(OULU, FINLAND) -- On a Finnish day that Björn said was the nicest he had ever seen, America proudly showcased her 3.5 representatives in the World Air Guitar Championships.

ZERO PROSPECTS – Björn's better half – made it to the second round on Friday after wowing the judges the night before at the annual Dark Horse competition. Although he failed to advance to the second round, somehow San Francisco's SNAKE RIFKIN also slinked into the show.

Joining ZERO PROSPECTS in the second round was HOT LIXX HULAHAN and WILLIAM OCEAN. Both performers were challenged to rock out to the weirdest track ever, "Animal" by who the eff knows. In Oulu, thousands watched as Ocean, Hot Lixx, and the other international superstar performers came together to air guitar for world peace. Online, thousands more watched the live stream and got censored by the chat widget. Even "gay" was censored, which one user declared as "totally racist."

Said competitor Netherlands' TREMOLO TUNE to the thousands in attendance, "it's a youtube!" Yes, Tremolo. It certainly is.

Adding to the language barrier was America's beloved Björn Türoque, who asked a confused audience "did anyone feel their face melting? No, no, that's a good thing. Face melting is good."

GÜNTAR, France's champion, entered round two in first place and rocked like crazy, viva la Franced, did a backflip, and didn't once drop his guitar. HOT LIXX, the 2008 World Air Guitar champion who was dressed like the Joker from the last batman, kicked axe as always. He finished tied for second with his countryman, WILLIAM OCEAN, who found someone to pull off his signature single-man crowd surf. Although he entered round two in fourth place, OCEAN nearly won the competition with and average compulsory round score of 5.94.West Hays heartily endorses this posting.

HOT LIXX, ZERO PROSPECTS, and WILLIAM OCEAN: You made us proud today.

But taking the whole schbang was France's GÜNTAR LOVE, dressed from head to toe in gold lemay and asking all the American ladies if they like to discothèque.

The thickly accented GÜNTAR dedicated his victory to mosh pit.

Güntar Love, one wild and crazy guy.

Björn made this sucker right after last year's World championships, so it's all totally valid until about 2:40.

Holy shit balls!

We just got word that ZERO PROSPECTS (Kate Gray) has won the Dark Horse competition in Finland.

For you newcomer fans out there, the World Air Guitar Championships hosts a dark horse competition on the eve of the main event every year. The list of previous winners is short and distinguished, including the legendary AIR LINGUS (aka Emerald Hürricane), Björn Türoque, and that guy from Japan who fucking rocks.

Joining fellow Amurricans WILLIAM OCEAN and HOT LIXX HULAHAN, ZERO PROSPECTS has now earned a spot in tomorrow's World Championship, an honor that I can guarantee absolutely terrifies her.

Team USAG's flight arrives in Oulu in five hours with more coverage -- that's yesterday morning where you are.

She recieved nearly perfect 6's in round one, followed by a flawless 6-6-6 compulsory performance to what I'm sure was the craziest Scandanavian metal track in the history of everything.  Reported ZERO PROSPECTS moments ago via Satphone, "The future is here, people. And it doesn't look promising."

As a member of the official Hot Lixx Hulahan fan club (and regional street team president in Fremont, CA) I check my mail every day for correspondence (you can join here). This week, instead of getting a secret decoder ring, I received a dispatch from Mr. Hot Lixx himself in Finland! Here it is:

Dear West and all my homey in California,

After 23 hours of sleepless (but movie-ful!) travel I was met at the airport by a dood carrying a sign with HOT LIXX on it. Man saved me two euros which I didn’t even have! Nice work, Oulun Musiikkivideofestivaalit! He took me to the Hotel Cumulus (the official air guitar hotel of Oulu) where I was whisked away for a newspaper interview. We went around Borat-style to various locations looking for – get this – an air guitar! The pawn shop was not into it but the Police station surprisingly was. Attached is a clip from the article that may or may not be in good favor. Whatever the spin, the article certainly has a lot of P’s and M’s and umlauts in it. Dan and I hit the sauna last night with the Australasia contingent then pretended to sleep for a while. Ocean shows up later today, as does your brother.

The World Air Guitar Championship is fast approaching, or so says my brother who gets to be there and do all that, uh, "publicity" with all his, uh, "Finish press contacts" while I rot away in a Fremont efficiency with outdoor group bathing facilities. Stay tuned for the scoop, and in the meantime check out this newspaper spot Hot Lixx had to setup for himself:

I still don't get it.