Leave the Memories Alone

I'm pretty sure that Facebook has killed what was left of my blog. It's sad, but kind of an inevitability I suppose. Maybe one last picture party when I get back from the Cleve. Also, pseudo-Draw is War revival?



Perhaps the most adorable thing ever.

The Day Has Come

I caved and joined Facebook. I half hate it and am half intrigued by it. I don't know what this means for the blog yet. I may see if I can just use Facebook to streamline the whole process. I do love my blog though. We shall see.

I hope it's not Chris's blood

I can watch horrible action movies anytime. Almost literally. Netflix Instant makes it quite possible. To a lesser degree, I can watch horrible zombie movies almost anytime. There are fewer of them in general, so it makes it a little harder to find ones I haven't seen. Point is, the Resident Evil series wraps both categories up in a tidy little bow. I mention this because I'm watching the fourth film, Afterlife, as I type this. Sucks. That's about as succinctly as I can put it. Not a lot of zombies so far either. Granted, I'm nineteen minutes in, so we'll see. But not a promising start.

This should cover your drink, Nikki! See you NEVER!

I'm not sure if this will be funny without the context, but here is my favorite moment from my favorite show right now, WWE NXT Season 4!



Watching episode 10 right now. Gonna wrap it up this week! GOOOOOOO BATEMAN!

Short Takes

I've been in Mason since Sunday, staying with Jenny, and while it's been fun, it doesn't really lend itself to big blog entry fodder. But there are a couple of things worth mentioning that I've been getting into.

E3! I love E3. And this year did not disappoint. Wii U looks pretty awesome, Playstation Vita specs are pretty mindblowing, new Assassin's Creed game looks like every other Assassin's Creed game but I will buy it because I love the series. Let's see, what else? Microsoft isn't going next-gen until 2013, and Sony even longer, giving Nintendo a big leg up. With actual third-party support this time in addition to Link and Mario, it looks pretty promising for them.

Tough Enough finale sucked, RAW sucked. Moving on.

I watched Morning Glory, starring Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, and Diane Keaton. LOVVVVVED IT.

Heading out to see Woody Allen's newest, Midnight in Paris, tomorrow. I haven't seen one of his movies since Small Time Crooks eleven years ago, and I'm really looking forward to this one.

UFC 131 is Saturday, and for the record, I'm predicting that Junior dos Santos will be too elusive for Shane Carwin to hit the big shot he needs to put it away, and once Carwin tires, JDS will tag him at will with big shots and TKO him in the second round.

That's all from Mason, see you in Columbus!

What a jerk

I just got an E-mail from my Wii. It told me that I watched Netflix for 5 hours and 31 minutes yesterday. I really don't want my consoles to quantify how little of a life I have. Be a pal, Wii.

I almost forgot - SCI FI NERDERY!

In all the Randy Savage/Nunchukless Wii/Smackdown rebranding craziness of the past couple weeks, I've neglected to talk at all about my experiences at the world famous 28th Annual Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon!

This was the ninth such marathon for me and my good buddy Jason Sharp, and we've decided that we're going to try to go every year from now on. Nine marathons between 1995 and 2011 sounds pretty good, but think of all the great geek opportunities we've missed out on. Friend of the Blog Megan joined us this year and she's already gearing up for 2012.

As the first six hours or so of the marathon took place in the lead up to THE RAPTURE, we were treated so a great series of End of the World movie trailers to get everyone in the spirit. I don't want to go film by film or anything, because my memory is already starting to fade, but here are some highlights.



OH MY GODZ. Bollywood Sci-Fi, replete with fantastic costumes and big production numbers! This was actually the first Indian cinema I've ever seen, to my knowledge, and I was unprepared for how frequently English was spoken. Jason pointed out that it was very disorienting to read the English translation of Tamil at the bottom of the screen, only for an English sentence to be uttered as your brain readjusted. Fantastic movie though, and I think Franz is planning on getting ahold of this for a movie night in the near future.



It was my second time watching this, but my first on a big screen. It made all the difference in the world, truly. I came away disappointing from the first viewing, having heard so much about the movie for so many years. Redemption, thy name is Perfect Tommy!



The film I was actually most looking forward to going in, this documentary was a late addition to the lineup. I was worried I'd built it up too much in my head, but it actually delivered in spades (save for the abysmal closing song montage). They used a courtroom setting with actors to give the doc a narrative structure but this was wholly unnecessary and just ended up distracting. That aside, a very entertaining movie with lots of great interviews and perspectives on a man whose career has left many shaking their heads over the past fifteen years.



I was trying to sleep through this, but I think it was actually too stupid for my brain to not pay attention to it. Like it needed to be witnessed somehow. Abhorrent faux documentary about a time travelling moon colony. Yep.

They can't all be winners, but I've never had anything less than a great time at the marathon, and hopefully I can convince someone else to take the journey next year.

PEACE!

New So We Were Told

This sort of ties into the the last entry (which inspired an avalanche of feedback, obviously), as Jason and I discuss the plans for the WWE video game series. Aside from that, LISTS. Yes. Check it out here

Smackdown versus RAW is dead, and from its ashes rises... WWE' 12!!!!!!

This was the earth shattering announcement THQ had been teasing for their long in the tooth series. Color me underwhelmed. There's a hands on preview linked below that lists some big changes in the engine. Sounds promising, but I feel like we've been promised that it's a whole new game for years now, only for it to fall well short every time.

I actually bought SvR 2011 and it's really just another coat of paint slapped on a shoddy product.

I read somebody's post on the Figure Four message board, summing up the IWC's attitude about any new wrestling game that comes out. He said: "Why don't they just use the AKI engine. It's not as good as Fire Pro or KOC II. They've all sucked since Here Comes The Pain. I'll just keep playing WWF No Mercy.

AKA, Every wrestling video games thread on the internet."

It's funny because it's true. Most discussions about wrestling video games do boil down to that on the Internet, but it's because these people are right. 

The No Mercy example is perfect. Never have I seen such resistance to popular opinion. AKI built this beautiful engine that instead of refining and bringing into the next generation, everyone is running away from it. I actually heard an interview with the SvR 2011 programmers last year where they buried No Mercy as being "good for its time" but not up to par now, while their new game was the best ever. And now here we are, seven months later and THQ is scrapping the whole thing in favor of starting from scratch. Telling.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? Time for a change? Happy with the series as it's been? Not giving up on the prospect of No Mercy for Xbox Live Arcade? Tell me about it!



Actually, realistically, I don't think anyone who reads this plays many wrestling games. Amanda and Lucas have both played SvR 2009 and Fire Pro Returns as far as I know. Megan has played only SVR 2011, and Lee may not have played anything since WWF Raw for the Super Nintendo. Pretty sure Kehn played WWF RAW for XBox with me a couple of times back in 2002. Keith has kept up to 2008. I think Franz's last wrestling game foray would be Fire Pro Wrestling D back in 2001. So yeah, sorry if I forgot anybody, blog nation, but basically, this is an entry for me to cry about wanting my wrestling game youth back!

E3 2011: WWE '12 Rises

For those of you have(n't) been wondering...

So We Were Told - Wrestling Radio is not dead. My co-host went out of town to Alabama, where there is no Internet or telephones. So we had to take a brief hiatus. We'll be recording the next episode tomorrow afternoon and it will be available at the official site shortly after. I hope we didn't stall out our no momentum!