Month: May 2024

With the release of any ranked list, backlash is sure to follow. Apple Music’s top 100 albums of all time list is no exception. But, there’s one person that seems to be content with the streaming company’s opinion.

While Lauryn Hill‘s The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill secured the top spot, Frank Ocean’s Blonde wasn’t far off in the fifth slot. Despite users online’s push back, yesterday (May 24), the “Novacane” singer’s mother Katonya Breaux Riley publicly showed her support of his placement.

“This child sure knows how to make his momma proud,” she wrote. “I first said. ‘Wow, son, you are among the greats.’ But quickly retracted and said, ‘No, you are a GREAT!’ Here’s to my Frankie! #Blonde.”

The chart-topping project was revered at the time of its release. However, it appears things have changed in the nearly-decade following. To be clear, users aren’t upset that the body of work was mentioned, most so its ranking.

“Frank Ocean over Stevie Wonder,” wrote one user.

Not everyone disagreed. Many people have begun to rally behind Frank. “If you’re mad cause Frank Ocean’s ‘Blonde’ is in the top 10 albums ever by Apple Music, you definitely have never listened to the album,” chimed another.

Frank Ocean doesn’t seem to have issued a statement about the recognition.

Cody Rhodes pinned United States champion Logan Paul to retain the Undisputed WWE Championship at King and Queen of the Ring on Saturday at the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Paul opened the match with stiff body shots on Rhodes. He continued to target Rhodes’ midsection, going at the champion with punches, an Octopus stretch, and eventually grabbing brass knuckles to toss a body shot at Rhodes on the outside.

Michael Cole disrespected Paul after he used the brass knuckles, so the challenger exchanged words with Cole before Rhodes came flying over the top rope to swing the momentum. Inside the ring, Rhodes missed a disaster kick, then hit his jab combination finished with an elbow attack. Rhodes dropped Paul with a Cody Cutter for two.

Rhodes had Paul in place for a vertebreaker before Paul reversed and landed a Cross Rhodes for two. Paul went to the top rope and rolled out of missed splash attempt and Rhodes hit a spinning suplex. Paul reversed a Cross Rhodes attempt, then tossed the champ to the outside.

Paul tossed the top off the announce table and placed Rhodes there, but Rhodes reversed, landing a Cody Cutter off the guardrail on top of the announce table. Rhodes broke the referee’s count, then Paul tossed Rhodes into the stairs and laid him on the other announce table. Paul climbed to the top rope and landed a frog splash through Rhodes and the table. Paul rolled Rhodes into the ring, hit a frog splash and Rhodes kicked out.

Back on their feet, Paul splashed the referee, then Rhodes hit the vertebreaker. Paul got to his feet and hit a low blow, then pulled out the brass knuckles again, but the guest ring announcer pulled his legs. Rhodes then hit the triple Cross Rhodes for the pinfall.

Gunther became King of the Ring with a pinfall victory over Randy Orton at King and Queen of the Ring on Saturday at the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Gunther kicked off the match with blistering shots to Orton. He executed huge chops across Orton’s chest, attacked his damaged left knee, and eventually hit a big splash for two.

After missing a second splash attempt, Orton landed an RKO, but the Ring General rolled under the bottom rope to the outside. Orton followed him to the outside and dropped him on the announce table three times.

Gunther attacked Orton’s knee over and again, locking in a single leg crab, but Orton was able to escape. Orton hit an RKO for two, but Gunther kicked out, hitting Orton’s knee and rolling him over for the three count despite Orton’s shoulder being off the mat.

After beating Sheamus, Kofi Kingston, and Jey Uso on his way to the finals, Gunther is now in line for a WWE World Championship match at SummerSlam in Cleveland. Following Gunther’s record-breaking Intercontinental championship reign, the logical next step in his progression is a move into the main event scene.

Who he faces remains to be seen after Triple H announced Damian Priest will defend his belt against Drew McIntyre at Clash at the Castle on June 15 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Draymond Green joined his TNT colleague Shaquille O’Neal on this week’s episode of The Big Podcast, and the topic turned to Green’s many fines and suspensions, which led the four-time champion to get some things off of his chest. Mainly, he takes exception to being fined because, in his words, the system prevents players from accumulating wealth after they’re done playing.

Draymond Green has made $153 million in his career, with another $50 million guaranteed to him (and a $27 million player option) left on his current contract. With a 37 percent federal tax rate and a 14 percent state tax in California, that gets cut roughly in half, but that still leaves more than $100 million in career earnings he will take home over his career — if this is the final contract he gets. Green has been fined a lot and his cumulative total of checks sent to the league for techs and fines have run him around $900,000. Suspensions have cost him more than $3 million, which is because he loses game checks for those absences — with his 12-game suspension for hitting Jusuf Nurkic in the face costing him nearly $2 million. In the words of Linus Caldwell, that’s a lot of money to a lot of people, but for Green, who is on the extreme end of the fine/suspension spectrum, that’s around 4 percent of his career post-tax earnings that have gone to the league.

The technical foul complaint would be the most persuasive argument if those were bigger expenditures, because some of those Ts are not always deserved (although, I’m not sure that’s often the case with Draymond) — also the league will rescind technicals that were deemed unnecessary. It’s the suspensions that have done real damage to Green’s wallet, and those suspensions are the direct result of choices he made — choking Rudy Gobert, swinging his arm wildly and hitting Jusuf Nurkic, kicking LeBron James in the nuts, etc. As such, it’s really hard to imagine many people really feeling for Draymond about the money he’s lost, and I doubt he’s going to have a lot of support for his crusade against the fine system (where all the money goes to charity).

Nia Jax became the Queen of the Ring at WWE’s King and Queen of the Ring event on Saturday at the Jeddah Super Dome in Saudi Arabia.

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Jax spent much of the match as the dominant figure to Lyra Valkyria’s underdog opponent. Valkyria flew around the ring, taking any opportunity to get Jax off her feet. Jax went for an Annihilator, but Valkyria slipped underneath the bottom rope. Jax tried the move on the apron, but missed, opening the door for Valkyria to baseball slide her onto the outside.

Valkyria hit a bulldog on the outside and looked to have the advantage back inside the ring until Jax turned the momentum. The finish came when Jax climbed to the top rope with Valkyria on Jax’s shoulders, looking for a Samoan Drop, when Valkyria slipped out and looked for a powerbomb. Instead, Jax reversed into a massive Annihilator for the pinfall and win.

With Jax’s win, she’ll move on to earn a WWE Women’s Championship match against Bayley at SummerSlam in Cleveland. Jax held the Raw Women’s championship once, holding the belt for 70 days before dropping it to Alexa Bliss.

With a clear path back to the belt, perhaps Jax is finally in the driver’s seat to a dominant championship run.

Liv Morgan pinned Becky Lynch to claim the Women’s World Championship at King and Queen of the Ring on Saturday at the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Lynch was in control for a good portion of the match before Dominik Mysterio made his way to ringside. He previously claimed he’d do everything to make sure Morgan didn’t win the championship, but ended up being a deciding factor in handing the belt to the challenger.

With both competitors on their back on opposite sides of the ring, Mysterio slid a chair into the middle of the ring and encouraged Lynch to grab it. As he got up on the apron to distract the referee, Morgan dropped Lynch with a DDT on the chair before hitting Oblivion for the three count.

The win ended Lynch’s reign of just 33 days, after she won a battle royal following Rhea Ripley vacating the championship due to injury at the hands of Lynch.

The Mysterio and Morgan storyline is just getting started, with the former being a loyal member of The Judgement Day ahead of Ripley’s injury. There’s no word on how long Ripley will be out of action, but she previously promised to come directly for Morgan upon her return. The love triangle sets perfectly to position Dom in the middle of the two top women stars.

Pollen isn’t the only thing in the air, so is love. Earlier in the week, Eminem walked his daughter down the aisle. But, the “Stan” rapper wasn’t the only music legend to add father-in-law to their resume.

According to TMZ, actor Millie Bobby Brown and Jon Bon Jovi’s son, Jake Bongiovi reportedly tied the knot in a secret ceremony. Based on the outlet’s report and latest photographs, the couple were spotted yesterday (May 24) wearing fresh wedding bands.

A source close to The Sun, the ceremony took place around May 18. “Millie and Jake quietly said their vows in America last weekend,” they said. “They are planning a bigger ceremony in the US later this year, but now they have legally married and done all the paperwork. It was a very low-key, romantic affair, with their closest family with them as they said their vows.”

If you were worried that their young ages (Millie, 20 and Jake, 22), Jon Bon Jovi sure isn’t. On May 2, during an appearance on Andy Cohen’s Sirius XM show Radio Andy, he repeated the advice he gave the couple.

“I don’t know if age matters,” he said. “You know, if you find the right partner and you grow together. I think that would be my advice, really, is growing together is wise, growing together. And so I think that all my kids have found the people that they think they can grow together, and we like them all.”

It’s not revolutionary news that smoking wreaks havoc on your body in different ways. More often than not, however, the focus of anti-smoking campaigns is on your internal health, citing emphysema, heart disease, and lung cancer, to name just a few consequences.

While the superficial effects may not be as lethal, appealing to people’s sense of vanity can have a powerful effect as this clever gallery below shows. Twins, only one of whom smokes, sit side by side, showing the profound damage smoking can cause to your face, hair, and teeth.

The twins’ circumstances vary in each set of pictures, but the differences and effects are undeniable. In some instances, one of the twins never smoked. In others, the “smoking” twin had smoked for at least five years longer than the other “non-smoking” twin.

Though they’re not common knowledge, the effects of smoking on your appearance are predictable and consistent. You can identify a smoker with ease if you know what you’re looking for. Harmful smoke, dehydration, and even the heat from a burning cigarette can damage your complexion, hair, and eyes. The photos below helpfully point out the symptoms and effects on the smoking twin.

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The photos here were taken from those of 79 pairs of identical twins at the Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio. Though they weren’t taken with this use in mind, that allows them to serve as an even more powerful testament to the effects as perceived by casual observers.

1. The eyes are a strong “tell” if someone’s a smoker or not. In this photo, the smoker is the man on the right. He has smaller, more sunken eyes and carries more wrinkles throughout his face than his twin on the left. You’ll also notice his hairline has receded further than his brother’s. That’s a little-known though hardly surprising effect of smoking habitually.

2. Here, the difference is profound. Though they’re the same age, they look almost like they represent different generations. The smoking twin on the right has done so for 16 years, and it’s manifested in a number of ways. Most noticeable is the pervasive discoloration of her skin compared to her twin on the left. Less noticeable, but still apparent, is the damage done to her lips, eyes, and even her hair. It’s difficult to believe they’re even related, let alone twins.

3. This comparison is less glaring but still apparent. The twin on the left is the smoker. You can see many more pronounced wrinkles on her forehead, under her eyes, and around her nose. There are also pronounced bags under her eyes.

4. In this comparison, the smoking twin only smokes about two cigarettes per day, so the difference will be less profound. The twin on the right is the smoker. The differences are on the subtle side, mostly the more damaged hair and the squintier eyes.

5. Based on what you’ve read in the earlier side by side pics, you might be able to ID the right twin as the smoker due to the discolored and receding hair as well as the aged skin.

6. These two twins are both elderly, so the differences are slightly less pronounced. Though the left twin has more graying hair, it’s the right twin that’s the smoker. She’s got a droopier face, especially on the outside of the eyes. The wrinkles are also more pronounced in the brow and upper lip.

7. Though the two sisters here are also older, it’s easier to distinguish the smoker. The left sister bears the hallmarks all over her skin. Her cheek, outer eye, and neck all look weathered from her habit. Not only is she more wrinkled, but the skin has begun to discolor from the fair tone her sister has.

8. Here it’s pretty difficult to tell. The woman on the left is the smoker. She sports slightly discolored lips that are upon inspection, more wrinkled than her sister’s. Since the lips are the most proximate to the smoke, they are a pretty telling feature when it comes to identifying smokers.

The pics above show a lot of singular traits that can call out a smoker, but it can be a lot more simple than that. Speaking to the NY Daily News, dermatologist Elizabeth Tanzi from George Washington Medical Center dispenses with the jargon, stating, “Smoking makes you look old. That’s all there is to it.”

This article originally appeared on 11.01.16

A lot of parents are tired of being told how technology is screwing up their kids.

Moms and dads of the digital age are well aware of the growing competition for their children’s attention, and they’re bombarded at each turn of the page or click of the mouse with both cutting-edge ideas and newfound worries for raising great kids.

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But beneath the madness of modernity, the basics of raising a moral child haven’t really changed.

Parents want their kids to achieve their goals and find happiness, but Harvard researchers believe that doesn’t have to come at the expense of kindness and empathy. They say a few tried-and-true strategies remain the best ways to mold your kids into the morally upstanding and goals-oriented humans you want them to be.

Here are six practical tips:

1) Hang out with your kids.

This is, like, the foundation of it all. Spend regular time with your kids, ask them open-ended questions about themselves, about the world and how they see it, and actively listen to their responses. Not only will you learn all sorts of things that make your child unique, you’ll also be demonstrating to them how to show care and concern for another person.

2) If it matters, say it out loud.

According to the researchers, “Even though most parents and caretakers say that their children being caring is a top priority, often children aren’t hearing that message.” So be sure to say it with them. And so they know it’s something they need to keep up with, check in with teachers, coaches, and others who work with your kids on how they’re doing with teamwork, collaboration, and being a generally nice person.

3) Show your child how to “work it out.”

Walk them through decision-making processes that take into consideration people who could be affected. For example, if your child wants to quit a sport or other activity, encourage them to identify the source of the problem and consider their commitment to the team. Then help them figure out if quitting does, in fact, fix the problem.

4) Make helpfulness and gratitude routine.

The researchers write, “Studies show that people who engage in the habit of expressing gratitude are more likely to be helpful, generous, compassionate, and forgiving — and they’re also more likely to be happy and healthy.” So it’s good for parents to hold the line on chores, asking kids to help their siblings, and giving thanks throughout the day. And when it comes to rewarding “good” behavior, the researchers recommend that parents “only praise uncommon acts of kindness.”

5) Check your child’s destructive emotions.

“The ability to care for others is overwhelmed by anger, shame, envy, or other negative feelings,” say the researchers. Helping kids name and process those emotions, then guiding them toward safe conflict resolution, will go a long way toward keeping them focused on being a caring individual. It’s also important to set clear and reasonable boundaries that they’ll understand are out of love and concern for their safety.

6) Show your kids the bigger picture.

“Almost all children empathize with and care about a small circle of families and friends,” say the researchers. The trick is getting them to care about people who are socially, culturally, and even geographically outside their circles. You can do this by coaching them to be good listeners, by encouraging them to put themselves in other people’s shoes, and by practicing empathy using teachable moments in news and entertainment.

The study concludes with a short pep talk for all the parents out there:

“Raising a caring, respectful, ethical child is and always has been hard work. But it’s something all of us can do. And no work is more important or ultimately more rewarding.”

This article originally appeared on 06.16.15

Gordon Ramsay is not exactly known for being nice.

Or patient.

Or nurturing.

On his competition show “Hell’s Kitchen,” he belittles cooks who can’t keep up. If people come to him with their problems, he berates them. If someone is struggling to get something right in the kitchen, he curses them out.

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His whole TV persona is based on being the world’s worst boss.

Ramsay went on Reddit and allowed users to ask him any question they wanted.

So when a fellow cook asked him a sincere, deeply personal question about what to do when you’ve hit a roadblock in your career, you could probably guess what was coming.

Indeed, I thought the guy was making a terrible mistake pouring his heart out to a chef as notoriously tough as Ramsay:

“My hopes and dreams are nowhere to be found as I scale and portion salmon after salmon, shelling pods after pods of broad beans.
…
Sometimes I look out the tiny window and I can see people walking around the streets, enjoying the sunlight, while I’m here, questioning my dedication to this art as I rotate stock in the cool room, getting frost bitten, but the fear of the chef stops me from stepping outside to warm up.
…
The closest thing to feeling any kind of joy I get is those rare moments when I walk through the dining room near the end of service to get some coffee for everyone, and there will be a few diners left, idly sampling those little petite fours that we’ve painstakingly ensured are all perfectly round, identical, and just plain delicious. Then, one of them will stop the conversation they’re having with their company, look up from their food and say, ‘Thank you, chef. This is delicious,’ and making the previous 14-hours of sweat and tears kind of worthwhile.

My question is, how did you deal with it? How the fuck did you deal with all the bullshit, Gordon?”

But the way Ramsay responded? Totally amazing. And completely unexpected.

Turns out, real-life Gordon Ramsay? He actually can be a really kind, big-hearted dude.

He’s sympathetic to the guy. Not just because he’s a good person. But because he’s been there.

Working in restaurants is a tough, tough business. As of 2012, the average salary for cooks was less than $23,000/year. And those who are just starting out often have to work unglamorous, tedious jobs that no one else wants to do. Ramsay didn’t have fancy culinary school training. He rose up through the ranks putting in long hours for low pay in kitchens all over the world. That’s why he gets it.

Which brings up another point.

Diet Dieting GIF by Bobbi DeCarlo – Find & Share on GIPHY

When we go out to eat, we, as a culture, tend to behave … how should I put this?

Let’s go with “not like perfect angels.”

Of course, no one likes getting the wrong order. Or waiting a really long time for a meal. Or eating something that doesn’t taste the way you expect it to.

But it’s important to remember that the people behind the food, like Ramsay’s anonymous letter-writer, might be working 14-hour days. Or might be a recent immigrant who speaks limited English, trying to support a family thousands of miles away. And possibly making very little money. And sure, they screw up sometimes. But we all screw up at our jobs sometimes.

Because they, like the rest of us, are human beings.

Which is why saying…

“Thank you, chef. This is delicious.”

Could mean everything to someone.

This article originally appeared on 04.22.15