The Joshua Yoder Blog

 Back in 1964, the world was introduced to one of the best James Ford movies ever in my humble opinion and it was Goldfinger. It is crazy to think that this film is 60 years old!  This movie was based off the book of the same name which was written by the Ian Fleming. The books was originally written all the way back in 1959. This was the third installment of the James Bond movie franchise and it was on a budget of 3 million dollars, which would be consider a cheap movie nowadays 😄. But holy crap did it ever score big in the box office because it made a grand total of 125 million dollars 😮. I mean, it really isn't surprising because the movie was amazing! The storyline of the film involves 007 being sent to stop a criminal named Auric Goldfinger who was attempting the contaminate the gold at Fort Knox. Sean Connery returns as the great James Bond and once again does an incredible job in the this movie. Gert Frobe as the main villain of the story aka Goldfinger was honestly o...

 Recently I have been wondering who am I really in this world? Now it is no secret about my struggles mentally as well as physically, I just wish I can get my brain to just stop and relax for like a second. From the moment I wake up to finally falling asleep, my brain can't help itself and go 100 miles an hour with 100 different thoughts. The most common thing that I been combating is trying to accept things about myself, and more importantly, am I good enough in God's eyes. It is bad enough I struggling to deal with stuff growing up feeling lost and sheltered, but now as I grow older trying to open up about things in today's world which to be perfectly frank, is extremely toxic. I wish I could be more open about things despite my best efforts to be more open and honest about certain things about myself and things I like and write about. But fear continues to be my biggest enemy right now, but I promise I am trying to my very best to overcome this. But with all of that bein...

 I just finished watching an Indy film on Youtube called Rogue Elements which was based off the book series written by Will Jordan. You might know him better as the Youtube star The Critical Drinker. The short film follows Ryan Drake who is looking to recover an asset and infiltrates a heavily guarded base with every single one of his moves are being watched over by a mysterious figure. He moves his way through the compound and rescues the asset only to find himself in one heck of a fire fight. I must say, I really did enjoy this little film that these guys how made. I could really tell that there was a lot of care being taken with each scene and each character. Another thing I loved about this movie was the pacing. For the record this movie was under an hour and most films would try and cram in a whole bunch of different stuff in it. But not this film, it was pretty much straight forward and got to the point in my humble opinion. The action scenes were pretty good too, I really ap...

 Last night I went to Shy Bear to help my friend/mentor Kenny Varner and Hometown Sports to help promote a special event. Which was the first annual MC Basketball Hype Night. It is always fun to help out Kenny and Hometown Sports, it is even more fun to help promote anything that can help this community. You see, I feel like there is so much out there to do, but many people don't know about it and I always try my best with my writing to help build something in this small little town that I live in. I have known basketball coaches Wade Curry and Aaron Gingrich for a while now and I think it is really a cool thing they were doing to help promote their programs. Plus I think it is really great to see them do something like this to bring the community together. I also got to see my friend and fellow writer Dominic Reed along with Kathy our photographer who were also there to help promote the event. It was pretty cool to see the athletes having a good time and they all were pretty pumpe...

 I am very excited to bring all of you another one on one interview for all of you. This one is a special one for me personally because this time I got to talk with my older brother Cody who recently had gotten his Emmy award for video editing.   I am so proud of him!  But I also wanted to do this interview to help inspire others who like my brother, who come from a small town and show them that they too can find success. I would like to say thank you big brother for taking the time to do this interview and I really hope you all will enjoy it. JY: What got you into making videos? CY: Honestly, one of my close friends at the time talked me into taking Media for an easy A.  We thought it would be an easy class to take for our senior year of high school. Little did I know, I was going to love it as much as I did. We decided to sign out one of the school cameras for a weekend, and drove to Bellefonte, PA to shoot footage of our football team to use for a fun highlight vi...

This might be one of the greatest defenses in football history and I don't think gets enough credit that they deserved and honestly I think it is simply because they never won and championship and were broken up the following year. And that was the Gang Green Defense presented by the Philadelphia Eagles. Although this defense was build by Buddy Ryan who was fired prior to the season started with many of his players on the team. There has to be some love given to Bud Carson who was the defensive coordinator during that season. Many people associate Carson as the defensive mastermind of the Steel Curtain defense of the 1970s. Carson brought a ton of balance to the Gang Green defense and certainly showed out there on the field. Of course it helps having such great talent like Reggie White, Jerome Brown, Clyde Simmons, Seth Joyner, Andre Waters, Eric Allen all of who went to the pro bowl that season. So yeah, this defense was loaded, don't believe me, ask Troy Aikman lol. This defe...

 We are drawing ever so closer to a special day. It is a day where we all come together to give thanks when we all pray. This day when we surround ourselves with ones we love and cherish. To get food together and give thanks that we all survived a year and did not perish.  We remember those who are no longer with us. But we pray that one day we will all be together again through the power of Jesus. Although things can be tough in this life, just know that God is always there to protect and comfort us with his unconditional love. No matter how many times we cry all just have to do is look to the Heavens above. As much as I get down on myself, I am reminded to be appreciative for everything I have because we all do not when it is our time to go. For we all will face our end for the Bible said so.  Even though it is always easier said than done. Just remember to always love one another and have some fun. Happy Thanksgiving to every single one of you! I pray you all know that...

 Just the other night, my twin brother Chad and I decided to head back to the Clifton 5 theater in downtown Huntingdon to see one of the latest films created by Seven Bucks Production led by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. And the movie is called Red One. This movie stars The Rock along with Chris Evans, Lucy Liu and J.K. Simmons as Santa Claus himself. The story of the film is simple, Santa has been kidnapped by an evil witch and it is up to the duo of Callum Drift (The Rock) and Jack O'Malley (Evans) to save Christmas. Helping them along the way is Zoe Harlow (Liu). The film itself was alright, it wasn't anything special by any means. But at the same time there were some things about the movie I did enjoy. On the positive side of things, I really thought the cast did try their best with what they had. I really believed that they were trying to make a good movie. The fights scene were pretty cool, I liked how they incorporated a lot of the Christmas toys and use them as w...

 This past Friday marks nearly 15 years since the death of one of the closest people I have been with. She was so loving and kind and basically everything I try to be in my own life. Many people who knew her as Shirley Parks, but I called her Nan. Usually days like this ultimately end up with me being depressed because I know that she is gone and is never coming back. But for some strange reason, I have been seeing a cardinal a lot. Thought it was weird yet comforting. So I decided to look the meaning about seeing a cardinal. Turns out seeing a cardinal is a sign from above that a loved one(s) is near. Which is interesting because November 15 was when my Nan had sadly passed away. Which would explain why despite feeling down and depressed, I still feel a comfort around me.  Which isn't surprising to me that it makes me feel like my Nan is with me. She was always there to comfort me for good portion of my life. Heck! All she even had to do when I was upset about something was t...

The Persona series is a spin-off series that came from Shin Megami Tensei If which was released in 1994. The first Persona game came out in 1996 called Revelations: Persona for the original Playstation. The concept of each game is a group of students who come together with the leader of the group usually a silent protagonist fight against monsters with their Personas. Other recurring themes that pop up throughout the series is influence from the works of Carl Jung a Swiss psychiatrist, psychological personas, tarot cards as well as several religious and mythological imagery. Which is one of my favorite reasons as to why I enjoy the series. But the overall theme of each game is the team all trying to find themselves.  Another cool feature I love about the games especially after the third game, is the social simulation. With all of the protagonist being the silent type, it really allows me to really be myself as I make choices with each of the other characters. Plus is game reminds m...

Now it is no secret that I love the game of football. Of course being from Pa, it is almost expected. And with so many different successful teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles, Penn State Nittany Lions, the Pitt Panthers, and plenty of amazing high school football teams. It is no wonder the game of football is popular among the many of us here in the state of Pennsylvania. But I am also a bit of a history buff and I recently discovered that there were other teams that competed in the pro level. In fact, they even won an NFL Title, well sort of. Which is the topic I wanted to write about today and that is the Pottsville Maroons. The Maroons were formed back in 1920 but were known as the Pottsville Eleven. At the time, Pottsville had such talents like Carl Beck, Benny Boynton and Stan Cofall. By 1924, Pottsville joined the Anthracite League which only lasted for a season. Prior to joining the league, Pottsville became the Maroons after they placed an ordered new jerse...

 Well since we are getting closer to Thanksgiving, I thought it be a good idea to talk about things that I am thankful for. To be perfectly honest, I am not really sure as to why everybody is already talking about Christmas shopping. I always wonder why for the most part we as a society have already skipped over Thanksgiving?  Maybe I am just overthinking like I always seem to do, but I just feel like many of us including myself have forgotten to be grateful for what we have. So here are some of the things that I am grateful for. Hope and pray that you all enjoy it. The first thing I am grateful for is my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! For it is no secret that I have been battling depression and other issues for basically my entire life. But for some reason, I am still here and I am thankful to God for that. Though I am far from perfect as much as I would love to be and that I don't understand why I am even here for. Yet, at the same time, I have always felt like something or s...

   Recently I got to enjoy a music documentary about a metalcore band called Zao. The documentary is called The Lesser Lights of Heaven. It was originally released in 2005 and it was about the history of the band up to that point of the band’s career. According to the band, the original lead singer Eric Reeder was given credit for naming the band. For those who don’t know what Zao means, it is Greek for “alive” or “to have life”. The band’s mission was to create a Christ centered hardcore mainly to help with people who they believed were forced away by organized churches. Which sadly, I can relate to having dealt with it myself. Though I will say I haven’t really dealt with a lot of the judgemental attitude now that I’m older compared to my younger days. But at the same time I still feel that there are a lot of these so called “Christians” who try to tell us that a lot of this music is evil and will lead us down a dark path despite some of these bands talking about how God has...

 Assassin's Creed was one of my favorite video games as it first came out back in 2007 when I was only a sophomore in high school and I loved the concept of the game, going into a machine called the Animus where they use the memories of someone from the past to help figure out ways to find the pieces of Eden. But today i figure I write about one of my favorite games from series and it was Assassin's Creed Rogue. This game first came out in 2014 and what I loved the most about this game was seeing things through the eyes of a Templar. You follow Shay Patrick Cormac who originally was an assassin during the French and Indian War that was from 1752 all the way to 1760. But you play as Shay throughout the game we slowly witness him lose his original opinion of the Assassins and was kicked out of the group eventually becoming a member of the Templars in order to stop the Assassins from destroying the Earth. I love playing this game, I could play over and over and over again. Of cour...

Well tonight was a pretty special night down here in McVeytown as Chad and I along with many other people who live here in McVeytown all came together to celebrate a special accomplishment. And that was how all three of the McVeytown Eagles teams made it to the CKYFL championship games. Winning in both the Peewee and Midget divisions and placing second in the Mighty Mights. Stuff like this doesn't happen often in such a small town where I live so to see these kids have the time of their lives during the parade was certainly a sight to see. One of the things I love about covering sports is when I see kids learn, work hard and turn it into success. And these kids were learning a lot throughout the season and watching them grow and not only become better football players, but better people as well.  Which is why I have really enjoyed covering the CKYFL these last few years for Hometown Sports. People like Travis McCullough who is the President of the league along with Adam Weaver, Rob...

 Many people claim that this is one of the greatest unbeaten teams in college football history. The Fighting Irish of 1988 had defeated teams that finished the season at #2, #4, #5 and #7 in the country according to the AP Poll. Notre Dame had 10 of their 12 victories won by double digits. But the biggest win that the Irish will be remembered for was the ending the 36 game winning streak of the Miami Hurricanes by the final score of 31-30 in which many believe to be one of the most memorable games in history. The Fighting Irish were led by Head Coach Lou Holtz who was in his third year with the program. Joining him on the staff was offensive coordinator Jim Strong who brought his option game with him. Also there was defensive coordinator Barry Alvarez who later became an incredible coach in his own right, was using the 5-2 defense as his base. Notre Dame started the season off ranked number 13th team of the country and had a tough opponent in number nine Michigan at home. The Irish...

 God I love this show so much! One of the coolest TV shows ever! And believe it or not, it was a game show called Legends of the Hidden Temple. The show aired for three seasons from 1993 to 1995 on Nickelodeon.  The was created by David G. Stanley, Scott A. Stone and Stephen Brown. The setting is build around a fictitious temple where contestants compete against one another to find the treasures that are hiding somewhere within the temple that are being protected by the temple guards. The show was hosted by Kirk Fogg while the teams were guided by Olmec who knows about all of the legends of the treasures that are hiding in the temple. There are six different teams that competed in each episode, there was the Red Jaguars, the Orange Iguanas, the Green Monkeys, the Purple Parrots, the Silver Snakes and the Blue Barracudas. Teams compete against one another in four rounds. The first round: The Moat: In this round all six teams attempt to cross the moat and press the button. The f...

 I don't know if there are many people out there who have seen these movies, but I remember going into a McDonald's with my parents and my brothers and got ourselves Happy Meals. But then we noticed that there was a movie called the Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald Scared Silly. To the dismay of parents, me and my twin brother Chad would bug the crap out of them to buy this movie. Sorry mom and dad lol. But they did buy the movie and Chad and I checked it out and enjoyed it very much. Little did we know that this was just the first of six movies that ran from 1998 to 2003 featuring all of the beloved McDonald's characters as they go through different adventures.  As mentioned earlier, Scared Silly was the first movie to come out. Second was The Legend of Grimace Island, The Visitors from Outer Space, Birthday World, Have Time, Will Travel and finally, The Monster O' McDonaldland Loch. And each time a new one came out, we again would bug the crap out of our parents to...

   I always enjoy trying to discover new bands to listen to,  but I really enjoy going back in time and listen to some of the classic albums that I never got to listen to back in the day. So I decided to go back and listen to the debut album for the band called ZAO entitled All Else Failed. I was only five years old when this album first came out originally. Of course they made a rerecording of this album later on in 2003 but I’d prefer to listen to it as it originally was recorded. The ironic part is no one from this album is playing in the band anymore. But nonetheless this album is amazing with ten songs on the record. Vocalist Shawn Jonas really hit the nail on the coffin with his vocals. You definitely can feel a strong connection to the message that Shawn was singing about. Being a believer myself, I really felt like I could relate to his words. You can definitely tell he meant every word of what the message was and that was trying to connect with God. During each s...

 With Halloween getting closer, I thought I continue to write about some more Halloween stuff. Today, I wanted to to write about Hocus Pocus which was a film that originally aired back in 1993. July 16 to be exact which was literally the day after my third birthday. I remember watching years later as a kid and enjoying it especially during the Halloween season and this October was no different. But what I had found interesting about this movie was the fact that when this movie first came out, it was considered a bomb for Disney. To be fair, this movie came out the same weekend as Jurassic Park. It also came out the same day as the movie Free Willy. But has since then become a cult classic, mainly because of the annual airing on Disney during the Halloween season. The story begins in 1693 where the Sanderson sisters had kidnapped a young girl named Emily who was the younger sister of Thackery Binx and drained her life force in order to restore their youth. They then cursed Binx and ...

 It is hard to believe that this month marks the one year anniversary of the untimely death of Atsushi Sakurai 😢. Sakurai was the lead singer of one of my favorite bands from Japan, a goth rock band called Buck-Tick. The first time I had ever heard of this band was because of me and my twin watching an anime called Trinity Blood which aired back in 2005. The opening of the anime was one of their songs and the song was called Dress. It such an amazing song, I was hooked ever since. What is crazy though was I didn't realize how long this band had been around. In fact the band made their debut back in 1983, I wasn't even born yet. As of 2023, the band has released a total of 23 albums with nearly all reaching the top ten and twenty positions on the Oricon charts in Japan. So since the Trinity Blood album, I have been searching songs from this amazing band and found plenty of them. Of course I still really enjoy listening to the Dress, but also really like their song called Romanc...

 It is pretty well known that Halloween is filled with stories of horror and terror that chill us all to our very bones. And honestly no one does it better than Mr. H.P. Lovecraft himself. Holy crap are his stories scary. I mean, just wow! But as I was reading about his life thanks to the website hplovecraft.com, I can totally understand why he was so dark and pessimistic. I mean bless him, he lost his father at a very young age, a lot of issues psychologically, his family struggled a lot with health, especially mental throughout his life. Losing his grandfather, then his mother which apparently did not have the best relationship with but nonetheless, was hurt by her death.  Reading about his life, I can relate to him in someways, for example I too have issues of being isolated from the outside world even though I don't have an issue with really anyone.  Of course I felt really bad for him as well because of the fact that he lost a lot of people in his life that he was cl...

 For the first time in a long time, I got to watch in my humble opinion, one of the funniest movies ever! And that the is movie Dodgeball. This movie originally came to theaters in 2004 which was 20 years ago holy crap lol. The movie was written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. The films stars Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor and Rip Torn. The film was about a group of misfits who are trying to win a dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas to win 50,000 dollars in order to save their struggling gym from being taken by a corporate fitness chain Global Gym. Man was this movie funny! It was quite a long time since I had seen it and when I decided to watch it again on TV, it still holds up and was I ever just losing my mind laughing. This movie was all about the physical comedy. I can not keep a straight face when watching them getting hit in the face, or seeing them trying to dodge getting hit by a wrench and trying to avoid getting hit by traffic. I really enjoyed watchi...

 As mentioned in an earlier blog post, I am a huge fan of the Undertaker. Mainly because of love the dark, gothic character. But the reason why I am talking about the Ministry of Darkness was because that this is the first time I remember seeing the Undertaker. This faction was scary for me as a kid watching wrestling, but at the same time though I thought it was amazing to watch as well. Which my mother was not happy about it lol. The faction itself was also both frighten and incredible. With such talent like Mideon, Viscera, Bradshaw, Faarooq who all have massive amounts of muscle and every single one of them could easily kill me for a shoot. I certainly want these guys beside me in a dark alley and not in front of me. Not to mention they also had the vampire trio themselves, the Brood as well. One of the controversies of the group was that the simple fact that they would sometimes perform rituals along with sacrifices. Yeah this group made a lot of people very uncomfortable on m...

 Now, it is no secret that I really love the game of Football. Even more so, I am more of a defensive kind of guy when it comes to the sport. And in my humble opinion, one of, if not the greatest defensive coach in the history of football and than James David Ryan aka "Buddy Ryan". After serving in the Army during the Korean War. Thank You for your service! Ryan joined into the college ranks as a defensive line coach during the early 60s. By the end of the decade, Buddy found himself in the NFL as a defensive line coach for the New York Jets. Which ultimately led to him winning his first Super Bowl thanks to the guarantee that was made by Broadway Joe Namath where they defeated the Colts. Ryan then moved on to the Minnesota Vikings for a few seasons getting to work with the Purple People Eaters. It was during these times with the Jets and Vikings is where Ryan would soon become what he is most famous for and that was the 46 defense. When Ryan arrived to Chicago to become the ...