It’s very much Liam Neeson’s movie.

I’m not going to go into the plot, other than to say that Neeson is some kind of ex-Government operative who is forced to use his training to deal with a Very Bad Situation.

What I am going to say though is that the comparisons between Neeson’s character Bryan and Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne (from The Bourne Identity) are fair.

But I would say an even fairer comparison would be that Bryan is what Bourne and Jack Bauer’s lovechild would turn out like.

If you’re on the fence over whether to see it, know that it gets a double thumbs-up from me. I only hope they can come up with a reason to revisit the character, or get Neeson to do some more action films before he’s too old to be believable. Having really great acting in an action film is not necessary, but can be amazing.

For those not familiar with the game it is based in the Warhammer world which is full of the usual fantasy staples of orcs, elves, dwarves, humans and assorted other beasties both sentient and not.

Warhammer Online has been designed around an ongoing struggle between the forces of Order and Destruction, known as “Realm vs Realm” or RvR within the confines of the game. While you will often find yourself fighting the forces of your opposite faction in the general questlines against the AI, there is as much or more fighting against opposition players.

Yes, the “RvR” term is for the most part interchangeable with “PvP”. However it’s not on the same scale you may be familiar with from other games such as World of Warcraft.

For more about the game’s RvR and other details, continue reading after the break…

RvR Zones

The first thing you need to know, if you’re coming from a game like World of Warcraft, is that the “Forced PvP” areas are much larger in scope. On a PvE server in WoW about the only areas you’ll be forced into PvP in the open world is a couple of very small arena areas.

In Warhammer there are huge tracts of land that are set aside primarily for RvR activities, rather than general questing. When entering one of these areas you will get a 10 second countdown on your screen during which time you need to turn around and go back if you don’t want to engage in RvR at the time. You remain unattackable during this countdown but any offensive action - even starting to cast a spell - will immediately flag you for RvR, so look out!

However, unlike in World of Warcraft and many other games of the same type, there are actual objectives in the RvR zones. Early areas will see you fighting over relatively unimportant flags in the world with little indication as to whether they’re even worth holding onto for your side.

But it doesn’t stay that way for long. Once you get a little further into the RvR zones you can start taking over much more important objectives such as Keeps (aka big honking Castles) which will then be populated by friendly NPCs of your faction who can sell you a variety of items.

RvR (Renown) Gear

Which leads us to the rewards for participating in RvR / PvP.

While you’re killing the enemy and accomplishing objectives you earn Renown Points, which you can think of as Experience Points (XP) as they function in much the same fashion. Earn enough Renown Points and your Renown Rank increases. As your Renown Rank increases, so does the gear available for you to wear.

And it’s gear you’re going to want to get your hands on. Generally, particularly at lower levels, you won’t find anything better as quest rewards or as loot. The Renown gear will have better stats, better damage and so on. Occasionally you’ll find something better but for the most part if you’ve been participating in RvR it’s always worth checking the Renown vendor.

Other RvR Rewards

Also there’s a Renown Trainer, which is sort of an additional track for your character to develop alongside your regular progression. There’s nothing super-fantastic available, it’s mostly just small perks. Things like 5% extra gold or XP in RvR or small boosts to your statistics.

But it’s all essentially free. You participate in RvR, you get little boosts that can help you all the time!

But it’s not just open world RvR

Taking a leaf out of World of Warcraft’s book, Warhammer also includes its own version of Battlegrounds, known as Scenarios.

Unlike Warcraft though you can actually pop into a Scenario regardless of where in the world you happen to be. By clicking a (quite non-descript and obscure) button on the UI you can queue yourself up to join a Scenario.

Inside the Scenarios you battle it out with the opposition players, usually for control of specific points, but the exact objectives do vary according to which Scenario you’re taking part in.

An early Dwarf vs Greenskin Scenario, for instance, involves simply standing very close to a flag which automatically starts being captured. Once your side captures a point you get a bonus to your side’s score and the longer you hold it, the more points your side earns. Should the enemy capture a point away from you they receive a bonus and then it continues generating points for them instead. So hold those points!

However in a departure from standard practice for such games you will not only earn Renown Points for participating in Scenarios and killing enemy players - you will also earn regular XP, both for kills and a large lump for staying through to the end of the Scenario.

You will in fact earn so much XP that it is a very viable and very quick way to gain your first few levels in the game. Coupled with the excellence of gear from the Renown system it is well worth starting your RvR career as early as possible!

Public Quests

Aren’t all quests in all games public? Well, generally, yes, you can pick up any quest at any time, for the most part, in most any game. And Warhammer does that as well.

But Public Quests are a different kettle of fish. The nearest comparison would be an open world raid instance… But even that does not really do it justice.

A Public Quest in Warhammer is a small section of the world set aside just for this purpose.

The first one of these you will run into as a Dwarf follows the pattern of many. When the Public Quest starts a swarm of Orcs will come flooding out of a nearby wooden fort through various holes in the walls that have presumably been blown apart by the nearby Dwarves.

Once you’ve killed enough of the orcs the remainder will retreat back inside the fort to prepare for the second phase of the battle. It’s not entirely clear why but during the second phase you have to collect barrels of gunpowder stashed within the fort. I guess something needed blowing up but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen whatever it is that goes kaboom.

Regardless, collect enough barrels and the third and final phase of the quest begins with a bigger and badder Orc coming from a cave up the back of the fort, along with a couple of shaman helpers. The Shaman are listed as “Champions” which makes them significantly tougher than regular enemies of the same level.

The big bad armoured Orc is a “Hero” class, making him significantly tougher than even a Champion. You won’t be taking that guy down by yourself unless you’re quite a lot higher in level.

Which is where the “Public” part of the quest comes in. Everything explained above is not open to just you. You don’t need to kill all 30 of the Orcs for the first phase. Anyone in the area killing orcs will contribute to the total kill count and thus the progress towards the next phase of the quest.

Even though it’s open to all, forming a party or warband (a party of parties!) to tackle the PQ is often a wise idea. You earn more XP that way.

You also earn more Influence with the relevant rewards vendor. The items available for Influence from the vendor are usually quite decent but probably not as good as what you’ll be getting from the Renown vendors, if you’re participating in RvR.

The last but by no means least part of the Public Quest system is if you and your party and/or other random folk manage to complete the last phase you all get assigned a score based on how much you contributed to the victory and a random number is generated to add to your score. The top few scores will get a sack of loot out of a chest, the value of the items within varies according to the quality of the sack and you get better sacks according to which position you came.

Each loot sack contains a selection of items. You can’t pick them all at once and generally there’s a really good item at the top of the list plus some other bits and bobs, or you can just take some cash. It’s a nice reward at the end of a fun quest…

And once the Public Quest is finished, win or lose, the whole thing resets and you can start all over again! And if you do particularly well you can even win yourself another bag of loot.

Class Selection

This is sort of a split issue in my mind. On the one hand there’s 20 classes available for you to choose from.

But on the other hand, many of the classes are exactly the same. Many of the mechanics of the skills for different classes are identical, or very similar. Not between a Tank class and a Ranged DPS class, but the Dark Elf Sorceress and the Empire’s Bright Wizard both have a system where the more spells you cast the greater the chance of a “backlash” style effect, where the spell you cast does damage to you as well. It comes with an increased chance to do critical damage as well, but it is nevertheless the same mechanic for two classes…

For the most part the classes don’t stray too far from the standard RPG archetypes. You have your tanks and your healers and your damage dealing classes. There’s some interesting twists though. The White Lion class is a DPS (damage dealing) class, with a pet. In other games a character class with a pet would mean the pet gets in the face of the bad guys while the character plinks from a distance.

But not Warhammer. The White Lion character is a melee heavy class. At higher levels you can focus more on having your Lion play more of a supportive role while you take the brunt of attacks. Or you could let your Lion take the brunt of the attacks while you support it, or you can go for a mix of the two.

Healers, too, are a departure from the norm. Most of them either require you attack opponents to generate power with which to cast your healing spells or they reward you with faster cast heals or more powerful heals if you attack opponents. It’s an effort to make Healers feel less like “Whack-a-mole” and it’s an interesting idea… though honestly it makes a role that is already hard to get people to fill even more difficult due to requiring more than the “whack-a-mole” aspect. I would expect some changes coming down the pipe to make it a little less tricky, but with it having been in beta for so long it’s difficult to understand how it got to this stage without changes.

The Tome of Knowledge

Much has been made of the Tome in the gaming “press”. Certain writers have claimed it’s completely original, never before seen, a revolution.

It isn’t. It’s a great system and a lot of fun unlocking all the various achievements and titles and a variety of other rewards. But it really is just a jazzed up version of the Lord of the Rings Online Lorebook. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either misinformed or has received a kickback of some kind to deceive you.

All that said, the Tome is definitely an improvement over any system you’ll’ve seen before. There are so many things to unlock that it honestly, at times, feels like there are too many things in there. Kill an Orc, get a Tome entry, kill a Dark Elf, get a Tome Entry, discover a new zone, get a Tome Entry, get killed 5 times, get a Tome entry… It goes on and on and on.

For each unlock you get a kick of XP and if you unlock enough things you get an unlock for unlocking so many things and another kick of XP. I expect even if you just went around killing one of every enemy and visiting every zone you could level up quite well just from Tome unlocks. Would certainly be an interesting experiment…

Each time you unlock something in the Tome you can open the Tome itself and get all kinds of interesting information about whatever it is you’ve done. If you’ve killed an orc you’ll get information about orcs. Discover a special location and you can read about what makes it so special, etc. If you really dig backstory the Tome is likely to prove a goldmine for you. Ditto if you love stats, since it counts how many kills you’ve made, for example.

This is definitely a feature you’re going to see future MMOs looking to copy in some fashion because even though it isn’t original, it’s been done so well that it actually adds to the game, rather than distracts from it.

Bugs and Issues and Annoyances, oh my…

As with most beta testing, particularly of MMO’s, there are a number of bugs and general annoyances in the game right now.

This would not be a huge concern but for the fact that the game is scheduled to launch in under a month’s time.

The issues are many and vary widely. Things like getting stuck on world geometry just shouldn’t be happening this late in the testing process. It might be tolerable if it was only a handful of locations or if you had to really try to get stuck. But when you can get caught up trying to hurdle a very low fence, there’s something seriously awry. Sure, you can generally jump out of being stuck, or use the /stuck command, and that’s not a huge issue when you’re just playing the usual quests against the AI.

In RvR it can quite literally get you killed, or make you miss out on a kill, or stop your side from capturing a point… It’s completely inexcusable.

Another personal annoyance is that when you’re dead - a common occurence for me in Scenarios! - and waiting for your respawn, you can’t do anything in the game, other than chat. And I do mean anything - you can’t even mouseover your XP bar to check your progress, nor your Renown bar, nor check your Tome of Knowledge nor…

Perhaps the stupidest of issues is that when starting a Marauder character, you don’t have a weapon equipped by default, even though every other character in the game starts with a weapon. Not a huge issue, unless you want to do anything crazy like attack something. With no weapon equipped you can’t attack anything - unarmed, you are unable to attack.

Which is made more absurd by the class mechanic of the Marauder - you mutate your arm, one of the forms of which is a sharp blade like appendage… yet if you don’t have your axe equipped, you can’t attack.

Yeah, I was confused as well.

There are a lot of other niggling issues and I’m not sure they will be solved by launch…

The verdict…

I’m still undecided. The RvR Scenarios are a bundle of fun. At least in the lower Tiers they’re all time limited, meaning no 4 hour standoffs like you see in World of Warcraft battlegrounds from time to time. The general questing is fairly fun, though much like other games. The Public Quests are genius. The classes are not all to my taste, but there’s enough there to be interesting…

But oh, the annoyances.

If you’re looking for a game with a heavy emphasis on PvP gameplay, including end-game raids on player controlled cities, Warhammer Online is worth looking into.

If instead you’re looking for a deep PvE (you vs the AI) game, Warhammer may still be of interest to you… but honestly, you may be better off with World of Warcraft. Warhammer has a lot of PvE content but with the exception of Public Quests, Warcraft does it better.

The so-called “Open Beta” is due next month. It isn’t really an open beta since it seems you’ll have to have preordered to get in. Regardless, I will have access to the Open Beta and that may sway me one way or another. If Mythic can get things smoothed out it ought to be worth the purchase, particularly if you’re tired of World of Warcraft.

But if you’re still enjoying Warcraft there’s little in Warhammer worth leaving it for.

During an interview last night on Triple M Phil Gould was incredibly disrespectful to NRL chief David Gallop, shouting at him and scoffing at Gallop’s responses and constantly interrupting. At one point he went off on a rant for a whole minute.

It’s fascinating, in a way. But mostly very cringeworthy.

And you can listen to it right now! Click here if you want to experience the crazy for yourself.

[Update]

Channel Nine chief executive David Gyngell is claiming Gould was never scheduled to appear on The Footy Show Wednesday night.

Gould also claims not to have a problem with Gallop. Strange, that’s not how it came across at all.

It’s a fairly old video but if you missed it the first time around, now’s your chance.

Good to see their spirits remain high as serving in the armed forces (of any country) can often be a thankless task.

Scientists have discovered that clever people tend to live longer than the less clever among us. People with a so-called “smart gene” can expect to live, on average, to around 100 years of age, while those with the less smart variation of the gene can only expect around 85 years on this Earth.

Another scientist has concluded that people with higher IQs tend to more often be atheists than the general population.

Therefore, if you have the “smart gene” you are less likely to believe in God!

…

Okay, it’s not actually the “god belief” gene, but I love me some conflation and these two articles were listed as related…

The articles linked for both have more details. The former is a more reliable study than the latter, since the former is a study performed by multiple scientists with a somewhat decently sized sample group.

The latter is one scientist, who is not particularly well regarded due to previous studies that have been less than well received. And the sample size is not great - only looking at some academics and not necessarily getting their true beliefs is no way to run a study.

Sadly, Professor Gordon Lynch’s response is founded more on the “Shhh, don’t upset god-botherers” principle than any scientific merit. I guess we won’t need to test him for the smart gene.

Spore Daily will primarily be used to post my own creations, along with details of the creation process, any backstory, etc. I will also be posting important news about the game, links to tutorial videos or other video content and also some community challenges, for people to try and create Spore content with certain specifications.

The first couple of news-y posts are already up, though you may want to go to the Introduction post first. Up to you.

mythor.net has also been updated to the latest version of Wordpress and the theme has also received a sprucing up.

Gone is the “Now Reading” library. I still love the idea of the thing, but I just wasn’t using it. It may return at a later date.

Gone, also, are the old comments. Well, they’re technically still there, you just can’t see them anymore. I decided to also migrate the mythor.net comments system over to the “Disqus” commenting system, after implementing it on Spore Daily. I’ll probably write a complete entry on the system later, but for now you can signup for the system here (it’s free to join) or you can just continue posting here on my blog without it.

Why would you want to register? Firstly because you can use that registration across any site that uses the Disqus commenting system - it’s more than just this site and Spore Daily!

Secondly, because it allows you to rate people’s contributions to communities.

Third, and probably most usefully, it will send any replies to comments you make direct to your email, if you want, and you can even reply via email, and it will show up in the appropriate place.

I will probably continue tinkering with mythor.net over the next couple of days, so don’t freak out if anything weird shows up. I probably just broke something!

Tonight on The Biggest Loser… It’s the Grand Finale!

Sam, Kirsten and Alison battle it out for the grand prize, while all the eliminated contestants scuffle over the crumbs.

The voting in the poll here on the Recap says Sam will win, followed by Alison and with Kirsten bringing up the rear. Are you guys as smart as you all think you are? Huh? Are you?

Read on to find out! (Note: Temporarily here so people can read if they wish. When the proper Recap site is working again, you’ll be able to read it and comment there!)

Ajay’s in a dress that is doing nothing for her weight problem. It’s black and has some sparkly bits around the waist but my god is it ugly.

BEGIN THE RECAPS! Adro, Chris, blah blah blah. If it’s recapping I ain’t gunna say shit about it. Which means this may very well be the shortest recap ever! ;)

Ajay is pimping a Biggest Loser World First which is going to be very exciting and so on.
The Eliminated Contestants prize is $30,000.

And John is going to be there? What the hell, Ajay? He shouldn’t be there. At all. Disgraceful.

And now we get a recap of old stuff. If we hadn’t watched the season so far and seen this, why would we be watching the Finale? Stupid. Get to the weighing in already!
Although one bit was amusing. Cosi being excited about a weigh in result and then a shot of Michelle seeming to be very excited and pleased about it. Yeah, that’s not at all out of context!

Ajay then says all the contestants had one thing in common - the biggest loser scales. Idiot.

Debbie’s the first to be revealed.
She’s wearing a sleeveless purple gown. A mistake, since the loose skin on her arms is quite apparent. Shocking hairdo and still appears quite chunky under the lower parts of the dress.

Sean’s out next. And oh my. He looks simply amazing. He’s in leather pants and a black shirt, sunnies, kickass short haircut. He is a completely changed man, it’s extraordinary.
Seriously, seriously impressed.

Michael’s out next. He looks a little unhappy and seems to still be carrying a little around the guts. He cheers up as he walks down and gees the crowd up at the end of the catwalk. He’s looking pretty good, but not a patch on Sean.

And now John? Ajay reminds us about John’s indiscretion. He’s not on stage, but he is in the audience. He doesn’t look real impressed when Ajay calls for his round of applause.
He says his health is great now and his grandson is awesome and so on. Ajay asks him what advice he’d give to people with a medical condition and John says you’ve got to just keep battling on, it’s up to you, take control of your own life.
Ajay prompts him about getting medical advice and John says yes, absolutely.
Ajay asks him to get up and show off the body. Then offers him a walk down the catwalk. OH COME ON. You may as well have just had him walk out like everyone else because this amounts to the same thing - an absolute disgrace.
He even gets to join his team on the stage.

Debbie says she didn’t understand the Blue for Life when Shannan pitched it first, but she gets it now and she credits it with getting them so far.
They were underdogs, but they bite!

Ajay says Sean is unrecognisable and the crowd agrees. Sean tells us all again that he’s recently had blood tests done and there’s now no indication that he was ever diabetic!

Michael looks hot, Ajay says.
Michael says it was a tragedy that Monica left in the first week but he’s glad it wasn’t him because he doesn’t think he’d be anywhere close to where he is now.

And now Monica comes out as the only non-teamed person.
Unsurprisingly, for someone who was only there a couple of days, she’s still chubby. But she’s a lot less chubby than she was back at the start and seems to be happier, too. Real, proper happy. Not faux-fat-girl happy.
Monica says her biggest motivation was her family, plus her personal trainer and friends. Ajay says she looks like a princess!

And now it’s time for the Red Team recapping and their stage entry and so on.

Rachel’s the first red out of the gate and she looks terrible. She’s in man clothes and they’re way too tight because she’s still way too fat to be wearing such things.

Next up is Sheridan.
And oh my, she’s a stunner. She comes out in a little red dress. It’s loose around her hips and thighs so she’s probably still packing a little junk in the trunk, but she looks great anyway!

Nicole is out the gates next.
Was she on the show at all? Because you can’t tell.
No, okay, she’s lost some of the hideous belly fat. Or is wearing a super strength girdle. But her face is as fat and unappealing as ever.

Before we see the rest of Red Team we see a replay of Alison going home. INCLUDING A SHOT OF HER HUGGING HER SON. Suck it, haters!
Alison says she’s getting close to looking like a “Yummy Mummy”. Already does as far as I’m concerned!

Nicola comes out next. And as I predicted way back at the start of the season, she looks gorgeous!
There’s still a little meat on her legs but it’s not an unattractive amount, it gives a nice shape to them. And she’s wearing a pretty sparkly dress!

And now it’s time for Cosi.
He’s looking pretty darn buff! Just looks like any regular dude. His boy gets up on stage with him to show off their guns!

Garry as the last eliminated Red comes out last. And big surprise, he’s still super tall!
And I think there’s a lot of support garment under his nice smart-casual clothes because you have to figure there’s a lot of loose skin under there. He’s looking very slim though, which is great!
Garry gives all the credit to his trainer and teammates.

Ajay says Sheridan is looking hot. Michael is looking down at her with longing. Hmmm.

Ajay says one of the most memorable parts of the show was finding out there’s a baby-Cosi on the way and Cosi says yep, they’re doing great!
Nobody’s looking at him with hate in their eyes. Quite a few - Blue and Red - smile over at him. Hmm.

Ajay doesn’t say anything on-screen to Nicole and Rachel though. Double-hmmm.

And the winner of the “Missing Eleven” $10,000 prize is Craig Smith!
He weighed in at 142.3kg at the start and now weighs 91kg, a loss of 51.3kg! Very impressive. 36.5% of his total bodyweight. Let’s see how it stacks up to everyone else!
Craig did it for his son, who he can now spend a lot more time having fun with. Awww!
He gets to come up on stage and yeah, he’s looking pretty damn good.
And I think that was Steven in the crowd applauding him. Hmm.

But we before we move the show along any further, let’s see a bunch of old footage of Kirsten!

Ajay tells us that soon we’ll get to chat to Bob and Jillian. Not sure why, they don’t have anyone in the finale mopping the floor or anything. HA!
But first, here’s some old footage of The Black Team that got kicked pillar to post!

Steven comes out first. Hello, he quit, why is he there? Sigh.
Still has a big round head, but the silly hair is gone!
Still also carrying a bunch of weigh under his very loose fitting suit.
He gets his girl up in his arms on stage and she immediately bursts out crying. Bwah!

Carrianne’s out next. She’s looking better than her twin sister Nicole, but then she started out a lot thinner too.
She seems to have gone backwards from when she left, but I’m sure she’ll have lost a little weight. She surely wouldn’t've come back otherwise.

Michelle’s third out. She’s looking pretty tan compared to her before shot and the haircut is a vast improvement!
Still huge around the hips and butt though.

Bryce was the last man standing and he’s not the last out the doors.
And damn, he’s looking very good. He doesn’t look like he’s ever been fat, just looks super fit and trim.

Steven says his daughter was his inspiration.
Bryce has competed in a triathlon! Jeepers. And has been playing footy with a local team.
No talking to Michelle and Carrianne? Hmm.

And now they’re going to make mention of JJ. I’m assuming he’s not there, or he’d've come out with Red or Black, surely?
Bryce says JJ is a clown and he’d like to break his nose sometimes. But yes, Bryce would never ever mention threats of physical violence against another Contestant, tra la la, happy families!

Ajay says to JJ that they miss him, wherever he is, and they wish him the best of luck. Awww!

Time for everyone else to weigh in.
Steven is not eligible because he’s a big fat quitter.
Bryce is not eligible because he already cashed out.
John is not eligible because he wasn’t allowed to be because of his medical condition.

But first. THE COMMANDO! Looking very serious and imposing, as always. He chats to Ajay first.
Ajay says, “Traditionally you’ve been a man of very few words.”
Commando stares.
How would you describe this year’s competition? “Intense.”
“Right, thanks for that!” You can tell Steve wants to crack up at that.

Bob and Jillian time now! Bob says he’s proud of them and Jillian is too. And they should be proud of themselves, too.
Jillian says they’re emanating health and happiness.
I’d've said oozing. And not health and happiness.

First up is Steven because he’s not eligible for a damn thing.
Steven’s start weight: 166.6kg
Steven’s current weight: 133.5kg
Steven’s loss: 33.1kg
Steven’s percentage: 19.87%

PATHETIC. Ajay says he’s done well. I say Rachel might beat him.

Bryce’s start weight: 139.2kg
Bryce’s current weight: 87kg
Bryce’s loss: 52.2kg
Bryce’s percentage: 37.5%

Phenomenal result. He doesn’t need to lose anymore than that because he’s got the msucles and stuff now, so 87kg is fine for his height. Good for him!

Michelle’s start weight: 120.7kg
Michelle’s current weight: 89.7kg
Michelle’s loss: 31kg
Michelle’s percentage: 25.68%

Reasonable result. Ajay reminds her about knocking back $50,000 to leave early and Michelle says she still has no regrets. Twit!

Carrianne needs to have lost 28.6kg. Unlikely but doable.

Carrianne’s start weight: 111kg
Carrianne’s current weight: 81.2kg
Carrianne’s loss: 29.8kg
Carrianne’s percentage: 26.85%

Just above Michelle, so she’s now in the lead. Until the real competitors start to weigh in.

Sam gets a marriage proposal from someone at his welcome home party. I think the girl was kidding but you never can tell. Girls are very strange.
We don’t really see a lot of his recapping stuff though.

Now it’s time for Red to weigh in… no, wait, first we get to say hi to Michelle!
Michelle’s in a sparkly dress too. Terrible, horrible haircut though. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Makes her look way older and ugly as butt. Such a tragedy.
Michelle is proud of her team though!

Now it’s time to find out who’ll knock Carrianne off the pedestal. Shouldn’t take long!

Rachel’s start weight: 134.7kg
Rachel’s current weight: 115.1kg
Rachel’s loss: 19.6kg
Rachel’s percentage: 14.55%

She says it’s more than she thought. It’s less than I’d hoped for, I wanted Steven to get the wooden spoon! Ahh well.

Nicole needs at least 36.7kg to knock Carrianne off the pedestal.

Nicole’s start weight: 136.3kg
Nicole’s current weight: 99.4kg
Nicole’s loss: 36.9kg
Nicole’s percentage: 27.07%

So lazy, backstabbing two-faced Nicole wiped the floor with… oh, wait, Bryce actually caned them both and just wasn’t eligible to win. Whoops!

Cosi needs 38.2kg. Which he did inside the House I do believe…

Cosi’s start weight: 140.8kg
Cosi’s current weight: 98.2kg
Cosi’s loss: 42.6kg
Cosi’s percentage: 30.26%

Well, there’s a shock. Cosi has made a promise to his woman and his kid that he won’t weigh more than Homer.
Cosi’s the assistant coach to an Under 8’s footy team now, the fitness coach! He’s really stoked by that.
Nicole gives him a hug and a grin as he displaces her. Clearly everyone hates Cosi!

Nicola’s start weight: 112.6kg
Nicola’s current weight: 81.6kg
Nicola’s loss: 31kg
Nicola’s percentage: 27.53%

Ajay says she looks fantastic, like a supermodel!
No way, she needs to be half that weight to be a supermodel! Fatass! FATASS.
She just looks sexy. Not like a supermodel.

Garry needs to have lost 62.5kg to topple Cosi. Cosi cheers him on.

Garry’s start weight: 206.2kg
Garry’s current weight: 135.3kg
Garry’s loss: 70.9kg
Garry’s percentage: 34.38%

Gets a huge cheer from the crowd and gives one of his trademark “YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” cheers. Then he gives another one at the request of Ajay, and even louder and longer one.
Shame Blue’s going to wipe the floor with you!

But wait, Sheridan’s still in the running! She needs 41.3kg. “That’s an Olsen twin!” Ajay asks if it’s two of them?
Think Sheridan may actually have this in the bag, she’s looking good in her skivvies.

Sheridan’s start weight: 120.1kg
Sheridan’s current weight: 75.3kg
Sheridan’s loss: 44.8kg
Sheridan’s percentage: 37.3%

Wow. “That’s so cool!”

Throwing to the break Ajay asks, “Can Sheridan hold on?” And we see a shot of Sheridan grinning and shaking her head, heh.

For those who can’t be bothered scrolling back, Sheridan was a mere .2% behind Bryce. Which sort of puts into perspective how poorly Black did, because I think we all know Sean’s got it in the bag at this point, right?

Monica has to get up by herself, awww!

Monica’s start weight: 116.8kg
Monica’s current weight: 96.1kg
Monica’s loss: 20.7kg
Monica’s percentage: 17.72%

Pretty good for someone who was only there a couple days.

And now… Shannan! Yay!
Shannan’s looking like a drunk gigolo. Twit.
Shannan’s thinks they’re looking good for the quinella!
He says respect and integrity is what has gotten them so far.

John gets to weigh in now too. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

John’s start weight: 150.3kg
John’s current weight: 104.7kg
John’s loss: 45.6kg
John’s percentage: 30.34%

So if you completely ignore doctor’s orders you too can lose 30% of your bodyweight!
John at least admits that he should have listened to his trainer a lot more.

Debbie’s up next.

Debbie’s start weight: 135.2kg
Debbie’s current weight: 92.1kg
Debbie’s loss: 43.1kg
Debbie’s percentage: 31.88%

Not bad, not bad at all! Not enough to bump Sheridan off though.

Sean’s turn now. He needs to have lost at least 65.2kg. OUCH.

Sean’s start weight: 174.6kg
Sean’s current weight: 94.8kg
Sean’s loss: 79.8kg
Sean’s percentage: 45.7%

SLAUGHTERED IT. Incredible.
Sean says the show has saved his life and given him a whole new life.
Sean’s now in the lead for the $30,000 with only Michael in his way!

Michael needs 80kg. Crikey. I don’t think he’s done it. I think it’ll be close, but he won’t have it.

Michael’s start weight: 175kg
Michael’s current weight: 124kg
Michael’s loss: 51kg
Michael’s percentage: 29.14%

Impressive, but not enough!

Sean has just won himself $30,000! Well done Seany!

And now down to the nitty gritty.
But first… Sigh.
One piece of advice from the trainers? Shannan says consistency is the most important thing. John proved that consistency is important. Michelle says keep your calories in check.

First out onto the stage is Kirsten!
But first we have to watch some recap footage again. We already did this!
Lots of chatter from various contestants about how strong she is interspersed throughout.

Kirsten comes out from behind the curtain… holy crap, she has muscles! And collarbones! And muscles!
She’s going to be tough to beat methinks!
Ajay asks if her competitive spirit helped her get so far and Kirsten says definitely.

Next up, Sam!
Shannan says Sam was young and a lot of people thought he’d struggle to make it through the game.
Then lots of other nice things being said about him. And a reminder about how shattered Sam was when he had to go to Red for a while.
Michael says the trait he admired most was how fast Sam grew up.

Now he comes out on stage… SWEET JESUS. Is that really him? He’s skinny as hell!
Well, not Chris “Skeletor” Garling skinny. But he looks amazing, as Ajay remarks.
Sam says he couldn’t do it at home but he needed to do it to save his life.

Alison is last of all.
Everyone says lots of nice things about her. Kirsten says Alison never whinged in training, she just got it done. And Shannan says about halfway into the game, she just went BANG on the scales.
And Shannan also says he would never, ever bet against her.

She comes out from behind the curtain… MILF! MILF! MILF!
She’s looking just as trim, taut and terrific as Kirsten. And she has the lovely wavy hair back instead of that god awful straightened crap she had when she left!
Ajay says she looks smoking hot.
She was a size 26 when she went into the House and today? She’s wearing a size 10! Crikey!
I can’t pick who’ll win. All three of them look phenomenal. Just extraordinarily good.

And coming up after the break, “live on this very stage”. Yeah, right Ajay. Don’t pretend like this is live.

First to weigh in will be… Alison!
who looks awesome in her singlet.
She’s not that nervous, for a change!

Alison’s start weight: 121.7kg
Alison’s current weight: 66.5kg
Alison’s loss: 55.2kg
Alison’s percentage: 45.36%

Kirsten’s face was hilarious and she immediately mouths “SHIT!”
Just behind Sean. Only just, a tiny tiny amount behind him. Amazing.

Next person will be… Kirsten!
Kirsten needs 57.6kg. She’s shaking her head, I don’t think she’s got it? She thinks it’ll be close, but not quite!

Kirsten’s start weight: 126.8kg
Kirsten’s current weight: 71.9kg
Kirsten’s loss: 54.9kg
Kirsten’s percentage: 43.3%

Close but no cigar! She looks great though and she weighs less than she expected, so she’s not disappointed at all!

Sam versus Alison? Wow.
Sam needs at least 70.2kg. Wow. Sam has a scared look on his face. Alison has a shocked look on her face. If Sam makes it, he’ll be the youngest winner ever. If Alison wins, she’ll be the first ever female winner. Woo!

Sam’s start weight: 154.6kg
Sam’s current weight: 82.9kg
Sam’s loss: 71.7kg
Sam’s percentage: 46.38%

HE’S DONE IT! But sweet jebus was it close! All three within a couple of percentage points of each other, extraordinary!
Congratulations Sam!

One more surprise to come, Ajay says.

After an ad break. In which a lot of people probably switched off because we know who won now!

Alison in second place gets a paltry $25,000 prize. Kirsten gets $10,000. Weak! The prizes for the top three should be more than the runners up prize!

“The Biggest Loser Super Scales”. They’re all going to weigh in together to show how much they’ve lost as a group. Oh. How rivetting. They couldn’t just tell us the total figure, could they?
All the Biggest Loser Club 11 come out to get on the scale, too.

When they first came in the gates they weighed in at 4,051.5kg. Crikey.
Through diet, exercise and hard work, they now weigh. 2,897.6kg
Loss: 1,153.9kg
Pretty big number. But we all know some of them contributed to that figure a little more than others.

Ajay says we can head to the official site now and watch the whole show over again. And it’s been an honour sharing in the journey with everyone.
But no mention of a new series? That does not bode well…

And that’s all she wrote, folks! No more Australian Biggest Loser for this year. Possibly no more Biggest Loser ever!
Congratulations to Sam, the overall Biggest Loser, and to Sean, the winner of the Runners Up prize.
And to all of the contestants this year, I hope you manage to maintain your losses and continue to live a healthy lifestyle. Thanks for entertaining us all this year!

I have always believed that all citizens are equal and should be treated accordingly. On the other hand, no group of citizens should be given government sanction and support to promote their social and sexual agenda upon the rest of us and especially, on our children.
Considering the fact that the same school system does not want to allow just one Minute of Silence in the classroom for God, this is preposterous.
- Hillsborough County School District 6 Commissioner, Brian Blair
(Source: Tampa Bays 10)

No group of citizens should be given government sanction and support to promote their social and sexual agenda, unless they’re Christian and then it should be okay for them to promote their social, sexual and moral agenda on everyone?

I think the “Day of Silence” is a stupid idea and I would not participate, but they’re doing it to promote tolerance and prevent bullying of people of a homosexual persuasion. It’s not a recruitment drive, it’s “The Secret Gay Agenda“. ie; “Leave us alone”.
They’re not asking that you become homosexual, or that you be silent for a minute a day to acknowledge the existence of a God you may or may not believe in, they just don’t want to be harassed.

By people like Mr Blair.

She is pregnant, but a woman getting pregnant is not exactly one of the most amazing scientific mysteries of all time, is it?

How does rubbish like this even justify any attention?

Although, he legally became a man after undergoing a sex-change operation, Beatie kept his female reproductive organs.

A sex change operation where “he” kept the organs that made “him” be female? That’s quite some change!

Oprah’s trailer shows the TV star patting Beatie’s stomach and Beatie undergoing an ultrasound as Oprah asks: “Is the world ready for this?”

Ready for what, more idiocy spilling forth from your mouth, Oprah? Yes, I think the world is as ready for that as it is for a woman to be pregnant.

[Source: The Daily Telegraph]