El Grande Ibra, Ryan Estrada-style

I’m not gonna lie to you; the big attraction of From Floor 7 is an article I wrote about FC Barcelona superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic, just hours after he had signed a contract with the Catalonian football titans. The article lays out the timeline of his football career, from single-handidly winning a game for his youth team scoring eight goals in one game, to becoming the most expensive football player from Sweden when he left Malmö FF for Ajax Amsterdam in 2001. His outstanding heel kick goal against Italy at the European Championships in 2004, and winning the Italian football league in five straight seasons, albeit in two different teams. And of course, I can’t resist mentioning that FC Barcelona became the first team in the history of football to win all six international club titles a team can win in a season:

La Liga. Copa del Rey. The UEFA Champions League. The Spanish Super Cup. The UEFA Super Cup.
And last December, crowning their awesomeness by winning the FIFA Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi.

Of course, I can’t deny being proud that a kid from my town, Malmö, was part of the team that accomplished the “Sextuple” for the first time in history. So that’s why I write about him here from time to time. He’s that awesome – especially when he manages to score two last-minute goals in two games against Hungary in Budapest.

Another Malmö-based artist – or artists, rather – that I’ve been following are Christian Fundin and Pontus Madsen, the guys behind the “Little Gamers” webcomic. Little Gamers is one of the first webcomics, created in late 2000, and features the two guys in the middle of their everyday lives. In 2007, Little Gamers had a bunch of guest artists making LG comics during the summer – one of them was made by Ryan Estrada, who has his own site with webcomics and videos from his trips around the world. The Ryan Estrada Expeditions have seen him travel to exotic destinations such as Korea, India, Tanzania, and Mexico.

In January, Ryan announced that there will be a full-length movie based off of one of his comics, “The Kind You Don’t Take Home to Mother“, and he has set up a website where fans are able to make a donation to the movie production, in exchange for -Donator’s name here-‘s name in the credits, to getting the part of a character being murdered by a werewolf in the movie. Hey, every good movie needs that kind of character in it. (-:

Now, any movie production is an expensive process. Fan donations are appreciated, though it is but one of the many ways of raising money for the movie. So about two weeks ago, Ryan submitted a comic of his, “Sci-Fi Drive-By” to a competition held by Zuda Comics that will see the winner’s comic become a regular series at DC Comics! And, as you might imagine, the money from getting the comic syndicated with DC Comics – the home of Batman and Superman – would help the funding of TKYDTHTM. As I’m writing this, “Sci-Fi Drive-By” is currently in third place – a respectable medal position, but who is happy with only finishing third?! Of course, I’d love to help promote Ryan’s comic and help it reach the #1 slot. After all, you might remember an article I posted when FF7 was on Blogspot, where I promoted Ryan’s website “Living Englise” – don’t worry, I moved all the FF7 articles to WordPress, so you can click here to see the article – and the comment Ryan left thanking me for the plug I gave. Heck, I still have the e-mail in my inbox.

So, where does my earlier writing about Zlatan Ibrahimovic segue to Ryan Estrada? Well, when Ryan offered to draw fan requests for free, as part of his Sci-Fi Drive-By campaign – normally, they cost 150 dollars – guess which person I requested to see drawn by Ryan Estrada?

You guessed it.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, by Ryan Estrada (2010)

Now, you can probably imagine how happy and proud I felt when seeing the picture for the first time. So why not return the favor – by helping Ryan win the Zuda Comics campaign? To help out, enter VoteFor.RyanEstrada.com and follow the instructions on the top of the screen. It is important that you vote for the comic and give it a high rating – five stars out of five should be enough. Oh, and if you’d like to have Ryan draw something for you; the offer is valid until next week, and then it’s 150 bucks for an art commission. (If you can afford the 150$ commissions, that’s cool too. That’s why I’ve been saving up to fund the TKYDTHTM movie.)

Of course, a big round of applause to Ryan Estrada for the picture and all the other fan requests he has drawn this past week – let’s get “Sci-Fi Drive-By” to number one!!!
(Original page on Ryan’s site featuring Zlatan and other fan requests can be found here. This page has all the requests.)

INFO EN ESPAÑOL: A mis amigos en España, Colombia, Uruguay y otros países de habla española – también pueden dirigirse a VotaPorEstrada.info y obtener información sobre cómo ayudar a “Sci-Fi Drive-By” alcanzar el puesto #1 en la campaña de la Zuda Comics.

Vancouver 2010 – Olympic Hockey Tournament (Group Stage)

Below the fold, you can read results, schedules, and table standings from the ongoing Olympic hockey tournament at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.
Update 2/22: Yeah, I gave up on the updates after two days. Maybe I should just focus on the scores instead.

Round 1 of Play-offs, for February 23 (times listed in Pacific Standard Time):
12:00 Czech Republic v Latvia x-x
16:30 Canada v Germany x-x
19:00 Switzerland v Belarus x-x
21:00 Slovakia v Norway x-x
United States, Sweden, Russia, and Finland enter the play-offs in Round 2.

Serious commitment

I’ve just entered all the hockey games in the upcoming Olympic Games in Vancouver into my cell phone calendar, and came up with an idea: What if I tried and live-blog all the hockey games in the Olympics? Starting this Tuesday, let’s see if I can commit to provide updates on the Olympic hockey tournament – the way I would write it. Yeah, it’ll be like that review of Avatar I did the other day.

And the nominees are…

Last week on From Floor 7…

I don’t know how many Academy Awards this movie will win. Only that it’s going to be a lot.

There’s a chance this movie could bag 10 Oscars…

It got 9 nominations…

Avatar is boiling right now…it wins every category possible…

To be continued, on March 7.

In the meanwhile, here’s the list of categories Avatar was nominated in…:
Best Achievement in Art Direction – Best Achievement in Cinematography – Best Achievement in Directing (James Cameron) – Best Achievement in Editing – Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score – Best Achievement in Sound – Best Achievement in Sound Editing – Best Achievement in Visual Effects – and, of course…Best Motion Picture of the Year.

And a hidden tenth category: Best Yoinking of Name From Movie Based on Cartoon Which Will Be Nothing Like Cartoon – an offspring category from last year’s Movie Based on Cartoon Which Will Be Nothing Like Cartoon, which “Dragonball Evolution” won in a landslide. Before it even came out.