NERDS AROUND TOWN

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

Jun 25, 2019, 5:35 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!

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 24^th 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.

toys r us women's world cup dark phoenix nerds around town

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Houston takes the opener

Astros continue march towards playoff berth with extra-inning win over D-backs

Altuve's homer starting the scoring for Houston on Friday night. Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

After a solid showing to take the three of the four-game series in Arlington against the Rangers to start the week, the Astros returned home for three against the Diamondbacks in a weekend series. They would have a slow start to the opener but would ultimately come away victorious.

Final Score (10 innings): Astros 4, Diamondbacks 3

Astros' Record: 87-60, first in the AL West

Winning Pitcher: Ryne Stanek (3-4)

Losing Pitcher: Tyler Clippard (1-1)

Bielak makes the impromptu start

With Luis Garcia having to move his start ahead by a day on Thursday instead of Friday with Framber Valdez's finger cut, Brandon Bielak made a start for Houston in the opener against Arizona. He didn't go as deep as he probably would have wanted and certainly ventured out of his comfort zone with traffic on the bases.

He loaded the bases in the top of the first, allowing a single and two walks, but was able to strand all three to keep it a scoreless game. He rebounded with a 1-2-3 second, but he dealt with a threat again in the third as back-to-back singles pressured him to start the inning. He would get back-to-back strikeouts, but that's as far as he would go as Houston moved on to Blake Taylor. Taylor got the final out of the third on one pitch, then erased a two-out double in the top of the fourth.

Altuve breaks up the no-no with a go-ahead homer

Break up the no-no, take the lead. pic.twitter.com/eNzaYXhO8v
— MLB (@MLB) September 18, 2021

Brooks Raley took over in the top of the fifth, but in his three batters, he faced allowed a single while getting two outs before Cristian Javier took over to end the frame. Javier allowed the first run of the game in the top of the sixth, a leadoff solo homer to Kole Calhoun to put the Diamondbacks in front 1-0 before he finished the inning.

Madison Bumgarner didn't allow a single hit to the Astros through the first five and two-thirds innings. He allowed a one-out walk in the bottom of the sixth, which proved costly as Jose Altuve would get the first knock of the game for Houston, a two-run go-ahead homer. Phil Maton was the next reliever for the Astros in the top of the seventh, maintaining the new one-run lead by erasing a leadoff single.

Astros get the win in extras

The Diamondbacks tied it up in the top of the eighth against Kendall Graveman, getting a leadoff single followed by a walk, then later an RBI single to knot things up 2-2. Houston stranded a runner in the bottom of the eighth, then brought in Ryan Pressly, who tossed a 1-2-3 top of the ninth to keep the game tied.

Despite getting the winning run in scoring position with a leadoff ground-rule double by Jason Castro to start the bottom of the ninth, they would strand it as the game went to extras. Arizona scored their free runner in the top of the tenth, getting a sac fly to move it to third then going in front on an RBI single.

The Astros matched that and more in the bottom of the inning, moving their runner to third on a lineout to start the frame, followed by an intentional walk to Yordan Alvarez. Jake Meyers tied the game with an RBI single, then after another walk to load the bases, Chas McCormick was hit by a pitch to bring in the winning run, moving the Astros closer to clinching their playoff berth.

Up Next: The middle game of this three-game set will have a start time of 6:10 PM Central on Saturday. Tyler Gilbert (2-2, 3.15 ERA) is expected to make a start for Arizona, while Lance McCullers Jr. (12-4, 3.12 ERA) will be on the mound for Houston.

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