Fall arrives this week? It is my favorite season that I eagerly await each year. I got one post completed this week and worked on a few fall projects that I will post over the next two weeks. I even made a few decorative items for my younger daughter who...
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Sundays are for treating yourself to some fancy hand sanitiser that smells like citrus. Before you press the pump, let's read this week's best writing about games.
When the Eternals movie was first announced at SDCC 2019 for the MCU's Phase 4, people had questions. Who the heck were these Eternals? How will they fit into the MCU? Well, now we know (kind of). Marvel Studios released the final Eternals trailer and fans got a clearer picture of what these beautiful superheroes will be doing in the MCU. We wrote about the history of the Eternals, but basically, they're the creation of divine beings, the Celestials (Ego, Peter Quill's father, was one of these beings). The Celestials created early humanoids as a way to kickstart human evolution, thus creating the Eternals (the gorgeous, good-hearted ones) and the Deviants (the ugly, evil ones). The former was tasked with protecting Earth (and later, humankind) from the wicked plans of the Deviants. While we've gotten a glimpse of these new characters, I'm going to take a closer look at each of the 10 new superheroes. In this first post of the series, I'm asking: who is Gilgamesh?
Who Is Gilgamesh And What Are His Powers?
Gilgamesh (also known as Hero or The Forgotten One) is played by Korean actor Don Lee, is by far one of the strongest physically of the Eternals. He can easily lift over 100 tons and has been compared to Hercules throughout history. Like the other Eternals, he possesses the ability to fly, manipulate matter, and can shoot powerful forces from his eyes and hands. Gilgamesh also has five highly developed senses due to his former blindness, which makes him an excellent hunter and tracker.
Gilgamesh is the best hand-to-hand combatant among the Eternals and he’s very knowledgeable in all methods, especially in ancient Earth civilizations. He possesses armor of unknown composition (maybe the same material that the ten rings came from??) and he usually carries a simple hand weapon. Whether it’s an axe, spear, or club, Gilgamesh is always battle-ready.
A History of Gilgamesh
Image via Marvel Comics
Gilgamesh was one of the original Eternals created by Jack Kirby in the 1970s, although he’s gone by many names throughout the years. Similar to the other Eternals, Gilgamesh has roots in Greek mythology and actually helped and battled Hercules. He was known as The Forgotten One early on thanks to his banishment to Olympus by the Eternals’ ruler, Zuras. Later, after the battle with the Deviants, he was renamed Hero by the One Above All (who is essentially the head of the Celestials) and then later renamed himself Gilgamesh after joining and helping out the Avengers.
Talking about his character, Lee said that Gilgamesh has a deep connection with Angelina Jolie’s Thena, but whether it’s romantic or platonic is yet to be seen.
Eternals premieres November 5, 2021 in theaters everywhere (for now).
Are you excited to learn more about Gilgamesh? How do you think his relationship with the other characters will play out? Let us know in the comments below!
I’m already excited that The Proud Family is getting a reboot (aptly titled Louder and Prouder) and the original voice actors are coming back. Plus there’s going to be some major LGBTQ representation: Pittsburgh natives Zachary Quinto (Heroes, Star Trek) and Billy Porter (Pose, Kinky Boots) are joining the Proud family cast as Barry Leibowitz-Jenkins and Randall Leibowitz-Jenkins, mixed-race adoptive parents to 14-year-old activist Maya Leibowitz-Jenkins, who will be voiced by Keke Palmer. Can things get any better? They can! Disney+ just announced an A-list Louder and Prouder guest cast and recurring characters for the show’s 20th anniversary and it is UH.MAZE.ING.
Who’s In The Louder And Prouder Guest Cast And Recurring Characters?
Lizzo at the Palace Theatre, St. Paul, MN/Image via Wikimedia Commons from Andy Witchger
The guest cast will feature talent from the music, film, TV, and sports worlds. Some of the biggest names include Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Chance the Rapper, Normani, Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton), Tiffany Haddish (Bad Trip), Lena Waithe (TheChi), Anthony Anderson (Blackish), Gabrielle Union (Being Mary Jane), Debbie Allen (Fame), James Pickens Jr. (Grey’s Anatomy), Courtney B. Vance (Lovecraft Country), Jane Lynch (Glee), Marsai Martin (Blackish), Jaden Smith (Life in a Year), Glynn Turman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Lamorne Morris (New Girl), Brenda Song (The Suite Life of Zack and Cody), Tina Knowles (mom-ager to Beyonce), Eva Longoria (Jane the Virgin), Holly Robinson Peete (Meet thePeetes), Al Roker (NBC’s Today Show), Bretman Rock (beauty and social media influencer), Gabby Douglas (American Olympic gymnast), Laurie Hernandez (American Olympic gymnast), and Dominique Dawes (American Olympic gymnast). Even with this stacked guest cast, there’s still going to be several other famous voices.
New recurring character voice talent include Asante Blackk (This Is Us) as Penny's boyfriend, Kareem; rapper Artist "A Boogie" Dubose as Maya's gamer brother, Francis "KG" Leibowitz-Jenkins; Raquel Lee Bolleau (Real Husbands of Hollywood), who will once again voice Nubia Gross; and Marcus T. Paulk (Red Tails), who’s reprising his role as Penny's classmate, Myron.
It seems like Louder and Prouder will continue to follow Penny Proud and the hijinx that her family and friends often get themselves into. The entire original voice cast will be back for Louder and Prouder, including Kyla Pratt (Penny Proud), Tommy Davidson (Oscar Proud), Paula Jai Parker (Trudy Proud), Jo Marie Payton (Suga Mama), Carlos Mencia (Felix Boulevardez), Maria Canals-Barrera (Sunset Boulevardez), Alvaro Gutierrez (Papi), and Cedric the Entertainer (Uncle Bobby Proud).
Disney created a 20th anniversary featurette for Louder and Prouder, which you can watch below:
The Proud Family reboot, Louder and Prouder, is set to premiere in 2022.
Are you as psyched for this Louder and Prouder guest cast as I am? Let us know in the comments below!
It’s never easy making a new season of a television series. The debut is simple enough as long as you have an exciting premise and something to encourage viewers to keep watching. But as time goes on, expectations go up. By the third season of a show, you don’t just have people ready to consume the writer’s latest ideas. Instead, you’ve got hundreds of thousands of eager viewers who come onto streaming services with a list of things they want to see and knowledge of what’s worked in the past (and what hasn’t.) So, a review for season 3 of Sex Education isn’t just judging the new episodes alone; it’s looking at whether or not it was worth the lengthy wait in a post-COVID world. We think that it was, and we’re here to share why.
Season 3 of Sex Education Review – We’ve Always Loved It
Creating a series about high schoolers and their fascination with sex sounds predictable enough. I mean, how many teen movies have tackled the same subject in repetitive ways? But the Laurie Nunn-created Netflix comedy-drama exceeded expectations almost immediately after the first season premiered in 2019. The premise is simple: Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield), the son of acclaimed sex therapist Jean (Gillian Anderson), finds out that he isn’t so bad at giving sex advice (despite his inexperience.) But plenty of things can go wrong when a high school student starts offering life-changing advice. And sure enough, they do.
Things are only complicated by Otis’ feelings for his “co-worker” at their “sex clinic.” Emma Mackey’s Maeve Wiley is an unapologetically independent badass. The second season saw her develop further as a character that is far more than just a love interest for the lead. She’s got complicated family history, serious dreams of her own, and a take-no-shit attitude.
Viewers had a lot to wait for with the latest season. The finale of season two saw various cliffhangers, including Otis’ pesky voicemail that Maeve’s suitor, Isaac, deleted. Jean also finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a heartbreak. Everybody else was either coupling up, breaking up, or figuring out their identities. This leads us to season 3.
Image via Netflix.
What Is Happening In Moordale Now?
The latest episodes of Sex Education start as strong as ever. An expectedly raunchy montage leads us into a new school year after a summer of orgasmic bliss. Viewers and students alike head into Moordale with high expectations. After all, the final moments of the last season saw the dismissal of Headmaster Groff. And nobody could be worse than him… Right?
Headmistress Hope Haddon (Jemina Kirke) seems instantly promising. She looks hip and is young enough to sympathize with the struggles that the students are going through. Moordale needs a change, and she’s the one to do it. But sometimes, changes can send institutes backward, and this is one school that has no intention of dropping its wild streak.
Where Are All Of The Lovers?
We aren’t all watching this series for its authentic portrayals of intimacy. Instead, we’ve been hooked on the future of each relationship. The will-they-won’t-they approach of Maeve and Otis is especially captivating, especially in a new series where they’re both coupled up with new beaus. Otis starts the new season in a partnership with Ruby, which we would never have anticipated a season ago. But Otis’ never-ending attempts to get people to open up provides a refreshing look on the snobby fashionista.
Meanwhile, Maeve has eyes for Isaac. While we may have hated him a little bit during his last appearance, actor George Robinson forces us to give the boy another chance. The portrayal is so well-executed that it’s hard to believe it is Robinson’s first on-screen role. His approach to Maeve lacks the intimidated wonder that Otis has held with her, and we finally get to see Maeve at her most vulnerable. It works perfectly, but the looming desire for Otis to come back into her life is undeniable.
And that leads us to the main event: Do we even want to bother with Maeve and Otis anymore? The development of their characters has lead them to lose some of the perfect chemistry from earlier episodes. A slow-burn romance is always welcomed in our books, but there is such a thing as waiting too long. We aren’t here to spoil the ending of the season, but you’ll need to go into this one with eyes on other couples if you want to be fully satisfied.
Image via Netflix.
Speaking Of Other Couples In This Review Of Sex Education Season 3…
Another focus heading into season 3 was the controversial pairing of Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) and Adam (Connor Swindells.) Adam is ready to be out and proud (at least to his school), and Eric is pleased to see him opening up. But personalities can only change so much in such a short amount of time, and the new season gives both characters plenty of opportunities to grow and decide what they want in their relationship. Of everybody’s character development, Adam’s is one that we were looking forward to seeing more of. We aren’t left disappointed.
Other moments in season 3 leave us thinking that characters are developing backward. But take some time to remember your own personality in high school. We all made mistakes. How could you not when you’ve barely escaped puberty? It is frustrating to watch characters, including fan-favorite Eric, make decisions that make our heads spin. But if they’re going to be honest about the teenage experience, they’ve got to show the slip-ups.
Image via Netflix.
Does The New Season Keep What Makes It Great?
There are few shows out there that are worth binge-watching without taking breaks (other than for snacks, of course.) But this has always been one of them. What has made us fall in love with the series is how comfortable it has been telling things that are rarely done correctly on screen. It treats topics like queer identity, racism, self-harm, and sexual assault with a perfect blend of sensitivity and honest humor that makes viewers feel like they’re back in high school themselves.
Season 3 keeps all of these pieces of perfection inside. The first half of the season feels like its best yet. There is a boost in production value, acting abilities, and sensibilities. The second half starts to feel like we’re running in circles with a few of the plot lines, and it doesn’t finish as strongly as the last two seasons. But fortunately, the door is still left wide open for a fourth season. We just hope that we don’t have to wait as long as we did for this one.
Readers, do you agree with our review of Sex Education season 3? If you haven’t binged it as quickly as we did, it’s never too late to head over to Netflix and start streaming it today.
Today is Batman Day! What does that mean? Well, it's just like it sounds. Today, we celebrate the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, the World's Greatest Detective, the Defender of Gotham – Batman! Though Batman is the second oldest superhero (Superman came first), he is the most influential superhero character. What started as an antithesis of Superman shaped the world of comics ever since his May 1939 debut and still does today. At the time, Batman reflected the world much more than Superman could. We were in the Great Depression, Hitler was rising in power; the world was a bleak place. Batman rose from the darkness, not in spite of it. And now here we are, with a multi-billion dollar franchise and a holiday. So, how do you celebrate Batman Day, besides going to a comic shop? Here are some ideas:
How to Celebrate the Legacy of Batman Day
(Images: DC Comics)
It might be impossible to find a copy of Detective Comics #27, but thankfully, you don't need to. The first appearance of Batman – a mere seven pages – is free on ComiXology, and that's cause enough to celebrate. Free comics are the best, right? But after you read the debut, slingshot forward 82 years and pick up the latest issue of Detective Comics, issue #1042. That's right. In just Detective Comics, Batman has appeared in over 1000 comics. In an odd way, Batman has changed significantly since that first appearance, and yet not at all either.
To Celebrate the Comics Even More, Read Some Modern Batman Classics Through the Day
The most recent event, Fear State, just started in time for Batman Day. (Image DC Comics)
After you experience the first and current Detective Comics, discover more. If you are new to Batman, you can pick up any Bat-comic from the past twentyish years and find something great. How can we say that? Well, think of it like this. Marvel generally puts their "top writers" on Avengers or X-Men. So, you would think that DC Comics would do the same with Justice League, right? But no, their premiere spot goes to Batman. The past twenty years featured, in rough order:
Ed Brubaker
Grant Morrison
Tony S Daniel
Scott Snyder
Tim King
Mariko Tamaki
John Ridley
James Tynion IV (who is wrapping up his far-too-short run)
Joshua Williamson
Want something weird and esoteric? Pick up something from Grant Morrison. You'll love it but also want to read their work several times to get it. A deep psychological dive? Tim King. How about a film noir experience? Ed Brubaker. And if you like a long, sprawling epic, Scott Snyder's your writer.
To that end, even if you're tired of Bruce Wayne, you can celebrate Batman Day with a Batman. During Grant Morrison's run, Dick Grayson wore the cape and cowl. Towards the end of Scott Snyder's tenure, Jim Gordon replaced Bruce – and wore a Batman mech-suit. Finally, during Future State, John Ridley brought us Jace Fox, "the Next Batman." Jace proved to be such a fan favorite that he now has an ongoing series, I am Batman.
Don't Forget to Celebrate the Classics on Batman Day
(Image: DC Comics)
While Batman has a lot of modern classics, he also has classic classics. First, of course, there's the Frank Miller stories, The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One – which is better than DKR, regardless of what people tell you. Alan Moore's The Killing Joke might be the shortest and most memorable Batman classic. Also include Jeph Loeb's Long Halloween, which inspired Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight AND Matt Reeves' upcoming The Batman. Remember when fans voted to kill Jason Todd? Well, Denny O'Neil's writing turned a gimmick into a powerful story about loss.
Then we have the Batman events of the 90s. Contagion – or, um, maybe wait for COVID to end for that one. Cataclysm, No Man's Land, and Knightfall were the massive crossover epics DC produced to rival the X-Men epic crossovers at Marvel. Also, though not a 90s event, throwing in War Games too…because it is incredible.
Raise a Glass to Celebrate Your Favorite Batman
(Image: Warner Bros)
First, mix yourself a Gotham City Cocktail, then toast to the several actors who brought Batman to life over the past 82 years. But also watch your favorite Batman. Maybe it's an old Adam West episode or the most praised Batman movie so far, The Dark Knight. Or perhaps you love George Clooney as Batman and watch Batman & Robin. Hey, however you want to celebrate Batman Day is up to you.
Play Some Gotham-Centric Video Games
(Image: Rocksteady)
Batman has also had fantastic video games, such as the Arkham Asylum series. Or, if you want some great mindless fun, pick up the Lego Batman games. What better way to celebrate Batman Day than to become Batman? In fact, some of the best Batman stories are in his video games. Along with the Arkham series, the Telltale games’ unique style delivers on story and gameplay. Even the rise of Sin Tzu, though lacking in gameplay, had a pretty good story, including a brand new character that Jim Lee created.
We might as well call 2022 the year of the Batman. Not only is the Batman finally coming out after the pandemic shut down production, but along with Robert Pattinson, we'll see three other live-action Batmen! Both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are reprising their roles for The Flash, delving into the DC multiverse…but a little late behind Marvel. Just like Flash, despite moving quickly, WB is always a bit late. And in HBO's Titans, Iain Glen will continue playing the old and bitter Bruce Wayne.
But equally as exciting and a reason to celebrate, Batman: The AnimatedSeries creator Bruce Timm is teaming up with JJ Abrams for Batman: The Caped Crusader, an HBO Max series. Also, in animated Batman news, the hit video game/comic book series Injustice is getting an animated movie. Though Batman is more of a supporting character, he still plays a significant role. On that note, we're also getting another season of Batwoman and more Harley Quinn: The Animated Series.
Speaking of the Bat-family, we're getting a new Batman-themed video game in 2022: Gotham Knights. But don't expect to put on your bat mask. Batman's dead and his successors, Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood, become Gotham's defenders in this game.
Still, it's fantastic that we have plenty of reasons to celebrate Batman Day next year, seeing as how this year's Batman Day isn't even over.
When the Eternals movie was first announced at SDCC 2019 for the MCU’s Phase 4, people had questions. Who the heck were these Eternals? How will they fit into the MCU? Well, now we know (kind of). Marvel Studios released the final Eternals trailer and fans got a clearer picture of what these beautiful superheroes will be doing in the MCU. We wrote about the history of the Eternals, but basically, they’re the creation of divine beings, the Celestials (Ego, Peter Quill’s father, was one of these beings). The Celestials created early humanoids as a way to kickstart human evolution, thus creating the Eternals (the gorgeous, good-hearted ones) and the Deviants (the ugly, evil ones). The former was tasked with protecting Earth (and later, humankind) from the wicked plans of the Deviants. While we’ve gotten a glimpse of these new characters, I’m going to take a closer look at each of the 10 new superheroes. In this first post of the series, I’m asking: who is Thena?
Who Is Thena And What Are Her Powers?
Thena, who is played by Angelina Jolie, is a bit of an anomaly when compared to the other Eternals because she’s formed a romantic relationship with a Deviant named Kro and had twins with him. Because of this she’s a bit of an outcast, although she’s close to fellow Eternal, Gilgamesh.
Like the other Eternals, Thena is endowed with super strength and durability. She can fly, teleport, and change her appearance and the appearance of other objects. She is extremely intelligent and has been lucky enough to learn from some of the greatest minds throughout history.
Thena is also a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, especially unarmed combat and fighting with ancient and Eternal high-tech weapons. She wears armor of unknown composition and carries a bow that fires arrows that release “cold energy” (not quite sure what this means, but it sounds painful). She also carries a spear that surrounds victims with a ring of intense heat and light or shoots them with anti-gravitons.
A History of Thena
Image via Marvel Comics
Thena is also one of the original Eternals created by Jack Kirby in the 1970s, and like the others, has roots in Greek mythology. She was born in Olympia and was often mistaken for Athena or Minerva (the Roman name). As mentioned before, she became the lover of Kro and they consummated their love during the Vietnam War, which resulted in the birth of their twin children, Donald and Deborah. She later rejected Kro when he attacked New York City and declared herself forever an Eternal.
In the more recent version of the Eternals comic, Thena is married to Thomas Eliot and they have a son named Joey. She’s a researcher at Stark Enterprises and she has no powers; however, after several traumatic events, she gets her powers (as well as her memories) back.
Eternals premieres November 5, 2021 in theaters everywhere (for now).
Are you excited to learn more about Angelina Jolie’s Thena? Let us know in the comments below!
WASHINGTON -- Data needed to determine the advisability of booster shots of the Moderna Inc and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines is just weeks away, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser said on Sunday, as officials signaled they expected boosters would be recommended for a broad swath of Americans. Read More
WASHINGTON -- Senior Democrats said on Sunday that they will likely need to scale back President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion social spending bill while passage of the linked bipartisan infrastructure bill may slip past a Sept. 27 deadline. Read More
ABUJA -- Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said on Sunday he had appointed a board for state-oil firm NNPC and directed that it should be incorporated within six months, a move that could allow it to sell shares in the future. Read More
ABUJA -- Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said on Sunday he has appointed a board for state-oil firm NNPC and directed that it should be incorporated. Read More
WASHINGTON -- European capitals celebrated a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, as President Joe Biden's top diplomat cracked jokes in French in Paris, posed for selfies with French youth and spoke at length about revitalizing the transatlantic relationship. Read More
SYDNEY -- Australia on Sunday defended its decision to ditch a multi-billion-dollar order for French submarines and opt instead for an alternative deal with the United States and Britain, saying it had flagged its concerns to Paris months ago. Read More
A combination of Mirati Therapeutics Inc's genetic mutation-targeting adagrasib and older cancer drug Erbitux shrank tumors in 39% of patients with advanced colorectal cancer treated in a small trial, the company said on Sunday. Read More
Every new business dreams of becoming the premier brand in their space, like Starbucks is to coffee, and Apple is to consumer electronics, but they have no idea how difficult that is to achieve. In fact, only 100 of the 10,000 multimillion-dollar consumer companies around the world can claim to be an "apostle brand" – one that inspires enduring trust, loyalty, and endorsement.
One of the reasons it's so tough is that the rules are constantly changing on what it takes to win over customers, as customer attitudes and cultures change, and competitors continually strive to "raise the bar" on product and support. I found some eye-opening insights in the classic book, "Rocket: Eight Lessons to Secure Infinite Growth," by The Boston Consulting Group.
They outline the new rules for existing brands, but I believe that every entrepreneur who doesn't yet have a brand yet should study these carefully, as paraphrased for startups below. It's a lot harder to recover from brand missteps made early, than it is to get is right the first time, so build your brand strategy accordingly:
Don't ask your customers what they want next. The challenge of every startup is finding that balance between solving a real problem today, and giving customers the courage to make a leap forward. Existing customers can't envision a new concept, or new behaviors. You have to excite their imagination, then show them the new world.
Turn your biggest fans into apostle customers. Your first satisfied customers define your voice in the marketplace. They see your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. If you listen to them and respond, they will become your best apostles, delivering on average eight times their own value in new customers. That's a winning growth trajectory.
Always welcome a customer's scorn as a gift. Even in a new startup organization, it's easy to become convinced that a percentage of unhappy customers is normal. Instead of scorn and dismissal, a comprehensive and deliberate response is the key to brand growth and vitality. Without the feedback, no change in the demand space will be noted.
People still judge a book by its cover. Consumers shop with their eyes, just like they eat with their eyes. Target all the senses all the time. Shame on you if you offer any product or service that is dull or unattractive. Steve Jobs was a master at this. Visual appearance and core values matter. Make your team as well as your customers proud.
Transform your employees into passionate disciples. A highly motivated front line engages customers and tells your story with passion. They are your greatest resource for generating new apostles and a cultural advantage. The result is higher repeat purchases and sales without promotion. Loyalty in the ranks creates loyalty in the customer.
Ramp up your virtual and real relationships. The digital age is making virtual relationships with customers indistinguishable from real relationships. It's a lot easier and faster to grow virtual relationships, and they are both real for online purchases. Your startup needs to use blogs and social media to establish interactive relationships early.
Take giant leaps rather than timid steps. It's hard to really change the world with incremental advances and consolidation. Be clear and vibrant in your claims and in your deeds, or you will never get noticed in the flood of messages we have to deal with every day. Startups have the advantage in starting with a dream and no feet stuck in the past.
Don't ever assume that your brand is stable. All relationships are in a constant state of flux, so don't assume your customer relationships will remain stable. At any moment, your brand will be lifted high or knocked down low by cultural changes or external events. It's up to you to track the data, recognize a change early, and intervene proactively.
The overall goal of these eight new rules is to help your startup forge the tightest possible emotional connection with the most customers in the shortest amount of time. These customer advocates lead to more love, loyalty, advocacy, and the exponential growth of an enduring brand. It's the only way to make your startup the next Starbucks.
The Food Doctor posted: " With the increasing demand of organic food, they are becmng way tooo costlier ! Kitchen gardening is something evrybdy is trying their hands on, and why not ? Here's a mini guide to start What is kitchen garden ? Conducive to growing vegg"
With the increasing demand of organic food, they are becmng way tooo costlier ! Kitchen gardening is something evrybdy is trying their hands on, and why not ?
Here's a mini guide to start
What is kitchen garden ? Conducive to growing veggies, fruits, herbs and for fresh consumption (not for sale)
Benefits
Freshly homegrown seasonal foods without any harmful pesticides
You have a powerful control on your food consumption. The healthier you grow, the healthier you put in ur meal
It makes you air clean
What u require A place where your plant is exposed to sunlight atleast 4-5 hrs a day (spclly morning sunlight )
Terrace / backyard/ window sills / hanging pots / or any plastic bottle, cans or cartons can be used
A series will be posted up for more information such as what can be grown / how to grow / how to maintain the garden / utilizing kitchen waste etc
Funcom has announced the acquisition of Conan the Barbarian rights and other properties such as Mutant Year Zero and Solomon Kane. This new acquisition is now working on a new, unknown game combining several of Robert E. Howard’s characters. Funcom reported in a press release that it has taken on a non-revealed Cabinet Group and, most importantly, Conan, a number of emblematic characters with it. The whole of the Cabinet portfolio will also become the new Chief Executive Officer of the Heroic Signatures division of Funcom, Fredrik Malmberg.
Funcom claimed that it is "currently overseeing the development of an unannounced game which will combine many of the characters in the Robert E. Howard universe." As a part of the announcement. Howard is a pulp fiction writer, with Conan the Barbarian and demon-slayer Solomon Kane being his most renowned characters. Even if the game is not a Conan the Barbarian game, it will probably include him as a character whatever this project is.
Midnight’s Edge gets into some of the ramifications of this new ownership.
Midnight’s Edge also has a riveting discussion with none other than Fredrik Malmberg, producer of movies and games, and by way of Cabinet Entertainment; the ultimate owner of the Conan IP.
Conan and other Cabinet assets are now fully acquired by Funcom, but it will not affect any projects presently under production, including Netflix’s Conan series. Nor will it affect Marvel’s continuing Conan comic series.
You just can't keep a beloved ghost dead: Beetlejuice is coming back to haunt Broadway, with a return engagement of the increasingly popular musical taking possession of Broadway's Marriott Marquis Theatre on Friday, April 8, 2022.
Casting will be announced later, Deadline reports.
"We sincerely thank the Beetlejuice fans," said producers Mark Kaufman (Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures) and Kevin McCormick (Langley Park Productions). "It is because of their support that we will be able to blow the roof off the Marquis Theatre three-times over with fun and laughter, laughter and laughter!"
The producers aren't exaggerating about the fan power: Beetlejuice, which got off to a relatively slow start when it opened at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre in April 2019, with both box office and critics' review rather hit and miss. But a funny thing happened on the way to the haunting: Over the following summer, ticketbuyers began to materialize, seats started filling. Perhaps the biggest word-of-mouth success of its era, Beetlejuice seemed like a surefire candidate for Broadway longevity, due in large part to its popular stars Sophia Anne Caruso and, especially, Alex Brightman as the mischievous hipster ghost.
But the business uptick was, apparently, too little too late for the Shubert Organization, which cited the early sluggishness at the box office as cause for evicting the musical to make way for the upcoming mega-production of The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman and produced by Scott Rudin, who used to be pretty mega himself.
Beetlejuice was set to play its final performance on June 6 2020, with the Covid pandemic shutdown of March 2020 nixing both the last few months of its intended run and rumors of a quick return and venue change.
Beetlejuice's growing fanbase was not happy with any of it, with lots of "Ok, Boomer" memes making the point that the youthful-skewing Beetlejuice was being exorcised to make way for a longer-in-the-tooth classic musical from Broadway's Golden Age. Internet rumors and wishful thinking combined to keep Beetlejuice alive throughout the pandemic shutdown. A "Save Beetlejuice" Change.org petition eventually garnered more than 36,000 signatures.
The original Beetlejuice was a black comedy / horror film directed by Tim Burton that starred Michael Keaton and was released in 1988, thirty three years ago.
This week, I looked around to see if any artists and writers have written posts for the 20th September 11 Memorial. It wasn’t easy, but here, for starters, is surely one of the most positive examples I could find, from Billy Tucci:
Drawing I did on my porch on #September11 of my comic book character Ana Ishikawa (aka, Shi). I remember that afternoon waiting, enraged, & feeling helpless to do anything. So many friends & family worked for the #NYPD & #FDNY & we didn’t have any word on anyone. #NeverForgetpic.twitter.com/Q2dn37Tq1z
And I gotta say, the image of Superman waving a USA flag is certainly impressive, making this one of the best contributions that could be made for the 9-11 Day of Remembrance.
If there’s something disappointing about the rest, it’s that none of them take a meat-and-potatoes stance, condemning al Qaeda for the tragedy and mass murder they caused, not to mention the aid the jihadists had in Saudi Arabia at the time, and don’t even acknowledge the disaster Joe Biden and company caused via their withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was a shocking example of caving to the same horrors, and destroyed hard work built up 2 decades ago. How can you send a message if you don’t come up with some kind of a statement or illustration that’s damning to the monsters who committed the heinous crime that took place on September 11, 2001?
In addition to that, the mainstream comics industry itself almost entirely forbids any criticism of Islam, and practically excuses it, nor do they pay any tribute to movements like 9-11 Families for a Safe & Strong America, and the French victims of the jihadists who murdered staff members at Charlie Hebdo. If they’re not willing to deal with specific issues like these, is it any wonder justice will never truly be served? For now, I’d say Captain America is one of the biggest victims of this PC mentality, and has been for nearly 2 decades already, seeing how Marvel would rather publish stories depicting average Americans as white supremacists. This is the sad state we’ve reached over the years, due to a lot of terrible communist-style indoctrination that’s going on in many liberal establishments everywhere.
And lest I forget, there were quite a few artists and writers who sadly didn’t address the subject at all. That too says quite a bit how far we’ve fallen.
In Related News
The Valdosta Daily Times did a brief retrospective on veteran comics editor Sid Jacobson’s 9-11 Report graphic novel from 2006, probably one of the very few in the industry proper to ever deal with the subject. It begins with a fishy part:
Two years ago following the investigation into the Trump-Russia connection, someone asked if I would like to borrow a copy of the Mueller Report, I only partially joked, “I’m waiting for the comic book adaptation.”
Which was finally released later that year as “The Mueller Report Illustrated.”
And just how honest or dishonest was that? The whole “connection” was phony, all concocted by the Democrats to create drama for attacking a man who’s now been unfairly ousted from office for the sake of installing a politician who’s not fit for the job into it, which has since led to the horrific disaster in Afghanistan. It wouldn’t surprise me if the illustrated take on the topic was biased against President Trump.
But several years ago, the 9/11 Commission Report was published in book form. People purchased it as they are purchasing the Mueller Report. I read a copy of the 9/11 Report like many other Americans.
I also read “The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation” by Sid Jacobson, the man who created Richie Rich, and legendary comics artist Ernie Colon.
I think the part about Richie Rich is inaccurate, but what else could you expect from such un-dedicated reporters? I believe Alfred Harvey, Warren Kremer, Larz Bourne and Steve Mufatti were the creators of the character in 1953. Jacobson may have been the writer/editor for a lot of the Richie Rich stories, but he was anything but the creator per se.
Yes, there was a comic book adaptation of the 9/11 Report. There was nothing disrespectful about it. Jacobson and Colon took a serious look at a serious subject.
From the history of Al-Qaeda’s rise to the history of terrorism in America to the training of terrorists in flying but not landing planes to the awful events of Sept. 11, 2001, the details of the 9/11 Report lent themselves to adaptation in comics form.
Though when reading the original report in text book form, the thought would have never crossed my mind to adapt it into a graphic novel.
What’s really sad is that, if you take a look at the atmosphere since, much fewer in the industry proper want to touch upon the subject. That aside, I’d written about this subject 15 years ago, and found the graphic novel has a lot of ups and downs, so it’s a very mixed bag for anybody hoping to see a tour de force look at a serious topic. As a result, can it be considered the most serious look at the issue?
Jacobson and Colon created a tremendously readable version of the 9/11 Report as a comic book. There were graphic interpretations for data and loads of information boiled down to a hundred-some pages of masterful comic book storytelling.
“The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation” even received a promotional blurb from comic book legend Stan Lee: “It will surely set the standard for all future works of contemporary history, graphic or otherwise, and should be required reading in every home, school and library.”
It was and remains a milestone in graphic storytelling both in terms of displaying what the comic book form is capable of achieving and better understanding the history of an era.
Still worth finding a copy these many years later. Or pulling from the shelf and reconsidering again.
I had looked over the material provided years before, and a lot of the sample pages originally provided by Slate are still online. But as I said before, there are many strengths and weaknesses to the graphic novel, so I wouldn’t go so far myself to say it’s the numero uno best book on the subject. However, I do wonder how well it’s going to hold up now in view of what George W. Bush did wrong in his time, and now that he’s made divisive statements on the 20th anniversary of 9-11, that were throughly inappropriate, and soiled what should’ve been a moment of unity. It’s enough to make one wonder if there should be another graphic novel produced about what’s gone wrong with the war against terrorism in the years since, including in France and Britain, but again, if past history is any indication, there’s only so many comic writers and artists today who refuse to associate themselves with the subject, and that’s why a serious issue like this is unlikely to be explored further, if at all.
Political correctness has injured creativity and seriousness only so much. Who knows if even Jacobson and Colón are still willing to tackle all these issues?
Deadline reports that Hayley Atwell, who is part of the Marvel universe as Agent Peggy Carter and who is next up in Mission: Impossible 7, has been cast as the voice of Lara Croft in Netflix and Legendary's Tomb Raider anime series. It is based on the Square Enix action-adventure video game that has spawned comic books and three feature films, with a fourth on the way.
The anime series, first announced in January, will pick up after the video game reboot trilogy, and follow the heroine 25 years after her first game appeared as she explores new territory.
Tomb Raider will be written by Tasha Huo (The Witcher: Blood Origin, Red Sonja), who is executive producing with dj2 Entertainment founder and CEO Dmitri M. Johnson (Sonic the Hedgehog), Stephan Bugaj and Howard Bliss. Jacob Robinson will be an executive producer via his company Tractor Pants.
The Tomb Raider video games, developed by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montréal and published by Square Enix, have sold more that 81 million copies in their quarter-century of existence. The most recent release in the series was 2018's Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Netflix has given an eight-episode series order to Grendel, a series based on the masked vigilante from Matt Wagner's popular, award-winning Dark Horse Comics series, with Abubakr Ali (Power Book II: Ghost, Katy Keene) set to star in the titular role.
With Ali's casting, he becomes the first Arab Muslim male actor to portray a series lead in a comic book adaptation. The series, written and executive produced by Resident Evil and Supernatural alum Andrew Dabb, comes out of Netflix's first look deal with Dark Horse Entertainment.
Also joining the cast are Jaime Ray Newman (Dopesick, The Time Traveler's Wife), Julian Black Antelope (The Flash, Debris), Madeline Zima (Californication, Hacks), Kevin Corrigan (Scenes from an Empty Church, The Get Down), Emma Ho (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, The Expanse), Erik Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Watchmen), Brittany Allen (What Keeps You Alive) and Andy Mientus (The Flash, Dolly Parton's Heartstrings).
Grendel, which sees Dabb also serve as showrunner, follows Hunter Rose (Ali), a gifted fencer, writer and assassin, seeking to avenge the death of a lost love. He goes to war with New York's criminal underworld, only to realize…why beat them, when you can join them?
Last week brought the news that The Boys season three had officially wrapped production and now a new video compiled from set features the all-star cast confirming the news.
Featuring a fresh look at several returning cast members can be seen, along with teases of the new characters like Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy (who refrains that he’s going to get drunk after the wrap). We also get a glimpse of series star Karl Urban delivering a rousing speech to the crew, even going so far as to say: “I think this is going to be our best season yet.” Check it for yourself below!
Now you have an update on Season 3! Stop sending your stan letters to our homes. pic.twitter.com/cX5nOvJ0oB
“We had written Soldier Boy long before I cast Jensen. The majority of the guys we were looking at for that part were actually quite older than Jensen,” series creator and showrunner Eric Kripke said about Ackles’ casting. “Because it’s a World War II hero. But it’s so funny how these things sometimes happen. Jensen called me and I’m not on the show anymore but we keep in touch and text every so often. But he happened to call me and we were just chatting and I’m like well I’m prepping Season 3 of the show, and I have this character Soldier Boy, and it was a real pain to cast, and I haven’t really found anyone. Hey, wait a minute, do you want to do it? I sent him the script, and he’s like, oh my God, I totally want to do this. Less than a week later, he was cast. He just happened to call that day, is one of the big reasons he got that part.”
Other newcomers set to appear in season three of the hit Amazon show include Sean Patrick Flannery (The Boondock Saints) as a supe called Gunpowder, a character that has roots in the comics and was briefly featured in the first season of the show (naturally played by a different actor). Plus Miles Gaston Villanueva (The Resident) will play Supersonic, an ex-boyfriend of Erin Moriarty’s Starlight, and Nick Wechsler (Revenge) as Blue Hawk. Laurie Holden (Andrea on AMC’s The Walking Dead) will also appear as “Crimson Countess”, a counterpart to the Scarlet Witch.
Both seasons of The Boys are now streaming on Amazon Prime. It’s unclear when the third season will premiere but a 2022 debut seems likely.
In the year 2056, robots have replaced human beings in the workforce. An uneasy co-existence develops between the newly intelligent robots and the ten billion humans living on Earth. Every human family is assigned a robot upon whom they are completely reliant. What could possibly go wrong? Meet the Walters, a human family whose robot, Razorball, ominously spends his free time in the garage working on machines which they're pretty sure are designed to kill them in this sci-fi satire from Mark Russell
Impression
Not all robots #2 jumps head first into the kindling of a war between man and machine. The set-up of this war hinges on societal roles. Mark Russell and Mike Deodato Jr waste no time in kindling the sparks of war underway. Like his recent run on the Flintstones, Mark’s dialogue is poignant. The writer stated in his letter to the readers that the theme of this series is toxic masculinity. There is a lot set up here and the idea of toxic masculinity often gets lost and when it comes into play and lands about as heavily as Hellyboy’s fist. This problem only increases as the narrative begins to ramp upward.
Beyond the heavy-handed politics, the actual story is quite interesting when it’s exploring the machines’ desire for a life outside of caring for humans and the humans’ desire to live without machines doing everything. One side fulfills it’s purpose begrudgingly and the other begins to resent them for it. It’s told in a way that fits Russell’s perspective that toxic masculinity hurts everyone in society, and forces the reader to adopt a certain level of empathy for all perspectives in this tale.
That empathy goes out the window though by the end of the issue. It reads like Mark started trying to make a statement about men and society, but the narrative says the humans and machines resent each other. So, this theme is caught up in the narrative at the point we see Snowball making weapons in the garage. That’s when any and all empathy for him falls away.
Despite this clashing of the theme and narrative, which no doubt could’ve been smoother, the comic reads quite strong on the surface. The satirical characters bring a lighthearted humor to this otherwise serious title. In every other way than the theme, this title is great. The art is gritty and grounded, while sharp. This isn’t a vibrant happy world and Deodato captures the dreadful emotions perfectly. Even the surface story of a robot tired of his dead end job is executed with relatable precision. Once Headley, the killer robot, is found ‘not guilty,’ you see the cracks in this world growing. The sparks of war begin to glow as eyes on both sides begin to open. The humans see proof of robotic control, and the machines see vindication of their believed superiority to humans.
Again though, that is only on the surface. Once you dig deeper the cracks in the story itself also begin to show.
Final Verdict
Mark Russell’s toxic masculinity in this title is a bit too on-the-nose, but I agree that men’s place in the world, given the recent cultural shifts, is a subject worth exploring. The responsibilities and duties that once tied men down are now lessened and a new generations of men are seeking purpose outside of what society demands of them. Unfortunately, this comic doesn’t read like that. By the end of this issue, albeit through metaphor, it seems as though Russell is simply saying men are dangerous. It remains to be seen if that is truly the case, or where this story will land, but for the time being it appears to be sticking to this theme. So I am not recommending this title.
If you’d like to buy this title you can do so here or order with your LCS.
lucylox posted: " Salted caramel is one of my very favourite things so when I was approached to create a bespoke recipe using a vegan salted caramel sauce from Bad Brownie company I jumped at the chance. What better way to get the creative juices flowing than having a del"
Salted caramel is one of my very favourite things so when I was approached to create a bespoke recipe using a vegan salted caramel sauce from Bad Brownie company I jumped at the chance. What better way to get the creative juices flowing than having a delicious new product to use as a starting point for inspiration?
***Paid partnership with the Bad Brownie Company, featuring their vegan salted caramel sauce***. I receive many offers for collaboration but will only accept those that fit the ethos of Lucy's Friendly Foods, so most get turned down. This sauce is Free From all the allergens we avoid and so I have welcomed working with the Bad Brownie Company***
I tend to make my own caramel sauce, and you can find my recipe here: homemade caramel sauce recipe, but this very thick and sticky salted caramel sauce from the Bad Brownie Company is a really handy jar to have in your store cupboard if you don't want to make it.
It's free from the allergens we avoid and is clearly marketed as vegan, and what is even better is that it's really rather delicious, far tastier than other shelf-ready brands I've tried. I'm thinking it will be a really handy addition to the larder when you want to add a swirl to a cheesecake, or drizzle over some brownies.
Now to come up with a recipe using it... I first thought of making a caramel cake but I felt a bit non-plussed by the idea, it just wasn't exciting enough. So, thinking cap back on... what works extremely well with caramel? Well, chocolate of course! I could have made some filled chocolates, but do many other people actually spend their time at home make handmade chocolates? I can't say i do it that often myself.
My thoughts wandered to those caramel filled waffles you see in coffee shops, how about some kind of caramel filled cookie? A deep, dark cocoa-rich cookie with a caramel filling perhaps? Like a caramel filled Oreo type cookie? It turns out thick gooey caramel sauce sandwiched between two slightly bitter crisp chocolate cookies is very pleasing match. Seek out this wonderful caramel sauce and give it a go.
One thing to be aware of is that unless you eat these caramel filled cookies right away, the sauce - as it warms to room temperature - will start to ooze out. No biggie, but it will make them a bit messy! So, if you want to keep the cookies for a few days I'd recommend the my alternative cream filling that has a wonderful dollop of caramel goodness in the middle, then you really do get the best of both worlds.
Salted Caramel Stuffed Cookies
(dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, sesame-free, vegetarian and vegan)
Makes approx. 24 sandwich biscuits
100g hard vegetable fat (I use Trex)
180g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
100ml dairy-free milk
240g plain flour
70g cocoa powder
2 tsp cornflour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Filling:
60g vegetable fat
60g dairy-free spread
350g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
Salted caramel sauce
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade
2. Cream together the vegetable fat and sugar. When fluffy, add the dairy-free milk and vanilla. Mix well. If it looks like it's split add a couple of tbsp of flour to the mix
3. Sift in the remaining ingredients and bring together to a firm-ish dough.
4. Place half on a sheet of baking paper, place more paper on top and roll out to 1/4-1/2cm thickness. Cut out rounds with a cookie cutter and remove the 'in between bits'. Transfer to a lined baking sheet.
5. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool on the tray for five minutes before moving to a wire rack.
6. Repeat with remaining mixture until it's all be used up.
7. Meanwhile, make the filling. Whisk together the vegetable fat and dairy-free spread. Add the vanilla.
8. Add the icing sugar in 1/2 cup measurements, until fully incorporated. It may look like breadcrumbs, so squeeze together to form a stiff paste.
9. Either, sandwich 1 tsp salted caramel sauce between two cookies, or
10. Roll out large grape size balls of filling and press onto a cookie, make a hollow in the centre of the filling and fill with ½ tsp salted caramel sauce. Squish another cookie on top.
11. These cookies keep well for a few days in a sealed container.
As mentioned, I really don't often accept collaborations unless I believe in a product. I also have a firm stance on click-through adverts which I never accept as they spoil they experience of browsing for me. This was one collaboration I was happy to be part of, it's a great product and a brand I can believe in.
Smashed sweet potatoes are crispy on the outside and soft and smooth on the inside! They can be cooked to taste sweet OR savory and they both have a mouthwatering taste that is divine! You will love every single bite!
I love how simple and easy smashed potatoes are! Anyone can make them and once you do, you will definitely come back for more! If you like these, go ahead and try a few of my other favorite tried and true potato recipes like Potato Wedges, Mashed Potato Balls, and this amazing Sweet Potato Pie!
Smashed Sweet Potatoes
Not to be confused with MASHED potatoes, these sweet potatoes are being SMASHED. And to be honest, they are the absolute best! So move over mashed sweet potatoes, a new recipe has come to town! They are seriously so simple to make and are the best appetizer or side dish. This recipe includes a few different ways to make them: sweet or savory. I wanted to include both because they both have incredible tastes that are very different! And also… we all love to have options on how to mix things up! Because I know that you will absolutely love this recipe, you will need a few varieties so that you can cook it more often!
All you need to make this is some sweet potatoes and a few different ingredients! Cooking them up takes no time at all and you can add them to just about any meal! I especially love sweet potatoes with a French Dip Sandwich, a delicious salad, and this one-of-a-kind lemonade! Or, if you are hosting a party, this makes a fantastic appetizer! It’s a food that everyone will love so it’s an easy choice to make it! My kids request it ALL the time. So go ahead and give it a try! Once you do, you will be finding every excuse to make it again and again!
Ingredients for Sweet AND Savory
Whether sweet or savory is your jam, I’ve got you covered! So, pick whichever smashed sweet potato that you like (or make both kinds!) and you will be licking your lips afterward in satisfaction! See the recipe card below for a list of exact measurements.
Sweet potatoes: Pick out large sized sweet potatoes for this recipe.
Savory
Butter: You will want to get unsalted butter for these sweet potatoes!
Garlic clove: If you don’t have fresh garlic cloves, you can use minced garlic. ½ tsp equals 1 clove of garlic.
Honey: This creates that sweet flavor without needing to use sugar.
Cinnamon: The cinnamon creates that classic sweet potato taste that we all know and love!
Marshmallows: These are a MUST for this recipe! Like a cherry on top!
How to Make Sweet Potatoes Smashed
If you have 30 minutes, then you definitely have the time to make this delicious recipe! These smashed sweet potatoes are SOO easy and worth every bit of effort!
Prep: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside.
Slice: Slice the sweet potatoes ⅗ inch thick and lay in an evenly layer on the baking sheet.
Bake: Bake for 25-30 minutes or until fork tender. Remove from the oven.
Smash: Smash the sweet potatoes with a fork.
If you are making them savory
Mix and pour: Combine the butter, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Pour evenly onto the sweet potatoes.
If you are making them sweet
Mix and pour: In a small bowl combine the butter, honey, and cinnamon. Pour evenly over the sweet potatoes and top with marshmallows.
Broil: Broil for 5 minutes or until crisp on top.
How to Pick Sweet Potatoes
For this recipe to be a success, you need to know how to start with the best ingredients! So, in case you haven’t picked out sweet potatoes before, here are some helpful hints to picking them out! It will help make this smashed sweet potatoes recipe the best!
Texture: Look for a sweet potato that is smooth and firm. You don’t want it to have any cuts or cracks in it!
Color: A sweet potato that will deliver that classic, delicious taste is going to be red or orange in color.
Size: For this recipe, because you are going to be slicing them, you want the sweet potatoes to be larger! That way your slices aren’t too tiny!
How to Store Sweet Potatoes
If you have leftovers with these smashed sweet potatoes, make sure to store them right so that you can enjoy them later! Because storing leftovers correctly is important, I’ve come up with a few tips on how to do it!
Refrigerator: After they have cooled, store the smashes sweet potatoes in an airtight container and put it in your fridge. They will last up to 4 days!
Reheat: To reheat them, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Then, take them directly out of your fridge and place them on a cookie sheet. Once you have done that then you will put them in the oven and bake them for 15-20 minutes until they have reached 165 degrees.
More Sweet Potato Recipes You Will Love
If you are like me and can’t get enough of sweet potato recipes then you have come to the right place! I have gathered up some more recipes that are SOO good and have everyone asking for seconds! Whether you love them baked or fried or mashed, I know that you will find a recipe that you loved! Try them all, pick a favorite and cook it up for your next gathering. Your family will thank you later!
Smashed sweet potatoes are crispy on the outside and soft and smooth on the inside! They can be cooked to taste sweet OR savory and they both have a mouthwatering taste that is divine! You will love every single bite!
This zucchini soup has an amazing savory flavor, fresh vegetables, and is topped with the perfect drizzle of cream. Healthy and hearty, each spoonful will have you hooked with its silky-smooth goodness!
Nothing warms the soul quite as well as a bowl of homemade soup. My asparagus, mushroom, and butternut squash bisque are more tried and true soups ready to ring in cooler temperatures! Without a doubt, you'll love them all!
Zucchini Soup Recipe
Zucchini dishes have been on repeat at my house this summer. I have loved having it on hand! It can upgrade any meal and add a healthy touch. Zucchini gratin, lasagna, and zoodles are just a few of my favorites. But now that nights have been cooling down, I can feel myself going into full soup mode. This creamy zucchini soup has been the best comfort food, and even with cream added, it is a low-calorie meal! For these reasons, I have been using up all of my leftover zucchini and making big batches of zucchini soup to eat and store. It heats up beautifully! Perfect for busy nights when you don’t know what to make.
And the best part of it all? Creamy zucchini soup only needs a handful of super simple ingredients to make. When boiled down, zucchini is irresistibly creamy on its own. Because of this, you can even make a dairy-free variety and omit the cream! I think adding a pop of cream, butter, or even olive oil just gives it a little extra indulgence. Whatever route you choose, the end result is going to be rich, creamy heaven. The Italian seasoning and fresh taste of zucchini in this soup really make it shine. I know you will be obsessed with this soup like I am! It is the perfect, tasty dish to transition from summer to fall. Let’s get cooking!
Ingredients for Easy Zucchini Soup
This recipe uses the most simple of ingredients. The great thing is, it can easily be customized! You can add additional vegetables or even meat to craft the zucchini soup of your dreams. There are also dairy-free and vegetarian varieties, making this a dish for everyone! Your family will love it. Individual measurements can be found in the recipe card below!
Zucchini: Small or medium-sized zucchini work best in this recipe. You’ll want them cut down into quarter pieces.
Onion: You’ll need one small onion, also cut into quarter pieces. I recommend using yellow or sweet onions here. They give soups a hint of sharp flavor with a hint of sweetness!
Chicken Broth: This is the savory base of your soup. You can also use vegetable broth as a vegetarian substitute!
Italian Seasoning: This is my personal blend of basil, oregano, rosemary, marjoran, and thyme. I love making this at home to personalize my blend! It works in so many different recipes. Anything from potatoes, chicken, to vegetables, and more! You’ll love it!
Parmesan: Parmesan adds a delicious sharp flavor with a hint of nuttiness. Cheese makes everything better!
Heavy Cream: For a little extra richness, drizzle heavy cream into your soup.
Salt and Pepper: Add to taste. Salt and pepper will help to enhance the overall flavor of your zucchini soup.
How to Make the Best Zucchini Soup
This recipe is great for using up leftover zucchini and any meat and veggies you may have in your fridge! It is beyond easy and ends up creamy and delicious every time! Honestly, this recipe is so good it’s the kind of thing you’ll want to make all year long.
Cook Vegetables and Broth Together: Let’s start! First, in a large pot, add the zucchini and onion. Next, add the chicken broth Italian seasoning and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the onion and zucchini is tender.
Blend and Serve: Using a blender or immersion blender, blend until the soup is smooth and creamy. Then, add in the parmesan cheese and heavy cream and stir until heated through. Finally, salt and pepper to taste and serve.
Zucchini Soup Tips and Information
Here are some tips and tricks for making the most delicious zucchini soup possible! With how healthy, easy, and absolutely delicious it is, your family won’t be able to get enough!
Extra Ingredients: This soup is so versatile! You can add basically anything you’d like, but a few of my suggestions are sliced carrots, potatoes, chopped bell peppers, and a protein of your choice.
Additional Flavors: For extra richness, you can add butter and/or a drizzle of olive oil to your soup. You can also customize the flavor to your liking by adding more Italian seasoning and fresh herbs. For a little heat, sprinkle in some ground cayenne pepper!
Zucchini Sizing: I recommend picking zucchini that is on the smaller size. The bigger your zucchini is, the more likely it is to be seedy. Larger zucchini also has tough skin. So if you are making soup with a big zucchini, peel it first for best results.
Benefits: In addition to being absolutely delicious, zucchini is a super healthy veggie! It’s rich in vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, and is heart-healthy! Zucchini is also full of water to help hydrate and aid your digestive system. Another reason why this soup is the best!
My Favorite Soup Sides
We all love a good soup, but what about the bread for dipping? Whether you choose crostini, toast, breadsticks, crackers, or a roll, these sides add delicious texture and a fun element to the experience of eating soup. Once you try some of these mouthwatering sides, you’ll never eat soup by itself again!
This soup is perfect for storing. It refrigerates well and also freezes, giving you a quick and delicious option for dinners!
In the Refrigerator: Store soup in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
In the Freezer: You can store your soup in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Let it thaw in the fridge overnight before reheating. Some separation may occur, so give it a good stir before serving.
Reheating: My favorite way to reheat this soup is on the stove over medium heat. I just stir it occasionally until it is completely warmed through. You can also pop it in the microwave! I like to start at 1 minute, stirring every 30 seconds, and then add additional time until it is completely warm. The more soup you are reheating, the longer this process will take.
More Creamy and Delicious Soup Recipes
If you’ve got soup on the brain, these other delicious recipes will definitely satisfy your craving! They are all incredibly easy to make and are perfect for cool, fall nights. You’re going to love how flavorful they are!
This zucchini soup has an amazing savory flavor, fresh vegetables, and is topped with the perfect drizzle of cream. Healthy and hearty, each spoonful will have you hooked with its silky-smooth goodness!
In a large pot add the zucchini and onion. Add the chicken broth Italian seasoning and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the onion and zucchini are tender.
Using a blender or immersion blender blend until the soup is smooth and creamy. Add in the parmesan cheese and heavy cream and stir until heated through. Salt and pepper to taste and serve.
Soji's apartment showcases her collections from her travels. "Fill your home with things that make you feel joy, that remind you of where youve been, and that call you to where you are going," she says. READ MORE...
If you’re currently on the hunt for a new job and are missing the flexibility of working from home—something that many of us have become accustomed to over the past 18-months—you may be in luck. Williams-Sonoma, one of the most well-known quality homeware retailers in the U.S., is hiring 7,000 seasonal Customer Service Representatives for the holidays, with the jobs being fully remote positions. Job site Remote. READ MORE...
adelaidefoodcentral posted: " Are you getting curiouser and curiouser about what you can do in the school holidays? Well the Stamford Grand Adelaide has the answer with their fun and kid-friendly Mad Hatter's High Tea! Running every Sunday of the school holidays, this brillian"
Are you getting curiouser and curiouser about what you can do in the school holidays? Well the Stamford Grand Adelaide has the answer with their fun and kid-friendly Mad Hatter's High Tea! Running every Sunday of the school holidays, this brilliant High Tea is perfect for both adults and children. Upon arriving to the beautiful […]
TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 approaches in just three days. Here's your how-to guide for everything you can expect at Disrupt.
Although the main show kicks off on Tuesday the 21st, there'll be some sneak peeks and extras going down on Monday. Make sure to log in to Hopin by noon on Monday to catch it all, including a special series of speed networking sessions, where one attendee from each session will be selected to receive a limited edition TechCrunch Disrupt swag bag. All sessions are in Pacific Standard Time.
Monday, September 20 – Networking Sessions
12:30pm – 1:00pm PST: Peer to Peer: Investors: Connect with the Disrupt community of investors to share connections, insights, and expertise.
1:00pm – 1:30pm PST: Peer to Peer: Early Stage Founders: Meet the founders also launching at Disrupt to share insights and grow your support network
1:30pm – 2:00pm PST: The Full Stack: Meet the data analysts, engineers, hackers, data scientists, and software developers that power your tech.
2:00pm – 2:30pm PST: BIPOC & Women of Disrupt: We invite all women and BIPOC (and all allies) attending Disrupt to join us for this roundup to inspire one another and grow your network.
2:30pm – 3:00pm PST: B2B2Connect: Are you working on products that make it easier for businesses to thrive? Meet and share ideas with the SaaS and Enterprise community.
3:00pm – 3:30pm PST: DNA/Tech : Meet the scientists who are using technology and engineering to produce advancements in health and biology.
3:30pm – 4:00pm PST: Planet/Impact: Passionate about making an impact on our planet? Join this networking session focused on sustainability, greentech, and cleantech projects.
4:00pm – 4:30pm PST: MoneyMatters: Network with the power brokers changing the face of financial services, banking and crypto.
4:30pm – 5:00pm PST: Actuator: Discover the builders automating our lives with robotics and hardware alongside the scientists creating the artificial intelligence that powers it all.
5:00pm – 5:30pm PST: The Station: Share insights with people pushing the boundaries of mobility including drone technology, autonomous vehicles, and transportation.
The Stages There are two main stages at Disrupt – the Disrupt Stage and the Extra Crunch stage. The Disrupt Stage features interviews and panels with the biggest names in tech, plus Startup Battlefield. The Extra Crunch stage is chock full of how-to lessons specifically for founders. The full agenda is here.
Breakout Sessions Beyond the main stages at Disrupt, you can take in smaller, interactive gatherings that pack a lot of advice, insight, and value — with plenty of time to get answers to your pressing questions. Plus, you just need an Expo Pass to get in front of these sessions. Missing your access? Grab an Expo Pass free here until Monday. All sessions are in Pacific Standard Time.
Tuesday
9:00 am – 9:50 am: Revolutionizing the Global Metaverse Economy with VCoin
9:00 am – 9:50 am: The $49B Developer Landscape with Dell
10:00am – 10:30am: You Complete Me with Mambu
11:00am – 11:30am: Saving Lives with Precision Biology, Mayfield
11:00am – 11:30am: The Dark Matter of Workflows: Business Technology's Big Opportunity with Wrike
11:35am – 11:55am: Taking Care of the Next Generation with Mayfield
12:00pm – 12:50pm: Powering What's Next: Insights from the Enterprise Software Market with Vista Equity Partners
1:00pm – 1:50pm: Demo Derby – How startups are disrupting the status quo with innovative data analytics, AI and modern app development with Google Cloud
2:00pm – 2:50pm: Thrive with an Untethered Workforce with Velocity Global
Wednesday
9:00am – 9:30am: Belgian Startup Pitch Competition hosted by hub.brussels
11:00am – 11:55am: The Moore’s law of software – onboarding time, with Flatfile
1:00pm – 1:50pm: Top Japanese Startups pitch their exciting new tech! Come watch the live JETRO pitch session
1:00pm – 1:50pm: Using Visual Communication to Build Your Startup's Brand with Canva
Roundtable sessions One thing Disrupt attendees have enjoyed the most at our events are meaningful small-group discussions. Join us for these intimate virtual conversations around fundraising, security, hiring and general founder issues. These special sessions have capped attendance limits to keep the conversations small, so make sure to get there early to save a seat.
Tuesday
11:00am – 11:30am: How Netflix Saved Cybersecurity with Cyvatar
2:30pm – 3:00pm: CISO2CISO: On the Wrong Side of Disruption with Cyvatar
3:00pm – 3:30pm: The toughest founder problems with Neesha Tambe, TechCrunch
Wednesday
11:30am – 12:00pm: Why Can’t We Stop Ransomware? with Cyvatar
1:00pm – 1:30pm: Startup Hiring Woes with Eric Eldon, TechCrunch
2:45pm – 3:15pm: Fundraising Challenges with Jordan Crook, TechCrunch
Thursday
10:00am – 10:30am: Startup Hiring Woes with Eric Eldon, TechCrunch
12:00pm – 12:30pm: Fundraising Challenges with Jordan Crook, TechCrunch
Partner Sessions With so much going on during the conference, it's hard to pick what we're most excited about. Make sure not to miss these super interesting partner sessions on the Extra Crunch Stage.
Tuesday
9:45am – 10:05am: Bioplatforms for Saving the Planet with Mayfield
10:45am – 11:05am: So You Want to Build a Space Business? With The Aerospace Corporation
1:25pm – 1:45pm: How Circle's $4.5B Public Listing Will Change Startup Fundraising with SeedInvest
2:25pm – 2:45pm: Humanizing AI: How Brands Are Revolutionizing Customer Experience in an increasingly Digital World with Soul Machines
Wednesday
9:45am – 10:05pm: Illuminating the Next Great Entertainment Frontier: The Connected TV Metaverse with Foxxum | rlaxx TV
10:45am – 11:05am The New Human and Planetary Health Pioneers with Mayfield
12:25pm – 12:45pm: Powering the Small Business Economy with Cloud Technology with Xero
1:25pm – 1:45pm: Why Employers Are Ignoring a Large Candidate Pool That's Necessary for Growth Today with Checkr
2:25pm – 2:45pm: You've Raised Your Seed Round—Now What? Preparing for Your Series A with Samsung Next
2:45pm – 3:05pm: Electric Generation: The Next Frontier For American Business with Ford Motor Company
Thursday
9:40am – 10:00am: Rewiring the Brain to Improve the Quality of Life with Mayfield
10:40am – 11:00am: Scaling Businesses and Creating Value with the Everywhere Workforce with Upwork
11:35am – 11:40am: Esri Hackathon finalist demos
12:20pm – 12:40pm: Eliminating Styrofoam Protective Packaging with Cruz Foam
1:25pm – 1:45pm: The MIssing Block to Bring Crypto to the Masses with KuCoin
Pitch sessions There's nothing TechCrunch loves more than a good startup pitch – and Disrupt has got loads of them. In addition to our renowned Startup Battlefield competition, the startups in the expo get a chance to shine in these sessions. All sessions are in Pacific Standard Time.
Tuesday
10:00am – 11:00am: Startup Alley Pitch Session
12:00pm – 1:00pm: Startup Alley Pitch Session
2:00pm – 3:00pm: Startup Alley Pitch Session
Wednesday
9:00am – 9:30am: Belgian Startup Pitch Competition hosted by hub.Brussels
1:00pm – 1:50pm: Top Japanese Startups pitch their exciting new tech with JETRO
Expo and Expo Crawl Our expo is teeming with early-stage founders launching new and exciting offerings. We've carved out some dedicated time in the agenda to catch up with these enterprising entrepreneurs. Search Expo in the agenda to bookmark those sessions.Fun Stuff and Prizes It's not all serious business at Disrupt. We've put together some fun things and games. Download and complete the Disrupt Passport for a chance to win a VanMoof X3 e-bike, Bose noise-canceling headphones or a Sonos Beam Sound Bar. Session Videos and Transcriptions Missed a session? All the Extra Crunch Stage and Disrupt Stage recordings will be posted on the Disrupt event page at the close of the show. Plus, you can read the transcripts with Otter.ai. Otter's giving attendees free access for a month using promo code: TCDISRUPT2021.See you at Disrupt!
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week's startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.
BetterUp, a reskilling and coaching platform for employees before and beyond the C-suite, is getting in touch with its emotions. This week, the richly funded unicorn startup announced a pair of acquisitions in the emotional artificial intelligence and people management space: Motive and Impraise. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
BetterUp announced its acquisitions after a busy stint, which included passing $100 million in annual recurring revenue, expanding to Europe, and hitting 1 million individual coaching sessions on its platform.
I'll be honest. It's par for the course to see a growth-stage startup use milestones to inorganically expand through acquisitions. How else do you grow into your valuation? BetterUp's duo of deals still stood out to me because they signal a somewhat unconventional direction for where the coaching industry is going. Stay with me.
BetterUp claims that it pioneered the category of coaching by focusing on employees, not just C-suite executives. With these acquisitions, it's shifting how that coaching looks and lives. Motive, for example, will help BetterUp clients understand the emotional context behind data that they already aggregate, through engagement surveys or polls. It's a plug-and-play approach that helps employers more immediately act on employee sentiment, instead of waiting for the long-game of coaching to play out.
On the other end of the funnel, Impraise uses technology to help managers better support their direct reports, through real-time performance reviews and more seamless feedback channels. Like Motive, Impraise is a step outside of the traditional boundaries of what coaching looks like.
"The direct-report relationship is where change happens in people’s lives," BetterUp CEO and co-founder Alexi Robichaux said. "It doesn’t actually happen in coaching sessions; change happens after."
In some ways, these acquisitions are BetterUp admitting that coaching for all employees has to be an end-to-end solution that requires everyone in the company – from HR to managers – to be involved. It can't be a weekly calendar invite. This sort of investment could cause employers to shy away from even offering services to their staff to begin with, but pressure to retain may force them to try anyways. For other coaching and up-skilling platforms, the bar continues to be raised.
"Coaching can be a point solution, but that’s not enough and we know that better than anyone because we invented the point solution," Robichaux said. "If you don't have the data platform, if you don't have the outcomes. If you don't have the AI to personalize this, you can go coach 50 managers at your company," but not every employee.
In the rest of this newsletter, I'll walk us through Atlanta's big bootstrapped moment, Casper's nightmare and Apple's day. As always, you can find me on Twitter @nmasc_ and listen to my podcast, Equity.
Atlanta's big bootstrapped moment
Step aside Austin and Miami, Atlanta is in town. All eyes were on the city this week after Intuit bought local business Mailchimp for a staggering $12 billion. The Atlanta-based email marketing company never took any outside funding, which meant the deal was one of the biggest ever for a bootstrapped company. And while some saw Mailchimp's massive exit as a win for the Atlanta startup and venture ecosystem, others felt differently.
Here's what to know: Part of Mailchimp's strategy as an untraditional tech company included not giving Mailchimp employees equity, and prioritizing profit-sharing as well as higher salaries. It sounds good, until your startup exits for $12 billion and you realize you don't have any equity in the business that you helped build. It's a knock against bootstrapping, as we discussed during Equity. Employees spoke to Business Insider about their first reactions, answering if the deal does indeed empower the local ecosystem.
My scoop this week uncovered that Casper, the direct-to-consumer mattress company, had another round of layoffs that impacted two dozen employees, as well as its CMO, CTO and COO. The round of layoffs and executive shuffle comes a little over a year since Casper cut 21% of its workforce and shut down its European operations.
The easy take here is that Casper is struggling with management and direction and has been on its back foot since its public debut last year. However, I'd argue that there's more nuance here.
Here's what to know: One founder in the direct-to-consumer space, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to her lack of direct knowledge with the company said that Casper's layoffs could also be a response to Apple's iOS 14.5 update, which will crack down on apps that track users' data without permission. The setting restricts the advertising data that companies can access, making it harder to justify budget and understand the efficacy of their sales strategy.
For DTC companies, the uncertainty of in-person retail activity plus difficulty of advertising attribution is a challenging hurdle to surpass.
Apple went back on stage with yet another virtual event to announce updates, upgrades and brand new unveils. The TechCrunch team, of course, couldn't resist a chance to live blog. Read our full coverage here.
Last year's iPhone 12 was a massive seller, bucking the trend of stagnating smartphone sales, in part due to a bottleneck in sales from the unplanned delay, but also because it finally brought 5G connectivity to Apple's mobile line.
Lucky number iPhone 13 (no skipping for superstition's sake, mind) features a familiar design. The front notch has finally been shrunken — now 20% smaller than its predecessor — while the rear-facing camera system has also gotten a redesign. The screen is now 28% brighter, Super Retina XDR display on both the iPhone 13 and 13 mini at 1200 nits.
Our prep sessions are done. The Battlefield companies are amped. And a photo booth is coming.
TechCrunch Disrupt kicks off next week! Our flagship event, featuring speakers like Melanie Perkins and Reid Hoffman, runs virtually September 21 to 23. The events team has truly spent months on making this a virtual event that feels engaging, spontaneous and true to our personality as a publication. And after getting a sneak peek this past week, I can promise you that it's different from any other online conference that I've attended during the pandemic.
Anyways, all this is to say that I'm amped to join the stage with my colleagues, interview the brightest names in tech, and meet as many entrepreneurs as possible. Are you joining? Buy tickets using my discount code "MASCARENHAS20."
Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review!
Last week, we talked about some sunglasses from a company that many people do not like very much. This week, we’re talking about Apple and the company 1,600 times smaller than it that’s facing similar product problems.
If you're reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny
(Photo by Brooks Kraft/Apple Inc.)
the big thing
When you get deep enough into the tech industry, it’s harder to look at things with a consumer’s set of eyes. I’ve felt that way more and more after six years watching Apple events as a TechCrunch reporter, but sometimes memes from random Twitter accounts help me find the consumer truth I’m looking for.
As that dumb little tweet indicates, Apple is charging toward a future where it’s becoming a little harder to distinguish new from old. The off-year “S” period of old is no more for the iPhone, which has seen tweaks and new size variations since 2017’s radical iPhone X redesign. Apple is stretching the periods between major upgrades for its entire product line and it’s also taking longer to roll out those changes.
Apple debuted the current bezel-lite iPad Pro design back in late 2018 and it’s taken three years for the design to work its way down to the iPad mini while the entry-level iPad is still lying in wait. The shift from M1 Macs will likely take years as the company has already detailed. Most of Apple’s substantial updates rely on upgrades to the chipsets that they build, something that increasingly makes them look and feel like a consumer chipset company.
This isn’t a new trend, or even a new take, it’s been written lots of times, but it’s particularly interesting as the company bulks up the number of employees dedicated to future efforts like augmented reality, which will one day soon likely replace the iPhone.
It’s an evolution that’s pushing them into a similar design territory as action camera darling GoPro, which has struggled again and again with getting their core loyalists to upgrade their hardware frequently. These are on laughably different scales, with Apple now worth some $2.41 trillion and GoPro still fighting for a $1.5 billion market cap. The situations are obviously different, and yet they are both facing similar end-of-life innovation questions for categories that they both have mastered.
This week GoPro debuted its HERO10 Black camera, which brings higher frame rates and a better performing processor as it looks to push more of its user audience to subscription services. Sound familiar? This week, Apple debuted its new flagship, the iPhone 13 Pro, with a faster processor and better frame rates (for the display not the camera here, though). They also spent a healthy amount of time pushing users to embrace new services ecosystems.
Apple’s devices are getting so good that they’re starting to reach a critical feature plateau. The company has still managed to churn out device after device and expand their audience to billions while greatly expanding their average revenue per user. Things are clearly going pretty well for the most valuable company on earth, but while the stock has nearly quadrupled since the iPhone X launch, the consumer iPhone experience feels pretty consistent. That’s clearly not a bad thing, but it is — for lack of a better term — boring.
The clear difference, among 2.4 trillion others, is that GoPro doesn’t seem to have a clear escape route from its action camera vertical.
But Apple has been pushing thousands of employees toward an escape route in augmented reality, even if the technology is clearly not ready for consumers and they’re forced to lead with what has been rumored to be a several-thousand-dollar AR/VR headset with plenty of limitations. One of the questions I’m most interested in is what the iPhone device category looks likes once its unwieldy successor has reared its head. Most likely is that the AR-centric devices will be shipped as wildly expensive iPhone accessories and a way to piggy back off the accessibility of the mobile category while providing access to new — and more exciting — experiences. In short, AR is the future of the iPhone until AR doesn’t need the iPhone anymore.
Image Credits: Tesla
other things
Here are the TechCrunch news stories that especially caught my eye this week:
Everything Apple announced this week Was it the most exciting event Apple has ever had? Nah. Are you still going to click that link to read about their new stuff? Yah.
GoPro launches the HERO10 Black I have a very soft spot in my heart for GoPro, which has taken a niche corner of hardware and made a device and ecosystem that’s really quite good. As I mentioned above, the company has some issues making significant updates every year, but they made a fairly sizable upgrade this year with the second-generation of their customer processor and some performance bumps across the board.
Tesla will open FSD beta to drivers with good driving record Elon Musk is pressing ahead with expanding its “Full Self-Driving” software to more Tesla drivers, saying that users who paid for the FSD system can apply to use the beta and will be analyzed by the company’s insurance calculator bot. After 7 days of good driving behavior, Musk says users will be approved.
OpenSea exec resigns after ‘insider trading’ scandal NFTs are a curious business; there’s an intense amount of money pulsating through these markets — and little oversight. This week OpenSea, the so-called “eBay of NFTs,” detailed that its own VP of Product had been trading on insider information. He was later pushed to resign.
Apple and Google bow to the Kremlin Apple and Google are trying to keep happy the governments of most every market in which they operate. That leads to some uncomfortable situations in markets like Russia, where both tech giants were forced by the Kremlin to remove a political app from the country’s major opposition party.
Image Credits: Gitlab
extra things
Some of my favorite reads from our Extra Crunch subscription service this week:
What could stop the startup boom? “…We've seen record results from cities, countries and regions. There's so much money sloshing around the venture capital and startup worlds that it's hard to recall what they were like in leaner times. We've been in a bull market for tech upstarts for so long that it feels like the only possible state of affairs. It's not…”
The value of software revenue may have finally stopped rising “…I've held back from covering the value of software (SaaS, largely) revenues for a few months after spending a bit too much time on it in preceding quarters — when VCs begin to point out that you could just swap out numbers quarter to quarter and write the same post, it's time for a break. But the value of software revenues posted a simply incredible run, and I can't say "no" to a chart…“
Inside GitLab’s IPO filing “…The company's IPO has therefore been long expected. In its last primary transaction, GitLab raised $286 million at a post-money valuation of $2.75 billion, per PitchbBook data. The same information source also notes that GitLab executed a secondary transaction earlier this year worth $195 million, which gave the company a $6 billion valuation…”
Thanks for reading, and again, if you're reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices.
Apps aren't just a way to pass idle hours — they're also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that's up 27% year-over-year.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place, with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too.
It’s official, new iPhones are here. But everyone is talking about the iPad mini instead.
(Photo by Brooks Kraft/Apple Inc.)
Apple this week introduced its updated iPhone 13 lineup, which includes iPhone 13 in pretty new shades, an iPhone mini, and the more powerful iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max. Consumers may care most about the battery life improvements — 1.5 hours longer on iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 13 Pro; 2.5 hours more on iPhone 13 and Pro Max, compared with their respective iPhone 12 models. Cameras got a decent upgrade, powered by the A15 Bionic, which enables additions like “Cinematic Mode” (a mode that allows you to change focus between subjects). Plus, Pro models can do macro photography and now include support for ProRes video recording at 1080p 30 fps with the 128GB storage option and up to 4K 30 fps with 256GB, 512GB and 1TB storage options. (Yes, there’s a 1TB iPhone now, and no more 64GB models. Hooray!)
Image Credits: Apple
The bigger news in terms of hardware, however, was the iPad mini ($499+), aka the BIG iPhone, which got a significant update. The new device has an 8.3-inch display, front and rear-facing 12-megapixel cameras, 80% faster performance with the A15 Bionic, 40% faster CPU, support for 5G, and it adds a USB-C port and a relocated Touch ID that’s now on the top button. It also now supports Center Stage and Apple Pencil (2nd generation.) It’s also available in new finishes: space gray, pink, purple and starlight.
Apple noted there are more than 1 million apps designed specifically for iPad devices. The full App Store has 2.22 million or more, according to various estimates. A popular and affordable iPad mini could encourage more development beyond the iPhone.
Other announcements included a new standard iPad with spec bumps, a new Apple Watch Series 7 with a slightly bigger screen and fall detection for cyclists, an updated Fitness+ with Pilates and meditation, and a nifty MagSafe Wallet that will track the location where it was separated from your iPhone.
Apple sherlocks Watch keyboard apps
Image Credits: FlickType
Frustrated iOS developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who is already engaging in a legal battle with Apple over money lost to App Store scams and other matters, couldn’t hold back his frustration when he saw Apple announce its new Apple Watch Series 7 would now sport a familiar-looking keyboard. Eleftheriou’s own FlickType keyboard app for Apple Watch was repeatedly rejected from the App Store for months on end, causing a lengthy delay in getting his app to market. The developer also claims to have had conversations with Apple execs about his keyboard app, which he says was once even considered an acquisition target.
Apple’s position on the matter is that it had to remove Eleftheriou’s app due to guidelines it had at the time prohibiting keyboard extensions, which the company had on the books due to what it believed would offer a poor consumer experience on earlier versions of Apple Watch, which had a smaller screen. These guidelines were later dropped once Apple learned of the app's accessibility functions, which allowed the app to be published.
One question — which would have to either be worked out through the discovery process in court or through some sort of congressional investigation — is how long Apple had a Watch keyboard design on its product roadmap? Was Apple rejecting a third-party Watch keyboard app (and others like it, to be clear) over this purported “poor experience” at a time when Apple was actively designing its own keyboard UI? And how could there be a corporate firewall in place between App Store review activity and the company’s own plans, if Apple was considering an acquisition of FlickType at the time, as the lawsuit alleges?
Eleftheriou has a difficult path ahead of him going up against Apple’s legal team, but he’s more motivated than ever now. “See you in court, @Apple” he tweeted after the Watch reveal.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged App Annie, as well as its co-founder and former CEO and Chairman Bertrand Schmitt, with securities fraud. App Annie and Schmitt have agreed to pay over $10 million to settle the fraud charges which are related to "deceptive practices and making material misrepresentations about how App Annie's alternative data was derived," the SEC said. The charges have to do with how App Annie used non-aggregated and non-anonymized data to alter its model-generated estimates to be more accurate, while telling trading firms that protections were in place against the misuse of confidential data. (More details and the full complaint can be read here on TechCrunch.)
In response to the bombshell news, one competitor has spoken up. Apptopia co-founder and CEO Jonathan Kay wrote about how his firm took the time to build the company and data estimates “the right way,” which is why some of its estimates in the past hadn’t been accurate. (It wasn’t cheating the system.) This proved to be the better strategy. “We did not take shortcuts to spur breakneck scale; oftentimes founders feel the pressure to do so to meet unrealistic Board, VC or Market expectations. We haven't and we don't,” he said.
Meanwhile, Appfigures shared a similar sentiment, adding they were disappointed to hear the news and hoped the actions didn’t erode trust in the industry. “Strict privacy has been one of our founding principles and has served our users and us well for 12 years. We believe the trust of our users is our most valuable asset,” their statement read.
Weekly News
Platforms: Apple
The Epic Games/Apple lawsuit will drag on. After last week’s ruling, which will now allow developers to add to iOS apps links to their website and other ways to pay, Epic said it would appeal. The Fortnite maker wanted Apple to be dubbed a monopolist, which would force iOS to be opened up to alternative app stores, like its own, or at least allow side-loading. But the judge said Apple’s success was “not illegal.”
Developers were invited to submit their iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15 and watchOS 8 apps to the App Store, ahead of the public launch on Monday.
Apple introduced new marketing tools for app developers. Developers can now create custom marketing assets, including banners and images, to promote apps across social media and elsewhere. To get started, you select an app and a template, then customize the design and add present messages. The assets will be immediately available in the right sizes and can be shared with short links or codes that direct users to the App Store product page.
Image Credits: Apple
Android Updates
A leaked document points toward an Android 12 release date of October 4th. The document informs OEM partners when to stop approving builds for prior versions of Android.
Meanwhile, Samsung released an Android 12 beta to Galaxy S21 owners. The beta is for Samsung’s One UI 4, its version of Android, and arrives on September 14 — the same day Apple announced the iPhone 13.
Google announced it would port a privacy-focused feature from Android 11 to older phones running Android 6 and higher. The feature automatically restricts apps’ permissions to sensitive phone features, like the storage or camera, if the app hasn’t been used for several months.
Google delivered the first five stable Jetpack Wear OS libraries (wear, wear-input, wear-ongoing, wear-phone-interactions and wear-remote-interaction), to help developers build high-quality Wear OS apps. The company recently updated the Android Jetpack Wear OS libraries as well.
Google invited users to join its Pixel Superfans group, which was previously kept under wraps. The pilot program provides insider access and a VIP experience, including access to a private Facebook Group, and perks like private Q&As and events, opportunities to share ideas with the Google team, limited-edition swag and more to come.
Augmented Reality
Image Credits: Snap
Snapchat launched a new global portal Lens in partnership with Sotheby's and the Estate of Christo. The Lens, “The Last Christo: Original Works for The Arc de Triomphe,” overlays Snap's AR onto Christo's work to give viewers an entirely new experience of the installation. The experience will also come to Snap’s main Camera and the Snap Map early next week.
Fintech
MassMutual will have to pay a $4 million fine as part of a settlement with Massachusetts regulators involving the conduct of former employee Keith Gill, also an online trader who goes by “Roaring Kitty.”Gill was heavily involved with the GameStop meme-stock drama from earlier this year. The stock was a favorite with day traders on Reddit’s WallStreetBets message board. Trading app Robinhood had restricted the trading of this and other meme stocks, leading to a congressional investigation.
Social
Image Credits: Twitter
Twitter Super Follows have only generated around $6,000 in the U.S. in the first two weeks the feature has been live across the U.S. and Canada. Canadian in-app revenue was around $600. Some small portion may be attributed to Ticketed Space, so true adoption figures may be even lower. Fewer than 100 creators in the U.S. have been offered access to Super Follows, which is impacting these figures. But all iOS users in these markets are able to subscribe to the participating creators.
A Dept. of Homeland Security report warned law enforcement agencies that domestic extremists had used TikTok to recruit people to their causes and share tactical guidance in the lead up the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
TikTok blocked content related to the “devious licks” viral challenge which was encouraging students to create havoc at schools by stealing things, including soap dispensers, hand sanitizer, COVID test kits, bathroom sinks and doors, classroom tech and more. As a result, schools across the U.S. have locked down access to bathroom facilities.
A Facebook whistleblower has shared a damning set of internal docs with The Wall Street Journal, including how Instagram’s own internal research indicated how the app impacted teenage girls’ mental health over body image, leading them to have, in some cases higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Following the news, Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced a probe into Facebook's lack of transparency around its internal research.
As news of Instagram’s impact on teens leaked, TikTok added more mental health resources of its own, including a "well-being guide" in its Safety Center, a primer on eating disorders, expanded search interventions and opt-in viewing screens on potentially triggering searches.
LinkedIn announced a $25 million creator fund ahead of its plans to test a Clubhouse-style audio feature.
Snap hired Jacqueline Beauchere, the chief online safety officer at Microsoft, to be its first-ever global head of platform safety. In her role, Beauchere will advise the company’s decisions on policies, guidelines, features and tools focused on safety and well-being.
Messaging
The beta version of the Signal for Android app expanded its privacy-focused crypto payments feature first introduced in April. The feature, MobileCoin, was previously only available in the U.K. It’s now offered in Switzerland, France and Germany. The app saw a few other design tweaks as well.
WhatsApp launched the first test of a public directory for businesses within its app, starting in São Paulo, Brazil. The feature allows users to find shops and services through a directory in the app, which could then kick off their mobile commerce transactions.
A report from The Financial Times (non-paywalled summary here) details how the Telegram app has exploded as a hub for cybercriminals who buy and sell stolen data and hacking tools. One channel featuring data dumps had more than 47,000 subscribers before being shut down.
Emarketer reports the number of monthly messaging app users worldwide will rise 6.1%, to 3.09 billion, in 2021. This is a deceleration of growth from 2020, when the number grew nearly 14%, but an increase from a pre-pandemic estimate of 5.5% growth. By 2024, the firm predicts more than three-fourths of internet users will use a mobile messaging app.
Image Credits: eMarketer
Dating
Tinder announced it’s rolling out video profiles to more markets across Europe, Asia and Latin America. The feature was first introduced to a handful of countries earlier this year, allowing users to express themselves using video instead of just photos.
Image Credits: Tinder
Streaming & Entertainment
Jeffrey Katzenberg’s failed streaming app Quibi settled its lawsuit with interactive video firm Eko, which alleged Quibi had infringed on its patents. Both parties have agreed to dismiss their legal claims, and QBI Holdings LLC, which holds the remaining Quibi assets, will transfer the intellectual property and technology for its “Turnstyle” mobile-video viewing feature to Eko.
Clubhouse hired a head of News from NPR, Nina Gregory, to help it build out publisher relationships. Gregory led NPR's Arts Desk for the last seven years.
Apple announced new streaming partners for its upcoming iOS 15 SharePlay feature that allows for co-watching content through FaceTime. At WWDC, Apple said the feature would work with video apps Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max+, ESPN+ Paramount+, Pluto TV, NBA App, Twitch and TikTok. This week Apple said it was adding STARZ, BET+, TV Everywhere Apps from ViacomCBS (MTV, Paramount Network, & Comedy Comedy Central), and Chinese streaming service Youku. On the music side, it’s adding Spotify, TuneIn and SoundCloud, which join Apple Music.
Apple’s Shazam app announced it has been used in the iOS Control Center over 1 billion times. The company previously noted it had passed one billion songs being recognized every month in June 2021. Both metrics paint a picture of the massive traction Apple’s first-party apps can gain based on their platform advantage.
Celeb-to-fan connections app Cameo adds a new feature, Cameo Calls, that aims to digitize the fan “meet-and-greet” experience. At launch, fans can now connect with over 500 celebs for one-on-one, face-to-face calls by buying a ticket from their phone. The talent sets the pricing, which averages up to $31 minutes per call.
Gaming
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
U.S. mobile casino game spending grew by 16.4% to $4.8 billion during the last 12 months, according to a new Sensor Tower report. The No. 1 title from September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021 was Coin Master from Moon Active, which generated $650.5 million. This was followed by Bingo Blitz from Playtika, then Slotomania from Playtika.
Zynga announced ReVamp, the first “social deception” gaming title on Snapchat. The vampire-themed, multiplayer game is a spin on “Among Us,” as players work to unveil the imposter. The game takes place inside an old mansion where players have to complete renovation tasks, while the vampire players must avoid suspicion.
Productivity
Google’s internal R&D division is working on a newsletters project called Museletter that allows for subscription-based access to Google Drive content, like spreadsheets, docs and slides.
Image Credits: Google
Health & Fitness
The FTC warned health apps, like those tracking fitness or menstrual cycles, to notify consumers impacted by data breaches. The Commission voted 3-2 to clarify that health apps were included in the agency’s 2009 Health Breach Notification Rule, which required vendors to notify customers of data breaches.
Travel
Downloads of top Travel apps in the U.S. reached 61.4 million on Apple's App Store and 23.8 million on Google Play in Q2 2021, according to a new report by Sensor Tower. This represented the highest number of quarterly downloads since the outbreak of COVID-19.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Government & Policy
Russia was considering fining Google and Apple over their hosting of a tactical voting app from opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but the “Smart Voting” app was removed by both stores. The companies had previously been warned to remove the app over claims of “election interference.” Apple’s upcoming iCloud Private Relay privacy feature also won’t be available in Russia, a support document recently noted in an update.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) said it has opened two investigations into the video-sharing platform TikTok. The first covers how TikTok handles children’s data and whether it complies with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation. The DPC will also examine TikTok's transfers of personal data to China.
South Korea fined Google $177 million for blocking Android customization by device makers, saying this was an abuse of its dominant position in the market.
Chinese police are using a new fraud prevention app installed on more than 200 million mobile phones to identify and question people who have browsed foreign financial news sites, The FT reported. The police claimed they were working to combat the surge in fraud often carried out by foreign businesses controlled by Chinese and Taiwanese.
Tencent and Alibaba said they will open up their apps to competitors, following a meeting with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) last week. For eight years, the two companies have split China’s internet in two, The FT reported, replicating each other’s services and even blocking the posting of links in each other’s apps. That will now change in the weeks ahead.
Security & Privacy
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch
Apple patched a zero-day flaw that was impacting its top devices, including iPhone, iPad, Mac and Watches. Citizen Lab discovered the vulnerability and was credited with the find. The iMessage flaw was actively exploited by Pegasus, a spyware app developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, which gives government customers complete access to a target device, including data, photos, messages and location. The vulnerability was used to hack the iPhones belonging to at least one Bahraini activist.
A new Android app, Nahoft, allows Iranians to speak freely by turning up to 1,000 characters of Farsi text into a jumble of random words. The text can then be sent to anyone over other messaging apps, but the recipient has to use Nahoft on their own device to read it.
Apple reportedly threatened to remove Facebook from the App Store over human trafficking concerns following a 2019 BBC report about the matter, The WSJ reported.
An untethered iOS 14.5.1 jailbreak was demoed working on the iPhone 12 Pro Max, in the days ahead of the iOS 15 release.
Funding and M&A
Image Credits: SmartNews
Tokyo-based news aggregator SmartNews raised $230 million in Series F funding, valuing its business at $2 billion. The funding included U.S. investors Princeville Capital and Woodline Partners, as well as JIC Venture Growth Investments, Green Co-Invest Investment and Yamauchi-No.10 Family Office in Japan.
Venice, California-based Elodie Games raised $32.5 million for its cross-play, co-op games that run on PCs, consoles and mobile devices. The round was led by Galaxy Interactive and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The company, founded by mobile gaming vets Christina Norman and David Banks, two veterans of Riot Games, had previously raised $5 million in 2020.
Livestream shopping platform Whatnot, which focuses on collectibles like Pokémon cards and Funko Pops, confirmed the close of its $150 million Series C, valuing its business at $1.5 billion. Returning investors a16z and Y Combinator's Continuity Fund joined new investor CapitalG (Google Capital) in the round. The Information previously reported the fundraise.
Bangalore-based Byju’s acquired California-headquartered coding platform Tynker for $200 million. The platform, which is available across platforms, including mobile, counts BBC Learning, Google, Microsoft, Mattel and NASA among its partners.
San Francisco-based fantasy sports startup Sleeper is now valued at $400 million after raising $40 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company has over 3 million users, most of whom are aged between 18 and 35. It has expanded into esports during the pandemic, after initially focusing on the NFL and the NBA.
India-based networking app Apna, which helps blue-collar workers upskill and find jobs, raised a $100 millionSeries C led by Tiger Global. The round values the business at $1.1 billion and makes the company India’s youngest unicorn.
Chat app Discord raised $500 million in a new round of funding led by Dragoneer Investment Group, valuing the business at $15 billion — more than double the valuation it was given at its last round of funding in 2020. The platform, which is particularly popular with gamers, has over 150 million monthly active users.
India’s Mobile Premier League (MPL) raised $150 million in a round of funding led by Legatum Capital, valuing its business at $2.3 billion. The three-year-old company connects game publishers with players on its app platform, allowing users to access a range of free gaming titles.
Streetwear resale platform Grailed raised $60 million in Series B funding in a round led by competitor Goat Group, which also included Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri, Groupe Artémis, Thrive Capital and Index Ventures. The company had 7 million users and 3 million listings at the time of the deal, but only 20% of users are female.
Indonesian investment app for retailer investors Pluang announced $55 million in new funding led by Square Peg, with participation from SIG, UOB Venture Management, Go-Ventures and Openspace Ventures. The app has 3 million users.
Indian investment app Groww is in advanced talks to raise $250 million in new funding in a round that would value the business at $3 billion. Deal terms may still change. Tiger Global, Coatue and TCV have held conversations to lead or co-lead the round. The app is on track for around $35 million in ARR.
Downloads
OpenSea: NFT Marketplace
Image Credits: OpeaSea on App Store
Amid an insider trading controversy, in which OpenSea’s Chief Product Officer Nate Chastain was caught buying NFT artwork shortly before they hit the site’s front page, then fired, the NFT marketplace company launched its first mobile app. The app, which is available as of Thursday on both the iOS App Store and Google Play, certainly arrives at a questionable time — why not wait for the dust to settle on the scandal, before moving forward with a mobile experience, sans CPO?
In any event, the new app allows users to connect their current profile, then search, filter, discover and save favorite NFTs, as well as view collections and item stats. The app will also link to blog posts about OpenSea developments and the NFT ecosystem as a whole. And it will link to exclusive releases. What you can’t do with OpenSea’s app, at least not yet, is actually purchase NFTs.
Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls
Image Credits: Konami
The latest reboot of the classic title is an Apple Arcade exclusive. Launched on Friday, September 17, Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls offers a new take on the popular side-scrolling action game — but one that’s free from in-app purchases or ads. The game features character designs and music from series creators Ayami Kojima and Michiru Yamane, and will see players embark on a new adventure where they “hack, slash, whip and blast their way through Dracula’s army using a variety of attacks, weapons, and unique character moves.” Characters available to play include Alucard, Simon Belmont, Charlotte, Shanoa and Maria, with more to come. An Apple Arcade subscription is $4.99 per month or can be purchased with an Apple One subscription plan.
If ever there was a time when working at the Securities and Exchange Commission was a dull affair, that’s no longer true. The federal agency that’s responsible for protecting investors and maintaining fair and orderly functioning of our securities markets is busier than ever, thanks to the rise of SPACs, cryptocurrencies and new rules around how startups raise money. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
In just a few of its many cases, it this week charged App Annie, the mobile data and analytics firm, as well as its co-founder and former CEO and Chairman Bertrand Schmitt, with securities fraud.
The charges come hot on the heels of another case that the SEC announced late last month against Manish Lachwani, the former CEO of Silicon Valley startup HeadSpin, who has been accused of defrauding investors out of $80 million by falsely claiming HeadSpin had achieved stronger and more consistent growth on the customer and revenue front than was the case.
It also still has an active case against former Theranos president “Sunny” Balwani, who, unlike Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes, has refused to settle with the agency.
Of course, in the midst of its active fieldwork, it’s getting used to grappling — publicly — with powerful tech CEOs. It famously became a target of Elon Musk several years ago when it filed securities fraud charges against him tied to his social media activities. (It continues to try reining in the tweets of Musk, who has openly mocked the agency.)
More recently, it found itself the target of a Twitter tirade by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
Leading the charge in each of these cases and many more is Erin Schneider, who attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate and law student and who, after a brief stint as a staff accountant at PWC and as a lawyer with a global law office, headed to the SEC as a staff attorney. She has steadily worked her way up since, and in May 2019 was appointed as the head of its San Francisco office, which leads enforcement and examinations in not only Northern California but also the Pacific Northwest.
Because she and her colleagues have their hands particularly full, you can imagine how excited we are that Schneider is coming to Disrupt (September 21-23) to discuss some of the agency’s many current challenges — as well as its victories.
If you're interested in learning more about the SEC's ever-evolving approach to Silicon Valley startups, and why you shouldn't expect its interest to dissipate any time soon, you really won't want to miss this conversation.
Disrupt is coming up fast. Don’t miss our conversation with Schneider or with Brian Armstrong himself, or actor-entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds, or investor Chamath Palihapitiya, or the many other powerful speakers who will be gracing our virtual stage this year. Get your ticket now for less than $100 — and we'll see you soon.
Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It's inspired by what the weekday Exchange column digs into, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.
Thank you for clicking on this email. With a subject line like that you are legend for being here.
Of course, we're talking buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) companies today, a particular part of the larger fintech world that is more than interesting.
Thanks to recent mega-buys of players in the BNPL space from Squareand PayPal, we've been getting closer to understanding just what the value of the companies in the space may really be — and for the myriad BNPL startups in the market, it's big news.
But while I was on vacation (Michael's fault, it turns out), Goldman Sachs decided to buy GreenSky, a public BNPL company. Which means that we can quickly run some numbers on the deal and add this latest arrow to our How To Value A BNPL Company quiver.
My friend and colleague — and former deskmate, back in the day — Ryan Lawler has an interview with Goldman that is worth reading. The transaction is worth $2.24 billion, per Goldman, driving the value of GreekSky dramatically higher in its aftermath, as investors digested the implied deal premium to the company's previous share price.
What sort of volume was GreenSky's home-improvement-focused BNPL doing? Here's the company's latest earnings report:
Transaction Volume: Second quarter transaction volume was $1.5 billion, an increase of 14% when compared to the second quarter of 2020. Approved credit lines for the quarter were the highest in Company history and are a positive leading indicator of momentum as home improvement supply chain and labor market shortages ease.
So a $6 billion run-rate at a price of $2.24 billion. That works out to about $0.37 in corporate value for each dollar in GMV that GreenSky handles. Which is the lowest number we've seen to date.
As a reminder, here's what we've found more recently, with both of us keeping in mind that not every figure below is perfectly apples:apples; these are directional figures more than absolutes:
Affirm: $2.94 in value per dollar of serviced GMV
AfterPay: $1.84 per dollar of serviced GMV (at Square price)
Paidy: $1.80 per dollar of serviced GMV (at PayPal price)
Klarna: $0.57 per dollar of serviced GMV
GreenSky sits at the bottom of the list. Perhaps growth is the reason? A 14% GMV growth rate doesn't give the company much leeway to grow, even if it manages a higher take rate. It's hard to burnish a growth rate that starts with a one, especially if the leading line atop your investor relations page is "GREENSKY, INC. IS A GROWTH COMPANY."
Akin to how we've seen diverging SaaS revenue multiples, striated along the axes of revenue growth and revenue quality, there's likely something similar afoot here. Loss ratios, take rates, and GMV growth are vectors by which BNPL companies will be valued differently.
BNPL startups can find their most accurate comp in growth and loan quality terms, and then work backwards to their present-day market worth. It's good to have data.
Mammoths?
I was going to spend the bulk of this newsletter discussing Mammoth Biosciences, and its plan to Jurassic Park the world, but TechCrunch beat me to it. I spoke to one of its investors — Thomas Tull — about the deal, but will hold onto those notes for a bit. I suspect we'll need them in time.
One neat funding round to close us out
Disrupt is next week, and with an IPO cycle upon us I've fallen behind my usual funding round cadence. (And comms, sorry!) So, here's a makeup entry for our shared enjoyment: Postal.
The company works in the marketing tech space, operating what its website claims is the "largest" business-to-business "gifting marketplace." More simply, it helps companies send personalized physical goods to customers. Which it claims has a very high ROI.
In a somewhat ironic twist, I actually have to do some disclosures at this juncture. It turns out the company's leading investors are Mayfield and OMERS. Those two firms led my former employer's Series B and C rounds, respectively. But if I didn't write about companies to which my Crunchbase connection didn't cause some sort of awkward frisson, I'd have to cut out too large a swath of the market. I'll just keep bringing up the matter when we have to.
Postal works in a somewhat similar space to Sendoso, though, to my understanding, the latter company deals a bit more with employee gifting over customer-focused efforts. In time they'll compete directly if they both keep growing. Sendoso raised $100 million earlier this week, because of course it did.
Other players in the space include Reachdesk and Alyce (which raised $30 million earlier this year), among others. The business of building tech to deliver personalized physical goods is pretty big, it turns out. (You can make an NFT joke here, if you'd like.)
PitchBook pegs Sendoso's new valuation at $640 million (post-money) and Alyce at $135 million (post-money). Present-day valuations for Reachdesk and Postal.io were not available.
Okay that is enough for now. Have a delightful weekend, and I'll see you at Disrupt! You may see a lot of me on the Extra Crunch stage. — Alex
SoftBank has been on a tear in Latin America. The Japanese investment conglomerate just announced it has launched its second Latin America-focused fund with a $3 billion capital commitment from the company that may grow as the fund explores “options to raise additional capital,” according to SoftBank. The vehicle follows hot on the heels of SoftBank’s debut Latin America-focused fund, announced in March 2019 with an initial $2 billion in committed capital.
It’s easy to see what all the fuss is about. Led by Marcelo Claure, CEO of SoftBank Group International and COO of SoftBank Group Corp., the outfit’s roughly four dozen employees — who operate out of Miami, São Paulo and Mexico City — have helped SoftBank identify and fund 48 startups into which it has plugged $3.5 billion and, according to the firm, which feature a combined (on paper, notably) net IRR of 85%.
It’s so busy that it just brought aboard two new managing partners at the end of last week to help out with all that investing.
Amazingly, overseeing investments in Latin America is just one of the many roles that Claure, a native of Bolivia, plays for SoftBank. (He also oversees a vast portfolio of SoftBank’s operating companies, including Arm, Brightstar, Fortress, SB Energy and Boston Dynamics; he oversees SoftBank's ownership in T-Mobile US; and he serves as executive chairman of WeWork, which he ran as interim CEO after founder Adam Neumann was forced to resign.) Still, one senses that it may be his greatest passion right now, and we’re thrilled to say that he’ll be joining us at Disrupt on the morning of Thursday, September 23rd, to talk all about it.
If you care about where SoftBank is shopping in Latin America right now — or generally want to understand better what sparked the torrid pace of investing there that the industry has seen over the last 18 months — this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
Even better, Claure joins a whole host of amazing speakers at Disrupt, including Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, actor-entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
The show is coming up fast. Get your ticket now for less than $100 before the price goes up in a few short days; we’ll see you there.
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch's China roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world.
This week, China gets serious about breaking down the walled gardens that its internet giants have formed for decades. Two major funding rounds were announced, from the newly established autonomous driving unicorn Deeproute.ai and fast-growing, cross-border financial service provider XTransfer.
Tear down the walls
The Chinese internet is infamously siloed, with a handful of “super apps” each occupying a cushy, protective territory that tries to lock users in and keep rivals out. On Tencent’s WeChat messenger, for instance, links to Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace and ByteDance’s Douyin short video service can’t be viewed or even redirected. That’s unlike WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal that offer friendly URL previews within chats.
E-commerce platforms fend off competition in different ways. Taobao uses Alibaba’s affiliate Alipay as a default payments option, omitting its arch rival WeChat Pay. Tencent-backed JD.com, a rival to Alibaba, encourages its users to pay through its own payments system or WeChat Pay.
But changes are underway. “Ensuring normal access to legal URLs is the basic requirement for developing the internet,” a senior official from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said at a press conference this week. He added that unjustified blockages of web links “affect users’ experience, undermine users’ rights, and disrupt market orders.”
There is some merit in filtering third-party links when it comes to keeping out the likes of pornography, misinformation and violent content. Content distributors in China also strictly abide by censorship rules, silencing politically sensitive discussions. These principles will stay in place, and MIIT’s new order is really to crack anticompetitive practices and wane the power of the bloated internet giants.
The call to end digital walled gardens is part of MIIT’s campaign, started in July, to restore “orders” to the Chinese internet. While crackdowns on internet firms are routine, the spate of new policies announced in recent months — from new data security rules to heightened gaming restrictions — signify Beijing’s resolution to curb the influence of Chinese internet firms of all kinds.
The deadline for online platforms to unblock URLs is September 17, the MIIT said earlier. Virtually all the major internet companies have swiftly issued statements saying they will firmly carry out MIIT’s requirements and help promote the healthy development of the Chinese internet.
Internet users are bound to benefit from the dismantling of the walled gardens. They will be able to browse third-party content smoothly on WeChat without having to switch between apps. They can share product links from Taobao right within the messenger instead of having their friends copy-paste a string of cryptic codes that Taobao automatically generates for WeChat sharing.
Robotaxi dream
Autonomous driving startup Deeproute.ai said this week it has closed a $300 million Series B round from investors including Alibaba, Jeneration Capital, and Chinese automaker Geely. The valuation of this round was undisclosed.
We’ve seen a lot of publicity from Pony.ai, WeRide, Momenta and AutoX but not so much Deeproute.ai. That in part is because the company is relatively young, founded only in 2019 by Zhou Guang after he was “fired” by his co-founders at the once-promising Roadstar.ai amid company infighting.
Investors in Roadstar.ai reportedly saw the dismissal of Zhou as detrimental to the startup, which had raised at least $140 million up to that point, and subsequently sought to dissolve the business. It appears that Zhou, formerly the chief scientist at Roadstar, still commands the trust of some investors to support his reborn autonomous driving venture.
Like Pony.ai and WeRide, Deeproute is trying to operate its own robotaxi fleets. While the business model gives it control over reams of driving data, it’s research- and cash-intensive. As such, major Chinese robotaxi startups are all looking at faster commercial deployments, like self-driving buses and trucks, to ease their financial stress.
Cross-border trade boom
The other major funding news this week comes from Shanghai-based XTransfer, which helps small-and-medium Chinese exporters collect payments from overseas. The Series C round, led by D1 Partners, pulled in $138 million and catapulted Xtransfer’s valuation to over $1 billion. The proceeds will go towards product development, hiring and global expansion.
Founded by former executives from Ant Group, XTransfer tries to solve a pain point faced by small and medium exporters: opening and maintaining bank accounts in different countries can be difficult and costly. As such, XTransfer works as a payments gateway between its SME customer, the party that pays it, and their respective banks.
As of July, XTransfer’s customers had surpassed 150,000, most of which are in mainland China. The company of over 1,000 employees is also expanding into Southeast Asia.
While business-to-business export is booming in China, more and more products are also being directly sold from Chinese brands to consumers around the world. Some of the most successful examples, like Shein and Anker, use a different set of payments processors for their direct-to-consumer sales, which tend to be in bigger volume but smaller in average ticket value.
Claire Diaz-Ortiz is a venture capitalist and author of nine books that have been translated into 11 languages. Her next book is on women founders and funders. An early employee at Twitter, Wired once called her "The Woman Who Got the Pope on Twitter."
The venture capital industry as we know it is broken. At least for women, that is.
In terms of funding to women founders, 2020 was among the worst years on record. On a global level, only 9% of all funds deployed to technology startups went to founding teams that included at least one woman. Solo woman founders and all-women teams raised just 2% of all VC dollars, Crunchbase data showed.
Shockingly, this number is actually less than it was when we first started counting a decade ago, well before many high-profile diversity initiatives launched with the goal of fixing this very problem.
This funding gap isn't just a moral crisis — it's an economic one. The lack of investment into women-founded startups is a missed opportunity worth trillions of dollars. That's because of overwhelming evidence that startups founded by women outperform startups founded by men: They generate more revenue, earn higher profits and exit faster at higher valuations. And they do all this while raising way less money.
What we're doing isn't working. Through research for my next book on women founders and funders, I kept asking myself the same question: When it comes to fixing the funding gap for women founders, what's the one thing we can do that will make everything else easier or unnecessary?
I now believe that our best bet for long-term change is to focus our efforts on increasing the number of women investing partners who can write large seed checks. Here's why.
Women investors are up to 3x more likely to fund women founders
Recently, one of the top VCs in the world told me how challenging it is to diversify his senior team. He expressed it as an accepted fact and a widespread belief. This is a common trope in Silicon Valley: Everyone wants gender diversity, but it's so hard to find all the senior women!
In the venture capital industry, who you hire at the senior level is who you hang out with. And who you hire at the senior level determines who your fund will back.
Since studies now show that women investors are up to three times more likely to invest in women founders, it is clear that the fastest way to fund more women is to hire more women investing partners with check-writing ability. The effect to venture firms? Returns.
"When U.S. VC firms increased the proportion of female partners, they benefited with 9.7% more profitable exits and a 1.5% spike in overall fund returns annually," explained Lisa Stone of WestRiver Group.
Data from All Raise and PitchBook reinforce the "correlation between hiring female decision-makers at the investment level and outperformance at the fund level," adding that "69.2% of U.S. VCs that scored a top-quartile fund between 2009 and 2018 had women in decision-making roles."
It shouldn't be surprising that women investors are more likely to invest in women founders. That's because humans have a propensity toward homophily — the tendency for like to attract like and for similarity to breed connection.
Homophily is why a vegan VC is more likely to invest in a vegan food tech, a gamer is more likely to hang out with gaming founders, or a parent is more likely to invest in a parent marketplace. People gravitate toward what they know.
Deena Shakir, who happens to be a woman and a mother, recently led Lux Capital's investment into women's health unicorn Maven. Shakir had multiple high-risk pregnancies with multiple complications, emergency C-sections, NICU stays and breastfeeding challenges.
"It is no coincidence that I am joined on Maven's board of directors by four other mothers … and a brand-new father … whose personal journeys have also informed their professional conviction," Shakir wrote in a Medium post.
Why seed checks have the greatest impact on the ecosystem
I believe that to fix the funding gap for women founders and jump-start the virtuous cycle of venture capital investing into women, we should focus on getting more seed checks into the hands of women founders. That's because seed investing is a leading indicator of whether we are headed in the right direction in terms of closing the funding gap for women, according to Jenny Lefcourt, a partner at Freestyle and co-founder of All Raise, the leading nonprofit focused on diversifying the VC industry.
This doesn't discount the importance of investments made into women founders at later stages. When a women founder lands Series D capital, it boosts this year's numbers into women founders and likely brings that particular founder closer to a liquidity event that will lead her (and her executives) to invest in more women.
That said, the greatest impact on the future ecosystem will come from widening the top of the funnel and giving more women at the seed stage the shot to one day reach a momentous Series D funding like Maven. After all, who we fund now becomes who we fund later.
Why large seed checks matter most
Finally, the size of the check is also important when thinking about how to have the biggest impact on the ecosystem.
I know first-hand that microchecks are critical to building an inclusive ecosystem. When women invest at the seed level — in any amount — they jumpstart a virtuous cycle of women funding women. That's why when I stepped in to lend a hand at my portfolio company when the solo woman founder took a parental leave, one of my key projects was to develop Jefa House, a way for Jefa's own executives to easily invest in other women-founded startups.
That said, large party rounds made up entirely of small angel checks are few and far between. Similar challenges face small checks from emerging fund managers. Although the sheer number of emerging managers has increased 9x in seven years, the reality is that most emerging managers simply don't have much money.
Are women venture capitalists who run their own microfunds more likely to invest in amazing women founders than Tier 1 funds with few or no women investing partners? Yes. Will it take them a long time to compete with those Tier 1 funds in terms of check size? Yes.
This is why it matters so much when leading funds hire or promote women to the partner level. Not only does it give women founders a better shot at funding from high-signal shops, but the moves that top funds make are key signals to others in the ecosystem: In venture capital, women investors don't have to sit at the kids' table.
Why we must hire women investing partners
We all know that great returns in early-stage venture capital come from making big bets on great ideas that others aren't betting on. That is why VC investing is contrarian by definition. Thanks to our increasingly globalized world and clear data showing the importance of diverse teams to make good decisions to get those returns, no one in 2021 truly believes that single white dudes in Palo Alto have a monopoly on billion-dollar ideas.
However, due to the nature of homophily, venture capital remains a highly homogenous industry, and the social and economic interactions and decisions of human beings remain deeply swayed by these principles. No matter how much work we do, birds of a feather really do flock — and fund — together.
This all leads to one place: The clearest path to funding different kinds of founders with different kinds of ideas is to put different kinds of investors on the investing side of the table. To get more funding to women founders, we need more women who can write checks. That's why prioritizing the hiring of women investing partners who can write large seed checks is key to fixing the funding crisis for women founders and increasing VC returns worldwide.
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hearttohearthcookery posted: " Rambour Franc is a 16th century heirloom apple of French origin that became popular in the American colonies. The apple was referred to as Summer Rambour in this country and changed to Summer Rambo by the 1850's. With a bushel of Summer Rambo on my "
Rambour Franc is a 16th century heirloom apple of French origin that became popular in the American colonies. The apple was referred to as Summer Rambour in this country and changed to Summer Rambo by the 1850's. With a bushel of Summer Rambo on my porch, I will be using them in receipts (recipes).
This week, I looked around to see if any artists and writers have written posts for the 20th September 11 Memorial. It wasn’t easy, but here, for starters, is surely one of the most positive examples I could find, from Billy Tucci:
Drawing I did on my porch on #September11 of my comic book character Ana Ishikawa (aka, Shi). I remember that afternoon waiting, enraged, & feeling helpless to do anything. So many friends & family worked for the #NYPD & #FDNY & we didn’t have any word on anyone. #NeverForgetpic.twitter.com/Q2dn37Tq1z
And I gotta say, the image of Superman waving a USA flag is certainly impressive, making this one of the best contributions that could be made for the 9-11 Day of Remembrance.
If there’s something disappointing about the rest, it’s that none of them take a meat-and-potatoes stance, condemning al Qaeda for the tragedy and mass murder they caused, not to mention the aid the jihadists had in Saudi Arabia at the time, and don’t even acknowledge the disaster Joe Biden and company caused via their withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was a shocking example of caving to the same horrors, and destroyed hard work built up 2 decades ago. How can you send a message if you don’t come up with some kind of a statement or illustration that’s damning to the monsters who committed the heinous crime that took place on September 11, 2001?
In addition to that, the mainstream comics industry itself almost entirely forbids any criticism of Islam, and practically excuses it, nor do they pay any tribute to movements like 9-11 Families for a Safe & Strong America, and the French victims of the jihadists who murdered staff members at Charlie Hebdo. If they’re not willing to deal with specific issues like these, is it any wonder justice will never truly be served? For now, I’d say Captain America is one of the biggest victims of this PC mentality, and has been for nearly 2 decades already, seeing how Marvel would rather publish stories depicting average Americans as white supremacists. This is the sad state we’ve reached over the years, due to a lot of terrible communist-style indoctrination that’s going on in many liberal establishments everywhere.
And lest I forget, there were quite a few artists and writers who sadly didn’t address the subject at all. That too says quite a bit how far we’ve fallen.
In Related News
The Valdosta Daily Times did a brief retrospective on veteran comics editor Sid Jacobson’s 9-11 Report graphic novel from 2006, probably one of the very few in the industry proper to ever deal with the subject. It begins with a fishy part:
Two years ago following the investigation into the Trump-Russia connection, someone asked if I would like to borrow a copy of the Mueller Report, I only partially joked, “I’m waiting for the comic book adaptation.”
Which was finally released later that year as “The Mueller Report Illustrated.”
And just how honest or dishonest was that? The whole “connection” was phony, all concocted by the Democrats to create drama for attacking a man who’s now been unfairly ousted from office for the sake of installing a politician who’s not fit for the job into it, which has since led to the horrific disaster in Afghanistan. It wouldn’t surprise me if the illustrated take on the topic was biased against President Trump.
But several years ago, the 9/11 Commission Report was published in book form. People purchased it as they are purchasing the Mueller Report. I read a copy of the 9/11 Report like many other Americans.
I also read “The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation” by Sid Jacobson, the man who created Richie Rich, and legendary comics artist Ernie Colon.
I think the part about Richie Rich is inaccurate, but what else could you expect from such un-dedicated reporters? I believe Alfred Harvey, Warren Kremer, Larz Bourne and Steve Mufatti were the creators of the character in 1953. Jacobson may have been the writer/editor for a lot of the Richie Rich stories, but he was anything but the creator per se.
Yes, there was a comic book adaptation of the 9/11 Report. There was nothing disrespectful about it. Jacobson and Colon took a serious look at a serious subject.
From the history of Al-Qaeda’s rise to the history of terrorism in America to the training of terrorists in flying but not landing planes to the awful events of Sept. 11, 2001, the details of the 9/11 Report lent themselves to adaptation in comics form.
Though when reading the original report in text book form, the thought would have never crossed my mind to adapt it into a graphic novel.
What’s really sad is that, if you take a look at the atmosphere since, much fewer in the industry proper want to touch upon the subject. That aside, I’d written about this subject 15 years ago, and found the graphic novel has a lot of ups and downs, so it’s a very mixed bag for anybody hoping to see a tour de force look at a serious topic. As a result, can it be considered the most serious look at the issue?
Jacobson and Colon created a tremendously readable version of the 9/11 Report as a comic book. There were graphic interpretations for data and loads of information boiled down to a hundred-some pages of masterful comic book storytelling.
“The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation” even received a promotional blurb from comic book legend Stan Lee: “It will surely set the standard for all future works of contemporary history, graphic or otherwise, and should be required reading in every home, school and library.”
It was and remains a milestone in graphic storytelling both in terms of displaying what the comic book form is capable of achieving and better understanding the history of an era.
Still worth finding a copy these many years later. Or pulling from the shelf and reconsidering again.
I had looked over the material provided years before, and a lot of the sample pages originally provided by Slate are still online. But as I said before, there are many strengths and weaknesses to the graphic novel, so I wouldn’t go so far myself to say it’s the numero uno best book on the subject. However, I do wonder how well it’s going to hold up now in view of what George W. Bush did wrong in his time, and now that he’s made divisive statements on the 20th anniversary of 9-11, that were throughly inappropriate, and soiled what should’ve been a moment of unity. It’s enough to make one wonder if there should be another graphic novel produced about what’s gone wrong with the war against terrorism in the years since, including in France and Britain, but again, if past history is any indication, there’s only so many comic writers and artists today who refuse to associate themselves with the subject, and that’s why a serious issue like this is unlikely to be explored further, if at all.
Political correctness has injured creativity and seriousness only so much. Who knows if even Jacobson and Colón are still willing to tackle all these issues?
Deadline reports that Hayley Atwell, who is part of the Marvel universe as Agent Peggy Carter and who is next up in Mission: Impossible 7, has been cast as the voice of Lara Croft in Netflix and Legendary's Tomb Raider anime series. It is based on the Square Enix action-adventure video game that has spawned comic books and three feature films, with a fourth on the way.
The anime series, first announced in January, will pick up after the video game reboot trilogy, and follow the heroine 25 years after her first game appeared as she explores new territory.
Tomb Raider will be written by Tasha Huo (The Witcher: Blood Origin, Red Sonja), who is executive producing with dj2 Entertainment founder and CEO Dmitri M. Johnson (Sonic the Hedgehog), Stephan Bugaj and Howard Bliss. Jacob Robinson will be an executive producer via his company Tractor Pants.
The Tomb Raider video games, developed by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montréal and published by Square Enix, have sold more that 81 million copies in their quarter-century of existence. The most recent release in the series was 2018's Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Netflix has given an eight-episode series order to Grendel, a series based on the masked vigilante from Matt Wagner's popular, award-winning Dark Horse Comics series, with Abubakr Ali (Power Book II: Ghost, Katy Keene) set to star in the titular role.
With Ali's casting, he becomes the first Arab Muslim male actor to portray a series lead in a comic book adaptation. The series, written and executive produced by Resident Evil and Supernatural alum Andrew Dabb, comes out of Netflix's first look deal with Dark Horse Entertainment.
Also joining the cast are Jaime Ray Newman (Dopesick, The Time Traveler's Wife), Julian Black Antelope (The Flash, Debris), Madeline Zima (Californication, Hacks), Kevin Corrigan (Scenes from an Empty Church, The Get Down), Emma Ho (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, The Expanse), Erik Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Watchmen), Brittany Allen (What Keeps You Alive) and Andy Mientus (The Flash, Dolly Parton's Heartstrings).
Grendel, which sees Dabb also serve as showrunner, follows Hunter Rose (Ali), a gifted fencer, writer and assassin, seeking to avenge the death of a lost love. He goes to war with New York's criminal underworld, only to realize…why beat them, when you can join them?
Last week brought the news that The Boys season three had officially wrapped production and now a new video compiled from set features the all-star cast confirming the news.
Featuring a fresh look at several returning cast members can be seen, along with teases of the new characters like Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy (who refrains that he’s going to get drunk after the wrap). We also get a glimpse of series star Karl Urban delivering a rousing speech to the crew, even going so far as to say: “I think this is going to be our best season yet.” Check it for yourself below!
Now you have an update on Season 3! Stop sending your stan letters to our homes. pic.twitter.com/cX5nOvJ0oB
“We had written Soldier Boy long before I cast Jensen. The majority of the guys we were looking at for that part were actually quite older than Jensen,” series creator and showrunner Eric Kripke said about Ackles’ casting. “Because it’s a World War II hero. But it’s so funny how these things sometimes happen. Jensen called me and I’m not on the show anymore but we keep in touch and text every so often. But he happened to call me and we were just chatting and I’m like well I’m prepping Season 3 of the show, and I have this character Soldier Boy, and it was a real pain to cast, and I haven’t really found anyone. Hey, wait a minute, do you want to do it? I sent him the script, and he’s like, oh my God, I totally want to do this. Less than a week later, he was cast. He just happened to call that day, is one of the big reasons he got that part.”
Other newcomers set to appear in season three of the hit Amazon show include Sean Patrick Flannery (The Boondock Saints) as a supe called Gunpowder, a character that has roots in the comics and was briefly featured in the first season of the show (naturally played by a different actor). Plus Miles Gaston Villanueva (The Resident) will play Supersonic, an ex-boyfriend of Erin Moriarty’s Starlight, and Nick Wechsler (Revenge) as Blue Hawk. Laurie Holden (Andrea on AMC’s The Walking Dead) will also appear as “Crimson Countess”, a counterpart to the Scarlet Witch.
Both seasons of The Boys are now streaming on Amazon Prime. It’s unclear when the third season will premiere but a 2022 debut seems likely.
In the year 2056, robots have replaced human beings in the workforce. An uneasy co-existence develops between the newly intelligent robots and the ten billion humans living on Earth. Every human family is assigned a robot upon whom they are completely reliant. What could possibly go wrong? Meet the Walters, a human family whose robot, Razorball, ominously spends his free time in the garage working on machines which they're pretty sure are designed to kill them in this sci-fi satire from Mark Russell
Impression
Not all robots #2 jumps head first into the kindling of a war between man and machine. The set-up of this war hinges on societal roles. Mark Russell and Mike Deodato Jr waste no time in kindling the sparks of war underway. Like his recent run on the Flintstones, Mark’s dialogue is poignant. The writer stated in his letter to the readers that the theme of this series is toxic masculinity. There is a lot set up here and the idea of toxic masculinity often gets lost and when it comes into play and lands about as heavily as Hellyboy’s fist. This problem only increases as the narrative begins to ramp upward.
Beyond the heavy-handed politics, the actual story is quite interesting when it’s exploring the machines’ desire for a life outside of caring for humans and the humans’ desire to live without machines doing everything. One side fulfills it’s purpose begrudgingly and the other begins to resent them for it. It’s told in a way that fits Russell’s perspective that toxic masculinity hurts everyone in society, and forces the reader to adopt a certain level of empathy for all perspectives in this tale.
That empathy goes out the window though by the end of the issue. It reads like Mark started trying to make a statement about men and society, but the narrative says the humans and machines resent each other. So, this theme is caught up in the narrative at the point we see Snowball making weapons in the garage. That’s when any and all empathy for him falls away.
Despite this clashing of the theme and narrative, which no doubt could’ve been smoother, the comic reads quite strong on the surface. The satirical characters bring a lighthearted humor to this otherwise serious title. In every other way than the theme, this title is great. The art is gritty and grounded, while sharp. This isn’t a vibrant happy world and Deodato captures the dreadful emotions perfectly. Even the surface story of a robot tired of his dead end job is executed with relatable precision. Once Headley, the killer robot, is found ‘not guilty,’ you see the cracks in this world growing. The sparks of war begin to glow as eyes on both sides begin to open. The humans see proof of robotic control, and the machines see vindication of their believed superiority to humans.
Again though, that is only on the surface. Once you dig deeper the cracks in the story itself also begin to show.
Final Verdict
Mark Russell’s toxic masculinity in this title is a bit too on-the-nose, but I agree that men’s place in the world, given the recent cultural shifts, is a subject worth exploring. The responsibilities and duties that once tied men down are now lessened and a new generations of men are seeking purpose outside of what society demands of them. Unfortunately, this comic doesn’t read like that. By the end of this issue, albeit through metaphor, it seems as though Russell is simply saying men are dangerous. It remains to be seen if that is truly the case, or where this story will land, but for the time being it appears to be sticking to this theme. So I am not recommending this title.
If you’d like to buy this title you can do so here or order with your LCS.
Cartoon Network and HBO Max are launching a new slate of programming aimed at preschoolers that will highlight diversity, representation, and other woke issues.
The launch has begun with shows like Little Ellen, which features same-sex couples from producer Ellen DeGeneres, and Mush-Mush & The Mushables, about tiny forest guardians. The new television lineup, dubbed “Cartoonito,” launched on Cartoon Network and HBO Max, both WarnerMedia divisions, on Monday.
According to a Breitbart report, the ”Little Ellen” shows will include same-sex couples and deal with other ”woke” issues. The show follows a 7-year-old Ellen and her friends in her native New Orleans and teaches children to ”manage their emotions and be resilient and optimistic.”
”It’s these sweet little characters that always have the best intentions and are hopefully teaching kindness and supporting one another, and everything that a cartoon should be,” DeGeneres told the AP. ”But it just happens to have a couple of characters that have same-sex parents. which is great. I think it’s always important for kids to be exposed to what is reality. This is reality. It’s supportive.”
The new slate also includes a rebooted Tom & Jerry series. In addition to cat-and-mouse antics, the new show will feature a “core learning curriculum, based on education and vital readiness research,” according to WarnerMedia.
For what it’s worth, WarnerMedia said they are not trying to push any social agendas on kids.
"We are not aiming to push boundaries. We are aiming to be very intentional about what it is that we're showing and saying, and what the kids are learning," says Amy Friedman, head of kids and family programming for Warner Bros..
"We are lucky to be able to be starting this at a time when we are all so much clearer now about what representation looks like."
Bread pudding, also known as French Toast Casserole, is what all your cozy weekend breakfast dreams are made of. It’s basically bread soaked in a sweet and creamy custard, then baked to perfection. The edges of the bread get deliciously crispy while the inside stays moist and custard-like. It’s so much easier than cooking individual slices of French toast in a skillet, and it’s a great way to use up leftover stale or day-old bread. Win-win! So let me show you how it’s done.
Originally posted 5-5-2010, updated 9-18-2021.
Is Bread Pudding for Breakfast or Dessert?
There are many, many different versions of bread pudding, some of which are downright decadent. You’ll even see it on the dessert menu in a lot of restaurants across the south (usually drenched with a delicious bourbon sauce). The version I’m presenting here is the kind I grew up eating for breakfast. It has milk instead of heavy cream, fewer eggs, and a lot less sugar. The addition of applesauce to the custard also keeps things a little lighter and more toward the breakfast end of the spectrum. All of that said, I would still consider it a sweet, special occasion type of breakfast.
What Kind of Bread to Use for Bread Pudding
It’s important to use a hearty bread for bread pudding rather than a soft white sandwich bread. Softer bread will disintegrate in the custard and won’t give you the nice toasty edges on top. Bread pudding is the perfect way to use up leftovers from your loaves of Italian bread, baguettes, or any hearty artisan loaf you may have. And if you don’t have enough leftover bread from one loaf, tear that bread into pieces, pop it into a freezer bag, and save it in the freezer for later when you do have more bread!
What Else Can I Add?
The classic apple cinnamon flavor of this bread pudding is a great base to add even more flavor. You could toss in a handful of walnuts or pecans, or maybe even some dried cranberries. If you want more texture in your bread pudding, try chopping up a fresh apple and stirring that into the mix. If you want to go more toward the dessert route, you could top your bread pudding with a cream cheese icing or caramel drizzle!
Apple Cinnamon Bread Pudding
Apple Cinnamon Bread Pudding (also known as French Toast Casserole) is a rich and sweet breakfast treat or after-dinner dessert!
Preheat the oven to 325ºF. If your bread is not already in pieces, tear or cut the bread into one-inch pieces.
Spread the bread pieces out on a baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes to slightly dry the bread. After baking, let the bread cool for a few minutes to allow the remaining steam to evaporate.
While the bread is drying in the oven, prepare the apple cinnamon custard. In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, 1 cup of applesauce, vanilla extract, sugar, and cinnamon.
Transfer the par-baked bread to a large bowl, add the raisins, then pour the apple cinnamon custard over top. Stir to combine and allow the bread to soak for at least 15 minutes to absorb all of the custard.
Meanwhile, use 1 teaspoon of the butter to grease the inside of a two-quart casserole dish. Transfer the soaked bread to the casserole dish and spread it out evenly. Cut the remaining butter into chunks and sprinkle it over the bread pudding.
Bake the bread pudding for 45 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 160ºF.
After removing the bread pudding from the oven, add the remaining ½ cup applesauce in dollops on top of the bread pudding. Serve warm.
Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Tear your bread into one-inch pieces. You’ll need about 6 cups of torn bread.
Place the torn bread pieces on a large baking sheet and bake in the preheated 325ºF oven for about 10 minutes to dry it out. Let the bread pieces cool for a few minutes after baking. This will allow the rest of the steam to evaporate and dry the bread further.
While the bread is drying, prepare the custard. In a large bowl, whisk together 2 cups milk, 4 large eggs, 1 cup applesauce, ⅓ cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1 tsp vanilla extract.
Place the dried bread cubes in a large bowl along with ⅓ cup raisins. Pour the custard mixture over top and then give everything a stir until all of the custard has been absorbed by the bread.
Set the mixture aside and allow the bread to soak in the custard for at least 15 minutes.
Use one teaspoon (out of the 2 Tbsp total) to grease the inside of a two-quart casserole dish. Transfer the bread pudding mixture to the casserole dish and spread it out evenly. Cut the remaining butter into small pieces and sprinkle them over the bread pudding.
Bake the bread pudding in the 325ºF oven for about 45 minutes, or until it’s brown and crispy on top and the internal temperature reaches 160ºF. After baking, spoon the remaining ½ cup applesauce over the top.
Cut into six pieces and serve warm with a drizzle of maple syrup or a sprinkle of powdered sugar on top!
Think with Google is a new YouTube series that seeks to educate and inspire the next generation of marketers, advertisers, and creatives with tutorials from experts in privacy, digital transformation, and AI to name a few. In related news, the 2021 Forrester Digital Marketing Maturity survey, conducted on behalf of Google, found that nearly three-quarters […]
How are customers, employees and investors able to connect with a business? Companies have a way of coming to life, and often, it's through the power of brand storytelling. The best businesses have a story, and the best entrepreneurs know how to weave storytelling into their brand narrative. Do you?
StartupNation exclusive discounts and savings on Dell products and accessories: Learn more here
Storytelling: Does it matter?
Absolutely. Here are just five reasons why your business can benefit from brand storytelling:
What kind of struggles did you have along the way?
How did you handle challenges? What were the outcomes?
What good things have come out of your decision to start a business?
Almost all brand stories mention the creator of said brand. That’s you! Including this "character" as part of your story humanizes your business. It gives listeners or readers a chance to connect with and get to know the individual who made the startup a reality.
Be transparent
About nine in 10 survey participants believe business transparency is important. From willingly sharing information with your customers and employees to being upfront about your pricing strategy, every aspect of your business needs to be transparent. Including your startup's story!
Be prepared to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth when it comes to your brand's story. If you're worried about sharing a non-glamorous story with the world, here's a bit of good news: people like real, authentic brand stories. In fact, they prefer it.
Don't give potential customers a watered-down version of your business; give them the real deal. Most entrepreneurs struggled when starting their businesses. If you did, own it. This is what makes a great story.
The more relatable you are when telling your story, the more your customers, employees and investors will be able to put themselves in your shoes and connect with you and your company’s mission.
Keep it consistent
Nobody likes a waffler. If you're changing up your business's story depending on who you're talking to, take a step back and reassess. Your brand's story should be consistent regardless of whether you're talking to a customer or an investor. Remember, your story is a reflection of your business, not a reflection of the person you're talking to about it.
Think of it like this: Most brand stories involve information on why and how you started your business. This historical information doesn't change, so neither should your story.
Of course, your story doesn't have to stick to a rigid script every time you talk about it. Changing words up isn't the problem. But if you change the main parts of the story, you may come across as inconsistent, misleading and dishonest.
When it comes to stories, all the good ones have a purpose. Generally, it does more than just inform—it also educates. Before jotting down your brand's story, consider what others can learn from it. Maybe your customers can learn from mistakes you've made or successes you've had.
Think about what you hope to get out of your story each time you share it with others. Are you hoping to get investments? Increase customers? Increase employee loyalty? Have a clear call to action when you share it.
Don't be the bad storyteller
Long, long ago, in a land far, far away, there was … a business on the corner of the street that offered coffee and donuts.
Not very appealing, right? You have to be engaging when sharing your brand's story. After all, aren't you passionate about your business? Aren't you excited to tell people about it? Show it in the way you tell or write your story, while still keeping things simple and to the point.
Even if you have the most fantastic brand story in the world, you'll start to lose people if you make it too long in an effort to keep the attention on yourself and your business.
OH MAN Girlfriend draws up 17-page 'contract' for man she's been dating TWO WEEKS… including that he pays for everything The Sun, UK | 10 Sep 2021 | Martha Cliff
A GIRLFRIEND drew up a 17-page ‘relationship contract’ with her boyfriend just two weeks after they met on Tinder – demanding he pay for date nights, buy flowers twice a month and work out five times a week.
Annie Wright first met her boyfriend Michael Head in October last year and after deciding he was ‘her person’ they agreed to be exclusive soon after.
Determined to make the relationship work after having her ‘boundaries crossed’ in a previous toxic relationship, 21-year-old Annie joked they should write down their ‘terms and conditions’ for dating – and law student Michael eagerly agreed.
Shortly after Annie and Michael, 23, sat down and read out their own terms – including asking for ‘a romantic gesture once every two weeks’ and ‘working out at least five times a week alone’.
Other clauses included ‘no silent treatment’ and him paying for date nights.
Now Annie credits the lengthy 17-page contract as the key to their relationship success and even suggested they might give each other a ‘yearly review’ when they celebrate their one-year anniversary next month.
Annie, from Atlanta, in Georgia, said: “This has been a game changer. I’d recommend all couples have one. It’s the best thing ever.
…
“I was still partying and I’m a junior in college. He was top of his class, very organised.
“I was like ‘this is the dude I want to marry but our lives don’t correlate well’.
Wait . . . are we sure “Michael” is his first name?
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TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFNS) — Innovators and thought leaders from industry, academia and the federal government gathered at the AFWERX Innovation Hub in Las Vegas, Nevada, late last month to review technologies that will be a part of the Revolutionizing Flightline Operations AFWERX Challenge. This effort is a sequel to last year's Base […]
USV Tactical has opened Pre-orders for replica US Colonial Marines uniforms form the movie Aliens. They only have a Facebook presence but are legitimate.
Armax is the peak international publication promoting the scholarship of contemporary arms. As a core discipline within the field of arms and armour studies, the study of contemporary arms engages with a broad range of academic areas including history (particularly contemporary, military, science, and technology history), war and conflict studies; ballistics; design and technology studies; […]
Russian Su-24 has bombed pro-Turkish mercenary positions near the village of Darkush in northwestern Syria, learned BulgarianMilitary.com, citing a field source
It's therefore logical that they are looking for different formats to cover up their miracle weapon to reduce possible losses during the great war with Ukraine.
Late in the day on September 14, it was reported that the American stealth bomber B-2 Spirit had an accident during a landing at the Whitman AFB in Missouri.
The US State Department announced that on September 17, 2021, it negotiated a $ 500 million defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, learned BulgarianMilitary.com.
The United States Army named the Extended Range Cannon Artillery system “Iron Thunder” during a naming ceremony at Picatinny Arsenal this week. According to a recent service news release, the 4th Battalion, 27th Field Artillery Regiment also has been named the operational test unit for the newest ERCA system. Army is now prototyping ERCA weapons […]
Irsaely state-owned aerospace giant Israel Aircraft Industries, better known as IAI, announced that it is integrating offensive and defensive systems, to enhance the ‘Sa’ar 6’ corvette’s capabilities. In a release, IAI said the integration of Barak MX Interceptors will usher the Israeli Navy into a new technological era, under the guidance of Israel’s Ministry of […]
The future USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121) guided-missile destroyer successfully completed acceptance trials, according to a press release issued Friday by Huntington Ingalls Industries. According to a company news release, its Ingalls Shipbuilding division completed the final round of sea trials for Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121). […]
Because there was once a time when I cared about such things, I will occasionally still get emails from a group that tracks academic publications. Supposedly (meaning I have to believe these folks) when they spot my name, they send a query to make sure I am the author.
Here is an actual real life question I got today: Are you the Craig Magee who wrote "Diachronous sub-volcanic intrusion along deep water margins: insights from the Irish Rockall Basin"?
I replied: No, you've got me confused with the Craig Magee who wrote about diachronous sub-volcanic intrusions in SHALLOW water. Easy mistake. Happens all the time.
Are you looking for seductive quotes that inspire you to do something crazy and good, then you are coming to the right article. Here you find all types of seductive quotes that really match your objective.
Best 90+ Seductive Quotes
What a person notices first a couple of lady is whether or not she notices him.
In the event you want to seduce an angel, you will need to play the part of a satan.
Seduce your self first.
Seduction was each a science and artwork, a mix of talent, self-discipline, proximity, and alternative. Largely proximity
Seduction is all the time extra singular and elegant than s** and it instructions the upper value.
Magnificence and seduction, I consider, is nature's instrument for survival, as a result of we are going to shield what we fall in love with.
It is among the psychological errors that the world makes, to imagine {that a} man whose inclination drives him on to aim seduction after seduction is a person of extra ardent erotic ardour than the extra fixed lover. The very reverse is the case.
you must keep in mind that there's a distinction between seducing somebody, and being as lewd as potential of their course.
Flirting is the light artwork of constructing a person really feel happy with himself.
The toughest process of a woman's life, these days, is to show to a person that his intentions are critical.
Venus yields to caresses, to not compulsion.
Success is a awful trainer. It seduces good individuals into considering they will't lose.
Seduce my thoughts and you may have my physique, discover my soul and I'm yours ceaselessly.
It’s your work in life that’s the final seduction.
Maybe in Venice, you'll discover a man who'll put jasmine in your maiden-hair, and a pomegranate flower in your navel. Poor little woman Jane!
Each lady has the facility to seduce the world along with her uniqueness, ardour, and creativity.
It’s a must to penetrate a girl's defenses. Entering into her head is a prerequisite to entering into her physique.
She's lovely, and due to this fact to be wooed; She is a girl, due to this fact to be gained.
The subsequent time you attempt to seduce anybody, don't do it with speak, with phrases. Girls know extra about phrases than males ever will. And so they know the way little they will ever presumably imply.
Seduction is an artwork that’s examined within the mirror.
Don't combine wine and ladies.
Seduction is about intelligence and wit. Somebody who makes me giggle has each probability to seduce me.
Make sensuality your energy base.
What seduces by no means appears to be the place it’s thought.
Males are like that, they will resist the sound argument, but yield to a look.
Man proposes, lady forecloses.
One type of flirtation is to boast we by no means flirt.
Real love is the love that seduces and can by no means permit itself to be seduced.
S**uality is extraordinarily disruptive. The insecurities and feelings it stirs up can typically reduce quick a relationship that will in any other case be deeper and longer-lasting.
Don't lose your self in a person, that'll make you lose your pizzazz indefinitely. As an alternative, lose your self in your individual sensuality and also you'll ceaselessly enchant him.
I suppose that romantic love was invented as an excellent technique of seduction.
However a determined coronary heart will seduce the thoughts.
The mind is aware of the true secret of seduction, more practical than even music and martinis. Simply maintain whispering, 'Gee, you are really special' to that sack of water and protein that may be a physique, and you may get it to do virtually something.
I don't use my physique to seduce, no. I simply stand there.
I discover the perfume to be such a temper enhancer and undoubtedly a seduction instrument.
You will have had me spinning for days, for I’m drunk off the phrases that move endlessly out of your deep crimson lips that style of wine.
An oz of braveness will go farther with girls than a pound of timidity.
There is a component of seduction in footwear that doesn't exist for males. A lady could be s**y, charming, witty, or shy along with her footwear.
I feel visible seduction is mostly a pretty factor. To have the ability to take a look at one thing and really feel you need to get nearer and nearer to it, and as you get nearer to it, the extra you drop your guard.
Vampires are immortal, you are able to do no matter you need, and get away with it. And there's the seduction half, after all, s** is an enormous a part of the vampire factor.
The resistance of a girl to a person's advances shouldn’t be all the time an indication of advantage. Generally it's only a signal of expertise.
Seduction is an artwork identified solely to the very best of the artistes.
I’m right here to seduce you right into a love of life; that will help you to grow to be a little bit extra poetic; that will help you die to the mundane and to the unusual in order that the extraordinary explodes in your life.
Latins are tenderly enthusiastic. In Brazil, they throw flowers at you. In Argentina, they throw themselves.
There's all the time reality in seduction. That's why it really works.
It's intelligence combined with lower than innocence, it's cruelty combined with a way of class. It's a lure set for seduction to people who are persuaded by speech.
Seduction is merely encouraging a person to do one thing he already desires to do.
Don't inform a girl she's fairly; inform her there's no different lady like her, and all roads will open to you.
A lady will typically forgive the person who tries to seduce her, however by no means the person who misses a chance when provided.
A lady laughing is a girl conquered.
His eyes have made like to me all night.
Preventing battles is like courting women: those that take advantage of pretensions and are boldest often win.
The female seduces as a result of it’s by no means the place it thinks it’s, or the place it thinks itself.
A fast smile is extra seductive than a slinky gown.
Understanding is the last word seduction of thoughts. Go to the reality past the thoughts.
In the event you discover somebody engaging, you attempt to make them discover you engaging. That is known as seduction. And seduction is a bit ugly. You would say it's a bit ugly to make use of your charisma.
It’s not sufficient to beat; one should study to seduce.
Pursuit and seduction are the essence of s**uality. It's a part of the sizzle.
The climax of seduction is to offer the phantasm that you simply're not making an attempt to seduce.
When a girl has not obtained a lot flattery in her life, she can be seduced.
Seduction isn't making somebody do what they don't need to do; seduction is engaging somebody into doing what they secretly need to do already.
A person is sort of a cat; chase him and he’ll run — sit nonetheless and ignore him and he'll come purring at your ft.
You possibly can seduce a person with out taking something off, with out even touching him.
A perfume that matches the character of the person or lady who wears it’s an integral a part of the reminiscence that you’ve got of her or him. It goes with out saying that it's a formidable weapon of seduction.
The typical man is extra inquisitive about a girl who’s inquisitive about him than he’s in a girl with lovely legs.
What is kitchen garden ? 
Conducive to growing vegg" 
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Here are the pros and cons. 
Soji's apartment showcases her collections from her travels. "Fill your home with things that make you feel joy, that remind you of where youve been, and that call you to where you are going," she says. 
Full of bold hues and playful descriptors. 
Bad news, leaf peepers. 
The project cost $200 and took advantage of an odd layout. 
Celebrate Christmas, Harry Potter-style. 
This year in particular has been a strong one when it comes to female-fronted action movies. 
According to a home design and staging expert! 
If you’re currently on the hunt for a new job and are missing the flexibility of working from home—something that many of us have become accustomed to over the past 18-months—you may be in luck. Williams-Sonoma, one of the most well-known quality homeware retailers in the U.S., is hiring 7,000 seasonal Customer Service Representatives for the holidays, with the jobs being fully remote positions. Job site Remote. 
Apple went back on stage with yet another virtual event to announce updates, upgrades and brand new unveils. The TechCrunch team, of course, 
Tokyo-based news aggregator SmartNews 
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