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I have become a dad for the second time this morning. I have produced a male heir!

I'm almost certain Flair couldn't make contact with a Bible without instantly bursting into flame.

You guys are nuts. Those boots are boss.

What, pray tell, is wrong with a title changing hands? I get the other ones, even though I think they're pretty stupid, but this one completely eludes me. "The Championship Opportunity has been successfully completed!"

OK seriously...Andre's boots need a coat of polish 3 years ago here, Ric looks like he went into a time machine and stole a pair of New Foundation boots, while apparently holding the Holy Bible. He's a big fan of the Wooo! Testament.

Should have left it at that, buddy.

What, pray tell, is wrong with a title changing hands? I get the other ones, even though I think they're pretty stupid, but this one completely eludes me. "The Championship Opportunity has been successfully completed!" The amorous congress that just took place between those two warriors will not soon be forgotten by my eyes!

So I was in Potbelly's (sandwich shop) and I sat down next to a WWE the Magazine. I was browsing it a little and then the owner came over and grabbed his stuff from the area I was sitting. I guess he had already sat his stuff down. So he walks away and sits down somewhere else and starts eating. I finish my foot and I go ask him, "Wrestling fan huh." He says yea. Then we started talking. He was around 60 years old, black dude. Kinda country. dialect. He started out saying how he was a fan of Snuka, Superstar Billy Graham, Ken Patera, Bruno and a bunch of the other stars of WWF from that era. He also started talking about steriods and how people foolishly believe they weren't used heavily back in the day. He said he didn't really care for Hulk Hogan but it was a big moment when he beat Andre because nobody had really seen him dominated before that point in time. He didn't care for Andre either. He RAVED about Daniel Bryan and CM Punk. He talked about how far they came. He even referenced them coming from ROH without me having to assist him. He said he would have never imagined those dudes coming from where they came from becoming the stars that they are now. He didn't really talk much about Cena but he doesn't care much about him. He really talked a lot about Superstar Jimmy Graham and how he influenced so many wrestlers. We spent a little time talking about Benoit and how roid-rage was probably the cause of what happened with him. He brought up Vicki Guerrero getting a sweet deal after Eddie died. He also talked about how unbelievable of a World Champion Eddie and Rey were. He says that they had no business winning a World title. He talked about the Rock painting himself in Green last year and posing as the Incredible Hawk. He raved about HBK. He called HBK the Iron Man. He specifically called him a "Marathon Wrestler." He says Bret and Shawn remind him of Daniel and Punk. Little dudes that look legit. He talked about all of the talent that came out of the state of Minnesota. The Hennigs, Rude. He also talked about how much he liked Piper and he was amazed that I knew about the Snuka/Piper Coconut spot. He was like, "Damn you remember that. You probably weren't even born." He spent like 5 mins talking about how he hates the state of women's wrestling. He says all of the girls look the same now and Vince McMahon should be embarrassed of himself to put those girls in the ring as bad as they are. He brought up Fabolous Moolah and SHeri Martel and talked about how they were actual WRESTLERS. He talked about how cool of a white boy Dusty Rhodes was. He spent like 5 mins talking about the Von Erich family and how they were all messed up. How tragic of a family story that was. He knew who Liger was! Of course I brought it up. He liked Liger, Tiger Mask, Strong Kobayashi, and Kawada. He brought up those names! He talked about the Snuka/Backlund match and how Snuka had him beat but he went back up to the top of the cage. We talked about Snuka supposedly killing that girl. He said Bob Backlund was the man back in the day. A Legit dude. He talked about how good Kurt Angle was but how he was on that stuff. So I was essentially just throwing names out there just to get an opinion. We were browsing the magazine together and there is a picture of The Shield and he says, "Those are some bad dudes. I have never seen somebody come in like that. They didn't come in scared, they put their foot down." He then went on to talk about how they could have made it in any era. There was probably more but I can't remember anything else right now. We talked for like 1.5 hours. Really enjoyed that talk.

Genetics.

That's what he said, word for word.

There was an episode where the guy made the kid comb his chest hair with his fingers, I was in tears at that. So awesome.

Followed by his reaction just over a month from now:

95) THE FIFTH ELEMENT 1997- 379 Points - 10 Votes (Highest Vote: #9 Hobo Joe) DIRECTOR: Luc Besson STARRING: Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldman Placement On Original List: #255 (5 Votes) IMDB ROTTEN TOMATOES (71%) WIKI NOTE FROM RIPPA - Our first movie with a double digit vote total

Yup... probably still my favorite move in wrestling. Clearly I care not about concussions.

So I've been grinding hard and I finally was able to buy a Pegassi Vacca. Couldn't afford to mod it up, all I could get was the paint job for the moment. Anyway as soon as I got it I asked my mate if he wanted to come along for a ride while I take it for a spin. Now, bearing in mind he's pretty much playing the part of a creepy stalker with a hair trigger temper, he probably wasn't the wisest choice of companion with my brand new $240,000 super car. He says he needs to get some ammo so we stop off. I wait in the parking lot playing with the radio. He says to me "we should go...", I look over and he's knifed some poor woman in the neck and we now have a wanted level. I get onto the freeway and this jag off cop steams into me nearly sending me over the barrier. Needless to say my buddy pulled out his SMG and sprays the cop with bullets from the passenger seat. This incurs a 3 star wanted level and a chopper on our asses. So I'm saying "just keep cool, I'll get away" knowing that my new supercar will outrun them. He being a goddamn psychopath doesn't see it that way. So he shoots down the helicopter and we've got ourselves a 4-star wanted level. We've got more choppers, police cruisers and riot vans all over us. They've got road blocks and dudes making my shiny Vacca look like Swiss cheese. Eventually I get near some train tracks and by this time the car is a piece of junk with bits hanging off it and the steering so messed up it doesn't turn right. I hide in a tunnel and lose the cops. We breathe a sigh of relief as BAM we're hit by a train. He's laughing his arse off while I'm thinking of the $10k insurance premium I won't be able to afford. Anyway, she made it back alive and will fight another day. Next time we take the Sandking.

I felt that way a lot about wrestlers as a kid. Then I grew up and the world jaded me and now I have a great respect for the guys who are just in it for the money. There is literally no other sensible reason to put your body through that bullshit.

No.

Goldberg was and will always be awesome: Goldberg: WCW World Heavyweight Champion *Click Here to Enlarge* Speaking of Goldberg, I got him and Stone Cold Steve Austin to start talking shit to each other today by tweeting out an old cover of Cracked magazine: "WWF vs WCW" - Cracked Magazine #334 [May 1999] *Click Here to Enlarge* Their response? If you told teenage me that I could use the computer fifteen years down the line to talk to my favorite wrestlers, I'd think you were nuts.

Who? That would be Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton. Actually beating Michaels would've been fine if they'd had more than one match, but beating Orton was pointless. Hulk humiliating Shawn by making him lay down forever before he hit the leg drop was the best. Shawn does all those cartoonish bumps thinking he is getting the last word and Hogan destroys him. It was so bad Shawn tried to do the whole "Uh Uh, I let you win." the next night on Raw.

The WWE has been booked for shit for a while. Traditionally top star has the world title and the rest of promotion has been built around building up opponents for top star/world title. For some reason they've ignored that formula since 97 and so you have Cena not having belt for majority of time and promotion unclear as to wether the goal is to build opponents up for title or build opponents up for Cena.But blaming that on ADR is stupid.

Hey everyone! It's the annual event where Meltzer gets worked. At this point, I'm pretty sure Vince is just fucking with Dave.

Whoa whoa whoa way off sides here. But these new eps have been completely amazing, even better than I was expecting.

I hate you the most, Rippa.

I blame that on Talladega Nights being the first movie I saw her in, and they did their best to make her look as frumpy as possible. even though she was not at her best in The Fighter Ah! You is on drugs. Tough bartender chick with Boston accent? Yes please.

I choose to imagine they just greet each other and then just start chopping each other for the next hour straight while having a congenial chat.

I noticed and it was pretty distracting. Just because I wouldn't have expected a show like that to try to sneak an actor back into the cast. He did a great job making both characters completely different, but I still had to make an effort to disconnect one from the other.

Greatest Rivalries: All Japan/New Japan. DO IT.

Can never go wrong seeing NIN live. Wanted to see them here in Denver but the show sold out instantly.

I can't imagine ANYONE convincing themselves that they can be the girl that changes the terrible boyfriend that is TNA at this point, or feeling like it's worth the effort to try.

Rotunda was billed as Rotundo during his first WWF run for some reason. He was also billed as Rotondo at one point, so whatev's.

That would be amazing. HHH could win, then when Big Show is in the ring a video would appear on the tron with Triple H going through his house and destroying things and Big Show crying in the ring going "No, not the hydrangea bushes! No, not my coffee maker! C'mon, leave the player piano alone!" "NOT THE KEURIG! OH NO YOU DIN'T!!!" My guess: Show's house is a double-wide and HHH drives off with it on an 18-wheeler.

They never did have a singles match together, did they? In their prime that would have been glorious. As it was they totally brought the hate in the tags they were in.

And, as we've mentioned, try finding a show past about late 96 where he wasn't getting a reaction. Dude popped when he came out, popped for his offense, went crazy for his finish. I'm not sure where this "wrestled in a vacuum" shit comes from.

Dean had the best music in WCW.

I've taken to creeping up on pedestrians and mugging them for small bits of cash via stealth takedowns and trying to level up in stealth, but it's slow going. Fun as "knife to throat" or "Swat With Nightstick" animation is, I'm hoping there's a quicker way. Good tip about the construction workers though.

Reminded me of this: ,,,and that is a high compliment. - S&D, RAF

Kendall Windham

It would if he is allowed to be funny. But remember, everytime Brad Maddox actaually does something entertaining, old-ass Vince panics and goes, "What the fuck? He sounds nothing like Bob Hope! Have the announcers talk over him!"

Bwah-ha-ha!

Face Big E. has a lot of potential. The guy has a total weirdo sense of humor that could get over really well. Also, uh, that main event? AHHHHH! The Shield vs. any three faces is golden. But The Shield vs. BRYAN AND THE RHODES BOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Probably the latter, though Herb could very well have believed that it was a possibility. Who knows what went on in that guy's head? Cocaine mainly. To be fair, Herb brought in some big names like Andre the Giant. Warrior was doing dodgy wrestling shows in Vegas with Honky Tonk Man and dodgier B movies at the time. Not impossible to believe he could have made an appearance. Herb thought he was going to bring in Bruiser Brody until he found out that he had been dead five years by that point.

I'm absolutely shocked that a white southern crowd chanted "MONKEY BOY" at a half black pro wrestler.

I had this idea for a topic a couple weeks ago so I'm glad someone started it. I was going to lead off with Bad News Brown. Even today, I think if you repackaged someone with that gimmick, it would make shitloads of money, but you would need to have the right guy for it. As much as I think Titus is going to be awesome as a future main eventer, I don't think that gimmick works for him. You need a dude who looks gruff as fuck and scary as hell, not someone who looks like they'd be in an Old Spice deodorant commercial. Same goes for Butch Reed, Ron Simmons, and/or both as Doom. Doom would have been an awesome tag team in the Attitude era WWF or just as two guys fucking up everyone on the ECW roster. I would have loved to see a feud between Doom and the Dudleyz. Butch Reed was well ahead of his time and I wish someone would have sat down with Shelton Benjamin and showed him a bunch of Butch Reed tapes. As for Ron Simmons, he had such a weird career path. As Faarooq, he would have been a perfect fit in the cartoon 80s era of WWF. Ron Simmons, football standout from Warner Robbins, GA would have fit in better in the pre-attitude era or in the nWo era of WCW. At least he eventually found his way with the APA.

They're both better at laying out matches than the majority of the roster. Del Rio is probably the best heel wrestler in the company because his offense looks credible but he shows enough ass to keep people from cheering him. He knows how to let wrestlers beneath him on the totem pole get in a little offense without making himself too weak. He also makes things really easy for faces to garner sympathy with the way he works them over. The Ziggler and Christian matches are good examples. He's also one of the few gameplan wrestlers on the roster, and by executing his matches with what appears to be a legit agenda, Del Rio creates a more detailed continuity to his matches.Christian is a great underdog wrestler who really excels in cat-n-mouse matches, where he attempts to outwit stronger wrestlers. He's also believable as "survivor" who could possibly pull out an upset win through some veteran tactics. It's difficult to be an underdog, while still looking credible with your successes, and he can pull that off. He's also really good at selling body parts to give himself an out for his losses. More faces that are in jobber mode could learn from that.So what's the point when no gives a shit about you? People for a few years now have been proclaiming that ADR is 'great worker' but I don't see how when he can't sustain any interest.. And he is one of the few guys on the roster who didn't waste time jobbing to much, much less nteresting people. Then again, my biggest gripe with WWE tv is how they don't seem to give a shit that more than 80% of their roster can't move a crowd even if they started shooting rounds off before their matches.He sustains my interest. I'm somebody. Character/story wise, I think he cuts a good promo, but he's often in a position where he has nothing to do outside of cutting variations of the same promo. He's a better wrestler than most of the roster but he's rarely spoken about with reverance by people higher up the food chain. Triple H doesn't care about having Del Rio on his side. CM Punk doesn't care about beating him for the title. The belt he holds has no real perceived value, so no one really has a reason to go after him, unless the writers give him a good story. And he doean't have one. That's why he's getting Khali - because who cares?I watch WWE differently. I don't watch whole episodes and get filled in on stories from here or vid packages on PPVS. So my stake in a match is different than people who actually go through the arduous task of watching 8 hours of WWE a week. I'm not overexposed to certain guys, or trained to not give a shit about people yet, because I only watch a handful of matches a month. But Del Rio is fucking good in the ring, because of what I outlined and that's all that matters to me. Whether or not the crowd'a care is irrelevant.

8 Simple Rules should've been canceled after John Ritter died.

For those interested here's some bits about Rob Zombie's lighting and his use of the color red in Lords of Salem: http://jaekrenfrow.blogspot.com/2013/10/lights-and-color-red-in-lords-of-salem.html ONWARD HO! DAY 3 OF 31: SINISTER (Derrickson, 2012) Alfred Hitchcock said that "There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it." And Sinister illustrates both incredibly well. The best moments of the film are in the waiting for something fucking horrible to happen. When those bits do happen they're big and clunky jumps, that don't really succeed in scaring. There's one moment where Ethan Hawke walks down an empty hallway towards the camera. He turns to the die and it's revealed that there's a creepy girl in the space he had just walked through. That's good enough, but they decide to cut to a close up of her face immediately in an effort to jar the audience, but what it does is give them a reason to not be scared. She's kind of cute, really. Maybe the cutest dead and rotting little girl in the history of dead and rotting little girls. Horror movies are an exercise in restraint, and the makers of this film just can't hang on enough to make it a wholly unsettling experience. For everyone of those goofy jump scares you let the foot off the gas and make the viewer start from zero in building the tension. It's a forest for the trees situation. Explicit jump scares remove your imagination, the driving force behind your fears, from the equation. Then you're on your way to reconciliation, "Oh it's okay, it's just a cute dead girl." Maybe the best example of how to give tension with a bang that leaves you tense comes from the first scene of the movie. The 8mm film of the family hanging by the tree. We anticipate the horror, it slooooowly comes, and in the end we're left going "whaaaaaa the fuck is going on, here?" It's a shame because it's a fun story and man oh man can they build the tension. Ethan Hawke is a huge part of the success, conveying fear that we co-opt as our own. Maybe my favorite parts of the movie is just watching him watch 8 mm movies. The way he engages it mirrors how we engage him. I'd still recommend it though. The payoffs are disappointing, but it's a decent story, and, like I said, those moments before the scares are really really fucking good. More coming later.

Guys, this is actually a pretty serious request. We need to do something about the old lady who played the evil witch in PUMPKINHEAD. A little background: She was so cool looking and so totally unmoved and pitiless. I haven't watched any of these movies after the first, but I'd love to know more on her backstory. How did she become so completely in league with evil? Was she Faustian hillbilly seeking power and knowledge and growing in her disdain of mankind the more she learned? Was she singled out during her youth and ostracized or persecuted and so turned to the darkness out of spite? Did she suffer some great tragedy that made her give up on her humanity? She looks to be possibly well over a hundred years old, sustained enough in life to fulfill her role as an emissary of the devil. Is that it? Did she discover the secret to immortality? Does she merely fear death, or is she afraid of what will happen after? Is she attempting to put off her own damnation by feeding souls into hell? She's clearly the best character in the movie, and could easily have been one of the best in horror if they had let the sequels be prequels and followed her path. I mean...just feast your eyes on this magnificent old lady and her Lance Henriksen demon baby: But what bugs me is that the original actress, Florence Schauffler is really hard to track down. She has a bunch of credits, but they are all from 1983 to 1994, which indicates that she was yet another amazing PERSON WHO WAS NEVER NOT OLD in the annals of film and t.v. But despite appearing as "old lady" "mean nun" or "gossipy neighbor" in everything from WHO'S THE BOSS and NEWHART, to ST. ELSEWHERE and HILL STREET BLUES, the only non-PUMPKINHEAD picture I could find of her is from her role as Tom Hank's mean boss (another mean nun) in BACHELOR PARTY: "Earn this, Tom Hanks...EARN IT!..Earn Tawny Kitaen's junk!" Well...but then there is this, which is concerning: She appears on a website called "Wise Women Circles" which describes itself like this: So, this movie they made THE SONG WITHIN: SEDONA...she's in this, and it was made recently...so she's still alive. Which is crazy because PUMPKINHEAD was 25 years ago...and she's still alive...and I think she may be in a cult. She hasn't acted since 1994. No one has seen or heard from her (at least no one on the PUMKINHEAD WIKI). There's a bio of her on the weird circle of wisdom website: Yeah...see...she "had" a family..she "had" a career on stage and film. But now she "has" a PO box in Clarksdale, and a circle of sisters...which I'm pretty sure is a front for a sketchy spiritual organization. This is the last known photo of her: She is clearly under duress and is being forced to recite something against her will. I don't know if this falls under the charter and mission of this thread but, guys... I think we need rescue the old lady from PUMPKINHEAD from the cult that's holding her hostage.

As much as I love certain moments in that soundtrack...like to the point where they were foundational listening. Like, I heard the Echo and The Bunnymen "People are Strange" before I bought my first Doors Album [note: in 1988 "album" meant cassette]. And as I mentioned upthread "Cry Little Sister" is one of the best movie songs of all time. The INXS stuf leaves me cold. But there are a couple of nice lesser-known tunes. I especially like this one:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I92u-SJRNM4But there is a problem...and I think you all know what it is. It's a big, oileded-up, ponytailed problem called Tim Cappello. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P23c9KO5uYNow, when I was 15 and saw this movie, that scene was astounding and confusing. As a die-hard contarian kid who was more into old blues and old metal than pop, I was all pissy like "Ha! Look at that stupid poser! He should be in the Vinnie Vincent Invasion HAHAHA!!!" But there was this little part of me what was thinking "This is magnificent." As a midwestern boy, I was secretly hoping/assuming that whenever I got around to dropping out of school and hitchhiking to the west coast., that was what it was going to be like...every night. An orgy of excess and guileless, tasteless, pointless outlet of energy. I was so jealous of those L.A. (yeah, Santa Carla, whatever) kids and how far ahead of everything they were than me and my friends. Thier music, their clothes, their hair, their grandparents, their saxophone posers...everything about them was better than me...and that stupid, gross motherfucker and his stupid saxophone was like the guardian of the Holy Grail to me. Like if you get to the grail room, and the guardian says "Choose the grail that is the true grail of Christ." and you of course pick the gaudiest most rhinestone encrusted, neon-light-blinkiest one covered in Rick Springfield pogs...and the Guardian of the Grail is like "NAILED IT! Of course he would have the RADDEST CHALICE EVERY, MY DUDENHEIM!!!!!!"But now....watching that video, I feel 2 things:1) betrayed by my vision of what my late teens were going to be like...because none of that ever happened...ever never...2) Really grossed out by Tim Cappello. I mean, I suppose there's a difference strictly speaking between Tim Cappello and Epic Sax guy...but that difference is mostly lost on me. And this doesn't help:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzXuuxnp08o