Category: Viral

Billie Eilish started 2020 with a bang. At the this year’s Grammy Awards, the singer became the youngest artist to sweep the big four categories, taking the awards for Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best New Artist. While her March dates for her tour would be postponed due to the coronavirus, Eilish would continue to stay in the news, hoting multiple livestreams performances, releasing a short film, and taking strong stances against racism, abuse and discrimination.

Looking to keep things on a high note, the singer announced last week that her second single of the year, entitled “My Future,” was on the way. She kept that promise, delivered a gloomy preview of the track to her Instagram page on Wednesday afternoon. It was just a tease — a mere 20 seconds — but it strongly suggested that Eilish’s countless fans will be pleased.

The upcoming track follows her first single of the year, “No Time To Die,” which will serve as a theme song for the upcoming 007 movie of the same title, and which film will allegedly be released on November 20 (should movie theaters open by then, of course).

You can hear a preview of Eilish’s “My Future” in the video above.

In the world of rum, spiced rum doesn’t always get a fair shake. We love to mix with white (un-aged) rums and we love to sip dark (aged) rums, but sometimes we aren’t sure what to do with spiced rum. Usually made with a gold rum base (or white rum with caramel coloring added), spiced rums are dark amber in color and flavored with various spices including vanilla bean, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg.

As long as you purchase a bottle that isn’t full of artificial flavors and colors, spiced rums are perfectly suited as a base for Summer 2020 drinks like the dark ‘n’ stormy, the rum old fashioned, or the spiced rum punch. They’re also ubiquitous in the resurgent tiki culture. Thomas Nesselhauf, bartender at Datz in Tampa, Florida has a specific bottle he always uses to make cocktails this time of year.

“Hands down, Sailor Jerry,” he says. “This rum is sweet with notes of vanilla, dry buttery toffee, and subtle cinnamon, but it packs a real punch, coming in at 92 proof. I’m not one to mix dark liquor with anything but this would pair perfectly with some Coke and a couple of slices of lime.”

Sailor Jerry has a high profile, but there are plenty of other brands that deserve equal love. To figure out which bottles you should mix with as August gets rolling, we asked some high-profile bartenders to name their favorites. Here are their picks:

Chairman’s Reserve

Nazar Hrab, beverage director at The Pineapple Club in New York City

I really like Chairman’s Reserve spiced rum. Usually, I use it in flips, cocktails with a full egg in them. It has a nice flavor from the spiced rum and a great texture from the egg.

Pusser’s

Kurt Bellon, general manager and beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis

Pusser’s for a ready spiced rum, but a homemade spiced rum is always fun to experiment with and a good reason to use those cinnamon sticks and star anise lying lonely on the spice rack.

Bacardi

Melissa Reigle, beverage manager and head bartender at Byblos in Miami

All great rum is spiced. But if you are looking for the bar rail definition, Bacardi Spiced Rum is the way to go. Not too sweet and all the spices that go with ice-cold Coke or ginger beer. You can’t go wrong.

Gosling’s

Leo Morjakov, bartender at The Ebbitt Room at The Virginia Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey

The Ebbitt Room’s choice is a traditional spiced rum — Gosling’s dark rum. Great to enjoy when it’s sunny in Cape May, but if the weather gets a little stormy, guests enjoy a Dark and Stormy cocktail made with this rum. The cocktail is prepared with Gosling’s dark rum, fresh lime, and topped with spicy ginger beer.

Bumbu

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

My go-to spiced rum for summer mixing is Bumbu. Bumbu makes for a great daiquiri rum or sipper with its subtle flavors of spice and banana.

Sailor Jerry

Juyoung Kang, lead bartender at The Dorsey inside The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas

Sailor Jerry — because its taste holds best in mixed summer cocktails. It’s not too sweet so blending other ingredients is easier and adjustable to taste. The “Aries Cocktail” on our specialty zodiac menu uses rum, mezcal, Campari, fresh lime and pineapple, and ginger. Although rum isn’t the main ingredient in this cocktail, without it, the cocktail would taste unbalanced.

Havana Club Anejo Especial

Jorge Centeno, chief spirits officer at the Deer Path Inn in Lake Forest, Illinois

Havana Club Anejo Especial is a great summertime spiced rum. You can drink it neat or on the rocks. It has a clean finish and tastes like the Caribbean.

Captain Morgan

Frantjasko Laonora, head mixologist at Curaçao Marriott Beach Resort in Curaçao

Captain Morgan spiced rum. This is a good rum to make tiki drinks since it has that vanilla-y taste to it. For sure a go-to spiced rum for an exotic cocktail or just simply with a cold Coke.

Writer’s Picks:

Foursquare Spiced Rum

If you need a super cheap, well-made spiced rum to add to your liquor cabinet, make it Foursquare. This award-winning spiced rum from Barbados is surprisingly smooth (even though it’s less than $15) with hints of vanilla, caramel, and subtle cinnamon spice.

Don Q Oak Barrel

If the Caribbean is the home of rum, Puerto Rico is likely its heart. And Don Q is the best-selling rum on the island for a reason. Aged in Americana oak barrels, it’s rich, velvety, and full of cinnamon, honey, and vanilla flavors.

This October, we were supposed to get Halloween Kills, the follow-up to David Gordon Green’s sequel/reboot of the John Carpenter classic. Green and company bumped back a year while strongly suspecting American movie theaters will still not be safe places to watch a film. But Green will still tease us with details about what we won’t see for another year-and-a-quarter. For one thing he said the movie, like its title, is a little bit more intense than its predecessor.

In a new interview with Total Film, the filmmaker talked about taking the series in a new direction. For one thing, it won’t be a rote slashers, like many of the original 1980s and ’90s sequels, merely bringing Michael Myers back for another round of murders. Nor will it mostly focus on Jamie Lee Curtis’ long-traumatized Laurie Strode.

“If the first film was somewhat retelling the origin of Myers and getting us up to speed with where Laurie had been all those years, then part two is about the outrage of Haddonfield,” Green told Total Film. “Mob Rules was our working title for the film. It’s about a community that is united by outrage, and divided in how to deal with evil.”

With 2018’s Halloween, Green and his cowriter (and fellow Eastbound & Down alum) Danny McBride took an unusual approach, making it a direct sequel to the 1978 original and ignoring every other movie, including 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection, which killed off Strode. (Of course, that also means it’s a sequel to a movie that has the exact same title, which surely won’t be confusing to future horror-ologists.)

We may have to wait a long time to see what he’s talking about, but we’ll have to wait even longer for Green and McBride’s threequel, Halloween Ends, though Green says that one will stand on its own, too.

“It’s a very different movie than Kills, and both Halloweens,” Green says. “The script feels very fun. For me, it was essential to say, ‘Here’s a conclusive episode to my trilogy.’ I’m trying to bring closure to my ‘Laurie Strode versus Michael Myers’ storytelling.”

Halloween Kills hits theaters on October 15, 2021.

(Via Total Film)

Four-year-old Delilah recently learned an important life lesson that all women come to realize at some point — a lot of men need to learn some manners before talking to a girl.

She was enjoying her time at a park in San Francisco when a boy started making animal noises to get her attention.

“We were at the track and a boy was trying to get me to go over and play and he was shouting, ‘Caw, caw!'” she said. “But that’s not how you win a girl over! You have to have manners and he was saying, ‘Meow, meow.’ Why was he doing that to a girl? And you don’t call a girl over like that, OK guys?”

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On her way home from the park, Delilah grabbed her mother’s phone to tell the boys of the world to get their collective act together.

“That’s not how you get a girl to get over there. You have to use your manners,” Delilah explained. “Why would you do that to a girl? You don’t call girls over like that. OK, guys?”

As the NBA gets set to begin their restarted season, the league announced Wednesday that it had a second straight week without any positive COVID-19 tests in the Disney bubble. While that’s a great step towards the league successfully starting and, hopefully, completing a three-month long restarted season and playoffs, the United States is still dealing with tens of thousands of new cases per day, and access to testing (particularly rapid testing) remains a serious public health issue.

There has been criticism of leagues using up laboratory resources for getting rapid test results, and those critiques are more than valid. The inability of people to get test results back in a reasonable time frame is a significant issue, as it is increasingly difficult to isolate for days and even weeks while awaiting results. The NBA recognizes this and announced on Wednesday an expansion of its community testing program, noting that it is working on creating no-cost testing programs in Orlando and various team markets around the country to offer testing at no-cost to residents, particularly in areas where testing is scarce currently.

Public health data has made clear that the impacts of the coronavirus are most concentrated in historically marginalized communities of color where access to testing is scarce. To meet this need, the NBA collaborated with UnidosUS and the National Urban League as well as several private laboratories to identify communities most in need and provide access to no-cost testing programs in addition to communicating public health information to community members.

In partnership with BioReference Laboratories, the league’s testing provider on the NBA campus in Orlando, Fla., the NBA is providing free, daily COVID-19 PCR tests at a mobile collection site at the Orlando Vineland Premium Outlets. Those interested can register for an appointment by completing a brief survey before being redirected to a scheduling tool to select a convenient date and time for the COVID-19 test. Please visit Appointments.BioReference.com/NBAOrlando to complete the survey and for additional details regarding appointments, transportation and scheduling.

It’s important that the league use its resources that have clearly given them access to quick testing and offering that to the public, and their plan is to provide thousands of tests in various communities — and hopefully those tests will be able to be returned with swift results. The league is also continuing to partner with the Yale School of Public Health to fund research and testing for a non-invasive saliva test that is seeking FDA approval in an effort to provide a far more accessible test, both in terms of cost and quicker turnaround of results.

Post Malone definitely believes in aliens. That much is revealed in the first five minutes of his interview with podcast host Joe Rogan — an interview that meanders through a nearly four-hour runtime. The two men smoke dozens of cigarettes as they ponder horror movie monsters (Rogan thinks Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees are the same guy), weather control conspiracy theories (both remain convinced that the government can manipulate the climate), and the movement to defund the police (yeah, maybe just skip this part and read Uproxx’s breakdown instead).

Post also wears a University of Utah cap and got a shout-out from the school on Twitter in exchange. He doffs the cap at the midway point, showing off his newly shaved head and even more of his trademark ink.

Post Malone was recently in the news after it was revealed that he’d filed a trademark for the name “World Pong League,” which sounds like exactly the sort of thing Post Malone would also excel in as a player-owner like a hip-hop Jackie Moon. He’s also reportedly expanding his business interests to include a brand of rosé, revamping his cannabis company to make personal protective equipment (PPE), and raising money for pandemic relief via his livestreamed Nirvana covers concert.

Watch Post Malone’s four-hour interview with Joe Rogan above.

Finally, some good news.

Earlier in the week, Ryan Reynolds joined the search for an irreplaceable teddy bear by offering a cash reward to anyone who returned the beloved stuffed animal. “Vancouver: $5,000 to anyone who returns this bear to Mara. Zero questions asked. I think we all need this bear to come home,” the actor tweeted. According to CBC, a backpack belonging to Mara Soriano was stolen. While the contents included valuables like an iPad and Nintendo Switch, the most important item was a Build-A-Bear teddy that housed a special recording from Soriano’s mother who before she died from cancer.

In a much-needed bright spot, Reynolds efforts worked, and the bear is now back with its rightful owner. In a celebratory tweet, the Canadian actor thanked Vancouver for being awesome and doing the right thing.

While the exact details of the bear’s return haven’t been disclosed yet, Soriano made it clear in a follow-up tweet that she would never have regained the priceless teddy if it weren’t for Reynolds’ help.

The bear’s return is a heartwarming ending to an emotional story. As Soriano explained to the CBC, not only did the bear contain an irreplaceable recording of her late mother, but it was from before she lost her voice while in hospice care, making the message all the more special. “At hospice her voice was different. Much softer. Not the mom I grew up with,” Soriano said. “That bear is the last memory I have of her speaking in her normal voice.”

As for the message inside the bear, there’s nothing that can replace these words: “She said that she loved me and she was proud of me and that she’ll always be with me.”

While it’s a shame that Soriano was robbed in the first place, at least the culprits weren’t completely heartless in the end. Or they’re just really big Ryan Reynolds fans. Either way, we’re glad the bear is safe.

(Via Ryan Reynolds on Twitter)

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

What We Do In The Shadows (FX on Hulu) — Now that the Emmys have spoken, it’s time to fill out our own ballots. The good news is plenty of the shows nominated are available on various streaming platforms, and, because of the pandemic, we have lots of time to view them all. But start with this mockumentary from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement about a group of centuries-old vampires living together in a run-down house in Staten Island. There are witches, ghosts, possessed dolls, and Haley Joel Osment as a zombie. Enough said.

Succession (HBO) — Season two of this prestige drama shook things up within the Roy family which gave its main cast, including Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, and Brian Cox more to do. Takeovers looming, drug relapses, bad investments, and hostage situations drove most of the action in season two as the family’s global empire began to crumble.

Here are a few Thursday programming highlights:

What The Shark? (National Geographic, 9:00 p.m.) — Thank goodness for Sharkfest as the ultimate distraction. Get to know seldom-seen sides of sharks tonight, and look forward to a more well-known side of sharks with the “Shark vs. Surfer” episode that will air on Sunday night at 8:00 p.m.

Bulletproof (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — Bishop and Pike lead the team on an off-book mission to take out Alex and Mikey Markides once and for all, but when Cockridge intervenes, the raid goes horribly wrong.

The Weight Of Gold (HBO, 9:00 p.m.) — This new doc from HBO takes a look at past Olympic gold medal winners and the effect the pressure of the Games had on their mental health. Everyone from Michael Phelps to Shaun White, Apolo Ohno, Lolo Jones, Sasha Cohen, and Bode Miller share their personal experiences in their post-Olympics careers.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC, 10:00 p.m.) — The team makes it back to 1983 where Nathaniel and Kora are building an army.

Corporate (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m.) — Hampton DeVille brainstorms a new company logo while Matt tries to inspire Jake at work.

The NBA’s restart in Orlando will begin Thursday night with a pair of games on TNT, as the Utah Jazz take on the New Orleans Pelicans in the early game (6:30 p.m. ET) and the Lakers and Clippers have a showdown in the 9 p.m. nightcap. From there, all 22 teams in the bubble will play eight games that will determine seeding for the postseason, with teams at the bottom fighting for the 8-seed and a possible play-in series in both conferences, while others already locked into the playoffs will be jockeying for seeding and matchups.

It is going to be fascinating how teams, particularly those that get locked into seeding early on (or, in the case of some teams at the bottom, are quickly eliminated from contention), approach the remainder of their games. For many, there is reason to play all the way through at full effort to ensure they get a more favorable matchup, but at the very top of both conferences, it’s possible the top three or four seeds could get locked in with games still to play.

As such, projecting the amount of effort from those teams will be tricky. If you think you have a handle on how teams will perform in the eight-game restart, BetOnline.ag has win total over-unders available to bet on. My initial reaction was, “wow, this is probably a terrible idea to bet on,” but after seeing the Brooklyn Nets total set at 2.5, I suddenly found myself interested in the Under.

Here are the full 22 team win total bets available:

Boston Celtics: 5.5
L.A. Clippers: 5.5
L.A. Lakers: 5.5
Milwaukee Bucks: 5.5
Philadelphia 76ers: 5
Dallas Mavericks: 4.5
Denver Nuggets: 4.5
Houston Rockets: 4.5
New Orleans Pelicans: 4.5
Toronto Raptors: 4.5
Miami Heat: 4
OKC Thunder: 4
Orlando Magic: 4
Utah Jazz: 4
Indiana Pacers: 3.5
Memphis Grizzlies: 3.5
Portland Trail Blazers: 3.5
Sacramento Kings: 3.5
Brooklyn Nets: 2.5
Phoenix Suns: 2.5
San Antonio Spurs: 2.5
Washington Wizards: 1.5

Obviously so much of this hinges on the team schedules, but the four teams at the top come as little surprise — same with those at the bottom. Also of note, of the teams battling for the ninth spot in the West, the Pelicans are given the highest win total at 4.5, while the Blazers and Kings (and Grizzlies) all sit at 3.5, which fits with them having the best odds of making the play-in game in the West.

Karl Urban might be a permanent fixture in the Star Trek fandom thanks to his portrayal of Dr. James “Bones” McCoy in the latest batch of films, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t have a little fun in a galaxy far, far away.

While promoting the upcoming second season of The Boys, Urban revealed to Digital Spy that he has a secret cameo in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker that not even hardcore fans knew about until now. But don’t feel bad if you didn’t spot Urban while watching the conclusion to The Skywalker Saga. Just like Daniel Craig’s cameo in The Force Awakens, Urban was buried under Stormtroopers, and there’s no way to know it’s him. The actor was more concerned with having some fun on set with director J.J. Abrams than being credited for his work, but he let fans know where to find his helmeted performance.

According to Urban, he’s in the scene when Kylo Ren reunites with the Knights of Ren and brings them aboard his command ship, and you can tell which trooper is Urban because he actually has a speaking part. “What is in the cut is my voice saying ‘Knights of Ren’ as Kylo Ren walks down a hallway past two stormtroopers. I am one of those stormtroopers,” he told Digital Spy.

Of course, Urban isn’t the first of Abrams’ Star Trek crew to appear in the new Star Wars films. That distinction goes to Simon Pegg, who played junk trader Unkar Plutt in The Force Awakens. Coincidentally, Pegg also stars on The Boys. However, Pegg’s character will not be returning for the second season, which will focus on Urban’s Billy Butcher mysteriously disappearing from the team. That absence will be the source of tension amongst The Boys when Butcher returns to the war on the “Supes” as if nothing happened.

(Via Digital Spy)