Book 8 of 2012

My sixth period students watched Othello, and I managed to finish this book.

8) Undisputed: How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps by Chris Jericho
Top five wrestlers, go! My top five always has at least ten guys in it, like any good top five should. Number one is The Rock. A rotating cast takes up numbers two through four; currently that cast consists of Macho Man, Ric Flair and CM Punk. Other folks that could fill out those three slots include Edge, D'Lo Brown, Steve Austin, Owen Hart, Brock Lesnar, Bryan Danielson (a.k.a. Daniel Bryan), AJ Styles, Darren Drozdov, and Kurt Angle. Number five is always Chris Jericho. I guess that kind of makes Chris Jericho number two of my top five, but I like the idea of a pair of bookends for the list. He stood out enough in WCW, to the point that I would track down tapes (VHS tapes!) of him in ECW and Japan. I vividly remember the day he arrived in WWF after the Countdown to the New Millenium clock finally reached zero, and his involvement in a show is always something to watch closely because even when his storyline sucks, he's still the best aspect of it. The point is that I like Chris Jericho more than the average wrestler.

This is Jericho's second memoir; the first dealt with everything in his career through his run in WCW.  During the Monday Night Wars between WCW and WWF, his decision to leave Atlanta for the greener pastures of McMahon's organization was huge news, and the first book culminates with his debut in the WWF, ending just before he took the stage to interrupt The Rock's promo. This one picks up with that promo and details his first WWF run, but it also splits time between the ups and downs of learning how to function in the new company with him starting his band Fozzy. It's not really a spoiler to say that this book ends with a sequel in mind, as the last page leads up to his return, which was his most successful run to date, both financially and creatively. Jericho has a deal in place for book three, but I imagine we won't see that until after he retires.

Jericho often writes in a juvenile fashion, thinking it funny to add "-ski" (loadski, dumpski, etc.) to words and make pop culture references that just a year after release already feel dated. His first book came across as a series of Livejournal posts that were collected and bound for publication, but that tone and style fit a guy telling the story of growing up in Canada, learning the pro wrestling trade, and finding success all over the world at a young age. Of course cracking wise in a similar vein as his character at the time makes sense because Jericho's character was a bombastic nerd who engaged in malapropisms to get under the skin of his enemies.

But this is the story of a guy realizing both of his dreams (working for the WWF/E and becoming a huge rock star) and reconciling those dreams with the realities of having to treat them as grown-up jobs with the political potholes and mistakes that accompany any place of employment. It's a story that requires a tone slightly more mature than the one he utilizes. There are definitely times when he drops the Jericho character and writes earnestly and times when said crude tone doesn't detract from what he's relating; however, the book could have used some more consistency and sophistication.

It is a book about guys dressing up in tights and acting like they're fighting each other or playing instruments on stage, though. There's plenty of amusing stories and Jericho's journey through the minefield that is the inner-workings of World Wrestling Entertainment is an enlightening one. He's both honest and guarded at the same time, offering insight into how he viewed certain situations but never saying too much that it might come back to bite him. The chapters dealing with Fozzy also shed some light on how a low-level band has to operate in order to get a modicum of success, and that's with the added bonus of having a group of individuals who were already semi-famous.

The book culminates with two milestones: his mother's death and the Benoit family tragedy. Jericho finds closure in the former, going so far as to contact the man he's always held responsible for her becoming a quadriplegic and suffering for the last decade and a half of her life. The chapters dealing with Chris Benoit offer insight into a man wound up tightly, who was able to compartmentalize so many aspects of his personality that his actions both continue to baffle his closest friends and family and yet also make a sort of morbid sense. Jericho presents the man he knew and relates his reaction to the murderous events of that weekend in June of 2007, but, deep down, his confusion surrounding what happened still haunts him. In effect, his efforts to make sense of what Benoit did leads into his comeback to WWE. Jericho gives the impression that he gained his motivation back for the wrestling industry in spite of one of his best friends almost destroying it in an attempt to help it recover.

Overall, Jericho offers a great sequel, but it's definitely dependent on having read the initial volume.

Book 3 of 2012

My brother and his wife gave me this book for my birthday because I've been a huge Brock Lesnar fan for a long time and almost got them in trouble with their downstairs neighbor once during the Shane Carwin fight by jumping up and down when Brock survived the first round of the fight. There is literally nothing exciting about how I finished this book, though.

3) Death Clutch: My Story of Determination, Domination and Survival by Brock Lesnar with Paul Heyman

For the longest time, I could honestly say that my favorite fighter is Brock Lesnar. I vividly remember hearing the stories of the 300 pound NCAA Division I Heavyweight champion training at OVW who could do a shooting star press. His WWE debut is seared into my brain because poor Maven, Al Snow and Spike Dudley had to take all of those vicious slams the night after Wrestlemania. His time in the WWE was something to behold because he took to pro wrestling so well and so quickly that it was clear he had the potential to be an all-time great. Then he quit. And while I'm still a pro wrestling fan, I started looking at UFC and found myself even more intrigued with a sport that essentially answered the question "What if pro wrestling were real?" And wouldn't you know it? Two years after I became a fan of the sport, rumors started circulating about Brock Lesnar trying his hand at MMA. I've bought every single one of his fights on pay per view, from his debut to his retirement, and even attended his loss to Cain Velasquez live. It was really easy to call the guy my favorite fighter...until I read his book.

All the athletic skill Brock Lesnar possesses makes him fun to watch. All of the bombast and egotism that drives him makes it fun to anticipate when a person can watch him again. But all of those things that make him perfect as a draw are the exact kind of things that make it really hard to like him. Part of Brock's appeal is that he is an intensely private person. He enjoys putting on the show, but he figures that putting on the show is his job. Once he's done with his job, he just wants to go home and be a family man that's left alone. It makes him more intriguing that he wants to play the game on his own terms. I'm not one to spite him that mindset, however he makes a big point on the dust jacket of the book that this is the one time he's letting everyone into his private world. Too bad that it never actually feels that way.

Case in point: during the beginning of his WWE tenure, his daughter Mya was born. The passive voice is key here because he never mentions before that he has a wife or a girlfriend, that he even got someone pregnant. From the book's point of view, Mya was delivered by a stork that decided that Brock Lesnar needed a baby. There's never any insight into what would have probably made a very interesting story. It's all surface level information that could have been gleaned through a quick read of his Wikipedia page. 

His daughter's story is not the only time this occurs. The pattern of the book is as follows: Brock wants to be number one at [insert athletic achievement here]. Brock fails or succeeds. Brock moves on to [insert next athletic achievement here]. People get in Brock's way. Brock SMASH! It's repetitive and, really, kind of boring. He comes across as someone who is hard working, who doesn't buy into any of the hype surrounding the endeavors he engages, but instead wants to make the most amount of money that he can due to his humble beginnings. 

There are two ways to consider Brock Lesnar after reading this biography: either he never lets the reader penetrate the mystique that surrounds him, or the mystique was never really there from the beginning. There's some interesting information from a fan perspective, but, ultimately, it's a disappointing read.

A Tale of Two Games

New video games in my house are pretty rare outside of a sudden and/or unexpected cash influx, and to get two new games inside of a month is like finding the Loch Ness monster hanging out with Bigfoot. Yet, here we are, as I've acquired both Batman: Arkham City and WWE '12. Both are sequels to popular franchise games, but that's about the only thing the two have in common.

Arkham City takes place a year after the events of 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum and opens the world to include a large portion of Gotham City's slums, which have been converted to an enormous prison/police-state. It's a tremendous concept, with gameplay that builds on the original and then exceeds it. There's a very defined version of Batman and his outlying universe that Rocksteady is creating with these games. While it's not the version of Batman I envision of the character due to him generally being a jerk to everyone all of the time and how he oddly feels compelled to save a girl he kind of likes instead of the hundreds of people dying at one point in the story, I dig that the creators are forging their own mythos that plays somewhere in between the comic books and the Christopher Nolan movies.

Additionally, the downloadable content provides some awesome alternatives for the challenge maps as a way to keep them from being too repetitive. Playing as Robin or Nightwing makes the game worthwhile since each one has unique gadgets and different fighting animations. My hope is that Rocksteady continues to pump out the DLC on a regular basis, maybe adding a new side mission or two in addition to the challenge maps because I don't want to have to wait another two years for the next sequel, which will be interesting since the next step up would be Arkham State, and I can't imagine what the scope of that game might entail.

WWE '12, on the other hand, feels like a mixed bag of a game, albeit one that's starting to grow on me. THQ, the folks in charge of both the WWE and UFC license, always appear to have the best of intentions but somehow manage to fall just a little bit short in their sports entertainment endeavors. Their latest addition is an attempt at a reboot by turning away from the Smackdown vs. RAW name they've employed for the last seven years. Unfortunately, it's not a reboot that is successful in reinventing the game, but there are some improvements that don't have me completely hating it as much as my initial impression led me to believe.

Let's look at the positives first. The game has the WWE presentation down. It looks about as perfect as fake fighting which attempts to portray itself as real but also tries not to be real ever can possibly get. The entrances capture every nuance of each wrestler, the moves are easily identifiable, and the level of customization has never been higher. As a visual experience, WWE '12 is the best wrestling game ever produced. THQ has also improved the WWE Universe mode, where you can customize and book three different television shows that build to the monthly pay per view, over last year's initial foray. To top it all off, both The Rock and Brock Lesnar are in the game, which is what really sold me on buying it the first week. The latter is an especially popular guy to make as a created superstar, so it's pretty awesome that we get the real deal this time around. Yet, the game is far from perfect.

One of the main reasons why I don't purchase games too often is because the replay factor on the games I like is really high. WWE or UFC games lend themselves to both long or short periods of play time, so playing one match or a series of them isn't a problem. But WWE '12 changes the gameplay to the point that I almost took the game back the day I purchased it. Cooler heads prevailed since the new grapple system clearly requires a learning curve that I was too stubborn to accept. Even though it was a blow to my pride, I switched the difficulty to Easy for the time being until I start to improve.

At the same time, there are still a ton of problems with playing the game. Running strikes and grapples are nearly impossible to vary thanks to the new tap and hold methods of implementation. Most of the time when I attempt the secondary running strike or grapple, I still end up attempting the standard one. For a game touting that players will have to vary their attack when facing the AI, this doesn't help. The reversals are also spotty (or I just stink at them) despite hitting the right trigger at the prompt on a fairly consistent basis.

By far the worst aspect of the game is the new dynamic camera system that's supposed to approximate WWE television presentation. Instead of the standard elevated camera utilized in the past, the game now takes the approach of WWE TV by showing most of the match from the hard camera side. While this works for their show, it completely robs the player of any depth perception and destroys any possibility of a match that flows as a quality wrestling showcase. Instead, there are tons of missed moves and comical pratfalls that makes playing more frustrating than fun. The camera also doesn't adjust when folks uninvolved in the action, like a tag partner or manager, stand in the way. In an effort to portray realism (ironic considering the subject matter of pro wrestling) by not having tag partners become translucent, they wind up interfering in huge way. Additionally, the referee is always in the way of the action in the match, which I don't remember ever being a problem in a WWE game before.

I guess I still need more time with WWE '12. Maybe getting used to the new control scheme will alleviate some of these problems. Once UFC Undisputed 3 comes out in February, though, I doubt I'll continue playing WWE '12.

Frosh
Monday, November 14 - You took the Fahrenheit 451 final and I checked your agendas. These should be entered into the grade book by the end of the week.

Tuesday, November 15 - After receiving a list of words from The Sniper, you worked with a partner to predict the usage and utilize words in context.

Wednesday, November 16 - You continued the work from the day before and also determined the definitions of a new set of words based on the way they were used in context.

Thursday, November 17 - Having completed the assignment from the previous two days, we read The Sniper together as a class.

Friday, November 18 - We read the story called The Last Spin, which served as an introduction to our Juvenile Justice unit we started the following week.

Monday, November 28 - After completing a quick write discussing punishment differences for adults and people your age, we determined the characteristics of a child, an adult and a juvenile. Our goal was to figure out for ourselves the factors that make up a juvenile and how to differentiate between the three different concepts.


Seniors
Monday, November 14 - You completed the final timed writing and turned in your books for the last annotation check. Please make sure to finish reading the book even if you didn't complete the annotations. Missing out on that 25 point annotation check is one thing, but if you don't finish reading the book, it will seriously hinder your ability to do well on the culminating paper.

Tuesday, November 15 - After turning in the final article selection assignment, you received a final work day to complete the CD Creation project.

Wednesday, November 16 - We discussed in-text citations and how to properly implement them in your paper.

Thursday, November 17 - You turned in your CD Creation project. We then continued reading through Beowulf.

Friday, November 18 - We completed reading Beowulf and you received time to complete the dialectical journals, which I will collect on Wednesday, November 30.

Monday, November 28 - You received the guidelines for a properly formatted works cited page.

Ten on Tuesday

Here's the old Batman Comment
Key wall, prior to it falling into disrepair.

1. Most of last week and a majority of this week is all about getting my class room ready for the onslaught of students come August 9. This means that I get to unpack all of the books and make my desk look like my desk again. It's also high time that I redo or update my "teacher walls," since it's been a few years since I initially committed to putting some thought into them. Most teacher walls feature a collection of student work or are based on a specific piece of literature. I decided to instead make them a reflection of myself since I'm a narcissist and a few students each year say they look cool. My Spider-Man wall is largely intact, as it features motivational frames of Marvel superheroes that my wife found at a .99 cent store. However, the Batman wall with my comment key and the Brave Times based News Flash wall are both getting makeover. I'll post pictures when everything is complete.

2. Spider-Man (the dog) achieved a milestone today by staying in the house alone for an extended period of time. Besides our dog being the normal, everyday jerk that he is also appears to suffer from this weird separation anxiety, the origin of which I couldn't begin to explain to anyone. He just tends to freak out if either myself or Angela leaves and he's aware of it. To combat these howling episodes since we moved into our house, Spider-Man (the dog) goes outside whenever we leave the premises. It's an attitude held over from our apartment living days; in both places where we lived with Spider-Man (the dog), we've received letters from management about his howling. Granted, it was one time (from each place), but it lead us to do whatever we could to prevent the world from ending. Home ownership has chilled everyone out, our dog included, it seems. I left him twice today: once for about two hours while I went to get my car serviced, and the second time when I went to work and then the gym afterward. Nothing was destroyed nor were there any accidents upon my return. He did, however, refuse to leave my side the rest of the night, much to the amusement of my wife.

3. My general rule of thumb is to keep up with two books at the same time, one physical book and another on my iPad. I recently finished The Bell Jar for my physical book and am still working my way through A Clash of Kings, the second thousand page entry in the Song of Ice and Fire series. The problem is that I don't know what physical book to read next, despite having plenty of options to choose from at home. Something light would be nice, prior to the school year beginning.

4. Instead of doing a full rundown on the absolutely cursed UFC 133 card, I'll just say that my brain says Rashad Evans will win but my heart is rooting for Tito Ortiz. This is a combination of Rashad being hateable in every way since he's trying to garner sympathy for himself despite being the one that chose to sit out a year and a half in order to avoid the position he's currently in and Tito being on a roll having beaten Ryan Bader at UFC 132. It might also have to do with the fact that Tito winning at the last pay per view allowed me to cash in on a little wager while attending the show in Las Vegas, so the Huntington Beach Bad Boy did me a solid. The least I can do is back his play against Rashad.

5. In the pages of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man this week, we find that the newest character to take on the mantle of the webslinger is Miles Morales, a fellow of mixed race heritage (Hispanic/African-American descent to be exact). This is pretty cool, and the impetus for it started last year when Donald Glover, from NBC's Community, started a Twitter campaign to cast himself in the role of Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man. While Sony went with Andrew Garfield, Glover's idea of an African-American Spider-Man does raise some interesting questions. What in Spider-Man's make up as a character makes him white? Except for the fact that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko originally chose him to be white, nothing does. He's a poor orphan living with his aunt in urban New York. Describe someone with those qualities nowadays and Peter Parker is the last person that would come to mind. Add to the fact that Spider-Man's costume covers him from head-to-toe, unlike Batman or Superman, and it allows anyone to envision themselves as Spidey, which is an important aspect of the character. I have a near complete run of Ultimate Spider-Man, and this news has me really excited to see where the story takes him.

6. Qdoba always feels like a much lighter meal than Chipotle.

7. My iMac currently runs on 1GB of RAM, so I'm contemplating purchasing some more (4GB) and installing it myself. While I'm very Internet savvy, I've never been too tech savvy, so I hope that YouTube video I saw showing the step-by-step process of how to make the switch doesn't steer me wrong.

8. The toughest part about going back to school is trying to get my sleep schedule back under control.

9. That CM Punk shirt I was so hyped up about before is now available for pre-order, and I'm wondering if I should buy that instead of the RAM for my computer. THESE ARE ACTUAL THINGS THAT I CONTEMPLATE!

10. Unfortunately, while CM Punk and his shirt are still the best in the world, WWE pretty much did what they always do and caused me to lose interest in the angle. It's too bad, too, since Summerslam is taking place at the Staples Center on August 14.

Ten on Tuesday

Because I've desperately wanted to blog but lacked the focus to do so lately, I decided to steal an idea (while giving credit, mind you, so it's technically not stealing nor is it plagiarism but it's also easier to write steal than give this kind of long-winded explanation) that I saw an old college friend borrow from someone else (language alert on that last one). The original idea is to discuss ten things (on Tuesday) going on in my life as a means of catching up, but I'm just going to modify it to apply to ten things that I've done or been thinking about. Sure, most people will be reading this on Wednesday (if ever), and a Five on Friday idea would be much easier, but it's still technically Tuesday as I begin to write and Friday would be a much more difficult day to attempt this, which leads to number one.

1. Coming on the heels of our anniversary weekend trip to Las Vegas, the wife and I are headed out there for a truncated one night stay to show some friends how to do things up right. Never in my life did I expect to be the kind of person that could show Vegas newbies around town, but with our trips over the last few years coming about every six months, I guess it's time to accept that my wife and I are those people.

2. Aside from the time I spent lesson planning with Ms. Windt last month, today was one of the most productive of the summer. I replaced my car key battery, took Spider-Man (the dog) to get his vaccinations, saw Transformers: Dark of the Moon, got some quality reading time in, and went to the gym. This is what passes for accomplishment during the summer.

3. Spider-Man (the dog) has been having a bit of a rough time today due to said vaccinations or just the visit to the vet in general. Either way, dog vomit is annoying but also a great name for a hardcore punk band. He's fine now, thankfully.

4. Speaking of lesson planning, thanks to mine and Ms. Windt's foresight, we have the first four weeks of Frosh Honors English planned out. This is an amazing feat. Trust me.

5. A trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man leaked today. When it comes to comic book movies, I really try to give them the benefit of the doubt until their release, but so many things bug me (HAH!) about the choices Marc Webb and company are making for the film that I'm beginning to wonder if the director got the gig based solely on his name (See what I did there?). The costume hasn't wowed me mostly because I don't like the rounded off red section that remains disconnected from the belt, however, I understand the need to set the costume apart visually from the Raimi movies. I don't even mind that Sony has chosen to reboot a franchise whose last movie came out just four years ago. Despite the so-so box office returns, The Incredible Hulk was a short-term reboot that fixed and addressed the problems with the Ang Lee original. What kills me is the idea that we, the audience, have such short-term memories that they need to once again do another retelling of Spider-Man's origin. The same applies to the upcoming Superman reboot, Man of Steel. You know those "Previously on..." segments at the beginning of one hour dramas? That's how long it should take to tell the origin of any comic book character that's had a film in the past 25 years. Comic books have told interesting stories about superheroes for nearly 80 years now and have done so without needing to constantly spend a third or more of their content space devoted to the origin of the character.

6. CM Punk really is the Best Wrestler in the World right now, and I'm glad I spent money watching him put on a classic match at WWE Money in the Bank. I won't bore anyone by recapping his recent phenomenal storyline here; it's hard to appreciate if you're not a long-term fan. However, Punk's exit that night (a screencap of which I included) was one of the greatest in recent memory. By the by, if anyone knows a way to get me a copy of the shirt he wore to the ring for his match that night, I would really dig it. The current asking price for an XL on eBay has been in the neighborhood of $250, since it was a limited edition deal that was only available at the show in Chicago. But I figure the many people who will see this are industrious and/or richer than I am, so it never hurts to ask.

7. Why isn't there a Dunkin Donuts presence here in Southern California? Granted, not having access to yet another donut chain is probably good for my wallet and waistline, but I am a glutton for movie tie-ins, especially comic book movie tie-ins. After getting a Thor Big Gulp cup back in May, I assumed that 7-Eleven would handle all of my Marvel needs by handling the Captain America stuff, too. Then I could have a matching set of Avengers cups prior to the team finding their way to the big screen next summer. Unfortunately, Dunkin Donuts scored that particular license, and none exist in a 50 mile radius. Seriously, I looked. It doesn't help that the franchise still advertises in California, thus rubbing it in my face that I can never drink a Captain America Coolatta. I don't even know what a "Coolatta" is but if Captain America puts his name on it, then it can't be bad.

8. I also wanted to devote an entire entry to testosterone replacement therapy and it's use among UFC/MMA fighters, but I devote too much space to the latter subject on this blog as it is, so I'll just speak to the former here. It's cheating. Men that do genuinely need testosterone replacement therapy fall into two camps: those who are later along in life (usually in their late 40's to early 50's) and experience a genuine drop in their body's level of testosterone and those who have artificially boosted their level of testosterone through the use of steroids and damaged their endocrine system to the degree that they now need to bring their body's amount up to normal levels. If fighters fall into either of the two camps, they should no longer be professional fighters. Period. Here's what most people seem to forget about the use of steroids in mixed martial arts: they don't make a fighter stronger, granting an incredible Hulk-like physique. They aren't a super soldier serum that will suddenly make scrawny Steve Rogers into taller and buffer Captain America. A person taking steroids will not wake up with more muscles the next day or the next week. Steroids allow people to recover from workouts faster so they can workout more without the fatigue and muscle soreness associated with working out. It doesn't matter if a fighter tests positive for steroids on the day of their fight, as is the norm for testing with almost every state athletic commission these days. Should a fighter test positive on that day, that person is an idiot who didn't get the full use out of the steroids in the first place. Taking steroids during their training camp is where the benefit lies. This is why UFC should pay for truly random out-of-competition testing for their fighters as condition of the new health insurance the company has provided for them. Anyone who claims a need for therapeutic use should be shown the door, which sadly includes Chael Sonnen, a fighter I happen to enjoy a great deal.

9. Noticing gray hair in my beard is really cool because I feel like I'm one step closer to that distinguished professorial look I've always wanted to achieve. Next stop, corduroy jackets with suede elbow patches!

10. Man, Transformers: Dark of the Moon was an awful movie. However, Sam Witwicky's mom is still the most entertaining character in the entire franchise. Even if Shia LeBeef fails to return for the next one, I sure hope his parents make an appearance.

Book 6 of 2011

I finished this during SSR at work while most of the students were off taking a group picture.

6) Countdown to Lockdown: A Hardcore Journal by Mick Foley
Countdown to Lockdown is former WWE (and TNA) champion Mick Foley's fourth memoir that attempts to chronicle the six week journey to his match with Sting at the TNA pay per view, Lockdown. Attempts is the key word here because Foley takes the approach of alternating every third or so chapter as a "Countdown" to the match, while the rest of the chapters focus on various and sundry topics, from his short stint as a WWE announcer to his charity work all with lots and lots of Tori Amos. Seriously, this guy loves him some Tori.