(NEW YORK) — PETA has asked Major League Baseball to end the use of the term ‘bullpen.”
The organization says they would like a more animal-friendly term that doesn’t reference the area where bulls are held before slaughter.
Their suggestion: The Arm Barn!
“Words matter, and baseball ‘bullpens’ devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA encourages Major League Baseball coaches, announcers, players, and fans to changeuptheir language and embrace the ‘arm barn’ instead.”
(NEW YORK) — In the shadow of mounting controversies for his beleaguered tech firm, CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out his vision for the future of the internet at a company conference Thursday, which he sees as evolving on the so-called “metaverse.”
Zuckerberg also announced that the name of his tech giant will be changed to “Meta” to reflect the shifting interests, though critics have accused the company of attempting to use its high-profile name change announcement to shift focus from the renewed scrutiny it has faced from lawmakers and beyond in recent weeks.
The metaverse, a three-dimensional digital world created by augmented and virtual reality products and services, will be “the successor to the mobile internet,” Zuckerberg said during his keynote speech to kick off Facebook’s Connect conference on Thursday. The chief executive demonstrated some of the experiences he said will soon be available in the digital realm — including connecting with friends and family, gaming, working out and even working remotely via a digital avatar and VR hardware.
“We’re now looking at and reporting on our business as two different segments, one for our family of apps and one for work on future platforms, and as part of this, it is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do to reflect who we are and what we hope to build,” he said.
“I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now meta,” Zuckerberg added.
The Facebook chief said the word comes from the Greek term for “beyond,” and is meant to symbolize that “there is always more to build, there is always a next chapter to the story.”
“Our mission remains the same still about bringing people together, our apps and their brands, they’re not changing either,” the CEO added. “We’re still the company that designs technology around people, now we have a new North Star to help bring the metaverse to life, and we have a new name that reflects the full breadth of what we do and the future that we want to help build.”
Finally, Zuckerberg said, “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.”
The name change announcement comes just weeks after a company whistleblower, Frances Haugen, testified before lawmakers, alleging blatant disregard from Facebook executives when they learned their platform could have harmful effects on democracy and the mental health of young people.
Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, accused Facebook of “choosing to prioritize its profits over people” in her opening statement before lawmakers on the Senate Commerce subcommittee.
“You can declare moral bankruptcy and we can figure out a fix [to] these things together because we solve problems together,” Haugen said.
Zuckerberg did not directly address Haugen’s claims during his remarks Thursday, saying only, “the last few years have been humbling for me and our company in a lot of ways.” During his remarks, which lasted over an hour, he mostly demonstrated how he sees people could use the metaverse and virtual or augmented reality tools in the near and far-off future.
Puscifer is collecting all of the band’s concert films in one place.
Maynard James Keenan and company have Puscifer TV, an online library of their filmed performances and projects, which will be available on-demand for purchase and rental starting November 12.
The first titles to be released on Puscifer TV include the two streaming concerts Puscifer played over the past year, as well as their 2013 live title What Is…Puscifer. For more info, visit Puscifer.com.
Puscifer released their latest album, Existential Reckoning, last October.
Chanté Moore is living the title of her 1999 top ten hit, “Chanté’s Got A Man.”
Wednesday she announced her engagement to former BET President of Programming Stephen Hill, one day after his 60th birthday.
The American Music, Soul Train Music, and NAACP Image Award winner began with lyrics from “Happier Than the Morning Sun” by Stevie Wonder.
“I’m happier than the morning sun… and that’s the way you said that I would be… so glad I gave you a chance to come inside my life… I couldn’t think of a better way to say what love, peace and joy I feel because of you @stephengranthill.” the 54-year-old singer wrote on Instagram with a photo of the two of them enjoying an ocean sunset on a yacht
“Thank you for showering me with more than I ever expected!! Happy Birthday and I love you! Who knew 30 years ago, through many chance meetings, we would end up HERE!?!?,” she continued. “But, here we are…. WE will enjoy OUR gift of the “PRESENT!”
Hill commented, “This has been my best year ever and the continuation of that best is just beginning. Celebrating a solar spin today and am brand new. After 21,915 days…this ol’ heart is skipping the right beats on the regular. May you, right now, at whatever age you are, feel as strong, vibrant and in love as I am right now…at 60. Best birthday ever. I love you.”
Stephen also shared a 21 minute video dancing with Moore to Junior’s “Mama Used to Say,” with the caption, “A lil’ loopin with my fianceé.”
Chanté has been married three times before, including to Kadeem Hardison, with whom she shares daughter Sophia, 25, and Kenny Lattimore, with whom she shares son Kenny Jr., 18.
Billy Joel has debuted two songs from his previously unreleased concert album Live at The Great American Music Hall – 1975, which will be available as part of his upcoming box set Billy Joel – The Vinyl Collection, Vol. 1, due out November 5.
As previously reported, The Vinyl Collection, Vol. 1 is a nine-LP set featuring the famed singer/songwriter’s first six studio efforts — 1971’s Cold Spring Harbor, 1973’s Piano Man, 1974’s Streetlife Serenade, 1976’s Turnstiles, 1977’s The Stranger and 1978’s 52nd Street — plus his first live album, 1981’s Songs in the Attic, and the aforementioned Live at The Great American Music Hall. The latter album, which will appear as a two-LP set, was recorded in June 1975 in San Francisco.
Joel’s studio versions of “New York State of Mind” and “Everybody Loves You Now” appeared, respectively, on Turnstiles and Cold Spring Harbor, and the San Francisco performance of the former tune came months before Billy recorded the song.
“We rehearsed the song and played it at the show one of the first times it was ever performed live,” Joel’s Turnstiles-era live sound producer Brian Ruggles told Rolling Stone. “Billy liked the arrangement, so they recorded it that way on the album.”
Ruggles also recalled that the concert was taped using a recording truck owned by Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford that was parked outside the Great American Music Hall.
“It was old school recording, but we were able to put together a pretty good recording for this special release,” Ruggles noted.
If you’re still trying to figure out what to do for Halloween and you really want to commit — and you live in New York or LA — you’re in luck.
Netflix is taking over mobile barber trucks in both cities on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to give patrons free Tiger King custom haircuts “based on signature looks from the show.”
So if you’re looking for that perfect Joe Exotic mullet, or an 80s-era feathered ‘do to match your Carole Baskin get-up, you’re in luck.
Appointments can be made in advance at TigerKingExoticCuts.com — but be warned, the site seems slammed already.
Walk-up appointments will also be taken if there’s availability on-site.
Patrons can opt for The Joe, described as “the quintessential mullet”; “The Tease,” the Baskin-inspired “long hair tease with flowered crown,” or “The Tiger Tail,” which is tiger-striped colored hair spray.
Tiger King 2 will drop on Netflix on November 17. If you need some style inspiration, the trailer was just released.
Gojira has premiered the video for “Sphinx,” a track off the band’s new album, Fortitude.
Fittingly, the clip transports the French metallers to Egypt where they rock out beside the famed Giza statue. You can watch the “Sphinx” video streaming now on YouTube.
Fortitude, Gojira’s seventh album, was released in April. It also includes the single “Amazonia.”
Gojira’s current headlining tour behind Fortitude continues Thursday in Rochester, New York, and will wrap up November 10 in North Charleston, South Carolina. The band will return to the road next spring for a tour supporting Deftones.
A new trailer for House of Gucci is out and it features even more glimpses of Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani, the ex-wife of Italian designer Maurizio Gucci, who hired a hitman to kill him in 1995.
In the clip, we see Patrizia meeting the Gucci family for the first time and then we see her as she slowly starts to assert more of a role in their fashion empire.
“Gucci’s not exciting, and everybody knows it,” Gaga as Patrizia tells her husband, played by Adam Driver.
“At least it’s my name, sweetie,” he says.
Gaga points to her wedding ring and shoots back, “Our name, sweetie.”
House of Gucci, directed by Ridley Scott and also starring Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons and Al Pacino, debuts in theaters on November 24.
Spoon has announced a new album called Lucifer on the Sofa.
The group’s tenth studio effort will arrive February 11, 2022. As frontman Britt Daniel explains, Lucifer will be a more straight-rock record compared to the last Spoon album, 2017’s dance and electronic-oriented Hot Thoughts.
“I liked where we’d gone on Hot Thoughts — it had a specific style and it covered new ground for us — but we kept noticing on the road that the live versions of the songs were beating the album versions,” Daniel says in a statement. “And it got us thinking: The best rock music is not about dialing in the right patches and triggering samples. It’s about what happens in a room.”
The resulting sound of Lucifer, Daniel shares, is “classic rock as written by a guy who never did get Eric Clapton.”
Our first preview of said sound is the lead single “The Hardest Cut,” which is available now for digital download.
Here’s the Lucifer on the Sofa track list:
“Held”
“The Hardest Cut”
“The Devil & Mister Jones”
“Wild”
“My Babe”
“Feels Alright”
“On the Radio”
“Astral Jacket”
“Satellite”
“Lucifer on the Sofa”
Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic? Why call professional paranormal investigators and eliminators when you’ll soon be able to DIY, thanks to an upcoming offering from Hasbro Pulse.
The company that produces high-quality replicas of movie props in addition to hyper-detailed toys, has announced its looking to arm you with your own proton pack, the gear the Ghostbusters have strapped to their backs in the original two Ghostbusters films, and in the upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
Calling it the “ultimate ghost bustin’ adult collectible roleplay item,” the Plasma Series Spengler’s Proton Pack is an exacting replica of the beloved prop from the classic films, laser-scanned from the screen-used prop, scaled to adult size, and featuring movie-accurate lights and other details.
The item is being made available through Hasbro’s HasLab project, a development outlet that, rather shrewdly, lets fans crowd-fund the item.
You can pre-order and back the Ghostbusters Plasma Series Spengler’s Proton Pack HasLab project for $399.99 on the HasLabs site. The crowdfunding campaign needs 7,000 backers by December 12 — and it’s already halfway there, less than a day after it was announced.
Needless to say, the piece will make a fine cosplay companion to Hasbro Pulse’s previously-released Spengler Neutrona Wand, the ‘busters’ “gun” that lets them lasso slimers and and other ectoplasmic entities.
The proton pack has become one of cinema’s most iconic props, and until now, cosplayers and other movie fans had to go about building them themselves, some spending thousands in the process.
