King Tom’s Goin’ To WrestleMania!

I’ve been to a final game of the Stanley Cup Finals.

I’ve also been to the final game of a World’s Series.

In keeping with that theme, this Sunday, I’m going to WrestleMania.

My friend Ryan, who lives in the Motor City, procured tickets to the big event. I’ve been to a number of WWF live events before, including one of the worst pay-per-views ever, but I’m really pumped about going to a WrestleMania. Of course, this year’s King Tom’s Annual WrestleMania Bash ™ was re-scheduled for the Royal Rumble, but why host a pay-per-view event when I’ll be there in person?

My one wish that when all is said and done, Sunday’s show doesn’t go down in history as one of the worst WrestleManias. Some of my favorite wrestlers (Jericho, Rock) aren’t affiliated with the federation anymore, and Stone Cold Steve Austin, who’s refereeing a match, isn’t actively wrestling. Chris Benoit is stuck in a match with a jabroni. And there aren’t that many matches on the card.

But there are some positives. Useless Triple H isn’t involved. There’s no blindfold match. There’s really no bad guy expected to win the main event. And even if that does happen, Hulk Hogan isn’t expected to come out of nowhere and hog the spotlight in the main event.

I’m looking forward to it. I just hope I make it back home in time for Opening Day.

Perspectives

For those Lost fans who have been paying attention to such things, it’s been forecasted for a while that tonight’s episode, Expose, would not focus on the main characters or reveal any of the big mysteries of the island. While I was initially skeptical of tonight’s episode for potentially not following up on things like last week’s hour of awesomeness, tonight had enough tiny moments of awesomeness to qualify as a solid episode.

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A game with attitude

The Baseball Mogul series is one of my all-time favorite video game franchises.

It’s not just the concept of running my own baseball team, but the game’s humor also is also key. For example, the ’03 version contained a scouting report of a certain Yankees pitcher* that said:

Baseball needs more pitchers like Carl Pavano.

Well, four years later and the game can still bring the humor. I downloaded the latest version of the game and made a trade offer, to which the computer general manager replied:

General Manager Don Rickles

Oh yeah? Well, yo momma so fat, the back of her neck looks like a pack of hot dogs!

*Kind of related: in a conversation yesterday, my brother referred to Pavano as Mr. Ouchy McBreaks-My-Ass

The Hour of Rain Man

If there’s one complaint that I’ve had about this season of 24, it’s there hasn’t been enough Jack. It feels like he’s been pushed aside in favor of focusing on the blossoming soap operas taking place at CTU and underneath the White House. And he’s only killed a handful of people. Jack Bauer has not killed this few people in a day since he was in junior high.

And so I’ve been thinking, what can, or will they do, to bring the focus back to Jack? In what way will they bring back the one-man killing squad that we’ve watched over the past six years?

The answer to those questions: team him up with Rain Man.
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What’s In The Box?

Was it me, or was anyone else’s sound messed-up during tonight’s episode of Lost? During the first half of the episode, there was this weird echo (not an Eko) every few seconds. It sounded pretty neat with the soundtrack and music bits, but for the voices, it was really annoying. It was even happening during the commercials, and just on the ABC station. So I’m guessing it was my lousy local ABC affiliate, which wouldn’t surprise me, because they mess things up on a regular basis.

On to the episode!
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It’s Eight O’Clock. Do you know where Jack Bauer is?

Wasn’t it sometime in the past few weeks (or, for that matter, multiple times in the last few weeks) that I said a certain episode of 24 didn’t have enough Jack?

Well, now it’s getting ridiculous. Tonight’s episode of 24 (a very late-feeling 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.) had what had to be, at most, 15 minutes of Jack sandwiched in between CTU drama and White House bunker drama.

At least this episode had Jack flying into Bauer-rage, even if it was after hearing the news of Audrey’s death (although the King wants to know why make her death that prominent if she’s really dead). Of course, that probably means that he’ll go rogue trying to take on a billion Chinese, while Ricky Schroeder and the rest of CTU play chase the nuke. Of course, knowing it’s Jack, he’ll take care of the Chinese then step in with 15 minutes left on the season to clean up any mess CTU may have gotten itself into.

But back to tonight’s episode.
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This song brought to you by CBS

Since first hearing them sometime last decade, I’ve been a casual fan of Fountains of Wayne. While they’re not the weez, they have a gift for making some really catchy pop-rock tunes.

One thing that bugs me about them every now and then is their songs delve into the “slice of life of someone else”/story-style song. I heard some bits of their new album, and they keep this tradition alive. The one song that stood out (and even though it was a story song, I liked it), was the first single “Someone to Love.”

I was listening to the song this morning, and two of the lines bugged me:

And a date with the Late Show’s all that you’ve got

But she’s sitting at home watching “The King of Queens”

Are they getting some kickbacks from CBS for the title dropping, or what?

On a kind of related note, the Civee and I recently saw Music and Lyrics, a romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant. The music in the movie was written by Adam Schlesinger, a cornerstone of FoW. No big surprise, the songs in Music and Lyrics are actually pretty good.

Don’t Whizz on the Electric Fence

When I was in high school, my father had two dogs. To keep them in the yard, we got one of those invisible fence things. A neigobor wanted to get one for his dogs, but was curious as to how powerful it was. So after talking with my father, he took one of the dog’s collars, held the metal part in his hand and walked “through” the fence. He jumped, shouted, and said it was a big mistake.

With that in mind, I really don’t blame Locke for what he did tonight.

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Martha Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

So I’ve noticed that in my commentary for a few other 24 episodes this season, I’ve said something along the lines of “good episode, but it needed more Jack.” And surprise, surprise, that’s what I feel about tonight’s episode.

I don’t know if that’s some new thing they’re trying–to slowly take the focus off of Jack, or to push him out of the picture, but it’s not the move I’d make. While this season has been interesting, it definitely needs more Jack.

But then again, last year, I thought they were going to have Curtis take Jack’s place as the star of the show, so what do I know?

As usual, the promos blew the episode out of proportion, and while I didn’t think it was the most shocking moment in 24 history, I … Continue reading “Martha Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”