Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning,the eighth installment in the series, is expected to be another box-office smash. The Onion shares everything you need to know about the film.
Q: Who is directing?
A: Christopher McQuarrie with a gun pointed at his head by Tom Cruise.
Q: What stunts does Tom Cruise pull off in this one?
A: He manages to deliver several monologues about a computer villain called “the Entity” while maintaining a straight face.
Q: Isn’t Tom Cruise a Scientologist?
A: No. He’s Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt.
Q: Who is the movie for?
A. The Final Reckoning is great for everyone, whether you’re a male age 18 to 24 or a male age 25 to 40.
Q: What’s the mission this time?
A: To make $800 million at the box office.
Q: Why did the film have such a high budget?
A: McQuarrie insisted on using real innocent victims for each explosion.
Q: Is Clark Gable in it?
A: No, Clark Gable unfortunately continues to be dead.
Q: What new vehicle have they decided to stage an elaborate chase sequence with?
A: Let’s just say that if fans aren’t ready for a recumbent bicycle, then they better get ready.
Q: Should I ask Sara if she wants to go see it with me?
A: Yes. She might say no, but the pain of rejection will be nothing compared to the pain of not knowing.
Q: Is this the last Mission: Impossible film?
A: It’s the last one with non-CGI Tom Cruise.
Q: What’s Tom Cruise’s next project?
A: Based on probability, dying in a helicopter crash.
In brief: The holiday weekend should be mostly fine (albeit hot) in Houston. Rain chances will rev back up a bit late Sunday night and Monday morning and again deeper into next week. For now, Memorial Day Monday looks unsettled but perhaps not a total loss.
Memorial Day Weekend
Let’s jump right into the big holiday weekend. First off, if you have plans in the Houston area or on the coast today and tomorrow, you’re more than likely going to have no issues whatsoever. There could be a passing shower or storm in the region, but it would most likely be extremely isolated. The vast majority of us should see absolutely nothing.
If the odds of rain on Friday and Saturday are something like 5 percent, then I think Sunday’s odds nudge up to about 10 percent. Again, the vast majority of the area will be fine on Sunday. But there should be at least a few more pop-up showers or a very, very isolated thunderstorm.
So what about Monday? Well, that’s the trickiest day of them all this weekend. Models have been pretty consistent about trying to bring a cluster of thunderstorms in from the north on Sunday night into Monday morning. We could then see a break in the action followed by another round perhaps on Monday night. We’ll see if that’s how it unfolds. Eric or I will throw an update out there on Monday morning with the latest thinking. I would not postpone any plans at this point, but I’d be mindful that the chance of rain is highest on Monday.
Potential rainfall through Tuesday night. (Pivotal Weather)
Region-wide holiday weekend weather
If you’ll be traveling across Texas this weekend, there should not be a whole heck of a lot to bother you today or tomorrow. Isolated storms could be on the stronger side between the Permian and the Panhandle. And there’s a slight (2/5) risk of severe storms near Wichita Falls on Saturday.
Sunday is a little more interesting with the potential for more severe storms, especially from the Caprock into North Texas.
Severe storms are possible in parts of West and North Texas on Sunday. (NOAA SPC)
The remnants of those storms are what we could see in the Houston area late Sunday night or Monday morning.
And then for Monday, that chance of severe weather moves more into Hill Country and Central Texas up through DFW. Basically, between Houston and Dallas, there will be some severe risk Monday afternoon and evening.
Severe risks shift a little south and east on Monday. (NOAA SPC)
Memorial Day Weekend has had a history of flash flooding in Texas. At this time, the risk of flooding looks to be about average given the forecast; there are no significant flash flooding concerns right now.
Holiday weekend temperatures
As for the temperatures? They look hot. The combination of heat and humidity will make it feel like 100 to 105 degrees at times tomorrow through Monday. Actual highs will be in the mid-90s, with morning lows in the upper-70s. It will be cooler by day closer to the coast and a bit hotter farther inland.
High temps will range from the upper-80s at the coast to mid-90s inland, with heat index values of 100 to 105 degrees through Monday. (Pivotal Weather)
Next week
Temperatures will back down a bit due to clouds and rain chances next week. While it won’t rain everywhere or every day, there will be a good chance of rounds of thunderstorms throughout the week.
WASHINGTON—Predicting that the system would save countless Americans from missing an all-time classic, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced the creation of a new alert Friday that would notify the public whenever the 1996 film Twister was airing on TNT. “If Twister is playing in your area, you will receive a notification on your phone that reads ‘Emergency Warning: Immediately find the nearest TV with basic cable,’” said FEMA acting administrator David Richardson, who confirmed the agency had launched the alert system in collaboration with the National Weather Service and the Helen Hunt Fan Club. “A Twister warning means that conditions for the film are just right. For instance, if it’s 1:30 p.m on a Friday, or if Angels In The Outfield was just on. A Twister watch means a promo has been spotted, and you should get yourself and your family on the sofa. Now, if you receive a notification saying there’s a Twister warning? Run. That means the F5 scene is already on.” At press time, sirens across the Great Plains were blaring songs from the film’s soundtrack, including Stevie Nicks’ “Twisted” and Van Halen’s “Respect The Wind.”
If you want to ask a question or point out a typo on a page, please don’t put in the comic comments, send me an email, or chances are I won’t see it. The comments are increasingly popular, which is great, but there’s a point where the scrutiny and feedback gets to be a bit too much for me and we blew through that point around Christmas.
I could turn them off, but I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, so I’m going to stop reading them. As I am currently the sole moderator, this will be an “experiment” but I think it’s probably safe.
A Texas man filed a lawsuit against the fast food chain Whataburger alleging that he received onions on his burger despite requesting none, claiming the meal caused an allergic reaction. What do you think?
“How much am I entitled to if I just think their burgers are gross?”
Spencer Snook, Box Ticker
“Real Whataburger fans will eat through any allergic reaction.”
Jerome Onderko, Recipe Judge
“I know from personal experience that allium law is a nightmare to navigate.”
The Texas House on Thursday passed Senate Bill 33, which aims to prevent local governments from using tax money to support people who leave the state to find abortion care. The bill will need final approval from the state Senate before heading to Gov. Abbott's desk.
Harris County Public Health's Mosquito and Vector Control Division began spray operations Thursday evening in the area where the positive sample was taken in an effort to reduce the risk of transmitting the disease.
VAN NUYS, CA—Using a grand gesture to reveal his feelings to the object of his affection, local teenager Eddy French reportedly stood outside his crush’s window Friday holding up Peter Gabriel. “As soon as I pulled back my curtain and saw Eddy in the rain with the original frontman of Genesis held high above his head, my heart just swelled,” said Lola Simmons, 17, telling reporters that despite feeling nervous that her overprotective dad would hear songs from the multiplatinum album So blaring from the lips of the 75-year-old musician and human rights advocate, she was overtaken by the romantic action. “No boy has ever done something like this for me before. Once in junior high I had a boyfriend who left me a Maroon 5 singer in my locker for Valentine’s Day, but this is a whole other level. The fact that Eddy would go to all this trouble lets me know he really cares about me.” At press time, French had reportedly tossed Peter Gabriel aside into a nearby bush after Simmons ran up to embrace him passionately.
CHICAGO—Attempting to keep her browser tab concealed from view for fear her guilty pleasure would be exposed to nearby coworkers, ashamed woman Lily Paolini was reportedly hiding her interest in country music Friday as though it were hentai. “What am I listening to? Oh, just the music of Post Malone. He’s a pop artist,” the panicked, sweating Paolini said out loud to no one in particular, adjusting the angle of her screen as if it showed an anime of a busty teenage schoolgirl, though it in fact displayed the album art for Luke Bryan’s 2011 release Tailgates & Tanlines. “I’m just listening to some normal pop music. I hate when singers go on and on about the slow beauty of country life or the freedom of a pickup truck on an open road. If that kind of music ever came up on my Spotify, it’d be because I got hacked.” At press time, reports confirmed Paolini was hurriedly changing her Spotify to a sensible episode of The Daily before getting off the train to meet up with her boyfriend.
The ban aims to remove products — made legal through a 2019 loophole — that provide a similar high to marijuana and are easily accessible to the general public.
On Friday's show: This weekend marks five years since the murder of George Floyd sparked demonstrations, calls for a racial reckoning, and continued demands for police reform. We reflect on the life of the Houston native and what his death brought about -- and what activists believe still needs to be done.
Barry Ritholtz, in an excerpt from his brand-new book, How Not to Invest, marking the occasion of the 24th anniversary of Cliff Edwards’s claim chowder hall of famer, predicting doom for Apple’s then-new foray into its own chain of retail stores:
There are many genuinely revolutionary products and services that,
when they come along, change everything. Pick your favorite: the
iPod and iPhone, Tesla Model S, Netflix streaming, Amazon Prime,
AI, perhaps even Bitcoin. Radical products break the mold; their
difference and unfamiliarity challenge us. We (mostly) cannot
foretell the impact of true innovation. Then, once it’s a wild
success, we have a hard time recalling how life was before that
product existed.
The Apple Store was clearly one of those game-changers: By 2020,
Apple had opened over 500 stores in 25 countries. They are among
the top-tier retailers and the fastest to reach a billion dollars
in annual sales. They achieved the highest sales per square foot
in 2012 among all retailers. By 2017, they were generating $5,546
per square foot in revenues, twice the dollar amount of Tiffany’s,
their closest competitor. Apple no longer breaks out the specifics
of its stores in its quarterly reports, but estimates of store
revenue are about $2.4 billion per month.
May 2001 is so long ago, Daring Fireball hadn’t yet launched. So I can’t say I predicted the success of Apple’s retail stores. But what I recall thinking, at the time, was that it might work, and was definitely worth trying. Here’s the nut of Edwards’s 2001 piece:
Since PC retailing gross margins are normally 10% or less, Apple
would have to sell $12 million a year per store to pay for the
space. Gateway does about $8 million annually at each of its
Country Stores. Then there’s the cost of construction, hiring
experienced staff. “I give them two years before they’re turning
out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake,” says
Goldstein. [...]
What’s more, Apple’s retail thrust could be one step forward, two
steps back in terms of getting Macs in front of customers. Since
most Mac fans already know where to buy, much of the sales from
Apple’s stores could come out of the hides of existing Mac
dealers. That would bring its already damaged relations with
partners to new lows. In early 1999, Best Buy Co. dropped
the iMac line after refusing a Jobs edict that it stock all eight
colors. Sears, Roebuck & Co. late last year dumped Apple,
sources say, after concluding that sales were too hit or miss.
And in recent weeks, Mac-only chains such as The Computer Store
and ComputerWare have closed down, citing weak margins. Now,
faced with competition from Apple, others may cut back. “When you
choose to compete with your retailers, clearly that’s not a
comfortable situation,” says CompUSA Chief Operating Officer
Lawrence N. Mondry.
Two decades later, talking about the importance of Sears as a retail partner looks pretty dumb. But to me, the obvious problem with this argument in 2001 is that if Apple’s existing retail partners in 2001 were doing an even vaguely good job, why was the Mac’s market share so low? At the time they were only a handful of years past the crisis where the company almost went bankrupt. Apple, in the old days, had some fantastic small mom-and-pop official retailers, but they were small. And the big partners, like CompUSA, absolutely sucked at showcasing the Mac. Their demo machines were frequently broken.
If you understood and believed that the Mac was a superior product, it was easy to conclude that its relatively low market share must have been a function of problems with its marketing and retail strategy. Gateway’s fundamental problem had nothing to do with the fact that it was running its own retail stores — it was that they were selling shitty computers. Apple was selling great computers, but had shitty retail partners.
PJ Vogt, in a very fun episode of his podcast, Search Engine:
A small group of Americans becomes convinced they’ve discovered
something strange about their iPhones: a forbidden phrase the
phone will refuse to transmit. A crack podcasting team searches
for answers, wherever they may lead.
The bug is that if you send an audio voice message in Apple Messages, and mention the name “Dave & Busters”, the recipient will never receive the message. I had a good guess, right away, what was happening. But I don’t want to spoil it — it’s a fun listen.
Warmer ocean temperatures, forecasts for weak wind shear and a more active West African Monsoon are expected to contribute to an above-normal season, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A state district court judge sided with the local and state Democratic parties, whose attorney argued the court didn't have the authority to intervene in the removal of Fred Taylor from his elected office.
WASHINGTON—Describing the plan it went ahead with as “absolutely toothless” by comparison, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement Thursday saying the deportation of migrants to South Sudan seemed a lot more humane once you knew what White House adviser Stephen Miller had wanted to do. “Critics can argue that deporting migrants from Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cuba to the war-torn nation of South Sudan qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment, but my God, if you had heard Stephen Miller’s 12-point plan for physically and mentally abusing these people, you’d want to give us the Nobel Peace Prize,” said DHS spokesman Dylan Fontano, claiming that the barbarity of forcibly removing migrants to countries with which they have no connection had to be weighed against the horrific and depraved drawings and blueprints that Miller had initially presented to the agency. “Quite frankly, when we heard what Stephen wanted to do, many of us vomited. We tried talking him out of some of his more ghoulish suggestions, but he stormed out of the room, furious that the migrants would remain alive and there would be no corpses to desecrate. All I’ll say is just be glad our immigration policy doesn’t involve hedge clippers or a jury-rigged car battery.” At press time, a more open DHS was said to be revisiting many of Stephen Miller’s most grisly proposals.
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