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Various Topics--- Today we're talking about spoiled draft picks, fictional "non-fiction" movies, jurors who have difficulty putting together complete sentences, and the mainstream media's continuing ignorance about video games.

Pro Wrestling: Draft Picks Have Been Spoiled by WWE
Thus far in the annual WWE draft lottery, WWE has been making it way too obvious when certain wrestlers are going to get drafted to the other brand. I mean, really, the minute they said on Raw, artificially and out of nowhere, that Triple H vs. Batista at Vengeance is "the final showdown" and the end of their feud, it didn't take a genius to figure out that Batista is going to get drafted to Smackdown in the week after Vengeance.

When Kurt Angle and Booker T's feud on Smackdown was suddenly having a match billed on Smackdown as "their final showdown" with statements like, "Whoever wins this match wins the feud!" it completely spoiled the fact that Kurt Angle was going to get drafted to Raw the following Monday, which is exactly what happened.

Now we've had a blow-off resolution to the feud between The Big Show and Matt Morgan, so would anyone be surprised if one of those two wrestlers is drafted to Raw this coming Monday? Also, in the commercial at the very end of Smackdown for next week's Guerrero vs. Mysterio match, the commercial conspicuously said while recapping the feud, "How will it all end? Find out next Thursday!"

That pretty much gives away the fact that either Guerrero or Mysterio is going to get drafted on Raw the following Monday. Why doesn't WWE just have giant, flashing, neon signs that give away each draft pick before it happens?

Movies: Cinderella Man Takes "Creative License" to a New Level
Cinderella Man may very well be a good movie. Its star, Russell Crowe, seems to be a very primitive man who is physically incapable of going more than a few months at a time without physically assaulting someone in public (as he was most recently arrested for throwing a telephone at the face of a hotel worker), but that shouldn't affect the story being told in the movie, right? Well, how about the fact that the story being told in the movie is fundamentally twisted and false?

In an effort to make the hero of the movie, James Braddock, all the more heroic, the creators of the movie took the creative license that any moviemaker does legitimately have when making a movie "based on a true story," and they violated that creative license by outright fabricating what kind of man Braddock was going against when he won the title in 1935. His opponent, Max Baer Sr, was not a reprehensible monster of a man who took great joy in the fact that two of his opponents died in boxing matches. In fact, boxing historians say Baer was haunted by their deaths.

Baer wasn't an angel, either, but he was no monster. The creators of Cinderella Man saw fit to completely change the facts to suit their movie, even if it meant they were no longer actually making a movie based on a true story. Bob Costas said much the same thing on a recent episode of HBO's "Costas Now," and so have many other people who know a little bit about boxing's history. Hopefully that fact, along with the fact that Russell Crowe may very well be arrested for assault a few more times between now and the next Academy Awards at the rate he's going, will prevent Cinderella Man from winning any major awards in the movie industry.

Michael Jackson Jury May Have Average IQ of Less Than 80
The jury in the Michael Jackson case had the right to come to any decision they saw fit, and you could certainly argue either way based on the evidence in the case whether it was absolutely proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Michael Jackson sexually molested this particular accuser. With that said, is there anyone who has watched the interviews with the Jackson jurors on legal shows like "The Abrams Report" on MSNBC who hasn't come to the conclusion that these are some of the most vapid, confused, dim-witted people to ever serve on a jury?

One of the jurors said that the first vote among the 12 jurors on one of the counts was "7 to 3 to 4" before realizing a few seconds later that those three numbers add up to 14, not 12. Another juror was unable to answer basic, simple questions about certain testimony in the case. Being nervous to be on TV could make you seem somewhat clueless, I'm sure, but it can't make you seem "Jessica Simpson clueless."

Video Games: Mainstream Media Ignorance about Video Games Continues
Does Tucker Carlson really know so little about video games that he thinks none of them involve any creativity, thinking, strategy, or thought development? Does he really think it uses more creativity for a child to be given a ball and told to "go outside and play with the ball," as he said recently on his new MSNBC show, "The Situation with Tucker Carlson"?

I'm wondering if Tucker Carlson ever heard of or played video games like Civilization. How about Populous? Black & White? Final Fantasy? Deus Ex? Theme Park? Theme Hospital? The Sims? Knights of the Old Republic? Sim City? Splinter Cell? Metal Gear Solid? ICO? Fable? Age of Empires? Rise of Nations? Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee? Any of the other Oddworld games? Any of the general manager or "Franchise Modes" in most sports games?

Somehow, I doubt it. Max Kellerman was absolutely right in his response when he said that it's a generational thing. If Tucker had grown up when sophisticated video games were prominent in society, he would understand them and would not make such broad, generalized, blatantly false statements about them. I respect Tucker Carlson and have enjoyed his new show a lot, but on this topic, he's way off the mark.

Labels: Politics / Current Events Commentary, Video Games, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)

posted by Ivan Trembow at 3:52 PM

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