#david finlay has a stick

[fagcrisis]

the thing about new japan wrestlers, is that they fucking love to have some sort of stick they carry around

[blizzardsuplex]

17. Stork

10. Scythe

David Finlay and Gabe Kidd

How is Finlay handling Gabe's obviously growing popularity and influence this G1 given that HE'S supposed to be the one in charge? 😅

Hey, Katie! So the Stork + Scythe means something like "a sudden transition", so when taking into account the the question it seems Finlay's been caught off-guard ;) I've never written him before, so I hope these three sentences do him justice (or at least it's mercifully short if I get him totally wrong)!:

David Finlay is many things now, powerful things; gone are the (anger-inducing, indignant, frustrating) days of simply having "potential"--as if that wasn't a flame that petered out a little more with each year that passed stuck in black trunks, as if it wasn't just the tiny carrot they dangled in front of all the boys at the dojo to distract from the massive stick coming from behind, as if that kind of energy in reserve could ever propel him--any one of his War Dogs--out of the New Japan golden children's shadows.

But once he'd figured all that out, it was easy enough to bide his time, pick his few good men, choose his moment to emerge into the light; afterwards, continue pursuing his plans, unfolding them inch by careful inch until a fatal burst of violence was needed, as it always was in a business like wrestling: Gabe in the G1, for instance, was something he was very pleased with--and sure, he hadn't predicted his meteoric rise in just about everyone's estimation, but that was fine; how could such an impressive, easy show of strength by perhaps his most loyal attack dog not be?

(David Finlay is also--has always been--extremely good at self-denial, especially when: worried, resentful, facing any hint of plunging back into the dark.)

[denimbex1986]

'...June 2007....there’s a near-10-year-old me that still gets scared at certain episodes of What's New, Scooby-Doo...

I’m more than happy to stick to comedies and cartoons, taking every measure imaginable to avoid the horrors of horror.

That is, until an episode of Doctor Who comes on the screen, featuring (or, rather, not really featuring) my Converse-wearing, pinstripe suit-donning idol in David Tennant’s 10th Time Lord, alongside Carey Mulligan’s Sally Sparrow, being hunted down by a group of angel statues out for blood.

That’s right, in the blink of an eye, Blink arrived - and so did my appreciation of what horror could do. (Or, at least, what it could do in a pre-watershed sci-fi series on the BBC - perfect for a fearful primary schooler like myself.)

Sure, this is no kill-heavy slasher in the form of Scream, and no paranormal mind-bender in the shape of The Conjuring, but Blink – perhaps the single most popular episode of the new Doctor Who era – demonstrates the genre’s ability to get under the skin and into the minds of the audience.

And, even with a PG rating and some questionable CGI, it does it masterfully well.

Blink’s greatest strength is its ability to establish a sense of creeping dread, of consistent threat, that is properly unnerving.

The feeling of being watched is one of the most disturbing one can experience, and has been explored throughout horror history - from Michael Myers taunting Laurie Strode from the shadows in 1978’s Halloween to Rory Kinnear’s birthday suit-wearing stalker drifting into the edge of the frame in last year’s Men, there’s very little that unsettles more than being followed.

There’s something mentally exhausting about the idea of never being able to rest, of not being able to drop your guard for even a moment, which can drive you insane - and Steven Moffat’s concrete-looking creations provide the perfect example of this.

You see, with the Weeping Angels, turning your back, trying to run away, or even taking your eye off their haunting expressions for a split second could spell the end of the road - just ask Amy Pond.

In the words of Tennant’s frantic Doctor, "Blink and you’re dead".

Is there any concept more terrifying than having the most basic human action rendered potentially life-threatening? This inescapable danger is draining, debilitating.

As we viewers watch Sally and Finlay Robertson’s Larry Nightingale navigate the nightmare they find themselves in, we grimace each time they turn their heads, and scream at the TV as we spot an angel moving ever closer.

It’s the sort of pulse-racing tension that only the horror genre can provide, and it lingers long in the memory.

Yet director Hettie Macdonald notches up the fear even further, ending the episode by turning her attention from Sally on the screen to us on the sofa at home, repeating Tennant’s iconic speech alongside real-life clips of gargoyles, statues and sculptures to ensure this isn’t just a concept that’s confined to the telly, but one that continues to stick with you even after you hit the big red button on the remote.

I know I, for one, lost many a night’s sleep in the weeks following that episode, as I feared that shutting my eyes to get some shut-eye would spell the end of my time on Earth (stop laughing, I said I was 10), and I’ll still remain resolute whenever I visit a cathedral or graveyard, determined to make sure those creepy creatures don’t get the drop on me. Thanks for that, Moffat.

As if the terror of being tailed from the shadows isn’t unnerving enough, though, the design of the Weeping Angels themselves ensures things are lifted to another level.

Visual effects producer Will Cohen and his team take something that is meant to be reassuring, gentle, holy, and turn it completely on its head.

As the angels switch from passive and peaceful to aggressive and menacing, their demonic faces take up the screen with a look of pure evil, accompanied by a smattering of thunder that still catches me off guard on the 18th watch.

Similar to clowns in the likes of It or dolls in the likes of Chucky, there’s an added shock factor that comes with witnessing something that’s traditionally 'good' going bad. Where once there was joy, there’s now malice, a threat - and if good can turn against you, what can’t?

All of this is hammered home by the fantastic leading performance from Mulligan. Through Sally, we see an everyday protagonist thrown directly into hell. We could easily be Sally ourselves, confused, overwhelmed and completely out of our depth, making it easy to properly experience these horrors through her.

Like the aforementioned Laurie in Halloween or Sidney Prescott in the Scream franchise, Sparrow is in no way prepared for her journey, an ordinary person in an extraordinary scenario, who’s unable to fully rely on a hero’s help - instead having to find her own way out of trouble.

And Mulligan delivers the twists and turns of this torturous 45 minutes with all of the nuance you’d expect from a future Oscar nominee.

Yet, what makes Blink truly special is that it delivers all of these thrills, scares and mental scars without the need for excessive blood splatters or easy cliches.

Through the simple combination of a killer script, top performances and a toe-curlingly terrifying concept, this beloved episode of Doctor Who provides everything horror has to offer, all without leaving the confines of a PG rating.

It may have come out 16 years ago now (yes, it is really that long ago), but Blink is still the ideal introduction to the genre - and a perfect Halloween watch, if you’re too scared to see Saw.'

[romiswired]

Shingo Takagi (c) vs. Gabe Kidd (NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2024 - Tag 2)

What does it mean to be The King of Sports?

The worst part about New Japan Pro Wrestling is whenever they lose their identity and become a parody of themselves. Sadly, that has been happening for a long time now, and few are the moments where you can truly say "The King of Sports" lives up to its name. One of the main reasons this match hits as hard as it does remains in the fact this is one search for that invaluable identity New Japan has been building for 50 years, and while Gabe Kidd is not my cup of tea as a wrestler (his attitude is so Ospreay-coded) I absolutely LOVE him in this one and I love how he stands for the truth: The NEVER Openweight Title was a symbol of prestige in New Japan. Only the roughest motherfucker in the game was going to be NEVER champion because that title was built in the back of Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, Minoru Suzuki, Katsuyori Shibata, and Shingo Takagi.

Now the belt is turned into a joke, and why is that happening? Why is New Japan letting New Japan lose its identity? When Kidd screams "Fuck New Japan!" I choose to believe he means this weird, malformed version of the company he used to love. There's a sincerity in Kidd's words that can't be found in the entirety of modern-day NJPW and even reflects in the fact this hard-hitting classic is not even the Pre-Main Event in this show. How can a company be so into losing its identity when the motto of "King of Sports" was the only reason Western wrestlers went into the cerulean blue to master their craft? Kidd answers these questions by exposing the company and even exposing Takagi, who he's facing in this one.

Many people have said that in 2020-2021 NJPW the only thing deserving of such a prestigious and historic company was Shingo Takagi's NEVER title reign, and I stand by that too because the man was giving New Japan the soul they needed after trying to push too hard into wrestlers like Jay White and Kota Ibushi who, while good, had to stick to the typical 35-plus minute match that nobody cares to see the next day. This match goes for 20 minutes, but it reminds me of that New Japan I used to watch in 2015-2016. While it doesn't get remotely close to the classics this title has in its history, I'm happy to know there are wrestlers in NJPW who care about the honor of the philosophy they're representing.

Hiroshi Tanahashi's NJPW has to take that into consideration and see who they're pushing at the top of the card in comparison to who they should be pushing because let's be honest: In no world could either David Finlay or Nic Nemeth have Pre-Main Event spots over Gabe Kidd and Shingo Takagi after THIS match. It's not the best match you'll see in your life, but it's going to be the best match this new version of New Japan will offer in a long fucking time.

[wrestlingisfake]

The problem I have with this new IWGP global title is that "global championship" literally just means "world championship," and New Japan already has one of those. But then, I never thought the US title made any sense either, and Will Ospreay changing it to a UK title didn't help.

The concept here is that the world title will always be the tippy-toppy belt for all the biggest domestic shows, but the global title will be taken all over the world to represent New Japan in foreign markets. But that was the same pitch Ospreay made for his UK belt. And it was the same idea behind the US title, and the IWGP intercontinental title before that. The STRONG championships all have a similar mandate.

This idea never sticks, though, because whenever New Japan gets real traction in a foreign market, they send the world champion over there to headline shows. There's no particular reason not to send the world champion all over the world. Because that's literally what "world champion" means.

Having an "I'll defend this title all over the world" championship which isn't the world championship is only compelling if it's a shiny new toy. So it's no wonder New Japan has a glut of midcard titles that used to matter. Which then leads to the exhausted trope of a midcard champion saying his belt was a joke until "I mAdE tHIs rEleVaNt aGaIn!" I mean, a championship is supposed to be relevant because it's awarded to the guy who is best at beating up all the other guys. Except a secondary title can't be that, because it is--by definition--secondary to the world title.

I understand why New Japan keeps falling into this trap. It would be neat for Will Ospreay (or Jon Moxley, or David Finlay) to win this global belt and be The Guy outside of Japan. If NJPW is doing a show in Australia or England or the US, the global champ is there. If an international partner wants to book an NJPW title bout, the global champ is the guy to call. It sounds cool, but there's no reason to think it's actually going to happen this time. It'd be more plausible at this point to create a Japan title that stays in Japan, and put the world title on your traveling champion.

[buttdawg]

Think I'm caught up on the World Tag League now. Some observations:

It doesn't look like Dangerous Tekkers is doing so hot in this thing. I forget how many matches they have to wrestle, but I think they're 2-3 so far, which doesn't sound great. I think Juice and David Finlay are in the lead with 8 points. DT only has four.

Then again, the lesson I learned watching the G1 was that these round robins are almost impossible to call this early in. I thought Jon Moxley was in good shape to win B-block because he got five straight wins to start off, while big stars like Jay White and Naito were having really lackluster runs. But White managed to build a winning streak of his own, and Mox couldn't score that much-needed sixth victory. So it's likely that Juice/Finlay are only winning big now because they're due to hit a rough patch later.

I think that's the formula with these tournaments. A few entrants flame out early on, so by the halfway point, you already know they're mathematically eliminated. The you have guys who sort of win every other match. Some of them manage to stay in contention to the end, and they're kind of the dark horses in the tournament. Ibushi was a dark horse, at least to my way of thinking. He lost to KENTA and EVIL pretty early on, so I was convinced he couldn't pull this off, since Okada was on such a roll. Maybe everyone else knew Ibushi would win the G1, but I was somewhat surprised to see him win A Block.

Anyway, it feels like Juice/Finlay are in the Okada or Moxley role right now, building an early lead before the others start to catch up. The Tekkers can still win this thing, especially since they hold a win over Juice/Finlay. But I feel like they're just sort of there to be there. Zach Sabre Junior seems confident about winning, but I don't see it yet.

G.O.D. looks more solid on points. I think they're 3-1 so far, but that could just be designed to make them look strong in the tournament. They're the champions, so they ought to beat most of the other teams. I guess there's not much point to having them win the tournament, since the whole point is to establish a #1 contender, but they should probably be one of the top scoring teams.

Mostly, these matches I've watched have been pretty low-key affairs. Both teams had really standout performances against Suzuki & Archer, and against each other, but the other matches have just been pretty good. I like the relaxed feel to it, honestly, where these guys are mostly just mixing it up in a small venue with no commentary and minimal camera work. But I'm not expecting bigger and better matches against some of the upcoming teams. Honma and Makabe, Goto and Fredericks, these seem like ad hoc teams set up to fill out the tournament. The matches should he enjoyable, but I saw a lot of these dudes in tag matches on G1 Climax undercards, so I don't expect much more than that.

I guess the big team to look forward to is SANADA and EVIL, since they won this tourney in 2017 and 2018. I get the sense that they're the only "proper" team in this thing besides the G.O.D. Maybe I'm wrong, but the rest look like a bunch of singles wrestlers who paired off. I think Dangerous Tekkers might become a full-on thing, but it doesn't have to. Ishii and YOSHI-HASHI have chased the tag titles before, so maybe this tournament is about getting some of these guys to bond into a more permanent unit. I hope so. We need more of that in wrestling.

I've been thinking about tag team wrestling a lot, since AEW has really been pushing to make it important again. WWE has tried to revitalize their tag division several times over the years, but it never sticks, and I think I've finally figured out why. Every time I watch a tag match in AEW or New Japan, I keep instinctively expecting teammates to turn on each other. Heel team loses a match? One of them should blame the other and attack them. Face team loses a match? One guy should attack the other and turn heel to set up a singles fued. Scorpio Sky gets a title shot against Jericho? The other two guys in SCU should betray him out of jealousy.

And it never happens, which is a good thing, because if they did it every time I expected it, then they'd run out of tag teams. The problem WWE has always had is that they pull that trick way too often, which is why I've been conditioned to expect it. It's like they don't know any other way to book a tag team except to split them up. And usually, neither guy gets over. Yeah, Shawn Michaels turned into a big deal when he turned on Marty Janetty, but Enzo and Big Cass tanked hard. Their teamwork may have been the best thing those two had, and they destroyed it on a whim.

What I like about the World Tag League is how the Dangerous Tekkers support each other, win or lose. They seem to really enjoy working together, and they don't point fingers when they lose. When they beat Suzuki and Archer, there was a moment where it looked like the whole Suzuki-gun stable might collapse, but instead they all did fist bumps and congratulated Zach for the win. I've been watching backstage comments where it's clear that Goto and Fredericks aren't doing well, and Fredericks blames himself because he's a rookie, but Goto's chill about it, and seems to take this whole tournament as a way to mentor Karl Fredericks. He's not going to turn on Karl because this story is about camraderie and teamwork. They'll probably win matches late in the tournament once Karl gets more acclimated to it.

Same thing with SCU in AEW. SCU is a three-man unit, but Scorpion Sky and Frankie Kazarian won the tag title tournament, and Christopher Daniels made it clear that those two are the champions, and he's content to be the third guy in the group who currently doesn't have a title. I dig that a lot. the Freebird Rule is fine and all, but it's already being done elsewhere, and it's refreshing to see a team willing to set aside egos for the sake of the group. Sky and Kaz give Daniels a ton of credit, and Daniels supports them as the champions. In another era, it might sound hokey or commonplace, but after years of watching WWE's constant backstabbing angles, it's really comforting and reassuring.

I've always believed that conflict is the essence of drama, so I can understand the WWE philosophy of everyone being at each other's throats, but if you play that to the hilt, 24-7, never relenting, then how can you expect any tag team to matter in the long term? And without proper tag teams, how can you expect anyone to care about the division?

[weirdletter]

Masters of the Weird Tale: William F. Nolan, Centipede Press, 2015. Limited edition. Cover art and frontispiece by David Ho, internal illustrations by Rodger Gerberding, info: centipedepress.com.

Sixty-five years ago, the August 1954 issue of If was published. Not only did it include fiction by Raymond F. Jones, Poul Anderson and Theodore Cogswell, Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, and Richard Matheson, as well as artwork by Ed Emshwiller, Virgil Finlay, and Frank Kelly Freas, but also a short story entitled “The Joy of Living” by one William F. Nolan. The first professional sale for Nolan, it was nearly overlooked among such a star-studded line-up. Over the next six decades, Nolan would continue to refine and improve his craft to the point that within a few short years he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Matheson, Ray Bradbury and George Clayton Johnson as one of the “Southern California Sorcerers” as likely to be found as the writer of a screenplay for The Twilight Zone or a feature film as he was to appear on a magazine cover or the jacket of an anthology. Equally at home with crime, science fiction, and horror, Nolan has particularly excelled as a master of the macabre tale. Herein you will find collected over 750 pages of his best work (over 75 stories!), showcasing his career as it has stretched and grown over nearly seventy years. Masters of the Weird Tale: William F. Nolan is a cornerstone volume for any serious collection of modern weird fiction. This collection includes all of Nolan’s classics: “The Small World of Lewis Stilman,” “The Party” (here reprinted under Nolan’s preferred title of “Ashland”), “Death Call,” “Saturday’s Shadow,” “A Lonely Train a’Comin,” “Boyfren’” and dozens of others. This fine volume is enclosed in a handsome slipcase with ribbon marker and includes 11 full page illustrations by Rodger Gerberding, a frontispiece, title page, and dustjacket by David Ho, a fine introduction by Jason V Brock, a new preface by Nolan himself, and appreciations by Ray Garton, Thomas F. Monteleone, S.T. Joshi, Lisa Morton, and others. The edition is limited to just 200 signed and numbered copies, and the book is signed by William F. Nolan, David Ho, and Rodger Gerberding.

Contents: Author’s Preface Introduction: The Roots of a Master by Jason V. Brock Into the Lion’s Den The Joy of Living The Small World of Lewis Stillman The Ragged Edge S.T. Joshi Appreciation And Miles to Go Before I Sleep One of Those Days Death Drag Just Like Wild Bob FasterFaster! To Serve the Ship Encounter with A King He Kilt It with a Stick Two Coffees Jenny Among the Zeebs Toe to Tip, Tip to Toe, Pip-Pop As You Go The Day the Gorf Took Over Lisa Morton Appreciation Starblood Kelly, Fredric Michael Violation Coincidence Dark Winner Dead Call A Real Nice Guy The Partnership Saturday’s Shadow Death Decision Lonely Train a’Comin’ The Pool Paul B. Johnson Appreciation Fair Trade Joe R. Lansdale Appreciation The Zürich Solution Something Nasty Of Time and Kathy Benedict The Halloween Man Ceremony A Final Stone Ray Garton Appreciation The Yard My Name Is Dolly The Sky Gypsy The Cure Major Prevue Here Tonite Stoner 2On 42nd St. Ships in the Night Shadow Quest Gobble, Gobble! Him, Her, Them Getting Dead Babe’s Laughter The Visit On Harper’s Road The Giant Man Fyodor’s Law The Francis File Vympyre Boyfren’ An Act of Violence Simply An Ending Heart’s Blood Once Upon a Time In Real Life R.C. Matheson Appreciation Some Time in Kansas City Listening to Willy Maybe It Was Joe Killing Charlie DePompa Scotch on the Rocks The Tragic Narrative of Arthur Bedford Addison With the Good Samaritan Mommy, Daddy, & Mollie At the 24-Hour Wolf Song The Alien The Man Who Stalked Hyde To Be With Amy Zachry Revisited What Love Is This? John C. Tibbetts Appreciation I’ll Be Watching Dark Waters The Last Witch (A Fantasy in Seven Parts) Ashland The End: A Final Dialogue Descent The Shop of Heart’s Desire On the Ridge at Iwo Just the Way Things Are Thomas F. Monteleone Appreciation Story Sources and Credits

[hazyheel]

Honor Rising Japan Day 1 (2019) Review

In a night of Ring of Honor Talent both teaming up with and fighting against New Japan, the stars certainly delivered. We had at least one great title match, a lot of funny moments, young lions that really shined, and some good storytelling. If this is only day one, I can’t wait to see day two.

We started the night with young lion Ren Narita vs. Marty Scurll, with Scurll immediately questioning who Narita is. The two had very good technical exchanges, really proving that Narita will be a great wrestler after he leaves and comes back from his excursion. Scurll only seemed to get the advantage when he took the match into striking territory. Scurll also attempted to constantly disrespect Narita as he kept control. Narita just as vicious as all young lions are during their singles matches, and he almost got the win after rolling up Scurll, but Scrull was able to kick out, and lock in the Crossface Chicken Wing for the win.

Grade: C+. Good match, Scurll’s character work kept the match quite entertaining. He tried to make a spectacle of beating on Narita, but Narita was able to fight back just enough that Scurll had to take him seriously. I love the matches like this where Young Lions fight because they are the ultimate underdogs. I can’t help but to root for them, and it makes these matches fun.

Into another young lion match, Shota Umino vs. Zack Sabre Jr. TAKA Michinoku was on the mic before the match, and told everyone that Umino had no chance, even referring to him as young boy rather than by his name. But when TAKA told Umino to “come over here,” the young lion listened. He bolted and TAKA and attacked him, throwing him out of the ring. In the early portion of the match, Sabre seemed scared of locking up with Umino, acknowledging his power advantage. And to his credit, Umino was able to gain the advantage in several technical exchanges. Sabre was his usual cocky self, and was able to goad Umino into madness and gain advantages that want. Sabre focused his offense on Umino’s left leg. There was one spot where Umino was able to hit a German suplex, only for Sabre to reverse the pinfall into a rings of Saturn submission. Despite Umino putting on a hell of a fight, even reversing a guillotine choke into a vertical suplex, Umino tapped out to a modified half crab. Sabre continued the attack after the match, but only briefly.

Grade: B. Another young lion that has a real future after his excursion. This was a great match, that really showed the benefit of experience. Umino had every advantage in this match, but he still couldn’t pull out the win. He had power, striking and was even a good enough technical wrestler to compete with Zack. The only reason Zack won was manipulating Umino’s emotions, and it was very interesting and exciting to watch.

Next up, Jonathan Gresham and Jushin Thunder Liger teamed up to face the BULLET CLUB Junior Heavyweights Taiji Ishimori and Robbie Eagles. There was a standoff between Liger and Ishimori, obvious tension due to their match at the Anniversary show next month. Started out with Gresham and Eagles. Eagles was out of his league when it came to technical style wrestling. Gresham was in Eagles head, goading him into taking Gresham’s hand, and then pulling him into another hold. This first part of the match was focused a lot on comedy, with Gresham making fun of Eagles throughout their interaction. Robbie had been sufficiently beaten, both men tagged out, and Liger quickly got a rollup and pinned the champion. Ishimori was livid, and had to be dragged out by young lions.

Grade B-. Obviously a short match, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. I am into the comedy spots. Gresham and Eagles had real chemistry, despite the silliness. And the shock pinfall was done very well. All wrestlers sold it well, and it was fun to see. Big win for Liger, especailly going into the Junior Heavyweight Championship match.

In an Eight-Man Tag, it was Juice Robinson, David Finlay, Toa Henare and Tomoaki Honma vs. the team of Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa, and Jay and Mark Briscoe. Before the match, Hikuleo returned from an ACL injury, giving the heels an even bigger advantage. Finlay and Mark started off the match, but it quickly devolved into the chaos that these multi-man matches are known for.  There was a fun spot where Mark headbutt Honma, but in the process did more damage to himself, because Honma is so good at the headbutts. I love little sports like that. The Guerrillas and the Briscoes really didn’t work well together, often using blind tags to get in, and few to no tag team moves. Juice Robinson was really on point, improving his already good selling, and really making his offensive moves pop. In the middle of his match, we had a very fun mini tag match between the Brisoces and FinJuice/ Lifeblood, foreshadowing the main event in night two. In the end, the heels’ lack of communication cost them, as Juice pushed Jay into the ropes, and Jado accidentally nailed Jay with the kendo stick, allowing the roleup for the win. The heels all brawled after the match, with the BULLET CLUB saying the the Briscoes can’t attack Jado.

Grade: B-. A bit of a weak B-, but it was still entertaining. Fun chaos accompanied by good wrestling and some interesting storytelling. Could be a budding feud between the Guerrillas of Destiny and the Briscoes, which would be a fun match to see. I’m a big fan of lifeblood, and I want to see more of these inter-stable matches.

Into the first title match of the night, we had Togi Makabe, Ryusuke Taguchi, and Toru Yano defending the NEVER Openweight 6-man Tag Team Championships against Colt Cabana, Cheeseburger, and Delirious. Started with Delirious chasing Yano around the ring, before the two of them just tagged out. Cabana and Makabe had a test of strength, with Cabana really trying to get the crowd into the match by being loud and obnoxious. There was a very fun spot where the challenging team each hit Taguchi with a move off the top rope: a double stop from Cheeseburger, a splash to the back from Delirious and another splash from Cabana. There was also Yano trying to remove the ring of honor turnbuckle pads, which takes much longer, followed immediately by a standoff between Cabana and Yano with the turnbuckle pads. The match was over in a flash, with a hip attack from Taguchi, a low blow from Yano, a head chop from Makabe and a roleup on Delirious for the win. After the math, Delirious low blowed Cabana for some reason.

Grade: C+. I don’t think anyone doubted that this would be a comedy match, and in that sense it was pretty good. But these sorts of matches always suffer a bit because the emphasis was not on the wrestling. But it was still a very funny match, and it was worth the watch. But their wasn’t much classic wrestling.

Next up, Will Ospreay defends his newly won NEVER Openweight Championship against Dalton Castle in his first defense. The match started out with a handshake, and Castle quickly tried to get will on the ground to overpower him, but Ospreay was too fast for him. Even this match had some comedy spots, with Ospreay being pretty confused by the Peacock maneuver that Castle pulls off. When Ospreay faked his dive to the outside, he then mocked the Peacock. The two then faced off in the ring, with Ospreay mocking Castle and getting into a striking contest. Anytime that Ospreay was on the ground, Castle worked over his ribs with various strikes and bear hugs, and was desperately trying to limit his movements. They were really portrayed as equals throughout the match, with one spot where Castle no sold Ospreay’s flip off of the opponent’s chest into an ensiguri, countered with a German Suplex, only for Ospreay to flip out of the suplex and hit the robinson special. There was also a great looking move where Castle countered the Os Cutter into a German, nearly spiking Ospreay on his head. Ospreay hit a deadly combination of a reverse rana, the pump kick, the Hidden Blade (which I guess is a new signature move for him) and then the stormbreaker for the win, retaining his belt.

Grade: A-. These guys fit together in a great way. Their chemistry was off the charts, and their did a great job blending their styles together. The psychology always made sense, the moves were hard hitting, and it was just really good. This story of Ospreay’s transition into the heavyweight division is really going great. Also, this didn’t really influence the grade, but they were calling spots pretty loudly during the match. So if that is the kind of thing that interests you, this is a good match to watch. Definitely the match of the night, and good stuff to both guys.

Then we came to an ROH Television Championship match, pitting Jeff Cobb against Hirooki Goto. This is a rematch from their match at the G1 Special, which Goto was able to win. This was a pretty classic strength contest, but Cobb puts such an original spin on that, that this was a fun match to see. While the two were brawling on the outside, Goto even used a young lion to hit Cobb, suplexing him onto the prone champion. There was also a long stretch in the match where Goto tried to submit Cobb that was a bit awkward, given the size difference between the two. The match picked up a bit when Jeff Cobb had the advantage, using his immense strength and agility to keep Goto at bay. As Goto looked like he might win, he came off the ropes right into a Tour of the Island from Cobb for the win.

Grade: C-. This match definitely suffered from its placement on the card. Right after a banger of a match, we had one that was pretty slow at times, and that comparison really hurt this match. It was just much slower that I expected. I don’t think these guys have as much chemistry as we think they do, and as unfortunate as that is, we can’t force them to keep wrestling until they get it right. The second half of the match was pretty good, when they got into striking and slams. Although the match did kick into a second gear, its first was too slow to really improve the match.

And the main event pitted a dream team of Jay Lethal, Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi, against the ROH 6-man Tag Team champions, the Kingdom. Although it seemed like Taven was going to start the match with Lethal, but he quickly tagged out to Marseglia. The faces worked at a very quick pace, and very well together. Throughout the match, Okada continued to sell the knee that he injured during Iizuka’s retirement show. However, as well as the faces worked, the heels were a real team. They knew exactly how to bend the rules to their favor, and work together to keep the advantage. There was even a cheap heat move where the Kingdom kept twisting Tanahashi’s nipples, which is... something. Tanahashi was beat down for much of the match, before tagging in Okada, who had an awesome hot tag. And after that, Lethal finally made his way in, only for the Kingdom to triple team him. There was a really cool spot where Marseglia had Okada up for a Samoan drop, and O’Ryan flipped Marseglia to put more damage on it. The Kingdom went for My Supernova, but Okada and Tanahashi intercepted O’Ryan and Tanahashi. Okada and Tanahashi took Taven and O’Ryan out of the ring, allowing Lethal to hit the Lethal Injection on Marseglia for the win. After the match, Taven beat down Lethal a bit. Lethal then got on the mic to cut a simple promo on O’Ryan, just saying that he will win.

Grade: B+. Good action, everyone in the match had their moments. The teamwork and spots were all very fun to watch. My biggest problem though was the fact that commentary did not make a big deal out of the fact that the 6-man champions were pinned. That should be important, and the ultra babyface team should get a title match. I hope to see it sooner or later, but I guess we will have to wait and see. Still, very good match.

Overall Grade: B

Pros: good tag matches; funny comedy matches; NEVER Openweight title match

Cons: Television title match; main event wasn’t Proving Ground; no young lion wins :(

[automaticpostinfluencer]

Tiger King on Netflix: 9 things you didn’t know about this weirdly addictive show

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness on Netflix is the weirdly addictive new documentary series that has managed to do the impossible: Temporarily distract a nation stressed out by dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. The seven-episode series, directed by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, focuses on Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, and his Oklahoma exotic-animal park. As of Monday, it was the No. 1 show on the streaming network.

When the show begins, Joe has an impressive blonde mullet, a flamboyant wardrobe, multiple husbands at the same time, and a raging feud with Carole Baskin, the owner of a big cat sanctuary. All of that is as tame as a bowl of warm milk compared to what comes next. Every element in Tiger King gets weirder, and every personality who comes on camera has a secret, a compellingly weird event in their history, or dozens of each. Joe runs for president and governor, tries for a country-music career, makes bizarre videos suggesting his rival fed her missing husband to her tigers and so, so much more. 

Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic have a running feud that explodes in the Netflix series Tiger King.

Courtesy Netflix

There’s a strange comfort to be had in taking refuge in this specific brand of American craziness. For viewers self-isolating in their homes, it’s a reminder that the world was weird in so many varied ways before coronavirus. God willing and the creek don’t rise — it will one day get a chance to be that weird again.

Since the series was released on March 20, dozens of news stories and interviews have dug into the real people and events behind the show. Some spoilers ahead, but if you’ve already watched the series, read on for nine juicy tidbits that the show itself didn’t reveal.

That (mostly) isn’t Joe singing

In multiple episodes, Joe brags about his singing career, and songs such as “I Saw a Tiger” are heard. But anyone with ears can tell that the polished, country-music-veteran voice crooning the tunes doesn’t sound anything like Joe Exotic’s drawling speaking voice. Real musicians Vince Johnson and Danny Clinton were the real musical power behind Joe’s Milli Vanilli act. Johnson told Vanity Fair that they worked for free, thinking they’d earn fame from a reality show about Joe’s life. (Clinton died in October, TMZ reports.) The show’s directors, Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, told the L.A. Times that a fact-checker discovered that Joe did sing somewhat on certain songs, so they chose not to call him out on it in the show.

Don’t blame the tiger for that missing hand

In the first episode, Kelci Saffery, one of Joe’s employees, is seen immediately after being bitten by a tiger. Saffery chooses to have his hand amputated rather than undergo numerous operations, returns to work just five days later, and shows up throughout the show displaying a stump. Saffery has said from the beginning that he doesn’t blame the tiger, and though it’s not mentioned in the episode, the tiger was not put down. In a 2013 statement, Saffery said, “I broke protocol and stuck my hand in a cat cage instead of using the stick provided.” Actor David Spade interviewed Saffery in a video published March 27. “I just got complacent,” Saffery said about the injury. And the tiger didn’t pay the ultimate price for the bite. “(The tiger) wasn’t put down, we just moved it off of the park, off of display,” Saffery said.

John Finlay got his teeth fixed

David Spade, who’s admitted he’s obsessed with the show, didn’t just interview Saffery, but a number of other Tiger King cast members, including John Finlay, one of Joe Exotic’s romantic partners. Finlay was noteworthy on the show for only having a few visible teeth, but now he has full dentures and is almost unrecognizable. “It took a while,” he told Spade of his dental procedures. “But after I got ’em fixed the right way, they were perfect.” Finlay did tell Spade that he thought getting his teeth fixed was more painful than getting his 51 tattoos, and that the pink-shirt three-groom wedding seen on the show was all Joe’s idea.

Those alligators were famous

Tiger King is mostly about the big cats, although the reptile residents of the park have a sad storyline in one of the episodes when their enclosure catches fire. John Finlay told David Spade in his video interview that some of the alligators at the exotic-animal park came from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. He also said that working with the crocodiles and alligators was more dangerous than working with the big cats, in part because of the reptiles’ giant and threatening tails. Finlay also said that he’s not in contact with Joe Exotic at all, plans to get all the tattoos of Joe’s name covered up, and is engaged to a woman now.

Courtesy Netflix

That bungee-jump accident was even worse

John Reinke, former manager at Joe Exotic’s animal park, is shown many times putting on and taking off his artificial legs, and explains that he needs them because he was injured in a bungee-jumping accident. Like everything in Tiger King, that’s only half of the dramatic story. Back in 2010, Reinke explained his accident to The Oklahoman newspaper.  Not only did a pulley malfunction, sending Reinke tumbling 55 feet to the ground and crushing his legs, but he didn’t just land on the earth. He fell onto a 6-inch metal stake that pierced his colon and stomach, the paper reports, and was bleeding heavily. He later had more than 20 operations on his feet and legs.

Shaq is not Joe Exotic’s friend

Tiger King gets so weird that viewers might forget that NBA star Shaquille O’Neal briefly shows up in an episode. But on March 25, O’Neal said on The Big Podcast with Shaq that the two are not pals. He said he loves tigers and visited the park a few times but “had no idea all that stuff was going on.” He said he still loves the animals and has made donations to support them, but is not close to Joe Exotic. “I was just a visitor,” O’Neal said on the podcast. “I met this guy, not my friend, don’t know him, never had any business dealings with him.” And don’t go to the athlete’s house expecting to see big cats, though he could certainly afford them. “Do I own tigers personally at my house?” O’Neal said. “No.”

Petting the cubs has a dark side

Joe Exotic earns money by charging visitors to come to his exotic-animal park and take photos cuddling with the big-cat cubs. But directors and writers Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin told the L.A. Times that they never gave in and cuddled the the baby cats, especially after what they saw. “Most of the tigers we were around were subjected to abject cruelty,” Chaiklin said. “We saw babies being torn from their mothers and screaming. They’d get sick from being handled so much and get ringworm and mange. It was disturbing.”

Carole’s missing husband is still missing

A large part of the series focuses on Joe Exotic’s nemesis, activist Carole Baskin, whose husband Don James disappeared in 1997. Joe Exotic, who is now serving 22 years in prison for charges related to Baskin, claims over and over in the series that Baskin killed James and fed the remains to her big cats. On the website for Big Cat Rescue, her animal organization, Baskin refutes how she was portrayed in the documentary. “(The directors) did not care about truth,” she says. “The unsavory lies are better for getting viewers.” As for Don James himself, his disappearance remains a mystery. On Monday, Hillsborough, Florida Sheriff Chad Chronister even tweeted out a request for anyone with any leads in the case to call him.

Joe loves the publicity. Duh.

You couldn’t watch more than a minute of Tiger King and not realize Joe Exotic adores fame and publicity. Even though he’s now in prison, the directors told the L.A. Times that Joe knows the show has made him famous, and he’s overjoyed “He is absolutely ecstatic about the series and the idea of being famous,” Goode told the paper. “He’s absolutely thrilled.” And the directors aren’t buying Joe’s sudden change-of-heart. “He is in a cage and of course he’s gonna say that he now recognizes what he did to these animals,” Goode said.

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[travelworldnetwork]

By Shafik Meghji

1 April 2019

“Stay at least 200m away from the whaling station – it’s filled with asbestos and the roofs could literally blow off,” warned expedition leader Nate Small, as we stepped gingerly out of our Zodiac and into the fizzing surf at Stromness Bay, South Georgia. I picked a careful route across the grey-pebble beach, eyeing warily the growling fur seals and slumbering elephant seals, their gargantuan bodies emitting a series of burps, bellows and rumbling bass notes.

At the far end of the bay, set against a mountain slope and surrounded by bog land, was a cluster of dilapidated, rusty, corrugated iron buildings. Huge sections of the roofs and walls were missing, and those that remained rattled incessantly in the near gale-force wind. It looked as if a natural disaster had struck. I stopped at an ‘Asbestos – Keep Out’ sign and peered through the encroaching mist, my extremities numb from the sub-zero conditions. It was a struggle to picture the station as a thriving community, yet a century ago Stromness was part of a highly profitable – and brutal – industry that transformed South Georgia into the whaling capital of the South Atlantic.

View image of Stromness, South Georgia, was once part of a highly profitable – and brutal – industry (Credit: Credit: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy)

You may also be interested in: • The city that lit the world • A strange life at the end of the world • Is this the world’s last paradise?

Earlier in my trip, Seb Coulthard, expedition guide and on-board historian for Polar Latitudes, told me how Ernest Shackleton arrived in Stromness in 1916 following his epic 1,300km escape from Elephant Island, one of the South Shetland Islands that lie just north of the Antarctic Peninsula, after his ship was trapped and later crushed by pack ice. For the polar explorer, the whaling station represented civilisation, but today nature is slowly reclaiming it. Fur seals sheltered beside a blubber cooker, king penguins waddled past disintegrating warehouses and skuas (aggressive, dark-brown seabirds) washed themselves in meandering streams that once ran with the blood of tens of thousands of whales.

A rugged, inhospitable land of glaciers, mountains and fjords, South Georgia is one of the most remote places on Earth. This sub-Antarctic British overseas territory in the South Atlantic is around 1,400km from its nearest inhabited neighbour, the Falkland Islands, and is only accessible by sea. Like me, the majority of the nearly 18,000 people who visit each year are on Antarctic cruises. The island spans 3,755 sq km – less than a fifth of the size of Wales – and around half is covered permanently by ice (though, as a result of climate change, its glaciers are drastically retreating).

Despite its isolation and harsh environment, South Georgia was once a vital part of the global economy. First sighted in 1675, this uninhabited island was claimed for Great Britain by James Cook in 1775. His accounts of abundant seal populations aroused the interest of sealers from the UK and the US. In little more than a century, South Georgia’s fur seals were hunted to the verge of extinction. By the early 1900s, sealing was no longer economically viable, but it was quickly replaced by an equally bloody industry.

View image of South Georgia was once a vital part of the global economy, but today it’s being reclaimed by nature (Credit: Credit: Shafik Meghji)

The day after my visit to Stromness, my ship sailed south through 75-knot winds to King Edward Cove. Scattered with shipwrecks and mini icebergs, backed by forbidding mountains and obscured by drizzle, this sweeping bay was the location of South Georgia’s first whaling station, Grytviken. Today it is the site of the island’s main settlement, home to the majority of the 15 to 30 people, mostly scientists and government officials, who live on South Georgia at any one time.

After paying my respects to Shackleton, who is buried in Grytviken’s small cemetery, I was taken around the decaying whaling station by Finlay Raffle, a curator at the site’s museum. We walked through an industrial landscape of squat towers, warehouses, power plants, mazes of inter-connected pipes, and huge blubber and bone cookers, everything thickly covered with rust. Along the shoreline, ships and boats in varying stages of collapse were pushed up at odd angles by the tide. Chunks of whale bone carpeted the muddy ground.

In 1902, Norwegian polar explorer Carl Anton Larsen stopped in South Georgia and chanced upon a beautiful natural harbour. After the discovery of several sealers’ try-pots – used to render oil from blubber – the area was named Grytviken (‘Pot Cove’ in Norwegian). “They moored not far off from where your ship is today,” Raffle said. “The only difference was when they looked out over the water they saw hundreds of whales in this bay alone.” With the northern hemisphere whaling industry in decline due to the decimation of whale populations, Larsen spotted a business opportunity. He returned to Grytviken in November 1904 and set up a whaling station, which swiftly prospered. By 1912, there were six other whaling stations on South Georgia, including Stromness.

View image of Grytviken, South Georgia’s first whaling station, is the site of the island’s main settlement (Credit: Credit: Shafik Meghji)

Narrowly dodging a pair of fur seals, who blended in remarkably well with the rusty machinery, we approached an old whale-catcher. With its steam-powered engine, reinforced hull and mighty harpoon gun, the whaling ship Petrel could capture as many as 14 whales on a single trip. Back at Grytviken, the animals would be winched onto a slipway, the ‘flensing plan’. “It was very slippery with all the blood and oil, so the men wore boots with nails in them to grip properly” Raffle said. “They had a flensing knife – a long, almost hockey stick with a sharp, curved blade, which they used to cut the blubber away.” The whole process took 20 minutes per whale.

Initially the whalers were only interested in the blubber, but later regulations forced them to use the whole of the carcass, Raffle explained, pointing out gory rotating blades and a 24-tonne blubber cooker. Although the meat and bone-meal were sold as animal feed and fertiliser, whale oil was the real prize. “The best oils went into food products like margarine and ice cream,” he said. “The second grade went into soap and cosmetics, and the worst was used in industrial processes.” Whale oil also provided glycerol, used in the manufacture of explosives, and high-quality lubricants for rifles, chronometers and other military equipment. As a result, demand soared during World War One and Two.

There were 450 men at Grytviken in its heyday, working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, in temperatures that could plunge below -10C. Larsen was keen to look after their spiritual needs, building an impressive neo-Gothic church. But, said Raffle said, the pastor “was the least employed man on the station”. The cinema, windswept football pitch and ski jump – now just a few bits of broken timber protruding from a hillside – proved rather more popular. The community store, or ‘slop chest’, also provided distractions. “Tobacco was the most popular item but the men also bought lots of cologne,” Raffle said. “Larsen didn’t allow alcohol, so they drank cologne instead. They also had illicit stills, and even got boot polish, squeezed it through bread, and drank the drippings, which apparently also had alcohol. Anything to pass the time.”

View image of The whaling ship Petrel could capture as many as 14 whales on a single trip (Credit: Credit: David Tipling Photo Library/Alamy)

Raffle left me at the former manager’s house, a simple, white-washed building that has been turned into the site’s museum. The displays inside contain some stark figures: 175,250 whales were processed on South Georgia between 1904 and 1965, when the industry collapsed due to over-hunting and developments in the petrochemicals industry. If you consider the Antarctic region as a whole and include the many ‘factory ships’ that processed whales on board, almost 1.5 million whales were killed between 1904 and 1978, when hunting of the species eventually ended.

Whale populations haven’t recovered. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) says blue whale numbers in the southern hemisphere have fallen from as many as 200,000 to the ‘low thousands’; fin whales have undergone a similar decline. There are an estimated 60,000 humpbacks in the southern hemisphere, but this is also far lower than the pre-whaling era. In September 2018, IWC plans for a South Atlantic whaling sanctuary were rejected by pro-whaling countries. Japan later announced it will resume commercial whaling for the first time in three decades, prompting global outrage.

It’s a bittersweet irony in that it was a terrible, brutal industry, yet nature took its sweet revenge by reclaiming it

The plight of the whales is undeniably bleak, but in other respects, South Georgia has become an improbable model of conservation. One of the world’s largest marine reserves, the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Marine Protected Area, was created here in 2012 to protect more than one million sq km of the surrounding waters, while seal numbers have bounced back: the island now has 98% of the world’s Antarctic fur seals and roughly 50% of its elephant seals.

South Georgia also has 30 million breeding pairs of seabirds. During my visit, I spent a morning at St Andrews Bay in the company of 400,000 king penguins – one of four penguin species found on the island – and an afternoon on Prion Island, an important breeding site for wandering albatrosses. Last year, South Georgia was declared rodent-free after a pioneering eradication programme, which the authorities hope will allow birds like the endemic South Georgia pipit and South Georgia pintail to flourish.

View image of South Georgia is now home to large populations of fur and elephant seals and around 400,000 king penguins (Credit: Credit: Shafik Meghji)

Despite the profusion of wildlife, it was the island’s whaling heritage that remained foremost in my mind as I sailed out of Grytviken. “When you walk about these stations all you see are these rusting boilers, blubber cookers and bone saws,” Coulthard said. “It’s a bittersweet irony in that it was a terrible, brutal industry, yet nature took its sweet revenge by reclaiming it. It’s a reminder that nature doesn’t need human beings; we need nature.”

This trip was made possible by Polar Latitudes. Trips to South Georgia are also available through Quark Expeditions, One Ocean Expeditions and National Geographic Expeditions, among other operators.

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BBC Travel – Adventure Experience

[male-model-confessions]

Year in Review It is time for the Year in Review again. I want to start out by thanking all my followers. It has been a long year and I have not been on top of things like I should. I finished my MBA and have been looking for a job. I am sorry this year in review is late. I had trouble deciding how to begin. This year has been filled with so many tragedies and deaths. It seems to me, that there are way more deaths this year than I can include in this post. Everyone in the media is subjected to scrutiny and can influence the world of fashion. I have decided that I will provide a list of the names of the people that passed away. 

January 10 David Bowie, 69, Rock icon January 14 Alan Rickman, 69, Actor January 18 Glenn Frey, 67, Eagles rocker January 23 Jimmy Bain, 68, Rainbow rock star January 30 Frank Finlay, 89, Acting great January 31 Terry Wogan, 77, TV & radio legend February 3 Maurice White, 74, Earth Wind & Fire star

February 4 Katie May, 34, female model February 19 Harper Lee, 89, To Kill A Mockingbird author February 28 George Kennedy, 91, Movie great March 8 George Martin, 90, Beatles producer March 11 Keith Emerson, 71, ELP rock legend March 15 Sylvia Anderson, 88, Lady Penelope March 16 Frank Sinatra Junior, 72, Sinatra’s singer son March 17 Paul Daniels, 77, Comedy magician March 29 Patty Duke, 69, Child star March 31 Ronnie Corbett, 85, Comedy legend March 31 Denise Robertson, 83, TV agony aunt April 6 Merle Haggard, 79, Country legend April 12 David Gest, 62, TV personality April 20 Victoria Wood, 62, Comedian April 20 Joanie “Chyna” Laurer, 46, WWE wrestling legend April 21 Lonnie Mack, 74, Blues guitar great April 21 Prince, 57, Pop icon April 21 Guy Hamilton, 93, Bond director April 24 Billy Paul, 80, Chart star May 17 Guy Clark, 74, Country legend May 19 John Berry, 52, Beastie Boys star May 19 Alan Young, 96, Mister Ed TV star May 21 Nick Menza, 51, Megadeth drummer May 24 Burt Kwouk, 85, Pink Panther star May 31 Carla Lane, 87, Liver Birds writer June 3 Muhammad Ali, 74, Boxing legend June 14 Henry McCullough, 72, Wings guitarist June 19 Anton Yelchin, 27, Star Trek’s Chekov June 24 Bernie Worrell, 72, Funkadelic star

June 25 Billy Cunningham, 87, Fashion photographer June 28 Scotty Moore, 84, Elvis’s guitarist July 2 Caroline Aherne, 52, Comedy actress July 16 Alan Vega, 78, Suicide punk pioneer August 13 Kenny Baker, 81, Star Wars’ R2-D2 August 29 Gene Wilder, 83, Comic genius September 11 Alexis Arquette, 47, Transgender actress September 17 Charmian Carr, 73, Sound of Music’s Liesl September 25 Arnold Palmer, 87, Golfing legend October 14 Jean Alexander, 90, Corrie’s Hilda Ogden October 23 Pete Burns, 57, Dead or Alive chart star October 24 Bobby Vee, 73, 1960s teen idol November 7 Leonard Cohen, 82, Iconic singer & writer November 11 Robert Vaughn, 83, Veteran actor November 13 Leon Russell, 74, US rock legend November 24 Colonel Abrams, 67, 80s chart star November 25 Florence Henderson, 82, Brady Bunch star November 26 Ron Glass, 71, US TV star December 1 Andrew Sachs, 86, Fawlty Towers star December 6 Peter Vaughan, 93, Game of Thrones star December 8 John Glenn, 95, First to orbit Earth December 8 Greg Lake, 69, ELP legend December 13 Alan thicke, 69,Actor, composer, television host December 18 Zsa Zsa Gabor, 99, Actress December 24 Rick Parfitt, 68, Quo Rocker December 25 George Michael, 53, Singer December 26 George Irving, 94, Actor December 27 Richard Adams, 96, Author December 27 Carrie Fisher, 60, Actress

December 28 Debbie Renyolds, 84, Actress and mother.

December 31 William Christopher, 84, Actor

Of course, not everything is about death. Some good things happened this year. I’m going to stick to the fashion world, in this one. 

• More insight and awareness was achieved in the struggles and pressure male actors Cover Girl hired James Charles, the first male model to advertise make up. This is a big step in normalizing the use of make up, by men.

 • Several models, including Jaden Smith, stood up against gender norms and began advertising skirts and dresses

.• Colton Hayes received the visibility award from the Human Rights Campaign. This year has been amazing at highlighting gender issues and destroying gender stereotypes. 

Top five favorites confessions:

1. I think it is important to raise awareness on this matter. It is usually easy to dismiss the idea that men do not suffer from sexism but here is the unglamorous truth and the problem with the social constructs of masculinity. [I think it is important that we address this issue. Sexism is not excluded to female models.]

2. I just saw the BBC report on modelling agencies demanding to end gender pay gap in modelling. The argument is actually very fair, but in the long run male models and their agencies will never see it, because as Ty Ogunkoya (featured in the report) said; nobody wants to speak out because they will lose modelling jobs, and male models are just happy that they’re given the opportunity. [I like this one because It sheds light on a major problem in the fashion industry.]

3. I hate what that person said about Marc Schulze’s girlfriend. She’s super pretty and just because someone’s SUPER attractive (Marc) doesn’t mean that they aren’t allowed to like people who are less attractive. Which I don’t even think she is less attractive. [I love that someone stood up for a model’s girlfriend, rather than tearing them down.] 

4. It’s pretty damn sad to see people say “oh it’d be sad if” or ‘what a waste if “ Ben Allen is gay. People - it’s not a 'waste’ or 'sad’ if someone isn’t heterosexual and you are. That’s you being selfish and talking about a person as if they are 'property’ you could potentially own, and you dismissing their worth based on your personal preferences. Rude! [I agree with this statement on so many levels. It is not sad that these people have a life outside of modeling.]

5. Felix Gesnouin is not ugly at all, i like the fact that he is not dating a model…(like most of male models nowdays) and he is really a funny guy,i worked with him once in London. [I seriously love when people right in and defend the models.]

5 of my least favorite confessions:

1. No thanks. CoverGirl used James Charles as a token. Not groundbreaking…[I disagree. This was a groundbreaking move for CoverGirl.]

2. Ben Allen is so gross, honestly. I was at a small party that he was at and everyone was so uncomfortable around him and no one wanted to talk to him because he was saying some ridiculous shit and acting real fucking cocky. He is hot garbage. [I hate when people completely tear into the models.]

3. I’m so happy RJ King finally came out! I mean, it felt like everyone already knew except him. There were already so many rumors circulating back then. Much love to them both! [I love the positivity in this post, but I don’t like outing anyone.]

4. French model Paul Hameline comes off as over-sexed and lustful, but in a good way that makes you want to rip his pants off without shame. His Instagram is full of nearly naked men, sometimes engaging in sex! I think he has a fling with Jonas Gloer. [His Instagram seriously disturbed me, but I thought this confession was too judgmental on the man’s sexuality.]

5. This is a photo of Kristof Kralik taken by Nicolas Hagius (another male model) that pretty much show how pigs and misogynist some male models can actually. The “funny” thing is right after this Kristof and Nicolas stopped working for some time in the big markets, upto some time ago (Kristof walked Versace A/W 2016). I’ve always wondered what is the real reason why guys become male models, they always say because of traveling and meeting new people, it seems like some of them want to be a douchebag in as many different countries as they can be. [I think the picture was taken out of context. You cannot always judge a picture at face value.]

Well, that is another year in review. I wish everyone a Happy New Year. 

[riotactquotes]

Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors, 1819

Page 829: Yet true it is and of verity, that the said David Duncan, Elizabeth or Elly Duncan, John Nicolson, Francis Wilson, Robert Mitchell, and Neil Reidpath, are all and each or one or other of them, guilty actors, or art and part of the aforesaid crime or crimes, insofar as on the 29th day of August 1797, or on one or other of the days of that month, or of the month of July immediately preceding, or of September immediately following, David Anderson, esq. of Saint Germains, John Cadell, esq. of Cockenzie, Major Andrew Wight of Ormiston, and Andrew Gray, esq. of Southfield, all deputy lieutenants of the said county of Haddington, having met in the house of John Glen, innkeeper, in the village of Tranent, parish of Tranent, and county of Haddington aforesaid, in order to carry into execution an act of the 37th of George the third, cap. 103, intituled “An Act to raise and embody a Militia Force in that part of the Kingdom of Great Britain called Scotland,” by receiving the lists from the different parishes of those liable to serve in the militia, and adjusting and amending the same in terms of the said statute: a number of riotous and disorderly persons, among whom were the said David Duncan, Elizabeth or Elly Duncan, John Nicolson, Francis Wilson, Robert Mitchell, and Neil Reidpath above complained on, or one brother of them, armed with great sticks, bludgeons and other offensive weapons, and assembled on the streets of the said village of Tranent: And while the before-named persons, deputy lieutenants of the said county of Haddington, were proceeding in discharge of their duty, and in terms of the said statute, to carry the same into effect, the said riotous and disorderly persons, among whom were the afore-named persons above complained on, or one or other of them, did thereupon beset the house of the said John Glen, where the said deputy lieutenants were so met, and did in the most riotous and outrageous manner, assault the said house with stones, by breaking the windows, and attempting forcibly to enter the same; to the great terror, annoyance, and danger of the said deputy lieutenants; one of whom, and who was also a justice of the peace, attempted in vain, and at different times, to read the act of George the first, commonly called the Riot act, but was prevented by the violence and outrageous proceedings of the said mob; and when the said deputy lieutenants went into the street to endeavor to preserve the peace, they were assaulted in a violent manner with sticks and stones, and otherwise maltreated and insulted by the said mob: In consequence of all which outrageous and violent proceedings, the said deputy-lieutenants were at that time compelled to desist from the execution of their duty: And they the said deputy lieutenants, having, in consequence of what they had previously learned as to the intentions of the said mob, considered it absolutely necessary for their own safety, and for the support and protection of the law, to call in the aid of the military, then stationed at Haddington, being a detachment of the Cinque Port light dragoons, then under the command of captain David Finlay; also of a party of the Yeomanry Volunteer cavalry of the said county of Haddington, whom it was found afterwards necessary to reinforce by a detachment of the Pembrokeshire cavalry, under the command of captain John Price, from the troops then encamped at Musselburgh, the said riotous and disorderly, among whom were the afore-named persons above complained on, who took an active and leading share in the said riot, did then and there violently assault with stones, bludgeons, and other offensive weapons, the said military so assembled for protection of the said deputy lieutenants, and in support of the law, and did wound, and severely bruise, to the effusion of their blood, and imminent danger of their lives, several of the said military: And the said military having for a considerable time, and notwithstanding of the great violence of the said mob, endeavored to persuade the said persons, thus riotously assembled, among whom were the afore-named persons above complained on, to desist from their violent and outrageous proceedings;…..

Page 831: In the petition for the procurator fiscal anent the riot at Tranent; Declaration of D. Duncan. Haddington, 31 August, 1797. Compeared David Duncan, coallier in Penston, who being examined and interrogated, declares, that he was at Tranent on Wednesday last, by 10 o'clock in the forenoon, for a pair of shoes to his wife. That he continued there till the riot began, and for a good while after. That he had a large stick in his hand. Acknowledges that when Mr. Cadell was reading, or attempting to read, the Riot act, at the house of John Glen, he the declarant threw a stone at the window, but which did not strike him, Mr. Cadell, though he intended that it should. Denies that he threw a stone at captain Finlay, or that he shaked his stick at him, but acknowledges that he gave him bad names, and that he picked up a sword which fell from captain Finlay, and carried it into a house. Admits that he made a stroke at major Wight at Tranent, upon Tuesday last, when the said major Wight was endeavoring to apprehend him, and after he had knocked him, the declarant, down. Acknowledges that when major Wight was mentioning the intention of the meeting of the deputy lieutenants at the door of John Glen's house, the declarant interrupted him, and said, that they would have no militia, for that they never had a militia in Scotland. And declares all this is truth, and three words delete before signing. In witness whereof the declarant has subscribed this declaration, consisting of this and the preceding page, before Henry Davidson, writer, in Haddington, and Donald Mac Donald, residenter there. (Signed) DAViD DUNCAN.

[wrestlingisfake]

New Japan Soul in Sapporo preview

SHO vs. El Desperado - This is a steel cage match for Sho's IWGP junior heavyweight championship. Sho won the title from Despe back on February 23, and Despe recently won the Best of the Super Jr. tournament to position himself as the next contender.

New Japan has rarely booked cage matches, but they did one a few months ago where the "cage" was more like a extra-tall guardrail surrounding the ringside area. That worked well enough for a ten-man brawl, but for this match I think they'd do better with the traditional chain-link fencing attached to the ring frame. I guess we'll see what they come up with.

The rationale for a cage should be obvious. Sho only won the title due to copious interference from his buddies in House of Torture, culminating with Ren Narita literally holding Despe down outside the ring for a count-out finish. The promise of a cage match is "the bad guy finally has to win or lose on his own" but the delivery is always more like "the bad guy's friends spend the whole match trying to overcome this new obstacle." Realistically, there's nothing to stop House of Torture from slipping Sho's trusty wrench through the cage, or beating up the guy holding the key to the cage door.

I think Despe should win, but then again I didn't think he should have lost to Sho in the first place. I'm not sure what would be served by keeping the title on Sho, especially after New Japan went out of its way to do a press conference where management announced plans to crack down on cheating. Every day Sho remains champion will make that promise seem like bullshit, so it's imperative for the promotion to show that it can keep its word to the fans. So the right finish is Despe regaining the title, but these days I lack confidence in New Japan to do the right thing.

David Finlay vs. SANADA - Finlay is defending the IWGP global title. For months Finlay has made a big deal about avenging various blemishes on his record, particularly when he regained the global belt from Nic Nemeth. So he's repeatedly brought up his loss to Sanada in the finals of the 2023 New Japan Cup, which propelled Sanada to a world title run that Finlay thinks should have been his. Now Sanada can try to shut him up and get some gold in the process.

This is the biggest heavyweight match on the card, and I'm sure it will come after the announcement of the G1 Climax entrants. So this match probably won't affect that announcement, which makes sense--regardless of the outcome, both guys should automatically qualify for the field of 20. On the other hand, I doubt the man who carries the global title into the G1 is going to win the tournament and go on to challenge the world champion. In a weird way, I think the loser of this match is a bigger favorite to win the G1, if that makes any sense.

I fully expect New Japan to rebuild Sanada for another run at the top, but I'm not sure when that's going to happen. On the other hand, it feels like Finlay is being heated up for something, whether it's a world title match or something else. So I guess I'll pick Finlay to win, but I can't say I'm sure.

Shingo Takagi vs. HENARE - These two met last week for Takagi's NEVER championship, but the match ended in a double KO when both men failed to answer the standing ten-count. So we're running it back.

Given what happened last time, both men should fight more defensively, to avoid taking too many blows to the head. (I mean, wrestlers should avoid legit head trauma in general, but in this case the wrestlers should also pretend to be avoiding kayfabe head trauma.) However, the whole idea is that Shingo and Henare are both MEAN GUYS~! fighting over the "baddest motherfucker" championship, so they will probably stick to what they know and clubber the shit out of each other. I don't see why we shouldn't expect the same outcome as last time, but it stands to reason one man or the other will simply not get KO'ed this time.

Unlike Finlay and Sanada, I'm not confident both men will make the cut for the G1. If New Japan announces the field after this match, the loser of this match might be left out, and he'll have to win a tournament to qualify for one of the two play-in slots. Personally I think both guys are "grade one," but I could see Henare being on the bubble unless he wins here. I'm certainly rooting for him to win here. But I say that a lot about Henare, and it doesn't seem to do him much good.

Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney vs. Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita - Eagles and Fujita are challenging for the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team title. During the Best of the Super Jr. tournament, Fujita defeated Connors, and Eagles defeated Moloney. Going back further, Eagles and Fujita beat Connors and Moloney during the Super Jr. Tag Leage tournament back in November. So the challengers seem to have the champs' number.

It feels like it's time for Connors and Moloney to get their win back, to even the score and perhaps set up a rubber match down the line. On the other hand, it's just the junior tag title, so it wouldn't make much difference if they do a title change here. However, whenever New Japan sets up a young kid like Fujita to have a good shot at a big win, you can reliably bet against that. I'm going with the champs to retain.

Yota Tsuji & Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toru Yano & Boltin Oleg - Tsuji's team won the NEVER trios title from Tana's team last week, so this is the rematch.

I'm pretty certain this matchup will happen before New Japan announces the G1 lineups, and the heavyweights on the losing side will be on the bubble. The idea is that 18 of 20 spots will be announced, and the last two will be determined by qualifying tournaments during the rest of the New Japan Soul tour. It stands to reason that some or all of the heavyweights in the undercard of this show are going to be in that tournament.

My guess is that the qualifying tournaments will have at least one or two big names to sell tickets for the Soul tour, and to sell the drama of a major star fighting to reclaim his spot. Tsuji could work in that role, but he's just one guy. Tana would work better, and having Yano and Oleg in the qualifiers makes more sense than putting them directly into the G1. So normally I'd say this match could go either way, but given the context I think Tsuji's team will retain.

Tetsuya Naito & Titan vs. Yuya Uemura & TAKA Michinoku - There's not much to this match. Naito is getting ready to challenge Jon Moxley for the world title on June 30. I assume Naito's spot in the G1 is secure no matter what happens here, so he should probably just win this match to leave no doubt. Uemura makes more sense as a guy who'll have to fight to get in, especially since he's never been in the G1 before.

Shota Umino & Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi & Dick Togo - Togo is a junior heavyweight old-timer, but the other five guys in this match are all heavyweights that would make sense in the G1, or could have an interesting story to tell if they were snubbed. If House of Torture wins, Umino would be my pick to overcome adversity and win one of the play-in spots. It's hard to imagine a G1 without Goto and Yoshi, though, because you need some vulnerable guys in there to lose matches.

I could also see a scenario where Evil's team loses here, and then Evil and Yujiro get shut out of the G1, and Chris Charlton is thrilled about that. Then House of Torture shenanigans help Evil win the qualifiers, and Chris Charlton throws a fit. Really, this match could go either way.

Taichi & DOUKI vs. Ren Narita & Yoshinobu Kanemaru - Taichi and Narita both seem like guys who need to be in the G1. But either of them would work as a guy who gets snubbed and has to prove the bookers made a mistake. On the other hand, Narita has probably gotten enough wins over the past few months that losing here might not cost him a G1 spot. In Taichi's case, however, I haven't seen him around in a while, so if he's not here to be in the qualifiers, he really ought to pick up a win for the sake of momentum.

Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan & TJP & Francesco Akira & Callum Newman vs. Satoshi Kojima & Tomohiro Ishii & Tomoaki Honma & Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato - OK, this match is full of heavyweights who can't afford a loss that might cost them a G1 spot. Cobb, Khan, and Ishii should probably be safe, but like I've said elsewhere you could snub any of them to create a narrative where it's not "fair" because they "deserve" to be in. TJP has talked a lot about wrestling as an openweight, so I figure he at least has to compete in the play-in matches to back that up. Newman, Kojima, and Honma probably won't make it into the blocks without a win here. Murashima and Kato are Young Lions, which means one of them will probably lose this match for their side.

Masatora Yasuda vs Daiki Nagai - Looks like it's time to introduce two new Young Lions. I'm still getting used to Murashima and Kato, and now here's two more generic boys for me to confuse them with. With luck, one day we'll look back at this match the same way I remember seeing Jay White, David Finlay, Juice Robinson, Great-O-Khan, and Shota Umino as Young Lions. But for now, they're basically two nobodies, and they could easily wrestle to a ten-minute draw tonight.

[gdwessel]

World Tag League 2018 Night 7 - 11/25/2018

The tour continued today, and it’s a show you can watch now on NJPWWorld, which I’ve only now discovered has an app on the Amazon Fire Stick so hey cool. We are now into the run of shows where the lineups are mostly Tag League matches.

- 11/25/2018, Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium (NJPWWorld)

World Tag League 2018: Adam Page & Yujiro Takahashi [The Elite]  d. Ayato Yoshida [K-DOJO] & Shota Umino (Yujiro > Yoshida, Pimp Juice, 7:53)

World Tag League 2018: Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano [CHAOS] d. Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi (Yano > Nakanishi, Schoolboy, 8:28)

World Tag League 2018: Michael Elgin & Jeff Cobb [FREE] d. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima (Elgin > Kojma, Elgin Bomb, 12:18)

World Tag League 2018: Juice Robinson & David Finlay Jr. d. Togi Makabe & Toa Henare (Finlay > Henare, Granby Roll, 10:44)

Kazuchika Okada, SHO & YOH d. Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI & Shingo Takagi [Los Ingobernables] (Okada > BUSHI, Rainmaker, 11:27)

World Tag League 2018: Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa [Bullet Club] d. Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka [SZKG] (Tonga > Iizuka, Gunstun, 9:46)

World Tag League 2018: Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. [SZKG] d. Trent Beretta & Chuck Taylor [CHAOS] (Archer > Taylor, Killer Bomb, 11:03)

World Tag League 2018: Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi [SZKG] d. EVIL & SANADA [Los Ingobernables] (Sabre > EVIL, Tensho Zack Driver, 16:56)

TAKA cut a promo post-main, so I guess? he isn’t suffering any blowback about his cheating scandal on NJPW’s end, at least not yet. El Desperado was on commentary and attacked BUSHI/Shingo and SHO/YOH leading to a brawl. Elgin/Cobb get their first win, which worries me that they’re going to get a heroic run to the finals. Best Friends and EVIL/SANADA take their first losses of the tournament as well. Only one winless team left. Updated standings:

Best Friends: 6pts (3W 0D 1L) EVIL/SANADA: 6pts (3W 0D 1L) GOD: 6pts (3W 0D 1L) Ishii/Yano: 6pts (3W 0D 1L) KES: 6pts (3W 0D 1L) Juice/Finlay: 6pts (3W 0D 1L) Page/Yujiro: 4pts (2W 0D 2L) Sabre/Taichi: 4pts (2W 0D 2L) TenKoji: 4pts (2W 0D 2L) Suzuki/Iizuka: 2pts (1W 0D 3L) Makabe/Henare: 2pts (1W 0D 3L) Nagata/Nakanishi: 2pts (1W 0D 2L) Elgin/Cobb: 2pts (1W 0D 3L) Yoshida/Umino: 0pts (0W 0D 4L)

This may not be totally accurate, I don’t have the time to go look up all the head-to-heads right now. The point tallies are correct tho.

The tour continues tomorrow.

- 11/26/2018, Ishikawa Komatsu City Yoshitsune Arena

World Tag League 2018: Ayato Yoshida [K-DOJO] & Shota Umino v. Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi [SZKG]

World Tag League 2018: Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi v. Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. [SZKG]

World Tag League 2018: Togi Makabe & Toa Henare v. Adam Page & Yujiro Takahashi [The Elite]

World Tag League 2018: Trent Beretta & Chuck Taylor [CHAOS] v. Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka [SZKG]

World Tag League 2018: Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima v. EVIL & SANADA [Los Ingobernables]

World Tag League 2018: Juice Robinson & David Finlay Jr. v.  Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano [CHAOS]

World Tag League 2018: Michael Elgin & Jeff Cobb [FREE] v. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa [Bullet Club]  

Kazuchika Okada, SHO & YOH v. Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI & Shingo Takagi [Los Ingobernables]

[surveysonfleek]

320.

Do you take pictures of yourself on a daily basis? nope.

Do you like the name Adam? it’s okay, personally wouldn’t name my future children that.

What is the first liquid you drank today? water.

Have you ever been to Los Angeles, California? yes, i love it. i could imagine living there as opposed to nyc.

Do you believe in angels? perhaps.

Do you prefer Pepsi or Coke? Or do you not care either way? coke but i’m not fussy.

Is there anything in your past that you used to regret, but now you don’t? i don’t really regret anything. i wish some things were different but there’s no point dwelling on it.

When is the last time you ate donuts? yesterday.

Are you left handed? nope.

Do you use your left or right thumb to press the space bar? any thumb.

Have you ever had a Hershey’s bar with almonds? yes.

Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me? haha no.

What cell phone company do you have? virgin.

Do you text on a daily basis? What about hourly? yes. not hourly, maybe every two hours? really depends on how many people i’m texting.

What button on your keyboard do you press most besides the space bar? backspace or full stop.

What’s the last song you listened to? i forgot.

When is the last time you sneezed? today.

Who is the 3rd person you talked to this morning? my sister maybe.

Are you dating the last person you talked to on the phone? nope.

Do you like surveys that have good grammar and spelling? yes of course.

Does your knee hurt? no.

Has anyone ever bitten your knee? no...

Do you know anyone whose name starts with an X, Q, or U? nope.

Do you know anyone whose name ends with a J, Q, or W? no.

Has anyone ever called you sexy? yes.

Do you have children? no.

Do you like raisins? i haaaaate them.

Would you buy three 12-packs of coke products if you liked Pepsi? nope.

Did that question even make sense? sure.

What is your favorite bug? lady bugs.

What color is your camera? black.

Do you speak any language besides English? yes.

Can you eat cheese? i can but it does give me a stomach ache. fuck it, i love cheese.

Who was your favorite teacher in middle school? mr finlay i think.

Was math your worst subject in high school? no.

Are you in college? i’ve graduated.

Have you ever driven a purple car? no.

What about a green car? no.

Do you drink hard liquor? yeah but not often.

Do you like scrabble? yes!

What were you doing on April 21, 2008? haha no clue.

Can you count to 113 in a language other than English? no.

What should you be doing now instead of this survey? nothing.

Do you have a printer? yeah, two.

What is your favorite food? sushi or hotdogs.

Do you like sweet and sour chicken on white rice? sure.

Do you even like corn? i do even though i don’t eat it often.

Have you met anyone new yet today? no.

What is your biggest pet peeve? plain rudeness.

Have you ever overheard a conversation you weren’t supposed to? yeh.

Do you wish it was 10 hours later than it is now? nah.

Have you ever been to New York City, Chicago, or Indianapolis? only nyc.

Do you want some pie? i don’t mind.

Have you ever stayed up until 7:30 AM? yep.

Have you ever lived in Pennsylvania, Arizona, or Hawaii? no.

Do you like ants? no.

Did you like the movie Antz? i think i remember liking it.

What is your favorite Disney movie? aladdin.

What do you think of “Octomom”? nothing.

Do you like octopi? yes.

Do you wish this survey was longer, shorter, or neither? shorter.

What was your favorite ice cream flavor when you were little? strawberry for sure.

Is it still your favorite? nope.

By the way, what is your name? dee.

And what time is it? 6:41pm.

What time zone do you live in? idk the sydney one lol.

Do you like drums? yeah, well i don’t hate it.

Have you ever drank goat milk? nope.

What is your favorite soft drink? root beer.

I see. So do you want to go to bed? nah.

What’s your favorite video game? tekken or the sims.

Do you like cats? yes.

Are goldfish your favorite fish? no.

How many pets do you have? one.

How old is the oldest person who lives in your house? 53.

Do you wish your house had a basement? i don’t mind.

Do you like vanilla pudding? no.

Which band is your favorite? i don’t have just one.

Does Taylor Swift suck? dont care for her.

What do you smell right now? my hair product. it’s strong.

What is your opinion on abortion? pro choice.

What is your opinion on gay marriage? make it legal here.

What is your opinion on gay adoption? it’s fine.

Care for a cookie? only if it’s fresh.

Do you like crumpets and scones? yes!

Do you wish this survey was over yet? yeah, my hand hurts.

Why are you still taking this survey? i can’t not finish it.

Are you currently in a relationship? yes.

Are you happy about that? yes.

What is your favorite David Cook song? idk.

How many more minutes until you will next eat? about an hour?

Is there a “merged” restaurant in your city (like Taco Bell/KFC)? no.

Do you like Pizza hut? i haven’t had it in ages, i stick to dominos.

Is A&W your favorite brand of root beer? nah, i like sarsi better.

Did you like this survey? it was fine.

[weekinethereum]

August 14, 2017

Ethereum News and Links 

Top

Plasma: Scalable Autonomous Smart Contracts by Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon

Scalability effort that will be worked on in parallel with PoS and sharding

tl;dr from Matthew Di Ferrante or Plasma in 10 mins from Anthony Akentiev.  Or a video read-along of the Plasma whitepaper with Jordan Leigh and Ameen Soleimani

Peter Todd started attacking Vitalik on Twitter.  The many Twitter threads make it hard to link to the original source, but Trustnodes had a decent summary, though somewhat Vitalik-friendly. There are plenty of brilliant people in the world, what might be most impressive about Vitalik is his maturity in dealing with trolls. Being a jerk is not tolerated in this community.

Patricia Tree UI by Andreas Olofsson.  Context from Christian Reitwiessner: "this is a way to implement the cross-chain verification mechanisms mentioned in the plasma paper."

Vlad Zamfir is nonplussed by Plasma

Vitalik: "I personally have cut down evangelism precisely because I see that the main bottleneck is now not interest, but tech."

Coinbase raises $100M Series D at a 1.6b valuation, led by IVP.  Check out that hockey stick graph in the TechCrunch article. Volume on track in 2017 to be 10x the 2016 volume.  

Seems clear that Toshi is phase 3 of the Coinbase Master Plan, so with 100m they now have a similar warchest as Status (the sponsor of this newsletter, along with ConsenSys). That's fantastic because both can do great work introducing people into the ecosystem.

Russell Smith on the ease of building a testnet faucet on Toshi

You can also now view your Coinbase balances on Fidelity

Protocol

Video of core dev meeting. Agenda.

Metropolis HF1 (Byzantium) in late September, if not October

If the hard fork is postponed too long, we should make sure miners know to raise the gaslimit

New high for number of daily transactions, no backlog, median wait time just 2 blocks.

Q&A with Vitalik.

ZKSnarks: "a couple more months" after Metropolis.  

Casper: "almost done a PoC implementation in python."

Sharding: "later than Casper, but sooner than we thought."

Diving into the EVM, part 2

Qtum developer on the faults and shortcomings of the EVM

Vitalik confirms that current plan is for ~1000 ETH to be necessary to stake

Stuff for developers

Solidity v0.4.15

Christian Lundkvist: Safer simpler multisig

Grid+: 2-of-3 blind multisig

Dividend payments based on MiniMeToken

Using Infura with web3j

Scaling INFURA: Not All API Calls are Equal, especially getLogs

Costs of deployed Ethereum code

Ecosystem

Status v0.9.10 alpha release

Status will have their first fireside chat on August 17th at 16:00 CEST

Trezor support now in Geth

MyEtherWallet is hiring JavaScript devs, hourly or fulltime

OmiseGo and Vitalik meet with Thailand's Central Bank

Paul Vigna on the Ethereum NYC birthday bash (already behind WSJ paywall)

Colony open sources its employee-friendly option plan - 10 year window, cashless exercise, buyback program

Ethereum in the Enterprise

Microsoft announces the Coco framework for enterprise -- using a trusted environment like Intel SGX or Windows VSM, you use Coco to hook up to your "distributed ledger technology."  Code to be open sourced next year.

The EEA Legal Working Group

Case study of using Microsoft tools and Truffle

How the Dubai government is pioneering blockchain with ConsenSys

ISDA: Legal aspects of smart contracts in derivatives

Project Announcements

Cent -- Quora on Ethereum

MoonCatRescue - something like the next level of LarvaLabs' CryptoPunk

Project Demos

Dharma P2P credit live on Kovan using MetaMask

Lendroid loans for ENS names, live on Kovan testnet

RougeProject CouponDemo, on testnet

Project Updates

Augur is 50% done migrating to Solidity

Introducing Iconomi's first asset manager: Columbus Capital

How Melonport protects ecosystem participants

Cofound.it's David Sabo talks building the network of hubs

Video of Agrello MVP release

KyberNetwork smart contract modules explained

LivePeer weekly update - protocol now supports payments

Etherisc discusses its first year since inception

uPort upgrading its code framework, part 1

BAT is building a network of geographical community leaders

How contributors can earn VariabL/StabL during alpha, and why they're avoiding a token sale for now

Video on Golem and Streamr collaboration

Interviews and Talks

Videos of the ENS workshop talks.  I couldn't find a schedule, so I made own schedule so you can find which parts of the workshop you'd like to watch

Dan Finlay: Future of ENS subdomain markets

Epicenter with Loi Luu of KyberNetwork and SmartPool

Videos from Blockstack Summit.  My favorites: Naval Ravikant chat, Albert Wenger talk, Elizabeth Stark on Layer 2

Vitalik and Thomas Greco Q&A in Japan

Status Q&A with the developer of bchat, a bulletin board system live on Swarm. Very cool.

Alex Miller talks Grid+ at SF meetup

Token Sale Projects

Details on the Decentraland token launch

Neufund's "ICO" is a call to commit capital to the Neufund platform in exchange for tokens

How the Digital Asset Power Play trading platform came together

You don't need to do anything to receive OMG airdrop tokens

Cofound.it announces the next 4 Cofound.it sales: Musiconomi, Maecenas, X8 Currency, Digital Asset Power Play (reminder: I advise Cofound.it)

General

Tyler Cowen in Bloomberg: "[Crypto money is] becoming so strange and diverse that the actual practice of money is outracing anything found in economic theory or in the law."

Filecoin raised almost $200m in an hour and then paused their sale for a day or so. It's back open again, but so far has been very frontloaded.

Zeppelin's Demian Brener: private silos to blockchain ledgers — a $2.5 trillion opportunity

Wired: Ethereum Is Coding's New Wild West

Ryan Selkis on the onslaught of cryptofunds.  I agree that I wouldn't put money into many of the new funds. However, Ethereum and tokens are an emerging asset class that many money managers don't understand so it's tougher for them to do manager selection.

Laura Shin on how Bitcoin solved payment issues for a female Afghan entrepreneur.

Oregon finance prof Stephen McKeon on tokenizing traditional assets

Brian Kelly explains Ethereum on CNBC Fast Money

David Sacks: Cryptocurrency fulfills the original vision we tried to build at PayPal

"A Solution of the P versus NP problem."  Hmm.

Dates of note

From Token Sale Calendar:

Upcoming token sale start dates:

August 16 – Magos

August 17 – Decentraland

August 20 – SlotnSlot

August 20 – Umbrella Coin

August 23– FoodCoin

August 24 – REAL (Real Estate Asset Ledger)

August 25 – Avalon

August 28 – HelloGold

August 28 – ChronoLogic

August 28 – Grace

August 29 – Kickico

August 30 – LookRev

August 31 – Musiconomi  (Cofound.it Priority Pass presale: Aug 29)

August 31 - Monetha

September 5 – Viberate

September 6 – Aventus

September 7 – Maecenas (Cofound.it Priority Pass presale: Sep 5)

September 11 – Enigma Catalyst

September 12 – Evermarkets

September 13 – Unikoin

September 13 – Eventchain

September 14 – X8 Currency (Cofound.it Priority Pass presale:  Sep 12)

September 18 – Winding Tree

September 18 – Circles

September 21 – Digital Asset Power Play (Cofound.it Priority Passpresale: Sep 19)

October 1 – Hirematch

October 10 – Swap

Ongoing token sales:

Indorse

Fluence

Everex

300 Cubits

Authoreon

Agora

Lampix

Propy

Latium

SmartRE

Macroverse

Blockpass

NeverDie

Atlant

GroceryX

Agrello

RexMLS

Want to be included?  If you are building your project on Ethereum, email weekinethereum @ gmail [period] com with 1) your URL, 2) sale date and 3) a brief but convincing description of how you are using Ethereum, preferably with a link to your Github repo.  Listings are free.  But please make sure to follow those instructions.  If you don’t follow the instructions, you likely won’t get a response.

WARNING: list may include scams.  Do your own research and due diligence before putting value at risk.  Read disclaimer below.

[I aim for a relatively comprehensive list of Ethereum sales, but make no warranty as to even whether they are legit; as such, I thus likewise warrant nothing about whether any will produce a satisfactory return. I have passed the CFA exams, but this is not investment advice. If you're interested in what I do, you can find my somewhat out-of-date investing thesis and token sale appreciation strategies in previous newsletters.]

New email

If you emailed my Ticketleap email address in the last 5 days or so, then I likely didn't get it.  If you were waiting on a response from an email you sent there, I suggest you re-send to weekinethereum @ gmail [period] com.

I've joined ConsenSys.  Here's a logo to draw your eye in case you were going to skip over this section:

I'm very excited about this move and will have significantly more to say in the future.  The newsletters should become more regular again! In the meantime, I wanted to make it clear so that you can judge whether I favor ConsenSys projects.

My charge from Joe Lubin is pretty similar to what Status has told me: keep telling the truth and covering the space objectively, even if the truth hurts.

Permalink

I measure the success of each issue by how much it gets upvoted and shared.  This is the link: http://www.weekinethereum.com/post/164244418578/august-14-2017 Follow me on Twitter? @evan_van_ness

This newsletter is supported by Status.im and ConsenSys (have you seen that we're hiring?).  But in case you still want to send Ether or tokens:  0x96d4F0E75ae86e4c46cD8e9D4AE2F2309bD6Ec45

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