AK All Day Face: The Original

The Original (photo: Andy Klein)

We all know the face. For it's the AK All Day Face. The Original. Version 1.0. A classic.

And now, it's the face that will spawn a thousand faces. Because I'm going serial on yo' asses. In an ongoing series that will be part Touch My Belly (where have ye gone, Touch My Belly?), part Cardboard Gods and all Zombo.com, I'll introduce you to a world of AK All Day faces.* With each one being as uniquely absurd and mind-boggling as the next.

*AK All Day the t-shirt! AK All Day the coloring book! AK All Day the lunch box! AK All Day the breakfast cereal! AK All Day the flame thrower!!!

Over these last nine months, you thought this beautiful picture served no purpose? Oh no. It just set the table for what's to follow in the days, weeks and months ahead. And it will be good. Enjoy.

The vitals
Title: The Original aka v1.0
Subject: AK
Face: The #1
Location: Martha's Vineyard, MA

Throwin' some jealous Kleinballs

In honor of Bill Simmons' first Ramblings since August two thousand and frickin' five (and a very subpar one at that, without any acknowledgement of the nearly three year hiatus), here come some Kleinballs!

If you're living in the US, I'm jealous of you. At least for this past weekend. For it's now Tuesday night here, I've finished two days of work on the week, and you haven't even begun your work week yet! I hope you all Memorialized well this past weekend.

Revenge comes in two more weeks when I get the Queen's birthday off. Yes, yes, God bless her and all that.

Played in my first winter competition for cricket this past weekend, and spent all 36 overs as wicketkeeper. Which means I was doing whatever the hell it is that the guy on the left in this picture is doing. I'll let you know exactly what that is when I figure it out myself.

My legs are freezing. I'm going to sleep.

A postcursor... of sorts

In the beginning, there was The Precursor. The first part of a study to answer an age-old question: Do toilets in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres really flow in opposite directions?

In The Precursor, we found that a toilet in the Northern Hemisphere flowed in a counter clockwise direction. Fascinating.

Then I came to Australia. I grew a ghastly beard. I filmed the follow up to this study (which even at the time I termed as "belated") in the bathroom of my friends' apartment. And somehow never posted it. It's reprehensible, it's completely indefensible, it's bewildering. I know. But now, over eight months since I posted the first half of this experiment on this blog comes the exciting (non-)conclusion that absolutely no one was clammoring for until three lunatics somehow coerced me into action by calling my non-existing Islamic roots into question (don't ask):

Do we need a follow-up to follow up on this? You better believe it.

Subdued joy in Sydney

Jon Lester pitched the 18th no hitter in Red Sox history yesterday.

I wasn't even aware he had a chance to accomplish the feat until the start of the 9th inning. For I was at work. It was about 11:30am. But upon receiving this news, I stopped everything and spent the next ten minutes intently watching MLB.com's Gameday update every ten to twenty seconds. Just the way I've always imagined watching a potential no hitter from Sydney.

So what did I do when Lester finally got it? A big smile, a pump of the fist. I excitedly looked up, considered telling someone, considered getting a little fist bump action from someone, but it quickly dawned on me: it wasn't going to happen. Because by the time I may have explained it to someone, the moment would have passed. Long since passed.

I somewhat depressingly dwelt on this for about twenty seconds and then went back to work.

No one said there weren't any cons to living here.

Catching up

Yikes. Things really escalated there in a hurry. I was pretty much up to date with the postings, then I predictably took far too long to recap Newcastle and work happened. A lot of work happened. My apologies for the gap in posts and for a few emails that have gone left unanswered. I hope to rectify both situations, starting right... now.

So yeah, there was Anzac Day Weekend three weekends ago. That was fun. Some highlights:

• Hit up the casino on Thursday night. Won $690 at the blackjack tables. It was going to be a good weekend.
• Played some two-up at the pub on Friday. (Basically, a bunch of people -- generally drunk -- gather around this big ring in which a few guys stand and flip three coins. Everyone bets with each other on whether they think heads or tails is going to win. It's that simple. And legal only on Anzac Day.) Won my first four flips at $20 each. Oh yeah. Definitely going to be a good weekend.
• Saw U2 3D at IMAX on Saturday. Awesome. And oddly, halfway through the movie, it struck me that Bono can look an awful lot like Robin Williams. And apparently I'm not the first one to see this.
• Went to a Rugby Union match on Saturday night. Very entertaining.
• Had a massive roast with my housemates and some other friends on Sunday: lamb, beef, potatoes (a few varieties), carrots, onions, Yorkshire Pudding (a British favorite) and more. My God, it was a feast.
• Capped it all off that night by watching Rangers-Celtic in the Scottish Premier League, which is the SPL's version of Yanks-Sox, Duke-UNC, Michigan-OSU, etc. And that's when I was introduced to Jan Johannes Vennegoor of Hesselink. Yes, that's the name of a player on Celtic. Seriously. Here's his Wikipedia page. Jarrod Saltalamacchia, eat your heart out.

And last weekend (two weekends ago?) there was the houseboat on the Hawkesbury River. Which was fantastic. I thought ten of us on a boat for three days would be a bit much, but surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. Although on Friday night, our numbers were nearly reduced to nine because I almost got myself killed as I traversed a waterway in our dingy to pick up some of our group that arrived late. It was pitch black, and I had a few in me. Not a good combination. Anyway, I'm puttering along and can see my destination in the distance, so I turn off my little flashlight. Half a minute later, I'm startled as a boat probably ten times larger than mine flies by about thirty feet behind me. The driver quite rightly took me to task for that, and I thanked my lucky stars for the rest of the weekend.

And we're caught up.

Newy pictures and the Hawkesbury

Can you believe it, but almost eight months into Australia and I've just posted my first pictures on this World Wide Interweb thing. So enjoy! A few select ones are below, with the rest located here and here.

My sworn enemy and I in a brief moment of reconciliation.

No, no, no, guys... it's AK All Day.

The longest 40 seconds you've ever experienced.

They're laughing with me... or at least that's what keep on telling myself at night so that I can fall asleep.

This was taken in an elevator. Three seconds later, we all plummeted to our... well, I'm writing this now, so we ended up fine.

Rockin' it out with Shorty.

The establishment that shut down my arteries for the weekend. God bless it.

Thumper returneth.

And now I'm off to spend the weekend on a houseboat with nine others on the Hawkesbury River! I'm going to freeze my ass off, this much I know. Besides that? Well, probably some booze.

The Four Second Scull

You first heard about it here. Now see it here.