Der Kommissar

Not a bad Olympic day thus far. So far, I have seen women's doubles table tennis, even though it was a squash for the Chinese. I also got to cross Indonesia + Thailand off my list of countries that I haven't seen, as I saw them in the badminton semis. I also managed to watch the Japanese women's soccer team lose again on an absolutely embarrassing play(FUCKING PASSIVE OFFSIDES!) It's just as well, since I doubt they would have beat the Germans anyway. At least, they are a competitive team on the rise now, better than the Chinese who seem to be on the fall in Women's soccer. I saw it, but wasn't paying too much attention, but the team without the formerly retired player won. NBC's announcers may have jinxed them though as they basically wrote off their next opponent(The Italians) as having no chance in hell against the Aussies. I am half expecting an upset, considering the Italians already pulled one against the Germans.

That's the problem with these kinds of things. I mean, no matter what they would inevitably list as "good" music, there is probably at least one person out there who could rip it apart as crap. Funny clips though.

I love NBC. They were pumping up the USA Women's volleyball team, talking about how great they're doing in a tough division, how successful they may be, etc., then switch to the US-Dominican Republic game. The Dominicans promptly shoto off 5 straight points, and go on to win the first match in their entire history. Way to make the team look like chumps, NBC!

Well, it looks like Shiro's career is basically over now. Too bad. I just hope he can crawl up to the majors long enough to get 2600. Any chance of Shiro going to the Hall of Fame?

I am thinking they'll finally pull the trigger on the Maven push that they have been teasing for years.

Rolling right along, last I heard. They just disposed of the Czech team, I believe, the other day.

Well, I just Lithuania(whose bandwagon I just jumped on) defeat Puerto Rico in basketball without too much trouble. That isn't looking too good for Puerto Rico's medal chances. I know they looked impressive beating up on a powderpuff in their first game, but they were clearly outclassed by the Lithuanians. I hope they can bounce back in their next game. Now, it's water polo as the US faces Kazakhstan(whose coach has an awesome Stalin 'stache going.) I am quite happy to see Kazakhstan here. Cool name, cool flag, and they break up the monotony of seeing the same powerhouse countries compete for everything. It's 3-2 Kazakhstan, at the moment.

I am presenting SHAKING A FUCKING FIST that I don't have Telemundo. Goddamit! I wanted to watch Mexico vs. China in Women's beach volleyball. I mean, beach volleyball, Mexicans, and hot, Communist Chinese women in bikinis, what more can you ask for? Damn you, DirectTV! Damn you to hell!

I am switching between table tennis and women's field hockey right now. This field hockey stuff is interesting. Argentina vs. Japan, tied 1-1. I hope Team Japan pulls it out. EDIT: I never knew they had perverted camerman at the Olympics, as they just showed an upskirt shot of the a Japanese player. Lovely.

I am also cheering against them. The US winning the gold is terribly predictable and quite boring. It was quite entertaining back in 2002 during the World Championships when the US ended up finishing 6th. At the very least there, they lost close games, and had a few understandable excuses(weren't sending their best talent, grown complacant, international competition has improved, etc.) I believe, afterwards, the US was beating their collective chest screaming "Just wait to the Olympics! We'll send a REAL team in there then!" I am still waiting for this real team. I am sorry, but the best players in the world should not been getting beat up by weaklings like Puerto Rico and Italy. I thought this team was supposed to be better than the team that lost to the eventual tournament winners by 3 whole points. I just hope by some miracle that they get bounced in the qualifying round, but I can't exactly see them not getting past "power houses" like Angola and Austria, but stanger things have happened.

Alright! This has to be the first time I've seen Shiro go up with one of these things. I usually dread them. Nice to see they went well,

Good point. If apathy set in to the point where no one was watching or going to the shows, then it would probably be "Lights out. Party's over." for the WWE. Sometimes, embarrassment is the way to get things done. It's like the Detroit Tigers. They sucked and people were apathetic towards them for years. Last year, they went out and field one of, if not, the worst team baseball history. This year, they went out and got some free agents in desperate hope that they can save some face with the fanbase by improving their team. Hopefully, after having a lot of their booking shit upon from start to finish by the crowd, WWE will take the message and try to do something about it.

I don't know about that. I am sure if the ratings fell shaply to near or below 2.0, or there was barely 500 people in the audience for a major show, then Vince would probably care. At least now, Vince can do the kind of shows he enjoys, I assume, and still make a profit of it. If that's the case, then I don't overly blame him. Of course, if this week's ratings, and the Summerslam were any indication of where the WWE is going, then I am guessing some change may soon be happening.

I am actually surprised this hasn't happened sooner. Considering how bad the WWE has been at various over the past few years, I half expected some crowd to totally turn on a show at some point. It's unfortunate it had to happen now because I think the WWE appears to at least being putting effort into making the show better. Unfortunately, they are paying the price for not really elevating anyone to superstar level over the past few years. Now, they have to scrape by with what they have, which is mostly rookies and midcarders for life. I can't fault the performers. Orton has improved over leaps and bounds since when I first saw him, and Bradshaw has definitely done more with his push that expected. Unfortunately, it's hard to look at the card and be terribly impressed with who's there. A rookie and Tag Team guy as the Champions walking out of Summer Slam? On the surface, that doesn't sound too exciting or make the WWE look as strong as did in past years. As for the crowd, I can't exactly blame them. It was rather disrespectful, but is sitting there in silence any more respectful? I remember the Nassau Coliseum used to be so quiet during Raw that it was absolutely embarrassing. If they aren't having fun, why should they be expected to not do anything. They paid good money to go to this particular event. The WWE should be happy that they are at least passionate about it. At least they care enough to voice their displeasure. I'd rather have a fanbase who cares, then one who sits silent or doesn't go to the shows. A better example would be Randy Orton and Benoit. What has Orton really did that was so evil anyway? Beating up old guys? Holding the ropes or the tights when he has a pinfall? That's certainly not as evil as some of the stuff Triple H has done over the years. Randy Orton wins most of his matches fairly clean by today's standards. Unfortunately, screwy finishes have become so cliched that it is hard to get up too much hate for a guy who does fairly minor cheating. Heck, most of the heels won anyway, why not cheer for a winner?

Okay... Contact - 6 Strike Zone - 7 Defense - 2 BTW, how are the Oklahoma Twisters looking this year? Do they have a hope in hell of making the playoffs?

Ah, I get it now. Well, then, I would like Shiro to work on trying to learn OF then, and replace power hitting with that or something.

I am not sure if Suzuki's old ass can improve any, but, after his atrocious seeing his atrocious .230 last year, and the fact that I am hoping he can somehow get to 3,000 hits, I figure it's worth a shot: Contact Hitting - 7 Power Hitting - 2 Strike Zone Judgment 7 Defense - 4

I actually watched part of Smackdown for the first time in awhile. I saw a Bradshaw promo which I thought was good, and I listened to Spike-London. It seems to have improved from where it was, but I just can't exactly care about it. Bradshaw has a decent character, but, at his age, I can't see him being much more than he is. I am fairly apathetic towards the Undertaker. Eddy-Angle...been there...seen that. Cena and the gang appear stuck in the usual upper midcard limbo. All in all, no real reason for me to care. I will credit them for using to find ways to use most of their roster. One thing I hate about Raw is that they have guys like Stevie Richards, Albert, Chuck, Val Venis, etc., off collecting dust. At least Smackdown is trying to find a way to get also-rans like Bradshaw, Spike Dudley, Billy Kidman, Paul London, and Orlando Jordan into the mix. That's certainly commendable.

Germany's a pretty dangerous team. I saw them a few years back against Japan. It was probably one of the best games I had ever seen. Basically, Japan was a fairly unheralded and scrappy team, who had a pulled a few upsets in their bracket to get to that point in the tournament. They took a 1-0 lead early in the match. Unfortuantely for the Japanese, the average Japanese player was like 5'1", the average German was like 5'7". The Germans decided to use their massive strength and size advantage to pound the hell out of the Japanese to try to gain that lead. It all came to a head late in the game when the Japanese players's bodies just couldn't take it anymore, and they begun being stretchered off the field. Of course, the Japanese had FIGHTING SPIRIT~! and held strong. They were lead on by this one girl who was stretchered off the field 3 times, yet still kept coming back for more! I was fearing for her safety after some of those hits. I was shocked that she just kept coming back. In the end, the Germans finally scored, with mere seconds left on the clock, then won shortly afterwards in overtime when the Japanese ran out of gas. Thinking about it, I hope to see that Japanese team in action again in these games. That was good fun.

These things seem fairly random. The only thing I remember about this was her running around in her sports and the idiotic controversy that ensued about that, yet 4 spots above that is Tyson being knocked out by Douglas, which, to me, is a pretty memorable upset. It surely should be more than 2 spots above the Tyson ear biting incident, in my opinion.

Stanley Cup odds: Detroit Red Wings 7-1 Colorado Avalanche 8-1 Ottawa Senators 8-1 New Jersey Devils 10-1 Tampa Bay Lightning 10-1 Toronto Maple Leafs 10-1 Philadelphia Flyers 10-1 Vancouver Canucks 12-1 Dallas Stars 12-1 Boston Bruins 12-1 San Jose Sharks 12-1 St Louis Blues 20-1 Calgary Flames 25-1 Los Angeles Kings 35-1 Minnesota Wild 35-1 Montreal Canadiens 35-1 Atlanta Thrashers 40-1 Anaheim Mighty Ducks 50-1 Columbus Blue Jackets 50-1 Edmonton Oilers 50-1 Nashville Predators 50-1 New York Islanders 50-1 Buffalo Sabres 60-1 Florida Panthers 60-1 New York Rangers 60-1 Carolina Hurricanes 100-1 Chicago Blackhawks 100-1 Phoenix Coyotes 100-1 Washington Capitals 100-1 Pittsburgh Penguins 300-1 You Boston fans should perk up. Despite all your losses, you are still somehow are 12 to 1 favourites to win the Cup.

That reminds me of something that happened during the latter days of WCW. Goldberg had beat up and injured Hulk Hogan the week before, so Horace Hogan came out and cut a serious and emotional promo challenging Goldberg to a match... Crowd: *Silence* Goldberg, the heel, comes out... The crowd pops!

When the Big Show went NWO in the WWF, I could not stop laughing. With the NWO posing in the ring, and JR being all, "DAMN HIM! DAMN HIM TO HELL! STRAIGHT TO HELL!" It seemed cliched with JR yelling his usual catchphrases at the evil bad guys, when really it was like, "Who gives a fuck?" It seemed more of a parody of a successful WWE angle than an actual serious, show changing moment.

I agree. When was the last time the World title changed hands on Raw? Heck, when was the last time a title that any credibility whatsoever changed hands on Raw? It is pretty hard to get excited when they are all, "OMG! WORLD TITLE MATCH!" when the title is not changing hands anyway. Also, wrestling is sometimes called a male soap opera. I know from watching soap operas that they usually will end their Friday show one some sort of massive cliffhanger to make the viewers stew over it for a week to wonder what will happen next week. Most weeks, it seems like whatever happens on Raw is fairly self-contained within that Raw. It's nothing more than "So and so pinned the World Champion in a tag match! Can he beat him on the PPV?" or "My god! There will be in a Hell in a Cell match three weeks from now on PPV! Tune in next week to see how they feel about this shocking development!" It seems like the WWE had a lot of cliffhangers at the end of shows during the boom, whether it was something like "Triple H has secretly married Stephanie McMahon!" or the Bang 3:16 angle. I could legitimately see people talking about that the next day, and wonder where that will go durign the next Raw. The week's Raw was before a PPV, and it ended with Eugene saving Benoit from a ho hum beatdown by Evolution. Wow! Compelling stuff that makes me want to go out and order the PPV to see what happens next! Agreed. Heck, I remember during the Smackdown 6 days, people were starting to bitch because it was the same thing with the same guys every week, and it was getting boring. I could only imagine the same thing happening should the WWE start focusing the whole show on good matches.

I have always wanted to see a real sequel done to the first Legend of Legaia game. I loved the game, but I always felt something was missing from the ending that a sequel could have fixed. I really hated the game they came out with as Legaia 2. I also have always wanted to see a sports game where the object is to take a player and try to make him into a star. To me, it would make for a fun game to take some player and try to go through the rigors of making a team or going through the minors to make it to the big leagues. It would also be fun to deal with other fun stuff like when my player gets old and his skills decline, free agency, etc. I actually liked three, but I was HIGHLY disappointed by it. It seemed like at the end of 2, I was curious as to what would happen next, but they seemed to go in a totally other direction. Too bad.