Doing 25 books this year. For real this time!

Happy New Year Tom & Crew. It's gonna be a great year! I can feel it!

Despite a horrible showing in 2025, I hope you do another challenge. I'm eager to redeem myself.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you all had a great time. I sure did.

My gaming haul was pretty solid this year considering that I've evolved into being an old grandpa as far as vidya goes!

29,000 saves!

This problem is only going to get worse across theboard as these Middle Eastern nations with oil money to burn continue to try to gain prominence on the world stage through professional athletics. They already bought a World Cup and half of professional golf's most prestigious events. They're getting a WrestleMania in 2027. They're making Tom Brady get on a plane and play flag football for them like a trained monkey at some point in the fear future. It sucks, man.

I was tired of Max winning all of the time before this season started, but it would be awesome to see him pull off the comeback today. Hope it happens. Sorry Lando.

Congrats @4cat. You are one of the funniest people I know and a supremely talented musical talent.

Here's a Sopranos meme:

Finished reading 2005's Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas by David Kushner.

I've been a big fan of the author since getting through his Masters of Doom book and this one lived up to my expectations. Kushner was able to seamlessly touch on a bunch of different topics like competitive trading card tournaments, blackjack card counting in casinos, poker (both online and in big televised series for networks like The Travel Channel), sports betting, etc. while maintaining a narrative throughline by following the life of Jon "Jonny Magic" Finkel.

Only real problem I had with this one was this it really leaned into the "nerds are the cool kids now" trope which was a bit trite in my opinion, but I'm willing to forgive that since the book is 20 years old at this point.

Would recommend.

Welp, I finally did it. I have reached the final BP rank of Supreme Commander. Unreal!

Now what digital mountain do I try to climb? Fixing up my cruddy bronze whistle?

I loved actually playing Metal Gear Solid 5, especially with its open-ended way of doing missions, but the story is so bad compared to the other mainline titles in the series. Maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but I wasn't a fan of it when I wasn't actively listening to Billy Idol music in the helicopter and shooting at enemies.

28,000 saves!

So, how do we all feel about Saudi Arabia basically buying a WrestleMania for themselves in 2027?

At over 29,000 total B/P points as I type this. The final march towards becoming a Supreme Commander has begun!

I can't believe me, NG's greatest pinball player, wasn't given free travel and hotel accommodations to attend this meetup. Truly heinous!

TILT.

27,000 saves!

I'll never not post this absolute classic in threads like this:

26,000 saves!

Apple is likely taking the U.S. F1 broadcast rights from ESPN next year.

Not totally digging this. It's not like I'm in love with how ESPN does things, but Apple currently has the MLS rights here and that hasn't exactly led to me sprinting to subscribe to their premium streaming service to watch more FC Cincinnati games.

Am I alone on this? Do you other goons actually love this move?

25,000 saves!

WWE goofed on the timing of that latest SNME and the show ended during Bill Goldberg's retirement speech.

Oops.

Finished The LEGO Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World's Imagination by Jens Andersen today.

Really fascinating book that completely chronicled the origins of the LEGO company from its humble beginnings as a Danish carpenter's side-hustle in the 1930s to it being one of the biggest toy companies on the planet in the 2020s.

One of the things that I appreciated about this one was that it had plenty of access to insider stories and photos while not being a total puff piece that only told the positive side of the the company's many ventures. This book wasn't afraid to address the numerous failures that LEGO has had over the decades and actually called out a few company executives for being jerks or incompetent boobs. It was nice to be able to get something approaching a complete history, warts and all.

Definitely worth checking out if you're an AFOL. Also, I can't believe the company's factory burned down four times. Unreal!

Red Bull has fired Christian Horner as team principal.

Not shocked that this happened in 2025, but I thought he'd make it through the entirety of this season after everything else he survived over the last few years. Will be highly curious to see who replaces him next year.

19 official years on Newgrounds.

Happy Low Poly Day to all my homies. Team N64 reporting!

Reached the BP rank of Commander! Almost there!

24,000 saves!

9) Way, WAY too many commercials.

I know that sounds like an old man complaint, but the flow of the show was SEVERELY disrupted by constantly cutting away from the action to shill more DUDE WIPES or whatever. It's hard to get into a match when you have to watch like eight ads before it starts and then eight more ads after three minutes of action.

Like, damn, TKO, sorry I'm not there in-person having paid for 400 dollar nosebleed seats. You don't have to bludgeon me with pitches for more DUDE WIPES to make up the cash ASAP.

Well...he didn't play a factor into the match with Orton, but he sure got his ass put through a table by BMJ in the press conference after the show. Do we think R-Truth is going to get a legit title match on RAW or MITB?

For my money, @Ornery has done some of the absolute best nude model artwork that I've ever viewed. Definitely worth checking out the rest of the pieces on his profile if you haven't seen them before:

23,000 saves!