Month: April 2022

There is not much cuter in this world than dogs, with the exception of kids, but putting the two together makes for all kinds of adorable. That’s exactly what Cody and Marie Lucas found when they were on the hunt to rescue a dog from an animal shelter. They knew they wanted a dog and had been to several animal shelters looking for the perfect pup to adopt. When they got to Richmond Animal Care and Control in Virginia they noticed something different about the kennels that held the dogs up for adoption.

There were hand-drawn pictures and colorful notes attached to the dog kennels. On the kennel of a 5-year-old American Staffordshire terrier named Duquesa, the note read “I’m cute and short haired. I can cuddle and bark. Please adopt me.” The note was written in a child’s handwriting. There was another note on Duquesa’s kennel written in Spanish that read “Yo necesito to be adopted. Yo necesito food and agua. Please adopt me.” Marie said that after reading the letters and looking at the dog’s sweet face “how could I not love her?”

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Looking around the shelter, the Lucases found notes attached to the kennels of other dogs that had health issues and dogs that could be viewed as undesirable by adopters. The notes were all written by children around 8 years old and from the perspective of the dog who was looking for a forever home. The doodles that accompanied the sweet stories added to the appeal for the dogs.

The couple decided to bring Duquesa, renamed Bonnie, home with them after reading the letter. The pup had been in the shelter for more than a month and was hard to find a home for due to her limp. There are around 170 animals at the shelter and they stay there until they are adopted in most cases, unless they are deemed too sick to be rehabilitated. Most animals are adopted within three weeks, with the exception of the ones who may have health problems or other issues that make them less desirable, which is where these cute notes come in.

The letters were part of a class project coordinated by Kensey Jones, a second grade teacher at St. Michael’s Episcopal School in Richmond. Jones has been a volunteer at the shelter for the past four years. She also has three rescue dogs of her own, so it’s safe to say this project was close to her heart. Jones wanted to find a way to help the dogs less likely to be adopted find their forever families.

Jones told The Washington Post, “The idea just came to me to connect persuasive writing with these adoptable pets that need a forever home.” She thought it would be “a way that I could make their writing real for [the students], and actually make an impact on the world and our Richmond community, specifically.”

The shelter’s director, Christie Peters, has a son is in Jones’ second grade class. So when Jones approached her with the idea, Peters enthusiastically agreed.

A letter written to hang on a dog named Sunday’s kennel reads: “I would love to be adopted. If you do adopt me, I hope I will brighten up your Sundays like the sun. You’ll be my Sunday Special, and I hope I’ll be yours!” Jones admitted she was surprised at what the kids came up with and that it “pulled at the heartstrings.”

Shelter dogs are always looking for a home that will care for them forever, and this is just one way to make sure they get the families they deserve. If you’re thinking about adding an animal to your family, consider adopting from a local animal shelter. Maybe you, too, will be met with sweet notes from kiddos helping to facilitate successful adoptions.

Jeopardy! fans are, to put it lightly, a dedicated bunch. They will notice the slightest change to the show’s format, or — to use a completely random example — if one of the show’s two hosts wears the same orange sweater blazer more than once.

During Monday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, TV’s greatest morning show host Drew Barrymore interviewed Mayim Bialik about the attention a blazer she wore on the game show has received. “Apparently, all day people are freaking out on Twitter and Instagram and social media and every portal about your jacket,” she said. “But did you know that your hair and outfit were making like…” Bialik finished the thought for her. “I did not,” she divulged. “My mother actually mentioned this to me before it was anywhere else.” Bialik has apparently worn the stylish blazer before, as pointed out by the “absolute observant obsessive commenting [community]” that Jeopardy! inspires.

“I mean, look, for men in these hosting positions, they also change clothes every episode but they wear like, a blue suit, a black suit, a grey suit, and they just change the ties. It’s less noticeable,” Bialik noted… “I will never wear that blazer again. That’s it. Done!”

And if she does, Jeopardy! fans are “going to notice,” Barrymore added. Something tells me if Alex Trebek or even Ken Jennings wore the same suit more than once, they wouldn’t hear about it from random people on Twitter as much as Bialik. Wonder why…

You can watch The Drew Barrymore Show interview above.

On paper, Grand Crew is the latest example of a tried-and-true formula. But while the series may regularly lean on the power of its charismatic cast – which is comprised of Echo Kellum, Nicole Byer, Justin Cunningham, Aaron Jennings, Carl Tart, and Grasie Mercedes – as they hang out at their favorite spot (in this case at their favorite wine bar in L.A.) and deal with life’s many highs, lows, and misadventures, the show offers a lot more in both laughs and substance.

Mixed in with tales about evolving friendships, dating mishaps, and family drama are stories that focus on more unfamiliar terrain like combatting the stigma of therapy in the Black community, managing the onslaught of stressful news events that seems to be undening in day to day life, and, of course, the joys of a good glass of wine. (There’s so much wine.)

Following the wrap-up of season one, Uproxx caught up with Jackson to look back on what inspired the show and how those early comps to familiar sitcoms from the past hit.

What inspired you to tell this story?

The idea for Grand Crew really is pulled from the pages of my actual life, my real life. When I was talking about developing a show with Dan Goor, because I worked on Brooklyn Nine-Nine for four seasons… During that time, Dan pulled me aside and was like, “Hey, if you ever want to develop, I think we’d create something really dope together.” He didn’t say it like that, because he didn’t use the word “dope.” You know what I mean. I’ll paraphrase it here. [Laughs]

But we started meeting weekly while Brooklyn was still in session and we were throwing around a bunch of high-concept ideas. “You’re in the Antarctic.” It’s just high-concept stuff, but before we’d start each meeting, I would tell him about my life and we’d just catch up. I would tell him that I meet up with my friends at this wine bar and we talk about life. We talk about our dating lives. We talk about our career aspirations. We talk about any and everything that is personal to us, in this space. I just told him how I was getting more and more into wine through patronizing that establishment with my friends. Then, after a couple of weeks of catching him up on life at the wine bar and then talking about potential ideas that we could develop, I think we both realized that that was the idea.

When the show first came out, I know there were some early comparisons, calling it an “Insecure for Black men” or even a “Black Friends.” How do you feel about both labels? Do you think they’re more of a hindrance or more helpful when it comes to promoting a new show like this?

I think when any new piece of content comes out, comparisons tend to be drawn. People have their comps, what it might be closely related to. But I can tell you personally, we weren’t trying to pivot off of Insecure. I enjoy the show, Friends, but that wasn’t what I had in mind for the show, either. It really is that I was going to a wine bar with my friends. Then, that’s the idea. I think, obviously, they meet at a coffee shop in Friends, so I could see how the comparisons could be drawn there. Also, the ensemble nature of it. Also, the Los Angeles of it with Insecure and things of that nature. But when it came to the ideation behind the show, that wasn’t a consideration.

That being said, I worked on Insecure for two seasons. But the development of the show was already well in progress before I even started working on that show. If anybody says, “I can feel hints of Insecure and Friends in there,” I’m absolutely honored because those are two shows that are in the cultural lexicon and have had a significant impact on television. In that way, I think that’s cool if people are saying it in a positive way. But it was, by no means, an intentional thing when we were coming up with the show. I think it can be helpful, in the way that it might help people wrap their heads around this new show that I’ve created. But it can be harmful because it’s not what my intent was. It was not to make a 2.0 version of either of those shows, as much as I enjoy those two shows.

Yeah. I wanted to give you a chance to speak on that, too, because, personally, after being a fan of the show and seeing those comments, I thought that, as well-intentioned, as those comparisons may have been, I felt like it was a bit reductive and oversimplifying, in a sense.

Thank you.

There was one thing that caught my eye in the very first episode, which may have been a pure coincidence. In the opening scene, I think Sherm was wearing a hat that had “squad” on the front and the style looked a lot like the Friends logo. Was that on purpose?

That is interesting because it wasn’t me saying, “Let’s throw this hat on Sherm.” That being said, our wardrobe person, Queensylvia [Akuchie], had the idea. I saw the fit on Sherm. I was like, “It looks like it’s a dope fit.” Do you know what I mean? In that way, I guess we welcomed some of those comparisons, but in a world where there are pillars of comedy, I think maybe that I could see that being an homage to a form that we are playing in. But it was less about, “Okay. We’re doing the next version of that,” and more about, “All right. It’s the juxtaposition of a Black man wearing a hat that says ‘squad.’” It’s almost like the vernacular, the language, the tone’s going to be almost different than a Friends. Do you know what I mean? In a way, it’s like tipping a hat to it. Also, saying we are something a little bit different.

Going back to your process a little bit, can you think back on some checkpoints or even just potential pitfalls or obstacles you kept in mind throughout the process of making this show?

I really wanted to cover therapy. I did therapy for the first time last year, after years of contemplation, trepidation, and wondering if that means that there’s something wrong with me, if I go to therapy. I think, to me, that stigma is real in the Black community. Once I did it, I was like, “Shit. This is great.” If people are open to it, get past that initial barrier, just do it, because it’s really beneficial if you find the right person to help you out with the therapy. That one was really important to me, just to say, “It’s cool. It could be cool to do therapy and there’s nothing wrong with it.” Even when we had topics throughout the season, the goal was never to come off too preachy. Even though we wanted to cover it, I wanted to say, “Okay. We got to make this funny.” What’s the comedy game, without making therapy the joke? You know what I mean? That was a big one.

I definitely wanted to cover Black men and their relationship with their fathers, just the unspoken nature of some of the dynamics when it comes to Black men and their fathers, and my relationship with my father. I love him so much, but we’ve grown so much as I’ve gotten older. I think we communicate better than we ever had, but there was a point where that came to a head, where we had to transcend the subtext of our relationship and just speak more things overtly. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. For sure.

I love music. I really wanted to do something that had a musical element to it. Also, I wanted the show to evolve. I wanted the characters to evolve with their love of wine, in the same way that I have done in real life. This first season, the wine is a backdrop. Every now and again, you’ll have a cold open that deals with wine. Or you have the episode at the vineyard and things like that. Or the episode eight cold open, where you’re dealing with savoring and elements like that. But I also wanted to make sure that we got them to a vineyard and that we gradually had more wine elements covered in the show, as well. Those are some of the things. Honestly, every episode has a topic in it that I was like, “This is important. I really am excited to cover this.” I could go on and on, but that’s how we approached the story break, was, “Okay. What are we excited to cover? How can we do it in a way that still leads with the funny, without making light of the actual topic at hand?”

You touched a lot on the themes that people connect within this show. I think that’s one of the reasons why I like it so much myself, these types of themes. But also, the people, because the reason why I even started watching is I had multiple people text me saying, “Hey, you’re in this show, you just don’t realize it yet” in reference to Wyatt (Justin Cunningham). I’m curious, are there any characters that you specifically relate to?

I relate to every character in the show. I’m going to give you the politicians’ answer. When it comes to Noah, I really love rom-coms. I want to write rom-coms. I want to write and direct rom-com movies. I love rom-coms. That’s the Noah part of me. As far as the career focus and really being about your business, I think that’s the Anthony side of me. The jovial nature and the playfulness of Sherm. I think that there’s a side of me in there, too. Then, when it comes to Wyatt… I see maybe that’s the future version of me, once I find that person. It would be so dope to have somebody that is your best friend, that you can talk your shit to and have a really great dynamic with. As far as the guys on the show, I do think there are elements of me in all of them. I don’t know, if I had to choose one, which one I would choose. It would depend on the moment, depend on the situation. Then, when it comes to Nicky, Nicole [Byer] has been one of my best friends for over a decade. I’ve known her for a long time. Then, Fay. They’re just a tandem, but there are people in my life that those two actually remind me of, as well. Actually, I do have friends that there are pieces of them in all these characters, as well. I can’t give you a straight answer. I’m sorry.

No, it’s all good. I realize I basically asked you your favorite child, which you’re never supposed to do. I want to ask you, how do you hope the show inspires viewers?

I hope that it inspires viewers to want to learn more about wine, to want to get more into wine. Or for people that are already into wine, I hope they see a piece of their wine-loving selves in the show. That’s one. At the end of the day, I want this to be a feel-good show. There is so much shit going on in the world, that I think there is room and there’s space for a show that is like, “Man, I just feel like I’m a part of this group. It feels good to be a part of this group. I get to laugh and escape for a little bit.” Then, we can get back to real life and the real world. Not to say that we don’t cover real topics, but I think, tonally, we were very intentional about doing it in a way that, hopefully, makes the viewer feel protected and feel safe in the world of the show.

I hope it inspires people to just connect with their group of friends and find their tribe. A big part of me coming to L.A., I do love L.A., but I think what really made it special for me is when I found that group. When I found that set of people that I could always hit up at any time to say, “Hey, let’s head to the wine bar. I just want to talk.” I hope it inspires people to also realize that that is a really great part of life and find their group of folks to drink wine with, as well.

You can stream season 1 of ‘Grand Crew’ on Peacock

Back in November, Britney Spears declared she was “thinking about having another baby” after she was apparently forced to have an IUD during her conservatorship. Now, it’s happening: In an Instagram post shared this afternoon, Britney Spears confirmed she is pregnant.

Her post starts, “I lost so much weight to go on my Maui trip only to gain it back [shrugging emojis] … I thought ‘Geez … what happened to my stomach ???” My husband said ‘No you’re food pregnant silly !!!’ So I got a pregnancy test … and uhhhhh well … I am having a baby.”

The post continues, “4 days later I got a little more food pregnant. It’s growing !!! If 2 are in there … I might just loose it … I obviously won’t be going out as much due to the paps getting their money shot of me like they unfortunately already have … it’s hard because when I was pregnant I had perinatal depression … I have to say it is absolutely horrible … women didn’t talk about it back then … some people considered it dangerous if a woman complained like that with a baby inside her … but now women talk about it everyday … thank Jesus we don’t have to keep that pain a reserved proper secret … This time I will be doing yoga every day !!! Spreading lots of joy and love !!!”

In the post, Spears refers to fiance Sam Asghari as her “husband,” as she has in other recent posts. This has fueled rumors she and Asghari got secretly married and haven’t publicly announced it yet.

Spears currently has two children, son Sean (16 years old) and Jayden (15), who she shares with ex-husband Kevin Federline.

As Russia continues to be mired in its invasion of Ukraine, which has not gone as planned, the Kremlin is reportedly looking to retaliate against the United States for levying crippling sanctions and galvanizing the West in support of Ukraine. However, Russia’s plan for revenge sounds awfully familiar, and stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Moscow wants to meddle in the 2024 presidential election by propping up Donald Trump.

Yup, we’re doing this again. Here’s what one of Vladimir Putin’s “pet pundits” recently said on Russian state TV. Via The Daily Beast:

“We’re trying to feel our way, figuring out the first steps. What can we do in 2023, 2024?,” Russian “Americanist” Malek Dudakov, a political scientist specializing in the U.S., said. He suggested that Russia’s interference in the upcoming elections is still in its early stages, and that more will be accomplished after the war is over and frosty relations between the U.S. and Russia start to warm up. “When things thaw out and the presidential race for 2024 is firmly on the agenda, there’ll be moments we can use,” he added. “The most banal approach I can think of is to invite Trump—before he announces he’s running for President—to some future summit in liberated Mariupol.”

Not only is Russian state TV getting behind Trump, and at the behest of the Kremlin in case you forgot how state TV works, Putin’s pundits have already picked out a new running mate for Trump: Tulsi Gabbard. The same Tulsi Gabbard who once threatened to sue Hillary Clinton for calling her a “Russian asset” but ultimately dropped the suit. Because Hillary was right? We’re definitely not saying that (in writing).

(Via The Daily Beast)

Tame Impala is perhaps the most iconic figure in psychedelic rock from the past decade-plus, as each of his four albums have had tremendous success and spawned recognizable and beloved tracks. Of those, though, Kevin Parker’s defining tune is clearly Currents highlight “The Less I Know The Better” (which was actually the final single to be released from the album): It’s his only multi-Platinum song (currently at 4-times Platinum) and it’s easily his most-streamed song on Spotify.

In fact, the tune actually just reached a major milestone on Spotify: Chart Data reports the song has eclipsed 1 billion streams, becoming Tame Impala’s first song to do so. As of this post, Spotify shows the song has 999,269,966 streams. So, even if it hasn’t technically reached a billion streams yet, it ought to soon.

Parker previously told Noisey of the song, “I just remember sitting alone in my home studio, a little studio, because I was between houses, and making the demo of the song in about half an hour. Like I had the chords and the melody and I was just thinking, ‘It needs a gnarly bass riff.’ The way that I know I’ve done a new riff that is cool, is if my hands don’t want to do it. If you let your hands do the thinking, it will just be the same old sh*t. But yeah, that bass riff — it’s actually a guitar with an octave pedal — but that very take is the one that’s used in the whole song.”

As for where “The Less I Know The Better” ranks all-time in Spotify streams, it still has a way to go to catch up to the No. 1 song, Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You,” which currently has a hair under 3.1 billion streams. As of April 10, Tame Impala’s song would need about 300 million more streams to even crack the top 100, as rounding out the list is Charlie Puth’s “Attention” with a bit over 1.3 billion streams.

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

There is a moment in Tunic relatively early on where it becomes clear what kind of game it is. An item that will make the experience of the game far more bearable is hidden away behind a locked door. The player goes out of their way to find the key to that door, potentially battles past a tough encounter, and then opens it up. Success, the item is acquired. The game then leads the player through the exit. This takes them through a hidden path where they quickly discover that, had they just walked through the shadows, they could have skipped finding the key and gotten the item without it.

That is Tunic. A game filled with “ah ha!” moments where every secret feels like the discovery of a lifetime. One where pretty much everything is open from the beginning and the only thing stopping the player from moving on is knowledge and experimentation.

Tunic isn’t the first game to give the player absolute freedom from the beginning of the game to do whatever they want. The Legend of Zelda did this and many other NES games that the style of Tunic is inspired by did it as well. However, while bombing a random wall in The Legend of Zelda felt cheap and unearned, every reward in Tunic feels like it just took the entire world the game had shown to that point and flipped it on its head. It does this by slowly and carefully feeding enough information to the player to feel like they have a grasp of what’s going on, but always holding out on us until we can learn a little bit more.

The way it accomplishes this is through the brilliant use of an in-game manual like NES games of old that the player can check and look through. The catch is, a large portion of it is in an unrecognizable language and many of its pages are missing. This is one of the many ways the player must constantly be thinking and puzzle solving. The manual is legible and the player can understand what it is trying to tell them, but it requires thinking through and carefully reading. Every once in awhile a page will seem like there just isn’t enough information, then the player will find the next one that goes with it, and everything clicks.

These manual pages aren’t simply helpful hints or paths to secrets either. They teach the player game mechanics that have been available to them this whole time, but they likely have never tried because they never thought to. Everything in Tunic is a discovery, but it never feels old to find new information. Instead its exciting and feels like an opportunity to figure out the next step on your journey. It very much feels like if a Zelda game, or a Souls game, but if it emphasized puzzle solving instead of the combat.

That is not to say that the combat of Tunic isn’t fun. The player will eventually find themself with the standard sword and shield where they can block attacks and slash to their delight. Like a Souls game they have a stamina bar, which means they need to be careful with how often they’re blocking and dodging, but unlike Souls games, there isn’t a need to focus on a specific build. There are plenty of resources to upgrade most of your stats just fine. What’s fun about the combat of Tunic is it isn’t really about the stats but more about managing resources in combat. Magic in particular falls heavy under this category and will likely be in heavy use by most player because of the variety of fun ways to use it.

The combat itself is fun to use, fights with regular enemies are never too easy but also never too hard, but where the game shines is the boss fights. If you want a true challenge in combat then the boss fights are where you will find them. Some of these bosses can put on a hurting fast and will require some quick thinking to overcome them. Most of them are doable though, but some of the late game ones can feel a little too difficult. The sudden difficulty spike comes a bit out of nowhere and really puts the players’ skills to the test.

If Tunic ever does feel too hard then the player can always turn on the no fail option. This feature ensures that the player will not die in combat which means that anyone can enjoy the puzzle-solving aspects of Tunic even if they can’t ever overcome the combat. This is a great way to make sure everyone can enjoy the game no matter their skill level. It’s one of the many reasons Tunic is an easy to sell to at least try it out, especially since it’s on Game Pass.

This really is a game that anyone who enjoys video games should give a go. It’s not only one of the best games of the year, but it’s one of the best games ever made period. There is something really special about the discovery in Tunic that can’t be understated. Few games have managed to capture the fun of exploration the way Tunic has. This is a world that I’m going to come back to again, and again, and again because I want to see what it’s like with the knowledge of its many secrets.

Pontiac, Michigan rapper DDG is going on a space mission — hypothetically, of course — and tells Uproxx what he wants out of a crew to get the job done. With himself as the captain and a variety of roles to fill, he turns to his fellow rappers such as Gunna, Kanye West, and Future for jobs like pilot, crew, and galaxy shooter. “I think this is a very successful space crew,” he says. “I think everybody got the right job.”

DDG previously went to space in his video for “Elon Musk” featuring Gunna. The two XXL Freshmen donned space suits and floated in zero-G in the colorful clip, which saw them comparing themselves to the founder of SpaceX. Meanwhile, another of DDG’s picks, Masked Wolf, blew up thanks to his song “Astronaut In The Ocean,” making him another perfect candidate for the crew. Future, of course, also goes by Pluto, while Lil Uzi Vert, the crew’s designated “Jedi,” adopted the nickname Baby Pluto when he and Future released their collaborative album in 2020.

DDG also turns to Blueface, his “Moonwalking In Calabasas” collaborator, to round out the crew, sharing his logic on all the picks. Check out the short clip above.

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

The summer of Morbius is over before it even started.

Jared Leto’s vampire movie opened last weekend to $39 million at the domestic box office, including $5.7 million in Thursday previews. Those aren’t Spider-Man: No Way Home or even Venom: Let There Be Carnage numbers, but they were higher than expected. Was this proof that moviegoers (including the Morbius Discord community) will see any comic book movie that’s released in theaters, no matter how very bad it is?

Uh… no.

Jared Leto’s Morbius nose-dived in its second frame, earning just $10.2 million for a $57.1 million ten-day total. That’s a 74 percent drop from its $39 million debut, which is the biggest drop ever for any “big” comic book superhero movie, including the infamous likes of Dark Phoenix, Fantastic Four, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Hulk, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Forbes reports that it’s the second biggest drop for any comic book movie ever. The steepest drop: 1997’s Shaquille O’Neal-starring Steel, which made $870,068 in weekend one (including my 10 bucks) and only $191,667 in weekend two. Morbius is up to $126.4 million worldwide, which is roughly the same amount of money Spider-Man: No Way Home made on its first day of release ($121.85 million).

Who will the summer belong to, if not Morbius? Here’s hoping for Kevin, Stuart, and Bob.

(Via Forbes)

The “older person goes back to school” trope has definitely been used before, (see Never Been Kissed, Old School, The House Bunny, etc.) but it’s been long enough where all of the references are a little dated. Enter: Rebel Wilson.

Wilson stars in Netflix’s newest comedy, Senior Year, as a high school senior who was on top of the world (well, the cheerleader pyramid) until falling into a coma for two decades. She wakes up in 2022 and is determined to finish out her senior year in the presence of Gen Z. Choas ensues. It’s unclear if she woke up with her Australian accent, or if that was a part of the bit. The movie also stars Justin Hartley, Sam Richardson, Zoe Chao, Chris Parnell, Brandon Scott Jones, and ’90s high school queen Alicia Silverstone.

The movie drops on Friday, May 13th . Here is the official Netflix synopsis.

After a cheerleader (Rebel Wilson) falls off a pyramid and into a 20 year coma, she wakes up as a 37-year-old woman, ready to return to high school, regain her status and claim the prom queen crown that eluded her.

Wilson has been laying low over the past few years after starring in the Pitch Perfect franchise and a handful of romantic comedies. Obviously, we aren’t counting Cats (2019).