• Gina Loukareas
    Vulcan Salute statue to be built in Boston in honor of Leonard Nimoy

    Today is Leonard Nimoy Day in Boston, and what better way to celebrate than the announcement of a 20-ft Vulcan Salute statue that will be built in front of the Museum of Science.

    The Live Long and Prosper statute is designed by local sculptor David Phillips, in conjunction with the Nimoy family. Leonard's daughter, Julia said:

    The 'Live Long and Prosper' symbol represents a message that my dad believed so strongly in. My dad always loved Boston and he would be honored knowing that the Museum of Science would be the permanent home to this memorial. The sculpture not only depicts one of the world's most recognized and loved gestures for peace, tolerance, and diversity, but it will also be a beautiful tribute to my dad's life and legacy.

    Nimoy grew up in Boston's West End, just blocks away from the museum. He narrated a short film for the museum, which was mandatory viewing on all school field trips.

    Donations to defray the $1 million dollar price tag of the sculpture are being accepted on the museum's website. Museum president Tim Ritchie said:

    He lifted our aspirations and hopes through his commitment to science, intellectual curiosity, generosity, and, yes, logic. He reminded us about the best part of humanity and gave us a vision for building a society based on reason and tolerance. The opportunity to pay tribute to him is a great honor and what better day to make this announcement than on what would have been his 90th birthday.

    LLAP

  • Gina Loukareas
    Pepsi and Peeps collaborate on Easter sugar shock

    If your teeth started to hurt for no reason this morning, it might have been caused by the announcement of a collaboration from adorable hell.

    Introducing Peeps-flavored Pepsi:

    (Photo: Pepsi x Peeps)

    Todd Kaplan, Pepsi's VP of Marketing, said "After what has been a very difficult year, many consumers are looking for new things to smile about. So, to celebrate the start of springtime, Pepsi collaborated with PEEPS to develop a limited batch of its first-ever marshmallow cola."

    Here's my question: Peeps essentially taste like sugar, unless you brûlée them with a torch. So won't this just taste extra-sugary?

    Unfortunately, Pepsi x Peeps won't be available on store shelves. You'll have to tweet to win it. These begrudgingly cute cans are limited edition, which is probably a good thing. I hate myself for wanting them.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Marilyn Hartman, stowaway extraordinaire, arrested for 22nd time

    How is there not a movie about this woman??

    69-year-old Marilyn Hartman was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Tuesday, just two weeks after a plea deal for a previously attempted stowaway was rejected.

    Hartman granted CBS 2 Chicago's Brad Edwards her very first in-depth interview last October and the piece aired over the weekend.

    From CBS 2 Chicago:

    In those several phone calls and letters with Edwards, Ms. Hartman had a warmth about her, was contemplative. She wrote of the inequities, Jim Crow- like in jail.

    She's currently out of jail on electronic monitoring and on a steady diet of counseling and daily meds.

    Edwards noted: "So, you've had a hell of a life."

    "Yeah, it's been. It has been," she answered.

    Edwards asked, "Would you consider yourself fascinating?"

    "Yes I would under the circumstances … and I downplay it, Brad, I don't. Yeah," she said.

    Hartman never did an in-depth interview "… Until I was confident that I wouldn't take an illegal flight again," she said.

    Oops.

    Harmon is being held without bail and is expected to face felony escape charges.

  • Gina Loukareas
    The Last of Us Part II leads BAFTA Games Award nominations

    On Tuesday, the BAFTA Game Awards announced their 2021 nominees with Sony/Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II leading the pack with a record-breaking thirteen nominations, including Best Game. Animal Crossing; New Horizons, Ghosts of Tsushima, Hades, Half-Life: Alyx, and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales round out the Best Game nominees.

    A full list of categories and nominees can be found here. The BAFTA Games Awards will be live-streamed on March 25th on Twitch, YouTube and other platforms.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Dolly Parton gets the vaccine she helped to fund

    After contributing $1,000,000 to its development last year, American treasure Dolly Parton received her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday. Appearing at Vanderbilt University alongside Dr. Naji Abumrad, Ms. Parton encouraged those hesitating to be vaccinated to stop being "such a chicken squat."

    All together now! "Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaciiiine, I'm begging of you please don't hesitate/Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaciiiine, 'cause once you're dead, then that's a bit too late."

    Anything for you, Ms. Dolly.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Meghan McCain wants Dr. Anthony Fauci replaced by someone who "understands science"

    Meghan McCain, co-host of The View and daughter of the late Senator John McCain has said some very dumb things during her time on the ABC talk show. But comments she made yesterday about the vaccine roll-out might just be the worst.

    McCain is just SO over Dr. Fauci and his careful rhetoric about when America can go back to something resembling normal. She just wants to know when she can do shots with her friends like they're doing in Israel! Here's what the esteemed immunologist Dr. McCain had to say.


    "I think the Biden administration should remove him (Dr. Fauci) and put someone in place who maybe does understand science…"

    Well, you had a good run, Dr. Fauci. But the author of Dirty Sexy Politics is over you and it's time to move on. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

    Twitter reacted to McCain's comments in the calm and cool manner it's known for. Just kidding — they torched her.


    If you thought Meghan had a moment of self-awareness after the show and realized how incredibly entitled she sounded, you've probably never heard of Meghan McCain until today (you lucky SOB).

    But isn't an alter of Fauchi (sic) what Meghan wanted? I don't speak entitlement so it's all very confusing to me. Either way, if Meghan doesn't get her first vaccination soon, I'm sure her Mom, Cindy, will come to the rescue.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Watch Hamilton: An Animal Crossing Musical

    I recently started playing Animal Crossing again after a Fortnite-focused break. While searching YouTube for tips on how to deal with capitalist slumlord Tom Nook, I came across this jaw-dropping gem of a video and did not move for an hour and thirteen minutes.


    The attention to detail is truly astonishing and the casting is perfect. It's a genuine masterpiece. Creator Guitar_Knight14 is currently hard at work on Act II. I'm willing to wait for it.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Ted Cruz, the Salacious B. Crumb of Congress, defends Gina Carano

    On the grand importance scale of shitty things Ted Cruz has done, this likely ranks near the bottom. But it's infuriating nonetheless because it's just so stupid and wrong — adjectives often befitting of Cruz himself.

    A quick refresher: Last Wednesday, Lucasfilm fired Gina Carano from The Mandalorian after a series of tweets dating back to early 2020 that covered the whole range of Things Horrible People Post on Social Media. Anti-mask, anti-Trans, anti-BLM, anti-Semitic, anti-election reality…she basically ran the gamut and Lucasfilm was over it. But don't cry too hard for Gina — she's already found a new job!

    Yes, THAT Ben Shapiro.

    Details about the future Razzie nominee haven't been announced and the rumors of Kevin Sorbo and Scott Baio sleeping outside of Shapiro's house have yet to be proven. Emphasis on yet.

    Now that you're caught up, let's talk about Senator Crumb…I mean, Senator Cruz and this incredibly dumb tweet.

    Let's just get this out of the way — Disney didn't cancel Cara Dune; they fired the actress who plays her. To put it in terms Cruz might understand, back from when he was a big fan of "cancel culture", the San Francisco 49'ers still have a quarterback despite cutting ties with Colin Kaepernick. Kap didn't take the position with him.

    Now that we've cleared that up, I have a question for Senator Cruz.

    How dare you?

    You cannot compare Cara Dune to Padmé Amidala. Who, by the way, was a better senator than you. You cannot compare Cara Dune to Rey Skywalker. And you absolutely, positively cannot compare Cara Dune to Princess Leia…or should I say, General Leia Skywalker Organa. I mean, you can compare them, but it just shows how utterly ignorant you are.

    When Carrie Fisher died in 2016, Malcom Sheppard, creator of the blog You're Always Being Judged wrote an incredible obituary for General Organa.

    Before Leia Organa, the Empire destroyed civilizations to power a war machine for the glory of its elites. Because of her, galactic civilization doesn't consist of thousands of starving worlds, whose inhabitants gaze into skies swarming with Death Stars built from their stolen productivity. 

    You might want to remember that the next time you dismissively refer to Leia as a "princess", you cretinous toad. Oh, and nice haircut.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Seniors become hot vaccine commodity in Massachusetts

    On Wednesday, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced that younger people who accompany seniors 75 and over to get the Covid vaccine can get vaccinated as well. By allowing companions to also get the shot, the hope was that more seniors who might have been afraid to travel alone to the state's mass vaccination sites would now sign up. And they did! The response was overwhelming.

    How overwhelming?

    On Thursday, Craigslist Boston had close to twenty ads from people who were suddenly filled with kindness and desperately wanted to volunteer to give seniors a free ride to be vaccinated.

    A few good-doers were even offering cash to seniors for the privilege of transporting them to the vaccination site.


    You have to admire the ingenuity. People are desperate to be vaccinated for a myriad of reasons and the waiting game sucks for everyone. But at the same time, as Gov. Baker said on Thursday, seniors shouldn't be taking rides from strangers in any instances, let alone to get vaccinated. Here's to hoping those 600 million doses ordered by the federal government come through for everyone.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Zoom filter turns lawyer into kitten during hearing

    A live-streamed hearing from Texas' 394th Judicial District Court produced a moment that definitely needs to go in whatever COVID time capsule is eventually buried. This video is absolute purrfection.


    Cattorney-at-law Rod Poston told Vice he wasn't kitten around with the filter and is feline fine.

    "Oh, that was just a mistake by my secretary," he said. "I was using her computer and for some reason she had that filter on. I took it off and replaced it with my face. It was a case involving a man trying to exit the United States with contraband and contraband cash. All it was was a mistake. It was taken off and we had the hearing as normal."


    Catastrophe avoided. Let this be a cautionary tail to all.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Legendary singer Tony Bennett has Alzheimer's

    AARP has a remarkable profile of 94-year-old iconic crooner Tony Bennett's battle with Alzheimer's. Diagnosed four years ago, the Bennett family kept it a secret, choosing to reveal it now as the singer's new album with Lady Gaga approaches its release date. The family made the decision without Bennett's input as he "is incapable of understanding the disease."

    From John Colapinto:

    Bennett himself was seated at a desk along one wall, his chair turned toward the windows as he paged slowly through a coffee-table book open on his lap. Nattily dressed in a blue blazer over an open-collared shirt, dark slacks and white running shoes, he was, at 94, startlingly youthful in appearance and instantly recognizable: the blue, heavy-lidded eyes, the iconic Roman nose, the coiffed salt-and-pepper hair. Missing, however, was the easy, ever-present smile that helped brand him the nice-guy singing idol of his generation — more approachable than the volatile Sinatra, or the jokily "drunken" Dean Martin. Instead, his expression had a masklike impassivity that changed only slightly to dim awareness when Susan, a slim, fine-featured 54-year-old, placed a hand on his shoulder, leaned over and said: "This is John, Tone. He's come to talk to us about the new album." She spoke into his ear, a little loudly perhaps, in a prompting, emphatic register, as if trying to reach her husband through a barrier that had fallen between him and the rest of the world. Indeed she was. He looked expressionlessly into my eyes before returning wordlessly to his book.

    It's a lengthy profile of a life that continues to be well-lived, even in the face of an unsparing disease. Bennett and Gaga's album is scheduled for release this spring.


    Tony Bennett's Battle With Alzheimer's (John Colapinto/AARP)

  • Gina Loukareas
    Biden administration announces at-home COVID test with 95% accuracy

    Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Andy Slavitt announced this morning that a new over-the-counter COVID-19 test kit will be available later this month for consumers. Manufactured by Ellume Health in Australia, the nasal swab test claims a 95% accuracy rating with results available in 15 minutes.

    From Ellume Health's website:

    "The test includes a sterile Nasal Swab, a Dropper, Processing Fluid, and a Bluetooth® connected Analyzer for use with an App on the user's smartphone.

    Utilizing the dedicated App, the user follows step-by-step instructions to perform the test including a self-collected mid-turbinate swab. The sample is analyzed and results are automatically transmitted to the user's smartphone via Bluetooth®. Results can be shared with healthcare professionals to enable optimal therapy.

    Through a secure cloud connection, the Ellume COVID-19 Home Test provides real time reporting of test results and critical data to health authorities, employers and educators, for efficient COVID-19 mapping."

    The $231,000,000 contract awarded by the US government will ramp up production through the building of a new factory, with the goal of manufacturing over eight million tests for federal use. The tests are expected to cost $30.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Budweiser to skip Super Bowl ads, donate to vaccine awareness campaign

    For the first time in 37 years, Budweiser will not advertise during the Super Bowl. Instead, the company whose commercials have become iconic will donate $1,000,000 to the Ad Council and COVID Collaborative's Vaccine Education Initiative.

    In a statement, Budweiser's VP of Marketing, Monica Rustgi said: "Like everyone else, we are eager to get people back together, reopen restaurants and bars, and be able to gather to cheers with friends and family. To do this, and to bring consumers back into neighborhood bars and restaurants that were hit exceptionally hard by the pandemic, we're stepping in to support critical awareness of the COVID-19 vaccine."

    In the days leading up to Super Bowl LV, Budweiser will run a 90-second ad on digital platforms titled "Bigger Picture". Narrated by Rashida Jones, the ad aims to "champion those stories and honor the ordinary people of America doing extraordinary things."

  • Gina Loukareas
    Sarah Huckabee Sanders is running for Governor of Arkansas

    Former Trump administration press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced her candidacy for Governor of Arkansas this morning with a video straight out of the Leni Rienfenstahl School of Propaganda.

    The seven minute video has what can best be described as an alternative facts recall of Sanders' time at the White House.

    I took on the media, the radical left and their cancel culture, and I won.

    So much winning.

    Sanders left the Trump administration in June of 2019. This will be an interesting race to watch as Sanders is the first high profile member of the disastrous administration to run for public office. She'll be running against current Lt. Governor Tim Griffin and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge in the Republican primary.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Georgia man arrested at Capitol insurrection commits suicide

    On Wednesday, January 6th, Christopher Stanton Georgia, of Alpharetta, GA was arrested in Washington, D.C. and charged with unlawful entry of public property and violating the 6:00 PM curfew set earlier that afternoon by the city's mayor. His arrest was one of only a few dozen that happened on the actual day of the attack on the Capitol. He pleaded not guilty the following day and was released on bail.

    Georgia died on Saturday of a self-inflected gunshot wound to the chest. He had been employed at BB&T in Atlanta as an investment banker.

    Georgia's is the second suicide related to last week's attack. On Saturday, Buzzfeed reported on the suicide of Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood. Liebengood was at the Capitol during Wednesday's siege. CBS News investigative producer Michael Kaplan tweeted that other officers present that day have been struggling.

    If you or someone you know have been having suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1- 800-273-8255 or text HELP to 741741.

  • Gina Loukareas
    Patriots head coach Bill Belichick declines Presidential Medal of Freedom

    Monday evening, New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick became the first person in recent history to decline the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The nation's highest civilian honor was scheduled to be presented to Belichick on Thursday.

    In a statement released to the press, Belichick wrote:

    Recently, I was offered the opportunity to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which I was flattered by out of respect for what the honor represents and admiration for prior recipients.

    Subsequently, the tragic events of last week occurred and the decision has been made not to move forward with the award. Above all, I am an American citizen with great reverence for our nation's values, freedom, and democracy. I know I also represent my family and the New England Patriots team.

    One of the most rewarding things in my professional career took place in 2020 when, through the great leadership within our team, conversations about social justice, equality, and human rights moved to the forefront and became actions. Continuing those efforts while remaining true to people, team, and country I love outweigh the benefits of any individual award.

    The White House has not commented on Belichick's statement. Last week, medals were awarded to golfers Gary Player and Annika Sörenstam one day after the insurrection at the nation's Capitol.

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