The sun is warm. I am standing on the edge of a cliff. This same cliff that has witnessed so much drama, happiness, excitment, anger, fear and despair. 

On this cliff, young wives have contemplated their imminent widowhood. The dark and far carcass of a once prideful frigate sinking with lives and uproars amidst the enraged ocean. Tomb to so many husbands, fiances and fathers.

Ooh Cliff!  Young suicides have laid their lives on your altar. Lovers have lost their innocence on your fresh and green grass hair.

From your edge, I see the sea. I can smell its iodised, cold and salted wind. I can feel its mood and power.

The wind blows in my hair but I could not care less. I am on the edge of an abyss.

Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”    Heathcliff.

 Somewhere out there. A truth lay hidden, her feathers ruffling in the wind. She of all, was also lost, entrapped in a world unknown to any. Across the endless blue, upon a coast so far away, was love.

 We both were lost, adrift at sea. Never would we find each other. We were merely one boat, one witness to death. One boat sailing an ever moving sea.

Until that fateful morning, that fruitful day, when I of many set search upon the world. To find what was missing, what was forever taken from our hearts. I of many set search for the truth, the ugly and pitiful truth. Out at sea, above the blue abyss, was like a hell without heat, with merely the coldness of our own demonic sins.

Frantically we searched. Forever we failed. Slowly the setting sun fell to the ground. It's brightness ever waning and love forever forgotten. Like all, we shivered with grief, the wind blew harder. It's careless breath masked our love, and the truth that we so dearly wished to embrace.

Hope was thought to be gone, like all treasures. Like all gifts, it was lost at sea...

Please

Please
Grafitti your thoughts
All over the city
Carve your name
On every pole and post,
Nook and cranny

Break down my meticulous walls
I need to see what's outside
Help me repair the splintered door
So I can invite ohers inside

Peel off the callus around my heart
So I'll know how to love again
Please scrub my mind and drain the murk
So it'll plug the filth flowing from my pen.

Give me back my voice
Please, I need to sing again
And pull the blindfold from my eyes
I can feel life beckoning

The abyss

I don't like cigarretes. More than that, I can't stand cigarretes, actually, to be precise, when I see someone I like smoking, I experience pain. One may think, “Well, that is a great thing, you will influence people to stop, and that is good” Not. It is not like if I felt like I should make a comment about healthy habits, be ignored with a deep puf of smoke, and then life goes on as if it didn't happen. This is not the kind of pain you can associate with disconfort, or a needle (unless that is your phobia) or someone punching you in the stomach. When I am around someone who is in the verge of starting smoking, or that has just about started, I feel like I am at war. To be at war is to be afraid all the time, for you do not know when the next buzz that seems like just another insect will crash your skull and enter and destroy your brain before you can figure it was a bullet. When I am at war, constantly my back contracts, sending what I feel to be packages of adrenalin to my muscles, speacially on the back and the legs, if the war was real, that would be great, for it would in fact help me move quickly and think about what to do next, but I am just walking around with one of my friends in a very sunny day by the streets of my city. With no raison d'être, the adrenalin becomes a memory stamper, giving me acute muscular contraction, loss of blood pressure, dry mouth, visceral pain and a clean and distinct picture of the moment, so that in the next few years on unlucky days I can have it presented back to me during my nightmares.

It may sound as if I am exaggerating, I am not, I hold, and can instantly retrieve in this very moment, a mental picture of ten people (no guess, TEN people) , in the exact first moment I saw them smoking, or heard from a reliably source they started doing so. In the honest process of checking whether I could in fact retrieve some of those passages, I had to do so. In the process, my hands and arms got cold, my right hand shook, it brought me the lyrics of Roger Waters to my mind, but I hear a “can't” instead of a “can”

“Hello, hello, hello
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?

Come on, come on down,
I hear you’re feeling down.
Well I can't ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again. “

...

“When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look, but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child has grown, the dream is gone.”

Now you begin to have an idea of what it feel like. I write this text as a cry of desperation, as if I were calling the universe itself, and saying “Okay, I have bluntly admitted to feel it, now, can you please, by all means, ease my pain, isn't that how it is supposed to work? You aknowledge the problem, you accept it and it is solved, please help me. “ And all I get is another answer from Waters, nothing “But the blind indifference of a merciless unfeeling world”

To be at war is not just about fear, constant deep fear that something utterly unexpected might befall upon you or the ones you love. It is about loss. I have no clue of what might have been felt by the soldiers during all the wars past, present and future, but I do know what is it like to feel in a battle against a silent enemy, and sooner than I think, have to watch a friend's fall. Now, don't get me wrong, it is not that people simply die for me when they smoke, this was only the first four years, it is that something dies in their place. It is partially infancy, it is to some extend peace, but it is, most of all faith. My faith in the world decreases to a crushing zero point stability, when that happens. I cry as I write the last phrase, feeling the horror of the infinity of life and my impotency in front of it. My breath cannot be dragged back to normality, all I can feel is that, thus far, I have been losing the battle, but how could I ever win, no one starts life smoking, I only have to loose, since everyone started on my side. It aches. I do not want to stop writing, I want to see where this leads, I still believe there might be something good coming out of it. Crying stops. Oh, the unbearable feeling that there might have been something I could have done, there was an alternative way. Of course, when I think of it rationally I do understand that people are simply living their lifes, and making their choices, and it is just in my own inner world, that, not to cut the Waters string of thought: “Each small candle lights a corner of the dark”.

The worst thing about my abnormal fear and hatred is not what it makes me feel, but the immense disproportion between the importance I give to it, and the importance that others give to it. Take for instance an episode, in which a friend, who started smoking a few years ago decided to smoke after we and another friend ate some pizza. The one who didn't smoke asked for one, maybe just because he had to wait anyway. I was like I had been frozen alive and dragged to my car, supposeddly to wait for them. But all I could think of was “I must find an excuse to go away, to stop seeing that, to stop the pain, to feel the blood back to my veins”. What an absolutely crazy, insane situation, how could I ever expect anyone to understand what not even I could? And so I did, I made up the first excuse I could that was strong enough, and got home as quickly as I could. I knew all the time that going away wouldn't make him smoke less, maybe it is the case that, if I had told him the reason I was leaving, it would even make him smoke more (after all, what is a little sarcastic joke with your friend who stubbornly keeps telling people that smoking is bad?). But I had not left for self-tricking, I left to suffer alone. I know how stupid and ridiculous I am for picturing invisible battles in the dark abysses of the merciless unfeeling world. For that reason, I suffer alone, I do not need the extra feeling of feeling an outcast to cherry-top the decay of a loved one. I need not be told how absurd is what I feel, and how I should be concerned with my own life.

As with all fears, not looking at it is slightly better than both knowing and looking, so it is enormously tragic to see someone asking for a cigarrete or picking up a package when I know that I have to be around, such as when we are alone.

But not all and each of them is ignorant of the degree of my pain. All but one know that I hate it, they hear me say how much I hate it, and how I feel bad about it sometimes, but only some three have heard the phrase that I consider that best expresses what I mean by the dark abyss: “I know that you do not know how I feel, for I am sure, absolutely sure, that if you knew, you would never smoke in front of me again” It is true, if I knew there was something that I could do not to trigger such a feeling into someones heart, and that the effort for me was only that big (say, not to ever eat in front of him) I would undoubtely do it. The thing is, there might be such a thing, but, just like me, people are not willing to tell. I can never know, and, in practice, never help.

As a growing adolescent, unaware of my relative importance to other peoples affairs, I took those who started smoking as enemies, as if they were to be blamed with the fires of hell, just for choosing to make me feel like they did. What an egocentric bastard am I. I really believed that it was on purpose for about four years, counting from the first episode, when I was eleven.

I said all but one are partially aware of my condition. The reason why there is one who knows is that for once I feared more the prospect of losing that one unexpectedly than I feared having to tell her the story. This part of the story is the one that involves betrayal and nightmares. I am not a jealous person, never was, not for romantic relashionships at least. I have many times imagined, and sometimes dreamed of her (my girfriend) kissing other guys, that was no evil, sometimes just a little strange, or weird, but never something to be worried about. One night, though, I have felt what I now consider to be an outrageous feeling equivalent to jealousy in other people, that made me suffer more than most of what ever happened to me. I could actually count on one hand how many times I felt that much pain, impotence, and self-absorbed confused anger towards the world. I had dreamed that she was underneath a three, on the corner of a crossroad, standing peacefully, and simply got a cigarrete, lit it, and started puffing, looking at me purposefully as if no big deal was going, with a clear intention of hurting. I woke up to a dry mouth drowning in a lake of tears. I woke up so scared I almost jumped, and as I came to gather the parts of the dream, my tears got thicker and started mixing up with saliva, nose fluid, and whatever it is that can drop out from a terrified, confused, lone human being, faced with the intentional betrayal of the one he loves. You could ask if I didn't realize it was a dream, but that is not how it works, once you set such a feeling cascade, nothing can stop it, you will see the waterfall flow to the end of it, and so it was. Some forty minutes later I managed to call her, told as well as I could the dredge of the experience, and asked her, by all means, to do whatever was to me, but to never, under any circumstance, smoke behind my back. Now imagine yourself in this poor girls place, would you not feel a heavy burden if you ever felt the urge to smoke? Was I allowed, in the canons of the rules of the world, to do what I have done? I do not know, but I felt like I'd die if I didn't ask her that. Looking backward, I do not think it was such an outrageous thing to ask, she was never interested anyway, and she did, and still does, care about my feelings enough not to ruin my life without a strong need. You see how poisoned is my mind, should I ever have written the ruin my life right behind here? Of course not, I know that such a thing would never cause my heart to stop or my projects not to take place, but that is how I feel it. I am a rational person, most of the time, but when I try to think of issues that relate to the dark abyss within me, reason is powerless, logic has no place, each small candle lights a corner of the dark.

Today I once again dreamed of it, there were two others this time, also friends, dream-like unfaced characters, fortunately, there was no dark purpose in any of their faces, they were completely unaware of any harm they might be doing, so was she. I cannot however depend forever on the choices of people of taking care of my fear for me. She is no longer my girlfriend, and when I sent her the message today, I feared immensely that the game had changed, that after our last fight she no longer cared for my feelings as much as she did before, and she would answer “Well, pity for you, for I started smoking two weeks ago, start getting used to it.” Perceive that I am, on rational level, completely aware that she does indeed no longer care for me as much as she did, how could she? after all, our lives are still flowing, and new feelings and worries come to all of us. I should be grateful that one, I can still send her a message, and two, I am aware that even if I did no longer exist, she still would have her own reasons for not smoking, which are as simple as “I don't like it”. From where I stand, within the abyss of my own fear, no paths can be seen that would bring me light. I foresee that it will continue to happen, just as it has, weakening a little bit every year, like all the bad things that we start getting somehow used to. As an ex nigerian Military told Chris Abani: “ It will always be difficult, but if you cry like this every time, you will die of heartbreak. Just know that it is enough sometimes to know that it is difficult” It is in order to achieve this state of mind that I have written this text, and I hope for this one time, the universe shares a bit more light than it has so far done for me in this issue.

Narcotic Flood

Being swept away
In a flood of narcotic water
Clutching wildly
At the drifting debris
Crying, praying
That something might hold steady

My hands find a pole
That seems to withstand the rush
I know my life hangs in the balance,
But I'm tired and
I no longer feel what I touch

Bloodied palms and fingers
From holding on so tight
The current entices
I close my eyes
"You're not getting to me tonight"

But I'm shivering
The pole's snapping
And I'm slipping
Slipping
Slipping away

The current NWA & TNA Champs were as follows:
NWA World Champion: Jeff Jarrett (6/2/2004)
NWA World Tag Team Champions: 3Live Kru (11/7/2004)
NWA-TNA X-Division Champion: Petey Williams (8/11/2004)

Your hosts are Mike Tenay & Don West.

Vince McMahon and Triple H imitators are in the building to retrieve a video that the real Vince McMahon and Triple H don't want us TNA fans to see. Oh yeah, and Abyss has welcoming balloons!

• NWA World Tag Team Champions 3Live Kru vs. Team Canada (w/Coach Scott D'Amore)
  

The one and only rematch from Victory Road. BG James and Ron Killings are Konnan-less tonight which may or may not be to their advantage, turning them into the 2Live Kru. Hopefully they will refrain from being as nasty as they wanna be tonight. Heard some really scary stories about that BG James fellow. Alright, onto the match. Good to see Eric Young serious for once. Geez, that guy is a bag of hammers nowadays. BG and EY start the match. BG stops EY from mocking his Shake Rattle and Roll and tags DA TROOF for a flying legdrop to the balls. In comes Bobby Roode, who gets met with a pair of armdrags. Killings flips out of the corner and handsprings back only to jump up and connect with a heel kick on Roode. Tag to BG for some Too Cool shenanigans that just lead to Roode getting punched in the face. Shaky Knee Drop follows for two. Killings tags back in and gets knocked off the top to become the face-in-peril. The Canadians deliver some backbreakers for a few nearfalls. EY stomps a muddier than usual mudhole on Killings, but then walks away and turns around into a missile dropkick. Roode gets a tag and cuts off a tag to James. Killings avoids a flying legdrop to *his* balls and hot tags BG. Shake Rattle and Roll to EY! Clothesline to Roode gets 1-2-NO! Killings tags and catches EY up top. He brings him down with an springboard Ax Kick. Meanwhile, Roode hits the AA Spinebuster on BG for 1-2-NO! NORTHERN LARIAT? Nope. Killings cuts him off for a Hart Attack. D'Amore comes in to distract the champs from covering. BG wants the PUMPHANDLE SLAM on Roode, but fellow Canadian Johnny Devine makes his return and WHACKS BG James with a hockey stick. Roode covers for 1-2-3. Team Canada regains the belts! (8:30) So why give 3Live Kru the belts only for them to retain it a month later? Silly TNA. **

• Kid Kash, Frankie Kazarian & Matt Bentley (w/Traci) vs. Sonny Siaki, Hector Garza & Sonjay Dutt
  

Siaki, Garza and Dutt are here to defend Snuka's honor for being disrespected last month at Victory Road. Sonjay and Kash get into a series of counters to start. Sonjay cuts him off with dropkicks. Garza tags for a double suplex on Kash. Tag to Bentley, he pounds away on Garza. Garza slips on the ropes, leading to a tag to Kazarian. Siaki tags and delivers a spinning neckbreaker. Blind tag to Sonjay, Siaki launches him into Kazarian while he's in the corner for a hurracanrana. Traci distracts Sonjay for an armbreaker DDT by Kazarian. Now the heels feast on Sonjay's hurt arm. They make a couple illegal switches on a cross armbreaker. Kazarian and Bentley deliver a NICE guillotine leg drop/backbreaker combo. Bentley and Kash pull back on Sonjay's arms while he's down in the corner as Kazarian hits him with a dropkick. Kash tags in and gives Sonjay a hammerlock slam into the corner. Garza runs in so the heels can switch again as Bentley comes in and grabs another armbar. Sonjay fights back with his good arm, but Bentley takes his bad arm and slings it down on the mat. Kazarian tags and continues to work the arm. Sonjay manages to break free and run around as he springboards for a hurracanrana. Garza gets the hot tag and cleans house. Moonsault to Kazarian for 1-2-NO! Siaki clotheslines Kash and Bentley so he can elevate Sonjay to the floor for a 450 splash. Traci hits Kazarian with the PIE IN THE SKY by accident. Siaki scares Traci away as Garza delivers the TORNILLO on Kazarian for 1-2-3. (11:01) Good psychology, but rather dull outside of the usual high spots. **¾

• Abyss vs. Monty Brown – Serengeti Survival Match
  

A "Serengeti Survival" match is another BS TNA name for "anything goes". Monty calls Abyss "Obese". Come on Monty, he's just "really overweight". Monty Brown has his ribs taped, so you know exactly where the storyline of the match is going. They fight on the aisleway until Abyss whips Brown into the ringpost so he can pull off the bandages from his ribs. Abyss leans a table up in the corner and pulls out his sack o tacks. Brown punches him until his sack drops on the floor. Abyss slows Brown down with a big boot for two. Ooo! We now have a chair in the ring. Brown takes a chairshot to the ribs and lower back. Abyss lays the chair across Brown and Earthquake splashes Brown. Cover, 1-2-NO! Crowd ~ "Use the table! *clap-clap-clapclapclap". Abyss gets VIOLENT~! by gouging and choking Brown in the ropes. He places the chair on top of Brown again and goes for the Earthquake splash, but Monty turns the chair vertical to crotch Abyss. Chairshot by Monty! Running Powerslam on the chair! Yeah, those ribs are hurting! Not. POUNCE? No sir. BLACK HOLE SLAM! Abyss covers for 1-2-NO! Abyss wedges the chair in the corner, but Monty reverses a whip and throws Abyss into the chair! The POUNCE puts Abyss on the floor. Monty spouts off his Russell Crowe line and brings Abyss back in the ring for 1-2-NO! Shouldn't have tried to be Gladiator and went for the cover, Monty. Abyss avoids a POUNCE into the table and Monty goes crashing through for 1-2-NO! Both guys whip out their sack o tacks. Brown pours his tacks out first, so Abyss tosses his sack aside. No reason to waste a perfectly good sack o tacks on Monty Brown. Brown blocks a CHOKE SLAM and pulls off Abyss' shirt. They get into a chop battle and fight over a powerbomb until Monty lifts Abyss up on his shoulders so he can give Abyss an Alabama Slam on the tacks. Apparently you can win that way too. (12:17) This didn't have nearly the heat that the Monsters Ball match at Victory Road had. I know you're a tough guy, Monty, but SELL if you're going to have your ribs taped. **½

Our Vince and Triple H impersonators continue their quest for some video tape that they don't want us seeing. They pretend to fire some TNA guy because he's violating the dress code. Ehh, now it's kind of like hearing a Michael Jackson joke in 2008. But then again, these shenanigans were never that funny to begin with.

• Johnny B. Badd & Pat Kenney vs. The New York Connection – Special Ref: Jackie Moore
  

New York Connection is Glenn Gilberti (Disco Inferno) & Johnny Swinger. Pat Kenney is Simon Diamond playing an all-around neat guy who hails from New York state. The NYC cost Jackie Moore her match against Trinity at Victory Road, which is why she's special refereeing this match. Kenney beats the crap out of Johnny Swinger to start. Badd tags in for a tilt-a-whirl headscissors. Tag to Gilberti, Badd works the arm for a bit. Kenney delivers a Northern Lights suplex for two. Swinger distracts Kenney to allow Gilberti to knee him out to the floor so Swinger can ram his back into the ringpost. Kenney plays face-in-peril as the New Yawkers work the back while the crowd appears moderately bored. Heel miscommunication almost ruins the match for the NYC, but then Kenney tries for a suplex and his back REALLY hurts. Swinger runs into a sit-out spinebuster as Kenney hot tags Badd. Knee lifts for everybody! Double Noggin Knocker! Swinger keeps Gilberti from taking the TKO and gives Badd the Swing Thing, but turns around into a superkick from Kenney. Gilberti pushes Jackie out of the way and delivers the CHARTBUSTER on Kenney! Jackie shoves Gilberti back and gets pie-faced. Badd shoves off the CHARTBUSTER and sends Gilberti right into a slam by Jackie. It's like Halloween Havoc '97 all over again for Disco. TKO to Gilberti! Cover, 1-2-3. (7:59) As good as it could have been for a formula tag match. *½

So in the back, Randy Savage is being driven off in some car as the Kings of Wrestling watch on. Kidnapped with apparently no struggle? Whooooa.

• Diamond Dallas Page vs. Raven
  

Oh goody. Erik Watts joins us for commentary on this match. I had forgotten how close DDP's TNA theme sounded like "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Even more so than his WCW theme music. Kind of a Vanilla Ice/Queen thing going on there. So apparently, DDP has heard enough of Raven's whining about not ever being the world champion and comes in weekly to BANG him. Somehow Erik Watts has been dragged into this feud. Page is hardly the motivated "People's Champion" that he was seven years earlier, but he's trying. He takes out the ref early on and fights into the crowd. All of a sudden, this match is Raven's Rules, which means no rules. Back in, we get another ref and Raven gets his balls posted. DIAMOND CUTTER? No! Raven grabs the top rope to block and covers with his feet on the ropes for two. Raven pulls out the weird Middle Ages-era helmet that he sometimes wore back then and nails DDP with it to take over. That gets two. Raven hits a running knee in the corner and sets up a chair for the drop toehold. That connects for two. Raven mocks the crowd, allowing Page to POP UP out of the corner and throw Raven into the corner for a beatdown. DIAMOND CUTTER attempt #2 is countered with a low blow for two. Raven hits the corner clothesline followed by the bulldog for two. Page counters a corner whip and delivers a belly-to-belly suplex for two. Raven ducks a clothesline and connects with a superkick for another two. Page blocks a clothesline and hits a DIAMOND CUTTER out of nowhere for 1-2-NO! Raven's two black hooded henchmen are now at ringside! OH NOES! Raven low blows Page and delivers the EVENFLOW DDT for 1-2-NO! Erik Watts leaves the announce table and CHOKESLAMS the henchmen. He hugs Page…and then pulls him in for a clothesline. SWERVE~! Page low blows out of the CHOKESLAM and gets rid of Watts with a DIAMOND CUTTER. Raven stomps away on Page and goes for another EVENFLOW DDT, but Page counters into a DIAMOND CUTTER for the win. (12:02) So TNA completely abandons the reason for a heel turn/swerve in the middle of a match. By Watts turning on Page and then Page still getting the win, it makes Watts heel turn seem completely ineffectual, unnecessary and insignificant. A so-called friend turning on him had no psychological impact on Page whatsoever. The feud has lost any chance of picking up steam before it even gets underway. Anyways, this would have made a decent TV main event, but that's about as far as it goes from being a good match. Page would go on to bigger things in TNA, including a PPV world title main event against Jeff Jarrett at the first Destination-X. **½

Traci Brooks goes into "Vince" and "Triple H's" room to offer them cookies and "milk". Vince throws her cookies on the floor because she was involved with the video tape that "Vince" doesn't want us to see, so he sends her away to find "Director of Authority" Dusty Rhodes. Triple H apparently doesn't get fed very much over at the 'E and gobbles the cookies up off the floor.

• NWA-TNA X-Division Champion Petey Williams (w/Coach Scott D'Amore) vs. Chris Sabin
  

The match I've been waiting for! Sabin won an Ultimate X match and earns himself an X-title shot. To make this interesting, Sabin can counter the Canadian Destroyer into his own Cradle Shock, but now it's time to see if he can counter the move when the X-title is on the line. We get a series of X-Division-like counters to start as Sabin goes for the CRADLE SHOCK early, but Petey slips away and escapes out to the floor. Back in, Sabin kicks Williams in the face after a snapmare. They get into a STIFF forearm battle. Sabin avoids a corner charge and flips out to the apron for a springboard dropkick! Williams goes back on the floor to regroup with D'Amore. Back in again, Williams floats back in right into another CRADLE SHOCK attempt, but he grabs the top rope and pulls Sabin out with him to the floor. Williams hits the slingshot hurracanrana from the inside out. Sabin chops back and blocks another rana by tossing Petey back first on the guardrail! Holy crap. Sabin jumps into the crowd and leaps over the pit area back onto Petey with a flying clothesline. Awesome stuff. They head back in as Williams counters a reverse suplex from the apron with a neck snap. Double-knee facebuster from Williams puts Sabin back out on the floor for a D'Amore stomping. Back in, Petey covers for two. Tree of woe sets up O CANADA! That gets two. Nice neckbreaker/tornado DDT combo from Petey gets another nearfall. Petey works a bowtie lock, but Sabin counters into a torso rollup for 1-2-NO! A dropkick by Petey keeps him in control. Petey delivers the Suplex/Back Suplex combo and gets another nearfall. We've got dueling "Let's go Petey!" "Let's go Sabin!" chants going on. Scott D'Amore gets in another cheapshot after Williams chokes Sabin in the ropes. As Petey reacts to the crowd, Sabin starts to mount his comeback with chops. Williams heads up top, but Sabin runs up and brings Petey down with a release Northern Lights! They both get up slugging it out, ending with an enziguri by Sabin. Running Ligerbomb gets 1-2-NO! Sabin heads up top and gets crotched, but sits up to avoid a running dropkick and then leaps out onto Petey with a somersault plancha! Back in, that gets two. Petey flips out of the corner and hits the Canadian Legsweep. CANADIAN DESTROYER? No! CRADLE SHOCK? NO! Williams slips out and applies the Sharpshooter. Well, kind of. He doesn't sit down on it very well. Sabin makes the ropes and backdrops a charging Petey out onto the apron. He chops at Williams and tries for a superplex, but Petey forearms out. Sabin blocks a sunset flip powerbomb, comes down on top of Petey, and flips him over face-first onto the mat! From there, Sabin KEEPS IT GOING for a piledriver! Cover, 1-2-NO! We have another Canadian Destroyer attempt countered into a Cradle Shock attempt, but D'Amore gets up on the apron and pulls Petey down. The ref gets in between Sabin and D'Amore while Petey pulls out a foreign object from his tights. Why does it looks like cardboard knux? WHAM! Sabin gets nailed and Petey covers for three. (18:10) I never really thought you needed those kind of finishes in the highly competitive X-Division, but I guess it does make some sense if Petey can't finish Sabin off with his signature move. Its matches like this one which explain why I love Chris Sabin so much. So far this is match of the night by far, but there's still the SIX SIDES OF STEEL! ***¾

So Dusty is busy and sends a TNA executive in his place who happens to be a midget to "Vince's" room, who then proceeds to kick "Vince" in the balls. I gotta say, that right there is Vince McMahon-style humor. I'm sure he'll have a nice hearty laugh about it later.

• The Kings of Wrestling vs. Jeff Hardy, AJ Styles & Randy Savage
  

This match was basically set up at the end of Victory Road with AJ Styles stepping up to take on Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Jeff Jarrett. Randy Savage is in TNA's mind an added bonus based on name recognition. But let's not forget that Randy Savage is 52 years old at this point and can barely do anything in the ring at all, which explains why he was "kidnapped" and sent out of the arena. Hall and Nash are dressed in cheap looking Elvis costumes while Jarrett is just wearing his normal ring attire. It starts out as a 3-on-2 obviously since there's no Savage. Styles and Jarrett start the match. After killing a little time with the crowd, they trade headlocks. AJ snaps off a headscissors and hits a leapfrog/dropkick spot. Hall tags in and tries to humiliate Styles by paintbrushing him after some shoulderblocks. AJ kicks back at Hall and dropkicks him over. Now AJ wants Nash. He obliges and does a little tai-chi warm up. Careful there, Big Kev. You wouldn't want to tear one of your quads in mid-match again. Nash goes low on AJ and beats him down. Styles slips out of the Snake Eyes and has dropkicks for everybody. Hardy tags in and double dropkicks both Jarrett and Hall. Nash takes the double legdrop to the groin and then a basement dropkick in the corner. Hall nails Hardy from the apron and causes Hardy to turn around into a boot from Nash. Now we've got our face in peril. Jarrett tags in for the Bossman Straddle. Hall tags in for a Chokeslam. Nash tags in for the Side Slam for two. Hall cheats during an ab stretch with a little leverage help from Nash. Hardy comes back with a spinning mule kick and hot tags Styles. He cleans house on Hall and Nash and puts Jarrett down with the Asai DDT. Cover, 1-2-NO! Jarrett blocks the STYLES CLASH and puts AJ out on the apron. AJ forearms Jarrett back and goes for the Springboard Forearm, but Nash knocks his feet out from under him. AJ crashes on the top rope and gets flung into the corner. Hall hits the Fallaway Slam and covers with his feet on the ropes for 1-2-NO! Nash corners AJ and delivers the knee strikes followed by some back elbows. Jarrett tags and catches Styles with a gutbuster to set up a FIGURE-FOUR (?), but AJ counters into a small package for two. Hardy gets drawn in by Hall to cause a double-team beatdown. Styles fights out of a bearhug by Nash. He tries to LEAP past Nash and tag Hardy, but gets caught. He manages to tag, but the ref doesn't see it thanks to Hall. Jarrett and Styles slug it out, leading to a double-KO. HOT TAG TO HARDY! He hits Jarrett with Whisper in the Wind. Reverse STO to Hall. Hardy counters the STROKE and delivers the TWIST OF FATE to Jarrett! Hardy covers as Styles nails Hall with a flying bodypress. Nash pulls the ref out and decks him, so AJ goes out and posts Nash. Meanwhile, Hardy heads up for the SWANTON BOMB. Hall comes over and KABONGS Hardy down on top of Jarrett. AJ takes out Hall with a pescado. HERE COMES RANDY SAVAGE! He tags Hardy and punches the Kings of Wrestling into an oblivion. He trades sleepers with Jarrett. Hardy and Styles jumps on Hall and Nash's backs for a TRIFECTA OF SLEEPERS! Jarrett elbows out and tries a sunset flip, but Savage blocks and kneels down on Jarrett for 1-2-3. (17:56) Well, I at least tried to make it sound a lot more fun than it really was. When you're as big a mark of Randy Savage as I am, it's no fun seeing him like this. Rumor has it that Savage was supposed to go on and beat Jarrett for the NWA world title at Final Resolution, but he decided to bow out because his issues with his health. Thank God. I actually enjoyed seeing the new generation of stars like Hardy and Styles beating up on guys like Hall and Nash. As for Jeff Jarrett, he was just kind of there. **

After his run-in with the midget TNA executive, "Vince McMahon" is sent off to a hospital in an ambulance while Triple H watches on.

Dusty says play Cookie Gate right now! In case you had not heard, that's the video WWE doesn't want to see! It's Shane Douglas, Traci, 3LK, and Abyss (w/welcoming balloons) showing up at Universal Studios where WWE is at. Various WWE stars are shown, but they are all blurred out. Ahh, Benoit's name gets mentioned. TNA raids WWE's catering table and then they challenge Vince to come out and talk to them. Big whoop. Wanna fight about it?

• America's Most Wanted vs. Triple X – Six Sides of Steel
  

The losing team must disband. These two teams had an unbelievable MOTYC in a standard cage in June of 2003 and now they look to finally finish off this feud once and for all. It starts out like a regular tag match with Storm and Daniels kicking things off. Both guys avoid being tossed into the cage. Skipper and Harris tag in. Skipper goes low and snapmares him over for a punt to the back. Skipper messes with Storm and turns around into a full nelson slam. AMW delivers a double backdrop to Skipper, but one to Daniels fails. Instead they lift him up like a double atomic drop and throw him into the cage! Storm grinds Daniels face into the cage to become our first bloody casualty. Seems a little early for blood, but maybe that's just me. Harris gets backed into the Triple X corner. After a double slam, Skipper slams Daniels on top of Harris. Wow, the blood is just pouring out of Daniels head. Skipper starts to kick Harris down, but he catches Skipper's leg and catapults him into the turnbuckle. Storm gets the hot tag and he's ROCKIN' AND ROLLIN'. AMW tries for the DEATH SENTENCE on Skipper, but Daniels breaks up. Harris comes off the top anyway and nails Daniels with a flying bodypress. Skipper catches Harris charging at him in the corner and launches him into the cage. As part of their modus operandi, Triple X has handcuffs! They are attached to the turnbuckle and covered up by a bloody towel! Harris gets handcuffed to allow an easy 2-on-1 advantage on Storm. But don't worry, Chris. Daniels has the key. He dangles the key in front of Harris just to piss him off and then GRINDS the key in Storm's forehead! Finally, Daniels puts the key around his neck for safe keeping. Now everyone is bloody but Elix Skipper. Skipper lifts Storm up on his shoulders as Daniels comes off the top with an elbow drop. Cover, 1-2-NO! Heel miscommunication ensues and Storm spears the keychain off Daniels. Storm grabs the key and staggers around until he finds Harris. CHRIS HARRIS IS FREE! Lariat to Skipper! AA Spinebuster to Daniels! Harris goes over and tries to get Storm motivated right before he bashes Daniels face into the cage six or seven times. Storm then proceeds to reverse suplex Skipper into the cage. Whoa. That could have went terribly wrong. Harris BOUNCES Daniels twice off the cage during a walk-around suplex! AWESOME. Cover, 1-2-NO! Skipper slows down Harris with a belly-to-belly suplex. Rocker-Plex by Triple X on Harris gets 1-2-NO! Storm takes over on Triple X and throws them both in the cage. Hart Attack by AMW on Skipper gets 1-2-NO! '80s tag team finishers FTW! Skipper keeps Daniels from taking a slam and together they toss Harris into the cage. They proceed to give Harris the DEATH SENTENCE! Skipper covers for 1-2-NO! They try to do the same to Storm, but he punches Daniels away and POWERBOMBS Skipper from the top rope! "TNA!" chants fire up. Storm covers for 1-2-NO! ANGELS WINGS to Storm! Cover, 1-2-NO! WHAT! Daniels and Harris fight up to the rim of the cage! You see Skipper climbing up to the rim as well. He then decides to WALK ACROSS THE TOP OF THE CAGE and rana Harris down to the mat below! Seeing this spot out of context is cool and all, but watching this during the match makes it seem all the more incredible. After all that, then Daniels comes down on Harris with an elbow drop! Daniels climbs up AGAIN, but Storm is there to stop him. Skipper comes over to stop Storm. Harris comes over to stop Skipper! WHAT! SUPER TOWER OF DOOM! OUCH! Storm fell on Daniels feet! "This is awesome" chants from the TNA crowd. Some great visuals in this match with everybody struggling to get to their feet and the blood just pouring from their heads. Except Skipper, but that's forgivable. I mean, the guy WALKED across the rim of the cage for crying out loud. Skipper and Harris counter each others finishers until they just end up sending each other into the cage. Daniels headbutts Storm until he can barely stand himself. Harris saves Storm and handcuffs Daniels in the corner! IRONY! Superkick from Storm pretty much puts Skipper away, but AMW decides to finish him off for good with Triple X's POWER-PLEX! That gets the win for AMW. (21:05) In the short history of TNA, this was one of their best matches ever that managed to overshadow their first awesome cage match with even crazier moments than before. This was also paced very well from beginning to end and built up to a completely satisfying finish. The only gripe I would have is they went for blood WAY too early in the match. Two minutes in? Come on. Other than that, this match is basically the perfect TNA match. Triple X would be separated for 2½ years until Low-Ki returned as Senshi to reform Triple X. That's actually longer than most agreements in wrestling. ****¾

Final Thoughts: This actually wasn't so bad. In fact, a lot better than Victory Road, as they didn't try too hard. They just went out there and did their thing. Aside of the silly Kings of Wrestling main event, everything ranged from decent to amazing. I mean, you've got a great Petey Williams/Chris Sabin match AND easily the best TNA match of 2004. Mild thumbs up for Turning Point 2004. You have to see that cage match if nothing else.

"She" is preparing to move back in with me. It's not what I want, but it's what she needs. The doctors say her mother may have 2 months, but in reality it seems like it may be a lot less, so  she needs to be with her mother right now and this is the only way.  In order for her to take a leave of absence from work, she would need to have less expenses and paying rent would not be possible. Right now we have the issue of what to do with her things. My thought is storage, I may have to put her out again. But my mouth simply says, "I don't know, maybe storage or FreeCyle."  She just wants to give it all away.

I feel like I'm being trapped somewhere deeper than the standard 13th recess of hell. :evil:

You what's funny about this entire situation? My mother wants me to take a leave and come home for a while to just get away from all my stress and relax for a bit. Or better yet, she wants me to sell my house and leave Tennessee all together. She says I have nothing left here anymore, so why stay. Sadly I do agree, so I did laugh (in my head), but I cried on the phone (silently).  A leave of absence? Me? Me who is so afraid to take a vacation day because it would adversely affect my overtime. Sell my house, in this market? Ha! Dream on Mama, dream on. She says she can feel I'm in a deep amount of pain & loneliness (Mama, you have no idea :( ). She says, I need to enjoy life and try to stop and smell the roses...ironic since the roses in the front of my house are dying (I never have time to tend to them). I just stopped and watered my tree today for the first time in probably months.:oops:

I feel as though I'm going insane.....I can't even focus to write today.:cry:

The dogs think that just because I'm up it's somehow time to eat. Not so, little canine friends.

This too will pass.

I feel like I'm trapped in a Zen prison. And actually, that's the depressing thing. It will pass, and then you feel great, and then you feel shit, and then you feel ecstatic or bored or whatever. Nothing ever lasts. What's the point? Very trite question but still. What IS the point? Not any overall meaning or higher being, just simply - what is the point of doing this everyday until I die? It's not remotely what it's cracked up to be, this living thing. I can't think of anything worse actually. And I don't think it's a sick joke by some higher being - it's just circuitous and only ever fleetingly anything in the scheme of things. So what if I can't stand being alive right now? It's totally irrelevant.

Am sure Cosmo will have some tips.

We push ourselves to learn by capitalizing on our "mistakes." We might even make them on purpose! We might cover up a problem area, or an area that just doesn't sing. We might get really brave and paint out a great area, or add a color somewhere that we are sure will not work with the surrounding colors. Adding or subtracting such elements with a flourish can add to the drama, and make it exhilarating, as opposed to terrifying. Then we have to solve the conundrums we have created. We have challenged ourselves, dared ourselves by throwing down our own gauntlet. Next, we have to pick it up. ACCEPT that challenge! Accept it from the inside out, letting our intuition inform our hands, feeling the energy flow. When the flow lessens or subsides, we summon our analytical mind, study what we have done according to the elements and principles of design.

It's a great strategy. Our mistakes are not cause for despair about our artistic ability. They are our impetus for improvement, our opportunities for invoking creativity and originality!

Let me show you the before and after of Revelation (click on after when you reach the old post).

[caption id="attachment_640" align="aligncenter" width="343" caption="Revelation: after the "abyss""]=[/caption] ]]> http://seriejournalen.wordpress.com/?p=108 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:33:47 +0000 ringnos http://seriejournalen.wordpress.com/?p=108

Jag tänkte egentligen göra en serie. Men dumt nog började jag rita utan fullständigt manus. Så nu har jag fastnat och lär behöva göra om allting senare. Å andra sidan har jag en klarare idé om hur jag vill att den ska te sej nu.

I alla fall, jag har inte ritat särskilt mycket vardagligt lately. Just därför bjuder jag på de bästa rutorna i min misslyckade serie ^ ^

This was the second time I've contra-ed to my trading limit and hadn't really tasted what lies before me. On Monday morning, reading up the annoucements, it read "another quarter of solid growth"! I personally "analysed" the B/S and P/L and thought that we're on target for the full year results!

I really must have crossed the Pakistan border for that! As I was really shot in the head immediately. That was not how the analysts interpreted. After the initial rise to $2.98, when the market opened at 9am, the stock seemed to have lost its footing and started free falling. It plummeted to $2.76 within a span of 10 mins and before 10.30am, it was at $2.65. Abyssal engulfed me completely. There is no way I am able to pay for the trade nor could I even pay for the net losses as a result of these two trades!

I was totally at a loss and didn't know what to do. But surprisingly, there is a stillness within me. An inner calm and peace. I attributed it to God, my family and also having a job. I believe I've gained the peace also because I didn't have any major health concerns as well.

I reckoned that I had to cut loss at some point and so I've decided to stop at either $2.62 or $2.71. I entered the trade for $2.71 and set an alert at $2.62. My phone didn't move till around 4pm and I must really say that I'm reliefed that the message wasn't set off by the alert, but by the trade that was executed. The market closed for the day at $2.74. Was I really hammering myself hard for not holding out longer before cutting loss? I must say that like I've mentioned earlier, "reliefed" was the word.

Returning home, I watched a tv drama and it was showing a Dad suffering from lung cancer leaving home quietly in order not to burden his children. I've always felt that tv shows are not so fake and hard to believe, but at that point, I realised it's about the life experience you've had. The more you have it, the more real, these dramas are evident, in your life. The main reason I've felt it fake was that I was living a much sheltered life than most did, hence the ignorance.

As I had raised the need to borrow the $6k in order to pay for my contra trade, I was reminded by my mum that my uncle was borrowing money for the past few months from my Dad in order to pay off his gambling debts. The moment Dad didn't give him the money he wanted to borrow for, he frowned and gave the world's most dispised look, probably thinking in his mind "What an ungrateful ingrate!" "There is no kinship to talk about when it comes to money," my mother stated. It strucked me that moment that in what way was I not a mirror of him?!

The intention in mind when I did the contra was just as equivalent as gambling. I played more than what I could pay for and it was spurred on by greed. Perhaps I had written off in my mind that $6,000 is immaterial. It's just my 2 months salary, or maybe some other people's quarter of a month's pay. This is what I term as the "auditor's mindset", as during the course of our work, amounts less than a few hundred grand are simply not worth mentioning.

What slipped my very mind was my own background -- where I came from. My parents were not the poorest of poor in Singapore, but neither were they rich. It really took my father much pains and hard labour to bring home the $1,000/mth or my mum really have to hunch her back, clean the disgusting tables of leftovers in the sweltering hot hawkers, in order to earn that $850/mth. This is more than 7 months or half a year's 10hr/7 days a week work! The reason why I had a fairly decent childhood with no financial worries was because of a single simple fact -- Live within your means. It is really one of those times when failure walks with you. It really made you think and ask what have you done! I am really ashamed of myself.

When he came through the door, I directly told him about my situation and the need to have $6k to turnaround for the contra loss I've made. Though he didn't outwardly show his anger nor unhappiness, being the introverted him, he went straight into the toilet and washed the floor, repeatedly asking me to leave. I stayed on knowing that I had no other choice. I had to admit my mistake and seek his help. Thankfully, he unwillingly agreed to help out only with slight grumble about my speculative behaviour, coming to him time and again at the last resort for money. THankfully, he is willing to help. This is when you realise who are the ones who will be there for you.

Out of this episode of "Black Tuesday", I've gained this two valuable lessons:

1) Never spend more than you can pay for, ie credit facilities, loans and installments are like the noose that's dropped about you, choking you off before you realised.

2) Family relations, religion, and health are much more important than anything else in the world.

Life is never a bed of roses and we learn at every line and every page, as we author our book, the book titled "Life".

Waterlogged

Miraged rain
Sitting
Sweltering
On sand of shed snakeskin
Fever of emotions
Taunting and
Breeding and
Coursing through
Throbbing veins.
Headache and
Swollen eyes
Would cry more
But no tears left
Miraged rain

Pouring rain
Soothing
Shushing
Sweet voice of rain
Roll
With reckless abandon
Through the
Barbs of truth
Shards of lies
Mud of past
Puddles of cries
Can't be bothered with pain
Given up trying to quench it
Solve it
Get rid of it
Pouring rain

Drumming rain
Washing away
Debris of feeling
Body caked
With throwaway
Crusting
Weighed down
Hardening cement statue
On a soaked cement slab
Blessed oblivion
Wish it lasts
Hope it does
Drumming rain

Betraying rain
Once gentle
Now acid
Eating through
Precious few
Millimeters of callus
Stealing bricks
Of ageless walls
Left cold
Naked
Vulnerable
Abandoned foetus
On an island in a marsh of ridcule
Betrying rain

Pensive rain
Eyes closed
Jaw clenched
In apprehension of what may come
Wading
Slushing
Through
Puked thoughts and scar tissue
Emotions hang by a single root
En masse with death and
Decay
It twitches
A simple message
"Want to feel"
Pensive rain

Freeing rain
Gentle
Cool
Drizzling dancing drops
Filling yet
Draining
My waterlogged mind
Fire with fire and
Water with water
Slowly
Softly
Evaporating the walls ,
The decay,
The pain
Freeing rain

Now before I go on I'll give a brief history of Deathgaze. Ai has always been the leader of deathgaze. He started out as the bassist, and Deathgaze always had really cool basslines that were very powerful. The first vocalist of deathgaze left the band after the first single. Deathgaze found a new, and may I add, amazing vocalist, named Sou. Sou stayed with the band for a long time and Deathgaze rocked. Eventually Sou leaves, some say to get married or some crap. (gay)

Ai, the bassist/leader/song writer/lyricist takes over vocals. They released 2 singles I think without bass. Something besides ai's weak voice sounded wrong. I assumed they must've recorded bass or something but maybe not. So, a new bassist joins after the 2 singles (which weren't AS bad as I lead on, but they weren't amazing) and they release Abyss.

So I just listened to the first track. Wow, it's pretty clear that for the most part, the power that deathgaze lost was because of their previous bass-heaviness, and not having Ai on bass made their sound a lot less full. The addition of kosuke (their new bassist) made this release a lot better than any other one with Ai as a vocalist in terms of complete-feeling-ness. I'm also happy to say Ai has obviously been practicing screaming and that there is NO VOCAL DISTORTION(gay) at the parts where he's supposed to scream which was a huge DOWNER (lolol) for me before.

I just moved on to The Menace, which is the next track, it's pretty good. I really don't like the solo though. I'm usually pretty indifferent to solos, I don't care about them, they're pretty much fillers in my mind but this one feels slightly awkward and throws things off a bit. Both these songs are pretty much great, compared to those last 2 releases, though. Too bad they're not as catchy as some of deathgazes older songs.

However, things seem to be looking up. Perhaps deathgaze can rise to the ranks of one of my top 3 favorite bands again.

Reviewed by : Steve “Rockamaniac” Wilson of MainEventRadio.com

Over the years, TNA has become notorious for releasing Best of DVD’s that focus in on a certain brand of matchups. We’ve seen multiple volumes dedicated to the best the X division has to offer, one for the Tag Teams and we’ve also seen 2 releases highlighting the blood filled hardcore action that TNA has offered over the years.  Although they seemingly want you to forget that they made the first one which highlighted the 12 bloodiest battles from the year 2003, because in 2006 they released a DVD called Best of the Bloodiest Brawls and listed it as Volume 1, looking beyond that, hitting the market next week will be TNA’s Best of the Bloodiest Brawls : “Scars and Stitches” aka Volume 2 or Volume 3 depending on how you want to look at it, and this DVD picks up where the last one left off and take us on a 3 hour ride from Turning Point 2005 to this year’s Against All Odds PPV.

The DVD opens with a promo featuring the likes of Kurt Angle, Jeff Jarrett, Samoa Joe and others offering their thoughts on what it means to them to find themselves losing their own blood during a matchup, Nine matchups are then featured, ( 3 of which have been featured on previous best of releases) Before each match you get a short promo putting over the match, although the wrestlers involved don’t always talk about the specific match, that is left to the voiceover guy who explains some of the feud surrounding the match in question.  Action begins with Jeff Jarrett vs Rhino from the December 2005 Turning Point PPV. This matchup didn’t have a hardcore stipulation on it but the intensity of the feud between Rhino and Jarrett at the time caused the matchup to spill out all over the arena, and needless to say caused the blood to flow.  Second matchup is the Lethal Lockdown from April of 2006, as Sting’s Warriors took on Jarrett’s Army.  This was a cage match, but most of the “blood and brutality” came in the final minutes once the cage ceiling is lowered and the weapons come into play, a good matchup nonetheless and  this was the matchup where AJ Styles and James Storm battled at the top of the cage and Styles came flying off of a ladder setup on the roof of the cage, going through Storm and a table.  

We then  get the Daniels and Styles vs LAX, six sides of steel cage machup from Bound For Glory 2006. This matchup was featured on the best of tag teams dvd, and while I absolutely loved the match, I don’t think it warrants being on a DVD supposedly featuring the “best of the bloodiest brawls”.  Next up is Christian Cage vs Rhino in a Six Sides of Steel Barbed Wire match from Impact in November 2006, a matchup which was included on the Best of Christian Cage DVD put out last year, it was also included as an extra on the Dark Rising DVD which the horror/comedy film that Christian Cage starred in a year plus back.  The first battle between Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle is then up, this of course from Genesis in November of 2006. Ill never get sick of watching these two go at it, definitely one of the more enjoyable matchups on the disc for me.

A well deserving entry on this DVD is the Destination X 2007 Last Rites matchup between Abyss and Sting, this truly was a bloody brawl, as was the next matchup which is the Falls Count Anywhere battle between Cowboy James Storm and The Wildcat Chris Harris from the Sacrifice 2007 PPV, this was actually included on the Best of 2007 DVD, but was an absolute classic battle and in a way I cant imagine this DVD being put out without this matchup included.  Mr Hardcore in TNA, Abyss, is featured in the two final matchups on this DVD, the first being against Tomko in a No DQ-Must be a winner matchup from the Slammiversary 2007 PPV, and then we top it all off with the obvious choice of the Barbed Wire Massacre between Abyss and Judas Macias from this past February’s Against All Odds PPV. I could break down every match but true TNA fans probably remember these matchups vividly, while others can have the chance to enjoy them for the first time.

The promo material included states that there is a “variety of bloody bonus features” although my screener version did not have those included, perhaps it will be included on the final pressing of the DVD.

There has always been pros and cons when it comes to Best of DVD’s, on one hand it’s a way to get some of the best footage in your collection for one low price, on the other hand, those who have most of the footage already have little to no interest in picking up the best of, especially when almost no new footage is included. The interview segments included before each match are sometimes too vague, and should of spent more time on having the guys involved talk about the match about to be shown.  The fact that 3 of the 9 matchups were on other Best of DVD’s is a huge negative. One is acceptable, but a third of the disc’s content is too much. There is other candidates that could of replaced the previously released matches. For example Monsters Ball matchups from Bound For Glory 06 and 07, or the initial Full Metal Mayhem match from Sacrifice 2006. I could understand the argument that you wouldn’t want to make this a Abyss only DVD as all 3 matchups I just mentioned feature Abyss, So why not one of Team 3D’s battles from recent years?

Ultimately the DVD is not an absolute must buy, but it is buyable , specifically if your looking to add some solid hardcore TNA action to your collection with only one purchase.

TNA Wrestling’s  “Best of the Bloodiest Brawls – Scars and Stitches” will be available on DVD across North America next Tuesday August 5^th for 19.99$,  Head out to your local TNA DVD retailer or check out TNAWrestling.com for more info and to order from their online shop. To read my previous DVD reviews check out www.maineventradio.com/reviews.htm

The talk on Internet forums and fan sites is that Green Dragons tend to drop green charms at a higher rate then other monsters. I will agree that green charms do drop from Green Dragons at a significantly higher rate.  But I think Green Dragons are too much a pain in the butt to be an effective and efficient charm harvesting tool.  First, they are located in the wild where their location poses a much greater risk to safety.  Second, though they are the easiest of Dragons to kill, they still require investments in food and potions. Third, they take too long to kill, and are heavily hunted by other players.  Don't get me wrong, there are many reasons to hunt Green Dragons (for one, their hides turn a nice profit).  But as a safe route to train summoning, I personally would leave these monsters alone.

The only creatures that seem to be worthwhile for me to spend my time killing to harvest green charms is the four Abyssal Monsters. These creatures range in combat level from 41 to 124, and are located in the Abyss or ALR plane of the Fairy Ring network. Of the four, the Abyssal Demon is the only slayer creature, and requires level 85 slayer to kill (but it does have some wonderful drops, including the Abyssal Whip.)

I personally stay on the Abyssal Guardians (level 59) because they die fairly easy for my level 89 warrior, they respawn almost instantaneously, and they have some nice drops in addition to charms. But all Abyssal monsters drop charms, and I have found that they tend to drop greens more often then the other colors.  Abyssal monsters will also drop Abyssal charms, which are required secondary ingredients for a couple of higher level summoning pouches. Abyssal charms do not stack and I have not yet decided if they are really worth collecting. In addition to charms, Abyssals drop pure essence in both physical and noted forms, talismans (all kinds), binding necklaces (which I ignore because they do not sell well on the Grand Exchange), and rune crafting pouches of all sizes.

The Abyss is accessible once you have performed a small favor for the Zamorak Mage who hangs around the mouth of the River Lum, just north of Edgeville (level 5 wilderness). This is not a dedicated quest (don't confuse it with the One Small Favor quest). It is just a minor task that needs to be performed so the player can learn the background story. The Abyss can be a very dangerous place, and is multi-combat, so things can get dicey very quickly. I prefer to fight the Abyssal monsters on the ALR plane of the Fairy Ring network, which is much safer.  To access the fairy rings you will need to have started a little of the Fairy Tale part II - Cure a Queen quest. The Fairy Ring network provides quick access to the ALR and many locations throughout Runescape, including a nice portal squarely between Edgeville and the Grand Exchange.

As for me, I think fighting Green Dragons is a more fun and interesting way to harvest green charms. Challenging the Abyssal monsters in the ALR can be very dull, and trying to collect charms in the Abyss itself is downright suicidal.  In the end, both routes seem to produce simular numbers of green charms in simular time frames.  If you want a degree of safety, go with the ALR.  If you want something a little more interesting, but more dangerous, go with the Green Dragons.

Abyssal Leech (CL 41,HP 10); Abyssal Guardian (CL 59, HP 50); Abyssal Walker (CL 81, HP 95); Abyssal Demon (CL 124, HP 150); Green Dragons (CL 79, HP 75)

When the house burns one forgets even lunch. Yes, but one eats it later in the ashes.

What does this mean? That everyone always has to eat lunch? That seems... less than profound, compared to the monster/abyss thing.

And some are just plain misogynistic:

Woman learns to hate to the extent to which her charms decrease.

I'm pretty sure these are jokes since throughout the book Nietzsche sort of has a sense of humor, but they're still sort of baffling. A lot of them remind me of the lesser wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: "For every pound of sand you eat, another shilling's yours to keep." Or maybe Nietzsche not only invented existentialism, but dadism too.

I guess this is why I should stay away from philosophy and stick to fiction.

Also, any post on Nietzsche would be remiss if it didn't mention the Nietzsche Family Circus.

1. Titanic

2. Godfather 2

3. The Dark Knight

4. Raiders of the Lost Ark

5. Star Wars

6. Citizen Kane

7. Jurassic Park

8. The Sixth Sense

9. The Matrix

10. Terminator 2

11. 2001 A Space Odyssey

12. Gone With The Wind

13. Godfather 1

14. The Abyss

15. Forrest Gump

16. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

17. Superman 2 (Richard Donner's Cut)

18. Cliffhanger

19. Casablanca

20. The Jungle Book (1967 Disney version)

21. Rocky

22. The Departed

23. The Lion King

24. Silence Of The Lambs

25. For A Few Dollars More

26. As Good As It Gets

27. The Ghost And The Darkness

28. The Shawshank Redemption

29. When Harry Met Sally

30. Spiderman 2

Each of the above movies broke new ground.  Will expand to the Top 100 soon.

Foreign films have still not made it, but a chick flick and Michael Douglas did (surprisingly it isn't Wall Street nor Romancing The Stone...guess which one was his in the above list. )

Johnny Depp? He will be there in the Top 100. So will a host of other legends and classics.

When first drafting this essay I went to great lengths to deconstruct both the far right views of literal creationism versus the far left views of Darwinism. I had reduced both of them to materialistic goals of trying to explain the world. Literal creationists assert claims that don't mesh well with the physical evidence presented by Geology. Darwinists assert that the world created itself and thus DNA codes in effect write themselves. A simple experiment where two inorganic particles are meshed together and result in an organic particle would prove evolution, however to my knowledge this has never been done. I assert that the human race was created by the grace of God and that the biblical creation story is about as literal as the book of Revelation, since snakes do not talk ect. Evolution can perhaps account for prehistory and the physical evidence present in the world at large, but there was a totally a divine hand involved at some point and thusly the missing link. It is a relevant topic about how easily humans can be divided over frivolous matters and does fit in with this discussion of the end of history. However I felt like I spent too long with tearing down both arguments and less time on the decline of civilization itself, I may deal with this issue in depth at a later date.

I had this idea for a novel once where the corporations fake an apocalypse. I had plenty of ideas for how they might go about it. Naturally a capitalist would profit more from a complete controlled society, so let's speculate on how to get there. First you need to crush differences of opinion, the best way to do this would be to make them fight to the death. The process of this, of course, would be a long one so the trick would be to make them worship the same thing a pure capitalist would - money itself. Once you have a society made purely materialistic, with all beliefs reduced to but a mere idolatry of money. The trick is to make the society in question openly acknowledge their materialism but never condemn it. There are a great many dangers in taking life too seriously. Once people truly take their consumer based lives too seriously and are willing to do whatever it takes to make the ends meet, a clash of civilizations can begin which the capitalists can then exploit. There are many conspiracy theories about how this is done or accomplished, and many of them point a finger at some conspiracy lurking in the shadows plotting to destroy civilization. The true conspiracy is very apparent, it only works with near full participation, to blame this on anything material is to not do the evil plan proper justice. I find there is no greater culprit than the pride of life itself - society's vast materialism and lack of a thorough introspection. Once a people believe what they are told, you can tell them whatever you want to, a capitalist with a sheer lack of proper business ethics would be much obliged an opportunity to exploit that. Let us contemplate absolute Atheism as the ends to the means of a society completely poisoned with its own materialism. Let us envision the regulation of the internet as the beginning of a domino effect, a rhetorical war on information with the end result being an internet as useless and uninformative as television itself.

For in my quest to unravel the tragedy of history I have found are no greater enemies to mankind than outright materialism and the darkness of ignorance. Mankind's true enemies are these such concepts, and not any member(s) or other such materialistic division of the human race. We are all one race in a struggle against such darkness. Regardless of what you believe in philosophically there is one thing you should know and understand about economics. Capitalism itself is based on materialism and it is necessary for our daily lives.There seems to be no way around this and this is an accepted fact of life in the Western World. However over time a society believing that is was evolved from monkeys shall become such monkeys entangled in a class struggle analogous to survival of the fittest. The corporate world is a macrocosm for this, as the empires expand buying out the little guys not indifferent from a Tyrannosaur in a world of sheep. All is good and well as long as the market is regulated. But see capitalism is based on being ever expansive, no different than the empires of the Old World. Alexander the Great didn't need to try to conquer the India, but there was more money in it. I was taught in World Civilization at the University of Tennessee that Wal-Mart was now the largest economy in the world (2004), which would in turn make them among the greatest of all empires. As the world changed, warfare changed. The Old World notions of rape and pillage were not forgotten but they were transformed into a legacy of underdevelopment. When one rapes and pillages everyone that participates in the raids gets a little bit of the profit, but when one underdevelopments only the investors that paid for the raid reap any reward.

As we press forward in the 21st century, capitalism continues unabated. The markets become closer together and the people themselves become close together through the internet. This could be a good thing, but the fact remains that the means do not justify the end. The people of the world cannot be conquered by hostile takeover but only through mutual understanding. The internet taught me that and that is why it will one day be shutdown. There is no money in mutual understanding and a rejection of materialistic means that have kept us blind from such for so long. Even hip-hop artists tried to warn us of this. Tupac Shukar said that we needed to make some Changes and he got shot. Biggie Smalls said 'Mo Money, 'Mo Problems and he got shot as well. Their messages left unheard as the next generation rapped on and on about Gold Chains and spinning rims all the while proclaiming that Tupac and Biggie inspired them. Our problems are still here and they are still bigger than hip-hop. This isn't a new concept or without precedent, the same thing happened in the 70's when music devolved from social philosophy into disco. This sad tale is but an analog with a thousand other dead heroes because there was just no profit to be had in pointing out that profit was ultimately pointless. In the modern world we believe we can buy happiness, but we feel like we are missing something in the end.

Regardless of what social, theological or philosophical school of thought that you subscribe to, material means all meet the same ending. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. The scales of justice themselves tipped in strong favor of the overwhelming mass of the bottom line as the governments corrupt in favor of the greater wealth of the commercial empires. One by one the nations fall into the same supermarket checkout line, the end result of the works of greed and deceit all the while the secular authorities teach the children that they are but the descendants of mere apes. As entire cultures are consumed in this vacuum, national sovereignty erodes to the point where this no longer any checks and balances, nor is their consumer advocacy, nor any form of oversight. At this point the safety net was long destroyed, crushed under the weight of the bottom line of a one world consumer society's misguided ambitions and desires and the entire social order is left to plummet into the abyss of absolute darkness. This such is the hypothetical blizzard of the world that will only result in the winter of our discontent when all of the great words of the heroes, the philosophers, the poets, the prophets and the honest historians are ultimately forgotten.

And inevitably there will be this day, when all of the resources of the world have been plundered to the point that the wealth of the nations all sit together in the same vault, the capitalists now content to become communists . At which point the new emperors shall fancy themselves as gods, just as the emperors of old once did, for their materialistic accomplishments of conquering the entire world. When this has come to pass, these emperors will then want slaves and become interested in human souls themselves. And they are going to come to you and attempt to brand you as their slaves. An entire generation truly believing itself to be the descendants of mere apes and completely ignorant of the glorious past that came before this point. That cursed day when everyone is asked to sellout, the finality of a cruel world built on betrayal in the name of fattening the bottom line. The circle now completed since the new emperor's of the world's constituents are no longer in demand of rights, history erased, the dissidents repressed eternally and the next generation shall only know what they are allowed to. The whole of society reduced to mere animals by their own designs and excuses, all beliefs degenerated into pure atheism where there is no longer any intelligent question since everyone truly believes that they are nothing more than the descendants of mere apes. The eerily humbled remnants of a once great world civilization reduced to but mere automatons oblivious to the true culprit of their real ancestor's vanity. The tragedy of history forgotten now complete and ironic of its own demise.

This is merely a hypothetical scenario which can be prevented from ever happening. The internet can be the light of a pure democracy, save the internet and damn the empire.

Numb Again

I lifted the eyes
I keep riveted to the floor
I opened the smile
I bolted to my core

I handed you the heart
I store secretly under my bed
I told you the sentence
I keep chained up in my head

You asked me to trust you
You promised to stay
You always had just the right touch

You told me you'd be there
Day in and day out
That you'd be my pill, my drug, my crutch

I gave you a finger
You grabbed for a hand
I struggled to my knees for you
You demanded I stand

My eyes you seared
My smile you clipped
My heart you crushed
My words you let slip

So I'll turn the knobs and flick the switches
I'll Ctr + Alt + Delete
Into Hibernate

I'll cut off the emotions
Go back to numb default
Where I should have stayed
In the first place

I'll lower my blinded eyes
I still rivet to the floor
I'll slam shut my wingless smile
I still chain to my core

I'll scrape up my blob of heart
I still store boxed under my bed
I'll write down the forgotten sentence
I still chain up in my head.

This book is a far cry from the concepts and images of water in my sculpture and drawings; the only real common theme is the presence of water. Although, there are certainly some interesting thematic ideas that are similar.  What intrigues me the most about the deep sea is that despite how advanced our technology has become, our knowledge and experience of the deep sea is miniscule compared to other parts of the planet. In terms of spacial depth, I can't imagine there's anywhere else on the Earth that can beat the deep sea. I like that the deep sea is mysterious, unseen, and unknown; qualities that I'm looking to visually achieve in my work right now.

The Dumbo Octopus