Rendclaw

And never mind that Kobe can hit any shot within 30 feet of the basket, and he's not afraid to take said shot.... He single-handedly brought his team back in that scrimmage. As long as he doesn't try and win games all by himself, he'll be fine. I hear you Slim.. it was a little bit amusing to me to see Amare bouncing off of Dwight in the post. They have a bit better mix of players... they have better defenders in Battier and Tayshaun Prince, spot shooters like Michael Redd who can also take it to the basket if necessary.. Point guards that can shoot like a Chauncey Billups, who is strong enough to take his man down low and work him.. And I think that the surprise player will be Kevin Durant. There doesn;t seem to be much that he cannot do on the floor, like a younger Kevin Garnett. There were a couple of plays where he went up against Tayshaun, who is one of the better defenders in the league, and he made him look a bit silly. They will do better as long as they are willing to work and get their hands dirty and check their egos at the door.

I saw their White Team/Blue Team scrimmage, and it certainly looked to me like they want to win, because they were beating the hell out of each other. If I remember the score, it was 109-108 or something like that, with Kobe hitting the game winning three and LeBron missing the buzzer beater. The Thomas and Mack Center (albeit it was about 60-70% Kobe fans) was jumping towards the end of the game. There was a decent balance of one on one play and good passing, led of course by Jason Kidd. He didn;t even take a shot until close to the end of the game. Michael Redd will feast on this short three point line. He's about the streakiest shooter I have since since John Starks back in the day, in that if he knocks down one three, he could easily knock down the next six in a row. He certainly isn;t shy about taking them. It was interesting for me to see Dwight Howard and Amare Stoudamire go at each other, and just how big Howard has gotten. I said it here years ago, this kid is going to be a monster once he learns to make his free throws and develops a better game around the basket than dunking everything he catches. Throw in a nice little 12-15 foot jumper and he's going to be unstoppable. Amare is what, 6-10, 230? He looked like Kate Moss next to Howard. Once this team gets finalized and used to each other, they should fare much better. They have the right mix of players this time (and getting Kobe is prolly going to be the one factor that seals the deal, because LeBron's long-range game isn't where it needs to be), and the only things that limit this team are chemistry, desire, and health. If they gel decently, stay healthy and stay motivated for the Beijing games, look the hell out world because we are taking our title (and gold medals) back. BTW, what the fuck is up with Hinrich???

Wrestlescale - Results You are a moderate wrestling traditionalist. You reject the idea of sports-entertainment but you believe that charisma still has a part to play in character development. However you also know that wrestling ability must always take priority. Most similar booker: Jim Cornette Most similar promotion: ROH 2007 It makes sense, because I always preferred guys who can put on a good match over guys who can talk, though I acknowledged that the ability to talk is important.

Abso-fucking-lutely. I remember watching that match and getting hyped up.... Its a shame what has happened to wrestling and just as importantly the wrestling FAN in those 15 years.

Thanks for the classic ECW stuff, Cheesala... I have been jonesing for some of this stuff since breaking out my old ECW tapes from 1997 .

Thanks to the generosity of someone dear to me in Hawaii, I will be getting NOAH DVDs on a semi regular basis. I watched the first one (First Navigation 2007, January 21st, Budokan) and as far as the wrestling goes, I love it, but DAMN are those announcers fucking annoying!! I would much rather have heard the original commentators and understood maybe one word in thirty than a couple of guys who cannot keep up with the action or know the moves.... I am looking foward to the main event, Morishima/Misawa. Does anyone have any good suggestions about good NOAH cards?

I have that match and its a lot of fun to watch. Also, anything with Marufuji in it is worthy of my time. That and anything with Morishima dropping people on their heads is a good thing.

They might be, but that doesn't change the fact that I couldn't care less about the Adam Pearces and Pelle Primeaus of the world. Why not have Morishima wrestle someone who actually had a shot in hell at winning the belts? Why not have any big blowoffs to any of their ongoing angles? Why not have any fuckin' swerves or surprises (besides Austin Aries, who means absolutely zero to casual wrestling fans)? They didn't do anything special. It was booked like Just Another Show instead of the spectacular blowaway supershow that a company's first outing on PayPerView needs to be. Um...this is their 2nd PPV taping. The first one was in NYC. Dames Oh my God!! He's Alive!!

I just hope that Corey makes the right decision when it comes to people to train him. He has so much raw potential its scary.

12 years + old is pretty old school to me. You're talking, like, ancient. It's a little hard to get behind choices that have been on a bunch of compilations discs over and over again. But like you said, you don't care really about making money. As Matt Young once said, I'm as old as fuck. And honestly unless you are dishing out 5 grand per machine to stay on top of the latest and most popular machines, you are trying to break even at the most... Running an arcade is not a good way to make money. You do it because you love games, unless you have a prime location like my Pinball Pete's, which is right smack dab in the midst of downtown A2 and the UM campus. Then you might make some money. I would love to open one up, but it wouldn;t be in business for very long. Two years, maybe.

Yeah I agree... I tried gametap just for the hell of it once, and the lag was very frustrating for playing the classic fighting games.

Fucking kids. Old school is at the very least an Asteroids machine, if not Space Invaders or if you want to go balls out, Tank or Boot fucking Hill. I have always desired to own an arcade, even though I know it wouldn't make any money at all.... I would have a central area with the latest machines and a nice little snack bar (an idea taken from an arcade I used to go to in Orlando before I moved) and have four "wings" with different machines in each wing: pinball machines, ranging from some of the machines I grew up with (and it would HAVE to have a Space Invaders pinball machine) all the way to the latest ones, fighting games, the old school section, and maybe some decent pool tables in the fourth wing or something like that. It would also have signs all over saying things like "Don't blame the machine if you suck!" and things of that nature because more often than not as you know, that one guy who is trying to beat up the machine is the guy who is bad at the game and swears the machine has some kind of vendetta against him or something like that... Yeah I know, I have given this idea way too much thought. But I can dream.

Forget the Clash of the Champions match, watch THIS. Liger is Hardcore!!!

Dude, I used to go to Milford Rec when it was the SHIT back in the mid 80s. I loved that place so much that I would take trains and buses on saturdays to get there from Bridgeport. I would go and hang out with friends there. Back when it had two levels of video games... they had games in a perimeter around the pool tables, a connecting room with more games, and a third room with MORE fucking games.... I think they had over 100 machines at one point..... I went there in 2005 when I went back to move my stuff back to Michigan... it still was okay, but it lost a lot of its luster

A lot of little kids do, and those who want to get something tangible for their efforts. I went to Pinball Pete's in downtown A2 on sunday and I spent a total of 50 cents. On Raiden II and Donkey Kong. Yes, Donkey Kong. There is a Gameworks up by the Palace of Auburn Hills, but I was disappointed by their selection of games. Dave and Buster's used to be something good back in the day, but its Chuck E. Cheese for adults now. Nothing more, nothing less. Another thing that has killed arcades are the DDR games and all of their ilk. Yeah, I said it. And of course, the ever increasing abilities of the consoles, but thats the obvious answer. I think the best arcade in my immediate area is a little putt-putt course right down the street.. It has a multi-machine or whatever they are called, I forget. I was having fun playing SF II and SF II CE, though I couldn;t play Defender on it. I know, I am an old stick in the mud who can;t get out of the 80s and the early 90s. Sue me. A good arcade will have about 25-30 machines and a good balance of old and new. Every time I walk into an arcade, its geared way too much to the newest machines, and I know its what makes them money. As I have said before, my best times arcade wise are when I was an 11 year old kid going to the mall, and when I moved to Orlando when the Fun Machine arcades were around.

In the words of a completely nonplussed Joey Styles; Oh. My. God.

I dunno, I guess it was the way they did the preview of Thursday's episode made me think that.

I smell some kind of swerve.. Nate talking about how great a unit his team is, and now he is going to go to BJ's team? Either a swerve or this was forced somehow behind the scenes. And I agree that the fight has much better than Emerson/Nate. That was a good fight, but this one was better. Gray looked as if Melendez somehow survived that triangle, he was done.

I drive for a living. From A2 to Madison Heights to Flint and back again, five nights a week. I drive a 22 foot box truck and before then, a 16-footer. I drive as fast as I dare to on the highways. I can honestly say that the Detroit metro area would come to a screeching halt if the speed limits around here (which by the way got the speed limits for trucks recently *raised* from 55 to 60) got dropped back down to 55. Our current situation is a combination of greed from the oil companies, OPEC and the oil sheiks, the auto manufacturers, and of course our good old Uncle Sam. We should have been driving alternative fuel vehicles by now, this is 2007. After the first oil crisis, the writing was on the wall. No one who truly mattered listened. And now, thanks to our fearless leaders in office who decided to go to war on false pretenses. And its going to take a lot of things to fall the right way to get this nation, and subsequently the world, out of the mess we are in.

I dunno, I think that there is something wrong with someone under the age of consent playing someone like Morrigan. That being said, its not too badly done.

What an episode... showing the best and the worst that MMA has to offer in one shot. Who thinks that Dana is going to give Lauzon and Cole a dark match on a PPV down the road? Not the best ways that a guy can win a fight, unintentional as it was.

Aside from the fact that he put on about 15-20 lbs minimum...

Tim is top five, perhaps even top three, but he is not the best of all time. Not quite yet. A few more ytears of putting up great numbers and perhaps another ring, and I might agree. And I love him as a player. As I predicted, the Pistons ground out a three point win, though I was worried when Marshall had that wide-open look. Nice interview with Sheed, too... He has a future in broadcasting, I think.

Well then you'll probably live longer to compensate, if you believe in that sort of karmic stuff. That, and the fact that I rarely drink and don't do drugs.. my health is okay, so I just need to get a little more exercise and I'll be fine... problem is that the only kind of exercise I like to do is play basketball, and I get discouraged when I don;t do well.

Rip, wait till you hit 34-36 and feel everything REALLY go away. Never-the-fuck-mind when you pass by the sign that says "Big Four-Oh City Limits". And by the way, take it from someone on his way down the hill: Don't ever fucking compromise your life unless its your stupidity that got you into trouble in the first place. If you don't want to get married, don't. If you don't want kids, don;t have them. If you want your life a certain way that works for you, don't stop until you get it. Life has a way of beating you down, distracting you, and downright fucking you up in ways that take you away from what you need, or even what you think you need. Your needs may change, they may not. Open mind and open heart people (even though I think that mini-rant went over most of your heads. Fuck it). I can say that at 38 years of age, aside from the fact that I am getting older, I am happy about the way my life is. Everything that I wanted (at least within reason), I have. A good job, a decent car, people in my life that are good to me and good for me... my only wish is that all of this happened ten years ago. But then again I was just getting comfortable in my own skin at 28, so who is to say I might not have blown it? God knows at 25 I would have. At 23 I would have flamed out in spectacular fashion, so perhaps this is coming along at the right time for me. I always was a late bloomer.