Will

This is excellent advice everyone should follow. Goose fat and semolina willl give you the best roasting you can imagine. I always used to be the same but now have to make sure I’m good about it. Usually as long as we have everything by around the time we fly home it’s fine, but this year is a bit different. We sent The Package™ earlier this week and hopefully it shouldn’t take too long to arrive. Yeah, hopefully it will at least in a small way feel like some part of him is with them. That sounds tasty, wish we had Waitrose here. We do have M&S food which does some decent stuff at Christmas, need to go and check them out for mince pies etc. Don’t worry, the alcohol will be coming, that’s for a supermarket trip a bit closer to the big day.

Was watching but not surprised by it at all. Just the most recent incident of way too many - the guy is an absolute danger to anyone on (and off) the track with him. Unfortunately money speaks loud in F1 so I doubt much will be done to stop him getting there. Hopefully Haas can get what they need quickly and dump him asap.

Today I did our butcher pre-order for Christmas. Have the following: 4kg turkey 600g pork stuffing 6 venison chipolata 12 pork chipolata 2.5kg kurobuta ham cranberry sauce Still a few additional things I want to get but this is a pretty decent start. Pick it up on December 22nd to give us a few days for prep before the big day. Anyone have any personal tips on good food to pick up?

The Warner Bros distribution stuff is interesting, it might just convince me to get HBO for a month when Matrix 4 comes out. I’ll probably wait for it to be on iTunes though.

I can totally understand why people might not be super keen to take it immediately. I’m absolutely pro vaccine but I’m not sure I’d be signing up to take any Covid vaccine early on, there is a big difference between something that is brand new with a very narrow distribution and something that’s been in use for years with millions of successful treatments. Of course, I want to get back to normal more than I fear any vaccine, if I need to have it to travel or something I totally will.

This is the next game I’m going to play. Don’t think I’ve played an Assassin’s Creed since the original so I’m quite looking forward to getting stuck in with this one. I haven’t read much about the specifics but it does seem like it’s got a lot of positive attention.

Loaded up my first disc based game yesterday and was amazed by how much time it took. To pull all of the required data off the disc took longer than it usually takes me to download something. Glad I’m mostly going digital, I had to go and do something else while it was reading the disc.

I got the platinum last night, my 2nd on PS5 so already close to my total of 3 on PS4. Really think this was a great game and definitely a quality launch title. Does make me wish I’d played the original when it first came out but will get back to that at some point. Definitely a thumbs up from me and recommend it to all. Totally agree! I think in general all of the cinematic in this were done amazingly. It’s a really nicely crafted piece of entertainment.

Russell confirmed at Mercedes this weekend, cannot wait to see how he does in that car. Also in the least shocking news of the week Schumacher has been confirmed at Haas for next season. Really looking forward to seeing him in F1 too.

Would have spiced things up a bit had this happened a few months ago. In that situation, I'm almost certain Russell would have got the drive. I actually almost put a bet on Russell for world champion this year on the theory if the Mercedes drivers got a bit unlucky he might get enough races in that car to take it. Not so sure who gets it now. I really hope it's Russell but I think we'll probably get something more boring and it will be Vandoorne instead.

F1 2020 Predictions Game Round 15 Results Grosjean is not dead. Maximum points for this race were: Pole - Hamilton (10) Fastest Lap - Verstappen (10) 1st - Hamilton (25 + 5) 2nd - Verstappen (18 + 5) 3rd - Albon (15 + 5) 4th - Norris (12 + 5) 5th - Sainz (10 + 5) The results for this round: @BowserBasher - 50 @Will - 40 @Pestneb - 35 And the overall standings (previous total in brackets): @Will - 749 (709) @BowserBasher - 646 (596) @Mandalore - 241 (241) @Nicktendo - 191 (191) @bob - 155 (155) @Goron_3 - 113 (113) @Pestneb - 35 (0) Sakhir Grand Prix Predictions: Pole - Russell FL - Albon 1st - Russell 2nd - Verstappen 3rd - Sainz 4th - Bottas 5th - Leclerc

Made some meatballs:

We made baby handprint baubles to send home for the family, it was... interesting. Seems to have worked out OK in the end but you wouldn’t know we spend multiple days re-doing and cleaning them off to get something close to a hand on them. They better be happy with them!

Finished my first play through this morning and have to say I absolutely loved the game. I didn’t play the original (though will soon) so maybe that made it a bit easier for me to take in as it’s own thing. The game looks and plays fantastically and I really enjoyed the story and characters. The side quests were lots of fun and the collectibles I thought were done in a way that made me actually want to go and collect them. Would have moved on but I enjoyed it so much I think I’m going to do the second play through and try to clean up collecting everything before I do.

I imagine the race will be pretty boring, the one good thing about this year has been going to all these more interesting tracks at weird times of the year and it’s lead to things being a lot more interesting than normal. I am quite looking forward to seeing how next week’s race goes though, it will probably not lead to any decent racing but it’s at least a change.

I can’t decide whether I think that food looks great or disgusting. That guy had another video up of the merchandise they’re selling and I can already feel my bank account draining: After Christmas in the UK got cancelled we made plans to go to Japan for New Year as they’d relaxed the travel restrictions between here and there. Now that COVID cases have spiked in Japan we’ve decided against it. Will have to align the next trip with this place being open - can’t wait to visit.

I actually managed to catch up properly this week and not listen just as the next week’s episode came out. The game awards I really couldn’t care too much about, mainly because of my dislike for Geoff Keighley’s presenting. I find him so awkward to watch, always standing as if he’s doing a leaning tower of Pisa impression with his hands either bouncing around with no relation to what he’s talking to or else dangling awkwardly somewhere in the vicinity of his body. Just really puts me right off anything he’s involved with. The topic on day one games is really interesting and I’m not too sure where I stand on it, I think it’s different for different types of games. For things like Mario All Stars where the game is pretty much standalone they really should be launched with everything in place on the disc/cart and no need for any updates to enjoy the full experience without issue. Extras added later should be fairly minimal enhancements but nothing that means people who can’t upgrade are missing out. I think Nintendo pretty much always nails this and I don’t see any issue with the updates they made later, nice enhancements for the few that want them but the vast majority of people will never miss them. I have no issue buying stuff like this at launch or later on. Bigger next-gen games where there is an expectation of DLC & updates throughout some period of time after launch I think it’s OK for the game not to be 100% so long as updates are quick and don’t break things. The people playing these games want updates and are ready for them. That being said the game shouldn’t be a complete mess on launch like XIII seems to be, the initial game should at least work properly with as few bugs as possible. If a game is something I REALLY want I’ll still buy it at launch, but otherwise I’ll probably wait for the first sale or a game of the year edition. Games that are designed to be run as a service and constantly evolve can come out in whatever state the developers are ready to test in, there is an expectation that things will evolve and if you’re only spending money once you’re happy to I see no issue with it. For me I actually won’t play stuff like this unless I’m in at the start. If a game is up to season 7 and has been running for 2 years I automatically assume I’m so far behind everyone else playing that there would be little enjoyment to be had starting now.

I’m falling behind again but really enjoyed episode 52’s A General Disdain for Gaming. As a kid I did all sorts of things, read, sports, bike riding, various hobbies but still whenever I played games it was a waste of time or I was told I should do something more useful. I still don’t really get why anyone would really care too much about any hobby people choose to partake in. Nowadays it’s something I luckily never have to deal with, pretty much everyone I’ve ever worked with plays games and genuinely loves them. When I tell people I managed to get a PS5 there is no comment about what a waste of $800 it is, just pure jealousy that I’m one of the few people here to have one. I think anyone that did question it as a hobby I would probably just dismiss them as a person and never think about it ever again. Crazy that people care about other peoples hobbies like this, just let people enjoy whatever they want to.

Well yeah but it still means I need to get used to something different. Would have preferred they just left it as it was. Or at least give us the option.

Yep, you can definitely do this. I really like the new dashboard but I’m constantly getting confused by long press and tap of the PS button and the fact that X and O are now reversed.

Just got the Platinum on this, really such a joy all the way through and all the little touches were so well done. Really a great introduction to the PS5 and got me hungry for more.

Super impressed with this thing so far. I still think it’s ugly but it’s definitely not as bad as the pictures suggest. I wish it was small enough to hide in the TV cabinet but I’m not totally put out by needing to have it on display. The noise is... non-existent? I haven’t heard anything come out of it so far. I guess when I get my hands on some disc based games the drive will make some noise. Definitely a fan of the UI and think it’s a good evolution of what we had on PS4. I’m a bit annoyed that X is select and O is back, but I’m sure eventually I’ll get used to that. The star of the show though is the DualSense, this thing is a complete leap forward and the most immersive device I’ve ever used. The combination of speaker, rumble and triggers just makes games feel so different to what they’ve been before. I really can’t get over how good it is. I bought DIRT just to see what F1 could be like when it launches on PS5 and while the game is not all that great the controller makes it shine. The rumble adapting to what you’re driving on while the triggers are fighting back at you to different degrees dependent on your grip is really quite something. It adds something to everything I’ve played so far and makes me excited to try more.

Yeah I have to agree with this, DualSense is the star of this launch. This game is just so nicely done and so many awesome references to everything Playstation. As a showcase of what is possible it’s really done a fantastic job. Nice to have to to come back to in between other games. I probably wouldn’t have bought it but I’m so glad I have it.

Enjoy!!

He wouldn’t dare!