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wrestlingwithhistory · 3 years

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Why do I like Pro Wrestling?

Even though I’ve put a few posts up on the page already I wanted to introduce myself a little and break down why I’m doing this and give a bit of history about me and why I like pro wrestling.

My name is Kyle, I’m 33 from South Wales, I am married with 2 children. I first started watching wrestling when I was about 7 which I will go into as we go through the post. I started this blog for 2 reasons.

1. I love stories about pro-wrestling and wrestling itself.

2. I am starting a creative writing course and want to keep on top of writing so that I am comfortable with writing as I haven’t done it since I was in school.

Now, there are a million stories from Pro Wrestling that you’ve heard from the Benoit Murders to The Montreal Screwjob to The Plane Ride from Hell, but I have an interest in writing about the stories that people are maybe not as aware of that still involve some of the biggest names in Wrestling history.

Nowadays, we can be thankful as wrestling fans that we have a multitude of ways that we could watch wrestling thanks to the rise of streaming sites, Youtube and online stores which you can buy DVD’s or digital copies of your favourite events. Being a child of the 90’s, you would stumble across wrestling almost out of nowhere. I remember being in my grandparents’ house maybe aged 5 or 6. I never had satellite or cable TV growing up, only terrestrial, and coming in one morning and seeing Hulk Hogan on the TV in my grandparents’ house really caught my attention. I couldn’t tell you what show it was or who else was on it, but I remember as I watched Hogan, waving his arms to the crowd and cupping his ears to the Hulkamaniacs as he did throughout his career, that I held a curiosity toward wrestling and did ever since.

I can then remember a few years later one of my best friends growing up had a video at home which on the cover, a man would be fighting himself! Undertaker vs Undertaker. Back then, it was the most amazing thing possible, the mystery of how a wrestler could square off against himself in the ring was unimaginable for a then 7–8-year-old. Of course, that event being Summerslam 94 would not be the great event you look back on, but you appreciate the spectacle of it. I do look back fondly on that VHS and as I watch the event back, the standout match-up is clearly the Owen Hart vs Bret Hart Steel cage match, but it’s not the type of thing you value as a child.

You value spectacle. You value entertainment. At least I did anyway. You treat it the same way you treat a cartoon or movie, you suspend your disbelief for a few moments and take in the pageantry of it all. Some people class Wrestling as 3rd hand entertainment, and I have had many occasions where people have made jokes of the fact I watch wrestling, to the point where I would not even mention it if asked.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to not care and be happy with the fact I like it so much. It’s not a guilty pleasure, It’s just a pleasure. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve also embraced less of the spectacle side of it I once did and look at the athletic feats that take place in the ring, focusing on the technique that these men have to make it look as dangerous as possible, all the while keeping their opponent safe. I do still appreciate the entertainment value, but I definitely look at things like the work rate of the competitors and what they are capable of.

During my teens, we used to travel to video store not too far away from us in a town called Bargoed. Global Video was one of the first places to stock ECW VHS cassettes. My friends Daniel, Josh and I would go there, pick out a few VHS and go back to Josh’s room to watch them. One of the first ones I can remember watching was Living Dangerously 1999. For its time, the pacing and the layout of the matches were a perfect fit for that show. I remember thoroughly enjoying Tajiri vs Super Crazy, Sid and Spike Dudley vs The Dudley Boyz and also New Jack vs Mustafa which was enough violence for a teenage to endure at that point.

The one match from that event which today I place in my top 10 matches ever is Rob Van Dam vs Jerry Lynn for the TV Title. Watching the opening exchange between the two men figure each other out, reversals of pins, hammerlocks and wristlocks was fantastic and when they separated and looked at each other, it was rapturous. The crowd ate it up. You could tell something special was taking place. As the match continued, I saw things that I never would have seen on WWF during that time realistically speaking. There was a reason the E stood for Extreme in ECW. They always took things to the next level, and while the TV Title was far from being the most brutal match on the card (in part due to New Jack!) it was creative in the way it structured the use of weapons, tablet spots and fighting outside the ring. When the bell rings at the end for a timer limit draw, as a first-time viewer you feel almost cheated, not by the quality of the match but by the fact it could have gone on for another 30 mins. When Jerry Lynn requests 5 more minutes and is granted it, you think you are in for a Jerry Lynn victory but RVD pulls it out of the bag at the end hitting the 5-star Frog Splash. And great ending to a great match.

Throughout this time the Attitude era was in full affect. WWF had a huge roster of stars that any company would have been proud to have, Stone-Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle. It was a pleasure to watch some of these events. My friend Michael would record Raw and later Smackdown and let us borrow the tapes so we could get our fix. In January 2000, Channel 4 had gotten a deal to show a few WWF Pay-per-views for free starting with the Royal Rumble. I stayed at Daniel’s house and we watched it live on a small TV. We were extra excited that Taz showed up on the event to face Kurt Angle with an extra ‘Z’ in his name, especially after find ECW a few months previous. Add to that the shock factor of Mae Young’s striptease, the Rumble result, the street fight between Cactus Jack and Triple H, the tables match between the Dudleys and Hardys, it was a phenomenal show.

With the events now being on Channel 4, I would look eagerly on internet forums during school hours trying to find out which ones were next. I remember staying up and watching Backlash 2000 and Fully Loaded of that year, also recording them to go back and watch and study the matches. I would cover the back of the VHS case with white stickers and write the match card on the back in order, so I knew where to find my favourites. They also stared showing Sunday Night Heat as well, which I later years would also have an RVD vs Jerry Lynn match up but not at the same quality as the ECW Event the years previous. These events on Channel 4 ended with the Invasion PPV in 2001 after WWE bought WCW and ECW acquiring many, but not all of their top stars.

Tying this in with Video games like WWF Attitude, Smackdown, WCW/NWO Revenge, WCW Mayhem it helped nurture my love for it even more especially WWE Smackdown 2: Know Your Role because you can create your own shows, wrestlers and storylines. We would have nights playing the game having Royal Rumbles and tournaments, finding how to create wrestlers from online forums like CAWs.ws.

My friend Daniel got the internet at home and we would spend hours searching Kazaa for wrestling videos we couldn’t find on VHS, in-between searching for Create-a-Wrestler guides for Smackdown games. They would usually be the Music Video highlight reels of matches we would want to see. Being early 2000’s it was usually set to Creed, Godsmack or Limp Bizkit but it would be things like Sabu vs RVD in a stretcher match, seeing Goldberg jackhammer The Giant/Big Show, and whatever we could find of these old matches you would read about in Power Slam magazine like the Exploding Barb Wire matches involving Mick Foley, Terry Funk and Onita.

A few years later, with the introduction of freeview satellite there was now more channels in homes than before and one of those was The Wrestling Channel. I turned it to this station thinking it would be WWE but was amazed to see companies more similar to ECW. US Promotions Ring of Honor, Combat Zone Wrestling, TNA/NWA and a few smaller based promotions were present as well as a mix of local British talent. It was on this channel that I first saw a match that involved light tubes, obviously CZW. Although not my favourite style, death matches certainly have a car crash factor to them. You know something gruesome is going to happen, but you can’t look away. But on the opposite of that, with ROH you got to see unbelievable work rate wrestling with the likes of CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson and Low Ki and with TNA similar talents but with more professional looking, AJ Styles, Teddy Hart and Jeff Jarrett being stars that shone there.

Getting to see high flying stars like Amazing Red, Jack Evans, Teddy Hart, AJ Styles was enthralling. It was a side of pro wrestling you never saw on the more methodical WWE and I would watch whenever possible but still getting my WWE fix via VHS recordings Michael would lend us, especially as some of our favourites from ECW and WCW were now competing there.

From around 2006, I began to wane off watching Wrestling as often. I was playing in a band and focusing on that was well as starting a relationship with my now wife. My band mates Lloyd and Ryan were into Wrestling, so I used to and still do talk to them about it now and then. We used to go to local wrestling shows in Merthyr Tydfil for Celtic Wrestling. Back then, they were just Joe Nobodies wrestling in a bar, but as I look back over many of the people on that show, they have foundations on Wrestling all over the world.

A list of some of the names I got to see in Merthyr Tydfil; Sheamus – Now WWE, Steve Corino – ECW Legend, Zack Sabre Jr – Current New Japan star, Tracy Smothers – Wrestling Journeyman passed away in 2020. I remember seeing Tracy Smothers and I was a fan from ECW when he was with FBI and he was great and a nice guy after the show too. The fact that someone who was wrestled for WWE, ECW and WCW was in Merthyr wrestling, to me was mind-blowing!

A few months later I found out they were doing Wrestling training at The Studio Bar in Merthyr in around 2008 (could be way off), so I went along. I didn’t tell anyone, I got dressed in football gear and told my girlfriend Sara I was off to play football. Instead, I went into this bar and rolled around on some mats for beginner lessons on a Wednesday learning basic holds and how to bump. I really enjoyed it and it was better than bumping on the grass like I used to do as a kid in my local park. I went twice in all, as much as I wanted to go back and keep going, I was thinking that playing music would be easier to justify to someone than saying you were a wrestler so that was that.

I always kept an eye on wrestling but not as intently as I did before, maybe it was my way of disconnecting from wanting to do it as much as I did. I would watch the odd Raw or Smackdown and just buy the Big 4 Pay-per-Views and this went on for close on 8 years, just dipping in and out casually but still knowing who was in the business and doing things else were. We still had TNA in the UK so getting to see that was great, especially with the talent they had there for a while.

It wasn’t until 2016 I started to get back into wrestling as much as I do now. AJ Styles had finally joined WWE after seeming he would never appear there and that interested me because AJ is probably one of my favourites of all time. Twitter was blowing up because of a match between Will Ospreay and Ricochet in the Best of Super Juniors during that year. Seeing mostly positive comments and the odd one or two negative comments from old school wrestlers. So, I clicked on a then Youtube video of the match and it was such a great match. I felt the buzz straight away and immediately started to get the itch back for watching wrestling again.

I had no experience of much Japanese wrestling, but I always enjoyed reading in magazines about people like Jyushin Thuder Liger and The Great Muta and seeing their matches on WCW years ago, as well as people like Taka Michinoku and Tajiri but the Ospreay-Ricochet match convinced me to sign up to NJPW World. That summer I followed the G1 closely. Bullet Club madness was in full effect, seeing the iconic t-shirts and the way they were in the ring were similar to NWO, almost too much to a fault. I didn’t really know any of the performers in the tournament but after watching matches, would go back through the New Japan archives and watch the matches of Okada, Tanahashi, Naito, Shibata and the others, getting to know their styles and gimmicks.

One that immediately jumped out to me was Kenny Omega. He was one of 4 non-Japanese wrestlers (Gaijin) in the whole tournament. I learned that he had turned on AJ Styles and took over as leader of Bullet Club. I went back and watched AJ’s final matches against Nakamura at Wrestle Kingdom 10, and then the tag match the following night between AJ and Kenny vs Nakamura and Yoshi-Hashi. I followed Kenny closely over the G1 and into the finals against Hirooki Goto which was an absolutely brilliant match. Omega ended up winning, going onto Wrestle Kingdom 11 to face Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. I checked my work diary to see if I had work that day, and I was off! Due to the time differences, I was able to catch some of the pre-show in the morning, drop my oldest daughter off to school and come back in time for the Naito-Tanahashi and Omega-Okada matches.

I got back and watched the Naito-Tanahashi match, a really fantastic match to which I remember saying to myself ‘the main event is going to need to be special to top that’. Cue watching my personal favourite match of all time. The pacing and the psychology of the match were so well done, Omega targeting Okada’s back ready for the One-Winged Angel but never getting to hit it through the match. The springboard moonsault to the outside over the guard rails, the Tope Con Hilo over the top which still holds one of the iconic images of the match as a whole, Okada’s resilience as a champion, back dropping Omega over the top rope to the outside through a table. It was and is incredible, debatably one of the greatest matches of all time. Not just in my opinion but for many others as well. And so, I was back in. From that point onwards, I was an ardent fan once again. I would use the archives of WWE Network, NJPW World, Youtube, Highspots Wrestling Network to feed my addiction, following twitter pages which is just GIF after GIF of just the craziest moves.

I would try and watch as many of the live shows in Japan as possible to watch Omega perform and throughout 2017, even though it probably could have been savoured a bit more, we got to see 2 more amazing Omega-Okada matches at both Dominion and G1 and also a lead to Omega-Jericho for WK12. Both my current favourite and my all-time favourite meeting for the first time for a great match. From a Kenny standard it was not as good as some of his previous but for Jericho it was probably one of his best even compared against some of his classics against the likes of Shawn Michaels and Chris Benoit.

In the Summer of 2018, I watched the Dominion show where again Kenny Omega went up against Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight championship. It was a 2 out of 3 falls match with no time limit. I couldn’t get the time off work for the event so I managed to smuggle my phone into work and would watch intently while selling mobile phones. It was another amazing match up, but I had to watch it over again after finishing work so that I could experience with sound, but even on silent, you could feel how brilliant the match was and Kenny finally defeated Okada for the title. Even though Kenny won it, I much preferred him fighting from beneath, almost as if achieving the pinnacle of wrestling was never going to happen. Even though he had a good handful of matches as champion, the ensuing AEW venture obviously scrapped any possibility of a long-term reign. Also disappointing to see New Japan miss a trick by letting Ibushi win the G1 and then the title from Kenny at WK13, instead vying for Tanahashi who, for as great a performer as he is, was not in his prime and the story between Ibushi-Omega would have been concluded or at least cliffhung until a later date. That aside, the show killed. It was amazing, but you could see the writing was on the wall in terms of Omega, the Young Bucks, Adam Page leaving to start AEW in 2019.

That kind of takes it up to current day, or at least as close to it as possible. It was possibly a long-winded diatribe of saying ‘Yeah, I like Wrestling’ but I hope it helps people to understand what drives me to write about it, why I enjoy watching this often joked about form of entertainment and why I think people could probably appreciate it more.

My messages are open if anyone wants to ask me any questions about wrestling or share stories about your own experiences, favourite matches or even stories that you would like me to cover, and I will try and find something to contribute to the page if possible.

Please read through the posts, like and share if you enjoy and leave comments if you wish to appreciate, critique or contribute towards the stories if you know anything I may have missed out.

Thanks!

#wrestlingwithhistory #wrestling #wwe #njpw #aew #ecw #roh #czw #wcw

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buttdawg · 5 years

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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?

#njpw #world tag league

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purplesurveys · 5 years

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Tumblr, whatever this new color scheme you’ve got going on is ANNOYING.

What is one thing you've realized or discovered lately? I was driving this morning and was listening to a radio program when I heard the DJs talk about how Disney employees have some sort of hierarchy among them. Apparently the princesses are the It Girls, and they have their own rooms and stuff, basically the top of the pack. Next is anyone who dresses up as a human character, say Gaston; then it’s followed by people who have to stay in the mascot outfits. It’s pretty cool information but also kinda sad? Do you know anyone who is colorblind? If so, who? I don’t think so. I do know someone who’s legally blind but I know that doesn’t count :(( Is there anyone you suspect of being colorblind? If so, who? No. When was the last time you cried, and why (if you want to share)? I haven’t cried in a while–which is surprising and also a good thing–so I don’t really remember, but I think it was from a fight with Gab. Who was the last person who was rude to you? I was at a presscon last week and while no one was particularly rude to me, people from media have absolutely nooooooo manners. It’s mortifying. It was a presscon for a ONE (an MMA promotion) pay-per-view held in a really fancy, 5-star hotel in Manila and there was a buffet for those who were invited to the event–me and my classmates included. These media people were absolute barbarians IN A 5-STAR HOTEL and kept cutting in front of the lines even when the staff kept telling them to line up. I saw one of the staff roll her eyes and I smiled sheepishly both in agreement and like an empathetic kind of way.

Do you wish you were in a different social class than you are? No, I’m fine where I am. What's something that scares you? Being alone with my thoughts. What's the one thing you want more than anything? I want to go to Thailand and India and have their authentic cuisines. Do you have a relationship with God? Never. Have you ever vlogged or blogged? I’ve blogged before but it was boring for me. Microblogging is much more hectic and is more my style. Who do you call when you have a problem? Gabie. But I go to Angela if I have a problem involving Gab hahaha. Do you have a best friend? Of course. If not, who do you wish you were friends with? Is there someone that you miss? Yes, I miss both of my best friends. I never get to see Anj anymore and I’m in a perpetual state of missing my girlfriend. What was the last date you went on like, and are you still with the person? I had early dinner with Gab at Chocolate Kiss. I had spare ribs and she had pesto penne. That was just this Tuesday, so yep I am definitely still with her. What is your favorite thrift store find? I don’t go to thrift stores. Do you keep your room organized? I try to, but I think I’m more messy-organized than anything. Like I’d be really messy with all my stuff, but I memorize where everything is. I know there’s a copy of Hamlet stashed at the back of my closet, and I know I have a chunk of childhood books in my bedside chest, and if I need a mug on short notice I know there’s one in the middle rack of my bedside drawer, ya feel? Which YouTubers do you feel like you could be friends with in real life? Shane Dawson, without a shadow of a damn doubt. Have you ever met someone in person that you first met online? Yes! I’ve met 3 out of 4 of my og Filipino wrestling friends from the internet. I’ve met Javi, who turned out to be a real ass and I never talked to him again after that; I met Jila, and we both screamed when we realized we came across each other; and I met Raf, who got me tickets to my first and so far only wrestling event and he was a real sweetheart. I met Jila while in line for the WWE show, so I only got to interact with her for like 15 seconds, but it was a blast. The only person I’ve never met is Gabbie, which is ironic because we STUDY IN THE SAME SCHOOL. But we’ve never been classmates, never been in the same building, never passed by each other. How good are you with shades of colors? Uh I guess I can identify a number of them. Does it annoy you when people call teal "blue?” It probably would annoy me. Would you describe teal as a shade of blue, a shade of green, or a mix? It’s just a fancy way of saying blue-green to me. What is your favorite color? Pink. How many other people do you know with your favorite color? Very few. A lot of people are still ‘ew’ when it comes to pink, I’ve realized. Do you fall asleep with your laptop open on your lap? Hahahaha it happens sometimes, but I always try to avoid it because my laptop is freaking expensive and my dad probably won’t get me a new one if I break it. Which do you use more: a computer or a phone? Phone. Have you ever taken a test to see if you are colorblind? No. Which family member did you inherit your hair color from? Filipinos are pretty homogenous. We have black hair. Do you hate your nose, love your nose, or have you never thought about it? I never really thought about it. What was your favorite Barbie doll? I didn’t have a favorite, I just got gifted Barbies as a kid and played with them for a bit, but I always preferred my cousins’ toy soldiers. Would you ever want to look like your favorite Barbie doll? Do you like your hair better curly, wavy, or straight? Wavy. Do you ever worry about running out of make-up and not being able to buy more? Hahahaha that’s like everyone else I know, but no. I don’t care for makeup. Do grammatical errors annoy you? Only when the situation strictly calls for grammar to be proper. Who do you know who is dyslexic? I don’t think so. Do you prefer kisses or hugs? Kisses from my girlfriend, hugs from everyone else. Describe your dream wedding in five words. Elegant, formal, ORGANIZED, white, huge. Do you smoke weed? Nope. Is weed legal in your state? No but I think they’ve been having hearings in the Senate about legalizing it for medical purposes. We’re the Philippines though so I highly doubt it would go places. What are your secrets? Share a few if you want to. I don’t have any, I dump my entire life on this Tumblr hah. Have you ever thrown up in class? Oh my, no. I’ve done other things though D: What is it that you want to talk to someone about? I’m good. What is something that you used to be ashamed of, but now you're not? I used to not want to be associated with Tondo (I grew up there) but now I want nothing more than to live there all over again. Do you have anyone who cares about you? Yes, luckily. What was the last good book you read about? Chris Jericho’s books are always a good read. Where do you next want to go on an adventure? Thailand or Cambodiaaaa. Do you need a vacation? Kind of. I haven’t been to the beach in almost a year. I haven’t gone trekking or went tourist destination hopping for much longer. How long has it been since you've been on vacation? Four months-ish. We only go on vacation when my dad is home. If you could go on vacation right now, where would you go? We’re going to Pangasinan in two weeks for a short vacation, and I can’t wait for that. Have you ever walked outside in below zero weather? Nope. Is watching youtube videos one of your hobbies? Yes. I was literally just watching videos before this survey. Does it annoy you that people get denied for disability who really need it? I haven’t seen this happen but I’d imagine I’d be upset. Have you ever held a newborn baby? Not newborn, but the baby was weeks old. Are a ton of your facebook friends getting married and having kids now? SURPRISINGLY!!! I’ve had two batchmates from high school–one is engaged and the other already has a kid. Teenage pregnancy/marriage is not so much a thing in the PH’s middle class bracket so both instances were definitely a small shock when we all found out.

What is a trend you haven't followed? Getting bangs. What's something you believe in that most people don't? Non-belief. At least in the Philippines, a population that’s 90% Christians. Do you think for yourself? Yes but I tend to get afraid as well. Sometimes I’d ask other people to decide for me too. What's the last supernatural thing that happened to you? Nothing of that sort has happened to me. Have you ever had anyone bully you because they were jealous of you? No, I don’t think so. What's something most people don't know about you? I have a faint scar on my left eyebrow because a distant cousin tried to get me blind by throwing a glass bottle to my face. What's a hidden talent that you have? I wouldn’t hide any of my talents... If you're a Christian, how long have you known the Lord? Who is someone you'd really like to talk to? Angela, because I miss her. Is there anyone who's dear in your heart who's going down the wrong path? No, I think everyone I know’s headed the right way. Who has your heart? My dog. From your experience, which is worse for bullying: adulthood or childhood? It’s awful either way lol. Do you wear sweaters often? No, I don’t really have to. How often do you burn candles? ...Never? Do you live in an apartment, condo, dorm, or house? My parents’ house. Do you have a sibling with the same first initial as you? No. It’s they that share the first letter (J) in their names. What's a word that rhymes with your first name? Noggin. ...Middle name? Shell. Do you get enough sleep? I always try to because the moment I get less than 7 hours of sleep, you can guarantee that I’ll be a monster for the rest of the day. How many cups of tea do you drink in a day? I’ve never had tea. Don't you hate it when people give advice when you want support? I wouldn’t hate it especially if their genuine intention was to help. I’d still appreciate the advice. Which magazine is your favorite to read? I don’t read magazines–even online ones–anymore. Do you cut out magazine clippings to use for projects? If I have to. Do you ever eat kids' food (as in, meals made for kids)? I’d still get corndogs. I’d say I also get mac and cheese but I usually order gourmet mac and cheese so that won’t count haha. What's something you wish you would have known sooner? That I didn’t have to fake who I was to my blockmates who were way too different to who I was and what I wanted to be. I did it for a whole schoolyear and was miserable because I knew that wasn’t where I wanted to be. What's something you wish your doctor would have told you? No? Are you happy with your life right now? Not completely, but aren’t we all? Is it cold where you live? It’s more chilly because it’s February, but watch this quickly go away by March hah. What's the next big project you plan to start? Making a physical photo album for me and Gab, because we’ve been together for three years and we’re shit at documenting memories. Do you enjoy taking on new challenges? Depends on the challenge. Do you have acid reflux? Nope. What's on your heart? Blood. Are you naturally optimistic or pessimistic? Optimistic. Would you rather wear pink or blue? I don’t have a lot of either in my wardrobe so tbh I don’t know what I look better in. I’m guessing blue. What are the names of your first cousins? Jereth, Elijah, Cholo, and Toffe on my mom’s side. Bianca, Lei, AJ, Kesler, Kent, Sam, and Liam on my dad’s. Do you know what you want to name your children? I have ideas. Do you like what your parents named you? I hated it as a kid but I’ve grown to appreciate it now. Do you think you were cute in your baby pictures? Sure. What color was your baby blanket? I don’t remember anymore. Do you remember pre-school? I have memories here and there. How old were you when you made your first friend? I guess pre-school, so I was 4. Are you doing what you were created to do? Still figuring that out. Do you find a lot of peoples' facebook statuses to not be relevant at all? No. I don’t shit on whatever people post buuuut I don’t care about them either.

#survey #surveys

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jayfurr · 5 years

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You may recall that I’ve been working on my plans for brutal world domination in my spare time, and lately, those plans took another step forward! I got to exercise my status as member of the Richmond, Vermont “Board of Civil Authority” and help run Town Meeting! Next stop, THE WORLD!

Okay, I guess I should back up a bit there. Town Meeting?

Okay, see, in Vermont, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March is “Town Meeting Day“. The voters of each town come together to meet, discuss, and vote on important matters like the town budget … and occasionally, on some rather strange not-so-important matters as well.

This was my first Town Meeting Day as a Vermont justice of the peace. The assembled JPs for each town (my town is allotted 12) make up a body called the “Board of Civil Authority”, which basically works out to “the folks who run the elections and maintain the voter list” and “the folks who hear petitions for tax abatements”. We didn’t have to do much to actually organize the voting; our town clerk took care of that. But I helped set up the gym and the voting machines the day before and I spent pretty much the whole day of Town Meeting proper sitting at a table with a stack of town ballots and a stack of school board budget ballots looking voters up in a notebook and checking ’em off and then handing them ballots. (We had it down to a science — one table for people with last names starting with letters A through L, and another table for the M through Z people. Two people at each table; one looks the name up, and the other hands the voter their ballots. We were a well-oiled machine.)

Polls are open all day on Town Meeting Day from 7 am to 7 pm for residents to vote via Australian ballot for town offices (selectboard, town constable, moderator, library trustee, stuff like that) and for the school board and school budget… but that’s not what really makes town meeting day Town Meeting Day. The Australian ballot is for the boring stuff — town offices and the school budget. The really fun stuff gets hashed out at a 9 am mass meeting where anyone who’s a) registered to vote and b) has enough free time to hang out in a gym for hours on a Tuesday morning, gets to discuss weighty matters of town business and ultimately vote on whether to adopt the town budget. You don’t necessarily get a representative sampling of the town’s electorate… but that’s understood and kind of expected. Town Meeting Day wouldn’t be the same without the quirkiness.

Most towns hold their meeting at the local school; for example, our town meeting takes place in the gym at Camel’s Hump Middle School We also use the school cafeteria; most towns hold town meeting in the morning, get the budget taken care of, and then break for lunch before resuming in the afternoon for any remaining business. I have a feeling that the “town potluck” aspect of Town Meeting Day is what some people like best. You hear stories waxing lyrical about the macaroni and cheese Mrs. Johnson used to make each year before she passed… and stuff like that. In Richmond, the ladies of the town grange sell baked beans, sandwiches, donuts, cookies, and what have you; their baked beans are semi-legendary. Then after that, we come back together for anything else people want to bring up. If someone wants to introduce a motion to declare war on North Dakota, they can do that. If they vote to declare the town a nuclear-weapons-free zone, they can do that too. This year a lot of towns passed resolutions taking a stance against climate change.

It’s a day for democracy on a very local level.

My duties as name-checker and ballot-hander-outer kept on going during the meeting proper; I had my back to the rows and rows of chairs facing the stage where the moderator and selectboard were seated, but I could hear everything just fine. It was sort of amusing watching voters — the ones who came by just to cast their ballot for town offices and the school board budget — blanch as they realized they were going to have to cross in front of everyone to get to the voting booths.

The town budget presentation was pretty straightforward and nothing strange happened during the ensuing discussion … which kind of disappointed me.

See, I’ve rarely made it to Town Meeting in the past; I’m one of the working stiffs whose job just doesn’t lend itself to taking a day off midweek to hang out with my fellow voters at the school. But this one time that I did go — probably about fifteen years or so ago — the discussion relating to the school budget was absolutely hilarious. (This was back when the school budget was discussed and voted on in the town meeting proper; they subsequently changed it to Australian ballot because it was getting voted down in open meeting too often.) It’s not unusual for people whose kids are grown and gone, or who never had kids in the first place, to question the need for “spending so much” on the schools. And so that one time, people kept trying to amend the budget to remove this line item or that line item in the name of saving a token few thousand dollars. The poor town moderator had to keep explaining that the content of the budget was not up for vote; the school board is entrusted with that. The only thing the town voters were legally entitled to do was vote on the total amount to be spent. Voters who objected to a teacher’s aide being funded could move to strike exactly that much money from the budget, and their motion, if passed, would accomplish … pretty much nothing. The school board could still fund that position and reduce a different line item by the amount of the voter-demanded adjustment. (It’s like saying “I object to you spending $15 of your salary on that punk rock CD, son, so I’m reducing your allowance by $15.” Son’s still going to buy the CD.)

But anyway, since the school budget was moved to Australian ballot a few years ago, the 2019 town meeting budget discussion focused entirely on the town budget — highways and roads, police, stuff like that. And while there were a few questions, it wasn’t really a controversial issue. We didn’t even count the votes; it was just one big “ALL IN FAVOR: AYE ALL OPPOSED nay THE BUDGET PASSES” thing.

And then the meeting broke for lunch in the cafeteria. I stayed put, because I was so into my “HEY LOOKA ME I’M A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE AND TOWN ELECTIONS OFFICIAL” thing and wanted to keep on looking names up and handing out ballots.

After an hour or so for lunch, about half the crowd that had been there in the morning trooped back in and attended to “new business”. .. which mostly consisted of random complaining about this and that (parking in the “downtown” area, such as it is, especially). No motions were introduced and there was nothing to vote on. So we wrapped it up and all the attendees went home or off to work … and my fellow election officials and I got back down to the important business of … looking voters’ names up in the book and handing them ballots.

Voters kept coming by all afternoon, but it was pretty slow. We had more than enough bodies on hand to do the work of the ballot-handing-out, so I excused myself and went home and fed the cats and came back around 5:00 to be there for the after-work voting rush, such as it was. That was when Carole came by to vote; I got her to take several photos of me being all Mister Important and stuff, but alas, the volunteer working with me at the table for the people with last names starting with letters A through L told me she did not like having her picture taken and did not want me posting photos of her, so this is what you get — cropped (see below). I’m sure, though, that the excitement and drama still comes through.[spacer height=”20px”]

At seven pm, we closed the doors and wrapped up. It took about ten seconds to find out the results — the tabulation machine spat out a tape with the total votes for each office and ballot question. (We only had two contested offices — one Selectboard seat and one seat on the Library Trustees. Neither wound up being especially close.)

But then came the real fun — the school budget. Richmond is part of a consolidated school district with four other towns — Huntington, Bolton, Jericho, and Underhill. Two JPs from each of those towns had to take their locked school board ballot box and bring it to our voting location, since we’re central. And two of us Richmond election officials had to stay as well (I, of course, had volunteered). We had to open the boxes, take out the big pink cards with “shall the budget blah blah blah be adopted YES NO” on it, and “commingle” them. Meaning, we had to dump them all on a table – over 2,000 of them – and sort of mix them around with our hands before gathering them back into stacks to feed manually into the tabulators. The idea was that by mixing the ballots up we wouldn’t know how the vote had gone in any given town, even though the ballots had no town-of-origin mark on ’em. (I honestly didn’t see the point, but who am I to argue with tradition?)

With two tabulators and three humans feeding the ballots into each, one by one, it took us about an hour to feed them all in.

SHEER EXCITEMENT.

And then when all was said and done, the budget passed by a wide margin. I was very glad about that, because frankly, it drives me crazy how some towns’ voters seem to take an infantile joy voting down their school budget over and over. I’ve seen towns have to hold follow-up budget votes three times before they finally manage to pass a revised budget. After each failure, the school board has to go and meet and issue a revised, lower, budget proposal. And, of course, a lot fewer people come out for the subsequent votes, so typically it’s the people with a real axe to grind who show up to cast a ballot. No wonder it can take multiple tries to get a school budget passed. So, like I said, I was very glad our budget passed; thrilling as the exercise of my official responsibilities was, I don’t want to have to do it again for a year or so.

People always ask “Why don’t we hold town meeting on a weekend, or in the evening, or just do away with it entirely and have everything, including the town budget, get voted on by Australian ballot?” The answer? Tradition. No matter what alternate time of day or day of the week you propose, there are always people who object based on various imaginary or real conflicts they’d have. Some towns have moved their meetings, and others have switched to all-Australian-ballot voting, but the vast majority of Vermont towns still do things the old-fashioned way. (If you’re curious, there’s a map that breaks it down.)

I guess it’s those baked beans that the Ladies of the Grange sell. No one wants to miss out on those, right?

Town Meeting Day 2019 You may recall that I've been working on my plans for brutal world domination in my spare time, and lately, those plans took another step forward!

#justice of the peace #politics #vermont

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