Author: dtm666

I ramble about things.

Smackdown (Feb. 17th, 2023) – Live Notes And Curiosities

And so here we are… my first live WWE television taping.

This was a Christmas gift from my older brother, which surprised the heck out of me that he’d go so far as to do that. And I am not going to lie; there was genuine excitement over this. I have never attended a live WWE television taping and I could count on one hand the number of WWE house show/live events I’ve attended over the course of my lifetime. I’ve been watching the past couple weeks worth of Smackdowns, I’ve been getting myself prepped for everything that was going on. And as months turned to weeks and weeks turned to days, I was looking forward to this moment. Even if it was from the cheap seats – and the cheap seats are way up there – but it didn’t matter because the energy of attending a live WWE event could not and would not compare to the energy of a live WWE television taping and especially moreso of the PPVs.

And then a week ago, a member of the family was hospitalized. They had a low oxygen count, they were brought in, they got examined, and we found out that one of the lungs were clogged and they’re going to see if it were possible to operate. This family member is in their 70s, they’ve been taking medication for blood circulation, and so there were a lot of factors that had to be considered. All of a sudden, the weekend draws near, almost as a bit of an afterthought considering the sudden family emergency that had emerged.

We almost didn’t attend the show because we wanted to care for this family member, but to their wisdom, they told us to go because otherwise, it’d be a waste of money and even the cheap seats for those shows are pretty fucking expensive. Now I would’ve fine skipping out on one, but we did attend both shows. We did enjoy the shows, had a fun time over there, and at the end of the day, I’m glad that we went and got this temporary reprieve from this serious situation.

Just as a heads up, I’m going to bouncing around from point to point, so don’t expect a coherent or properly laid out format – at least, compared to the usual output.

Continue reading “Smackdown (Feb. 17th, 2023) – Live Notes And Curiosities”

AEW Dynamite (Feb. 15th, 2023): Anything Interesting Happen?

(Note: Hey, kids. I know people would rather I’d talk about last night’s Smackdown show that I attended live, but I’m saving that for when I’ve got time to digest this stuff… and also, by the time this publishes, I’m still not home yet and I ain’t typing shit on my rinky-dink phone. In the meantime, here’s an AEW Dynamite musings that I wrote a couple days ago and never posted because Picard inspired me to put something else up in its place. Later.)

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve last touched a Dynamite show, hasn’t it? Anything interesting happen while I was away.

To tell the truth, I haven’t been following much of AEW as of late. I do know about a couple ongoing stories, such as Bryan Danielson’s recently successful bid to earn an AEW Championship match contested under 60-minute Ironman rules, which should be interesting to witness in 2023… and also the ongoing Jon Moxley/Hangman Page feud, which may be coming to its conclusion at the upcoming PPV in the form of a Texas Death Match, so that gives ol’ Mox another excuse to bleed.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (Feb. 15th, 2023): Anything Interesting Happen?”

Haven’t We Been Here Before? – The Picard Season 3 Pre-Show Ramble

Tonight is the premiere episode of the third season of Star Trek: Picard.

The big TNG reunion season. The final season. The final journey. A clean break from the previous two seasons. That sort of thing. And you know what? Early reviews have been enthusiastic. It’s the best Trek in years. It’s the TNG reunion we should’ve had years. The press has been positive. Perhaps a bit too positive. This shouldn’t be cause for concern. This shouldn’t be raising any red flags. This shouldn’t be raising any shields. But it does on all counts.

The reason being that… I’ve been here before. I’ve seen this all before.

Continue reading “Haven’t We Been Here Before? – The Picard Season 3 Pre-Show Ramble”

Smackdown (Feb. 10th, 2023) – Paving The Road Forward

Last time on Smackdown, Sami tried to attack Roman and got his ass kicked. But Roman decides to give Sami a title shot for the next PPV, which coincidentally takes place in Montreal, Sami’s home turf. Meanwhile, no one knows where Jey is and that’s worrying because weezu haz title match.

Well, Jey managed to make to the show and the Usos were able to successfully retain the Tag titles over the team of Braun Strowman and Ricochet. However, Jey is still feeling a bit not-Ucey with the whole Bloodline thing. So elder statesmen Paul Heyman tells Jimmy the Usos should watch the PPV at home and get a “television perspective” on the action. Kinda of a clever way to explain the Usos’ non-presence at the show, since Jimmy’s DOA charges prevents him from crossing the board. As for Jey? Well, he gets a fist bump from Sami. Yes, I’m sure they’re very Ucey with each other.

Meanwhile, Nattie taunts Shayna Bayzler for being a Ronda Rousey rip-off, which isn’t fair because I’d much rather watch Shayna Bayzler be a monster ass-kicker than Cold Ronda any day of the week. Regardless, out comes Ronda, who helps Shayna beat up Nattie. And then Shotzi runs out for the failed saved and gets her ass kicked too. Well, that’s a thing that’s going to happen.

Baron Corbin loses another match and JBL, who was his manager for some reason, ditches him. Corbin tries to say that he’ll do better, but JBL mentions something about not being able to polish a turd. I know the idea is for us to feel sorry for Corbin, but I don’t. This is JBL cutting his losses and not wanting to have his name tied to a loser like Corbin and I can’t blame the guy.

Some guy named Madcap Moss gets an title shot against GUNTHER by winning the four-way main event match. I suggest Mr. Moss get his affairs in order.

Oh, and LA Knight is still around, apparently not having been completely killed off in the recent Bray Wyatt brain fart. Good for him, I suppose.

You know what? I’m not going to complain about this show. There was a bunch of good stuff on the show, a lot of stuff being set up for the future… hey, you know what? I’m actually looking forward to this coming weekend. Hopefully, the weather doesn’t suck.

Marcus “Armake21” Sparacio

On January 29th, 2023, news broke that Marcus Sparacio had passed away due to medical complications, a little over a couple weeks after his 40th birthday.

Sparacio is perhaps best known in the Youtube circles for his series of angry review videos under the moniker of Armake21; one of the first such reviewers to gain a following after the explosion of the Angry Video Game Nerd and the whole angry reviewing cycle. Over the years, he has adopted many other online handles; NicotineAlien, BoxedEntertainment21, TheWaste0Time, and Marc0. He made videos that had him playing games and sometimes even discuss certain topics, but every once in a while, he’d bring back the Armake21 gimmick for a special occasion.

Out of all the angry reviewer types to come out of the woodworks, the one that I gravitated towards the most was Armake21. And for what it’s worth, he was one of the best in the genre because his performances in those videos were such that it blurred the lines between reality and fiction. Whereas most angry reviewers would show mock anger in a completely unbelievable manner that made it obvious that this was just a show, Armake’s anger felt believable, genuine, and sometimes unhinged to the degree where you had to question whether this was an act or was he really that angry? That’s what made his videos so good. Because the idea of angry reviewing is getting pissed off at the most trivial things; that’s where the humor lies. Seeing some guy rage over the fact that he fell off the Deadly Tower time and time again and getting more angry with each passing moment was fucking hilarious.

What added to the persona was when he would talk about more topical things. His rant on copy protection methods fucking over the consumer who buys legitimate copies of games is one that I urge everyone to watch, as it touches on a subject matter that is as relevant today as it was back then, if not more so now. The Decline Of Gaming is another one. Most people remember the absolute railing that he gave to Chris “Irate Gamer” Bores. Those are great rants. Hell, I even enjoyed the one video where he showed people how he made reviews. He only made one, but I actually enjoyed it, if only to see that process in action.

Marcus fell off the radar a few times and when he came back a few years ago and he did videos that were just him playing games… those were some good videos. It was just a guy playing games and having fun. It was a stark contrast from the guy who once wrecked a copy of Bomberman Act Zero. And in a way, it was a nice bit of storytelling in hindsight; the angry young man who raged to the heavens found peace and emerged from the darkness an enlightened man.

I never knew the man, never spoken to him. All I know of him are through his videos and his occasional comments on various Youtube videos. And yet his loss feels like I’ve lost a friend that I hadn’t seen in years. It probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but when you watch someone for as long as I have – whether it was his newer stuff or whether it was revisiting the classic material hosted on the ArmakeArchive Youtube channel – well worth checking out to revisit some classic Armake videos – you feel as though that person has been a part of your life in some indirect fashion.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Marcus’ family and friends.

Thanks for the memories, Marc0.

Godspeed.

Student Prank To Cancel Class For Nintendo Direct Is A Terroristic Threat In America

Source: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/02/random-students-nintendo-direct-joke-leads-to-increased-campus-security

So, a professor got an e-mail that something is going to happen today and that for the good of humanity, they should cancel class. Concerned, the professor called the police and after a thorough investigation, discovered that the e-mail came from a student who intended as a joke to get classes cancelled so that he can watch the upcoming Nintendo Direct airing or whatever the fuck. The end result is that the cops will have increased security and canine patrols protecting the students from further dumbfuckery such as this.

I’m not going to rail on the professor for taking the precautionary measure of calling security to investigate this thing. I am going to rail on the dumb shit who decided to pull this prank off in a world where social media has degraded the overall intelligence of the human population to what can be charitably described as the lowest common denominator. Listen, don’t you fuckers realize that video games is the root of all violence and terrorist action in America? It’s on the mainstream news, so it must be true.

Morons.

IMPACT Wrestling Hard To Kill 2023

Yes, we’ve used this banner three times before. And yes, if I watch next year’s Hard To Kill PPV, I will be using it again. Now that we got that out of the way… yes, I got around to watching Impact’s first 2023 PPV recently. It seemed like a bit of a tradition that we’re doing here, so may as well continue it for all it’s worth. I had heard some good things about the show and figured, “Why not?”

Continue reading “IMPACT Wrestling Hard To Kill 2023”