Raw plus 2 Hours

12.14.2004

So, I come home after Raw and I'm too wired to go to sleep, so I do what everybody does - I make a blog entry.

The first thing I noticed was how close my predictions yesterday were to what actually happened.

• 6:15 -After winding my way around the old parking lots that no longer exist (a lot has changed at the VBC in 2 years evidently), I find a place to park and make my way inside. I notice there are considerably fewer Nascar hats and mullets than I expected. Unfortunately, the hot chicks I see at Nashville and Birmingham wrestling have not made the trip to Huntsville.
• 7:00 - Taping for Heat, the Sunday night show, starts. They show a local Huntsville guy get squashed by some hunky wrestler I've never heard of. This is followed by 2 more matches that will make the Heat show Sunday.
• 7:40 - Guy in ring hypes up the crowd telling everybody how great Huntsville fans are. Cameras sweep over the crowd as a live commercial goes on Spike TV, while unknown to the crowd JR and Lawler hype what will happen tonight. This is followed by a tag team match that I don't think will make Heat or Raw, although it was La Resitance vs Tajiri & Rhino, and was actually pretty good.
• 8:00 - Raw starts. Wrestlers wrestle. Storylines unfold. Fans yip and yay.
• 10:10- Raw goes off the air after Bischoff announces the world title will remain vacant until the Jan. PPV. Everybody to be in the 6 man match comes to the ring and rumbles until Raw goes off the air officially.
• 10:11 - An evidently advertised dark match of HHH vs Randy Orton takes place for the 3/4 of the crowd that hasn't left yet. I took the match time to go spend some quality time with Jason over at the lighting board and catch up on what he's been up to for the past 2 years.
• 10:30 - People start to leave. Chairs on the floor begin to be gathered. The ring crew begins tearing apart the ring so they can go set it up in Nashville for a show tomorrow.

So that was Raw. Pretty much what I expected. I wish I had taken my camera, because I had the perfect seat for pictures - even with the right side turnbuckle on the camera side, which is where most of the guys seem to hit their entrance poses.

Catching up with Jason was the best part (and the real reason I went). He's been busy with WWE, the Nascar Awards Show, and the Dove Awards. After the Smackdown taping Tuesday, he leaves for the Middle East Wednesday for the WWE X-Mas tour. I actually work for the government, but I don't have to wear a flak jacket when I go to work, unlike Jason once he hits Tikrit. Luckily he's back by X-mas to finally have a week off (but he'll end up sneaking in the lighting for some other awards show, I just know it!).

Permalink wrestling

Raw minus 6 Hours

12.13.2004

Tonight is my first live wrestling event in over 2 years. If I stop to think about it, it seems amazing that it's been that long since I've been to a show. As expected, I seem to be getting more excited as time gets closer. I don't think it's so much because I'm going to see Raw, but because I'll get a chance to see my favorite lighting designer Jason (who I also haven't seen in at least 2 years) for a little bit after the show.

If tonight goes the way most wrestling shows go:

• 6:30 - VBC doors open. Lots of people wearing Nascar hats and/or mullets start to form lines to get beer.
• 7:00 - Taping for Heat, the Sunday night show, starts. They'll tape 2 or 3 matches, with maybe 1 match with a local guy that'll never see tv.
• 7:55 - Guy in ring hypes up the crowd telling everybody how great Huntsville fans are. Cameras sweep over the crowd as a live commercial goes on Spike TV, while unknown to the crowd JR and Lawler hype what will happen tonight.
• 8:00 - Raw starts. Wrestlers wrestle. Storylines unfold. Fans yip and yay.
• 10:05 - Raw ends and goes off the air. Depending on the storyline, the good guy of the evening's main event will continue to celebrate (if he won) or get some small measure of revenge (if he lost)
• 10:10 - People start to leave. Chairs on the floor begin to be gathered. The ring crew begins tearing apart the ring so they can go set it up in Nashville for a show tomorrow.

You would think that knowing what happens would make me less likely to go, especially paying $40 for a ticket to something I can sit at home and watch for free. The thing is, I hardly watch the wrestling when I go to one of these shows. I like watching the people that are there. The hardcore fans. The rednecks. The kids. The people that think it's real. The people that think they can take on the wrestlers. The chicks that think they can win the eye of a wrestler. And then secretly, deep down inside, I laugh. I laugh heartily. Because there but for the grace of god go I.

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Holliday Meeting Time I

12.09.2004

It's finally started. Today during lunch I went out to the mall to look around/waste some time. It took about 10 minutes before I ran into someone I hadn't seen in at least 6 months. Johnny, my former co-worker from Disc Connections, Alabama's First All Compact Disc Store, was working at the Corr Wireless kiosk.

If you hang out at the mall during the X-mas shopping season, you should eventually see everyone you know that lives in Huntsville. So if you're trying to avoid people, don't go to the mall.

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Mozilla Beta

12.08.2004

I've finally gotten the home pc back together and working again. After a month, off and on, of tearing it apart and putting it back together, I think it's at the point of staying together.

My biggest hang-up all stems from my choice of browser. I've been using Mozilla for a couple of years now. When I was reinstalling everything onto the computer, I just naturally downloaded the latest version of Mozilla, in this case version 1.7.3. My problem was that it wouldn't work. At all. It never occurred to me it might be a problem with Mozilla. All the other browsers I had loaded would crash within 10 minutes of opening them up for seemingly no reason, so it had to be a computer problem.

After the grand reinstallation, I once again installed Mozilla, with the same results. Wondering if it was a version problem, I downloaded the beta of the next version (1.8 Alpha, which I guess isn't really a beta). After this installation, everything seemed to work again! I was back in browsing bliss!

So, if anyone is running Windows 2000 Pro with Service Pack 4 and can't get Mozilla to run, try running the 1.8 Alpha.

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Jer always like to pick on my typos. To make it even more difficult spellcheckers won't catch a misspelling if it's still a word, which means I have to look at things really hard before committing them to the internet. Case in point: Alpha and Aloha are only a letter apart, but mean completely different things. I don't think anyone would be able to find Mozilla 1.8 Aloha, unless it's the limited release Hawaiian version.

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What The ...?

12.07.2004

Ok, my updates have been sparse over teh last week and a half. Here's what's going on in the land of Russ:

• Home PC - laying around in different parts as I try to figure out why I can't reinstall Windows.
• X-mas shopping - 90% done!
• Home repairs - Need to get a leaky spot in the roof fixed and see if the heater is really working or not.
• Car - still liking the Explorer. That's liking, not licking.
• Work - Still working.

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