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 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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Astros take series as Peña homers and Alvarez delivers clutch double
Mar 29, 2025, 10:03 pm
Houston spent time this week practicing an inbound play that coach Kelvin Sampson thought his team might need against Purdue.
Milos Uzan, the third option, ran it to perfection.
He tossed the ball to Joseph Tugler, who threw a bounce pass right back to Uzan, and the 6-foot-4 guard soared to the rim for an uncontested layup with 0.9 seconds left, giving the top-seeded Cougars a 62-60 victory — and a matchup with second-seeded Tennessee in Sunday's Elite Eight.
“Great execution at a time we needed that,” said Sampson, who is a win away from making his third Final Four and his second with Houston in five years. “You never know when you’re going to need it.”
The Cougars (33-4) made only one other basket over the final eight minutes, wasted a 10-point lead and then missed two more shots in the final 5 seconds. A replay review with 2.2 seconds left confirmed Houston would keep the ball when it rolled out of bounds after the second miss.
Uzan took over from there.
“I was trying to hit (L.J. Cryer) and then JoJo just made a great read,” Uzan said. “He was able to draw two (defenders) and he just made a great play to hit me back.”
Houston advanced to the Elite Eight for the third time in five years after falling in the Sweet 16 as a top seed in the previous two editions of March Madness. It will take the nation's longest winning streak, 16 games, into Sunday’s Midwest Region final.
The Cougars joined the other three No. 1 seeds in this year's Elite Eight and did it at Lucas Oil Stadium, where their 2021 tourney run ended with a loss in the Final Four to eventual national champion Baylor.
They haven't lost since Feb. 1.
Uzan scored 22 points and Emanuel Sharp had 17 as Houston survived an off night from leading scorer Cryer, who finished with five points on 2-of-13 shooting.
Houston still had to sweat out a half-court heave at the buzzer, but Braden Smith's shot was well off the mark.
Fletcher Loyer scored 16 points, Trey Kaufman-Renn had 14 and Smith, the Big Ten player of the year, added seven points and 15 assists for fourth-seeded Purdue (24-12). Smith assisted on all 11 second-half baskets for last year’s national runner-up, which played in front of a friendly crowd about an hour’s drive from its campus in West Lafayette.
“I thought we fought really hard and we dug down defensively to get those stops to come back,” Smith said. “We did everything we could and we just had a little miscommunication at the end and they converted. Props to them.”
Houston appeared on the verge of disaster when Kaufman-Renn scored on a dunk and then blocked Cryer’s shot with 1:17 to go, leading to Camden Heide’s 3 that tied the score at 60 with 35 seconds left.
Sampson called timeout to set up the final play, but Uzan missed a turnaround jumper and Tugler’s tip-in rolled off the rim and out of bounds. The Cougars got one more chance after the replay review.
Sharp's scoring flurry early in the second half finally gave Houston some separation after a back-and-forth first half. His 3-pointer at the 16:14 mark made it 40-32. After Purdue trimmed the deficit to four, Uzan made two 3s to give Houston a 10-point lead in a tough, physical game that set up a rare dramatic finish in this year's tourney.
“Smith was guarding the inbounder, so he had to take JoJo,” Sampson said. “That means there was no one there to take Milos. That's why you work on that stuff day after day.”
Takeaways
Purdue: Coach Matt Painter's Boilermakers stumbled into March Madness with six losses in their final nine games but proved themselves a worthy competitor by fighting their way into the Sweet 16 and nearly taking down a No. 1 seed.
Houston: The Cougars lead the nation in 3-point percentage and scoring defense, an enviable combination.
Scary fall
Houston guard Mylik Wilson gave the Cougars a brief scare with 13:23 left in the game. He leapt high into the air to grab a rebound and drew a foul on Kaufman-Renn.
As the play continued, Wilson was undercut and his body twisted around before he landed on his head. Wilson stayed down momentarily, rubbing his head, but eventually got up and remained in the game.