My Favourite Things: October 2012

NOTE: This article was originally published by me on ASiteCalledFRED.com

I will refuse to use phrases like Rocktober. October does not deserve such a title. It is merely an OK month for me. Folktober might be more accurate.

Despite my apathy for the month, some rocking things did happen. Let us look at my favourites.

1) SPACE!

I like space stuff. By the sheer fact that I refer to it as "space stuff" you can probably tell that I'm not very knowledgeable about any of it. But you know who are? NASA. They've got a website called Astro Pic Of The Day and it gives you an awesome picture like this:

And an easy to read description of what it's all about. Apparently this is the remnants of a star, just like our Sun, that ran out of hyrdrogen. At the very center you can see a white dot which is what remains, a blue-hot white dwarf star. Cool, huh?

As the title suggests they give a new picture everyday and you can follow on Twitter too which is pretty handy.

Aaron's WWEport - How Do You Solve A Problem Like The Divas Division?

NOTE: This article was originally published by me on TheWebsiteOfDOOM.com

If I had to credit TNA for doing one thing better than the WWE, it's their women's division. Sure they also have a very cringe-worthy title for it but whatever you call them, Knockouts or Divas, TNA's just get more time to actually wrestle. It's not perfect but it's better.

Last night's lackluster Hell In A Cell PPV didn't leave me with much to talk about, however it did highlight something for me that I've been thinking about for a long time. What does WWE need to do differently so that women's wrestling can be taken more seriously? And the best I could come up with? They need their own show.

For a long time the Divas match on a Pay-Per-View has been seen as the "go get a beer" match. It's understandable to a certain level. Rarely has there been much of a build up to these matches and quite often the competitors are of low standards so interest will always struggle.

Last night was a triple threat match with a decent angle. Eve is a sneaky champion defending against the woman she beat to win the title (Layla) and the woman she screwed over to get her title shot (Kaitlyn). You can't ask for much more than that in a title match! The girls put on a good match too. Kaitlyn is a wrestler I'm continually impressed by and Layla has been a reliable wrestler since her return from injury. And Eve was there too. But the crowd? Couldn't care less.

 

Mars Needs Podcasts #183- Exit, Stage Right

In an effort not to disappear online entirely while rehearsing for my play I have recorded 4 podcasts in the past week. This first of which went live today and it's subject matter is rather on-the-nose as I talk about... preparing to do my first play!

JJ Hawkins has been acting for years and so it was fun for me to talk to him about this and when you listen you can tell how confused I am by everything. I really don't know what I'm doing folks. But I bet you knew that already.

To listen to the podcast CLICK HERE or to download it directly CLICK HERE.

Treading The Boards...

I've been keeping this quiet for a couple weeks, but it's time to tell the world... I've been cast in a play! My first play... ever!

Ok, so when I was 8 I was in a nativity play with the cub scouts but I just played one of the wise men and my whole job was to point at a star in the sky and wear a tea-towel on my head.
And I was in a thing when I was 5 where I played a toy robot who came to life, but again I had no lines and just had to move the odd time while wearing a lot of cardboard.

So this is my first real play where I have lines and don't have to adorn myself with either tea-towels or cardboard. I think it's a step up in the world.

It's called The Gathering and is a comedy sketch show sort of thing. 4 stories of Irish silliness in one night. I play the lead role in one of those stories and I'm very excited/nervous about the whole thing. We'll be in the Pearse Centre (on Pearse Street in Dublin, unsurprisingly) from November 7th to Nov. 10th. Details can be found on the play's facebook page, I'm sure.

If you're in the area, please come along.

If you're not in the area and just follow my exploits online you may be wondering "what does this have to do with me?". Good question, invisible internet person. Well it means that I will be doing a little less online for a while. You may have notice that take effect already as I've been distracted with this for the last couple weeks.

It also means that my Word-A-Week relaunch I recently announced has been delayed slightly. I had hoped to start filming on Series 2 this month but with rehearsals and the blind panic I'm feeling about the play means that I'll have to wait until after the show is over. So you word fans out there will be sans my ugly mug on YouTube until around January. My bad! I'll try to make it up to you by making the series extra brilliant. Honest.

Hopefully I can keep the disruption to my online shenanigans to a minimum but I thought I should give you a heads up on the big casualty for now.

The Drive In Of DOOM! – V For Vendetta

The Website of DOOM's monthly comic-book-movie-adaptation-commentary-podcast is back. And god damn, is it hard to summarize!

This month we take on the politically charged Alan Moore classic, V For Vendetta. The movie stars the brilliant Hugo Weaving and the oddly accented Natalie Portman. We talk about the bravery of the subject matter and pretty much anything else that comes into our head. For reals.

Our drinking game this month is to take a drink every time we talk about something other than the movie. And go easy, we do it a lot this time.

To listen CLICK HERE or to download directly CLICK HERE.

Aaron's WWEport - The Best In The World

NOTE: This article was originally posted by me on TheWebsiteOfDOOM.com

I would just like to start off by mentioning that all my WWE reports are based on NO backstage sources. There is no insider information here, folks. I just calls 'em as I sees 'em.

It's understandable there is a bit of a backlash lately towards all the inside gossip floating around online. Wrestling, especially WWE wrestling, is theatre and while it doesn't necessarily hurt to know if our hero dies at the end of the story, it does hurt if we get all the ins-and-outs of the story weeks in advance.

Also, sometimes it's just people bullshitting. Which is what I'm doing, but I'm upfront an honest about it and not trying to pass it off as facts because I've heard that an unnamed source heard from his cousin that a wrestler won't be renewing their contract.

But they're totally not renewing their contract.

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Folks, I have a theory. This theory involves two pieces of information that we know to be true and then one leap of faith. So bear with me as I spitball with you here.

As of writing this article, CM Punk has been the WWE champion for 316 days. I know this because I looked it up here but also because they haven't shut up about it on air for a while. The WWE aren't subtle about anything folks, they're telling us this because it's going to be important later. And I think I know why.