Monthly Archives: April 2011

2011 WWE Draft Analysis

2011 WWE Draft Analysis
By: Andy Napier
4.30.11

So here are my thoughts on the 2011 WWE Draft (Lottery).

On the RAW babyface side…

Teasing John Cena going to Smackdown, talking it up for nearly two hours, and then pulling it back at the last minute reeks of “Haha, you smart marks, that’ll show you” booking. It doesn’t make me angry, but it’s a prime example of WWE focusing on stupid things that seem to be on the show to amuse themselves rather than to get someone over or sell a pay per view. I actually really would have liked to see Cena on Smackdown, interacting with a lot of new characters.

WWE not Wrestling

WWE not Wrestling?
By: Jason Spencer
4.2.11

It’s becoming more and more a known fact that Vince McMahon has a love-hate relationship with wrestling. The bottom line essentially is that he doesn’t want it to be known as “wrestling” but simply entertainment. That’s fine to an extent, after all the athletes in the ring have not been referred to as wrestlers for quite some time, and the championship cannot be called a belt. Instead the athletes are Superstars and Divas and the championship is a title. Aside from the fact that a title is an intangible object, I really have no problem with that vernacular unless the context of the story or scripts causes it to sound childish, goofy, or otherwise incorrect. For example the line “Edge and Christian are one of the most decorated tag teams in entertainment history!” Really? I’m pretty sure they’ve only ever been wrestlers so as much as they may hate it, wrestling history was definitely more appropriate. Plus I’m sure the likes of Batman and Robin would dispute the claim.

Power Rangers Samurai vs. Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger

Power Rangers Samurai vs. Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
By: Jason Spencer
4.1.11

Since I spent so much time either working on my Power Rangers fan fiction project: Legend Untold (Look in the Entertainment Section), as well as researching and re-watching the beginnings of the franchise. I decided I would make a concerted effort to watch Power Rangers Samurai and see what Haim Saban had in store for the franchise he had created. Additionally, I decided I would watch the new Sentai Series TOEI was producing, the 35th installment, Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. After watching both for about 7 weeks I can see very clear differences in how Saban and TOEI approach the series.

From the very beginning Power Rangers has been a kid’s show and has featured a certain level of cheesiness to it. However, Samurai seems to have cranked up the amount of cheese they’re adding. If I hadn’t watched the first six seasons of the series, I may have just brushed it off as me being older. I suppose some might say it’s because I have nostalgic feelings for the early years. I can honestly say I don’t think that’s the case. Watching the older episodes, I would have moments where I would laugh at something that wasn’t supposed to be funny or cringe at a stupid plot point, but it didn’t seem to detract from the show’s “enjoyability” factor. Samurai feels very different, as it should as a separate entity in the series, but it’s not a good different. With the exception of one or two characters, most of them seem very rigid. Think about your class mates in high school when reading aloud in class, or performing nervously in a school play. That’s about the same performing ability some of the actors appear to have. Now, I’ve read online a couple of times that it’s believed the producers and directors have asked the cast to talk like they would to children, which I guess could be seen as an excuse. If that is the case, and people want to use that excuse, I would like to direct their attention to Hector David, Jr. who portrays Mike, the Green Ranger. Even if his lines are corny or written for a child, he still delivers it like a pro and it makes his character seem more human than the others. Aside from acting chops, which the show arguably has had issues with before; the whole story dynamic seems off to me. This might just be caused by one essential problem, the fact that we never got an introduction episode. The only thing I know is that the bad guys were gone, and somehow they came back, and that the power the Rangers possess is passed down from family members. Oh, and they’re apparently not allowed to do anything but be Rangers unless they get permission from their Mentor guy, who they ironically call “Mentor.” I don’t exactly get why there are missing Zords, or why they need special Kanji symbols, or why there are numerous discs floating around that anyone can seemingly use. I might be a tad bit on the nit-picky side, but I want the plot to flow and tell a story, not be convenient based on Sentai footage. Perhaps if that was better the dialogue between characters wouldn’t matter because one could just focus on the story. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers didn’t offer many arching plot points, but the ones they did were better than this. Even filler episodes (I know this term is debatable) either allowed for some character growth or didn’t distract you from the overall story. I guess time will tell if Samurai will get any better, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly disappointed with it so far.

I have never watched a season of Super Sentai start to finish. Likewise, I have never watched an episode of Super Sentai before I saw the adapted season of Power Rangers. I must say though, I am really enjoying Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. I haven’t even watched an episode with sub titles and I enjoy it! The characters are very well portrayed by their actors, and I think it makes the show very unique. For those unaware of the show, Gokaiger has a pirate theme, as well as an anniversary theme. The main characters are space pirates who have I guess captured or were given access to powers of past Sentai teams. Their morpher, is of course a phone, but it has a key slot where they can insert different keys that represent different Ranger powers. In addition to this fan-boy friendly theme and story, the fight scenes are absolutely incredible. Even if you can’t find sub titled episodes you can appreciate the stunt choreography they’re pulling out for this show. Having not seen past Sentai and only 6 full Power Ranger seasons, I wasn’t fully aware of this, but the show’s producers are going out of their way to make sure they accurately portray each past team when the Gokaigers change into them, even down to their specific fighting styles. Go stunt people! I can’t comment on the dialogue since I have not seen sub titled episodes, and frankly there is probably a culture difference between Japan and the United States that would probably muck up a comparison. One thing I will comment on is the seemingly lack of dialogue in fight scenes. People have been a bit annoyed by the cheesy one-liners during fight scenes in Samurai that just seem unnecessary. I would agree, and I would point to how Gokaiger seems to stick with the basic “Hi-ya!” jargon we probably all imitated from Season 1 of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. However, one characteristic that Gokaiger has that benefits them in this case is their fighting attitude. Sometimes they may have an “I don’t really care” mentality others they have a sense of showmanship so their physical actions and body language do more for the show than any one-liner could.

These are just some of my initial thoughts on both shows. My opinions may change moving forward, there are still lots of episodes left for both shows. If it were a competition, though, Gokaiger would be winning!

Unfriendly Facebook

Unfriendly Facebook
By: Jason Spencer
4.1.11

So some of you may be already aware of the perceived ego of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and I can now give you a perfect example!

As you can see on the left hand side of this page we have a Facebook Page for the site. (UPDATE: Now it’s the right side!) You may also know that on Facebook you can create what they call a “username” for your personal profile or a Facebook Page. Personally, I never really wanted a username on my personal profile, but I thought having one for the website’s Facebook Page seemed like a good idea.

When you have a Facebook Page you’re only really “logged in” as the page when you’re actually on it. Now they’ve changed this feature so you can set it to be your default account, but that would mean I couldn’t communicate as myself, but only as the website. That seemed silly, so I never tried it. Well there is an “Edit Page” button on the Facebook Page when I’m on it, just like there is an “Edit Profile” button one your personal profiles. So I clicked that button and was looking in the Basic Settings of the Facebook Page where I say a section for Usernames. It then said “Click Here to Get a Username,” so I did. Unbeknownst to me, I was redirected to a generic Usernames page that was not specific to my Facebook Page, but instead my overall account. So when I selected “soweweretold” as the username it instead applied it to my personal profile. I was mad. Furious, even. Now any visitor to facebook.com/soweweretold would be directed to my personal profile instead of the Facebook Page I had for the site!

So I decided that this could not stand, and it needed to be fixed pronto! I went to the bottom of the page and looked for a “Contact Us” section that every website on the freakin’ Internet seems to have. It did not exist. I decided to click the Help link and look there for contact information. That only seemed to give me an index to already answered questions. No luck there. So I thought, well surely there is an email address. Nope. Nothing posted anywhere.

I would like to say that I haven’t been on Myspace in forever and a day, but I do recall them having such an email address. One time my cousin’s account was hacked and Myspace suspended it, to her it looked deleted. So I emailed their support service and helped her get it cleared up with them. Her profile was restored and everyone was happy. The fact Facebook seemingly didn’t want people emailing them made me very frustrated.

So I then went to Google and searched for something like “Facebook Contact Info,” and I stumbled upon a phone number. I decided to call the California based company and explain my situation to them in hopes they would resolve it.

I got one of those automated messages telling me to push buttons or enter my party’s extension. The menu went like this…

For Customer Service, Press 1

I pressed 1, and heard the following message, “Facebook does not currently offer Customer Service.”

WHAT??

Well that being the most retarded thing I thought I heard, I redialed and listened further…

For Customer Service, Press 1
For Law Enforcement, Press 2

(I guess I could have claimed I found a Sex Offender using my website’s name)

For Businnes Development and Advertising, Press 3

Well, being that I’m trying to start my own business and use the name So We Were Told in association with it, I pressed 3. I was then told by the same automated system that they don’t currently offer phone support but I could email them at partners@facebook.com.

Really? They couldn’t just put that email address on the site? They made me call them, and then they tell me to email them. That seems a bit stupid to me.

So I email them and basically explain that I assumed since I clicked on “Get a Username” while on my Facebook Page that the name would be applied to that instead of my personal profile. I then stated that I considered “So We Were Told” my intellectual property since I own the domain soweweretold.com, and that I was in fact starting a business based on it.

I got a generic “We received your email, but we get so many we may not read it” message sent back.

I then found a way to change my username for my personal profile. Apparently they give you one “do over,” but now it says “soweweretold” is unavailable. Well of course it was. I had it. But I freed it so I could use it on something else! I then emailed Facebook again with that update, and ironically didn’t get the generic return email.

Three days later I still don’t have it.

So the lesson here is: Facebook is too egotistical to bother to help anyone other than Law Enforcement (because they have to) and their username system sucks!

If I am ever able to get us a Facebook username for the site’s Facebook Page, I will let you all know.