Monday, March 31, 2003WWE RawWell the question of where Goldberg will land and who his first feud will be with seem to both been answered this evening as he made his debut on Raw in a surprise run in on the Rock. As the rumors were running wild Stone Cold was "fired" from Raw which if the rumors were true, and they have been fairly accurate as of late he will be sliding over to Smackdown. Makes sense since they will have a void with Kurt being gone and there not really being anyone else to marquee against Lesnar on Thursday. Triple H faced Hurricane and actually had an entertaining match which should have been written as lopsided but actually was tight. Seems like Hurricane is getting a push but dont know to what? Scott Steiner looks to have been relegated to mid card as he fought Chris Nowinski. Maven beat Rosy in what looks to be a long standing feud. Booker T faced Jericho in what turned out to be a melee with Jericho, Flair, and HHH stomping down Booker T and HBK. Not sure but this may be a leeway into a new feud. Jeff Hardy beat Steven Michaels who looked good in his match. And finally RVD and Kane won the tag belts in what was shaping up to be a potential screw job by Morley who looks to be in the best ring shape of his career. Last and definitely not least on what was supposed to be Rock appreciation night Goldberg made a run in on Rock after Rock was bragging about having beaten everyone. It actuaaly was built up well but the run in was a little anticlimatic as the spear wasn't sold real well! But hey it was the moment that many wrestling fans have been waiting for for a long time. posted @ 06:47 PM PST [link] [Karma: 7 (+/-)] WWE Wrestlemania Wrestlemania was an awesome show. I ahve to say that the matchmakers did a wonderful job with this one. Matt Hardy vrs. Rey Mysterio was the first match of the pay per view and it was awesome. Rey is one of my favorite wrestlers and Matt Hardy always works hard. The Undertaker vrs. A-Train & Big Show was also a classic Taker match but I wonder what Nathan Jones did other than choke at his first smackdown taping with a spinning kick to get pulled from the match. Trish beat Victoria and Jazz in a solid womens bout. Trish has come a long way in putting on a good match and Jazz and Victoria were also great. Team Angle kept the belts in the tag match against the Guerreros and Benoit and Rhyno. Team Angle is getting a hell of a push but with Kurt out for who knows how long they will probably need thew belts to keep the storyline going. Shawn Michaels vrs. Chris Jericho was a great match as these two have similar styles and put on a great match. Triple H vrs Booker T was also awesome but I was surprised they has HHH keep the belt as he has been champ for quite some time. Hulk Hogan vrs. Mr. McMahon was hyped the most of all the matches probably because of the concern of whether Angle was going to be able to perform or not. It was a great street fight and this was probably the best forum to have the fight as neither one of these two would have been able to put on much of a show in a regular wrestling match. The injection of Rowdy Roddy Piper was also entertaining for us long time fans as well. The Rock vrs. Stone Cold was an awesom match. These two have such a chemistry together and it was no disappointment. The main main event was Angle vrs. Lesnar and it did not disappoint. Angle was performing with a bad neck and a gimp arm but it sure didn't show in the match. Lesnar scared the hell out of me when he attempted a shooting star press and didn't seem to land right. Seems like the big man should leave the aerial stuff to the little men but it was an awesome moment all the same. Lesnar one the belt back as everyone expected with Kurt going out to have surgery of some type on his neck. All in all it was a great show. Looking forward to see how things get shook up this week in the aftermath. Goldberg coming back should be great as there are tons of storylines to play out there. Should be interesting to see which show he ends up on! posted @ 06:32 PM PST [link] [Karma: 7 (+/-)] Friday, March 28, 2003Missteps With Turkey Prove CostlyDiplomatic Debacle Denied U.S. a Strong Northern Thrust in Iraq. I found this article detailing the issues that led to Turkey no allowing the US to use its border with Iraq to mount a Northern offensive. A summary of the huge issues that I was not aware of: Both sides clearly failed to see that the other had changed in important ways since they cooperated during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, analysts said. More broadly, two countries that forged a Cold War alliance against a common Soviet threat found their interests diverging sharply in the case of a war in Iraq. Turgut Ozal, the popular Turkish president, strongly backed the United States in the 1991 war, opening Turkish airspace and air bases and even pushing to send Turkish troops to help expel Iraq from Kuwait. Afterward, however, the United States failed to come through with all its promises of economic aid in return for Turkey's support. Because Iraq was Turkey's largest trading partner, the Turkish economy suffered, beginning a slide that culminated in 2000 with a financial crisis in which the currency collapsed and unemployment skyrocketed. At the same time, Turkey's military and political elite is not as powerful as it once was. In November's elections, voters threw out all of the previous governing parties and allowed the fledgling, anti-establishment Justice and Development Party to form a government on its own. The military, which has long viewed itself as the guardian of a secular Turkish state, viewed the result with alarm because the party has roots in political Islam. The military therefore had its own reasons for wanting the country's new leaders to fail in their first major test with Washington. The new government, beset with crises involving the country's efforts to gain entry into the European Union and U.N. attempts to negotiate a peace settlement in Cyprus, dragged its feet on dealing with the troop request. In early February, Cheney called Gul and urged him to call a vote in parliament within days, just before the Muslim holiday of Bayram, Turkish officials said. Gul said no -- he said he would try to arrange it by Feb. 18 -- but word of the phone call spread and contributed to a belief in Ankara that the United States was oblivious to the political predicament faced by the Justice and Development Party. In Turkey, senior party officials said, a significant faction within the government believed Turkey could prevent a war by dragging out the negotiations and voting no if necessary. This view was reinforced by resistance to U.S. plans at the United Nations, and also by a meeting on Feb. 18 between Gul and French President Jacques Chirac during which Chirac praised the Turkish position, the officials said. Chirac was spearheading efforts at the United Nations to continue inspections and avoid a war. M. Akif Beki, a senior journalist in Ankara, said the Bush administration failed to see that its request came at a juncture in Turkish history when the military and political establishment was turning away from the West while the country's Muslim traditionalists were embracing Western democratic values. After all the months of delays and negotiations, U.S. officials themselves were split on how the vote would turn. "Some were absolutely convinced it would pass. It was Turkey and we are the United States," said a senior administration official. "The people who understood how arrogant we were, they understood it was a dicey vote." Equally important, Turks blamed the Gulf War for emboldening Kurdish separatists, who began using northern Iraq as a base of operations to attack Turkey from their strongholds in the country's southeast. More than 30,000 people died in the ensuing conflict, perhaps half of them Turkish soldiers, before the 1999 cease-fire that followed the capture of Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan by Turkish special forces in Kenya. posted @ 02:52 AM PST [link] [Karma: 11 (+/-)] Wednesday, March 26, 2003From the Where is Raed ? Weblog!"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." Samuel P. Huntington posted @ 08:07 PM PST [link] [Karma: 10 (+/-)] Linkin Park Meteora Well I broke down and bought the album and definitely dont regret it. Have no doubt I was sure I would like it to begin with after hearing some of it live on Monday but there is more to the album than just the music when it comes to LP. They had a video on the making of the artwork for the album which was interesting as well and have a pretty nice set of website tools for making fan sites. I feel a sense of obligation to buy LP's albums as they do a lot for their fans and I dont get the sense that I am getting ripped off on my end. Dont be surprised if I start throwing LP stuff in the near future here as I have been wanting to build a new site and LP may just be the motivating factor. While I dont plan on throwing my site completely to LP after all it is all about me!!! Anyways holler at you later. Got a hellish week ahead of me with prep to go to Korea on tuesday =0! I am also planning on watching the Wrestlemania show on Sunday!!! Hey even us old 33 year olds still have to have a little fun. Now I need to take my butt to bed as I have to get up in six hours! posted @ 08:03 PM PST [link] [Karma: -7 (+/-)] Where is Raed? I was listening to KFWB news radio because I am suffering from waritis in that I cant seem to get enough details of the war in Iraq when I heard them talking about a Weblog from a person living in Iraq. While the validity of the weblog is subject to some I have enjoyed checking it out. It is called Where is Raed? and is interesting in the very least. posted @ 05:16 AM PST [link] [Karma: 1 (+/-)] Linkin Park Underground & Meteora Went to Monday nights underground show for Linkin Park at the Wilter Theatre. I have never seen Linkin Park live but have always been a big fan of the band. It was awesome! The Wiltern to start off is a very small venue with around 2200 seats which is very intimate for a big scale band like LP. The show was awesome and the band wasn't ant sized. They played a nice variety of stuff from the three albums, for those of us whou count Reanimation a seperate album from Meteora and I think it follows a natural progression for LP as a whole. It is a little more polished but you could hear hints of that in Reanimation as well. As for the LP Underground I cant say enough good things about it as an organization. It was 40.00 well spent. I actually signed up for both version 1 and 2 at the same time because i really wanted the Hybrid Theory EP. If you want to see what they are offering for version 2 you can check it out HERE! Cant say enough about a band that takes care of its fans like Linkin Park. Too bad there aren't more like them in the world. posted @ 04:39 AM PST [link] [Karma: 8 (+/-)] Sunday, March 23, 2003Whatever!I was browsing to one of my favorite spots on the web bad in a good way which is one of the quintessential weblogs on the web. Justin went off on the state of music and posted some naked pics of Salma Hayek, typical Justin activity!!! He bashed LP who I like but hey everyone is entitled to an opinion since I feel entitled to my own. Watch out though as his site becomes addictive and may cause you to start your own weblog to vent with, speaking from personal experience here. His site went down for sometime which was a bummer but when it came back it was there but he has guest posters who were doing most of the content. Finally he was back in typical Justin fashion and I just wanted to say welcome back homey! Now I need to con him into teaching how to play with my layout so I can make a cool looking website too. posted @ 01:33 AM PST [link] [Karma: -4 (+/-)] Thursday, March 20, 2003What OS are you? Another goofy quiz! Which OS are You? posted @ 12:46 PM PST [link] [Karma: 7 (+/-)] Deep roots of Bush's hatred for Saddam Deep roots of Bush's hatred for Saddam is an interesting article that I found on the Guardian website specifically in The Observer. I have long been a fan of the Observer and some of the other Guardian sights because they have a very interesting perspective of all things American. I sometimes wonder if it is not better to get our news from an agency outside of the US to see what an objective, using the word loosely here folks, take on things is. posted @ 12:45 PM PST [link] [Karma: -5 (+/-)] Sunday, March 16, 2003Pride 25 Body BlowPride 25 was awesome alltogether tonight with an exciting variety of fights that made the three hours fly by. There was plenty of excitement bith in the fights and after them. Pride proved that it is indeed not down and out after the tragic death of its President and if anything it looked stronger than ever. It really struck me that the Pride rules make it a superior product to UFC as just about anything goes on the ground. >Antonio Rogerio Nogueira lokked like his younger brother winning by armbar over Kazuhiro Nakamura. >Alex Stiebling was robbed in his match to Akira Shoji. While it was a great fight I fought Stiebling deserved the nod and have to wonder if the judges weren't partisan to Shoji who got the nod in a split decision. Shoji rocked Stiebling and vice versa but I thought the last round pushed things in Stiebling's favor. >Dan Henderson was doninant as he TKO'd Shungo Oyama who looked pretty tough til Henderson caught up with him. >Anderson Silva defeated Carlos Newton with a flying knee which was devestating. >Antonio "Elvis" Schembri defeated Japanes legend Kazushi Sakuraba with a devestating knee. It was another case of a match not really being over til it was over as Sakuraba seemed to be toying with Schembri until he got caught. >In the number one contenders match to see who will face Vanderlei Silva for the Middleweight belt Quinton Jackson TKO'd Kevin Randleman who had been on a resurgence in Pride. After the fight Quiton told Silva who was watching that he wanted him and Silva obliged by coming into the ring and starting a shoving match. >Fedor Emelianenko surprised me and I am sure a few other people when he easily beat Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to become the new Pride Heavyweight champion. It was an awesome ground and pound display with Emelianenko regularly escaping Nogueira's submission attempts. It will be interesting to see what the fallout of Emelianenko's victory will be as it throws into flux a alread turmoil filled division which found solidity in Nogueira. With Ricco out now, the man many considered a strong #2 and the guy who was starting to holler for Nogueira before Silva sent him back to the drawing board and with Barnett off the radar it should be interesting to see how things settle out in the next few months. The under 205 division looks to be the toughest in the sport with Ortiz and Liddel possibly on the horizon and Silva versus Jackson coming up in June this division is awesome. Imagine seeing the winner of these two face off. posted @ 06:03 PM PST [link] [Karma: 11 (+/-)] Friday, March 7, 2003WWE SmackdownWell it has been an interesting week for the old WWE. Raw finally gets to be entertaining again and now Smackdown is going in the Tank. A train versus Taker is boring me now. Show looks like a big fat blob again and he is almost gross in his costume. Nathan Jones looks like he needs some more time to tune up. Thankfully he is on smackdown where he can make mistakes and have them reshot. Maybe it was just an off week for the boys. Oh well Later! posted @ 03:50 AM PST [link] [Karma: 10 (+/-)] Tuesday, March 4, 2003LentAs Lent begins tomorrow I have been thinking about sacrifices I should make for the next forty days to bring me closer to god. Obviously I need to lose weight and drastic amounts of it so I have decided that as part of my sacrifice I will be not eating meat for the forty days. I will also walk half an hour each day. I am not going to use skoal. I am going to go to mass every day. I am really hoping to cleanse myself so that not only will I have a spiritual cleansing but also a physical cleansing. I am going to give up soda as well for the forty days. 1> No meat for the forty days. Really I am going to try and fast the forty days which is to say eat two samll meals which dont equal one large meal. To make it simple I am going to eat a bowl of cereal for lunch and breakfast. 2> No alcohol and or Tobacco for the forty days. 3> Exercise a minimum of half an hour for the forty days. 4> Attend Mass or make a eucharistic visit on weekdays. I have started to do this for the most part since February when I got in the habit during the Cursillo weekend I served at, but want to maintain the tradition. 5> Pray the complete rosary everyday for the forty days. posted @ 05:06 PM PST [link] [Karma: 5 (+/-)] WWE Raw Well Raw finally was able to step it up a notch. I must wonder if it is going to last or is it just because Wrestlemania is around the corner and they are building up their storylines. It looks as though Rock is staying on Monday night and I don't think that there is anything better for Raw. Even though he turned heel he is the most entertaining guy out there. Hurricane has been playing off the Rock well and I think their vignettes have been awesome. Like the Stone Cold versus Rock for Wrestlemani and finally the HBK versus Jericho which they have been building up forever. Booker T versus Triple H should be great. I think that Booker T's push has been a long time coming and is definitely well deserved. He got to wrestle Steiner last night and gets the Rock next week so he is moving up quick. Curious to see what they are going to do with Goldust. Sounds like they might be moving toward wrapping the goldust gig. I think they are going in the right direction with Raw as of late, as they needed someone like Rock to move things along. Kurt plays that role on Smackdown well and they were definitely need ing help on Raw. posted @ 03:30 AM PST [link] [Karma: 9 (+/-)] |
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