Miscellaneous rambling, and bragging about my kids.

Well put… Very unexpected and Very tragic…

ABC News has the most information so far about what we know. Benoit had cancelled his pay per view appearance, but ABC news reports that he had "missed several appointments over the weekend" making me question how long he had been missing. I was under the impression that he was the one who had cancelled (as opposed to someone doing it for him), and that it had happened at the last minute on Sunday. I am wondering now if it could have been days ago. (One report says that it was the WWE who alerted authorities to do a "welfare check" after they could not contact Benoit. So now it's beginning to sound like he did not show up for the PPV, and when they could not find him it was the WWE that had no choice but to change the event, and report the circumstances as "family emergency".)

Second and more importantly, the sheriff reports "no evidence of stabbing or gunshot wounds" which almost surely rules out the murder/suicide theory, since if there were some crime of passion at the cause of this, then some violent and obvious means of death would have been apparent. They are now looking at poisoning, strangulation and other causes. I suppose that poisoning could still be an option (carbon monoxide?) if they'd actually been involved in some sort of mutual thing…but remember, their son is dead, too. I can't conceive of parents working together to kill their child as well as themselves. So was the whole thing a tragic accident? I'll keep updating as I find out more news.

Update: Sources now report that Benoit was the one to call and say that he would be taking a later flight to the pay per view, that he had to stay home to take care of his wife and son who were throwing up blood. I have no idea if this is a confirmed report or not, or if it implies that he too was sick with whatever happened to them, or what. But it's looking more and more like some horrific tragedy and not any sort of murder/suicide situation.

Well that's part of the show they hope you don't notice — obviously they have to pay the ex- to purchase these supposedly favored items. So on tv it looks like you're getting the best end of the deal, but really the ex is laughing to the bank.

How in the world do they get the items they use for revenge… Like this guys Rolex?

I don't really follow the WWE pay per views, but I do follow the "sheets" that give the update on matches. I noticed last night that Benoit would miss the Vengeance PPV because he had to fly home for a "family emergency."

Apparently he, his wife Nancy, and their child have all been found dead. Holy sh*t. No more news is currently available, although you'd have to guess at some sort of murder/suicide thing – the question is who started it.

Long time wrestling fans might recall Benoit's wife Nancy as the character Woman, former protege of Kevin Sullivan. They had some classic battles in WCW using their own real life feud as fodder for some memorable television.

It's hard to explain to a non wrestling fan what it means when something like this happens. I mean, let's be honest, I'm 38 years old and I've watched wrestling for all my life. I don't buy the merchandise, or the pay per views. It's just a sort of Monday night habit I've never really kicked. Now imagine for a minute that there's someone you see every week. Every single week, for, oh, call it 20 years. There's really nothing that can compare to that. No television show does it justice – they tape, they rerun. Wrestling is live every week. No movie star can compare – they have stunt men, they get up and climb back in their trailers until they're needed again. Pro wrestlers put on the show that they do, live, every week, because it's what they're born to do. Sometimes they go away for awhile, sure. They're injured, they're written out of story lines. You don't hear from them for months. And then one day when you least expect it, their entrance music kicks in and you get honest to god shivers down your spine. Not because I'm screaming at my television "Kill him, Chris! Get him!!" Of course we know it's fixed, of course we know who "wins". It's not about that. It's about knowing that the guy walking down the aisle is about to put on a damned entertaining show for me, and I appreciate that.

Men like Chris Benoit (and his longtime closest friend Eddie Guerrero) were the sort who redefined what it meant to be great at what they did. Chris Benoit absolutely transcended what it means to be a professional wrestler these days. He wasn't among the circus of "dead men" and "degeneration X" and other gimmicks and story lines. You want to know the Chris Benoit storyline? He was the best wrestler there was. Prove him wrong. In a business where people got over almost entirely on their monster physiques or their movie star microphone work (the Rock, anyone?), Chris Benoit held his own entirely on his wrestling talent and intensity.

I can't even wrap my brain around what it means for him to be gone. Eddie Guerrero died last year. That, too, was a tragedy. But to put it in context? Honestly? Eddie Guerrero had a long time history of messing his body up pretty badly with drugs. It was not a surprise to many people when he died. Benoit died suddenly, unexpectedly and tragically, along with his entire family. The magnitude of that is inconceivable.

The show's on now. I'm going to stop typing and start appreciating the memories. RIP, Crippler. I hope you get to see your friend Eddie again.

You're missing out on a large part of life if you don't take the time to walk among other people with your eyes and your ears open. Now that the nice weather is here, I tend to wander around Boston Common, sometimes working my way up to Downtown Crossing. And I'm learning things. I'm learning, for example, how words change over time.

Last night I was at a production of Shakespeare's King Lear. There is a line, delivered by the senile king, where he says "Let me not be mad." As I heard it, in context, I realized that it could have two meanings – since he is about to visit one of his daughters he could be calming himself down, literally telling himself that being angry with her will get him nowhere. Or, more profoundly, he could be realizing that he's starting to lose his mind, and praying that it holds off awhile – Let me not be senile.

Today while walking back to work over lunch I heard someone say, "I be spending mad dough today, yo!"

Once before I heard a similar sentiment where one man confided in his friend, "I've had mad jobs, I just keep gettin fired."

Shakespeare would be proud.

Well of course he's not dead, that's been established in several ways (including acknowledgement that the limo was blown up the previous night as a stunt). The more interesting question is whether or not the storyline is interesting, or just the same old stuff. I liked the actual explosion but the whole "federal investigator" thing got boring fast. They should drop it for a few months and then resurrect the whole idea when people are ready for it again.

he aint dead becuase it would be all over the news!

It is thoroughly illegal to dump gasoline in a lake without a permit. I doubt they had a water permit to do so.

Wrestling is one big pantomine. Do you seriously think he is dead? BS. If he did die don't you think he would make the worldwide news. It was obviously staged as the smirk on his face symbolized this as he got into the limo. Storyline wise, i think it is most likely to be the undertaker as he is 'evil' or at least pretending to be and he is missing as well. Think about it, after Undertaker lost his heavyweight title he just disappeared. Maybe he has a big upcoming storyline.