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Persona 3

 30 years ago, the Persona series made its debut into the video game world and as I looked back onto the series, I soon realized that one of the most popular games of the the Persona series, Persona 3 is now 20 years old. Persona 3 came in 2006 for the Playstation 2 in Japan in 2006 and then in 2007 for North America. It was developed by Atlus and it was the fourth installment of the Persona series. The player assumes the role of a high student who had transferred to Gekkoukan High School and meets the members of the S.E.E.S. (Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad) who investigate an anomaly known as the Dark Hour and do battle with monsters called Shadows using a physical manifestation of their psyche aka Personas. Joining the protagonist, are Yukari Takeba, the popular girl, Junpei Iori, the class clown and best friend, Akihiko Sanada, the captain of the boxing team, Mitsuru Kirijo, the class president, Fuuka Yamagishi, the shy girl, Algis, the female android, Ken Amada, an...
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The DreamCenter Has Arrived!

 After years of hard work, the Mifflin County Dream Center has finally been realized. Today marks the Grand Opening of the Dream Center which has been a very long time coming. The first time that I had ever heard of the Dream Center was when I worked for the local paper here in Mifflin County and was asked to meet with Chad Curry who was creating the Dream Center in Burnham.  I had knew of Chad for many years mainly because we both went to Lewistown Area High School together. Although he was a couple years ahead of me. The only thing I know about him was he was in the military and when I met him, he opened up a lot to me about his struggles and why bringing the Dream Center meant so much to him and honestly, I was excited to see it happen. Unfortunately, it took a bit longer for the Dream Center to be completed, but nonetheless, it is here. I am very excited about it because there will be a place for people who have struggled with addiction, hunger and financial struggles and ...
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Weekend With A Blue Jay

 This past weekend was an interesting one for me because I had a surprise guest deep inside my mind and it was a pretty blue jay. I find it interesting that a blue jay started to appear in my head when I was feeling extremely frustrated with myself and really everything. Even more interesting, I felt so calming and peaceful during that time and decided to investigate and learn more about the blue jay and why it has become a fixture in my mind. During my research I learned about the spiritual meaning behind seeing a blue jay and the results surprised me. For starters, the blue jay symbolizes truth, fearlessness and clear communication as these birds are known for being bold and loud calls. Many people believe that blue jays are messengers from beyond telling us to speak our minds, trust ourselves and care for those we hold dear. In fact, there are four things I discovered about seeing a blue jay and I would like to discuss about them. Number One. Finding my voice, according to this ...
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Kratt's Creatures! 30 Years Later!

The older I become, the more I have been looking back on some of my favorite things from my childhood and being more appreciative of them. And in today's blog post, I wanted to celebrate one of those favorite moments. In fact, today marks thirty years since its debut of one of my personal favorite shows to watch as a kid and it was called Kratt's Creatures. Kratt's Creatures debut in 1996 on the PBS channel and it only lasted for one season. It certainly was a heck of a season. The show was created by the Kratt Brothers along with Leo Eaton and it helped introduce us young kids at the time to learn about the wildlife and all kinds of amazing creatures all around the world. This was the first time that I was introduced to the Kratt Brothers Martin and Chris along with their friends Allison and Ttark and together their showcase different animals and different habitats. Since then I have been a major fan of the Kratt Brothers and have watched a number of their shows even to th...
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Jimmie And Stevie Ray Vaughn: Brothers In Blues (2023 Documentary)

 I recently watched a pretty cool documentary on Tubi the other day and it was about Stevie Ray Vaughn along with his older brother Jimmie and how they gotten involved with the blues genre as well as their careers. Now, I really love listening to the blues and I am a fan of Stevie Ray Vaughn and I wanted to learn more about Jimmie and his career along with getting to learn more about the blues in Texas. And I must say, this documentary was an incredible watch. It featured such great talent like Eric Clapton, Nile Rodgers, Billy Gibbons and many of the local musicians that knew Jimmie and Stevie and got to learn their stories and hear them tell stories about such great blues players like Muddy Waters, TBone Walker, Albert King, Jimmy Hendrix and many more. I thought it was cool to see how Jimmie and Stevie got their start and seeing the home movies of them playing in bands and how they developed their style. I also really enjoyed seeing the older bands they use to play with and now ...
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American Gladiators (Original Series)

 Thirty years ago this month of May, will mark the final year of the original American Gladiator TV series which started back in 1989 all the way to 1996. The series follows a cast of amateurs as they compete against each other which is usually consisted of two male and two female athletes as well as the show's own "Gladiators" through multiple challenges of strength and agility. Each season was basically a tournament where a male and female contenders would ultimately become an American Gladiator themselves. The contenders go through a variety of events throughout the show. Some of those events were Pyramid, Hang Tough, Joust, The Wall and so forth. My personal favorite event was Assault. I also very much enjoyed all of the cool names that each of the Gladiators. Such as, Laser, Malibu, Diamond, Ice, Thunder, Turbo, Storm, Lace, Nitro, Gold, Blaze and so many more. With that being said, rest in peace to Hawk, Siren, Atlas, Thunder, Gold who are no longer with us. 🙏🙏🙏....
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Surfer Sting To Crow Sting (30 Years Later)

 It always amazes me how much time flies in this world and today's subject is no different. One of the more positive influences in my life and that is a professional wrestler named Sting. 30 Years ago, was an interesting time in the life of a young Joshua and I was in the mix of watching pro wrestling during the 1990s and it was also a major turning point in the career of Sting. Of course it is much easier to look back today and see how much of this amazing character change was for Sting and really pro wrestling. By this point in my wrestling joy, was seeing Sting who at the time was a mostly blonde hair and was tag teaming with his buddy Lex Luger. And honestly, I do not think these two get enough credit of how great of a tag team they were. But also happening at this time of professional wrestling, was a storyline that ultimately tipped the scales in the favor of one WCW during the Monday Night War and it was the NWO. The NWO was a major driving force in professional wrestling an...
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The Joshua Yoder Blog: 3 Year Reflection!

 So here we are folks! Year three, of the Joshua Yoder Blog has finally been completed. Hard to believe to be perfectly honest with all of you because this past year really did not go the way I was hoping it would. The third season certainly was a bit of a drop for me personally. Coming off of year two of the Joshua Yoder Blog, I was feeling pretty good, my blog had doubled the views it did the year before and my mind was totally blown. I was excited! I mean, for the first time in my life, I felt as though something was heading in the right direction. But then things went south real quick. For the record, I am simply trying to use my writing as well as my talk show to help build a career for myself. I am not trying to cause any drama or any kind of BS. I just like to write poetry, stories, etc. As mentioned earlier, things went a little south for me during the run. It started with my Facebook account getting HACKED. For the remainder of 2025 was me losing a source of displaying my ...
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Resident Evil 1 (1996 Video Game)

 With it being 30 years of Resident Evil, I thought I take a look back, all the way to the year of 1996 when a video game company Capcom introduced the world to this survival horror game on the original Playstation. Set in the fictional mountain region in the Midwest, players get to choose between either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, who are members of a elite task force known as S.T.A.R.S. and they must escape from a mansion that has been infested with zombie and other monsters. Many gamers nowadays would probably think this is funny, but at the time, the original Resident Evil was given high praise for its graphic, gameplay, sound and atmosphere. But hey, it was 1996, this was a big step for gaming at that point. At the time, it was the highest selling Playstation game of all time which ultimately it was Gran Turismo who became the all time selling game for the original Playstation with Final Fantasy 7 coming in second place. In fact, Resident Evil grossed 200,000,000 dollars...
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Bedtime Blues (Poem)

 Why must I go through another night laying in tears. It has though everything I feared has surrounded me and those I hold dear. What good am I anyway? So many times I've asked God this question every time I pray. No answer seems to be given, all hope has gone astray. I am such a failure, can't you hear my cries. I'm so ashamed, that I can't even looked into my niece and nephew's eyes. God I pray they never have to feel the way I feel. Please protect them Lord and show them that, no matter what, love is real. I've tried my best to be the man and search for love and happiness, but each time these women just me as someone they just past on through. It was like they were telling me, we never loved you. With each passing day, I only get reminders of why I fail. The older I get, just only reminds me how much more my body is frail. Any kind of happiness has set sail. Let me close my eyes and escape reality. Just let me lay to rest and hear the sounds of raindrops put ...
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Phantom Of The Opera (1986 Broadway)

 Holy Cow! I can not believe that this musical masterpiece is 40 years old this year. Last year, I wrote a blog post about the Phantom of the Opera which was a book written by Gaston Leroux over 100 years ago. But then, in 1986, the world was introduced to the musical adaptation of the great story thanks to the efforts of Andrew Lloyd Webber who created the music along with lyricists Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. Stilgoe along with Lloyd Webber also did the libretto and follows the plot from the book where singer Christine Daae, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious and disfigured musical genius aka the Phantom of the Opera who lives in a labyrinth beneath the Paris Opera house. The musical made its debut again back in 1986 at the West End theatre in London and from there onward left a legacy like no other. Winning numerous awards, gross billions of dollars worldwide, is the longest running opera show in history and has been seen by 100s of millions of people in multiple co...
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Digimon Cyber Sleuth (Being Positive)

 Finally! It took me long enough lol, but I managed to beat a video game called Digimon Cyber Sleuth. I know that it isn't anything too special, but with that being said, I just excited because I have been feeling pretty depressed and frustrated lately and I am trying to be positive. Sorry for that little side note, but after winning the game, I realized that this game is over 10 years old now. Digimon Cyber Sleuth was released on PS4 back in 2015 by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Cyber Sleuth is a third person role playing game where you and your allies have the ability to command Digimon. Digital creatures with their own set of skills who do battle against Digimon. You get to choose between Palmon, Terriermon or Hagurumon as your starting partner at the beginning of the game. Me personally, I choose Hagurumon mainly because I love the whole robotic design of him. Honestly though, I have always been a fan of Patamon. There are over 200 different Digimon that are featured in the game ...
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The Wacky Adventures Of Josh And Chad: Trimble The McVeytown Goose!

 Despite all of the rain, my twin brother Chad and I headed our way down to McVeytown and witness the debut of the McVeytown Goose at the Rothrock library. This special event was thanks to the Community Partnerships Wild Geese Flock. Together, public art project which recognizes our region's Goose Day traditions. The unveiling of the McVeytown Goose was pretty cool to see and we got to hangout with some of our friends at the Rothrock library. Seeing the finishing touches of the Goose which was created by artist Carley Mattern of Ryde was amazing. Shout Out to Carley, the goose looks awesome! In fact, the goose was given the name Trimble. For those who do not know, the name was inspired by Dr. Joseph T. Rothrock who is from McVeytown and was known as the Father of Forestry. The T which is the first of his middle, Trimble and that is why the goose is named that as a tribute to him. Presenting Trimble the McVeytown Goose was Anne Fisher-Henson who also helped with sponsoring for the g...
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Fight Night Round 3

 One of my personal favorite sports to watch growing up as a youngster, was the great sport of boxing. And some of my favorite video games to play were boxing games. Today is one such game that I will be blogging about and honestly, it just might be the greatest boxing video game of all time in my humble opinion. It is called Fight Night Round 3! Fight Night Round 3 was the third installment of the Fight Night series which were created by Electronic Arts and their EA Sports division back in 2006. The game features 27 real life boxers, including two of my personal favorite fighters Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward who were also on the cover of the game on the sixth generation consoles. Other fighters Oscar De La Hoya, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, etc. The gameplay was fun and I love the different styles of boxing you can make your created boxer to have as well as different ways of blocking. The career mode was a lot of fun too! Getting to create myself or just make up a random characte...
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Conan O'Brien

 With my quest of trying to be more positive and getting away from negative thoughts, I thought I write about someone who has been quite an inspiration to me in my life. His name is Conan O'Brien. For those of you who may not know, Conan is an American television host, comedian and writer. He is best known for his late night talk shows that began all the way back to 1993 when he debut on NBC with Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The first time I got to see Conan was during the late 90s when he was the host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Being a young kid at that time, getting to see the show was always fun, especially since it was just me and my twin brother Chad and our older brother Cody. Of course this was also before I realized that Late Night was a nightly show lol. For a long time, I thought the show only happened on Friday night. Me and Chad would basically crawl from our room over to Cody's room and we just chill and watch Conan together. Personally, I always g...
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An Eye For An Eye (Chuck Norris Film)

 The Chuck Norris movies continue as once again, my twin and I got to jump on Tubi and today we saw one of my personal favorite Chuck Norris film, An Eye for An Eye which is 45 years old now as it came out in 1981. The film was directed by Steve Carver and it stars Chuck Norris (Of Course 😁) as Sean Kane who is out for revenge against a drug cartel who killed his partner after being betrayed by an informant.  After quitting the force, Kane seeks out his friend Linda Chan, played by Roselind Chao the girlfriend of his partner who was killed. She too seeks to bring down the gang only to be killed herself by the gang which leads Kane down a dark path of lies and betrayals. Once again, this is one of my favorite Chuck Norris movie. For one, the really enjoyed the cast that this movie has assembled. Along with Norris, they also had Richard Roundtree (RIP) who many people remember him as John Shaft of the Shaft movies. Matt Clark (RIP) who had been in movies like Josey Wales, Outla...
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Rocky (1976 Movie)

 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...
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Ten Commandments (1956 Film)

 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...
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Depressed But Hopeful

 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...
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The Hitman (Chuck Norris Movie)

 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...
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The Original Xbox

 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...
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The Wacky Adventures Of Josh And Chad: McVeytown Fire Company 18

 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...
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The Wacky Adventures Of Josh And Chad: HWF Wrestling: That Night At The Garden!

 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...
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BB King (Blues Singer)

 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...
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Gatti Versus Ward 1

 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...
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