My Credit Crunch holiday

Sorry for the ‘postal strike’ last week but I indulged myself in a little credit crunch holiday. I didn’t get a cheap last minute trip abroad but I did down tools for long enough to appreciate some of the low budget activites that I love. First up I welcomed in the new Premier League season in traditional fashion with a champagne breakfast. We’ve been doing this at my pad for about 5 years now, watching the early 12:45pm with a fry up and a bottle of Cava, but this year we actually managed to score a bottle of Moet.

That led to a very long messy weekend watching countless hours of live footy and pretty much boring a hole in my sky plus remote rewinding the goals and offsides. My better half had been away climbing a mountain (no joke of a lie) so by the time I’d caught up with her it was almost midweek. This turned out to be the best bit of the holiday as it coincided with the hottest day of the year.

I took the time to go visit an old mate from college out in the sticks a few miles outside of the M25. It was nice seeing cows, level crossings and rivers on the train out there. It was even better basking in the 30 degree heat catching up with a good mate who greets you with a pint and reefer in his 40 yard garden. By the time the sun had set I was back in London though and ready to fulfil the last part of my ’staycation’ a pre planned bender with another mate who’s off abroad for a bit.

As booze and fun fuelled benders go it was a pretty good effort all round, lasting well over 24 hours. My opinion for what its worth is that anything that involves that much boozing and more but leaves you with no hangover has got to be good. We managed to listen to a lot of classic hip hop too which is one of my favourite ways to relax but that intoxicated I had vivid memories of the 90’s heyday (of hip hop and my partying). It was now friday and all that was left to do was sleep it off and count the pennies, thankfully though I hadn’t even spent £50.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Edited: August 24th, 2009

Hollywood in The Gallery

I’m a big fan of the Guardian’s ‘The Gallery’ series a user generated parade of humorously photoshopped football pics. The imagination of the readers who submit the pictures is unbelievable some going for simple puns whilst others go for elaborate or obscure references.

One thing I have noticed popping up almost weekly is the redesigned Film poster and it made me contemplate the psychology behind this. Is it because there are so few films about such a massively popular world sport or is it just the fact that we love to ridicule the pomposity and grandiosity of Hollywood’s aggressive marketing machine.

It is obviously the latter as film posters are continously parodied by all and sundry across the interweb. I believe that people subconciously accept hollywood advertising as the norm for the medium but harbour a deep resentment towards it due to the misrepresentation of the product and often the blitzing of the media to sell us their latest turkey.

People are now aware of how seriously Hollywood style advertising takes itself and are quick to parody or even reject it outright. The Gallery is one such place where this is prevalent but it works so well as the players and the business of football take themselves so seriously too. So enjoy some propaganda from the football fans who take aim at Sven, the Ibrahimovic Eto’o swap deal, the governments swine flu ads, those Manchester poster wars and of course those over the top Hollywood film posters.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Edited: August 7th, 2009

Pro Evo 10: No game face required

After the fun I had making my ‘game face’ in Fight Night 4 I’ve been reading up on what improvements we’ll be treated to in the next installment of Pro Evo (thats PES10 to you newcomers and Pro Evolution Soccer to the console philistines amongst you). So, will there be anything similar to game face in the next Evo?

No, but there’s a good reason for this: the developers at Konami have concentrated their efforts on overhauling the graphics and lighting to improve the realism of the gameplay. Last year’s game gave the graphics a touch up for the HD consoles but as you can see from the screenshots this year the detail has been taken to the next level.

Some of the improved detail is no doubt due to the expansion of the development team into an international unit rather than the solely Japanese squads of the past, giving Konami access to more expertise and technology. The key difference visually is the inclusion of realistic in-game lighing which includes facial and object shadow. This allows for the creation of near perfect likenesses of the beautiful games’ best – and sometimes ugliest – players. It also means if they were to attempt to integrate a ‘game face’-style system into the game, us punters might come off looking a little worse for wear.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Edited: August 2nd, 2009

Why I love Obama

1. He plays footy

2. He drinks beer at work

Popularity: 3% [?]

Edited: July 31st, 2009

Compton Cricket Club: From gats to bats

The Compton Cricket club never cease to amuse people. Its just a perfect comedic combination of two alliterated words that exist on opposite ends of the social scale. The rarefied gentry image of Cricket and the gangster hardcore image of Compton have been successfully melded together since the clubs inception in 1995 and they haven’t looked back since. With a 40 minute hip hop opera in the can and the movie rights of their story already sold to Disney you’d think they’d be happy with their media output but these guys aren’t declaring yet.

They currently have a music video out catchily entitled ‘Bullets to balls gats to bats’ and its really popular in Australia. Honestly it is. I love the lyrics on this track, these guys completely bypass the edutainment field and just straight up preach their gospel with lines like:

took the youngsters from the hood
and showed them good
no matter what they are told
its better for them to have a book than a Beretta

Lines like that make me actually think they may be good at cricket cos well they can’t rap. Stick to the cricket pads homez and leave the lyric pads to the pros.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Edited: July 30th, 2009

Fight Night 4: Bring your Game Face

The latest installment of the best boxing video game ever is settling in to life at my house nicely. There has been some jealousy and resentment towards our new arrival – mainly from ‘UFC Undisputed’ – who feels like he’s being replaced but he moaned about me playing favourites with Pro Evo so it’s to be expected. All the hype beforehand centred around the addition of Iron Mike to the franchise, meaning that for the first time in console history the legendary Tyson can take on Ali for the G.O.A.T acronym.

To be honest, just having the unique skills of Tyson in a game for the first time since ‘Punch Out’ (that’s if you don’t count Balrog or those crappy SNES Tyson games) gives the heavyweight division more variety. Ali has been featured on EA games for a while now since they released ‘Foes of Ali’, a concept game where you battled with Ali’s contemporaries.

For me the best part of any game is the career mode – it’s fun bashing the snot out of your mates but it grows tiresome quickly, especially if its one sided. Now that Evo has 2 career modes, ‘Master League’ and ‘Become a Legend’, the stakes have been raised to new heights. Fight Night has its own offering with the usual training scenarios, customisable fighters and control over your rise up the ranks. The difference this time is that you can put your own face on your fighter thanks to a new innovation: ‘Game Face’. There’s nothing that makes a computer game more addictive than realism, and a boxing game where you see your own mug get pounded is the biggest incentive to up your skills.

Game Face is a fairly simple process of uploading your photos to your EA Sportsworld account (you gots to have one of these to play online), editing the image via the online instructions/templates, then saving your snaps to download to your PS3 or Xbox later. After having a go with my own lovely mug I began to explore the true potential of this advance – basically, you can manually create any gladiator you feel the gamemakers have overlooked. As I entered the realms of fantasy and wondered which legendary fighters I could reanimate with this nifty tool my mind wandered over the great names of boxing past. Prince Nas, Steve Collins, Benn, Eubank all raised a patriotic nod of approval but I wanted someone more topical, an epic battle between two titans in their prime in 2009.

So I set about creating the fight of summer 2009. The trash talking had started months ago and it was time to put these two in the ring. Of course I’m talking of a rematch between Perez Hilton and Will.I.am, the most talked about fight of the year. After picking out a couple of Perez pics, including a perfect one of him complete with bruises from the first bout, I downloaded them to my PS3. The next stage involved setting markers on the pictures so the face could be accurately mapped and stretched out in 3D. Then it was onto editing his hair, weight and fighting style, as well as customising his shorts and robes in Perez’s trademark pink.

Suitably satisfied with the results of my virtual Perez Hilton, I was ready to take on the Black Eyed Peas beatmaker and general Cheryl Cole aficionado Will.I.am. This did not go as well as project Perez but so satisfied was I with my ‘Sweet Pea’ Hilton (as he is now known in my house) I ploughed on. Once complete I was ready to stage my rematch but also delighted to know I can upload Perez for others to use on their game. This gives me a sense of optimism in that someone might be able to do a better job of digitizing old Will and that we could have an epic winner-takes-Fergie battle online. The gauntlet has been dropped. See y’all online…

Popularity: 10% [?]

Edited: July 27th, 2009

Allow me to reintroduce myself

Its been a long time I shouldn’t of left you… but as a 90’s guy I know only too well you can’t turn back the clock. Believe me I’ve tried. So I’m here to make ammense and reintroduce myself to the 40 or so people who’ve been checking my blog while I’ve been away… thanks people.

Its gonna be a different format from now on and a bit more random than just my musings on the past, you gonna get the benefit of seeing everything interesting that crawls across my path on the daily. First as way of an apology for not posting for months here is some of the visual shizzle I’ve seen since I left you:

A Tribe called creps

Its not often that you get a homage to an album cover from 2 seperate world famous sports brands but the Tribe have become the first musicians to receive the honour. Midnight Marauders gets the treatment from Puma and Adidas but I still haven’t seen these anywhere.

Lego album covers

Nobody seems to know who made these or why and I don’t care either, they just made me happy.

I’m getting this one

I say this all the time then can’t be arsed to part with the wong when it comes round to it but I have a feeling I’m gonna want this bad enough to cop it. I mean DJ Hero? Really? If the soundtrack is true to the turntablist visions stirring in my head this will be dope and I will finally be able to live out my DMC fantasies.

USB Sick

Who needs a plain old stick when you can get these sick little puppies

Football photoshops

Okay so some of these might go over a few heads but I’ll try and point the footie phobic in the right direction

Just google Joey Barton nicked and you can work out what this is getting at

This is a reference to the club versus country row between England and Spurs & nothing to do with Cobra kai…

just google ‘Ronaldo prick’ and erm… oh fugedabout it

5 criminally talented footballers plot to lift a trophy from an obsessed scot… probably whiskey in that ‘Iniesta’ mug

classic yellow pages advert going on here with a Michael Owen twist

courtesy of the gallery

Terrorism cards

Charlie put me onto these they’re from 1987 or so and are proof the illuminati have been plotting this war on terror since the 80’s. Why do I always get onto these moneymaking schemes too late? I could’ve invested my pocket money in gas masks and teflon.

And finally… this made me laugh

South Park came up trumps with the Kanye West ‘Gayfish’ episode which I’m sure you’ve seen by now but this just shows how far the episode reached into popular culture

Popularity: 10% [?]

Edited: July 13th, 2009

90’s wiki: Mike Tyson the baddest man on the planet

By 1990 Mike Tyson was a household name around the world for all the right reasons. Trading the tough streets of Bed Stuy and Brownsville in Brooklyn for the discipline of the boxing gym, Tyson personified the rags to riches story. After being arrested 38 times by the age of 13 Iron Mike inevitably found his way to a juvenile detention centre. Due of his history of violence and anger he was urged to take up boxing while inside to channel his aggression and immediately showed promise. His natural athleticism and boxing ability were shown to legendary trainer Cus D’Amato who pulled him out of juvie and brought him to his Catskills gym.

D’Amato was not only versed in a plethora of little known boxing techniques but was also extremely experienced in dealing with troubled kids, having turned round the lives of many hoodlums including Rocky Graziano and Floyd Patterson who both became world champions. The transformation from street brawler to accomplished amateur highlighted the skills of both fighter and trainer. D’Amato showed the young Tyson how best to use his short stocky frame and negate the reach disadvantage he would invariably suffer throughout his career as a 5″9 heavyweight. During this time Tyson’s mother passed away and he was legally adopted by Cus D’Amato, the only father figure he had known in his life.

Tyson missed out on the chance to represent the US at the Olympics in 1984 but that would soon be forgotten as he turned pro in March 1985 and blazed through 15 fights in that year winning all by knockout, 11 of those coming in the opening round. Unfortunately in November of that year, just days after his 11th win, Cus D’Amato passed away leaving 19 year old Tyson to all intents and purposes orphaned. Determined to fulfill D’Amato’s dream of training another world heavyweight champion, Tyson was straight back in the ring racking up 12 more wins in 1986 before preparing for a November World Title shot against Jamaican Olympian Trevor Berbick.

Berbick had only been champion for 8 months but was a seasoned heavyweight who had previously fought Larry Holmes and had ended the career of Muhammad Ali with his unanimous decision victory over the legend. Tyson’s speed and power were no respecters of records though and he subsequently demolished Berbick, stunning him at the end of the first round before flooring him twice in the second. Tyson was crowned the youngest ever heavyweight champion at just 20 years and 4 months old and stood by his declaration that he wished to fight the worlds best by taking on 2 more champions the following year.

Iron Mike added the WBA belt to his WBC title after beating ‘Bonecrusher’ Smith in his next fight before knocking out former champion Pinklon Thomas. In only his third defence he became the first heavyweight champion in history to hold all 3 titles at once, after a decision victory over IBF champ Tony Tucker. Tyson continued to clear out the division despite his tender age, successfully defending against legend Larry Holmes and top contenders Tubbs, Spinks and Britain’s own favourite Frank Bruno. By the end of the decade however, his troubles outside of the ring were mounting. A failed marriage to Robin Givens, a punch-up with Mitch Green and dismissal of trainers Kevin Rooney and Teddy Atlas left him alienated, alone and under the control of the less than savoury Don King.

The 90’s would continue as the eighties had ended with the controversy and disruption that had begun to shroud his personal life following him into the ring. It seemed his life had come full circle as the taunts and mocking of his high pitched voice and lisp which had drawn him into many streetfights as a child returned, this time coming from a media desperate to find a chink in his armour. Iron Mike would spend the decade between jail cells, comeback fights and ridiculous money making promotions like WWF wrestling. For half a decade he was ‘the baddest man on the planet’, an undisputed champion and icon of invincibility, immortalised in countless video games, TV shows and films. A product of the tough streets and a victim of a cold society he was arguably the last great heavyweight champion.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Edited: September 11th, 2008