The Joshua Yoder Blog

 One of the most influential bands of not just my life, but in music history in general is the world famous grunge band Nirvana. Hard to believe that it has been 20 years since Nirvana ended. It is still sad knowing that Kurt is no longer with us. What this band was able to do in such a small time truly was incredible and am I so thankful for the internet because I can listen to them anytime I want. I grow up around an older crowd and that was pretty much the reason how I was introduced to Nirvana along with several other musicians throughout the early 90s. Overall, the band has over 75 million albums sold worldwide making it one of the best selling bands of all time. Which is not surprising because Nirvana has amazing songs 😁. Smells Like Teen Spirit was certainly their biggest hit to the mainstream audience, but don't get me wrong, it is an amazing song. But for me personally, I really enjoyed the songs Come As You Are and Lithium. Of course Heart Shaped Box was incredible as we

   I finally got a chance to play a video game on my ps4 called Death Come True. It is an interactive film adventure game written and directed by Kazutaka Kodaka. This game was so much fun! Not to spoil too much of the story for people who haven’t played the game. The main character of the game is named Makoto Karaki who wakes up in a hotel room with no memory of who he is, why he is in this hotel room and quickly discovers that he is a wanted serial killer being hunted down by the police. What I really enjoyed about playing this game is the constant twists and turns that help guide you through the story with every decision that you make. Another thing that I loved about the game was like any great detective game is that you must pay very close attention to every single detail. Whether it be from the clues you find throughout the game, these that a character had said during the game and you especially have to pay attention when you start getting your memories back because it is essenti

 Hey everybody! I am really excited to do this interview for my blog because it involves a guy that I have been friends with for a while now and to see where he has come from since the start of his singing career has really been special to see. His name is Hayden Snook. JY: What inspired you to become a musician? HS: I would say that having a lack of an outlet to express myself and how I’m feeling is what inspired me to become a musician. This gave me a way to express myself without fully outright saying it. Learning guitar myself and songwriting gave me that outlet. I always loved music, especially because of how much it really is art. Art can be left up to interpretation, so though when I write a song and play it, it may have my meaning, but it can also touch someone else in a different way. That’s cool. My experiences and my emotions can be put into music. JY: Best way to describe your music style? HS: Best way to describe my music style is a mix of Country/Folk/Rock. Howeve

  This maybe to no one's surprise, but I am a major dork lol. And one of those dorky things that I hold dear is my love for Professional Wrestling. I was just a little kid in the mid 90s when I first saw a glimpse of my first pro wrestling with a little show called WCW Saturday Night when I got to see a wrestler "A man called Sting". From there onward, I became a huge fan of professional wrestling and grew up during one of the biggest boom period in wrestling history in the Monday Night Wars where the WWF (Now WWE) battled it out with rival WCW. It was such an interesting time for me and brothers because we really didn't have a favorite one over the other as we had multiple wrestlers we enjoy watching. For example, I'd loved watching Sting fight the NWO as well as watching other wrestlers like Raven and his flock, Harlem Heat among so many others. But I also loved to watch WWE wrestlers like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mick Foley, Kane and the Undertaker. T

 As the title says, I have been trying to get out and try some new things and one of those new things that I have always wanted to do was playing a card game called Magic The Gathering. It was created by Richard Garfield. It's crazy to think that this game started back in 1993 and I just recently decided to learn how to play it. One of reasons why I didn't play it was I didn't know anyone who played the game. I remember playing many other card games growing up as a kid like Pokemon and Digimon cards just to name a few. I have always loved and appreciated the artwork that went into creating these cards. But unfortunately, a major reason as to why I haven't tried and play it for a long time was because, it just seem so complicated. And so far, I am having a tough time learning it. But I am thankful for some of my friends who are helping me. I feel bad because I know I can be frustrating sometimes for people because I can be pretty slow in the head. I am currently learning

  Anyone that grew up in the 1990s remembers playing the Nintendo 64. It came out back in 1996 and man was that system so much fun to play. It was the last system I remember playing that involved using a cartridge to put in my game. The N64 in my humble opinion is one of the best systems in gaming history. In fact, many of the games that were on it are still considered some of the greatest video games of all time and even being played to this very day. Some of the things I remember about the N64 was the controller. It was one of the weirdest looking controllers I had even seen. Yet, I enjoyed the heck out of it! The M shaped controller had a joystick sitting in the middle to go along with a d-pad on the left and all kinds of different buttons on the right side. There were even other buttons on top of the controller and one in the back. Now lets get to the fun part, the games lol. When I looked back to research the history of the N64, one of the things I noticed about the system was tha

  For those that do not understand the term B-Movie, it is a type of movie that was low budget. These are not the big Hollywood kind of movies. A lot of these movies were not necessary the best of quality but I always appreciate the effort a lot of them put into these movies. In fact, if it weren't for some of these indy movies, we all would never get to witness great actors like John Wayne, Jack Nicholson, Pam Grier, Vincent Price, Karen Black, Bela Lugosi, Eddie Constantine, Bruce Campbell and Bruce Lee. Speaking of Bruce Lee, one of the genres that is a constant in b-movies is the martial arts movies. Another big one is horror films and also the biker genre has also been a consistent theme. Such movies like Foxy Brown, The Wild Angels, Halloween and the Andy Sidaris movie series, just to name a few have made big names for themselves. Many other films had such low budgets but sometimes have made millions of dollars which is crazy but amazing at the same time. It is kind of the bi

 Well everybody! Myself and my twin brother Chad had just gotten back from another interesting event in the form of the Agape Festival. For those who didn't see my previous post about it, here is a quick reminder. The Agape Festival is a Christian music festival that has come and replaced the recently canceled Creation Festival.  When me and Chad first heard about it a while back, we decided to see what it is all about. Now in fairness to the event, I did not expect it to be as big as Creation was right away. This is an upstart festival that is trying to build back up. The festival was led by the Jesus Ministries who are looking to bring people closer to Christ and help inspire many others who are struggling with whatever ails them. One of the first things me and Chad did was walk through the woods and I got to show him around some of things I saw when Creation was still around. We were giving a life by some volunteers to the top of the hill where we got to see the lookout post and

Today will be the start of something brand new as today will be the debut of the Agape Festival. The Agape Festival is taking over what use to be the Creation Festival which was a Christian Music event that has been happening for many years providing a place for Worship and fellowship as well as great music. All of which is to honor and have people come closer to God. But atlas, Creation closed a while back and now Agape Festival has come in to continue where Creation left off. The Agape Festival is a free event for people from all walks of life to come not only listen to some great music, but come closer to Christ and be within a safe environment. It is very exciting to see something like the Agape Festival coming to town. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a free event that will go from June 20 to June 23 and you can get your free tickets online. https://www.agapefarm.com/ What I like about the Agape Festival is that there will be a lot of upcoming and new artists who may or may not h

  Back in the late 90s, my childhood was all about professional wrestling. WWF (Now WWE) was going head to head with WCW in the Monday Night Wars. But then me and my brothers discovered a raising third challenger in the form of ECW on a channel called TNN. We were excited to see even more pro wrestling on tv. Thanks to ECW, we also got to witness another kind of show on TNN and it was called Rollerjam. Rollerjam was a roller derby show that lasted for four seasons before shutting down in 2001. The show was based off of another roller derby league from the 60s and early 70s led by Leo Seltzer and then later son Jerry Seltzer who was the on-screen commissioner of the WSL (World Skating League). The show featured several teams throughout its run with such teams like the California Quakes, New York Enforcers, Florida Sundogs, Nevada Hot Dices, Texas Rustlers and the Illinois Riot. It also had some amazing skaters on the show as well that I really enjoyed like Sean Atkinson (RIP), Mark D

 Today is a very special day because it is a day where we celebrate the tough job of being a father. Which to be perfectly honest, I do not think Fathers out there get enough credit for how tough of a job it is to be a father especially in today's world. But not the less, I personally want to say Thank you to my Father for always being there because not all of us are blessed to have their father there or even a father figure in their lives. One of the things I am very thankful for my dad was my love of music. You see it was my dad who got me into listening to rock music like ACDC, Metallica, etc. I remember being a little kid when my dad would take me and my brothers over to  stay at our Nan and Pap's house when he went to work and he would let us listen to his ACDC cassette tape the whole way down. I miss those times! Another thing that I am forever grateful from my father was the ability to think things over before acting upon them. With how crazy the world is, my dad would a

   One of the most iconic video game characters if not the greatest video game character of all time, is the little Italian plumber named Mario. What of the things that many of the younger fans may or may not know is that Mario first appeared as Jumpman in the Donkey Kong arcade game back in the early 80s and has never stopped. Then in 1985 Mario made his video game debut with Super Mario Bros. for the original NES gaming system. Basically the storyline was Mario was sent to the Mushroom Kingdom to save Princess Peach from the evil Bowser.  As times went along, we all got to be introduced to several other amazing characters throughout the series' amazing run such as Mario’s brother Luigi, Wario, Yoshi and many others. What I love about playing Mario games is simply the fact that they are fun, wholesome games that really anyone can play and enjoy. What’s even crazier about Mario is that Nintendo created so many amazingly fun franchises through this one character. Games like, Mario P

 One of my personal favorite shows to watch growing up as a kid were some television specials that aired during the late 1990s on Fox and it was called Breaking The Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed! God I loved this show so much as a kid! I still do quite enjoy watching these shows on Youtube to this very day. When they first started airing these specials by in 97, I was totally hooked on it from the start. First, I loved the vibe the show was giving, it was gothic, dark, mysterious, especially with the leading man of the show itself, the Masked Magician. Still to this day, the look of the Masked Magician was incredible! The tricks that they showed were amazing and getting to know how each trick was done was incredible to witness. I must say that I was very impressed with how the Magician and his assistants pulled these tricks, some of which were incredibly dangerous and should be tried at home. What was crazy about all of this was when the first specia

 My twin brother Chad and I decided that we needed to do something different, we wanted to get out and try not to be awkward. And I'm glad we did because we decided to go to Wingman's to see a ACDC tribute band called Back In Black. We saw this and being fan of ACDC, went and saw them. Holy crap they were amazing! These guys just came out the gate and tore it up right from the opening song and beyond. Of course they sung all the classic ACDC songs that I have listened to since I was a little kid while driving around town with my father.  Songs like Shook Me All Night Long, Thunderstruck and of course, Back In Black were played at the event. Got to see a lot of people there, in fact I would say the place was pretty packed. Which if I am being honest, I was a little bit surprised by it because it was a tribute band, but hey I was glad to be wrong and everybody there was having such an amazing time. Nothing like having some coca cola and vegan wings to go along with some amazing r

  You know, one of the lost arts I wish that people would go back to is the time of playing board games like Monopoly, Candy Land, Life, etc. The reason that I say this is because I feel as though people nowadays are more into their phones and playing online. Don't get me wrong, I do as well, however in my humble opinion is that a vast majority of those people we may never see in person ever.  That is one of the reasons why I feel tabletop games are important. Because I feel that creative and imagination is really lacking in the world in my humble opinion. Also I love being about to help create stories and more importantly, be about to meet and interact with other people. I know that it is weird hearing from me who usually sticks to himself and deal with being socially awkward and stuff. But I feel that if people would actually be around someone in-person, I feel that we all have less hatred in the world.  What I mean is if we actually try to be around other people and learn to und

  One of the best video games I ever remember playing growing up was a little something called Halo. This game was a first person shooter that came out on the original Xbox all the way back in 2001. This was my introduction to the group of developers called Bungie. To be perfectly honest with all of you guys, I can not believe that it has been that long since Halo first came out. Man time really does fly when you are having fun! And I had plenty of fun playing the Halo Series. Halo is a sc-fi game where you mainly play as the Master Chief who looks to stop an evil Alien group called the Covenant from destroying the human race. Like I said before, I can hardly believe that this game first came out back in 2001. However, at the time, not many people really seem interested in playing Halo. But when it came out, it just exploded in terms of popularity and I would even dare say that the Xbox made not be as big as it is today if not for games like Halo. I would even say that many people got

  In my humble opinion, this is one of the best consoles in the history of video gaming and it is a little purple lunch box called the GameCube. The GameCube launched back in 2001 and looked replace the N64 which was an amazing system in its own right. But the little purple lunch box was heading into some tough competition though as the Sega Dreamcast had already launch a few years prior and the PS2 and Xbox were also making their presence felt. In fact, many people felt the PS2 and Xbox had a much better start than the GameCube. However, despite the slow start, I would honestly say that the Nintendo GameCube was the best system by the end of the sixth generation consoles. Again, this is just my humble opinion. But I do admit, I enjoyed all of the systems that came out. One of things I enjoyed about the system was the controller. Much like the N64, I was a little hesitate at first, but the more I played it, the more I enjoyed it. Another cool feature about it was that you could combine

 It recently has come to my attention that one of my favorite book series Animorphs was releasing a graphic novel called The Predator will launch on Amazon August 24th 2024. In fact, this will be the fifth graphic novel that was released with the first book The Invasion came in 2020. Animorphs is a science fiction series of youth book that was created by the husband and wife duo of Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate. It was published by Scholastic all the way back in 1996 and lasted until 2001. There was a grand total of 54 books as well as 10 companion books throughout its originally run. There were several different themes through each story with all six of the main characters taking turns speaking in first person perspective throughout the series. Other themes include, Horror, War, Imperialism, Dehumanization, Sanity, Morality, Innocence, Leadership, Freedom, Family and Growing Up. A reminder, this is a kids book 😁 The plot revolves around five humans and an alien who were given