Hello! Can you believer the 7th month of the year is nearly over? Man, how time flies. Next month sees the long road to Dragon*Con come to a conclusion and I'll be including lots of stuff from D*C years past as part of the hype but for now this month was jam-packed with great things too.
1) A Conversation With My 12-Year-Old Self
This has gone viral since the start of the month and for very good reason. Jeremiah McDonald is an actor and comedian. As a 12 year old kid he decided to film himself asking questions to his future self. You know, because that sort of thing feels like time-travel when you're 12. Well twenty years later, Jeremiah has decided to record his response to his 12 year old self's questions.
It makes more sense in the video, trust me. It's also absolute genius film making.
The last of my Poland graffiti pictures is this one from Gdansk. It was actually really difficult to get because I had to crawl down the side of a motor-way embankment. It appears all the graffiti in Gdansk is in the side of motor-way crossovers. Go figure.
The 1000th episode of RAW was aired this past week, and as per usual Vince turned it into equal parts car crash and joyous entertainment. I won't go into a full break down of the episode but I would like to talk about the moments that stuck out for me. Overall, it was a decent show, nothing more, but it was a "kitchen sink" sort of broadcast with so many crazy parts that it deserves some mention.
As always when reviewing a show like this, if you haven't seen it yet, there be spoilers a-hoy-hoy:
The DX Reunion
The sad state of Sean Waltman's physical and psychological appearance aside, I was super happy to see the team back on screen. I have a huge soft spot in my heart for Billy Gunn, he was one of my favourite wrestlers growing up. Road Dogg is a guy who has turned a corner in his life and seems to be on the straight and narrow now, which is wonderful, and appears to still have a lot of skill on the mic even though he didn't get a huge opportunity to show it off that night.
You could really tell the guys were having a lot of fun. With HHH's wise-crack about everyone's hairline to the butt-joke skit afterwards, it was definitely a party atmosphere when they were around. And with X-Pac's madness aside, you could see how much it meant to the New Age Outlawsto be in a WWE ring again. And damn it, it meant a lot to me too, to see them there.
Here is the deal. The majority of the latest Mars Needs Podcasts with JJ Hawkins and myself is wonderful. It's a delightful podcast about accents, and nationalities, and sports, and patriotism, and all that jazz. I highly recommend you listen to the first hour of the show.
Then, there is this weird bit at the end where I try to talk about a certain listener of ours and then get really self conscious and pretty much freak out. That's not so good to listen to. So please don't listen to that bit. You'll be doing me a big favour.
My friends over at TheUniqueGeek.com undertake a rather mammoth task of presenting 50 days of Dragon*Con related content every year during the build up to the big event.
It's not always easy to give such content so I was asked one evening recently to have a chat with Jon and Serv about Dragon*Con and who I'm looking forward to seeing. Of course we get distracted and chat about other things too.
Sorry for taking so long to post this last entry. Real life got a little busy this past week or two. It's probably only going to get busier for the next month so I might as well get this thing finished before my mind implodes.
Our last match of the tournament was kind of a bitter sweet thing. On one hand it was the end of our odyssey and on the other hand it was the end of our odyssey, yay! I get kinda homesick after a couple weeks whenever I travel and I definitely missed normality.
As per usual, Poznan was jam-packed with Irish fans before the match. Although it seemed like a lot of Polish people became Irish supporters for the day too. They were wearing green clothes and had their faces painted with out flags. It was beautiful to see.
Public transport was great in Poznan but trying to squeeze onto the trams before a game was nightmarish. It probably doesn't help when people bring a spare pare of legs with them.
Somehow, we finally made it to the stadium (only after pulling the emergency exit switch on the tram about half-way there... it was mental) and settled into our seats nice and early to see the lads warm-up.
The stadium turned out to be a nice mix of Irish and Polish, with a couple of Italian people who I think got lost and ended up at the game. Seriously, it was a joke how many of them travelled for it.
After we lost, again, we partied all night, again. It was a great night though. Lots of "Thank You Poland" chanting and such. We got a similar response from the locals too. It really was a love affair to remember.
Just when I thought I was out... they pulled me back in!
Before the summer began I had grown increasingly frustrated with the WWE, particularly it's creative department. Their best wrestlers weren't being utilized and the few that were had some terrible storylines with wrestlers who didn't deserve the air-time (I'm still looking at you, Khali). I had genuinely decided to quit this column and concentrate on more grown up things, like comic books.
However, recently things have gotten increasingly better. It's still not great, but there is definite improvement. The recent RAWs have been enjoyable, especially the week Vickie Guerrero was the guest General Manager, and if you can make me enjoy 2 hours with Vickie Guerrero you know it was something special.
CM Punk and D-Bry have been feuding for over a month. They could feud for another 12 months and I'd be happy about that. These guys are pure class.
And WWE have actually been working on their tag-team division. Seriously, I know, right?! These are all great positives.
There has been a lot of injuries and suspensions but the roster has found an equilibrium recently. Besides, the longer Randy Orton stays off my screen the better.
TheDivas division is still completely in dissaray but AJ has gotten a chance to do some amazing work this past month or two and she has grabbed the opportunity with her small, crazy hands.
I don't know if I can pin (roll-up or otherwise) my new found happiness entirely on Big Johnny being gone from our screens, but it has definitely been apart of it. Now if we can just get Cole to shut up...
But on to last night's Money In The BankPPV. Warning now, if you haven't seen it yet do so before reading this because obviously spoilers abound. Although there is only one thing on my mind
Myself and JJ Hawkins are back to give you a commentary for the awesome crazy fun-time film that is KICK-ASS.
I really enjoy doing these commentaries with JJ (sure, it's only our second one, but still) and I look forward to doing the next one. But in the mean time, check this out!
And if you'd like to play along with the drinking game this month, just take a shot every time I ask not to get a complaint on twitter.
On the 28th of February 2011, what was originally conceived as the lastWord-A-Week Vocabulary Vlog, #25 was published on NeedCoffee.com. For the previous 6 months I had posted a new word and video for your viewing and educational pleasure every week. Didn't see it? Not many did. Watch it all below:
It was an exercise in madness for me. It was the first series of it's kind that I had ever attempted and while I enjoyed making it, I also absolutely hated making it. All my problems were down to bad organisation and lack of forethought on my own behalf. I've grown, I've learned, I'm better now. Looking back I can see how the videos got progressively better, how I learned a bunch of new words that I never would have used before, and how I found new ways to make it interesting for myself. So much so that I've kind of missed it and I'm back to do it all again.
As the first run had 25 episodes I'm now considering it "Season 1" and this winter I'll be back with "Season 2" to continue with another all new 25 words to expand your vocabulary.
"Why do you need our help?", you might ask. Well, you may have noticed that my launch date of "winter" was a little vague. That's because I'm hoping to film all the episodes before the season launches and this time round I want to crowd source some of my words. That's right, YOU can shape the show!
So now is your chance. If you know a word that you think is underused, strange, or just plain silly, post it in the comments! All words (posted in the comments only) will be considered and any words that I actually use on the show will be given credit to the person who gave it to me!
Remember, I have to give some sort of visual representation of the word in the show so try not to suggest anything that might break my legs. ;)
The last of my Poznan pics is quite possibly the most impressive. Just wish I had a better camera with me instead so I could have gotten a better shot.
So we recorded two episodes a month ago, just before I left for my trip to Poland. We banked two so that we could release them while I was gone and hopefully bridge the gap between our next record so we can stop being such party poopers and keeping our listeners waiting so long.
Well that plan didn't work. Unfortunately, FRED's dear leader Ken was bogged down with work and couldn't get the episode posted until last night, where he released them in a double whammy for your ear holes.
This is me both explaining and apologizing for the delay so you know that we didn't mean it and are trying to be better.
Here are the descriptions as Brian wrote them a month ago (can you spot the glaring error?).
CABIN FEVER #113: Lisa Loeb (I Missed You) - Aaron and pHitzy start off trying to make a proper episode, but get sidetracked early on this week as they recall their mutual crush on a particular pocket-sized songstress. Lots of bad singing and pining ensues. You have been warned.
CABIN FEVER #114: The Lost Hour - After last week’s episode our cabin boys went off on a mini 90s nostalgia odyssey, as is their wont. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your point of view) the nonsense was recorded, and since Aaron is away watching football and drinking his bodyweight in cider over in Poland, you get this in lieu of a proper episode. You’re welcome/We’re sorry.
Our second match was against Spain in Gdansk. After our terrible performance in the first game, we weren't exactly thrilled to be playing the World Champions. In fact, we were still on a bit of a downer in general.
I think we were being a bit shy in Poznan and not talking to many people. Polish television was only getting us so far (although thank god for VIVA playing some English language music videos) and I think at this point cabin fever was setting in between myself and Andy. To top it all off, it had started to lash rain the morning we left for Gdansk.
I think Andy summed up our feelings for the trip at this point in this picture of him on the train.
We had some genuine problems in Gdansk. Our campsite was a hole and it was tough getting around. The weather was really dampening our mood (get it?) and in general we were both feeling really miserable. To fix this, we decided to book a Bed & Breakfast in Gdansk for that night. If we were going to be there, god damn it we were going to sleep with a roof over our heads and be dry. Weirdly, this worked a treat and our moods instantly picked up. In fact, we were positively giddy on the way to the stadium.
And what a stadium! Here was our first view of it.
Here is our view inside when we arrived. This is the Irish team warming up.
Lining out for the national anthems. You can see the corner of Spanish fans. Once again we outnumbered them greatly.
So, the next part is both awful and wonderful at the same time. We lost 4-0. It was horrific viewing. But with about 10 minutes to go there was a collective cathartic release from the Irish fans. We were fed up, our team humiliated. A chorus of The Fields Of Athenry started from the crowd. For those who don't know the song, it's basically a story of death and incarceration. So not something you'd expect to hear at a football match but Irish fans have been singing it for years. It's sometimes sung as a celebration but probably more often than not it's a show of solidarity in the face of adversity.
And we sang. And we sang. And we sang.
Here is a video I found online of it. You'll see here when the final whistle is blown around the 5 minute mark, we didn't stop for a second.
Apparently, it was so moving the German television commentators didn't speak for the last several minutes of the game. He felt the viewers had to take it in.
I'll be honest. I had tears in my eyes as I screamed every word at the top of my lungs. I was distraught and devastated towards the end of the game. This was a cathartic release and I was able to shrug it off afterwards. I'm proud of my country and I'm proud of our fans. "You'll never beat the Irish" is a chant we often sing at games. It's not a literal statement, but it's true. You'll never keep us down.
So as we left the stadium and took in the sight of it lit up at night...
... we decided that, instead of copying our sulk after the Croatian game, to instead party the night away and celebrate just being there. It was just what the doctor ordered.
We saw some crazy sights that night. For example the honey monster.
And even some flares. When I saw them being lit inside the archway entrance to the old square in Gdansk I literally ran to try and catch a picture. You can see my run below.
Totally worth it. I fucking love that last photo above. It was a mental night on that square but it was back to normal the next day...
... and I think I was back to normal too. We had a great time from there on in. But that's another day's blog.
