pratty

RIP Tito. Jonjo Shelvey, take a bow son. http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4361381/Shelvey1b.gif

Jose, Faria and Ramimes charged by the FA. I can see Mou getting the usual fine, but I can't see Ramimes escaping a ban. That's Ramires, Terry and Cech out for the Liverpool game. Apparently Jose has said he would like to rest other players aswell. It's a bit ironic that Cech is out of the CL semi second leg, when actually Chelsea own an arguably better keeper, who will be playing for the opposition.

It's true that people's tastes can change. But I think as a child you have less freedom to explore other brands, until you can afford your own games you might have to make do with one console or one brand. So if you've grown up playing an Xbox and Halo and Fable etc, you're more likely to ask for a Xbox 360 to keep playing Halo etc. Then when you're older with your own income maybe then you start branching out.

I think it happens, but crucially how many parents still have old Nintendo consoles to pass on? Many relatively young parents such as my friend opted for Playstation over Nintendo and never looked back, especially for the Playstation 2. Now he has kids he has passed down his PS2 to his them but he didn't have a Gamecube pass down. In terms of keeping them occupied and entertained, it's not worth him buying a gamecube or N64 just to experience the quality of Nintendo games, or even investing in more quality Wii games, when you can get most PS2 games for 99p. He did recently go to the trouble of setting up Mario Party 2 for them to play via emulator, and they love it, which goes to show there is still an interest in Nintendo but there are specific barriers preventing them prioritising Nintendo gaming which I think these kids might actually prefer. I know another older father who games, he had a PS3 (now a PS4) in the living room, which both he and his young son played, though it was originally mostly for the dad. Not only did his son grow up not playing Mario, but was playing Resident Evil and Killzone etc, taking after his dad, who buys the majoirty of the household's games based on his own tastes. So now when his son asks for games or saves up to buy his own, he chooses the same kinds of games he's grown up on through his dad. So not only is he not that interested in Mario, he's not that interested in platformers at all, playing the 'mature' 'hardcore' stuff instead.

If you include handhelds though, the DS sold roughly double the GBA, which I think is relevent as we're talking children's gaming and handelds are very child freindly. Obviously the Wii-U and 3DS look to underperform in comparrison, but the I think the Wii and Ds were at the peak of the videogame popularity graph, where all the market and economic stars and planets were in allignment. We were always going to see a leveling off, I think it would be arrogant of Nintendo to assume that the Wii and DS sales were the new norm and that they could even expect to improve on that. Personally I don't care if a child doesn't grow up on Mario, (or Mickey Mouse, or Barbie or whatever). I don't think there upbringing will be any worse off. Any concern would be purely as a stakeholder in Nintendo. Even then the concern of Nintendo leaving money on the table with mobile gaming is to over-simplify Nintendo as a business, that is as a business of purely making money, a concern voiced the loudest by speculative investors who are funnily enough also only interested in making money, and by gamers who for some reason would rather talk business than games. Nintendo are in the business of making games and hardware because they are passionate about both, if it was just money they were interested in they'd probably be better off in other industries. To sell their hardware they need exclusives, end of. If kids aren't playing Mario it's because they don't want to badly enough. They won't pay £25 for something like Super Mario 3D Land (even though it's absolutely top drawer quality) when they can play Candy Crush for free. They're not that bothered, and to be fair why should they be? It's their choice. Equally I find most kids will happily play Mario etc if they're exposed to it, but they've still got one eye on whatever the big thing going is that everybody is talking about at school, typically some shooter or epic RPG on Playstation/Xbox, and so that's what they invest their money in. As such Nintendo has been knocked for their poor marketing, perhaps there is justification for this at times, but somethimes there is just no accounting for consumer decissions, both their informed preferences and also their stupidity. Yes, consumer stupidity. Have you watched kids and their parents shopping for Wii games? If you reading the back of a box and are looking at the pictures on the box in a game shop, to decide if you should buy a game, then you've already fucked up. You're not as informed as you could be and more likely to make a regretable purchase. Look at local adverts for people selling their Wiis, look at the games that come with it, movie licenses and shovelware garbage, maybe they have Mario Kart, but that's probably because it was bundled with the Wii. There's no Mario Galaxy, or NSMB, or DKCR, or even Smash Bros. Probably because they thought it was better value to buy a dozen marked down poor to average games, then buy a handful of the top quality games available, that would actually entertain their children better and for longer than a large quanity of inferior games. These people end up blaming Nintendo for their poor expereince with the Wii, when they were either too cheap or too stupid to actually buy the best games available for it. A tenner here of there for Iron Man or some My Little Pony bullshit seems quite affordable, over time they spend a fortune on these games, but £20 for Super Mario Galalxy? No that's too dear! You could get Iron Man AND Iron Man 2 for that. A friend of mine with 3 kids is allways packing their Wii away ("gathering dust" blah blah), and struggling to find it again when they do want it, why? Because the only game anybody wants to play it Mario Kart, because that's the only game worth playing they've bought for it. I'm probably veering off topic, but I'll bring it back with this observation. The friend above is a mature gamer, growing up oin Nintendo and Saga, and now primarily plays on PS3 and PS4 for his tastes. And so his kids grow up on Playstation also, they have inherited his PS2 and PS3 for their back room, they have a Wii and a DS and even a Sega Staurn available also, but these are generally afterthoughts and side attractions, they're essentialy a Sony household, based on the fact that their dad prefers Sony. So regardless of whether his kids (all girls by the way) would actually prefer Mario, Link, DK and Kirby, and I actually think they do, he'll always lean the family towards Sony games. So they end up playing Minecraft and Little Big Planet instead. The difference is when I grew up I wasn't swayed by my parent's gaming prefences because they didn't have any, now I think kids are more likely to follow in their parent's footsteps because now parents play games too, both because that's all they might have available, and because your tastes are often shaped by what you grow up with. If they have a 'family console' and the parent is a gamer, then I think often the parent ultimately decides which console and subsequently which library of games the child will experience, and the child has less say. TL: DR version : If parents are gaming on non Nintendo devices, their kids probably will too.

You can always count me in for a little Gamecube love. It really is awesome, I pity the people who overlooked it. There really isn't time to give every game it's just praise, but I think the holy trinity of Metroid Prime, Windwaker and Resident Evil 4 sit on top of the pile. I still play Winning eleven 6 to this day, it's probably the game I've played more than any other. I reckon I've played around 400 seasons on it. Not sure I should be proud of that or concerened, lol. And I'm also a fan of Starfox Adventures. Them graphics. My current collection: Zelda: Windwaker Zelda: Twilight Princess Zelda: Four Swords Adventures Metroid Prime Metroid Prime 2 Super Mario Sunshine Luigi's Mansion Mario Kart Double Dash!! F-Zero GX Super Smash Bros. Melee Resident Evil Resident Evil Zero Resident Evil Code Veronica X Resident Evil 4 Chibi Robo Starfox Adventures Winning Eleven 6 FE Paper Mario 2 Pikmin Mario Smash Football Mario Power Tennis Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour Timesplitters 2 Timesplitters Future Perfect Super Monkey Ball Super Monkey Ball 2 Eternal Darkness The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction X Men Legends Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within Prince Of Persia: Two Thrones Beyond Good And Evil Killer 7 Viewtiful Joe Soul Calibur 2 The Simpsons: Hit And Run 007: Everything Or Nothing From Russia With Love Second Sight Rogue Leader 2: Rougue Squadron Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike Worms 3D Enter The Matrix Metal Arms: Glitch In The System I also have Jungle Beat and Pikmin 2 on the Wii.

Fair play to Norwich, they did there fans proud fighting back from 2-0 down the way they did. They'll feel our third goal was unlucky on them, but their first was gift wrapped also, so on balance I don't think they were too hard done by. A close game for sure but the quality of Sterling edged it.

I don't think Chelsea should expect any more. They play today. If they put the game back to Friday like Atletico, then Sunderland would have only had a day inbetween that game and the City game. If they postponed the game then that's another game Sunderland fall behind their relegation rivals putting them under even more pressure. Just because Chelsea (or any other team) are chasing two trophies doesn't mean they have the right to inconvenience other teams. I think fixture congestion is just part of the price of success.

Are you after all things wrong in football in general, or just recent developments and trends, and if so how far are we going back? I mean the verbal abuse, violence, cheating, lying, hypocrisy, gamesmanship, greed, dubious sponsorship, high prices, bad ticket allocation, elitism of the game, double standards and corruption has been around for ages. Whether it does any good, it's an admirable thing you're trying to do.

Absolutely made up with the result today. Coutinho, you little beauty! It was almost like winning a cup final in itself today, people might find that arrogant thing to say, but with it being the Hillsborough aniversary we had to do the 96 and their families proud, we just couldn't lose, not today. The atmosphere was goosepimple stuff, especially just before kick off, just amazing. What a club, what supporters. Even if we don't win the league, today was a special. Gerrard after the game was superb. The fight and determination all the players showed today in general was superb, City finally turned up in the second half and gave us a game, but there was no question we wanted it more.

Shockingly, Ultimate Warrior has died. At least it was after the HOF and his Mania and Raw appearances.

You don't half see some strange signs, even at Wrestlemania. I rememember noticing this at WM29 and thinking WTF is that sign doing over there? Who is Purple Aki you ask? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinwale_Arobieke

Totally disagree with those Holt quotes. How does he know black coaches aren't getting a chance? Just because not many land a job, what proof is that? As though getting a chance (ie being considered) and actually landing a management role are the same thing. Also convenient that he waits until Houghton is sacked so use his supposedly damning statistic 'proving' racist descrimination. Instead of asking why aren't black managers getting managers jobs? Why does nobody ask why should they get a managers job? What is this idea that if a black man applies for a job he's automatically assumed to be the best candicate? Maybe he's not. Why does there even have to be black reperesentation? I obviously agree black coaches should be welcomed but why should it be forced? For it to actually mean anything black representation should be organic and natural. It's like Sol Campbell saying he should/could have been England captain for 10 years or whatever he said, really? So he's saying Alan Shearer, David Beckham, John Terry and Steven Gerrard don't deserve to be England captain? No, only Sol should be captain, in Sol Campbells's opinion funnily enough. Just because Sol wasn't captain doesn't mean it was racial descrimination, look at the kind of quality alternatives he's up against, not exactly chopped liver are they, not to mention Rio Ferdinand. You can't just assume you weren't fairly considered because you didn't land the job, that's just self centred arrogance. English professional football is full of black players. So why do clubs reserve their 'racism' exclusively for management? They don't. Teams and their staff bend every rule, appeal every decision, even blatantly and shamelessly cheat in order to win, they'll do anything, but they supposedly draw the line at having a black manager? They'll do all that to win, but they won't have a black manager, even if he's the best man for the job? Really? Who is the black Mourinho everybody is ignoring, where are all these black Guardiola's? I guarantee that if a black, homosexual, female manager was the most qualified, proven and likely to deliver the Premiership and Champions League, Man City and Chelsea would be throwing fat cash her way to get her running their team. Perhaps though black coaches are relatively late to the party for whatever reason, and they lack the experience of the white coaches already in the game that they are competing with. As such they lack the experience top clubs are looking for, it's a unfortunate vicious cycle, but perhaps that's just the way it is. It wouldn't be fair to white managers to fast track black ones. All the more reason for a Paul Ince when he does get a chance, not to do a Blackpool, if he never gets management job again nobody can point to it being his race after that farce.

I think I just like to imagine he was lured to the darkside, rather than be inherently scummy himself, like Anakin Skywalker lol. Just look at him, that's not the Torres I remember, look at the snarly evil in his face, no wonder Jose keeps picking him.

I actually think the second pen was entirely giveable, mildly debatable as best, they can go either way, but I don't think the ref was out of line to give it. The keeper took Flanno out, if he'd punched the ball to safety first then we can say he didn't deny Liverpool anything, but he didn't and he tripped Flanno who would have otherwise still had control of the ball in a position to cross with the keeper stranded. I agree though that West Ham can't complain after Carroll's flying palm strike to the face. I can see why the ref didn't look at the replay though, even though it was plain to see for everyone else, if he did then to ensure fairness he'd potentially have to look at it for every decision thereafter which would be a farcial situation. I think he just had too many strikers, 4 players for one position, Torres and Demba cost millions so hard to drop after that investment, and Eto'o is probably on fat wages too. Torres and Eto'o are/where world class high profile players so I can see why they stayed, their basically Ambramovic's toys, his new Shevchenkos. I'm suprised they didn't sacrifice Ba though to accomodate Lukaku. I guess the feeling is also as he's only 20 he's getting great experience for the future instead of being rotated at Chelsea. An alternative way to look at it that I've mentioned before is he's still sent Lukaku out to potentially do damage to his rivals. And it's no skin of Chelsea's nose if he helps West Brom and Everton do well as they're not considered direct rivals to Chelsea, and he obviously can't play against Chelsea either. So he could argue he's more use to Chelsea scoring goals against their rivals for another team, than maybe just sitting on Chelsea's bench. Obviously though they expected better from Torres and Eto'o this season. The fall of Torres has been spectacular, I actually feel bad for him. Blonde Torres was doing genuinely one of the best strikers in the world for a while at Liverpool, he was a proper magician at times scoring outrageous goals. He just doesn't look the same player at Chelsea, both figuritively and literally, we've even seen a nasty streak to him that he didn't used to have. What have Chelsea done to him? He badly needs to leave, it just isn't working there. Some Liverpool fans despise Torres now, and even Owen, but I still respect what they did for us, they were phenoms. I'm hoping we beat Chelsea, win the league, and Torres peels off his Chelsea shirt to reveal a Liverpool shirt underneath with "Agent Torres" on the back, and leaves Chelsea to join in the title celebration with us.

Maybe you could do with a rest, maybe only do the push ups every other day, give yourself more time to recover. Though perhaps you're gaining weight (even good weight ie muscle) which is slowing your progress, in which case it might not be much of a problem. I have pretty knackered and clicky shoulders, I find elbows tucked in and push ups on my knuckles (on carpet) works best for me to minimise the discomfort. You might need to experiment with different push up variations to find the kind your joints like. Additionally you might want to stabilise and strengthen your shoulders and back. All those push ups might be causing you an imbalance that tightens the pecs and rounds your shoulders foreward. Your rear delts (back of shoulders) and upper back may be disproportionally weak. Ideally for every push you should be doing a pull. Even if you don't care about your back and just want to improve your chest, strengthening everything back there will make you stronger overall and keep your shoulder joints healthier, which will help your ability to do push ups. Not to mention that a strong back pulling your shoulders back will improve your posture and make your pecs look better. Straight arm side planks are a good way to stabilise your shoulders a bit. I really like waiter walks too, both one handed and two handed. You don't even necessarilly have to walk if you don't have the space. Handstands against a wall are good for the shoulders too if you can manage them. Upper back is tricky to work optimally without weights or a pull up bar. A ghetto alternative is to make an inverted row bar by placing a strong broom handle or pole between two sturdy and stable chairs. Here are some other ideas. You can even try just isometrically pulling against something that won't budge. Do you have playground near by you can do pull ups? Failing that do you have access to a tree with a strong low hanging horizontal branch? If so try wrapping a rolled up tea towl over it and try pull ups that way. Pulling a chest expander (even just a cheap one) is a good way to hit the rear delts and upper back. Failing that roll up that tea towl again, hold it infront of you at each end and try to pull it apart for sets of ten seconds. Can you make lightish dumbbells out of bottles of gravel, or paint tins with handles, or something? Bent over flies will do the job too. For cheapo weights, make a sand bag (there are loads of guides on the web). Or just load up a strong back pack with whatever, over head press it, row it, squat it , lunge it, deadlift it, carry it in all different ways.

Apart from Taker vs Brock, there's not too much on the show that feels really special. That said I do think the card still has the potential to be quite good and several of the matches could be great. Wouldn't be shocked if Hogan blagged his way into the Battle Royal and won it.

Know what you're saying, but football has never been entirely fair and never can be. It's basically impossible to ensure complete literal fairness. Games are played with different refs, at different times of the year, in different weather, and against weaker/stronger sides. Not to mention injuries, debatable suspensions etc. And it would be impossible to ensure teams to play an equal number of games altogther (cups by their nature prevent this), so if it is unfair, it's just something everyone has to accept. Although you maybe could argue that playing the extra games in other competitions, brings in more revenue and prestige, allowing them to buy the best players to use in the league, so maybe the more games vs better players balances out somewhat.

It's on! Great win today. Not going to expect to win the league now but it's great to be genuine contenders again. Even at home the City and Chelsea games are still entirely losable games, yet entirely winable at the same time, could go either way, as could the league itself. There are always other potential banana skins where we could drop points, but that applies to our rivals too, as Chelsea demonstrated against Palace. It was fantastic, the workrate and the desire! Throwing themselves infront of shots, chasing lost causes etc. The contrast in attitude between us and Spurs was night and day, we really wanted it and believed in ourselves. Though to be fair I will say Lloris was a credit to Spurs, he really did all he could to keep the score down. The atmosphere in the ground was superb too, so supportive, even applauding when things didn't come off, allowing the players to play without fear.

The standard response to plateauing your lifts is to eat more, though that doesn't always fit into aeveryone's goals. One thing you could do is begin new assitance exercises and enjoy the newb gains from them, which might help your main exercises. So for example say you're stalling on bench press. Perhaps you've been doing a routine where you bench every other workout along with squats etc (like Starting Strenght or Stronglifts). You could just have a bench day (and a squat day etc) once a week, and aswell as bench do additional tricep and/or shoulder work afterwards to improve you're pressing ability. Or you could alternate bench press with something similar but different, incline or overhead presses or dips, maybe with dumbells instead of barbells. That way you get more rest between bench workouts but maybe strengthen the same muscle group in a slightly different way. That way while you grind away at the bench press for slower gains, you might be experience consistant gains in the alternate exercise to keep you motivated. Or alternate with an entirely new type of workout. Maybe you do your basic push/pull/legs with weights one wokout (eg squat/bench/row), then do all bodyweight exercises the next, or weight carries (waiter walks, farmer walks, rack walks etc), and make gains on those new exercises. Or you could simply change what you're looking to increase for a bit. So for example if you've been adding weight, maybe try to increase your reps for while instead and "own the weight", before eventually increasing it.

WTF? So you actually stand a better chance of qualifying for the Euros if you get yourself relegated so you can win an easier division. The runners up of the top division don't deserve automatic qualification for the Euros but the winners of the bottom division do? That's like the winners of the Championship and Division 1 and 2 qualifying for the Champions League instead of the top 4 Prem teams. The whole point of qualification is to ensure the best teams get to the Euros.

It seems the Wii-U might be the last fairly gamer-friendly console, I could see it the last console I ever own the way things are going, after which I'll probably just go 'retro' gaming only. Here's the typical modern Sony/Microsoft consumer experience as I see it: Buy game £30-50 at launch, miss out on retailer exclusive DLC content. Game takes an eternity to install before you can even play it, hours in some cases. Then lengthy updates every time you load the game after that. Day one patch to fix bugs, what exactly is the point of the disc? Might as well download the whole thing then. Game is potentially broken without internet connection and/or developer/publisher servers online. Majority of game is online, small token single player mode. Local multiplayer dropped or half arsed at best. Discover in game graphics are nothing as impressive as the cut scene graphics shown in the adverts and trailers in the absence of gameplay footage. Discover gameplay is average but yet the game is somehow quite good and addictive, due to the fact the developers are scientifically inducing the release of dopamine and other feel-good reward chemicals, by having you fullfill hundreds of all too often utterly pointless achievements. Additional modes that were once free and gave you value for money are now DLC. Day one DLC announced months before launch, could have easily have been included in the game but was purposely left out. Find out DLC is actually on the disk, and you are paying simply to unlock it which does not incur the developer any extra cost. Microtransactions cynicnally employed to make them necessary, or at least handicap you if you don't pay. You pay for virtual content that is already created and simply duplicated by the game at no additional cost to the devleoper, eg ammo, lives, continues, level skips etc. One year later the game is re-released with all the DLC and extra content included, you feel like a mug for supporting the developer and buying the inferior edition at launch. Multiplayer servers shut off after 2-3 years to encourage you to buy the latest game in the series. Servers shut off making the necessary bug-fixing patch install impossible, leaving even the single player mode glitchy at best, if not broken. Game disc is now a £40 coaster. Fear not because because disk are on the way out anyway, no more physical game collections, borrowing/lending/selling games. Game console monitors you to help companies better sell you crap, because that's why people buy games consoles? Ok I exaggerate a bit and paint a worse case scenario, but even so I fail to see how a lot of these 'innovations' of modern gaming benefit the gamer. I don't think modern gaming is necessarily bad, the games can be just as good, just the delivery method of it to the consumer sucks in my opinion.

But why do the friendlies have to have meaning? International games are drain as it is, at least freindlies aren't as demanding. The irony of it is the more similar competitions you have the less they mean. This new competition effectively creates two champions of Europe, they devalue each other. Though one will ultimately become more prestigous, but where does that leave the other competition? Will we start sending the U-21s to the Euros to save our best players for the new super league? There's nothing really wrong with football for football's sake, none of it is really of any importance, all I'm saying is let's not kid ourselves about Uefa's motives, more 'importance' means more people watching, which means more money. And there's a limit to people's priorities, the top players/clubs clearly prioritise their effforts in each club competition as it is. And now we're asking them to care about yet another competition. It's seems like a good idea in theory, more competitive and meaningful international matches to enjoy, yay, but maybe we're being too greedy? Lets say Sturridge (as I'm a Liverpool fan) gets injured playing for England in some new competition (that doesn't determine anything that the Euros won't), and now he can't play for Liverpool. That can still happen in freindlies but the point is it's less likely due to their more relaxed nature.

Sounds like an early April Fools story, and personally I hope it is. I was going to say I don't see the point of it, but obviously the point is money. When you think about it there's no real need to find out who the best country in the world or each region is, it's about getting eyes on screens, but the world cup and euros are still great football festivals for the fans, and they do satisfy that curiosity people have about who is the best country. So why add a new European super league in addition to the existing Euros, replace them by all means, but what's the justification (apart from money) of having two competions to essentially determine the same thing? Exactly who will be the champions of Europe, the winners of the Euros, or the winners of the new competition? And won't the prestige of one competition overshadow the other? I don't really see any need to shake up european international football like this. The freindlies are somewhat pointless but that's the point, they don't matter, which is why they're useful to build the team, get the players together regularly and experiment, without having to play 100% and risk injuries that affect their domestic football. There's a major international competition every two years, that seems plenty to me.