Happy Face

Ashley to blame for Ben Arfa loving a Lau's.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/406662-cardio-exercises-with-a-pulled-hamstring/

Prove them wrong? When he's lost the weight it won't change he's been fat as fuck for 4 months. Or are you saying tubbs will keep the weight on and improve?

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/rss/1207288/Facebook-reveals-20m-mobile-users-June/ So the equivalent of 40% of the entire UK population log on to Facebook every day. Over 50% log on at least monthly. Incredible tbh, more impressive than the Only Fools and Horses Christmas special. Have to say I'm on a daily like. The more I use Smugmug, Flickr & Twitter though, the less I actually provide content on Facebook. Once everyone's mam and dad is watching what they're up to it must lose some appeal.

Getting down with the kids with some modern poptastic tunes. Now that's what I call music stylee Avicii - Wake Me Up (Radio Edit) - Not very exciting. John Newman - Love Me Again - Dramatic piano, falling strings, then a swinging bit of horn over a dancey beat. Production good enough to ignore his affected vocal stylings. Tinie Tempah - Trampoline - It's impressive something like this gets in the charts really. Heavy dub beat and ravey melody. I've never been massively into either of those scenes back in the day so can't really compare it knowledgeably, but even I recognise tropes which seem to be almost a parody on here. Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines - With Pharell. Fella can't do anything wrong in all honesty. With this, Get Lucky & LYTD he's been on the 3 best mainstream summer tunes of the year....and done the music for the biggest film of the year - Despicable Me. Top lad.

Breaking Bad thread in GC.

"faackin' agents seem keen until we meet 'em, then the caants ain't 'avin it! I ain't got a Danny Larue why!"

Yeah, the Oranges motif is a well known one. Sopranos used it too. For example Tony buys orange juice and then.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdvjMbCawkk It's so ubiquitous now that any appearance of an orange in anything you watch should make you tense.

The final eight episodes of Breaking Bad began last night. It’s been a brilliant show throughout, mastering tension, continuity, and the ultimate character arc to create something special. It’s the attention to detail that makes the show great. And that attention to detail extends as far as the colors worn by the various characters. I’ve tried to illustrate it with an infographic showing every color worn by the characters most affected by Walter White’s decisions, along with Walter himself. It’s presented chronologically, and there are individual character timelines for noteworthy events. There are a lot of patterns that emerge, so much so that each character has an identifying color. After Walt’s cancer diagnosis, his colors become stronger, and eventually go black. When the cancer returns or when he’s defeated, the drab khaki returns. The closer he gets to Gus, and the stronger his ties to blue meth, the more blue shows up in his barcode. Skyler starts out blue, but turns dark once she starts to figure out Walt’s secret. Her timeline turns deep blue, almost purple, as her flirtation with Ted grows, and then it turns green once she discovers Walt’s stash of money. The more complicit she becomes in Walt’s criminal activity, the blacker her timeline gets to the point that it’s pitch black in Season 4. Hank begins orange, with tints of yellow and peach. But when he suffers through the turtle bomb, his colors turn brown—often deep brown. Then after fighting off the cousins (and the subsequent drab/pastel colors of recovery and depression), he slowly gains his color back after he re-involves himself with the Heisenberg case. Jesse’s angry (and occasionally deadly) color is red, while his drug recovery tones are more drab and subdued. Just like Skyler, the more Jesse is affected by Walt’s influence, the darker and more black his timeline becomes. He also wears a lot of mixed clothing—primarily black, gray, or white, with wild red or yellow patterns, suggesting moral conflict. Walter, Jr. is very much a supporting character whose color choices often reflect whichever parent he relates to most at the time. When Marie is in the hospital coping with Hank’s injuries, Walter, Jr. wears purple, seemingly in support. When he helps Hank or is around Hank, his colors are complementary. It’s unfortunately not reflected in the timeline, but Junior wears a lot striped or multi-colored shirts, often bearing both Walter and Skyler’s colors. It’s a sign of Walter, Jr. being stuck in the middle between the two as they hash out their differences. What makes Marie noteworthy isn’t that she wears all purple, all the time. Rather, it’s the very rare occasions when she’s not wearing purple that practically scream at the viewer. For instance, she wears black when her kleptomania flares up. She wears black again when she’s in protective custody of the DEA after the threat on Hank’s life at the end of Season 4. And then finally, she turns yellow just before Hank makes his massive discovery at the end of the first half of Season 5. It’s fascinating stuff, and it’s clearly the result of a fierce attention to detail by Vince Gilligan and all of the incredible crew that make this show. Enjoy the final eight episodes, everyone. And keep an eye on those colors.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2013/aug/12/newcastle-united-premier-league-preview-video

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/aug/12/premier-league-preview-newcastle-united

http://www.cityam.com/article/1376445291/billionaire-s-tweet-adds-17bn-apple As tweets go, it beats "Going for a shit!"

No-one else is saying a fit Ben Arfa should be omitted in favour of Marveaux are they?

To this end Shola Ameobi has been a pivotal part of our pre-season.

How's it a spoiler if it hasn't happened

For those who think that because I say we will miss him, that means I think he is excellent. A couple of the many examples where I said he's not good enough. Pity we still haven't got anyone better than him to 3 or 4 years later.

I've not made out he's brilliant at all. Just that he is more effective at what he does (win the ball, draw fouls, retain posession, find space, work hard) than any other player at our disposal. I would be delighted with a better player coming in too. But from what we have available I worry more about anyone else who would play. Criticism needs to be relative to our other options, not other teams other options.

1 less than Ben Arfa

I know we would all like to see the Keegan approach taken, but away to Man City, under Pardew, I don't see that as an issue. We'll be playing for a point.

When he's on the pitch we concede less. http://www.toontastic.net/board/topic/34236-which-players-make-us-harder-to-score-against/

Christ, he must have looked like Eddie Honda on telly then.

What emails?

He was tubby when he came back from injury (the second time) last season. To go the whole close season without doing anything about it is a disgrace.