NERDS AROUND TOWN

Nerds Around Town: Overwatch 2, Blizzard's China Problem and Extra Life

Cory De La Guardia
Nov 6, 2019, 6:25 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

Tomorrow we'll shout out a new charity event, today we celebrate all of the hard work that went into Extra Life. Helping the Adventure Begins in Conroe earn over $7k for the cause was a true pleasure. In donations they raised around $3600 and then in hourly donations there was another estimated $3000 raised, it was a great and exhausting and trying time. 25 hours of streaming and working and gaming and hosting and entertaining, it was intense but totally worth it.

BLIZZARD

Blizzard announced/confirmed Overwatch 2 and released a trailer called "Zero Hour". As usual its cinematically awesome, all of the little videos they've released over the years have been amazing and there's no question they are the undisputed kings of great cinematics for their video games, however looming like a shadow over what should have been awesome news was China and the Hong Kong controversy.

THE CHINA STORY

So in a way all of this still starts with Daryl Morey's tweet about standing with Hong Kong. That tweet mired the NBA and its players in this awkward place where capitalism dictates they expand forever into more and more complicated markets but then American pride dictates that we crush people who bow down to the whims of a communist government that oppresses the freedoms of its people while cheaply making our iPhones and supporting our entertainment industry. The spotlight on American companies and the Chinese markets bled into everything including video games. There, a prominent eSports player FROM HONG KONG named Ng Wai Chung, was banned by Blizzard and had his prize money withheld at first for life than was shortened to a few months after fan backlash for speaking in support of the protests. There is a delicate balance to these things that has to be struck between all roads, here's a truth that nobody will like… Capitalism is both the root of this problem and the solution to it. Capitalism is what led these people to take China's money and it is the eventual all consuming greed that will rot away China's core beliefs eventually leading them to take a "money before all other things policy" like America has not so secretly come to adopt over the years. We know this to be true because we were once a nation of principles and beliefs about bigger things and now we just don't care about anything that doesn't affect our wallets directly.

ONE WEEK AWAY

We are now officially one week away from the release of Disney+. We are literally at the dawn of the NEXT big chapter in the streaming TV wars. It's confusing to think where it will all end, obviously Disney will keep acquiring things and Amazon's position feels secure considering the strength and size of the brand overall, so its just Netflix, HBO Max, CBS and the Peacock that will eventually have their fates decided. I think the thing that has hurt Netflix the most is that CBS' free sign up had millions of people signing up to watch their streaming exclusive Star Trek show. Those numbers were way over the estimates and left many people staring dumbfounded at their screens when NBC took that as a sign that a network exclusive service could survive alone. Moving NBC from cook to supplier so to speak. Netflix and HBO Max while kings of original content have to face the facts that they are standing alone as just essentially large content producers that haven't had to deal with much competition before. Now things are looking grim as a big dog steps in. Netflix is going to have to address their debt portfolio and find more revenue streams and things to partner with, perhaps merchandise and licensing deals for original projects, maybe reverse engineer the Disney concept the otherway. Otherwise they will eventually be eaten up by one of the true giants, they're publicly traded, they have shareholders who value a strong return, it is simply a matter of time and math.

NOT THAT YOU ASKED

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my Father's unexpected passing. It's an odd day, one where I just tried to not think about what it meant for as long as possible. One where I just wondered what the hell happened to the last year. How is he? Is he looking down on us? Is he happy? Have we let him down? I just don't know how to feel sometimes, I love him and I miss him and I hate how much I feel like I let him down over the years. I hope he gets to see the things I'm working on now and that they make him proud.

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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Nerds Around Town: Justice League, Joe Pesci and stripper movies

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

The Houston Community Warriors are hosting a dinner to support the Houston Foodbank, there are tickets available for sale and you can just make donations if you'd like. The Houston Food Bank is here for those in need, keeping people fed when so many people these days have seemingly turned their back on the world, these guys feed people. Help them feed people, please.

OF COURSE HE IS

I didn't know this but when he was about 26 years old Joe Pesci, yeah that Joe Pesci, was a singer. He had an album out called "Little Joe Sure Can Sing." That is very much a 1960s album title if I ever heard one, and in 1998 he released another album. I bring this all up because he's back with another album called "Still Singing" which is a great album title whenever you release it. On the album there's a duet with Adam Levine, *sigh* yes, that Adam Levine, called "Baby Girl" and it's on the internet for googling and listening to. It isn't the worst thing you've heard all week I promise and honestly the internet is a weird enough place that I really see this getting traction. He's going for a crooner, old school Vegas lounge act singing style and it isn't bad and you can definitely tell its him singing. Please if you need to distract yourself for five minutes today you should check this song out, it feels like it's from another era.

HUSTLER

J Lo is making the media rounds trying to pretend like she doesn't care if she's nominated for an Oscar or not and in recent interviews she suggests that she didn't get paid to star in her film "Hustler" which she also produced. Isn't that the point of producing films though? Like if you're a movie star who is going to produce the movie that you're in, isn't the point of that because you are going to reap a big windfall on the back end by cutting costs by not paying a big name actor (yourself) to make the movie. Rather than get a $20 million dollar check to be in someone else's movie, you pay $50 million to own the entire film and keep the lion's share of the profits which are hopefully a lot more than the $50 million you put in. I know it sounds good to say out loud but she produced the film for crying out loud, of course she didn't pay herself. Seems obvious, but maybe not.

SNYDER CUT

In the comic fandom world there is this weird movement where lots of people are clamoring for the Snyder Cut of the Justice League movie. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, first of all be proud of yourself because this is a dumb one. Zack Snyder was the director for Justice League, which was his third foray into the DC universe after directing Man of Steel and then Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. Now neither of these movies were critically beloved or overwhelmingly recognized as well-crafted stories but they made good money and he had a linear concept for the movies and therefore Warner Bros studio tasked him with making Justice League, and creating a trilogy of sorts, now there were tons of issues and problems with the movie and the studio wasn't liking what he was showing them in meetings and there were problems, then sadly his daughter took her own life and Snyder stepped back to deal with issues at home. Joss Whedon was brought on to finish the film and lighten up the tone, the resulting reshoots blew up the budget including Paramount refusing to allow Cavill to shave so Warner Bros had to digitally take out a moustache that Henry Cavill's character in Mission Impossible had now grown because reshoots went so beyond what was scheduled. So in $25 million dollars of reshoots, there's a Superman with a weird lip. Anyway the movie comes out and it is hated by lots of people and is viewed as a failure and from there the DC movies have kind of ground to a halt and the connected universe seems to have been blown up with Wonder Woman making period piece movies, Aquaman staying in the movie universe, and a new Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey being "loosely connected" in the sense that Margot Robbie is back as Harley Quinn and she shared a scene with Ben Affleck's Batman in Suicide Squad. You get all that? Basically the version of the movie that was released broke the universe it was so bad. Well now fans and the actors themselves are clamoring for the release of "the Snyder Cut" as though his version is a better film and allegedly the studio is in talks to find a way to release it somehow, perhaps as a special feature on an upcoming anniversary release. I hope they do and I hope its somehow worse and all of these crazy people have to eat so much crow, not like they will, but a guy can dream.

NOT THAT YOU ASKED

Just found out about a really great charity that I'll be doing an event with next month and I don't want to steal the Food Bank's thunder so I'm going to wait until after this week but honestly, this might be my favorite charity yet… stay tuned!

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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