15th Anniversary Giveaway Post 1: A 3-month Free (Premium) CovrPrice Account

Time for the first giveaway to celebrate my blog turning 15! I reached out to the good folks at CovrPrice, and they were kind enough to team up with me so that my first giveaway is three months of a free premium CovrPrice account! I personally find the site very helpful for figuring out the potential value of a comic and I greatly enjoy their various articles. If you don't have CovrPrice, you can get set up with an account at no expense, and if you do have it, they'll add the three months for free onto your subscription! You don't have to pay anything or do much besides commenting with your name and email address. After 48-ish hours, a winner will be randomly selected and notified, with the post updated to reflect the lucky prize recipient. 

Oh, and even if you don't win, there is a cool offer available. CovrPrice made a promo code just for me that allows any brand-new members of CovrPrice to subscribe for 30 days for just a buck. That's right, if you subscribe and use the code NewestRant2025 you get access to all of CovrPrice for a simple dollar--you just gotta do it before the 25th, AKA Christmas. Heck, if you want me to make it even easier, just go to this link, and the promo code is already applied! Note, I am not getting any kickback for this code, CovrPrice was just kind enough to provide it upon my request, so my readers can get a discount there!

To reiterate: Comment with your name and email address on this post within the next 48 or so hours and find out if you won. Should you not win but be new to CovrPrice, you can get a 30-day subscription for just a buck if you use the promo code up to and including the 24th (it stops working on Christmas day). Thanks and good luck to everyone on this first giveaway. There will be more to come!

The Newest Rant is 15 Years Old! Celebratory Giveaways Are Incoming!

As of today, December 3rd, this humble blog/website/rambling mess is 15 years old. Other sites have come and gone, but I'm here. Some folks do more videos or podcasts, but I keep making articles. I went from maybe being lucky to get 10 views in a day to averaging 450,000 unique visits in a month. I've made some amazing friends thanks to this blog and, admittedly, angered some folks with negative reviews/critical opinions too. This blog has definitely helped me meet more awesome individuals than jerks, however!

When I published my first post back in December 2010, I just wanted a way to share my opinions on comics, movies, television, books, toys, and popular culture in general. I continue to write a lot about all that stuff, as well as sometimes posting about my own life and my thoughts on the general state of the World. I am proud of myself for keeping at this for so long, and honored to think any of you keep coming back.

The, "Birth," of my site.

Oh, and in honor of my blog's birthday, I'm going to be giving out presents to you! Throughout this month, I will post various giveaways of my own cool stuff, neat things provided by friends of the blog, and so forth. All you'll have to do is comment on a post when it goes up with your name and email address within the timeframe I say the giveaway is going to run for. Then, sit back and wait for me to have a name selected at random and tell you if you won! Consider it my way of thanking all of you, whether you've known of my blog for a matter of days or over a decade. 15 years is a long time, and thanks to this blog, it has (generally) been a good time. There have been hard moments I've shared and joyful ones too, but through it all, I've been here, typing away. Thank you for spending any of your time here as well.

Television Tuesday: "Severance," Has a Solid First Season and Amazing Second

I previously wrote about enjoying, "Plurb1us," on the blog. People who heard I and Samii enjoyed that show told us we needed to watch another AppleTV program, "Severance." The first season was a hit, people had to wait about three years, and the second season ran early this year. We watched it all over a week or so and had a great time! I will say, however, the first season was a bit slow and meandering at times for my tastes, whereas the second season is simply superb.

"Severance," is about a company called Lumon, which invented a way to split people's personalities/identities/etc. in two. These individuals undergo Severance to be Severed. They get in an elevator and a second later step out of that same elevator with no memory of the eight or so hours they spent working in a mysterious office. Meanwhile, a who other, "Self," only has memories of existing in this office and occasionally being told random facts about their outside self/"Outie," to ensure they're content. A large chunk of the show follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott) or as his, "Innie," is known, "Mark S." We learn early in the first season how Mark lost his wife and thought spending a large part of the day not feeling miserable without her might help. Issues quickly arise when a mysterious man claiming to be his old co-worker, who also now remembers everything, kicks off a number of mysteries. 

To the show's credit, it doesn't pull a, "LOST," and raise 100 questions while answering almost none. The first season has a good deal of payoff, and the second continues that payoff beautifully, with almost any questions raised getting answered outside of a few remaining things to ponder for the upcoming third season. "Severance," has nine episodes in the first season and ten in the second, which is interesting as the debut season is generally fun, but sometimes feels so slow. I suppose the metaphorical table needs to be set in much of the first season for its amazing finale, and how season 2 is almost all gas and no brakes (excluding a strange tangent of a really short later episode that kind of just shuffles a minor character around for 30-ish minutes to fill in some backstory about Lumon).

For real, though, the second season is great because it takes much of what we got used to with, "Severance," and turns it on its head. An episode spent mostly in a bright outdoor area instead of the claustrophobic office. An episode with some flashbacks that uses film instead of digital for those scenes to give everything a warm and nostalgic feel (an ingenious technique), and I could go on, but then I'd have to outright spoil a bunch of, "Severance." Instead of me doing that, you should check the show out yourself and then join me in anxiously awaiting the third season's arrival, hopefully sometime in late 2026/early 2027 instead of in three more years!

Season 1: 3.5 out of 5 Stars.

Season 2: 5 out of 5 Stars.

World AIDS Day, 2025

Today is World AIDS Day. Ever since the World Health Organization established December 1st as this day in 1988, it has been observed. HIV and AIDS doesn't get the headlines it once did, for good reasons and less encouraging ones. As you may know, HIV attacks the immune system and once your cells have been depleted enough by HIV, you reach AIDS status. 

Since the 1980s, there have been incredible achievements in treating HIV/AIDS so that many people diagnosed with HIV never even find their immune system compromised enough to have AIDS--the many medicines and treatments help keep the virus at bay to the point where it is basically undetectable in their system. When HIV/AIDS was considered a terrifying death sentence, it got tons of press and was at times horrifically misrepresented and used as a way to demonize entire groups of people. Now, HIV/AIDS is something people can live with and eventually--when older--die with, not of. This is encouraging, but the lack of attention HIV/AIDS now gets is discouraging, as it is still here and has killed so many before we achieved advancements in treating patients. 

With treatment, the tide turned.

The current Trump administration has drastically cut funding for research into the treatment of HIV, and the U.S. isn't officially recognizing World AIDS Day for the first time since 1988. Donald Trump and his cronies cutting money to programs that help people isn't surprising, but refusing to even acknowledge World AIDS Day just feels like an extra twist of the metaphorical knife in the back for those who do want to use today for remembrance of the past and hope for the future.

At one point, I was employed by a nonprofit that assisted individuals with HIV/AIDS via a grant and the Ryan White Care Act to ensure those with HIV/AIDS would have any expenses relating to their diagnosis that insurance/Medicare/Medicaid did not fund covered. It was a great job, and I met and served a wide range of people, which goes to show how HIV/AIDS impacts us all. I had to leave the job when our first child, Clarkson, was born prematurely, and it was necessary for a parent to stay home. Researching how to help those with HIV/AIDS, how to prevent it, and how to maybe even someday hopefully cure it is important. Even if there is less attention paid to HIV and AIDS now, that doesn't mean it is of little concern. 

Some parts of the World struggle to get access to preventative methods or lifesaving drugs, there is still much to be done, and that is why World AIDS Day remains important in 2025. Even if our viciously incompetent and spiteful politicians in currently in power choose to ignore the importance of today, millions of people will mark it on their calendar and use the time to reflect and then be ready to react as needed. Today is World AIDS Day, and HIV/AIDS has impacted our planet and continues to do so. I can only hope a day comes when we only need to reflect (as I mentioned earlier) as a cure has been found/made. Someday.