ohtani's jacket

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.

Man, the ending of episode 4 was phenomenal.

The Celtics' defense will pose problems for the Warriors with their size, length, ability to switch and rim protection, but they'll need to be more consistent. I don't think a team that lost at home in Game 6 and almost blew Game 7 has a right to be over-confident. The Warriors are a smart basketball team with a ton of finals experience. I'll go Warriors in 6.

Well, there is that about Twilight, but I have to plead ignorance about the original characters. I didn't know there was a New Frontier movie.

I finished the first arc of Strangers in Paradise. I was surprised by how violent it was. I was expecting some sort of slice-of-life relationship drama like Maggie and Hopey, but instead there was a crime fiction element to the story. It had its moments, but I wasn't a fan of the poetry and prose, and I thought the final chapter was weak. I also finished Tyrant. I really loved that book. Just a fascinating and brilliant concept. It's a crying shame that Bissette couldn't finish it. Apparently, it's somewhat outdated in what paleontologists think dinosaur life was truly like, but I thought it was a riveting piece of work.

I finished Bendis' run on Daredevil, which was very good, and at times excellent. It didn't really break any new ground as it was more or less an extended take on Born Again, but I liked the way that Bendis did a deep dive into Matt's psyche, and I thought he did some really cool things with the comic book form. I especially liked the storyline that was basically a group of people sitting around in a support meeting.

Stuff I read in May: Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier wound up being one of the best things I've read in quite some time. I don't have a strong affinity for DC Silver Age characters, so I don't know how others would view his take on the era, but I thought it was fantastic. I wasn't sure at first whether I liked his Batman: The Animated Series style artwork, but he won me over by the end of the first issue and I wound up loving it. I haven't read Kingdom Come, but I thought it was easily better than James Robinson's The Golden Age and one of the best superhero books I've read in a mightily long time. I also really liked Batman and the Monster Men. I'm sure some people might find the idea of taking a single issue Golden Age story and turning it into a six issue mini series to be of dubious merit, but I really like Matt Wagner's version of Batman and he has a great feel for the era. Personally, I found it to be one of the more interesting Batman stories I've read in a while. The other series I finished this month was Terminal City, which was decent but somewhat confusing. I still have trouble following Dean Motter's writing at times. Nice art by Michael Lark, though. I also read the first Lucifer mini-series, which was okay but didn't leave me hankering to read the ongoing series. Not just yet. Howard Chaykin and Jose Luis García-Lopez' Twilight was really good. The story is a bit dense, but you really get to see Garcia-Lopez cut loose and show his penciling chops. I was super impressed. There's a couple of other lesser known projects of his I'm hoping to check out where I'm hoping he does the same. I reached the point where Shade, the Changing Man starts getting good after a rough first year that is somewhat similar to the first Sandman storyline or the early Hellblazer in terms of being a little shaky.

Only in a world of hot takes and clickbait can the Warriors dropping a game when they're up 3-0 be a sign that they're in trouble. These talking heads spend too much time trying to impose their narratives on the game instead of commenting on what's actually happening. Then there's the incessant taking sides so that they can manufacture arguments. I don't know why I'm commenting on this. It's like getting upset at reality TV shows. It just feels like it's worse these playoffs perhaps because the games haven't been that competitive.

Holly shitballs.

Read Fables #151. I shouldn't be saying this since I only finished binge reading the original series a few weeks ago, but it feels like the series never ended. Willingham, Buckingham & Leialoha did an excellent job of picking up where they left off.

Anybody watching Pat Beverley do these sports shows? You can cut the tension with a knife.

Not to mention that Luka wins Game 7s.

Giannis ran out of gas in this series. The Bucks couldn't overcome to loss of Khris Middleton. I suspect they would have been bounced by Miami in the ECF. They ought to be in contention every year that Giannis is healthy, though.

So often Game 7s end up being a blowout for the home team. The Bucks should have pressed for the second seed instead of resting their starters. You have to give the Celtics a ton of credit though to come back from that Game 5 capitulation.

Let's see if we get a tackle like this one.

I don't think anyone mentioned Klaus Schulze, electric music pioneer and former member of the krautrock band, Tangerine Dream. He died on April 26th.

I was thinking about reading 1001 Nights of Snowfall. Undecided about any of the other spinoffs.