Random As Rhyme

I like art and I like Transformers, the internet is a wealth of great Transformers artwork and I felt I should compile a list of some of my favorites.

10. Original Optimus Prime Box Art

If I didn’t include the original box art image of Optimus Prime I would have had to turn in my membership card to Transformers anonymous. This shot is a classic, even though it doesn’t really bare a strong resemblence to the cartoon Prime we all grew up loving.

9. Marvel shotgunned prime

I actually drew a version of this Prime for an art project in junior high school,  the completed art and the comic have long since vanished but my love for it has not.

Am I the only one who finds the tag line a bit strange?
“Not your fathers Autobot”.
How many Transformers fans have kids who are old enough to understand whats going on when this comic came out (1993)?

8. Optimus Christ

This motivational poster is just a screen grab from an episode but the first time I saw it I immediately printed if off and stuck it to my cubicle wall since I thought it was so awesome, surprisingly no one has once said anything negative about it.

7. Optimus Prime BMX Number Plate

This is rad, my worlds have officially collided. This  bmx number plate with Optimus on it can be purchased here.

6. Optimus Rhyme

This one is one of the most obvious play on words for Optimus Prime spun into an a really creative piece of artwork. There is an acute attention to detail at work here. Check the play and pause buttons on the hands and the four finger rings. This exceptional piece was done by reyyyyy on deviant art.

5. 80s in the palm of his hand

I Can’t remember where I picked this one up but I have had it on my computer for years. Love the use of He-man, Lion-o, and Snake-Eyes.

4. Optimus and Snake-Eyes

Another cross contaminated piece of art. Snake-Eyes and Optimus could really mess some cobra/decepticon forces up. This one is done by jpart on deviant art.

3. DW Poster Prime

I am a big fan of DW’s treatment of all of the Transformers comics. The detail on this picture is great and it looks like Prime is about to kick ass and take names. My girlfriend actually started a painting of this image, but never finished. Anyone who is up to the task of doing a painted version of this for me, feel free.

2. Deep Prime

This piece of prime deep in concentration is done by a Myton Abellera he has a bunch of other cool artwork here including a picture of Megatron and Batman that’s extremely well done.

BONUS: Optimus By EpsenG

Another deviant, EpsenG, did this piece which he described as follows “Wanted to make a pic of the great leader in the style of the old 80s Transformers paintings.”

1. Obama Prime

This Obama parody done by Tim Doyle was the inspiration for this list. The original Obama change poster is going to go down in history as an iconic piece of artwork, and this parody is extremely well done. It was sold in limited amounts over on Nakatomi. Until I get my hands on one of the prints I have a black and white version of this up in my cubicle as well.

Hope you enjoyed the list, even those of you who are not big Transformers fans, and remember to support your local artist they are probably starving.

Late 2008 a hip hop group formed called Slaughterhouse that has been doing some serious damage to beats of late.  It’s consists of Crooked I, Joell Ortiz, and supposed to be beefing enemies Joe Budden and Royce Da 5′9.

While none of these mc’s have really had much commercial success, Joey had Pump it up, and Royce Rock City (but who still really talks about those?), they have been bubbling underground for quite sometime.

Once these four guys got on a track together, it was over.

They have put out about 4 or 5 tracks and each one is blatant lyrical slaughter, each artist tries to one up each other lyrically while still maintaining a group theme and their own individuality.

Here are the tracks they have produced so far.

This tracked dropped before the group was official. I thought it was a one off deal.

And now they are a group, this track is called Onslaught Royce mentions Tranzor Z and Voltron, that’s hype.

This track addresses the wack mc’s currently in the game and is aptly titled: Wack Mc’s

Fightclub, never talk about it

Move On Remix Yaaaaaaaaawa

When this group, hopefully, releases an album I am actually going to go out and buy it since I appreciate the level of lyricism these guys are bringing into the game. Give these tracks a listen and if you feel the same way I do see you at the music store whenever it drops.

This one is a little short but sometimes being brief is the best way to be. The parts made it to Jam rock which is great and I talked to a few people at the bike show that just passed who are interested in contributing to my next batch as well as paying for some shipping so that’s really good news.

Whats also really sick is Cream BMX has an article about Jamaican BMXers in it’s latest issue so go cop that.

Hopefully I have some new pictures for the update next time around.

Rocketeer – Toys R Evil

Raptor Jesus – Fashinably Geek

Sat nav disaster: Driver charged with careless driving as BMW gets stuck on cliff edge

Megan Fox and Her Autobots Tatt On The Cover Of Empire Mag – Bam Kapow

Chimp on a segway

11 Things the car thieves didn’t take
11 things the car thieves took

Time to keep the ball rolling in blogs worth a look before everyone forgets about the entire thing.This time around I will cover; Automotive, Friends, and Design.

Automotive

Jalopnik
The folks at the gawker media network really know how to wet my reading appetite.  I originally found this blog via a digg post linking to the “Down Alameda Street” category. Down the street alone could keep me amused for hours but this blog also has a lot of other interesting automotive related posts, news, reviews, concept cars, galleries, it’s got everything needed to speed through what could be an otherwise productive day. Good stuff.

Cardomain Blog
Cardomain got lucky, they sent a newsletter to my nearly 70% spam filled email account and I actually read it, not only did I read it I clicked through to their blog and kept reading. This is huge because I normally delete emails like that before I even read open them.

The cool thing about this blog is they often link to cardomain member pages so you can follow builds and learn how badass cars got to be so bad ass which is a great way to build inspiration for your own project car, whatever it may be.

Autoblog
This blog is simple straight forward industry news, it’s actually not the type of blog I check everyday, but if you are looking at buying a vehicle do a quick search and see what pops up.

Friends (part 1)

Idiot Banter
I met Matt while working at officialCommunity, he was my senior and helped me advance my xhtml/css skills enough to advance into the position I am at today at torstardigital. He is also an awesome drummer, a snowboarder, and has come watch me ride at the bike show a few times. His blog, like mine, is based around his interests and since Matt is a perfectionist he really takes the time to write great posts.

Aside from the post shouting me out, I also really like his post on Why Vinyl?, An Event Apart and why Gene Simmons doesn’t know what he is talking about. Oh Matt also writes for the Much Music Blog as well big time!

ThirstyMates
I met Grant a bit after meeting Matt, same employer, except Grant was a junior, Matt was still a senior, and I was a no title along with my friend Nairica.

Grant likes a lot of things video games one, beer the other. He likes beer so much that he is brewing his own. His blog, thirsymates, contains original musings about one mans (well one man and occasionaly some friends) love affair with beer.

Taradoesrap
Tara is easily my most famous female friend, she is currently denying it via msn, but that does not make it any less true.

She has done interviews with: Royce da 5′9, Joe Budden, Big Daddy Kane(!!), and The cool kids. She has also been on Tyra Banks. Yep sounds famous to me. Taradoesrap is her blog, and this girl works hard, she also writes for hiphopcanada.com

Inspired By Hand
Lyndsey is my creative girlfriend who is often the kick in the pants I need to get started on anything.

Her her craft/art inspirational blog also works as a show case for new things she makes (like yoga bags) for her etsyshop(s).

Design

Smashing Magazine
This is standard stock for a design  blog, its popular, has great content and everyone  goes there.  I couldn’t call myself a web designer (actually I am a front end developer) without mentioning smashing. It’s a great resource for free stuff.

Toxel
Toxel is another blog I found via digg and have been hooked on ever since. It’s meant to inspire and help the overall design process but really I just go their to look at cool random things, like creative ice cube trays, creative paper cutting, and unusual ties. This blog is defiantly worth checking out if for nothing else other than toilets that make it look like you are ski jumping.

Inspiredology
Inspiredology is like a Canadian version of smashing. It’s actually done by a guy named Chad Muller who is one of the few classmates of mine who decided to stick with this industry. Like smashing their are resources to download, and tutorials. To set it apart from the crowd though Chad also does a lot of interviews with local designers, photographers, and bloggers and also runs contests. It just got redesigned so take a look.

This post is part of a series, be sure to check out part 1

About six or so months ago I made a decision to lead a healthier life. I was never an unhealthy person but a series of health related issues caused me to really get my but in gear and try and keep myself in good shape for the years to come.

I was coming off a year of riding related knee injuries (Prepatellar bursitis) and was finding myself really tired in the afternoons and getting kind of soft. These two things alone didn’t trigger much of a change in my lifestyle.  I started taking inflammatory medication for my knee as needed and hit my basement gym a little bit more. Little did I know that two real kicks in the pants was about to come.

Around September 2008 I started to  get migraines, really bad migraines.  I felt like my body was attacking me and according to my Dr. there was seemingly nothing I could do about it other than take daily medication, blood pressure medication, like some old out of shape man. I found this really depressing being 24 and dependent on daily medication. I decided that this simply wouldn’t do and searched the internet for other ways to combat migraines.

I learned that leading a healthy life style with balanced amounts of sleep and physical activity greatly reduced the amount of migraines sufferers experienced.

So I decided to increase my physical activity. Sure I already rode two to three times a week but my body was used to that, it had adapted I had to bring something else into the mix.

So I joined a men’s hockey league (ASHL) with some high school friends and signed up  for fitness boxing at Hurontario Community center. Hockey I knew I would love again the instant I stepped back on the ice but boxing I had no idea I would like as much as I do.

I started boxing as much as I ride (twice a week) and the instructor, Andy Dumas, and other members have been helping advance my training as far as I am willing to take it.

On New years 2008 through the 2nd of January I was kicked again, while making a steak and lobster dinner with my girlfriend I came down with the stomach flu and was laid up on the couch/curled over the toilet for two days. It was the sickest I have been in a long, long time, and I lost all of my water weight and could not really eat solid food for a few days after.

Instead of writing the entire year off and sleeping until 2010 I decided to start making conscious choices to eat better. I never ate terribly, and don’t obscenely healthy now, but I take a minute or two to look at the nutritional information of what I am eating and glance at the menu for a healthier choice. I have actually only bought one lunch this year so far!

These live style choices have defiantly made an effect on me. Cardiovascular wise I am probably in the best shape I have ever been, and I am also at my leanest (healthy leanest not sick leanest)  and while I have been bigger muscle wise I am pretty happy with my strength and looks.

However I am not going to  rest on my laurels,  I recently picked up “Knockout Fintess” and came across two online programs I am going to work  through: hundredpushups and twohundredsitups. To keep myself more motivated I have decided to take pictures over the course of each six  week program and post them on here.

For the  dudes hopefully this is an inspiration, for the ladies  some eye candy.

I did the initial hundredpushups test and I did 24 consecutive push ups wish means I have to start on week 3 so here we go. Week 3.

Last night I watched this video about street racing and it got me thinking that I am DAMN lucky I never witnessed or was in a street racing crash or ever got booked.

I have not been in or around a lot of street racing but it only takes one time to ruin your life or the life of someone else. With this in mind I decided to compile a list of great you tube racer/ricer crashes.

Similar to my last list I left out the ones where someone could have died.

Keep it on the track kids…

10. We will start this shebang off with a good old engine failure. No crash but the repair bill probably was not cheap.

9. Residential areas are perfect places to try out the motor swap you can’t handle! Thank god there were not any kids around that could have easily been killed.

8. This one is kind of hard to see but, a typical situation. Person A passes Person B then person B passes Person A, this goes back and forth until they actually race or this happens.

7. Mis shifted himself right into the ditch.

6. Flipping a car off a race track is normally a hard task. Unless you lack the common sense that tells you not to do a burn out on a slant. Dad’s pissed.

5. This type of thing happens often, since a lot of the spectators at street races are paying attention to a lot of things other than the race that’s going on. This guy probably got a call from his mom to come home and forgot where he was.

4. Oversteer can be a bitch when you are not ready for it. I feel bad for the people in the other lane.

3. Could it be that the above happened to two Mustang owners on the same day on the same corner?

Nah… right?

2. This one is really, really old, but still to this day I am not really sure how he managed to ball up a burn out so bad that he had enough forward momentum to carry him uphill into the Jetta and do so much damage to it. That takes some sort of skill.

1. Number one is the longest one but by far the funniests. The way these two geniuses try and deal with the problem by staging an accident at the end is just too much.

Family too fat to work wants more money – Telegraph.co.uk

BMW Art cars – Ny times

Ford GT runs from cops

Heath Pinters Trail Jam

Stan Bush – The Touch

Batman – Arkham Asylum… do want

Madworld Review

Growing up my dad had one of those nifty boxes that got pay per view for free. This lead to the two of us watching a lot of wrestling in the late 80s and early 90s. Back then the story lines were a lot easier to follow and it was good fun. I have no idea what’s going on in wrestling now but I woke up this morning with a slight interest in tracking down some of the more popular ones from the golden years. I left out some obvious one just because most people know what happened to them.

Jake the Snake

Apparently Jake the Snake wrestled for a long time, about three decades, at various levels of profession wrestling.
However after lots of injuries (neck and back) most notably after the Honkey Tonk man smashed him with a real guitar he became addicted to pain killers, and alcohol. At one point he got so bad that he would take off his pants to show fans why he was really called the snake. It sounds like he has bouts with sobriety and relapse to this day but is trying to work out his issues.

Jake.. not at his best.

The Macho Man Randy Savage

The Macho Man, who’s real name is Randall, actually has had a pretty decent run after wrestling. He appeared in Spiderman, Slim Jim commercials, and Bolt’s growl in the new Disney movie. He has also been seen around 50 cent and had a rap album based around his fued with Hulk Hogan. Unfortunately his then wife Samantha didn’t fair so well as she died of an overdose.

Be a Man Hulk!

Mr. Perfect

I always kind of hated Mr Perfect. I thought he was a pretentious, pompus, ass. Really that’s exactly what his character was and he did a great job of portraying that. He continued wrestling after the WWF WWE and then suddenly died of an overdose in 2006.

Summerslam entrance in 1991 before fighting Bret Hart.

Bret The Hitman Hart

After the Montreal screw job, WCW, and appearing at local Pizza Pizza’s here in Ontario, Brett suffered a minor stroke in 2002 and was paralyzed for awhile. He has now fully recovered and wrote a book called “Hitman: My Real Life In The Cartoon World of Wrestling” he is not addicted to anything and seems to be living happily. He really really hates Shawn Michales. ” Asked if he had seen or spoken to Michaels since 1997, Hart said, “No. And I hope I never do…for his sake.”

Montreal Screw Job and the aftermath.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan

Hacksaw surprisingly still wrestles. Even after getting kidney cancer, but apparently if you beat cancer hard enough with a 2×4 it goes away. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The British Bulldog

Davey Boy Smith, aka The British Bulldog had the coolest beaded braids in professional wrestling. Wiki tells me he started competitive wrestling at 15, and continued doing so until the year 2000. Like many other wrestlers he developed an addiction to pain killers and eventually died of a heart attack which may have been caused by the use or steroids throughout his career.

The Ultimate Warrior

Out of all the wrestlers I have talked about today the Warrior was definaltey my favoirte. His entrances were always amazing, he would run out full speed slide into the ring and shake the living hell out of the ropes all to hard 80s guitars.Who would have though that this energetic bag of muscle would one day settle down to be a republican and motivational speaker? Well that’s exactly what happened, after getting fired from the WWE three times he decided to quit wrestling and be a talking head. Bummer.

Warrior vs Rick Rude cage match intro

This list could go on forever, but while researching for this post I learned that a staggering amount of wrestlers die before 65. It’s all documented here and actually quite a shock. No matter what anyone says wrestlers are real athletes and face real injuries. Next time you think about talking down on wrestlers remember that there is a real person behind the persona and more often than not they are suffering for your entertainment.

Today is the annual spring bike show here in Toronto, and with that comes the annual am/pro BMX contest. I have been riding in this contest since it was La Revolution, then it went to Metro Jam, now it is just the Toronto BMX Jam, or better known as Notro. As of right now I have it in my head that this will be the last time I ride in it. Why?

Well a few reasons, the first being that most of my original riding crew, though they all sent text messages bigging me up are not riding in it, and it’s not the same without my dudes.

Second is that while I feel I am riding the best I ever have I can’t keep up with the kids today. They take this stuff serious and are really ready to go in where as for me, while I am still learning and shredding I gotta worry about work Monday (well Tuesday) morning and just generally staying in decent condition to ride as long as I can.

So my main focus today is to put together a run that I am happy with, get a few people cheering for me and ride off into the sunset.

But I mean, I could pull some hypocritical shit and write this exact same post next year we will see.

I will do a post at the end of the weekend with how it went and some photos I wrestle out of Lyndsey.

I ride at 8:15ish if anyone is interested.

Here is a clip from a few years ago of me doing a trick I can’t even do anymore.