The Top Everything of 2011 - An Idea I Totally Stole From Cracked.com Because I'm Lazy and Unoriginal and Need Content

Despite 2011 still having half a month left to go, Cracked.com has released their list of "The Top 8 of Everything of 2011". Not to be upstaged by them, and wanting to fit in with the "cool" kids, I've taken that idea and run with it, creating my own list of the top things of the year. I hope this makes up for all the neglect. Enjoy.

Movie of the Year

I’m going to hold off on this one to some extent, since I haven’t seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which I suspect will be the film of the year. However, commenting on films I have seen, it’s still going to be a challenge to come up with one which really defines the top movie of 2011. Warrior was an enjoyable genre piece, and definitely worth the watch, but it felt almost like I was watching a guide on “how to make any sports movie, ever”. The only thing it didn’t include was tension between white and black players on a team who finally decide they can trust each other, or the guy from Saw VI playing an East German Bobsleigh racer…

Seriously, Warrior plays out exactly as you would expect it to, and whilst the action is awesome, the emotional scenes are intense, and Tom Hardy’s traps are fucking huge – it is ultimately predictable, and brings nothing new to the table.

Other than Tom Hardy's Enormous Traps, that is.

A Serbian Film is another possible nominee for this category, but again, it didn’t really live up to the hype. Whilst on the rewatch I certainly appreciated it more, realizing that it was not “predictable”, as the ending was never meant to be a twist, but simply the inevitable outcome (I didn’t rage about ‘Until Death’ because Jean Claude Van Damme was obviously going to die at the end, because it’s supposed to be inevitable, so why did it bother me with A Serbian Film? Because of the fucking hype surrounding it, and everyone calling it a “horror film”, making me see the similarities with SAW before anything else). However, A Serbian Film still isn’t exactly ground breaking, and whilst one hell of an achievement for a first time writer and director, I hardly feel I can award it the title of Film of the Year. And this leaves me in a difficult position. You see: What good films have come out this year?

Hugo will be torrented by thousands of /b/tards who want to furiously fap to Chloe Moretz...

Of IMDB’s list of the 10 most popular films of the year, the only one I have seen, or indeed want to see, is Warrior (As of writing this, it is #184 on IMDB’s top 250 list). Can we really have had such a bad year in film that a decent, but incredibly predictable and clichéd sports movie, is the best we’ve got? Depressingly, it appears so. Even films soon to be released, such as the new Sherlock Holmes, or Mission Impossible 4, will undoubtedly fail to live up to even Warrior’s modest prestige, so I can only hope that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy really is a good as everyone says, otherwise it looks like the film industry is dead.

Right.

I suppose ultimately, the film of the year would have to be the combined parts of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. It’s a real cop-out, because they’re not actually great movies – but it is nice to see a film series like that finally tied up, so Daniel Radcliffe can go about making films where the Germans shoot him to pieces as he storms a bunker, and Rubert Grint can go back to Eiffel Towering girls on wild weekends.

And Ralph Fiennes can go back to being a Nazi?

"Actually, It's Rafe"

Video Game of the Year

The debate here is going to be as boring as ever. First Person Shooter fanboys will be raging hard, shouting either “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3!” or “No! Battlefield 3!”, but the truth is, neither of these deserves to win. We have had enough of games in which Russian terrorist groups plan to set off a nuclear bomb in the United States, or Terrorist groups set off a biological weapon in London, allowing the Russian Army to take control of Europe. All these games have the same basic plot – because they aren’t trying to sell the campaign modes. They’re selling you a new map pack for your online gaming. Gone are the days when games would bother with things like plot, or half decent AI. And sure, Battlefield 3 deserves acknowledgement for making those stupid button-bashing cut-scene moments vaguely enjoyable, after the abortion which was Resident Evil 4 made us all rage beyond belief at the idea of someone including such a shitty function in a game.

But that doesn’t make up for all the short comings of these games. Call of Duty is still the same boring old game it ever was – with the same frustrating AI we’ve always had to deal with. 90% of the time your team are useless, standing behind you when you need to back out of a doorway, or running in front of you as you are trying to snipe, but when you try and go Lone Wolf, the game punishes you for not staying with your team, sending enemies to quickly overwhelm you, just because fuck you, they can.

Call of Duty also has the problem of never really having a limiter placed on the amount of bad guys who can appear – the quicker you play through a section, the less you have to fight. Now, obviously in World War 3 your enemies will be able to keep bringing in reinforcements, and I’m not saying they should make these games like Splinter Cell, with a restricted number of enemies all in their own specific areas. But ‘Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater’ had a much better solution to this – enemies will mass where action is occurring, so if you kill an inordinate number of enemies in one area after the alarm is raised, there will be far fewer enemies to fight in the next section of the game. Snake Eater came out in 2004, and has Modern Warfare 3 beaten both in terms of enemy AI and spawing, as well as in terms of making a game where you fight a terrorist group forcing a war between the United States and Russia engrossing and fun to play. Modern Warfare 3 is designed solely for Multiplayer online gaming, and still sucks for this, because respawns are too quick, and so there is never a realistic break in combat as one would expect.

"I'm glad Viet Cong aren't magically appearing behind us every 5 seconds and knifing us in the back. That would be most unfortunate."

Everyone hates campers – but we all hate the dicks who you finally kill only to have come up behind you 2 seconds later and knife you because of insta-respawn – even more. In fact, I don’t even find these games fun to play online anymore, because they are simply full of kiddies who learn the maps inside-out, and run around ‘pwning’ others. And when you do manage to kill them, what happens? Nothing. They respawn instantly, and start acting like a dick again. I would like to see more intelligent multiplayer content. I know there is an online mode in which you are limited to only 5 lives, and whoever is left at the end is the winner, but this still seems unsatisfying. In fact, Battlefield’s ‘Rush’ mode is the only online first person shooter mode I still enjoy, and even that can be a piss take at times.

Especially when you're playing with cunts like this...

As far as Battlefield’s campaign goes, I just couldn’t stand the scene where you are forced to kill an American Marine who bursts in on you after you receive intel from a Russian – simply because if you don’t kill him, he shoots you. What the fuck? You wind up being arrested regardless, couldn’t we have a slight variation from the story where you choose how you end up being questioned? ‘Splinter Cell: Double Agent’ had the same missions and ending regardless of what you did, but leaving the player in charge of a few simple actions, and giving us alternate cut scenes made it feel as though the player was changing what happened. Coming back to Snake Eater – you could kill The End without ever having to fight him if you so desired, by sniping him prior to entering the warehouses after defeating The Pain. Ocelot’s bullets would also change chambers, or even guns. When you face off with him in the plane, sometimes he had the loaded gun, sometimes you did. These little differences never affected the overall story, but it made you feel like you were in control of the game. Having to shoot a Marine because he will kill you on sight if you don’t takes all the emotion out of the act, and makes it as dull as any other killing in the game. Battlefield is certainly a better series than Call of Duty, but it’s not much of an improvement.

Forza is another contender for the game of the year, but again this suffers from the same problem as the first person shooters – it is just an extension of the previous games. Nothing new has been brought to the table for Forza 4, and whilst it may have improved realism, and some bitching AI, it is ultimately just Forza 3: improved. In fact, when I asked my younger cousin, who loves racing games and is a massive fan of Top Gear, if he wanted Forza 4 for Christmas, he wasn’t interested. Because it isn’t bringing anything to the table which Forza 3 didn’t already. And what does that
leave us with?

A forced meme about arrows in the knee?

Skyrim is the talk of the town of late, but having a slow as fuck piece of shit laptop, I can’t really comment on the game, as I haven’t played it. Likewise, although I have played through limited sections of LA Noire, I wasn’t that impressed with what I saw, but acknowledge that maybe this is because you need to see the whole picture to appreciate it. When I watched the scene from Scarface where Tony confronts Frank by itself, I thought it was shit. Watching that scene in context, however, it is an awesome scene in an awesome film, and I can’t believe I ever disliked it. So, whilst I can say I wasn’t impressed with LA Noire, I must also acknowledge that perhaps if I had played through all 3 discs, rather than just odd sections, I would like it.

Just as I can now fully appreciate this scene in Scarface...

I’m afraid, then, I am forced to agree with Cracked’s Jack O’Brien in saying that Angry Birds is probably the game of the year – because it has popularized hand-held gaming in a way not seen since Pokemon Blue and Red were first released. Angry Birds has made gaming socially acceptable in any circumstance whatsoever. Try playing Manhunt whilst working security in a Sainsbury’s, and you get some weird looks. Play Angry Birds behind the counter, and it’s all cool. Angry Birds has made gaming whilst you take a shit acceptable, and for that, it deserves some credit. But hang on – Angry Birds, whilst only becoming truly popular this year, was released in 2009; so by that logic, couldn’t the game of the year be Metal Gear Solid 3, because Konami are rereleasing it as part of their HD collection along with ‘Sons of Liberty’ and ‘Peacewalker’?

AAAAAAWWWWW YEEEEEAAAAH!!!!!!

Person of the Year

I would love to be able to write Aziz Shavershiam here. The Zyzz was the embodiment of the spirit of live fast, die young, and leave an aesthetic as fuck corpse. But thanks to a certain incident involving a Sauna in Thailand back in August, it is sad to think that the Zyzz will never be eligible for this nomination again.

God is Mirin' you Now, my Brother...

I cannot, however, in good conscience, award The Zyzz with the title of the Top Person of the Year 2011. Because no matter how much I, and thousands others, were mirin’, there is a man who changed the face of the world as we know it.

I slated The Dark Knight a bit (ok, a lot) after it came out, because it was such a letdown. However, on rewatching it, I found I actually rather enjoyed it, knowing what would happen, and no longer expecting it to live up to the hype (just like A Serbian Film). I mention this, because there is a piece of dialogue in that film which I think needs to be discussed, so you can truly understand why I have made the choice I have for Person of the year.

After Harvey Dent falls to his death (and no, I don’t consider that a spoiler – if you wanted to watch The Dark Knight, but haven’t seen it by now, you don’t know enough about movies to have found this Blog), Lieutenant Jim Gordon gravely states:

“The Joker won. Harvey's prosecution, everything he fought for - undone. Any chance you gave us at fixing our city dies with Harvey's reputation. We bet it all on him. The Joker took the best of us and tore him down. People will lose hope.”

Assuming the world is Gotham City, and the shining light in politics – the beacon of social policy to which every country aspires, is Norway, then I’m afraid my nomination for Man of the Year 2011 goes to The Joker:

That guy has rape face...

Anders Behring Breivik. Breivik murdered 69 people on the island of utoya, and a further 7 in an attack on a Government building in Oslo. It was the worst massacre the world has ever seen, with Breivik, as Encyclopedia Dramatica would put it, smashing the ‘high score’ for the most people killed in a single rampage by an individual. People were calling for Breivik’s head, and yet Norway’s justice system will not allow the imprisonment of an individual for more than 30 years.

Breivik did to Norway what The Joker did to Harvey Dent – he took away their most beloved, and utterly destroyed them. Unfortunately, Norway reacted in a similar manner to Harvey Dent. Rather than stand tall as Gotham’s District Attorney, and await the capture of the individuals responsible for Rachael Dawes's Death, so he could punish him within the law, Norway decided to circumvent its own laws in order to punish those responsible for the murder of its loved ones.

Norway, the shining light of justice, equality, and socialism in the world, refused to let Breivik take the stand in his own defence in Court, and kept the details of the trial private. Not only this, but Breivik, a man who premeditated these attacks, and wrote a gigantic document explaining his reasons for the attacks, and what he hoped to achieve, was found insane by the Norwegian Courts - a convenient way of keeping a man, who in any society with life sentences or the death penalty would have been declared sane, locked away for the rest of his life, thereby avoiding the maximum penalty of 30 years the Courts could legally give him.

Breivik won. Norway’s Human Rights policies, everything they stand for - undone. Any chance they gave us at fixing our own countries dies with Norway's reputation. We bet it all on them.

Breivik took the best of us and tore them down. People will lose hope.

Anders Breivik has reduced Norway’s stance on Human Rights to little more than a joke, on a par with Serbia’s maximum sentence of 30 years, about which everyone jokes because we all know that, despite the courts in Serbia only being able to give you a 30 year sentence, once you go in prison, you will never be coming out. Norway’s stance on human rights has been reduced from a shining beacon for all nations to aspire to, to being on a par with a country which right now has one of its generals appearing at the Hague facing charges of crimes against humanity (though, Mladic is actually a Bosnian Serb, for the record). Whilst Norway is still seen to be standing up for the rights of the accused far more so than, say, The United States, or Iran, it has fallen a long long way. And after all, even if Two Face was a sympathetic character – killing those who deserved it, and even sparing some who did on the flip of a coin – his disregard for his own beliefs is what Gordon felt would ultimately destroy the Hope of the people of Gotham. And unfortunately, we have no Dark Knight to take the blame for Norway – no Jack Ruby administering extra legal justice so the Country itself could still appear righteous. Norway was pushed too far – and gave out its first ever life sentence to a sane individual. And for making them do this, Breivik is my man of the year. He is The Joker. And in 8 years time, we’ll see who emerges on the international stage as our Bane...

Awesomely, for this analogy, I get to be Gary Oldman. Almost makes all those murders worth it…

I’m kidding – please don’t hunt me down for that comment.




Picture of the Year


This one doesn’t need any real discussion. Sure, there are plenty of funny pictures out there, but we’re talking here about pictures that really capture the essence of what 2011 was all about. So, I don’t believe we need look any further than a picture of a fat ill-educated member of the working class pepperspraying people who are fighting to give him a better pension, better healthcare, and a higher wage. God Bless America.

He used 99% of that can...

I’ve heard people moaning about the Occupy movement, saying it’s all just a bunch of rich college kids who have nothing to complain about themselves, standing up for something because it’s the cool thing to do, and not because they actually need the rights they’re demanding. But holy shit – you know what that makes me think?

I'm still working on the script. I just need One Day More. And yes, that is two awful puns on consecutive pictures.

Yeah, that’s exactly the set-up of Les Miserables. You know, the musical where we’re on the side of the rich college revolutionaries? Whilst we’re on the subject, I think we may have a nominee for the worst film of 2012 here, too:

Look at that cast, and weep.




Website of the Year

I miss the old days to some extent. IMDB was a great site to lurk on a good 8 years ago, before it was bought by Amazon and starting getting shitty about what you could and could not post. I believe the concept of summerfags was invented on the Big Lebowski discussion board long before the term was ever applied to 4Chan (or 4Chan even existed). Likewise, I kind of miss the days when The Spoony Experiment was THE website to visit. This entire site only exists because I was a Spoony fanboy, and felt like doing some ranting reviews along the lines of his, but unfortunately, that site declined to such an extent I never really visit it any more (I suspect some of you are thinking the same about this Blog).

After that, Cracked.com became the place to be, and although it still does host some amusing articles and videos, either there has been a decline in quality of late, or I’m finally getting bored of the format. And whilst I would happily vote 4Chan as the greatest site of 2011, I can’t bring myself to type that, because 99% of it is shit (and I’m not even just counting /b/ here).

I guess, then, there is only one real choice for the greatest website of 2011. And don’t worry, I’m not so egotistical I would vote for my own site (though I totally would if I had two sites and posted on them with different names). My website of the year for 2011 is:

Encyclopediadramatica.ch

Yes, the Superior Wiki lives on in another form, brought back to us by the infamous Ryan Cleary:

Although missing many of the images stored on the old site, the new version does have the upside of including articles which were previously deleted for being too offensive. One particular page of interest is, of course, that of Madeleine McCann:

ED loves nothing more than controversy (well, LULZ, though LULZ inevitably create controversy), so it’s nice to see the site finally got some balls back, now that it’s being hosted in Switzerland. Another nice edition is hate pages directed at the editors, which could never be seen before, because whilst they were more than happy to dish out nastiness, none of them could take it. However, with DeGrippo moving over to OhInternet, which I hope by now has gone under (but I won’t actually check on that because I don’t want to give them traffic if the site is still up and running), the pages of the old editors are now filled with the same lulzy content as every other profile page on the site. What’s more, even Cleary’s page is filled with jokes about how mega-Aspie he is, including a fantastic quote from the telegraph, which states:

“Mr Cleary is described as a "recluse" by his family and leaves his home so rarely that police who carried out surveillance on the property were unsure whether he would be there when they raided it, because they had never seen him go outside.”

When you can write that kind of shit on your own editor’s page – you know your website is truly in it For The Lulz.

Their Banner Wasn't Lying!

There was a brief time with no adverts, but unfortunately, like all sites, they needed cash to keep running. So, ED now has Ads again, and I’m still stuck on a crappy Blog site without my own .com – such is life in Russia.

I was looking for any excuse to post this one...

Well, that’s all the serious business out the way, so I’ll just round this up with a few quickfire nominations for more obscure categories.

The Least Helpful Response to a Serious Question

Here is a man at his wits end. As he later described in the thread, his wife had obviously been to this hotel, and it turns out she stayed in the room with another man. He feels he has to leave her for violating his trust, but doesn’t want to break up the marriage as they have kids together. And how does the very first poster respond when he first voices his concerns?

Stay Classy, 4Chan…

Hey, whilst we’re on the subject of 4Chan, how about…



Most Ridiculous Premise for a Raid Which Was Somehow Successful

This might sound like a bit of an odd category, but I had to include it simply because of this. As we all know, /b/tards will occasionally open a thread asking others to suggest a video they can all raid with RIP comments, then they all get involved and have a jolly good chuckle at the result. They also edit Wikipedia pages, flood Yahoo Answers, and search Google using fancy software which constantly refreshes the searched topic to bump it up the list of “most common searches” in order to make things seem convincing. In cases where someone says “Let’s write RIP on 50 Cent’s new video, and say that Ja Rule shot him”, you can see how this sort of thing may fool people. However, it’s a bit harder to see how anyone falls for this sort of shit when the winning post is:

That’s right. Adele died of a cake overdose. And you know what? A few comments and votes by /b/tards later…

…and people actually bought it:

Some /b/tard posted this, this is not from my Facebook. Because 1. I no longer have a Facebook, and 2. I don't speak to women. Ever.

Let me say that again, just to reinforce how ridiculous it is: People actually believed that Adele, the singer, had died from “Acute Cake Toxicity” at the age of 23, because it was on Wikipedia and YouTube.

Ok, so maybe it is KIND of believable...

And to think I thought they were trolling when I first heard Amy Winehouse was dead. I give these guys too much credit…


Dumbest Analogy Ever


So one day a thread appears linking to a study in which quotes were taken from both convicted Rapists, and Mens Magazines (like the ones Danny Dyer writes for), seeing if participants could tell which of the quotes came from which source. Inevitably, the age old argument erupted of whether or not women really are "asking for it" when they go out dressed like whores, and whilst no-one could quite top Dave Chappelle's musings on the matter, there were some attempts to construct a logical argument as to why dressing in slutty clothes is not an invitation to be raped. Unfortunately, said analogy had a fairly big flaw in it...

Best Dressed Man

Now, normally these polls vote for George Clooney at the Academy Awards, despite the fact he is wearing the same Tuxedo from the same Tailor as 50% of the other men present. However, this award isn’t for the most stylishly dressed male of 2011. This is an award for the man who best represents 2011 with his sense of dress. In other words, this award should actually be called “The Most WFT? Picture of a Guy Dressed Retardedly” Award. And I give you our winner:

The more you look at it, the weirder it gets.



And finally, we have the award you’ve all been waiting for. The award everyone wants to see the winner for. So, here it is, the last award of the night:


The Most Beautiful Smile of 2011 Award

This girl just has the most incredible smile. Such lovely, perfect teeth. Don't you think?




Voice.

Can You Crack It?

So apparently this "Can you crack it?" website is kind of a big deal. Rumour has it that if you can break the code on the site, you will be recruited into Third Echelon, where you will serve as back up to Sam Fisher, helping him to hack into advanced systems on a real-time basis. That or it proves you're autistic. Whatever the true nature of the site, however, it seems to have gained the attention of the internet, myself included. And not being one to pass up on a challenge, I decided that I would give it a go. Oh no, not cracking their code - that would be ridiculous. Have you seen that thing?

No, I decided that I would create a code, and upload it here to see if anyone else could break it. Now, i know that the majority of my siteviews come from people searching for that picture of Blade chasing Edward Cullen from Twilight, and that the majority of people who drop in here don't actually bother to read anything. Kind of how most people probably don't listen to the lyrics of the song Hip to Be Square. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, but it's also a personal statement about the band itself. HEY PAUL!

Try starting a Doubles thread now you stupid fucking bastard!




I am also aware that the few of you who do actually pay attention to anything I say probably won't be all that interested in wasting hours trying to break a stupid code for no reward other than the satisfaction you will get knowing you have outsmarted some internet blogger who isn't even smart enough to know a sentence should not begin with the word "and". And I sympathize. But just on the off-chance there is anyone out there who would like to put their code-breaking skills to the test, I give you my code:

If anyone does actually want to give it a go, feel free to either email me the answer, or just leave it as a comment below. I will reveal the answer, as well as how to reach it, on December 11th, the same day the "Can you crack it?" contest comes to an end (guaranteed the answer will be all over 4chan before it does, mind you). I hope at least someone out there will be interested in killing some time working on this, but if not, fuck it. It was fun making it. And now just so I get some page views: Olivia Wilde in a Bikini.

You know that's how I roll, baby.





Voice





Update 14/12/2011: Yeeeeaaah, I couldn't be bothered to go through how to solve this in the end, so I'll just leave it up as one of those great mysteries. If anyone can crack it, let me know and I'll give you a pair of 3D glasses in return (The awesome ones with the green and red lenses, not the crappy modern ones). Peace.

Tom Hardy's Training Routine for The Dark Knight Rises

I make this post out of a sense of duty to my readers. I know how many people scour the web looking for the workouts of celebrities, and follow whatever advice they find to the letter. Unfortunately for them, this advice is always, ALWAYS bullshit, and they end up seeing absolutely no gains, and giving up after a month or so of wasted time. I had a friend once who wanted to look like Ryan Reynolds in Blade: Trinity, so looked up “his” routine online, to find that it suggested starting your workout every day with 200 sit-ups, and then moved on to 3 sets of 20 for dumbbell curls and other similarly ridiculous suggestions. Likewise, whilst on /fit/ a couple of months back, someone posted a link to a site claiming to have Chris Evans’ routine for ‘Captain America’ – and once again, it was little more than a joke. These routines are created by trolls, to try and get out of shape people to waste their time chasing a dream which they will never reach if they follow that advice.

You didn't really think you could reach 4% Bodyfat by eating MacDonalds and doing 200 Sit-ups a day, did you?





But that all changes right here, right now.

So, to kick things off – what’s the most obvious feature when looking at Tom Hardy? What muscles does he have that really define him?

 

That’s right – his back.

So, taking this as a starting point – how would one go about getting a back like Tom Hardy’s?

Aziz Shavershian (The Zyzz) was quoted as saying to simplyshredded.com that his favourite exercise was the Deadlift, giving the reason that “This exercise will transform you body if done every week, correctly. Go hard and have fun with them. Notice how you rarely see people deadlift heavy at the gym? Do you also notice how all these people have average physiques? Put 2 and 2 together.”

Pictured: The Zyzz

Clearly, the guy knows what he’s talking about (though, he did also advocate never doing cardio, and we all know how that worked out for him). Not only this – but you can clearly see from the quote, he specifically says that deadlifting HEAVY is the way to go. So, none of this 12 reps for 5 sets crap you do on the leg press or tricep pushdowns – we’re talking about heavy as shit, and very few reps.

Pictured - me Deadlifting 200kg without even bothering to change into my lifting gear (note the crotch bulge)





Obviously, you need to throw in warm-up sets with that – you don’t just instantly go heavy, but here are some ideas for routines:

THE 5x5

Drawing heavily on programs like SS or SL, this is the simplest routine for deadlifting, and great for beginners. Warm-up with whatever weight you’re comfortable with. Say you feel you can Deadlift 120kg for 5 sets of 5, or thereabouts. Warm up with a set of 10-15 at 60kg, maybe another at 80kg, and then maybe drop to a set of 8-10 at 100kg, before progressing on to your 5x5. This mini-pyramid will prepare your muscles for the lift by warming them up correctly, and will also allow you to get used to the weights before you take your max. Alternatively, if you enjoy this build-up to your max, you could always try:

PYRAMID SETS

Say you Deadlift 180kg as a 1RM, this routine might work nicely for you:

1 x 20 @ 60kg

1 x 15 @ 80kg

1 x 12 @ 100kg
1 x 8 @ 120kg

1 x 6 @ 140kg

3 x 3 @ 160kg

This would be your build-up to your max set, you could then drop it down and work on lower weights for more repetitions again, essentially working your way back down the pyramid. Or, you could max out, and then go on to do your assistance exercises, such as Overhand Dead-hang chins, lateral raises, hyperextensions, and so on.

SINGLES

This is my personal favourite – and the routine I am on currently. The philosophy is that you pull single reps up as fast as you can, and keep good form throughout. So, for example, you do 2 warm-up sets of 10 at 60 and 80kg, then put on 100kg and do just one rep, pulling as hard and as fast as you can. You then put on 110kg, and do the same, and increase it by a 10kg increment each set until you reach your max, at say 200kg. If you do this routine twice in a week, try and alternate the way you’re pulling. So, for example, add 10kg a session 1 day a week, and aim to finish on a PR (perhaps adding 12.5kg to your final weight, just to improve on your previous best), and the other session go up in 5kg increments, and finish at a lower weight. So, for example, you may deadlift with 10kg increments on Sunday and finish at 200kg, but on Thursday go up in 5kg increments and max out at 185kg. This will not get your back as pumped as doing a routine with high repetitions, but it will certainly make you stronger – and this will allow you to load more weight on your assistance exercises to give you more of a pump. It also massively decreases your likelihood of injury, because you are only doing one rep, so will not strain yourself trying to go beyond your max. I would recommend using an overhand grip with no straps for as long as possible as well, in order to help build your forearms at the same time. Say, use an overhand grip to 170/175, then switch to an over-under grip or put straps on for the last few (if you have a strong grip, stay overhand the whole way).

FORM

Another way to hit your back harder is to essentially have poor form on the deadlift. This may seem like a ridiculous suggestion, but it actually works. By poor form, I don’t mean hitching the bar up, bending your arms trying to yank it as it gets above your knees – I mean starting with your chest and arse more or less in a line, and then locking out your legs quickly, so you are essentially doing a stiff legged deadlift. Alternatively, you could of course just do stiff-legged deadlifts after you’ve finished doing your conventional ones to avoid looking like this retard:

But it all depends on how much time you have to spare. The main point I will bring up for deadlifting form is that you should rest the bar on the floor for at least a second between reps to avoid "bouncing". bouncing reps isn't going to help your strength, and will just lead to you injuring yourself. Obviously, if you intend to follow the singles routine, you can ignore this, but for any other routine - make sure the bar has stopped on the floor before you start to lift again, and make sure you lock out fully at the top!

So that’s the main part of the back done. But, of course, you’ve all noticed by now what’s really impressive about Hardy’s physique:

His traps. There are many ways to work the traps, from shrugs to standing on the calf press machine and pushing it up with your traps rather than your calves, to even buying one of these:

Don't search for Head Harness on Google images with Safe Search off if you're at work - you get 19 BDSM / Gimp mask images, and this guy.




But remember, deadlifting will help improve them, so only do these exercises as assistance after your deadlifts. There is fuck all point in completely exhausting your traps every day of the week, and then deadlifting like shit. Whilst John Broz advocates squatting every single day to see the best gains, bear in mind that this is a guy who has trained for years and is on the juice – for a beginner, training every day is just pointless, in the same way that a 5-day split will essentially be pointless, because compound exercises will work better for you. Throw in a Squat session after one of your deadlift days, and a bench session after the other, and take the rest of the week off, and you’ll be riding high, my friends. Pick suitable assistance for each: Dips and Overhead press on Bench days, for example, and just do what works best.

 As long as it isn't Dat Dere Frog Tech...

Also, remember that diet is key – don’t just eat shit constantly, try and get the right amount of protein and calories in your diet. I’m guessing most of the people interested in following this will be bulking, so remember to eat a surplus of calories, with a high quantity of good protein. Chicken Breasts and Whey are awesome, but you can eat KFC as long as you factor it into your meal plan properly. There is some suggestion you should eat lots of small meals rather than a few big ones to help your metabolism, but as far as I know this may just be bro science. It probably is worth doing just so you never feel hungry and binge on crap, but whether it has any decent effects other than that, who can say?

Picture stolen unashamedly from leangains.com - check them out for some decent workout advice.






If you follow this advice, you’ll be breaking Batman’s back sooner than you think. But just remember one thing: Tom Hardy has one further training aid to help him put on that kind of muscle:

 
Except his will say 400mg/ml on it.






That’s right. Now, I know what you’re thinking – Hollywood stars aren’t allowed to take roids, because the insurance wouldn’t cover it if they died from steroid related problems. But the truth is, that only extends to steroids such as Trenbolone , which are not approved for human use. Testosterone, on the other hand, is taken by almost every star wishing to bulk up, as is anavar, anadrole, and probably Deca and various other steroids. Don’t believe Hardy’s on the Juice – take a look at these roid pimples on his back and think again:

Think Bale isn’t on the juice? Even factoring in muscle memory, it’s impossible to go from 115lbs to 190 in 6 months without a little assistance. Now, I don’t hold this against any of them – they’re actors, they do what they need to for the parts they play. But just remember, no matter how good your routine is, it’s gonna take you a hell of a lot longer to get into that kind of shape without the assistance these guys get.

Imma look like Wesley Snipes in no time!

So, now you’re all feeling pretty down, I thought I’d cheer you up with some awesome Bodyweight exercises, as used by Hardy to bulk up for Bronson. Enjoy:

Just watch your rotator cuffs doing those rolling press-ups, ok? I haven't been able to bench press for about 6 weeks, and only managed my first OHP session since injuring it a few days ago.






Voice




I hope this has been of some help. For more advice, Check out leangains (link above) or maybe even drop in on >>>/fit/ and check out the sticky. I leave the next step to you.









P.S. - Fuck Blogger's new layout - this page looks like shit and it took me 3 times longer to make than it should have. I hate when sites try and "improve" things. If it ain't broke, don't fucking fix it! And certainly don't fucking ruin it! This site may be moving as a result - stay tuned for further info...

The Truth About Batman: The Dark Knight Rises

So, everyone seems to be looking forward to the release of 'Batman: The Dark Knight Rises' next year. After the awesomeness of Inception, and the fact that Tom Hardy will be playing Bane, I can hardly blame them. However, as of now, The Dark Knight Rises is officially old news. Why, you ask? Because whilst on IMDB just moments ago, I came across this:

That's right - before Nolan's Batman trilogy has even finished, there are already plans for a remake in the works. Hell, they already have a writer on board and everything.

The fuck? I mean, I know Batman's a popular character and everything, and I know that reboots are the "in" thing at the moment, what with a Spiderman reboot and another Superman Reboot on the way (by the same writer as the Batman reboot, incidentally), but Jesus - you could at least wait for Nolan's last Batman film to be released before you decide you need to reboot the franchise...

.

No word yet on who will be directing, or who will star in the new Batman, or even which villains it will include - but to be honest, the whole idea seems pretty insane to me. I mean, come on, Batman Begins wasn't that long ago - how frequently are we gonna reboot these franchises?

Batman will have officially seen more reboots than "The Punisher" by 2015. That is, unless there's another Punisher film in the works as well...

Voice

Coming soon: Tom Hardy's training routine for The Dark Knight Rises - stay tuned.

Nirvana for Christmas #1 Campaign

My Brother works for William Hill, the betting company, and informs me that they're giving out even odds on Nirvana securing the #1 spot this Christmas, thanks to a facebook campaign to see them take the spot over Justin Bieber, and this year's X-Factor winner. In response, I just feel there is one question I should probably ask...


DO ANY OF YOU RETARDS EVEN FUCKING LIKE NIRVANA?


It's an honest question - Nirvana was never about becoming popular, or making money, and they sure as hell wouldn't be proud to make it to the Christmas #1 spot. In fact, this campaign seems to stand for everything the band despised. And just to top it all off, you know which song the campaign is calling for people to buy?





That's right, Smells Like Teen Spirit. If you're a regular, you'll recall my rantings against the song back in February last year. If you're not a regular, allow me to recant a couple of facts that every casual nirvana fan knows:


Nirvana's first album, Bleach, was not overly successful. For Nevermind, they decided to go in a slightly different direction, with a proper producer and decent mixing. Smells Like Teen Spirit itself was written as Kurt's version of a Pixie's song, with strong overtones of Boston's "More Than a Feeling" thrown in to boot. Kurt wrote it as a popular song - essentially, he wrote the song as a joke, to reflect on the direction the new album was taking. Smells Like Teen Spirit was an example of the extreme he was worried they were being pushed towards with their new sound and rising popularity, and wrote the song, in essence, as an act of rebellion. In effect, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was for 'Nevermind' what 'The Real Slim Shady' was for 'The Marshal Mathers LP'. It was an overly pop-sounding and catchy track, designed to make fun of the genre, and the group's steady path towards it. Nirvana was a raw grunge band, and found themselves falling into the mainstream world of pop music, so fought back with a parody of what they thought of pop. Cobain is known to have despised being made to play the song at live shows, because he hated the fact that Nirvana was being remembered as 'The Band who made that catchy track, Smells Like Teen Spirit'. Though, presumably not as much as David Bowie hated having kids come up to him and say how much they loved the fact he did a cover of a Nirvana song...



Pictured: The Exact look Bowie gave to anyone who said this. Don't even ask what happened to the people who complimented Dylan on his cover of a Guns 'N' Roses song...


So, essentially, encouraging people to buy 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' this Christmas is the biggest "Fuck You" we could give to Kurt Cobain's corpse, short of Courtney Love making a movie of his life with Rob Schneider in the lead role...



Rape Me, my friend...


Nirvana is not the type of band who would want a number 1, nor were they the type of group who would want to win some stupid race like this. But even if they were, they sure as shit wouldn't want 'Smells Like teen Spirit' to be the song everyone bought. Now, I have no idea what Dave Grohl's opinion on the song was, but i know that both Cobain and Novoselic hated it. Why not pick a Nirvana song the group were actually proud of? My vote would be on 'Heart-Shaped Box', but since it's not an overly catchy song, why not 'Come As You Are'? or 'Lithium'? All famous, instantly recognisable songs, but also songs the band actually liked and were proud of. And why stop at Nirvana? Since the band wouldn't have wanted to make it Christmas #1 anyway, why not buy another track from and early 90s grunge band? Hell, why not:






Better yet, why even pick a grunge band? Why not pick a song from an era where getting to the top of the charts wasn't considered a bad thing? Why shit in the faces of great musicians, when others would consider seeing their song reach #1 a great triumph? You know what I think we need to all need to buy to try and get to Christmas #1 this year?



See, it's funny because Kris Novoselic is Croatian...



Voice



Whilst we're on the subject, just a slight redaction I wish to make. upon viewing A Serbian Film for a second time, i realize that, what I had thought was meant to be a twist, and believed to be overly-predictable, was in fact always supposed to be obvious, and was not predictable, but inevitable. I had gone into A Serbian Film expecting a Horror Film along the lines of Saw, and so picked up on the similarities without judging the film on its own merrit. For this, I apologize. The movie is actually better than I gave it credit for, and now I'm worried I'll have to rewatch buffy the Vampire Slayer in case that's actually decent in some way I hadn't noticed before.


Actually, fuck that. that movie was shit.

Occupy Wall Street (from the perspective of a man whose never been to "climate camp" and doesn't eat organic beans)

So, I've been gone a long time, and I'm not entirely sure if I'm really coming back. I've been working my arse off the past few months, doing shifts any hours of the day (and night), hitting up to 75 hour weeks on occassion. But now I find myself unemployed once again, so may well restart the site if I can be bothered, and if I feel I can take the time off my Masters.


What I wanted to discuss today is the Occupy Wall Street protests, which have been a big news item for the past few weeks. With /pol/ (back? it's not really /new/) in existence, I've been able to see what others have been saying about OWS with a bit more ease over the last few days, and have also caught up on all the anti-Jewish ravings that get posted constantly on that board.



Despite the fact that 4chan was founded by a Jew, and is run by the team depicted here, who are roughly 50% Jewish, and 16.7% Arabic.



I've mostly been lurking (as you all know, I'm a /fit/izen at heart, so most of my posting is focused there), and leaving the occasional comment when I thought it was appropriate (for example, when I thought I might get quads). This evening, however, someone posted a link which would have forced me to lose badly had I been in a "you rage you lose" thread. I've only skim-read the linked article, but felt compelled to comment on it - and not just somewhere that deletes posts every few hours.


Here's a link to the article. Have a read for yourselves: http://feministing.com/2011/10/04/guest-post-my-hope-for-occupy-wall-street/


Now, as I've said, I haven't read the article in detail myself, because I was so busy raging hard at a couple of the statements made near the beginning of the post. The exact text I want to comment on, is the following two paragraphs:

Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly operates under a revolutionary “progressive stack.” A normal “stack” means those who wish to speak get in line. A progressive stack encourages women and traditionally marginalized groups speak before men, especially white men. This is something that has been in place since the beginning, it is necessary, and it is important.

“Step up, step back” was a common phrase of the first week, encouraging white men to acknowledge the privilege they have lived in their entire lives and to step back from continually speaking.

Now, whilst I could easy write an essay on the ways in which men are oppressed more than women in modern society here, I won't. Not because I don't want to, but because I have a far more important point to make.


So far, the OWS protests have been entirely about protesting "the 1%". The greedy upper-classes, who use capitalism to oppress the vast majority of the populace. We have seen prices skyrocket, with no noticable increase in wages for the average working individual, whilst huge corporations are turning record profits. Not only this, but these same companies are then refusing to pay even the small taxes the world's Governments impose upon them, with apparently no remedy available for the people who need that money to come back into the system - to pay for healthcare and education. It is a sorry state of affairs, and certainly worth protesting against. However, I can see these protests breaking down because of things like the "progressive stack". And here's why:


These tactics are making it so the protests are no longer about class - they are dragging in other issues. It seems a lot of people find this hard to believe, but much of the populace does not identify itself as being only "liberal" or "conservative", "republican" or "democrat".

For many people, there are instances where they believe a liberal standpoint is more appropriate, and others where a conservative stance is better. For example - yesterday it was announced that the Government was planning to increase sentences for teenagers caught in possession of knives, and my thoughts were "about fucking time". And yet, I am in favour of increasing the taxes on the rich, and the better-off. In favour of increasing the minimum wage, and benefits, and bursaries for small businesses. I am strongly in favour of all the social policies the "99%" are fighting for - I'm happy to see the earnings disparity in our society greatly decreased. In short, I am massivley in favour of socialism as far as the economy goes. And yet, it seems a lot of people are unable to grasp the concept that an individual could be very left-leaning on Economic strategy, but very right-leaning on crime. And that's a problem.


People like me will inevitably be alienated when what should be an economic protest turns into a "pro-liberalism"/"pro-democrat" protest. By bringing in issues like feminism and race, these people are going to be losing support for the cause they are actually fighting. I sit here a disadvantaged male in a world which seems to want to fuck me any way it can, and I am strongly opposed to the idea of women being given any more privilege over men than they already have. In my last year of university, I was living with 2 black guys, and my 2 best friends were both Chinese. Clearly, I am not a racist (well, against blacks or Cantonese people at least - I can't prove I don't hate Spics with a burning passion...) - and yet the idea of telling white men who may have very valid points that they should not express those because other races need to have their say first seems ridiculous to me.


Imagine it from the other side, if you're a liberal. Imagine a campaign from the right where they're arguing about an issue that affects you too, and that you might be considering joining. Now imagine that, along with this issue, they're also arguing that abortion be made illegal, and that automatic weapons should be legalized for self-defence. Suddenly, you don't want to join their protest, because you don't want to back those two other points, and feel that by joining the people protesting the main objective, you would be getting lumped in with those supporting the other two. They have just successfully alienated you. And it's the same here - you are alienating economic socialists who feel that men are oppressed in our society. You are becoming the stereotypical liberal campaigners. Feminism, Climate Change, Organic Beans - bringing these things into your protest will inevitably harm it. Because it makes you into a stereotype. Something the media, or the right, can point at and laugh. It doesn't matter if it's rational or not - that's just the way the world is.


Just think of how you see the Tea Party, and realize that if you press all of your issues as hard as they press theirs, you look to non-liberals as the Tea Party look to non-Republicans: ridiculous. This is a legitimate campaign, and worth fighting for - why sink it by adding issues that supporters won't relate to? If you're campaigning against military intervention in the middle East, why bring gay rights into it as well? What would you say to someone who was arguing something you were in favour of, but was also shouting that paedophiles need to be castrated? Or all the immigrants deported? You'd tell them to fuck right off with their protest - so why can you not see that pushing feminism and affirmative action into an economic debate will not help one bit?


I really hope people take my advice, and just argue one issue at a time, so we can actually get enough support going for this movement to change something. But I highly doubt it. Which is a shame, because I can see exactly where this protest is headed if it becomes a simple matter of "Left vs Right" over "Wrong vs Right".



Right down the fucking shitter...



Voice




P.S. Check my Sextets, bitches.