samhexum

Fernando Valenzuela has died.

A gun-toting Cybertruck owner took it upon himself to test out how bulletproof the electric vehicle is — and it did not go as expected. Adult film star Dante Colle posted a video to his X account pointing a handgun at the $100K Tesla vehicle in the middle of an open field. In the viral video, Colle fires a shot into the back of the Cybertruck, with the round producing a sizable hole in the exterior and, at first glance, appearing to penetrate the vehicle. “F–k!” the adult film star shouts, dropping his handgun on the ground and putting his hands to his head in shock. “I don’t think it’s bulletproof, Dante,” the woman filming says while playfully laughing at his disappointment. But after inspecting the truck, while the round may have become lodged inside the Cybertruck, one of Colle’s buddies revealed the bullet did not go through. Colle again assumes a firing stance with his pistol, this time on the side of the truck at an angle, for a second take. During the second attempt, the round appeared to ricochet off the side of the Cybertruck, leaving a dent and scrape, but also did not penetrate the electric vehicle.

Denny’s says it’s closing 150 of its lowest-performing restaurants in an effort to turn around the brand’s flagging sales. About half of the closures will happen this year and the rest in 2025, the company said during a meeting with investors Tuesday. The locations weren’t revealed, but the restaurants represent around 10% of Denny’s total. Stephen Dunn, Denny’s executive vice president and chief global development officer, said in some cases, the restaurants are no longer in good locations. “Some of these restaurants can be very old,” Dunn said during the investor meeting. “You think of a 70-year-old plus brand. We have a lot of restaurants that have been out there for a very long time.” Others saw traffic shifts during the pandemic that have yet to reverse, he said. On Tuesday, Denny's reported its fifth straight quarter of year-over-year declines in same-store sales, which are sales at locations open at least a year. Restaurant inflation is outpacing grocery price inflation, which makes it harder for some customers to justify eating out, Denny's said. And when they do eat out, they often head to fast-casual brands like Chipotle or fast-food chains. Denny's said family dining — the category in which it competes — has lost the most customer traffic since 2020. Still, Denny's said it has bright spots, including a value menu that lifted sales in its most recent quarter and growing sales of its delivery-only brands like Banda Burrito. Shares in Denny's Corp., which is based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, tumbled almost 18% on Tuesday.

It's the first new show of the season to be renewed for season two.

WOOF!!! BIG G SHOULD NEVER AGAIN WEAR ANY SHIRT OTHER THAN A CHAMPAGNE-SOAKED SKIN-TIGHT TANK TOP.

Ken Griffey Sr. & Jr., the first father and son to play in a major league game together (Tim Raines Sr. & Jr. later did it, tI), will attend the Lakers' opening opening night, when LeBron & Bronny James will become the NBA's first such duo if Bronny gets into the game. The first time this occurred was in hockey when the legendary Gordie Howe and sons Mark and Marty played for the 1979-80 Hartford Whalers.

A short story by Bram Stoker, the legendary author of "Dracula," has been unearthed by a lifelong enthusiast in Dublin who stumbled upon the work while browsing in a library archive. Titled "Gibbet Hill," the story was uncovered by Brian Cleary in a Christmas supplement of the Dublin edition of the Daily Mail newspaper from 1890 and had remained undocumented for more than 130 years. The rare find, which has never been referenced in any Stoker bibliography or biography, is now being brought to the public for the first time at an exhibition in the Irish capital. "Dracula," the Gothic, mysterious and supernatural vampire novel from 1897 may have been set in Transylvania and England but its author, Stoker, was a Dubliner. "I read 'Dracula' as a child and it stuck with me, I read everything from and about Stoker that I could get my hands on," said Cleary, 44, a writer and amateur historian who lives in the Marino neighborhood of Dublin where the author grew up. Thanks to "Dracula," Stoker "had a massive impact on popular culture, but is under-appreciated," Cleary told AFP in the Casino at Marino, an opulent 18th-century building near the writer's birthplace that is hosting the exhibition. Stoker never enjoyed much commercial success from his legendary book, but in 1931, "Dracula" made it big as a motion picture, with Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi in the title role. Shocking in its time, the movie made Dracula a fixture of popular culture, inspiring literally dozens of movie and TV vampire dramas over the years. Cleary's journey of discovery began in 2021 when a sudden onset of deafness changed his life. While on leave to retrain his hearing after having cochlear implant surgery, Cleary visited the National Library of Ireland to indulge his interest in historical literature and the works of Stoker. There, in October 2023, he chanced upon the hidden literary gem, the "Gibbet Hill" story which he had never heard of before. "I sat in the library flabbergasted, that I was looking at potentially a lost ghost story from Stoker, especially one from around the time he was writing 'Dracula,' with elements of 'Dracula' in it," said Cleary. "I sat looking at the screen wondering, am I the only living person who had read it? Followed by, what on earth do I do with it?" The library's director Audrey Whitty said Cleary called her and said: "I've found something extraordinary in your newspaper archives — you won't believe it." She added that his "astonishing amateur detective work" was a testament to the library's archives, the BBC reported. "There are truly world-important discoveries waiting to be found," Whitty said. Cleary did extensive literary searches to verify the find and consulted Stoker expert and biographer Paul Murray who confirmed the story was unknown, lost and buried in the archives for more than 130 years. "'Gibbet Hill' is very significant in terms of Stoker's development as a writer, 1890 was when he was a young writer and made his first notes for 'Dracula,'" Murray told AFP. "It's a classic Stoker story, the struggle between good and evil, evil which crops up in exotic and unexplained ways, and is a way station on his route to publishing 'Dracula.'" The macabre tale tells of a sailor murdered by three criminals whose bodies were strung up on a gibbet or hanging gallows on a hill as a ghostly warning to passing travelers. To celebrate the discovery, "Gibbet Hill" has been captured in a book that features cover art and illustrations inspired by the story by respected Irish artist Paul McKinley. "It's quite surreal now to be standing next to a picture inspired by three of the characters in the story," said Cleary. "When Brian sent me the 'Gibbet Hill' there was so much I could work with," said McKinley. His eerie, sometimes sinister illustrations include a "juicy, wet, oily painting" of worms inspired by a young character in the story who has a bunch of earthworms in his hands. "Making new images for an old story that has been buried for so long" was a "fascinating challenge" said the artist.

Hollywood loves nothing more than a true-crime story about a serial killer, but a new movie directed by Anna Kendrick does a number on that familiar genre. Rather than being about the monster himself, or even one of his victims, the film is centered around a person he did not murder — someone who got away. “Woman of the Hour,” which premiered Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival, is based on the 1970s crimes of Rodney Alcala, better known as the Dating Game Killer. Over a decade, he took the lives of at least eight women, but investigators believe the number could be as high as 130. Alcala’s most surreal chapter, however, was when he appeared as a bachelor on a 1978 episode of “The Dating Game” smack dab in the middle of committing these atrocities. The question posed by Kendrick, making a strong directing debut, and writer Ian McDonald: Is the justice system so screwed up and society so unconcerned with women that a prolific murderer (who had already been arrested for assault) could easily wind up on a game show — and win? Kendrick does double duty, also playing “Dating Game” contestant Cheryl Bradshaw, who picked Alcala for a date at the end of the show. Little is known about the real Cheryl, the director has admitted, so she is a mostly fictionalized creation to further the film’s talking points. She’s envisioned as a struggling actress who’s just moved to LA and takes a job on “The Dating Game” out of desperation. Fed up with the show’s sexism, not to mention that of her own life, she turns the tables on the bachelors and begins asking them her own challenging questions such as “What are women for?”. That feminist query — like most of the game show scenes featuring Tony Hale as the host — never happened. Same goes for the story of Laura (Nicolette Robinson), a woman in the audience who is certain that Alcala killed her best friend and attempts to blow the whistle during the taping. Cheryl’s appearance is interspersed with flashbacks and flash-forwards to some of Alcala’s killings in New York, Wyoming and California, as he used his day job as a photographer to intrude into women’s lives. Daniel Zovatto plays him with the right mix of creepiness and incomprehensible allure, but shrewdly avoids the tics and overacting that such roles can inspire. In the director’s chair, Kendrick doesn’t shy away from violence, though it’s not excessive either. Still, the murder scenes are difficult to watch and are made all the more real by an authentic 1970s grime that pervades these perilous apartments, rest stops, bars and parking lots. The women are all committed, but best is Autumn Best as a young runaway who ends up driving with Alcala along a desert highway. The scene most alive with tension is another imagined one. We know that Cheryl interacted with Rodney after the episode and the conversation made her decide against going on a date with him. Kendrick and McDonald turn that tidbit into a paralyzing encounter at a bar that comes seconds away from being fatal.

Had the Mets pulled off the comeback I would have been afraid of them because it would have continued their string of miracle finishes and because they had a fairly well balanced team that had flaws but could beat you in different ways. That being said, I think the Dodgers will be a tougher opponent than the Mets would've been. Yet I am very happy with the outcome because I think that if it were Yankees-Mets, the winner would get Soto. The Mets have the richer, more aggressive owner, and a better farm system at this point and Judge is 32 and Cole is 34, so if the Mets won and appeared to have a brighter future, it would've been a much easier sale to make to him than it will be now, whether or not the Yankees beat the Dodgers. Of course, Steve Cohen will WAY outbid Hal Steinbrenner, but hopefully Soto will feel that he can scrape by on somewhere between $600 and $700 million as well as he can on $750 to $850 million and will want to stay where he already knows he is happy.

I enjoyed episode two. It's not the greatest series I've ever watched but it's got me interested enough.

Everyone born between 1900 & 1970.

Most of Cuba will be without power until tomorrow night and now they have been hit by a hurricane.

Michael Emerson will recur as a judge in a couple of episodes starting in December.

BASTARDS!

I called 2 pharmacies that verified that it's just a one-time shot, though one told me that the guidelines for that might eventually be changed (but said "for now, you're good").

Not overly impressed with the start of season 26 so far.

Solid first episode that even managed to have a Nathan Lane TV appearance that wasn't off putting.

very happy to be proven wrong, but I still didn't watch a single pitch.

Typing with long nails can be cumbersome and time-consuming, despite the satisfying sound of a click on the keys. It was a daily struggle faced by Sara Young Wang, whose manicure dilemma inspired her to create the Tippy Type, a $45 keyboard cover designed with long-nailed girlies in mind. “Honestly, I know it’s such a small thing and many might say to just cut them and move on, but my long nails bring me a lot of joy and to think about having to live without them just made me sad,” she told The Post. “It felt like I was losing a fun form of self-expression and play.” The Tippy Type — a silicone keyboard cover with raised keys to allow for easier typing — has become a viral sensation among clawed corporate employees who are refusing to trim their long nails for workplace efficiency. “This is such an amazing invention for people that like to have their long nails and they have an office job,” Meraki, a content creator, said in a recent video on TikTok. Another content creator named Karina told her audience that she spends her entire day typing meeting notes or sending emails. She also gushed over the product online after purchasing one earlier this month. “This is what happens when you let women invent things,” said another TikToker named Aleisa, who, in a recent online clip, demonstrated how to use the keyboard and rejoiced at the prospect of being able to type with nail extensions. Meanwhile, Wang says she’s seen the product described as a “game changer” and “life hack,” as satisfied customers vow they’re “never going back” to regular keyboards because they “can’t type without it now.” “Millions of eyes have now seen tippy type, which has helped us build our community of like-minded individuals practically overnight, all linked by a common goal: to be able to experience the joy of nails while working efficiently,” she told The Post. “We are so grateful for the interest in our products and feel good that we are actively solving a severely overlooked problem that so many are sharing and experiencing.” After launching earlier this spring, Tippy Type hit the jackpot with an Instagram Reel that went viral by chance, which opened the “floodgates” for sales, with more demand than supply. Now, the company can barely keep product in stock, regularly selling out whenever the item starts circulated on social media. The rampant success has bolstered the company’s ability to provide a wider range of products and they now offer a preorder option so that eager customers can “reserve their spot in line.” While the Tippy Type currently accommodates medium-long nails, Wang is looking to expand after receiving an onslaught of requests for new colors, international keyboards, covers made to fit an array of device models and even a version made specifically for gamers. “I want anyone who loves long nails to be able to have them and be able to type comfortably and well. The idea of sacrificing this joy and style for the utility of typing just didn’t sit well with me,” she said. “It makes me feel like we are on the right path in terms of enhancing the overall joy and quality of people’s lives.”

NJ man looking for a wife rents billboards from Times Square to Toronto: ‘I’m not a f–kboy’ The billboards point to a website, “findmohamedawife.com,” where hopeful women can apply for a chance to go out on a date with the 30-year-old suitor. maybe he should switch from fish to tubesteak. are you sure you wanna do that.wav hello again hello.wav Here Comes Trouble.wav parental discretion advised.wav Sorry...try something else.wav urgent messages.wav what a bad boy you are.wav Fat Bottom Girls.wav

After a brief period with power this morning, it happened again.

After a hiatus of several months, the avengers is available again on prime. The funny thing is, when it wasn't available I downloaded 22 episodes and watched them on my computer. 16 of them were from the first Diana Rigg season, which was in black-and-white. That season was absolutely fantastic and I love it even more because watching it in my dark bedroom or on the computer in the middle of the night with all the lights off in black and white is moody and atmospheric. However, I couldn't find all of those episodes in black-and-white and had to download colorized versions of a handful of them and when I watched them I noticed that they were the fully uncut versions because there were a few extra lines here and there that I immediately noticed from having watched those episodes so often on prime. So now that I'm watching them on prime again, it stands out that there have been these little cuts that I am now familiar with… Including a huge blooper that they cut out from one of my favorite episodes (which was played entirely for laughs). In the uncut version, Steed is talking to a woman who is preoccupied with her knitting and he asks her a question and while she is answering him, she looks down and continues speaking, but her lips aren't moving. In the prime version, Steed never asks the question.

The entire island of Cuba is without power as their aging electrical infrastructure failed today after a problem at a power plant.

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I used to play in a band together. He played guitar, and I sang. He now has another female singer in his band, and I can hardly contain my feelings. In the beginning, he was invited into an existing band she was already in, and he accepted. But then, that band broke up and reformed, and he kept the girl in it. He knows how badly I have wanted to sing again. I tried endlessly to resurrect us as a duo or a starter band, but getting him to work with me was like pulling teeth. I was a singer in my own right before him and since, but he has never been honest with me about why he doesn’t want me to perform with him again. This has affected my confidence so much I have virtually given up singing. It kills me that I’ve relinquished my artistic identity over this. The thing is, he’s just a local player — this is not the big time. He had his heyday years ago, and she’s just average. They don’t have a following or crowds lining up to see them. I have tried to be supportive because he needed the confidence. But I’m like two people — the supportive wife and the manipulative green-eyed monster. To add insult to injury, she’s made clear that she doesn’t like me by unfriending me on social media. She named the band after herself, and posts provocative pictures of herself in the band all over the internet. I hate feeling like this. I don’t like who I am. Do you have any advice? — JEALOUS IN PENNSYLVANIA DEAR JEALOUS: Although the band was your husband’s in the beginning, at the end of your letter you state that the vocalist has named the band after herself — which leads me to believe the band is now hers and he is her employee. The fact that this new band isn’t doing particularly well may mean that it won’t last much longer. You had a singing career before you met your husband. It may be time to consider resurrecting it and reclaiming your own artistic identity. THIS IS GOING TO SOUND LIKE A BROKEN RECORD (get it?!?), BUT KILL THE BITCH… AND REALIZE YOUR HUSBAND IS A SAINT FOR NEVER TELLING YOU THAT YOU MAKE YOKO ONO SOUND LIKE CELINE DION. DEAR ABBY: Our daughter was widowed a number of years ago. She’s now getting married for the second time. She and her fiancé are financially stable. They both have good jobs and are financing the wedding themselves. They have plenty of furniture and other household items. My question is, what can we give them as a wedding present, or how can we help them? Would it be appropriate to offer to pay for the wedding cake and champagne for the reception? Any other suggestions would be appreciated. — PARENTS OF THE BRIDE DEAR PARENTS: Why not propose your idea and ask if your daughter has any other ideas about how you can be helpful. Because she and her fiancé have good jobs and are financing the wedding themselves, consider offering to buy them something for their new home, such as an appliance, or to contribute toward their honeymoon. ASK THEM WHAT THEY WANT AND STOP WASTING MY TIME WITH THINGS THAT AREN’T PROBLEMS?