Category Archives: Immortality

Grimware Games has announced its new 2.5D action platformer, Ghost Knight: A Dark Tale. This new action platformer will be using Unreal Engine 4, and you can find its announcement trailer below.

The game is set in a toon dark fantasy world, where a mad king, in search for immortality, opens portals to a dark dimension. Players must traverse an epic land of undead, demons, witches, and beasts to stop the mad kings misled quest.

Unfortunately, Grimware Games has not revealed any additional details. As such, we dont know when this new platformer will come out. We also dont know the platforms for which it will release. My guess is that it will hit all major platforms, but thats just me speculating.

Anyway, well be sure to keep you posted about its progress. Until we have more to share, you can go ahead and enjoy the following trailer!

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Ghost Knight: A Dark Tale is a new 2.5D action platformer, powered by Unreal Engine 4 - DSOGaming

Author photo by Emily Tobey

If you are not already experiencing "climate dread," the feeling that you're living in a slow-mo ecological apocalypse that you're powerless to stop, then Jenny Offill's latest novel, Weather, will fill you to the brim with it.

Granted, your capacity to care about "climate dread" may be reduced if you're currently suffering from rent-hike dread, hospital-bill dread, getting-shot-by-the-cops dread, and inability-to- retire dread, and that diminished capacity may prevent you from diving into Offill's sustained meditation on the subject. However, if you are a little curious about it, her black humor and occasionally deep insights will keep your eyeballs glued to the page in search of a cure.

Weather has much in common with Offill's last book, Dept. of Speculation. Both enjoyed lots of pre-publication love on social media from the New York publishing industry's tastemakers. Both present a domestic fiction using literary collage, a technique popularized most recently by nonfiction writers/poets such as Maggie Nelson and Claudia Rankine. And both are overhyped but still very much worth a read.

In Weather, Offill places the reader in the mind of Lizzie, a librarian in the big city with a supportive partner and a "gifted and talented" kid in school. In short, diaristic, pithy but breezy paragraphs, we learn that Lizzie spends a lot of time caring for her brother as he struggles with addiction, worrying about her child's future on a doomed planet, and reflecting on the pleasures and temptations of married life. When she takes a side gig answering e-mails for her former writing teacher's doomsday podcast, her focus on climate dread and prepping for the end-times begins to consume her, and the narrative gains steam.

Fans of NYC dinner-party zingers and stumbled-upon profundities will appreciate Offill's contributions to the field. Some of the funnier moments in the book come at the expense of wide-eyed businessmen whose devotion to technology allows them to escape the cold reality of a warming planet. "These people long for immortality but can't wait ten minutes for a cup of coffee," Lizzie's mentor quips at one point. The more profound moments arrive in Lizzie's fervent search for new perspectives to combat her growing dread, though these new perspectives aren't always comforting:

"Young person worry: What if nothing I do matters?

Old person worry: What if everything I do does?"

Though some of Offill's jokes and profundities can feel a bit pat, the overall structure of the book is greater than the sum of its parts, offering readers the pleasure of looking back through a diary and realizing that all our apparently disparate anxieties may fall under the umbrella of the larger one: fear of extinction.

Weather suggests that climate dread is its own crisis, a collective psychological block preventing us from taking the action necessary to stave off ecological collapse or, at the very least, to manage it more effectively.

Though fiction can allow us to diagnose this problem in all its messy human nuance, Offill knows it can never give us the cure. To that end, she concludes her story with an obligatory note of hope that lies outside the book itself, literally a website URL: http://www.obligatorynoteofhope.com. The site appears to be a place where climate-dreaders, or people who caught the disease from the book, can connect and take collective action to dig each other out of the doldrums.

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Jenny Offill's Novel Weather Looks at "Climate Dread" with Humor and Plenty of Gloom - TheStranger.com

From when does one read the shma in the evening?Opening words, Mishnah and Talmud

Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.

This simple sentence in the Hebrew Bible, known by its first word as the shma (hear), is also the first subject addressed in the Talmud and the first biblical verse taught to Jewish children. It is, at once, the most famous affirmation of Jewish belief and the most misunderstood. To appreciate this paradox, we must begin with the text itself, two of whose three brief sections make up a key element in Moses string of passionate valedictory charges to his people in the book of Deuteronomy. Here is the first section (6:4-9), in which the greatest of prophets sums up Jewish theology:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

From the words urging that this teaching be recited when thou liest down, and when thou risest up came the central inclusion of the shma in, respectively, the evening and morning liturgy. And yet, in reciting it, Jews for millennia have added another sentence immediately after the first, and before proceeding to the rest. It is a sentence that appears neither in Deuteronomy nor anywhere else in the Bible and that, notably, is recited in a hushed tone, thereby signaling that it is both a part of and apart from the shma prayer as a whole:

Blessed be His glorious sovereign Name, for ever and ever.

Needless to say, the addition of this sentencethe exact date of its inclusion is unknowndid not evade the gimlet-eyed exegesis of the talmudic sages, who were struck by its oddity. Why is it there in the first place, and, if it is part of the liturgy, why not recite it aloud? In responding, the Talmud tells a tale, according to which the shma originated not with Moses but long before him: with his ancestors, and specifically with one of the biblical patriarchs and his family.

The story goes like this: at the end of his days, Jacob, as described in Genesis, gathers all twelve of his sons around him. Feeling his life and his powers of prophecy slipping away, he expresses concern that one of his children might abandon the Abrahamic mission (something that had already occurred with a child of Abraham himself as well as with a child of Isaac). Seeking to reassure their father on this point, his sons address him by the covenantal name bestowed upon him by an angel (Genesis 32: 22-32). The rabbis explain:

His sons said to him: Hear, Israel our father, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. They were saying that just as there is only one God in your heart, so, too, there is only one in our hearts. At that moment Jacob our father, [reassured that all of his children were righteous], replied in praise: Blessed be His glorious sovereign Name for ever and ever. (Psaim 56a)

For the rabbis, Jacobs relieved exclamation linked the Almightys eternity with his own. That is to say: Gods name will be blessed forever because Jacobs family will serve Him forever. Now included in the shma prayer, this same sentence links Gods immortality with the posterity of every Jewish family. Because the words are not actually those of Moses, the rabbis stipulate that the sentence is to be voiced quietly.

This rabbinic story and its accompanying explanation have been embraced in Jewish law as the normative foundation for the shma as it has been recited until today. Even Maimonides, who so often reads talmudic tales as other than literal, included the ruling in the Mishneh Torah, his code of Jewish law.

In short, in the recitation of the shma, two different statements from two different moments in biblical history are being made simultaneously. In one and the same act, Jews quote the words of Moses speaking to the people of Israel and then the response to the twelve sons by their father Jacob, the original Israel. In the first, the shma is a theological-political statement; in the second, it is an assurance of Jewish continuity. The first is philosophical, the second familial; the first is public and ceremonial, the second private and emotional. Even as Hear O Israel is being sounded aloud, Jews quietly reaffirm their solidarity with the patriarch and his children.

That latter commitment is reenacted with particular force and poignancy in the longstanding practice of reciting the shma before sleep at night. For Jewish parents putting their children to bed and saying it together with them, few rituals are more powerful. At that moment, we are uniquely aware that our children will not always be small and safe under our protection, and that one day we in turn will become dependent on them, and on the family they perpetuate, for our own immortality. As Rabbi Norman Lamm once put it, in saying the shma aloud and then, quietly to ourselves, blessed be His glorious sovereign name for ever and ever, we, just like Jacob, and together with our own progeny, play our part in ensuring that Gods name will continue to be blessed here on earth.

And therein lies another lesson, this one about the nature of Judaism itself. For this purpose, we can compare the Talmuds tale about Jacob and his sons, about the recovery by a dying Jewish patriarch of his familys immortality, with the account of another famous deathbed scene in the ancient world.

In that account, related by Plato in the Phaedo, the Greek philosopher Socrates finds himself on the brink of death in an Athenian cell, attended by his students, pondering his legacy, and reviewing with them the great issues that had long absorbed his mind, not least the immortality of the soul. Serenely he assures these students that he welcomes his impending, self-inflicted death by hemlock as a release from the bonds of physicality that are the curse of earthly humanity. Freed from the constraints of the body and its passions, Socrates hopes for an afterlife happily occupied with the contemplation of eternal verities.

One could hardly imagine a starker contrast between two men. Socrates is wholly absorbed in his students and in his own immortal soul; he seems utterly uninterested in his family, calmly dismissing his wife and their baby son with nary a tear or emotional farewell. Jacob, the father who in creating and rearing faithful children has united his physical life with his spiritual legacy, commands those children to bear his lifeless body to the Holy Land. By rooting it in sacred soil, he will have prepared the way for the eventual return of his offspring to their national home.

As Eric Cohen has written, for all its renown, the death of Socrates seems less fully human than the death of Jacob, which unites the private drama of father and sons with the public drama of Israels beginnings as a nation. Just so; and in contrasting these two very different deaths, Cohen also points to one of the central differences between Greek and Jewish civilization.

In Aristotelian texts, the family merely provides preparation for service to the polis, and the great-souled man embodies the ideal of excellence. Plato goes farther, having Socrates declare in his Republic that in the truly just city, the philosopher-king will produce anonymous offspring whom he will pointedly not raise as his own lest he thereby compromise the universal compassion for all citizens that justice requires.

This, to a Jew, could not be more distant from Gods explanation for his choice of Abraham: For I have known him, that he will command his children and household after him, to keep the ways of the Lord, to perform righteousness and justice (Genesis 18:19). For Jews, the domain of the family is where the blood bond and the spiritual bond are joined, where transmission takes place, where children are taught about the God of their fathers, where the realm of the truly sacred and the truly human conjoin.

The Greek world is not the Jewish world; even attempts to find similarities reveal more about the differences. Take, for example, the frequent likening of the Passover seder to the Greek symposium. Both meals involve a choreographed series of imbibings and a discussion of philosophical and theological subjects.

And yet: would a Greek symposium welcome children, much less focus on them? Is a single child to be found in Platos Symposium? On the contrary, we find the best and the brightest of Greek society: Socrates is there; Alcibiades is there, physicians and philosophers, scholars and statesmen are there. No one has brought his progeny; to do so would ruin the conversation.

The ritual of the seder, for its part, though it may seem superficially Greco-Roman, is actually the inverse: it is all about children and family. In the Haggadah, philosophical inquiry is balanced by imaginative storytelling and covenantal re-creation. Father and mother teach children about the Almighty taking to Himself a people, and in going to sleep the children joyously respond: Hear O -Israel-Father, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

This, finally, returns us to the opening question of the Talmudfrom what time may one recite the shma in the evening?and its seemingly technical answer: from the time that the priests enter to eat their trumah.

The reference in the final word is to the end of twilight, when the priests of the Temple are once again permitted to partake of food they may eat only while ritually pure. But if thats when recitation of the shma can begin, what is the last point at which it can still be recited? Here a debate emerges, with three opinions followed by a story:

Until the end of the first watch. These are the words of Rabbi Eliezer.The sages say: until midnight. Rabbi Gamliel says: until the dawn comes up. Once it happened that [Gamliels] sons came home [late] from a wedding feast and they said to him: we have not yet recited the [evening]shma. He said to them: if the dawn has not yet come up, you are still bound to recite. . . . Why, then, did the sages say until midnight? In order to keep a man far from transgression. (Brakhot 2a).

The children of Gamliel, arriving after midnight but before dawn, and therefore assuming that, since the law accorded with the sages, they could no longer fulfill their obligation, are informed by their father that the sages established midnight only as an ideal deadline, in order to encourage early recital; but as long as dawn has not occurred, the commandment can still be obeyed.

Stop for a moment and consider who is telling this story. The author of the Mishnah is Rabbi Judah the Prince, a grandson of none other than Rabbi Gamliel. Judahs story therefore concerns his own father and uncles interacting with their father. This small succinct story thus shares a subject with the shma itself: the subject, that is, of familial fidelity.

Where, Rabbi Judah is asking, is true wisdom to be found? Gamliels sons have been to a drinking party: the term is often rendered as a wedding, but no textual evidence supports such a reading. More likely, in the Greco-Roman world in which the Mishnah was composed, it referred to a symposium, an event at which, by the lights of that culture, true sophistication and wisdom were to be found. Yet, for these aspiring young rabbis, the symposium has caused them to forget the central obligation of Jewish life. They arrive home thinking that the deadline has passed and contritely confess that they have failed.

At that point, new wisdom is transmitted from parent to child: it is not too late. In the darkness before dawn, this family can still give full-throated voice to the foundational words of Jacobs sons to their father Israel: Hear O Israel-Father, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.

That is why the practices and regulations surrounding this sentence, than which no other sentence is more powerful, are the very first matter taken up by the rabbis of the Talmud, and why it is the sentence occupying so central a place in every evening and morning prayer service, the sentence proclaimed in their dying breath by martyrs throughout history, the sentence repeated in gratitude and joy with children as they drift off to sleep, the sentence uttered as one prepares to bid farewell to this world, sanctifying the Lords name for ever and ever.

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The Mysteries of the Sh'ma - Mosaic

Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has given up the cigarettes, making way for many more years of life to live. This comes after beating alcohol addiction and even the likes of Heroin.

Unless youre Ozzy Osbourne or Keith Richards, addiction often takes the lives of many rock stars in their younger years, taking them from us much too soon. Keith Richards, however, doesnt want to abuse his apparent immortality, and has decided to finally quit smoking. Now that nothing stands in his way, he might just outlive us all.

Outside of playing guitar in one of the most legendary music groups of all time, Richards is also known for his battles with drugs and alcohol, especially early in his career. Its honestly an absolute shock the man is still alive, but hey were very thankful he is. Hes 76 years old and is still kicking ass while touring with the Rolling Stones.

Luckily, the rocker has dropped another one of his vices, as he revealed in a new interview with Q104.3 [viaNME] that he quit smoking and hasnt touched a cigarette since this past October.I think bothMick [Jagger]and I felt that on the last tour we were just getting going, he explained.[We]ve got to continue this.

The guitarist first admitted that he was trying to quit about a year ago in an interview withMojo Magazine, but noted that its even more difficult to stay away from cigarettes than heroin. Quitting heroin is like hell, but its a short hell. Cigarettes are just always there, and youve always done it. I just pick em up and light em up without thinking about it, he said.

In addition to cutting off nicotine, Richards has also been open about his decrease in alcohol consumption.

You can catch him Cigarette-free touring with the Rolling Stones this year.

Watch the Noisey interview with Keith Richards below.

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Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has finally quit smoking - Tone Deaf

South African retailerRaru has recently listed a new product that suggestsa Cyberpunk 2077 themed Xbox One controller is in the works. The discovery was first found by a Reddit user, who shared a screenshot of the website that refers to "Microsoft - Xbox One Wireless Controller - Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition (Xbox One/Windows 10)", though there are no images that accompany the information.

Talking about Raru, it is a reputable retailer in Africa, which meansthisinformation is likely notfake. Additionally, we are not surprised seeing gaming peripherals being themed in Cyberpunk 2077 skins as the release nears.

The product description on the page only suggests that it is a standard Xbox One controller, though I still hope that Microsoft comes up with a futuristic and dystopian skin for the controller itself.Now that the possibility of anXbox One controller themed with the game's skin has been found, it also suggests that a Cyberpunk 2077 limited editionXbox One console could be on the way. However, there isn't any information about whether a PlayStation variant is in the works or not.

Since we are on the topic of Cyberpunk 2077, developer CD Projekt Red has delayed the game's launch to September of this year. The game was originally set to release in April, but due to some polishing work that neededto be done, the game had to bedelayed.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG game set in a fictional Night City.Night City is a megalopolis obsessed with power, glamour and body modification. You step into the shoes ofmercenary outlawV, who is going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality.Cyberpunk 2077 lets you customize your characters cyberware, playstyle, and skillset. Your choices in the game will shape the world around you.

Cyberpunk 2077is set to launch on PC, PS4, and Xbox One in September.

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A Cyberpunk 2077 Themed Xbox One Controller Could Be On Its Way - Player.One

The Tiger Trail of Auburn is Auburns walk of fame, a stretch of sidewalk that owes its existence to the walk of fame 40 years older in Hollywood, California. The names on plaques along the Tiger Trail are both familiar and lesser known, and refer to men and women from close and far. Like Hollywood has their superstars on the silver screen, Auburn has their own on the field, court, pitch, pool and gym.

The Tiger Trail began over two decades ago as a joint venture between the Auburn Chamber of Commerce, Auburn University Athletics and the City of Auburn. The project was started in 1995 as a way to honor Auburn athletes.

It was primarily made up of a group of men who were retired at the time, said Mayor Ron Anders, who has been involved with the program for several years in different capacities. The primary person was Ken Brown.

Brown was, at that time, retired after a career with Alabama Power and serving on the Auburn City Council, Anders said.

It was really his brainchild to create a kind of Hollywood Walk of Fame in downtown Auburn, Anders said.

Browns brainchild soon became reality as the first granite plaques were placed in the concrete in 1995. The inaugural class was large compared to a typical induction class now; 13 former athletes, coaches and administrators were honored, among them football coach Ralph Shug Jordan, football and baseball star Bo Jackson and football star Pat Sullivan.

Typically, induction classes consist of roughly five to six members, Anders said, depending on the Chamber of Commerces budget for the project for that year costs of the plaque as well as the induction ceremony must be taken into consideration for each inductee.

So keeping in mind the number of inductees that the budget allows for each year, a process of deciding who will be one of the distinguished few for that years induction class begins. That responsibility is left in the hands of a small group of people the Tiger Trail selection committee.

The group is made up of fewer than 10 individuals from both the private and public sector who serve for a term.

Exactly who is on the selection committee, however, is kept secret. The Auburn Chamber of Commerce doesnt give out the names of the committee members, said Auburn Chamber of Commerce Vice President of Communications and Marketing Jennifer Fincher.

The groups privacy is protected to prevent people from lobbying members of the selection committee to induct a certain member of Auburn athletics, Anders said.

Weve never wanted the Tiger Trail to be a political process, Anders said. We wanted it to be everything but a political process.

In the past, Anders has served as a member of the selection committee, but is not sure what his level of involvement will be in the future. However, the mayor of Auburn is always involved in the installation ceremony at the least, Anders said.

Bill Ham, who served as mayor until Anders was elected in 2018, helped with the ceremony, as did Mayor Jan Dempsey, Hams predecessor.

The committee typically only has two or three meetings per year, at which committee members go through a process of nominating who they feel is representative of Auburns history. Committee members then debate and vote according to their own research, due diligence and experiences, Anders said.

The candidates who receive the most are then honored in that years induction class. A ceremony is held and the selected candidates name and accomplishments are immortalized in the sidewalks along College Street and Magnolia Avenue.

While the trail was intended to serve as a unique way to honor Auburn athletes, coaches and administrators, it has also benefited the community in other ways.

This trail is another reason for people to come to downtown Auburn to shop and be a part of our community either as a visitor, alumni or resident, Anders said. It was certainly an economic development, community development mindset behind doing this.

Over the years, its become clear that maintenance is required to keep the plaques in good shape.

We have not had a Tiger Trail since Ive become the mayor, Anders said. What weve done is weve had a number of broken stars downtown because of all the construction, and weve got some of that construction behind us, so what weve tried to do is get some of those plaques replaced, so weve been focused on doing that. Its easier if we dont add six more to the list.

However, the tradition is expected to continue in the future.

Were certainly planning to continue on with the Tiger Trail here in 2020, Anders said.

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Fame, immortality and a paw: The Tiger Trail - The Auburn Plainsman

No quarterback in the NFL playoffs this year looked as lifeless and disconsolate as Tom Brady. If you somehow construe Brady as a sympathetic character, you might feel relieved that the loss in the Wild Card round shielded him from future embarrassment. For the record, the 20-13 defeat yielded Brady 20 completions in 37 attempts for 209 yards, zero touchdowns, one interception and 5.6 yards per attempt.

Of course, Brady is hardly a sympathetic character. Indeed, hes more than just one of the most dominant quarterbacks of all time. He is, in fact, every guys fantasy. Especially if the guy is an adolescent. Hes tall, good looking, a winner, has so much money that he could run for President, and, yeah, theres that super-model thing.

So when Brady says he plans to be an NFL hero for years to come actually, he uses the word quarterback, but thats just a code word we shouldnt be surprised. Hell be 43 in August, which makes him the Methuselah of pro quarterbacks. But age, after all, is just a number.

Remember, facts no longer matter, so even though age is just a number is a palpable lie, its OK to believe it. Plus its Brady.

You might also ask: can a man have more than it all? Is Brady kidding us or himself? What exactly are we looking at? Is it arrogance? Hubris? Self-delusion? Greed?

Maybe all of the above. But one thing seems evident: Brady is looking for something far more than a seventh Super Bowl ring. If I had to guess, Id say that his aging body is chasing the tail of immortality.

You can hardly blame him. In fact, Brady and his mentor, Bill Belichick, deserve nothing less than our undying adulation. Look in any record book and there they are. And yeteven if this past season was just an anomaly, there is no denying the fact that they are the past. The future belongs to the likes of Lamar Jackson, who just turned 23; and Jimmy Garoppolo, who is 28 but had to wait until he found life after Brady before he could prove that he, too, is Super Bowl ready. Then there is Patrick Mahomes, who, at 23, doesnt even have to get better in order to become the greatest quarterback of all time.

The celebrated author, contrarian, wit and atheist Christopher Hitchens, as he was dying of cancer, wrote a book called Mortality. In which he wrote: As with the normal life, one finds that every passing day represents more and more relentlessly subtracted from less and less.

Brady probably doesnt see his career that way. But I cant help but wonder if sometimes he feels like he is. Clearly, he cant imagine life without football. Hes already shopping around for his next team. Hell be an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career, but from where I sit, his view isnt so expansive any more.

Granted, he didnt have much to throw to this year, but that didnt seem to matter nearly as much in the first half of the season. It was the second half that betrayed an anxious, middle-aged man. Damn, hes got a great head of hair, but its whats under it that matters. In the nine games before the bye, the Patriots averaged 30 points; afterward, and including the Tennessee disaster, the Patriots averaged just over 20 points.

Brady has been the Patriots starting quarterback for 19 seasons but finally you can see the fear in his eyes. He spent much of the year flinging the football into the ground at the mere hint of malicious contact. Nobody in their right mind could blame him for a bunker mentality, yet it was a surprise to note that even with another championship looming on the horizon, he was no longer willing to leave the pocket and risk bodily harm in exchange for a first down.

The NFL is no country for old men. In fact, for all the leagues bluster, there were even more concussions in 2019 than there were the year before. Players have figured out that the penalties for using their helmets to concuss an opponent are relatively mild. Theres even one clown T.J. Watt, the Pittsburgh defensive end who goes around punching anyone holding the ball under the guise that hes trying to cause fumbles. Hell break ribs and mangle hands and perhaps even cause permanent brain damage before his career is over, but the league doesnt seem motivated to put a stop to it. That has to be harbinger of a dangerous future for quarterbacks in their mid-40s.

Bradys determination to play forever reminds me of a lot of losing gamblers Ive known. When things go bad, they never back off; they just double down. Pretty soon theyre chasing their money and wishing theyd quit at the top of their game.

Not that Brady is going to go broke. It seems that he has a new hustle these days: The TB12 Method. Which happens to be the name of the book he sort of wrote which celebrates his recipe for eternal muscles, if not eternal life.

Years ago, Brady fell in with a body coach, Alex Guerrero, who helped Brady develop pliable muscles that are damned near impervious to injury. Not everyone swears by this amazing new method, or, for that matter, Guerrero himself.

Muscle pliability, it seems, isnt actually a thing.

The New York Times review of the book noted as much.

Mr. Brady and Mr. Guerrero have not conducted or published clinical trials of muscle pliability, the reviewer stated. Neither has anyone else. On the huge PubMed online database of published science, I found only one experiment that contains the words pliability and muscles, and it concerned the efficacy of different embalming techniques.

I have to admit that when I perused Bradys website, I wasnt entirely convinced. On the other hand, Im an enfeebled old guy who got a stiff neck just from writing this column. In fact, as I paged through the catalog of Bradys amazing products, the trademarked TV12 Vibrating Pliability Sphere start to look like the cure to at least two or three of my many ailments. Its just that it kind of looks like a tire that wobbles, and Ive got one of those on my 20-year-old Camry.

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GELFAND: on Tom Brady and Immortality - Zone Coverage

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From the outside looking in, its a strange concept, but just how close the Netherlands came to winning the 1978 World Cup hasnt left too noticeable an imprint on the national psyche, or at least certainly not in the same way as the failure to prevail in 1974 has.

Rob Rensenbrink came to within the width of an Estadio Monumental goalpost from pure footballing immortality. An inch further to the right and the Oranje would have become the sixth different winner of the World Cup, rather than Argentina. Rensenbrink would have joined a special collection of players to have scored a World Cup-winning goal, and he would have finished the tournament as its leading scorer.

By the finest of margins, Rensenbrink was deflected away from immortality, as he instead arguably so drifted into a world of under-appreciation in his home nation. Apart from in the Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, and among football hipsters the world over, Rensenbrink is widely forgotten.

He is a peculiarity. Strikingly gifted with skill to burn, he was blessed with a wonderful left foot and bewitching close-control which saw him drift past defenders as if they werent there, an ability that sprang from a dribbling style which gave him the rare propensity to be able to take a ball right into the face of opposing defenders before changing direction at the last second. Unpredictable, dangerous and, at his peak, impossible to play against, he should be far from forgotten.

Born in Oostzaan, almost nine miles to the north of Amsterdam, Rensenbrink slipped through the prolific Ajax net, instead finding his way into football with city rivals DWS. Essentially on an amateur footing despite gracing the top flight, and enjoying occasional forays into the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, DWS were never likely to contain Rensenbrinks talents for a prolonged period.

In the summer of 1969, at the age of 22, a year after making his international debut, it was the ideal time for Rensenbrink to move on from DWS. The inexorable rise of Ajax had gained pace, having just contested their first European Cup final, while their bitter rivals Feyenoord, who had won the Eredivisie title, were just a year away from going one better in the 1970 final against Celtic.

Read | Willy Dullens: the Dutch talent many thought couldve been better than Cruyff

While Ajax had been interested observers in Rensenbrinks development at DWS, they were a club blessed with an abundance of left-sided attacking options. Favouring a position on the left-hand side of the forward line, yet equally adept as an out-and-out left winger, Rensenbrink was under no illusions that Ajax had the continually blossoming Johan Cruyff and the legendary Piet Keizer in the two positions he could occupy.

Feyenoord also monitored his progression and there were tentative inquiries. As reigning champions, however, they elected to rest on their laurels to an extent. The brilliant but slowly ageing Coen Moulijn, a player who drew comparisons to Stanley Matthews, was deputised at times by the wonderful Wim van Hanegem. Again, Rensenbrink would have had his work cut out to displace some formidable figures from the Feyenoord line-up. Yet, in retrospect, Rensenbrink would have been the perfect long-term successor to Moulijn.

In the summer of 1969, an entirely different path was taken by Rensenbrink and he would never again kick a ball in competitive anger within club football in his homeland.

Frans de Munck, a former international goalkeeper for the Netherlands, had been appointed as the new coach of Club Brugge that summer, and spotting an opportunity to step in where both Ajax and Feyenoord wouldnt, he swooped for the services of Rensenbrink.

At the Stade Albert-Dyserynck, Rensenbrink took the change of environment in his skilful stride. The Brugge that Rensenbrink joined was essentially sitting upon the eve of greatness. Their solitary league title had been won almost half a century earlier, but from the mid-1960s they had risen to become an increasing thorn in the sides of both Anderlecht and Standard Lige.

Scoring goals on a regular basis during his debut season in Belgium, Rensenbrinks new club finished runners-up to Standard in the league and swept to domestic cup glory. A near miss on the title followed in 1970/71, combining with a run to the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners Cup.

The summer of 1971 proved pivotal for Rensenbrink. Board member Constant Vanden Stock departed the club, only to resurface at Anderlecht. Utilising their friendship, Vanden Stock coaxed Rensenbrink to Brussels, from where he would go head to head with his former club for most of the domestic honours on offer throughout the remainder of the decade, as Standard fell away.

Read | Johnny Rep: the natural Total Footballer who weaved his way into legend

Brought in by Georg Keler the man who had given Rensenbrink his international debut as part of a number of sweeping changes at the club, Anderlecht narrowly edged out Brugge in a tense battle for the title, and defeated Standard in the cup final to clinch the domestic double.Alongside his compatriot Jan Mulder and the Anderlecht legend Paul Van Himst, it was the added attacking potency this triumvirate provided to the team that enabled Rensenbrink to help break the hearts of all those involved with his former club, as his new employers took the title on goal difference.

It was a dream start to life with his new club. However, the following season proved a more difficult one, as Mulder jumped at the opportunity of a summer move to Ajax, while Van Himst struggled for form. It meant that Anderlecht relied on Rensenbrinks talents far more than they had during the previous campaign. This was offset by the gradual emergence of another precocious talent in the shape of Franois Van der Elst.

An inconsistent start to the defence of their title and an early exit from the European Cup meant that Keler departed the club before the year was out. Brugge swept to the title, and while collective form was hard to attain for Anderlecht, Rensenbrink was still scaling individual heights. Despite their problems in the league, the cup was retained as once again Standard were beaten in the final.

Out of sight and out of mind, Rensenbrink was on the outside looking in when it came to the national team, despite his fine performances for Anderlecht. He hadnt represented the Netherlands since departing DWS. In his absence, and despite the elevated club performances in European competition of both Ajax and Feyenoord, the Netherlands had failed to qualify for the latter stages of Euro 72.

Rensenbrink continued to apply himself to the Anderlecht cause. Under his new coach, Urbain Braems, playing alongside the prolific Hungarian striker Attila Ladinszky, and with the added support of the increasingly effective Van der Elst and the slowly ageing yet ever-dangerous Van Himst, Anderlecht reclaimed the title.

It was during the 1973/74 title-winning campaign that Rensenbrink made his return to the national side, initially recalled by Frantiek Fadrhonc, the man who led the Netherlands to World Cup qualification, before being replaced for the finals by Rinus Michels.

Read | Johan Neeskens: more than just the other Johan

Rensenbrink was viewed as the inside man, given that they were sharing a group with Belgium. When the two nations met in November 1973 in the decisive game at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam, the Netherlands knew a draw would be enough for them to reach the finals in West Germany. Intriguingly, Rensenbrink was up against four of his Anderlecht teammates on a dramatic night when a combination of fine goalkeeping and profligacy in the penalty area kept the Belgian goal-line unbreached.

Controversy and drama abounded when, in the last-minute, Rensenbrinks Anderlecht teammate, Jan Verheyen, stroked home what appeared to be a perfectly good winning goal. As the Netherlands defence stepped forward while defending a free-kick, Verheyen had been gifted the freedom of the penalty area. Played onside by at least three defenders, his legitimate goal was erroneously disallowed. By the finest of margins, the Total Football of 1974 might never have been given the opportunity to bloom.

In West Germany, Rensenbrink, for so long on the periphery of the national side, now took on a vital role. Michels opted to start him in all but one game, fielding him ahead of Piet Keizer. Rensenbrink, not involved in the Ajax-Feyenoord-PSV power struggle, was blessed with a remit of freedom that not everyone within the squad could match.

Some fine support performances, inclusive of a vital goal against East Germany during the second-round group stage, helped edge Michels and Cruyff towards the World Cup final. When Rensenbrink was on the receiving end of some painful challenges during the de facto semi-final against Brazil, a game marked by the breathtaking football ofOranje, and the brutality of Brazils approach, he was forced to hobble away from Dortmund with huge doubts over his fitness for the final.

Despite passing a fitness test on the morning of the final, in the heat of battle within the Olympiastadion in Munich, Rensenbrink was noticeably off the pace. Had the Netherlands not yielded the early lead they took, then maybe he would have been given further time in the second half. Trailing 2-1, however, Michels could afford no passengers and Rensenbrink was replaced by Ren van de Kerkhof. Had he been fully fit, it might have made the difference between success and failure.

Rensenbrinks importance to the national team intensified over the next few years, helping them to the finals of Euro 76, where they were denied the opportunity to face West Germany in a rematch of the World Cup final by the eventual champions Czechoslovakia.

Read | When Ajax didnt want Johan Cruyff he left for Feyenoord and won the double

By the time Johan Cruyff walked away from the international game in the autumn of 1977, Rensenbrink had inherited the role of chief creator in the side that Ernst Happel took to Argentina. Happel, coach at Feyenoord when they passed up the chance of signing Rensenbrink, deployed him on the left of a three-man forward line, in a loose adaptation of the formation his Feyenoord had won the European Cup with.

With Johnny Rep at the tip, Van de Kerkhof on the right, Rensenbrink to the left, and backed up in midfield by Johan Neeskens and Rensenbrinks Anderlecht teammate Arie Haan, they were a side which lacked the conductor supreme in Cruyff, but instead produced a more balanced and direct variant of play that still embraced sublime vision and skill.

During the span of time between the World Cups of 1974 and 78, Rensenbrink had cultivated a love affair with the Cup Winners Cup at Anderlecht. Molenbeeks shock title win of 1974/75 was followed by a hat-trick of successes for Brugge. While Anderlecht conspired against themselves domestically, in Europe they excelled. The club reached the Cup Winners Cup final in three successive seasons, defeating West Ham in 1976, losing to Hamburg in 1977 and dismantling Austria Vienna a year later. It was during this period that Rensenbrink attracted unfair criticism, that he would raise his game for the big occasions but become unreliable against the lesser teams.

Despite the title eluding them, Rensenbrink, alongside Haan and Van der Elst, made Anderlecht one of the most dangerous and feared sides in Europe. He scored twice in both the 1976 and 1978 finals, performances which enhanced his reputation and in turn raised expectancy levels.

In Argentina, he was in imperious form. A hat-trick against Iran was followed by further goals against Scotland and Austria. Combined with the drive and explosive finishing of Rep and Haan, the Netherlands rolled to the final.Rensenbrink came to within the width of the goalpost at El Monumental from pure footballing immortality.

At the age of 31, it proved to be a watermark moment. Within a year he had played his last game for the Netherlands, while his Anderlecht career ended in 1980 with what was essentially a trailing off, ending his playing days with short spells in the NASL and in France with Toulouse.

Rensenbrink, a man who never went into coaching, remains locked within that vivid moment when he hit the post with only seconds to go in the 1978 World Cup final. He remains a man under-appreciated by many in his homeland, and one often forgotten by football generally. Regardless of that, he will always be a man who hypnotically owned the ball, one who so very nearly inherited the world.

By Steven Scragg @Scraggy_74

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Remembering Rob Rensenbrink: the overlooked Dutch master who came within inches of immortality - These Football Times

STOCKTON, Calif. -- Walk through the entrance gates of Banner Island Ballpark and one of the first things that will catch your eye as you look out into left field is a white and red No. 50 Dallas Braden jersey adorning the forest green outfield wall.

A few rows behind home plate, youll see a portrait of Bradens face painted onto a white wall just underneath the stadiums press box.

Now, look at the mound in the center of the diamond. That short hill of dirt is where the greatest moment of Bradens baseball career took place. Yes, even greater than tossing the 19th perfect game in MLB history and second in As history. This moment took place on April 30, 2005, when Braden, a Stockton, Calif., native, first took the mound for the Stockton Ports, the As Class A Advanced affiliate.

The proudest moment of my baseball career was being able to wear the city of Stockton across my chest, Braden said. That city built me. That city built my family. It gave my grandmother and mother the strength that eventually was given to me to be able to face this world and whatever hurdles that came my way.

Braden quickly developed a special love for the Oakland Coliseum faithful over his five big league seasons, one he combined with his eternal love for the city 70 miles east of the Coliseum where he was born and raised and even commuted from for all of his home games with the As. That love was reciprocated by both cities, whose residents know a little something about being an underdog.

He had a really outgoing personality, and I think the fact he was from the area, he had a great story -- he could have gone off the right track into the dark side -- there was a great personal story there of perseverance, As radio broadcaster Ken Korach said. Not only the injuries, but going through tough times in life. He had a lot of brashness to him as well. He stood out for the right reasons.

Stockton doesnt exactly fit the stereotypical mold placed on California cities. Its a city that has long had a high crime rate, one which increased severely at the start of the 2000s, largely the result of an economic recession. To put it simply, there werent many role models for Braden to look up to when he was young.

Braden was not dealt the best hand to succeed in life. He was not supposed to make it out. But in a way, that unsafe environment he grew up in helped shape the underdog, chip-on-the-shoulder mentality that made him a beloved pitcher in Oakland. It helped him find a way out and eventually find success in the big leagues, where he always made sure to carry a piece of Stockton with him.

A promise to Mom

Braden recalled his old neighborhood in Stockton, which was devoid of sidewalks, and not by design.

Thats not because its a beautiful rural area, there just arent any sidewalks, Braden said. The pizza man is [too scared] to come through there. The taco trucks arent driving in there. Youre forced to grow up very early. Your reality kind of hits you in the face very early on.

With gangs and drugs prevalent in the area, Braden could have easily gone down the wrong path. Luckily, there was also baseball, which Braden quickly fell in love with. His mother, Jodie Atwood, and grandmother, Peggy Lindsey, knew this was an avenue to keep him on track. They never allowed Braden to sway from his dream of playing professional baseball, a dream he said swirled in his mind as soon as he was able to formulate words while watching both As and Giants games as a child.

Atwood was Bradens top supporter, sacrificing whatever she could in order to get her son into the top Little Leagues in the area. Bradens baseball dream was looking more and more like a reality as he got into high school, but an unexpected life obstacle presented itself around that same time as Atwood was diagnosed with skin cancer. In 2001, during Bradens senior year of high school, Atwood passed away at the age of 39.

The loss sent Braden out of control as he found himself getting into the troubles his mother worked so hard to keep him away from. The path to his baseball dream took a wrong turn. But with the help of his grandmother, Braden got things back on track and graduated from Stagg High School, fulfilling his mothers dying wish.

We were faced with some hurdles very early on in life, and I learned that hurdles were meant to be attacked. Theyre meant to be jumped over. Thats what theyre there for, Braden said. Theyre not meant to stall you or prevent you from anything. You are forced to figure out a way to get over them. Thats how I had to approach everything.

Fulfilling the dream

Braden elected to stay in school after getting drafted by the Braves in the 46th round of the 2001 MLB Draft. The left-hander played two seasons at American River College in nearby Sacramento, then went to Texas Tech University for one year. The As drafted him in 2004.

The odds of reaching the Majors were still unfavorable -- Oakland selected Braden in the 24th round -- but he was determined to make it. This was just another hurdle to jump over.

He didnt possess any flashy stuff. His fastball was hardly blazing as it seldom touched 90 mph, but he forced his way onto the big league radar with success at each level in the coming years, even overcoming a shortened 2006 due to shoulder surgery.

On a late April night in 2007, after building up a 2.84 ERA over a combined 13 starts at Double-A Midland and Triple-A Sacramento, Braden got the call from the As. He would make his big league debut in Baltimore on April 24.

The biggest thing I will remember is being able to call my grandmother and tell her, Im not gonna be in Sacramento anymore, I have to meet the team on the East Coast, Braden said. I could hear her put it together, and she starts losing it, and Im losing it.

From that point on, everything about the entire experience -- being handed the scouting report and going over the big league scouting reports with the coaches and [catcher] Jason Kendall -- I couldnt feel anything. It was very surreal. But to be able to look up in the stands and see my grandmother there watching me on a day that, quite frankly, we sold out for, was incredible. There was no Plan B. Our Plan B was not having a Plan B. Im not discovering the next most grandest planet in our solar system. Im not that guy. Im not curing cancer for anybody. Thats what I remember. That entire dream came to a head on the mound in Camden Yards.

Braden pitched well that day in Baltimore, allowing one run over six innings. Mission accomplished, right? Theres no way this could get any better, is there? Well, a few years later, it did.

The perfect game

Braden stuck in the Majors and, just like in the Minors, kept getting better as each year passed. The 2010 season started out with a 10-strikeout performance in Oakland's win over the Mariners. He then made national headlines during an April 22 game against the Yankees in which he yelled at Alex Rodriguez after taking offense to Rodriguezs path back to the dugout following a groundout. Bradens words took the spotlight that day, but about two weeks later, the spotlight was on him for another reason.

May 9, 2010. Mothers Day. The Rays sent 27 batters to the plate, and Braden retired all of them. Perfection.

The final out came on a 3-1 fastball that Gabe Kapler grounded to shortstop Cliff Pennington, who then fired the ball over to Daric Barton at first base to complete the historic feat. Braden received the customary dogpile on the mound from his teammates, then emerged from the bunch and pointed out to section 209 of the Coliseum, which naturally had become a special fan club of sorts for the left-hander. Its the same numbers of Stocktons area code.

As he made his way back to the As dugout, there was Lindsey standing on top of the dugout. Braden spotted her and signaled to the security guard to allow her onto the field. The two ran to each other and embraced with a tear-filled hug.

They got her down on the field, and thats all I cared about. Getting her in my arms, Braden said. Obviously, then I started to appreciate what this meant.

Korach, who also lost his mother at a young age, did his best to hold back tears as he called the final out of Bradens perfect day.

That top of the ninth inning was the most emotional inning of baseball Ive ever broadcast. No question, Korach said. After they celebrated on the field and brought his grandmother out of the stands, as I was describing that, I was in tears. That was the hardest Ive ever tried to hold it together on the air. Everybody knows his story.

The aftermath

The 2010 season continued to bring good fortunes for Braden. He won a career-high 11 games and appeared to be evolving into a front-end starter for the As in his prime at 26 years old. But injuries soon began to take a toll.

The left-hander made just three starts in 2011 before he required season-ending shoulder surgery. Another surgery, this time to repair a torn rotator cuff, caused Braden to miss all of 2012 and half of 2013 before he was released by Oakland. Figuring a full recovery was not in the cards, Braden officially retired the next year at the age of 30, ending a five-year big league career in which he went 26-36 with a 4.16 ERA over 94 games.

But this is no sob story. Braden accomplished more than he could have ever imagined as that kid growing up in Stockton. Plus, its not like hes any less popular these days.

Bradens relationship with Oakland has only grown as hes elevated himself to color analyst for As television broadcasts on NBC Sports California. He gets a chance to follow the club on the road and once again work at the Coliseum on a regular basis.

I cant even begin to express how fortunate I am for the organization to have reached out with this opportunity. They have brought me in as an ambassador to be able to be in the community and represent the organization. Im so appreciative of that, and so is my family, Braden said. Ive got folks that want to hang out with my two daughters. That means the world to me that I get to show up every day and hang out with my friends in Oakland at the Coliseum. Theres really no better gig going.

The gig also gives him more opportunities to head back to Stockton, where he still owns a home. It gives the people of Stockton more reason to celebrate one of their own, like last year when the Ports gave away a bobblehead of Braden wearing a black suit and a headset while holding a baseball in his left hand.

I wasnt supposed to graduate high school. I completed a bucket list with that, and from then on felt like I was playing with house money, Braden said. To be able to stare in the mirror years later wearing Stockton across my chest and getting a paycheck for it, thats a dream come true.

Martin Gallegos covers the A's for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @MartinJGallegos.

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Stockton at heart of Braden's immortality with A's - MLB.com

After four seasons of misadventures, the characters on The Good Place finally made it to the titular paradise only to find it in as much disarray as the rest of the afterlife. Created by Michael Schur, The Good Place debuted on NBC back in 2016. The comedy series followed Eleanor Shellstrop (played by Kristen Bell) from shortly after her death. Realizing that she'd been seemingly placed in Heaven rather than Hell by mistake, Eleanor strove to become a person worthy of her new utopian home. As notable for its steady stream of twists and ever-shifting settings as its jokes, the show has garnered a massive amount of acclaim and awards recognition.

With The Good Place season 4 confirmed to be the show's last, the self-proclaimed Team Cockroach sought to save all of humanity. Having realized that the afterlife's points system was irrevocably broken, it was up to Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, Tahani, Janet, and Michael to figure out a better system; one that didn't involve The Judge erasing Earth and taking human existence back to the primordial soup. With the aid of a brief distraction from Justified's Timothy Olyphant, the gang successfully convinced The Judge to implement their idea. With billions of souls saved from eternal damnation, it was decided that Eleanor and her friends had finally earned a spot in The Good Place. Last seen traveling via balloon (for real, this time), the penultimate episode saw their official arrival marked by floating puppies and the ability to fully understand the meaning ofTwin Peaks.

Related: The Good Place's New Afterlife System Explained

As the gang threw themselves joyfully into their new surroundings, it rapidly became clear that something was amiss. At an amalgamated party honoring them, Chidi and Eleanor met Lisa Kudrow's Hypatia of Alexandria. Going by Patty, she revealed that everyone in The Good Place needed their help. A few stardust-infused milkshakes later, Patty conveyed the issues with immortality and infinite pleasures. While on paper having every need met was amazing, the fact it stretched on forever merely served to diminish all sense of thought and reduce everybody to what Eleanor called "happiness zombies." The point was hammered home by Jason Mendoza, who, having finally been given the chance to fulfill his lifelong dream of go-karting with monkeys, got bored quickly. Though some viewers likely didn't see a problem with eternal unvarying bliss, the concept (which is actually a trope of most immortality-themed stories) had provoked a sense of ennui within The Good Place. Even Janet and a cardboard cutout of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson were shocked and dismayed by the revelation.

Eager to avoid the same fate, the group fought to fix the problem. That responsibility only became more pronounced when Michael was tricked into becoming the leader of The Good Place. Despite the options of hoverboards and even waiting for Beyonce on the table, Eleanor instead devised a wholly different solution. After Michael suggested regularly erasing the resident's memories, so as to keep the experience new, Eleanor realized that remembering was, in fact, the key stating that vacations are only specialbecause they end. As such, they implemented a final destination beyond The Good Place a true death that would provide people (when ready) the opportunity for true peace.

The news was met with much fanfare from Good Place residents. The idea that the eternal vacation didn't actually have to be eternal eased the malaise and even reinvigorated Patty, who resolved to enjoy paradise a little longer before moving on. Meanwhile, in the wake of saving yet another aspect of the afterlife, Eleanor and Chidi, for the first time in centuries across multiple timelines, finally settled down to actually enjoy their time together. With Chidi declaring that The Good Place is actually just having enough time with your loved ones, it feels like the final philosophical stamp on the show's mantra. Given that, and the fact there remains one final episode, The Good Placehas set up what will surely be a truly bittersweet conclusion as the beloved characters inevitably build towards walking through those final doors into the great unknown.

More: The Good Place Is Great TV (But It's Good That It's Ending)

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John Atkinson has been a news and feature writer for Screen Rant since late 2018. Before that, he had articles published across a number of different outlets. A graduate of the University of London, John was raised on a small island by television and movies. As such, he pursued a career in screenwriting and film journalism when it became apparent that actually becoming Spider-Man was impossible. John's fondest wish is to one day produce a film of his own. Until then, he's more than happy to spend countless hours just talking about them.John's love of film and television defies genre and sometimes even logic. Nothing is off-limits to his passion - be it Marvel, DC, Rian Johnson's Star Wars, or Tommy Wiseau's latest cinematic offering.Away from screens, John can often be found in a park reading mystery and/or fantasy novels, jumping up and down at various music events, or thinking too deeply about Keanu Reeves' career and why Edgar Wright doesn't have an Oscar.

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The Good Place FINALLY Revealed (Yep, It's Disappointing) - Screen Rant