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theflikchic · 3 years

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Obscure Pop Culture I Love That Nobody Talks About

Consider this entire post a series of recommendations, especially if you're bored in quarantine.

1. Quantum Leap

Starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell, "Quantum Leap" is a sci-fi show from the 80s and it's one of the most progressive shows I've ever seen. The plot's a bit complicated so I'll be quick: A scientist named Sam- in an attempt to travel back in time- accidentally gets trapped in the bodies of different people throughout time. He can only leap from body to body when he changes a point in history (most often, he has to stop a death).

The reason this show is so amazing is because of fact that no matter what body he leaps into, we always see him as him. My favourite episode (called "What Price, Gloria?") is about how Sam gets stuck in the body of a beautiful female secretary. We watch him undergo the sexual harassment of the workplace and see how ridiculous it really is as every guy thinks he's a girl. It's terrific seeing him in women's clothing because it's very normalized in the show and is used to further explain sexism in gender constructs of clothing.

There's about five seasons and sadly, it never got a proper ending. It's quite sad and can be difficult to watch but it's beautiful and I love it.

2. The RED Movies (RED and RED 2)

I love these movies. And sadly, there's only two of them. A lot of people dislike the second one and whild it isn't as good as the first one, I still think it's a lot of fun. They're funny, they're action-packed, and they've got an incredible cast and yet no one's seen any of them.

The movies follow ex-CIA agent Frank Moses and his adrenaline-hyped girlfriend Sarah Ross as they travel the globe with other retired agents and contract killers to stop bad guys and it's AMAZING. I originally watched them because of Anthony Hopkins being in the sequel but then it turned out that I loved them both so much.

They're also very well-written and require a lot of attention. And the jokes make that really rewarding. Both of these films are on Amazon Prime and they're so much fun. If you need more convincing, there's a scene when Helen Mirren tasers Anthony Hopkins and then several scenes after, they kidnap a pizza guy-

3. Dinotopia

The books by James Gurney reign supreme but I love the five episode (or six??? I dunno, there weren't a lot) TV series. It's very mediocre and super low budget but I enjoy the characters and the overall world (even if the books are better).

I'd like to mention that there's also a three hour-long miniseries featuring the same characters but with different actors. While there's more dinosaurs and David Thewlis, the acting is really bad and that's where I prefer the TV show.

I'd also like to mention that the TV show has the character of LeSage, a morally grey antagonist who hates dinosaurs and will occasionally team up with the mains when the rules suit her. She's an excellent character and the highlight of the show.

4. V (1984)

Hey, so, you know Freddy Krueger? Yeah, of course you do. Well, this was the show that made him famous.

Two miniseries (a two-parter and a three-parter) and a fourteen-episode TV series. This show was HUGE in the 80s and yet, for some reason, everyone seems to have forgotten it (but we did get Funko Pops so...victory!).

The show is about an alien invasion of earth but it's not just an alien invasion: it's an invasion from evil alien lizards that serve as an allegory for Nazis. It's got amazing characters, especially amazing female characters. It deals with moral decisions and the horrors of war. While it does get more campy as it progresses and doesn't have a proper ending, 90% of it is low-budget but compelling sci-fi with great characters (and the found family trope, especially once they bring Robert Englund aboard).

Be aware: there are some elements of body horror regarding a pregnancy and an ab*rtion attempt in the second miniseries so if that stuff bothers you like it does me, I promise that it has a happy ending and everything turns out okay. I love love LOVE this show and I wish more people watched it.

If you're curious, it's located all on archive.org.

5. Monk

One of the only three cop shows I actually watch, "Monk" is an incredible show starring Tony Shaloub as an ex-homicide detective who suffers from OCD. As someone with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, I just feel so...seen with this show. Tony Shaloub does an excellent job at portraying someone with anxiety and he's written so wonderfully that I often find myself saying out loud- "Me too, man. Me too."

Don't let the fact that it's a comedy throw you off. They take Monk's illness pretty seriously and most of the laughing comes from the sadness that comes with the way he reacts to the world. Often when something goes wrong because of his anxiety, it funny but also doesn't shy away from the character trying to deal with the way his mind is wired. No characters really laugh at him in the show and those who do are portrayed as jerks (because they are). And Monk is incredibly courageous and it's inspiring to see him triumph.

It has 8 seasons and it's on Amazon Prime. It's brilliant and fun and sad all at once. It's also set in the same universe of "Psych" (another amazing show) but this wasn't established until years later once both shows were over.

The bonus to watching this show is for the character of Monk's friend Captain Stottlemeyer played by severely underrated actor Ted Levine. And if that name sounds familiar, it's because he made a mark back in 1991 as a serial killer who owned a pet poodle and went by the name of Buffalo Bill. He's so funny in this show and his friendship with Monk is one of my favourite parts.

So that's the post! I hope you found something that you're interested in and that your quarantine remains filled with fun, fictitious content! Stay safe!

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buttercupsfrocks · 4 years

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So, tumblr, by popular demand, (Hah! Get me!), here’s a loooong post on my living room display cabinet.

I started collecting 1930s ceramics when I was 17, shortly after my grandfather died. My dad, as his only child, was given the job of sorting through the contents of his flat, which is how I first came into possession of a couple of Art Deco nicknacks - a plastic jewellery box, which sadly fell to pieces, a chrome and enamel powder bowl, and an electric clock with a peach mirror glass face. Also this amazing uplighter seen, along with the clock and few pieces from the china collection, in the living room of my previous flat.

But back to my mid teens. At around this time I saw Cabaret on the big screen for the second time, and resolved shortly afterwards to reinvent myself as a Sally Bowles/Louise Brooks hybrid.

Thus the 30s became my thing. For life it turns out. Since I was still living in my childhood home in my tiny childhood bedroom, it started with beads and earrings as I didn’t have room to collect much else. The necklace I’m wearing here was one of the first things I ever bought – from the long gone Twentieth Century Box in the King’s Road – and the dress belonged to my great grandmother.

At some point though I bought this little Art Deco jug, which proved to be the thin end of the wedge. I knew it was a piece of cheap tat – it didn’t have a stamp on the base and cost a mere £1.75 from Camden Market – but I loved it then and I still do, crazing, cheap lustre finish, indelible stains and all

Before long it had found a friend in a Shelley jug and they’ve been together ever since. I acquired a few small pieces of Carlton Ware here and there, as it was cheap and commonplace, but the china collection didn’t really get going in earnest till I came face to face with these ...

... and these...

... Paragon cups, saucers, and tea plates. It was the delicate flower handles that did for me. My heart literally stopped when I spotted the whole lot filling a display case on a stall in the Barrett Street Antiques Market in St Christopher’s Place. I’d never heard of Paragon, which is comparable in quality to Shelley, before; and I’ve only ever met one other person who avidly collected it. The colour work here is a combination of basic transfer and hand painting, and I’d never seen anything so beautiful, nor coveted anything quite so desperately, in all my puff. Back then were three trios in each design, and they would have cost entry-level graphic designer me two weeks wages so it was a no go. I chatted to the dealer for ages, heaved a sigh of resignation, and left. Then fate stepped in in the form of some freaky, life-changing events: 1) My paternal grandmother died and left me five grand, and 2) The company I was working for decided on a radical restructure and I was one of those made redundant. I decided to use the money to start my own business – an illustration agency – and marked this momentous decision by returning to Barrett Street to buy the Paragon. I didn’t have the space to display it all until I moved into my own place a couple of years later but there was no looking back once I did.

Most of these pieces are made by Paragon too, the exception being the Royal Doulton cup and saucer on the right, which was a gift. The un-lidded sugar bowl on the left cost me two quid in a car boot sale while the lidded one in the front cost me under a fiver from another late King’s Road haunt called Eat Your Heart Out. With two notable exceptions, I’ve never parted with serious money for any of this stuff. I also rarely buy to sell, so not all of my collection is in perfect condition. Obviously it’s great when it is, but the cumulative effect of seeing it altogether is way more important. And the cumulative effect is pure joy. Which puts me in mind of the book I mentioned a couple of posts ago, which posits the idea that liking colourful stuff is not a mark of shallow, unsophisticated character, and that joy is not something innate without stimulus, but rather a reaction to the objects and environments that surround us. This resonated deeply with me.

I used to write in an alcove in the L-shaped hallway of my previous flat. It was a nicely decorated hall. Yellow-gold marbled wallpaper with paintwork a shade lighter and a yellow gold carpet to match. The light was good too. But I didn’t have many pictures in those days so the walls were blank apart from my grandmothers mirror; nor were there any shelves on which to house books or display tchotchkes. One day I started writing in my living room instead, which contained all of these things including my trusty display cabinet, and I realised I felt creatively stimulated; galvanised even. From then on I’ve always worked surrounded by colour, pictures, objects and books.

So, on with the show.

This adorable little person is a powder bowl from Germany. I don’t often go for figurative ceramics but I completely fell in love with her. She came from a junk shop and cost me about quarter of what she was worth at the time I bought her. Behind her is a Parrot Ware biscuit barrel, a gift from my potter friend Steve, who is also an avid collector of ceramics, and has contributed many pieces to my collection over the years. Behind that is a Parrot Ware plate I found in a junk shop in Lye in the West Midlands. To the left of her is a Paragon chintz ware trio, another gift from Steve.

The coffee cup and saucer is the only piece of Clarice Cliff I own. It was a present from a family friend back when I first started collecting. Then, as now, Cliff, Susie Cooper and Charlotte Rhead were the big names and overpriced accordingly, so I decided to concentrate on the more affordable end of the market. The hand painted Poole vase is, I think, from the 60s, as is the Royal Winton plate behind it, but I think they blend in well enough. The same can be said about this Brentleigh Ware breakfast for one set...

It came from a car boot sale many years ago. The rain was chucking it down and the sellers were so desperate to go home they practically gave it to me. How could I refuse?

This is the only glass piece in the cabinet. I’ve occasionally seen these swizzle sticks for sale individually but this is the only set I’ve seen with the matching base. Behind it is a pair of hand painted Czechoslovakian vases of the type that Cliff clearly ripped off. For that reason alone I feel they should be worth a whole lot more than they are. Russian folk art, as reinterpreted by the likes of Natalia Goncharova for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, was also a huge influence on the Art Deco movement. The majority of my pieces are simply 30s as opposed to full on Deco but the colour palette is often in keeping.

The green cheese dish is a Royal Winton piece I bought in the 80s, while the yellow one, a more recent acquisition from a charity shop, is Crown Ducal. Which brings me to something else. Video may not have killed the radio star but eBay definitely murdered the antique market. Some time in the mid 90s I consciously stopped adding to the collection. It was harder to find at a reasonable price and I also felt I’d reached Peak Thirties so to speak. Contributor No 1: Knowing how much I loved the period, my stepgrandmother had promised me a pair of French bronze book ends when she died. And although my mum and stepfather were divorced by the time she did, he honoured her promise on the understanding that I’d never sell them.

(AS IF!! These are the balls-out Art Deco bookends of my wildest dreams. I will never, ever sell them. Excuse the dust, by the way. These live, along with a lot more china, in my hall book case, and are lucky if they see a duster once a year.)

Contributor No 2: Prior to working in the World’s Loveliest Gift Shop® RIP, I worked for Steve for the six years he had one. But whereas Lynne restored and upcycled vintage furniture as a sideline, Steve's was vintage ceramics. His brother, who is also an antique dealer, occasionally sold stuff through the shop too. One day I came into work and had an instantaneous repetition of my Paragon experience.

This immaculate, unused Deco-tastic tea for two set is the reason I painted my living room purple. It’s most likely Czechoslovakian too, as indicated by the tiny plate. Too small to be a plate for cake or sandwiches, it was most likely for lemon slices, lemon tea being the norm in that part of the world. The moment I clapped eyes on it I was a gibbering wreck. I didn’t care how many days pay it would take me to work off the debt; it was indisputably Meant To Be.

Having thus snapped up the tea set and inherited the bookends, I decided I actually had sufficient on the 30s front, much to the consternation of my friends. But a handful of years later things began to change. eBay had stuck the boot in so hard that the vintage china dealers, who had previously pushed up the prices to you’re-’avin’-a-laugh-mate heights, started to throw in the towel on their businesses. And vintage ceramics started to show up in charity shops and car boot sales again – at it-would-be-churlish-not-to prices.

I started to find pieces like this...

...and this...

...going cheap as chips in the chazzas.

And those dealers who had somehow managed to weather the storm, were no longer charging stratospheric prices. (Unless they were flogging Cliff or Cooper or Rhead), so I was able to add things like this...

...and this...

...to the mix without feeling the pinch.

Should I emerge from this period of history with body and soul intact and raise the collateral I’m hoping to, one of the cosmetic changes I’d like to bring about in my home is to replace the built in hi-fi cupboard in the corner of the living room with another display cabinet, so I can move some of the china that’s languishing elsewhere in the flat into the living room too. Yes, I know it’ll end up looking like the ceramics wing of the V&A, but, frankly, what’s wrong with that?

Poor abandoned things.

Can’t you see they’re gagging to come and join their friends?

I imagine you’re losing the will to live now so I’ll sign off with my two Beswick fish, which are from the late 60s/early 70s and, despite having no connection with my other treasures, have lived on top of my display cabinet for aeons. Group similar colours together and you can get away with murder. Toodles!

#Look at my stuff!#Vintage china #1930s china #Art Deco #Thirties ceramics #Collections

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purplesurveys · 4 years

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833

Given the chance, would you ever go into space? I’ve answered this exact question on a recent survey...but yeah absolutely, as long as it was a free opportunity. Outer space has always interested me so it would be awesome to actually get there. What is your all-time favorite thing to snack on? A local brand of chips called Nova, corndogs, powdered fries, and pizza. I couldn’t choose just one :( Have you ever been jealous of anyone's socks? Not in a toxic way but I have seen socks that made me go “damn, I wish I had that” and it’s usually socks based off of famous paintings like Starry Night, The Scream, etc. Do you match your clothing, or are you careless about fashion? The most I’ll match is colors; I’ll make sure the colors I wear complement each other. But I’m not likely to buy outfits that come in parts, like a matching top and skirt that have their own price tags. It’s an annoying scam that makes you have to pay more money for one outfit lol. Know anyone that has amazing fashion taste? There’s a professor in the communication research department of our college that dresses SOOOO well. She’s never recycled an item of clothing either. She dresses literally exactly like Audrey Hepburn, except with more printed clothes.

Do you know or wish you could knit? I don’t know how to knit and have no desire to learn.

Like earmuffs? They’re alright, I guess? I never have to wear them, so I don’t have much of an opinion. Have you ever had the roof of your mouth sore? Yeah, that one time I ate takoyaki while it was still burning hot and I burned off the skin on the roof my mouth. Do you like orange juice? I’ll drink it if it’s served or if it’s free, but I never crave for it. How many times a day do you brush your teeth, honestly? Once or twice. Do you think anyone really looks good in a jumpsuit? Yeah. Well it’s since become a trend so that’s really all there is to know about people’s preferences nowadays. I have several jumpsuits that I feel really good in. Have a collection of anything? Not anymore. Ever ran out of something that made you very upset? Sometimes my family will bring home leftovers from a really good restaurant. When we finish them all up it bums me out. Biggest lie you ever told? Saying ‘yes’ with a big ol’ smile on my face to my high school guidance counselors whenever they ask if my situation at home is good. Is there a song that makes you want to rock out? For sure. I have my fair share of favorite punk/rock bands. Do you have a religion? No. Believe that there is a point to churches? Not a single one. How do eat Oreos? I just bite into them. Never really got into the whole twist-lick-dunk thing because 1) I don’t want to bite into something I had already licked (even if it’s my own saliva lol), and 2) I can’t consume a lot of milk, anyway. -This or That- Sunsets or sunrises? Sunsets. I’ve seen more sunsets than sunrises with Gabie, so I have good memories of them. I don’t like the idea of getting up early just for a sunrise either. Pennies or dimes? Can’t relate because we don’t use these concepts. Coffee or tea? Coffeeeeeeee. Never been a tea person, actually. Windows or Mac? Mac. I did use Windows for a while, but when it comes down to it I would rather get a Mac. Headphones or speakers? Headphones. You get more of the sound when you listen to music, so the listening experience is a lot better. Loud or soft & quiet? Depends on the context...I like my concerts loud, but I obviously prefer soft and quiet when I’m doing something like going to bed. Odd or even numbers? I don’t really have a preference lol. The cookie dough or the actual cookies? Cookie dough, heh. Speaking of, I recently found a recipe for edible cookie dough but I keep putting it off... Mp3 players or iPod? iPod, mostly because MP3s went out of style like, a decade ago. Calm or rock music? Again, depends on my mood. I’d listen to rock music if I’m pissed off or going through a similar emotion, and I’d prefer hearing calm music when I wanna focus on something, like if I’m doing surveys. Love or lust? Love. I don’t feel lust for the most part. Converse or Vans? Converse. They’re AJ’s favorite and I find them more comfy. The few times I borrowed my sister’s Vans I always got blisters at the end of the day. Lipsyncing or actual singing? I would prefer to lipsync than to let people hear my actual singing voice; but if I’m watching a performance obviously I’d want the performers to be using their real voice. Walking or running? Walking. I find strolls to be relaxing. Dancing or watching others dance? Watching others. Dancers are crazy talented. With friends or by yourself? When it comes down to it, I wanna be with friends. Local concert or a popular band? Popular band. It’s rarer, so I find it more precious. I still support local though! Blond or brown hair? Brown. Idk, I just don’t know a lot of people who are blonde. Red or black? I like both, but I like black slightly more. Blue or green eyes? Green. Having fun or being asleep? Having fuuuun. Carnival or park? Park. I can’t go on rides anyway, so a nice stroll and picnic at the park sounds lovely to me. -Favorites- Favorite thing to buy? Uh food, I guess? I’m super easy to please lol. What do your favorite pair of socks look like? My bacon and eggs one. Kind of tea/coffee? Iced tea/iced caramel macchiato. Way of communication? Face-to-face with Gab, instant messenger/text for everyone else. Time to sleep in to? Midnight is most convenient for me. Band to dance to? PARAMORE. Also helps that their music has turned dance-y too. Favorite gum? Don’t really have one. I’ll chew on any kind/flavor of gum. Type of cereal? Cookie Crisps. Color of hoodie? I don’t mind color, as long as the hoodie is comfortable and keeps me warm. Spice? Cumin smells lovely. Favorite thing to touch/feel? Dogs. Website? Probably Twitter. I’ve been on it the longest and still have no reason to be tired of it. Person in your life? My girlfriend...but also my dogs, if they can count. -Would you Rather- Hire one of your friends, or fire an enemy? Hire one of my friends, as long as they work well without me. Firing an enemy seems a little bit more unprofessional, especially if they objectively perform well. Be a contestant on American Idol or America's Got Talent? I’d go with AGT I guess? I’ve watched some snippets of the show and their judges seem more nice, whereas on American Idol the judges tend to laugh or embarrass you if you do badly. Live in Britain or Australia? Australia. I feel like it’s a more Filipino-friendly country, not that Britain isn’t but yeah. Travel by plane or helicopter? Plane. Aren’t helicopters loud? I think I’d be more relaxed in an airplane. Trade places with a male or a female for a day? I’d rather remain a woman, thanks. Shop at Wal-Mart or Target? I don’t know. I’m honestly curious though – for the Americans survey-takers, what’s the difference between them and what do y’all prefer? Hahaha Read Shakespeare or Artistotle's work? I internally winced at both lol but when it comes down to it, Shakespeare. I do like his work, as long as I’m reading a modern English version. I hate philosophy straight up, so that’s a definite no on Aristotle. Have a regular donut or donut holes? Regular donut. Spell better or smell better? Smell. I can already spell well. Rather be in a tornado or a large earthquake? This is horrible, no one ever *wants* to be stuck in a natural calamity. 80's or 90's music? I like the 80s sound better. Eat a plain peanut butter sandwich or PB & J? Peanut butter sandwich. I tried PB&J before to see what the hype was about, and it just didn’t work for my Asian tastebuds. Wear a uniform every day or go half-naked? Wear a uniform. I wore one in Catholic school for 14 years and survived, so it’d just be the same thing. Would you rather Santa or the Easter Bunny actually exist? Santa. I’m more familiar with him. The Easter Bunny’s not really a part of our culture so I don’t actually know what it’s supposed to do. Apple pie or Pizza pie? Pizzaaaaa. Y’all should know me by now haha. Spend an afternoon cleaning or clean things later? I’d rather work early so I can be satisfied earlier. Flying or X-Ray vision? Flying. Dentist or Doctor? I guess dentist? There’s fewer reasons to be scared when you go to the dentist because the health problems are just limited to your mouth, I guess. Would you rather spread gossip or start a fight? Both sound awful. I’m never one to start a fight and I never initiate gossip myself, though I do take part in it sometimes. Get rid of your favorite shoes or your favorite pants? Pants. I love my shoes. Visit Florida or New York? New York. Myspace or Facebook (or do they both suck)? Facebook. It sucks, but at least the memes there are hilarious as fuck.

#survey #surveys

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liugeaux · 4 years

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The Master of Blasting

Months ago, once I realized my Retron had a save-state feature, something got into me. I realized I could go back to old retro games and actually finish them. Sure, I played 100s of games in the 8 & 16-bit eras, but I’ve never been that good at anything with a steep difficulty. Most games of the late-80s, early 90s were punishingly tough and typically, without cheat codes I never got to see the end of them.

After playing through all the old Donkey Kong Country games and Sonic the Hedgehog 1, I turned my eye towards a peculiar series I had only dabbled in before, Blaster Master. With the release of Blaster Master Zero on Switch, I was extra interested in diving into the well-regarded B-tier NES original.

With a little research, I found that a total of 8 Blaster Master games have been released...that’s when the classic Sergio completist kicked in. I convinced myself that I shouldn’t play the new Switch games until I’ve completed all of the retro titles. When I began my journey I didn’t realize it would be such a headache. Here’s my run-through of all the Blaster Master Games.

1988 - Blaster Master (NES)

Ah, the original. This little game has a charm to it that most games of the late 80′s don’t have. It was clearly inspired by Nintendo published games like Metroid and Zelda. Blaster Master’s key gimmick is the ability to play as the armored tank Sophia the 3rd or as an on-foot character named Jason, the pilot of the tank. As needed, Jason jumps out of the tank and enters human-sized doors.

Blaster Master is a 2D platformer, but once Jason enters a door, the game switches to an overhead perspective for navigation through maze-like dungeons. None of the mazes are particularly hard to solve, but all of the game’s bosses are found in these dungeons. As a kid, having a game that completely switched perspectives was rad. I never owned it as a child, but I vividly remember my time with it through rentals and such.

This first game is super hard and I found myself using known glitches to get past the game’s harder boss sequences. In true Metroidvania-style, there’s heavy backtracking throughout Blaster Master and if you don’t know where you’re going getting to the next level can be quite annoying. Having played the whole game, I can finally say that despite a super strong first impression, Blaster Master isn’t that great.

It's WAY too hard and by the halfway point the luster had worn off the unique gameplay. For some reason, this is the point where I decided to dive headfirst into the rest of the Blaster Master games. I’m a glutton for punishment I guess.

1991 - Blaster Master Boy (Game Boy)

Prior to playing the original, I had no idea there were so many titles in this series. I definitely didn’t know there were multiple portable entries. Blaster Master Boy is less a Blaster Master game and more a Bomberman game. Technically its a sequel to the Bomberman spin-off Robo-Warrior. A quick trip over to Youtube can confirm that the gameplay and music are lifted directly from Robo-Warrior. To add even more confusion, in Japan, Robo-Warrior was called Bomber-King, Blaster Master Boy was Bomber-King Scenario 2 and it wasn’t even published by the same company.

Because of this weirdness, I didn’t spend too much time with Blaster Master Boy. It also didn’t help that there isn’t a decently priced copy anywhere on the internet.

1993 - Blaster Master 2 (Genesis)

Five years after the original, Blaster Master returned to the console market with Blaster Master 2. It was a Sega Genesis exclusive and the only title in the series released in the 16-bit era. Playing this immediately after the original really made it quite hard. The controls aren’t as precise and the difficultly level is somehow ratcheted up. Blaster Master 2 is a more straight forward platformer without the backtracking of a traditional Metroidvania.

Unlike the first game, when you enter the human sections of the game, you don’t start a top-down sequence. Instead, the pilot levels are 2D platform shooter areas. All of these seem half-baked, clunky and compared to the game’s contemporaries, quite sad. Fortunately, top-down gameplay wasn’t completely abandoned, before the end of each level there’s an odd top-down sequence, where you pilot Sophia. This mechanic never returns in future games, but taking the rest of the game into consideration, it really isn’t terrible.

Unfortunately, there’s not much good to say about Blaster Master 2, It hits most of the design notes that the first one hits but the entire experience feels like it was made by a completely different team. Funny enough, after saying that, I looked it up and Blaster Master 2 was, in fact, made by a completely different team. Ha!

The game’s only saving grace is its vivid color pallet and solid sprite design. Like the first game, the music solid, but unless you’re taking a trip through the whole series like me, Blaster Master 2 can be skipped.

2000 - Blaster Master: Enemy Below (Game Boy Color)

It took Sunsoft awhile to get around to the Blaster Master series again, but in 2000 they came out swinging. Blaster Master: Enemy Below was released for Game Boy Color and of all the games on this list, it is the game that most resembles the original. Much of the art is designed to look nearly identical to the NES games’, even down to a nearly pixel-perfect recreation of the SOPHIA tank.

The top-down Jason segments return as does the extreme difficulty and fantastic soundtrack. It’s hard to really complain about the execution of this title. It was clearly an attempt at just trying to make the closest thing they could to the original and in many ways, it is a tighter and more consistent experience. Unfortunately, that’s also a strike against it. Enemy Below doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The bosses are basic re-hashes of the originals, the levels feel like a “lost levels” DLC pack and the game being portable doesn’t really encourage innovation.

I guess the coolest thing I can say about Enemy Below is that it's still available for purchase. On the 3DS Virtual Console, you can pick up Enemy Below for about $5. At that price, it’s easy to recommend, especially since it comes with built-in save-state functionality.

2001 - Blaster Master: Blasting Again (Playstation)

Also, released in 2000 (in Japan, 2001 in North America), is the weirdest game in the series to date, Blaster Master: Blasting Again. For those of you too young to remember, the Playstation/N64 era of video games was full of 2D series trying their hand at 3D games. Blasting Again is an egregious example of this frustrating industry trend. You still pilot a tank, with all the same features, like homing missiles, and hover, but you’re dropped into a fully realized 3D world with painfully bad anime cut-scenes.

The “Jason” sequences are still here, but they too are 3D and mundanely boring. Also, with this being an official sequel to the original, you play as Jason’s son Roddy, not Jason. Much of the music from earlier in the series is remixed, and rerecorded, so not all is lost in the odd one-off. Unfortunately, the antiquated tank controls and punishing difficulty makes Blasting Again hard to recommend. I was able to play it on PS3 with no issues, but the toggle switch for the digital and analog controls was initially hard to find.

I ended up sinking about 40 hours into finally beating this tragedy. I wasn’t able to use save states and despite it being objectively bad, I grew to love it’s janky and unfair presentation. As a whole, these games have really tested my ability to control my anger, but Blasting Again was the first one to truly get all the way under my skin.

2010 - Blaster Master: Overdrive (WiiWare)

Notice, I have yet to say any of these games are good, that’s because they aren’t. What they have is a charm to them that conjures the aura of the scrappy beginnings of gaming and the forced appreciation of only owning 4 games that had no checkpoints. Thus far, despite initial misgivings, I’ve enjoyed my time on this journey. Blaster Master: Overdrive is where that joy ended. The fun I was having with the series was taken out back, brutally beaten, and left to die in the town square as an example to anyone daring to play this absolute nightmare.

Overdrive starts innocently enough. It does it’s best to try and evoke the gameplay and tone of the original and for what it's worth the art style isn’t terrible. The Sophia and Jason gameplay loops are in-tact and even the gun-upgrades are more important than ever. Where Overdrive falls apart is its difficulty and embarrassing lack of control options.

I’m sure most of you are at least familiar with the Wii-Remote. With this being a Wii-Ware only game, it could only be played with the Wii-Remote. The real downside is that the developer either ran out of time or opted not to explore the myriad of control options the Wii offered. There’s no classic controller support, no Gamecube controller support, there’s not even a way to map buttons to a nun-chuck. You are stuck playing with the Wii-Remote turned sideways.

This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if they had found a better way to implement strafing into the controls. To strafe, the player must hold the B button. That’s the button underneath the Wii-Remote. In a world where the player is using the remote like an old-school NES controller, B button usage is a legit finger-bending-nightmare. Couple this broken control scheme with punishing difficulty and you have the perfect recipe for rage-quitting. I‘m not proud of my behavior during my time with this game and let’s just say I own 1 less Wii-Remote now.

The last thing I want to say about Overdrive is less about the game itself and more about its availability. The Wiiware marketplace is 100% closed, which means there’s no legit way to purchase this game, outside of buying someone’s Wii who had already bought it. This is an ominous foreshadowing of things to come. I would have paid for this game. Hell, I’m deep enough into this BM adventure I would have paid a premium to play this dumb game, but Nintendo’s shut-down of the Wii-Ware shop is a low-key attack on game preservation that us archivist, CANNOT forget. *steps off of soap-box*

2017 - Blaster Master Zero (Switch/Steam)

With the release of Blaster Master Zero, the series got the most attention it’s had since the original game. Most of that attention was because Zero was basically a launch game for the Switch. The best way to describe Zero is to say that it’s developer Inti’s attempt to take the Blaster Master formula and actually make a decent game. For the most part, they succeed. Oddly enough, almost 30 years later, Zero is the first legitimately good Blaster Master game.

Much like Enemy Below, Zero tries its hardest to evoke the look of the original NES game. Some refer to games like this as pixel art, others refer to it as lazy...I float somewhere in the middle on it. It was great playing a Blaster Master game with a proper controller where the mechanics actually work. However, it was frustrating seeing a game, based on a design aesthetic that hit its ceiling in the late 80s, try to beautify itself. Many attempts were made to make the design stand out, but it just kept hitting the ceiling established by its predecessors.

Alternately, by Inti making the game super-playable, the flaws of the older games stand out even more than before. Typically, good Metroidvania’s have an intuitive way of hinting at where you need to go next or a good way of telling you what access you’re new power-ups give you. Due to Zero’s obsession with evoking the original, that intuitive gameplay is replaced with a red box on the map screen. This turns the game into a “drive to red box, shoot things, drive to next red box and shoot more things, experience”, rather than the naturally explorative nature of other games in its genre. The anime story seemed unnecessary from the start, but I’m sure someone will enjoy it.

While playing Zero I honestly asked myself, “Is this game way easier than the older games, or can I finally control this little tank properly?” I’m sure the real answer is somewhere between those two extremes, but ultimately Zero was a blast, albeit WAY too easy. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the sequel improves upon this wonderful jumping-off point. However, I’m positive I’ll be disappointed that more wasn’t done to bring the series into the modern 2D-platforming space.

2019 - Blaster Master Zero 2 (Switch)

Zero 2 is very much a sequel to Zero. In true anime fashion, the story immediately gets super self-serious and consequently superfluous. I’m sure some players will love the dialog between protagonist Jason and all of the various anime-faced characters, but that’s not what I’m here for. Needless to say, the story gets involved in ways other Blaster Master games haven’t. That’s not a strike against it, it’s just a characteristic that may not actually matter.

All previous mechanics are intact here and new ones are introduced almost immediately. If Zero was truly the first good Blaster Master game, then the refinements introduced in Zero 2 make it...wait for it...THE BEST BLASTER MASTER GAME EVER MADE! It controls well, the levels are interestingly built, and where previous sequels in the series lacked innovation, Zero 2 is full of cool and weird, new stuff. The bosses are fresh and interesting, the Jason sequences have been enhanced with a brand new counter mechanic and the space travel segments add a level of depth not seen in previous games.

I hate that I’m being so positive about the game. It’s been so much fun talking shit about Blaster Master games. Unlike the previous game, developer Inti found a way to modernize the gameplay and still make a genuinely challenging experience. I had trouble with multiple bosses, but never did I feel like the game was unfair, or something was broken. Many of the additions to the story also benefited the gameplay. Something as simple as making the Frog from the original game the reason Jason can immediately leave dungeons serves both the story and gameplay.

This has been a long journey, and the real hero is Inti Creates. Hopefully, Zero and Zero 2 have done well. The work put in by Inti deserves praise. They have perfected a formula that’s been pending since 1988. Both titles are only $10 on the Switch shop, and at that price, you are basically stealing them. Anyone with a Switch has no reason not to pick at least one of them up and check it out.

As for the series itself...I have very mixed feelings. There are very few good Blaster Master games. It's a series that trades in loose nostalgia for a widely forgotten NES game. From that, a bunch of often half-hearted sequels were developed trying to capitalize on the little bit of cache the original game still has. I don’t regret my time with the series and I think more titles deserve the Blaster Master treatment, but subjectively, I wouldn’t recommend anyone pick up any games outside of the original and the 2 newest Switch titles.

#blaster master #blaster master zero #blaster master enemy below #blaster master blasting again #blaster master overdrive #blaster master 2 #blaster master zero 2 #blaster master boy

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katewillaert · 5 years

Photo

My Secret Origin (Part 1): How To Fail At Comics

[Above: Art from 20 years ago, when I was in High School.]

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I was four I said “mad scientist.” It was 1987 and I was a big fan of The Real Ghostbusters and Doc Brown. My mom insisted “mad scientist” wasn’t a profession. And weren’t those characters are inventors? What did I want to invent?

Clearly I hadn’t thought this through.

My mom also informed me that all those cartoons I watch were made by people. Those were drawings, and there are people whose job it was to draw those.

This blew my mind. From that point on I decided I was going to be an animator.

Discovering Art

I don’t remember when I first started drawing. It seems like something I always did growing up. As far as my memory is concerned, I came out of the womb holding a pencil and began drawing before I said my first words.

In reality, I probably started in preschool when I was four, just before I discovered what an animator was. I remember my favorite subject to draw was the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. I must’ve drawn it something like 10 or 20 times.

My mom kept almost all of my childhood art, so in theory I could figure out when I started drawing from that...except the earliest drawings were ruined when the basement flooded.

After the flooding, my mom was condensing what was left, and I saw something surprising: a box filled with Ecto-1 drawings. I hadn’t drawn it 10 or 20 times, I’d drawn it 100 or 200 times. Repetitively, over and over, without consciously thinking about what I was doing.

It was practice without realizing I was practicing. I guess that’s how my art “leveled up” so quickly?

Later I discovered other details about my early development. There was a time around age 2 where I stopped talking. There were times when I liked to line up toys. My obsession before art was Legos, building complex shapes and stairs.

Today these might be recognized as possible indicators of autism, but this was the ‘80s.

Because I was shy and lacking in social skills, a teacher suggested to my parents that I might benefit from being held back a grade. I had a summer birthday, so holding me back would make me one of the oldest rather than the youngest.

Thankfully my parents didn’t take that advice. I would’ve been miserable. Despite being the youngest in my class, I surpassed everyone in terms of scores. A CAT test says I scored “higher than 99% of all 3rd grade student in the nation in total language.” 91% in reading. 90% in math. My reading comprehension was 98% in the nation, but was brought down by my reading vocabulary which was only 72%.

Yet this new information called into question a things about myself I’d never considered. Maybe certain things suddenly made more sense? In particular, the way I don’t have interests so much as obsessions. Any time I take an interest in a topic, it leads to an obsessive amount of research.

Discovering Comics

I think the first comic I ever saw was a Chick Tract some kid showed me in Sunday School. He was surprised I’d never seen one. It must’ve hadan impact on me, because I attempted to draw a tract-style comic starring C.O.P.S. (“Fighting Crime In A Future Time”).

I didn’t discover REAL comic books until a few years later. In 1991, Terminator 2: Judgement Day marketing was in full force and I thought it looked so cool. But it was Rated R, and I was only seven. My mom spotted a couple issues of a Marvel comic adaptation (drawn by Klaus Janson), and I guess that was the compromise until it was out on video.

I attempted to illustrate a comic imitating Janson’s cram-packed panel-per-page ratio. It was an epic crossover where Michael Keaton Batman encounters a Delorean driven by a T-1000, then the Ninja Turtles show up, and maybe the Ghostbusters? I knew how to introduce characters but not how to finish a story.

At this point I was still imagining becoming an animator, even though I barely knew anything about what it involved beyond some flip books I’d done. But all that changed when I discovered the X-Men.

X-Men and Batman: The Animated Series both debuted on FOX during the fall of 1992. I was a huge fan of the Tim Burton Batman movies and I’d seen every episode of the ‘60s show when it was revived in reruns, but I didn’t know the comics existed? I didn’t even know where to find comics.

My brother and I were both really into this new X-Men thing, and my brother was given a set of X-Men comics for his birthday. I borrowed them of course, and wanted to see how the story continued. My mom showed us a book store in the mall that had comics, and then we discovered the local comic store. That started my monthly addiction.

Now age 10, I decided I no longer wanted to be an animator. Comics were my true calling. And my dream was to break in at age 16.

Learning Comics

Age 11: I went from reading just Uncanny X-Men to buying the entire X-line, thanks to and event called Age Of Apocalypse.

Age 12: I started buying Wizard magazine. The first two issues I bought included life-changing information, like that you get hired by building a portfolio and showing it to editors. There was industry news, and art tutorials by Greg Capullo. I added the magazine to my monthly buy list. An X-Men 30th anniversary special gave me the entire history of the characters, and a run-down of the key artists and writers with examples of their work. It was like a Rosetta Stone before Wikipedia.

Age 13: I started buying most of Marvel’s output thanks to an event called Heroes Reborn. I never got into the Batbooks, I guess because the art didn’t look as cool? Comics contained ads for the Joe Kubert School, which became my backup plan if I didn’t break into comics on my own. I also discovered the internet around this time.

Age 14: My first year of high school. I spent every lunch hour in the library browsing the internet, since we didn’t have a computer at home yet. I discovered several comic art forums where pros and amateurs traded tips. During the summer I attended a week long art session taught at a local college by a professor who grew up on ‘60s Marvel. There I learned I’d been using paper that was much too thin to ink on, and I learned about the importance of Jack Kirby.

Age 15: I started buying Comic Book Artist magazine. I thought it’d be about drawing tips, but instead it was filled with fascinating comics history, which became an obsession of its own.

Age 16: A year of disappointment. I knew I wasn’t at the level I needed to be to get pro work, but wasn’t sure how to get to the next level. Nowadays there are all sorts of resources I could’ve used, but back then there was no Youtube, no social media, and few books about the craft of comics.

I was now certain the Joe Kubert School was the way to go.

Changing Plans

My family took a trip to Dover, NJ to visit the Joe Kubert School campus, and it was pretty disappointing. The town didn’t feel super friendly, and the school wasn’t accredited, which raised issues in regards to getting student aid. Plus the idea of spending so much money on a non-degree.

The guy showing me around tried to sell me by pointing out that comic companies don’t care about whether you went to college, they just want to see the portfolio.

I took this to heart and decided not to go to college. I was pretty crushed at first, because I’d had this dream plan for so long, and now I was plan-less. But eventually a new plan began to form.

It was time to start doing conventions.

A startup called CrossGen had a sample script and were taking submissions at SDCC 2000, so I went there. I still felt like my work wasn’t quite ready for prime time, but i was worth a shot.

And nothing came of it, other than a cool Crossgen rejection letter in a box somewhere. None of the other publishers could be bothered to even send that.

In hindsight, I was trying to enter at maybe the worst possible time in comics history. When I first started reading comics, they were at their peak during a boom period. When the bubble burst, the industry experienced year-over-year plummeting sales with no bottom in sight. No one was hiring.

But I kept at it, hoping for a lucky break. Top Cow was impressed that I did backgrounds (lol), and suggested I send in “background samples,” but I didn’t want to go down that route. But maybe that’s what a lucky break looks like? (On the other hand, many aspiring pencillers who start as inkers or colorists get stuck there.)

The next summer I went to Chicago with a Marvel sample script. I’d just graduated from high school, so I was really hoping. This time I got a critique from an editor who had actual advice to offer, and I learned a few things. But still no one was hiring.

I thought if I just stayed home and worked on art for a year, I’d eventually come up with pages so impressive that they’d HAVE to hire me. And if it didn’t work out after a year, I’d start looking for a college.

But now I was struggling with a new problem. I suddenly hated my art. I’d heard about a few professional artists who didn’t like looking at their own art, but I was certain this was different. After all, they’re actually good.

The year passed and I accomplished nothing. Based on things I’d heard, I was nervous that college might actually price me out of comics entirely. But I didn’t know that for sure, and I was super inexperienced when it came to money, since I’d never lived on my own before.

But I kept hearing how so many people have gone to college and they all turned out okay (this was before social media and before student debt became a crisis). I was clearly having trouble moving forward on my own, and Youtube still didn’t exist, so what choice did I have?

Choosing Schools

There were only a few colleges with comic art programs back then (maybe three total?), but one of them just happened to be over here in Minnesota. Art school appealed to me because all the classes were art-focused, so I wouldn’t have to waste my time with math and other BS.

And as I humble-bragged earlier, I’m good at math. But I hated it. At one point some kids from Math League asked if I’d join the team. “‘MATH LEAGUE?’ You mean you do math for FUN??”

I hated math so much, I took harder, accelerated math courses via a local college, just so I could finish math early and spend my last years of high school wonderfully mathless. If there’d been a similar way to graduate from high school earlier, I would’ve taken it. When I realized we were all graduating regardless of how much work we put in, I stopped caring so much about grades and let an occasional B+ slip in.

When I would see classmates busy studying for their SATs or ACTs, I was so glad I didn’t have to bother with that.

But the joke was on me. Because this art school didn’t just require a portfolio review (which I was more than ready for). It also wanted ACT test results.

I remember wondering if I should study before I take it, since everyone took it so seriously in high school. But I didn’t even know how to study. It’s not a skill I’d learned, because I never needed to. So I decided to wing it.

You’ll hate me, but without studying I scored in the top 96% for English, the top 94% for Reading, the top 96% for Science...but only top 87% for Math, because I hadn’t taken a math class in three years. That brought my total down 90%..

(Later, I had to learn to study in order to pass some horrifically-taught art history classes. That teacher made me hate art history, which is ironic given how much of my own writing is focused on history.)

So I got into the school, only to discover that even structured teaching wasn’t going to solve my new art problem. During my first year I told my mom that I don’t enjoy art anymore, and she thought it might be depression. I mean, that’s plausible, losing interest in your passions?

In hindsight, I now have enough experience with real depression that I can definitively say it wasn’t that. I mean, I was occasionally depressed back then, but hating my art was unrelated. It took me years to figure out the actual problem.

Dunning Kruger

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is named after a study which found that:

1) People who aren’t knowledgeable about a skill tend to think they’re better at it than they are, because they don’t know enough to know what they don’t know.

2) Conversely, people who ARE knowledgeable about a skill tend to think they’re worse at it than they are.

My problem went one level deeper. I’d learned a shit ton about every skill related to comic art, but I hadn’t put in as much time actually practicing. And now practicing was tough, because I was hyper-aware of how bad every line was as I laid it down.

In other words, the exact reverse of when I was four and drew repetitively on auto-pilot. Back then I was oblivious that I was practicing anything at all. Now I had the benefit and detriment of a critical mind.

But this realization came later. At the time I was just miserable and didn’t know what was wrong with me.

Halfway through art school, I realized I’d likely already priced myself out of comics, and I needed a real degree that would function back-up plan. So I switched majors. Instead of a Comics major filling my electives with design classes, I became a Design major filling my electives with comics classes.

In order to change my major, I had to explain it to the head of the school. This was awkward because it partly involved explaining how the comics industry worked, and he didn’t want to believe it. He told me I was being cynical.

I tried doing comic samples one last time after college, for a convention in 2006, but couldn’t even finish a page. Then sometime around 2008, I gave up drawing entirely.

How I got started again is another story.

You can also find me on:

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/katewillaert/?hl=en

Twitter - https://twitter.com/katewillaert

Art Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/katewillaert

History Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/acriticalhit

#comics #comic art #x-men #marvel comics

11 notes · View notes

kittywolves · 5 years

Note

1-200 if you want lmao If not then just your favourites

200: My crush’s name is: don’t have one tbh, not romantically anyway

199: I was born in: west virginia, 2000

198: I am really: dumb

197: My cellphone company is: idk man

196: My eye color is: blue w/yellow bursts but they just appear green if you’re not super close

195: My shoe size is: 7+1/2-8

194: My ring size is: 7+1/2-8

193: My height is: 5′5″

192: I am allergic to: sesame :T

191: My 1st car was: N/A

190: My 1st job was: N/A

189: Last book you read: uh, Percy Jackson? i think

188: My bed is: warm, cozy, full of plushies & cat fur

187: My pet: CALCIFER!!!

186: My best friend: uh,, i don’t have one?

185: My favorite shampoo is: idk fruity scents that aren’t watermelon

184: Xbox or ps3: PS3

183: Piggy banks are: cute or terrifying, no in-between

182: In my pockets: my phone

181: On my calendar: birthdays

180: Marriage is: cute

179: Spongebob can: CAN SPONGEBOB FINALLY END PLEASE

178: My mom: can go die

177: The last three songs I bought were? uhh, i haven’t bought any songs,,

176: Last YouTube video watched: DrawingWiffWaffles newest video

175: How many cousins do you have? 1

174: Do you have any siblings? yes, 2 alive 1 dead

173: Are your parents divorced? no,,

172: Are you taller than your mom? around the same height

171: Do you play an instrument? no, but i wish i could play the harp tbh

170: What did you do yesterday? uh, i went shopping with my mother and then watched Futurama

[ I Believe In ]169: Love at first sight: ? i dunno anymore

168: Luck: i guess so, yea

167: Fate: yea

166: Yourself: no

165: Aliens: YES

164: Heaven: yea

163: Hell: yea

162: God: ? yea?

161: Horoscopes: not really

160: Soul mates: YESSSSS

159: Ghosts: yep!!

158: Gay Marriage: %100

157: War: no >:(

156: Orbs: what

155: Magic: yep!!

[ This or That ]154: Hugs or Kisses: hugs pls

153: Drunk or High: never been either, both sound fun

152: Phone or Online: usually use my phone tbh

151: Red heads or Black haired: all are adorable!!

150: Blondes or Brunettes: a d o r a b l e ! !

149: Hot or cold: uhm, comfortable warm,,

148: Summer or winter: SUMMER

147: Autumn or Spring: HALLOWEEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

146: Chocolate or vanilla: CHOCOLATE

145: Night or Day: NIGHTTIME

144: Oranges or Apples: apples

143: Curly or Straight hair: both are great!! i have slightly wavy hair uwu

142: McDonalds or Burger King: neither >:(

141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: MILK PLS

140: Mac or PC: um, idc

139: Flip flops or high heels: F L I P F L O P S

138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: SWEET AND POOR PLS GIVE ME A KIND BAB TO LOVE @ UNIVERSE

137: Coke or Pepsi: coke !!

136: Hillary or Obama: obama!!

135: Buried or cremated: cremated so i can’t come back :’)

134: Singing or Dancing: i can’t do either :(

133: Coach or Chanel: ugh, coach ig

132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: who or who

131: Small town or Big city: i live in a city, but a town sounds nice tbh

130: Wal-Mart or Target: TARGET

129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: what

128: Manicure or Pedicure: PEDICURE PEDICURE PEDICURE

127: East Coast or West Coast: i live on the west, so west

126: Your Birthday or Christmas: MY BIRTHDAY BC I GET TO PICK THE THEME !!!

125: Chocolate or Flowers: flowers die and give off the aesthetic but chocolates are delicious so both

124: Disney or Six Flags: i love disneyland it’s just SO EXPENSIVE and six flags is gr8 for the thrills, plus i currently have a pass so

123: Yankees or Red Sox: who? which sport is this[ Here’s What I Think About ]122: War: blehhhh no

121: George Bush: idk american presidents lmao

120: Gay Marriage: YES YES YES YES YES YES

119: The presidential election: ew

118: Abortion: i’ll allow it lmao, i don’t think it’s great, but ik people will still get it whether it’s legal or not so might as well legalize it. also some cases actually need it so like,, yea!! let it happen!! pro-choice!!

117: MySpace: never used it lmao

116: Reality TV: ew ew ew ew EXCEPT FOR COOKING SHOWS

115: Parents: mine or just in general? bc eh

114: Back stabbers: M U R D E R T H E M 113: Ebay: lmao shipping expenses

112: Facebook: haven’t used it in years, do use messenger tho

111: Work: i like wedding coordinating with my aunt!! that’s about all the work i’ve done, oh and i’ve babysat

110: My Neighbors: don’t know em, they probably think we’re crazy tho, always yelling

109: Gas Prices: too!! high!!

108: Designer Clothes: eh, clothes are clothes, and some clothes are ugly (a lot of times it’s designer clothes blehh)

107: College: i mean i guess

106: Sports: go team! hit the ball! score the points! woo

105: My family: dysfunctional,,

104: The future: nooooooooooooooooooo

[ Last time I ]103: Hugged someone: uhhhhh....

102: Last time you ate: uhm, around 4?? maybe?? it’s 7 now

101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: uh?? i never see anyone OH i guess on wednesday last week,,

100: Cried in front of someone: ???? idk??? i cry while everyone’s asleep usually

99: Went to a movie theater: last week !! um, thursday?

98: Took a vacation: uhh, february, early march? i went to ohio

97: Swam in a pool: uh, last monday

96: Changed a diaper: um, not this year lmao, maybe last year tho idk

95: Got my nails done: ???? i dunno

94: Went to a wedding: last november?? or wait no,, uhm i dunno sometime recently lmao

93: Broke a bone: never! did drop one in water tho :/

92: Got a piercing: december!

91: Broke the law: ?? i don’t wear seatbelts when i sit in the back seat lmao

90: Texted: around two hours ago[ MISC ]89: Who makes you laugh the most: um,, my friends

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: MY KITTY BABY

87: The last movie I saw: missing link! the stop motion- i’m a wh*re for animation lmao

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: changing my name, moving out, getting married & having a stable life :’)

85: The thing im not looking forward to: being stuck here forever and eventually kmsing due to stress and depression :’)

84: People call me: Kitty!! Kiki!! (birth name) karebear!!

83: The most difficult thing to do is: exist within the same room as my mother without bursting into tears or storming off

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: nope

81: My zodiac sign is: Virgo! Viriborn for all you homestucks! and dragon in the animal one!

80: The first person i talked to today was: my dad :’) and then i messaged @deanilise even tho she was asleep

79: First time you had a crush: uh, as far back as i can remember i had a “crush” on Daphne Blake :D but i was like a small child and didn’t know what love was so anytime i saw anyone who i thought was cool or pretty or i wanted to befriend i had a supposed “crush” on them :/

78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: i try to be pretty open, but sometimes i just wanna close off

77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: yikes idk

76: Right now I am talking to: like talking to or talking to? for the first, just some group chats for the second, no one

75: What are you going to do when you grow up: i wanna be an artist! i would love to be a youtube artist, but i fear i’m not creative enough for such things.. i would also like to be able to tell my stories!

74: I have/will get a job: i dunno,,

73: Tomorrow: church

72: Today: overslept, did some chores, been online

71: Next Summer: hopefully i can go back to colorado to visit my brother !

70: Next Weekend: ugh, church activities & then actual church, as well as other easter festivities

69: I have these pets: baby kitty, and some dogs....

68: The worst sound in the world: FORK SCRAPING ON BOWL, ERASER SCRAPING ON PAPER, DOG’S SNORING, MY MOTHER’S VOICE WHEN I’M HAVING SENSORY OVERLOAD

67: The person that makes me cry the most is: my mother, she’s like the only person that makes me cry unless someone says they’re attempting and i can’t get through to them

66: People that make you happy: @onedirtysock @aliaitee @deku-is-tired @deanilise @awkward-scarfy-boi @fourth-best-jeanist @bnhaworld @bnhya @helloiliketits @trashyfxndoms

65: Last time I cried: last night oops

64: My friends are: (see 66) they’re all very nice & supportive which is amazing & i love them all dearly

63: My computer is: a MacBook air with a galaxy cover

62: My School: not in one but the one i’m gonna go to in the fall is just a community college

61: My Car: N/A

60: I lose all respect for people who: hate on anyone, racists, homophobes, transphobes, pedos, terfs, ableists, etc

59: The movie I cried at was: uh, i dunno, but i was crying abt futurama the other night

58: Your hair color is: orange-y with dark brown roots, supposed to be dyeing it soon :)

57: TV shows you watch: BNHA, HIMYM, Bob’s Burgers, TUA w/ @deanilise Futurama, The Simpsons, Fairytail, Runaway’s, Adventure Time, SVTFOE, etc

56: Favorite web site: Tumblr!

55: Your dream vacation: Ireland,, ofc i always dreamed of going to paris when i was younger, and Britain sounds cool too, & i’ve heard belgium is pretty && japan sounds fun && new york city sounds super cool as well so idk any of those places ig

54: The worst pain I was ever in was: uh, probably when i broke my arm, although i can’t remember it, i did used to get growing pains in my legs when i was younger & could hardly sleep so there’s that option as well

53: How do you like your steak cooked: medium or medium-well

52: My room is: messy, but it’s home & also warm

51: My favorite celebrity is: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i dunno

50: Where would you like to be: idk, in my bed ig

49: Do you want children: yea! i wanna adopt!

48: Ever been in love: uh, i thought i was, but it was just an intense crush on this girl lmao

47: Who’s your best friend: already answered this lmao

46: More guy friends or girl friends: girls,,

45: One thing that makes you feel great is: laughing, music, & seeing my friends

44: One person that you wish you could see right now: any of y’all would be great tbh

43: Do you have a 5 year plan: survive

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: lmao no,

41: Have you pre-named your children: uh, i have names picked out that i like, but idk depends how young my kid is when i adopt them, and even then idk if i could bring myself to change their name uwu

40: Last person I got mad at: my mother,,

39: I would like to move to: IRELAND OR SOMETHING I DUNNO I WANT OUT OF THIS GODFORSAKEN COUNTRY

38: I wish I was a professional: artist!! youtube maybe!![ My Favorites ]37: Candy: hmm, i like smarties, m&ms, gummy bears, & sweetarts

36: Vehicle: uhh, vw beetles? WAIT NO JEEP WRANGLERS I THINK

35: President: uh idk

34: State visited: the one i live in lmao, California :)

33: Cellphone provider: idk a lot about them

32: Athlete: N/A

31: Actor: eeeeeeee

30: Actress: eeeeeeee

29: Singer: Case! Patrick Stump!

28: Band: FALL OUT BOYYYYYYYYYYY

27: Clothing store: Hottopic

26: Grocery store: N/A

25: TV show: Arrow! Adventure Time! (ripip) i haven’t seen Arrow in a long time tho so idk if it’s still any good...

24: Movie: Heathers!!

23: Website: Tumblr,,

22: Animal: CATS

21: Theme park: DisneyLand! it’s just sooooooooo expensive ;-;

20: Holiday: HALLOWEEN

19: Sport to watch: Soccer!!

18: Sport to play: none

17: Magazine: i don’t read them

16: Book: The Hunger Games

15: Day of the week: probably friday or saturday

14: Beach: uh, maybe seal? or hermosa?

13: Concert attended: i’ve been to exactly one (1) and i didn’t enjoy it bc it was for Ariana Grande

12: Thing to cook: well you don’t cook them but, COOKIES!!

11: Food: Ice Cream!! Burgers!! Mashed Potatoes !!

10: Restaurant: In-N-Out probably

9: Radio station: 98.7 alt radio

8: Yankee candle scent: uh i dunno

7: Perfume: Vanilla Bean Noelle from bbw

6: Flower: daffodils

5: Color: pink! purple! green!

4: Talk show host: no

3: Comedian: Bo Burnham or John Mulaney

2: Dog breed: Retrievers !

1: Did you answer all these truthfully? yes!

here’s my baby for reference & for putting up with all that

#kitty answers #200 asks #deku-is-tired #calcifer

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strauss12friedrichsen-blog · 5 years

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International Warming Will certainly Own 'Extreme Rainfall' And also Flooding, Study Discovers.

Almost 200 countries have actually reached a deal to restrict using greenhouse gases much more powerful compared to carbon dioxide in a significant effort to combat environment change. The specialists likewise inform the Lords that the Wellness Secretary, who will certainly resolve the Traditionalist Celebration Seminar on Tuesday mid-day, is incorrect to declare that physicians support him. The ironic point is that whilst, I feel the general public's understanding of special needs has changed with sport, I misunderstand as to why sporting activity in the UK hasn't transformed to enable special needs. Little did I understand I also unintentionally registered to be a component of the Global Hearts club, a club whose participants like Pico Iyer, promise obligations to not just one nation however several as well as often, none. Dancing also advertises fitness - it adds to heart and also lung wellness, is a wonderful workout for toning and also reinforcing muscles, aids maintain a healthy weight as well as reinforces the bones. A four-year measles epidemic that has preyed mostly on unvaccinated inner-city youngsters, killing ratings of young people throughout the country, has lessened greatly in The golden state and in many other states, health authorities claimed Wednesday. I could definitely see a few of my hesitant viewers selecting this title up. It's short as well as attract the sporting activities follower in every person. The project, called the Comprehensive Health and wellness Education and learning and Training Program, was created in 2014 by Bill Honig, state superintendent of public guideline. I believe the book was published before 2012 but if he would certainly have also glanced at the 2008 team he would certainly have seen that it's a very various sport from the 80s and very early 90s. As well as instead of thinking of worldwide health and wellness work as help for seriously poor receivers, we could consider methods to reach individuals that are consumers of wellness services and products-- occasionally at low or subsidized prices as well as often through collaborations in between nonprofit as well as for-profit organizations. Health authorities claimed they were specifically concerned about the patterns in the youngest age - those aged 16 -24, which were the very first ahead of age in the age of social media. http://laforcedevitamines.info of the Beyond the Bell MSSP shows our conviction that middle and also primary institutions additionally need to be a locus of young people sports. Essentially any method in which your task makes you feel stressed out is bad for your wellness-- uncertain commutes, stress and difference with your boss or coworkers, really feeling underestimated or unappreciated. Most lately, in April 2016, the British Royal Trio announced the #HeadsTogether project, a charity that intends to end the stigma around mental health and wellness and selected as the 2017 London Marathon Charity of the Year. The World Health and wellness Organization specifies social components of health and wellness as the problems where individuals are birthed, expand, live, work and also age. Definitive evidence of this is given in the work of Michael Marmot, Richard Wilkinson and others on the social factors of health", revealing that gross inequalities hurt the health and wellness of the underdogs of society, both by weakening their way of livings as well as by making them prone to unsafe behavior patterns, such as smoking and extreme alcohol consumption. An individual with good emotional health is in touch with his feelings, expresses those feelings in an appropriate way, enjoys discovering, utilizes his mind to develop thinking abilities, learns from his mistakes and accepts obligation. . A 2012 research study published in the journal Social Science as well as Medicine discovered that the key to wellness and joy is the assistance of others. In sporting activities such as gymnastics or diving, athletes have the tendency to peak while still young and not get involved as adults. The evidence of the dessert depends on the experience of the Hymers household who offered to return in time and spend nine weeks enduring on austere supplies for the series The 1940s Home, currently revealing on Network 4. Not just did all the adult Hymers reduce weight as well as reveal moderate health and wellness renovations by the end of the experiment but, 6 months after recording has finished, grandmother Lyn Hymers has stuck with her wartime regimen and urges her health has actually profited. Created by Fanny Britt as well as highlighted by Isabelle Arsenault-- the artist behind the spectacular Virginia Wolf, among the best youngsters's publications of 2012-- this work of art of storytelling is as emotionally honest as well as mentally insightful as it is graphically stunning. Jasmine tea is especially healthy and balanced since it is high in a team of powerful antioxidants called catechins. Like ideological integrationists, global legalists think that states are converging towards ideological contract, yet the ideological arrangement is not so much about liberal democracy as regarding the value of legalism. www.laforcedevitamines.info and also his family have actually accumulated 9.1% of Worldwide Crossing Ltd.'s common stock, the United States fiber optic network operator stated Monday. In light of such fads, wellness specialists and also staff member groups are afraid that too couple of employers have detailed policies in position to minimize the risks connected with evening work. Establishing it wasn't very easy-- we needed to reengineer the indicator, collaborate with World Health Organization to win authorization, and also design a lasting business version for the business that make and also distribute it. But it's tough to visualize a better example of social technology compared to this. This is a terrific collection of essays regarding women who move (willingly or involuntarily through sexual slavery) as a result of contemporary financial stress and numerous other causes linked to globalization.

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titleknown · 6 years

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Three Spooky Fictional Knockoff Toylines!

That’s right, as the big writing piece for this spooky time of year, it’s three spooky toylines ripping off bigger properties in a way that do not exist.

These are all public domain/CC0, free to use for whatever you see fit, though crediting me and linking to my Patreon or Ko-Fi would be nice.

Shoutout to @genustoys, @phelous and @therobotmonster for heavily inspiring these with their work!

Now, LET US BEGIN!

Monsterlords of the Nether Realms- This line is an odd duck in that it was a knockoff of a toyline that wasn't all that popular. Namely, Inhumanoids.

It was seemingly designed to be cross-compatible with the large monsters of that line, yet in all irony it stuck around seemingly far longer, likely due to the lower price points it was was able to get away with due to being a “non-branded” product and the cross-compatibility of play pattern with the larger figures.

And they were shockingly lavish for what was seemingly a “low rent” property, which has lead to suspicions of it and its related properties being a money-laundering scheme, or at least cover for something unsavory, though others say it could simply be good craftsmanship and the evidence in favor of and against such is perhaps a story for another day.

There were five of them that ended up bumping around store shelves, give or take a few “extras,” which we will cover as they come.

The first piece; likely intended as the “mascot” due to its prescence in promotional artwork is the one known as MOLINTHA, or “ANTHILL EVIL” on certain variants, a large figure encased in a roughly mountain shaped “shell” when curled in a specific position; with an ominous “maw” that turned into a torso when the figure was uncurled.

The mountain pieces themselves (Which were free-standing on their own) provided a large amount of play value with platforms seemingly shaped for various 3&¾-inch figures, but the body itself was a gorgeous design, with the “scaffolding” where the mountain clicked on turning into a series of platforms for figures to climb and clamber over,

The articulation was low, but the sculpting was pleasantly gnarly, resembling some dark ancient castle covered in mystic carving given humanoid form, without an articulated head but instead a snarling “maw” in which figures could be placed inside. Though, there has been some speculation that this head was ripped off a similar design from the front of the classic D&D Dungeon Master's Guide, and I would be lying if I did not see the resemblance.

As expected, it did not come with any figures, but did come with a large assortment of commonly-circulated plastic “bugs” molded in a clear rubbery plastic; along with a few of the notorous “Chinasaurs” that ended up as the basis for D&D monsters bizarrely enough.

The second known most commonly as “LEVIATHOIN” was a piece that had a similar yet wildly different gimmick. The main “body” was actually simply an inanimate idol, which one might say resembles a very specific image of Baphomet, but the smaller figures were of real interest.

Four five-inch ones, bearing an odd resemblance to a scaled-down Molhilintta minus the scaffolding and with a few odd tweaks, with a similar simple articulation scheme, but also a feature in which the arms and legs could “click” together tightly, which leads to the real draw of such.

Each figure attached to a socket in the main “idol” and functioned as a crude combiner., forming a huge “creature”. Each figure could function as n arm or a leg on either side, and the color variants (Including a few alledged remolds of these torsoes) could be their own article in and of themselves.

The third known as MECHA-SHAG was an extremely simple design and yet also one of the most bizarre of them all. It was a hairy “core” akin to the Masters of the Universe Grizzlor, but with a strange robotic face; limbs and at least a dozen missile launchers. They were Micronauts-styled “safety” missiles, but still fascinatingly odd all the same. There is evidence for the pieces origin as a possible Shogun Warriors/Jumbo Machinder knockoff, but again that is a detail for another day.

The fourth one was known as RUCIBEDO, and was unusual even for this line. It was a stylized kaiju-esque “pterodactyl” with a flapping action; its oddly “bio-mechanical” look seemingly giving credence to the idea that the enigmatic company behind the linwas making a Shogun Warriors knockoff-series before they decided to switch gears, but those are not the only notable parts.

The most blatant one is the fact that it is sculpted in a bright red; translucnet plastic, and not only that but had electric lights wired to the flapping mechanism in some bizarrely spacious “alcoves” in the back (Possibly for aborted missile-firing features), creating an immensely striking effect. Albeit one that had a tendency to break; though there are repair guides out there.

And the fifth PLUCHUN is an odd duck, because it should by all accounts be considered kind of a “ripoff” due to using far less material for the same price point as the others, but is often the most fondly remembered.

It is a small torso seemingly made of organic “pipes with a “hatch” on the head and a button slightly below. It also came with a small container of “slime” indicating its function. Namely, put it in the back of the head; press the button repeatedly; and the slime drips out of the holes in the creature, with a pumping rubber “heart” completing the effect. Weirdly; while the rubber on most of these has rotted off, there appears to be a fully sculpted (Albeit much cruder) “heart” that still moved in and out when the button was pressed.

The whole thing was capped off by immensely long rubbery bendy-limbs in the same style as the “main body's” pipes. These tended to be very fragile, and while memorable, this has the fewest surviving specimens out of them all.

As said before, there are other specimens that may be covered at a later date; such as the odd hand-puppet and the bizarrely remolded Imperial Dinosaurs linked to the line and the smaller-range figures, but this is running a bit long, so I'll leave it here for now.

Nightmare Gores- Relating to the preponderance of He-Man knockoff figure lines in the 80s, and the popularity of slasher films, it was only a matter of time that the two would be combined, in ways only possible without mass-fundie-protest at least) in small lines like this.

In striking red-and-black packaging with crude art of a horde of ghoulish monsters rseemingly ripping out of the card back, with the bizarrely memorable phrase of “WE WILL KILL YOU” coming out of a word balloon, there's relatively few things like it.

It used a standard barbarian body whose origins predated the line; but from where they predated was a matter of debate (Though it is known that it most certainly was original to that company and not a He-Man or Galaxy Hole bootleg(), all the same across the line with differing headsculpts.

The headsculpts did have consistent names, and one could tell their inspirations relatively well. Joe was obviously a Freddy Kreuger without the hat, the hockey-masked Rod was obviously Jason Voorhees, Mike was very obviously a riff on Michael Jackson's Thriller Werecat (Corroborated with the usual non-caucasian color of his body sculpt) and Gross was blatantly the Toxic Avenger. Mush was a generalized “melting” face, but could be said to be taken from Cropsey of The Burning; and Hexen's gas mask was likely inspired by My Bloody Valentine's main antagonist; albeit with bizarrely added devil horns.

Then there are the oddballs. Clash is a fan-favorite alongsid Hexen due to his pure black-plastic body and strange hood in striking red with a black void for a front and two piercing red pupils, but I like Frank a lot if only for being a big ridiculous Frankenstein head repurposed for this, as was what I would call the “Baltard” of this line Stall-9 with his slighly crossed eyes and almost comical grin negating whatever intimidation factory they might have. Redd caps off the line with the strange combination of bull and horse head designs obviously repurposed from the barbarian toyline this comes from in a way that still sorta works.

Their pack in accessories vary across production, but there are some commonalities. Mike; Rod; Hexen and Clash almost always came with cool red vinyl “jackets” and Tedd and Frank almost always came with bizzarrely realistic handguns molded in bright orange. And Stal-9; Mush and Clash came with a “chainsaw: very clearly remolded from a gun.

The rest were a mushmash of machetes and hammers, and knives; axes and clubs that were clearly re-utilized from the original line. There are other “relatives” like the Killer Beasts and the Murder Lady, but we'll leave it here for now.

ShineFriendz- One of the many Tamagochi-come-latelies in the 90s, this line tried valiantly to differentiate itself from the usual Tamagochi clones by giving itself a backlite, far more extensive interaction within the limits of its mono-colored pixel art and a link function for “playtimes,” All in a model approximately the size of a modern day smartphone, and to be supported with early web tie-ins in lieu of an expensive animated series.

Of course, the fact that it was its parent company's first venture into such things; a battery company to be exact (Hence why they felt so secure in being battery-eaters), there was very little oversight into the programming. And, due to a series of circumstances too stupid to mention, the devices had far more memory than they anticipated, and far more than they would need for the device's intended functions.

And, what happens when you have bored programmers and lots of time, you get easter eggs. Lots and lots of unsettling easter eggs. To the point where they took up approximately as much space as the “main” games.

So, they were immensely easy to run into during play, but they went unnoticed by corporate during the first three iterations of the pets. The most notorious of them was the possible evolution called only BREATHING which looked like an emaciated and decrepit eyeless version of the brand's canid mascot-species the Buroof that was continually doing what its name implied and had a legion of ominous quirks too long to list here.

Despite rumors, surprisingly none of the glitches involved causing death or injury to any of the pets. Though, that still didn't make them any less fucked up, with such examples as a “pet” known as BRILT that took the form of continual flame graphic that at times would flicker to the outline of another; random pet, to the weird “bird” known as CAUSE whose pleasure meter would go up if you hit the scold button,

There's a full list of “AnomalyFriendz” (the usual fan nickname0 that's too long to list here, but it wasn't limited to them, with such things as a “Game” that involved running from what looked like a crude pair of jaws to a “food” that looked like a wad with what was unmistakably eyes. And the web fiction didn't help, given how the actual text stories were dark , reading more like if Clive Barker wrote Watership Down with it just being barely within what was “appropriate” for kids, with increasingly less subtle allusions to the “AnomalyFriendz”

The minority of parental complaints weren't what got the execs notice however, it was actually the fans of the property, young girls who wrote in asking about those glitches. Not even in disapproving tones either, just asking whether they were intentional, or even asking if playground rumors (Or the rumors circulating across the website's own forums) were true.

This lead to them trying to integrate the macabre bits into the actual marketing for the toys, with the fourth iteration “FreakyFriendz,” with a cleverly altered shell with an ominously warped corner and more integration of the “anomalous” and “regular” Friends. And that is what sunk the line.

Because, parents actually noticed and; since this was the 90s; they bitched up a storm, leading to most of them being removed from shelves. Which is a shame, because enthusiasts say these were the best models yet.

The company left the business shortly thereafter, but there remains a small cult fandom to this day; complete with officially sanctioned web-iterations and even a few (sadly stillborn) attempts at full on revivals. But, maybe someday...

#action figures #toys #fictional toys #public domain #horror #things that need to exist #things that don't exist #macabre #weird #bootlegs #knockoffs

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olko71 · 3 years

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New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on http://yaroreviews.info/2021/07/escalating-materials-prices-turn-construction-bids-into-a-gamble

Escalating Materials Prices Turn Construction Bids Into a Gamble

Construction companies, manufacturers and other businesses that submit bids to win jobs say that process has turned unpredictable as rising materials costs expose them to potential losses.

As projects and orders stack up in a rebounding U.S. economy, some construction and manufacturing executives said they are surrendering profits on jobs or paying out of their own wallets to cover materials costs that exceed their bids.

Rising prices for steel, copper, brass, lumber, laminate sheeting and plastic-based materials, such as PVC pipe, are particularly hard to predict and factor into bids, according to executives. Inventories of materials remain tight because of production and transportation bottlenecks as well as growing demand. That has juiced some prices to record levels, including the U.S. spot-market price for coiled sheet steel, which has increased by more than 80% since the start of the year.

Demand for lumber has skyrocketed during the pandemic, sending prices to all-time highs. This video explains what is driving the lumber boom, who is profiting and why those growing the trees aren’t reaping the benefits. Illustration: Liz Ornitz/WSJ

At Harper Construction Co., a San Diego-based construction contractor specializing in projects funded by the federal government, its president, Jeff Harper, said he has shelled out about $2 million this year to cover materials costs that exceeded his bids.

“It’s a real gamble,” Mr. Harper said. “It’s tough right now to figure out how to get work against a dozen competitors and not lose your tail in the process.”

Mr. Harper’s company constructs office buildings and other structures for federal agencies and the military. He said federal contracts typically have no provisions for contractors to recover higher costs for materials once a bid is accepted.

For manufacturers and builders, months can pass between the time bids are submitted and when the actual work begins. In the past, materials suppliers typically guaranteed prices for 60 to 90 days and often stuck to those prices if orders came in later than that, executives said. Now suppliers are quoting prices for just a week or two, and many aren’t honoring them beyond that, as prices steadily climb.

“Right now, I’m not giving any quotes on steel that I don’t own or am real confident of owning in the next 45 days,” said Lisa Goldenberg, president of Delaware Steel Co., a distributor near Philadelphia.

“ ‘It’s tough right now to figure out how to get work against a dozen competitors and not lose your tail in the process.’ ”

— Jeff Harper of Harper Construction

As a result, executives said they are doing more estimating on materials expenses than ever before. That can be risky when prices are rising. Companies that build in too many price increases into their bids can be easily underbid by competitors who don’t. Underestimating exposes building and manufacturing companies later on to higher costs, which their customers are often unwilling to cover once a contract is signed.

Jody Giacomini, president of Cathedral Builders Inc., a Jackson, Wis.-based builder of cabinets and counters for commercial buildings, said her company usually waits months to get on a job site while a building’s exterior is being constructed. Lately, the prices the company is paying for plywood, adhesives, laminate sheets and other materials have increased so rapidly that they exceed the company’s bids. Ms. Giacomini said laminate sheets went up 3% in June and another 3% in July. Laminate prices typically increase 1% to 2% a year, she said.

“How do we price bids for two months down the road and still stay in business?” she said. “There’s no price certainty.”

Accu-Swiss Inc., an Oakdale, Calif.-based manufacturer of small metal parts for medical equipment and aerospace components, is flooded with orders. But its president, Sohel Sareshwala, said Accu-Swiss is losing money for the first time after 21 years in business. He said he can’t recover most of the rising costs for stainless steel and aluminum, as well as brass, which has more than doubled in price in the past seven months.

Rising prices for steel, copper, brass, lumber, laminate sheeting and plastic-based materials are hard to predict, say construction and manufacturing executives.

Photo: Paul Christian Gordon/Zuma Press

Customers typically offer Accu-Swiss fixed prices for batches of multiple parts, Mr. Sareshwala said. Pushing back on prices risks losing orders.

“Most of my business is repeat customers,” he said. “You can’t live in an environment where you’re constantly adjusting prices.”

Some companies have carved out protections in their contracts against rising costs.

Materials surcharges, similar to the fees used in the trucking industry to protect truckers against rapidly rising fuel costs, are increasingly turning up in contracts for manufactured goods.

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A personal, guided tour to the best scoops and stories every day in The Wall Street Journal.

Sean Gibbons, chief executive for the upholstery-fabrics manufacturer STI Fabrics in Kings Mountain, N.C., said he has been paying a surcharge on polypropylene resin since March after a winter storm knocked out production at resin plants in Texas. Mr. Gibbons said he is passing that expense along in surcharges on the Revolution-brand synthetic fabric he sells to furniture makers, rather than raising prices.

“We typically don’t increase prices, and none of us have the margins to absorb these costs,” he said.

Keats Manufacturing Co., a maker of brackets, clips, bushings and other metal parts for the automotive, electrical and appliance industries, recently started adding surcharges to its contracts for rising metal expenses, particularly stainless steel. Wade Keats, the Wheeling, Ill., company’s co-chairman, said he is buying more steel than he needs at the moment in anticipation of still-higher prices ahead.

“It’s the only way we can keep up,” Mr. Keats said. “We’re holding more inventory than we ever have.”

—Austen Hufford contributed to this article.

Write to Bob Tita at [email protected]

#PAID

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davewakeman · 4 years

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Talking Tickets 12 June 2020--AFL! MLB! Revenue! And, More!

Hey There!

Thanks for being here again this week. If you are enjoying this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues to sign up by visiting this link.

If you aren’t a member of the Slack community, join now. Folks in 12 different time zones get together there to talk tickets and learn from each other.

How is it mid-June? How’s everyone holding up?

I’m relatively fine. Only relatively because if you’ve never seen a string of those 90+ DC summer days, you don’t know what a heatwave is.

Check out a special session I’m doing with Eric Fuller’s Rescue Meet serieson Tuesday, 16 June at 9 AM PST/12 PM EST. I’m leading his session on sales and marketing and we will be doing a little talky thing, but the core of the event is a 30-45 minute break out of my workshop where we are going to focus on rethinking our strategies, coming up with a diagnosis of the real challenge to tackle, and create some action items to move us forward. It is FREE, but you have to get an invitation by visiting the Rescue Meet website.

Don’t forget Happy Hour with me and my buddy, Ken Troupe, this afternoon at 5 PM EDT.

To the tickets!

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1. Reopening in many shapes and forms:

We continue to power forward with the reopening of sports, at least. With concerts and other performances still in a place that lacks a lot of certainty or clarity for when things will be safe to return to normal.

While there are no fans, we will see La Liga return this week and the Premier League restart next week, even if I am going to have to wait a few more days to see Dele Alli.

For many venues, making the most of a bad situation has meant adjusting their business model to allow their venues to become drive-ins and gathering places of a different sort.

The NBA and MLS are going to Orlando in July and Orlando is going to get a moment in the spotlight, though if you haven’t heard of Orlando and Disney…I’m not sure what planet you’ve been on.

What will be curious is whether or not folks actually change their habits after sports comes back and further after folks can attend games. As with everything, the first rule of marketing is to remember that you aren’t your market and that folks often say one thing and do another.

The thing that is obvious is that we need fans in the stands, the Bundesliga has shown that fans matter to the atmosphere, home-field advantage, and…revenue, of course.

Any signs of progress are welcome.

I still would say that I’m cautious because it seems that the science points to an uncertain timeline around a vaccine and cases still building in a lot of places.

I was chatting with my friends in Tokyo about 10 days ago and they were mentioning that the cases were low and I saw this piece about masks in Japan. I think what a lot of us are missing is a clear direction that says “wear the mask because it helps reduce transmission, lessens community spread, and reduces the likelihood of more disruptive actions.”

Of course, I’ve also never realized how filthy too many people are with not washing their hands, covering their mouths when they are coughing and sneezing, and other stuff…

Anyway, continue to keep an eye on the reopening activities like starting up games and events with no or few fans like the AFL’s match with 2,000 fans in attendance. The performances of theatre around the world. And, how the virus is impacting other countries as they move through the different phases of reopening.

And, what do you think about Garth Brooks’s idea?

2. Revenue! Revenue! Revenue!

Somewhere along the line, I should have shared a piece I saw about how brands were discovering that a lot of their partnerships weren’t paying off.

Part of this is because folks weren’t really making the business case for sponsorship and relying too heavily on emotions and fluff.

The reality is that sponsorships is just one part of the larger revenue puzzle that will need to be reimagined coming out of the pandemic.

We are going to have to put our heads together and rethink a lot of the things that we have taken for granted or just “always done that way” like:

* Sales * Marketing * Customer retention * Customer service * Merchandise * Food and beverage

I can go on.

To achieve our revenue goals in the future, we are going to need to think through how we use technology, what our business models and processes look like, and many other things.

In fact, I think to see the industry of sports, the arts, and other forms entertainment continue to grow, we are going to have to see a much higher level of comfort with innovation become the norm.

In the arts and theatre, the unwillingness to change has popped up in the need for many organizations to try and figure how to become digital and offer digital solutions now.

Where was the urgency before a pandemic set in?

The same goes for the sports organizations that still rely on ~40% or more of their revenue from fans coming to the venue?

Why hasn’t the reinvention of the in-game business model been the number one priority?

I’ll tell you three things when I look at this:

First, we can’t get stuck in the way things have always been done. Obviously, no one can plan for a depression and a pandemic…but we really should be doing more risk planning and stress testing of our organizations so that we can be a lot more flexible in how we generate revenue and more secure in our business practices.

Second, right now is a great opportunity to rethink how you are doing business. In too many instances, I sit on webinars and Zoom calls where the gist of the conversation is about how quickly we can ramp back to “normal” and when I look at how many challenges and points of weakness that the industry was facing before the pandemic…I want to go, “Get back to normal? Are you kidding? That’s the best we can do?”

Maybe I’m just grumpy today? Or, maybe I’m just tired of watching the same bad habits get run on repeat.

You tell me!

3. How do businesses fall apart? Slowly at first, and then all at once…or how MLB is determined to miss a great opportunity to have the spotlight:

MLB seems to continue to move down a path towards no season…and it leaves a lot of folks scratching their heads.

Last week, I shared the story about the Cubs claiming that 70% of their revenue comes from having fans at their games. And, I’ve been adamant about the need to rethink business models, pricing structures, and the underlying approach to having folks at games as a way to make sure that attendance isn’t sacrificed at the foot of revenue…which is what is happening all too frequently now.

We also saw MLB lose Coca-Cola as a sponsor this week as well, due to “budgetary concerns” which is code for they don’t see the value of a partnership with someone they’ve been associated with, in a major way for a long time.

What’s even crazier is that baseball seems to spend a lot of time on ideas that would hurt their TV monies as well.

MLB, “call me, please!”

If I were an academic and not a marketer, I would have a paper out that would talk about how the economics of the baseball standoff mirror a lot of the challenges we are dealing with in the American and global economies as a whole…but I’m not so instead I’ll offer up these ideas for how baseball can move forward to salvage this season, but the long-term potential of the game.

First, let’s get a season with somewhere between 70-80 games, expanded rosters, and some sort of pro-rated salary for the players.

To quote Gary Adler, “the owners seem to be jumping over dollars to pick up dimes.”

If the nuclear bomb of no baseball season at any level goes off, I don’t really know that MLB recovers because despite “record” revenues, real attendance is crap, interest in the game isn’t that high, and the already aging fan base is only getting older.

To be clear, if the money saved by not paying minor league players and squeezing a few million out of the players is going to make or break your business…the sport has a much bigger problem.

Second, lay on the marketing as much as possible.

Someone asked me about what is being aired on the MLB network and why they weren’t showing a greater variety of stuff.

I don’t have the answer. I know marketing and not television…but there are so many historical games and so much historical footage, it seems like a missed opportunity to not share these things and give the generation of fans that are still diehard baseball fans the chance to share some of the things they love with folks that might not have experienced baseball in this way before.

4. What will saving the theatre and the arts look like?

In general, I’m a fan of offering public support to the arts because I think the arts are so important for doing a few things like helping us understand other folks’ point of view, explaining complex ideas, and bringing us together. That funding the arts seems like a value in a lot of instances.

In the United States, there are a few industry-led efforts to lobby the government for help for the live entertainment industry. I’m not holding my breath on action anytime soon. But I do appreciate the effort…it is necessary.

In the UK an idea is being floated to allow folks to invest in theatres.

Last week, I shared some of the things that Australia and New Zealand are doing to support the arts. And, this week, the German government has stepped in with a $1.13 billion dollar package to help get their countries arts and entertainment venues back up and running. These are really great starts to helping the industry get back up and running.

As a general topic, I’m concerned about the future of the arts coming out of the pandemic because we’ve seen the funding for the arts be whittled away in so many places.

But the bigger challenge as I mentioned in the revenue section is the need to reinvent our businesses and to rethink how we are marketing and selling our experiences.

The idea that the London Symphony Orchestra is offering up is novel with a shortened production and two performances a night to help maintain social distancing.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a lot of folks share social distance mapping, even if I’ve felt like a lot of this was just ducking the hard work of thinking about how to actually create something that will bridge the gap between where we are now and where we need to get to in the future when we get the virus tamed and are able to have full capacity shows again.

I know we have to work to save the arts and theatre and here are a few suggestions:

First, we need to get some sort for the arts and artists at a government level. Full stop. These buildings are centers in our communities and the artists that make the arts are necessary for these investments to make art happen.

Second, saving the arts is a good time to rethink the relationship between the arts, the buildings, and the communities. We’ve become used to the idea that a stadium can revitalize a downtown area, whether or not that actually happens or not.

What about an opera house or an arts center?

If you’ve ever been to Sydney, you’ll know that the arts buildings are just as much gathering places as any stadium…maybe more so.

Right now is a great time to rethink the relationship between the buildings, the performances, and the community to allow them to take center stage as cultural homes and gathering spaces in the future.

I mean, look at the MoPop in Seattle.

You can experience that place inside and outside the building. Lincoln Center, the same. Insert your favorite here.

I don’t have a complete answer for how to use these buildings as indoor/outdoor community spaces going forward now, but I do think back to the concerts on the pier in Seattle during the summer. Or, the way that we’d have concerts for small groups in the Liquid Lounge at the EMP.

And, I recognize that it may be difficult to come up with a solution…there are opportunities.

More importantly, if we aren’t really pulling out all the stops…we may face a situation where many arts organizations do have such catastrophic losses that they can never recover.

Remember, this isn’t a fight that just the arts are fighting, nightlife, pubs, and other folks are all in similar positions and making sure folks fight for their industries is essential.

5. The AFL is in a good spot due to owning Marvel Stadium, but being creative with their revenue streams should be a priority:

File this one under, if you are nice to me, I love you…but I’m a fan of Marvel Stadium and the AFL.

As I’ve mentioned on many occasions, I look at the membership model that some of their clubs offer like Melbourne FC as something everyone around the world should be looking to emulate because it allows them to drive attendance and monetize their global market.

The article above talks about many of the leagues in Australia and how the AFL owning Marvel Stadium has allowed them to have a stronger position than other codes in Australia.

One of the frightening things for a lot of folks as they read through this piece is how the television broadcasters have used the pandemic and the shutdown period to drive down the prices of rights fees. At some point, I think that is a reckoning that a lot of folks are going to be dealing with and I’m certain that this is a scary idea because the expectation that Facebook or Amazon was just going to swoop in hasn’t materialized and I’m not sure if it will.

If you’ve been paying attention to the ongoing challenges Rugby Australia is dealing with, you’ll see that having assets that you can control and that can insulate you from the moment-to-moment ups and downs of business can be helpful in helping you avoid making short-term decisions that are potentially harmful in the long-run.

The truth is that the AFL is a window into the heart of what a lot of organizations in the arts, theatre, sports, concerts, and other live events are dealing with. And there are three things I think we can look to AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan as we head out into our week:

1. Recognize the human side of all of these struggles. Behind every decision are real people that have had their lives disrupted or worse.

2. Be creative. The AFL gained possession of Marvel Stadium when everything was great and this has enabled them to be more in control of their code as the pandemic has played out.

3. Make sure you focus on the right questions. The AFL recognizes that this season is a wipeout on profits and a lot of revenue, so instead of just trying to squeeze everything out of that…they are continuing to focus on recovery and growth. While it doesn’t take the short-term pain away, it does get the focus off of pain and panic and onto progress and positivity. —————————————————————————————————————-

What am I up to this week?

As I mentioned at the top of the program, I’m leading Eric Fuller’s Rescue Meet session on 16 June on sales and marketing. It is open to VPs and executives of organizations around the world and you can sign up for an invitation to the event on the Rescue Meet website.

I’m still at home…so I’m not visiting a city near you, yet. But if you want to chat about something or just need someone to chat to, let me know.

Get yourself some podcast episodes by going to my podcast landing page. I’m working on having some really great new guests around finance, marketing, and strategy…so something a little different than normal.

Check out my website and blog.

Please follow and like us:

Talking Tickets 12 June 2020–AFL! MLB! Revenue! And, More! was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

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junker-town · 4 years

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TITLELESS: 16 overachieving NBA teams who fell short of a title

Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant never won a title on the Thunder.

Some great non-champion NBA teams weren’t supposed to be great teams until they showed off in the playoffs. Here are 16 near-miss playoff runs defined by outperforming their talent, seed, or both.

Some great non-champion NBA teams weren’t supposed to be great teams until they showed off in the playoffs. Here are 16 near-miss playoff runs defined by outperforming their talent, seed, or both. Meet the Overachiever Division.

We begin with the ultimate NBA Finals Cinderella and end with a more recent contender that broke up in the summer, though not by choice.

16. 1975-76 Phoenix Suns

ERA: John MacLeod’s Suns

RECORD: 42-40

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +0.6

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in Finals to Boston Celtics (4-2)

KEY STAR(S): Paul Westphal

COACH: John MacLeod

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Alvan Adams, Gar Heart, Dick Van Arsdale, Curtis Perry, Ricky Sobers, Keith Erickson, John Shumate

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 1977-78, 1978-79, 1979-80, 1980-81, 1982-83

The most unlikely Finals participant in NBA history was this close to pulling off an improbable championship. After winning Game 7 on the home floor of the defending champion Warriors in the conference Finals, Phoenix split the first four games with a Celtics team that didn’t take them seriously.

That brings us to Game 5, often referred to as the greatest game in NBA history. Boston won in triple overtime and took the Finals in Game 6, but some truly wild shit happened in that game. Boston took a 20-point first-quarter lead, but the Suns chipped away. Led by Paul Westphal, who was traded by the Celtics for Charlie Scott in one of those now-for-future moves that benefitted both teams, the Suns came back from nine down in the final three minutes to force overtime.

With the score tied at 101 and three seconds left in the first overtime, Boston veteran Paul Silas grabbed a rebound and visibly signaled to call timeout despite Boston having none left. It should have resulted in a technical foul and a free throw. But referee Richie Powers ignored Silas’ request, allowing the game to go to double overtime.

Powers later admitted he “did not want Boston to lose like that,” according to Bob Ryan’s book Scribe: My Life in Sports. (Probably not coincidentally, then-Celtics coach Tommy Heinsohn called Powers “my favorite referee” in a 2016 Boston Globe interview). Years later, even Silas admitted he called timeout and Powers “didn’t see me or didn’t want to see me.”

The Suns then scored four straight points at the end of double overtime to take a one-point lead with four seconds left. Boston inbounded to ageless legend John Havlicek, who was playing through a torn plantar fascia. He banked what appeared to be the game-winner off the glass and in. As Celtics fans stormed the court and the players rushed to the locker room, Powers, perhaps in an attempt to atone for his previous mistake, ruled there was still one second left in the game. (An angry Celtics fan apparently tackled and pinned Powers to the floor during the ensuing melee. Imagine if that happened today.)

But wait, there’s more! Westphal knew of a loophole in the league’s technical foul rules and exploited it for Phoenix’s benefit. He called timeout, knowing Phoenix had none left and would receive a technical foul. (Funny how Powers saw this one, but not Silas’ unintentional gaffe).

Boston hit the free throw to lead by two, but Phoenix retained the ball and actually got to inbound it at half court. The Suns threw it to Gar Heard, who turned and nailed a 20-foot jumper to force triple overtime.

Relive all of that here. It’s WILD.

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The Suns finally fell short in the third overtime when little-used Boston reserve Glenn McDonald ran circles around their dead legs. They stayed in the mix for the next half decade, but never came that close again.

15. 2013-14 Portland Trail Blazers

ERA: Dame Time

RECORD: 54-28

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +3.9

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in second round to San Antonio Spurs (4-1)

KEY STAR(S): Damian Lillard, LaMarcus Aldridge

COACH: Terry Stotts

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Nicolas Batum, Wesley Matthews, Robin Lopez, Mo Williams, Dorell Wright, C.J. McCollum

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 2014-15, 2018-19

Like the early-2010s Pacers, these Blazers hit their peak in the middle of the following season. Portland’s well-balanced starting lineup was in the thick of the West title race by the middle of the 2014-15 year, but lost all momentum when Wesley Matthews, the team’s heartbeat, tore his Achilles.

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The Blazers fell apart thereafter and chose to break up the team the following summer after LaMarcus Aldridge signed with the Spurs.

14. 2001-02 Boston Celtics

ERA: Pierce and ‘Toine

RECORD: 49-33

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +2.3

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in East Finals to New Jersey Nets (4-2)

KEY STAR(S): Paul Pierce, Antoine Walker

COACH: Jim O’Brien

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Kenny Anderson, Tony Battie, Eric Williams, Tony Delk, Rodney Rodgers, Erick Strickland, Vitaly Potapenko, Walter McCarty

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: None

What a strange team. After taking over for Rick Pitino late in the previous season, coach Jim O’Brien fashioned a wacky style of play that encouraged players to shoot tons of threes even if they weren’t especially good at them. Antoine Walker took a whopping 645 attempts while making just 34 percent. Nowadays, that’s less weird. Back then, it was wild. But it all somehow worked because Paul Pierce was incredible and Walker’s versatility eased the burden on the rest of the team.

Nobody took these Celtics seriously, which nearly worked to their advantage after they staged a memorable 26-point comeback to take a 2-1 series lead over the Nets in the East Finals.

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But the Nets won the next three games, including two in Boston, to earn the right to be the Lakers’ sacrificial lamb. Boston faltered the next few seasons and nearly traded Pierce, but got bailed out when Timberwolves general manager and Celtics legend Kevin McHale relented on trading Kevin Garnett to Boston.

(Celtics Blog did a wonderful tribute to the 2001-02 team that’s well worth your time).

13. 2012-13 Memphis Grizzlies

ERA: Grit ‘N Grind

RECORD: 56-26

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +4.1

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in West Finals to San Antonio Spurs (4-0)

KEY STAR(S): Zach Randolph

COACH: Lionel Hollins

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, Tony Allen, Tayshaun Prince, Jerryd Bayless, Quincy Pondexter, Wayne Ellington, Ed Davis, Darrell Arthur

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 2010-11, 2014-15

I won’t argue if you’d rather include Dave Joerger’s 2014-15 Grit ‘N Grind team that took a 2-1 lead on the eventual champion Golden State Warriors in the second round. That team briefly appeared to solve its longtime shooting problem before the Warriors unveiled their Andrew Bogut-on-Tony-Allen defense. (Grizzly Bear Blues, SB Nation’s Grizzlies community, would also take the 2014-15 club)

But I chose the 2012-13 team that reached the conference finals despite (or because of?) trading Rudy Gay in midseason in a money-saving move that angered coach Lionel Hollins. Marc Gasol was at the peak of his defensive powers, Zach Randolph was still a force, and Quincy Pondexter looked like the 3-and-D wing that could have completed the Grizzlies’ core.

12. 2012-13 Golden State Warriors

ERA: Pre-Kerr Steph

RECORD: 47-35

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +0.9

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in second round to San Antonio Spurs (4-2)

KEY STAR(S): Stephen Curry

COACH: Mark Jackson

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: David Lee, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, Jarrett Jack, Carl Landry, Festus Ezeli, Draymond Green

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 13-14

No Overachievers Division is complete without a Stephen Curry Cinderella team. The 2012-13 team was decent, but didn’t take off until Curry went en fuego in the playoffs. (David Lee’s injury, which forced Mark Jackson to go small, also helped.)

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The cagey Spurs ended the Warriors’ run, but Curry lit them up twice on the road in the first two games before re-injuring his ankle in Game 3. That limited him the rest of the series and made the Warriors’ Game 1 collapse that ended with horrible, botched coverage on a game-winning Manu Ginobili three loom larger.

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The decision to pick the 12-13 team instead of the 51-win outfit the next year was an easy one considering the dysfunction surrounding Jackson’s final season in charge.

11. 1989-90 Phoenix Suns

ERA: Pre-Barkley Suns

RECORD: 54-28

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +7.1

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in West Finals to Portland Trail Blazers (4-2)

KEY STAR(S): Kevin Johnson

COACH: Cotton Fitzsimmons

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Tom Chambers, Jeff Hornacek, Dan Majerle, Mark West, Eddie Johnson, Kurt Rambis, Andrew Lang

OTHER SEASONS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 1988-89, 1990-91, 1991-92

The pre-Charles Barkley Suns were a wonderful story and might have been even better than their more well-known counterparts. After an embarrassing drug scandal rocked the team in 1987, new owner Jerry Colangelo held a fire sale. The most controversial move was trading Larry Nance, the team’s best player and a model citizen who wasn’t involved in the scandal, for a package that included little-used big man Mark West, a future first-round pick that turned into a Central Michigan guard named Dan Majerle, and a backup point guard named Kevin Johnson who was stuck behind young all-star Mark Price.

The turnaround was swift. Johnson turned out to be a superstar, teaming with the undrafted Jeff Hornacek to form the “KJ and Horny” backcourt. (Great name.) Along with marquee free agent signing Tom Chambers, the Suns stormed into the West’s elite. They ended the Lakers’ dynasty with a stunning 4-1 win in the West semifinals, with Johnson blowing by Byron Scott repeatedly and Hornacek making Magic Johnson pay for his defensive roaming. After winning the decisive fifth game in LA, Kevin Johnson declared his desire to make the Suns the “team of the 90s.”

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But that didn’t happen. Phoenix blew it in a six-game conference finals loss to Portland, coughing up fourth-quarter leads in the first two games in Portland and blowing a six-point advantage in the final few minutes of a Game 6 defeat. Johnson missed the second half of that decisive loss with one of the many nagging injuries that defined the rest of his career.

By the time Barkley arrived in 1992, Johnson was a more muted version of himself and Chambers was nearing his last legs. Barkley and Johnson never fit seamlessly, and the Suns never quite got the most out of their on-paper talent. What might’ve happened if Barkley arrived in 1989 instead of 1992? We’ll never know.

10. 2007-08 New Orleans Hornets

ERA: Young CP3

RECORD: 56-26

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +5.3

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in West semifinals to San Antonio Spurs (4-3)

KEY STAR(S): Chris Paul

COACH: Byron Scott

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: David West, Tyson Chandler, Peja Stojakovic, Morris Peterson, Bobby Jackson, Bonzi Well, Jannero Pargo, Rasual Butler

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: None

Another long-forgotten cult classic I loved during my college days. Chris Paul was robbed of the MVP because the collective media decided to give Kobe Bryant a lifetime achievement award. Yeah, I said it. Those Paul/Tyson Chandler lobs were things of beauty. I’m still mad at Jannero Pargo for shooting the Hornets out of that Game 7 against the Spurs. They would have put up a better fight against the Lakers in the next round.

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That was the only real moment of glory for Paul in New Orleans.

9. 2002-03 New Jersey Nets

ERA: Kidd’s Nets

RECORD: 49-33

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +5.3

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in Finals to San Antonio Spurs (4-2)

KEY STAR(S): Jason Kidd

COACH: Byron Scott

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson, Kerry Kittles, Dikembe Mutombo, Jason Collins, Lucious Harris, Rodney Rodgers, Aaron Williams

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 2001-02, 2003-04

The 2001-02 Nets had the novelty factor and won more games, but the 2002-03 version was much stronger. The big offseason trade of Keith Van Horn for Dikembe Mutombo was a bit of a flop, but it did allow second-year forward Richard Jefferson to step into Van Horn’s spot and emerge as an all-star talent. New Jersey had the mighty Spurs on the ropes in the Finals, but they blew Game 5 at home and succumbed to Tim Duncan’s near-quadruple-double in Game 6.

It all fell apart from there.

8. 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks

ERA: Bud’s Hawks

RECORD: 60-22

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +5.4

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in East Finals to Cleveland Cavaliers (4-0)

KEY STAR(S): None

COACH: Mike Budenholzer

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Al Horford, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver, Jeff Teague, DeMarre Carroll, Dennis Schroder, Thabo Sefolosha, Kent Bazemore, Pero Antic, Mike Scott

OTHER SEASONS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: None

I loved this team. They had five quality players whose talents blended perfectly, all working together to create one of the prettiest offenses of the modern era. Their regular-season win over the eventual champion Warriors in Atlanta is still one of the highest-skill basketball games I’ve ever seen.

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But deep down, we all knew they didn’t have enough to win a title or maintain their flash of success. They were wobbling before LeBron James and the Cavaliers unceremoniously finished them off in the conference finals.

Still would’ve been nice if Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll were fully healthy and the NYPD didn’t break Thabo Sefolosha’s leg.

7. 1963-64 Cincinnati Royals

ERA: Prime Oscar Robertson

RECORD: 55-25

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +5

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in East Finals to Boston Celtics (4-1)

KEY STAR(S): Oscar Robertson

COACH: Jack McMahon

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Jerry Lucas, Wayne Embry, Jack Twyman, Tom Hawkins, Bucky Bockhorn, Adrian Smith, Bob Boozer

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 1962-63, 1964-65

This was Oscar Robertson’s best team during his heyday, though it wasn’t the team that got closest to the Finals or the one that featured Robertson’s famous triple-double season. It was the year Oscar won league MVP, earning the crown in a landslide over Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.

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But Oscar had nothing left by the time the East Finals with Boston began, and he was locked up by the combination of K.C. Jones on ball and Russell on the backside.

6. 2012-13 Indiana Pacers

ERA: Paul George and Frank Vogel

RECORD: 49-32

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +4

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in East Finals to Miami Heat (4-3)

KEY STAR(S): Paul George

COACH: Frank Vogel

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Roy Hibbert, David West, Lance Stephenson, George Hill, Gerald Green, Ian Mahinmi, Tyler Hansbrough, Sam Young, D.J. Augustin

OTHERS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 2013-14

These Pacers were an NBA powerhouse for a calendar year that took place over two NBA seasons. During the second half of 2012-13, Paul George emerged from the injured Danny Granger’s shadow to push the Heatles to the brink. (I’ll defend the decision to bench Roy Hibbert at the end of Game 1 until the end of time). Then, the Pacers built one of the game’s stingiest defenses and went 33-7 during the first half of the 2013-14 season. Let’s not speak of what happened thereafter.

So pay no attention to the Pacers’ mediocre 2012-13 full season record. They’re ranked this high because of their play from January 2013 to January 2014.

5. 2000-01 Philadelphia 76ers

ERA: Iverson

RECORD: 56-26

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +5.7

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in Finals to Los Angeles Lakers (4-1. Stepover game)

KEY STAR(S): Allen Iverson

COACH: Larry Brown

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Dikembe Mutombo, Eric Snow, George Lynch, Tyrone Hill, Aaron McKie, Matt Geiger, Kevin Ollie, Raja Bell

OTHER SEASONS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: None

These 76ers are iconic because of one small man and one memorable stepover after a made shot. They were — or rather, Allen Iverson was — David going up against a Goliath in the apex Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant Lakers. Every NBC promo highlighted that theme.

But the story of the 2000-01 76ers is more complex, as SB Nation’s Rewinder series beautifully illustrates.

To wit:

Iverson was nearly traded to the Pistons before the season in a massive four-team deal. The trade, which was agreed upon by all parties, would’ve sent Eddie Jones, Glen Rice, an ancient Dale Ellis, and Jerome Williams to Philly. Yuck. Iverson was told the trade was happening. But it fell apart because backup center Matt Geiger refused to waive his 15 percent trade kicker, which he needed to do to make the salaries make up.

Dikembe Mutombo wasn’t the midseason acquisition that pushed the 76ers over the top, as you might expect given his name recognition. It’s more accurate to say he was an emergency replacement acquired by necessity. Philly was 36-13 at the NBA All-Star Game break thanks to Iverson and shot-blocking dynamo Theo Ratliff, who rode a career season to an all-star nod. But Ratliff broke his wrist in the final game before the break, jeopardizing Philly’s run. Rather than wait things out, the 76ers made him the centerpiece of a trade with the Hawks for the disgruntled Mutombo, with Toni Kukoc also heading to Atlanta. After that 36-13 start, Philly went just 20-13 down the stretch and had to endure two Game 7s before reaching the Finals.

Ask a Bucks fan about the officiating in that 2001 conference finals. Just do it.

The 76ers’ victory was still an amazing feat considering their injury situation. Starting small forward George Lynch broke his foot in the second round and didn’t play again. Point guard Eric Snow fractured his foot in the next round and played through it. Sixth Man of the Year Aaron McKie broke his foot in Game 1 of the Finals and played through it, too. Also, Mutombo was playing through a broken finger. I’m surprised those dudes could even walk.

4. 2008-09 Orlando Magic

ERA: Dwight and Stan

RECORD: 59-23

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +6.6

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in Finals to Los Angeles Lakers (4-1)

KEY STAR(S): Dwight Howard

COACH: Stan Van Gundy

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson, Rafer Alston, Courney Lee, Keith Bogans, Mickael Pietrus, J.J. Redick, Marcin Gortat, Anthony Johnson

OTHER SEASONS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 2009-10

The story of the NBA’s three-point revolution isn’t complete without mentioning the Stan Van Gundy-Dwight Howard Magic. Desperate for answers after starting power forward Tony Battie got injured in the 2007 preseason, Van Gundy made the bold decision to slide marquee free agent acquisition Rashard Lewis up to power forward to make room for the enigmatic Hedo Turkoglu. With Lewis spacing the floor for Howard, Turkoglu, and Jameer Nelson, Orlando spent the next three seasons shattering three-point records while maintaining one of the league’s best defenses.

The 2009-10 version, with Vince Carter instead of Turkoglu, was stronger in the regular season and favored in the East Finals after LeBron James’ Cavaliers lost to the Celtics. But I prefer the 2008-09 version because it advanced further in the playoffs, scored the most impressive series victory of the era over a better LeBron team, and had two giant “what if” moments — Nelson’s midseason injury and Courtney Lee’s blown layup that would’ve won Game 2 of the Finals against the Lakers — that could have made them champions.

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3. 1997-98 Los Angeles Lakers

ERA: Shaq, Pre-Phil

RECORD: 61-21

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +7.7

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in West Finals to Utah Jazz (4-0)

KEY STAR(S): Shaquille O’Neal

COACH: Del Harris

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel, Rick Fox, Kobe Bryant, Robert Horry, Elden Campbell, Derek Fisher

OTHER SEASONS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 96-97

I wasn’t sure where to put the pre-Phil Jackson Lakers in this tournament. Maybe it’s a stretch to call them “overachievers” considering they were one of the preseason favorites, won 61 games with a ton of talent, and got schooled by the veteran Jazz in four straight games in the conference Finals. By that logic, they belong in the flameout region. (Speaking of flameouts, hoo boy the Nick Van Exel-Del Harris relationship was ugly by this point.)

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Here’s my case for them belonging as overachievers:

They went 61-21 despite Shaquille O’Neal missing 22 games early in the year. In fact, they were destroying everyone before that untimely injury and never got a chance to return to that level.

Van Exel’s ongoing feud with Harris, combined with a midseason injury, forced the Lakers to rely on a little-known second-year guard out of Arkansas Little-Rock named Derek Fisher to run the point.

Kobe Bryant wasn’t Kobe Bryant yet. He made the All-Star team due to his popularity, but was still a moderately efficient sixth man that played behind Eddie Jones.

The Lakers were not favored in their second-round series with a resurgent Sonics team that had swapped the disgruntled Shawn Kemp for the in-shape (at the time) Vin Baker. Yet after Seattle won the first game at home, the Lakers crushed them in the next four, winning each by double-digits. It was a stunning display at the time.

In hindsight, that 97-98 Jazz team was a couple plays away from winning the title. Was it really a huge shame to lose to them?

The worst of the pre-Jackson Lakers drama occurred the following season after the lockout. Van Exel got traded, Jones was moved for Glen Rice, Harris lost his job, and the bizarre Dennis Rodman experience threw everything off. That’s the season they really underachieved. I’m not sure the 97-98 edition qualifies.

Thus, they’re here.

2. 1981-82 Philadelphia 76ers

ERA: Dr. J, pre-Moses

RECORD: 58-24

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +5.7

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in NBA Finals to Los Angeles Lakers (4-2)

KEY STAR(S): Julius Erving

COACH: Billy Cunningham

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Toney, Caldwell Jones, Lionel Hollins, Bobby Jones, Darryl Dawkins, Steve Mix, Mike Bantom

OTHER SEASONS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 1976-77, 1977-78, 1979-80, 1980-81

Julius Erving did win one title with the 76ers, but that was only after getting MVP Moses Malone as a running mate in the summer of 1982. Based on the rules of this game, all of Dr. J’s Philly clubs prior to then are eligible for this tournament.

The 1976-77 club had the most star power and the 1980-81 version had the best regular season, but we’re going with the 1981-82 edition because they were the ones to slay the Boston Garden dragon. Andrew Toney really was a forgotten legend.

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That was the game the legendary “BEAT LA” chant was born. Alas, the 76ers did not heed the call of their strange bedfellows in Boston. They got blown out at home in Game 1 and fell to the Lakers in six games.

1. 2015-16 Oklahoma City Thunder

ERA: Post-James Harden trade

RECORD: 55-27

POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +7.3

PLAYOFF RESULT: Lost in West Finals to No. 1 Golden State Warriors (4-3)

KEY STAR(S): Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook

COACH: Billy Donovan

OTHER KEY PLAYERS: Serge Ibaka, Steven Adams, Andre Roberson, Dion Waiters, Enes Kanter, Randy Foye, Kyle Singler

OTHER SEASONS CONSIDERED FROM THIS ERA: 2012-13, 2013-14

This was the worst regular-season team of the post-James Harden, pre-My Next Chapter Thunder, but the most terrifying at full power. After sleepwalking through the regular season under new coach Billy Donovan, the Thunder beat a 67-win Spurs team in the second round and made the 73-win Warriors look like a junior varsity team during the first four games of the next round. They then lost Game 5, got blitzed by an unconscious Klay Thompson in a thrilling Game 6, and lost in Game 7 after Stephen Curry rediscovered his form.

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That series was the start of a budding Western Conference rivalry featuring two of the greatest of this era and tons of other … ah, nevermind.

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privateplates4u · 4 years

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Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE: 4th Place – 2017 Motor Trend Best Driver’s Car

We’ve all heard about the bad old days at GM when no car was allowed to challenge the Corvette’s performance supremacy. Those days are long dead. Team Camaro has applied its 1LE handling philosophy to the monstrously powerful ZL1, and the resulting monster is the most track-capable road car GM has ever sold. Up front, the standard Camaro ZL1’s 6.2-liter supercharged V-8 still makes 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque because frankly it didn’t need to make more. Being an enthusiast’s car, a six-speed manual is the only transmission on offer. An electronically controlled differential rounds out the powertrain. Out at the corners, magnetic shocks are replaced with Multimatic spool-valve shocks, and like the rest of the suspension, they’re hard-mounted with metal bushings, not rubber. The ride height, front camber, and rear anti-roll bar are all manually adjustable. A bigger grille improves cooling, and dive planes on the front corners and a massive rear wing provide downforce across the car. Equally massive carbon-ceramic brakes do the stopping. It’s Best Driver’s Car week! Don’t miss the incredible story of how we chose the 2017 Best Driver’s Car right here, and stay tuned for the World’s Greatest Drag Race, coming soon. Put it all together, nail the launch, and you’ll see 60 mph in 3.6 seconds and an 11.7-second quarter mile at 123 mph flat. Going the other way, the 3,837-pound ZL1 1LE will stop from 60 mph in a scant 91 feet. Put it on a skidpad, and it’ll pull 1.11 average g. Fling it at the figure eight, and you’ll get a 23.0-second lap at 0.93 average g. We Say “This car needs five-point harnesses because the dampers are so unforgiving. It’s true this 1LE has incredible grip; however, the compression damping is way too harsh while the rebound damping is just right. I’m not sure where they tuned this, but it clearly did not have a lot of bumps and jumps. The steering is freakishly quick. It took me three corners to calm my hands down, so I didn’t steer into and across the apex. The power seems to be well matched for the chassis, for a change, unlike the Z06. Third gear seemed very tractable and had a wide bandwidth. This feels like what I imagine a ’60s-’70s Trans Am car would be like.” – Chris Walton “I know Jonny loves this car, but I just can’t warm to it. Probably because I’ve lost all my fillings, and my kidneys are bruised. With the exception of the best roads, the ride in this Camaro is punishing. I’ve encountered smoother paint mixers. I had to remind myself that based on the numbers, this car is fantastic. Endless grip, fade-free brakes, abundant horsepower. But the thing is, I didn’t care. The bouncing was so bad that I found myself reacting to that instead of focusing on sheer act of driving. The Camaro might be brilliant on the track, but I wouldn’t want to drive this to get there.” – Derek Powell Read about other 2017 Best Driver’s Car contenders: Ferrari 488 GTB Porsche 911 Turbo S Porsche 718 Cayman S Lexus LC 500 Mercedes-AMG GT R Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Aston Martin DB11 Nissan GT-R NISMO Mazda MX-5 Miata RF McLaren 570GT “Simply tremendous … tremendous grip, tremendous brakes, and tremendous power. And how about that third pedal? This added that special connection to the vehicle that the Ferrari or 911 Turbo simply can’t match, which is why I ranked it higher than those two fancy (and expensive) machines. With the Camaro, I felt like I—not some fancy software—had a big part in conquering 198.” – Erick Ayapana “That’s a driver’s car! When the aero and the tires shake hands, it’s a moment of revelation. You are suddenly driving a hard-mounted race car. Unreal. So much power, so much control, so much stopping ability. An absolute monster of a machine. This is an uncaged race car. Being able to actually use all 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque is mind-boggling. I’m not sure how this car isn’t a podium finisher.” – Jonny Lieberman “Long name, amazing results! Everywhere a competitor put a wheel in the air, the Camaro stuck like glue. There’s a lot of vertical movement in the cabin, but the car just sticks no matter what. It never jumps sideways a foot when it hits a mid-corner bump, never moves around laterally at all. Even when it feels like you’ve carried too much speed into a corner, it sticks. I can’t count how many times I put the throttle flat on the floor. In a 650-hp car this stiff on this bumpy road, that’s seriously impressive. The eLSD takes a little getting used to. If you start to feed in power mid-corner, the car turns in more as the diff gets to work. Steer with the throttle? Yes, please! “Brakes have huge stopping power and great pedal feel. Squeeze, don’t stomp, and get exactly what you want. “I thought this car would be too stiff for the road, and that’s coming from someone who drove the Z/28 for a year. I was wrong.” – Scott Evans Randy Says “It was not perfectly balanced for me. I’m really trying to smear a little lipstick from the perfection here, but it would go from a little teeny bit of understeer, which was perfect, to a little bit of oversteer, which is almost perfect. But when we put it in the context of what it is, which is a front-engine rear-drive car with 650 horsepower, the traction was incredible. It put down power extremely well, I could drive it with everything turned off, and for me, that’s just so much more satisfying. “The dampers felt great. Basically I never thought about it. Which means nothing came into my awareness as being, oh, this is too stiff. Or that is too soft. I don’t sense roll. So when I just turn for the corner, it just lies over there. That’s not good terminology because I don’t feel it roll. I’m sure it does, but I don’t feel it. Which means it’s got good damping. When I’m down in the corner, in the middle, I still have a steering response, and I can still tighten it up. “It was happy coming out of the corkscrew. That’s always hard in a powerful rear drive car. Put the power down. When you’re in a low gear and it’s a hard right. It wants to power oversteer. But this one was pretty damn good. Especially at that power level. See, we have to keep this in context. “The car generated a tremendous amount of braking force, but for the first time in any high-performance Camaro, it had a long pedal. I was pumping it a little bit, and I remember going up that Corkscrew thinking, ‘Jesus and Heaven above, let these work.’ And boy did they work. It stopped so well. It was very, very pleasing and satisfying how late I could brake in this—what is a relatively heavy car. It’s light for a Camaro, a supercharged Camaro. A bad driver could crash it immediately, but for a reasonable guy who can drive really fast and doesn’t need stability control, this is the ultimate pony car right now.” 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 (1LE) POWERTRAIN/CHASSIS DRIVETRAIN LAYOUT Front-engine, RWD ENGINE TYPE Supercharged 90-deg V-8, alum block/heads VALVETRAIN OHV, 2 valves/cyl DISPLACEMENT 376.1 cu in/6,162 cc COMPRESSION RATIO 10.0:1 POWER (SAE NET) 650 hp @ 6,400 rpm* TORQUE (SAE NET) 650 lb-ft @ 3,600 rpm* REDLINE 6,500 rpm WEIGHT TO POWER 5.9 lb/hp TRANSMISSION 6-speed manual AXLE/FINAL-DRIVE RATIO 3.73:1/2.00:1 SUSPENSION, FRONT; REAR Struts, coil springs, anti-roll bar; multilink, coil springs, adj anti-roll bar STEERING RATIO 11.1:1-15.1:1 TURNS LOCK-TO-LOCK 2.3 BRAKES, F; R 15.4-in vented, 2-pc disc; 14.4-in vented, 2-pc disc, ABS WHEELS 11.0 x 20-in; 12.0 x 20-in, forged aluminum TIRES 305/30R19 98Y; 325/30R19 101Y Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar 3R (Tread 100) DIMENSIONS WHEELBASE 110.7 in TRACK, F/R 64.1/62.8 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 188.3 x 74.7 x 52.0 in TURNING CIRCLE 38.7 ft CURB WEIGHT 3,837 lb WEIGHT DIST, F/R 55/45% SEATING CAPACITY 4 HEADROOM, F/R 38.5/33.5 in LEGROOM, F/R 43.9/29.9 in SHOULDER ROOM, F/R 55.0/50.4 in CARGO VOLUME 9.1 cu ft TEST DATA ACCELERATION TO MPH 0-30 1.6 sec 0-40 2.2 0-50 2.8 0-60 3.6 0-70 4.4 0-80 5.3 0-90 6.6 0-100 7.9 0-100-0 11.3 PASSING, 45-65 MPH 1.5 QUARTER MILE 11.7 sec @ 123.0 mph BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 91 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 1.11 g (avg) MT FIGURE EIGHT 23.0 sec @ 0.93 g (avg) 2.2-MI ROAD COURSE LAP 1:34.30 sec TOP-GEAR REVS @ 60 MPH 1,900 rpm CONSUMER INFO BASE PRICE $71,295 PRICE AS TESTED $73,090 STABILITY/TRACTION CONTROL Yes/Yes AIRBAGS 8: Dual front, front side, f/r curtain, front knee BASIC WARRANTY 3 yrs/36,000 miles POWERTRAIN WARRANTY 5 yrs/60,000 miles ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE 5 yrs/60,000 miles FUEL CAPACITY 19.0 gal EPA CITY/HWY/COMB ECON 14/20/16 mpg ENERGY CONS, CITY/HWY 241/169 kW-hrs/100 miles CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 1.20 lb/mile RECOMMENDED FUEL Unleaded premium The post Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE: 4th Place – 2017 Motor Trend Best Driver’s Car appeared first on Motor Trend.

http://www.motortrend.com/news/chevrolet-camaro-zl1-1le-4th-place-2017-best-drivers-car/

#Best Driver's Car #Car Performance

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