I dropped fifty words in this edit and tightened every thing up. There was a lot done in the intro and the beginning of the action. After this step I would have other people look at it to get feedback on what I should change, this next edit might take a while as I need opinions before I make changes.
Edit: I have removed the story so I can submit it to places. I should have thought of that when I started this thing. Although I hadn't planned on writing something of good quality, just a demo piece.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Seeing the Editing Process
So to keep myself active I'm going to show you fine readers of my blog the process I would go through to edit a story from rough draft to something good. Normally my editing process is very long because I'm bad at editing, but I'm going to keep it fairly quick for this go around. Here is the rough draft of a flash fiction piece I wrote tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to post the first draft with my edits. After that I'm going to get crits from friends and then post a second draft on the blog and you can see how things change with each edit. So with that said I present the flash fiction piece.
Edit: Removed so I can submit this beast.
Edit: Removed so I can submit this beast.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Bird Banded
I'm doing the Terribleminds flash fiction challenge that had these Inspiration Pictures to create a story on. I went with #1 because it's so ridiculous I couldn't resist.
------
------
Finally our band had its first paying
gig and I slid into the costume then stood up to let it drop down to
seat itself. I strapped on wrist braces to hold the wings off my
hands enough to play then the tech worked the guitar over the head of
the raven costume. Three years I had played without any costume for
nothing except for occasional studio gigs, but finally Vladov, Yuri,
and I created Quoth the Raven and after four months of playing in
parks and wherever people might here somebody got interested in a
trio playing music in bird costumes.
I walked onto the stage and the bar
was packed, but mostly with drunks, not with the kind of person who
seemed like they would be interested in our music. Vladov sat down at
his drums while Yuri went to the microphone with his bass slung low.
“We are Quoth the Raven, and this is
The Murder.”
Vladov
started off with a slow beat, but as he slammed hard on the bass drum
I started thrashing out the chords on my guitar. It was a sonic wave
and it woke up even the hardcore drinkers from their stupor. An old
lady looked up at the stage from her nearly empty glass and screamed.
She threw her seat to the ground and charged at the stage, more
specifically me. She screamed about the giant birds as she she dove
into my legs. I shifted my balance to stay on my feet, but beyond
that I had no clue what to do. The costume made playing guitar hard
let alone doing anything else, and I didn't want to hit this lady.
Vladov pounded away on the drums apparently unaware of the lady's
attack, but Yuri had stopped playing and was just laughing.
His
mirth was cut short when one of the other patrons shattered a chair
over the back of his head and sent him sprawling to the stage. Vladov
stopped playing, stood up, and with his costume got tangled up in the
drum set and fell down with a clatter. I turned to the left and saw
another guy coming toward the stage and I took a punch to the face,
the costume providing some padding, but the mask got turned around
and left me blind. I staggered, but with the lady holding onto my
legs I fell to the stage. I felt more kicks and stomps to my body
with slightly more cushioning as the suit was thicker in that area
before I finally started to hear the sirens of police cars. Normally
that meant time to flee before they broke up our sidewalk
performance, but this time it meant safety.
The
beating slowed as the sirens drew nearer, but it didn't stop until
the sirens had finished their approach. Somebody hauled me to my feet
and tugged the mask around until I could see out of it again.
“Looks
like you boys can't run away from us this time.”
“We
were supposed to play here,” I said.
“Did
they want you to start a riot?”
“Probably
not, but I didn't ask,” Yuri said.
The
pithy response got him a police baton to the midsection and he
doubled over gasping for breath. The cops pulled us out of the club
with the drunk lady still screaming about the giant birds attacking.
Afterward came a bunch of the assailants. Thankfully the band got our
own paddy wagon to the station, and I knew this was the final time I
was going to play music in a bird suit.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Wrestling for Free
I went to my mail box eagerly today
hoping that I'd gotten a bunch of Ring of Honor DVDs in the mail, and
I was disappointed, although I figured they wouldn't be in, I was
just hoping they would be since it was my day off. The good thing
about being a wrestling fan is that I don't need to spend money on
DVDs to see new matches and get a fix of my hobby. Thanks to Youtube
and similar sites there are hundreds of hours of wrestling free to
view whenever I could want to. The easiest things to find are WWE and
Puro matches. WWE has a lot of television matches that they don't
seem as worried about taking down and it's a great way to check out
old Velocity matches where you can watch Bryan Danielson when he was
one of the local talents they'd bring in to lose to midcarders. It's
also the best way to check out matches from guys that are never going
to get a DVD release. You can see all the awesome Jimmy Yang vs. Paul
London matches, and other great stuff like that.
The real gem of Youtube is being able
to watch puro for free. NJPW and NOAH are the two that seem to have
the biggest following and not care that the matches are put on the
internet since they don't really sell tapes or PPVs in the USA. There
are whole NJPW and NOAH shows uploaded and the some of the best
matches you are going to find are there to watch for free. Dragongate
has the style of wrestling I like the best, but since they have a
branch in America now they seem to patrol Youtube a little bit to try
and keep matches off there. At least I've noticed the DG matches from
my wrestling playlist disappear unlike any other Japanese promotions.
With twitter becoming more popular a lot of American wrestlers who go
to Japan are promoting that fact. The one that sticks out the most to
me is MVP who tweets out youtube links to his matches all the time as
well as somebody who made a playlist of his NJPW matches.
It's a pretty awesome time to be a
wrestling fan and I forget that once in a while. It was one of Colt
Cabana's Art of Wrestling podcasts that reminded me that there is all
that wrestling on Youtube. Which I kind of knew because I go in
streaks of watching matches on there, but it's the kind of thing you
need to be reminded of. I don't have to worry about tape trading and
that hassle because everything is there to get easy. And even buying
wrestling can be that quick with video on demand and Smart Marks
downloadable content as well as IVPvideo, which also offers a free
download every week. And going back to the beginning of the paragraph
the Art of Wrestling is a phenomenal podcast to listen to as a
wrestling fan. Cabana gets all kinds of awesome guests and then has
great conversations with them that are fun to listen to and easy to
enjoy.
Beyond watching full matches on Youtube
there are a lot of really good editors who make wrestling music
videos. I did that for a while as well, and didn't reach anywhere
near as high as the best can do. When they cover a subject you love
they're fun to watch, or a great way to introduce people to
wrestling. And then there is always the genius that is botchamania.
It may cover the downside of wrestling, but it is never not
entertaining, and the recent addition of CZWmania is awesome as well,
although I feel for Masada showing up so much. I really like him, but
I blame it on him being in death matches and CZW's not very wrestling
proficient roster of death match workers. Either way they're fun to
watch and if you don't want to spend money on wrestling there is
always free wrestling to watch.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Wrestling Match of the Day
I've been watching some wrestling on youtube lately because I've been working on creating a playlist for one of my friends who needs to be exposed to not WWE wrestling. One of the matches I watched today was fucking awesome and I wanted to talk about it, so this could be a thing I'm doing more often on this blog. The match I'm going to talk about is KENTA vs. Naomichi Marafuji from NOAH (10-20-2006) and you can watch it at the link below. Afterward I'm going to give some of my thoughts so you should watch the match first if you don't want stuff spoiled.
KENTA vs. Marafuji
The combination of KENTA and Marafuji as a tag team is what got me into Japanese wrestling to start with and their matches against each other are awesome as well. It's always a little weird to watch some Puro after a break from it because of how different the style is from American wrestling, either the WWE style or Indy wrestling. The basics are similar, but the nuances are different in the styles and allow wrestlers to do stuff different and the displays of fighting spirit are always cool to see in puro matches and this match is no exception.
This was one of the later matches between the two and they tease a couple of moves that they'd done before, and just trademark moves in general that are countered because of how well the two wrestlers know each other and it is cool to watch. They do a spot on the apron where KENTA teases a German suplex to the outside, but Marafuji holds the ropes to counter. It's a spot I've seen in lots of matches, but I don't think I've ever seen it succeed. If anybody can show me when a German suplex has been hit from that setup I'd like to see it. Of course after a bunch of teases for apron spots at that segment they finally hit a move which is KENTA delivering a picture perfect falcon arrow from the apron to the floor and it sounds and looks brutal, and Marafuji sells it like a boss. The follow up springboard double stomp was pretty sweet as well.
That was a jump forward in time, but it was a nice slow build up between the two with submissions and nice counters and escapes between the two. Marafuji demonstrates how not to perform an asai moonsault at one point where he manages to knee KENTA in the face, busting him open, and draping himself chest first over the guardrail. It looked bad all around, but worked well in the match, and KENTA's bloody face looked intense. The presence of the elevated walkway to the ring is awesome, and they use it in the match. First with KENTA countering a shiranui by throwing Marafuji over the ropes and kind of onto the walkway and the ground which looked brutal. The two get on there and tease some suplexes before KENTA germans Marafuji off, but he kind of lands on his feet and nails a nice superkick.
The pace really picks up from this point and KENTA gets to demonstrate his love of kicking people really hard. They exchange finishers and near falls for a bit and then we get the display of fighting spirit which features a backdrop driver and german suplex for each man, before KENTA flips over on a German and delivers a spinning lariat that staggers Marafuji enough to allow him to deliver a superkick that puts both men down. The end sees Marafuji take control of the match and hit all of his trademark moves that KENTA kicks out of until he hits a cross leg fisherman michinoku driver. That's a complicated description for the move, but it looks good and is an awesome finish. Definitely a match worth checking out as are all of the KENTA vs. Marafuji matches.
KENTA vs. Marafuji
The combination of KENTA and Marafuji as a tag team is what got me into Japanese wrestling to start with and their matches against each other are awesome as well. It's always a little weird to watch some Puro after a break from it because of how different the style is from American wrestling, either the WWE style or Indy wrestling. The basics are similar, but the nuances are different in the styles and allow wrestlers to do stuff different and the displays of fighting spirit are always cool to see in puro matches and this match is no exception.
This was one of the later matches between the two and they tease a couple of moves that they'd done before, and just trademark moves in general that are countered because of how well the two wrestlers know each other and it is cool to watch. They do a spot on the apron where KENTA teases a German suplex to the outside, but Marafuji holds the ropes to counter. It's a spot I've seen in lots of matches, but I don't think I've ever seen it succeed. If anybody can show me when a German suplex has been hit from that setup I'd like to see it. Of course after a bunch of teases for apron spots at that segment they finally hit a move which is KENTA delivering a picture perfect falcon arrow from the apron to the floor and it sounds and looks brutal, and Marafuji sells it like a boss. The follow up springboard double stomp was pretty sweet as well.
That was a jump forward in time, but it was a nice slow build up between the two with submissions and nice counters and escapes between the two. Marafuji demonstrates how not to perform an asai moonsault at one point where he manages to knee KENTA in the face, busting him open, and draping himself chest first over the guardrail. It looked bad all around, but worked well in the match, and KENTA's bloody face looked intense. The presence of the elevated walkway to the ring is awesome, and they use it in the match. First with KENTA countering a shiranui by throwing Marafuji over the ropes and kind of onto the walkway and the ground which looked brutal. The two get on there and tease some suplexes before KENTA germans Marafuji off, but he kind of lands on his feet and nails a nice superkick.
The pace really picks up from this point and KENTA gets to demonstrate his love of kicking people really hard. They exchange finishers and near falls for a bit and then we get the display of fighting spirit which features a backdrop driver and german suplex for each man, before KENTA flips over on a German and delivers a spinning lariat that staggers Marafuji enough to allow him to deliver a superkick that puts both men down. The end sees Marafuji take control of the match and hit all of his trademark moves that KENTA kicks out of until he hits a cross leg fisherman michinoku driver. That's a complicated description for the move, but it looks good and is an awesome finish. Definitely a match worth checking out as are all of the KENTA vs. Marafuji matches.
Monday, May 14, 2012
RoH Border Wars
I watched Ring of Honors latest IPPV this weekend, and I worked Saturday and only caught the main event live, which was probably for the best as I missed the technical difficulties that apparently beset the show, but that does mean I get Best in the World 2012 free so that's pretty cool. So I thought I'd give some thoughts on the card and how everything played out.
Rhino vs. Eddie Edwards
A good match to start the show off. Both of these guys were crisp and hit some nice moves. The shenanigans in the ending sucked, and the presence of so many people willing to cheat in RoH makes me sad. It really takes away from what made RoH special. Still these two men did a good job to start the show.
All Night Express & TJ Perkins vs. Young Bucks & Mike Mondo
The match on the card that fulfills the spotfest need, and it does it in a good way. All six of these guys deliver in the ring and it's a fun match. All tag matches kind of bother me when they break down and everybody hits finishers and tries for pins when they're not the legal man, but it was a good match.
Jay Lethal vs. Tommaso Ciampa
This match began with some brawling on the outside of the ring which I think the match would have been better off without, but once it got into the ring it was a good match. The end with Lethal hitting ten backbreakers in the Lethal Combination before finishing it off was awesome. I'm not quite sure why they ended Ciampa's undefeated streak here, with it not really going anywhere, but I'm pretty sure it was Lethal's return that kind of ruined plans for that streak. Maybe they'll make this go somewhere good for Ciampa, but it probably means leaving the Embassy, which is the cheating heel faction I want to stay in RoH. Although they should lose some of the hanger-ons and get some wrestlers in the faction. A good match between these two.
Mike Bennett vs. Lance Storm
Storm looked awesome in this match and I was a fan of this match although Bennett is pretty vanilla heel, but this was one of the better matches I've seen him in. Storm was impressive with a leap to the top rope belying his age, and he also borrowed from his former tag partner, Jericho, and hit a nice codebreaker before getting the win. I haven't seen a lot of Bennett matches, but what I have seen hasn't impressed me.
Michael Elgin vs. Adam Cole
I've yet to see Elgin vs. Richards, and if everybody telling me how awesome the match is didn't convince me this match did. Cole looked good in this match as well, but Elgin was phenomenal and did some awesome stuff. This was my favorite match on the card. The best spot perhaps ever. Was Cole standing on the apron and Elgin stood on the second rope, lifted him up into a superplex falcon arrow. So good. I definitely need to make it a priority to find more Elgin matches.
Roderick Strong vs. Fit Finlay
This was a solid match, but I don't think there is a real reason to bring Finlay in to RoH. He's a perfectly fine wrestler, but nothing more than that. It also seemed to limit the amount of ridiculous backbreakers Strong got to do which made me sad although he did deliver some brutal sounding chops.
WGTT vs. The Briscoes
A solid brawl between these two teams, but RoH's production staff is not good at knowing where to be at the right time. Both table spots in the match were good, but I don't think a brawl like this really played into the strengths of both teams. The Briscoes do it, but WGTT are a little more tame in their weapon filled brawling, and the ending was not to my liking. I can see how it works, but again it's more bullshit that RoH shouldn't have. I'm guessing this is going to build to a Ladder War and I do love the idea of Shelton Benjamin and ladders.
Kevin Steen vs. Davey Richards
I really liked this match and everything was built up to well, although they did a few too many trading forearms spots for my liking in the middle and near the end of the match. There were some excellent false finishes and Richards hitting the DR Driver was the best. Steen delivered brutal looking powerbombs onto the ring apron in this match. I like the exposed turnbuckle coming into play since it gives Cornette a reason to say Steen didn't win fairly, without being truly illegal.
Overall it was a good show. Not great, but good and I don't regret ordering it at all, mostly because the problems didn't effect me.
Rhino vs. Eddie Edwards
A good match to start the show off. Both of these guys were crisp and hit some nice moves. The shenanigans in the ending sucked, and the presence of so many people willing to cheat in RoH makes me sad. It really takes away from what made RoH special. Still these two men did a good job to start the show.
All Night Express & TJ Perkins vs. Young Bucks & Mike Mondo
The match on the card that fulfills the spotfest need, and it does it in a good way. All six of these guys deliver in the ring and it's a fun match. All tag matches kind of bother me when they break down and everybody hits finishers and tries for pins when they're not the legal man, but it was a good match.
Jay Lethal vs. Tommaso Ciampa
This match began with some brawling on the outside of the ring which I think the match would have been better off without, but once it got into the ring it was a good match. The end with Lethal hitting ten backbreakers in the Lethal Combination before finishing it off was awesome. I'm not quite sure why they ended Ciampa's undefeated streak here, with it not really going anywhere, but I'm pretty sure it was Lethal's return that kind of ruined plans for that streak. Maybe they'll make this go somewhere good for Ciampa, but it probably means leaving the Embassy, which is the cheating heel faction I want to stay in RoH. Although they should lose some of the hanger-ons and get some wrestlers in the faction. A good match between these two.
Mike Bennett vs. Lance Storm
Storm looked awesome in this match and I was a fan of this match although Bennett is pretty vanilla heel, but this was one of the better matches I've seen him in. Storm was impressive with a leap to the top rope belying his age, and he also borrowed from his former tag partner, Jericho, and hit a nice codebreaker before getting the win. I haven't seen a lot of Bennett matches, but what I have seen hasn't impressed me.
Michael Elgin vs. Adam Cole
I've yet to see Elgin vs. Richards, and if everybody telling me how awesome the match is didn't convince me this match did. Cole looked good in this match as well, but Elgin was phenomenal and did some awesome stuff. This was my favorite match on the card. The best spot perhaps ever. Was Cole standing on the apron and Elgin stood on the second rope, lifted him up into a superplex falcon arrow. So good. I definitely need to make it a priority to find more Elgin matches.
Roderick Strong vs. Fit Finlay
This was a solid match, but I don't think there is a real reason to bring Finlay in to RoH. He's a perfectly fine wrestler, but nothing more than that. It also seemed to limit the amount of ridiculous backbreakers Strong got to do which made me sad although he did deliver some brutal sounding chops.
WGTT vs. The Briscoes
A solid brawl between these two teams, but RoH's production staff is not good at knowing where to be at the right time. Both table spots in the match were good, but I don't think a brawl like this really played into the strengths of both teams. The Briscoes do it, but WGTT are a little more tame in their weapon filled brawling, and the ending was not to my liking. I can see how it works, but again it's more bullshit that RoH shouldn't have. I'm guessing this is going to build to a Ladder War and I do love the idea of Shelton Benjamin and ladders.
Kevin Steen vs. Davey Richards
I really liked this match and everything was built up to well, although they did a few too many trading forearms spots for my liking in the middle and near the end of the match. There were some excellent false finishes and Richards hitting the DR Driver was the best. Steen delivered brutal looking powerbombs onto the ring apron in this match. I like the exposed turnbuckle coming into play since it gives Cornette a reason to say Steen didn't win fairly, without being truly illegal.
Overall it was a good show. Not great, but good and I don't regret ordering it at all, mostly because the problems didn't effect me.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Women's MMA (Invicta FC)
Saturday I watched a stream from Invicta FC which had a whole MMA card of Women's fights. And to tell the truth it was as good as any other MMA card you are going to see. The only downside I can see to the women's division in MMA is that they don't have a real heavyweight division which generally means you're not going to get the kind of fighters with more regular knockout power.
The Kaitlin Young vs. Leslie Smith fight was probably the best fight I've seen all year. Those two went toe to toe throwing huge strikes and neither went down. It was one of the few draws that seemed legit to me and a rematch between the two fighters should be awesome. I think it was important for them to have a fight like this on the card because nobody is going to look at this fight and say it was good for a women's fight. It's just a good goddamn fight and you can tell that they are putting everything they have into it, and neither one is backing down.
The card had some boring fights, but most MMA cards have a couple of those anyway, and a lot of the problems with the card probably come from the lack of exposure that women's MMA has and the difficulty in judging the talent when they don't fight regularly and don't get to fight at just one weight class because finding fights was difficult before. Hopefully the existence of Invicta Fighting Championships starts to change that and becomes a regular thing, especially if they keep streaming shows for free which is awesome.
Hopefully the impressive numbers the show did make the UFC realize their is a market for women's MMA and start promoting fights and what would be even more helpful for the division do a TUF for it. Hopefully Invicta gets to keep putting up shows and giving the women of MMA a place to perform.
The Kaitlin Young vs. Leslie Smith fight was probably the best fight I've seen all year. Those two went toe to toe throwing huge strikes and neither went down. It was one of the few draws that seemed legit to me and a rematch between the two fighters should be awesome. I think it was important for them to have a fight like this on the card because nobody is going to look at this fight and say it was good for a women's fight. It's just a good goddamn fight and you can tell that they are putting everything they have into it, and neither one is backing down.
The card had some boring fights, but most MMA cards have a couple of those anyway, and a lot of the problems with the card probably come from the lack of exposure that women's MMA has and the difficulty in judging the talent when they don't fight regularly and don't get to fight at just one weight class because finding fights was difficult before. Hopefully the existence of Invicta Fighting Championships starts to change that and becomes a regular thing, especially if they keep streaming shows for free which is awesome.
Hopefully the impressive numbers the show did make the UFC realize their is a market for women's MMA and start promoting fights and what would be even more helpful for the division do a TUF for it. Hopefully Invicta gets to keep putting up shows and giving the women of MMA a place to perform.
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