Those who have been following this site for a while (you know, when it actually gets updated) will know that this has been known to occur from time to time. And each time I write a long and vaguely apologetic post about why, and how busy I am, and when things will get back to normal and blah blah blah sob story blah.

Question is, do you actually care?

Figured as much.

So here’s the drill in easy-to-read point format:

Dear new readers.

• I work in TV production.
• We start filming in studio again on Wednesday for two weeks or so.
• I will thus be moer busy doing some real work that pays the bills.
• Thus Stustake will be all ssshhhhhh for quite a while.
• Probably.
• Unless I’m so good that everything is so perfectly planned that filming carries on without a hitch and I can lay back, order a tall glass of something cold, and shoot the shit with you lot from the comfort of WordPress for iPhone.
• That would be kinda cool.

Let’s see how it pans out.

Laterrrrrrrsssssss…

You lot know Vinnie Jones, right? The Guy Ritchie movie stalwart who looks, and sounds, as though he was put on this Earth with the sole purpose of causing other people massive amounts of pain. All without breaking a sweat of course.

Well he has now teamed up with the British Heart Foundation to teach you hands-only CPR, set to (appropriately enough) the Bee Gees’ massive hit Stayin’ Alive. Take a look:

I imagine he’d accidentally crush your ribcage into powder if not paying attention, but that’s to be expected: he’s kinda the bloke Chuck Norris wants to be when he grows up.

For more light-hearted clips of His Royal Vinnieness, check out “Vinnie Jones will beat you thin…” a clip of his very own ‘Attack Cardio’ – his way of getting you thin, presumably by causing you to literally crap yourself skinny from pure fear.

And then, while we’re on the subject of saving lives, the guys may wanna click over to another old post, “Super Sexy CPR“, coz it really is important to know how to do this stuff…

One item not mentioned in the article linked to is the bit about cover photos, the main photo that sits at the top of your profile in addition to the profile photo we all know and stalk others by. I, like most new users, initially simply selected a random photo like anything else that would feature as a regular profile photo, without even considering the possibilities of these album covers of sorts.

Turns out some folks with either an artistic inclination, too much time on their hands or a combination thereof, have been tinkering about. Click to go check out a gallery of some of the better ones on Hongkiat.com.

Now while some look cool and others are placeholders for virtually-guaranteed-to-be-sponsored advertising space for the more famous among us, it all quite frankly looks like a lot of work. I did however take the time to place quite a few photos into a bigger photo of the relevant dimensions, and kinda like the result. Here then is my Facebook Timeline cover photo:

Ta Daaaaaahhhh!!

Note the danger tape in the profile picture. Coz I’m dangerous bru. I know, lame. Moving swiftly along…

So anyway, for the Photoshoppers out there, the dimensions that seemed to work are 850 x 315 pixels. Plus, the Hongkiat.com article that I linked to in the text above even has a free downloadable Photoshop template for you to play around with to get your cover photo design just right. Go give it a bash.

Note: One kind of annoying thing I’ve noticed is that when you load up a profile that’s using Timeline it doesn’t seem to load up from the top of the image, but about a third of the way down. You can scroll up to see the whole thing, but it just looks a bit weird when I click on my profile and all the heads in the image have been lopped off (until I scroll up). I assume that’ll be sorted by Zuckerberg et al shortly. Mark: get on it, pal!

Previous years versions here:

• United State of Pop 2010 – Don’t stop the music
• United State of Pop 2009 – Blame it on the pop
• Even more mashups available on his YouTube channel – djearworm

Not bad, not bad.

What if Modern Family wasn’t the light-hearted comedy that we know and love? What if it was actually… a horror movie? dun dun dun

Trevorama took it upon himself to recut the Emmy Award-winning hit show as a 5 minute extended trailer in the form of a horror flick, with the obvious psycho being the gifted Alex Dunphy. It’s always the gifted kids, isn’t it? And yet… I turned out fine .

Take a look:

Impressive what a bit of an edit and some mood music can do, right?

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Seen on: BuzzFeed 

Happy New Year y’all! Here’s hoping it’s a good one, and it better be on the off chance that the Mayan’s were right…

Right, now that our hangovers have subsided to merely a dull ache coupled with only the tiniest bit of residual nausea, it’s time to get cracking on the new year ahead. And cracking on the new year I am – I’m already back at the office whilst the rest of you slackers are still chilling out on Camps Bay beach with a tall glass of something alcoholic in your hands. That’s fine, you relax. I’ll prop up the economy all on my own. No really, it’s fine. I insist.

So what did we learn in 2011?

• Jessica Biel is still a belter of note, and is thus STILL in first place on this blog in terms of readership (33 007 views at the time of writing, and counting);
• This blog shut down and was started again, all within the space of six months due to much nagging from Baby Boet;
• There’s a lot of interest in the duckface phenomenon, at least according to Google Analytics.

And that’s about it. Wow, slow year.

So here’s to a very busy year on Stu’s Take. Send your submissions/feedback/notes of praise to stustake [@] stustake [dot] com. (Writing the email address like that from now on so that HAL 9000 the spambots can’t find me to offer me lots and lots of dodgy cut-price pharmaceuticals).

Onwards!

Merry Christmas all!

Have a good New Year’s party too. We’ll all meet back here on 3 January to discuss the impressiveness of our respective hangovers, okay?

See ya in 2012!

Stu out.

A shopper reacts after learning that her layaway bill was paid by an anonymous stranger.

There are still plenty of kind-hearted folks out there. A recent article on Jezebel.com described a number of instances of anonymous shoppers paying off the layaway accounts of people who were paying off their childrens’ Christmas presents on layaway at KMart in the US.

Syracuse.com reported that “Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers’ layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn’t afford, especially toys and children’s clothes set aside by impoverished parents.”

According to Yahoo! Finance, ”The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn’t be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

“She told him, ‘No, I’m paying for it,’” recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. “He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn’t, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears.”

A second case of anonymous charity panned out as follows:

Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

“I was speechless,” Bremser said. “It made me believe in Christmas again.”

Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store’s system.”

A KMart staffer explained further, “The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store’s assistant manager.

“She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn’t have the money for it,” Graff said.

He called a woman who had been helped, “and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren’t going to have anything for Christmas.”

“You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people,” Graff said.

Graff’s store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.”

See? There are still some saints amongst the sinners after all.

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Sources: Jezebel.com, Yahoo! Finance, Syracuse.com

It’s Christmas, so time for a few feel good stories…

I doubt there’s a single person out there who will not immediately be overcome be the urge to go “awwwwwwwwww” upon seeing this clip.

Meet baby Jonathan, an 8-month old deaf boy who’s having his cochlear implants switched on for the first time and thus hearing sound, and his mother’s voice, for the very first time.

Who’s awesome?

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Other Barney Stinson posts on this site:

• Would the real Barney Stinson please stand up? On Twitter at least…
• Barney Stinson’s “The Bro Code” on Twitter…
• Barney Stinson’s “The Bro Code”… Legendary

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Thanks to gevaaalik.com for bringing this GIF to my attention.