Another Habs Victory – Another Riot

Wow. Hockey talk. Go figure.

I’m not a big hockey guy, but I enjoy a good game when I can.

So le Canadiens de Montreal win their playoff series in seven games over the Pittsburg Penguins. Le Habs go on to the Conference finals for the first time since 1993. Hey, 1993 was also the last year they won a Stanley Cup… reading too much into this? Yes, I am.

Of course, with the Canadiens victory comes a riot party… and idiots looting stores.

Maybe you should just watch hockey games not taking place at the Bell Centre at home.

Oh… and a message to Heritage Minister James Moore, who boldly declared his beloved Canucks to be “Canada’s team” – Your boyz didn’t last long, did they? So there goes “Canada’s team” off to the golf courses while the Blackhawks move upwards towards something. At least a certain President is happy that his hometown team is going somewhere.

And a message to Gilles Duceppe, who declared Montreal to be “Quebec’s team” – and I’ll be doing this in broken French – Bizarre vous diriez que la considération de l’équipe manque à présent dans les francophones. La seule raison vous dites Montréal est l’équipe de Québec est parce qu’il n’y a aucune équipe Nordique pour vous pour accorder ce titre.

Haim Saban Re-Acquires Power Rangers – new episodes to air on Nick

It’s all here. And given that several news sources have confirmed it, this is indeed legit.

Hmm… well, this certainly confirms that there’s going to be new material down the line. And while people are triumphantly declaring this a return to form, I’m going to steal a bit from Wil Wheaton and claim that I’m cautiously optimistic.

On the one hand, I always felt that the Saban-era shows were stronger than the Disney-era shows and despite the relative cheap nature of the series, seemed to have more care involved in assuring a quality product. On the other hand, the fact that Saban has control again doesn’t guarantee the success and quality of the older shows. After all, it’s been a while since he’s done this.

Now part of the news also disclosed that Saban inked a deal to produce 20 new episodes to air on Nickelodeon, with the backlot of 700 episodes playing on Nicktoons. Great idea for those who have Nick, bad idea for those DON’T.

I guess if new eps do happen, I’ll be watching them off YouTube.

RAW (May 10th, 2010) – Meatloaf RKOed, Bryan gets a WIN, Miz challenges Bret, and I Quit

So last night’s RAW show was so RAW-ful that I didn’t even watch the 9:00 showing. So what could I have been doing since there was no longer a TNA Impact on the opposite end of the tube? Well, that’s easy. I divided my time between watching the Pittsburg/Montreal playoff game and playing me some Blades of Steel… old-school. However, I did catch the midnight replay (The Score airs RAW a couple times after the 9:00, including a Tuesday afternoon 4:00 PM replay) and managed to stay awake for an hour before recording the rest… which I saw this morning. Overall, this is a meh show with few matches. Funny how that works.

Continue reading “RAW (May 10th, 2010) – Meatloaf RKOed, Bryan gets a WIN, Miz challenges Bret, and I Quit”

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #3 (Hamilton Comics)

The third issue of Hamilton Comics’ first Mighty Morphin comic miniseries sees regular series writer Donald Markstein take a brief break from carrying this run on his back and filling in is writer Jack C. Harris. The story for this one is somewhat silly; Kimberly is scolded by her mother for not cleaning her room – we’ve all been there.

However, when the Rangers need to deal with a monster, it turns out Kimberly lost her coin and that it’s buried in her room somewhere. Turns out her coin was used as a coaster for a pop drink. I was not aware you could do such a thing with a coin considering the massive size difference, but then again, power coins aren’t drawn with any real consistency in terms of dimensions throughout these early comics. Actually, consistency is hardly something that is a priority with these comics.

The story is kinda goofy even for Power Rangers and the art from issue artist Al Bigley is a bit messy; the only strong point being that everyone looks the part, but the line art is a bit chaotic. Almost as if this was drawn in a rush and handed in before having to take a dump. That said, it’s far from the worst art I’ve seen in this run and Bigley would be back for a couple more stories. All in all, not a strong issue, but not completely terrible.

Also worth noting; this is the first issue to feature Rocky, Aisha, and Adam as the new Power Rangers, effectively replacing the original half of the team after a big ol’ two issues. Much like Lord Zedd, the three Rangers are just shoehorned into the story and basically assume the roles of their predecessors. (Rocky assumes the leadership role Jason held, Aisha translate Billy-speak, Adam does… whatever Adam does.)

Tommy does not appear in this issue in any way, shape, or form; postponing the comics debut of the White Ranger by another issue.

IMPACT (May 3rd, 2010) – The Monday Night Pillow Fight Comes To A Whimpering End

Well, it’s over.

After just nine weeks, Total Nonstop Action has thrown in the towel on their fruitless Monday Night Pillow Fight and are returning to their usual Thursday night timeslot starting next week. I’ve already seen the spoilers for that show and it looks like it’s going to be business as usual. But at least, I got to see their last Monday show…

And I kinda wish that I hadn’t.

Let’s get the good bits out of the way; the opening segment where Jay Lethal was doing the whole Ric Flair spiel (and quite frankly a phenomenal job of it too) and Ric Flair coming out to confront Lethal was tremendous. Honestly, if Jay Lethal ever gets out of wrestling, he should do impressions for a living because he has a natural talent for that sort of thing. In fact, if Impact was nothing but Jay Lethal doing wrestler impersonations for two hours every week, I’m sure the ratings would’ve improved overnight and trumped RAW.

Unfortunately, the rest of the show was a thing. The usual brand of good matches running short and with usually shit finishes. Eric Young joining Hall & Nash to form the 19,960,707th edition of the nWo… er, I mean, THE BAND, is baffling to me and I’m not sure it’s going to last… didn’t Nash beat the shit out of Young some time ago or am I misremembering things? RVD/Nigel… er, I mean, DESMOND WOLFE, seemed like it could’ve been a fun match had it not been cut short. Some stuff with Sting and Hogan…

I find myself watching this show and fast-forwarding on the recording to get to the good bits. I couldn’t find any good bits and the bits that could’ve been good ended before it got good. Even so, from what I saw, this was not a good Impact and gave me the impression that TNA not only tapped out on Monday Nights, but was also crying uncle in a very whiny voice.

So long, Monday IMPACT. It’s been a fun ride… I guess… or maybe not.

Can’t wait for this Thursday show… if I can catch it.

Never Give Up, If You Still Wanna Try – THE FANFIC CRAZE HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD or not

The latest edition of Eric “Asalieri” Tellah’s Masterpaint Theater features his interpretation of a Twilight fanfic called Never give up, if you still wanna try (no, that’s how it’s written out) by CheetahBlackCat. And well, it was rather funny.

What wasn’t funny was the aftermath, in which a bunch of people left some rather hostile

I read some of the story in question and it is poorly written. I can sort of understand that the person doesn’t speak fluent English, but using that as an excuse for why your writing is below par can only take you so far.

Anyway, among the more hateful criticisms, I posted the following review on her page – carefully worded so that I don’t come off as dickish but still critical.

“I have to be honest – I actually read through the first couple chapters before I gave up and lost interest. The story does nothing for me – either because it’s a Twilight fanfic or because the writing is generally poor. A combination of the two would be more accurate.

“I can understand that English isn’t your first language and so I can tolerate some mistakes in moderation and for generally short stories. But for a long epic such as this, that simply isn’t a good enough excuse for generally lackluster writing. If I were to jump ahead to one of the later chapters, I’d find the same problems that were prevalent in the earlier bits: some words not being capitalized when they should, improper use of punctuations, grammatical issues, just to pick out a couple general issues.

“People enjoy your story and you know what? Good for them. You’re producing something that’s garnering some interest, but the thing is some people can overlook poor writing if the story works for them and others will crap all over you regardless of how good your story is. Having a bunch of people proclaiming “your story awesome, please write more LOL” while saying NOTHING will not help you get better and only serves to make you not try harder to improve upon your work. It’s nice to have since it shows some interest in your work, but if someone points out some flaws in your writing and offers some constructive criticism, you should at least try to use the criticism to improve upon your writing style because they took the time to give you some advice in hopes that it’ll help you get better. That’s a good thing to have.

“As for the more hostile people out there? Just ignore them. Lashing out at them isn’t going to make them go away – it’s just going to encourage more of the same attitude and quite possibly make things worse.

“My intention is not to discourage you from writing. In fact, I read your other story and I enjoyed that one for the most part, but it did have some of the same problems that plague this one. The only advice I can give you would be to read some other stories, see how they’re written and structured, and compare it with yours to see if there’s any way to improve upon what’s already written. Just because a lot of people like your story doesn’t mean you can’t make it better and improve upon it.

“I hope this was helpful. Good luck and take care.”

Now I anxiously await the backlash… or actually, no I don’t.

IMPACT SPOILERS: Back To Thursdays

I’ve yet to see the final Monday show and I’m discussing the Impact tapings for their grand return to Thursday. If you don’t want to get spoiled, don’t click this post. For the rest, my thoughts after the commercial break.

So Eric Bischoff declares that Jeff Hardy is leading fan polls at the moment… hey, wait a minute. Didn’t you already have a World Title match between RVD and Nigel Mc… er, Desmond Wolfe on your live show? Oh right, it was only three minutes or something. Anyway. rather than have RVD/Hardy II before Hardy goes back on trial and faces fourteen years in jail, AJ Styles somehow gets involved and we have a three-way booked for the show.
The Outside… er, I mean, DA BAND comprising Hall and Nash win the TNA World Tag Titles. Um, okay. I guess it’s better than Matt Morgan and… Matt Morgan.
Oh yeah, AJ wins the three way, Hogan comes out, Jeff does a Swanton. I lose interest before the show even AIRS.
Oh yeah, guys. That’s real smart booking.
Bite me.

VLOG – TNA Taps Out (Back To Thursdays They Go)

New Vlog up – I might have more to say in the future.

Here’s the blog post I’m referring to.

WEDNESDAY UPDATE – For those remotely curious, the final LIVE Monday Night Impact garnered a 0.78 television rating. And from what I’ve read about the show, those who contributed to that 0.78 rating witnessed a horrible show. Mind you, I’ll probably have more to say this coming Friday once I’ve seen the replay… soon to be the no-play?