Rocklanta on the Horizon

03.30.2011

Tomorrow after work I leave for Atlanta for Wrestlmania 27! I know it's just Thursday and the show's not until Sunday, but Gina's got relatives and visiting to do, and work won't miss me :)

I dig up and slightly updated an old Russellmania logo with a scheme reminiscent of Wrestlemania 19. I used to have an option to switch themes on the website - maybe it's time to revisit that and dig up some other old logos?

I think the actual high point of the weekend will be the Hall of Fame ceremony. Bullet Bob Armstong, who was the biggest face in the Alabama/Tennessee area when I was watching wrestling out of Birmingham back in the trailer park days, is being inducted. The man is 71 years old and still wrestles 4 days a week. Bob's an ex-marine who always came across as able to kick anyone's ass (and probably still does).Along with Bob (and others) the original Road Warriors/Legion of Doom will be inducted. The first time I saw them on tv out of Georgia that just ran in and then over everyone. Pure devastation. Although Hawk (Mike Hegstrand) passed away a few years ago, I'm hoping Animal, Ellering, and good old Bullet Bob will have some good stories to share from the old days - I love hearing those stories.

Once the actual wrestling starts on Sunday, which will roll into Raw on Monday, the Cameraman Marty Miller Fan Club will be set to make their debut. It sounds like we might have t-shirts. For those that don't know, Marty is the cameraman at ringside closest to the announce table. Marty likes to zoom; That's how we know it's Marty. On the far side on the floor, next to the entrance ramp, is Rico with the other camera. Rico is more mundane in his camerawork and doesn't zoom. As such, Rico's camera angle is much easier to watch, but it gives us no reason to cry out and participate in the match. Marty zooms in per punch and elicits cries of "MARTY!" from Matt and myself.

MARTY!

Permalink wrestling

Flavored Coffee Drink

03.29.2011

Today I find myself having a large (13.7 oz) Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino Light. I found out I liked these last year on my last trip to Gulf Shores, and now I have one every once in a while. It's one of the few caffeinated drinks that I actually feel a little kick out of.

I think I'm going to need that kick today. I have to do some non-web programming, and I haven't done that since 1996. My brain doesn't work that way anymore, and it never worked that way very well to begin with. So I have to focus. Focus!

Only 5 more days until Wrestlemania.

Dammit, focus! Need to take another slurp of my flavored coffee drink...

Permalink random

7 more days

03.27.2011

A week from today I should be sitting with 65,000 people in the Georgia Dome watching Wrestlemania 27. I've been looking forward to this since February 2010. Honestly I've been looking forward to it since the first Wrestlemania in 1985. Being a wrestling fan I've always wanted to go, and it wasn't until 2000 that I was able to start ordering PPVs to actually see it.

But I'm excited. More excited than I've been about anything in a long, long time. Because I'm F'n going to Wrestlemania!

Permalink wrestling

Old Movies

03.20.2011

I've been on an old movie kick lately, and being me I put an odd spin on it. The "old movies" aren't ancient, black and white films, but just DVDs that have been sitting on the shelf for a while. My odd spin is tri-fold. While ripping DVDs to iTunes, I've been grabbing movies by letter to see what I want to rip ("Ah, here's a stack of 'A's - here we go Armageddon!"). While grabbing stacks I've come across some that I'd actually like to watch again.

The next part of my odd spin is that for some reason I only think I should be watching these on the weekend. I've no idea where that popped up - I'm the king of doing things during the week! School nights be damned! This may be in part to the last part of my odd spin: I've been grouping movies into double features like I used to do when I worked at the video store.

2 weeks ago, I had a double feature of The Core followed by Con Air. A good combo, although Con Air has not aged well with Nicolas Cage in his "I've got an accent" era. This weekend I was following the disaster theme set up by The Core and watched Volcano and Dante's Peak. The bad thing with disaster movies is that after a limited time they become comedies. Volcano is now one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. That may be in part to the Tommy Lee Jones Action Star Era.

Thanks to surfing IMDB I opted to watch something additional/different today. Zack Snyder (of 300 and Watchmen fame) is set to reboot the Superman series. I wondered what else Zack has made, and saw that early on he directed The Dawn of the Dead (zombie survivors hide out in a mall). It's been a while since I zombie-flicked, so I watched it with my Sunday lunch.

I've been wanting to watch the Final Destination movies again. With 4 of them I could make a weekend double-double feature, or I could watch one per night. After Monday - can't pass up wrestling!

Permalink movies/tv/dvd

Motorbikecycle Pics

03.06.2011

I've actually had it for 3 weeks, but here are some pics of my 2005 Honta VTX 1800 Retro motorbikecycle:

The original pics from the dealership area lot nicer than anything I've managed in the garage, so I thought I would just go ahead and post those. The only thing I couldn't notice from those pics was that the leather on the bottom of the seat has a little cracking. Not enough to bother me - my year-old SUV has some cracking leather too.

Since getting the bike I've been out on it twice. The first time was during my bike class refresher. I went out again one morning last week for maybe half an hour or so on the back roads near the house. There was at least twice that I was glad nobody was around when I did something stupid.

The 2 things I have to get used to are slow maneuvers - stopping, turning, starting,... a combination of those at the same time - and to not have a death grip on the handlebars. After about 10 minutes my fingers start to go numb from holding on too tight.

For now I still have a healthy respect (or is it fear?) of this beast of a motorcycle. I think that will limit my stupid things to when there's no traffic around for me to run into. That's my plan at least.

Permalink conveyances random