On December 10, Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas set sail on the Ultimate World Cruise—a 274-day global trek that visits 11 world wonders and over 60 countries. This incredible trip covers the Americas, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Mediterranean and Europe with a ticket price that ranges from $53,999 to $117,599 per passenger.
Aboard the Serenade to the Seas is popular TikToker Marc Sebastian, who has been sharing his experience on the platform.
In a recent video with over 4.3 million views, he revealed what he’s learned over his first few weeks aboard the ship; the biggest was the one word you’re not allowed to say: Titanic.
“Who knew that? I didn’t,” Sebastian said. “I brought it up to an entire room of people having lunch that our ship is only 100 feet longer than the Titanic — when I tell you that utensils dropped. Waiters gasped. It’s dead silent.”
someone get whoopi on the line girl i have some goss for her #ultimateworldcruise #worldcruise #serenadeoftheseas #cruisetok #cruise #9monthcruise #titanic
After the unexpected reaction, his cruise friend told him, “You’re not allowed to talk about the Titanic.” It makes sense. Who wants to be reminded of the tragedy that killed around 1,500 people while sinking one of the most impressive engineering feats of the era? “When I went on a cruise, my mom told me saying Titanic was equivalent to screaming ‘bomb’ at an airport,” Mikayla wrote in the comments.
Later in the video, Sebastian admits he was surprised to learn that cruise ships have godmothers and that the pools are filled with seawater.
Nurse and mom Jinny Schmidt wants parents to be aware of a game that’s circulating amongst tweens right now, because it’s not a game at all.
In a PSA posted to her TikTok, Schmidt shared that her daughter informed her that boys in her class were beginning to play what she called “The Firetruck Game.”
As Schmidt begins to describe what the “game” entails, it’s easy to see why she’s concerned. All parents should be.
Here’s how the game works: a boy puts his hand on a girl’s lower thigh. And he tells her “my hand is a firetruck” as he slowly moves it up her leg. When the girl gets uncomfortable, she is supposed to say “red light.” Except for when the girl says “red light,” the boy responds with “sorry, firetrucks don’t stop for red lights.” And so they run their hand all the way up the girl’s leg, Schmidt explains, and sometimes they “touch the girl’s crotch.” Yikes.
Many viewers noted growing up with the Firetruck Game, or a version called “The Nervous Game,” or “Red Light Green Light.” Suddenly The “Squid Game” version of “Red Light Green Light” doesn’t seem so bad.
No matter what it’s called, though, it’s touching without consent, and is inappropriate on so many levels, not least of which being that it’s an excuse for sexual assault. Hence Schmidt’s alarm.
“I know that kids will be kids and kids will do some stupid shit, But we’ve got to do better teaching our boys to keep their hands off of other people and teaching our girls that it’s okay to have boundaries,” she says, before asking parents to “be aware” if they hear their kids talking about it.
And she is, of course, absolutely right. Folks who watched her video wholeheartedly agreed that the behavior should not be tolerated, and many shared some pretty intense, although warranted, reactions to it.
“We’d be playing a game called Ambulance next,” one person wrote.
“Press charges,” said another.
“We have a game also. It’s called ‘oops I broke your finger,’” a third added.
But many also chimed in to say that they would be talking to their kids immediately about it, which is probably the best route overall. That way kids can protect themselves, and others around them.
Middle school years in general are pretty rough. They can be just as difficult to navigate for parents as they can be for the kids going through it. It’s painful to watch your still baby-faced child go through many of the same awful pains that you did, many of which are unavoidable. But some things, like terrible and abusive games, can be avoided. So make sure to have those important conversations when you can.
EA Sports has slowly released information about its upcoming college football release, EA Sports College Football 25, throughout the week. So far, we’ve learned which teams are going to have the best homefield advantage in the game, which teams will have the best offenses, and which teams are going to be the nastiest on the defensive side of the ball. We also got a sights and sounds deep dive trailer, which looks unbelievably good.
On Friday morning, EA Sports finished its rollout this week by unveiling which teams will have the 25 highest overall ratings when the game drops next month. Unsurprisingly, a loaded Georgia team that should be No. 1 in the preseason polls is the best in the game, with Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, and Texas rounding out the rest of the top-5.
EA Sports College Football 25 will hit consoles on July 19, although early access will be available on July 16 for those who pre-order the Deluxe Edition of the game.
Megan Thee Stallion’s new album, Megan, has arrived — but not without some difficulty for the Houston rapper. In a recent livestream, Meg shared how a major obstacle emerged just days before the album’s release, forcing her to extensively re-record one song, “Otaku Hot Girl,” to remove references to one of her favorite anime.
She said on Tuesday, June 25, her team got an email from the anime’s production company, requesting the removal of a sample from the show, as well as several character names from her lyrics. “They said, ‘Actually, I need you to take out the names of the characters that’s in the show’,” she recalled. “That is the whole song. That makes the song make sense. They said, ‘You could either do this — you could have the music clearance or you can have the name clearance.’ The music is what’s really important to me, but the names really tied it all together.”
Ultimately, she re-cut the song in a makeshift studio just before going Live on Instagram, telling fans, “I really hope y’all think this sh*t sound fire, ’cause I had to jump through eight million hoops to get this sh*t. Once y’all hear the sample, y’all are gonna know why they was giving us a hard time. This is a very big production company, so for them to even say yes — and I be cussing and sh*t — like I said, I’m grateful. I’m not complaining. I really wanted this sample. I really wanted to do it, so I’m doing everything I got to do to keep it. But change the names? Change the names the day before the album out? That was nuts.”
Even though Meg did not reveal the name of the anime or production company… it’s pretty obviously Jujutsu Kaisen, a show with which she’s already got something of a history. The beat, by Bankroll Got It, interpolates the show’s theme song, while Adam McArthur, the voice actor for the main character, Yuji Itadori, declares, “I like a tall woman with a big ass, like Grammy winner Megan Thee Stallion.” The show is licensed in the US by Crunchyroll and Viz Media, and is one of the more popular properties being licensed by the companies.
megan thee stallion sampling a jujutsu kaisen track and getting yuji itadori’s english VA (adam mcarthur) to narrate the intro like she is so insane for this lmfkskdkskdr#MEGAN#JJKpic.twitter.com/eUgCo7l3Sn
The line reading used in the song is not actually spoken in the show. Although Yuji does assert his fondness for statuesque women, the example given in the show is Jennifer Lawrence (who technically qualifies by Japanese standards, I guess). Fans online rewrote the line to pay homage to Thee Stallion’s love for anime and fitting physique, then convinced McArthur to re-read the line with the Meg reference. It’s kind of a shame we might not get to hear the original verses and see how she used the names of the characters to tie it all together, but it is cool to see the continued crossover between hip-hop and anime.
[This post contains spoilers for episode 5 of The Acolyte]
Manny Jacinto played one of television’s all-time great goofballs on The Good Place. But since lobbying a Molotov cocktail while yelling the last name of Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles, the actor has mostly been in more “serious” movies and shows, like Top Gun: Maverick and Nine Perfect Strangers. It would be nice to see Jacinto play a doofus again (maybe in Freaky Friday 2!), but at least he’s finally getting his flowers.
Jacinto’s Qimir is one of the breakout characters from Disney+’s Star Wars series The Acolyte, especially after the most recent episode (last chance if you don’t want to be spoiled).
Episode 5 revealed that Qimir is actually a Sith Lord, but more importantly, look at those arms! Even his former The Good Place co-stars are impressed. In response to an X user who wrote, “The himbo from the Good Place becoming the hottest man alive was definitely not on my bingo card,” D’Arcy Carden, who played Janet on the NBC sitcom, confirmed, “it was on mine.”
If I had a nickel for each time Manny Jacinto plays a character that is masterfully pretending to be someone completely different than he actually is.. pic.twitter.com/zBAK0ZVdfM
I wasn’t watching The Acolyte and somehow blissfully missing all Star Wars discourse but I just saw this clip of Manny Jacinto and now I’m intrigued because I am a shallow woman https://t.co/vGYvD7rlFt
manny jacinto as a villain is truly the best casting I have ever seen ever. the power this has on me… I am literally going to be unbearable for six months https://t.co/L5V193AWn9
manny jacinto’s arms are going to bring people to the acolyte the way jeremy allen white’s arms brought people to the bear it’s all connected we live in a beautiful world
Jacinto’s training for his big fight scene has also gone viral. As it should! He worked on it for four months. “This was the first time I really got to dig into something with so much action and really make use of my dance background,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “We worked on everything. We did boxing, we worked on kicks, we worked on all the choreography. It was tough. They conditioned my body so that I could get through this five-person fight scene.”
To paraphrase a Good Place meme: Manny Jacinto on The Acolyte? Don’t mind if I do.
The Acolyte streams on Disney+ with new episodes on Tuesdays.
Anybody who thought the vinyl resurgence was just a fad was mistaken: The industry has experienced a legitimate revival. As a result, music fans are interested in physical media in ways they may not have if the decades-old medium hasn’t made a comeback. That doesn’t mean everybody is listening to just their parents’ old music, though. That’s part of it, sure, thanks to rereleases that present classic albums in new ways. A vital part of the renewed vinyl wave, though, is new projects being released as records, of which there are plenty.
Whatever you might be into, each month brings a new slew of vinyl releases that has something for everybody. Some stand out above the rest, naturally, so check out some of our favorite vinyl releases of June below.
Johnny Cash — Songwriter
Universal
In 1993, Johnny Cash recorded a set of songs at LSI Studios in Nashville, and they were ultimately shelved. Now, they’ve been revamped with new arrangements (The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach plays a guitar solo on one song, for example), and you can own them on vinyl.
Seven Swans is Stevens’ fourth album and one of his most beloved. It’s also 20 years old now, and Stevens has dropped quite the deluxe vinyl edition to celebrate. The record doubles as a zoetrope, meaning that when you play it, you’ll be able to actually see an animated swan flapping its wings. Sufjan may be often associated with albums about states, but this set from that same era is one of his best.
1960s singer-songwriter Margo Guryan had a slow burn, ultimately becoming a cult favorite starting in the ’90s. Those who have finally caught up now have a new 3LP box set to enjoy, and it comes with 16 previously unreleased recordings.
Monsters Of Folk — Monsters Of Folk (Deluxe Edition)
ATO
Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, and M. Ward was a mind-blowing supergroup in its day, and now the band’s self-titled album is getting another moment in the sun. This new deluxe edition comes in various multi-color vinyl editions and some previously unheard bonus tracks.
The late ’70s is a memorable era in the Joni Mitchell oeuvre, and that’s commemorated in a new box set. It includes the albums Hejira (1976), Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977), Mingus (1979), and the live album Shadows And Light (1980), all of which have been freshly remastered. As Joni prepares to perform live again this summer, this is the ideal collection to prepare for these live events.
Fat Possum’s Spaceman Reissue Program continues with another fresh Spiritualized release. This time, it’s Songs In A&E, which has been freshly remastered and comes with new album cover art for this edition. Pretty much every Spiritualized album is a must-own for fans and collectors alike, and this new pressing is the ideal way to hear this 2008 classic.
Just like the stark green cover art, Charli XCX went simple but effective for the vinyl pressing: It’s black, but slightly translucent. If you’re fine straying from the green, there’s also a pretty striking red picture disc edition available.
Animal Collective — Merriweather Post Pavilion (15-Year Anniversary Deluxe)
Domino
Merriweather Post Pavilion was an era-defining album, and it’s somehow been 15 years since then. Animal Collective is celebrating with the project’s first-ever pressing on color vinyl, as a 2-LP in Translucent Green and Bluish (Get it? Like the song!).
Los Campesinos! — We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (Vinyl Me, Please Reissue)
Vinyl Me, Please
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed locked up a slot as one of Vinyl Me, Please’s records of the month for July and it’s a beautiful celebration of the MySpace era. As tends to be the case with VMP releases, this new edition comes pressed on perfectly colored vinyl and comes with carefully considered listening notes.
A press release describes this project as “one of music’s most mythical live albums,” and it’s finally available to the masses. The album consists of live studio sessions from 1974, which have now been properly mixed, making it a substantial upgrade over the bootlegs that have been circulating for years.
Linda Ronstadt — Cry Like A Rainstorm – Howl Like The Wind
Iconic
The iconic singer’s late-’80s offering comes back to vinyl for the first time in years. This 140-gram translucent blue vinyl pressing features one of Ronstadt’s most iconic hits, the Aaron Neville duet “Don’t Know Much,” as the beloved New Orleans icon features throughout the collection. This album was massive in its time, selling over three million copies, and shines a light on a particularly fruitful creative moment from Ronstadt.
One of the stranger moments in recent NBA history came when the Los Angeles Clippers hosted the Houston Rockets back in 2018, the first time that Chris Paul played the Clippers in L.A. after his time with the team came to an end. The long and the short of it is that, after a game that got a bit testy, Paul allegedly used secret tunnels at the Staples Center (it was not called Crypto.com Arena yet) to get the Rockets to the Clippers’ locker room, where a fight nearly broke out.
It’s a famous moment for plenty of reasons, most notably an all-time great Inside the NBA segment about it. And while we’ve had some people speak about it over the years, a recent appearance DeAndre Jordan made on Paul George’s podcast went into more detail than we’ve ever gotten about the whole thing.
Jordan, who was on the Clippers at the time but could not play in the game due to a sprained ankle, simply said “a lot of it’s true” about the ordeal, then dove into the emotions around the game and some of the trash talk that the two teams engaged in throughout the game. In particular, he pointed out two unnamed players (Austin Rivers, who was on the Clippers, and Trevor Ariza, who was on the Rockets) who got a little too riled up during the game, which boiled over after it ended thanks to the hallways work in the building.
“You know how the hallway is, the visitor’s side,” Jordan told George. “If you walk through the back, you can get to the Clippers locker room. So, I’m sitting at my locker … and then all of a sudden, I see the homie from the Rockets right here, and I’m like, ‘What you doing, bro? You can’t be up in here.’”
As Jordan tells it, Ariza said he was looking for someone, then went “I’m looking for that motherf*cker right there.” While he tried to make sure Ariza — who he knew — left and tried to push him out of the locker room, he eventually made quite the realization.
“When I pushed him out to the hallway, I see the whole Rockets team,” Jordan said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, sh*t.’ I’m like, this ain’t for me! You know what I mean? I’m like, ‘Bro, what y’all doing?’ ‘No, we just want to talk to so and so, we just wanna talk to him!’ We’re like, y’all not talking to him. All 15 of y’all wanna talk to him? No, that’s not happening.”
Jordan said, after turning around, he saw his whole team, with one unnamed player holding a weight in their hand. Security eventually came in and got everything sorted out, and while it’s a great story from Jordan, I do wish he could have told it to Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal.
Last night (June 27), Donald Glover (AKA Childish Gambino) took to Instagram to surprise his fans: He shared a photo of two tickets to an IMAX screening of A Quiet Place: Day One and wrote, “Bando Stone trailer is coming tonight @imax.” Sure enough, a trailer for Glover’s Bando Stone And The New World movie aired in IMAX theaters last night.
It hasn’t been officially shared online yet, but fan-shot recordings have made the rounds online. The two-minute video starts with Bando Stone (Glover’s character) wandering around an empty post office before heading to an also-empty convenience store. There, he encounters a character played by Jessica Allain, who holds a gun in his face. Stone reveals he’s a famous singer, and later, he joins Allain’s character and a young girl (perhaps Allain’s daughter or sister). From there, the three try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world full of dangerous giant creatures.
In April, Glover shed some light on his upcoming plans. One of them is a soundtrack album for the Bando Stone movie, which he dubbed the “final” Childish Gambino album. He also announced Atavista, an album that has since been released.
Check out the Bando Stone And The New World trailer above.
Music plays an important role in the Beverly Hills Cop movies. The soundtrack for 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop hit No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 thanks to popular singles like “The Heat Is On” by Glenn Frey, “New Attitude” by Patti Labelle, and, of course, “Axel F.” That’s how cool Axel F. himself, Eddie Murphy, was in the 1980s — he could turn a instrumental track from a German composer into an honest-to-god hit. But Murphy is still plenty cool these days, and for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, the fourth film in the franchise and first in 30 years, he enlisted Lil Nas X for “the best song of all time.”
On “Here We Go!,” Lil Nas X offers a warning: “Tell them boys you better hide, tell them lay low / Tell them play it safe ’cause we don’t play at all / Tell them boys you better move.” Later, he sings, “There’s a boy inside me and one day he’s gonna go / Somewhere that nobody’s ever ever been before.” The song was written by Lil Nas X, as well as Raul Cubina, Mark Williams, Jarrod Morgan, and Harold Faltermeyer, whose “Axel F” is used as a sample.
You can listen to “Here We Go!” above
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, which also stars original cast members Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot and newbies Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, and Kevin Bacon, debuts on Netflix on July 3.
Apple TV+ is crushing it in the suspense-filled thriller series department. Currently, Jake Gyllenhaal is under the legal microscope in Presumed Innocent. Rebecca Ferguson recently went back underground for more of Graham Yost’s Silo adaptation of the Hugh Howey books. And Idris Elba intended to make a limited series that feels like a panic attack (only in an airplane instead of The Bear‘s kitchen), but the people wanted more, so he’s making a second season and stepping back into the shoes of a ground-level negotiator whose skills come in handy in the not-so-friendly skies.
What can we expect from more Hijack? Let’s talk it out.
Plot
As viewers will recall, Hijack is a seven-hour series that rolls out in real-time mode during a flight out of Dubai. Elba portrays Sam Nelson, an experienced negotiator at ground level who finds himself putting those skills to the test when assailants take over the plane. A few unbelievable twists and plot holes — including plane wifi that worked well (!), the bear-jacking of the financial market being a believable motive, and Sam reentering the plane for a final clash with a villain — required suspended belief occurred in this sleeper series that had a admittedly silly ending. Yet overall, the story felt high-octane and fist-bumping enough that the show became an adrenaline-filled, word-of-mouth success.
Also, let’s face it: nobody really goes to popcorn movies expecting airtight logic, and this was a show that went well with plenty of microwaved popcorn in a home theater. Additionally, Sam (Idris Elba, actually) had swagger that the audience could not resist. All ingredients for the recipe of streaming success.
Now, the setting of second season could end up being very different because Elba is not only the leading man but also an executive producer on this series, and he declared, according to Variety, “I just don’t want to put him on another hijack.” Hopefully, this won’t make like Speed 2 and choose a cruise ship as the method of transportation.
Apple TV+ is staying quiet on plot specifics, but in a press release, Elba promised that the next trip would be worth the price of admission:
“I was floored by the overwhelming audience response after season one. It’s top secret what new situation unfolds for Sam Nelson but I can assure you we will bring the high octane back!”.
You heard him, and Idris Elba wouldn’t steer us wrong.
Cast
Idris Elba will be back as Sam Nelson. At present, we don’t know whether Archie Punjabi will reprise her counterterrorism officer character or if Max Beesley will provide a ground-level investigative perspective again. The nature of this story means that Elba could be otherwise accompanied by a whole new set of actors and characters, but Variety has reported some new names including Clare-Hope Ashitey, Karima McAdams, and Christian Näthe.
Release Date
Apple TV+ hasn’t announced a release date yet, but we would bet on early 2025.
Trailer
The streaming service did unveil a look at the close quarters involved with shooting on a real plane. Claustrophobia City.
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.
(@halalltakeaway) 
