Musical Interludes

03.18.2004

I've always wanted to like jazz. It was just a genre that I've considered cool, and it just sounds like something I would like, especially as I grow older and my fondness for the current breed of rap and R/B (I forget that I'm a southern white boy most of the time) tends to slacken. The problem is, I don't like most of the jazz that I hear. Something about it, I can't quite put my finger on it, just doesn't appeal to me.

Every once in a while I find a jazz song that I like, but when I listen to other songs by the same artist, they tend to fall flat. Luckily, I think all of that's about to change. I've recently found smoothjazz.com. They provide a wide enough selection that I've been finding things that I like! Part of it may be that they don't play "pure" jazz (I heard a Daryl Hall song a little earlier), but it's giving me enough of a range of listening choices that I'm beginning to find my niche.

Permalink

The Renovations: Part 1

03.17.2004

Last Friday started the renovations to the house. So far everything is going well.

• Friday - Removal of the old tub for eventual replacement with a full shower.
• Monday - Plumber comes to move the drain for the upcoming shower. I don't know why the drain had to be moved, but what do I know about plumbing?
• Tuesday - Electrician comes to install new light and better vent fan in bathroom. Being a guy, I opted for the really cool dimmer switch for hte shower light. As a bonus, the electrician installed a new switch and outlet in the living room that I'm planning on pluggin lamps into (so I don't have to go around, bending down everywhere turning on switches) and fixed the hall/bedroom outlets & ceiling fan that hadn't been working for nigh on a year. From the looks of the ceiling fan remote sensor I saw on my desk, it looks like I might have hooked something up wrong....

I'm not sure what's on tap for today. I think they're supposed to start on the shower tomorrow. I had originally heard that they were to start installing the new floor on Friday, but I think they're supposed to be finished with more of the bathroom before that starts, so we'll see.

But by far the coolest part has been to be on the phone and say "I want an outlet here and the switch for it here", then come home and actually find it done. That just totally rocks!

Permalink

If I Wrote For WWE

03.16.2004

Last night on Raw, Vince made a big announcement that he wsa going to shake things up in WWE by moving everyone around between shows. There have been rumors of a mass layoff coming, so this may be part of an excuse to have that also take place. They're going to have a lottery to decide who goes to what show, which will shake things up, probably split up some established teams, and put no telling who together.

They did this back when they decided to split Raw and Smackdown into seperate entities. Certain wrestlers would only appear on a given show. Oh, there was the occasional "trade" between the shows, but it's basically boiled down to the old guys being on Raw and the newer guys being on Smackdown. I've settled into the routine pretty well. I like most of the older guys, so I've been more of a Raw fan. Thursday is also my big TV night with the little woman, so I manage to miss Smackdown 97% of the time (I do miss WCW Thunder being on Wednesday nights sometimes, though). The lottery thing will shake things up in the beginning, but I think it's going to end up back in this type of format, especially if history has shown anything.

But how would I change things? Well, there have been rumors of Vince bringing back the WCW and ECW brand names. He tried it once, and it really didn't work, but I think the fault was in how it was done. The best angle in wrestling was the nWo invasion of WCW. It had the right people, but best of all it had the right timing with the perfect number of twists thrown in to keep you guessing. That's what I would try to do.

The first part would be to go through with Vince's little lottery. Who ends up on what show doesn't matter. Bischoff and Heyman are no longer GMs and silently dissapear. The important thing here would be that all the champions would be stripped of their titles, maybe set up some tournaments to name new champions. HHH regains his world championship, Benoit and Guererro both lose theirs and don't win them back. This is a chance for new names to make their appearance, and the good ones can make it big.

Fast forward to an important event in Atlanta. At the end of the night, Benoit, Guerrero, Steiner, and Booker T come down to the ring and talk about how they left WCW for a new chance in WWE, but that chance was stolen away once they had acheived superstardom (since as of today 3 of the 4 are holding titles). They make their case of getting screwed by Vince and his desire to bring in new talent at the expense of the old, but they're not going to just sit back and take it any longer. They're in the birthplace of southern wrestling, in the shadow of the Omni. They throw in lots of those good old references for us old timers. Then they tell everybody that this is the rebirth of WCW.

Vince then publicly takes the helm to try to squash the WCW uprising, but the small group is able to strike and get away (ala old school nWo) without getting caught. About once a month, one of the old WCW stars either switches to the new WCW stable, or is wrongly accused of switching so that paranoia is all around. To make it even worse, some of the WWE "old timers" start to rebel, saying that the new guys are getting all the breaks without paying their dues. Although they never get to the point of organizing their uprising, this is the pool that everyone is paranoid about witching sides.

Fast forward again a couple of more months. The other show (I'll call it Smackdown for now) is in Philadelphia. In much the same manner as the WCW rebirth in Atlanta, Paul Heyman comes down to the ring. He's joined by the Dudleys, Tommy Dreamer, Stevie Richards, Dawn Marie. He talks about how he tried to compete with the big boys with ECW, how he tried to do what was best for the company by merging with Vince, but Vince managed to suck the very life out of Heyman's organization (I think Heyman might have given this speech before, but he's really good at it so I think it would work again). He may not have been able to beat McMahon, but the ghost of ECW will haunt him for the rest of his life. At this point anybody who wasn't in ECW get a chair upside the head or at the very least put through a table. The ECW faction then begins to torment Vince on this show much like the WCW guys have been doing on the other show.

By now people will start to grow tired of all the sneak attacks, so it's time to start wrapping things up. Bishoff makes a return to tell Vince that he's not the one behind the WCW group, although that will be what was hinted at the whole time. A shadowed, hooded figure shows up on the Titantron to tell Vince that all will be exposed, if Vince will wager the WWE at the next PPV. This would be a good matchup for Survivor Series to let teams from the 2 factions battle it out. It could even become a 3-way battle, with each show on the line. Vince manages to lose one of the shows in the process. It's here that Vince finds out that the brains behind the WCW incurrsion is....

Bret Hart! He removes the hood and starts to explain how his reason for living since he got screwed at Survivor Series was to make Vince pay, to screw him back. When he went to WCW, he started planting the seeds to get back at Vince, and now he's done it. Now Bret Hart has Raw. Vince isn't the man who won the Monday Night Wars, it's Bret Hart.

From here, the WCW and ECW groups start to appear just on Raw, while the regular WWE guys appear on Smackdown. Things go back and forth between the two until the next Wrestlemania, where everything is on the line again.

Permalink

The Ides

03.15.2004

I did something over the weekend I have done only 1 other time: I ventured out to a karaoke bar. It was mainly an excuse for Gina and myself to not be our usual couch potato selves on a Saturday night since some of our friends were going out and invited us. I was thinking that, if nothing else, this would give us an example of why we normally don't go out and do anything on a Saturday night.

I don't know when it happened, but karaoke on South Parkway has become a redneck haven of sorts. It's been so long since I've seen so many mullets in such close proximity (outside of either wrestling or NASCAR, of course). As expected, about 3 out 10 singers (karaokiers?) were decent enough to be bearable. Of course, the guy singing Father Figure will haunt me forever.

But we did survive. Hanging out and cutting up with everybody was fun, but I suspect that for the next few Saturdays, you'll find us securely planted on a couch, flipping channels.

Permalink

Mania 20

03.14.2004

I made my annual call to Jason to wish him luck at Wrestlemania this afternoon. This year is more hectic than the rest. Madison Square Garden was also the host for a basketball tournament yesterday. They didn't finish tearing doen the basketball court until midnight, so that's when Jason and the crew started getting the stage, lights, and about a billion miles of tv cable ready for tonight. They had roughly 16 hours to do what they have had about a week to set up. I guess this show had to be treated more like a regular Raw or Smackdown show. I feel bad for them, because as soon as Wrestlemania is over they've got to dissasemble everything and cart it over to North Rutherford, NJ for tomorrow night's Raw. Makes me realize just how easy my life is!

As I've done for the past couple of years, I'm sitting at home during Wrestlemania getting the results from various message boards (I never got one of the little PPV boxes, so this is the best I can do). It's a good way to get the results - almost real-time. Right now there are over 350 people on the message board I'm looking at, all happily posting away.

One bit of news I found out during all of this is that this is supposedly Brock Lesnar's last match as he possibly tries to jump to the NFL. He's one of the biggest stars Vince has got, so I'm surprised to see that one.

I'll try to have the results of what all happened for Jer here once it's all over.

---

John Cena desfeats Big Show for the US Title

Chrisitian defeats Jericho (in the soap opera match with Trish)

Evolution defeats Rock-N-Sock

Torrie/Sable defeat Stacey/Jackie (with some alleged nudity that I'm trying to confirm)

Chavo Guerrerro retains the Cruiserweight Title in some kind of tournament

Booker T/RVD Retain titles in fatal 4-way match

Goldberg defeats Brock (not a big surprise since hearing about Brock leaving).

Rikishi & Scotty 2 Hotty retain their smackdown tag titles in a fatal 4-way match (what is it with people keeping titles in the fatal 4-ways tonight?)

Victoria retains the womens title, forcing Molly to get her head shaved

Eddie Guerrero retains the WWE championship by defeating Kurt Angle

Undertaker dominates Kane

Chris Benoit wins the World Heavyweight title in the triple threat match against HHH & Shawn Michaels.

(And Wrestlemania lasted 4 hrs 45 minutes this year.....)

Permalink