I just saw this on wrestlezone.com and I hope its totally a joke. I don’t agree with this at all. I don’t think its an issue with the Tag Team Championship or with the just announced Women’s/Diva’s Championship unification; both because there just aren’t enough roster members to fill both of those divisions. But the main event and upper mid card have plenty of people and would have no problems filling out the those two divisions.

Been there. Done that.

Honestly, they’ve tried this before back in 2001/2002/2003 and they immediately went back to multiple PPVs. Maybe they should start putting together a couple of their singles guys and keep them as tag teams. Maybe they should not “future endeavor” their hardest working Divas. I mean, the IC/United States championship could be fought after by multiple amounts of people but it isn’t because they only cater to the PPV audience that isn’t there anymore. Instead of trying to use the IC/US championships as the spring board that it should be to the next level it gets tossed on someone and forgotten for months on end. Go back and look at the history of the US championship and see how many of those reigns you actually remember. And I’m not talking about the ones prior to the WWE version of the belt, I mean from WWE on. Go check it out!  The same goes for the IC championship.

Shelton Benjamin held the US championship for 240 days, that's over half a year!

I also feel like moving the IC and Women’s belts from Raw to Smackdown has greatly diminished their credibility. Whereas the WWE and the World Championship could interchange back and forth, as they have, I feel like both the IC and Women’s were known to Raw, now that they are exiled to Smackdown, they have been forgotten. That’s simply my opinion. I guess that’s mostly because I really only watch Raw and allow my knowledge of Smackdown to come from reading spoilers on wrestling dirt sheets or podcasts.

I have always felt that the Diva’s Championship has been completely unnecessary but also led to the viewers being deprived of the Cruiser Weight Division. Granted the CW division wasn’t really shinning to begin with, but at least it gave all the smaller, thinner guys something to battle over. I also always felt that the CW championship would have found a home on the ECW on Sci-Fi/SyFy show simply because they could have made the show the show where the Cruiser Weights could have done whatever. Instead of making three cookie cutter shows they could have allowed ECW to be something special. And I for one miss the show. But, as always, I digress. Getting back to the Diva’s Championship, I always felt like it cheapened the Women’s belt, especially once it moved into virtual obscurity on Smackdown.

But, seeing how WWE has been dumping its Divas recently (Maria, Mickie James, Serena) I can see why they would want to unify the belts and have the Champion bounce back and forth, as I would see why they would want to do the same to the Tag Championship. But I cannot for the life of me see why they would want to do that with the IC/US and the World/WWE championships.

Couldn’t decide on which former Diva, so I posted Mickie…

Also, I was thinking about it today, with Night of Champions coming up in a few weeks, I actually counted how many championships the WWE has. I mean it isn’t that hard: WWE, World, Intercontinental, United States, WWE Tag Team, and Women’s/Divas (unification). That’s only six. That’s not bad. But I’m telling you, the IC championship better not be Kofi Kingston vs Dolph Ziggler for the 28th straight time in a row. WWE barely set up Summerslam, and regardless of whether it was a decent show; I’m sure seeing that Night of Champions is not one of the “Big Four” I doubt people will buy it on name alone. WWE should be packing these PPV’s with a lot more storylines and not simply hoping people will buy them on the main event scene. Seriously, who really gives a crap about Undertaker vs Kane for the World Championship? Not to knock either person, but we’ve seen this before…and I’m pretty sure its going to be dragged all the way to Hell in a Cell (has there ever been a Taker/Kane Hell in a Cell? I don’t think so).

As for this year’s Night of Champions, I feel that they could also put the Million Dollar Belt of for grabs, even if it is just to get Ted DiBiasi onto a PPV.

If they do unify all of the belts, what will they do at next years Night of Champions? How many belts will they have? WWE, Tag, IC, Women’s? That’s four belts…no one would purchase a PPV with only four belts…unless they toss in the Cruiser Weight Championship (and actually put it on a real champion and not on Hornswoggle) and have that thing bounce back and forth between the shows. But then that brings up this question: what do the champions do when they already have a fued on one show and MUST appear on the other show?

Ohh! My complete and utter apologies on this one, I'll try and make it up to you later

How many of us remember when they first started with the Undisputed Championship back in 2002 and Undertaker had just won it from Hulk Hogan. Taker was feuding with someone (my research shows that at King of the Ring 2002, Undertaker defeated Triple H, so I can see him feuding with Triple H) while on Smackdown he was in a mini feud with Tommy Dreamer. Are we going to get stuck watching that type of stuff if this happens?  I’m just saying.

I hope this is a hot rumor, just like the new WWE logo thing and that it proves to be untrue. I mean, if Vince really is all about the money then, shouldn’t there be more belts? Then he could make more off of the replicas that they sell as well as all of the single branded house show (unless, like recently, they’ve been either canceling them or making them WWE Super Shows…hmmm). I just hope WWE thinks long and hard before they do this.

And as promised:

Former WWE Diva: Torrie Wilson. Told you I'd make it up to you.

Related Cos’ Blog Posts:

New WWE Tag Team Championship Belts

More thoughts on The new WWE Tag Team belts

Possible New WWE logo?

SummerSlam predictions

The Mother Brain Files: PG Politics

If you know me you’ll know that I am an only child and I’ve heard some things that correlate with only children (like only children are the lonely children and things like that); now did I ever found myself to be lonely? Maybe, I mean when it came time to play Mortal Kombat or Mario Kart and I found myself un-opposed and thinking I was the freaking man only to find out your skills against the video game AI meant nothing…or when playing with action figures. But I did just fine. I’d like to think if it weren’t for being an only child I wouldn’t be able to write. I think being an only child made me want to tell stories, being the quiet observer and making my cat my brother…but we don’t talk about that last one (I do miss that cat…)

Did I ever post this pic on here?

Anyway, this article says that there have been some research done to and they find that only children are not only becoming the norm (FINALLY!) but we’re actually not as abnormal as we once were thought to be (so, does that make me like an X-man or something?)

from Discovery.com:

Only Child Syndrome a Myth

Despite common beliefs that only children may grow up maladjusted, new research finds they’re just fine.

By Emily Sohn
Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:18 PM ET

THE GIST

• Adolescents have just as many friends, whether they have siblings or not.
• The average size of the American family is shrinking, and only children are becoming more common.
• The findings should offer comfort to parents, no matter how many kids they decide to have.

Whether they’re only children or one of five, teens and pre-teens make plenty of friends, new research concludes.

The new study should offer comfort to parents that their kids will grow up to be just fine, no matter how many they decide to have. It may be a growing concern: With women having kids later in life and pocketbooks tightening against the economic downturn, the number of families with only children has nearly doubled — to about 20 percent — since the 1960s, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

“People are having smaller families and more children are growing up with fewer siblings,” said Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, a sociologist at Ohio State University in Columbus. “What this study suggests is that there really isn’t a need to worry for parents who have only children in terms of their social development.”

The stereotype of a lonely, spoiled, bossy and maladjusted only child dates back to 1896, when an American psychologist named Granville Stanley Hall did a research paper on the subject. Despite major flaws in his study and fundamental changes to the structure of family life since then (like a shift from isolated farms to urban daycares for 3-month olds), the stereotype has generally stuck around — even as families have been getting smaller.

To analyze how demographic shifts might be influencing the latest generation of kids, scientists have focused mostly on educational outcomes and test scores. On those measures, studies have shown no advantage for kids with siblings.

In fact, the more brothers and sisters a kid has, the worse he tends to do in school. And kids who are onlies have a slight advantage in their motivation to achieve, said social psychologist Susan Newman, author of “Parenting an Only Child: The Joys and Challenges of Raising Your One and Only.”

More recently, researchers have been looking at how family size might affect social skills — with some evidence that onlies are at a disadvantage, at least early on. A study of kindergarteners, published in 2004 in the Journal of Marriage and Family, found that teachers rated sibling-less children lower on a variety of social skills, including self-control and interpersonal skills.

To find out how that difference panned out as kids got older, Bobbitt-Zeher and colleague Douglas Downey (one of the authors of the kindergarten study) analyzed data from a long-term study of adolescents. The data set included lists made by each student when asked to name five male friends and five female friends.

The study, which involved nearly 13,500 kids in grades 7 through 12, found that only children were listed just as often on friendship lists as were kids with siblings. The number of siblings they had made no difference, Bobbitt-Zeher reported today at a meeting of the American Sociological Association. Neither did the gender of their siblings.

“It’s a huge finding,” Newman said, “and a positive one, because one of the concerns parents have when deciding how many children to have is, ‘What’s going to be the outcome of my child?’”

Plenty of other studies in plenty of countries have scrutinized each aspect of the only-child stereotype and failed to find evidence for any of it, Newman added. Other research, she added, suggests that parents of only children are actually happier than parents with more than one kid.

“I think the numbers are offering comfort,” she said. “The reality is essentially that you don’t have to live with a norm that doesn’t work anymore — the norm being a mom, a dad and two children.”

Of course, having siblings can still be a positive experience, said Laura Padilla-Walker, a Brigham Young University researcher who studies sibling relationships. She recently found that having affectionate siblings helped kids, ages 10 to 14, feel less lonely and depressed and act more generously, especially if their siblings were sisters.

“Siblings provide the training grounds for essential skills that can be learned,” Padilla-Walker said. “If parents only have one child, they will just have to work a little harder to give children those opportunities.”

As the blog continues to go into its new phase of contributors, I just wanted to let everyone know, I will not stop posting pics of my mammals or anything else. It is still my blog and I’m going to do what I want.

With that said, here is a pic of Cassie from yesterday. On facebook I posted: “Caption this pic” and I got a few interesting responses, which you can view by clicking the pic:

I saw this article from yahoo.com back on August 16th and I completely forgot to post it on here. Here is a list of 6 “Endangered” electronic gadgets. I’ve wanted a GPS for the car for a long time and just the other weekend, on our way to one of my co-workers houses for a BBQ, I swore that I would go out and purchase a GPS. But then I read this article and I thought, maybe all I need is a smartphone…

If you’re scratching your head, keep reading, its a little long winded, but you can probably just get the gist of it by skimming the first paragraph of each of the 6 gadgets.

from yahoo.com:

6 Endangered Tech Species

by Jason Notte
Monday, August 16, 2010

Picking up an Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL – News) iPad or clamoring for Amazon’s(NasdaqGS: AMZN – News) Kindle? You may as well get a DVD player, too, as their combined usefulness is on the clock.

The future of technology is integration, something Apple’s iPhone and Google’s (NasdaqGS: GOOG – News) Android products have a better grasp of than, say, Garmin’s (NasdaqGS: GRMN – News) personal navigation devices or Acer’s netbooks. Though there seems to be enough room for everyone — with the Commerce Department finding last week that American spending on tech items increased 1.8% from 2007 through the first six months of this year while spending on appliances, furniture and clothing declined — analysts agree that the only thing separating some gadgets from the grave is the size of their displays.

“Handsets aren’t going to cannibalize televisions anytime soon, because users want a big-screen media-playback experience that can be accommodated in the home,” says Ross Rubin, an analyst for NPD Group. “However, handsets may cannibalize Blu-ray players at some point because, as bandwidth improves and we see more media on demand and HDMI outputs or wireless features built into the phone, it could take on the functionality of a Roku device or Blu-ray player.”

[See Generic Products That Are Just as Good]

With motion-control gaming, e-books, navigation, mid-range-megapixel cameras and myriad other computing options already included in smartphones, the market space and need for more screens is shrinking. While the iPad is among the devices shrugging it off with more than 14 million sales so far this year, the nearly 4 percentage point growth in the smartphone market so far in 2010 and the $6.2 billion Gartner predicts will be spent downloading 4.5 billion mobile applications in app stores this year has navigation devices, netbooks and even Nintendo starting to feel pressure in their numbers.

“One thing we said seven or eight years ago was that there would be functional convergence of products but physical diversion — which means you’ll have one device for everything,” says Ken Dulaney, an analyst for Gartner. “There’s no reason a camera can’t make a phone call, and I’m sure it will, and there’s no reason why you can’t have a Nintendo device that makes a phone call, and I’m sure it will.”

With an eye toward tech omnipotence, TheStreet looked at devices that face extinction in the near future and focused on these six endangered species:

Digital Cameras

With Android phones up to 8 megapixels and the iPhone 4 boasting pixel-free resolution at 5 megapixels, even the digital-camera industry sees the impending slowdown. The Camera and Imaging Products Association — a consortium formed by Nikon, Olympus, Canon, Sony, Panasonic and other Japanese camera makers — forecast only 2.9% for this year and 2011 after double-digit growth until 2008. The growth of standard point-and-shoot models is more modest at roughly 2.5%.

“We’re just now starting to see handsets come on board with 5- to 8-megapixel cameras, and that’s where we saw digital cameras really start to take off,” Rubin says. “Unless the consumer has a need for optical zoom or some of the things that are more difficult to accommodate with software, we’ll see more users take pictures with their handset.”

[See 21 Things You Should Never Buy New]

This suggests a widening schism between the average tourist shooter and the guy trying way too hard to take pictures of trees in his local park. Shipments of high-end interchangeable-lens SLR cameras are expected to be much more robust, growing 8.6% in 2010 and 7% in 2012. The large size of current SLR lenses will keep them from becoming just another smartphone snap-on, but their small market share may reduce cameras to the domain of die-hards.

“You have to look at what you want to do really well and where you want to just get by,” Dulaney says. “If you just want to get by, then an iPhone’s all you need, but if want to see an email on a large screen or take pictures of your dog in really high quality, you’ll get an iPad and a camera as well.”

Video-Game Consoles

Despite recent sales spikes for both Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s (NasdaqGS: MSFT – News) Xbox 360, it’s been a tough market for games, for which strong app sales and increasingly game-friendly smartphones aren’t helping. In 2009, NPD saw sales for the entire gaming industry drop 8%, with console sales slumping 14%.

That would be just fine, had Apple not announced the iPhone 4 with a new gyroscope aimed specifically at attracting gamers. Microsoft did its rival one better, offering Xbox games on its Windows Phone 7 through its Xbox Live service. With Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo increasingly turning to online content and motion-controlled gaming, moves by Apple and other smarphone makers could be cause for concern.

“If I have an iPhone vs. a dedicated game machine, I’m still going to have a Nintendo Wii in my house because I can’t do those things on the iPhone,” Dulaney says. “If it ever turned out that the iPhone could do all the gestures I needed, then the Wii is under pressure and would fade away.”

A simple connection would help, as well. While a smartphone tethered to an HDMI cable isn’t much fun for anyone, a wireless HD connection like that offered by the WiDi wireless display feature found in Intel (NasdaqGS: INTC – News) Core i5 and Core i7 processors would make a smartphone both a console and a controller.

“While a couple of devices have an HDMI output, you don’t have it on those phones,” Dulaney says. “In the next five years, you’ll have wireless video output and people questioning whether a Wii is a necessary purchase.”

Navigation Devices

The minute TomTom offered an iPhone application, the entire GPS device market took a turn for the worse. From 2006 to 2009, market-research firm iSuppli notes that personal navigation devices had a more than 2-to-1 advantage worldwide over GPS-equipped smartphones.

By the end of 2011, however, iSuppli predicts that personal navigation devices will only outnumber similarly capable smartphones 130 million to 117 million. By 2014, however, smartphones will have a nearly 160-million-unit edge on their competitors.

While NPD Group found last year that demand for in-dashboard GPD devices was nearly eight times that of their handheld counterparts, analysts note that the only separation between those devices and a smartphone is a docking-capable screen.

“Garmin has tried to make their own phone, which they weren’t very successful at, so If I were Garmin, I’d be making nice, rich displays, putting my software on the iPhone and having a service behind it,” Dulaney says. “If I’m [carmaker] BMW, I want a dedicated screen in the car that I want the iPhone to power.”

Tablets

The iPad gets lots of love from critics and consumers alike, but is actually a step behind.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in June that the iPad was the company’s media missing link: Developed before the iPhone, but released much later. The problem is that, as a giant iPod Touch, it’s less functional than the iPhone that preceded it.

“The iPad is very much a media playback device with a focus on video due to this large screen and relative lack of portability compared to a handset or MP3 player,” NPD’s Rubin says. “In the case of media playback, there’s not much that is outside the scope of handset design to accommodate that, so these players are particularly vulnerable to cannibalization by smartphones — which is something Apple likely realized.”

The iPad isn’t alone, as perfectly functional Windows tablets face the same plight as users drift toward what Dulaney calls the “moveable experience” — with wireless outputs enabling much smaller devices to display on much larger screens in airport lounges, classrooms and elsewhere. With Android tablets hitting the market, Research in Motion (NasdaqGS: RIMM – News) launching its BlackPad in the fall and even Best Buy (NYSE: BBY – News) hinting at a tablet, the platform is growing — with Gartner predicting 10.5 million sold this year. Unless it slims down or integrates, however, excuses for its existence will shrink.

“What made the iPod so cool and so desirable are things that are done on other devices that do so much else as well,” says Robert Thompson, a pop-culture professor at Syracuse University. “I imagine we’re going to be making fun of the new iPad pretty soon, too.”

Netbooks

Hey, remember netbooks? They’re what all the tech geeks were talking about before the iPad. No? Let’s jog your memory.

Netbooks were the little 10-inch, 1 GB mini-notebooks produced by Asus, Acer, HP (NYSE: HP – News) and others that sported double-digit-percentage sales growth last year, according to NPD, and were poised to be the world’s fourth screen. Research firm Techasie actually predicted 36 million netbook sales worldwide this year.

Then came the iPad and 43% growth from 2009 to 2010 turned into a 13% decline in April, according to Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS – News). Now, both Gartner and Forrester Research (NasdaqGS: FORR – News) predict that tablet sales will outstrip those of netbooks, with Forrester expecting a tablet takeover by 2012. Techasie hedged its 2010 prediction with a caveat that netbook sales would decline starting in 2011 through 2014. Techasie CEO Anurag Agrawal sealed the argument, saying “there is no compelling reason for a consumer or a business to buy a netbook as compared to a notebook.” With tablets taking a chunk out of the netbook market and smartphones already performing some of their lighter duties, Agrawal may be right.

E-Readers

Let Amazon and Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS – News) have their Kindle/Nook price war — they’re both meeting the same fate.

According to analysis by RR Bowker, the Kindle takes up 61% of the e-book market, Barnes & Noble’s Nook holds 20% and Sony has 5%. The problem: The Kindle and its ilk are as one-dimensional as the paper tomes they’re replacing.

Despite all of those readers snapping up Kindles, Nooks and other e-readers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble seem to know how this story will end. Both have developed e-reader applications for smartphones and the iPad, though both seem to know relying solely on those apps takes away their control over sales terms and their cut of the revenue. Since Amazon doesn’t release sales numbers, it’s hard to tell where the Kindle and e-readers as a whole are headed, but that new $139 price point make it just a bit easier to justify adding another gadget to the mix.

“Maslow’s needs hierarchy ought to be changed to breathing, food, water and phones,” Dulaney says. “If people can have hundreds of pairs of shoes in their closet, they can have multiple devices and they’ll be cheap enough that they can.”

– Reported by Jason Notte in Boston.

___

I will say, I agree with the GPS thing as well as the camera. If the Droid has a 8 megapixel camera on it and I just checked, my Canon digital camera has 7.1 megapixels (in all honesty, my cell phone takes some pretty good pictures under the right circumstances–ie lighting, non moving images, and its only 3.0 megapixels). Instead of going out and purchasing a GPS or a new digital camera, why not just buy a smart phone that incorporates both.

I don’t know what the netbooks are, I guess I’m just not in the loop anymore. I am a fan of the iPad, I wouldn’t mind getting one of them as I think that aside from the smartphone, the iPad is really the future of computers. Instead of laptops, I can see everything becoming closer to the iPad.

The one that I do not agree with is the Video-Game Consoles. I know that I mentioned about a month ago that the new Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 will only be for download on all of the current consoles as well as for download on the iPhone. I don’t get this. How can such a small phone take away from the massive appeal of a console with controllers. I’ve been wrong many many times in the past. This is the person that didn’t understand the appeal of iPods when they first came out and refused to buy one for a good three or four years (I also hate being one of those people that buy them when things are in…but recently I’ve been biting the bullet and going ahead with things, or at least trying to).

My only problem with the smart phones is the price of monthly packages. On top of your normal phone service, simply having a smart phone costs you an extra 30 dollars. Mind you, that amount of money comes with endless amounts of extras. But its still 30 freaking dollars. And it isn’t like you can get a packaged deal so that you can get two with a deal (like if Melissa and I were to get two Droids, it wouldn’t be cheaper, it be 60 bucks!).

I know eventually I’ll get a smart phone, and I’m just holding on to my current phone, but it’ll come after some series thought and consideration. I’m not giving my money up that easily.

Took these pics of Peanut and Cassie earlier today, they are tired from all the noise from when Willie was here fixing the floor in the kitchen.

Also! Did I post this pic of Melissa with Peanut (wrapped like a baby?)

I think Peanut would appreciate it if we actually had kids...

The Mother Brain Files: Who Are You?

Following the demise of World Championship Wrestling in 2001, the icon Sting was briefly in negotiations with Vince McMahon to join the World Wrestling Federation, a company that he never set foot into for his entire 16 year career at the time. But according to his 2005 TNA-produced DVD, he quickly realized how the WWF would treat him when his WCW buddy Booker T debuted for the invasion angle and how Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson cut a promo on him that began with the question of “who are you”. That singular moment was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Sting, believing that as an established WCW star he would be marginalized in Vince McMahon’s world of homegrown superstars like the Rock, Steve Austin, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and the Undertaker.

A year later, Total Nonstop Action was born. Jerry and Jeff Jarrett along with Panda Energy’s Dixie Carter saw the opportunity to give wrestling fans an alternative product as the renamed WWE cornered the market and held the bragging rights to wrestling’s past and present. While established stars of the past initially helped to make TNA as prolific as possible, it was their homegrown talent that won legions of fans. A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Jay Lethal, and various other performers dazzled fans with their high risk maneuvers and mixed martial arts-style matches while WWE was restraining their talent to decrease injury risks. They had a 6-sided ring to give their product an MMA feel and unique types of matches such as ‘Ultimate X’ and ‘Gauntlet for the Gold’. Their efforts soon paid off and a television deal was made with Spike TV in 2005. While some wrestling observers saw the equivalent of ECW’s innovation in TNA’s product, Others saw WCW’s flaws and the same mistakes being made once again.

Fast forward to 2010. TNA signs arguably the biggest icon of pro wrestling, Hulk Hogan. Along side Hogan is Eric Bischoff, the former show-runner of WCW who nearly gave Vince a run for his money. In previous years, the company grew brought in superstars like Kurt Angle and Christian to elevate the talent as well as improve the product. But Hogan and Bischoff wanted an major overhaul to compete with WWE, even if that meant changing TNA’s identity. The 6-sided ring was replaced with a traditional 4-sided ring, the Impact show moved to Monday nights against WWE Raw, and more ex-WWE stars flocked for to TNA with the belief that wherever Hogan goes, money draws. After 4 months, however, those plans backfired.

The Hulk Hogan that TNA hired was not the guy who body slammed Andre The Giant at Wrestlemania III but the guy who was past his prime, in the middle of a nasty divorce, and embarrassed by his reckless son. Eric Bischoff no longer has Ted Turner’s television time or the financial resources to one-up Vince. Now he’s just a Hulk Hogan lackey. The fans were frustrated and so was the talent.

It’s bad enough that TNA’s ratings are far below the WWE’s. The belief that Val Venus and the Nasty Boys can draw high ratings was a joke. Between lousy booking, horrendously scripted play-by-play commentary, and lack of marketing to get more events outside their Orlando home base, TNA is seen as inferior. Yet, loyal fans blamed management and believe that the talent is being mishandled, causing much frustration for some performers throughout the years and forcing them to turn back to the more organized and better paying WWE (and for some Ring of Honor). Now TNA decides to trim some fat, make Hulk Hogan fade into the background…. and revive ECW. Excuse me, EV 2.0. Now only did ECW alum Rob Van Dam hold their world title but they now also have 4 factions going against each other: Ric Flair’s Fortune (A.J. Styles, Kazarian, Beer Money, Desmond Wolfe, Matt Morgan, and Doug Williams), Team Hogan (Hogan, Jeff Hardy, The Pope, Mr. Anderson, and Kurt Angle), Sting and Kevin Nash, and the EV 2.0 guys.

But who’s feuding with who? If I get this right, Fortune is against Team Hogan AND EV 2.0. But Sting and Nash are against everybody and Jeff Jarrett wants to stop them with help from Samoa Joe. It’s really too confusing to follow much like the TNA product itself. How did AJ Styles go from TNA champion to TV champion in less than half a year? What about Abyss going from a reincarnated Dave Sullivan “I want to be a Hulkamaniac” gimmick to monster heel in less than 3 months?

Of all the gripes I have with TNA right now, it had to be this past Thursday on Impact when the question of who built the house of TNA was brought up and Hogan dubs to his team of all ex-WWE talent as “the real TNA”. Now shouldn’t this feud be the other way around? Shouldn’t Ric Flair be the babyface putting over the homegrown talent of TNA to save the company from all ex-WWE and ECW talents?  The more I talk about it, the more I feel like trying to make sense out of WCW 2000.

As much as I criticize the current WWE product, I will praise them for going in the direction of putting more fresh young talent into the spotlight. I know John Cena’s still the face of the company but I also know there’s very hungry guys like the Miz and Daniel Bryan who are positioning themselves to take his spot one day. TNA, however, can’t seem to decide whether they’re WCW or ECW. Maybe instead of seeking short-term solutions for success, put some money into marketing and long-term stability so the company can grow fresh new stars without the egos of the old generation getting in their way.

So I leave off by asking TNA management and Dixie Carter the same exact question that the Rock posed to Booker T: Who are you?

I finished reading the Orson Scott Card sci-fi classic novel “Ender’s Game” (which isn’t new–the novel was published in 1985 and was based on his short story published in 1977–but I still plan on writing a mini review when I get a chance) and I decided to rush out to Barnes & Noble to pick up the follow up book, “Speaker for the Dead” (which according to my research there really isn’t a direct follow up to Ender’s Game, Card has written so many novels in the universe of Ender that you can read anything right after Ender’s Game and be fine. He only recommended reading “Xenocide” and “Children of the Mind” back to back because they deal with the same story and characters. But I decided to read it as Card had them published. But, like always, I digress). On my way over to Barnes & Noble I was thinking about what to have for dinner. Melissa is out at a wedding shower and I was supposed to be somewhere else, but plans changed when our handyman (Willie) was here a little late working in our kitchen, so I thought, what’s close to the B&N over here? Pizza Hut.

Now, I’m not even going say that Pizza Hut is good pizza or hell, even should be called pizza. At this point in my life, eating anything called Pizza Hut is for pure nostalgia. What I mean by that is that every time I take a bite out of a product called Pizza Hut it takes me back to the late 80′s/early 90′s. It takes me back to when Pizza Hut was the only “Alternative” pizza. When Pizza Hut was better than Dominos. Better then Little Caesars. I think there was another one, but I can’t remember…(Papa John’s wasn’t around back then). It takes me back to when I had birthday parties at Pizza Hut. When I remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were advertised there. When I used to read books and get a free pizza for the Book-It program. I saw both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle arcade games in a Pizza Hut. And even though I’ve heard people bashing Pizza Hut and saying that Dominos has really stepped things up, I still somehow feel like I should stay loyal to Pizza Hut, even though I’d go with real pizza from a Pizzeria before I’d actually buy Pizza Hut (unless, of course, I just have a craving for it).

So, I make it to the Pizza Hut, and Pizza Huts in North Jersey are few and far between. Mostly left to being inside of Targets and a Pizza Hut express. But somehow, there are two Pizza Huts within ten miles of where we live currently. One right next to a Barnes & Noble. I decided to go in and get something small (the personal pizza and a small order of bread sticks). To my shock, there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. I walk in and, it wasn’t completely packed (I can remember dragging my parents to Pizza Hut when I was younger and it being packed. Not an extra place to sit anywhere!) but there were people in there and at least 9-10 workers, busily filling orders and things.

I order my food and go to B&N to look for my book (which they didn’t have, but another one had it down the road) and I go back to Pizza Hut and its packed!

I’m not knocking anyone’s choice of foods, but aside from my utter curiosity for the Pizza Hut: Italian Bistro, which I’ve seen in South Jersey, but I’d never just walk in to try it; but seriously. If it wasn’t because we had pizza and Caesar Salads  last night and cheese burgers for lunch, I would have never considered going to Pizza Hut. But these people obviously go there a lot. I just don’t get it. In a world where the best pizzas can come from local pizzerias, why are people wasting their time with these poor excuses for Pizza? That I don’t get. But to each their own.

Unfortunately, money banks on people having bad taste…right?

Not to take away from Mother Brain’s debut, but I just wanted to introduce the Blog’s readers to its newest contributor, they will bring to this blog another opinion about all things entertainment and I for one am happy to have them here:

The Mother Brain Files: PG Politics

By: Mother Brain

I was surprised to hear earlier in the week that WWE Smackdown Diva and Straight Edge Society member Serena was as we like to say “future endeavored” from the company over the weekend. She’s been in WWE for less than a year (a little more time in the FCW developmental territory) and she just recently got some in-ring action last Friday on Smackdown in a tag match with her and Luke Gallows against Kelly Kelly and the Big Show. My initial thought was that management was unimpressed with her work in the ring despite working with someone as hand-fed as Kelly Kelly.

Then word gets out that Serena was fired for “not living the gimmick” of an anti-diva who condones drinking, smoking, and drugs. Apparently there’s more to the story being that she’s only 24 years old and was still getting used to life on the road 300-something dates a year. If she was truly fired for not living her gimmick, then my complaint is less about behavior and more to do with the hypocrisy in WWE.

Since the day he took over from his father, Vince McMahon revolutionized the wrestling business from dimly-lit bingo halls to 60,000 plus arenas around the world. He gave his performers simple gimmicks that turned them into larger than life superheroes and supervillains who would be depicted in toys, video games, comics, t-shirts, etc. As a young kid in the 90s, I believed what I saw on Monday nights.

Then the Monday Night Wars and the Attitude era changed all that. Now the audience became more sophisticated and the curtains were unveiled in the age of the dot com boom. Rather than keeping the curtains closed, Vince chose to embrace it. He tells the whole world that the era of good versus evil was no more, resulting in more realistic characters who were not afraid to bring their personal lives and friendships into the ring (DX, Matt Hardy, etc) and also felt free to stick it to the competition. Then a series of tragic events (Eddie Gurrerro, Chris Benoit, etc) and media scrutiny put the WWE into a spot where the slate had to be wiped clean and target the audience that matters most: Children.

By going the PG route, WWE has turned off the 20 and 30 something audience that grew up with the likes of Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin. We don’t matter because we don’t spend ridiculous money on John Cena merchandise like the kids do.  Now the talents are being told to stay in character in public so the kids of today can believe they’re just as real as they are on tv.

Could you imagine Luke Gallows being told to act like an idiot in public when he was doing his Festus gimmick? What about David Otunga taking part with the evil Nexus group and still walking arm and arm with wife Jennifer Hudson at red carpet parties? Is Kelly Kelly not allowed to look serious in person? Should Shemus be fired for being Triple H’s workout partner when they’re supposed to be mortal enemies on television? Tiffany can take pictures at a Playboy party when her employer is a PG company that no longer associates itself with an adult magazine?

In the old days, the faces and heels traveled separately. Vince used to have the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase stay in the best hotels and ride limousines to the arenas to make fans believe in his gimmick. Even Bret and Owen Hart couldn’t be seen together when they were feuding. Today, Vince admits it’s all a soap opera. Even his wife as a candidate for U.S. Senator says it’s a soap opera. The wrestlers can do interviews about their current feuds and storylines like they’re promoting a movie. Chris Jericho can act like a big asshole on television and be a reality game show host at the same time. The Undertaker can be in a vegetive state on television and get photographed with Michelle McCool at his wedding for all the world to see. Kane can be the big red monster and also do videos where he talks politics like a CNN contributor. You don’t hear about anyone getting fired over any of that no matter what their standing is in the company. That’s like saying Michael C. Hall should get fired from TV’s Dexter because he doesn’t murder criminals in real life just like his character does on the show.

Vince has to decide for himself whether to treat his audience like people or mindless puppets who go with the flow. I’m not sure if he can have it both ways.

Saw this in my daily Discover News e-mail, I’ve been posting these things on here a lot. I like how its not just the truly scientific things that they post about, they post some pretty trivial things…like this. I mean, I always knew Cassie was smarter than Mickie…

…but that’s not hard at all. Unfortunately for her, she did have this pic taken of her and this has become the “token dumb Cassie” pic:

Anyway, here is the article from Discovery.com:

Size Matters in Canine Smarts

Bigger dogs have bigger brains, but does that mean they’re more intelligent than their smaller counterparts?

By Larry O’Hanlon
Fri Aug 27, 2010 07:00 AM ET

THE GIST

• Bigger dogs are better at following human pointing cues, according to a new study.
• The explanation could be that larger dogs have wider-set eyes and better depth perception.
• Other researchers are skeptical, suggesting the experiment is inconclusive.

Human breeding has created dogs with huge physical differences. Click to enlarge this image.
iStockphoto

There are theories galore about why some dog breeds appear to be smarter than others, but new research suggests that size alone might make a difference.

All larger dogs appear to be better at following pointing cues from humans than smaller dogs, which makes them appear smarter.

It’s possible that bigger dogs appear smarter not just because they are bred for taking orders, but because their wider set eyes give them better depth perception. As a result, they can more easily discern the direction a person is pointing.

This latter hypothesis was tested by researchers in New Zealand, who think there might be something to it.

“We do know that dog breeds are different,” said William Helton of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Human breeding has created dogs with huge physical differences, like shorter snouts for more powerful bites. Even the internal structure of dogs eyes can vary among some breeds, he said.

But can something as simple as the distance between the eyes be a factor too?

To see if all larger dogs in general were better at discerning human pointing cues, Helton and his colleagues put 104 dogs to the test — 61 large dogs (greater than 50 lbs) and 43 small dogs (less than 50 lbs).

The dogs were first briefly trained to retrieve food from a bowl. Then, while a dog was being held by its owner, two bowls with food were placed in front of the dog at the same time. The experimenter then stood six to eight feet away from the dog with folded arms.

After making eye contact with the dog, the researcher pointed with an outstretched finger for less than a second toward a bowl, then refolded his arms. The dog was then released and allowed to go to a bowl. The test was repeated 20 times for each dog.

What Helton found was that larger dogs were clearly better at making the correct choice than the little dogs. What’s more, even mid-sized dogs were pretty good at it. This suggests that if the cause of their success is the distance between their eyes, the advantage is limited beyond a certain point, at least in the context of this experiment. The smaller dogs were definitely less able to follow the pointing cue.

The results are published in the September issue of the journal Behavioural Processes.

“Larger dogs should, all other things being equal, have greater inter-ocular distances and this may improve their visual abilities for some tasks,” Helton said.

But that’s the rub: the “all things being equal.” They are not, say other dog researchers.

“There are proven breed differences in dog behavior that reflect hundreds of generations of intentional breeding for roles such as going to where the sheep herder points and that are paired with the body size needed to do the herding work,” said dog behaviorist Benjamin Hart of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis.

“One expects larger breeds, selected for working roles, to be more likely to go to where a handler points,” he added.

On the flip side, small breeds like terriers are bred to react quickly and scramble after fast-moving rodents, said Hart.

“The (smaller) reactive breeds are going to be less likely to patiently sit still while a person pointing finally points,” Hart said.

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Related Cos’ Blog Posts:

Domestication Has Made Dogs Dumber

“And Man Created Dog” on National Geographic channel

Fence This!

Upside down Dogs

The title to the post should have looked like this: Mission: Impossible IV? but it just didn’t work.

Anyway, this one has my head scratching. I know we are in the era of movie titles that do not have numbers, like “Live Free or Die Hard” or “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” or the upcoming Saw: 3D (yes, there is a number in there but it is referring to the type of movie it is going to be as opposed to Saw VII, which is the actual number). Along those lines, there were rumors that Spider-Man 4, before they dropped Tobey Maguire and Sam Rami and are now restarting the franchise with younger people (which I am totally against–but who am I?) there were rumors that the title was going to be Spid4r-Man or something like that. Along the same lines is the new Scream 4 movie coming out next April with the title Scre4m.

Anyway, word comes from joblo.com that the next Mission: Impossible movie (Mission: Impossible IV) might not even have the words Mission or Impossible in the title. This I don’t understand. Any thoughts anyone?

From joblo.com:

Just yesterday, we told you Jeremy Renner would star alongside Tom Cruise in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4. Today we’re getting word that Renner and Cruise won’t be starring in a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4 after all. Wait, wha? Stay with me here…

There were talks early on in the development of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4 that the film would introduce a younger agent so when Cruise left the franchise, they could reboot with a new version of Ethan Hunt. It turns out that reboot might be coming sooner than we expected. As it turns out, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4 won’t be called MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4 at all. In fact it won’t even have the words “mission” or “impossible” in the title. Paramount is currently evaluating new titles that would serve to relaunch the series, not unlike how WB made a Batman movie titled THE DARK KNIGHT.

While the previous three MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE films all dealt with Ethan Hunt and a team of agents, NOT M:I4 will instead deal with only two agents: Hunt and Renner’s as-yet-unnamed character. The two will have equal screentime in this film and for future installments of the franchise, Renner would play the lead while Cruise plays a supporting, mentor-style role. While this isn’t a reboot in the true sense of the word, Paramount certainly is trying to liven things up and sources familiar with the script say it has a “fresh perspective” on the series.

So if you’re making a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4 that won’t be called MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, what do you call it? How about MISSION: UNPOSSIBLE?

Source: Variety

Extra Tidbit: Filming on NOT M:I4 is set to begin this fall for a December, 2011 release.

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Related Cos’ Blog Posts:

Cruise signed for 4th Mission

Tom Cruise in M:I IV