Minge - The Album

There's a certain breed of hashtag trends on Twitter that really gets me going. I eagerly anticipate the next one to appear on the right hand side of the screen, so I can let loose and have a little bit of light wordplay fun. Recent examples include replacing one word of a movie title ("FILM, FILM, FILM!!!" he screams) with the word 'grind', adding the words 'in my pants' to a film title (yep, that one was fine), and replacing a word in a famous quote with 'duck'. It's all rather jolly good fun. The most recent one, today, clearly captivated me - so much so that I tweeted 30 different contributions, for which I am (slightly) genuinely sorry. It hit me later though, that an album compiling all of these songs should be made; with each track re-recorded to make a little more sense in terms of the hashtag trend. In this case, 'making more sense' was having the word 'minge' chucked into the title instead of 'love'. So, without further ado I present to you...

Minge - The Album

1. Aerosmith - Minge In An Elevator

2. The Beatles - All You Need Is Minge

3. The Beatles - Minge Me Do

4. The Beatles - Can't Buy Me Minge

5. Biffy Clyro - Minge Has A Diameter

6. Blur - I'm Just A Killer For Your Minge

7. Cream - Sunshine Of Your Minge

8. The Darkness - I Believe In A Thing Called Minge

9. The Enemy - Sing When You're In Minge

10. Girls Aloud - Minge Machine

11. Kasabian - Where Did All The Minge Go? 

12. Keane - Minge Is The End

13. The Killers - Ruby, Don't Take Your Minge To Town

14. Led Zeppelin - All My Minge

15. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Minge

16. Madness - Mingestruck

17. Madness - It Must Be Minge

18. Maroon 5 - This Minge

19. Muse - Neutron Star Collision (Minge Is Forever)

20. The Prodigy - One Minge

21. Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Minge

22. Queen - Too Much Minge Will Kill You

23. Queens Of The Stone Age - Misfit Minge 

24. Roxy Music - Minge Is The Drug

25. U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Minge)

26. Usher - Minge In This Club

27. White Lies - Bad Minge

28. The Who - Minge Reign O'er Me

29. Van Halen - Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Minge

30. Van Halen - Why Can't This Be Minge?

This is quite clearly the most ground-breakingly down to earth, mature and thoughtful piece of work I have ever done.

Mario Balotelli - The Flawed Genius Continues

'Super Mario', they've dubbed him. Although let's be honest, I'd much rather have the portly pipe-delving plumber in my team, and not the egocentric, infant-brained centre forward. We've (football fans) all seen it by now, and it's a pretty big talking point to take the football fan's mind off of transfer stories for a brief moment. Here's the story, and my view on the man himself.

Manchester City are playing in a pre-season friendly against LA Galaxy - you know, that team that nobody gave a shit about until Sir/Lord/Almighty David Beckham turned up. It's just over half an hour into the game, and City are already 1-0 up after scoring a penalty through none other than Mr Balotelli. Through on goal, in a position where he's more than likely to score with a swing of the right boot, Mario decides instead to turn on the style, twist himself around with his back to goal, and backheel the ball into the net. I'm sure as he begins to rotate, he can already hear the rapturous applause in his head, he can visualise the newspaper headlines, and the enhanced reputation he'll gain. Do you think though, he'd prepared for the possibility of dragging the ball wide of the mark and looking like a complete twat in the process? No, I don't think so either. Which is a real shame, because guess what happened?! Yep, he bloody missed the target, and was substituted immediately by manager Roberto Mancini. His team-mates were shocked and disgusted with him, and it's fair to say that the crowd didn't particularly like it either. 'Super' Mario Balotelli was booed off the field. Hiss. He then proceeded to argue with his boss on the touchline, before sulking off like the spoilt child that he is.

There have been claims that he thought he was offside, so what he did would have had no bearing on the game, but proving this would be more than difficult. If you watch the replay, he looks to be carrying on as normal with the intent of lighting up the game, and Mancini's claimed that Balotelli knew he was onside. David Beckham thinks otherwise and reckons that Mario thought he was offside, but since when did his opinion on a MANCHESTER CITY issue matter? That said, after being taken off the field for James Milner, Balotelli pointed to the linesman, and made a whistling gesture - indicating that he thought he'd been called offside.  Offside or not, that's not the point. Several days prior to this incident, a player called Awana Diab scored a cheeky backheel penalty for the United Arab Emirates in a comprehensive 6-2 win over Lebanon. He was booked, subbed off straight away (despite having only been on the field for 10 minutes), and now faces a disciplinary hearing in which he may be fined or suspended. Harsh. The point I'm trying to make here is that even if Balotelli's unorthodox attempt at goal had paid off, the reaction would likely have been the same. LA Galaxy fans would still have been riled, as would Roberto Mancini. The precedent had been set in the Far East, and I reckon Mario would still have been substituted. But why such radical reactions to these cases of seemingly harmless show-boating?

A hell of a lot has been said and (supposedly) done regarding 'respect' in football (or of course 'soccer', if you'd rather be incorrect) in recent years. The loose umbrella term of 'respect' covers the fair treatment of referees, players, opposing teams - you name it. I guess then, it seems that these acts of over the top, but undeniably lavish skill are seen as disrespectful to the opposing teams. This is fair enough, but at the end of the day, nothing in the rules of football states that a player shouldn't be allowed to show off a little lot. I can understand substituting the player, and giving him a stern word about the team being the greater good, and that respect is important. But being fined or suspended, or even just booked? Too far. You shouldn't be disciplined for something if it isn't classed as wrongdoing by the rules of the book.

Back to the sublime brilliance and abomination that is Mario Balotelli though. His career consists of many ups and downs for sure, but it's hard to ignore the plus-sides of the player - surely why Man City paid £22million to Inter Milan for his services nearly a year ago now. He's skilful, strong, pacey, and a good finisher. He's scored goals at the highest level, and he's been in and out of the Italian national team set-up for a while now. Crucially, he's young. Very young in fact; he turns 21 in August. The flip-side is that his attitude reeks like a sack of dog turd wrapped in burnt hair and soaked in melted Stinking Bishop. He was famously exiled to the reserve squad under José Mourinho at Inter Milan for his behavioural problems both off and on the pitch. This trend has continued at Manchester City, much to the dismay of Roberto Mancini, who must have thought there was a good chance that his juvenile ways were behind him. Last term, he scored 10 goals in 28 games for The Citizens - not too shabby for a debut season in a foreign country. However, he was sent off twice during the same 28 game period - quite concerning for a striker. Naughty boy. His indiscipline is clearly a major problem, and nobody's been able to control it as yet. The thing is, I don't want anybody to be able to control it. Balotelli should be a bit of a 'Marmite Man', but instead I find myself both loving and hating him at the same time.

Part of me believes that his attitude issues will leave bags of untapped potential, but then, a fair few of the best players the world has ever seen haven't exactly had the best personalities. Rise, Diego Maradona. Oh the many ways in which I hate you... The way I see it though, Balotelli is almost necessary to the Premier League. He's absolutely crazy, and you never know what to expect from him next. I can't tell you how copiously I laughed at Balotelli while he struggled to put his training bib on pre-match. Well, no, I lie, I can tell you. I laughed a lot. The thing is, without him, the top tier of English football would most definitely be a worse place. He's a consistent talking point, and for such varied reasons. That right there is entertainment at its very best.

Keep up the audacity, Super Mario.

Mentioned Video Clips

Mario Balotelli's Backheel Failure

The Bib Struggle

Awana Diab's Backheel Penalty

What Google’s Speech Recognition Thinks I’ve Been Saying

(The following paragraph is word for word what the ‘transcribe audio’ function on YouTube thought I was talking about in that crappy first video I posted with the volume of a mouse completely wrapped in gaffa tape, in an airtight container. I’ll try to add relevant punctuation so that it makes a little more sense. Apparently this function is unavailable for the second video. Don’t ask me why.)

“ Hello, there are people who use you all blogger quickly en route. Commitment would use that site, which is why is the puffing choice – reflects my book. All you have the hell, you sum up on the video. Uh…but have a lovely day and if not while, chabba. In an unprecedented move that nobody cares about, I decide to give myself one of the camera. By measures is one spirits? If he’s a wonderful newfangled medium of internet video tune for me of my blogs future plans – the chilling. If you got him a data bank that were present when the shift the usb the broken unplugged. If so, excellent almost buttressing heaped on the good the and needed me. Literacy. There, please go ahead; get ready for the screen. Past preventing the pollution all of your life and or in the vicinity hope your video viewing divine. Most probably a computer. While. Anyway, as usual, freaky made no sense of any person; want to know would you like southern manned by Julie Callahan? Old Bono is here with the shakes indoors unnecessarily, to inform you of mileage intentional poste mobile for the future. No sign of wall built next, but some monrovia things a funk cas and there is the right and only marginally more tried in the other publicity. Um…quantum reviews of both I’m with you about o_j_ pappas outlook that looks a bit up by the releases. Sohu pokes into September respectively. Morello site where you want us to fundamental to carry enough thoughts – come pretty soon, avoid become irrelevant. Uh…some point operate list of what I will cause the brain any prediction medium – for full command post season as twenty new methods. Uh…trough something general is a simple wheat crop up, ‘cause envelope like that. C subscribe for them. Is all for it? Yet sub such a slight chance I’ll get into regular voting, but you know you kiki can receive herman is is probably politically such action. “

Sound Issues Partially Combated!

Apparently my blog has now become a place for me to house a running commentary on the factors affecting whether or not I should take up blogging. I apologise for this. So this is what it's come to. Me with sunglasses on, sitting on my bed, tacky Guitar Hero microphone in hand, alone, talking to a laptop. Somebody once told me I had potential. What a fucking liar. For now, the video quality is still stuck in 240p, for which I am greatly embarrassed. I shall make moves to rectify the situation soonish. Hopefully along with the picture quality upgrade will come an audio quality upgrade. After all, as much as I love paying homage to Bono (I really fucking don't), I really think it would be best if my equipment wasn't so outdated - if only for the sake of me then being able to gesticulate wildly with both hands. Oh yes.

Amy Winehouse: 1983-2011

Attractive.

It’s always interesting when a famous person dies. The general current, the vibe is always of mourning, but there’s often a unique tinge to the feeling. For Amy Winehouse’s death, the tinge is half of bitterness due to it arguably being her own fault, and half of “what if?” – because the woman had undeniable talent and potential to further the talent into world music domination. I’m not going to sit here and preach about how amazing Amy Winehouse was in so many different ways, because in all honesty, I wasn’t much of a fan of her music or her personality and thus I’m not best suited to do her justice. All I know and will happily spread is that she had a wonderful voice and an amazing future ahead of her. She was 27 for God’s sake. Now, there’s been a lot said about how the media’s favoured coverage of this story over the horrendous happenings in Oslo only a couple of days prior. I for one, won’t be getting involved in that particular debate. Some could argue that with the death of a celebrity figure, more people will find themselves instinctively caring and feeling upset – even the younger ages. In fairness, this is probably true. I don’t know of many UK citizens who have cried about the Norway attack but I do know of people who have wept over the loss of Amy Winehouse. This is down to the fact that in reality, we (an assumed collective ignoring the friends and families of the Norwegian casualties) know a lot more about the pop-singing sensation than we do about the group of teens overseas. I don’t agree with this difference, but I can understand it. On the flipside, many will argue that what’s happened in Oslo is not only a far greater talking point but also a current event which deserves more of our time, thoughts and prayers than any other story being reported right now. This I agree with. I overlooked writing about the horrific, senseless killings because I find the whole thing overwhelmingly depressing. My already swiftly-dwindling faith in humanity on the whole has taken yet another severe knock. I’m disgusted and appalled that I’m part of the same race in which Behring Breivik has been living for all 32 years of his life. The man claims his actions were ‘gruesome but necessary’. Try explaining that point and backing it up, you fuckface. Back to the sudden death of Amy Winehouse though… What’s being said by many reporters, writers and bloggers is something that I can only echo. While her passing was shocking, I can’t say I was terribly surprised. We all knew she was in an ever-decreasing state of general health thanks to heavy alcohol and drug abuse, and so if any 27 year old celebrity was going to go, it would be her. That may sound pretty damn callous, but in my eyes it’s true. I was instinctively sad to hear the news, I genuinely was; the loss of human life is almost always a massive shame. Ultimately though, the notion that she was mostly responsible for bringing her untimely demise upon herself cannot be hidden. It’s tragic, sure – I’ve already pointed towards that, but it’s her fault. Some say that people around her didn’t help her as much as they should have done for the difficult periods of her life, but this puzzles me a bit. She went into rehab on more than one occasion (no, the time isn’t right for that joke) and her family certainly supported her with all they could. Her legacy may not be as strong as she may have wanted it to be, with only 2 albums released, but she’s popular as hell (hell being popular in this case) and wowed fans and critics alike with her fresh-sounding, jazzy pop. One thing’s for sure – Amy Winehouse, you will not be forgotten.

RIP

I’M ON VIDEO! (Who cares?)

In the past I’ve posted briefly on here, detailing future plans for the blog (and then deviating from them immediately afterwards) and to be honest, I kind of figured it was a little bit pointless. Bored and curious, I thought I’d say it in the form of a video instead – giving me a great opportunity to test my (limited) equipment and my on-camera manner. All things considered, this little video is awfully bad – mostly down to the fact that my webcam and microphone are quite atrocious, but also because I don’t really plan what I’m going to say -  looking and sounding like a royal **** (gives you freedom to choose the appropriate expletive) in the process. Regardless, here’s the video:

Thanks for watching, and if you didn’t, I certainly don’t blame you.

GoAnimate. Again.

When I get bored, I’ll do one of two things. Picture this as a flow diagram. In fact, no no, I’ll make one for you. I’m now going to go draw up some terrible flow diagram to help illustrate my point, on Microsoft Word. Luckily you won’t experience the massive delays that I’m experiencing, as you don’t have to fucking make the damned thing. Apologies for that outburst, it won’t happen again – I fucking promise. Shit. Right then, diagram complete, it’s time to show this bad boy off! ‘Bad boy’ because it’s bad, of course.

I understand that this is a little on the small side. I'm ever so sorry, but there was a formatting cock up when moving from Windows Live Writer to Blogger's own integrated post-writing tool.

As you can see, sleep is a pretty likely option for me. I’d calculate a percentage, but I’d doubtless get it wrong. Sleep is great – so much so that I now don’t really do much of it at night. I save it for the day! The above flowchart in sexy blue is not entirely representative of what happens when poor little Ben gets bored though. Sometimes other options will crop up, and today is one of those times. These times are fucking awkward, being exempt from the flowchart. Ideally the flowchart would be all-encompassing, but I guess that’d be a bit boring, and so the vicious cycle begins.

Back to reality though folks. I rediscovered the GoAnimate internet software that partners YouTube today; meaning I must be craving the act of creating shoddily animated and poorly voice ‘acted’ videos. No, no, no, I don’t understand myself either. I know what you’re thinking though, thinking aloud, screaming “Ben, Ben, what did you make?!” with excitement and anticipation only equalled by that of Rafael Nadal when he realises that Andy Murray is indeed very Scottish and so subsequently has an easy route to the Wimbledon men’s final. Something like that, no? No? I see. Too bad, ‘cause here’s what I made:

Savannah Rhyming

I’d tell you to enjoy it, but that would simply be demanding the impossible. My video will either demonstrate my video-making talents in the face of adversity (shite software), or simply how shite the software is.

You stay classy, San Diego interwebs.