The Gift of Getting Rick Roll'd

I won a Community of Character award at my office not quite a year ago.  If you're not from Orangeburg, South Carolina you probably have no idea what the Community of Character initiative is - actually, even if you are from Orangeburg you still probably don't have a clue about it.  That said, the Community of Character initiative is an effort geared towards promoting a specific character trait each month.  These traits include things like generosity, punctuality, patriotism, and a host of others.  The award I won comes into play by way of the fact that my employer promotes a monthly contest wherein employees may nominate one another for having exemplified a given character trait. (There's a committee whose members are responsible for declaring an ultimate winner out of the nominees.) My award was for cleanliness.  Yes, that's right - I'm not a patriot, courageous, or even all that timely, but I will not let dust and grime get the best of me!

If winning an award for cleanliness isn't proof of a related obsessive-compulsive disorder, I don't know what is.  Not that I've ever hidden that aspect of my personality, just that this sort of thing is confirmation of it being obvious and noticeable by others.

At any rate, earlier this week I received a gift from the Community of Character committee. (Keep in mind I won the award for which I received the gift a year ago...Did I mention punctuality is one of the character traits promoted by the Community of Character?) When I saw the gift, I noticed it was neatly wrapped using high quality wrapping paper - the sort of wrapping paper you can tell someone actually spent a decent amount of money on because it feels only slightly less thick than a sheet of Kevlar - and topped with a bow.  Suddenly I felt a real surge of appreciation.  Sure, some people have mocked me for having a consistently clean work area completely free of clutter, but that gift verified that deep down I was doing something right and doing it well!  I was appreciated, and by my peers no less.  What greater achievement could one hope for than the respect of those around you?

I felt a rush of confidence and my expression probably looked something like this...



I couldn't contain my excitement, so I went ahead and opened the gift, tearing into the wrapping paper with reckless abandon.  Upon removing the wrapper, I found this box.



A remote control caddy!  Yes - something that is useful (Admit it, who doesn't have 18 remotes lying around these days?) and also appeals to my obsessive need for hyper-organization!  This was proving to be an awesome gift as it, too, seemed to be showing an incredible level of respect for who I truly am at heart.  It served as validation of my way of life being worthwhile and that my co-workers recognized something admirable within me.  My expression began to change to reflect the emotions now welling up inside me.



I wanted to lay hands on my newest accessory, so I pulled open the box.  I expected to see protective cardboard, plastic, or some combination thereof.  Instead I saw colored tissue paper...

This caused my expression to change so as to reflect my state of mind at this unexpected turn of events.






"What's going on here?", I thought to myself.  I was immediately reminded of an occasion years prior where my Mother was given a ceramic duck as a Christmas gift of the Secret Santa variety - that being one wherein the gift-or didn't have to identify themselves to the gift-ee.  The duck - which became known within our family as Dolly Parton Duck because of the fact that the fowl had a rather pronounced bosom; I've not been around many ducks in my life but I highly doubt one exists in nature with the kind of lady lumps this one exhibited - had been cleverly camouflaged by way of it having been packaged in a box displaying a completely different product.  Surely this fantastic present, this useful item which I was now very much looking forward to implementing into my arsenal of accessories couldn't be a complete and utter ruse, my very own Dolly Parton Duck!

The suspense was killing me!  I removed the tissue paper...And found a portable coffee mug where my remote caddy should've been.



I drink coffee on very rare occasion as I more often than not don't much care for beverages typically served warm.  Case in point, instead of a cup of coffee in the morning I instead rely upon an icy cold Pepsi to give me my morning jolt of caffeine and sugary goodness.  In other words, this gift was about as useful to me as a bucket of kerosine is to someone whose leg is on fire.

My expression?

 

I know I should be appreciative of the fact that I received a gift at all, but dammit' I wanted the remote caddy...

The Royal Wedding (aka, Something I Don't Care About)

In case you've been living under a rock that isn't within range of a TV, cell phone, computer, iPad, or any other number of portable devices capable of receiving content related to the news of the world up to and including an overly loud car stereo that happened to be set to an appropriate station, you're undoubtedly aware that two people who, other than being born, have quite literally done nothing their entire lives to warrant the level of attention they're receiving will be getting married later this week.  Yes, you guessed it - I'm talking about the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

If there was ever a mark of successful diversion from anything resembling productivity, the complete and total shutdown of an entire nation so that its inhabitants can watch a wedding ceremony would be it.  I'm sure there will be a handful of folk in the United Kingdom who won't be watching but they more than likely won't own up to it, and I can't say as I blame them.  Being ostracized over there can't be all that pleasant of an experience.  This is the part of the world wherein such torture techniques as being hanged, drawn & quartered originated, after all - while I'm not sure of the modern equivalent, I'm sure it can't be any more pleasant an experience.

Sure, this is a ranking event in the annals of history (as it pertains to Britain's royal family, at least) but it's more significant in the realm of popular culture than anywhere else.  Will history books published 100 years from now (assuming the concept of a book is still in practice by then, of course) mention anything about who designed the bride's dress, who got snubbed on the guest list, or what hors d'oeuvres where served at the reception?  No, more than likely not, unless there's a significant change in what's considered worthy content for textbooks by then in which case I'm certain that I'll be happy to have been dead and buried long before. (The further deterioration of what is and is not actually relevant in our modern culture is a matter that concerns me greatly, which - I admit - in the grand scheme of things is largely irrelevant.) Nevertheless, those are what seem to be the poignant aspect of the story for most of the supposedly hard-hitting news agencies who are providing coverage of this event.

Have they figured out we serve no purpose yet? No? Cool...

Why?  Well, to put it quite bluntly, I feel like they've realized that what they're reporting on is essentially a grossly exaggerated celebrity wedding.  And not the wedding of important celebrities like George Lucas and William Shatner who have actually contributed something to the world at large, either! (If you re-read that sentence you might think I'm implying that George and Bill should get hitched...I'm pretty sure if that ever happened every sci-fi nerd on the planet would spontaneously detonate.) In the grand scheme of things, England's royal family holds very little control in terms of the day-to-day operations of the United Kingdom.  And by "very little" I mean next to none whatsoever.  Seriously, the role of the monarchy in the UK is to function as a literal figurehead of the empire, meaning that they show up to social engagements wearing goofy hats and incredibly fussy outfits, conducting themselves as snootily as possible while gallivanting amongst other similarly dressed dignitaries.  That's their entire purpose, and of course their lifestyle is financed mostly by the "contributions" of taxpayers.

All that having been said, I really hope little Billy and Katie have a great wedding and relationship.  My wife and I got married just shy of a year ago and married life has been nothing short of phenomenal.  I poke fun at the fact that they're a pair of irrelevant people, but theirs will be lives lived under the constant gaze of the media thanks to their (in my opinion) undeserved celebrity.  I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have that level of scrutiny applied to your every move, which is why I feel a significant amount of pity for them as a young couple who are bound to face their fair share of bumps in the road as their life together develops.  No one who was alive and aware of the goings on of the world at the time of Princess Diana's death will forget that scenario and how evil the persistence of the media can be.

Now somebody pass me the tea and crumpets...

Flying Telephone Pole

My wife and I live on a fairly busy street as it connects several areas of the city in which we live.  Our road acts as a cut-through between neighborhoods and is heavily traveled at almost all hours of the day.  The sounds of the road - loud car and motorcycle engines as well as stereos - are always there.  It can get a bit loud at times from sirens on emergency services vehicles seeing as how within less than a mile radius of where we are there also happens to be an Orangeburg Department of Public Safety substation (from which responses for police matters and fires are dispatched), Orangeburg County's EMS headquarters, and the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office.  The noise does take a little getting used to but I lived between an interstate and a set of heavily used train tracks while I was in college - eventually you just learn to let it drone out into the background.

Apparently I've gotten so accustomed to our calamity corner, as it were, that I was completely oblivious to the act when a random motorist clipped a telephone pole across the way from our lot.

I woke up around 5 AM this past Saturday morning needing to take a leak (I realize I may not have necessarily needed to include that bit of information but chose to do so anyway in attempting to recreate the scenario) and when I opened my eyes much to my surprise I was greeted with the sight of flashing emergency lights of the red and white variety penetrating one of our bedroom windows.  This was in contrast to the occasion a few weeks back when I had been roused from my slumber (again, needing to relieve myself) and been treated to a light show thanks to the South Carolina state trooper who left his blue and white lights running whilst he was involved in administering a field sobriety test to some random drunkard stupid enough to think they'd be able to make it home from a night of revelry without repercussions. (Like I said, it's a busy area.) After having lightened the load, so to speak, I realized that the lights weren't coming through the windows at the rear of the house but rather those of the front and side.  Curious, I looked out our side-facing bedroom window and saw a Public Safety cruiser parked beside the house.  I then went to the front of the house to peer out the windows there and saw several more Public Safety cruisers.

They had us surrounded...

I was still bleary-eyed from being kind of awake but mostly asleep; add to this the fact that the sun wasn't yet over the horizon and you understand why I couldn't tell exactly what the situation was.  However, I did notice that there seemed to be a sagging power line across the street from our house.  We've had some fairly rough storms and significant winds here lately so I assumed that the officers were using their cruisers to form a perimeter around a downed line so as to protect any oncoming traffic or random passersby.  The hole in this theory was that we hadn't lost power in our house - not so much as a flutter in service.  Regardless, I went back to bed as I was content with the scenario as it appeared that the proper authorities were in control.

My wife and I were going to take part in the March of Dimes March for Babies event in Orangeburg Saturday morning.  We got up at 7 AM and my first inclination was to see if there was still any commotion outside our house.  I checked the side windows and all appeared to be well, but then I went to the front windows and saw this.

Flying telephone pole?  Flying telephone pole.

I spoke to the officer who was posted in the intersection by our home and he filled me in on the details.  According to him, the pole was struck during the night by a car driven by someone who felt the right thing to do would be to drive away from the scene.  The officer told me that they'd been able to track the vehicle for several blocks because of it having left a trail of fluids but that they couldn't actually find the vehicle as the driver had been able to drive it, disabled as it were, to an unknown location.  How a car that had inflicted - and taken - that much damage could still be running is beyond me.  Before I walked off, the officer concluded by saying that the vehicle would probably wind up being reported stolen (the implication being that the owner might try to put off the damage via a fraudulent claim or that the vehicle was actually stolen and taken for one final joyride).  I was just happy that the driver hadn't lost absolute control of their vehicle and wound up slamming it into one of our cars or, God forbid, our house.

I didn't have the slightest notion that something had happened during the night, which is somewhat disturbing since I'm sure it made quite the ruckus.  Then again, I slept through the entire event when hurricane Hugo came through my hometown of Lancaster, SC back in 1989, so I guess it's not surprising something as pedestrian as a telephone pole shattering less than 50 feet from where I'd been laying didn't give me cause to wake up.  I didn't hear a crash, screeching tires, shouts of obscenities or other random vulgarities, nothing.  My wife, on the other hand, told me the morning after that she felt the house move at some point (she didn't pay any mind to it initially as she thought the sensation might have been from me moving or plopping down into bed forcefully enough to make her bounce).  I doubt the house moved, or at least I hope it didn't.  She probably did sense the impact, though, as I wish I had.  Then if I'd looked outside after the fact I might have had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the car as it fled.

The pole itself snapped at two points; once at the base buried in the ground and again near the top where the wires are connected.  This leads me to believe it was an older, possibly rotting pole - else it wouldn't have splintered so easily - which probably was in need of replacement anyway.  Regardless, the notion of the wires being strong enough to support the weight of the pole's remnant without popping loose blew my mind.  It's a wonder that they all didn't just snap under the tension and take out power to Lord only knows how many locations.  We never lost power until just before 8 AM when a maintenance crew from the Department of Public Utilities showed up to replace the pole and disabled the line feeding our home.  Fortunately we were leaving not long thereafter to take part in the March of Dimes event, and power had been restored by the time we got back.

Maybe I'm weird (I know I am but I'm giving myself the benefit of a doubt here), but I've grown to appreciate odd little occurrences like this.  Things you don't see every day, or ever again as is the case a lot of the time.  Life is a series of events strung together by our emotional connections to them, after all.  The truly unique events are the ones we remember most vividly, and sometimes most fondly.  Indeed, things would be mighty boring without the occasional flying telephone pole.

Stephen Garcia and his Idiot Switch

The big news to come out of the University of South Carolina's football program this week is the indefinite suspension (his fifth suspension overall) of senior quarterback Stephen Garcia from team activities for allegedly having shown up to an event organized by the South Eastern Conference smelling of alcohol and acting boisterously. ("Boisterously", in this context, has not been defined - for the punishment he's facing, I'm hoping he at least had the decency to strip down to his skivvies in front of a group of dignitaries and do his best Ric Flair impression.) This was after Garcia had been suspended just weeks earlier for having engaged in what we'll call "extracurricular activities" with a number of young ladies and a significant amount of liquid courage in his hotel room while the team was in Atlanta, GA last year for the SEC championship game. ("Pffft - amateur...", Charlie Sheen was heard to have commented.) After having served that suspension, Garcia spoke to the media and assured us all that it was the end of his wild ways - he even went so far as to guarantee that "nothing bad" would happen again.

To say that Garcia has a reputation of questionable judgement and behavior at Carolina would be an understatement - in fact, I'd go so far as to say that it may be his legacy at the school even with his statistics as a quarterback being what they are.  It seems almost as if Stephen (who was a sought after prospect coming out of high school) has been at USC for a decade, seeing as how he started school early in hopes of getting a leg-up on competing at a collegiate level.  He was arrested twice in 2007; first for public intoxication and failure to stop for a police officer, then again less than a month later for malicious damage to property after he keyed a professor's car.  He was suspended again in 2008 for an alcohol-related charge and hadn't been in hot water with the authorities or school officials since that time - up until earlier this week, that is.

Spurrier facepalm - we feel your pain, Steve...

I'm a believer in second chances.  I've screwed up plenty of times and fortunately there are no police records to account for any of those instances.  But Stephen is beyond a second chance.  For that matter, he's beyond a third and fourth chance as well.  He's a 23 year old man with a child and yet he still conducts himself as if he doesn't have any legitimate responsibilities, either to his family, school, or teammates.  You'd think he'd have learned to act like he had a touch of common sense by now but I'm guessing that would be asking too much of him.

If this entry comes off as sounding like it was written by a scorned fan, then you're very astute in your observation.  I feel particularly disappointed by Garcia because he has so much potential yet he's let us as members of the Gamecock faithful down on a multitude of occasions, not only off the field but on.  His tendencies of throwing passes directly into coverage, attempting to run his way out of pass rushes only to wind up with negative yardage plays, and being something of a butter-fingers when it comes to holding onto the ball while rushing are all well documented.  I mentioned his stats earlier in this post; Garcia is 17-13 all time as a starting quarterback at Carolina and this past year he threw 20 touchdowns and 14 interceptions.  His passer rating is respectable, but I would contend that it is what it is more so because of the receivers he's had to work with than his aptitude as a quarterback.  Take away Alshon Jeffrey and his passer rating drops by at least 50 points.

All these things have lead me to believe that Stephen has what I call an idiot switch buried somewhere within his brain.  Truth be told, we may all have an idiot switch as I think most people are capable of doing imperceptibly stupid things from time to time.  Like when Kyle Parker decided to give up close to $1,000,000 from the Colorado Rockies in order to play one more season of football for Clemson University. (Oh, please - like I'm going to write an entire blog post about something relating to Gamecock football without taking a shot at Clemson...) His idiot switch got flipped but he's since come to his senses, and most people who do get their idiot switch flipped find their way out of the predicament.  Unlike most of us, however, Garcia's behavior has lead me to believe that his idiot switch is permanently stuck in the "ON" position.

Durrrrr, it don't turn off...

Garcia's prospects of playing in the NFL weren't that great but his character issues will more than likely take him out of any serious consideration for anything other than a back-up position.  He'll probably be OK in life ultimately, though.  He's a sociology major, so with that, his criminal record, and his proclivity for drunkenness he could be a congressman or senator, no sweat.

Random Observations - Part 1

There are occasions where I feel like writing a blog but don't necessarily have enough content to warrant bothering with a post.  It's like when you have leftover spaghetti and egg salad - it doesn't necessarily make sense to eat them together as a meal but when you're hungry enough you'll eat just about anything.  As such, I'll assemble those meandering thoughts into a single entity, heretofore to be known as the "Random Observations".

- My WrestleMania XXVII predictions...

Were almost all wrong.  I went 2-8 (technically, I was 2-8-1 seeing as how WWE wound up bumping the advertised Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan US Championship match off the card due to time constraints), which is pathetic.  I can't even claim a moral victory here because the matches I predicted correctly - Trish Stratus, John Morrison & Snooki over LayCool & Dolph Ziggler, and Undertaker over Triple H - weren't exactly long shots seeing as how Undertaker and celebrities are pretty much guaranteed winners at WrestleMania.  I thought I was taking a fairly logical approach to my arguments in attempting to postulate who would win each match, which just goes to show that those of us who feel like we've followed the WWE product (and wrestling in general in most cases) long enough to have an idea of what's coming next still have no clue what's actually going on better than 90% of the time.

- Defensive driving classes...

Can be fairly taxing on the mind, body, and spirit.  I was required to attend a course organized by my employer earlier this week.  The room in which the class was held was very warm and the seating uncomfortable, and these sensations were compounded by the fact that the course lasted just shy of 4 hours.  Be that as it may, the content of the session was sound and I'm looking forward to receiving my attendance certificate in the hope that it will knock a few bucks off my car insurance.

Most of the videos included in the presentation were from the United Kingdom and consisted of kids either getting thrashed around inside a vehicle because they'd not bothered to wear seat belts or being run over by oncoming tractor-trailers due to their not having been cognizant enough to look both ways before crossing a street.  The psychology behind videos like those has always been a mystery to me, much like the psychology behind my old Sunday school teacher who used to incessantly tell us how bad Hell was going to be in an effort to get us to accept Jesus Christ as our eternal lord & savior. ("You will go to Hell and you will burn...", she would say to us while pointing her old, wrinkly, nicotine scented index finger at us.  That's a bit like sandblasting a soup cracker in attempting to deliver perspective to a group of 8 year old kids.) My point being, showing me a child getting her skull bounced off a windshield isn't going to make me any better of a driver.  It does, however, prove that we'd all be better off if we wore helmets constantly - cool and functional helmets, mind you.

- I make really good jambalaya...

Really, I do - or at least I think I do.  If someone from New Orleans tasted it they might think I'd just served them a steaming bowl of shame soup that was being rather rudely put off as one of their most sacred of regional dishes.  Even so, I think it's good and it's my own recipe that I've perfected over time.  I'm very happy with the recipe as is, however I'm a tinkerer when it comes to things of a culinary nature which is why I'm interested in trying a few alternative ingredients in the future just to see how they turn out.  For example, I typically include smoked sausage in my jambalaya but I'd like to try Andouille sausage because it's a more traditional ingredient found in jambalaya. (I've tried making my jambalaya with turkey sausage for a healthier twist but something isn't quite the same about the end result.) Likewise, I've often seen bay leaves involved in jambalaya recipes but I've never cooked with them.  I'm hesitant to include them as I'd hate to have a flavor I'm not too keen on winding up ruining supper.

- Some people can work out by osmosis...

At least that's what I assume they're doing.  My wife and I go to the local YMCA sometimes as many as 5 days a week depending on our schedules and desires.  Seeing as how there aren't many gyms in the town we live it's usually pretty crowded in there.  Most members at this particular YMCA seem to be fairly agreeable when it comes to understanding that everyone's there for the same goal and that you shouldn't hog one piece of equipment since there are other people who want to use it.  Even so, there have been several instances where I've become quite annoyed with patrons who basically sit on a piece of equipment without doing any actual exercise (or at least enough to amount to anything).

Case in point, I begin my exercise routine with about 35 minutes of cardiovascular training; usually a "rolling hills" program on a stationary bicycle.  Earlier this week when I got on the bike there was a woman sitting across the room from me on a butterfly curl machine.  She sat there literally the entire time I was on the bike and did all of 3 repetitions.  I know I'm not an Adonis by any means, but that doesn't matter seeing as how in this context what we're ultimately talking about is etiquette and tact when it comes to being in a communal space like a gym.  If you want to send text messages and browse Facebook for half an hour - great, but go do it on a bench somewhere!  Don't keep people from being able to use equipment that they're paying money to have access to by being a rude douche, for crying out loud.

WrestleMania XXVII Predictions

WrestleMania XXVII (or 27 for those of you who weren't born in the era before Christ) is coming up this weekend from inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA.  My wife and I gave consideration to the possibility of attending the show seeing as how Atlanta isn't much more than a few hours drive from our base of operations.  We looked over WWE's offered travel packages and the price of tickets in general, then we realized we could take a 7 day cruise to the Caribbean for around the same amount of money.  7 days in the Caribbean on a luxury cruise ship filled with all manner of drinks, food, and entertainment or a couple nights in suburban Atlanta watching grown men in spandex play-fighting with each other?  Tough call, for sure, but we opted for the cruise.

Maybe next year, Vince...Maybe next year.

As it stands, we're planning on watching the show with some friends from the comfort of a couch or recliner with easy access to a plethora of snacks, frosty beverages, and clean restrooms.  This is the preferred method of sports viewing for yours beardly as I find the experience of attending events in modern coliseums akin to being a lone agent of justice dealing with an invading unwashed horde, and the seating equivalent to being made into a human Vienna Sausage and packaged as such.  This communal viewing methodology also affords the opportunity to take the frugal way out when it comes to paying for the purchase of the pay-per-view rights, meaning a $65 access fee gets split into several pieces and we get to see the annual "Showcase of the Immortals" for $20 - possibly less.

$60 (or more) for a seat in an arena gets you this level of comfort.

The concept of betting on professional wrestling might seem absurd since match outcomes are (MASSIVE-HUGE-GARGANTUAN SPOILER ALERT) typically predetermined.  Be that as it may, the general public isn't privy to the results prior to the event, which makes it prime fodder for odds-makers nowadays who will commonly post lines online for everything from which team will win the Super Bowl to who's going to win the current season of American Idol.  In that still developing tradition, I've decided this year to post my predictions for WrestleMania XXVII.

1) Big Show, Kane, Santino Marella & Vladimir Kozlov vs. The Corre (Wade Barrett, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel & Ezekiel Jackson)

PREDICTION: The Corre

This is the first year since 2004 that WrestleMania hasn't included a Money In The Bank ladder match (a match wherein the competitors are all trying to capture a briefcase suspended above the ring which contains a contract good for a match against a champion of their choosing, with the added drama of a time constraint in  that the contract can only be used once during the year that follows), and quite frankly I'm disappointed that there isn't one this year.  MITB had become one of the sure-fire, big moments of the show that included a large collection of talent.  Apparently this match is taking the place of MITB this year.  I have scant interest in it because it's a feud that's been cobbled together over the past few weeks.  The Corre have more to gain from winning here as they're an established stable, plus their members currently hold the WWE Tag Team and Intercontinental titles.  Their losing would not only weaken the group but also the luster of those championships.

2) United States Championship - Sheamus (c) vs. Daniel Bryan

PREDICTION: Sheamus

Sheamus is Irish, so it makes complete sense that he's the United States Champion.  WWE had a European championship years ago and it would be amusing to see them dust it off just to hand it to Sheamus as a short-term replacement of the US strap.  That won't happen, though, nor will Bryan win the title back.  Regardless, I'm hoping that this leads to something for Bryan because he's a very talented worker - not really showing much in terms of his charisma, but then again that never has been his forte.

3) John Morrison, Trish Stratus & Snooki vs. LayCool (Michelle McCool & Layla El) & Dolph Ziggler (with Vickie Guerrero)

PREDICTION: Morrison, Stratus & Snooki

I think I'm one of few people who doesn't give a crap about "Jersey Shore".  I don't hate the show or the people on it, I just don't get it or programs like it because they turn people with no discernible talents into the idols of young, impressionable idiots everywhere who don't know better than to want to be like them because they think it'll make them popular.  Enter Snooki - a "celebrity" entrant into this particular match.  Celebrities who get brought into 'Mania matches rarely wind up losing (the exception being Pete Rose who seems to show up at random just to take a piledriver from Kane every so often), and I see no reason why the trend would change.

4) Rey Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes

PREDICTION: Rey Mysterio

I think Mysterio wins this match but not via pin fall, rather I think Rhodes will do something to wind up costing himself the match but that will further establish him as a superior heel.  It's no secret that Mysterio is getting older and isn't in the physical condition he once was (he's been wrestling for almost 20 years), and I'm sure he recognizes the opportunity for him to use his star power to help establish a younger talent like Rhodes.

5) CM Punk vs. Randy Orton

PREDICTION: CM Punk

A few months back, CM Punk became the leader of a group known as the Nexus - a collective of relatively green wrestlers who'd been part of WWE's NXT reality show.  Randy Orton has been systematically eliminating the Nexus members and now Punk stands alone in his quest for revenge against Orton for not only having taken out his flunkies but also having injured him several years prior when Punk was in the middle of the World title picture.

This is definitely one of the more interesting matches on the card for me, mainly because I've been a fan of Punk's ever since his days with Ring of Honor.  I've been tossing around this odd idea that when (OK, if) Punk wins, Orton winds up seeing the error of his ways and becomes something of a disciple to Punk (who subscribes to the straight edge lifestyle - no alcohol, drugs, or tobacco).  I don't know how likely that turn of events is, but it would definitely give new legs to a feud that has had some strong moments along the way.

6) Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole (with Jack Swagger) (special referee "Stone Cold" Steve Austin)

PREDICTION: Jerry Lawler

I have never particularly cared for Michael Cole, from the time that he was a lowly interviewer all the way to now that he's considered by some to be "the voice of WWE".  It hasn't mattered to me that it's only been in the past year or so that they've attempted to develop a heel announcer gimmick around him; I've always had an image of him in my head as some sniveling little piss-ant and the character he's portraying hasn't done anything to improve that perception.

That being the case, I would like nothing more than to see Cole with Jerry Lawler's fist in his mouth.  If he winds up taking a few stiff stunners from Stone Cold along the way, that won't bother me any either.  Point is, the more roughed up this little jerk gets the happier I'll be with the outcome.  And if he ends up having to take time off to recover from a dislocated jaw or reconstructive dental surgery, that's fine by me too - so long as Jim Ross gets to come back in his stead.

7) No Holds Barred - Undertaker vs. Triple H

PREDICTION: Undertaker

The Undertaker is a rare individual in that he has developed such a mythology behind his gimmick that it is highly likely there will never be another like him, ever.  It's the type of gimmick that only comes around once, and in the same vein is his undefeated streak at WrestleMania.  The Dead Man stands presently with an unblemished 18-0 record at 'Mania, having defeated everyone from Ric Flair to Shawn Michaels along the way.

All that having been said, if there was someone who would be seen as most likely to end Taker's streak it would have to be Triple H.  HHH, if you didn't know, has a long history of having been able to influence creative direction within WWE thanks to his relationship to other well-known stars with similar pull, namely Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Shawn Michaels.  He's also married to Stephanie McMahon and has recently been named as a senor adviser to Vince McMahon - which, when you boil it down to brass tacks, basically means that when Vince eventually decides to step away from the business it is almost certain that it will be him who takes the reigns of the wrestling end of their operation.  It's fitting that his Hunter Hearst Helmsley character originated back in the mid 90's as the "Connecticut Blue-blood", a man of privilege and luxury.

I don't think the streak ends this year, though, as I feel like it is realistically all Undertaker has left in his illustrious career.  Next year may be a different story, however; retiring with a perfect 20-0 record at WrestleMania would be a fitting send-off for him.

8) World Heavyweight Championship Match - Edge (c) vs. Alberto Del Rio

PREDICTION: Alberto Del Rio

I'm not giving Edge much of an edge (sometimes the puns write themselves) here because Alberto Del Rio has had nothing short of a meteoric rise upon being brought into WWE's main roster as part of the SmackDOWN brand.  Edge has had multiple runs with the world title in recent years, so a bit of new blood in the picture would be very welcome at this point.  The Latino market is one that WWE has had good success with thanks primarily to Rey Mysterio's involvement, and I'm sure another Spanish-speaking world champion will do great things for business.  Del Rio is one of the best heels to come along in quite some time and I look forward to seeing what they have in store for him.

9) WWE Championship - The Miz (c) vs. John Cena

PREDICTION: John Cena

The Rock is "hosting" WrestleMania 27.  What exactly that's going to involve is anyone's guess at this point, but I'm fairly certain he's not going to be manning the fruit tray at Kraft services or going around to freshen up people's drinks.  He's been jawing a good bit with both The Miz and John Cena in recent weeks, and quite frankly he's the most interesting part of the dynamic of this match for me as I can't think of two wrestlers I like less in terms of their abilities or presentation than Miz and Cena.  Rock never had a true "send off" match before he left WWE to pursue his acting career - given that the location for WrestleMania XXVIII has been announced as his home town of Miami, FL it's made a lot of people wonder if there hasn't already been a plan hatched to have a program involving him start now that might end next year.  That is purely speculative at this point, but it is a rather curious thing to consider nonetheless.

I'm giving Cena the advantage here more or less because of the fact that he's somewhat due for another title run.  Kids and women love him, needless to say, and they buy merchandise with Cena's mug on it like it was required for functioning in daily life.  Miz, on the other hand, makes people want to throw their televisions into the Grand Canyon and forget they ever watched wrestling in the first place.  Advantage, Cena.