Still Freakin Sick

I'm one of those people that when I get sick, I GET SICK. I just can't kick it for a long while and I'm still suffering from my most recent illness. It has sucked, since I've got several things I'm wanting to start working on (most importantly, exercising), but hey, it'll have to wait.

I hate to jump right back into wrestling talk, but man, what a wild week it has been. The WWE TLC pay per view was amazing from what I hear, and man, they have the best roster of champions maybe ever in the WWE at one time. Here is who has what:

WWE Champion: CM Punk 
World Champion: Daniel Bryan
US Champion: Zack Ryder
IC Champion: Cody Rhodes
Unified Diva's Champion: Beth Phoenix 
WWE World Tag Team Champions: Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne

It's an amazing list, and my favorite current wrestler, CM Punk is at the top. Just how fantastic is that? Plus John Cena and the WWE are acknowledging the fans who hate on him with a new Cena Sucks t-shirt. Is it possible? Is wrestling starting to be interesting again?! I sure hope the momentum keeps going.

I picked up Homefront and NASCAR 2012 via Gamefly for $12.99 a piece. I've been wanting to play both of them, but wasn't willing to spend too much so this deal rocked for me. NASCAR is better than expected but still has some flaws. I've been playing some of the older NASCAR games on original Xbox and man, its just hard to beat those games around 2004-2006. 

Homefront is known for having been written by the guy who wrote Red Dawn. It has a similar plot where North Korea invades the US and occupies the country. You're a freedom fighter working against the regime. What is most ironic is the fact that the game's story says Kim Jong-il dies in 2012 and Kim John Un takes over. The game was only a few weeks off from reality. I just hope the rest of the story doesn't come true.

But speaking of new stuff,  I feel as if I'm drowning in entertainment. It seems like I have so much at my fingertips I just can't get through it all. I don't know why I feel like I have to, but I look over at my DVD shelf, at my games, and books, and I just sigh. There isn't enough time for all of this, plus start working on some minor self improvements. I've gotta try to cut down on some interests and maybe just not buy anything new till I get through it all. I have so many DVD's I've started and tv shows its insane. And then of course, Mad Men will be coming back on soon and I just gotta watch that! AHHHHH! It's never ending.

So I'm sure you've seen the new Dark Knight Rising trailer, and I must say, its interesting and different. It's a little too bright for my liking and well, I just never imagined Gotham having a football team. I mean, whats up with that? Don't even get me started on the guy running while the ground gives away behind him (except for the end zone) and doesn't even hear or notice anything fishy. Grr... I have a bad feeling about this one.

The Past Week

Well my reviewing of shitty Christmas specials has failed me, and will have to be something I revisit another time. I've been bedridden the past week suffering from some pretty mean sickness, which has pretty much thrown me all outta whack, especially when it comes to stuff for this shiny new blog. I'm actually so far behind now, my series of crappy Christmas specials is all but canceled and I'm moving onto some other topics.

Well let's talk retro first. I promised I would be making a purchase of something from my childhood and so it has been done. I have two awesome original Nintendo games in my possession, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Blades of Steel. They were both reasonably priced and I thought were a nice first addition. We got one game covering my favorite sport and one of the true classics when it comes to gaming in Blades of Steel and of course, the boys in green representing one of my all-time favorite cartoons and franchises in the Turtles.

Now, I've never owned either one of these titles, but did rent Blades of Steel quite a bit as a child, and played the heck out of the Turtles at my cousin's house. Turtles is definitely flawed and frustrating, but thats part of the joy of retro gaming. The Angry Video Game Nerd did a great review of the game some years back, I recommend you check out here:

Also, my friend Erin was selling her Super Nintendo on eBay, but luckily it got listed wrong and nobody bought it. I still need to get a power cable for it and a tv hook up, then hopefully buy it off her to own my first ever Super Nintendo.

One a more modern gaming note, I also got a system I really didn't see myself getting in a Nintendo 3DS. I was like most when the 3DS was first announced and I felt it was overpriced and too gimmicky. However, with some of the game announcements mainly MarioLand, Mario Kart, and a port of Crush (my favorite PSP game), I became interested and pretty much sold on the unit once the price came down. However, it was still a steep purchase that I couldn't justify so it sat lonely on my Amazon wishlist until my Mom surprised me with a new flame red 3DS. It's probably the closest I've felt like a kid at Christmas when I saw that Nintendo logo. Yea, I feel like a dork being 28 and getting that excited but I did. I got MarioLand the Mario Kart and have been enjoying the heck out of them as well. Very cool gift, one of my top two Christmas surprises for sure.

This week I also dragged my sick ass out of bed to attend the WWE Smackdown taping here in Raleigh. It was a decent show, alot better than the Smackdown taping I went to a couple years ago. But of course, its hard to follow up the awesome Raw Draft this year and Wrestlemania. I sat on the floor for only the second time in my wrestling event history, and this time was a little disappointed. It's hard to see the ring even from just twelve rows back when you got 6'8'' rednecks standing in front of you. Still, there was a pleasant surprise when they announced that Over the Limit was coming to Raleigh, the first WWE pay per view in eight years and tickets went on sale today. I already got my tickets and am excited to be there in May!

Other than that, my days have been filled with sleeping, playing Battlefield 3 online and setting up my rosters on WWE 12. I have a huge list of blogs I'm hoping to get to in the next week, so hopefully I'll start feeling better and get back to it.

Review: Garfield Christmas Special from Original 1987 Source

There’s a small group of incredibly talented people on the internet that most of you know nothing about. They do a variety of things (most legal, some questionable) in order to preserve and better make various entertainment from the past. They then release these creations for free, via torrents to others in the group to enjoy. I’m talking about the world of fan edits and preservations.

The most famous fan edit (and first that I knew of) was Star Wars 1.1 – The Phantom Edit. It gained publicity in early 2000, not long after Star Wars – The Phantom Menace was released. The Phantom Edit re-cut The Phantom Menace to create a stronger, more mature movie. For example; lots of young Anakin’s dialogue was removed, and Jar-Jar Binks’ character was scaled down quite a bit. The pace of the film was quickened and many people thought it was a better version than what George Lucas released himself. Still, it was copyright infringement and no real release would ever be made legally. Nevertheless, some the enjoyment that people got from this edit inspired others and thus the community was born.

Now, I’m definitely not saying this was the first fan edit, but the first that I know of. And I’m pretty sure it was the inspiration for most of the future fan edits to come. Star Wars became the ultimate movie to edit. We got the original trilogy restored from the Japanese laserdiscs and released online. (This version is still the best version of the original trilogy I’ve seen yet.) The community pieced together all known deleted scenes reinserted and then even re-mastered the movie to look as good as a professional release. Some people compiled all the extra features released over the years and released them as individual DVDs with professional menus, cover art, and more.  And this is just some of the early work.

This underground community edits any and all sorts of movies, heck, I even re-edited Ang Lee’s The Hulk once. But what I appreciate the most is the restoration and compilation efforts these guys go through. This community is the only place I know where you can find every episode of Nickelodeon’s Legends of the Hidden Temple. It was there I found the complete series of Hey Dude. I’ve scored various rare Ninja Turtle specials, the Pac-Man Christmas record (digitalized to mp3), and The Gremlins audio book. Not only do they take old media and re-distribute it (imagine the cheesy Clue VHS game, released in DVD format), but many times they restore it, add extra features, release it with professional cover art, and menus. I’ve been exposed to so many lost retro shows that I could spend a few blogs covering them. And these guys, who work for free, and ask nothing for their creations are simply amazing. I am really proud to be exposed to their work and affiliated with them.

But now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about one of my latest acquisitions, an old family Christmas tape from 1987 featuring the Garfield Christmas Special and Will Venton’s Claymation Christmas Special. Now both of these specials are available commercially, and to be honest, I would never seek either one of them out. I don’t have special memories of these or any real nostalgia value, but the reason I wanted to check this out was that this file was a direct transfer from a VHS tape from 1987. All commercials remained intact and that is what makes it so cool. Not to mention, the Garfield Christmas Special has been re-edited several times over the years, so this is the original special with no changes. It’s those types of details that these guys look for when restoring and compiling projects.

So while this isn’t a direct re-mastering, it’s something fantastic that was shared with us and something I enjoyed checking out myself. So now that I’ve explained all that, let’s get on with the review.

The Garfield Christmas special aired on CBS from 1987 to 2000, when the rights were purchased by Fox in order to make the absolute horrible live-action Garfield movies. Yes, there were two of them. So apparently this special probably means a lot to some people, to me, not so much. I don’t even remember the damn thing. I just know that every 80’s cartoon had a Christmas special, so I figured Garfield did too.

The show opens up with Garfield dreaming about being woken up by John and lured to the Christmas tree via pans of lasagna. Strange, that’s the dream I had last night, just substitute John with Kate Beckinsale.. and she was nude. Anyway, Garfield gets there and John takes his clothes off…. wait, I’m mixing up my dream and the show. Garfield eats his way to the tree and she moans…. damnit, there I go again. Anyway, it’s not really important.

Every year John takes Odie and Garfield to his parent’s farm to spend Christmas. Garfield hates it because he just wants to sleep and John gets all giddy about his childhood. So they leave the big city, arrive at the farm, where immediately John’s brother Doc Boy (who was called Doc Boy in all the flashbacks, but is pissed to be called Doc Boy to his face with no explanation) is there along with Grandma and John’s parents. So far, you can tell there is some slight dysfunction in the family and Grandma is acting really freakin weird. So weird, she actually said something that I had to Google just to figure out what the hell she meant.

When she first see’s Garfield, (after she’s tried to get John to punch her in her rock hard abs), she says, “I remember when all we had were wood burning cats.” So obviously, the first thing that went through my mind was starting a wood fire and burning cats. So I paused the show, tried to figure it out, since that was just too macabre and decided to note it for later Googling.

I obviously wasn’t the only one bewildered because there were several different posts asking what the hell a wood burning cat was and lots of different answers as well. But I think Kurt-150 over at IMDB had it right when he said;

“A "cat" is a bunch of prairie grass or tinder woven together to make a long-lasting, wood-like burn. Cats were used a lot "back in the day" to stretch supplies of wood or used to start or maintain cooking fires, especially by wagon trains. Grandma was making a pun about the era she grew up in.“

And whether that’s true or not, were gonna go with it. I’ve wasted enough of my life on this damn stupid quote. I couldn't find a picture of a "wood burning cat" but I did find one of Evan Rachel Wood carrying a cat, so enjoy.

So we find out that Grandma is jealous of everybody at Christmas but loves Garfield. She puts chili powder in the sausage gravy and lies about it. She feeds Odie and Garfield under the table, and then she mopes around and acts all depressed. Its only then do we realize that Grandpa died last year, and she’s lonely. It gets a little to real and creepy, when she tells Garfield she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and feels his “strong arms around me.”

Dad reads some cheesy Christmas story, they go to bed, wake up, open presents, and you find out that Odie made Garfield a back scratcher out of spare parts, and Garfield finds a box with old love letters that Grandpa wrote Grandma. Of course, that asshole Garfield didn’t get Odie anything. Everybody’s happy and that’s it. Boring…..

It was a pretty lame Christmas special with nothing really worth writing about. It actually made my first review on here a bit of bitch because of it. The highlight of the whole thing of course was the awesome commercials. The specials were sponsored by McDonald’s so every break we got an awesome horrible kids McDonald’s commercial, including the worst commercial I’ve ever seen called “Hardnose Mrs. Hatcher” which I’ve provided for you to relish in its horribleness.

A few other commercials featured:

I tried getting through the Claymation Christmas Special but fell asleep and damn near dropped my netbook on the floor in the process. I’ll attempt to make it through that before Christmas and post my review. 

80's/90's Nostalgia

Lately, I’ve found myself drawn to the media from my childhood more so than usual. I’ve been fascinated with previous decades of the past, but never so much the era of my childhood (late 80’s – mid 90’s) until now. I would tend to seek out the late 70’s and even early 80’s, research the 30’s and 40’s, but suddenly the 80’s and 90’s have become my new interest and I’m actually quite thrilled with it.

I think we all look towards our childhoods for a simpler time. It may not have been so simple, its just as a child, your worries are less and choices are limited. You aren’t faced with the frustrations of adult living nor the pressures that come with it. So it’s only reasonable that we all face some form of nostalgia for our youth at sometime in our life. But I don’t want to write my current fascination as a brief period of nostalgia, but more of an admiration for what once was. Something I can relate to, something I lived through and something that I can recall fond memories of.

Various websites over the years have given my glimpses to the forgotten items of my youth, my favorite being X-Entertainment. It’s a fascinating website that has undergone some major changes since the early 2000’s when it was a daily stop for me. Reviews for forgotten foods and clips from commercials and cult movies, made X-Entertainment one of my favorite websites of all-time. It’s just a shame that Matt doesn’t restore the old archives so the rest of the world can view what was so great on the site years ago. Still, the website does some amazing gimmicks and articles, and I truly do love to read it. For example; right now Matt’s re-bought the five favorite Christmas presents of his youth and is reopening one each week leading up to Christmas. Yea, to some this may be boring and pointless to some, but to me this is what the internet is all about; rediscovering something (or discovering something).

RetroJunk is another great website that features clips and segments from media around the 80’s and 90’s, but more importantly it features amateur writers doing countdowns and reminiscing about various pop culture things. Articles like the history of Taco Bell or How to Make Ecto-Cooler tickle my fancy and the active message board is great place to take a stroll down memory lane.

It’s sites like these that have led to the creation of this blog. I don’t really have anything from my youth. All my toys were tossed during the multiple moves during my childhood and my own uber-decluttering got rid of pretty much anything else. And while I’m not saying I wish I had all of my old toys back, it would have been nice to have one or two of them to look back at and say, “I remember when.”

I think being an adult becomes frustrating and hard when we stop remembering when. When we start blowing things out of proportion and forget that sometimes a cheap toy and imagination is all we really need in life for entertainment. We get so caught up in everything being so modern and sophisticated we forget about the simple pleasures from our past. We instead listen to the TV, our friends, and family, who tell us that at a certain age, you must put childish things behind you and like adult things. Its not very adult like to listen and sing “Barbie Girl” out loud in your car, but a little classical music is fine. And while I’m not knocking the classics, “Barbie Girl” is just more fun.

So I’ve attempted to re-establish a connection with the things from my youth. I’ve listened to more music that I use to listen to, bought more of the movies, and am hoping to establish a collection of some of my favorite things from then. There are few toys I want to replace, a few movies, and video games. I want to have an 80’s/90’s corner in a room that is just like a tribute to those things. Items that take you back to the past.

This week I’m going to make my first real purchase into making this dream into a reality. I’m not sure what will be my first purchase, but I will buy something. And as I pick up odds and ends, I hope to feature some stories about what I buy, why, and how. I’m also hoping to do some little reviews on random craziness I run across and hopefully create a portal that others missing the 90’s will enjoy. So check back later this week for more.

Regrets from a Nerd

So, I guess I'm a nerd. Being a nerd isn't cool, although the explosion in geekdom over the last few years has at least made it social acceptable if not borderline cool (see "The Big Bang Theory"), but I guess I've always been a nerd. I just haven't always wanted to be one.

I grew up like most kids in the late 80's and early 90's, surrounded by Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtle action figures. Running around quoting GI Joe, Thundercats, and Batman. Collecting comics when they killed off Superman, watching Ducktales and Talespin after school, and gaming like I was going to enter the Nintendo World Championships. Of course, this wasn't too unusual back then, I guess what's unusual is that I never really grew out of this stuff.

It seems to be a problem that is plaguing my generation, whether its the horrible economy or the introduction of the internet, we've been a generation of adults who still have access and love our childhood. Earlier tonight, I watched the introductions for all of my afternoon cartoon favorites via YouTube. I've recently acquired a torrent with episodes of The Real Ghostbusters (with commercials intact circa 1987) and I'm in the process of purchasing an original Nintendo on eBay. None of these items would have been available with the ease that I got them without the internet and I figure that's what to blame. We don't have to find enjoyment in new entertainment, we have access to the old stuff and that's what reminds us of happier and easier times. Older generations may scoff at this, but that's mostly out of jealously, they were never given the option of embracing their childhood in their twenties and thirties as we are able to. I'm not really sure about how healthy it is to be stuck in the past, but I think as long as you are moving forward a little nostalgia is good for you.

So that brings us to now, November 2011. I just turned twenty-eight three days ago, and have finally found happiness in my twenties. Every year a few weeks leading up to my birthday, I tend to freak out. I panic, I get depressed, and just generally hate life. I realize that my life has not gone anywhere near where I wanted it to go, and I haven't accomplished shit. I feel as if I'm too immature in my interests and should be out playing golf and socializing instead of watching Ghostbusters cartoons with the old commericals. I feel as if I should put away my childish interests and hobbies and just move forward in being a healthy mature adult who goes to work, shuts up, gets a mortgage, and plays the stock market instead of Battlefield 3.

So for those few weeks, and several times throughout the year, I attempt to reinvent myself. I've read just about every book on every world religion. I've gone through just about all of the self-help section including the new age dribble. Decluttering blogs, four hour work week blogs, workamping blogs, you name it, I've read it and wanted to do it. I'd purge my movies, games, and music all to find myself still miserable a few months later. Nothing seemed to work, and every year around my birthday it would only get worst. I've been doing this pretty much for the last six years and I've finally broke the cycle.

See a few years ago, a friend of mine Jimmy, saw me struggling during one of my attempts at changing. I was trying to grow up and be somebody else, and Jimmy knew this wasn't right. So I came into work one day and he handed me a Ghostbusters wallet like the one pictured below. He handed it to me and told me to not forget who I was, and at the time I just didn't appreciate what he was doing. He was giving me something I'd handle on a day-to-day basis that would remind me of what I love and that it was okay to do so. I wish I had listened a couple years ago.

Obviously I didn't listen. I continued to suffer and purge and basically rid myself of all my worldly possessions. There was some good to come out of it, and some bad, but its been done. I left my wife about a year ago, and figured that my rebuilding would start immediately, but that didn't happen either. Instead, I spent part of the year researching and suffering as I usually do and trying to find my path in life.

Then a few months ago, I enrolled in some classes at the local community college. It was a short program that would hopefully give me that direction in life that I needed. About half way through, trying to work forty-five hours a week and go to school eight hours a day, three days a week, I realized I was only punishing myself. I had been attempting to force myself into doing something and liking it. Instead, I stressed myself, over worked myself, and realized I wasn't happy. And it was around then that I realized that there was really nothing wrong with me. I was happy when I was surrounded by my interests. I had ideas for jobs and hobbies when I thought about doing the things I enjoy and love. It was only when I tried to force myself into being what society deems a proper adult that I become depressed and miserable. I tried to fix those feelings like religion and philosophy, but no matter what I studied nothing ever helped. However, a good gaming session of some old school Mario and watching Firefly seemed to make everything right.

So I realized that me fighting who I am is what made me depressed. Embracing who I am made me happy. I like being the guy who everyone comes to with gaming questions, I like being able to carry on a somewhat respectable conversation about comics with collectors, I like collecting rare movies, and watching shitty sci-fi. That's who I am, its who I've always been and who I'll always be. I can put on a suit and try to say I'm someone else, but when it comes down to it, I'll never be that guy who goes camping every week, nor the guy who works on cars. I'm the guy who quotes Buffy and likes debating Star Wars.

It was only through this acceptance did I start being happy again. I stopped taking life so serious and just started enjoying what I love. I started picking up some of my old favorite cult classic movies, watching my old favorite web series, and next thing you know, I'm starting to feel like the old Brandon again. Now, I'm not going to say that I don't need some fine tuning (some more exercise is a MUST), but my interests are starting to come back to home and thats where this blog comes into play.

Blogging is something I've done for years. I like writing, and I like sharing my creations with the world. I mean, what artist doesn't? So this is simply the first step in the right direction. I have a place to talk out my interests, projects, and past experience, while hopefully keeping me focused on the prize. I want to do what I love and that is to create. I want to make some sort of video entertainment, whether a web series or movies, I just want to be out and producing content like I use to. I guess, that problem I'm having the most is, I'm jaded. I've started and stopped so much, and have just generally struggled with getting anything off the ground, I've just given up. Now that I'm attempting to get back in the saddle, I find my stories have left me and motivation to write as well. So hopefully throughout this blog, I'll regain my focus and get back on track.

What are my regrets as a nerd? I wish I wouldn't have skipped some bigger things I had planned like Star Wars Celebration 5 or NWA Legends FanFest a couple years ago. I wish I wouldn't have completely purged my DVD collection, gotten rid of my Kevin Smith collectibles nor old game systems. I wish I wouldn't have wasted so much damn time reading on different religions when I should have been reading comics. I wish I would have learned to love and respect who I was a little earlier.

Nonetheless, there is no sense dwelling on the past. Heck, I have time to make up for! Anyway, I hope you'll stick around for this crazy journey wherever it takes me.

Nostalgia, Life, and More

Hello, my name is Brandon and welcome to my blog. I've blogged off and on for many years now, but have recently been on a year long hiatus. I miss having an outlet for my creativity and have decided to come back to blogging slowly.

I actually created this blog a few weeks ago, but just haven't taken the time to write anything. I have a problem with pretty much every blog I end up writing; I lose focus or never have one to begin with. I tend to straddle the fence on what type of blog I should have, a personal one that doesn't contribute much other than those who know me, or a more commercial (for lack of a better word) that stays within an established realm and focuses on one or two topics. The latter is very hard for me, because I have so many random interests that seem to be constantly evolving and repeating themselves throughout the years. But this debate is what actually stands in the way of most of my blogging.

So like I said, I'm hoping to start off slowly. I'm going to just see where the blog takes me and run with that. I have a birthday coming up in a few days, and I'm considering establishing a list of goals that I'd like to achieve in the next year and really driving myself to get them done. Instead of being random goals such as visiting a certain place or losing weight, I'm thinking of some a little more creative, such as finishing a movie or establishing a web series. But I have a few days to think about that.

In the mean time, I'll just post what comes to mind and what I feel like sharing or discussing. I hope you enjoy your visit here at Evenflow Speaks and I hope to have some new content soon!