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In case you missed it in the January thread

Chikara sounds awful but is there a dandy highway man Adam Ant?

This first Harper vs. Roman showdown is going to be electric. I don't see it. Nobody cares about Harper. Ummm... He rolls people around like an alligator. I don't care about people who don't care about Harper.

I was on "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego" as a kid. Here is a story I wrote about my appearance for my friend's old blog. I figured you would like this (and some people even remember this from back when.) The story probably has like 10,000 typos, so be warned. lan Gansberg must be destroyed. That was the only thought going through my head. I was in eighth grade. Do you remember those kids in youth league soccer whose teams would kill yours by like 17 goals? And there was the one kid who scored nine goals already, and he’d try for one more goal, except the ref would call him offsides and he’d flip out and start cursing out everyone in sight and would start bawling hysterically? Or, at the tender age of 12, were you ever forced to be placed in a situation where you had to deal with someone who told you all the ways they were better than you (“I go to private school because education at public schools it terrible,” “I went on a tour of Europe last summer, where did you go on vacation?”) Ilan Gansberg was that person. And I wanted to destroy him. Why? I was a 12-year-old boy. I was small, I was weird and, due to the fact we just got Comedy Central on our local cable system, I was starting to develop my sense of humor, which I would later refine to become one of the greatest comic minds of this generation. I also had a major, repressed chip on my shoulder. Due to my small size and my weirdness, I was picked on a lot as a kid. It was a rare chance that I had to not just fight back, but to also win. And against Ilan Gainsberg... I had a chance to do it. On national television, nonetheless. What follows is a tale unlike any which you have head before, unless, of course, I have already told it to you. This is a story of conflict, absurdity, hubris, triumph and love. This is the defining story of my life. This is the story of my appearance on the early-90’s hit PBS game show entitled “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?” The Beginning Ilan, albeit a dick, was right about one thing. His private school was definitely better than the public middle school I went to. Our first history teacher that year, Mrs. Kaplan, quit after Chris Russamano pelted her in the face with an egg. We had a permanent sub the rest of the year who pretty much sat at the front of the room chomping on gum and asking girls who they wanted to date. One day, we entered the classroom and were told to take a test. No reason was given. We assumed it was some bullshit prep exam for the statewide test we all had to take that year. It was a simple geography test – identifying states, countries, major rivers, oceans and the like. Being one of the handful of Edison Middle School students who could read at grade level, this thing was a piece of cake. A week later, the people who finished in the Top 30 of this test were told to report to the library. There, we were told about a new television show in the works based off the popular computer game entitled “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?” They would be casting students from our school to be contestants. They asked us a series of interview questions about ourselves and about geography. A few days later, I learned that I was selected to be a contestant on the show. The Time I Met Ilan About a month later, I went in for the taping of the show, which was in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. I had never taken either the PATH train nor a New York City subway before then. I had envisioned, from local news reports and the comments of my parents, that New York was a cesspool of crime, violence and despair. I didn’t see too much of that, but I did see a Muslim woman nearly dragged to her death as she threw her purse in the doors of the subway hoping to get on board. We went into the green room, where we met our competitors. One I already knew: Prema. (I won’t even bother to try and spell her last name. It’s long and she was born in India.) Prema went to school with me. She was a really shy, sweet braniac who would later go on to be one of my high school’s valedictorians. Then I met Ilan. Ilan had the smug, awful tone of a pre-teen who feels completely entitled. No doubt, his parents drove a car that cost what my dad made in a year, the tuition of his private school cost more than my college tuition did, he bragged about his SAT-prep scores (“I already cracked 1100!”) and his prowess in both basketball and soccer. And he openly talked about how he was confident he would win the show because he won his school’s geography bee. I immediately wanted to punch him in the dick. I didn’t study too much for the show. This is because I never studied for anything at that point in my life. (Seriously – I had awful grades in middle school. And in high school. And for the first three years of college.) They taped two episodes at a time in the studio. However, the first episode went too long. Our episode would have to happen the next week. And this gave me time to plot my public humiliation of Ilan. The Episode I found every atlas I could find and studied my ass off. I learned Canadian provinces, Australian states and Russian cities. Anytime I put the book down to watch TV or goof off with my brother, I immediately thought about Ilan. And I studied some more. I was on a quest. We went into the studio the next week. And then the episode began. We were introduced on the show (where I did the “Arsenio Dog Woop” gesture which, in 1990, had swept through the country like it was Brooklyn hipster bedbugs), and then we had to answer our first question. I had a ton of nervous energy, and I got a pretty simple question completely wrong. Then came a part of the show that will live on in personal infamy. Remember how earlier I said I had started to develop my “edgy” sense of humor? (This is what we expert comedians refer to as a “callback.”) During this part of the show, we were introduced to the audience. And we had to tell them our interests and what we wanted to be when we grew up. My answers: a baseball manager or a stand-up comedian. We had to go over this earlier with a PA who was preparing us in the green room. I told him this and he flipped out. He asked me to tell him a joke. Being that I was 12, I did not exactly have a full five-minute set rehearsed,and, plus, I’m more of an “observational” comedian anyways. So he wrote a joke for me. And this is what I said on national television: ME: Knock Knock AUDIENCE: Who’s There? ME: Humpty. AUDIENCE: Humpty Who? I then started wildly flailing my arms in a seizure-like gesture that I thought was dancing. “My name is Humpty. Say it with an Umpty.” The audience reaction was a mixture of shock, polite applause and a smattering of boos. I had bombed. On national television. At the age of 12. I was also repeatedly scolded both on and off the air for leaning into the microphone. Despite my C- average, I was the captain of the Edison Middle School academic quiz bowl team. (Where we finished second two years in a row, losing to our cross-town rivals Roosevelt both years. I still hate their captain, Jared Strauss, to this day.) In quiz bowl, we had to lean in the microphone to say our answers. If not, we would be penalized points. We drilled at length proper microphone technique. It was hard to break that. But I soon settled in. And, as you can see in the video, I kicked ass. And then… then I got a little cocky. Hubris The final part of the first round on Carmen Sandiego was set up a little like Final Jeopardy. Host Greg Lee would run down a list of “clues” about what city he was talking about. And then, from three choices, we would have to pick that city. We would also have to select a number of points to wager. The top two after the first round then got to move to the second round of competition. I was ahead. I could have played it “safe.” But I really wanted to rub it in Ilan’s face. I wanted him to walk away knowing I and my failing public school education had trumped his pansy rich kid ass. So I wagered more points than I needed to. Ilan went first. His answer from the clues was Boston. Fuck. The answer I had selected was Newark. I now was going to lose to this shithead, all because I got too cocky. There was only one thing I could do. And that was to cheat. I held up my placard that said Newark. And I loudly screamed BOSTON as loud as I could. Production came to a screeching halt. I asked what was wrong. They told me my card said Newark. I then started to freak out and made myself cry. “I’m so nervous. I’m so nervous being on TV,” I kept on blubbering. My parents and Ilan’s parents were waiting together (and, no doubt, my parents were mortified of my earlier crash-and-burn attempt at humor) in the green room watching our episode unfold. Ilan’s mom flipped out and started calling me a little cheater. Naturally, my parents came to my defense. It was not until years later that I confessed to my parents that I actually did try to cheat. They then asked Prema what her answer was. She, too, picked Newark. And she wagered a lot of points as well. She had finished in last place. I was in second. We retaped the segment. This time, I hold my card and, in an incredibly sad tone of voice, I say “Newark.” Then, a little bit of a suppressed smirk appears on my face, as it started to sink in that this entire day had become a complete and total public fiasco. But, alas, I was onto the second round. The Next Part The second round of the show was a simple guessing game. On a board were various attractions in the city of Boston. Behind the name of each attraction was either a blank space or The Loot, The Warrant or The Crook. We had to find The Loot, The Warrant and The Crook in that order. We did battle and, eventually, The Loot and The Crook were found. But The Warrant still remained out there. Ilan had a guess to find the answer. He was wrong. There were only a few places left we did not guess. And, with a lot of anticipation in my voice, I guessed correctly. I had, finally, defeated Ilan. Victory confetti fell from the sky. I took it all in. And then, I arrogantly turned around to Ilan and shook his hand and said a very condescending “Good Game.” (ADDED EDIT: Richard Sherman stole this from me in the NFC Championship game.) The camera closes in on his face as co-host Lynn Thigpen (aka the mysterious DJ lips in cult-classic “The Warriors”) told Ilan his numerous runner-up prizes. He is clearly welling up with tears. To this day, whenever I watch the tape of the show, I still get a sense of satisfaction as I watch a pre-teen cry at my hands. I then went on to the next round, where I had 45 seconds to identify seven African nations by placing a lighted pole on them. I missed the first one, but then was given two easy ones: South Africa and Madagascar. Then, I was given Burkina Faso. I had written a paper on the nation formerly known as Upper Volta the year before. I nailed it. Then, somehow, I guessed where Uganda and Central African Republic were. Then time ran out. I came really close to winning the grand prize, which was a trip to anywhere in the lower 48 states. But I did, at the end of the show, get to point up to the crane camera and say the three words that defined a generation. “Do It Rockapella!” Epilogue We taped the show that spring. That fall, the show debuted on PBS. My episode aired a few weeks into my first year in high school. I was so incredibly nervous. Your fist weeks of high school are so incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. And here I was, on the air, showing the world what an incredible geek I was. And, not just that, but I also tell a spectacularly bad joke and make a complete ass of myself on national television. I could only hope that no one would actually watch this show. But how wrong I was. Being that is was a new show, a lot of kids did watch it. And not just that, but it was also on PBS. There’s a broadcasting rule that dictates all cable systems have to carry every local over-the-air channel within a certain radius. In New Jersey, there are an insane amount of PBS affiliates within broadcast range: Channel 13, a variety of New Jersey Network channels, another New York City based PBS channel, Long Island’s PBS channel and one from Westchester County. And while the show was on PBS, it did not air every episode in order at a certain time. They could show whatever episode they wanted at whatever time they wanted. And my episode aired, seemingly, for every single day for three consecutive years. I flimed this in 8th grade. I could literally be seen on my local cable provider every day until my junior year of high school I would casually flip through the channels… and there I was, doing The Humpty Dance again. And seemingly every single person I went to high school with saw this. I would consistently get stopped at places like the supermarket with people asking me if I was the kid from Carmen Sandiego. Eventually, I grew to love how ridiculous the whole ting was and came to embrace it. It became a personal “party favorite” to tell people I am meeting for the first time. And this led to something incredibly important to my life. One of my best friends from high school, Kirsten, loved the entire story. In fact, I would venture to say the only way we became as close as we did was because she enjoyed my performance so much. She used to make me play her the tape pretty much every time we hung out. Kirsten went away to college in DC. I went to school in Philly. Years later, we’d start to hang out again. And we were going to a party together with a bunch of her friends from college. One was her old roommate and best friend, Ilana. I heard about Ilana for a while from Kir but I had never met her. I finally did. And the first thing she asked me was if I was the guy who was on Carmen Sandiego. I was. And, four years later, we would get married. The ultimate theme to the story: sometimes cheaters do prosper.

Steak is delicious. I'd fight someone for a steak

Yeah, but Baseball is boring as shit, so I feel like this is another point in my favor.

I like the idea of Ziggler getting fired up. I have a problem with the content of what he said. It's not really about winning and losing, it's about performing. He loses a lot, yet his stance is that he's a great PERFORMER. He says people are in his ear about not going out there and being so good, which is, again, a reference to the performance of wrestling - not the competition of wrestling. This goes back to my basic problem with current wrestling(it's not just a WWE problem), where the goal of wrestlers, as is being stated to fans, to provide moments - not win matches in order to make money or gain prestige. If the characters aren't investing in the matches as real competitions in which the outcomes matter and determine their legacy, then it's hard for me to. This doesn't mean it has to move away from storylines and crazy characters into some kind of faux-MMA serious business; wrestling never had to really do that in the past, in order to get that spirit of competition across.

On today's agenda national PW day in easton and a trip to vegan treats for donuts. Is it 2008 again?

I think if it says KILL EM ALL it doesn't count as a tramp stamp anymore It's not like it says KILL MY ANUS which I'm pretty sure Batista has as a tattoo

Steve Austin & John Stossel

Well, how many of the current roster get to work with dudes of yesterday at 'Mania? Cena, The Miz and Punk? And I wish people would quit bullshitting themselves into think Ziggles has charisma or anything resembling star power. There's a reason he is the bump bitch and not the one bumpin' bitches.

Ebbie, Burgandy & JL are girls. Everyone else just has chests larger than most women.

The pinnacle of my love for garbage wrestling. A magic time indeed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruoh9ZNuu70

Trying something here - especially since the gifs tend to be more load intensive. This doesn't mean you can post the same GIF each month. And I would appreciate it if the GIFs from video games are kept to a dull roar. God - people who post video game wrestling matches on Youtube can eat a dick too.

He's reached the don't give a fuck stage of his life where he gets high with Captain Picard and takes goofy pictures. I envy him.

Heath Slater is assigned by the rest of the locker room to act as a lookout and warn everyone when Brock arrives. Instead, he falls asleep, half the mid-card gets slaughtered, and on the next Raw, his angry colleagues demand satisfaction.

That's just...I cannot fathom the logic. Is Xzibit his agent?

When you and Charlie are eyeball to eyeball, you're bound to be unhinged.

This ends badly for him. As the new alpha.

The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

So much to love in this picture. Slick with his hat off whilst holding his cane, and The Conquistadors doing a black power salute for USSR.

El Dandy on Tercera Caída [January 16th, 2014] Dandy with a bitching WCW jean jacket that was given to him as a gift by Hulk Hogan, apparently.

what we need is more wrestlers going to "da paywindah"

The answer has been in front of us the whole time. Harley Race was a fucking man. Harley Race was THE fucking man.

Maybe you're right. I just want the WWE to care who wins or loses, so that it can at least mean something to me. It could be the fan's fault. With our 5 star matches and workrate debates. Wrestling feels like it's gotten too "meta", to where the characters are aware that fans want a good match, and so the character motivation is getting a five star review in the Observer. It's like wrestling has become sentient and my relationship with it now feels like Dave and HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey..

Sting still hasn't signed with the WWE - very interested to see which Sting will show up once he does.

And that reason is "he works for TNA."

Also, just saying you have the "it factor" & yelling a lot doesn't make you more important or more interesting. Bobby Roode isn't a star for a reason. Who is Dolph trying convince, us or himself?

At his age, with what he had accomplished by that point in the business, and with his relative position on the WWF card at that point... Why in the fuck would Harley still take a bump like that? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's fucking awesome, but... wow.

I totally get Jae's point and it is a good one. The promo does however work with Ziggler's established character of being a show off who is about putting on a performance more than going out and winning as quickly as possible. Obviously there is a bunch of worked shoot garbage in there but you could spin it more like, "John Cena (to pick a name) told me that I should stop doing sit ups during matches, stop doing head stands, stop being me. Well not being me has taken away my edge and I'm not winning anymore. I used to be this guy who could blow everyone away but I was told I needed to be more humble. Well being humble sucks." Most characters should be about winning. But their are exceptions, like The Wyatts shouldn't be at all concerned with titles unless it advances their agenda. Ziggler has some wiggle room.

Remember when CM Punk said that there were too many part timers coming in and taking spots? Your 'matches to get hyped about' all have part timers in them, It's not our fault though. WWE did this to themselves by have the last 3 or 4 'Manias being reminders about how "great" things were years ago and not focusing on the now. When 4 or 5 guys come back every year and immediately get put in featured matches and main events, the current roster looks weaker in comparison.

I really hope they are able to turn things around a bit at Elimination Chamber, because this is shaping up to be one terrible Wrestlemania. Think about all the matches that were being speculated about since last year's Wrestlemania: Brock Lesnar vs. The Rock Daniel Bryan vs. Shawn Michaels CM Punk vs. Steve Austin John Cena vs. The Undertaker Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker CM Punk vs. Triple H CM Punk & Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H & HBK Ryback vs. Goldberg And what are we getting now? Randy Orton vs. Batista and John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt! May god have mercy on us all!

Hopefully a spot for a face-turned Antonio Cesaro.

That's what LeBrun is claiming, basically, that Mike Gillis knows his team isn't good enough to make a Cup run this year, so he's not going to bring in any rentals, will consider deals involving prospects for current players and that everyone, save Danny and Henry are available. BTW, loved the Jets beating the 'Nucks if for no other reason than in the TSN pre-game they had the absolutely awful Jason Botchford as well as Jet scribe Gary Lawless and Lawless said the Canucks weren't a Cup contender as this recent stretch has shown and Botchford got all worked up and you'd have thought Lawless insulted his mom saying "The Canucks are missing their best player (Which is true) and that their heart and soul is suspended". Yes, he really called John Torotella the "heart and soul" of the Canucks. He then went on a particularly petulant tirade about how the Jets are pretenders. Whereas Lawless' description sounded like analysis, Botchford just sounded like a baby. I like to imagine him sitting there tonight while the other writers were needling him going "Shut up you guys!" You know you're in trouble when Gary Lawless is the one making sense.

Quaid was 10 times the Doc Holliday that Kilmer was. You're writing in a foreign language and I can't understand a word you're saying. As for the rest of the movie, I will step out in the street and fight to the death with anyone who besmirches the name of Kurt Russell in any way.

Can't wait for Gambit and Wolverine to be finger poppin' eachothers assholes.

It's just unfortunate that all this new talent is being used for another power struggle angle. MVP and The Wolves are interesting pickups for the company. I would like TNA to just say FUCK IT and bring in Masters, Carlito, and Morrison so it can be WWE 2007 all over again...they already have Anderson.

Vladimir Putin is keeping a close eye on them there.

Him talking about Paul Heyman being made of hardened barf has made him one of my favorite wrestlers now

Spoilers.... I was but went out for a walk instead of sitting on my tuckus! Find it on youtube, and load up to the 1 hour, 57 minute mark. The next 10 minutes, if you are a longtime fan of CHIKARA fan, is like crack.

Also I wonder if this "Performance Motivated Philosophy" is the reason WWE is in the bind they're in with fans wanting Daniel Bryan and CM Punk. They've displaced the emphasis on winners/losers, so that now fans have to find other reasons to get into characters - and in some cases it's become non-storyline reasons. Punk, for example, speaks his mind and talks about the reality of the company's problems. He's an okay worker, a great talker, and he sees what we see. So he gets rallied behind. Daniel Bryan is a great worker, and a genuinely decent human being in real life, and the more fans perceive him as being held back by Triple H or Vince the more they rally behind him. To be more clear, the reactions fans had weren't The Authority kept Daniel Bryan out of the match, it was that Triple H/Vince/Stephanie kept him out, not as characters, but as booker/writers. They're not wanting him to beat the characters of The Authority, they want him to beat the system of the WWE. It's a troublesome road, and the WWE only has themselves to blame for not putting more care into stories and characters and not listening to fans. Now the fans have to create their own drama to invest in, and they've decided it will be the Fans vs. the WWE.

So, whose idea of a dream tag team is Marc Mero & Tommy Dreamer?

So who's a better Ryan Leaf: Ken Doane or Rene Dupree?

$1

Cole totally losing his shit for Truth makes this.

Must have. How else would he know the guy's name? Hee-hee, I suppose so! So sorry about your mother, Natural. Know that you are in the thoughts of many around here.