Month: November 2020

Conor McGregor will officially return to the Octagon at UFC 257 on January 23, where he’ll fight Dustin Poirier in a rematch seven years in the making. According to ESPN, McGregor inked his deal to fight Poirier in the 155-pound bout that is currently without a location but expected to be contested at Fight Island in Abu Dhabi.

While the bout between two contenders could make sense for the vacant lightweight title considering Khabib Nurmagomedov’s recent retirement, UFC president Dana White recently ruled that possibility out. After Nurmagomdeov revealed on Instagram that he was recently tested by USADA, White speculated that because Nurmagomedov (28-0) is still in testing, he would eventually return to the cage with an aim of hitting the 30-0 benchmark.

“No, (McGregor-Poirier won’t be for the title),” White explained on The Mac Life (H/T MMA Fighting). “Khabib’s gonna fight (again). I believe he’s gonna fight. It’s not for the title.”

McGregor hasn’t fought since he TKO’d Donald Cerrone in 40 seconds in January. With no opportunity to make good on his promise to fight three times in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, he’s settling with an opportunity to climb right back into title contention with his fight against Poirier.

Poirier is also looking for an opening to get back to fighting for UFC gold, holding his lone victory — a decision over Dan Hooker — since he was submitted by Nurmagomedov in their title unification bout in 2019. Poirier’s original fight against McGregor came in 2014, where he suffered a first-round knockout at the hands of the former two-division champion.

The first time I encountered a ghost was at a house on Tanglewood Street. She was in the kitchen, by a sink full of dirty water. Three of my friends who came hunting with me were snickering in the background. One thought it’d be funny to ask the ghost if she died before she got a chance to call the manager. (Her name was Karen; it was a very uninspired conversation starter.)

Turns out Karen was a demon. She had a mangled face, wore tattered clothing, and snapped my friend’s neck before he could make it to the dining room. We heard him scream, watched his body fall lifelessly to the ground, and decided to book it back to the van parked outside before Karen could claim another victim.

This is what it is to play Phasmophobia, an early-access, indie co-op psychological horror game that dropped on Steam earlier this Fall. Its premise trades on the same guilty-pleasure, adrenaline-infusing vibes as those obscure paranormal reality TV shows. You know, the ones where a medium and an NYPD homicide detective pair up to raid haunted houses, or where Rob Lowe ropes his kids into investigating urban legends? Ghost-hunting scratches a particular itch, combining chills and thrills with true-crime elements that tease us with the promise that we might be able to solve the unsolvable, explain the supernatural, uncover what lies beyond.

The endgame of Phasmophobia though is a little more straightforward: get evidence and get the hell out of there.

You do not vacuum up a Wraith Bill Murray style or help a Spirit cross over like Jennifer-Love Hewitt. No, you’re there to piss these ghosts off enough so they’ll show their corporeal forms for the camera, or leave a handprint on a door, or have a bit of fun with an Ouija board that you’ve left behind. And that objective may sound simple enough; it may lure you into thinking Phasmophobia is just another horror-tinged video game to play with your friends when the days grow shorter and the global lockdown returns, but you’d be wrong.

And you’ll also probably be the group member who hides in the Ghostmobile “looking for orbs” as your teammates risk their virtual lives inside.

The basic gameplay of Phasmophobia is easy enough to pick up. A group of up to four players enters a haunted building – a house on a quiet street, an asylum with a horrifying history, a farmhouse, a run-down school, a prison – with the objective of finding and identifying a ghost, before collecting evidence of a haunting. Your headquarters is a fully-equipped van parked outside, a place you can go for supplies, for directives on your mission, and to monitor night-vision cameras you’ve set up once you’ve summoned the courage to cross the threshold (or figured out how to open the front door).

You’ll have ghost-hunting essentials on your journey – journals, smudge sticks, cameras, flashlights, and more – and specialized equipment, like EMF Readers to detect the presence of a paranormal entity and Spirit Boxes to communicate with the particularly chatty specters.

You’ll need to locate the Ghost Room, the favorite haunt (see what we did there?) of the pesky phantom before setting up equipment to figure out just what type of undead squatter you’re dealing with. Is it a wraith, a particularly nasty baddie who can move through walls? Or a Jinn, a territorial being who doesn’t appreciate mouth breathers invading their space? Is it a male or a female-identifying creature? A child? A man?

You can also uncover more about the spirit’s backstory, if your nosy nature gets the better of you, to figure out how old the ghost was when it died, how many years it’s been dead, and if it murdered someone in a past life.

And you can do all of this through the game’s fairly remarkable voice-recognition software which is what really elevates Phasmophobia into something more than just a two-dimensional horror adventure. Not only are you chatting with your fellow paranormal investigators – friends or strangers, they both offer up unique gaming experiences in this world – you’re also interacting with the nightmarish creatures intent on scaring you to death (literally). Even when your push-to-talk capabilities aren’t engaged, these ethereal tormentors can still hear you, and they’ll react if you utter certain phrases or accidentally call them by name.

Phasmophobia mines the most out of its co-op experience in that way, instilling terror in players who might not even be in immediate danger themselves.

You’re standing in a bedroom of a two-story farmhouse, taking pictures of a voodoo doll when you hear your friend scream from the living room. She’s frantic, being chased by a Mare or a Yurei — you haven’t quite figured the nature of this ghost out yet. She begs for your help, throws some colorful curse words out there, and then … ? Silence. She’s dead. You’re down by one, and your sanity level – a unique marker that dips the longer you spend searching and engaging with these paranormals – reaches a new low. If it drops any further, you’ll be hunted by that same ghost, the one who just snapped your friend’s neck like a twig.

You’ll have to find a closet or a utility room to hide in and hope that your teammates do the same. The doors will lock, the lights will flicker. You’ll hear a heartbeat pounding through your headphones, a chilling sigh sweep by, and, if you’re really unlucky, you’ll see two rotted hands closing around you. You’ll be dead too, left to wander through the game as a poltergeist yourself, unable to talk to your group or help them avoid the same fate. (Of course, you can also have some fun scaring the sh*t out of them by hurling beer cans and slamming doors, but, to stress, that should not be your main goal.)

It’s the waiting, the unknowing, the uncertainty of Phasmophobia that feels even more disturbing than the ghosts themselves. It’s not being able to see past the scope of your flashlight while hunting a shy spirit or witnessing a darkened form move towards you when you light a candle or hearing a bone-chilling voice scratch its way out of a spirit box when a room looks to be clear.

Phasmophobia doesn’t just want to scare you, it wants to immerse you in an experience you thought you were tough enough to take on and then magnify your embarrassing weaknesses for everyone else to see. It wants to give you a wake-up call, to teach you a lesson, and to make a masochist out of you so that you keep returning to its world, keep trying to confront its Revenants and Banshees and Onis while you squirm in your seat and listen to the shrill terror of your friends.

It’s a game that will long outlive its predicted expiration date – most people assumed we’d be tired of it post Halloween – because it offers the kind of horror co-op experience that gaming just hasn’t been able to deliver. Until now. And it’s also serving as a model for other games of its ilk, ones hoping to create shared adventures that enthrall so thoroughly, they stick with you long past your log out.

The ongoing attempts by the Trump administration to try and overturn an election he lost has led to former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani — who serves as the president’s personal lawyer — taking on the campaign’s legal operation, and has reportedly requested $20,000 a day for his services. It hasn’t gone particularly well for Giuliani, who has been panned for the things he’s alleged and his demeanor during his first appearance in a federal courtroom in nearly three decades.

In an apparent attempt to get some sort of control over the narrative on Thursday, Giuliani and the rest of his legal team held a press conference in Washington, D.C. That press conference was, predictably, a mess. But you’re reading this post on a sports site because, at one point, Giuliani made a very clunky comparison in which he said that the Philadelphia Eagles play basketball before immediately correcting himself.

Giuliani is correct that “stunad” is a word used by Italian-Americans to call someone stupid and that the Philadelphia Eagles play football. To use the former in a sentence, “you have to be a pretty big stunad to say that the Philadelphia Eagles play basketball.” As for all the stuff about fraud in the 2020 election, if those claims go the way that most of the others the Trump campaign has made in an attempt to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president, they are wrong.

In the words of the great Whoopi Goldberg, “What the hell is going on?!”

The View host and comedian had an understandably exasperated response to the news that COVID-19 continues to ravage our country while Republicans in office debate the merits of sacrificing personal freedoms in favor of wearing a mask and preventing the virus’ spread. Goldberg appeared shocked during Thursday morning’s airing of her daytime talk show while watching a video of South Dakota GOP Governor Kristi Noem and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany reaffirm their belief that mask mandates are an attack on American freedoms.

“We are nine months into this pandemic,” she said. “People are still not on the same page about all this? What is happening?”

Both Noem and McEnany are sticking to a script laid out by President Trump, despite South Dakota’s alarming surge in COVID-19 cases — the state has a 60% positivity rate, meaning six in every 10 people who get tested have the virus. And while that might be the status-quo amongst GOP politicians scrambling to stay in power despite Trump’s loss in the presidential election, it’s not a good look for the rest of us who live in reality and realize how bad this pandemic could get in the coming weeks.

Goldberg blamed Trump and his administration for the misinformation and politicization of something as simple as wearing a mask before dragging the outgoing president for his laziness when it comes to stemming the rising number of cases.

“It’s willful ignorance!” she said. “I’m sorry. You know, at some point, you know what you are looking at. He did not win. He lost this election, and because he lost all those people who now have the virus who don’t make it from now until January 20th, this blood is on his hands because this isn’t like he’s sitting around thinking, ‘How can I help?’ He’s sitting around doing nothing. He’s doing nothing, and he knows what he needs to do, and he’s not doing it, and neither are these Republicans, and I don’t know when America turned into this particular version of America, but I got to tell you I don’t like it. I’ve always had, you know, we’ve always had conversations that we don’t agree with people, but I’ve never been — I’ve never seen a president that didn’t care whether people lived or died, and it’s very clear.”

To be fair, Trump is doing something — he’s been playing golf and trying to stage a coup. The president is reported to have personally called two Republican officials on Michigan’s Wayne County Board of Canvassers Tuesday, thanking them for rescinding their votes and refusing to verify election counts in their area. This comes after Trump has lost dozens of lawsuits across the country, trying to get ballots thrown out and stir suspicion about the legality of the voting process amongst his supporters. Otherwise, yeah, he’s pretty much phoning it in.

Earlier this Autumn, social media users were delighted to find out that former First Daughter Sasha Obama had joined the TikTok trend — and that she’s apparently a pretty big fan of City Girls‘ remix of Moneybagg Yo’s “Said Sum,” rapping along word-for-word. However, some more conservative observers were disgusted to see the young Obama lip-syncing the raunchy raps — or at least, they pretended to be for the sake of team solidarity and optics. While the video was deleted shortly after it found its way onto Twitter via screengrabs, City Girls instead took aim at her critics in a new profile for the Los Angeles Times.

Group member JT felt that what the elder Obama sister did wasn’t any of those critics’ business. “I didn’t [like] her privacy being invaded,” she says. “A lot of people [were] reposting it like, ‘Look at Obama daughter! This, that, and the third,’ they made it a big deal.”

Obama wasn’t the only one to face conservative criticism over the content of a viral video this year. In September, pundits went nuts over Cardi B’s racy video for the salacious single “WAP” with Megan Thee Stallion, prompting Cardi to brag recently about making “Republicans on Fox News” cry about it. Meanwhile, her collaborator Megan also came under fire despite toning the sexuality of her Saturday Night Live performance of “Don’t Stop” way down. Instead, Kentuck Attorney General Daniel Cameron decried the performance for its admonishment to “protect Black women” after he failed to indict the officers who killed Breonna Taylor during a botched raid on her apartment.

City Girls were among the many female rap acts to point out sexist double standards in how women in hip-hop are criticized, putting it down to men feeling threatened by their success. That hasn’t stopped them from continuing to put out immodest anthems praising their power. Check out Uproxx’s review of their latest album, City On Lock, here.

The best thing about getting into gin is the fact that a good bottle won’t cost you a mortgage payment. Unlike whisk(e)y, with its high-priced unicorn bottles, gin is a spirit for everyone. Rarely does an expression top $100.

You can always go cheap with gin and be completely happy with a bottle of Gordon’s or Beefeater. But if you truly want to enjoy all the juniper and botanical nuances of the spirit, you’ll want to spend just a little more. Unlike whiskey, spending a little more doesn’t mean ramping up from $50 to $250. It’s more like $20 to $60 (with a few crazy expensive exceptions).

To help you get the most out of your money, we tapped the experts — asking a handful of bartenders to tell us the best (slightly more) expensive gins that are worth the splurge.

Procera

Can Coskunkal, director of operations for Street Guys Hospitality in Washington, DC

Procera is the best gin I’ve ever had. It’s by far the best. It’s super earthy with a great juniper taste that comes from Juniper Procera, a unique type of botanical only grown in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Price: $92

Hans Reisetbauer Barrel Aged Blue Gin

Chris Johnson, beverage director at Oaxaca Taqueria in New York City

Hans Reisetbauer Blue Gin Aged in Oak. Hans makes some of the best brandy in the world and his gin isn’t too shabby either.

The regular Blue Gin gets five years in Austrian oak, it gets rounded out a lot and a ton of warmth from the barrel spice

Price: $75

Isle of Harris Gin

Gavin Humes, bartender at Scratch|Bar & Kitchen in Encino, California

My favorite super-premium gin is the Isle of Harris Gin. It’s beautifully elegant and refreshing. In addition to some of the more traditional flavors in gin, this one is infused with sugar kelp, which emphasizes the salinity and ocean quality in a way that I enjoy.

It makes for a phenomenal gin and tonic, and pairs well with seafood of all types.

Price: $92

Old Raj Dry Gin

Hayden Miller, head bartender at Bodega Taqueria y Tequila in Miami

Old Raj Dry Gin is the tried and true “expensive” bottle of gin that really should make an appearance in the home bar.

With gin, some may think it is overstated, but this styling stands on its own by packing a unique juniper punch that will stand out.

Price: $49.99

Monkey 47

Andy Printy, beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis

Monkey 47 from Black Forest Distillery will punch your pocketbook in the mouth, and you’ll thank it for the pleasure.

Made with a molasses base, this is a fruited, botanical bomb. As the name suggests, there are 47 botanicals and fruits used in its distillation and juniper is far from the star. The nose is a bit of juniper and rosemary. As it roars down your palate, it has a creamy body filled with mild melon and sage. The finish is dry and lingers enough to keep you going back to deciphering all the individual profiles that meld so well together.

Price: $79.99

The Revivalist Botanical Equinox Gin

Alex Clark, bartender at Square 1682 in Philadelphia

The Revivalist Botanica Equinox l Gin. It’s on the pricier side of gin, but not too bad on the wallet. This gin is one I like to just put on the rocks and sip. A little bit of ice brings out all the unique botanicals in this one.

Price: $50

The Botanist

Benjamin Pozar, bartender at Red Brick Distillery in Philadelphia

My pick is The Botanist from the island of Islay off the coast of Scotland. Botanist is delicious, the mint notes are fantastic in a southside or eastside gimlet. The flavors are unique and unforgettable. All 22 ingredients are foraged from the island that’s most known for its Scotch distilleries.

Price: $40

Cambridge Truffle Gin

Nicholas Wyatt, bartender at Teddy’s Bourbon Bar in Prattville, Alabama

Cambridge Truffle Gin is a must-try. Its delightful herbal qualities are rounded out by the deep earthiness of white truffles. If you can find bottles of it, buy them all.

Price: $105

Writer’s Picks:

Tanqueray No. 10

Regular Tanqueray is cheap and reliable. But, if you want to up the ante in both quality and flavor, splurge for a bottle of Tanqueray No. 10 with its perfume-like qualities featuring peppery juniper, dried orange peel, and various herbal notes. Perfect for your favorite gin cocktail.

Price: $40

Koval Dry Gin

You might be aware of Koval because of its award-winning whiskeys. Once you’ve had your fill of the brand’s bourbons and rye, grab a bottle of Koval Dry Gin, You won’t be disappointed. It’s spicier than most gins, but that’s a good thing. It’s also fresh and filled with floral, citrus, and juniper notes to appeal to the most classic gin drinkers.

Price: $45

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I still recall my last trip before the onslaught of COVID-19. I traveled from my current home in the Austin, Texas area to Portland, Oregon where I tasted single malt whiskey at Westward Whiskey’s distillery and visited the exceptionally dramatic Multnomah Falls. Fast forward eight months and we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic. Worldwide, more than 50 million cases of coronavirus have been recorded to date. So while I desperately yearn to travel right now, I’m currently content with staying put and re-discovering my love for the Lone Star State.

Particularly Austin and its surroundings, known as the Texas Hill Country.

With coronavirus cases in Texas on the rise, it behooves Texans with a penchant for travel to remain in our hometowns. Even taking a low contact road trip to another part of our vast state presents its share of risks. Such risks can be lessened by following safety protocols specific to preventing the spread of the virus. Social distancing, along with washing your hands and wearing face masks, is proven to be effective. Taking such safety measures is akin to driving carefully — you do it not only for you but for the other drivers sharing the road with you.

Throughout Austin and the neighboring Hill Country, various places of lodging (hotels included), National Parks, museums, and other businesses have been approved by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to reopen. Ultimately, your decision to visit these reopened locales are contingent on your comfort level and personal assessment of risk factors (and how far you’d have to travel to get there).

This is all to say, this guide to ATX and the Hill Country might be relevant to some of you right now. But for the majority of readers, it offers yet another spot to file away for when COVID is better contained.

Stay at the swanky Austin Proper Hotel, Austin, TX

Easily one of the best (and my favorite) luxury hotels in downtown Austin, Proper is committed to keeping guests safe and super comfortable. Out of the 244 rooms and suites, some have a view of Austin’s famous Lady Bird Lake. The hotel hosts The Peacock, an indoor/outdoor restaurant with some of the tastiest Mediterranean eats in town.

You’ll definitely want to sit on the patio since it overlooks Shoal Creek. Who doesn’t like a seat with a view?

COVID Precautions: temperatures are taken at the door before entering the hotel, masks are required in public spaces, and keyless entry is now an option.

Discover new art at West Chelsea Contemporary, Austin, TX

Formerly Russell Collection Fine Art, West Chelsea Contemporary revealed its newly remodeled and rebranded space last month in October. The new vision for the gallery is already off to a great start! Running now through December 31, 2020, is the Concrete to Canvas exhibition — showcasing some of the biggest names in street art. From Banksy and Basquiat to KAWS and Keith Haring, this show pays homage to graffiti, street art, and the artists stemming from these movements. The creative works from the aforementioned artists are rarely shown in Texas, so this is an awesome opportunity for locals to check them out in-person.

COVID Precautions: Guests of the gallery are required to wear face masks at all times. Additionally, hand sanitizer stations, reminders for social distancing, routine cleanings of the entire gallery, and close monitoring of entrances and exits are all part of the safety measures WCC is taking.

Picnic at Mt. Bonnell, Austin, TX

Mount Bonnell, Austin’s crown jewel, is the city’s highest point at 775 feet. It’s been a top attraction since the 1800s. You have to trek up 106 stone stairs – which leaves me winded every time – but it’s worth the effort. Bonnell offers picturesque views of downtown, Lake Austin, and the Hill Country, making it the perfect picnic spot for you and a significant other.

View Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin at Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX

Artist Ellsworth Kelly gifted his beautiful final masterpiece, Austin, to the Blanton Museum of Art. An 18-foot totem made from California redwood towers over visitors before entry. The 2,715 sq. ft. stone building features multi-colored mouth-blown glass windows and 14 black and white marble panels. Depending on the time of day you go, you’ll have a different experience of the structure’s ambiance and lighting. If you go in the morning or afternoon on a sunny day, the glass windows project a vivid rainbow of hues across the interior walls.

COVID Precautions: Masks are required by all visitors. Social distancing is enforced. Also, you must secure timed tickets in advance to gain entrance into the museum.

Sleep in the trees at Lofthaven Treehouse, Spicewood, TX

There’s something whimsical about living out your Peter Pan dreams by staying in an actual treehouse. Nestled in the Hill Country, the Lofthaven Treehouse is a yurt built around the trunk of an old cypress tree. If that’s not cool enough for you, there’s the epic bathhouse and kitchenette that rests on a ravine connected to the bedroom by a *gasp* 40-foot suspension bridge.

I’m also struck by the heated waterfall because winters in the Hill Country can be a bit chilly.

Sip the finest from Texas’ unique terroir at Fall Creek Vineyards, Dripping Springs, TX

When you think of wine, perhaps France or California comes to mind first. Well, here in Texas we’re proud of our distinctive terroir and winemaking style. There are over 50 wineries spread throughout the Hill Country, with Fall Creek Vineyards being part of the count. For $20, you can enjoy what they call their “Tasting Experience” which consists of five pre-selected wines. Be sure to give their 2018 Tempranillo a swish and sip.

COVID Precautions: Fall Creek practices six feet of social distancing in their tasting room.

Go underground at Inner Space Cavern, Georgetown, TX

This cave was first discovered in 1963, before it was opened to the public three years later. The cave has beautiful formations and even houses some prehistoric animal bones. One of the coolest things about this underground cavern is it’s constant, year-round 72-degree temperature. No complaints there.

If you’re a true adventurer, you’ll want to do the wild cave tour, which consists of hiking, crawling, and climbing through a maze of formations.

Enjoy a dram at Milam & Greene Distillery, Blanco, TX

If you’re itching for a trip outside of the city and into the Hill Country, Blanco is the place to visit – all the more so if you’re a whiskey drinker. As is the case with the local wine scene, Texas whiskey makers have their own way of creating the brown spirit, thanks in part to the warmer climate.

The quaint town of Blanco is home to Milam & Greene, one of my favorite bourbon and rye whiskey creators. Their tasting room recently reopened and you’re able to purchase bottles and enjoy a delicious cocktail.

COVID Precautions: The distillery is currently operating at 50% indoor capacity and face masks are required.

Get in touch with nature at Jacob’s Well, Wimberly, TX

The awe-inspiring beauty of Jacob’s Well is something to be appreciated every season. In the warmer months (May-September), you can swim in the artesian spring. When cooler months arrive, you can hike the 80 acres of surrounding trails. Jacob’s Well is the second-largest fully submerged cave in Texas with the deepest part of the cavern being 140 feet below sea level.

COVID Precautions: There are guided morning tours that allow a maximum of 10 persons. Everyone is required to wear a face mask for the duration of the tour. Individuals in different families or social groups will be asked to remain socially distanced from other touring guests.

Enjoy whiskey and gin at Still Austin Whiskey Co., Austin, TX

I know, I know. “Didn’t you just list a distillery?”

Sorry, not sorry. I’m a fan of quality, Texas-made booze and Still Austin is among my favorite producers. Their newest grain-to-glass Straight Bourbon Whiskey is as good neat as it is in a craft cocktail.

COVID Precautions: They recently reopened their tasting room at limited capacity and masks must be worn while in the distillery.

Peanuts is no longer trapped merely on Apple’s streaming service, which means for those who don’t own a copy of the classic cartoon Thanksgiving or Christmas specials can still get their holiday fix on network TV this winter. It also may deflect some attention from the tree in Rockefeller Center a bit, too.

Wednesday brought word that Apple, which owns the rights to the Peanuts gang, had struck a deal with PBS to make sure the Charlie Brown holiday specials air on TV after fan outrage that the Halloween special skipped network TV for Apple+. The official Snoopy Twitter account announced an air date on PBS for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

And the vaunted PBS NewsHour shared news that both the Thanksgiving special and Charlie Brown’s beloved Christmas special would also air on PBS in the coming weeks.

There was some considerable outrage when the Peanuts Halloween special was only found on Apple+, as it was the first time since its creation that It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown didn’t air on TV. According to CBS, it’s “too late” for the Halloween special to make sense on broadcast TV this year, but fans without Apple+ will have their chance to watch the other two before the year’s out.

The annual holiday tradition was thrown into question in October, when Apple TV+ made a deal with Peanuts Worldwide and Lee Mendelson Film Productions to be the sole home of the Peanuts’ holiday specials.

But PBS said Wednesday that while it’s too late for “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” the two other holiday specials — “Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” — will also air ad-free on PBS and PBS Kids on November 22 and December 13, respectively, at 7:30 p.m. local time/6:30 p.m. CT.

A Change.org petition to get the specials back on broadcast television saw more than a quarter million people sign.

A lot of people here are like family to me,” Michelle says about Bread for the City — a community nonprofit located in Washington DC that provides local residents with food, clothing, health care, social advocacy, and legal services. And since the pandemic began, the need to support organizations like Bread for the City is greater than ever, which is why Amazon is Delivering Smiles to local charities across the country this holiday season.

Watch the full story:

Amazon is giving back by fulfilling hundreds of AmazonSmile Charity Lists, and donating essential pantry and food items to help organizations like Bread for the City provide to those disproportionately impacted this year.

Visit AmazonSmile Charity Lists to donate directly to a local charity in your community, or simply shop smile.amazon.com and Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price of eligible products to your charity of choice.

On Thursday morning, Donald Trump tweeted, “Important News Conference today by lawyers on a very clear and viable path to victory. Pieces are very nicely falling into place. RNC at 12:00 P.M.” There’s already so much packed into a single tweet — the uppercase “Important News Conference,” the blatant lie of a “viable path to victory,” etc. — but the best was yet to come. Trump’s lawyers include Rudy Giuliani, who is tasked with challenging Joe Biden’s legal victory in the presidential election, but mostly spends his time screaming next to a sex shop in Philadelphia and quoting My Cousin Vinny.

Giuliani’s press conference was mostly “the same reheated garbage” that we’ve already heard a thousand times before, with one exception: the disgraced former-mayor of New York City busted out of an impression of Joe Pesci’s character from My Cousin Vinny, the 1992 legal-comedy that won Marisa Tomei an Oscar (deservedly so). “Did you all watch My Cousin Vinny? You know the movie? It’s one of my favorite of all movies, because he comes from Brooklyn,” Giuliani said, while he was supposed to be defending Trump’s BS claim of voter fraud. “When the nice lady who said she saw. And then he…”

You know what? Just watch the clip. Rudy’s Pesci impression is too good to describe.

Here’s the clip (which Rudy perfectly described) in question. Would it surprise anyone if Giuliani, who has turned into a real-life George Costanza (if Costanza had worse politics and got duped by Borat), said that he learned everything he knows about the law from watching My Cousin Vinny on cable? It would make a lot of sense, actually. Meanwhile: