Weird weekend, I must admit. I should have been doing a little unpacking now that all the stuff’s down here. What did I do? Sit in front of my computer for most of the weekend. However, I actually had a purpose for doing so, other than to read Hyatte when I woke up at 4:30 yesterday morning (“Do not f*ck with the sleep cycle” is a lesson I learned a long time ago). One of the mandatory qualifications for promotion with USDA is that I complete a computer-based course in shit I already know, having done all of it in the half-dozen previous jobs I had. So I ended up knocking that out in two days so I could concentrate on the column on Monday, when everything’s closed anyway (despite people, including my boss, telling me it’d take two weeks). I can’t use the results of the course for an actual promotion for eleven months or so, but I am qualified to get off the f*cking line and do the stuff I did for five years with Illinois as a “trainee” if we have enough people to release me from those duties. I swear that this job is like being a stroke victim: I have to learn everything again, whether or not I remember how to do it.
And speaking of stroke, let’s get on to my three-times-a-week exercise in creative masturbation, shall we?
THE PIMP SECTION
Biggest pimp, of course, goes to Mistah Stephen Ames, who finally got his long-awaited first PGA Tour victory at my hometown venue, the Western Open. He’s been bubbling under for the past few months waiting for his moment, and I’m glad that it came at Cog Hill. I just wish I was there, you know. And, of course, let’s also throw one out to Roger Federererer for defending at Wimbledon…
…now, on to those Wimbledon results for a second. Did Dubbaya fix the results, considering that an American lost in each of the finals (Roddick to Federererer and Serena to the hot, hot, hot Maria Sharapova, a situation that I expounded on at The Wrestling Blog)? Yes, he did. It was a sign of conciliation to the world, with Americans losing to someone from a country who was against us in Iraq (Sharapova, originally from Russia) and a country that’s been historically neutral (the Swiss Federererer). Also, consider the fact that Sharapova has spent over half her life at the Bollitieri training camp. You KNOW what state that’s located in. An adopted Floridian winning Wimbledon…that’s a message.
Good. Now I can concentrate on how he’s fixing the Tour de France. Although considering Lance, it doesn’t need to be fixed. He’ll win it again.
Yep, it’s back. And, yep, I will be contributing to it again the moment I have something to inspire me to scribble out something. Too bad we were on Flea-atus when Ray Charles passed away. I could have done something with that.
Nute talks about the Cobra Clutch and does not even once use the word “chin”. I’m ashamed of him.
Shaffer pretty much got my booking of Raw down pat, except he didn’t mention the special Main Event for the overrun. It’d involve Lady Blossom, Debra, handcuffs, and baseball bats. And Lawler could drag out both the Flex Kavana footage from Memphis and his old heel persona. I think he’d enjoy that.
Hazard is setting up an intriguing scenario. I’m betting it’s Greg Gagne. The sad part is that I can see Vince actually hiring Greg.
Campbell, Mike Variant has more of that Jap shit that you love.
Hey, so does JD. Cool.
Madden has a new CZW review on tap. Read it, it’s been a while for him.
The WWE B shows are in evidence courtesy, as usual, of Fried and Obal.
CKOne, like me, is still trying to wrap his head around the concept of the goat-f*ckers winning Euro 2004. Well, let me just say this. Back in 1895, Lord Kelvin said that Physics was a dead science, since there were only three problems left to solve. Well, the solution to those three problems led to the development of quantum mechanics, which threw the whole science into a new area. Maybe the Greek victory can do the same for European football analysis. But he’s fifty bucks Canadian richer today. CKOne, not Lord Kelvin, who’s long dead and probably would have liked Canadian money because the Queen’s on it.
Shannon should know that Sharapova is mine, although for someone who cites the Zoot Suit Riots, I’d be willing to share. Three-way, definitely. On videotape? Oh, yeah.
Melchor and I both love NWA. As far as I’m concerned, they were the end of Hip-Hop. Except for some Beasties, I haven’t listened to any since because they took the art form as far as it could go. I’m definitely a Nigga4Life.
I didn’t pimp Erhardt last week. Shame on me.
Hayhurst does his Q&A thing, and even mentions Shock Treatment, which is a pretty cool movie if you understand what O’Brien is doing (although he’s heavy-handed in the symbolism department).
Ziegler liked Spidey Deuce, and so did I. Not bad at all. Although he probably doesn’t know that the film’s ending is simply replicating what Gerry Conway did back in the early 70s in the comic, namely Harry finding out his father was the Goblin and finding his equipment, something that’s been replicated with every other Goblin type since (Bart Hamilton, Ned Leeds, etc.).
Laflin has volunteered to help me unpack, but he’s trying to weasel out of it. Write him and demand that he help. Now, as per the turnpike, we have one of those “rest stops” outside of Emporia, and it’s a pretty good Mickey D’s with a gas station. Now, I’ve driven the Ohio Turnpike and Indiana Toll Road a number of times. Their rest stops are more frequent (something important for me and my shot knees), have better facilities, and have more frequent exits that actually exit to something with amenities. The stretch between Topeka and Wichita has Emporia and jack shit else except for those rest stops, which are spaced at least forty miles apart or more. The tolls, though, are more reasonable than either Ohio or Indiana, and we’re not even going to talk about Illinois. You want a toll road with jack shit, try I-88 between Aurora and the Quad Cities.
Stevens subs for Morse this week, and doesn’t do too badly. Ben’s one of the most underestimated writers at the site, and Tim makes for a good substitute, the Ned Leeds to Ben’s Norman Osborn, so to speak.
THE USUAL ANTI-SPYWARE MESSAGE
Remember, this all started because the slugs at Enigma Software dared to advertise their piece of shit SpyHunter here at 411. So I’m responding every single column with proper anti-spyware information. And guess what? People are actually taking this to heart. They’re asking me for help if they’re infested, or they’re writing me telling me that their browsing experience is less annoying thanks to the stuff I’ve been putting up here three times a week for a couple months now.
Big, big Kudos to the guys at the Spyware Warrior Forum for pointing out to everyone the extent of criminal activity participated in by Enigma Software, makers of the bane of advertising on this site, SpyHunter. Slimeballs extraordinare, aren’t they? And in case you need more info about what flaming bags of shit they are, try here. Suzi’s Blog has a great list of other flaming bags of shit that promote anti-spyware programs that are spyware themselves. Consult it if you have questions.
One of the leading vectors for spyware is so-called free programs that contain this shit in order to “pay the bills”. No one deserves that kind of treatment. If you’ve got a question about whether or not a certain program contains spyware, head over here. It’s a nice alphabetized list of programs that do contain spyware and should be avoided at all costs.
Here’s a list of the programs you really need to help you get rid of menaces, and, more importantly, prevent them from occurring in the first place:
Spybot and AdAware. The ONLY two spyware removal tools to trust. Do NOT buy any spyware removal tools, because none of them work better than these two, and all of them except these two are suspect.
SpywareBlaster. Will nuke thousands of different potentially malicious ActiveX controls, and now has the ability to prevent a number of non-ActiveX methods of installing spyware for people who use Mozilla/Firefox.
SpywareGuard. From Javacool, like SpywareBlaster. It’s a real-time scanner for spyware. A decent first line of defense.
IE-SpyAd. Throws numerous ad-related URLs into IE’s Restricted Zone, where they won’t display or affect your system. Bookmark this one, since it’s the only one that doesn’t have an in-program update.
A few people have recommended also installing the Sun Java Virtual Machine, since it’s Windows’ buggy, half-assed implementation of the JVM that allows a lot of spyware to install (less so within the past month and a half than before). I’ve resisted putting it here because of a couple things: 1) The MS JVM was removed in XP SP1a due to the Sun court case and replaced with a Sun JVM, and I’m not sure how many people have actually patched. 2) The link above is an automatic download, and that does scare some people. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. I wouldn’t have put it here if it wasn’t. But I STRONGLY recommend that you visit here and update your version of Java.
So many people have asked about a free anti-virus program that I’m also going to recommend AVG. Totally free, and works really, really well, as well as commercial anti-virus programs. Frequent database updates, good heuristic detection, everything you want in an anti-virus package.
Another program that I’d like to add here is a little tough to work with for noobs if it goes buggy (you need to know a little something about your Networking settings in order to debug if something should go wrong). Protowall is a supplement to your firewall or NAT system. It hooks directly into XP’s networking system to block any and all traffic that comes from URLs on a list maintained by the program (all protocols, not just TCP/UDP). It’s mainly designed for anti-P2P purposes (which will appeal to a great many of my readers), but it contains lists to block spyware and ads. Its blocklist can easily be updated using its supplementary program, Blocklist Manager. I have Protowall running and a Blocklist Manager icon on my desktop, and I use Blocklist Manager to update the blocklist every couple of days. You will have problems getting to some sites unless you shut down Protowall temporarily, like ESPN or Sports Illustrated, but it does have a tray icon you can right-click and shut down in a few seconds. It’s the third layer of anti-ad material for me, with IE-SpyAd and AdSubtract running alongside it. Warning, though: it only works with XP. I’d recommend its predecessor, Peer Guardian, for other MS OSes, but it isn’t being developed anymore, and there were still bugs in it when development stopped. You can get Protowall and the Blocklist Manager (which will also work with Peer Guardian) at Bluetack’s site.
Of course, only download them from the links provided above.
With AdAware and Spybot, check for updates using their internal update function at least once a week. Run them at least once a week or whenever you think you might have problems. Remember, the new version of Spybot has browser protection capabilities, so have that run at startup and leave it running. Check for updates to SpywareBlaster once a week. It only needs to be run once initially in order to establish protection. Then, after it downloads updates, just click on the line that says “Enable Protection For All Unprotected Items” and kill it. It doesn’t need to be active. For IE-SpyAd, bookmark the site and check for updates twice a week, since it has no kind of internal updater. Run the Blocklist Manager every couple of days to make sure that you keep up on the latest banned URLs. Since all it does is add Registry entries, it doesn’t eat up anything.
If you’re having trouble with spyware or a browser hijacker, or think that you do, head over to the SpywareInfo Forums, where the pros there can help you diagnose and get rid of stuff. I was promoted to Full Helper status there and ended up joining ASAP, the Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals. Look for their symbol, which I’m not going to try to link to anymore because someone at the other end keeps munging it.
A QUESTION ANSWERED
Lots of responses from the British Isles over the weekend as to the question of who everyone there considers the people most likely to f*ck sheep. The answer: the Welsh. Even Semi-Regular Nick Howells, of Welsh extraction, admits that the Welsh reputation for f*cking sheep is unassailable even by the Scots, who are simply considered drunken barbarians who might occasionally f*ck a sheep but are not as obsessed with such LUV as the Welsh. So, on our bestiality list, we have the following:
Sheep: Welsh, New Zealanders, and to some extent Australians and Scots
Goats: Greeks
Cows: French
Horses: Russian
Can we add any more ethnic stereotypes to this list? I want to be as complete as possible when offending someone by mentioning their people’s sexual congress with animals.
IS THERE ANYTHING TO TALK ABOUT?
I hate coming off of holiday weekends. There’s literally nothing to talk about. So it’ll be a bunch of quickies this week and then on to the Short Form.
Haven’t read the Flair book, but am planning to as soon as I can pick it up. However, I won’t be paid until later this week, so that’s out until then.
I’ll leave the possibility that Acclaim is facing bankruptcy to the Games guys. Sites like 1bullshit Junior have bring up the aspect that Acclaim bought a big chunk of ECW back in the day in the deal to get rights to ECW video games (and Heyman was so desperate for money that he let them do it) when they lost the WWF license to THQ, but we don’t, since we have an entire zone for this type of news. This is why we’re better than those sites, folks.
WWE’s getting a bit ridiculous with their exclusivity policy, reports 1bullshit Junior without the opinion that you can count on from us at 411 (well, the right opinion, anyway, but this wasn’t a Milord article, so there was no opinion expressed). You might remember that a couple of months ago, WWE forced an indy fed to change a match with Al Snow because Obi-Wan Shinobi was going to be wrestling Ron Killings (and getting mashed by him, no doubt). They said “No TNA guys” and the indy fed jumped and said, “Yes, oh gods of wrestling in North America, we shall obey”. Now they’ve gone to the next step. Over the weekend, Jackie Gayda was scheduled to appear at a convention in Texas. Also attending said convention as guests were a bunch of TNA people like D’Lo Brown and Dallas. Gayda was told in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t appear, even though this was purely a PR thing for her and WWE. No sharing the stage with TNA people, especially when you’re outnumbered by them (Gayda was the only WWE rep at the convention, apparently). Gayda obeyed and gave her apologies to the people running the convention. What the hell is WWE so terrified about? Yeah, TNA got a slot on free cable. It’s in the middle of the afternoon on Friday, though, not in prime time. That isn’t even a prove-yourself slot. Fox is using them for filler programming because there’s only so much Premier League the American public will watch. Their paranoia is starting to drive everyone batshit.
Da Meltz is reporting that shooting on Spy Hunter is not going very well and there will have to be a number of reshoots (as well as a possible last-minute script rewrite, speculates me). I’m establishing the groundwork for the major ass-reaming I’m going to give this project when it hits your local cineplex (or more likely direct-to-video).
You going to be in the Cincy area at the beginning of August? Da Meltz is reporting that Shark Boy will be conducting a school for a maximum of twenty students. You, too, can learn how to job to Abyss and look going doing it from the master himself.
Morale is down in the WWE locker room because no one’s showing up for the house shows. Crowds of under 2000 are the norm these days, which cuts into the house show income for these guys and the merch income for those stars that have merch to sell. Let’s see…TV ratings are down because no one’s watching due to the stupidity of “creative” in coming up with concepts like Kane Got Me Pregnant and High-Quality Speaker Boy, World Champion; the economy’s still shitty and people still have very little discretionary income; Vince has oversaturated the audience with PPVs by adding a couple to the too many they already have, thus forcing “creative”‘s hand when it comes to the bullshit they’re dribbling out; wrestling isn’t considered “cool” anymore by the portion of the audience that was attracted to it six years ago who have now grown up and got their first jobs, if they were lucky and found one (and finding out how little discretionary income they actually have because half of them are unemployed or underemployed); there are a lot of good movies out now for families to hit, and a night at the movie theater is cheaper than going to see a wrestling show. And wrestlers are surprised that no one’s going to house shows? Admittedly, they’re not the sharpest knives in the scabbard, but they’re honestly not that dumb. I suspect that D-Von, Suzuki, and Akio purposely got lost on their way to a show over the weekend so they didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of another crowd smaller than the people in the locker room and backstage. Time to kill the tradition. End the house shows. They can’t be adding that much income to the bottom line. Focus on TV and forget about the rest.
And forget about everything else. It’s time for Raw and the Short Form…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
La Res over Rhyno and Val Venis (Pinfall, Grenier pins Venis, double-team swinging neckbreaker): I won’t pay attention to any La Res match until they come up with a name for that finisher. Making soup was a more productive use of my time than watching this, so that’s what I did.
Kane over Dave Batista (DQ, Hardy-ference): Let’s see, Kane and Hardy are feuding because they both stuck their dicks where they didn’t belong, and one of them impregnated Lita without benefit of clergy or (in kayfabe terms) long-term stable relationship (remember, Matt just made up with Lita a couple months ago). Shouldn’t they be fighting over who ISN’T the father of the child? And isn’t Lita a bit of a slut for selling her body to Kane just to save Matt? Don’t tell me that she couldn’t have cut another deal with Kane, like, say, getting him a puppy or something.
Randy Orton over Chris Jericho, Intercontinental Title Match (Pinfall, rollup): While watching the match, I felt bad for Jericho. Orton so obviously had to be carried that there were at least three or four spots where he was exposing the business during the match. All I can do is hope that someone in “creative” watched this thing and decided that he needs to drop the belt Sunday to someone who won’t f*ck up two out of every three matches he’s in. Edge isn’t too bad a choice for IC champ at this point, and the rematch feud will at least give Orton some mic time, where he’s now a lot better than he is in the ring.
Nidia over Victoria and Baldy Holly, Contract On A Pole Number One Contender’s Match; Trish Stratus over Nidia, Women’s Title Match (Pinfall, cast shot): Next.
Trip, Ric, and the Retard over That Divine Duo, Mentally Handicapped Match (Pinfall, Trip pins Benoit, Pedigree): Well, if you’re looking for good signs here, there’s always the old “whoever gets the pinfall on Raw never gets it in the main event at the PPV” thing to hang on to. Otherwise, the match was totally negligible.
Angle Developments:
I Have One Prevacid Left; Do I Take It Or Suck Up The Pain?: Dinsmore as Retard GM For A Night, and the whole show’s built around it. I’m writing this five hours prior to Raw and already dreading the thought of this. What did Winnipeg do to the world to deserve this? I mean, they gave us Jericho and we give them this? No fair.
Screw the Prevacid; I Need A Drink: Now, we all know that “creative” was booking out of their asses, but a game of musical chairs involving Jericho? The crowd would have rioted if he didn’t get the title shot (and how many of us were actually excited to think about the possibilities surrounding a Benoit/Jericho match in Canada before the retard pulled Dorkboy (tm Randle) out of his empty skull?). Damn, I hate these people with a passion. Let’s have a show merger with what comes after this and sic Montacore the Psycho Falcon on them.
Front-Loading: Two vignettes and one match in the first half-hour. All three of them had intense Canadian content. First Jericho and the musical chairs debacle, then half of the participants in the tag match, and then Edge. And what the hell is Trip doing getting philosophical, quoting Webster’s, and name-checking Darwin? I think I need to call a lawyer and sue for gimmick infringement.
Hey, I Called It: The cast of Joe Schmo pulled the reveal on Ingrid the Cunt and offered her a hundred grand if she could continue to fool Tim until the end. I said two hundred grand, but it was close enough for me to make a successful prediction claim. However, Ralph Garman referring to the Ambrosia character as “Omarosa” was a mark-out moment more impressive than any on Raw in the past couple months.
That’s it for this puppy. Stay tuned tomorrow for more fun and games in Black.
About Eric Szulczewski
