đź Full of tricks
Streamer-approved workspace wins, a stuntman turned director, and much more.
Morninâ. Anyone been keeping tabs on Pharrell Williams lately?
For the last few months, the songwriter behind âHollaback Girlâ and âI'm a Slave 4 Uâ (look it up) has been artistic-directing at Louis Vuitton. Busy bee that he is, Williams and his hive have already emerged with some honey in the form of a swaggy new menswear collection.
Itâs hardly Williamsâ first creative pursuit in Parisâafter all, this is the guy who worked with Daft Punk on âGet Luckyâ a decade agoâbut itâs yet another milestone in the polymathâs continual reinvention. (Someone grab us some of that camo.)
We promise we wonât tell LV they hired a Trekkie, though.
âAndrew Nusca, Eric Alt, Marques Edge
Buffed/Nerfed
Whatâs up and down in the world rn.
Buffed: CNN. Whatever becomes the fate of the five passengers on the tragically lost Titanic submersibleâas of press time the Coast Guard hasnât located it and thereâs 40 hours of air leftâwe havenât been glued to our televisions this much since Election Day.
Nerfed: NYC real estate value. Zombies? The Big Apple? We may have seen this film before, but we donât care. Weâre all over AMCâs new The Walking Dead: Dead City like the undead on theâŠuh, living.
Buffed: Onstage âgenderâ reveals. Harry Styles did it. BeyoncĂ© threw in. It seems only a matter of time before itâs T. Swiftâs turn. The most pertinent question for the worldâs top touring artists isâŠboy or girl? (Pro tip: Itâs not that simple.)
Nerfed: Celebrating good times (come on). An exuberant contestant on The Price Is Right was so thrilled with winning a trip to Hawaii that he dislocated his shoulder during the celebration, preventing him from spinning the showâs famous wheel. And here it comes!
Buffed: American football. And no, not the gridiron kind. Weâre a bit late, but cheers to the U.S. Menâs National Team for winning their second straight CONCACAF Nations League title on Sunday. If you donât know what any of that means, ask the nearest person whoâs wearing acetate glasses and drinking an IPA. âAN
Field Upgrades: How to level up your workspace like a streamer
Picks to level up your life.
Is your workspace working for you?
(You sure about that?)
Many of us spend so many hours sitting at a desk staring into a screen for a living, and yet spend mere minutes thinking about how to improve the very environment we work in.
Who would know better than streamers who spend literal hours broadcasting their lives on the internet?
Contributing writer Aron Grast asked some streamers about the small but impactful ways they improved their workspaces, from lighting to ergonomics to wires. (Oh yes, weâre going there.) For them, itâs a matter of surviving hour six in the chair. For you, itâs about coming out of that marathon team meeting as fresh as you went in.
Hereâs what they had to say.
Speed Run: Sam Hargrave loves to drag Chris Hemsworth through hell
Two-minute talks with todayâs movers and shakers.
If you want to avoid CGI fatigue and deliver visceral, neck-snapping action, you simply need a stuntperson behind the camera.
To follow up his unexpected quarantine-era Netflix smash hit Extraction, director and former stuntman Sam Hargrave knew he had to create one âholy crapâ action sequence after anotherâŠand he couldnât have been happier doing just that.
Executive editor Eric Alt sat down with Hargrave to talk about his earliest stunt memories, the bag of tricks stuntpeople carry with them from movie to movie, and why itâs so much fun making Thor suffer for our amusement.
Wayback Wednesday
Back when the internet was still in its infancy, before superheroes routinely broke the fourth wall, and before Adult Swim existed, there was Freakazoid!Â
This forgotten little cult gem is like a time capsule of the mid-1990s.
Check out its quaint depiction of âcyberspaceâ as some physical dimension capable of bestowing super powers, written by people who had maybe heard of Prodigy once in passing.
Or how the heroâs origin story was a parody of the actual Pentium FDIV bug that led to defective processors being recalled in 1994. (In this version, an obese cat accidentally enters a âsecret key sequenceâ that makes the heroâs computer go haywire.)
And, of course, revel in its extremely dated but charming pop culture references (the main character attends Harry Connick Jr. High School) and a sense of humor that pinballs wildly from the juvenile (one of his villains is named Professor Heiney) to the slyly satirical (Freakazoid briefly has a sidekick called Expendable Lad).Â
Created by Bruce Timm (who wanted it to be a straightforward superhero show like his Batman: The Animated Series) and Steven Spielberg (who wanted it to be a goofy chaotic free-for-all like his Animaniacs) Freakazoid! was justâŠdifferent. In every way.
If you used to watch it, youâre welcome for the blast from the past. And if youâve never heard of it, youâre welcome for the rabbit hole youâre about to go down. âEA
Shameless plug
Stock up on Wumpa fruit, friends: Crash Team Rumble is finally out.
The 4v4 online multiplayer game tasks each team with collecting the most Wumpa fruit while preventing the opposition from depositing fruit at their own Wumpa Bank. (Defense wins championships, after all.)
Itâs colorful, itâs zany, and itâs everything youâd expect from the world of Crash Bandicoot.
Itâs available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X. Get it here.
Wormhole
Click the following image andâŠwell, we donât want to ruin the surprise.
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