Scans_Daily

After yesterday's calendar-related attempted coup by a certain board member, we now return to our REGULAR Off-Topic Tuesday, though I can't promise this will be any more coherent than that one was.

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat amongst yourselves.

To be honest, looking through the headlines, it was very hard to tell what was an April Fool from what's actually current affairs.

A community in Brittany has, after thirty plus years, found the cause of the Garfield telephones that have been regularly washing up on their beaches

Jim Carrey and Benito Mussolini's grand-daughter got into a Twitter tiff over Carrey posting a cartoon of Benito Mussolini's execution as a warning about what fascism leads to. There's a rather gruesome image on that site if you click on the link, so a warning for that.

An unusually large calving (a chunk of a glacier breaking off) was caught on camera in Iceland as was the reaction of the tourists who were passing, running from the giant wave that was thus created

Speaking of unspeakable force of nature. Brex.... (insert sound of Freddy Kreuger's gloved hand being drawn slowly down a blackboard, in an echo chamber, with the volume turned up to 11, for three solid days). Thank you for your attention.

POTUS 45 has apparently decided that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' plans to cut $18m of funding from the Special Olympics might be a step too far, and has withdrawn them from his Budget plans, which probably aren't going to pass anyway. DeVos has said that she wanted the funding to be more "behind the scenes" whatever THAT means.

There's also some controversy brewing on the reversal of denials of security clearances by the Trump Adminsitration.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, actual comedian Volodymyr Zelenksy who plays a fictional president in a popular TV series, has come out on top in the first round of elections to become the ACTUAL president.

In Turkey, President Erdogan, faced serious setbacks in his hold on power in this week's local elections, despite over 75% of the media being state controlled. His party lost control of Ankara (for the first time in 25 years), and looks set to lose Istanbul both key results

A man responsible for a hoax "swatting" call over a Call of Duty game, which resulted in police being called to an innocent man's house believing there was a hostage situation, and shooting the homeowner dead, has been jailed for 20 years.

As a fan of the classic series, and it's various revivals, I started to watch the new Twilight Zone with high hopes and... I'm already finding it a slog 30 minutes into the first hour-long story, about an aspiring stand-up comedian who finds there's a rather horrible cost to getting laughs. Alas, I just don't find the character remotely funny, or even plausible, as a comedian, which may be the point I suppose. I'm psyching myself up to watch the rest of it, because I had to bail halfway through due to "not-giving a damn" syndrome. Seriously hoping it improves, or I'm in a better mood, or both.

Mark Hamill has been announced as the new voice for "Chucky" in the "Child's Play" reboot, so that's another seminal monster he'll be playing.

When asked about the state of The New Mutants movie in light of the Disney deal, Maisie Williams replied "Who knows when the f**k that’s gonna come out", and confirmed that none of the oft-reported reshoots have taken place.

Oh, and also slightly ON topic, but if you've been reading the various "Age of X-Man" series, I strongly recommend you listen to last weeks "Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men" episode 240, a live recording from Emerald City Comic-Con which is a panel discussion with writers on three of the AoX-M miniseries'; Seanan McGuire, Vita Ayala and Leah Williams. It's a fascinating listen and addresses some important issues.