Ian J. Ball <ijball@mac.invalid> wrote:

On 7/6/26 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

What did you watch?

World Cup soccer - The Norway-Brazil came was a joy to watch. I tend to
put Premiere League on as background noise in the mornings during the Spring, so I've known about Erling Haaland for a while. But to see
Norway actually beat Brazil was awesome. And it wasn't really even close!
The Mexico-England game was one of the most anxiety-inducting games
I've ever seen. And it was non-stop! +90 minutes of pure anxiety! But it
was a good game. A little surprising that England got the better of it,
but Mexico just never executed on their opportunities to score. If they had... it would have ramped up the anxiety even more!... Anyway, this
was a great game - the kind of game that even the people who don't love soccer would like.

I also saw some Wimbledon tennis too.

soaps: DOOL - Thur's ep. I think this was the episode where Joy is
clearly playing games (to try to land Alex for herself), and Kayla kind
of calls her on it. Stephanie takes a self-defense class with Tate, and
they commiserate with each other. Holly is still sick. EJ is still
trying to cover up why.
GH - Fri's ep. Well, this is unfortunate - Z shows up on screen and
it's played by... John Oliver. >:/ I have no idea what Oliver is doing slumming it on GH - HBO and ABC aren't even the same corporate parents!
All I can figure is that Oliver must actually be a fan of GH!?! Anyway, Oliver as Z sort of "interrogates" Josslyn - Z claims to Josslyn that Cassius is dead. (I don't believe this for a minute - at most, we won't
see him, but they'll leave it open ended in case Ryan Paevey wants to
come back...) Later, Carly goes to Z to demand that Joss be "released"
from the WSB - can't wait until John Oliver as Z tells her to pound
sand... Meanwhile, Vaughn is back! Some other stuff happened with Britt
and Rocco and Charlotte/Danny, but, eh...

Oliver did a bit on his show about Stephen A. Smith in March. I didn?t see
it but it was described in interviews as envious that Smith appears on
soaps. Oliver pleaded with the soap casting folks for a role, and they responded by giving him the GH gig, and another on DOOL.


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On Jul 6, 2026 at 12:42:28 PM PDT, ""Ian J. Ball"" <ijball@mac.invalid>
wrote:

On 7/6/26 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

What did you watch?

World Cup soccer - The Norway-Brazil came was a joy to watch. I tend to
put Premiere League on as background noise in the mornings during the Spring, so I've known about Erling Haaland for a while. But to see
Norway actually beat Brazil was awesome. And it wasn't really even close!
The Mexico-England game was one of the most anxiety-inducting games
I've ever seen. And it was non-stop! +90 minutes of pure anxiety! But it
was a good game. A little surprising that England got the better of it,
but Mexico just never executed on their opportunities to score. If they had... it would have ramped up the anxiety even more!... Anyway, this
was a great game - the kind of game that even the people who don't love soccer would like.

I don't watch or much like soccer but our friend group has a pool where everyone drew one the final eight teams out of a hat and put $10 in the pot. Whoever's team wins gets the $80 quatloos. I drew Spain, which beat Belgium,
so I'm a little closer to the pot.

I'm not sure what the point of these national teams are, anyway. I mean, they're mostly all black guys with African sounding names, no matter which country they're playing for. If you're England or France or Spain or Switzerland, you're basically just saying, "Our group of Africans is better than your group of Africans." National pride seems misplaced here.



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On 2026-07-06 4:30 a.m., Ubiquitous wrote:

I watched:
The first two episodes of The Westies. The first season is going to be 8

episodes and they dropped the first two at the same time as many shows
do these days.

J. K. Simmons is the head of the Irish mob in NYC in the 80s. They've
fallen on hard times and the Italian mob is eating their lunch but the
Irish have managed to get a piece of the Javits Center which is just
under construction. But they keep butting heads with the mob,
particularly an up-and-comer named John Gotti. Simmon's crew is mostly
young guys but his right hand is fairly steady and solid despite his
youth. His right hand man is living with a woman from Ireland played by
Sara Bolger who we learn has done some very illicit stuff for the IRA
and is presently holding a rocket launcher for an ex-lover from Ireland (played by the guy who played Tom the chauffeur from Downton Abbey).
Titus Welliver is a corrupt cop who is estranged from his son who is
working in Simmons' crew as well. Welliver is asked to join an FBI task
force working on the Irish mob due to his connections and initially
declines but Simmons orders him to be his eyes and ears in the task
force so he can keep on top of what the authorities are finding out
about him. I'm going to leave it there so that you don't have too much
spoiled for you.

IMDB rates this at 7.2 and I tend to concur. It's not in the outstanding category but it's early days: it may get better as we get further into
the show. I remember finding The Wire underwhelming for the first few
episodes but once I had a few episodes under my belt I found it the best
drama ever.

I was interested to see that they gave a decent impression of NYC in the
80s but that it was actually filmed in Toronto and nearby Hamilton.

--
Rhino

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