The Daily Spotlight

Thanksgiving, Spotlight Videos & More- The Daily Spotlight for 11/30/2015

Tom Lynch Reviews, The Daily Spotlight , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello everyone and happy Monday! Ok ok we all know that today is much more of a slow and plodding Monday following an extended weekend but alas we’re all here so let’s make the most of it and get into some updates for the day.

Thanksgiving:  I really hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  My family and I went down to the Milleridge Inn in long island, New York.  The Milleridge Inn is always a great time as there’s something about taking the classic photos outside of the inn and checking out the stores that remind me so much of Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday season.  I also went down to the Macy’s Day Parade for the first time ever on Thanksgiving.  The folks down at the parade were more than accommodating in letting us know the best areas to view the parade and tips for getting up close to get the best content possible. I’m working on a video and piece about the parade that should be up tomorrow.

Black Friday: I used to be the guy that used to gather up a group of family and friends and really get into Black Friday.  If doors opened at 4 am, my friends and I would meet up and head straight to Best Buy and wait on line to get in there and would often continue shopping until 12 noon or so where we would make our way to the food court at Roosevelt Field Mall, have lunch and then head back home for some much needed shuteye.  Black Friday 2009 is probably one of my fondest memories because it was my reintroduction to coffee.  My original introduction to coffee occured back in 2004 when I was dating a girl who would drink cups and cups of coffee a day and it was strong Serbian coffee, no milk and no sugar.  Well from that moment on I convinced myself that I hated coffee and so I drank tons of mountain dew every day in order to get that jolt of energy.  It was completely ridiculous and very unhealthy.  Well that night in 2009, at the Milleridge Inn my father fixed me up a cup of coffee with milk and sugar and convinced me to try it.  I tried it and loved it back!  Nowadays Black Friday doesn’t have the same appeal to me.  I still went this year and got some good deals but my girlfriend and I didn’t get started until around 1 pm.  I think what killed it for me was the idea that Black Friday now starts on Thanksgiving.  As much as I love a good deal, I value my time with my loved ones a little more.  By starting Black Friday at 4pm Thanskgiving Day, it just kills the holiday for me and isn’t worth it.  Today is finally the end of the bargain shopping with Cyber Monday.  I will say that hands down the best site I’ve seen today has to be Abercrombie which has a 50% off sitewide sale.  While Abercrombie isn’t really my cup of tea, kudos to them for really going above and beyond.  Target also deserves a kudos for their 15% sitewide sale although everything I noticed being good seemed to already be sold out and their site traffic is at a premium.  Of course, my favorite Cyber Monday site is Amazon who continue to lure me with their lightning deals throughout the week.

Site Updates:  I got some great feedback on the first video we launched on the official daily spotlight YouTube channel on Thanksgiving Day.  That video, for those who’ve asked was shot during my annual tradition on Thanksgiving Eve in which a few out of town buddies and I gather at Aunt Bellas Restaurant. It’s always a great time and as you can see at the end of the video, everyone really got into it.  If you haven’t done so you can check out our first video right here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp_U76Nifok! The plan with these videos is to roll them out 3 times a week to start on Tuesdays, Thursdays and at some point over the weekend.  There will be a definitive focus on Travel type videos that I’ve shot over the last three years.  The plan for this week’s videos is to roll out my video on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Tuesday, a video on the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting (which I will be attending live on Wednesday night) on Thursday and then a video on Dubai’s historic Burj Khalifa this weekend.

We’ve also gotten a ton of great feedback on a few posts we did last week on the Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast’s new Starrcade journey and on a look at the WWE’s 2002 appearance at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  It’s been a lot of fun interacting with a number of wrestling fans and wrestling legends over on twitter @tommyonthespot or @daily_spotlight.  I have plenty of fun posts on the way this week including a sports update that I’m finishing up right now looking at one of the crazier weekends in all of sports this past weekend and a movie review on The Night Before, which I thought was fantastic.  Until then I appreciate all of your support and hope you all have a kick ass week.

The Daily Spotlight For 7/5/2015

Tom Lynch The Daily Spotlight , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 Hello everyone, I hope you had a happy and safe 4th of July. I don’t think it would have worked out any better with the 4th falling on a Saturday as it gives all of us a chance to recover with a lazy Sunday before getting back on the weeklong grind tomorrow. I ended up getting to Jones Beach for their annual fireworks celebration, their first in six years. I really enjoyed the fireworks and there isn’t anything that compares to being on the beach with your girlfriend watching fireworks on the boardwalk.  Unfortunately, however, the fireworks celebration was run terribly.  You would really think that over the six years in which Jones Beach didn’t do the fireworks, they would find a better way to handle the traffic. The fireworks show ended around 10PM & we didn’t get out of the lot  until it was close to midnight.  I understand there was some 100,000 people who attended the fireworks spectacular but 2 hours to get out of the lot is inexcusable. To make matters worse, there was nobody in the lot to offer any sort of assistance. This led to people getting into accidents, fights breaking out and of course people shooting fireworks everywhere you turned. Fireworks were another major problem as there were people setting off fireworks in the middle of the boardwalk and causing a major disturbance for everyone. Sure, setting off fireworks can be fun but they’re incredibly dangerous and there’s no place for that at a family event. It was a real shame for me who grew up on the tradition of the Jones Beach Fireworks and couldn’t wait to give my girlfriend and her kid brother to the experience. If the Jones Beach fireworks are back for good, I hope to see an uptick in security next year and they really need to hire some extra help to control the parking lot crowds. Even if they put people there to guide the cars in order, then you wouldn’t have hundreds of cars trying to get to the exit at the same time.

 – Really interested in seeing the MLB All Star Game Selection Show Tonight if for no other reason than to see how many Kansas City Royals get to start the game for the American League. I am actually pulling for the team to consist only of Royals and Mike Trout like it looked like it was going to be just a few weeks ago. People will complain and some may even whine about how this makes the all star game a joke due to home field advantage in the World Series being on the line here but I have no problem with it. I feel that if you’re ever going to take the voting power away from the fans, they should just put all of the statistically best players as the starters but that’s not as much fun. It isn’t as if the city of Kansas City is the biggest city in the US, every other fan base had an equal chance to send their players so if the Royals fans voted all of their players into the game, then they should be rewarded.

– Last Wednesday night i went back to the Adventureland Amusement Park in Farmingdale, NY for the first time in about a decade. I had grown up going to Adventureland and so it was cool to return there for an impromptu visit. My girlfriend and I brought along three kids including our two year old god daughter and there was plenty for everyone to do. What I like about Adventureland is that despite being a little smaller they’re always trying to find ways to differentiate themselves. The new Turbulance Roller Coaster is like nothing I’ve ever rode before as its a coaster that features spinning cars. Thus, you’re spinning the entire time you’re riding the coaster which is a real blast. Likewise, the Crocodile Run water ride is really unique (and my favorite attraction) as you control your own ride as you stand on a rotating platform while trying to avoid different waterfalls (or going under them intentionally if you’re inclined to get drenched) by controlling your individual pod. Though I really enjoyed the new rides, I was glad to see some of the classic rides like the water flume, the classic Ferris wheel, the ladybug roller coaster and the pirate ship were all still there. Speaking of the pirate ship, I couldn’t believe that after all these years the mermaid on the pirate ship has finally been covered up!

That’s going to do it for me today, I’m on my way currently to New York City to try out the new Hunger Games exhibit in Times Square! Keep your eyes pealed for that but until then feel free to visit Adventureland.us for more information on the theme park!

Editor’s Note: I never did post this yesterday so sorry for the delay.

The Daily Spotlight for 7/4/2015- The Fourth Of July Edition

Tom Lynch The Daily Spotlight , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy 4th of July everyone.  I hope that all of you guys celebrating have a great time but do so responsibly.  If you’re going to have a few beverages find a place to stay if you don’t have a designated driver.  Even if you do have a designated driver, it may be a good idea to find a place to stay as there will be people on the road who aren’t as responsible.  Furthermore, if you’re thinking of driving after having any drinks whatsoever, cops will be out in full force.  It’s Saturday night and so everyone is off tomorrow, the party factor will be greater than ever (as it should be) but everyone also has no excuse not to find a place to crash until tomorrow morning.  Now that I’m off my soap box, for today’s blog I’m going to talk about my favorite personal 4th of July memories.  Let’s get right into it.

-It’s funny but in a pre 9/11 world there were fireworks shows literally taking place everywhere in every town.  I actually remember many of these shows we would go see as a kid would be held by police officers.  My family and I would go to local parks and watch police officers fire off fireworks that they probably had confiscated from people who had them illegally.  Looking back these were pretty unsafe as well as you could stand right under them.  Speaking of standing under fireworks, back in the Shea Stadium days, the Mets still fired off fireworks behind centerfield so you can see them anywhere in the town (Nowadays the Mets do an impressive Pyrotechnics show which are brought out after the game in the middle of the outfield).  Well my friends and I would head down to watch the fireworks and we would lineup by the fence right outside of shea stadium.  The firework residue would actually fall onto us after the fireworks went off, it was insane.  As I got into my teenage years my family, friends and I would all head to Jones Beach to watch the fireworks.  We would always plan to stay on the beach until we were kicked off because the traffic on the way home was always the worst.   I remember one year in particular, I ended up hurting my hand during July 4th weekend a few days prior to the 4th of July.  I wore a sweatband on my right wrist but didn’t it let it stop me from driving everyone and spending the entire day at the beach.  Well, it turned out that I actually broke my wrist and spent the entire day there with a broken wrist hanging there.

-As we got older my friends and I ended up going from Jones Beach to Montauk, once the Jones Beach fireworks went on hiatus.  Montauk was great because you were able to make bonfires right on the beach and also stay there all night if you wanted to because most of the people there were spending the weekend there.  Well one year, I was the designated driver and we piled four friends into a room at a budget hotel with my girlfriend and I.  We had a good amount of snacks with us at the beach and my friend, James, infamously brought along a full pizza from Seven Eleven.  In any event, as time went on, we started to file out of the beach and drive back to our hotel.  Well in one car it was my friends James and Bruce as well as my girlfriend and I and in the other car it was my friends, Adam and LP.  I was leading the way for Adam but halfway through the trip a police officer pulled me over.  I hadn’t drank anything so I wasn’t worried but had some sort of busted tail light or may have been swerving a bit due to forgetting my glasses (I told you cops are looking for any reason whatsoever to pull you over).  Well before long, the cop let us go but Adam and LP didn’t know as they were already at the hotel.  James had a great idea to pretend I had been arrested for a DUI (bear in mind I didn’t drink anything at all) and to arrive with Bruce back at the hotel without my girlfriend and I.  My girlfriend and I hung out around the pool area of the hotel and my girlfriend called James pretending to be at the police station picking me up.  The story was ridiculous that the police would arrest me and let my girlfriend tag along, then let James take my car to the hotel but Adam and LP bought it hook line and sinker.  When I returned triumphantly to the hotel 10 minutes later they still weren’t sure if I had really been arrested.  It was a pretty good rib.

  -This year for the 4th of July Flo Rida and Robin Thicke will be performing “live” on the Macy’s Fireworks Spectacular.  Well the show was actually recorded on Thursday night and we were invited to the live taping in what we being billed as a free Flo Rida concert by the New York skyline in Long Island City.  First things first, this was really cool venue for a show.  It was awesome to see Flo Rida right by the water with the Empire State Building lit up nicely right behind him.  However, to call this show a concert, would be the understatement of the century.  First off despite the venue selling food and craft beer, you couldn’t bring any of this into the concert area which made things pretty annoying for everyone who purchased food.  From there Flo Rida came out with Robin Thicke and the two did their new hit ” I don’t Like It, I Love It”  which got the crowd really into it.  Then the producer of the special came out and said they had to do the song again and finally a third time to get the best take.  They then played the song a fourth time so that they can film just the band and the dancers.  Finally they played the same song a fifth time just to film the crowd during the song for crowd reactions.  After this, Flo Rida came out and did his new song “GDFR (Goin Down For Real)” which was great and then they went through the same thing playing the song five times.  Then…that was it! That’s right Flo Rida performed two songs, five times each and that was it.  I don’t know if it was a Flo Rida call or a producer call but it would have been nice for him to do a few more songs for the live crowd that spent their night coming to see him perform.  At the end of the day we ate at a great place called “Shi” so it was nice night out with friends, but still this rubbed me the wrong way.  That’s going to do it for me today but be sure to check out the Wrestling section of the site.  I was up and at em at 5:30 this morning providing you guys with coverage of the WWE Network live special “Beast In The East” and I’d love your feedback on that. Until then, have a happy and safe independence day everyone.  God Bless America!

The Daily Spotlight For 7/3/2015

Tom Lynch The Daily Spotlight , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello Everyone thanks for checking out the daily spotlight.  This is the newest addition to thedailyspotlight.com and it’s going to be much more blog style than the usual spotlight reviews that you’ll find on the rest of the site.  My plan is update these as close to daily as I could and this will probably consist mostly of my quick thoughts on the different happenings of my day or the day to day events of my life.  My plan here is to hopefully allow you to get to know more about me, Tom Lynch, the human being as opposed to the writer.  These posts may be themed but will more than likely be much more free flowing.  Don’t worry this won’t take away from my dedication to the other posts that you’ve come to expect here on the site.  I’ll still be provided coverage of many different WWE events, wrestling podcasts, sports, entertainment and everything in between.  However, I’ll also be giving you guys an insight in to my life.  If you aren’t interested I’ve stuck these blogs all the way at the end of the top of the page so you don’t have to click on the menu, but hopefully you’ll enjoy some of what you see here.

– While my girlfriend is fast asleep and I’m preparing for an early rise in order to catch this WWE show on the network, I have the Mets game on in the background.  I’ve become a huge fan of watching my hometown teams play on the west coast.  There’s something nice about watching baseball games in the middle of the night, especially during the summer time.  One of my friend’s told me today that he was done with the Mets.  While I can understand his frustration, as the Mets look like they’re suddenly standing on the ledge ready to freefall to another lackluster season, I can’t imagine leaving a team because of their poor play.  I have always been a fan of the Jets and the Knicks despite the fact that neither team has won a championship throughout my 28 years of living and I always will be.  I was a Yankees fan as well growing up, mostly because my mom was a fan and I was raised to be one.  Eventually, I did give up on the Yankees back in 2009. I still respect the team’s history but I had enough of the Yankee way that if the team struggles, you go out and purchase a new slew of players and try again the next season.  I also got tired of the world series win or bust mindset.  No team wants to lose but it’s tough to win a championship and fanbases should appreciate the ole punchers try.  I also went to the Nationals stadium for the first time in 2008 and I saw a fanbase their to have a good time who was happy to support their team no matter what.  Between the fact that the Nats had one big time player (Ryan Zimmerman) as well as the fun atmosphere and youth associated with the team, they became my adopted team.  This adoption eventually became a full time deal and I’ve become a Nats fan ever since.  As a matter of fact, what a great win for the Nats tonight on Frieworks night over the hated San Francisco Giants!

–  While I recharged the batteries a bit today, I caught up a bit on this season’s big brother.  Big Brother is a summer tradition that I tend to really enjoy but in past year’s have been pretty disappointed by it.  I think it started with the year that they had all of the racist contestants, it just became a less fun to watch that year.  From there, it seems that every time that I pick a player to get behind, they are gone before I can even really started to like them.  Between Nick two years ago, Devin and Zach last season and now Jace this season, it becomes very frustration.  I particularly found Da’Vonne, James and Jason to be annoying in a “Turn Off My Television” sort of way as opposed to a “I want to root against you sort of way”.  It remains to be seen if I’m going to stick around and watch this season, stay tuned…

– I’ll close with this today, it’s amazing how friendships change as you get older.  When you’re in your late teens to early twenties, there becomes a mindset that you really need a lot of friends.  You depend on your friends to be there each week, sometimes multiple times throughout the week.  If you’re friends aren’t around for a while, you start to question there dedication to the friendship and this can cause a real disconnect that could lead to the end or a break in that friendship.  Well as you get older and jobs, relationships and other life responsibilities take the forefront of one’s life, it often isn’t realistic to see your friends every few days, every week or sometimes every month.  Two of my best friends live hours away from me either by car or plane and I could go months without any real communication with them other then text messages and fantasy sports.  Yet what I have realized is that when I do catch up with my friends now, whether it be a great phone conversation or the times I get to see them, it’s like nothing has changed and we haven’t been a way for so long.  So yes, as you get older you may not have as many friends as when you hosted an annual party in your yard and had fifty guests, the friends you do have mean a lot more.

That’s going to do it for me, I’m turning in early, with every intention of give you guys a spotlight review of the WWE in Japan show bright and early on the Network and then another daily spotlight blog for the 4th of July. Until then….