The Joshua Yoder Blog

 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...

 You know with it being a new year, we all have those new year's resolutions that are basically goals we set up to accomplish during the bring new year. Most times, we unfortunately do not reach those goals due to one thing or another. But for me, I really wanted to be able to achieve this becoming more positive in my life. Which has become more of a mission for me for the year 2026 than it has been in previous years. It is no secret that I struggle with mental health like depression for basically my whole life, but now more than ever, I wanted to find ways to be more positive and I set a couple of goals that I am hoping to complete. And I managed to complete one of those set goals for 2026 and that was to donor my hair for Wigs for Kids.  The idea started a while back when I first decided to let my hair grow out. To be perfectly honest with you guys, I didn't really think it would grow like it did. If you seen how my dad is, you would totally understand, basically, all the me...

 One of my personal favorite pro wrestling factions in recent memory. The Undisputed Era brought back a lot of joy for me as a fan and was one of best things to watch during their amazing run in NXT in my humble opinion. In 2017, the group was originally a trio with such great talent like Adam Cole BAY-BAY! Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish before eventually being joined by Roderick Strong. To say these guys carried the black and gold brand is an incredible understatement and honestly, I was so proud of them. You see, one of the reasons as to why I loved the Undisputed Era was simply because I have been a fan of these guys year prior to them coming to the WWE.  I first saw these guys in a little wrestling promotion called Ring of Honor and I had been fans of theirs ever since. Adam Cole being the leader of the Kingdom was a joy to watch while Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish aka Red Dragon was such an amazing tag team and Roderick Strong in my humble opinion is a very underrated wrestl...

 Being a fan of history, it is always fun to read about how these use to be or things that no longer exist for one reason or another. One of those historical things involves sports and with it being football season, I decided to write about an old NFL team. Nowadays, people see the National Football League as this multi-billion dollar industry, which it is indeed. But it didn't start out that way. In fact, when I see some semi-pro football that happens around Mifflin County, it is exactly what the NFL was like back in 1920. Where teams were just basically traveling teams featuring regular folks, not the athletes we see today. One of those teams had caught my eye was the Hartford Blues who 100 years ago played their one and only season with the NFL before leading and eventually folding.  The Blues were created in 1924 by Connecticut sports promoter George Mulligan and in its first team years of existence, the Blues came out with two championships under Head Coach Dick McGrath. ...

 It is no secret that I do enjoy a good Martial Arts movie and honestly it has been too long since I wrote about one too. And recently my twin and I along with our buddy Justin decided to take a look at an old classic and the film was called Hellbound which stars the great Chuck Norris. Everyone knows that Chuck Norris creates great movies! But this one I didn't realize was created so we all decided to go and watch it. Hellbound was released in 1994 and was the final movie that was made by Cannon Films before closing down. Again, the film stars Chuck Norris who plays Frank Shatter who along with Calvin Levels who plays Calvin Jackson and together, alright with Leslie Hawkins (Sheree J. Wilson) try to stop an ancient evil entity named Prosatanos from destroying the world. Now, to be perfectly honest with all of you, I wasn't expecting this kind of movie from Chuck Norris. But I must say, I really enjoyed this movie. First and for most, this movie was pretty much straight to the ...

 Well folks, 2026 is finally underway, a new year, a new start and it was already full of surprises as myself and my twin brother Chad were giving a surprise. Our older brother Cody, his lovely wife Christine along with our little nephew Luke came down from Long Island to celebrate New Years with us. It also meant one other thing, it was the first time that me and Chad got to meet in person, our baby niece Ava! Now sadly, me and Chad were not able to see little Ava after she was born due to my parents having to take care of my Dad's doctors appointment before making it to New York. Honestly, it sucked because I was hoping to get away for a little while, but I understood why. Unfortunately, last week got pretty cold here in PA, so I was little nervous about them coming because I didn't want the kids to be freezing. But either way, I was totally excited yet anxious to see them. As we saw them come pulling into the drove way, Chad and I stormed out of the house to greet them as we...

 WOW! I know, someone like myself can not put into words how great of a wrestler the American Dream Dusty Rhodes who passed away 10 years ago, but here we go.  Sadly, I wasn't around during Dusty's hay day as I was born in 1990. The first time, I remember seeing Dusty was during the late 90s when I was switching back and forth between WWF (Now WWE) and WCW. I first saw Dusty as a commentator and I must say, he was extremely entertaining. His charisma was incredible and I always got a kick out of the things that Dusty was saying. The more I got into pro wrestling, the more I wanted to learn about the history of the business and buddy, Dusty was certainly one of those guys I researched. One of the things I learned about Dusty and his legendary career, was how long of a career he had. The American Dream has been apart of professional wrestling since the late 60s.  He was known as the American Dream because he represented the common man, he never had the typical wrestling phy...

 I just recently completed a recording for my talk show on YouTube with my long time friend Matt Silks who I first met my freshman year of High School. In fact, it has officially been twenty years since I have known him. Which is crazy to me because I don't really get to hang around with many people in this world. With that being said, both me and Matt have gone through a ton of different stuff in our lives. We both had to overcome a lot of darkness, different kinds of darkness, but darkness nonetheless. Trying not to spoil much of my episode as it will not air until the following Wednesday, but there was a lot of talk about our struggles in the past and to be perfectly honest with all of you, I wasn't expecting to really discuss as much as we did. Matt was extremely open to me and it made me open up to him and to many of you who will watch it. About my struggles with self-harming and why things ended up the way they did. But truthfully, it may have been unexpected, yet it felt...

 With the New Year slowly coming upon us, my twin and I went down to the Kountry Kitchen where Chad works and got to enjoy ourselves with the rest of his co-workers at the diner for a little party. I don't get to see some of Chad's friends to often, but when I do, it is always a good time and the other night was no different. Getting to see great people like Amanda and her husband Doug Boozel along with Paul and Lisa. Bri and Amanda were also there along with many others. Of course, my personal favorite moments was just getting to see my twin brother smile and be happy. Which doesn't happen much mainly because of our struggles mentally and being so social awkward. But nonetheless, I was excited to see him having a good time. The food was fantastic, plenty of games being played and lots of laughs. There was even a surprise battle where they started throwing marshmellows at one another. Talk about being a kid at heart lol. It was nights like this, that remind me that sometime...

 One of the most influential video games of all time is 45 years old and is still one of the most addictive games ever in the form of the little yellow dot himself, Pac-Man who made his debut in 1980. Pac-Man was designed by Toru Iwatani along with a small team for a company called Namco and it follows Pac-Man who must eat all of the dots all while avoiding four colored ghosts. This game broke all kinds of records during its historic run. For example, the Guinness Book of World Records has given Pac-Man eight records including Most Successful Coin-Operated video game. In fact, in the original arcade game, the max score you can receive was 3,333,360 points after completing 256 levels. Needless to say I never came close to completing it. But either way, I really loved playing this game. This game had a 10 year head start on me before I was born, but man would I have loved to been around it during the 80s. The first time I remember ever playing Pac-Man was going to a Chuckie Cheeses a...

 One of the best Christmas movies ever in my humble opinion is the 1990 classic, Home Alone starring Macaulay Culkin who plays Kevin McCallister. The movie was written and produced by John Hughes and the story follows the McCallister family who accidentally forget their eight year old son while on a trip to Paris leaving Kevin all alone at his home. Things become even worse when the criminal duo known as the Wet Bandits plan on robbing the house and it is up to Kevin to defend his home. This film has been an impact ever since it was released and has been a stable for Christmas movies to this very day. I mean, this movie had all, laughs, family drama, excitement and the true meaning of Christmas in my humble opinion. What I like the most about Home Alone, is how it talks about no matter what you go through with your family. You still love each other and seeing how the mother fights her way to get back home to find Kevin is truly admirable. I also love the character Marley who repres...

 Christmas is finally here everybody! But prior to that, me and my twin decided to enjoy Christmas eve and deliver some Christmas cards and spend time with some love ones. After getting some supper at home, Chadman and I put together some cards and headed out to see some friends before making it to our Aunt Vic and Uncle Butch's house for a little Christmas Eve party. First on the list was stopping at our long time friends house and came a card to the Silks family where we got to discuss a few things about the year 2025. As always, it was fun getting to talk with them again, of course, I will be seeing them shortly in the near future. Next we got to make a quick stop at the Sacred Heart church in town where we delivered a card and I got to see my old coach Ray Hoppel along with Maddie, her husband Chris and the rest of their family. Thoughts and prayers to everyone at Sacred Heart! Finally! We arrive at Vic and Butch's house and we were immediately welcomed by their grandson Ma...

 WOW! It just felt so nice to just get away from a lot of stress of life and just go and enjoy myself. The other night, my twin brother Chad and I decided to head down to Kish park where they were having their annual event, Shining Light through the Darkness walk through. For those of you who do not know, this event is brought to you by Shining Light which is a non-profit, mission outreach, all volunteer organization who's goal is to spread the Light of Jesus Christ and the meaning of the Christmas season through many displays of amazing lights and other decorations. I have been going to this event since I was a little kid. What I love the most about going to walk around and check out the beautiful designs though out the park. I've always appreciated the amount of time and effort that these volunteers make each and every year. Seeing all of this beautiful artwork being displayed all over the park always brings a smile to my face. Not going to lie, 2025 has been rough, a lot of ...

 This movie was a huge part of my childhood and it helped make me into a complete nerd and proud of it lol. Being a fan of the Digimon series back in the late 90s was such an incredible experience for me, got to watch the anime, played the video games, played the card game. So when I heard that Digimon was coming out with a movie, of course I jumped on it immediately. Needless to say, I was not disappointed with it. It is really insane to me how time really flies especially nowadays and realizing that this movie is now 25 years old. Digimon the Movie came out in October of 2000 and featured four different stories and had characters from both season 1 and season 2. The first story was called Angela Anaconda Short which follows Angela and her friends who go to a theater to watch the new Digimon. The next short story is called Eight Year Ago and it features Tai and his little sister Kari prior to the events of the first Digimon season where they actually discover a digi-egg that had a...

 Today's blog post is about a Hall of Fame football player and Hall of Fame human being in Sam Mills who sadly passed away 20 years ago. Sam's story is incredible and I wish we hear more stories like him. He is the literally meaning of an underdog story. Mills stood 5 feet 9 inches and weight a little over 200 pounds which was what led him to being undrafted in the NFL despite the simple fact that many pro scouts loved his college tapes. Fortunately for Mills, he was picked up by the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars of the USFL and certainly left an impression in the three years the league was around. Being a big fan of defense in football, Mills was the anchor of Stars' famous Doghouse Defense which was a key factor in the Stars winning the USFL title in both 1984 and 1985. Mills then followed his coach from the Stars (Jim Mora) into the NFL after the USFL folded and became a member of the New Orleans Saints from 1986 to 1994 where he as again a focus point in another amazing ...