Robert S

For those living outside of the US, i.e. are using the "real" Network, not Peacock: the new app for PS4 is complete crap. A lot of stuff is not listed anymore, i.e. you have to search for things explicitly instead of browsing through stuff. Also the app is full of very obvious bugs, like the stuff you would maybe see in an alpha version of a software (for example in some menus the select bar is completely broken or in most views instead of a number of totally available videos you get (obviously not working) code {voidCnt} (or something like that)). It seems to be mostly a front-end issue, as the web-thing looks fine (the structure is still shit, but the bugs are not there and you can find things if you know how instead of having to use the search function).

For those curious who drove an Uber during the pandemic: it was Psycho Clown - apparently he also sold bathroom furniture and installed it to make ends meet.

Sapphire is already named in the original tweet (or is there a new noun now?).

Janie Engle, not Jamie Other people on the list: Barry Rose (Florida wrestling historian and organizer of fan fests), Mark Nulty (announcer and commentator, e.g. ROH in 2004-ish), Jim Melby (wrestling historian and magazine editor), Fred Hornby (wrestling historian) Actually, as longer as I look on the list, there are loads of people whose name you would have encountered if you listened to a couple of episodes of Between the Sheets. There is Pete Lederberg who was a co-host a couple of times or Ken Jugan, Elio Zarlenga and Greg Mosorjak who published a wrestling newsletter (together with Hildebrand and Lederberg). Also it would be interesting if Haruo Yamaguchi is/was related to Wally (Yusuke) Yamaguchi.

I read Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb (which I think is kind of the standard text about the Manhattan Project - at least in terms of popular science books) about a decade ago and don't remember anything discussions in the direction of negligence. I suppose the combination of completely new science, lack of experience how to deal with radioactive material, time pressure, size of the project etc. just made the couple of accidents inevitable.

Come on, movies have already told us that nuclear explosions are not that devastating if you know what you are doing: Not having seen the movie yet (maybe this weekend if I can find an OV screening), it's not that surprising that a movie about Oppenheimer would not have the same effect as let's say The Day After or On the Beach.

I have to let this one sit a bit, but my first reaction is that it is just fine - and I love both Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds. The whole thing felt stretched, I think this would have worked much better as a 25 minute Lower Decks special than as a 45 minute SNW episode.

I actually don't have a strong opinion on this merger, but I never trust anyone using the phrase "wasting the taxpayers' money", no matter the context or political party.

Dan Kroffat also comes to mind.

That stupid Bullet Club logo took me 10 minutes alone or so, I basically had to guess & check every single letter in between the beginning and the end.

They just want to make sure that GRR Martin gets enough time to finish The Winds of Winter before he gets back to TV dragons.

I have been asked by more than one teacher if I am related to Egyptians because my handwriting looks like hieroglyphs. But at least since I finished University, I sometimes considered my bad handwriting even as a blessing. I have been in more than one meeting where I could scribble down notes without having to fear that the people around me could read them, i.e. no filter is necessary.

Correct, who in their right mind would give Matthew Broderick a lead role in 2023? Oh you mean... To be serious: I have not seen Dopesick (because, well, I am also usually not that keen on anti-comfy-food on my TV), but just looking at the premise, Painkiller does not seem to try to cover a new angle and Dopesick was critically acclaimed, so the main two reasons for this getting made now are (1) Netflix vs. Hulu and (2) award bait.

That looks like the kind of writing when you get a pen and a piece of paper put into your hands but you don't have any desk or similar as base (or whatever the correct word is here, I don't like the translations my dictionary gives me).

Plus obviously Hieracon (Jonathan Gresham) is busy in Impact.

I see what you did there, nicely done - though I guess this got past most people who have not read Ringmaster.

Come on, if we would take a survey here about the quality of WWF TV during the most Russo-rific era, the results would be pretty clear. And regarding the second point: for decades, if there was the need to draw big in Japan, the big companies mostly went for the (supposed) "realistic" approach, even if it not always worked out (Inoki-ism, obviously). You will definitely find a lot of silly things in Japanese pro wrestling (on all levels) long before M. Bison Takada, no-one would argue that. Again: to me the gif is a product of its time, "if in doubt try Attitude stuff" - something they should have been way past 5-10 years after the fact. Up to this day WWE is glorifying the late 90ies (how many documentaries have they created for the Network that in one way or the other cover that time period?). Yes, audience-wise, that was (at least on a national level) the most successful WWF/WWE has ever been. Yes, you can condense all those hours of TV into entertaining clips. But if you watch all this stuff back, chances are your most positive thoughts would be along the lines of "it was a product of its time", "some PPVs are fine", "that show at least had a fun 3 minute Mark Henry / Scorpio / Bossman match", "I was young back then" etc. The gif (to me) is not trying to portray Mexican or Japanese wrestling as being superior to American wrestling, it is trying to criticise the glorification of a period that does not hold up.

The gif is about 15 years old, it was created in a time where when the ratings did not go the way Vince wanted his first reaction was to bring back some Attitude act/gimmick, usually himself, sometimes DX or similar. I hope we can agree that (1) mid 98 to late 99 Attitude era WWF was awful (I recently tried to go through the Raws of that period and at some point between King of the Ring and Summerslam, the program became unwatchable) and (2) a nostalgia act based on horrible ideas usually sucks even more. I always took the gif in that context that at that point WWE (TNA was also guilty of that) considered one of their worst eras artistically as their big legacy.

I prefer the original: http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e112/fadedsoul2099/wrestlingjoke.gif EDIT: hmm... the embedding of the gif does not work, maybe this does:

Of the three chess games Kirk played, in the first one they definitely used the ending of the Carlsen-Karjakin match: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2016#Game_16:_Carlsen–Karjakin_1–0 I did not recognize the other two games (if those were famous games as well), the last game was barely visible at all anyway. I was actually surprised that the did not use the "Opera Game" (Murphy vs. Duke of Brunswick & Count Isouard) which is often used on TV (e.g. in the Columbo episode "The Most Dangerous Match", but I have seen it on other occasions as well, I think once on Numb3rs, for example).

So are they trying to say Finn is dead and he has been replaced by a look-alike?

I had a similar experience and know what you mean: a local guy (about 20 years ago) when taking a Styles Clash from Chris Hero tucked his chin and got dropped straight on his head. He had a neck injury and was temporarily paralyzed. The show was almost immediately stopped (somehow they still did a finish - Hero put on some kind of chinlock). Thankfully, the guy's neck was only partially broken and he could walk again a couple of hours later or so. That was his final wrestling match though, he returned as a referee, however. Regarding Droz: I guess he had a reduced life expectancy, I just hope he did not suffer in the end.

What about the Texas Outlaws?

Just watching his WCW run I would suppose that at least professionally there had to be a bunch of people who were not very happy about him. Often he gave his opponents very little in the ring, even in matches that were designed to be competitive. I don't think I have ever seen it, but there is the Berlyn debut match where Duggan apparently sold little - in a match where Duggan's only job was to get Berlyn over. I have seen a bunch of matches where you think that on paper "that might have been a fun match" but in the end Duggan took 90% of the match barely selling anything.

The last time I've seen it (3-4 years ago), I actively disliked the Summerslam match. The work itself was fine, but the Flair + Mr. Perfect stuff was a big detriment, killing all the flow of the match. And the whole payoff of the storyline was, that Flair got to be transitional champion.