Poll of the Day > Valley of The Geeks

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The Wave Master
08/07/19 11:00:56 PM
#1:


Sorry for the delay. A new dialysis schedule plus I fell down and injured my elbow and hip. My blood pressure dropped dangerously low as I was walking out of dialysis, and I took a spill to the hot hard concrete. I am not 100%, but after a few days in the hospital I'm back home, and recovering.

You know the rules: Post anything geek related, whether that's movies, films, television, comic books, video games, board games, wrestling etc. If it's geek related then we share it here.

Opening topic to keep the conversation going:

What is your favorite Food and drink? Spare no details on what whets your appetite and palette. It can span the history of your lifetime especially from your childhood.

Bonus question: What food do you absolutely hate? Also, what combo of food and drink is your favorite? Like Peanut butter and jelly and a cold glass of milk.

Wrap up from Potdmon in the upcoming post.
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Aaantlion
08/07/19 11:15:42 PM
#2:


Groovy. Now we get to see what PO couldn't tell us at the end of the last topic.

The Wave Master posted...
What is your favorite Food and drink? Spare no details on what whets your appetite and palette. It can span the history of your lifetime especially from your childhood.

Bonus question: What food do you absolutely hate? Also, what combo of food and drink is your favorite? Like Peanut butter and jelly and a cold glass of milk.


Not very geeky starter questions. I think I covered a lot of my hates in the last topic, so maybe I'll mention my likes:

Cherry Pepsi (and sometimes Cherry-flavored Coke) over regular Pepsi which, in turn, is over most things. While I drink a lot of water and, I suppose, prefer it over other things, I don't list it as really being a favorite especially since it's partly for health.

Stuffed lobsters for food. Hibachi and various fried rices, noodles, etc, might come after that.

Fried dough might be my favorite junk food. For the more commercially available stuff, Cheetos, Ruffles, Doritos, popcorn, etc.

Desserts... well, creme brulee, of course, oh ho ho! I also love astronaut ice cream. Dippin Dots are nice and I like some ice cream bars. And cakes.

Valley of The Geeks


Was that even one that was suggested? I don't remember it. (Although those are famous last words.)
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ParanoidObsessive
08/07/19 11:40:01 PM
#3:


Aaantlion posted...
Groovy. Now we get to see what PO couldn't tell us at the end of the last topic.

IT'S MADE OF PEOPLE! PEEOOPPPLLLEE!!!!!!!!!!



Aaantlion posted...
Was that even one that was suggested? I don't remember it. (Although those are famous last words.)

After I posted and closed the last topic, it occurred to me to suggest "Geek: Phase X" as a topic title, with "X" being the number of Geek topics we've had over the last 11 years plus one (I generally assume Wave's been keeping track of titles so he could literally count them and come up with a number - and if he hasn't, he could always just BS a sufficiently large number), as a somewhat topical reference to talk about Marvel's Phase Four and Phase Five lately.

Then I was going to PM it to Wave, but I forgot because I got distracted by something shiny.
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shadowsword87
08/07/19 11:43:54 PM
#4:


Post for my AMP, even if I only read half the stuff
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ParanoidObsessive
08/07/19 11:52:34 PM
#6:


I_Abibde posted...
And, wherever she goes, people die. Kind of a menacing show, really.

It's even worse than that. She lives in a town of a few thousand people, and literally like 20 people are being murdered there every year. That's a higher crime rate death toll than the current world city with the highest murder rate, by almost a factor of 10.

Cabot Cove is like a nightmarish Stephen King hell-town, yet no one there seems to be phased by this at all. Worse, they all still seem to see it as a quiet little town when it is literally the most murdery place in the entire world. People living in Robocop's Detroit were less likely to die than the average citizen of Cabot Cove.

Jessica Fletcher is clearly a demon who feeds on human souls, and who secretly arranges murders she can "solve" to stay close to the action. And she's trapped all those people there, prevented them from realizing the danger and trying to escape.

In later seasons, her hunger clearly grows, forcing her to leave Cabot Cove and travel around the world to seek out even more souls.
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ParanoidObsessive
08/07/19 11:52:58 PM
#7:


MarvelousCaptn posted...
Otherwise I'll mention that I had been skeptical of the self-contained seasons, but they work out really well. Generally speaking, a *lot* of stories are best told in a season of tv rather than a film, but it's hard to pitch doing a one-season show.

I'm fine with anthology shows, or even a show with anthology seasons. It was more in how it was presented that rubbed me the wrong way.

The first problem is the repeat cast as different characters issue I already mentioned, which really fucks with my ability to immerse into a setting and care about the plot, because it takes me out of the characters. I'd almost prefer they just recast every season with complete unknown actors who can really breathe life into a role, so in my head that actor IS that character.

But the second big problem is how they portrayed the first season. They really played up the idea of this house being cursed over like hundreds of years, constantly being the site of grizzly murders, with each time period and atrocity sort of being given a ton of flavor and personality, to the point where we're clearly sort of supposed to care about them in some way... all of which pretty much becomes absolutely meaningless in the conclusion where none of it really mattered all that much and they'd basically spent a season trying to convince us to really invest in a ton of stuff that was never anything more than filler.

In a sense, it felt very much like Lost, in that it kept trying to convince you that there was a lot of stuff going on in the background that really, really mattered, only for you to eventually realize that absolutely none of it mattered at all. And that is VERY much not the sort of show I want to watch. Ever. It's the same reason why the ending of the Battlestar: Galactica remake kind of made me retroactively hate the entire series. Which is part of why I tend to refuse to even start watching those kinds of shows anymore, at least until long after they've ended and I can judge whether or not the ending is going to be satisfying. In a world of near-infinite media, I no longer have time for that kind of bullshit. I barely have time as-is for things I DO want to see.

The way AHS seemed to be setting things up in the first season, it almost felt like they were going to do a second season in the same house, only with a new family, and potentially new flashback references to older events kind of , which could have been cool. And then they basically swept all of that off the table and said "Okay, here's mostly the same major actors, only it's an entirely different story now, and it's not connected to the first season in any way." At which point I was like, "Welp, you can pretty much go fuck yourself."

It didn't help that I didn't particular love the first season in and of itself. As a self-contained story it was meh, and gave me no real motivation to want to see more self-contained stories by the same people. But as the foundation of a growing mystery and an ever-evolving setting that grew ever more intricate, I probably would have been more forgiving.
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ParanoidObsessive
08/07/19 11:53:55 PM
#8:


MarvelousCaptn posted...
Also they're not entirely unconnected. There's one season that connects the events of the other seasons, plus there are characters shared between seasons

The show may have evolved in that direction (especially once viewers started dropping off), but it was never the original intention. They went out of their way to emphasize how unrelated the seasons were after the first one ended - probably because they didn't want people constantly complaining about how the second season sucked because they couldn't see how it related to the first at all.

But in a way, if they ARE related, that's even worse - because then it establishes that there are multiple characters all living in the same universe that are physically identical to each other and who are tangentially related to events in some way. My suspension of disbelief has long since left the building by that point, and is hitching a ride to the bus station in the car driven by my ability to give a shit.



MarvelousCaptn posted...
ITV's Poirot and Marple were by far my favorite detective shows at the time; I also liked the BBC's Miss Marple. Come to think of it, I'm not sure whether I preferred Marple or Miss Marple. Either way, they *might* have preceded me watching Murder, She Wrote at the time because Angela Lansbury had played Miss Marple and JB Fletcher had numerous Marple overtones.

I feel like my first real foray into mystery was probably back when PBS was showing Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes series followed immediately by the Joan Hickson Miss Marple (both shows from the mid-80s, though we were getting them in the US more towards the end of the decade). So much so that my mental image of both characters to this day tends to be those versions. David Suchet's Poirot came shortly afterward - PBS went pretty hardcore into mystery back in the late 80s.

My first real memory of watching a mystery was earlier than that, though. I have a vague memory (which I used to remember more clearly, and my mother still remembers happening, so it's not like I imagined it) of watching Murder on the Orient Express with my parents, when I was like maybe 8 or so, and about halfway through the movie just sort of blurting out they all did it. And my mother just sort of gave me this sidelong look, and was like, did you see this before? And I was like, "No, why?" She basically couldn't believe I'd apparently picked up on that so quickly, when I was so young and half the rest of the plot was probably going over my head.

After that, it's basically become a running joke with us that whenever I see her watching a mystery or reading a mystery novel, I just tell her they all did it.

Though sometimes I'll instead say the butler did it, based on the old cliche - as well as the Clue VCR game from the mid-80s, where the butler is literally named Didit.
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ParanoidObsessive
08/07/19 11:55:07 PM
#9:


MarvelousCaptn posted...
Although I decried it at the time, I have somewhat mixed feelings about the Murder, She Wrote remake not going through; granted, the actress they had picked (Octavia Spencer) was waaaaay too young for the role. Lansbury was 59 when she was cast as JB Fletcher and the stories worked because she an unassuming, grandmotherly-like character. Spencer was only 40 and looked like she was in her 30s, which would given things a very different vibe.

It's even worse when you think about how actors and actresses seemed to age faster back in the old days - most actors in their 60s today look waaay younger than an actor in their 60s did in the 1960s (give or take).

As an interesting comparison, Octavia Spencer now is 47(ish), and when Angela Lansbury was 47, she was in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Comparing that movie to Ma, it seems really hard to internalize the idea that they're the same age. And THAT's an Octavia Spencer who's six years older than she would have been in the remake, and an Angela Lansbury who is 12 years younger then she was when she first started as Jessica Fletcher.

I tend to agree with what Angela Lansbury herself said at the time, though - they shouldn't have called it Murder She Wrote. Had they cast Octavia Spencer to be a different character who solves mysteries, no one would have had a problem with it. As is, they basically courted controversy and burned themselves.

Of course, I've always been of the mindset that Hollywood should stop fucking trying to remake extremely popular older media solely to capitalize on brand recognition like a bloated parasite. Adapt obscure stuff, improve things that were interesting in concept but failed in execution, or establish soft reboot sequels to older works that skip ahead in-universe (ie, sort of like Fuller House or Girl Meets World), but STOP trying to hard reboot established properties with strong cult fanbases (like the Ghostbusters remake, Robocop, or Total Recall). The rate of success is SO minuscule for that sort of thing it's almost never worth doing, and almost always inspires fervent hate.
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WhiskeyDisk
08/07/19 11:55:42 PM
#10:


Favorite food and drink would be a New York strip steak with a good beer and a proper scotch, but for comfort food, it's pb&j or Mac and cheese all the way. And Oreos.

Things I hate in food:

In no particular order,

Capers
Cilantro (which is a shame because I love Spanish food)
Squid ink
Alfalfa sprouts
Tofu
Eel
veal done poorly
Earl grey with anything added, or any tea for that matter with added ingredients with the exception of green tea with honey
White wine based sauces
Deserts featuring chilli or any hot spicyness with chocolate
Dolmades (I love a Greek salad, anchovies and all, but the spices in the rice of dolmades is off putting)
Miracle whip
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ParanoidObsessive
08/08/19 12:01:21 AM
#11:


Also, new discovery - the embedded code the site uses to link to the original post in quoted posts that they just added apparently counts towards the character total for a post, so every time I quote someone now I lose about an extra 60 characters off the 4k limit.

So if I didn't already have motivation to delete all of that code out of every single post (to fuck with their block/ignore quoted users mechanics), I have even more motivation to do so now.

Just another way one of their unnecessary new "improvements" fucks up existing features of the site, actively making things slightly worse while improving literally nothing.
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ParanoidObsessive
08/08/19 12:02:06 AM
#12:


shadowsword87 posted...
Post for my AMP, even if I only read half the stuff

You'd better read everything -I- post - there will be a quiz later.
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shadowsword87
08/08/19 12:27:01 AM
#13:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
shadowsword87 posted...
Post for my AMP, even if I only read half the stuff

You'd better read everything -I- post - there will be a quiz later.


It's all super hero stuff, which I couldn't care less about.
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Aaantlion
08/08/19 1:42:21 AM
#14:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
I_Abibde posted...
And, wherever she goes, people die. Kind of a menacing show, really.

It's even worse than that. She lives in a town of a few thousand people, and literally like 20 people are being murdered there every year. That's a higher crime rate death toll than the current world city with the highest murder rate, by almost a factor of 10.

Cabot Cove is like a nightmarish Stephen King hell-town, yet no one there seems to be phased by this at all. Worse, they all still seem to see it as a quiet little town when it is literally the most murdery place in the entire world. People living in Robocop's Detroit were less likely to die than the average citizen of Cabot Cove.

Jessica Fletcher is clearly a demon who feeds on human souls, and who secretly arranges murders she can "solve" to stay close to the action. And she's trapped all those people there, prevented them from realizing the danger and trying to escape.

In later seasons, her hunger clearly grows, forcing her to leave Cabot Cove and travel around the world to seek out even more souls.


To undercut your embellishments and humor, I should point out that even in the early seasons, most of the crimes aren't happening *in* Cabot Cove itself. The first murder case is in NY and she's just starting her book tour, in addition to things happening in surrounding towns (which kinda share the same medical examiner). Plus Cabot Cove's size is depicted inconsistently. And yes, later on she gets an apartment in a city when she's teaching.

I'm just wondering what was going on with Cabot Cove and the area *before* Jessica Fletcher started solving mysteries. Did they just have a lot of unsolved crimes? Or did the murder rate spike when she started writing? >_>

ParanoidObsessive posted...
The first problem is the repeat cast as different characters issue I already mentioned, which really fucks with my ability to immerse into a setting and care about the plot, because it takes me out of the characters. I'd almost prefer they just recast every season with complete unknown actors who can really breathe life into a role, so in my head that actor IS that character.


I'm sure you've seen a lot of actors in other things, even ones who star in other works together. More importantly, there are fewer recurring actors than you think and their significance varies season to season. Two of season 1's leads don't appear at all in season 2 (and one doesn't really appear again in the franchise), one of the supporting characters becomes a main character (and almost unrecognizable), another supporting character also rises in stature, and the guy who played Dr. Harmon is relegated to a minor recurring role.

Granted, I'll concede that sometimes an actor is distracting -- the show eventually picks up Kathy Bates. It's impossible to see Kathy Bates and not think, "Oh, that's Kathy Bates!" She's had a lot of iconic roles over the years, but she mostly sticks out as herself.

However, most of the cast members are only there for a season or two. A few that are more prominent and leave -- like Jessica Lange -- I missed almost immediately. (Although her roles had an element of sameness to the extent that she always has something resembling a redemption arc despite doing awful things.)

ParanoidObsessive posted...
But the second big problem is how they portrayed the first season.


Season 1 sucked. There's not much need to go past that. Before I started watching, I was told by multiple people to skip season 1 and just start with s2/Asylum. (I was also told to skip Hotel.)
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Aaantlion
08/08/19 1:59:41 AM
#15:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
The way AHS seemed to be setting things up in the first season, it almost felt like they were going to do a second season in the same house, only with a new family, and potentially new flashback references to older events kind of , which could have been cool.


I *kind* of like that idea, but it would have been extremely limiting. And I did almost get that vibe from the ending of the first season where they tease things.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
The show may have evolved in that direction (especially once viewers started dropping off), but it was never the original intention. They went out of their way to emphasize how unrelated the seasons were after the first one ended - probably because they didn't want people constantly complaining about how the second season sucked because they couldn't see how it related to the first at all.


The second season had a much better reception. And, again, the casting changed significantly between seasons 1 and 2... and I guess the same is kinda true of seasons 2 to 3. Evan Peters starts as a supporting character with a lot of screen-time in s1, he becomes a lead in s2, he goes back to a supporting character in 3, and then becomes a lead again in 4.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
But in a way, if they ARE related, that's even worse - because then it establishes that there are multiple characters all living in the same universe that are physically identical to each other and who are tangentially related to events in some way. My suspension of disbelief has long since left the building by that point, and is hitching a ride to the bus station in the car driven by my ability to give a shit.


...in the case of the connections, it's more a matter of actors reprising the *same* role. And so far the only time that's happened, it involved an actor who hadn't played anybody else that season.

That said, I'm actually excited by the prospect of the real linking season -- Apocalypse -- because it ties together important elements from season 1 and was the biggest reason why I bothered watching season 1.
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Aaantlion
08/08/19 2:15:33 AM
#16:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
I feel like my first real foray into mystery was probably back when PBS was showing Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes series followed immediately by the Joan Hickson Miss Marple (both shows from the mid-80s, though we were getting them in the US more towards the end of the decade). So much so that my mental image of both characters to this day tends to be those versions. David Suchet's Poirot came shortly afterward - PBS went pretty hardcore into mystery back in the late 80s.

My first real memory of watching a mystery was earlier than that, though. I have a vague memory (which I used to remember more clearly, and my mother still remembers happening, so it's not like I imagined it) of watching Murder on the Orient Express with my parents, when I was like maybe 8 or so, and about halfway through the movie just sort of blurting out they all did it. And my mother just sort of gave me this sidelong look, and was like, did you see this before? And I was like, "No, why?" She basically couldn't believe I'd apparently picked up on that so quickly, when I was so young and half the rest of the plot was probably going over my head.


Somewhat speaking of -- and perhaps tangentially tying into the previous discussion -- I will say that it was somewhat weird watching the *same* Poirot, Marple, and Sherlock Holmes mysteries with different casts and slightly different twists. Without a doubt, the Suchet Poirot had my favorite handling of the stories. However, my Marple preferences depend on the mystery. And, of course, there's always that "Have I seen this before" that becomes, "Oh, right, ____ did this same mystery." (And, also without a doubt, I don't really count the BBC's Sherlock as being comparable to Sherlock Holmes mysteries since it feels more like "What if Doctor Who had been reincarnated as Sherlock Holmes?", largely due to the show's creators either pulling inspiration from or trying to capitalize on their connection to Doctor Who.)

ParanoidObsessive posted...
Of course, I've always been of the mindset that Hollywood should stop fucking trying to remake extremely popular older media solely to capitalize on brand recognition like a bloated parasite. Adapt obscure stuff, improve things that were interesting in concept but failed in execution, or establish soft reboot sequels to older works that skip ahead in-universe (ie, sort of like Fuller House or Girl Meets World), but STOP trying to hard reboot established properties with strong cult fanbases (like the Ghostbusters remake, Robocop, or Total Recall). The rate of success is SO minuscule for that sort of thing it's almost never worth doing, and almost always inspires fervent hate.


It's still hard to express my incredible disappointment at how Girl Meets World turned out. At least with Fuller House, my expectations were low.

Speaking of time skips, I might have enjoyed a Murder, She Wrote reboot if Octavia Spencer was positioned as one of JB Fletcher's former students and JB Fletcher indoctrinated her into solving mysteries. (And, as I mentioned in that Mary Poppins topic some time ago, I was pretty surprised by the random Angela Lansbury appearance near the end.... wait, was that what got me started on all this in the first place? It's been a minute since I was talking about detective shows.
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Aaantlion
08/08/19 2:16:45 AM
#17:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
Also, new discovery - the embedded code the site uses to link to the original post in quoted posts that they just added apparently counts towards the character total for a post, so every time I quote someone now I lose about an extra 60 characters off the 4k limit.

So if I didn't already have motivation to delete all of that code out of every single post (to fuck with their block/ignore quoted users mechanics), I have even more motivation to do so now.

Just another way one of their unnecessary new "improvements" fucks up existing features of the site, actively making things slightly worse while improving literally nothing.


That's so weird, considering it excluded previous stuff -- or, at least, the previous stuff would kinda show as being past the limit but you could post anyway or something.

And speaking of the last topic, -- as I somewhat suspected -- "Valley of the Geeks" apparently was my suggestion. I probably didn't remember it because I can't recall why I suggested it. I probably glanced at a doll-themed horror movie and then confused the name of another doll-themed horror movie for Valley of the Dolls which, of course, has nothing to do with either literal dolls or horror. That or I was thinking of the short-lived series Valley of the Giants... which was actually named Land of the Giants. Or maybe it was something else entirely. That was like a month ago, which is like a lifetime ago... or several lifetimes for some of my accounts.
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Revelation34
08/08/19 2:50:37 AM
#18:


I like anything with cheese. I hate watermelon and raw oysters.
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bodak_vess
08/08/19 6:21:13 AM
#19:


Pizza and cream soda. Though now I usually drink diet soda because I can't stand all that sugar.
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I_Abibde
08/08/19 8:22:03 AM
#20:


My favorite food is tuna casserole, and my least favorite, at this point, is green pepper, since, y'know, that's lethal to me if I eat it. Can't even stand the smell.

Aaantlion posted...
Did they just have a lot of unsolved crimes? Or did the murder rate spike when she started writing?


*plays the Twin Peaks title theme*
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WhiskeyDisk
08/08/19 9:45:51 AM
#21:


I_Abibde posted...
My favorite food is tuna casserole, and my least favorite, at this point, is green pepper, since, y'know, that's lethal to me if I eat it. Can't even stand the smell.

Aaantlion posted...
Did they just have a lot of unsolved crimes? Or did the murder rate spike when she started writing?


*plays the Twin Peaks title theme*


I will never understand the point of advertising that one has a lethal allergy and what that allergy is. I would consider that a very "need to know" bit of information...
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Broken_Zeus
08/08/19 3:20:50 PM
#22:


WhiskeyDisk posted...
I_Abibde posted...
My favorite food is tuna casserole, and my least favorite, at this point, is green pepper, since, y'know, that's lethal to me if I eat it. Can't even stand the smell.

Aaantlion posted...
Did they just have a lot of unsolved crimes? Or did the murder rate spike when she started writing?


*plays the Twin Peaks title theme*


I will never understand the point of advertising that one has a lethal allergy and what that allergy is. I would consider that a very "need to know" bit of information...


It's useful for people who don't want to kill you to know, but dangerous for anybody looking to potentially get away with murder.
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ParanoidObsessive
08/08/19 7:42:59 PM
#23:


WhiskeyDisk posted...
I will never understand the point of advertising that one has a lethal allergy and what that allergy is. I would consider that a very "need to know" bit of information...

"I am deathly allergic to tomatoes. If I eat them, I will vomit all over your floor, and possibly you. Please do not put it in any food you make for me, and please let me know if you're aware that something contains them, so I can avoid it."

I tell everyone I know what my allergies are, so they can better avoid trying to give them to me.

I mean, sure, if I was Superman and supervillains around the world were trying to find my weakness to kill me, I wouldn't go around telling everyone, but that's not really a concern for me.
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EvilMegas
08/08/19 7:44:08 PM
#24:


Good name. See you next topic.

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I_Abibde
08/08/19 7:47:43 PM
#25:


WhiskeyDisk posted...
I will never understand the point of advertising that one has a lethal allergy and what that allergy is. I would consider that a very "need to know" bit of information...


I would consider it a valid reason for it to be my least favorite food.
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Aaantlion
08/08/19 9:41:52 PM
#26:


Tonight I'm going to do something I haven't tried to do in years.... watch a whole episode of Monday Night Raw >_>

The episode preview doesn't sound promising... and the El Paso and Dayton tribute is a bit of a downer as a show-starter.

The new theme song sucks. I recognize most of of the people in the theme, though, so not much has changed.

The show is starting with Samoa Joe ranting. He *still* hasn't lost any weight and he *still* just looks like some fan you'd see at a convention rather than a wrestler. And then we skip to a silly flashback of Roman being attacked last week.

Also, who's the announcer team at this point? I recognize Michael Cole and Corey Graves, but who's that with them? Renee? How long has she been an announcer?

Show started off with a half-decent match between Becky Lynch (her nickname is "the Man"? wtf? First I was happy to see was the champ, but that took the ) and Charlotte (whose face looked weird coming out to the ring; didn't think it was her at first. Did she have work done?) vs Natalya (who I was a little surprised to see is still wrestling, considering that Divas tend to have relatively short careers) and Trish Stratus who I was *very* happy to see.

At any rate, I'm confused who the fuck are the faces and heels here. Becky has almost always been a face and, back when I stopped watching, I *thought* Natty was still a heel. Charlotte came out to the ring as a heel and she's facing Trish, who I'd assume is a face again. However, Becky and Charlotte are teamed together?

I will say that Charlotte's in-ring work is a bit better than I remember, although she totally botched that roll-through. (And I love how Charlotte taunted Becky with a fake tag offer.) Natty, on the other hand, I remember being better. She delivered this silly-looking spinning clothesline waaaaaay too slowly.

Trish still looks good, although that's pretty much all she did this match. She never even stepped foot in the ring.

Next they flipped to some ridiculous 24/7 Champ stuff. I'm going to be honest, it's pretty amusing (although the waiting room stunt was predictable) I like Maria Kanellis's new attitude. I'll admit I also like what little of I saw of her in TNA, which was an improvement over how the WWE originally used her.

And ew, Lesnar has the title again? Can they stop bringing him back and handing him the title?

The first real challenge of the night? Sitting through a Brock Lesnar spot (including watching a 5-minute+ recap of a previous week's events).
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Aaantlion
08/08/19 11:35:47 PM
#27:


How does the audience at these shows sit through this shit?

Eh, will toss spoiler tags around the rest since -- even though I don't go into the results -- I guess I should cover it anyway

The Brock Lesnar stuff took forever and then I can't even remember what happened after that, other some NXT guys I don't recognize trying to have a moment with Kurt Angle. Then there was a Harley Race tribute. And then we got a "match" between Drew McIntyre (who has come a long way since his jobber days -- something we can thank the indy circuit for) and Cedric Alexander where Kurt was the guest ref. Nothing happens other than a short brawl outside the ring.

More importantly, Bray Wyatt has ANOTHER new gimmick now? What happened to that children's show thing he was doing? Wowie yowie! I will say that I like the look of "the Fiend," who -- at first glance -- had a Beetlejuice vibe.

I'm happy to see that the New Day is still around as a group... and oddly happy to see the OC, which I guess is the WWE's take on the Bullet Club? Gallows's new look is neat. Styles still has some great moves, but a lot of the match looked a little sloppy.

I will say that I like Samoa Joe's attitude, etc, but his lousy physique and style is so fucking distracting. Also I liked the random CM Punk chants.

And when will they stop doing the silly "just arriving at the arena gimmick" when it's never made sense as a set-up. No performer "just gets there" that late in the night. Also, was that J&J security just then?

Apparently the Divas division has grown? I didn't recognize half the participants. Kairi Sen (?) is cute. Mandy Rose's name I recognize, but I'm not sure I have any familiarity with Sonya whatever. I thought Nikki Cross looked familiar; I *think* I might have seen one of her matches for another company. She's a cute companion for Alexa Bliss. ...I don't know who those champs are. I thought the brunette looked a bit like the NXT chick that Goldust was involved with at one point, but apparently it's not her.

Eh, a 4-way elimination match for the WWE Women's Tag Teams Champsionship is a nice way to close out the show. While i'm not sure *why* both halves of a tag team have been allowed in the ring all this time, I will say that the Iconics seem pretty good.

I'm probably most impressed by Kairi, who has some great ring presence. I loved when she and Alexa Bliss were in the ring together, mocking each other, etc. It's also somewhat amazing how to stop and think about much Alexa has evolved since premiering on NXT with that silly fairy gimmick.

I will say that was a pretty good match. Probably the only thing worth watching all night... granted, for a wrestling show that runs as long as it does, once again there wasn't *that* much wrestling.

Also wtf happened to Paige? Is my screen messed up or does she look terrible now?

The night's final segment is a MizzTV thing involving Dolph and HBK... and a surprise guest.

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Aaantlion
08/08/19 11:43:10 PM
#28:


Final thoughts on the Aug 5, 2019 edition of Raw (with larger/major spoilers)

Raw *really* needs to cut down that run-time. Most of the filler was just crap.

Just to summarize:
-There were a grand total of what, 3-4 matches? We had a Women's Tag match ending in a DQ, there was the OC vs New Day match, and that great 4-way Women's Tag Champ match... as well as the Drew McIntyre fight that never started and only lasted a few minutes. (Apparently there were a few more matches on the non-Hulu edition.) It's even worse when you consider that the first match ended in DQ with one teammate never even entering the ring.

-A large amount of time was wasted on Brock and Samoa Joe's feuds where, again, not much of interest was happening. Roman's hit&run seems like an obvious red herring, but apparently an editor on CagesideSeats (which I checked to see if I somehow forgot a match) thinks it exonerates Joe.

-The show had a lot of people showing up and doing nothing. Trish Stratus was in a tag match where she never fought, Kurt Angle was a special guest ref for a match that never started, and all Goldberg did was sign a paper.

-The 4-way Women's Tag match was really the only thing worth watching. Eliminating the champs first was really the way to go and, although this is probably the first time I've seen 6 of these competitors (at least in the WWE?), it seemed like each of the tag teams had some time to shine.

When I stopped watching last time, the Women's division seemed tiny. You really only had a handful of stars who seemed even slightly credible and, for a while, the division was being carried by Sasha, Charlotte, and Becky. That match gave the impression that the division is pretty healthy -- likely much healthier than it actually is.

I went into it only really knowing Alexa (who I've liked since she turned heel in NXT when she started valeting for... I can't even remember. I think they were feuding with either the Vaudevillains or Enzo&Cass and Alexa's interference made and kept them champs) and Asuka (who I never liked because she can't deliver a good promo and was booked like superwoman, but who was obviously talented). However, I was quickly sold on quite a few other wrestlers. Kairi won me over from the get-go, but Nikki Cross was also great. Mandy and Sonya had some really nice moves. And even the somewhat generic Iconics (or Ilconics?) had some cool-looking combination moves.

I will say one thing, though -- I hope to god that Alexa drops that fucking Twisted Bliss. Divas shouldn't be elbow-dropping from a turnbuckle or, hell, doing *anything* from a turnbuckle on a regular basis. Their careers risk getting cut short by injuries enough as is and I shudder to think about the long-term damage from that kind of a move.

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Entity13
08/09/19 3:42:36 AM
#29:


I have so many favorites when it comes to food. Waffles, hot cocoa, strawberries... Combine these for a meal, and I'm happy. Muffins and peanut butter can be good too, though not together.

I still remember my experiment of making waffles with blueberry muffin batter, and muffins with waffle batter. The former was a fun way to burn the side of my mouth on overheated blueberries. The latter gave me pause to wonder if I should figure out how to fill them with syrup and market it for money.

Foods I dislike include beets, dark yellow corn, limes, beef (I literally cannot stand the flavor), and any soda. Many kinds of beer and certain wines too; yet others can be good. The worst, however? Cilantro. My arch nemesis would be a spriggan-like entity composed of cilantro that blasts dubstep.
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Revelation34
08/09/19 6:58:49 AM
#30:


Entity13 posted...
Muffins and peanut butter can be good too, though not together.


https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/232385/aunt-bs-peanut-butter-muffins/
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I_Abibde
08/09/19 8:55:38 AM
#31:


Aaantlion posted...
Final thoughts on the Aug 5, 2019 edition of Raw (with larger/major spoilers)

Raw *really* needs to cut down that run-time. Most of the filler was just crap.


(I did read all three posts, for the record.)

This is why I am enjoying 205 Live and NXT. You get the same number of matches in one third of the time.
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Entity13
08/09/19 1:45:44 PM
#32:


Revelation34 posted...
Entity13 posted...
Muffins and peanut butter can be good too, though not together.


https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/232385/aunt-bs-peanut-butter-muffins/


Note reviews saying things like the pb flavor being not too strong, people using less sugar, and people saying it's not for them; as opposed to the 5-star reviews that happily accept what is in front of them. For me, pb as a spread does not work with muffins or cupcakes, but as a flavor I am wary beyond cookies and have my own doubts on particularly loving it in otherwise oatmeal muffins. I'm sure some people might like it, maybe, but . . . *shrugs*

Mind you, my favorite cookies are chocolate and oatmeal with mint. Many people I've met weren't even interested in trying them when I made batches.
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WhiskeyDisk
08/09/19 2:00:02 PM
#33:


I love peanut butter, and thick peanut oils...but ever since I left my hometown I can't find a single damned Chinese place that makes cold sesame noodles the right way with the hot peanut oil. It's always either some bland garbage with a lazy fistful of sesame seeds on top of lo mein noodles and string beans or some crazy red shit on top of lo mein noodles that should taste like chillis but doesn't.

Same problem I have with pizza in Orange county, NY. In Stamford CT you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a good pizza place or Chinese joint. Here in the Hudson valley, all the food sucks. The one place with decent takeout nearby is a halal spot and fuck the entire concept of bacon there. It seems every single Pizan that landed at Ellis island went east from Ellis island like they'd regretted the migration rather than having gone north.

I had to give up entirely on the nearest pizza place to my apartment because Everytime I wanted a chicken parm I had to have a 3 minute argument with the place over what the fucking bread was called. Hero, wedge, blimpie, po boy, hoagie, submarine, blimpie, just fucking put some cutlets on a goddamned long piece of bread with sauce and mozzarella for fuck sake, how hard is this? I don't know if it's the water up here or something but all the pizza is wrong.

Rabble, rabble. In Colorado I could find better take out than I can just 100 miles from my hometown, literally what the fuck?
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Revelation34
08/09/19 3:04:15 PM
#34:


Entity13 posted...

Note reviews saying things like the pb flavor being not too strong, people using less sugar, and people saying it's not for them; as opposed to the 5-star reviews that happily accept what is in front of them. For me, pb as a spread does not work with muffins or cupcakes, but as a flavor I am wary beyond cookies and have my own doubts on particularly loving it in otherwise oatmeal muffins. I'm sure some people might like it, maybe, but . . . *shrugs*

Mind you, my favorite cookies are chocolate and oatmeal with mint. Many people I've met weren't even interested in trying them when I made batches.


I could probably find a better recipe. Also changing up ingredients don't matter much since a lot of the time the people complaining in reviews are from people who changed the recipe of whatever they are reviewing then giving it a bad review because they did a dumb move. I like peanut butter in oatmeal too. I would try those cookies but I don't know if I would like it since I don't like mint that much.
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CyborgSage00x0
08/09/19 11:02:58 PM
#35:


What is your favorite Food and drink? Spare no details on what whets your appetite and palette. It can span the history of your lifetime especially from your childhood.


It seems like a cop-out, but pizza is such a delicious pleasure that it would have to be that. I have a big weakness for fettucini alfredo and other Italian pastas, as well as most Thai food, specifically Massaman Curry, extra hot. A well seasoned steak goes a long way, too.

I love Thai teas and bubble/boba teas. I'm a huge craft beer snob too.

Bonus question: What food do you absolutely hate? Also, what combo of food and drink is your favorite? Like Peanut butter and jelly and a cold glass of milk.

I have very little foods I truly despise, but they tend to be popular ones that everyone enjoys. Like grapefruit, celery, and swiss cheese. I know have a few particulars, like noting liking onions or pickles on my cheeseburger (and basically not liking pickles at all unless this are spears). A few other quirks I'm probably forgetting.

Just got back from a 2 week vacation to Sint Maarten/St. Martin, Aguilla, and NYC. I see Wave is trying his best to die again. Gotta stop doing that, man.

Anyone watching The Boys? Really dig the premise, I'm about half-way through. About to start the new Fire Emblem and get sucked into that before I go back to work on Wednesday.
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Aaantlion
08/09/19 11:15:01 PM
#36:


Recently watched the show Glitch on NFI -- kinda neat. I had been aware of it for a while, but unfortunately I didn't realize it was still ongoing when I began watching and that the seasons are so short.

I like the mystery element and the concept. What I don't like is how segregated many of the storylines are. Most of the time you have Paddy doing things entirely by himself (or with his supporting characters). Of course, the biggest downer is the whole (s2 ending spoilers) fact that Paddy gets killed, since he was by far the most entertaining character.

I_Abibde posted...
Aaantlion posted...
Final thoughts on the Aug 5, 2019 edition of Raw (with larger/major spoilers)

Raw *really* needs to cut down that run-time. Most of the filler was just crap.


(I did read all three posts, for the record.)

This is why I am enjoying 205 Live and NXT. You get the same number of matches in one third of the time.


tbh, NXT was my favorite of WWE's shows back when I was more actively following wrestling. The only *kinda* downside is that the talent often felt lacking in the personality department so a lot of the roster felt generic (and the really good talent tends to get called up to the main roster... where half the time it gets buried).

idk, maybe I will give an episode of NXT a shot next... and then one of Smackdown.
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Aaantlion
08/10/19 5:06:33 AM
#37:


Started the Aug 7, 2019 edition of NXT. The opening theme showed a lot of wrestlers I didn't recognize, although Tyler Breeze is apparently still with this brand? Everybody looks a lot less WWE than ever before. The guys mostly look on the smaller side and none seem all that buff. They're all pretty generic-looking.

At any rate, it's nice to see that William Regal is still GM. Not sure who the announcers are since they haven't been shown, although one sounds a little like Rockstar Spud (or whatever he's being called now). Apparently that's actually Nigel McGuinness. Wait, is Beth Phoenix one of the other announcers? Oo

Show starts off with tag champs Street Profits (who did that awful milk gag with Kurt Angle on Raw, so I'm already not liking them much) meeting with Undisputed Era for a contract signing. Wasn't feeling any of it. I hope to god these guys can actually wrestle.

Next up was a preview for a triple threat (also for the next NXT Takeover). Velveteen Dream seems to have a good look and a decent amount of personality. The clips make him look great... and I just wish we'd actually get to see him fight tonight. Instead we're over 12 minutes through a 60-minute show and nobody has wrestled. -_-

Pete Dunn is so far the only other wrestler who seems promising so far. If Hulu still has the NXT Takeovers, I'll probably watch that Triple Threat. At any rate, all of this capped off with a commercial for the match + Takeover... and now an in-show commercial for a Slipknot CD.

Wait... and now they're doing a teaser for the NXT Women's Championship match? Is this an actual episode of NXT? Okay, fuck it, I need to fast-forward this already.... and through that other stuff.

Alright, 20 minutes into the show and we *finally* have a wrestling match. I was beginning to think that the main event was the only event.

Out comes Joaquin Wilde, who came out to the ring looking like a cross between Rey Mysterio and a techno-version of Sektor from the Mortal Kombat games. I kinda like it. Fighting him is.... something Thorne (I just know he's not Kevin Thorn). Seems pretty limber, especially how he jumped the top rope. This seems like it could be interesting.

Rest of the show + thoughts hidden behind spoilers, everything in order:
...well, that match looked like shit. Granted, it's lucha so a lot of it is kinda bound to look goofy. The arm drag shenanigans were an instant turnoff and then there was that terrible-looking grapple reversal into a submission.

Also, they have a female ref? How long has that been a thing? I don't think I ever saw a non-special guest female ref on Raw, SD, etc.

Thorne has some pretty solid personality whereas JW can't act for shit. His expressions and mannerisms just seem so flaky. Thorne's in-ring seems unimpressive, but his dirty fighting looked cool.

After this we get some build-up to a women's match. Shirai and Candice Lorraine are both crazy cute. Shirai also looks like she might be talented. Her accent is a bit strong.

37 minutes in and we have the main event. That makes *two* matches all night. This better be one amazing fight!

...wait, wtf? There was a weak-looking ambush and that's that? And now they're promoting some tournament? And now I'm fast-forwarding this shit.

Oh look, Breezango are back! That's fun, I guess. Fast-forwarding again and... nope, I guess that's it. There was ONE fight in an hour-long show and it wasn't a particularly good one.


I imagine this probably isn't the best representation of NXT (since it's a go-home show before what I assume is a bigger PPV) but it's still a terrible place to restart NXT at. That said, this felt like a bigger waste of time than Raw. Hopefully the Smackdown episode I'm going to watch will be better.
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I_Abibde
08/10/19 9:15:05 PM
#38:


Aaantlion posted...
I imagine this probably isn't the best representation of NXT (since it's a go-home show before what I assume is a bigger PPV) but it's still a terrible place to restart NXT at. That said, this felt like a bigger waste of time than Raw. Hopefully the Smackdown episode I'm going to watch will be better.


I agree. NXT normally packs three or four matches into the hour, and there's a lot less trash talk and shenanigans. As to your question about the Takeover PPVs: Hulu does slot those in amidst the regular episodes, so you can find them if you dig a little bit.

Io Shirai recently had a heel turn. Her ring persona used to be very different. ... She was always cute, though.
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Broken_Zeus
08/13/19 1:02:17 AM
#39:


Alright, gave Smackdown a chance tonight. It's the Aug 6 edition (tbh, forgot that it was *Tuesday* night SD now).

Charlotte started out the show. While she still seems to lack a self-assured quality that her father had, she delivered a half-decent promo... and the pink version of her outfit is surprisingly cool. Trish looked so tiny next to Charlotte, which kinda made Charlotte seem that much more legit.

Minor spoilers but closing them anyway as well as some bigger spoilers for this episode:
What the fuck was up with Trish slapping Charlotte? I know that Charlotte is probably going to win (and this is going to be used to build her up), but it still kinda made her look like shit at that moment.

Dolph had a match tonight. In the beginning, the announcer mentions that Rey Mysterio had a match during Raw so I guess that was cut from the Hulu version. The ambush
was kinda bullshit since we just had something like that on Raw. The replacement match was alright, better than I would have expected from a Rey match.


idk, Dolph has seemingly been consistent under-utilized. At one point, he was being called the next HBK but since then they've done almost nothing with him (excluding the occasional tease that they might do something with him). He's a tremendous all-around talent -- he has good in-ring work, he's great on the mic, and has decent charisma. Plus he's got the look. I know his career was stifled by Cena but... even with Cena out of the spotlight, they aren't doing all much.

Dolph's Goldberg parody ring entrance was fun but, honestly, it was undercut by the knowledge that he was almost certainly going to be fed to Goldberg at Summer Slam... (Summer Slam spoiler) and it obviously turned out to be the case, in a typically fast Goldberg match

Then, after a bunch of stuff with Roman again, we had that match with Natalya v Ember Moon. It was my first time seeing Ember Moon, who seems alright. Once again, the match ended in a BS finish.

The Kevin Owens-Shane McMahon feud seems boring. KO is a good talker, but he still looks like shit. Shane McMahon looks his age, although he's still decent on the mic and he's still not afraid to take a bump. Granted, his work *always* looks like shit. Those were some terrible-looking kicks. The guys in editing fucked up by showing how little they were connecting

I will say that Shane McMahon's grudge against KO seems more compelling than some of VKM's similar attempts to mess with wrestlers.

At any rate, I thought they were doing more to brand Raw and SD as their own thing? Instead we're getting recaps from Monday's Raw about things for the Raw title... and having Raw women wrestle on SD.

Oh, Sami Zane is still around? idk, never been a fan... although I'm intrigued by Aleister Black. Imposing-looking guy, supernatural gimmick, surprisingly agile, and some neat personality. I knew nothing about their feud or Aleister (and I've never liked Sami all that much), but I got insta-hyped for the match. The match itself wasn't amazing, but it was a good showcase for what Aleister could do. Definitely seems like a solid addition to the roster.

lol @ Shelton Benjamin's reaction to being asked if he'd contend for the 24/7 Title.

Oh, apparently Bray Wyatt is still doing the kids show gimmick in addition to the Fiend. idk, I kinda like his gimmick... or the combo of gimmicks. Bray in general is pretty talented.

On show ad for WWE 2K20... that includes Hulk Hogan? Is he no longer on the outs with the brand? Otherwise the cover art looks neat. Seeing Becky on it makes up for Roman being there.

Kofi's interview interestingly incorporates some real rumors about Kofi's career being held back because of blowback from wrestling RKO. *Really* surprised to see that Kofi is WWE champ.

The Daniel Bryan/Rowan tag team is really cool. Besides being a callback to Daniel's brief time with the Wyatt Family, the beards give them a cool common look. OK match, but the ending was BS.
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Broken_Zeus
08/13/19 1:25:47 AM
#40:


Final thoughts on the Aug 6 edition of Smackdown
iirc, there were only 4 matches tonight (on the Hulu version, anyway) -- Dolph v Ali, Natalya v Ember Moon, Sami v Aleister, and New Day vs... Bryan&Rowan. 2 matches ended in DQs. Guess the WWE hasn't stopped this shit?

None of the matches stand out as being particularly bad, nor were they amazing. Aleister's might have been my favorite of the night, simply because I got to see him in action. Otherwise Dolph is always solid.

Charlotte's opening promo was good and the KO/Shane confrontation was -- in retrospect -- alright (although the feud still seems dull and Shane needs to learn how to deliver a convincing kick). The clipshow nonsense and Roman interview was all BS.


Having watched both Raw and Smackdown -- and suffering through all of the clipshows, ads, etc -- I can't imagine anybody being all that hyped for the Summer Slam card. Charlotte v Trish is a novelty, sure, but none of the title bouts seem at all interesting or compelling. Granted, I'm not a Brock Lesnar fan -- I know he can do amazing feats of strength, but I've never been sold on him -- so that's part of it. I've seen Kofi and RKO have terrible matches in the past, which is also part of it. Amusingly, I know dickall about most of the NXT roster yet those Takeover matches looked like they might be better.

Looking over the complete Summer Slam cards and results, I feel somewhat justified in my opinion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SummerSlam_(2019)
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ParanoidObsessive
08/13/19 1:55:53 AM
#41:


I have no idea why you're watching WWE weekly TV. It's almost always terrible, borderline unwatchable, and only exists so that WWE editors can cut down 20+ hours worth of content into 2-minute long hype packages before each major match on the PPVs.

The better scenario is to ignore TV entirely, find a wresling channel you like on Youtube (Cultaholic, WrestleTalk, Wrestling With Wregret, WhatCulture, etc) to get a short summary of what happened on TV, then get together with some friends and get moderately drunk to watch the PPVs (with bonus points for getting food and making it a party-like atmosphere). That's what I do, and it's pretty much the only reason I can even attempt to watch wrestling at all these days.

I might start watching AEW once it's on TV, but we'll see.

As for SummerSlam, it was actually pretty good (again, while mildly inebriated and filled with grilled meats), and the consensus I've heard is that it was better than Takeover (which may be the first time in WWE history that you could ever honestly say that about the main card PPV versus the NXT one in any given weekend). Takeover wasn't bad, but it also wasn't really up to traditional NXT standards.

But as for hype going in, the pre-PPV attitude mostly seemed to be:

1) Let's just get most of this over with

2) Also, I really want to see Brock beat the shit out of Seth, because Seth's really been a tool lately

3) Holy shit, I want to see how they introduce the Fiend, and I hope it's super-cool, even while I'm terrified of all the ways they can ruin it

After-PPV, most people seem to think most of the matches were relatively good (other than the Kofi/Orton match), Seth went a long way to redeem himself, and the Fiend was the best thing they've done in 20 years.
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Aaantlion
08/13/19 2:25:33 AM
#42:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
I have no idea why you're watching WWE weekly TV. It's almost always terrible, borderline unwatchable, and only exists so that WWE editors can cut down 20+ hours worth of content into 2-minute long hype packages before each major match on the PPVs.

The better scenario is to ignore TV entirely, find a wresling channel you like on Youtube (Cultaholic, WrestleTalk, Wrestling With Wregret, WhatCulture, etc) to get a short summary of what happened on TV, then get together with some friends and get moderately drunk to watch the PPVs (with bonus points for getting food and making it a party-like atmosphere). That's what I do, and it's pretty much the only reason I can even attempt to watch wrestling at all these days.


Because I used to enjoy the weekly programming. And while the PPV match quality tends to be better, my investment in the program tends to be lower.

And once upon a time, NXT's weekly programming was great... well, far more recently than Raw's or SD's.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
3) Holy shit, I want to see how they introduce the Fiend, and I hope it's super-cool, even while I'm terrified of all the ways they can ruin it


They kinda introduced him on Raw already >_>
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ParanoidObsessive
08/13/19 2:37:53 AM
#43:


Aaantlion posted...
Because I used to enjoy the weekly programming.

Yes, so did I. You still couldn't pay me enough to watch it on a regular basis today, though.

Just because something used to be great and something you loved, that's no guarantee that it will be worth caring about forever. I mean, just look at Doctor Who for the last decade.



Aaantlion posted...
And once upon a time, NXT's weekly programming was great.

Yeah, but that barely counts. Being pre-taped, edited, and dropped directly on the network for a niche audience gives it a radically different feel than the main shows. Doubly so because it's also stocked with a ton of indie darling wrestlers who are allowed to go out and have phenomenal matches (as opposed to the main card, where they're limited to the point of killing their appeal entirely). And triply so (no pun intended) when you realize that the entirety of NXT is basically crafted according to HHH's vision of what wrestling product should be, as opposed to Vince and Kevin Dunn's idea of what wrestling should be.

If anything, one of the huge worries about NXT is that, with them shifting it to Fox TV in an attempt to fuck with AEW, Vince and Kevin Dunn will become more involved in running the show, and in turn ruin it just as thoroughly as they've ruined the main shows.

Vince really doesn't understand or really give a shit about NXT - if he takes a more hands-on approach, he's probably going to start running it more like Sunday Night Heat meets Tough Enough more than anything it currently is.



Aaantlion posted...
They kinda introduced him on Raw already >_>

Yeah, but that was just appearance for the sake of storyline. The main question most people had was how they'd present him in an actual in-ring situation, complete with entrance and moveset. There was a fear that they might craft this incredible character, and then Bray would just come out and wrestle exactly the same way he used to and lose exactly the same way he used to, and then everyone would immediately stop caring no matter how much they loved the Firefly Funhouse stuff (see also, how quickly WWE managed to completely kill all interest in Matt Hardy).
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I_Abibde
08/13/19 10:40:30 AM
#44:


I'm too new to NXT for Vince and company to start fooling with it. That'll just make me want to watch AEW that much more. ... But, hey, if they leave 205 Live alone, that's all right by me, even if it means I have to watch the Singh Brothers almost every week. :-P Worst comes to worst, I'll just fire up You Tube and see if Ring of Honor has stopped sucking a bit in the past few months.

Meanwhile, in a different sport, how sad is it that I'm trying to decide among different indoor football leagues to watch during the NFL off season? Those put all their games on You Tube, at least, even if the rules are wacky. ... I really miss the Alliance, even if the AAF couldn't finish a single season.
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The Wave Master
08/13/19 12:50:01 PM
#45:


P.O. hates tomatoes. (Laughs) No BLT for you. However, my wife loves tomatoes, but she's a country girl. I've seen her eat tomatoes right from the farmer's market like they were apples or peaches. I've also seen her slice the tomatoes, add some salt and pepper, and put them on white bread with mayo and a slice of cheese, and crush that sammich with some sweet tea. She's hard core into tomatoes and hard core country girl too.

I'm looking for some good turn based RPGs on the PS4. I'm probably going to pick up Borderlands 3, but with football season starting and The Cowboys needing to pay every offensive player under the sun, the hopes of my team being good are rather tiny. Therefore, I nerd a relaxing RPG I can have fun with and grind when the games are horrible.

I have already beaten Persona 5 and Dragon Quest 11. Just looking for something solid to fill my time.
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The Wave Master
08/13/19 12:54:23 PM
#46:


I_Abibde posted...
I'm too new to NXT for Vince and company to start fooling with it. That'll just make me want to watch AEW that much more. ... But, hey, if they leave 205 Live alone, that's all right by me, even if it means I have to watch the Singh Brothers almost every week. :-P Worst comes to worst, I'll just fire up You Tube and see if Ring of Honor has stopped sucking a bit in the past few months.

Meanwhile, in a different sport, how sad is it that I'm trying to decide among different indoor football leagues to watch during the NFL off season? Those put all their games on You Tube, at least, even if the rules are wacky. ... I really miss the Alliance, even if the AAF couldn't finish a single season.


What's wrong with the NFL or Collge football? I know the speed and quality of college isn't up to par with the NFL, but it's not all horrible. I live on SEC country so our football is the best.

As for the NFL, a lot of the rule changes have made it close to two hand touch. Just curious as to why the boycott for the most part?
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Broken_Zeus
08/13/19 1:16:24 PM
#47:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
Just because something used to be great and something you loved, that's no guarantee that it will be worth caring about forever.


Sure, but the only way to know whether it's worth caring about is to actually watch it.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
I mean, just look at Doctor Who for the last decade.


So Doctor Who going back to 2009? Oh, that's the Matt Smith run onward? Which was also about when Moffat took over as showrunner? idk, season 5/2010 had some great episodes. I enjoyed "The Beast Below" and "Vampires of Venice." Plus "The Eleventh Hour" was neat.

Season 6 was a bit of a mixed bag and the overarching story was lousy (although the Silence kinda had a neat concept), but I enjoyed season 7. Seasons 8, 9, and 10 look interesting. While I dislike the 13th Doctor, I haven't actually seen any of those episodes (other than some clips which reaffirm my dislike) so... idk.

My big problem with Doctor Who is its availability on streaming platforms.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
Yeah, but that barely counts. Being pre-taped, edited, and dropped directly on the network for a niche audience gives it a radically different feel than the main shows. Doubly so because it's also stocked with a ton of indie darling wrestlers who are allowed to go out and have phenomenal matches (as opposed to the main card, where they're limited to the point of killing their appeal entirely). And triply so (no pun intended) when you realize that the entirety of NXT is basically crafted according to HHH's vision of what wrestling product should be, as opposed to Vince and Kevin Dunn's idea of what wrestling should be.


Barely counts in what way? However it got made, the end product had been enjoyable, which is ultimately what I care about. If last week was an outlier and it's still comparable to what it was, I could reasonably see myself following it again.

The only tough part is becoming invested in a wrestler and then deciding how much of the other shows to follow to keep up. Rather than watch full episodes of Raw or SD, I could just follow the relevant clips/storylines on YT or another service. The idea of listening to wrestling commentators for coverage doesn't massively appeal to me; sure, somebody like Dave Meltzer is still fine, but I don't like a lot of the other names (I actually had tried watching some of Wrestling with Wregret in the past, which I recall disliking more than the actual programming. Meanwhile, WhatCulture has always been too clickbaity for me). However, afaik, there's nobody as entertaining as Jim Cornette doing the coverage.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
(see also, how quickly WWE managed to completely kill all interest in Matt Hardy).


Well, when they brought him in, they couldn't use his gimmick. That was strike one. Strike two was what we always knew was going to happen -- Matt wasn't going to get the same level of creative control and we weren't going to see as much pre-taped content (which, to be fair, doesn't have a lot of place in wrestling when you have an attending audience). Strike 3 seems inevitable -- that they weren't going to do much to push him. VKM didn't view him as one of his creations so he was never going to get equal consideration.

And thematically, Broken Matt was a poor fit for the WWE's current overarching vision for its programming. However, we never really got Broken Matt in the first place. We got teases for Broken Matt, but then we wound up with Woken Matt which wasn't the same thing. Honestly, I put more blame on Anthem than WWE because had Broken Matt come into the WWE, it might have been a different story.
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I_Abibde
08/13/19 1:38:25 PM
#48:


*looks at PS4 shelf*

I don't know if I have any big recommendations for JRPGs, barring Zanki Zero, which isn't turn-based. It's been a Nintendo kind of year for me (see: Etrian Odyssey Nexus and Fire Emblem: Three Houses).

The Wave Master posted...
What's wrong with the NFL or Collge football? I know the speed and quality of college isn't up to par with the NFL, but it's not all horrible. I live on SEC country so our football is the best.

As for the NFL, a lot of the rule changes have made it close to two hand touch. Just curious as to why the boycott for the most part?


Oh! I may have misspoken. I'm not boycotting the NFL. Solid Jets fan here (... for better or worse). But I'd like to have football to watch when the NFL season is over, so I've been looking at my options there. Stuff like the Arena Football League, the National Arena League, the Indoor Football League, etc. I really want a real, NFL-style spring league (so that I don't have to be stuck with baseball, which I don't like), but those tend not to last very long (see: the AAF).

College football isn't for me. I went to an SEC school (UK), but the bowl system has never made much sense to me, and streaming availability for the games is not great.
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ParanoidObsessive
08/14/19 2:38:32 AM
#49:


The Wave Master posted...
P.O. hates tomatoes. (Laughs) No BLT for you.

It's not that I hate tomatoes, as much as they just make me projectile vomit from even trace amounts.

My best friend is allergic to raw onions. His wife once joked that she could kill both of us with one submarine sandwich (or, depending on your regional preference, a hoagie, hero, grinder, etc etc).

Oddly, it's only raw tomatoes that bother me - I can eat processed or cooked stuff like ketchup or sauce much more easily (though I still tend to steer clear of most sauce). At least one other member of my family had the same thing, and I've talked to at least a few other people over the years who have a similar issue (one of whom actually requires an epi-pen if they eat them).

The funny thing is, tomatoes ARE in the nightshade family, so they're close kin to poison right out of the gate.
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The Wave Master
08/16/19 10:38:07 AM
#50:


Ewan McGregor was the best thing about the Star Wars prequels. He was the only one really trying for an extended period of time. That's why it's good news that he's coming back to reprise the role for a new series on Disney plus.

I'm not sure of the quality of the series, not to be like P.O. and be cynical, but it's probably going to be bad to mediocre. Let's hope the story, cast, writers, and directors all pan out, and this turns out to be a worthwhile endeavor.
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Broken_Zeus
08/16/19 1:43:45 PM
#51:


I started to watch Wu Assassins last night. While the lore is interesting and I like many of the characters, that fight choreography is hilariously bad in that it's absurdly contrived, unrealistic, and difficult to follow. It might be some of the goofiest choreography I've seen in a modern show. A good case-in-point is during the first few minutes of the first episode where Kai either shoves or kicks the butterfly knife in a guy's hand so hard that it drags the grown man several feet back where it stabs cleanly into the wall with enough force to trap his hand. Granted, this kind of over-the-top choreography comes with the martial arts genre so I can't be too mad and a few of the moves can look cool.

Otherwise I just wish that we'd *see* the monk-form fight when everybody is supposed to be seeing the monk rather than Kai. This is especially relevant because at one point the monk form is dispelled but we as an audience don't realize that until a character mentions it. Granted several minutes before that, we see an effect where it looks like it's dispelling but only the ally seems to react to the change despite the attacker being right next to Kai

The only drawback? It's apparently another 10-episode season and the only season out so far for the show.

In other news, I stopped at thrift store yesterday and found the first season of Superboy, a show that I'm not entirely sure I knew existed until several weeks ago. (And, of course, it's not based on the fun clone version of Superman -- it came out years before the whole Death of Superman arc.) I also found season 1 of The Legend of Korra (after buying seasons 2 & 4 on a prior visit... and buying season 3 on DVD since I wanted everything in the same format despite having the BR version from long before that -- stuff is crazy cheap, though, just $2/season for those DVD versions) so I'm finally going to watch the sequel to Avatar TLA.

Of course, the downside to cheap DVDs is the immense amount of physical space they wind up using. And pretty much every title I own is because it's something I want in my movie/tv collection, which is nowhere near finished. Oh, the other kinda downside? I usually wind up just watching something on NFI/Hulu/etc instead of one of those things I bought >_> Probably because the other things seem more time-sensitive in a way.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
The funny thing is, tomatoes ARE in the nightshade family, so they're close kin to poison right out of the gate.


Which is why they try to warn you with their terrible taste >_>

tbh, while I enjoy tomato-based sauces, I've never liked sliced (or raw) tomato.
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