KISS R&R HOF News and More

So a week ago today, I happened to be listening to Eddie Trunks Friday Night Radio show in New York that I stream off of iHeartRadio like I usually do on Friday nights because I simply have nothing better to do at 11 and so on, so why not discover lost material from great bands, new music from new bands, and of course enjoy the classics as always that he's spinning up! I happened to notice that right before the show started, he stated that Ace Frehley had personally contacted him and he wanted to make an announcement about the Hall of Fame and what the current plans were for character's in makeup for the night of April 10th, 2014. It was noted that he would be calling in at the end of the show. His show ends at 1 in the morning here in good ole' Central Illinois.

After making it all the way to the end of the show, In summary, Ace called in and dropped the news. The original four members of Kiss wouldn't be reuniting in any way to play a song or two. Paul and Gene don't want anything to do with it, and even they aren't playing. There won't be any form of a Kiss performance at the ceremony. 

So, at the time, I definitely didn't take that very well. It was highly disappointing, and really I could think was how could this happen, Paul and Gene's ego's have got the best of them! All they care about is their money, and though they claim to be "for the fans," how is this "for the fans?" I made a good decision not posting about it immediately. After a week to let it sink in, I understand it now. 

The current version of Kiss is currently represented by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. The two head honcho's, and founders of the band. And then you have Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer in their own right have been affiliated with the band whether it's management or actually performing. They have been involved with the band for decades now. Kiss has become a business model, and these 4 men have been developing this concept for 12-13 years now. Having a straight up reunion with the original four men would really hurt this concept, and If I was in their position I would have done the same. What their doing is smart business, and believe me when I say that this band is eventually going to keep running without Gene and Paul when they can't go out and do what they do best anymore. 

After some interpretation, it really is the best choice, and Paul Stanley even went out of his way to say that no version of the band would be playing. Another great decision. In a band, with so many different era's and lineup changes, you seriously can't please ALL of your fans. You simply can't, and they recognize that, which is amazing to see. Honestly, if they were to go out there and play with current lineup, I really don't know how the crowd would react to that. That could get very dicey. 

To move on to other topics, the Samsung Galaxy S5 was unveiled this week at MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona. New processor, Better Camera, finger-print scanner, and even a heart rate scanner. Such innovation, much wow. (insert sarcasm)

In closing, sometime in the near future I'll have something about how awesome the new WWE Network is, I just want more time with it before I start critiquing it. It's also harder since wrestling isn't what you would call "cool" anymore and there's not much of an audience for it, at least for most people that I know around here.

Thanks for reading! And if your having a rough week, here's a pug dressed as a Wampa just to make your day a little better. (insert cheap Star Wars reference)

This Week in Review - Feb 9-16

I'm quite aware that I have neglected this for the past couple of weeks, it's been a wild ride juggling the things that life throws out you with school, work, and preparing for the future being a senior in high school. There hasn't been much gaming to go with that at all either so I don't have to much to talk about there, but hey the Olympics in Sochi are in full swing!

Grand Theft Auto 5 and Online received a new valentines day update that definitely went on the make the day what it was. Granted, it added a new 1920's prohibition era' Tommy gun into the mix and a new car, it was just enough to save the day for the lonely hearts here in the U.S. This also added 10 new online jobs that I've hardly dabbled into, but from what I experienced I liked what I saw and had a good time with it.

We're coming up on about the week or so mark for the launch of the WWE Network, for which in my mind, almost kills Netflix for me. At least for now, since I don't have any shows that I've really invested in lately. I've been reading that there even going to air the Hall of Fame ceremony live on the Network the night before 'Mania. This just keeps getting better.

I read about a new interview with Paul Stanley regarding the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He's seemed to change his tone slightly, but as expected he didn't dish on any plans really, but honestly I feel like they have something up there sleeve if they are focusing that much on "making the fans happy." He said he wasn't honored whatsoever to be included in the Rock Hall, and it isn't important to him. He says they have no credibility and the only reason they have made it to where they are now is because of their name, and that it's just a private group of voters in a self-appointed board. I can't help but agree with what he's saying here. I can't even take them seriously, but it's cool to see fan-campaigning really come into fruition and give these guys the recognition they deserve, which they should have received so long ago.

That's really all I have, I just felt like I needed to update with something, because it's been a while. I hope the new "giffed out" format isn't too cheesy or gimmicky, just wanted to do something a little different, hopefully make the day go a little better for whoever's reading this. In closing, I unfortunately don't have any crazy off-the-wall PS4 game footage this week. Shame on me, but hey AC/DC and Van Halen pretty much confirmed they are working on new music and tours. Not even going to bother speculating on a time frame or anything but one things for sure is that AC/DC wants to do shows again. It's been about 4-5 years so maybe Angus Young needs to pay off his 40,000+ sq. feet house that he bought in Sydney, Australia after the Black Ice tour. Either way, it's a win for rock fans!

My first go-round with Outlast on PS4

This week, Sony's latest Playstation Plus offering on the PS4 is a brand new game called Outlast. (Actually released on Steam back in September, but finally making its way to console now per my ongoing research.) Granted the PS4's library is just a sliver of the offering that the last generation of console's provide's us, really anything that's coming to the PS4 right now is a pretty big deal! Not discounting the quality of any the titles available, in fact there are numerous great games to delve into on the PS4 right now already. Anyways, back to Outlast. This game is described as a "first-person survival horror experience." Just saying that on the description of a next-gen console title, the first of it's kind, really gets your interest going.

In summary, I've only progressed through the first real mission. Don't let the whole "survival horror experience" fool you here. This isn't your typical guns-blazing at zombies to get the most points and upgrading weapons and equipment only to cause more destruction. There literally is no combat whatsoever besides the cut scenes when the character pushes enemies away. Your character can practically climb, vault, jump, slide, and crawl his way pretty much anywhere. In the first mission itself pretty much all of those tactics were put into good use.  Also, another x-factor into this game is that your equipped with a video camera that has night vision, given the setting has many dark places you must encounter. You also have to worry about finding batteries around the map to keep your camera functioning, at menial task that quickly becomes tedious and my only real main gripe about this game.

Setting wise, there isn't too much to it, which is ok! It's basically set in a Psychiatric hospital on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, that's been overrun by either zombies or some other type of creatures, (how original eh?), something that will probably be elaborated on more as I progress. Pretty simple, but this game already takes great use of the PS4's hardware capabilities and the attention to detail on this game is superb, and that's putting it lightly, In the beginning of the game you are still outside and still see the night sky building as the sun has already set and it's darkening outside. I caught myself just staring at sky for about five minutes. Not afraid to admit that.

So my overall take is that, although I haven't really invested too much time into this genre of games, I was quickly mentally and emotionally enamored into this game. Every time something would happen (trying to keep it spoiler free for the most part) I would literally jump and have a mini heart attack. I seriously can't think I've ever had that happen to me so many times in a game. (Sorry Dead Space). You really can't compare this game to any other really, and for it being a free PS Plus exclusive, you can't go wrong with downloading this.

Outlast is truly a gaming experience like I've never had before, and if this is a foreshadowing of what creativity may come of this next-generation of consoles, then us consumers are really in luck. You can't go wrong with Sony and Microsoft competition.

In the meantime, I had quite the laugh at Blacklight: Retribution, a free to play title on the PS4.

Mick Foley's Response to the 2014 Royal Rumble

Albeit many people won't care at all, I felt it very appropriate to publish a WWE related post right now coming of the heels of one of the most controversial Pay Per View events in recent memory. The Grammy's were god-awful, which should already go without saying. They cut off Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, and Dave Grohl to air a commercial for Hilton Hotels. They COMPLETELY blew off the unfortunate passings of Jeff Hanneman (Guitarist) of Slayer and Clive Burr, who was instrumental in the early breakthrough of Iron Maiden as a drummer.

Enough of that tirade.

Back to WWE, many fans are VERY upset about the way it ended. It's understandable, and crying and whining on the internet about it isn't going do anything for you like many fans do, but when you have numerous Current and Former employees of your company telling you to ACTUALLY listen to your fanbase, maybe it's time to open up to criticism a little bit...

Legend Mick Foley said it all on his Facebook Page last night at the conclusion of the event, here are his words.

**Quick Note** For those who aren't familiar, in summary, Daniel Bryan is basically the WWE's newest rising, and I mean rising star, and has eclipsed to being the top draw for the company, and it just so seems that they aren't really acknowledging that the fans really do want to see this guy on top.

"HEY WWE....WHAT THE F?

Yes, I'm going to put a brick through my TV. It's just going to have to wait until tomorrow. I had every intention of putting a brick through my TV tonight, after seeing that Daniel Bryan was not even entered in the Royal Rumble match, let alone going to win the thing. But, upon seeing their dad with a brick in his hand, my younger children got a little bit scared, thinking their dad had lost his mind. A rather spirited debate about the wisdom of following through on the promise to put a brick through my TV ensued with my wife - and, as is usually the case in marital debates, I, being the husband, did not emerge victorious. Honestly, the points she made about mercury and glass fragments everywhere were pretty good ones.

But I'm still going to put a brick through my TV. It's just going to have to wait until tomorrow - when the kids are in school, and I can take the TV outside the house for the actual throwing of the brick. Granted, it's not nearly as dramatic as doing it live, right after the Rumble, but at least I will be keeping my word.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I've never felt so disgusted at the conclusion of a WWE (or any) PPV. Like many of you out there, I just don't get it. This Daniel Bryan thing is a phenomenon. You get it. I get it. The fans in Pittsburgh (yes, I was thinking of writing "RIGHT TH...but I'm just not in a cheap pop mood) got it. But tonight, for the first time, I had to admit to myself that the powers that be are just not going to get it. And that makes me sad. I'm just honestly sad, just flat out fucking sad (yes, I dropped an F-bomb there to emphasize how F'ing sad I am for the guys who bust their butts night in and night out - Ziggler, Punk, Bryan, etc - with no hope of getting their shot at this year's Mania.

You know who else I'm sad for? Me. In my two years as an official WWE Ambassador, I never once had to lie about my enthusiasm for the company or the product. Now, although I am no longer officially an Ambassador for WWE (believe it or not, my only official role in WWE is as GM for Saturday Morning Slam, a contract that ends in one month) I was till looking forward to being part of the biggest event of the year. I'll probably end up going anyway. But I'm about 1/6th as excited about it as I was just a few hours ago. I wanted so badly to hear 75,000 WWE fans chanting "YES" - and seeing fans walk away absolutely ecstatic about the outcome of a PPV for the first time in a while...a long while. But when given the chance to make it happen (unless they've got something MAJOR up their sleeve) WWE's answer tonight was a resounding "NO, NO, NO"."


Not much else needs to be said really...

I found Mick Foley's words very noteworthy, but at the same time, I'm starting to theorize how this could actually be one of the greatest works in not just WWE but entertainment history, and Mick even notes how major that would be at one point. To be completely fair, it really was a good show. Lots of great matches, spots, and creativity.

In conclusion about that Grammy's now, despite how awful the sound mix was for the night, check out the only ACTUAL good thing that didn't get cut from the Grammy's last night! (Pardon the foreign language)

The Internship - Review

The Internship (starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) portrays two seasoned salesman who have lost their jobs due to the ever-changing economy and market that they are trying to sell their products in, which were a wide array of various consumer appliances. All they've really done in their lives is selling things, and the both of them together were very good at their craft. After losing their jobs, instead of settling with a less than ideal minimum wage job that has them just scraping by in life, they decide to go all out and do something noteworthy. In summary, they apply for the internship, despite not having any coding ability yet any technology skills at all, and manage to squeeze themselves in, and the rest is history.

The movie itself didn't seem to have the momentum other blockbusters had this year, but I highly recommend it. Not that it means much coming from me, it's very funny, ACTUALLY has a meaningful story, and you've got the underrated duo of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. What else could you ask for?

Now, what really strikes me about the movie is how this is based on Google. It gives really interesting insight into what the daily life of their employee's entails. It's also interesting getting a good look at the Google campus itself, (with even their glorious nap-pods and self-driving cars make cameo appearances).

Tried to keep this short and sweet. Simply a great movie, with a great story that delivers. Nothing cheesy at all, some really good scenes. Not trying to doll up the movie either. that's just how much I enjoyed it.



My apologies for not having much up for a few days, it's been a crazy week, and I know things aren't going to be much different in the coming days, so as always stay tuned and hopefully I'll have something new coming before the end of the week.

Stay Frosty Now, (that's what the preacher man said) - Nobody will probably get that reference.

 - Joe

WWE Network - The Future of T.V.

Last Wednesday at CES in Las Vegas World Wrestling Entertainment formally announced the WWE Network. This was actually announced all the way back in 2012 but the rug seemed to be pulled under the company when it comes to getting T.V providers to actually invest in it. They simply weren't getting the viewership that the carriers wanted, which is understandable. So this caused heavy delay, but little did we know what they had in store for us fans.

Now, you don't need to be a wrestling fan to understand how big this is. This was a very heavily rumored project, but it wasn't very apparent how WWE would actually pour their heart and soul into it and make this something worth having. Basically, they are coming out with their own Netflix-style subscription based service, that will include it's on programming play 24/7 with on-demand combined into it. It's going to have every single Pay Per View in the history of the company, and other companies that they have acquired over their many years of existence. It's going to have it's own original shows, with replays of weekly shows, and those will also be archived. If I wanted to watch just a random weeks episode of Monday Night Raw in 1995, I very well could! This right there, is just enough that many fans would buy into this, and they could charge 20-30 dollars for this and make tons of profit. Not only will you get that, you will get every single 60 dollar Pay-Per-View a month, completely with this subscription

Did I mention that for all of this, it's just for $10 dollars a month?

Yeah, they no doubt already sold this service to the fans, and Twitter exploded that night. People still would have gone nuts if they wouldn't have included PPV's.

A wrestling/entertainment company stole the 2014 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas with this product.

Tons of original Programming, Full Access to their full library of literally everything they have put out, Free 60 dollar Pay-Per-Views, and I'm probably forgetting a few other things. This is also going to be available on virtually any device you can think of. Everything to the Playstation 3 and 4, Kindle Devices, iOS and Android, Online through browser, Xbox 360,  with Xbox One and Smart TV support coming sometime this summer.


Now, out of the wrestling world, just put this in perspective.

Imagine have your favorite (whatever it may be) thing, where you could just watch hours on end of whenever you want, however you want, in really any form, completely on-demand.

In a way, this is a Netflix style service, but its VERY innovative, and I think it's going to change the game on Television distribution. I firmly think that in 5-10 years this is going to be the popular, most profitable thing that T.V Networks will be able to do.

I could really go on about this, and as more developments happen, there may be more posts about it.

All I know is, I can't wait to sink my teeth into this.

KISS 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Talk

After over 15 years of waiting, KISS has FINALLY going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. This goes without saying, it's long overdue! There's plenty of other forum's out there and radio personalities (Talking to you Eddie Trunk) that have gone on for years about the crimes the Rock Hall commit's against rock music. It's not going to be easy, but I'm trying not have my argument sound just like there's, but it's honestly bound to happen.

You could literally go on for days and days about how many legendary bands are completely excluded from the rock hall nominations every single year. This year KISS and Deep Purple were both nominated. KISS was officially chosen to be inducted, but Deep Purple wasn't. Instead, it's more important to get Hall and Oates and Cat Stevens in. Not discrediting the musicianship of either talent, but that really isn't necessary for the Rock Hall. At the same time, I don't even know why I'm complaining about that. Public Enemy was inducted a year or two ago, but Judas Priest hasn't even received a nomination as far as I know, I could be wrong. But, where's Iron Maiden? Where's The Scorpions? Hell, Journey and Def Leppard aren't even in. I need to stop here before it gets out of hand. Case and point fully demonstrated.

I was listening to Chris Jericho's brand new podcast a few nights ago, and he interviewed Eddie Trunk ironically. He spilled out a lot of information about the nomination process that I had no idea about. It was very eye-opening what I learned while listening to that podcast. So basically, in a nutshell, no matter how much you think the online voting for bands matters, it doesn't. It has no effect what the so called "panels" decide on. These "panels" remain anonymous because they know more than anybody they would be vilified and hated by millions of rock fans the U.S. And now, it's widely known that these voters are just made up of a bunch of old Rolling Stone writers that think KISS was just a marketing machine, or they were just silly and couldn't be taken seriously as they weren't necessarily the absolute best musicians out there. A lot of bands out there have had the cards stacked against them over the course of history because of this.

There is a kicker though, and this is my favorite part! Members of the bands that have been inducted in the past have a pretty size-able influence on who get's inducted each year. So now, with bands like Metallica being in for a few years now, you would have to think that the reason Rush is in and that KISS is going to be now, is because you've got guys like Lars Ulrich going to great lengths to vouch for these bands to get in! I found that quite amusing. It's also worth noting that this is being held in Brooklyn. That is the hometown of Peter Criss, and it was quite the hotspot for KISS in their early days. So, the rock hall is getting exactly what they DON'T want. An entire ceremony packed to the brim with KISS fans. Even Nirvana's being inducted, but you really don't see much talk about that in the media right now. This show is really going to be all about Kiss, whether the hall likes it or not. Hell, even Dave Grohl is going to be happier to see Kiss get in than himself!

Back to Kiss finally making it, thank god. This is obviously old news now, as this came out right before Christmas, but I believe now's a good time to start talking about it since all negotiations and other things are now going to have to be worked out within the original band themselves. Now is when all the work is going to have to be done for things to come together for the ceremony in April. I listened to Eddie Trunk's Radio show on the Friday night before Christmas, and he had Ace Frehley call in, and lots of details where dished out. The rock hall DOES want the original band, Paul, Ace, Peter and Gene to play in makeup! When I heard that I freaked out like a little girl, no regrets. He said that he had already talked to Paul and Gene and everybody was on board for this. That's what really surprised me. You would think this would be a nasty few months of trying to get everything sorted out for them. So, at that time, everybody was saying the right things, and it was looking really good.

So after about a week or two after that, Paul Stanley starts taking questions via his twitter account. It should go without saying that he was absolutely just bombarded with Rock Hall questions. I really don't know if he just got frustrated with people asking about it and could possibly be trying to keep their actual plans under wraps, but he had nothing but horrible things to say about his former band-mates. Unfortunately, that is what I was kind of expecting to hear now, and in the coming months, but it's still very eye-opening. This is really an ever-changing deal that will all culminate at the Rock Hall Ceremony in April. Ultimately, I firmly believe that they will reunite for at least a couple of songs during the show, as long as Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer don't show up in Peter and Ace's makeup. (I'm not even going to get started on that argument.) After all, this is all about what Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss created in 1973. And that's what it should be!

It may get a little dramatic, but I really think 2014 is going to be one hell of a year for KISS fans!



Be sure to stay tuned to this, I will have a new post in the coming days about the newly announced WWE Network and how it's basically changing the game on how we will enjoy Television in the future. (No, you don't need to know a single thing about wrestling to understand what I will be talking about.)

Stay Frosty!

Playstation Now Thoughts - CES 2014

Yesterday in Las Vegas  at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), during Sony's press conference led by CEO Kaz Hirai, Playstation CEO Andrew House unveiled Playstation Now, a cloud streaming service that will stream PS3 games to the PS4, Vita, and select Sony Bravia TV's with bluetooth support for Dualshock 3. In it's current state, it's just specifically running a few PS3 games like The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls. Expect this to expand greatly, going into the PS2 and PS1 catalog for sure. Sony also said that this will eventually expand to smartphones and other TV's, not just made my Sony. That right there was surprising me as most of their services are strictly available that their products only. In the meantime, that also demonstrates their commitment to really make this work. It's also a little concerning to me on the means that this is coming also to TV's and smartphones (more on that later).

I find this a very interesting concept. It doesn't COMPLETELY solve the issues of not having backwards compatibility on the PS4, but it's very comforting to know that very soon I could be playing Grand Theft Auto 5 via streaming the through the cloud, assuming Rockstar Games isn't producing a next-gen version already, which I would honestly much rather see come to fruition, which brings my next point!

The average household internet speed in the U.S now is around the 5-10 mbps range (thank you Google), but for people like that live in the rural extremes of Central Illinois (yes, I just called it that), this is the where the issue comes in. As I've seen from IGN.com editors standpoint, there aren't any real latency problems with these games running on the cloud, but to the typical gamer, there are noticeable compression issues with these games being streamed. Sony has said the the recommended minimum bandwidth speed for this service is 5 mbps. That basically leaves people in my case in the dust, where I test at least a 3 times a week, and I get 1.50 mbps on good day. It's very understandable, and really it's impressive enough that all you need is 5, but this probably wouldn't be possible on a connection as low as mine. That's ok. That my friends just shows the benefits of living in a town that has a population higher than 350. With that said, would it even run at all if I used it? If it did, how bad would the games look? Simply put, I wouldn't invest in it YET just because of having a bad connection. It also hasn't been said if this is going to be incorporated in Playstation Plus, or a separate service on it's own, with a yet unspecified price model

One last concern, which may not even be that valid, but it's in the back of my head. I guess I can understand these games running T.V's via bluetooth connected Dualshock 3 controllers, but how would this work on smartphones? There's still tons of questions that have been left unanswered with this being a new announcement, but for some reason it's hard to think of these games like The Last of Us running on a iPhone 5s. Would these phones have the torque to run these? I know it's being completely streamed from the cloud but It's very surprising and ambitious to me, but there's no reason they can easily pull it off and make it VERY successful.

This is a lot longer than I originally intended but it's just very interesting to see these announcements and it really makes you think about the future with gaming and tech. This service has SO much potential it's overwhelming just to think about all the things that could be coming the future.

There will be a closed beta starting at the the end of the month, and a full on launch coming this summer. It seems at launch there's only going to be a select few games but expect that change drastically once this service is up and running.

That's it for now, Stay Frosty!

So, my initial idea for this was to create an ACTUAL website where I would just post my thoughts on various different topics whether it be in music, gaming, movies, or just random news events in technology that I take an interest to. After trying some bogus free website builders, just to compensate for the fact the I still don't really know how to efficiently code, I wasted many hours just trying to find something that would work out for me. I would still really love to actually pull that off, but for know that idea is on the shelf.

The main basis that I'm somewhat aiming to follow, is that for the reviews I write, I'm going to try to keep them in a short/concise manner. At the same time, I can't promise that practice to be followed every time, because I tend to just endlessly ramble about the things I'm passionate about, which is honestly one of the main reasons I've decided to do this in the first place!

So I've resorted to just using a bland, Google powered blog-site, which is ok, I've wanted to get something like this going for quite some time now. I want to really keep this priority, and I really like to have something now to where, if I listened to a new album by some rock band, or played a new amazing game that was recently released, I have the perfect platform to write my thoughts, and give my take on the listening or gaming experience itself. Or, for another example, this week is CES, the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, and as it seems to me, 4K Ultra-HD Television is the way of the future according to mainly all TV manufacturers at this point. That's very striking to me, and I would post my thoughts on that topic in a heartbeart (except I won't know since I'm already talking about it on this post), and this is the perfect platform to do so. It's things like that, that really inspired all of this.

In the meantime, check out my awful Ghosts skills on PS4 this weekend!