We know you have a lot better things to do, and we don’t blame you for maybe being out of the loop on some of the less important current events that transpire while you’re running your business. Northwest Registered Agent’s Blaugg is centered on helping you be informed on efficiently running your business, and we think a big part of that is being able to have a some “water cooler talk” with your employees without running into any awkward silences. So without further ado, here’s a few fun things you may have missed while your nose was to the grindstone.
HBO rebounds from widely-panned “Game of Thrones” Finale with critical darling “Chernobyl”
I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the ending of Game of Thrones either, and if you’ve never started HBO’s Game of Thrones, maybe the daunting task of committing to over 75 hours of television isn’t the best idea. After all of the fervor surrounding HBO’s biggest hit’s climax, people like myself thought HBO’s glory days were over. HBO had a good run, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, True Detective, one mega hit after another. Usually having multiple behemoths on their roster at a time, the end of Game of Thrones appeared to signal an end to HBO’s reign on premium television as well. Both HBO’s ratings and critical praise have diminished in recent years by the insurgence of Netflix and Amazon’s original programming, but last week’s premiere of Chernobyl brought some serious momentum back to Home Box Office.
Chernobyl is a gritty, extended dramatization centered around the 1986 nuclear catastrophe that took place in present day Ukraine. The show’s source material is mainly based on the recollections of Pripyat locals, as gathered by Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich. The series pulls no punches regarding the egotism, apathy, and downright cantankerous real-life figures that ultimately made the Chernobyl disaster worse than need be.
Chernobyl currently holds television’s highest IMDB rating of all time, and can be streamed in its entirety with an HBO subscription.
Toronto Raptors win the NBA Championship, and somehow Drake is way too involved in it
The Toronto Raptors became the first non-US team to win the NBA finals last week. After slaying the nearly-perennial champion Golden State Warriors in six games, the Larry O’Brien Trophy was hoisted in another country for the first time in it’s 42 year existence. It seemed like the entire country of Canada rallied behind it’s lone basketball team, probably because the Stanley Cup Final was between two US teams this year.
The underdog Raptors not only defeated the defending champs, but did it with relative ease. The argument can be made that they were aided by key injuries to Golden State’s Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, but what had the internet buzzing was the presence of the Raptor’s “global ambassador” and hip-hop icon Drake. His animated reactions and his mid-game shoulder massages to the Raptor’s head coach are certainly a strange sight during the drama that accompanies the sport’s biggest stage. So much so that the NBA had to issue the rapper an official warning regarding his court-side behavior. Poor-sportsmanship be damned, Drake’s Raptors emerged victorious, almost as if it was “God’s Plan” all along.
In actuality, there was a lot more going on in the world of sports in June, like the US Womens Soccer Team receiving only a fraction of the admiration they rightfully deserve. Not only are they the defending World Cup Champions, but they started off this year’s world cup by finishing the first round undefeated, outscoring their opponents by a margin of 18-0.
Donald Trump Wants Another Four Years of Being the Most Divisive Man in America
Love him or hate him, vote for him, or don’t– The Donald will be one of the choices on the ballot in 2020. Presumably the GOP’s candidate, Donald Trump will be dominating the news cycle for at least a couple more years. President Trump officially announced his bid for reelection last week in Orlando, Florida. The President’s speech was mostly a 74-minute highlight real of familiar Trump quotes. In fact, it really only outlined two pieces of new information. One, that Trump was indeed running for reelection, (a priority he made known when he filed for 2020 candidacy on the day of his inauguration in 2017) and that he would once again be running with Vice President Mike Pence as his running mate.
It’s unclear at the moment which of the cavalcade of Democratic nominees will win the war of attrition that is the DNC primary, but it’s a near certainty that they’ll have a November showdown with the orange-skinned incumbent. There’s a lot of time in between now and the next presidential election, and if the last one taught us anything, it’s that ANYTHING can happen. Whether you’re his biggest fan, or you think he’s evil incarnate, we at Northwest Registered Agent can only recommend you do one thing– VOTE!
Apparently, Climbing the Tallest Mountain in the World is Incredibly Dangerous
While the past couple weeks have constituted the beginning days of summer to us normal folk, to adrenaline junkies the past couple weeks have been the most opportune time for climbing the world’s tallest peak, Mount Everest. Alpine climbing has become more popular than ever, and because tourism is one of the biggest revenue streams for the nation of Nepal, a record number of permits were sold this year to attempt Everest. Unfortunately, those two factors have combined to make this year’s Himalayan climbing season disastrous. This season alone, 11 people have already died while trying to summit or descend the peak. The majority of those fatalities happened in what is known as the “Death Zone.” The death zone is elevations over 8,000 meters, where oxygen is incredibly scarce and the vast majority of climbers need supplemental oxygen tanks to survive for much more than an hour, let alone trek upwards.
Due to the high volume of climbers this season, massive traffic jams were caused on Everest, causing many climbers to be caught above that 8,000 meter mark for longer than their oxygen tanks could last them. The process by which Everest expeditions take place has been called into question by governments around the world, as well as by the climbing community as a whole. In response, the Nepalese Bureau of Tourism has vowed to reform certain policies and regulations to alleviate some of the problems that occurred all-to-tragically this year.
As long as Everest exists, the allure of standing atop the world will always be there for the adventurous-types. Surely, some not-so-happy endings are sure to accompany the astonishing feat as well.
Apple Wants to Charge you $999 for a Computer Monitor Stand
Not $999 for a computer, it’s literally just the stand. The stand itself really has only one cool feature besides it’s sleek design. You can adjust the height of your screen and rotate it’s orientation quickly and easily. That same feature can be replicated on a stand that costs about $40 on Amazon.
If we’re being honest, the folks at Apple have been taking advantage of us for a while now. The lightning cable that doesn’t come with the brand new iPhone, the specialized ports on every Apple product that make it so that you can only buy their over-priced accessories. A staggering percentage of Americans subject themselves to this, and I am sadly one of them. But where do we as consumers draw the line? Where do we take our stand and finally say “No Apple, I will not pay that absurd amount of money for something so rudimentary!”
For me to retain what little faith in humanity I have left, the line better be drawn over something as heinous as a thousand-dollar monitor stand. After all, your unsupported monitor problem can be remedied with about 25 cents and a little American ingenuity, as pictured below.
