DTM BLOG Classics #18 – A Response To Robin Hobb’s Fanfiction Hatred

Insults, infringement, compromising positions, and states of undress – must be an author speaking out against fanfiction!

From a post on Trekweb, some guy offered a snippet from a commentary by Robin Hobb, a fantasy author who wrote some acclaimed trilogy. In this commentary, he sees the low points of fanfiction and why people shouldn’t do it… you can check the full rant here.

Now I don’t want to seem like a defender of fanfiction or even an opposer, because I’ve written my share and read through others. And I’m not going to say that Ms. (or Mrs?) Hobbs is wrong – she’s entitled to her opinion on the topic and quite frankly so are a few other authors who might be opposed to fanfiction. However, you’d have to keep in mind that while there are those who oppose the notion, there are those original authors who embrace the idea and whatnot.

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Quick Thoughts On The Recent Saturday Night’s Main Event Revival

According to RAJAH.COM, SNME did a 3.4 national fast rating, thus indicating that showing wrestling on a major network did nothing to increase interest in the product… well, it would have helped if the show was actually, you know, any good. Unless NBC is in a happy mood, don’t expect another episode of SNME to air anytime soon.

I mean, come on guys. Just because your currently crappy shows are getting “huge” ratings on lowly networks like USA or UPN doesn’t mean they’ll fly on a major network like NBC… Of course, you can always blame it on the NCAA tourneys, but you can just as easily blame it on the crappy weather.

This doesn’t bode well, but if they get another shot, maybe they’ll do a better job… or not.

So yeah, for anyone who cares, NBC is airing the return of Saturday Night’s Main Event, the old WWF show of the 80s and early 90s that has become a token WWE TV special. As much as I enjoy the prospect of catching a WWE show, I felt not much has been done to give people a reason to care about this show other than the fact that it hasn’t been on the air for thirteen years.

So for the sake of clarity, there’s only three matches that I’m covering here. I ain’t going to do the beer-drinking contest because that’s an Austin thing that always goes the same way… and let’s forget the women’s match, which had a hot angle going before it dragged and became usual WWE diva fluff that I really don’t care for anymore. So let’s begin this thing – raw and unformatted:

Booker T versus The Boogeyman
Hmm… on second thought, make that two matches to commment on, because we all know Booker is going to lose this one.

WINNER: Nobody. The match never happened.

Shawn Michaels vs. Shane McMahon – STREET FIGHT!
So Shane McMahon gets his bumpfest match this year. Let’s not kid ourselves – if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s the boss’ kid, Shane-o-Mac would have been a top contender for the World title. Not a seasoned wrestler, but he’s sort of like Mick Foley-lite, but with more teeth. But because he’s the boss’ kid, he gets to fight and bump endlessly before losing the match to HBK – just so he could contribute to Shawn’s feud against Vince… who has to get in yet ANOTHER Wrestlemania match.

WINNER: Nobody. We got a re-enactment of Survivor Series 97; HBK as Bret Hart, Shane McMahon as HBK, and Vince as himself. Time-honored tradition my ass.

John “Boring” Cena and Triple “Vince Jr. Jr.” H vs. Kurt “You Suck” Angle, Rey “Eddie-lite” Misterio, and Randy “Resthold” Orton
Actually… ah crap. I’ve got nothing today, guys. Sorry. Let’s go with Boring and Vince Jr. jr. and call it a day, alright?

WINNER: Boring and Vince Jr. Jr. Hey, somebody had to win a match on this lousy show.

Man, they should have kept this show buried.

Later.

PPV Predictions – TNA Destination X 2006

For anyone wondering, I’ll be posting the second part of the Wrestlemania feature sometime this week, along with predictions for the show and the other show when a full match card has been established for either or.

In the meantime, I’m doing predictions for a TNA pay-per-view. Not bad, considering I don’t currently follow the product other than through the Internet reports (since I’m poor and live in Canada). In any case, my comments might be short and sweet for the most part, but what I have to say… is a bit. So let’s get this over and done with.

So mind you, since I don’t know half these guys, I’m mostly going to do a coin-flip for most of these matches. In any case…

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Useless Post For The Day

“I love writing this blog. You know why? Because none of you ever comments on it. I know you’re reading it. The hits register. You just have nothing to say.”

The above quote is from the recent issue of the new Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man comic series. And it sort of applies to this blog. Actually no. If you haven’t comment on any of my posts, it’s either because you do have nothing to say, you’re not reading, or because commenting is turned off.

The girl in the comic probably should have checked to see if her commenting function is active. Maybe she’d get more comments… Oh well.

Legend has it that a year consists of 365 days (mostly) and that if I had posted at least once a year, I’d be nailing more posts than I currently have. Of course, most of my posts would be probably be akin to something like this:

“Nothing interesting happened today.”

Then again, it’s only the morning… but there’s a reason I’m not updating a hi5 or myspace, which I do have but never use.

And I gotta go.

WARRIOR. GOLDBERG. TEE EHN EH.

Apparently some people have had problems getting access to the Blog. Truthfully speaking, so have I. I don’t know what the problem is, but the fact that I’m posting and you’re reading means that whatever was wrong has been resolved.

Since I AM here for the moment, I’ve decided to comment on a few things of random nature.

As much as I don’t want to include any references to that so-called self-destructive former wrestler and current motivational speaker whom everyone hates, I can’t help but comment on Warrior’s recent post, where he entertains the idea of TNA signing both himself and Goldberg to let them beat the crap out of each other, thereby creating tons of heat and money.

Not to sound pessimistic (or realistic, whichever you choose), but the last high-profile Warrior match (Halloween Havoc 1998 vs. Hollywood Hogan) was really, really bad… so bad that I almost swore off watching WCW PPVs. Also, the last high-profile Goldberg match (Wrestlemania 20 vs. Brock Lesnar) was filled with audience hatred and malice towards both guys… although it was probably due to the fact that both guys were leaving and that the audience were New Yorkers and would boo a poodle if they had the chance.

Having said all that, I would entertain the idea of a match-up between these two on a TNA PPV. It’ll probably make the usual 0.9 buyrate that most PPVs from the company makes. Intensity and charisma aside, these guys are older and in Warrior’s case, hasn’t been an active wrestler in years. If the match ends up being something watchable (as in extremely short, where both guys work best), it would be a modern-day miracle at best.

Strange purchase story: I’ve picked up a used copy of Capcom vs. SNK 2 for my X-Box. For some reason, though, the game came with the instruction manual for the GAMECUBE version. Go figure.

Gotta go. Later.

PPV Predictions – WWE No Way Out 2006

I have a dilemma. It involves professional wrestling, which is slowly turning itself into sports-entertainment. Unfortunately, sports-entertainment, for all intents and purposes, sucks and it affects the wrestling aspect of it.

Last week, I caught a video of the Christian Cage/Jeff Jarrett NWA title match from the TNA pay-per-view which aired a while back. Yeah, the constant interferences didn’t help much, but I still got a good, enjoyable match, not only because it was a different taste from the stale product that is McWrestling, but because the right guy won. Kudos to Christian for not only winning his first World title, but for also proving to all the naysayers that his jump to TNA was for the better and hopefully, it will entice other WWE talents to jump over and get to showcase their true talents.

But this isn’t about TNA. It’s about WWE. Specifically, we’re here for the PPV. As I write this, the show is a half-hour away from starting and I’ve built up enough energy to actually comment on some of these match-ups as opposed to the half-assed commentary prevalent in the last few of these predictions. So let’s fire up this sucker, shall we?

(Oh yeah, added results too.)

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ENTERPRISE: These Aren’t The Voyages (You’re Looking For)

Six months after the mission was cancelled, former captain Archer takes matters into his own hands and enlists some unexpected help.

This is a sequel to my “Too Hot For Fanfiction.Net” parody fanfic, These Were The Voyages. I may have another one in me if I can find the time.

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek, not me.

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Eddie-Sploitation: Because Necrophilia Just Wasn’t Low Enough

Yeah, it’s been a week but last week’s headache was painful and took a while to go away. Now I’m back to my regularly depressive self instead of sick. Probably just as well, because I probably would have written something a little more intense than what’s here.

So I’ve been watching last week’s WWE Smackdown episode (which I regularly tape for my cousin, who doesn’t have The Score or UPN networks) and once again bore witness to yet another mindfuck of stupidity from the WWE braintrust… something about Eddie being in hell or something. Now I don’t know about you, but I sort of expected this kind of behavior… not like I’m some kind of expert or anything. No doubt people watching the incident are appalled that they would stoop to such a low level.

You know what? I’m not upset… I’m not upset that they went that direction because I would have been surprised if they hadn’t dragged Eddie’s name to the mud further than they already have. So no, this doesn’t particularly upset me. What does upset me is the knowledge that all of these tasteless gimmicks and creative brainfarts are doing nothing but cheapening a very real, very tragic death of a man well-respected and well-liked by many of his peers and fans. It’s one thing to exploit a death of a fictional character and call it entertainment. It’s another to exploit the death of a real person and drag his name into the mud for the purpose of getting the big rating.

Randy Orton is currently a generic heel whose value has been crippled thanks to one-sided feuds with Triple H and Undertaker over the past couple years. It’s almost a shame that, to make him more hated, he’d have to resort to defaming Eddie. That sort of shows how great a heel he is… as in not great at all. It all shows a quick effortless shortcut to getting cheap heat. Given a good storyline and good matches that play on his strengths, Randy may very well build a legacy of his own and be one of the greats. As of now, he’s just a guy who’s getting cheap heat bashing a respected wrestler who passed on for real.

Just to steer aside for a moment… Another thing that seems to be raising havoc are the Tim White skits featured on WWE.com. For those who haven’t witnessed these yet, these are short, five-minute clips featuring former referee Tim White attempting to commit suicide and failing. The clips are supposed to be funny, but in reality they’re too stupid to be funny… try asking someone who has had loved ones commit suicide if those skits are funny. These morbid exercises in line-hopping and dumb skits are part of the reason why I don’t watch as much modern-day wrestling as I used to… or much TV for that matter, but I digress.

Now according to spoilers, Randy’s degredation of Eddie’s good name continues. I’ll probably post follow-up comments tomorrow or something when the show airs later tonight.