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Friday 29 January 2010

Manmachine201 on the Federer Express.

Today I thought of the most amazing and awe inspiring pun that could be used in the Event of Roger Federer winning the Australian Open. It would indicate that Roger is fast and and that he amazing and the best. Do you want to hear it?... here we go... Federer Express! It's amazing isn't it. I phoned up the daily star and asked them if they would use it if Federer won on sunday and they said they might do unless someone emailed them with a better oun before they went to print so I e-mailed them back saying 'okay then' and then they e-mailed me saying 'yes it is'



Pun editor at the Daily Star

The problem with writing a blog about tennis is that the majority of people reading would stop reading a blog about tennis right... about... now.



15- love

So, I'll need to sex it up a bit, adding explosions, CGI, bizarre plot twists, political intrigue and unthinking violence. In essence, I am going to have to explain the Australian open as if it was a series of 24.

I haven't actually ever seen a series of 24 so I can't explain the Australian open to make it sould like it, so I can't really do it. But it was such a lovely idea that I thought I'd plant the seed before completely changing direction. I'll just explain it in a totally unbiased prose.

Roger Federer has won 15 grand slams in his career and is looking to win his 16th. Federer is considered the best tennis player in the history of tennis.



Roger Federer in between matches at last years ATP champion.

Federer has recently opened up a barage of abuse on Andy Murray who has enjoyed some of the best form in his career beating world number 2 Rafael Nadal and another favourite Marian Cilic. Murray is looking to win his first Grand Slam title having reached his second grand slam final.



Andy Murray



Some have said that Federer's attack on Murray was uncalled for and showed a lack of professionalism and sportsmanship on Rogers part, but it is important to keep a balanced view.

The stats between Federer and Murray are actually 60-40 in Murrays favour, so it isn't inconcievable that he might win his first Grand Slam, although it is the Australian open and the shittest out of all the opens.



whatever happens, it is going to be a good game and no doubt, one of them will win and become the australian open champion again.







They do look alike don't they?



I would also like to point out a typing error in the new zealand herald today. this is what it said...



We knew about Roger Federer's majestic forehand, his unreadable serve and his ice-cool temperament, but another quality was evident here last night as the greatest player in history prepared to face Andy Murray in tomorrow's Australian Open final.

What it should have said was.

We knew about Roger Federer's majestic FOREHEAD, his unreadable serve and his ice-cool IDIOT FACE, but another quality was A MASSIVE PENIS GROWING OUT OF HIS OWN FREAKISH SHAPED HEAD last night as the greatest player in history prepared to face Andy Murray in tomorrow's Australian Open final.

Thats about all I have to say on that really. I don't really want to come across as one of those pims drinking Henman fans but Murray has a set of nuts on him and he can really fucking play so I hope he slaps federer until his head looks normal.

Wednesday 20 January 2010

Manmachine201's uneasy guide to long awkward silences.

It is 20 days inside of the year of our lord twenty ten, and already the gaps between these blurbs are appearing longer and longer. Gone are the days when you could check this page every 10 minutes and there would be some vitriolic update about shitting pissing vomiting and wanking. If you're lucky you might get me telling you you have to listen to an album you've probably already heard, and if you haven't heard probably wouldn't want to.

So far, its all about these silences that fall between these blogs... what are they? Why are they there? It is easy to look at them as gaps between Iced Glaciers in Antarctica...



...but you'd be stupid for actually thinking that was what they were. The fact is they are caused by a very strange but ultimately, mundane life, but it is this life which is ruining this blogspot. Already several key events that I would normally have swarmed over have passed by without comment plainly because my computer access at the time has been limited to 7 minutes of looking at pornography, causing the Manmachine201 project to fall into dissaray, and as the old saying goes, the only thing worse than an updated blog that no one ever reads is an un-updated blog that no one ever reads.

No, the gaps between blogs are nothing like cracks in ice but more like actual faultlines beneath the Earth, the kind that can cause the kind of earthquakes that can kill up to 250,000 people and leave twice that many homeless.

This brings me neatly onto the situation in Haiti.



Now there is nothing funny about the situation in Haiti, I'd never be one to make jokes about others misfortune... okay there maybe one thing funny about the situation in Haiti, and that is the Big Brother narator marcus Bentley sounds really funny when he says it. If anyone knows anyone from Newcastle upon Time, (not the Newcastle under Lyme, because their accents aren't as funny) ask them to say it because it will crack you the fuck up. But that is it. There is nothing else funny about the situation in Haiti, unless the death of quarter of a million people is the sort of thing that you would describe as a riproaring rollercoaster of a ride. Personally I thought that Schindlers list was fucking hilarious, but that was ultimately 7 million people, not a measley 250,000, and there is also the factor that haiti is real, it is actually happening.



bomm bomm.

It is so easy to blame the ills of the world on people like Osama Bin Laden, who may have initially been responsible for the death of 2985 people after the september 11th attacks. The Earthquake in Haiti has killed anything between 100,000 and half a million people. This tells us 2 things. lets look at the statistics...



The above pie chart is totally unrelated to the facts that we gain from the comparison between New York and Haiti, but the first fact is that they can't even be bothered to do a full and proper death toll in haiti, meaning that people from New York are probably more important that people from Haiti. The fact that I am being as inconsistant as I am in capitalising the H in haiti only adds weight to this argument and has little to do with my poor grammer and punctuation. FACT.
The second fact is that we need to stop hunting for Bin Laden ending the war on terror and begin the War on earthquakes and other natural disasters in general. FACT



cunts

Having done no research into the situation in Haiti and not really delving into the human aspect of the situation on the island, it is about time I cut the shit and actually get to the nut of why I am typing so that I too can help and not just sit on the sidelines typing sarky comments about the misfortune of others on the internet.

Angelina Jolie has had a tough life. She has been estranged from her father for the past several years which would take its toll on anyone. She had great difficulty getting a suitable man to marry and ended up taking Rachel from friends'is husband instead. It has been very difficult for her, and since this Haiti earthquake has happened, she has been very saddened by it. She has even gone over to help with the aid and stuff like that with her husband, the equally unfortunate Brad Pitt.



Hers is just one of many stories of Celebrities who have had their Awards season ruined by the events in Haiti. Lets help out people Like Jolie, Sandra Bullock, Oprah Winfrey, Paris Hilton and even George Clooney... who I look at every day on a billboard that looks like this.



Don't think if it as helping the victims of Haiti themselves, they're discusting looking and covered in blood and dust, who wants to be involved in that? Think of it as helping your favourite actors who are rich and therefore more clever than you. They are wise enough to tell you what charity you should give to.

So go on, help me to help them to help the people in Haiti. because there is no way I'm going to do it myself.

Sunday 10 January 2010

snowing

In the UK people assume that if it snows, the world is probably about to end. Much like in many of those Michael Bay type films wheresome massive disaster occurs and Bruce Willis Or Will Smith have to get out and kick some Assss to save the world or universe or whatever. The problem is that in the United Kingdom the only person with as Charismatic as Bruce Willis or Will Smith is Russell Brand, and he is incapable of kicking assssssss because at current, he is probably balls deep in Katy Perry. And even if he wasn't he's hardly going to save us from the snow because he's all gangley.



Hardly capable of saving us from the snow.

So people in the UK go around and buy up months and months worth of milk, bread and anything else they can get their hands on, because Britain is a prosperous nation full of people who own large freezers, Although the freezers and all of their other material possessions are under threat because it is snowing.



So, if the affluent people of the UK with Big freezers want a fucking Romero film, why don't we give it to them, lets break into their houses and cannibalise their young before breaking into their massive freezers and taking their years worth of milk. Of course, by that time the shops will probably be restocked rendering the whole cannibalism/ buying years worth of milk/ having a big freezer episode pointless.



Although I have always wanted to taste human flesh.

Sunday 3 January 2010

10 albums you might have missed last decade.

It's easy to crown the strokes 'is this it' the best album of the decade... look at how easy it actually is.



The english cover.



I'm aware that half of my readership is one third american (another third being myself) so I've included the american less offensive cover.

The strokes 'is this it' is the best album of the decade.

There. Thats how easy it is, but it is total and utter shite, it was a fucking bland boring and ultimately overrated album. I hope it burns in hell like the Julian Cassablancas solo album.

What I offer you is the chance to listen to several albums you may have missed over the past decade if you don't have your finger on the pulse like I do.



2001 was the year of the twin towers coming down... emerging from the ashes came Kimya Dawson & Adam Green, the key components of the band the Moldy Peaches. Their debut album was actually released several months earlier in the UK than in America but the US release actually occured on September 11th. The track 'New York City is Like a Graveyard' was released because it was thought to be insensitive. Ah well, the US's loss is our gain because it is a fucking awesome track. The album has a totally lo-fi feel and is a the jewel in the crown of the 90s New York anti folk movement. They found fame last year when their music was used on the soundtrack to the film Juno, which catapulted them into the mainstream long after they split in 2003 The absolute highlight on their debut album for most is 'who's got the crack'




With all of the Daft Punk Shenanigans its easy to forget some of the other contemporaries from the first wave of french dance music to hit us at the end of the 90s and early noughties, this album was so fucking ace that madonna hunted down Mirwais and forced him to literally produce her 2000 album 'music'.
The tail end of the 2000 saw the release of production, an understated but mamoth electronic album, Madge even made an appearance with 'paradise, not for me' the only weak song on the album in my humble opinion. 'Disco Science' is the one that many people may have heard on the soundtrack to the film 'snatch' but an unmistakable highlight is 'Naaive Song'



I'm starting to feel like a VH1 VJ, that guy with the silvery hair who used to be on old school MTV before it became fucking shit.

I often think that if Take that wore glasses and sung in icelandic gobbledigook that they would have a little bit more in the way of critical acclaim. I also think that if Sigur Ros sang songs about stars going out for you and used to be a pop band cynically aimed at gays in manchester, they would be Take That. Strange comparisons aside (listening to Take That's 'rule the world' really reminds me of Sigur Ros and no one else seems to be able to hear it except me.) Here is a fantastic track from the album Aegaetis byrjun.



The Field is Axel Willner and his Debut album was aptly titled 'from here we go to sublime' trancy as fuck but amazing start to finish.



No evaluation of Noughties music would be complete without New York based Jeenius James Murphy's debut LCD soundsystem by LCD soundsystem. Although this didn't make the cut of the debut album it did appear on the initial release as one of several bonus tracks.



Losing my edge, one of my all time favourite tracks by a New York band between 2000 and 2009.

So here are 5 great albums that are not the Libertines or the Strokes or Radiohead or Coldplay. Not that there are anything wrong with these bands, even if they are all shit.