Matt Young

I really like the game. I started playing games in 1986, but I never owned any Zelda games until Ocarina of Time, which happens to be my all time favorite game. I strongly disliked Majora's Mask, for the record. Anyway, when I reacquired an NES a little over a year ago, Zelda was one of the games I received, but it was not in working condition even after a thourough cleaning. Thus, I was unable to experience its greatness. Finally, on November 28th, 2003, I purchased a GameCube with the Zelda bonus disc. A few days later, once I was able to tear myself away from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, I played the original game on that disc. It's very easy, and I made it through the first 4 dungeons in a matter of hours. It is, however, incredibly fun. Due to a combination of circvumstances- along with this weird thing that has happened to me over the past few years where, even when I absolutely love a game, I'll sometimes stop playing it for weeks at a time for no reason, with no urge at all to pop it into my console (which is happening with the amazing Viewtiful Joe now)- I haven't played it since. It also doesn't help that I've gotten 20 new games since then. But back to the point, Zelda rules. It's not as good as OoT, and I can't compare it to Zelda 2 or the Game Boy and SNES versions, because I have barely played either. But Zelda is still a very good game that withstands the test of time.

AC/DC- 2 Accept- 0 Aerosmith- 3 Alice Cooper- 1 Anthrax- 1 Black Sabbath- 3 Blue Öyster Cult- 1 Deep Purple- 0 Def Leppard- 0 Dio- 0 Dream Theater- 0 Guns N' Roses- 2 Helloween- 0 Iced Earth- 0 Iron Maiden- 1 Jimi Hendrix Experience- 2 Judas Priest- 0 Kiss- 3 Led Zeppelin- 5 Manowar- 0 Megadeth- 2 Mercyful Fate- 1 Metal Church- 0 Metallica- 11 Mötley Crüe- 1 Motörhead- 1 Ozzy Osbourne- 4 Pantera- 2 Queen- 2 Queensryche- 0 Quiet Riot- 0 Rainbow- 0 Ratt- 0 Riot- 0 Rush- 0 Savatage- 1 Saxon- 0 Scorpions- 1 Sepultura- 0 Skid Row- 1 Slayer- 1 Testament- 0 Thin Lizzy- 0 Twisted Sister- 1 UFO- 0 Uriah Heep- 0 Van Halen- 2 Venom- 0 W.A.S.P.- 0 Whitesnake- 0

You already have power and respect here. Nonetheless, it sucks that you'll be offline for a while. I know from recent experience that no internet access when you're used to being on every day can be horrible. It's like an addiction... like you can't remember what you did before you had net access. Anyway, I'm happy for you. Moving away from a place you've lived your entire life can be scary (I just did it), but it's also very exciting. I don't have to pay rent or many bills yet, so I can't say I know how that is, but I hope to move out on my own soon. I'm sure things will be rough at first, but the independence will be well worth the struggle. Good luck, Dames. I believe I can speak for most of the people here when I say that I hope the move goes well and I hope that you are back with us very soon.

Heh... Back in Illinois, one member of my usual group of friends whom I partied with on weekends was a hot little Viatnamese number (I just always wanted to use that term) named Tao Lee. Yes- her name was Tao Lee, and it was pronounced "Towelie". Every time we all got drunk or high, it'd be like we had never realized that before, and endless hilarity and Towelie impressions would ensue. I've never found a poker chip, though. Oh, and I'm not drinking right now, but you're all tempting me. I still have vodka left over from last night.

Good for you, JAxl. I'm still staying home, mostly because- as I stated previously- I don't know many people here in Southern California. I have already started hitting the ol' vodka and I'm watching the Disney Channel's "I Love Lizzy (McGuire)" marathon (so I love Hilary Duff, fuck it). I hope you guys have a better night than I will. As of right now, there's a pizza on the way and a lot more vodka to drink, so I shall be on my way. I bid you good day.

You beat me to it. I HATE this type of year. It's not even the corporate holiday thing so much as the fact that it pushes the idea that you need to have a girlfriend/boyfriend or you're a loser. It's pretty much impossible to go out on your own or with a group of friends of the same sex on Valentine's Day without feeling miserable and inadequate. However, my reasons for hating this time of year go deeper than that. Much deeper. My former best friend/ex-girlfriend, Mandy (Us from her prom last May- http://home.insightbb.com/~ckimball/upload...ttandmandy.jpg), initially rejected me when I first asked her out on February 13th last year since she had only been separated from her ex of 3 years for 3 days. I know I rushed things, but I didn't want to miss my chance. I spent Valentine's Day alone, as it fell on a day that coincided with one of her bi-weekly trips to visit her father. On a happier note, she changed her mind and asked me out on February 19th, but alas, after all the pain I've gone through since then, Valentine's Day being in the same week as what would have been... what SHOULD be our 1 year anniversary makes me wish I were dead. So, now I'm in California and she's God-knows-how-many thousand miles away back in Illinois. Also, the girl I was with before I moved, Kate, (whom I met the same day as Mandy, strangely enough... they used to be best friends) is back there, too. I have met a few people here in Cali at the UC-Riverside where LJSexay attends school, but I don't know too many people really and I have no date for tonight. I'm sure I could get one if I really wanted to, but I'd rather stay home. I wouldn't want to be with anyone other than Mandy or maybe Kate. luckily, for the first time since arriving here, I have procured some vodka. Thus, I declare this day.... ST. VODKA-TINE'S DAY Drink to your fill, so yourself you do not kill. Fuck Valentine's Day.

Man, this is cool. isn't he like 30 now, though? Oh well. I was a huge mark for Power Rangers back in the first couple seasons, and i've been interested in them again via my recent nostalgia kick. ABC Family just showed the Green Ranger and White Ranger intro episodes the other day, which I taped. I maye check out this new series.

How much does this cost? I was wondering because you say money's an issue... But if it's not too expensive, you might as well try it and see if you like it. Personally, it sounds ridiculously fun to me. When the weather's warm, I love playing full contact, no pads pickup games with my friends. I'm surprisingly hard to tackle for a smaller guy, too, heh. But back to the point, this sounds like something that would be kind of like a pickup game type league, but a step up. I'd like to hear more. Can you give details, such as how the league is organized, where you'll be playing, etc.? Hell, I wonder if they have anything like this around here in SoCal... I'd love to participate in a league like this. EDIT: Is this the same league you're referring to? http://www.eteamz.com/albertafootballleague/

From my January 3, 2004 topic on this- http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?...l=courtney+love This may not be worth starting a topic about, but I found it amusing. I'm currently listening to "Mono", the new single from everyone's favorite obnoxious, loudmouthed, drugged-out, fuck- Randy-Orton-she's-the-real-legend-killer... blah blah etc.- Courtney Love. I've noticed over the last couple years that Brodie Armstrong, the gorgeous Australian-born lead singer of The Distillers, sounds like Love when she sings and was obviously influenced somewhat by Hole (a band which, I'll admit, had a few really good songs). Still, The Distillers are a much better band than Hole ever was, so that's not a knock. Now, on this latest release, we have Courtney Love sounding like she's trying to imitate the Distillers, and in the end it comes out as a horrible, third rate knockoff that shows me that if this single is any indication, Courtney Love's musical quality has taken a complete 180 in the last 10 years since Hole first broke through into the mainstream. That's not what the topic was about per se, but still... it's funny. Karma + heroin + failing movie career= this shit.

Unfortunately, we never got any of those shows in central Illinois until they finally started showing Jakked on WB23 after the brand extension. I bet I missed a few good matches somewhere along the line, too, and that pisses me off. On a somewhat related note, did anyone in the southwest ever get WWF SuperAstros? It was a Spanish language syndicated program featuring luchadores like Essa Rios/Mr. Aguila and I believe random guys from AAA.

1.Best Smackdown series? Here Comes The Pain! 2.Worst Smackdown series? Just Bring It 3.Best wrestling game on N64? WWF No Mercy. VPW2 has better gameplay, but NM has the best overall package. 4.Best wrestling game on Dreamcast? Fire Pro Wrestling D, hands down. 5.Best wrestling game on PS? WWF Smackdown 2 6.Best C.A.W. in a wrestling game? Hmm... Fire Pro D 7.Worst C.A.W. in a wrestling game? WCW Mayhem, N64 8.Best wrestling game cover? WWF Royal Rumble, Genesis 9.Worst wrestling game cover? WCW Mayhem, N64 10.Best wrestling game intro? WCW/nWo Revenge, definitely. 11.Worst wrestling game intro? Can't think of a bad one at the moment. 12.Best season/career mode? Smackdown: HCTP 13.Worst season/career mode? WWE WrestleMania X-8 14.Best wrestling game on Gamecube? WrestleMania XIX... but I haven't played LoW, Def Jam, or Ultimate Muscle yet. 15.Worst wrestling game on Gamecube? Wrestlemania X-8 16.Best wrestling game on X-Box? Haven't played any. 17.Worst wrestling game on X-Box? See last answer. 18.Best name? 19.Worst name? Pro Wrestling, NES 20.Best game play? Fire pro Wrestling D, Dreamcast 21.Worst game play? WWF SuperStars, Game Boy 22.Best graphics? WWE Smackdown: HCTP 23.Worst graphics? any of the Game Boy WWF Superstars games. 24.Best characters? Fire pro Wrestling D- It has everyone. 25.Worst characters? WCW Thunder, PS1

Fuck the Grammys. Some of the performances look to be pretty interesting, but the awards and the show as a whole are a complete sham. I'll continue watching the NFL Pro Bowl. You can't go wrong with football.

This was/is opening weekend, right? It's the first time I've seen the AFL on this year anyway, and I figured they wouldn't start until after the NFL season ended (tonight's Pro Bowl notwithstanding). It's cool that they're on a major network now. I remember them showing games in (I believe) TNN in years past, and it was nice to have football after the Super Bowl. Hell, I was even an XFL fan. I just find it hard to live without football. I watched most of the Avengers/Rattlers game today, and that was pretty good. I'd love to go see the LA Avengers play live one of these days.

I've only seen about 4-5 episodes that were shown to me by friends who were die-hard fans of the series, and I thought the show was horrible. I usually enjoy sophomoric humor AND bad movies, but the episodes I saw sucked hard. Maybe I just was unfortunate and saw only the worst of the bunch.

I heard all kinds of things about how the economy was so much better in Southern California than in Illinois and how easy it would be to find a job. Well, I found out it's just as hard to find a job out here, and on top of that, I'll need to make approximately 437% more out here in order to be able to move out on my own. Fuck. I love the area, but due to those factors and the fact that I hate living with my stepdad since he's abusive and we don't get along means I may be going back to Illinois. It'll suck in a lot of ways, but if I can afford an apartment and have enough room and money to be able to work on my art and music, buy the occasional video game, and most importantly, have my friends over to get drunk and high every weekend, I can't really complain. There's an IRS job I'm checking out that offers approximately $12 an hour, so if that works out, back I go. At any rate, good luck, Flik.

I am home because the 2 friends I have made since moving to Cali are both busy. See, I live in an area where I am close enough to LA, Anaheim, and Long Beach to drive there within an hour, but far enough away that nothing's going on here. Add to that the fact that I have no car, and the fact that no one comes out of their houses (since 55 degrees is apparently cold here... pussies) and I haven't met many people, nor do I have shit to do. Luckily, the Beavis and BUTT-Head mini marathon kept me entertained for a while, and I found some Vicodin, so I'm better than I have been lately. I need to go party with Plushy Al Logan, lol.

They have shown 2 of the best music video segments ever, though- Shaggy's "Bombastic" and The Beastie Boys' "Sabotage". Now if only they'd show that one with the guy in the box where Beavis keeps repeating, "Bum bum bum, ba-bum bum bump, ba-da-la-da-ba-da bum bum bump, HIGHER, HIGHER!" Also that one "Ultra twist" song, where BUTT-head blurts out a hilarious, "Jam it in and screw it out, do the ultra twi-ost!" is high on my list of clips I'd like to see.

EDIT: Double post, scroll on down.

I saw the commercials for this last night and marked out. I grew up on this show. It influenced my friends and I to the point where our parents tried to ban us from watching it. Unfortunately, I lost my tapes of the show long ago... I'm planning on getting the DVDs, but as was stated previously, they lack the music videos. Luckily, I have a tape in my VCR right now. The shows' still funny as hell, but not as good as I remembered it. I guess that's simply because shows like Clerks and Family Guy have surpassed it in the last decade, but B & B still holds a very special place in my heart.

Hmm... when I checked my DirecTV schedule after moving to SoCal, I saw MLW and TNA Xplosion and got excited, but I found out both were on Sunshine, which I do not have access to. There's some nifty looking lucha show on a local LA channel at the same time as Heat (making 3 lucha shows each weekend!) but nothing else. However, I'm guessing I get Fox Sports Pacific... so if things go my way, I'll have my first taste of MLW tonight!

I think I made a horrible mistake. You see, after watching X2 at Christmas time, I became interested in comics again. I collected comics up until about 9-10 years ago (94-95) and had a decent collection. I just didn't know if I still had that collection or where it was located if I did. About 2 weeks ago, before I moved out to Cali, I was at K-Mart in Springfield, Illinois. I was checking out the magazines, and I saw something unusual. Despite not selling comics for years, they had a boxed set of the white embossed Superman wedding issue along with 2-3 other comics that were presumably a part of the same story arc. It cost $10. having only a 10 spot in my possession and seeing as how I wanted to purchase the Michelle Branch issue of Maxim, I passed it up. Actually, I honestly was pretty sure I owned the wedding issue already, and I also didn't want to waste $10 when I didn't even know if I'd still enjoy comics in the first place. This past Saturday night, I finally found a box of my old comics. It wasn't my entire collection, but I was still overjoyed to find somewhere between 100-200 books, which were about 99% X-books with some Batman and other random stuff sprinkled in there. However, there was no Superman. After looking through some of those books, I realize that I still love comics and want to get back into them for sure. However, I missed my chance at that very special issue/boxed set of Superman. I'm hoping that the book(s) isn't/aren't too rare or valuable, because I'd really like to own the wedding issue at least, but my heart's telling me I likely passed up an unbeatable deal. I'm praying that someone tells me that I'm wrong in that assumption.

Good. She was the hottest woman in wrestling history in her day, but now shes' nothing more than an overweight, cynical, cracked out bitch. She has nothing to offer to the business at this time as far as I can see, her opinions on today's product that I have had the misfortune of reading are laughable at best (although everyone's entitled to their own opinion, I reckon), and at least when I encountered her personally at a Thunder taping in 2000, she was incredibly rude to myself and the other fans who were present on that night. On the plus side, maybe she can gain some stability in her life. Seeing as how she won't have to constantly put up with the stress of touring the indy circuit, she may not feel the need to turn to hard drugs. Don't get me wrong- I smoke pot, although not so often these days, and I also feel that people should be free to do to their own bodies what they choose, but speaking only from stories I have heard (which may or may not be valid), she is said to have had many problems with drugs, so maybe this will be better for her. I honestly wish her the best.

Shit.. my 2 favorite active wrestlers (Storm and Hardy) were in good matches, and I missed the Storm match since I totally forgot Heat was on. Usually I watch it eevry week, but since I moved to California, it comes on at 4 rather than 6 and I haven't adjusted to the tiem change. I also missed most of the Hardy/Booker match since the first scores were being made in the Super Bowl during that match. I did, however, see all of Jade/Cindrak vs. Hurricane/Rosey, though. I mean, I like both teams, but why did the one match I got to see in full have to be that one? Grr....

I'm resuming wrestling training with New Midwest tonight, and I plan on keeping a weekly diary where I'll weigh myself once a week to track my physical progress (I hope to put together a decent workout schedule) as well as what I learn each night. I'll have pics soon to show what I look like now, and I'll have new ones taken periodically for comparison. Would anyone be interested in reading this? I'll be keeping a pesonal account of all this for myself, but I thought maybe you guys might enjoy reading about it as well.

Well, seeing as how I just picked up a couple games and plan on buying many more in the next week or 2, and since most of you will at least make a few purchases during this time of holiday spending, I figured we could share with each other our recent purchases. I know this thread's been done before, but it's long gone so I might as well start a new one. I had $15 credit at GameCrazy, and I went there intending to purchase Final Fantasy VII since it goes for $15 new now. My friends always say how amazing it is, so why not try it? I ended up changing my mind, though. GameCrazy has a sale on all used games (anything predating the current Xbox/GC/PS2/GBA era) where you buy 2 and get 1 free. They had so many excellent games that I wanted, but I chose to let those wait until after I get my Christmas money next week. I chose to buy Resident Evil for the GameCube with my credit since I only have 1 Cube game so far (2 if you count the Zelda disc) and I needed a good 1 player game. I own RE2, 3, and Code:Veronica, so I'm sure I'll love this much lauded remake of the original. It was a tough call between this and RE Zero, but I can still pick up the latter for $15 some other time. I also picked up NFL2K1 for Dreamcast for only $2.99. I owned the first game in the series, but most of my DC games were stolen a while back, and for 3 bucks you can't go wrong. I strongly urge you guys to go to your local Game Crazy if possible. The stores are located in every Hollywood Video, at least in my area, and the buy 1 get 1 free deal goes through the end of the year. After Christmas, I plan on blowing around $100 on what should add up to roughly 20-30 NES, SNES, Genesis, and Dreamcast games. That's a fucking awesome deal. Anyway, what have you guys bought lately?