Turbo Lion

My wife is a huge Agatha Christie fan. She's trying to get me to read them. I recently finished the Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix and Missing in Action by Peter David before that. I'm about to finish Watchmen and I'll probably read The Giver on the plane flight from Paris to Atlanta this Wednesday.

That's a fantastic episode and one of the main reasons I want to spring for the huge COMPLETE box set. I immediately thought of it when I watched the first short on GOTHAM KNIGHT.

Vince's actually cracked me up. He was shilling the wellness policy like it was curing cancer in the talent or something. And shilling himself by proxy of WWE for caring so much about the workers that they actually instituted such a policy. And he and his lawyers are fucking crafty.

Congrats, Zackie! Soon you will join us married folk. I got married November 1 '08

That's possible. Likely, even. Either that or bps posted just above or below si82 a lot.

You know, bps, whenever you post I picture you as Eric Bischoff. I don't know why.

General Interest Questions 1. Who are you and what's your business here? I came to TSM in the early 2000's and liked the banter. I was a huge wrestling fan at the time. Kotzenjunge and I actually met once as we both lived in Charleston at some bar's PPV event. TSM actually made me laugh out loud a lot so I stuck around. After a prolonged stint, I've come and gone depending on internet access and the level of school intensity in undergrad. 2. When did you discover an interest in wrestling? I first REALLY got into wrestling around the time Booker and Benoit feuded over WCW's television championship. One of them won it at a house show that a friend and I went to yet the other had it back by the time TV rolled around. I was baffled. But intrigued. It is worth noting, however, that when I was 4 or 5, I was NUTS about GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling). My mother loves telling people about how when I was a kid I was in front of the TV for the GLOW girls every weekend. 3. The Company Line: A. WCW, WWF and ECW. Alternately at first but eventually all together. Then TNA when it came along. The last few years have been spotty, though. B. What have some of your favourite companies been? Your least favourite? (In theory, your answer can be the same - if you were growing up a fan of the technical wrestling WCW brought to the table but thought the end of the line for them was some of the worst television this side of My Mother The Car, that's cool). WWF circa 1999-2002 was great. I marked big time for WCW just before - I distinctly remember the DDP/Raven feud. Raven attacking DDP on MTV's TRL was, at the time, one of the craziest things I'd seen. But from Foley returning to the Cactus Jack persona through 2001 or so was pure gold for me. This is also when I got "smart" to the business. I got into TNA back when it was formative and the X-division was blowing up. Unfortunately, I only really got to see snippets of ECW here and there on the internet and when TNN screwed them over weekly. But what I saw, before Vince bought everyone, was always fun. Wrestling seems bizarrely cyclic. But I don't think the cycles are predictable. It's really dependent on the relationship between the product and the audience. Any of those companies have been great and terrible. It depends on the booking and the atmosphere. C. What is your favourite company right now? Any reason why? I don't have a favorite right now. I mean, really, there are only 2 choices nationally. TNA probably wins because I generally enjoy watching the cruisers work. But neither has consistently grabbed my attention. 4. (Not So) Favourites: Nothing is stellar these days. A. Who were your favourite wrestlers (or gimmicks) growing up / when you first started watching wrestling? DDP was the first guy I marked out for. Then I was a HUGE Foley mark, especially after reading hiss book and learning about his career. Being a big guy too, he became kind of a role model. And hey, I wound up marrying a pretty hot, classy chick who has placed in international Harp competitions so I guess it worked. Of course, Rocky and HHH's feud was an incredible thing to see go down. I mark for HBK. Sometimes. B. Who were some guys you couldn't stand? Hmmm. Specifically I don't know. I've never gotten the appeal of Goldberg. I'm not too partial to Vince's coveted big guys. I'll take some little japanese guys with serious workrate over the hosses any day of the week. Though Lesnar's ability to pull off a Shooting Star (sometimes) was impressive. C. Who are your current favourites (if applicable / different from A.) The X guys in TNA. And the motor city machine guns. Booker when he's on. Angle when he's not a full on dick about it. If Rock came back with his A game, I'd be there. Robert Rude sometimes. I do have a soft spot for Samoa Joe. D. There was a 4th question here, but it basically ripped off the entire premise of a thread (or more than one thread, in theory) that already exists in General. Specific Questions about your Interest 5. How would you gauge your current interest level in the product? Do you still get butterflies of excitement that make you look forward to upcoming PPVs? Did you ever? Do you watch every televsied wrestling program live, or just a few - and FF'd via DVR at that? If you consider right now to be the most interested in wrestling you've ever been, the rest of the questions in this section can be skipped over. Until we get cable, its mostly what I scavenge online. My interest is minimal - I'm more interested in the OAOAST than anything on TV right now. Though I'll probably catch Mania because it's fucking Mania. 6. At what point in wrestling history (if it's not now) would you consider your interest to have been at it's peak? When were you compelled to watch every second of televised wrestling AND shell out money on PPVs, get excited about the release of video games, have TV/PPV parties with friends, etc. 1998-2002. No doubt. 7. At what point could you tell your interest was dipping and why do you think this happened, or what specific event(s) triggered the decrease? Was there anything even specific? Just a gradual interest loss of interest? Retirement (or death) of a favourite? A boring title reign on SmackDown in the Summer of 2004? I went to college in 2003. At my school we, stupidly, couldn't have TV's in our rooms. So my wrestling intake was suddenly limited to a couple of DVD's that I owned and TSM. When I got home for breaks the product had started to crash so I lost a lot of interest. 8. Have you ALWAYS stuck with wrestling even during times of low interest, or are there any lengths of time you stopped watching for a period only to come back at a later date? I leave and return often. But I try to keep an eye on it to see if something is going on that I'd like to see play out. 9. If applicable, at what point did you decide to pack in the wrestling fandom? I haven't. I'm a writer, a filmmaker. I like different kinds of cultural storytelling. I like the *mechanics* of how wrestling works as a storytelling form. I'll always have a soft spot for it and I"ll always be ready to cheer my head off when the product warrants it. Interesting Questions of a Somewhat Random Nature 10. What style of pro wrestling best resonates with your personal tastes? Has it always been this way, or have your tastes changed over time? Cruisers, Lucha and Japanese stuff. I like fast paced, high risk stuff. But I also like when the medium-big guys get out there and put on a good show. It's one of the reasons I like Foley and Rocky. Rock would work his ass off when the time came, though it was a bit limited. He was hustling and you could tell. Foley would do whatever it took to entertain. But generally I dig the innovative cruisers. 11. Where do you "draw the line" with the whole "suspended disbelief" deal? Do you tell critics to "relax because it's just wrestling and you should enjoy the matches" (aka TNA fans about everything that happens on Impact!), do you come up with solutions that the writing team didn't bother to think about but you figure "it's there if you read between the lines" (aka "WWE Apologists"), somewhere inbetween, or do you take your greatest joy in watching wrestling to deconstruct everything that makes no sense? It's a kind of theater to me. A bizarre theater. But it's a form of storytelling and I respect the work that goes into it. I've defended it against some more of my artsy theater friends. Like any show or play or movie, sometimes it just goes too far (Katie Vick), but generally I let it follow its own rules. 12. Do you attend live events? And more specifically, do you get a thrill out of big arena shows, do you prefer the smaller 'intimate' settings of the local indy show, or would you rather forget the whole thing and watch everything unfold on your HDTV without dealing with 'the marks'? The first Smackdown ever in Charleston was one of the most fun, electrifying audience experiences of my life. I will always love and appreciate a good live show, but the product would have to warrant the money right now. It doesn't. 13. If applicable, what are the best and worst experiences you've had going to a show live? During the Stone Cold/HHH feud back in like... 01, 02 I guess, they went through a phase where they were contractually forbidden to touch one another before their PPV match. Smackdown came to town. HHH and Eddie had a match. Everyone was expecting Austin to interfere somehow, but he didn't. The titantron went off indicating commercial break. HHH and Eddie were still in the ring for some reason. We figured we just got screwed on an Austin appearance. Then... THE GLASS SHATTERED. That place went abso-fucking-lutely nuts. I've never heard or felt a reaction like that before or since. Austin hits the ring with a six pack. He offers one to Eddie, who takes it. He offers one to HHH, who drinks it. Then Austin, if I remember correctly, hits a stunner on Eddie, I guess as a message to HHH. It was awesome. Great little treat for the live audience. 14. What are your favourite matches, moments, or events? I was really into Foley/HHH HIAC. I believed in Foley and I was deeply disappointed when he lost and "retired". I remember Rock's promo before No Way Out 01 - "Tick tock, tick tock, Kurt Angle." And the win. Most of that timeframe was full of great stuff to me. My FAVORITE, though, even though it also PISSED ME OFF... was a Raw where Jericho rolls out and challenges HHH for the title. Right there. Trips agrees and they go, and Jericho WINS. I nearly fell off the couch in joy. The live fans looked like they lost their balls over it. Then HHH made Hebner reverse the decision and negate it because... uh, because HHH and Steph were in power or something. But that Lionsault and the 3 count were awesome. 15. Freestyle I await the next golden age. I'll happily be there.

My guess is the Summer is far too lucrative for Vince to even fathom any kind of break.

What's with the absence of Trek love? It AT LEAST looks fun, and has the bonus of already pissing the hardcore trek nerds off.

STAR TREK. Number 1. Wolverine. Terminator: Salvation Knowing The Wrestler right now, anyways.

Mirrormask was great and I probably like it better than Pan's. That said though, I'm pretty sure the Fantasy elements comprised more than twenty minues. And it was rated R. If a parent can't figure out that it's not a kids movie from that information alone, they need to let someone with common sense have a crack at raising their kids. While I don't think it was quite marketed towards children, I do think there was a little bit of misdirection. But in an age where most movies give you the entire writer's outline in the trailer, I'm ok with that.

My wife's family flew us over to Spain to spend the Holidays with them. New Years here is interesting. Madrid has its own ball that drops, though its nowhere near as big a ball or as long a drop as NYC. Then you swallow 12 grapes, 1 for each month/1 for each chime. I choked at one and gave up. It's for luck of something. Glad I'm not superstitious.

Pretty good year. I got married. I worked steadily for the entire year so hopefully there's a tax return coming. I saw friendships really grow. I found a great church that doesn't piss me off. And: It's already 2009 for me. My wife's parents live in Spain and they flew us in for Christmas and New Years. BEAUTIFUL country, I've gotten to travel a lot of it and see some awesome stuff (2 castles so far and a 3rd soon). Visited Toledo, which is known for their sword-making. Frickin' awesome. And we rang in the new year about three hours ago. Her parents friends gave me two Japanese swords that they needed to get rid of since I didn't get to buy a Spanish sword in Toledo. Not a bad way to end the year.

I haven't seen his entire catalog, but I have enjoyed his work. I think his creature designs are really interesting, but I also think he needs to go in some different directions with it. Distinctive can too easily become repetitive.

Yeah, this one isn't going to end well. It already can't end well. While any country firing rockets at another one is unacceptable, I don't think this is quite the way Israel needs to go about solving the problem. The problem is I'm not sure what an acceptable solution would be.

Though we had more than a few major blowups on the board we actually started getting along on AIM fairly well during my prolonged absences. I haven't talked to her in quite a while and didn't know she was sick. I regret that my growing sense of introversion led me to leave AIM or ignore it a lot of the time in the past few years - I haven't talked her in a while. That makes me really sad. Since most of our friendly talk was about alcohol, I'll dedicate all of my New Year's Eve drinking to her.

The INTRODUCTION of Hule "The Name" Bartowski w/special guest Lunar Phoenix

I'm in agreement that Robin is a little too bizarre for the Nolanverse. That said, I'm both a Tim mark and a Nightwing mark. And TAS did it all best.

New Character Debut. More to come...

On a slightly different note, I'm currently digging Lirael by Garth Nix. Second book, after Sabriel in the Abhorsen trilogy. Darker fantasy, dealing with necromancy and death. Set in a world not unlike World War I era europe mixed with usual fantasy. Loved the first book, loving the second so far.

Cool. Thanks for the rundown!

Hey I've been gone due to moving and internet outages and lack of computer and all kinds of mess. BUT, I'm here to ask if anyone's doing anything with him. I don't know if I'll use him or if I'll go in another direction, but I'm trying to get the ducks in a row.

Why is money a determining factor in the success of MI:3? Since when is that a factor in the quality of a movie? It was loads better than II and maybe better than I, but I flip flop on that. It was solid, fun and coherent. So was Cloverfield. Neither of which, by the way, did Abrams write. He didn't direct Cloverfield, he produced it. There's quite a bit of positive stuff coming from Star Trek, from Nimoy endorsing Quinto to Kevin Smith saying it was working. Everyone involved is excited. I don't think it'll be some bomb. I think it'll be pretty good.

The form of NFP we're using has a 97-99% rate of success (IF you actually follow the rules). If it happens, it happens. It would be a blessing. It would just be less than ideal conditions, for us, for that blessing to take place. My personal view is that once the egg becomes fertilized, it's an organism with complex potential. It's life. I can't back that particular view up with blatant scripture, though I tend to view Psalm 139:13-16 in that way, personally. So I wouldn't want to mess with that process once it's begun in any way.

If the collider gets to you, you should check out a... Travel Channel, I believe.... special called something like "The Worst Day Ever" or something. It's like Groundhog Day, except every day the main character re-lives ends in some possible global catastrophe. Like a meteor hitting Germany. Or a huge collider like this one creating a black hole that destroys the earth. It was awesome.