Fierce_LiNk

I am so incredibly disappointed that a club that I love and hold very close to my heart have done this. Can't say anything other than gutted. There have been rumblings about this for some time, but following the news yesterday...it just felt different. Like this was inevitable. Absolute greedy bastards. I hate the sound of the Champions League reforms, but I hate the sound of this so-called Super League even more. It's elitist, it's cynical, and it's come from a place of greed and disloyalty that I just cannot get behind it. It's ultimately so disrespectful to the other clubs in the country. I am far from a fan of Leeds United, but that club have played their way into the Premier League and have earned the right to compete against the best in the country. The same goes for Leicester City. They have grafted and have worked to get into the top tier. The idea that the "big" clubs can just cart themselves off into a league where they cannot be relegated or displaced is absolutely disgusting. They are building a wall around the top 6 and are effectively saying to the other clubs that they're not invited. Even the idea of having those 5 extra teams coming in on a rotational/merit basis isn't enough because of the other immovable teams. It's not coming from a place of merit or fairness. The fans of the game are the very last ones to be consulted on this and they have been dropped this bombshell without any input being asked of them. It's wrong. It's their club. These players, managers, chairmen, boardroom people, the suits, they all come and go, but the fans are your one constant who will always remain and stick with the club. To do this is just taking the absolute piss. We're living in a time where fans can't even get into games due to restrictions, and now this is how they're being treated by their clubs. I also feel for the fans of the teams outside of the top 6 because they are being treated with proper contempt, that their clubs are simply not worth playing against because the so-called big teams only want to play against the other "big teams". It's vile. I feel that a lot of damage has been done already and it's a huge moment for the sport. It's very unsavoury. I echo every single word of what Gary Neville said because he was speaking as a fan of a club that he clearly loves, but also as a fan of the game. The way that we are trying to load the game by tilting it even more in the direction of these bigger teams is just plain wrong. I cannot and will not get behind this idea. If UEFA/FIFA/whoever decide to deduct points or ban us from domestic or European competitions, then we completely deserve it. I've already said a few bits and pieces in WhatsApp groups, other forums, social media and so forth, so apologies if this doesn't make too much sense as I get that it's quite ranty. I'm pissed off. Where's the game that we all grew up with and loved?

Haaahahah. It's completely true, though. Fuck your stars and stripes. Put mythical creatures onto these flags. First country to put a Gyrados on their flag wins a prize. In general, I would put myself into the camp that feels that the UK flag has been hijacked by the right wing/far right. Unfortunately, I know one too many people who simultaneously post Facebook stuff such as "LOVE THE FLAG, LOVE OUR QUEEN!" along with Britain First/Anti EU/Anti-Immigrant/Xenophobic rhetoric. I feel that this group of people have taken the flag to mean Pro-Britain, anti-everything else, which doesn't align with my views. There's a large (and, imo, growing) section of our society who want to return to the days of the Empire and it's this crowd who are hoarding that flag and, imo, changing the ultimate meaning behind it, which I always felt was about unity and cooperation. It's amazing how you can walk through a street in France, Belgium or Italy and see their country's flags simultaneously next to the flag of the EU, showing that you can be part of a country and yet part of a greater group. Whereas, at least these days, I find the UK to be very inward looking. Having a Tory government (including a PM who has made...unsavoury comments in the past) displaying the flags in the background isn't doing much to change my views. In facts, it's more likely to reinforce it.

Watched this last night. Really enjoyed it. It's about a million times better than the shit Whedon gave us. More, please.

Sea of Thieves looks pretty chill/cool though and one of those games that you can just keep going back to. There seems to be a bit of a trend with certain gamers who prefer to play fewer games, but plug more time into those. E.g. the gamers who plunge hundred of hours into Destiny, or Overwatch, or something to that effect. It's an interesting gaming behaviour and I think the online aspects play heavily into that. Why play 20 games when you can get your enjoyment out of one or two, I guess. Especially if these games require you to spend quite a bit of time to get to know the mechanics and get "good" at them. I was useless for the first 20 hours or so that I put into Overwatch, for example. Haaaahahaha. I'm not even going to edit that. You get what you're given.

Oh, that fucking Imprisoned thing. So angry. Them: "Did you enjoy fighting that cooool boss thing (not really a boss) just now?" Me: "No" Them: "You get to fight it twooooo more times." Me: "...why, though?" Them: "In the industry, we call it 'padding'." *nodding profusely*

Skyward Sword is one of my greatest gaming disappointments ever. The game starts out all lovely in Skyloft and it tricks you into thinking that the rest of the game will be lovely and have other such areas like this. Nope. That's it. There are no further engaging areas like this or at least nothing as worthwhile as that place. The sky was bland as hell and the segregated "worlds" below didn't work for me. It felt like the sky was almost like a level select. Also, the games builds up this suspense about what's in that Thunderhead thing (I keep calling it the Thunderdome. MadMax for life) and you think that it's going to be something mysterious or maybe even have new, cool zones inside it or something. Nope. There's fuck all there. Also, no night system. It's a bland as fuck game that gets a free pass because it's both Zelda and from Nintendo. It was just a chance for Nintendo to show off motion controls and the game is built around that, rather than building an interesting world, or telling an exciting story, or developing fascinating characters. Nintendo seemingly haven't got it in them do that, but hey, you can swing your sword around your bedroom like you are Link, so I guess that makes up for all of its many faults. It marks a very interesting point for me regarding Nintendo, as it shows that they were more focused on "how" you do something rather than "what" you are doing, or the "why".

Merseyside derby was quite interesting. Thought Everton were entirely comfortable and Liverpool never really looked like scoring. You could argue that the penalty was slightly harsh, but I don't think it made too much of a difference to the flow of the game. Liverpool had more of the ball but did nothing with it, whereas Everton always had an "out" option with Calvert-Lewin up top. What a player he's turned out to be. On other day, I think Liverpool would have made their possession count, but they just can't make it happen around the box. It just highlights how big a problem it is relying on two players (Salah and Mane) to get virtually of the goals. That midfield need to start contributing more.

I feel the same thing, although I didn't watch the Direct itself and just caught up on the news afterwards. The Switch has been out for nearly 4 hours and I haven't found many reasons to pick one up. I'm just not getting that urge anymore with Nintendo and I don't feel that I'm missing out too much by not getting the Switch. I had a Wii and WiiU and enjoyed them, but Nintendo don't seem to have moved on too much from the WiiU era with their output.

Aaaaaaahahahahaha. This game, maaaan. Biggest 180 I've ever pulled on a game. Can't compare it to anything else. I've never gone from hating (and I mean, fucking LOATHING) a game so much to then loving it like it was family. The first 6 or so hours were complete torture. I can't tell you how many times I died...and that loading screen with those pre-patch loading times. Oh my goddd. I felt sorry for poor @Eenuhas she got an absolute earful that day. I don't think my posts quite capture the rage I was feeling and it is easily the angriest I've ever felt over a game. It felt personal, for some reason. I've never, ever taken a game back to the store on the same day that I bought it but I came very, very close with this. I can't quite put my finger on what made me so angry (apart from all of the dying), but I had a sense of everything feeling "unfair" or "rigged against you". I felt weak, especially when enemies would gang up on me, or I felt that the starting locations were like puzzles that couldn't be solved without being killed. I actually remember raging so hard, then stopping to have our tea, then going back to the game and continuing to rage some more. All I can say is that playing that game felt like losing all of your senses but then gaining new ones. It made me re-learn how to play and approach games. Everything that I thought I knew about games at that point had to be thrown out of the window and I had to start over. It's the equivalent of losing your gaming virginity all over again. I used to spend minutes just observing enemies from a far and working out the best in-and-out strategy so that I could take out the group without leaving myself too vulnerable, because one wrong move would mean death and starting over again. One of the best games I've ever played and one of my all-time favourites. Quite spectacular. I would not have said that after the first hour because...it was honestly so stressful. Once I learned that you didn't have to fight everything and that it was just a case of surviving from lamp to lamp, it became so much easier. The Forbidden Woods is one of my favourite locations in a game, as was the Cathedral Ward area.

Waiting for those booty gainssss.

Hit some new PBs today. Overall, had quite a good day focusing on legs. One of those days where all the parts seemed to line up nicely and I had enough energy to push through. 85kg x 10 for back squats. Managed 55kg x 10 for front squats, too. Also got a nice round 100kg x 10 for RDL. It's a fine balance of moving the weight but also working the muscle. I'm more focused on working the muscle rather than just going for numbers, but pleased that I managed to do both today. I do front squats straight after back, so maybe I need to just play around with where I do that one, because squats followed by...more squats is a bit tiring at times.

That 9-0 game was insane. It was like every time we went forward, we scored. So many different scorers, too. The tackle by their man to earn the first red card was dangerous and he definitely needed to go. It could have ended up being a really, really hard game where Southampton could have just sat back and made it horrible for us, but they were too open. Unfortunately, I think they were very naive with the way that they were trying to play with 10 men. Admirable, but more than a bit reckless. I thought we played very well and McTominay had a stellar game, as did Luke Shaw, who is suddenly starting to look like one of the best left backs in the league at the moment. Quality player. This is the player we thought we had signed. The refereeing in the game was annoying as fuck. We should've had a penalty in the first half, but that was called a freekick when it looked like it was right on the line of the box. Southampton had a good goal disallowed for...some reason. I did think it was a foul on Martial for the penalty but the red card for that was stupid. To top it all though, this is the only game that I've ever seen in my lifetime where the amount of goals scored in one half is greater than the number of minutes of added on time. 3 minutes for a half that continued 5 goals, a sending off, a huge and length VAR call for their disallowed goal, another huge delay for our penalty and their red card, and just general time spent in between goals. We could have broken a few records last night as we surely would've scored more had we had another few more minutes. Overall, insane game. I loved it. Harsh on Southampton, who I do like and Hassenhuttl is a quality manager. But, we needed a big performance and we got it, so it's just unfortunate they were on the other end.

What model/brand of amp is it? Doesn't sound too good, tbh. That's frustrating. At least the clean function is still good, that's something. You could always use a distortion pedal or some kind of overdrive pedal, and then you wouldn't necessarily need the gain/overdrive on the amp. That could be a slightly cheaper short-term fix until you then have enough money for an amp. Come to think of it, I almost always just have the amp set to clean and do all of the dirty stuff through pedals. So...maybe? A Boss DS1 will cost you around £60. A ProCo Rat is slightly more expensive.

I'm going to be completely honest and say that even I didn't think they would stoop this low to allow staff/pupils to go back for one day after Christmas before then closing the schools. I thought we'd maybe get 2 weeks out of this term, at the most. I expected to hear something on Sunday at the latest whether or not the school reopening would go ahead, but all we kept hearing was that it would be fine for Primary, but that Secondary schools would go back later. The messaging has been so, so poor. Absolutely all over the place. All trust in this government is gone.

It's a proper piss-take. We've had people stressed out of their minds over the last week or so trying to figure out how best to organise the testing and still run a school. We were due to test pupils tomorrow.