Wednesday, December 24, 2008

There Goes My Hero. Watch him as he goes.



A little vector piece I made in honor of my all-time favorite Calcio player: Alessandro Del Piero.

This man is a living legend. He has pretty much won everything there is to win for a football player. 7 Italian leagues (minus 2 that were later stripped from the club thanks to the match-fixing scandal the Juventus directors were involved with), 1 UEFA Champions League (and appeared in 3 other finals), 1 Intercontinental Cup, 2006's FIFA World Cup... all he is missing is the EURO Cup, and the Golden Ball. At age 34 it is unlikely he will get those 2 final trophies, but with him you never know.

He is one of an endangered species in the sense he has spent his entire career in the same football club. He is the flag of the team, the captain, the most important player in the history of the biggest, winningest club of the Italian League. Juventus has seen the likes of Gaetano Scirea, Omar Sivori, Giampiero Boniperti, Michel Platini. Del Piero has played side-by-side with guys like Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane, Pavel Nedved, Gianluigi Buffon, Fabio Cannavaro, etc. and he hass always been the "go to" man in the field.

He is currently playing some of his best football. He is not quite as fast as he was in the mid-90's, but in exchange he seems to be much more smarter, more of a commanding leader, and he still scores aplenty. So many times he has been written off, considered finished, and he has proven all his detractors wrong, over and over again.

Not many stars would do what he did in 2006, after Juventus was relagated to 2nd division, due to the Calciopoli scandal. While most of the players of that star-studded team decided to jump ship, and seek greener pastures elsewhere, Del Piero stayed, like he was supposed to, and even managed to talk some other stars, even guys who had won the World Cup just a few months earlier, into staying and follow him into the purgatory that would be the Italian Serie B. He, along with Nedved, Camoranesi, Buffon and Trezeguet made it so that, what some thought was improbable, became a reality. Juventus was back in Serie A just a season later, and in no time they were fighting for the Italian title again.

Like it or not, he is in the final stages of his career, no matter how good he is playing today, he wont be playing beyond age 40. At least I don't think a striker should be playing at that age. When that day comes, when the Del Piero era comes to an end in Juventus, I can't imagine how that would be like. I know that, for me at least, it will never be the same again. I will always be a Juventino, but for as long as I've been a fan Del Piero has been there. Thankfully, we still have a few years before that happens.

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Friday, December 12, 2008

Empire Magazine's Greatest Movie Character List

I was reading this list from the british movie magazine, and there are quite a few odd choices that make it to the "All Time Best Top 50". Of course most of these lists are always a popularity contest, and mostly have characters from recent movies... but lets take a look at the list:

1. Tyler Durden (A little too high on the list)
2. Darth Vader (Understandable... as long as they consider Anakin Skywalker a DIFFERENT character)
3. The Joker (I'm assuming this is the overrated The Dark Knight's Joker, in which case... yawn)
4. Han Solo (Is this the "Greedo Shot First" Solo? The Han Solo of Return of the Jedi?)
5. Hannibal Lecter (I have nothing to say here, but again I hope they only considered Silence of the Lambs)
6. Indiana Jones (Maybe should be a little higher than this)
7. The Dude (Just saw this movie recently, it was good)
8. Captain Jack Sparrow (This HAS to be a joke!)
9. Ellen Ripley (O.K.)
10. Vito Corleone (O.K.)
11. James Bond (Over John McClane?!)
12. John McClane (Behind James Bond?!)
13. Gollum (huh? why?)
14. The Terminator (The evil Terminator from the first movie, I hope)
15. Ferris Bueller (Maybe a little too high)
16. Neo (No Way! Really?)
17. Hans Gruber (The only worthwhile bad guy from the Die Hard series)
18. Travis Bickle (O.K.)
19. Jules Winnfield
20. Forrest Gump (Cool)
21. Michael Corleone (O.K.)
22. Ellis “Red” Redding (Cool)
23. Harry Callahan (O.K.)
24. Ash (Too High? Too Low? Probably fair)
25. Yoda (More Star Wars... at least no Anakin Skywalker, Grievous, Mace Windu, yet.)
26. Ron Burgundy (Really? C'mon! Frank the Tank is funnier. What about the Elf?)
27. Tony Montana (*shugh*)
28. Gandalf
29. Daniel Plainview (Haven't seen this yet)
30. Jigsaw (OVERRATED!)
31. Aragorn (More Lord of the Rings?! At least no Hobbits... yet)
32. Jason Bourne (Is this a character? "Shaky-cam" is a more important character in these movies)
33. Tequila (Haven't seen Hard Boiled)
34. Rocky Balboa (*shrug*)
35. Maximus Decimus Meridius (Ugh, Please!)
36. Harry Potter (I dont get it, but I'm in the minority)
37. Edward Scissorhands (The fact that it comes from the only Tim Burton movie I like must mean something)
38. Donnie Darko (I like this movie, but I dont remember the character being that special)
39. Marty McFly (Cool)
40. Patrick Bateman (Have nothing to say)
41. Mary Poppins (/nods)
42. Alex DeLarge (another bad guy)
43. The Man With No Name (cool)
44. Peter Venkman (Too Low!)
45. Amelie Poulain
46. Anton Chigurh (Have yet to see this movie)
47. Blade (Another joke)
48. Tony Stark (The movie was cool, and R.D.Jr did a good job with it, but Top 50?)
49. Walter Sobchak (O.K. I guess)
50. Quint (Too Low)

Where are George Bailey, Norman Bates, Ariel, Clarice Starling, Detective Mills, Charles Foster Kane, Marshall Kane, Atticus Finch, Jimmy Doyle, MacReady (or Jack Burton), McMurphy, Phillip Marlowe...