Q: What is a noop?

As sometimes happens, I had to summon the fortitude to crawl out of my cosy flannalette sheets (my bed just screams carnality, no?) at the obscenely early hour of 5am this morning so that I might go and sit in a cubicle and listen to endless talkback calls about the river and proposed anti association laws for bikies (plus one particularly stupid news item about a doctor who thinks young healthful types ought to be allowed to sell their kidneys). Don't pull a muscle envying me too much, there.

But despite the brutally early start, I willingly ensconsed myself last night in the most beautiful home or my even beautiful-er friends Maddy and Nathan to indulge in a spirited game of the universe's supremo boardgame.

Absolute Balderdash. Or "Absolute Brilliance" as one might justifiably call it.

With bff mtk snuggled next to me on the couch and all the stoners in the room (them: joints + me = paranoid wreck) heightening their abstract creativity, we were off in a mad race to trick, deceive and gallop towards the board's end.

For those who haven't lived played, Absolute Balderdash is quite simply more fun than a hatful of mischievous monkeys. Basically, there are five categories: word, person, acronym, movie and date. The dasher (board game geek speak for person wot turn it is) selects the category she thinks she can fool the most people with and then reads out the word, title, initials etc. Everyone else then writes the word/s down along with a definition they think THEY can fool all the other players with. Dasher then reads the answers out (about a million times each if the dasher is Nathan) and then everyone guesses. Points are awarded based on how many people you fool, if you guess the correct answer, and if no one guesses the correct answer. Hilarity ensues, and people try desperately not to die from 'ribzuka' (which last night was potentially a disorder whereby people suffer internal bleeding from excessive, impossible-to-stop laughter).

It. Is. Awesome.

Where else could you learn that the word 'extispicey' is not actually a term employed by Hollywood studios in the 1960s to describe the desired performance from actors when playing Asian characters, but rather the practice of fortune telling through examining the organs of animals that have been struck by lightening?

You'd be ignorant of the fact that 'Crazy Fat Ethel II' is not a stirring silent film about two brothers' attempts to build a build a hot air balloon so strong it can take them to the moon, but instead the sequel to Crazy Fat Ethel I about an obese mental woman who is so hungry she goes on a murderous people eating rampage - or that said sequel is so bad, it's actually mostly just flashbacks filmed pirate style from a TV playing the original.

That acrynym 'P.O.C.O' does not stand for Psychic Octogenarian Conspiracy Operatives, but in fact Physiology Of Chimpanzees in Orbit?

And you certainly would never, at the end of the game when everyone is tired and too mellow from wacky cigarettes and wants the game to be over because they've plundered their best material and are working with nothing, have the supreme enjoyment that comes from asking for a brief synopsis of the film Girl In My Pocket and inspires the following:



"Film: Pussy In The Snake-Den.

A scientific experiment goes horribly wrong. A story about searching."

- Nathan"



I practically died from Ribzuka on the spot.

Peace out (for larks and giggles, get thee to a Target and pick up your very own copy. You need never leave the house again!)