A MEMO TO EVERYONE WHO READS THIS FUCKING COLUMN
Take me out of your f*cking Outlook address books, right now. A bunch of you retards got nailed with SoBig-F, and for the last twenty-four hours I’ve had to deal with killing “Undeliverable Mail” messages because SoBig’s using my address header to send copies of itself from your machines because I’m in your goddamn Outlook address books.
I am NOT going to put up with this shit any longer. This is actually worse than Blaster. With Blaster, the patch had only been available for three weeks prior to last week’s fun and games. But SoBig? The patch to prevent all SoBig variants from propagating has been available for eight f*cking months. And still my mailbox gets flooded with “Undeliverable Mail” messages and 100K surprise packages.
After Code Red and Nimda and SoBig-A and Blaster, you’d think that most of you would have at least one motherf*cking clue. Guess not. I wrote a whole column about this at Fleabag’s last week, and I thought my bile would at least be spent for a bit. But then comes this morning and I see all those lovely little messages and virus-packed attachments, all headed my way because you, the idiots, don’t have Clue Fucking One.
Okay, here’s a nice Clue Package for all of you out there on how to stop viruses, worms, and Trojans from making my life miserable:
1) Don’t Run Windows: Get a nice Linux distribution instead, or buy a Mac. Only run Windows if you absolutely have to (for work purposes, or if you do game reviews). That pretty much guarantees you won’t get infected.
2) Don’t Run Fucking Outlook Or Outlook Express: There are some nice alternatives. Eudora is an overbloated piece of shit these days, but there’s still Pegasus, and it’s free. How about switching to Mozilla, or if you just want the e-mail part of it, Thunderbird? I’ve used PMMail for about seven years now (starting on OS/2 and now on Windows). If you have to use Lookout or Lookout Depress, turn automatic opening of attachments off. In fact, the newer versions default to this, and there have been patches to Office and to Windows that turn this off as well. And yet again, you people out there haven’t installed them.
3) Don’t Open Up Every Single Little “Cute” Thing You Get In The Mail, Especially Stuff That’s Supposed To Be A Screensaver: This is a chick thing, although some of the more stupid guys out there do it too. The next time you see a woman open up a .SCR file because some anonymous gimp at the other end says it’s a “nice screensaver”, pimp-slap her until she bleeds out of her eyeballs. This is the only time I will condone violence toward women, except if it’s my mother.
4) Set Windows To Show File Extensions, Not Hide Them By Default: I don’t give a f*ck if you don’t think that loads of icons with .EXE or .DLL or .WHATEVER after them are aesthetically unpleasing. It’ll save your ass because too many pieces of malware out there have filenames like “scaiasucks.doc.pif”. Windows will hide the important part (“.pif” in this case), and what you may think is a nice screed against the Gooney Bird turns out to be the Malware Du Jour.
5) Patch Your Fucking Boxes: Do you think that nice little entry in the Start Menu or in the Tools drop-down in IE is there for show? No, it’s for important system fixes. You can also set up Windows to check and download them for you. If you’re on a home machine that gets infected, it’s your ass for not doing it. If you’re at the office, check with your IT person on the company’s policy toward patching. If they don’t have one, or they don’t allow it, get another job, because you’re working for retards.
6) Run A Goddamn Anti-Virus Scanner: There are free anti-virus programs out there. There are online virus scanning programs. They’re a Google away. And Norton happens to be one of the easiest and most common programs to pirate. In fact, here’s a BitTorrent tracker for a copy of the program and the serial. You’ll need a BitTorrent client to download them, of course. I recommend Shareaza, in case you missed the first eighty times I recommended it.
6a) Keep Your Anti-Virus Program Of Choice Updated: Anti-virus programs are not magical in nature, and even though their heuristics are good, they’re not perfect at finding newer threats. So keep the program’s database updated. Norton will automatically do it for you, and they update frequently.
7) Use A Firewall: This is especially important if you’re a home broadband user, although everyone else needs it too. For combination of cost, power, and ease of use, I recommend ZoneAlarm. It’s free for non-corporate use, and has some ad-blocking capabilities built-in.
Here’s the fix from Symantec if you’ve got it.
God, it’s times like these that piss me off royally. If you can’t use a computer properly, you shouldn’t be using one at all. So take me out of those address books and just use the goddamn link at the bottom of my column. It’s always there.
THE PIMP SECTION
Norton says the same thing that I’ve been saying for three and a half years about the quality of writing and characterization in WWE, and he uses Lance Storm as an example. Be original, will you, Blake? You can’t live on the Bagpipe Report forever, you know.
Brown does a video review of a bargain bin DVD of late ’80s/early ’90s WCCW and USWA matches featuring some very familiar names. Brown, if you’ve got a burner, write me, please. I want this one. Hell, rip it to a DivX and put it up on BitTorrent or eDonkey. I’ll give you instructions on how to do it. I’m serious about this. My Best Buy has nothing in regard to a bargain bin.
Livingston is back, and he’s got Jap shit.
Barron does ROH, and ROH tells Barron that they love him afterward.
And, of course, Levitra, because we can’t have enough drugs on the market to give us hard-ons. Congrats on the FDA approval.
THE ELIMINATED CHAMBER
Oh, don’t you just love the Unstoppable Force Of Marketing? The upcoming Raw house show in Knoxville on September 13th is advertising a Trip/Jericho world title match. That means that the Elimination Chamber has just eliminated four participants. Or has it? 1bullshit gave its reasons in the news blurb about why it might be true. I’m going to give you reasons why it might not be true.
In order to do this, one of them would have to turn on Sunday, and that one would have to be Jericho (do you see them breaking up Evolution?). Jericho’s on a hot streak as a heel. His promos have become as inspired as his 1997-8 WCW work, he’s been able to develop new presentation techniques for himself, and he’s done some pretty good matches to boot. These days, “creative” isn’t going to stop a wrestler who’s on a hot streak. To those of you who say “it’s only a house show”, remember that last week, they turned Kidman at a house show, and there’s that edict down from The Almighty Vince that says that performers have to try to maintain kayfabe as much as possible. Turning Jericho would be an act of blatant stupidity, too stupid even for them.
They also could be trying to work the smarts. They love doing that, and they’ve done it before with posters and advertising before the fact. I wouldn’t put it past them, but I also think that this isn’t the case.
The simple fact is that they need something to advertise, but they can’t blow the results of the Elimination Chamber either. Trip has the title right now, so to advertise that a Trip/Jericho match would be for the world title would be correct, since it wouldn’t change the status quo as it stands today. If Trip drops the strap and Jericho doesn’t pick it up, then the match simply becomes non-title, a situation that wrestling fans would accept (the meaning of “card subject to change” has been drilled into fans’ heads successfully). I don’t think anyone’s buying tickets to the show in Knoxville specifically because they’re advertising a Trip/Jericho title match, so there’s little risk involved in promoting it that way.
They’ve done something right, though; they’ve got us to think about Sunday. Now we not only have to figure out who’s going to win, but we also have to take this advertising into account and wonder if it’s real or just some PR booshwah. All I can say is that I’ve convinced myself not to change my mind about what’s going to happen due to some ad blurb for a future house show. You’ll know during the Round Table what I think.
YOU’RE A MORON: THIS WILL BE A FIRST…
This is definitely a first. I’m giving YAM to a wrestler. It’s a wrestler few of you know, however. His name is Damian Blade, and he exhibits a certain incredible lack of intelligence, even for a wrestler. Also, please keep this in mind: Mr. Blade’s gimmick is “The Unholy One”, which gives this whole screed a wonderful bit of irony:
YOU ANNOY ME!
Good. That means I’m doing my job.
I, like Shawn Michaels, am a Christian. I am also a pro wrestler. Keeping those beliefs and living right in the world of pro wrestling is difficult.
Yes, that’s true. There are many temptations placed in front of wrestlers. They travel a lot, can’t maintain a good relationship with a significant other, there are drugs all over the place and hot-and-cold-running groupies infected with God knows what, and the angles these days do tend toward prurience more than in prior years. I admire anyone who can keep a stringent set of beliefs under those conditions…
…wait a second, what does this have to do with Shawn Michaels?
Especially when there are people such as yourself out there. Anytime a Christian says something that you non-christians dont like, you pounce on it like a tiger.
I’d say that the intolerance toward opposing views goes the other way. That’s the indication from my mail. I’ve had enough Bible quotes given to me over the past week to be able to assemble my own edition.
Shawn Michaels belives in the Bible. You don’t. Get over it!
Shawn also did enough coke to give Keith Richards pause, and I didn’t…
…wait a second, what does this have to do with Shawn Michaels?
Oh, I get it…
May I suggest that you make an appointment with a neurologist? You seem to have some type of post-concussion syndrome, Oh Unholy One, because that’s the only reason that you could mix up me talking about Shawn Michaels, wrestler and millionaire, and Mitch Michaels, 411 Christian Music writer. A bear of very little brain like yourself, though, can easily mix up his facts. After all, I write for a wrestling site, I mention a Christian named Michaels, and you fill in the blank and automatically assume I’m talking about Shawn.
That’s why you’ve won YAM. Please note the “moron” part of YAM. You’ve just done a full 1.0 Emily Litella, boyo, and I’m here to make you do the j.o.b. for it.
Christians believe that it is a sin to be gay.
So I’ve been told. Numerous times.
Since we are throwing daggers, do non-christians have any morals? Any beliefs?
What, you mean like do Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. have any morals and beliefs? I can’t believe you’re that arrogant to believe they don’t. And for those of us who don’t follow religious practices, yes, we do have a code of ethics, one that belongs to us and one that we follow. It doesn’t make us any less moral, it just means we’re following a different set of moral guidelines.
Should everyone be able to just do whatever makes then feel good?
If your moral beliefs include those of Aleister Crowley, yes. “‘Do What Thou Wilt’ shall be the whole of the law” and all that.
Well, let me tell you something sir, Jesus Christ died for your sins.
Cue Patti Smith.
God made this beautiful world. Oh wait, it was a big bang!
Yes, and yes. Or are you one of those recidivists that believe that science and religious beliefs can’t mix, like people here in the States who force school districts not to teach evolution?
Whatever.
Thank you. You have just trivialized the entire science of physics, the subject my degree happens to be in. So, therefore, I have a perfect right to trivialize Christianity.
In closing, I would like to tell you that I will be praying for you, whether or not you have God in your heart.
If there is a God, then he might be in my heart and he might not. I certainly don’t presume to know the answer to either question, since I only claim infallibility in the areas of faith and morals in this column, not in my personal life.
You are a bitter, bitter man sir.
Ding, ding, Dora. How long did it take you to figure that out?
Mr. Blade’s website is at http://www.damianblade.com. Mr. Blade mostly does appearances in western Illinois and eastern Missouri. His next appearance will be Saturday night at the K of C Hall in Godfrey, Illinois (Ooooh, wait a second, Mister Blade, would God think it acceptable if you appear in Knights of Columbus Halls, as you seem to be scheduled to do from now until Christmas? They’re a Catholic fraternal order, you know.), where he’ll be appearing on the same card with the guy now known as Randy’s Dad, Cowboy Bob Orton. He’s also got a big event coming up on October 25th at the same location, where he’ll not only be joined by Cowboy Bob, but by Dan Severn as well.
If you’re swinging east of your normal stomping grounds, toward the Chicago area, write me again and maybe we can work this out in person. Also, I think that people here would love an interview with you and get your impressions about some of the “names” that you’ve worked with, among other things, and I wouldn’t mind being the interviewer.
See, I can be gracious to YAM winners.
SMACKDOWN FULLY SPOILED, NOT SOMEWHAT
Mr. C. McEvoy was at the Joe for Smackdown, and he sent me a full report. So scroll down if you don’t want to be heartbroken, as if I give a f*ck about you anyway…
I was at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, MI for the Smackdown tapings tonight and kept a rundown on my brother’s PDA.
Big fan of your work, so I figured I’d send this to you instead of anyone else. The Torch can blow me.
——
Angle comes out calls out Brock and McMahon. Vince comes out brings The Big Show out. Announces Street Fight Falls Count Anywhere main event.
Matt Hardy vs Rey Mysterio. Matt fights valiantly but gets 619ed in the end. Matt makes Rey look like a punk.
long pause
More Wrestlemania promo
recap Matt vs. Rey
Brock and Vince confer. Brock says he needs a match for tonight. Vince announces Brock versus Zach Gowen. Brock declares that he will break Zach’s only leg. They cackle maniaically. Vince wishes Brock good luck. How nice.
recap of Steph vs A-train from last week.
Torrie, Jamie Noble, Nidia and Billy Gunn arrive all looking ambiguously gay.
long pause
Michael Cole interviews Zach Gowen’s Mom. She is proud of her son. Big surprise. Cole tries to scare her by needling her about the macth with Brock later.
Billy Gunn and Jamie Noble accompanied by Torrie and Nidia vs The Bashams with Shaniqua. They start to fight outside the ring. The Bashams should be in Demolition-like get-ups. Bashams win with an assist from Shaniqua’s whip. Noble is pissed and hits Shaniqua. She fights him off. Shaniqua lays out Torrie and Nidia with a double arm take down outside the ring. Sweet. Torrie and Billy are over big with the crowd.
Brock confronts Zach. Zach does his best “I’m not afriad of you” face. Time for some acting lessons, Mr. Z.
Announcer comes out and says that John Cena has a pimp new T-shirt. Word life. They shoot some shirts in the crowd with that stupid-ass air gun.
Recap of Spanky getting trounced by Brock on last week’s show.
Brock vs. Zach – Brock’s pyro blast is huge. Zach gets huge ovation from hometown Detroit crowd. Zach hops in the ring. They have a staredown. Brock hops out of the ring and eyes Zach’s mom. Offers his hand for a friendly handshake. She looks at him. Zach blindsides Brock. Brock shrugs off Zach. Zach comes back. Into the post. Wedgie into the ring. Zach struggles to get to his feet. Mom looks concerned. Brock whips Zach around like a old sack of potatoes. Brock looks pleased with himself, walks back to Mom. Brock grabs a chair and takes it to Zach’s head. Brock gets disqualified. Brock doesn’t care. F5 into the ringpost to Zach in front of Mom. Brock beats down Zach with the chair. Mom is shocked. Mom goes to help Zach. Brock gloats in the ring. Stretcher out for Zach. Big time blade job by Zach; better than Spanky’s last
week. Brock kicks Zach off the stretcher. Brock takes the stretcher back to the ring and shows off his trophy, grinning like a moron.
Crappy Kid Rock song and WWE video.
long pause
Summerslam RAW promo
Recap Brock vs. Zach
Smackdown Summerslam promo with lame Metallica St. Anger music.
John Cena comes out. Rough recap of JC’s Rap: Says Zach sucks ’cause he’s from Detroit. Joe Louis Arena is the world’s biggest crap house with more white trash than Jerry Springer. You people think Cena sucks? Well he knows you swallow! Word life.
A-Train comes out. Yaaaaaay!!!!
A-Train and John Cena team up to take on Orlando Jordan and The Undertaker, complete with motorcycle. Crowd pops big for ‘taker. Shave your back chant. Cena wins it with a suprise roll-up pin on ‘taker.
Crowd starts chanting for Eddie Guerrero due to the low rider firing up back stage.
A-Train and Sable talk. Sable pours it on thick, gives A-train her hotel room keys.
Eddie and Rhyno vs. Benoit and Tajiri: Eddie low-rides it out. Benoit and Eddie start out. Rhyno comes in and takes over on Benoit. Pinfall attempt gets two. Eddie is back in, gets two count on Benoit. Crossface attempt on Rhyno fails. Rhyno regains control. Eddie gets Benoit in a vicious arm bar. Wicked suplex times three from Eddie on Benoit. Eddie goes for the ropes and gets superplexed by Benoit. Both guys go for tags and Rhyno and Tajri go at it. Rhyno gets Tarantulaed and Rhyno flips Tajri around for a pin. Eddie berates Benoit and then turns on Rhyno for no reason other than he’s Eddie Fuckin’ Guerrero. Takes the low-rider out.
Promo for The Rock’s new movie
The Big Show vs. Kurt Angle: Show takes control. Gets a table in the ring. Leg drop on the chair to Angle gets two. Show flings around Angle some more. Angle tosses the table at Show, does a bad Angle Slam but still gets control. Boot to the head gets Show back in control. Table is set up. Angle gets two on show. Chair in hand, Angle chair-shots him out of the ring. Show and Angle go at outside of the ring. Show gets
the ring steps. Looks like he’s setting up for the chokeslam through the announce table. Show gets control back, but Angle quickly reverses into the ankle lock. Show gets out. Angle does a sweet set up with a chair onto Show from the steps onto the annouce table. They get in the ring. Angle wins it with a great Angle Slam through the table.
Brock comes out.
Brock and Angle stare down.
Show ends.
I did edit you a little for grammar, syntax, spelling, and minor episodes of ‘tardness. The Torch and Kumar wouldn’t be nice enough to do that. They just leave you hanging there and having the audience wonder if you ever passed sixth grade. See, people, you send a Smackdown recap to me, I treat you nicely and make you look good.
The show, on the other hand…look, you’d have to put fifty thousand volts up my asshole to sell me on TBS being in the main and Lesnar and Gowen being the transition match (after all that back-and-forth, they did end up eventually doing it). This is supposed to put me in the mood for a major PPV?
MAILBAG!
Lots of good mail this week, but I’m so dragged out by everything (and burned out on the subject of Comparative Christianity 101) that I’m going to forego a standard Mailbag and just concentrate on responses. That pisses a lot of people off, and I’m in the mood to piss people off, so here goes…
First of all, to Regular Antwon Jackson (I promise you’ll get a real God Spot soon instead of this):
Console Games: You have to either pay money for to buy, rent them, or get the thing modded and run the risk of having to get a new box. Computer Games: A decent system is reasonably cheap, and the cost of broadband for a month covers the first of the games you pirate. TCO is in favor of the computer once you get to the ten-game mark or so. Also, my mobo doesn’t like more than 512M of RAM, for some reason. That’ll get solved when I do a gut upgrade of this thing (processor, mobo, RAM, HDs, and video card). Sygate Personal Firewall isn’t as good as Sygate Pro (which you can easily find through the standard piracy channels), but if you want a free solution, go with Zone Alarm, which I linked to above. And I do know a lot about computers, don’t I? Never underestimate me, sir.
The Pride of Dartmouth, Elliot Olshansky, had a true Day Of Hell courtesy of the Blackout, but that’s what you get when you want to be in the media. I do sympathize, though; that was a bitch. As for Duck Dodgers, I’ll reserve judgment until I see the first episode. I’m such a Chuck Jones mark that I’m scared to death of what they’re going to do with it. They’ve tried two sequels to the original, both inferior, and I have zero trust in the animation unit that’s been assigned to it.
YAM Winner Ryan LaRoche kept it short enough to do verbatim:
“I allow people to possess their own opinions, no matter how whacked out they are.” – Then you proceed to rip them apart. Is that really much better than what you claim Michaels does?
Yes, because I’m the one doing it, and I have absolutely no consideration whatsoever about anyone else’s feelings.
“So, Gail Kim keeps f*cking up her spots, nearly injuring her fellow competitors, and making the weekly women’s match look like a slop-fest. What happens?” – Molly almost ends Trish’s career by dropping her on her head attempting a shoulder-breaker. You could at least mention that. If you’re going to rip Kim for blowing spots, then you can’t ignore it when Molly does.
I am completely convinced that Gail Kim is a walking curse. Whenever she’s near, the other women start blowing spots and nearly hurting themselves and others. It happened with Trish last week and with Molly this week. Kim should be buried in a nice stable deep hole like nuclear waste is.
Memo to Jeffrey Paternostro: Your pimping of the IC strap is all well and good, but they’ve totally blown the handling of the belt since the revival, and that was before Booker’s injury, so you can’t blame the IC troubles on that. The fact is that they don’t have an IC match for a major PPV this Sunday, and the US title has a Fatal Four-Way (just like I said it would a few weeks ago). There’s only one person on the roster who would be a credible challenger for Christian, and he’s stuck fighting f*cking Kane (considering their Raw match, though, that might be a good thing). You have a title in the IC that has a title holder and no one who’s been built up enough to present a challenge to him. You might be able to swing Helms into the equation, but he’s doing that thing with Rosey, and the IC belt would be further pushed aside. The revival of the IC title has been a complete waste, especially if you compare it to the US title right now.
MG, thanks for the recommendation of the Belkin pad. Belkin is a name I trust, but I’ve got to find a local store that carries that particular model. I have hands that don’t provide a comfortable fit for most peripherals, and it’s a pain even trying to find a mouse that I can use comfortably. I’ve never found a joypad that’s been comfortable (or any console controller; maybe that’s why I don’t own a console).
To the people who asked me about the Daily Devotional, it’s not an opt-in message. You just get signed up and start getting spammed by the Jesus Freaks, no warning. They do, however, provide an opt-out upon receipt, with a line at the bottom saying “send a blank message to this address to get unsubscribed”. But I don’t want to have to do that. Stop trying to convert me, folks; it won’t work.
Memo to David Brown: The only person on the correct side of the political spectrum who has as much weight with a literary audience as Al Franken does is Molly Ivins (Colmes is seen as Hannity’s pet bitch and has zero credibility). I guess the lesson to be learned here is that liberals are funny on purpose, and conservatives are funny by accident. And to the person who asked me this last week that I forgot to include in Mailbag, yes, Ann Coulter really does exist; yes, she has an audience who actually believes her; and, yes, she should be placed in a mental institution for her own safety as soon as possible.
Request to Will Bryant: Send me a link to that “Design Your Own Hell” site, and then I can answer your question. My Ninth Circle, though, will feature a twenty-four hour soundtrack of Flex promos and have wings named after Babs Olsen and Jason Gallo.
To Jeff Proctor: Surprisingly, I got no bad-mouthing for my comparison between Saddam’s military service and Dubbaya’s. Either people didn’t pick up on it (it was at the end of the column), they’re used to it by now from me and realize that nothing they say can change my mind about how truly evil Dubbaya is, or they’re starting to agree with me that this whole misadventure in Iraq was a waste. After the UN bombing on Monday, I think the third option is becoming clearer and clearer.
And alluding to that, according to various and sundry, the guy in the Air Force uni on Raw was Rob Conway of OVW, who’s finally getting promoted. If, as Keith assumes, he’s going to replace Grenier in La Res, that’s very good for everyone involved, especially Rene Dupree. Conway, if memory serves, has done a great job in OVW teaming up with people like Nick Dinsmore, and he’s got the talent to survive at the upper levels. So let’s see where they go with this. A possibility is that Grenier will stay on (because Pat Patterson needs to get laid sometimes, and we’ve got to keep Pat happy) and team up with Conway, while Dupree becomes a singles wrestler in a La Res stable. If they can keep this going until Regal’s healthy enough to come back, Regal would be a terrific addition with an easily-grasped reason to join the Frogs (disgusted at the Blair government being the US’s bitch, he sides with the anti-American faction as he’s done so many times in the past). They might get something out of this mess yet.
I’ll get back to everyone else ASAP. I’ll let this go for another week. I’ll be back for the Round Table and for my weekly at Fleabag’s, and then next Tuesday, you’re going to not only get Wrestling News, Opinions, Etc., but Game News, Opinions, Etc. as well, because I’m going to be covering the Down-Lo beat for Jackson while he takes a personal day. Oh, the number of favors I’m owed…
About Eric Szulczewski
