Fog Dude
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Posts posted by Fog Dude
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Week 20A
Premier League
Spurs 3-3 Everton
Liverpool 1-0 ArsenalChampionship
Middlesbrough 2-1 West Bromwich Albion
QPR 1-3 Southampton
Sunderland 0-0 Coventry CityLeague One
Reading 1-2 Wigan AthleticLeague Two
Wrexham 0-2 Newport CountyNational League
Halifax Town 2-0 RochdaleNational League North
Blyth Spartans 0-1 ChesterNational League South
Eastbourne Borough 1-1 Yeovil TownWeek 20B
Premier League
Bournemouth 2-2 Fulham
Sheffield United 1-0 Luton TownChampionship
Cardiff City 1-1 Plymouth Argyle
Huddersfield Town 2-1 Blackburn RoversLeague One
Lincoln City 0-3 Bolton WanderersLeague Two
Salford City 0-0 Tranmere RoversNational League
Gateshead 1-2 York City
Hartlepool United 2-0 Oldham AthleticNational League North
Gloucester City 0-1 HerefordScottish Premiership
Dundee 1-3 Celtic -
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On 12/19/2023 at 2:31 PM, Shy Dad said:
I'm honestly atrocious this season but it's endearingly funny for me to stress on a Monday morning about how close I was on most games.
You're not alone there. Scoring was low again, meaning there was no movement in the table, and if you strip out the D2D bonuses then it was probably about the same as in the last round.
Doesn't help, of course, that for the second week running we've only had 9 results instead of 10. Sadly this time it wasn't due to the weather, but an abandonment as a player's life was in danger. Looks like the Fantasy League is gonna come up with some kind of fudge regarding any points earned before it was called off, but we're not taking cues from there this season and are just gonna treat it as a void game. Obviously both competitions pale into insignificance compared to the health of Tom Lockyer and we wish him a full and swift recovery.
Anyway, the scorelines we did get went into the opening post on Monday night. Stinky Dad played a blinder, betting on a draw for his D2D when most people went for a home win and a few for an away victory, but technically everyone disagreed with him to send him well clear at the summit. At the other end, seph picked late but still closed to gap to joint worst performer Pete slightly. Without the bonuses, defending champion MVP RULZ would've been top scorer, albeit on a mere 7 points.
Why no 'wildcard' points this time? Well, it's a similar story. The stalemate at Anfield was randomly selected after the fact. There was one maverick guess of a Man U success, but everyone else foresaw an easy Liverpool triumph and so ultimately it was a dud outcome. Elsewhere, the other EPL results plus Rangers securing a trophy were generally good for one-pointers, but Barcelona being held further down the coast in Valencia plus a surprise reverse for Atleti at the new San Mamés caught most people out.
Bit of housekeeping: it's actually a good time for someone to take a sudden 20-point advantage, as over the next 3 rounds there won't just be a potential 96 points to be gained, but a whopping almost 180 theoretical points (good arrows!) so the lead could change hands again before the next 10-match card in Week 23. Then the rest of January is a bit weird due to the mini-winter break and both domestic Cup competitions getting a couple of rounds out of the way, so the next round that looks normal – i.e. mostly EPL fixtures plus a few from the continent – will be Week 26. That also feels like as good a time as any to get the fifth and last batch of group stage clashes in the FPL Cup over and done with.
As for the two double rounds: they'll be domestic-only as tradition dictates with an even balance across the divisions. EPL clubs can feature up to twice each, all other teams a maximum of once across the festive fortnight. That'll all become clear in the original post shortly. In the meantime, Merry Christmas!
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21 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:
Starkz vs Athena was a fantastic main event. Starkz is phenomenal in-ring considering her age. I'm glad they kept the belt on Athena too. The post-match with Starkz agreeing to be Athena's minion again was really odd and seems to contradict the whole stoy of this feud but I'll see where it goes.
It's nothing the big leagues haven't done with their women's divisions. Decades ago, Gail Kim agreed to be Molly Holly's sidekick just a week or two after dropping the belt to her in WWE. Still doesn't mean it makes much sense, but ROH isn't uniquely guilty in that regard.
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20 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:
I used to love playing Fire Pro Wrestling on my GBA when I used my student loan to buy it in Uni. The port of Super Street Fighter II Turbo was pretty special as well, and the magic Crayfish worked to get Alpha 3 ported to the Gameboy is beyond unbelievable. Final Fight Zero was pretty good, too.
I'm sure I owned both those Street Fighter ports but Alpha 3 seems to have gone missing after my latest house move (alongside, more inexplicably, my SummerSlam 2010 steelbook - the game was a loose used copy so I can at least understand how that was misplaced without any packaging). Still enjoy a blast of SSF2 Turbo now and then though.
I've kept got my old GameCube with a Game Boy Player attached to the bottom so I can play GBA carts on a bigger screen, but as @RedRooster said it's absurd that there's no legal way to enjoy the vast majority of those titles on more modern consoles.
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Apologies for the cross-post, but thought this discussion belonged here. I was more of a SNES kid so my experience of Aladdin was naturally quite different. Obviously I was aware of the Mega Drive version looking more like the film but soon was already used to Capcom-style gameplay and managed to complete that back in the day. I beat it again early this year on PS4 using save states and without going for 100% of those gems you were meant to collect. I just wanted to revisit it and get any ending this time.
Immediately after I had a quick go at Virgin's Sega effort as part of the same compilation disc and found the contrast in styles jarring, but it's still a 2D platformer at the end of the day and I'm sure I could make it to the final boss and cross that one off the list if I come back to it at some point.
Somehow finished that console's version of The Lion King legitimately when I was younger too but I doubt I'd have the patience for it now. Sure, there were some tricky bits but it wasn't a game any of the magazines I bought then felt the need to publish a walkthrough for so I was surprised to see its online reputation decades later as an apparently hardcore tough title worthy of things like a 'Debunking the Difficulty' vid.
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Premier League
Bournemouth 3-2 Luton Town
Newcastle United 0-1 Fulham
Burnley 0-3 Everton
Brentford 1-1 Aston Villa
Liverpool 3-1 Manchester UnitedScottish League Cup Final
Aberdeen 0-2 Rangers (@ Hampden)La Liga
Athletic Bilbao 2-2 Atlético Madrid
Valencia 0-0 BarcelonaA Primeira Liga
Sporting Lisbon 1-0 PortoHNL
Dinamo Zagreb 3-0 Hajduk Split w/Stinky -
The results went into the initial post on Sunday night, and the FPL Cup scores followed yesterday morning. The table has also been updated now. In a low-scoring week with nobody into double figures, amazingly there were no draws in the Cup for the third time in four matchdays. Only new leader Stinky Dad is guaranteed to win his group, with holder ultimo and TildeGuy most in danger of elimination. The fifth set of clashes will have to wait until February.
In the main competition, as I mentioned Stinky has taken the lead, but it's Rory who consolidates his place in the top half as the best performer this time out. At the other end, seph is now a point further adrift of Pete but at least into treble figures for the season at last. He and I are clearly hopeless romantics as we were the only ones to bet on an upset at Calais, perhaps hankering back to that fairytale run 24 seasons ago. That meant everyone else got a bonus 'wildcard' point each when we didn't.
Nobody quite guessed the scoreline for equally emphatic wins by Spurs and Torquay either, but on the other hand an upset at Nantwich meant a dud outcome. I happened to be changing trains at nearby Crewe not long before kick-off in that one and the local weather certainly felt ideal for a Trophy shock. Speaking of which, we lost the Hull tie to inclement conditions the following day, though the match at Pompey which went ahead generally proved fruitful. The remaining 4 EPL final scores produced a mixed bag of picks with no clear pattern.
There's one more initial D2D turn to squeeze in before Christmas, and unbelievably, it turns out Stinky is the only person who hasn't had his yet! The rest of us ought to be afraid...
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1. F-Zero 99
2. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
3. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
4. Octopath Traveler II
5. Pikmin 4
Yeah, I don't play many new games and am a cheapskate so it was a stretch to get to five, but I think I managed to find about a dozen that came out this year which I've technically played and these brought me the most joy.
One of the above is free on Steam, one is available at no extra cost if you're a lower-tier Switch Online subscriber, one was a birthday present, one I was lucky enough to playtest last year and the other I've included based on having played the free demo alone.
Have ended up playing way more F-Zero 99 than Tetris or Pac-Man even though they've been out for longer and I loved the vanilla versions of both as a kid, whereas I was more of a Super Mario Kart guy on the SNES, and didn't get into futuristic racers until the next console generation with the likes of Wipeout and Extreme-G. This twist on F-Zero is addictive, however, and sits alongside Duolingo as something I try to check in on daily. Plus it was only released a few months ago so they're still adding stuff to it every couple of weeks.
An April Fools joke murder mystery title that's actually the most accessible and entertaining - or at minimum the least frustrating - Sonic title in decades? Don't mind if I do! Craps all over yet another release of shoddy Game Gear emulations later in the year, and is more intuitive than the Chaos Emerald sections seem to be in Superstars.
Wonder is a new 2D Mario platformer, and that's all it needed to be. It's fine but hasn't enthused me to get very far in the seven and a half weeks I've had it. Yes, one new elephant-shaped power-up, and the central gimmick of the Wonder flower, are neat and welcome additions, but not the ground-breaking leap forward that some have made it out to be like SMB3, SMW, 64, Galaxy and Odyssey were. The animations aren't as generic as NSMB. Oh, and at least the plot doesn't involve rescuing a damsel in distress anymore.
Octopath 2 looks gorgeous, and the combat is decent. The eight eventually converging storylines are ridiculous but you just have to shrug and occasionally chuckle at the voice acting taking them all so seriously for the most part. And yes, there really ought to be two Ls in 'Traveler'. I really think they missed a trick by not calling the sequel Nonopath too but that would've meant adding an extra character.
I'm a bit of a latecomer to the Pikmin franchise but I can see what the fuss is about. The characters are cute and the gameplay's inoffensive. Not sure I'd want to fork out upwards of forty quid for hours more of it but the demo is a good introduction to the series.
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Premier League
Sheffield United 3-2 Brentford
Wolves 2-0 Nottingham Forest
Aston Villa 2-2 Arsenal
Everton 1-1 Chelsea
Spurs 1-2 Newcastle UnitedFA Trophy Third Round
Frome Town 0-3 Torquay United
Nantwich Town 0-2 York CityWomen's FA Cup Third Round
Hull City 1-3 Wolves
Portsmouth 1-0 Southampton LadiesFrench Cup Round 8
Calais 2-1 Caen -
The results went into the opening post last night and the main table update soon followed. I'd already figured out the bonus points before that since Rory got his D2D right and only ultimo – who's now regained the lead – didn't surrender any bonus points to him, meaning Mr Fice skyrockets into the top half of the standings. Without those bonuses, nobody would've even made it into double figures. Among those still struggling, Pete moves further clear of late picker seph, whilst at the other end Stinky also jumps a place to slot into second.
The random 'wildcard' fixture turned out to be match #3 at Turf Moor. A majority of people who picked on time rightly thought it'd (finally) be a home win for Burnley to claim an extra bonus each, but nobody foresaw it'd be such a one-sided affair which ultimately proved to be the last straw for Paul Heckingbottom's continued employment. A similar outcome was last night's scoreline from Hampden Park where everybody knew it'd be an away win but none could quite guess the (eventually futile) wide margin of victory beforehand.
Elsewhere, fair play to those who actually opted for the upset in our one and only FA Cup tie, as well as the trio who got the Dutch derby spot on. Victories for Arsenal and Brentford also yielded a lot of points, but an insipid reverse for Man Utd plus score draws at Dean Court and the Etihad on a mad Super Sunday ended up a tad tougher to pick.
I've left the FPL Cup standings in the table link because we're gonna get another matchday in there next time, this time mercifully not tied to an international round. Instead it's a fairly ordinary set of 10 that'll go up at the top of the thread shortly.
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17 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:
More news from the political world, Alistair Darling has died. So has Glenys Kinnock.
Not sure why the BBC felt the need to explain in the caption when the photo at the top of the article reporting her death was taken. Doesn't everyone instantly recognise what year those headlines are from?
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Premier League
Arsenal 3-0 Wolves
Brentford 2-1 Luton Town
Burnley 0-0 Sheffield United
Newcastle United 2-0 Manchester United
Bournemouth 1-1 Aston Villa
Manchester City 3-1 SpursFA Challenge Cup Second Round proper
Maidstone United 1-2 BarrowEredivisie
Feyenoord 0-2 PSV EindhovenCAF Confederation Cup Group D
Stade Malien 2-2 RSB Berkane w/RoryFiceWomen's Nations League
Scotland 1-3 England -
The final scores were up in the original post on Sunday night, and the table was updated soon after that. Some healthier scoring this time, with top scorer Pete moving above joint worst performer Rory into eight place. Also into double figures is Stinky, who moves up a place to put himself well into title contention, while Vegeta consolidates his hard-won spot in the top half.
Two of the aforementioned were helped by the randomly selected 'wildcard' fixture, which turned out to be #1 again, Burnley v West Ham. They nabbed two bonus points each for getting the scoreline spot on, alongside seph who therefore stops himself from being cast even further adrift.
Elsewhere, wins for favourites Partick, Ayr and Bournemouth Ladies in cup ties all proved fruitful, with victories for Luton, Newcastle and AFCB's men all yielded more of a mixed bag of guesses. The other Scottish game going to penalties produced a dud, whereas Inter's failure to capitalise on turmoil at Juventus caught out a majority of pickers.
Right, D2Ds have been on the backburner lately so we've still got two more people's initial turns to squeeze in before the packed Christmas schedule. That means one of those will form part of the card in the opening post very soon.
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Brand new this month is Christmas at the Holly Day Inn, found out about it via the local news from where I used to live (but eventually escaped from):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15379406/
Available on both Prime and Apple TV, apparently.
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Premier League
Burnley 1-1 West Ham United
Luton Town 2-1 Crystal Palace
Newcastle United 3-1 Chelsea
Nottingham Forest 2-2 Brighton & Hove Albion
Sheffield United 0-0 BournemouthScottish Cup Round 3
Partick Thistle 2-0 Queen's Park
Peterhead 1-2 Ayr United
Queen of the South 0-1 Dundee UtdWomen's FA Cup Second Round
Swindon Town 0-2 BournemouthSerie A
Juventus 1-3 Internazionale -
The results went into the first post on Monday night, and the scores for the FPL Cup only followed this morning, so sorry for the delay. The table's now been updated too but in truth, it was quite low-scoring (especially for an international round) meaning there's very little to report. There's no movement in terms of positions, but ultimo's lead has been cut to a single point and Tilde's now only hanging onto third place by the skin of his teeth.
With such a narrow spread of scores, three of the five Cup clashes ended 5-2 and it's a surprise none ended up as a draw this time out. Looks like Stinky, Pete, seph and myself are all on the brink of the quarter-finals, but the holder is on course for elimination. The next matchday will not be combined with an international-dominated week so that might mix things up a little.
The aforementioned Pete was responsible for one of the three-pointers by getting the women's Manchester derby spot on, when most people didn't even get the correct outcome for that one. I got the only other one by foreseeing a very nervy stalemate in Germany. The only bonus point went to seph as everybody else was too optimistic about Welsh chances of automatic qualification for what turned out to be the 'wildcard' fixture. I've probably 'gone native' over here since I could hardly even bear to look by the time of the game against the Turks last night.
Right, I don't think there's any need to go through the rest of the individual matches with such pitiful scores all round this week. A proper set of 10 will be up at the top of the thread shortly.
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8 hours ago, Rossman said:
To put it into context, the candidate was not long term unemployed or later in life. He was 19, fresh out of college. But my point was, he never had a job, his whole life. No paper round, no Saturday job. No summer job in the holidays from college. I would expect someone has a basic knowledge of how work life is, before coming to their first full time job.
And that's not solely his fault. If he never had anyone pushing him to find a job or learning to drive, he's not going to understand. Whomever dropped him off for the interview, should have had a word in his ear to take the headphones off.
Apart from his qualification was in robotics, which is nothing to do with what we specialise in. He couldn't drive and we work in a rural area. So would have been difficult to get to us on a daily basis.
The now departed HR manager took that initial zoom interview on her own. After I had originally said his CV was not suitable. She then let him through to interview stage because he was more normal than the previous candidate. When it got to pre-interview the MD looked at the CV and said why are interviewing him, he clearly isn't suitable.
He also showed us a product he had been developing. In his right pocket was a Samsung mobile phone and then on a chunky 2m cable it was attached to a power bank, in his left pocket. He gleefully told us, his phone's battery now lasts for a week! He told us, if he replaced the battery in his phone, it still wouldn't last very long. (bollocks) So he took the battery out completely and put this industrial looking connector on it. He didn't see the downside that if he unplugged the connector from the phone, it immediately shut down. So he just made himself an unmobile phone.
We have in the past employed an older gentleman (mid 50s) who had been unemployed for a little while. His quirks included.
- Falling asleep after lunch multiple times a week
- Collapsed on the toilet, so now we have special locks fitted.
- Told the workshop, he had been bleeding from his anus. And it was normal for a man of his age to do that.
- Told us, he helped invent the Microsoft mouse.
- Lived with his cousin in a lodge on a golf course. He brought her to the works summer BBQ. She brought along her book of erotic poetry she had written and told everyone, her cousin has a nice bum
- Put on his CV that he was certified to do fine levels of soldering. He couldn't even solder two wires together. Then would blame the cable was faulty.
Thanks for elaborating on those very particular cases that clearly irked you. Heaven forfend somebody might be raised with love and support instead of being told they're just another economic unit as soon as they hit their teens.
Barriers to driving aren't just about money, it's not intuitive for many, and a lot of people simply aren't petrol heads so won't be motivated to learn for that reason either. Could also be that where they live the instructors are rubbish, or the roads are far from ideal for learners.
The only complaints there which sound valid as a reason to reject or dismiss someone are the lack of a relevant qualification, and the last one about soldering because as I said, there should definitely be negative consequences when people flat-out lie on their CV.
Everything else is either unrelated to their ability to do the job (who cares if they're enthusiastic about a crap 'invention', or who they bring to the summer barbecue?) or, depending on whether the positions were customer-facing or not, should fall under reasonable adjustments for narcolepsy/whatever the first guy has. If there's a dichotomy between the employer's idea of "reasonable" and the candidate's, I'd tend to side with the latter until such time as it endangers - not just inconveniences - the public.
Or maybe we could introduce UBI and let robots/AI perform most roles, then you'd never meet such people in a professional capacity and wouldn't have to be bothered by them... but that's probably a wider topic for another thread.
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2 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:
But he said he was mute by choice. If that’s the case, and it wasn’t selective / situational mutism, then he was right to reject him for a speaking role.
Yeah, fair point if you could be sure it was voluntary, and maybe going for that particular role was taking the mick a bit, but the general perception of such people automatically being unsuitable for vacancies still reeks.
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10 hours ago, Rossman said:
One guy had never had a job before, turned up 15 minutes late and was wearing over ear headphones around his neck throughout the interview.
I don't expect a candidate to wear a full 3 piece suit. But another guy turned up wearing a sweatshirt with ET on the front of it.
One guy came in and the first thing he said was, he was really nervous and had not had a job interview in 6 months. He had been unemployed for 8 months. His parting words were asking me what the time was, when I gave it to him, he responded, he was off to the dr's to get his medication.
Another interviewee went through his whole list of failed job interviews and feedback, when he was asked what he had been doing whilst unemployed for the past year.
How are the long-term unemployed ever meant to get back in the game – or into work for the first time later in life – if that very fact is a leading reason for the people doing the hiring to be utterly dismissive?
You never know, those 'quirks' that supposedly made them unsuitable might have been them actually developing a personality while free from the rat race for a while.
Unemployment shouldn't mean a complete loss of dignity and equally, having a job shouldn't mean you need to leave your humanity behind completely for 8 hours a day in the name of being 'professional'.
Interviews are load of bollocks anyway. They cost companies time and money, clearly discriminate in favour of neurotypicals (as shown by your attitude towards a non-verbal candidate), are not fun for recruiters and even less so for interviewees. CVs ought to speak for themselves. If anyone lies on theirs they'll soon get found out, and it's technically illegal to do that so perhaps that law should actually be enforced more often.
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Euro 2024 qualifying
Armenia 0-1 Wales
France 3-0 Gibraltar
Netherlands 2-0 Ireland
Serbia 1-1 Bulgaria
Scotland 2-3 NorwayNorthern Ireland 2-2 Denmark
'North' Macedonia 0-2 England
Ukraine 0-0 Italy (in Leverkusen)WSL
West Ham United 3-1 Aston VillaManchester United 0-3 Manchester City
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The results went into the opening post on Sunday night, and the table has since been updated as usual. I've left in the FPL Cup standings since we've got another round of group matches coming up in that next... which means an international break is upon us. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Following the last set of club matches, the lead at the top has been cut to 6 points, the gap at the bottom is down to 9 and in the middle, the forcefield between the two halves of the classification has finally been penetrated as Vegeta at last overtakes Shy Dad.
TildeGuy was the best performer this time out, taking him up into joint second, while champion MVP RULZ again struggled to find three-pointers, but Pete was only one point better off which is what allowed seph to bring his deficit down into single figures. Apologies that it says he's the lowest scorer BTW, that's obviously wrong. Bonus points went to the four participants who got the score draw in the Seville derby spot on, since match #9 was randomly chosen as the 'wildcard' fixture once all the scorelines were in.
Elsewhere, a surprisingly narrow loss for Burnley's men and a shockingly small margin of victory for the women were both generally good for one-pointers, as were the emphatic avoidance of upsets by Pompey, Derby and The Tractor Girls (didn't Fulham used to have a decent women's team though???) A late turnaround for the home side in the Lisbon derby mostly proved fruitful too, alongside another nervy success for the hosts at Old Trafford. A reverse for Palace and a madcap eight-goal thriller at Stamford Bridge, on the other hand, caught a lot of people out.
As already mentioned, it's mainly internationals this weekend, plus a couple of WSL meetings to round things out. That card will be up in the initial post in a jiffy.
Game of the Year 2023: Nominations
in Off Topic
Posted
Yeah, Wonder made it onto my list but didn't blow me away like it seemingly did with most people outside of this forum.
In terms of what's eligible, if you could nominate any game you happened to play for the first time in 2023 then I'd probably have 5 different ones, and for any game you happened to play at some point this year (even if you played it before) then it'd be another 5 again.