Jobber of the Week

JR, mid-90s: "Folks, this is the WWF. It ain't about posing. It ain't about covering up a bald spot." Vince McMahon's ultimate dream is to prove that he really doesn't need Hogan to draw money. That was the idea behind pushing Lex Luger. That was the idea behind pushing Bret Hart. That was the idea behind pushing Diesel. That was the idea behind pushing Stone Cold. That was the idea behind pushing The Rock. Everyone who was pushed in the "see what shit sticks" era was pushed in the Hogan mold (especially Luger.) McMahon finally realized that there are people with personalities who like bad guys, and so Stone Cold and Rock got over by disobeying authority figures and verbally putting down the rest of the roster. Unfortunately, because he can't bear to let someone with that much mainstream draw linger elsewhere in the wrestling world, Vince has repeatedly tied himself to Hogan since 2002, and suddently Cheesy Foreign Heels have made a comeback since that time, and Good Because They're Bad characters have either become dirty rotten 100% evil heels, or baby-kissing 100% pure faces. The bad-boy's "Attitude" WWF became Saturday Morning Cartoon's WWF again very quickly. It's kind of sad that Hogan's comeback tour (which we originally figured would end with some kind of injury or exhaustion around Summerslam 02) will never end and Vince has tied himself to it again. Make no doubt about it, though, Hogan is Vince's internal demon whether Hogan likes it or not, and Austin will go over Hogan and will be booked in a way that he does so with a big pop, because that's what Vince has been striving for during about a 10 year span, since the "Billionaire Ted" ads ever started.

Coded Arms is shit, I'm sorry. I wanted to like it, too. I still only own one game, Metal Gear Acid, although I've rented Lumines and Wipeout and Twisted Metal as well. MGA is a very fun game, although it eventually reaches a point where you encounter a level that requires more thought than you're really willing to think and just put it down. I'm an upgrade freak who always loves big version numbers, so I went ahead and upgraded to 1.51 as soon as possible before a hacker community had even really begun to exist yet (I think there was a regular B&W Game Boy emulator at the time, but it could crash your system for good if you used it wrong.) We all saw what an intelligent move that was. Sensing that nobody is going to bother cracking that version, what everyone wants is the 2.0 browser and the cowboy hacking of 1.50, I jumped to Japanese 2.0 the very first day it appeared online, and before Sony could tell me that doing so voids my warranty. Sheesh. Well, I'm still pleased with it, and won't go to the US 2.0, because it will probably have FURTHER padlocks on it than the Japanese one did. The browser is more useful to me than the game machine, since I'm too poor to afford a laptop. My computer and our big TV are on different floors, so it's nice to able to have an online walkthrough displayed on your PSP while playing a game, without having to get up and run upstairs to the computer. I'm still not looking forward to much on PSP, but I'm also still not looking forward to anything other than internet-online Mario Kart on DS either, unless the pseudo-retro Mario platformer game turns out to be REALLY old-school in how it plays. My problem with both these systems so far is that they both seem really oriented towards Japan, with any success in the US just being a happy coincidence that they don't really care about. The PSP web browser, ultimately, is a way of telling Japan to buy one because it displays web pages better than their cell phone without giving up too much portability. While that's fine, it means the software library is also going to be steered very hard towards Japan, with most the releases here being the games that can make it over with minimal culture clashing. And I'm just not interested in Asian style gaming, thank you. Never really have been.

Hm, let's put it this way. The Silver experience is more of a non-competitive community environment. Friends lists, messaging, video chats, micropayments, etc. The matchmaking system isn't involved. Gold includes the experience currently provided in Quickmach & Optimatch of competitive multiplayer, and official tournament play. Not my words, though. He's speaking from a purely financial standpoint, but there's a point that I agree with him. Charging $100 more for over $140 of equipment serves only to make things more confusing. IMHO, Microsoft should have made the "big" box even more expensive, to make buying the regular box and one add-on a more tempting idea. However, they're probably also assuming, rather smartly, that most chains (example: EB) are going to go with the bundles again, and require you to buy a game and/or third-party accessories along with the super box. If that's the case, the lesser box can become more attractive provided the same isn't done to it. Game chains will probably go that route to maximize the sales of both SKUs. It has to do with the success of MMO's, which are more financially successful and more popular than a pay-for-play matchmaker service. People are looking, perhaps foolishly, at the example set by World of Warcraft and thinking "hey, those people just released that game and it's making tons of money." Of course, Blizzard tends to be more talented at creating an interesting game than a lot of companies and even they had their share of online world pains with Diablo. Nintendo should be able to at least do something similar with the Pokemon license, though. I'd say it's immediate, since current Xbox Live customers are given Gold status on 360 for the entirety of their subscription. Well, there's two schools of thought on that. The first is that Sony made that same song and dance about the PS2, charging $300 for it for practically forever until Microsoft dropped prices and suddently their "we will absolutely, positively not drop the price of PS2" promises flew out the window. I still remember reading the online ravings and rantings of people who got burned by that one. The other thought is that they really mean it, and since they openly state that they're looking at trying to put the Xbox division on the road to being in the black, then they aren't going to let the old system cripple them from reaching that goal. To an extent, greed is the name of the game for 2006, but at least they're being honest about it. It's the way the other systems work. The hard drive was the original Xbox's signature component, if you want to call it that, but most people didn't use it for anything other than a big assed save card and many's (mine included) still list the usual 80 bazillion+ blocks. Even with my saved data on it and a number of map downloads for Unreal and Halo, the "space remaining" hasn't made a dent. Thus why they probably decided that it was time to up the RAM cache and just make the drive optional. How many PS2 memory cards do you own? The 360 memory card has 8x as much space as the PS2 one does. I know I've only owned one PS2 memory card since I bought it, the January of it's launch holiday. The original Playstation, yeah, I had two cards, but they're smaller and I had a bunch of RPG saves. *shrug*

Only Russo can save us now.

Rock & Sock VS HHH & JBL. The heel team can dub themselves The Wrestling Gods. "We're wrestling gods, and we have the connections to prove it!"

People talk about how Hogan and Austin made almost equal money, but check out how long Austin was touring on top and how long Hogan was touring on top. Kids who nag their parents to buy them stuff are money. High School students who are told to get a job but still live with their parents and thus don't have to pay for rent and utilities every month have even more money, and they don't have to cry/beg/negotiate with a parental second opinion to get what they want.

I swear to God they do. Rey Mysterio action figures disappear faster than RVD's selling after leg work. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Keep in mind that on several channels right now (WB, Cartoon Network, any others?) there's a reasonably successful (and extremely corny) luchadore-themed cartoon right now. I'm suprised Vince hasn't taken notice of both the Rey/kids effect and the presence of the cartoon and done some more heavy marketing of Guys In Masks to the saturday morning crowd.

Didn't intend to start a debate, but you decided to use subtlety to express your support for guys who are (literally) party shills, so I thought I'd just rub your face in it and run.

My full opinion. Benoit-Jordan: M-M-M-M-MONSTER MATCH. ***** lol. Edge-Matt: As I said, they're going to get in the ring and the crowd is going to see that it's only Edge and Matt Hardy and suddently the heat will be gone and the match will suck and nobody's expectations will be fulfilled. Seems like Matt just got his punishing for squealing to the Internet. Eddie VS Rey: Eddie is doing crazy daredevil moves. Rey is doing his same old crap. The audience, unhappy with same ol same ol, gets behind Eddie. Okay match, although Eddie being overpowered by his wife didn't seem right. The announcers should have at least emphasized how worn out he was at the end of the match to make it seem more believable. They also "Pulled A Kane" and killed the kayfabe of Latino Heat as the collateral for that "I married you a long, long time ago" promo. WTG writing team. Angle-Eugene: Mmmm.. Hearing Eugene getting booed makes me happy. Angle is on fire. Taker-Orton: I thought that this was actually a very good match for Orton. He was just about carrying the whole thing and combined heel tactics and psychology very well. It's not exactly Ric Flair in his prime, but for friggin' Orton it was well beyond expectations. Unfortunately, Taker was 100% in "not feeling it" mode and did the best impression of Kevin Nash that I've ever seen the whole match. Cena-Jericho: Bullshit match, but it was very fluid and the crowd was buying it better than they had any right to. JBL-Batista: They protected Batista very well here, he's only as good as his opponent and Bradshaw is one of those guys that needs to be carried, so they used every prop they could think of to hide the fact that neither of these guys can really wrestle. HBK-Hogan: Piss. Left a negative taste in my mouth for the whole show. Hogan should have at least pulled out something flashy instead of depending on the whole YOUUUUU routine.

I cry tears of joy when I think of how many of our tax dollars Ed Gillespie lobbied for Enron. Truly the best money we EVER spent. Mehlman has yet to do anything terrible, I'll give him that. And both guys looked pained to be there, if they're anything like the other celebs at the shows (such as a pro sports team or something) they just arrive for their segment then leave.

What about Big Show's US title reign, with two stunning defenses?

I gotta admit, aside from Chris Benoit's MOTYC, this show was pretty drab.

He's working people already. You need to stop thinking that what Bret says at events and what Bret really thinks are the same things. If he was really as bitter as the above post makes it sound, he wouldn't have been sounding more softer in his last few columns about WWE and he wouldn't have posted a poll on his web site asking his fan base if he should go back. He's amping up the bitter "I got screwed" talk because there's huge f'n money to be made just by having him onscreen.

Touche. No it's not. All you need to store to play online is your player profile, and that's a relatively small file that can easily fit on the 64MB memory card. The only time it's "necessary" is if you plan to purchase a bunch of optional map packs or something, similar to the Halo 2 Map Pack downloads. Historically, the only games to bother using that function to any useful degree are several Microsoft first-party games. Bullshit, and with this quote you prove how ignorant to the market you really are. About a month ago they released a PR statement saying they had 2 million Xbox Live subscribers. In mid 2003, they announced they had sold 9.4 million Xboxes. That was two years ago, and Halo 2 alone has sold nearly 7 million units. Live owners are a (comparatively) small minority in the big pie. I believe that's probably why online play feels like an afterthought in so many games (personally, I tried Burnout 3 and Halo 2, then said "screw this.") Oh? For what? MMORPGs are a breed of game where you want as much data as humanly possible to be stored on the server side of things. The more data you put in the hands of the player, it becomes exponentially easier to hack. This is why playing Phantasy Star Online for Dreamcast could wipe out your memory card if you met the wrong jackass, but World of Warcraft never has that problem. It's practically in the bible of MMO, give the player as little stored data as possible. According to an online interview with J Allard some hours ago, they told developers a year ago that they were going to have to make games without the hard drive in mind. Well, what I meant was how they chopped the price down by nearly $100 between Japanese and US launches, but anyway... The first Playstation launched at $300.

Guess it's fact-clearing time again. First of all, some clearing up on PS3: The controllers have been sent back to the drawing board since E3. What you saw there was not near a final design. Keep in mind that the E3 appearance was practically a last minute move to try and piss on Microsoft's fire as much as they could, as the whole week prior had been theirs media-wise with 360 leak pictures making the rounds and getting people's attention. They've said PS3 will be expensive, alluding to something around $500. They said the same thing about PS2. They may or may not be right on this one, but one of Sony's PR tricks is to trump up the quality, features, and price of their technology and then actually release it at a much more sane price than what they originally estimated it at being worth. This gives consumers a feeling like they're getting a great bargain. Next, X360 and hard drive: The hard drive isn't really necessary on the 360. The only occasions you will need a hard drive is this: A) Backwards compatability B) Xbox Live C) Custom soundtracks/CD Ripping First of all, backwards compatability is pretty vague right now and is guaranteed to not work on all games anyway. You may decide after final details are released that you don't need it after all. I know I don't need it right now, since I've only used the backward compatability of my PS2 maybe 5 times total. Second is Xbox Live downloads. Memory Cards are 64MB this time, which can hold a fairly good amount of stuff. However, in the event that the Halo 2 Map Pack spawns similar expansions for other games, and you want to use them, you're probably going to want something with more room. Finally, custom soundtracks. God knows if developers will ever use these things to their fullest potential anyway. You can also rip CDs to the hard drive to play elsewhere, but how many people do that? The only interesting reason to play music on the X360 right now is the lightsynth, which is being devleoped by the guy that made the Atari Jaguar one and others, and is generally recognized as being one of the best lightsynth programmers around. However, if you don't care about trippy colors and wavelenghts appearing on your TV in coordination to music, then this isn't so important. The current Xbox uses the hard drive as a Big-Ass Save Card and as a place to store common data for quick access to reduce save times. The X360 will use the hard drive as a Big-Ass Save Card and pre-requisite piece for backwards compatability. Contrary to online rumors, the lack of a hard drive will not make X360 games load slower than a user who has a hard drive. The system has 512MB RAM which is plenty of cache and can be accessed faster than any hard drive could.

There's an entire little indie music industry forming around making music for podcasts. Whether you want rock, jazz, bluegrass, whatever. You name it. This should go into the podcast directory in iTunes. There's already approx a dozen wrestling shows there, none of them any good.

Austin's heel turn was an anti-draw but it was certainly pulled off very well. For those of you who think that Austin slamming the Rock over and over and over with chairs and never getting a pin looked stupid, you have to remember WrestleMania 15, which was about Rock slamming Austin over and over and over with chairs while Vince pulled out referees and tried everything to give Rock the edge. WM17 was about a mirror universe ending, and it also happened to be at the end of a great match. It was absolutely brilliant until the next night when Austin came out and said "Why? I don't have to tell you why, because you fans suck!" and everyone said "Hoo boy, they didn't actually think of a logical explination for him to turn heel."

Bret may have been able to stand on principles for years, but the guy is going to want money, he's going to want to be able to promote his books and the only way to connect to his fans that aren't the devotees in Canada or online is through Vince. He won't bump, but he'll take part in an angle sooner or later, I'd guarantee. He's lost friends and family so fast that the only other alternative is to sit down in a chair and watch the world go by until he dies off, and he just watched his father go through that experience and likely doesn't want to do the same.

Will we get Majikthise and Eccentrica Gallumbits, too?

GenMay is apparently a Counter-Strike forum or something. A dedicated group of gaming nitwits who think that they're the most entertaining thing on Earth. I've collided with people from that board online before, and I would sooner read Ann Coulter's political opinions before that zoo's.

Best name ever.

Despite what you may have heard from The Simpsons, nuclear power plants require the employment of smart people. Are smart people having a problem getting employed? 90% of the time they're in high demand.

I rented the first two DVDs of this show and while it starts off strong ("OH MY GOD, WE'RE HAVING A FIIIIIRRRREE..sale.") it very quickly loses it's momentum and just becomes Yet Another Sitcom. Bleh, not worthy of all the praise. It has all the production values of an HBO original series, though, I'll give em that.

That's a stupid response that's not worth any credit. "You never hear any news stories about all the laws that the rapist DIDN'T break, do you?" Also, LOLZ at her family giving their statement of opposition to fuckin' Drudge. Did they not think they'd get printed elsewhere?