ACTUAL Tiger Paws!

When Casey Stoner started wearing gloves that looked like tiger paws, we started calling him Tiger Paws. Got that? Good. There's a picture of them HERE if you need to check. It's a chortlesome nickname and it instantly caught on amongst the TwitGP collective.

Now sit down, and breath deeply. Imagine how we felt when ace Dutch follower @_Joostk_ sent us THIS:

The Adventures of Tiger Boy AND his Real Tiger Paws? Are you shitting us?!

As you can imagine, we died. Then we got technical guru Alan Key to carbon date the picture, and kept our fingers crossed that it was genuine. "This could very well be the world's greatest ever example of life imitating art" he said, building his part.

Turns out IT IS. Because then we saw this:

Click and read, you beauties

...and we died again. An entire comic strip dedicated to promoting an old brand of Uniroyal tyres, called, with great prescience, Tiger Paws. It's not a bad read, either, although we guessed the ending.

Note to Bridgestone - where is YOUR comic? Hmm? Well? Where is it? (Suggested storyline: The Adventures of Bouncy the Tyre and His Disappearing Grip. Please somebody make this.)

UPDATE: Good ol' @Madmark99...

 UPDATE 2: Good ol' @DJMissFrenchie for finding A REAL TIGER PAW:

UPDATE 3: And then...we found this. We literally stopped breathing:

GET YOUR TWITGP2 PADDOCK PASSES HERE!

And so it begins - paddock passes have ALREADY been created for TwitGP2, and because of the democratic way we like to run things, EVERYBODY is entitled to one. (Suck on that, Dorna.) We find they make excellent profile pictures.

Eternal thanks to @Madmark99 for this one (we've still never, ever met him): 

Click it, save it, do with it as you see fit.

You'll note the plastic wallet, designed to keep the jpg dry in all conditions (it does tend to rain at Twitegi), and a gentle reminder that all this tomfoolery is in aid of our pals in Japan with the splendid Land of the Rising Sun motif. (Which reminds us of our favourite one liner: "I had a hot curry last night, now my clacker looks like the flag of Japan." You may use that.)

There's also this natty little number, by the excellent @iAmiAdam, who was out the traps quicker than Pedrosa and submitted it within MINUTES of TwitGP2 being announced:

Keep it in your wallet, next to photos of your loved ones.

 

We quite like the cool blue look, which is far classier than anything we could have come up with. We may get it tattooed on someone.

TwitGP2 Announced!

TwitGP2: This Time It’s For Charity

This time last year, an untimely volcanic eruption led to the birth of a Twitter phenomenon. Within just a few days, the crackpot concept of a virtual race had snowballed into an out-of-control monster, and TwitGP became, as one fan put it, the “greatest use of anything, ever.”

For more serious and tragic reasons this year, there is once again a gap in the MotoGP calendar where the Japanese Grand Prix should be. The organisers of TwitGP have the greatest respect and sympathies for the Japanese affected and wish them all the best, but we’d also like to cheer everyone up and so, inevitably, inescapably and possibly inexplicably to the newbies, it’s time for TwitGP2.

Somehow, we’ve now got more followers than turn up at the Qatar GP. There are over 11,000 people in the TwitGP collective, from Angola to Zaire Belgium, and quite frankly that scares us, seeing as our ambition outweighs our talent and all we ever do is shout nonsense from the sidelines. But the amazing thing about TwitGP is that its followers, who range from riders to window cleaners to International Space Station engineers, are constantly pushing it in new directions. Having seen the splendid things they came up with last time (who could forget those liveries?), we’re more excited than Colin Edwards at a ‘buy one, get one free’ gun sale to see what they can come up with this time.

The most important thing about TwitGP2 is that as well as having a ball and enjoying some excellent racing, we’re also going to have a go at raising some money for Japan. More details will be released soon – but for the time being all you need to know is that the TwitGP2 race will explode onto your Twitter feeds from the spectacular Twitegi Circuit (don’t worry, it’s a safe distance from Fukishima) on Sunday 17th April 2011.

Expect another mouse-tickling line-up of MotoGP champs past and present, and possibly even Max Biaggi, provided we can find him a small enough pair of boxing gloves. We’ll also be joined once again by the coolest people who work in MotoGP, who’ll ignore their day jobs for a few days to take part in something much, much more fun.

Keep an eye on @TwitGP for news, timings and Vampire Goat knows what else in the build-up, not to mention information on how you can get involved and raise a bit of cash for our mates in Japan. Have a word with @TwitGPpr if you’re an actual member of the press chomping at the bit to write about this. She may even reply.

(New followers may find it useful to read about last year’s race, TwitGP1 as it is now known, HERE.)

Stoner Applauds Rossi

Probably THE best image from Jerez 2011.

Look at his little Tiger Paws clap!

Say ciao to Ducati

Well this certainly makes Ducati seem a nice place to work:



Some observations:
1) The chef bloke is the best.
2) We're changing all our names to Italian because it instantly sounds way cooler.
3) If you saw Vito's facial furniture in a film, you'd say "well that was a good film but the make-up effects seemed very cheap and unrealistic".
4) Valentino didn't really get it did he?
5) We'd quite like some strawberries now.


PS - we've just remembered a story about that chef going to Vegas. It can never, ever be repeated, but suffice to say when Uccio heard about it, he said "next time, we're coming with you".