Greetings.
Today's question comes from the star of Meekman's World, Paul Meekin.
From the age of 13 until 16, I was OBSESSED, I mean, OBSESSED with Bone Thugs N Harmony. I had an entire wall covered with photos & posters, an army of t-shirts & hats, and it was the only music I'd really listen to. I printed out the lyrics to EVERY song they ever did, and had them in a giant, organized binder. I'd sit and listen to the songs and work on memorizing them all. I'd buy an entire CD if a Bone member was featured on a song. I once bought a CD because collectively Bone was on a song for 30 seconds. No joke. I ran my own Bone website, and I even had a Bone Thugs N Harmony gold pendant. When a new album was coming out, I'd make a count-down chart starting at 60 days out and keep it in my binder. So every day at school I could cross a day off. I know for those few years, I was the biggest Bone Thugs N Harmony fan in the entire world, and I had some pretty stiff competition. For some reason. Bone generates some massive & loyal fans.
So, once I became 16, for some reason I just started to lose my interest. Which is good, because behavior like that, devoting so much time to something that doesn't help move you forward is for when you're young.
How say you?
Just updated WCW in 2000 with a review of the Nitro where they had the rockin' Triple Cage War Games! Russo in a War Games? Hell yeah wcwin2000.wordpress.com
Today's question comes from the star of Meekman's World, Paul Meekin.
"I recently got "fired" in my long-running game of Booking Revolution after playing for 4 straight months and likely at least 40+ hours.
I find myself nostalgic for the game and the matches I booked and such, despite the fact this game isn't real, the people in it aren't real, and it's probably a waste of time in the grand scheme of things.
Thus the question: What totally arbitrary interest have you invested the MOST time in, only to either be snapped out of it by someone else, or your own psyche. You can't answer pro wrestling."
From the age of 13 until 16, I was OBSESSED, I mean, OBSESSED with Bone Thugs N Harmony. I had an entire wall covered with photos & posters, an army of t-shirts & hats, and it was the only music I'd really listen to. I printed out the lyrics to EVERY song they ever did, and had them in a giant, organized binder. I'd sit and listen to the songs and work on memorizing them all. I'd buy an entire CD if a Bone member was featured on a song. I once bought a CD because collectively Bone was on a song for 30 seconds. No joke. I ran my own Bone website, and I even had a Bone Thugs N Harmony gold pendant. When a new album was coming out, I'd make a count-down chart starting at 60 days out and keep it in my binder. So every day at school I could cross a day off. I know for those few years, I was the biggest Bone Thugs N Harmony fan in the entire world, and I had some pretty stiff competition. For some reason. Bone generates some massive & loyal fans.
So, once I became 16, for some reason I just started to lose my interest. Which is good, because behavior like that, devoting so much time to something that doesn't help move you forward is for when you're young.
How say you?
Just updated WCW in 2000 with a review of the Nitro where they had the rockin' Triple Cage War Games! Russo in a War Games? Hell yeah wcwin2000.wordpress.com
easy: pro wres--
ReplyDeleteoh :(
Video games.
ReplyDeleteI have been creating the same NFL team on video games since 2001. I recreate the team each year, making adjustments of cutting players, adding new guys, etc.
ReplyDeletea couple of years ago I guess I had an unhealthy obsession with DreamTeam, or as the yanks call it, 'fantasy football'. Just calculating stats in class and pouring over blogs and forums in my spare time. It's like what Caliber alluded to, at that age you need to be taking school seriously, you only get one real go at it.
ReplyDeleteThat's my thing too.
ReplyDeleteAnd mine.
ReplyDeleteI dig video games, but I'm so obsessed with my "career" at this point, that I don't allow myself to play them for fear of getting too sucked in, and spending too much time doing that instead of working. The only games I allow myself to play are Resident Evil. When it comes to those babies, I'm helpless, I gotta play'em until I've achieved every possible thing there is to achieve and then some.
ReplyDeleteIf your career is writing, you could always write about video games along with everything else too.
ReplyDeleteDo you not have self control as it relates to video games?
That's what I do! http://www.bing.com/search?setmkt=en-US&q=Paul+meekin+video+game+review
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I do. I'm actually working on an article right now.
ReplyDeleteI have self control, yeah, but if I spend an hour playing Final Fantasy, I feel guilty and think "Shit, man, you should have been working on an article, or a video. You can't be bullshitting right now, you haven't earned it. Hustle hustle hustle". Weird, I know.
Hey, I always forget to ask you, did you ever see The Raid: Redemption?
ReplyDeleteAs a video gamer, you may enjoy this, Meeker...
ReplyDeletehttp://scrublife.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/a-tribute-to-burliness-in-8-bit/
I sure did. I thought the first half was very lacking, and then all of a sudden they just packed in the action. People talked about it like it was one of the greatest action films of all time. It was pretty good, but not absolutely stunning & incredible.
ReplyDeleteI thought Dredd did the "escape the building" thing better, but damn if Raid wasn't an absolute blast.
ReplyDeleteBoobs. Not much has changed.....
ReplyDeleteMrs. Parallax1978 the 1st! HEY-O!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't nearly that bad, but similar at the same age with Smashing Pumpkins. Just an ENORMOUS fan. Don't get me wrong, I would still say they're my favorite band ever, but now it's almost annoying how often they come on when my iTunes is on shuffle.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen the Dredd remake yet, but when I saw the previews I thought it was very reminiscent of The Raid.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Tony Jaa's The Protector? That's absolutely fantastic, one of the greatest martial arts films of all time. The stuff Jaa does is stunning.
I'm glad someone else said something like this.
ReplyDeleteI still do this one sometime: on College Hoops 2k8 (not the very last college basketball video game ever, but the last good one) I'll manually update the rosters of the top 30-40 teams every year for that season.
And then I recreate various great Illinois teams to play as, or mix-and-match players from different teams. Or add two great former players to whatever current team Illinois has to make them a national title contender.
If I get bored at work I'll sometimes think of a team to create. It's so bad I often make teams with high-profile recruits Illinois famously/infamously missed out on or had decommit from them: Eric Gordon, Derrick Rose, Charlie Villanueva, Corey Maggette, etc.
And then I'll play a few games with said team and get bored and make a new one.
Masturbating, before my first girlfriend.
ReplyDeleteI've never actually lived the life, but I always thought farming was really cool. The big beards, the overalls, the full brimmed leather hats, the hoedown dancing, hanging out with pigs and midgets, coming to Hulk Hogan's aid, harvesting...I don't know, it all just seems so cool. Maybe I'll buy a couple acres and make a go of it someday.
ReplyDeleteAlso, playing ukulele is a hobby that's been occupying some of my time lately.
High Five!
ReplyDeleteAre you trying to imply that you've stopped?
ReplyDeleteI finally saw Dredd and was HUGELY disappointed. I felt the action looked hokey in many spots, the film was far too self-serious for the content, and the characters did little to make me care.
ReplyDeleteMost annoying was the overused slowdown effect of the drug. But it did have good stuff -- some of the actual firefights were good, the two leads gave strong performances and the film was much closer to the books than the original. But yet I'd still probably rather watch the original film, as cheesy as it is.
I recognize I'm in the minority, of course. Just didn't feel the movie at all. Even the Nolan Batman movies, as grim as they were, had some moments of levity here and there (Alfred and Lucious Fox provided many of them). This movie had none, and with fake CGI blood everywhere.
I guess they' could've played the girl off of Dredd's super-serious character a bit more, but that is picking at nits in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteDoes wrestling-related answers count? Because there was a time period where I spent hours and hours on No Mercy, running the same matches over and over with my own little fed of CAW gimmicks. It was pretty sad. Then years later as an adult i'd do nearly the same thing with Universe mode on SvR 11, except with real wrestlers. However I always made indie guys (and a few TNA guys) and had them in their own brand separate from the WWE guys. And i'd go on CAW sites and either copy or create my own super realistic CAWs using multiple makeup layers and stuff. In both cases, the realization that if I spent all that time doing damn near anything else i'd probably accomplish a lot more in life was what snapped me out of it.
ReplyDeleteI will note The Protector right now. Thanks for the recommendation.
ReplyDeleteBefore video games could really do sports simulations well, Strat-O-Matic Baseball. To the uninitiated, it's basically a tabletop card game with MLB players as the cards, with real-life data comprising each player's chart of results (you then roll dice to come up with the results of each AB). I have binders full of tournaments and seasons of random years of sets I had (1990, 1995, 1998).
ReplyDeleteNow with sports gaming being able to fulfill my "run the world" tastes (and now just about all of them let you control every team simultaneously), I play Dynasty modes in the major sports with a OCD-level of being true to the real-life rosters; for instance, with MLB The Show, every day I make sure each team's rosters reflect the injuries, call-ups, and trades respective to the real-life counterpart so that their lineup and team more or less mirrors how it was on that particular day (a great feature the dev team threw in is an option to manually set injuries outside of gameplay). Like with my Strat-O-Matic, I also have results of my sports game Dynasties over the years, from MLB The Show to Madden to NBA2K to FIFA. Then in each offseason, I pour over real-life data and adjust the attributes for all the players in the game manually (I usually buy sports games every other year unless it's a huge leap forward). While I love doing all of this, the downside is that it's so time-consuming, it gives me a gigantic backlog of games that I have to catch up with.
Did the same thing. Hell, first thing I did with WWE 13 was buy the Attribute Editor and spent all day tweaking everyone's attributes until they were juuuuuust right. I also have a binder full of results from my SVR06 GM Mode, which is still my favorite mode of any wrestling game. STAR RATINGS!
ReplyDeleteAlas, with the advent of Community Creations, I usually just download the best CAWs of the guys I want, since they usually do a much better job of it than I on my best day. But pre-SVR 11, I would spend WEEKS making realistic CAWs, then in the games where you had to power up their attributes through Season, do just that for each one.
Ha, well if you want specifics I don't masturbate as often as I did as a 13-14 year old. Hence, I don't waste as much time on it due to the incorporation of girlfriends into my life.
ReplyDeleteMan, around 1990, my buddy had Earl Weaver baseball for the Tandy. That shit was an amazing emulator. You basically loaded the stats (I used the Bill James yearly almanac), with splits (advanced metrics!) and players performed a variation of those numbers, with some variables from season to season. Did so many seasons on that, it's scary.
ReplyDeleteGuys. Guys. Booking Revolution. I SWEAR TO GOD it will fill that void!
ReplyDeleteDoes it work on the Mac? I'm one of those weirdos that doesn't own a PC.
ReplyDeleteKind of off topic now, but those ratings on WWE were really bad. And not even in a way that's all like 'omg Punk is waaay better than Cena', i mean in a way where the system is flawed. The worst wrestlers on the roster, Epico, Santino etc should have ratings in the 40's and 50's, wheras the best should be in the low 90's, and lets say legends like SCSA and UT are mid-high 90's. The entire roster is bunched from like 75-95, meaning you have Zack Ryder ending the streak in universe mode, and R-Truth is the unified champion of the world. There is no challenge value in defeating big stars with lesser stars because the difference is so small its unnoticeable. I should have seen it coming based on the philosophy of 50/50 booking, but still a big disappointment that the WWE itself doesnt understand the concept of their being a defined lower, middle, and upper card.
ReplyDeleteSir. it's on your phone. YOUR PHONE. YOU CAN PLAY IT WHILE TAKING A SHIT. http://www.rspwfaq.net/2013/04/meekin-on-movies-onbooking-revolution.html
ReplyDeleteAlso it's strange because when I started my game I had made caliber my commissioner, and never bothered to change it to me. Similarly I still have versions of Xanadude and the Fuj running around in my universe.
ReplyDelete"When a new album was coming out, I'd make a count-down chart starting at 60 days out and keep it in my binder."
ReplyDeleteThat's kinda....odd.
But then we all are.
I suppose the one thing I've spent an ungodly amount of time playing has been Championship/ Football Manager - the most in-depth 'soccer' management game ever.
It's a fantastic game at its best and I would often run through press conferences in the bath. I also felt genuinely hurt if any of my favourite players fell out with me.
But I'm not at the furthest end of the fandom; it's a game that's been cited in at least two divorces - whereas I often take months-long breaks from it. When you get sucked back in though...
Comic books. Reading them, trying to write them, trying to get my friends to read them. One semester of college, I deliberately set up my schedule so I could walk to Phantom of the Attic on new comic book day and read the entire week's haul between classes. Now, I don't remember the last new comic I read for myself (not counting Tiny Titans, which my seven-year-old loves).
ReplyDeleteCan my answer relate to Pro Wrestling? If so, the old WWE Raw Deal game had me "all-in" from early 2001 to late 2004, with one six-month break late 03-early 04.
ReplyDeleteI still have my "second collection" (the original was sold off right before that first break), and have nearly filled it out completely. Just missing a few ultra rares, and the late set rares/uncommons/commons (at least in a decent quantity).
If anything wrestling is out... I really don't have a solid answer. I go through books/games/hobbies like Peter Griffin chasing a line of candy. "Ooh, a few Star Trek books. Ooh, a new PS3 game. Ooh, a new PC game. Ooh, a football dice game. Ooh, some WW2 books. Ooh, Three Stooges DVD collection*."... and so on.
*: The REAL Three Stooges, in a 7 DVD collection. Not the joke that was the "remake/reboot". Much like the Star Trek version, I REFUSE to acknowledge it, except as another sign of modern media's failure.
+1 for this, definitely. I played the hell out of Raw Deal, and still miss the game dearly following its untimely demise in 2008. Played competitively, won events, placed high in major events... awesome game, even though the designers were maybe a bit too biased towards specific wrestlers.
ReplyDeleteI think I need to bust our some EWR now.
ReplyDeleteThe "power curve" was never truly balanced IMO... and only got more pronounced in its ups and downs as the new sets came out.
ReplyDeleteThere is a fan site that still makes "new" cards (including new superstar sets) and has "kinda" balanced the game out... but it's just too damn unwieldy... again IMO.
If you're referring to Team Canada Online, I'm well aware, but I haven't kept up. I wasn't even aware that they were creating new sets until about the... 4th or 5th online set, and by then, I was way too far behind and didn't want to expend the energy. Just gonna have to remember the good ol' days at this point.
ReplyDeleteAs I've grown up and moved away from the old social circles, I've dropped a lot of stuff that I used to do obsessively. Video games, Magic the Gathering, Hero Clix have all just disappeared from my life.
ReplyDeleteI still play video games, especially MLB The Show, WWE games every other year or so and random other non-sports games, but I used to stay up late into the next morning playing games. In the words of Roger Murtaugh, "I'm getting too old for that shit."
The gaming, though? I haven't played in years, as I have no one nearby that would be interested. My girlfriend's mother and brother bought me some DC Hero Clix for Christmas. I had to stifle a "What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?" God knows my girlfriend won't play...
That was one of my goals when I adjust the attributes, making each superstar feel different from each other with their strengths and weaknesses and thin out that 85-89 bunching up. That's why I'm glad they offer the tweaking, because the default ratings are fucking awful.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I too had Earl Weaver Baseball on floppy, that too took a good chunk out of my childhood.
ReplyDeleteso much we could do with paul meekin
ReplyDeletegeekin' with meekin'
gleekin' with meekin' (either the spit thing or the monkey)
peakin' with meekin' (like big poppa pump's peaks)
greekin' with meekin' (i dunno, rollin' around in feta cheese or something)
reekin' with meekin (no bathing allowed!)
tweakin' with meekin
ok, myabe not that last one
' What totally arbitrary interest have you invested the MOST time in, only to either be snapped out of it by someone else, or your own psyche'
ReplyDeletethinkin' chicks will like me and tryin' to get dates
when i was a teen and in mah 20's i was all convinced that i'd have girlfriends and stuff.
reality kinda snapped me out of that pipe dream
... i'm a lonely asshole :(
I'm reading this while taking a shit, and am now intrigued!
ReplyDeleteI like to have stuff to waste time with at work (I'm a supervisor!:D) so that might have to be something I check out.
See I played '11 on the Wii, so i'd need to copy the formulas. A lot of them were subtly different or didn't have outfits so some creativity was in order. I made a great Roderick Strong once, and nearly blew a blood vessel trying to get the Briscoes right (too many layers between their tattoos and adding makeup to get the eyes right, could never quite get it.)
ReplyDeleteDo you also have binders full of Divas?
ReplyDeleteI imagine I got shit done, too.
ReplyDelete"coming to Hulk Hogan's aid," Bwhahaha. Love it!
ReplyDeleteBone Thugs is still cooler than mine: ...get ready....you're gonna laugh... Huey Lewis and the News. Newsletter subscription, bought the 45 singles despite already having the songs on cassette and not having a working turntable, posters, t-shirt, etc. Seeing Back to the Future a second time just to be sure I caught his cameo. Now I'm totally indifferent.
ReplyDeleteTrue story, you took United Kingdom Wrestling to the number 1 spot among the 8 promotions, signed CM Punk, John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Dolph Ziggler, and Sting, had over a million dollars in the bank, then you were fired because I forgot to hire a girl wrestler before the deadline.
ReplyDeletePaul heyman was the owner, so, after being fired, I was able to restart in that promotion, and the money was down to 388k. Fucking Heyman.
NCAA football on ps2 and 3. Played dynasty mode and lost track of how many seasons I went through. Just so much time spent
ReplyDeleteOnly briefly played EWR - but that was the wrestling equivalent of FM.
ReplyDeleteNo, but I do keep women in a basement and carve their skin so I can make an AJ suit.
ReplyDeleteIT PUTS THE LOTION ON THE SKIN OR ELSE IT GETS THE HOSE AGAIN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W6gToNl-DQ
http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/binders-full-of-women/MyBindersFullOfWomenExploded.jpg
ReplyDeleteYeah... I was gonna say Pro Wrestling...
ReplyDeleteIts really the only thing I have been obsessed with... until gettin pussy took over.
Cal, i knew you liked Bone... damn... Im from Cleveland and wasnt that obsessed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9kDT44DBXs
ReplyDeleteum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9kDT44DBXs
ReplyDeleteSame here. And you aren't the real Devin Harris.
ReplyDeleteNah bro - when I started the game to review it i put a few BOD personalities in there so the screen shots would look cool. SOMEONE obviously didn't pay enough attention :D
ReplyDelete:(
ReplyDeleteIt could have been on one of my sabbaticals.
I'm a part-timer now.
Linkage?
Only thing that compares with me is my imaginary pro-wrestling federation, using some real and some made-up guys. My friend and I both ran our own "feds", but I literally did this for YEARS, right into college, just wrestling out imaginary matches in my head based off of what kind of wrestling I liked.
ReplyDelete