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He Became Convinced the School Board Was Pushing “Transgender Bullshit.” He Ended Up Arrested — and Emboldened.

Eric Jensen, a parent in North Carolina, had grievances to air about library books “trying to convert kids to gay,” and about mask and vaccine mandates. So he joined an activist group and headed to a school board meeting.

Wearing the Cape

WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO? Hope did, but she grew out of it. Which made her superhuman breakthrough in the Ashland Bombing, just before starting her freshman year at the University of Chicago, more than a little ironic. And now she has some decisions to make. Given the code-name “Astra” and invited to join the Sentinels, Chicago’s premier super-team, will she take up the cape and mask and become a career superhero? Or will she get a handle on her new powers (super-strength has some serious drawbacks) and then get on with her life-plan?In a world where superheroes join unions and have agents, and the strongest and most photogenic ones become literal supercelebrities, the temptation to become a “cape” is strong. But the price can be high—especially if you’re “outed” and lose the shield of your secret identity.Becoming a sidekick puts the decision off for awhile, but Hope’s life is further complicated when The Teatime Anarchist, the supervillain responsible for the Ashland Bombing, takes an interest in her. Apparently as Astra, Hope is supposed to save the world. Or at least a significant part of it.

Super hero stories are better known for being told through a comic book medium, so I’m always happy to run into a long form novel that attempts to tell a story, and boy howdy am I happy that I found my way to the “Wearing The Cape” series. It’s always a fantastic feeling when you love a book, then find out there 10 more in the series, and to top it all off, they’re all on Kindle Unlimited.

The universe that Marion Harmon has created feels fully fleshed out from the first novel, with novel interpretations of classic super powers and a singularly unique take on a classic science fiction trope that I’ve never run into before. I’ve seen literally hundreds of hours of content involving that concept and this is the first time I’ve ever seen this particular version of it, which blew my mind. While reading this first book I was constantly reminded of Max Brooks’ “World War Z”, less for the content and more for the writing style and considerable back stories that happen throughout, with some in depth thoughts on tried and true superhero situations that I’ve started to take for granted.

I can’t recommend this enough if you’re a superhero fan.

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The Rocketeer and Betty 2-Pack by Executive Replicas

Pre-orders have been opened for a new action figure 2-pack from Executive Replicas. The set features The Rocketeer and Betty 1/12 Scale Figures. The comic inspired set features two fully articulated figures that stand roughly 6″ tall. The Rocketeer includes masked and unmasked portraits, multiple interchangeable hands, a removable rocket pack, a pistol, and a…

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The Mighty Thor from Love and Thunder in the new statues by Iron Studios!

While the winds of a storm conjured by her mystic hammer shake her red cape, the majestic figure of a space Viking warrior introduces herself with her Goddess of Thunder Asgardian armor over a rocky mountain pedestal. With her identity hidden by the mask of a winged helmet, she rises the powerful ha

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Recent Comic Cover Updates For 2023-01-15

Click For The Comic Covers Uploaded This Week

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2022 TGIOKDI Year In Review

Looks like I’m a few days late on my 2022 break down, no reason for the delay other than I started it, saved the draft, then went about my life oblivious to the fact I never finished writing.  2022 was a year of beginnings and a couple endings for me.  February saw my wife going back to the office due to the Governor wanting good press for himself, where she was promptly infected with covid, which I then caught.  At this point we had both of the main shots and I believe a booster, so while it sucked, it sucked much less than it could have.  I’ll still hold a grudge against the idiot governor though, he was reckless in ordering so many people back into a shared office environment and he’s personally responsible for me getting the virus.

It was about a month after the infection that we did one more round of IVF, which failed to produce any results, so we’ve given up on having children.  It’s tough to write that, but it is what it is.  Right after we got this news we decided that it was time to start re-entering the general public because we had all the boosters, we had been infected, and honestly we were just done with being safe or smart about the viral situation, so caution was thrown to the wind and we went to a Chinese buffet.  It was a good meal, but a very weird sensation, being in public and eating without any kind of mask on for the first time in nearly 2 years.

In May, one of my cats passed after a slow decline, so while it wasn’t an unexpected situation, it still sucked.  It was right around that time too that we had another foster cat (Nyx!) who had six kittens, but only had three survive (one of whom had a odd coughing problem due to malformed lungs…we foster failed with her, so now she’s part of the cat colony forever).

The sense of not having control of my life was compounded by my employer making some business consolidations, with hundreds of people being severanced in the prior year or so, and looking at the labor market made me made some decision about making some educational efforts.  I never did finish my degree back when I was in college the first time around back in 1999-2002, so Summer 2022 I started online courses, which I’m about half way through at this point, with classes starting back up next week.  I’m planning on being done by the end of summer 2023, but ultimately it’s going to be an expensive piece of paper that won’t inform or guaranty a job, but at least I feel like I’m doing something about my situation instead of just being a backseat rider to all the crazy stuff going on in my personal life or with the American economy in general.

Over that summer, I finally have nickeled and dimed myself to having a pretty decent twitch streaming setup, then got my first few payments from the twitch too! It was like $50 for a year’s worth of streaming, but it made me feel great about putting a fish tank on the twitch.

In July, I reorganized my home office, hiding all my comic long boxes behind a bookshelf in my closet, so you can’t see all the cardboard, but I know they’re still there. I looks so much better now, I’m considering doing the same thing to the other side of the closet, so it’ll look like it’s just one big bookcase on that wall.

In 2021 I thought I’d start putting some grass in my front yard, which the first step was raking all the leaves and detritus that had accumulated in the prior ten years since I last raked it. I finished that project and actually put down some seed, most of which was washed away in the rain, but some of it stayed and now it’s actually growing and it’s actually green! I need to get back out there and rake again, but I’m impressed that it was that easy in what I actually had to do. Bagging all that stuff up into 40+ bags was really not much fun, but the end result is great. Now maybe I’ll do the same thing for my bag yard?

Media consumption by the numbers

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The Trial of the Incredible Hulk

The Trial of the Incredible Hulk: Directed by Bill Bixby. With Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno, Marta DuBois, Nancy Everhard. When Banner is held as a witness to a violent crime linked to the Kingpin, the fugitive is helped by lawyer Matt Murdock who is also the superhero, Daredevil.

This is the movie that I actually meant to buy, as it features Stan “The Man” Lee as one of the random jury members during a dream sequence trial of the Incredible Hulk. That’s right: the name of the movie is based on something that doesn’t even ‘really’ happen in the film! That oddity aside, DAREDEVIL shows up, and if you hadn’t told me his name, I might not have recognized him, as he’s wearing his black togs and mask. John Rhys-Davies plays The Kingpin to such an 80’s degree that I honestly feel I can mention him in the same breath as the other actors that have play the character, just with the caveat that he’s in a made for tv 80’s film and they go hard on the 80s feels.

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Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal

In Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet and Clank once again team up for an all-new adventure that combines diverse gameplay with elements of action, exploration, adventure, puzzle-solving, strategy, and role-playing into one experience. Together with the Q-Force, Ratchet and Clank set off to uncover the schemes of the sinister Dr. Nefarious and keep the galaxy safe for organic life. As one of three characters, you can now wield new weapons and gadgets, gain access to an array of vehicles, and master all-new abilities. The game also features both single-player and multiplayer (offline and online) gameplay.

This is the third game in the trilogy that was uprezzed for the PS3 from older PS2 games. There’s still a couple more ps2 remasters to play before I get to the first ‘real’ ps3 game, but if the quality continues to increase at the rate it’s been going for these three games, I’m perfectly happy playing through as many as necessary. The graphics are much better, the gameplay is much smoother, and the weapons are much more interesting. There’s also plenty of fun story elements that kept me engaged for the entirety of the game. It does show it’s age at times, with a President of the galaxy that sounds like Bill Clinton, and some mask stuff that might have been cool back in the day, but landed oddly here.

One more thing that I appreciated is Armin Shimerman as Doctor Nefarious, a perfectly pleasant villain that prompts the entire affair by trying to convert the galaxy into robots.

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Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn: Directed by Radu Jude. With Katia Pascariu, Claudia Ieremia, Nicodim Ungureanu, Olimpia Malai. Emi, a school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked on the Internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, Emi refuses to surrender to their pressure.

As a subtitled film, this fell to the bottom of my watch list, and as a film with no US distribution, finding a copy of it to watch wasn’t a fun endeavor, but if you do get the opportunity, try to give this one a go. I do suggest skipping the US version, as nearly a quarter of the film is cut out due to the “extreme” pornographic material shown throughout the film, but honestly the original version was all that titillating or difficult to watch. In fact, the sexual acts were much less objectionable than the third act’s “parent / teacher” meeting in which all the community members were judging here for her actions with her own husband, accusing her of being a whore, harlot, slut, communist, capitalist, pedophile, or just a ‘bad influence’ on the kids she was teaching in school. I find no problems with the video she shot with her husband, and I’m pretty sure that if the same thing happened in the US that the same kind of manufactured puritanical outrage would be expressed, but it’s still terrifying to think that she would be treated as the offender when she’s actually the victim of several crimes, the least of which is the theft of her video.

On a side note, this film was made entirely outside of the US, but nearly every scene features something that either physically came from the US or a concept like a covid mask that says “I can’t breath” that originated from culturally from my country. It’s both interesting and disturbing to see how deeply our ideas and situations are embedded into the global zeitgeist.

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California Tiki

After World War II, suburbs proliferated around California cities as returning soldiers traded in their uniforms for business suits. After-hours leisure activit

It should be no surprise that I found this book to be both entertaining and informative, as I’ve long has a fascination with what I knew of pop tiki culture since I was in high school and was introduced to it through MTV’s Beachhouse Tiki God. The MTV version was terrible on nearly every level, but it was the seed that grew into wanting to know more and forming an identity for myself. I’m the proud owner of a ton of pop tiki stuff, including a tattoo of a defunct tiki toy line taking up a large portion of a calf, and about half a dozen tiki masks that friends and family have gotten me through the years. Jason Henderson and Adam Foshko have put together a well researched and mostly light hearted 126 page book that goes into the morbid details of the origins of the genre, how it faded into near nothingness, and why it’s been in something of a resurgence in the last decade.

Of particular interest to me is the amount of transmedia sections there are with dozens of movies, music albums, and musicals to check out to get a solid feel for what the original pop tiki movement was like. No need to just take their word for it, just go watch “Gidget”, “GIrls Girls Girls”, or “The South Seas” to see for yourself, maybe even thrown in “The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit” if you want a much heavier story that gets to real origins.

Pop Tiki might be the last large scale cultural appropriation that the USA will be able to get away with, and it may be the one that lasts the longest since it’s so well rooted in the ideology of American exceptionalism, escapism, and appreciation for open hospitality that the islanders exhibited during WW2 that led the returning military personnel to create their own versions of cargo cults here in the mainland.

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Moon Knight

Moon Knight: Created by Doug Moench. With Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, May Calamawy, F. Murray Abraham. Steven Grant discovers he’s been granted the powers of an Egyptian moon god. But he soon finds out that these newfound powers can be both a blessing and a curse to his troubled life.

I was somewhat tentative about this show, but figured that Oscar Isaac would be able to pull it off. They were only given six episodes to do the story in, so while the entire thing feels rushed, the full story is laid out, though there are a TON of unanswered questions by the end of it. Rumor has it that there was only a single project on Oscar Isaac’s contract, so this might be it for the character, at least the character without a mask on, right? Because of this limited time they have with Isaac there’s a likely intentional lack of the normal MCU connectivity, so no guest appearances by SHIELD recruiters or transdimensional teens.

I’m happy with the end result, but I think they could have gone a full 10 or 11 episodes to flesh out the universe, particularly with the new character they premier by the end of the show, that one came out of no where and completely blew me away with how cool they ended up being. We’ll likely see more of them!

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The Batman

The Batman: Directed by Matt Reeves. With Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell. When the Riddler, a sadistic serial killer, begins murdering key political figures in Gotham, Batman is forced to investigate the city’s hidden corruption and question his family’s involvement.

This is definitely a move that features a man dressed as a “bat”, and there’s definitely some real good money thrown at it, but did they have to make the whole thing as boring as it ended up being? Everyone here is doing what they’ve been paid to do, but the story and story beats are all out of line with what I want from a Batman story. Add to that the orchestral soundtrack is a boring uninspired slow slog of just brooding tones that don’t result in the emotional punch that the character or this type of film really needs. Take a listen to the official “main theme” that they released before the film:

The song itself is actually pretty nice, but I can’t recall anything other than the first 30 seconds from the film, that same 30 seconds is repeated in nearly every scene, and it gets to be incredibly too noticeable by the end of the movies over bloated 3 hour run time. There’s several story lines that could have, and should have, been sacrificed to the gods of succinctness, and I’d nominate either the mobster storyline or the Catwoman storyline. With apologies to Halle Berry and Anne Hathaway, Zoe Kravitz is likely the best Catwoman we’re ever goin to get in modern times and they nearly got her story right, but unless I’m mistaken, they chose to change her origins again for reasons that only serve this one movie, and not the character on the whole.

Additionally to all that, I absolutely hated this version of the Riddler. Give me Frank Gorshin in spandex cheesing it up, or Jim Carey doing the same exact thing, just better. Don’t give him a leather gimp mask, don’t make him an explosives expert, or a sniper marksman. Why add all those things to a character that’s always been an overreaching intellectual superior to The Batman, but a physical push over? Why make him so damn grim dark?

The best Riddler story that I ever read was when he figured out the Batman / Bruce Wayne connection, but realized that he couldn’t tell anyone because then it wouldn’t be all that valuable. I was really hoping they were going to do something like that, but alas, that’s a story for a better medium.

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Marvel Movies Made 30% Of The Total Box Office Last Year

The era of Marvel superhero movie domination is here to stay, and the proof is in the 2021 box office returns.

I went to one move in the last two years: “Spider-man No Way Home” and I completely regret the decision to go. Dispite what AMC would like you to believe, they’ve not changed a single thing in their theaters and aren’t policing mask usage at all. That movie was released during a brief window when we though Omicron was nothing to worry about and I thought that the literally dozens of emails that I’ve gotten from AMC begging me to come back to the theaters were right, that they had a special team cleaning the theaters between movies and that their entire a/c system had been upgrade, and they were asking everyone to wear a mask. I’m here to tell you it’s the same overworked minimum wage employees doing the cleaning, I couldn’t tell any difference in the air, and not a single person was wearing a mask at my showing.

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The Bold Electoral Strategy That Could Save Biden’s Legacy: Give People Free Stuff

The White House took too long to offer free Covid-19 tests and masks. It shouldn’t stop there

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Why are there different 90 ball bingo variants? 

Online bingo is incredibly popular for players with 90 ball bingo being the most traditional form. However there has been a rise in bingo variants over the past few years, with more and more players using them – also try 3 Kingdoms slot.

Bingo variants 

90 ball bingo is the de facto style of bingo game played throughout the UK. It can be found in bingo halls everywhere as well as online bingo sites. However, it is not the online type of bingo game out there. There are many different bingo variants for players to enjoy. Each offers a different experience, something that different players will all prefer. An example of these bingo variants is 30 ball bingo, also known as speed bingo, this is a bingo type that is much faster paced than 90 ball bingo. As there are fewer balls, players will speed through this game. If a player wants to enjoy a bingo game that is over quickly, this is the game for them. This is perfect if you have limited free time throughout the day. 

Why so many 

There are many different bingo variations to choose from, this has led some players to question why there have been so many. The following are some of the main reasons as to why there have been so many different bingo variations released. 

•     It attracts new players – A key reason why casinos would want to see new bingo variations released is that they help to attract players to their site, particularly if they are brand new iterations of the game. It also helps to keep older players entertained, something that is particularly useful if they have been using the games for a while.
•     They are simple games – One thing about all the variants of bingo that players will notice is how simple they are, they do not over complicate things in terms of gameplay or design.

Benefits 

With so many different bingo game variations out there, some players may not want to venture outside of their comfort zone. Those that do will find that there are many amazing benefits that these bingo game variations can offer, the following are some of the very best benefits that players can get from them. 

•     Variety of bingo – Bingo is greatly admired throughout the world thanks to its simplicity. It can be played by pretty much anyone and the rules are as simple as anything. However sometimes you just want a change of things, these bingo variations are the perfect way to experience something different whilst still enjoying the simple game of bingo. 30 ball bingo can offer players a much faster experience, whilst 90 ball bingo will offer a longer and more methodical experience.
•     More fun – With so many different variants to choose from, few can argue that this doesn’t make the game of bingo as a whole more fun. Not only does this attract new players to the game but it helps to retain old ones!

Overall 

There are many bingo variations for one reason, the game is wildly popular with people!

2021 TGIOKDI Year In Review

Looking back at my 2020 post, wow I seemed so absolutely optimistic about the future, though in my defense, I posted that only 7 days before the assault on the US Capitol that somehow only resulted in a single death, not one of the politicians that were targeted, thank god, but one of the insurrectionists that had broken through a window, made it to the secure area where the USVP was being secured, then broke through one of the interior security windows, was warned several times by an on duty police officer that had a gun on her, but she continued to advance.  Her death should have served as a public warning, but instead, she’s somehow inevitably turned into some martyr, but I need to be clear, she was told she was going to be shot and continued to advance, so she got what she deserved.

Whew.  that was just in the first week!  We’ve been struggling to recover from that ever since, with investigations, arrests, convictions, and all sorts of otherwise news worthy things related to it, the most recent of which was news that Trump took nearly an hour to make a comment on the situation because 1 – he was really hoping that Pence would leave the Capitol, and 2 – he kept screwing up his video.

We got a couple more checks from the feds, which helped out a ton, then in April I got my first of three covid-19 vaccine shots and boosters.  That first shot was just in time for me to go to my first jury duty, in which a guy was being charged with possession of half a fingernail’s worth of crack and two possible meth pills that were found at his girlfriend’s house, in her closet, in a purse, at the bottom of her closet underneath a ton of other random bullshit that eventually gets thrown into everyone’s closet.  I think we deliberated for about 20 minutes, and it was only that long because we had one juror that wanted to believe the cops over her own damn logic, and it took us a minute to convince her that we could only convict if there were evidence, which there wasn’t.

Some time after this I finished Halo 5’s multiplayer collectables, which was fantastic.  Happy to be done with the game, but there’s are a few story related achievements to get, I may try to get those sometime in 2030.  Around this same time, we got yet another foster cat, who in turn had 6 kittens, which we raised with the intentions of adopting out all but one, at the end of the day, we kept two of the kittens.  We now have 3 more cats than my house and realistically support, and I’d love to move to a house 3x larger, but with my pay being so low and the housing market being what it is, that plan is going to be a long time coming.

My parent company was purchased by a much larger publicly trade company, they then fired a ton of people saying they were redundant, which makes it obvious they just didn’t care one fucking bit about their employees, either current or future.  It hurts to see that happen, and it hurts to now work for a parent company that feels that soulless.

I started a Twitch channel!  I’ve made absolutely nothing off of it in the 3 months it’s been running, and I haven’t even played any games on it since thanksgiving due to an absolutely horribly respiratory infection, a general depression of the Twitch situation, and the 100+ hours I spent playing Horizon Zero Dawn in November / December.  That’s a game that I started back in November of 2020, started streaming it on Twitch, yelled at one of the cats, became horribly embarrassed by the situation and just gave up on the whole thing.  That is until I was gaming with a buddy and said “wouldn’t it be a laugh if I was streaming a game to Twitch, but instead of me, you saw my gold fish.”  I looked around my home office and noticed that I had nearly all the equipment I needed to start it up, so it’s been nearly 24/7 streaming since early October 2021, with a couple brief downtimes because Windows Update does not behave the way I feel it should.

With my continued blessing of Working From Home, I’ve gotten a ton of work done around my house, due to me being here to see it during the day, as well as having a ton more energy to get it done in the time I have to do it in.  I raked my front yard for the first time in the entire time that I’ve owned the house, and now I want to seed it with actual grass instead of the patches of grass in well fertilized soil that used to be just a bed of tree leaves.  I have an exterior projects list now, so maybe one day I’ll have a couple new walkways, one in my front yard and one in my back yard.

Back in August I got a CPAP machine to help with my snoring, but it had a side effect of helping me sleep all the way through the night.  About 10 years ago I started having to get up to pee every night about 4 hours after I went to bed, but I haven’t had to do that since I started using the mask regularly.  Other than these two fantastic things (no snoring, full nights sleep) I hate everything about it, from needing to put it on, to being woken up by it every morning, but it’s helping my wife sleep better, so that was the goal and it’s doing it’s job at that.  Now I do wonder why I don’t feel as rested as I’m assuming I should.

I got my third covid shot in December.  Is this the last one? Doubtful.  But maybe.

By The Numbers: 

• 48 Books, half of what I read in 2020
• 12 video games, again half of the previous year
• 346 movies, way up from 2020’s 232
• 35 seasons of television shows,

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home: Directed by Jon Watts. With Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon. With Spider-Man’s identity now revealed, Peter asks Doctor Strange for help. When a spell goes wrong, dangerous foes from other worlds start to appear, forcing Peter to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.

Spider-man’s finally back on the big screen, and this is the film that I chose to be the one I went to see in the theater again. It’s been a couple years since my list visit to the theaters and this trip was everything I feared it would be. With a theater that was only 1/3 full for the 7pm Dolby Digital showing, I was one of maybe 5 people in a mask, the other 100 or so people decided to not do what they were asked to and were just sitting there stuffing their mouths, chewing loudly, and mouth breathing all over their massive diet cokes that they were loudly slurping down. Half way through the film, I had to use the restroom, so missed about 7 minutes of that due to having to visit one of the most disgusting places in my city: the AMC restrooms. I hated nearly everything about the movie experience itself and I’m really not sure I want to do it again, watching movies at home has absolutely spoiled me, there’s only my wife to interrupt, I can pause the film to talk about things when we need to talk about them, I can pause for bathroom breaks, and I cannot stress this enough, there is no one in my living room that’s going to be playing video games on their phone in an absolutely dark room or taking phone calls just 10 feet from me. Wrap all that up in some slight covid anxiety and I really do no known if I want to continue the A-List program that I signed up for, which is 3 movies a week for $25 a month. It’s a great deal if you’re going to the movies more than once a month, but I’m not sure I even have the motivational energy for all this non-sense.

That was the theater experience. How about the movie? There’s a few reasons that it’s already made over a Billion dollars in just the week or so that it’s been released:

1 – there’s a ton of pent up demand for a quality movie at the theaters
2 – there’s a ton of pent up demand for Tom Holland’s Spider-man as his previous flicks have all delivered exceptional stories
3 – the last Holland spider-man film ended on a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers
4 – the MCU has been not so quietly building out the Multiverse concept in the background, most notably with the WandaVision and Loki shows on D+
5 – there’s only going to be a few franchises that would pull crowds back to the movie theater again, general MCU movies weren’t enough (black widow, Shang-Chi, and Eternals were all ‘no thank you’ from me personally) and the vague hint that there were going to be multiple spider-men in the film was enough for me to say, sure ok.

Spider-man: No Way Home delivers on all of it’s vague promises, somehow managing to meet or exceed all of my expectations. and was worth the trip out to the sticky floor plague factory. I’ve read that Tom Holland is “done” with the franchise after this, and there’s no concrete plans to bring Spidey back, but I’m relatively sure these are the things that actors say all the time when they’re willing to give up a role to work on other new and exciting projects, much like what Robert Downey Jr was saying before Captain America: Civil War. I’d be extremely shocked if Holland stayed away from the MCU for very long, if at all.

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Following federal scrutiny, FL education officials returned $878,000 to certain local school boards – Florida Phoenix

After several months of legal challenges, state sanctions, and a special session that outlawed strict mask mandates in public schools, the Florida Department of Education returned $877,851 in state funds to eight school districts that had been punished over a COVID-related mask controversy. “It has been put back, so we do have that money,” Russell Bruhn, […]

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Students exposed to COVID can still go to school if asymptomatic Floridas new surgeon general issues rule

The new emergency rule covers the changes to the state’s emergency rules in school settings and addresses mitigation methods for COVID-19. The rule also allows mask policies, as long as paren…

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DeSantis Files ‘Emergency’ Appeal to Keep Kids at Higher Risk of Covid

In a state where the CDC reports more than 13,000 people hospitalized with Covid, the Republican governor has decided the real crisis is kids wearing masks in schools

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Floridians Are Turning on Ron DeSantis as Covid Deaths Hit Record High

The pandemic is now worse than it’s ever been in Florida. The state’s governor is playing politics

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Recent Comic Cover Updates For The Week Ending 2021-08-20

Click For The Comic Covers Uploaded This Week

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Spider-Man No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home: Directed by Jon Watts. With Zendaya, Tom Holland, Jon Favreau, Benedict Cumberbatch. For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighborhood hero is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a Super Hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.

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Sparks

Sparks: Directed by Todd Burrows, Christopher Folino. With Chase Williamson, Ashley Bell, Clancy Brown, Jake Busey. A masked vigilante who discovers the dark side to heroism. Going after the nation’s most notorious super criminal leaves Sparks’ life and reputation in ruins.

Clancy Brown AND Clint Howard? They’re not stars of the film, but it’s still weird to see such big names in such a low budget effort. It’s low budget only in the financial aspect though, as the actual story and substance of the movie is pretty good.

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Florida breaks record with more than 21000 new COVID cases

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Florida reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19, the state’s highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic, according to federal health data released Saturday, as its theme park resorts again started asking visitors to wear masks indoors.

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CDC document warns Delta variant appears to spread as easily as chickenpox and cause more severe infection

The Delta coronavirus variant surging across the US appears to cause more severe illness and spread as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal CDC document.

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Jungle Cruise Socks

Shop Over 10,000+ Designs! Created & Shipped In The USA. Shop Exclusive Sock and Mask collections for Disney, Marvel, NFL, Star Wars, NCAA, WWE, DC Comics, Nickelodeon, and more. Find you perfect pair of socks!

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Three Texas House Democrats have tested positive for COVID-19 from Washington DC

Whoopsie doopsie!  Masks for thee, not for me, eh?  Must have been following the ‘Pelosi Haircut Protocol’.

eu.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2021/07/17/texas-democrats-walk-out-three-test-positive-covid-in-washington-dc/8002121002/

DeSantis parts with Trump in response to Surfside tragedy

SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) — When the coronavirus ravaged Florida , Gov. Ron DeSantis defiantly bucked mask mandates.

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Biden to pitch sweeping ‘family plan’ in speech to Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — Marking his first 100 days in office, President Joe Biden will use his first joint address to Congress to pitch a $1.8 trillion investment in children, families and education that would fundamentally transform the role government plays in American life. Biden will make his case Wednesday night before a pared-down gathering of mask-wearing legislators due to coronavirus restrictions and in a U.S. Capitol still surrounded by black fencing after insurrectionists protesting his election occupied the very dais where he will stand. In the nationally televised ritual of a president standing before Congress, Biden will lay out a sweeping proposal for universal preschool, two years of free community college, $225 billion for child care and monthly payments of at least $250 to parents. His ideas reflect the frailties that were uncovered last year by the pandemic , and he will make the case that economic growth would best come from taxing the rich to help the middle class and the poor.

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YouTube pulls Florida governor’s video says his panel spread Covid-19 misinformation

Several scientists questioned the use of masks by kids at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ roundtable discussion last month.

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BUTTERFACE

AFTER COVID IS LONG GONE- THIS BUTTERFACE SHOULD STILL BE REQUIRED TO WEAR A MASK

Uber Rider from Hell Has Turned Herself In–and Shes Facing Years in Prison

Arna Kimiai, 24, was caught on video coughing on her driver and pulling off his mask in San Francisco last week.

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CDC Observes Link Between COVID-19 Spikes and Increased Dining Out

The findings don’t prove cause and effect, but the statistically significant patterns are in line with previous studies and expert advice

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An Apology

I owe my 45-supporting friends an apology (?). I’ve been critical of the trump presidency these last four years, and am still exhausted from the experience.

But to be fair, president trump wasn’t that bad, other than when he incited an insurrection against the government, mismanaged a pandemic that killed nearly half a million Americans, separated children from their families, lost those children in the bureaucracy, tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church, tried to block all Muslims from entering the country, got impeached, got impeached again, had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden, fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia, bragged about firing the FBI director on TV, took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community, diverted military funding to build his wall, caused the longest government shutdown in US history, called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,” lied nearly 30,000 times, banned transgender people from serving in the military, ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions, vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers, refused to release his tax returns, increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion, had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history, called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers, coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist, refused to concede the 2020 election, hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House, walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl, called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID, abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey, pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans, incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic, withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords, withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal, withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances, insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter, pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op, failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies, called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries, called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation,” claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere, forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader, believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe, suggested the US should buy Greenland, colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges, repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people,” claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases, violated the emoluments clause, thought that Nambia was a country, told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public, called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p—y” for following the Constitution, nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet, nominated a corrupt head of the EPA, nominated a corrupt head of HHS, nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department, nominated a corrupt head of the USDA, praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies, refused to allow the presidential transition to begin, insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death, spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Former President Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president, falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote, called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,” falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year, considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions, mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID, locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones, used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus,” hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser, pardoned several of his shady associates, gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories, got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!), had a Secretary of State who called him a moron, forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history, botched the COVID vaccine rollout, tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him, charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties, constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate, claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear, called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas,” used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise, opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling, got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers, claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US, ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings, blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining, redesigned Air Force One to look like the trump Shuttle, got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,” threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution, botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them, pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes, thought that the Virgin islands had a President, drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane, allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing, rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos, pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID, rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers, held blatant campaign rallies at the White House, tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man, refused to attend his successors’ inauguration, nominated the worst Education Secretary in history, threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted, attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t), allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues, struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble, called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ,” threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders, went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic, claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,” seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution, demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director, praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles, completely gutted the Voice of America, placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service, claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged trump Tower, suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country, suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public, overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported, reduced the number of refugees the US accepts, insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames, gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address, named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties, eliminated the White House office of pandemic response, used soldiers as campaign props, fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him, demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade, hired a shit ton of white nationalists, politicized the civil service, did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government, falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts, claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won, insulted reporters of color, insulted women reporters, insulted women reporters of color, suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs, attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him, summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election, spent countless hours every day watching Fox News, refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas, hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer, tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him, acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney, attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault, held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present, didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media, stopped holding press briefings for months at a time, “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power, led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform, claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers, tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course, suggested that the government nuke hurricanes, suggested that wind turbines cause cancer, said that he had a special aptitude for science, fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure, blurted out classified information to Russian officials, tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida, fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban, hired Stephen Miller, openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them, interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel, abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war, tried to get Russia back into the G7, held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden, seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive, lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated, falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t, shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies, still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan, still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks,” forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID, told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” fucked up the Census, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic, did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “president trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act, seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win, constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named donald trump, claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened, said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake, claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him, claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President, created a commission to whitewash American history, retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain, claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there, hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims, had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others, bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at trump properties, apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House, stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians, falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police, said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about, tried to rescind protection from DREAMers, gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic, tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax, said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states, deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented, claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln, touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all, retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile, forced through security clearances for his family, suggested that police officers should rough up suspects, suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs, tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender, suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher, nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy, retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event, hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags, accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address, claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia, mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, obsessed over low-flow toilets, ordered the release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release, called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek), hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech, took advice from the MyPillow guy, claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists, said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure, never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign, falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent, announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest, insulted the leader of Canada, insulted the leader of France, insulted the leader of Britain, insulted the leader of Germany, insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!), falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues, blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually, continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders, said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked, left a NATO summit early in a huff, stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that, called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary, refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment.But other than that. . .

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Cori Bush moving office away from Marjorie Taylor Greene for teams safety

Black congresswoman ‘berated’ by maskless Georgia Republican, she says

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Joe Biden to have new Secret Service team amid concern about Trump loyalty

Agents familiar from time as vice-president to return, with some members of detail having reportedly discouraged mask-wearing

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Star Wars The Force Awakens – FN-2187 Bust by Gentle Giant

Gentle Giant has announced a new Star Wars: The Force Awakens – FN-2187 Bust. The 1/6 Scale Bust features Finn in his Stormtrooper armor holding a blaster rifle from the beginning of the film. The bust has a blood stained helmet. A swap out unmasked portrait is also included, featuring the likeness

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My mother died and the family gathered for her funeral Afterwards 17 people got COVID

My wife and I plus our three kids tried to consistently wear our masks.

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Large delayed outbreaks of endemic diseases possible following COVID-19 controls

Social distancing and mask wearing to reduce the spread of COVID-19 have also protected against many other diseases, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). But susceptibility to those other diseases could be increasing, resulting in large outbreaks when masking and distancing stop, say a team of Princeton University researchers.

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Halloween 2018

Directed by David Gordon Green. With Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney. Laurie Strode confronts her long-time foe Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.

This is likely the best Halloween film to date with little to nothing in it that I can honestly pick at. It ignores the previous two Rob Zombie films and even ignores the death of the main characters, but this series has never really respected the deaths before has it? There are some excellent echos of the first film, and I was a fan of the survival house that she built, though honestly I would have made it somewhat more secure, but those paper thin walls all turned out to be there for a reason, didn’t they?

Buy On Amazon!

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