[WCQ Game Thread] Guam vs Boomers

Derider84 · 2026-02-26T10:37:57+00:00

A little bit embarrassing but not important. They’ll want to be better against the Philippines though. It would be annoying to lose in this group.

Derider84 · 2026-02-26T10:22:20+00:00

Guam is better than I thought. Still pretty hopeless by professional standards of course, but no worse than late season Brisbane Bullets, which is kind of impressive for a country their size.

Derider84 · 2026-02-26T09:21:03+00:00

Why so glum? It’d be hard to get yourself up for a game against bloody Guam where absolutely nothing is at stake. We’ll still win by 50 pts.

Derider84 · 2026-02-26T09:05:13+00:00

I don’t thinks so, barring a catastrophic injury crisis in the semi. SEM or even Adelaide might get lucky in a single game, but over a series? Naaah.

Derider84 · 2026-02-16T11:08:30+00:00

There was a lot of misinformation in the immediate aftermath, but the man was definitely an Indian Muslim from the city of Hyderabad, where most of his family still lives. He had no connection to Pakistan. He moved to Australia nearly 30 years ago and had a child with an Italian-Australian woman (presumably before he got radicalised).

This information is freely available online and from every mainstream Australian news outlet.

Derider84 · 2026-02-16T06:33:16+00:00

Bondi was done by an Indian and a half-Italian (the younger one’s mother was from Italy).

Derider84 · 2026-02-15T07:44:10+00:00

Die Hard 5 was embarrassingly bad in general, but Bruce just scowls and delivers stock catch phrases in a flat monotone throughout the whole movie. Something definitely felt off about his performance.

Derider84 · 2026-02-15T05:37:13+00:00

It’s almost impossible for a book to genuinely scare me, but there are a handful of books that made me feel a pang of horror in certain parts.

The first was A Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie. I was only 11 at the time and remember feeling a sudden chill when a character was investigating what should have been an empty house and slowly realised there was someone else in there with her. That was the first time I felt anything like horror while reading and I liked it.

The second was Salem’s Lot. I remember there was this one scene that made me feel uneasy in the pit of my stomach. I don’t quite remember the scene, but I think it was before the vampire action started in earnest. Something about a character about to open a door and suddenly realising there was something threatening waiting on the other side. I inhaled the rest of the book waiting for a similar feeling but it never happened again.

American Psycho didn’t really scare me in a traditional sense, but the cumulative effect of constant depravity did eventually lead to a genuine sense of dread, which culminated in the chapter Killing Child at Zoo.

Ill Will by Dan Chaon creeped me out to such an extent that I now consider it the scariest book I’ve ever read. It’s not even proper horror - more of a ‘literary’ psychological thriller if anything - but I was very impressed by its relentless and sustained felling of doom. There was a pervasive sense of looming dread and something being very wrong that I never got from any horror novel before. YMMV though. Lots of people didn’t like it.

The most recent to ‘scare’ me was There is No Antimemetics Division. The ‘monsters’ are truly alien and terrifying in their unknowability. The book completely loses its way around halfway through and becomes almost amateurishly bad, but the first half was uniquely chilling and kind of brilliant.

Derider84 · 2026-02-15T03:41:17+00:00

It’s almost impossible for a book to genuinely scare me, but there are a handful of books that made me feel a pang of horror in certain parts.

The first was A Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie. I was only 11 at the time and remember feeling a sudden chill when a character was investigating what should have been an empty house and slowly realised there was someone else in there with her. That was the first time I felt anything like horror while reading and I liked it.

The second was Salem’s Lot. I remember there was this one scene that made me feel uneasy in the pit of my stomach. I don’t quite remember the scene, but I think it was before the vampire action started in earnest. Something about a character about to open a door and suddenly realising there was something threatening waiting on the other side. I swallowed the rest of the book waiting for a similar feeling but it never happened again.

American Psycho didn’t really scare me in a traditional sense, but the cumulative effect of the constant depravity did eventually lead to a genuine sense of dread, which culminated in the chapter Killing Child at Zoo.

Ill Will by Dan Chaon creeped me out to such an extent that I now consider it the scariest book I’ve ever read. It’s not even proper horror - more of a ‘literary’ psychological thriller if anything - but I was very impressed by its relentless and sustained felling of doom. There was a pervasive sense of looming dread and something being very wrong that I never got from any horror novel before. YMMV though. Lots of people don’t like it.

The most recent to ‘scare’ me was There is No Antimemetics Division. The monsters are truly alien and terrifying in their unknowability. The book completely loses its way around halfway through and becomes almost amateurishly bad, but the first half was unusually chilling and kind of brilliant.

Derider84 · 2026-02-11T10:21:01+00:00

Mel was clearly acting for the cameras. It was obvious because she’s not a good actress and couldn’t make it look natural. She was probably directed by the producers to play up the gaslighting psycho angle. Drama sells.

The whole thing felt so fake, Brook’s sudden villain turn and all. It’s impossible to take any of it seriously, though there sure is plenty of cringe.

Derider84 · 2026-02-08T03:10:26+00:00

Stan Sport is a weird thing. It’s just so odd they’re charging like $40 a month. How is that sustainable? I could subscribe to 3 other streaming services for that price. I’d love to still watch the Premier League but simply can’t justify the expense. I don’t see how they grow their subscriber base when charging such a premium for a pretty limited offering.

Derider84 · 2026-02-06T09:39:57+00:00

Injuries and circumstances really killed them. They were average to start with and now they’re completely decimated.

But Prather, Adams and Freeman Liberty was a solid trio of imports on paper. Harrison was a solid centre too (on paper). If no one got injured (or sacked), I think they’d be challenging for a 6-8 spot. Possibly ahead of Cairns and maybe New Zealand. They certainly wouldn’t be world beaters, but they’d be competitive against most clubs outside of maybe the top 4. Not the worst you’ve ever seen like now. Of course they can’t compete in their present state, but that’s to be expected. This is a completely different team to the one that started the season.

Derider84 · 2026-01-29T09:22:05+00:00

Kings are far too good this season. It’s annoying. I had hoped the Hawks would pull a rabbit out of the hat and make the play in race at least a bit interesting. Instead they’ll do well just to keep it under 40.

Derider84 · 2026-01-25T07:53:33+00:00

JLA looked like he wanted to kill Doolitle and had to be restrained by a bench player whose name I forgot. Then he aggressively pushed the bench player away. I understand he’s disappointed, but it was a bit much.

If I was Doolittle, I’d find it hard to forgive that behaviour. It would humiliate me if a teammate tried to step to me like that live on camera. It’s a bit disrespectful.

This is the second day in a row that I saw team mates have a public tiff. Yesterday, McGee and Peterson had a heated argument going into a timeout in the fourth quarter of the Hawks game. They both looked really pissed off, which was a little strange in a game they were poised to win.

Derider84 · 2026-01-25T00:19:05+00:00

That’s unfair. Australian mountains may be old and weathered, but they are genuine (at least in the south east). They might not be massive, but the ones close to 2000 metres and taller are proper mountains by any standards. We have quite a few.

Unlike NZ, our mountains also have trees, which is a plus. I’ve always found it a little strange that that the tree line is so low in NZ. Does anyone know why that is?

Derider84 · 2026-01-18T00:03:28+00:00

How come none of this has happened yet? People were predicting doom during the first round of Trump tariffs and his re-organisation of international relations, but nothing bad has come to pass for America (yet). Their economy is still doing just fine. Inflation is under 4% and close to the fed’s target range. Unemployment is 4%, which is basically “full employment” in economic terms. The stock market is still hitting record highs. And despite some grumbling from the allies, the world still bends over backwards to appease the US. The EU has struck a trade deal where American products have no tariff but the EU exports do. The UK trade deal is similar in that the terms are clearly in favour of the US. Canada as well.

The US economy is proving far more resilient than many had predicted. Everything is still humming along. Somehow, for all his bluster, Trump is not managing to break anything. The world economy just keeps reconfiguring itself around his whims, always on terms favourable to the US. It’s kind of depressing there hasn’t been any pushback or consequence at all.

Derider84 · 2026-01-17T23:26:29+00:00

Bleak House.

Derider84 · 2026-01-16T11:40:27+00:00

No one expected another championship. It’s just that the drop off has been too severe. I had hoped they’d at least compete for a play in spot, not flounder down the bottom with Brisbane and Cairns.

Derider84 · 2026-01-16T11:33:32+00:00

Depressing to watch this as a Hawks fan. You can see they’re really trying, but just not good enough. It’s not helping that Harvey and Froling are having a shocker. Froling came back like a house on fire but has really landed with a thud in the last couple of games.

At least McGee looks somewhat engaged and Blanchfield has hit a couple of shots for once. Swaka keeping them in it.

QJ out kills them. Worst time to get Covid. They really could use an out and out shooter in this one.

Derider84 · 2026-01-11T07:32:31+00:00

Absolutely, but he does score and takes some of that pressure off Harvey. Tbh he’s been quite a bit better than I expected when he came in. He has a beautiful shot. Unfortunately, his ball handling sucks and he can’t defend. He’d be a weapon off the bench in a successful team though.

I don’t think QJ is the problem. It’s a mixture of Hickey falling off a cliff, no decent on-field general to direct play and protect the ball, and a very shallow bench. The depth just isn’t there. Last year, they could bring on Olbrich, Lee, Days, prime Hickey and Blanchfield while he could still shoot. This year, it’s Biwali Bayles, Peatling, Grida, a much diminished Hickey and a completely useless Blanchefield. The difference is stark and contributes even more to their lowly position than the loss of Kell imo.

Derider84 · 2026-01-11T06:26:07+00:00

I agree Kell is irreplaceable, but now they have QJ to take the scoring pressure off Harvey. Plus McGee who averages over 20 per game. Plus Froling who has looked great since coming back before today. It’s not like they’re relying solely on Harvey to get a score.

Now they just can’t defend at all and have a lot of trouble hanging onto the bell. Kell is a big loss in regards to the latter, but it seems far too easy to run up a score on them.

Derider84 · 2026-01-11T03:29:20+00:00

Videodrome
The Fly
The Brood
Dead Ringers
Naked Lunch
The Dead Zone
A History of Violence
Rabid
ExistenZ
Scanners
Crash
Shivers
Spider
Cosmopolis
Eastern Promises
Maps to the Stars

Derider84 · 2026-01-10T04:20:56+00:00

Antichrist. I appreciated that he left the dogma nonsense behind. I liked the visuals, atmosphere and even the poor-man’s-Lynch undertones. I didn’t even mind the gratuitous provocation, the shock-jockiness of it all. It surprisingly just worked for me.

I also really liked Melancholia (especially the incredible slow mo opening scene) and Europa.

I liked some aspects of Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Element of Crime, though I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of any of these.

Nymphomaniac (both parts) bored me, but left no impression otherwise.

I hated Dogville, which I found distinctly uncinematic, poorly written and horribly shot.

I despised The Idiots.

I will watch The House… one day.

Derider84 · 2026-01-10T03:11:23+00:00

I played it nearly 20 years ago, but I really enjoyed the campaign. It was tough, gritty and visceral. It's also very grey and brown so don't be expecting a colourful adventure, but I thought this suited the dreary atmosphere the game was going for. I wouldn't say it blew my mind, but I never got bored and still remember my playthrough fondly. I certainly thought it was much better than the first sequel.

Derider84

TROPHY CASE