After an entertaining first half that saw the Suns and Celtics put on a shot-making exhibition on Thursday night in Boston, Phoenix was unable to hold that same standard in the second half as the Celtics ran away with a 127-112 win at home.
It was an impressive win from the Celtics as they continue to prove themselves as one of the league’s top contenders, and their ability to put on a dominant two-way performance against strong competition was on full display. Boston’s defense dialed it up another notch in the second half, and if it were any wonder as to where Boston finds its intensity on that end, that was laid bare in the fourth quarter after Joe Mazzulla called a timeout with three minutes to play to pull his starters.
Royce O’Neale decided to pull-up for a long, after the whistle practice shot, but there are no easy buckets to be found against the Celtics, even when play has been stopped, as Mazzulla made a full, leaping close out to contest the O’Neale shot as he walked out onto the floor.
You’ll fairly regularly see coaches get into a defensive stance on the sideline and might even see assistants leap up to try and distract corner shooters, but a head coach contesting an after the whistle shot is a first for me. Mazzulla apparently couldn’t help himself, and I guess if you’re going to demand it from your players you have to be willing to show it in action sometimes.
Busy Philipps recently helped orchestrate the “biggest comeback in pop music history” after her comedy seriesGirls5Eva was moved from Peacock to Netflix, and now she is looking to make the biggest comeback in late-night hosting since that other guy.
In 2018, Philipps debuted her very own talk show, Busy Tonight, where she would chat with various celebrity guests, including Julia Roberts, Tina Fey, her BFF Michelle Williams, and more. Then, like most shows these days, it was canceled after one season. Now, Philipps is getting a second shot at late night with Busy This Week, a new heading to QVC+. Oh, you didn’t know that the iconic home shopping network also has its own streamer? Time to catch up and order some decorative porcelain eggs for just three installments of $15.66!
According to the press release, the show will follow a similar premise as Busy Tonight:
During each half-hour episode, viewers will join Busy on the couch to get an unscripted take on whatever has kept us busy this week. From celebrity guest interviews and laugh-out-loud moments to personal stories and her favorite curated shopping finds, Busy will give her audience a healthy dose of [retail] therapy.
The show will launch May 8 with episodes airing weekly on Wednesdays, followed by four holiday-themed episodes later this year. Not only will you be able to watch Philipps, but you can also shop her looks from the episodes at the same time.
“When we tried to get a seat at the late-night table to bring this concept to life, there didn’t seem to be any room for women,” Philipps said in a statement. “But when we came to QVC+, they immediately recognized this was something special and we recognized their platform was perfect for reaching our audience. Instead of just giving us a seat, they gave us the whole table.” And that table can soon be yours for the low low price of $169.99!
The Boston Celtics played host to the Phoenix Suns on Thursday night in the first game of TNT’s doubleheader, and the first half was an absolute delight (once they got the lights turned on for good) as the two teams showed off some incredible shot-making, with Boston taking a 65-60 lead into halftime.
The stars for both teams factored heavily into the mix in the first half, but the Suns got a somewhat surprising lift off the bench from Bol Bol, who was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field with a pair of threes as he chipped in 10 points off the bench to help Phoenix’s cause.
Bol’s biggest fan is Shaquille O’Neal, as the Hall of Famer drew the ire of his colleagues earlier this year when he compared Bol to Victor Wembanyama. Bol’s impressive first half meant Shaq wanted to take a victory lap on TNT’s halftime show, so he scrounged up what he could from the office and brought it on set to celebrate Bol’s performance to the dismay of the rest of the desk.
Shaq poured a box of Apple Jacks and a box of Corn Pops into a bowl and then poured hot tea out of his tumbler over it because he couldn’t find any milk, before happily scarfing it down yelling “BOL BOL BABY!”
In classic TNT fashion, Kenny and Ernie both poke holes in Shaq’s prop usage by noting he really should’ve just brought two bowls out, before being grossed out by him housing cereal with hot tea — with Shaq insisting it wasn’t that bad. I appreciate Shaq’s commitment to the bit, but I’m not sure Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, and hot tea is a combination anyone should be consuming all at once.
Tuesday’s NBA slate features six games, but the clear headliner of the evening took place at TD Garden in Boston. The Phoenix Suns visited the Boston Celtics for the second matchup between the two teams in the last five days, and it was televised nationally on TNT. In addition, most of the stars were on the floor in Boston, with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Jrue Holiday in action for the Celtics against Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and company for the Suns. However, the excitement briefly derailed just as the game was set to tip off around 7:30 pm ET because, well, the lights went out.
The lights temporarily went out at TD Garden just as Celtics-Suns was about to tipoff pic.twitter.com/ZShWXUiWrU
Unlike some other lighting issues, this was a full-on blackout, but full lighting resumed almost instantly. It happened so quickly, in fact, that the two teams simply continued to play, and the officiating crew did not stop play or legislate matters in any way. The tip had already happened and all that anyone missed was Bradley Beal collecting the ball, so rather than restart things they just let it go.
Just a few seconds later, Durant was burying a jump shot at the 11:40 mark of the first quarter, and all was right with the world.
As we approach the final month of the NBA’s regular season, there’s little drama regarding who will come out on top of the Eastern Conference, as the Boston Celtics have created a huge gap between themselves and the rest of the pack.
In the West, though, it appears like it will be a race all the way to the end for the No. 1 seed, as well as battles throughout the standings for playoff and Play-In positioning. With the Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, and Oklahoma City Thunder all playing on TNT on Thursday night, the Inside the NBA crew discussed those standings and who they thought would come out on top, as the Thunder are fighting with the Nuggets and Timberwolves for that top spot.
Charles Barkley started his thoughts on the matter by taking some shots at TNT’s “sister network” ESPN, calling out the “idiots” over there who keep talking about the Lakers and Warriors “like they got a chance” when they are in 9th and 10th.
That led to Shaq pointing out they do technically have a chance because of the Play-In, which Barkley called “not real” and compared it to the CBI in college basketball. He said they should be thanking Adam Silver for making it up “so the Lakers and Warriors can get in.” It’s a great Chuck rant, because it is both funny and pretty accurate. The Lakers and Warriors do take up an awful lot of conversation on the four-letter’s shows, which is both unsurprising as they’re two of the league’s most popular franchises and a bit frustrating to fans of other teams. Barkley always loves when he can take a jab at another network, and in this case he got to do that and get in a brief Play-In rant thanks to Shaq.
Bullying is a huge problem. According to DoSomething.org, 1 in 5 students ages 12-18 in the United States are bullied during the school year, and approximately 160,000 teens have skipped school because of bullying.
So when Randy Smalls of South Carolina discovered that his teenage daughter was making fun of a classmate over her clothes and makeup, he took swift action.
Smalls instantly felt sympathy for Ryan Reese, a seventh-grader at Berkeley Middle School, having been bullied in his youth. So he took money meant for his daughter and went on a shopping spree with Ryan to get some new clothes and a makeover.
Smalls’ wife and Ryan’s mother Richauna Reese are friends, but they weren’t aware of the bullying until recently. The families got on the phone after speaking to Ryan, and Smalls asked if he could take Ryan to buy new clothes and get a makeover at the beauty salon.
Smalls used money initially intended to buy his 13-year-old daughter some new clothes, but after learning about her bullying, he decided to spend the money on Ryan instead.
“I say, ‘When you laugh along, you’re co-signing the bullying,” Smalls told Yahoo News.
“My daughter was upset, especially because she is into fashion,” he said. “So she came with us and helped pick out Ryan’s new clothes.”
While his daughter was at church, Smalls took Ryan to the beauty salon and paid for twice-a-month appointments until the end of the year.
After hearing about the good gesture, local salons have also offered to keep Ryan looking stylish for the next few months.
Richauna, Ryan’s mother, told Yahoo News that her daughter was struggling after the recent deaths of her father, grandfather, and aunt, as well as non-epileptic seizures caused by the stress.
The shopping trip has helped Ryan immensely. “I wasn’t expecting it. I just started to cry. It (the bullying) was really sad for me because I had lost my grandpa, father, and aunt, and it really took me deep down in my depression,” Ryan explained.
“This is the first time I have seen a parent take such a stance on bullying,” Richauna added.
Smalls was overwhelmed by the response and says that it’s helped his daughter see her mistake.
“I didn’t expect for this to get big but I’m glad if other parents [can learn from it],” Smalls said. “My daughter learned her lesson.”
“As parents, we have to take responsibility for what our children do,” Smalls told ABC’s Strahan, Sara, and Keke. “We can teach our children, but when they go and are around other children they can veer off a little bit. When situations like this happen, we have to take action and be the parent and not the friend.”
And the pair seem to be getting along better for the experience. “They’re cool now,” Richauna said.
Watch to young girls break down the story in this adorable YouTube video:
For a while, the fifth season of Stranger Thingsseemed like an unattainable pipe dream. The show first centered on a bunch of 13-year-olds who are now in their twenties, and after extended breaks in between seasons, fans have been growing impatient. Luckily for them, season five isfinally underway, and it seems like they are going back to the basics.
Finn Wolfhard told The Hollywood Reporterthat the cast is “getting back into a lot of the dynamics of season 1″ for the upcoming fifth and final season. This means that the cast will actually interact with each other, as opposed to season four, which was filmed during the height of COVID-19.“Even when I finally watched the show, my favorite part was watching the other guys in Hawkins. I just liked that storyline so much,” he said. “So, yeah, not being around everyone all the time was definitely a bummer about filming 4, but 5 is the opposite. We’re all together all the time.”
Wolfhard also hinted that his character Mike will take on a leadership role during the final season, which is expected to hit Netflix sometime next year. “There’s some ‘leader Mike’ moments, and it’s a very grand season, obviously. Every season has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, and this season is huge, but it’s also kind of isolated as well.”
The actor, who stars in the upcoming Ghostbusters sequel, has mixed feelings about the final season. “We’re about three months in, and it’s really crazy. You think about how to be as present as possible, but then at the same time, you’re conflicted that this is the last one. So I’m trying to find that balance of staying present while also knowing that this is going to be the last season. But it’s been great.” Fellow castmember Millie Bobby Brown has confirmed that the cast still has nine more months left of filming, so he’s got time before he has to get nostalgic.
When asked about the delays over the years, Wolfhard says that it has only made him more grateful for Stranger Things. “You spend so much time on a show that it’s all-encompassing, and it’s something that means so much to me. It’s the thing that made my career, and it really shaped my life. So as far as the show not coming out yet, the only frustrating part is wanting to see it and having to wait. I just want people to see it and I want to be able to see it. But the rest of it? No. I’m indebted to Stranger Things, and it’ll take however long it’s going to take. There’s no way to control that, so you might as well just ride it.” The same thing could be said about the Ghostbusters Ectomobile.
Meanwhile, all Gaten Matarazzo wants is for a ton of people to die in the finale. We’ll just have to wait a little longer to see if that happens.
A couple of weeks back, we pitted bottles of tequila under $50 against bottles over $100 and while that wasn’t a completely fair face-off, we got some interesting results. Generally (as you might’ve guessed), the pricier bottles faired much better but there were at least a couple of bottles that punched above or below what their price tags might suggest.
I don’t mean to sound like a total nerd, but as a hardcore tequila drinker, that’s exciting to me. When brands outkick their coverage it’s a big deal!
This week we decided to narrow the scope a bit by taste-testing budget bottles $20 and under against bottles in the $50 range. Does paying double the price always get you a better bottle? We’ll find out!
Methodology
Dane Rivera
It was a bit tough finding bottles that perfectly hit this price point but we got it pretty close. Our eight bottles cover blanco, reposado, and añejo expressions. Six of our selections hit our price target, but two bottles strayed out of the price range slightly.
Here is our tasting class, along with the prices from low to high.
Astral Blanco — $16.99
Jose Cuervo Tradicional Plata – $19.99
Lunazul Reposado — $20.99
Espolon Reposado — $24.99
Lalo Tequila — $46.99
La Caza Reposado — $49.99
Flecha Azul — $49.99
Chamucos Anejo $52.99
Once we collected the bottles, my girlfriend shuffled them and served me a pour at random. I took a few sips of each pour and jotted down my first impressions. Here is how each performed.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Tequila Posts Of The Last Six Months
Nose: A bit like nail polish remover. A heavy sniff will bring out the slightest hint of green pepper
Palate: Roasted agave and chocolate dominate the palate with the slightest spearmint coolness.
Finish: That mint takes over on the finish. The mouthfeel here is a bit sticky and the flavors linger very strongly on the tongue.
Taste 2:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Surprisingly fruit-forward with notes of caramel and chocolate. This comes across as very dessert-like and inviting. Truly a joy to inhale.
Palate: Gentle spice and tropical fruits. I’m getting mango and pineapple kissed with cinnamon, some slight vanilla, and roasted agave.
Finish: Oak with earthy cracked peppercorns. Really nice and pleasing.
Taste 3:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Maple syrup with floral jasmine flower petals and a touch of hazelnut.
Palate: I’m getting a heavy dose of oak and cinnamon mixed with butter and caramel. The flavors deepen in intensity on a second taste.
Finish: Spicy and oaky with an oily mouthfeel.
Taste 4:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Warm roasted agave with gentle notes of geranium.
Palate: Zesty orange peel, agave, and a pleasing vegetal quality.
Finish: The finish kind of ruins this. It has a strong ethanol burn with a salty aftertaste that needs to be washed down.
Taste 5:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Warm roasted agave with a kiss of warm citrus and vegetal notes.
Palate: A nice crackling chile de arbol quality with rich caramel notes and a bit of wet grass.
Finish: Green pepper on the finish with orange zest and a bright fruity citrus quality.
Taste 6:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Vanilla and sugar with a bit of roasted agave and a slight hint of alcohol.
Palate: Very peppery and spicy with some minerality and rich caramelized agave.
Finish: A strong oak character on the finish. A bit bitter to my taste buds.
Taste 7:
Dane Rivera
Nose: A nice bouquet of caramel, chocolate, vanilla, and roasted agave.
Palate: I’m getting juicy tropical fruits, wet grass, caramel, and black pepper. There is a heaviness here that I really like.
Finish: A bit harsh with some oak character and a distinct burn.
Taste 8:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Really nice and inviting. Agave forward with a sweet caramel quality, but it comes across as very natural and not artificially sweetened.
Palate: Way more peppery than the nose would suggest, with a bit of vanilla and bitter grapefruit.
Finish: Very oaky on the finish. There is a nice buttery quality to the mouthfeel that waters the mouth. The experience here really ping-ponged around from sweet to earthy.
This Plata from Jose Cuervo is from its mid-tier Tradicional series. The tequila is made from estate-grown blue agave and undergoes a special bottling process that is designed to conserve its flavors at freezing temperatures. Because of this, Cuervo actually suggests you keep the bottle chilled in the freezer and serve it in a frozen shot glass.
We didn’t do that. Did it hurt its performance in the blind taste test? We doubt it, but it is ranking last for us so maybe. But a tequila that needs to be chilled to be palatable is probably not the best tequila.
The Bottom Line:
Good for Jose Cuervo, but it can’t compete with what else we have here.
Astral is produced at NOM 1607, Grupo Solave, home to Kendall Jenner’s 818, and similar to that brand, Astral shares easy drinkability that makes for a smooth and bright tequila.
Astral’s Blue Weber agave is tahona extracted, utilizes agave fibers during fermentation, and is copper pot still distilled.
The Bottom Line:
A minty tequila that is easy to drink but not exactly what I look for when I’m sipping tequila.
Lunazul’s blanco tends to surprise me in blind taste tests so I was eager to see how the reposado would perform. While I think I like the blanco better, this one held its own against the competition. For its price, I think it’s a steal, but it’s not quite the best in its range.
Produced at NOM 1513, Tierra de Agaves, where it is one of two brands produced, the agave here is sourced from the Los Valles region of Jalisco and cooked in a high-pressure autoclave before being roller mill extracted and two-times distilled in a stainless pot with a copper coil.
It is aged for 6 months in ex-bourbon barrels to reach the reposado state.
The Bottom Line:
Oak forward with some vanilla sweetness. For its price, I think it’s a good reposado despite not performing the best in this particular lineup.
Does music have any effect on the flavors of tequila? We’re pretty sure it doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop La Caza from cooking its agave and fermenting the juice for over 90 hours to “the sounds of Mozart.” At least the staff at NOM 1414, Feliciano Vivanco y Asociados, have something nice to listen to.
The classic music-infused agave is cooked in stone brick ovens, roller mill extracted, and aged in American white oak barrels for four months.
The Bottom Line:
Well-balanced and full-bodied. A damn good tequila that lives up to its price point.
I’m not sure if Flecha Azul is on sale right now or what, but usually this bottle tips into the above $60 range, so it’s a welcome addition here even if it didn’t take the top spot.
Flecha Azul is produced at NOM 1110, Tequila Orendain de Jalisco, using agave cooked low and slow in stone ovens before being roller mill extracted. The juice is then fermented in stainless steel tanks and twice distilled in a stainless pot with a copper coil.
To reach the repo state, Fleca Azul is rested in six months in ex-bourbon American oak barrels.
The Bottom Line:
Spicy and sweet and a steal at this price. This bottle usually retails for more so if you can find it for under $50, pick it up without hesitation.
Espolòn is simply a great budget buy, for the price you’re not going to find another tequila that is this deep in flavor and complexity. Having said all that though, this still ultimately tastes like a budget bottle. It has aspects to it that can turn tequila snobs away.
There is a prominent alcohol aroma and flavor to this repo. It’s not quite as mellow or agave-rich as what we’ve ranked higher.
Produced at NOM 1440, Campari Mexico, Espolòn cooks its agave in a low-pressure autoclave before roller mill extracting the juice and twice distilling it in a stainless pot with a copper coil. The tequila is then rested in American White Oak barrels to reach its reposado state.
The Bottom Line:
The biggest surprise of this tasting. Espolòn is well known for being a good tequila for its price (it just edges over $20, but it’s worth it), and it beat out some of the more expensive bottles in this tasting — that’s a testament to just how good it is.
Chamucos is a brand that started with a reposado expression, so I had high hopes for this añejo tequila because I think the brand knows its stuff when it comes to aged tequila.
Chamucos is an additive-free tequila produced at NOM 1586, Destileria Casa De Piedra, where the agave is cooked slowly in stone brick ovens before being roller mill extracted. To reach the añejo state, Chamucos is aged for one to three years in French Oak barrels.
The Bottom Line:
A great additive-free aged tequila. Not quite as complex as more expensive bottles, but for its price, it’s kind of a steal.
I’m not surprised by this one taking the top spot. My love for LALO is well documented on this website, it’s just what my taste buds are geared to. Because of that, we might have to stop including it in blind taste tests, but I wanted to take this one on as a personal challenge to see if it’s really the flavor that charms me. It is.
LALO makes a single tequila expression, blanco (my favorite), made from agave sourced from the highlands of Jalisco and cooked in stone steam ovens for 20 to 32 hours before being rested for an additional 18 hours, then roller mill extracted.
The Bottom Line:
An agave-forward and complex additive-free tequila. It easily outperforms everything else in this price range.
A classic Ted Cruz fumble is springing back up thanks to Texas following through on a state-wide ban of Pornhub. Back in 2017, the senator was roasted on social media after users discovered porn in his Twitter likes. Since then, Cruz has mostly been mocked for infamously feeling to Cancun while residents of his state literally froze to death during an historic winter storm. So it’s a change for the classic Cruz scandal to re-enter the mix.
The Pornhub ban is a result of the state demanding age verification, which the pornography site has refused to comply with. Access to the Pornhub site is now disabled for Texas residents.
“Until the real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas,” the message read.
The Republican-majority state Legislature passed the age verification law, HB 1181, last year. It requires companies that distribute “sexual material harmful to minors” to confirm visitors are over 18 with an online system that verifies users’ government-issued identification or another commercially available system that uses public or private data. The sites are not permitted to retain identifying information.
With Pornhub now banned in the state, social media leapt at the opportunity to dunk on Cruz and wonder how the poor senator will survive without ready access to porn. “Thoughts and prayers” has been a common refrain.
Below are the more safe for work reactions that don’t include the infamous screencap from Cruz’s Twitter likes. However, there are plenty of those floating around, so be warned.
With PornHub pulling out of Texas I’d like to offer thoughts and prayers to Ted Cruz.
It’s real. I went there to test it out. The only Texas residents who are allowed to use it now, are people who created an account previously. Like it won’t let you create one now. You had to have already had one before.
Christina Hunger, 26, is a speech-language pathologist in San Diego, California who believes that “everyone deserves a voice.”
Hunger works with one- and two-year-old children, many of which use adaptive devices to communicate. So she wondered what would happen if she taught her two-month-old puppy, a Catahoula/Blue Heeler named Stella, to do the same.
“If dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn’t they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans?” she wondered.
Hunger and her fiancé Jake started simply by creating a button that said “outside” and then pressed it every time they said the word or opened the door. After a few weeks, every time Hunger said “outside,” Stella looked at the button.
Soon, Stella began to step on the button every time she wanted to go outside.
They soon added more buttons that say “eat,” “water,” “play,” “walk,” “no,” “come,” “help,” “bye,” and “love you.”
“Every day I spent time using Stella’s buttons to talk with her and teach her words just as I would in speech therapy sessions with children,” she wrote on her blog.
“Instead of rewarding Stella with a treat for using a button, we responded to her communication by acknowledging her message and responding accordingly. Stella’s voice and opinions matter just as our own do,” she continued.
If Stella’s water bowl is empty, she says “water.” If she wants to play tug of war, she says, “play.” She even began to tell friends “bye” if they put on their jackets by the door.
Stella soon learned to combine different words to make phrases.
One afternoon, shortly after daylight savings, she began saying “eat” at 3:00 pm. When Hunger didn’t respond with food, she said, “love you no” and walked out of the room.
Today, Stella has learned over 29 words and can combine up to five at a time to make a phrase or sentence.
“The way she uses words to communicate and the words she’s combining is really similar to a 2-year-old child,” Hunger says of her blog.
She believes her work has the potential to transform the bond between humans and dogs.
“I think how important dogs are to their humans,” Hunger says. “I just imagine how much deeper the bond will be.”
Soon, Stella began to step on the button every time she wanted to go outside.
They soon added more buttons that say “eat,” “water,” “play,” “walk,” “no,” “come,” “help,” “bye,” and “love you.”
“Every day I spent time using Stella’s buttons to talk with her and teach her words just as I would in speech therapy sessions with children,” she wrote on her blog.
“Instead of rewarding Stella with a treat for using a button, we responded to her communication by acknowledging her message and responding accordingly. Stella’s voice and opinions matter just as our own do,” she continued.
If Stella’s water bowl is empty, she says “water.” If she wants to play tug of war, she says, “play.” She even began to tell friends “bye” if they put on their jackets by the door.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
pic.twitter.com/RAZ8qyI2Gd
(@NotHoodlum) 
(@MikeMcLean00) 
MF NORM 
(@NW_StayDet) 