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I was skeptical, but the Lana/Nia Jax angle has swayed my opinion on Lana. I've gone from not really having much of an opinion on her to wanting her and the angle off my tv. I don't think this angle would get Trish Stratus or "I'm a Hugger" Bayley over, but Lana isn't nearly as sympathetic as either of those two. I don't feel like Lana connects with an audience well. Outside of the Bridgitte Nielsen cosplay, I've never really had a handle on her character or felt like she was projecting as either a heel or a face. Rest of show was ok. Bray and Alexa don't do anything for me personally, but the act seems to be working for a decent percentage of the audience. Figured Vince was going to do a title change before SS. Was hoping Hurt Business would take the belts from New Day, though I suspect New Day/Street Profits is the bigger draw for SS. Not too interested in SS outside of Asuka/Sasha and Roman. Was sort of hoping Randy would hold on to the title and they'd convince him to to put Roman over to make the Tribal Chief look like a world beater. Though Vince would probably never let the Raw champion look that weak. Assume Drew and Roman are going to give 50-50 and both be well-protected.

I’m guessing Vince is going to have something to say about talent not taking a vaccine. Can you let employees who work in live events, service industries, retail, etc. work around the public without being vaccinated? Besides the health implications, what’s your legal exposure? My firm’s already talking about how to handle this. We work in a building with hundreds of other people and a lot of us typically work on-site at client’s offices. I know of other employers discussing this. It seems almost impossible to let people return to offices and in-person classes without requiring vaccinations.

Yeah, kinda. It's sort of a mix of Breath of the Wild, Shadow of the Colossus, and Journey, with Journey being the strongest influence. Your character is dropped into a huge open-world and your main task is to find obelisks scattered throughout the map. When you light every obelisk, you can take on the giant cursed guardian that roams that region. Once you defeat the boss, you move on to a different part of the island and basically repeat the process. The boss battles were very well done, but the best part for me was the opening chase sequence. Lighting the obelisks weakens the bosses so they run from you at first and it's very cool to chase them down and force them to stand and fight. I wanted more out of the boss battles. Instead. it's a lot of Journey-style exploration. I'm not really down on it. The other other thing I didn't really like was this speed mechanic where you power up spirit energy so you can zoom along at a fast pace. Your movement speed never felt right to me. Normal running seemed too slow, the dashing was too fast for my liking. At times, you can zoom along at a Vanquish-like pace, Like I said, I enjoyed it a lot, but I think I set my expectations too high. It's in my top 15-20 for 2020, but probably not my top 10. But it's been a good year for gaming, so that's not exactly a bad thing, Even with the pandemic, Sony's had a great year. Off-topic, i really wish they'd developed a PS4 port of Astro's Playroom.

I thought it was common knowledge, but not sure. Names, merch rights, and contracts were discussed quite a bit 10+ years ago when indy guys first started getting signed. There was some controversy about wrestlers getting released and not being allowed to use names they had used previously because WWE owned the trademarks. As I recall, WWE would have preferred to use Bryan Danielson’s and Low-ki’s Indy gimmick names, but Ki wouldn’t agree and Danielson was using his real name so it couldn’t be trademarked. i tend to think things have changed, but according to Meltzer and others who were covering the business 10 years ago, WWE was asking most talent to sign over rights to their gimmick name in some fashion. This has been backed up in a few shoots and such. My impression was that the company eventually started renaming everyone largely because it was the easiest way to control merch rights. I’m fairly sure Meltzer had said as much. i do wonder how much control talent had over their names in the first place. I ‘m skeptical the average indie wrestler thought to trademark his or her gimmick name. More likely, WWE just explained what they intended to do and the wrestler went along with or was told they couldn’t be signed if they resisted. I’m also assuming there were exceptions. iirc, Punk negotiated a better deal and rights to the name reverted back to him after he left. I’d be surprised if AJ didn’t negotiate a better deal, though AJ has always insisted he’s going to retire after his WWE contract expires. Did WWE keep making Punk merch after he left? I don’t remember. Most of what I said above was was reported elsewhere - probably by Melzer. He talked about this issue a lot 10-12 years ago. As far as being an internet contract lawyer, not me. I have taken a contract law class or two, but that was 25 years ago and I didn’t graduate. I had planned to graduate law school but a serious drinking problem got in the way and my girlfriend announced she wouldn’t marry me unless I pulled myself together and then found a new career. Since she was implying she’d be willing to marry down, I decided I should listen to her.

That's a self-serving argument. "Your honor, I wouldn't have robbed that man in the first place if the police had let me make a living robbing other people." Onlyfans has a reputation as a softcore porn site. Not a lot of employers are going to let themselves be associated with that. People seem to be under the impression that being an independent contractor means the employer can't bar certain activities or make demands of the worker. That's not at all true. I do a fair bit of consulting work outside my day job and my consulting clients have me sign the same sort of agreements my primary employer does. Sometimes, that means passing on work with certain clients. Not always fair, but the client's within his rights to ask, and I can agree or not. For that matter, my day job requires approval of outside work. There's a very vague clause in my contract where I agreed to that, so... Actually, they do. Or, at the very least, they own sole rights to use the name for a specified period of time (permanently?). This happened because AJ and Mia agreed to it in a legally binding contract (signed by them under their real names) - else WWE wouldn't be producing merch in their names. Shoot names are like any other intellectual property. They can be transferred to another owner if the current owner agrees to it and the contract is legally executed. Contracts can be voided by the courts, but that's only done under certain circumstances. Usually, voiding a contract involves proving that one party didn't uphold their end of the agreement, proving that the contract was negotiated in bad faith (one party was deceived or not made aware of relevant facts they should have known besides signing the contract), or proving the contract cannot or was not legally executed (one party didn't have the right to sell the item or service, the contract wash't properly signed and witnessed by all parties, the contract is unenforceable because it violates some state or federal law, etc.). Generally, if you know what you're agreeing to when you agree to it, the contract is valid. You don't have to like the terms or agree with them so long as you sufficiently understand what you are agreeing to. It's not usual anymore for employers to crack down on workers activities outside the workplace, especially if money is involved. From what Meltzer said, Vince informed talent of the new policy then asked them to sign new contracts containing language about use of social media platforms like Twitch. Apparently, most workers agreed. It doesn't sound like anyone was deceived about the new policy or tricked into signing. They work in a profession where they get dropped on their heads. Maybe diminished capacity is the best argument to make in court?

Finished The Pathless. IMO, it's simultaneously wonderful and a little disappointing. I highly enjoyed it and, from a design perspective, it's an outstanding piece of environmental storytelling. That's not a surprise. Director/lead designer Matt Nava used to work for thatgamecompany and was art director of Journey and Flower. The Pathless also looks stunning. But, it's exploration-based so it's a little bit more of a walking simulator than I wanted. KInda wanted more to do at times, or to have the plot driven forward with more urgency. Again, not a surprise. Journey, Flower, and Abzu were all in the same vein. Not a lot of combat. There are some epic encounters with enormous bosses, but those aren't as big a part of the game as I expected. The best part of boss battles is the first part of the encounter, where the creature runs from you and chase it through a flaming forest or whatever. On the hole, boss fights were fine but they felt a little samey by the end of the game. On the whole, i highly recommend The Pathless but I kind of expected it to be in my personal top 10 for the year and it's probably just shy of that. I have a feeling it's not even the best of my November games. I've played a little Miles Morales and am planning to dive into it seriously tonight, but loved what I saw and the reviews have been outstanding. Also played some Astro Bot at a neighbor's (no PS5 yet) and it seems wonderful.

Stumbled across Searching yesterday on FXX and watched it. Effective little movie for the most part, until the twist ending. I actually had the twist spoiled for me when the movie hit theaters several years ago, but forgot about it until the movie sprung it on me and I kinda went "Oh, yeah. I knew that.". To say the twist doesn't work for me is an understatement. It really becomes a different sort of movie after that reveal, and it's really incredibly coincidental that that character would be in the right place when the call came in and be able to manipulate events like that. Until then, I thought the film was a decent drama and a sly commentary on how little we actually communicate when we rely on technology and social media to keep us connected. I did feel like the gimmick was stretched thin in spots. Everything is told through devices - screen grabs of online searches, FaceTime calls, footage from smart phone cameras, etc. Even when the main character is out in the middle of nowhere searching for his daughter, the story is told through FaceTime and voice mails, The scene where John Cho's character gets into it with his brother took me out of it a bit because the camera view is segmented into a four-panel screen (security camera?) and I kept wondering why the hell the guy had so many cameras in his house.

The problem is Zelina doesn't seem to have been fired for being pro-union (though that was probably a factor). She apparently was fired for refusing to comply with Vince's directive to shut down her Twitch account and whatever other social media platforms he was wanting control of. Also, per Meltzer, the onlyfans account was making the company nervous (I don't blame them there). The onlyfans association makes me think reputable organizations (like SAG-AFTRA) will not want to wade too deeply into this issue on Vega's behalf. I don' t necessarily agree with Vince's directive about Twitch, but..... the company owns the ip's. Legally, they don't have to let the talent make money off their gimmick names without some oversight, and they probably shouldn't since that would probably eventually lead to talent endorsing pornhub under their character name or something equally stupid. I was trying to think of the closest analogue to the situation talent is in. Actors aren't allowed to promote themselves using the names of their characters without the studio's permission, but that's not really the same thing. Most actors who would be able to make money off their character are probably reasonably well known under their real name. Voice actors, maybe? Unless you're voicing a role in the Simpsons or Bob's Burgers, voice actors are mostly little known unless you're really into the industry. There are a lot of professional voice actors working in anime and video games who are basically unknown under their real names even to fans of the shows and games.

Supposedly there were long term plans for in place for Awesome Truth, but Vince got pissed and scrapped them when Truth failed a drug test. They got jobbed out (and didn't really look good) to Cena & Rock in the Survivor Series match. Miz attacked Truth and broke up the team the next night on RAW. Truth's wellness violation and suspension were announced the following morning.

Doesn't anyone still watch Supernatural? I would have thought the Castiel thing would provoke a reaction from the board's progressives. I kinda want the time I've spent on Supernatural back. I've never really liked the show that much or watched it weekly, but every year, I seem to get bored on a summer or holiday weekend and marathon the latest batch of eps. Didn't hatewatch it, but kept watching for some reason I can't explain. Imo, the show should have ended when Kripke left. I'm not even a big fan of the Kripke seasons, but after that, the show had the same problems in season 6 as it had in season 15. Poor scripting, lack of character development, interesting plot turns that never went anywhere or got wrapped up with in a satisfying, dramatic manner. The show reinvented itself every couple seasons, but it was more slapping a new can of paint on an old framework. God as a big bad wasn't much different than Amaya or the various angel big bads or the demons of the first couple years. New face, same formula. I had some hope for the last season+ which riffed on Preacher and threw out the idea that everything bad that happens to humanity (and the Winchesters in particular) is simply God screwing with us because he's bored, but after an interesting setup, the show went back to the formula. The finale was literally a fist fight between God - an all-powerful cosmic presence - and Sam and Dean. And it ended with a plot twist borrowed from every Rocky movie. Lol

#Itsstillrealtomedammit It's probably just as well. Your chances of dating Lexi/Alexa are probably a lot less than your chances of being pepper sprayed by her and having your face shoved in the concrete by a smelly cop who forgot to use deodorant before his shift started. That's probably not your thing. (And, if it is your thing, there are probably other places to get that, particularly if you're willing to leave a few bucks on the nightstand afterwards.)

Yeah, they both were champs through the first four of months of 2019. Morrison lost the Impact title to Brian Cage (irrc) in April. Taya kept the Knockouts title until the following January.

Am I the only one who disliked Rey by the end of the feud? I'm not suggesting it's some sort of bizarro WWE booking where the heel seems like he should be the face or something, but... I didn't really feel like cheering weirdly controlling angry dad Rey while he yelled at Aliyah for seeing Murphy. Pushing his kids into the spotlight hasn't done Rey any favors.

I don't really have an issue with it. I've just never seen a company rep - any company - refer to their customer base and assholes and idiots. I've never applied a skin. No idea how difficult it is.

This has to be a joke. dbrand is refunding orders for PS5 skins because the “assholes” and “idiots” the company sells its products to won’t be able to apply them correctly. That’s supposedly the company’s language, not mine. https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/11/dbrand_refunds_ps5_skin_pre-orders_because_you_assholes_wont_be_able_to_apply_them

Wonder how interested media outlets will be after the Onlyfans account comes out? IMO, it's not hard to spin that as something kind of unsavory. Apparently, a lot of her release is the Onlyfans account combined with not turning her other social media accounts (Twitch?) over to the company. Though Meltzer did say Vince appears to be wanting to pick a fight over the unionization issue, but Dave seems unsure talent will bite.

Seth being betrayed by Murphy one week later made him (Seth) look like a dolt. Of course, he probably would have sussed this out for himself if he had bothered to watch Smackdown last week. The segment with Murphy telling Aliyah to trust him made it obvious Murphy was gaslighting Seth. So maybe he is a dolt. Didn't notice Chelsea got hurt. Wondered why they called her up just to have her be a non-factor in a four-way.

I'm getting that way about my limited edition Star Wars Xbox 360 (S). I love it and still play it regularly, but I know it's getting time to put it back in the box for good. I just got too many consoles hooked up and now that two new ones are going to get priority soon, something's got to give. And, as much as I dig the 360, there's not a lot of reason to use the 360 hardware anymore. The majority of my 360 library can be played on the Xbox One or Xbox Series X via backwards compatibility. And a good percentage of the rest got remastered or ported to PS4. I am going to keep my X360 collection intact. Not going to sell the retail editions and I still have the boxes and packing for all the hardware. I'll probably sell my Xbox One once they have the kinks worked out of the X Series and I.m playing it regularly. I bought in late in the life cycle and really only picked up the exclusives, so it's not a huge deal to migrate the library to the Series X. Especially since I'll pick up the X Series edition of the Master Chief Collection and Cuphead and the Ori games ended up on other consoles. That... doesn't leave a whole lot. Guessing I won't go back to the older Forza games once the two series' debut on the new console.

I might have considered rooting for Jones as a kid, but, even then, I thought his stable was weak. I mostly thought of the Army as a group of jobbers-to-the-stars. They never seemed to mesh well as a stable and even at a young age, I figured out that a lot of them weren't going to win the big matches. I think a lot of guys just didn't appeal to my younger self. I didn't really dig Baron von Raschke, Teijo Khan, Shasta Whatley, the Barbarian, the Russian Assassins, etc. I did get into a couple of those guys later on. And I should have been into Rude and Manny Fernandez back then, but wasn't. I didn't Boogie Woogie at the time, though looking back... well. I don't think I've ever hated Valiant, but, if you made me rewatch enough of his matches, I might be willing to change my mind. I don't blame Vince for Ricochet not getting over. He does some amazing stuff in the ring, but I don't think I ever watched him in the indies and thought "that guy has the tools to get over in the WWE."

Nope. Never used it.

I wonder if Karl Malone can still go..... I'd wager he still owns those purple pleather pants.

I went home at lunch and played a bit of Pathless and Miles Morales. Just enough to get a peek at each. For some reason, my wife thought I came home to have lunch with her. She wasn't thrilled when I told her I didn't have time because I wanted to play video games. I will probably buy flowers on the way home tonight.

Was the Conti match as bad as the last couple minutes looked? I randomly flipped by and caught the end of the match and it just seemed like they were flailing out there. Commentary said something about Conti being out of it and I started wondering if she was genuinely concussed. Then there was the low dropkick to the side of the head which seemingly connected and sold by commentary only for Conti to pop right up like it missed. Only caught two segments and read the spoilers, so I can't judge the show, but.... not for me, I think. I guess Kingston's faction is splitting up already? They seemed like they were turning on Fenix last night, so I'm assuming Fenx is now a babyface? Pac too? Kinda hoping the Jericho angle has eveyone else turning on Jericho and joining MJF. Not really into the idea of any of those guys as babyfaces. I wonder if the Shaquille stuff is really going anywhere. Shaq's 48 and doesn't look in anything resembling ring shape to me. I'm not sure where I got the idea, but I was under the impression he has health issues.