Bizarro WrestleMania

So I caught WrestleMania 24 tonight, and while I can’t say it was a great WrestleMania, I can’t say it was bad, either. It was just weird.

The show started off interesting, with a fun geriatric hardcore match, and an entertaining Money In The Bank Ladder Match. The MITB match was fun, had some insane spots and told a great story, with the right guy, CM Punk, snatching the briefcase dangling over the ring while Chris Jericho dangled upside-down from another ladder while Punk celebrated.

The Ric Flair-Shawn Michaels foregone conclusion match was also a great bout. Michaels seemingly impaled himself with a moonsault on the Raw announce table, but kept fighting. Michaels and Flair pulled out all the stops, with Michaels hitting three or four superkicks (all from different angles/locations) before getting the pin and ending Flair’s career.

And then it got weird.

Flair waved to the fans, hugged his family and walked up the (extraordinarily long) ramp. He waved once again and walked behind the video screen. That was it. No mic time for the Nature Boy to say goodbye (even after his induction into the HOF last night, some extra mic time might have been nice).

Following that was the ladies match, which was more annoying than anything. In the middle of that match, the lights went out. That was pretty much the most exciting thing to happen in that 15-minute span.

The weirdness continued, with the Orton/Cena/Triple H title match following that one. The match was a real good one for a triple threat match, but it was bizarre that it wasn’t the last match. The ending was abrubt though, which Triple H getting Orton in some bizarre figure-three leglock, then giving a pedigree to Cena, then Orton ruining the pin and covering Cena himself. I was a bit surprised Orton won, and even more surprised at the finish.

Even though it was the most hyped match of the night, the Big Show-Floyd Mayweather bout didn’t interest me much. Still, Mayweather played up to the crowd and it wasn’t a surprise he won (even if he did have to use a foreign object to do so). It was fun, however, to see him and his entourage get beaten up.

Finally, the Undertaker won the championship (one of them) from Edge, in a dramatic match. It was a good solid match, which saw Undertaker win with some type of choke-submission. But it wasn’t the kind of match to blow you away.

So there you have it. No blood. No Austin. No Rock. A lot of weirdness and a few things to laugh about. That was WrestleMania 24.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Today = WrestleMania

Tomorrow = Opening Day

For a few years in a row now, it’s been like this. WrestleMania on a Sunday, Opening Day (for the Yankees at least) a few days later. Winter is over, the days are longer, and baseball is indeed back. The world needs a name for when this confluence of awesomeness occurs. I suggest The Days of Greatness.

Now if only the weather in central Ohio would be a little more spring-like, we’d be in great shape. Happy Days of Greatness everybody!

Maybe El Guapo Was On To Something

Yesterday, I had this great idea for a blog post. Only thing was, my Web host was experiencing problems, so I couldn’t post this. So do me a favor, as you read this, pretend its yesterday, and this might be entertaining after all.

On a daily basis, I check dictionary.com’s Word of the Day. Today’s word was plethora, a word I’m familiar with, but I wasn’t so familiar with plethora’s primary meaning;

plethora \PLETH-uh-ruh\, noun:
1. An abnormal bodily condition characterized by an excessive amount of blood in the system.
2. Excess; superabundance.

dictionary.com Word of the Day, March 24, 2008

Plethora is a fun word to use. One of the reasons is because of an exchange from the film ¡Three Amigos! between the infamous El Guapo and Jefe;

Jefe: We have many beautiful piñatas for your birthday celebration, each one filled with little surprises!
El Guapo: How many piñatas?
Jefe: Many piñatas, many!
El Guapo: Jefe, would you say I have a plethora of piñatas?
Jefe: A what?
El Guapo: A plethora.
Jefe: Oh yes, El Guapo. You have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Jefe: Why, El Guapo?
El Guapo: Well, you just told me that I had a plethora, and I would just like to know if you know what it means to have a plethora. I would not like to think that someone would tell someone else he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has no idea what it means to have a plethora.
Jefe: El Guapo, I know that I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect and education, but could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?

Turns out, all this time, the joke was on me because I didn’t know the true meaning of plethora.

By the way, the Three Amigos had me quite frustrated at the Internet Movie Database. I spent a plethora (def. #2) of time searching the IMDB for “The Three Amigos” only to come up with something else.

$9,800 For A Betamax Machine!

A few years back when Gateway was closing all its Gateway Country stores, I got a good deal on a DVD recorder. Even though the price I paid for it was about double what DVD recorders are going for now, the machine has served the Civee and I well, also acting as our primary DVD player. If there’s something I want to keep for posterity, I use the DVD recorder, as our VCR is relegated to the guest room.

With the recent demise of the HD-DVD format, Blu-Ray is now the wave of the future. Standard DVD should still be around for a while, and I’ve heard that Blu-Ray players can also play standard DVDs, so I don’t have anything to worry about.

With the recent death of HD-DVD, Popular Mechanics recently wrote about the top 10 expired home video formats spanning the last 40 years. Two aspects of this article are interesting; first, in most cases, the magazine lists the costs of the machines, both what they sold for when introduced, and also what it would cost today, adjusted for inflation. Many of these machines, when first released, sold for upwards of $1,000, which seems ridiculous.

The second interesting aspect of the article was one of the machines, was favored by the DHARMA Initiative. Here’s the write-up on the U-Matic machine, one of which was foundin the Pearl Station:

These 0.75-in. videotape recorders used one of the first enclosed cartridge formats on the market. Debuting at $1395 ($7292 in 2008 dollars), the machines could record 60 minutes of color television at 250 lines of resolution with full stereo sound. Nevertheless, the price was too steep for mom-and-pop TV watchers, so U matic never really caught on with consumers. It did, however, catch on with professionals, and serves as a workhorse format in television production to this day.
-Popular Mechanics

[Meet Kevin] Johnson's Got A Gun

Tonight’s episode of Lost, Meet Kevin Johnson, wraps up the first eight-thirteenths of Season Four of Lost. Now we have to wait a month to figure out the answers to such questions as:
-Who lives and who dies?
-Is Ben really good or really evil?
-Who will Kate end up with, Sawyer or Jack?*
*I really don’t care whether this one gets answered or not.
Continue reading [Meet Kevin] Johnson's Got A Gun…

Hail To The Chief(s)

While searching for the latest news in the world of the rock, I was quite surprised to find out that just last week, the Presidents of the United States of America released a new album.

Back in ’95-’96, the Presidents were all over rock airwaves, and rightfully so, with Lump and Peaches, two catchy, witty and poppy rock singles. While the 1996 follow-up, II, had one hit with Mach 5, the Presidents’ career slowed, to the point where they broke up, re-formed and broke up again. Well, they got together again and this month, released These are the Good Times People, a 14-track album of concise, poppy, catchy songs loaded with humor and animal references.

I picked up the album over the weekend and I’m impressed. Three songs that really stand out are Mixed Up S.O.B., Bad Times and So Lo So Hi. These three contain the trademark wittiness and optimism thad make the Presidents’ other hits so darn catchy.

You can listen to the whole album online here. Try it out.

Attention-Grabbing Advertising

The other day, I was reading through the New York newspapers online, checking up on Yankees news. I was going through the Newsday Web site, when an ad they were running caught my eye. The page looked like this:

In case you can’t see it from there, let me zoom in for you:

First question: How do they know?

Second question: The federal government is spending our money on your mom jokes?

I have to admit, while I ignore most ads on the Web, I actually looked at this one.

Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Everybody Ji Yeon Tonight

Hey, that janitor guy on Not Penny’s Boat looks familiar!
Continue reading Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Everybody Ji Yeon Tonight…

King Tom of the Airwaves

The King was on television this morning.

Well, it wasn’t the first time I’ve been on TV, but it was pretty neat to have someone come up to me and say “hey, I saw you on TV!”

The story begins yesterday, after the Civee and I got home from work, I was shoveling some remaining snow and slush out from in front of our car. There was a cameraman from the local NBC affiliate (competitor of the station that was stepsibling to the cable news channel I used to work for) shooting tape of the quickly-melting snow on the streets. The Civee and I DVRed that night’s 11:00 news broadcast to see if they included the video. They didn’t.

So I didn’t think about it until this morning. I walked into the building I work in, and a co-worker, who was crossing the lobby shouted out to me “TOM! YOU WERE ON TV!” A few other co-workers mentioned that they saw me too on the morning nes broadcast. And from what I gather, while no one was paying attention to the content of the news broadcast at the time, all they saw was a few seconds of me shoveling snow.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been on TV or have had people comment about it. But I would like to know why.

What was the story about? Were they critiquing (or making fun of) my form? Were they talking about how a nine-year-old girl could shovel faster than me? (I’ve been sick, you know) Or, rather, were they talking about how my pasty complexion mixes in well with the snow?

Geez, this has made me pretty paranoid.

What'samatter Babe Are Ya Feelin' Sick?

For the past few days, the Civee and I have been under the weather in more ways than one.

Beginning Friday, central Ohio was hit by a storm which dropped anywhere from 13 to 20 inches of snow on the area. As if the white death wasn’t enough, we’ve been sick.

The Civee has a nasty cough and a lot of congestion. I had a fever which hit 101.9 and has left me dizzy and disoriented (even more disoriented than usual).

Because the rest of my family lives everywhere but Columbus, they’ve been calling throughout the past few days to check on how we’ve been dealing with the snow. When I inform them of our illness, they’ve all passed along advice. Different advice.

My father advised taking a lot of vitamin C. My mother said we should drink hot tea and soup.

But my grandmother had the most interesting advice. She said to take a quarter cup of vinegar, a quarter cup of honey, mix it together and drink a tablespoon of it every six hours. I asked her if this was something she would try and she said yes, and the vinegar is important because it’s supposed to kill the germs in your throat.

I haven’t tried it. But I did think; wouldn’t drinking a can/bottle of beer every hour (or more frequently, depending on the illness) do the same thing?