Life's so drokking fantastic because (the rebirth)

[TordelBack]

Sorry Mardroid, just riffing on Fr. Dougal Maguire's carnival Spider Baby. You know the one, it has the head of a spider... and the body of a spider.

EDIT: and Sauchie's in ahead of me.

[The Legendary Shark]

...Sat on the back of a narrowboat with a cup of tea and a smoke, watching the rain churning up the water, making it look like the whole marina's boiling. Ducks idling past almost at eye level and close enough to touch, dog nodding off at my feet, Classic FM playing in the background.
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The sky's clear to the west and the setting sun is all gold but that's to my back. In front of me, the boiling water, a green bank and the most gorgeous gold-tinged trees I've ever seen, they're almost glowing. Behind them, in achingly perfect contrast, battleship grey thunderclouds. Blue lightning tearing nonchalantly at the sky, birdsong, then the thunder rolls past like a fat lazy Labrador.
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Life doesn't get much better than this.
.
The only thing missing is someone to share it with - so I guess you guys will have to do...  :-D

[ZenArcade]

What, you're living in a narrowboat now!! You lucky bast**d.

[The Legendary Shark]

Yeah, just right at this moment I do feel lucky. After all the crap of the last few weeks, and before all the crap to come in the impending weeks, here's a moment of beauty and calm and contentment.
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And the universe shows me the perfect metaphor - the thunderstorm has passed but there's another on the way - beautiful and awesome and dangerous and inspiring. Just now, though, it's calm.
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I love thunderstorms. I was terrified of them as a child but, after watching somebody overcoming their fear of spiders on Nationwide, decided to sit on the kitchen roof and face the next one. Did that and have loved thunderstorms ever since. They're not only beautiful and awesome and inspiring, they also represent the first fear I properly conquered. Look's like the next one might roll over in the dark...
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Lucky? Yeah - damned lucky, if you ask me. Never felt so alive and so content at the same time.

[ZenArcade]

There is indeed a vitality and romance in thunderstorms, when we were young, my brothers, sister and I used to stand at the window for hours watching them in awe, and I suppose, with a modicum of fear as well.
Still I got enough of sturm und drang outside Belfast comic con todat to do me for a while. Z

[Mardroid]

Sorry Mardroid, just riffing on Fr. Dougal Maguire's carnival Spider Baby. You know the one, it has the head of a spider... and the body of a spider.

EDIT: and Sauchie's in ahead of me.

Oh okay gotcha. It wasn't a dream, honest!

Yeah he probably could have made a bit more effort... Although the pads and same stuff are probably the hardest things to source/make. He did have a big authentic looking badge on the jacket at least.

The Captain America guy was particularly amusing. He had a tiny little shield the size of a frisbee. Against that Father Ted scenes is relevant here. If it's the size of a frisbee and it looks like a frisbee...

At least he had the main iconography, and playing it for laughs is no bad thing. Thinking maybe Dredd should have had cardboard gold painted eagle and shoulder pads. Might have looked rubbish but all bits could be accounted for. I kinda like the idea of parallel universe alternate costume rethinks but I'd probably do that as a generic judge rather than Dredd specifically...

There was also a batman (cool authentic looking cowl...probably hired or bought, black sheet cloak, black jeans/trousers.) and a Jack Sparrow. And a guy in rustic gear I couldn't place... I thought I heard Thor mentioned. If so, his was worse than Dredd...

[Mardroid]

I love thunderstorms. I was terrified of them as a child but, after watching somebody overcoming their fear of spiders on Nationwide, decided to sit on the kitchen roof and face the next one.

I did that on a church steeple once. It was amazingly invigorating, especially that bit with the huge fork of lightening which literally made my hair stand up. It's been unruly ever since but I survived with only minor singeing and the afore mentioned new hairdo.

Woke up the next day in hospital with the ability to hurl thunderbolts and recharge batteries by touch. I got into a spot of trouble when I attempted to recharge an old lady's pacemaker. Last I heard an ambulance was still trying to catch up with the old girl on an 80mph sprint up the M25.

I now only use my powers to recharge my phone, defeat lawbreakers (in costume. Its still a work in progress but I've got the black jeans and coat. Just need to aource the mask....) and occasionally cook dinner.

What was that thing about dreams and reality in that Father Ted scene again?

[TordelBack]

And a guy in rustic gear I couldn't place... I thought I heard Thor mentioned.

Maybe his costume was chafing him? 

[Mardroid]

Life is fantastic as this thread is making me chuckle.

[I, Cosh]

Thunderstorms, yeah? At the age of twelve my family went on our first ever foreign holiday (as a family: as my mum's sister was a nun, she'd been to France and Jersey on assorted conjugal visits but it was the first time my father and I had left this narrow little island) to the south of France. Imagine lots of stuff about a boy's father being entranced by the fresh veg and fish on offer at the local market while a boy is entranced by his first encounter with naked breasts on the local beach.

Anyway, the highlight of the holiday was probably the night when my parents woke me up at two in the morning to come out and watch the thunderstorm. I've since learned that there was some debate over whether I'd be scared by it. Luckily, my dad won that one. There's a type of friction in the air which, like proper fork lightning, is very rare in Britain.

As it happens, it's been a holiday Monday here today and I was sitting by the river with a couple of friends, soaking up the 36 degree heat. Around two hours ago I started to see the occasional strike across the sky from downriver. Pretty quickly, the ominous clouds rolled in and I've been sitting under cover watching nature thrashing away for the past hour.

[Frank]

as my mum's sister was a nun, she'd been to France and Jersey on assorted conjugal visits

?

[ZenArcade]

A nun sequitur.... Z

[TordelBack]

my mum's sister was a nun, she'd been to France and Jersey on assorted conjugal visits

Isn't this the start of a bowdlerised limerick?

I would like to relate my own positive experiences with thunderstorms, and their effect on the libido, but a gentleman never divulges such things... and in my own case the wife would kill me.

[ZenArcade]

Ah go on Tordel, we promise not to tell. Z

[TordelBack]

Nothing could make me commit such a betrayal.

Short of a pint, obviously.