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avaliveradio · 1 year

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Indie Singer Songwriters Making Amazing Music in December 2022

Here’s a list of special songs with a unique perspective of the world reflected by the songwriters voice. I love the storytelling ability of a great songwriter. They understand how to tell the tales like no one else can. Every song reflects their unique style and tone. It’s a great list of songs to chill with. Grab a cup of coffee and relax while these artists have a chat with you.

Indie Songwriters who will Inspire you

Start Listening

Blue Canopy - Bright Spot

Released by: Grind Select

Genre: Surf RockIndie PopDream Pop

Similar artists: A Beacon School, Vansire, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Far Caspian

"New single from multi-instrumentalist, Blue Canopy, ft. Patrick J Smith of A Beacon School on guitar" "Bright Spot was written during a rough patch in my relationship with my long term partner. We were fighting a lot regarding rehoming our family dog, and I just wanted everything to be OK between us. This song sorts through my feelings throughout that time, hoping for a resolution."

NOEHMI - Bury Me

Genre: Cinematic / Epic MusicAlt Pop

Moods: Sad, Dark, Epic

Similar artists: Halsey, Billie Eilish,

NOEHMI - Bury Me is striking. This moody, cinematic pop song explores the heavy weight of pressures and expectations of constantly trying to be perfect. From the start the song grabs you and takes you on a journey. The music is elegant and the lyrics very thoughtful.

Bury Me is a weary exploration of pressures and expectations through the lens of a people pleaser. The down-tempo piano piece voices the anger and desperation of someone who gives everything to those they love, receiving nothing in return. With labels like “doting daughter” and “perfect picture,” she has worked hard to make herself easy to love and has finally grown tired of it all. The chorus dives into dark moments when the weight of the word becomes too much to bear, and existence starts to feel too heavy. In short, Bury Me is what breaking under pressure sounds like. Noehmi is a singer-songwriter based in Minneapolis.

More about this artist… <here>

Ben Lorentzen - Second man on the Moon

Approved for: Stay Home Chill Zone Music Playlist, Indie Music that Inspires you

Genre: Adult Contemporary, Pop Rock, Alt Pop

Similar artists: Ed Sheran, Harry Styles, Oasis, John Lennon

Ben Lorentzen is a Norwegian singer songwriter, born up north near Tromsø, where the climate is harsh, the landscape is majestic, and the sun is hidden 6 months out of the year.

The newest single from Ben Lorentzen ‘Second man on the Moon’ is a song about self isolation. It's a beautiful mix of the artists influences with a purposeful lyric and defined style. The song is about choosing isolation in stead of community, and how easy it is to make that choice sometimes, and how hard it can be to choose trust, love, care and be in communication with others.

More about this artist.. <here>

The Dirty Doves - Lucky Penny

Released by: Crash Test Studios

Retro SoulBluesIndie Rock

Similar artists: Marcus King; John Mayer; Frank Turner; John Butler; Kris Lager; Crosby, Stills & Nash; Neil Young

""Lucky Penny," our latest single release along with an official music video. 1:39 onward showcases a chorus and chill guitar solo."

We recorded this song after rehearsing for a show one night. One of us started playing the riff and the other spat out some lyrics with some good vibing thought behind it. We shot a music video that's on our Dirty Doves YouTube page up in Alexandria Bay with our friend, Mitch at Exit World Films. All in all, this song has really brought to light who The Dirty Doves really are. We hope you enjoy!

Cabela and Schmitt - Wondering

Music Genre: Easy Listening, Soft Rock

Mood: Mellow

Located in: Sidney Ne and Fountain Co. USA

Sounds like: Little River Band, Poco, America

Cabela And Schmitt Finishes Out The Year With A Beautiful Song About Reflection Called 'Wondering'. Cabela and Schmitt finishes out the year with a beautiful song about reflection. The song is soothing with nostalgic tones further supporting a reflective theme that infuses well with the melodic chorus and lyrical content. I enjoyed the harmonies. They have such a wonderfully pleasing tone in a chaotic world. Thankfully Cabela and Schmitt are always there bringing us music that makes us feel less alone.

More about this artist <here>

JKPOPSTAR -It’s You, Not Me

Music Genre: Pop Vibe: Pop with country roots Located in: Arkansas Sounds like: Taylor Swift, Ben Rector , Meghan Trainor Wrote this song about some friends. One of them dropped the other one claiming it’s not you it me… so I spun and said your damn straight it’s you! 17yr Singer/Songwriter wanting more out of life than backwoods Arkansas!

You Knew it Anyway- Alan Garmonsway

Music Genre: Singer/Songwriter Vibe: Breaking-Up Ballad Located in: Wiltshire, UK https://open.spotify.com/track/6wTqlFkQOKVTQbx8V70zgg?si=621a3acaab66462c ‘You Knew it Anyway’ is the new release from UK songwriter and recording artist Alan Garmonsway. It’s an emotion-filled reflection of breaking up with someone special and the impact it has on your life.

But there’s another message in the song, particularly for songwriters – never give up on a song that moves you. Alan wrote You Knew it Anyway with a friend when he was just 16 years old, and it now emerges all those years later with its lasting sentiments but a very different production.

More about this artist <here>

Glyy - Next To Me

Commercial, Adult Contemporary, Alt Pop

" This is our new single, carefully crafted to be easy to listen to and hard to forget. Next to me is about a young boy with zero confidence when it comes to love. Being in love but deciding not to do anything about it for one reason or another, and instead suffering in silence.

Self-published and multi-instrumentalist banda Glyy, hailing from Stockholm and Uppsala in Sweden, seeks to combine indie pop, string pop and a pastiche of afro genres to create unforgettable, never-before-heard por tunes. Members Alex (guitar), David (voice), Daniel (keyboards and cello) and Fernando (bass) are all about that fine line between what is popular and brilliant and what is new and interesting.

#Singer-Songwriter

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duine-aiteach · 2 years

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Irish LGBT+ Content

These lists include LGBT pieces set in Ireland, LGBT pieces with Irish main characters, LGBT pieces as Gaeilge, and LGBT pieces created by Irish people, often they overlap but not always. Feel free to suggest things I ought to add or offer corrections for mistakes I've made.

Please note that the inclusion on this list does not mean I recommend the piece in question - I am familiar with only a few.

Where possible links lead to RTÉ player, TG4 player, YouTube or official sites. Not all links lead to pieces that are available to watch at the time of posting.

Television:

Eipic (2016) [gay, as G]

Derry Girls [lesbian]

Ros na Rún [soap, as G]

Fair City [soap, trans m briefly]

6Degrees [mlm, NI]

Film:

The Crying Game (1992)

Cowboys and Angels (2003)

The Blackwater Lightship (2004) [based off book below]

Breakfast on Pluto (2005) [trans f]

Viva (2015) [mlm, Irish writer/director only, in Spanish]

Handsome Devil (2017) [gay, mlm]

Papi Chulo (2019) [gay, Irish writer/director only]

Rialto (2019) [mlm]

Dating Amber (2020) [gay, lesbian]

Shorts:

Chicken (2002)

Lúbtha (2019) [mlm]

The First Saturday of May (2019) [trans]

Scene from the Men's Toilets at a Ceilidh (2019)

OUT (2020)

Candid (2020)

Punch Line (trans f)

Boxed In (trans m)

Cailín Álainn [trans f, as G]

Where Do All The Old Gays Go? [trans]

Homebird [trans]

Books:

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872) [wlw, Irish writer only]

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890) [mlm, outside Ireland]

As Music and Splendour by Kate O'Brien (1958) [wlw, outside Ireland]

A Noise from the Woodshed by Mary Dorcey (1989) [lesbian, anthology]

The Kiss by Linda Cullen (1990)

When Love Comes to Town by Tom Lennon (1993) [gay]

Hood by Emma Donoghue (1995) [wlw]

Biography of Desire by Mary Dorcey (1997) [wlw]

Breakfast On Pluto by Patrick McCabe (1998) [trans f, bi]

Crazy Love by Tom Lennon (1999) [gay]

The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín (1999) [gay]

The International by Glenn Patterson (1999) [bi]

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill (2001) [mlm]

A Son Called Gabriel by Damian McNicholl (2004) [NI, gay]

The Master by Colm Tóibín (2004) [mlm, Irish writer only]

Stir-Fry by Emma Donoghue (2006) [wlw]

Landing by Emma Donoghue (2007) [wlw]

Map of Ireland by Stephanie Grant (2008) [wlw, Irish-American]

Falling Colours: The Misadventures of a Vision Painter by R.J. Samuel (2012) [wlw]

The Rarest Rose by I. Beacham (2013) [wlw, Irish character, non-Irish writer]

To Summon Nightmares by J.K. Pendragon (2014) [trans, mlm]

Carolyn for Christmas by Lucy Carey (2015) [lesbian]

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle (2015) [bi, lesbian]

The Green Road by Anne Enright (2015) [gay]

Wormwood Gate by Katherine Farmar (2015) [wlw]

A Good Hiding by Shirley-Anne McMillan (2016) [NI, gay]

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (2016) [mlm, outside Ireland]

Eelgrass by Tori Curtis (2016) [wlw, Irish myth inspired only?, non-Irish writer]

All the Bad Apples by Moïra Fowley-Doyle (2017)

Forget Me Not by Kris Bryant (2017) [wlw]

The Art of Three by Erin McRae & Racheline Maltese (2017) [bi, polyam, Irish character, non-Irish writers]

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne (2017) [gay]

The Spellbook of Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle (2017) [wlw]

The Unknowns by Shirley-Anne McMillan (2017) [NI, bi m, bi f]

My Brother's Name Is Jessica by John Boyne (2019) [trans f]

Every Sparrow Falling by Shirley-Anne McMillan (2019) [NI, mlm]

Perfectly Preventable Deaths (2019) and Precious Catastrophe (2021) by Deirdre Sullivan [wlw]

The Falling in Love Montage by Ciara Smyth (2020) [wlw]

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (2020) [lesbian]

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue (2020) [wlw]

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan (2021) [bi f, wlw]

Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar (2021) [bi f, wlw]

Not My Problem by Ciara Smyth (2021)

The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar (2023) [wlw]

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, as Gaeilge by @heartstopper-i-ngaeilge (2024)[mlm, wlw, as G only]

Nonfiction:

Please be aware especially for this section that the pieces listed may be upsetting or cover difficult topics.

Print:

The Strange Story of Dr James Barry by Isobel Rae (1958) [biography: Barry, trans m]

The Perfect Gentleman by June Rose (1977) [biography: Barry, trans m]

Love In a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodóvar by Colm Tóibín (2002) [essay collection]

The Secret Life of Dr James Barry by Rachel Holmes (2002/2020) [biography: Barry, trans m]

Queer & Celtic edited by Wesley J Koster (2013) [anthology]

Running Amach in Ireland: True Stories by LGBTQ Women edited by Maureen Looney (2016) [essay anthology]

Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time by Michael du Preez and Jeremy Dronfield (2016) [biography: Barry, trans m]

Green Carnations/Glas na Gile edited by John Ennis & Moxie Lofton (2021) [poetry anthology]

Screen:

A Different Country (2017) [pre-1993 documentary]

Outitude (2018) [lesbian documentary]

Tabú: Tras (2020) [trans m, trans f, as G]

Seal le Dáithí - Niamh Ní Féineadh (2023) [as G, trans f]

Scéalta Grá na hÉireann: Eleanor Butler & Sarah Ponsonby (2023) [as G, wlw]

Misneach: Ceist Bhróid (2023) [as G, gay]

Croíthe Radacacha (2023) [as G, wlw]

Aiteach Ní Aisteach [as G, queer]

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breakingsomething · 4 years

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Dawn Station - Pilot

Basic summary: Video game developer Jack Mcloughlin is finally releasing a new game after a ten year hiatus.

Content warnings: Murder, dismemberment, body horror

It comes as a shock to everyone, including you, when Jack Mcloughlin announces the release of a new game at the start of the second week of October.

There are several reasons why this is such a big deal. One: Jack Mcloughlin has been making games since he was twenty seven, and has released only five of them in the thirty years he's been doing it. Two: Jack Mcloughlin is world renowned for his fantastic horror games, all done in wildly different styles, but still notably his own. Three: Jack Mcloughlin has not, up til now, so much as mentioned working on a new game. The only social media site he's fully active on is Twitter - which you check regularly for any updates - and before the release of his last game, Ehrmann Lab, he had left a series of cryptic clues for two months leading up to the announcement. Those had been probably the most fun two months you'd ever had in your life, and even helped you make new friends. But this time around, there is no warning. The trailer is dropped at Purina Expo, one of the biggest American gaming conventions of the year. You were incredibly lucky to be able to snag tickets. Usually, this convention is where the hottest games that would be coming out the following year would be announced, trailers would be played, and developers would discuss - so everyone there on October 10th is shocked to not only be the first to see the trailer, but to hear from the man himself. Jack Mcloughlin takes the stage, gleefully announcing the release of Dawn Station on October 31st this year.

Now, the release of a new game from Septic Games - Mcloughlin's own software company, which he founded after his second game's release - is a big enough deal. But this… this is something else. Mcloughlin explains it before the reveal of the trailer, and you listen with great excitement.

"Dawn Station," says the man, practically bouncing across the stage with glee and shouting into his mic with a hoarse Irish accent. "is a feat of modern gaming. Now, I understand that when you play games, it can get boring to replay them later on after you've finished, because - well, you know how it goes! You know all the twists and turns, all the jumpscares, all the fights, all the spooks. But what if I told you that there was a way you could play where things were different each time?"

Behind the man, on a large screen, an image comes up. This is the first promo image for the new game to be shown to the people. The image is of a tilted hallway in what looks like a complex, broken down space station, overgrown with unusual plants that glow and spark. In the centre of the image is an astronaut. His helmet is on the floor, blood soaked. His face is half in shadow. All that can be seen is curly olive hair and neon green eyes - two on his face, and one embedded in his neck. The suit itself is torn, ripped open with a mouth and a dripping tongue where the being's stomach should be. A torch is on the ground behind him, attempting to cast light on the room. The words "Dawn Station" come up in solid, bright green font next to the being's face.

"This is Dawn Station!" cries the developer, over the many excited murmurs of the crowd. "The first ever virtual reality game with a fully developed artificial intelligence antagonist! An antagonist who learns from the players movements and choices, who grows and changes based off of what you do. You control the game, now more than ever! He's clever, he's learning, he knows where you are, and his objective is to kill the player - introducing... Alien X, otherwise known as… the Anti!"

Everyone cheers. Mcloughlin steps aside, a beam splitting his pale face, and allows the room to darken, and the trailer to play.

You're in awe. The trailer shows that you play as a character named Drew Oliver, an astronaut in their mid twenties who's aboard the Dawn Space Station, which has fallen to the planet you seemed to have been monitoring - the Othohiri 5RM. The game seems to revolve around attempting to explore the little bits of the planet that you can while repairing the ship and dealing with your descent into madness, all the while being chased down by the Alien X, a shapeshifting monstrosity who's eager to end your life before you can finish your goals. After watching it… well, everyone is absolutely blown away, especially you. This is unlike anything Mcloughlin had ever produced, especially to this scale. It's no wonder he hadn't produced a game in ten years if this was what he had been working on. You're practically vibrating with excitement at the breathtakingly beautiful scenery and realistic yet perfectly stylistic graphics, and the 8D sound design that seems to echo from all around you. It's incredible. The second you get back to your hotel room that night, you're one of the first to preorder the game.

Your week at the convention ends, and you go back home, counting down the days to the game's release. However, even more exciting things are happening. On Twitter, a few of your favourite youtubers are acting rather cryptic. KrisDoesGAMEZ and rrroadblock, two streamers you like, retweet Mcloughlin's announcement tweet with eye emojis and promises of the game being good. DUSSST, visualthursday and BroAverage make their own posts about it. PeachCheerio and TheSkinnerr upload short update videos promising exciting things to come.

On October 15th, it happens - ten youtubers each upload an early access demo of Dawn Station, having been chosen and given the code to play it by Mcloughlin himself. You don't watch the videos because you want to play the game yourself with no spoilers, but from what you've seen, it's fucking amazing. Critics are already calling it the game of the decade. The internet is thriving, and a few people have already cosplayed Drew, the main character. Your best friend uploads a joking cosplay of the Anti and walks around town with it on. He gets over a thousand likes and teases you about being too good for you now that he's internet famous. You're living for all of this.

On October 16th, youtuber PeachCheerio is murdered in his own home.

Everyone is shocked, rightfully. Here is a man who had streamed just the day before, chatting with his members and looking at Dawn Station memes on Twitch. Today, he was discovered by his girlfriend in his own home. Leaked police reports tell you that the man, whose real name was Ronald Murphy, had been messily dismembered, his organs removed, half of them missing. You're in shock. He was one of your favourite streamers, and maybe it's silly to mourn someone you've never met, but you're deeply, deeply saddened by the news.

However, it doesn't stop there. The very next day, youtuber DUSSST - or Louise Greendale - is found the same way Ronald had been. Louise's girlfriend apparently called the police in hysterics before panic tweeting about the incident. The posts were taken down an hour later. The screenshots of what she'd said trend of Twitter and Tumblr anyway.

This is when the conspiracy theories arrive. Two youtubers dead in two days, both brutally taken apart and missing organs? Some people mock the theorists for it. Who had even said Louise had been killed the same way as Ronald, anyway? That is, until more apparent police reports are leaked revealing the details of Louise's death. The internet goes wild. The Los Angeles police department posts a video begging whoever's causing the leaks to stop, to think about the families of the deceased. All this does is prove that they're true. This video, too, is later taken down.

You log off in disgust. Some people have no fucking shame.

Things heat up the next day, on October 18th, when user rrroadblock, or Aryan Jha, dies as well. The death is covered up for the first few hours afterwards, but eventually is leaked in the same manner as the last two murders. This time, the theorists are no longer labeled as crazy. In fact, everyone's getting in on this mystery now. Three popular youtubers dead now, each found in bloody states in their own homes, three days apart? No one knows what's happening, but that doesn't stop people from guessing. And while you refuse to involve yourself in any of this, you also find yourself wondering who or what - not what, of course it's not a what, that's just ridiculous - who is killing all of these people.

Day four. The internet is silent, waiting. And yes, sure enough, youtuber KrisDoesGAMEZ, or Kris Velvet, is dead.

This time, someone realizes something that makes everyone pause. Each of the dead youtubers are all the ones who were given the free demo of Dawn Station, and are even dying in the order that they played it in. Everyone goes insane. Even you're suspicious - of what, exactly, you don't know, because why would someone murder someone else so brutally over a video game? Despite that, this can't be a coincidence. People place bets on whether youtuber ducksontheroof, or Donna Campbell, is going to be the next one to be found dead. Donna herself makes a statement on her Instagram, expressing disgust at all the people who were spreading such information around. She then deactivated all her socials apart from her YouTube. The people who had been making bets were shamed, and you have to log off yet again. This is getting to be too much.

You stay offline until nearly four pm the next day. Your friend calls you up to give you the news, but you already know what they're going to say. Let me guess, you start, voice flat and tired. Donna Campbell's dead.

They confirm it. You don't know what to say.

Her family put out a statement asking people not to theorize about her death. People do it anyway. Reports state that the remaining five youtubers who had played Dawn Station, along with, surprisingly, Jack Mcloughlin himself, had been taken into police custody. For protection, you assume. Once again, the internet goes insane. This proves their theories about the game connecting all the deaths, and a silent dread and buzz of twisted excitement hangs over everyone. You're just disgusted. People are treating this like some kind of murder mystery game, like this isn't real, actual lives.

Two days pass without news. At the end of the second day, there's yet another leak. Youtubers Doomandgloom - Persephone Henry - and TheSkinnerr - Rodney Pratt - are dead. You're just numb. You're just so fucking numb.

This reveal, of course, inspires yet another debate. If the youtubers had been under police protection, how had they died? Had the police seen anything? Why hadn't the leak said anything about it? Who was killing all these people in so little time, how hadn't they been caught? Had, really, no one seen anything at all?

There are now three youtubers left who'd played the game. Hothothotstanley, or Stanley McIver, visualthursday, or Khia Herrera, and BroAverage, or Chase Brody. You met Stanley McIver, once, at a convention in London three years ago. You have a picture on your memory board of you standing in the convention hall, him with his arm around your shoulder, you with a grin and sparkle in your eye. You can see the picture from your bed. You turn away from it.

However, the next day is a surprise to everyone. A video is uploaded to someone's Twitter - a full, uncensored video of the murder of Stanley McIver inside the government safe house he and the others had seemingly been kept in. The video is immediately taken down and the Twitter deleted, but everyone has seen it. Including you. The video is… horrifying. Of course it is. Why did you watch it? But you do manage to see who it is that killed him. Everyone on the internet does. And this - this video, that's maybe five minutes long - is enough to make everyone go silent.

The killer looks exactly like the Anti from Dawn Station.

No one knows quite what to make of this.

Even less so when Jack Mcloughlin dies the next day.

He's murdered. Same way as all the rest of them, in police custody. Now this is enough to shock everyone into mourning silence. Only a few pricks are left, and their accounts, channels and blogs are swiftly deactivated. Nine deaths in nine days. Nine deaths. Nine. Jack Mcloughlin.

The next day, Khia Herrera - well, you know.

Chase Brody is the last one left alive. You never watched his channel that much - he's really into horror, and is known for his Walking Dead playthrough and his Undertale Genocide run - but you still already feel a strange sense of loss. A sort of emptiness. Something churns in your stomach that you don't understand. There's a lot that you don't understand.

The release of Dawn Station is cancelled.

You spend the night at a friend's house, and just bawl for hours. You shouldn't be so upset, you shouldn't! You never knew any of these people! But fuck, there's something about seeing all these people who you'd been watching online for so long, who have given you so many happy days, so many laughs and inside jokes… just die. How had this happened? Who was it who was doing this?

Your friend sadly suggests it's some sick Jack Mcloughlin hater who decided it'd be fun to cosplay as his newest character and kill people to scare everyone. But while you outwardly agree, you internally know it's not true. Because every time you watch that video, every time you watch Stanley die - and you watch it a lot, just trying to make yourself feel something, even if it's just sick - you can tell the person isn't human. You know that's ridiculous, of course. But there's something about its eyes. Its face. It glances up at the camera and makes eye contact, and grins with too many white, jagged teeth, like an anglerfish. The eye in its throat sees you too. It glows. You shudder every time, watching it shake with glitches and laughter.

You're scared. You feel sick and dizzy and you lock your doors out of fear. You stay inside and open Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram again.

Poor Chase Brody, says the internet. They're already mourning. Already accepted his death. Poor, poor Chase Brody.

You hope he's ok, wherever he is.

#dawn station #jacksepticeye #antisepticeye #boop writes

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fieldfullofbangtan · 5 years

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Idols Dream: Chapter Eleven

☁️ au: idol!au

☁️ chapter word count: 2.3k

☁️ chapter summary: Kris’ MV drops, it’s your big break and omg a giant teddy.

The music video shoot was honestly the most fun and exhausting thing I’ve ever done. Kris and I goofed around on set like two idiots but in the end after 2 weeks of constant shooting we were absolutely dead.

“That’s a wrap guys! Good job everybody and thanks for all the hard word. If everything goes as planned the video will be up the day after deadline!” The director yelled out as everybody started to get ready to leave, giving eachother praise for all the work.

Me and Kris stayed on the set and we both breathed out like a weight had been lifted off our shoulder. When we started filming the MV everything was going as planned and the date of it dropping was released. Not only was the release day made public but they also posted a few teasers on Kris’ social media platforms. Since it was his first release in a while the news spread like wildfire and now everybody is anticipating it.

Unfortunatly thanks to some clumsy folks on set the shoot took longer than expected and we were all on edge because of the possibility of it not being finished on time. We worked 18 hours straight a few days just to make up for the lost time. So when we heard the director tell us we would most likely make it before deadline, it felt like a choir of angels appeared before me.

“We did it!” Kris finally said after processing the good news, he held his hand up waiting for a high five.

“I’ve never been so stressed about a deadline before” I breath out and dramatically use one hand to lift the other to give him a high five.

“Oh trust me, there will be plently of deadlines just like this one in your future”

He probably said it to warn me or prepare be but all I feel is exitement. I’ve never been so happy while ‘working’ before. Even if the hours were long and tiring I always looked forward to being on set or in the studio. I never really believed the ‘Choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life”, but damn it’s true.

“So what now?” I ask Kris after we’d changed into the clothes we came in and started to leave the building.

“Deadline is in...” Kris checks his phone, “like 48 hours. I say we sleep until then.”

I re-count the time since it sounds so short. I look at my phone as well. Wednesday 22:25. The video is suppose to be edited and reviewed, then posted on Friday at midnight.

“49 hours and 35 minutes actually.” I smirk at Kris and he rolls his eyes but can’t help smiling.

“Smart-ass”

Kris gives me a ride home and it almost feels weird to say goodbye since we’ve been wokring together for more than two weeks at this point.

“We can take tomorrow off and just recuperate, but how about we meet back at the studio on Friday? We could watch the release together” Kris is tired as hell but still manages to show some exitement.

The video will be previewed before it releases but only by the CEO’s and editors. I’m not allowed to see it. I’m not exactly sure why but I’m guessing it’s to minimize the risk of it being leaked.

“Sounds good”

He gives me a thumbs up and I start to enter the building. I hear him drive away much slower than usual, probably because he’s as exhausted as I am. Walking into my apartment a new wave of exhaustion hits me and I zombie-walk to my bedroom, collapse on the bed and fall asleep.

The time flies by, probably because I spent most of it in bed sleeping or on my couch watching netflix and eating. Jackson couldn’t come over since he was still trying to handle the situation with his ex, poor dude has been stressing over that for weeks now. During my free day I finally had the time to call my family and Jess, I told them all about the release, the shoots, my sister interrogated me about Kris and it was just wonderful to finally talk to them again.

Friday crept up on me, I again slept through most of the day but at 16:00 I went to the studio to meet Louis and Kris. Exiting the elevator I’m met with the familiar sight of the cute receptionist.

“Good afternoon Ms (Y/L/N)” He smiled. “Are you exited for tonight?”

I hadn’t processed it yet since I’ve been way too tired to even think these past two days.

“God I don’t even know... I don’t think I really get it yet” I chuckle and continue to the studio.

I’ve been here so much there’s no longer a need to knock before entering. Louis and Kris jump out of their seats to greet me and look kinda like two happy children seeing santa on christmas.

“Guys what’s going on?” I laugh, Kris is rushing me to the couch while Louis hands me a full bottle of champange.

Louis looks at me like I just disrespected him and his entire ancestry. “What do you mean? It’s you first release ever! Aren’t you exited?”

I shrug, it’s like my mind isn’t getting it. As if the past weeks of work we’re so exhausting my brain has just shut off all emotion.

“Huh, not the reaction I was expecting. I could barely sit still when I first debuted with EXO...” Kris looks at me confused as he sits down beside me on the couch.

“Don’t worry” Louis sits down on as well. “It’ll hit her” He nods and smiles at me.

We just sit back and chill. When dinnertime came Kris and Louis start arguing about what to eat and I had to play referee and pick. They truly behaved like two kids and I can’t lie, it’s entertaining.

Midnight crept up on us. Kris’ phone started to buzz, alerting him that we were 5 minutes away from the MV dropping and I could feel my heart start to beat faster. Jess started to spamm me with texts about her refreshing the Youtube page and the situation finally started to sink in. This is actually happening. A little over a month ago I was nobody, and now I’m in an MV with Kris Wu. The worlds going to see this. This is my big break.

“Ready?” Kris turned on a projector that displayed Kris Wu VEVO onto a projector screen. As he pressed refresh for the forth or fifth time the video showed up.

Just seeing my face on the thumbnail sent a shiver down my spine. What shocked me more was the title. “ft. questionmark? But I’m not in the song?”.

“It’s just to signal that you’re someone important, and not some random model for a music video.”

I nod, I guess that makes sense. Usually people don’t really focus on anyone else than the artist.

“Not that anybody is gonna think your some random person after our run in with the paparazzis that one time” Kris chuckled, “But anyways, you ready?”

“I guess...” I pretty much whisper as I grab onto Louis’ arm as a way to make myself feel more stable.

Kris clicked and the video started to play. For the first 30 seconds Kris was the only person on screen. Louis and Kris started talking about something related to the MV but I couldn’t stop focusing on the video. Any second now... I’ll be on screen any second no-

There I was, sitting on a couch in the purple-neon lit room. The emotions I was clearly lacking a few hours ago came all at once and I felt so overwhelmed I just burst out in tears.

“Damn y’all look so good” Louis hypes us up only to realize I’m beside him sobbing like a baby.

“Hey... hey what’s wrong?”

Louis’ audible concern makes Kris turn toward me and notice my state as well. He paused the video.

“Do you not like it?”

I was too embarrassed to lift my head and too overwhelmed to say anything. I just shook my head.

“What’s wrong then?” Kris continued.

I took some slow deep breaths, trying to calm my sobbing down as they patiently waited for me to collect myself. After one last breath I finally said “I’m just... so happy”.

The boys both visibly calmed down. I dried my tears with my sleeves but they just kept pouring down.

“I’m sorry I don’t know how to stop it” I manage to laugh through my sobs.

“Now that’s the reaction I remember having” Louis pats my back. “This is totally normal, you just gotta let it out. After a while you’ll be dyhydrated”

Louis says it jokingly but a part of my thinks that’s my only option. After getting my O-K to keep watching the video Kris turned it on again. It was surreal and so rewarding to see something we worked so hard on become this complete thing.

Jess called me as soon as the video was over.

“Oh my fucking god dude” I heard as soon as I picked the phone up.

I couldn’t help laughing because I could see her shocked face in my head.

“What do you think?”

“That was...”

There was a moment of silence and due to the boys curious looks I turned on speaker.

“FUCKIN’ AWESOME” Jess yelled and we all shared some amused and proud looks. “But why does it say feat. questionmark?”

“We’re trying to keep (Y/N)’s identity a mystery for a little longer” Kris said, “Get people talking”

“Well it’s working, are ya’ll seeing the comments?”

Kris pulled up the comment section beneath the video.

The video had only been up for a few minutes but the comments we’re flooding in. To my disbelief the majority of the question we’re about me. People were speculating whether the “?” was my artist name or if it was a man hunt. They very quickly figuered out that ‘the girl in the MV is the same one from Kris’ paparazzi incident’.

“This’ll be fun” Louis smirked as we kept on reading very frustrated commenters, all trying to figure out my identity. “We won’t make them wait for too long tho. Just a few days”

“What?”

“Oh right we haven’t told you yet!” Louis and Kris share suspiciously smug looks. “You’re releasing your first singel this week.”

“What?!”

“You are relea-”

“No no I heard you I’m just-... What?”

Kris chuckled at my confusion, “We talked about it and we think you should release your first singel by the end of this week, then when the hype is at its biggest you drop another one, and then the full album.”

“Wait you guys are serious? But we’re not even close to finishing!”

“We’ve already worked that out. We’ll do it in stages, so we finish the first singel this weekend, and we’ll just drop the rest when its done! I promise it won’t take too long.”

That’s true. I picked 14 samples and we already have 12 base songs, I’ve written lyrics to 10 of them and all we have to do is finish the last bits and perfect everything. If it goes smoothly we’ll be finished within a few weeks.

“Ok I’m in.” I say after enough thought.

Louis claps his hands together, satisfied with my answer and starts to shoo me out of the studio. “Well then you better go home and sleep cause if we plan on being done we have a long day tomorrow!”

I follow their orders and go home. I’m in deperate need of sleep after my emotional explosion from before. Usually Kris and I leave the studio at the same time so he gives me a ride home. Tonight however Kris needed to stay with Louis to sort out some promotional stuff so I had to walk home. Not complaining though, the July weather in Shanghai is best at night, so a 20 minute walk is actually really calming.

Arriving back at my apartment I was again met with my apartment door being unlocked. I’ve been forgetting to lock it a lot these past few days, unsafe I know, but a lot has been going on and my brain just can’t seem to catch up.

I pray to whoever is listening that I haven’t been robbed and open the door. It’s dark and everything looks normal, I slap my wall a few times and manage to turn on the lights.

“What the-”

As I enter my bedroom, the biggest teddybear I’ve ever witnessed in real life is just sitting there, on my bed. Walking closer I find a bottle of champange in it’s lap with a little note hanging off it.

‘Hey,

Sorry I couldn’t be there for your big break. Hope the bear makes up for it.

Jackson’

Can’t lie I was pretty salty about him not being here tonight, but the giant bear did make it suck a little less. He went to Hong Kong earlier today to visit family, lucky bastard. Since Jackson, Kris and Louis are the only people I hang out with we’ve managed to get pretty close, I just wanted to share this moment with them.

I let it go and accept the bear as an apology. There will hopefully be more moments like this so why dwell. To my disappointment the bear took up way too much of my bed and I had to move it so that I could sleep. Sorry Teddy, maybe next time.

I reach for my noisy phone on my nightstand but fail miserably as I roll off the bed. Thank god for me moving that bear because it caught me and spared me from a pretty hard fall. I let my eyes adjust to the annoyingly bright daylight shining though my windows and finally look at my phone to see what the ruckus was about.

“Ooooh shit.”

My instagram notifications we’re blowing up, I was getting maybe 10 follow requests a second. My username isn’t even my name, and my profil picture is a meme, how in the actual hell did they find me?

Louis called a second later.

“(Y/N)? We have a problem.”

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vfxserbia · 5 years

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Nenad got his first character animator job in 2004. Since then he’s been involved in a wide array of roles on productions in Serbia, UK, Netherlands and Austria. In 2015 he took what was supposed to be a temporary position as a layout artist at Arx Anima studio in Vienna, quickly got obsessed with the work and soon became the department supervisor, spending around 3 years working on Talking Tom and Friends animated tv series. His affinity to explore all aspects of the production process subsequently landed him the position of production manager, leading the final 11 months of the project, to its completion. Currently based back in Belgrade, collaborating on new projects locally.

We can see Nenad’s talk “Cheating in Layout” on November 17 @ 19:00 – 20:00 at CGA2018 conference

So great to see you on CGA speakers list this year. What’s new in your world?

Glad to be a part of the conference! I’ve recently moved back to Serbia after some years working in Vienna. The project there was quite long and challenging so I’ve decided to take a bit of a break and spend a while at home to regroup. Quite enjoying it to be honest, it will allow me to start whatever is next with maximum energy, especially since an opportunity to have time off is not always there, for me it was almost always a direct transition from project to project.

Freelance Animator, Layout Supervisor and finally Production Manager, that are quite different roles in the animation production. How did that happen?

I’ve always struggled with keeping one career path. I’m interested in too many things, and we were taught growing up that you want to find the thing that you’re good at, and stick to it, but that direction has never worked for me. Animation is the one thing that I managed to keep going for longest, just because it’s such a versatile field. Every time it’s a different approach and different challenges. Still, I don’t like doing any one thing for too long, and moving to layout was just a fortunate coincidence. Arx Anima studio in Vienna was starting work on season 1 of “Talking Tom and Friends”, and the layout department was a bit short on staff. Kris Staber, the CEO of Arx Anima and my long time friend and associate asked if I would temporarily fill one of the positions, with the idea that I would switch to animation later, and I went for it. Didn’t take long for me to get addicted, and a couple of months later I became the supervisor. Now, even though I’ve always been involved and interested in multiple roles (rigging, motion graphics, TD work, etc.) all of them were in the creative sector. The production side of things always sounded too serious and responsible, not the words that I find too appealing, but again, the way that events turned during season 3 of Talking Tom, brought me the offer to step in as production manager, and I accepted it.

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“In season 1, episode 37, we introduce a character Will Z, who is a skater. Since I skate in real life, I kind of overstepped and almost did the blocking in all the sequences with this guy.”

From previous experiences in these roles, can you compare them in relation to responsibility levels?

There is a lot of difference. As an artist you are the creator and you want to take care of your shots, to try and keep the supervisor and directors happy but still have fun doing it. The supervisor role is a bit different in that the scope is greater, instead of a shot or a sequence the whole episode being shown to the directors and then to the clients, you want to make sure it looks as good as possible, while still allowing your team artists’ creative freedom to come through. It’s tough but a lot of fun also, no doubt. Production management, on the other hand, brings the challenge and stress factor to a whole new level, the margin for error is much smaller, and the decisions you make now have an impact on the company itself, there is a lot of politics and diplomacy involved. You start tackling things like hiring new people and also letting some go, and that is never easy. Finding the fun aspect in that line of work is much harder, but it’s possible. You have to remember you are still making an animated show, and at the end of the day the accomplishment you feel is much greater, so like everything else, it’s just about finding the right balance in how you deal with the good and the bad of any given day in the studio.

Arx anima layout department team, season 3

What is layout and where does it live in the Animation TV series production?

In 3d animation, layout, sometimes also called previz, depending on the level of detail the project requires, is the step between hand drawn 2d storyboard/animatic and animation. It’s where you set up the shots in 3d environment, using the actual character models and assets, and you get to see how your shots will actually look like, for the first time. It’s extremely important because the issues that are solved there can save a lot of time down the line. Putting enough time and people on it is essential on any bigger production, like a series of a feature film. It’s digital cinematography in a way, you are dealing with composition, staging, flow of shots, and start to see the limitations of what the script or the storyboard require. It is also directorial to an extent, because you design each of the shots, even though they are defined in the storyboard, they don’t always work the same once you switch to 3d, and that’s where you can get really creative, not just making it work but also making it better. Relationship with the directors is super important, you want to provide them with the best way to tell their story.

Arx Anima studio crew

Your CGA 2018 talk is all about cheating. Is this about being street-smart or something else?

Cheating is essential. Every department cheats to an extent, but I feel animation and layout do it the most. It’s not about deceiving your audience or lying to them, in the most basic way to explain it, it’s about manipulating the elements of the shot to give the audience a stronger telling of the story, accentuating the right things at the right time, pushing the composition from a physically correct one to an esthetically better one and making sure no one can tell that you did it. Goes without saying that this is super fun.

youtube

“Episode 38 is also interesting, because I was approached by the director, who knew I’m making music as a hobby, to try and create a soundtrack for the “thermostat universe” part.

We worked on it together for a few days and the final result actually made it into the episode. I don’t care much for credits but was happy to be listed as music composer on this one.”

Judging by YouTube views numbers, Talking Tom is hugely popular with young parents and their kids. How long did it take and how many episodes are there?

The Talking Tom brand was already quite developed when we began work on the series, and the quality standard that we went for was quite high, so it didn’t take long for the show to become popular. I don’t have the actual statistics but within the first couple of weeks of airing, the view counts per episode were already in the millions. There are 104 full 11-minute episodes, and a few smaller “webisodes”.

youtube

Have you had any special tools to help you speed up the production?

Like every bigger studio, we had our pipeline and development team, who worked hard to build countless proprietary tools and scripts. These tools definitely have a very high spot on the list of things that made the whole project possible to pull off.

Arx Anima studio crew

Back to Belgrade? Can you compare your experience of working in 100+ artists facility and working locally in Belgrade?

Belgrade is my home, I’ve lived in a few different countries over the years but somehow always end up back here. I just feel most relaxed and there is just something about your birthplace that you don’t feel anywhere else. That said, the working structure here wasn’t as organized before as it is abroad, but has been picking up a lot in recent years, and I believe we are quite close to being equal to the rest of Europe in this regard, if not already there. The atmosphere in the studios here is totally unique though, and I enjoy it a lot.

Is there a particular talk at CGA Belgrade that you are looking forward to sitting in the audience as an artist?

I’ll be a bit biased here and say all talks held by local speakers. I’ve been away for a few years and out of the loop on what’s been going on in our industry here so I’m looking forward to hearing their stories and talks.

Thank you, Nenad! See you at the CGA2018 conference!

Follow Nenad on Instagram and LinkedIn and IMDB

You can see Nenad’s talk “Cheating in Layout” on November 17 @ 19:00 – 20:00 at the CGA2018 conference. Register for the free tickets below.

Once again, November becomes the month of computer graphics, as CGA Belgrade hosts its two-day journey through the latest news, trends and developments in the VFX industry. We have worked especially hard this year to expand our main program, which we are proud to announce will feature two separate tracks! For big-picture thinking and groundbreaking ideas, make sure to look for the Know It All sign. For hands-on training and insider tips & tricks, don’t miss the Know How stage.

Nenad Mitrovic, Animation production (CGA2018) Nenad got his first character animator job in 2004. Since then he’s been involved in a wide array of roles on productions in Serbia, UK, Netherlands and Austria.

#3d animation #3d layout #animation #cgi #computer graphics

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johnconnell0 · 5 years

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Case Study: Memeathon Features TikTok Celebrities

For the latest influencer marketing news, resources, and case studies, subscribe to our weekly newsletter!

TikTok Influencer Marketing Case Study: TikTok Celebrities Walk The Red Carpet In Memeathon

Rising social network, TikTok, has been on a growth-charged path lately. With 660 million app downloads worldwide and 500 million monthly active users, the platform has quickly become the digital world’s hot spot for short-form, music-centric videos.

Successfully cultivating a community of TikTok creators, online personalities from other prominent networks—such as Instagram and YouTube—have started to join TikTok’s ranks. Celebrities like Jimmy Fallon have also become a part of the influx, connecting with TikTok’s audience through the app’s unique format and popular user challenges.

TikTok Celebrities Highlight 15 Seconds Of Meme-Worthy Fame

As TikTok has increased its user base, brands have begun to advertise on the platform through influencer marketing. The app has also partnered with popular influencers on other platforms, such as Instagram, to introduce other audiences to their unique format and community. Expanding into the realm of mega-influencers, TikTok recently collaborated with celebrity creators around content generated through their app that was then shared on other social networks.

Goals

Awareness - Showcase TikTok as a channel where popular celebrities are broadcasting and creating content.

Engagement - Encourage remixing and creation of content by using celebrity-produced sounds via TikTok’s app.

Approach

They don’t call me a momager for nothing!#memeathon @tiktok #ad https://t.co/IQvpM8pl3X pic.twitter.com/rZcVxHlye0

— Kris Jenner (@KrisJenner) February 14, 2019

Channels - TikTok, Twitter

Influencers - Three celebrities

Preview Of Influencers

Kris Jenner - 92,400 TikTok fans, 10.2 million Twitter followers

Paris Hilton - 2.1 million TikTok fans, 17.1 million Twitter followers

Charlie Puth - 1 million TikTok fans, 2.85 million Twitter followers

Kris Jenner, Paris Hilton, and Charlie Puth posted videos to their TikTok accounts with an original sound and the hashtag #memeathon and #ad. Jenner and Puth’s videos featured sketch-like performances, while Hilton directly addressed her audience.

View this post on Instagram

#ad I want to see your best remakes of this @tiktok #memeathon

A post shared by Charlie Puth (@charlieputh) on Feb 17, 2019 at 3:39pm PST

Each TikTok celebrity post was shared on their respective Twitter profile, using the same hashtags. Hilton and Jenner also included a URL that pointed to an Apple App Store preview page for the TikTok app, while Puth went on to share his video with his 12.3 million Instagram followers.

Results

Three TikTok posts:

Social Reach

Tik Tok fans targeted: 3,173,500

Engagement

Comments: 4,364

Shares: 12,268

Engagement rate (views + comments overall average): 64.17%*

Hashtag usage: 9.5 million views for posts with #memeathon

Times the original sounds were used in recreations by fans: 558

*Kris Jenner’s TikTok post had an engagement rate of 178.35%. With more views on her video than followers to her TikTok account, Jenner’s post had a huge impact on the average engagement rate.

Three Twitter Posts:

Social Reach

Twitter followers targeted: 30,020,000

Engagement

Likes: 22,002

Comments: 667

Retweets: 2,586

Engagement rate: 2.25%

Combined Posts on Both Platforms (TikTok & Twitter):

Social Reach

Tik Tok and Twitter fans/followers targeted: 33,193,500

Engagement

Comments: 5,031

Note: Duplicate follower accounts likely

TikTok Celebrity #1: Kris Jenner

Television personality, manager, and businesswoman, Kris Jenner captivates an enormous audience across a variety of top social media platforms. With more than 25.4 million followers on Instagram, 10.2 million followers on Twitter, and 5.6 million followers on Facebook, the multifaceted Jenner credits daughter Kim with teaching her to “have fun” on social media.

The approach comes through in Jenner’s TikTok post, where the mom and manager—or momager—types away on her laptop and phone, playfully demonstrating frustrations and remarking, “Why is everybody so incompetent?”

Jenner’s TikTok post received 138,600 views, 2,299 comments, and 8,249 shares for a massive 178.35% engagement rate. On Twitter, Jenner’s shared TikTok post received 247,000 views, 6,436 likes, 256 comments, and 757 retweets for an engagement rate of 2.52%.

TikTok Celebrity #2: Paris Hilton

Coming into public view through Fox’s reality show, The Simple Life, Paris Hilton has gone on to become a household name and global brand. As a pop culture personality and businesswoman, Hilton has evolved with the ever-changing media landscape. In 2017, Vice published the article, “Paris Hilton Is Now a Meme Queen, Long May She Reign,” where the starlet was praised for her nostalgic, self-referential, and comedic memes.

In her TikTok post, a luxury convertible drives up slowly, revealing Hilton behind the wheel. Stopping and lowering the window, the heiress comments, “It’s Paris, bitch. And I’m back. Because I’ve never been gone.”

Hilton’s TikTok post captured 114,400 views, 1,610 comments, and 2,664 shares, for an engagement rate of 5.52%. For her Twitter post, Hilton garnered 28,500 views, 1,714 likes, 136 comments, and 318 retweets, resulting in an engagement rate of 0.18%.

TikTok Celebrity #3: Charlie Puth

Singer-songwriter, Charlie Puth, rose to fame through music he performed on his YouTube channel. Having now released two studio albums, Puth has stayed close to his online roots, posting regularly to his Instagram account.

Puth’s latest post on TikTok features the singer in skit form, getting into a car where the driver is listening to “How Long”—a hit from Puth’s 2018 “Voicenotes” album. After cautioning himself against saying anything via voiceover monologue, the video cuts to the singer leaning forward and blurting out, “This record really just makes you want to get up and dance, doesn’t it?”

Puth’s TikTok post received 85,500 views, 455 comments, and 1,355 shares for an engagement rate of 8.64%. Through Twitter, his post tallied 98,300 views, 13,852 likes, 275 comments, and 1,511 retweets, resulting in an engagement rate of 4.04%. On Instagram, Puth’s shared TikTok video went on to reach more than 1.3 million views. Both the Instagram and Twitter posts were captioned, “I want to see your best remakes of this!”

Takeaways

Partnering with celebrities can be a great way for brands to reach wide audiences.

While celebrities and other mega-influencers typically have followers in the millions, high engagement rates around their posts aren’t a guarantee.

TikTok content can be cross-promoted on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram.

In collaborating with massive media personalities to promote their app, TikTok advertises its unique tools, while showing their platform as a place where compelling content and creators reside.

The post Case Study: Memeathon Features TikTok Celebrities appeared first on Mediakix | Influencer Marketing Agency.

from Mediakix | Influencer Marketing Agency http://mediakix.com/2019/04/tik-tok-celebrity-memeathon-influencer-marketing-case-study/ via IFTTT

#Mediakix | Influencer Marketing Agency

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celticnoise · 4 years

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I’ve seen a lot of lazy journalism in my time, but there is one version of it which never ceases to amaze and appal me in equal measure.

There is a reason clubs hire scouts.

There is a reason that these people are well paid for what they do.

They are professionals.

There is a reason clubs hire data analysts. They too are well paid for what they do.

They understand the game in a different way from the scouts.

Together these two separate strands work in tandem to produce target lists. A good head of recruitment then goes on and tries to sign those players. It doesn’t always work well, and a lot depends on who’s running the show, but it is a tested and trusted process which clubs place enormous faith in, and put their money behind.

For all that, I consistently see two things.

The first is people who base their objective judgement on a couple of YouTube clips. Celtic did that once. The result was that we bought a footballer called Rafael Felipe Scheidt. Three Brazilian caps and a couple of bits of grainy footage got us to part with £5 million for that joker, in a transfer deal which is now notorious.

You can learn something from YouTube clips; of course you can.

You can watch a player and the way he moves, the way he holds the ball, you can judge whether he is too footed. What you can’t find out is whether he lasts 90 minutes, whether he drifts in and out of the game, whether he can produce one minute and then lets it all slide in the next.

You cannot learn how a player will adapt to a new league, or new culture, or new team-mates. You can’t judge what impact he’ll have on the dressing room dynamic. Celtic can’t know these things either but they will have looked into more than a few short videos.

The backgrounds of every player will be scrutinised. The amount of research that goes in to any transfer deal at a club like Celtic would fry your brain. There is a reason the process starts months in advance. It is expensive, but so are transfer deals.

If YouTube videos are bad then there are things that are far worse. I’ve read articles which rate our players based on how well they do in FIFA, others on their valuations according to Football Manager and the most egregious of all … the steady drip of stories based on the figures on a website called Transfermarkt.com.

These have gained real currency.

One moronic article today – and I’ll spare the writer humiliation, but I’m sure a lot of you know who I am referring to – poured scorn on this signing – of a footballer the writer has never seen in his life, about whom he knows exactly nothing – as a result of his “valuation” on that site.

I cannot express my contempt for that sort of idiocy in strong enough terms.

This is the kind of “wisdom” people on the writer’s site are “encouraged” to pay for. Transfermarkt.com values Kris Ajer as £2.7 million. It values McGregor at worth just £4.5 million. It suggests we’d get £2 million for Rogic and just under £4 million for Ryan Christie.

The same site thinks Ryan Fraser of Bournemouth is a £27 million footballer … and Scott Sinclair’s “value” is now over £3 million as a result of his move to Preston. Think on that when you look at the valuations of the Celtic players I mentioned above.

To rely on that site as any sort of guide to a player’s respective merits is clownish at best. To use its figures to attack Celtic over a new signing is the worst kind of gutter-ball. The writer should be embarrassed at relying on such tactics, but experience tells us that he’s beyond embarrassment and absolutely impossible to shame.

But this is what critics of the club are reduced to at the moment, to this kind of desperate scrambling in the dirt. We have just spent more money on a single player than every other club in Scotland has combined in this window, and there’s more to come.

This signing will be a big test of our new scouting department, and in due course we’ll find out whether he’s a good one or not. That will be decided on how he actually does in a Celtic strip, not on nonsense about whether he’s too slow on FIFA, too cheap on Football Manager or because certain people are obsessed with pursuing pathetic personal vendettas and will cling to any justification they can find, however flimsy, that appears to support them.

Professionals have looked at this guy.

They’ve weighed up the data.

They’ve done their homework.

I will trust their word before that of some goon with an axe to grind.

Think you could get a job bitch-slapping Celtic at the SFA? Try our quiz and find out. Score high and you can have Clare Whyte’s job.

https://ift.tt/2u1Sm0Y

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #TheCelticBlog #News

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thrashermaxey · 5 years

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Ramblings: An update on Nikita Gusev’s plans. Also, Bobrovsky! Labanc, Donato, Mantha, Little Bert and more (Apr 01)

***

Now available for pre-sale – the 13th annual Interactive Playoff Draft List. Pre-order it here. It will be Friday April 5 – yep, this coming Friday. If you bought the Ultimate Fantasy Pack in the summer, this will be included in that purchase. It is not included in the Keeper Fantasy Pack.

Only one thing can stop the mighty Tampa Bay Lightning. And that’s a white-hot, molten-lava-hot goaltender. And right now there is none hotter than two-time Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky. In fact, he’s been so hot that he’s carried the Blue Jackets into seventh place, shooting right past the eight-spot where they would have faced Tampa. Nine Quality Starts in his last 11 games, four shutouts in his last seven games, and just seven goals allowed in seven games.

Bobrovsky’s numbers since March 5: 9-2-0, 1.27 GAA, 0.957 SV%, 9 QS

He has started 18 consecutive games, easily the most this season and it seemed as though the steady, heavy workload finally got him into the zone. If things end this way, the defending Cup Champions would have their hands full. The bottom line right now is that Washington is the second seed, Columbus is the seventh seed, but just eight point separate them – two extra wins and four extra OTL. Not as big of a gap as you think. Nightmares of Jaro Halak back when he was with Montreal?

Cam Atkinson was held off the score sheet Sunday, but good on him for scoring two Saturday, including his 40th. He had 38 goals on March 9 and nine games later only managed one more. It would have been a damn shame if he fell short. I think he’s a 35-goal scorer without Panarin, but not 40. With Panarin leaving (likely), this was Atkinson’s shot and he got there.

Atkinson’s usual linemate, Pierre-Luc Dubois, was the offensive start notching three points. Matt Duchene took over PLD’s spot on the top line, with Dubois centering an effective line with the hot Josh Anderson and Ryan Dzingel.

Oliver Bjorkstrand has put together a five-game points streak and he has seven goals in his last seven contests. It’s been a disappointing season for Bjorkstrand but suddenly surging late to top 20 goals is a promising consolation. John Tortorella must be thrilled with the fact that he’s had 25 SOG over the last five games. Bjorkstrand turns 24 next week. With the exodus of players likely happening in the offseason, I think it’s very likely that Bjorkstrand finds himself on the top line next season and is a very strong sleeper candidate.

Very pleased to get two minutes of Dan Milstein’s time via Skype. Milstein is the agent for KHL superstar Nikita Gusev, whose NHL rights belong to the Vegas Golden Knights. Gusev was the 2017-18 KHL MVP, he was the Top Forward at the 2018 Olympics en route to helping Russia win Gold, and he led the KHL in scoring this season by a wide margin with 82 points in 62 games. He has 15 points in 13 playoff games for SKA St. Petersburg. Needless to say, a decision to join the NHL would be headline news in hockey circles let alone in our fantasy hockey world. Here I ask the million dollar question – will he come to the NHL next season?

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Now that we have this information, we know exactly what we need to do in keeper leagues when it comes to Gusev.

Speaking of hot goaltenders, Matt Murray has five Quality Starts in his last six games. After a rough start he’s going to wind up having a pretty good season. But check out these numbers from December 15 onwards:

36GP, 24-8-4, 2.31 GAA, 0.931 SV%, 26 QS for a 72.2 QS%

In beating Carolina Sunday, the Penguins are helping Columbus to not face the Lightning. And in the process, as I note above, could be handing their nemesis the Capitals a tough go of things against Bobrovsky.

The latest on the Penguins injuries:

Evgeni Malkin, Zach Aston-Reese and Kris Letang are back skating. I don’t see any of those three missing playoff time and I have a hunch that at least Malkin and Letang will get into the last game of the season.

Conor Garland has just two points in eight games since signing his contract extension, plus an alarming eight healthy scratches. The return of Christian Dvorak has really hurt Garland’s odds of getting into the lineup, even though they play different positions. The Coyotes will lose on Richard Panik next season (UFA) and they will have Nick Schmaltz back. It’s hard to get a feel for where Garland fits in for 2019-20, but I suspect he will be a depth guy for another season, showing us signs – in spurts – of what he can do down the road.

Ryan Donato was pointless on Sunday and a minus-3. He has one assist and is minus-6 over his last four games, and is minus-8 with three points over his last six games. Prior to that he was plus-4 with 13 points in 13 games. It’s the ‘new team’ adrenalin. He joined Boston out of college and had nine points in 12 games, and was plus-2. Then he couldn’t stick with the team in the fall and when he did play he didn’t score much and was minus-11 with Boston. He joins the Wild and bam, 13 points in 13 games. Now he’s tailing off again. Still a great player and a top prospect, but this just emphasizes that you shouldn’t raise expectations too high for him next year. I think he’ll get there eventually, but the sudden surge early on was too much, too soon.

Per Michael Russo, The Minnesota Wild is reportedly in on (and favored) to sign a pair of highly-touted NCAA free agents. Defenseman Jimmy Schuldt and center Nico Sturm. Schuldt. Those of you who picked up my Midseason Guide were already aware of these two as they were profiled in the NCAA free agents section. The Habs are also in on the offensive QB Schuldt, who plays with Ryan Poehling with St. Cloud State. Sturm is a leader and team captain, a two-way guy who may not end up getting into the top six but is a quality depth guy with a bit of upside.

Speaking of Poehling, the Habs signed him to an ELC on the weekend. They also signed Cayden Primeau. The latter will spend at least three years in the AHL, perhaps seeing spot backup duty in Year 4. He’s still only 19. Poehling on the other hand could make the team in the fall, but the more likely scenario is one full AHL season before making the jump. He just turned 20 a couple of months ago. He is probably Montreal’s second best prospect (behind Nick Suzuki). You can read our fantasy hockey scouting report on Poehling here, and on Primeau here.

Toronto prospect defenseman Calle Rosen has been dynamite for the Marlies this season with 46 points in 54 games. I think he was an astute signing by the Leafs and they were wise to get him acclimated to the North American game in the AHL. I am impressed with his commitment to put in the time down there as a 25-year-old. The team recalled him on the weekend and if they don’t get Jake Gardiner back he could slot into the lineup. I think he’ll be Gardiner’s replacement next season and could be a decent dark horse. Here is our fantasy scouting report and PNHLe chart on him.

If you missed my note on Ryan Strome Saturday when I subbed in for Gooding, you can check it out here. He picked up another pair of points Sunday and is still rolling now that the Rangers have fewer offensive options since the trade deadline.

Also on Saturday – I raved about Anthony Mantha replacing Gustav Nyquist on Detroit’s top line and boy did he (and that entire line) make me look good on Sunday. Mantha put on a clinic when he notched five points. Larkin had a pair and Bertuzzi continues to roll with three more points. For Little Bert (I had called his Uncle Todd “Big Bert” so…), it is now three consecutive three-point games. Very much draftable in the fall and if this line continues to click even at a normal rate, the two offensive guns could really drag Little Bert’s points upward. Very bullish on this guy because of his linemates. I hate drafting and making decisions based on linemates, but I do make exceptions when they clearly work and I have a strong hunch that the line will continue for more than just a few months. That’s where I’m at with Bertuzzi.

Taro Hirose’s one-game slump is finally over. That never-ending nightmare finally did end about a minute into the third period Sunday. So now his NHL career consists of seven games with a point, one game without a point.

My Dobbernomics decisions Sunday were terrible flops. Spending big on Sidney Crosby (zero points), streaming in Jaroslav Halak and Carter Hart (both losses), playing a cheap Jacob Larsson for two weekend games because he had a good few games prior (negative points)…Wow, my plan for a late surge into the Top 25 has really flopped. I should finish in the Top 50, but nothing worked out for me in that game this weekend.

The Flames clinched the Western Conference top seed on Sunday. They gave up 46 shots…over Mike Smith’s last three starts. Just 15 shots faced by Smith on Sunday. With the surging second-half Blues, the ridiculously deep Predators and the two-season Cinderella story Golden Knights, nobody is taking Calgary seriously when it comes to playoff hockey. But I think they should. As the top seed they get to play the bottom wildcard team in the West. You know…that team that is going to get a seed almost by default? By literally backing into the playoff picture? While nine East teams have 92 points already, eighth place in the west has 85 – and that’s who Calgary gets. That’s practically a free round right there, they’re already in the Final 8.

Calgary’s depth in all areas is underrated. Johnny Hockey was the only player to get two points on Sunday – 13 other players had one.

Kevin Labanc has 28 points in his last 31 games with nine of them on the power play and crazy 3.7 Pts/60 in that span. Boy oh boy we’re gonna see some fourth year magic from this guy in 2019-20.

BOBROVSKY! YOU’RE BACK ON THE FORCE, BOBROVSKY!

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See you next Monday, ya bunch of Fools. How do I manage to sucker you every year?

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-an-update-on-nikita-gusevs-plans-also-bobrovsky-labanc-donato-mantha-little-bert-and-more-apr-01/

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flauntpage · 7 years

Text

DGB Grab Bag: Toews Still getting Trolled, and a Gretzky was Overpaid Take

Three stars of comedy

The third star: Kris Versteeg's ongoing Instagram war against Jonathan Toews – It's been going on for months now—you can get caught up here—and honestly at this point it's just short of outright bullying. But when you're one of the best 100 players in NHL history, I'm guessing you can take it.

The second star: Sharks twitter—Hey look, they'd like to make a harmless joke. Jokes are fun, right?

Not bad, guys! But be careful, you're going after the Golden Knights and lately they've been kind of feisty so you might want to watch out for…

Good lord, guys. This was basically the Twitter equivalent of that time Slava Fetisov came after Wendel Clark. It's not even preseason, maybe hold off on the kill shots until camp open.The first star: Artemi Panarin's bread shoes—Absolutely no idea what's happening here, but what the hell.

The NHL actually got something right

This week, we learned that the NHL is making an important change to its video review challenge rules. For offside reviews, an incorrect challenge will now result in a team taking a two-minute penalty. Presumably, the penalty will be for delay of game, the same call that's already on the books for teams that unsuccessfully challenge for an illegal stick.

In other words, they're going to start doing it the way they should have been all along. As listeners to the Biscuits hockey podcast already know, this is the solution I've been suggesting all season. It just makes too much sense. The offside review might be fine in concept, but there are way too many of them. Coaches were calling for reviews on anything remotely close, and rightly so, since the reward for being right dwarfed the cost of being wrong.

The reward still dwarfs the cost—taking a goal off the board is such a big deal in a low-scoring league that there's really no way to change that—and if coaches were purely rational then this might not change much. But pro sports coaches aren't purely rational. If they were, they'd pull goalies earlier, bunt less, and go for it on fourth down more. Coaches like to cover their own behinds, and now they know that if they're wrong on an offisde challenge and it costs their team a power play goal, they'll take the blame. The NHL has basically found a way to turn a league full of conservative coaches' risk-aversion against them. It's beautiful.

Now, maybe you'd have liked to see them go even further. It would have been nice to see them fix those infuriating "skate in the air" calls, and putting some sort of stricter time limit on making challenges would also have been good. The rule change will only impact offside reviews and not goalie interference, so maybe it doesn't go far enough. Or maybe you'd like to see them just scrap offside review altogether, because as we've covered here before, the "just get it right at all costs" argument is deeply flawed.

But the bigger point is that the league made a genuine improvement to a rule that desperately needed it. These days, we'll take our wins where we can get them.

(And hey NHL, while you're stealing my ideas: About that Jagr draft…)

Obscure former player of the week

Matt Duchene will never be traded. It doesn't matter if he refuses to report to camp, as now seems possible. It doesn't matter if more teams get into the bidding. It doesn't matter if the Avalanche are in or out of the playoff race. We will all live and then we will die and then the sun will explode and consume the earth and then Joe Sakic will still be waiting for the Islanders to throw in another draft pick.

So since nobody will ever be traded for Duchene, today's obscure player is a guy who was once traded for a Duchesne. And also a Dufresne. It's as close as we're ever going to get, people. This week's player is Igor Kravchuk.

Kravchuk was a Soviet defenseman who was picked by the Blackhawks in the fourth round of the 1991 draft. He was already 24 at the time, and had won gold at the 1988 Olympics; he would arrive in Chicago shortly after winning another gold as part of the Unified Team at the 1992 tournament. He scored a goal in his first NHL game by stealing the puck from Bob Probert, and somehow lived to tell the tale.

He lasted about a year in Chicago before he was dealt to Edmonton for Joe Murphy, whose name does not sound like Duchene. But after three years with the Oilers, including a 50-point season 1993-94, he was traded to St. Louis for Donald Dufresne. And a year after that the Blues flipped him to the Senators for Steve Duchesne.

He made his only all-star appearance for Ottawa in 1998, and later that year he scored the empty net goal that sealed the Senators' upset playoff win over the Devils. He'd have quick stints with the Flames and Panthers before ending his NHL run in 2003, at the age of 36.

All in all, he had a pretty solid career. And yet his most famous hockey moment came long before he ever arrived on the NHL scene. In 1987, he was a 20-year-old youngster on the powerhouse Soviet team at the Canada Cup when coach Viktor Tikhonov decided to send him out to face the Wayne Gretzky/Mario Lemieux line in the deciding game's final minutes. You probably remember how that turned out. That's Kravchuk making one of the worst pinches in hockey history to set up the 3-on-1 that ends with Lemieux's winning goal.

And yet he still went on to a long and successful career. See? People make sometimes mistakes, and it's not the end of the world. Somebody send that clip to Joe Sakic.

Outrage of the week

The issue: This week, the NHL (along with the NHLPA and several other hockey organizations) unveiled what they're calling a Declaration of Principles.

The outrage: [everyone's eyes instantly roll into the back of their heads while making slot machine noises] Is it justified: You can find the entire list of principles here. It's basically a laundry list of things the league claims to believe are fundamental concepts for the hockey community, including delivering "a positive family experience" while providing "a safe, positive and inclusive environment".

Those sounds like good things, because they are. And even though there's clearly a healthy dose of public relations behind all this—the league even included a letter of endorsement from the pope—the league deserves some credit here. These days, we could apparently all use the occasional reminder not to be completely horrible to each other, so seeing the NHL put its name on this sort of initiative is a positive. That entitles them to some goodwill.

What it doesn't entitle them to is any sort of benefit of the doubt that they'll actually deliver on any of this, and that's where the rest of us come in. It's no secret that the NHL has been decidedly hit-and-miss over the years in living up to the sort of standards they laid out this week. They're certainly not alone in that regard, but the fact remains that there's plenty of room for improvement on the part of the NHL, its teams, and just about everyone involved with the league, including the media. Declaring your principles is nice, but it would be foolish for fans to pat the NHL on the back and call it mission accomplished based on a slick media event and a press release.

That said, that doesn't mean we write this off as one big public relations charade and ignore it. Even if most of the principles read as merely aspirational right now, that still has value. There's something to be said for putting your goals out there in writing for the world to see.

At the very least, if the NHL and its clubs go right back to business as usual, fans will no longer have to resort to vague complaints about how the league should do better. They'll have something concrete to point to.

That's worth something. Exactly how much remains to be seen, and nobody should go into this with unrealistic expectations. But the league made progress this week, even if all they did was make it easier to hold them to a higher standard.

Classic YouTube clip breakdown

he Edmonton Oilers have had a busy summer, one that saw them sign two players to massive extensions: Connor McDavid's $100-million extension, and a $68-million deal for Leon Draisaitl. Both contracts spurred plenty of debate, with some seeing the deals as the cost of doing business in today's NHL while others argued that McDavid or (especially) Draisaitl would be overpaid.

Time will tell whether either player can earn their paychecks. But in the meantime, let's travel back to 1982 for an old-school salary debate featuring an Edmonton Oilers star. And I do mean old school…

So it's January 21, 1982, and there's big news in the hockey world. Wayne Gretzky has just torn up his contract with Peter Pocklington and the Edmonton Oilers to sign a brand new deal, and it's a doozy. Gretzky has just become the highest-paid player in NHL history, thanks to a 21-year contract that will pay him more than $20 million. With bonus clauses, he could make that much in just the first 15 years of the deal.

Yes, that's right, Wayne Gretzky is going to make a little over $1 million a year, and we're not sure he's worth it. He's in the middle of a 92-goal, 212-point season, in case you're wondering. Hockey economics were a little bit different in the early 80s.

We're watching the CBC nightly news, and we get a truncated introduction to the story, at which point we cut to the debate portion of the program. Our clip features three giants of Canadian media: CBC newscaster Barbara Frum, journalist Peter Gzowski, and the undisputed star of the piece: legendary curmudgeon Dick Beddoes.

I'm not sure how widely known Beddoes was outside of Ontario, so let me try to prepare you for what you're about to see. OK, imagine Don Cherry. Now imagine he was better dressed, crankier, and the sort of newspaper veteran who did all his interviews next to an old typewriter. That's Dick Beddoes. He was the best.

Frum introduces our two debaters, and we're off to the races. Beddoes comes out strong, playing the "every modern player is terrible" card. It's a strong old-guy opinion, especially when he calls Gretzky a "hairy-legged hockey player from Brantford, Ontario." Let's see how Gzowski responds.

"His legs aren't very hairy, Dick." OK, that's a sentence I didn't think I'd have to type today, but here we are.

Gzowski, playing the role of the bearded voice of reason, makes the seemingly uncontroversial point that Gretzky is the best hockey player in the world, at which point Beddoes interrupts to disagree, throwing some shade at Gzowski's book in the process. So who is the best player? None other than Russian winger Sergei Shepelev, who's coming off a 28-goal season with Moscow Spartak and had recently starred at the 1981 Canada Cup. For what it's worth, Shepelev never made it over to the NHL, but he was good. Not Gretzky-good, but he was fine.

Also, he's currently a coach in the KHL, and I feel pretty safe assuming that he's better than Gretzky was at coaching. Maybe that's what Beddoes meant.

I'm 100 percent going to spend the rest of the day practicing Beddoes's deadpan "You're joking, of course" comeback in the mirror.

Gzowski hasn't exactly shown up to this fight without any ammo, and he calls Beddoes "a well-dressed sourpuss in Hamilton, Ontario.. Man, that phrase started off as kind of a compliment and then got progressively meaner as it went.

Beddoes makes it clear that he just needs to see a little more from Gretzky. How much more? Oh, maybe "15 or 30 years like Gordie Howe". That seems reasonable. What's next, a Phantom Joe Malone take?

Beddoes calls this "a diluted era of hockey", which makes him sounds pretty reasonable, and then mentions being a part-owner of the 1980s Maple Leafs, which does not.

Frum cuts in to try to get things back on track. And yes, if the name sounds familiar to you Americans, she is the mother of that guy you currently have deeply conflicted feelings about on Twitter. She wants to know how the finances are going to work for Peter Pocklington and the Oilers.

Gzowski's answer doesn't include the phrase "Pocklington will just sell him in seven years so none of this will matter," so his answer was wrong. But Beddoes quickly jumps in anyway, pointing out that Gretzky "has got more money than Poland." Is that offensive? I feel like that might have been offensive in 1982, but I'm going to need to go to the replay review to be sure.

We briefly get to the small matter of this whole contract being nonsense, which is why you've never heard of it until just now. Back then, NHL contracts could be renegotiated at any time, and that happened with Gretzky several times over his career. This 21-year deal lasted a few seasons and that was it.

Gzowski lays out the argument for Gretzky's drawing power, including a nice little shot at Detroit as a hockey market. Then we move on to Frum pointing out that Gretzky has just recently scored his infamous 50 goals in 39 games. Surely even Beddoes has to admit that's impressive, right?

"What I want from him, if we're going to make comparisons, is that he might score some year 44 goals in 20 games, like the late Phantom Joe Malone did in 1918…He hasn't done that." I love Dick Beddoes so much.

We close out with Beddoes arguing that Gretzky—who again, is in the middle of a 212-point season—couldn't make third-string center on the 1947 Maple Leafs. Gzowski tries to respond with a quote from Rocket Richard, but Beddoes fires back with a fake French accent that causes Frum to put an end to things with the same "OK you two" rejoinder of a mom who's just walked in on her two children setting the basement on fire.

And that does it for our clip. As it turns out, Gretzky was indeed worth the money, as seven more Hart Trophies and four Stanley Cups would attest. Will McDavid and Draisaitl be able to do the same? It's still early, and old-school Beddoes types won't like to hear it, but there's every indication that the modern Oilers could end up being just as good if not better than they were in Gretzky's years.

I'm joking, of course.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] .

DGB Grab Bag: Toews Still getting Trolled, and a Gretzky was Overpaid Take published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years

Text

DGB Grab Bag: Toews Still getting Trolled, and a Gretzky was Overpaid Take

Three stars of comedy

The third star: Kris Versteeg’s ongoing Instagram war against Jonathan Toews – It’s been going on for months now—you can get caught up here—and honestly at this point it’s just short of outright bullying. But when you’re one of the best 100 players in NHL history, I’m guessing you can take it.

The second star: Sharks twitter—Hey look, they’d like to make a harmless joke. Jokes are fun, right?

Not bad, guys! But be careful, you’re going after the Golden Knights and lately they’ve been kind of feisty so you might want to watch out for…

Good lord, guys. This was basically the Twitter equivalent of that time Slava Fetisov came after Wendel Clark. It’s not even preseason, maybe hold off on the kill shots until camp open.The first star: Artemi Panarin’s bread shoes—Absolutely no idea what’s happening here, but what the hell.

The NHL actually got something right

This week, we learned that the NHL is making an important change to its video review challenge rules. For offside reviews, an incorrect challenge will now result in a team taking a two-minute penalty. Presumably, the penalty will be for delay of game, the same call that’s already on the books for teams that unsuccessfully challenge for an illegal stick.

In other words, they’re going to start doing it the way they should have been all along. As listeners to the Biscuits hockey podcast already know, this is the solution I’ve been suggesting all season. It just makes too much sense. The offside review might be fine in concept, but there are way too many of them. Coaches were calling for reviews on anything remotely close, and rightly so, since the reward for being right dwarfed the cost of being wrong.

The reward still dwarfs the cost—taking a goal off the board is such a big deal in a low-scoring league that there’s really no way to change that—and if coaches were purely rational then this might not change much. But pro sports coaches aren’t purely rational. If they were, they’d pull goalies earlier, bunt less, and go for it on fourth down more. Coaches like to cover their own behinds, and now they know that if they’re wrong on an offisde challenge and it costs their team a power play goal, they’ll take the blame. The NHL has basically found a way to turn a league full of conservative coaches’ risk-aversion against them. It’s beautiful.

Now, maybe you’d have liked to see them go even further. It would have been nice to see them fix those infuriating “skate in the air” calls, and putting some sort of stricter time limit on making challenges would also have been good. The rule change will only impact offside reviews and not goalie interference, so maybe it doesn’t go far enough. Or maybe you’d like to see them just scrap offside review altogether, because as we’ve covered here before, the “just get it right at all costs” argument is deeply flawed.

But the bigger point is that the league made a genuine improvement to a rule that desperately needed it. These days, we’ll take our wins where we can get them.

(And hey NHL, while you’re stealing my ideas: About that Jagr draft…)

Obscure former player of the week

Matt Duchene will never be traded. It doesn’t matter if he refuses to report to camp, as now seems possible. It doesn’t matter if more teams get into the bidding. It doesn’t matter if the Avalanche are in or out of the playoff race. We will all live and then we will die and then the sun will explode and consume the earth and then Joe Sakic will still be waiting for the Islanders to throw in another draft pick.

So since nobody will ever be traded for Duchene, today’s obscure player is a guy who was once traded for a Duchesne. And also a Dufresne. It’s as close as we’re ever going to get, people. This week’s player is Igor Kravchuk.

He made his only all-star appearance for Ottawa in 1998, and later that year he scored the empty net goal that sealed the Senators’ upset playoff win over the Devils. He’d have quick stints with the Flames and Panthers before ending his NHL run in 2003, at the age of 36.

All in all, he had a pretty solid career. And yet his most famous hockey moment came long before he ever arrived on the NHL scene. In 1987, he was a 20-year-old youngster on the powerhouse Soviet team at the Canada Cup when coach Viktor Tikhonov decided to send him out to face the Wayne Gretzky/Mario Lemieux line in the deciding game’s final minutes. You probably remember how that turned out. That’s Kravchuk making one of the worst pinches in hockey history to set up the 3-on-1 that ends with Lemieux’s winning goal.

And yet he still went on to a long and successful career. See? People make sometimes mistakes, and it’s not the end of the world. Somebody send that clip to Joe Sakic.

Outrage of the week

The issue: This week, the NHL (along with the NHLPA and several other hockey organizations) unveiled what they’re calling a Declaration of Principles.

The outrage: [everyone’s eyes instantly roll into the back of their heads while making slot machine noises]

Is it justified: You can find the entire list of principles here. It’s basically a laundry list of things the league claims to believe are fundamental concepts for the hockey community, including delivering “a positive family experience” while providing “a safe, positive and inclusive environment”.

Those sounds like good things, because they are. And even though there’s clearly a healthy dose of public relations behind all this—the league even included a letter of endorsement from the pope—the league deserves some credit here. These days, we could apparently all use the occasional reminder not to be completely horrible to each other, so seeing the NHL put its name on this sort of initiative is a positive. That entitles them to some goodwill.

What it doesn’t entitle them to is any sort of benefit of the doubt that they’ll actually deliver on any of this, and that’s where the rest of us come in. It’s no secret that the NHL has been decidedly hit-and-miss over the years in living up to the sort of standards they laid out this week. They’re certainly not alone in that regard, but the fact remains that there’s plenty of room for improvement on the part of the NHL, its teams, and just about everyone involved with the league, including the media. Declaring your principles is nice, but it would be foolish for fans to pat the NHL on the back and call it mission accomplished based on a slick media event and a press release.

That said, that doesn’t mean we write this off as one big public relations charade and ignore it. Even if most of the principles read as merely aspirational right now, that still has value. There’s something to be said for putting your goals out there in writing for the world to see.

At the very least, if the NHL and its clubs go right back to business as usual, fans will no longer have to resort to vague complaints about how the league should do better. They’ll have something concrete to point to.

That’s worth something. Exactly how much remains to be seen, and nobody should go into this with unrealistic expectations. But the league made progress this week, even if all they did was make it easier to hold them to a higher standard.

Classic YouTube clip breakdown

he Edmonton Oilers have had a busy summer, one that saw them sign two players to massive extensions: Connor McDavid’s $100-million extension, and a $68-million deal for Leon Draisaitl. Both contracts spurred plenty of debate, with some seeing the deals as the cost of doing business in today’s NHL while others argued that McDavid or (especially) Draisaitl would be overpaid.

Time will tell whether either player can earn their paychecks. But in the meantime, let’s travel back to 1982 for an old-school salary debate featuring an Edmonton Oilers star. And I do mean old school…

So it’s January 21, 1982, and there’s big news in the hockey world. Wayne Gretzky has just torn up his contract with Peter Pocklington and the Edmonton Oilers to sign a brand new deal, and it’s a doozy. Gretzky has just become the highest-paid player in NHL history, thanks to a 21-year contract that will pay him more than $20 million. With bonus clauses, he could make that much in just the first 15 years of the deal.

Yes, that’s right, Wayne Gretzky is going to make a little over $1 million a year, and we’re not sure he’s worth it. He’s in the middle of a 92-goal, 212-point season, in case you’re wondering. Hockey economics were a little bit different in the early 80s.

We’re watching the CBC nightly news, and we get a truncated introduction to the story, at which point we cut to the debate portion of the program. Our clip features three giants of Canadian media: CBC newscaster Barbara Frum, journalist Peter Gzowski, and the undisputed star of the piece: legendary curmudgeon Dick Beddoes.

I’m not sure how widely known Beddoes was outside of Ontario, so let me try to prepare you for what you’re about to see. OK, imagine Don Cherry. Now imagine he was better dressed, crankier, and the sort of newspaper veteran who did all his interviews next to an old typewriter. That’s Dick Beddoes. He was the best.

Frum introduces our two debaters, and we’re off to the races. Beddoes comes out strong, playing the “every modern player is terrible” card. It’s a strong old-guy opinion, especially when he calls Gretzky a “hairy-legged hockey player from Brantford, Ontario.” Let’s see how Gzowski responds.

“His legs aren’t very hairy, Dick.” OK, that’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d have to type today, but here we are.

Gzowski, playing the role of the bearded voice of reason, makes the seemingly uncontroversial point that Gretzky is the best hockey player in the world, at which point Beddoes interrupts to disagree, throwing some shade at Gzowski’s book in the process. So who is the best player? None other than Russian winger Sergei Shepelev, who’s coming off a 28-goal season with Moscow Spartak and had recently starred at the 1981 Canada Cup. For what it’s worth, Shepelev never made it over to the NHL, but he was good. Not Gretzky-good, but he was fine.

Also, he’s currently a coach in the KHL, and I feel pretty safe assuming that he’s better than Gretzky was at coaching. Maybe that’s what Beddoes meant.

I’m 100 percent going to spend the rest of the day practicing Beddoes’s deadpan “You’re joking, of course” comeback in the mirror.

Gzowski hasn’t exactly shown up to this fight without any ammo, and he calls Beddoes “a well-dressed sourpuss in Hamilton, Ontario.. Man, that phrase started off as kind of a compliment and then got progressively meaner as it went.

Beddoes makes it clear that he just needs to see a little more from Gretzky. How much more? Oh, maybe “15 or 30 years like Gordie Howe”. That seems reasonable. What’s next, a Phantom Joe Malone take?

Beddoes calls this “a diluted era of hockey”, which makes him sounds pretty reasonable, and then mentions being a part-owner of the 1980s Maple Leafs, which does not.

Gzowski’s answer doesn’t include the phrase “Pocklington will just sell him in seven years so none of this will matter,” so his answer was wrong. But Beddoes quickly jumps in anyway, pointing out that Gretzky “has got more money than Poland.” Is that offensive? I feel like that might have been offensive in 1982, but I’m going to need to go to the replay review to be sure.

We briefly get to the small matter of this whole contract being nonsense, which is why you’ve never heard of it until just now. Back then, NHL contracts could be renegotiated at any time, and that happened with Gretzky several times over his career. This 21-year deal lasted a few seasons and that was it.

Gzowski lays out the argument for Gretzky’s drawing power, including a nice little shot at Detroit as a hockey market. Then we move on to Frum pointing out that Gretzky has just recently scored his infamous 50 goals in 39 games. Surely even Beddoes has to admit that’s impressive, right?

“What I want from him, if we’re going to make comparisons, is that he might score some year 44 goals in 20 games, like the late Phantom Joe Malone did in 1918…He hasn’t done that.” I love Dick Beddoes so much.

We close out with Beddoes arguing that Gretzky—who again, is in the middle of a 212-point season—couldn’t make third-string center on the 1947 Maple Leafs. Gzowski tries to respond with a quote from Rocket Richard, but Beddoes fires back with a fake French accent that causes Frum to put an end to things with the same “OK you two” rejoinder of a mom who’s just walked in on her two children setting the basement on fire.

And that does it for our clip. As it turns out, Gretzky was indeed worth the money, as seven more Hart Trophies and four Stanley Cups would attest. Will McDavid and Draisaitl be able to do the same? It’s still early, and old-school Beddoes types won’t like to hear it, but there’s every indication that the modern Oilers could end up being just as good if not better than they were in Gretzky’s years.

I’m joking, of course.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] .

DGB Grab Bag: Toews Still getting Trolled, and a Gretzky was Overpaid Take syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include the art behind Thimbleweed Park, the rise of RimWorld, and much, much more.

For anyone counting, this is week 31 of picks, and I'm still managing to keep up the weekly pace - primarily because my regular social media trawls during the week allow me to stack up links to post at the weekend! And this is still without regular RSS feed checking - so there's got to be a bunch more stories I'm missing. Ah well.

So much good stuff out there - and I really enjoyed some of the more esoteric stories in this week's set, including the piece on Tamagotchi collectors and the visually impaired Roguelike players. There are all kinds of unique, wonderful video game nerds under the sun, aren't there? Until next time...

- Simon, curator.]

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The Stress of Game Development - Tips for Survival (Extra Credits / YouTube) "Making games is hard. You need all kinds of technical and creative skills, but most importantly, you need to know how to manage the many kinds of stress that come with it."

Game Design Deep Dive: Watch Dogs 2's Invasion of Privacy missions (Christopher Dragert / Gamasutra) "In this article, I will describe some of the technical challenges and design decisions that drove development of the Invasion of Privacy feature in Watch Dogs 2. Areas of focus will include managing branching scenarios, motion capture challenges, controlling NPC state, maintaining dialog flow, and NPC coordination."

Video Games Aren’t Addictive (Christopher J Ferguson & Patrick Markey / New York Times) "Is video game addiction a real thing? It’s certainly common to hear parents complain that their children are “addicted” to video games. Some researchers even claim that these games are comparable to illegal drugs in terms of their influence on the brain — that they are “digital heroin” (the neuroscientist Peter C. Whybrow) or “digital pharmakeia” (the neuroscientist Andrew Doan)."

The Job Simulator Postmortem (Alex Schwartz & Devin Reimer / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 postmortem, Owlchemy Labs' Alexander Schwartz and Devin Reimer analyze the challenges of building, sharing, shipping, and sustaining Job Simulator on multiple platforms with examples showing both successful and less-than-successful design prototypes and how iteration led to the final product."

The Underground World of Tamagotchi Collectors (Alyssa Bereznak / The Ringer) "On October 26 of last year, a user named “psychotama” made his first entry in what would become a detailed online diary, otherwise known as a “Tama log.” “I’m not quite sure how to begin,” he wrote in purple Comic Sans. “My journey with Tamagotchi began about 13 years ago.”"

'Make me think, make me move': New Doom's deceptively simple design (Kris Graft / Gamasutra) "Doom is known for its speed and straightforwardness – move fast, shoot demons. It's a seemingly simple combination that, at the franchise’s best, evokes an ultraviolent cognitive flow. But Doom’s apparent simplicity belies a core design that is difficult to achieve."

From 'Zelda' to 'Witcher 3': Why We're Still Talking About 'Skyrim' (Alex Kane / Glixel) "How Bethesda's 2011 masterpiece – and the colossal online culture of fan art, memes, and music surrounding it – forever changed the game for fantasy RPGs."

Precious Moments, Hype and High School: A Conversation with 'Persona 5' Director Katsura Hashino (Sayem Ahmed / Waypoint) "Hashino tells me that seeing the anticipation for the game build, as previously announced street dates passed and more information on the game crept out via the press, was both "encouraging and scary.""

How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons (Noam Scheiber / New York Times) "The company has undertaken an extraordinary experiment in behavioral science to subtly entice an independent work force to maximize its growth. [SIMON'S NOTE: you may have seen this, but thought it particularly interesting that GDC board member Chelsea Howe was also quoted in here re: F2P-style coercive psychology evils.]"

Why games like 'Super Mario 64' had terrible cameras (Mike Rougeau / Mashable) "The camera is the interactive window through which we experience video games; the term describes not just our perspective and view of a digital space, but the freedom of or restrictions on how we as players control that viewpoint."

A Year after Firewatch (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "With sales of more than a million copies, developer Campo Santo is now working on its next project: unannounced as yet. I sat down with writer Sean Vanaman to talk about the direction he wants to go in next, and how he feels about Firewatch one year after its launch."

Kevin Horton Is a Cryogenics Engineer Turned Retro Gaming Savior (Nicholas DeLeon / Motherboard) "By day Horton, 43, is an engineer at a cryogenics company (he's worked at the same company since high school). But online, he's better known online as Kevtris (in reference to a Tetris clone he developed in the mid-1990s), where he is the brains behind a series of critical technological breakthroughs that allow gamers to play classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid on modern televisions."

Interactive Fiction Appears at the Whitney Biennial (Chris Klimas / Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation) "The 2017 Whitney Biennial has something curious to offer fans of interactive fiction. Among the works shown this year are With Those We Love Alive and howling dogs, Twine works written by Charity Heartscape Porpentine. [SIMON'S NOTE: short article, but great news, & the linked interview is also notable.]"

From Rational to Emotional: Designs that Increase Player Retention (Jim Brown / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 session, Epic's Jim Brown provides specific examples of design techniques that encourage the formation of enduring emotional ties that could enhance both retention and enjoyment for players in game design."

A Brief History Of Speedrunning (Kat Brewster / ReadOnlyMemory) "A good speedrun is hypnotising to watch – this goes for ones showcased at GDQ, or the ones which get circulated around the internet for their insane jumps or cutscene skips or lightning fast movement. They’re a dizzying show of hard won skill and palpable effort. The video of a world record time which knocks an hours-long campaign into minutes can be jaw-dropping."

In Their War With The Wall Street Journal, Top YouTubers Just Played Themselves (Patricia Hernandez / Kotaku) "Over the last couple of weeks, anger has been bubbling on YouTube over the news that major brands pulled advertisements on the platform in an effort to avoid being matched with objectionable content. The reports, which were published by the Wall Street Journal, were met with such skepticism that they sparked scandalous conspiracy theories among YouTube’s top creators."

After tragedy strikes, a dev's friends strive to complete his game (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "Former Harmonix programmer Roger Morash had been working on his passion project, a co-op platformer called Shard, for years before he died in January of this year. "

Inside the Shady World of PlayStation Network Account Resellers (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) "A few weeks ago, Mic Fok got a weird email. The person writing it claimed they'd been playing Overwatch on a PlayStation Network account for more than six months, but the password had changed recently. But why would Fok know anything about this random dude's account?"

(Not) a Thimbleweed Park review (Matej Jan / Retronator) "Thimbleweed Park started as a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. “It’s like opening a dusty old desk drawer and finding an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you’ve never played before.” [SIMON'S NOTE: mainly linking this for the amaaazing vintage Mark Ferrari art linked within, tho the whole thing is cute!]"

Playing roguelikes when you can’t see (Kent Sutherland / RockPaperShotgun) "For most of us, traditional roguelikes are intrinsically inaccessible. They’re notoriously difficult, their design is complicated and often opaque, they can have more hotkeys than there are keys on the keyboard, and their ASCII-based visuals mean that it’s often unclear what’s happening on the screen. It’s these exact qualities, however, that ironically make roguelikes accessible and even appealing to blind or low-sight players."

The Game Beat Weekly: Digital Foundry and Microsoft make it "exclusive" (Kyle Orland / Tinyletter) "That kind of server-melting traffic shows why it would have been somewhat crazy for Eurogamer to turn down Microsoft's invitation to see Scorpio up close at their Redmond headquarters last week. But agreeing to an exclusive of this magnitude also risks coming across as a mere mouthpiece for a company you're supposed to be covering with a kind of detached objectivity."

The Witness - Noclip Documentary (NoClip / YouTube) "What lies at the heart of Jonathan Blow's island of mystery? We talk to the famed indie designer about how one of his earliest design ideas blossomed into The Witness."

A Pioneer Story: How MECC Blazed New Trails (Joe Juba / Game Informer) "Decades ago, as computing migrated from research labs and universities and into the mainstream, one company in Minnesota was instrumental in bringing technology into classrooms. Thanks to its focused mission and talented staff, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) used exceptional software like The Oregon Trail to engage and educate a generation of students – and establish an unforgettable legacy."

Inside 'RimWorld', the Cult Sci-Fi Hit That Just Keeps Growing (Chris Priestman / Glixel) "Since its earliest public release on Steam Early Access in July, RimWorld – a sci-fi space colony sim – has amassed more than 600,000 players, and it's not even a finished project."

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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

#IFTTT #Blogger

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miamibeerscene · 7 years

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Beercation Destination: San Diego

February 23, 2017

In San Diego, if you were to visit 10 breweries a day for a solid month, you still wouldn’t have seen them all, as surely five new would have opened up in that short time. Simply driving around the vast county, you’re just as likely to smell beer being brewed as you are to inhale the intoxicating scents of the Pacific Ocean.

A trip to this West Coast beer city and the sprawling county surrounding it can be hard to plan because there are so many options. As someone who visits multiple times a year, here are some tips to create the perfect San Diego beercation.

(MORE: Uinta Brewing Company Launches Beer Honoring the National Parks)

Start Planning Around a Marquis Event

Since San Diego’s weather is freakishly nice year round, it’s easy to plan a trip during the offseason. With SD Beer Week happening in early November, one could easily skip this entire post and show up with bag in hand, have a crazy fun week, and somehow mysteriously end up in Tijuana jail a few days later, complete with a new hop nugget tattoo on your lower back. The week is brimming with elaborate pairing dinners, tap takeovers, and a guild festival that, just like San Diego, is difficult to try everything.

If November doesn’t jive with your turkey, some other events to plan around include The Mission Valley Craft Beer & Food Festival (April), Modern Times Festival of Dankness (or Funk!) (August), and SD Rhythm & Brews (May). A personal favorite is the Brewbies fest which takes place in North San Diego at Bagby Brewing (February); the event that is adored by industry and reachable by train.

Chris Cramer, co-founder of Karl Strauss at their 28th anniversary. “Give me just a tiny bit of the Pappy barrel aged stout so there’s more for the guests.” (Credit: Greg Nagel)

Brewery anniversary parties are also great to plan a trip around. Stone Brewing’s anniversary, which falls in late February, is overflowing with rarities from within their cellar and guest breweries tend to bring their black tie beers to help celebrate.

(MORE: 9 Weird Brewery Names and the Stories Behind Them)

San Diego Beercation: Where to Stay

North Park is a great neighborhood all on its own, with 30th Street being the central hub of great beer bars, brunch spots and stellar breweries. The historic LaFayette Hotel is situated amongst all this, and is a great jumping off point with easy access to the downtown gaslamp district, beaches, the zoo and other brewery hotspots. The hotel was built in 1946, yet still maintains its poolside bungalow charm. Nothing is more relaxing than cracking a brewery-fresh crowler in a chaise lounge next to their Olympic-sized pool, only to have an impromptu poolside bottle share with traveling room-neighbors from abroad.

The LaFayette Hotel in San Diego. (Credit: Greg Nagel)

So, with your marquis event and a place to stay, what else are you going to do? Grab a free West Coaster Magazine (basically everywhere beer is poured and in your hotel) and get your fingers dirty with newsprint until something catches your eye. The beer map and directory is in the back, which is your guide to what is fresh and in season.

Starting your day in North Park is poised with possibility. Brunch at nearby Small Bar for $15 includes a full breakfast with a choice of beer (Pliny the Elder on draft, anyone?), a foot tall bloody mary, or even a local favorite michelada (beer bloody mary). Give your morning yawns a kick in the pants and put some money in their juke box, which is filled with all Bowie you can handle.

Bellies full, a stroll down 30th street is always filled with fun and photo ops. The juxtaposition of urban art, yoga mat-carrying locals and beer touristas makes for a sense of belonging. Stop in a store called ‘Simply Local’ to grab some seriously cool beer art by local artist Rudy aka “Craft Beerd.” and grab his $9 deck of San Diego Brewery playing cards to keep you busy while brewery hopping. While checking out, you must buy some local nuts made by North Park Nuttery. They’re created with locally-made beer, and shockingly taste like the beer they’re made of.

A couple doors down, Bottlecraft is the only bottle shop you need to stop in; be sure to stock up with treats to take home.

Whether or not you’re craving beer or coffee, Modern Times Flavordome has you covered. House-roasted coffee and 16 taps of beer, including Black House, their eye-opening coffee stout with house-roasted beans. Mike Hess Brewery and Fall Brewery make up my other must-visit breweries in the area, each with their own pint-worthy charm and incredible neighborhood vibes.

Within 3.5 miles of 30th street are four of the area’s best beer bars. For an epic trip, start at Blind Lady Alehouse, move to Tiger Tiger!, then Toronado San Diego, finishing with a quick #2 city bus ride to Hamilton’s Tavern in South Park. Lunch, and lots of water, is recommended at any of these places.

(MORE BEERCATIONS: Los Angeles | Charleston, South Carolina)

How to Get Around

In San Diego, it’s surprisingly easy to reach the best beer spots without driving yourself. I find a combination of bike rental, Uber, train and trolley are all fast, inexpensive and safe to reach most places. For all others, I reluctantly suggest a brewery tour. Although some might like the fast-paced big-bus tourist lifestyle, I prefer to mosey at my own pace and set things up in advance.

YouTuber Maxnosleeves on the HotShots Brewery Tour in San Diego. (Credit: Greg Nagel)

One service I highly recommend is the HotShots Brewery Tour group, which shuttles you around in a swank smaller-sized retired fire battalion wagon. Local beer, food and knowledge is dropped on their friendly experience, complete with phone chargers and plug-in stereo jack to jam out to your own tunes while stuck in traffic. Only drawback? No potty on board.

To Escondido, or Escondidon’t? Take the Hop Highway!

Some areas of San Diego are well out of the way, so much so that they have opened more convenient taprooms and restaurants within your travel bubble. Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens is a must for any first time San Diego beer traveler, even though their location near the airport at Liberty Station is also beautiful. The Escondido location is a place one can take their mom on Mother’s Day, a wedding party, or just a random day to chill at this destination brewery. Reservations for dining and tours is highly suggested. Protip: BYO ketchup.

Stone brewer Kris Ketcham is the real brite tank sample hero (Credit: Greg Nagel)

With fresh gargoyle in your belly, hop along highway 76 for some incredible pockets of beer that are destinations on their own. San Marcos is a short ways away and is home to Port Brewing/ The Lost Abbey, Rip Current Brewing, and Churchill’s Pub & Grille, three San Diego landmarks. Vista is just a little bit up the road along the 76 with a brewer’s guild of its own, including Iron Fist and Belching Beaver. Just before you hit the ocean, the hop highway drops you off in scenic Oceanside, which quickly becoming a brewery hotbed on its own. Locals love Urge Gastropub & Whiskey Bank, complete with adjoining Mason Ale Works for their incredible burgers. Nearby, Bagby Brewing, ran by Jeff Bagby, is probably one of the most decorated GABF winners in history at his tenure with Pizza Port. His attention to detail with lower-ABV beers is remarkable.

Speaking of Pizza Port, Carlsbad is home to most of their operation with a brewpub, a bottle shop, and their huge canning operation in Bressi Ranch, which is a short drive away from Legoland theme park if traveling with children.

(MORE: Coolship Fever in American Brewing)

The San Diego Beer Pioneers

For every craft beer pioneer brewery in San Diego, there are usually several must-visit places around it. Set your GPS to Stone, Alesmith, Coronado, Pizza Port, Karl Strauss, and even White Labs yeast bank. Once there, it’s easy to find a few spots you have never heard of via Yelp, Untappd, or even Google Maps’ “nearby feature” on the phone app.

Operation Beeramar

Miramar is more than just a Marine base surrounded by fast food and furniture stores; it’s home to one brewery that has its own street named after it: Alesmith Brewing Company. The big brewing operation has forged the highly regarded Speedway Stout, and the three-time GABF gold medal winningest Barleywine, Ol’ Numbskull. Adding to their big beer program is a unique barrel blending experience called Anvil and Stave, which is sort of like a beer speakeasy, allowing visitors to create unique tastes on each visit. For the baseball fan, be sure to check out their Tony Gwynn museum after a sip of the bright and hoppy .394 Pale Ale, which the ball player personally put his stamp of approval on.

Alesmith Anvil & Stave in Miramar, California. (Credit: Greg Nagel)

Alesmith’s original brewery is a short trip away, but now houses Mikkeller San Diego. Ex-Alesmith head brewer Bill Batton opted to stay with his storied brewhouse, making the transition to make the Copenhagen-based gypsy brewer’s beers. I find their freshness and vibe to be electric among San Diego’s finest, offering new takes on copycat classics.

Finishing the Beeramar trifecta, I like to visit something new while in the area. My last visit included Little Miss Brewing at only 20 days old. With a WWII bunker vibe and legit dart boards, the flight of bright and hoppy beers were the bomb, just like their logo.

Food & Nightlife During a San Diego Beercation

When beer touring, the need for food can become a necessity, but a little planning ahead can have you eating like the locals do, and hopefully squeeze in a couple fine-dining experiences into the trip. Touristy areas like Seaport Village and Old Town might be fun to shop, but the dining and beverage experience is somehow stuck in the 90’s. A couple miles from Old Town, get your burrito fix at Lucha Libre Gourmet Taco Shop. Fish tacos are also indigenous to the region and usually a safe bet on any local menu. Type “fish tacos” into Yelp, and don’t be shocked to see a few pages of 4-5 star results.

(MORE: Why You Should Drink Beer Fresh)

Impromptu stop at Burning Beard Brewing on the way to Alpine, great jukebox and beer. (Credit: Greg Nagel)

Little Italy offers several gastropub experiences with hip noun & verb type of names, but Craft & Commerce made me feel most at home. Their modern naturalist ambiance and surprisingly accessible menu is as tasty as it is Instagram-worthy. Plus, they have my favorite San Diego brewery on tap: Societe Brewing. If by chance you can’t make it out to their taproom, be sure to try their beer around town. You can thank me later.

As San Diego continues to solidify itself as one of the nation’s best beer spots, the thing that keeps me coming back is its ability to keep morphing into something better than it once was. It’s not just the quantity of breweries and bars that makes a place great, it’s the history, the landscape, and the passionate producers and local fans that consume beer that truly make for great beercation.

The post Beercation Destination: San Diego appeared first on Miami Beer Scene.

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#Beercation Destination: San Diego

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flauntpage · 7 years

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DGB Grab Bag: Toews Still getting Trolled, and a Gretzky was Overpaid Take

Three stars of comedy

The second star: Sharks twitter—Hey look, they'd like to make a harmless joke. Jokes are fun, right?

Not bad, guys! But be careful, you're going after the Golden Knights and lately they've been kind of feisty so you might want to watch out for…

The NHL actually got something right

But the bigger point is that the league made a genuine improvement to a rule that desperately needed it. These days, we'll take our wins where we can get them.

(And hey NHL, while you're stealing my ideas: About that Jagr draft…)

Obscure former player of the week

And yet he still went on to a long and successful career. See? People make sometimes mistakes, and it's not the end of the world. Somebody send that clip to Joe Sakic.

Outrage of the week

The issue: This week, the NHL (along with the NHLPA and several other hockey organizations) unveiled what they're calling a Declaration of Principles.

Classic YouTube clip breakdown

"His legs aren't very hairy, Dick." OK, that's a sentence I didn't think I'd have to type today, but here we are.

Also, he's currently a coach in the KHL, and I feel pretty safe assuming that he's better than Gretzky was at coaching. Maybe that's what Beddoes meant.

I'm 100 percent going to spend the rest of the day practicing Beddoes's deadpan "You're joking, of course" comeback in the mirror.

Beddoes makes it clear that he just needs to see a little more from Gretzky. How much more? Oh, maybe "15 or 30 years like Gordie Howe". That seems reasonable. What's next, a Phantom Joe Malone take?

Beddoes calls this "a diluted era of hockey", which makes him sounds pretty reasonable, and then mentions being a part-owner of the 1980s Maple Leafs, which does not.

I'm joking, of course.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] .

DGB Grab Bag: Toews Still getting Trolled, and a Gretzky was Overpaid Take published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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flauntpage · 7 years

Text

DGB Grab Bag: Toews Still getting Trolled, and a Gretzky was Overpaid Take

Three stars of comedy

The second star: Sharks twitter—Hey look, they'd like to make a harmless joke. Jokes are fun, right?

Not bad, guys! But be careful, you're going after the Golden Knights and lately they've been kind of feisty so you might want to watch out for…

The NHL actually got something right

But the bigger point is that the league made a genuine improvement to a rule that desperately needed it. These days, we'll take our wins where we can get them.

(And hey NHL, while you're stealing my ideas: About that Jagr draft…)

Obscure former player of the week

And yet he still went on to a long and successful career. See? People make sometimes mistakes, and it's not the end of the world. Somebody send that clip to Joe Sakic.

Outrage of the week

The issue: This week, the NHL (along with the NHLPA and several other hockey organizations) unveiled what they're calling a Declaration of Principles.

Classic YouTube clip breakdown

"His legs aren't very hairy, Dick." OK, that's a sentence I didn't think I'd have to type today, but here we are.

Also, he's currently a coach in the KHL, and I feel pretty safe assuming that he's better than Gretzky was at coaching. Maybe that's what Beddoes meant.

I'm 100 percent going to spend the rest of the day practicing Beddoes's deadpan "You're joking, of course" comeback in the mirror.

Beddoes makes it clear that he just needs to see a little more from Gretzky. How much more? Oh, maybe "15 or 30 years like Gordie Howe". That seems reasonable. What's next, a Phantom Joe Malone take?

Beddoes calls this "a diluted era of hockey", which makes him sounds pretty reasonable, and then mentions being a part-owner of the 1980s Maple Leafs, which does not.

I'm joking, of course.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] .

DGB Grab Bag: Toews Still getting Trolled, and a Gretzky was Overpaid Take published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

#IFTTT #Blogger

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