5000 words or More? NOT including pictures?? BRACE yourselves!! Get a 30 pak of BEER!
It should be fairly obvious to most that I’m not a fan of what Malcolm Gladwell calls thin-slicing. Nope. Not for me. Give me a thick slice of something or nothing at all. No tasting glasses of beer…pour me a PINT!! A tiny bit of something does not tell all of the tale. First impressions, like good intentions, can easily pave the road to hell.
As for Malcolm Gladwell, he’s a scrawny little runt who could use a few thick slices and put some speck on his bones.
But this is not a post about the utopisms of a fanciful moderne intellect. So I better get about explaining LOL FangSensei.
So, how will Burnley do in the English Premier League this season?
LOL FangSensei is me, btw. So for some of you readers, that is explanation enough. But the rest of you could use a little more speck on your brains, so here goes.
I use LOL FangSensei as my username and avatar on Dairyland BJD which is the ball-jointed doll collector’s forum that my wife and I co-founded and administer. The forum has over 1,700 members worldwide, but mostly from the Mid-West.
I took LOL FangSensei from what is perhaps my favourite anime show, LUCKY STAR which is basically a show about 4 high school girls (Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa, and Miyuki) and what they do all day…..for example, in the first episode they spend about 1/2 the episode discussing how to properly eat a chocolate coronet.
LOL FangSensei is the fan nickname for Kuroi Nanako, Konata’s homeroom teacher. She is single, blond, an anime and game otaku, and is friends with Konata’s cousin Narumi Yui and goes on and on with her about the single life, despite Yui being married. Yes…I’ve based my persona and avatar on a young blond single high-school teacher who is secretly an anime and game otaku and plays the same MMORPG as Konata. The Fang part come into play as an anime trope….there are quite few anime characters who are NOT vampires, but have teeth represented as fangs at times…when they smile or laugh or express some emotion or dismay. Excel, from ExcelSage has been portrayed this way. The Fan appellation can be said to have derived from THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA ((another favourite anime show of mine)) , one of whose characters, Tsuruya is usually portrayed with one visible tooth when smiling or laughing and also featured in a charming 4-koma about LOL Fang-tan.
I guess that should explain a few things.
But if you do a google search for LOL FangSensei, you will also see an offering for LOL FangSensei Family. The first link should take you to this picture:
The LOL FangSensei Family
There’s my family. My 9 dolls. Actually, only 8 are pictured. Růžová Barva, my Bambicrony PingPing, is missing since she’d lost one of her ears I do believe when this was taken. From left to right we have:
- Klein Kuran — Dolkot Leaf Elf Hybrid
- David Steinberg — Dream of Child Tender Bee-A (boy)
- Nia O’Fein — Dream of Doll Petsha Hybrid
- Criquette Svoboda-Belliveau— Bambicrony Elf Lotti
- Evangeline McDowell — Dream of Doll Pitts
- Tiarnán McDowell — Bambicrony CB Shy
- Cvetka Ljubljanič — FairyLand Puki Rose
- Neilikka Väinämoinen — Bobobie Sunny
Hey!! Can I get a few thousand words in edgewise about Leicester City’s no-doubt doomed attempt to keep from being relegated from the English Premier League??
I also use my LOL FangSensei avatar for my Fat Nakago avatar. So instead doing a few thousand words on the fate of Leicester City this season, I will use that verbiage to discuss and expound upon Fat Nakago, which would make a great, if obscure, fake biker name, but, in that regard I selected Evil Schmitty, since that seemed the more affable road to take.
Honestly, I could take up a few thousand words just to explain Fat Nakago, but…I won’t. Instead, I’ll simply say that Nakago was the egregious villain in yet another of my favourite anime shows of all-time, FUSHIGI YUUGI. He was, of course, anything but Fat. He was more Elvis ((except for being blonde))…a young vicious Elvis. I postulated as he grew older, that he became more like the older Fat Las Vegas Elvis. Hence, Fat Nakago. There. And now you know.
Although, unlike my avatar, I think Leicester City has a shot at staying up.
Joey Barton has returned to the English Premier League with QPR. When is his fate going to be discussed??
Some things are better left unexplained.
60 minutes of reading time left!! Time for another 30 pak of beer!
The LOL FangSensei Revue of….NASCAR. The LOL FangSensei Revue of…The English Premier League. The LOL FangSensei Revue of….Der Bundesliga. The LOL FangSensei Revue of….Tsundere Anime Chicks. The LOL FangSensei Revue of….Craft Beers Brewed With A Light Hoppy Aroma. The LOL FangSensei Revue of…Every Bloog Post I’ve Ever Written Over The Last 13 Years Condensed Into 5 Snappy Bullet Points Complete with A Compellingly Stupid Buzzfeed-style Headline.
The LOL FangSensei Revue of….
Well, you get the idea.
It’s pre-season for both types of football. So a lot of enormous speculation can set loose to pillage upon your fevered imaginations and in some cases, half-poetic intellects. But I have only 4,103 words to go at this point, so I need to keep the thundering herd in line. Madness abounds, of-course, from Nicklas Bendtner posing naked in the hope of getting a HUGE pay-packet from some chumplin-owned and managed squad to the Tangerine Nightmare of Blackpool who, with 6 days to the start of the Championship season, have only 10 or 11 players on their squad, none of them a goalie. And I’ve already documented the insanity at Leeds United. Yes, I could write for days about madness, transfer rumours, and idle speculation.
Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice slugs his fiancee in an elevator and gets a 2 game suspension…and he’s greeted at their inter-squad scrimmage and media day with a standing ovation.But if he’d rolled some doobs instead of rolling his fiancee out the elevator and down the hall to their room, he’d be down for the count, suspended for the season. Even Luis Suarez thinks that’s madness. So there’s my obligatory NFL take until the Packers win the Super Bowl.
Konata discusses my prelimiary EPL Fantasy Football Squad with Kagami and Tsukasa
My English Premier League Fantasy Football team, FC Grundahl Park returns for it’s 3rd season on fantasy.premierleague.com. We finished mid-table last season, and this year….well…we just might sneak into the equivalent of Europa League qualification.
As it stands right now, I’m keeping some holdovers from last season. On defense, John Terry anchors the back line with Seamus Coleman, Dejan Lovren, and Jose Fonte returning. Hull City’s Curtis Davies joins them at the back. For goalies, I’ve the best: Theobold Cortois and Tim Howard. Midfield has Ross Barkley returning, along with Ander Herrera, Jason Puncheon, Robert Snodgrass, and the aforementioned Joey Barton. The frontline will feature Chelsea’s newest signing, Diego Costa, along with Liverpool’s Danny Sturridge and Leicester City’s David Nugent.
All of this is preliminary, mind. Subject to change and ongoing whims of the transfer market. I have until August 15th to finalize my squad for opening day. And if some the above players don’t light up the football world, well…bear in mind that I have a salary cap to deal with…so for now, Curtis Davies is on the squad, but that could change if someone of equivalent salary steps up to the plate. I have time yet to do more digging more value signings. Ditto for Fonte and even Lovren. Joey Barton might get dropped in favour of someone more unsung, you never know.
The LOL FangSensei Revue of….NASCAR sez: Danica Patrick will win the GoBowling.com 400 at Pocono tomorrow
Danica tees off from the 10th position tomorrow as I ardently scribble this telegram. And I believe she can pull this one off…that is to say, WIN!!
She was doing well at the June race until an accident on lap 138 left her 2 laps down.
So barring any of that sort of nonsense, and the rear gear issue last Sunday at the Brickyard…..AND as long as Italian footballer Mario Balotelli doesn’t try to sneak into a women’s prison wearing a rooster hat and set off fireworks in the bathroom….Danica could very well be on her way to victory lane on her own behalf, and not to give her boyfriend a congratulatory kiss.
And speaking of Danica’s Boyfriend, he rolls off the grid in 23rd alongside the once mighty Casey Mears.
I’ve totally made a mockery now of all things feminist and egalitarian and I will now hang my head in shame.
I think it’s about time we discussed whether or not Conner Wickham is staying at Sunderland or making a move to Southampton.
As for the Brickyard 400 last Sunday, Jeff Gor-Don won and kissed the bricks for the 5th time. He is tied with Michael Schumacher for the most wins at the Brickyard. Gordon, btw, won the inaugural Brickyard 400 back on August 6th, 1994.
I’ll buy you a beer if you can tell me without looking it up on your facking smartphone or other internet-enabled device who started that race on the pole and was the first NASCAR driver to ever lead a lap at Indy.
ManU(re) is fortunate they’re naught competing in the Pre-season UN-friendlies: FK AS Trenčín 0 Hull City 0
Un-like their other Premier League brethren, Hull City’s pre-season has become serious.
No candy-ass Friendlies or Psuedo-Tournaments where your can substitute all 11 players at halftime and still win a prize. Nope. The Hull City Tigers are playing for real. Because they finished runner-up (( ie. They lost to Arsenal 3-2 in extra time on a 108th minute goal by Aaron Ramsey)) in the FA Cup, and because Arseanal (pun intended) automatically qualified for the Champions League qualifiers by finishing 4th, Hull City qualified for the Europa League in the FA Cup winner position.
So instead of romping around the USA! USA!! USA!! like ManU(re), ManU(re)’s Noisy Neighbors, Liverpool, and Arseanal (pun intended), or romping through Europe like Chelsea, they have to suit and play some REAL football with no romping around involved at all.
Now as y’all know, I absolutely love the early stages of the Europa League because, for the most part, it involves obscure teams with unpronounceable names who get a brief moment in the limelight while playing, for the most part, in the grimmest Eastern European shitholes imaginable. I love this stuff and look forward to it every year. And when it gets to the 3rd Qualifying Round, it also gets more serious and some of the more notable teams come into the picture. The stakes get a bit higher as they vie for spots in the Playoff Round….which sets the field for the Group Stage.
So the tilt played out at the Štadión Pod Dubňom in Žilina, Slovakia was the real deal. And too bad Hull couldn’t have nabbed an away goal. After Shane Long was brought down in the area by Trenčín’s Peter Čögley, Tom Huddlestone stepped up to smack ‘er home, but was denied and his point-blank followup grazed the woodwork and thus, no away goal. Hull played a strong side…all the lads that got them there. Gaffer Steve Bruce (whose son, Alex is one of the defensive stalwarts for the team) brought in newboys Snodgrass (stolen from my Canaries when they were relegated) and Tom Ince on 65 minutes, but the match played out to scoreless draw. Maybe Huddlestone should have kept his trademark dreads after all. Too bad he can’t grow them back in time for the return tilt at The KC this next Thursday.
So, that was REAL football.
Over on the fake football side of the equation, the aforementioned ManU(re) played a romp-a-round with a Cristiano Ronaldo-less Real Madrid at the Big House in Ann Arbor. A modest 109,000 plus showed up making this the largest crown for a REAL football match here in the USA! USA!! USA!!! Ohio State vs Michigan can’t hold a candle to this in terms of its cultural and phenomenological implications. The Dutch Uncle had his charges whipped up for this one, and noted diving gold medalist Ashley Young put on a show in the first half by actually scoring a brace w/o doing a flying forward one and a half somersault from the pike position. And in the 2nd half Chicharito had a chance to showcase his talents by adding a third. Final score was a no doubt impressive as hell 3-1over the reigning Champion of Europe.
But not to worry, Real Madrid knows who they are.
ManU(re) on the other hand has fanned the flames of fan frenzy and have pundits tripping over their dipthongs and metaphors to proclaim their mighty return to the top of the Premier League this season despite ManU(re) not having played a real game under the guidance of their new Dutch Uncle — Louis VanGaal — the New Next Lord Ferg® who wears a pet ferret on his head. On Monday night, they face Liverpool to win the Pint O’ Guinness International Champions Cup so they can proclaim that they’ve won their first of all the trophies they can win this season. Proclaim that they are going all the way and will win the Prem and win everything else as well ((except of course, the Champions League Trophy….or the Europa League Trophy…but other than that, they’re sure to win everything else)).
I’m figuring, though, that on the first Monday Night Football game of the season, that Liverpool is going to knock ManU(re) off their focking perch. After all, Liverpool, despite being Suarez-less, knows who they are. And they also know how to stay in their lane. The Red Devils, on the other hand, are running on fumes. It will interesting and amusing to see how they handle it when reality settles in. And when it does, VanGaal will have to prove he’s the mastermind he’s been made and has made himself out to be.
2500 words to go, guys….hang in there. Be brave and stalwart!!
Yes indeed, I really could add another 2500 fevered bits of verbiage, analysis and diatribe to this humble missive. But you can breath a little sigh of relief when I say that I won’t. There is, indeed, a smile at the foot of the ladder, and a picture of Jesus ((not Jesus Navas, but the REAL Jesus)) in the foam in the bottom of you beer glass. But go ahead and fill that glass right back up again. But save a beer for me…I’ll join you at the finish line.
A few bits to tie this up.
I’ll be doing my Premier League Predictions That You’d Better Not Bet Your Mother-in-law’s Money On later this month, next weekend no doubt as the Prem tees off on August 16th with the aforementioned ManU(re) hosting Swansea for some actual real football at 6:45AM CDT on NBC. You can ride my relegation train for free. Just bring your own beer.
I’m also going to chat a bit more (A LOT more) about the Championship this season, since my Norwich City Canaries are back down there and open their season next Sunday with a trip to Molineux Stadium for a tilt with the newly promoted Wolverhampton Wolves.
All the usual NASCAR and F1 stuff of course sprinkled with a bewildering array of anime references.
So what has this LOL FangSensei Revue of… accomplished??
Well…nothing more really than what it usually accomplishes I suppose. But every week or so, here it comes again, striding up the tunnel and onto the pitch determined to win, grit it out, and never settle for a draw unless it has to.
And there you have it. For once, I can end this by saying thank-you for today. A time-honoured Japanese anime trope to be sure. But a sincere one all the same.
I promised I wouldn’t write anything more about the NFL until the Packers win the Super Bowl, but I need to congratulate Ray Guy for finally getting into the NFL Hall of Fame.
And now it’s about time to watch Danica Patrick win the GoBowling.com 400 at Pocono. Well….watch it at our favourite bar in Mt. Horeb, ofcourse. You can tag along, but in the words of Art Kumbalek, you buy the first round.
