Thursday, December 29, 2016

UPGRADE!

Before redownloading stuff, but still.
I finally talked myself into pulling the trigger on a 2TB replacement drive in the PS4. I've been juggling space for most of the last year, and with the monthly free games, holiday sales, and my general penchant these days for digital purchases, it was only getting worse.

So I found a couple of up to date GamesRadar articles detailing drive recommendations and a detailed how to and did the deed. The trickiest part was making sure the external HD I used for a full backup was formatted correctly (exFAT, Master Boot Record) so that the PS4 would recognize it. But once I cleared that hurdle, it was simple to swap the drives, install system software downloaded on the PC and dropped onto a flash drive, and restore the PS4 from the backup. The drive was 90 bucks off Amazon, so not too bad.

Now all I need is a sale on Uncharted 4 digital.

Monday, December 19, 2016

Roadblock: End Of The Line

N-EVIL-LE!
The single best thing to happen at tonight's PPV is the announcement that the next PPV is the Royal Rumble, which is five weeks away. The second best thing that happened was the reveal, to me at least, that the WWE would be doing for UK wrestling what it did for the Cruiserweights, with a tournament, a champion, and possibly a weekly show, with NIGEL MCGUINNESS on commentary. The third best thing is in the picture above, the fourth best thing was the women's match, and the rest was WWE wrestling as usual.

@midnight Power Rankings (12/11-14)

He ateus an hourus before swimmingus.

@midnight closes out the year with a strong week, with four shows from great to very good. Goddamn, I love Morgan Murphy. She brought the 92% Dark and brought it hard, but always judiciously and fair. But really, solid performances throughout, even Matt Besser, who I don't always like in this format.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Roadblock: End Of The Line Predictions

Easily in the bottom 10% of PPV names of all time.
The weird part is, for a single-brand add-on PPV shoved into the pre-Christmas hole, Roadblock's card is actually looking pretty fucking amazing from an in-ring standpoint. Story-wise and booking-wise it could still be a clusterfuck, and there's always Roman Reigns, but still.

Motherfuckin' Lucha Underground! (En La Sombre)

Guess who's back!
The Battle of the Bulls concludes, and the Snake Tribe rises in a jam-packed hour of Lucha Underground.

Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (Dec 12-14)

Sorry, Shinsuke. This is my new wrestling boyfriend now.
Bitter cruelty - the factors that made it very easy to find the time to watch wrestling this week also made it tough to write/post about it. But here's the Wroundup on a fairly average week in WWE as we had towards, wha tis it, Roadblock? Roadblock. Shit, that means I gotta do Roadblock predictions.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

@midnight Power Rankings (Dec 5-8)

A very nice joke indeed.
Clearly, I liked my comedy this week like I like my Pepsi - dark. Steve Agee and Mike Lawrence brought their customary dark streaks to standout performances on @midnight this week, but bonus props to Nate Fernald, who I remember as the Nice Boy Telling Nice Jokes from the Pete Holmes Show, who's best joke wasn't even dark, just ridiculously brilliant. Monkey Beatboxing Championships!

Motherfuckin' Lucha Underground! (Bulls Of Boyle Heights)

So much better than mooning over Daga.
All of hte in-ring action this week revolves around the Lucha Underground Championship, as a new tournament format is started to pick a new #1 Contender, while Sexy Star seeks revenge and a rematch.

Friday, December 9, 2016

Monthly Free Games (Dec 2016)

Strongest in a very weak field.
I guess they want you to buy games during the Christmas month, because oh, what a turdpile the free games are this month. A bunch of subpar indies on the PS4 and a couple of generation-boundary games full of those weird faces you get from late-period last-gen games or early-period current-gen games on the XBox One. On the upside, all the shitty Playstation games were cross-buy on the PS4, so I didn't even have to see if my PS3 controllers were charged.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (11/5-8)

The end of the week's best match.
Rough fucking week for WWE, to be honest. I looked back once I'd sorted everything. Raw had two good things in it, NXT barely had two, and 205 Live had two. Smackdown had none.

Oh, The Metahumanity! (Finales Edition)

Cage isn't a man... HE'S A MACHINE! Wait. Wrong show.
That's... convenient. I finish Luke Cage just as all the other superhero shows go on hiatus for a month and a half. Guess OTM will be taking a bit of a break, then. Maybe I'll keep trying to like Westworld, since, no matter how much Westworld I watch, I'm told if I watch a little more, I'll love it.

Monday, December 5, 2016

Oh, The Metahumanity! (Invasion Week)

They're about to have a pointless fight!
Crossover time! Next weel will kick off a probably lengthy break in Oh, The Metahumanity, as the mid-season finales of everything are on deck, and I only have one more episode of Luke Cage to go. And no, the crossover didn't make me want to watch more Supergirl. Even if it is probably better than Legends of Tomorrow.

TLC 2016

Really, Bryan? This match? Kinda maybe, actually.
Pacing is a problem with hardcore matches. They tend to be slower affairs, as the wrestlers have to set up the equipment and the spots and be extra careful hitting them. And if you fill an entire card with those matches, the entire show can suffer. And so it was with the Smackdown-exclusive TLC on Sunday.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

@midnight Power Rankings (Nov 28-Dec 1)

Almost a Pete Holmes Show reunion!
Consistency is the watchword for last wee's @midnight performances. Pete Holmes took the week because we haven't seen him in a while and also he spent most of the time insulting his buddy Joe DeRosa. Dana Carvey brought up the rear, but amongst the old unfunny people who've done the show, he did pretty well. Evenyone else was solid to a degree that makes these rankings even more arbitrary than usual.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Motherfuckin' Lucha Underground! (Breaker Of Bones)

MORE KICKASS NINJA LADIES PLEASE!
The entire episode of Lucha Undergournd this week featured Pentagon Dark vs. the Black Lotus Triad, which made for great proper debuts for the memebers of the Triad, and a showcase for Pentagon Dark that also exposes the constant problem of Pentagon Dark.

205 Live (Premiere)

Fuckin' Jack Gallagher!
In the future, 205 Live will be folded into the Wroundup, but given that this is the first episode of the new show, let's talk about things in a bit more detail.

Predictions: TLC 2016


Another damn PPV, another set of predictions. Back to these being separate now that the Weekly Wroundup covers 3 (and soon 4) shows. My overall prediction for the entertainment value of this show? Five out of ten, tops, with Lynch-Bliss being the best match of the night.

Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (Nov 28-30)

Best thing that happened in WWE all week.
I watched Raw this week using a trial Hulu subscription because of scheduling, and marveled at the lack of filler, before I realized the Hulu version cuts out like a third of the show. Which means that if you don't watch Raw live or DVR it, there is literally no way to watch the whole thing for like a month. It's not available through cable on demand, Hulu edits it down, and the WWE Network doesn't pick it up until a month later. That is crazypants.