keeno

In amongst all the jokish comments, you do strike me as someone with a somewhat naive attitude to money. That's not me attacking you at all, LOTS of people are like that. I'd class my own parents are being like that and this is part of the reason I like to try and save all the time (sadly I am not averse to GAS either as you may have noticed - but it is all about balance). Scraping a living from one pay cheque to the other like that is not a good way to live. I'm not saying you need a detailed financial plan and to count every penny but you should never find yourself with no money at all. Correct me if I am wrong, but you have a half decent job, and live in a council flat which has dirt cheap rent and your gf works too? That's hardly poverty. I am pretty sure if you took a few simple measures and thought about what you spent everything on you could save a fair bit and allow yourself the luxury of buying that bass amp or whatever. Order less takeaways and make your own or get from the supermarket, drink at home before going out, don't go out as much, eat out less in restaurants etc. It all adds up fairly quickly. You don't suddenly have to become a prude who stays at home all the time to get savings. I've been a student for the last 5 years with no help from my parents at all (my mother and her husband are currently unemployed and living off the dole since quitting her job and moving to Banff last year - that shows you some of the stupid decisions they make with not only money but other stuff too) and through working when I can and being a bit smarter with purchases thankfully I never find myself with no money. Having a relatively small overdraft and remembering you are spending money that is not yours makes it very easy to say no to things!

The amount of comments along the lines of 'the only loser was football, not much' and 'parking the bus/ anti football' etc are annoying. Last time I checked it was goals that mattered. People seem to be forgetting Ramires and Meireles were suspended who were instrumental in their campaign this year and arguably their best 2 midfielders recently as Mata has been very out of form in the last couple of months. Playing Bertrand instead Malouda on the left was a brilliant move, negative maybe but worked a treat against Robben and Lahm. Plus they were playing in Munich's back yard and you don't want to go attacking wildly, leaving gaps and getting humiliated in the biggest game in club football. Greece played the same way when they won Euro 2004. I don't remember the anti football brigade then, just a triumph of the underdogs. You can win games with solid defence and hard work, it's not just about playing like Barcelona. Lest we forget, Chelsea were behind and had to score goals to go save their campaign in the quarters, semis and final. It's hardly like they got through the campaign grinding out 1-0 results. I thought they played the only way they could with the players at their disposal and defended incredibly well in addition to Bayern's profligacy in front of goal. Bayern should have won that final easily, but absolutely none of their 'big attacking talents' turned up at all. I rarely watch Bayern it must be said, but sometimes I really do wonder how the hell Gomez bangs in 30/40 goals a season. Woeful last night and most of the times I watch him. It's no wonder Germany usually stick with Podolski/Klose! I remember him playing equally badly at Euro 2008 and WC2010 though he didn't play much there. Some stats from a BBC article -> http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18132980 Chelsea statistics Petr Cech went the right way on six Bayern penalties and saved three of them. Chelsea blocked more shots than in any other game in the Champions League this season. Only Frank Lampard, John Obi Mikel and Juan Mata made more passes than goalkeeper Petr Cech. Juan Mata covered the most ground on the pitch with 16,123 metres. Didier Drogba has now scored nine goals in nine cup finals. Bayern Munich statistics Robben and Philipp Lahm were the most frequent passers behind Kroos, showing how much Bayern played down the right-hand side. Half of Bayern's eight crosses from the left were successful, whereas none of 15 reached their target from the right. Seven of Robben's shots were from outside the area, showing that Chelsea defended the 18-yard line well. Bastian Schweinsteiger covered the most ground of any Bayern> player with 15,464 metres. TL;DR - Bayern threw away the final with crap finishing and players backing out of taking penalties. When your keeper takes the 3rd penalty, unless you are playing against one of these South American keepers who takes set pieces, something is wrong! Chelsea worked hard and defended well and took their chances when they had them. Deserved winners on the night. In other news I was happy Hearts tanked Hibs. Leigh Griffiths is a prick of the highest order and I take great joy in seeing him blame it on the referee and not the fact they were totally outplayed by the better team who took their chances. Bitter much? He is the king of throwing his toys out of the pram. Shocking decision to award the penalty, but they were going down to 10 men anyway and hearts were always going to run riot against 10. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18135163 That final just makes me despair at Hearts even more though. Good squad and Ian Black and Skacel were immense yesterday and neither are getting new contracts. Craig Beattie has done well too but pretty sure he will be let go too. The quicker Romanov leaves Gorgie the better. The financial situation was dire before Romanov, but he has done little to help it and alienated many fans in the process

Yeah I remember, We added each other to play FIFA and never did! Need to have a game some time. I was meaning for anyone else like flights who is intimidated by teabags awesomeness at Trials. Still you should pick up Trials HD and the expansion if you have a spare 800 points! Some other decent stuff in the publisher sale -> http://forums.xbox.com/en-gb/uk_general_xbox_discussion/f/229/p/256898/1335494.aspx

Android or OS? Most iOS games are free on android because they can add adverts, and if you turn your phones internet off most games still work without adverts. Saves battery life too My favourites are flick football, super stickman golf (it's like worms but with golf if that makes sense 2d plane and you set the angle and power of the shots). For pointless fun I love Homerun Battle and Coin Dozer too. Those are 'free to play' though so try to entice you to buy stuff to make the game last longer and get powerups etc. Just say no!

The original is currently half price in the microsoft publisher sale (go to the games tab and it should be in the window that rotates between games in the centre if you wait long enough- think it's for gold members only though? Deal of the week is but not sure about the extra sales). It's 600MSP for the game and 200MSP for the add on pack which adds another 45 levels or something like that. Amazing value and worth every penny. The Expert levels are rock hard though. I don't think I have finished that many, but I suck at going up the really steep slopes, something there are unfortunately many of! I bought 4200 points a couple of days ago so will probably buy trials evolution and minecraft soon. Keeno89 is my gamertag if anyone wants some crap times to race against! Anyone else buy The Witcher 2 for xbox? I loved it. Found it way better than Skyrim, the combat is much more challenging and actually requires strategy. The funny thing is amazon are not selling it for nearly £6 more than I paid for it on pre-order from them. Bizarre. Now to play through Dark Souls which I haven't played since xmas...

A stats geek has been over all of this. Partly true but heaps of players score the majority of their goals against small teams and he has had very limited opportunities. It's not perfect by any means but it's pretty fun to read anyway! http://ongoalsscored.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-peter-crouch-myth/ TL;DR "Once the limited nature of his opportunities has been taken into account, Peter Crouch’s excellent goals per minute record sustains being weighted by quality to still be far and away the best of all the players studied. Peter Crouch is the most prolific England striker of the era and his perceived disproportionate reliance on scoring against football’s weak nations is a myth."

I didn't realise Capello picked the Euro squad too before he left. Was expecting a bit more of a shake up. England will struggle in the first few games with the 3 strikers being Carroll, Welbeck and Defoe. I would have taken Adam Johnson in the squad instead of just a reserve in place of Downing who has been dire all year. Still short of game time but he has proven to be a great impact player for City. Agree with everything said above!

Can you order anything hotter than a phall in curry houses /restaurants? Man vs food ridiculous melt your face type spice? I fancy doing something like that for a laugh. Was toying with the idea of ordering a phall and wussed out, and ordered a bhuna.... but they gave me the phall anyway. My lips, mouth and stomach suffered but manage to finish it. I don't really get indigestion/heartburn but last night makes me glad I don't have them! Sure someone asked about eating challenges before and all that came up was the spur 64oz steak thing. If not we should just have an Aberdeen music BBQ and make insane octuple cheeseburgers and beef chilli hot enough to kill small rodents and other such things non americans are too sane to do.

I am just ambivolent towards the teams I 'should' support. I grew up in Gorgie a few minutes from Tynecastle so as a child I was a Hearts fan but as have previously said as soon as Romanov turned them into the Kaunas crèche I really lost interest. My dad used to live in Liverpool after leaving the navy before he came back to Edinburgh and as a result my half brother is a scouser. Don't have much endearment for the city or football team though. Maybe I should support Everton! Call me weird.... but I just like watching football! As long as they play by the rules and entertain me the result doesn't matter too much.

Going by BODMAS that is 42 watts.

"Amps so awesome, they make their own pussy magnet jokes".

I've seen them listed as in stock recently. http://www.dv247.com/guitars/fender-kurt-cobain-mustang-electric-guitar-sonic-blue--93164 Andertons don't have any more until July but don't know if that is because they sold out of the initial run or not. http://www.andertons.co.uk/solid-body-electric-guitars/pid22833/cid671/fender-kurt-cobain-mustang-in-sonic-blue.asp?utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=pricecomp&utm_campaign=GoogleShopping

Well the official Laney one with the guy playing the Ibanez guitars is clearly aimed at metal players. The very fact he uses an 8 string for a couple of minutes at the end is more than enough to confirm that. Despite that there is still a couple of minutes playing around with the clean channel, which is a hell of a lot more than what usually happens in reverse in guitar magazine reviews! Even when they do break away from strats and blues riffs and attempt 'high gain' demonstrations though, it's usually just a les paul with PAF's and the gain turned all the way up with no boost, which sounds crap and is totally different to what any player using the amp for that purpose would do! I guess they are targeted at the readership though, and each magazine generally knows what sort of players buy the magazine and generally the bedroom players just do what they like. The second video is pretty decent though. 1 guitar going through the range of every knob on the amp, at least gives you a better idea of the range of sounds on offer, even if it is not optimised for each sound. I generally find a properly mic'd bedroom review to be much more useful than most of the pro stuff as they usually do try out a range of sounds and some of the people do multiple demos in different styles with different guitars. Some of the store demos are great too. Andertons put up some great ones and Chappers is pretty funny too which helps. http://www.youtube.com/user/RobChappers/videos they are on that channel It comes in 60 watt and 120 watt versions. I posted a pic of the 60w version and video of the 120w so my fault I guess! Other than having 2 more output tubes don't think there is much difference between them though. http://www.thomann.de/gb/laney_irt60h_ironheart.htm http://www.thomann.de/gb/laney_irt120h_ironheart.htm

60 watt, but it has a graduated watt control that can reduce it to <1 watt which is why I am seriously considering it. More than giggable and equally at home at low volumes. I edited the post with the huge photo with a couple of videos too. The clean channel sounds pretty decent as well as having more gain on tap than is actually usable so it seems incredibly flexible. It's basically a full featured 3 channel, gig worthy head for £540 (only £495 from Thomann at current exchange rate too!), which is insane value. Not built in the UK like the more expensive Laney's but it basically has no competition at that price point!

It's ok. I'm pretty experienced at handling that many knobs It's nowhere near as terrifying when you actually understand what they are for. From the brand that brought you the sound of Heavy Metal comes the IRT60H. Forged in the Black Country. Producing 60 watts RMS of all ECC83 & 6L6 valve tone the IRT60H possess masses of gain and like its metal relatives such as the Laney KLIPP and the Laney AOR hits you hard between the eyes like a power hammer from hell! The three channels on the IRT60H give you: - Clean, Rhythm & Lead all with independent level controls. The Clean and the Rhythm channels share a 3- band EQ with pull-push shift features on each control that gives you total control over your sound allowing you to dial in that killer tone. The IRT60H Lead channel has an independent 3- band EQ with pull-push shift features on each control allowing for some radical lead tones. The Pre Boost feature is a great feature on the IRT60H.Pre Boost works just like kicking in your favourite boost pedal right before your amp. It's available where ever you are on the pre amp and can be switched in or out via the supplied footswitch. A standout feature of the IRT60H range is the WATTS control in the master section. This allows you to really screw down the output of the IRT60Hs 2 x 6L6 output section, down to less than 1 watt! Great for getting the sound of a full -blown metal head at bedroom levels. Combine this with a Dynamics control which tightens up you low end when you're playing a full power and you have a great metal tone at whatever level you decide to play at. The Tone control works really effectively and allows you to make quick adjustments to your overall sound should you for example change guitars. The IRT60H features a custom designed and specifically tuned reverb allowing you to add just the right amount of reverb wash over your tone. Adding additional effects via external processors is a breeze the FX loop on the rear of the IRT60H has a switchable level control meaning you can easily switch your FX loop output level to match the ideal level for your effects gear.

I should pay more attention! Was there last weekend and didn't notice any. All I really remember being there was the Engl display in the corner near the entrance and lots of vox/fender/line 6 stuff in the middle of the floor. Tubemeister is probably my least favourite of the 3 but might as well give it a shot. I never like the jet kings but the FR's are really nice. Also good that they offer the prestiges with natural finishes instead of just the bland black/white options of the lower end FR320. I love the necks and build quality of prestiges but they cost way too much over here IMO. The two guitars in the post above are £950 and almost every single Ibanez other than some of the sig and j customs have pretty poor pickups - so add £200 onto the price for a pickup change. For £1150 I could get a bespoke custom from the likes of http://www.facebook.com/Invictusguitars and http://www.siggeryguitars.co.uk/gallery.htm with bareknuckles. No contest, I would take the custom every single time!

Only recently found out these were made in Prestige spec. I'm no lover of pickguards but these look really classy. Shame about the pickup rings but still like them! Since the seller pulled out the last time still trying to decide on an amp. 3 to choose from and nowhere nearby seems to stock any! Trip to Edinburgh is in order. Don't think anywhere stocks the JCA22H but the H&K and Laney should be in a shop. I think the Jet City has the most unique sound (I love Soldano amps!) but the effects loop issue (only really works with rack effects) and shared EQ, combined with no attenuator may make it impractical. Featurewise the Laney wins hands down but it's £120 more expensive. Probably worth it though.

Bump. (8)

Cleek -> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clique#Pronunciation

Take testosterone, grow beard. Sorted. I'd be up for this but no giggable gear, time or beard at the moment sadly and the latter two won't improve any time soon

Does R&B have any Laney heads in stock? I fancy trying the IRT60. I know they use headstock distribution so they can order them for customers, but I don't remember seeing any beside the other heads for demo. If not I will just wait til I head back to Edinburgh and hope a shop there has them!

Downing hit the bar as well as his penalty hitting the post. Chelsea hit the woodwork twice too. It seems like Liverpool are passing on their curse/poor finishing to others now.

Iron gear pickups are fantastic to back Dave up on this! £25 but as good as Dimarzios/SD's 3x the price.

Naw get the LP junior. Looks way nicer! I actually quite like the Squier 51,,, but it is gone so thankfully no need to even consider it!

I posted some The Damned Things a few pages back. That video is comedy gold. So many blink-and-you'll-miss-it jokes. My favourite is when they assemble the guitars blindfolded and the one that is screwed up has ESP written on it. Made me chuckle when I first noticed it. Still not heard the new ETID album actually. Must buy soon.