Custom Troops

I was surfing the net for information on Comic Con (America’s largest Comic and Film convention, held in San Diego in July this year), and in amongst the film promotions and photos of fat Goths dressed like Anime characters (shudder), I spotted these nifty custom made Storm Trooper figures.

Star Wars can be a bit of a dirty word these days, what with those piss-awful prequel films molesting us in the face. However, I still have a lot of love for the design of the characters from the original trilogy (before Lucas finger fucked it with CGI like some drunk Step-Father on Christmas Eve, that is). I also crack a fat over genre hybrids, which you probably already knew.

Here are the pictures (I ganked from MWCToys and i-mockery).







I love the fact that somebody had a Stormtrooper figure and thought “You know what?, I’m going to turn this fucking thing into a fly and stick it on some fruit!”. Star Wars fans can be pretty creative. Check out this guy:

What’s his story? Where did he go dressed like that? A job interview? Wherever he was, no doubt he kicked some ass.

And check out this invention, by some kind of sex toy MacGyver:

Do you have anything that innovative in your bedroom?

Didn’t think so.

201st

Hi kids, I’ve been in Asia for a few weeks so haven’t had time to post – but more on that later.

We were due for a milestone, so here it is:

Bit of a random number I agree, but the Grand Final post took up the coveted 200th spot, and you know how I hate to see an achievement go by unheralded, so here we are. The 201st post.

Here are a few stats for you to stare at nonchalantly:

Accumulated number of words (not including this post): 103,890.

The average novel is between 80,000 – 100,000 words. So if you have read every post I have ever written, that time could have been spent reading an actual book. Or even two novellas. You could have read George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground, and still had enough words left over to read a dozen short stories. Instead, you chose to read about me eating booger flavoured jelly beans.

Unique hits: 10,620

Page views: 15,915

It amused me to see the stats counter click over the 10k mark, to know that the shoddy blog with all it’s dead hooker charm had that many visits. 10,000 hits might not seem a lot to some bloggers (who could rack that up in a single day), but I was pleased with that figure seeing how I haven’t followed the four golden rules of blogging:

1. Written quality articles.
2. Updated on a regular basis.
3. Promoted the blog.
4. Christmas Carded.

In the case of rule number three: promoting the blog; I pretty much started the shoddy blog, told a handful of people about it – and then left it at that. I haven’t made any attempts to encourage more readers to attend this barrage of filth and fury, and I still have long standing friends (some who often get mentioned on the site) who have no idea this blog actually exists. I prefer to have this tight little community of likeminded cretins (that’s you, kids) then letting the whole world know I’m here. Do I really want potential employers to read about my rants on flicking the bean? Or for potential girlfriends to hear about me head butting the homeless? Or for my great Aunt May to grab a hot cup of tea, sit down in front of her computer, and engage herself in my online witticisms of spinning plates on my morning boners?

It’s just not a blog for mass consumption. If I notify my fellow face-bookers of an update, I do it in code: Status Update - ”beef has updated the shoddy b”. Those who are down with the sickness will know what I am on about, the rest are left in the dark.

And though my parents are aware I have a web-site, as far as I know they’ve never been here. (But if you are reading: Hi mum, and sorry for tackling you when I drank too much red wine when I was 17 and mistook you for a burglar).

In the case of rule number four: Christmas Carding; the tried and true way of building a readership on a blog, is to visit other blogs and make yourself known. If you visit a blog, and leave a comment – then that blogger feels obliged to come back and visit your blog, and leave a comment on yours. After all, it’s the polite thing to do. Visit 50 blogs, comment, and voila – you’ll have 50 more hits before the day is through (and probably 50 comments too). If you spot regular commenters on the blogs you have commented on, then you can harass those people as well – until you have one giant spider web of people commenting on each other’s blogs (aka the blogosphere). I like to call this phenomenon “Christmas Carding”, due to the level of obligation.

Of course, it isn’t all just vapid small talk etched into cyber-space. Genuine ideas and knowledge can be passed back and forth, and real friendships can be forged with people you would otherwise have never met. It all depends on the level of energy you have for such things, of which unfortunately I have fuck all.

I’ve only been visiting a handful of blogs over the years, of which I have included in the link section to the right (fuck, I’ve been meaning to update that thing for a few years now, the Chewbacca blog was taken offline back in 2007). Ironically, I wouldn’t have known about most of these if they hadn’t first commented on my site. Bart, Eris, Lala and Ozi you’ll probably be familiar with, the newest addition is Billo – who is easily the best photographer I know, so go check out his stuff.

To Bart, Eris and Lala – apologies for my absence in your comments sections, know it was due to laziness and not disrespect. No need to apologise to Ozi, he is well aware of my slothfulness, having spent most of his Uni days trying to drag me out of bed.

So anyway, this is how my figures look as per comments over the years:

2006 – 265 comments (3.9 comments per post)

2007 – 209 comments (3.5 comments per post)

2008 – 34 comments (2.1 comments per post)

2009 – 33 comments (0.6 comments per post)

Most of those comments are from casual readers, and not other bloggers. It’s hard to imagine, but we were having entire conversations in the comments boxes at one point (I racked up 34 comments in a single week back in December 06). Compare that to this year, when at one point I received one comment in a 13 post stretch.
My own slackness in commenting is a factor in this outcome. Also, I squandered a lot of momentum I built in those earlier years with an obscene tardiness of posts in 2008 – I think a lot of readers dropped by the wayside at that point. Maybe I’ve jumped the shark with this blog, I certainly get a sense of de ja vu when writing about drunken antics and hangovers, and no doubt my life was more interesting to read about when I was living in a derelict flat in London, as opposed to my current situation of just hanging around Adelaide. All of these factors have something to do with it, but probably the biggest shock to the blogosphere is the rise of facebook, and to a lesser extent twitter.

Back in 2006, blogging was a novelty – as there was a small percentage of people willing to post their pictures and opinions on the internet. Now with the advent of facebook, everybody is doing it. Millions of people who couldn’t be arsed with MySpace, have logged on to the social network of facebook – posting photos, exchanging opinions, taking polls, writing movie reviews, the list goes on. I know of a few bloggers who lost interest in the realm of blogging, and turned their attentions to the upkeep of their facebook profiles, which is, to be honest, a far simpler soap box to stand on. That is what facebook essentially is, millions of small blogs tied together.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing, quite the opposite. The more people involved, the merrier.

At the end of the day, I still get comments about posts I write all the time – but through emails, facebook messages, phone calls and conversations I have at the pub. Nobody can be fucked actually logging in to blogger to leave their comments, and I’m fine with that.

However, it does look pretty fucking lame when every post is full stopped with a glaring “0 comments” reminder. So I’m going to meet you guys halfway on this, and remove the comments function altogether.

If you feel the burning urge to slap me in the face with an opinion, contact me by email:

beefabeef@yahoo.com

Just make sure you put shoddy blog as the subject heading, or I’ll think it’s spam and delete it.

Christ, enough pontification. One last set of stats for ya:

Number of posts per year:

2006 starting March: 68 posts (average of 6.8 posts per month)

2007: 60 posts (average of 5 posts per month)

2008: 16 posts (average of 1.3 posts per month)

2009 up until November: 57 posts (average of 5.7 posts per month)

Though not as prolific as the inaugural year, 2009 certainly hasn’t been tardy in any respect. Stay tuned, as we worm our way into 2010.

If you keep reading it, I’ll keep writing it.

The vinegar stroke

The Grand Final was an epic affair, down to the wire with Geelong winning by 12 points. The game wasn’t without controversy, with Tom Hawkins of Geelong hitting the goal post with a kick, which was awarded a goal by the umpire (non AFL fans note, hitting the post counts as a miss) towards the end of the second quarter. This was followed soon after by an angry Darren Milburn, believing (incorrectly, according to replays) that he had touched Koschitzke's kick off the boot, giving away an additional free kick on the goal-line for abusing the goal umpire. This free kick gave the Saints an easy goal with just five seconds remaining in the half.

I tried to find footage of Hawkins’ faux-goal on You Tube, but came back empty handed. So instead, here is a monkey reenacting the well scene from The Ring.



I don't really have much else to report on the Grand Final day, as I had to work that night so kept the alcohol consumption to a minimum, so there are no bawdy tales to amuse you with.

Besides the AFL Grand Final however, there have been other notes of interest in the world of Football.

Jimmy’s three PAOC sides won their Grand Finals.

The Southern Eagles (The merged team of Edithburgh, Western United and Yorketown) won the Yorke Peninsula Grand Final.

Three of my cousins play for the Kingston Saints, who lost to Kyby in the KNTFL Grand Final.

Sam England’s POC team missed out on a Grand Final berth by one goal.

Probably of most interest, however, is the SANFL Grand Final which is happening tomorrow afternoon. Sturt are taking on Central Districts at AAMI Stadium, which will involve me watching the game and sinking beers in my flat with a few felons: Muel, Burge and Campbell. I knew Burge was in town, but Campbell and Muel appeared out of thin air at my door step like a couple of ancient Chinese Demons today, and left me shaking in cold fear.

Foreigners wondering what the SANFL is by the way: it is the South Australian league consisting of nine local teams, and is the second strongest league in Australia. It’s kind of like a younger sister to the top league, a Uran to the AFL’s Astroboy if you will.

Not entirely sure what Astro is doing to his sister in this picture,
but they both look guilty as fuck.

I was a Sturt supporter as a younger man (a legacy passed on by father), an interest that kind of fell by the wayside when the Crows entered the AFL, and I’ve only followed them this year in an extremely casual capacity. So if you’re thinking I’m “jumping on the bandwagon” tomorrow, you would be mostly correct. Just to add insult to injury, I’ve actually placed a bet that Centrals will win by 20-39 points, due to a prophetic dream I had a few nights ago. So I am supporting Sturt, but betting money they will lose.

Make sense? Didn’t think so.

Anyway, after tomorrow afternoon Football Season is over for another six months, which means I won’t bamboozle you kids with sports banter for quite some time. You lucky bastards.

Welcome to the shit fight

I’ve had a lazy day off, and thought I would take a break from Arkham Asylum (the new Batman game I hired from Blockbuster today) to drop into the Shoddy Blog and post some stuff.

Uncle Beef has been negligent of late, but with good reason. The Fuller Brothers and Yatesy descended onto the city like a tropical cyclone, and a battle against sobriety was fought and won. For a few weeks there I was swept up in the madness like a rat in the Hadron Collider, but that is in the past now. It is time to write some shoddy material.

Besides, Arkham Asylum was starting to agitate me. It’s a great game, sure. But Batman has an awesome array of fight moves, and spends the entire game knocking people out. He never actually kills anybody.

So many times I’ll be fighting an inmate on top of a building, and want to throw him off to his doom, only to have old Bats give the guy a concussion and leave him there safe and sound to sleep it off.

The irony is that controlling a character with a no-kill policy, is in fact killing me. I want to snap some necks, I want to be knee deep in blood. I turned on the PlayStation 3 to sate my bloodlust, not dish out justice through a series of inconvenient head aches. Christ, in Grand Theft Auto IV you can’t even drive to the corner store for a carton of milk without running down a dozen innocent people, and hearing the glorious crunch of flesh and bone versus speeding metal. It just doesn’t pay to be a Super Hero these days. Oh well.

Anyway, a lot has happened in the footy since last time we chatted. After spending time and energy creating enormous posts on rounds 19, 20 and 21 of the footy season – I will now attempt to wrap up round 22, the Elimination Finals, the Semi Finals and the Preliminary Finals in a single, compact, Goblin-Fuck update.

The Crows kicked Carlton’s ass in the round 22 match up in one of the best games I have seen them play, winning by a pant destroying 12 goals and securing us in fifth place for a home ground final. The game also featured a great mark by Brett Burton:



The commentator all but fills his pants with cock vomit, loudly declaring it ”ZOMG THE MARK OF THE CENTURY!!!1!” - not only declaring it the best mark of the last nine seasons, but also of the following eighty one years as well. Gotta love Sports Hyperbole.

This match was one of those days were all of the players on the ground were playing at their peak, and I left the game hoping the Crows hadn’t blown all their jizz before the finals got underway.

It turned out my fears were unsubstantiated, as the Crows took on Essendon at AAMI stadium and pretty much date-raped the Bombers for a quarter or two, before burying them up to their necks on the back lawn and running over there pleading heads with a lawnmower. The Crows won by 96 fuck you points.

I was at the game in the third row, part of a birthday weekend that started Friday night with the Crows game, and finished Monday morning at 5:30am at Dr Zhivago’s, with me sitting at a table by myself for an entire hour until I was sober enough to remember my pin number, so that I could get some cash out for a taxi ride home.
Muel (who was in town and staying with me) found me on the couch later that morning, asleep with a bag of groceries resting on my stomach. The shopping consisted of a bag of pop corn, a can of corn, a can of beans, and some potato chips. I have no idea where I picked this stuff up, or what I was planning to do with it for that matter.

I got up off the couch, went to my bedroom, and promptly walked straight past my bed and into the wall. I was obviously still hammered, and memories of the weekend flickered through my mind like Butterflies through a sewer. I almost won $250 grand at the Casino. I watched Robocop on a back-seat screen in the Dickslap-Mobile. I ran into two old work colleagues, three people from Edithburgh, and five from High School. I spent a juvenile amount of time folding Dollar bills into paper planes, and throwing them back and forth with a group of lesbians sitting opposite to us on the Crazy Horse catwalk. Speaking of which, at least two dancers at that establishment knew me by name, leading me to believe I’ve gone there one too many times this year. That might also explain the permanent nipple marks in my forehead.

I made a mental note to give the place a miss for a while, as I climbed into bed to get one more precious hour’s sleep before I had to head off to work.

For some reason I thought turning 32 would be a simple affair, as always, I stand corrected.

The following Saturday had Teoby rouse me from my hungover slumber at about lunch time. I was still hurting from the night before – which consisted of a trip to the Alma Hotel for a few quiet drinks to watch the Bulldogs destroy the Brisbane Lions. Somehow, a few quiet drinks had slowly degraded into me trying to eat a Kebab on Hindley Street at about three in the morning, leaning on a table top that wasn’t actually connected to anything, and landing flat on my back in spectacular fashion, damn near breaking my elbow in the process. It didn’t hurt at the time, but it sure as hell Saturday afternoon as I had my sorry ass dragged out of bed, and on to the Colonist, drinking feminine pink Stoli drinks on the way (seriously, that was the only roadies we could find in my fridge – I still have no idea who put them there. But just quietly, they were curiously refreshing). Our trip to the Colonist involved us playing pokies (winning about $800 too by god), and instructing the barmaid on the importance of getting your “five fruit or veg a day”, as we proceeded to drink our way through five Vodka and Apple juices. This behavior wasted enough of the day to bring the next Football match around, the all important Crows vs Collingwood decider. I headed off to the Alma with Muel to watch the game.

The Alma is part owned by the ex Crows Captain Mark Riccutto, who since retiring from the game now plays in the Prince Alfred College Old Collegians A grade – a team my old London flatmate Jimmy plays for. This is relevant, because the PAC A grade, B grade and C grade all played in the Grand Final earlier that day…and all three teams won. Which, of course, made their team pub (the Alma) a Mecca for three teams worth of drunk celebratory footballers. There was a massive hour long line up to get in the pub, which was kind of lost on Muel and myself when we stumbled through the rear entrance to a birthday dinner party purely by mistake, and made our way to the bar.

There’s nothing like watching a finals game in a packed pub, the atmosphere was amazing for the Crows/Collingwood clash. Sadly, there’s also nothing like losing a finals game by less than a goal to knock the wind out of your sails – Collingwood swapping their one point loss for a five goal win, by kicking a goal in the final minutes. Adding insult to injury, their goal was due to a free kick (or penalty, to you non-convicts), which brought back memories of Australia dropping out of the world cup to Italy due to a last minute penalty. Only this time, the free kick was due to our Full back Rutton impeding the player and was rightfully given, not due to some Italian dick-splash taking a dive in front of goal. I drank and chatted with Jimmy and other assorted felons until about 3am, then stumbled home like a wild bear with ten tranquilizers in his back.

I moped over the Crows loss for a week, before turning my attention to the Preliminary Finals. Thankfully it was a low key affair to watch Saint Kilda beat the Bulldogs by seven points at the Rob Roy – “a few beers while we watch the game”, actually turned into a few beers while we watched the game. Heaven fucking forbid. I was home by 11pm. The Geelong vs Collingwood game was an even lower key affair for me, I watched half the game at home before heading off to work. A workmate gave me the score at the office – Geelong winning by an impressive 77 points.

So there we have it kids, the shit fight is over and we are down to the final two teams. I’m actually happy it was these two teams to come out of the Preliminary Finals, I have close mates who follow both teams (Matt supports Geelong, while Dowling is a Saint Kilda fan), and it will also be the match up of the super teams first predicted back in mid season. I wouldn’t have been as interested in the final if it had been between Collingwood and the Bulldogs. True, they were the form sides going into the finals, but I honestly just don’t give much of a shit about either of those sides.

One game to go kids, Geelong vs Saint Kilda this coming Saturday afternoon. The pressure will be on for Saint Kilda, as they haven’t won a premiership since 1966. To give you a rough idea of how long ago that was, Ned Kelly won the Brownlow that year.

Penultimate

Round 21 found me sitting in AAMI stadium drinking booze with a few of the lads, and watching the Crows decimate the West Coast Eagles by 72 points. This was followed by a bus ride into town (this time we thankfully were not subjected to endless renditions of the rival club song), and more beers at the Rob Roy.

We watched the Port game with a mild trepidation, and drank original recipe cocktails that the Barmaid wanted our opinion on (as she was entering the recipes into a competition, or some shit). At one point Prowse and I became a bit restless so decided to crash the private party in the back bar of the pub. We managed to infiltrate the show for all of about five minutes, when a middle aged woman approached at us at the bar. She mentioned to us that the birthday girl did not recognize us, and then politely requested we leave – and as we got to the door she added as an afterthought ”By the way…Piss Off”.

I eased the pain of social rejection by eating a Haggis and drinking more shitty cocktails, proving a well established fact that if you put something random on your bar menu, I will order it.

The Shogra scores for Round 21:

Western Bulldogs 110
Geelong 96

0/15

Carlton 153
Melbourne 96

0/15

Adelaide 122
West Coast Eagles 48

25/ 25.

Brisbane Lions 107
Port Adelaide 92

0/10


Collingwood 97
Sydney 56

0/15

Final grade for Round 21 is 31.25%. This has been the worst percentage yet, and it shows – our chances of making the top four have become even slimmer (near impossible), yet the chance of dropping to seventh place is very real. The results of just two games in the next round could cost us our home ground final.

Speaking of which, the next round coming up is the final round of the season and so a Shogra scoring system is irrelevant. Besides, I have spent enough time amusing myself/boring the shit out of you guys with this grading system, and will give it a rest until the later rounds of next Season.

I’ve already designed a new system to put into action for 2010, it involves a combination of Numerology, Astrology, and getting a palm-reader to read the lines in Graham Cornes’ craggy-ass face:

And this picture is from about 20 years ago too.

As for Round 22, there are basically three scenarios that could happen:

Best Case Scenario:

The Western Bulldogs lose by ten goals.
The Crows win by ten goals.

This would allow the Crows to take the fourth spot on percentage points, but is highly unlikely.

Middle Measure Scenario

The Crows lose.
The Brisbane Lions lose.

The Crows lose, but still retain sixth place for a home ground final.


Worst Case Scenario

The Crows lose.
The Brisbane Lions win.

This would allow the Lions to take sixth place, and therefore the home ground final.


Time will tell.

And now I will attempt to dissect the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Just kidding. MORE FOOTBALL NEWS!!!

I’m no doubt boring the pubes off you non-AFL fans with these footy posts, but there is only a couple of rounds to go, and then I will STFU for a good few months regarding the sport.

Anyway, Round 20 approached us and so I turned to my email account to chat with the boys on a possible venue. Choosing a pub is a lot harder than you would think, and we have been let down many times by various locations around Adelaide. The Cooper’s Alehouse, for instance, is a pub specializing in our South Australian beer – yet they seem to treat Ausse Rules (South Australia’s favourite sport) with a snobbish disdain. ”We aren’t a football pub” a barmaid once told us, after we requested having one of their five televisions switched over to a Crows game. Meanwhile, their plasma screens showed a combination of Rugby and Golf.

Who the fuck goes to a pub to watch golf?

Besides John Daly I mean, and can we really include that walking heart attack in the consensus? The bastard is so fat that when hookers get on top of him their ears pop. True story.

sexy

I’ve singled out the Alehouse, but there have been many other establishments to turn us away like a pregnant Mary on Christmas Eve. I’m not saying a swanky cocktail bar should switch it’s Music Videos over to Channel Seven so I can ”check the score”. But that sleepy worker’s pub round the corner with the three televisions and fuck all patronage, would it kill them to chuck a bit of footy on for a group of paying customers?

So after getting stung a few times, we were certainly open to suggestions. I was inspired by Stranger’s proposal – he had seen an advertisement for the Elephant, boldly declaring their promise to show every single AFL game. The Elephant was a British pub off Rundle Street, and though Guinness and Aussie Rules was not an obvious combination, it was certainly one that tickled my fancy.

Friday evening was soon upon us, and Stranger, Richo and your humble narrator found themselves with a pretty decent table, sitting in the crowded front bar of the British pub waiting for the game to start.

We thought everything was looking roses as we sipped our Guinness, until we noticed the time and a mild panic started to set in. It was five minutes until first bounce (the AFL’s equivalent of “kick off”), and the TV was showing a Korean Boxing match.

I approached a young barmaid at the bar to assess the situation.

Me: Hi, your ad said that you show any AFL game.

Barmaid: yes we can show any AFL game.

Me: Great, can you put on the Crows game.

Barmaid: yes, we can put on the Crows game.

Me: …uh…can you put it on now?

Barmaid: yes, we can put it on now.

This was followed by an awkward silence as we both stood there staring at each other for about a minute. For some reason my simple request had locked me into a rhetorical battle of wits with one of Batman’s villains.

Luckily (or so I thought) the manager came over to inquire about my problem.

Me: Can we get the Crows game on?

Manager: Sure, what channel is it on?

Me (thinking that maybe their boastful ad had been a crock of shit, seeing how they didn’t even know what channel it was on): Channel Seven.

Manager: Okay, just give me a minute to program the television, it’s only set to Foxtel channels.

Obviously we had missed some kind of small print on the pub’s advertisement. They must have been showing every game, except for the Adelaide ones. After watching the manager try to program channel seven onto the screen for about ten minutes, we decided to cut our losses and head out the pub door and into the heart of the city.


Of course, the problem was that we were on Rundle Street, and there is probably no worse place to be when you have a yearning for televised sport. There were plenty of pubs, just not the ones we needed. The Austral’s bohemian clientele were too busy sipping red wine and discussing Master Chef to concern themselves with football. The great unwashed inside the Exeter were busy comparing tribal tattoos and body odour, and were no doubt unfussed with the Crow’s chances against Hawthorn. The Crown and Anchor could provide us with barmaids with shaved heads and vampire fangs, but could not provide televised sport. It seemed hopeless.

At this point Richo revealed a desperate contingency plan – he had once watched football at the Oyster Bar, a tiny and kind of pricey venue, but one that was close to our current position. We legged it to the bar to find three seats in front of the corner TV, which the bartender was more than happy to put the football on for us.

We had made it just in time to see the Crows get their arses kicked in the first quarter, which thankfully tuned out to be the traditional “Crows sole shitty Quarter” for the game, and they ended up beating Hawthorn by 27 points. Turns out that The Oyster Bar is a decent place to watch the football, and I would happily return.

Google image search reveals this picture for “Oyster Bar”. Funny, I don’t remember it like that.

Although one flaw in my plan was the lack of food (aka “blotting paper”) to absorb the barrage of alcohol. I had planned for a solid steak and chips meal at The Elephant, and swapped that for half a dozen oysters instead. Lack of food on a drinking night is my kryptonite, and it didn’t help when my sister arrived at the bar and dragged me to the Irish pub next door after the game, where we drank until closing.

I awoke the next day in a million little pieces.

The Shogra System grade for Round 20:

HAW 67
ADEL 94
22.5/25

RICH 59
COLL 152
0/15

BL 84
WB 102
0/15

SYD 87
GEEL 92
8/10

PORT 67
CARL 121
0/10

ST K 108
ESS 110
7/10

Final Grade is 37.5/85, which is 44.1%. That is the best percentage we have had so far, but still not much of a life changing grade. The score is neither fantastic (we have not made the top 4), nor terrible (we have not jeopardized our final eight chances either), but floating somewhere in between (oh, the ugly grey mediocrity of life. Must you permeate the world of sports also?).

The Crows are now at least three wins clear of the teams vying for a position in the top eight, so with only two games left in the minor rounds, it means the Crows have made the finals.

The see-saw antics continue, as the next games will decide whether the Crows will make the top four (still a slim chance) or failing that, lose the home ground final (by finishing in 7th position).

These are five games that will affect the Crows standing on the ladder, any match involving a team already in the top four will rank out of 15. Any match outside the top four, but vying for a position will rank out of 10. The Crows game will rank out of 25. We want team A to win in each category:

B Western Bulldogs vs
A Geelong

Geelong winning would improve our chances of taking a top four spot over the Bulldogs, who are one win ahead of us. If Bulldogs win, and the Crows win their match, then there is still an extremely slight chance we can take that fourth spot. Match will score out of 15.

B Carlton vs
A Melbourne

Carlton are neck and neck with the Crows on the ladder, equal on wins but only ahead of us by 2.68%. They could jeopardize our chances for that top four spot. Match will score out of 15.

B Adelaide vs
A West Coast Eagles

Naturally, we need to win this and preferably by a large margin. Match will score out of 25.

B Brisbane Lions vs
A Port Adelaide

Another one of those freak weekends where you will find me hoping for a Port win. Brisbane could nudge the Crows out of sixth spot (and taking the home ground final away from us, those filthy fucking Queenslanders). If we lose and Brisbane wins, they will leap frog us on the ladder – because they have those two points from the Draw with Essendon up their sleeve. Bastards.

B Collingwood vs
A Sydney

If Collingwood lose the next two games (unlikely) and the Crows win the next two, then there is a chance for us to reach the top four. If Collingwood win this game, then the Crows will not be able to chase them next round. Any Collingwood win will give this match a 0/15 score.



For those of you who are still confused by the Shogra System, here is a diagram I created:


Hang on, that’s not it. I must have loaded the wrong JPEG file. Try this:

Damn it, that’s not it either. What’s wrong with the Blogger image uploader? I created this awesome diagram on how the grading system works, and now I can’t get it up onscreen. One more try:



Ah fuck it. Forget it.

Round 19 Results

Round 19 waltzed into town, jerked off on our sleeping faces, and then left without so much as a goodbye.

I sat in AAMI Stadium on Saturday night in the cold sipping XXXX beer from a plastic up, and watched the Crows flounder around the oval like a bunch of dying seagulls who had been fed Panadol laced bread by a school yard bully.

I had a bad feeling two minutes into the game that the Crows were having one of their “off days”. Collingwood didn’t play so well either, but they played a damn sight better than the Crows and rightfully took the win. Collingwood beat Adelaide 89 to 68.

My reward for making the pilgrimage to AAMI Stadium was the resulting “Ride of Shame” back to the city centre with Richo, where we got to stand in a crowded bus and listen to the Collingwood Club Anthem sung repeatedly. We amused ourselves by striking up a conversation with a few Collingwood fans about the rest of the season and the resulting finals. It probably comes as a surprise to the foreign readers (especially the Soccer fans) that the two rival fan bases board the same buses home after a game, but that’s just the way it has always been in these parts.

We got off the bus in the city at about 11pm to catch up with mates and drown our sorrows. The venue of choice was the cocktail bar Lotus Lounge, whereby I lined up at the bar for half an hour and paid $34 for four beers (seriously, fuck that place), before we headed off for greener pastures. It had been a tiring week of Sparrow-Fart and Graveyard-shifts at work so I was hoping to have an earlyish night – which of course resulted in me stumbling out of the Crazy Horse at 5 am stinking of Stella, cheap perfume and mild shame.

The Shogra System for Round 19:

CARL 97
GEEL 62
0/10

WB 97
WCE 102
8/10

ESS 87
BL 87
7.5/10

ADE 68
COLL 89
0/20

FRE 116
PORT 74
10/10

The Essendon vs Brisbane game was a draw - as a slight Brisbane win was going to rate a 7, and a slight Essendon win an 8, a draw scores 7.5.

Final Grade for Round 19 = 25.5/60, or 42.5%. Which is half a percent less than last week’s result, so, yes, another mediocre weekend of football (as far as the Crows final four chances are concerned).

The peculiar problem with the Crows current position on the ladder (and the overall closeness of the teams standings), is that they still have a chance to make the top four….but also have an outside chance of not making the finals at all.

If you’re not an Aussie Rules fan, then these posts have probably been boring the shit out of you and you haven’t been reading them all the way through. But if you are wondering what all the fuss is about finishing in the final four, observe the following diagram I ganked from Wikipedia:

Finishing in the top four means you play in the first week of finals. If you win, you go straight through to the preliminary final. If you lose, you get a second chance in the semi final.

Finishing in the bottom four is not as advantageous. If you win , you have to then slog it out in the semi. If you lose? Game Over, man. Game Over.

So if your team doesn’t make it in the top for, you at least want to finish in positions 5 or 6. That would mean the first final game for your team would be a home game. The home ground advantage can make all the difference.
Wikipedia has more information on the advantage of ladder positions here. Learning is fun.

Losing to Collingwood put a serious dent in the Crows top four campaign, but there still is a slight chance we can do it, though a fifth (or sixth) place is probably the more reasonable goal.

New changes to the grading system for Round 20: the Crows game is ranked out of 25, games that affect our top four chances are ranked out of 15, games that can affect our final eight chances are ranked out of 10. In each case we want team A to win. Team A winning by more than five goals = 100%, two to five goals = 90%, less than two goals = 80%. Team B winning by less than two goals = 70%.

Here are the six games that will make a difference for round 20:

A. ADEL
B. HAW
Out of 25

A. RICH
B. COLL
Out of 15

A. BL
B. WB
Out of 15

A. GEEL
B. SYD
Out of 10

A. PORT
B. CARL
Out of 10

A. ST K
B. ESS
Out of 10

Sam

We’ve had ourselves yet another premature celebrity death, only this time it’s a damn sight sadder than the passing of Michael Jackson.

Sam the koala, mascot of hope during the Victorian bush fires and cherished marsupial here at the Shoddy Blog, was put down on Thursday due to inoperable abdominal cysts brought on by a case of Chlamydia.

A workmate was telling me he heard of the death on the radio, and that the presenter had suggested the koala caught Chlamydia off the water bottle the Fireman had given her. Rest assured this is not the case, urogenital chlamydiosis affects up to 50 percent of the koala population and in Sam’s case the infection had become so severe the vets would not be able to manage the pain.

Judging by “Shock Jock” Kyle Sandilands’ handling of a 14 year old girl’s rape ordeal (which had happened to her when she was 12), I’m unsurprised that there’s a radio presenter out there suggesting our local volunteer fireman are out in the scrub infecting the wild life with sexually transmitted diseases.

Fuck em. I find commercial radio unbearable anyway, hopefully the stations burn down in the next bush fire.



RIP Sam.