Kaertos
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Everything posted by Kaertos
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Strummer, I've been there. I took care of my grandmother for about a year. It was possibly the worst year of my life. It was just me and her, as my dad and th rest of my family had their own, far more important, lives to deal with. I dropped out of College and went to work full time to try and help with the bills. According to my wife (who was my girlfriend at the time this all happened) I was really depressed and frustrated all of the time. I've blocked most of it out honestly. I remember the good parts, but the terrible stuff I try to forget. I say all of this to give you some hope. I've been there, and I went through some very tough times becuase of the situation. It still has ripple effects on my life even now. My family relationships were strained, and some broken completely. It takes forever to recover from something like this. But you do. Just keep your focus on two things: Doing what is best for your mother (no matter what that is) and doing what is best for you (no matter what that is). But you're not alone in this one, trust me.
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darn it Slasher Flick, I warned you... Now I'm all grumpy...
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I voted blank because he isn;t the coach of my team, so I don't hate him. I am capable of hating coaches though... just mention Dave Shula or Bruce Coslet to me and I get grumpy...
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The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King EE
Kaertos replied to edotherocket's topic in Television & Film
In the books, Sauron cannot take physical form without the ring. His body was destroyed in the sinking of Numenor and he put so much of his power into the ring that he was no longer able to take physical form after that, he was simply a spirit of evil. -
Just allow me to say one thing: Long, involved promos do not angles make. There were plenty of angles I worked almost entirely through matches and matches only. Heck, my Last Run only saw one or two promos, both of which were important, but not essential to the story (King's final promo being the exception).
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I think I was 11 or 12. I'm pretty sure it would have been earlier, but my sister is 7 years younger than me, and they didn;t want me to ruin it for her.
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It's taken me a while to write this, because I wanted to be sure of what I wanted to say. To be honest, I've started writing this four times before, but it quickly took on too negative a tone and I want to avoid that. So here goes... Part One - Farewell As I am sure you all know by now, I have retired from active duty in the SWF (again), from all CC duties (finally) and the Grand Slam character entirely. I feel like I have taken him on a long journey from his SJL days through the World Titles and Midnight Carnival heyday and, finally, to an emotionally draining (and apparently little read) final match with my best friend. Short of a final heel turn (which was discussed several times) bringing the character full circle, I feel that I have wringed every available story and emotion out of the old man's bones. I love the character, and there will always be a part of me that remembers "Grand Slam" Mark Stevens fondly, but he is retired and put away. Theoretically, my user name will be changing to "Kaertos" soon (some of you may remember this as my handle at IGN), letting me put the Heavy Hitter to rest. Part Two - Thank You So here it is, the big part of every retirement post where people scan for their names, read that part and skip to the end. In this case, I ask you to read all of these entries as every single person listed deserves it. And, by the way, the order is not important. I wrote them as they came to me. Now, on with the show... Suicide King: I'm not sure how many of you know that I was the one who dragged this legend kicking and screaming into the Fed. Honestly, it was one of my proudest moments. everytime someone mentions how much of an impact King made on the SWF, I smile a little and think to myself that I had a little something to do with it. And, as I am sure you all know, King is a close friend of mine in the "real world" as well. I shudder to think of the amount of time we spent sitting in my living room or out at restaurants talking about the Fed and planning out angles. To my good friend, I say "Thank You." Thank you for being the yin to Grand Slam's yang. Thank you for reining in some of my more outlandish ideas. Thank you for trusting me enough to ask me to be on CC when you were put in charge. Thank you for coming back and writing a couple of matches so that I could put Grand Slam away without regret. Thank you for coming up with a way for Grand Slam to go out the right way (on his back getting pinned clean) while still finding a way to let me win. Thank you for helping to write what I consider one of the best (if not the best) match of my long career here. And finally, thank you for being my good friend and taking this ride with me. You are the best. Ever. Edwin MacPhisto: I'll be honest here, I had no idea who this guy was most of the time he was in the JL. I read very little of his stuff before he was bumped. Then, next thing I know, I was in a stable with him. And I never regretted it for a second. Edwin, you are one of the coolest and most together guys I have ever had the pleasure of talking to. We have spent hours chatting on IM about this and that, and my wife asks me often how you are doing. I regret that I have let this friendship slide a little recently. It was a great pleasure to have you by Grand Slam's side in the last Genesis match and I am very proud to be listed in the Tag Title records with you as my partner. You are class my friend, and I want you to know that being retired (the first time) by you, then watching you parlay that into a hugely successful World Title run is one of the best moments of my career. Thank you for coming out of your own retirement twice to help my little storylines along. Just... thank you. H-Ville Thugg: I could not stand the guy for the longest time, and it was made worse by him being the one guy I could never beat in a one-on-one match consistently. But somewhere along the line I caught him online (or he caught me, I forget) to apologize for some argument or another (there were several) and I found out that he was a good guy. Thanks for coming back (as Bastion) and helping along the Commissioner storyline (even though, apparently, everyone hated it). No one but me knew at the time that it was the first step to Grand Slam's ultimate exit a year later. Thanks for hours of chatting about work and significant others and God knows what else. Thank you for being a stand-up guy when we disagreed, and thank you for all of the kind things you said about me over the years. You are an original man, and I consider it my honor to have known you. Oh... and SWF Kliq 4 Life... Chris Raynor: Nobody meant more to the Carnival than Chris. It survived King's betrayal storyline, it survived Grand Slam's retirement, but once Chris turned it slowly started to fall apart. I think that says everything you need to know about Chris Raynor as a writer and character in the SWF. I had the honor of dropping the ICTV title to him and always hoped to drop the World Title to him, but it was not to be. Chris, I never spent a huge amount of time on IM just chatting with you, but you influenced my writing so much that I had to mention you here. One of my fondest memories of the Fed will always be the one all-night Stables Title match writing session I was able to attend. I've never seen that much creativity in one place before, and you were the glue holding it together. You are one of the best writers I have seen in this place, and I was thrilled when you agreed to be a part of the "Dream Match" at G5. Thank you for being there, and thank you for your inspiration. In my opinion, you should have been a part of the Kliq, and in my mind you are. Oh, and when I read the goodbye tribute Edwin put together after my first retirement, I always get a little misty reading your part. Consider the feeling mutual, my friend. POOFNAR indeed... Mistress Sarah: I was thrilled when we recruited this spitfire into the Carnival. She was a breath of fresh air and I benefited by recruiting her to be Grand Slam's tag partner. After her retirement, I kept using her character as a way to let Grand Slam talk about things he would never "cut a promo" about. In the process, I actually traded e-mails with her and we became friends. Sarah, thank you for being my friend both in and out of the Fed. You helped me through some tough places and I like to think I might have helped a little when you were in some tough places yourself. Please keep in touch Sarah. Z: You know, before he took over CC, I don't think I ever had more than a very brief conversation with Z. My loss. Z, Thanks for helping out with the final angle, and I am glad it turned out well for you, getting you out of a Commssionary Position you didn't want to be in anymore. Thanks for being supportive of my brief return to the active roster and thank you for giving two old timers the semi-main event in our last PPV. Tom Flesher: I found out in the last year or so what people have known for a while around these parts. Tom is the best. Good to work with, good to collaborate with, very hard to write against... simply the best. Tom, thank you for using your amazing retirement moment to add a little sentiment to an over-booked "legends" match. It was a great honor to, as it turns out, write your last match. I hope I did you justice. Landon Maddix: Very simple entry here... Thanks for letting me use your character as the "face winner" in the legends match. I hope it boosted things for you a little. I'd like to think that that was one of the last pieces in the puzzle that started the transition from "Maddix - mid-card champ" to "Maddix - Main Eventer". Good Luck. The SWF: Yes, as a whole. There have been too many people who made an impact on my time here to list them all individually. Suffice to say that I will forever look back on my time in the SWF fondly and remember most of the people here likewise. Thank you all for pushing me to be the best writer I could be. I assure you that when (not if) I publish my first novel, the SWF will receive an acknowledgement. Thank you for hours upon hours of pretending that I knew anything about wrestling. Thank you for letting me be someone else for a while. Thank you for all of your hard work to make Grand Slam look good. The Outside World My wife, Debbie: Thank you for being there for me always. Thank you for putting up with this ridiculous hobby. Thank you for not minding being referred to as "Mrs. Stevens" or "Lynn" online. Thank you for all of the ideas I did and did not use. Thank you for proofreading long matches you were not that interested in reading. Thank you for not being mad that I spent several hours of your birthday writing my last match. But mostly, thank you for loving me. My friend, Kelly:Thank you for giving me the laptop all of my last matches were written on. You let me push the story along while still pretending to have a life. My friends: For putting up with me talking about a fictional pro wrestling league around you when most of you aren't even interested in real pro wrestling. Part Three - Regrets Very short list here, but there were a couple I need to mention: I regret never successfully defending the World Title. I regret writing a storyline nobody but me liked for G4. I regret not reading more, and not commenting more. I regret never getting the chance to win the tag titles more times. I regret not making the King / Grand Slam World Title match the biggest thing ever. I regret not writing more "Breaking Kayfabe" articles. Part Four - Constructive Criticism And, here is the part you all will skip... I left for good for many reasons that have nothing to do with the Fed and everything to do with priorities. I just did not have enough time to devote to doing well either as an active writer or as a booker and marker. However, there were some things that contributed to the decision that were SWF-centric. I am going to try to hit on those points here, mostly because I think they need to be said, and what the heck, I'll go out on that limb. Fun: There was always an aspect of fun for me in the SWF. People were not here just to write emotional angles, they were here to laugh a little also. I think this is something that has been shifted to the wayside in the last couple of years. The characters have become far more serious, and anything humorous done to them is viewed as an attempt to ruin or bury them. As I've said to King many times, there is no way the Midnight Carnival could exist in the SWF today and be anything like it was before, there would be too many people upset that we dumped a million stuffed pandas on them or blocked their access to the toilet with a manatee tank. Planned Angles: Now, I know what everyone is thinking, and yes, I ran my share of angles planned out far in advance. But the vast majority of angles I was involved in were written on the fly. The breakup with Anarchy was just done. My feud with Chris Storm just happened. I trusted the others in the Fed enough to let them respond to my last promo with one of their own. And people trusted me to write their characters at least mostly accurately. I think this "I wonder what will happen next" atmosphere that I loved is a thing of the past, and I am a little disappointed about that. Losing a match doesn't mean as much anymore. When I was active, it meant that, at least for that match, your opponent took control of the story. I could have written in a little thing at the end of my match where I nailed Thugg over the head with a chair, but unless I won (or by some miracle Thugg wrote the same thing) it didn't happen. The challenge then was to get the same point across in your next match, or write a promo that accomplished the same thing, or even adapted to what someone else wrote. It was a challenge, and that made it more fun for me. And I think it contributes to my next point... Apathy: It seems to me that only a very limited number of people active in the Fed actually care about what is happening in it, and to a lesser extent who wins the matches. Why bother? You and your opponent have agreed that a certain ending happens no matter what, so why do you need to read his match and see how it ends, or what happens? For that matter, why do you need to write at all if losing accomplishes the same thing winning does? I don't know... maybe this is partially bitterness at my epic opus of a Hell in a Cell match being mostly ignored, but it was something that bugged me way back when I was booking. I had way too many people tell me "I know my opponent is showing, and we talked about what is happening, so I'm no-showing because I am tired." Another symptom is a lack of comments. I think, at this point, people read their stuff and skip everyone else's because it has no bearing on them. Solutions: I'm not sure. The easiest thing to say is to lighten up and take it less seriously, but that is a cop-out at this point. I don't think there is a solution actually. The more I think about it, the more I think that the SWF may have just evolved past me, to the point where I wouldn't be competitive even if I had the time to compete. Hopefully, this evolution continues and takes the Fed great places. I fear though that it may be evolving to something that can't support itself anymore. However, I have faith in the current group of bookers and markers to keep things lively. I believe that the next generation, as I have taken to calling it, will find answers to the problems that those of us from the old IGN days can't see. I hope so, becuase I don't want to see this place die. I have too many good memories and have made too many friends here that I have become very attached to the idea of the SWF, and regardless of my "duty status" I still think of myself as part of the SWF Family. An old part, I grant you, but a part nonetheless. As for me... well, I can't just drop this place. I'll still be around, and I still would be happy to help with angle ideas and things like that. Kind of an "CC-emeritus" position, I guess. Feel free to chat me up if I am around, and I will keep an eye on all of you... Thank you again, and farewell....... - Chris Hicks, formerly "Grand Slam" Mark Stevens
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The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King EE
Kaertos replied to edotherocket's topic in Television & Film
Actually, I like it both ways, but I'll give you that the "dancing fool" version doesn't work visually. In the books, it makes it clear that it was fated for Gollum to be there, and that, had he been killed (at any of the numerous times hecould have been) all would have been lost. That he falls in by accident sort of drives home the "fate takes a hand" type of thing. -
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King EE
Kaertos replied to edotherocket's topic in Television & Film
The Witch King did not break Gandalf's staff in the books. In fact, the confrontation was far less adversarial in the novels. Gandalf is sitting there when the gates break and the Lord of the Nazgul rides in. Gandalf tells him to go away, he says no, rooster crows, Rohirrim charge... there you go. -
Breaking Kayfabe, December 14, 2004!
Kaertos replied to Ace309's topic in Smarks Wrestling Federation
The torch has been passed. And I am happy. Nice job Tom. The "On the Road" stories were always one of my favorite things to write, and i am glad to see them back. -
I do not, in fact, love Raymond. And I'm not sure why because the guys who play his dad and brother are friggin' awesome.
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A book by the guy who runs wrestlecrap talking about the death of WCW... Hmmm... He'll probably blame it on Triple H.
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Please change my name to Kaertos when you have a chance. Thank you.
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From the fieldturf.com website:
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My heart says grass, but knowing what my grass looks like in the late fall / early winter, I know why teams are going with FieldTurf. Nice stuff.
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I'm in interested in who voted for less than 90% of the time, and I wonder why he/she feels that way.
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Despite loving sports and reading the sports section front to back and watching Sportscenter as often as possible... - I don't like watching hockey on television - I think college football is a huge waste of time - I think if the NCAA had their way, their players would be treated like indentured servants. - I think basketball is boring, makes no sense and the level of play is the lowest it has been since the Bulls were good - and finally... even though I don't think of them as sports, I watch gymnastics and ice skating every olympics.
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Sounds like you are running DSL. Doesn't make any sense, and you usually need a special modem and a network card, but heck... don;t look a gift horse in the mouth.
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Ugh... Black Friday... Always seems like a good day to saty in and watch a movie to me, but somehow I always end up at Best Buy or at the mall. And it hurts me. I worked restaurant and retail for 6 years all total and I still gie thanks every Thanksgiving that I don't have to work the next morning.
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It really hurts me that people want to lump this sideshow extravaganza in with legitimate sports like baseball and football. However, by any definition of sport that I can come up with, it qualifies... For me: Sport = athletic endeavor where the competitors are judged against each other by some objective means of scoring. i.e. baseball is a sport, but figure skating is not. Football is a sport, but gymnastics is not. Actually, re-reading that... I guess it doesn't qualify after all. Cool.
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I actually just watched the Fellowship extended edition last week. And I have watched all of the special features at least once. I find the ones I like and I watch those of and on. Really, I buy them for the movie, but the special features are icing.
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Oh... about the super-geek edition with the extra 3 hours of footage or whatever... I remember reading an interview where PJ basically said that there won't be another DVD release of the LotR trilogy until the next format is out and useable. And since the trilogy will be re-released then anyways, he wants to add some extra stuff to make it worthwhile for the loyal fans out there who already have the movies.
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The gist of this conversation is that you can't use the coupon on pre-orders? Darn.
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... ummm... Are you honestly saying that they should be more worried about how much of a rack the actress has than if she is a capable actress?
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I am shitting you a little, unless the Powers That Be decide to keep it. It's a running gag. On the schedule a couple of years ago, it was Genesis IV: The Voyage Home (a gag that went a little too far when it was actually used against King's wishes), last year I had Genesis V: The Final Frontier. I guess next year will be Genesis VII: Generations.