Chindie

I'll be quite happy with someone half decent. Normally I'd hope for someone good, but 'good' might be a bit ambitious now.

We've only had one other foreign manager. 21 Years Ago. ...David O'Leary wasn't that long ago.

Anyone out there who is a bit of an achievement hunter should be warned that the Schrodingers Catch achievement is a sure fire way to insanity, it's largely luck.

Tried Covonia? Looks like theres going to be some truly vile kits about next season.

'Have yow got GTA eye vee?' And the second half of Fight Club. Upto Project Mayhem, fantastic. After... meh.

Finished it. I think I stick by saying it's really, really, really good, but it's not quite got the charm of the first. Or perhaps the novelty might be a better word. I wasn't as sold on the ending as a few people have been. It's pretty good, but a few people have been going on like it's one of the best endings ever. Still, I've enjoyed it. Can't wait to get cracking on the co-op.

I think I'm right near the end, possibly got an hour of gameplay left max I think. I've enjoyed it, obviously, and asides from a 3 or 4 moments I've breezed through it and enjoyed it. I don't think, so far at least, it quite stands upto the originial game, despite having honed and adapted the gameplay mechanics and fleshed itself out. Perhaps thats too hard of an act to live upto, the original verged on perfect. It's still probably one of the best games I've played however. The couple of moments I was stumped by for a while I have some issue with - they, to me, were caused less by the puzzle itself but more by it being slightly unclear of the options. Sometimes the game is a little too blank for me, if that makes sense. But more often than not it verges on perfect. The satisfaction I got from completing one of the the tests,using 2 of the gels, is something I don't think has many equals in the games world. It wasn't even a hard test, but it just flowed superbly.

I put a good couple of hours into it last night. First reaction was it somehow wasn't as good as Portal. But as it's got going I've really enjoyed it. It has the typical little touches that Valve always have great success with, little things with Wheatley, the sarcy tone of your adversary at times. I've genuinely laughed a couple of times and I'm barely into it. HAd a couple of moments of 'Portal mental block' where I've pretty much forgotten some of the potential options open to me at any time and then struggled to finish a test until it's clicked again that 'Oh I can do that...'. I like it. The one annoyance, as a 360 player (I've no idea if other systems are the same) is it loads more often than pretty much any game I can remember in recent memory. It's loading after every test, for a minute or so. For some reason that sticks out to me more with this than any other title.

Not even managed to put in the console yet. Sort of savouring it I think.

IIRC this thread does have some genuine suggestions of hanging children, yes.

...it's been a very, very long day, my brain is fried. I struggled to work out change earlier, when the till told me exactly what I needed to give. My brain couldn't get around working out the coins and notes to equal the amount required. I'll let myself off a spelling mistake this time

A colleague of mine uses them like a full stop. As if his sentences aren't worth reading if they're not sensationalised at the end. Which is usually the case, funnily enough. My manager does this. He also can't spell. On his days off he leaves instructions which read like this 'HI GUYS!! CAN YOU CHECK THAT YOUR FILING PROPERLY, STOCK IS LOOKING BAD! also - - PUSH ON ACESSORIES, WE'RE DOWN! - CAN EVERONE MAKE SURE THEY'VE DONe THEY'RE PAPERWORK! SOME NEEDS GOING BACK UP TO deCEMEBER!!! NEEDS SORTING! - prICE CHANGES NEEDED DONE a.m!' and so on. It's not so much annoyinh as kinda funny, as he sometimes knocks up adverts on offers for the door and windows, which are done in the same way, covered in haphazard exclamation marks. And in Times New Roman size 12.

His contract runs through to 2012. It's the combination of him rejecting the contract and saying this that suggests that is that for his Schalke career. I doubt they'd want to let him walk for free in a year or want the cloud hanging over them of knowin their keeper has his mind elsewhere. Bayern have allegedly agreed a fee for him, but he has been linked to the likes on Manchester United so who knows. Good keeper though.

Neuer has, supposedly, turned down a new contract at Schalke meaning he's definitely on the move this summer. Bayern being the obvious conclusion for his next destination, but maybe not, who knows.

I think there can be a distinction on the fantasy genre hate. Bad fantasy is absolutely atrocious (and theres a fuckton of it). But the good stuff, and it is still being written, tends to be top notch. Sci-fi has a similar problem, imo.

'No' will win handily imo.

Any prediction on what the GE would have been under AV would be fairly pointless, as it's impossible to work out terribly accurately. We don't know how people would have placed their alternative votes, if they used them at all. Any prediction on it would be proper finger in the air stuff and most likely wrong because of the assumptions made to make it.

The 'NO' campaign, from what I've seen, isn't so much trying harder as it is making itself much more easily visible. The campaign has angled itself on very, very simple terms - it's expensive, it'll make us weak, it's complicated, almost no other country worldwide that is a major player uses it, etc etc. Those things, even if a few cases they aren't actually strictly true (cost, by all accounts is a complete red herring and it's the headline act of the anti-AV campaign) explain themselves quite easily and scaremonger and make people wary with little effort. A few ads, some leaflets, etc, and that campaign runs itself. Chuck in the Sun and it's job done. The Yes campaign defines itself, by necessity, on things that can't be really be broken down in the buzzword-y scaremongering of cost and so on, so it's struggled to engage the public, especially when, to be frank, the public by and large has more important things to worry about as far as they're concerned. I've had a leaflet sent to me by the 'NO' campaign, the only one in the house. I'm torn on whether to vote on it at all at the moment to be honest.

Didn't get our delivery today. Damnit.

Hopefully might be able to pick this up today. Very, very hyped for it.

The 360 version has leaked. Don't go anywhere near anything Portal 2 related from here on in. Youtube is absolutely full of spoiler full vids.

I have a bet, made whilst quite drunk, with a mate about Amir Khan. My mate reckons at some point in his career, Khan will be P4P best in the world. I most certainly don't. Even on a purely odds level, chances are he won't even if he wasn't an, imo, pretty flawed fighter. As it is, I doubt he will ever make the top of the Ring mags' list. Money in the bank. Sadly it might take a while to get...

A very welcome result to come home to.

Turns out the Valve ARG was leading to a way of unlocking the game on Steam early. The 'Potato Sack' games, a collection on steam that were the source of the ARG, are being monitored by Valve and the more they are played, the earlier the game may be released for PC Steam account holders.

Hence why a great many artists work isn't on there and a number of songs are regularly removed from it. I seem to remember a big name band (I want to say Metallica...but unsure) spoke about how much they could expect to receive from Spotify usage of their songs and it was pitiful. And thats for one of the biggest bands, ever. I like the idea of Spotify, and indeed I've been a regular user, but I'm not sure it works, and with a 10hr/month limit coming in on the free user profiles, I'll be removing it from my computer soon enough. Music pricing as Peterms raises the issue is complex. Everyone thinks the price of a CD is too much (and it is), but the band itself doesn't see much of that cash - they tend to make their money touring more than anything. IIRC Radiohead's self release of In Rainbows, with the 'pay what you want' policy, was one of the most profitable releases of all time. That model isn't viable long term however because, of course, not every band is Radiohead on the back of a 15 year career (at that time) at the top, and not every band can pretty much self record produce and destribute a top quality album off their own back. It's, for me anyway, certainly a better approach than the standard one from the consumer's point of view. A compromise from that towards the traditional method might work out, but what that compromise I'm unsure.