WWE Great Balls Of Fire 2017

I will be completely honest with you. I almost forgot about this PPV… because the better part of Sunday was spent at the Montreal Comicon that weekend… my first Con of any kind, actually. A rather surreal experience, but something I wouldn’t mind doing next year when the time came and I got a bunch of good swag that I’ll save for a later time.

But back to WWE’s most recent PPV outing, Great Balls Of Fire.

In the grand tradition of ridiculous PPV names such as Fatal Four-Way, Beware of Dog, and Taboo Tuesday, we have Great Balls Of Fire. Yes, the same as that Jerry Lee Lewis song that everybody knows about. Unfortunately, WWE and Jerry Lee’s lawyer has a bit of a legal spat over copyright infringement, but fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and WWE not only got to keep the name, but they even got the song. Sometimes, I wonder how WWE would’ve coped if they were forced to change the name… maybe give the PPV a better name, but alas, I tell a lie; nothing about this makes me wonder about any of this stuff.

Anyway, despite getting the rights to the song and even going so far as to have a 1950s motif with the graphics and all that, the set itself is the typical lazy WWE arena set-up that we’ve seen a bazillion times before. Seriously, guys, if you’re going to give your PPV a stupid name, you might as well dress the set up to fit the theme or come up with a better name, you lazy hacks.

But let’s get to the PPV.

Continue reading “WWE Great Balls Of Fire 2017”

WWE 2K18 Coming To Nintendo Switch

Now this is good news. WWE 2K18 will not only be brought over to the usual suspects of Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC, but it will also be gracing Nintendo Switch this fall. Reportedly, it was retain all the new features of the latest edition despite the lower specs of the Switch; among them matches with up to eight Superstars at a time… took ’em over a damn decade, but they finally managed to get TWO more people on screen. I’m amazed by their great accomplishment here.

Now, details on the new edition of the game itself can be found elsewhere; I’m not going to dwell on that too much, but in either case, this is good news for Switch owners who have been clamoring for more third-party support that isn’t just indy titles. And… say what you will about the WWE games; they may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but when you consider that the last WWE video game to grace a Nintendo console was WWE ’13 on the Wii – not one WWE game ever graced the Wii U throughout that system’s life span – seeing one on the Switch has to be a nugget of encouragement.

Now, all that being said… when is Donkey Kong making an appearance? We’re not that far off after the ridiculous PPV name.

Flash Fiction #14 – Unknown Cyclists Retire

Dug this up from the archives while doing a bit of clean up. This was written as part of a gag newsletter for a school project back in the early-2000s, so it’s probably the oldest piece of business here as far as the flash fiction bits go. Have fun.

Continue reading “Flash Fiction #14 – Unknown Cyclists Retire”

A Sign That The Manga World Is Out Of Ideas…

At a local Tim Hortons restaurant late at night, I’m having coffee with a buddy of mine and we talk about a whole bunch of stuff. At some point, he brings up the news that there’s a new manga called Daigo: The Beast coming out soon. I don’t keep up with manga news, so I ask him what’s so special about this manga.

He tells me that it’s a manga-ized biography of that Street Fighter pro player person.

I look up and stare into his eyes, looking for any sign that he could be pulling my leg or making some ridiculous claim. I’m waiting for him to cut the air of silence and tell me what this manga is really about. It didn’t take long for me to realize that he was being completely serious.

“Somebody’s making a manga about some gamer?” I ask him.

My bud nods slowly.

I slowly shake my head in disbelief. Of all the things you could make a manga out of it and you go with some gamer’s life story. This was a sign that the world is running out of good ideas.

“Is there a reason why anyone would want this?” I ask. “I’m not sure why anyone would want a manga about a guy whose claim to fame is that he’s very good at Street Fighter.”

My buddy just shrugs, unable to give me an answer that would satisfy me. I take a couple more sips of coffee before we change the subject.

Just to clarify, I know about Daigo; that guy who did fifty parries to a crowd of lifeless zombies heard around the world. Apparently, he’s one of the best SF players in the world. You know what? Good for him… that doesn’t mean the world needs a manga about this guy. Not when you make more magical girl comics instead that borderlines on hentai or whatever the proper venacular happens to be.

For people who care about this sort of shit, the Daigo: The Beast biography manga is due out in December, but early copies are available at the EVO event this July.

Later.