Author Archives: Carol Edwards

$350 million.

That’s the amount of money made from Avengers: Endgame ticket sales in the U.S. during opening weekend, based on Sunday estimates. It’s a ludicrous and unheard of figure, and just a piece of the record-shattering global total of $1.2 billion.

No movie in the U.S. has ever posted an opening weekend higher than $300 million. No movie anywhere has made more than $1 billion worldwide in the five days since it opened.

Let’s start with the U.S. total. It’s almost $100 million more than the previous record holder, which is of course another Avengers movieInfinity War, the immediate predecessor to Endgame, earned $257.7 million in its opening days. Prior to that, Star Wars: The Last Jedi had held the best opening weekend title, with a $220 million opening. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Film, Box Office, Marvel Studios, and Avengers Endgame

A Twitter joke about James Holzhauer’s record-setting run on Jeopardy inadvertently led to contestants sharing the five specific dollar value wagers are banned on the show — including $69.

According to Ken Jennings, the most well-known Jeopardy name (besides host Alex Trebek, of course) with his record 74-win streak, contestants are not allowed to make a wager of $69, the internet’s favorite “sex number,” which triggers mass online replies of “nice.”

Jennings revealed this not so nice news after he made a joke comparing Holzhauer’s betting strategy with his own when he was on the show. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Tv, Game Show, Jeopardy, and 69

With Apple’s iOS 12 arrival in September, iPhone users saw “Screen Time” features make their way to  phone screens to counter-intuitively help them spend less time on their phones. But Apple’s built-in phone addiction fighting tool isn’t necessarily the best way to decrease screen time.

Although users could finally track phone and specific app usage while also limiting the amount of time spent on the phone and in apps, it didn’t instantly eliminate the problem. For parents, it offered a way to manage kids’ tech and connected time. The tool was a long time coming (Google’s similar wellbeing tool for Android phones was available in Aug. 2018), but other apps had stepped up over the years to offer phone addicts and parents similar, yet often expanded, features.  Read more…

More about Iphone, Ipad, Kids, App Store, and Screen Time

Yes, it is snowing in Chicago and other parts of the Midwest.

Yes, it is April 27 — a mere four days until May.

Yes, people are heading to Twitter and social media to freak out. 

And finally, yes, we’ll forget our shock as soon as the next extreme weather event happens. 

That’s what a study from earlier in 2019 conducted by the UC Davis environmental science and policy researcher Frances Moore found after examining 2 billion tweets over a two-and-half year period. It found that we tweet about unusual weather because it stands out, but as it becomes more normal, we accept it as how it is and post about it less. In this way we slowly acclimate to extreme weather from climate change, the study asserts.  Read more…

More about Climate, Weather, Snow, Chicago, and Climate Change

New York’s legendary Webster Hall music venue returned with a bang Friday night.

After being closed since August 2017 for renovations, rapper and business mogul Jay-Z reopened the 2,500-person venue to a sold-out crowd.

He also didn’t do it alone. Jay-Z surprised fans with a couple of special guests that no doubt turned things up to 11.

Jay-Z’s “B-Sides 2” show reportedly included alternative versions his classic tracks as well as popular songs like “Lucifer,” “Where I’m From,” and “Dear Summer” according to USA Today. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Music, Jay Z, Nas, and Nipsey Hussle

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s long saga might finally be over — but don’t count on it.

On Friday afternoon, Musk — a voracious tweeter and the head of Tesla, a publicly traded electric car company monitored by the SEC — reached an agreement with the regulatory agency after a February tweet about car production numbers. 

Earlier in April, a federal court judge in Manhattan gave Musk and the SEC a few weeks to sort out what the agency considered contempt, even after Musk wrote a clarifying tweet. It was determined that the rules the SEC set for Musk’s tweets were too ambiguous. Musk’s legal team argued at one point that the SEC was trying to take away his First Amendment rights.  Read more…

More about Twitter, Tesla, Elon Musk, Sec, and Tech

This is like the Infinity Gauntlet of dick moves.

There are no spoilers for Avengers: Endgame in anything you’ll read below. That’s more than can be said for the Twitter feed belonging to the NFL’s LeSean McCoy, former star running back for the Philadelphia Eagles and current Buffalo Bills player.

McCoy, in three separate tweets that are still up even now, completely gave up the goods on a major Endgame plot point. It’s a big movie and there are lots of things to spoil, but it’s safe to say that this plot point in particular is among the most significant.

A brutal move, and a strong argument to unfollow McCoy. Spoilers are always a risk when you look at social media in the run-up to a big movie or TV episode, and most people get that in this day and age. McCoy’s tweets about [SPOILER] are a cautionary tale. Read more…

More about Culture, Avengers Endgame, Lesean Mccoy, Culture, and Celebrities

If an asteroid were ever to be come hurtling towards Earth, what would be the plan to stop it from impacting the planet?

That’s the question NASA and its partners, including the European Space Agency and the U.S.’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), are gathering at the 2019 Planetary Defense Conference in early May to investigate.

During the five day conference, NASA and its partners plan to engage in a “tabletop exercise” that simulates what would happen if scientists and authorities were to learn of a near-Earth Object (NEO) impact scenario. Read more…

More about Nasa, Asteroids, Earth, Esa, and Science

What a great boost this is for drama programs across the country: stage something really cool and inventive and you might get to meet a literal Hollywood legend.

Every year, fans of the series that started with Ridley Scott’s sci-fi/horror classic Alien celebrate “Alien Day” on April 26 — in honor of the planet LV-426 from the movies — and for the 2019 event star Sigourney Weaver did a really cool thing to celebrate. She paid a visit to North Bergen High School in New Jersey, the site of a seriously impressive stage adaptation of the film.

Weaver’s arrival was better than any red carpet fanfare. The surprise and elation that greeted her as the cast and crew realized what was happening is electric. None of them are forgetting this moment. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Film, Alien, Sigourney Weaver, and Entertainment

Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet is dead.

After three seasons, Netflix canceled the series on Friday. Starring Drew Barrymore as a zombie mom and Timothy Olyphant as her husband trying to cover her flesh-eating behavior from friends and family, Santa Clarita Diet mixed just enough weird and comedy to build a cult following.

So naturally, as soon as word got out Netflix killed the show, fans broke out their pitchforks and took to Twitter to vent.

With Avengers the talk of Hollywood, one Twitter user hilariously joked how the person who canceled the show should get “Thanos snapped.” LOL. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Tv, Netflix, Drew Barrymore, and Santa Clarita Diet