Fierce_LiNk

@ArtMediocre, awesome post. Thanks for that! That Squire Jazzmaster just looks fantastic. I googled the prices for all of the guitars that you have mentioned and immediately thought "looooool, there's no way @Eenuh would let me get these anytime soon!" Have to get the wedding out of the way first! I'm quite in love with that Voodoo for some reason. I'm sure that it sounds fantastic, too. Guitar and drum porn really is the best!

I don't think that there's a single result this weekend that has surprised me or not gone the way that I expected. I thought that we'd get through Leicester, but won't be utterly convincing, which is what happened. We'll see what happens with this situation surrounding Pogba and Mourinho. It's a season for the players to justify their wages and price tags, including Alexis Sanchez. I missed all the games this weekend due to travelling to Belgium and spending time with @Eenuh's family, so BBC's Live Text and the RedCafe had to suffice. The genuine consensus is that we are very, very weak on the right side of the pitch, which is where both Darmian and Mata played.

He's making it harder and harder for himself and everyone at the club. Basically, if he was a written character in a book or in a film, you'd say that he was inconsistent. He can't say whether he's happy with the squad or if we need to spend another £500 million to fix it. He can't say whether the younger players are playing well, or badly, because he says both. He's somehow committed to the club, yet still living in a hotel according to many reports, with his family still living in London. Even last season's league performance was inconsistent. We played very badly at times, or played boring football, yet finished second...including one of the greatest results in our recent history when we came back to beat City 3-2. There's fans on the RedCafe who are alternating between "we're going to win the league...he'll be sacked soon...we'll finish second....he'll leave soon....he'll commit his longterm future to the club..." He just isn't very good at (excuse the pun) uniting the fans in the same way that he did it for Chelsea. The Summer transfer business has a lot of fans worried. We are so short defensively, especially in the left and right back areas which are just laughable. I know Young had a successful World Cup, but Young and Valencia as left and right backs has had its time and we need to be moving away from that and looking to the future. Luke Shaw is still on our books, and nobody knows why when he hasn't played (or apparently trained) well. We've signed Dalot at right back, who is very young and may not even feature in many games. Fred is our big signing and it's just been very underwhelming, tbh. A lot of fans are also unsure about his man-management. The whole nonsense with Martial has annoyed a lot of fans and it's unlikely he'll stay for very long now. Martial and Pogba are two players in particular who would definitely benefit from a more positive coach who would make them feel more important. There's also the comments about the younger players whilst on tour. The more I consider how Jose is acting and the way that the team is playing, I just feel that his heart isn't really in it and the drive to be better than the other clubs in England isn't really there. He isn't making the right sort of noises to the fans that we're going to mount a title challenge and perform better than last season. In fact, it's moreso the opposite, that a title challenge is more unlikely than last season. Whether the team are performing well under him or not, the jury is out on that one. Imo, he's not as good at motivating the team as he used to be. Perhaps Louis Van Gaal and Mourinho arrived at the club too late in their careers and were/are both on the decline. It's very frustrating because I feel that the fans want to back him and the fans want the team to succeed. He's just making it very difficult at times. I feel that it's a huge season for him personally. I'll back him as long as he is our manager, but there needs to be an improvement, especially with his attitude.

Pogba hasn't really endeared himself to many United fans, but I think he's being given a lot of leeway because Mourinho is taking a lot of the criticism. E.g. that Mourinho is hampering Pogba's game. Imo, both are at fault. I think Pogba is a fantastic player, but it's not always shown on the pitch. Too often he can drift in and out of games and he can be such a liability defensively. The issue as well is that Mourinho's teams focus on being defensively solid, so we're instantly playing to Pogba's weakness and not his strength. I think under Sir Alex, we'd be seeing a completely different and better player at the club, probably happier, too. (I know that he was the one to let him go, but that's down to his first team opportunities being limited due to who we had at the time) Unfortunately, I think Pogba would be playing a lot better at City than he is at our club, which is a tough one to accept. Just down to the way that they play and the quality that they have in midfield and in attack, as well as a manager that allows them to play attacking football. In short, play attacking football, and everyone is happy. There's a strong argument now that the reason we haven't bought many players this Summer is due to the club accepting that, either at some point this season or next Summer, Mourinho will be off. So, we'll no doubt be rebuilding again.

Just out of curiosity, what other issues are IGN facing due to plagiarism? Thanks for your post, I agree very much with what you're saying in it, especially your paragraph about plagiarism having no place in journalism. When thinking about this today, I thought about all of the options that were available to IGN. They could have suspended the guy, for example, instead of firing him. It's never nice to see somebody lose their job. But, in this instance, I think there's a strong argument to say that the right outcome has been reached. Aside from writing an article that's based on false information, there's nothing worse that a journalist could do than to plagiarise somebody else's work. I hope that lessons are learned from this and that it warns others off doing the same thing in future. Also, I think it's universally agreed that the YouTube comments sections are, for the most part, filled with absolute nonsense and horrible comments made by many people. It's the equivalent of Mos Eisley's spaceport/cantina. Occasionally, you'll come across a funny comment here and there, but there's also a lot of trash, too. It's similar to the comments you find in chatboxes on live streams, just terrible, really. I guess it's that old saying of giving "normal" people anonymity and an audience, and you get people who behave like absolute tools.

Yeah, I didn't realise that this was how all Spanish transfers were conducted. (Unless I did already know in the past, but have forgotten) Raiola is an absolute shitbag and the Barcelona offer was a piss-take. No way were we ever going to accept THAT deal.

It just outlines the differences between our world and theirs. I do respect that footballers have feelings and desires (just like any other human being), especially if there's family involved in another country. But, I think any criticism towards Courtois in this case is completely warranted. It's just not the decent thing to do. I can't remember who it was exactly, but I read this thought-provoking article once about the things that footballers would do to secure a move out of the club. E.g. they'd start fights with team-mates on purpose in the hope that the manager would then want to move them on, that kinda thing. Not turning up to training was one of the things mentioned and I wonder just how often this sort of thing happens in this industry. Maybe it speeds things along in some sort of way? I'm trying to find some logic in that and I'm sure that there will be a reason there...somewhere. Hey, I guess all of this means that David De Gea will stop being linked to Real Madrid now. Yaaaay. Result! EDIT: @Emerald Emblem, just copied this from the BBC website:

Awesome, just checked it too and everything seems to be there. Will probably watch an episode whilst I'm on the crosstrainer or in the evenings after work.

Yeah, I heard good things afterwards, but it was too late by then and I'd already moved onto other things. It's the one show that I know very little about, so I'm looking forward to seeing what I missed out on first time around. Just checking to see if they're on Netflix and I'll start watching when we get back from Belgium.

Sir Patrick Stewart is just an all-round class act. I grew up watching TOS, TNG and Voyager (didn't really get into Deep Space Nine at the time), but I used to watch it intermittently and quite often the channels that I'd catch it on would show episodes out of sequence. It's a similar thing with How I Met Your Mother. Very tempted to start over and watch TOS in sequence first before then proceeding to TNG and maybe even do DS9 this time around.

That was clearly his mistake. He simply didn't steal from enough people in this case. Maths has cost him his job!

I read chameleon as Charmeleon! I hurd u leik pokemanz.

That video is brilliant. I love the audacity and brashness about it. It's almost like a "oh gawwwwd, I didn't know the internet was a thing and people would actually find this ouuuut! 20 years ago I would've gotten away with it!" I started off watching it thinking, eh, it's a game, there may be one or two keywords that sound familiar. But then, so many phrases are actually just lifted from the initial review.

I've started using the crosstrainer/elliptical machine for 60 minutes now and it wipes me out afterwards. It's amazing what those extra minutes do or how they leave you afterwards. Pretty sure the heat has something to do with it too, but I'm sweating buckets afterwards.

Did all of the Londoniminian pigeons all join in too for a chorus of "you make my dreams come true" 500 Days of Summer style and did your French lover...Pasquel...make gentle love to you against a backdrop of the water ripples being invaded by pleasant frogs on their lily pads?

Courtois didn't turn up for training, again! What a knob! It also looks like Chelsea have lined up his replacement, but it's not going to be Butland. They're apparently in advanced talks with Athletic Bilbao's Kepa Arrizabalaga, for £71.6m. Crazy money!

Oh man, I love guitars, especially all of the pedals that you can get and the different combinations and configurations that you can have with them. I love the feel of the strings on your fingers and when you can pull off lovely, clean sounding melodies. Buuuut, all of that pales in comparison to what I feel about drums. It's the one instrument that I'm convinced that everyone can play, in some form or another. The great thing about drums is that you can take a basic kit to start with and then build right around out and keep expanding on it until it becomes its own entity and beautiful thing in its own right. You can always buy more cymbals, change the layout of your drums, get double bass pedals, add additional rack or floor toms, etc. It's so customisable. The downside is, of course, sound. And space. Unfortunately, they take up so much room, especially if you do buy additional cymbals and toms. You can muffle your kits, or you can put practice pads over the top of it to dampen the sound. We have a kit in school that has pads on it to heavily reduce the sound. When you want to let rip, you just take the pads off. So, it can be done. If you had it somewhere downstairs, or in a garage or a room which you can soundproof, then you will be onto a winner! The other option is to go down the electronic drums route. The kit that I have is fantastic and I love it to bits. But, E-Drums are expensive and you will have to pay big money for a decent kit. Anything under a grand will be trash and either will have poor sound or build quality, or it just won't be as responsive as you'd need it to be. Whereas a normal/acoustic set can be bought for muuuuuch cheaper. The major plus-side is the noise though. I have a pair of headphones plugged into my module and the neighbours can't hear shit. The ONLY issue we had was the sound of the stick hitting the pads (which is always going to cause noise, even if it is minimal - and it'll still never be as noisy as hitting an additional drum head. Don't think the neighbours could hear anything, but you will obviously be hitting the pad fairly often, so it will create some noise, even if it's only a tiny amount) and the vibrations going through the floor. You can work-around that by putting carpet down or having some kind of platform to absorb the noise. So, there are solutions. I've used both E-Drums and acoustic kits and I love both. The difference between them is like the difference between an electric and acoustic guitar. The feel is different, the resulting sounds are different, but you can use the same techniques and "rules" for both and can transfer your skills between either instrument. For different reasons. In terms of practicality, I have to go down the electronic drums route due to things such as neighbours/it being a fairly residential area. I'd recommend getting down to a music store and trying out a kit yourself, both acoustic/normal drums and electronic. Even if it's just to have a play around and you don't end up buying anything, it's worth just having a little go and seeing what it's like for yourself. Drums themselves are great fun, though. In a way, you can practice whenever and wherever you like. I've actually got a pair of sticks and a practice pad on my desk that I use from time to time before the pupils come in. You can also tap on you legs and knees (a habit that ALL drummers do and can't get out of...it drives @Eenuh crazy and use to annoy all of my school mates) if an idea comes to mind. I fucking love them and will always recommend them to people.

I may seriously look at an air conditioning unit or a better fan than the one that we have. It could just be a one-off free occurrence for this Summer and hopefully it should cool down soon. I've figured out that around 6/7 o'clock is the best time to play because there's less sunlight/heat pounding on the house, so it's more bearable then. My current bass feels quite chunky and is slightly more heavier than I'd like, so I would be looking to get something lighter in the future. Cheers for the heads up. We've got Absolute Music right about 2 minutes away from us, so I'm just going to go in when the time is right and feeeeel all of the guitars. I love it in there. That's where I went to go and test the E-drums and was sold on the TD-50K. The collection of guitars, keyboards and drums that they have there is impressive.

He would do a great job at Chelsea, imo. He really should be playing Premier League football, but it would be harsh on Stoke due to the imminent closure of the transfer window. They must have anticipated that this would happen, though. Ooooh, the cold shoulder treatment. Chelsea won't do that because it doesn't make good business sense. They gain nothing from it because they will lose money due to the player going for free and would also be deprived of his services if he was still at the club but snubbed. Also, it wouldn't be great for team morale and would just put an unpleasant cloud above the dressing room. If it were a lesser or more replaceable outfield player, then I think they'd do that. But, a goalkeeper, such a specialised position. The bit about his wages got me. Brilliant. I always find it a bit nuts when a manager reveals that things are a bit shit behind the scenes. It's uncomfortable to listen to and I sometimes wonder if certain things are better kept behind closed doors. But, if the problem is down to the ownership of the club and funds, then what can you do? This has been a problem for so many years. Mike Ashley will only move on when a buyer approaches him with what he deems as a "reasonable offer" or if the club suddenly start haemorrhaging money. Rafa will move on at some point this season and there will be no shortage of clubs who will come in for him. Not sure he'd get a job at a Top 6 club these days, but definitely a Premier League or La Liga option.

That Ibanez looks loooooooovely. Beautiful looking bass. Probably isn't the right time to look for a new bass just yet (moooooney), but I've never dabbled into the Ibanez range, so may look into what's out there. My current bass guitar is definitely reaching the end of its life and is falling apart. Plus, the sound that you get from it is alright, but just not satisfying enough. Quite like the finish on the SG. Why are guitars so sexy? Man, it's too fucking hot to do anything. I had plans that I'd spend loads of time doing stuff this year, but this Summer has been too hot. That garage can be like a furnace in there, even with the fan on. Also, due to the position of the house, we get tooooons of sun in that second bedroom/music room. So, if you sit on that sofa even for a minute, it gets too hot. We've got a blind ready to be installed, so hope that'll help in the future.

Apparently Courtois has gone AWOL to try and force through a move to Madrid.

I was tempted to get that Rocksmith stuff before, but I didn't get around to it. I've mostly survived by looking at guitar tabs online at Ultimate Guitar or by using some of the scales and chord books that I've had. If I've ever struggled with something, there's a million YouTube videos out there to help out. It really is the best time to start learning this stuff as information is everywhere now! An hour a day is quite a long time, imo. It almost makes it seem quite daunting. I had the same problem with learning Dutch when I said that I'd do an hour a day after work. It's much more manageable to do something like 5-10 minutes, and then there will be certain days when you get into it and it goes on for longer than that. It probably works out as about 25-30 minutes a day. 101 Fake Street, Fauxville, Phoneytown PR3 73ND I've left the door unlocked and the kettle on.

I thought it would be quite cool to check out each other's music gear and also maybe talk about ways to improve, our musical history and that sort of stuff! I've been interested in playing music for a very long time, since I was around 5 or so. My mum bought be a cheap acoustic guitar that I took to pre-school and entertained the other kids there. I didn't know how to play at that time, so I think I must have just strummed the shit out of it and wailed like a banshee. When all of my mates were starting to pick up their guitars and stuff, I suddenly thought that maybe it would be interesting to do something different. I was a huuuuuge Oasis fan growing up and seeing the "Don't Look Back In Anger" video with Alan White playing his white Pearl set on a platform in the outdoor swimming pool, it just looked like the coolest thing in the world. I was convinced that I needed to get a drum kit, so I bought one from the local music shop for about £200. Can't remember how old I was exactly at this time, maybe 14? It was their own brand, really bottom of the line and was a basic 5 piece set that didn't even come with a crash, so I had to buy that separately. I've still got the kit, back in Wales. I taught myself how to play after downloading lots of videos featuring Dave Weckl and Jeff Porcaro (Toto). Both are still two of my favourite drummers to this day. Dave Weckl blew my mind and I still consider him one of the top all time drummers in the world, his co-ordination and use of rolls is great. I took my kit with me to Brighton for my second year, but it moved back to Wales once that year was over. I've been kit-less since then...until a few months ago. As we live in a fairly residential area, I thought that an electronic drumset would be my best bet. I scoured the net for hours and hours trying to find the perfect one for me. I watched tons of YouTube reviews and came across a set that I absolutely loved. The Roland TD-30KV. Unfortunately, I got there too late as it was a discontinued line! But, they did have the next model up, the Roland TD-50K. So, I bought it and now I have a drum kit again after about...10 years plus of not having one. It's amazing how natural it feels to get back into it. I absolutely love this kit and it's pretty much one of the best kits on the planet. Love the hell out of it. The kit currently lives in my garage, with all of the home gym stuff. We originally had it upstairs, but the problem was that the sound of the pedal hitting the bass drum made too much noise due to the vibrations going through the floorboards. So, by moving it downstairs, it's made things a lot easier. The only downside is that it gets very warm in there! After I picked up my first drum kit (the one currently in Wales), I saw a free-ad in a newspaper about a cheap bass guitar. I figured "none of my friends can play bass, so I want to learn!" and bought it. It was being sold in Cwmbran, which is the next town over from Newport. Only cost £40. It's pretty bottom of the line, too. The brand is "Marlin" which is as much as the owner knew about it. He even chucked in a cheap bass amp to go with it for free. About a year ago, the guitar jack came loose and retreated into the bass guitar itself. So, I've done some "surgery" to retreat it to get it working. I've kept the actual cable in the jack since and leave it hung up that way, so that I haven't got to open that area up again to reclaim the jack. I find it really fun to play, but I think the time is coming quite soon where I may need to replace it for something a bit newer as my go-to Bass! Next to it, I've got an acoustic guitar that actually belonged to someone else. They knew that I wanted to learn so they gifted me the guitar and I've had it ever since! I've taken that guitar with me everywhere. It came from Newport, then went with me to Brighton, then back to Newport and now in Bournemouth. Same with the Bass! About three or so years ago, I decided that I wanted to learn electric guitar and just woke up one Saturday and scoured the web for one that took my eye. I knew that I couldn't spend tooooo much money on it otherwise @Eenuh wouldn't be pleased. In the end, I settled on an Epiphone Les Paul, which only cost around £300 or something. It's a lovely guitar to play for the price range that it's in. I thought that it would give me a bit more range to play rather than just acoustic stuff all the time, plus I wanted to get into the habit of messing around with distortion pedals and all that, so I figured it would be worth it. All three guitars have been wall mounted to save space: They all live in the second bedroom that we have dubbed "the music room". It's about 50% music and 50% belonging to the cats, who come in here to sleep either on the sofa or on their cat bed. Originally, the drum kit was in this room, but the sound caused an issue due to the vibrations going through the floorboards. So, as a result, it had to go in the gym. It's opened the room out though and has made it feel a bit less "full" in there. That kit takes up a fair bit of space. The sofa bed came from Ikea and cost just under £200 IIRC. Really comfy and one of our cats (Aya) loves to sleep on it during the night (or the day time...laaaaaaazy). Ico (other cat) loves to sleep on that biiiig white pillow on the floor. All the other stuff in the photograph are two automatic cat feeders and a water tray (on the left) and some cat toys in the middle of the picture. At my place of work, a friend was decluttering her place and decided that she no longer needed a keyboard. She asked me if I wanted it for free, to which I just said, "...uh, sure." I had no real desire to learn that instrument since it never appeared to me. But, it's there now, so I'm going to learn! It's a bottom of the line Yamaha PSR-73.I started learning how to play in our old flat and quite enjoyed it. But, it wasn't really comfortable due to having to play it on the dining room table and without a proper seat. So, I bought a proper stand and seat for it and that seems to be working out better. At some point, I'll get serious about it and will put the hours in, but it's just finding the time really. I've also got some effects pedals for the guitars: The big one at the bottom is a Boss ME-50B bass effects pedal. Has synth, tone, delay functions and I really enjoy it. I use the delay functions a fair bit. The second biggest one is a Morley Wah Pedal. Orange one is a Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal. Red is a Boss Loop Station. The ME-50B and the Morley were bought off one of my friend's ex-boyfriends, just before they broke up. He no longer needed it, so I bought it off him. I really like the ME, although I haven't used the Morley as much yet. The DS-1 is great. Not sure Ine is a particularly big fan of it, though. Think she prefers cleaner sounds. The Loop Station is really fun but getting the timings 100% right takes a fair bit of practice. With work, it can be hard to find the time to just chill out and play. I'm hoping that this year I'll be able to do more of that. I guess it's all about managing your time to fit it all in!

I'll sign up to it tomorrow. Need to get thinking about the squad! Edit: Just checked, Charity/Community Shield is on BT Sport. I miss the days when it was on the BBC. Another reason why the "tv tax" sucks.

That doesn't scare me and I wouldn't run away from that, but I still don't massively like it. I would post a picture of a rat or something but...I really don't want to. Urgh. Horrible things. Whyyyyyy are they hheeeeere?!