Welcome to my first blog for what is yet another blog I've made because I just like making them. This blog will be more of a monthly roundup if there's anything I've collected watched or just have thoughts on. Pretty straightforward stuff, as is usual with my style of bloggery. I'll also at least try to keep up with these over time and hopefully not burn out quick which is another thing I tend to do too much. But with t hat out of the way, let's talk about July 2023.
It's a day that ends in Y, so of course it's time for Elon Musk to break Twitter in one way or another. Kicking off the month with the great Rate Limited fiasco, in which after pissing Google off, caused more of a mess with the site where everyone was pretty much on an allowance of like a few hundred tweets to read a day, so like maybe five minutes of Twitter. That came and went and while the Modern Day Socrates continued to make himself the internet's main character, he decided to make himself somehow more a joke than he already was. How so? By taking one of the most established website brands of all time and chucking it out the window and giving us the oh-so-creative rebranding of "X".
Elon is notoriously obsessed with the letter like it was still the 1990s. Since being ousted from Paypal he's wanted nothing more than to use it on his dream everything site, which is supposed to have live calls, be focused on videos, involve stocks oh and I guess be a bank as well. Because you know if there's one guy I'd trust with my money (and possibly ID which might be the next muck-up), it's the guy who got ousted from Paypal and is a notorious crypto shill. And also a guy who, in his infinite hubris, had a new X logo attached atop the Twitter building, despite being told by the landlord not to. But, oh no, this can't just be any X logo. It has to flash constantly, which was no doubt a joy to anyone living near the thing. Somehow Bender's "Remember Me" statue doesn't seem so far fetched. It was comically taken down a few days later, which is a perfect metaphor for the prospects of X. Either way, I'm now on Bluesky as well so I have a fallout shelter once the boom on Twitter finally drops.
July ended on a sad note as well with the passing of both Paul Reubens and Exotic Adrian Street. Street is a wrestling name I'm more aware of in hindsight, and mostly through the really well done WWE documentary on him. His flamboyant look and style being a perfect reflection of counter culture in a Thatcher era. Built more to be intentionally deceptive. That the guy in makeup is ultimately one of the best wrestlers in the world. A direct opposite from what WWE tried with Adorable Adrian Adonis, who was the subject of one episode of Dark Side of the Ring this season, which covered Adonis' death as well as the character, which when looked now more than ever was well played by Keith Franke, even if the intent was less the cleverness of Street, but rather to "boo the fag", which fits in line with Vince McMahon, especially in the Reagan era.
The other name to pass was Paul Reubens after a long and private battle with cancer. It has barely been a week and it still feels like a shock. The kind of harsh feeling that I haven't gotten with a celebrity death since Gilbert Gottfried last year. Everybody knows Reubens best as Pee Wee Herman, a bizarre yet charming character who only Reubens could bring to life. Pee Wee can best be described as the ultimate kid. Obnoxious, silly and imaginative. Best exemplified in both Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Pee Wee's Playhouse, which I remember watching when I was a kid. But of course, Reubens wasn't just Pee Wee, but hundreds of other characters, both live action and animated. And every story I've ever heard has nothing but love for the man, who we lost way too soon.
On the wrestling front for July, it's been a solid month. Starting with AEW, it's been a mostly drama-free first month of Collision, which over time has started to become a must-watch show, offering some great wrestling matches week to week. Two epic showdowns between FTR and Bullet Club Gold rounding out in a spectacular 2 out of 3 falls match. Ricky Starks and Willow Nightengale taking the Owen Hart Tournament wins. Some momentum built around Andrade. And finally starting to build to CM Punk's grievances over never losing what he now calls the Real World's Title. On Dynamite there have been some great stuff. Jungle Boy is dead and Jack Perry now reigns as FTW Champion, the Elite and the Blackpool Combat Club settle their dispute for now in the annual Blood and Guts match. And they seem to finally be building Swerve Strickland with more prominent air time.
But AEW's best stuff this past month has involved the unlikely pairing of Adam Cole and AEW Champion MJF in what has ultimately become the best "can they coexist" story in wrestling. And the answer is a surprising yes. I was mixed on face Cole for a while, since he did feel a bit blander as a face, but his work with Max continues to impress me. And more importantly, MJF has made a believer out of me t hat maybe he could be a babyface if he really wanted to. Seeing this transformation from an MJF who was self serving to a guy who has formed a true kinship with Cole both in the ring and outside through vignettes. And it worked in them winning the tag tournament, though not in dethroning FTR.
But through it all, Max and Adam haven't turned on one another and their friendship borders on somewhat genuine and will culminate at the end of August when AEW All In hits Wembley Stadium. AEW are in a perfect position where they could do so many things and they could all work. Max ultimately turning on Cole, cementing his devil status. Cole turning on MJF, leading to one of the strongest double turns. Or, and what would be the most interesting of them, the match at Wembley ending with neither side turning on one another, ending the angle on amicable turns. Whatever way they go, it'll be a fun month to get there.
Over on the WWE front and it's mostly been an average month in terms of week to week as we build to Summerslam. But the one thing that continues to build momentum is the sudden surge in popularity for LA Knight. So much so that it seems the WWE are stymied as to what to do with him. Instead of putting him in a US title match with Austin Theory, they've stuck him in a battle royal which almost spells him being eliminated last in a way for WWE to screw with the fans like they do. There's claims the push is due to really start after Summerslam but I have my doubts. I see the LA Knight momentum and just think of Rusev Day and how WWE bungled that.
In some good news however, over on NXT the great Gable Steveson experiment has already crashed and burned. His match with Baron Corbin at The Great American Bash being the ultimate disaster that the company didn't expect, but should have. Not just because they're trying to push a man who got off on rape charages via a legal loophole, but because the clear attempt to make him the new Kurt Angle was never going to work. Mainly in that Kurt, with even less time in developmental than Steveson, took to the industry faster and better. And when your new Angle is getting "You're Not Angle!" chants, then oh dear this is a mess. On NXT the following Tuesday there wasn't even a mention of Steveson, which should say a lot. Dude crapped the bed so badly they gave him the Poochie treatment two days later! I doubt they're going to give up on Steveson, but for now some much needed schadenfreude.
Finally, I'll give WWE credit for being able to steer the ship with the Bloodline storyline as of late. From the Usos finally turning on Roman to Jey giving Roman his first pinfall loss in the era of the Tribal Chief. And now it culminates at Summerslam in Tribal Combat. It's amazing how well they've built up Jey Uso in which he actually feels like a threat to Roman. Not enough for me to believe he'll win, but finally living up to the "Main Event" of "Main Event Jey Uso." And the seeds of building Solo Sikoa as a future challenger for Reigns is still in the works. The only concern will be once this whole thing finally cools off and what will even be left for the Roman run as it heads to Wrestlemania 40 next year.
July for gaming was okay. Played through a lot of AEW Fight Forever but burned out of it quick. It's a really fun wrestling game, but feels too barebones and the Road to the Elite isn't as good as it could have been. For a No Mercy callback it's fine and I'll find myself playing it every now and then, but otherwise it's definitely cooled down for me. Other than that, we got treated to a great batch of games once again on the Nintendo Switch Online. Two updates in fact. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons made it to the Game Boy app. And before that in late June, another excellent batch of titles for Sega Genesis. The main jewel being Crusader of Centy, the rarest Sega Genesis title. So yeah, this feels a little better than paying a thousand bucks for a complete copy. While the game bears similarity to that of The Legend of Zelda, it's far from it and is worth a play if you have the chance. Other than that, I've been running through the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, nearing completion of Ripto's Rage. I love how this game collection looks, but my old self oddly prefers the more primitive look of the original games.
I'm still learning how to draw and I'm finally reaching a point where I can actually be proud of the work I'm doing. Still very slow going, but every attempt is still trying to get better little by little. Mostly just good at doing side profile faces. Bodies, backgrounds, unique angles are still tricky to me, but I'm willing to keep at it until I get a bit better. I also try to continue to make a bunch of Simpsons sketches based on random pics I find on Frinkiac. Mostly to see how close I can get the faces to look. And even there I see improvements.
In collecting, I've been getting into collecting comics. No, not the superhero fare, at least not yet, but mostly comics based on animated shows from the 90s. This led to a batch of Pinky and the Brain comics, a few Sonic books and a couple Simpsons. But I've also been starting a collection of Mad Magazines from the eighties and nineties. I've finally reached that mentality of kind of being more into comics lately and these are a great way to start things off.
And that wraps July 2023 up. An overall decent month despite being way too damn hot. Hopefully good things are to come in August.
No comments:
Post a Comment