The Joshua Yoder Blog

 You know a movie is an all time classic when people still love watching even though they were not even born during this time period. 1931 to be exact was the year that Dracula was released by Universal Pictures. The film stars Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, a vampire who arrives in England from Transylvania and preys on stealing the blood of innocent people. One of those victims is Mina who is the fiance of John Harker. Along with them their is Dr. Seward, Mina's Father and Professor Abraham Van Helsing discover that the Count is a vampire and will stop at nothing but to take control of Mina. For movie that came out 95 years ago, I must say, it still holds up. To this very day, this movie gives me the chills. Fun fact, this was the first time a sound film adaption of the great Bram Stoker novel. Like I said earlier, this film still gets me every time I get to watch it. Lugosi does such a tremendous job playing Dracula in this movie. Just his presence alone scared me, he shows us al...

 With Halloween at the end of this year, many of us will be gearing up for Thanksgiving and then eventually Christmas, I wanted to give one last blog post to say Halloween. And It is a look back, in my humble opinion, one of the best Horror movies series ever made, Friday The 13th. More specifically, Friday the 13th Part 2 which is 45 years old. Fun fact, both of my parents graduated from High School, in 1981. The story begins five years after the events of the first movie where a new group of camp counselors led by Paul Holt and his assistant Ginny Field have arrived on the shore of Crystal Lake for training. But soon, one by one, many of the poor souls were killed by a crazy masked man and soon, Paul and Ginny come face to face with the monster himself Jason Voorhees, which who was making his debut. Although it was successful in making money, many critics didn't really care for the film and honestly, I can understand why. First off, the original film was incredibly popular and se...

 WOW! This television special is over 40 years old and honestly, it is just as fun now as it was when I was a little kid. The other day, my twin brother Chad and I decided to watch the Garfield Halloween special to get into the Halloween season. The special was created by Jim Davis who had created the Garfield comic strips and was directed by Phil Roman. It also featured the voices of Lorenzo Music as Garfield, Thom Huge as Jon Arbuckle/Binky The Clown, Gregg Berger as Odie/TV Announcer, C. Lindsay Workman as Old Man and Desiree Goyette as Woman at the door. Also big shout out to Lou Rawls for providing some incredible songs like This is the Night (Trick or Treat) and Scaredy Cat. The story follows Garfield who looks to get as much candy as he can during trick or treating. He tricks poor Odie into helping him get more candy saying that dogs must help cats get candy and if he does, he will get a single piece of candy of his own. Together, they search through the attic with all sorts...

This one is quite an interesting blog post for me because it recently has come to my attention that this year marks 15 years since the merging of both Lewistown Area and Indian Valley high schools here in my hometown. Growing up as kid here in smalltown USA, all I ever really known was Lewistown Panthers versus Indian Valley Warriors. From the late 80s to 2011, these two schools competed in several different sports whether it was football, baseball, etc. Heck! Every Friday night during football season felt like a special occasion, mainly because we all got to travel down to our Nan and Pap's house for some food and then we all head on up to Mitchell Field to witness the football game between the two schools. My cousin Greg played on the football team At Lewistown, my cousin Andy wrestled, while my other cousins Nate and Jodie went to Indian Valley. For me and my two brothers, we ultimately ended up being Lewistown Panthers. Honestly, it went beyond football as the rivalry between t...

 It was a dark and spooky night, my twin brother Chad and I were walking through the streets of McVeytown. Suddenly, we were bombarded to the lights and sounds of the McVeytown Halloween parade. Prior to the event, Chad and I decided to grab ourselves some amazing Pizza and cheesy garlic bread from the local OIP. It was quite chilly walking around McVeytown, getting to see others who were arriving around the Rothrock library, signing in to be apart of this lovely parade. People wore some pretty cool costumes during the evening and some even decorated their vehicles. You got one vehicle who was pulling a trailer that had some people on it looking like they were climbing up a tree. You had another one who was filled with people dressed up as Star Wars characters. There was even people dressing up as monsters pretending to drag a "dead" body. We got to see plenty of our friends like Sarah Stiver, Andrew Moist, among several others. We also got to see a friend who we haven't ...

 With a brand new Street Fighter movie out, I wanted to look back on the original live action Street Fighter movie which hit the theaters back in 1994. Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Colonel William Guile and Raul Julia (RIP) as the evil M. Bison. The film also features Ming-Na Wen as Chun Li, Damian Chapa as Ken Masters, Kylie Minogue as Cammy White, Bryon Mann as Ryu, Grand L. Bush as Balrog, Robert Mammone as Carlos "Charlie" Blanka, Gregg Rainwater as Thunder Hawk, Peter Tuiasosopo as E. Honda.  For the Shadaloo Warriors, there is Andrew Bryniarski as Zangief, Miguel A. Nunez Jr as Dee Jay, Jay Tavare as Vega, Wes Studi as Sagat and Roshan Seth as Dhalsim along with some original characters made for the movie. The plot of the film follows Guile and the others as they attempt to track down M. Bison and his organization who hold several A.N. Relief Workers hostage and demands the world pay 20 billion dollars within three days or he will kill the hostages. Now, I must say...

 It is no secret that myself and my twin brother Chad are fans of the Power Rangers, so when I found out that one of my personal favorite rangers Johnny Yong Bosch (Adam) had written and directed his own movie called Spades. Now obviously I am little bit behind in terms of watching and reviewing this film but, nonetheless, here it is. When Chad and I saw an opportunity to watch it, we took it and am I glad we did because I really enjoyed the film. For those who don't know, Spades stars Jason Narvy as Detective James Bishop a War Veteran dealing with a heavy dose of trauma after losing his friend Jimmy during the war and the later his wife, discovers that a vigilante named Spades is running around killing criminals. To make matters worse, his daughter who he was trying to reconnect with, ends up being kidnapped by a group of traffickers and must find a way to rescue her. I must say, I really had a fun time watching this movie. I have always appreciated seeing people trying to make t...

 Well this weekend surely was quite eventful for me and my twin. For one, our little niece and nephew Lukey and Ava came down to visit from Long Island along with my older brother Codeman and his lovely wife Christine. While Cody went with some friends to check out the Penn State White Out game against the USC Trojans, Me, Chad, Christine, Lukey, Ava and our mother went down to the McVeytown Fire Company for their Pumpkins and Prevention event. Lukey was pretty excited to carve a pumpkin, but even more excited to be coloring Halloween characters like ghosts and bats. Ava tried to walk on a feet a little bit, she is getting so much closer to being able to walk on her own. We got to see plenty of our friends at the event as well. As we walked into the Fire house, Chad and I got to see a face we hadn't seen in a while. His name is Ronnie Yoder and he was helping out his kids carving out a pumpkin. Ronnie was always a creative guy and it was pretty cool to see him and his kids being cr...

 Some of the younger generation made find this hard to believe, but things like YouTube and even the internet itself wasn't always what it is today. In fact, you can make the argument that this fun little show helped shape the platform to where it is now, in my humble opinion. It is called LonelyGirl15. This is an American Science Fiction thriller web series which was created by Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Greg Goodfried and Amanda Goodfried. The story revolves around a young lady named Bree who is on the run from a mysterious and scary group called The Order who poses their "religion" called the Hymn of One.  LonelyGirl15 was presented through video blogs or vlogs with it originally being recorded with just Bree talking to the viewers. When it was first launched in 2006, it quickly became popular with many viewers, at the time, believed that what they were seeing was actually real and that Bree was a real person talking about her daily life. Now, I do not know if they ...

 Who would have thought a simple little pro wrestling promo would still have a major impact 30 years later. It is absolutely insane to me how much people still talk about the Austin 3:16 promo. I was recording an episode of my YouTube show with my friend Nate Blazer the other day and I had brought up how it was 30 years ago when Austin cut the promo that launched him to the moon. Interesting fact I had learned about this was Steve Austin had played college football at North Texas State (Now North Texas) and he had worn number 96 on his jersey. Then became Stone Cold Steve Austin and cut the promo in 1996. Crazy how the world works sometimes. What I also had always found interesting about it was how Austin was not suppose to win the 1996 King Of Ring when he did, but because of a mistake by Triple H, He was put right into position and to say he made an impact is putting it mildly. I can not even imagine what everybody was thinking backstage when it happened, let alone the fans in th...

 WOW! Speaking of milestones and trying to be more positive in my life, I have done something that I honestly wasn't sure of and yet somehow I did. And that was to create a YouTube Channel and my show has now gone for over a year now. After so many years, I finally decided to give it a shot and see what happens and with a huge help from my older brother Cody, I managed to launch my show. One of the reasons as to why I wanted to find a way to open up to other people and get to learn about them and find ways to build connections whether it be from music, faith, sports, video games, writing, mental health, etc. I want to build a play where people can be just safe to be themselves and grow closer together with each other and God. I wanted to create bridges for people to connect with one another and learn about each other and discover that we have way more in common than we actually realize. When I launched my first show, I was incredible scared, scared to death even because I was not s...

 Well folks! Summer has come to an end and we are now within the beauty of Fall weather, but today I wanted to look back this past Summer and reflect on some things. Mainly because, this past Summer, I was doing a lot of reflecting and trying to be more positive in my life and honestly, it hasn't been easy for me to be positive, especially in today's climate. But nonetheless, here we go everybody. One of the biggest things I have been working on this past Summer was writing about my Aunt Jane who tragically passed away 40 years ago. I was extremely nervous about doing this because I wasn't sure how my family would react to it. And I was totally grateful for the kind words and encouragement from them as well as all of the help with photos and fun little stories about her. I am very proud with how it turned out and again, forever grateful to my family for helping me along the way. Rest In Peace Aunt Jane! However, something else has been happening a lot this year that has me ...

 This past weekend was quite fun for me and my twin as the last three days, we got to hangout at our local fair here in McVeytown. The Rothrock Fair has been something our little town has been trying to build these last couple of years and I think it is really cool to be able to be with friends and create strong bonds for the community. Chad and I decided to check out all three days of the event as the fair was featuring a band for each of the three days. On Thursday the band Steel Ridge performed, then Friday, Chris Woodward and Shindiggin lit up the stage before last but not least, Hillbilly Diesel finished the weekend off. Thanks to all three bands for providing us with some great entertainment. Of course, I can not talk about the Rothrock Fair without talking about the delicious food. There were plenty to choose from for me and my twin. The first day, Chad and I met up at the Pretty Little Pancakes stand where Nick Knable and his wife Brooke and I got myself some cookies and cr...

 Just the other day, I had written a blog post about Street Fighter 2 which celebrated 35 years since it was released. While I was working on it, I quickly realized that another incredible game came out 35 years ago too. And it was called Streets of Rage. As kid growing up in the 1990s, I was major fan of Sega and this game was one of my go-to games to play for the Sega Genesis. I just took the cartridge, put it in and along with my brothers, had ourselves a good time deliver justice in an unjust world. Which makes sense especially since the story follows three ex-cops who turned vigilantes in order to battle a local crime syndicate which is led by the evil Mr. X who have corrupted the local government. You and/or fellow gamer get to choose between three different characters. Whether it be Adam Hunter, Axel Stone (My personal favorite character) and Blaze Fielding. This cool side-scrolling beat em' up fighting game allows you to use up to 40 different moves, like headbutts, backsla...

 Not too often you see a video game come along and make an impact like this one did. 35 years ago Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior was released to the arcades thanks to a gaming company called Capcom. Now what I had found interesting about this game during my research, was the year gap between Street Fighter one and two. You see, the original Street Fighter came out in 1987, so when two arrived, it had been a four year gap. I can't speak for Capcom or any gamer back in the early 90s, but it felt as though there wasn't much expectations for this game when finally was released. But holy crap did it ever score big. Street Fighter 2 was the best selling game since the "Golden Age of Arcade video games". Heck! A few years after it was released, it was revealed that nearly 25 million people have played the game in the United States alone. An even crazier stat, was when the game was brought to the SNES system, it became Capcom's best selling video game for 20 years. ...

 This past weekend marks a brand new season for Fall Sports. I had not one, not two, but three different football games to go cover for Hometown Sports. The first one was this past Friday as I made my way back to good ole Mount Union High School to hangout and watch some football between them and the Tussey Mountain Titans. It is always good to see some familiar faces like MU Baseball coach Tim Hicks who joined me at the Press Box as well as coach Chuck Hand and Head Coach Jamie Brumbaugh along with many others. I also got to see my cousin Cory who was a graduate of Mount Union and had a nice chat. Of course, I must admit, I was very happy to see the Trojans be healthy this season and pray that it stays that way. You see last year these poor guys got caught with the injury bug and could not finish the season. The Mount Union Trojans though took care of business and came out victorious 42-7. Congrats to them and again praying for them to stay healthy this season. Next up was Sunday ...

 It is crazy to think this game is 10 years old this year. Persona 5 came out back in 2016 being published by Atlus and follows a group known as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts as they battle against the corruption that have filled into the hearts of people in authority. The story follows a young student who came to the aid of a young woman who was being attacked by a politician. The politician used his influence and framed the young man into being put on probation for a year. This young man would soon gain the power from Igor and his two assistants Caroline and Justine and eventually earn his codename, Joker. This game is considered by many to be not only one of the greatest role-playing games ever, but one of the greatest video games of all time. And understandably so, the gameplay was amazing, I loved the concept, the story, the characters, the music and of course the Personas. Speaking of the concept, I love the whole theme of fighting against corruption in the world. I mean bein...

 Any of you guys ever get the feeling when you watched something, only to re-watch and realize how far a head of its time it was. Well that certainly fits with what I am writing about on my blog today and it is the early 90s classic, Point Break. Point Break stars the always great Keanu Reeves along with the late, great Patrick Swayze (RIP) as Johnny Utah and Bodhi. The film also stars Gary Busey, Lori Petty, and John C. McGinley. The story follows rookie FBI agent, Johnny Utah, a former Quarterback at Ohio State who assists Senior agent Angelo Pappas in investigating a string of bank robberies by a group called the Ex-Presidents. Although they never rob the vault, they only grab the cash from the tellers and left within 90 seconds. Pappas' theory is the criminals are within the surfer community and Utah is tasked to infiltrate and see who could be the Ex-Presidents. He soon becomes friends with Bodhi (Swayze) and his gang of surfers and quickly discovers who they really are and it...

 This past Saturday, Chadman and I decided to check out Bingo Night over at the McVeytown Fire Company building. Chad's friend and member of the Fire company, Doug Boozel had invited us over and so we went in and see how it was going. And it was going quite well when we had arrived tot he building, it was pretty full of people, at least over a 100 people all looking to hit Bingo. This was their first event hosting since the opening of the new Firehouse so I am sure there were plenty of nerves going into it. Can't say I blame though especially trying to raise funds to help keep the company building going and protect those from dangerous fires. There were some raffle ideas being sold a the event one being a Kitchen Aid, another being a Ninja Air Fryer and lastly, a car trailer. There were some cash prizes as well as lottery tickets, purses and wine. Of course, you can not have a Bingo night without some delicious food. There was some chicken, potatoes, vegetables, rolls, applesau...

 Crazy to think that this movie is 30 years and in my humble opinion, still holds up today and it was The Phantom. This movie was based on the comic strip character which was created by Lee Falk all the way back in 1936. The movie stars Billy Zane who plays The Phantom/Kit Walker and is joined by Treat Williams (RIP), Kristy Swanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Remar, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (RIP) among many others. Simon Wincer was the director of the film while the screenwriting was done by Jeffrey Boam who has done such great work like The Lost Boys, Lethal Weapon 2 and 3, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. The story follows The Phantom as he learns that the evil Sengh Brotherhood as well as Xander Drax, a power-hungry business man trying to unite three skulls and take over the world. Unfortunately, when the movie was originally released in 1996, it had received a mixed reviews by critics. Which was sad, but at the same time not surprising considering how many of the pulp fiction ...