Tag: GameStop

Dog Days of January Grab Bag Blog – 1.28.2021

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“Dog Days” is a term generally used for summer and I believe (completely assumed with zero context or sources) is a reference to a dog’s preference to just kind of lie there when it gets unbearably hot in the summer; a practice humans enjoy taking on as well. However I feel like that sort of mood applies to the January/February time-frame as well. It’s cold out. You don’t really want to go anywhere. Sometimes there’s a global pandemic you want to avoid. You’re wearing comfy clothes and relaxing on your preferred comfortable chair/couch. It’s just a lazy time of year.

With that said the blog don’t sleep, so Joey B. can’t rest. There’s a number of things worthy of touching on in the sports world and beyond. So let’s do just that, perhaps over a cup of hot cocoa.

Conor McGregor Dominated By Dustin Poirier

There are six COMMON outcomes for an MMA fight. Not total, but common. Each fighter can win by decision, KO/TKO, or submission (3×2=6). Going into last Saturday’s main event I would have said “Poirier-KO/TKO” would have been the fifth most likely outcome, only edging out McGregor by sub. Boy howdy was I wrong. He threw hard calf kicks to McGregor’s lead leg and he threw them often. He was flowing with his boxing and beating McGregor up. The Irishman never looked comfortable and didn’t seem totally sure of himself. This all culminated in a finish in Rd2. A big question before the fight was what Conor McGregor’s next would move be if he lost? Now that we’ve arrived at that scenario the answer is all the more fleeting. Speculators like myself have long said the third Nate Diaz fight would always would be there. I guess it is, but after watching the unsure, rigid version of McGregor we saw last Saturday, it just doesn’t seem as exciting of a prospect. The man himself angled for a third fight with Poirier, and somewhere down the line that has to happen. McGregor dominated the first, Poirier dominated the second. But in the immediate future Poirier gets to call his shot, be it a “money” fight with Nate Diaz or a title fight, for Khabib Nurmagomedov’s presumably vacated belt, against Charles Oliveira. Re-matching a man he just soundly defeated and is 3-3 in his last six MMA fights and 1-1 at 155lbs in the UFC doesn’t make any sense. It is a tricky conundrum indeed at this time to determine a match up could keep McGregor at the top of a PPV card while not finding him the vast underdog.

Deshaun Watson Officially Wants Out

As reported by Adam Schefter today, Deshaun Watson has officially asked for the fuck out of Houston and the Realm of Littlefinger Jack Easterby. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean his time in Houston is definitely over, but I can’t be the only one that feels like there is no turning back for the team or the player. This begs the question of what kind of package Houston wants for Watson. A lot of folks on twitter are saying it’s going to take an absolute haul of picks + talent from the trade partner + possibly some extra bodies for cap/contract reasons. That does indeed make sense. But what I don’t think can be overlooked is what Houston is losing here: their starting QB. What that makes me wonder is whether or not the Texans see some value in, or quite possibly were once enamored with pre-draft, a few of the young QBs that have fallen out of favor with their current team. There will be an unprecedented, to say the least, amount of starting/starting caliber QB movement this off-season. It’s not just Deshaun Watson seeking a new home. So rather than just looking at usual suspects when evaluating who may go after Watson, think of teams that may have both an interest in the Clemson product and a player to offer who could possibly take a shot at replacing him: Chicago (Mitch Trubisky), Denver (Drew Lock), New York-B (Sam Darnold), San Francisco (Jimmy Garoppolo), Philadephia (Carson Wentz). You get the idea.

Bradley Beal Becomes First Player To Lose Ten Straight 40-Point Games

What a brutal fucking stat and reality. I’m not the most gigantic hoops fanatic, but I’ve felt for awhile that Bradley Beal was a phenomenal player playing in the wasteland that is D.C. His talent is completey overshadowed by the ineptness of his franchise. Yesterday simply put an exclamation point on the end of that sentence. Ten straight games of scoring an absurd amount of points only to fucking lose. That just has to hurt. And we know it hurts, because it has become one of the internet’s favorite things to get a laugh out of poor Bradley Beal’s body language. Just head in his hands on the bench, thinking “what the fuck did I do to deserve to be here?” This has of course brought on heaps of trade speculation and knowing the Wizards he’ll probably get moved. Let’s hope the man can find some greener pastures. And some happiness.

Nerds On Reddit Defeated And Possibly Ended A Couple Of Hedge Funds In The Name Of GameStop

I don’t know nor care as much about this as I should but I’d be a dick if I didn’t mention it so here we are. Basically, a couple of large hedge funds (boutique investment firms that take big risks HEDGED (wink wink) by betting other money elsewhere in the investment world….or something like that) bet huge money that GameStop’s stock would tank. That makes sense because GameStop is failing and has lost money for something like 12 consecutive quarters. However betting that this will happen actually causes the stock to drop because, stock market. In comes Reddit and the whole crowdfunding thing and “investors” all over started betting ON GameStop, both to be dicks to the Wall Street dicks and also because if they could get the GameStop stock to go up so that THEY’D make money instead of the hedge funds. And Reddit won. One of the hedge funds might even have to close shop which is hilarious. Overall just a chaotic, wacky thing to have happen. Lots of nerds and woke people saying THIS IS WHY THE STOCK MARKET IS BAD. (Calm Down). It’s kind of like playing poker against someone who has no idea what they’re doing. You should be able to wipe them but with ignorance of the game comes their inability to know what a bluff is etc. and they kill you, much to you and your liver’s chagrin.

Drake Pushes Back Album Release Due To Torn ACL

I have no idea why I am so fascinated by this story. There will be no touring for the foreseeable future so it isn’t like Drizzy was smartly avoiding a loss of income. Was he going to celebrate the release of “Certified Lover Boy” on a trampoline? Has having a home gym + quarantine brain actually made him believe he’s a pro-athlete? I’m not sure. I just know that with the fluidity with which music is created and release these days it doesn’t make sense that Wheelchair Jimmy had to delay his album release for a bum knee.

-Joey B.

GameStop is On the Table and It’s Gone to Code

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LinkedIn – The world’s largest video game retailer is shutting down nearly 200 of its 5,700 stores worldwide. Like so many other consumers across multiple different categories of retail, gamers have increasingly turned to buying games online. GameStop’s CEO said this is only the beginning and they expect a “much larger tranche of closures over the coming 12 to 24 months.”

It’s not a gigantic leap to say that our generation more than any other has taken the most metaphorical kicks to our nostalgia’s dicks. We came up during a truly unique time in that we saw the crossover in landlines to cell phones, in newspapers to the internet, in mail and inner-office memos to email, and from brick and mortar stores to online shopping. We have strong, lucid memories from both eras and thus feel a tug at the heart strings when we read something like this. It just kinda sucks. We don’t know why, as I doubt many reading this, including our EIC, have been in a GameStop in the past 5-10 years (Editor’s note: I have), but it does indeed suck.

To be honest I’m surprised GameStop took this long to fall. One because entertainment as a whole went almost entirely only/off-hard copy faster than most other industries. “Remember Blockbuster?” is asked with almost the same morbid respect and mourning that “Remember the Alamo” is stated by so many Texans. Secondly, gaming as a sub-industry has really taken off in the internet age. I never went beyond Madden and a couple of versions of Medal Of Honor, but in this day and age it is apparently perfectly acceptable to be a complete and utter nerd and try and make your living growing bed sores while buying and playing video games online. So it is kind of shocking a brick and mortar gaming store is just now deciding to call it quits.

It’s fair to wonder which staple of our upbringing is next to fall as digital entertainment and lifestyles become more and more of the norm. It is also fair to wonder if that fall also coincides with a visit from a belligerent transexual  thus making such occurrences the new grim reaper for the previous generation of consumerism. Either way, expect more and more of the things we know and love to fall by the wayside while dipshits from youtube become millionaires.

I apologize for the turn for the cynical.

-Joey B