Umbrood's window to the world

Still snowing

On 02.05.10, In Life, Training, By Umbrood

Almost dug all the snow out from around the car and now its started to snow again. *sigh* But that’s what you get for not digging it out straight away after snowfall. I haven’t been to the gym in almost two weeks or so and haven’t done back exercises in quite a while before that so my back is sore after shovelling snow. I have tried doing low impact exercises like push-ups and squats while not doing cardio or heavy workouts as I have been battling a minor case of the flue.

Hopefully there isn’t much snow today so I can do the rest of the car later tonight

Tagged with: Life • Training

Strikeforce in Miami – Thoughts about the PPV

On 02.04.10, In MMA, By Umbrood

First match Booby Lasley vs. Wes Sims wasn’t a convincing win for Bobby, Wes was really out of shape coming in on short notice for this fight. Bobby was digging his fingers into Wes throat and the ref where screaming at him for this but didn’t do anything about it, a raw deal in my opinion for Wes. I didn’t think he would stand a chance in the fight taking it on short notice against Lashley but not like this, this doesn’t do anything for Lashleys reputation as a up and coming heavyweight. In a pre fight interview Wes said if he wins he would do the Hogan atomic leg drop on Lashley, and in the beginning he wanted to look up in a test of strength pro-wrestling style, it wasn’t smart angering Lashley as in his previous fight his opponent came in with a lucha libre mask and Lashley almost ripped him in half in that fight.

However Lashley need to fight a good but not great fighter too actually see how good he really is, he has only been fighting cans in all his previous fights.

The Lawler fight was really good, he was losing until he hit the big hay maker. I don’t give Hughes fight camp that much credit, I really like Matt Hughes don’t get me wrong, he is one of my favourite fighters. But I don’t think his fight camp is as well rounded as you need in this day and age, but maybe that’s just me being pessimistic and reading too much into Matt Hughes being old and not as well rounded a fighter anymore. Lawler was losing that fight getting pushed around standing and his lead leg where getting jacked up all night long, he couldn’t stand on it at the end of the fight. He said in the post fight interview that their game plan was to get beat up and when he swarmed in for the kill hit him just as he dropped his hands. It sounded like a stupid game plan to me, but it apparently worked.

The main event was as exiting as a Diaz fight will get, he out struck the Dream champion and stopped him in the first round. I know the Diaz brothers are good fighters but I find their style boring and they are obnoxious as well.

Herzel Walker out cardioed and out wrestled a bad fighter who was so nervous to be fighting on the Miami card you felt sorry for him. I hope that this was the first and only fight for Herschel but rumours have it that he will fight Concacho or however he spells his name, the former steroid using baseball player, on the next CBS Strikeforce card. Herschel might be a decent striker and has some skills in top control, but no submission skills at all, maybe it was for the best he didn’t try any submissions and lost position as I don’t know how his submission defence and if he could work from the bottom.

In the Cyborg fight she dominated the fight out striking her opponent, not taking it to the ground other than to do a bit of ground and pound. This was a more competitive fight than I have seen from Cyborgs opponents in a long time.

Ok my overall impressions of the show was above expectations, the fights where good and the video packets where kept to a minimum compared to the UFC. Or at least that’s my impression, Mauro on commentary is good as always, my favourite line was when he questioned Frank Shamrocks comment about Diaz having weak punches that didn’t hurt but he still scrambled his brain, comedic gold.

Tagged with: MMA • Strikeforce

Peoples perception of weight in MMA and Pro Wrestling – Part I

On 02.04.10, In Life, MMA, Training, By Umbrood

As most people that know me already know I’m trying to get in better shape and lose the extra pounds I have put on over the years. I don’t have a massive amount of extra weight but anyhow, I have read tons of training guides and actually find it fun to put together some new training regiments ever so often, this not to lose interest in training.

I watch pro wrestling and MMA and there’s always lots of talk about how people stay in shape and the perfect physique is always displayed. And I do know this isn’t a new problem and exists in all media, but I’m just focusing on pro wrestling and MMA for now. This isn’t as big a problem in MMA as its in pro wrestling, but this fall there have been a few instances that have made a fair bit of press.

Lets start in MMA as I probably need to write two posts one for MMA and one for Pro-wrestling as it will take me to long to write both at once. I have been more and more annoyed with Dana White in the last months and the many stupid comments and decisions he makes. But anyhow Dana said in the resent TuF season that Nelson have “the worst physique in professional sports” and earlier Dana have said that if Roy Nelson is to fight in the UFC he needed to lose that belly.

Yes Roy Nelson hasn’t a chiselled physic but he has won season 10 of the ultimate fighter a former IFL Heavy weight champion. He is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt under Renzo Gracie. So he is a legitimate fighter and I also called him being the winner of the TuF 10 season, when I heard that he was partaking in the reality show.

The UFC is trying to distance themselves from its past where fighters like Tank Abbott ruled the octagon, they want chiselled and charismatic and skilled fighters like Georges “Rush” St-Pierre, Roy Nelson is two of those things.

Going back a few years I recently came across a list of the top ten stories of the past 10 years from the sherdog website. On number three there is Bob Sapp and how the Japanese people where fascinated with his sheer size, he had a chiselled physic and he could sort of fight back in the day. He last suffered a loss to the former amateur wrestler Bobby Lashley, who now has signed with Strikeforce. Bobby Lashley is also doing Pro-wrestling currently in TNA but I will probably talk more about that later.

Bob Sapp

Bobby Lashley

Lets look at the Japanese “freak show” element of the MMA scene. The Japanese and asian market have been known to put on “freak show” MMA bouts from time to time. The first thing that comes to mind is Choi Hong-man or Hong man-Choi a 7′2” 300+ pound freak of nature, not a very good fighter but he has the size and look that the Japanese like. Another thing that comes to mind is the use of Akebono in both MMA and Pro-wrestling matches.

Also on the sherdog list is the fighter that is a called the face of female MMA Gina Carano, and this brings me to talk about the females in MMA and Pro wrestling. The reason why I started writing this blog post in the first place, Gina daughter of a famous NFL QB.

Gina Carano - American Gladiators

Gina at a weigh in and competing in American Gladiators, she is according to information 5′ 8″ tall and roughly 140 pounds. I would actually put her weight around 155-160 pounds as she has had problems cutting weight before fights and coming in heavy. She is considered the face of female mixed martial arts, she is a talented fighter and was undefeated until she meet Cris Cyborg Santos and got destroyed. This was a marketed as a classic beauty vs beast match up, but Cris was just to big to strong and manhandled Gina in their fight It wasn’t even close. Gina hasn’t fought or even trained since the loss on August 15 2009. But the MMA world hopes that she can come back a put together a few wins to build for a rematch with Cyborg to be a big PPV draw.

Cris Cyborg Santos

Gina Carano

Cris Cyborg is the same height as Gina 5′8” and billed as weighing 145 pounds i would also put her weight closer to 155-160, this is walking around weight.So both fighters are in my opinion a lot heaver than their fighting weight class but that nothing new as most fighter cut at least 15 pounds to make their fighting weight, but that another discussion.

There has been lots of talk about how unfeminine Cris looks and that Gina is fat and has cancles but nonetheless there is talk about Cris doing a playboy shoot during 2010 but that’s still unconfirmed. This has me thinking of the playboy shoots Jonie Lauer did while being with the WWE but more on that later when I dive into the Pro wrestling aspect of this in part II.

Tagged with: Life • MMA • Training • UFC • Wrestling

Eleventh Doctor News

On 02.04.10, In Uncategorized, By Umbrood

I just found this information about the first three episodes for the Eleventh Doctor, this is from Moffet himself and have been confirmed on several other sites already. Now to just get a release date for when the series starts.

The series begins with The Eleventh Hour written by Moffat himself and is believed to follow directly on from the regeneration in The End of Time. Episode Two is The Beast Below also by Moffat with Episode Three seeing the return of the Doctor’s greatest foe in Victory of the Daleks by Mark Gatiss.

Tagged with: Dalek • Dr.Who • Tv

Superbowl BABY

On 02.03.10, In Sports, By Umbrood

Well I got the last two games correct, that’s something. Both Colts and Saints came out victories but not looking as dominant as I thought. So this weekend is the highlight of the USA sports calender its the SUPERBOWL, and I have nothing invested in the teams playing which are a shame.

Haven’t made up my mind yet on which team I will be cheering on come Sunday, I’m leaning toward the Colts at the moment as they have to win because they rested players earlier in the season and threw away the perfect season, but that has been debated to death. I will do my pick after I have listened to NFLRnR podcast where they actually go through the strengths and weakness of the two teams.

So my total score for the 2009 NFL season is as follows

Regular Season

178-78

Post Season

5 – 5

So I did pretty good in the regular season, a few awful weeks made me take a significant hit to my ratings. The Post season was awful only getting 50% of the games correct.

Tagged with: NFL

Old TNA first time watching

On 01.30.10, In Wrestling, By Umbrood

I have run across some old TNA wrestling episodes. I only watch WWE and have never watched TNA until now. My interest was peaked when the rumors of the Monday night wars II started again, with TNA bringing in Hogan and all the all WCW guys to turn TNA around. Me never watched TNA is a lie when I come to think about it, I actually watched a few episodes or parts of them when Kurt Angle debut for them a few years back. So going back almost a full year started watching a few episodes from April 2009 and was utterly surprised how bad the shows where. Starting with them having lame titles, many of them word plays on the TNA catchphrase crossing the line examples of this was: Cactus crossing the line, who’s side is he one…cant remember all of the super lame stuff they came up with. And apparently they keep naming their episodes still, I heard a rumor that the naming in Vince Russo wanting to be a TV series writer and that’s why he names the shows.

The entrance music is all low-budget stuff and instrumental for the most part and the music is so generic it hurts to listen to them. One of the only themes I have heard so far with lyrics is the Suicide theme, which brings me to the Suicide character. This character made exclusively for the TNA video game and the storyline according to the lyrics for his song, Hes Coming Alive Suicide Come Alive so he is a video game character come alive.

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So this character comes down to the ring on a rope, and this just makes me cringe awkwardly as it brings back memories of Owen Hart. And having a character named Suicide, just poor taste but that’s Vince Russo for ya. He then has a ring pose which has him put his fingers to his temple as a gun, faking a suicide. At this time the Suicide character is played by Christopher Daniels as Kaz was injured.

The women’s division in TNA is pretty good, it was supposedly way better before Gail Kim and the booker left, but anyhow. Its currently plagued by really long promos and segments, like one night with ODB. I like the ODB character and Awesome Kong as they aren’t the stereotypical WWE Divas and bring something new to the product.The long promos plague the entire show the Main Event Mafia have long boring promos several times during each show. I really cant be bothered about this story line, the only thing that’s funny about it is Big Poppa Pump Scott Steiner rambling about girls and other stuff. And the other thing is Booker T being dumb and having Sharmell call all the shoots with the management.

Another character is Samoa Joe the nation of violence, they have a baby face character who run around stalking people and attacking them with a big knife. In the PPV match with Joe vs. Steiner the commentators play out that Joe might have killed Steiner after the match as Joe was covered in blood and Steiner was nowhere to be found. This is a throwback to the late 90’s story lines which might not be to new and exiting 10-15 years later. And they have Joe attacking other TNA characters and stringing them up and threatening to cut them, its a mature theme storyline but not preformed convincingly. And to top this off Steiner shows up on TV the following week with a lame mask/hoody because he was mutilated by Joe and the following week Steiner comes out as normal, way to follow through on your storyline TNA.

There is many older preformers in TNA at this time, April 2009 and its going to get a lot worse as Hogan and his buddys come in January 4th 2010 but I havent watched that yet only read and watched vlogs about it. It looks like its going to be a real trainwreck for TNA in 2010.

Fuuny note from Jericho:

Chris Jericho wrote on Twitter: Bischoffs right I can’t headline in TNA…cos I’m not in my 50s.

In yesterday’s “State of the Union” address, Eric Bischoff said that he never crapped on Jericho, likes him, but doesn’t think he can headline.

Tagged with: TNA • Tv • Wrestling

Harper’s Island – Episode 6

On 01.30.10, In Review, By Umbrood

OK this episode was a good episode as they got things accomplished, got some new facts and lost some dead weight from the island. Some of my favourite moments of the show was the scenes where the ring showed up at the bar and the hill-billy had proposed to his girlfriend and the English doctor wanted it back.

Other things they got done this episode where finding the pieces of uncle Marty, not much to say other than the emo brother was behaving more stupidly than normal. Don’t get the deal with him trying to get everyone to suspect him of killing all the people, he goes out of his way to be suspicious and killeresk, see I invented a new word.

Bringing the people to the attic and showing them the evidence of the obsessed father/sheriff thinking that Wakefield is still alive and well.

Ok they dug up the grave of the murderer Wakefield and found a skeleton, I don’t believe that this was the body of the real killer. I still think they are trying to swerve us viewers. I hope to good this don’t turn into heroes or pro-wrestling where they swerve just for the sake of swerving.

Emo brother knows the burnt redneck guy that had his dog killed by the now decided father of the bride, I like not remembering the names of the characters and making up little names for them.

That’s all for this time, check back with you all later.

Tagged with: Harpers Island • Horror • Review • Tv

Bad day

On 01.27.10, In Life, By Umbrood

This is turning out to be one off those crap days…again. Everybody keeps complaining about the weather but I can really care, its not that cold but given its windy. Lots of accidents in and around town because of the weather, might shoot a video of the storm if I go outside today and the lighting is still good.

But my main grief about today is that my freezer might have bought the farm, but hopefully its just a buildup of ice that kept it from closing properly and not something more serious. Its only ~18 months old so it shouldn’t break just yet, now to just find the warranty and all the papers from when I bought it. I probably put them somewhere safe, but cant remember where of course but the cat is helping me look for the papers by being on and around me because he feels that I’m stressed out at the moment.

Tagged with: Bad Luck • Cat • Life

More Harpers Island, episode four and five.

On 01.26.10, In Review, By Umbrood

Ok the fourth episode was a bore for the most part, they found Hunters body but couldn’t identify him took uncle Marty’s money. One of the guys shot himself and died while trying to hid the money. I wont go into that in detail because I didn’t like that story arch at all, the fat bumbling-but-likable character seemed to be taken from Lost, not my favourite character he will probably die in a few episodes as they need to milk the story arch they set up first. Him being sad and paranoid because he took the money and hid the body of the english guy out in the woods.

There is the psychic little girl who is all strange and somber, I hope to good that they aren’t going with poltergeists and ghosts but I have a sick feeling that’s where they are headed…I just hope the Winchesters show up and kill all the Supernatural things as Bobby is undercover as the main girls father and Sheriff of the town. jokes aside they better not go the supernatural ghost route that would so spoil the mood and setting for the show.

On to the fifth episode I predict that the goth brother will die as he has connected with the little girl. Other than that I have no real clue who will die maybe the old lady that the main girls high school love interest have been helping and driving around the island. This is probably the logical route as the killer wants to single out the main girl and he already killed the emo-girl as she was connecting with her long lost friend, Abby Mills was her name couldn’t remember it before.

I like it that the characters ignore the people missing and dead, the missing people they just leave messengers on their cellphones. They just assume that they gone home or hooked up with some girl/boy they are on a freaking island…

Now they start to miss the reverend as they need to sort out the rehearsal dinner for the wedding. BTW I’m writing this as I watch the episode so these are my thoughts as events unfold.

Cool a pagan sacrifice on the altar in the church, so no one have been in to the church for days. And back in the woods cue the inbreed rednecks with killer dogs, humming dueling banjos to myself. I’m starting to think that the redneck will kill the father of the bride because he killed his dog, or something lame as that. Why did the redneck leave the dog there and not stay himself, just stupid writing.

OK so there is lots of Wakefield’s running around killing people, so that’s their plan if the series gets a second or third season as they cant keep killing the wedding guests for too much longer.

OK so I was wrong the father of the bride got it in the church with a shovel. They found the reverent dead and dismembered, so now they know for sure that there is a killer on the island. There where some scenes earlier in the episode with the little kid talking about her friends and such they are so going with the I see dead people gimmick, I only see stupid people. OK that was the fourth and fifth episode of Harper’s Island more episodes will follow.

Tagged with: Harpers Island • Horror • Review • Tv

Harpers Island and some tagging changes

On 01.26.10, In Review, By Umbrood

Ill start of with the tagging issues as they aren’t that interesting, but Ill write about it anyway. I’m going to start adding more tags to my posts and do some META tagging changes in the near future. The reason for this is to help me and you selected few readers to find thing that might interest you in my blogging. As I use this blog as my one and only blog I need to start putting more effort into the tags to make it easier to read and sort.

Due to friends recommending a show called Harper’s Island I have started to watch it and have so far seen the first three episodes and here are my initial thoughts about it. And as customary with these reviews or what you might call them there will be spoilers so if you haven’t seen it don’t read this.

The intro to the first episode was totally awesome and had me hooked from the start and wanting more. Given I like serial killer shows and movies and lighthouses and islands always makes for creepy and scary settings this show delivers. The big tree with the hanging bodies where a nice and scary image, this made me think about the two Swedish murder mysteries series called Graven and Morden. Then the actual show starts and I’m sorely disappointed with the whole boat scene it felt forced and not appealing, and the stereotypical characters where one dimensional, but the premise and overall feel of the show kept me watching. There is a plethora of C and D grade celebs/actors people you recognize but cant really place, or at least I had problems with it. Speaking of stereotypical characters ofc. the biggest douche in the first episodes is called Hunter that name screams douchbag, I just thought that funny.

Some questions I had when watching the first few episodes:

Who left the candles on the Wakefield grave? why didn’t the characters find it odd, as the killer wasn’t even allowed to be buried on hallow ground?
Why didn’t the Sheriff kill Wakefield was it his brother or something lame like that?

OK high level spoiler alert coming up, concerning people being killed. I find it sad that the emo/goth girl bought the farm in the second episode. I actually thought that character could have been fun to have around, given her high level paranoia and emo-ness, they could have killed the emo/goth brother instead as I didn’t find him that interesting. Why did they kill the priest, to stop the wedding or some other reason. I get the feeling that you could possibly have two killers on the island and possibly not all the murders are connected. Another thing that bothered me where the traps all over the island, they said that there where rumours of traps on the island but none until now have come across them. And now all of a sudden people run into traps all over the place.

Even though I wanted the emo-chick to live here death scene was very good, I like the touch with the eyes and the statue with the red gems for eyes and the picture the sheriff found. there are some really good and creepy scenes that are well directed and set up but then we cut back to the 90210 style acting and plots. I know probably that’s the point having big differences between things but I almost feels like they have two different directors or writer for the different style scenes.

OK that’s my initial thoughts about the first three episodes, I will do more of these style posts in the future as its fun to write them.

Tagged with: Blogging • Harpers Island • Horror • Review • Tv • Web2.0 • Webbdesign

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