Full On Wrestling!

So this one ends up being my real last post of the month, since the month is over after tomorrow anyway. But that isn't what this is about! No, not even close folks! Instead, I'm going to write about something I haven't really written about in ages.

Wrestling.

Being that I had been out of the loop of things for the past year, I didn't really bother to write about it or really mention it all that often. Add into that the whole Benoit tragedy and really, I just didn't have anything I felt that was worth saying. What makes today so different? Well I am still out of the loop in that I haven't watched an actual show in a long while (not counting ECW online these days).

But I still do try and catch whatever I can, whenever I can, thank you YouTube.

Good example of this was the return of Chris Jericho, which was pretty interesting to say the least. I think for a guy that has been gone for 2 years, he can still cut a better promo then most guys around today. What I haven't found yet, however, was his recent match against Santino Marella on Raw. I am still curious to see how and what the years away did to the guy.

I just picked up both the John Cena and Shawn Michaels DVDs, both of which are basically biographies on both wrestlers. I've only gotten to watch through John Cena's so far and it isn't really a bad DVD. But what I enjoyed the most about these types of DVDs are when the wrestler shares what he/she thought about the periods of their careers, lives, etc and not all too much about what family and friends thought about it. This DVD ends up being heavy on the friends and family commentary and absolutely NOTHING from the man himself.

In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Stone Cold Steve Austin's DVD, which had a decent pick of matches and promos as extras, but I thought it was a tad bit ruined with the laughter and chatter of family members. Salvation for that comes later, probably next year, when a real bio DVD for Stone Cold is released. Hopefully they keep it strictly to Stone Cold and not to everybody else.

Beyond that, I think that is it for the time being as I still can't really comment all that much about wrestling in general. One last thing I will share was a theory I read (I forgot where at) about the influx of former WWE wrestlers jumping ship to TNA. Maybe it is all set up? Maybe it is a plan orchestrated by the WWE to infiltrate and destroy the competition before it becomes a threat.

Possible? Yes. Impossible? Probably not.

I mean take a look at the number of ex-WWE guys on TNA right now. That list is getting to be pretty long and growing with each passing release. I am surprised that the former Chris Masters hasn't appeared in TNA yet. I can't imagine it'll be far off, not when everone from Test down to Rikishi have all appeared on that show.

Just don't get me wrong, I am not either for or against this theory. It is, after all, just a theory. What I do believe is TNA is on a fast track of being the new WCW, which did sign everything WWE dropped/fired/let go or however you'd like to put it. Am I wrong? I guess only time will tell.

Oh Thanks a Lot...

Thanksgiving is upon us and all I can say (and do) right now is cough. By some stroke of luck, I've managed to get sick on what would have been 3 days of rest, relaxation and food! While all of that is happening still, I can also add on the following:

1. Four days (after calling in sick this morning) off.

2. What feels like a dripping feeling at the back of my throat.

3. Coughing.

4. Body aches.

5. A boss at work who probably is under the belief (again) that I am plotting something dastardly against him. Because rest assured folks, messing around with my boss in a grocery store is definitely top ranking of "Must Do's."

To top things off, the doctor I was hoping to see today was booked up all day today. So all I could do today to fight off this throat problems was down cough drops and hope for the best. Not the greatest solution (or idea), but it is as good as I could do. Yay.

But enough about all of that, I am feeling slightly better now or at least better then I did this morning. What sucks worst is every time I lay down to sleep, I wake up feeling worse then when I was awake. Someone up there must be really watching out for me! *grumbles*

Anyway, god I wish I had cable to see WWE Raw this past Monday night. After reading the results online, I think the biggest news was about a certain returning wrestler. At least it answered who and why all of those "Save_Us" promos have been playing for the past month or so. They were, in fact, for the returning Chris Jericho.

Thankfully, I did get to see his return on YouTube.

Speaking of whom, Jericho's book was a pretty damn good read and definitely one of the best wrestler bios I've read yet. I think the last time I read a biography that I actually read from start to finish was the Hardys (WWE tag team).

What I enjoy the most about these wrestlers' stories are the tales they share from their years of travel and working around the globe. It does add a whole different perspective to the individuals and it is interesting to read their thoughts and feelings about major happenings throughout their careers.

Besides that, I have been picking back up on listening to Evanescence's music and more importantly, giving their latest CD a better listen through. Yeah, it isn't the most awesome thing to have ever been done by a person, but I am sickly and my options for "fun" are extremely limited!

Anyway, the music wasn't all that bad, but I think I liked their original outing better then this. I think I can say the same for other groups like Disturbed and Drowning Pool also. But to each his/her own, maybe I am just truly stuck living in the past.

Or maybe a lot of these group's music has gotten that shitty.

Hmmm.... Now I'm going to go and play a little more of Naruto: Rise of the Ninja and feel and hear the pain of English dubbing. Don't get me wrong, some series do a very good job at dubbing and the voices don't annoy my ears to the point of bleeding. Good example here would be Fullmetal Alchemist.

But as far as Naruto goes... Please, Stop the violence. Or shut the hell up. Which brings me to the only gripe (so far) concerning the game: Lack of dual language voice overs. Dear lord this game could use it... (in my opinion anyway).

Thankful am I indeed. Surely I am! Now shut up and pass the cough drops... =(

P.S. And thank you to Blogger for taking my words and smashing it all together to form such a beautiful wall of text. Thank you, thank you so very bloody much... -.-

The Big 100th Post...!

Yeah, I know something like having 100 posts doesn't really mean all that much if you think about it. Does it mean something meaningful? Will it bring world peace? Will it end all the bitching and screaming and moaning and groaning about the Super Ferry in Hawaii?

As much as I'd like to say yes it could, well...

OK, so maybe it could very well be possible that this 100th post could change the course of events around the world. I mean think about it, it is a pretty strange world out there where all sorts of weird things happen every second of every day. So to think that a 'mere' 100th post could change the world... hell, it just may very well happen!

(I'd rather have my 100th post win me the biggest lottery jackpot in the world, but eh... can't win 'em all...)

So much to say and write and all that, but where oh where to begin? I think I am beginning to pressure myself out here, just thinking about just how big (in my own little mind) this 100th post really is!

For starters, I'm gonna hit up something I haven't written about in quite a while, which would be wrestling.

You can say how fake the matches are and yes, the matches are pre-determined before the guys ever hit the ring. But with everything in the news about it lately, I think it is safe to say that professional wrestling has become very, very real.

Still, at the end of the day I still do wonder if everything that is coming out will really make a difference in the end. Take the WWE for example here folks, this isn't the first time they've been called out about steroids. Obviously the fact that they are at it again proves that things haven't really changed. I mean sure, they have a wellness program in place. But does that really make a difference?

I just hope that these men and women that go out and perform are taken care of and helped if at all possible. One thing I'd like to not see for a very long time is another wrestler death. Enough is enough, hopefully people snap to and change their ways (if they have a problem that is).

Switching gears, although we are still going wrestling talk here, and this is about the rumors of Chris Jericho's possible return.

Now as a fan I am pretty excited to hear that and the idea of not having cable TV makes that all the harder to deal with. Sort of. It has been a little over a year since Jericho was on WWE TV? Maybe 2 now? I can't remember these things, but anyway... I guess all I can do is sit back and read about what goes on and maybe I'll find a video or 2 of his return (should it happen) on YouTube.

Switching gears again folks, now we go towards Dynasty Warriors and the 2 games that have recently been released under this banner.

I've been meaning to write something about Dynasty Warriors: Gundam and Warriors Orochi, but I just haven't had much of a chance these days. Anyway, if given a choice of which I like better, the hands down winner of this face off is Warriors Orochi. No question about that choice folks, that absolutely (in my opinion) choice wins by a landslide.

That isn't to say that Dynasty Warriors: Gundam is a bad game or anything. OK, so maybe the action manages to fall behind the standard Dynasty Warriors paces. Is that even possible? Surely they are both hack-and-slash games, but somehow DWG manages not to be as fun as Warriors Orochi. Not to mention if you don't know anything about the Gundam Universe, this game will be a confusing mess (I only knew of Gundam Wing).

Another thing DW: G lacks is options, modes... something more then just the confusing story itself. Original Mode is OK, but really... it isn't much different then the Official Mode.

As for Warriors Orochi... now that game felt like home to me and it played exactly as can be expected. The only real gripe that I have about this is the lack of extra modes (just like DW: G). Besides Free Mode, there aren't anything else like previous games, such as Rampage, Time Attack, etc.

What surprised me about Orochi was the changes that were made to the game. I think the biggest change is the ability to chose three warriors to go to war with and you can change among your trio at any time. It keeps things feeling fresh and you can basically mix and match up your team of choice from the officers you've unlocked from both the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors games.

The story itself is interesting also, which pretty much goes a little something like this: Orochi, the Serpent King, wishes to test his might against the most powerful fighters in history. And to that end, Orochi pulls the warriors from Feudal Japan and Ancient China. Now the basis of this game is how Orochi basically holds hostage the leaders of Shu, Wei and Wu and uses most of their top fighters (mixed up with the fighters from Samurai Warriors) to crush any resistance and to also weed out the weak and leave only the most worthy and powerful.

Does that all make sense? Hopefully I didn't gut the story and ruin it... just trust me when I say that it is a pretty damn good hack-and-slasher!

Now onto a subject I never thought I'd be writing about here, in my humble little blog, ever again. Final Fantasy XI is coming out with a brand spankin' new expansion and Square Enix is tossing in new jobs! Again! Why do I get the feeling that the majority of the new content will be aimed (still) towards end gamers? I hope I am wrong and if so, who knows... I may very well go back...

I mean why not right? I'd love to see my Elvaan as a Dancer and who knows what else. I suppose we shall all see as SE unleashes more details in the coming months.

News flash: Work still sucks! Now back to the regular blog fodder!

Honestly I do miss playing Final Fantasy XI, but what I don't is the hours of waiting and all the shit that goes with having to form a party. I've wasted more hours then I care to remember doing stuff like this. Surely it is all a part of the game and the 'experience.' It did feel good when I left and started back up on offline games. The joke I told the few friends I made while gaming on FFXI was at least now I didn't have to beg people to join my party or people leaving after 10 minutes of fights or even wait for 6 hours to get into something!

Yes, it was a great, great feeling.

Speaking of playing, I've been playing Halo 3 with my girlfriend and lemme tell you all this. We suck. We're playing it on easy because anything higher then that would result in our faces splattered across the screen. Oops, sorry... got that mixed up with Gears of War.

(In either case, the end result remained the same.)

I think we've only played through 2 chapters? I don't know/remember off hand how the game is broken down. The story sounds interesting and the game play is as fun as we both remember it from both Halo and Halo 2.

Random topic: I'd be playing my XBox 360 right now, but it is fairly warm (Read: Hot) where I live right now and I am a paranoid man. Paranoid that my XBox will flash me those dreaded red rings of death... I don't think I'd take all that well if that should happen any time in the near future.

Funny story, which I am slightly repeating from a previous post from ages ago it seems, and this goes back to when I first got my 360.

Gotta love Wal-Mart and their belief that I was somehow lying to them about the XBox they sold me being previously used and broken for that matter. Yeah they plugged it in and oh, it works! See the problem was that the night before (the night that I had bought it), it had stopped reading XBox games. After letting it sit for about a half hour, it'd read the game again for a short time and then freeze up and stop again.

Well they did not believe me and somehow I guess they thought I was trying to scam them. How? I don't personally know for myself and my poor mind just couldn't connect with their thought pattern on this one. Anyway, after they wasted my time for about an hour and talked to me like I was lying, I did get it replaced. Needless to say, all I wanted to do was leave and get the hell home...

What lifted my spirits (after being talked to like a goddamn criminal) was when that jerk of a girl that was "helping" me took the XBox back up front and plugged it in again. Guess what popped up and greeted her stupid face? Those bloody red rings of death CAME OUT FOR THOSE SONS OF BITCHES!

Ha! Serves you all right, jerks!

Oh that was bliss... pure, unadulterated bliss...

Do I hold a grudge? No, not really.

But I do take offense when someone decides to call me a liar and doesn't even know what he/she is talking about. Then again, while they did waste my time, the ending is what always brings that smile of mine back to my face. After that, I have been worried that those red rings would return and kill my poor XBox and so I've gone through my own hell to be sure I don't do all that much to kill that expensive bastard.

Then again, there is a lot of good games still coming for the 360 and so I guess this will serve as a fairly good test to see if my box will survive or not. Hell, if nothing else, I think WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 will do all the testing I need, considering it ends up being a better game then the '07 edition.

I mean it has flaming table matches! ECW wrestlers! And um... and other stuff that makes this game great! Actually, I play it just to mess around with it's create-a-wrestler mode. Everything else to me is secondary. I love to create stuff, people, anything. I loved The Sims (original, though wishing I could play The Sims 2...) and games like Stronghold. OK a game like Stronghold I spent a good deal of hours building up a massive castle and then laying it to waste and rebuilding it again.

I don't know what it is, but creating is fun for me and addictive even more so since there are a few games out there that allow that sort of freedom.

Oh, did I mention I was a wrestling fan? I bet that was a difficult thing to figure out.

So fast does time fly and I think I was having fun writing all of that somehow. Not to mention the fact that I've just caused my brain to go empty, since I've finally gotten to write out much of what I've been meaning to write for the past week or two. Hopefully this is a worthy 100th post or else I may have to spam my own blog to reach post 200 to try again.

Hmmm...