Rrroll up the Rim to Win!

I feel like this will be my year. I say that every year though... The Roll Up odds have not applied to me for a couple years now, with wins in single digits while coffees bought reach the 70 and 80+ mark. Sometimes I wonder if it's a test of my loyalty. A while back I wrote a prayer to say before each cup of coffee. It ran something like this:
"Dear Tim Horton, I thank you for this coffee I am about to drink. Please let it have the success you had in your career and not that of the Maple Leafs."
It didn't work. Then I thought perhaps I'd offended the coffee gods and removed the prayer from my routine. Still losses. But this year, definitely my year. Let the free coffees be plentiful! Not this cup though, it told me to play again. As if I needed a reminder.

Philipp Lahm

This was the original design plan mentioned in the previous post. Philipp Lahm (captain of Bayern München and the national team). I had thought of going greyscale but I don't have enough variants to make it work so I went with black and white and did his kit in colour.

It was only fitting that I eventually pay a proper tribute to Lahm. He is my favourite player. When I started watching football during the '06 World Cup, his was the first goal I saw scored. I followed both Germany and his progress for the rest of the tournament. When it ended and I decided to follow club football, I chose Bayern because Lahm was (and still is) there. Granted, he was on loan at the time to Stuttgart, but I figured he'd come back, and he did. Last year, Ballack was out of the W.C. with injury and Philipp was captain. Wonderful. Last month, Bayern traded Van Bommel and Philipp was made captain. In addition to a contract that runs for the next 5 years, this was all very good news despite Bayern's poor performances. And that is the background on why I love football in general and Philipp Lahm in particular.

Pink Flowers

I kept Rocky and Bullwinkle on for an extra week, despite losing half of Fearless Leader's face, which delayed new nails. When I did get around to preparing for the next design I wasn't at all motivated to spend a few hours executing it. So, laziness factored in, I picked this lovely green background shade that I had never worn before and did partial pink flowers. Another testament to my great desire for a break was that the shading in the dark pink and the white wasn't completed until 5 days after the initial nail painting.

This weekend though, I'll either go with the original design plan which has been mulling about my head for the last month and a half or I'll do a tribute to Liverpool's new #7, Luis Suarez, who scored in his debut game and will be taking on Chelsea's new #9 (he who must not be named) Sunday.

Rocky and Bullwinkle (& Friends)

I've been watching a lot of Rocky and Bullwinkle lately and decided to pay homage to some of my favourite cartoon characters. On the right hand there's Rocky, Fearless Leader, Boris, Snidely Whiplash, and Peabody. On the left, Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Natasha, Gidney and Cloyd, and Sherman. The lime green background is a reference to the colour of the DVD box of Season 1. These pictures were taken by the ducks and solitary goose at Quidi Vidi.

Kenny Dalglish

The corseted nails were short lived as Liverpool announced Saturday that Roy Hodgson was leaving the club and Kenny Dalglish would take over as interim manager. King Kenny has a long history with LFC as both a player and a manager. This gave me the opportunity to work on a portrait, something I'd been considering for a while. Shockingly, while I own two 'natural' shades, which appear quite different in the bottle, this didn't translate into effective shading. As a result the product is a bit flatter that I would've liked and suggests that in the future I experiment instead with greyscale. On the right hand are 5 Kenny's with his player number 7. On the left, 4 Kennys with the number 7 on the pinky finger. Also included is the inspiration photo

Corseted Nails

The plan, if Canada had won the World Juniors, was to do gold and red maple leafs. Silver just doesn't have the same effect. I decided instead to take a bit of a nail break with a very simple design and try out new shades of pink and white. The result is a pink and white laced up nail.

IIHF World Juniors

The first games of the World Juniors (Buffalo, NY) were held on Boxing Day. Stores in Newfoundland are closed Boxing Day (very sad) so my sale shopping had to be done Monday. This left Sunday to watch some hockey (particularly since the Liverpool match was postponed due to a frozen pitch) and repaint my nails. Christmas is over, time to move on. The original plan was to have Germany on the left hand and Canada on the right. I want Canada to win, but I'd like Germany to do well. Unfortunately I broke my thumbnail on the right hand trying to get something out of a box (an endeavour in which success still eludes me) and decided not to risk getting nail polish remover in the somewhat open wound. With the hands uneven I opted to have Canada on both hands with a little shout-out to Germany on the left thumb. I decided to experiment with a landscape set up which gave a bit extra space to include hockey sticks and have the boards in the background. Granted, this layout has been done before (Canadiens, Vimy, Discworld) but this round was undertaken with a bit more intent. Germany lost their first game 4:3 but Canada was victorious against Russia with a 6:3 final scoreline.

Christmas 2010

The intention was to keep the Hogfather nails for all of Christmas but when the dilemma of Hogfather versus proper holiday nails was put to a friend, the latter won out. The original plan was to have at least 5 different designs but I really liked the idea of the candy cane stripes and decided that they should be over-represented for my own personal enjoyment. This also cancelled out another early plan to do all gift boxes with different wrapping paper and bows. I decided to stick to a red/gold/green basic palette with some white and tonal variations thrown in. There are two shades of red on the candy canes, but it's likely too subtle for the camera to pick up. The gift plan remained in red and gold on the index fingers, while Christmas trees and mistletoe made the cut on ring fingers and thumbs respectively.

The Hogfather

To get in the holiday spirit I painted my nails like my second favourite holiday movie, the Hogfather, based on the book by Terry Pratchett. (My first favourite holiday movie? Muppets Christmas Carol). On the left hand I had the villan, his employer and a few hired associates - Mr. Teatime (the assassin), Mr. Sideney, Banjo and one of the Auditors. On the thumb is Discworld, a flat world resting on the back of four elephants who stand on a giant turtle, the Great A'Tuin. On the left hand Death is given the honoured thumb placement, complete with his Hogfather getup. There are also Susan (his granddaughter), Albert (the servant/stand-in elf), the Hogfather himself, and Quoth (the raven). Happy Hogswatch all!

World Cup Hosts

After I misjudged the amount of time before Christmas I realized that my proposed holiday nails would not survive 3 weeks. Fortunately, FIFA made their announcement for the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups on December 2nd. A simple flag design with gold bacgrounds and gold years on the pinkie fingers both commemorated the event and filled up an extra week and a half.