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The Secret Adventures of Tin-Tin

It seems the French are up in arms this week. Despite Shit cartoon creation TinTin actually being a Belgian, they have claimed him as their own and leapt to his defence after a Times Journalist implied he was a homosexual.

Not that this really matters, the only thing that ever bothered me about the show was how consistently shit it was.. just truly awful. However, not one to shy away from a fight I'd like to make our team's stance on TinTin clear. Tintinophiles as they like to be called (For the love of God.. WHY!!?!?), have taken offence at this so called slur, yet have they weighed up the evidence? This is what we do best here.. so we took an objective look.

It didn't bear well for the Belgian knobhead's legions of fans. As a team, we came to the conclusion that an androgynous, bequiffed young blonde boy with a penchant for small, fluffy white dogs, who moves into a mansion with a middle aged sailor and befriends two other inseperable men with moustaches could certainly be taken as gay. So, leave the poor journalist alone.

Certainly the two other men are in possession of quite the gayest moustaches seen in animation to date, ranking fourth on the industry standard gay scale;

1) Handlebar / porn tache
2) Gay Airline Pilot
3) Beppe Di Marco
4) Gay Detectives from Tin-Tin


For reference, the most manly of moustaches belongs to Des Lynam, behold: The Des Lynam Special;
Awesome.

Anyway, we have digressed. If you are still in any doubt over Tintin's sexual preferences, then check this out and doubt no longer. Knowledge is power people!;

Incoming..

I'm very, very tired today. So much so infact, that I've had to reschedule a few things till tomorrow.

Yet, I feel like I'm cheating you all if I don't at least share whats incoming this week;

- We caught up with the cast of Award Winning Sitcom, The Guild, for an informal chat. See what they had to say before the restraining order was issued here next week.

- The Inaugural Hardcore Effect World Cup for Crisps

- Return of our stolen video content

- Possible return also for our Bizarre Adult Video of The Week.. its a special one.

- Why Barack Obama's job is at least three times harder than even he expected

- We find out how hard it is to find a cleaning contractor in London who'll mop up blood and fingers

- Why being hospitalised turns you into Jesus

- More Kate Nash.. on the street

- and much more that doesn't immeadiatly spring to mind right now.

We look forward to seeing you, and don't stop sending in those e-mails.

Surprise from the off!

Before Ravi and the others have even made their predictions, Adam storms into an early lead in this Years' Celebrity Death Predictions, following news that Patrick Swayze has checked himself into hospital with pneumonia. It finished Jeremy Beadle off, but I think Swayze is made of tougher stuff and wish him a speedy recovery. You've not won yet dickhead.

Benji's Death Tips '09

With Adam securing an early boost with the grabbing of Patrick Swayze, I felt it was time to get my pitch in before anyone else good gets stolen.

Without further ado, Here are my Celebrity Death Predictions 2009

1) Norman Wisdom .. Only a matter of time

2) Fidel Castro

3) Fats Domino

4) Muhammed Ali

5) Amy Winehouse .. although I could see her clinging on to be honest.

I don't feel this years line up looks strong, but you never do know.

Celebrity Death Preictions 2009

Ooh, that does appear to be unlucky Mr Hardcore. You know what this means don't you? As I'm the first to publish my CDP's for this year.... I get Swayze. Not exactly in good taste, but a solid candidate none the less.

1. Patrick Swayze

2. Sir Patrick Moore

3. Barack Obama

4. Courtney Love

5. Owen Wilson

The Very Last of The 2008 Hardcore Effect Awards

You may remember that some months ago we ran a competition to win a bunch of free shit we had blagged from companies and individuals. All those who entered, and there were more than we'd bargained for [thanks by the way] were invited to join myself and a select group to decide the grandaddy of them all.. The Hardcore Effect Best Thing On The Internet Award 2008.

This, as you'd imagine, posed a problem. For a start I wouldn't allow any gimmicky piece of crap to receive my highest seal of approval.. the obvious stuff; Youtube, Facebook, Myspace.. all out from the start. Certainly, nothing music related could take the trophy because that is shallow and predictable.

Also, no one hit wonder video could take it, there'd be no substance. It had to be something consistently good, a gift from the genius of man or womankind that just keeps on giving.

Life these days is made up of "facts" and statistics, there are some facts that are complete rubbish, such as "Wasps can smell sugar from 5 miles away" - This is plainly bollocks.. sugar does not smell. Cat's urine, as you may have been lead to believe, does not infact glow in the dark and nor is David Cameron a marxist.. although he does hold the Guiness World Record for being the first man in history to trek solo completely into his own arse.

There is one fact though, that I will share with you now, that is indisputable truth. The Guild is far and away the best thing on the internet and unless you have the business skills of a mackerel, you should be fighting tooth and nail to get your .com's name on their sponsors list.

First and foremost, if you disagree with this simple truth, you are wrong.. you may infact be a gibbering simpleton, which may explain your inability to appreciate its subtle genius. As we all know, I won't watch anything unless it has either full frontal nudity or 4 kinds of machine gun, but this is something else.

There is no large budget and no sports car chase, and as yet no explosions. I'm not going to lie and say its the best show in creation, because next time you see me you will hold me personally responsible for misguiding you.. and you may set me alight. However, the show is.. enough, just enough, and thats all it should ever be and I'll explain that remark. Put simply it has all the right ingredients, in perfect proportion.

The casting is perfect, there is no other word for it. Every member of the cast is perfect for their role, all are played exceptionally and it was agreed that were any one of them not there.. it just wouldn't work. The humour in the writing is spot on, and it has everything good humour should have - it's intelligent, perfectly timed and true.

Robin Thorsen is brilliantly entertaining and her portrayl of neglectful mother Clara is simply great, The role of Bladezz is perfect for Vincent Caso, he has the look, the attitude and the talent to play the part exactly as it should be. Sandeep Parikh is a comedy genius, his line delivery is beyond comparison and he may yet prove himself as the funniest man alive. Jeff Lewis is pure gold in everything he has been in, its a simple as that and Felicia Day holds writing talent that I will be forever in awe of. I don't wish to leave Amy Okuda out, but I have run out of positive superlatives, so fantastic will have to do, sorry.

Now if you are the sort of person who spends their evenings trawling youtube, upsetting and offending strangers, and you wish to complain about this choice.. I invite you to go away. If you see it as some sort of documentary about dysfunctional computer nerds, you have missed the point. If you don't find it funny, then you may be a German and if you can't appreciate the virtues of Felicia Day and Amy Okuda then I must advise you that while you are always welcome here, we don't generally provide access to photos of men's bottoms.

I am aware this may be construed as a bit OTT, but the agreement was reached and its clear that it is just because the show is low budget and abnormal that it becomes so refreshing and entertaining. So, we salute you Knights Of Good, just keep doing what you are doing oh so well.. but one complaint, do the episodes really have to be so short?

Check out www.watchtheguild.com right now, lest ye be cast overboard.

It begins again..

After last years surprise successes, its time to come forward once again and do your duty;

http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/51870

thanks and much love

The Death of the PC Gamer, and why Shaun White is the saviour of the universe.

In my younger years, I played video games purely in cartridge form. As you no doubt know, for me, the Sega Mega Drive is one of video gaming's all time greatest gifts to man. Sure it was simple, but simplicity is often also beauty. We shall come back to this part later on though.

Often in gaming simple hardware is fine, but we do like a bit of flair and thought in our games, for sure I had an Amiga to provide this, but christ it felt unwieldy and slow. Some years later I got my hands on a Playstation, followed by a Playstation 2, and again my passion for simple console gaming was reignited.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Tekken, Gran Turismo, Crash Bandicoot and Ridge Racer all provided those seminal, genre defining moments in history that sadly failed to materialise on the Sega Dreamcast. What I remember most profoundly though, was that the Playstation introduced me to the Command and Conquer series. I could while away hour after hour on that game, swearing uncontrollably, shouting incoherently at my family with regard to the threat of international terrorism and eventually bashing my 'X' button one time too many and destroying the odd control pad.

My world fell down though when I discovered that the Command and Conquer series is invariably a million times better on PC, there I said it, so too are many FPS games and if geeky simulations are your bag, then you need a PC, my friend.

This all sounds well and good, and after all you can't upgrade your consoles can you?

At this point, I converted totally and, up until 2007 infact, I gamed only on PC, and decided the communities that built up around some titles were truly epic, user created add-ons and forums full of empassioned gamers.. THIS is what gaming should be about.

Like everything though, theres a downside. I can honestly say I have NEVER owned a PC title that has allowed me to play with friends online the first time I ask it to, theres always some incomprehensible error message, a port problem, high latency or graphic error that has sucked ALL enjoyment from what should be a leisure activity. You can always contact tech support, who speak to you as if you are a moron, type a Jane Austen novel into their computers and come up with a series of solutions that simply don't work before signing off by telling you that you simply can't play your game without purchasing some kind of expensive upgrade or waiting twelve years for a suitable patch.

Then, as Counterstrike and Gears of War alike have taught us, online gaming both on and off PC, is full of idiots. Video games are about escapism, about YOU being the hero and YOU pulling off every perfect move.. fill one game with a group of people all trying to be the hero of the story and you have a recipe for gaming catastrophe. You cannot bag a kill on CS without being insulted and told you are invariably cheating and woe betide anyone who doesn't play a perfect round on GOW, because you can be certain your team-mates and opponents will not be shy in their criticism.

Once I played GOW with a raging hangover after another messy night on the town, as we know, no story involving 12 pints of Carling and a kebab is going to end well.. so I got up at midday and logged on to XBOX live, where I proceeded to play the most shockingly awful match you could ever witness and my teammates, all strangers, decided that I should not only be in better shape when log on but also that I should feel the kind of guilt that usually only war criminals would have to endure, for my performance.

This is unacceptable, my leisure time is just that, mine. I love gaming as much as the next nerd, maybe even more, but the very suggestion that your ability in game is the be all and end all is very, very wrong. I'd quite like to mess up sometimes, without being informed by an American I've never met that I must be a homosexual, quite how people can reach such conclusions is beyond me. Perhaps I am wrong though, and years of using a mouse to shoot has left me with the thumb dexterity of a horse. Yet, I'm missing the point, and this is where the simplicity argument comes in again.. during all this rage and kebab mess, I'd taken for granted that my XBox 360, the humble white box under my TV, had allowed me to game online with no fuss, no lag and no tech support.

Sure, it had just murdered Red Alert 3, but for anything else it had proved itself the superior machine when it comes to pure gaming pleasure, plus its added ability to allow only friends into your game is a perfect touch, if a little sad that ingame, the online community isn't quite as pleasant as out of game.

There is though, a cherry atop the cake, Shaun White Snowboarding. Not only a fantastic single player game.. if a little tricky at times [The Yen at the end of the rail lines in Alaska], but it is superb online because it removes many of the over competetive elements if other titles. Normally, I won't pick up a game unless it provides at least 3 types of machine gun, but as Snowboarding is one of God's greatest gifts to the kids of cool, I made an exception and found that if you take it online.. regardless of how drunk you are, the people are fun, social and respectful. Pure perfection for less than £40, who'd have believed it?

Daddy's Home

Hey kids, I'm back, where have I been? Mind your own, besides thats irrelevant.

What is relevant is whats coming up this year;

- Why losing your mind is even more scary than being fondled by an over friendly tramp in the bus station

- Why I'm going to be chloroformed in the name of fun

- Those fucking music interviews.. finally

- Whats wrong with youtube and how we're going to fix it

- Beard growing for amateurs

- 1001 and one things related to being a man, such as guns, explosions, video games, pornography and crisps

- Definitive Hardcore Effect "print-off-cut-out-and-keep" guide to aforementioned crisps

- Why we're the 35th best blog about fatherhood you can read today

- Why Stevie Wonder will soon sue us

- Does Celery have a aplace in the aeronautics world?

- When you can see at least some of us making cameo appearances in an award winning online sitcom.

Its all here, like an Aladdin's cave of wonder, only with less sand in your pants.

Catch you in the morning, and happy new year from us all.