ohtani's jacket

I don't trust anyone up two sets to love against Novak Djokovic.

I finished reading All-Star Superman. Personally, I thought it was kind of weird. I've read a lot of weird Grant Morrison stories, so you'd think that wouldn't be a problem, but I read that Morrison wanted to create a timeless Superman story and to me it kind of came across as a weird European arthouse take on Superman. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I was familiar with the Silver Age stories that Morrison drew inspiration from, but I kind of felt like Alan Moore wrote better Silver Age homage stories prior to Crisis, and possibly later on with those Image characters (I haven't read that stuff yet.) I did like the overall portrayal of Superman. He was extremely likeable. I didn't care for the portrayal of Lois or Jimmy, though, and I didn't like how Quitely drew them either. I suppose I'm not a big enough Superman fan to truly love a series like this, but it show plenty of heart despite how strange it was at times.

I liked the finale, but it was really long. No more movie length finales, please.

The All Blacks' build up to the first test against Ireland has been less than ideal with a COVID outbreak in the camp. The head coach and several members of the coaching team tested positive for COVID along with three players -- two midfielders and an outside back, the latter being try scoring sensation Will Jordan. The big news though is lock Scott Barrett being selected at 6, a move that backfired spectacularly in the World Cup semi against England. To be fair, there are some injuries influencing the selection, but the coaches are also enamored with the idea of having more size and physicality on the field. They want an extra lineout option since Ardie Savea is undersized at No.8, but this is what infuriates me about modern rugby. Scott Barrett, Sam Cane and Ardie Savea are three of New Zealand's better players, which is why the coaches want them on the field at the same time, but Barrett is a lock and Cane and Savea are both number 7s. The Irish backrow must be licking their lips at the prospect of taking on that All Black combination. Beauden Barrett was selected at 10, which personally I have no faith in. The All Blacks seem ripe for the picking. Ireland lost their midweek game to the Maori All Blacks, but I doubt that will have much bearing on the test match. Irish fans don't seem overly thrilled with their match day 23, either, but this is a weak All Blacks side. The only things in our favor are home field advantage and the possibility of a tired Irish team after a long Northern Hemisphere season. Not confident.

I enjoyed Umbrella Academy S3 a lot, but the ending didn't exactly floor me. It left me wanting more, but not in a holy crap sort of way.

I finished Martin Wagner's Hepcats. Ed Piskor unfairly shat on this series when Cartoonist Kayfabe were going through Palmer's Picks in an old Wizard mag. Wagner was a friend of Dave Sim's, and part of that small wave of self-publishers that grew up around Sim and clashed with Gary Groth all the time. Hepcats started off as a story about anthropomorphic college buddies and grew into a more ambitious story when one of their girlfriends tried to commit suicide and we slowly discovered the harrowing details about her past. On the surface, it was "famous" for showing nudity and having anthropomorphic characters have sex, but there was more to it than that. Unfortunately, like most self-published titles it was beset by poor sales and production delays and only lasted 12 issues. I actually read the reprint series, which contained new material and was supposed to restart the series with issue 13, but issue 13 never happened, and Wagner left the comics industry instead. Kind of a shame as I thought Hepcats had the potential to go down as one of the seminal books of the 90s instead of a footnote. There's an argument to be made that the writing was shallow. I wouldn't go that far, but I do think Wagner was still finding his voice. He only made 12 issues. Can you imagine how well regarded Cerebus would be today if it only lasted 12 issues? I couldn't find a lot of fault with the art. Wagner used a lot of cross hatching and screentone, and never short changed the reader on background details. In fact, he probably would have been a lot faster if like Sim, he had someone else doing the backgrounds. I'm not a huge fan of the way Wagner's anthropomorphic characters look, but then again, I'm not a fan of how Sim's humans look, so I can live with that. There's not a whole lot to recommend as Wagner never finished the series, but if you're interested in the early 90s period of creator-owned comics (Bone, Cerebus, A Distant Soil, Strangers in Paradise, etc.), it's worth checking out.

Tenryu's wife passed away at the age of 65.

The new Berserk chapters had pretty good art, but like I said, I'm a bit worried that it's going to be straight plot from here on out. The chapters were a bit thin on dialogue.

Fables 152 was a bit of a table setter, but it did introduce a new character that was meant to be in the original series.

That was a great line!

Netflix sent me an e-mail saying Season 3 of Umbrella Academy is out. Enjoyed the first episode a lot.

Not sure. They used to show it on ESPN when it was the Pro14. The season finished yesterday.

South African teams no longer play in Super Rugby. They play in the United Rugby Championship along with teams from Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Italy.

It was a strange Finals series. Last weekend, Golden State desperately needed to win a game to avoid a 3-1 hole, and then they ended up winning the next three. In the end, Golden State's defense got the better of Boston's offense. I know a lot of people are saying Boston needs a proper point guard, and it's probably true, but let's not forge that Smart being inserted as the point guard was the catalyst for Boston's rise. I guess when you lose the way Boston did it exposes a whole raft of problems, but on top of how poor they were in the clutch, they seemed gassed after such a long post season. I don't think the short rotation and heavy minutes helped in the final three games. It's hard to say whether they'll be back again in the Finals since they weren't supposed to be there in the first place. I thought it was interesting how other teams that made it to the Finals with a young duo (Houston in '86, Orlando in '95 and OKC in '12) never made it back again. Everyone's getting carried away saying Golden State will repeat, but I think the chips would have to fall their way again for it to happen. I honestly felt like they were lucky to duck the Suns and the Bucks this year. Here's hoping Kawhi comes back strong next season.

Golden State has been the underdog in this series because of the Celtics' defense and the fact that the Celtics stole homecourt and were leading through three games. It's been Steph vs. the Celtics for the most part. That said, the Celtics are wildly inconsistent. If they played anywhere close to their true level, they'd be up 3-1. They also seem to be gambling on a defensive strategy of Steph being unable to continue his offensive dominance since they don't want to blitz Steph and open the game up for the other Warriors. The trouble is Steph is having a field day with this drop coverage, and it seems like he has the stamina to continue playing well. Now that they took back homecourt, he might not have to score as much if the other Warriors play better at home and Klay has a big night. The series is still in the balance though because we know what the good version of the Celtics can do. That may depend on the health of Robert Williams, though, as almost everything good that Boston has done has come down to rim protection, shot blocking and rebounding. If the Warriors front court can outrebound the Celtics again, I'm pretty sure the Warriors will win Game 5.

His assistants should be able to handle the art okay. My reservations involve the story. Mori said he's only going to include things that Miura told him about and won't add anything else to it. Berserk was notoriously slow moving. Are things going to pick up from here on out? Is it just going to be straight plot to the end? It's not a concern as such. I'm just curious.

Definitely agree that the stuff in Hawkins and The Upside Down is the best part of Season 4. I don't hate the stuff in Russia, but I didn't expect Hopper to be stuck there for the entire season. The Eleven subplot has dragged on way too long, and it is far removed from the original premise of Mike visiting her in California, etc (aside from the obvious parallel that she was being picked on in the lab too.) It seems like moving Eleven & Co to California was kind of pointless in the long run. I thought it was pretty obvious who Vecna was, but I didn't see the twist coming about his origins even though I know there was something odd going on with the timeline of the Kreel murders and gate opening to The Upside Down. I kind of thought the long revel took away from Vesca doing scary things in real time, but I'm loving the latest foray into The Upside Down. There are a lot of dangling plot threads after the first batch of episodes. I hope the writers answer some of those questions in the remaining episodes. I'm kind of wondering how they can have a big battle between Eleven and Vecna and wrap things up in the remaining time even with the longer episodes. She better get out of the underground lab soon.

Berserk is continuing under the supervision of Miura's best friend, Kouji Mori -- www.cbr.com/guts-griffith-kentaro-miura-continuation-berserk/

That was a relief. The Warriors were able to get out in transition and score off Celtics turnovers, and then they switched to pick and rolls in the halfcourt sets to great success in the 3rd quarter. Draymond was an absolute pest as well. Made up for his terrible Game 1. Now, if they could only find ways for Klay to score that don't involve a dribble drive.

Am I the only one who was like "hey, it's that guy from Ozark"?

If Nadal requires surgery in his foot then his career is in jeopardy. He's clearly stated that he doesn't want to keep having injections in his foot to make it onto the court. He could be back at Roland Garros next year winning a 15th. You wouldn't count him out. But it won't get any easier from here on out. There aren't too many players over the age of 35 that have won a Grand Slam. Of the current bunch, Medvedev can win more Grand Slams on the hardcourts if he can keep his head together. Alcaraz is a Roland Garros champion in waiting. Those are the only two I have confidence in right now. At some point, age will catch up with Djokovic. It also remains to be seen how he deals with getting shafted in the world rankings, the fact that he's fallen so far behind Rafa in the Grand Slam race, and if they let him into Australia next year.

Very odd situation with Nadal's foot and the retirement rumors swirling around him. It ended up being an anti-climatic Roland Garros with the lopsided draw and the Zverev injury. The Djokovic/Nadal match ended up being the title decider despite the drama surrounding Nadal's foot. Maybe the Zverev match would have worn Nadal down a bit if it had gone more than 5 hours, but we'll never know. I can see Nadal skipping Wimbledon and Djokovic winning it.

Congrats to England. Fantastic milestone for Joe Root. New Zealand gave themselves a chance but England were too good. Not sure why Wagner wasn't selected. We could have used him in the final innings. New Zealand will be left to rue that no ball on the Stokes dismissal yesterday, especially with the pitch flattening out like it did. Lords remains an unhappy hunting ground for the Black Caps. Only one win in 91 years.

Went to bed down 54-4, woke up and... partnership baby... 236/4

That's a terrible way for a semi final to end. The crazy part was that the match was already3 hours long and they were still in the second set. God knows how long it would have taken if Zverev had won the set.