Alan lubin lets the toy decide

Fellow Unazukin obsessives and innocent onlookers. Today we have mined a rich seam of japanese gold and have hit the Unzazukin motherload.. check out this bizarre little game that Danny-san sent us. He found it on a japanese site and i and it’s just too good to resist “borrowing”.. The instructions are written below:

Ok, it’s pretty simple. Click on the flashing japanese text to begin. It looks like Unazukin is trying to have a picnic and is being bothered by insects. Your primary directive is to protect the food. Do not let the insects eat the food. In order to kill the insects you have to drag them towards the bigger creatures in the corners which will devour them whole. If the insect flies - drag it over to the space in front of the frog. If it crawls then drag it to the evil spider.

As you progress - the flies and bugs are “upgraded” to snails and wasps (as you might expect..) Good luck - if you can get past level 6 you are a better man than I.

Oh and the most important instruction of all.. the sound off button is the square thing in the bottom right corner

In other news - we’ve had a tasty manga style Unazukin submitted to the Unazukin Battle. He/she didn’t leave a name and will be known only as anonymous..

c’mon people - don’t be shy about leaving your names - it’s not like you have to leave an email address and so I couldn’t bombard you with emails about increasing the size of your genitalia even if i wanted to. (which for the record I don’t!). Plus budding artists have the option of linking to their webpage - so that any visitor who falls in love with your work and wants to find out more - can!

Meanwhile - my mission to let Unazukin dictate my life has dried up in the last few days. My revised mission has been to wait until I am asked to do something that I don’t want to - and then let Unazukin choose between that and something more interesting. For the last few days AG has been away and therefore I have been lacking my chief catalyst. With nobody to ask me to do stuff, I have had no opportunity to consult Una. With no AG to nag me my slothful nature has dictated that I have done nothing at home apart from eat and sit on my every expansive arse. Today I walked into the kitchen and nearly gagged at the stench coming from the sink as 3 days worth of washing up has started to react with the hot weather.

I decided that it was time to sort it out. Or at least consult Unazukin as to wether I should attempt the washing up, or sit on my backside playing on my Xbox 360. Unfortunately for my neighbours and the local health authority - Unazukin went for the Xbox route.

My kitchen will continue like this for another day.

Yesterday Unazukin finally came of age. She was actually useful - or would have been if things had turned out differently.

I have been going about this all wrong by trying to force her to make a decision during some point of my day as this has always felt a little unnatural and even cumbersome. The Unazukin decision has been something that I have had to try and work into my life - but things have now changed for the better. When I say better I suppose I mean that I have found a way for her to make my life easier.

This might be cheating a little on my original intentions, but it is my experiment and I will do whatever feels good for me. Since the relevation that I have to let Unazukin choose between one thing I do want to do and one thing that I don’t, it has occured to me how I can use this to my advantage. I can almost play Unazukin as my “get out of jail free card”. If there is a time during the day that I have to do something that I don’t want to do, I can simply think of something that i’d really like to do and ask Unazukin to choose between them.

In some respects this is a bit win/win as if I would have normally have had to do the thing I don’t want to do already. I realise this is kind of against the whole spirit of the project and will probably bring me into conflict with AG a bit more often. But at heart I am a very lazy person and if I can somehow invoke Unazukin to justify this then I am a happy man.

Yesterday however she sent me on a wild goose chase. First though have a butchers at my new favourite addition to the Unazukin Battle which was uploaded yesterday by Morbid Angel.

I was walking past the church on the main road near my house. The church itself is true to its Christian beliefs in that it welcomes allcomers into its sanctuary. I do think that this hospitality is somewhat abused by the large group of tramps that sit outside the place day and night drinking budget high strength lagers and contemplating the meaning of life with each other - loudly whilst thinking through a fog of alcohol. Whilst walking past I was approached by a women (i think) aged somewhere between 35 and 70 years old. She had three teeth and a complexion that Simon Weston would have shyed away from.

She stared me full in the face, her eyes slowly closing and opening whilst her head nodded up and down slightly as if she was trying to fight off jetlag. She beckoned me closer by waggling her index finger - although I was pretty sure that I was as close as I needed to be.

“Have you got any string?” she mumbled.

“What?” I queried “actually on me now?”

“Have YOU got any STRING?” she repeated emphasising the two salient parts of the question, in case for some reason the concept was too mighty for me to grasp.

“I don’t actually have any one me now” I replied.

“Why not?” she slurred.

“Well” i said hoping that she would see my point of view “Do you have have any string with you?”. She grimaced and turned her nose up as if some foul smell (apart from her own overwhelming funk) had suddenly filled her nostrils. She thought about the situation for a moment or two as she swayed from side to side. I could see the paradox of the point I was making working its way around her scrumpy addled brain. After a full 15 seconds of weighing up the situation, she spoke.

“HAVE YOU GOY ANY STRING” she bellowed.

At this point I decided to consult Unazukin and pulled her from my bag. I switched her on and held her in my outstretched hand. I think the fact that I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable about talking to a childs toy in public says less about my new found confidence in Unazukin and more about the general mental state of the people in my immidiate vicinity. The fact that it was completely ignored by these alcohol induced mentalists shows just what kind of level of insanity they have acheived.

I asked Unazukin whether I should (a) go try and find some string for the gin soaked hag or (b) go and buy a bottle of gin for myself and treat AG and I to some cool G+T’s in the sunshine and write the rest of the day off..

Unfortunately it seems Unazukin has a charitable nature and advised me that the crusty old soaks need was greater than mine. So I spent half an hour wandering around the local shops trying to buy the simplest of items. String. It used to be everywhere but all the shop assistants I spoke to looked at me like I was asking for a victorian clothes mangle. As I searched I became more and more intrigued at what my pie-eyed friend actually wanted it for. I have noticed that it seems to be the fashion amongst the street drinking brew crew to use it as a make shift belt - and wondered if in fact she had forgotten hers and was feeling embarrassingly under-dressed. Eventually I managed to find an old school haberdashery that i’d never noticed before and lo and behold they had a nice big ball of string.

When I arrived back at the church, string women was still standing (sort of) where I left her. As I approached her, she slowly focussed on me. I was disappointed that she showed no sense of recognition when my face finally reformed itself for her.

“Have you got any string?” she said.

“As a matter of fact I have” I replied triumphantly “i’ve got a whole ball of the stuff so prepare to fill your boots”. In fairness she probably already had and probably filled them on regular occasions. I removed the ball of string from by bag and held it in front of her face - allowing plenty of time for her eyes to refocus. She stared blankly at the brand new ball of string and then screwed up her face in the traditional “bulldog chewing a wasp” fashion.

“HAVE YOU GOT ANY STRING?” she yelled. I placed the ball of twine at her feet, said my goodbyes and walked away briskly.

Given yesterdays relevalation, I am now approaching the Unazukin choice from a slightly different angle. From this moment on I will now be choosing one thing that I want to do and one thing I don’t. It sounds simple enough but for some reason I’m finding it really hard to do. There must be an oddly masochistic part of me that somehow ensures that no matter how hard I try I can only think of things that I really don’t want to do. It’s no wonder that when left to my own devices I ended up choosing beween pointless trips to either Wales or Scotland. Not that I have anything against either of those fine countries - i’d happily spend time in each of them - however a day return by rail to either of them from the South East of England is not something that anyone but the most hardened trainspotter would want to endure.

I’m getting on pretty well with AG at the moment and therefore my choices are limited further to: a) something i want to do - that won’t upset AG. or b) something i don’t want to do that won’t upset AG. And despite making some cash on the gambling scam I am still out of pocket for the lobster and the day trip, so something that doesn’t cost the earth would also be a bonus.

Luckily for me I received an email from Don Ludvig who suggested something that would fit the bill. He suggest I let Unazukin choose between a movie that I want to watch and one that I don’t want to watch. That was simple enough and cheap - and ought not have to much fallout.

I was perfectly fair. I offered Una the choice between Ghostbusters (which is the best film of all time - more on that later) and Brokeback Mountain which I would happily pluck out my own eyeballs rather than be forced witness for a second time. I watched it after constant pestering from AG and it probably ranks amongst the dullest moments in my entire life. What an emotional rollercoaster of a film that was, watching two charmless monosyllabic hicks fumbling around with each other in between watching sheep and eating baked beans. Was it really only two and a half hours? Because it felt like two solid days.

For obvious reasons I never told AG that there was a choice and was sooo relieved when Unazukin, fresh from embarrassing herself on a worldwide stage with her incorrect world cup final prediction, redeemed herself by picking what was blatenly the right option.

Ghostbusters. Here follows an homage to my favourite film and my favourite toy. Ok I know it’s not quite up to the standard of some of the others that have been uploaded onto the Unazukin Battle but hey - it’s the best I can do.

And so, for the umpteenth time I watched Ghostbusters. There is no amount of depression that cannot be cured by simply plugging in some huge speakers, sticking Ghostbusters on the DVD and cranking it out with the volume set to 11. Ghostbusters is the best film of all time. And before you say anything - I know a little bit about films. I studied Film and Fine Art at Uni and have learned to appreciate the flawless majesty of “Citizen Kane”. I have admired the surrealistic dreamlike qualities of “Un Chien Andalou” and have dissected Eisensteins stunning montage “Battleship Potemkin” in minute detail. However - none of these films is fit to lace Ghostbusters boots - Fact.

You were expecting me to justify that bold statement weren’t you? Well I won’t. Somethings are just so.

I got an email today from somebody with the disturbing psudonim of “Nobjocky” who says that I need to rethink things a little. It seems that the Nobster is a little bit of a Dice Man officianado (I think thats how it’s spelt, this blogging module is pretty cool but it doesn’t have a spell check and so I ask that you excuse any obvious mistakes) or at least has read the book properly in the last decade and isn’t trying to recall it from memory. In the book, according to my correspondant, Luke Rheinhart didn’t necessarily go out of his way to include a wildcard choice that would get him arrested or killed. He simply had to include one choice that he didnt want to do. Mr. Jockey points out that I am approaching this from the wrong perspective by offering Unazukin two choices of things that I normally wouldn’t do.

His suggestion is that I should alter my Unazukin choices so that it is a clear choice between a) something that I really want to do and b) something that I really don’t want to do. To be honest, I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t realise this earlier as it retrospect it seems painfully obvious. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the advice NJ, i’m glad you pointed out to me what has been staring me in the face.

From now on this will be my method of operation.

I’ve also been sent some pics of bits of Unazukin based extreme knitting by tortured young soul who goes by the name of “Jazzhands”. These are wonderful pieces of art and I think says a lot about the state of mind that belongs to the kind of people who delegating decisions to a small plastic toy. I don’t know where he got these pics, i’m assuming that he didn’t make them himself but a part of me hopes that he got the pics from Ebay - or photographed them at some kind of warped church Fete… either way it would be nice to think that these are available for purchase. If anybody knows where I can get me a home made knitted Unazukin then please let me know. Imagine if these were a balaclava or even better - a knitted Unazukin allover body suit - actually that wouldn’t be good, people would think I was a hand knitted Teletubby. Anyway the pics..

and you thought it was impossible to make Unazukin look any more scary…

And finally, I have amended the Unazukin Battle game so that people can add their names and linnk to their website when they upload images - thereby getting credit for their efforts. Sorry for anybody who uploaded stuff already, I have no idea who you are so you will be known only as anonymous and will have to console yourself with the warm fuzzy knowledge that people are loving your stuff - even if they have no idea that you even exist.

For reasons only known to Unazukin - she stitched me up. I did say that I wasn’t sure how good she was at long range forecasts but I’m wondering if she didn’t switch things around for her own selfish reasons after considering the bigger picture. Since appearing on Holy Moly, The Register and FHM she was starting to get a lot of interest and people had already sent emails asking to buy this strangely psychic toy from me. I think that she might have made a last minute U-turn and used her cosmic powers to change the result.

People are already wondering what on earth made Zidane, France’s top footballer, suddenly turn around and headbut an Italian player and get himself sent off. Could it have been a racist comment? maybe. Could it have been Unazukin getting inside his head and trying to switch the result of the game in order that she can continue her work with a lower profile? i’m not ruling it out at this stage.

Meanwhile - the Unazukin battle is hotting up. With lots of nice customised Unazukins being submitted. Why not get involved? All you have to do is grab a blank Unazukin picture from here and then dick around with it in photoshop. When it’s ready - upload it and see how it competes against the rest.

These are a few of my favourites so far:

Now that the betting has gone out of the window - I will rethink how to re-incorporate Unazukin into the decision making process. With the sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that she might not always be doing what it best for me… at least not in the short term.

This has been noted by more than one correspondant and is summed up most unnervingly in this email from “Leo” which reads…

“It is all really hilarious but be warned that the creepy Nostrodamus of Japanese dolls is bringing you a fame that you may find hard to handle. I think it has an alterior motive that you have yet failed to see. Regardless of the outcomes you have been sucked in and are alraedy at the mercy of this Mystic Megazukin.”

The plastic fantastic toy wonder pulls it out of the bag again! 7 bets out of 7 completely correct. I’m no expert (as you have probably gathered if you’d been reading this nonsense from the start) but I reckon the chances of getting that kind of result must be pretty slim. That brings her running total winnings up to £58.78 - and now i am beginning to wish that I had been betting a little bit bigger.

I’ve had a mail from a visitor who fancied a bit of Unazukin tipping action and commented that I didn’t get her enough time to sling some money on France yesterday. To be honest I only published it in advance in order that anyone who doubted Unazukins psychic powers would be able to see her pick before the action began. I hadn’t really taken into account the possibility people might also want to share the wealth..

I can’t vouch for how reliable this pocket money toy might be at a long range forcast but for any of you that want to risk it the details are below. For any of you that don’t want to know the score - look away now. For those of you who do check out live footage of Unazukins verdict complete with me stumbling over my lines

So there you have it. My head says Italy will win. My heart says Italy will win. But most important of all Unazukin says, admittedly in quite an unconvincing fashion, that the French are going to win their second world cup final. Get that money on now before word gets out.

Update: I hope Unazukin gets it right because heavyweight websites such as HolyMoly, The Register and FHM have all got hold of this article and are sending shitloads of visitors my way. Giving me the opportunity to embarrass myself in front of a much wider audience!

Firstly - cheers to Yuko-chan who is a bit of an Unazukin Otaku (nerd - to the rest of us!) and who sent me this bizarre Unazukin v Godzilla animation. God only knows who did it. Or in fact why. But whoever you are - I am just glad that you did!

I’ve had a few emails asking if I am really betting on these matches and asking how come I only ever blog after the event. These are fair points. Firstly, of course I am betting on them. Why wouldn’t I? There would be no point doing this otherwise - remember that I only started the gambling part of the project with a tenner and as i’m only betting a tenner a go - and will quit the first time we lose - i’m only going to lose a tenner. Compared to the £130 I wasted on taking Unazukins advice to go to Scotland, the £10 I will ultimately lose on the betting is small change! Secondly, I haven’t been posting in advance due to laziness really. I never thought that anyone would be interested enough to actually question what I was doing and so just post normally at the end of the day or the next morning when I have time.

But since you ask - i’m off down the bookies now (notice how natural that phrase sounds when I use it now!) to stick a tenner to win on…. France.

Update: The girl in the bookies questioned that “outright winner” that I wrote on the last betting slip and told me that actually the correct bet i needed to make is “qualify for the next round”. So here it is:

Sorry about the lack of posts for the last few days. After England got knocked out - the weekend disappeared into an alcoholic blur. Plus there have been no new matches to bet on and, as I explained, my current mission is to keep on using Unazukin’s powers to gamble on the world cup until either it ends or she gets it wrong. Currently she has won 4 on the spin (or 5 if you include her correctly guessing the winner of England v Portugal that I couldn’t bring myself to bet on and 6 if you include the match where she hinted at a draw and I misinterpreted her choice).

Thanks for the emails that you’ve sent telling me that I should be betting with an accumulator as i’d be winning some serious money. That’s a bit out of my league at the moment and although I am becoming more and more confident over Una’s ability to predict results - i’d rather not lose the lot if she does screw up. Plus since the competitors in recent matches wouldn’t have even been decided when I started the betting, i’m not sure how i’d even do that.

Today there was no choice of matches. It’s was a semi-final and was simply a choice between Germany and Italy. I have changed my betting strategy and am bet entirely on the outright winner. As you can see from the betting slip below (filled in with absolutely no assistance from the fellah in the betting shop I am proud to report) she went for Italy.

I was disappointed by this as she seems to call it right every time and i’ve never had anytime for Italy’s negative style of football. Or their play acting - it occurs to me that pretending to be dead and surrendering are probably much the side of the same coin.

The match was a cracker - the nail biting finish kept me on the edge of my seat and i’m still getting my breath back as I type this. I thought Una had finally blown it but the 2 goals in the last two minutes got us back on track. I’ll drop in and claim my £7.28 winnings tomorrow when I place my bet on tomorrows semi.

Unazukin correctly gets 6 right on the trot and we are up £53.78 - if she carries on like this I might just get back the cash I spent on that pointless day trip I made to Glasgow.

I’ve been a little pre-occupied with the idea that rather then predicting the results, invoking the power of the Unazukin is in some way effecting the result. Please don’t get me wrong, it isn’t something i’ve spent a lot of time worrying or obsessing about - mainly because in general I couldn’t give a monkeys who wins each game. Not unless Unazukin suddenly wants to me to bet on England that is.

And that’s why I bottled it. I was nervous as soon as Una chose the England v Portugal match for her wager. I admit to feeling something verging on fear as I uttered the questions..

“Unazukin” I mumbled with possibly a slight waiver in my voice “please tell me that England are going to be outright winners of this match”

1 shake. I think I physically made that gulping sound that you hear characters make in cartoons.

“Unazukin” I say, almost retorically in that I am not sure that I want to hear the answer “Is it possible that a Portugal team stripped of some of their star players could be the outright winner?”

2 nods. Gutted. According to Unazukin the golden generation are coming home and the 40 years of hurt is set to continue.

And this is where the Unazukin effect starts to niggle at me. What if me betting on Unazukins choice somehow cements the fate of the English team. I would be gutted anyhow if England were to go crashing out of the world cup but it occurs to me that by keeping a public record of my dabbling online I could even end up as the scapegoat. The name Alan Lubin would be up there with the likes of Chris Waddle and Gareth Southgate. The Sun would print pictures of my face super imposed over Unazukins egg shaped body with some sort of punny headline like “The Eggs-terminator (webtard jinxes England team)”. People would hunt me down like that Swiss referee and hang effigies of me from the lamp post.

So I bottled it. I didn’t place the bet. But as you know - it made no difference. We lost on penalties after our attacking threat was castrated when, ironically, Rooney allegedly attempted to castrate a Portugese player. To anyone reading this blog (and I know there are a few as i’ve started getting emails - by the way keep those suggestions rolling in as i’ll be back doing odd things as soon as Unazukin loses a bet) please note that I didn’t place that bet, I did everything I could to prevent this from happening. I beg of you to keep up the campaign of hate directed towards that poncy Portugese crybaby Ronaldo and leave me out of it.

I’ll admit to being massively depressed about this and today gave Unazukin a day off from gambling to advise me on which alcoholic beverage I should choose with which to spend the whole day drinking to forget.

For anyone that cares - she chose Cider.

Well I did say that I was a bit of a novice gambler. Today my lack of understanding of the world of gambling forced Unazukin to make the wrong decision. Well that’s not true. She made the right decision but I applied it wrongly in the betting shop. It was all going swimmingly at first, Unazukin in her usual style selected the match. Again, confident as ever, she decided to go for a really tough call which I think is an interesting trend as she seems to be choosing matches that i’d have to flip a coin on anyway.

Yesterdays choice was Germany v Argentina. Both teams had given a very good account of themselves so far in the tournament and it looked set to be a cracking match. When I consulted Unazukin on her opinion, she started to act very strangely which should have probably given me a clue that something was amiss - but instead of setting off any alarm bells in my head, I tried to amend the questions to get a firm result from her. I explain what I mean:

“Unazukin” I said “Will Germany keep the momentum going and win this tie?”

1 shake. I was disappointed as I think the Germans have created a great world cup and been a good honest team to watch. The Argentinians have played some amazing football too but I’m getting sick of all the cheating and play acting that has been on view so far and you are always only going to see more of that if teams like Argentina stay in the competition.

“Unazukin” I said “Will the Argies be the glorious winners of this interesting fixture?”

2 shakes. Hmm.. looks like it’s going to be a close call and Unazukin is going to have to dig deep to pull this one out of the bag. Time for the next round in this Unazukin oriented knock-out format.

“Unazukin - will Germany win”

1 shake.

“Unazukin - will Argentina win”

2 shakes again. A mirror image - at least she is consistent. This goes on with negative answers for 2 more rounds and I start to think that Unazukin might be broken or at least has maybe decided that the life of a gambler is not for her. I wonder if maybe she thinks I am abusing her God given talent and has maybe gone on strike. I decide to amend the question slightly to see if I can elicit a response by asking the same thing in a different way.

“Unazukin - will Argentina be going home after this game?”

1 nod. Eureka - so she isnt broken then, she was just being awkward.

“Unazukin - will Germany be going home after this game?”

1 shake. The jobs a good’un. Oh you can try - but you can’t outwit me, even if you are a battery operated pocket money toy.
I was out and about all day today and nowhere near a computer, so I decided that i’d have to visit a betting office. This unnerved me a little since, as strange as it may seem, i’ve never been in one before and admit that the prospect daunted me a little.

The “Bookies” (as I now call it - being an old pro at this now) is littered with tired looking old fellahs with dead eyes, impossible amounts of wrinkles and roll-ups permanently attached to their bottom lips. The staff however are really helpful and show me how to fill in a betting slip - which bizarrely makes me feel like a real man (finally!)

And here it is. My first ever betting slip. I am so proud.

At this point it was so far so good. Except that my gambling learning curve was about to take a steep incline. You see what I hadn’t realised was that wold cup football bets are decided over 90 minutes. The fact that one team will go on to win in extra time or penalties is completely ignored. I’ve been lucky up until now that all of the games we have bet were decided within normal time. As you are probably aware - this game was effectively drawn (which I think is what Unazukin was trying to tell me) and the fact that Germany destroyed the Argies in a penalty shoot out was neither here nor there. It was a shame that I had to have it explained to me by lad behind the counter at Ladbrokes, in front of the battered looking clientelle, as I excitedly tried to claim my winnings this morning.

I can’t blame this on Unazukin. I have to hold my hands up on this. I asked her if Germany or Argentina would win and her superior knowledge of the world of gambling meant that she wouldn’t commit. It was only when I asked her who was going home that she game me an answer - and unfortunately that wasn’t what I bet on. The guy in at Ladbrokes did tell me that they do offer odds on the outright winner, which are reduced as it takes the chance of a draw out of the equation and I decide that I will use this route in future.
In view of this - Unuzukins gambling record stands unblemished at £46.50 - and from now on I will factor the possibility of a draw into the process.