Joe-Tron

So Paint is awesome, we all know this.  Here’s a wonderment of Paint made by yours truly and colored by Elekon.

Notice the amazing skill in which it was crafted.  Hehe…that guy is a buff and tanned viking.

-I listen to ‘Jessie’s Girl’ by Rick Springfield, and I sympathise to a point. This makes me feel a bit worthless at times.

-Today I had a confrontation with the receptionist at the employment agency, only to discover that she is actually really helpful. She must have seen through my phone-stammer to the astonishingly qualified individual underneath! Thankyou Pam.

-I used to think that Christmas was okay, if tedious. My main argument was that you get to eat nice food and the family generally gets along. I take back what I said after the last two Christmas seasons involved way too much ricotta cheese and heartbreak. If I ever write an autobiography, perhaps I will call it ‘ricotta cheese and heartbreak’ because that’s life.

-So, without further ado, I have decided not to talk about Christmas anymore (unless something REALLY interesting happens).

-Snails are molluscs. Molluscs are fabulous. I think they are more appealing than cats and dogs. I like things that are kind of cute and gross at the same time. The bit of the snail that pokes out from the bottom of the shell is called the foot. Don’t you wish you had one huge, slithery foot with a mouth on it instead of two legs? Perhaps?

Trans: Yes it is indeed alcohol that taught me my moral code

-Lastly, I have been using some sophisticated software (well, MS paint is only like 15 years old) to add colour to my scanned drawings. I would like your feedback- Do you like the bright, blocky colour? Do you prefer it when I draw the colours myself with pencils or texta? Do you prefer them without colour? You be commenting, yes?

Biology is nowhere near finished, eek. After that, chemistry, which is quite dark in places.

Tinkering 3

Slowly but surely. Found a new “B” this week, which is exciting. At least that’s how I see it — you, dear reader, may feel differently…

There are a few new symbols in the mix; hopefully those are legible. Just a couple more bases to cover, unless I’ve forgotten something really major. Pretty soon I’m going to need to start thinking about putting these into something that’ll pair ‘em with keyboard keys so that I can really get a feel for how they’ll look in different configurations.

Thinking Big: Mike 'Pies' Ashley

I’ve ripped the title for this week’s Microsoft Paint Story Of The Week straight off the DVD covers of popular US sitcom Friends. That is to say I’ve copied the style of the show’s episode titles. I am obviously not insinuating that there is an episode out there in which the tubby Newcastle United owner moves in to share with Joey, resulting in an initial mutual appreciation for each other’s appetites, but spiralling out of control when Ashley decides to turn Central Perk into New York’s biggest Sports Direct store. No, sadly that episode doesn’t exist. It probably should though.

However, there is every chance that your local coffee shop is being turned into a Sports Direct as we speak, such is the expansion of Ashley’s no frills empire. Newcastle fans can relate to that. A week or so ago, the tat-peddler announced that their famous football stadium would no longer be called ‘St. James’ Park, but ‘Sports Direct.com @ St.James’ Park Stadium’. Yes, that’s right, it’s the first time in the history of football that a stadium has been given an email address instead of a name.

The Newcastle fans don’t like it, but this name change got me thinking last week. Where next for The Magpies? I mean, clearly this man has the shell of an armadillo. He sits through thousands of people abusing him every week, accusing him of not leaving them any of the pies (in a roundabout way), and has turned a tiny sports shop in Maidenhead into one of the planet’s most recognised sports retail outlets.

With that in mind, would you put it past the portly magnate to turn up the heat even further on this branding exercise? Well, this week I sent my finest reporter in the field to have a little snoop around Ashley’s office for clues. Successfully gaining access to the building by posing as the Krispy Kreme delivery man, our reporter found the following sketch tucked away under a Dominoes menu in Ashley’s drawer. As not to raise suspicion, he left Big Mike’s blueprints where they were, and instead decided to reproduce them with his typical flair in Microsoft Paint.

Yes, that’s right, Newcastle fans. Not only has Mike Ashley decided to name your stadium after his chavtastic sports emporium, but it also now looks as though he is going to use the Newcastle United playing staff to flaunt his tat. He’s obviously given it some thought though, as he appears to have picked exactly the right players to model each of his brands.

You will see that Joey Barton is now the new face of Kangol and Lonsdale. Well I say ‘face’, but given that the target market for those two brands is the UK’s world-famous ‘Hoodie’ population, then it is unlikely that you’ll be seeing much of Joey Barton’s mug from now on. It’s now more likely to feature on a grainy, pixelated image taken from a shopping mall CCTV recording, and played back on Crimewatch. Not that Joey will have to familiarise himself with that of course.

The image depicts Barton, clad in Kangol and Lonsdale gear (or perhaps ‘clobber’, I’m not really sure what a Hoodie would call it) nonchalantly kicking a coke can across the pitch, whilst texting his mates to organise the ambush of a pensioner after the game. You get me blud?

Meanwhile, as a striker who decided to move into midfield to look for a few more fights, Alan Smith is perfect to promote Sports Direct’s main boxing brand, Everlast (although I’m sure that Ashley will be kicking himself that the club let Lee Bowyer go). As you can see, he’s doing a smashing job, and has even started to get into character by calling himself ‘The Smudger’. Expect Smith to continue his transformation by starting to hold pre-match press conferences, in which he trash talks the opposition’s midfield players, calls their wives ugly, and frequently refers to himself in the third person.

Acquiring the Dunlop tennis brand was also a major coup for Ashley, and he must be over the moon to have at the club a ready-made model for his tennis gear in Jonas Gutierrez. Offering the sort of long haired, dark-skinned, Latin flair that is a relative pre-requisite for becoming any good at tennis (apparently the LTA are still unsure how Andy Murray got through their ‘fit and proper person’s test’, which involves being a tennis coach for 6 months and sleeping with at least 6 rich housewives), Gutierrez can be seen here going for a cross field passing shot into the path of the ambling Joey Barton. In contrast to Smith, expect Gutierrez to hold his press conferences post match, in which he will speak mono-syllabically, refer to ‘my game’ in every sentence uttered, and show no sign of a personality whatsoever.

Finally there’s manager Chris Hughton. Acutely aware that Hughton doesn’t sit very high in the estimations of many of the Toon Army, Ashley has decided to go all Tyra Banks on his gaffer’s ass (girlfriend) and give him a new look. Having spent hours mulling over the shop’s extensive range of tracksuits, trainers, and cheap socks, Ashley had his lightbulb moment – he would attract more young Geordies to the club by turning his manager into a skater.

Dressed from head to toe in ‘No Fear’ clothing, Hughton appears pleased with his new look, and clutches his board as he barks out orders from his technical area. In a few months time, when he’s honed his skills and learnt from the 14 year olds at the local skate park, Ashley plans to ask his manager to jump a Sports Direct logo during the half-time of each home fixture, with the logo increasing in size as the season progresses. This being the case, expect words like ‘gnarly’ and ‘epic’ to gradually start creeping into Hughton’s press conference terminology, and for him to be ’stoked’ after each Newcastle victory.

So, Newcastle fans, it sounds like it’s going to get worse before it gets better then. However, with a free pair of Donnay socks with every beer you buy, it’s not all doom and gloom now is it? You’ll be drunk, have warm feet, AND you’ll be able to watch a grown man crash a skateboard into a giant logo! Sounds like a good afternoon out to me.

Every Publisher or Literary Agent has a certain style for each manuscript that is to be submitted.

Some like the font size 10pt or 12 pt.

Others request that it all be in Times New Roman or Courier New.

It is important to read the manuscript submission guidelines for each and every publisher or agent that you plan to submit a manuscript to.

If they want 1.5 inch margins, then make sure you have them.

Rule of thumb, if you cannot follow several simple rules, they will dump your manuscript into the garbage without even looking at it!

No second chances, in the world of publishing.

You are expected to know what to do and how to do it, so make sure you do your homework!

And that is the tip of the day from The Idea Girl Says.

I spent most of my day celebrating my sweeties birthday.

I took him out for lunch, and bought him a small WWE Wrestlemania key chain and a Bart Simpson on a skateboard Mug.

bart simpson on a skate board

wrestlemania(usc.uwo.ca)

He liked both of the gifts and I got them at the dollar store.

It’s not how much you spend, it’s the thought that counts.

This is a video made by youtube dann8313 – How to Draw Bart Simpson in MS Paint.

Tinkering 2

Very little time for fiddling with this lately, but I’ve made a few additions since last week. No real changes, though. Still mulling which iteration of each letter will make the cut.

Definitely need to come up with a name for my font, but that’ll probably happen naturally as I continue refining.

Pimp my striker: Aruna Dindane

As I have mentioned before, the wonderful blogging software I use to tap out the sort of rambling nonsense that you are about to put yourself through also offers me the ability to see ‘behind the scenes’. Unlike the extras on your ‘Transformers’ DVD though, this unfortunately does not allow me to see Megan Fox in her smalls, rolling around on a beach in the South Pacific. However, what it does allow me to do is to monitor the search terms that people use to get to my wonderous site of footballing irreverency.

This being the case, if you have seen my article’s title in your search results, and arrived here today expecting to read a peice dedicated to a new member of Optimus Prime’s robot gang, then I’m afraid that Google has let down in your quest this time. If however, you just wanted a picture of Megan Fox draped over a motorcycle, then feast your eyes on these apples!

Anyway, let’s have a bit of fun, and ensure that I get a regular stream of Transformers fans arriving here in disappointment. You see, I am told that Google Search works by making a note of keywords in the title and body of any given article, bumping your entry up the results list if you’ve mentioned the searched terms more than other sites have mentioned them. Considering this, and the fact that (including the title) there have already been six Transformers-related references (now there are seven) in the first three paragraphs of this article, I wonder what will happen if I do this…

Transformers! Revenge Of The Fallen! Optimus Prime! Robots hitting each other! Shia La Beouf is constantly in a panicked state! Michael Bay makes rubbish movies! Transformers! Robots in disguise!

Let’s see how that pans out then…

Anyway, those are the finer points out of the way, let’s move on to the main course of this banquet of insight. As I mentioned in my Premier League Predictions, last week I booked a train ticket for Eddie’s Football Blog’s chief reporter to go down to Portsmouth and investigate why Pompey striker Aruna Dindane has suddenly become a player able to score a Premier League hat-trick.

You see, after the player’s frankly comical display against Spurs a few weeks back, where he showcased an array of finishing that would shock even Chris Iwelumo, I smelt a rat. You don’t just transform (see, I used that word again!) over night. What had happened to the Ivorian? Why had he suddenly started to find the back of the net instead of the car park?

As ever, our reporter was without any form of camera, so has had to resort to the pixel-perfect imagery that can only be offered by Microsoft Paint, in order to depict what he saw in Portsmouth that day. Below we can see his findings and the truth, I’m sure you’ll agree, really is shocking…

You might need a minute to take all of that in. I know I certainly did. Deep breaths…

As you can see, our reporter must have tailed Dindane to the secret lair of Pompey Director Of Football Avram Grant (aka Baron Silas Greenback), which (as we previously discovered) he has set up in the city’s Blue Reef Aquarium. Since that discovery, it appears that (alongside plans to develop the club’s academy) he has also developed a concept he once saw in an Austin Powers movie a few years ago – namely, sharks with freakin’ lazers attached. What this means for mankind, I can only speculate. However, given that it has nothing to do with the Ivorian’s form, we better leave that to MI5 (or MI6. If i’m honest, I never really know which one is which).

So, why is little Aruna visiting the den of his evil super-villain boss? The truth is that Greenback has also devloped what he calls a ‘Striker’s Serum’. Initially he developed the serum to help him ’score’ with women, as it became apparent that evil toad looking villains cannot pull girls, even on a night out in Portsmouth. However, upon testing his potion, it came to light that not only can it help a man score with women, but it can also help with scoring in every other sense of the word. The serum can make an individual become an expert at keeping a tally during darts matches in the pub, composing music and, most importantly in this case, hitting the onion bag on the football pitch.

It all makes sense now. Greenback, in a desperate attempt to keep Pompey up, has started injecting the Ivorian with a scientific concoction that is guaranteed to get him scoring goals. Like Big Sam’s masterplan, The Baron’s scheme surely cannot fail.

The picture shows club doctor Nigel Sellars readying Dindane for his latest shot of the good stuff. Greenback (who is watching on, cackling in delight, and sporting a grey suit he borrowed from his friend Dr. Evil) had hoped not to get any of the staff involved in the experiment, but ended up having to draft Sellars in after it emerged that his evil crow henchman was unable to administer an injection due to having a pair of wings and no opposable thumbs. It would have been a total mess, with needles and feathers everywhere. Plus, he’d done a bit of sight-seeing earlier in the week, and got stuck at the Tower of London after he was told that the building would fall down if he dared leave.

As ever with the masterplans of Baron Silas Greenback though, there is a problem. The serum doesn’t appear to be quite right. Having scored a hat-trick after his first dose, Dindane failed to hit the target during Saturday’s loss to Blackburn. However, he did end up waking up on Sunday morning with three Swedish underwear models in his bed. Technically then, he ’scored’ successfully, but it just wasn’t the right type of scoring.

As a result, it looks like poor old Avram will have to go back to the drawing board, otherwise he might find that Dindane turns up to Pompey’s next match having composed a beautiful piano concerto, but is still unable to hit a cow’s backside with a banjo.

(Transformers, Robots In Disguise!)

I am surfing a tsunami of doubt and sadness.

I’m not very good at surfing.

I knew it was weird to be so detatched while boxing up all my shit.  GOOD THING THAT’S OVER.  Breaking open packages of NyQuil – half goes back in the closet, half in a box on the floor – who’s going to remind me to take it?  I could save several square inches of cardboard box by leaving all the NyQuil in the closet and hoping a cold kills me.  Cursed be the day I got that H1N1 vaccine.

I woke up before LP this morning and, after finishing the rest of our leftover pad thai, I started packing the  bathroom closet in my pajamas and the HQ hoodie I’d worn to work last night.  Who knew that we had so many goddamned toothbrushes?  I took all the medium ones and left him the ones that either don’t clean your teeth or abrade the enamel right off.  To make up for doing that I gave him all the brand-name cough drops that expired in 2008 and took the store-brand cough drops that expired in 2007.  Just because I plan to die of the common cold doesn’t mean I want LP to suffer the same fate.

Speaking of him suffering on my account, he woke up a few hours later with a sewing needle stuck sideways through his shorts.  I hadn’t been quietly stabbing my life-sized voodoo doll while he slept – hey, there’s a sure-fire shortcut: stab the actual person! -  and I have no reason to, because remember, he’s the innocent half of the breakup.   So I guess it got lost while I was packing up my sewing basket on the bed yesterday, and then the wrong person rolled over on it.  A complicated feeling: I am seriously short on sewing needles and was relieved to have found it, but dismayed that it was found sticking out of my beloved.

Today is a day for throwing out thimbles!

When he came into the kitchen to tell me about the return of the prodigal sewing needle, I stood on my toes and hugged him around his neck.  He cut off his beard yesterday; I hadn’t felt him so smooth in months.  He was still warm from being under the quilt.  He didn’t hug me back, but he didn’t stop me from holding him, either.

A few people have told me that I’m making things worse by not maintaining a greater distance now that we have broken up.  That I am deluding myself, postponing (and thereby concentrating) my suffering.  That it will be much harder the first time I wake up with the sniffles in the Big Empty Apartment of Lonesomeness and Misery and can’t find my half of the fucking NyQuil (why am I packing anything?  wheeeeee).  I disagree.  The duration of the average cold without help from NyQuil is a week and the duration of time between our breakup and my moveout has been a month and a half.  Whether or not I’ve had practice at being alone will not help the NyQuil situation when it arises.  And I am damned glad that I didn’t have to spend that month and a half treating someone I love like a stranger, but instead got what comfort I could from him, while it was there.  While I was here.  No, I don’t think it will help in the long run to acclimate myself to loneliness before the move.  The only advantage it will give me is an extra month and a half of loneliness, which is not an f-ing advantage.  For either of us.

I do have one big advantage in the acclimation department, though: I’m going to North Carolina on Thursday, and will be returning just in time to move.  The advantage is that I will already be living out of a suitcase.  Instead of packing for three days, I’m packing for seven.

I explained this to Mr. Twin last night, yelling over the din while people swarmed around us at the bar brandishing their $.50 beers.

“Wait- North Carolina?  Who died?” he asked.

“That’s a good question,” I said.

My barback came by while we were talking, and reminded us that he has dibs on the underwear drawer.  We have had this conversation before.  For that reason, I packed all my fancy lingerie and grown-up toys and whatnot in a shoebox that I then duct-taped shut and labeled “HATS”, then packed that in a bigger box labeled “BOOKS AND HATS“.  To be safe, I wrapped all my toys in fluffy winter socks.  It would look bad if someone dropped the hat box and discovered that my fedoras vibrate.

Mr. Twin cautioned me to count my underwear before and after Mr. Barback moves the drawer.  I told him I’m going to get a bike lock and chain them together.

I suppose I should put some real pants on and get back to the packing.

Tinkering

So my favorite part of last week’s “Pixtures” post was the gravestone lettering. Given my penchant for examining typeface, I decided to take things a step further and try coming up with my own thing. I (SEVERELY) limited myself to four pixels by six, wide or deep. The above screencap represents a first pass. More to come, I think.

Meg: Back from Burnley's 'Ladies Day' unscathed

Out of the ten fixtures that banged on my door last week, demanding to be predicted, seven were sent home happy. Ok, I didn’t get the final score right for any of them, but that’s not important. Even with a badger equipped with a wide range of hip-hop dance moves backing them up, I don’t think many people saw Fulham putting three past Liverpool. So, I’ve excused myself.

Having said that, if I get a couple of final scores right this week, but not many correct outcomes, there’s a good chance i’ll introduce next week’s predictions with a paragraph professing the skill involved in predicting correct final scores. You see, much like Robbie Keane and his assessment of the current Spurs squad, I sometimes find myself sugar-coating my opinions.

I’ve set the bar with 7 correct outcomes. Can you beat me?!? Actually, I’m sure you can. I’m just doing that ‘challenge their ego’ thing to try to get you involved in a prediction contest.

Are you ready?!? I’m doing it again. Sorry, I’ll stop. There’s actually no need to be particularly ready. It’s not as if you’re about to go for a sky-dive (unless you are. In which case, I’d advise you start concentrating on that instead, because you’re about to throw yourself out of a bloody plane. You mentalist!).

Ok, I’m getting nowhere with this introduction. Predictions hooooooo! (Thundercats style)

Aston Villa vs Bolton

In the last few weeks Aston Villa have dressed in black, hid in the shadows, and snuck their way silently up the table. This is made all the more weird by the fact that, at the time of writing this, their form for the last 6 games reads LDWDDL – translating as 6 points from a possible 18, which isn’t hugely impressive. However, they’ve still managed to join the chasing pack just below the top four which, considering the aforementioned form, is mighty impressive.

This phenomena can be explained either by Martin O’Neill having trained the club in the art of the Ninja, or by the fact that the top four have performed a little more inconsistently this season.

Either way, Bolton should watch out for the crane kick to the gonads this weekend, which I feel is undoubtedly coming their way.

Verdict: 2-1

Blackburn vs Portsmouth

I hold my hands up. Aruna Dindane last weekend took my snide, mocking words and shoved them firmly back down my embarassed throat. He was majestic, and took his hat-trick well.

However, did anyone else find this sudden change in the Ivorian’s form all a little too dramatic? I certainly did. This is why I sent my chief reporter in the field to Fratton Park this week to find out what was going on. His findings will be reported in this week’s Microsoft Paint Story Of the Week, so watch this space. It is truly shocking. Can you handle the truth?! (Sorry I really must stop treating you as if you’re a cinema audience watching trailers to the summer blockbusters).

Expect a shaven headed Morten Gamst Pedersen to take to the field for Blackburn Rovers, and a scintillating 1-1 draw to follow.

Verdict: 1-1

Man City vs Burnley

Those of you who watched Match Of The Day 2 last weekend would have witnessed a quite frightening report from Kevin Day (a man created by combining bits of Madness front-man Suggs, with a zombie from Shaun Of The Dead) on Burnley’s ‘ladies day’.

If you didn’t get a chance to see it, try thinking of an episode of ‘Booze Britain’, but dedicated entirely to women, and set in a bleak northern town. I can only assume that the male Burnley fans had decided to spend Saturday afternoon shopping for their halloween costumes (although they could have got a fair few pointers from some of the scary old bags at the stadium, that’s for sure).

This week against Manchester City, expect the Burnley fans travelling to Eastlands to revert back to form, with plenty of drunk men cosigning their Halloween masks to the back of the cupboard in order to roar their team to their fifth away defeat of the season.

Expect Carlos Tevez to still be wearing his halloween mask.

Verdict: 3-0

Tottenham vs Sunderland

Low on confidence, and missing key players, ‘Arry’s fragile Spurs troops would have wanted an easier fixture than Sunderland following a derby-day drubbing by an Arsenal team with a point to prove. Even though pocket goal-machine and glamour model afficionado Jermain Defoe is back from his suspension to give his club a boost, The Mackems team is loaded with ex-Tottenham players, all looking to prove Spurs wrong for flogging them.

Darren Bent will want to prove that he really is better than Redknapp’s wife, Andy Reid will desperately want to prove to the Spurs fans that he’s not the ‘pie muncher’ they’ve always said he is (it’s pretty obvious that he knows where the nearest Greggs is though), and Steed Malbranque will want to reinforce the question that most Spurs fans have been asking since he left… “Levy, why the hell did you sell him?!”.

Teemu Tainio will just want to angrily kick people. That’s what Teemu Tainio does. However, in the absence of Kasier Soze and Lee Cattermole, he’ll be the ex-Spurs player with arguably the most important job of all.

Verdict: 2-2

Wolves vs Arsenal

Arsenal can be compared very easily to Hogwarts, the wizard’s school attended by Harry Potter and his chums. Like Hogwarts, Arsenal have a Dumbledore professor figure at the helm attempting to teach all the young minds that walk into the youth system the way of mastering the wizadry of football.

He has many good students at the club, who have all clearly practiced their skills on a regular basis. However, they have one shining Harry Potter style light at the centre of it all, in the shape of Cesc Fabregas. Like the character, Fabregas can perform acts of brilliance that everyone else at the club can only admire with bewildered amazement. Let us not also forget that he often has to carry the weaker students through difficult times (at this point I should probably compare Niclas Bentner to Ron Weasley, and Emanuel Eboue to the little girl).

This weekend Fabregas and his wizard pals visit the den of a pack of bloodthirsty Wolves. Now, we all know that wolves like to prey on the weaknesses of small children, and I expect this pack to do exactly that on Saturday – snarling and snapping at the heels of the frightened youngsters. However with a wizard at the height of his powers at their core, mere Wolves will be no match for Wenger’s young magicians.

Verdict: 0-3

Chelsea vs Man Utd

It has been noted in certain places that Sky tend to make a bit of a song and a dance about a live game pitting two of the ‘Big Four’ teams up against each other. Flashy lights swooshing across the screen, dramatic music, and immense over-exaggeration over the importance of the seventh day of the week (i.e. ‘Mega-Super Amazing Sunday’ or something else just as ludicrous). Prior to the game, the tiny studio is packed with the brilliant minds of Jamie Redknapp, Richard Keys, and Andy Gray, and the viewer is ‘entertained’ (for what seems like an eternity) by three grown men drawing arrows on a virtual pitch, and talking incoherently about the brilliance of the two teams (who both, funnily enough, have made their employer one of the richest companies in the world).

The trouble is, with all the hype, these games are often a complete snore-fest. The recent Chelsea vs Liverpool game was so boring that I ended up being distracted by a repeat of Deal Or No Deal on our other telly (a fat man from Wolverhampton was sent home with 50p after he was ‘convinced’ big money was in a particular box, and thought that 5k ‘wasn’t a fair offer’. Riveting stuff).

This time though, I actually think that we have a really good game on our hands. Two teams playing good attacking football, and they are definitely the two teams who will be contesting the title this year, so there’s the added spice right there.

If Didier Drogba stays on his feet long enough to perform as he has been recently, I’m backing Chelsea for this one.

Verdict: 3-1

Hull vs Stoke

I like Hull’s manager Phil Brown. He’s an eccentric, and we don’t get many of them in Premier League nowadays.

So what if it was their start to the 08/09 season that kept them up last year? Does that really matter? No. What matters is that this earpiece loving, karaoke singing, half time team-talk on the pitch conducting Sam Allardyce prodige got Hull City promoted to the Premier League and then kept them there. That should be enough for the Hull board, fans, and players to show him a little respect in the tough time they’re having at the moment. The dreaded vote of confidence is always an ominous sign though.

This is one of those games that I wouldn’t normally give a damn about. But for Phil Brown’s sake I hope Hull can overcome the bus that Stoke park in front of their goal.

Verdict: 2-1

West Ham vs Everton

West Ham’s new striker Alessandro Diamanti has a bit of the Paulo Di Canio about him. Great touch, good finisher, and also a bit of a nutter. After a bit of gentle ribbing from his new team-mates for being the only member of the Hammers squad to use a hairdryer, the Italian reacted not by returning the banter, but by getting a grade 1 all over. This begs the question though, if Diamanti really is that suggestable, what else can his team-mates make him do?! Ideas below.

After a win in midweek, West Ham are unbeaten in three. Everton, by contrast have just suffered another injury set-back to midfield string-puller Mikel Arteta, which won’t improve the spirits of a team who last won a Premier League game back on September 26th.

It’ll be a hardfought encou… Stop! Hammertime.

Verdict: 2-1

Wigan vs Fulham

As I noted in my introduction above, I was pretty pleased with myself for predicting Fulham’s win over Liverpool last week. However, that was all soured by Wigan, the Premier League’s most unpredictable team, living up to their tagline.

That being the case, I am tempted to predict a Fulham win (because secretly I think that Wigan will win). However, now i’ve revealed my strategy on the world wide web, I’m sure that Wigan’s unpredictability radar will spot it and then force the team to carry out exactly the opposite.

Therefore, I am going to just go with my gut instinct. Wigan have had some big results at home this season, and Fulham are playing away in the Uefa League (or whatever the Uefa Cup is now called) on Thursday, so may be a bit sleepy when it comes to dealing with my man Rodallega (by that I mean he has been in my fantasy team this season. I transferred him out though, so technically it should be ‘my ex-man Rodallega’. However, that sounds a bit gay).

Marlon King is sidelined.

Verdict: 3-1

Liverpool vs Birmingham

Liverpool fans. I’m sorry, but this one’s the nil nil. And you can’t quote form to deny my assertions either. Playing without Gerrard, and pairing a half-fit Torres with a hapless Voronin in attack, these are some dark times.

Birmingham will be organised and hard to break down, just like they were against City. Don’t get me wrong, McLeish’s men are still an awful team to watch, but now is the perfect time for anyone to play the Scousers. They look lost.

Verdict: 0-0

Jayson Meyer ©

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Big Sam: Piggy Tactics

If you follow the Premier League (or Barclays Premier League if you’re being anal, EPL if you’re American, and Premiership if you’re Alan Hansen), you may have heard the news that ‘Big Sam’ Allardyce had one or two problems with his squad last week, prior to their humiliating 5-0 defeat at Chelsea. I know what you’re thinking and, no, it actually didn’t involve El Hadj Diouf. No, in fact, last week the main problem facing the Rovers boss was dun dun duuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnn – swine flu!

Yes, swine flu. The killer virus that the Sun predicted would kill us all and result in flesh eating pigs rising up to rule planet Earth (or something along those lines. If i’m honest, I got distracted by Page 3 and didn’t properly read it). Now, as shocking as it may sound to Sky Sports News, whose little yellow ticker jumped with excitment upon hearing the story coming out of the Lancashire club, footballers really are humans after all. And humans, judging by the events of the past 12 months or so, really can contract pig flu. Big news undoubtedly.

The question that should’ve been on everyone’s lips though, and thankfully was on the lips of us over at Eddie’s Football Blog, was ‘how did swine flu suddenly spring up in the Blackburn camp?’. Once again we sent our reporter to investigate.

This time calling on our vast knowledge of time travel (acquired by watching the ‘Back To The Furture’ trilogy a couple of times), we used a Delorian, a few flashy wires, a radio alarm clock, and a shouty old man with beady eyes (who we found outside Sainsburys talking to a bin) to send our man back to last Friday night, the day before Blackburn’s game with Chelsea. Here’s what he discovered.

The pictoral evidence is conclusive. Sam Allardyce had planned it all along. He would make sure that his entire squad were so ill, that the Premier League would have no choice but to cancel their game with Chelsea. Just like his tactics, the beauty of this plan was in its simplicity and, with their six goal whalloping by Arsenal still fresh in the memory, the Blackburn gaffer couldn’t risk morale being damaged by yet another humiliating defeat.

So on Thursday he got to work, sending his chief scout to Mexico and tasking him with the job of finding finding the ‘filthiest most disease-infected pig in the country’. After a brief mis-understanding which led to a holidaying Katie Price being bundled into a potato sack, Big Sam’s scout tracked down a pig farm so filthy that even Jermain Defoe would have turned his nose up at it. Nonetheless, ‘Pablito’ the pig was adquired, promptly dressed up as Paul Robinson (as not to raise suspicion, but also to explain his hearty appetite), and then plonked on a plane bound for London.

Meeting his new oinky accomplice at Heathrow on Friday (the day before the game), Big Sam had it all planned out. He would wait until all the players were asleep at the hotel, and then take Pablito from bed to bed, infecting each player with a solitary lick to the face. By morning they would all be far too ill to play, and the game would be cancelled. It was fool-proof. He even practiced with Pablito in the afternoon, sticking pictures of every Blackburn player on the end of a Nobbly Bobbly ice lolly. The training was such a success that even the El Hadj Diouf lolly got a lick.

Come nightfall, clad in his maroon satin PJs, Big Sam was ready. This was going to work.

Now, you’ll see in the picture that the players appear to be sharing a room. Why though? Well, Rovers chairman John Williams, a man so careful at watching his pennies that Pascal Chimbonda can be counted as one of his major summer signings, wanted it that way. When he was told of the price of each room at the fancy Chelsea Village hotel, he exclaimed (presumably in a northern accent, whilst sipping a warm pint of mead) “It’s a bloody outrage! They can all bloody well share!”. And so they bloody well did (the fact that this arrangement conveniently facilitates this particular version of events is just one big coincidence. Honest.).

Anyway, the image captures a crucial moment in our tale. Having sucessfully infected David Dunn with the virus, Big Sam moves confidently onto his second victim – ogre and part-time battering ram, Christopher Samba. Pablito, although clearly hesitant of the potential volcanic reaction caused by waking a sleeping beast of this magnitude, overcomes his fear and manages to infect his second victim. Big Sam rubs his hands in glee. His plan is definitely going to work.

Then all of a sudden there’s a beeping noise, a flick of a lightswitch, and the sound of hesitant and confused Norwegian voice. “Er… boss? Er… what are you doing down there boss?”. Big Sam looks up to see a perplexed Morten Gamst Pedersen standing over him. Shit. He’s been rumbled.

You see, in the melee of ordering a disease-infected Mexican pig, dressing it up like Paul Robinson, and then hatching a masterplan to sneak around under the cover of darkness infecting his entire squad, Big Sam Allardyce forgot one crucial fact. A fact that condemned his masterplan to failure from the minute it was hatched… Morten Gamst Pedersen checks his hair in the mirror every 15 minutes. Without fail. At night he even sets his alarm clock to go off every quarter of an hour to wake him up. Just to be sure.

Poor old Big Sam. Blackburn now would have to play their game against the league leaders for sure. He’d only infected two players with swine flu and, to rub salt in the wound, those two players were his best midfielder and his best defender/striker/battering ram. In fact he’d even picked the bug up himself, after Pablito mistook him for a Nobbly Bobbly.

Unsurprisingly it finished 5-0 to Chelsea. The word on the street is that Big Sam has a new masterplan up his sleeve for when he recovers. It involves a pair of clippers, a Norwegian, and has to be completed in under 15 minutes.

Stylized Gravestones

Clint Hocking’s Twitter feed led me to this nifty service and its lovely cemetery  icon. Seemed as good a subject as any to teach me more about pixel painting. Plus it felt kind of timely what with Halloween on the way and everything.

Monstruoso! Se isso não for fake (=falso) o que parece que não, o cara realmente não precisa de Corel nem Photoshop. A vuta que pariu. Muito bom.

The real reason you can’t get MMR and H1N1 in the same month:

I WONDER WHAT IS A MILLION MILES AWAY?

OBSERVE A LIL WAYNE CLASSIC:

GENIUS!

NOW, MY MS PAINT MASTERWORK:

PERSPECTIVE IS CONSTRAINED BY THE HORIZON?

SO, ive been getting bored doing this MS paint thing so I have been creating acrylic paintings and charcoal drawings like crazy….hopefully I’ll get to exhibit my stuff somewhere at some point…

I think its interesting how perspective is represented….for EXAMPLE, check out how perspective is represented by SPHERICAL FORMS.

THE FRESCO BELOW IS WHAT INSPIRED ME TO DRAW THE PICTURE ABOVE:

I’ve been thinking about how different systems interact in nature.

INTERESTING STUFF TO THINK ABOUT.

BUT I WONDER what is 100, 000, 000 MILES AWAY? CAN A FISH EVER SEE WHAT IS ABOVE WATER?

I DON’T KNOW.

CARBON…COAL…HERE IS ONE OF MY FIRST CHARCOAL DRAWINGS:

I WONDER WHAT SHES THINKING ABOUT?

]]> http://vintagemexican.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/pandas-vs-grand-prix/ Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:11:41 +0000 vintagemexican http://vintagemexican.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/pandas-vs-grand-prix/

I do not like pandas. I also do not like the Grand Prix. But given the choice, I would rather get excited about the atmosphere at a racing event than the snooze-worthy display of 2 animals who will be seen by the public approximately 20% of the time. I remember when I was a kid and we went to the zoo my experience went something like this:And don’t get me started on the polar bears. The zoo promises you the world (bears who are cuddly, partial to some backstroke AND likely to maul you if you gave them the stinkeye) and every time we went they were hibernating. Or getting their mack on in the den with their lifemate. I think the panda experience will go something like that except the chances of being mauled are pretty slim. Chances of seeing them eat some hardcore leaves? Through the roof! So to have the government and zoo get together and try to tell me “Hey citizen don’t live in the past, who needs the Grand Prix. We got PANDAS!” I will not have a bar of it.

Can I have a beer at the zoo?
Can I have a beer at the Grand Prix? Winner.

Sally Sue and Last Call Paul were dining at Qdoba a couple weeks ago with their toddler, poopy pants. Sue and Paul sat across from each other in what looked to be a text message fight while poopy pants flung burrito at the wall. Just then Paul said, “Oh my God! Did you see what Kiki wrote? She said, “I’m having a tall day!” Isn’t that soooo funny?” Hahaha.” They laughed hysterically for ten minutes. It was like that scene from The Big Lebowski where Maude Lebowski and that bald guy with the weird ’stache laughed at some inside joke while the dude sat there in confusion. Poopy pants had a good time too.

Jayson Meyer ©

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Thanks Talli!

Jayson Meyer ©

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Jayson Meyer ©

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Made a huge update to my Cure account. Watch as I don’t update for another couple of months, ha ha. Also I created a fanclub “Clay.+MORE” because I’m a pretentious weaboo like that. Don’t worry it’s mostly retarded photos of us. I had to put them SOMEWHERE, they’re too precious to waste. Some stellar examples:

I love how it’s like . . . all Persona. Man these costumes bring out the beast in us.