Review #1309 – Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin (Nintendo DS)

Yeah, so what was supposed to be part of a year-ending trilogy of reviews has been pushed back to the go home week for Review #1300… and then THAT didn’t end up happening due to reasons, resulting in this being pushed back further.

In many ways, the pushback was a blessing of sorts, as I was able to go back and fix a couple things that I wasn’t too thrilled with (minor dub changes and such). In any event – and at the risk of spoiling things except not really – I had the most fun revisiting Portrait Of Ruin. It’s probably my favorite of the DS trilogy for reasons that I hope are communicated reasonably well enough in the video review, but the simple truth was that I was more into this game than I was the other two, especially moreso than the next one.

Next Friday, we shoot on Order Of Ecclesia.

And dat’s a SHOOT, brother.

AEW Dynamite (April 22nd, 2026) – Crash! Kapow! Crumble! slow clap…

You know… I almost feel bad for posting this on a Friday midnight hour as opposed to a Thursday afternoon or evening… because twelve hours later, the Portrait Of Ruin video is going up and I feel that’s going to be the bigger deal than the second Dynamite I’ve watched in a row… which is quite an accomplishment, all things considered.

But yes, for those who missed it, Darby Allin’s defeat of MJF for the AEW championship, along with Double Or Nothing being a good chunk of time away, convinced me to give this AEW thing another shot until that show. And we’ll have to see if Tony Khan does a better job of filling his potholes than McSon-In-Law can. Right now, the odds are even.

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Remember when Ric Flair had a finance company?

Once upon a time, there was a man named Flair. He “won” a bunch of fake belts all over the world, became a big star in the business, and built a legacy. Then he got out of the business and pissed away that legacy with a bunch of shit that has leaked online and stuff.

At one point in September 2007, Ric Flair started up a finance company, naturally dubbed Ric Flair Finance. The banner above was what you got when you visited their website. And for those who think that I’m pulling this out of my ass, I’ve provided a Wayback Machine link to ricflairfinance.com that lets you view all the incarnations of said website.

According to Wikipedia, the business shut down in July 2008, which implies that the business lasted about ten months. HOWEVER, the Wayback Machine only has one archived version of the website from May 2008 and on the page is a simple message telling visitors to contact an e-mail for Ric Flair bookings. Simply put, Ric Flair Finance not only didn’t last a whole year; it didn’t even last eight months. Perhaps even sooner.

2008 Dave might have been surprised by this outcome, but 2011 Dave was feeling pity for the man whom he said used to be the biggest name in wrestling, only to become the biggest joke on the Internet. Oh, if only he had seen how much worse it would become for Ric Flair.

I bring this up because apparently Flair did a podcast with that Ariel person… and sure enough, he was drunk as shit, talking about all his fake accolades and bitching about people being supposedly jealous of his fame and fortune or whatever. And whenever I hear him talk about fortune, I’m thinking this is a guy who could really offer good advice on how to handle money.

And then I remember Ric Flair Finance.

Never mind.

I might not be as famous, I might not be as rich, but I am sure as shit a better person than Ric Flair could hope to be. And believe me when I say; that is not a high bar to reach.

Don’t enable this shit, kids. Stupid people do stupid things for the attention. Case in point…

If you have any further “interest” in this topic, I’ve done posts in the past… though don’t expect them to be informative or anything like that. I just react to shit.

Ric Flair Finances… (September 17th, 2007)
Flair Finance No More And No Love For TNA (July 9th, 2008)
Do You Remember… Ric Flair Finance (May 27th, 2011)

Honk The Sad Clown

I don’t have a sad clown face… so you’ll have to make due with PGSM-era Usagi-chan’s face getting squished by teacher… which is almost the same thing. It more than befits the “wonderful” piece of business that took place this past weekend that I am less than thrilled to declare now because it involves pure, unadulterated human error and stupidity… on my end.

So I was clearing out some flash drives and memory cards, moving some old camcorder footage over to a back-up hard drive. The way I found myself working was I’d copy the files over to the new drive and then format the card. Yeah, well, in a state of machination and stupdity, I clicked on the wrong thing and ended up formatting the hard drive.

That hard drive had a bunch of VEGAS project files for future video fodder.

The lesson of “always make a back-up” doesn’t help when the back-up drive is the thing getting wiped.

Now the good news is that some of the key elements were restored using a file recovery software… not everything because I’m an idiot, but enough that I can salvage what’s there. The key thing on the VEGAS front is that none of the “big” projects were on the drive – Order Of Ecclesia has dodged that lethal bullet and is up and running for Friday. However, there’s a bunch of camcorder footage that HAS been lost to the annals of time, some of which I have copies of elsewhere since they’ve been included in other video projectiles, but others that, sadly, have been lost the annals of time and space.

Moral of the story – stay awake, stay aware, and don’t go into a routine in a machine-like manner.

Oh well… back to the drawing board.

Review #1308 – Balloon Fight GB (Game Boy Color)

Hey, remember that Balloon Kid game we reviewed on Monday? Well, here it is, again… but in color… and yes, it’s Earth Day, so a good chunk of review is recycled from Monday’s review… but it’s not just a splash of color and call it day.

Speaking of splash of color, Friday is when we get to ruin some portraits.

WCW Monday Nitro (April 22nd, 1996) – Coffee… The Thing That Starts Feuds

Just to get it out of the way, the main event is a rematch from last week involving Sting/Luger vs. Flair/Giant… and like last week, a cup of coffee is involved that Woman throws at Sting/Luger, but they duck it and it hits the Giant, instead. Flair, realizing he fucked up, begs for forgiveness, but Giant DEMANDS a title shot, to which Flair accepts… oh and Macho Man tries to interfere, but police escort him off the premise. Clearly, there’s some stuff going on here, but there you go, kids. One of Ric Flair’s ladies tossed a cup of coffee in the Giant’s face and that begins a one-week countdown to the end of Ric Flair’s last significant World title run before he eats a chokeslam next week on Nitro.

Nice to see that coffee has a much healthier reputation for bringing people together rather than start wrestling feuds that go badly.

Oh and before anyone wonders what’s on the other channel, here’s Eric Bischoff to bring you up to speed. “Over at the World Whining Federation, the RuPaul impersonator and transvestite Goldust defeats Savio Vega to regain the Intercontinental title. Yawn. Mankind defeats Aldo Montoya. Bigger yawn. Vader defeats Fatu. Oh boy.”

Yes, riveting stuff.

Over at Nitro, American Males defeated Public Enemy via DQ when one of the PE guys tosses the American Male not named Bagwell over the top rope… because somehow, we’re still enforcing that Bill Watts rule in 1996. There’s a Chris Benoit/Eddie Guerrero match that’s short and the ad break doesn’t help much, either… but there are plenty of other places and shows where you could watch these two put on better matches if you have the stomach for it. Finally, it’s the rematch from Uncensored 95 that we’ve all been waiting for, apparently: MENG vs. HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN… yes, it’s a bad match, but not as bad as the aforementioned Uncensored match, so it’s a step up, at least.

Not one of the stronger Nitro shows, but we’re getting SOME semblance of forward movement as it relates to the major stories. If I can get THAT much at the very least, then I can somewhat forgive the lackluster undercard.

Another Street Fighter Movie Trailer

Welcome to an alternate 1993 where everything you lived through in 1993 is wrong because nobody knows (or cares) what 1993 actually looked like. Also, for a movie called Street Fighter, I’m dismayed by how many fights look to take place in a warehouse and not, you know, the streets. Even Street Fighter II had a stage that took place on a street (Chun Li’s stage, of course.)

Other than that, this looks like some tasty corn.

The ’94 film was its own brand of cheese, The Legend Of Chun Li exists for worse and worse, and Assassin Fist was a big bowl of meh. At least this knows the source material is absurd and is leaning into it. It doesn’t have to be total parody, but treating it deadly serious isn’t the way to go either. Hopefully, this strikes that nice balance.

Goddamn… I’m actually looking forward to this.

Go figure.

GameFAQs Review – Mega Man Legacy Collection (3DS)

Hey, look. A GameFAQS review that isn’t recycled video fodder… and it’s on a game for Nintendo 3DS that you can actually still purchase because it’s available as a physical release… not that it matters for some of you folks, but anyhoo.

A Somewhat Ideal Way Of Mega Man On The Go If You Can’t Afford A Switch

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GameFAQs Review – Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Vectrex)

Another recycled video review converted to text format, although I am shocked that the only review “posted” on GameFAQs is the old Classic Game Room review from ages past. If other Vectrex games are in need of local review offerings, then I might be more than happy to oblige.

The Human Adventure Is More Violent Than I Remember It

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