Craig H

I've already given up. I'm shocked at how fucking horrible this season is. It's mind-blowing for how much the quality has dipped. Someone needs to give Sorkin a giant bowl of coke because the Newsroom is totally uninspired and boring. It's what I would expect out of a failing NBC drama. I don't even like the dialogue because when the rest of the show is suffering, the dialogue comes off as fake and hokey. Gilmore Girls (a good show, mind you) is light years ahead of the Newsroom as far as dialogue goes at this point. Now, the real money show is Ray Donovan. Ho-ly shit is that show good. Jon Voight plays the biggest creep ever, Liev is awesome, his brothers are seriously messed up, and FRANK F'N WHALEY is a dorky ass FBI agent and goddamn, Frank Whaley looks old as shit now. I'm a little worried because the show is moving along at such a brisk clip that it feels like the show creators had this great idea in mind for this season and so they're just blowing their load, getting every good they had on screen. That's going to leave them with significantly less time to develop as strong of a second season. Call it the Homeland effect.

Putting one of the biggest SUPERSTARS behind a commentary booth is a ridiculous idea... I would be inclined to watch 100% more WWE programming if Austin were on commentary.

I'd love for them to recreate the memorable finish to the Rumble where Benoit won. Have it come down to Bryan and the Big Show or Mark Henry, or both, with Bryan coming out on top.

My day is complete. Well done Zeidler.

I eagerly await a DDP Yoga/Onnit Labs partnership.

I don't know, but all of these guys had to seemingly make way for Tito.

Fuck, what about Tito's cracked skull?!?

HEY, WE CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY THESE WRESTLERS THEIR USUAL NICKEL AND DIME RATE... OH, TITO, TAKE ALL THE MONEYS! Fucking TNA...1 step forward, then a stumble to the right, 3 steps backwards, and then concussed by walking into a low hanging beam. #askdixie has to be blowing up now.

Well that's a bummer.

That's what happens when he pitches in completely meaningless games Yeah, but...I got nothin'

For what it's worth, I can understand how the tone of that reads like an angry response, but my intent was to bust your balls. You're cool

Bought the Back to the Future shirt on ShirtPunch today because it's Back to the Future.

Sorry brother. Hang in there and I hope your mom hangs in there as well.

Damn you for making me laugh out loud at my cubicle. That would be too hilarious. We should just inundate Dave with questions like this until he's forced to answer one.

I will never make this mistake again. However, I will now be way too keenly aware of others making the same mistake.

The rest being discussion over whether or not odessa still has an Observer description, MMA vs Wrestling content, Bryan's annoying voice, and how out of touch Dave is with technology. Hell, 5% of the restaurant talk is people asking why we're talking about restaurants.

I'm actually shocked there haven't been more vocal Red Sox fans talking about how so many people said this would be an off year for them. Meanwhile, I'm happy Edwin Jackson finally started showing up to play in his last few starts. He actually resembles a #2 or #3 pitcher now.

Fine lets talk about how Bryan is the only idiot that thinks the fan who gave Randy Orton a nut shot in South Africa was a complete work. Of course he doesn't probably believe it I figure it is good for his gimmick and to pop the message board. So we can't talk about something else in the wrestling observer thread? Meltzer does only talk wrestling in the Observer, so that's fair, I reckon. You can talk about whatever the fuck you want, just stop being a bitch about it. No one is putting a gun to your or rovert's head saying you can only talk about diners and can't argue with odessa regarding how much he likes the Observer or if there is too much MMA content.

But are we free to talk about greasy spoon diners, 24 hour restaurants, and pancake/waffle houses?

I've been listening to his podcast since the beginning and right away I thought it was awesome because it's freaking Steve Austin, who has seemingly taken on the Stone Cold character full-time, shooting the shit for an hour or so. What I was more surprised by is how excellent he is at interviewing people. He rarely makes it about himself and everyone sounds super comfortable talking to him. I'm now shocked that he doesn't have a radio show. I can't think of a single person who is funnier or more interesting than him when he's killing time, or who is as professional and well spoken during interviews, than Austin. I'm hoping he can get some actors on the podcast too, like Vinnie Jones, Stallone, etc. More MMA guys too. His interview with Paul Barnett was excellent and was only hampered in part two when it was pretty obvious that it was edited to squeeze in as much as humanly possible into an hour. I'm happy he did that instead of cutting stuff out because it was all interesting. And obviously, he has to have CM Punk, The Rock, Undertaker, HHH, and Vince on at some point. I also wonder if he would ever have Hogan, Flair, or Bischoff on. Regarding the latter, Austin made it sound like they were on cool terms now.

Vince is sadistic and is willing to take one (or two) for the team.

I've heard from a lot of people that the pacing in The Wolverine is off-putting. Is that the case?

Emily and Paula could run the table of Challenges, but there's no way they come out winning it all. Paula is notoriously bad at collapsing under pressure and as amazing as Emily is, there's no way she could drag Paula to a first place finish. It does feel like this season is stacked in Emily and Paula's favor though, maybe as a way to finally give Paula a big win. And man, Paula is looking ROUGH these days. If anyone gives them trouble, I could see it being Camilla and Jemmye, even over Aneesa and Diem. Jemmye has Challenge lifer written all over her and is surprisingly tough and I'd rank Camilla below Emily as far as toughest competitors go. Only problem is, neither is the brightest bulb in the bunch, so that could hurt them. Plus, Jemmye has one of those Maury Povich phobias. I almost want to go back to the episode with the girl who was deathly afraid of pickles and see if Jemmye was on that episode as well due to her fear of ketchup. So as long as there are no puzzles, or anything involving ketchup, they'll be fine. Agreed on Knight and Jemmye too. I'm not sure if I'm getting old or what, but the girls are looking worse and worse. I have no idea what anyone sees in Jemmye, Jonna, that one girl that CT was fawning over, etc. Seriously, Cooke is RIGHT THERE Knight, what are you doing?! My God is Knight dumb, and lazy. Somehow, someway, they need to get Knight and Isaac on a team. Regarding Diem, there is a narcissistic, self-destructive nature to her, isn't there? I don't know if anyone followed her blog during her latest bout with cancer, but she is seriously playing with fire. I don't want anything to happen to the girl, but I fear one of these days we're going to get the end of the episode titles and there's going to be an "in memoriam" for her. The gist of it is that her cancer came back and the doctor urged her to have a full hysterectomy asap. She instead chose to harvest and freeze her eggs because she so desperately wants to be a mother, putting her at risk of the cancer being inoperable. It is maybe the most short-sighted way of behaving in a situation like that, especially considering that we're now living in a world where more and more at-risk women elect to have voluntary hysterectomies and mastectomies to drastically reduce their chances of getting cancer. I get why she wants to be a mom, but what good is that if she's dead? I have had two friends in similar shoes and each decided to adopt because there are so many kids out there that need a home and it would be too selfish to bring a child into the world and then sadly leave that child without a mother. As for the dudes, Leroy is still the best. Every season, even if Leroy gets eliminated, he should be allowed to stay in the house just because. I'm hoping he and Ty win and I don't think Ty is all that bad of a guy, but he is a little douchey. I'm surprised at the backseat Johnny Bananas has taken this season. He's normally the star of the show, getting more on screen time than anyone else, and this season, he's just kind of there. I think he makes it to the finals, but Frank winds up holding him back. Zack...I don't know what season Zack is from, but he looks like a pro wrestler. My wife had a holy shit reaction to him, remarking that he's way bigger than CT and Ty, who were two of the more jacked up guys on the show. When Zack and Trey went into that Challenge, I was hoping Zack would just demolish all of the bamboo walls in front of them, and then in a brief clip, he actually tried to do that. Way to go, hoss. Then there's Wes, who looks like he's off the juice completely and just doesn't care anymore. I think he ultimately is the cause for him and CT missing out on making it to the finals. Then again, if CT could drag Adam to an inch away from making it to the finals, maybe they do have a shot.

That is the thing, though. Cena is the perfect Vince guy and they have played him up as the perfect Vince guy for years. What is throwing most people off is the sudden anti-Cena stuff out of nowhere. I agree that it is a tad random, but they do have history going back to the Summer of Punk-ish angle and you could say that Cena was as responsible as Punk for the board of directors giving Vince the boot. I'm actually a tad surprised that a reveal hasn't been made that Vince was behind Nexus, Brock Lesnar's return, the Shield, and depending on their direction, the Wyatts. It's one of those reveals that actually works despite how obvious it would be looking at it in hindsight. All he would need to say is that Cena lacks toothless ruthless aggression, he's too goody-goody, and he's disgusted by how Cena won't turn no matter how much the live crowd's despise him. He put the Nexus together, freed up the money so a company officer could agree to Paul Heyman's contract demands for Lesnar so Lesnar could stomp out Cena and HHH (negative feelings towards HHH because he is the guy taking the company from Vince), gave all-access to the Shield for each venue the WWE was at, and the Wyatts represent the darker, more sick and twisted side of Vince's mind. Vince, the person and the character, is so self-destructive that he could also say anyone else impacted by any of those groups or wrestlers is just collateral damage and is expendable. Since it's so easy to boo Vince, it would be a good way to at least dull how much Cena is boo'ed if Vince was behind attacks on Cena, Punk, Bryan, etc. Battleground would be great too if it was capped off by a WarGames style match. Cena's Squadron: Cena, Bryan, Punk, and HHH vs The New Dangerous Alliance: Orton, Brock, and two of the Wyatts.

Last time I was at IHOP was 5 or 6 years ago after shutting down a bar around 4am and it is one of the few times I have hardly any memories of. All I remember was getting there, laughing a lot, and not eating anything I ordered. Steak 'n Shake is the ultimate in cheap 24 hour dining though, and if you don't have one in your town, I feel bad for you.