Month: September 2021

Last week, Britney Spears accused of slapping the housekeeper’s phone out of her hand after an argument the two had about the singer’s dogs. According to TMZ, the housekeeper took the dogs to the vet after she noticed that they were not being properly fed and dehydrated. After the visit, she opted to keep them rather than return them to the singer, and this was the spark of the fight between them. But now Spears won’t face any criminal charges.

As reported by TMZ and confirmed by Variety, Spears avoided charges because The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office reportedly had “insufficient evidence lack of injury to the housekeeper or significant damage to the phone.” After the charges were filed, Britney’s lawyer Matthew Rosengart called the incident an “overblown sensational tabloid fodder.”

The news comes after singer reportedly claimed her father Jamie Spears tried to extort her out of $2 million ahead of his potential removal from his conservatorship. Jamie planned to use some of the money to pay his lawyers and former business manager Tri Star. In a statement from Rosengart about the allegations, he said, “The status quo is no longer tolerable, and Britney Spears will not be extorted.” Britney’s team asked Jamie to resign from his position or have him suspended until September 29 if he refuses to step down.

Dancing With the Stars is about to turn 30 seasons old, and over that time they’ve had all manner of hoofing celebs. Buzz Aldrin was even on there! But there’s one genre of guests they’re not above hiring: famous people who’ve undergone some form of controversy. They’re had on Rick Perry and Bristol Palin and Carole Baskin and, perhaps most notorious of all, Trump press secretary Sean Spicer. (They also enlisted Tucker Carlson, but this was well before his rebranding as a Fox News ghoul who tells his viewers to harass people wearing protective masks during a pandemic.)

So this shouldn’t be shocking: As per TMZ, Olivia Jade, YouTube star and, perhaps more famously, daughter of disgraced Full House alum Lori Loughlin, will take her next evolutionary step and appear on the longtime game show. Jade was spotted the rehearsal space on Tuesday. Her participation on the show was confirmed later. Though the Season 30 cast has yet to be revealed in full, it is known that she’ll be joining JoJo Siwa, Kenya Moore, Olympic gymnast Suni Lee.

Jade, of course, was one of the two daughters Loughlin and husband Mossimo Giannulli involved in what became known as Operation Varsity Blues, which found a number of well-off parents getting involved in a scam to fraudulently get their spawn into top universities. That story broke about 2 ½ years ago, and Jade has tried to move on, though she’s not above doing things like fact-checking jokes about her on the new version of Gossip Girl. But second acts in America are sometimes real, and perhaps she’ll get hers by way of a show that once featured Andy Dick busting some moves.

(Via TMZ)

One of the most anticipated characters in Pokemon Unite has been Blastoise. Blastoise was surprisingly missing from the game at launch, despite being a playable character in the beta, while the other original starters like Venusaur and Charizard were there. The lack of Blastoise led to the same question every update that came and went without everyone’s favorite water blasting Pokemon.

Finally, on Wednesday, Pokemon Unite showed us Blastoise in all of his glory. He looked powerful, intense, and shockingly dapper? Yeah, nobody can really explain why but Blastoise is arriving to Pokemon Unite dressed similarly to the way Cam Newton came to a press conference one time.

They’re the same picture.

Once the excitement over Blastoise joining Unite had tampered down the focus of everyone immediately shifted to Blastoise’s outfit. Cam Newton comparison aside, Blastoise showed up to this game about fighting looking pretty well dressed. People took notice of Blastoise efforts.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to not find this entire outfit ridiculous considering the setting so he also had to get roasted as well. Comparisons from Dad to country lawyer were all thrown at our shoulder cannon’d friend.

Now what we will not stand for is accusations that Blastoise is up to anything illegal. This is an honest Pokémon looking for honest work…by fighting other Pokémon in an arena. Okay maybe not that honest.

Dear Pokémon Company, please make this outfit an unlockable during the next Pokémon Go community event. We all need our own dapper Blastoise in our lives.

After months of delays and an often-irritating waiting game, Drake finally shared the release date for his upcoming album, Certified Lover Boy. The rapper “hacked” a Sportscenter broadcast to reveal September 3 as the official date, then later shared quite the controversial artwork. Now he’s unveiled the guest features for the project in a very creative way.

Drake posted the names of his guests on various billboards. Among those set to appear include Jay-Z, Young Thug, Future, 21 Savage, Lil Baby, Giveon, Ty Dolla Sign, and Lil Durk. The billboards for the artists were placed in each one’s respective state. For instance, Jay-Z’s was in New York, Lil Durk’s was in Illinois, both Giveon and Ty Dolla Sign’s were in California, and Atlanta played home to Young Thug, Future, 21 Savage, and Lil Baby.

You can see some examples below:

Lil Durk’s is set to appear on the album’s lead single “Laugh Now, Cry Later,” but it’s possible that he and Drake worked on multiple songs. Just like with the rest of the guests on the album, we’ll have to wait until Friday to find out.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Certified Lover Boy is out 9/3 via OVO Sound/Republic.

Well, it’s that time of year again when we look across Twitter at a sea of angry tweets about the glitches in the most recent release of Madden. This year’s iteration, Madden 22, is no different from previous years with glitches everywhere. Some of them are funny, such as this one where an entire defensive line gets destroyed, but there are the ones that aren’t quite as enjoyable.

Players have been reporting that when they’re in Franchise mode they’ll be playing through games, win the game, and go back to the menu only to discover they have suffered a loss. The likely cause of this has something to do with players online franchises desynching from the servers, but that doesn’t make the glitch any less frustrating when it occurs. Especially when it’s occurring enough that multiple people are tweeting about it.

As always, we want to stress that making video games is incredibly difficult. However, when the entire objective of franchise mode is to play through an entire season there is little reason to stay engaged with the game when the results not only aren’t counting but are being recorded as losses. Why not just simulate through every game if there’s a chance we’re going to lose anyway? This is one of those glitches that makes players put the game down and never play it again, even after it’s been patched out.

While every Madden game these days seems to launch as a buggy mess, Madden 22 is earning special accolades among fans for being one of the most broken at launch. Visual glitches, such as fans holding up signs cheering for the wrong team, are spread throughout the game. Unfortunately, those are minor compared to the people who have seen the game consistently crashing or being unable to access entire modes such as Face of the Franchise. The worst sin a game can commit is not allowed players to play it and right now people who want to play Madden are struggling to even get through menus. Then, when they do, their game might be recorded as a loss. It’s no surprise to see that people are frustrated.

As for a fix, at this point, all EA has is that fixes are “in the works, stay tuned,” per a statement to IGN about the loss glitch issue. A patch is surely on the way, but given the widespread issues in the game, it seems unlikely one patch will be enough to fix it all.

Earlier this week, Lil Wayne celebrated the tenth anniversary of his ninth album, The Carter IV. It’s an important one in the rapper’s career as it’s the first he released after serving an eight-month prison sentence for illegal possession of a weapon. A decade later, he rung in the anniversary by hopping on Twitter to answer questions from fans.

It was during this Q&A that Wayne revealed how often he changes his verses when working with Drake, whom he signed to Young Money more than a decade ago. “Everything Drake send back, I always have to go back and re-record,” Wayne said in a video response. “It’s always too hot. It’s always because he says something at the end that make me be like, ‘Oh, I could make more of the song and capitalize on what he just said.’ I have changed my verse a billion times because of Drake and that’s always the person.”

He added, “It’s always because he says something that sounds a whole lot more interesting and unique and I feel like we need to capitalize on whatever the hell he said.”

Wayne and Drake have collaborated several times, the most recent being “Seeing Green,” with Nicki Minaj, and “BB King Freestyle.”

Everyone knew that the upcoming Marvel’s Midnight Suns would be a tactical game of some kind. The developer, Firaxis Games is famous in the tactics RPG genre thanks to previous hits like XCOM and Civilization. However, there was a lot of interest in what direction they were planning on taking the game. Was it going to be just a Marvel version of the popular XCOM series, a spin-off of Civilization, or was there a plan to take this potential new franchise in a completely different direction?

On Wednesday, we finally got our answers to at least some of those questions. Marvel released a gameplay trailer of the upcoming game to give fans some insight into some of the features we’ll see in Midnight Suns. The trailer featured a lot of fun gameplay such as dialogue trees, multiple characters, and most interestingly a card system. While the trailer didn’t go too in-depth into features, because it’s a trailer, what stood out the most was definitely the cards that appeared to represent characters’ abilities and powers.

Traditionally, tactical RPGs go in one of two directions. They either take the Civilization direction where it’s basically a turn-based Real-Time Strategy game. The alternative is the XCOM or Fire Emblem route where characters are positioned in a way that can create tactical battle advantages. These advantages can swing the direction of a fight and allow the player to potentially do more damage to their opponent. Midnight Suns however seems to be building their system around deck building, which has its pros and cons.

Deck building games in concept are simple, put together a deck of cards that will act as actions for the players. Where the fun in them lies is that, if the player spends enough time creating their deck, they can build ultra-powerful move sets. It’s all about creating the perfect win scenario and it requires a lot of scrolling through menus, trial, and error. For some people, the idea of collecting cards, building out a deck, and creating the perfect setup for characters is a ton of fun. For others, it’s a chore that is going to make them not want to play the game. Deck building isn’t for everyone and it’s a bit of a surprise to see such a polarizing gameplay style applied to a franchise with such a huge potential fanbase like Marvel.

However, there is one aspect of this trailer that could solve an issue that so many tactical RPGs have to deal with, especially the XCOM series. Cards might mean that the accuracy system from the XCOM games will not be a part of this game. Anyone that’s played XCOM knows this frustration. The setup is perfect, the enemy has been outmaneuvered, and all that’s necessary is for your AI to hit their shot. You have a 99 percent chance of a hit, and then your character misses. The enemy turns around and hits a shot on you with not only a lower percentage chance, but it’s a critical hit and you die immediately. Controller? Broken.

A reaction to the Midnight Suns, and one that would have been completely reasonable, is to say that it should have just been Marvel XCOM and in a lot of ways it looks just like that. However, with these cards acting as powers, the rules change. It becomes not only about how you have set yourself up for an attack, but what deck you’ve brought in with you. Set yourself up perfect, play the right card at the right moment, and watch the results of your work come to fruition. No 99 percent misses. While cards might not be for everyone, they may feel more fair and rewarding than the percentages of previous games.

The Alien franchise hasn’t been doing so hot, despite valiant efforts. Though a Noah Hawley TV series version is still a go, Alien: Covenant, the prequel that was also a sequel to the universe-building Prometheus, dramatically underperformed back in 2017. But there was also another Alien film — a fifth in the main storyline, concerning Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, to be helmed by District 9’s Neill Blomkamp. That seemed to be dead a few years ago, but there was someone who always had its back: Sigourney Weaver.

In an interview with The Independent (by way of IGN), Blomkamp — promoting his new film, Demonic — opened up about the aborted project, which would presumably concern the surviving clone of Ripley, who emerged in the fourth outing, Alien: Resurrection (which also underperformed, once upon a time). He didn’t seem to have much optimism about it ever being exhumed.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I’m not sure that I would do that project,” he said. “My assumption is that it’s completely dead.” But he had nothing but warm thoughts about its almost-star.

“Sigourney was unbelievably supportive and amazing. I have nothing but the best things to say about Sigourney,” Blomkamp said. “I’m such a fan of hers on every level. She was always into the project, but Fox just clearly doesn’t want it. I haven’t had anything to do with that for years.”

Weaver had been interested in returning to the role that made her name since at least 2004, when she talked about doing a “small, spooky movie” that would “take Ripley to whatever the next stage may be.” But that obviously never happened. But given how much Hollywood loves reboot/revivals — and how much press the high school stage version of the original Alien received a while back — maybe never say never.

(Via Independent and IGN)

At the top of the year, Julien Baker staged her return, following up 2017’s Turn Out The Lights with Little Oblivions. Our own Steven Hyden dubbed it her best album, thought her 2015 debut Sprained Ankle is still in my own personal rotation for epic, silvery confessional records. Now that she’s ushering in this new phase, Baker is also opening up her work for reimagining from her fellow artists, launching the Little Oblivions remix EP a few weeks ago with a rework for “Bloodshot” by Helios.

Today she’s shared another remix, this one by Australian songwriter Gordi — who released the magnificent breakout album Our Two Skins last year — tackling the beautifully brutalist “Ringside.” Today also marks the release of the full EP, which includes the following additional remixes: Half Waif remixing “Faith Healer,” Jesu remixing “Favor,” and Thao remixing “Ziptie.”

After an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, Baker is slated for a series of tour dates behind the album this fall. While it’s most likely she’ll be playing the original versions of her songs, there’s always a chance some of these artist may join her on the road to unveil their own versions live. Check out the latest remix by Gordi above and the get the EP here.

We live in a world where men, who have never and will never experience pregnancy or childbirth, make laws about women’s reproduction, which in and of itself is a headscratcher. When we’re talking about anti-abortion legislation, which effectively forces women to go through pregnancy and childbirth whether it’s healthy for them or not, it seems like the people who actually experience those things should have a more heavily weighted say in such legislation.

Of course, women have varied opinions on the matter. (The most recent Gallup poll found that 53% of women in the U.S. identify as “pro-choice” and 43% identify as “pro-life.”) But interestingly, a Twitter thread is showing how actual experience can either shift or concretes a person’s views.

Writer Jennifer Wright wrote, “Raise your hand if pregnancy and childbirth only made you *more* pro-choice,” and the responses came flooding in.

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Raise your hand if pregnancy and childbirth only made you *more* pro-choice.

— Jennifer Wright (@JenAshleyWright)
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Scores of women responded in the affirmative, saying that going through pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing has either made them change their stance from anti-choice to pro-choice or solidified their pro-choice beliefs.

For some, it was getting a first-hand taste of the potential dangers pregnancy poses.

@S_Lynne_13 @JenAshleyWright Pre-eclampsia here too. Needed emergency csection to save me and my baby. I was 34 wee… https://t.co/61DPCdUw49

— Rose (@DelRose30)
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@JenAshleyWright I had to go off my meds for baby 2 and 3. It was excruciating, and I don’t even have a severe ment… https://t.co/81a0RK90XJ

— jenmilbar (@sighitsjen)
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For others, their experiences with adoption solidified their pro-choice stance.

@shmessica @JenAshleyWright Absolutely, as did my experience as a foster mom.

— Gorilla Librarian (@GorillaLibrn)
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@JenAshleyWright @kibblesmith I’d also like to add that I’m adopted, and while I’m grateful for my life I definitel… https://t.co/M0O5he7R9K

— kirbaqueen (@kirbaqueen)
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Some shared that losing a baby or nearly losing a baby helped them realize the complexities of choices surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.

@ByeAstrid @JenAshleyWright I’m so sorry you lost your son. My first was a 25 weeker we spent 135 days in the NICU,… https://t.co/l5yp244FYK

— Adele Oliveira (@adelemoliveira)
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Many women shared that going through pregnancy and childbirth made them realize that forcing someone who doesn’t want to be pregnant or birth a child to do so is cruel.

@JenAshleyWright After my two pregnancies there is no way I would force a person to go through the same thing who w… https://t.co/8hY0OTVOFC

— Kyra Ison (@wvgirlaz)
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@kimtfiu @JenAshleyWright Yep. My mom had a real hard time with me and was a nurse in the babies ward for a bit – t… https://t.co/dAoIQUUPlZ

— House of Moderna ⚖️♿️💛🐝 (@piratefoxy)
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@JenAshleyWright Yep. 45 hour labor with first, 2 weeks overdue with second. These children were planned, wanted, s… https://t.co/s6WqB6UQMH

— Nora Katzenberger (@norawk)
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Even those who enjoyed being pregnant or who had loads of support shared that the experience pushed them toward choice.

@JenAshleyWright Single mom over here – pregnancy, childbirth, child rearing – all of it is expensive, stressful, a… https://t.co/SKHKuS4jf9

— Shawn Tylka (@tylka5)
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@JenAshleyWright I have a husband, health insurance, a home and access to solid medical care and it was still the m… https://t.co/EHrOPNIuOJ

— jdubs (@badpancreas)
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Experience can be eye-opening.

@JenAshleyWright Had an abortion at 16 then had to fight with my doctor to let me keep my third child when I was 36… https://t.co/Zuu841VmUY

— Lisen Stromberg (@LisenStromberg)
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Even experiences that someone might guess would lead to different views.

@JenAshleyWright My miscarriages made me more pro choice . I know that sounds backwards and please don’t come at me… https://t.co/ZGHTltYfqy

— jpm2375 (@Jpm2375)
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@JenAshleyWright Hell, my first baby dying made me more pro-choice.

— Megan the Klutz (@msmeganl)
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A few men even weighed in, saying that their experience just witnessing their wives’ pregnancy and childbirth difficulties made them see that no one should be forced through it against their will.

@JenAshleyWright Watching my wife spend 7 days in the hospital giving birth to our daughter made me hate 2 things m… https://t.co/nZz355IjID

— Inhumanoid (@WheelOfDingus)
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@JenAshleyWright Absolutely. I watched my wife give birth (I about passed out multiple times) and could never again… https://t.co/5vKrPEcaaV

— Eric VanEpps (@EricMVanEpps)
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So many stories, so many reasons to believe in giving women autonomy over their own medical decisions.

@JenAshleyWright *losing a pregnancy at 36 weeks* made me more pro-choice than ever before.

— Kim Wexler’s power pony (@LeslieNope_)
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@JenAshleyWright Yes. Had a still born at 27 weeks. Only specialists who could do the procedure were abortionists.… https://t.co/Q6o7Fnofwe

— blackademthick (@blackademthicc)
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@JenAshleyWright I had an easy birth. Less than 6 hours unmedicated birth with no complications for a first time mo… https://t.co/cc2tVebT7h

— Tonya (@vanilla_ragdoll)
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Both pregnancies very much wanted, officially normal and no serious complications… but neither was ‘easy’ and the… https://t.co/rszYByLYya

— Jenni Adam (@jenniadam)
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Scrolling through the hundreds of comments in the thread, the consensus was clear.

Pregnancy and childbirth are difficult and dangerous, with lifelong consequences, even when you want a child. Adoption is not the panacea people make it out to be. Struggling through infertility and multiple miscarriages can make women more understanding of how complicated reproductive choices are. And the idea of the government forcing a woman to stay pregnant and deliver a baby no matter the circumstances feels wrong when you know exactly what that can mean for her.

Let’s leave personal medical choices that don’t affect others to patients and their providers, period.