Cars in cambridge

Based sort of on real events.

Me: You know, I really should get a car. It'd be so useful. It'd be quicker to get to places, I can give people lifts, go out and not drink, join rush hour properly,...
Naath: [interrupts] Where are the others? We've been waiting outside twenty minutes.
Me: Uh?
Naath: Oh sorry, what were you saying?
Me: Twenty minutes? Um, nevermind.

(OK, there would be many good things. Shopping. Lifts. Keeping dry. Long journeys. But is a lot of faff for something I'd use at most once a week and probably less.)

However, today, I definitely did meet my match in Douglas's low, two seater, open top, sportything[1]. We left games evening together and I kept up all the way onto arbury road[2], when he overtook and roared away on the long straight. (Apologies if I got in your way on the narrow bit.)

[1] It is very comfortable.

[2] Without even any dodgy road-cyclepath-road switching. Note for other cyclists: do not *literally* swap your road hat for a cycle path hat or vice versa to avoid traffic lights, even if you consider it a wise thing to do notionally. This tends to impair your ability to have children because, viz, respectively, (a) you look really stupid and (b) you will knee yourself in Mr and Mr gangly-googly falling off your bike.

Pizza conversations

* At pizza. An explanation of how to stuff a game of mao. You wouldn't even think this needed to explicated, but apparently rules that break causality are really unhelpful; I didn't think there was any game crossing mao with could make it more complicated, but I guess chrononauts qualifies :)

* By the River, to L. "You know, it's been 8.30 for an awfully long time. I'm thinking my shiny new phone doesn't refresh that part of its screen during a call."

* By the River, to A. "Here's everyone I met and everything I said this week bleeaargh. What do you think? What about you? Aah! It's 10.00!"

* To the door to pembroke. Ah, stout door, how I associate you with not-remembering-which-college-you-are during my first year, and not-poohsoc-at-all-because-no-one's-actually-had-a-room-inside-in-my-time-here. Why do you shut? It's really not worth bothering, is it? To post pizza!

* The really really quiet one, when we all talk in low voices just to see if we can. It is nice and peaceful, but always creeps up again as people compete for the urgency of what they want to say. Speaking objects are mooted, but then mooted.

* I should have proper air drums for "ba-dum tssch" moments.

* I should have proper air guitar for whenever I play an Ace of Spades ("dnadnaNaaaaa"). Maybe I could train my computer to play a sound file five seconds after I say "Ace of Spades", that could actually work. The drums would still be difficult though.