Jingus

I dunno, this had its share of problems. The TV-sized budget obviously wasn't helping, it seems like they blew their entire wad on the first five minutes. Was not impressed by the It Was Just A Dream Sequence (ARRGH) or the "wizard did it" contrived way they got the story to take place in 2007 yet still feature a teenage John and a young Sarah. Plus, the annoying "Part 3? WHAT part 3?!" retconning seems like an exercise in pure fanboy pettiness. In fact, a really young Sarah. Like, suspiciously young. Lena Headey looks like she's barely hit 30, and not nearly old enough to have a kid who looks as old as John does here. Plus, there's no way around it, in this pilot I simply didn't buy her as Sarah Connor. It doesn't help that Linda Hamilton set such a high standard in the second movie, but I simply didn't believe that this woman was anything but a soccer mom who'd strayed from her suburb. Maybe she'll get better as the series progresses, I hope so, but as it stands it seems like a horrible case of miscasting. Not to be all pessimistic, because if nothing else, there's always the Rivernator (rawr!). But even as a big fan of the movies, I probably am not going to bother skipping Raw to watch this.

So it's time for the yearly "how do u shave" thread, eh? At least it's better than the yearly "how do u shave ur pubes" one. I just use a plain ol' Mach 3, with ordinary white shaving cream, sensitive skin kind, since I'm fairly vulnerable to razor burn on my neck. Let me say here and now, fuck those assholes who figured out they could charge people ten frigging bucks for four replacement razors, because it jacks the price way up beyond other brands. I've tried several different electric razors before, and it seemed like they always yanked on the hairs and never gave anything resembling a clean cut. Something like a straight razor is out of the question, I'm just not that careful. Also, a couple of inconveniently placed moles make it a ginger enough experience just shaving with a disposable safety. My facial hair for whatever reason grows pretty slow and somewhat thin, so that I only have to shave every other day. It literally takes a day and a half for stubble to show. The bad part is, even at 28 years old I still can't grow a decent beard or mustache. I look like a middle schooler who goes without shaving for weeks to and fake the illusion of having real facial hair. I understand I'm somewhat blessed in having to shave only half as much for the same results, but it's still just annoying not to be able to grow a beard if I wanted.

I don't think it's fair to say It's Pat is the worst SNL movie ever. At least the character of Pat him/her/itself is funny for about, oh, sixty seconds or so. Which is sixty seconds longer than the annoying bitch from Superstar was funny. Christ that movie sucked. Even Will Ferrell playing Jesus didn't get a single laugh out of me. Also, you could fill a Blockbuster with nothing but the awful failed comedies made by the combined efforts of Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy, and all the other old cast members. As for Zohan, well, I don't think I've ever seen an Adam Sandler movie I really liked, so I'm skipping this one. But considering that it's co-starring ROB SCHNEIDER AND MARIAH CAREY, this looks like it will be a stinker of epic proportions.

At least this time they've got a real director. Not a GREAT one, Renny Harlin did Cutthroat Island, but at least he's got some good credits to his name. For all the previous WWE films, they've hired some absolute nobody to do it, and hey what a shock they all sucked. So it might not be AS bad as The Marine. Thus, once and for all disproving any theories about a kind and loving God.

Sadly, it's been proven time and again that Japanese wrestlers CAN get over in America. Look at the Jumping Bomb Angels, for example. Here was a pair of tiny Asian women, whom the crowd couldn't tell apart, who worked a very un-ladylike workrate style, and were mega-over as babyfaces... in 1980's WWF! There wasn't a promotion on the planet which would've been a less likely place for these girls to succeed, but somehow they did it. If it happened then, in the most cartoonish fed in history, it could certainly work now in a somewhat more wrestling-oriented company like TNA. (Of course, the problem you run into is Russo making them dress in sailor schoolgirl outfits and have them throw wasabi in their opponents' eyes, but hey, Russo'll fuck up anything.) It's happened since then, too. Guys like Great Muta, Jushin Liger and Ultimo Dragon got over just fine in WCW. And then there's Tajiri, whose success should've forever put to rest that tired old bullshit excuse about how if you can't speak English you can't connect with the people. Bullshit! Tajiri was able to get his personality out there, regardless of language. One problem is that sometimes American promoters often don't realize which Japanese workers are really the talented ones. That's how you get loads of suck like Kenzo Suzuki. Even Morishima is kind of an example of this; a good worker, but not even in the top 10 on the NOAH roster. Damn near all Christy ever does is get her ass kicked, and she does that just fine. She's just as good a worker as Velvet or Angelina, and has more personality too. It's Scott D'Amore. It won't. Part of the Kim/Kong dynamic is how much smaller Kim is; she uses her flying offense, and then Kong breaks her with a power move. ODB is much more muscular and power-based. It's sort of like going from Sting/Vader to Ron Simmons/Vader. The matches were still good, but not the same.

Of course she doesn't "deserve" to be raped. She does however deserve to go to prison for a while. Surely, fucking with other people's lives like this must be against some law. I just find it double-standardy that she still gets to remain anonymous after all the shit she's caused. As to the guy having to pay back money for his unjust incarceration, well, that's bureaucracy at work for you. Question to our Brits on the board: does the UK penal system require ALL former convicts to pay for their stay, or just the ones whom have been proven innocent after years of unwarranted punishment?

Christ, that was annoying and not fun at all. Way, way too many questions which either required you to make blind guesses or made no sense even after you knew the answers.

Yeah... but it's frigging Hawkman. Aside from the hardcore fanboys, who cares? A better phrasing might be "Has any other mega-popular hero from a top-selling franchise been messed up by their company more then Spidey the last 15 years?" To which I think the answer is, no. Though lord knows they've tried a few times with various folk, Superman sure comes to mind, but no other book has repeatedly done such embarassing damage to itself as Spider-man.

It's nothing important. I just wonder why it has to be that way in the first place. Why give Kong the exact same finisher name as Mike Awesome? Not that it OFFENDS~! me for wrestling companies to make references to the various workers who've killed themselves, but it just seems like they should be actively trying to avoid all such references if at all possible, especially "in a post-Benoit world". I know it's really just traditional wrestling laziness, "oh she's named Awesome and she uses a powerbomb = Awesome Bomb", but when there's infinite other names they could've possibly gone with, I do wonder why they thought that one was the best idea. As for Shelly, the thing that bugs me is that, right now, every Latino in TNA is currently a member of LAX. (Unless you count Low-Shi, but he's supposedly quit and he clearly wishes he was Japanese anyway.) It's sort of like back when practically every black guy on Raw was in the Nation. Why does every member of a particular race get put with a gimmick which entirely based on that race? Of course, they're not the only ones. "An Indian guy? He'll be a Guru! A black guy doing a Savage impression? Why, he'll be BLACK Machismo! Pacman Jones coming in? Let's get Ron Killings back here quick, cuz Those People are only allowed to tag with each other." Wrestling's always been pretty racist, it just bugs me that even in 2008 there's no real attempt to make it better.

Fuck off, I'm bringing up a valid point. Why does the proven-innocent person get named while the proven-guilty person doesn't?

Is the woman involved going to charged with anything? At all? Considering that she's falsely accused several men of rapes which never happened, and one of them spent years in jail because of it? Hell, why's she still referred to anonymously? She's clearly not a victim, she's the criminal here.

So you haven't seen any Japanese women's wrestling at all, Trish's feuds with women like Molly or Mickie, Madusa's good stuff from her prime, or anything with the word "SHIMMER" on it? Don't get me wrong, TNA has the best women's division on American national television today, and it's quite possibly the best part of their entire show, but it's far from perfect or the best thing to ever involve chicks in a ring. One thing that does kinda bother me is all the weird, over-the-top gimmicks that TNA tends to stick so many of their workers with, including the women. Let's go down the list: Gail Kim: her finisher is called the Happy Ending. Yuck. Roxxi Laveuagh: talented indy worker Nikki Roxxi, stuck in a dumbass Mama Shango voodoo gimmick Traci Brooks: do we know anything about her character other than she's a whore who won't leave her abusive pimp? Traci's stalker: talented indy worker Rain, stuck in a dumbass Single White Female gimmick. Miss Jackie: she's a cowgirl, I guess. No other character development. ODB: on the indies, she was just a wrestler. Now she's a crazy drunken tranny or something. Christy Hemme: too many pussy jokes, what with the "firecrotch legdrop" and the mention of the "red snapper". Shelly Martinez: I guess you're not allowed to be a Hispanic in TNA and not join LAX. Angelina Skye and Velvet Whoever: random not-terribly-talented blonde chicks with porno names who dry-fuck the rope every time they get in the ring, and would fit in just fine in the WWE's Divaland. Awesome Kong doesn't have anything that obviously bad, but the announcers keep calling her finisher the Awesome Bomb (is it wise to try to remind people of the OTHER seriously concussed, domestically abusive wrestler who hanged himself last year), and the fact that a large black person is called "Kong" in the first place (yeah, I know it's from Aja, but it's the sort of thing a PC crusader would easily notice and run with). And now we've got some random woman (rumors say it's talented indy worker Cheerleader Melissa) doing a frigging Muslim gimmick in full burka. This will not end well. Even with all those flaws, I do agree that TNA has something special here with unusual potential, especially with the great chemistry in the Kim/Kong matches. It just annoys me because most of what I mentioned is stuff which could easily could be changed, or at least should never have been done in the first place.

Partly because I'll watch any wrestling show, period. I'm about to go watch some Herb Abrahms UWF on ESPNClassics, and it's way, way worse than TNA could ever dream of being. For specific reasons to watch, I've got two: 1.no matter how incredibly terrible any particular show is, there's always at least one cool thing on it. Whether it's a match, a promo, a hilarious mistake, or something as simple as one really cool perfectly-executed move, that one cool thing is what keeps me going through all the Robert Roode and Dustin Rhodes bullshit which would otherwise run me off screaming. And, 2.the hope that maybe, just maybe, this time the show will get better.

For god's sake, this is a woman who showed her naked vagina to the entire world in Playboy. Meanwhile, the bondage photos are nothing but a few fake-looking, clearly staged pics of her tied to a post... while fully clothed. That's all. Who cares?

Well, I'm sitting around bored, might as well give my thoughts on every single movie mentioned here. Cloverfield: The marketing for this flick is, admittedly, fucking brilliant. Not since Blair Witch has there been such an effective viral campaign which got everyone into such a raging fury to see a movie. HOWever, a great trailer does NOT guarantee a great movie. Does anyone remember the fuckin' awesome trailers for such rancid pieces of shit from The Replacement Killers to the Texas Chainsaw remake. Also, the makers of this movie have a decent track record in television, but not so much on the big screen. The director has only made one other movie before: The Pallbearer. Yeah, that's right, the David Schwimmer flick you forgot ever existed. Not the most prestigious resume. The Dark Knight: It's Batman Begins 2, what more do you want? It's gonna rule. But having seen that six-minute preview trailer, I must take issue with all the fanboys who have already proclaimed Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is so much greater than Jack Nicholson's. Wait til the movie is out, you knob-slobbering cocksuckers. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Why is anyone not stoked for this? There's no such thing as a bad Indiana Jones movie, period. Spielberg is directing, so it should be just fine. I'm especially happy about Karen Allen coming back as Marion, that's a surprisingly nostalgic move from a terribly youth-oriented industry. Iron Man: I like Robert Downey Jr, consider him a fine actor, but I just can't imagine him in this part. Jon Favreau seems like a strange choice for director, too. It could be good I guess, there's enough talent involved, two of the writers here worked on Children of Men. The Incredible Hulk: Replacing Eric Bana with Edward Norton? Fucking A! Less sure about replacing Sam Elliott and Jennifer Connelly with William Hurt and Liv Tyler. At least having real Hulk villains like Doc Samson and the Abomination around this time seems like a good sign, plus good supporting players like Tim Roth and Tim Blake Nelson. Having the director from the Transporter flicks seems like an odd choice, but as long as it's not Ang Lee again... Tropic Thunder: Ben Stiller isn't a world-class performer, but he does usually have a basic level of competence which keeps his movies from sucking too badly. It's got a great cast, so it could be interesting. Anyone who saw Stiller's episode of Extras, does the "Ben Stiller in a war movie" concept sound kinda familiar? Midnight Meat Train: It's a Clive Barker adaptation, which means nothing, as he's had both good and bad movies made from his work. But it's directed by the guy who did Versus, so the potential's there. Pineapple Express: It's the latest Judd Apatow production, with Seth Rogen writing and co-starring. That should tell you everything you need to know. Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Kevin Smith is Kevin Smith, he pretty much does his thing. The basic plot here seems amusing enough, only time will tell if it's a Jersey Girl or a Clerks 2. Red State: Is this anything more than a rumor at this point? That politically loaded title sounds pretty lousy. Rambo: The recent Rocky flick shows that Stallone still has some gas left in the tank. The uncensored trailer I saw looked insanely violent, in a good way. Diary of the Dead: It's a George Romero movie about zombies. It's gonna be FUCKING AWESOME. Period. X-Files 2: Doesn't it seem a bit late now for this who-asked-for-it sequel? All the top people involved with X-Files have not gone on to do anything special afterwards, so I guess I can't begrudge the Gillian Andersons of the world for wanting to make a paycheck again, even if it means starring in mercenary 90s necrophilia like this. James Bond 22: I still haven't seen Casino Royale, but by all accounts it was fuckin' great. This one is mostly made by the same people, so it should be similar. Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay: The title alone got a legit LOL out of me. It's written by the same guys who did the first H&K, but thankfully the guy who directed it (and goddamned Dude, Where's My Car) isn't involved this time, so that might be a good thing. Forgetting Sarah Marshall: The writer and director aren't terribly experienced, the cast is only middling, and the concept sounds iffy at best. Not something I'll bother watching. Be Kind Rewind: Even though he's done nothing but self-indulgent crap since then, Michel "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" Gondry has my money for the rest of his life based just on that one movie. The plot and the cast both seem fine, so I've got high hopes for this one. Speed Racer: This is gonna suck. You Don't Mess with the Zohan: Adam Sandler AND Rob Schneider, with a side of Mariah Carey? Holy fuck, this is gonna be... something. The writing team is the only ray of light here, with Judd Apatow and SNL writer Robert Smigel. The Happening: M. Night Shyamalan has made good movies before. Hopefully, he can make some again. I'm not holding my breath, though. Trailer Trash: IMDB carries no information whatsoever about this movie. You guys said Eli Roth's involved, but there's nothing like this on his profile. That being said, an entire feature-length movie of Grindhouse-type fake trailers just sounds like it would get old after the first few minutes. Kung Fu Panda: A good voice cast and a weird concept. It's worked before in animated movies, but it's also given us clunkers like Shark Tale. The directors have approximately zero experience in working at this level. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: Is it a Mummy movie without Arnold Vosloo as The Mummy? The director specializes in making dumb crap, Rachel Weisz has been unceremoniously replaced by some nobody, and Jet Li has never starred in a good American movie as far as I recall, so I don't have high hopes here. At least Michelle Yeoh is onboard. Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Cate Blanchett AND Tilda Swinton in the same movie? This is going to be the greatest movie in history. David Fincher directing and the involvement of Brad Pitt, Julia Ormond, and Elias Koteas just further assures that it's gonna be sweet. Motel Hell: What's the story on this? I can't find any solid information. But in general, all these recent horror remakes tend to suck big floppy donkey dick. Day the Earth Stood Still: Starring Keanu Reeves! Directed by some guy who once did a Hellraiser sequel! Yeah, this is gonna blow. Star Trek 11: If you look at J.J. Abrahms' list of accomplishments, you realize that he actually hasn't directed very much, and all his different stuff all tends to have a very different tone and concept, so who knows if he's gonna get a hit here or not. The writing team has mostly written nothing but pure crap. The cast is especially worrisome: aside from the brilliant presence of Simon Pegg as Scotty, every one of the actors cause a reaction of "uh-oh!" (Winona Ryder, Karl Urban, Eric Bana, ewww!) or "who?" (everyone else). Plus, all the stories about how the filmmakers are specifically trying to avoid the traditional Trekkies and attract "new fans" sounds like a bad, bad idea. If I had to bet, this is probably not gonna be very good. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: It's a Harry Potter flick, same cast and crew as usual, you know the drill. Step Brothers: Same basic bunch as Anchorman and Talledega Nights made this. This will probably be more of the same, enough for a minor thumbs-up from me. The Mothers of Tears: I don't think I've ever seen a Dario Argento movie that I liked, but I've sure as hell liked them less as he got older. Anyone seen his Phantom of the Opera? Nuff said. At least Asia Argento and Udo Kier are in this to keep it at least halfway interesting. Teeth: A movie about a literal case of vagina dentata? That's a ballsy concept, even if I'm mixing my metaphors. It was made entirely by nobodies, so there's no track record to judge from. I could see it as either being a brilliant bit of dark humor and social satire, or a disgusting exercise in misogyny. All the early buzz doesn't seem to indicate anything either way.

35. Remember my Full House-watching roommate from earlier? The dude hardly ever talked, or laughed, or did anything to indicate he wasn't some sort of android. He also rollerbladed everywhere, to every class and every function he ever went to, which I found odd considering the large number of buildings on this campus with lots of stairs but without many elevators. Anyway, this guy eventually got himself transferred to another building because he said I creeped him out. Apparently his "strict church-going boy in a small farm town" upbringing couldn't handle the time he ignored the baseball cap hanging on the doorknob and walked into me and my girlfriend going at it in the Reverse Cowgirl in an energetic fashion. 36. Not technically my roommate, but the guys next door. For whatever reason, the college decided to put two blind guys in the same room as roommates. Think about that for a second. "Dude, where's my toothbrush?" "How the hell would I know?" Even worse, both had some other kind of birth defect involving coordination, so one had to walk with a cane (old-person-cane, not blind-guy-cane) and the other could barely speak English. I literally got called into their room on at least a weekly basis to find something that had fallen off a shelf or to perform some similar activity that these poor guys simply weren't capable of. 37. Another roommate of mine occasionally sleeptalked. As in, would sit up in bed, eyes open, and proceed to have a completely incoherent conversation while still fully asleep. He didn't do it too often, and was always real embarassed and apologized profusely, but man it was weird.

It's not really surprising when you think about it. All the primetime network shows all go off the air at the same time. That same time is just called different things in different time zones: 11:00 PM in Eastern, 10:00 PM in Central. The news shows all come on simultaneously: ABC, NBC, and CBS at 11E/10C, Fox and CW at 10E/9C. Mountain time is the same thing, just another hour back, partly because not many people live there and the networks don't give a shit about changing all their routines for such a small fraction of the population. The only different one is Pacific, since they're such a large number of people who're so far behind the East coast that airing the programs simultaneously wouldn't work. So most programs get delayed by three hours, and air at the same clock number time as they do in EST.

My original point still stands. Her entire appearance on the PPV was a brief cameo in a dumbass backstage skit, and then on the next Impact she's still not in a match, and then finally two weeks later she beats one of the amateur pornstars. This despite having won the #1 Contender's Gauntlet thingie at the last TV before the PPV. Not exactly striking while the iron's hot. Come to think of it, have any of the Gauntlet winners gotten their title shots? When's that gonna happen? Hell, when are the guys who won the briefcases gonna get THEIR title shots?! God this company's booking is fucking terrible. You shoulda bolded that too. I guess that TNA needed to scoop the WWE's elderly heat with having a guy who's even older than Ric Flair wrestling on their show.

That's my point. TNA charges you $30 to see this match, and there's no title change. Then it has a rematch the TV taping the very next night, and then the belt changes hands? I'd be pissed off if I'd bought that show. It's not just a matter of having title changes on the show, it's which title changed. When's the last time the heavyweight belt switched hands on free TV? (No, the time when the belt was "held up" doesn't count.) The secondary championships tend to change ownership on free television much more often than the world title, which does rather expose the whole process. And yes, the WWE does it too. It's not cool when they do it either. Why do so many TNA fans try to use that excuse to defend it? It doesn't excuse you from doing something bad when someone else also does something bad.

As usual, Nash is a complete fucking liar. He'd started booking in November iirc, and Starrcade was in December. And "Goldberg sucks!"?! Bullshit.

4. Having a dorm roommate back in college who literally watched two straight hours of Full House every day. Never made a sound, never moved, just sat like a statue watching four Full House episodes in a row.

Wait... what?! Christ. And Spider-man had been going so well over the course of a few years. No big bullshit Clone Saga-type "nothing will be the same!" retconning, just decent stories. Then they brought back the goddamn Green Goblin, and he'd fucked Gwen Stacey and they had mutant kids, and House of M side effects, and Peter learned that his powers didn't come from a radioactive spider, that it was some kind of primal totem crap, and he was randomly developing new icky powers, and he and May moved in with Iron Man, and Spider-man became an Avenger, and Eddie Brock lost the symbiote and died, and Mary Jane died but didn't stay dead, and May died, and then CIVIL COCKSUCKING WAR, and now THIS atrocity... (deep breath) Spider-man was my very favorite comic when I was growing up. It makes me a little sad to see the massive pile of shit it's become.

The audience: "O-D-B! O-D-B!!" The booking committee: "Oh my god, someone's getting over... something must be done to stop this!" I know it's an old wrestling tradition for the heels to steal the babyfaces' stuff. But: 1.since when is Steiner a heel? and 2.even if Scott did make off with Petey's briefcase, so what? Are we supposed to believe that Cornette would just get amnesia and not remember who won which title shot? and 3.ANOTHER person abandons their tag-team partner?! How fucking long has the fucking Roberte Roode and fucking Traci Brooks angle gone on now? What is it about Roode that screams to the writers, "book this guy in nothing but incoherent, long-ass storylines which stretch out senselessly for months and months and never draw a dime!" I mean, come on, how long have they had Rain sitting in the audience as the "fan" now? Three months, at least? So Cornette is just fine with the World Champion sitting on his ass and not defending the belt once for two months? Two direct rematches from the PPV. And the fans who PAID don't get to see the title shot, it's on free TV. Fucking brilliant.

Albert was a great example of how many smarks could be blinded by booking, look, and gimmick into thinking a good wrestler was a bad one. He had perfectly fine matches with a wide variety of people, everyone from Mysterio to Benoit to Lazy No-Selling Bikertaker, and don't forget those miracles he had with Kane. But because he was a 300 pound guy who was mostly stuck in midcard tag matches with crappy partners and shit gimmicks, the entire IWC seemed to bury the guy and completely ignore his very real ability.

I wonder if any geishas or sailor-suited schoolgirls have yet asked to see SO's large American penis. Because, y'know, Japanese penis so small. Bonus points if the hypothetical chick in question reacted with the "hold hand up over wide-open mouth" thing.