WM XXV pics

Nine minutes until the granddaddy of 'em all...here we go:

• Jericho vs. legends: This is such a waste of Jericho's talent. For balance sake, Jericho to win, only to get his comeuppance after thebell.
  
• 25-diva battle royal, "Miss WM": If Trish appears, she takes it. Otherwise, I can't see it mattering much.
  
• MITB: Tempted to say CM Punk to repeat. It's a bit soon for Christian, I'm not seeing Kane get the recognition he deserves. Otherwise, there may be no stopping MVP.
  
• Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker: 17-0. Nuff said.
  
• Tag Team Unification Match: Miz and Morrison are it, and deservedly so. Sorry Colons.
  
• Brother vs. Brother: Jeff comes out on top.
  
• JBL vs. Mysterio: I'm hoping JBL retires to take back the announce position, and reuniting him with Michael Cole on SD, and fixing the divorce that never should have been, with the King and JR on Raw.
  
• Triple Threat: Cena takes the belt, Edge and Show can fight over Vicky at Backlash.
  
• HHH vs. Orton: I'd love to see Orton come out on top, but you can't have the perfect heel win the last match of the night. So Trips to come out on top and avenge the Macmahon clan.
  

No Way Out picks

Sadly, for one of the smaller PPV's that I usually look forward to, this year's lineup is just underwhelming. Nonetheless, here we go:

Jack Swagger vs. Finlay: With the returning Christian in the wings, I can only imagine Swagger coming out on top for the more interesting feud. Swagger retains.

Shawn Michaels vs. JBL: Again, I can't really be bothered with this storyline. It's a weird moment for things to be coming to a head; where will that leave either of them for WMania? Unless things somehow get "postponed", HBK s bound to come out on top eventually.

Randy Orton vs. Shane McMahon: What does it say about your top heel when the owner's son can kick your ass? Orton on top, always and forever.

SD Elimination Chamber: Undertaker's streak make him being champion at WM too unlikely. Kozlov - don't get me started. Big Show - fun but not enough. Whic leaves Triple H, Edge and Hardy. I'm always nervous that they'll hand WM main event to Trips, but my gut says Edge, with Edge vs. Hardy at the show.

Raw Elimination Chamber: Even more stuffing than the SD version. This really boils down to Jericho vs. Cena. Cena to retain, against all odds, once more.

On the Rumble

In some cases, my reasoning was totally off, but results-wise, I was pretty close, essentially calling everything but the rumble itself. So they take Jeff's belt away, but they give him the one thing he says he hasn't accomplished yet: fight his brother. Should be fun - god knows his fight against Edge was, if you exclude the presence of the Guerreros.

Melina has to learn not to sell the result of the match as she's approaching the ring. I know you're excited, honey, but take a valium.

Could someone please remove weed from the wellness program and re-hire RVD??!? His pop was off the charts, as it should be. It was nice to see MVP generate interest as well, and I thought Morrison, and the whole first 5 or 6 participants, were very interesting - fast-paced, bouncy...until of course, they decide to throw in the Great Khali and Vladimir Kozlov. Yawn.

For a moment, there, I was afraid that Triple H would once again overcome the odds and headline the 25th edition of Wrestlemania. Ho hum. But now, they've actually gone with the much-improved Randy Orton. Yay! Which reminds me - certain people have been ranting and raving about the young Debiase, seeing in him the next Randy Orton. I generally concur that he is Orton-esque, but there's one slight problem: we already HAVE a Randy Orton, and he ROCKS. On his own. No legacy needed.

Rumble predictions

Hey, I've actually made it a whole day before the PPV...not procrastinating so much is kinda part of my cleanup resolution. It's about cleaning up my to-do lists, I guess. So here goes:

• Jack Swagger vs. Matt Hardy: Hardy held the title for a good while, and Jack Swagger has been on a roll (from what I've seen - I'm still not totally on board ECW.) So I don't see anyone interrupting that push right away. Besides, having Matt "free" may come in handy in coming months, if the rumors are true. Jack Swagger retains.
  
  
• John Cena vs. JBL: Yawn. Unlike many, the whole HBK storyline isn't really doing it for me. However, I refuse to admit that JBL could walk away with the belt, especially since Cena has a new movie coming out. Cena retains.
  
  
• Beth Phoenix vs. Melina: Should actually be interesting. I'd love to see Melina coming out on top, perhaps with inadvertent assistance from Santino or Beth's new pet, Rosa whoever.
  
  
• Jeff Hardy vs. Edge: This is almost as tough to call as the Rumble itself. I could certainly see Jeff retain against all odds and his attacker revealed. Besides, Edge is so cute when he's angry and bitter. On the other hand, said attacker may well help Edge recapture the gold (7 second pose, anyone?), and it would avoid having Jeff main event Wrestlemania, just in case...then again, there's always No Way Out. Well, if the face wins this, then a heel must win the Rumble, or vice versa. Edge to win, attacker revealed, setup for Jeff vs. Cage at No Way Out. (Or Cage wins the Rumble and Hardy retains, but I doubt it, since I can't imagine giving Cage the Wrestlemania main event on his first night back.)
  
  
• Which means a face wins the Rumble. Although the Big Show could be funny, to face Edge. But it isn't Wrestlemania material. After last week's punt (nicely done, too), I can't imagine Orton's future right now. Maybe Jericho, or Triple H. I'm still seeing a major player/former champion taking it, maybe even a former winner. Dark horse is CM Punk.
  

200 posts: woohoo!

Wow, 200 posts already. yay me! Onward to bigger, better things!

By the way, I've mentioned Freecycle a few times in previous posts - if you don't know about it, you gotta check it out. I belong to the Montreal, Laval and North Shore chapters, and they are all really active. OK, some people fail to get the point and will ask for, oh, a fully-loaded P4 laptop. Duh! But people are giving a lot of good things away, and it's a friendly, generous system. It's actually been an inspiration to keep giving, as I work my way throughout the house. Freecycle on, dudes!

other people's words

As you know, my resolution for 2009 is to reclaim my house. From the clutter. From the memories of my parents (this is the house I grew up in and inherited.) For myself, and for my boyfriend. It's been a very long process, learning to let go of stuff, stuff with memories and stuff my parents bought, held, and cherished, clothes they wore and stuff they used. All over my home. And I've never been really good at expressing the conflicting feelings this stuff can bring up.

Over the holidays, I stumbled upon FlyLady, an organization-come-sisterhood to help people get, well, organized. Anyone who knows me knows my sink certainly isn't shiny yet (hell, it may be the last thing I do!), but the daily emails prompting decluttering and instilling the importance of routines to organize your time, if nothing else, have been useful.

We get bombarded by quite a few daily emails, including testimonials from other participants. The one from Monday really struck a nerve; in it, Kathryn describes lugging the sewing machine her mother bought her as a teenager as she left for college and across the country over several moves. Mind you, I've never moved in my whole life, but her words resonated:

I felt guilty -- not only because I was leaving projects undone but because, by not sewing, it felt like I was rejecting something important that my mother had shared with me. (...)

Every time I moved, I felt guilty about having it, about not using it, about abandoning my mother. (...) I de-cluttered around it, each time feeling worse when I saw it. Still, I couldn't get myself to put it in the car for Good Will. It felt like I was packing up my mother and taking her away. Never mind that my mother is still safe and happy in Wisconsin, that we now share a love of knitting, that she knows I don't sew anymore and that she's perfectly okay with that.

That's it, that's exactly it! Somehow, letting things go is a betrayal of people and their love. Now, my mother passed in 1994, so you can imagine how I've felt some of the things she describes, maybe worse, since mom wasn't around to tell me it was okay to let go (not that she would have - she was a pack rat herself.) I was stunned; I've read it several times over the past few days, and it still blows my mind how she figured me out and described it so succinctly.

I've added a list in the right hand column of things I have decluttered or given away, Freecycled or otherwise gotten rid of. (By the way, I'm aiming for 250 "items", which is a huge amount, considering a garbage bag full of clothes, or a box full of books, is one "item". I'm already behind, but that's OK.) One of those bags of clothes was part of my mother's wardrobe. Read back: she died in 1994. My father never went through her stuff before he died in 1998. I've been even worse. *sigh* But somehow, somewhere deep inside, something has clicked, and the sentimental attachment has started to fade, to slough off, to shed, like leaves in the fall. And somewhere, I've found the pleasure of giving things away that I know will be of use to someone else.

A box of mom's French books are leaving with a lady on Friday; when I spoke to her on the phone, she was just so excited at the idea of getting her hands on the three volumes of "La dynastie des Forsyte". I remember my mom reading those books, and now, someone else will get to enjoy them. And that, to quote a domestic goddess whose housekeeping and culinary skills I will never attain, is a good thing. Not to mention I get the cheap thrill of crossing out items in my OYS posts. YAY!

Edit, 30/01/09: Oddly enough, the lady and/or her daughter never showed. The box of books went to the next person who had inquired about them. She picked them up the day after I contacted her. I love it when a freecycle plan comes together.

OYS 5: the last of the French books

I believe this little batch marks the last of the French books I want to dispose of, unless there are more in my parents' old bedroom, a room which I won't dare attack until I have the other rooms under better control. So here we go:

• Mini-encyclopédie des médecines naturelles, ISBN 2-7242-2862-2
• Dictionnaire des peintres flamands et hollandais
• Goya: dessins, d'Anton Dietrich
• Rembrandt: dessins, de Bob Haak
• Le livre du chat en forme, de Terri McGinnis, ISBN 2-7107-0052-2
• Les 4 as et le dragon des neiges
• La grande encyclopédie de la médecine, tome 2 (ADO-ALI)
• Le livre des chiens, ouvrage officiel du Cercle canadien du chenil, ISBN 2-89000-284-9

Note: All the French books (in this and previous posts) have been offered on Freecycle. If anyone wants them, speak up quickly!

Edit, 31/01/2009: My big box of French books was picked up by freecycler Carole this afternoon. Woohoo!

OYS 4: culling the collection

As previously mentioned, I own a comic book collection that covers the early- to mid-90s fairly extensively. Today, I went through the eight filing cabinet drawers and pulled out about 350 (!) that could go. They're listed on Kijiji and craigslist, but if anyone knows anyone who might be interested, feel free to email me for a complete listing.

However, this means that the list of items for today is puny, since I spent most of the day hemming and hawing over old X-Men issues ;)

Speaking of which, I also have a number of trading card sets that can go (full sets of regular cards, no "special" cards):

• Evil Ernie
• Spider-Man - the Macfarlane era
• Spider-Man II - 30th anniversary
• Wolverine - From then 'til now II
• X-Men (1991)
• X-Force (1991)
• Adventures in Fantasy
• Boris 2
• WildC.A.T.S. 93
• WildC.A.T.S. 94
  

Other random items:

• X-Men: the Movie Prequel Edition comic (Toys R Us tie-in)
• Star Wars: the Phantom Menace movie program
• BOOK: The Complete Candlemaker, by Norma Coney, ISBN 1-887374-42-6

As always, there's more to come.

OYS 3: the return

All right, this evening I was doing other things, so this list isn't nearly as huge as I'd like or need it to be. Nonetheless, here are today's additions:

• Set of dominoes
• Clue game (old 60's edition)
• Frustration travel game (like Trouble, with a pop bubble...missing 1 blue and 1 yellow piece)
• WWF trivia game, 2nd. edition
• Memory foam-type contoured pillow (like new)
• Green Day Dookie-era black embroidered baseball cap
• 8" Double Bubble bubblegum machine
  
• BOOK: The Glorious Pool, by Thorne Smith
• BOOK: The Sizesaurus, by Stephen Strauss, ISBN 0-380-72849-4
• Lot of Magic: the Gathering cards (revised through to first Ice Age) - please ask for full listing

Coming soon: more books, and the culling of a comic book collection. Then, probably more books and smaller aquariums, followed by more books.