Scott McFly

Gotta laugh at the irony of the Chelsea fans holding the sign "Money Can't Buy Everything, JT = CFC". Yeah, except it's Roman's money that's paying his extortionate wage that's keeping him there. And Richard Keys' great observation of "this is the first chance Chelsea have had to pay their respects to Sir Bobby Robson" regarding the minutes applause. Em... Community Shield?

After losing all my bets on the internationals, my tenner at Will Hill online was down to about £5.50, but I mucked around with some horse racing the other night and managed to get it back up to £10. Not bad for someone who's never bet on horse racing before and really has no idea what he's doing. So I decided to stick some on for today since I'll be in watching Soccer Saturday. Here's my randoms: Villa, Man City, Stoke treble (Will Hill special odds of 7/1, would be about 6.4/1 if betting in a regular treble) Bristol City, Ipswich, Newcastle treble Colchester, Leyton Orient, Millwall, Bradford, Chesterfield, Rochdale accumulator Lampard to score first for Chelsea Fortune to score first for Celtic Only a total of £6.50 on all of that, but IIRC I'll make that back at minimum even if only one of those comes up with the exception of the goalscorers, which would be about half each. It's only for a bit of interest in the first game of the season since I wasn't going to bother initially. EDIT: Just remembered and double checked - the third bet down there is actually done in fivefolds, so I can afford one loss. Just as well cause Leyton Orient are 1-0 down.

So the weekend deal on Steam is 66% off any of the Half-Life games/expansions. If you've somehow never played any of it or need a couple of odds and ends to complete your collection, now seems like a great time to do it. Here's everything in the deal in GB Pounds: Half-Life for £2.03 Half-Life 2 for £4.75 (incl. Lost Coast) Half-Life 2 Deathmatch for £1.01 Half-Life 2 Episode Two for £3.05 Half-Life Blue Shift for £1.01 Half-Life Opposing Force for £1.01 Packs: Half-Life Source & Deathmatch Source - £2.03 Half-Life 1 Anthology - £3.05 (HL1, HL Blue Shift, HL Opposing Force, Team Fortress Classic) Half-Life 2 Episode One - £2.03 (HL2 Deathmatch, HL2 Lost Coast, HL Deathmatch Source, HL2 Episode One) Half-Life 2 Episode Pack - £4.75 (HL2 Deathmatch, HL2 Episodes One & Two) Half-Life 2 Complete - £6.45 (HL2, HL2 Deathmatch, HL2 Episodes One & Two) Half-Life Complete - £9.17 (Team Fortress Classic, HL Opposing Force, HL1, HL Blue Shift, HL2, HL2 Deathmatch, HL2 Episodes One & Two) Also 10% off the Valve Complete Pack at £47.69 with a whole load of HL and CS stuff and other bits and bobs. And Left 4 Dead too. I'm definitely tempted to get some HL1 stuff since I've got The Orange Box, which I think has everything HL2 related that's been released unless I'm mistaken. Will maybe get HL1 Anthology for £3, can't argue with that, even though I think I've got the original HL knocking around somewhere.

I generally only buy every second year since it only seems like I've gotten enough out of a version by that time. That, and you tend to appreciate the improvements more because you're getting 2 games worth of improvements in 1. I've got 05, 07 and 09, so I think I'll be giving this a miss.

To be fair, it was a very harsh second yellow. Carew had just as much, if not more, of Caldwell's shirt as the other way around, but it was blocked from the refs view. And Norway had some brutal fouls going in that should've been immediate yellows. But I mentioned it briefly in the betting thread before the game - George Burley just hasn't got a clue. Kenny Miller is never going to get anywhere playing up front by himself (not his fault) and why the hell wasn't James McFadden playing? Put him up front with Miller to fucking help the guy. Yes we had injuries, but nothing major that couldn't be covered for, except he did it with all the wrong players with the wrong system. Even without the red card we still wouldn't have won I don't think. The only chances we had were due to shocking Norway mistakes and if I see one more long ball punted up the field I'll fucking scream. It doesn't work! Stop doing it! We've got good players, we just need to be a bit more offensive minded with them and play 4-4-fucking-2.

Goddamn it, was going to bet Kuyt as well but decided on Terry E/W instead! I usually do bet him when he's playing (Liverpool or Holland), but didn't want to put 2 first goalscorers on opposite teams. Oh well, Terry can still score and get me a few quid anyway. I won't be able to see the rest of the game, but just remember as bad as it may or may not get for England, this is just a friendly and they can't possibly fuck up as badly as Scotland.

So here's my list of silly bets for tonight's games, mainly the Scotland game, £1 on each: Norway vs Scotland First goal between 21-30 mins penalty awarded and missed (hopefully not for us ) Ross McCormack to score first 1-1 draw full time Others Terry to score first 50p e/w, treble on Coventry, Leicester, Notts Forest. The last 2 are just punts, but since I'll be watching the Scotland game from start to finish, I thought I'd put a few on that. But our starting lineup is just mental. Why McFadden isn't playing is beyond me. I'll more than happily eat my words if we win, but as of right now I'll continue to say George Burley just doesn't know what he's doing.

Set up my William Hill online account using Paypal yesterday, got some silly "£100 free bet" thing using a code that actually means you have to put on a whole bunch of £10 bets to actually get them, but since I'm only really using it for small bets (and only loaded £10 into my account anyway), I doubt I'll ever use it. But I thought I'd stick on a random £2 just to check how everything works and check everything was OK with the account, so I stuck it on the Serbian U21 team to beat their Israel counterparts. >_> Clearly I know nothing about that, but they were favourites and duly won 1-0, netting me £1.45 in profit. Woop-de-do. Apparently the age check thing is something they carry out random checks on using the information you've given them (name, address, etc.) and if they can't verify through whatever channels they use then they can ask you to provide proof via either a photo of a legal document (passport, birth certificate or whatever) or by taking ID into a branch and they can verify it there. Either way, I managed to register OK and I'm more than old enough anyway if they do check. Right, so Norway/Scotland tonight. Heart vs head. I'd like to see us win, but reading about the apparent starting XI isn't exactly filling me with confidence. I should maybe stick something on McCormack to score first and hope we get a penalty and that he takes it ahead of Alexander.

I guess we'll go with: Bet 1 - 10 on Man City. Bet 3 - 10 on Stoke. Doubler: Portsmouth 0-0 Fulham and bet 4's game isn't listed in bets 1-3 as you've just said Baddar

I used to like him, I thought he was brilliant. But he's become such a parody of himself and just seems to think he knows absolutely everything like he's some sort of omnipotent-psychic-mindreader. Heck, Sky Sports in general is just so far up its own ass it's unbearable at times. I just hope the ESPN coverage is better when that starts. Anyway, pretty decent game. Would be nice to see Owen at some point.

Ah, gotcha. In which case I'd say Van Persie/Arshavin with a +12 handicap would be my pick out of that lot.

The Breakfast Club is just such a brilliant movie. Such a simple premise, but fleshed out perfectly and was great at capturing the differing attitudes and circumstances of the schoolkids of the day. Heck, it is THE teen movie that influenced every single one that's come since. RIP John Hughes, thanks for everything.

Well, you suggested it in the first post. So everyone else is doing great on £0 up/down so far. But anyway, I don't want to tread on Baddar's turf with the Bookie in keeping a table or anything, people can just throw out how they're doing anytime they want. I'm actually tempted to put something on the Norway/Scotland game on Wednesday as my first bet of the season, but I've no clue who I fancy since we're both so bad. Maybe another draw like last time. Those handicaps are just weird. I don't understand them at all, surely the odds aren't 15/1 for, say, Cousin and Geovanni if there's a handicap in there too?

Better get that officially marked down then. TheArsenal: -14p >_>

Caught your edit Liam. As I mentioned, I don't use websites at all so can't recommend any there. As far as actual betting shops, it's always William Hill. Not really due to location since there's a Ladbrokes next door to the one I use, but because Ladbrokes betting slips are annoying as fuck to fill out compared to Hills'. I used a Ladbrokes once to do some Champions League games on a whim and it took me bloody long enough to figure out how to mark what I wanted and then you had to write in the amounts yourself and numbers for draw/home win/away win. Then the slip you get back is fugly as hell since it's just a copy of your writing, which is all cramped due to the space you've had to write it in the first place. As opposed to Hills' slips, which are clear, easy to understand, mark your teams, mark your stake, bish bash bosh. No Coral or Betfred or anything else in the vicinity. In fact, there's another Ladbrokes and Hills along the street a bit (literally about 1-2 minutes walk tops), which seems pretty pointless to me, but whatever. But it's just habit to me to use the same Hills shop now and it's nice to support it since it's pretty small compared to the Ladbrokes next door. Plus I always like having a wee chat with the guys in the Hills' and joking about being back to pick up my 8 team accy later on in the week.

Oh I wasn't worried about trusting the site or anything as I'd obviously trust William Hill, was just wondering if it was as easy as - sign up, transfer money from PayPal, start sticking bets on or if there was more to it than that. It would make sense to have some sort of age verification I guess. I can always just try it out with a tenner or so and see how it goes, but if I'm up near the bookies at any point (and I generally am anyway), then I'll just carry on there. As Baddar says, nothing beats knowing you've got some money to pick up and having it handed straight to you. Not that that happened too often for me. But yeah, will probably wait for the PL to start too. Maybe even wait a couple of weeks in to see how things settle down.

On their outgoings. Which, combined with no money going in from the current owner + no money able to go in from the prospective owner just yet, is crippling them and probably means they're going to have to keep selling until the take over is complete. Are they just putting money into a skip and shoving it into the sea? I know player wages will be some of it, but that's at least £40m there since December and they'll have had Premier League and attendance money coming in until the end of the season. Obviously I'm no football club accountant and I'm guessing they wouldn't sell unless they absolutely had to, but it still seems a bit odd to me. As far as Lescott goes, as I think I predicted earlier, Everton won't accept until it get to around £25m, at which point the amount of money and his desire to leave will mean they'll accept.

Portsmouth can't pay 250k for a loan deal? After selling all the players the have, some of which for massive fees (Crouch, Johnson, Traore), not to mention the £20m they got for Diarra. I find that hard to believe, where the hell is this money going? But I agree, they have to make some purchases to have any kind of squad at all, let alone a non-Premier League worthy one.

EWR, duh. But yeah, goodoldgames.com is a good place to start, they even have a couple of games up there released as freeware like Beneath A Steel Sky. Also, the original GTA and GTA2: http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/

Target would be just to break even. Quick question - I'm in the process of setting up a PayPal account (waiting for funds to transfer over from my bank account to PayPal) so I can use it with places like Steam, GOG.com etc. but I've noticed that online bookies like William Hill and PaddyPower say they accept it and you can use it to fund your account on there. I know you can use credit/debit cards, but since I don't have anything like that I was wondering if anyone's ever used PayPal for an online bookies and what their experience was? To be honest, I like having a wander up to the actual bookies shop on a Saturday afternoon before kick off, having a chat with the people and all that jazz, so it might not even be something I'd use, but I was just wondering since I noticed it a few minutes ago.

I love The Truman Show. Definitely not my favourite movie of all time, but possibly top 10-15 or so. I guess why I like it is that it's got a charm about it but with the sinister undercurrent of basically staging someone's life without them knowing always there in the background. It's no "1984", but it's got some good points about just how far we'll go in a reality TV-based world.

Man, it just seems like yesterday he was in charge of Newcastle. RIP Sir Bobby, a true legend.

I'm happy to go as low as it can go.

Depends on the rough age of people who'll be there. But I find a mashup always goes down well every now and then once people have had a few as it induces a sort of "what the...? Haha, awesome!" reaction. Obviously the songs would have to be recognisable and if you're only playing stuff you've bought legally (and fair play to that) then it'll have to be available that way too. But yeah, depends on the crowd.

I don't understand where the hell Celtic got all this money from all of a sudden and why the hell they saw fit to let Tony Mowbray (who cost them £2m in the first place) go throwing around a ton of it in buying players. And this is after Setanta have gone tits up.