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Today is my sister's birthday, and marks about a decade since I've spoken to that phoney, nasty woman. Far as I'm concerned, I have no blood-family and that's perfectly fine. I was always the black sheep that never had a "real" job ("Oh, he talks to people on the telephone is all.."), look, just because you can't understand what I do doesn't mean that there isn't considerable value in it. Oh, my D-list celebrity status? What the hell, I get paid for doing something that I'd probably do for free. I have a huge family, (including some folks here on this board) that I wouldn't trade for anything. That last sentence you wrote are some of the wisest words I've ever seen posted on the Internetz. Peace, John

For the first time in his DVDVR board posting history, D.Z. has actually identified who is in the picture he posted. Break out the champagne, Lads.

Have you heard of the legend of Darth Plagueis? He was drafted in the 6th round, 199th overall.

The thing with all the reports aren't saying (or people are willfully ignoring) is that come the end of the year - the 4th quarter (and year as a whole) is going to be in the black because the FOX money will hit. (It will actually probably be in the black in Quarter 3 too since most likely that is when Blood Money III will hit) That part isn't just Vince/Barrios bullshit spin - it is the truth. (And all companies do that spin so don't start with the WWE IS LYING TO US! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT) So if you are just looking at the stock - it is going to go back up later this summer to at least the level it was at before the announcement (Just over $100 a share)

I hated this guy but the two categories he mentioned make me feel like we could be best friends Also totally coming to my WWE2K universe mode: The James Holzhauser White Boy Challenge

"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the waters of the womb." Found family is family. Take care of yourself.

Kofi's basically the only guy who could have a meaningful feud with Orton at this point. They have history. Orton has history of being the spoiler (both for Benoit and Christian).

A. The President B. Russo C. None of the above I'll take Option C.

Highlights of Lana Austin vs Bea Priestly Falls Count Anywhere: Full match is on Access Defiant (wearedefiant.com). It's £7 a month but the first 30 days are free. Show is called Unstoppable. The main event is Rampage vs David Starr and it's awesome.

It's really starting to feel like WWE is super fucked. Morale sounds like it's at an all time low for whatever department you're in. They can't stop viewers from tuning out because, let's be honest, these shows mostly suck. Sure, there's maybe a segment or two that's good, but if you're watching anything else and see a couple good scenes in an otherwise terrible tv show the entire thing still feels like shit. I mean, we give a lot of credit to SDL being good, but it's it really? I think many of us are so addicted to this shit that any glimmer of hope makes us see the entire episode differently than most anyone else does. We see one good match and a good segment or two over there course of two or even THREE hours and we're ready to declare, "this was a good episode." I'm guilty of doing this too. In reality, what we watched was sill mostly terrible. As a viewer, I'm sick of having my intelligence and dedication insulted. These stories are probably the most creatively bankrupt shit since the end of WCW. Both companies now feel very similar. Both had no idea what to do to right the ship, we got these weird shooty segments, things that were working incredibly well are abandoned quickly (Becky going back to smilin' Becky again being one example), we get maybe a good match or two each week, each company started doing one focus group or survey after another, but ultimately none of this matters because there's no solid direction. How guaranteed is this Fox money? Or the USA money? USA surely isn't immune from being bought out and that network seems more in the dumps now than they have been in a long time. Their push for having multiple original series is nearly dead. I mean, they have Suits and, what, Queen of the whatever that show was called? Chrisly?! They went from a point where they didn't need WWE to where they now need them. They now need a show that is losing viewers like a sieve. That's fucking dire. Some of you can say this is alarmist, but we've all seen this before. We know where this is headed. WWE is close to a point where TNA used to be at and we made fun of TNA endlessly for how little people tuned in. I don't even think we're close to seeing the floor for viewership. And out of all of this, there were two things so insulting from that call. One was putting the blame on injured wrestlers. Well, if Vince is such a fucking genius then why can't he work around that? And two is Barrios or Vince dangling a fucking carrot that the next quarter will be better because that will account for more of that sweet, sweet blood money, even if they refuse to own up to that and flat out say they're not going to talk about that.

We accept him, one of us. We accept him, one of us. Gooble Gobble. Gooble Gobble.

What do you mean "we", white man?

BA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

That pissed me off to no end when I heard that. Talk about insulting. Steve Austin, arguably the biggest star in WWF history, had to get surgery in 2000, and did it "hurt engagement metrics?" No! Rock, HHH, Foley, Jericho, Angle, the Radicalz, and a myriad of others stepped up, and the product was better for it, because they weren't afraid to build stars, lest they become "bigger than the brand." I love these calls so much for what they offer in terms of a peek into what the hell the rationale in Stamford is sometimes. This one was no different. But really, I have no clue whether Wall Street buys that crap. I'd like to think most people would be savvier than that, but then again, my lack of knowledge there is why someone else handles my investments

I just watched this match last week. That is a great finish. Both guys beat the living shit out of each other and are both stumbling around, and barely able to stand until Kawada stumbles into Kobashi's line of site and gets crushed with a lariat.

Seeing all those names and then...Jinder fucking Mahal...leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.

After hearing about now what's happening to Brodie Lee, can we change this thread's title to "Vince McMahon is a Piece of Shit"?

Pretty exciting news for me - KINO announced the release dates for a three Jean Pierre Melville films that used to be Criterion DVDs, but have been out of print for eeeeever. The two I've been waiting for are Le Doulos and Bob le Flambeur - two of the best fucking heist films. They're also putting out Leon Morin, Priest, which I haven't seen yet, but I'll probably pick up all three when they drop in July. Melville made some great films.

Scott Steiner's run in WWC was around 09-10. A quick check shows that Steiner vs. Ray Gonzalez for the Universal title happened at the 2010 Aniversario show. One highlight from that feud that I remember was an episode where they kept showing footage of Scott Steiner in the passenger seat of a car talking to either the driver or the person filming him from the backseat and talking smack about Ray Gonzalez and how he was going to teach him a lesson and so on. These were presented as videos Steiner had sent in. I don't remember if the feud was just beginning or if it had been going on for a while, but they ran a few of these promos of him in the car throughout the episode, with the last one ending with Steiner arriving wherever he was going and exiting the car. That episode also featured Ray Gonzalez visiting Abdullah the Butcher's House of Ribs & Chinese Food in Atlanta. The reason for the visit was that Ray was looking for a lucrative business opportunity and had found what he believed to be the next untapped gold mine. You guessed it, Ray was there to meet with Abdullah about becoming an investor and franchisee of Abdullah's House of Ribs & Chinese Food. Ray is sitting at a table in the restaurant waiting for Abdullah, all the while excited about this potential lucrative business opportunity. Abdullah ambles over (by this point he's already getting around with the help of a cane) and greets him. Ray thanks him for agreeing to meet him and spends a few moments talking about the great opportunity and potential he sees in becoming a franchisee. They talk for a bit and then Abdullah proceeds to give Ray a tour of the restaurant. What follows is about of minute of great unintentional hilarity, as Abdullah ambles around the restaurant looking like someone who is trying to figure out what the hell to show Ray and a jazzed up Ray Gonzalez following him around, exclaiming his glee about what he's being shown. Abdullah shows him the dining area and Ray's nodding his head going "Good, good." Abdullah shows him other parts of the restaurant including the counter area, the kitchen, even a supply room, and all the while Ray continues just being excited about what he's being shown. The highlight for me was Abdullah showing Ray the freaking walk-in freezer, going over to a box and opening it up to show Ray while saying "The meat, this is good stuff" and Ray giving an awed expression going "Oh wow, this is great." Eventually, Abdullah runs out of things to show Ray inside the restaurant, so they head outside onto the deck where the entrance is. Abdullah gestures towards the steps that lead to the parking lot, then turns around to show Ray the rest of the deck ("And we have this area here"), while Ray just nods his head liking what he's seeing. At that moment, in the background you see a car pull up in the parking lot behind them. All of a sudden, Scott Steiner emerges from the passenger side of the car, runs up the steps and jumps an unaware Ray Gonzalez from behind. He then proceeds to give Ray a beat down on the deck of the restaurant while Abdullah is off to one side saying "Hey man, what are you doing, don't" at Steiner, but unable to do anything because of his physical condition. Steiner leaves Ray beaten down on the deck and leaves, with the segment ending on Abdullah checking on Ray as best as his condition allowed (meaning asking if he was okay from where he was standing). It's my second favorite angle that WWC ran at Abdullah's restaurant.

As one of the few people willing to admit being a Patriots fan here, be fair. Tom Brady never had a chance of going on the first day, let alone the first round of the draft. I'm talking about the huge college superstar QBs who everyone says "they HAVE to go high in the draft, look at them" and suddenly they freefall down the draft order, and everyone's in shock- how did THIS GUY not go yet? Don't they see how GOOD he is? Then, they get drafted, make the NFL, and within a year or two people inevitably find out "Oh. THAT'S why."

Wall Street investors aren't even savvy enough to know that wrestling storylines are fake. Witness the stock price drops when they killed off Vince and when Donald Trump took over Raw.

It's kind of always been Vince's thing to grab that international money when things go to shit here. Think about the crazy never-ending European tours of the mid 90s (cue the Maxx Payne bus footage). My guess is that they feel that the Saudi thing is a necessary evil in case the bottom ever does truly fall out of TV rights- a preemptive strike, if you will. The difference is none of those European countries did 9/11 and killed journalists and all that other messed up, draconian bullshit-- but in terms of just pure business, it's probably one of the oldest formations in Vince's playbook.

VLAD-DY VLAD-DY VLAD-DY VLAD-DY VLAD-DY VLAD-DY VLAD-DY VLAD-DY VLAD-DY

Here's how good the writing is. As goofy as Hank is, he had a really scary moment at the end if either episode 1 or 2. Like the writing and that guy both flipped a switch and completely turned. It was the first time I took him seriously.

What do you think it's taking for those people to keep putting up with what is probably their own shitty family? A metric fuckload of compartmentalization and hypocritical rationalizing. Or, as you say, equally large amounts of ignorance and privilege. Count me in the group of "family you choose", too. EDIT: Also, Eddie, you really are lucky to have had both types of families to the extent that you have. If my father were on fire, the only reason I'd piss on him to put it out is because the Ned Stark/Steve Rogers voice in my head would make a big fat frowny face at me if I didn't. Having people, even in shitty and anxious and stressful situations, is better than not having them, good situation or bad.

Don't let your faith soar too high based on the drop. Bullshit Bingo and surface-level thinking works both ways. Overreactions to unexpected earning news are nothing to get excited about.

100% agreed. I loved the absolute shit out of last season but this one could most definitely be better if it keeps going the way it's going. Bill Hader is knocking it out of the fucking park and Hank (aka THE KING OF SUCK BALLS MOUNTAIN) continues to be one of the funniest characters on TV. I laughed for about 14 hours straight at the '50/50' rooftop scene from the last episode ('what do you want me to do, go to John Wick assassin hotel with help wanted sign?'). Between it, Killing Eve, Veep and Game of Thrones, weekend TV is the dog's proverbials right now.

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they don't really buy the line they're selling. Really, which injuries hurt engagement? They had Roman back for half the quarter. Ciampa? Sami Zayn? A few weeks without Mustafa Ali? It's just silly, silly spin and I'm sure they know it. If their engagement metrics are down, I'd suggest a bit more soul searching.

As far as weak excuses for investors, injuries are killing our engagement metrics is pretty amusing.

I'm not a doctor nor do I play one on tv, but I do know a few things... We always tend to suspect the worst, even when there's no basis in doing so. Based on your age and your grandmother's age, I think I have a pretty good ballpark figure as to how old your mom is. Women of that age are very, very prone to getting cysts in the lower extremities. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, "hard lumps on the leg". You're probably worrying needlessly, so cut it out. Stay strong, little brother we never get more than we can deal with.

This just in! We have footage of how Gettleman informed Daniel Jones that he was the 6th pick of the 2019 NFL Draft

I'm by no means a huge advocate of these films. I enjoy them for what they are but I don't get particularly hyped about any of them. I see them early mainly to avoid spoilers. With that said, I really enjoyed this one in its entirety. It's an impressive achievement if you try not to question it too much because it delicately is a love letter to every film that came before it in this universe, and its callbacks are clever, especially the Winter Soldier elevator callback.

Please send gif of Razar doing that stupid Enzo dance

I think Carol was the way she was in this movie because they shot it first and literally had nothing to go on for the character since the script wasn’t even done for her solo movie apparently. Ultimately I think it works, though. She’s more “battle hardened” and snarky in this movie since it’s been like 20+ years since we saw her and who knows what’s happened since 1995 with her. She wasn’t a focus of the movie, and she didn’t end up being the one to beat Thanos. That was the two worries that people had going in regarding her character and neither ended up being true, so that’s good. I have severe issues with the timeline now, though. It’s been 5 years, how is Peter Parker and especially Ned still in high school? If they were both dusted, okay, I guess I get it, since they’d stay the same age... but that means everyone in the FFH trailers that go to school with them, like MJ and Flash, would have graduated already and would be 5 years older than they were in Homecoming.

There is no such thing as a Gene Wolfe book that is not worth reading. That doesn't mean that everything he wrote worked perfectly 100% of the time, when you're that damn good you're going to experiment a bit and not every experiment works. That said, even his failures are so well-written that even as failures, they're magnificent. I'm still in awe that he invited himself in to one of my anthologies. Not five minutes after Vince Harper of Shadowlands Press signed me up to do a Clark Ashton Smith tribute antho (all stories set in his dying earth world of Zothique), Vince was telling Gene about the book (we were all milling about the dealers' room at World Fantasy Con. I heard this thunderous voice behind me and turned to find Gene Wolfe pointing his cane at me "Young man! You're not planning on doing a Smith tribute anthology without me are you?" ME (trying to act far more nonchalant than I felt): "Oh, no of course not!" So yeah, without even writing up a prospectus or discussing payment I had Gene Fucking Wolfe in my book! The whole project was made so much easier by his presence, (we writers are actually a timid lot, it bolsters our confidence when someone we like and respect is already in a project that we're considering, when the person is a living legend like Gene Wolfe, you pretty much have to chase people away with a stick.) In the moments after, I hit on the concept that would make the book a bit different, 50% of the stories would come from folks like me who are students of the game and have read their Weird Tales. The other 50% would come from folks that I knew to be fine writers who had never read Clark Ashton Smith and would thus be approaching the subject matter as an adult with full writerly credentials. (Me, I had read Smith when I was 13/14 when his work was published in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series and his last two Arkham House books were still in-print.

I love Ali, the design isn't bad at all, but chasing the light is something that my cats do when they're bored.

I just wish the image was on the front so motherfuckers could say shit to my face.

Of all the odd things to remember from junior high, I had a friend who teased a girl (he obviously had a crush on her and went through the time-honored tradition of teasing her) about her teeth and meant to call her Bucky Beaver but instead called her BUNKY Beaver and would not admit he was wrong. Since this was pre-smartphone we couldn't prove him wrong until that night and everyone except me had forgotten it by then. I have no idea why this memory stands out but it does. Does that belt look tiny to anyone else or am I just seeing things?

YES! Bills get Oliver. . . .

I just bought this. If it's too political I understand removing it. The sales are about to close, though so if you'd also wear this, buy it.

A St. Louis/Columbus final would cause the NHL to fold, take the tax write-off, and start over.

"Stan" is a song from 2000. 19 years later, we are using it to describe extreme fandom, even though the song is about sociopathic fandom & a somewhat shallow dive into mental illness. Goddamn millennials.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I think the correct answer is Priest Holmes. He was the best player in all of football for about 3 years.