Money-in-the-Bank Ladder Match (Kofi Kingston VS CM Punk VS MVP VS Christian VS Finlay VS Shelton Benjamin VS Mark Henry VS Kane)
The Money-in-the-Bank briefcase means today what winning King of the Ring meant in the late 1990s. While not a guarantee of super-stardom, it’s a vote of confidence from the company and a promissory note of a main event program in the coming year. Assuming this to be the case, the only two competitors that I saw as logical choices for winning MitB this year were MVP or Christian, with my official prediction being MVP. I won’t waste time crabbing about the selections for the other participants in this match because, even though some of them were questionable, you have to put eight people in this match for it to be compelling and the more guys that get a WrestleMania payday the better.

MVP is on the cusp of breaking into that next level and Christian would benefit from some kind of catalyst to put him in the main event picture. CM Punk winning this match makes no sense. Consider CM Punk’s year since last WrestleMania. He won MitB at WrestleMania 24, he became World Champion & lost the title, became a Tag-Team Champion & lost the title, and became Intercontinental Champion & lost the tile. This type of booking suggests to me a star on the decline, not a star on the rise so it doesn’t make sense to me that you’d give MitB to a guy that’s so clearly being booked as in decline.

Storylines aside, this was an exciting match to watch. My feelings on the choice of winner aside, it was Kofi Kingston that stood out the most in this match. His spot where he climbed the collapsed ladder while Mark Henry was holding it and his other spot where he leapt through the frame of the ladder were both something I’d never seen before and were well-executed. The other players certainly did their part but Kofi’s moves were the most original. Although I’m not entirely enamoured with his character his performance was certainly something to take note of and makes me want to see more of him.

Kid Rock VS. The 25-Diva Battle Royal
I’ve always looked upon the musical interlude at WrestleMania as the washroom break so putting Kid Rock on after the first match made no sense to me but I don’t watch WrestleMania for the musical guest so, at the end of the day, I don’t really care where it appears on the card. That being said, to have the women participating in the battle royal that was to follow parade down to the ring during his last song with no introductions was the next in a long line of events that made no sense at WrestleMania 25. For weeks ahead of time the build-up for the Diva Battle Royal had been advertised as having “divas from the past and present” participating in the battle royal. I did not see one single “past diva” confirmed on the WWE website nor announced on WWE programming. The only hint of who would be there I got was hearing that Tammy “Sunny” Sitch would be there and I heard that on Live Audio Wrestling (an independent radio show) and they were just reporting something that they read on Sitch’s website. What is the point of bringing back talent for a one-night-only performance on a pay-per-view if you’re not going to advertise it ahead of time so that it will affect people’s buying decision??? I’m reminded of the dying days of WCW when they brought in James Brown as part of an angle with Ernest Miller as a surprise on a pay-per-view which ended up meaning absolutely nothing since not a single person tuned in to see if James Brown was going to show up because they didn’t know ahead of time!

Not advertising the divas from the past was bad enough but not even giving them proper entrances and parading them down en masse was even more baffling. Battle royals are pretty boring matches to watch, in general, because the sheer number of people in the ring makes it impossible to concentrate on any particular individual and, until the field is thinned to around six or so wrestlers, it’s too crowded for the participants to do anything other than punch or shove each other. The point of a battle royal on a show like WrestleMania is to give stars of name recognition but limited capacity an opportunity to make their entrance and get in and out of the ring quickly enough so that they don’t embarrass themselves. A great example of this done correctly was the Gimmick Battle Royal WrestleMania 17. It was a riot to see stars like Kamala and Hillbilly Jim come out and do a big-time entrance and then sit back and let a five-minute battle royal just take its course. Apparently Victoria, Molly Holly, Torrie Wilson, and Sunny all participated in this debacle but their appearances were of the blink-and-you-missed-it variety. This is a particular shame if any of them were counting on the appearance as PR to feed their independent bookings and if I were one of them I’d be pretty ticked off.

This, however, was not the worst of it as the battle royal featured Santino Marella in drag as your winner. For a comedy angle, having a male wrestler enter a female event in drag is fine for what it is but it was insulting to have all three announcers act as if they had no idea who this “mystery woman” was and put over the assertion that she was “Santina”, the female relative of Santino Marella. If WWE wants to have Marella to channel the spirit of Andy Kaufmann and have him wrestle women that’s one thing but if you expect anyone to believe that the announcers are fooled that it’s an actual woman then you better go a lot further and give him the full RuPaul treatment instead of turning him into a low-rent drag queen. This battle royal could have given fans a glimpse of some stars from the past and seeded a program between the newly arrived Gail Kim and the Beth Phoenix, the WWE’s most dominant female wrestler, but what it wound up being was a complete waste of time for a gag that wasn’t even funny.

Rey Mysterio VS. JBL
This match was as profound a waste of time as the Diva Battle Royal but at least it was shorter. Much like CM Punk, Rey Mysterio has backslid from being World Champion to vying for the Intercontinental Championship, a belt so de-valued in prestige that it plays second fiddle to a briefcase. Six days earlier these two faced each other in a singles match on Raw (i.e. for free) wherein Mysterio beat JBL clean with his finisher in five minutes. Why the hell would anyone be interested in even watching the same match six days later? I assumed that JBL would pull some trickery to win in an underhanded fashion but instead he stared at the lights for a second time, this time losing in under 30 seconds. Rey Mysterio is one of the WWE’s wrestlers that people will actually show up at an event to see so putting him in a squash match on the biggest show of the year makes no sense to me. It makes even less sense that they’d allow him to come out dressed like Doink after a three day meth-binge. I’ve never liked his PPV superhero costumes but this year’s just looked stupid. As a complete aside, Jim Ross made the remark along the lines of “Rey Mysterio is dressed like Heath Ledger’s Joker but his career is alive and well.” Did Ledger sleep with JR’s wife or something before he died? I laughed when JR said it but that was pretty cold-blooded and out of nowhere.

Matt Hardy VS Jeff Hardy
This was your basic jealous brother feud. I thought they’d end it and put Jeff over but they did the right thing by letting the heel win so the feud can continue. It’s too bad that the match didn’t have more time to build which was probably why it seemed more like a collection of high-spots than a match. Still, the finisher with Matt giving Jeff a twist of fate with his head wrapped in a chair was pretty innovative.

Undertaker VS Shawn Michaels
This was, by far and away, the best match on the card and the only one that felt like a big deal. These two really know how to build a match to a crescendo. Although I personally hate it when guys kick out of each other’s finishers Michaels did the job clean and looked strong doing it. The Undertaker’s “streak” is the only compelling thing left about that character. If it does end, it needs to be against somebody that it can truly elevate, not an established future-legend like Shawn Michaels.

Chris Jericho VS Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, and Ricky Steamboat with Ric Flair
One month ago, this was the best-booked angle in professional wrestling. Even though the Mickey Rourke tie-in hit speed-bumps that were out of the WWE’s control the promos that were cut by Jericho, Piper, and Steamboat (best of his career, by the way) made this angle truly compelling and really let Jericho show why he’s so much better as a heel than as a face. Then the writing team got a hold of it and turned it into a confusing clusterfrick. So let me get this straight. Jericho is the heel but he’s facing three-on-one handicap odds? How is that heelish in any way?!? If he’d have lost, he lost to superior odds so it doesn’t make him look bad. If he wins the babyfaces look like bums and deserve no sympathy. I don’t get it. Piper is still one of the best promos in wrestling but he looked TERRIBLE in the ring. He could barely walk and the eight-inch vertical he achieved on his drop-kick was just plain sad. He did the best that could have been expected but he never should have been there in the first place. Snuka was even worse and looked like a tiger-striped version of Gypsy Joe, the octogenarian that New Jack beat the tar out of a few years back (check it out on YouTube). Steamboat, despite his 56 years, looked great and not only didn’t embarrass himself but actually put together a believable match. It would have made so much more sense to book him alone against Jericho, MAYBE with Piper or Flair in his corner. So regardless of how little the three-on-one made sense it got even kookier after the bell when Jericho started jaw-jacking in Mickey Rourke’s direction who was conveniently dragged out of the stadium’s bar for the duration of the match and wasn’t seen for the rest of the card. Rourke looked like he was bored to the point of falling asleep and had a stone-faced expression to Jericho’s taunts. Frank Shamrock was seated next to him, which was a little random and weird, but what I will say for Shamrock is that he at least “got it” and was egging Rourke on in a manner that fit a wrestling angle. Rourke then got up and took approximately 5 hours to climb into the ring and eventually grazed Jericho with a left hook that Jericho sold like he’d been hit by a cruise missile. Rourke’s involvement in this match took WAY too long and should have been limited to a quick poke in the chops due to Jericho taunting him from the floor at ringside during the match.

John Cena VS Edge VS Big Show
Three-way matches are always hard to pull off convincingly, particularly when it’s for a title, and even more so when one of the wrestlers is 7’ tall and over 400 pounds. I honestly think it’s far too late to book Big Show in anything other than mid-card comedy angles. He’s done so many jobs and looked so vulnerable that it’s practically impossible for him to be taken seriously as an unstoppable big man. They put the title on him back in 2000 and nobody took it seriously so putting him back in the title picture nine years and countless programs that made him look like a goofball later is too much of a suspension of disbelief to see him as a title contender. Edge is the best heel they have in the company and I can take or leave Cena but I’m sure the two of them could have put together a compelling singles match without Big Show gumming up the works. The build-up to this match was also idiotic and puerile and the moronic “winner gets Vicky Guerrero” stipulation was (thankfully) never even referenced.

As an aside, I don’t understand why so many people hate Cena to the extent that they do. Little boys think he’s cool and teenage girls think he’s “hawt,” therefore he sells a lot of tickets. Not the first to do so and won’t be the last. The only thing I don’t like about him is that he wrestles in jean shorts and sneakers and looks the furthest thing from a champion. I guess they’re going for the “every man” gimmick but that can be pulled off while still making Cena look different from the guy that operates the Tilt-A-Whirl at the local carnival. I will give the guy credit, though. When he won and was heading back to the dressing room with the belt he very intentionally sidled up to one of the marks wearing a “Cena Sucks” shirt and just sat there hamming it up while the mark had a conniption fit. That’s the mark of a guy that doesn’t take himself too seriously and I can respect that.

Randy Orton VS Triple H
This angle also went off the rails during the weeks leading up to it. It was truly confusing as to who was the face and who was the heel at times. However, you knew the two competitors would give their all and put on a decent match, which they did. The angle of Orton having a legitimate beef that Triple H screwed him over years ago but being deranged in the way he was “making things right” was a good idea and Orton did play the part to the hilt. Sometimes the best heels are people that are actually right in a moral sense but unlikable. However, the WWE refuses to make Triple H look “weak” under any circumstances and ruined anything that was compelling about this match on the Raw show six days earlier when the last visual fans had of these two before WrestleMania was Triple H sitting on Orton’s chest and punching him repeatedly in the head. When you have an angle that involves a face that’s desperate to get his hands on the heel you make the heel run way, sit in locked cars, sit behind bullet proof glass, have the face removed from the arena, issue restraining orders, drive around in a pope-mobile, communicate with the TV broadcast “via satellite from an undisclosed location,” and surround himself with body-guards so that he’s never touched! That, boys and girls, is called GETTING HEAT! Whoever it is that keeps making Triple H look strong in absolutely every situation is ruining any chance he has at ever being a successful babyface. To be a babyface you need SYMPATHY. Look at a guy like Hacksaw Jim Duggan in the 1980s. He looked like a hosed-down hobo, was ugly as sin, was cross-eyed & blind as a bat, and rivaled Ted Arcidi in terms of actual in-ring ability. Even with all that working against him, he was over like nobody’s business because he knew how to garner sympathy by actually looking vulnerable in the hands of whatever heel he was programmed with. If a babyface just walks around kicking the crap out of everyone he gets his hands on in a stand-up fight why would anyone feel any sympathy or emotional connection with him? People often accuse Hogan of always looking strong but that could not be further from the truth. True, he never lost an actual match in a zillion years but his harshest critics seem to forget everything that went on in between all the matches when Hogan would have seizures and take a pounding from the heels over and over and over again. For whatever reason, Triple H has to be booked like Superman and it’s because of that the building goes quiet when he wins as a face because there is absolutely no climax in any of his feuds. Triple H steam-rolled over Orton on WrestleMania Sunday just like he did on Raw less than a week earlier. Whoop-dee-doo. Just shave his head, change his name to Goldberg, and feed him the next one.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Triple H hater and I’m not someone you’ll hear saying that he only got where he is by marrying the boss’ daughter. If that is true, he’s the smartest wrestler in the world and more power to him for pulling it off. I have no idea whether it’s Triple H himself that insists on his being booked as invincible or if it comes from other sources. Wherever it comes from it’s ruining his character. Having a guy that’s invulnerable and that always gets the last laugh is BORING because it’s PREDICTABLE.

One critique I heard from a few places is that this match should not have gone last in favour of Michaels/Undertaker. This is a tough one to call but, at the end of the day, the main event of WrestleMania should be the world title match. If there is a match on the undercard that is more compelling than the world title match and people start leaving the arena when it’s over then the booker needs to ask himself why people don’t care the most about who the champion is.

Carlito & Primo VS Miz & Morrison?
It angers me to no end that this match was dropped from the card in favour of the parade of nonsense that was presented instead. Although the tag titles have become essentially meaningless in the past five or so years I saw a glimmer of hope when they announced and booked compellingly a unification of the Raw & Smackdown tag titles. Not only would this get rid of a completely redundant title (there are barely enough tag teams in WWE to warrant one tag title let alone two) it would also present one team as clearly dominant. Although the tag team titles won’t ever be your main event, it’s no accident that the times in history when wrestling revenue was the highest coincided with the times in history that the tag division was the strongest. To yank this match and present it as a dark match was an insult to the teams that participated. As much as it pains me to say it, they should just get rid of the tag titles if they’re not even viewed as important enough to be featured on the same card that a guy in drag wins an all-female battle royal.

Anyone that's read my Twitter feed will probably know by now that I'm not full of starry-eyed wonder since Obama's been elected. To any Obamabots tuning in: please re-read the first sentence word-for-word and understand that I am not "anti-Obama." I'm critical of the system that was used to elect Obama president, not the man himself. What does scare me, though, is the furor with which certain people jump down my throat when I say anything that suggests Obama is anything less than perfect.

When $100K was spent on re-decorating the Whitehouse I criticized that expenditure and people actually said to me thing along the lines of, "Would YOU want the stuffy old chairs that Bush had?" I'm sure the farts that the Bushes buried into the sofa were long-dissipated by the time the new first family moved in. The man criticized the American public for irresponsible spending (don't get me started on that one) in his own inauguration speech and, a week later, he's dropping $100K on decorations and people are defending and praising him for only spending $100K??? FDR ate a cold chicken dinner on the evening of his inauguration. That's what I call leading by example.

I grow concerned that people have gulped down so many blue pills with this new administration that the time will soon come when it will be able to do practically anything to soaring approval ratings. This is the soil in which fascism is tilled.

‘Twas the night before Obama, when all through the nation
The new world order tuned in to each station

Americans were nestled all snug in their beds
While Afghanis prepared for the bombs overhead

Michelle in Chanel and Barack in Armani
Will make sure his birth certificate doesn’t look phony

The troops in Iraq are not soon coming home
Shortly in Pakistan is where they will roam

Corrupt CEOs will all get their bonus
And nobody cares that the foreign banks own us

Defense Secretary Gates kept his job
Along with many others in Bush’s old mob

Computers in classrooms instead of more knowledge
Dumbed down population, less protests in college

The Clinton body count climbs even higher
While displaced aboriginals get consumed in the fire

The imperialist army in size will now double
Future regime changes? Gaza’s in trouble

The jackals are ready. Their legacy: ashes
While all the right people die alone in plane crashes

Economic hitmen prepare their descent
Oversold infrastructure their only intent

Trillions of dollars for bankers that scammed
The working-class populace, the ones who are damned

Military searches right next to the borders
Confirming citizenship their illegal orders

FEMA camps full but they never laid charges
While the Blackwater mercenary invoice enlarges

Seeing all this unfold is not even strange
The only thing Obama promised was “change.”

Get back on the Wii Fit

Study/memorize scripture

Paint miniatures regularly

I've posted my thoughts on Net Neutrality before so this isn't a lot of new information. It kills me how people will sign an online petition, post to a forum, or join a facebook group thinking it will make any difference. I posted the following on the wall of (yet another) pro-NN facebook group:

If you really care about net neutrality you need to stop joining meaningless facebook groups that accomplish nothing and signing petitions that have no legal relevance. Like it or not, the “villains” in this scenario are accomplishing their goal by using the world’s legal systems to their advantage. It’s amusing to see how few people who claim to support the notion of net neutrality are willing to put their money where their mouths are. The only thing the ISPs will understand is people canceling their service. If you truly believe in this cause and you’re a customer of a company that does not have values and business practices that are in line with your own then cancel your service and, most importantly, TELL YOUR ISP WHY YOU’RE CANCELING. The only way you will get the attention of ISPs that will compel them to change is by taking away their money. If they don’t have your money you have ALL the leverage.

For the record, I'm not specifically opposed to the ideal of NN but I don't agree with many of the rationales I hear people exhorting in favour of NN. Like it or lump it, the infrastructure over which the Internet travels is owned property and the people that own it have the right to say what flows through those pipes at whatever speed they like. That being said, I'm disappointed at the lack of forthrightness (read: intentional lying) that companies like Comcast have displayed in recent history and for that they deserve a chastising (read: sue them) but, at the end of the day, if you pay the piper you pick the tune. I also think that many NN-proponents veil their desire to engage in unhindered copyright infringement as righteous indignation about their personal freedoms being taken away but that's a whole other topic I just don't feel like unpacking right now.

So I’m at the local grocery store today picking up some chips for New Year’s Eve and I get in the “8 items or less line.” If someone has a few extra items I don’t really care but this guy had a full grocery cart and just didn’t care. I mentioned to him that it was a shame nobody ever told him how to count and, when he got it several seconds later, he asked me why I cared and I just said that I was curious as to why he thought rules applied to everyone else and not him. He kindly told me to f-off and I figured that was it. I’d made my point, he endured his shame, end of discussion (or so I thought).

I’ve never seen a grocery clerk call someone on having too many groceries and if I was a teenager being paid minimum wage I wouldn’t care either so I don’t fault the clerk for just keeping her head down and ringing the guy through. So he gets checked out and turns to me and says something along the lines of, “So did that take too long for you?” I responded with, “I guess not. So I assume at this point you’re going to go load your groceries in your car parked in the handicapped parking spot?” At this point he really won the argument by threatening physical violence. I seriously doubt he would have had the yarbles to back that up and, even if he had, I would have just let him hit me and go to jail over too many items in his cart.

Unfortunately for him, he didn’t notice that he dropped some of his groceries out of his cart which I promptly deposited in the garbage for him. No buns for your baloney sandwich this afternoon? Happy new year, douche-bag.

My propensity for "partying" or even leaving my home on New Year's Eve is negligible. Auld Lang Syne? More like OLD Lang Syne! We're having a few people over to watch some movies, have a few drinks, and hang out. Maybe we'll be in bed by 11!

This is a really poorly phrased question. Of course it's frickin' possible to predict the future. Saying, "I think it will rain jelly beans tomorrow" is predicting the future. It's not predicting anything particularly likely but it's a prediction, nonetheless. OK, so I'll stop nit-picking. I assume what LJ meant to ask is along the lines of, "Are there people with legitimately prophetic abilities."

I'm compelled to answer yes. I hold a Christian world-view and, given that I believe in an omnipotent God, my world-view compels me to believe that a person could be divinely endowed with the ability to accurately predict (or "prophesy" if you prefer) future events. I personally don't know any and don't know of any that I would deem credible but I believe in the possibility of such an individual existing. Unfortunately, even if I did meet someone that was gifted in this way I probably wouldn't believe them even if they were the real deal.

Nintendo's website had all the answers; my Wii is functional again. Thank you, Internets.

Something's up with my Wii. I bought it a few months ago and it's worked great but now the controllers don't work. I don't get it. I did a quick search and the proposed solution was holding down the red reset button on the console for 15 seconds and then clicking on the red reset button on the controller but that didn't work. I'm so ticked because I found a copy of "Gun" for the Game Cube yesterday for $5 and now I can't play it! Arg!

We had a pretty good turnout for the monthly Monsterpocalypse Tournament at Battlegrounds this month: six people. We could have had as many as eight but I think, based on posts to his Facebook wall, that Leo's girlfriend had their baby and Adam had to attend his sister's birthday party. It was still an encouraging turnout so here's hoping it will grow.

It was cool to see some new players come out for Monsterpocalypse. Although many of our core miniatures games players do come out to all three of our monthly tournaments (AT-43, Confrontation, and Monsterpocalypse) it's always good to have diversity in the player base. I wound up winning the tournament (and taking home Mega Armodax!) but I think that was more a function of being the most experienced player with a team that was heavily play-tested than anything else. I was using my Cthugrosh/Ultra Cthugrosh team with five Meat Slaves, two Task Masters, two Squixes, three Spitters, two Elite Spitters, and an Explodohawk. In the first round I faced Armodax (Terrasaurs), in the second round I faced Zor-Raiden (Shadow Sun Syndicate), and in the final round I faced Terra Khan (Terrasaurs). As is often the case, it was power attacks that won the games for me.

I think I'm going to shelf the Cthugrosh force for a while and try out my Rogzor force. I'm still waiting for my five Bank Headquarters to arrive in the mail. Hopefully they'll get here on Monday so I can try them out on Tuesday at Battlegrounds and use them at the next 401 Games tournament.

Yesterday we had the monthly AT-43 tournament at Battlegrounds. This month we were playing with the foul weather rules in Operation Frostbite and army construction was at 2000 points. Turnout was disappointingly low (four people) but it was still a lot of fun. In the first round I played a new player (a guy named Mike who works at Nude Buddha Tattoo Studio here in Milton). He was also playing Karmans and I think this was his first full game of AT-43. I wound up winning but this game was more of a teaching game than anything else.

Next round I played Nick. This was one of the best games of AT-43 I’ve played. Nick really had his game face on and brought a killer Red Blok army consisting of Urod, two support units of Dragonov snipers, one unit of Dragomirov Kolussus, one unit of 12 RPG Soldaty, another unit of Dragonov Commandos with AT Gauss guns, and Propaganda. I was fielding an experimental all-infantry army consisting of a unit of Kaptars with ZZ Guns, a unit of Yetis with rocket launchers led by Guru Lucius, a unit of K-Fighters, two Karmic Crystals, and Karmic Bullet Time.

I was really lucky that we rolled “Foul Weather” on the weather conditions chart as this meant that no ranges beyond range 3 could be traced. If this weather condition hadn’t been rolled I think Nick would have overwhelmed me as his snipers could have sat back picking away at me while the heavy Red Blok artillery moved up. It was a real chess game because we were both dancing around each other on overwatch trying not to be the first one to come within range 3. I used Karmic Bullet Time to shuffle my Kaptars and K-Fighters into one of the corner objectives and Nick moved Urod and the AT Gauss-bearing unit into the same corner. I managed to take out one of his sniper support units but he wound up taking the objective and killing my Kaptars and K-Fighters.

The really interesting battle took place in the middle of the table. I had my Yetis hanging out near the Karmic Crystals and, since they were with Lucius, they had stealth while taking cover. Nick played a nearly perfect game but he made one mistake. He knew my Yetis’ jungle rifles couldn’t damage Dragomirovs so he moved them within range 3 triggering my overwatch and gambled that I wouldn’t be able to kill them all. His gamble appeared to pay off because I only took out one Dragomirov but he forgot my unit had stealth so his shots all missed. I wound up taking out his Dragomirovs (not without sustaining some losses) and jumped up on top of the platform to take the other objective as time ran out and won. I was seriously sweating this game and, I’ll say it again, I seriously doubt that I could have won if we hadn’t pulled that weather condition.

In the final round I played Adam and his Therian army consisting of a Baal Golgoth, Babylon Zero, Bane Goliaths, and a full unit of Assault Golems. I just plain lost this game. I failed to take out his Baal quick enough and once it got to my end of the table it was curtains for my guys.

Adam wound up winning the tournament which was pretty cool. I think this was the first tournament he placed in, let alone won, and it was funny because he was the most surprised when it was announced that he won. Nick came deservingly in second and I took third. It was a little unfortunate for the new guy to have come DFL but he had a great attitude, was a little older and more mature, and totally saw this tournament as a learning experience.

Next weekend’s tournament is Monsterpocalypse. I’m undecided if I want to field my standard Cthugrosh force or if I want to try out Rogzor and his cornucopia of blast attacking minions. I tried out Rogzor on Friday night against Allfrost and won despite myself. I’m so used to playing Lords of Cthul where all the monsters have Fly or Jump and it’s made me lazy when it comes to maneuvering my monsters around. In the game I had against Allfrost I totally pinned myself in a corner thinking it would be a good way to avoid smashes, throws, and body slams but all it did was make me stuck. I think I’ll stick with Cthugrosh for one more tournament and try and get in a few more practice games with Rogzor before I try and compete with him.

I took a half-day off yesterday to watch the NFL Thanksgiving games at a friend's place who lives at Queen & Pape in Toronto. I left at around 6:00 PM and, since it was on the way home, I had dinner at Dangerous Dan's at Queen & Broadview. I'd heard a few people I knew comment about this place so I went to check it out. Their menu primarily features hamburgers and they have a few gimmick items on the menu that are worth mentioning:

The Coronary Burger Special
2 8oz Patties, 4 Slices of Bacon, 2 Slices of Cheddar and a Fried Egg on top. Served w/ Fries and Gravy, Can of Pop and Mayo as a garnish for sure!
Only $14.45

Quadruple C - "Collosal Colon Clogger Combo"
24oz burger served with a quarter pound of cheese, a quarter pound of bacon, and 2 fried eggs. Also comes with a large shake (flavor of your choice) and a small poutine.
Only $23.45

As amusing as those items were, I decided to try the place out by ordering a conventional cheese & bacon burger with a side order of poutine (that's french fries, gravy, and cheese curds for those of you that may not know). The poutine was decent and they get good marks for using legitimate cheese curds instead of shredded mozarella like some restaurants have taken to doing. The only complaint I have about the poutine is that it the gravy was very watery. You need thick gravy for good poutine. The fries were very thick-cut which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I find that thinner fries make for better poutine since it makes it easier to swirl around the fries, curds, and gravy.

The hamburger was definitely big, no doubt about it, and the bun was definitely fresh which is a big plus. The cheddar was real and the bacon was crispy which are also two check-marks. The only garnishes I ordered, aside from the cheese & bacon, were lettuce and tomatoes. The lettuce was fresh and the tomato was generously heaped on (I probably was given 2/3 of a tomato). The consistency of the tomato was a little pulpy but considering it's late November I'm not going to crab too much about that.

The only critique I'd have about the burger itself is that it was a little bland. I get the feeling that it was strictly ground beef and nothing else. The burger was good but a little seasoning could have made it great.

The best part about Dangerous Dan's, though, was the atmosphere. It's a grimy little diner that does the moniker "greasy spoon" proud. It's not "dirty," mind you... it just has that un-cleanable layer of grime and crud that no amount of bleach could ever remove and it gives the place a lot of character. Adding to this character is the fact that the seats are all old car seats covered in blankets. Classy! If you're in the Queen & DVP area at all you owe it to yourself to check out Dangerous Dan's at least once.

Red cabbage. Even though my heritage is German through and through (both of my parents were born in Der Vaterland) I have a strong aversion to cabbage and all of its forms. My mom usually makes red cabbage (or "Rotkohl" as the Krauts call it) and I think it's full on gross. Thankfully, I've never once in my life been made to eat it but I really don't like the way it tastes or smells.

I'm definitely getting old because, with increasing frequency, I just don't understand why a given phenomenon is popular. Please don't confuse this with me thinking that everything that is new "sucks" because that's not the case. I can differentiate between something that I don't get and something that I don't like. Something that I really don't get lately is why people find John Hodgman funny.

As a reminder, Hodgman is the actor who plays "PC" in the "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" commercials for Macintosh computers. I've heard people comment that they thought Hodgman was funny based on these commercials. All Hodgman proved by participating in these commercials was that he was capable of being a shill and participating in a series of claims about the merits of Macintosh computers that ranged from exaggerated half-truths to outright lies. Hey... I would have probably done the same thing because I'm sure he got paid well so I'm not knocking him for doing the ads. All I'm saying is that the commercials are the same un-funny joke over and over again.

I've read excerpts from his book of false trivia and watched clips of Hodgman doing his "expert" gimmick on The Daily Show. Once again, I don't get it. Somewhere along the way while I was doing something else the concept of "random" became synonymous with "funny" and I have to say I disapprove.

Yesterday I went over to BoardgameGeek.com to sign up for this year's Secret Santa event. The BGG Secret Santa page said at the time (and still says as of the time of this post) that the deadline for signing up is November 20th but when one clicks on the "join" link the following message is displayed: Secret Santa registration is now closed and no longer accepting new participants.

I msg'd the organizer and got a completely lame response saying that they'd changed the date a week earlier and that he'd "posted it everywhere." Well, I guess "everywhere" doesn't include the main freakin' page for the event. Thanks for nothing, jerkfoot.

Cottondonkey came over tonight for a bit of Monsterpocalypse. He was using Zor-Maxim which was cool because I'd never played against Shadow Sun Syndicate before. I fielded Mega Cthugrosh for the first and possibly last time. Going into the game I was still scratching my head at how effective Mega Cthugrosh would be.

I attacked straight out of the gate and spent four dice to step up to Zor-Maxim and successfully body-slammed him into an Oil Refinery for three damage. That wound up being the last really impressive thing that I did. Man, are the SSS hard to hit! Zor-Maxim's Alpha form has a 7 defense and the Ultra form has a defense of 8. Dang!!!

Mega Cthugrosh did very little for me. I still don't understand why he has the Mire and Terrify abilities. Who really cares if spaces within two of him count for two when units move through them if Terrify prevents them from moving adjacent? I'm also not crazy about the Overload blast trigger. There was never a point in the game when Cottondonkey had enough power dice on my turn to allow me to even use the trigger. Considering that Ultra Cthugrosh has Sacrifice, Telekinesis, and Power Gorge I don't think I'll use Mega Cthugrosh again unless there's something I really haven't figured out.

Americans like their sports to be high-scoring and full of spectacle and razzle-dazzle. Soccer/football typically has little of any of these.

Tonight I met up with Questor for dinner at the Swiss Chalet at Yonge & Gerrard for the first Festive Special of the season. I have to admit that I liked it when it included a Toblerone as opposed to the Lindt chocolates but they've upped the ante from the standard 3-pack to a Christmas-themed 6-pack in a little snow-covered cottage-shaped package so that's a good thing. I'd never had the orange-flavoured Lindt before; I still like the peanut butter ones best but I think orange is number two.

After dinner we killed some time at Hairy Tarantula and then headed over to 401 Games for the Monsterpocalypse tournament. Questor was only there as an observer (and there were three or four others there just playing demos with the event organizer) but there were three others there so we had enough for a round-robin tournament.

Two of the guys there (I'll call them Lenny and Carl since they're almost always seen together) I've seen around the Toronto gaming scene for quite a while and I know they're heavily involved in HeroClix. The other player was a younger Asian guy I'd never seen before. Lenny was playing a G.U.A.R.D. force with Sky Sentinel and lots of G-Tanks and Rocket Choppers, Carl was playing a Martian Menace force with Ares Mothership, and the other guy was playing Shadow Sun Syndicate but I didn't see which of the Zors he was using.

I was using Cthugrosh with 2 Explodohawks, 3 Meat Slaves, 3 Task Masters, 2 Squixes, 1 Elite Squix, 3 Spitters, and 1 Elite Spitter.

I played Lenny in the first round. He really knew the synergy between his units and did a lot of damage to Cthugrosh with ranged attacks from afar. I bumbled with my units a bit this game and really didn't make the most of them. My biggest gaffe was making my Explodohawks explode even when their Brawl attack missed. Costly considering that I'm spending two to spawn them since they're of a different faction & agenda. I did not use my healing abilities at all during this game which, in all honesty, should have cost me the game. I shifted the momentum considerably when I body-slammed Sky Sentinel on top of four (count 'em) four Rocket Choppers. I think the power dice I got from this attack wound up winning the game for me. Lenny moved his Sky Sentinel far away and targeted Cthugrosh with blast attacks. He almost had me down and out but he missed two combined range attacks in a row which left me alive with one life. Unfortunately for him, he left Sky Sentinel right in front of an Oil Refinery and I had just enough Power Dice to do a Smash Power Attack which sent him through the Oil Refinery and two fire hazards for four damage which knocked out his Ultra form and it was game over.

Even though I won it was a really close game that totally could have gone either way. G.U.A.R.D. armies are going to be tough to play against as the synergy between the units and monsters is really impressive. I'm thinking that Rampage and Body-Slamming/Throwing opposing monsters onto units is going to be important versus G.U.A.R.D. forces.

For some reason that I don't understand Lenny decided to bail on the tournament after our game and go line up for the midnight release of the new World of Warcraft expansion. Lame! In the other game, Carl beat the Shadow Sun Syndicate player on time but now that Lenny was leaving it meant someone had to sit out. At that point, the SSS player decided to bow out, as well, in favour of going and playing another game in another part of the store. I guess it's good that the SSS player at least had something else that he wanted to go do but I think it's a total cheese-horn move to bail on a tournament just because you're suddenly in a position where your odds of winning overall are low, ESPECIALLY when you're going to wait in line for a friggin' video game. But, like I said, nobody else was bothered by it so I guess no harm, no foul.

Lenny and I then played a game to decide the overall winner. This game, I'm glad to say, went a lot better and I felt a lot better about how I played. I also could do no wrong on my dice rolls and Lenny didn't make four or five rolls that the odds said he should have made at least two of. But, that's what you're sometimes in for when you play games with dice. I used my Explodohawks a lot more effectively this time and really used my Meat Slaves effectively to heal my monsters. Lenny relied on blast attacks and I don't think he even attempted a Power Attack the whole game which may have been his undoing. The Ultra Ares Mothership is immune to Power Attacks and that really slowed the game down. I wound up using Ultra Cthugrosh's "Fling" Blast trigger pretty effectively which meant I was doing one damage and destroying a unit (and, thus, getting a power die) every monster activation. We ran out of time (each round was an hour) but the final result was that Lenny's Alpha Form was knocked out and his Ultra Form had only 2 damage left whereas my Alpha had taken one damage and my Ultra was at full health.

Lenny wanted to scoop at one point but I wouldn't let him. I refuse to accept a victory due to an opponent just forfeiting. If I win, I want to beat you. Similarly, even if all looks lost for me, I never scoop. If I lose my opponent deserves the gratification of beating me. I tried to be jovial about it but I think Lenny was a little frustrated and maybe thought I was being a prinsk by making him keep playing but I just wanted to keep playing, nothing more. It was all fine afterwards; we actually traded and I walked away with a fourth Meat Slave. Only one more to go!

For winning the tournament I got to pick from the three available Mega Forms: Sky Sentinel, Cthugrosh, and Gorghardra. I picked Gorghadra, even though I already have one, because I'm hoping to trade it for a Mega Rogzor or Mega Yasheth when they come out. I'm REALLY tempted to just throw it up on ebay since they're going for $60+ but I think I'll hang on to it for trading purposes.

So, overall, I'm really pleased. I wish I could have played against the Shadow Sun Syndicate just to see how they play. Maybe next time. 401 is having another tournament in a few weeks and I'm totally planning on going. Hopefully I fare as well!