My love/hate relationship with professional wrestling

As my DVR and girlfriend will tell you, I watch a ton of pro wrestling. Whether it's Monday Night Raw, TNA Impact, Ring of Honor, Friday Night Smackdown or the AWF's Saturday Night Slam (it's a local indy show that's on after ROH here.)  Each show brings something different, but as of late I begin to wonder why I watch at all. So without further ado, here's my love/hate of each show I watch

Note:I'm skipping Saturday Night Slam because:

1. It's only a half hour show

2.Unless you live in MN, you've probably never seen/heard of it, and if you do live here, you probably wouldn't watch it since it's filmed out of high school gyms, I actually enjoy it and am slowly learning who the talent is, I say slowly because I'm usually half asleep by the time I get around to watching it.

3. I'm friends with one of the wrestlers (Udo) so I have a vested interest that I might get to see my friend on television, doesn't happen often, but when it does, I mark out hardcore. 

TNA Impact: 

Things I like about TNA:
1.James Storm's hats. -Cowboy hats are cool, especially neon colored ones. I like bright colors, plus without them Charles Cress (one of my personal heroes and an amazing writer to boot http://www.themidnightsnack.net/ and http://pwtorch.com/  he writes another sports column as well but I forget what it is at the time of this blog)  would have to make fun of the other 999 things wrong with TNA

2. Austin Aries: A Double is awesome sauce. I only wish I could pull off that cool of a mustache. Plus he is amazing to watch wrestle in the ring along with the rest of the X Division, I can't wait for Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley to come back. MCMG we need you!

3.Winter: She's super hot. That's about it. Not a great reason but I'm grasping at straws here.

Things I hate:
1. Storylines that make no sense: Gail Kim was upset at the treatment she received in WWE, being treated as a sex object and having to participate in degrading matches, but finds it to be perfectly okay in TNA? Wrestling Matters? Not in this company, bring on Thanksgiving Thong Thunder and turkey suits for the win! 

2. The random face/heel turns with no explanation: Examples: Ken Anderson, Samoa Joe, and Eric Young. Especially Eric, he goes from the bad ass leader of World Elite to  being Little Mac  from Mike Tyson's Punch Out sans pink sweatsuit, watch the Thanksgiving episode of him training with Rudy Charles, it'll click I promise.

3. The announce team:
Do Taz and Mike Tenay just go out and get trashed before they start doing commentary now? Taz usually goes off track during the Knockouts matches, mainly because he's too busy making comments about how girl X is a hot tomatah or letting the pigeons loose, other times I think he's on the phone with Joey Numbers during commentary, honestly the only thing worse is the decline of Mike Tenay. What the hell happened to the professor? Did the Skipper eat him? All he does is bitches about how he hates whoever is the heel this week, but agrees with them the following week? (example:Karen Jarrett) This show has more twists than a M.Night Shyamalan movie, it has more turns than a game of Monopoly with Grandma, where'd you get the pink 50's Grandma? (Dane Cook reference FTW). I can't really blame them though, I can't follow what's going on either.  

Monday Night Raw:

Things I enjoy:

1.CM Punk - Punk is entertaining, he's gonna be an awesome commentator if he doesn't get the brain damage that Booker T seems to have inherited while on commentary, I'm guessing one too many spinaroonis did him in. 

2. John Cena slowly moving into a more heelish persona. It's going to happen, there's only so much someone get booed before they just say screw it and run with it. Word Life. 

3.Awesome Truth: Well, I did like this for a small period of time. Then the week before and Survivor Series happened and they were made to look like chumps. Really? The Miz is getting jobbed out to the Rock? Really? I blame Little Jimmy and Pretty Ricky( anyone remember that R-Truth bit where he was searching for Pretty Ricky? I do.) 

Things I hate:
1. Lack of Jim Ross: Raw NEEDS Jim Ross. Ideally I'd want Ross and William Regal as an announce team. It'll probably never happen but I can dream can't I? The 3 man broadcasts just irritate me to no end, they seem to spend more time arguing about who got more retweets on twitter than they do the actual show.

2.The constant talk about Twitter: Okay, we get it, follow you on twitter, you didn't brag about people being on Myspace, why the hell do I care what so and so tweets? If I cared, I'd follow them. I watch to see pro wrestling and get my male soap opera on, not to hear about what Daniel Bryan tweeted about lunch. 

3.Too many title changes/ non title matches:

I'm too lazy to actually look this up, but I'm sure the WWE title has been on more guys than a hooker on prom night. (cue crickets) I can't take a champion seriously if he loses the belt after 2 weeks, or in the case of our non title matches, loses to the challenger, if your gonna go that route, at least make the matches mean something, like if the challenger wins, they get a match at the next PPV. (similar to ROH's Proving Grounds idea). Make me care about who holds the belt, Cody Rhodes makes me care, why can't the rest of you? 

Friday Night Smackdown:
Things I like:

1.Cody Rhodes. I don't even need to explain this, he's just awesome, much like his dad, a personal favorite of mine growing up. Golddust vs. Cody Rhodes for WM28! #rhodesorriot

2.The show actually has a decent amount of wrestling! Raw feels like a giant promo sometimes, the last Raw I actually enjoyed was the one after CM Punk came back after Money in the Bank, that and the muppets one. But come on, muppets, not quite a mop, not quite a puppet, to be completely honest I have no idea where I'm going with this...

Things I dislike:

1.Honestly I'm really enjoying Smackdown as of late but the Aksana bits are just a waste of my time. Considering none of the other Divas get any freakin' time as it is, why are they wasting time on Teddy "I got this suit at Pimps R' Us! Holla Holla playa!" Long' and Ivan Drago's hot sister? 

2. Raw Rewinds: I usually end up watching Smackdown on my DVR so I fast forward through these but why do I care what happened on Raw while watching Smackdown, I watched Raw, I know what happened, I don't need to be reminded of the crappy 20 minute Rock promo I had to sit through on Monday night. I get it, Boots to Asses, you love twitter and have a sick obsession with breakfast cereal. Moving on...

Ring of Honor:
1.Decent amount of wrestling - Again, a wrestling show with wrestling? Novel concept put to good work.

2. They actually follow up on storylines! I'll be the first to admit, I've only recently started watching ROH (I'd seen a few matches on youtube before it got moved to Sinclair broadcasting) but coming in from knowing next to nothing about a lot of the people, I actually know who's face and who is heel and why people dislike each other. The other thing I liked was during the first episode they explained the code of honor, people who have never seen the show wouldn't know what it was, again, novel concept, explaining things to new fans so we can catch up. I love it. 

3. The broadcast team actually talks about the match! No fighting between Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuiness (I miss Desmond Wolfe) they just call the match and talk a little bit about previous encounters between the participants. I loved listening to the commentary during the Kyle O Reilly/ Davey Richards match, I learned more about their backstory and that drew me further into the match (not that the match itself wasn't freakin' amazing!) 

Things I dislike:

1.The only real knock I have against ROH is the over-advertising of their website. I get it, I can buy DVDs and check out iPPVs there. You told me 5 minutes ago. 

2. The show is only an hour long. I guess this could be viewed as a good thing as it means they get right to the point, but I wouldn't be opposed to a 2 hour show.

So that's about it for now, depending on if anyone actually reads these I may start writing more. Maybe I should just stick to drawing. ^_^ 

A simpler time...

Remember when all you had to do when you wanted to play a video game was just plug the cartridge into the console and you were ready to rock and or roll? I'm referring to the Atari 2600 of course, the last console I had that didn't require a degree in computer science to operate. Some of you are probably arguing, well, Nintendo didn't require you to do anything else. Bull-honkey! You had to pray to whatever diety you believed in and hoped that the cartridge would work, I remember spending 2 and a half hours once trying to get Castlevania to work, I'm not kidding, I blew and blew until I couldn't blow anymore and the thing finally worked after that amount of time. Things have only gotten more complex since then. We eventually moved away from carts to discs. Discs gave us better graphics, sound, and CGI, but it also gave us loading times and scratches. I was usually pretty good about taking care of my games, but I've had a few that were unplayable after I left them sitting on my desk for too long.

As technology evolved, we are at a point today where your game console does everything but cooks you breakfast, (unless you own a George Foreman PS3) but we have to sit through long load times and installs, anyone who recently bought Resistance 3 knows what I'm talking about... my whole issue with it though mainly involves PC gaming. PC gaming has always at least in my point of view, sucked. I recently downloaded Portal for my laptop, keep in mind, my laptop is less than 2 years old, and can run blu ray movies, but I can't play Portal on it! For a game that came out so long ago, you'd think my laptop could handle it, nope. Video card can't render 3D. I try to play the game and get as far as the loading screen and the game crashes. WTF?! This of course was something I found out after my 6 hour download time (I'm on the equivalant of DSL because I'm cheap and would rather pay off my house than have quality internet, although I'm beginning to re-think that.) So my choices are buying a new PC again that can handle the game, or shelling out the 20 bucks for a copy of Orange Box that has that and Half Life included in it, (which ironically I already own and have installed on my 10 year old desktop running XP...at least it's not windows 98... so to make a long story short, I'm going to go break out Super Punch Out on my Super Nintendo.

Together We Break These Gears of War

So in about 1 week's time, Gears of War 3 is going to be released for the Xbox 360. The Gears series is
one that holds a special place inside of me (and not because I can make fun of the song Chains of Love by Erasure)  because as each one came out, my life had changed for the better. The first game, and quite honestly, the only reason I think I have a 360, was introduced to me at a friend's house in 2006. It was my first visit to his new apartment, it wasn't very big, but most 1 bedroom places aren't, the key thing that caught my eye was the huge 60 inch tv he had in his living room and a game called Gears of War.

I remember seeing commercials for this game and thinking it looked cool, but we had a Nintendo Wii so I was kinda stuck. An hour later and I had been convinced, I needed to buy a xbox and get this game. About a week later on payday, I went to our local Circuit City (Remember those?) and bought a console, that game, and Beatiful Katamari (my girlfriend wanted it and I technically bought the console for both of us). The game didn't look anywhere near as good as it did at my friend's house on my worn down 25 inch CRT screen, the color on it was going, but I didn't care, I was Marcus Fenix, I was 86ing locusts left and right, I had engulfed myself into the culture of the game. November 2008 rolls around, we had moved a few months earlier into a new town, a new apartment, I bought a 50 inch flat screen tv around this time, and was ready for GOW2.

It literally was one of the few times I've actually pre-ordered a game for myself (I pre-ordered Animal Crossing for my girlfriend among a few others), I woke up extra early so I could get to Target when it opened, picked up my limited edition copy of the game and got home and popped it in. My friend at the time was really into playing online so I didn't really get into the story quite as much this go round, we were trying to do Co-Op storymode and because of achievements, he'd know if I'd skipped ahead without him and vice-versa. Couple this with our jobs making us work opposite schedules of each other and it became more of a hassle more than anything else. I still had a lot of fun with it, but with work and Christmas, it kinda got put on the backburner while I dealt with other stuff. Eventually we beat the game, and by that time, he'd had enough, he had finished all the achievements for the game by this time, and really had no interest in playing anymore, I did another solo runthrough of campaign on my own and had moved onto a new game (I think I started playing Condemned around this time?)

My girlfriend cross stitched the Crimson Omen for me, if that's not love I don't know what is

 Now we come our present time, like before we have moved since then, I currently own a house
now, I really don't play a whole lot of video games like I used to, I've kind of lost interest in it. I
recently started playing Borderlands out of neccessity, I needed something to help me unwind after work
that didn't involve our house other than being in it. So will I pick up Gears 3? Chances are very high,
will it be launch day, more than likely not. I'll be waiting for a while, might finish up some of the
games I never beat (Borderlands, Castlevania, the Darkness, list goes on...)  In the mean time, I'll
always have the first 2 and the fond memories they both bring.

-Cheap Plug Time!

Go check out the following people's blogs/sites, they are all awesome and if you enjoy reading my randomness, you'll surely like these folk, and if you don't like me, well, check them out anyhow

Dragons Are Delicious - My friend Travis writes this, for that reason alone, you should go check it out, not even for the fact he writes about debatable topics, just  the fact it's well written.

Kingdom Of Foom - Awesome forum,webcasts, and just a great community in general. casts are Tue-Wed @ 4PM CST and Fri and Sat @ 8PM CST. (Link is on the main page) Watch them, you'll enjoy them or your money back!* (money back guarantee is not guaranteed)

The Midnight Snack - Charles Cress who writes Alphabet Soup for PWTorch writes this, this guy is what I apsire to be, a writer for a pro wrestling website/ comedic genius! I love the "My Brother Drew This" blogs. Good times. He can also be found on Twitter @CharlesCress, follow him or Cody Rhodes won't get tv time then it'll be #rhodesorriot

JonnyDWeekly - My friend Jon from high school writes about his films and other randomness, the tree story is one I can relate to.

Rose and the City - My friend Rose from work writes about all kinds of stuff, more recently, couponing, I don't get it but she's interesting, and that's gotta count for something.


If I forgot anyone, let me know and I'll mention you next time!

Why I don't have a dog

So the other day at work, the topic of pets came up and someone asked me why I don't own a dog, besides the obvious fact that I barely scrape by as it is because I won't leave for something better, (I'm a very complacent person) I'm happy with the way things are now. Dogs, unlike my cat, require a lot more upkeep. My cat poops in a litter box, I clean it out once a day, takes a few minutes tops. Dogs have to go poop outside, my backyard is filled up enough with bird droppings and broken tree branches from the 3 trees in my backyard that I'm pretty sure have some type of plant leprosy.

 Neither my girlfriend or myself would ever be home to take it for walks,wait, scratch that, we'd be home, neither one of us would do it, I come home from work, grab a soda out of the fridge and fire up the Simpsons or whatever else I have recorded on the DVR. They require upkeep like vet visits, depending on the dog, grooming and factor in the fact we live in a pretty small house (compared to our friends who all have 4 bedroom houses, our little 2 bedroom looks small.) it just doesn't make sense to me. My main argument for this though has always been, but we have Momo!

This is the Momo. Fear him, for he bites. Sometimes. 

Momo or Stinky as I sometimes refer to him, is our cat, his actual name is Gizmo. We've had our little orange ball of terror for roughly 2 years now. We adopted him from a family member who couldn't take care of him, which was supposed to be temporary but here we are 2 years later and he's still here.  Momo has 3 things that he has to do: Eat, Sleep, Poop. That's it. If he's not doing one of those 3 things, he's usually doing the 4th, which is driving me nuts. Most cats as nature shows and other people's cats have taught me, they are only really playful as kittens, as they get older, they sleep a lot and usually don't do much else. Not mine, he has a weird obsession with doors and bottle caps. I've been woken up many of nights to him playing with our kitchen cabinet doors, opening our freezer door so he could knock down a tub of ice cream that he tried to eat, or bringing me random trinkets he finds around the house that he wants me to throw so he can bring back. His favorite items to bring me are bottle caps, hair binders and oddly enough, drinking straws. The straws are the best thing to watch him take, he will trot around like a show pony usually bringing it to his kitty toy fortress, in other words, his food dish.

Accept me as your all-knowing and powerful ruler and nobody gets hurt.

 Not everything about him is bad, he does like to greet me at our door as I come home from work, usually because he expects treats which he is very vocal about getting (he has a very distinct meow for treats, and another one for when he's upset he got locked into a room).For everything he does that annoys me, he makes up for it with doing the occasional cute thing or by being there when I need him to be. Whenever I come home from work and put my keys away, I usually end up giving him treats and sit down to watch tv in the living room, the second I sit down, he comes and sits in my lap and watches tv with me, he'll usually sit there until I move him or he finds something that interests him elsewhere in the house.

We've been through a lot together, when I left my apartment and decided to move into our house, Mo wanted to make sure I didn't leave him behind, so as I packed up my computer, he hopped inside the box and began meowing at me, he wanted to make sure he got to come with.

Hey you, don't forget to bring me with, I wanna come too!

 Shortly after we bought our house, we wanted to move furniture in and get things set up before we brought him home, so I left him at our apartment complex. Every day until I brought him home, I'd go to the apartment to check up on him, on more than one occasion I ended up sleeping on the floor of my old apartment because he didn't want me to leave and I felt bad about leaving him. I guess the real reason I don't have a dog is, nothing else could replace the companionship I have with my cat, he's my little boy and nothing will ever change that.

Dreaming of Cheeseburgers and  Caturdays

Into the Warp Zone...

Welcome to my blog.

First off, let me clear up a few mis-conceptions before they begin. 

1. This blog has nothing to do with killing pigeons, it's only a clever name slightly based off my Rock Band band's name (Looking at Pigeons) and something my friend Travis came up with. The only killing of pigeons I do condone is when you are shooting them in GTA 4.

2. All things mentioned on said blog are usually of my own opinion, you don't like what I write about, tough cookies...oh yeah, I need some cookies now.

Moving on...I fully intend to keep this as interesting as possible, not everything in my life is all that interesting at times, so if I bore you to tears, well, I apologize. With that said... Let's let the magic flute whisk us away onto the magic school bus that is, my blog. ^_^

Circa 2006. I'll do something more up to date later.