The Aztexan

In the absence of the Aztex (or any other pro Austin team, so far), I’ve started another online soccer-related project: FC Shirts United:

The world is crawling with soccer teams. You know a few of them: the teams in your favorite league, the big teams from the world’s big leagues. But those are just a drop in the bucket. There are hundreds more out there. Thousands.

And some of them have the coolest crests you’ve ever seen. Crests that deserve a wider audience. Crests that belong on a t-shirt.

Each month we scout the farthest reaches of the world and bring you four fabulous football team logos. Then they fight it out, from group stage to final match, based on your votes. You help crown the winner, selecting which crest is worthy to become our next limited edition shirt.

So far we’ve gone through one tournament, so there’s one winner that you can buy on a t-shirt (for a limited time): the really sharp crest for South Africa’s Thanda Royal Zulu FC.

And another tournament is ongoing right now (there will always be a tournament ongoing . As of this writing we have cool crests from Thailand, Italy, Democratic Republic of the Congo and El Salvador.

Check it out and vote for your favorites. It’s free, easy and only takes a minute or two. On the 22nd of this month (and every month) the tournament enters the final stage, where you can vote again on the two favorite crests from the original four.

I’m having a lot of fun with this — don’t miss the FC Shirts United blog for even more cool logos from around the world — and I hope you will, too. Vote, spread the word, and enjoy.

Welcome to the new and improved Aztexan.net. The “improved” part may be a bit of stretch, actually. But at least I’m more or less back in business, which compared to “unable to post at all” is at least a step in the right direction.

I’m sure most of you couldn’t care less about the gory technical details. But for the record, the short, not-sweet version is that Blogger discontinued my ability to publish via FTP, and kicked my dog. Rather than stick with Blogger to figure out how to do it their way, I’m jumping ship, to WordPress.

I’m still working on getting everything looking right, and figuring out basic stuff. One big difference, for a week or two, is that this homepage will only show the few new WordPress posts (starting with just this one). If you’re looking for other recent stories, they’re on this copy of the old homepage.

Thanks for your patience!

(The score in the title is a nod to Chelsea’s Premiership-title-clinching romp over Wigan today, doubling as an OMG!-yelling emoticon. You see the kind of cleverness the Internet was missing without me?)