... The Week with Extra Mr Prada

Nobody can say I don't listen to my legions of fans.
Due to overwhelming request today's post will have the first MR PRADA content for a while. Quite a while I see after doing the research and noting his last appearance was back in June. He must have been doing something wrong, or right, to not warrant any mentions in The Tales in all that time.

And so to business.


The Early Week
I was lucky enough to spend the early part of the week back at my desk and luxuriating in the company of MR PRADA and others at my home branch. It was an unusual experience after the last few months however, sure enough, I was soon dragged back to the other branches.


The Fresh Starts
The rest of the big things of note this week seem to be gaming related - there was some big statistics things but that is more boring than hearing MR PRADA prattle on about mapleland's superiority.

We had another great session on Tuesday with the evening seeming like a fresh new game - said freshness having nothing to do with the absence of Gavman or Pirate Dave and all to do with lower numbers making for a more free flowing game, plus without Pirate Dave punning me or Gavman stunning me with his gaming non sequiturs every 30 seconds I was much better able to run the game.

On Wednesday I suffered once more at the hands of The Viking Hat GM as he forced me to partake in another of his games and play a foppish noble yet again, although he will surely claim "the dice did it!".

Thursday gaming did an abrupt about face as we (well Fantomas and I) decided to switch from space to fantasy in order to help our newest gamer adjust to what it's all about and ensure that the gaming addiction would take properly.
I look forward to rolling out a long brewing fantasy of mine involving all present even as I mourn the loss of the space adventures.


The Maple Maverick Returns
This week did see the return of The Maple Maverick however my only real interaction with him was to bamboozle him with a new backup tape system - much like the way MR PRADA bamboozles us lesser fashionistas with his dazzling array of finery.


Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly
Along the way this week I finished reading the latest, for me, book from Mr Reilly.

I was immediately struck by how much the story read like a parody of himself - similiar to the way in which MR PRADA's recent freakouts have become just a parody of the earlier installments. It was vaguely reminiscent of several of Legion4's boyhood stories of spydom almost verbatim in some cases - "some bad guys came running so I pulled out a grenade and threw it at them" - would not have looked out of place in this story.

It was also full of obvious repetition of plot elements and ridiculous cliffhanger endings to paragraphs that were contradicted at the beginnings of the paragraphs immediately following.

e.g. they fired at him with a rocket launcher that couldn't miss in the enclosed space...

Which missed by an inch as he ducked underneath the rocket.

Oh well Mr Reilly not your finest hour and somewhat tarnishing my memories of those of your older books I did enjoy.

Skyping the Svets again
I spent a raging Friday night on the internet phone to Svetlana much to her amusement that I had no partying to go to. One can't believe that she is blind to the obvious sacrifice I made of my rich social life to spend time talking to her. It's like MR PRADA and I were saying the other day in the library over a metaphorical beverage, "chix man, who can understand them?".

Speaking of my rich social life I must be off to attend Legion3's Half 70 party. I shall return bearing tales aplenty methinks.
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