It’s Back to the Future day* tomorrow gents, so ensure you’ve all got the entire trilogy cued up for a three-film one-day mini-Marty-marathon.
*In Back to the Future II, Marty travels to the future. Specifically: 4:29pm, 21st October 2015.
I’m drunk
Enjoy !
The Morning After
What’s in the Green bag, Topo? 
Well I’m not that drunk, but after[size=12pt] SPORTINGGGGGGGGGGG[/size] VICTORY today, the party goes on
Obviously dispatched by Seb and representing our esteemed Deputies, Phil H rocked up on the Priory’s doorstep yesterday evening. But not for one minute was I fooled into believing that this was not about the OUATITW issue, that has sparked the philosophical dribblings over the semantics of the word “transcend” on another thread. The fact that Phil was accompanied by his delightful wife and one of his equally delightful daughters deceived me not, and I knew I had some explaining to do, and with his family representatives present could now no longer resort to violence and forcibly eject him.
The offer of accompanying them to a local hostillery for a couple of beers, followed by a curry and further beers in yet another pleasant boozer, warmed me slightly, and I fell (or so it seems) into the trap laid out for me. :
Once the choir-mistress had distracted the gals from us hombres with talk of embroidery and kittens or some-such, we men (pretending to discuss subjects as diverse as piccalilli and the decline and rise of the British public house) got down to the business of discussing the forum, how it was so nice to have some of the old faces back, and how there was some welcome young blood to add fresh perspectives and keep us old 'uns on our toes. But, even somewhat inebriated by now, 
hornswoggled I was not to be, and although Phil pretended that it wasn’t his mission, the issue of OUATITW was dually discussed, and I have to say the arguments I put forward to substantiate my opinion were pretty convincing! Having duped our deputy into drinking some high-octane thick black winter warmer ale, he’d softened to my theories about the perfect spag being a budget creature, digestible in an 80-95 minute window and being able to be washed down with a couple of brace of fine ale, without having to think or concentrate for extended periods. And so, our evening progressed without the threat of bloodshed and a great time was had by all.
I’ve promised not to bring up ‘the issue’ for at least a while, having been told that at the last Deputies meeting (all expences paid), Stanton was even more delusional than normal regarding his self-proclaimed ability of “understanding everything and everyone” so I’ll provoke you no more Sir and let you recover in peace. 
Still distracted, the gals allowed us to further venture into spaghetti-land where we reminisced about the wonderful time we had watching the Dollars ‘trilogy’ in Almeria all those years ago, and Phil further told me about the marvellous time he’d had going back to Spain, and his crossing the border to visit Brother El Topo (whereupon I felt obliged to inform his deputyness that this forumite had recently turned up for duty severely inebriated and had nearly disgraced himself, but a by now squiffy deputy could only smile and forgive ol’ blue-eyed ET!) We also saluted Brother Caress and giggled in excitement at his suggestion that we get on board for his November shooty-beauty Top 20/30 extravaganza. Merrily we spilled beer and pontificated on our potential omissions and entrants, only really agreeing that Return of Ringo, El Puro, FAFDM and CWC?) would probably make it onto both of our lists. But, all too soon the evening was coming to a successful close and with all talk of exile and treason behind us I bade goodnight to my superior-in-rank and his family, pointed them in the direction of their stable, and retired myself and the c-m to a night of sweet spaghetti-dreams.
Ah bliss!
Bring on the November-thon! 
1 Like
[quote=“Reverend Danite, post:3767, topic:370”]Obviously dispatched by Seb and representing our esteemed Deputies, Phil H rocked up on the Priory’s doorstep yesterday evening. But not for one minute was I fooled into believing that this was not about the OUATITW issue, that has sparked the philosophical dribblings over the semantics of the word “transcend” on another thread. The fact that Phil was accompanied by his delightful wife and one of his equally delightful daughters deceived me not, and I knew I had some explaining to do, and with his family representatives present could now no longer resort to violence and forcibly eject him.
The offer of accompanying them to a local hostillery for a couple of beers, followed by a curry and further beers in yet another pleasant boozer, warmed me slightly, and I fell (or so it seems) into the trap laid out for me. :
Once the choir-mistress had distracted the gals from us hombres with talk of embroidery and kittens or some-such, we men (pretending to discuss subjects as diverse as piccalilli and the decline and rise of the British public house) got down to the business of discussing the forum, how it was so nice to have some of the old faces back, and how there was some welcome young blood to add fresh perspectives and keep us old 'uns on our toes. But, even somewhat inebriated by now, hornswoggled I was not to be, and although Phil pretended that it wasn’t his mission, the issue of OUATITW was dually discussed, and I have to say the arguments I put forward to substantiate my opinion were pretty convincing! Having duped our deputy into drinking some high-octane thick black winter warmer ale, he’d softened to my theories about the perfect spag being a budget creature, digestible in an 80-95 minute window and being able to be washed down with a couple of brace of fine ale, without having to think or concentrate for extended periods. And so, our evening progressed without the threat of bloodshed and a great time was had by all.
I’ve promised not to bring up ‘the issue’ for at least a while, having been told that at the last Deputies meeting (all expences paid), Stanton was even more delusional than normal regarding his self-proclaimed ability of “understanding everything and everyone” so I’ll provoke you no more Sir and let you recover in peace.
Still distracted, the gals allowed us to further venture into spaghetti-land where we reminisced about the wonderful time we had watching the Dollars ‘trilogy’ in Almeria all those years ago, and Phil further told me about the marvellous time he’d had going back to Spain, and his crossing the border to visit Brother El Topo (whereupon I felt obliged to inform his deputyness that this forumite had recently turned up for duty severely inebriated and had nearly disgraced himself, but a by now squiffy deputy could only smile and forgive ol’ blue-eyed ET!) We also saluted Brother Caress and giggled in excitement at his suggestion that we get on board for his November shooty-beauty Top 20/30 extravaganza. Merrily we spilled beer and pontificated on our potential omissions and entrants, only really agreeing that Return of Ringo, El Puro, FAFDM and CWC?) would probably make it onto both of our lists. But, all too soon the evening was coming to a successful close and with all talk of exile and treason behind us I bade goodnight to my superior-in-rank and his family, pointed them in the direction of their stable, and retired myself and the c-m to a night of sweet spaghetti-dreams.
Ah bliss!
Bring on the November-thon! :D[/quote]
A bit delusional, and surprisingly no cider mentioned, but otherwise the post of the year. And so ohhh … transcendental … x-mas can come …
Oh, that was the reason …
For those who haven’t watched it yet:
As per his post above it is true that the good Reverend and I slaved long into the night discussing the theological depths of the term transcends as well as the overall merits of Leone’s epic and whether or not it can really be compared with the rank and file of other Spaghettis and I can happily report that after some hours of tireless debate we both agreed that beer is a very good thing indeed. Also, in a separate but equally dedicated study held simultaneously in Lisbon brother Topo reported that wine is apparently pretty good too.
Now that I’m sober, I have a great will to have a few drinks again after reading the Reverend post, and I always drink to celebrate and remember never to Forget.
[i]Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh. [/i]
Not much active in the last days, been in Algarve coordinating the work caused by the insurance claims due to last week torrential rains in Albufeira
Some real bad urban planning (building near riverbeds never a good ideia), and the power of nature turns into this:
[url]Photobucket | The safer way to store your photos
[quote=“El Topo, post:3772, topic:370”]Not much active in the last days, been in Algarve coordinating the work caused by the insurance claims due to last week torrential rains in Albufeira
Some real bad urban planning (building near riverbeds never a good ideia), and the power of nature turns into this:
[url]Photobucket | The safer way to store your photos
Holy shit!
Anyone got any advice on the best freeware currently available for burning video files to DVD and copying DVDs?
I’ve always used DVDshrink but for some reason it seems to not recognise some types of video files for me now and I’m having all sorts of problems making some discs for a mate.
I have now downloaded WinDVD which I used to have but lost on a computer upgrade a little while ago and that seemed to work fine to begin with but now inexplicably hangs on to the same bloody srt subs file for every film I try and generate. I’ve tried but can’t get rid of it. Consequently I am now trying DVDstyler which works better but is very slow and whatever file type it is creating still isn’t recognised by my DVDshrink software so I can’t simply burn a copy of the discs I have created if I need to later.
I’ve wasted all weekend on this shit and am running out of patience. Any advice that would help free me from this groundhog day nightmare is very welcome.
I use ConvertXtoDVD for all of my DVD burning needs, Phil. Now, it’s not free as such (makers VSO Software want somewhere north of £30 for it, last time I looked), but a man who’s happy to trawl the open torrent sites will find it available for… well, rather less than that, ahem.
but a man who’s happy to trawl the open torrent sites will find it available for… well, rather less than that, ahem.
I’m shocked at the very idea. 
I’ve used DVD Shrink also until a few years ago, until I got CloneDVD which is much easier to use and much quicker.
But I don’t know where to get it and if it is “rather less than that, ahem” or something else.
I use ImgBurn for all my burning. It looks like it has a copy feature but I’ve never tried that. Are you adding a SRT file to an existing DVD folder? I would think that would be a different animal altogether. Autephex is the expert but he seems to have vanished again .
Still use DVD Shrink. But for problem discs I use DVD Cloner which if you look around you can easily get a hacked version.
That ain’t that hard really if you have the right utility programs and know how to use them 
I think Phil is looking for a plain good old program to copy a disc that is, shall we say, slightly copy-protected.