SpiritOfTheForest

There was an amusing part in the BBC coverage where the camera panned to a Turkish woman holding a baby sleeping on her knee wearing earphones and Guy Mowbray quipped "I bet he's listening to you" at Jenas which was awkward but quite funny.

The earliest of days but I'm feeling happily justified in putting 10 euros on Italy to win the thing. A delight to watch and a far cry from the ultra-defensive stereotypical Italy of old. Missing out on the last World Cup clearly stoked quite the flame. Absolutely loved Chiellini's reaction to making that block deep into injury time. What a man. 

Watching on iPlayer via VPN and the bastards erupting into cheers on the street whenever Italy scored a good 2 minutes ahead of my stream was rather inconsiderate though. For shame!

So we finally got Ange Postecoglou. To be honest, it's an appointment that excites me and I can't wait to see what he can do. It also annoys me how blinded so many fans can be to football outside of Europe (hell, outside the UK more like). It's a guy who has found success at pretty much every job he's had - brought Brisbane Roar to the A-League title, gave Yokohama F-Marinos their first J-League championship in 15 years and even won the Asian Cup (that side of the world's equivalent of the Euros) with historically poor Australia.  Folk who harp on about "but it wasn't real opposition!" are elitist as fuck in my mind. I hate this mentality that if it isn't football played in the UK then it's a "farmer's league" or whatever hilarity you're seeing on the Match of the Day Facebook page that afternoon. I would have taken this guy over Eddie Howe even before that merry dance got underway - managing the Japanese champions sounds far more interesting to me than managing Bournemouth. 

The question now is: will Ange be given time. If he doesn't, then this whole appointment will be shambles and totally pointless but if he is given that wee bit of patience to put his stamp on things then I'm excited to see what he can do. Of course, that is a somewhat large "if" given that Celtic Football Club are about to undergo their biggest rebuilding job, perhaps in my lifetime. But fuck it, I'm being optimistic! 

Totally an aside but by God I love when we have an international tournament (especially when we're in it!!!) to plug that dull monotonous gap between seasons. 

"What's Anal doing in the Imapact Zone!?"

 

Yeah that sounds almost exactly like what happened to my girlfriend. She got her first dose of Astra in the afternoon, was fine all day and then at night she took a real turn for the worst. Really bad fever and intense headache. Poor thing said she felt like she was dying. It was a super rough night for her but in the morning she felt a bit better. Seeing her made me think I might prefer not to opt for the Astra. 

I've been playing Stranded Deep since it was free on PS Plus this month. It's my first time playing a game like this (it's a survival game) and I think I'm enjoying it. It's actually kind of relaxing to play too. I'm a bit stuck though, as I'm not too sure how to progress. I know there are bosses to fight but I haven't been able to craft a weapon which I imagine is good enough to face them so I've entirely been launching expeditions to other islands and loading up on wood and stone and raiding any shipwrecks for miscellaneous parts. I'm day 28, have a raft, a shelter and a bunch of other crafting/survival sets ups like a water still and a tanning rack. The game doesn't hold your hand and tell you what to do at all so I'm not expecting finishing the game to be remotely easy. 

And goodness me, getting lost when out exploring is an absolute bastard. 

Absolutely buzzing for it - last time we qualified for a tournament I was 7 years old and I'm 30 now. All kicks off just as work wraps up for the summer so looking forward to watching more football in a short space of time than was previously thought to be humanly possible. Only wish I could be home for it to really soak in the national atmosphere, but hey, worse things happen at sea. I'm sure I read that this year some of the best 3rd placed teams go through to the next round so if we can beat the Czechs in the first game, maybe 3 points will be enough to advance. Although really I'm just delighted to be taking part and can't wait to revel in the experience of seeing my country play on a big stage for the first time since I was a wee man.

As second sides go, I'd like to see Spain do well and after living out there I feel I can justifiably claim them as a respectably good second team to have a soft spot for. Even though I technically live in Italy now, it's Sardinia so I have no sense of attachment to the Azzurri so not too fussed what they do. I'd also like to see Finland surprise some people as it's always nice to see the underdog take some scalps. I believe it's their first tournament ever too. 

As daft as it sounds, it was only today that it twigged that the term "prima donna" is from the Italian language.

For extra embarrassing context, I have been living in Sardinia since last August and it was only when seeing a shop called Prima Donna that it really clicked "wait a minute....these are both Italian words!".

Far from my proudest moment but I'm taking it as a linguistic sign of progress (which has been minimal as having been in lockdown for almost a year, it's difficult to practice). 

When somebody on the internet chastises somebody else for poor spelling or grammar and then immediately proceeds to make a spelling or grammatical error of their own. 

RIP you lovable lunatic. Somewhere, Natural Born Killaz just kicked in and someone's about to get fucked up. Maybe a bit like this 

As somebody who has always loved the hardcore/deathmatch side of wrestling the most, I always enjoyed watching his bloodsoaked brawls. 

Completed Call of Cthulhu last night. As a huge fan of Lovecraft, this game was a must try for me. It was pretty good for the most part. The atmospherics are great and it got the murky Sinister Lovecraftian vibe down quite well. It was easily at its best when you're walking round looking for clues and talking to people and trying to piece together the mystery. There were a couple of moments that seemed a bit out of left-field but they didn't detract too much from what was a fun game. I had a R'lyeh good time exploring Darkwater and I liked that many of the achievements that would pop up were also named after Lovecraft works. 

Another thing I especially liked was that I could complete the game in a few nights, playing a couple of hours after work. A lot of newer games seem like you have to dedicate half your life to them, such is their scale, and while I do like having lots of content, it's also quite nice to polish a game off and soak it all in in a short time every so often. There's a few hidden endings so I'll probably play it again in a few months and go for another of those. There's also The Sinking City to check out, another Lovecraft inspired game. I'd recommend giving Call of Cthulhu a go if you like cosmic horror. Nothing groundbreaking here but an enjoyable romp for fans. 

Miscellaneous FC 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_SC_Serowe

3 hours ago, waters44 said:

Congrats @SpiritOfTheForest !

Add me on PSN if you like so I can be nosey and see what you’re playing! Username is Waters_44 

Thanks again, man. I sent you an add. My name's Emberscorn in case anyone else fancies a new PSN pal.

Huge thank you for this @waters44! used your advice and got a rage resurrection stone instead of a health one. I still got killed about 100 times before I went into the menus to see if there was anything else I could upgrade. Went to check the difficulty, and discovered that it never actually saved when I changed it last night. I faced her again and only one more time dying later... 

I fucking did it! The Platinum is now mine. Probably not the most sporting way of getting it, but who cares, it had stopped being fun by this point and I just wanted to finally kill her! While you can learn her attacks and how to deal with each one, they come at you so relentlessly and at random that I found it so hard to react in time and do the correct counter. Brutal boss, up there with Sephiroth in the first Kingdom Hearts in the most difficult enemy I've faced in a game but man, it feels so good when you finally rip off her wings after 2 straight days of pain.

Cracking game! I have a big stack of games that I've been accumulating for a few months so it will be on to something new tomorrow!

I've been playing God of War for the past few weeks after loving the first 2 on the PS2. The shift from Greek mythology to Norse is cool (albeit a little less original these days) and I had a blast playing through the story. Decided to go for the Platinum and there is only one enemy and trophy left standing in the way of my goal. Sigrun, the Queen of the Valkyries.

Oh my fucking life. Stayed up all night last night trying over and over again to beat this bitch and yet couldn't even get her below half of her health bar in all that time. Your reactions have to be pinpoint accurate - just a couple of mistakes and she kills you. I played the rest of the game on normal difficulty and I even ended up being a bit of a shitebag and changing the difficulty to easy for this fight and to no avail - she wrecks me every single time. Determined to get that Platinum but fuck knows how I'm going to take her down.

Anyone beat Sigrun? Any tips appreciated!

Wonderful Spanish flamenco infused prog from Sevilla. 

I've mentioned it before but seeing Right To Censor today would be interesting. They'd probably be huge babyfaces amongst many of the Twitter fandom. 

Well, 370 hours later...it is finished. Kingdom Come Deliverance is the most astoundingly immersive, beautiful, historically accurate game I've ever played. There's a post-credit scene that really brought the man feelings too. Hats off to Warhorse for a truly remarkable creation. It's all set up for a sequel so really really really hope that the rumours are true and Kingdom Come 2 is on its way.

That was just fucking magnificent from start to finish. Even the DLCs were top class. Highly recommended to anyone who likes medieval history and open-world games. 

On the bright side, we are just over a year away now from the Iron Sheik finally making his way to the ring.

Any Celtic fans here have any preference as who they want as manager for next season? A week or 2 ago I was talking to my brother about it and said I would quite like Jesse Marsch, manager of RB Salzuburg, or Carlos Carvalhal of FC Braga. I'd favour the former over the latter. He's done very good things at Salzburg, a league that could be compared as relatively similar to Scotland: got them winning their domestic title every year and has them punching well above their weight in Europe too. Sounds like a great candidate to me.  And then what do you know, in the papers today, Marsch is now being linked with the job! It's not often I get to feel relatively knowledgeable about football so I got a kick out of that. 

Of course my dream no-matter-how-unrealistic-money-is-no-option choice would be Rafa Benitez but somehow I can't quite see that happening. Eddie Howe's another name I've heard bandied around but to be honest, doesn't really fill me with much enthusiasm. Always touted as a young upcoming coach yes, but former Bournemouth manager doesn't really excite me. I'd definitely go for him over Roy Keane or Jack Ross, two other names that have been mentioned, though!

Test too. The sound he made with that Big Boot was always so oddly satisfying. 

I loved Oblivion and it blew my mind when I first played it. It was my first ever huge open-world RPG and so I'll always have a soft spot for it. I prefer the gameplay to Skyrim and all the different skills and such - Skyrim was great fun at the time but, looking back, it really is a very dumbed-down RPG. Still a fantastic game, mind. With Oblivion, the big flaw was the levelling system, with an enemy being just as challenging when you're Level 25 as he was when you were Level 5. That and the archery - I had to tone the difficulty setting right down purely because it was so immersion-breaking having to hit a bandit with 40 arrows to kill him.

I'm getting near the end of Kingdom Come: Deliverance now. Absolutely loved it; it's one my very favourite games I've ever played. I've done all the side quests and now just need to complete the A Woman's Lot DLC and then finish off the main story. 

Inevitably (since Christmas) today is the day we finally lost the title. Beyond gutted that the much savoured 10 In A Row didn't turn out but more than that, I'm disgusted by how feebly, how pathetically we capitulated. From the position Celtic were in when Brendan Rodgers left, there is no way Rangers should have been able to claw their way back, let along run absolute riot this season. As much as it's with gritted teeth, there's no escaping the fact that that Rangers side are excellent and the work Steven Gerrard has done really is astounding. Goes to show the importance of giving managers time to carefully leave their footprint. 

Can only hope this is going to rouse the Celtic board into action and end the Rangers run at 1 but with a mass exodus in pretty much every department in the football club imminent in the Summer, fuck knows how well we'll bounce back. It's been an absolutely magnificent time to be a Celtic fan over the past decade but all good things must come to an end. Here's hoping the blip is temporary and we can get back to putting that mob well and truly in their place next season.

One more thing totally unrelated to Celtic but to Scottish football in general: if you haven't already, I highly recommend you get watching A View From The Terrace every Friday night on BBC. Absolutely cracking viewing and I look forward to it every week.

Sure it will be an unpopular one but anything WWF pre-1998. As someone who discovered wrestling in the Spring/Summer of 2000, looking back at the cartoon era of chaps like Hulk Hogan, Macho Man and The Ultimate Warrior, is just the drizzling shits for me, personally. Largely due to personal nostalgia but that Attitude era will never be topped for me and the stuff that came before just seems beyond tame and embarrassing in comparison. If there was such a thing as a bedtime wrestling show, for me, it would be anything from that era. 

Maybe not the right place as the post is not about cooking concoctions I have made, but is anybody here a fan of Anthony Bourdain? Been absolutely obsessed by the chap for a while now, binging Parts Unknown on Netflix and have even bought/devoured a few of his books. What a wonderful human being and it's so sad to know that that's him away now. Annoyed at myself for not knowing who he was until he'd already left us. 

"I don't have to agree with you to like or respect you"  has become one of my favourite quotes too.