the_bully_wee

I see that Carol's having its network premiere on C4 tonight, at 9. Would recommend it to anyone who's not yet seen it. An aspiring and conflicted young photographer (Rooney Mara) develops a relationship with a pending divorcee (Cate Blanchett) in 1950's Manhattan.

Can't say I've ever heard that particular cover, but yes I have heard of Oasis. I wish I was that young!

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Both are, of course, wildly different (not least due to being series vs film), but deal with similar issues and the same general theme. I'm due a re-watch of Perks, having not seen it since shortly after its release. I have to say, though, that I think I prefer 13RW, but I would need both fresh in my mind to really compare them. On Bowie and Heroes, I'd have to say that being around the age of the characters in question (16 circa 2012), I think a surprisingly large amount of my peers wouldn't have been able to identify the song. He and his music only really had a breakthrough with my generation after he died. That said, it's not unreasonable to assume that characters like Watson's and Miller's would be into the 70's/80's music scene.

Not many people know about it, but the "Criminal Mastermind challenge" on heists nets you a one-time, $10m dollar bonus. However, it's incredibly difficult to do, requires a lot of communication and a lot of time. You have to do each of the five heists in order, on hard difficulty, with the same crew, and without anyone dying whatsoever. You're allowed to fail missions by blowing up objective vehicles/packages, but nobody can die at all. I somehow managed to do it with my chump mates, but only at the 4th or 5th time of asking. Of course, for people without excessive first-year-student-y amounts of free time, it's something which is basically impossible to accomplish. I wasted $8m of my winnings on a yacht which I've been on about twice.

The heists on it are great fun, the only drawbacks being each one takes a couple of hours and they require 4 of you to be on concurrently (unless you enlist randoms who are notoriously flaky). You also have to own a "high-end apartment" to host them, which probably costs about $500k. If any of you were up for it then I'd do them with you, as it's the quickest way to earn a good amount of cash.

Middle-aged folk just don't understand. Sigh.

No shame in finishing 8th in the bottom tier. Or there shouldn't be, particularly for a Montrose man like yourself whose club has done so for the last century

I'm glad to have brought such unity to the region. 12 pages and counting

For folk to come back to a dormant thread after 6-9 months shows it's a successful wind-up. Of course I'd rather that the pointless community projects were occupying 8th, 9th and 10th and the thread had everyone out with pitchforks demanding a merger, but this outcome is also pleasing.

It isn't. 11 pages of reaction is far more than I could reasonably have hoped for.

Obscenely pleasing to see this thread on the go 9 months later.

McNiff, Lowdon, McNeil, Johnston and Flynn are all on 2 year deals, I believe.

That was a good finale; plenty going on, with various twists and turns (however predictable some may have been). I'm glad Sasha is gone, because she was a bit of a damp squib. It's somewhat surprising that she was regarded by the creators as such a main character that it was felt all those flashbacks/forwards were necessary, particularly given her stunt didn't take out Negan, but they didn't take anything away from the episode as a whole. I'd agree with assessments that there are quite a lot of "meh" characters like her in the show, though none I think are completely shite. It's becoming harder to stay as invested in the "core" main characters - perhaps a slight case of familiarity breeding contempt. Looking at it from a wider angle, I'd say the fact the show's floundering a bit can be attributed to three things in the main. For clarity, I'm presenting these as someone who's never read the comics. Firstly, the fact they set the bar so high with an outstanding first few seasons doesn't help their case. Due to the fact the characters were all relatively new (and with other survivors appearing fairly regularly), you were constantly being fed new bits of information about them and had little idea of what the next plot development was set to be or who was going to get bitten/killed, which kept it fresh and exciting. Second is the fact that, as the show's elapsed, it has become increasingly apparent that there's unlikely to be a cure for the infection. In S1 you had the beacon of hope that was the CDC, then the next few seasons saw a lot of new blood/movement/deaths/drama before Eugene, Abraham and Rosita appeared (in S4?) with the promise of getting to Washington. Once that was burst (S5?), it became solely about survival (and in the one place) for the next two seasons. Even with the introduction of the fantastic ultimate b*****d Negan, sizeable losses in Alexandria and the deaths of some popular characters, it just feels a bit stale, particularly with the slow pace of most of S7. Lastly, and another result of the passage of time, is the fact that virtually every main character is now skilled in combat and dealing with walkers. It's another thing which removes a deal of unpredictability. The show does get a fair bit of heat for portraying "the untouchables" getting out of ridiculous situations a fair bit, which is something I'd certainly agree with. It can be difficult to believe some of the decisions they make to get into those scenarios in the first place. Another small point about the show that irks me somewhat is the idealism/(temporary) abandonment of principles in the show: there's the bit above about Sasha fucking off into the forest instead of staying around the gunfire (why did none of Negan's men kill her straight away?), and the fact that we were told a scratch would cause infection - yet we've only ever seen a bite cause someone to turn. Plenty of other examples of similar inconsistencies dotted throughout the show. That's only a minor gripe, though. It's hard to imagine a direction they could take it in after the Negan conflict is resolved which would make the show a compelling/worthwhile watch, so unless some drastic game-changer is afoot, I hope they can come up with a good ending and wrap things up fairly soon.

Who the f**k are you?

We have signed David Goodwillie. Incredible.

It's a brilliant game. Still can't believe it was free at release - a masterstroke from both Psyonix and PSN. In my opinion, it's the only game that PS Plus has had which has been genuinely worthwhile, outside a few indie titles. I've managed to get pretty good at it but I still make too many silly mistakes to break into the Champion ranks; in Season 3 I tended to float between All Star and Superstar.

Well that was fucking brutal. Sacked with two games of the season to go, a point from safety and well in the mix. The board demanded a top-half finish, and even a 3-1 victory over St. Mirren in the 4th round of the Scottish Cup didn't sway them As can be seen below, the problem throughout the season was a complete lack of goals. Changed to a more attacking outlook after the first third of the season in the hope that my two "leading League 2" centre backs would remain steady, but after conceding just 2 goals in our first 7 games it all went a bit pear-shaped. Only had 16 signed players, 3 of which were goalkeepers, so was on a bit of a hiding to nothing from the start. My main centre mid got sent off 6 times through the season thanks to his "dives into tackles" trait, and was banned/injured for 16 league games in total. Mitch Megginson pulled the usual billy big baws routine and wanted away come January, which only served to reinforce the rock-bottom morale already endemic through the squad. Seething. Table: Results:

Started this last night and I'm already a seething mess. 9 games in with Cove Rangers and I've scored 3 league goals, albeit I've only conceded 4. Started off relatively well, with a win and 5 draws, but had a couple of narrow defeats recently. Incredibly annoying, as we've been the better team in virtually every game and just not scored enough goals, despite having a star man (leading League 1 player) in Mitch Megginson. My central midfield is reasonable with a bit of potential and my centre backs are theoretically quite strong, but haven't been performing very well of late. The rest of the squad is very meh. Not looking forward to this youth intake, not one bit.

Had a whirl on Drop Zone tonight - it's incredibly stressful, totally breathless and brings some utter scenes. A load of fun.

There's nothing better than when they give you fixtures on two consecutive days

I've seen a few posts/videos on FM forums saying you can disable it in the pre-game editor, so I'll probably just fire up another save. Two seasons of work lost, but my main save on every FM is a Clyde "road to glory", which is made borderline impossible without PCAs. They really ought to have put in an option on the game creation screen whereby you can disable "real world" simulated events or whatever. I applaud the realism they try to bring to the game but I doubt Brexit will affect football that much, unless the Tories do indeed go for the jugular and strip everyone of their human rights.

Bought this a few weeks back and got a decent Clyde save on the go following a total Holocaust of a first attempt. Or at least it was decent, until Brexit happened and the Bosman ruling was abolished in late 2017. 10% chance of that occurring, it would appear. So, unfortunately, it's looking like I'll have to start again and either remove Brexit or the Bosman ruling part of it in the editor as it'll be absolutely no fun from hereon in. Fucking Tories.

GET THAT TAE FFF-