The Joshua Yoder Blog

 You know the thing I hate the most about dealing with depression and just mental health in general is the simple fact that I know that there are so many people in this world you is dealing with struggles in their lives. And I keep telling myself to stay humble and be grateful for everything I have in this world and that things can always be worse, but, I ultimately just end up hating myself. I wish I was stronger, I really do because I feel embarrassed about feeling this way. I hate it! I really, really hate dealing with this crap in my head! I mean, there are people dealing with cancer and other diseases, people who are struggling with addiction, you know we all got problems. So I do apologize I am honestly not trying to make this about me because I ain't anything special and most likely never will be. I'm just so frustrated about life and just trying to find meaning in anything really. My whole life I have tried my best to prove that I can do something with myself and overco

 I just finished rereading an old book that I had gotten a long time ago from my friends at Metaphysics (Now Moon Dragon) called Secrets Of The Lost Symbol: The Unauthorized Guide To Secret Societies, Hidden Symbols And Mysticism.  The book was written by John Michael Greer and originally came out around the time I had left high school around 2009. The book was basically about showing the facts from the fiction from the Secrets of The Lost Symbol which was written by Dale Brown. Stuff like secret societies, mysticism, the occult and of course symbolism. Which was something that I have always been into ever since I was a little kid watching stuff like Scooby-Doo, Supernatural, etc. Just looking for codes and trying to find deeper meanings of the spiritual world. It was one of the first times I went and visited my friends at Metaphysics and I was just chilling around the shop and then I took notice to the book. Something about it just drew my attention and I guess you can say it was fate

 One of my personal favorite pro wrestlers and I dare say, one of the greatest period, is The Undertaker. It is crazy to think that it has been nearly 35 year since the debut of this awesome character.  Fact fun, Undertaker had be wrestling even longer overall outside the WWE because you see, back in the old days of wrestling there were several different wrestling companies. And of course, we all got to start somewhere and Undertaker started off wrestling in his home state of Texas wrestling for the World Class Championship Wrestling in the late 80s and the rest as they say was history. Another fun fact was that the Undertaker made his WWE debut back in 1990, which is also the same year me and my twin brother Chad were born. So I always thought that was really cool. Fast forward years later, the first time that I got to see the Undertaker was during the time he was leader of the Ministry of Darkness trying to marry Stephanie McMahon. Which as a little kid, I was scared stiff and yet, i

 You know I truly miss the days where you and some of your family and friends could get together to go to the movies and have a good time and enjoy amazing films. Well it certainly has been a while since I really wanted to go to the movies. Mainly because no movie really seems interesting anymore. I usually just look up old b movies or any other indy film and enjoy! Not really many big time films come out anymore and things are getting pretty expensive. And then me and my twin brother Chad saw a trailer for the next Deadpool movie. This time it brought back Hugh Jackman as the Wolverine. We were so excited about this movie coming out which again, has certainly been a while since we wanted to go out and see and movie in the theaters. As time drew closer, Chad had suggested we go out and see the movie. But this time, try something a little different. He said, lets go see the movie at this place in Huntingdon called Clifton 5. One reason was because we are bother still trying to go out an

  One of the greatest drivers in the history of Nascar in my humble opinion is the one and only Bill Elliott. Elliott was one of the reason I began watching auto racing in general. Awesome Bill got his first start in Nascar back in 1976. Heck my parents never even met at that point to even start a family 😅. However it wasn't until 1983 when Elliott managed to get his first win of his career winning Winston Western 500 at Riverside. His final race in Nascar came in 2012 when he raced in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona. Elliott compiled a grand total 44 victories, 320 top tens and 55 poles. His only championship came in 1988.  Elliott also has the record for the fastest average speed at Daytona in 1987 going 210.364 mph. But then later in the same season, Bill would break has own record at Talladega going 212.809 mph. With all of that accomplishments, it was no surprise that Bill Elliott was named to the 2015 Nascar Hall of Fame. One of the reasons why I really enjoyed watching Bill El

 We are getting ever so closer to one of my personal favorite events, the summer Olympics. The 2024 summer Olympics will begin on Friday July 26 and will come to a close on Sunday August 11 and it will be in Paris, France. God! I love the Olympics, to me, it is like having a show and tell in school where many different countries get to showcase what they have to offer. And we all get to learn new things from different cultures. Who would have even thought something like this that started off in Greece years ago has become such a major event.  I will certainly be running around different channels throughout the event because there are so many different athletic competitions going on at once, which in itself is exciting. There is going to be 329 events going through 32 different sports. Me personally, I am excited to watch, boxing, wrestling, swimming and some of the martial arts events as well. In my humble opinion, the Olympics is a place where everyone from around the world can come t

 This past weekend was quite fun for me and my twin and we went along with our parents to go see the rest of our giant family as our Yoder Family Summer Reunion over at Greenwood. It is always good to see family, especially since we all don't see each other too often for a variety of reasons. But every time that we do get together it is always a fun time. One of the first things that I noticed when we all arrived at the pavilion was a poster sitting inside where there was a showcase of old family photos. And when I say old, I mean old lol. Some of the photos were in black and white. One of them really stood out to me and it was one with my grandma Yoder in it. Now I never got to meet my Father's parents, I was barely alive when they both past away and I never really was told about them. So it was really cool to see photos of them. Of course, the food was amazing! My family certainly know how to pig out lol. Getting to talk with everybody and seeing what they are doing with thei

   One of my favorite games in recent memory was Fire Emblem: Three Houses. A strategy game for the nintendo switch.  You play as a mercenary who along with the character’s father Jeralt are interrupted by three students (Edelgard, Claude and Dimitri) who were being chased by bandits. After saving them from danger, you are given the opportunity to become a teacher at the Garreg Mach Monastery where you get to pick between three houses in the Golden Deer, the Blue Lions and the Black Eagles. The Golden Eagles were led by Claude who is the house leader. Then there was Lorenz, Raphael, Ignatz, Lysithea, Marianne, Hilda and Leonie. This group is more of a laid back, non judgmental, outcasts commoners who try to look at things from multiple angles. The Blue Lions are more of the traditional hero group. Where it is all about honor and doing what’s right. Dimitri is the house leader for the Blue Lions. He is joined by Dedue, Felix, Ashe, Sylvain, Mercedes, Annette and Ingrid. The last of the

 Some of you might be a little bit surprised by this and I do admit, I am a bit scared to talk about this. However, I must continue to face my fears and be more open to people. And one of those things is the kind of music I like, which to be fair I really enjoy all kinds of music. But the kind of music that has been a heavy influence on me was heavy metal and it don't get any better for the metal genre than the ones who started it off. And they are called Black Sabbath. Sabbath has been around since 1968. Yes, you read right, this band has been around for a very long time and they have never disappointed. Black Sabbath has a grand total of 19 studio albums with the first being "Black Sabbath" back in 1970 and last album being "13" which was back in 2013. These guys are one of the greatest selling bands of all time among metal bands and were ranked number one by MTV among metal bands. They were placed second by VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock bands as well being

   One of the first video games I remember playing as a kid and still enjoy to this day is Sonic the Hedgehog. Originally created in the early nineties by programmer Yuji Naka  and artist Naoto Ohshima who at the time were working for Sega. Sonic was basically Sega’s way of trying to compete against Nintendo and their famous character Mario. The first Sonic the Hedgehog game came out of for the Sega Genesis and to say that it made an impact, would be an understatement.  I remember playing this as a kid, and I just loved it. What was unique about Sonic was the speed of the character. The level designs were also incredible especially for the time, just watching that speedy blue hedgehog race through each stage was definitely enjoyable to watch. Though I must confess, the drawback to that was you never really got to appreciate all the artwork and graphics of the game. And of course, there were more games to follow for Sonic and his friends as they continued to fight for freedom against th

  One of the most ridiculous and yet very entertaining fighting competition I have ever seen came out recently in a league called Power Slap. Yes! This is a real thing. What surprised me about this was the fact that UFC President Dana White founded this league back in 2022.  It had aired a show on TBS in early 2023, but the show didn't last long and was canceled. But Power Slap still has competitions going on and still provide content for a channel called Rumble. The rules of Power Slap are simple, a coin toss is used to determine which of the two combatants will go first. The slap fighter has 60 seconds to slap his or her opponent while the one getting slapped, will have 60 seconds to recover. This league even has different weight classes just like the UFC itself. There are also three to five rounds per bout and it is always one on one. There are fouls in Power Slap. For one you can not club someone, no stepping, no illegal windup and you can not flinch. I should also mention that

  One of my favorite basketball players of all time and one of the biggest reasons why I love the game of basketball is one Anfernee Hardaway, but most of us know him as Penny Hardaway. Penny burst onto the NBA scene back in the 1993 NBA draft where he was picked third overall by the Golden State Warriors. But through a trade with the Orlando Magic that sent him along with a couple first round picks in exchange for Chris Webber who was originally drafted by the Magic with the first pick. To say that Penny made an impact right away, would be a major understatement. With Penny to compliment the man in the middle Shaquille O'Neal, the Orlando Magic quickly found themselves as a playoff team. In fact, in only Hardaway's second season in the NBA the Magic had found themselves in the NBA finals. Sadly, they got swept by the Houston Rockets who were led by the great Hakeem Olajuwon. In the 95 finals, Penny said 50 percent from the field while averaging 26 points per game, eight assist

   What of the most iconic video game franchises in history in my humble opinion that I really, really, enjoyed playing was the great Command and Conquer series that was created and developed by Westwood Studios. The first ever Command and Conquer game that was ever released was back in 1995 where you got to choose between two factions. The first selection being the UN funded Global Defense Initiative who is set out to eliminate quasi-state cult called the Brotherhood of Nod which is the other option you can select to play as led by the Charismatic leader Kane. At the time, I was a little kid and didn’t realise it, but as I grew older I learned that the man who played Kane Joseph D. Kucan was also a producer who handled all the cutscenes for the games. And I must say, he did an amazing job playing the main villain character of the series. Kane is arguably one of the best villains in video game history and watching how Kucan portrayed him was also a joy to watch. It was one of those rar

  One of my favorite movies I truly enjoyed watching was the Boondocks Saints which was released all the back in 1999. The story is about two Irish American twin brothers Connor and Murphy MacManus who seek to rid the evil from the city of Boston. Along the way they are being pursued by FBI agent Paul Smecker. One of the reasons I enjoyed this movie was that it was about twin brothers because I myself have a twin brother so that was a plus lol. Another reason was that the fact it was inspired by a real life experience from writer and director Troy Duffy while he was living in LA.  I can really relate to that because where I'm from I see a lot of evil. Drugs, Junkies, people showing no respect one another over stuff that is greatly exaggerated or just a flat out lie. Criminals who seem to be able to do whatever they want and get away with it. I do admit that I often ask God why is there so much torment in this world? Why can't people just love and understand one another?  Know I

  It had been a few years past 2021 and it reminded me that it had been a little over 20 years since the death of one of my favorite video game systems ever in the Sega Dreamcast. I was only nine years when the Dreamcast first burst upon the scene of the video game industry. I remember watching Gamespot TV when they had the launch special and getting excited for it. It’s hard to explain, but something about it made it just caught my eye. I was so excited when I was told that we got a Dreamcast and believe me, I wasn’t disappointed. From such games like Crazy Taxi, the Sonic Adventure series, Jet Grind Radio just to name a few, really made me fall in love with video games. One game though that stands out to me was Shenmue. The creation of the great Yu Suzuki, it was one of most unique games I had ever seen. Not only was it an amazing story, but the gameplay was truly incredible. Also you could do so much in the game as well like if you're tired of doing missions, you can go relax a

  I have been on a bit of a retro gaming kick for quite a while now and I have been either enjoying playing some old school games or watching youtube videos of games from back in the day.  I do enjoy the new games that come on variety of gaming systems, but every once in a while, I pull out some of the classic video games.  One of the main reasons why I enjoy playing some old school game is the fact that it brings me back to so many memories to me growing up as a kid. The first video game system I ever remember playing is the NES which had been out in stores long before me and my twin brother Chad were even born. Of course retro gaming doesn't just apply to home consoles, but also to the arcades as well. I remember going to places like Chuckie Cheeses and playing classics like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter and many racing games. It is such a shame that there are not many many arcades out there anymore because as fun as it is as it is to be playing

  One of my personal favorite video games to ever come out as a video game nerd is the Madden Football franchise. These video game series is older than me lol! Madden first made its appearance back in 1988 on a computer. The Apple II to be more precise. And the rest they say is history. I loved playing this game so much because I got to be apart of an NFL franchise, so to speak. But I also got to spend time playing with my older brother Cody and his friends. As the series evolved throughout the years, Madden has help set the standard of what a football game should be. A lot of that credit should go to the late great John Madden who pushed for a realistic football video game. Another person that a lot people may not know about either is a guy name Trip Hawkins who if it wasn't for him, the game may never come to existence. Even though it was for pretend, I really enjoyed being apart of a football team. Although I never played football myself, it is always fun to be able to draft pla