#arguably kevin also but this is post breaking hand
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deeppenguinstudent · 4 months ago
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If Riko ever turned into a child, the person who'd treat him the best would be Jean. If Jean ever turned into a child, there would be no difference in the way Riko treats him.
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aion-rsa · 4 years ago
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Why Kid Cosmic Is About “People, Not Powers”
https://ift.tt/3an0ID5
This feature contains some spoilers for Netflix’s Kid Cosmic.
After exploring the stretches of space, wonder, and imagination in shows like Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Wander Over Yonder, Craig McCracken returns to the realm of superheroes with Kid Cosmic, a more direct, comic book-esque take on the genre than his first smash hit show, The Powerpuff Girls. 
The show stars Kid, a young boy who finds a set of superpowered stones, and from there, all heck breaks loose. In the midst of fighting waves upon waves of aliens and creatures from other worlds, however, is an earnest, realistic story about a boy dealing with grief, and the small town that unites behind him through it all.
Den of Geek got a chance to chat with Craig over email about the show, about what it means to be a superhero, and how Netflix allowed for Kid Cosmic to explore that in a more mature, “all ages” way that’s arguably beyond the scope of most animated kids shows.
Den of Geek: Kid Cosmic is about a kid who is so engaged in comic books that when a set of super-powered stones literally lands at his feet, he wants to be a real superhero, arguably at some pretty significant costs and risk. What influenced you to come up with this specific premise? How do you view this, and the serial, thematic nature of it, against the immense number of superhero based media in the world today?
Craig McCracken: I was inspired by the supreme confidence that kids have at that age. I, like a lot of kids, dreamt of being a superhero when I was young, and in my fantasies I was always amazing and really good at it. I had that same confidence with my drawing when I was young. I drew all the time, I studied every cartoon and comic I could get my hands on, and I had the passion to do the job. I couldn’t understand why I had to grow up and go to art school before I could have that career, I was ready for the job at 12! 
The answer was that I wasn’t good enough yet, I had way more to learn (still do!). So I took that personal childhood experience with my drawing and applied it to superpowers instead. The thing that I feel sets Kid Cosmic apart from other hero-based media is that it’s focused less on epic hero mythologies and more on the smaller human stories. In writing the series we always reminded ourselves it’s about the people not the powers. 
Style wise, the show is heavily indebted to the classic comic book/serial look. The framing and storyboarding; the uses of fonts in the credits; the nifty end cards with the characters on fake comic books. One thing I’ve noticed, specifically, is that the movements at points were jumpy, as if frames were missing. Was that a conscious choice? Do you think that adds to the look and feel you’re going for?
A lot of the choices that we made in Kid were based on the fact that these are real people in the real world, they aren’t cartoon characters. So with the animation we avoided overly smooth and flowy actions or lots of squash and stretch, things that you associate with “cartoons.”  If an action felt natural on 3s or 4s we kept it. 
New Mexico as a setting is an inspired choice. There’s something freeing about its wide expanse of desert, but also terrifying in its (from a kids’ perspective) unexplored nothingness. How do you think the setting reflects the themes?
It’s not specifically New Mexico but sort of a generic rural southwest desert vibe. It could be New Mexico, it could be California, it could be Arizona, basically it’s a remote enough place where a spaceship could crash and not a lot of people would know about it. The other thing that is nice about the desert is that it forces you to tell a story about the characters because there is no surrounding environment for the characters to get distracted by, it’s a flat empty stage to play in. It’s also alone in the middle of nowhere, sort of like Earth is in the greater universe. 
This is, relatively speaking, darker than most kids animated shows. It has pretty brutal alien deaths, and while they’re dispatched in unique ways (colorful blood, “de-rezzing” out of existence), they’re still a bit more intense then what’s usually out there. How was Netflix in responding to this? Do you feel there may be a kind of commentary here on how sensitized kids may be to the kind of violence they witness in superhero comics and films?
Again that’s the reality creeping in, even though there is fantastic stuff happening, Kid Cosmic doesn’t take place in a fantasy world. Danger exists, the stakes are high. This just increases Kid’s struggle and makes it more real. At the beginning, Netflix said this isn’t specifically a “kid’s show” it’s an all ages show that can be watched by young viewers, families, animation fans, anybody. So from their perspective, anything that you might see in a big summer superhero movie was fair game. 
I want to talk about the Kid himself, who, to be blunt, is a lot to handle in the first few episodes. The approach seems to be that the Kid needs to learn a lesson about humility and what it means to be a “true hero.” But I’m also fascinated by his tragic backstory. It’s portrayed vaguely, but hints at his motivation. Do you feel that keeping the specifics of what happened to the Kid at arms’ length works to prop up the theme?
I wanted to tell a story about a real kid and kids at that age aren’t perfect. They make mistakes, they may be a bit intense or selfish and are hard to deal with sometimes. It’s part of growing up and maturing. Often heroes for young viewers are portrayed as aspirational. They always do and say the right things. I wanted Kid to be more realistic and relatable. 
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As far as his backstory goes, my father passed away when I was 7 so what motivates Kid to want to be a hero is very close to me. We felt he should have a more sincere motivation in wanting to be a hero other than it would be fun and cool. It had to come from a real place and losing his parents and wanting to stop bad things from happening felt more true. Keeping that part of the story at arms’ length was a way to keep the overall tone of the season balanced. Even though Kid carries this real and heavy weight around with him, we didn’t want it to drag down the overall fun and energetic tone of the series. 
Stuck Chuck is portrayed as the Kid’s conscious – specifically, his self-doubt, his frustrations, his lies. Can you go into more about the conception of this character?
Frank Angones, who I did early Kid development with, and I are both huge Buckaroo Banzai fans and we were talking about a scene that got cut out where after the Lectroid ship was destroyed Buckaroo found some random Red Lectroids left behind who forgot to get on the ship. We thought the idea of having to deal with random aliens was hilarious. So we applied that to Stuck Chuck, and what started out as a joke turned into an absolutely essential character. Chuck is not only a constant threat to Kid’s life but he is a constant threat to his confidence. He’s like an anti-Jiminy Cricket and is one of my favorite characters in the show. 
Later in the season, there’s a big twist in who the real villains are, and in the process, the depiction of superheroic antics are pushed up to a ridiculous degree. It almost feels like a winking satire of the whole “Space Force” thing. Was that intentional? Do you think there’s a tension that exists between the depiction of superheroes and their connection, however tenuous, to a military aggressiveness that merits more discussion?
I get asked that a lot, but I came up with Earth Force Enforcement Force long before Space Force. Aggressiveness is the right word. As a fan of superheros I’m tired of being told dark stories about heroes more focused on fighting and winning wars than actually helping the innocent victims of those conflicts.  I miss good guys that are actually “good guys.”
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The ending, to keep things vague, is a pretty sudden transition from the initial premise. If granted a season 2, what other themes would you explore? Do you think you’ll be able to keep a solid grasp on the true nature of superheroics, if you place them in a new setting where over-the-top superheroics would be necessary?
We want to explore other ideas of what it really means to be a hero. If season 1 was “heroes help” what other aspects are essential to be a hero? So we plan on exploring that idea but through the experience of some of the other characters. Namely how does a teenage waitress from Earth suddenly lead a team of regular people to save the universe? Again it’s about the people, not the powers. 
The post Why Kid Cosmic Is About “People, Not Powers” appeared first on Den of Geek.
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highbuttonsports · 4 years ago
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THIS WEEK IN JETS HOCKEY…
Every Thursday at The High Button, we explore the events and stories of the Winnipeg Jets on and off the ice! This week we look at the trio of games, injury updates, trade options and more:
GAMES SINCE LAST THURSDAY IN THIRTY SECONDS:
Thursday March 11th: the Jets fall 4-3 to the Leafs in overtime. Those damn Jets just don’t go away. Believe me, the Leafs tried. This game was not the finest outing for the Jets, but somehow the pesky group from Winnipeg were able to force overtime in a game they had no business being in for most of it. The Leafs outshot the Jets 38-24 overall, 32-24 at 5v5, and had 68% xGF share of the game. The numbers tell you most of what you missed, aside from one detail I cannot stress enough: Connor Hellebuyck was brilliant. You can nitpick a couple of the goals, but you’d be reaching. This was one of his finest performances of the season on a night where the Jets seemed to let the Leafs move the puck through the middle of the ice. A particularly irritating night if you’re a Jets fan with an appreciation for the tactical side of the game. Nevertheless, the forwards were able to generate some chances when they had the puck, Ehlers was great, and this was a tough game against a skilled Leafs team. JETS PLAYER OF THE GAME: Connor Hellebuyck stopped 34 of 38, but needed to be at his best for almost all of them.
Saturday March 13th: the Jets control the pace in a 5-2 win over the Leafs. This was much better. Saturday night was a perfect storm for Winnipeg, in arguably their best game and the Leafs worst game of the season. While the Leafs were able to gain the middle of the ice on Tuesday and Thursday, there was little to none for the taking on Saturday by the Jets. The Jets outshot the Leafs 32-22 overall, 24-16 at 5v5, and had 61% xGF in the game. While Laurent Brossoit was good, this was a case where the Jets gave up nothing in the neutral zone, and were able to possess the puck a lot more than the Leafs, one of the league’s best possession teams. The Jets third line was particularly good in this one, with Adam Lowry scoring the eventual winner in the third period to break a twenty-game goalless drought. JETS PLAYER OF THE GAME: Mark Scheifele. Despite the minus-1 rating, the Jets did not allow a high-danger shot attempt while his line was on the ice at 5v5, and that minus was the result of a shorthanded goal by Jake Muzzin. Scheifele had a goal and an assist, and was often the best player on the ice during the game.
Monday March 15th: the Jets lose a close one 4-2 to the Habs. Monday was another hard-fought and fairly back and forth game between the Habs and Jets. While the Jets top-six were able to create their own chances and stall the Habs for the most part, the bottom-six groups were at the mercy of the Canadiens in this one. Ultimately, a couple careless defensive assignments by the Jets in this one were the difference. The Jets outshot the Habs 36-31 overall, 29-23 at 5v5, and had a 58% xGF in this one. This was a game that if not for a couple mistakes and some more offence from the bottom-six, the Jets could have easily won. A game for the video sessions, for sure. JETS PLAYER OF THE GAME: Kyle Connor had his 13th and 14th of the season.
Wednesday March 17th: Three forwards do it again for the Jets as they beat the Habs 4-3 in OT. This is one that the Jets won’t be please with the finer details. A game where they seemed to control the pace of play, the Jets looked to be on their heels toward the end of the third period, and that allowed the Canadiens to crawl back from a two goal deficit. The Canadiens outshot the Jets 36-30 overall, and 30-25 at 5v5 in this one with the Jets posting just a 41% xGF. There are a lot of positives to take out of this one. Connor Hellebuyck made a few huge saves, and the Jets generally skated well despite taking their foot off the gas in the late going. And while the Habs are pesky, the Jets were careless with the lead toward the end. JETS PLAYER OF THE GAME: Pierre-Luc Dubois had three assists in this one, including a helper on Nikolaj Ehlers’ absolute rip of a game-winner in OT. Honourable mention goes to Derek Forbort in this one.
ARE THE JETS FOR REAL?
One of the major storylines of the past week is not even a news story, but rather a major discourse surrounding the idea that the Jets could be the best team in the North. Conversely, they have also been the topic of discussion of not being a real playoff team.
So what exactly are this year’s Jets team?
Despite winning two out of three against the Leafs, the Jets spent the majority of the first two games hanging onto a rock to avoid getting caught in a downcurrent. However, they made the Leafs look lifeless in the third game.
Evaluating this year’s Jets squad has proved to be a challenge. On one hand, they’re an analytic mess in some senses. They rank 27th of 31 teams in xGF share at 46.1% which puts them behind messy teams like Buffalo and Columbus. They are last in the NHL in HDCF (high-danger corsi-for, essentially meaning shot attempts from the slot) at just 43.3%.
If you watch their games, it’s very clear the Jets are content holding onto the puck to create the best possible chance. They really don’t shoot a ton when they have the puck. The problem is that they have a hard time getting it back when they don’t have it, and when they get running around in their own zone, they struggle to get back into position. That’s true of most teams, but it seems to plague the Jets regularly in the first period, and it takes them some time to settle in.
Obvious defensive issues aside, the Jets still have an average PDO (bang on at 1.004). Their power play has been consistently good again, operating at 26.5%, good enough for seventh in the NHL. Connor Hellebuyck has been relatively good, and Laurent Brossoit has been solid in almost all of this spot-starts. These are all things we’ve come to expect from the Jets. So is there anything that really makes them special?
They have a can-do attitude. This is the part where you roll your eyes, but it’s true. Let me put it another way, in the form of a question. And if you’re somebody who watches the Jets regularly, this should be an easy one: how many games this year have you seen the Jets get hemmed in their zone consistently in the first half, only to come out on top?
The Jets lead the league in wins when trailing after one period, with seven. They have the third best winning percentage when trailing through two periods. And still? They have lost just one game in regulation when leading after one period, and have not lost in regulation when leading after two. Of course, a lot of that could be meaningless to some degree. Do I have a point? Yes I do.
The Jets play with a lot of confidence, and there really doesn’t seem to be anybody in the North division capable of derailing that confidence. Confidence doesn’t always amount to wins. After all, if you come to the rink believing that you’re going to win the game and then go on the ice and do nothing about it, you’re going to find that the game gets away from you in a hurry.
The good news? This makes them a tough out. Whether that be in a three-game regular season series, or in a seven-game playoff series, the Jets just don’t want to go away. In and of itself, that’s scary. The bad news? Well, they are flawed. They don’t seem to let those flaws become a cause for concern internally, and that’s a good thing, but there are several teams in the league that could make things ugly for the Jets in a hurry if they expose these flaws.
Here is my thought: in the immediate, the Jets are an average team that have the fight of most teams that know they can’t just rely on talent. While their system has holes, they can turn a game the other way in a hurry. There is a level of relentlessness to this team that doesn’t always have that offensive talent to match. Do I think the Jets are a realistic Cup favourite? No. Do I think they can get hot in the playoffs? Most teams could, but the Jets do have some unique features that make them dangerous, so yes I do.
With the trade deadline approaching on April 12th, I expect the next 10-14 days to be a huge teller on the Jets. Whether Kevin Cheveldayoff makes a move to help the on-ice product will be a huge factor into this “are they for real” question.
- Tyler
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theradioghost · 6 years ago
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It’s been a while since I posted my personal ranking of the biggest dumbasses and worst decision-makers in audio drama. Plenty of time for lots of new shows, season finales, season premieres, character introductions, for just a ton more of the worst possible decisions these people could make. So I thought, let’s see how the rankings stand now!
Rudyard Funn Yeah this one hasn’t changed.
Jon Sims/Doug Eiffel Again, no change. This question still eternally vexes me. On the one hand, Eiffel’s persistence in doing things that were very, very clearly a bad idea even in the moment and even to him, but also the fact that we are no longer accumulating new Terrible Eiffel Ideas. On the other, Jon’s genuine attempts to do his best in the worst possible scenario versus the fact that I have had to delay posting this twice now because Jon did yet another stupid thing. Ultimately, how can we compare them? In the end, both are simply human (more or less) incarnations of Murphy’s Law, in its original form: “If there’s more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will result in disaster, this guy will do it that one way.”
Dr. Howard Young (+1) SAYER Season 5 was a stunning revelation in just how much dumber Young could get. Here I was assuming that he couldn’t die again, given that it was a prequel season, and instead he manages not only to die again more than once but to set the entire plot of the show into motion.
Lucifer Kane Where would I even start?????? With the kicking down of doors? The attempt to body-check a horrible semi-incorporeal tar monster that just threw a much bigger dude through a car? The whole climax of Wonderland II, up to and including whatever the hell that ending was?? A bastard and a dumbass.
Still the entire fucking Stamatis family (+2) Are you three kidding me
Martin Blackwood (+4) When Jon “I’m going to open the coffin marked DO NOT OPEN” Sims can justifiably call your current plan of action “really stupid,” you’ve gone drastically wrong somewhere.
Brutus Feels c.f. Kane and Feels: Paranormal Investigators Mini-Episode 2, “Carrying Off a Changeling”
The Obituary Writer There’s so much that this man did in the space of the single month during which Season 1 came out, but the one my brain always goes straight to is the time he combat rolled into a trash can while trying to quietly follow someone. Also, even as a cat person myself, I question the adoption of the voraciously man-eating cats.
Pippa Campbell I considered the crew of the Rusalka a lot, and there’s an argument to be made for any of them being on here, but Pippa wins for stealing a baby.
Sir Angelo Awarded on the basis of whatever the hell he thought he was doing by deliberately sticking himself to a giant snail, and also whatever the hell he thought he was doing by collapsing a bunch of walls.
Juno Steel (-8) I’m so proud of him you guys. Our lady still has quite the journey ahead of him, both literally and metaphorically, and a lot of past mistakes to make up for, but the fact that he has recognized this, and the absolute tour de force of self-reflection and steps in the right direction that was the back end of Season 2, have gone a long way in counteracting past dumbassery. Bonus points for absolute commitment to Being Gay, Doing Crime.
Michael Tate (+4) You stayed in the office rather than sending for help???? Rather than telling Poletti it was you??? Michael wh
Jack St. James I love her, but oh my god. Would give her this slot for the Toto joke alone, but all of the breaking and entering, going into spooky tunnels alone, and singing dicks also count towards it.
Sir Damien the Pious Admittedly Damien was going to be much higher on this list, but then Part 4 of the finale came out and he resolved the worst of the dumbassery that had been plaguing him this season. Still, all of that dumbassery did happen.
Mark Sollinger (-10) Committing yourself to horrible eldritch gods, being turned into some kind of terrible formless monster, getting dunked on by a Popeyes-eating tooth ghost, and mostly failing to accomplish anything thereby? Yeah. The drop here is less because of any action of his -- with the exception of helping Chris and Nicholas, and therefore Dan -- than because everybody else was making such bad decisions all the time.
Samir (from Caravan) Dumbass monsterfucker icon. “Oh yeah, I swallowed a spectral shrieking head and she lives in my brain now, that’s totally fine though, no biggie.”
Mick Mercury (-2) Once again my beloved dumbass best friend shows up in an impossibly ridiculous situation of peril, and once again he follows it up by being heartbreakingly insightful. Did Juno make sure he was going to be alright before he left?? I need to know, Kevin
Dr. Sally Grissom It’s been a few months now since Ars Paradoxica wrapped up, and with the thematically-appropriate advantage of temporal distance, looking back at one of the best shows in audio fiction -- yeah, Dr. Grissom was a dumbass. Still love her.
Tiff (Standard Docking Procedure) This show hasn’t even properly started yet and Tiff still gets to go up here.
Freed Friend Poletti (formerly Dipshit Poletti, formerly Extinction Event Poletti, formerly Panda Bear Poletti, formerly Earthman Poletti, formerly Gerald Poletti) (-6) This is absolutely not a dumbassery redemption arc that I would ever have called, but damn if I’m not proud of this guy? He’s still Poletti, of course, and managed to deliver Leon right into the hands of Oliver West, but the determination, self-reflection, compassion and even arguable heroism he’s shown this season have dramatically turned me around on his character. Still a dumbass, but a dumbass I support wholeheartedly.
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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago
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Facebook Says It Won’t Back Down From Allowing Lies in Political Ads https://nyti.ms/2QFvehH
Breaking News: Facebook said it wouldn't make any major changes to its political advertising policies, which allow lies in ads, despite pressure from lawmakers.
Big win for Trump. A decision by Facebook to avoid antagonizing the president — and risking breakup — that will have huge consequences in the 2020 campaign.
Facebook Says It Won’t Back Down From Allowing Lies in Political Ads
The company was under intense pressure to adjust its policies. But in this presidential election year, no big changes are planned.
By Mike Isaac |Published Jan. 9, 2020,  6:00 a.m. ET New York Times | Posted January 09, 2020 |
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook said on Thursday that it would not make any major changes to its political advertising policies, which allow lies in ads, despite pressure from lawmakers who say the company is abdicating responsibility for what appears on its platform.
The decision, which company executives had telegraphed in recent months, is likely to harden criticism of Facebook’s political ad practices heading into this year's presidential election.
The company also said it would not end so-called microtargeting for political ads, which lets campaigns home in on a sliver of Facebook’s users — a tactic that critics say is ideal for spreading divisive or misleading information.
Political advertising cuts to the heart of Facebook’s outsize role in society, and the company has found itself squeezed between liberal critics who want it to do a better job of policing its various social media platforms and conservatives who say their views are being unfairly muzzled.
The issue has raised important questions regarding how heavy a hand technology companies like Facebook — which also owns Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp — and Google should exert when deciding what types of political content they will and will not permit.
By maintaining a status quo, Facebook executives are essentially saying they are doing the best they can without government guidance and see little benefit to the company or the public in changing.
In a blog post, a company official echoed Facebook’s earlier calls for lawmakers to set firm rules.
“In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies,” Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management overseeing the advertising integrity division, said in the post. “We have based ours on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”
Other social media companies have decided otherwise, and some had hoped Facebook would quietly follow their lead. In late October, Twitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, banned all political advertising from his network, citing the challenges that novel digital systems present to civic discourse. Google quickly followed suit with limits on political ads across some of its properties, though narrower in scope.
Facebook’s hands-off ad policy has already allowed for misleading advertisements. In October, a Facebook ad from the Trump campaign made false accusations about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden. The ad quickly went viral and was viewed by millions. After the Biden campaign asked Facebook to take down the ad, the company refused.
“Our approach is grounded in Facebook’s fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is,” Facebook’s head of global elections policy, Katie Harbath, wrote in the letter to the Biden campaign.
In an attempt to provoke Facebook, Senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign ran an ad falsely claiming that the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, was backing the re-election of Mr. Trump. Facebook did not take the ad down.
Criticism seemed to stiffen Mr. Zuckerberg’s resolve. Company officials said he and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s president, had ultimately made the decision to stand firm.
In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University in October, Mr. Zuckerberg said he believed in the power of unfettered speech, including in paid advertising, and did not want to be in the position to police what politicians could and could not say to constituents. Facebook’s users, he said, should be allowed to make those decisions for themselves.
“People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society,” he said.
Facebook officials have repeatedly said significant changes to its rules for political or issue ads could harm the ability of smaller, less well-funded organizations to raise money and organize across the network.
Instead of overhauling its policies, Facebook has made small tweaks. Mr. Leathern said Facebook would add greater transparency features to its library of political advertising in the coming months, a resource for journalists and outside researchers to scrutinize the types of ads run by the campaigns.
Facebook also will add a feature that allows users to see fewer campaign and political issue ads in their news feeds, something the company has said many users have requested.
There was considerable debate inside Facebook about whether it should change. Late last year, hundreds of employees supported an internal memo that called on Mr. Zuckerberg to limit the abilities of Facebook’s political advertising products.
On Dec. 30, Andrew Bosworth, the head of Facebook’s virtual and augmented reality division, wrote on his internal Facebook page that, as a liberal, he found himself wanting to use the social network’s powerful platform against Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Bosworth said that even though keeping the current policies in place “very well may lead to” Mr. Trump’s re-election, it was the right decision. Dozens of Facebook employees pushed back on Mr. Bosworth’s conclusions, arguing in the comments section below his post that politicians should be held to the same standard that applies to other Facebook users.
For now, Facebook appears willing to risk disinformation in support of unfettered speech.
“Ultimately, we don’t think decisions about political ads should be made by private companies,” Mr. Leathern said. “Frankly, we believe the sooner Facebook and other companies are subject to democratically accountable rules on this the better.”
*********
Don’t Tilt Scales Against Trump, Facebook Executive Warns
In an internal memo, Andrew Bosworth said he “desperately” wanted the president to lose. But, he said, the company should avoid hurting Mr. Trump’s campaign.
By Kevin Roose, Sheera Frenkel and  Mike Isaac | Published Jan. 7, 2020 | New York Times | Posted Jan 09, 2020
SAN FRANCISCO — Since the 2016 election, when Russian trolls and a tsunami of misinformation turned social media into a partisan battlefield, Facebook has wrestled with the role it played in President Trump’s victory.
Now, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times, a longtime Facebook executive has told employees that the company had a moral duty not to tilt the scales against Mr. Trump as he seeks re-election.
On Dec. 30, Andrew Bosworth, the head of Facebook’s virtual and augmented reality division, wrote on his internal Facebook page that, as a liberal, he found himself wanting to use the social network’s powerful platform against Mr. Trump. But citing the “Lord of the Rings” franchise and the philosopher John Rawls, Mr. Bosworth said that doing so would eventually backfire.
“I find myself desperately wanting to pull any lever at my disposal to avoid the same result,” he wrote. “So what stays my hand? I find myself thinking of the Lord of the Rings at this moment.
“Specifically when Frodo offers the ring to Galadrial and she imagines using the power righteously, at first, but knows it will eventually corrupt her,” he said, misspelling the name of the character Galadriel. “As tempting as it is to use the tools available to us to change the outcome, I am confident we must never do that or we will become that which we fear.”
In a meandering 2,500-word post, titled “Thoughts for 2020,” Mr. Bosworth weighed in on issues including political polarization, Russian interference and the news media’s treatment of Facebook. He gave a frank assessment of Facebook’s shortcomings in recent years, saying that the company had been “late” to address the issues of data security, misinformation and foreign interference. And he accused the left of overreach, saying that when it came to calling people Nazis, “I think my fellow liberals are a bit too, well, liberal.”
[ READ THE MEMO: Mr. Bosworth’s “Thoughts for 2020.”]
Mr. Bosworth also waded into the debate over the health effects of social media, rejecting what he called “wildly offensive” comparisons of Facebook to addictive substances like nicotine. He instead compared Facebook to sugar, and said users were responsible for moderating their own intake.
“If I want to eat sugar and die an early death that is a valid position,” Mr. Bosworth wrote. “My grandfather took such a stance towards bacon and I admired him for it. And social media is likely much less fatal than bacon.”
The post by Mr. Bosworth, a former head of Facebook’s advertising team, provides an unusually candid glimpse of the debates raging within Facebook about the platform’s responsibilities as it heads into the 2020 election.
The biggest of those debates is whether Facebook should change its rules governing political speech. Posts by politicians are exempt from many of Facebook’s current rules, and their ads are not submitted for fact-checking, giving them license to mislead voters with partisan misinformation.
Last year, platforms like Twitter and Google announced restrictions to their political advertising tools ahead of the 2020 election.
Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, have faced heavy pressure from Democrats and Republicans, including Mr. Trump’s campaign, not to restrict its own powerful ad platform, which allows political campaigns to reach targeted audiences and raise money from supporters. But other politicians, and some Facebook employees, including a group that petitioned Mr. Zuckerberg in October, have argued that the social network has a responsibility to stamp out misinformation on its platform, including in posts by politicians.
Mr. Bosworth said that even though keeping the current policies in place “very well may lead to” Mr. Trump’s re-election, it was the right decision.
Dozens of Facebook employees pushed back on Mr. Bosworth’s conclusions, arguing in the comments section below his post that politicians should be held to the same standard as other Facebook users. They debated whether Facebook should ban or remove posts by politicians, including Mr. Trump, that included hate speech or forms of misinformation.
One Facebook employee warned that if the company continued to take its current approach, it risked promoting populist leaders around the world, including in the United States.
A Facebook spokeswoman provided a statement from Mr. Bosworth in which he said that the post “wasn’t written for public consumption,” but that he “hoped this post would encourage my co-workers to continue to accept criticism with grace as we accept the responsibility we have overseeing our platform.”
Ultimately, the decision on whether to allow politicians to spread misinformation on Facebook rests with Mr. Zuckerberg. In recent months, he has appeared to stand firm on the decision to keep the existing ad policies in place, saying that he believes Facebook should not become an arbiter of truth. But he has also left himself room to change his mind. In November, a Facebook spokesman said the company was “looking at different ways we might refine our approach to political ads.”
Among those lobbying Mr. Zuckerberg is President Trump himself, who claimed on a radio show on Monday that Mr. Zuckerberg had congratulated him on being “No. 1” on Facebook during a private dinner.
Mr. Bosworth said he believed Facebook was responsible for Mr. Trump’s 2016 election victory, but not because of Russian interference or the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which millions of Facebook users’ data was leaked to a political strategy firm that worked with the Trump campaign. Mr. Bosworth said the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica revelations — uncovered by The Times, working with The Observer of London and The Guardian — rightly changed the conversation around how Facebook should handle user data, and which companies should be given access to that data.
But, he said, Mr. Trump simply used Facebook’s advertising tools effectively.
“He didn’t get elected because of Russia or misinformation or Cambridge Analytica,” Mr. Bosworth wrote. “He got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser. Period.”
Mr. Bosworth, a longtime confidant of Mr. Zuckerberg’s who is viewed by some inside Facebook as a proxy for the chief executive, has been an outspoken defender of the company’s positions in the past.
In 2018, BuzzFeed News published a memo Mr. Bosworth wrote in 2016 justifying the company’s growth-at-all-costs ethos, in which he said the company’s mission of connecting people was “de facto good,” even if it resulted in deaths.
After the memo’s publication, a Facebook executive said the company wished it could “go back and hit delete” on Mr. Bosworth’s 2016 post.
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blogs-of-our-lives · 5 years ago
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           I’m sorry to say this, but this may very well be the last of the Blogs of Our Lives post.
           :(
           I’ve had a lot of fun writing for this, but it’s just not what I want to do with my life. And as much as I enjoy it, it’s taking time away from other creative projects. For my tens of viewers, it’s not the end of a chapter, but the beginning of a new one. Thank you all for reading, and believing that I can make something wonderful and funny out of trash. I just want you all to know that deep down, from the bottom of my heart, no matter how much love I have for you all, I will never ever ever love you as much as I hate Brightburn.
             Brightburn suuuuuuuucks. It sucks sucks sucks. I couldn’t wait until later in the post to say that. I had to lead with how trash the movie was, and now I’m going to spend the next couple pages explaining why it’s trash. It’s so bad that I – shitty movie connoisseur, who is making himself watch Days of our Lives and write about it – hated the movie so much that I decided to write a whole paper about it just to prevent someone else from being tricked into seeing it.
           I will start with the only good thing about the movie. The concept. Brightburn is about a young kid (I’d estimate about sixth grade) who discovers he has super powers akin to that of a god. He has super strength, he has super speed, he can fly, he can shoot lasers out of his eyes, and he’s almost indestructible. Essentially Superman. It’s not a particularly original idea, but I was intrigued with the fact that the kid seemed to almost immediately become evil. This isn’t particularly farfetched. In fact, psychopathic traits are fairly common amongst children. The brain isn’t done developing, and in some senses the child is a psychopath. Kids simply grow out of it. Luckily, kids are small, they’re weak, they can’t drive, they can’t vote, and they can’t even get a movie ticket to an R rated movie like Brightburn, which I refuse to grant the respect of italicization. The amount of damage a kid could do is extremely limited. So the idea of a middle-schooler with superpowers is kind of terrifying. Imagine a child without empathy who you can kick your ass. If you tell them to go to bed, they can throw you through a wall. And it’s not a one in a million chance the kid will be a psychopath. Plus, when I was a kid I used to think when it rained somewhere it rained everywhere. It blew my mind that it was raining in my hometown but not in my friend’s town. When my dad was a kid he was terrified of this movie called Killdozer. About a bulldozer that came to life and killed people. In his words, “What are you going to do, hide from it? It’ll just bulldoze everything.” Kids are idiots.
           Side note, I hope it’s not lost on anyone that I italicized Killdozer but not Brightburn. It’s intentional. I respect a movie about a killer bulldozer more than a $12 million movie.
           Anyway, that was the only good part of the movie. The concept. Now I’m going to tear it apart, starting with the pacing. Nobody really knows or cares about the pacing when it’s done right. When it’s done wrong, the movies often feel like they stagnate or are rushed in parts. Brightburn is one of the worst examples I can think of. The buildup just drags on and on and on and on. By the time [SPOILER ALERT] Brendon (or whatever the fucking kid’s name is) turns evil, we had been sitting in that theater for a solid hour. Maybe more. That’s two thirds of the movie (including credits) that was spent just building up. So now, when we finally get the action payoff, it felt like the movie was rushing to the end. The kid destroys most of the house, kills four people, and then blows up a plane in like twenty minutes. It’s like trying to write on a piece of paper and running out of room so you have to make the letters smaller and smaller to fit on one page. But it’s a thousand times worse than that, because the paper had a set length. You could plan out where the letters needed to go and how big they can be. A movie isn’t made with a length in mind. So it’s like reading a sentence but the letters get smaller and smaller for no clear reason. It felt like they didn’t know how to end the movie so they just threw some crap together and tried to play it so fast we wouldn’t realize how trash it was.
           On to the acting. I have no real complaints. The mom and the dad did pretty good jobs. Even the kid did a decent job. At times it was pretty weak, but I think most of that was on the writing.
           Fuck the writing. The Chekov’s guns of the movie were stupid and obvious. In one of the first scenes, the mother whistles during a game of hide and seek in order to get him to whistle back, like an off-brand Marco Polo. My editor literally leaned over to me (like two minutes into the movie) and whispered “I bet that’s going to come back later.” It did. Later on in the movie, the dad comments to the mom that it was strange Braxton had never broken a bone or even got a cut. Like two scenes later, the kid finds his space ship and immediately cuts his hand on the metal. Sure enough, it comes back later in the film, in a way so stupid that I’m going to struggle to put it into words. The mother jumps to freedom from her house and somehow cuts her hand during the fall. She looks at the cut (which is shaped exactly like Bryson’s and positioned in the exact same place), looks at the barn where the spaceship is hidden, looks back at the cut, and says (I’m paraphrasing) “The spaceship! It’s the only thing that can hurt him.” The biggest sign of a bad writer is when the characters think about what they’re about to do, say what they’re about to do, and then do it. JUST DO IT. I remembered the garbage scene from earlier in the film that established the only thing that can hurt him. Who was that line for? Children who weren’t paying attention? The film was rated R. Maybe they assumed the only people they could trick into seeing this trash were too stupid to follow a plot. And yes, I’m one of the idiots they tricked into watching it. Jokes on them, now I’m tearing their movie apart on my blog with tens of readers.
           I’ve told you guys about I, Frankenstein. The movie was worse than that. At least the writing in I, Frankenstein, while bad, followed a formula. There was never a point in which I rolled my eyes, it just in generally wasn’t particularly good. Brightburn, on the other hand, was aggressively bad. It was like all the different facets of a movie (acting, special effects, writing, pacing, visuals) had a competition to be the worst part of this dumpster fire of a film. I’m being too hard on the special effects. They were just wildly unmemorable, not actually bad. But somehow, incredibly, Brightburn was even worse than the sum of its parts. At a certain point, I looked up and started watching the blinking light of the fire alarm. There wasn’t really a pattern to it. I was fascinated. At another point, during the resolution of the movie, a man sitting behind me got out his phone and made a phone call. And you know what, I don’t blame him. It wasn’t like he was taking away from the experience. I was glad he was having more fun than me.
           Something I didn’t realize until now, when I looked up Brightburn on Wikipedia to trash how much money went into making it ($6-12 million, so honestly they used the money pretty well), was that it’s called a “superhero horror film.” I took a class my last year in college about Horror as a genre, and the running theme of the class was the question what is horror? I’ll define horror as best as I can, and you are all free to agree or disagree as to whether or not it’s true. I personally do not consider Silence of the Lambs to be a horror film, though it is scary. It’s a crime film. Even if the film contained supernatural elements (like, say, if Hannibal Lecter was a ghost and rather than breaking out of prison he comes back to life), it would still be a crime film. On the other hand, I consider the movie Friday the 13th (the 1980 film with Kevin Bacon, not the trash remake) to be horror. Even if the film contained no supernatural elements, it would still be a horror film. Friday the 13th Part 1 doesn’t actually contain anything supernatural, but if I mentioned one that does (Parts 2-12) I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to remind everyone that a young Kevin Bacon not only dies in this movie, but also has a sex scene. It’s arguably his strongest performance.
           Returning to my point, a universal part of horror seems to be the haunting. It doesn’t need to be a ghost haunting, it could be a human haunting as well. I’m sure it exists, but a movie about a stalker could easily be classified as horror, depending on the tone of the movie. Hell, The Gift was a great horror movie, and nothing supernatural or even particularly out of the ordinary took place. Looking at IMDB’s top 10 horror movies of all time, it lists The Evil Dead, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Alien, The Thing, Nightmare on Elm Street (trash), Psycho, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Of these movies, I haven’t seen Psycho, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, or The Exorcist (at least not all the way through). In every single one of the films I have seen, the characters are haunted by some kind of being. In some movies, they’re hunted by it, and in others (particularly the Exorcist), they’re tormented by it. But either way, a haunting is an essential part of every movie. In Silence of the Lambs (IMDB rated it as the 14th best horror movie, naturally), the killer never haunts the characters. He’s a menace, a killer, and a danger to everyone, but he doesn’t haunt them.
           Brando from Brightburn never haunts anyone, except for a ten second scene where he spies on his crush, which was honestly more cringey than creepy. So no, it’s not a superhero horror movie. It’s not a horror movie. If you want to call it anything, call it science fiction. The kid’s an alien, for Christ’s sake. Isn’t that like the number one test to see if you’re watching sci-fi? Right now, if you google “horror movies,” Brightburn is one of the first 10 images to appear. THIS IS UNNACEPTABLE.
           I’m sure I’ve talked about this before, but horror has always been a trash genre. I don’t want to give off the impression that I’m the horror equivalent of a comic book nerd writing about how The Avengers ruined my childhood and it was all wrong because they got one detail wrong from the source material. [Side note: I really enjoyed Endgame, and at the time of writing this, it is the number one highest grossing film of all time, and honestly it deserves it more than the trash blue cat people movie. It was a really satisfying ending to one of the largest franchises of all time]. Even the golden years of horror, the Friday the 13ths and the Nightmare on Elm Streets and Halloween, are all just… pretty good. The writing was competent, the music and cinematography were original and not bad, but it’s not particularly scary, and it looks like every horror movie will eventually become that way, except for the ones that rely on cheap jump scares. That’s the nature of horror, I suppose. It preys on a current and relevant fear, and as that fear becomes irrelevant, so does the movie. So when I complain about modern horror, I complain about the cheap, shitty writing that goes into by uncreative and unoriginal people that disappoints everyone. Modern horror is an easy paycheck. It’s cheap and it’s surefire. The Brightburn garbage raised $30 million dollars on a budget of $6 million. Pet Semetary, Crawl, and Annabelle Comes Home raised a collective $366 million to a collective budget of $66 million. That is a fucking absurd return on investment. None of these movies (except for Crawl, kinda) did anything different. Pet Semetary was a remake. Annabelle Comes Home is a continuation of the Garbage Cinematic Uni-garbage-verse that spawned from The Conjuring. So horror has become a yearly money-maker for big production companies. Just put out some trash that will surprise (not scare) people, and watch the dollars roll in. Financially, this is the golden age of horror. They can make anything with a jump scare and make MILLIONS.
           I don’t know what the point of all this is. I’m not telling the genre to do better, because it’s doing pretty fine. Midsommar and Us both got pretty good reviews. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark looks pretty good. It’s not like all the talent dried up. There’s still plenty of creative and original people working on horror movies, and they’re making some really good stuff. I guess it boils down to me hating Brightburn on a deep, personal level, and I’m not really sure why. I watch tons of trash. As I type this, I’m looking at my collector’s edition DVD set of Under the Dome. It’s garbage. Truly truly terrible. But there are scenes I liked. Shots I liked. It was made by people who were bad at what they do, but they were still creative. There’s this one episode where the government tries to blow up the dome, and everyone inside thinks they’re going to die. All the characters, thinking they have minutes left on earth, all finally do something. The plot unravels into something much, much, much simpler, as all the characters stop lying or trying to hide their motives. Everything untangles for just a moment, and after they survive the blast unharmed, it leaves the question what next? Sure, the conflicts were childish and silly, and the character arcs were (to put it nicely) poorly handled. But they tried to do something well, and for just a moment they struck gold. There’s nothing like that in Brightburn. There’s not a single scene that I can look at in the movie and say you’re on to something there. Keep working. If I were given the script and a blank check and told to write a better one, I would strip it down to the foundation. I wouldn’t rewrite it, I would delete everything except the core premise and start over.
           It just really really hurts, having to type out that this movie was worse than Under the Dome.
           I know it’s too late to convince anyone not to see Brightburn. And that’s fine. Sometimes the world moves too fast for you to make a change. But I just want you to know deep down how much I hate that movie. I resent it for wasting my time, my energy, and my money. It’s worse than Days of our Lives.
           Fuck you, Brightburn.
           Thank you for reading. It means a lot to me.
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s-o-n-de-r · 6 years ago
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The Final Vans Warped Tour: legacy, history and future
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The Vans Warped Tour ended in West Palm Beach, Florida, not with a bang, but with an anthem and a guitar toss. 
For those unfamiliar with the festival, it was the longest-running touring summer music festival since first launching back in 1995. And punk elders Pennywise, who were a reoccurring staple since their first slot on the tour in 1996, played the last set of the day on the last show of the tour, closing with their classic “Brohymn.” As the entire crowd and everyone on stage sang along with the iconic “whoahs” at the end of the song, guitarist Fletch Dragge tossed his guitar into the crowd.
And just like that, after fostering an entire community and subculture, the Warped Tour was finished.
The vacuum that Warped Tour has left is easier to understand for veterans of the punk rock summer camp. For anyone who has watched the tour grow from year to year, it’s an undeniable fact that there’s nothing else like Warped Tour, from all its faults to all its triumphs.
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For the alternative crowds, Warped Tour was a little haven where you felt at home. It spanned musical generations. It outlasted entire bands’ careers. The festival fertilized brands such as Volcom and Hurley. It broke bands out – one oft-mentioned example is pop superstar Katy Perry who, yes, cut her teeth Warped Tour. And, it participated in large philanthropic initiatives – one such being the canned food drive that would get fans skip-the-line passes and collect thousands of cans of food per day.
Warped Tour itself rarely took credit for any of these things. It always sort of chugged along, always in the background of the summer festival season as other names came and went. Yet, Warped Tour’s impact is immeasurable.
In the mid-2000s, after household names such as Green Day, Blink-182, and Sublime had gone through the festival, there was something magic going on. Music fans who were lucid and paying attention during that time were witnesses to something spectacular: pop-punk and emo broke out into the mainstream. You could find My Chemical Romance – a band whose gothic-dyed, theatrical music was all at once the biggest thing – on MTV’s music video rotation. Pop-punk brats Fall Out Boy were catching everyone’s ears. A band called Paramore had a girl with bright red hair, and they were stealing hearts. The 2005 Warped Tour (the only year to ever make a profit on ticket sales) featured all three of these bands at one point. Merch sales that year were through the roof. School let out for that summer, and everyone was dying to lose their shit at Warped Tour.
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Brooks Betts of Mayday Parade, a tour staple over the years. Mayday Parade earned a name for themselves like many other bands: by talking to fans in line at Warped Tour before the show and asking them to check out their music.
Punk rock stays the same, but culture changes at an alarming pace these days. Yet, Warped Tour had remarkable consistency. It’s also really easy to get caught in the mindset that the mid-aughts were the tour’s wonder years. Thanks to nostalgia and clear indication of what was popular at the time, Warped Tour back then seemed to be the glory days. But to write off the tour’s recent years would be a huge misstep.
Granted, angry internet warriors have roasted the annual Warped Tour lineup announcement since trolling has been a thing (founder Kevin Lyman has taken to shamelessly referencing and baiting these trolls in recent years), but the only serious criticisms it deserves are for certain policy decisions the tour made, rather than the lineup. In the 2010s, Warped Tour may not have had the same overall cultural draw, but it didn’t suddenly turned to C-rate, has-been bands to fill out the roster. All the cultural buzz that came with bands such as My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy may have faded, but Warped Tour kept trucking along and being the gatekeeper to tremendous music.
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The Maine. Vocalist John O’Callaghan is singing with a fan who he brought up on stage for “Girls Do What They Want” - something the band does almost every show.
The generation gap is important to why Warped Tour mattered, even in its last show. As the physicality of the music industry faded away, pop-punk left the mainstream, and social media introduced sweeping cultural attention deficit, it’s easy to think that Warped Tour’s impact also faded over the years. There was less of a fanfare to it, sure, but Warped Tour still had a finger on the pulse of alternative talent. What made it all different was that these bands were not blasted on TV or moving tons of CDs – they counted album streams and posted daily to social media. Relevant to our age, but arguably less visible. Bands could still make a name for themselves on Warped Tour, but it didn’t come with the same explosion of popularity as in the 2000s. Echosmith is one example of a recent Warped Tour alumnus. After playing a one-off in 2013, they were asked to join the whole tour, and they found success after the fact (they currently just finished a tour with acapella superstars Pentatonix).
In fact, in many ways, as the mainstream popularity of this style of music has faded, Warped Tour has felt like the last stronghold for the scene. When you have all these splintered shards of musical sub-communities created as a result of social media diaspora, it’s hard to see the whole picture except when Warped Tour brought it together. That’s why Warped Tour mattered, even in its later years, and why the void created in its absence is the definitive end of an era. No one knows what’s coming next or if anything will be created to fill in that magical space from June to August. Warped Tour wasn’t just the festival – it was the “everything else” around it: the artist-to-fan interaction, the constant sound of a band you don’t know playing, the endless amounts of merch, the dozens and dozens of tents, people hawking at you with megaphones, fans promoting band set times, the Buddhist guys, the running into friends, the bands trying to make a name for themselves hustling CDs in line before doors. Labels and bands would plan album releases solely around this summer run. It was make or break for a huge number of aspiring musicians.
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Walking into my first Warped Tour in 2007 was the culmination of a few years of anticipation (I had wanted to go to the 2005 tour, but I was too young and it would have been way too much for my parents). I’d like to think everyone’s first time with the tour was like this, but who knows? It was exhilarating, though. This subculture and community of music that I had only just started discovering a few years prior somehow took over a couple city blocks and was just there. People were handing out Monster energy drinks like candy. Some guy showed up to do the same for Trojan condoms. There were dudes with mohawks. I went to see a lot of bands, but I barely got halfway through the day when I realized that Warped Tour was so much more than a festival. It was keeping a subculture alive. Hell, it was keeping many multiple subcultures alive. I doubt the guys seeing The Casualties in 2010 were the same guys interested in watching Breathe Carolina. But both groups of people were there. This effect became increasingly noticeable in later years, when bands who were once on top were on a downswing, touring smaller club venues in the fall and winter and playing to 300 people, but playing to thousands at Warped Tour. Warped Tour got everyone out.
Eleven years later, on the eve before the beginning of the end in Orlando (I went to Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm Beach, the last three shows in Florida), I had the exact same sense of anticipation as I had when I was a 15-year-old kid.
The vast majority of “regular” things in life don’t last even half as long. I can think of a total of one friend I’ve been close to during that entire length of time. But almost everything else has come and gone.
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Also over those years, I went from an excited kid who was into alternative music to an independent journalist and photographer, gaining a sense of attention toward the trends and motifs of the tour. This peaked last year, when I attended Full Sail University’s live stream of the 2017 lineup on behalf of sonder. I sat in a room with a group of my peers, mostly other independent media outlet reporters, and participated in a Q&A with Lyman. In that room, there was no indication that next year’s tour would be the last, but I found myself believing for the past couple years that the tour was living on borrowed time anyway. All good things must come to an end, and despite maintaining good lineups, Warped Tour’s critical mass had been reached already. That’s why, when the announcement did come, it was a sad moment, but not unsurprising.
Warped Tour’s final moments occurring in Florida seemed a bit strange. Florida is a deeply unpleasant place in the summer. Our heat is high, our humidity thick. The sun is unrelenting and harsh. Aggressive electrical rain storms can and will sidetrack the day (which has happened plenty of times). Bands hate Warped Tour in Florida. Why not end the tour in California? Despite all of this, moods remained stable. Wandering around load-in and side stage, there was definitely a detectable presence of “the end.” There was some relief, some sadness, and some nostalgia. Crew members shook hands and hugged. But there was also a sense that this was all arguably a formality, and that this had been something coming for a while.
In Tampa, I walked into one of the main stage equipment trailers and taped on the walls were photos taken by Sean Stitt, one of the truck drivers who’s been with the tour for years. The sadness of the last Warped Tour hit me in that moment, as I realized it was the last time this trailer would be making its way around the country for the festival. Would the photos stay up? They’re just monuments to a past era now.
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JR of Less Than Jake. The ska band played an enormous number of shows during Warped Tour’s run, and those shows were usually filled with shirt cannons, toilet paper launchers, and more.
Warped Tour chose to express its longevity in the lineup of its final run. Many of the bands had a history with the tour: Bands such as Every Time I Die, Mayday Parade, Chelsea Grin, and Reel Big Fish have been repeats for years. The Maine and 3oh!3 were scene wunderkinds during the tail end of that MTV era. One-off and short-run bands such as Sum 41, Taking Back Sunday, Underoath, The Used, and Four Year Strong all helped define the scene in the new millennium. Less Than Jake had the accomplishment of being the band to play the most amount of shows in the tour’s history – nearly 440 at the final count in West Palm Beach.
It wasn’t just nostalgia, but there was certainly a strong element of it. Mayday Parade played plenty of songs from their 11-year-old breakout record A Lesson In Romantics. The Maine played a few songs from their 2008 neon piece Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop (but with decidedly less emo hair swoops). 3oh!3 moved the entire festival with scene crunk songs “DONTTRUSTME” and “STARSTRUKK.” Warped Tour was never a place for deep cuts, but there seemed to be a deliberate emphasis on some “old” stuff.
A focus on nostalgia is understandable given that it was the last. After all, there’s so much history in the tour. Trying to parse it all is a monumental task. But you can enjoy looking back on the whole of it. Most of the bands and crew have been on it before, so there’s memories lurking in the venues of different times.
Of course, most people didn’t dedicate their lives to this tour. The folks who can say they’ve been to every Warped Tour as a fan are few and far between, and they’re not young anymore. And there are certainly those who feel the tour’s end is far past due. And even more who were just plain apathetic. In West Palm Beach, I overheard a guy talking about how he’s “so glad this shit is over. The lineup hasn’t been good in 10 years” and how he “met Katy Perry when she was jack shit.” Warped Tour is certainly due certain criticisms, and has been yelled at for years for “selling out,” but it endured, even when the culture changed to accommodate weekend blowout festivals as opposed to traveling ones.
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Travis Clark from We The Kings joined 3OH!3 on stage. Both bands had played Warped Tour a number of times before.
This is why there’s a sense people aren’t hung up over its end. People are tired. People are aging. Things have changed. Engagement is down. Warped Tour was due an explosive end, anyway – much more fitting than a slow fizzling out.
That fatigue and burnout is may have contributed to the tour’s end, but it reflects the industry at large, and you have to wonder if Warped Tour’s end will refresh the system we currently have. There’s certainly an argument to be made that bands have gone for a “Warped Tour-ready” sound and that the tour having a monopoly on most of the United States during the summer often meant the only way you’d be seeing your favorite band was by seeing their 30-minute Warped Tour set. No Warped Tour means that the summer touring slot has suddenly opened up to a reality more like fall, spring, and winter tours, where bands often stack bills and get to play more than eight songs.
That being said, these are small prices to pay for the function Warped Tour fulfilled. Warped Tour was the stitching that’s been holding our little alternative community together. There was almost always a sense of camaraderie at Warped Tour, whether back stage or in the fields. That was camaraderie on a person-by-person level, but also in a much deeper, communal sense. I think this is what kept Warped Tour around so long – over time, you could develop a sense of bond to both the festival, the people around it, and the music within it. In the end, there’s only so much you can say to try to convince people into the experience. It’s sort of a “you had to be there” thing. A lot of people don’t “get it;” it’s the “it’s not a phase, mom!” of tours.
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All of this considered, it’s mostly the unknowns that stir curiosity in this post-Warped Tour era. The tour did a lot of things, kept a lot of machines moving, stood tall as the last big traveling festival in the United States (even on a basic logistics level, what Warped did every summer is astounding), but now it’s gone, and there’s a vacuum. Things will survive without it. Punk rock isn’t going anywhere. But all of the questions that it leaves in its absence are really the interesting part of the story. We’ll start seeing answers come next summer. But you also have to wonder, in a fast-paced world that already feels nostalgic toward the likes of My Chemical Romance, 2000s neon pop-punk, and the shtick of that all, if that same yearning will bring Warped Tour back from the dead in a decade or so. Or maybe we’ll get something entirely new. Either way, it’s a completely new era now. In the absolute final moments of the tour, when Pennywise finished playing, Lyman closed it out, handing the legacy to the fans:
“I still have lots of plans, but it’s time for you guys to take over the world. Take over the world.”
Words and photos by sonder editor Andrew Friedgen. Like this? Sonder is an independent music, travel and photography publication at sonderlife.com. Give us a follow here or at our Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for more content like this!
Also check out:
The Maine photo gallery - Vans Warped Tour in Orlando
American Football: The emo anomaly
All of our Warped Tour stuff ever
Taking Back Sunday - Tampa, FL - photo gallery
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tkmedia · 4 years ago
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England's run down to Southgate, players breaking away from the past
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12:10 PM ETAfter nearly a quarter-century living in England and covering the national team for much of that time, I can tell you that this run to the semifinal feels different. (In a good way, I hasten to add, though obviously that does not mean they will win Euro 2020 because, history shows, they usually do not end up with a trophy.)Make no mistake about it, some things are the same. Few countries, at least among the "bigger" nations," have the ability to go from ecstasy to dejection based on a single result, for example.Win and you will hear pundits and fans -- at least those who make the most noise -- talk about how, deep down, England can beat anyone and how everyone with Three Lions on their shirt is "world class" or, as they like to say, "thereabouts." Lose and they are inept no-hopers at best, a spoiled, ungrateful bunch of disinterested stains on the national character at worse.This is not to say media and supporters in other countries do not get carried away when they excel, or turn into angry villagers with pitchforks and torches when they underperform. They certainly do; it is just that there is not normally the 180-degree turnaround from game to game.But while that part has not changed about England, what has is a lot to do with the man leading the team, Gareth Southgate, and a little to do with the sort of players who comprise his squad. Here are five ways in which this side is different.- Euro 2020 on ESPN: Stream LIVE games, replays (U.S.) - European Soccer Pick 'Em: Compete to win $10,000 - Euro 2020 bracket and fixture schedule
1. Southgate is likeable and humble and normal
England's manager is probably more relatable than any of his seven permanent predecessors. Let's remind ourselves that the list includes a guy who lost his job after saying he believed in reincarnation and that the disabled were being punished for sins in a former life (Glenn Hoddle), a guy who quit out of the blue in a post-game interview at Wembley (Kevin Keegan), a guy who had an affair with an Football Association employee and who was duped by a man dressed as a wealthy Sheikh (Sven Goran Eriksson), a guy who quit because the FA forced him to strip his captain of the armband (Fabio Capello) and a guy who had to leave after a single game because of an undercover sting that saw him talk about "by-passing rules" to register players (Sam Allardyce).Now, there is context and another side to all of the above and none of it means the aforementioned were worse managers than Southgate; in fact, from a purely footballing perspective, most were arguably better. But it does mean that the current England boss has managed to avoid controversy and drama to a degree that others did not. Moreover, he has done it while being humble and earnest, traits that folks find appealing.
2. Southgate is not unduly influenced by the media
Whether it is playing Kieran Trippier at left-back (and not playing Ben Chilwell at all), sticking with Kalvin Phillips in midfield, making Raheem Sterling a fixture or starting Bukayo Saka against Germany, Southgate has made a series of decisions that most might describe as well outside popular wisdom. The same popular wisdom, that is, which compelled previous managers to shoehorn Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and, occasionally, Paul Scholes into the same midfield.Nor does Southgate freak out when performances leave critics unsatisfied, like the 0-0 draw against Scotland or the second half against Czech Republic in the group stage, the latter of which saw England contrive to register 0.0 Expected Goals (which is frankly difficult to do).He has a plan, he sticks to it and he knows that, while short-term he might be judged by how well his teams play (and therefore risk a media battering), long-term he will be judged by how far they advance in tournaments (and, so far, so good).Southgate gets a basic concept that others seem to miss: Club football -- with its 38-game league season -- generally rewards teams that attack and play well, creating more than they concede. Tournament football, on the other hand, is a different animal, where risk-taking is discouraged.France won at the last World Cup by essentially sitting deep, not conceding and waiting for superstars at the other end to do something special. England have not quite gone that far -- and may not, given Philips is no Paul Pogba, Declan Rice is no N'Golo Kante, Sterling is no Antoine Griezmann and there is not a Kylian Mbappe in sight -- but the concept is not dissimilar.Gareth Southgate's approach has resulted in a squad that is at ease in tournament situations. Getty Images
3. England's players look like they want to be there
After most tournament disappointments in past years, the English media would run their inquests about what went wrong. This would be a familiar process. The coach's decisions would be criticised (always) and, usually, there would be a grand theory, sometimes involving an individual scapegoat, like David Beckham in 1998 or David Seaman in 2002 or Wayne Rooney most of the time, and sometimes noting a collective dereliction of duty.Inevitably, another of the sub-themes to come up was whether these players really wanted to wear the Three Lions and whether there were internecine rivalries that ripped the group apart. Eriksson famously remarked how players would eat and hang out with their club teammates, other managers have talked about how players felt "less protected" with England than at club level and others still noted how players felt it was a "chore," given the environment around the national team.And when things went awry, there was, punctual as ever, a story making its way into the national media. Maybe, if England get beaten by Denmark on Wednesday (3 p.m. ET, LIVE on ESPN), the cycle will be repeated.I don't think so, though, because there were none after the World Cup semifinal defeat to Croatia in 2018 and every indication is that, unlike past expeditions, there is no poison in this England camp. Credit for that goes not just to Southgate, but also to this group of players.
4. This group has the right blend of leaders and foot soldiers
2 RelatedThere is no question that, in terms of strength in depth, particularly in attacking positions, this England is as strong as any non-French speaking team in Europe. But there is also humility to the players Southgate has entrusted most over the past few weeks. There are very few alpha male, eyes-on-me, superstar types among the regulars, compared to yesteryear.Rice, Phillips and Jordan Pickford watch the Champions League on TV. The three Man City players are important to their club side without being indispensable, partly because of Pep Guardiola's strong collective ethos, partly because of the talent around them. Mason Mount is not an A-lister yet. Luke Shaw plays for Man United, but has had his share of setbacks. Harry Maguire is a natural leader, but was at Hull City until the age of 24.The one exception is Harry Kane, who has been carrying Tottenham on his back for many years, but in terms of ego and personality, he will not be mistaken for Zlatan Ibrahimovic any time soon. It is a blue-collar team for a blue-collar style of play, with plenty of talent and game-changers rotating in and out from the bench, whether it's Jadon Sancho or Phil Foden or Jack Grealish or Saka. This is not a side built around two or three individuals -- arguably, Kane apart, though even then you saw him go for long stretches with no service and he did not complain -- and that makes it different.
5. Success breeds success and confidence
This also feels different for the simple reason that many of the players know what national-team success looks like. England have reached the semifinals of major tournaments just six times, with Southgate and much of this this squad having done it twice, just like Sir Alf Ramsey and Co. in 1966 and 1968.England had gone more than 20 years without reaching the last four of a competition, before Southgate took them there in Russia. It does not mean the pressure is off, but it is not insignificant, because once a cycle begins, it is hard to slow down.Once you have experience actually achieving something meaningful, it becomes easier to do it again. This England team does not play with swagger, but the players do seem to have a quiet confidence. And that can be even more important.Southgate's England have managed to break the feedback loop of drama and disappointment. Not by necessarily playing better football or by having better players -- at least in terms of the ones who actually make it on to the pitch -- but in the way they carry themselves and the way the environment in the camp projects beyond them.It may not be entirely down to the manager. It may be the players. It may be the fans and the media who, after 18 months of pandemic, are just a little more chilled out and happy and wanting to highlight the positives.It also may or may not be enough to win the Euros, but it is a darn sight different from the past. Read the full article
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aion-rsa · 4 years ago
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Who Will Be Doctor Who’s Next Showrunner?
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When big changes come to Doctor Who it’s the Doctor who grabs all the headlines. That, after all, is showbusiness: children don’t ask for bedsheets bedecked with the faces of the show’s writing or production team. It’s the showrunner – much more than anyone else, including the actor playing the lead role – upon whom the fate and fortunes of the show rest. They decide everything from the look, feel and tone of the seasons, to the thrust and arc of the narrative, to who writes, directs and stars – from the smallest bit-part to the Doctor themselves. The buck stops with them, in other words, and a showrunner can very much make or break an era.
So while speculation rages about who will take on the mantle of the 14th Doctor, it’s Chris Chibnall‘s replacement as showrunner who will ultimately carry the weight of the universe on their back. Realistically, a candidate needs not just writing but also producing experience (Chibnall had co- and executive producer credits on Torchwood, Camelot, Law & Order:UK, Broadchurch and more before landing Doctor Who). Because the UK TV industry has significant work to do on widening access for writers and producers of colour, that requirement frustratingly narrows the field for such jobs at present. But let’s have a look at a few options; some shoo-ins for the top spot, some just wildcards, but all of them with something real to offer.      
Pete McTighe
Pete McTighe has the experience and qualities you’d want in a prospective Doctor Who showrunner: he’s been a long-time admirer of the show since the Classic days; he’s written for the show (Series 11’s ‘Kerblam’ and Series 12’s ‘Praxeus’); he’s helmed trailers for the Classic series’ Blu-ray sets; and, perhaps most crucially of all, he has hands-on experience of calling the shots. McTighe’s prison-drama Wentworth (pictured above) first aired in 2013 and has since racked up award after award in its native Australia (McTighe is British). It’s also been something of a critical darling worldwide, routinely praised for a realism and a grittiness that cleaves close to the best HBO dramas. BBC mystery thriller Pact concluded in June and Wentworth‘s final season airs later this month, meaning that McTighe now has a hole in his schedule. Might he be about to fill that jail-shaped gap with a police box? Quite apposite too, perhaps, that McTighe was able to take a show like Prisoner: Cell Block H (as it was known in the UK), a beloved old soap opera from the 1970s/80s, with rickety, wobbly sets and a low-budget aesthetic, and transform it into a lean, mean, emotionally-satisfying, rollicking thrill-ride with contemporary sensibilities. The man has form.
Sarah Dollard
Another Australian connection, this time in the form of bone fide antipodean Sarah Dollard, who wrote ‘Face the Raven‘ and ‘Thin Ice‘ during Peter Capaldi’s tenure. Prior work commitments prevented Dollard from writing for Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, something she lamented at the time.
For those of the ‘Doctor Who has become too political’ persuasion, Dollard’s thoughts on the writing process for ‘Thin Ice’ should serve as both a rebuke and reassurance: “There was no way to write about a woman of colour going into the past on Earth without acknowledging how the colour of her skin would have impacted how people reacted to her there. Obviously, it also had to be entertaining and true to the tone of the show, so I tried to make it an intrinsic part of the story, rather than just add-on.”
Dollard cut her teeth on Australian soap opera Neighbours, and wasn’t long before she was writing for sci-fi and fantasy favourites including Merlin, Primeval, Being Human, Doctor Who, A Discovery of Witches (pictured above) and, most recently, an adaptation of the award-winning Young Adult horror fantasy Cuckoo Song (yet to air on Netflix). Availability could be an issue in whether Dollard could return to Doctor Who as its showrunner, given her busy schedule and writer-producer role on Netflix big-hitter Bridgerton.
Toby Whithouse
There was a time when Toby Whithouse was the heir apparent to Steven Moffat. At least in the eyes of Whovians. In 2015 he said this about speculation that he might be taking over the show post-Moffat: “No-one at the BBC has ever had this conversation with me. No-one has asked me, no-one has approached me about if Steven leaves, when Steven leaves. These are conversations that happen purely among fans, not on any official level.”
Still, he has the pedigree. Not only did Whithouse create Being Human for BBC Three (also one of Sarah Dollard’s first UK writing jobs), but he also wrote for the first three of modern Doctors, notably the episodes ‘School Reunion’, ‘The God Complex’ and ‘Under the Lake/Before the Flood’, showing terrific range, and a deft and respectful approach to the show’s mythos and history. Recently, Whithouse has written for the BBC’s new sci-fi series Noughts and Crosses (pictured above) but seems to have drifted away from Doctor Who. Acknowledging that this is just another conversation happening “purely among fans”, might the allure of the big chair tempt him back?
Kate Herron
Kate Herron may be a reasonably fresh face in the entertainment industry, but already she’s proven herself capable of taking on the sort of awesome responsibility that would make even a grizzled veteran wince. There can be few franchises heavier with expectation than Marvel (along with, perhaps, Doctor Who and Star Trek), and few characters as beloved as Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. Kudos to Herron then, for dazzling Kevin Feige with her talent and vision, earning directorial control of the first season of Loki and carrying it out to general acclaim.
Plenty have said that Loki was some of the best Doctor Who we’ve seen in years. It’s hard not to see where they’re coming from when considering the way Loki balances humour, heart, and sci-fi, whilst dabbling with time and dealing with multiple variants of its main character.
Herron recently announced that she wouldn’t be returning for Loki Season 2: ‘I’m really happy to watch it as a fan next season, but I just think I’m proud of what we did here and I’ve given it my all. I’m working on some other stuff yet to be announced.’ It’s this enigmatic ‘other stuff’ that has sent the Doctor Who rumour mill into over-drive. Might Herron be trading one time-wimey extravaganza for another? Might there be a further clue in this other snippet from a recent interview? Time will tell. 
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Mark Gatiss
In some sense, Mark Gatiss is Doctor Who. At the very least the show is encoded in his DNA. Very few people have done so much in, and for, the Whoniverse, and Gatiss has pretty much done it all. He’s written novels set in the Classic Who Universe; he’s acted in the modern iteration of the show (‘The Lazarus Experiment’, ‘The Wedding of River Song’, ‘Twice Upon a Time’); he’s written for the show (most notably ‘The Unquiet Dead’); he’s narrated documentary segments about the show; and he wrote the acclaimed 50th anniversary stand-alone about the early days of the show at the BBC, ‘An Adventure in Space and Time‘.  He’s even been both the Doctor and the Master, albeit in Big Finish form. About the only aspect of Doctor Who Gatiss hasn’t embraced is being in charge. Given how prolific Gatiss is outside of Doctor Who, and how the Sherlock and Dracula (pictured above) co-creator gravitated away from the show in recent years, it’s unlikely – though of course not impossible – that he’d take over from Chris Chibnall.  
J. Michael Straczynski
Now, Twitter is neither a negotiating table, nor often a particularly accurate representation of objective reality. Still, there’s no reason to suspect that J. Michael Straczynski’s recent enthusiastic offer to replace Chris Chibnall is anything less than sincere. Less tangible is the real-world prospect of the job ever being offered to him. Not because he couldn’t rise to the challenge – the man is a sci-fi behemoth, his work straddling the mediums of the graphic novel, TV and cinema, and encompassing damn near everything from Murder She Wrote to Marvel, DC to World War Z, and Ghostbusters to Babylon 5 (pictured above)– but down to the BBC preferring to hand the reins of its flagship family sci-fi show to someone UK-based. It doesn’t stop us wondering, though, how the man behind the deliciously cluttered, cultured and brilliant Babylon 5 would transform the Whoniverse.
Vinay Patel
For Series 11, Chris Chibnall wanted a range of fresh, representative voices that would better reflect the diversity of the show’s audience, and open up new avenues of dramatic possibilities. Vinay Patel is one of that influx of new writers who excelled himself by turning in arguably two of the Whittaker era’s best-regarded episodes. ‘Demons of the Punjab’ (pictured above) shone a light on a part of post-colonial history never before illuminated by Doctor Who, and did so with heart and conviction. ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ proved that Patel could handle a more whacky, twisty-turny, lore-filled story.
Patel started as a corporate film-maker, but wasn’t satisfied with his lot, so poured his talents into an MA in writing for stage and broadcast media, an inspired choice that led him to the theatre, and then on to the BAFTA-nominated drama Murdered by My Father. His writing is intensely personal and political, barbed but with heart, intersecting notions of power, family, history and belonging.  
Whether or not Vinay Patel has a realistic shot at the top spot – he’s still relatively untested in TV (but then so was Kate Herron before Loki) – it’s a shame that a show so committed to representation on-screen has so few prospective showrunners from a BAME background. Wherever Patel’s talents are next channelled, though, it’s obvious he has a blindingly bright future ahead of him.
Reece Shearsmith & Steve Pemberton
An unlikely prospect, we’re forced to admit, but a delicious one. The pair are, of course, no strangers to the Whoniverse. Steve Pemberton played Strackman Lux in the fan-favourite Tennant-two-parter ‘Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead’. Reece Shearsmith featured in Season 9 episode ‘Sleep No More‘, written by Shearsmith’s old friend and fellow League of Gentlemen star and co-creator Mark Gatiss. Shearsmith also portrayed Patrick Troughton and the Second Doctor in ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’.
However, it’s Shearsmith and Pemberton’s astonishing work on the raven-black comedy-drama anthology series Inside No. 9 (pictured above) that makes them such a tantalising prospect for the top spot. They’ve proven that they can play around with places, times, and tones like true artists, offering up silent, screwball comedy one week, then cruelly funny farce the next, followed by something so truly beautiful and heart-breaking it’ll make your soul flat-line the next. They’d be wildcards, certainly, but quite possibly a cross between a game-changer and a Godsend for Doctor Who.  
Sally Wainwright
Sally Wainwright, like many of the candidates on this list, began her career writing for a soap opera, in her case the long-running and much-beloved BBC Radio 4 show The Archers. She was soon poached by the bosses of UK TV soap Emmerdale, but swiftly sacked when she said in a newspaper interview that Emmerdale“was shit, because the script editors re-wrote everything” and went on to Coronation Street.
Sci-fi fans can be sniffy about soap operas, as if sci-fi writers emerge from a cocoon fully-fledged and ready to write about far-off galaxies and alien races, but that’s tosh. If it weren’t for soaps, Paul Abbott, Jimmy McGovern, Sarah Phelps and countless other of the UK’s best screenwriters wouldn’t have had their starts. Step forward Sally Wainwright, who now stands as a behemoth in the UK TV landscape, having helmed arguably two of the most important and popular shows of recent years, Last Tango in Halifax and the astonishing Happy Valley. Her talent has now gone global. She’s currently in charge of HBO-BBC co-production Gentleman Jack, and is working with Sandra Bullock on a new TV series.
Sally Wainwright’s output and vision is supreme; her writing is raw and electric, real and illuminating, her characters so lived-in and realised that you could take them from the screen and put them in your living room and mistake them for your own family. Wainwright is probably too busy to take on the job of showrunner, but what a boon for Doctor Who her helmship would be.
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Doctor Who Series 13 will air on BBC One and BBC America this autumn.
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auburnfamilynews · 5 years ago
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An Auburn tight end has not had over 200 yards receiving since Phillip Lutzenkirchen in 2011. Will that change in this season?
It’s been a tight end heavy past few days here at College&Magnolia. Last Monday, 3-star tight end Landen King committed to the Tigers. On Wednesday, I explored why Auburn has suddenly prioritized signing tight ends. Today, it all culminates in a simple question for the 2020 season. Can a single Auburn tight end produce 250+ receiving yards?
At first glance, it seems almost impossible. CJ Uzomah, arguably Gus Malzahn’s best tight end on the Plains, had a career best 154 yards in 2013. Phillip Lutzenkirchen is the last Auburn tight end to cross the 200 yards receiving mark doing so in 2011. But even he didn’t reach 250. So how is there even a debate?
Well a quick review of tight end production under Chad Morris suddenly makes this a much more intriguing question.
Four tight end have crossed the 250 yard receiving mark under Chad Morris. Two more came just yards short of doing so as well. All but two put up better years than Uzomah’s career best in 2013. Put simply, expect more tight end usage in the near future.
But how far away is that future?. Thankfully, your brilliant C&M contributors are on the case to provide their insight on today’s topic. Over/under 250 receiving yards for a single Auburn tight end this fall.
AUNerd
I am as a bullish on this Auburn passing offense as any member of the AU internet but even my homerism has limits. While I fully expect the tight end to become much more involved in Auburn’s passing attack, I am skeptical we see a huge jump in production this fall. The Tigers returns their three leading receivers from last season. They also have a loaded backfield with playmakers that can make an impact in the passing game as well. I am also not certain Auburn has a “guy” at this position just yet and expect tight end receiving production to be spread out over 2-3 players. I am taking the under pretty confidently.
Verdict: Under
Ryan Sterritt
I’m definitely on board for Auburn using the tight end more this season, and with Auburn’s recent recruiting at the position, it’s clear the position has become a priority. Auburn has signed four TE/H-back’s in the last two seasons (Luke Deal, Tyler Fromm, JJ Pegues, Brandon Frazier), plus taking Jay Jay Wilson as a transfer and going heavy in the tight end market in 2021.
All of this to say, it would be a huge disappointment if Auburn didn’t use the position in the passing game with Chad Morris calling the shots. To go along with the players mentioned at the top, CJ O’Grady led Arkansas in receptions each of Morris’s two years in Fayetteville. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that YES, a tight end will get to 250 yards for Auburn this year. I’m not brave enough to guess who it might be, though.
Verdict: Over
James Jones
Historically, Auburn’s numbers from tight ends are horrendous. The only TE that appears anywhere respectable in the career stats is Philip Lutzenkirchen for touchdown receptions. Auburn has put plenty of TEs into the League (Ed West, Walter Reeves, Fred Baxter, CJ Uzomah), but none of them really tore it up at Auburn.
That changes in 2020. The play-caller obviously values the position, and I think John Samuel Shenker has already proved himself to be a valuable red zone target. I think he just barely breaks the 250-yard barrier, but I’ll go out on a limb and say he finishes second on the team in receiving touchdowns.
Verdict: Over
Zac Blackerby
Auburn fans have been screaming “Throw it to the tight end!” since I was a little kid going to Auburn games with my dad. Fast forward to today, they’re still doing it. It looks like Auburn's coaching staff is going out of its own way to show the Auburn fan base that it means business when it comes to throwing to the tight end in 2020 and beyond but I don’t see one guy stepping up at the position.
It seems to good to be true for Auburn to field a tight end to get over 250 yards through the air. If they have one in 2020, John Samuel Shenker is the best bet. Gus Malzahn put Shenker on the field last year and loved his ability to block down field. That mindset will get him opportunities due to being on the field more but I don’t think he will make that big of a splash in the passing game to cross the 250-yard threshold.
Verdict: Under
Jack Condon
The work was done above, Chad Morris has had a pretty good track record of getting the tight end involved in the passing game. I think one of my lasting memories of a Morris-led offense is Dwayne Allen and Tajh Boyd connecting 7 times for 80 yards and a touchdown in the 2011 Auburn-Clemson matchup. Perhaps that’s skewing my perception of this question, but it leads me to hit the Over button on this poll.
On the other hand, Auburn and tight ends don’t really go well together lately. Aside from the occasional safety valve or the complete change of pace play, we haven’t used them. In a handful of memorable plays, even the good gains weren’t as great as they could’ve been. Phillip Lutzenkirchen fell down on his way to a sure touchdown in Glendale, and I can’t get Cooper Wallace flat out fumbling a ball on his way into the end zone back in the early 2000s. However, it’s changing this year. I think we’re going to see John Samuel Shenker make an impact as a versatile player with his blocking skills leading to a much more open alley for him to be Bo Nix’s guy in the middle of the field.
Verdict: Over
Will McLaughlin
You guys have heard that Auburn is the new TE U, haven’t you??” With the passing attack opening up this year and Chad Morris recruiting several Tight Ends, I think we will see a rise in TE production this season and I think 250 yards is doable.
Verdict: Over
Some optimism amongst the C&M braintrust that 2020 shall be the “Year of the Tight End”. Now we pose the question to the wise members of this community. Tell us, are you taking the over or the under in regards to an Auburn tight end eclipsing 250 receiving yards this fall?
War Eagle!
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thisdaynews · 5 years ago
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Manchester City 1-2 Manchester United: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side dent City's title hopes
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Manchester City 1-2 Manchester United: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side dent City's title hopes
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Marcus Rashford’s goal ensured he equalled his best goalscoring return for United in a season (13)
Manchester United dealt a crushing blow to Manchester City’s title hopes with a stunning derby win that leaves the defending champions 14 points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool.
Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial fired United into an early lead and although Nicolas Otamendi’s late reply set up a thrilling finale, the visitors held on for arguably the most impressive victory of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s 12-month reign.
Both United goals came in a breathless opening half-hour at Etihad Stadium, where they repeatedly carved open City’s creaking back-line to devastating effect.
Rashford opened the scoring from the spot after he was clumsily knocked over by Bernardo Silva, with the penalty awarded by video assistant referee Michael Oliver.
The in-form England striker, who has now scored 13 goals in his past 14 games for club and country, hit the bar moments later but United did not have to wait long to extend their lead.
United’s next attack saw Daniel James find Anthony Martial on the right of the area, and he had space to turn and squeeze his shot inside Ederson’s near post.
City had never trailed by two goals so early in a home league game since Pep Guardiola took charge in 2016 and their fans were left in stunned silence as United’s supporters celebrated noisily at the other end of the stadium.
While the home side finally began to get a grip on the game after that, especially in midfield, the damage was done.
City had repeated penalty appeals for United handballs turned down by referee Anthony Taylor and VAR before the break, while Gabriel Jesus wastefully headed a Kevin de Bruyne cross wide.
United continued to defend deep after the break but City struggled to create meaningful chances and Otamendi’s header from a Mahrez corner could not rescue them from their fourth league defeat of the season.
The game was marred by allegations of racist abuse towards United midfielder Fred in the second half, while there were also reports of objects being thrown at him from the stands.
Racist abuse reported at Manchester derby
Follow all the reaction from the Manchester derby, plus the rest of Saturday’s Premier League action
Solskjaer silences his critics
United’s best results this season have been against the leading clubs, but before this they had all come at Old Trafford. Until now, Norwich were the only side they had beaten on the road.
Solskjaer’s side set that record straight in scintillating fashion here, tearing City apart in the early stages when they could conceivably have scored two or three goals more.
Ederson was the only reason that did not happen, making superb saves from Daniel James, Jesse Lingard and Rashford with the score at 0-0.
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We’ll remember this win – Solskjaer
When United did take the lead, the way they controlled the game was also impressive – conceding possession and territory to their hosts, but limiting their shooting chances.
It was an excellent all-round performance and United’s players clearly enjoyed it too, celebrating with the away fans at the final whistle.
It is less than a week since Solskjaer’s future as United boss was being seriously questioned but back-to-back wins over Tottenham and now their neighbours have offered an emphatic response to his critics.
City’s flaws exposed again
While City’s midweek win over Burnley saw them at their electric best going forward, this was a reminder of the defensive flaws that have cost them so often this season.
With Rodri and the rest of City’s midfield unable to track United’s players when they surged forward, their backline was left embarrassingly exposed again and again in the early stages.
Angelino was given a torrid time by James down City’s left and both he and Rodri were guilty of standing off Martial when he fired home United’s second goal from that side of their area.
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City have ‘duty’ to continue title race – Guardiola
True, Guardiola was again left frustrated by important VAR decisions going against his team – particularly when Fred blocked Kyle Walker’s cross with his hand just before the break – and he had a long discussion with fourth official Mike Dean about it during the interval.
But his own side’s shortcomings were painfully obvious and right now it is hard to make a case for City clinching a third successive title, even if Liverpool’s form fell away.
Man of the match – Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)
When he finally emerged from the away section after the game ended, Rashford was left wearing only his shorts and a huge smile. His purple patch continues and like Spurs on Wednesday, City could not stop him.
‘We will remember this one’ – what they said:
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer speaking to BBC Match of the Day:“We will remember this one – we look so dangerous when we get he ball and go forward against arguably the best team in the world.
“They are an unbelievable team and to get a result and defend like we did and create as many chances… we should have been three or four up but for some good goalkeeping. It’s hard to take the ball off them. They can football teams to death but with the pace and threat we have, we look dangerous every time we go forward.
“It does not matter where you win the ball it’s that you are positive when you get it. The team shape was spot on, but individually they had to dig deep against some of the best players in the world. That’s part of the game.”
On reports of racist abuse:“I’ve seen it on the video, it was Jesse and Fred and the chap must be ashamed of himself. It’s unacceptable and I hope he will not be watching any football any more.”
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola speaking to BBC Match of the Day:“Yes we lost but I congratulate my team: my players were fantastic, we are a fantastic team. They are so fast, so quick and sometimes when you lose the ball it is more difficult. We tried, we got to the last third many, many times and they can run. Maybe a bit more than usual.”
On the title race:“We have to try to continue; there are many things to play for. It’s difficult because the opponents are on an incredible run winning 15 games out of 16.”
On reports of racism:“Of course [it’s not acceptable]. I think the club are making a statement and I support that.”
Pep’s worst points return – the stats
In English top-flight history, no side has ever gone on to win the title after being as many as 14 points behind the top side at the end of a day’s games.
Manchester United are unbeaten in their past five Premier League games (W3 D2), winning consecutive league matches for the first time since March.
This is Pep Guardiola’s worst points return after the first 16 matches of a top-flight season in his managerial career (32 pts).
Guardiola has lost two home league games in a single season for only the third time in his managerial career (also 2014-15 with Bayern Munich and 2008-09 with Barcelona).
United’s Anthony Martial has been directly involved in 10 goals in his past 13 Premier League starts (6 goals, 4 assists).
Marcus Rashford has scored 13 goals in 21 appearances in all competitions this season – equalling his best goalscoring return for United in a single season (13 goals in 47 apps in 2018-19 and 13 goals in 52 apps in 2017-18).
Rashford has been directly involved in 15 goals in his past 14 games in all competitions for Manchester United and England (13 goals, 2 assists).
United have both taken (8) and scored (4) more penalties in the Premier League this season than any other side.
What’s next?
Manchester City head for Croatia to play Dinamo Zagreb in their final group fixture in the Champions League on Wednesday (17:55 GMT). They are already through to the last 16 as guaranteed group winners.
United switch their attention to Europe in midweek too, hosting Dutch side AZ Alkmaar (20:00) in the Europa League on Thursday. They are also already through to the knockout stage, but need to avoid defeat in order to finish top of Group L.
Both teams play their next Premier League game on Sunday 15 December. United are at home to Everton (14:00 GMT) while City are away at Arsenal (16:30 GMT).
More to follow.
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spnreactionblogging · 5 years ago
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back to the future again
SPOILERS BELOW
tumblr wasn’t happy with the last verison of this post
I like this intro, I like that they grabbed presumably iron? maybe? from that graveyard fence. I want to think it’s iron to fend off ghosts but it sure is pointy and metal at least
I’m very soft for cas picking up jack’s body to get him somewhere safe, or at least what’s left of him
I’m also soft for cas calling to sam first
I like this new title card
in addition to the kevin & crowley vs jack & nick parallel scene in the bunker we also have jack lying on the floor with his eyes burnt out so that’s just... a lot of visual similarity here
I’m into this picking up in medias res or I guess not so much that as just exactly where we left off last time, mid-swing
the work they do with lighting is excellent
“he didn’t deserve this” says dean who then implores castiel to fix it, even though dean wanted to execute jack like “just another monster” until god told him to do it and then he didn’t feel like it anymore
sam notes the doors are indeed made of iron so there you go, sam and I are thinking along the same lines here
CAS: Well, I wouldn’t starve to death.
IN FUCKING DEED maybe stop taking castiel for granted for how much he could just ditch you guys at any point here ever that he ever chose to but DIDN’T
dean calling chuck “squirrelly” is entertaining on a “dean is the squirrel to sam’s moose” level and also a “chuck had an all-squirrel AU” level
it surprises no one that sam is immediately resourceful and trying to figure a way out, that castiel is steadfastly watching over jack’s body, and dean is literally “old man yells at cloud god”
I like seeing sam and dean digging again, it’s so reminiscent of season 1. arguably being in a mausoleum and fucking up its lowest layer counts as digging up a grave
oh jack’s up
oh it’s not jack
I like alexander doing the “belphegor” character though
In demonology, Belphegor is a demon, and one of the seven princes of Hell, who helps people make discoveries. He seduces people by suggesting to them ingenious inventions that will make them rich. Bishop and witch-hunter Peter Binsfeld believed that Belphegor tempts by means of laziness. Wikipedia
interesting
I do love the weekend at bernie’s thing going on here
definitely easier to have him put on sunglasses right away rather than keep up the prosthetics, lmao
okay so given the wikipedia definition there of this guy I don’t believe he’s some level one rando punching a clock, given that he’s a prince of hell, and I’m not even entirely convinced it’s not just chuck fucking with them?
oh we need some graveyard dirt and some angel blood, where’s the GIF when I need it, we literally have a GIF for this one
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I’m still tabbed into wikipedia so THAT’S interesting too
The palindromic prime number 1000000000000066600000000000001 is known as Belphegor's Prime, due to the significance of containing the number 666, on both sides enclosed by thirteen zeroes and a one.
I’m glad castiel is skeptical of “bel”
I’m also thinking a salt mine would be a good defensive position against ghosts, now that we’re talking about giant salt circles
I feel bad for the two girls :(
vancouver is so good at being foggy
season 15 is just reenacting The Sorrow fight
also it’s like in S8 when Crowley starts killing off people they previously saved
the clown scene is genuinely tense and I like that the mom and kid don’t do anything stupid and are fairly competent at trying to get out
DOUGIE’S DOUGHNUTS
“crowley jr” ha
but also fuck dean for taking this so fucking lightly, i guess if you’re viewing everything from a lens of something approximating NPD it’s easy to expect cas to ignore the harm done to his loved ones when it’s inconvenient
evacuate the town because of the water supply brings to mind The Crazies but I don’t know that it’s a direct reference because it’s so broad but I liked the remake a lot
I like that Sam and Cas are off together
I do not like that Dean was left alone with “Bel”/Jack’s body
re: penis rock, there’s references to phallic imagery on the wiki page for belphegor as well
dean IS gorgeous he’s not wrong, everybody on this show is gorgeous
I can’t remember if there’s any previously established canon about this but shouldn’t “bel” be able to read some info about jack by way of possessing him, or is that only if he’s possessing a living body?
big bag of salt and a human heart. sounds like it’s time to check transplant wings
oh sam good luck with the clown, dude :(
I’m not used to seeing cas holding a shotgun
:(((( about the girls
I’m glad sam made it to help the mom and her daughter in time
2019 is also the year I stop pretending that I am casual about sastiel lmao I fucking love them I’m so glad cas saved him and I want him to heal his injury I’m so here for it!!!!!!
“move your exquisite ass, please” is more like it honestly, stop being so fucking rude, dean
and there it is, “bel” liked dean’s torture work in hell all those years ago, amazing. incredible. “it was art”
“flaying people for eternity, like you do, right?” lmaoooo
ohhhh and michael’s out of the cage, huh? are we sure “bel” isn’t michael
CAS: [heals sam] LADY: ...how!? CAS: I’m an angel. LADY: And the clown was...? SAM: A ghost. LADY: And you are? SAM: Just a guy.
oh cute tumblr ate my fucking post after all the work I spent on this second half so I’m gonna retype it I GUESS
sam’s plot-related wound makes me think of john egbert with his lord english tooth injury in the epilogues
I’m here for head-tilt samifer? or whatever’s going on there
I’m ultra here for castiel gently hovering his hand over sam’s bare shoulder
sad about the sheriff, I guess that’s convenient
I realize it would break the dramatic tension but can’t castiel just teleport everybody to safety? they already know he’s an angel. then again why don’t the ghosts just teleport to catch up with them?
this season’s gonna be “spot the easter egg” the whole time, I’m remembering that I liked the episode with the hotel pool ghost or whatever it was with the people drowning
CAS: [leaves the impala to get some space] DEAN: [gets out to approach him anyway] You okay? CAS: Yes, but-- DEAN: Good. [walks off] FUCK YOURSELF DEAN
I do appreciate sam’s take on the situation like that they’re finally able to live in their own world, and that the things they did and the people they saved, that all still did matter
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I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING
i really liked the music in this episode
this was good, the bourbon I got was good, I’m genuinely stoked to see where this goes
can’t wait for:
Pose as a team, the world is real.
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onebeforeidie · 6 years ago
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Toronto Raptors Long Road to the NBA Finals
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Next year will be the 25th year in Toronto Raptors franchise history. It’s been a very interesting two and a half decades, from adopting a dinosaur and playing in the cavernous Skydome, to having NBA star after NBA star reject the team and refuse to report or demand a trade, to the highs of the Vinsanity era, followed by more years of darkness and incompetence.
But for the sake of brevity, let’s attempt to tell the story of how the Raptors got where they are now, and begin where this run truly began. 
PROLOGUE (2011-2012)
It’s the 2011 off-season. The Raptors just won 22 games and are now years removed from the “successful” first round exits of 2007 (New Jersey) and 2008 (Orlando). After several attempts by GM Bryan Colangelo to find the right combination of players to make the playoffs consistently in the East, the team now appears fully lost with the only real option left to scorch earth rebuild. The previous summer, Chris Bosh moved on to Miami, only to lose to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals. After which, their assistant coach Dwayne Casey, praised for his defensive schemes on the big 3, becomes available and the Raps bring him in as head coach to start a new program built on fundamentals and pounding the rock. 
It’s the lockout year, and the Raps suck again finishing 23-43, lacking any kind of distinct identity despite Casey’s efforts. Colagelo makes a full court press to bring in former MVP and Canadian hero Steve Nash to mentor and lead the group on the hardwood. After an intense courtship, we ultimately whiff and Nash spurns his home country, deciding he is better off playing for the Lakers. We also make a brief play for current Raptors benchwarmer Jeremy Lin (infamous for his Linsanity run with the Knicks), but eventually settle for Kyle Lowry as the man to run their offense. Colangelo traded a protected first round pick and Gary Forbes to Houston for the Philly Bulldog  (who eventually flip that pick to OKC for James Harden - ironic considering that we previously declined a version of that trade as OKC wanted the man we drafted with the 5th overall pick Jonas Valanciunas, Jose Calderon, and Terrance Ross, but Colangelo balked). 
Colangelo eventually trades Calderon and Ed Davis to Memphis for Rudy Gay and Hamed Haddadi instead (Pistons were involved as a third team) midway through the 2012-13 season, which finally gave us a player who could take a late 4th quarter shot for the first time in a long time, but Gay’s lack of efficiency couldn’t take them over the hump and they finished 34-48 which forced the teams hand. 
The Raptors remove Colangelo as GM that offseason, and brought in Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri, who Colangelo had hired years earlier as his director of global scouting in 2007, and then promoted to assistant GM in 2008. The plan was for Colangelo to remain on, but he quickly stepped down as he became aware this would be Ujiri’s team moving forward. It should be noted, Masai brought with him, from the NBA league office, current Raptors GM Bobby Webster who he groomed to be his ultimate successor once he eventually assumed the President’s role. 
And thus, with Ujiri and the only remaining current Raptor from that era, Kyle Lowry, the We The North Era begins.
CHAPTER 1 (2013-14) - An Unlikely Beginning 
Ujiri’s first order of business is to fleece the New York Knicks, flipping maligned Raptor and prized Colangelo possession Andrea Bargnani for a first round pick, and two seconds (also Steve Novak, Quentin Richardson, and Marcus Camby, the latter two would never suit up for the Raps as it was simply a salary dump). For more on the Bargs trade tree read up here: https://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/toronto-raptors-trade-masai-ujiri-andrea-bargnani-jakob-poeltl/
Masai also decides to keep his inherited coach, feeling he had not gotten a proper shake with a competitive group. 
However the team struggles early, and Masai is prompted to trade Rudy Gay, Quincy Acy and Aaron Gray to Sacramento for Grevious Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, Chuck Hayes, and John Salmons. This appears to be the true beginning of another earth scorching, as Andrew Wiggins was the prize in that year’s draft and Raptor fans were more than happy to tank for a shot at him. 
Masai is also back in talks with the Knicks about Kyle Lowry, and essentially had a deal in place to move him there for another first round pick, Iman Shumpert and Metta World Peace. But still sore from the Bargs debacle, New York pulls out of the deal at the last minute. 
Which suited the Raptors just fine, who since the Gay trade in December had turned things around and pulled together playing team basketball. They went on on a major run with DeMar leading the team. He went to All-Star weekend, and kept it rolling in the second half with the team ending up winning a franchise high 48 games and the division. 
They draw the veteran laiden Brooklyn Nets, lead by Kevin Garnett & Paul Pierce, and fight them tooth and nail to a 7th game. The Raptors fall short in the final seconds, but it was extremely memorable run for the fans who expected nothing of the sort that season and who immediately took to the We The North campaign. Jurassic Park got it’s life here and was made famous by Masai’s “FUCK BROOKLYN” comments to pump up the crowd prior to Game 1. 
Outgoing Raptors: Julyan Stone, Nando De Colo, Austin Daye, Dwight Buycks, DJ Augustin
Chapter 2 (2014-15) - The Sophmore Slump
It’s the Raptors 20th Anniversary year and Masai is tasked with making his first post playoff adjustments. He trades John Salmons to Atlanta for Lou Williams and Bebe. The team would start on fire, 24-8 out of the gate and go on to win another division and finish with another franchise high 49 wins. Williams would go on to to win 6th man of the year. 
Sadly they get destroyed in the playoffs with both Lowry and DeRozan struggling. The Wizards swept the Raptors 4-0, and nemesis Paul Piece, now having moved on to Washington, gets the last laugh once again. 
Outgoing Raptors:  Landry Fields, Tyler Hansborough, Chuck Hayes, Amir Johnson, Grevious Vasquez, Lou Williams, Greg Steimsma.
Chapter 3 (2015-16) - The Breakthrough
Masai shakes things up again this time refocusing on defense, trading Grevious Vasquez for a 2nd round pick that would be used on now second longest tenured Raptor Norman Powell, and a 1st round pick that would eventually be used to acquire Serge Ibaka the following year. He also signs DeMarre Caroll to a big free agent contract, and brings home Toronto boy Corey Joseph to be the backup point guard. He also signs veteran Luis Scola. 
The moves once again pay off, as Toronto wins a monumental 56 games and their third straight division title. The city also hosts the All-Star game for the first time, which both Lowry and DeRozan represent. The dunk competition is arguably the most memorable one since Vince broke the wheel in 2000, with Aaron Gordon and Zach Levine facing off in an insane finals (which Levine won by a hair). 
The Raps win their first playoff series since beating the Knicks in 2001 (and second all time), barely creeping by Paul George and the Indiana Pacers in 7 games. They would take another 7 games to beat Dwayne Wade and Miami in the second round, going the farthest they’ve ever gone in the playoffs, before bowing out to LeBron and the Cavs in 6 in the eastern final, which ended on home court with the fans chanting in support much to Lebron’s shock and awe. The Cavs would go on to comeback and upset the Warriors in a memorable NBA Finals. 
Outgoing Raptors:  Anthony Bennett, Bismack Biyombo, James Johnson, Jason Thompson, Luis Scola
Chapter 4 (2016-17) - The Step Back
The Raptors make a huge financial commitment to DeMar DeRozan in the summer, signing him to a max contract after talk he may go home to join the Lakers. The Raps win 51 games, but fail to continue their streak of division titles with the rising Boston Celtics surging ahead of them. Masai makes two big deadline deals for Ibaka and big body PJ Tucker, but they are not enough as they slog past a young Milwaukee Bucks team 4-2 in the first round, but proceed to get swept by LeBron and the Cavs in the 2nd.
Outgoing Raptors:  DeMarre Caroll, Jared Sullinger, Corey Joseph, Patrick Patterson, Terrance Ross, PJ Tucker
Chapter 5 (2017-18) - The Breaking Point
Masai looks to make significant changes to the way the team plays basketball on both offence and defense in an effort to keep up with the changing NBA landscape, despite bringing back Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka on big short term deals. They pay Brooklyn a first round pick to take the oft-injured Caroll of their hands, send Corey Joseph to Indiana, and look to get younger, more athletic, and move the ball. CJ Miles is brought in to help address three point shooting. Coach Casey succeeds impressively in this overhaul, wins 59 games, the division, finished with the best record in the East, and won Coach of the Year. DeMar has an impressive campaign as well, including dropping a franchise high 52 against in the Bucks on New Year’s day. But it’s all for not, as they get some slight revenge on the Washinton Wizards beating them 4-2 in the first round, but losing to LeBron and the Cavs for a third straight season, once again getting swept in the second round. 
Masai wrings his hands and is forced to make some impossible choices. He fires the reigning coach of the year, ultimately determining a change was necessary to get to the next level. He then moves face of the franchise DeMar, for one year of Kawhi and Danny Green, a polarizing trade that put the entire league on notice. 
Masai would also finally eat crow and move on from his “Brazillian KD” draft pick who was famously two years away from being two years away. 
Outgoing Raptors:  DeMar Derozan, Jakub Poetl, Nigel Hayes, Lucas Nogiera, Alfonso Mckinnie, Bruno Caboclo. 
Chapter 6 (2018-19) - The Promised Land
Nick Nurse is promoted to head coach in somewhat of an awkward situation, and Kawhi has his load managed by the team to keep him fresh for the playoffs. Masai makes another tough deadline deal, this time sending fan favorite Jonas Valancuinas, Delon Wright, and CJ Miles to Memphis for Marc Gasol. The team isn’t as good as last year as due to injuries was rarely together all at the same time, but still wins 58 games, the division, and finished 2nd in the East. They also sign guards Jodie Meeks and Jeremy Lin to fill out the bench. 
They pull together in the playoffs on the back of a dominant Kawhi Leonard who by now had blossomed into everything they hoped he would be as an injured superstar when they acquired him nearly a year ago, quickly dispensing with Orlando 4-1 before beating Philly in 7 games in the second round, 18 years after Vince missed that final shot. This time the narrative ends with Kawhi hitting his now famous four time bouncing buzzer beater, and the Raps move to one seed Milwaukee in the eastern final. After falling down 2-0, they would storm back to win the next 4, giving the team their first ever NBA Finals birth against the Golden State Warriors. 
Outgoing Raptors:  Jonas Valancuinas, Delon Wright, CJ Miles, Greg Monroe, Malachi Richardson, Lorenzo Brown
The series ahead will be hard fought one against an all-time juggernaut team that has been to four straight finals, and won three of them. Lead by, at the time, an eight year old kid that Raptors fan watched warm up and shoot pre-game threes during the Vince era. Whatever happens, it will be squarely on the backs of two people. Sure it will take Kawhi being an absolute monster and he will play the hero role should they win and rightfully so, but as the man himself said, this team was not built in one year.  So I look to Masai Ujiri, who very clearly orchestrated this patiently and cold bloodedly, and Kyle Lowry, the only Raptor to have been through it all with him. Masai arrived and proceeded to make the playoffs 6 straight years after the Raptors only made it 5 times in the previous 18 seasons. He kept on a coach he did not hire for as long as he could and reaped the rewards for doing so, and still made the hard decision when he had to. He drafted and signed players like Pascal Siakam, Fred Van Vleet, Norman Powell, and OG and did so by managing to bring in the Raptors 905 (who also won a championship in his time as well). He also kept a point guard he almost traded, and never looked back. Lowry rewarded him with 5 division titles in 6 years, averaged 53.5 wins a year, made the all star team 5 times, was an all NBA player in 2016, and won gold with Team USA basketball that same year. Kyle and Masai’s relationship took a hit after the trade of his best friend (despite paying him 100 million the year before) but rest assured, should the Raptors do the unthinkable and win this series, they will be hugging on the floor and it will be a truly glorious moment. 
Let’s hope they find a way. 
2019 Raptors Playoff Roster: Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka, Fred Vanvleet, Norm Powell, OG Anunoby, Patrick McCaw, Jeremy Lin, Jodie Meeks, Jordan Loyd, Malcom Miller, Chris Boucher, and Eric Moreland.  
#WETHENORTH
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Top 10 very unlucky football bets
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1. £1MILLION from a £10 bet if Bolton had beaten Liverpool and they even turned down a £15,000 cash out option! A punter placed a £10 bet on five results that would have won £1million Four came in, including Manchester City losing to Middlesbrough Saturday’s late kick-off between Liverpool and Bolton saw him lose the bet But they still got rewarded with four free bets and an FA Cup final invite For one unfortunate gambler, Saturday’s extraordinary round of FA Cup results will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. The punter had placed a £10 accumulator bet with a bookmaker on five games, with the odds stacked so heavily against them they would have taken £1million had it been successful, all of us at football betting tips wanted him to win it. The odds of all five results occurring were so high, the gambler was given odds of a 1,000,000/1. Here is how close he came: BET: Crystal Palace to beat Southampton RESULT: Crystal Palace 3-2 WIN BET: Middlesbrough to beat Manchester City RESULT: Middlesbrough 2-0 WIN BET: Leicester City to beat Tottenham RESULT: Leicester 2-1 WIN BET: Reading to beat Cardiff City RESULT: Reading 2-1 WIN BET: Bolton to beat Liverpool, both sides to score RESULT: 0-0 LOSS Four out of five results had, unbelievably come in the only game remaining was Saturday’s late kick-off at Anfield where Liverpool faced championship side Bolton. A victory for Neil Lennon’s team, with both sides hitting the back of the net, was all that was required for the most astounding of bets to have landed. And the customer clearly felt their luck was in, as they rejected a £15,000 offer to cash-out before proceedings began at Anfield. Agonisingly, there was not enough magic left in the cup for Bolton to emerge victorious. The game finished 0-0, with the unfortunate gambler left stunned at would could have been won. The bookmakers, meanwhile, breathed an almighty sigh of relief. Simply subscribe and checkout our soccer bet prediction today, and start earning a 2nd income from our football bets tips today. 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While Leeds taking the win came as a surprise, they struggled to find the final goal which would have confirmed the £506,000 windfall. They would find the back of the net for a third time, as Tottenham willed their players, including goalkeeper Brad Friedel, forward for a corner in the dying seconds of the game. The ball fell to Rodolph Austin, who took a shot at the empty net from a distance. It went in, but Friend had blown the whistle just one second earlier, costing the mystery punter a lot of money. We consider ourselves to be the very best when it comes to football score predictions match tipster, and providing our current members with the best betting football predictions today. Once you have subscribed you will instantly have access to all of the best football betting tips for today, such as our over 2.5 today predictions and of course our carefully selected soccer bankers for the weekend which also include the very best over 3.5 goals tips, along with all of our today football bankers. 3. £187,000 lost by one goal Factory worker Kevin Wint, 31, must’ve felt like the luckiest man in the world when 14 of the 15 results on his £1 accumulator came in, leaving him just 90 minutes away from a £187,000 jackpot. The final game to be played would see Swansea visit Manchester United in the FA Cup, with Wint needing a draw to emerge victorious. Considering The Swans hadn’t claimed a victory at Old Trafford in 82 years, the odds appeared to be in his favour. With the game tied at 1-1 approaching the final whistle, the money was almost in his bank account. That is, until Wilfried Bony popped up in the 89th minute to hand Swansea a 2-1 victory, breaking the record and the unfortunate punter’s heart simultaneously. When you subscribe and start following our service you will find that we always provide top football bets for today, and we have a great syndicate when it comes to top tips football match tipsters. So if you are searching for the best football bets today along with tomorrow football match prediction bankers, once you have chosen to subscribe to our premium service, you will see that we provide you as a member with the very best soccer banker predictions, along with bets that are very carefully selected which will of course include all of our football bankers this weekend. 4. £108,000 lost by narrow margins Feeling lucky, an anonymous better from Inverness, Scotland decided to throw some money on a Premier League accumulator. His betting slip contained three bets – Tottenham to beat Reading, Newcastle to draw with Everton and Arsenal to beat French club Montpellier HSC 3-1 in their Champions League group stage clash. Tottenham claimed a 3-1 victory over Reading on the Sunday, Everton vs Newcastle ended as a 2-2 draw on the Monday, which left the hopeful punter sweating for 24 hours until Arsenal kicked off their European campaign. The early stages of the game were extremely open, with Montpellier’s Younes Belhanda opening the scoring after just nine minutes, before Lukas Podolski and Gervinho scored two quick-fire goals to put Arsenal ahead. At 2-1 after just 18 minutes, the game looked in danger of finishing at a much higher score than 3-1. However, being forced to endure an agonising 72 minute wait, the punter would watch his £108,000 profit slip away with Arsenal’s third goal nowhere in sight. This is the main reason that we are able to provide all of our members with top football tips today, and why you could also start profiting from betting tipster football today. We are without a doubt the best football prediction site of the year, each and every year that our premium service has been available. Once you have subscribed to our service you will instantly have access to today football match prediction bankers, And of course the very best football tips for today, which will always include our over 2.5 prediction for today, and all of the very best football prediction for tomorrow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8JPbcfUfD4 5. £1,000,000 lost by reversed result Betting horror stories don’t get much worse than this. Imagine being 90 minutes away from turning 1p into £1 million, only to have one of the best football squads of all time let you down… That was reality for Simon Torres Pike, who had decided to stick a penny on all eight Champions League Round of 16 matches to be played throughout the week back in 2013. Juventus had beaten Celtic, Bayern Munich had beaten Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund drew with Shakhtar Donetsk, Real Madrid drew with Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain beat Valencia and Porto emerged victorious against Malaga – six results which Pike correctly predicted. There were just two results left to come in – Galatasaray vs Schalke 04 and AC Milan vs Barcelona. The first was AC Milan celebrate their 2-0 victory over Barcelona in the Champions League Round of 16. With Galatasaray vs Schalke 04 eventually finishing with a draw to make his correct predictions 7 out of 8. However, he still needed Barcelona to triumph by 2 goals to nil. The game did eventually finish with the correct scoreline. However, it was Milan who had scored twice to sink Barcelona and Pike. We only provide our members with the best football tips for today. And you could also start benefiting from our football betting tipster today matches. We have a great team when it comes to betting tips soccer match tipsters, and we only post up the very good football bets for today. And we will possibly also have the best football betting tips tonight, simply making us the very best football betting tips site. You will soon discover that we are possibly the best football prediction site in the world , which will always provide you as a member with the best football draw prediction banker for this weekend. 6. £1,000,000 lost by one manager David Moyes was meant to be the next Sir Alex Ferguson, we knew this was impossible at football betting tips however he was hand-picked by the legendary Scottish manager himself to take over the Manchester United hot-seat when he retired back in 2013, the former-Everton boss was meant to lead the club into the next chapter of their trophy-laden history. We all knew that whoever took over would struggle to fill Ferguson’s boots, given that he was arguable the most successful manager of all time, but few predicted that he would be quite so terrible. How was an unfortunate pensioner from Wales to know that Moyes would oversee the Red Devils’ worst ever Premier League campaign? Having bet £1 on 15 of the games to be played on the third week of the 2013/14 Premier League campaign, the unknown better was set to scoop a massive £1 million if all 15 results came in. 14 did, and with United having picked up four points in their first two games, they appeared capable of toppling Liverpool at Anfield to produce the biggest accumulator payout of all time. However, with Moyes struggling to spur United on, the club fell to a costly 1-0 defeat. Thankfully, the punter still picked up £72,000 for his 14 correct predictions, but it was chump change compared to what he could have won. 7. £1,000,000 lost by wrong betting slip Practice makes perfect they always say, but a lack of experience cost 19-year-old Jordan Donnellan an astonishing amount of money. The teenage barman had spent Sunday evening partying with his friends and family in the pub after Juventus beat Catania to see all 14 of his predictions come in on a 14-team accumulator, landing him what he believed to be a life-changing £1 million. However, upon entering his local Ladbrokes store on Monday morning to collect his winnings, Mr Donnellan was informed that he had actually won £0. Absolutely nothing. The youngster had predicted all 14 scores correctly. However, he had filled in the Weekend Result Rush coupon, which requires both teams to score in each match, rather than a Weekend Quickslip, therefore voiding his win. Ladbrokes spokesman David Williams likened the incident to your lottery numbers coming up in a different country, stating: “It’s rather like buying a UK lottery ticket then spotting that your numbers have come up on the Australian lotto.” 8. £17,000 lost by a computer error The worst part about Dougie Watson’s accumulator loss is that it wasn’t entirely his own fault, the 40-year-old better should have used a betting exchange however he had gone into a William Hill store to place a 13-hold accumulator on a number of matches set to kick off at 1:30pm. However, when the cashier put the bet into the system, Mr Watson was informed that he would be unable to bet on West Bromwich Albion’s Premier League clash with Newcastle, as the match had already kicked off three seconds earlier. According to the cashier, the game would be scratched off of the betting slip and the rest of his bets would go through as normal. Match after match came in in his favour, winning Mr Watson a cool £17,000. However, upon checking his slip he noticed that the West Brom vs Newcastle game hadn’t been removed from the slip, and with the result going against him the accumulator was lost. Despite arguing with the shop’s manager to try and save his unfortunate loss, the high street chain refused to accept their error, insisting that the machine hadn’t malfunctioned. “He asked for a copy of the betting slip to be emailed to him by the shop,” Watson said. “It clearly states the time is 13:30:03, but he quickly said he wasn’t paying out because the machine was correct to accept the bet.” 9. £2,499.55 lost on early cash-out If you think Gary Walter’s early cash-out was unfortunate, this anonymous punter’s cash-out was extremely premature. The mystery better had placed 50p on Leicester City at the start of the season, with odds on the lowly club winning the Premier League title at 5,000/1. Few thought Leicester City would survive in the top flight after narrowly avoiding relegation in the 2014/15 season. However, they started life under Claudio Ranieri well with a 4-2 victory over Sunderland. Unconvinced, the better decided to cash-out for just 95p, securing himself a profit of just 45p. The Foxes would embark on the most unbelievable Premier League campaign in history, as Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez fired the club to glory – a victory that would have won the him a far more impressive £2,500. Accumulators can win you huge amounts of money, but more times than not you the bookies will be the winners. Football trading is a much safer option if you want to make some serious profits betting on the football. 10. £49,000 lost by toddler Everyone knows that smartphone and children are a bad mix. If they aren’t blowing thousands of pounds on virtual currencies, they’re cashing out your accumulator bets prematurely, losing you a lot of money in the process, Gary Walter’s 3-year-old son cashed-out his potential £50,000 accumulator. Gary Walter, a 24-year-old father of two from Birmingham, was silly enough to leave his phone on the back-seat of the car next to his 3-year-old toddler, Archie. Earlier that day Mr Walter had placed a 13-team accumulator which was set to win him almost £50,000 if all of his predictions proved to be correct. With three correct scores already in and a cash-out value of just £7, Archie, unsurprisingly, picked up the phone and pressed the biggest, brightest button that he could see – cash-out. With ten games still to play, the accident didn’t seem quite so bad, but as results continued to go his way, or, at this point, against him, Mr Walter realised that he had missed out on a whopping£48,993. Read the full article
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aion-rsa · 4 years ago
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Riverdale Season 5 Episode 3 Review – Chapter 79: Graduation
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This RIVERDALE review contains spoilers.
Riverdale Season 5 Episode 3
“Are we doomed to just be haunted by this town for the rest of our lives?”
So asks Jughead Jones in this most emotional episode of Riverdale, and it’s a question that is uttered almost rhetorically even though we all know the answer. There’s a valedictorian feel to this installment in every sense, one that subtextually speaks of how the series is closing the door on what is what in order to reinvent itself. And friends, it’s arguably the most grounded episode the show has ever done…and maybe the best?
I’ve mentioned previously how weird it is whenever Riverdale focuses on aspects of normal teenage life. High school has never been a huge part of the program, so graduation feels like an necessary obstacle that must be hurdled in order to get these characters into their respective futures. Realizing this, episode writer (and show co-creator) Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has crafted a graceful farewell to Riverdale High that is more about dealing with the consequences of the past than graduation itself.
Always the best speechmaker on the show, Betty’s succinct graduation address acknowledges how easy it is for innocence to slip away. “Stay young for as long as possible, even if it’s only for one more moment,” she sincerely states, gravely aware of how the mayhem inflicted by the Black Hood, the Gargoyle King, Jingle Jangle, and all of Riverdale’s ills have fractured the psyches of the next generation.
It is an issue the Cooper family has dealt with repeatedly, and was even doing so while Betty was speaking to the community and her peers. For the impact of Riverdale life has again hit home, this time by Jellybean’s actions as The Auteur. In an attempt to save Jellybean before she is consumed by her demons, F.P. decides to take her back to Toledo — back to Gladys and something resembling a normal life.
The collateral damage is massive. Alice loses her partner, Jellybean loses her brother, the town loses the best sheriff it has ever had. (F.P. demanding that Hiram Lodge reinstall Tom Keller as sheriff is the sort of delightful contrivance that only this series can get away with).
Time and again on Riverdale we’ve heard characters give speeches that the town residents must “do better.” Now that there are proven examples of how the madness of the town is impacting its youngest citizens, will anything change? Narratively, it’s doubtful. And a “normal” Riverdale would be a hell of a dull place.
But what feels revolutionary here is that this episode is excellent while still being rooted firmly in reality. Riverdale can still be compelling by just focusing on the friendships that bind these characters without relying on narrative gimmicks. This may break the show, but it could also rebirth it.
That said, I still want zombies.
This episode was originally intended to be last year’s season finale before Covid-19 halted production. In many ways though it feels like a series wrap up. As the credits roll we have all of the characters separated. Archie has decided to the join the Army, with Betty, Veronica and Jughead away and estranged at their respective colleges. Cheryl remains in Riverdale, determined to rehabilitate the Blossom family image while her beloved Toni is away at school.
Jughead tells us as the episode concludes that the gang will be brought back together by a new mystery six years later. We don’t as of yet know what that is, and the anticipation is exhilarating. Bring on next week!
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Riverdale Rundown
• The baseball card included in the time capsule from the Class of 1945 was for Ambrose “Rocket” Pipps, which was the name of a minor character who primarily appeared in Bob Bolling’s melancholy Little Archie comics. (He was an outsider who Archie would regularly bully, often brutally so). The character also made an appearance in the Life with Archie: The Married Life series, this time as a business partner of Archie’s.
• Riverdale has been renewed for a sixth season, so we can expect this show’s craziness to go on indefinitely.
• Penelope Blossom skulking about in the bushes after graduation was a hilarious bit of business. And by her turning herself in to the authorities, she should be out in about six years…which is also the length of the time jump the show is about to go through.
• After all that these characters have gone through, is a kiss that really didn’t mean anything between Archie and Betty that big of a deal?
• What will Mr. Lodge do now? And, more importantly, does anyone really care?
• This episode was full of emotional gut punches, with my three favorites being the Fred flashback, F.P. and Alice’s farewell, and the beautifully orchestrated farewell between Archie and his friends on the side of the road.
• Archie’s suggestion that he and his friends all meet up at Pop’s one year after graduation had big Wet Hot American Summer vibes. Maybe no one but Jug showed up because everyone else was too busy fondling their sweaters?
• In the episode’s biggest dick move, Mr. Weatherbee tells Archie he has to repeat his senior year then immediately asks for a favor — having him sing at graduation. Speaking of this, it made me feel like a fossil to realize that Archie and the gang probably think of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” as an oldie.
• Speaking of which, I openly giggled when Archie started singing Green Day. Given the characters’ comic book longevity I thought that Alphaville’s “Forever Young” would have been a better choice, albeit a tad on the nose.
• “Maybe a little normal high school angst is good for us,” says Jughead, moments before a little normal high school angst rips he and his friends apart.
• Mr. Weatherbee is sporting a glove on his right hand as a result of losing a few fingers during his escape from The Farm.
• While the fate of the core four is largely uncertain, we do know from his appearance in the future-set Katy Keene that Kevin Keller goes on to become the drama teacher at Riverdale High. It would have been nice though for the show to take a moment to address his (and Reggie’s for that matter) future plans.
• Pop Tate once again has ownership of the Chok’lit Shoppe. Expect this plotpoint to play a big role in the rest of this season.
• The name of the four Riverdale High students who went off to war (and who haunt Archie throughout this episode) are Carl Callahan, Walt “Wildcat” Wright, Ab Ackerman, and Gordy Greene. I’m guessing these are super deep cut Archie/pop culture references that even I don’t know. If you recognize their significance, let us know.
• Cheryl pulls a The Red Circle comic out of the vintage time capsule, this is a reference to the super heroes whose publisher, MLJ, later became Archie Comics.
• Will Jughead now be hatless in future episodes of Riverdale? If so, I’m going to be VERY upset.
• Kevin including Josie’s cat ears in the new time capsule is a fantastic tribute to his step sister, and a character whose fate in the TV Archieverse is unknown following the cancellation of Katy Keene.
• It was great to hear Penelope call Cheryl (dressed in red for graduation, obviously) “nightmare child” once again.
• While effective, Betty’s commencement speech was easily the shortest in television history.
• The fact that there are Serpents in seemingly every major city will never not be hilarious to me.
• It’s nice to see that Vegas is alive and well. This dog has been so neglected on the series that I expect him to turn up on one of those Sarah McLachlan commercials.
• Jughead’s narration of the gang drifting apart following graduation was clearly inspired by the end of Stand By Me. (God knows these kids have seen enough dead bodies in their day).
• Hermione Lodge spending a summer in the Hamptons with Andy Cohen and starring on The Real Housewives of New York City? Chef’s kiss.
• Next week: The fifth season of Riverdale gets properly underway, and I for one can’t wait to see what happens next.
The post Riverdale Season 5 Episode 3 Review – Chapter 79: Graduation appeared first on Den of Geek.
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Top 10 very unlucky football bets
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1. £1MILLION from a £10 bet if Bolton had beaten Liverpool and they even turned down a £15,000 cash out option! A punter placed a £10 bet on five results that would have won £1million Four came in, including Manchester City losing to Middlesbrough Saturday’s late kick-off between Liverpool and Bolton saw him lose the bet But they still got rewarded with four free bets and an FA Cup final invite For one unfortunate gambler, Saturday’s extraordinary round of FA Cup results will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. The punter had placed a £10 accumulator bet with a bookmaker on five games, with the odds stacked so heavily against them they would have taken £1million had it been successful, all of us at football betting tips wanted him to win it. The odds of all five results occurring were so high, the gambler was given odds of a 1,000,000/1. Here is how close he came: BET: Crystal Palace to beat Southampton RESULT: Crystal Palace 3-2 WIN BET: Middlesbrough to beat Manchester City RESULT: Middlesbrough 2-0 WIN BET: Leicester City to beat Tottenham RESULT: Leicester 2-1 WIN BET: Reading to beat Cardiff City RESULT: Reading 2-1 WIN BET: Bolton to beat Liverpool, both sides to score RESULT: 0-0 LOSS Four out of five results had, unbelievably come in the only game remaining was Saturday’s late kick-off at Anfield where Liverpool faced championship side Bolton. A victory for Neil Lennon’s team, with both sides hitting the back of the net, was all that was required for the most astounding of bets to have landed. And the customer clearly felt their luck was in, as they rejected a £15,000 offer to cash-out before proceedings began at Anfield. Agonisingly, there was not enough magic left in the cup for Bolton to emerge victorious. The game finished 0-0, with the unfortunate gambler left stunned at would could have been won. The bookmakers, meanwhile, breathed an almighty sigh of relief. Simply subscribe and checkout our soccer bet prediction today, and start earning a 2nd income from our football bets tips today. Within the blue tabs on our home page you will find the best soccer prediction for today, which will give you a fantastic opportunity to only bet on the best football bets for today, because when it comes to sites that predict football matches correctly, you will find that we have all of the very best recommended football bets midweek which are always very carefully selected from our football matches analysis and prediction. 2. £506,000 lost by one second An unfortunate better from Oldham who enjoyed studying football stats, and didn’t want his name to be published, had placed a 20p accumulator made up of a number of unlikely results in League Cup matches, including Brentford to draw 2-2 with Chelsea, Oldham to claim a history 3-2 victory over Liverpool and St Mirren to win against Celtic – all three of which he correctly predicted. The final game on his slip was Leeds vs Tottenham, which he predicted to end as a 3-1 victory for Leeds. While Leeds taking the win came as a surprise, they struggled to find the final goal which would have confirmed the £506,000 windfall. They would find the back of the net for a third time, as Tottenham willed their players, including goalkeeper Brad Friedel, forward for a corner in the dying seconds of the game. The ball fell to Rodolph Austin, who took a shot at the empty net from a distance. It went in, but Friend had blown the whistle just one second earlier, costing the mystery punter a lot of money. We consider ourselves to be the very best when it comes to football score predictions match tipster, and providing our current members with the best betting football predictions today. Once you have subscribed you will instantly have access to all of the best football betting tips for today, such as our over 2.5 today predictions and of course our carefully selected soccer bankers for the weekend which also include the very best over 3.5 goals tips, along with all of our today football bankers. 3. £187,000 lost by one goal Factory worker Kevin Wint, 31, must’ve felt like the luckiest man in the world when 14 of the 15 results on his £1 accumulator came in, leaving him just 90 minutes away from a £187,000 jackpot. The final game to be played would see Swansea visit Manchester United in the FA Cup, with Wint needing a draw to emerge victorious. Considering The Swans hadn’t claimed a victory at Old Trafford in 82 years, the odds appeared to be in his favour. With the game tied at 1-1 approaching the final whistle, the money was almost in his bank account. That is, until Wilfried Bony popped up in the 89th minute to hand Swansea a 2-1 victory, breaking the record and the unfortunate punter’s heart simultaneously. When you subscribe and start following our service you will find that we always provide top football bets for today, and we have a great syndicate when it comes to top tips football match tipsters. So if you are searching for the best football bets today along with tomorrow football match prediction bankers, once you have chosen to subscribe to our premium service, you will see that we provide you as a member with the very best soccer banker predictions, along with bets that are very carefully selected which will of course include all of our football bankers this weekend. 4. £108,000 lost by narrow margins Feeling lucky, an anonymous better from Inverness, Scotland decided to throw some money on a Premier League accumulator. His betting slip contained three bets – Tottenham to beat Reading, Newcastle to draw with Everton and Arsenal to beat French club Montpellier HSC 3-1 in their Champions League group stage clash. Tottenham claimed a 3-1 victory over Reading on the Sunday, Everton vs Newcastle ended as a 2-2 draw on the Monday, which left the hopeful punter sweating for 24 hours until Arsenal kicked off their European campaign. The early stages of the game were extremely open, with Montpellier’s Younes Belhanda opening the scoring after just nine minutes, before Lukas Podolski and Gervinho scored two quick-fire goals to put Arsenal ahead. At 2-1 after just 18 minutes, the game looked in danger of finishing at a much higher score than 3-1. However, being forced to endure an agonising 72 minute wait, the punter would watch his £108,000 profit slip away with Arsenal’s third goal nowhere in sight. This is the main reason that we are able to provide all of our members with top football tips today, and why you could also start profiting from betting tipster football today. We are without a doubt the best football prediction site of the year, each and every year that our premium service has been available. Once you have subscribed to our service you will instantly have access to today football match prediction bankers, And of course the very best football tips for today, which will always include our over 2.5 prediction for today, and all of the very best football prediction for tomorrow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8JPbcfUfD4 5. £1,000,000 lost by reversed result Betting horror stories don’t get much worse than this. Imagine being 90 minutes away from turning 1p into £1 million, only to have one of the best football squads of all time let you down… That was reality for Simon Torres Pike, who had decided to stick a penny on all eight Champions League Round of 16 matches to be played throughout the week back in 2013. Juventus had beaten Celtic, Bayern Munich had beaten Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund drew with Shakhtar Donetsk, Real Madrid drew with Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain beat Valencia and Porto emerged victorious against Malaga – six results which Pike correctly predicted. There were just two results left to come in – Galatasaray vs Schalke 04 and AC Milan vs Barcelona. The first was AC Milan celebrate their 2-0 victory over Barcelona in the Champions League Round of 16. With Galatasaray vs Schalke 04 eventually finishing with a draw to make his correct predictions 7 out of 8. However, he still needed Barcelona to triumph by 2 goals to nil. The game did eventually finish with the correct scoreline. However, it was Milan who had scored twice to sink Barcelona and Pike. We only provide our members with the best football tips for today. And you could also start benefiting from our football betting tipster today matches. We have a great team when it comes to betting tips soccer match tipsters, and we only post up the very good football bets for today. And we will possibly also have the best football betting tips tonight, simply making us the very best football betting tips site. You will soon discover that we are possibly the best football prediction site in the world , which will always provide you as a member with the best football draw prediction banker for this weekend. 6. £1,000,000 lost by one manager David Moyes was meant to be the next Sir Alex Ferguson, we knew this was impossible at football betting tips however he was hand-picked by the legendary Scottish manager himself to take over the Manchester United hot-seat when he retired back in 2013, the former-Everton boss was meant to lead the club into the next chapter of their trophy-laden history. We all knew that whoever took over would struggle to fill Ferguson’s boots, given that he was arguable the most successful manager of all time, but few predicted that he would be quite so terrible. How was an unfortunate pensioner from Wales to know that Moyes would oversee the Red Devils’ worst ever Premier League campaign? Having bet £1 on 15 of the games to be played on the third week of the 2013/14 Premier League campaign, the unknown better was set to scoop a massive £1 million if all 15 results came in. 14 did, and with United having picked up four points in their first two games, they appeared capable of toppling Liverpool at Anfield to produce the biggest accumulator payout of all time. However, with Moyes struggling to spur United on, the club fell to a costly 1-0 defeat. Thankfully, the punter still picked up £72,000 for his 14 correct predictions, but it was chump change compared to what he could have won. 7. £1,000,000 lost by wrong betting slip Practice makes perfect they always say, but a lack of experience cost 19-year-old Jordan Donnellan an astonishing amount of money. The teenage barman had spent Sunday evening partying with his friends and family in the pub after Juventus beat Catania to see all 14 of his predictions come in on a 14-team accumulator, landing him what he believed to be a life-changing £1 million. However, upon entering his local Ladbrokes store on Monday morning to collect his winnings, Mr Donnellan was informed that he had actually won £0. Absolutely nothing. The youngster had predicted all 14 scores correctly. However, he had filled in the Weekend Result Rush coupon, which requires both teams to score in each match, rather than a Weekend Quickslip, therefore voiding his win. Ladbrokes spokesman David Williams likened the incident to your lottery numbers coming up in a different country, stating: “It’s rather like buying a UK lottery ticket then spotting that your numbers have come up on the Australian lotto.” 8. £17,000 lost by a computer error The worst part about Dougie Watson’s accumulator loss is that it wasn’t entirely his own fault, the 40-year-old better should have used a betting exchange however he had gone into a William Hill store to place a 13-hold accumulator on a number of matches set to kick off at 1:30pm. However, when the cashier put the bet into the system, Mr Watson was informed that he would be unable to bet on West Bromwich Albion’s Premier League clash with Newcastle, as the match had already kicked off three seconds earlier. According to the cashier, the game would be scratched off of the betting slip and the rest of his bets would go through as normal. Match after match came in in his favour, winning Mr Watson a cool £17,000. However, upon checking his slip he noticed that the West Brom vs Newcastle game hadn’t been removed from the slip, and with the result going against him the accumulator was lost. Despite arguing with the shop’s manager to try and save his unfortunate loss, the high street chain refused to accept their error, insisting that the machine hadn’t malfunctioned. “He asked for a copy of the betting slip to be emailed to him by the shop,” Watson said. “It clearly states the time is 13:30:03, but he quickly said he wasn’t paying out because the machine was correct to accept the bet.” 9. £2,499.55 lost on early cash-out If you think Gary Walter’s early cash-out was unfortunate, this anonymous punter’s cash-out was extremely premature. The mystery better had placed 50p on Leicester City at the start of the season, with odds on the lowly club winning the Premier League title at 5,000/1. Few thought Leicester City would survive in the top flight after narrowly avoiding relegation in the 2014/15 season. However, they started life under Claudio Ranieri well with a 4-2 victory over Sunderland. Unconvinced, the better decided to cash-out for just 95p, securing himself a profit of just 45p. The Foxes would embark on the most unbelievable Premier League campaign in history, as Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez fired the club to glory – a victory that would have won the him a far more impressive £2,500. Accumulators can win you huge amounts of money, but more times than not you the bookies will be the winners. Football trading is a much safer option if you want to make some serious profits betting on the football. 10. £49,000 lost by toddler Everyone knows that smartphone and children are a bad mix. If they aren’t blowing thousands of pounds on virtual currencies, they’re cashing out your accumulator bets prematurely, losing you a lot of money in the process, Gary Walter’s 3-year-old son cashed-out his potential £50,000 accumulator. Gary Walter, a 24-year-old father of two from Birmingham, was silly enough to leave his phone on the back-seat of the car next to his 3-year-old toddler, Archie. Earlier that day Mr Walter had placed a 13-team accumulator which was set to win him almost £50,000 if all of his predictions proved to be correct. With three correct scores already in and a cash-out value of just £7, Archie, unsurprisingly, picked up the phone and pressed the biggest, brightest button that he could see – cash-out. With ten games still to play, the accident didn’t seem quite so bad, but as results continued to go his way, or, at this point, against him, Mr Walter realised that he had missed out on a whopping£48,993. Read the full article
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