NERDS AROUND TOWN
Nerds Around Town: MNF sucks, South Park and Star Wars
Oct 22, 2019, 5:19 am
ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ
Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!
GOOD DEED OF THE DAY
We're inching closer to Extra Life's big event on Nov. 2. I'm super pumped about this and will be at Adventure Begins gaming for charity for 24 hours. It of course benefits The Children's Miracle Network and I am super excited for this. Let's do it.
THE TRAILER
So in the middle of one of the worst Monday Night Football's in recent history the final Star Wars Episode 9 trailer was debuted. Honestly it looked GREAT. I am not a fan of the Skywalker family story that the nine main episodes of Star Wars tells. I like the universe and the idea of Jedis and Bounty Hunters and space and all of this crazy stuff but the truth is I am so tired of hearing about the same six people in this MASSIVE universe. Show me something new and this movie looks like it does that at least a little bit. Even though this trilogy has been about the four new characters Poe, Rey, Kylo Ren and Finn it's also been about the same people of the last three movies who were all hinted at in the previous trilogy and ugh, just tell new stories already!
MONDAY NIGHT TRAINWRECK
Can we talk about Monday Night Football? This is some of the worst programming all week and I love football. How is it that ESPN/Disney is going to spend ALL OF THIS MONEY to get Monday Night Football and then put some truly awful television talent on it and then even worse, air games like Patriots vs Jets? Is there no flex schedule option? Was someone projecting the Jets under a first-year head coach to be any good? Who screwed this up? Also, the Hyundai Genesis halftime performances have been an assault in both music and visual arts. The black and white thing EVERY WEEK isn't special if it's EVERY WEEK, and the musical acts are all pop acts of minor importance, I say that knowing full well Charlie Puth is a big deal on the charts and Blink 182 is still one of my favorite bands, but come on, move the needle. Get someone. DO something. And seriously, fire the announcers, they are two of the worst. They need to get two guys who aren't traditional, forget former athlete and broadcast journalist. Give me an X's and O's guy fine, but then get me Bill Burr or something. Somebody who is going to use the four hours of television time to try and entertain the audience. I'm not just saying this because the game was awful, I'm also saying this because even when the game is good, the announcers are still awful.
KINGS OF ANIMATED COMEDY
For a long time I would have said that Seth Macfarlane was the king of animated comedy with an incredible nine figure deal with Fox which was also partly a development and first look deal that made him the highest paid writer in television. Suddenly there's some very real competition from the unlikeliest of sources, the South Park Guys. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are looking to sign a massive deal, alongside their partner Viacom, for control of the entire 300 episode library of South Park. Four years ago Hulu paid almost $200 million for streaming rights to the catalog, but this new deal is also television rights so the asking price is rumored to be around $500 million dollars. That is a big, round number. That is "F You" Money if I've ever seen it, it also means in the span of five years the rights to South Park have been bought twice totaling almost $700 million dollars. All for four kids in jackets cursing. Does anyone remember the outrage this show caused in the early days of it's release basically 20 years ago? My how far we've come.
NOT THAT YOU ASKED
I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row for a move next week, nowhere far just across my area of town but honestly, it is always such a pain in the ass to move. I just hate getting everything settled and messed with and now with me doing all of this extra stuff and using the mail system so much, it's even more of a pain in the ass.
Feel free to check out my brand new comic book Another Day at the Office or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.
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Cam Smith’s reaction to making the Astros Opening Day roster is priceless
Mar 25, 2025, 4:16 pm
It’s go time! While the Astros are not the juggernaut they were over the more than half-decade stretch from 2017 through 2022 that yielded regular seasons with 101, 103, 106, and 107 wins, four American League pennants, and two World Series Champions, as the saying goes, they ain’t dead yet. There is no superpower in the American League West the Astros need to overcome. In fact, the American League as a whole is grossly inferior to the National League. As a result, a fifth Astros’ AL title in this era is not some absurd fantasy, though it is certainly unlikely. But winning the pennant is unlikely for every AL team, so if you’re a fan of the Astros there is nothing wrong with a “Why not us?” mentality. On the other hand, the floor for the 2025 Astros is lower going into a season than it has been in almost a decade. The lineup has numerous question marks, and if the terrific trio atop the Astros’ starting rotation (Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, and Ronel Bronco) runs into injury or performance issues the Astros would have serious problems. That the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners both finish ahead of the Astros is clearly plausible. Play ball!
Astros history lives in these moments
It is simple fact that time marches on, but it is still amazing that the Astros are beginning their second quarter-century of play at what for its first two seasons was called Enron Field, then for the past 23 seasons Minute Maid Park, and now Daikin Park. That’s 25 seasons in the books, at least 26 more to come, with the Astros a few years ago having extended their lease through 2050. In non-specific order, I have twenty easily come-to-mind most spine-tingling moments at the ballpark. If you want 25 for 25 years, I leave five more to you.
Not all spine-tinglers on the home field are generated by the home team. Here are three produced by visiting players. In 2001, Barry Bonds smashed his 70th home run of the season to tie Mark McGwire’s single season Major League record. We know what went into the home run numbers of that era, but it was still jaw-dropping stuff. Bonds would finish the season with 73 homers. Game five of the 2005 National League Championship Series, with the Astros one out from winning their first ever pennant, Albert Pujols launched a Brad Lidge hanging slider that might still be airborne if not for the glass wall above the train tracks. It may be the most instantaneous crowd delirium to utter silence moment ever. It turned a 4-2 Astros’ lead into a crushing 5-4 loss. But, the next game Roy Oswalt pitched the Astros to that pennant in St. Louis. Lastly, the second game of the 2013 season, Rangers’ pitcher Yu Darvish retired the first 26 Astro batters before Marwin Gonzalez smacked a ball through Darvish’s legs up the middle for a base hit. Soooooo close to a perfect game. Only 22 perfect games have been thrown in MLB’s modern era (1900-today).
Now to Astro achievements. Fudging a bit by including Roger Clemens since it’s not for one specific moment. But the Rocket’s starts with the Astros were events. Speaking of Hall of Famers, Craig Biggio’s 3000th hit is an obvious list-maker. Jeff Kent is not a Hall of Famer but he was better in the batter’s box than any second baseman elected after Joe Morgan. Kent won game five of the 2004 NLCS with a bottom of the ninth three-run bomb to end what had been a scoreless game. Alas, the Astros would lose the next two games and the series in St. Louis. The crowd went much wilder over Kent’s homer than over Chris Burke’s series-winning homer over the Atlanta Braves in a 2005 NL Division Series. Burke’s homer came in the 18th inning, so sheer exhaustion held down the decibel level a little. A sleeper for the list occurred earlier in that same game, when Brad Ausmus of all people hit a two-out game-tying homer to get the game into extra innings.
Four no-hitters have been thrown by Union Station. Working backwards: Ronel Blanco last season, Framber Valdez in 2023, a combined job started by Aaron Sanchez in 2019, and the first in 2015 by Mike....yes, Fiers.
And now to the grandest home park moments of this Platinum Era in Astros’ history. Carlos Correa authored two of them, each in a game two of the American League Championship Series. In 2017 he doubled home Jose Altuve with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. That came off of Aroldis Chapman who shall appear once more in this column. In 2019 Correa tied the series at one win apiece with a walk-off homer. Yordan Alvarez also gets a pair of entries. You know, Yordan hit just .192 in the 2022 postseason. But talk about making your hits count. In game one of those playoffs, ALDS vs. Seattle, it was a two-out three-run walk-off blast off of Robbie Ray to give the Astros an 8-7 win. Then in the final game of those playoffs, it was a sixth inning gargantuan three-run launch to dead center turning a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead.
That leaves four moments that are 100 percent non-negotiable entries. While not dramatic (4-0 final score), the payoff warrants inclusion of the Astros winning Game seven of the 2017 ALCS over the Yankees. Similarly, while the moment of victory lacked drama (4-1 final), how could one exclude the Astros winning the World Series on home turf in 2022. Finally, for my money the two most pulsating, goosebump-inducing, viscerally exciting moments at 501 Crawford Street. In one of the most scintillating games ever played in any sport, Alex Bregman’s bottom of the 10th inning single gave the Astros’ their epic 13-12 win over the Dodgers in game five of the 2017 World Series. Then in 2019, Jose Altuve’s game six homer ended the ALCS (I warned you Aroldis).
Here’s to the new season! Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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