Wrestling News, Opinions, Etc., 09.07.04

Archive

And here’s a big “Get Better” to the greatest president of our time, Bill Clinton, as he recovers from successful quad-bypass surgery. As for me, I was able to get a little unpacking done on the long weekend and trying to organize my home office area from being a cardboard minefield to being…well, less of one. Fleabag’s digging out from Frances’ blowjob over the weekend, which sorta makes my predicament look rather tame, so I’ll shut up about it. College football’s started up, the pros start on Sunday, the US Open is going hot and heavy…it’s a great time to be a sports fan, folks. At least it’s better than being a sports entertainment fan, with Dorkboy and High-Quality Speaker Boy your world champions in the WWE and the NWA title being decided between a power-hungry psycho and a complete flit on Wednesday as TNA’s PPV era ends.

Well, f*ck it. Let’s deal with what we have. Pimps up, spyware down…

THE PIMP SECTION

Lucard has the Daily Pulse covered on all the games news you could want. Cool shit too.

Angeloni spooges over Jet Force Gemini. It’s a console game, therefore I never heard of it.

We’re getting out B shows staff rocking and rolling. Here’s West with Heat and Hollyric with Afterburn.

Ditch has your Jap shit covered quite nicely.

Hevia is looking for a column name. Give him one, because I can’t think of anything at this moment. Enormous package, my ass.

Fernandez has a Puff Daddy story. Just a warning.

Cooling may not know politics, but he has his Brit comics down pat.

THE ANTI-SPYWARE SECTION

Remember, this all started because the slugs at Enigma Software dared to advertise their piece of shit SpyHunter at 411 (one of the reasons why I decided to leave, honestly). 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 few months now.

(And as I understand it, there are some unscrupulous browser toolbar people trying to advertise here at the Pulse. Well, don’t click on that ad, whatever you do. We’ll still get the money from the impressions, and your system will stay safe.)

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.

(On a side note, those SpyHunter ads started over at Reality News Online, and BFM, a contributor there, spotted them. He told the webmaster, gave him those links that I cited above, the webmaster read them, the blood drained out of his face, and he contacted his ad provider. No more ads for Enigma products on RNO, thank you. So guess what? If you provide the info, there are sites who will listen.)

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 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. And only download those programs; don’t fall for the ads that are shown at various websites.

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.

The Ravin’ Cajun asks me to recommend a good client-side spam filter for MS mail programs running under Windows. Now, this is something I don’t have experience with because my ISPs have always had good spam filtering, plus, I use Thunderbird, which handles the remainder quite nicely, thank you. Some readers wrote in and recommended SpamBayes, which is totally free and supposedly works very well, so I’ll add it on to the anti-annoyance list that we’re building up here.

THE RELIGIOUS REICH STRIKES DIRECTLY AT WRESTLING, AND YOU DON’T CARE

Here’s the report from Big Johnson over at 1bullshit Junior:

Philadelphia, PA’s WGTW channel 48 has been purchased by religious organization the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The Network’s programming will take over the station as of 9/30, effectively ending the long-running tradition of professional wrestling on the station.

Extreme Championship Wrestling debuted on WGTW in 1997 after the promotion lost its slot on Sportschannel Philadelphia when that station shut down, running until late 2000 when the promotion ended its “Hardcore TV” just before ECW suspended operations in early 2001.

Combat Zone Wrestling debuted on the station in 2001, leading to the promotion’s biggest house ever the Cage of Death 3 in December 2001 which saw the company draw 1,500 fans and turn several hundred away at the door. CZW pulled its Fake You TV from the station several months back after WGTW refused to air a show featuring “questionable content,” although much of the content had previously aired on CZW shows in the past.

A number of other independent promotions regularly used the station including NWA Wildside (currently airing), Major League Wrestling, XPW, GLOOW, WXW, Ring of Honor and the Premier Wrestling Federation. WWE also aired regularly on the station as well. With the loss of WGTW in the Philadelphia market, the local independent scene has just lost a major asset.

Wonder what the guys over at WrestleThis! think about this one? This is the indie station that, after all, was the core home for ECW, and as such was a major asset for keeping the Philly tradition alive.

As someone who comes from that time long ago when UHF stations were the primary source for wrestling broadcasts, this is a sad day indeed. Let’s hope that some other station in the market picks up the slack.

Speaking of Philly…

THE RESURRECTION OF PAUL HEYMAN

1bullshit Junior (specifically Milord) reported that Heyman was backstage at Raw, and that he was there in a creative capacity as a “presenter of ideas” while still being part of the Smackdown creative team. None of his ideas were presented on this week’s broadcast, but he’s hoping to see them on next week’s show.

Man, Gewirtz must be in trouble if they’re bringing in Heyman to juice up the show. Of course, anything would be beneficial. They’ve been in creative stasis since they had Orton win the strap. But the way Milord is stating this…it’s coming directly from Heyman. We know that Scherer has his connections to Heyman, and they’re deep. Could Heyman be using 1bullshit Junior as a trial balloon for a writing team coup? And would that be a good thing? I’ll tell you more after Sunday. The PPV should give us a clearer picture of what’s going on in the lack of minds of “creative”.

Anything else I want to discuss? No. My dad died of cancer six years ago tomorrow, so I’d like to stay away from the subjects of Steve Williams and John Tenta, if possible. So it’s on to the Short Form, I guess…

THE SHORT FORM

Match Results:

Our Lord and Savior, Mr. Regal, Mr. Tajiri, and Mr. Rhyno over Ric Flair, Dave Batista, Rob Conway, and Sylvain Grenier, Double Preview Of Sunday’s Matches Match (Submission, Conway submits to Benoit, Sharpshooter): And what a sweet little schmozz we have to open the show. And here’s a rarity in and of itself: I like all eight guys in this match, so therefore I’m not going to say anything bad about it other than its total lack of substance for anything in the future, including the tag matches on Sunday.

Trish Stratus over Nidia (Pinfall, kick to the back of the head): Man, who lit a fire under Nidia? She showed more life out there than I’d ever seen from her. Of course, the match was kept short because fires like that burn out quickly. It was fun while it lasted, though.

Trip over Nick Dinsmore, Cage Match (Trip escapes through door):
This is an angle advancement match, which means I should hate it. However, I always love to see a retard get the shit beat out of it, so this match was great, I tell you, great. Let’s see more retards get beat up on Raw. And on Smackdown. Hell, I’ll pay TNA to do it on Impact, and they’ll take the money. More dead retards, please.

Tyson Tomko over Chris Jericho, Definitely An Angle Advancement Match (Pinfall, neckbreaker slam): You know what comes now: Next!

Randy Orton over Kane, Non-Title Impromptu Cage Match (Orton escapes through door): My, how symmetric with the results of Trip’s earlier match. Each hits finisher, does a little more punishment, then escapes. I decided to prioritize my life and grab a shower instead of watching this mess. I’ll witness the real thing on Sunday, or whenever I get it downloaded.

Angle Developments:

Movin’ On Up: Well, that opening promo actually gave me something to be excited about. Two great bump artists who know and trust each other like Christian and Jericho in an IC Ladder Match? Hell, I’m there. I’m not paying for it, but I’m there. At least it’ll overshadow the main event, which desperately needed to be overshadowed. This one’s gonna be good. Life is looking just a teensy-weentsy bit better with something like that on the horizon.

And that’ll be it for this Tuesday. Stay tuned tomorrow for more stuff from me (and this time I mean it). You know you want it, you know you love it.