Michael Hopcroft

The sort of people who complain about Meilin Lee of Turning Red being "unrelatable" because she's a Chinese-Canadian girl facing puberty in all its red, furry glory? My mother (age 78) found Mei very relatable. The drawings in the journal, the obsession with 4-Town, the weight of parental expectations — all of these are things she experienced, growing up and raising two daughters who turned out a lot better than I did. Turning Red reminds us that all mothers were once teenage girls, just as Up reminded us that everyone who is old now was once young.

Q: OK, I've landed in London, and have checked the airport carousel,, but where's my cat? A: I can't work up the courage to tell my dog she's adopted.

Q: Why does it feel like everybody wants to take all my money? A: Keeping up my Secret Identity is costing me a fortune in airfare!

"I'm Meilin Lee. And ever since I turned 13, I've been doin' my own thing, makin' my own moves; 24/7/365. I wear what I want, say what I want, and I will not hesitate to do a spontaneous cartwheel if I feel so moved!"

The Clippers got nowhere because their owner didn't care about the product on the court. It's been a lot better under Ballmer, but they are still "the other team" in LA. Which is what the Chargers face now. It's somewhat better for the Chargers since the team has gotten closer to football respectability but being dragged kicking and screaming back into the LA market can't have been good for them.

Q: What do you think you're doing on that Segway, anyway? A: Perhaps that was not the best way to write an epic fantasy.

Confederated Occasional Boring Remarks Association. YOLO

Just saw Turning Red with a couple from church (at my place, with a pizza that surprisingly wasn't touch much). Stylistically, it mixed standard Pixar with anime and CalArts styling. But the story it tells is about daughters and mothers and how often parents don't remember just what sort of teenagers they were. I was reminded of Brave, because while the setting and emphasis were different, it too was a story of the relationship and misunderstandings between mothers and daughters and the difficulties involved with them. Mom commented after she saw Turning Red (a few days before I did) that so few coming-of-sage stories are about young women, compared to young men, that a film that examines the issues of girls growing up the way it did was refreshing, if not necessary. If my mother and I had seen this in a theater, we would probably have had some interesting discussions afterward.

How are the new legal sports books promoting March Madness. Obviosuly the NCVAA would not take their sponsorship out of sheer hnypocrisy, but pool and betting interest has been one of the Tournament's major draws for decades. If not even longer. Has anyone heard of the only team to win the NCAA and the NIT in the same year? It was the 1949-50 team from City College of New York. Thethree stars of that team came into the fledgling NBA together on the same team. That did not turn out well for the new league, or for them, because it soon came out that CCNY was heavily involved in point0-shaving. In the scheme, they deliberately saw to it that theyu won by less than the betting line. That way, the bettors for the underdog -- of which there were significantly fewer than bettors for CCNY -- got paid. That way, the bookmakers got more money for themselves and their Mafia bosses. Once it came out, these players went from heroes to criminals in one fell swoop. They lost their NBA contracts, and their team folded. CCNY's athletic department was so thoroughly disgraced that the school dropped all their sports programs, and even now only compete in Division II. Point shaving pops up its ugly head every so often in college basketball. At leats in public the NCAA takes a hard line agsainst gambling on games. Yet i would be surprised if outfits like Drsaft Kings advertise on the games.

When you throw water on a witch they do not actually melt. What actually happens insn't nearly so photogenic. NT:Subtle signs that you have unknowingly booked a Guiided Tour of Hell.

Q: When going to a cinema pub, what do you order for a German film? A: I don't care if he made some of the best films of the generation. He still has to pay the rent.

I am having a friend over to see Turning Red later this week. It sounds like the sort of movie I would love. \I just hope the Pixar brand's exile of Disney+ does not end up being permanent. It sounds almost like an insult to the studio that changed animated movies forever.

I'll do you one better with the video I'm surprised you didn't mention. It is downright weird to see children dancing around to a song about buying birth control for the first time.

I am reminded of the game a decade or so ago when the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UBMC), the 16 seed, knocked off #1 Virginia. I actually got to watch that game on YouTube years later , and it was bizarre but intriguing. The Retrievers (yes, UMBC calls their sports teams the Retrievers), played in a style that I had never seen. Players of defense were continually chirping, try to unnerve an opponent, and generally play havoc. On offense, they had a crossing game designed to rip a zone to shreds. It shouldnot have worked, The Retrievers should have faded down the stretch due ti their exhausting playing style. Instead, they cleaned Virginia;d clock and knocked out the 1 seed. The lost their next game.

Q: Anyone seen Lockheed? A: The moment I first took LSD, my life made sense. Then it wore off.

The days when a single ticket got you to both sides of a doubleheader are long gone, of course. As a member of sportsgame leagues, I came to loathe doubleheaders, especially when working with a 25-man roster, because it threw my bullpens into chaos. Bullpen management is not my strong point, anyway.

That would put five teams very close to the New York market, which may be why the Whalers left in the first place (they might have been pushed).

"The super-volcano is rumbling? Dang, we only just got here and we have to migrate away again?" NT: Where do all the animals in Yellowstone go when they super-volcano erupts?

IK've said this before -- Alice Cooper is a truly great rock songwriters, although his stagecraft overshadowed his musical gift. And apparently, now that he wrestled his demons to a stalemate, a truly charitable man who devotes a lot of his time (now that he doesn;t tour much) to hands-on philanthropy. Although given the album cover shown here, I half-thought this would be a cover of this great song by the Ramones (whose hard-driving style might well have done it justice).

Q: Who dare balks at paying our claim for the loss of the Death Star? A: And this is why Jake from State Farm can't get a date.

While I would love to see a team in Portland, my first choice would be Quebec City. They got a raw deal when the Nordiques pulled up stakes and went to Denver.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote symphonies, concertos, quartets, solo sonatas for multiple instruments, and was in short a musical polymath. Yet perhaps the legendary composers' greatest contribution was to opera. He wrote many that have become not only staples of the repertoire but are viewed as nearly perfect musically as much as is humanly possibly. And interestingly, the play and film Amadeus has the tragic antihero Salieri view Mozart's progress (and the failure of his efforts to quash it) through his operas. Don Giovanni, in particular, is an interesting case. The theme was the adventures of the fictional seducer Don Juan, a Spanish nobleman with a massive appetite for sex with as many women as possible -- will they or nill they. Most of his conquests blurred the line between seduction and outright rape. In the opera, Don Giovanni and his reluctant servant Leporello indulge in numerous exploits, and in one of them he kills the father of one of his victims, a well-connected former soldier. The man was so admired that soon after his death they erect a monument to him, a statue which Giovanni mockingly invites to supper. On a night when his "lovers" and enemies are converging on him, Giovanni has a lovely meal and ponders a way out. Then this happens: One can only imagine how shocked audiences in 1787 must have been to see an admittedly dark comedy end in such a viscerally horrifying way. They were unprepared for it. The opera added luster to his reputation anyway, which has only grown with time and advances in stagecraft. Acting in opera has advanced as well, as each generation brings stars that come ever closer to the Platonic ideal of the singing actor.. What Samuel Ramey playing Don Giovanni is doing is very difficult!

Many of those ideas deserved it. Limiting the franchise to a group of people who had performed a specific set of tasks, and then taking it away from those who were best at them, is the mark of a dictatorshp. His "Moral Philosophy" department at Johnny's school was neither philosophy nor moral. Rather, it was indoctrination -- at least they were open about it though. Everyone is trained to fear or even hate change. Humans had developed weapons capablke of cracking planets open, yet continued to put boots on the ground. Starship Troopers is fun to read, but I question juist ow worth defending its society is. And I can;t decide whether RAH was satirizing other writers or endorsing his ideas as some sort of ideal society.

I know people like to think of athletes are selfish, but the Ridley case is a bit more complex. He left the team after five games due to a mental health issue (what sort of issues is a big fat None Of Your Business) and was taking time away from football. Now he gets more time away, albeit without earning the $11M+ they would have owed him for the 2022 season — which will roll over to 2023 if he comes back. Which, after a season-long suspension, is a big if. He has a year now to work on his issues and get on with his life, and if he finds something he thinks is better or more important than football more power to him. He's already made enough money to last a lifetime if properly managed. Since the suspension is "indefinite", the NFL could delay his return as long as they wished. His own situation is complicated, and this was no entitled idot.

Q: How would a little kid get to William Shatner's house? A: Nobody else knows who he is, but in his own mind he's the total trip!