- Last night was sorta weird; Stephy threw together a wrestling party, which consisted of firing up the grill and watching wrestling in the backyard (my roommate’s a teacher and managed to borrow a digital projector from the school, so she’ll often hook it up to her iBook to project movies on a wall). Basically, she had a friend, this gay guy, who really likes wrestling and is always trying to get others to check it out (he has a boyfriend who thinks its “okay” but is by no means a hardcore fan). So Steph figured it might be fun to watch some and make a party out of it.
Before I go on, I should perhaps make a confession. I… enjoy professional wrestling. Yeah I know… it sorta gay, watching sweaty guys “grapple” each other. But goddamnit, its sweaty guys in costumes, and that kind of stuff, along with all the cornball antics that goes with it, is precisely why I enjoy it. Its like a living, breathing super hero comic book. Yeah, I know its fake. If anything, it should be faker.
But I’m still very shy about my affinity for sports entertainment, and am very selective when it comes to revealing, and discussing, this “interest” with others. I think it mostly stems from the fact that I’m a pretty open, matter of fact, person. I’ll not at all shy about my “passions”: comic books, video games, Transformers, Canadian sketch comedy, wacky Asian cinema… you know, geeky shit (some of which is no longer “hardcore” and has even been parlayed by the mainstream, but that’s a discussion for another time). You are what you like. But we all need secrets, to enjoy something that others find weird or perplexing, even retarded. Especially if you’re constantly around others who think that watching 12 solid hours of Kids in the Hall or Venture Brothers or Digimon is “totally normal” like myself. And I guess pro-wrestling is my little private thing, even though it became super popular for a while there.
Though I really think it boils down to the fact that I can handle rabid gamers and movie buffs and psycho otaku, but hardcore wrestling fans, for the most part, scare the hell out of me.
Anyway, back to last night: the plan was for the gay guys to provide the wrestling content. What kind of wrestling you might be asking? Women’s wrestling. Now here’s the thing… wrestling has always been considered a bit “queer” due to the obviously homoerotic overtones. But I’m personally in it for the theatrics and all that other nonsense. Still, the misconception is not entirely without merit, so you’d think the sculpted men touching each other would appeal to a bunch of gay dudes, at least more so than seeing women do the same thing, right? Nope, they actually prefer seeing ladies go at it with each other, and here’s another thing… if anyone is at all familiar with women’s wrestling, they’d know that the women really aren’t wrestling per say. Its just a poor excuse to see two females fight (poorly might I add) and tear their clothes off (while in some mud or some kind of food substance, of course) and that kind of stuff I actually find boring. But does that make me gay, for not wanting to see two girls go at it? Not really since I find most of them rather physically repugnant; they’re way too Maximum/porn star quality for my tastes.
So yeah, the guys brought over a WWE “Divas” (their term for their female talent) DVD and the one dude that was totally into the matches “you’re gay, right?” every five minutes. But it was fun to watch, though it always enjoyable when watching it with others who are not at all wresting fans, but don’t have their noses stuck up and genuinely want to know why this person is hating that person, and if that was real blood or not, and why didn’t the referee see that!
BTW, my favorite wrestler is this one guy who truly exemplifies the comic book anthology, in the sense that it’s one character that seems like twenty different ones due to an ever changing-gimmick, like he’s gotten a new writer every year or so that wants to try something new. He started out as a bad-guy, a mute who’s face and body was mostly covered up due to a “childhood accident” involving fire (connecting him to his brother and arch-nemesis, another wrestler who has a zombie/Satanist/biker gimmick himself), eventually got an electronic voice-box (think Stan’s uncle from South Park), was befriend by a bunch of “cool” wresters” that tuned on him, including the new found love of his life who proceeded to make a slew of burnt penis jokes, then eventually became a full-fledged good-guy, was tormented by another bad guy who had sex with the good guy’s dead girlfriend’s body, then lost the mask, revealing that he never had a scarred face in the first place and it was all in his mind, then snapped, becoming a bad guy that set people on fire, and most recently forced some girl to marry him because her boyfriend couldn’t defeat him in a match and therefore won her in a stipulation (the DVD had the wedding, which took place in the middle of the wrestling ring and included, among other things, midgets). See, doesn’t that sound just awesome?! Okay, it’s super dumb, I know, but I still think its better than most of the shit on prime time network TV, like all those retarded reality shows.
- As for today, Joe finally showed me his pages for the anthology and they are fucking unbelievably awesome.
So along with Katie’s contribution, the preview mini for SPX is already looking damn solid. Of course, there’s also supposed to be a third story, from myself, but to be totally honest, I’m afraid anything I come up with will only drag down the other two. Course, that’s provided I even find the time to do it; I’ve been crazy busy with one freelance job after another. Aside from finishing up a Gamasutra piece about Lost In Blue, I’ve just started working on a last minute story for Nick Mag, plus I just started doing consultation work for an ad agency this past weekend and there might be more coming down the pipeline in the next few days.
- There’s nothing terribly exciting to report video game-wise. Nintendo unveiled the Famicom styled Game Boy Mico and it looks pretty damn nice.
But you know… I think I’ll be passing on the whole Micro bandwagon entirely. Yes, they look sexy as hell, but the bottom line is, and take it from someone who’s actually handled the thing, its too damn small. Yeah, the screen is ultra crisp and clear, but if its too small to see then what’s the point? To further illustrate the size, please refer to this very handy chart which some of you might have already seen elsewhere…
Also, I’m going to be buying a DS which will allow me to play GBA games on that, plus I’ll be getting Game Boy Next whenever that come out, so I don’t think I need to spend any more money on something I already have, especially since I already have plans to do so. I’m not this bad.
Though I am willing to reconsider my anit-Micro stance once someone creates a belt-buckle attachment for it (I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo wasn’t already brewing one up).
- Here’s an interesting quote from Peter Molyneux regarding the Revolution’s controller from the recent Game Convention over in Europe:
“There is a line at the end of the book ?Game Over? and it is: ?Never underestimate Nintendo?. That is all I can say about the controller.”
Speculation among the rest of the world as to what the hell it is still runs rampant. Most people continue to bring up the use of gyro-scopes, but more and more are starting to mention force-feedback/tactile responses, which is something I’ve long looked forward to and just might actually be part of the Revolution.
- Nintendogs finally came out in America today. Meanwhile in Japan…
- EBgames introduced their Xbox 360 bundles earlier today. The cheapest of the two comes in at a whopping $600 and that still doesn’t give you the ability to play older games! And the very best part? “Due to the size and weight of this bundle you will be charged an additional $10 shipping and handling fee.
- Some new Shadow of the Colossus screens have been popping up, here and there. These two are my favorite…
- I went game shopping today and ended up getting Sigma Star Saga after-all. Now the mostly negative sentiments have turned into “it gets better after awhile” comments.
I also got Guilty Gear XX#Reload and Otogi 2 for the Xbox, and to my shock and delight, came across a copy of Ninja Five-O at a small game shop in Bay Ridge. Its an awesome old-school Shinobi-esque GBA platformer that’s impossible to find.
- Meanwhile, some sad news from the “real world”: Robert Moog, the man who created the Moog synthesizer passed away on Sunday. If you’re at all a fan of They Might Be Giants, the Beastie Boys, Fatboy Slim, the Cure, or Kraftwerk (among others), then you probably already know (and love) the sound of Moog.
But if not, please check out this rendition of Black Hole Sun by the Moog Cookbook (which I’ve been listening to all day, I guess to pay tribute to passing of Moog the man). Its even better than Chibo Matto’s version, which is way better than the original by Soundgarden (IMHO of course).
