bigAL

Hello @Members! It's the week we've all been waiting for. It's THEME WEEK time!! First off, that means that the Trade Deadline is Monday, August 23 at 3pm EDT. Get your trade requests in now, bottom-feeders. This also means that anyone wishing to re-create for the S81 draft can do so starting at midnight that same day. ** This year's theme takes its inspiration from the other fan-favourite time of the VHL calendar. Nothing we do generates more discussion, buzz, and crowd participation as the annual To earn your Theme Week TPE, write an article, talk a podcast, or art up a graphic about anything to do with VHL Awards. Maybe you write the story behind the name of a trophy, or profile the greatest MVP season ever. Maybe you do an in-depth quantitative analysis to develop a new methodology to measure defensive awards, or campaign for someone to win a specific award in the current season. Will you make a championship banner for an award winner, or create an infographic for your favourite Hall of Famer highlighting their individual achievements? Don't forget to use the portal's Hall of Fame page for easy access to the VHL/M Awards. Make sure to both use the proper award name and the proper spelling (looking at you, fans of Rookie of the Year awards). ** In order to claim the theme week bonus of 6 Uncapped TPE, simply submit your Themed PT (Graphic, Media Spot or 6-TPE Podcast), and claim it as normal. After claiming the PT portion, you can use the same link, and claim the uncapped portion as follows: Claim Uncapped > Other > Doubles Week. (Note: you do not need to post your link in this thread to claim either portion of TPE) Feel free to post your theme week work in this thread so we can collect all the awesome awards-related content in one spot. If you have already submitted a Point Task for this week, or are in the midst of claiming a multi-week Media Spot/Podcast, you may still submit a Theme Week PT this week, and claim the capped portion on the next available week, following your multi-week claim. Also, if you have a single job that pays 6+, you may claim the theme week bonus as long as you complete your duties for the week. If you are in the EFL or SBA and have completed their most recent Media Week, you may use that to claim the Uncapped theme week bonus, but a PT must be completed this week in order to claim the Capped portion, whether that is completed here or through Affiliate Welfare. Note: Only players who are S80 or older may claim the theme week bonus. @VHL GM @VHLM GM

Review: there’s a lot going on in this podcast I like that you came in here with a topic and a point to make on the topic. I left knowing exactly how you feel on the issue of reviews and why - that’s the goal of a good, succinct, meaningful segment. I’ve heard lots of gfx gurus complaining lately of “people who don’t know what they’re doing coming and giving me a 7/10”, which, fair enough. Don’t forget the cardinal rule of feedback: only listen to people whose feedback matters to you. They say “don’t read the comments” for a reason. Reviewing isn’t going away, so you will have to get over HockEBruh69420 coming in and saying he likes your colours but the font looks a bit wonky. Sure, part of reviewing is for the artist to get feedback, and part of reviewing is for straight up TPE. But it’s also helpful for this noob to be forced to look at a piece of art and meaningfully critique it. It’s how the artistic eye develops. You don’t have to listen to them, you don’t have to give a shit about their opinions, but you have to accept that it’s going to happen if you post it. Once you share your art, it’s in the public domain. You can’t tell people to go away, stop commenting, and don’t look at it. You make great points about the value of art too. Yeah, you don’t make gorlabs. Only gorlab does, and should. You’ve got a style. Some critics might not appreciate it, but that’s fine. I don’t like abstract art, I think a red circle is just a red circle sometimes. Doesn’t mean Jackson Pollock is a bollock. Don’t take it personally, but also important is that us non creatives also have to start seeing gfx as actual art and remembering the people behind the sigs are artists. That being said, even Van Gogh made some crap. I’m glad you admit to that, but you also can’t be mad when someone calls you out on not meeting the lofty standards you set. As an experienced podcaster, I know how awful it is to hear your own voice, but it’s important to give it a once-over before posting to catch those pesky tech glitches that plagued the best part of your show. I never know if you’re serious or not when you purposefully explicitly say you’re trying to cause drama, but I’ve always given you the benefit of the doubt and like to think you’re playing heel. Mostly because you do a good job of it, and also because Juice is the nicest guy on here and being mean to him is like drowning kitties. I’ve also definitely clipped some bits to save for the next time the blues make an announcement to “mixed reviews”, so thank you for those quotes. Overall, 8.5/10. Great content, organized and focused segments are a rarity these days, and the listeners appreciate you going in with a plan. I disagree with what you say at points, but that’s a good thing. Double and triple check the tech, do some more light editing, and show us what you got next time.

And the newly hired updaters are...

Hey wasn’t some Russian asshole chirping Welch yesterday? Mafk went and put up 5 points in one game, and scored the shootout winner in the other.

No, never, and for a bazillion reasons. Yeah there’s pay-to-win bs, putting anyone without credit card at a disadvantage, having the best players in the league be random unknowns because they don’t contribute to our forums, etc etc At some point it’s like, we don’t even want your money. The league doesn’t cost *that* much to operate. We get by fine on the donations, and the donation rewards are pretty good for players. We’ve got a nice financial cushion where we can do nice things like giveaways (a Calgary Eichel jersey fong, really?!) but we absolutely do not want to get to the point of making profits. Time to learn how to podcast, talk for an hour, and claim for a month!

Josh has been super busy lately so I think I’m safe to drop this nugget? We aren’t hiring anyone for this position. Sorry for getting your hopes up. We’ve got some brainiac working on coding or developing or something-ing the finance back-end, and it makes most sense for the person already tinkering back there to also approve the purchases.

Bro do you even watch the game? Use the fuckin eye test, we’re legit and better than our record. Get your head out of your spreadsheet, nerd.

Don’t worry, they’ll have one final hurrah as they compete in the “We Were So Close Jeffrey Pines Memeorial Playoff Didn’t-Make-It Lotto Tournament”

I can’t hear you, all my Bluelet trophies are blocking my ears

Hey dummy, defenders are supposed to be playing defence, not scoring goals. DC > LA

Yukon destroying San Diego, what's new eh?

Man our Miami days were fun. I feel good handing over my job to you!

The amount of points Dood and Welch get in a sim is directly proportional to the blood alcohol content of AL and Juice. Friday night’s shellacking of both Helsinki and our poor, poor livers is scientific proof.

We’re all allowed to have absolutely atrocious takes in tier lists, haven’t you heard rory trying to terribly incorrectly rank ice cream flavours??

Oh yeah and for posterity and to capture discord convos on the forums, periodic table of the elements tier list

Damn, it was a missed opportunity to do Olympic sports. S: Rugby 7s. It’s like the 3 on 3 OT of rugby, crazy fast, and a lot of fun. A: Table Tennis. Go to hell if you call it ping pong, table tennis is fucking legit. The rallies go on forever, with shots you don’t think are physically possible to make or return. B: Gymnastics. It’s aight but over hyped. I feel like you don’t win in gymnastics, everyone else loses y’know? “Oooh she didn’t stick the landing, grapefruit tier routine there” C : Race Walking. Any event that takes more than an hour complete is pure ass, but race walking escapes grapefruit purgatory because it’s essentially run by the Ministry of Silly Walks. The waddle, the hips, the intense focus on the contact between foot and ground, it’s all hilarious. For like ten minutes before it gets boring like any other marathon, but the novelty of it is just a bit fun. D : Decathlon. Track and Field sports are meh at best, but throw them all together into a single competition and you get a sport that climbs all the way to D tier. Grapefruit: Swimming. Fuck I hate the swimming. They show it for days and days on TV and it’s so boring. They just…. Swim. No real excitement, not super athletically impressive, just humans who most resemble fish doing fish things. Do we really need a race for every different type of swimming? (Spoiler: no) — Well that suggestion turned into an audition for 3PPAO, my bad. Maybe next time muff can’t make it and glenn is out on a date with a supermodel again, you can call me up as a guy just full of terrible opinions.

4/7, great try

I want to know how much TPA each of these players have next time too

Your bigAL impression is…. pretty good actually

You’re goddamn right. Keep an eye out for “bigAL ROCK EM SOCK EM 79”, coming to a VCR near you soon!

The VHLE is only > VHLM in the alphabet

It was such a tease putting a correct haiku first, you just hoped everyone stopped counting syllables after that one eh? Doesn’t matter, got poem.

Oh thank god. Here’s to Brozik breaking viper TPE records

Oh god, I know what the next chapter in this story is……… for the love of Toronto and Peace’s sanity don’t go IA again