Kapiti Jag

My mate left work in Paisley at 4:30 PM Monday afternoon and arrived home in Larbert at 9:30 AM on Tuesday - 17 hours on the road! I'm just glad he didn't beat my personal record of 18.5 hours in the Chunnel...

LOL! Magic! BTW, It's sweltering here - 25°C+ for ages now, can't remember the last time I saw rain. Reason for edit: smugness...

It's just a bit of a whiff coming off Rhea. Nothing to get very excited about.

I use Lightroom, as well as other software. As with all things it depends what level you want to take it to. If you'll only be doing simple touch-up jobs and levels adjustment on your photos then Lightroom is probably overkill. On the other hand if you're going to be doing serious editing requiring layering etc., then it's underpowered and you should be looking at Photoshop and equivalents. I use Google's *free* Picasa to catalogue and organize my photos - it's way faster than either Lightroom or Bridge (and better at it for the simple job that organisation and management should be). I use Lightroom for some of it's nice preset filters, simple spot-healing and it has great noise reduction options. For anything more serious I usually use Photoshop. But then my level of photography would be best described as buggering about, rather than amateur. (Do *you* know what an f-stop is? I can't be bothered finding out!)

Mistake... yes... mistake...

This story has now made it all the way to New Zealand. Long may the humiliation continue!

There was a thread about this a while ago - specifically about offering electronic versions for us nomads. I realise that this is not the season for it, but have you had any further thoughts on this Tom? Consider this a mental *bump* ;-)

I think this gets to the heart of the matter for me, they either accept the Trust's representative or they come clean and bin the whole notion of a fans' rep. on the Club board at all. Dicking about just leads to suspicion. The Trust should deliver this message in clear terms.

+1 I call 5 pages.

That doesn't really help though, does it? I'm sure you criticise a bunch of things you are not fully informed on, or have immediate personal experience of - we all do, especially when it comes to football. It's not worth getting worked up over. I don't know you, I've no idea how long you've followed Thistle, neither do I know thistledome, or his Jags experiences. But I do know that it can be pretty hard living so far away from Firhill, especially given the dearth of communication skills that our club currently posses. Hearing how it's all going tits-up and being fairly powerless to do anything about it generally pisses me off! I'd still go along, if I could, but I'd have to stick myself in the "Unhappy Clapper" clique! ;-)

Tch! Syndey is only 10.5K miles away. It's not possible to be 14,000 miles away. (Unless you're in space I suppose?) http://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-is-it-between.htm

Melbourne Heart are the new team this season, eh? I'll pencil that one in then. The All Whites/Paraguay game is on the Tuesday...

Did you get them mounted, framed and hung? ;-) I managed along to the Central Coast game yesterday. I reckon Thistle could make a good fist of it in this league - just not the current team!

I always remember the Great Lambini proclaming that we needed some 'badness' in the team, then he signed Kenny Brannigan... forever after known as Badness Brannigan. Fitting.

"This video contains content from Scottish Television, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." Gits.

Now that's just good ole Common Sense!

GSS - was it you that ripped the shorts off the poor lad that famous day at Forfar? I still suffer the nightmares from him flashing everyone in sight! The KiwiJags and myself met up at the Phoenix/Boca game in July - we could try to organise a larger meet-up around another Phoneix game later in the season? A weekend game to make the most of it, and maybe wait until the weather cheers up a bit? (Sat, Dec 18th, 7PM - Jets at the Westpac?)

Not faked, see: Title: St Andrews Market Place | Flickr - Photo Sharing! Url: For some reason this thread made me go and do a bit or research on the old place. Here are some links which are worth reading if you're interested. I've been down there a few times and never once realised that it used to go right under London Road! Title: Hidden Glasgow Discussion Forums • View topic - Schipka Pass Url: http://www.hiddenglasgow.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=209 Title: Glasgow Schipka Pass Url: http://www.glesga.ukpals.com/streets/schipkapass.htm Title: Site Record for Glasgow, London Road, Schipka Pass Bridge Skipka Pass Bridge; Molendinar Burn Details Url: http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/44350/details/glasgow+london+road+schipka+pass+bridge/ Title: Glasgow Guide: Schipka Pass Gallowgate - Glasgow Guide Boards Url: http://discuss.glasgowguide.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=3328&st=0 Title: Glasgow Guide: Lunchtime Fire Chaos At Schipka Pass - Glasgow Guide Boards Url: http://discuss.glasgowguide.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=9638 Title: Auld Calton Toon..Photos Url: http://www.realcaltontongs.freewebspace.com/catalog.html

This, of course, just shows what a fine product it is! Yes, I thought that might be the case and this is the first obstacle really - just how easy would it be to get the programme into a downloadable format? I don't see why you would alter the print run at all? I see the electronic option as an add-on, not a replacement. I don't think there'd be that many who would switch from paper to screen - you can't read it at half-time for a start, and your main audience for this would be those not at the game who couldn't have bought a paper copy anyway. You could always run a poll on here, and on the OS, this might give some initial-interest figures. There are other options such as offering a discount for those who have bought a paper copy, sort of like the new DVDs that come with digital versions for the iPhone, etc. Of course this would require a way of uniquely identifying each programme, such as a bar code, and there are other obvious difficulties. However the key point for me is that these opportunities, however fraught they may be to implement, will never exist if we stick to print alone. What's that saying about it having been better to have tried and failed...? Aye, there's the rub. If we can get an electronic version with minimal effort, then you could run a small trial with PayPal and email - the Nomads would make perfect, and no doubt willing, guinea pigs (squeak)! If there's rampant piracy and paper sales plummet then you'll have an answer! I think that this is something that has to be offered eventually - it's as inevitable as all-seater stadia, Owen Coyle on Firhill Road, and a Scottish Cup triumph in 2021.

There's not a lot of faith being shown in people here, seems that everyone is to be suspected of doing their utmost to deny the club a couple of bob. I really don't believe that this would make a significant dent in the paper programme sales. I believe it's likely that the opposite would be the case - some people will buy both (depending on cost) as it's a lot easier to store (collect) an electronic copy than a paper one. And the opportunities for selling back-issues to complete collections should be obvious. It's very easy to suggest that it will be copied around in place of a paper sale, but there's no evidence to suggest that this would be the case at all. Other clubs seems to manage. Here's a radical idea: how about they just try it, even for half a season, and then look at the figures in the context of historical paper sales figures (which the club should have) at the end of the trial period? Then at least a position could be taken based on real evidence rather than this guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude. In any event electronic versions of programmes from previous seasons are an untapped revenue stream at the moment and there can be no 'piracy' argument there. Where's Tam the Bam? He should be making noises in this thread!

Hmmm. That would be the Thistle version of 'reasonable' then? I wonder how other magazines manage to sell and distribute electronic copy without collapsing? It's certainly do-able, just not Thistle do-able, at the moment anyway. I can't really understand that reasoning anyway; it's not like there's massive demand for the print version, and every 'pirated' copy doesn't equal a lost sale. If the electronic version is not released until after the match (e.g. on the Monday) then it will likely make zero difference to physical programme sales. At a time where every penny counts I think this would be a good way to get some cash for very little effort - once the single electronic version is produced, which I imagine has to be done already for the printer (so no extra effort), then it's essentially free to produce and distribute further copies (unlike the paper version). That's 100% profit on every sale. I'd imagine the real reason is that it's perceived as too much bother, although I don't recall there ever being an attempt to discover what the demand might be.

Is there an 'electronic only' option? I couldn't see anything on the OS but I seem to recall rumblings about this on .net. TtB?

Well, the Phoenix ran out 2-1 winners, but scored all 3 goals! Boca were far from impressive, and slow to start (as were the Phoenix). The game picked up in the second half, with the 'nix looking more confident and comfortable, especially when sitting on a 2-0 lead. There was some nice, crisp passing moves. Boca, on the other hand, seemed to get more frustrated and started picking up cards, not the least for diving, resulting in a second yellow and subsequent red for team captain Christian Cellay. Phoenix scored through débutante Dylan McAlister and two (one for each team) for 'nix captain Andrew Durante. Overall a good showing on a chilly Wellington night. Plenty of photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefrobb/sets/72157624443330967/ some of them quite blurry, but then you're pretty far away from the action at the Westpac! Don't forget to check out the crazies with their tops off - I hear they got the idea from a certain game in Dingwall...