Never said you said it would. Point is if he is fit enough to warm up with the first team but didn't play, he really should be in the u21s the next day. Not going to develop just doing training and warm ups.

Not sure why that stopped him playing in the u21s.

My point wasn't that it can't happen, it's that it's unlikely. The bookies agree.

I'm still standing by what I've been saying for about 3 weeks I think. We'll scrape up by the skin of our balls, primarily because other teams around us suck, and go down next season. We might enter the bottom 3 briefly on the final day, but I don't see it very likely we go down. Only need one of three shit teams to fuck up. Two of them need at least a win, too. Those same two have LL and DD results from their previous two games.

You can feel sure of that, but you can't actually be sure of that. We have said this after all of the departures you mentioned, and yet somebody always has. You do feel like eventually that luck has to run out though.

It really was stupid to keep putting him in when he kept having to be brought off the game before. Pretty obvious his body was about to give in.

Twats and cunts.

I'm not a tin foil hat type, but all the court timings have been suspicious to me. The whole thing started in a summer window and we had to change all our plans about halfway through it, with the new plan being almost nothing. Then we got the funds released, outside a window, which kept the lights on, probably paid for our minor outlays, and gave us hope these court meetings would be routine in discharging the funds, settling our nerves. The next one was set for near the end of January, so that we couldn't do much before then due to the uncertainty but then should be able to have a little splurge near the end. Instead it got delayed to March and we sold a player for 18 mill but still spent nothing. The March one wasn't suspicious as such, but did buy time agains major widespread discontent whilst giving the impression it would be sorted soon and the summer could be 'normal'. Then it got delayed again, which seemed really strange, until August. Once more falling in the middle of a window, except this time we won't be able to do anything in advance of it really. But once more it will keep some of the suckers happy with notions that it's gonna be released soon and then we'll do business. I expect another delay or even a rejection (oh but we will appeal don't worry!). Maybe we do get a small approval for it, covering what should have been the January cash injection, whilst having to wait for the newest tranche at yet another TBD (To Be Delayed) court hearing. It all makes me question whether Venkys really have made an enemy of the government or quite the opposite. The court hearings and their timings all seem perfect for owners who don't want to invest more money but would like to keep a chunk of the plebs from getting restless. I'm sure there was a comment from Waggott or the club recently claiming that all of this won't affect Rovers anymore, but that it's affecting their whole business. Which is not only an immediate contradiction, but as far as we've heard over here, the entire thing happened because of us (or at least the iffy accounting they used after buying a house over here saying it was a Rovers business expense essentially), and wholly revolves around sending investment/supporting funds abroad. Which we require, and some of their businesses may, but a lot of their business won't.

At least I might get slightly less people, when I tell them I'm a Rovers fan and mention the venkyscum, asking me in shock 'they still own you?!?' Ahhh, if only reality matched the perceived reality in their heads, where apparently Venkys fucked off years ago....

Technically even earlier than that, in 1881, though seems 1888 was when the first true electric car was made. I'd heard about these Victorian era EVs before, and that they were actually viable competitors to combustion cars for a while, but I couldn't remember how they ended up not making the grade, so I looked it up and found this article with a history of the EV: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle Some interesting highlights include setting speed and distance records early doors, notably the first road vehicle to break the 62 mph barrier, in 1899. In the 1910s there was a vehicle with a 110 mile range, although it could only hit 20 mph. And exchangeable batteries (where you just swap your drained battery for a fully charged one) were proposed as long ago as 1896 and was provided between 1910 and 1924. That's a concept that still has some legs these days, as this is what a company called Nio do to get around charging times (I don't think this one will pan out in the long term though). Also, the first crewed vehicle to drive on the moon, the Lunar Rover, was an EV. Why did they fail? I'll just give the cliff notes to avoid boring people with another lengthy post. The decline started in the 1910s and 1920s. More petrol was found. Many more roads were built, so longer journeys were possible the EVs didn't have range for. Charging infrastructure wasn't really there on the scale needed for long trips. They were best suited to cities because they were slower and couldn't travel as far. Gasoline cars overcame some of their disadvantages - they no longer needed a time-consuming and dangerous hand-crank to start, and mufflers made them quieter. Henry Ford mass produced ICE cars rather than EVs, making them a lot cheaper. Some of these same problems exist in the EV landscape now, but not as extremely, and they're being constantly worked on. There were no climate change issues to further spur this on. I can't help but think though - if the lithium-ion battery had been invented way back then, instead of lead-acid, would we all have been driving EVs now our whole adult lives? Of course, this was in the days before effective renewables, so we'd still have had a lot of (but less) pollution.

That's actually something I'm interested in myself, as I've wanted instrumentals for a relatively underground artist for something I intend to do later in the year and I don't think I'll be able to find them ready-made. I've been assuming something like that must exist, but hadn't got to the point of looking it up, so appreciate you mentioning one you've worked with that can be relied on. I see it's free too! Can it be used to keep some vocal elements in place, like if you wanted to keep the chorus, or some kind of 'background' voices etc?

This is one of the things that worries me most personally...I'm an actor and I decided that this year I'm going to start doing a bit of voiceover work. Not as a main career unless it took off more than I expect, but still. I'm concerned that (as is typical for my luck) I've chosen pretty much the exact worst time to do this. I'm going to have to be careful reading contracts and making sure I can't be cloned (though it will probably happen anyway), but moreover this seems to be an existential threat to the voiceover industry. You already hear a lot of clearly AI-generated voices on youtube videos, and maybe some that are less obvious. Of course, for a time the work at the top end will still be mostly real people as there's a certain level of artistry that an AI can't match yet, but I think the bottom end I'm starting out at will be swamped with cheap AI voices fairly quickly. If your budget is small why would you use an actor when you can just get an AI to generate it? It won't be as good but it will probably be close enough to suit their purposes. Give it, I dunno how many but let's say 30 years or probably a lot less, and even screen actors will be replaceable with AI generated images and sound without anyone being able to tell the difference. The question then will become whether people are happy to watch that sort of content or will insist on seeing real people. Will they even know which they're watching? I guess with celebrities maybe, but how will you know that actor didn't just phone it in and give the company permission to use them as an AI instead and bank the money? And how will actors reach celebrity status in the first place if they are competing with much cheaper AI that do whatever they're told at all times? I imagine it will follow the usual pattern of technological change- at first lots of people, especially older generations, won't want any truck with watching films like that, then over time it will just become the norm. Most of my work is live, and that's not going anywhere any time soon (you'd need expensive hyper realistic androids or holograms that haven't even been made yet), so I'm not overly concerned, but it does make you wonder. Tech is wonderful and I generally embrace it, but art doesn't really feel like an area we should give over to machines. That's before we get into the whole Skynet kind of thing...

I don't really see it as a pessimistic outlook. A 1 in 5 ish chance of going down if we don't get any more points has me feeling fairly relaxed. Not out of the woods yet though, but I kinda fancy us to get a point against an after-the-lord-mayor's-show Coventry. If Leicester manage to wrap up their promotion before they play us, a point against them might become a lot easier too. I actually think we'll be fine, after knowing since January it was going to become a relegation fight. But I do think we'll be leaving it til the final day, as we never do things the easy, non-squeaky-bum way.

Funnily enough, without checking any of the odds of the required or doing any actual maths, I'm in the match thread after Sunday saying I think we have about a 20% chance of going down if we don't get any more points (told my mum the other day I reckoned it was 20-30%). My instinct and your method seem roughly aligned.

He didn't notice. Before the game he said it wasn't 'must win'.

I think that when Eustace said he was a 'no excuses' coach, what he meant is that you don't need excuses when you just pretend that everything is always absolutely fine and live in la la land instead.

Thought he was at fault for the first goal too. He needed to come out for it, but he should have tried to send it out of play, and should have immediately sprinted back to goal when that didn't happen. Before anyone says I have it in for Pears, I just call it as I see it game by game. For one thing I didn't blame him for a single one of Bristol's 5 goals, and thought he was very reliable against Leeds and a deserved MotM. Today was back to being Captain Ballsup.

I can see that. Musk is an absolute throbbing bellend, and the idea of putting money in his hands is a major turnoff from the idea of buying a new Tesla (I guess a used one wouldn't do that though). I believe they recently announced they'll be cutting 10% of their global workforce to cut costs, whilst they're also attempting to give Musk about 40 billion I think it is (after a court already said they couldn't). Prick. Can see why you'd compare them to Apple too (a brand that like you I'll never invest in, partly because of the irritating and misguided 'culture of cool' around them, and partly because they're incompatible with everything). Both brands have their fare share of fanboys and like you say, their prices get artifically inflated because of their brand name. In Tesla's case though, this extra cost is more or less offset by them having achieved economies of scale nobody outside of BYD has managed, meaning you genuinely get a better product, often at similar or better prices than similar models from rivals. But, mostly cos of Musk, I hope by the time I can afford an EV everyone else has caught up and I can seriously consider a different brand.

We already know his justification. 'I wanted more money'. The man is a master of false economy.

Nah not for me. Caught out by a slight bobble it seemed (nowhere near as pronounced as the one that took out Flowers though). I've seen similar happen to numerous keepers in the game over the years. But you hardly ever see something as ridiculous as what he did against Wigan. It says a lot that he is probably 2 of the top 3 Rovers keeper fuckups and we've only had him four seasons so far. And this at a club that had Fettis and Walton.

No. It's not even Pears' worst fuckup. Have you forgotten him chucking it in his goal against Wigan?

I'd take the opposite from that. He wants to play too badly, so he's insisting he feels fine when he really should be taking a rest, and keeps getting injured. Probably on the painkillers.

In fairness, I thought Ayari looked interested. Don't remember the other two doing anything.

I'm fairly confident it is. Too many teams between us and the drop still. To go down would likely require: Brum beating Hudds away or Norwich at home. Sheff W beating WBA at home or Sunderland away. Plymouth beating Millwall away or Hull at home (or getting two draws). (Or you could swap Birmingham's for Huddersfield beating them and also beating Ipswich away, but I don't see it) and us losing both games. Even then there's the potential for GD to save us if Brum got beaten convincingly in their other game. I rate our chances of going down at about 20%, if we don't get any more points.

Crazy how he can go from man of the match against Leeds to this shower he turned up today. Not the first time he has done that either, did the same what was it, a couple of months ago? Most keepers gain confidence and consistency from an excellent performance, Pears seems to switch off instead.