Archive for September, 2007
Dilbert: The Little People…
‘Someone’s into hardcore Leprechaun porn’ - really,what more do you want in a cartoon?
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at what point does environmentalism become ’stopping economic development for other nations’?
Interesting article here from Mark Mardell on the BBC Website, on Romania and problems regarding development versus conservationism/environmentalism - while its not the main thrust of the article these few paragraphs made me pause;
It’s a bit passé to call environmentalists “conservationists” but it’s a good word. Many do want to conserve the status quo. All three of the special habitats I looked at were, to a greater or lesser extent, created by man. Most of the environment in Europe is made what it is by farming. But at what point do we shout: “Freeze!”
Doubtless, environmentalists would have wanted to stop the British enclosure system which gave us the hedgerows and their birds. No doubt much was lost even earlier, when grasslands were ploughed up for farm land. What marine species were lost when Holland was rescued from the sea?
On my visit to Andalucia I asked Guido Schmidt of WWF whether in 50 years’ time his successors would be arguing to save the strawberry farms because a rare sort of butterfly had learnt to thrive on them. He laughed, and said that technology had reached such a pitch, and such fundamental changes could be made by man, that what was left untouched had to be saved.
ECW: the most extreme matches
While I am a somewhat lasped wrestling fan I still have to admit that ‘classic wrestling’ (which for me means the 90’s) still holds a place in my heart. While I have no idea who most of the ’stars’ of the now-WWE are seeing many of the wrestlers I grew up with on the magic of DVD still brings a little thrill to my heart. Especially the guys of ECW, who I never saw when they were on TV with that company but saw in WCW or the WWF - and I still feel I missed out, especially given the quality of some of the matches.
So, was this DVD the one to bring this thrill back to my heart? Well its not bad. Was it worth the money i paid? Yeah, just about, there’s just enough material on this DVD to keep it going. Its just 10 minutes short of being six hours of material - which does lead me to wonder why somebody didn’t find another match just so the boxest could say ‘six hours of material!’ Granted, thats not six hours of matches, and not all of those matches are good but….
Well I should qualify that statement a little bit, the matches are some very ‘exteme’ matches and to be honest, if your expecting great wrestling from that you really are always going to be looking in the wrong place. The simple truth about exteme matches is that they are gimmicks - the idea is to give the fans either blood, or some crazy moves. With something like this the wrestling becomes somewhat secondary.
And there is a lot of blood - in particular the taipei death match between Ian and Axel Rotten where they pound each other with glass and the barbed wire match between Sabu and Terry Funk where towards the end of the match (as you are told in some of the special features) Terry Funk couldn’t move as the barbed wire was wrapped around his throat. Meanwhile some matches are there becasuse of a few moments - the Tazz v. Bam Bam Bigelow match is ok, but made memorable by the fact that they fell through the enterance ramp because they were hitting each other so hard, while a tag match between the team of Spike Dudley and Balls Mahoney v. The Dudley Boyz is simply notable bacuse it was the first time that ‘flaming tables’ (i.e -tables that had been set on fire) were used in ECW.
But, lest you think that there are no quality wrestling matches in this - the four corners match from heatwave ‘96 features some very good wrestling as does the 3 way dance between Tajiri v. Little Guido v Super Crazy. but oddly enough, in a sort of reverse complaint these matches are not very ‘extreme’ - they’re very good but not what the DVD advertises itself as being about.
A final complaint is the element of overlap - while the only other wrestling DVD I have is Mick Foley’s one there is one overlapped match from when he won the tag championship with Mikey Whipwreck. That would be ok, except those that are going to buy an ECW dvd are most likely going to buy the Mick Foley dvd too given the place of ‘hardcore wrestling’ in both - but lest I be accused of nitpicking with that match - could someone explain why the Mike Awesome v. Masato Tanaka match from ‘One Night Stand’ is on this boxset? I mean, the Mick Foley thing could be a genuine overlap, but when there are few enough ECW dvds out there why exactly is the WWE putting new ones together by using reacent dvds? There are more than enough Mike Awesome/Masato Tanaka matches out there that very good without having to go to such a reacent one. It’s just a small thing, and I know that some ‘overlap’ is likely in a compilation (which is what this DVD is after all) but some thought would be nice.
Still though, the DVD is nearly six hours long and even removing the ‘talking heads’ special features and Paul Heyman’s overly long intros into every match there is still a good 5 hours of wrestling in this DVD. Its worth a look.
Just as an example here’s a match between Awesome and Tanaka from Heatwave ‘98 (I think) It’s about 15 minutes long and is very good - so why not put that in? Read the rest of this entry »
Optimus Prime Lives!
‘Lets go fuck Galvatron up the ass… not literally!’ - why couldn’t my saturday morning cartoons have been this funny?
Update; This one is even better - it has Shockwave, and man, is he the Universe’s biggest loser or what…. Read the rest of this entry »
An email I just sent to someone
”hows about “The Necessary Attributes” or something along those lines…?? “The Necessary Attributes of a future shag”?? “The Necessary Attributes of my future partner will include an alcohol cabinet”? and so on…
Ive been home for too long… ”
Whats worse is that that particular email will make sense to them….
no matter how many different versions of ‘the War of the Worlds’ there are they nearly always manage to be good
But some are better than others - case in point here by Ian Edginton and D’isreali. It seems to serve as a prequel to their ‘Scarlet Traces’ book from a few years back as well as being a proper adaptation in its own right. The two creators are very very good though so I’d suggest to you all to read it - enjoy!
I’m not sure if this is proof of the fact that many people become brain-damaged by taking religion seriously or not, but man is it funny…
The author of this talks about how they ended up in the pentecostal church for a bit… What I love is that the children treat it as a joke and find it ‘fun’ but the adults take it seriously and look like idiots…
Reverend Bud would begin the sermon slowly and thoughtfully. He preached the wonders of God’s love and the importance of attending Church regularly. Although this was typically the most boring part of the night, we (the kids) used the time wisely. We’d make faces at each other over the pews or give random people the finger behind our Bibles. The purpose of our antics was to simply keep ourselves occupied until the adults starting yelling, “Amen!” and “Praise God!” It was at this point, we would swivel around in our seats and keep our eyes glued to the front two pews. This is where the action usually started
and
Life doesn’t get more exciting for a 10 year old kid than attending a service in a Pentecostal Church. We went to Church every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night. On Sundays, we would be in Sunday school. On Saturday, we’d attend Church picnics or other related events. It got to the point where we were at Church more often than we were at home and we didn’t mind one fucking bit. Not only were we surrounded by friends, but at any second, there was a distinct possibility that someone would become possessed by the good ol’ Holy Ghost and feel compelled to shout at the ceiling, “GABBA GABBA GOOOOO!”
The Holy Ghost was so fucking cool. It made the adults look like idiots!
The Iron Man trailer
Looks pretty cool (except for the bit at the end with the planes which could look better),though I would have preferred if they had made the story more like the Warren Ellis story ‘Extremis’ but oh well.