forameus

My wee one will "graduate" next year. Love him to bits, but I'll only be attending that farce under heavy protest.

Sharon's absolutely raging that her son can't go to her Granddaughter's nursery graduation, but this can go ahead. Absolutely sin soitis that he'll miss such a momentous occasion. I'm not sure what I expected to be honest, but it looks a bit shit. And I imagine it'll look even more horrific in the closing minutes of a night session when everyone's tanked up.

That "No Face Coverings" one is brilliant. Just think how many eyes that had to go past at UEFA and whatever agencies they're using, and not one person thought "that's a wee bit silly, isn't it?" Can't wait for all the jobsworth stewards to combust as they struggle with the paradox of "Wear/Don't wear yer face coverings"

This is going to end up like airports. "HAUD ON! You can't close that clear plastic bag, and that sandwich isnae regulation! Guards!"

Can imagine the utter ridiculousness of the discussions on this. Instead of just, you know, the sensible decision of accepting that people can queue like pandemic adults to get a flat coke, they'll now be negotiating on what's ok. Are Fruit Shoots fine? Do we have an issue with fizzy drinks? Or is it anything with colour? Farcical stuff.

Remember when Shayna Baeszler looked like an absolutely terrifying monster who would quite happily break anyone on the roster in half? Remember the long undefeated streak? Remember her breaking people's arms? I don't usually mind the Fiend stuff, but they still seem intent on making the wrong decision at every turn. Bliss is trying her level best to keep things going, Baszler should absolutely be doing better things. Instead we've got this mix of Hulk Hogan's "Man in the Mirror" segment and Steiner having a feud with a recording of Chucky.

Decent example, as after loving Skyrim, I went back to Oblivion and just couldn't get into it with how much worse it looked and played. Had I got to it at the time, I'd probably have been similar blown away.

Pretty sure it was on my list. It's another "at the time" choices, as it has dated pretty badly. It's riddled with bugs, it looks relatively poor, but at the time it was a world you could just get lost in. Soundtrack was lovely too. Deserves its place IMO.

Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and think that there's plentiful supplies, it's still an incredibly poor decision that doesn't make much sense. The process around opening and operating a concessions stand is absolutely no different to other businesses that they're happy to have open outside of stadiums. Queueing has gotten a bit worse but has been pretty distanced for over a year now. Restaurants and cafes have managed to serve food while complying with restrictions for a few weeks and at sporadic points throughout the pandemic. Bars have even managed to serve indoors for a few weeks outside of Glasgow. No part of the decision makes much sense. And it is a bit like "aye but what if" with the potential problems, and most of them are likely fanciful and unlikely to happen. But if one person takes a really bad reaction to having to sit in the warm weather with no refreshments, there's going to be a lot of questions that I don't think they'll have a particularly good answer to.

I mean...I just don't get it. Like, I understand that they'll be shutting them because it's a contact point, but the alternative is, like you pointed out, treating them literally worse than someone getting the jail. And for once, that's not hyperbole, and I'm not sure how they can defend that. If they ran concession stands, realistically would there be any Covid cases? Loaded question, but you'd imagine not, as most will be masked up constantly, distanced queueing (like we've been doing in every fucking place for over a year now) and all that. But surely the prospects of problems relating to shutting concessions are far more likely to happen. I went to a gig in Berlin, and due to a colossal f**k-up, my wife and I ended up with 20 Euros on us. No cash machines and no card machines at the kiosks. Shite. So we had to survive what ended up being about 4-5 hours on two drinks (one drink was 12 Euro with a "commemorative cup"...if you brought back the cup, you got a refill for something like 7, hence 2 drinks). By the time we got back nearer to the hotel, I was a fucking husk. And that was my own fault, not essentially Government mandated. Put a few thousand in that situation, I don't doubt you'll get some people suffering at best. Then do you get people sneaking stuff in? Someone then launch a bottle at a player as an indirect result of not being able to get any kind of drink inside the stadium? It's a fucking farce. Seems very much to me like they've essentially been railroaded. They seem to be doing their level best to kill any sense of fun or hope into the whole thing, so I can only assume they thought doing a Dublin would've been a political mistake. And now that they've rode the wave of saying they're letting the fans in, they don't give a shit how unpleasant they make the experience. I don't doubt that if we get a positive result, it'll be a brilliant experience for those in there, but it's actually making me not envy people who are getting to see us at our first major tournament in over 20 years. THat's some going.

See they're still attempting to pour cold water over the Fanzone plans, despite said Fanzone looking like its had the meat already built. Screens look to be mostly built, yet SG now saying "nah, huvnae decided yet, pal". I know this is difficult stuff and that things can change, but its gone beyond being cautious now. And the news about no refreshments...Jesus christ. Is that UEFA or SG deciding? Like people have said, there'll be those with conditions, and I dare say some might end up a bit worse for wear, particularly if it ends up in hot weather. Great we all avoided covid from the drinks stand, but wee Tams now in hospital from dehydration. Then he caught covid anyway.

West Ham appear to be a popular choice, with Stone Cold, HHH, Rollins AND Batista "supporting" them.

Yeah, the friendlies part too, as it's only recently we've essentially been forced into them. From now on, if you've got a regular who stays fit, they'll be playing at least 16 games a cycle just with Nations League, Qualifying (and any friendlies to fit in the gaps). Even without tournaments (which hopefully we'll at least participate in every Euros, if not World Cups) that'll likely be 100+ caps for the likes of Gilmour alone. Tierney, barring calamity, will surely beat the record of 102.

Caps will get slightly skewed by tournament appearances. Even if you're a Group Stage jobber, that could be anything from 15-20 caps over a career for a player. But of course, there's a lot more to it than that. The highest cap totals will be for players who were brilliant at an early age and have had sustained quality putting them above other options for most of their career. We rarely promote a player from the youth groups early, we rarely have anyone that seems good enough to do so, and no-one has really matured into being a must-pick at a late age (and if they have, it's rarely combined with getting caps earlier in his career). The likes of Gilmour will likely get stupid numbers of caps. Robertson and Tierney will end up on high totals too.

I've watched a few Youtubers delve into it, but it's usually a light-hearted piss-take rather than fully throwing themselves into it. But you're right, some people get so incredibly into it, but it often pushes into cringe. One video I saw had a whole group of people holding a "funeral" for a character in a hospital. The guy doing the video was on the more light-hearted side, and got a tearful (or at least sounded like) dressing down from the...wife, I guess? Serious shit.

They remastered it on the Wii, didn't they? I had a shot of it a while back, having never played the original, and I thought it was dated shite. That's not to say the original was at the time, because clearly it's up there with one of the most important and loved games in the genre. Also, local couch-play split-screen. Fucking bring it back you fucking cowards.

At the risk of sounding like I'm skipping the queue, are these potential tickets all going to go to those that got stripped of them rather than a more general sale?

There's a certain mod who's more likely to promote you than ban you for that...

Black is one of those surprising but not surprising..crazy that they can't find something for someone that good, but they never seemed to really "get" him once he left NXT. But Strowman...what the f**k's gone on there? Only sensible options seem to be that he's asked for it, or he's done something wrong, but neither seems to be the case at the moment going by what's been said. He seems the prototypical fed guy. Nothing flashy, no indie background, but a big lad who could be there doing that for years and years. Utterly baffling.

I think it'll be a quite interesting follow-up to run some kind of bracket with the top 64 or so games. Loses any kind of objectivity by just being a straight nomination, and gets all the head's gones in early.

I think TLOU is overrated. I don't think it's a bad game by any means, it's just that once you get past the admittedly well-written story, it's just...there. I don't think there's anything it does particularly well outside of that. It looks good, it has good set pieces, it plays well, but nothing really jumps out as being amazing. I think 2 did a few more things well (although one was "rope physics"...aye) and had another engaging story (and bonus points for the absolute head's gones that a lot of VLs had over certain points) but again, nothing revolutionary. Of course, none of that is at all bad. If a game can be consistently solid in all areas, that's better than a lot will manage. It's just not particularly special for me. Or maybe I'm just a contrarian hipster bellend who would tell you what he likes but you wouldn't have heard of it.

Skyrim was brilliant at the time, but has just aged pretty poorly. Not helped by their desperate need to bring it out on every platform over a course of what seems like decades. If Elder Scrolls 6 comes out with the same love for the environment and soundtrack, just with updated combat systems and visuals, it'll be brilliant.

I'd always recommend walking back from Hampden, particularly with less crowds on the streets this time around. If it's a nice enough day, just walk out there too. Safer than cramming onto a train. It's not exactly a short walk, but if you can do it, you may as well.

There's a massive following for people writing CM/FM stories. Well, I say that, as a lot of them nowadays just seem to be screenshots of results at random intervals, while people reply "keep up the good work m8" and other insipid pish. I used to do them quite a lot when I still played a lot of FM, but making them decent is a lot of work. I peaked with a 100-season, 3-manager epic many years ago. But if someone's a decent writer and can put a bit of imagination into it, they can be utterly compelling in ways they absolutely shouldn't be. I remember one I read where a guy set out to achieve some combination of trophies, and ended up failing pretty early. The rest wasn't really achieving much of anything, but it was well-written, funny and compelling. Not sure what it was. At least I won't need any water when that one gets pulled out the hat. The tears will sustain me x

That's two interesting points. On the crowd reaction, it would have been much better if they could have found someone that would've got a positive reaction to beat. They've got a chance of painting Reigns as a proper heel, but no chance he gets that reaction in front of a (presumably) happy clappy salutin' Cena. Not a huge deal, of course. After all, they had him beat Bryan at WM with little fanfare. On the Fiend part, I kind of hoped we'd get a Funhouse match with Orton at WM, then in a wee throwaway scene you get Cena running away confused or something. Would be a nice (and rare) bit of continuity from them, and give them a reason why he'd suddenly be around. But you know they're just going to completely ignore it