With my last entry running on a bit too long, I forgot to mention what I'm doing with myself now that I've gone through all my recent movie purchase and don't plan on making (m)any more right now. I thought I was going back to my video games considering I still have Yakuza 2 on the PS2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, MadWorld and House of the Dead Overkill on the Wii to play through. And that's not even including the other cheap games I've gotten to pad out my collection only to play them once or twice. I thought about trading them in and getting something else but I have reservations with the whole process. Oddly enough, I traded in a crapton of CDs and movies to get a new copy of Guitar Hero 5 (and a used copy of Rock Band 2) only to havejust traded it in over the weekend via Goozex.com. I didn't want to go to Gamestop because I knew I'd get like $10 tops, despite it being in very good condition, and the other games I have I bought for about $10 so I'd probably get a Chuck E. Cheese token for those trade-ins.
But anyway, I won't be going back to my games...at least not right away. I'm going back to something I haven't done in a lonnnnnnnnggggggg time: reading. As in actual books, to boot!
The last book I read was David Cross' "I Drink For A Reason". I'd probably say that was last October or November and I went through it in a matter of days. Before that, it was a copy "How To Succeed With Women" that I borrowed from a workmate (and still have seeing as I don't work with him anymore). Before that, I couldn't tell you because I don't remember. Maybe "America: The Book" by The Daily Show crew? Maybe "Make Your Own Damn Movie" by Lloyd Kaufman? Seriously, I can't remember. As much as I loathe the BS that goes with self-help, I decided to give it a shot and went to pick up "The New Psycho-Cybernetics" on recommendation from a friend. Only I couldn't find "The New" version but I did find a copy of the original (and for cheap to boot). The sad part is it was written in the 1950's and therefore super-outdated. The ideas themselves may ring true but honestly it wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know about myself due to my tendency to live inside my own head and over-analyze everything. If anything, it only reinforced all the crap I want to fix and didn't really give me a good way how to. So I went to my nearby used bookstore for the first time over the weekend, hoping I could find something better. I couldn't find much in that department but that didn't stop me from getting a few books just to occupy myself with. I ended up getting "Less Than Zero" by Bret Easton Ellis, "Terminator and Philosophy" by William Irwin, Richard Brown and Kevin S. Decker and "Controversy Creates Cash" by Eric Bischoff. After seeing Less Than Zero on the shelf, I was kinda hoping they'd have either American Psycho or The Rules of Attraction so I could see for myself how well they fared compared to their big-screen adaptations but they had neither. After seeing the cover of Terminator and Philosophy, a portrait of Rene Descartes only with some of his face revealing the iconic T-800 skull, I had to pick it up on awesomeness factor alone (not to mention it still being in pretty new condition). Basically, the book equates many philosophical findings to the Terminator universe and apparently there's a whole series of these books, doing the same with the likes of X-Men, Batman, Watchmen, Metallica, The Office, House, South Park and The Simpsons, among others. If Terminator and Philosophy is any good, I'll be sure to track down the other installments as I'm sure this is the only way my pop-culture riddled brain can take in such weighty concepts. And of course, I had to go with a wrestling related book in Controversy Creates Cash, the story of how Eric Bischoff rose through the wrestling business, took control of a dying WCW and turned it into a multimillion dollar company that threatened to put the WWE out of business, only to lose it all when the WWE did it to them instead. Even though it's the biggest book of the three (though it's debatable when you factor in print size and the inclusion of pictures), I'm sure I'll get through that one pretty quick. In fact, I'm almost halfway through it already!
Speaking of wrestling, week two of NXT was last night. In all, I don't think the show had as much of a must-see factor as it did last week but it didn't fall into the trap of becoming "The Miz and Daniel Bryan Hour" like it did last week. Either way, it's still the only wrestling program that doesn't bore me to tears (Raw), remind me why I don't have a social life on Fridays (Smackdown) or give me a brain aneurysm trying to make sense of its booking (Impact!). Here's a rundown of what happened:
Darren Young defeated David Otunga in a rematch from last week. This got MUCH more time than they got last week but I don't know if it should have. All told, the match was kinda boring. Young got way too much offense in for a guy who got put away in 30 seconds last week and Otunga didn't get enough offense for a guy who finished a match in one move. Even weirder, Otunga (an obvious douchebag heel) was getting cheered just by proxy of being associated with fan-favorite R-Truth while Young was getting booed via the same association with CM Punk. Punk and his hilarious expressions of disinterest and disgust were quite entertaining, though. In the end, Punk decided to help his Rookie win but still walked out on him in the end. Afterwards, Otunga shoved R-Truth and walked away.
After the match, Daniel Bryan is getting his ribs checked on after ramming them into the commentary table with a suicide dive last week. Being the dick that he is, The Miz puts Bryan in a match with Wade Barrett and slaps him in the ribs for good luck. Dick move, man, dick move. Also, David Otunga and R-Truth get into a pull-apart brawl. Add them to the pile of pair-ups that don't like each other now.
Wade Barrett defeated Daniel Bryan. Even though he got in a bit of offense, Bryan was really selling the ribs and Barrett capitalized. Afterwards, Chris Jericho stomped on Bryan and no one came to his aid.
The cameras catch Christian and Heath Slater working out earlier in the day with Christian trying to keep Slater's cocky attitude in check. Thankfully, Slater was nowhere near as annoying here as last week. Plus whenever they refer the duo as "Christian and Slater", I get the urge to watch Pump Up The Volume. Also, Matt Hardy and Justin Gabriel cut a promo to set up their match.
Matt Hardy and Justin Gabriel defeated William Regal and Skip Sheffield. And much like Miz/Bryan, Punk/Young and Truth/Otunga, Regal and Sheffield don't like each other. But that's because Sheffield is a giant redneck...literally. His vest bills him as the "Cornfed Meathead". Brilliant. Gabriel lost some points with me when his entrance gear was revealed as basically a tight shirt with a built-in skirt and Evel Knievel-esque popped collar. That's the best I can describe it. Luckily he gained those points back by ending the match with a 450 Splash off the top rope onto Regal.
To end the show, Matt Striker is with the remaining contestants (including a pained Daniel Bryan who is so hunched over from the pain that he looks like he's taking a dump on the floor) but Carlito interrupts to spit in apple in the face of Heath Slater who, is in fact, not cool. Good choice, Carlito. I knew I liked you for a reason.
Also, sit-down interviews were done with Wade Barrett, Daniel Bryan and Skip Sheffield. They went a little into Byran's indy and Japanese experiences, which was cool. But surprisingly enough, Sheffield was the one who shined the most with his gimmick. Basically, he's playing the part of the fat kid in Varsity Blues, only instead of being fat, he's juiced up to the gills. It helped change my previous opinion of "immobile hoss" and dare I say he could be the "comedy character" option of NXT if they don't do something soon with Darren Young. I say bump his Chances of remaining with the WWE about 10%-20% from what I had it in the last entry. Unfortunately, they literally did nothing with Michael Tarver beyond clips of his match last week. Hell, his Pro mentor Carlito barely acknowledged him when he came out to close the show.
In other wrestling news, the debut episode of Wrestlicious debuted this week. If you don't know what that is, be glad. Basically, some 17 year old kid won the lottery and was convinced to invest it in an all-female wrestling promotion. Now, that's all well and good but it would've been better if it wasn't a cheesy GLOW reboot spearheaded by Jimmy Hart and apparently booked by Benny Hill, only to tape the premiere episode and have it sit on the shelf for over a year until it saw the light of day! The thing is they have actual talented female wrestlers from the indy scene but they thought it was a good idea to put give them cartoony gimmicks and spout crappy one-liners. They took Mercedes Martinez, arguably one of the best female wrestlers in the business today, and put her in a matador outfit. I'm not joking! Seriously, it's a 20+ minute show but I skipped through most of it and still felt insulted. To put it in comparison, I have almost the entire commercially-released DVDs of Women's Extreme Wrestling, which is basically a female promotion with some actual wrestlers but marketed as "sexy" and "erotic" to lonely nerds like me, making it look like it belongs in a porn shop. And THAT's nowhere near as embarrassing as Wrestlicious' first episode. Wow. Just wow.
Finally, I was all set to tease a surprise relating to this here blog but it looks like there might be a snag in the operations. I was hoping to have things cleared up by the weekend but it looks like it might be a bit longer than that.
So instead, enjoy Ted DiBiasi's fake Undertaker beat up a martial artist in a Bollywood movie.
Man, I really need to do a non-wrestling related entry.
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