Is nothing sacred anymore??

TL:DR: Eternal lovers, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy are breaking up.

Ultimately, I think this is one gigantic ploy in order to drum up buzz and interest in The Muppets in general, but still, do all storytellers have to go to such dramatic lengths in order to do so?

Haven’t property creators learned from stuff like Peter Parker and Mary Jane?  I bet money, that FOX will regret separating Homer and Marge Simpson, and eventually bring them back together.

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Atlanta has lost a culinary icon

Long story short: Ann Price, better known as “Miss Ann,” passes away at the age of 72.  She was known for running Ann’s Snack Bar, where it served an iconic item known as the “Ghetto Burger.”

It’s no secret that the Ghetto Burger is one of the most well-known must-try hamburgers in the country, most notably decreed “the best” by the Wall Street Journal at one point.

And as much as I tried to get others to go to Miss Ann’s, or encouraged for people to put their anxieties of going into a scary urban black neighborhood aside for good food, I could never get anyone to go to Ann’s Snack Bar and try a Ghetto Burger.

Now, none of those people ever will.  Nobody ever will, again.

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Why do bad things always happen around this time of year?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the news of the world currently is that two bombs were set off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and at the time I’m writing this, three are confirmed dead as a result, and hundreds of people are injured and hospitalized.  Additionally, there is no clue to whom is responsible for the bombings, but it’s being perceived as a probably act of terrorism, and the scary thing is that it purportedly could have been worse, as there were claims that additional bombs were found undetonated, also along the race path.

Obviously, this is a horrible incident and leads to the path of thinking of whom in their right mind could perpetrate such a heinous act, why they would want to target innocents at a major gathering event.  I really do feel for those affected by this horrible incident, and I’m easily someone who really wishes the absolute worst on the person or persons responsible for the act, and wouldn’t mind hear of them being put to justice with some extreme prejudice.

But I could seemingly inappropriately change gears a little bit, I have to say that it’s really not that surprising that something so horrendous happened.  But it’s my brog, and I write what I want to.  Yes, it’s going to sound selfish, conceited and certainly making it about me, but if there was ever one occasion where I think I could be given just a little bit of leeway for doing so, it would be my birthday, which is just days away.  The bottom line is that as long as I’ve lived, there’s been this odd propensity for horrendous events to happen near or around my birthday.

And as far as I’m concerned, it’s kind of not fair, and it really upsets me.

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I hardly knew you, I never met you, but I’m going to miss you

A brief moment of silence for the passing of a place I always wanted to go to, but will never get the opportunity to visit.

Chink’s Steaks in Philadelphia. They’re not actually closing shop, but they’re doing something worse: changing their entire name and identity. They’re going from the obviously offensive, but without remorse or regretful name, with the gritty, blue-collar appearance of most Philadelphia businesses, to a teal-white-and-brown diner-esque identity that makes me cringe with discomfort at their caving to “popular” opinion.

The saddest thing is that I’d never got to have a Chink’s cheesesteak, and as it turns out, I never will.

R.I.P. Chink’s.

Reflecting on past September 11ths

I was combing through some old bookmarks, and I came across a link to an old convention acquaintance from back in the day, Nikkou. She had some notoriety back then as one of the two people responsible for bringing the infant internets the Anime Web Turnpike, the at-the-time largest weekly updated conglomeration of anime-related links from all facets of anime fandom.

Apparently, a lot like me, she cherished her nerdy friends to to where she would go through the effort to put up some sort of page of reminiscing of past days, going so far as to mention me by name and by an old sketch I had done, portraying an old Otakon web design panel that I was somehow a part of. It was at this panel, or rather afterward, where I would actually meet Nikkou, and she saw it fit to rectify the issue that hadn’t been an Anipike Guest Author, like my peers on the panel. My old collection of links actually exists to this day, on an Anipike classic archive section, which broke on September 11, 2000. To no real surprise, almost 90% of the links I posted 12 years ago aren’t valid anymore, ironically including my own website, which happened to be on a different URL then.

Regardless, this was 12 years ago. 12 fucking years ago.

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The end of madness

Today is a sad day for those of us whom are professional wrestling fans, as it was discovered that legendary wrestling superstar, Macho Man Randy Savage died today in a car accident that was triggered by a heart attack while he was behind the wheel.  He was 58 years old.

Typically the deaths of wrestlers come as no surprise to me, as throughout the years, I’ve shrugged off the deaths of numerous sub-40 year old wrestlers whom I certainly do remember, but were mostly indifferent about their passings.  Renegade, Test, Rocco Rock, and Crash Holly come to mind as wrestlers who died early, mostly because of their own stupidity and/or drug problems.  There was a stretch between 2004-2008 where there was pretty much another wrestler dying on a monthly basis.  And every time, it was the same stories – heart failure.  Drug overdose.  Or both.

If they were big enough wrestlers, then the media would get a hold of the stories, and then point their fingers at steroids, and just how stupid professional wrestling is.  Otherwise, they would die in relative obscurity, except to those of us who remember them as enthusiasts.

But the death of Macho Man is different.  The death of Macho Man legitimately makes me feel a little bit sad.  Macho Man’s death isn’t just the death of one man, but it’s also the death of a small slice of childhood.

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