Soda Jerk

What was the outcome of this, if you don't mind me asking? I recently got a refund via ebay for something similar. The seller sent something to me via "Parcel2Go". A number in place of a word is always the sign of a reputable brand. Tracking said "Delivered - Left in a safe place" online but didn't say where. No card through my door. I scoured my rear garden, knocked on my neighbours' door, it was nowhere to be seen. Phoned Parcel2Go and they couldn't tell me anything. Got in touch with the seller. They didn't care, and gave me the whole "well they've said it was delivered, so..." and that was it. Got in touch with ebay, and I had a refund from them within 48 hours. I assume they then collect that refund from the seller, so they'll have to make a claim against the courier to not be at a loss, I guess. The 'ebay buyer protection' policy makes it almost impossible to get fobbed off on there. If the seller hadn't have just shrugged it off, I'd have been more than willing to wait until they made the claim before expecting a refund, but since they didn't really give a stuff, I didn't feel so bad about ebay sorting it immediately. If you get tight fisted and use pirate couriers on things you sell regularly, then you should expect to be out of pocket at one stage or another.

New Converge = good. New Quicksand = much less good when you're expecting a Quicksand record. If they slapped the name Rivals Schools on the front of this instead, it'd probably fit a lot more, but it still doesn't excite me on first listen. It sounds nice, I guess, but it absolutely does not rock. Why can't they just sound like this song, forever? That voice is untouchable. Well, was untouchable.

Is the Premier League much different? City are in their own tier on current form. Beneath them you have Spurs, Chelsea and United, then a tier below that Arsenal and Liverpool (in my opinion, of course). Everything outside of that 6 is pretty poor, and even at least 4 of that 6 (Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal) are nowhere near as strong as they've been in recent years. There's some dreadful teams in the Premier League at the moment, and there's barely a side outside of Spurs and United (and arguably Chelsea) that know how to defend. Whilst the whippings aren't as enormous in the Premier League, easy and comprehensive victories from the top 6 against the sides below are fairly regular. I agree about Napoli. They are this year's Monaco in terms of all-out attacking football. I was quite shocked to learn that their manager, Maurizio Sarri, has been managing since 1990, and only started managing professional clubs in 2000. He was the living derogatory stereotype of a semi-professional in that he was a part time footballer (and then manager), part time banker. He looks fairly young for someone nearing 60 (and for someone who smokes on the touchline), I assumed he was a fairly new manager. It's quite bizarre when someone - like Sarri - who has been managing at a low level for so long, then they just start to get it right so late in their career. Normally, it happens in reverse: New manager gets an opportunity at a big club, wins, keeps winning at other clubs, begins to lose touch with dated tactics, fizzles out. If Guardiola continues his trend of not being at clubs very long, Sarri would be a sound replacement.

Barca were pushed by Madrid, who were probably better than any other team in the world except Barca, and Atletico have been better than most for a long time. And Bayern under Heynckes reclaimed the title after Dortmund winning it back to back. That Dortmund side were great. No defence, but still great and made it to the Champions league final, which Bayern won. Their run to the final was seriously impressive. The two legs against Barca, 7-0 on agg I think it was in the end, was just stupid. To me, that was the best individual season of any club side. Right now you can argue the same for this City side. Who is pushing them? They're 8 points ahead in the first week of November. All their potential challengers are deeply flawed. United or Spurs look most likely to finish second, and it will most likely be a distance behind City. Compare that to late 00's Premier League era and the "Sky Four". United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. Those teams have not been as strong as they were in that 2005-2010 period. All of those teams are now significantly weaker than they were then, and City now, IMO, aren't close to Mourinho's first Chelsea side or United 06-09. If City end this season with the title, a domestic cup and the Champions League, I'll certainly be open to changing my tune. I don't think they will though. They'll win the league comfortably, and possibly a cup. I still think they'll fall short in Europe. This is PSG's year, I reckon. That attack is just mad

United were awful. And have been for a few weeks. They are built around Pogba. Since he got inured, they've been scraping by, in truly awful fashion. No idea when he's back. It was hamstring injury that wasn't severe enough to warrant surgery, but he's been gone nearly 10 weeks now. Chelsea could have bent United over if they wanted. Fortunately for United, Bakayoko seemed to be involved more than anyone on the pitch, and everything he touched turned to shite. What does that guy even do? He buzzes round a lot, but his technique is non-existent. Mkhitaryan though. I don't get him. He was Bundesliga Player of the Year. What is he good at? He pussies out of every challenge, everything he does seems to result in the opposition retrieving the ball. Mata is 10 times the player. Even though he is slower and weaker, he doesn't lose every challenge like Mkhi does, and he's a good finisher. Mkhi just lashes aimlessly at everything, but he's undroppable at the moment. United play with 10 men when he's on the pitch. I don't remember Kagawa being anywhere near as bad, yet he was pretty bad. City are playing well, but best team ever (in your lifetime)? I think that is incredibly hyperbolic at this stage, considering that they were only decent at best last season, and this season is only 2 and a half months old (and they just beat a hapless Arsenal side at home with a dive and an offside goal). I understand your point about Messi, and even though they were incredibly functional as a team, he was the spearhead of it, and without him, they could often be a little toothless. I think City have a similar reliance on De Bruyne. Nobody in that side can do what he does, and without him, they lack that spark, especially as Silva isn't quite the player he was, and Aguero isn't as explosive as he used to be. Take De Bruyne out of that side, and they become decent at best. They really struggled when he was out last season. I'd still put Pep's Barca miles ahead of them, and most/all sides. Whilst Messi made them a real threat, the midfield 3 was arguably the best midfield 3 ever, and it's easy to forget how explosive Samuel Eto'o was in Pep's first season. He was the best centre forward at that time. In Rome against United, they were just incredible. Eto'o, Messi and Iniesta tore United a new arsehole. Even just in the Premier League, I'd put 98-01 United, 04-06 Chelsea and 06-09 United ahead of current City. 07/08 United especially was ridiculous. Best defence in the league, possibly ever. Rooney, Ronaldo Tevez up front was just carnage, Scholes as a one man midfield, Edwin getting better with age... if not for dropping a bollock and playing a weakened side against Portsmouth in the cup, they'd have won the treble and gone down as one of the best ever. That missing trophy is a major blow, and means the '99 side is probably ranked ahead of them, when they probably shouldn't be. Also Heynckes' Bayern. They were a right laugh to watch that season, whilst being rock solid at the back. They kicked the bollocks off of Barca and Juve on their way to the final, won the Treble. That was such a functional, well oiled team. They didn't have a player who scored more than 20 goals in the league, despite them scoring 98 league goals, which is insane. The goals were all across the squad. Muller was their top scorer with only 23 in all comps. They broke heaps and heaps of league records that year too, and it was even before they pinched Lewandowski and Gotze from Dortmund. City are a million miles off of that. And back to back Champions League winners, Real Madrid. It's certainly a platform built to get the best out of Ronaldo, but it is one hell of a platform, and they are still a great team. Take age out of the equation, and I'd take Modric over De Bruyne (or anyone in that City side) every day. Peak Modric is sublime. TL;DR I disagree.

Bilic sacked. Probably the right decision, but Moyes? How utterly uninspiring. It's like Premier League club owners hire the next manager by opening up some sort of real-time FM database, and filtering on employment status and reputation. First unemployed person on the list gets the job. How awful is Mkhitaryan? Really awful. He'd lose a 50/50 challenge to a toddler, the soft shite.

I'd definitely choose Rocket from the Crypt over the Manics too.

Shit yeah. Love Hi Standard. Japanese pop punk is the best pop punk.

Football Manager 2018 has added the feature where, very rarely, a regen will publicly identify as homosexual. Apparently it boosts your merchandise revenue, which seems a bit weird. Predictably, the internet's response to this is harrowing. If you see a tweet/post about it, you should not read the replies. I made that mistake. Lots of reaction gifs of gagging and vomiting, a few people suggesting that "football isn't for fairies" and following that with "womens football only exists to keep the feminists happy". Grim. The feature obviously means well with its intentions, but the reaction to it was always going to be toxic.

That's the one. 2002! Damn, I was sure it was 03. I was only there for the Saturday. My girlfriend at the time somehow convinced me to go for the day on Saturday, because she wanted to see New Found Glory (and only New Found Glory, nobody else), yet a whole bunch of my favourite bands were on the Sunday; Less Than Jake, No Use for a Name, Get Up Kids, Sick of it All, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Rival Schools, Midtown, A, Bouncing Souls, Jimmy Eat World were all bands I was pretty mad about when I was 15. How did she wrangle that? Look at that Saturday line up. It's fucking awful. I barely saw anybody. I saw Finch, and they're still among the worst bands I've ever seen. Started watching Fenix TX who were the only other band on the bill I was vaguely interested in besides Weezer, but the missus immediately developed a 'headache' as soon as they started, which magically vanished as soon as they'd finished, that bitch. I saw Guided By Voices, though 15 year old me didn't like them, because he was an idiot. Then New Found Glory, obvs, can't stand them. Then shoved my way right to the front for Weezer, which took pretty much the whole of The White Stripes' set. The day was over for me by about 7pm. Wandered about for ages, hovered towards tents, everything sounded rubbish, went back for The Strokes who were so, so dull. Shit day. Waste of money. New Found Glory toured the UK in December of that year. Fuck girls, man.

That's where I saw them, Leeds 2003. If that's when you missed them, you missed the GOAT setlist.

Glad I saw them in 2003, so the only bad song they could have played was Hash Pipe, and they did play it. The rest was all bangers.

You mistyped 2002.

Season 3 of Narcos hasn't grabbed me at all. No Pablo. No Party. So amped for Punisher which starts November 17th. It better be ridiculously violent. I wanna see Frank fucking everybody up.

Get Athletico Mince, if you want to up it to 6 football podcasts. It promises at least (and usually only) 8% football content. It's mostly about Bob Mortimer's health and how Andy doesn't really care about Bob Mortimer's health. I might have mentioned it in this thread already, I can't remember. Get on it. It's super funny. Unless you don't like Bob Mortimer, but that would be weird, and sort of impossible, because who doesn't like Bob Mortimer?

I'm totally rocking the new-ish (came out in January I think) Sepultura LP. I don't know why, because it's cheeseball nu-metal as fuck, with the occasional death/thrash ripper. It makes me want to wear Adidas trackies and get dreads. It's a solid record though, with loads of bonkers percussion. 6 Kerrangs out of 10

Teetotal too, so not even a hint of method acting. Seriously impressive drunk acting. It might even be better than Phil Mitchell's. Massive shame. Took me a while to get into TPB, but once it clicks, it's brilliant. It's really struggling without J-Roc, so I can't imagine how bad it could be without Lahey. Hopefully this puts an end to it.

Not heard this before. It is good. I am always interested to hear more grimy, dirty electronic music, but never know where to look for it. This is proper grimy.

Sci-fi Thrash, like Vektor, but more punk. And it was recorded at God City, so it sounds colossal, like you're being repeatedly kicked in the head. https://expander.bandcamp.com/album/endless-computer I've listened to the new Propagandhi LP repeatedly in the last 2 weeks. So good.

How is reading the meter still a job that a person has? You can submit readings by text message now. I can do mine through an app, because it's not the 80's. When I was with SSE, they were dead pushy about their men reading the meter, even though they'd send me text messages saying "You MUST submit your meter readings NOW" which I'd do, then a guy would still turn up a few days later. He always seemed to come in the evenings whilst I was cooking, and my gas meter was a pain in the arse to get to in the very small kitchen, so I'd tell him "I've already sent them in". "Yeah, but you are legally obligated to let us see them" and starts giving me some spiel about how the meter is their property, giving it large like he's a bailiff. Nah. Kitchen's occupied. Go get a warrant. You drive a van around to do a job that can be done by e-mail. Jog on.

Agreed with Royal Mail getting to fuck. Went to collect a parcel the other day, as the slip said it was too big for my letterbox. Got down there, gave him the slip, he handed over the parcel... It definitely could have fit through my letterbox (I was petty enough to even check when I got home, and it did). I eyed up the parcel's width, then I gave him the stink-eye and a passive aggressive exhalation. You know, not quite a deep sigh, not quite a huff, but an audible breath so he knows he's fucked me off. I might even tut next time, and roll my eyes so exaggeratedly that I give myself a migraine.

He did a fair bit for LGBT rights, censorship and fought against Christian establishment in America. That's pretty cool. However, he was reportedly rather abusive, sexually, physically and emotionally, to a number of the girls. I was reading he used to give some of the girls a particular sedative which he referred to as "thigh openers". Wasn't he also - allegedly - involved in some of the nasty stuff Bill Cosby was up to?

Both out today: This is good. This is also good.

Weird seeing all the "what a hero" "total legend" stuff bout Hefner today. From many accounts, the guy was a total piece of shit.

I didn't know there was an editable injury database!