Random Stuff and Shameless Plugs

It may seem like I haven't been doing a whole hell of a lot, judging by the recent inactivity of this blog...and you'd be totally right!  I have an article in the works, I swear, but for some reason getting the stuff out of my head and down onto the page is kinda hard, even though I have most of it in my head.  I guess right now, I don't really want to sit down and write.  But I am doing a lot of sitting down and doing other things.

Earlier this month, I managed to get my tax refund, at a time when I definitely needed it.  And though I would've liked to save all of it, I felt (and still do feel) the urge to spend it on myself.  Luckily, I don't need to lavish myself with expensive things...well I DO but I just can't afford it and I'm don't want to open myself up to a huge line of debt.  Anyway, I managed to squeak out with a few deals.  Surprisingly enough, I didn't spend it all on movies like you'd probably think I would.  I did buy a few but only spent about $10-$15 on them.  I won't tell you which ones, mostly because they don't really matter but partly because I'm accumulating some movies for my next Random Movie Roundup, whenever that may be.

Oddly enough, I spent a good chunk of change on books, of all things.  Honestly, I can't remember the last book I've read all the way through since David Cross' "I Drink For A Reason" last year.  So I decided to get back into the ol' book readin'.  So I bought the following:

"Zombie Spaceship Wasteland" by Patton Oswalt
"Save The Cat: The Last Book On Screenwriting You'll Ever Need" by Blake Snyder
"Suck It, Wonder Woman!" by Olivia Munn
"The Mystery Method" by Mystery (yeah, shut up)
"Rules of the Game" by Neil Strauss

All in all, I probably spent about $50 on those books, maybe a little bit more, so I'm pretty satisfied.  Unfortunately, after I made that order, I remembered a few more books I could have bought, namely Chris Jericho's most recent book "Undisputed".  After reading "A Lion's Tale" (maybe that was the last book I read, can't remember), it pretty much tied with Mick Foley's "Have A Nice Day" as my favorite wrestling related book, so I was psyched to read the follow-up.  But it just came out so I'm willing to wait a bit longer until the price comes down.  Anyways, the first book I got into was "Zombie Spaceship Wasteland".  I quite enjoyed it but as funny as Patton Oswalt is, the book could have definitely been longer.  It only took me about a week to read it, but only read during a few of those days.  Honestly, if I read it straight through in one sitting, I probably could have finished it in about 2 hours.  I'd say its essential reading if you're a fan of Patton but really it just makes you wish he had another book to go out and pick up immediately after finishing it.  I'm currently reading through "The Mystery Method" and it's taking me substantially longer to get through...mostly because I feel like a dumbass for reading it.  I do believe that the science behind it and the examples of human behavior are valid, but the process itself feels very forced.  He basically tells you to go out and use "canned material" on hundreds, possibly thousands, of women until it feels natural.  I'm not saying that meeting a woman should be entirely serendipitous, but it shouldn't be entirely rehearsed either.  And imagine that there are thousands of men doing this, doing this to thousands of women each, wouldn't women catch on after a while?  Ah well, I never really imagined that I would be going out and doing this, instead taking all of the good bits from this and "Rules of the Game" and trying to make something work.

Also, while I bought the books, I bought Muramasa: The Demon Blade for the Wii for like $12.  But I still haven't played it.  I've fallen very behind on my video game playing.  I don't know if I mentioned this before but I also bought Dead Rising 2 for the XBox 360 (along with Jet Set Radio Future for the XBox) from a friend who was selling a ton of his games (over 100 of them) and haven't played it until today.  And even then, I might have only played it for about an hour.  Of course, I might actually play this more often if I had a 360 of my own instead of using my roommates' but oh well.  Considering I have these games to play, plus I haven't finished Fallout: New Vegas plus wanting to do another playthrough of Fable III, you can imagine how much time I'd have to sit down and spend on video game catch-up.

Instead, I've been starting to listen to a few podcasts, partially because they're entertaining but partially because I want to see how it's professionally done, instead of the hackjobs that I normally produce.  Normally, podcasts don't really interest me because I don't have much opportunity to let something play that I still have to pay attention to.  But there have been a few that have caught my eye...or ear, actually.  First of them being How Did This Get Made?, a podcast moderated by Paul Scheer (Human Giant, The League, all of the VH1 shows where they get comedians to talk about things) about bad movies.  Now, I only listened to the episode for Drive Angry, which they loved probably more than I did, but that was good enough for me to return and listen for when they cover another shitty movie that interests me.  But the podcast I've been listening to the most lately comes from I Want Wrestling, created by former WWE writer Dave Lagana.  Lagana runs a few different formats...that are actually the same, he just interviews different types of people involved in the business, from wrestlers to the wrestling press to wrestling fans themselves.  But the most interesting of these podcasts is Formerly Creative, where Lagana shoots the breeze with fellow former WWE writers, talking about the process of working for WWE and coming up with ideas for wrestlers, whether they be good or bad.  Case in point: Did you know that Daniel Bryan, current WWE superstar and proclaimed by many of the fans and his peers alike as being the "Best in the World", was almost given a Homeless gimmick years before he finally made it to the WWE?  Also, did you know that instead of basically playing Capt. Jack Sparrows with his pirate character, Paul Burchill could have had a gimmick that of Brad Pitt's character from Snatch?  But if I have to suggest any one specific podcast to listen to for a sample, it wouldn't be a Formerly Creative episode but instead the Promote This! episode where Lagana interviews independent wrestler (and recent winner of the NWA Heavyweight Championship) Colt Cabana, who himself runs a very good wrestling podcast called the Art of Wrestling that I don't listen to as much as I should.  In addition to plugging the Art of Wrestling, but his road documentary the Wrestling Road Diaries, where he and Daniel Bryan show what it's like to ply your trade and go out on the road as an indy wrestler.  Even though he's been in the WWE for a cup of coffee, Colt's dedication to the wrestling business despite never fully reaching his potential, told with his humble and affable personality, is a story that deserves to be heard.

*Segue involving hearing things with your ears!* 

So far, 2011 isn't looking the greatest when it comes to music.  Honestly, the only thing coming out that I know has a release date (Blaqk Audio, I'm looking at you) is the recent announcement of the remastered re-release of Mindless Self Indulgence's rare first album "Tight".  But this year isn't a complete wash.  As I have mentioned a while back, Horse The Band had compiled their self-ran Earth Tour from 2008 down to a 7-disc DVD set and 100+ page book.  However, it was a limited edition and I was unable to afford one for myself, even though I wanted one.  Fortunately, HtheB comes through and have actually made it available for free via a torrent, which is available here, because they figured it would end up on the Internet anyways, so why not have it come from the source?  Of course, they do suggest a donation, considering they wracked up massive amounts of credit card debt so they could run the tour themselves and go where the fans wanted them to play.  I know that there are a few more important things out there you could donate your money to, namely the situations in Japan and Haiti.  But recently, there are few things I believe in as much as Horse The Band, as corny as that may sound.  Horse The Band, to me, represents free expression of art, emotion and ideas.  I'm not telling you to donate some money to a band you've never heard of just because I like them.  But definitely give them a chance and if you like what they represent, float a few bucks their way if you have them.  I haven't watched the "movie" yet (all 10.5 hours of it) but I did read through the book (in PDF form) and it was great to see them branch out like they did, even though they did go to some depressing and dilapidated places.  But in the end, I found myself a bit depressed, and I'm sure that feeling will worsen as I watch the movie.  I thought about it and realized that the album that they toured for, "A Natural Death", came out soon after I moved out on my own.  Over the course of time, Horse The Band went out, toured the world, came back, recorded their best album thus far (in my opinion) and even though they came back in debt, they still went out and achieved it all on their own.  Me?  I'm still at the same low-paying dead end job with no real prospects and an ever-decreasing outlook on my own life and future.  On one hand, it encourages me to get out there and do something.  But I don't know what to do.  And I'm not exactly sure if I want to come back broke because of it.  I guess that's just something I'll have to work out with myself.