the_eristic

Bent did make a couple threatening moves through the middle, one of which left him essentially with an open goal, but Benteke didn't look up and blasted it into the side netting. Wish Lambert would've handled the subs differently. Essentially brought on the right players out of what was available, but in the wrong order/for the wrong people. Sylla for Bowery to reinforce the midfield, then Bent for N'Zogbia with Weimann staying on to maintain our attacking presence, Holman for whoever was most shattered when/if we'd taken the lead again. The particular way in which our subs were made left nobody to play creator for two forwards who are both on the selfish side and one of which relies entirely on supply.

I've lost 99 Humanity and about 1M souls trying to take down a late game boss at SL25. If you play for a while, losing your bloodstain will become much less upsetting. Games like PES and FM make me much angrier than Dark Souls, because the scripting takes control away from you. When you die in Dark Souls, it's always on you. Just get into that mindset ahead of time, "I'm going to die, it will be my fault, I will learn, I will approach what killed me more thoughtfully next time" and the anger gets replaced by calm focus and a touch of, well, paranoia.

Patience is the name of the game. Well, not literally, but you know what I mean. You must wait for your opportunities, take time to understand how the mechanics work. Otherwise, you're gonna have a bad time.

Playing Dishonored. It's so close to being good, but just... just isn't quite there. The difficulty isn't there (except those **** hagfish, most dangerous enemy in the game!), the AI isn't there, the combat isn't there, perhaps most disappointingly, the purported freedom isn't there. The areas aren't really that large and are almost entirely linear, there might be multiple ways to approach them but each of those ways is completely telegraphed. The only thing it nails is atmosphere, via the art direction, writing + voice acting and the "lore" (for instance, the Heart's secrets are my favorite part of the game), but even then, it never really capitalizes on the darkness and intensity promised. It's like a slow burner that never actually catches fire. I think the only way I'm going to get what I want out of it is to go for the "Ghost" playthrough on the highest difficulty with no powers (which completely trivialize everything, as cool as they are), but even then, I now know all the paths and AI mechanics, so I dunno. It had incredible promise. I'm pretty disappointed.

If only Benteke had looked up and found Bent instead of blasting that shot. He had a direct line to Darren standing right in front of goal just yards away.

Just for the sake of accuracy (I have no interest in the argument at hand, whatever it is), Bennett came on for Lichaj shortly after the break, immediately before Chelsea hit us for the remaining five of their goals.

Going back to the first post, Chelsea won 55 out of 67 with Robben starting. That is pretty remarkable. Will be interesting to see how the Cleverly stat compares when/if he gets the same amount of starts for United.

Still playing Dark Souls, keeping this build at SL25 and invading people in the Burg and Parish as insane Solaire and doing some friendly Darkwraithing when the hosts are uber-noobs. Was playing Dust 514 quite a bit, but there isn't much left to do until the next patch. Picked up Dishonored since the price dropped, should be starting it tonight.

Should've been out of sight after the first half with those chances, but for our endemic lack of composure. Then again, that's our second half syndrome, too, just at the opposite end (Brad excluded).

That can't be that agent's real name. Eris = strife, discord. Kismet = fate, destiny. It is just about the perfect name for a football agent, though.

I swear, if I ever see John Carew in public, I will bear hug him till we both cry tears of manly joy. What a hero.

Thought Herd was still injured? Will be interesting to see who PL chooses and how he lines them up. Maybe: Sylla--------------- --------Westwood --------------------- -----N'Zogbia----- If Bannan plays, though, he'll invariably be deployed too deep to be of any use, and surely Ireland won't be getting a game. If Vlaar is back, maybe Clark into DM?

Even if he didn't play too much, it'd be nice to have a well-regarded and experienced head with a seemingly genuine affection for the club in the squad. We need a few around for the young'uns.

How can anybody say anything about how good or bad he is, who is in front of him, etc? He's just arrived here, none of us have really seen anything of him yet! It's pretty common for new signings to be introduced gradually, so you can't say "Oh, he didn't start within two games of coming to a new league in a new country. Clearly, this player is worse than HItler."

Fear not! I'm a professional musician! If there's any job title that doesn't sound successful... I'd say exactly the opposite. It's a job title that sounds fantastic to most of us, but the reality is not as romantic as Joe Public imagines. I dunno, maybe it's a cultural difference, but when someone here asks you what you do, and you respond with professional musician (really an artist or performer of any kind, doesn't matter the medium), you immediately and invariably find yourself placed in the "worthless people who will never make any money and will die in the gutter, probably of herpes" category, unless they're drunk and/or you're already famous. Then, though still not "respectable", you might be tolerable.

Fear not! I'm a professional musician! If there's any job title that doesn't sound successful...

Hot Chocolate with Fernet Branca. Pretty fantastic combination. Wonder how Branca Menta would work.

It's a stretch, but a creative one! It'll have to do!

*desperately searches for appropriately-named player to suggest signing along with him for rock-and-hard-place puns*

It always happens to us, doesn't it? We have a great opportunity, it crashes off the goalpost, opposition who haven't won away all season get just about the same chance, they go up 2-0.

All this talk of wage problems, why doesn't somebody just show Lambert where the "Adjust Budget" slider is? Please don't let the "Edit" button be greyed out!

I just don't get how he's so ineffective both in training and in the dressing room. He wouldn't have been my first choice, but when he was hired, I thought "at least this guy will get us organized and fighting", as those are things guys coming from less moneyed clubs have to be able to do. Somehow, though, he's got us delivering the same limp-dicked garbage on and off the pitch almost every week. It's flabbergasting, as his Norwich players on average weren't better than what he has here. Can he just not get our players on his side?

We've had this problem for a while, at least back to MON (especially once we hit March in his case). It's like it's drilled into the club's mentality somehow. We know we're going to throw away that comfortable lead the instant the second half whistle blows.

Poked my nose back into FM2012 for some reason, within one week (in game) virtually all my world class scouts came to me screaming 5 Stars Must Sign over a then-19-yr-old Burkinabé right back at Shakhtar valued at 3.1m. Spent nearly a year trying to sign him because I needed better right back depth and couldn't find anybody else I liked. He was already a significant improvement on my above-average 23-yr-old starting player, and he was willing to come for a fair raise and better quality of football (I'm spanking the Bundesliga with SC Freiburg and doing well in CL every year). SD played hardball, though, as he was a prized asset with 3 years left on his contract. When ,eventually, I got close enough number-wise for them not reject my offer out of hand, they countered with 30m which I could not cover with a=the mere ~3.5m left in my pocketbook. I was so frustrated and annoyed from the months of rejections and haggling, I decided I was going to be irresponsible and make this happen no matter what, so I did some number crunching, fiddled with the budgets, got them down to 24m and got it done with 3m up front, 13m over 48 months, the rest in fairly long term bonuses 9which will no problem if this season stays on course). So, finally got the guy, and yes, his stats are outrageous, he's performing well and the fans and coaches are jumping for joy, but I'm somewhat annoyed with myself for putting so much work and all my money into signing him, leaving me neither funds nor wages to grab good cheapies and frees from Africa, SA, etc, which is my normal strategy for boosting profitability. "Is this guy really worth it?" Couldn't take the nagging doubts anymore, went and downloaded Genie Scout, looked the guy up and... CA 160 PA 199 My God. Going to be the single best player in the world in a few seasons. It had to be a right back, didn't? Just had to be. My only concern now is how annoyed I'm going to be trying to buy him for my next club in a few seasons!