But then you have a weekend like this past one and you’re reminded exactly why you love it, and it goes much farther than just whether you like or hate John Cena (he is still the man by the way). The tribute paid to Ric Flair, both with his last match, his Hall Of Fame Induction and his farewell on Monday Night RAW where many of his old competitors met him at the ring as well as the entire company’s roster was one of the most touching moments I have seen in a long time. A wonderful tribute not just for Ric as a wrestler but as a man who has come full circle in his life in the ring, and has proven to be a role model and a leader even in the later stages of his career, and even at nearly sixty years old, a treat to watch in the ring.

Wrestling isn’t exactly the kind of sport that brings you to tears. It can bring you great excitement rooting on the wrestler you like (or the bad guy you want to get over), anger at the storyline not going your way, but not generally the joy that brings tears, but you couldn’t help but feel as strongly as everyone in the ring, everyone in the arena, heck, everyone in the stadium at Wrestlemania, at the appreciation, the love for someone who meant so much to their passion and business. Watching guys who are legends of the current day show just how appreciative they are of the legends of the past AND current was unbelievably cool. My wife was even welled up watching it, how could you not be?!

I’m admittedly a younger fan in terms of Ric Flair. I watched WWE far more than I did WCW back in the 90′s when I cared, and only saw Ric weekly in the days of Evolution. His exuberance for his work, the fun you could tell he had when he was out there was wonderful, and this is me watching him at the end of the career! Even in those last few years, he made both a good heel and face, and rare is the wrestler in any era who does both well.

I’m sure I will be doing more wrestling posting in the near future, because I have the event that I’ve watched that has rekindled the interest for me even more, and trust me, I will miss seeing Ric in the ring, and will be glad every time I hear a “Woooooo!” from the crowd.

• The Wedding and Honeymoon
• Gaming News @ Min-E3
• The normal links and tech thoughts
• Sports & Wrestling

You know, the normal topics you’d expect to see here. Expect to see a little bit of that this weekend as I trip through Cincy at wedding showers and family time (always important). In the meantime, check out the gaming blog of a fellow Short Attention Gamer, Teh Bagder. His deals and thoughts on gaming are excellent, and well worth reading every day.

Instead, driving to take care of family matters, some understandable, some ridiculous, I will spare the blog readers from everything, because it would make you nuts too, but nonetheless, it was late entry stuff that kept us from attending Stephen’s WrestleMania party in Cincy tonight.

But, with broadband speeds in the car thanks to the JackBlack … I can at least always try and stay in the loop!

Did I mention that there’s times that I still can’t believe that Danielle now loves wrestling?!

Monday Night at RAW, K-Fed gets lit up by John Cena in a very impressive stage showing on RAW (which I am proud to say I attended!).

Next day, he’s dumped by Britney.

I almost can’t wait to see the dialogue on RAW next week, it can only get better and better! Oh, and I guess that does mean that K-Fed will have that money he stole all to himself soon. (See Cena video, it’ll make sense)

Of course, the moment you wonder why kids like this feel like they can act like prima donnas and say whatever they want and get big heads, a team of players (including 2 from Pickerington, the metro area of my new home), got a million dollar contract from MLG. I don’t know whether to be happy for them or scared for where gaming is going, but I think it’s more scared. I guess at the end of the day, I’m much more of a gaming purist, and a million bucks to play Halo doesn’t seem real pure. But, more power to ‘em, if someone offered me that, I’d sign the contract before someone had the chance to reconsider.
Anyways, on to more fun stuff.

Over at RetroMags where I help out with distributing the magazine scans, the board there has a very cool “Battle RPG” type system built into the forum software. You use weapons to attack other users, build hit points and strength, and even get money to buy potions and other items by interacting on the forums, and you don’t have to be into Nintendo Power to post, there’s talk about gaming systems, current events, all kinds of stuff. Anyways, there’s about 12 active participants, and guilds are just beginning. I’d love to see a few of the regulars who post here every now and then peek over there and start to participate. The more people playing, the more fun it is. Ben would be proud to know I’m playing ANY RPG anyways!

I’ve also began a Pokemon NetBattle server for Game Junkie players to hone their skills. You can read about that on the Game Junkie forums, as I want it to be just for the Junkies. If you’re not one, go sign up and post and become one and see why I love the store and the people so much.

That’s all for this one. Tomorrow I’ll write about my job some, which I have now been at for 3 months, and it could not be going any better!

P.S. – Thank goodness my boy Cena lost the belt. I want to see him chase for awhile, even though he is the man.

• The Sunday Night Heat match featuring “The Untouchables” as a tag team group was flat out ridiculous, although they did show some pretty good wrestling moves, and they are a tag team on RAW, something you barely ever see anymore.
• Shawn Michaels being set up by the Spirit Squad to face the wrath of Kane, taking the shirt they deftly gave him, swift kicking Rob Conway, and putting the shirt on him … then helping John Cena win his title match at the end of the show. Laura would have enjoyed watching all of that (and hopefully I’ll have some basic footage up soon!)
• The fun banter between myself (Cena fan) and Bradley (Triple H fan)
• Danielle cooking one awesome meal, and me actually baking extremely good BBQ chicken. Stephen can back me up on that, I hope he comments so that it will actually be believed!

A lot of fun, I’m so glad that the guys made the trip up. I’m sure I’ll read up on Stephen’s Smackdown experience in Cincinnati yesterday on his blog today. I sure did pay the price last night though from all of the time awake … I was dead to the world! But all better today and back on top of things.

(Links for much of the above coming soon)

The wrestling group (this consists of Nathan, Stephen, fresh back from a weekend in Windsor), Laura, and Drew and myself) decided to save a few bucks and go to Hooters and eat some wings and watch some wrestling … of course, that’s a great plan unless their satellite doesn’t work! So instead, it’s a comfy night @ the KP watching Summer Slam 2003 and trying to keep down those jalepeno fries that weren’t that good anyways. Ahh yes, all is well with the world.

More on the weekend at the Junkie later.