Robert S

I bought the pixel remasters a couple of weeks back and am playing through them backwards chronologically. VI is the game I know by far the best (I played to the World of Ruin at least five times, though I always bounced off before Kefka's Tower). V I have played probably 2/3 through on PSX. Besides that, I have only played I on GBA before. I am not sure if going backwards was that good of an idea, the gap between V and VI is huge in every possible way. V has four (five) fixed characters that all play more or less the same, VI has 14 that all have their distinctive abilities and strength and weaknesses. V has a very nondescript story and a super-boring bad guy, VI has an epic story and probably the best villain in FF history (besides maybe Sepiroth). The characters in V are very bland, many characters in VI go through great story arcs. Technologically VI also felt like a big step forward. The soundtrack in VI has some of the most memorable music in video game history, after spending 25 hours on V, I could not hum a single tune. In some ways, V feels closer to I (at least the GBA remake I played) than to VI.

Did you do an update in the last couple of days? Because switching between pages (without opening a new tab) is now working again for me.

There was also the angle where Hayabusa started to wrestle without a mask and using the name H while Gannosuke wrestled as Hayabusa (while being very obvious that it was Gannosuke under the mask).

Tim Wiese, German keeper who played six games for Germany, also was shortly under WWE contract. Though he only had one match in the end. In general, I would think that wrestling is not a very attractive option for (association) football players. For one, a typical career lasts much longer than a (gridiron) football career does. And I would think that there are much more options to play professionally than there are in (gridiron) football. (Association) football has something like 125.000 professional players worldwide. I would be shocked if the number is higher than 10.000 or 20.000 for (gridiron) football. This also means that there are probably more options for coaching positions in (association) football. The other thing is that athletically, (gridiron) football is much closer to pro wrestling than (association) football is.

FIFA (or EA Sports FC) is even bigger than NFL or Star Wars for EA, I think.

That year's edition was a double-round robin. One of the Kobashi/Patriot matches actually aired in full. Hansen & Omori aired twice in finish-only form. The rest did not air at all - at least they are not available in the "archive".

I just saw that Sabu teamed with Gary Albright in the 96 RWTL, that's certainly a ... team. AJPW sometimes gave you WAR-esque teams at the RWTL.

Not sure if an Austin Powers joke (even if it is a great one) could carry a whole movie.

They switched to WWFE (Inc.) when they went public in 99 (replacing Titan Sports Inc.) until the name change in 02.

That presentation sure had a lot of "Nintendo doing Nintendo" things like almost bookending the presentation with mascot racers. But my favorite has to be that camera. For one, has no one learned the lessons of the hundreds of camera-like accessories in the past? Also why does a camera have to be this big in the year 2025? So that they can put a bigger prize point on that? I really would like to know how that meeting where somebody pitched that camera went.

Please don't tell me that Josh Barnett is a bad dude as well. The worst thing I can think of are his PED issues.

I recently read The Mercy of Gods, the first part of a trilogy by the authors of The Expanse. I really liked the character-focused parts of the story. For example, it depicts a character suffering from depression really well (I am currently myself fighting with depression and could really identify with that character). I am not really sold on the built world and the greater story arch and the book was also really slow in that regards but as it focused more on the personal issues of the characters and did that really well, I did not mind that much. And I know that OSJ hated his writing, but I am reading some Brandon Sanderson stuff right now (Oathbringer, to be precise). I get the main criticism John had for Sanderson (that if you look close enough, you can see the seams of how he builds his worlds and stories) and I guess he was right, but I don't really mind. I mean if I read The Lord of the Rings, I could point out issues in the construction if I wanted to, but I am not reading stuff to criticize it, but to simply enjoy it (John was an editor, IIRC, so he had a different approach to reading, I suppose). Yes, you slightly need to switch off your brain selectively, I guess, but not on a "this writing insults my intelligence" level. In parallel, I am reading some textbooks on astrophysics and cosmology. I have got a background in mathematics (master's degree) and have learned some slightly advanced physics (special relativity and quantum mechanics; I've also read some introductory textbook on general relativity, so I have some basic understanding there, quantum field theory however just eludes me, I tried more than once to get into that subject and no bueno) over the last decade and can follow the basics at least quite well. It's quite shocking actually, how much you can learn about cosmology without a super-duper deep background (if you take a thing or two for granted, mostly reg. general relativity, which the books usually skip and just give the results).

Does Nintendo do any production or at least assembly in Redmond? From what I gather, production of the Switch 1 is mainly done in China and Vietnam. Depending on how the tariff stuff evolves, I am sure Nintendo (as basically anyone) will look into getting around tarrifs by doing local assembly or whatever, but this is nothing that will happen overnight (and with the daily policy shifts, I would assume most companies so far don't go much beyond checking feasibility). I guess India would be a good example to compare to as in recent years (I am not up-to-date as this is not really my daily business) they have been very aggressive re. tariffs that even small-ish companies like the one I am working for have started to look into sourcing and assembling the devices that we sell directly in India (not sure what the outcome was).

That's what Goodman would have looked like if he played the Dude in The Big Lebowski.

The first time I read that name I misread it as "Zamboni Express" and thought it was a Canadian gimmick.

I don't want to sound too grim, but two senior citizens (if you consider 63 senior) found dead? I would assume in 9 of 10 cases that's some form or double suicide or murder-suicide.

Network came out in 1976

Re. the Bronko Lubich talk in the old thread: I am sure I have made that joke before, but between David Manning and Bronko Lubich, World Class had the unstoppable force and the immovable object as refs.

This looks like something that should be a limited series on Amazon Prime Video or so, not a full theatrical release. The existence of this movie has completely passed me by. Apparently, the original idea behind this was for WB not to lose the film rights for the LotR (though in the meantime, WB has signed a new deal for the LotR film license). There are even two live action films in development, with the first one titled The Hunt for Gollum, to be directed by Andy Serkis (I suppose focusing on Aragorn and Gandalf looking for Gollum in between The Hobbit and LotR).

I have started a re-read of the LotR a week or so ago after I realized that I did not read the full thing in like 15 years (I've read the first book about 5-6 years ago but for whatever reason did not continue with the other two parts; I've read the Silmarillion 3 or 4 times in the last 1.5 decades, though). I forgot how the long it takes until Frodo finally leaves the Shire (110 pages). When you think about changes in the movies, you think about the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-downs but tend to forget how much time is spent on the journey from Bad End to Buckland, the "conspiracy" etc. Before that, I have read The Fall of Númenor, a compilation of Tolkien's writing about the Second Age. Reading what actually would be there (if Amazon Studios would pay for the rights of non-LotR stuff), it hurts even more what The Rings of Power actually is (though I must admit that not everything in that series is bad, even some of the things they came up with instead of adapting is actually both quite entertaining and at least to some degree in Tolkien's spirit).

Some details (all numbers are subject to Dave-maths): All new inductees were between 60.2% and 66.7% CIMA, Johnny Saint and Bobby Davis were just one vote above the threshold Roman Reigns (#8 among reporters, #5 among historians, #6 among active wrestlers, #3 among retired wrestlers) Shingo Takagi (#7 among reporters, #11 among historians, #18 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers) Paul Orndorff (#9 among reporters, #7 among historians, #14 among active wrestlers, #19 among retired wrestlers) Johnny Rougeau (#14 among reporters, #4 among historians, #3 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers) Young Bucks (#2 among reporters, #14 among historians, #14 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers) Hermanos Dinamita (#14 among reporters, #1 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #13 among retired wrestlers) CIMA (#17 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historians, #5 among active wrestlers, #5 among retired wrestlers) Johnny Saint (#1 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historians, #2 among active wrestlers, #7 among retired wrestlers) Bobby Davis (#11 among reporters, #8 among historians, #11 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers) Slightly below the 60% were: Bobby Bruns (56.4%) JYD (53.8%) Hayabusa (53.2%) Dorrell Dixon (53.2%) Ted Turner (52.5%) CM Punk (52.1%) June Byers (50.4%) Dropped from next year are: Asuka, Kevin Owens, Usos, Sid, Bray Wyatt, Sami Zayn, Kento Miyahara, Psycho Clown and Huracan Ramirez (the last one because of the "15 years/50% rule", the rest was below 10%) New candidates for next year: Masaaki Mochizuki, Bill Dundee, Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura, Io Shirai, Gilbert DeLuc, Drew McIntyre, Steve Gray, Ted Marino, Les Kellett, Los Infernales, FTR, Mercedes Moné Other top 10 rankings in the different categories and what they did elsewhere: Larry Matysik did not rank top 30 among reporters, #30 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #1 among retired wrestlers Hayabusa #25 among reporters, #25 among historians, #1 among active wrestlers, #21 among retired wrestlers Bobby Bruns #26 among reporters, #2 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #10 among retired wrestlers Randy Orton did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #2 among retired wrestlers Adrian Street #3 among reporters, did not rank among historians, #12 among active wrestlers, #9 among retired wrestlers José Tarres #27 among reporters, #3 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers JYD #4 among reporters, #27 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Otto Wanz did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historials, #4 among active wrestlers, #30 among retired wrestlers Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada did not rank top 30 among reporters, #16 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #4 among retired wrestlers Cody Rhodes #5 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #19 among retired wrestlers CM Punk #6 among reporters, #29 among historians, #22 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Dorrell Dixon #18 among reporters, #6 among historians, #19 active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Von Erichs #20 among reporters, #18 among historians, #7 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Billy Joyce did not rank top 30 among reporters, #21 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #7 among retired wrestlers El Hijo del Santo & Octagon did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historials, #8 among active wrestlers Spyros Arion did not rank top 30 among reporters, #9 among historians, #27 among active wrestlers, #22 among retired wrestlers Tony Schiavone did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historials, #9 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Briscoes did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historials, #10 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers George Gordienko did not rank top 30 among reporters, #10 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Ted Turner #10 among reporters, #17 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers

I have followed suit. Actually, I thought the second season was seven episodes (because both seasons together are 14 episodes so I assumed it was 7 episodes each) and was a bit shocked about the big cliffhanger. There are some great performances (I think Sewell might be one of the great performers of his generation, I have not seen much of Russell before that (I have seen some stuff from her filmography, but I have zero memory of her characters), but I always were thinking about checking out The Americans, so maybe I should give that a watch) and the writing is great. I think I slightly prefer the first season because while the drama and thrillers parts are pretty good, the series really shines when they go screwball comedy and Russell and Sewell have mad chemistry for screwball scenes (and the first season was more heavy on the comedy than season two was).

It had to be a nightmare for Vince just reading the legal names of Los Boricuas: Miguel Pérez Jr., Jesús Castillo Jr. and José Estrada Jr.

WM 3 was less than a year after the André-Maeda debacle so I kind of believe Hogan that he feared that André might have had one of this worse days for whatever reason and the match ending up as some kind of disaster. Of course the part where Hogan claims that he didn't know the plan until basically they were in the ring is just bullshit.

Thankfully I am not the only one who noticed that. I am no expert but don't look most of the interview backgrounds like greenscreens?