead of standing in a Proper Formation

didn't skirmishers always do that though?

> didn't skirmishers always do that though?

The European war tradition was open fields and men standing in lines firing volleys from 50-100m, roughly. Americans fought in the French/Indian wars alongside Native Americans and picked up their hit-and-run tactics. They were also using rifled barrel Kentucky Longrifles that could hit a man-sized target at 250m (roughly). The Americans also would directly target officers, which was seen as cowardly/ungentlemanly.

The idea of eating pudding made out of blood sounds gross to me, but I love dipping chips in the juices that pour out of a cooked steak.

The juices in steak are not blood; they're primarily made up of water and myoglobin. The statement from folks that they like their steak 'bloody' is a misnomer.

i dont want any smegging toast!

Smeg actually makes a toaster. It's expensive, looks cute, and doesn't work that well when compared to a far cheaper toaster oven.

This applies to most Smeg products. Which is a shame, they used to be really good and long-lasting.

I can't speak to their quality, but every time I see their name, I wonder about how they're received in England: Americans might generally be unaware, but "smeg" as a name doesn't land well there, as I understand it.

A UK comedy called RedDwarf used variations of smeg as a mild expletive quite liberally. When asked some of the producers claimed they made it up to get around broadcast rules, but most people think it's a shortening of smegma.

Aaaah, so you're a waffle man.

No. I don't want no waffles. No toast. No crumpets. No scones. No smegging heated bread products of any kind.

So, do you want a slice of toast?

That explains Major Zero and his organisation Cipher in the metal gear series