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AusGAF 5/5 - Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy, a rental at best

R

reptilescorpio

Member
Choc said:
Wilkie withdrawing government support is interesting

would have been election time now had it not been for slipper
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If it wasn't for Slipper the reforms would still be on the table. As soon as the Slipper switcheroo happened everyone had their eyes on the pokie reform and how much respect Labor were going to show towards Wilkie. All going according to keikaku.

speedpop said:
The worst ones were those who came in the following morning to try and catch up on their losses, not knowing that the machines operated upon distributed ratio that was completely random on payouts. Some days Fridays would pay out, other times it would stretch over Mondays to Wednesdays due to them being the slowest days in the week.
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Going for my RSG was a real eye opener and I decided not to go ahead with the required police checks, etc as the situation was pretty disgusting. They were 100% up front with it and said that gambling will destroy a lot of lives, the machines never lose. They always make a profit by the end of the 12 month cycle. I know people who have a go for fun but all of them have lost more money on them than won anything.

I'm currently up $1.50 after a mate and I went to Crown around 2am the night of the GeeGAF meetup (i.e. Shane and I) and he proceeded to spend $50 in about 3 minutes. I put in $1 and played 5c bets and got a win of $2 or something. He was then asking me if it was a good idea to use his $100 VISA gift card. He was thankful in the morning I talked him out of it but if I wasn't there he would have spent it. Another mate of mine would blow most of his paycheck on the pokies until his mates intervened.
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
reptilescorpio said:
If it wasn't for Slipper the reforms would still be on the table. As soon as the Slipper switcheroo happened everyone had their eyes on the pokie reform and how much respect Labor were going to show towards Wilkie. All going according to keikaku.
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As I said on the previous page, I'm sure all eyes now are on Adam Bandt.

Also, we had to steal a friend's wallet from him when he started pumping $50 notes into a machine at wrest point casino. Each of them lasted ~3 minutes before he bet them away.
 
M

midonnay

Member
Danoss said:
Late to reply because I was out all day, but I think this is unlikely.

If the ball was out, it would mean that Tomic won the point. Why would he challenge this? That would be up to Dolgopolov.

Tomic clearly went to challenge, but the umpire didn't see this. Dolgopolov did, lost the point, then Tomic pretended he didn't challenge since this would win him the point. It's a sleazy thing to do and he was caught on camera doing it.
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dolgopolov challenge? it was in tomic's end of the court.

watch the video again. Someone in the crowd yells "out" and the umpire even acknowledged it so he saw everything. as quoted "he had a reaction"

pointless arguing about it anymore.....the haters are going to see what they want.
 
M

midonnay

Member
Danoss said:
That's right. If you're claiming Tomic was objecting to what he thought was an "out" call, that makes no sense. Who wastes a challenge to prove that their opponent won the point?
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1) he hears the "out" call and he is unsure whether it is a real call or not....he looks at the umpire and sees that it isn't going to be an "out" call.

2) so now that the ball is in play and he has returned it, he is in half a mind whether to challenge or not. He does a half hearted action and continues to play in the end.

The umpire has seen everything and hence deemed it not a challenge because of the circumstances.

as quoted "He did not challenge. He did not challenge ....hhHe had a reaction....he looked at me ....I couldn't make the call and the point continued."

does that sound like the words of someone who was unsighted? he saw EVERYTHING.
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
What I'm feeling right now must be what others who don't care about cricket have been feeling the past month.

On the other hand, at least there's no tennis equivalent of irfan.
 
G

guidop

Member
If Abbott had won the last election we would have had pokie reforms and Hobart would have a new billion dollar hospital. The Pokie issue would have gotten bipartisan support and almost the whole country would be in agreement. It is a shrude piece of political play on behalf of Abbott. The pokie issue mostly affects people in swing seats and labor heart-land, faced with the "taking" of their precious and "destroying of clubs" Abbott was set to pick up enough votes from old traditional labor voters to get the swings required in sydney and gain back more of the "howard battlers"

Another shrude move is the talk of sending boats back to Indonesia, not going to happen in a million years. You think the Labor goverment that wants to swap asylum seekers in to possible beatings, terrible conditions and human rights abuses wouldn't tow boats back to Indonsia if it could. The dipolmatic fall out would likely be massive especially as the Indonians have made their position on the practice clear

Minority government is a poisoned chalice. I am absolutely certain Abbott would have tanked as much as Gulia had he won
 
S

Salazar

Member
guidop said:
If Abbott had won the last election we would have had pokie reforms and Hobart would have a new billion dollar hospital.
Click to expand...

We would have had fucken work choices bullshit to the nth degree.

Edit: Choc, yer probably right if it was minority. I still remember turning my first job offer down after uni because the contract was an Abbott wet dream.
 
R

Rezbit

Member
Played board games today/night. Mansions of Madness is so good. Our objective was to do a massive hazza out of the mansion and burn it down because a psycho killer summoning the dead was running around.

Had to turn off the tennis when the chicks were playing. Sharapova cut absolutely sick today. Was ridiculous.
 
D

Danoss

Member
Rezbit said:
Played board games today/night. Mansions of Madness is so good. Our objective was to do a massive hazza out of the mansion and burn it down because a psycho killer summoning the dead was running around.

Had to turn off the tennis when the chicks were playing. Sharapova cut absolutely sick today. Was ridiculous.
Click to expand...

I wished I played board games today. I had a rather ordinary RPG session instead.

We're playing Traveller, which is an ancient, horrid system. I should have known at character creation it would've gone like this. There are 2 ways you can create a character, either roll it up using the books, making it completely random or; create a detailed character history so you'll have a well fleshed out character to play and then watch it all go to shit as the life events you roll up in the book contradict what you originally designed. Sometimes your character can die during the generation process. That's right, make a character and it ends up dead before the game has even started, so you can try again. That's 30+ year old game design for you.

Our party of 5 (including retired naval pilot, ex-spy, ex-pirate/mercenary, psion and honorably discharged, decorated spec-ops commando (me, how horribly plain)) have been on our current planet for a while now. After landing, we discovered a city divided in its law enforcement. There are two factions, the Tridents (standard LEOs), and the Jagged Spear (elite, meathead soldiers). Each controlled by one brother. The brother in charge of the Tridents is Volk, a decent person. The other, Morbis, who runs the Jagged Spear, lusts for power and puts its lower class citizens into a state of fear, stealing children, enslaving them and taking those with psychic abilities to increase the power in which he wields. Morbis won't even allow a previous love slave to be with another man, having her vagina sealed up to ensure this doesn't happen (how this was ever relevant I have no idea, but the jokes at the time surrounding it were pretty good).

Also, a media crew has gone missing, investigating money being leaked. There is also a spy inside this media crew and one other is on the take from the people they are investigating. Embezzlement, subterfuge and secret alliances are formed. Morbis was who he appeared, Volk changed his tune and turned on us. Informants were discovered to be misleading us, setting us up to fall into a trap.

Today, all these political subplots, conspiracies, hidden agendas seemed like they were coming to a head, then they just fell flat. Loose ends were left as such and basically hours of investigation, discussion, and speculation amounted to nothing. Nothing was solved, no real, useful information was gained. Basically, we were forced into a fight we couldn't win, so we had to go to the spaceport and leave the planet to go to a rumoured lawless safe-haven to take refuge from who knows, I don't think I can give a shit anymore.

What a messy, entangled plot of shit. It was convoluted to begin with and only got worse. I shot a dude 3 times and disarmed a bomb attached to our ship. How exciting.

I would've killed for a game of Mansions of Madness. Shit, Snakes 'n' Ladders would've been ace in comparison. Anyway, now I have that off my chest...

I forgot what Sharapovas grunt was like, so I looked it up on YouTube and yep, it's terrible. This 30s clip made me laugh, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj9mw_6dXc8
 
S

Shaneus

Member
reptilescorpio said:
giantdouchevsturdsandwich7om.jpg
Click to expand...
Futurama. A scene for everything:
uV6RP.png
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Planet_JASE said:
If it weren't for the fact that it is an awesome, awesome song, I might feel embarrassment for knowing it word-for-word. Saluting Scouts from a flaming bus is the highlight for me.
Click to expand...
For what it's worth, probably my favourite McClure scene is with him appearing on "The Half-Assed Approach to Foundation Repair". Homer with his baseball cap on just tops off the whole thing.

Do you remember what episode it was from?

Edit: It was Marge Gets a Job.

Edit #2: Fucking double post. I meant to copy this post and edit paste it into the last one. Shit.
 
R

reptilescorpio

Member
Rezbit said:
Played board games today/night. Mansions of Madness is so good. Our objective was to do a massive hazza out of the mansion and burn it down because a psycho killer summoning the dead was running around.

Had to turn off the tennis when the chicks were playing. Sharapova cut absolutely sick today. Was ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Once she got louder she started winning more points. Really need to cut that from the sport.
 
R

reptilescorpio

Member
Dead Man said:
So call me ignorant, but why does that bother people?
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Verbal cues to break concentration. Same reason I talk so much shit during Beer Pong. Mate of mine was on fire until I started up talking about another mates mother to him. Broke his concentration and his soul. He was like an armless German backpacker for the rest of the night.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
reptilescorpio said:
Verbal cues to break concentration. Same reason I talk so much shit during Beer Pong. Mate of mine was on fire until I started up talking about another mates mother to him. Broke his concentration and his soul. He was like an armless German backpacker for the rest of the night.
Click to expand...

My reply to that would be twofold.

1. If you are elite, and want to be the best in the world, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can deal with that shit. No different to sledging in cricket, or trash talking in basketball.

2. Breath control, including grunts, can help with momentary strength.

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/news-items/ne_80231

A new book by Professor Alison McConnell from Brunel University in London, Breathe Strong, Perform Better, suggests that there is in fact a physiological reason for a tennis player to grunt and that being a distraction to opponents is merely an added bonus!

Professor McConnell explains:

"We all instinctively inhale just before we make a physical effort such as lifting furniture or swinging a racquet at a ball. We do this because holding air in the lungs helps to provide the stability required for injury-free and forceful movements of the trunk.

"Maximising the power of a tennis shot is created by transferring muscular force to the racquet head efficiently. A strong core and trunk is vital for this process because the force transmission starts below the players’ waist. The muscles in the trunk also contribute to racquet head speed by providing a rotational force between the hips and shoulders."

So how does this cause a player to grunt as they strike the ball? According to Professor McConnell it all comes down to breathing techniques.

"Efficient breathing is an incredibly important contributor to performance in all sports, but especially in a high-intensity, skill-based game like tennis. Any coach will tell you that the heart of a good stroke is a relaxed rhythm, part of achieving this rhythm is getting your breathing and stroke in tune."

Simply exhaling as soon as the player has hit the ball will dissipate the stability and control in their core, this can throw them off balance and break that all-important rhythm. The solution, according to Professor McConnell is through controlled, forceful exhalation using the larynx, or voice-box, to maintain stability in the core.

"Narrowing the opening of your lungs will slow down the rate of airflow from them, while maintaining stiffness in the trunk and control over the breathing rhythm. It is in using this technique that some players feel the need to grunt. Of course this braking action doesn't actually need to result in audible grunting but it is easier to coach the controlled exhalation if you can hear it. As a result some younger players may well be taught to grunt as a means of breath control."

Professor McConnell goes on to suggest that the reason grunting is more common amongst women that men is that their upper bodies are generally weaker than those of men and thus require stronger control and stability through breathing techniques.
Click to expand...
 
R

reptilescorpio

Member
Dead Man said:
My reply to that would be twofold.

1. If you are elite, and want to be the best in the world, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can deal with that shit. No different to sledging in cricket, or trash talking in basketball.

2. Breath control, including grunts, can help with momentary strength.

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/news-items/ne_80231
Click to expand...
This does not seem like an ignorant reply.

Anyway I have no interest in Tennis, only observed that watching the women play was annoying as shit the more crazy the moaning got.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
reptilescorpio said:
This does not seem like an ignorant reply.

Anyway I have no interest in Tennis, only observed that watching the women play was annoying as shit the more crazy the moaning got.
Click to expand...

Thanks :) And fair enough, it is not ideal from a purely auditory standpoint, but I would preer the best players doing their best. Not really a fan of tennis anyway, just thought it was odd that some people (looking at you, Wimbeldon) get so fired up about it.
 
R

reptilescorpio

Member
Dead Man said:
Thanks :) And fair enough, it is not ideal from a purely auditory standpoint, but I would preer the best players doing their best. Not really a fan of tennis anyway, just thought it was odd that some people (looking at you, Wimbeldon) get so fired up about it.
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I saw the highlights of the Murray match and that looked fuck off awesome even though the scoreline was one sided. Wish all tennis looked like that.

That article even said the grunting was unnecessary and if they can train the players to stop doing it in such a distracting fashion it will be more enjoyable to watch and mean both players can play even better.
 
C

codswallop

Member
Any AusGAFer done any budget travelling in Central and South America? Been eligible for long service leave for a couple of years but am considering using a couple of months in that region. When I say budget I mean I'm happy to buy lunch and dinner from a supermarket 80% of the time but don't want to stay in a dorm.

Also, 3chopl0x, where did you find the ICS ROM for your TouchPad (or did you have to build it yourself?)? Starting to really get over some of the WebOS peculiarities.
 
R

Rezbit

Member
Dead Man said:
My reply to that would be twofold.

1. If you are elite, and want to be the best in the world, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can deal with that shit. No different to sledging in cricket, or trash talking in basketball.

2. Breath control, including grunts, can help with momentary strength.

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/news-items/ne_80231
Click to expand...

1. Haha, oh shit imagine if people started doing that in basketball. *Jumps* AAAHHHHOooOooooooo! Well the athletes obviously can deal with it. I'm speaking purely as a spectator. If I do watch women's tennis (very rarely, even more so now), I have to mute it.

2. This might be true, but I don't equate what some of these players do as "grunting." Those squealing squawks are not mere grunts, nay; they transcend a simple exertion of breath and become an almost pornographic scream.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Stumbled across this little gem on the guy's blog who created the video in this post. I like it :)
Ordinary Is OK

I work in the video game industry and being saturated with game culture for 50% of my day makes one thing very clear: games are about being awesome, fun, amazing, exciting, rewarding, engaging, fast, sleek and loud. They are about testosterone, adrenaline, blood and sweat. They are cutesy, round, shiny and colourful. They are filled with rules, points, highscores, 1-ups, power-ups, achievements and trophies. They are digital, clear cut, right and wrong, black and white. The medium is made with 0s and 1s; the game is either off or its on and in your face.

But all I want to say is this:

Ordinary Is OK.

It’s OK to be our boring selves. It’s OK to be honest and simple, humble and plain, sort of right and sort of wrong, kind of funny and kind of not, a little bit interesting, not at all fancy, sometimes broken, but sometimes fragile, a tad sweet, a pinch salty and a little bit more human all around. There is so much more that games can be, but we need to look more closely inside our own lives instead of always searching through the stars and skies.
Click to expand...
Source


PS. Fuck, it's hot. I want yesterday's weather. I'm such a crybaby.
 
M

midonnay

Member
men's tennis do fine without grunting (mostly ....nadal is probably the worst offender and he isn't as bad) and they play best of 5 sets and hit wayyyy harder.

It is actually against the rules..... just that peer pressure is such that everyone who cares is afraid to complain.
 
D

Danoss

Member
This video of a Sharapova practice session leads me to believe that she puts it on during a match. Her grunt also seems to have gotten louder over time, listening to some videos of her playing. When interviewed about it, there is no explicit "yes" about whether she feels grunting (or screaming in her case) actually offers any sort of bonus.

I can understand there perhaps being something to exhaling on a shot or something along those lines, even a little grunt, which could easily be associated with the expulsion of air. To the extent that Sharapova and Azarenka take it, which is a yell or a scream, I think is unnecessary and intentional.
 
P

Planet_JASE

Member
Shaneus said:
I'm such a crybaby.
Click to expand...


Danoss said:
This video of a Sharapova practice session leads me to believe that she puts it on during a match. Her grunt also seems to have gotten louder over time, listening to some videos of her playing. When interviewed about it, there is no explicit "yes" about whether she feels grunting (or screaming in her case) actually offers any sort of bonus.
Click to expand...
I don't think an absence of confirmation is any form of indictment. After all, it's not like someone is asking her for a quantifiable answer. For example, if someone asked me "Do you believe that grunting grants you supernatural levels of supersexual attraction to the opposite sex and makes gerbils rain from the sky in Syberia" I could easily say "Yep." without fear of being caught out. How can you prove that I don't believe that, even if I am doing it to break the concentration of my opponent? You can't, so I don't see why she would be afraid to answer the question.

Similarly, I don't think a training session is proof of anything, either. No athlete puts 100% into a practice session because it's just that - practice. A practice session is about learning and enforcing form and motion, not about power and 'giving it your all.' I've seen footage of Rugby League teams practising; none of the players actually tackle each other. Does this prove anything?

Danoss said:
I can understand there perhaps being something to exhaling on a shot or something along those lines, even a little grunt, which could easily be associated with the expulsion of air. To the extent that Sharapova and Azarenka take it, which is a yell or a scream, I think is unnecessary and intentional.
Click to expand...
Some martial arts teach to use the voice to help channel and focus power.

Edit: I don't really care about Tennis and do find the female grunting annoying. I like a good discussion, though, and think you need to muster up some better evidence to convince me :)
 
K

Kritz

Banned
Question:

Melb Gaf, this Saturday, meetup at bar of choice?

Kritz is in town for one week only - and at that, Saturday's my only good day for non-family activities.
 
M

midonnay

Member
DeathJr said:
Tomic vs. Federer. What do you guys think?

I think Tomic will put up a solid fight but in the end Federer will overwhelm him.
Click to expand...

change of the guard opportunity....

Federer is ripe of age to get his butt smacked the way he handed it out to Pete Sampras in Wimbledon all those years ago.
 
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