CardiffGreens

Managed to squeeze in a couple of hours last night after the kiddie-winks went to bed. Seems ok, not sure what all the fuss is about to be honest - seems Square will push any old crap out these days. Seriously though, I'm enjoying it thus far (only just to the outside of the slums) - doesn't help I've got some serious muscle memory issues around button assignments from other games that I can't seem to shake - but it's clear there's been a lot of time, effort and heart into it all (even if the lack of cyberpunk aesthetic is a slight downside imo) - and I'm excited to see how gameplay options open up as the available materia grows. Plus I'm doing better than 22 years ago when I got done over by that translation issue at the guard scorpion fight, so that's a positive. It'll be interesting to see how I feel a bit further in, the change of 30 seconds gameplay in the original during the sector 8 escape into the best part of 30 minutes of gameplay (mostly down to be being unable to work out which ladder to climb) is probably a sign of things to come. Minor "spoiler"

Oh for... I guess I shouldn't be surprised given they pulled that nonsense in Crisis Core, (and I lack the time these days to git gud so it's probably nothing that I'll even toy with in game anyway)

Appropriately enough my usual supplier of overpriced tshirts delivered my latest purchase half an hour ago:

Some councils are also offering those who pay over 10 months to be able to extend the payments over 12 months instead, so it might be worth checking their website for a covid update for your options.

Each club sends their mascot to run the 90-s style Gladiator TV final run, travelator and all. Final league standings based on time taken. We can also invite West Brom's Ideal Boiler man* and Marcelo Bielsa's bucket along to give them a shot at promotion. *Yes I know it's not their actual mascot, but it's my idea, so my rules.

After dipping into the FIFA threads in off-topic gaming over the years, @Dave-R is nothing if not enthusiastic about the merits of EA's annual cashino-with-added-football release. And my immediate thought was just to pour as much scorn that the idea of using eSports to complete an actual real-life football league deserves. (For a start, if they were going to do this, it'd been through Kick off 2 anyway). Whilst the UCI has recently taken steps to attempt to codify some rules and regulations around eSport competitions that would fall under their control, these standings will still be separate from actual real life events - and the idea that some digitised representation of a sport, with it's in built failings, exploits and idiosyncrasies (not to mention the multitude of games these days with built in gameplay "problems" that just happen to have a purchasable resolution) could somehow be integrated into real-life sport. Well,, at least it's given me 5 minutes of fun at least.

There's juts been a new model released, so that's compounded the problem. Smyths apparently have 2 available in Wallsend or Durham if you fancy a drive

If it is, they've been playing the long game Appears they were a works team for a WWI munitions producer. So that's today's thing learnt for me at least.

Lily Parr I think is the answer (though did have to cheat myself and do a search or two)

This would also have the benefit that even if decisions were over turned; those decisions are still made by the on-field referee - whose word is final. The current set up is helping undermine that imo. Though I have minor doubts about the implicit psychology in asking a ref to "have another look at that" (whether the act of being asked to review their own decision results in a ref subconsciously looking for something to overturn, rather than confirm their own decision); it cant be worse than the unseen arbitrator of laws that the PL's implementation have given us* On the topic of mics, I was under the impression thats been slated for introducion in the next (couple possibly) seasons - though the officails are wired up at the moment, (and have been for a while) its for their ears only * though naturally I expect the PL to make things worse and leave us pining for the glory that was VAR 2019-20 ...

Looks great, though I did have most of the contents spoiled by news feed popups before I could find it though. All that stuff they have shown there does suggest the delay was for some polish - I was a little concerned there was going to be another delay - but I'm looking hopeful at what we've seen

I recently discovered "vente" referred to the cup being 20 ounces in size (apparently on some secret menu there's a "trente" but I''m yet to find somewhere that sells it, or whether I'd be willing to see what happens after 30oz of coffee). I still ask them for a large out of spite mind.

On the plus point, at least it'll be easier for me to not invest any time into watching it and just pretending it's all just been a horrible dream and that they never bothered to attempt to make it in the first place. Though to be honest, anything that didn't have Rob Brydon as the voice of Carrot was always going to be a let down to me.

Been in game for at least 5 years now.

Without going too off topic, this came up in one of the more useful bits of research from Soccernomics. There isn't generally a correlation between transfer fees and eventual league position (a clubs wage bill was more closely aligned to league positions).

Nah, they've got that spot on (in terms of correctly applying the laws of the game). Though can't disagree with the rest, the handball law is currently a one sided farce loaded against the attacking team. Unfortunately I suspect the remedy in future will be to penalise defensive handballs as punitively as they've done this season with attacking handballs as well.

Because I'm nothing but a laws pedant I thought I have to flag this up; that goal should have been ruled out and a drop ball awarded at the point of impact between the beachball (being an "outside agent") and football. It (the -lack of- application of this law) was brought up by the post-match TV interviewers and an entertaining ignorance of the laws was displayed by both managers if I recall. Prior to the law change this season officials were deemed to be part of the field of play (hence why assistant officials stand far back from the touchline, so there was no chance of them inadvertently preventing a ball from fully crossing the line and rebounding back into play), which is why that whole Andy D'Urso incident happened waaay back when. Back on topic, not sure that NFL-style challenge flags are worth looking into; there are already booth reviews in gridiron for touchdowns and interceptions (so essentially the "game changing incidents" that are already automatically reviewed) - and goals are far more game changing events in association football than american (some cursory googling suggests that whilst it's about 2.8 goals per game in Premier League history and 4.8 TDs per NFL game, association doesn't have the "get out" scoring mechanic of field goals to supplement the scoring) - so essentially every (at least opening) goal would almost certainly be challenged, just on the off chance. And that doesn't even get into the point that you're essentially arbitrarily limiting the scope for corrections on decisions across a game, rather than giving additional opportunities for potential corrections.

Sunderland did pretty much the same thing a few years ago and got nothing more than a fine as well.

Gone for the retro 1998 look then. Shame it wasn't an homage to the 1992 third kit tbh.

Just because I'm a contrarian sod, I also remember Sky charging people £50 a season (or £8 a game) for "extra" matches on top of the sky sports subscription (on top of the bog standard sky subscription) if you wanted all the televised games - for no apparent reason other than that they could.

Heaton kept us in that, but we didn't disgrace ourselves overall. Still convinced we'll pull some of these narrow defeats into undeserved draws in the not too distant future.

For all the good Amazon had brought in/back for their coverage, can't say I'm a fan of the score centre nonsense they've got going on - "there's a goal an anfield, but which way has it gone?!?!?! Let's cut across and find out", vidiprinter then prints the new score 3 seconds into the highlight. Edit, I had the laptop volume ramped up in the first half so couldn't make out the utterly inane witterings of the brains trust they had in the studio. Second half I was regretting my decision in listening to what those puffed-up-self-important-windbags thought. I realise I'm not the lads-lads-lads-banter-wheeeey target audience for the stylings of messers Cole, Savage and Sherwood but **** hell, that was atrocious. They do realise that we are also watching the same pictures that they are right? Simply saying things like "look at this counter!" really doesn't add much to proceedings when I am in fact, also watching that counter.

I wonder if Southgate is resting a few for what would be the harder of the two matches (even if Kosovo's star striker is out injured). Stratch all that sarcasm about Mr. Stones getting a run out, shows how much attention I've been paying this season, since he has been playing a fair bit recently...

Sir Harry now up to joint outright 6th record scorer, bit of a jump till he can catch up with lil' Mickey Owen though. Nice to have a stress free football match for once.

Got to be Gordon Banks in goal...