therealfolkblues

I see them alot at used book stores, and I know they are available on Amazon.com as well, usually well below MSRP.

For anyone who really loves this series, I highly recommend the Tokyopop "Anime Guide" for this series. It goes through the entire series in six volumes and adds little notes in where the "homage" or "inspiration" for certain scenes come from. They may be difficult to track down, but they are worth it. This show even trumps Macross/Macross Plus on my list of favorites, plus it is very accessible for non-anime fans. Ok, I will go back to lurking now...

I am pretty sure that another Satellite series(Heat Guy J) ,went through the same thing. It ended up looking pretty damn awesome once it got to DVD.

I have a best of 'Busa dvd. For his time, the dude was amazing. It is a shame he ended up almost paralyzed due to a botched move. And I do have to take back my total disgust with all US wrestling. I have been enjoying Smackdown for a while due to having actual wrestling matches(who'd a thunk it) and I have to root for ECW, because it has given my buddy Punk some mainstream exposure and a Main Event spot on PPV(tomorrow,BTW).

WWE sucks right now and with Vince Russo(the guy who killed WCW) writing TNA, american wrestling is crap. I was HIGHLY disappointed with Joe vs Angle. They hyped it as this huge match, and it lasted 13 minutes . Plus in no way shape or form should Joe have lost cleanly, at least not in the first match of a supposed "series" of matches. TNA was much better last summer/fall and I don't think that they have really put on a PPV this year to compare to any of their shows from last year. Oh well, I still have Joe in ROH, where he will probably wrestle at least 2 high profile matches in '07 against Noah guys(Morishima and KENTA). I'm done with TNA and WWE, I will be watching ROH and Puro(Noah,Dragon Gate) until something cool happens.

Do yourself a favor, and take him to a Ring of Honor show. They are running Chicago this very weekend actually. No C-list celebrities, no D-list wrestling talent, only smartly booked and exciting wrestling. End of rant

Well, even though RVD lost both belts in successive nights, I felt the WWE protected him well. The only way Big Show beat him was through the interference of Heyman. The plan is once he gets back from his suspension, he will get the same push, so basically he will be hotter than ever since getting screwed over by Heyman. I am glad to see that RVD will be getting a chance to redeem himself once he comes back, I thought his big chance had gone up in smoke .On another suspension-related note, it seems Kurt Angle's time off is really a suspension, but no one will say what for....

RVD and Sabu the new Cheech and Chong? Sorry, but I had to post this: Wrestling stars busted in Hanging Rock By Kirsten Stanley/The Ironton Tribune Monday, July 3, 2006 10:10 AM CDT HANGING ROCK — Two wrestling superstars from Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment may be tough in the ring, but they didn’t have enough muscle to escape drug charges after being stopped Sunday night by the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Robert Alex Szatowski, aka WWE and ECW champion Rob Van Dam, and Terry Michael Brunk, aka Sabu, also a former ECW champion, were pulled over on U.S. 52, near Patrick Street in Hanging Rock at about 10:15 p.m. The two were apparently driving from their performances at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena earlier in the evening. According to the OSHP, Szatowski was initially stopped for speeding. When troopers approached his vehicle, they smelled marijuana and performed a search. Troopers found the wrestler in possession of 18 grams of marijuana and five Vicodin, prescription pain pills. Brunk was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and also had nine pills that were not immediately identifiable, but were known to be controlled substances, according to the OSHP. Both were cited and posted bond at the scene. Szatowski, of Battle Creek, Mich., has had a long, successful career with both the WWE and ECW. In addition to being the current champion of both, he has been intercontinental champion six times, hardcore champion four times and has been a part of several championship tag team duos. He is scheduled to wrestle tonight on WWE Raw and is also wrestling Tuesday night to retain his WWE and ECW titles during the “Extreme Rules Match†on the Sci-Fi channel. Brunk, who lists his hometown as Bombay, India, on the WWE Web site, has also had a successful career with the ECW, earning world heavyweight championship titles two times and tag team championship honors three times. Both Brunk and Szatowski are scheduled to appear at 10 a.m. Thursday in Ironton Municipal Court. Both wrestlers won their matches last night in Huntington, W.Va. Van Dam defeated the Big Show and Sabu defeated Justin Credible.

I agree that was pretty confusing, but the way I understood it, the entire island wasn't made of the stuff, just the bit of kryptonite Lex had encased the crystal in had been dispersed throughout the island. So, not enough to kill him on the spot, but enough to weaken him so Lex and his boys could put the beat down on him. I liked the aspect that Superman couldn't just pick this thing up and wisk it off in to outer space and turn back at the camera, wink and smile and fly off. It truly looked like he was dying when he watched that island floating away. Now of course, we didn't need all the hospital drama for a good twenty minutes because we all know that Superman wasn't dying since this is the re-launch of the series, but I guess it was as good a time as any for Lois to drop "the secret that everyone saw coming a mile away". I did enjoy the movie, and will probably go see it again with my wife's family, just because I enjoyed the FX.

I enjoyed it, and thought that for what it was(popcorn movie) it was actually pretty good.The scenes of Superman in action were quite awesome and really conveyed a sense of that these things were only things that Superman could do. It was rife with cliche's, but that has been the norm for any "blockbuster" for quite a while. They make this movie for the lowest common denominator;dumbed-down so "everyone" will enjoy it. For everyone poking holes in the already paper-thin plot, GET OVER IT, it is a comic book movie. I was around for the first series of Superman films and while this one does absolutley nothing original, it does a decent job of re-hashing a lot of ideas from the first 1 and 1/2 Donner films.

Did anybody hear about the ECW house show over the weekend at the famed ECW arena? Highlights included: -The debut of my personal hero CM Punk, in a win over Stevie Richards. -The crowd chanting "this show sucks" and "don't come back" at the Big Show. -Paul Heyman had to come out at one point to try to placate the crowd, which crapped on the "new" ECW all night, (with the exception of CM Punk's debut). He basically told the crowd that they should be thankful that ECW is even back at all. -RVD beat Kurt Angle. Speaking of RVD, when are they going to get the WWE title off of him so we can get in to some original ECW angles? This whole thing is a train wreck, and what makes McMahon think he can start a NEW brand when his other two suck to high heaven ?

IWS, are those guys back-yarders?( ) sorry, couldn't resist. I've seen them as well, and if you like that style, they, along with CZW are some of the best at it. I prefer ROH because it reminds me of the classic matches I watched growing up. Like in the "real" NWA(Flair/Steamboat/Midnight Express/Road Warriors) the UWF(Dr Death Steve Wiliams/Terry Gordy/"old school" Sting). Even better, they present it much like the Japanese, more like a sport. So that means we don't have to put up with a 60 year old man parading around with his ass hanging out talking about his latest trip to the salon for an "asscial", as well as making out with surgically-enhanced divas to prove to us what a man he is .

Jerry Lynn works for TNA, he had been an agent of sorts after an in ring injury( a bad Juvi driver). He has started working some TNA shows, most notably the one they just had in the former ECW arena. RVD wanted Lynn for this years ONS, but obviously that didn't happen. Mike Awesome(along with Masato Tanaka) stole last year's ONS, and as far I know, "wasn't available" for this year's. Take that for what you will, it has been rumored that he wanted too much money, which I can believe, and mentioned the '06 ECW PPV on his website, pretty much burying it(probably because he isn't involved ). He works for Pro Wrestling Noah in Japan(another great promotion) most of the time now anyways. Super Crazy works on Smackdown, but from the looks of this weeks spoilers, he may be headed back to ECW to give the WWE "superstars" they are feuding with someone to beat up. Is it any wonder I primarily watch Independent/Japanese wrestling ?

Well the debut of the "new" ECW was certainly crap .....They need to distance themselves from the WWE if they are ever going to even remotely appear to be the "outlaws" they are supposed to be. The catch-22 is that they need to involve the WWE, because they have so far only felt the need to sign washed-up never-was wrestlers and use them to get regularly get punked-out by the "thug" John Cena. If Paul Heyman pulls this off, it will be a miracle. I can already see Vince and his writers' hands all over this. Oh yeah, for whoever asked, the zombie was a jab at Sci-Fi for requesting genre-specific characters such as aliens, a time-traveller and vampires. Everyone who wants to see some cutting edge wrestling with storylines that do not insult your intelligence, please seek out Ring of Honor. Booked by a former ECW employee, Gabe Sapolsky, ROH is as close as your going to get to ECW(smark fans and all). ROH has consistently been the best wrestling promotion in the U.S. since oh, about the middle of 2004.

Well, that's a waste of Samoa Joe's time, especially since Steiner's known not to sell to anyone. TNA's beginning to lose my interest now that Sting, Nash and Steiner are in it. Right when the X-Division was to be the future of pro wrestling, Jeff Jarrett decided to bring in more has-beens. It's WCW all over again. 407565[/snapback] I wouldn't write it off yet. I fully expect Joe and BPP to stiff the holy hell out of each other and for Joe to win. They are pretty much building up Joe as their main player, as in the tag match last month he kicked out of Jarrett's finisher, TWICE . They are just using these WCW guys to draw fans in to the product and put the younger guys over, case in point: who has the belt, Christian Cage. Trying to find WCW's audince is smart, because when the WWEvil bought WCW, WCW's fans(that they had left) just stopped watching wrestling, the ratings show this. Plus Low-Ki is now in TNA, and a Joe/Low-Ki match HAS to happen!!!

I am sure that they are trying to pop a good rating for the debut show, but with Cena and Edge both appearing Tuesday night, I can already see what this is going to turn out to be. While I wouldn't mind Edge and Lita as the new "Franchise" and "Francine" of the new ECW, I want John Cena off my TV, RIGHT NOW!!!! Oh well, at least I have the Samoa Joe/Kenta/Bryan Danielson ROH match and Samoa Joe vs Scott Steiner (TNA) this weekend

It was an ok show, and I agree the crowd made it in certain sections. I am disappointed in the booking of the "title change" although I highly doubt Heyman was allowed to book it. My big problem was that it felt like the "old" ECW, and not in a good way. ECW 10 years ago was cutting edge and trend setting, but that was 10 years ago. I have faith that Paul Heyman can come up with interesting concepts/angles but he better get started Tuesday. It was fun to watch, but in no way has it been on any level of any of the Ring of Honor shows that I have watched from this year(and it only costs $20 for a 3-plus hour show as opposed to $40 for WWECW). Looking forward to Tuesday....

Did anybody watch the WWE vs ECW special Wednesday night? It had a decent Rey vs RVD match(where RVD went over CLEAN on Smackdown's world champ) and some terrific "shoot" commentary between Tazz/Lawler/Styles. I'm not totally sold on Vince's new "brand" of ECW, but after reading some interviews with Heyman, he seems committed to re-inventing ECW, not re-treading old material. He also mentioned utilizing not only poorly-used WWE talents(Big Show), but OVW and Deep South talent as well. CM Punk vs Sandman practically writes itself!!

**SPOILER AHEAD** You better not go watch the movie then.....

The only problem is that Virtua Cop is a lightgun game, and without said attachment, the game is pretty well bland. 400326[/snapback] Well, they do make light guns for the XBOX....I have 2 sweet ones that have the slide action like the old Time Crisis guns.

Picked up a copy this morning, pretty cool so far (I'm on level 3-1). Nice graphics and some cool gameplay tweaks. Best bit of old school fun I have had in a while, and gets me psyched for the new Paper Mario game coming up. If anyone wants to save some bucks, Circuit City has it for $28.

The rumor according to the new EGM is $250, which I feel is a mistake, as that is too high for the "perceived" underpowered nature of the system. It needs to be $200 or less, which ironically is what someone from SEGA is saying that it will be. About all the talk about how this is just barely more powerful than the Gamecube and that Nintendo is "recycling" technology, that is laughable. Nintendo is the only company who CONSISTENTLY makes money on games. Not Sony, not Microsoft. They realize that you can only take graphics so far, and there is no sense in cramming a machine full of ridiculous "specs" that mean next to nothing if the games are either too complex or take 45 seconds of load time just to play. Somebody will drop out after this generation of game systems, especially if Sony is planning on losing $900 million dollars on the PS3 systems just to get them in stores(their forcast, not mine). These companies(Sony/Microsoft) cannot keep losing money like this, and Nintendo is the only one with the sense to realize this. Anyway games are supposed to be fun, and whoever has the most fun games will win..

Not really, I have watched both, and only own DVD's of Smallville, if that is any indication. Pretty corny, and not quite as cool as the Flash tv series from around the same time. The first Superboy(John Haymes Newton) they had on there was ok, but when they replaced him with the other(Gerard Christopher), they kind of lost me. And in no way shape or form did they have any villain that can compete with Michael Rosenbaum's portrayl of Lex Luthor. I highly doubt that even Kevin Spacey can eclipse him in my mind as the definitive version of Lex.

On a totally unrelated note, did anyone see the Samoa Joe/Christopher Daniels match last Thursday night on Impact? Brutal match, and Joe pulled out the Island driver from the second rope to put Daniels away .

Hate to hear that, his delivery as J was spot-on...Heat Guy J is still one of the "gateway" anime series I show to anybody who hasn't seen alot of anime. HIGHLY underrated show, and if anyone hasn't seen this show, don't sleep on it any longer!