So, Guess Who Made It On TV After All?

Me, that's who!
So, after my whole write-up on WWE Raw, I checked out the show on YouTube for a little bit (damned if I were going to sit and watch the whole thing) just to see if I made it on.  I only really checked the segments about NXT and the Jon Lovitz/Santino Marella/Ted DiBiase thing just to see if my signs made it on, resulting in that pic I posted last time of me WAYYYYYYY up in the stands (I didn't realize we were that far away) holding my non-visible "I Came To See Virgil" sign.  So I kinda forgot about it.  Then I remembered that Superstars (aka The Show No One Watches) was on Thursday so I scoped it out again.  Lo and behold, my "Michael Cole Fears Daniel Bryan" sign made it on for a good second or two in the NXT recap video!

For video proof, go to around the 3:15 mark (and watch the video package as a whole in case you don't get it and want to know what I'm talking about in context):



So yup, there's my two seconds of fame.  By my count, I have 14:59:58 left.  But hey, if they use that video package, say on tonight's Smackdown, next Monday's Raw or NXT on Tuesday, I'll be everywhere!  My domination over all media begins NOW!

Alright, instead of making this entire thread about me getting on TV for a few seconds, how about I talk about a few things I've been up to?  Honestly, it hasn't been much because any free time I have is usually spent on the Internet.  I haven't been watching many movies lately and I don't think I've even gone back to Netflix on the Wii in the past few weeks.

But I did finish up The Sonny Chiba Collection DVD set.  After watching Legend of the Eight Samurai, I skipped over Ninja Wars as I already own a nice copy of that movie and went to Resurrection of Golden Wolf.  Basically, the best way I can describe it is Scarface set in Japan...only longer somehow.  And you know how long Scarface is.  Honestly, I wanted to like it but I could hardly get into it due to how unlikeable the main character was, though that's not the fault of the actor playing him (the late Yusaku Matsuda).  Sure, he may be stealing money from a crooked organization but you don't really find out how crooked they are until late in the movie.  And even then, the dude is kinda a dick about it.  You don't ever get the sense that he's a decent human being until literally the last 5 minutes of the movie.  And by then, his fate is sealed.  Plus, for a movie in the Sonny Chiba Collection, I have to question them including a movie where Sonny is only in it for about a half-hour, which only equals about a quarter of the movie.  Oh well, at least he gets to judo chop someone in the dick repeatedly.  Later on, I finished up with G.I. Samurai, a movie about a military squadron led by Chiba getting sent back in time to feudal Japan where they end up using their modern tactics and weaponry to help an army of samurai take over the land.  Sure, it sounds gimmicky as all hell but I quite enjoyed it.  Like Legend of the Eight Samurai, G.I. Samurai is one of the rare films that doesn't have Sonny Chiba playing a surly asshole and instead playing a decent (if a bit flawed, in this case) human being.  And with it being made in the '70s, its impressive that they were able to pull off something of this scope.  The battle scene near the end of the movie is immense and intense with a body count surely in the hundreds.  Better yet, even with a tank, helicopter and a crapload of guns, the modern-day army barely gets out the battle alive.

Beyond that, I think the only other movie I've seen is Death Journey, one of the movies from my cheap Urban Action Cinema set.  Unfortunately, this movie was horrible.  And I had decent hopes for it as I consider Fred Williamson one of the most underrated badasses in cinema history.  But basically, this movie has Fred playing babysitter to a fat, whiny witness so that he doesn't get killed.  The witness tries to get away at every chance, especially when being attacked by thugs sent by the man who wants him killed.  But in repeated bouts of "epic fail", the thugs ALWAYS attack Fred and not, you know, the man their boss wants silenced.  In between attacks, Fred manages to get some tail but it's never in that suave Shaft way but more like "Hey, you're a girl in this movie.  Let's fuck."  I don't know if I talked about watching The Black Gestapo but that was a lot better than Death Journey.  In that one, a group of militant black men splinters off from a slightly-less-militant group and forms an army to protect the streets, only they end up taking the streets and making them worse than when the "White Devil" ran them.  Though it's pretty simple and flawed, it's a perfect representation of the old maxim "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely".

Other than that, I've been trying to finish Yakuza 2 and I feel like I'm in the home stretch of the storyline.  Of course, when you have a boss fight consisting of beating up TWO TIGERS WITH YOUR BARE HANDS, I don't know where else you can go from there.  Oh yeah, and that particular level took place in a giant golden temple which rose up from under a giant not-golden temple that split in two and gave way to this one.  For a game that's supposed to be somewhat realistic and take place in the real world, that got a major "WTF?" from me.  I'm hoping that I can beat Yakuza 2 soon so I can actually play some of the Wii games I haven't finished...or started, in the case of The Conduit.

As for music, I've kinda calmed down from my recent concert experience with Horse The Band.  However, I did acquire the new Crystal Castles album which, like their debut album, is self-titled.  It's also much better than the debut, I think.  With Album #1, the songs were either really hyper and evocative (like "Xxzxcuzx Me" or "Through The Hosiery") or repetitive and droning ("Good Time" or "Magic Spells").  But with Album #2, its much more solid all the way through.  Sure, some songs like "Doe Deer" and "Baptism" stand out a bit more than the others but the rest of the songs strike a balance that they failed to capture in Album #1  Also, even though it's not necessarily music, I plan on picking up David Cross' new standup album "Bigger and Blackerer" tomorrow so I have something to listen to on my long drive home.  Cross has kinda slipped down my list of favorite standup comedians (which I believe Patton Oswalt stands atop right now) but he's still a good listen.  I just wish he'd stick more to comedy and not ranting and raving about politics, even though he does makes politics tolerable by pointing out the blatant hypocrisy and ripping it to shreds.

Finally, after reporting on the death of Slipknot bassist Paul Grey in my last blog entry, I come home from work today to find that Gary Coleman has passed away earlier today after a brain hemorrhage suffered from a fall a few days ago.  Worse yet, I also found out that Stephen Perry, the man who wrote Thundercats, which was one of my favorite cartoons as a child, was found murdered.  Between this and the recent deaths I mentioned in my last blog, its way too many to bear at once.  RIP

But at least Hayley Williams of Paramore accidentally posted pics of her boobs on Twitter, if you're into that sorta thing.  Which I am.

Anyway, I'll cut it off there for now.  Look for my next article over the week (hopefully).  You guys enjoy the Memorial Day weekend.  Unless you don't live in America.  Then pretend you have a holiday and just call off work.  It's the American way.