The Joshua Yoder Blog

 One of my personal favorite movies ever is now turning 50 years old this year. One of my personal heroes and inspirations for daily life and that is the Italian Stallion himself, Rocky. In 1976, the world was introduced to Rocky Balboa, a down on his luck boxer trying to overcome the obstacles in his life. Sylvester Stallone stars as Rocky as well as the creator which basically launched Stallone into stardom. Story follows Balboa who is struggling in the city of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pa as a boxer and loan shark collector for the local mob. He soon gets the break he was hoping for when the World Heavyweight Champion Apollo Creed was looking for new opponent to face him since his previous challenger had to back out of the fight due to a broken hand. Creed decides to give Rocky a shot at the title. The fight itself turned into a frenzy as Rocky proves himself more than a challenge for the champion Creed. Although Creed would win the fight via decision, Rocky managed to go th...

 This past weekend, many of us here were at home with our loved ones and celebrated Easter. And one of the things that we do around the house was watch the Ten Commandments movie which this marks its 70th anniversary. This film first came out in 1956 and has a length of 220 minutes which basically means that this film is four hours long 😮. Ten Commandments was directed by Cecil B. DeMille which this film ended up being his last movie before his passing in 1959 (Rest In Peace). The movie follows the life of Moses through the Book Of Exodus from the Bible along with other sources. Such as the novel Prince of Egypt by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, J.H. Ingraham's Pillar of Fire and On Eagle's Wings by A.E. Southon. At the time of its release to the public, the Ten Commandments movie was the most expensive movie ever to be made which was a 13 million dollars budget. In fact, it was one of the most successful films ever grossing a grand total of 122.7 million dollars in its initial releas...

 With it being Easter today, many people will be celebrating by looking for Easter eggs with their love ones. Me, I will be dealing with more depression.  It has been a little while since I have written anything on my blog, mainly because of my current battle with my mental health. I am just laying here frustrated with myself and honestly, it has taken me away from the things I love like my writing. Things in my life haven't been going well, been struggling with my work, my head is filled with some many different thoughts and I am just not really sure what to think and more so, I am not even sure if I am making any sense. I have tried to talk to some people about this, but all it seems to come up in my head is just jibber-jabber. It was making me feel insane. Yet, at the same time, I have been feeling more hopeful, especially more recently. Why is that? How could I possibly feel hopeful and sad at the exact same time? I can only guess that God is watching over me. It just feel...

 With the unfortunate death of the great Chuck Norris, Chad and I have been on a Chuck Norris kick and we have been reliving some of his great movies. Today's film was the 1991 classic called the Hitman. The Hitman is a Canadian-American action that again stars the late, great Chuck Norris as well as directed by his brother Aaron Norris and written by Don Carmody, Robert Geoffrion and Galen Thompson. This movie was also distributed by the now defunct company called Cannon Pictures. The story follows Seattle cop Cliff Garret (Chuck Norris) who was severely wounded during a drug bust gone awry after being betrayed by his corrupt partner Ronny "Del" Delany. He soon awakened and was given a brand new identity and Garret becomes a "Hitman" for Mob Boss Marco Luganni. But soon, Garret discovers his old partner is around and it becomes a personal vendetta. The Hitman was considered as a box office success when it originally came out to the masses and watching the movie...

 WOW! Just WOW! This year along has about big time milestones, especially in my lifetime. One of those special milestone is celebrating 25 years since the debut of one of the biggest video game consoles ever, the original Xbox. Amazing! 25 years ago back in 2001, the original Xbox literally burst upon the scene. For the time since 1993, with the Atari Jaguar, that a American-produced console was created. The Xbox was created by Microsoft and was a response to the launching of Sony's Playstation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube. The first time that I myself got to see the Xbox was during an episode of GameSpot TV on ZDTV/Tech TV. Being a kid at the time, I was just excited to see more video games to play, I never was into the whole "Console Wars". Sure, I had my favorites just like everyone else, but I just loved video games. But going back to GameSpot TV, I found an old episode on YouTube and just brought a smile on my face. I had forgotten how much of a big deal it was at t...

 Sometimes the most adventurous days come when you do not expect them and today was certainly one of those days. Chad and I went outside to take care of recycling and Chad had suggested we go check out the brand new Fire House for the McVeytown Fire company.  His boss from Kountry Kitchen, Amanda Boozel, her husband Doug is the Assistant Chief of the McVeytown Fire Company and they invited us to come over and check out the new the building. Of course we decided to go and see it for ourselves. When we arrived, Doug was not there yet, but we were welcomed by Nate Moist and many other members of the fire company and Moist went and gave us a little tour around the building. It was quite beautiful and I am glad to see that they were able to get the building put up. Now, remember when I said that sometimes the adventure can come when you least expect it. Well that came as we had just finished up our little tour, the alarm went off as a fire had broken out.  While Chad and I sto...

 Well, after a bit of a break, my twin brother Chad and I went back onto the road again and got to meet up with our friends of the Honorary Wrestling Federation over at the Heritage Fire Company in Lewistown Pa for their That Night At The Garden show. As always we went down there to see friends and cover the event for my friend and mentor Kenny Varner and Hometown Sports Magazine. This event was special to me because for the first time in the history HWF, there was going to be a royal rumble type of match at their show. That is correct, an indy wrestling show was going to have a 30 wrestler royal rumble match at their show. I was excited, yet nervous at the same time because I was worried and honestly hoping and praying that things were going to go smoothly. It is not easy to pull off that kind of match at a small time Indy promotion, but with that being said, I thought they did an amazing job. A lot of the newcomers got their chance to shine and have a their first match in front o...

 Being a fan of the blues in large part due to amazing musicians like Eric Clapton for example as well as the Blues Brothers. But being a bit of a history buff myself, I wanted to learn about the history of the blues and that is the subject of today's blog post. I write about the "The King of the Blues" Riley B. King, better known as B.B. King. Now I must say again, the first time I was introduced to B.B. King was thanks to Eric Clapton and the Blues Brothers as well as seeing him play at a Les Paul tribute concert. Just watching him sitting there with his pretty sweet bowtie and just absolutely shred his guitar completely blew my mind. I thought to myself, who is this guy? Since then I have been researching King and I got to learn some incredible stuff. For one, prior to his death in 2015 😢, King started his career long before even my parents were born. King was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. King was given a Grammy L...

 If you had read a couple of my previous blog posts, I had written about two of my favorite boxers/fighters of all-time in the form "Irish" Micky Ward and Arturo "Thunder" Gatti. Their legendary trilogy of boxing matches are one of, if not the greatest trilogy of fights in the history of the sport of boxing. One of the craziest things that I have noticed was the simple fact of all three of their fights were within a two year period. With the first fight, which is what I am writing about today, was fought on May 18 2002 at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. It was a boxing bout at 142 pounds aka Super-Lightweight and it was set to go ten rounds. I mean, let's be honest with ourselves folks, no one could have ever predicted how special of a night this match was going to be. From the opening round all the way to the final bell of round ten, both Gatti and Ward left everything in the ring. Honestly, with that being said, I do not think I can even find the words do it t...

 With the recent release of the newest entree of Resident Evil Requiem, I wanted to take a little look back at one of the greatest franchises in video game history. Resident Evil! It is amazing to me to think that this series is 30 years old this year and it is still going strong. The original Resident Evil game came out in 1996 on the original Playstation. It was created by gaming company Capcom thanks to the efforts of Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara. Resident Evil typically consist of survival horror, third-person shooters and first-person elements while avoiding zombies or other mutant creatures.  This game is among one of the highest grossing horror franchises of all time as well as being Capcom's biggest franchise selling nearly 200 million dollars worldwide. If fact, two of the characters throughout its run, Leon S. Kennedy and Albert Wesker have both been named as some of the greatest video game characters of all time. Although I have been around Resident Evil since ...

 Alittle bit ago, I had written about one of my favorite boxers ever in "Irish" Micky Ward. Well today, I figure that I would write about another famous boxer who sadly is no longer with us and is Arturo "Thunder" Gatti. The second half of this amazing trilogy of boxing matches along with Ward, Gatti was such an incredible fighter who competed from 1991 to 2007. Gatti held a World title in two different weight classes, the first being the IBF junior lightweight championship from 1995 to 1998 and the WBC super lightweight title from 2004 to 2005. Thunder scored four Fight of the Night Awards from The Ring Magazine in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2003 before eventually retiring in 2007. Gatti was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2012 in his first year of eligibility. Arturo fought in a grand total of 49 fights in his professional career winning 40 matches (31 by way of knockout) to go along with nine losses. He was called Thunder for a very good reason a...

 Well if anyone hadn't gotten a chance to see Monday Night Raw this past Monday, it was revealed that the Phenomenal AJ Styles will be inducted into the 2026 WWE Hall Of Fame. Now there is no doubt in anyone's mind that AJ is certainly deserving of this honor. AJ is not only a Hall Of Fame wrestler, but also a Hall Of Fame human being as well. Styles has been one of my favorite in today's era ever since I first saw back in his days with TNA back in the mid-2000s. They called him the Phenomenal One and I totally could see why, it didn't take me very long to become of fan of such an incredible talent. In fact, one of my favorite moments of AJ was the first time he got to wrestle Kurt Angle. My jaw never leave the floor, I mean just the intensity of everything that they brought to the table was just mind blowing to me. Everything about seeing these two wrestle since then was just insane and believable. Another major factor of me being an AJ Styles fan, is just how he could...

In my humble opinion, the most underrated genre in the history of music is the blues. With that being said, I recently finished watching a documentary on a blues musician named Stevie Ray Vaughn. Not obviously he was before my time as he tragically passed away the same year that me and my twin brother Chad were born 1990. Rest In Peace! I was checking out one of my personal favorite channels on TV AXS TV and I saw that they were going to air this documentary and me being a fan of the blues and wanting to know more about the history of the blues as well as music in general, I decided to sit back and watch it. Thank you God! I enjoyed every single second of it. Getting to see how Stevie was coming up and what he went through growing up and how he used his struggles to create such amazing art really was inspiring to me.  I also loved about they talked about the rise of the "Texas Blues" and working his way through small clubs which honestly I think it be cool to have a blues clu...

 My twin brother Chad and I got to rewatch an old documentary on Tubi and it is called The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story. This was a film that made its way into the world back in 2018 and it discusses the origin of a small, humble network leaning into the SNICK years. This documentary was written and directed by Scott Barber and Adam Sweeney. And features some of biggest stars that appeared on their programs as well as some of the executives and talented writers who made them. People like Melissa Joan Hart, Kel Mitchell, Josh Server and great shows such as Doug, Clarissa Explains All, Rugrats, and so forth. With all of that being said, I absolutely loved this documentary. Me and Chad were just completely in awe of it. This brought us back to our childhood getting to see how Nickelodeon became what it was. Getting to listen to all of the people in the know and hear them tell these incredible stories really makes me wish that I could be apart of that. Especially being a writer ...

 Well, I finally did it! I recently finished playing the original Mass Effect game that came out back in 2007. It was created by Casey Hudson and developed by Bioware while being published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game takes place within the Milky Way galaxy in the year 2183 where civilization is being attacked by the return of an highly advanced machine race better known as the Reapers. First and foremost, I wanted to say Thank you to my dear friend Stephon who surprised me with this incredible gift of getting me Mass Effect Legendary Edition. I was completely shocked when he sent it to me, I mean to be fair, I was constantly talking about the Mass Effect series and how it shaped me writing wise as well as fun memories of gaming. But still, I am extremely grateful for the gift and am going to make the most of it. Just seeing the intro to the first game was enough to make my heart smile. I was grinning from ear to ear as I made my character, or at least my version of Shepard....

 One of my personal heroes in the world of sports is former professional boxer "Irish" Micky Ward who competed from 1985 to 2003. Ward has held the IBF light welterweight championship in 1997 and then later the WBU light welterweight championship in 2000. I was first introduced to Ward in large part thanks to his legendary trilogy of fights between himself and another one of my personal favorite boxers in Arturo "Thunder" Gatti (RIP), two of those three fights won Fight of the Year awards courtesy of the Ring magazine. Another reason why I became such a fan of Ward is because of his style of fighting. Known as a pressure fighter, no matter what happens to him in the ring, just know that Ward was going to keep pushing forward. Ward was always consider the underdog in most of his bouts, but it sure didn't look like at it at times. His nonstop action is something that admire about him even to this very day. Especially getting to learn more about him since his retir...

 You want to talk about making a cultural impact on the lives of many, look no further than the lovable cartoon known as Smokey the Bear. For nearly 100 years now, this protector of the forest has been helping all of us understand the importance of fire safety and putting a stop to wildfires. And has Smokey done such an incredible job in doing so having appeared in numerous posters, ads, clothes, commercials, etc. Making this the longest running public service announcement campaign in United States history. Smokey made his debut due to the many experienced firefighters or able bodied males were out fighting World War 2 and so Smokey was created to help reduce unplanned wildfires caused by human errors. Although he began as a cartoon, Smokey soon became a living breathing creature. An unfortunate accident which caused a wildfire in New Mexico where a small three month old black bear who was sadly burnt in multiple places. Originally, they called the bear Hotfoot Teddy, but soon was ...

 You know, the month of February will officially be 90 years since the debut of the Phantom when it hit the comic strips back 1936 by Lee Falk. The main story follows the Phantom a costume wearing crime-fighter who lives in a fictional African county of Bangalla and is still running as of 2026 being written and drawn by many others since Falk's death in 1999 (RIP). In the comic strip, the Phantom is the 21st in a line of crime fighters which had began in 1536. The first Phantom was Christopher Walker after his father was killed during a pirate attack and swore an oath on the skull of his father's murderer to fight evil. This oath started a legacy that has been past down from Father to Son for multiple generations, hence why the Phantom appears to be immortal. Unlike many other superheroes, the Phantom does not have any kind of superpowers. He must rely on his strength, his wits and his skills with his two hand pistols (a revolver and a 1911 .45 auto pistol) and is an expert wit...

Many of you may be a little bit surprised by this, but one of my personal favorite genres to listen to is the Blues. And in today's blog post, I want to talk about the man who introduced me to the Blues and his name is Eric Clapton. Clapton is widely regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarist in music. He ranks second in Rolling Stone's Top 100 Greatest Guitarist of All Time, fourth in Gibson's Top 50's list and fifth in Time Magazine's 10 Best Electric Guitarists. The man has won numerous awards whether it be from the Grammy's, the Brit Awards, Ivor Novello Awards and is the only artist to be a three-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One time as a member of the Yardbirds, the other as a part of the group called Cream and as a solo artist. In fact, as a solo artist, Clapton has sold over 100 million records worldwide which makes him one of the greatest selling musicians of all time. Mr. Clapton has been a part of such incre...

 This one might be a little late in reporting, but I recently found out that the 80s classic the Goonies, has a sequel in the works. I honestly not really sure how I feel about that personally. But nonetheless, this news has inspired me to look back on the original movie that made its debut on the silver screen back in 1985. The Goonies is an adventure comedy directed by Richard Donner from a screenplay by Christopher Columbus based on a story from Steven Spielberg. The film stars Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman, Kerri Green, Martha Plimpton and Ke Huy Quan who play members of the Goonies. This group of young adventurers live in the "Goon Docks" neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon and they discover a treasure map which they believe can help them save their homes from being foreclosed. However, along the way, the gang quickly discovers that they are being chased after by a family of criminals. First of all, the Goonies is an incredible film. Second, it carried a...

 In my humble opinion, this show is incredibly underrated. With a lot of people going to these concerts that have become these major productions, it is nice to see something so small and so simple which is what MTV's Unplugged was to me. Unplugged is the brainchild of the dynamic duo of Jim Burns (RIP) and Robert Smalls and launched in 1989. Like the title of the show, it was basically about bands who would "Unplugged" their instruments and play an acoustic versions of some their favorite songs. Although the show was initially about new, up and coming artists but ultimately, some of the biggest names in music got to be a part of this incredible show. The 1990s was probably one of the biggest successful decades in the shows history because many of the artists during the decade released their Unplugged sessions as album and became big hits. Such artists like Mariah Carey (1992), Nirvana (1994), Rod Stewart (1993), 10,000 Maniacs (1993), Alice N Chains (1996) had found major...

We are edging closer to the 2026 Winter Olympics that are going to be held in Milan, Italy on Friday February 6 on NBC, USA and Peacock. I myself am excited to see what will be happening during these events! Although, I am more of a Summer Olympics person mainly because there is more to watch and do than Winter, but I love getting to see all the other countries come together for this special occasion. There will be 116 events in eight sports (16 disciplines) and it will run from February 6 all the way to February 22. Of the 16 different disciplines that will be appearing during the Winter Olympics, I am looking forward to such events like Curling, Snowboarding, Ice Hockey, Bobsleighing and the one sport that I am mostly looking forward to is the Speed Skating contest. Italy will also be host to the 2026 Paralympics as well although those events will not begin until March 6 and will run through to March 15. There will be 79 events through six different sports like ice hockey, snowboard ...

 Hard to believe that 25 years has past since the death of one of auto racing's greatest drivers. The man in black, the Intimidator, Dale Earnhardt. Time really does fly by, I mean 2001 seemed like only yesterday and now it is 2026. The Daytona 500 is coming up and honestly, I'm not really excited for it. Nascar hasn't been very appealing to me for quite a long time now for a number of different reasons, but back to Earnhardt. Earnhardt began his career in 1975 and has build a career that few have ever achieved. In fact, Earnhardt is just one of three Nascar drivers to have won seven Cup championships with the other two being Richard Petty and Jimmie Johnson. He compiled a grand total of 76 Cup wins, 428 Top Ten finishes and 22 Poles positions during his Hall of Fame career. Which Earnhardt was inducted in 2010. Although Earnhardt wasn't my personal favorite driver growing up as a kid, I became a major fan of his son Dale Jr and I will tell you why. Going back to the 20...

 WOW! It finally happened! The Indiana Hoosiers our the National Champions of college football defeating the Miami Hurricanes by the final score of 27-21. First and foremost, what a game between both teams, great effort on both sides, but sadly there can only be one and it was the Hoosiers who came out victorious. In fact, this was the first ever college football National title for Indiana in its entire history of the program. And to be honest with all of you, it was really amazing to see. Ever since I first starting watching college football as a little kid, the Hoosiers were not actually a football school. They were usually a team that many people would beat up on and now look at them, they are the National Champions, undefeated even. Head Coach Curt Cignetti certainly deserves a lot of the credit in turning this program into a championship caliber team. I mean, the guy literally in his second season with the team and led the Hoosiers to an unbeaten National Champions. As the Hea...