Personally, I only got into the mood for (Raw) by watching Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia. Not as blatantly propagandistic as “Triumph of the Will”, but there’s enough Nazi in it to put you in the mood to see Vince. And, oh, by the way, she used dubbed-in “USA” chants in the film. That should piss some of you off. – Me, September 2nd, 2003
In Memoriam: Leni Riefenstahl. Normally I’d say “separate the film from the politics”, but what happens when film and politics are intertwined so much that they can’t be separated? Can you judge artistry simply as art? Successfully utilizing Expressionism in documentaries deserves major kudos; doing so in the service of one of the most repulsive political ideologies in human history (not even neoconservativism is this bad) makes you feel uncomfortable giving those kudos. Now I know what right-wingers feel like dealing with Michael Moore. But he should only hope to work until he’s nearly a hundred like Riefenstahl did.
And speaking of separating the politics from the work…
In Memoriam: Edward Teller. Selling the senile old f*ck on Star Wars, bad. Smearing Oppenheimer’s name, very bad. His contributions to the field that I have my degree in, incalculable. On balance, therefore, he must be honored. Blow up an H-bomb in his name today.
And so we begin the celebration on this very special day, The Day SoBig-F Expires. No more floods of virus-filled mails. No more bounce messages courtesy of retarded sysadmins who think they’re doing people favors (look up the definition of “faked headers”, asswipes). Ah, it’s going to be a nice respite until the next big virus hits. SoBig-G should be coming along within about a week or so. Of course, the season opener of Enterprise is tonight, but I’ve already downloaded it and I’ll spoil it a bit for you later on.
It’s getting to the point where it’s more and more convenient to surgically attach me to my computer.
THE PIMP SECTION
Memo to Gamble: I’ve got a chronic mental illness that puts me in moods of depression. I also have what you yourself have graciously called a pharmacy in my bathroom. I’m going through a time that would try the spirit of a perfectly sane and healthy man. No shit I’m the favorite in a 411 Dead Pool.
Nason. Because he’s Nason and deserves it.
The Only Man More Liberal Than I Am, Zach Singer, has a gig doing a two-hour sports show on Friday evenings, 6-8 Eastern. You can hear it at WHUS.org. And, Zach, if you need some help explaining some of the details of quantum physics for your listeners, well, I do have a degree in the subject.
Anything interesting in wrestling news, other than the fact that Spike’s fine and that I actually agree with Milord for once on something (namely that La Res bears full responsibility for blowing that spot, although that was so obvious that not even Milord could spin it differently if he wanted to)? Nope. So let’s go to the personal news first and then S-Cubed…
NO, LET’S DO A RATINGS COMMENT
It’s what all the kidz are talking about: the drop in ratings for Raw due to Monday Night Football. But let’s break it down for the benefit of the sheep out there who don’t like to analyze because “it hurts their head”:
1) The game was Bucs-Eagles. Combine the fact that this was a rematch of last year’s NFC championship game with the large Philly market, and you can expect a ratings drop of significant proportions.
2) The game wasn’t established as a blow-out or a dull affair until after Raw went off the air, which means that people stayed tuned to MNF rather than switching. If you’d substituted, say, the Bears-Niners game or the Buffalo-New England game from Sunday, there would have been massive defections, and a lot of them would have gone to Raw.
3) Since it was Bucs-Eagles, the drop may have been greater than under conditions of a non-showcase game. Unfortunately, there’s no way to determine this over the next few weeks. Next week, it’s Gayboys/Giants (Noo Yawk market, Tuna factor). The week after that, Broncos/Raiders (big rivalry games always get great casual audiences). After that, Bears/Packers (biggest rivalry game of all, Chicago market, Renovated Soldier Field opening). October 6th’s Colts/Bucs may be the first chance to test out this hypothesis (Dungy’s Revenge won’t pull an audience), unless both the Bears come into that game 0-2 and the FudgePackers 1-2 (I don’t see them losing to the Cardinals under any circumstances barring Favre mistaking the chalk lines on the field for crushed Vicodin).
4) It’s only one week. Let’s look for trends. How many times do I need to keep saying that?
NOW FOR THE PERSONAL SHIT
The trauma is over. Despite a good interview in Indiana yesterday, they felt that I didn’t have enough experience in the particular products they were making. So with that option out and me abandoning the Chicago option, that means I have to prepare to start moving to Nebraska. I think. The first recruiter I had for this job is recovering from open-heart surgery right now. The substitute recruiter left early today because his daughter broke his arm. Now the substitute substitute recruiter has to contact the company. Yeesh. They also want me moved in by the time I start October 6th. Ah, searching for apartments over the Net…I’ve done it before, actually, and landed up with the apartment in Kenosha that I liked that way.
Enterprise was actually a welcome distraction from the phone tag I had to play to determine this information. And speaking of that…
ENTERPRISE SOMEWHAT SPOILED
Okay, let’s start off with what we all want to know: the first catsuit is light crimson. It’s less form-fitting, with actual seams. The top is more like a velour sweater. Jolene Blalock has also toned down her makeup a little, giving her more of a standard feminine appeal. All in all, very effective. Later on, she changes into a metallic blue model of the same style (with metallic grey trim…not silver, but darker and duller) which is far more my speed. All she needs is some Borg implants, and she’s good to go.
The introductory scene with the Xindi council is good old-fashioned science fiction. Insectoid life, aquatic life…and thanks to some good CGI, it works perfectly. Disbelief successfully suspended. Bravo, and congrats to Michael Westmore for moving beyond head ridges for the most part. And ditto with the mine scene, although you’d think that alien cultures with space travel and FTL communications could have some way of treating or curing the interstellar equivalent of silicosis.
The Command Center is supposed to be the 22nd Century equivalent of the Astrometrics Lab on Voyager. It looks more like a server room at RackShack, or one of those IBM “minimal equipment” Linux pimps. I wonder if Linux crunchies still exist in the 22nd Century, or did they all die out from lack of reproduction?
The Vulcans apparently have perfected accupressure. However, all humans can apparently use it for is to provide us with the foreplay to the T’Pol/Trip relationship we’ve all been dreading.
Best new character? The female member of the commando team that’s been assigned to the ship. She can kick ass better than any WWE woman wrestler (even Molly). Make her a regular.
All in all, a surprisingly good and interesting episode, if somewhat derivative plot-wise. If this is a new direction, it’s a good new direction. But let’s see where they’re going with it. It’s got the potential to be first-three-seasons-of-Voyager moronic.
SMACKDOWN SOMEWHAT SPOILED
I’m not surprised no one sent me in a live report. According to Kumar’s unpaid stringer, there were only about four thousand people in the audience. Remember, folks, the show will only be an hour and a half tomorrow night courtesy of the world premiere of The Mullets. Despite the dubious content of that show, you’ve got to admit that Loni Anderson’s still pretty hot. She’ll never be WKRP-level hot again (and very, very few women ever will), but it’s still nice to see her.
Over on Raw, we have an Evil Diva conspiracy to get rid of Trish Stratus. On Smackdown, there’s a Good Diva conspiracy to get rid of Shaniqua. Advantage: Raw. And shouldn’t the Evil Divas target Jackie Gayda just so we can have a semblance of parallelism?
Tajiri cuts a cheap heat promo!? Okay, this is now worth seeing, just for that mind-boggling concept.
For a short show, they’ve put in some nice high-heat matches. Benoit/Rhyno, Eddy/Cena, APA/Mattitude…well, the last one’s a kinda-sorta, but I’ll still give it credit. Of course, they ruin it courtesy of the “main event”, but this is WWE, so that’s to be expected.
And here’s something else that’s expected…
YOU’RE A MORON: DON’T GIVE ME ADVICE, ASSHOLE
Arklaman is this week’s winner, and he’s got a bunch of bullet points that I should respond to with bullets to the head:
“DUDE”,
You win with that alone.
#1 You take YOURSELF too seriously, we DON’T CARE what you think…. We only read your column occasionaly, and It’s always the same ol’, same ol ……The very thing you accuse several wrestlers of ………the same ol, same ol
Who is this “we”, kemosabe? I only see one person writing me. I also see the other letters I get telling me “You know, I always thought Austin/Flex/whoever was the shit until I started reading you and listening to what you had to say. Now I agree with you.”\
#2 I happen to enjoy Big Poppa Pump, He “is” Freak-Zilla……Look Around, no one squares up to his look, and yes…I’m old and fat, I WISH I looked like him.
I’m not old and fat, and I don’t want to look like him. I’m also articulate and intelligent. The guy can’t wrestle or promo. He’s a waste of the viewers’ time.
#3 RVD should be “The Next Big Thing”, He has talent and all the moves as well as the persona to carry him to the top if given the chance, But we know, He will not be given the push because we know he is being buried for being outspoken.
No, he’s being buried because he can’t cut a promo without sounding like the stoner he is. He deserves a permanent spot in the upper-mid-card, but the camera doesn’t love him on an intimate basis the way it does, say, Jericho.
But you don’t have to believe me, you can listen to Regular CabbageBoy316: Let’s face it: Rob Van Dam’s career is f*cked at this point. The guy is one of the top talents on Raw and is being used as cannon fodder to set up a Kane/Shane match. Think about how insane that is, abusing one of your most over guys to set up a feud with Kane and the owner’s son.
#4 Austin is “IT”,
You’re missing the first two letters.
Who else in a non wrestling role can sustain crowd reaction like Austin, Hmmmmm???? So YOU don’t like WHAT!!!!! Apparently everyone in attendance last night did, So who cares WHATTTT you think!!!!!!!!!!!
My hundred-thousand-plus readers do. And I’m laying out my personal opinion here. Whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant because, let’s face it, I have a column and you don’t.
#5 But, on your behalf, Christian has “IT”, His star is getting brighter each week, and yes, Lance Storm “IS” the most under-utilized Wrestler in the business today!
Oh, how gracious of you to agree with me. All Christian needs to do is vary his promo style and learn when not to go over the top. He’s constantly in screaming mode. The template for him is right there in Jericho; all he needs to do is follow it a bit and incorporate it into his own unique personal style. As for Lance Storm, I’ve loved the guy since he was in ECW, and I wish only the best for him.
#6 I saw Al Snow Wrestle Chris Benoit in ECW several years ago, It is still “THE” Match by which I judge all matches today, It was a wrestling clinic, I don’t know why Al doesn’t get a bigger push, He also has the talent!
Al Snow is old, and his body’s taken a lot of abuse. It was his wish to cut down on the active in-ring stuff and concentrate on things like Tough Enough and the Heat announcing duties. Also, he’s had good pushes in the past that he’s capitalized on somewhat, enough to get him to the point where he could cut down. And you obviously haven’t seen a Flair/Steamboat match from ’89 if you think Benoit/Snow is a match to judge all matches by.
#7 Lay Off the Politics,
No.
We all have our political views, Yours and mine are at opposite ends of the spectrum,
And mine are correct.
I would turn to CNN dot.com if i wanted too hear all the crap you want to spew, Stick with wrestling, sports, music or whatever, Just Leave Dubbaya Alone,
No. He wasn’t properly elected, he doesn’t deserve to be in office, and every action he’s taken since he’s been in has been a disaster.
There are no Spineless Liberals willing to stand up to the terrorists like Bush is willing to do,
How do you know that? Oh, because Fox News told you.
And wasn’t your column screaming just two years ago about the attacks on the trade centers and we needed to “crack down” on these low-lifes!
No. I’ve always said that it was our right to go after Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in order to bring them to justice for what they did, not to invade Iraq. Iraq had and has nothing to do with September 11th.
Someone is willing to stand in the “Frying Pan” and do what EVERYONE knows needed done, and now YOU & The LIBERAL MEDIA just want to run the man into the ground. Get Off his back.
Not until January 20th, 2005, when his ass is out once and for all after one term like his piece of shit father.
MAILBAG
Memo to Regular Andrew Ormberg: Suprnova isn’t down, only their DNS server. You can access their mirrors using this link. And I haven’t seen Joe Shmoe and don’t plan to, because I don’t watch real reality shows and therefore won’t get the joke.
Memo to Semi-Regular Heath Peek, and to others who’ve wondered about me not mentioning the latest RIAA shit: yeah, suing a twelve-year-old girl and getting her to fork out $2000 is disgusting and repulsive, even for them. I don’t want to waste any more column space on those f*ckwads. I think that everyone has figured out by now that their imbecilic zealotry in regard to their “intellectual property” is going to backfire on them so badly it might mean the end of the music industry as it is now. Heath, the places you proposed are probably the best ones. You know what I mean.
And on the subject, Memo to Regular Sean Fri: You’re not limited on a Mac to LimeWire. mlDonkey for Mac is available, and that’ll at least get you hooked into the eDonkey network. Plus I think the new version also does FastTrack. But you really have to read the documentation for it. Obviously, I can’t try it, but test it out.
Memo to Regular Sam Hillier: We in America can commisserate with the situation in the AFL the last couple years. Hockey teams from areas that normally don’t support hockey have been making strides for years at the highest levels. Plus, ten years ago, when Northwestern was good, Chicago went ga-ga over college football, which it never did before. However, the biggest situation of “teams winning championships in geographical areas that don’t care about the sport” in America is obviously the Lakers’ latest run. LA fans don’t give a rat’s ass about any kind of sporting event; they’re there because it’s cool to be there, period. So I can understand the Brisbane situation.
Raw Regular Derrek Croney has a nice possibility regarding the Unforgiven title match:
2 weeks ago, I thought HHH would put Goldberg over seeing how it’s a “title vs. career” match and Goldberg is over with the crowds, for the most part, BUT, I was thinking this morning, as long as Goldberg is unwilling to work house shows, the WWF(E) is not going to reward him with a title, and I think we’re seeing the burial of Goldberg, complete with a clean (no antics) win by HHH at Unforgiven, thanks to Austin’s “No DQ” clause.
If this is true, then that probably explains the Jericho face teasing from Monday night… OR, they might just well be planning on having HHH drop the title to Goldberg and have Jericho win it the following Monday, then turning him face to face HHH.
I think that WWE needs a reassessment of their house show priorities. People don’t go to house shows to see a world title change. Thanks to Trip, people don’t even go to house shows to see the world champion wrestle anymore. WWE can live without Goldberg as champion not doing house shows. They’ve got enough on the Raw side to put together a house show that’d still attract an audience. And let’s face it, a world title isn’t going to change hands at a house show. It doesn’t even change hands on free TV anymore. What they did with Christian and Booker and the IC strap was an anomaly because Booker just couldn’t wait for treatment any longer.
So I have no problem with putting the strap on Goldberg despite the fact that he doesn’t do house shows, and if Vince could get his head out of his ass, neither would he. I do have a problem with them turning Jericho or even teasing turning him at this time. There are people who can fill Booker’s face void that are on the roster right now without having to turn Jericho, the most entertaining heel on Raw. It’s just a matter of pushing those people. If they follow the same routine with LanceDust as they did with BookDust, allowing them to elevate themselves as both a tag team and singles wrestlers, you get two for the price of one, and a much more entertaining midcard to boot (plus it allows Chris Crass to revive themselves as a team without having the baggage of the tag straps tugging them along).
General dissatisfaction with Raw shows no geographical or cultural boundaries. Semi-Regular Raffi Shamir from Israel demonstrates this:
The Austin situation on Raw is so ridiculous that I’m just baffled by it. Why the hell does a non-wrestling cripple like him get to dominant the really valuable and good wrestlers on Raw like Jericho and Christian? These days Austin is no more a real wrestler that Zack Gowen, why is he still the most dominant person on raw? And the whole “physical provocation” bit is just plain stupid. How does a small pat on the back or shoulder considered “provocation”? Or the stuff that happened on SummerSlam was even worse. Shane McMahon pushes Bischoff or Coach towards Austin and it’s considered “justified cause” for him to beat them up? If we follow that logic, the next time someone, lets say Christian, hits Austin with a steel chair, it would be okay for Austin to hit *the chair* back, but he wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on Christian. How f*cked up is this thing?
Also, how come they had time to book an announcers match and another Steiner/test abomination for Unforgiven while still not finding a match for Christian and Jericho? They might stick them against each other and turn one of them face, but it will just an after thought. Why the hell did they resurrect the IC title if the champ has to complain about being ignored, just three months after they brought the title back?
And one last thing. Have you noticed that of all the matches announced for Unforgiven so far all of them, except one, has some sort of a gimmick or stipulation attached? And the only match that doesn’t have one is the only match that has the potential to be good (Orton/HBK)? Have they lost any faith in this card themselves that they needed to stick all the gimmicks and stipulations? When will it be time to mercy-kill the Raw brand (mercy for the viewers) and move Christian, Jericho and Lance Storm to SmackDown?
I don’t think a card full of stip matches necessarily makes for a bad PPV in the making. However, the content of those matches certainly do. It’s a bad card, period, because the one match that is of definite quality is happening for no reason other than to give Orton a high-profile, short-duration feud so he doesn’t seem like he shouldn’t belong in Evolution. Have you also noticed that the IWC is starting to turn on Orton big-time?
As for the whole Austin situation…I’ve already had my say a number of times. Maybe it’ll take three years like it did with Flex, but eventually everyone will agree with me that he’s a detriment to the show.
Lots of mail from upset Bears fans and people who sympathize:
Y’know…at first I was kinda bummed that the Panthers weren’t able to snag Kordell Stewart in the offseason. After yesterday however, with both Stewart’s and Delhomme’s performances I think I’m officially over it. Maybe someone in Chicago can summon the spirit of 1985 Jim McMahon or something to get ’em going. – Semi-Regular KC Evers (no relation to Lance, maybe)
The only question, of course, is whether or not Delhomme can keep it up and do it every time. That was one helluva job under pressure, but I’ve seen Jim Miller do it better a couple years ago, multiple times. That being said, the Bears would take Delhomme in a minute.
I cut out Semi-Regular Zac Hartman’s tangents and got down to the core of his missive:
Which would you prefer, Kordell getting injured and Grossman comes in or benching Stewart, have Grossman the future QB play and possibly get injured, thus having Kordell coming back in and being forced to play?
Both. Remember, I didn’t like the pick of Grossman, so him getting injured is no big thing to me. The thing is, Sunday would have been the perfect time to see what Grossman had in him. Game out of reach and the Niners D going through the Bears’ makeshift O-line at will…let’s see if he’s got grace under pressure. The Lions did the same thing with Harrington last year, and it not only showed everyone that he was the real deal, but that he was damn good to boot. Let’s see why the team wasted a first-round pick on him.
All I can say is….God Damn the Bears f*ckin’ sucked!!! Now I know Kordell made more than his fair share of mistakes, but you have to also realize that the offensive line was quite literally “offensive”. Kordell could not even take two steps back before he had a 49er on his lap. Jesus, sometimes there were two or three of them up his ass. We have to blame Jerry Angelo for the clear lack of quality depth on the offensive line and the fact that our coaching staff didn’t properly prepare our guys for Sunday. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to absolve Kordell of any responsibility, because he had a lot to do with how badly we looked with all of the dumb ass mistakes he did. YOU DON’T THROW TO THE SIDELINE WHEN YOU’RE BEING BLITZED LIKE THAT!!!. Just take the sack and don’t turn the ball over! One more thing. Our defense is supposed to be strong this year? All I see is our defenders over persuing plays, blowing their assignments, and unable to shed blockers when they’re tied up. It’s going to be a loooonngg year. – Angel Camacho
That summarizes it right there. Kordell’s a retard, Shoop is a complete imbecile, Jauron’s clueless, and Angelo isn’t qualified to become Steph’s co-GM on Smackdown. What scares me is the Oreo being as sieve-like as it was. Urlacher was his normal self, Daniels did a damn good job getting some pressure on Garcia, and Mike Brown did what Mike Brown always does, but the other eight guys were taking the f*cking game off.
As much as Kordell sucked (and he truly did), I can’t lay all of the fault on him. The play-calling was completely atrocious. When the first snap consisted of a planned Kordell run that was snuffed by the 49ers, you knew it was going to be a long day. More telling, though, was the lack of any adjustment whatsoever to the 49ers’ constant blitzing. Isn’t it obvious to Shoop that when you are being blitzed, you don’t run long pass plays and have your ineffective QB be more of a target than he already is? Couldn’t someone tell him that you throw shot passes to a hot receiver to pull the linebackers back? Couldn’t someone tell him that there is no fifth exhibition game? To hell with Kordell’s confidence, put in Grossman now and let him learn on the job. They’re not making the playoffs this year, so what’s the loss? I live in Miami and if it weren’t for watching Wanny and his crew choke at home in the September heat against the Texans, my football weekend would have been a total loss. – Ramon Carcases
Anything bad that happens to Wannie is a good thing. Every Bears fan will loathe him from now until the end of time for what he did to the team. As for John Shoop, obviously he’s got to be the first one up against the wall. That dink-dink-dink shit has got to end. But Kordell gets the lion’s share of the blame for the mess on Sunday. How many times did he overthrow or underthrow Dez White when White was completely open? Marty Booker on a six-yard slant is a goddamn money play, but here’s Kordell not seeing him or throwing to the sidelines and getting picked off.
Honestly, I don’t it would matter a bit of difference who they put in at quarterback. As long as you have a shoddy O-line, no running game, and the worst coaches in history, the same result will happen to Rex Grossman. Let’s face it, this season will be depressing for us Bear fans. – Torrione Johnson
The only reason the O-Line is shoddy is due to the fact that the team’s lost both starting guards for the season and couldn’t pick up anyone from the waiver wire to replace them. But since the season’s going to be shot, let’s give Grossman some chances early, during mop-up time. That’s all I’m saying.
The fact that most people missed is that this may have been the first game in NFL history to feature two barely-in-the-closet QBs in Kordell and Garcia, and in the perfect stadium for it too.
Now for some quick memos…
Memo to Andy Brooke: Peer Guardian is a Visual Basic 6 program, so it requires VB libraries to run. mscomctl.ocx is part of the standard library package that VB programs need, but it often isn’t included with program distributions in order to lessen their size. Download this Zip file here. There’s a readme.txt in there that tells you how to install it. Peer Guardian should work after that.
Memo to Kyleon Finley: I find it hysterical that a company that has to base itself in Vanuatu in order to prevent legal action against it like Sharman Networks has done has the balls to use the DMCA against people who rip out their spyware and adware and add functionality to KaZaA that you can only get if you fork over money to Sharman. I don’t like Google giving into their threats, but at least Google has the guts to tell everyone “Look, we had to pull these because of a DMCA suit threat from Sharman” in the search results.
As for what would happen if no one “supported” Sharman…it already happened. Morpheus was originally a FastTrack client before it became a Gnutella client. KaZaA killed Morpheus by changing the FastTrack protocol to shut Morpheus clients out. giFT, the open-source FastTrack client, was in the same boat. If no one “supported” KaZaA and the program died, then someone would reverse-engineer the FastTrack protocol and release a client based on it. If someone did a full reverse-engineer job on it now, then Sharman would end up doing the same thing that was done before, and it’d be a cat-and-mouse game between them and the reverse-engineering people, just like it was with Trillian and AIM. Eventually, AOL gave up (and Microsoft is going to find out the same thing will happen with Instant Messenger next month), and now Trillian can access AIM with no trouble. It’s a no-win situation for them. Actually, the reverse-engineers shouldn’t bother. FastTrack is a horrid protocol from a technical standpoint.
So what if Sharman gives up and decides to nuke KaZaA? Everyone would just move to another protocol, and suddenly G2 or eDonkey or some other protocol would gain four million new users.
Memo to George Anderson: If a site has an slot available, write them and ask them their requirements. I would have no idea what they’d want. And knowing some sites, they don’t either.
JABaceVI is about to alter your way of watching Smackdown permanently:
An observation of truely how insecure the HHH is in his manhood and the steroids have actually had their full negative affect. Observe the new YJ Stinger commercial featuring Cro Mag from Raw last night and the can of said product he held. It was about three times the size of any other can in the ad.
Nunzio should thak his gods every single day he is on Smackdown. If he were on Raw, Cro Mag would have such feelings of inadequacy he would probably make Nunzio have to leave ringside via stretcher every single week.
(Thanks to my fiance who upon joining me in watching wrestling, the first thing she notices is Nunzio with the equivilant of a poster tube in his shorts. Never noticed it in all my time watching ECW. She moves in, sees it, now like a car wreck, I can’t help but look every time. Share my pain.)
And I’m glad that I’m not the only one whose pain isn’t shared. I’ll see you guys next week. Until then, watch out for me over at Fleabag’s and probably also at Moodspins as well, as we celebrate 411 Week over there. Until then, ta.
About Eric Szulczewski
