21 Years Ago In TNA #06 – People Paid Money For This… (July 24th, 2002)

So here we are… week six into this NWA-TNA adventure, which means it’s the first show I’m watching after subscribing to the Impact Plus service, which houses many quality TNA PPVs that I would much rather watch, but instead, I’m doing this. Why the fuck am I even doing this? What do I have to gain by continuing to watch these dreadful shows on a weekly basis? I don’t even subject myself to RAWs from this period; the monthly PPVs were bad enough.

So I’m giving this experiment another five weeks and we’ll see if it’s worth continuing onwards.

Continue reading “21 Years Ago In TNA #06 – People Paid Money For This… (July 24th, 2002)”

The Dolphin Steam Debacle

A little late to the party, but when has that stopped me before?

Countless times, actually… but I digress.

So the Dolphin people who run and operate the Dolphin emulator program of Gamecube and Wii hardware stuff made an announcement some time ago that they were going to release their fancy emulator onto STEAM… and naturally, this got to Nintendo, who immediately told Steam runners Valve to get that shit off their service. The Dolphin people tried to counter, but Valve told them that if they want to put their emulator onto Steam, they’ll need permission from Nintendo to do so. Since Nintendo and emulation are a match made in heaven… the Dolphin people decided to abandon their efforts in getting steamed… maybe they can try the Epic Store or something. Have better luck there.

What did they expect… really?

I know that they have the RetroArch emulator on there and I’m shocked that it’s still there… there’s a lot of things online that I’m shocked are still a thing considering Nintendo’s notoriety for protecting its IP. But trying to get the Gamecube/Wii emulator onto Steam and not expect Nintendo to go ape shit is rather foolish. I’m sure some people are sad by this development and I wish the Dolphin folks all the best in the future, but this is one instance where there was only one outcome and it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.

Anyway, I got a thing coming up… hopefully, it all works out.

Familiar Old Terrain And Streaming Trek Concerns

So we’re about five episodes into the second season of Strange New Worlds and… it is okay. Not great, not good, just… okay. This feels less like “strange new worlds” and more like “let’s rehash stuff” worlds. I will say it’s nice to see the current Trek regime remember what Klingons look like and give us proper Klingons for once. The second episode resolved the whole Number One on trial thing and she’s back on the ship. Third episode is another time travel story that gives us another dose Paul Wesley as Jim Kirk, which is… fine. And then the fourth episode was a thing that happened. I have yet to see the fifth episode.

Beyond that, however, the big news on the Star Trek front seems to be the cancellation of Star Trek: Prodigy. Even though they announced a second season and apparently, that’s in the can, it’s no longer going to be a thing unless they find someone else to pick it up. Not only that, but they’re also taking the show off Paramount+ and using it as a tax write off. There’s a couple shows that they’re pulling from the service and cancelling, but… I don’t know. I’ve heard good things about Prodigy. I have not seen it myself, but apparently, that was a really good show.

Unfortunately, I might have little time to do it, since it was also announced that most of the Star Trek shows will be removed from Crave – which is the Bell streaming service up here in Canada. It’s supposed to happen at the end of the month, but you’ll be able to watch all your favorite Treks on CTV… except I don’t want to watch on CTV; I want to watch on a good quality streamer that doesn’t shit the bed with endless commercials.

For the record, Netflix Canada still has most of the classic Trek shows – it’s only missing the animated series – but who knows how long that’s going to last? In any event, that’s going to be a bummer and it further highlights the drawbacks of streaming. This is where people are going to flaunt the wonders of physical media… which is fine and dandy until those tapes and discs stop working and you’d have to resort to “alternative means” of watching your favorite shows.

So I guess the only ideal solution of full blow preservation in any field is to be a pirate.

Good luck with that.