'So unproductive, so nasty, so unnecessary'

He throws himself into more daredevil stunt scenes that leave fans craving more

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News Thunderbolts The Thunderbolts* Are Not So Sure About That Team Name “Do we all just punch and shoot?” Yes, Yelena, it looks that way. By Molly Templeton | Published on November 11, 2024 Screenshot: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Marvel Studios If the whole scrappy-bad-kids-team-up dynamic of Thunderbolts* seems a little overly familiar these days, well, at least they’re really going for it. The latest preview of the upcoming film—billed as a “special look” from D23 rather than just a plain old trailer—is one part clip and one part reintroduction of the major players. First we get an extended version of the “Bucky breaks up the slow-motion chase scene” that appeared briefly in the previous teaser, and then a little rundown of reluctant teammates Yelena (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Bucky (Sebastian Stan), and John Walker (Wyatt Russell). Oh, and Bob (Lewis Pullman). And then there’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who seems to have purchased the Avengers tower. This has, sort of, maybe, been a thing fans have been wondering about since Tony Stark sold the building in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Frankly I find that less intriguing than the scene in which Yelena walks away from a job with a cute little guinea pig in her sweatshirt (which was also in the previous teaser). Why? How? Where? These are the mysteries I personally look forward to understanding. (I would also like to give a cookie to whoever picked the Toadies’ “Possum Kingdom” for this not-a-trailer.) There is also the mystery of the asterisk in that title, which here seems to be a product of dissent in the ranks about the team name. Red Guardian likes it. Ghost and Bucky are not having it. Jake Schreier (Paper Towns) directs Thunderbolts* from a screenply by Eric Pearson (Black Widow), Lee Sung Jin (Beef), and Joanna Calo (The Bear). It’s in theaters May 2, 2025.[end-mark] The post The <i>Thunderbolts*</i> Are Not So Sure About That Team Name appeared first on Reactor.

Column Babylon 5 Rewatch Babylon 5 Rewatch: “A Race Through Dark Places” Winters helps a group of unregistered telepaths, while Delenn makes an effort to get to know Sheridan better… By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on November 11, 2024 Credit: Warner Bros. Television Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. Television “A Race Through Dark Places”Written by J. Michael StraczynskiDirected by Jim JohnstonSeason 2, Episode 8Production episode 207Original air date: January 25, 1995 It was the dawn of the third age… Sheridan and Ivanova are having a budget meeting. To Sheridan’s annoyance, due to less revenue for the station, Earth is giving the captain and commander two choices: move to smaller quarters or pay thirty credits a week in rent. Sheridan is beyond outraged, digs his heels in, and makes it clear that he will do neither of those things, and neither will Ivanova. On Mars, Bester interrogates a fellow telepath about an underground railroad for unregistered telepaths, performing a sufficiently deep scan that it kills him, despite his attempts to resist. Bester gets the information with his dying thought: that the waystation for the railroad is B5. Sheridan is ranting and raving to Franklin about the crew quarters thing, with Franklin pointing out that he’s probably going to lose this fight, which doesn’t even slow Sheridan’s outrage down a little. Then Delenn comes by and asks Sheridan to dinner. She’s trying to be a bridge between human and Minbari, but she has realized that she doesn’t know much about humans, beyond work-related stuff. So she wants to share a meal with Sheridan and talk about non-work things. Bester arrives at the station and meets with Sheridan, Ivanova, Garibaldi, and Winters. Bester explains the situation, then he and Winters leave the three EarthForce officers to discuss the matter. As far as Ivanova is concerned, Psi Corps can go hang and the underground railroad should go merrily along, but Garibaldi is duty-bound to uphold the law and this railroad is criminal. Sheridan agrees, and orders Garibaldi to assist Bester’s investigation. While discussing the matter with Winters, Bester telepathically overhears someone thinking, “MURDERER” in his direction. This confirms to him that the railroad really is here. That telepath goes to downbelow to meet with the other rogue telepaths on the station. They agree that they will need to kill Bester. Bester invites Winters to breakfast. For her part, Winters remembers what happened when Bester was last at the station. Bester has scanned her at least twice, but doesn’t seem to know that she’s telekinetic now. She mentally tosses a penny into a bulkhead to remind viewers that she’s telekinetic, since that’s something that hasn’t come up at all in any of her other appearances since “Mind War.” Credit: Warner Bros. Television Delenn and Sheridan dine at Fresh Air, Delenn wearing a human dress and looking very fetching indeed. They have a lovely dinner, after which Sheridan goes back to his quarters, only to find himself locked out. Ivanova shows up, saying the same thing happened to her, and she’s already tried all the ways of getting into their quarters. They have to pay rent, or they’re screwed. Sheridan stands by his refusal, and he and Ivanova instead bunk in the captain’s office. The rogue telepaths gather weapons and ambush Bester at his breakfast with Winters. Bester senses them in time to keep from getting shot, and manages to kill two of them. However, they kidnap Winters in the confusion. Franklin goes to Sheridan, saying he’s been contacted by the leader of the railroad, who wants to meet with Sheridan, alone. No harm will come to Winters regardless, as she’s not a hostage. And she isn’t: instead, the telepaths are all telling Winters their stories. One had a brother who took sleepers rather than join the Corps but was later murdered because he kept speaking about against the Corps. Another was raped and forced to have a child with another P11 and then had the child taken away from her. And one came to the station with Ironheart a year earlier and had also been experimented on the way Ironheart was, and is now a P12 or P13. Sheridan goes to the meet, only to have Franklin join him. Turns out that Franklin is the leader of the railroad. He first heard about mistreatment of and experimentation on telepaths through the medical grapevine on Earth. The free clinic he established down there was done in part to facilitate processing the rogue telepaths. Garibaldi reports to Bester that he’s determined that the two telepaths Bester shot and killed lived in the same area of downbelow. He’s assembling a team to go down there, and the idea is that Bester will join the raid in an hour. Bester, of course, goes down ahead of schedule. He arrives to see a gauntlet of telepaths—including Winters with her gloves off—who join hands and try to attack Bester telepathically. But then they realize that Winters is fighting them. Suddenly Bester and Winters are able to kill all the rogue telepaths. Satisfied that the railroad is broken, Bester leaves, telling Winters to do likewise. The pair of them can’t be connected to this massacre. As soon as he leaves, Sheridan and Franklin walk into the room with all the telepaths still joining hands. Collectively, they were able to insert a scenario into Bester’s mind, which he will think is real. None of them could have done it individually, but their combined telepathic might was enough to fool him into thinking that the railroad is toast. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Sheridan says that he can’t have this continue on his station, and Franklin and the telepaths agree to take it off-station. The leader of the telepaths tells Winters that she was the reason why the trick worked. Bester still can’t tell how powerful she really is, and she’s the future. Winters sees Bester off. The Psi Cop asks Winters to keep an eye on Sheridan, as he isn’t comfortable with how lackluster his support was for the investigation. Ivanova is shocked to learn that she can access her quarters again. Sheridan has diverted 60 credits a week from the station’s military budget to his and Ivanova’s rent, justifying it as a “military readiness” cost. Thrilled not to be bunking down in an office with a snoring captain, Ivanova goes to her quarters. However, before she can get to sleep, Winters shows up with a bottle and two glasses. She’s starting to come around to Ivanova’s position on the Corps and wants to commiserate. Ivanova agrees, but only if Winters takes off her Psi Corps badge. Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan absolutely refuses to pay rent on quarters he should be granted as a captain in EarthForce, has a lovely dinner with Delenn, tells really bad jokes before going to bed, and snores. Ivanova is God. Ivanova is obviously not happy about Sheridan’s notion of passive-aggressive resistance to budget concerns, but follows orders like a good soldier. The household god of frustration. Garibaldi’s first suspect in managing the railroad, unsurprisingly, is Ivanova, because he’s at least moderately good at his job. However, she’s innocent, despite being sympathetic. Garibaldi is also able to trace where the underground is likely hiding out. If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn shocks Sheridan with her dinner invite, and shocks her further with her outfit and her sense of humor, all things he never expected to associate with a Minbari. The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. There’s quite a large number of rogue telepaths out there trying to escape Psi Corps—with reason, as pretty much everything they do is awful. And we’re also reminded of Winters’ telekinesis, which has been a complete non-factor since “Mind War.” Credit: Warner Bros. Television No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. We see the true beginnings of the Sheridan/Delenn relationship, as well as a further thawing of the Ivanova/Winters relationship. One of them will actually go somewhere. Looking ahead. B5 being used as a waystation for rogue telepaths will happen again in season five. Welcome aboard. Walter Koenig officially establishes Bester as recurring with his return here from “Mind War.” He’ll be back in “Dust to Dust.” Meantime, the various rogue telepaths in downbelow are played by Apesanakhwat, Brian Cousins, Diane Dilascio, and Gianin Loffler. Loffler previously appeared in “Chrysalis.” In addition, William Allen Young is seen in flashbacks to “Mind War” as Ironheart. Trivial matters. The rogue telepaths’ method of resisting psi scans is to think of the song, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” This is likely a tribute to Alfred Bester’s 1953 novel The Demolished Man, the novel that J. Michael Straczynski used as the template for his portrayal of telepaths in general and the Psi Cops in particular (and also the source of Walter Koenig’s character’s name). In that novel, the protagonist uses an earworm—in this case, a commercial jingle—to screen out telepathic scans. This episode was filmed prior to “Soul Mates” and was intended to be aired before it. On the original DVD release (which is what your humble rewatcher is using), “Soul Mates” comes first, but on some delivery systems for the show, this episode airs first. Franklin’s free clinic in downbelow was established in “The Quality of Mercy.” The echoes of all of our conversations. “We took away every right they had and shoved them into a big black box called Psi Corps. Now look at them: black uniforms, jackboots, giving orders.” —Garibaldi discussing the irony of the evolution of telepaths on Earth. Credit: Warner Bros. Television The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Mary had a little lamb.” One thing I’d like to address before I get to the episode proper is the airing order. While there are reasons why this episode should, perhaps, come before “Soul Mates,” especially given Winters actually considering Stoner’s proposal to quit Psi Corps, which may seem more logical coming after this episode, the fact is that, as far as I’m concerned, “Soul Mates” absolutely must come first for one simple reason: there is absolutely no way, none, that Delenn would have been able to get her hair done for her dinner with Sheridan before Ivanova taught her about hair care in “Soul Mates.” Case closed. Anyhow… Walter Koenig’s return as Bester is quite welcome, and this time he has a much better story (and better fellow guest actors) to work with than he did in “Mind War.” The awfulness of Psi Corps is front and center throughout the episode, as we get multiple accounts of their horrific acts elucidated by the various rogue telepaths in downbelow. Plus, of course, there’s just Bester’s very existence. The first thing we see of him is his murdering a fellow telepath just to get some information, an act of sociopathic depravity that Koenig plays beautifully. Later, when he tries to show Garibaldi his “nicer” side by saying that he has a wife and kid with whom he goes on picnics every Sunday, it’s hilariously ineffective. It’s impossible to think of Bester as anything but a monster. Koenig’s delivery of this attempt to get on Garibaldi’s good side is magnificently false. Bester can’t even fake sincerity. It’s good to see the scales fall from Winters’ eyes, though the scattershot way it’s been shown has been frustrating, more so knowing the character’s fate later this season. It’s especially maddening to see her using her telekinesis long enough to establish that she still has it (which is good, since—as I’ve pointed out repeatedly in this particular entry—there’s been zero evidence of it since “Mind War”), but to not actually use it in the episode. What was the point of giving her this super-power if she’s never going to use it? The three leads’ reactions to Bester’s arrival is very instructive. Sheridan is open to the Psi Cop’s presence, neither resistant nor fully accepting. He’s got no history with the Corps or with Bester to influence him. Ivanova is, of course, completely against the notion of Bester being given any assistance. Most telling is Garibaldi, who obviously detests Bester and everything he and the Corps stand for—but he’s also sworn to uphold the law, and so his response is to track down the railroad and shut it down, because that’s his job. And in the end, Bester wants to keep an eye on Sheridan, and only because he wasn’t enthusiastic enough about helping Bester—just to remind us that he’s still a monster. The subplots are entertaining. Delenn is a complex character, but a big part of her persona is her considerable charm—which is why she makes such a good diplomat—and that charm is on full display here in her first date with Sheridan. It’s even more fun to watch their dinner together knowing where this particular relationship is going. And Sheridan and Ivanova’s fuck-you response to the bean-counters is well played. I do like that doing a two-step with the budget has been the go-to solution to a crisis on the station twice now (the other was in “By Any Means Necessary”). Of all the ways that creator J. Michael Straczynski promised that this show would be more realistic, using budget tricks to solve a problem is probably the way he fulfills that the most… Next week: “The Coming of Shadows.”[end-mark] The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “A Race Through Dark Places” appeared first on Reactor.

I know it’s a little late or early (depending on how you look at it) for Syrup Season, but it’s never too early to learn how to make syrup and prepare. I love fresh syrup, and it's amazingly not too difficult to make. Not only can the sap be boiled down to make different flavored syrups, but it can also be cooked down to obtain the sugar. Just a heads up: You need a lot of sap to make a little syrup, but trust me, it really is worth what it takes. From Sap To Syrup: A Golden Gift From The Trees Maple trees are known to produce a sap with a sugar content of 2%. This is important, because the amount of sap you will need depends on the sugar content of the sap. It takes around 40–43 gallons of sap with a sugar content of 2% to produce one gallon of sweet and sticky maple syrup. When dealing with sap from a birch tree (which contains only 1% sugar), you'll need quite a bit more sap in order to make a nice syrup. The instructions I'll provide will be based on making syrup from the sugar maple, but I'll also include the equation required for figuring out how much sap you’ll need, no matter what tree you tap. That way, you always know how to make syrup, regardless of your environment. | How to Make Syrup I suggest boiling your sap into syrup outdoors, because it will produce a lot of steam, and it can take a while. The supplies you'll need are very basic: A pot large enough for the sap you have Wood to fuel the fire 5-gallon food grade buckets w/ lids Candy thermometer (comes in handy) Food grade filter Glass bottle Once you've collected the sap from the trees, you'll want to transfer the syrup from the metal catch buckets into the 5-gallon food grade buckets. It's important to keep your buckets of sap stored at 38 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition, you should use it within a week from collecting it. Otherwise, you risk a chance of bacteria growing. The sooner you process the sap into syrup, the better and safer it is. Once you’re ready to start cooking the maple sap down, boil off all of the excess water in the sap. You're going to want to fill your cooking pot about ¾ of the way with sap and set it on the fire. You’ll have to tend the fire and keep a close eye on the sap, as to avoid burning. Once the first batch of sap cooks down to about ¼ to ½ a pot, you can go ahead and top it off to the ¾ fill line. Be careful, because you'll want to try to keep a steady boil throughout the whole process. Repeat the steps of boiling it down and adding more until all of your sap is ready for the next step. You'll know your syrup is almost ready when it turns a light golden color and is very viscous. Once you have your golden sap, you can transfer what you have into a smaller pot. From here, you can finish boiling it down on your kitchen stove. Continue boiling the sap until it becomes thicker and sticky like syrup; I like to use a wooden spoon to check how sticky it is. If I dip the spoon in and hold it above the pot, and it runs like water, it isn’t ready. However, if it sticks, you’re almost done. This is when the candy thermometer comes in handy. Use the thermometer to check the temperature and when the temp reaches 7 degrees above the boiling point, you’re good to go. Let your syrup cool off enough to safely filter it into a glass syrup bottle without getting burned. Once your syrup is bottled and sealed, all you have to do is clean up and enjoy your reward. Syrup can last up to two months if it's sealed and refrigerated properly. I also recently learned that if you use freezer-safe containers, you can freeze some if you have too much of it. Like, I said earlier, if you're using sap with a different sugar content, you'll need to calculate what you'll need, so you know exactly how to make syrup that fits your sweet tooth. The equation is 86 divided by the sugar content. That means if your trees are producing a sap with a 1 % sugar content, you'll divide 86, and then you’ll get your answer. OutsideFun1 gives us a part 2 of a video on making sap into syrup:  I know it seems like a lot of work, but honestly the job requires more patience than manual labor. Plus, it’s nice to know what you need to do in order to make things to the homestead yourself. Whether you are striving to be self-sufficient or you just like to learn things, I suggest discovering the golden gifts from the trees and uncovering how to make syrup. In fact, not only can you boil down the sap into syrup, but you can also cook it down into sugars. Keep an eye out for next weeks Living Off The Grid article about sugar and sweeteners from the land! Have you tried making sap into syrup? Let us know your kitchen secrets in the comments below! Are you looking for more recipes for your family and friends? Check out these homemade nut milk recipes for a healthy dairy substitute! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter!

Columbia University Activists Celebrate Hamas 'Martyrs' on Veterans Day

Because the original game just wasn't complex enough.

The dead satellite should be in a geostationary arc at a longitude of around 40 East. But it isn't.

One turtle enjoyed a 69-minute session at the cleaning station.