The Gaffer

Thanks for giving us the Lo-Down on that.

I'm not a fan but the annual "What, really?" of acts like Evanescence being announced for Download of all places is strange, to me. Bands like this have enormous nostalgia appeal, but also their top few songs have never left rock/emo/alternative nights in most major cities, and teenagers treat them as if they came out yesterday. Pretty sure the second stage space was overflowing when they played it a few years back. They're the most Downloady headliner ever. Edit: And yeah to what @Dead Mike was saying, obviously a major festival's going to be an exercise in commerciality to some extent, but there was a threshold Download passed in the last few years where you got that sudden festival awareness that you were a walking ATM. That and the language of everything turning into this aching, marketing taskforce slew of 'Download Family', 'Download Experience' etc. I binned it at that point.

I'm pretty sure most of that Austin/Bret stuff is in that Rise of Stone Cold timeline they uploaded awhile back, but I watched it all again anyway. The look and feel of the WWF shows - with that particular angle - is probably my favourite mini-era of wrestling ever. Pipebomb? Try showing up on Livewire and calling in angrily to the commentary desk during Raw! The injection the product receives is genuinely night and day. It still feels like they just gave up on Austin and said "Look, we're really tired. We're losing money. You have a bee in your bonnet about something? Have this segment." Pure, organic, visceral anger directed at Bret - a man who, hilariously, wasn't even there and had never mentioned Steve before - and none of it was a shoot. It was all just wonderfully worked make-believe. Also Brian Pillman pulling faces with his cane and his Marilyn Monroe t-shirt might be the coolest a pro wrestler has ever looked. That him, Bret and Austin didn't get to do an entire year of swapping around in different combos in the main event scene at the start of the Attitude Era is my biggest "What If?" in history.

Olivia decided Christmas starts today for me.

Assuming someone walked pass and mentioned there was a nickle on the floor.

God the title of that video can get fucked as well. You forced AI? How completely kerazy of you. It must have put up quite a resistance.

I know nothing's really going to live or die by its title, but Project Sentinel just sounds like the codename for Xbox's new lethal dose of restructuring poison. I can't imagine it having the same sort of cool cultural weight and longevity as Skyrim.

Yeah, fantastic coffee this morning. There'll be a time to parse promises, expectations etc but this is some of the most pleasant, funniest live election blogging I've been arsed to scroll through in ages.

Public responses to public posts are a perfectly ordinary part of a thread's transparency and progression, especially when the subject matter is still very much on-topic and it is clearly a shared feeling. I am - however - up for calling the next Spurs/Arsenal thread The Thunderdome.

I hate that - and I should have known better - my brain assumed you meant the Wade Barrett led cohort and was like "No, that can't be right." That - of course - was sixteen years ago. I completely edited the later one out of my head!

Another recommendation for the Switch 2 Cyberpunk port. It should be the benchmark of what that piece of hardware can do in the right hands for the rest of its lifecycle. No excuse for muck like the Oblivion remaster chugging along looking like an oil painting done in the rain when you can zoom around Night City dicing up choombas with your blades without anything much feeling compromised.

Not sure this one needs defending Twoster! Though maybe my original post wasn't clear that I enjoyed the segment. Even with your explanation it surely falls under pro wrestling bollocks in kayfabe terms. Everything about it was blatantly absurd, I would have thought.

- Nick Wayne gets out of a limo. - Pulls a mugging face that would get him thrown out of any struggling for membership acting school. - Seemingly senses without looking that Jericho is printed on the production truck behind him. - Reveals his surprise custom made 'NICK WAYNE BEAT CHRIS JERICHO' t-shirt. - Excalibur immediately mentions - complete with on screen graphic - that it's available for purchase on shopAEW.com - Pyro flies in the arena That's the best encapsulation of total pro wrestling bollocks I've seen in ages.

Saints Row 2 is my favourite GTA game. More fleshed out than the relative proof-of-concept that was the first game, but nowhere near the plasticky, curated-for-whackiness sleaze of The Third. It almost tricks you into thinking it's just an okay, derivative sandbox crime game until you realise you're doing that thing where you're driving taxis around in traffic pretending you live in the city. Its tone is like a mix of an open world Streets of Rage game and a pirate radio station. It's a weirdly comforting mix of run down, stoned atmospheres with huge mission and side activity variety where absolutely nothing reinvents the wheel or has been thought through too much, but it doesn't matter because it's all so breezy to control through. It was enough to make me earworm on a dozen dubious dancehall tunes I never would have given the time of day outside its confines. Also the cockney geezah preset voice pretty much gives the game its main character. It's pointless picking any other voice option. Especially if you make your default walking style that lazy pimp lean.

We tried this with Bacon after he stole a pack of smokes.

Entertaining is an emergency diplomat role, pal!

I know it's a base instinct that floats to the top for a lot of ordinary people, but to me there's always something deeply unsettling and simultaneously medieval and science fiction like about a state executing somebody - anybody - and people also wishing for this to happen. It doesn't strike me as a good thing to have in your society. If we're talking about outsiders supplying their own punishments, I'm sure somebody's sitting on an archive of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross's hilarious Radio 2 bits. Get it hooked up to the largest Acme bluetooth speaker you can find, Guantanamo style.

I think things will start to go United's way again when they move into that mental new stadium that looks like a water level from Sonic the Hedgehog.

Rachel Casey's always been fantastic on snooker coverage down through the years. That was a tough watch. Glad this thread's reminded me the Northern Irish open is on, though. Think it's always been my favourite of the tier 2/domestic cups, probably something to do with the time of year it comes on.

Speaking of the Gangrela Effect, I had fun watching this: Not news to anyone or anything - I know - but good lord was Gangrel an atrocious promo, though. He's got to be up there for "Well that's the push fucked" as soon as he opens his mouth.

It goes "MAKE SOME NOISE! (X-Pac)" and not "mmmMMLLLLX-PAAAAC! (X-Pac)"

This spiritually belongs in the Things You Know Will Be Shit... thread but since it has potential to produce related discussion that would be better off in here... I think it's just a question of how enraging it is on a toothless appraisal to "Fuck this" spectrum. I hope I'm wrong. In the meantime place your bets on who unmasks by doing a "She's a remarkable woman, really!" talking head bit.

Contemporary is subjective. Pretty sure our own @Chico Torres considers the WWF's blue and yellow tile logo to be contemporary.