redfiona99

Yay! - Minoru Suzuki is wrestling in the UK.

Nay! - Against Will Osprey

Yay! - it's not in York, as I thought on first glance, but York Hall, London. I have an open sofa invite in London.

Nay! - it is the night before an unavoidable work meeting that requires international travel.

Yay! - I have to be in London anyway to travel

Nay! - Colleagues are trying to get work to shuttle us to London.

I have to accept that Suzuki may end up like Billy Bragg and I will perpetually not be able to see him live. (Billy Bragg played Leicester 4 times while I was at uni. Each time it was either the start of exams, the night before exams or the night before a post-grad presentation I needed to pass in the 2nd year of my PhD. You see why I started to think I was cursed.)

Anyone who saw my tweet this is a repeat, but after a stressy week, seeing good guys thump bad guys is extremely cathartic.

In particular, I would like to thank Ethan Page for making sure I get to enjoy hoping he gets punched.

TNA
Taya and Rosemary continue to be all the fun.

I gots me some Chris Bey! And Damian Drake (?) is also not bad.

Joey Ryan is wearing clothes. I don't know how to process that.
I do love that the other two in Cancel Culture are all social media and stuff, and RVD is wandering around confused. It works.

Oh Willie Mack wanting nothing to do with tag partners who are not Rich Swann <3. Did I mention they are going to break my heart with that story eventually.

They are letting troll face loose with fire?! (Bless Ken Shamrock for going with that.)

AEW - yeah they might actually be doing something with Jungle Boy, because they've given him a name. (Note, this was before everything.)

I want to like AEW, I really do, but I hate the way they book their matches. Not the overall angles, just the matches.

I'll give you an example of the problem from last week. PAC vs Trent Baretta. Evil, villainous Englishman against Trent Baretta (with adorably worried-looking Chuckie T in his corner*). I am so here for this.

Match is solid. Evil looks vicious, good looks noble, Chuck looks worried. I am responding the way I should. And then ... the good guys distract the ref so that Orange Cassidy can sneak into the ring to annoy PAC. This is not in response to any previous cheating from PAC. No, the good guys, who have a 3 on 1 advantage, have started the cheating, not the bad guy.

So, instead of cheering for the good guys, who I like, I find myself cheering for the psychotic Geordie because hey, at least he's not cheating!

And it's not a one-off, because they had to find a way to squeeze Orange Cassidy into the match, this has happened before. The first AEW match I saw was Cody Rhodes vs Sammy Guevara. Young Guevara has an excellent face for a bad guy and I want to cheer for Cody Rhodes because he's Cody Rhodes. Then Brandi Rhodes interferes, again unprompted and ... it makes it hard to cheer for the good guys.

I know this might be a me-being-old-fashioned thing, but I want to cheer for the good guys, boo the bad guys and so on. It's not that tweeners can't be done well, I loved the Dirty Heels and so on, but then it's signposted and there were some actual good guys in the vicinity.

Please AEW, I am trying to get behind you, but you are making it difficult. Let me cheer for your good guys!


* Yes, I have chosen this example because I mostly like everyone in it.**

** I don't "get" Orange Cassidy. I am aware I am out of step with the Zeitgeist on this. Much as I was with the Rock and Austin. I am aware that *I* am the problem, not the Zeitgeist of Orange Cassidy.

Wrestling - where suddenly hearing about one of your old favourites is never a good thing.

As I said on tumblr, the only thing I can compare it to is that period in cycling where, if you heard the sport in a non-sports context it was because someone else had tested positive for something or someone else had been found dead in a hotel room.

And the thing is, cycling only became clean (if it is clean, and they've not just found a different way of doping), not because of anything the fans did, nor did it come from the riders, but because the sponsors were threatening to pull out and then several of them did.

Basically, companies like HTC said, we don't care if it's not our riders testing positive, we don't want our brand even vaguely associated with doping. And that stopped it (or made it a lot sneakier). Because the teams are utterly dependent on sponsorships (for historical reasons, they don't get much if any tv money, and the fans watch for free), they had to sort themselves out.

The really interesting thing was that it wasn't d'affair Armstrong that did it, everyone was willing to just consign that behind the veil of forgetfulness, it was that the newer "clean" riders weren't.

Wrestling's problem is that it's an unholy mix of art, a sport where people get hit in the head (because boxing and boxers face many similar problems) and a sport where players are pretty much on 365 (like cycling and tennis) but it sort of falls between the cracks between them. That's also been amplified by Vince McMahon's ability to rebrand wrestling as sports entertainment, so it doesn't come under the purview of the SGA (or the other one) who wouldn't let actors undergo the treatment wrestlers get, nor do they have a professional association like the tennis players have in the ATP. Wrestlers don't even get the protection boxers get of having to pass a medical on a regular basis, and of being checked for damage after fights.

You'll notice I blame Vince McMahon for this, but I'd love to know what everyone else's excuse is. This is not a race to the bottom. I think part of the problem is that a lot of wrestling companies are run by people who this system hasn't utterly screwed over so they don't see the problem. It's not quite 'I'm alright jack," but it's not far short.

There's got to be a way to fix it, but I've got no idea what it is. I have no idea if the WWE's ex-workers help scheme is just a sticky plaster or if the next guy in charge has noticed that at least 3 of his friends have major substance abuse issues that weren't helped by being wrestlers, but beyond that ...

Wondering why I suddenly had "I Am" running round my head at work. Then realised that it might have something to do with the presentation on P1 protein. Pavlov has nothing on wrestling.

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I haven't seen the Wolf of Wall Street (although it's doing very well at the cinema if the number of sold out screenings in Birmingham are anything to go off). This is partly because it doesn't look like my kind of film, and partly because I can't shake the feeling that I've seen this film already when it was called "Boiler Room".

If the work thing leads to the thing my boss thinks it might lead to, the stress will have been worth it.

That being said, I look forward to work settling down a bit so I can carry on with the stuff that's actually directly mine.

That will also, hopefully, lead to me not forgetting as many things. So far I've lost one USB stick (probably forever, but there's a chance it's been handed in at work). It had a couple of meme answers on so I'll be even longer in responding that usual. I also nearly mislaid my wool needles. But I found those a couple of days later. Dear self, cease with the gaslighting.
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Wrestling - someone posted this set of Evolution gifs on tumblr - http://brightnshinythings.tumblr.com/post/54093487534/randy-orton-a-to-the-z-e-1-is-for-the-evolution I may have squeaked.

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Fic Meme - Day 19 – When you have bunnies, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?

I used to sit straight down but I found I had far too many things going on at once and never seemed to get anywhere with any of them, so now I write a basic outline of the idea in my "to write" file, throw in any phrases that I must put in, and I'm only allowed to start the next one in the file once I've finished another fic.

The other advantage is I don't waste time on fics that I can't remember the purpose for, they just get put to the end of the list when I reach them.

( Other Days )

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Glastonbury Comment

While I've been writing this up, the Arctic Monkeys have been on the tv. When they were first a thing, I didn't get it. I accepted that they were decent musicians, but not "OMG saviours of music".

I still don't think they're all that, but they give a good live performance. And I get what people see in the lead singer.

Re: last rugby post - this is what I meant by Castrogiovanni looking like he was ready to murderise someone - http://brightnshinythings.tumblr.com/post/42293739457 So glad I wasn't playing against him.

The French rugby union team continue to be ... themselves. Trying to guess how they'll play is a fool's game, but I think they were paying for not having specialists in their second row. I have no doubt that over a 100 yard dash or bench pressing, the French would win, but in rucking and all the various diabolic arts thereto attached (i.e. the stuff that actually goes on on the pitch), the Italians were going to win every day. See also, the basis for a lot of recent Irish victories against England.

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Formula 1 - The best thing about the new season is Gary Anderson talking about the new cars and the changes from last year's specifications. Of particular interest are his comments about the new Red Bull (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21313453). I also like that he apparently grades on a scale, because he's nice about the Marussia (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21335626) and scathing about the Mercedes (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula-one/21322248), even though Mercedes will probably finish higher in the end of season standings.

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Fencing:

Guess who is ranked 100th in the country? Boom!!

Now to stay there, despite one of my favourite competitions not being run and me having points to defend from it.

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Some fun links -

A photo gallery of this season's F1 cars - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21261099

ATOS declare Richard III fit for work - http://tompride.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/atos-declare-richard-iii-fit-for-work/
Well, it makes a change from the Blackadder jokes and all the locals pointing out exactly how much Richard III owes in parking fines :) (Link care of nwhyte)

Someone else's Castrogiovanni picspam - http://brightnshinythings.tumblr.com/post/42293488652/dreezlebub-italy-23-18-france Castro owns an Italian restaurant out in one of the little villages round Leicester, and is apparently beloved by every small child that has ever entered it because he does things like jumping out at them and pretending to eat them.

Sebastian Chabal's comment on France vs Italy - http://brightnshinythings.tumblr.com/post/42293336092/mylittlebinky-a-tweet-by-chabal-during-italy-v In his defence, he was really nice about Italy after the match, making it quite clear that they'd won the match rather than France losing it.

A taxonomy of wrestler's names - http://files.sharenator.com/PCL_ProWrestlers_Zoom3-s2000x2659-221663.jpg.html

It appears to be wrestling/football cross-over day, in between Eurosport's mentioning of it in 'Early Doors' http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/early-doors/match-day-more-important-deadline-day-090054292.html and Kurt Angle going up against Mark Lawrenson in the BBC football predictor - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/16787287.stm Let me assure you that Angle could be picking names out of a hat and still do better than Lawro.

Notthat I feel that bad any more, but you know what they say, better out than in.

( the Smallville finale )

( CSI:New York )

Dear friend in RL,

You come down, giving me ~ 14 hrs warning, instead of the 14 days I tend to demand because my house is a tip. I let you stay. You complain about the state of the flat. Not going to complain about that, because hey, tip. However, when you then try and make me feel bad by saying you worry that it'll affect how your mother sees me. I'm sorry, but the suggestions, demands, hints, pleas and orders of my own mother and grandmother have yet to make me tidy, why the fuck do you think I'd care what your mother thinks?! With no offense to the lady, who I do know, but really!

(There are many reasons I would never, ever sleep with or date this guy, but that he expects tidiness is one of them. I regard being a slattern (provided it inconveniences no one else) as something I have every right to be.)

Dear Self,

Stop eating so much. I know why (I appear to be bedding in for winter), but eating as much as a panda bear is bad for you.

Dear whoever it is in my block of flats that leaves at about 7 in the morning. Be more quiet.

Dear UK record buying public, why have you bought more of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_oLfC5Z_Ys - Professor Green and Emeli Sande - Read All About It, when it's a poor Eminem re-tread (down to our wailing woman of chorus sorrow) when you could be buying this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0fk6syQ7iY&ob=av3e Labrinth - Earthquake - which is, to quote a friend, criminally good.

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Utterly un-related, but watching the Longest Yard - did they just grab wrestlers wholesale, 'cause so far I've spotted Goldberg, Austin, Kevin Nash and the Great Khali.

Following on from last year's self-set challenge to make icons out of all the Formula one drivers, 2009's challenge was all the Divas. Some of them are good, some of them are less so.

Total Icon Count: 20

Teasers:

( Icons Here! )