NERDS AROUND TOWN

Nerds Around Town: Toys R Us, X-Men and women's World Cup

Nerds Around Town: Toys R Us, X-Men and women's World Cup
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!

Hey Nerds!

Tuesday says what's up? Let's do it!

GOOD DEED OF THE DAY

To honor First Responders, The Texas Brotherhood rides for Texas and for First Responders who have made the ultimate sacrifice and this ride honors them. #NerdsUnite

THE RETURN OF TOYS R US

The other day Toys R Us made an announcement that they were returning to retail roughly one year after closing all of their stores here in North America and other places. They're working on a consignment deal with some of the biggest toy manufacturers so that they pay for what they sell, not what they order. They are going to open six stores in the country and the reason given by the toy companies is that they think there should be a dedicated toy retail chain nationally. Essentially, they weren't getting the love from Walmart and Amazon and so they miss the red headed step child of retail, the toy store. MAN, it's too bad they couldn't have realized this last year before Toys R Us laid off thousands of employees across the country. It's too bad they didn't realize this all year that those people struggled to find a new place of business and now they're going to give Toys R Us really favorable terms because they miss having a dedicated toy retailer, but none of the toy companies had the foresight to realize the need of a toy store before all of those people lost their jobs. Dummies.

WOMEN'S WORLD CUP

I'm not sure if people have been watching but I seriously hope they are, because The Women's World Cup has been fantastic. The United States has been playing great but not just them, the competition in general has been awesome. Brazilian legend Marta who is the current all time scoring leader in either Men's or Women's World's Cups, yeah, either, gave a beautiful speech after France beat them in the round of 16. The speech implored the next generation of girls to see these games and embrace this game and "cry in the beginning so you can smile in the end." Women's soccer is soaring and worth your time to watch, GO USA!

X MEN DARK PHOENIX

So the news broke that X-Men is doing so poorly that they're going to go ahead and start pulling it from the theatres. I just saw it this weekend and honestly, I really liked it. I think this might be the best team X-Men movie they've made yet. They did a great job giving each character something in this movie to do, the story itself was interesting and at least everything the characters did made sense. This is the best portrayal of Cyclops yet and Storm actually had more than three lines. Overall this movie is probably the biggest victim yet of the Fox-Disney merger, the biggest mistake in the marketing of this movie was revealing there was a major character death in the first act, they showed a funeral in all the trailers which was a real mistake. If that death had been unseen the whole movie would have had people nervous. It's a shame, because this was a really good movie.

NOT THAT YOU ASKED

Marvel has announced they want stores to do a midnight release for the July 24th first issue of House of X. This is the kind of big deal I like to hear about, this is why I get excited about this series. It's time to get excited, this is the big celebration of all things X Men Marvel used to do all the time, but they moved away from. It's crazy to think about but movie rights and who was getting a cut of what made the X Men more trouble than they were worth to publish properly, so there would be some books here and there but a small fraction of what was once an entire section of the Marvel Library, but that looks like it's about to change. The X Men are going to be back in a big way.

Feel free to check out my digital short story The Wilson House 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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Welcome back, Justin! Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images.

Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander will make his season debut Friday night at the Washington Nationals.

Houston manager Joe Espada made the announcement Wednesday.

“Getting him back is huge because it brings a level of confidence to our team, a boost of confidence that we’re going to get someone who’s been an MVP, a Cy Young (winner) on the mound,” Espada said. “It's (good) for the morale and to get stuff started and moving in the right direction.”

The three-time Cy Young Award winner opened the season on the injured list with inflammation in his right shoulder. He made two rehabilitation starts, the first for Triple-A Sugar Land on April 7 before Saturday’s start for Double-A Corpus Christi.

Espada wouldn't say how many pitches the 41-year-old would be limited to but said they'll keep an eye on his workload.

“We've got to be careful how hard we push him early,” Espada said. “I know he’s going to want to go and stay out there and give us an opportunity to win, but we've got to be cautious of how hard we push him early in the season.”

Verlander wasn’t thrilled with the results in his rehabilitation starts, but he said Monday that those games were valuable in getting him prepared to come off the IL.

He allowed seven hits and six runs — five earned — in four innings against Frisco on Saturday. He struck out three, walked one and threw 51 of 77 pitches for strikes.

Verlander allowed six earned runs and struck out six while pitching into the fourth inning for Sugar Land on April 7.

The Astros have gotten off to a tough start with Verlander and fellow starters Framber Valdez and José Urquidy on the injured list. They enter Wednesday's games last in the AL West with a 6-13 record.

Espada hopes Verlander can be the boost the team needs to get on track.

“It’s good to get him back in the rotation,” Espada said. “With what he means to this club just to get him back on track, getting some innings from him (to) build our rotation with the pieces that we need to move forward is exciting.”

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