Rob Anybody

Just something small that amused me - in the latest gallery for Legends of Wrestlemania, there's a screenshot of the created Legend hitting a Pedigree on the Ultimate Warrior. Nothing major, just a nice choice of characters and move.

Only surgery I've ever had was corrective surgery for scoliosis, when I was... fifteen. Or sixteen? My memory's shoddy so I don't remember the specifics of what happened, but the general idea is that my back was cut open, rods and screws of some sort of metal were put in to make a frame/support to keep my spine straight, then a bit of bone was taken from a couple of my ribs to graft around the frame and set it in place. I was out for a day or two afterwards, couldn't turn over of my own volition for a few days after that, and was pretty much on my back for a few weeks following. Left me with a big fuck-off scar down my back, with a deeper, elliptical part just below the base of my neck. I also managed to get dependent on codeine, but that was sorted out after a little while.

Throw stones at glass houses?

Because when a wrestler hits the ropes, they launch the wrestler back. Sort of a poor example, I guess, but it helped illustrate the secondary point - you can explain it easily enough, but no-one ever really does. When a wrestler's thrown to the ropes, he either bounces back or grabs it, and whichever one he does is taken as the logical choice for him in that situation. In the situation I described, you can rationalise it afterwards, but in-story the explanation is "that's how it is". It's just pedantic crap that bugs me enough for me not to just take it like that, not really a writing failure that's worse than anything else going on. But they didn't jump Abyss, which is part of the point. They stood around, then left the ring. They'd gotten this far in a match with two-on-two against guys called the Genetic Blueprint and the Monster, and when one of them is knocked down and bleeding, they don't press the advantage? If it was a normal wrestling match, then it could be explained as they won the match, they don't care any more. But it was a First Blood match, they just spent however long trying to cut these guys open and vice versa, then the bad blood vanishes once the bell rings? If they'd won via their own hand then it would be understandable, but it's a grudge-style match, and they're letting the grudge slide when they have a perfect opportunity to put the boot in. Like I said, it's more pedantic than anything else - like asking why winning a wrestling match makes up for someone trying to steal your son or trying to kill you or something. It's wrestling, that's how the story works. It just bugs me.

This is half based on a comment HTQ made in the RAW thread - I hate when a tag team member turns on his partner mid-way or towards the apparent end of the match and the other team doesn't do anything about it. Taking half the match to decide that you're going to turn is alright in a way, because it can be explained by being indecisive about it. But why doesn't the other team, particularly if they're heels, take the chance to put a beatdown on the team who've just spent 5-10 minutes trying to hurt them? For instance, look at last week's TNA, with Beer Money and the First Blood match. This isn't just a regular "go out there and wrestle" match, this is a match where the entire point is to cut the other team open. Midway through the match, Morgan turns on Abyss and beats him down, and Beer Money just stand around doing nothing. They're heels; at the very least they could jump in and get some shots in on Abyss while he's down. Failing that, they just found themselves in a two-on-one situation against a guy who until very recently was just trying to make them bleed, and is busy beating someone else. Instead, they just back off, with zero explanation given. Not even a "it's between those two". I feel like this should be lumped in beside "why wrestlers run back from Irish whips", but it still bugs me.

Yep - just aired in Australia, and the show starts off with a 'capture' of WWE.com (with a story that isn't actually on WWE.com yet, since we get SD early) talking about the crash.

Did I miss something, or did they just feel like putting up 'nude' photos of Vickie for shits and giggles?

And already there are people crowing about Biden's 'gaffe' of using the word Bosniak. Goddamnit.

To clarify the Bam/Chavo deal - what happens is that Bam interferes with the match and gets Chavo disqualified. Chavo gets angry about Bam costing him the match and tells him off/pushes him around, then Bam knocks Chavo down and yells at him before R-Truth gets involved and ends up hitting Bam with the scissors kick.

That'd be a good way to get into an MVP/TBK feud. "The VIP Lounge is one of my bedrooms. Please don't decorate it."

Kamakazi. Apparently he spells it differently to avoid being associated with kamikazes/suicide bombers.

From Wikipedia: The actual quote about vampire canon is "I wasn't very familiar with the canon, in any case, because I don't read horror novels (ironic, I know). So I didn't cut out fangs and coffins and so forth as a way to distinguish my vampires; that's just how they came to me", after stating "So I'm not at all informed about the horror genre, and I don't think it's influenced my writing." Yep.

After watching that video, I'm trying to figure out why it bugs me that Triple H wouldn't fill in the name of his wife for Shawn when so many more illogical things happen every few minutes in wrestling. Still. Thanks for the explanation and the link.

I know I must've seen this at some point. But why did this happen? What was the storyline/kayfabe point of this?

In the early days of genetics, a gene could be 'dominant' or 'recessive', and that was about all there was to it; but gradually more and more terms had to be added to the vocabulary: repressors, apo-repressors, co-repressors, inducers, modifier genes, switch genes, operator genes which activate other genes, and even genes which regulate the rate of mutations in genes. Thus the action of the gene-complex was originally conceived as the unfolding of a simple linear sequence like that on a tape-recorder or the Behavourist's conditioned-reflex chain; whereas it is now gradually becoming apparent that the genetic controls operate as a self-regulating micro-hierarchy, equipped with feedback devices which guide their flexible strategies. This not only protects the growing embryo against the hazards of ontogeny; it would also protect it against the evolutionary hazards of phylogeny, or random mutations in its own hereditary materials - the blind antics of the monkey at the typewriter.

Excellent album. I get 'Last Will and Testament' stuck in my head intermittently. And the languid guitar on 'Hard to Thrill' has always been a favourite of mine.

The article itself is preceded by this: (Emphasis article's.) which does suggest it's at least some sort of a worked shoot, although I haven't seen any other Orton interviews (so it could just be his style to be unexpectedly blunt). Still interesting to read, though.

60s/70s Neil Young, Wu-Tang Clan and late 80s/early 90s Beasts of Bourbon.

It'll be a ruse, a ploy, a plot, a plan, a charade, a conspiracy, a sham! We'll be conned, hoodwinked, bamboozled, flim-flammed, have the wool pulled over our eyes, even! Melvyn Bragg?

There was actually a DVD made of that. The kids were selling copies of it for $5 before they got caught and the shitstorm occurred.

Well it is 759 pages. But if you say so. Not in Canada. We get the British version. Aren't they the same amount of text anyway? (Barring one or two minor edits, if previous books are anything to go by.)