QOTD — page 10

Great White Buffalo….
(Great White Buffalo…..)

What’s your Great White Buffalo?
(Great White Buffalo….)

 I have two, but we’ll save the terribly heartbreaking one for another time. This is long. Feel free to ignore.

Jamie was a brilliant lass, the kind of gal who would say “Oh bother” when she dropped a pen, and sing along to whatever song was over the Student Center PA system – and on my speech and debate team. She was an actress and had a spirit that was was rare in salty Massachusetts, a Judy Gardland kind of elegance.

So naturally she had a boyfriend that didn’t appreciate her. And he was fat and liked wrestling and wasn’t creative. Holy shit, this girl was in my league.

I had a girlfriend at the time, too but was transfixed by this dame. I suppose at the age of 20 the idea of a “crush” was pretty stupid, but I had a major one. I actually ended up getting drunk for the first time ever with her following a tournament, and she regaled me with stories of the stage and her alternating dreams of being an ASL interpreter and an Actress. But she didn’t think she was good enough to make it. Seriously, just rip my heart out now, you can have it. I felt a connection there, and I like to think maybe she got a hint of it too. How many (straight) men stay up with a gal all night talking and drinking screw drivers and blabbing about Queen and Billy Joel and Musical Theater? I was so inspired to impress this woman, I wrote a script that very night that turned into this very (bad) short film. 

My girlfriend ended up cheating on me during the epic 2005 AFC Championship collapse of the Patriots against the Colts, where she faked car trouble, insisted I stayed and watch the game, and proceeded to make out for hours with a guy whose name I can’t remember that worked in the produce department of her grocery store.

Which set the stage for Texas, and a national speech and debate tournament. The week long tournament is a grind, and the last two days were spent drinking. Jamie was mighty upset with her boyfriend whom she was ‘on a break with’, and was pretty emotional the entire week. She was giddy for some of it, and there’s nothing quite like a girl laughing out loud in professional attire.

 The night before the finals, Jamie knocks on our door asks if she can sleep in our room, as her roommate is busy have very loud sex with a very annoying man. My roommate and I say sure, and she takes my bed before kindly asking if I wouldn’t mind taking the easy chair. Sure. I wake up the next day and Jamie’s gone. I slip back into my bed only to awake with blood stains on my legs and Pajamas.

The roommate wastes no time teasing her about it, and I’m just meh on the whole subject, accidents happened. Who *hasn’t* gotten period blood on the bed of a guy who’s fawning after you, amirite? It explained the emotional part, at least.

The night came, and everyone begins to party, taking to the 5th floor pool, and pounding the hard stuff, ya know, Malibu Rum. The night winded down and I tried not to hover, but wanted to at least spend some time Jamie, whom by that point had been tipped off that I kind of dug the cut of her jib. I think she avoided me as she being perused by an Arminian fellow who purported to be a massage therapy major when he wasn’t hitting on another one of the teammates with promises of the kacane.

The night came to a pleasant end for me, as I made it all the way to 2nd base with a pretty neat chick from Kansas. Still…I felt like I missed my ‘shot’.

Until I got to my hotel room around 2am and saw Jamie’s Malibu rum was on the floor. Call it liquid courage or post-coital confidence, the best idea in the world at the time was to knock on Jamie’s door and let her know I had her rum.

*knock knock*

“Jamie, I have your rum, did you want to like, drink it or something?” Sandpaper is smoother than I am.

“No, but you can come in anyway,” My heart and testicles jump out of my body and bounded downstairs to hit the hotel bar.

I don’t remember what we talked about, but she was sad, upset she didn’t make finals, upset with her life, upset the guy she was talking to chose our hot teammate over her, upset at a lot of things, PMSing, and I think I was probably the only one left on the team that was willing to listen. I was willing to listen, but instead I talked. Without telling her, I told her – she was brilliant, bright, full of life, she’s rare in these here parts, one of a kind even, the kind of girl a dorky guy dreams about (I can’t remember if I said that one).

There was a doe-eyed look to her sadness, which maybe I invented from countless movies, but it was the kind of look that said if I ‘wanted’ her, I could have her – any kind of tenderness would be welcome – even from a big, bronze medal sorta lug like me. I guess some stupid guilt complex or lesson ingrained as a kid about not taking advantage of vulnerable women gave me pause. I wanted her, I didn’t think I wanted her this way. 

Before I could realize what a fucking idiotic idea that thought was, the door knocked three teammates stumbled in carrying the hot teammate who was high and drunk and crying after being led on by the Armenian fellow.  After that I still carried a torch for Jamie, but I knew in my head that stars would likely never align that properly again.

I look back at this whole situation with mixed feelings. I did not feel good about being mezmerized by a girl while I had a girlfriend. I did not feel good about how single minded I was about this after me and my girlfriend broke up. When you’re crazy about someone you kind of lose a bit of sanity, and when you get it back and survey the situation with hindsight, you feel like kind of a dope.

Ultimately I’m not sure if I regret not being more direct. I think directness is the key to all perceived problems, but when you’re in college and around the same 10 people every other day, the fear of making things awkward or being “the weird one” is a real one. I’m not sure if I had acted differently in that hotel room if things would have gone differently, or if she would have given a simple not interested. But in the proverbial moment the fear of reality forces you to cherish a pleasant fantasy instead of facing what could be a harsh truth.

I did feel good knowing there were girls like Jamie *out there*, with creativity and spark and passion and kindness and whimsy. I did feel good knowing that we stayed personable and there wasn’t any real awkwardness, though it wasn’t like we were good friends, either. I feel good knowing that regardless of whatever I did, my intentions were about her as a person and not her as a body. She was gorgeous because of who she was, though I’ve been told you call the smart ones pretty and the pretty ones smart, so who knows.

I consider this not my Great White Buffalo, but a white buffalo none-the-less, a situation that could have played out differently had different things occurred, and her eyes and the black and emerald pant suit she wore on the first day of the tournament flash into my head whenever I hear a Queen song, drink a screwdriver, or write overlong posts on wrestling blogs about girls I never caught, but got away anyway. The legacy of this experience was the knowledge that there *were* girls out there for me. Smart and pretty and fun and kind, eager to be good people, eager to make something of themselves, but not so perfect they’re unobtainable.

A year later we’re at the national tournament in Illinois,  I mention to her a guy who did a hilarious reading of a poem about getting old and dealing with erectile dysfunction. She meets the guy and says his reading came highly recommended. He moves halfway across the country to be with her later that year.

They’re married now.

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1. Making up for lost time with two-a-QOTDs, and I figured if I’m going to over share, might as well do it with a supplementary question!

…but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.” – Michael J. Fox.

Lets talk about Bullying. If you can’t tell from my dashing good looks, muscled frame, and deep, sultry, almost golden roasted voice, I was the ‘victim’ of a good amount of bullying as a kid. The worst of it was taking a poop in fifth grade and having kids throw paper towels covered with piss and poop and spit, over the top of the stall. It was pretty horrible, especially because I dropped my lunch money in the toilet right after.

It was not a good day, and not a good time.

Lets talk about bullying, which is the hot new parental buzzword! Do you think ‘bullying’ has a purpose in the development of youths into well adjusted adults, or should kids be able to go to school without the fear of being harassed and picked on? Do you think bullying has ‘gotten worse’ or just changed forms from physical harassment to constant mental harassment over things like social media?

I dunno – I guess I’m old enough now where I can see both sides. Kids shouldn’t be miserable, but they also shouldn’t be so shielded from adversity that when they, say, get to college, and then the NFL, and a big tall angry player calls them names, that they run to their lawyer and start leaking out selected segments of text messages and voice-mails without the full context of the message, instead of talking to the player directly.

I think this whole thing went off the rails we stopped picking teams in Gym Class, to be honest. I’m not sure if it’s the same everywhere, but because of our discrimination policy way back in the day, the coach had to pick teams to avoid making the nonathletic kids feel stupid. That always sat strangely with me, because it wasn’t like the dumb kids got to take a different math test, ya know? You are what you are, and if you don’t like it, change it, or grin and bear it.

(jokes on them though – 8th grade, basketball, you try getting out of the way of a 6′ tall 250 pound motherfucker going up for a rebound.)

Still, I do look back on the ration of shit I took as a kid with a weird sort of…reverence. I think being bullied, or harrased, or whatever, is an important part of growing up – in essence showing you that sometimes people will NOT be nice to you, and that YOU need to make your choice as to fight back, ignore it, or tattle.

I chose to tattle and generally ignore that time, and while ‘bullying’ continued until like..9th grade, I was never miserable, it was just something that sucked about my day. Which is fine, I figured when I was an adult *lots* of things would suck about a given day, and I had might as well get used to it now. But, that’s *me*. I don’t have kids. I haven’t had my kids come home from school in tears because someone pushed them or beat them up, or whatever.

It just seems now that the folks that grew up with my generation have grown up and had kids, we’ve become so…eager to protect our kids, often times at the expense of their maturation. There’s value in “Life is tough, get a helmet”, if you ask me.

Every now and then I look at my hands and notice how soft they are compared to that of my parents and the people who’s hands I shake. Have I too, been coddled?

Actually I know I was. In fact, technically, if my school records are to be believed, I’m ‘retarded’. I didn’t know until I graduated from high school and went through all my records while fighting a terrible case of food poisoning and saw a great deal of information pertaining to my fine motor-skills, muscle development, and special classes I took as a kid.

Wild.

Really, what’s worse, being harassed as a kid or having something like that held from you for over a decade for fear of….I’m not sure what, exactly.

Private virtue.” When playing Assassin’s Creed IV this past week for review I kept finding myself put off. I like to think I take ‘gaming’ more ‘seriously’ than most in terms of what a game is trying to communicate, and I just kept coming up empty with ACIV. What is this? Who exactly wants to play a semi-historically accurate stealth…brawler, that’s about viciously murdering people?

Then I started to think about the public interest. The idea that media creators, writers, actors, anyone in a position to communicate a message, should in some way, shape, or form, be attempting to enrich some aspect of the general public’s lives. It can be through a strong message of friendship like in Entourage, or hard work being its own reward like in Rudy, or even simply be about entertaining the audience in a creative way like in the Lethal Weapon movies.

Honestly I think even most of the stuff that’s like, really fucking terrible and vapid – Like E! Shows or Honey Boo Boo are enriching in their own way. It’s *fun* to watch C-list celebrities bicker, and there’s certainly more people in this world like Honey Boo Boo’s family than there are high-minded characters Aaron Sorkin or David E. Kelly come up with.

But you get into trouble when your movie, or show, or book, or game doesn’t know *what* it is, but is still executed with something resembling technical prowess. Anyone remember how dissapointing The Dark Knight Rises was? Comic Book Men on AMC has this problem, as it’s part podcast, part comic-book pawn stars, and part…I don’t know what. A better example would be the Star Wars prequels, which are action movies about an intergalactic power struggle in which we see absolutely zero effects of suffering, and the plan is so convoluted there’s a 3 hour review about it online – what is that movie *about* ya know? The “Son Of The Mask” is simply bizarre because it has no idea what kind of comedy it wants to be. 

Thus:

What are movies, books, TV shows, games, or wrestlers you view as hollow? Sure, they may look good, but there’s absolutely *nothing* going for it below the surface.

For the record this is the reason I can’t do strip clubs. I know what boobies look like, I know what booties look like, I care about what kind of person is behind those boobies and booties, and a strip club ain’t a fun place to find out.

My biggest gripe is how Sci-Fi has made a literal mountain of money off of intentionally bad films. They somehow figured out a way to make movies that are supposed to be cheesy, and C-level in terms of acting and affects, and people love em’. I don’t get it. Bad on purpose is bad. Bad on accident can be good!

Also Randy Orton does nothing for me. He’s had good matches, but I don’t think there’s ever been a time in my life – save a few matches in Booking Revolution, where I looked upon Randy Orton with anything other than a “meh” in terms of character. He’s a pretty good wrestler, I just don’t care about him because he’s a blank slate. 

But back to Assassin’s Creed. Somewhere between the disclaimer that says Assassin’s Creed IV  is made from a mix of cultural and religious backgrounds, and the end of a story that takes so few risks it was probably written by the legal department, I came to realization that whatever “Assassin’s Creed” has been putting down, I’m not picking up. I don’t get it.

But when both my mom and dad take note of the game, marveling at its beauty and animation, and I’m underwhelmed, I’m starting to think this is a me problem. So, what’s my problem with Assassin’s Creed? A lot, actually. Quite a lot.

 I hate how it attempts to combine historical settings with brutal violence, then claims that the mass-murdering character you play as, is the hero of an organization fighting for the freedom of all peoples.

 I hate that the game constantly makes you tail, then eavesdrop on characters who are saying very important things that you can’t listen to because you’re too busy trying to hide or blend in.

I hate the suspension of disbelief I need to make in order to accept that the character I’m playing as has already had all these things happen to him, and I’m just reliving his memories, like a bloody freedom trail.

I hate that this is seemingly now the ONLY game without some sort of moral choice system.

I hate the countless moments where you’ll stand upon the ledge of a garrison, looking down upon two guards having a chat, drop down upon their necks with furious anger and piercing steel, hop into a nearby hay bale to avoid being spotted, then catch the fact you’re half smirking with triumph like a mini-Walter White. This happens *all* the time. Every silent infiltration, every distracted guard, every rooftop murder, makes you feel like a king.

I hate Assassin’s Creed IV does pretty much everything it can to extract dopamine from the player as often as possible. I feel violated.

Anyway, it’s a fun game, but junk food. 

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1. Hope you don’t mind the double dip QOTDs! I’m trying to make up for missing days so I’m on track to hit 100 on the 100th day.

They’re the wurst.

Or the one about the skunk? It stunk.

I heard a rumor that if you outlaw puns, then only outlaws would have puns.

She gave me the broken pencil, but I didn’t get the point.

How many feet in a yard? Depends how many people are standing in it.

I’ve waited long enough, it’s time for the GREAT PUN SHARE A PALOOZAAAAAAAA. Share a pun! Any pun! Fun puns, dumb puns, honey puns, and yummy puns! Ready? Go! (Regular jokes welcome too)

God. I’ve spent the last three days in a haze of Assassin’s Creed IV and Eminem’s MMLP2, and they’re both curiously similar in that they’re really *really* good, despite feeling a little…forced.

The thing with Eminem is that I think he’s officially suffering from Everclear syndrome. Meaning that his music is at its best when his life really sucks, or his life previously sucked. There’s an underlying angst and mischievous ‘fuck the world’ attitude to his best tunes.The same thing goes for Everclear or even Alanis Morrisette, when your musical identity is predicated on something raw, what happens when you’re not raw anymore?

Making matters worse for Em, he’s also dealing with MMLP2 being his first record since his ‘come back’ album, Recovery, which is probably the only album I know to explore the world of drug abuse and depression with more goofy puns than a Disney open-mic. Because of this, Eminem has completed the typical three act structure us humans are intimately familiar with: Rise, Fall, Redemption. Who remembers the fourth act?

I’ll have a full review of the album (cause I wanna) later on, but until then, the question is:

Is it better to burn out or fade away? Are their artists you still listen too despite their creative peak being years ago? Do The Rolling Stones still feel *anything* after decades of playing the same…20 songs or so on tour? Who are you favorite artists that faded away, then came back?

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Apologies for my absence, the middle of the week is nuts.

The Working Man. One of the cool things about the SCSA podcast is that he seems eternally grateful for the fact he’s not a ‘working man’ and appreciates every single listener who busts their proverbial hump driving trucks, digging ditches, and so on. I also saw this video by Mike Rowe about how we don’t appreciate manual laborers as much as we should:

Are you a workin’ man? Hard labor or white collar? Are you satisfied, or do you feel a job should satisfy you? Have you ever had to hire someone? What do you think makes for a great job candidate?

I ask because there is a broadcasters job fair tomorrow and I’m pretty serious about going – but am nervous. My current job pays most of the bills, is relatively low-key (Shit I’m writing this *at* work), but it doesn’t satiate the soul in a way I think a creative job would.

So I’m torn – I doubt I’ll get a job offer that will match what I’m making here, and I’m not sure if I want to toss overboard this gig for something a little uncertain. That’s of course, implying a broadcaster wants to hire me.

Resume / Interviewing / Cover letter tips welcome!

What are your favorite crossovers?

Naturally, kentacohut.

Beyond the unholy (and wholly delicious) marriage of KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, I have a soft spot for cross overs. I think they’re neat and even if they’re not always *good*, it’s always fun.

A Star is Burns – I caught this episode before ‘hype’ was a thing on the internet, and loved it. Here’s a humdinger – when this first aired I was 9. I triple checked the math on that and its right. I remember because my mind was blown apart when the episode made a “Jetsons meet the Flinstones” joke, a tape I had accidentally taped over that *very* day. Unless my memory is fooling me which is very possible. 

Obviously through 17 more years worth of re-watches and internet fiddling, I learned Groening was upset about the whole thing and took his name off the episode. Which always struck me kind of terrible. He tried to get the episode pulled, and said some really nasty things to James L. Brooks, who brought us Mary Tyler Moore for crying out loud.

Anyway the episode is a near classic.  It’s where “Boo-urns” actually comes from and it makes a wild point about trying to convince Homer to choose the ‘better’ film over the more entertaining one.

The Jetsons meet The Flintstones – I watched this tape all the time as a kid. Fun little plot and tons of fish out of water humor, which is good in pretty much any flick. I don’t remember much about it now, but remember liking it at the time and being the first time I got a ‘concept” for cross-overs.

Some more to think about:

The Onslaught Saga (any comic nerds want to explain this one too me? Is is worth reading?), The Avengers, Freddy Vs. Jason, No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, The Rugrats Go Wild, That time the Ninja Turtles met The Power Rangers, X-men: Days of Future Past, That time all those cartoon characters came together to say no to drugs, That time Jordan played baseball,

Time to talk about movies again! Well, a specific type of movie – the basic cable classic. Movies that are infinitely watchable that you’ve seen countless times on networks like TBS, AMC, TNT, USA, and even Bravo, occasionally.

What are your ‘Basic Cable Classics’? Movies you can watch over and over again? Bonus points if you found them on basic cable.

To qualify as a basic cable classic, in my humble opinion, you (typically) need a couple of things:

1) Process – the movie shows you something cool / interesting while telling a great story – normally through narration. “The Shawkshank Redemption” shows you the inner workings of prison life in a cool way, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” shows you the process of how to properly play hookey, and “Dawn of The Dead” (the remake), gives you several slice of life segments inside a shopping mall while trying to avoid evil zombie folk. “Goodfellas” and “Casino” do the same thing.

This makes these movies easy to watch and enjoy because even if you come in half way through, there’s enough interesting stuff going on.

2) Ensemble – memorable characters are super important, even if they’re not super fleshed out. We remember Brooks and the Warden from the Shawshank redemption, despite them both being relatively two dimensional. Same with Dawn of the Dead – there’s the big angry black guy, the douchey dude with the boat, the guy with the weird ass mustache, the old guy, and the blonde bad ass dude.The Dark Knight had Harvey Dent, Jim Gordon, Alfred, The Joker, and fuckin’ Batman.

Memorable doesn’t always mean ‘good’ but you can point to any number of characters in a basic cable classic with fondness – Charlie Sheen from “Day off”, Joe Peschi from “Goodfellas” and “Casino”, that guy from Star Trek: TNG in “Dawn of The Dead”

3) Watch-ability – Typically basic cable classics focus on entertainment FIRST. While classic and great movies can be slow and a little self-important – to great affect, I don’t think anyone is carving four hours out of their Thursday night to watch “The Tree of Life” or a Goddard film. Goodfellas is an amazing movie, but it’s primary focus is entertaining the audience, versus telling some nuanced and symbolic story.

Thus here are some of my favorite ‘basic cable classics’:

The Dark Knight, The Shawshank Redemption, Dawn of The Dead, Casino, Goodfellas, Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, Limitless, Lethal Weapon 4, The 40 Year old Virgin, X2: X-men United, Iron Man.

Happy end of Halloween Blog Otters! I’m on my way to an organ performance at Brown university and figured I’d post this, else miss two QOTDs in a row!

What are you best and worst Halloween adventures? 


I have a few involving sailor Jerry’s, k2 , cops and German chicks but ill save it for a real keyboard

So I’ll post my costume. I’m the king of kings…. Personal band.https://mobile.twitter.com/MeekinOnMovies/status/396121149018349568/photo/1

We’ve all been here. 5am, wide awake, sick as a dog, and the only thing on TV is…infomercials. Turtle Wax, Oxy Clean, Orange Glow, Slapchop, ShamWow, Snuggie, P90X, the Bowflex, Jane Fonda Aerobics, Sweatin’ To the Oldies, and countless more products have become seared into our skull thanks to infomercials that are cheesy enough to make us think the products are crap, but, possibly, for 19.95 (plus S&H) may be worth checking out anyway.

Thus:

What have you tried / bought / used that was from a TV infomercial? Does the Slap Chop work? Is the Sham Wow for real? Is the Snuggie awesome, or just a bathrobe you put on backwards?

How do you guys define addiction? I remember reading Stephen King’s “On Writing” and found he realized he had some serious drinking (among other) issues when he would go out to restaurants and be absolutely baffled at people who could only have *A* class of wine, or a *A* beer – his logic being, why would you drink if you didn’t intend to get a little buzz-faced?

What do you define as alcoholism / addiction?  Any quality “oh man I gotta slow this shit down” stories you want to share if they aren’t toooo tragic?

Despite the fact I drink roughly once every three months, I have
to agree with King’s perception of booze. I don’t like the taste of any alcohol or mind
altering substance, and am more in it for its obviously intended
affects. I’m the same way with folks who spend like fifteen minutes
running down a list of what makes THEIR weed, so special – I.E I don’t
care if its a microbrew, green ninja, happy funtime express, or
whatever, I just care that it’ll get me a little, or a lot silly.

Could just be me, though.

To bring it back to wrestling, when I look at a guy like Ric Flair, I don’t really get alcoholic vibes, so much as…lonely vibes. On the SCSA Podcast you could almost here how excited he was to throw down brews with Stone Cold, and once he had a single beer, you hear the man open up and become a lot more loose.
It’s wild. My dad does the same thing, he doesn’t even seem to *need*
the beer, he’ll have a sip or three and suddenly be bonkers. It’s wild.

Similarly, while I don’t know if the guy needs help or what not, I think in reality he’s probably made peace with his drinking and what not – figuring that he’s made it this far being that guy who likes to drink, and as far as demons go, that’s not the worst one to have, save for an occasional domestic disturbance.

When it comes to addiction recovery I find it insane what DDP has been able to do via the DDP yoga stuff. Naturally time will tell, and not to speak for the guy, but I feel Scott Hall moving out of the accountability ranch wasn’t a swell move.

Though DDP said something that made me realize that I probably shouldn’t ‘smoke’ as often as I do. He said something like “Do you like what do you do when you’re high or fucked up? No? Then WHY ARE YOU DOING IT?!”. It’s a good point, and as a result I’ve stopped the whole “Oh man I wanna be high before this movie!” thing, because I hate being high in public places. Good thoughts from a smart dude.

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So this is a selfish one for me. I’m going to the Pats game tomorrow and would love to get some quality stories, tips, tricks, and ideas for making my Pats game adventure quality.

What are your sporting event dos and don’ts? Do you pregame? How do you pick up chicks at a game? What’s the best way to be a quality fan? 


I’m not intending on drinking for I gotta drive after, but fully intend to be adjourned to an herbal dimension by the start of the game.

Have at it, Blog Of Doom!

Sell out! With me, oh yeah. Sorry, I’ll try to keep the Reel Big Fish content to a minimum this QOTD. Anyhoot, I’ve been pondering the concept of ‘selling out’ and what it means, and how it can make a fellah (or lady) hate a given artist.

What do you define as selling out? Have people like Kid Rock, Dr. Dre, Eminem, and Bon Jovi ‘sold out’ because they changed their styles? Or are you okay with a musician adapting their style to reflect A) what they think is popular and B) the kind of music they want to make? 

Did The Rock sell out?

I believe Scott said something about Kid Rock going from a rapper / rocker to kind of a country-fried, Lynyrd Skynyrd sampling, GOP moolah taking, wuss face. And I can’t blame him. If you liked Kid Rock for one thing (or two things), and then saw him performing now, you may kind of cock your head sideways and wonder where his ‘edge’ went. Then again the concert I went too had 4 dollar beer and 20 dollar admission and he played all the hits I wanted to hear.

I saw so many Milf Boobies because of my “Ted” shirt. So many. Like 7 and a half boobies.

When Bowling For Soup got huge they definitely sapped up all that kid-friendly money, doing horrible covers of “I’ll Melt with You” (Where they changed “Making love with you was never second best” to “Being friends with you…” which caused me to puke in my mouth a bit), making a covers album, and I think they ended up recording both the Jimmy Neutron and Phinieas and Ferb songs. Barenaked Ladies’ Christmas and kids albums both felt…unnecessary.

I personally don’t have a problem with it, but that’s because I’m fans of these bands and want to see them succeed, so if BFS gets to record their next album in a better studio cause they did a couple of crappy kids songs, great. If Kid Rock has a country bone in his body he wants to diddle, go for it.

What I really hate is when bands get so big that suddenly a good concert ticket becomes nearly impossible to kid. My mom won tickets to the Rolling Stones, and were told our tickets would hypothetically be about 120 dollars, each, had we paid for them. My mouth dropped. Don’t get me wrong, I know folks are paying for the nostalgia of seeing a band they associate closely with my childhood, but there’s nothing quite as damning to rock and roll than a high concert ticket price, if you ask me.

What say you, Blotters?

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Blog Otter Award: Jobber123 for making a point about Silver Linings Playbook’s depiction of mental illness that I think was important. I’ll shrink this down if don’t wanna read my thoughts.

If you ask me, often times relationships that are emotionally abusive find themselves
in a situation kind of similar to what Silver Linings Playbook
presented toward the end of the film. Bradley Cooper  is violent,
and crazy, and is ultimately saved, in a sense, by Jennifer Lawrence’s
Tiffany.

 That whole “We’re both crazy, baby” kind of mentality is what
allows an insecure gal to stay with her boyfriend through his
semi-regular fits of anger that may very well land the family cat in the
E.R. – and if taken in the wrong light could reinforce a person’s
commitment to making a poisoned relationship work. I’m sure the issues are far more complicated than that, but I always found that aspect of the movie bugged me. 

Then again I know absolutely INSANE people (many of whom may be on this very blog, har har) who found a nice lady and got themselves all sorts of grounded in reality real freakin’ quick.

I now present to you a meme that completely devalues the message of the movie in favor of single girl, self empowering, pity-seeking.

1. One for certain sell-out moment I can think of is when they attempted to broadcast the World Series of Poker’s final table on PPV. Don’t get me wrong ESPN, I love what you did for ‘the sport’ of Poker, but I wasn’t born yesterday.

2. OH! Okay, so I know we have a TON of comic fans here, and let me say that if you ever wanted a casual game that’s packed full of awesome comic references, pick up Lego Marvel Superheroes, TODAY. It’s awesome. It’s an Iron Man, Hulk Smash, Spider-man, Fantastic Four, and about 30 other superheroes, game, all in an open world with a pretty good plot, and tons of in-jokes to spare.

Even better it plays like a universe-wide sequel to The Avengers movie, but with Spidey, The X-men, and Fantastic Four along for the ride.

Name a wrestling match, television show, movie, food, song, or band that you fully expected to hate, but surprised you with its quality, entertainment value, taste, catchiness, or talent. 

Hola Otters, apologies for yesterday’s QOTD having only a tangential relationship with reality. Speaking of reality, I made the unfortunate choice of taking a gander at CNN’s comments section today, and found myself wholly disappointed in the kinds of drivel people will write on pretty much any article.

Thus:


Do you fear for humanity since the dawn of the internet’s – reply first, read later, age? How do you get your news? Where do you go to fact check?

I do fear for the kinds of people we’re going to be in the future – eager to believe we are right no matter what, eager to say the edgy thing to get the most up votes or spark the most outcry. It really bums me out that we have taken this wonderful ability to communicate with people across the world, and essentially made it a platform to argue with one-another without much in the way of research or quality arguments.

Take for example how most people get their news these days.

<Something Happens>
<Reporter gets information on the thing that happened>
<Reporter condenses information into an article>
<Article is posted>
<Article is shared on twitter or facebook>
<Few people read the whole article>

By the time the information because publicly available and part of our psyches, it’s been diluted almost half a dozen times. There is no primary source anymore. People don’t read the text of a speech by President Obama, they’ll listen to what other people have to say about the speech, then listen to what people had to say about what the other people had to say, about the speech. While it’s not hard to seek out the primary source and make your own assumptions,  it’s far easier to read (some of) what someone wrote about it, and then take that take-away as fact.

I dunno, it just bugged me. The article that bummed me out can be found here: Police: Slain Nevada teachers’ heroism bought time for students to flee

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Blog Otter Award: We’re going extra textual for this one and awarding the award to Andy PG, who I believe wrote his Raw Review on a speak and spell following technical difficulties. We appreciate the effort, sir!

 

Lets talk about Pink Hats, sorta. As someone who finally, and proudly, took off their Boston Red Sox Pink Hat in time for the post-season – having watched every episode of Ken Burn’s ‘Baseball’, and watched full games, and listened often to the “baseball reporters” show on my local radio station, I feel confident enough in my knowledge of the game where I’m comfortable saying I’m not a band-wagoner or a Pink Hat.

Can you point to a season, event, or moment where a game, sport, or activity ‘clicked’ and it became so much more than you once thought it was?

For me, Extreme Warfare Revenge brought me to wrestling in a way I never knew was possible. I had vague understandings of how wrestler’s ‘worked’ and what the ‘IWC’ was, but that freakin’ game essentially gave me a database of every single wrestler on the planet, accurate descriptions, a photo, and what kind of style they worked. It was nuts. Couple that with finding out people actually *reviewed* wrestling matches based on their artistic merits, and I was off to the proverbial races, stumbling across Scotsmantality, and then this here blog…I think within months of each other. The details are foggy.


Actually for most things I consider myself knowledgeable about, I’ve always learned through a video-game. I picked up the basics of football scheme, strategy, and timing from Madden, NBA 2K taught me all kinds of fundamentals, and Tiger Woods taught me I should never, ever, be a golfer.

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Blog Otter Award: Jobber for thread jacking and going to the PPV yesterday. A short video of him is below.

You know, I won’t lie. I’m glad Goldust is back and seems to have his head screwed on straight again (I’m assuming this is why he’s getting this run). I saw the tag match from Raw yesterday in between the Sox game with a buddy who was a big part of my wrestling fandom back in the day, and it was kinda cool to go back and talk about all the ridiculous shit we saw together despite our divergent life paths.

Do you have real-life wrestling friends, or is it purely a solo enjoyment for you? What are your fondest wrestling-related, social memories? Has there been a ‘meh’ match that you loved because of who you were with?

I have a few. I remember watching pretty much every Wrestlemania from 18 to 20 with
the friend mentioned above, and his brother who I was friends with, too. Around when Benoit died we kind of stopped being hardcore into it, but would still casually discuss it. Watching yesterday I was unsure how much he kept up with the product, and it was neat to find out he knew who the shield were, and thought the Wyatts were as stupid as I did.

When I lived in Chicago, playing WWE video-games with my buddy Ross was always a blast because we’d get high, watch a wrestling documentary on a laptop, and go through WWE universe mode fantasy booking and playing matches. I saw Over The Limit this way and we both marked out so hardcore for the simple act of a full-surfboard. Good times. While my friends were in ‘the know’ they weren’t smarks, and dug Triple H and Shawn Michaels’ Hell in a Cell match as their favorite of all time. It was nice to get an outside perspective.

When WWE 13′ came out last year and I had no one to play it with, the whole game felt hollow.because I was playing against a computer, and the thing I liked most about those games was the bonding I’d have with friends over it. It’s actually why I’m so high on those Mdickie games, it gives me that joy of ‘having a good match’ despite the fact I’m playing by myself.

I’ve almost gotten laid a couple of times thanks to my wrestling
fandom, but alas the ladies I’ve met that have been into the product
have lived really far away, or been missing a few braincells, teeth,
jobs, cars, or any combination there of.

When I try to get non-fans into the product I find myself kind of feeling meh, and like I’m trying too hard to get them into something they probably find stupid or silly. Though I have gotten my Dad to watch The Rock documentary, and we’re gonna check out the Stone Cold one, too. 

Naturally there are tons of wrestling-related memories from this blog, but obviously ‘IRL’ interactions are a little more potent.

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Blog Otter Again: Your_Favourite_Loser for explaining Metal Fandom in a way non-fans like myself can happily understand.

I don’t “get” metal. Like I enjoy some of it, but it’s typically on the more ‘melodic’ side – I can get down to some Sabbath, ‘Tallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and a few other bands, but when it comes to stuff like Cannibal Corpse, Cradle of Filth, or anything speedy / grindy / abrasive voice-wise, I just kind of go cross-eyed at it all.

Are You a Metal Head? What should non-fans look for in Medal to perhaps appreciate it more? 





I enjoy Power Metal too, for the record. Otherwise…yeah, just not my thing.

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Blog Otter Award: BuckDiddy for the quality Whitney Houston shout out.

Now this is a song you can set your watch too. While skydiving. And winning a wrestling match. While lifting weights. And getting into the empire business.

What are your personal “Pump Up” songs? Songs you play full blast in your car, through your headphones, or via your stereo system. Songs that make you wanna take on the world while giving em’ the middle finger twice. 






I have a few. Kid Rock’s “Cowboy” is a classic for me, along with “American Bad Ass”, “Wasting Time”, and a bunch more I’m probably forgetting at the moment.

B.OB’s “Airplanes Part II”, “I’ll be in the Sky”, and “Don’t let me Fall” are up there. The entirety of Eminem’s “Recovery” album serves this purpose too, with highlights “No Love”, “You’re Never Over”, and “Almost Famous” being the kinds of tunes you win a fight too. “Rap God” is up there now, too. I can’t recommend “Moment of Truth” by Gang Starr, enough, either.

Country wise I got “It Works for Me” via Toby Keith, “Rollin” by Big & Rich (especially the rap breakdown), and “Dirt Road Anthem” by Jason Aldeen get a bunch of rotation when I wanna get my adrenaline pumping.

I’m leaving out a bunch, including “Kasimir” by Led Zeppelin because I love the song, but can’t understand a word their saying in the song.

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Blog Otter Award: Magoonie for getting “Chasing Amy”-ed. Poor guy.