Wrestlemania 27

Classes are over for now and I was just thinking, "What big things are gonna happen soon?" Of course! Wrestlemania 27! For those of you who live under a rock or oppressive dictator, Wrestlemania is only the biggest event in the WWE and arguably all of professional wrestling. This year, like the years before it, is promised to be the like the bestest evar. I've been watching the WWE shows leading up to Wrestlemania and there's a lot of hype definitely. I'd like to offer my thoughts on each match that's in store.

WWE Championship: The Miz vs John Cena

To be perfectly honest, I don't give a crap about The Miz. However, if you've read a previous post of mine, you'd know that I absolutely loathe John Cena so I'm praying to several gods that he'd lose. I am aware that a Cena victory is pretty likely as he, regrettably, really is the face of the WWE with an army of small children behind him who buy merchandise. The only reason I'm holding out is that The Rock is involved in this feud. Also, The Miz' butt buddy, Alex Riley is probably gonna be running around and doing stuff. Maybe something interesting will happen. Maybe not. But if Cena wins, I'm gonna run out to the street and punch a lamppost until I'm arrested.

World Heavyweight Championship: Edge vs Alberto Del Rio

I think Edge will win. I don't think ADR is ready to be champion just yet. I have a gut feeling or maybe its just indigestion.

U.S. Championship: Sheamus vs Daniel Bryan

This match has a lot of potential. I've seen some of Daniel Bryan's matches on the tube and he's pretty impressive. I'm a fan of Sheamus by the way. I think he's hilarious and gingers are too marginalized and underrepresented in television and sports. Daniel Bryan can sell Sheamus' hard hitting moves very well and make him look good while Sheamus has the strength to support Daniel Bryan if he goes for the more tricky maneuvers. I expect both performers to look good. Although I'm a fan of the Celtic Warrior, I'm hoping Daniel Bryan wins this one. That way, Sheamus can be drafted to Smackdown where I think he'd do better. Hey, its just a thought.

8-Man Tag Team Match: The Corre vs Santino & Kozlov/Kane & The Big Show

I think The Corre is gonna win this one. I may have said shit about the Corre in the past but The Corre turned out a much better group than say, The Nexus. Last time I checked, each member of The Nexus was getting their head kicked in literally and effortlessly by Randy Orton. But I digress. Santino and Kozlov or "The Allied Powers" as I prefer to call them, are an interesting duo but they're a comedy duo. Its hard to take them seriously and even harder to picture them winning in Mania. Kane and The Big Show or "The Big Red Machine" or something...are two of the slowest men on the roster. I almost fall asleep watching them. Why are they here again? Oh yeah, They're feuding with The Corre. Right. They don't need this win. It doesn't make sense for them to. The Corre is gonna win and hopefully look like a competent and legit stable. Their shirt designs still suck though.

Mixed Tag Match: Trish Stratus/John Morrison/Snooki vs LayCool/Dolph Ziggler
Barf. What's a "Snooki" and what the hell is it doing in my Wrestlemania. This is problematic. This match could be a mess with a "celebrity" from Jersey Shore in it. If the fans in the arena are good sports, they could let this slide as simply a weird idea some writer had while drunk. If not and they boo loudly for someone in the face team then its only gonna be more awkward. Who's gonna win? Trish's team of course. Call me a cynic but Trish's win would benefit that Tough Enough show she coaches or something. I expect a lot of good wrestling from Morrison and Ziggler. With Snooki and LayCool hanging around, both men are gonna have to carry this match. Both are good wrestlers but another thing they have in common is they suck on the microphone. Curious. I feel bad for Ziggler actually. Losing here would just add to the growing pile of suck his career has been. Somebody give this guy a break.

Rey Mysterio vs Cody Rhodes
Interesting. Cody Rhodes was pretty funny with his pretty boy narcissist gimmick but it would seem he's changing his gimmick to something more serious. Good for him. There's no way he'd be a champion with his silly, old, hard-to-take-seriously-as-a-legitimate-threat gimmick anyway. Rey Mysterio could make Cody, ahem, "look good". I hope Cody wins. A loss here would break the momentum of his new character.

Jerry Lawler vs Michael Cole w/ Jack Swagger Special Referee: Steve Austin
Say what you want about Michael Cole but I think he's a terrible character and I don't mean that in a "love to hate" kind of way but in a "hate with every fiber of my being" way. He's an announcer OK? It's important for him to call the match and help explain to us why we should care. Its not his job to get involved. The same goes for Lawler. Hopefully, this match will put an end to this feud and nonsense. If Cole wins then we'll never see the end of it which is why I think Jerry is gonna win this one with a little help from Austin who is also in Tough Enough too, I think. If Jerry wins we can finally bury this feud and shut Cole up.

CM Punk vs Randy Orton

This is a match I actually want to see. I'm a fan of CM Punk. He's an excellent heel with awesome mic skills and great ring skills too. Randy Orton's character has gone stale recently. Orton is boring to watch. His character is supposed to be a dirty, rotten scumbag who would do anything to get what he wants. Instead, Randy has become some kind of a good guy anti-hero? It just doesn't fit. A Punk win would solidify Punk as a top performer and doom Randy back to the bottom where he can get back to plotting revenge and acting all ruthless and shit. By the way, The Nexus was also supposed to appear in this match but only if they could beat Orton. None of them did. Oh man, it was a brutal burial. I think The Nexus is dead. Good.

Main Event: No Holds Barred: The Undertaker vs HHH

Ah yes, the most hyped up match in the card. Its "The Streak" vs "The Game". Who will win? Could The Undertaker's 18-0 streak in Wrestlemania finally come to an end in the hands of Triple H? I expect this match to be brutal. The thing that worries me is that The Undertaker is a pretty old guy and he can't perform as well as he used to. I expect Triple H to bear the brunt of the hits then. It's gonna be a slow match with a strong finish. I think The Undertaker is gonna win this one for three reasons: Firstly, The Undertaker isn't ready to retire yet. I can't find any official info if he's gonna hang up the boots in this event. Last year, Shawn Michaels went up against Taker but we pretty much knew Shawn was retiring and that was his last match. His loss was a foregone conclusion. I can't see the same signs here. Secondly, Triple H doesn't need the win. If Triple H wins, what's he gonna do? Go after the Heavyweight Title AGAIN? He already said it himself that he's done almost everything in the business except end "The Streak" which brings me to my third point. It's not time to end "the streak" just yet. Hell, let it go up to 20-0. By that time, hopefully, there will be some new talent, someone worthy, someone ready to be the new face of the company who will end the streak and become a god. Triple H doesn't have to be the one to end it. He's already hogged all the glory.

I'm looking forward to the show.

Takitha - Walking Through The Darkness

Last Week on Earth

Well its finals week. If there ever was a time to reacquaint yourself with a merciful God, it would be now. Its the last hurdle before summer vacation and also the last chance to make up for all the screw-ups in the past, especially the clusterf*** that was the midterms. Holy hell, did the midterms suck.

Seriously, I feel edgy.

Something Political

Ever since the Cold War, the world is often seen through the eyes of either Communism or Capitalism. Even today there's still a lot of discussion about the flaws of one and the brilliance of the other. I thought I would write about my thoughts on the matter since, upon review of my previous posts, I haven't written anything even semi-serious for a while. If you're not into this I suggest the reader go search for my review of Speed Grapher.

There is Capitalism and there is Socialism. I don't say Communism outright but we'll get to that. I'll try to keep it simple because this shit gets old real fast. Capitalism is characterized mainly by two things: private property and the free market. In a Capitalist system, people have the right to own property, even the means of production, and produce goods and services for profit in a free market. Depending on the government, state intervention in the free market is minimal, adopting a laissez-faire policy and stepping in to enforce fairness among competitors and prevent monopolies. The market is driven by supply and demand.

Socialism, you could say, is the "opposite" of Capitalism but that's not entirely accurate. Socialism is characterized by collective ownership and allocation of resources. That does not mean to say nobody owns anything, its just that the means of production belongs to the government and resources are distributed based on merit or contribution. Socialism, as an economic theory, should not be confused with Communism, Marxism or Maoism or what have you. Socialism is a feature of the latter theories. One can be a Socialist and not be a Marxist. It is possible, in fact, for a country to be Democratic and be Socialist. Socialism just means that the state owns. How that state is run exactly is another story.

I prefer Capitalism to be honest. There are several reasons why I choose so and many of them take into consideration the experience of being raised in the Philippines and observing and studying the culture. But as my favorite teacher in Political Science taught me, to better understand a political philosophy, even that of your own, it is important to first discuss human nature. so I have to write about that first.

I believe men are essentially equal and have innate rights. Man has a right to to be free and to live as he pleases. However, the problem is obvious. If man has a right live as he pleases then what is there to stop him from causing harm to another? That is where government comes in. People establish government as a means to settle disputes between one another to the effect that all men live within their rights and not trample on the rights of another. John Locke basically.

But what of property? Let's say, a man plants a mango tree and through his care and effort it grows big and bears a fruit. Is it his mango tree? Of course it is. His labour produced his property. I believe that property is a natural right. Does another man then, have the right to come in and take a mango? The thought is offensive. To put it differently, if a man builds his house by the river, can anyone just go inside?

The role of government is to regulate property to the end that there is no conflict between individuals and everyone's rights are protected. Government should not be the one to determine who will own what and how much for the simple reason that man is the master and not the slave of the state. The right to freedom and property are innate. Some may believe otherwise but this is my own. What I'm basically saying is that man owning property and producing what he wants to produce is his natural right as a free person and that the state exists to protect him and his property from others.

What about goods and services? The rule is that if there's a demand, somebody is bound to cater to it. The man who owns the many mango trees can hire people to help him harvest it but he has to give payment in exchange. Physical labor too has a value and payment for services is a way to approximate how mach that labor is worth. If a man agrees to help harvest the mangoes in exchange for five sacks to himself cannot blame another who agrees to do so for only three. Naturally, the cost of the service would shrink to the lowest one is willing to do it for against the overall desirability and ease of doing the service itself. If they can go no lower than a price of two sacks because one sack wouldn't be worth the effort, then that's how much the help to harvest the mangoes cost. The value of a thing is determined by how much one is willing to buy it or sell it for.

If my explanations seem simplistic then that's because life doesn't need to be complicated.

So why don't I agree with Communism? It's not that I hate it. Theoretically, people could decide by themselves, to ditch Capitalism and agree to form a Socialist government. There's nothing wrong with that actually. Human beings are intelligent and if they desire Socialism then who's to stop them? The problem that I have is that in my opinion, it won't work and is dangerous.

While many view the world in terms of Capitalism versus Socialism or worse, Capitalism versus Communism, I view it as man versus X. What is X? X is the force which seeks to dominate man. At first X was nature; beasts and the wilds. Man, of course, banded with others for protection but where societies rose, so did conflict between man and man. Thus, man formed a government and granted it power to settle disputes and rule over them to protect them from each other. But when you grant something power, its kind of a big deal. As societies grew so did the government and its power until you had the kings, the tyrants, the dictators and the fascists. The deal now is man versus the state.

Keep this statement in mind, "Nothing is perfect."

Living here in the Philippines, a government that's quite western as far as Asia is concerned, taught me many things. It taught me never to trust government. The importance of understanding our relationship with government has never been so dire. Ultimately, its not about Communism, as many leftists and rallyists would say, but about our inefficient government plagued with corruption and incompetence. Assuming you have a Socialist state of mind and are living in a country like the Philippines, ask yourself this; "Am I willing to give the Philippine government control of my property?" That's what Socialism would mean. That's what Communism, Marxism, Maoism, Rocky Road and all flavors of Socialism would ultimately boil down to. I, for one, don't want the government to decide who owns what, how much one gets or whatever. That's too much power. In a country where political connections can get you places even farther than your actual ability, it would be beyond ironic to see such government distribute goods based on how much it thinks you deserve. You think our patronage plagued system would even know what merit is in the first place?

Which is why I am pro Capitalist. If we are a truly Democratic Republic that respects our right to life and freedom then it should also include property. Our system of Capitalism is a bulwark to massive government abuse. Even now, the system of Capitalism is under assault in this country. You have crony Capitalism, the unholy marriage between bureaucrat and businessman, colluding together to violate fair competition. You have the bureaucracy in general which seems to hate success and taxes it accordingly. You have a weak justice system undermining property rights and slowing everybody down. Since when did squatters have rights to enforce against legal land owners? Then you have senators who, when they're not busy "solving problems" by inflating the government with new offices and dividing provinces to make even more positions, are funding "projects" to their favorite underlings and making the Filipino pay it with his earnings, his labor!

Whenever there is poverty, it is usually blamed on corporate fat cats and Capitalism. Well, that's partially true given the cronyism but know this; the government DOES NOT produce the wealth of this country and DOES NOT have the right to "distribute" a wealth it DOES NOT own. It is the small businesses, the traders, the workers and etc. Through their labor, wealth is produced and they did it all by themselves. Nobody ever told some guy to build a chain of successful malls or a chain of fast food places. No bureaucrat demanded that there should be Internet and cell phone service providers. Its when people are left alone to live their lives and make names for themselves, free from the intrusion of people who don't know what they're doing, that there's progress.

In summation, I believe a Capitalist system, with its freedom, competition and innovation, is more conducive to economic progress than Socialism, which although pretty on paper, tends to give too much power to government.

OK, quota filled.

Vampire Knight

I decided to relax a little and spend some free time to write that review on Vampire Knight so I decided to watch it. I wish I hadn't because watching this stupid anime almost made me forget every single thing I've learned. I swear, it scrambled my brain so bad, I woke up in the kitchen the next morning. I don't know why.

So let's get to it.

Vampire Knight is an anime about vampires. Yup. This is a shoujo anime and for those of you who are fortunate not to know what that means, its an anime catered to girls. Young women to be exact. Shoujo anime tends to be stupid so I thought I would get some perverse giggles and shits but all I got was a damned headache.

The story takes place in Cross Academy but its no ordinary school. There's a Day Class and a Night Class. The Day Class seem to consist of nothing but fangirls. The Night Class however are all incredibly attractive vampires complete with sparkles and shit. The Day Class (ALL of them) have the hots for the night class. There are just two prefects apparently that protect the Day Class from the Night Class and they're our main characters of the story.

If I may digress for a moment, I'd like to point out how stupid this is. I mean, its established and constantly mentioned that vampires are a threat to the ordinary muggles so then, why even have a Day Class? What's the point of having both humans and vampires hanging around the same academy? Why not just have an academy exclusively for vampires and have the humans study elsewhere? My friend told me that he read the manga and that it explains later on that the humans are trained to fight vampires. Its never mentioned in the show and I don't give a shit about the manga. Although I forgive him for reading the manga, that explanation only makes it worse. If the humans are being trained to fight vampires then don't you think they would be taught what a vampire is and how to spot them? Wouldn't they probably instantly suspect the "Night Class" then and maybe fight them? Does the school want conflict or something? Well, as I'll explain later, conflict drives this anime...pointless and ultimately boring conflict but hey, a theme is a theme.

Yuki is the main character and self-insert sue for the female audience. In a flashback, she's attacked by a vampire, one of the mean, beast-looking ones and not the sexy sparkle ones. She's saved by a young vampire named Kaname who is also a major character in the story being a "pure blood" vampire and leader of the Night Class. Oh yeah, and there's some shmuck named Zero who angsts a lot. Here's a picture of him smiling.

Zero is not only appropriately named but he comes from a clan of vampire hunters who were killed by vampires. I guess they weren't very good at vampire hunting. As expected, he hates vampires and thus hates his job which involves being near vampires, which he hates. He hates vampires. He hates Kaname because Kaname is a vampire who is also an important figure in the Night Class which is composed of vampires and he hates them. While he's not hating, Zero is angsting because Zero is a vampire himself. He angsts about being a vampire because being a vampire sucks(lol) for him because he is a vampire hunter. Irony, get it? GET IT? Angst. Angst. Angst. At one point he contemplates shooting himself with his anti-vampire gun because NOBODY UNDERSTANDS. Also, he's hungry for Yuki's blood and only hers apparently.

Maybe I should get to the story. Well, there isn't any. I know eventually there's some big deal about Zero's evil twin and the vampire countess that bit him coming out of nowhere or something. That doesn't really matter. The main plot is sidetracked by this huge love triangle between Yuki, Zero and Kaname. Its this conflict and drama that take up much of the time. You see, Zero eventually bites Yuki because of DA HUNGR and Yuki willingly consents to it because she...cares for him? I guess she does. Biting is referred to almost like sex by the way, so yeah. Kaname is upset at what Zero did so I guess Kaname feels strongly towards Yuki? Maybe. I mean, Kaname talks shit to Zero but he doesn't do anything. He claims he wont kill Zero because it might upset Yuki so he allows Zero to bite her on a regular basis? I guess he's OK with that. What pansies, both of them. Yuki has feelings for both guys but don't hold your breath on her making some kind of declaration. Also, there's tension between Kaname and Zero too but you need to have a twisted mind to see it.

This is Vampire Knight in a nutshell. It's a sappy anime made for girls featuring vampires and a love triangle that goes on and on and on. The love triangle seems pointless. Nothing really happens when you think about it. There's no actual sex or anything. The episodes just keep going on milking the drama for all its worth. The sexual tension gets really high and I can see how women would find this appealing. It's just like Twilight. Nobody ever talks about the fucking PLOT in Twilight (If there even is one) but instead talk about Team Eddie Gordo or Team Jake "the Snake" Roberts. The thrill is in the drama and tension. I can't say the build up made sense in Vampire Knight though. It seems near the end the anime grudgingly decides to pursue the "serious" story about Zero confronting the countess and his twin. Honestly I can't even remember how it went. All I know is that when Zero confronts his twin, the anime throws in some incestuous subtexts in there just because and as an apology for the fangirls.

So in conclusion, this anime is all about the love triangle. The story is full of sexual tension that may be well made but ultimately doesn't go THAT far. Unfortunately, nobody rapes anyone. It is made perfectly for the female "Twilight" audience. Why did I even watch this?

My head is caving in.

It Begins

Somebody help me.

Depeche Mode - Suffer Well

Looking For Shitty Anime

I've downloaded and watched some shitty movies recently. Some were pretty OK like Endhiran, while others like Revenge of the Ninja sucked so bad, it was funny. Some were so terrible, I couldn't bear to finish it let alone write about it like Endgame. If you're curious, Endgame was a movie starring Olympic gold medalist and pro wrestling star Kurt Angle as a serial murderer/rapist. Yeah...

So now, for a change of pace, I'm gonna look at some shitty anime. The last shitty anime I wrote about was Speed Grapher, if I recall. Right now I have two choices; The first being a general overview of my old favorite, Samurai X, and how it was awesome but got increasingly shitty especially in the third arc. My second option is Vampire Knight, an anime about vampires and love so I know it's gonna suck and literally. Its marketed towards girls so its perfect pain for a young man such as myself. If anyone who reads this blog and knows me, please help me pick my poison.

Go dig up my Speed Grapher column if you haven't.