Category: Entertainment

  • A Year of Music (2019)

    A Year of Music (2019)

    Come the end of each year, you often find services like Spotify showcasing a round-up of your listening habits over the past 12 months into a nicely presented package. But, since I switch between a few different services, I try to send most of what I listen to to Last.fm and so now I can make my own round-up.

    Not all the albums you’ll see below were released in 2019, nor were all the artists active (some are dead, actually). What you’ll see here is most-played albums and artists of 2019, as opposed to my critically hand-picked choice.

    Clicking on each album cover will take you to a shop where you can buy or listen to the album. If you don’t like the links I give you here, I encourage you to look the artist / album up anyway.

    Enough blathering – the list looks something like this:

    Most-played Albums of 2019

    1.
    Miss Universe
    Nilüfer Yanya

    2.
    Murkage Dave Changed My Life
    Murkage Dave

    3.
    Dogrel
    Fontaines D.C.

    4.
    Harry Styles
    Harry Styles

    5.
    WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
    Billie Eilish

    6.
    Cuz I Love You
    Lizzo

    7.
    The Hour of Bewilderbeast
    Badly Drawn Boy

    8.
    Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
    Arctic Monkeys

    9.
    Trapped In Amber
    Jonnie Common

    10.
    Shook
    Dralms


    Most-played Artists of 2019

    A photo of the Arctic Monkeys, most-played artist of 2019.
    1. Arctic Monkeys
    2. Badly Drawn Boy
    3. David Bowie
    4. Nilüfer Yanya
    5. Los Campesinos!
    6. Murkage Dave
    7. Jamie T
    8. Florist
    9. Harry Styles
    10. Jake Thackray

    Bye.

  • A Game of Thrones: The Card Game — Chapter & Expansion Packs

    A Game of Thrones: The Card Game — Chapter & Expansion Packs

    I don’t plan on turning this whole blog into a complete geek-fest, but excuse another post about A Game of Thrones: The Card Game.

    Recently, I wrote about completing the Blood and Gold set of cards after buying three more packs. I had my sights set on completing the next set; the Flight of Crows release.

    One evening, not long after pay-day, I decided to throw a bunch more cash down on A Game of Thrones: The Card Game. After all, it provides hours and hours of entertainment in our house.

    I bought four more Chapter Packs to complete the Flight of Crows release. Then I splashed out on two Expansion Packs – House of Thorns (House Tyrell) and Wolves of the North (House Stark).

    Whilst I’ve owned them for over a week now, I’ve been too busy to play. Looking forward to an evening indoors and playing with all the new cards soon.

    Some card packages from Game of Thrones: The Card Game series packaged in a cardboard box
    An array of cards from the Game of Thrones The Card Game box sets.

    Previously, previously. Related.

  • How I managed to turn around Oldham Athletic’s season

    How I managed to turn around Oldham Athletic’s season

    I could profess to being a gamer, and I am. But not everyone would consider Football Manager a true gaming experience. It’s more like managing a massive Excel spreadsheet. But that can be fun too, right?

    Recently, I bought myself custom-built gaming PC to replace my Xbox One console. It’s hooked up to my TV in the lounge. Ine, my fiancée, is happy that she can play The Sims with a keyboard and mouse. I am happy that I can play Football Manager on the big screen. It worked out well.

    After downloading Steam, I started a new game of Football Manager 2017. Even though the 2019 version of the game is out, I’m still hanging around on an “old” copy of the game. My friend works at Sega and put me in the game as a character. That’s why I stick with FM2017 and haven’t upgraded to 2019 yet.

    And so my new season as the manager of Oldham Athletic begins…

    Why Oldham Athletic?

    When it comes to football as a sport, Manchester United are my team. My family home sat around one mile away from Old Trafford football ground. So close that if the wind blew South, you could hear the roar of the crowd on match days. They are my “local club”. They also happen to be one of the best in the world.

    When it comes to Football Manager 2017, I prefer a bit of a tough challenge and so will look to some of the lower leagues. Oldham Athletic are from the opposite side of Manchester, but were a fun team to go and watch live. At the start of FM2017, Oldham sit in Sky Bet League One, the third tier of English football, and seem to have accrued a massive amount of debt.

    Year-on-year, Oldham tend to struggle to make any real progress. The end of the real-life 2017/2018 season would see them finish in 21st place and relegated to League Two. They seem the perfect challenge for an aspiring football manager.

    Time to rebuild

    One of the first things I try to do when I come to a club like this is rebuild. Quite often, that starts with the backroom staff. I terminated a lot of staff contracts and hired Tord Grip as assistant manager.

    Having strong support from staff is essential. You aren’t going to get too far if you don’t have some good scouts to find and judge the new talent. Your players won’t progress as well if they don’t have good coaches. I also hired a Director of Football to negotiate contracts and sign players.

    The next step was to pick a playing style and tactics. Oldham were already set up with a classic 4-4-2 set-up and I didn’t want to disrupt the team so much. I optimised it for defensive or counter attacking play, then created two others:

    4-2-3-1 Wide

    A formation with a higher and wider attacking midfield. They had a Control mentality – set up for an attacking game, but cautious of a counter attack.

    5-4-1

    A bit of a weird formation. It’s what José Mourinho would call “parking the bus”. Useful for when you clinch a winning goal in the last ten minutes of a tough fixture and don’t want to lose the lead.

    From here, I started to play through the season and let the games run their course. It wasn’t easy. There were recognisable holes in the Oldham line-up and I set my scouts to work to find replacements.

    Through the first half of the season, I won a mere ten games and faced elimination from cup competitions. Oldham sat above the relegation zone by three points and their fate so far looked bleak.

    The January transfer window

    When you start the season with Oldham, the club is being described as in a period of “financial ruin”. As you can imagine, this means there isn’t much money when it comes to a budget to sign new players. The club has an outstanding debt of £5,000,000 and a whole group of players on expensive wages.

    By Christmas, I had identified the holes in the team that needed plugging. Come the January transfer window, I offloaded some expensive players and snatched some good deals. The finance department were trembling at their knees.

    A few of my staple signings were; Ben Woodburn from Liverpool‘s youth team, Tahith Chong from Manchester United‘s youth divisions, and Abdi Ibrahim… who I couldn’t scout, but had met in person a few months prior at Oslo airport and found out he used to play for Manchester City. He can’t be bad, right?!

    Each of these young players helped bolster my attacking formations. They also worked well with the current players in the 4-2-2 setup.

    The unbeaten run

    The new year brought the feeling of a new team. Each of the players had become more familiar with the tactics set out and started to score goals. The schedule started to light up green.

    Win after win, draw after draw. There were some close calls, and last minute scrambles in the box. The 5-4-1 defensive tactic came into play on some occasions. Oldham went on a twenty-game unbeaten run.

    It turned out better than I imagined it would and the result of the final game week left us contenders for a playoff spot. Rochdale beat Oldham to it by a single point, but I couldn’t be happier with how the season ended.

    Oldham straddled 20th place during the first half of the season and wound up 8th come judgement day.

    Next season

    I ended my first season as Oldham Athletic manager on a high, but wouldn’t let it get to my head. I have played with Oldham before and this was rare. The following season had to come with realistic targets.

    The club still has a debt of over £5,000,000 and I didn’t fix that. I made it worse. I ran the wages over budget. Some key players were on loan to Oldham and are set to go back to their original club.

    My goal would be to earn another top-half finish. If possible, to find a spot in the playoffs for promotion. We will see.

    The following season has begun and has already thrown up a few surprises. I’ll post an end-of-season review. When I get there.

    The Football Editor 2017

    With this installation, I added on the editing functionality to the game. The eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted a little pencil icon in the top right of my screenshots.

    I am not familiar with the tool and wanted to see what it did – but not cheat my team to success. So, what did I do this season?

    After managing Manchester United, I felt that Louis Van Gaal needed a new challenge. I appointed him the job of Yeovil manager. No rest for the wicked!

    The Class of 92 have all retired and earned their coaching badges. I made Ryan Giggs the manager of Nottingham Forest and Paul Scholes the manager of Derby County.

    In a strange turn of events, Paul Scholes hired Gary Neville as his assistant manager.

    Thanks for reading!

    If you are a Football Manger player, drop me a note in the comments to let me know your recent successes (or failures)! If you have any tips, tricks, or tactics — feel free to share your wisdom.

  • Blood and Gold

    Blood and Gold

    Excuse me whilst I geek out over the 3 expansion packs for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Second Edition) that arrived today. And with the addition of these three Chapter Packs, I now own the complete “Blood and Gold” series.

    At first, I bought Oberyn’s Revenge, The Brotherhood Without Banners, The Fall of Astapor, Kingsmoot, and The Faith Militant. I was unaware that chapter packs group together as releases. Most of these fell within the Blood and Gold series.

    The packs that arrived today were All Men Are Fools, Guarding the Realm, and The Red Wedding. This allows me to complete my collection of the Blood and Gold series.

    I scanned through the cards and sorted them into the relevant houses. Tomorrow, I aim to give the cards a shot in a game.

    A photo of the card All Men Are Fools from the expansion pack of the same name as part of the Game of Thrones Card Game series. The card shows three ladies sat around a table.
    A photo of a hand holding a set of Game of Thrones cards from the second edition game
    A photo of a sealed packet of cards from the A Game Of Thrones: A Card Game expansion pack

    It’s exciting to get new cards and see the possible new ways of playing each unlock. The Blood and Gold series introduce new ways of using their gold. Cards tagged Bestow allow you to store gold on them and use that as part of the game.

    Another exciting aspect is being able to play through moments from the novel / TV series. The Red Wedding chapter pack brings in elements from one of the iconic scenes of the entire series.

    Next on my radar is to complete the Flight of Crows release cycle.

    Previously.

  • A (Card) Game of Thrones

    A (Card) Game of Thrones

    Some time last year, I purchased A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Second Edition). After wanting a card-based board game for a while, this became an impulse buy.

    With the game being set in the Game of Thrones world, I figured it would be an accessible entry point into a card game. I love the TV series and could find familiarity with some of the characters.

    So far, I love it. My fiancée and I play on a semi-regular basis. We’re casual board-gamers and so A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Second Edition) fits the bill for us!

    The Core Set was what we first stumbled upon and following the guides in the box was enough to get us hooked! Since then, I’ve purchased 8 extra sets of cards from the Blood and Gold and Flight of Crows release cycles.

    It’s been great to have a game to while the evenings away that doesn’t involve staring at a screen. Any mini digital detox is definitely something I definitely need to make the most of.

    Check it out on Board Game Geek – a great resource for everything to do with your favourite board games.

    What are your favourite board or card games to play when you’re away from the computer?