Madden 23 is officially released on Friday and it is expected to be a major moment in the franchise. Not only is this game an homage to the late, great John Madden, but it’s introducing a key new gameplay feature that is supposed to make Madden more fun to play than ever before. FieldSENSE is the big new addition in this year’s Madden, and it’s meant to give gamers more control than ever before.
To showcase this new feature, Madden 23 launched with a trailer featuring a star-studded cast of faces to represent the new game. The trailer featured Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson and Cowboys linebacker Michah Parsons, but it also had some celebrity faces like Cordae and Hit-Boy talking up the game’s new features alongside Twitch star Nickmercs and Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football reporter Taylor Rooks.
We’re currently in the process of playing as much of the game ourselves to give a full review of the Madden 23 experience, and while our full thoughts will be withheld until then, we can say that the FieldSENSE feature is meeting the hype early on. It’s the most control Madden has ever given the player and it’s a big step in the right direction for the franchise.
“Three Heads” arrives alongside Jean Dawson announcing his forthcoming album Chaos Now for October 7. Chaos Now will be the 26-year-old’s first offering since 2020’s Pixel Bath and will be an especially momentous occasion as he kicks off his debut headlining US tour in support of the album. The Los Angeles duo will be joining Dawson in his near month-long tour finishing up in LA on November 17.
Check out the video for “Three Heads” above. Below, find Jean Dawson’s upcoming tour dates.
11/16/2022 – San Diego, CA @ Voodoo Room
11/18/2022 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Space
11/19/2022 – Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge
11/21/2022 – Austin, TX @ Come and Take It Live
11/22/2022 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
11/23/2022 – Dallas, TX @ Cambridge Room
11/25/2022 – Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade Hell Stage
11/27/2022 – Washington, DC @ Union Stage
11/28/2022 – Allston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
11/29/2022 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry
11/30/2022 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
11/01/2022 – Montreal, QC @ Le Belmont
11/02/2022 – Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground
11/04/2022 – Detroit, MI @ Shelter
11/05/2022 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
11/06/2022 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
11/08/2022 – Denver, CO @ Cervantes Other Side
11/09/2022 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
11/11/2022 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
11/12/2022 – Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey
11/13/2022 – Portland, OR @ Holocene
11/15/2022 – Oakland, CA @ The New Parish
11/17/2022 – West Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy
Ahead of the season two finale of Only Murders In The Building, star Martin Short was extremely excited to be on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, though he said it “might be the Vicodin and Xanax talking.” Either way, Short quickly dove into what was one of the most chaotic late-night interviews of all time.
The actor went on multiple tangents during his guest spot, touching on everything from Mar-a-Lago to Kim and Pete in just a 30-second span of time. Of course, he also had to mention his co-star Steve Martin, as the duo is embarking on the “Steve Martin and Martin Short: You Won’t Believe What They Look Like Today!” comedy tour.
“[Steve] is the most talented guy in the world,” Short said. “He juggles, he plays banjo. And somehow he’s famous. We are a team now. We are like Florida and a lower back tattoo.”
When asked about what he has learned while working with Martin on both Only Murders and their comedy tour, Short had a very serious response: “I’ve learned that he will pay top dollar for clean urine. I’ve learned that you don’t need to have a pool to have a pool boy. He is really amazing, you know he butt-dialed me the other day, which is kinda amazing because he had a rotary phone.”
Both Martin and Short are nominated for their work on Only Murders, though Short believes he is the front-runner for the Outstanding Lead Actor in a comedy series. “The finale’s on next Tuesday, you know. But Steve and I are nominated. If I can’t win, I hope he wins. But I can win, so screw him. If I lose I’m gonna send Will Smith up to slap him. Why not?” We, as a society, cannot go through this again.
Of course, Short cannot leave without roasting Fallon. “If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would be on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon with all of these Emmy nominations I would have said….Jimmy Fallon?”
A’ja Wilson knows what it’s like to do things first. She helped the University of South Carolina win its first title in 2017, then became the WNBA’s first overall pick in 2018. Since then, she’s been in sniffing distance several times of the Las Vegas Aces’ first-ever WNBA championship, a feat she’s again vying for this summer amid a first-round playoff series against the Phoenix Mercury.
At the same time, Wilson also has found her way onto your phone and TV screens more than your average athlete, becoming the first WNBA player to strike deals with multiple brands as a sponsor. The latest is Ruffles, which added Wilson to its Chip Deal lineup this week, unveiling a social media campaign centered on Wilson and the newly created Ruffles Ridge Twist Smoky BBQ and Double Cheddar chip lines.
Wilson took time after Game 1 against Phoenix to talk with Dime about the partnership, her mindset in her fifth season, and what needs to happen for the Aces to put a ring on it in 2022.
A cool part of your new partnership with Ruffles, on top of being the first female athlete on their roster, is they created a new chip for you. If a basketball fan is reading this, what do they need to know about a Ruffles Ridge Twist and how it tastes?
It is not your average chip. It’s pretty mouth-watering because the smokey barbecue really gets you in the mindset of the barbecue down South. That’s why I picked this chip, because it really just made me think of back home.
It’s just really good. I hate that I just keep saying that, but it actually puts you in the mind of a barbecue but it also has a tangy taste to it. It’s just an overall good chip, and it’s not your average chip because it’s a twist.
It low-key kind of melts in your mouth because it’s soft but it’s crunchy at the same time.
I’m the type of person where I love barbecue cooking, I’ll obviously eat it if somebody’s making, I’ll order it at a restaurant, but I don’t always love BBQ chips. How would you sell me on trying these out?
There’s no need to be skeptical because it’s not a chip. Brendon, you gotta expand your mind and extend that palette. If you’re gonna be a snackaholic, you’ve got to get into the chip. This is how you distinguish that you’re a snackaholic because it’s not a chip, it’s a twist. It’s not a chip anymore, it’s a twist.
Now you’ve gotta buy the bag because you gotta try something that’s different. You get what I’m saying?
I feel you. Yes.
See, see? I got you. We’re here.
You’re getting me there.
You’ll be like, ‘it’s different, I love it.’
I saw you post online when this new Ruffles deal was announced calling yourself something along the lines of a Snackaholic. So I wanted to ask you about your methods here too. Typically, are you a chips and dip person, chips by themselves, do you have chips with a sandwich? What’s the best way to enjoy Ruffles or any chip?
I enjoy Ruffles just by themselves, just a bag of chips, and I can’t eat just one of course, you gotta eat multiple because that’s the whole point. I could eat it with a sandwich, but sometimes it’s best to just eat it by itself.
I’m definitely a girl that can eat a bag of chips all by herself.
You and the Aces pulled out a win in Game 1 against Phoenix but fans were probably surprised to see you have a quiet night. We could see your exasperation at times during the game. What have you learned in your career about how to bounce back during a game when shots aren’t going in?
The biggest thing is just the mindset. Going in, I’m still human at the end of the day. I don’t pray for basketballs to not go in the hoop, but sometimes it’s just not your night, there’s a lid on the basket. It was tough, I found myself thinking if I could just make one I’d be happy and I guess God let me get one in the second half.
I couldn’t be too down on myself because it is what it is, at the end of the day, we won. I can harp on it all day but we won. I have a chance to play another game. That’s the beauty of the game, the beauty of the bounce-back, is in the playoffs there’s an opportunity to get better, an opportunity to adapt and adjust, and that’s what I’m gonna do.
I’m a pro. My games haven’t been phenomenal every season, every day, so I’ve just really learned to find the little happinesses that I can within the flow of the game and just have fun while I’m out there because I get paid to hoop, I get paid to do something that I love. And I’m not going to take that for granted just because the ball’s not going in the hoop. So I just try to find other ways to still be productive for my team.
You talked about the one-dribble pull-up off the pick and roll in the second half. You’re a unique player where a get-back-in-rhythm shot for you might be that shot, which to a lot of other players would be pretty difficult. Do you ever think about your game in that way?
It must be helpful to you to have the comfort that you don’t have to get to the rim or get to the line to get back in rhythm.
Oh yeah. For sure. That’s what I love, I guess, about my game is when I say I just need to see one go through the hoop, it can definitely be a one-dribble pull-up off a screen, contested (laughs).
That’s something that I love because in this league, ever since maybe after my rookie year, I get super surprised when something is open. Because my whole time in this league, I’ve been guarded, so I know I’m not going to get just a wide open layup where I can just pump fake and get right to it.
When I’m in the game, I look at it like, ‘where can I just get a little opening?’ and I’m good. It’s pretty fun to know, who knows where this shot’s coming from, but it’s going up.
Talking about momentum, it seems like one of the most famous highlights of your pro career came, I think it was during the Finals in the Bubble, when you made a big defensive play and just look up into the rafters of the building and let out a scream. It felt like there was a similar moment last night, rotating over and making a block. How motivating are those moments for you and your teammates, to be able to come up big in those spots and do it in other ways and have them be signature moments for you?
Those are key. Sometimes when your shot’s not going in, you still have to find ways to produce for your team, so those are the games where you need a momentum shift. And it doesn’t have to be a deep three from the logo where it’s like, ‘oh my god’ and the lid pops off the place.
I think it’s just little ways to hype up my team and get my team involved. And when I see them kind of drooping down into a slump, I’m like, no, what can we do to change this? Because yeah, basketball’s a game of runs, but we need it in our favor.
So I’ll do anything I can to build my team up and help motivate them, and if it comes with screaming and kicking my leg in the air and looking crazy, then I’ll do it because these games are big deals. These are the playoff. We gotta lock in.
What do you think of the new WNBA playoffs formatting? Especially with Game 2 at home, I’m sure with you (being the higher seed) you’re not going to complain, but how does that differ from the past?
Yeah I’ve been in it both ways, I’ve been the one-and-done and I’ve been on double byes (under the old structure). I love this format because it’s in the flow of our season, so it’s like a normal game day. When you have a double bye, you’re like, “oh my god, we’re in the playoffs,” and you’re playing a team that’s already been in playoff action. Game 1 of that series is always not the prettiest because we’re just getting used to playing playoff basketball.
So I love this format. Home or away, I would love it, because I still feel like I’m in the regular season, in a sense, because there’s no stoppage.
It’s only been one game so this answer might be the same as it was a month ago, but if I ask you what has to happen for the Las Vegas Aces to cross the finish line and win a championship this year, what comes to mind first for you?
Us getting out of our own way. I think that’s the biggest thing, and it doesn’t matter who we’re playing against. If we’re stuck in our ways or in our heads, we’re playing against ourselves, and that’s no fun. It just takes for us to look at each other in the huddle and say we’re doing it for one another and we’re about to go have fun while doing it.
Weller 12 is one of the most revered whiskeys in the world. I’m not talking just bourbon here, either — I’m talking all whiskeys from every category. The wheated bourbon is the bridge between us mortals and the elysian heights of Pappy Van Winkle, which also has a 12-year expression and is made at the same distillery with the same recipe and aged in the same barrels.
But Weller 12 is more than just alt Pappy. It’s a massively sought-after, award-winning, and beloved pour of its own. But how good is it? Well, it’s time to investigate exactly that in a blind taste test versus some of the best bourbons in the world (with similar age statements).
Look, this tasting is patently absurd. If you went out to buy all 12 of these bottles, you’d be looking at a bill close to $9,000 give or take, depending on the aftermarket and retail in your neck of the woods. Moreover, a lot of these bottles are going to be very hard to find outside of very high-end retailers like Justins’ House of Bourbon or sites like Caskers.com. But price-tag-consciousness isn’t the point of this tasting, the point is to see if Weller 12 really is the bee’s knees that the whiskey world keeps saying it is.
Spoiler alert: All of these whiskeys are brilliant in their own way. Ranking them was pretty much impossible and felt… sorta dumb at times. They’re all so good that if you could, you’d want to try them all. In the end, a top five was very evident and everything else is basically a tie for sixth place. But doing that would be a cop-out, so I split some serious hairs and ranked them all from 12 to one.
Our lineup today is:
Rabbit Hole Nevallier Aged 16 Years
King of Kentucky 5th Edition Aged 15 Years
Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond Spring 2022 Edition Aged 17 Years
Weller Aged 12 Years
George Dickel Tennessee Bottled in Bond Whisky Aged 13 Years
Knob Creek Aged 12 Years
The D12tance Puncher’s Chance Aged 12 Years
15 STARS Timeless Reserve Aged 14 Years
Heaven Hill Heritage Collection 1st Edition Aged 17 Years
Barrell Craft Spirit Gray Label Bourbon Aged 15 Years
Heaven’s Door Decade Series Aged 10 Years
Michter’s Single Barrel Bourbon Aged 10 Years
Okay, let’s see if any of these monster bourbons can beat Weller 12 in a blind showdown!
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
There’s a good hit of tannic wood on the nose next to sharp white pepper and a hint of vanilla cream cut with soft and sweet orange vibes. The palate is tannic as well with a dark berries underbelly that’s slightly spicy and sour with an edge of tobacco leaf. The mid-palate softens toward a supple vanilla ice cream bespeckled with sour cherry bits covered in a dash of nutmeg and soft leather.
Yup, delicious. Though that tannic oak could be a drawback for some as it leans drier.
Taste 2
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
I thought the last sip was tannic and dry. This blows it out of the water with an old oak stave vibe that’s bold on the nose with supporting notes of sour cranberry, a dusting of nutmeg, soft vanilla, and pancake batter mixed with a chili-chocolate note. The palate holds onto that dry woodiness with a bitter edge that leads to dry cinnamon sticks and ancho chili peppers countered by lush vanilla and creamed dark cacao nibs with a slightly waxy edge. The end calms down the dry woody tannic note toward dry and old wicker with a black soil feel to it next to old orchard wood.
This is a woody whiskey (it’s definitely the King of Kentucky) and feels like it needs a single rock (or a few drops of water) to calm down that tannic woodiness and bring out the creamier vanilla and chocolate notes. That said, this is complex AF and so rewarding if you take your time with it.
Taste 3
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Soft porch wicker and new leather come through on the nose with a hint of cherry bark, vanilla oils, cedar bark, burnt orange, and a whisper of dried rose. The palate is pure silk with a creamy vanilla foundation supporting layers of mulled wine spices, dried sour cherries, thick eggnog with a lot of nutmeg, chewy pipe tobacco leaves, a hint of peach skin, and singed cherry wood. The end is the subtle and enticing mix of dark cherry vanilla ice cream drizzled with salted dark chocolate sauce that’s decadently creamy, bitter, and buttery before a dry orchard wood and dark spice mix slowly closes out the sip.
From my notes: “This is f*cking amazing. I’ll be shocked if a pour beats this, and I’m 99 percent sure this isn’t the Weller. It’s too lush and thick. Weller is juicier and nuttier.”
Taste 4
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
The nose opens with soft orchard fruits — think old peaches and bruised pears — that lead to a spun wool, vanilla-heavy pancake batter, and really good marzipan with an echo of rose water and orange oils next to soft and worn wicker canes wrapped in old leather sheets. The taste is a perfect balance of cherry wood, dried cranberry, buttery Southern biscuits, salted toffee candy, and Christmas spices (clove and nutmeg heavy). The end lets those sharp spices shine but isn’t hot by any stretch alongside moist angel food cake, apple-cider-soaked cinnamon sticks, and orange-infused marzipan with a hint of dark chocolate coating.
Well, there’s there Weller — fruity, nutty, amazingly smooth, and featuring soft spices that aren’t hot thanks to that low ABV. I already know, though, that it doesn’t beat the last pour. So now, it’s a matter of what other pours potentially beat it.
Taste 5
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Hello, Dickel! The nose is immediately clear cut with Hostess Apple Pies next to cherry Necco Wafers and the bran aisle of a health food store with a really clear fresh leather note. The palate follows the nose but then veers into a really subtle mix of pecan loaf next to dry sour cherries, waxy cacao nibs, salted black licorice, and brown butter caramel sauce. That butteriness carries into a vanilla cream sauce with a brandied cherry vibe and plenty of bitter yet creamy dark chocolate next to a hint of dried mint-laced tobacco wrapped in old cedar bark and packed in an old leather pouch.
I love how the nose on this is “Yeah, this is Tennessee, baby!” and then the palate is all like, “but I’m going to blow your mind with complexity and balance and awesome flavor…”
Taste 6
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Dark and sweet cherries mix with creamy dark chocolate, sourdough doughnuts dusted with raw sugar and sharp cinnamon, and a whisper of menthol tobacco and damp porch wicker round out the nose of this one. That dark cherry pops on the palate before layers of blackberry crumble with plenty of buttery streusel and dark holiday spices mingle with a hint of dry chili, salted dark chocolate sauce, and a hint of toffee. That cherry pushes the sip toward an end full of vanilla creaminess, fresh wicker canes, maple syrup dripping through a pecan waffle, and a hint of marzipan molded around a dry and sour cherry dipped in salt.
All that cherry means this is a Beam product for sure. It’s also a freaking delicious one.
From my notes: “This is top-tier whiskey.”
Taste 7
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This has a classic Tennessee whiskey nose with a hint of cherry protein powder that’s accented by breakfast sausage spices, which are … endearing. The palate holds onto that Tennessee chalkiness while adding in layers of soft vanilla oils, buttery toffee, old cellar beams, and wintry spices. The end is cherry forward with a light leathery edge next to an apple pie filling vibe that fades through sour, spicy, and buttery fairly quickly.
Compared to the other pours on this list, this is the lightest whiskey by far. That’s not a bad thing, it’s really good. It’s more that this is going to get lost in the mix of these particular drams.
Taste 8
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Maple syrup and roasted almonds lead to a hint of vanilla tobacco on the nose before a hint of melon kicks in and lead to a very subtle watermelon saltwater taffy vibe with a whisper of fresh green chili pepper buried deep in the background. That savory candy feel carries on the front of the palate as smooth toffee sauce mixes with espresso beans, vanilla cream, and a dollop of Nutella. The end has a slight woodiness with a rum-raisin note next to old leather and soft cedar.
This is very tasty but a little all over the place. “It’s very unique though — which makes it very enticing.”
Taste 9
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This is another oldie with a lot of old worn leather and tannic dry oak on the nose with a bit of cellar mold before dark and thick spiced cherry pancake syrup kicks in with sharp cinnamon and clove next to a hint of waffle batter and walnuts. The taste leans into a winter spice matrix that’s sweet and sharp with a mouth-numbing ABV vibe (not hot though) that leads to cherry cobbler, nutmeg-heavy lush eggnog, and silky vanilla sauce. The end goes back to the woody side of the winter spices as date-rich sticky toffee pudding and fresh cherry tobacco mingle with old cedar boxes and a hint of brown sugar melted in butter.
This is woody but, again, delicious.
Taste 10
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
A hint of Tennessee chalkiness and bran comes through on the nose before old pears, toffee sauce, and a minor note of umami kick in — it’s kind of like dried tomato powder and I’m here for it. The palate pops with ripe cherries, tart black currants, woody cinnamon and allspice, wet brown sugar, floral and bitter Earl Grey tea leaves, and an underlying foundation of cinnamon-spiced oatmeal cookies. The end leans into the bitterness of the tea leaves before a soft cedar bark that’s almost sweet leads back to a cherry vibe that’s attached to a mildly spicy chewy tobacco leaf.
This has a lot going on. That umami note on the nose is enticing but kind of doesn’t lead anywhere. Again, I’m really grasping at straws to find any infinitesimal fault to try and rank these.
Taste 11
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Bruised pear and rich toffee lead to a woody maple syrup that gets a little tannic before burnt orange and creamy vanilla drop in. The palate is lush thanks to buttery salted toffee, more vanilla creaminess, and cinnamon ice cream next to a black licorice Necco Wafer (hello, Tennessee) with a hint of marzipan and old porch wicker rounding things out. The end has a mild note of moss next to powdery dark chocolate and worn garden gloves with a hint of pear tobacco lingering on the backend of the taste with this luxuriously softly spiced final note.
from my notes: “This is pretty much faultless.”
Taste 12
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Real sheets of new leather mix with soft notes of sweet cedar, dark and tart red berries, burnt orange rinds, lush eggnog, salted toffee sauce over spiced and moist date cake, and a hint of smoked maple syrup cut with blackberries poured over a lightly toasted waffle. The palate feels like fresh vanilla tobacco leaves have been wrapped around dark-chocolate-covered espresso beans and then dipped in marzipan with a hint of rose water, orange oils, and brandy-soaked cherry layered on top with another dusting of nutmeg and dark cacao powder with airy vanilla whipped cream. The end is pure silk with a spiced black cherry leading to a pile of dry orchard wood next to a whisper of campfire-singed marshmallow.
From my notes: “This is perfect.”
Part 2: The Ranking
Zach Johnston
12. The D12tance Puncher’s Chance Aged 12 Years — Taste 7
This sourced whiskey is a 12-year-old Tennessee straight bourbon whiskey. Those barrels are emptied and the juice is re-filled into old Cabernet Sauvignon casks for a final maturation before proofing and bottling.
Bottom Line:
While this was very obviously a Tennessee whiskey on the taste, it really does shine as a lighter sipper. I’d say this is a good entry point into higher age statements and bigger prices that are not going to blow out your palate with high ABVs and big tannic notes.
11. George Dickel Tennessee Bottled in Bond Whisky Aged 13 Years — Taste 5
Nicole Austin has been killing it with these bottled-in-bond releases from George Dickel. This year’s release is a whiskey that was warehoused in spring 2007. 13 years later, this juice was bottled at 100 proof (as per the law) and sent out to the wide world where it received much adoration.
Bottom Line:
This is so goddamn good. A lot of people can’t get past that health food store nose (multi-vitamins, bran, etc.), but there’s really missing out on a great whiskey. Factor in the price, and this multi-award-winning whiskey is the best value on this list by a country mile.
The whiskey is a blend of old sourced barrels of bourbon from Bardstown, Kentucky. Those whiskeys spent 14 years in the barrel before the crew at 15 STARS picked them up and created a whole new experience from them for this award-winning release.
Bottom Line:
I called this a bit all over the place in the tasting notes and I stand by that. The melon/savory note on the nose might be a deal breaker for some. I tend to like it when blenders take big swings and connect with something new and fresh. Purists do not.
I’d say if you’re looking for something new, this is the bottle to grab. Just make sure to add a little water to help it bloom in the glass.
9. King of Kentucky 5th Edition Aged 15 Years — Taste 2
This year’s King of Kentucky is a 15-year-old bourbon made from a mash of 79 percent corn, eleven percent rye, and ten percent malted barley. The spirit — made at the Brown-Forman Distillery in West Louisville (Shively) — went into the barrel on December 18, 2009, at 125 entry-proof. After 15 long years, only about 35 percent of the whiskey was left in the barrel. 43 single barrels were then chosen for this release and individually bottled as-is, yielding about 3,500 bottles of King of Kentucky.
Bottom Line:
This is a woody monster that is built for an advanced whiskey palate (that’s not elitist, just facts). Still, there’s a killer flavor profile past all that dry tannic woodiness that’s worth digging into, if you can ever get your hands on a bottle.
Barrell Craft Spirits is another craft blendery that’s sourcing some of the best barrels in the game and expertly marrying those barrels. This expression blends 15-year-old bourbon from Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennesse into a final product that reaches new heights for blended bourbon.
Bottom Line:
I like the Tennessee of it all, but there’s a lot going on the palate that might feel overwhelming to some. That said, this is a sip that deserves attention and time. Let it breathe and oxygenate, add drops of water between sips and nosings, dig in and find those funky and fresh flavors.
The latest Founder’s Collection from Rabbit Hole is a pricey masterpiece. The juice in the bottle is made from a few hand-selected barrels of 15-year-old bourbon that was then finished in new French oak before bottling as-is in only 1,155 bottles.
Bottom Line:
This is one of those whiskeys that’s amazing, perfect, and all of that when you taste it on its own. It really is stellar. Tasting it in a panel like this, the bigger notes are what pop and that beautiful subtly is kind of lost. That’s a shame as this is a pour of whiskey that shines from taking slow sips and exploration.
6. Heaven Hill Heritage Collection 1st Edition Aged 17 Years — Taste 9
The base of the spirit is Heaven Hill’s classic bourbon mash of 78 percent corn, 12 percent malted barley, and a mere ten percent rye. This particular whiskey is built from several barrels from four warehouse campuses in the Bardstown area. In this case, three different ages were pulled with 17 years being the youngest. The whiskey is made from 28 percent 20-year-old barrels, 44 percent 19-year-old barrels, and 28 percent 17-year-old barrels. Once those barrels are vatted, the bourbon goes into the bottle as-is, without any cutting or fussing.
Bottom Line:
When I tasted this one on its own, it was easily a top-five bourbon pour of the year. Tasting it against eleven other killer bourbons and it naturally slips a bit. There’s a deep ABV warmth here that is rewarded with an awesome flavor profile, you just have to get past that big and tight Kentucky Hug first.
5. Heaven’s Door Decade Series Aged 10 Years — Taste 11
This is the first release in the new series from Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door Tennessee whiskeys. The juice is a ten-year-old straight bourbon that was made in Tennessee but wasn’t charcoal filtered before or after aging. The sourced barrels were blended and just proofed down before bottling without any other fussing.
Bottom Line:
This pour immediately made it into the top five. This had some serious balance while still feeling well-aged and blended to accentuate subtler notes. The only thing holding it back — and this is as nit-picky as it gets — is that the tannic note was a tad dailed up on the nose. Otherwise, this is an instant classic.
By the way, I have said this before but please note — the idea that this brand is any sort of cash grab by Bob Dylan is absurd. It’s a wonderful brand and competes with the killers.
This is the classic Beam whiskey. The low-rye juice is left alone in the Beam warehouses in Clermont, Kentucky, for 12 long years. The barrels are chosen according to a specific taste and mingled to create this aged expression with a drop or two of that soft Kentucky limestone water.
Bottom Line:
This is just delicious. It’s also accessible and cheap — an incredible high-age-statement bourbon that you can not only find but likely afford to keep on hand as your house pour. Alongside the Dickel above, this is another best-value bourbon by a long country mile.
Weller is made from the exact same mash bill as Pappy Van Winkle. This expression of Weller rests in the warehouse for 12 long years, in the same barrels and warehouses as Pappy. The difference between this and Pappy 12 is pretty simple actually. If the barrel doesn’t hit the exact flavor profile needed for a Pappy, it’s sent to the blending house to become a Weller (as long as it hits that flavor profile, of course).
So, yes, this could have been a Pappy 12 had the flavor profile been slightly different in the barrel. Instead, we have Weller 12 at 90 proof.
Bottom Line:
This was a complex and brilliantly balanced whiskey that was a tad light thanks to that proofing. That said, I know I don’t like the Weller Full Proof expression as much as this. It’s a complex world out there, folks. Anyway, this is really f*cking delicious. It’s also really easy to drink.
I’d argue that this is the easiest drinking whiskey on this list. It’s just not the most complex and rewarding.
2. Michter’s Single Barrel Bourbon Aged 10 Years — Taste 12
The juice in this bottle is a little under wraps. Michter’s is currently distilling and aging their own whiskey, but this is still sourced. The actual barrels sourced for these single barrel expressions tend to be at least ten years old with some rumored to be closer to 15 years old (depending on the barrel’s quality, naturally). Either way, the juice goes through Michter’s bespoke filtration process before a touch of Kentucky’s iconic soft limestone water is added, bringing the bourbon down to a very crushable 94.4 proof.
Bottom Line:
This is a perfect pour of bourbon. It may as well be tied for first.
1. Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond Spring 2022 Edition Aged 17 Years — Taste 3
This whiskey was distilled and laid down in barrels back in 2004. The barrels were vatted after 17 years and proofed down to the bottled-in-bond standard of 100 proof and then bottled in the iconic Old Fitz decanter for a Spring 2022 release.
Bottom Line:
Again, perfection. This is so deep and fun and enchanting and complex. This is going to be hard to beat this year when it comes to 2022’s best pours.
Part 3: Final Thoughts
Zach Johnston
I definitely used age and dry tannic woodiness as an ally to rank some amazing whiskeys a little lower. It’s a hard note for some to get past and really pops when tasting whiskeys side-by-side. This means that if you taste some of these on their own, that note won’t be as centered.
As for the Weller 12, it was pretty easily beaten but not brutally so. It’s still clearly a top-five pour. I think it’d have been a winner had that ABV been amped up to 95 or 100 proof, especially against some of the huge whiskeys on this panel. The softness of that proofing was really the only thing holding back from being unbelievably great (when splitting hairs for this tasting).
Overall, all of these whiskeys are amazing. If you can find any of these, you’ll be in for a treat. And that’s where Knob Creek 12 and Dickel Bottled-in-Bond come into play. Go out and buy those right now. They’re on most shelves and aren’t marked up by retailers to absurd heights. Both of those whiskeys stand up to some of the most iconic whiskeys in all the land and, again, you can actually buy them.
Fourteen years ago, after what most considered a disappointing third-place finish in the 2004 Olympics, the U.S. men’s basketball team reclaimed gold at the 2008 Olympics. Led by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Kobe Bryant, the U.S. cruised to an 8-0 record en route to reclaiming their spot atop international basketball. It won every game by double-digits, including seven victories by 20 points or more. After failing to secure gold in 2004, as well as a sixth-place finish in the 2002 FIBA World Championships, the 2008 squad was dubbed the “Redeem Team.”
Now, James and Wade, in partnership with Netflix and the International Olympic Committee, will executive produce a documentary titled “The Redeem Team” about that championship run. It’s slated to premiere Oct. 7.
Netflix and the International Olympic Committee have collaborated with executive producers @DwyaneWade and @KingJames for The Redeem Team, a new documentary about the US Olympic Men’s Basketball Team’s quest for gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing!
This 2008 squad existed shortly before social media really seemed to explode, so I’m curious to see how much footage from the time we can witness. Of course, game film shouldn’t be hard to come by, but I want endless footage like this stuff.
2008 Team USA grubbing at a Wendy’s/gas station, crazy to think this was 11 years ago. pic.twitter.com/sWcK0kbQKY
Just a bunch of exceptionally talented basketball players grubbing on some Wendy’s. Give me more of this. What other fast food spots did the team frequent? What was everyone’s go-to order? I need commentary.
I’m sure we’ll see lots of retrospective commentary from an array of Redeem Team members and that should be incredibly insightful. I hope it’s paired with some candid footage off the court, too. Regardless, this should be a distinct look into an iconic team, one that’s kicked off a run of four consecutive Olympic titles for U.S. men’s basketball.
One of the stranger stories in the NFL right now is that Tom Brady is in the midst of an unexplained leave of absence from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It could be argued that Brady, the most accomplished football player of all time and a 45-year-old human who retired earlier this offseason before coming back, doesn’t need to participate training camp, and taking some time away will keep him from going through the grind of playing football in the summer.
Having said that … boy, that just does not sound like a thing Brady would do, right? Brady has gotten to this point by being an absolutely relentless competitor whose preparation is unrivaled in the sport. Why, exactly, would Brady take a vague leave of absence during camp to “deal with some personal things”? And why would Bucs coach Todd Bowles give the following quote about it on Friday?
“I’m not concerned about it right now. We’re trying to practice against Tennessee and play a game,” Bowles said, per The Athletic. “I said sometime after Tennessee. There’s no definitive date for me. We’ll check on it, we’ll keep in touch and find out.”
So, it’s personal things that are not a concern to the team, and at the same time, there’s no definitive date for him to come back. One theory that is making its way around the internet posits that the reason Brady’s not around is a prior commitment he made to appear on Fox’s The Masked Singer. If you want to read an in-depth post on Reddit about it, you can do that here. If you want to see a video laying it al out, here’s this:
Basically, the two smoking guns are that Brady signed a monster deal with Fox this offseason to join their NFL coverage once his career ends and the filming dates for this season of the show line up almost exactly with Brady’s absence. I decided to do a little more research into this, and by that, I mean I searched for “tom brady singing” on YouTube. My findings suggest that Brady does like to sing, and while he isn’t great at it, he’s not as bad as, like, Rudy Giuliani was.
Brady once appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden and expressed that he is a big fan of “Hamilton.” The long of the short of it is that Brady grew up disliking that his dad would play show tunes in the car, but as he got older and his kids started to like singing along with that genre of music, he warmed up to them considerable. And in the below clip, Brady sings along with Corden to “Alexander Hamilton.”
Whether or not this means Brady is on The Masked Singer or not, well, I do not know. NFL reporter Lindsey Ok was told by a player that this is “100%” something Brady would do, but I just cannot wrap my head around Tom Brady punting on the chance to prepare for an NFL season because he had to go do a TV show, especially considering the Bucs have a new head coach (who, in fairness, was the team’s defensive coordinator the last few years). I suppose we’ll all find out soon enough when Brady is coming back, although if he was, indeed, on The Masked Singer, it might take a bit longer to figure out the reason why he was gone.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – Hey look, a good show
Hey, are you guys watching The Resort on Peacock? I hope so. I hope so for a bunch of reasons, too. One is that it stars just about all of your favorite people. William Jackson Harper, Chidi from The Good Place, is in the show. Cristin Milioti, who has been in everything but most notably Palm Springs, is also in the show. So is Skyler Gisondo from The Righteous Gemstones and Nick Offerman from tons of cool stuff. That’s a really solid start.
It’s also got a killer pedigree. The show comes from Andy Siara, who wrote the aforementioned Palm Springs — a super weird and fun movie that is on Hulu and should be rewatched yearly, at minimum — and was a writer on my beloved but short-lived series, Lodge 49. If you watched both of those things and enjoyed them to any degree, first of all, I suspect we would be friends, but second of all, I suspect you will dig The Resort. One of the executive producers is Sam Esmail, creator of Mr. Robot. There’s a lot of stuff happening here.
Also, it’s pretty good! It sucked me in right away in part because of all those things I listed in the first couple of paragraphs, but now, around the midpoint of its season, things are really getting interesting. Completely bonkers and sometimes very silly and sometimes very real, but mostly just interesting.
The summary goes like this: A couple (Harper and Milioti) go on vacation to a fancy resort in Mexico to try to force a jolt into a marriage that’s going stale, for reasons that are revealed via steady drip. One day, while out riding four-wheelers through the jungle, Milioti’s character wipes out and comes to in the dirt with an old busted flip phone in her face under some leaves. She gets curious, does some investigating, and discovers the phone belonged to a young man who was staying at the same resort with his girlfriend in 2007. The twist: that kid and his girlfriend both went missing on their trip and were never seen again.
So, blammo, intrigue. But also, jokes. Lots of dumb jokes littered throughout, in delightful little ways. Like, for example, this one, where the two of them are on a trip to look at Mayan ruins but also still investigating and Milioti’s character needs to think up a fake name to use on the phone on short notice.
PEACOCK
Yup, nailed it.
The mystery has gotten a little wilder each week, and a little more mystical, which should not surprise those of you who already watched Palm Springs and Lodge 49. There are eccentric millionaires and paintings that were completed in 2007 but feature people/things from the present day and a powerful Mexican family of tailors and fashion tycoons who use a yellow snake as their logo and may be involved somehow. One member of this family has been working on this mystery for a while and has now teamed up with Harper and Milioti to see if they can all figure it out together. The other week he said this, which, I promise, makes a lot of sense in context and is a legitimate theory in their amateur sleuthing.
PEACOCKPEACOCK
It’s good. All of it. And it’s one of those things that I’m just glad exists. We have 400 streaming services and all of them are trying to hammer our eyeballs with content every day. A depressing amount of it is becoming just, like, paint-by-numbers stuff to leave on in the background while you’re sweeping the living room. It’s cool to me that there are still people out there taking wild swings on ambitious stuff like this. I felt the same way about The Afterparty when that dropped on Apple earlier this year. That had a lot of the same stuff going for it: a loaded cast filled with people you like from shows you like; a solid pedigree behind the camera; a weird premise that embraced the freedom of the form. I loved that show. I might watch it again. I might do it this weekend. There’s very little you can do to stop me.
I have no clue if The Resort will or even can stick the landing right now. There is just an insane amount of stuff happening and a lot of it is weird and kind of unexplainable. It’s a little messy in places. I… don’t think I care, though. I’m here for the ride, which is made better for me by the weekly release model. I’m having fun watching it and thinking about it and then watching it and thinking about it again. I like that everyone involved is doing it. I support weirdo ambitious stuff like this. I have no clue if you’ll like it as much as I do. Maybe you won’t. That’s okay!
The point is that it’s cool when cool people make cool stuff, and I’m glad that we’re all finding ways to make that happen. This is maybe not the most eloquent thing anyone has ever said in a piece of television criticism, but still. I think it’s worth saying.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – Important dumpster business
AMC
Better Call Saul aired its season finale, which, I assume based only on the fact that you’re reading this column, you watched or were at least aware of. It was good. It was a good ending to a good show. One of the best, probably. Maybe one that was better than its predecessor, which is a crazy difficult thing to pull off, in part being some people just full-on will not accept that kind of claim and in part because Breaking Bad was also a really good show. But this is not the place for a full discussion of all of that. The place for that was here. This is the place to talk about dumpsters.
Quick context, free of heavy spoilers: In the series finale, for reasons, Jimmy aka Gene aka Saul jumped into a dumpster to hide from a group of people who were tracking him down. That’s a GIF of it up there. It’s a good GIF. It’s funny if you know the whys and how’s of the actual scene, but it’s also funny in a “post in on social media or send it as a text with a message attached like ‘me back on my bullshit,’” which is also important in a different way.
Anyway, the point here, to whatever extent there is one: That happened in the last episode of the final season, after this happened in the first episode of the final season.
AMC
Do… do we have a case of dumpster foreshadowing here? Or does he just live the kind of life where he and cardboard-based representations of himself periodically end up flailing into a dumpster? It’s a good question, a kind of chicken/egg situation that is complicated further by the thing where he was in a dumpster at least one other time in the series, way back in season one when he was searching for various Sandpiper documents. Was that also dumpster foreshadowing? Were both of these dumpster callbacks? Or does that dude just end up in dumpsters every few months in the course of doing business? And wouldn’t “Dumpster Callback” be a great name for a legendary blues musician who died under mysterious circumstances in 1951? All equally important questions.
I suspect this is another one of those things where two things can be true at the same time. The creators of this show, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, can be so good at their jobs that they parceled out dumpster-related imagery on purpose to lead up to this moment, and Saul Goodman can be the kind of guy who knows his way around a dumpster, just generally. I will be thinking about this one a lot. I will also be missing Better Call Saul a lot. What a great show. I still can’t believe it worked as well as it did. It’s basically magic.
In a loosely related matter, it turns out, as I discovered while putting this section together, that these are not the only GIFs I’ve made of a person or cardboard person going into a dumpster. I also have this one from Lodge 49.
AMC
The takeaways here are as follows:
A surprising amount of good shows that aired on AMC featured dumpster-related business
I have a lot of dumpster GIFs
I have somehow mentioned Lodge 49 — a little-watched show that lasted two seasons and ended multiple years ago — twice already this week
A lot to process.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – This HBO Max thing is weird to me
HBO MAX
HBO and HBO Max are currently in this weird limbo/flux situation due to various mergers and conglomerates and new leadership. I would never — never — bore you with the details of this kind of thing, so let’s just leave it there for now. You can go look it up elsewhere, although I strongly suggest you do not, especially on a Friday. I have to know these things because it’s my job. You have choices. Make them wisely. Do not let my burden become yours.
Here it is in its most basic form: In an attempt to streamline some things and cut some costs, they are going to start nuking some things off of their various platforms. The statement about it all went something like this, via Variety:
“As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and discovery+,” HBO Max’s statement reads. “That will include the removal of some content from both platforms.”
Taking off the titles from streaming would also help Warner Bros. Discovery cut costs by removing lesser-watched programs to save money on residuals. An exact date or time when the titles will be taken off has not been announced.
And, by way of specifics, it works out like this.
Although HBO Max has removed several titles in the past weeks, including several Warner Bros. films and HBO TV shows such as “Camping,” “Vinyl,” “Mrs. Fletcher” and “Run,” the latest announcement represents the largest quantity of titles to be taken off the service. In addition, 20 original HBO Max shows will be taken off the platform, including teen drama “Generation,” animated anthology series “Infinity Train,” holiday-themed reality dating show “12 Dates of Christmas” and “Sesame Street” spinoff “The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo.” It is currently unclear whether they will be made available on DVD or rental services, or if their removal will result in them becoming completely inaccessible.
The first thing I need to tell you about this is that the Variety article used a picture of Elmo as the big splashy image at the top and it made it kind of look like Elmo was the one making these cuts. Like Elmo had become the CEO of the whole company. Which is absolutely a show I would watch on HBO Max, if they are looking for new ways to grow the business by at least one viewer who is already subscribed to their service. Something to think about.
The other thing is that this is… weird. It’s just super weird. Not that everything is supposed to last forever or anything. It’s good that things end and go away sometimes. It helps keep things fresh and moving and prevents us from getting stuck in the past forever. But also, if you make a show for a streaming service, and it never gets released in a physical form, what happens if the streaming service just decides to delete it from existence one day? That’s weird, right? I’ve been having trouble wrapping my head around it all day. Like, I can go on Amazon and buy DVDs of the television show Royal Pains (15 discs, $31, in my living room by Monday if I want it), but the very good Harley Quinn cartoon — depicted above, which kind of just turned the Joker into “if Bernie Sanders was also a stepdad” in its current season, which is cool — might just not exist anymore, anywhere. I don’t think I like that. There’s an impermanence to it that makes me uncomfortable.
That said, you could make a physical work of art — a painting, a sculpture, etc. — and then trip on the way out of the kitchen and spill chocolate ice cream all over it and knock it on the floor and then someone else could slip on the spilled ice cream and fall on both you and your art and bang your whole elbow through it, so I guess nothing is really made to last forever.
This just got too deep for a Friday column that just posted three dumpster GIFs. Let’s move on.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR – I’m sorry but this is really funny
This is a commercial for some sort of financial something called Truist. I don’t know. I don’t really care, either. I’m only showing it to you here, now, because it came on my television during a break in a Phillies game recently (go Phillies) and I bolted upright — or at least as upright as I get — and went black in the eyes and shouted: “THAT’S THE TOKYO DRIFT SONG.” Which it is. It’s a song called “Tokyo Drift” from the 2006 movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The third one in the franchise. The one that had none of the major stars — save a brief Vin Diesel cameo at the end — and featured Bow Wow as a character named Twinkie and introduced us to a character named Han who was so likable that the franchise twisted its entire chronology into a pretzel to bring him back for a few more movies. It says a lot about me and what I’m about that I typed this entire paragraph from memory.
This is the full song, if you didn’t believe me or just want to listen to what I can only assume is the biggest hit to date by a group called the Terikayi Boyz.
Perfect. No notes. Well, one note, maybe. This one. From an article in Time Magazine, about a TikTok craze that bubbled up a few years ago.
A new viral trend calls for participants to film themselves or others sliding across the floor or around a corner, set the video to the Teriyaki Boyz song “Tokyo Drift” and post it online. The fad was inspired by a video that was recently shared on TikTok by user @samanthajohnson262 showing a van drifting sideways around other cars on a snow-covered Vancouver highway as “Tokyo Drift” bumps in the background.
The term “Tokyo drift” was popularized by the third movie in the Fast & Furious franchise and is a reference to the Japanese car racing technique of drifting.
To recap:
The Teriyaki Boyz made a song called “Tokyo Drift” for a movie called Tokyo Drift
I saw this movie in the theater in 2006
You’re not better than me
It found its way into the world of memes a decade or so later
Because of this last thing (probably) it ended up in a commercial for some sort of financial product
I saw it on television and shouted a little
I’m writing about it now
I’m going to put the song on my Driving Around playlist and get excited when it pops up on shuffle next
What a journey.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Meanwhile, on What We Do in the Shadows
FX
Real quick…
What we have here, from the most recent episode of What We Do in the Shadows, is The Jersey Devil, an assumed-fictional beast with massive genitalia and a taste for human flesh, singing and dancing along to “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi, because it turns out that is the only way to lull it into enough of a trance for our courageous/bumbling vampire heroes to defeat it. Because it is from New Jersey. The whole thing went on for kind of a while. Here, look.
FX
I really cannot stress this next part to you in strong enough terms: This was maybe the funniest thing I’ve seen on television all year. It was remarkable. Just the pure chaotic energy of spending whatever amount of money it took to make this possible, from the CGI to the costuming to the licensing of a Bon Jovi song from multiple decades ago. I could not possibly be happier about any of it.
There’s something beautiful to me about landing a spot on a prestigious basic cable network and just doing the dumbest and silliest things you can think of on a weekly basis. Yes, sure, shows like Dopesick and The Wire shine a light on important societal issues and help make complex things more digestible for viewers at home. That’s good, too. But sometimes you just want to see a beast with a comically large scrotum tear away on an air guitar to a song about two young lovers named Tommy and Gina.
There’s room for all of this. It’s one of the nice things about the future.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Matthew:
I put on this random movie on Amazon Prime on to have some background noise while i was doing some cooking. I look over, and it’s Jamie Lannister (with an american accent!) opposite Mrs. McMurray from Letterkenny. He had a long rifle, and honestly, it was so weird to see Jamie Lannister with a firearm. And then i started thinking about a buddy cop picture with Jamie and Brienne and they’re both carrying 9mms and just lighting dudes up.
Still in the armor though, because, reasons.
And i haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for 3 hours.
Hope you’re having a good day.
I don’t really have a lot to add here. Mostly, I just like that Matthew thought to send this one in. I like what it says about me and the vibes I put out that he had that objectively goofy thought and was like “I should email this to Brian.” That’s cool. It’s honestly just, like, really cool. It’s more satisfying to me than all the web traffic or retweets in the world. Please feel free to send me stuff like this. Don’t feel like you have to force it. But if it’s there… yeah. Fire away. I feel great about it.
A single pink dildo and socks were among the few items that were left when thieves broke into the Sexology Institute in the King William neighborhood last month, stealing $58,000 worth of sex toys, lingerie, the cash register and “the world’s most extravagant vibrator.”
Easily one of the best sentences I’ve ever seen. It was already trending that way before we got to “the world’s most extravagant vibrator,” but that shot us rocketing into a new tier. Imagine the cops as this police report was getting filed. I like to think they sent some pencil-necked rookie in there as a goof, just for the blushing.
Better yet, imagine famous fictional detectives working this case. Columbo, Daniel Craig’s character from Knives Out, anyone from Law & Order, Rene Russo’s character from Thomas Crown Affair, the bumbling squad from Only Murders in the Building. If it’s starting to sound like I’ve been thinking about this for days, hours at a time with 10-minute breaks to think about a sandwich I might eat or once ate, there’s a good reason for that: I have.
Early on June 30, three men pried open the lock of the adult entertainment store on St. Mary’s Street. The thieves, who have yet to be caught, returned on three separate occasions to fill trash bags full of merchandise into a black pickup truck. Hundreds of items were taken, including antique sex toys.
THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS
Whenever we catch these people, whoever they are, I need the trial covered by multiple networks, and simulcast with different analysts, including one where the day’s testimony and motions are broken down by Danny McBride and Edi Patterson. I will pay anything for this.
“Oddly enough, they left the books,” said Jasper St. James, the store’s boutique manager. “I guess they didn’t want to invest in that kind of reading. It was right after Pride, so they left all of the Pride stuff.”
St. James added: “So they’re a little bit homophobic and a little bit illiterate.”
This is honestly incredible. Make this the next season of Fargo. Let Ilana Glazer play Jasper St. James. These are good ideas.
“We came into empty racks,” St. James said. “They took the world’s most extravagant vibrator and they were done.”
That’s the large, fully functioning vibrator encrusted with Swarovski crystals, a favorite of customers who visit the store and often take photos of it. The biggest losses were the lingerie pieces, some of which were exclusive to the Sexology Institute, St. James said.
I need these people to get caught. Not so much for the justice of it all, although I suppose that’s important, too. No, I just need to know… like… everything about this. I need to know why and how they settled on this place to rob, I need to know how exactly they planned to move a crystal-encrusted vibrator on the black market, I need to know and preferably meet the middleman they used for that last thing, I need to know all of it. As soon as possible.
It’s a big year for Scott Frost and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Frost, a former Husker signal caller who won a pair of national titles in Lincoln as a player, took over as the program’s head coach in 2018 after a perfect, 13-0 season at the helm of UCF. Despite the excitement, things haven’t gone especially well for him at his alma mater, as he’s gone 15-29 with a 10-25 mark in conference play.
Last year, in particular, was a disaster for Nebraska, as the team went 3-9 and lost eight of those games by one score. The only loss that did not fit that description was by nine points. The hope for Frost and the Huskers is that they’ll be able to start winning some portion of those games, and instead of a horrific record, they can finish with an above-.500 record for the first time since 2016.
On Thursday, Evan Bland of the Omaha World-Herald provided a few updates about the program. The good one is that the team has a starting QB, as Texas transfer Casey Thompson won the job. And then, there’s this:
Offensive line coach Donovan Raiola is coaching his position group intensely, Frost said. To the point that he estimates there are 15-20 vomits every practice from those linemen.
“It’s not because they’re not in shape – he’s just working them hard,” Frost said. “I think they love it. He’s kind of freed them up to go be aggressive and I love the way they’re coming off the ball.”
So, one of two things are going on here. Either Frost has decided the best thing to do is to exaggerate how many times his players’ bodies are being pushed past the brink in an effort to show how hard they are working and how tough they are (I think?), or he’s not doing that and his players are actually being pushed past the brink in an effort to show how hard they are working and how tough they are, which is an especially reckless thing as there are multiple examples of college football players dying from heatstroke in recent years. Either way, it makes sense to question Frost, his offensive line coach, and numerous other folks here.
The 2022-23 schedule for all 30 NBA teams has finally been released, and it allows fans the opportunity to start marking their calendars and planning around the can’t miss games on the schedule. While not every team shares the same goals for the 2022-23 season, they all have games where fans will be circling dates and trying to make sure they’re in the building for or at least able to watch on TV, and here we are going to highlight five such games for each team.
Here, we will dive into the Oklahoma City Thunder as the club’s rebuild continues. There are signs that the Thunder may be starting to turn the corner in terms of on-court success this season after yet another influx of talent. At the top of the pecking order is No. 2 pick Chet Holmgren, with a pair of lottery picks in Jalen Williams and Ousmane Dieng alongside him. Oklahoma City still has a roster crunch, as evidenced by letting Isaiah Roby go, but the Thunder are putting the pieces together around Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey. Oklahoma City may not have a playoff push in the cards this season, but the Thunder project to be a riveting viewing experience, and Holmgren’s debut campaign is appealing on its own.
Below is a look at five marquee matchups for Oklahoma City this season.
October 19, 2022: at Minnesota Timberwolves (8:00 p.m. ET)
The season opener wouldn’t be included for every team in the NBA, but this is a fascinating spot for Oklahoma City. Minnesota underwent a facelift with the addition of Rudy Gobert, and expectations are sky-high for the Wolves as a result. The Thunder enter to more modest fanfare, but this is a chance, at full strength, to try to play spoiler. Also, it is Chet Holmgren facing off against a “twin towers” frontcourt of Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns right out of the gate, along with a fun matchup of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander against Anthony Edwards in the backcourt.
November 1, 2022: vs. Orlando Magic (TNT, 7:30 p.m ET)
This is perhaps the most anticipated game of the season for Oklahoma City. For one, it’s a national television game, and that isn’t the norm for the Thunder. From there, Chet Holmgren faces Paolo Banchero in a battle between the top two picks in the 2022 NBA Draft. Orlando has other intriguing talent, but that individual battle is enough to include this game on its own.
November 7, 2022: at Detroit Pistons (7:30 p.m. ET)
The Thunder and Pistons play again in March, but this is the safer bet to get all of the talent on the floor. Oklahoma City picked No. 11 and No. 12 in the draft, passing on Jalen Duren twice, and he is in Detroit. Oh, and this game also features Holmgren, Gilgeous-Alexander, Cade Cunningham, and Jaden Ivey. That sounds like fun.
November 13, 2022: at New York Knicks (12:00 p.m. ET)
This list is, admittedly, quite heavy on early games, and that is the price for Oklahoma City after multiple seasons in which the Thunder shut almost the entire roster down before the stretch run. Alas, this game presents the appeal of Madison Square Garden and a standalone window. Thunder-Knicks is the only game before 6:00 p.m. ET on this Sunday afternoon, and Oklahoma City’s young guns get a glimpse of life at the world’s most famous arena.
November 26, 2022: at Houston Rockets (NBA TV, 8:00 p.m. ET)
Like the matchup against Orlando, this one is headlined by top draft picks. Holmgren, Jalen Williams, and company face Jabari Smith Jr., Jalen Green, and a talented Rockets squad. Holmgren against Smith Jr. was an appetizing face-off at the Las Vegas Summer League, and that remains the case now.
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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.
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