The Blogboard Jungle

Wrasslin'    I am one of those people that try to stay up late and watch certain competitions on TV when the Olympic Games are around and wrestling is one I shave stayed up late for.  Wrestling has been in the Olympics since ancient times and to have it considered for removal last February is ridiculous.  The International Olympic Committee’s executive board Wednesday placed wrestling, squash and baseball/softball on a short list of sports from which only one will be chosen for inclusion in the 2020 Games.  I don't know what squash is...baseball/softball is an American sport widely known as"America's pastime" and I don't think I have ever watched the game as a competitively international sport although I do know the games are out there.         Wrestling is something every country can compete in and some real battles have gone on with some very tough representatives from places like Russia, Iran, and the United States....

This one and its sequel are some of may favorites     Sometimes a movie can take too long or get to the point, in horror it can make or break the film if the story isn't good enough to build it up, which is why I was always partial to anthologies.  The first book I ever read was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories so I may have been sculpted to like shorter stories or stories grouped together since I was a kid.     In media, the awesome Rod Serling's Twilight Zone marathons got me into seeing that style of story telling on television and film.   I watched them in blocks so again, it kept me interested by starting fresh every half hour.  In the 80's, they made Twilight Zone: The Movie with Dan Aykroyd that was pretty good and had some of its own behind the scenes creepiness and drama included.  Another popular 80's film had an "A" list of horror writers in it called Creep Show and its sequel Creep Sho...

     Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer for a lot of people, but we cannot forget why we get to enjoy what we enjoy and the reason the holiday exists.  This holiday is dedicated to those who served and who continue to serve.  I think I see a lot of people forget that when they know its coming up.  Keeping that in mind some networks are making it a point to help keep what memorial day stands for in our minds.  Here is some stuff to watch.      HBO, has a Memorial Day watch list that include films such as The Thin Red Line and Taking Chance ,  Taking Chance especially.  It is what made me want to write this as it was the first film that I saw when I realized they were doing this for the weekend.  It stars Kevin Bacon as a Marine assigned to bring home the body of a Marine named Chance Phelps home, to his family and final resting place after being killed while serving.  It is a really deep and moving ...

     I think Microsoft's Xbox one may have overshot whatever they were going for, it's really big looking and personally I couldn't care about Kinect.  I have the add on device for my 360 but from what I read it's going to be required.  The reason I haven't used it yet is because when I come home tired from working out at my dojo or gym, I'm too tired to be moving around for my gaming.  I praise the device for getting sedentary people to move around and burn some calories but I don't have that problem.     Gaming is my escape from the daily grind, its relaxing for me, even when I'm yelling at the bad guys on screen.  At least we see what the whole package is going to look like, Sony showed us a controller with a touch pad on it which is cool too.  I always liked the PlayStation controller layout especially for the PS2 which seems to be the model for them now.  I wonder if the actual console is bigger or smaller compared to the X...

     COST!!! What's the MSRP? We know it's not going to be cheap, Sony wanted $600 for their PS3 when it came out and the Xbox 360 wasn only about 100 bucks cheaper. That's the most I have ever paid for a console and too close to the cost of rent and other things I probably need more than I need a new console.    Get ready to break the piggy banks.         If you go on Amazon and search for new titles for the upcoming fall you'll see PS4 price listings of $100.  Thats for a game, that you'll probably finish in 10-15 hours until they push out some DLC you'll have to pay for.  I hope enough people make known what is an acceptable price to the average gamer like myself.  Games of the current generation are already making us pinch our pennies enough with  $59.99 price tag.  I know a lot of gamers are adults with jobs and kids that they want to get games for too but we, the consumers, should dict...

     Easter eggs in media are hidden messages or inside jokes that the targeted audience gets when placed strategically to be noticed by them but are not outright noticeable.  I can't think of when I first started noticing them or even when they initially became trendy to do.  The most prominent ones that come to mind today would be all of Stan Lee's cameos in the Marvel films.  It's something people tend to get excited about when they see them so when did it become a cool thing to do?      I have been following the Bates Motel series on A&E and decided to rent Psycho since I have not seen it since I was a kid.  I like re-watching things from when I was kid since I am watching it with a better mind set for understanding as an adult.  This was the DVD collectors edition of Psycho so I decided to check out the special features on the disc about the making of the film.  It's a pretty lengthy documentary but one...

     When people see Terry O' Quinn Lost usually comes to mind. When I saw him on Lost, The Stepfather came to mind. There's two of these movies, The Stepfather and The Stepfather II ,both were made in the eighties and were your standard slasher horror/thriller depending on your preference. I consider it a horror because it's like having an invader emerge when someone outside the bloodline not only tries to take complete control, but murders when he doesn't get his way, almost like a Jekyll and Hyde thing. The movies were good enough that a remake of the first one was done in 2009. I always liked them but thought them kind of goofy because of how crazy the character got over family values. Little did I know it's basis was from true crimes.  My reaction to the special features showing it was based on true events.             Re-watching this on DVD with my girlfriend (to scare her), ...

    I have considered myself an athlete most of my adult life, when work, school and other obligations get in the way not everyone can train like a professional athlete and we get a little soft bodied. I just finished my spring term in college and I am a good 15-20 pounds over weight.   I have trained in martial arts half my life and when I feel I am getting a little out of shape and think maybe I am getting too old or I should throw in the towel a series of films I grew up with has always been a good motivator.       If you are a Generation X male, you probably grew up with your summer movie line up being ruled by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Not to take away from Mr. Schwarzenegger, but he was a former Mr. Olympian and champion body builder who already had an aura of being the model macho man.  Stallone's Rocky Balboa character however, was not very super in the beginning but he was kind of a...

  Where did all the bad come from?   I have been watching Hannibal , and Bates Motel to see how they would play out on TV and so far I am hooked.  We've seen the films that made these characters popular and now that they're all done what else is there to do?  Figure out how they got that way or at least to the point of where we met them, that's what.     My girlfriend and I are big fans of The Americans , a show about KGB spies and how they are hiding among us in the 80's when we were all afraid of a war with Russia. I grew up in the 80's and so did my good friend who said he doesn't care to watch the show.  I asked why he wouldn't since it was so good to me and he answered; "Because I already know what happens." I guess it's one thing in the real world to be bored with history you lived through, but why isn't that true for horror or fiction?  I totally want to know about anything that happens between Will Graham and Hannibal Lec...

     I have been playing video games ever since the Atari 2600, every game I have ever bought since then came with instructions until recently.  The last few games I have picked up, recent releases have not included any written instructions at all.  I suppose if it's "part 4" of a popular genre that is fine, but if one of the new changes, changes the way you play a warning would have been nice.  These warnings used to be called instruction manuals. The inside of the label is all that's there now.      I know that gaming technology has come a long way since I started and that games now have these nice little play through intro's where the instructions are in the game's beginning for you to play through and give you the option to practice.  This is a very cool and welcome feature but what about when I'm not playing the game or want to hit pause and reference, "how do I do this?"   I remember when I used to pick ...

   I caught the 3rd Iron Man film last night, and of course it was good, but not great.  I was really lucky to catch a late showing so the theater was quiet and there were no distractions from fan boys or comic book nit pickers.  This movie is a decent film and a nice jump off for Marvel's next group of films to lead up to another avengers film (hopefully) but for now we have to watch the individual character films as they face their own issues and enemies.      I've been a Marvel comics guy most of my comic book reading life so I know enough about Iron Man and potential villains that could appear in the films to be excited about all antagonist possibilities. I also understand how Hollywood works to change things so that they translate well to the big screen. Good, bad ,or indifferent these changes should be taken with a grain of salt with the understanding that new fans have to be considered as well in the film medium.  In my opin...

         Before I begin, let it be known I have pre ordered many a game for DLC codes, T-shirts, and DVD's.   I still wear my ECW Hardcore Revolution T-shirt sometimes and my Resident Evil 2 shirt will make an appearance in my Muay Thai class from time to time so I have done it a lot in the past for some cool stuff.   If you notice, the titles I mentioned are from the PlayStation days (PS one!), and I got physical stuff just for putting money down on a game towards its total cost.   It's not extra money, it’s part of the initial cost.   I don't even know if game companies do that anymore, I know if you pay extra for special editions you get extra physical products but do they do anything to truly get a pre-order out of us?   The last time I got something cool for pre-ordering a game was for the PS2 version of The Thing , it came with a DVD of the film that I watch at least once a year to this date.   Ever since that, n...