Craig H

I'm trying to think of the last time I went into a Gamestop...I felt like it wasn't that long ago, probably within the last two years? When I went in there it was just Funko Pops and action figures and anime bullshit and it basically looked like a Hot Topic vomited out everything that wasn't Nightmare Before Christmas or Hello Kitty t-shirts in there. And it smelled like vape juice. I couldn't leave fast enough. Shockingly, the one here didn't close.

I don’t think you’ll ever see T’Challa again, but I would put even money on a wildcard ass Killmonger hopping over from another universe to be the Black Panther once everything gets sorted out. Michael B. Jordan is too fucking good to just get a one shot and a couple What If episodes.

IMMA PUT FIVE ON IT MOTHERFUCKERS MOTHERFUCKIN M’BAKU, KING OF MOTHERFUCKIN WAKANDA! LET’S FUCKING GO!!!

hOLY FUCKING SAHIT edit: fuck it, my hands are shaking

For real. Moxley may be a face now, and he can stay a face, but I think the best end to his reign would be Moxley doing an open challenge to his title or an open challenge for an eliminator and KOR's music hits and Moxley acts like he's seen a ghost. KOR goes to a draw with him then and beats him for the title. DRs turn on Moxley, KOR makes the save, and KOR and Moxley go and fuck shit up while Moxley learns from KOR in the process.

It took me way too long to get around to Dynamite but I finally did. Stranger Things on NYE, followed by sleeping in and family time the next day, then painting all weekend basically left me wanting to play video games with the down time I had and not watch tv. Finally watched some tv while I put together a Magic the Gathering cube. Dynamite fucking ruled. Swerve ands Hangman as a team is potentially the thing I’m most excited for through the earlier part of wrestling in 2026. I also like that unlike many of these super duos, each guy makes no bones about how they’re both gunning for the top title and their love of MOTHERFUCKIN VIOLENCE and just being dangerous is what unites them. I don’t see a tag title run for them in their future because I’m guessing Cope and Christian are the next in line for that, but them teaming together against the Opps and anyone else will be fun. MJF is already back in the same space he was in the last time he was champion which doesn’t do much for me. I’m curious if we’ll get another “someone needs to do X amount of things before they get a title shot” deal for the 3rd or 4th time. I’m going to be very pissed if Brody turns on Bandido. Mixed tag was fun as fuck. I think you could put any combination of the Conglomeration (ohhhhh shiiiiit, that has a sound to it) against anyone and it would be fun as hell. Man, Marina has improved a ton. This match also shows what intergender interactions can do when used sparingly. The women are just as dangerous as the men. Yuta is still king of the pieces of shit. I really don’t know how Moxley does it. I shouldn’t have been so sour on the early part of his world title run and should have given it time to play out. I saw it for what it was when most people saw it as nWo and now that you basically have seen that born out, where the DRs or really Moxley were out to make AEW harder and became overly egotistical that no one ever would be as hard as them only for Hangman and KOR to shatter than veneer, it was a winner for long term booking. Hell, Moxley continues to make the twists and turns and ebbs and flows with him and the DRs more interesting with him sacrificing himself each week to defend the Continental championship. Plus, I’m really game for the DCF vs DRs, although Yuta really fits in better with the DCF. I really really really wish I didn’t know the result of the main event as soon as maybe an hour or two after midnight going into January 1. It would have made the main event so much better, but it was still great to watch. Normally I’m good about avoiding spoilers but YouTube decided to put that front and center for me. I really hope 2026 is as good as 2025 was for AEW. Maybe this is the year we get Bayley in AEW. All I know is her contract is up this year but God only knows when it’s up.

Even though it’s long, you guys should read @Elsalvajeloco take on Austin and what a run beyond WM19 even looks like. It could be it’s own thread really. It does bring up a really good question though for what Austin does. You can’t keep doing the Vince thing. Well, you could, but I would think even Austin would say I’m going to go back home if all we’re going to keep doing is me vs you. Just keep in mind that even if any of this makes sense it’s probably not happening because of Vince. At the very least I think after 19 you give Austin a year off. In that year you get a lot of sea change. WM20 is almost exactly like 30 or even 40 where you think the company has turned this corner and they do, but it’s just down the wrong street. Eddy beats Brock, Benoit wins the title. Cena’s rise is full steam ahead with him hitting the FU on Big Show and beating him for the US title. Brock and Goldberg BOTH leave the company at 20. There is so much change there, but I think a lot of what happens after that could at least be improved if Austin returns because there’s a definite vacuum with him and Rock basically gone. Do you need to do JBL and Eddy or could you instead do Austin vs Eddy and tie that into what they started doing with those two a year or more earlier? Eddy and Benoit both dying and there being varying degrees of tragedy with both is probably at least smoothed over with Austin there. Basically, Austin becomes the bridge used to get past or get over or get through some tumultuous periods. Now, what type of character he has is even more interesting. At the very least, if the crowd is somewhat cool on him with a post WM20 return you have him turn heel on Eddy and then Austin beats Eddy bloody for the title. I don’t know who cheers Austin after that. We basically avoid JBL completely and I know for some that’s a problem, but I hated JBL and so that’s fine by me. Plus, Austin in that JBL role gives you a sort of dream feud between Austin and Cena. Even better is that you get WM in Chicago for the final time (until they actually move to a probably domed stadium in Arlington Heights and I’m not even going to entertain the thought of the Bears playing in fucking Gary or Hobart, IN) so you have the opportunity to recreate the double turn where Austin turns face again. Who is against I’m not sure right now but if I had some time to think on it I could come up with some names. You also get a money feud between Austin and Orton, the Rattlesnake vs the Viper. And the biggest and maybe final money feud with Austin and Punk. It maybe moves up Punk being at the top of the company much sooner than it actually happened. All that said, I think Austin either retires before 30 or at 30. He could certainly work with anybody, but it’s clear by that point and with the talent in the company that it’s no country for old men. In fact, maybe it’s Punk or even Orton that retires Austin. There are too many scenarios that sucked in WWE where you could say it would have been better with Austin there, but at the same time it’s Vince so Austin probably gets dragged down too. What type of character Austin has I don’t know. Everyone expects him to talk trash so maybe you do a heel run where he’s not a corporate guy, but he does the Foley in ECW thing where he doesn’t give the fans what they want. And then he becomes a face being a silent killer and it takes a feud with someone like Cena or Punk to get him to start trash talking again. There’s the obvious “old timer with not much miles left in him” run where he chases glory one final time. I just don’t think you can separate yourself too far away from who Austin was at his core. He wasn’t Jericho where he could reinvent himself and he wasn’t the Rock where he could reinvent himself as a Hollywood guy that was bigger than the business. He’s just Austin and there’s varying degrees of what you can do with that and I think for most people that’s what they would expect and want.

I had to skip past the last however many pages of Cena talk to get in a couple things. One, Cena is the GOAT in terms of he became THE guy at a point one WWE had no top draws because Vince couldn't be bothered to create any new stars and/or Austin, Rock, Angle, and HHH wouldn't want to do it. Hell, I remember plenty of us thinking HHH would beat Cena at the last Chicago WrestleMania. What is most bewildering to me is that Cena became the top draw for a bunch of newer viewers at time when WWE was really, really, really down in terms of popularity. It almost feels like a magic trick that Vince pulled off because I can't make any sense out of how that would even work. So yeah, the reason he is seen in such high regard is because much of their viewership now were kids then that grew up on Cena and they grew up with Cena AND started watching WWE at a time when WWE fucking sucked. Two, I will always contend that Orton could have been to US wrestling or WWE what Okada was to NJPW if Orton were motivated 100% of the time. Hell, even if he were motivated 80% of the time he would be looked at much differently. And of course if it didn't take Orton until his late 30s to realize he probably shouldn't act like a dick and if it didn't take a conversation with the New Day while riding with them that he should be accepting of all people. Early Orton was just nothing but side headlocks and a dropkick but as he began to develop more and more, I think his style was like an American version of Okada's style. And I'll always wonder what Austin's run would have been like if it had lasted more than just a few years. I always will think it was a legendary run and he's one of my top 5 wrestlers of all time, but man, had things gone just a little differently...

I hope Ryan George is back to making new Pitch Meetings by the time that new Robin Hood movie comes out. I can already predict the first lines of dialogue. Exec: So you have a new Robin Hood movie for me? Writer: Yes sir I do! Exec: Ok, but how do we set this Robin Hood movie apart from the dozens of other Robin Hood movies? Writer: We're going to kill him. Exec: Oh my...

One of my friends had a good idea (that I'm sure he stole from somewhere) - Do a spinoff with Nancy working for the Herald (I assume the Boston Herald?) investigating, uh, strange things that are happening. Like X-Files, but with an investigative journalist. I told him doing that means continuing to use a core cast member so that's probably out of the question. And it would just wind up being some Scooby Doo shit every week where it looks like something weird or spooky is happening only for it to be nothing. Then she gets fired for basically doing nothing.

I’ll have more to say at some point, but I was never a fan of Tanahashi. I never agreed he was the best big match wrestler ever or of this century. I still have a ton of respect and appreciation for him for helping raise NJPW up from the morass it was in. And I didn’t expect to tear up at anything until Shibata’s music hit and then the valve broke on the water works. See ya later Ace. Go get those knees taken care of so you can at least walk like normal again.

Holy shit!!! I forgot all about that. Damn. I'm glad I didn't remember at the time because I would have cried more than I already did. And regarding how many tears were shed and why this was so emotional, like Jae, my wife and I watched all of Stranger Things with my daughter. We started the series in 2016 to see if it would be appropriate for my daughter to watch. We didn't think it was, but it was one of the first things my wife and I became fully engrossed with watching. We're both fans of horror and it scratched that itch for both of us. Going into season 3 we thought, ok, she's 9, I think she can watch this. So we started re-watching the series with her, COVID hit, there was nothing to do, we continued watching it with her getting through season 3 and we all loved it. It was just as good for my wife and I the second time through and my daughter loved it. We'd talk about it a ton and S4 was the first season we all watched at the same time. Such an incredible, emotional season. With my newborn daughter's coming up in August my wife and I thought my daughter should get a special big sister gift and so she get the special edition Vans x Stranger Things high tops with the image of the demogorgon's mouth on the sole of the shoe. She fucking loved those shoes. So this season was the closing of a chapter of our lives. Started watching when she was in elementary school, then through middle school, and now she'll be wrapping up her sophomore year. Time keeps ticking and college is getting closer and closer. This might be the last thing we all enjoy together. Friends and marching band and band are all becoming a bigger priority and we get less time with her. So as that last episode played, the emotion of the finality of that episode and season mixed with the emotion of thinking about the culmination of so many years of my daughter's life and how that would all be changing soon. And now it's over and I'm thinking about it all wishing I could have all that time back to do it all over again and crying again.

Another year where I cross my fingers for just one more season of Justified and I swear I won’t ask for another one.

R/television and r/strangerthings are predictably having their mega crash out over the finale acting like it was the worst thing ever. What a bunch of malcontent goobers. They’re worse than wrestling fans.

He LOVED South Bend. No idea about his feelings towards Mishawaka, Granger, or Osceola. Two South Bend greats gone in the same year, first Jaworskis leaving Eby’s as the last (great) meat market in the area and now Isiah Whitlock. My head canon is that Whitlock caught wind of Jaworskis closing their doors, said sheeeeeiiit, and bowed out. Regarding that, I had to tell three close relatives in the nursing home, one of them my mom, about that closing and each of them treated it like a family member dying.

Zero complaints. Too many tears were shed. It’s hard to imagine being happier with how it ended considering all that was built up for it. Total fucking catharsis.

Sheeeeeeiiiit… RIP to one of my city’s very own.

Fuck. Yes.

I think this season has been pretty good. It's not the best. It's better than the second season. Probably on par with the third, not close (so far) to the 4th season or the 1st. The first episode of this season was maybe the worst because there was a boom sound effect every other second anytime someone opened a door, grabbed a paper, sat down, or just did basically anything. Someone from the gang explaining the plan has been beaten to death and I'm not sure how they didn't pick up on that being repeated way too much given how long they had to write this thing. Overall though it has been pretty good and the r/strangerthings subreddit has been about as toxic towards that show as r/television has been towards Pluribus or r/pluribus has been towards Carol. Just downright awful, misogynistic shit being said...towards both shows...to the point where I said fuck it and unsubscribed. The ST sub was basically either shitting on Will for coming out, shitting on him for who he came out to, shitting on making him gay be a subplot when Will being gay has been a story beat since the first fucking season, or whatever. I mean, people are so fucking dumb they didn't even pick up on Jonathan and Nancy breaking up. I don't know how much more that could have been spelled out. I think people in that bubble just think anyone who breaks up does so in an antagonistic way. It's not all the time, but more than enough it's amicable. That said, that moment shouldn't have to be explained. If anything, my biggest issue is with how jarring the end of season 4 was and the beginning of season 5 was just, well, we covered the shit with metal plating. I mean, that was some real end of the world type shit. We eventually got to Dustin pointing out those 4 cracks that opened up were what Henry needed to begin to merge the two worlds, but still, season 4 ends with what looks like the world ending and season 5 picks up nearly two years later. I wanted more of that shock and horror out of this season and they more or less downshifted into the tension you'd see in the first 3 seasons. People need to stop treating this shit like it's as bad as the final season of GoT. It's not. Not even close. That doesn't mean I wouldn't have liked more urgency and more exploring how fucked up the end of season 4 was and instead it was hand waved away with Robin's explainer at the start of the first episode.

Lalo/Tony Dalton was the voice on the other line when Manousos called to speak with Zosia.

Yes. You definitely do. I also feel like I’m in sync with the writing on Vince Gilligan’s shows where I know what the line is going to be before it’s said. I did it again with the last lines of the finale for Pluribus. OH YEAH…Another fun Easter egg cameo

More re Pluribus People complain it’s slow, but honestly, those first seasons of BB and BCS were almost as slow as S1 of the Wire. This was “slow” in the sense that it’s a character study and it made some really huge leaps like the episode where it’s just all Carol and it’s like the scenes of silence in Cast Away. And everyone, especially Rhea Seehorn, fucking nailed it with beautiful camera work and just great acting. Give her the Emmy she deserves. And then you get that finale and suddenly the series which i and others were already suspicious of the joined turns from suspicion to, holy shit, this is the most horrific series I’ve watched in a long time. Even more than Alien: Earth.

Pluribus is one of the best first seasons of tv i have ever seen now that it has concluded and the finale hooked me in an obsessive way that few other series have done. For S1 finales the Shield, LOST, and Severance come to mind, but the feelings turn Pluribus finale evoked in me are some wild swings between horrified and excited.

Just drew has the absolute worst opinions on wrestling.

I moved from GPT to Gemini and I find that to be a better experience in all, but it has the same drawbacks, the main one being that the longer a single chat gets and the more files that get uploaded to it the more it gets confused and lost in the sauce. Through asking it I figured out how to start a new chat and carry it's "memory" of the previous chat over so it wasn't overburdened. Where Gemini excels is that it doesn't slow down like GPT does and I tend to find the answers for particular questions and prompts better, but they're both excellent. I used the Pro version of GPT for a long while and moved over to Gemini and now pay for the premium version of that, which honestly I should have had anyway with my 2 TB Google plan. Part of the reason I started using them was I needed help with resume writing because writing a resume back in 2004 or even 2014 is like an entire century ago compared to how resumes are written now. I do a lot back and forth and make edits and have it do a final check and sometimes I'll bounce over to another LLM to just run it through there to make sure it doesn't read like it was written by AI, to know what the reading level is, to make sure there wasn't anything else I could have missed while proofreading on my own. And with so many businesses using LLM/AI for writing and knowledge management it helps to have a better understanding of generative AI.