Damn reading through this thread has had me laughing and a little jealous (@dogmeat ) and has really had me wandering down memory lane and pulling out some long forgotten, or best forgotten memories.

So brushes with fame/sport stars:
Remembering that I was only living in NZ until 10 when the family moved to Canada, the only retrospective famous person was at Target Road Elementary School in Glenfield, Auckland, Rachel Hunter's older sister was in my class and Rachel herself was in my brother's class two years behind.
In case you are wondering, all the family looks went into Rachel.

I know I have told the story previously about catching up with the non-playing AB's who were having lunch in North Sydney on the Friday before the infamous 2003 RWC semifinal against Australia when I spoke with Tana about his availability so I won't repeat it. Funny enough, in 2010 the wife and I moved to Sydney's upper North Shore and we were living near Stirling Mortlock and used to see him far too regularly but I always gave him a cold shoulder due to that intercept. I have no doubt he felt the snub ;-).

In Canada, I played rep union (at 10 and 12) and when 17 I tried out for an national age team. I was competing against a huge number of players including one real standout... Gareth Rees - yes the same one who then went on to play in 4 consecutive Rugby World Cups.

Played in a possibles v probables game of 4 x 20 minute quarters with and against him as the sides got mixed up at each break. Damn he was a good rugby player for a Canuck!

Unfortunately for me, I didn't even make it into the squad and to be honest, never deserved it anyway, just wasn't good enough. That game turned out to be my last until moving to Aus in my early 20's.

In Aus, like @Mokey I worked in journalism for 12 years at Australian Associated Press (AAP) where there used to be a regular publishers cup in both Rugby/League and Cricket.

Played with and against a number of former Rugby/League internationals who were ring-ins, especially for News Corp, dirty cheating bastards!

The most notable was a game that was one that was a 1 half league/1 half union blend game and AAP had joined forces with Fairfax newspapers and we had Mr. Peter Fitzsimons start for us. However he got knocked out after about 30 seconds when he went up to regather the short kick off and got absolutely clobbered by a couple of then current 1st grade League players. By today's rules both those players who hit him would be red carded but given it was a "friendly", there wasn't even a penalty awarded.

As a group our team protested and almost walked away from the game as they very clearly targeted Fitzsimons as he was and still is a bit of a boofball basher in his columns. Fitzsimons was a really decent guy though, both before and after the game and after waking up, wobbling off the field and getting checked out, at the end of the game he shook the hands of both the boof heads who hit him and said something to the effect of "nice hit". You could see they both felt pretty low after that and I always remember his response to that situation.

In a publisher's cup cricket match in the mid-90's, I can't remember which team we were facing but they had brought in recently retired Mike Whitney as a ring in. He was opening the bowling and absolutely no one from the AAP side wanted to face him so I as a very ordinary cricketer who batted middle order and threw down some slow/medium pies stood up and said I would open if no one else did as did another guy named Will Swanton who is a Sydney Journo of some note.

Now I had never played cricket growing up in Canada but had played a bit of baseball quite well so when I connected it was usually a 4 or 6. And then the first good ball would get me out. I had only played about 2 seasons of park cricket with the local Kareela (Southerland Shire) side as well as a previous season of Publishers Cup previously so I wasn't experienced or good in any way at all.

So we padded up and trundled out almost wetting ourselves at the same time. Whitney started off bowling well within himself off a short run up but as the deliveries went by and neither of us made any contact, you could see he was getting annoyed. About halfway through his second over as he was something like 0 - 0 off 9 or so deliveries, you could see he was getting even more annoyed, frustrated and pissed off and then he started lifting the pace.

Well fuck me dead I couldn't even see the ball except for a red blur which I somehow managed to get my bat out of the way of.

His third over, he was steaming in off a much longer run up and these balls were whizzing past, somehow missing stumps or pad for LBW. I had somehow even managed to get the bat in position to block a few that didn't just whiz by. Admittedly after a bit your eye does start adjusting to the ball even at that pace.

On his 4th over, with his stats at 0 - 0 off 18, Whitney was firing them down at Will and I think it was the 4th ball of the over, he bowled this cracker right at Will's pads and Will somehow managed to get his bat in a good defensive position and the ball hit the absolute middle of the bat and rocketed away straight back past Whitney for 4.

The look on Mike Whitney's face was absolutely priceless and to be honest, quite frightening, especially for will knowing he had his last 2 balls to face of that over. I was glad it wasn't me who had to somehow manage to survive those last two deliveries in that over but Will managed to survive.

Between overs, we took off our helmets as were were both sweating profusely, Mike walked up to Will offered his hand, shook it, and then proceeded to draw an "X" on his forehead with his index finger and said mockingly, "that's where the next delivery is going" and walked off to fine leg.

The next bowler the opposition brought on was a spinner to save Mike's and the other opening bowlers last 2 or 4 overs (every bowler was limited to 6 or was it 8 overs only) who I faced, hit his first ball for a 6 and got stumped by his second.

Mike ended up with figures like 4 - 4 off all his 6 or 8 overs but Will and I had an unbeaten partnership against him and Will's 4 was the only runs scored against his bowling.

Another claim to fame is that in Canada, I was a school champion short course swimmer and held provincial school age records. In 1985 at a meet held at the University of Calgary (UofC), I swam against the then reigning 100m freestyle gold medal winner, Rowdy Gains, over 50 m long course. Now at the time I was only a part time swimmer and didn't train exclusively for swimming but was an 11 second flat 25 meter (short course) freestyler but struggled over longer distances due to a lack of dedicated training.

Rowdy was a bit of a hero at the time, one of the reasons for that was that he was smaller than most other swimmers when you see them on TV. When I stood next to him in the warmups only then did I realise he was still a reasonably taller bloke at 6' 1" (from wikipedia) and I'm only 5' 10 1/2" - 179 cm - so damn those other swimmers must be tall!

Anyway, managed to finish within half a body length pushing him all the way. 3rd place was a body and half behind me which is a lot at 50m.

After that, I was thinking I was pretty shit hot and so off I went and organised a tryout with the UofC dolphins in front of Aussie swimming legend Mr Don Talbot himself.

They told me to warm up for 15 minutes, then I would do a 25 then 50 metre sprint with only 2 minutes rest in between. Getting ready for the 25m I saw Talbot watching so I made sure to give it my all and got really close to 11 seconds flat. Got out of the water, focused on my breathing and recovery preparing for the next 50m, all the time whilst watching for a reaction from the legend himself.

Talbot then turned his back, said something to his assistant who came over and said don't worry about the 50 m as his comment was, "fast enough but too old and too short". And there endith my swimming career - I had just turned 18.

In NZ rugby, my one and only game of Presidents Cup, I had the honour to play with and against Pita Alatini as my cousin was the team manager for the Pakuranga Presidents Cup side and is friends with Pita.

We played at Pakuranga oval against Counties and he played 1 half for us and then swapped sides and played for Counties as he has an affiliation with them. Plays Presidents Cup well within himself but still made everyone else look pedestrian and is supremely fit and gifted even in his late 40s. Also a really nice guy, as is his wife, as we met them at several social events including my cousins 50th birthday. We remain Facebook friends.

Apologies to all for that long-winded posting as I meandered down memory lane and kudo' to any who make it this far.

Cheers

@NTA said in Pumas v All Blacks:

Yeah. The whole dance thing is lovely when your daughter is the age of mine (nearly 9) and you can appreciate the effort and talent for those who have it (she does).

But once they start hitting 16+ and its a troupe of gyrating young women in the latter stages of physical development that it gets uncomfortable. One year the dance school concert started with the Open Girls (various ages from about 16-22) dancing in French Maid outfits.

Lot of VERY uncomfortable Dads in the audience that day...

And a lot of very uncomfortable Mum's later that night.

@chimoaus said in Potential Positives to Look forward to:

@Hooroo Or the opposite, we all sit around watching netflix, gaming, DRINKING and overeating.

Fixed it for you @chimoaus

I reckon I'm coming out of this thing with major liver damage.

@Kirwan said in GOT - there will be spoilers:

I think it’s best not to think of it as individual episodes, but one long movie.

You need this sort of episode, though I agree it should have been one long one instead of two.

Can’t just have 6 episodes of battles.

Completely agree @Kirwan. I really enjoyed that episode, better than Ep. 1 which wasn't bad at all.

I think the writing especially was good, with many good one liners and some really touching moments.

Arya's side boob is getting all sorts of chat on the interweb with many arguments about body doubles etc.

To go further from my last post, here's where I think things will go based on various fan theories and I've been pushing this for a while now.

As per my last post, the Night King and Viserion are not at Winterfell, instead they are flying down to Kings Landing.

The reasoning for this is:

1. We did not see the Night King in the lineup approaching Winterfell

2. In Season 04 Bran touched a Weirwood tree and had visions, all have come true so far except these two:

• He sees a shadow of a dragon flying over Kings Landing
• He sees a destroyed throne room

3. Dany has a vision while in the House of the Undead also of the throne room destroyed and what we assumed was ash falling from the sky, but this may not be ash, but rather it is snow or even a combination of both

This would explain why they have previously made a point of Kings Landing having a million people, as that would be more wights to deal with. Also, this is much smarter of the Nights King to do it this way, rather than trying to take on a prepared army and 2 dragons at Winterfell.

One last thing, we know that Bronn is on his way to Winterfell and may see all of this go down, and as such alert Winterfell once he arrives.

Essentially, Battle of Winterfell is a distraction so the Night King can go and take Kings Landing.

The survivors from the battle for Winterfell then must take on the Knights King and all the wights from Kings Landing and here, by killing one, they take down all.

In terms of who lives and who dies, I wouldn't even try to guess. But for those who think Arya may die, recall the Meme (which is supposed to be based on the truth) which does the rounds regularly in which it says that GRRM's wife has threatened to leave him if Arya dies.

Thoughts?

Well, didn't that just suck!

Hadn't watched a Blues game live for a while, for obvious reasons, but given this year they are looking better, I decided to catch up with a mate who lives just outside of Canberra and go and watch the game.

Cold and windy, so whichever commentator said it wasn't windy must have been sitting in a booth or studio somewhere.

Had dinner and a few warm up beverages at Bentspoke brewery first then off to the game so we were about 5 minutes late but oh well.

Observations from watching from the ground:
Ref was clearly being influenced by the crowd who I have to say, begrudgingly, are a little more knowledgeable than the Warratah fans.
Of the loose trio, Gibson went well, but the other two, not so much.
I watched Akira as much as I could and boy, was I disappointed. As some have pointed out, he's played a lot of rugby this year and he did look tired. He was walking behind the play a lot and seemed disinterested at times. In the scrums, he looks more like he is leaning rather than pushing and lifts his head quickly when it's the oppositions feed. Based on this performance, he wouldn't make my RWC squad.
Based on my first time watching Robinson live, anyone saying he could be an AB bolter this year better think again. Headless chook is what I saw. He constantly moves but seemed frequently out of position for a blindside. Then would go hang on the wing a bit with Duffie or Clarke. Oh and his scrum work didn't look good either. Looked more interested in getting out of the scrum as quick as he could rather than pushing.
Black, OMG, Black. Looks like a kid playing men. He's small, like very small compared to the other players. Not necessarily his height but rather his frame just looks very slight and not particularly robust. He plays quite deep and looks to shovel the ball on. Doesn't seem to have that ability to look and play what's in front of him and see what the next play or two should be.
Ma'a, well damn, that man is a beast and was the best back on the day. You can see that old head just reads the game so well. And his speed wasn't all that bad but he looks slow to accelerate but not slow once he get's going. My mate at one point said, wow, he's fast.
Duffie, looked shit. Positionally, got caught out a few times. Also rarely looked for extra work and instead waited for the ball to come his way.
Clarke looks much better on the wing.

A very disappointing result and always looked that way once the refereeing favoured the Brumbies and they just couldn't adjust but rather, kept making some stupid decisions and mistakes.

Game management overall looked absolutely shite to be honest.

Okay since I shared with you all the planning for the big meat cook for our Friday 07 December work place EoY/Xmas/Farewell to Gladesville party, no doubt you have all been waiting with baited breath to see how it went so I'll give you a run through.

So here goes...

Started Wednesday going to both Costco for meat and onions, Aldi for the leg of Ham and then to Australian Meat Emporium in Alexandria for more meat. That took half a day just travelling from West to Inner South-West Sydney.

Picked up:
6 kg brisket, 4 kg brisket
3 x 4 kg pork boston butts
7 kg whole beef rump
6 kg leg of ham
3 x 1 kg sliced onion packets (not frozen)

Then went to the local Woolies to buy all the spices and other things needed for the cook for:

Salt for dry-brining
Sugar and Spices for the rubs
Wet ingredients for the wrap (Sweet Baby Rays Hickory & Brown Sugar BBQ Sauce), Maple Syrup, Apple Cider vinegar, Apple Cider and I used my own bourbon.

Thursday, cook day
Got up at 5 am, packed up my shit and got on the road. First stop, Lakemba to pick up the halal lamb. Very good quality lamb and not that pricey. 2 legs about 4 kg each and a shoulder that was about 5 kg for a total of 11 kgs of lamb.

Then to the local butcher shop near my parents in Gymea for 80 thick sausages and then the local Woolies for 2 packages of 10 puff pastry sheets to make 160 sausage rolls, a late but worthy addition

Grand total meat: 48 kg's + 80 thick sausages

Put my Kamado Joe into my Dad's car and off we went to Loftus where my brother lives as he has the spit.

Got there at 11 and started preparation:

My dad deboned the 2 legs of lamb, trimmed up the briskets and rump
I prepped the Kamado and then got the meat dry brined and back into the esky for a while to let that salt do it's thing.

1 pm, rubbed the butts with a slightly modified version of MeatHead's Memphis Dust dry rub then got the boston butts into the Kamado smoker. Plan was to give them 3 hrs in smoke and then into my brothers oven to finish there for another 8 hours or so. They had just purchased a new Bosch oven which came with a "low and slow" mode which he was keen to try which allowed you to set the temp at 100 C which is close enough to the 220-250 F temp that's best for low and slow.

At this point I realised that my iGrill 2 has mysteriously disappeared. WTF, looked everywhere and couldn't find it. Blind panic set in.

So a not so quick trip and $315 at the nearest BBQ Galore, I have a new Maverick that includes an attachement for Kamado style smokers to attached it to the air intake of the Kamado it has a built-in blower, like a mini hairdryer, to keep the grill temp even. Pretty damn cool and hopefully means I don't have to spend as much time monitoring pit/grill temps.
Left there thinking to myself "oh fuck the CEO/CFO/CPO will kill me for spending this much" but I couldn't wait to try it out.

Okay back to the Bro's place a bit later than planned but things are still cool. Time for the butts to come off the Kamado, into a tray, in goes half a can of coke, a dash bourbon, apple cider, apple cider vinegar and a some maple syrup drizzled all over the butts like a good basting and then covered with foil and into the oven at 100 C.

Almost 4'ish, next the briskets, rub them both with slightly modified version of MeatHead's Big Bad Beef Dry Rub Recipe, add more hickory to the Kamado for smoke and in they go.

Whew! So far, so good.

Next is to prepare the lamb and the rump. Used a similar rub as I used on the briskets for the rump. Lamb I used a dry rub of salt, pepper, mustard powder, garlic powder and ground rosemary which I prefer to powder as you get a little bit of texture but they don't burn like whole fresh or dried rosemary.

At this point I should mention my Dad, he is in the mid-stages of dementia, but boy, can he still use his knives. A lifetime as a butcher and his skills are still just sweet as. He trimmed all the meat and deboned those two lamb legs in a quarter of the time it would have taken me and did a hell of a lot better job. He was even able to remove the bones from the lamb legs keeping the meat intact to make it easier to go on the spit. So I was able to work both the salt for the dry brine and then later the dry rub on both the outside and inside.

My bro got home from work about 6 pm and after a beer or two, we decided to get the spit on. To go back a step, I had asked him if it was okay to use his place for all of this including the spit and he was cool with it. He checked the spit to make sure it still worked and it did. At the same time I asked him, have you got some charcoal briquettes for the spit because if not, I will just get some and claim it back as an expense right. He assured me that he did, a whole bag.
Of course it turned out, he didn't have any!

So I have brought over all my good lump charcoal for the Kamado and we had to use the rest of what I brought for the spit.

8 pm, the spit goes on, the rump and two legs of lamb. The shoulder has the same rub and goes into my brothers 4 burner gas BBQ with more of the hickory wood chips from the bottom of the bag, 1 burner on low and the shoulder on the far side of the BBQ. I used the grill temp prob calibrate and to get the grill temp to around 220 F. That did the job so all good for the lamb shoulder.
Sweet.

11 pm, the spit breaks. The engine part still works and turns but the screw to hold the long spear that goes through the meat just shares off and the spear stops spinning. Farking hell. So after some thought we decided to go with a manual method based on how the Argentinians do their meat.
So we just kept moving it every 10-15 minutes. We also pulled off one of the legs of lamb to keep the size of the meat more reasonable and it went into the gas BBQ with the shoulder.

Unfortunately, this meant the internal temps weren't going up as quickly but fuck me dead it sure looked good on the outside.

So at midnight after few more beers, my brother decides to go to sleep. I stayed up for a while keeping an eye on things and when the briskets had hit the stall, I wrapped them both, put in a basting of:
Coke (splitting the remaining half can), dash of bourbon, Sweet Baby Ray's and maple syrup. Back into the Kamado and I did a last check on everything and then set the alarm on my mobile to go off on the hour, every hour!

0315 I wake up with a start first wondering where the hell I was and then it all came back to me. I quickly check the phone and the battery is dead.

Oh No!

So quickly I go outside to check on things and what do I find... It was quite a windy night and so the charcoal burned quicker than anticipated and it had basically burned itself out. Worse, it had happened some time ago and the meat was cooling.

FUCK... panic mode sets in and I'm wondering what the hell do I do next. I think to myself, okay, I can wrap the meat and get it into the gas BBQ but it will be a bit crowded in there. But it works and I get everything inside snug but all good.

Go upstairs, wake my brother and ask him to borrow a mobile charger. Get the phone charging, set the alarm again for every hour on the hour and close my eyes.

Just before 4 am what I thought was my phone alarm going off. I get up to see, no, not quite 4 am... what is going on.

Grill temp on the kamado is what was going on. Low, way too low. How the hell?
So I get everything off the kamado, thank god for Grill Grippers, and take a look and of course, the charcoal has all but burned out. And as mentioned previously, I had used all my lump charcoal in the spit. Fuck... big time fuck!

Panic stations again and then it comes to me, of course.. use the oven as the two pork boston butts have to be done by now.

So I go inside to check the internal temps on the butts which have been in the oven at 100 C for 8 hrs after 3 hrs with smoke in the Kamado and when I took them off the Kamado, internal temps wear already 150+ F. I can't believe my eyes, the probe shows that internal temps on those are only around 160 F and they need to be around 200 F to pull really well. So I turned up the heat setting on the oven to 120 C and started hoping for the best.

Both briskets go into the gas BBQ. I move the Maverick probe across to the gas BBQ from the Kamado and at least this way I can keep an eye on temps. The Maverick comes with 4 probes, 3 for the meat and 1 for the grill.

So I put the 3 into the briskets and the lamb shoulder. I use the hand held probe to check on the temps of the others.

By now the gas BBQ is overloaded and the briskets are on top of the other meat. So inside the gas BBQ are:

2 briskets, 2 lamb legs, 1 lamb shoulder and the beef rump which was at the bottom. covered by the briskets.

Turn off phone alarms as I know I am not get any more sleep.

0530 the gas runs out for the gas BBQ... What can go wrong, has gone wrong!!!

My Dad saves the day as he was already coming over to give some help if it was needed. Fortunately we asked him to get a gas bottle and he had a fresh one he had just brought at home so he brought that.

Now we are cooking with gas... and that stupid oven.

At this time, Internals on the 2 briskets are 184 F so only more 3 hrs to get to the 200F mark on those as well.

0730 check the boston butts and the temps haven't risen at all... WTF?
So out of the useless oven and wrap individually and then into the gas BBQ which is now frankly overloaded. I keep a close eye on temps and finally, the lamb gets to temp.

Oh yeah, after all this mess, I gave up trying to get the lamb legs to a nice medium rare and instead decided to the same as with the shoulder and take them to an internal of 200-204 F and pull them.

Unfortunately, the one thing I missed and had forgotten about was the whole beef rump. By the time I checked the internal on this, it was already way over... was in the well done zone - 160 F. Medium rare is around 140 F.

So I quickly took it off and into the faux cambro. First piece of meat off.

Next to get to temp was the lamb. Another wrap of foil and into the faux cambro.

Now it was 0930 and the brisket temps are looking good getting close to 200 F but the butts are just stuck... WTF?

Now according to my original plan, I was going to be at Gladesville no later than 10 am to give myself 3 hours to complete preparation for service. To get there by 1000 I would have to leave by 0900. No chance of course.

1000 the briskets are both finally done but those damn butts... finally internals are rising but still not there yet.

1030, WTF, suddenly the butts get to 200 F!!! Not looking a gift horse in the mouth I get them off, another layer of foil wrap and into the eskies.

Now, this whole time I have the feeling I'm missing something and then I see it. 3 kg of sliced onions that need to be cooked and caramelized to put onto the brisket sliders. Oh shit so my dad has two frying pans going and I have the hot plate into the gas BBQ and we are both cooking like mad.

1100 hrs, everything is done, packed away and I'm in the car heading to Gladesville from Loftus. Google maps says 50 minutes to get there. I make it in under 40 and yeah, I may have a ticket or two as I was on a mission.

So 1 hour to prep and I get my whole team together and I get:

1 person slicing the ham and rump
3 people pulling the butts and 3 people pulling the lamb
I'm on slicing the brisket
1 person mixing mayonnaise with sriracha sauce
4 people cutting the slider buns

When that is all done, we set up 3 working stations to make sliders.

4 people at each station and it goes like this:

We decide on just doing even numbers: 70 pulled pork, 70 pulled lamb and 70 brisket
Pulled pork is some sriracha mayo sauce on the base of the bun, pulled pork and home made apple slaw on top.
1 person saucing then passes to the next to pork it and then one person to put on the slaw and the last person to put the top on the slider and put it onto a serving tray.

Same goes for each but the lamb was also using the siracha sauce and some normal slaw.

Brisket slider was some siracha sauce at the bottom, a half slice of brisket, some pulled brisket from the point of both briskets, some caramelised onion and finally a dollop of Sweet Baby Rays.

210 sliders done in less than 1 hour and we made service! The left over pulled meat, and there was a lot, went out to be served.

Ham was amazing but unfortunately, the rump was overcooked but still moist which was its saving grace. Wrapping it really helped to keep it moist inside so it didn't dry out even if it was cooked to well done.

Heaps of thanks and people saying how good it was so in the end, all worth it. In the end, we served almost 150 people so a hell of an effort, not just by me but to my other colleagues who contributed almost as much.

Now the question is... Would I do it again?

I would say, Hell Yes!
But only because of those very hard lessons learned like always have more charcoal than you think you will need and test an oven before you try to use it for real for the first time.

Now I'm even to starting to have thoughts of BBQ comps

@NTA said in Re: Movie review thread...:

Finally got around to watching Into The Spiderverse and fucking hell that was good movie. Great animation. Superb casting. Awesome sound track.

6 out of 5

Funny I haven't watched this yet and I should as I have a family connection to this as my Brother was the visual effects art director for the work done by Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) on the movie.

I think I mentioned previously that he also worked on Hacksaw Ridge. After that movie, he moved to Vancouver to work at SPI as a Visual Effects Art Director and has been working all sorts of cool stuff.

A littl FYI, from the TV Series thread, the new Netflix series Love, Death & Robots, he was also art director on Episode 13 - Lucky 13.

His IMDB profile is here for anyone interested (and yes, the "C" in RoninWC stands for Cox, the W is for Warren)... https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1424612/

The wife and I stopped buying Christmas gifts years ago, been married 12 years but together for 8 before that.

Instead we take the approach that if you need and/or want something during the year and we can afford it, then just buy it.

Plus we really hate the commercial nature of Xmas and as an atheist, I really dislike the whole concept anyway. Yes, I am a "Happy Holidays" kind of a guy.

Previously, my wife was a bit of a tightarse when it came to spending but we went through 9 years of financial hell during a court case (well technically two cases, in the Supreme Court of NSW and then the Court of Appeal) that started in 2010 and finished earlier this year. All of our money went on Lawyers, barristers, experts and costs - approximately $2.5M over that time.

During that time, we realised quickly that not spending money when you have the means is just stupid given how short life is and the fact that you never know what is just around the corner.

So yes, whilst we have our savings (at 52 I'm not getting any younger and now looking forward to retirement) which we continue to contribute to, we make sure we always have discretionary funds to be able to buy things when we want.

A great example of this, my last home/work from home computer which I built 4 years ago is no longer a tax benefit so I've just built a new one. I asked the wife how much in terms of budget and she said, whatever you think. OMG, I went nuts and for IT geeks out there, brought pretty much all ASUS Republic of Gamers (RoG) branded gear as well as a new 34" 120 hz (3440 x 1440) monitor. Great stuff for gaming and "Ferning" and given I now work from home up to 3 days a week, it is terrific for that too.

Oh and she got a new LV wallet and Gucci handbag recently.

And yes I know, I know. A LV wallet and Gucci handbag don't match but given she has like 4 or 5 LV handbags, the wallet is to use with them and not the Gucci. Next it will be a Gucci wallet but I'm cool with that.

For those interested, I've been putting all of our Court experiences down based on emails and diary notes sent at the time into a single document which I will copy to the Off Topic area soon. Keep an eye out for that. It is my plan to finish writing that story over the holiday break.

@NTA said in All Blacks vs Boks:

@mimic well I'm not going back now - the commentary from Marshall made me nauseous enough.

Excellent analysis Nick. I echo your thoughts about the broadcast.

As a former pretty boy back with good hair, I was never interested in the set pieces and only used that opportunity to fix my hair, straighten my socks, make sure the jersey is immaculately tucked in, etc.
Also to make eye contact with the closest pretty girl.

However, as I've matured and watched a whole shedload more of rugby, I have really enjoyed watching the set pieces as they really are the litmus test for how a team is going in any match... and that is difficult for a pretty boy back to admit.

Watching TV broadcasts out of NZ were always head and shoulders above others in terms of showing the game in detail, camera angles, focusing on the game itself.

But in recent years, the NZ broadcasts have fallen away somewhat. They have fallen into the trap of showing too much crowd or focusing on close ups on particular players and as you said, focusing on the backline when the real interest is what's happening with that scrum or lineout.

I think that Meg's commentary has had a lot to do with this as he is often talking over a scrum about how the backline is set or what the next backline move will be off the set piece and then the director/camera guys change the picture to show more what the backs are doing rather than focusing on the scrum.

It really pisses me off when we get a picture of SBW shaking or blowing into his hands rather than watch a scrum set. It seems the camera crews/directors really have a thing for SBW in particular as he get's more individual closeups than any other AB.

Now I have to go and wash my mouth out with soap... and then check my hair in the mirror as well while I'm at it

@akan004 said in Religious type discussion:

@No-Quarter said in Wallabies v Springboks:

Ohhhh one of those fence sitters aye. Comon @akan004 make up your mind... is the Easter Bunny real or not??

I haven't met one atheist who can categorically say that there's no God- ultimately we cannot know for sure. Even Dawkins agrees with this. But the level of arrogance among most atheists is undeniable..

LOL... one of the single most stupid things I have ever had the displeasure of reading on the Fern.

I honestly doubt you are anything close to agnostic because no one who is truly agnostic would say such a thing about Atheists!

You do understand it is near on impossible to prove a negative and that to take it further, the onus and burden of proof lies with those making the claims. And quite frankly, thus far there is not a single substantiated piece of proof or evidence for the existence of any god or gods claimed to exist by their followers.

Further, Atheism is simply the lack of a belief in any god or gods....

Of the thousands of gods created and worhsiped by mankind over the many millennia, the Atheist simply does not hold a belief or faith in the existence of any of those gods.

And really, the only difference between an Atheist and any one of the say monotheistic religions is that the Atheist lacks in a belief in one more god than the montheist.

It is only the ignorant theist who tries to shift the burden of proof on to those who do not hold the same belief.

My honest opions about religion go like this... An individual's private faith in the existence of a god or gods is their own business. However organised religions are a scourge and have been throughout history. They way they always attempt to dictate how everyone should think and act regardless if they are of another faith or without faith.

The one thing that I absolutely cannot stand in the typical theist is the absolute abhorrent and gross arrogance, egotistical way where they thank "god" for all the wonderful things in their life or some sporting achievement thinking that some "god" has bestowed upon them this special honour or special talent yet has allowed how many millions of innocent children to die and how many millions of people who have suffered in every way possible.

That attitude makes me sick to my stomach.

It is not the Atheist who is arrogant, but the theist who thinks that their own personal beliefs and those of whatever religion they follow dictates have more value than the person and persons beside them or on the other side of this planet.

The thing that every theist fails to consider is that why is their belief and faith any more important, why is their god or gods any more important and real than those other religions which they discount and abhor! The Christian belief is not any less or any more real than that of the hindu, buddhist, etc.

The Marriage Equality debate here in Australia will display those traits in a very typically ugly way!

Well that last try was utter bullshit!

Clear foot in touch missed my the refs.

A yes, that was a bloody Forward pass in that previous try.

@Yeetyaah

No way, only yellow has he was clearly just bracing for the impact.

How good is this game!

Hats off to the Highlanders, such heart being shown.

@RoninWC said in R.I.P. 2020:

RIP Elvis' grandson, Lisa Marie's son - Benjamin Keogh aged 27.

No cause of death being given so suspected suicide?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7169569/benjamin-keough-dead/

Looks a bit like his grandad.

A bit more information surfacing around this. Turns out he had just left rehab for drug and alcohol issues. Has been telling friends that growing up as a kid in the Church of Scientology really fu^cks you up.

And then shot himself.

Very sad and yes @mariner4life seeing more pictures of him, looks a shitload like his grandad.

This one has hit home. Wow, only 49 and what a guy. When you read his career, he had done a lot but will always be remembered for Mythbusters.

Was always a huge fan of Mythbusters and he was one of the best on it.

He's the 2nd to pass away as I recall one of the girls from the show (but not on as many) passed away some time back? She had a lot of tats from memory.

Very very sad

RIP Elvis' grandson, Lisa Marie's son - Benjamin Keogh aged 27.

No cause of death being given so suspected suicide?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7169569/benjamin-keough-dead/

Looks a bit like his grandad.

Very cool, a map of our Galactic Super Cluster named Laniakea. The Milky Way is just a small part of this cluster.

https://www.space.com/27016-galaxy-supercluster-laniakea-milky-way-home.html

And straight to the YouTube video:

Just mind blowing stuff with the numbers and distances and sizes.

@MN5 Corrected.

@Bones said in AB Depth Chart 2020:

@RoninWC said in AB Depth Chart 2020:

@Bones said in AB Depth Chart 2020:

@RoninWC those three can play 7 as good as Hunt is presently, there's not gonna be another out and out 7 in the squad.

Even if there was I'd think they'd be wanting to see if Kirifi can translate his form up a level.

Sorry but we will have to agree to disagree. I think that Papal'ii and Jacobson are slower over the ball as they are bigger guys. Also Hunt has a very good linking game and like a good 7, he's always on the shoulder of the ball carrier.

To me the other three are "loose forwards" and Hunt is an out and out 7.

Also, I would think Ardie is considered a 7 only, Sam sure, but not Ardie.

Jacobson was doing last year what Boshier is doing this year - being better over the ball than Hunt. For guys that can't seem to be on the shoulder of the ball carrier they certainly seem to be "in the frame" an awful lot. Not as much as Kirifi though...

Hunt of 2-3 years ago I'd be in full agreement, but he's fallen off the pace and been surpassed.

Again I disagree. INHO Hunt has been just as good as those guys during SR A.

@Bones said in AB Depth Chart 2020:

@RoninWC those three can play 7 as good as Hunt is presently, there's not gonna be another out and out 7 in the squad.

Even if there was I'd think they'd be wanting to see if Kirifi can translate his form up a level.

Sorry but we will have to agree to disagree. I think that Papal'ii and Jacobson are slower over the ball as they are bigger guys. Also Hunt has a very good linking game and like a good 7, he's always on the shoulder of the ball carrier.

To me the other three are "loose forwards" and Hunt is an out and out 7.

Also, I would think Ardie isn't (edit for clarity) considered a 7 only, Sam sure, but not Ardie.