I’d Like To Talk About My Friend Mike

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This isn’t the normal sports or pop culture “innings eater” blog you’re used to reading here. So ya, feel free to move it along.

It is the end of National Mental Health Month for 2020 and for obvious reasons I think less was made of it this year. That’s not meant to be a critical statement, it’d be almost calloused to not allow the train wreck ensuing around us to not supersede a slow-burn topic such as mental health. But nonetheless, I felt it was important for someone here at The 300s to say something. To #breakthestigma a little bit if you want to be cliched, bordering on antiquated at this point.

Like most (all?) of my compatriots at this fine little blog I’m actually a college graduate. Unlike (I think?) the rest of the staff I took a road a little less travelled: I was a transfer student. For my freshman year, I went to an out-of-state private school with a great program for my anticipated field. I had a lot of fun and met some awesome people. The problem was I was four hours away from home and it was a huge “suitcase school” which meant everyone was from the area and went home on the weekends. So I rolled the dice and transferred to one of the many state schools here in MA.

When I was notified I was accepted, I was also told in the same letter that I had the good fortune of being placed in a “forced triple” (more on that later). Yippee. I was given the names and contact info for the two guys I was paired up with so we could get in touch and say our “hello”’s. One guy was immediately kind of standoffish, if not a little aggressive. I should mention here he later told us it was more of a defense mechanism for living on his own for the first time and we later became friends and have kept in touch. But ya, that first conversation he really sort of tried to assert himself as the alpha male. Considering this was the first time we had exchanged words it was a very “oooooo-k” moment. The other guy was Mike. What was he like? Well all I really remember is he was a lot of energy, friendly as hell, and used the phrase “that’s a good look” a lot. I had no clue what to make of him. Or what I had gotten myself into.

I arrived in at school late August 2008. Remember that forced triple I mentioned? Well if that was at all a mysterious term to you it’s basically a double room they stick an extra bed in (or on top of another bed, to be specific). To recap: A CRAMPED forced triple, late August, Massachusetts. It was fucking hot. Like, brutally hot to the point we hated being in the room when the sun was up. Still, we made do. To our luck, on that end, we were actually placed in a section of the building with a lot of transfers (including a forced QUAD) so we made friends that were having the same experience. But to be brutally honest the whole thing would have been totally fucked without Mike. Within a couple of weeks it was like we were best friends. Not only did we just get along in general, but we both liked the same shit: crushing beers, dropping absurd lines on the girls we’d just met, crushing more beers, and wing-maning each other. God did we love that. We almost liked seeing who could get the assist more than who could get laid. He also, to his credit, made it a point to hype me up. One thing we shared was we both had gone through really rough breakups the year before. He seemed to be able to sort of just ignore his but I was literally a shell of a person. He was basically a DJ Khaled-esque presence literally in my ear, telling me how awesome I was (which clearly wasn’t totally true). I don’t know if he ever understood how much that kept me going.

Anyway, within a month he dbrought me back to his hometown to meet his family and friends. That one trip became a handful. Those people were his rock, his support system. You see, beyond the breakup Mike confided in me he had had problems with things like “depression” and “anxiety” since he was about 12. But being around these people who truly loved him, and fuck did they ever, helped him get through the bad times. It was a wonderful thing to witness just a tightknit group of like, 30 people.

That semester, my first as a transfer, was really something. We partied, we spit game to anything that walked, when it got too hot in the room we’d take beers and a tin to one removed shower stalls (“leav one empty for the holy spirit”) and pack a lip, crack a beer, and talk about that night or whatever. It was so dumb but so much fun. Towards the end of the semester, as it cooled down and eventually we started talking about the holidays, Mike, surprisingly, revealed he was probably going to transfer to another school a town over from his. He went home a lot as it was but it wasn’t enough to keep himself steady, and/or happy. I was sad, but I understood. So we went home for Thanksgiving, and then in a few weeks Christmas. I headed up to see him and his buddies and rip it up a few times. The next semester was kind of a blur. As I reflect on it now I realize I kind of had to reset my social life. The same friends we had hung out with were still there but my main man wasn’t. I probably saw him twice, including a hilarious story where in June he abandoned me at his house, where his mom and sister were sleeping, to go hook up with some chick he had met upon going to a bar legally for the first time. Thanks a lot.

Summer through fall of 09’ moved fast because I worked a ton and in general was just busy. I think the end of that summer was also when a buddy from high school moved into a house off campus at BC so you might say we had some nights. But I kept in touch with Mike and made it out to hang a couple times. He was by that point, only a year after we met, one of my closest confidantes, one of my best friends.

That semester at school, junior year, I moved into an on-campus apartment which was a huge upgrade and the best living situation you can have other than an off-campus house. It was a great year both in terms of everything we did socially (including a lot of us turning 21), sports-wise (we got the rugby team fully up and running, you name it. I visited Mike and he got me into a bar in Worcester underage and I ended up making out with a girl I wasn’t supposed too which he found hilarious. We just never fell out of step, I’m sure we’ve all had friends like that.

Later in 2010 is when I think it happened. Although now, as fucking sad as it makes me, I can’t remember the last real time we really spoke or saw each other. It had to of been that spring-ish because I know we went out at least once together legally and my birthday is in early spring. Something changed though. For really no reason. Suddenly my texts stopped getting returned as much. He had one lame excuse or another. I knew he had school, and a job now, which he didn’t always. He had a new girlfriend too who he seemed really into. To tell you the truth? I remember being more happy for him than anything else. I could have been normal me which is bitter and annoyed but I was happy my friend who had been through a lot of shit was seeing the sun for once. Who was I to be pissed off at that?

By the time senior year began, however, we had basically lost contact. I can honestly tell you I committed to never stop trying, but I could never get him to really send me anything back. I think I got a succinct message in mid-2011 maybe? Which was after I graduated? And by this time I was hurt. I remember being hurt. What the fuck had I done? And I remember being worried. After all he had told me about all the struggles he had had was this a bad sign? Should I tell someone. I think I did? We had mutual friend who I knew still so him and who I reached out to and asked how he was. I told him my concerns. He just said Mike had been busy, he had the girlfriend and school and such. He’d mention it to him to not be a dick and hit Joey back. We’d all hang out soon. It gave me some hope. I still didn’t really hear a peep out of him. I got one really odd message sometime in mid-late 2011 where he told me he had blocked a bunch of numbers or something to that effect because of something to do with a family members job (I know I’m being very vague but that is for privacy reasons, obviously. And no, this wasn’t totally a paranoid delusion more like a possibly convenient excuse). Needless to say, by the time 2011 became 2012 I was truly worried. Social media told me the girlfriend might be gone and I didn’t see anything about the job either. And I was still sad. What the fuck happened with me and one of my best friends? I moved to New Jersey for awhile and came back. I got my first “big boy” job. I had a life and friends and a lot to look forward to. I was, as a lot of people I think are when they’re 23, scared shitless. But I was overall happy. Still, there was that nagging at the back of my mind: how do I get my friend back? Or at least find out what happened?

By late 2012 I was living on my own for the first time in a non-college setting, i.e paying my own way. I had enough for rent, nutritionally-questionable food, and beer on the weekend. To ease some of this burden I got a weekend job working the door at a bar in Boston. That’s where I met Red and some of the rest of the crew here. Although it was a sacrifice to waste a weekend night dealing with people having too much of the good time you wished you were having, we had a blast with it. It was a great crew of guys and at the end of the night we’d revel in the preposterousness of our clientele’s behavior. Catching up at the end of the night having a beer after closing time was the best because we actually wouldn’t see each other during the shift itself. We all had different stations. Red and a few other guys worked at various spots inside for the most part. I worked (outside) the door checking the IDs with another (quite large) guy and so on and so forth.

One night however, I was asked to work the back door, which was just a terrible assignment. My guess is I was just a pretty steady door guy (I had done it before) and in general had decent instincts in terms of when to dive into a fracas and when to stay out. I knew when someone was too fucked up and when they weren’t. You know, normal life skills. Thinking back I believe what I was told was we worked with a bunch of, although well-intentioned, dipshits. To mitigate this issue, one of them would be paired with the other guy at the front and I would go to the back door where your sole duty was to make sure no one came in that way, which wasn’t allowed for headcount-keeping purposes. Red and someone else with a functioning brain would take the other 2/3 remaining corners of the room and we could all have a line of sight to each other and thus form an effective team. Delta Force: Faneuil Hall.

It was about 11:30. I remember that. So let’s say three and a half hours into a six hour shift. I took a quick peak at my phone as I was both not allowed and wont to do. I had a text. I flipped my phone open (you read that right) and saw the sender was Mike’s sister. And I knew. I knew it immediately. I opened the message.

“Hey Joe it’s _____. I just wanted to make sure you knew about Michael.”

So that’s how I found out. Everything went silent around me. It kind of stopped mattering in the way things do when you find out your life has been altered completely, even as tangential as the alteration was at that point. I texted a couple of his friends and confirmed how he’d died, which I’ll allow you to infer. I think I was just in shock. Standing there, surrounded by dense revelry, only at that stage considering mourning one of my best friends. I finished my shift at two and had my after work beer and listened to a couple stories and caught a cab home. I walked in sat down on the couch and it all came out. All at once.

I don’t remember much of the next few days except going to the wake, not very stoically. I remember going to my parents immediately after and losing it again. I remember the next couple of weeks just being fuzzy. Because of so many “what-ifs?”, because of an inability to focus on anything, because of the booze I repelled both with. Everything man. And through all of this I couldn’t help but, selfishly, keep asking the same question over and over again: did this kid die hating me?

I guess that’s my point in all this. I’m not going to end with some stupid, holier-than-thou fucking speech about how wrong and selfish suicide is. Because it probably isn’t, right? Mike suffered for over ten years with an excruciating illness, no matter how invisible. If someone suffered that long with something more tangible you wouldn’t blame them, would you? No, I guess my point is, if I even have one, is that we all have the potential to make the as big of an impact on someone or something as Mike did on me. Even if someone doesn’t think they’re leaving anyone behind, I’d challenge them to wonder if it’s just that they’re not leaving them behind yet? And I’d ask if maybe that’s worth sticking around a little while longer, no matter how much longer, for. I guess when it’s your time it’s you time. But maybe someone does need it not to be yet.

To end this, I’d just like to add that in spring 2015 I was invited to a cookout in Mike’s memory. I messaged his sister (having since gotten a smartphone and losing her number) (she actually never liked me much) since I hadn’t spoken to her or his family in awhile. I asked if it was cool if I came. I also asked her to just tell me: Had he, at the end, hated me? He hadn’t.

-Joey B.

The “Snyder Cut” of Justice League is Coming to HBO Max

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ComicBook.com – Warner Bros. announced today that the Snyder Cut version of Justice League will be making its debut on HBO Max. It’s been over two years since Justice League opened in theaters and since then, while the film has largely fallen out of the general cultural conversation, it’s been very much alive with fans. Many of whom have been pleading with and demanding that Warner Bros. release the so-called “Snyder Cut” of the film.

Fans determined to see director Zack Snyder’s version of the DC team-up film have been passionate, online and off in their efforts to get the version brought to screen and now, those efforts have paid off…Earlier this month, a report indicated that Snyder held a private screening of his version of Justice League during the first quarter of 2020 with Warner Bros. executives in attendance. The report indicated that the screening may have gotten the wheels turning for something involving Snyder’s vision for the film – a version that Snyder himself has confirmed exists with at least some completed CGI.

If theres been one positive to this whole dumpster fire coronavirus quarantine is that it’s forced the hands of every entertainment company in the world to get creative with its content. We’ve been hearing about the #SnyderCut for 2+ years after director Zack Snyder left Justice League before finishing it, only to see the project completed (and tweaked) without him and ultimately panned by critics and fans as yet another mixed bag of mediocrity from DC. Well after years of incessant tweeting from DC fan boys with claims of how the #SnyderCut would have been entirely different and made for a better film…this better not suck. Snyder has taken up the mantle of twitter fans, which is a risky endeavor because expectations have long since gone past the point of reasonable. It could be an incredible movie that resurrects Justice League and turns it into what we all hoped it would be…or it could be a gigantic letdown after three years of hype from fans based on blind hope.

It does seem like HBO Max is serious about this though because there is some serious work going into it. Obviously as an unfinished cut of a superhero movie there is likely loads of CGI that needs to be put together. Hollywood Reporter is saying $20-$30 million was put into finishing the project and the #SnyderCut could premiere as a FOUR HOUR director’s cut like he’s Billy Walsh.

“This is my fucking deer hunter.” – Billy Walsh” – Zack Snyder

Probably because I am a gigantic nerd, but I have an affinity for comic book or video game movies gone awry because so often immense potential is wasted and a monumental IP is shelved because of it. Looking at you live action Dragon Ball movie…

How did Emmy Rossum get cast in that piece of crap? And how did it double its original ($30M) budget at the box office? I’m getting off track…

Seriously after all we’ve heard about the #SnyderCut, this better be good or Zack Snyder might just get put in the Disney Vault by Hollywood execs. The DC Universe was one of the most frustrating, up and down collection of movies in recent memory. Man of Steel was pretty good, not amazing, but Henry Cavill was a great Superman and you could see the potential. Batman vs Superman had an absolutely incredible trailer, but ended up being a convoluted mess despite solid performances from Cavill, Ben Affleck as the new Batman, and Gal Gadot in a career making performance as Wonder Woman. Suicide Squad was similar with an awesome trailer and a finished product that left you scratching your head despite solid performances from Will Smith as Deadshot and Margot Robbie as a perfectly cast Harley Quinn. And after that I think like a lot of people I kind of just lost interest. I have yet to see Aquaman, despite my bro crush on Khal Drogo, Shazam, or Birds of Prey. I’ve heard at least 2/3 of those movies are surprisingly good, but there is zero cohesion between any of these movies as the DC Extended Universe ultimately collapsed on itself.

Affleck is out as Batman and theres been lingering rumors about Cavill exiting sooner than later so the DCEU is basically on life support. Gal Gadot’s mega hit Wonder Woman and the sheer charisma of Margot Robbie are the only thing keeping this whole experiment of the DCEU from getting put on ice.

So now we get the #SnyderCut, which if you believe the internet message boards is an entirely different and much improved film than what we all saw in the final version of Justice League. Granted I watched this movie on a 6 inch screen on a cross country flight, but it was just a mixed bag of forgettable scenes with Joss Whedon quippy dialogue shoehorned in.

**Spoiler Alert*** If you still haven’t seen it after two months of quarantine you might as well just pop it in and give it a go. It’s not terrible, but it is forgettable. The only thing I really remember from this movie was the predictable return of Superman after he was killed at the end of Batman vs Superman. Except because this movie required extensive reshoots, Cavill was already filming Mission Impossible where his character rocks a sweet sweet mustache. Well the studio for MI wouldn’t let him shave it so DC had to digitally remove Cavill’s mustache for some Superman scenes, which left us with one of my favorite images from any superhero flick.

Laugh out loud funny.

If you’re not familiar with the back story, Snyder left Justice League after the tragic death of his daughter so the studio brought in Marvel darling and Avengers director Joss Whedon to finish the movie. Except if you’ve ever seen the Avengers and compare it to literally anything Snyder has done (Superman, Batman vs Superman, Sin City, 300) they have diametrically opposing styles. Whedon’s work is bright and fully of quippy dialogue whereas Snyder has a lot of dark, brooding, gritty tones. So to throw Whedon in for the final leg as he noticeably tries to lighten up the final product, it just doesn’t gel. Hence the outcry for the #SnyderCut.

Now what the hell could possibly be that different about this original cut that would make the movie that much better? I mean Jason Momoa has been beating this drum forever and recently Gadot and Affleck joined in to champion this version of the movie. So it would have to be significantly different right? Well Phil Owen from The Wrap had a pretty interesting theory on how differently things could go in the #SnyderCut based on footage from the original trailer that wasn’t used and/or reworked.

there are items in “Batman v Superman” clearly intended to set up a very specific plot thread that never came to be — and those items are not referenced in “Justice League” at all. I’m talking about Bruce Wayne’s nightmare of an apocalyptic future in which Superman is evil, and the subsequent visit from what seems to be a time-traveling Flash warning Bruce about what Superman will become should Lois Lane be killed…So they at some point assemble the team and resurrect Superman inside the Kryptonian scout ship in Metropolis by some means –the Mother Box may not have been necessary given that the Kryptonians used that pool of amniotic fluid to make babies. After they bring Superman back, he goes crazy in the same way he does in the finished film, but his fight against the Justice League goes on much longer and doesn’t end with him reverting to normal. The government even gets involved, bringing tanks into the fight that Superman of course easily handles. However it ends, Superman does not go visit Kansas with Lois afterward, because that scene in the movie was a reshoot addition.

It’s possible that Lois shows up to try to calm him down and she is killed in the chaos (or something happens that somehow makes him think she’s killed), and it’s likely that Superman continues to be not quite right the rest of the movie and becomes the threat that Batman feared and which the Flash warned him about in “Batman v Superman.”

It would be a very Snyder-esque payoff to the the themes set up in the early goings — the idea that Superman was a beacon who gave the people of Earth a moral center, and whose death threw everyone into disarray. They bring him back but he no longer functions as that beacon of goodness, which in turn makes the moral situation on Earth that much murkier. It would make sense, too, that even an angry Superman would amass followers willing to fight, for him as we saw in Batman’s nightmare.

This would make so much more sense to have a legitimately menacing and dangerous Superman wreaking havoc for more than the 5 minutes he does in the final version of the film. Why all that build up for what amounts to a temper tantrum? I definitely recommend giving Owen’s article a read as a lot of his ideas work a lot better in theory than the final film, which completely punts on Darkseid in favor of hitting the wrap it up box with the undeveloped motivation of a forgettable villain in Steppenwolf.

I don’t know what to expect, but I’ll be checking it out for sure, which is all HBO can ask for with its latest venture HBO Max. If you’re a DirecTV subscriber like me you’ll get HBO Max for free. Otherwise things get kind of confusing based on who your provider is and you may have to pony up for the new streaming channel, even if you already pay for HBO.

While there is no concrete release date, HBO Max says to expect the #SnyderCut of Justice League in 2021 so it could be a while before we see it.

This ESPN Tom Brady Documentary is Going to Break Me

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Talk about conflicting emotions watching this teaser for Tom Brady’s upcoming documentary, Man in the Arena. This is the type of stuff that was better than porn in my household for the last 20 years: The Brady 6, The Great Brady Heist, Tom vs Time. I could go on and on, hell I wrote a full blog about exactly this: A List of the Top Tom Brady Documentaries, Cameos, and Skits to Watch While Self Quarantining. Watching this now though is bittersweet knowing Brady is no longer a Patriot. Hopefully the NFL is able to play games this season, but even if they are my favorite player of all time is down in Florida and it’s not in a retirement home.

A lot of New England fans hold a grudge against Brady for leaving and while I am upset he left, I can’t hold it against the guy after everything he’s done for this franchise. He became the greatest player of all time with what amounts to two Hall of Fame careers, won 6 Super Bowls, and turned the Patriots into the most successful dynasty in league history. So if after 20 years of working for a hard ass like Belichick he finally had enough and wanted to enjoy himself a bit more, as a person I get that.

I can’t believe he’s partnering with ESPN for this though. Especially after the success of Tom vs Time on Facebook. On the one hand, if I was Tom Brady and the media brand that tried to smear my reputation and destroy my career multiple times asked to partner with me on a documentary I would tell them to go piss up a rope. On the other hand, Brady is trying to get his 199 Productions studio running at full speed right out of the gate and ESPN is is the Worldwide Leader so it makes business sense. I’d rather tell ESPN to kick rocks than go into business with them if I’m Brady, but I guess this is why I wouldn’t be a very good politician.

But my god get the tissues ready because this documentary is going to break me. I feel like my Perfect 10 girlfriend left me and I’ve just been avoiding those emotions for months pretending nothing happened. I advise everyone to take Bill Burr’s sage advice on how to handle a breakup and deal with the little things:

My Adventures in Online Gambling

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777-full

Well, it’s the end of Week Eight in quarantine here in New Jersey. Like most of you, i’ve spent the better part of the last two months picking up and dropping an assortment of new hobbies. I got really into cooking for a week. I’ve spent an exuberant amount of time playing Animal Crossing. I bought a Peleton that broke less than a week into having it (what can I say, can’t exercise, my hands are tied). Overall, my mental health has completely deteriorated when it was borderline to begin with. So naturally, what’s the best quick-fix dopamine boost? Gambling.

One of the many benefits of living in the great state of New Jersey is the legal access to online gambling. At first, this hobby only reared it’s ugly head around noon on Sundays during the months of September through February. But since sports have subsequently been cancelled for the rest of eternity, my hand was forced and I switched over to online gaming. Yes, I could bet the few live sports available (the top bets on my sportsbook of choice are currently Korean Baseball, Belarus Soccer, and Russia Table Tennis). Unfortunately, I do not trust my judgement or knowledge on those selections to feel comfortable wagering any sort of real money.

So let me try to live blog this as it is happening. My go to table game in a real casino would be roulette. It’s as straightforward as they come. 36-1 odds on outright bets. They actually use live people to spin the wheel too which is an added bonus. Now I can share my misery with someone else. So here we go. Let’s spend a few bucks.

I started off with just 10 dollars. Can’t go crazy too soon. The girl spinning the wheel is an absolute riot. In the span of 30 seconds she complained she’s underpaid and that the chair she’s sitting in hurts her back. Somehow I actually managed to win on the first spin. A true quarantine miracle. I also fat fingered a 4 corner bet so not thrilled about that.

Next, I tried Blackjack. A true classic. However, this is played against the computer so I probably should have wised up immediately. Got completely smoked in a matter of 5 minutes. Cool. Moving on.

Digital slots. Another dumb move. Might as well just Venmo the casino and save everyone time. Embarrassing display, nothing to see here.

I’ve now returned to Roulette. Hoping for a second streak of luck. New girl working the wheel. She’s currently windexing the ball and the rim of the wheel. What a wild time to be alive.

Live Baccarat now. I’m not going to lie, I barely know how to play this and I only somewhat vaguely know because i’ve been reading a ton of James Bond books during quarantine. Small win here. Nevermind, completely gave it back.

One last attempt at slots. I never learn.

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Moral of the story, quarantine needs to end immediately.

 

That Time I Got Boom Roasted By Jeopardy Legend Ken Jennings On Twitter

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You come at the king you best not miss.

So now that my nightmare has finally been realized and Jeopardy has run out of new episodes, they have started airing reruns and they played Ken Jennings’ first appearance earlier this week. As I tweeted out, Jennings was an absolute weapon from Day 1, but it was far from a runaway as he barely won in Final Jeopardy. On a sports question no less, which the Jeopardy nerds notoriously struggle with.

The Final Jeopardy category was 2000 Olympics and the clue was “She’s the first female track & field athlete to win medals in five different events at a single Olympics.” The answer was Marion Jones. Ken Jennings’ answer: Jones.

Like I know for a fact that Jennings wins this episode, but watching it I wasn’t sure if Trebek was going to bust his balls for not being specific enough.

So Ken sounded off on all of us for questioning his knowledge of trivia.

I actually went searching for the official Jeopardy rules and the full rulebook is not actually that easy to find. There are some basic rules and strategy guidelines on the Jeopardy website, but these debates continue to rage in the internet streets. Although I did learn that in the event of a tie after Final Jeopardy, Trebek will read one tiebreaker clue for no additional money and the first contestant to buzz in with the correct answer walks off with the win.

In fairness though, I’ve seen Trebek not give people credit on an answer for less egregious omissions. Maybe, thats just me remembering Trebek smoking people over the years for infractions that I thought the judges should have accepted.

But hey its not just me, Jon Tomase legitimately wrote an article about the same exact thing yesterday.

Jennings simply wrote “Jones,” which could’ve been interpreted as a guess of a common name. But after consulting with the judges, host Alex Trebek declared the answer valid because, “in terms of female athletes, there aren’t that many.”

“I had been trained by years of ‘Jeopardy!’ watching and college quiz bowls that you only give the last name,” he said. “Because there’s then an additional opportunity to introduce some kind of error. By default, I just wrote down ‘Who is Jones?’ I didn’t even think what a common last name that is. It wasn’t until Alex revealed my answer that I realized it looked like I just guessed a random last name. Who is Jones? Who is Smith? Who is Williams? There was what seemed like an eternity of a pause. He looked at the judges’ table. It didn’t take too long before he got a nod.

“I don’t think it was a tough judgment call. The ‘Jeopardy!’ rule is almost always ‘the last name is acceptable by itself’ unless there’s a particular ambiguity, like Benjamin Harrison versus William Henry Harrison or something like that. I did think for a moment, ‘There are probably a number of American athletes named Jones, is it not clear I meant Marion Jones?’ I remember feeling this wave of euphoria when Alex said it was correct. Somehow, against all odds in these 20 minutes, I survived.”

It’s crazy how after winning 74 games in a row and over $5 million in his Jeopardy career, Jennings nearly was a one and done Jeopardy contestant. That is some serious butterfly effect type stuff right there.

2K Sports Just Announced PGA Tour 2K21 from the CLOUDS

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Last year I went on the hunt for a golf game actually made this century since as we all know Tiger Woods PGA Tour hasn’t been a thing in years. Luckily I stumbled on to The Golf Club 2019, which is a pretty solid game as well as a very realistic round of golf.

It can be a little too realistic at times though and just as frustrating as actual golf is sometimes. Think Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge.

So I would like something a little more casual as it pertains to the laws of physics. Hell I’d love a new Mario Golf platform game, which Nintendo has kept locked away in its IP vault since 2003 for some reason.

Well out of nowhere 2K sports just announced they are coming out with PGA Tour 2K21! Talk about some much needed good news during this never ending quarantine. This is huge because despite its solid gameplay, one of the biggest drawbacks to The Golf Club 2019 is that it doesn’t have the full PGA license so there are only a couple of real courses and zero real golfers in the game. Well PGA Tour 2K21 seems to have no such issues as the teaser shows off the gorgeous 17th green island at TPC Sawgrass.

PGA Tour 2K21 will actually be developed by HB studios too, which is the group that made The Golf Club 2019. 2K teased the fact that more info will be released next week. So help me God if this game isn’t coming out real soon because without actual golf or actual anything happening right now, I think we are all going a little stir crazy.

Take my $60 right now and let me and Brooks Koepka CRUSH the competition as we go for the Tiger Slam.

Apparently an American-led Crew of MERCENARIES Were Unsuccessful in Overthrowing the Government of Venezuela Today

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Aljazeera – Venezuelan security forces arrested dozens of people, including two Americans, after a beach invasion allegedly aimed at overthrowing President Nicolas Maduro – a plot said to involve US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido.

If you guessed that I’ve rewritten the beginning of this blog about 8 times now because there is just so much here than you guessed right. You know me and you get me.

We have MERCENARIES. Legit sellswords (probs guns but whatever) making a huge push to come back as the new hotness in international coup d’etats. We have rogue American veterans acting as the QB1s of the whole operation. We have, let’s just say, not the most excellent turn out when considering Venezuela is in fact an entire nation and 60 is not all that many soldiers. Lastly, we have the price tag of $212m, a ludicrously specific sum especially when factoring in the fact that that boils down to about $3.5m each. To OVERTHROW A GOVERNMENT. NOT a nice one either.

O, what’s that you say? You’d like a “TL:DR”, as the kids say? My pleasure:

Two American ex-super soldiers very misguidedly tried to overthrow the ruling regime of an entire South American country with about 60 heavily armed guys and all for what a late-first round pick would earn in the NFL.

I mean, is the job market THAT BAD? Especially for guys with the tactical and leadership training of veterans? Was it the thrill of combat and the allure of being involved in “an operation” that drew them in? Or were they just all, “if I’m going to die via Mexican beer viruses or murder hornets it’s going to be while doing what I love, which is firing assault rifles at tyrants.”

Fucking wild story man, one I’m sure we’ll get more details on down the line. But for now I raise a glass to you you crazy kids. At a time when basically everyone lacks ambition you chose to have too much

-Joey B.

(P.S – Lol it was totally the CIA.)

Steve Carell is Back On TV in “Space Force” and This is Exactly What I Needed

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The co-creator of Space Force is Greg Daniels, who was the co-creator of The Office, Parks and Rec, King of the Hill, and also won an Emmy as a writer on The Simpsons. That is an absolutely teflon resume for a TV writer. Throw Steve Carell into the mix and you have one of the most promising shows in a long time.

It’s not just Daniels and Carell either as the show has a cast of comedy vets including John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Fred Willard, Noah Emmerich, Lisa Kudrow, and Jessica St. Clair.

So we get a collection of some very funny actors, Steve Carell and Greg Daniels leading the way as co-creators, and it’s all on Netflix where they aren’t constrained by 22 minute episodes or F-bomb regulations from the FCC. Throw in the subject matter of Carell playing a general leading the (very real) newly created Space Force branch of the military and I am all in.

PS – Daniels was nominated for another Emmy for his song “Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart” in the season 5 episode he penned, “Homer and Apu”, which any Simpsons fan can sing to you right now.

Dolphins Announce Plan for Fans to Attend Games Amidst COVID-19 and Social Distancing Concerns

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Yahoo – Hard Rock Stadium can hold around 65,000 fans, but Garfinkel said it might be closer to a 15,000-fan maximum this season to adjust to social distancing and to keep everyone safe. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) currently recommends keeping six feet (two arms lengths) from other people and to avoid crowded places and mass gatherings.

The team would also schedule arrivals and assist with exiting after the game. The plans include fans being required to wear masks...The examples show colored spots on the ground to show what six feet of distancing looks like, not unlike what grocery stores have done near registers to keep from having a mass crush of people together in one spot.

Attendees would order food from their seats and leave to pick it up instead of waiting in line, just as people are doing elsewhere with curbside pickup.

I’m holding out hope for some semblance of sports to resume later this summer, but I’m not exactly optimistic. By all accounts, it would seem our best bet of sports returning any time soon is some form of games without fans in attendance. Even that has plenty of hurdles to overcome, most of which revolve around logistics. The NBA has kicked around the idea of every team playing a tournament in Las Vegas, while basically on lockdown in a bubble. MLB has considered restructuring leagues and having teams play games in just a handful of Spring Training stadiums to reduce cross country travel, but even that would require players to be away from their families for four months straight. So every story you read about how or when sports can return leaves me with a pretty bleak outlook.

However, a failure to plan is a plan to fail so teams are doing their due diligence and trying to figure out how exactly they could safely allow fans back in the stadiums.

The Dolphins came out with a proposed plan of how to safely bring back fans once the government gives the green light and it has a serious dystopian future vibe.

  • 15,000 fans allowed in the stadium (compared to 65,000 normally)
  • All fans required to wear masks
  • Order food and drinks from your seats rather than waiting in line
  • Staggered arrival times and exiting “much like a church environment, where each row exits so people aren’t filing out all at the same time in a herd.”

Before all this I was a borderline germaphobe, so I am not going to be one of the first fans jumping through hoops just to pay $200 to attend a game in person. Sports on TV would be more than enough for me right now, but you know plenty of people are dying to get out of the house and return to something resembling normal.

Who knows, maybe this becomes the preferred way of going to a game and it acts like a form of EZ-Pass. With just 15,000 people and assigned entrance times you could just breeze into town and right up to your seat. Anyone who has been to a Pats game in the last decade knows its a 3 hour tour just getting out of the parking lot and back home after a game. OR the demand for tickets will go through the roof because of the limited supply and we’ll all look back and laugh at how cheap $200 Patriots tickets were before COVID.

It’s crazy to think about how the next Patriots home game could look more like a college lacrosse game with less than a quarter of the seats filled, and have it not be because Tom Brady’s gone. It’s going to take a long time for things to return to normal, if at all, depending on how long the coronavirus lingers. So until then we’ll have to take what we can get as everything from our offices to bars and restaurants to concerts and games at Gillette Stadium slowly figures out how to bring people back together once again.

Nicolas Cage is Playing Joe Exotic the Tiger King in a New TV Series Because Why Not?

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Variety – Nicolas Cage is set to star in a scripted series centered on Joe Exotic, the subject of the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King,” Variety has learned exclusively.

The eight-episode series is being produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios. It will be taken to market in the coming days. It is based on the Texas Monthly article “Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild,” by Leif Reigstad.

What a time to be alive. I fought against Tiger King for about a week before I caved because I’m a contrarian by nature. If everyone likes it so much it must be pandering garbage for simpleminded people was my original thinking. I watched the first ep and thought okay this white trash asshole illegally buys and sells tigers, why do I need 7 more hours of this? Well when I dipped my toe back into the tiger infested waters a couple of days later, I ended up watching the remaining 7 episodes in one sitting.

Joe Exotic is undeniably a white trash asshole that deserves to be in jail for murdering endangered animals, but my goodness is the man fascinating. Besides the fact that Exotic is as he describes himself ” the gay, gun-carrying redneck with a mullet,” the Netflix series was so fascinating because it followed a man down a completely self destructive path despite having every reason to avoid rocking the boat. I mean the man married two guys at once rocking a cowboy hat, repeatedly threatened to murder his arch nemesis on YouTube, and even ran a competitive campaign for Governor of Oklahoma.

You’ve all seen the greek tragedy that is Tiger King so I won’t recite all the details, but in all seriousness WHO better to play Joe Exotic than Nicolas Cage? Is there anyone other than this guy you’d want taking this role?

Nic Cage has perfected the art of playing an absolute lunatic and losing his shit in just about every movie he’s in. Now picture him with a bleached blonde mullet threatening to murder a fellow zoo owner while he wrestles tigers and his two husbands smoke a billion pounds of meth in the office? I really don’t want to glorify the Tiger King any more than he already has been, but goddamnit I can’t quit you Joe Exotic.

Apparently Kate McKinnon also has a Tiger King show of her own on the horizon as she’s set to portray Carole Baskins. So this dysfunctional group of characters isn’t going anywhere for a while.