Monday, March 22, 2021

A little of this and a little of that

 Ten months ago, after Batwoman ended its freshman season on the CW, star Ruby Rose decided she wasn't returning for season 2, citing concerns for her personal health, among other things.

Showrunner Caroline Dries, ignoring fan requests to recast the role, opted to create a new character to fill the costume, and Javicia Leslie (ex-God Friended Me) was brought in as Ryan Wilder, who has taken over the role of Batwoman, but not without her own issues.

But, after this week's episode signed off on Sunday, Dries and company threw another curveball. The character of Kate Kane will return, with another actress in the role, and it's the actress a lot of fans had campaigned for last summer.

Wallis Day (ex-Krypton) was the people's choice, and has finally signed on to play Kate, who will have "undergone plastic surgery to repair her damaged face" after a season-opening plane crash to explain the change in actresses. 

This twist brings to mind a quote made famous by the late wrestler-actor Roddy Piper some 40 years ago.

"When you think you've got all the answers, I change the questions!"

Dries has changed the questions, alright. The big one is, why didn't they do this in the first place? I would guess that Day was fresh off a 2 season run on Krypton, and perhaps needed a break. Money, too, might be a factor.

Stay tuned.
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Sometimes, you just can't make stuff like this up.

A headmaster at a Long Island Catholic school forced an 11 year old African-American student to get down on his knees to apologize for a slight. Seems that he had done this with another African-American student, and thought it was common practice in Africa. The student is staying at home now, and his mother told the NY Daily News that her son has been traumatized by the incident. And, yes, the headmaster is white. What a surprise.
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Let me get personal for a moment.

As I've stated in the past, I've been working from home at my day job, and it's now been a year since this started. Living in the heart of downtown the last 42 years affords me the advantage of having options for meals if I'm not interested in cooking on a given day. I wear a mask when I travel, like most responsible people. In other words, effendis, I'm not suffering from cabin fever.

Which is considerably more than I can say for spring breakers among college students, congregating in the usual hotspots, like in Florida. 


Photo courtesy of Getty Images, via Yahoo!

As you can see in the above photo, some are masked, others are, unfortunately, not, and running the risk of another super-spreader event in the Sunshine State, which has seen another spike in COVID-19 cases over the last two weekends.

I get it. These kids have been cooped up on campus and/or at home for most of the past year, and they need to get out and party, and doing so via Zoom or Skype isn't going to cut it. It's not helping matters that Florida's clueless governor, Ron DeSantis, was one of several southern governors to lift mask mandates in recent weeks, concerned not about public health, but the incoming revenue that comes with spring breakers. In other words, this moron is trying to refill the state's coffers, sacrificing the health & safety of the citizens of his state. Still, a curfew has been imposed in Miami through April 12 to try to slow the spread and get the kids in their hotels at a decent hour.

And it's not just the spring breakers, either. Reports late last week said that former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was partially closed due a fresh outbreak of COVID. WWE's NXT had to scramble to put a show together on Wednesday when several wrestlers were scratched from the show, or forced to appear remotely via Face Time, such as Johnny Gargano and his wife, Candice LeRae. Paul "Triple H" Levesque is, at last check, in quarantine in Orlando for his own safety (wife Stephanie and their daughters are home in Connecticut), and can you blame him? With WWE set to move the Thunderdome out of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg in time for Wrestlemania on April 10-11, with limited attendance at the Showcase of The Immortals, which is taking place in Tampa, this setback will further delay the company's plans to resume touring for all three brands.
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There may be a 4th brand of COVID vaccine on the way to the US.

Astra Zeneca's vaccine, developed overseas, has been approved in the UK, and will need to petition for emergency approval from the FDA and the CDC here before it becomes available, joining Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. The sooner, you figure, the better.

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