Nostradamus: Totally saw SkarPad coming

I realise, oh patient, faithful followers, that it has been a very long time since I promised to launch Round 4. Imagine me saying sorry while making slightly whiny noises that imply I might cry if you don’t forgive me, and fast. In addition to that great reason for letting me off the hook, hear this: So earth-shattering have been recent SkarPad developments that I have, quite literally, spent two weeks reeling from the shock of it all. More on that tomorrow. Believe me, you will all be stunned.

The delay is clearly unrelated to the fact that an epically horrible cold coincided with the due date for my thesis. Us chroniclers of the holy Battle of Impressive and Notable Growth (BOING) rise above such wordly concerns. No. I have, in fact, spent these weeks in careful contemplation at Nelson’s column – the first and real tribute to the true significance of stature in all war (Nelson, you will remember, famously had towers built on all his ships, that men might bellow at their enemies from great heights and terrify the oncoming sailors with their proximity to the heavens), that I might properly recount these most wonderful of struggles. In the words of Nostradamus:

He felt my pain. I hope you shall too.

You'll paint my nails WHAT? Oh, the horror!

I should also add that it has been brought to my attention that a certain heretic by the name of ‘Kristin’ has been using the tale of SkarPad to her own nefarious ends on her Site of Most Terrible Blasphemy (also known as E!Online) in something called Alpha Male Madness. It appears both of our fearless warriors, Padalecki and Skarsgard, have been made to take part, cruelly, against their will. No doubt she has threatened them both with bad manicures if they refuse. Oh, weep with me at the inhumanity!

Now, far be it from me to tell you faithful followers of Tall what to do, but I say this to you. No good can come of this! Look, she presents the tick boxes as if this was simply a question of personal preference and attractiveness! Does she not understand the lives, the destinies at stake here? So go. Go! Vote if you must. But don’t come running to me when you give birth to midgets with no aptitude for children’s party games. On your head be it!

'I just don't know what's real anymore...' - Padalecki realises: War is Hell

Well, while the SkarPad army is still processing the dramatic, world shattering conclusion of Round 3 (aka my bizarre, bizarre sleep-deprived sports commentary on Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Word of advice – If you had less than two hours sleep last night, stay at least 2 metres away from any blogs at all times and whatever you do, don’t write a mock news report on two celebrities playing a children’s game, no matter how hilarious it is in your own head.) I think it’s time to take a little light relief from the hard philosophical challenges presented by SkarPad.

Personally, this War of Tall has made me reassess my place in this modern age so fundamentally that I no longer know whether I prefer the times in Super Mario Galaxy when the gravity goes all squidgy and you’re suddenly upside down on a different planet or the bits in Resident Evil 4 when you shoot someone in the head and their brain splatters all over the screen. It’s like nothing is solid anymore (especially zombie brain). So, let’s distract ourselves with less important, challenging things. Like Fascism. And here we are:

Once again, I feel like I’m way behind the internet-times. I’m such a fogey. I just discovered a parody of Downfall, one of my favourite films, that I thought was deliriously funny. It went like this:

I laughed for about five minutes, although I didn’t really get what it was all about. Then I found another parody of the same film. Then another. And another. And realised I’d pretty much already missed all the fun. So, the video above suddenly makes a lot more sense. As usual, a meme is all over the internet and I live on oblivious. I’m pretty annoyed – it seems a bit unfair that I caught the brunt of the whole tedious Boxxxee debacle but missed this much, much funnier one. The universe hates me. Especially since it’s far better than this tasteless, boring sketch that I did manage to stumble on from Al Murray who, believe it or not, used to be funny:

What the hell was John Barrowman thinking?

Anyway – question of the day. Where did all these Downfall parodies come from? And what’s your favourite one? Post up the links in the comments below.

Round 4 coming tomorrow!

'What did I tell him? I knew all those years of haircare would bring him to a bad end!' - Skarsgard Senior laments his son's defeat

And what a fight that was! Padalecki lunged to victory in a startling turn of events late in the game, turning what began as a fairly safe play for the lead by Skarsgard into an out and out pummelling that is bound to leave team Skar reeling well into Round 4.

The playoff began in typical enough fashion, with each competitor duly placing hands on head, shoulders, knees and, indeed, toes. Skarsgard took an early lead – his siren song rendition of the classic tune easily outpacing Padalecki’s foghorn of a delivery. There were palpable winces from the onlooking crowd as Padalecki butchered the finish on ‘toes’ so flatly that Skarsgard was visibly rattled out of his notoriously unshakeable focus. It was only Padalecki’s practiced and accomplished take on the required moves that kept him in the game and steaming forward. In particular, his transition from shoulders to knees was noticeably smoother than Skarsgard’s jerkier approach.

The match then experienced a shocking twist when Head-Bobbing Girl – rarely the star of any event but held in great affection by followers of the game for her sportsmanship and good humour, collapsed and had to be removed from play. It later emerged that the collapse had been caused by a water imbalance in the brain due to years of over-zealous cranial motion. It is thought that this injury will mark her retirement from the game. No doubt, it will come as a great disappointment to longtime fans of the sport that she had to bow out in this manner, but it is just those great lengths that our competitors will go to for victory that always makes this beautiful game such a thrilling spectacle.

'I just, uh, stayed focussed, sang the song, reached down and then stood up again, and touched my head, shoulders and knees....and toes.' - Padalecki explains his winning strategy

As the game got into full swing, the two remaining stars of the sport were being visibly taxed in their efforts both to keep up and outpace one another. With eyes locked firmly on the ground, they put all their efforts into matching the words with the moves and placing the pauses in all the right places. This part of the game always sorts the men from the boys, and it was an exhilarating sight to see two players so much at their peak running themselves to the very limit in their efforts to keep up with one another. However, the effort of making the vast distance from head to toes in such a short space of time was by now putting obvious strain on both, and a sudden stumble on the part of Padalecki in which, amazingly for such a veteran of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, he actually missed the second transition from knees to toes and went straight back to the head suggested that victory for Skarsgard was a foregone conclusion. It was a testament to Padalecki’s professionalism that he corrected himself and continued on with barely a trace of dismay, but Skarsgard’s lead at this stage seemed cemented.

As the match entered the final, and most physically trying, stage – silent miming to music, the atmosphere among the crowd had reached fever pitch. With nary a grunt of effort, both competitors moved at such a pace that we could actually hear the gush of wind as they returned from their ‘toes’ position to the ‘head’. While Padalecki was making a play to catch up, Skarsgard still had the obvious edge – at one stage I was reminded of a young Tinky Winky, so ferocious were his movements, when suddenly everything seemed to fall apart for the

'Don't touch my hair!' - Skarsgard, still smarting from his humiliating defeat, shrugs away the attentions of the nearby paramedics

Swedish upstart. Unable to see what had actually happened, an audible gasp rang around the crowd as Skarsgard, mid-transition from toes to head, jerked, stopped, and returned to the toes position. Incredibly, his hair had become caught up in his bootholes. It was a tragic sight to see such a fine player struggle fruitlessly to untangle himself, doubled over and crying out in rage as Padalecki steamed ahead, making lunge after lunge downwards and back up again, his hands moving so fast as to be almost invisible as he recovered his lost momentum.

The crowd, now dumstruck by the spectacle they saw before them, watched rapt as the music came to an end and Padalecki raised his arm in victory, now the winner by an incredible 70 Head to Toes to 13, while Skarsgard sat bereft on the ground, unable even to shake the victor’s hand – his foot still attached resolutely to his shock of blonde hair.

Well, thank you all for coming along to this amazing day for this most civilised of sports, and I do hope to see you soon.

Stay tuned for Round 4!

And coming up next: the Big Train All Star Staring Tournament! Catch the highlights below.

Eyes see...but head not believe...

Someone, somewhere, has sounded the bugle and lit the signal fires, because…oh my.

Just when I thought this war was going to be one of those battles fought with passion but quickly forgotten (and largely ignored), from out of the shadows came a force the like of which I had never seen before.

The Army of Pad has apparently been mobilised. It’s almost exactly like that moment in The Lord of the Rings when Gandalf suddenly turns up on the hill just at the moment when the horse people are getting royally trounced. Almost.

Okay, I’m feeling a little sorry for the Skarsgard fans now. They have the passion and the calling alright, they just lack the organisation and superior weaponry. It’s like watching imperialism happen all over again, only this time it’s happening on the internet and is therefore more real and/or significant and/or embarassing.  Also, instead

If Lenin were alive today, he would rename this 'SkarPad'

of fighting for Land and Freedom, they’re fighting for the title of ‘Best Fans of a Tall Person’. As far as I’m concerned, the battles of indigenous peoples to reclaim their land and powers of self-determination are directly comparable to the Followers of Skar’s need, if not to win this round, then at least to bow out with a modicum of pride and dignity intact. You’d be a fool not to agree.

So, I am giving the Skarsgard fans one more day on Round 3 to try and catch up with Padalecki’s lead here. I’m not saying it will be easy, I’m not saying it will be pretty, but I am saying that if the Skarfans don’t man up and catch up, Tall People Fighting is going to become so absurdly one-sided that the entire basis of the blog will be rendered completely pointless and I’ll look like a right old nelly. So sort it out people…

You have 24 hours…

Starting…

NOW!

Rage. Pure, unadulterated rage.

Man, Padalecki. Is. Mad. I mean, it was awkward to see. You Padfans let him down big time. Skarsgard won by a ratio of about 5 hits to 1. That brings the score to an official:

1 – 1

So, while old Paddy there goes off to get drunk on Babysham and sing loudly to ‘All By Myself’ and Skarsgard dons a single glove and crys ‘shamon!’ I guess it’s left to me to get moving on Round 3. In which all of our loyalties shall be stretched to the absolute limit.

The rules are deceptively simple. While it seems that all you are doing is voting in a frivolous, yet nonetheless boundlessly entertaining, poll, you are in fact deciding the fate of millions. I know it sounds unlikely, but there you are. Some of you may falter, but do not turn away. We have a historic task ahead of us, and we cannot fall at this vital hurdle. Your men are counting on you.

If you are struggling to fully appreciate just how high the stakes are in said Battle Royale, you may want to watch the video below the poll. It will tell you everything you need to know. But I should warn you, it will take your psyche to a dark, dark place from which it may never return.

Now get voting and check back soon for the results. And remember.

This is important.

Note: Round 3 is now finished. I don’t know how to close the poll, but there’s not much point in voting anymore, because I won’t count them. Check the results by clicking here

Jared Padalecki and Alexander Skarsgard

Okay, so, I just had a look at my blog stats and noticed an absolutely massive spike in my hits on the day I wrote a short list for potential candidates to play Thor in the upcoming movie of that name, of which Jared Padalecki, one of the stars of cult show Supernatural, was one. The search terms that most often led onto my blog were all variations of his name. I was particularly surprised because I also mentioned, although in less detail, his co-star on the show, Jensen Ackles, yet I didn’t get a single hit on the back of his name. Anyone care to tell me what it is about Padalecki, in particular, that inspires such obsession?

But even more perplexing than that, the second most popular search term was not Kevin McKidd, but Alexander Skarsgard, which I find really and truly baffling. What is it about that guy? How has he managed to make such a phenomenal impact on people’s consciousness in so short a space of time? Are the foreign-language films he made cult smashes that I don’t know about? I really must get to the bottom of this.

So let me into the secret. What is it about these two guys? I’m starting to think that I should somehow, subtly, work their names into every future blog post I make in order to boost my hit count on a more regular basis. Would that be wrong?

Update: Incredibly, the hit count for today’s post has already outdone my last Padalecki/Skarsgard double whammy. And Skarsgard fans will be pleased to know that this time around he has, so far, easily been the most popular search term. Not only that, but so far no one even has bothered to explain what is so special about Padfoot up there. Guess he ain’t so loved after all. That makes it 1-1 on the popularity stakes…

I feel a war coming on. A very tall war.

Tell you what. Tomorrow, I am going to make another Skarsgard/Padalecki-themed post, and whoever has had the most search terms/related tags lead folks to this post by then, will be deemed to have won round 2.

Remember, this is important. Like, who stole the cookie from the cookie jar important. Don’t let your guys down.

And while you’re at it: follow the war on Twitter. Because war isn’t real unless it’s Tweeted. http://twitter.com/topazbean

Note: This post was moved from http://topazbean.wordpress.com. For the post on the Thor casting debate, click here

Mad

Also mad

Anyway, this is the site created to follow the epic, nay legendary, Face Off between Jared Padalecki, star of cult CW show Supernatural, and Alexander Skarsgard, who plays a really butch vampire in HBO’s True Blood, both of whom are quite tall (about 6’4″, so I’m told). And people seem to like them. A lot.

Needless to say, this is a blog that has vital real world importance. One is blonde. The other is not. It is a distinction that has split oceans and civilizations for generations, and if the Forces of Tall are to prevail, a winner must be declared.   Your heroes need your support every step of the way. Don’t let them down.

Let battle commence!

P.S. Unfortunately, to those who commented on posts in the other blog, I couldn’t carry the comments over to this one. Sorry!