This (Non) Sporting Life: Tournament Tension

So yesterday afternoon while I was at work, I decided to check in on Duke's opening game in the NCCA Men's Basketball Tournament. 

The Duke Blue Devils are a #1 seed and they were playing a #16 seed, the Siena Saints. 

Because I am a guy who does not know or even care much about sports, I really cannot handle the stress of a close game and much prefer whatever team I'm rooting for to engage in what I call a romp 'n' stomp. 

Since Duke is a #1 seed and Siena is a #16, I expected a classic romp 'n' stomp.

What I found instead when I turned in at half time was Duke was DOWN by 11 points.

Duke was DOWN?!?! To THESE GUYS?!?!

Oh come on! This can NOT be happening! 

Online there was a headline about the status of the game at half time: DUKE gets BURNT by SIENA! 

You know, like the color, burnt sienna?

Some sports writer somewhere scored a once in a lifetime headline. 

But would they be able to use that headline for the whole game?

Thankfully.... no. 

Over the course of the 2nd half, Duke began playing more like what I expect from Duke but damn, it felt like like moving through proverbial molasses watching Duke overcome it's deficit and eventually pull ahead.

But it was no romp 'n' stomp!

Final score: 71 to 65.  

What happened in the 1st half? Duke coach Jon Scheyer said, "I just got outcoached!" 

I don't understand the intricate mechanics of basketball coaching. If I were to be plopped down in an arena somewhere and told to coach a team, my best advice would be "Put the ball through the hoop!"

Really, that's all I know. 

Later in the evening, Andrea settled in to watch her beloved Carolina Tarheels play the VCU Rams.  

Which was a good ol' fashioned romp 'n' stomp!

At one point, Carolina was leading by 19 points! 

I was a bit jealous that Andrea was getting a romp 'n' stomp out of Carolina which is all I wanted out of Duke.

Carolina would eventually disavow me of that jealousy.

As VCU began to inch it's way out of the hole it was in and pushed the game to a tie, 75-75 and we're in overtime, folks!

Where VCU would go on to win, 82-78 in the largest 1st-round comeback in NCAA tournament history. 

Even though I do not know or even care much about sports, I still thought that sucked.

Andrea who does care deeply about these things was prepared to commit Seppuku. 

She was seriously bummed.  

How is she today?  Let's see....

Still in mourning, I see.

Which is why I am glad I do not know or care much about sports.

Your Friday Video Link: What Is This "Fun" You Speak Of?

 

When I go out to run an errand of any kind, my wife Andrea tells me to have fun.

Fun? Have fun?

Chances are if I'm going somewhere, I'm

...going somewhere I do not want to go.

...to do something I do not want to do.

...to spend money I do not want to spend.

Fun?

What is this "fun" that she speaks of?

I'm turning to this week's Your Friday Video Link for an answer.

I think I'm siding with Plankton on this. 

I Gotta Come Up With Something?

 BLOG BIDNESS: Did I really mean to have both a Doctor Who post AND a comic book post on the SAME day at the SAME time? 

No, I did not! 

Personally I blame the I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You Editorial Board! 

Well, I gotta fill up Thursday with something else now.

C'mon! Think! Think!  

There's always  some Donald Trump bull shit, right?

Dammit! I don't wanna go there! 

OK, let me put a pin in this fucking thing: Li'l Donnie made fun of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for having  dyslexia  and Trump said Gavin cannot be President of the United States  with a  “learning disability.”

“We have a low-IQ person, you know, because Gavin ‘Newscum’ has admitted that he is a — that he has learning disabilities,” I’m all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president. I don’t want — I think the president should not have learning disabilities.”

Given that Trump is a motherfucking 79 year old man who reads at a goddam 2nd grade level, he's fine one to talk about people with learning disabilities should not be President.

And about 20% of Americans might take issue with Li'l Donnie's perspective.  

1 in 5 people in the United States have some form of dyslexia.

I swear to Dog I did not know that. 

I guess I can cover some ground about how Donald Trump's war with Iran is just getting worse and....

Fuck it, that'll wait until Monday.

If he hasn't blown up the world by then or something.

Let me check with the blog's writers.

Nothing in there.

Hey, let's get personal.  What's going on with me?

Absolutely nothing. 

I am the least interesting person in the world. 

Why do I even have a blog?

Oh, I have lost 84 pounds since last March so there's that going for me. 

Hey, Tom Holland's back for his 4th Spider-Man movie!

Here's the trailer! 

Hey, Mark Ruffalo is back as Bruce Banner? Cool!  

So that's it! 

We're back tomorrow with Your Friday Video Link which is connected to Spongebob Squarepants.

And Saturday is Movie Timewhich is connected to Spongebob Squarepants.

And Sunday we go Star Trekking with Spongebob Squarepants....NO! With Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Y'all be good to one another, OK?

Dave-El's Spinner Rack: DC K.O.

 And we're back for a 3rd week of spinning around Dave-El's ol' spinner rack.

Since comics are sold out of comic book shops, the concept of the spinner rack is an antiquated one from my kidhood when I first got into comics.

In my small southern town where I lived, there were two spinner racks, 1 at a convenience store called the Pantry and another at a drug store downtown. 

Both racks made a loud "SQUEE-AWK!" sound when you turned them. All the better I assume to let some clerk know some kid was messing with the comic books and be on high alert in case someone decided to bolt out of the store with a handful of free comic books.  

I dutifully paid for all my comics. 

I kind of miss the thrill of turning the spinner rack and being surprised by what comics I might find on sale that week. 

Well, that's all nostalgia and this post is about new comics I have purchased recently.

Today's post is about DC Comics' big event comic DC K.O.

The "KO" in DC K.O. does NOT stand for "Knock Out" but refers to "King Omega".  

King Omega is an ultimate source of power that is needed to stop Darkseid who is returning to our universe after being banished outside our dimension where he created his own universe.  (Stories set in the universe are chronicled in DC's Absolute line.)   

To earn the right to obtain the power of King Omega, various heroes and villains have to fight each other until only one remains, the one who will be come King Omega.

There are various obstacles along the way as the field of heroes and villains is winnowed down. 

For example, the mind controlled heroes of the Absolute Universe show up to cause some problems. 

The Batman of our universe thinks the Batman of the Absolute Universe has an ugly Bat emblem. (And he's right!) 

One battle after another (hey, that would be a great title for an Oscar winning movie) ensue along with various shenanigans and betrayals and twists and what have you and finally the field is narrowed down to....

Superman and Lex Luthor.

Big blue boy scout that he is, Superman suggests teaming up with Lex to take the King Omega power and stop Darkseid.

Lex remembers that them's not the rules and ambushes Superman. 

There can only be ONE winner!

And Lex Luthor declares himself King Omega!

If DC K.O. seems an RPG in comic book form, writer Scott Snyder points that out with a flashback subplot to a game night at the Kents where Clark and Lois welcome Diana and Bruce to play a board game based on their super hero exploits. 

Bruce gets all the best dice rolls.  Clark asks if Bruce is cheating.

Bruce replies he's not cheating. He's Batman.

Those interludes are a lot of fun and I would like to see more of that sort of interaction in the DC Universe.

Meanwhile, back to the brouhaha that is the main event of this book.

A prime rule in the DC Universe, let's call it Rule #1: when Lex Luthor thinks he's winning, he's not.  

Ultimately, Darkseid's opponent is who we kind knew it always had to be: Superman.

The knock down drag out between Darkseid and Superman crosses different Crisis events of of the DC Multiverse such as 2011’s Flashpoint and 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

All of this is brought to life by some spectacular art by  Javier Fernández and brilliant colors by Alejandro Sánchez.

In the series epilogue by  Joshua Williamson, Xermanico and Wes Craig, we get a glimpse of the future with more universe shattering events and perhaps more changes to the canon that was just established in Mark Waid’s New History of the DC Universe.

Such is the state of modern comics: the only constant is change. 

Speaking of Mark Waid’s New History of the DC Universe, I don't think I've made note of my impression of that series.

cover by Chris Samnee 

Props to Mark Waid for trying to forge a cohesive narrative to a comic book universe riddled by decades of revamps, reboots, revisions, ret-cons and contradictions.  

The unifying thread to this narrative is Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash whose time travelling and dimension spanning super speed provides a unique and very human perspective on the various crisis level events that have struck Earth and the surrounding universe.  

Points to Mark Waid for trying but there's still too much that has gone on in DC's near century existence to not make this a bit of a slog to get through. 

It can be a bit of fun for a trivia obsessed nerd like myself but as a coherent story of DC's definitive history, it doesn't quite stick the landing.

And since the events of VDC K.O. opens the door to that "definitive" history already being re-written mere months after it was published, well, what was the point? 

I also took issue with shifting artists on New History of the DC Universe which undermines the idea of some kind of unified historical narrative.  

For truly dedicated trivia nerds, the back pages of each issue is an illustrated glossary that reference the specific comics Mark Waid used in his history story. 

Variant cover by Scott Koblish  

And that is that for this edition of Dave-El's Spinner Rack. 

I began this post with an exercise in nostalgia. Next week's comic book post is ALL nostalgia as I take another look back at comic books I bought 50 years ago.

What did Dave-El buy off the spinner rack in March 1976?

"SQUEE-AWK!"

We'll find out next week.  

Doctor Who Is Found: The Daleks' Master Plan

On Sunday I posted that this blog will now have some dedicated space to Star Trek fandom.

But Doctor Who will not be forgotten on this blog.

Today's post is about a suprising find in the search for the Whovian Holy Grail: missing episodes.

Back in the 1960's, the BBC considered television programs to be ephemeral, to be seen once and never again.  So recordings of program were frequently erased.

And the most egregious victim of this practice was Doctor Who. Why would would anyone want to keep a record of that silly old doddering man running away from the ridiculous pepper pots?

Well, we do!

So fans have been scouring the world to find copies of missing episodes and occassionally, even after 60 plus years of searching, something turns up.

The most recent find includes a pair of episodes from the epic serial, "The Daleks' Master Plan".  

Below is a clip from one of those episodes.

Yes, that IS Nicholas Courtney.

But NO, that is NOT Brigadier Alistair Letheridge Stewart.

So Nicholas Courtey is on the list of "Actors Who Were On Doctor Who Before They Were On Doctor Who".  

That wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey list also includes:

• Colin Baker
• Freeman Agyeman 
• Karen Gillan 
• Peter Capaldi 

Below is a clip from the BBC morning show BBC Breakfast on March 13, 2026 where  Toby Hadoke tells about a surprise screening of the lost episodes to  Peter Purves who played companion Steven Taylor alongside William Hartnell's Doctor. 

The episodes "The Nightmare Begins" and "Devil's Planet" will be shown in full on BBC iPlayer on Easter.  

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Outlander, St. Denis Medical, Georgie & Mandy and Stumble

We've got a lot of ground to cover so let's get this Touchbase underway! 

So Andrea and I were watching Jeopardy when there was a category presented by Sam Heughan who plays Jamie Fraser on Outlander. Ken Jennings thanked Sam for presenting the category and reminded us the 8th and final season of Outlander was premiering that week.

WHAT? How did I NOT know that it was returning that week? I used to be some much better at keeping track of these things.

Anyway....

So I caught up to the season premiere of Outlander, heart in hand, knowing it's time for the series to go and no quite ready to let go.

The year is 1779 and it's old home week up on Fraser's Ridge in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

Jamie has resigned his commission as a general in George Washington's army. 

Jamie and Claire have returned home with a newly discovered granddaughter Frances by way of daughter Faith who was supposed to have died in childbirth way back in season 2. 

What?!?

And we have more family reunion in store with the time travelling Brianna, Roger and their kids, Jemmy and Mandy, escaping threats and nonsense in the 20th century.

Ian and Rachel have also settled on the ridge with a baby on the way. 

Life is good on the ridge. Except the Frasers may have made an enemy despite themselves.  

And the future holds some dark portents.  Brianna brought back a recently published history book by her late 20th century dad Frank Randall. 

That tells the tale of Jamie Fraser's death in battle during the American Revolution in 1780.  

Maybe giving this book to Jamie as a gift (without reading it first) was not a good idea.   

Man, I hate this show! Whose dumb idea was it for me to watch this thing?

Oh, it was me! 

More to come as they say.

________________________________

Last week was birthday week for St. Denis Medical and Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage.

Matt spends his birthday at a laser tag place in an episode with no scenes set at St. Denis. 

We get some good character development as the very shallow surgeon Bruce and the emotionally detached nurse Serena both find themselvese expressing genuine affection for our hapless Matt.

Poor Alex with a rare moment not on duty as the head nurse or on high alert as a mother to her kids just wants to play some laser tag.  Everything that can go wrong goes wrong.

Meanwhile in Texas in the 1990's, George Cooper Jr, our erstwhile Georgie, turns 21 but it's Mandy who's drawing focus. She's not coping well with the fallout of her referring to God as "her" in during a TV broadcast which has cost Mandy her job. 

What's the big deal with calling God "her"? Well, it's the 1990's and she's in Texas.  Given what's going on in Texas today with mandated Bible teaching in public school, it being a different decade may not make much of a difference.

So Mandy gets black out drunk at Georgie's birthday celebration and spends the next day trying to piece together what happened the night before.

Nothing she finds out makes her look good.

And Georgie who is 21 comes off more mature than Mandy at 31. Is this a fracture in the foundation that will make their marriage their "first"?  

________________________________

Also last week, Andrea and I caught up to the season finale of  Stumble. 

Coach Courteney Potter has managed to bring her rag tag cheer team from Heådltston* State Junior College to the national cheer competition in Daytona.

*It is entirely up to you how you pronounce that.

Courteney  is determined to snag her 15th cheer championship trophy but they are, of course, obstacles.

Her former assistant and now arch nemesis Tammy Istiny has brought the cheer squad from Sammy Davis Sr. Junior College.

And one of the competition judges is none other than Marg Hargberg who was Courteney's former coach when she was a cheerleader. Marge was a cruel and brutal taskmaster towards young Courteney and adult Courteney is still feeling those scars.

Marg Hargberg is played by Katey Sagal.  For a photo of what she looked like when Courteney was a teenage, the producers use a photo of Katey as Peg Bundy from Married With Children.

Courteney's team takes the mat for a 2 minute plus routine that is flashy and flawless. 

The team comes in third.

Well, that sucks! 

Will we see what happens next season? NBC has not announced a decision if Stumble will be renewed.

I hope it is because this has been a genuinely laugh out loud comedy series that Andrea and I have enjoyed a lot.

________________________________

Andrea and I caught up to the season finale of  Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. 

I will say in this space that it was great but more than that will have to wait for this blog's dedicated Star Trek space, Star Trekking which will post on Sunday.

That is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.   

Trump's War Against America

In today's earlier post, I wrote about Donald Trump's war against Iran.

Added note about that: 

Trump has said that Iran's military is "obliterated".

Then he asked for other nations to help defend the Strait of Hormuz from attacks by Iran's military.

You know, the one Trump said was obliterated? 

Meanwhile the response from other nations has been 1 of the following:

1. Silence
2. A cautious "we'll have to think about it"
3. A firm NO!

Basically, Trump broke this thing, he needs to buy it.

So that's what's going on with Trump's war against Iran.

But what about that other country Li'l Donnie is at war with?

How goes Trump's war against America?

Well, it's kinda scary.

Der Führer latest attack on the world's leading alleged democracy is the SAVE Act.

Well, what fresh hell is this latest fuckery?

The SAVE Act a.k.a., the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (H.R. 8281/H.R. 7296) is a proposed federal law requiring individuals to provide official written proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

Now what pray tell would be allowed as "official written proof of U.S. citizenship"?

Don't think you're gonna saunter up to your local elections board office and register to vote with your driver's license or your student I.D. or your honorary Justice League membership card. 

What you need to prove your citizenship is your birth certificate.

God help you if you've lost the damn thing cause it takes time and money to replace it.

And God help you if it doesn't have the same name you have now because that's a real deal breaker. 

So if my wife Andrea needed to register to vote, the current Mrs. Long may have some difficulty in that is NOT her last name on her birth certificate. 

Thankfully she doesn't need to register to vote but Li'l Donnie would just love to extend the proof of citizenship requirement to actually showing up to cast  a ballot.

And besides married ladies who took their husband's last name, guess who else the SAVE Act fucks over?

Every MAGA head's favorite enemy of America, them thar dang transgenders.

Dadgum transgenders ruin everything! I think I saw one at a Cracker Barrel last week and my chicken 'n' dumplings tasted funny! 

Where was I? Oh yeah...

Need an alternative to providing a birth certificate? Well, the SAVE Act helpfully provides another option: your passport.

About half of Americans do not have a passport.

Count me among them.

And if you do want to get a passport, it takes time (approximately 3 to 4 weeks) and money (last I check, around $186) to get one.

Along with proving your citizenship to register to vote, the SAVE Act severely curtails mail in voting. 

Former President Jimmy Carter was against mail in voting.

It's true because Donald Trump said so.

OK, sarcasm alert! 

Of course it's a lie because Li'l Donnie's lips were moving.

Carter was a proponent of mail in voting and voted that way in the last years of his life.

Do you know who else has voted via a mailed in ballot?

His name rhymes with Fonald K. Grump.

By the way, once signed into law the SAVE Act would go into effect immediately.

So fuck you if you haven't registered to vote in time for the 2026 midterms. 

Anyway, der Führer is doing a full course press on Congress passing the SAVE Act NOW above all other considerations.  The House passed the measure along party lines but the Senate is not eager to take it up.

 Republicans need some Democrats to cross party lines to vote for this piece of shit legislation to pass with 60 votes and that ain't gonna happen.

So Trump is yelling at Senate Republicans to get rid of the filibuster so Republicans can pass this damn thing with a simple majority.

Which is great for Li'l Donnie's short term gain to fuck over Democrat voters but Senate Repubicans know their majority hold on the Senate is not forever and they worry what terrible things Democrats might push through without worrying about a 60 votes threshhold.

God forbid they might push through universal health care or some other awful thing.

About the SAVE Act....

May I play Devil's Advocate for a moment?

OK, that was fun.

Where was I? Oh yeah....

Isn't making sure non citizens are NOT voting a good thing?

Well, yes it is.

And guess what? It's ALREADY against the law for non citizens to vote.

AND it is NOT a problem that is actually a problem.

There is no evidence that this is some kind of widespread epidemic of fraud.

A non-citizen trying to vote has happened. There was one case of it in Florida where someone from Canada tried to vote.  

We know this because the system works: the guy was identified and caught. 

Studies by the very conservative, very right wing Heritage Foundation have concluded there is very little actual fraud happening in our election system.

So why the big push for the SAVE Act?

The only reason why modern Republicans get into a tizzy of a snit over anything these days: Donald Trump's ego.

Widdle Donnie Trump got his feelings hurt in 2020 when he lost the election.  Because der Führer sees himself as the best President ever in the history of Presidents, he cannot conceive of a nation that saw him as a lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, sociopathic, dishonorable, treasonous, gutless, moronic, heartless, soulless, slimy, loathsome, vile, incompetent, psychotic, crooked, disgusting, reprehensible, revolting, horrible, malicious, obnoxious, hateful, small minded, despicable god damn, motherfucking piece of shit! 

So the only answer has to be the election was stolen. 

And he will NOT let go of that lie.

And he has enough snivelling syncophants in Congress and in his administration to take action on all his whims.

And Donald Trump's assault on how we vote is not the only attack he's making on America.

OK, this post is going on too damn long so just link here to Li'l Donnie's boast about reshaping the media to fit his narcissistic  propoganda.  

der Führer is trying to control not just how we vote but how we think. 

And that is the state of Trump's war against America. 

And unlike his war against Iran, Li'l Donnie has willing supplicants to help him.