AxB

Just started re-reading American Tabloid by James Ellroy, because I got Blood's a Rover for Chrimbo and it was so long since I read the first two parts of the Underworld USA trilogy, I thought I'd better do all three. Before that, I read Low Midnight by Carrie Vaughn, which is part of the Kitty Norville series, about a Werewolf with a radio show. It's a bit... you know when someone starts a series of books and it's a personal story of a regular person with a regular life, but they keep coming back to it and showing more of the world, and more perspectives on things, but it somehow ends up being an "Only we can save the world" deal? The series has kind of done that. It used to be a personal story and now it's a modern crusade against an ancient evil. This one was a change of pace because it made a secondary character the lead and had the usual lead as a more peripheral figure. But it was still building to the big apocalypse level event that it didn't need to be building to. Before that, I read The Girl with all the Gifts by M R Carey, which is the book that's the same as The Last of Us, but different. They're both post-apocalyptic stories of a world where the Cordyceps fungus has mutated to affect humans and that destroyed society 20 years before, and they're both about a young girl who is infected but somehow not a raging zombie monster, who is forced to go on a road trip with a reluctant parent figure. But other than that, they're completely different. Except It was made into a movie recently. They race-swapped three of the five main characters, turning a black woman in her 40s to a white woman in her 20s, a white ten year old girl into a mixed race teenage girl, and a ginger haired 21 year old into a black 21 year old. Because if you're going to annoy the sort of people who are annoyed by this sort of thing, you should really go for it.

Why is it that every hero in every drama has to have a mentor who's a father figure to them, but it's never their actual Dad? Are scriptwriters saying that if you want your kids to be heroic, it's your duty as a parent to die horribly while they're very young? When I eventually get around to writing the script about a non-Maverick cop who follows all the rules and isn't an alcoholic fuck-up or anything, I'll make sure he has a great relationship with his Dad. And his Step-Dad. And his Grandad too.

Now I've watched Daredevil season two. It was a big mess. Let's dedicate most of our screen time to having a guy dressed mostly in black fighting a bunch of guys dressed entirely in black, in dimly lit rooms at night. The whole Daredevil & Elektra half of the plot took ages and went nowhere. The Punisher stuff was good, but it really killed the need to have a Punisher show, because he's mission accomplished now. I was wondering why they raced through his storyline (after the pace of season one, it made me think this would be similar) and explained everything that was happening perfectly, while the whole Hand vs Stick was sluggish and basically nonsensical. Also, how is it permanently night-time in Matt's apartment? He doesn't own curtains! They were cutting back and forth from Foggy & Karen in the courtroom to Matt & Elektra at home, and it was dark in Matt's living room.

By casting Sean Bean to play him, obviously.

I'm hoping for Nicola Adams, but she's more likely to go with Pro Boxing. Being a boxer and all. This thing closes in 3 days. Is it just going to be me vs Supreme vs Elsavaje (who hasn't posted his picks yet, but surely will)? See how you have to have different predictions to everyone else? If someone picks the exact opposite of someone's pick (like, I said Mickey Gall will lose twice, if someone else says he'll lose one or fewer times), is that still cheating via plagiarism? Or can you pick the contradict?

This originally aired on TNA telly:

Taboo starring Tom Hardy, written by Tom Hardy and his Dad, Chips Hardy. Started on BBC 1 last sunday. Also, that Idris Elba Muay Thai documentary starts next week, on Discovery (UK).

Mitch Winehouse? TMZ? A plague on both their houses.

Meanwhile, in India, the biggest film of 2016 was a Wrestling movie. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/09/wrestling-drama-dangal-beats-bollywood-box-office-records-aamir-khan There's English subtitles if you click the rightmost thingy at the bottom left.

OK, this former champion will have been without the belt for more than a full year before the rematch takes place. Is that OK?

Okay, replacement for #4: A former UFC Champion will compete for the belt they lost (ie same weight class), and lose.

After RAW? AFTER a show that finishes at 4 in the morning? Great idea!

I'll go with Predictions first: 1: Mickey Gall will lose two UFC matches in 2017 2: Across all televised UFC shows this year (Fight Pass, Fox, Fox Sports, PPV) they will use ten or more different commentary combinations (not including special guest for this one fight deals). 3: A UFC title will change hands on a card held outside the United States of America. 4: The Soulja Boy vs Chris Brown celebrity Boxing match will not actually happen (nb: I have a backup prediction if this is ineligible). 5: An Olympic Gold medallist of some description will sign a UFC deal. HW (265lbs): Alexander VolkovLHW (205lbs): Daniel CormierMW (185lbs): Robert WhittakerWW (170lbs): Donald CerroneLW (155lbs): Tony FergusonFW (145lbs): Max HollowayBW (135lbs): TJ DillashawFlyW (125lbs): Demetrious Johnson, obviouslyWomens Featherweight (145lbs): Valentina ShevchenkoWomens Bantamweight (135lbs): Amanda NunesWomens Strawweight (115lbs): Joanna Jedrzejcek

For anyone wondering how this whole tweeting Wendy's thing started, watch from 4:21 Although watching the first story would be entertaining as well. In a 'And I thought backyard Wrestlers were dumb' way.

Kurt Angle. So he can be inducted into 2 Halls of Fame in Orlando.

Jericho said in Kerrang that they're targeting April for the next Fozzy album (but he was probably working them). They are booked on the main stage at Download this year though.Weekend of June 9th-11th... but that pretty much means touring all summer.

Jessica Jones is set in Hell's Kitchen though, right? So whenever anyone mentioned enhanced people, surely Daredevil would be the first name on the local's lips, because he's right there on their doorstep, unlike the remote celebrity heroes you hear about on TV but never see anywhere real. Although the Hulk did smash up Harlem eight or nine years ago, and they do bring up the big green guy a lot.

Self-quoting because I have since discovered that Hell's Kitchen is on Manhatten Island (I know nothing of New York geography and assumed it wasn't). So for all those 'lets go down to the river and discuss things with skyscrapers in the background' scenes in Daredevil, the characters actually took a bridge (or a ferry) off-island to have that conversation. Anyway, I finished watching Jessica Jones. It's pretty fucked up. I really liked it, I think it could probably appeal quite a lot to people who don't normally Superhero stories. The opening titles really don't fit the tone of the first season though - they make it look like a Private Eye show, which it really only is for the first half of the first episode. It's mostly a show about a damaged person dealing with things, who very occasionally shows that she's good at finding things out about people. I'm surprised that they didn't do more to tie it in to Daredevil - considering the last episode of Daredevil S1 had a public figure being arrested for organised crime, an attack on an FBI convoy to spring him, and a costumed Superhero re-arresting him (and being named on the front page of the newspaper). Did all of Jessica Jones occur concurrently with Daredevil somehow, but nobody even mentioned that millionaire philanthropist Wilson Fisk was here to save the city? Wouldn't someone with a talk radio show probably want to bring that up as a topic?

Some New York Giants had Monday off and went on a boat in Florida with a couple of famouses. Outrage ensued in some American Sports media. Even some English people heard about it.

On my first playthrough, I called FemShep Helen, after Dr Helen Sharman (first British person in Space). Some months later, I found out about Shep being named after Alan Shepard (the first American in Space).

Most of my ME3 online characters ended with names like "Volus Adept" or "Salarian Engine" (I ran out of characters) or "Stealth Geth". The early ones had names like Ax Blood, Ax Theory, Blood Theory et cetera, but when I realised that your PSN name appears instead of the character name I stopped using variants of my PSN name and started being unimaginative instead.

In terms of characters, I think they're going for the idea that this is Mass Effect, but not as you know it. That the characters who agreed to leave the Milky Way behind and start over in Andromeda are mostly outcasts and rogues, and so you'll meet Turians who are anarchists and that. And Peebee rejecting whatever her Asari name was to go by that is an aspect of that concept. Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, like.