et and other communications union districts inspired by the success of EC fiber and we recently started doing business as CV fiber sort of a rebranding we're currently at 16 towns including Representative Pat's territory here in Montpelier and actually Representative Jessup's territory as well we're going to 17 with Woodbury joining us next week it's also my territory and it is also your territory that's why I mentioned it so we have a lot of excitement we have a lot of folks in central Vermont so Washington County, Lamoille County and Orange County a lot of different kinds of towns we have Berry City, Berry Town Montpelier which are rather different than Roxbury and Elmore and Woodbury but it's part of our mission to serve all of them as a public service we are the EC fibers model and this idea of five or six per mile is something that we have a guy on our board who represents Calis and he's a GIS expert and he could show us the segments of roads and how many people on that segment of road in the density and it's totally doable and it looks to be doable in almost any town in Vermont frankly so we're in a much earlier state than EC fiber I'd say that Irv in particular and EC fiber in general has been extremely extremely critical to us getting as far as fast as we have it's in our plans in our budget to build out our first pilot of roughly five or six miles by the end of this year and have people turn down by the end of this year whether that's too aggressive or not remains to be seen but we are moving forward as if that's the case I have a question for you there Karen and I don't want to knock you off of course but in terms of ever being critical to where you've gotten to at this point is it looking at the template that they have created and how they moved in their history is it kind of direct help that you've gotten for them and some of the granular issues you've got to work through as you're building this business but both of those when I learned about what they were doing I just tried to digest as much as possible about what was publicly available to Irv and I reached out to their CEO Carol Monroe they came to the first meeting I brought a bunch of folks together in Berry City municipal officials other interested folks and said this is my vision I want to make an EC fiber here in central Vermont and everybody was really excited the reason I ask is I'm interested in the replicability of this understanding that different regions, different towns are different of course they are but at the same time PC fiber can do it if you find things in their business plan and model that maybe some work maybe some don't but where are the seven other places in Vermont that this is a replicable is what I'm really interested in and actually next on my list of things to mention to I'm not going to directly counterpoint some of Christine Hallquist's points but there are some things that I want to comment on so Kingdom Fiber is looking at basically using this a similar model really starting in Craftsbury roughly the same target for the number of people per mile and they've already turned on people Craftsbury like in the last few months that's a private entity and the guy that runs Kingdom Fiber is actually the representative for Plainfield on our board so he's actively helping us and is also showing us what are his finances look like how is he doing you know what's his business model and he's sharing with us his insight about specific hiccups including pull attachment which I'll get to in a second that he's run into and that's I think having you know having Irvin E.C. Fiber as a resource on one side and Michael Berenbaum and Kingdom Fiber on the other as two completely different ways of going about this is really is both inspiring and really helpful so when we come and we come to our monthly board meetings when we have 16 people sitting at the table and talking about this we can reasonably quickly get the answers that we need to go forward so I think the CUD model is a winning model and I don't mean to sound aggressive or cocky or anything like that but if the legislature decides to do nothing I'm still going to go forward with this we will build Central Vermont it's just that we build it much slower and more on an easy fiber timeline where we will have to look more at promissory notes and other sources of funding that we could do this much more efficiently we could do this much more smoothly much more cheaply for the public good I mean we are a public entity looking to do public service I'm sorry I'm going to have to step out in a few minutes and I know your time is really valuable I appreciate you being here and I'm sorry but Tom based on what you just been talking about and the replicability that the chairs were referencing could you see in order to help other places in Vermont what about some sort of a technical commission or you know a place for a more formal place for prospective CUDs to come together did you talk about like have you ever thought of like what would be great if there were some sort of technical work I would love to see that and I'm sure I've already advised people who are right now looking at forming CUDs there's one down closer to you a bit to the north though we're looking at doing the same thing with surrounding territories and I essentially just throw them my big bucket of documents that I collected as I was developing and kind of spearheading this and putting this in front of select boards and city councils and saying here's how it's going to work I mean I'm not going to promise that I have a business plan down but that's something that we're budgeted for building this year but no I could definitely see getting stakeholders together and saying here's how we did if here's kind of the general trajectory and I know I've seen some materials from you that sort of has a nice graph of like here are the responsibilities that you sort of need to solve that these are the things that you need to solve before you actually go and build and turn people on and I think that would be that's really valuable you know be really valuable. Something Christine Helquist said that I really did like is the notion of a broadband manager and I don't know that ACCD is the right place for it probably DPS with Clay Purvis or funding them so that they can be more involved in the process and they've been super helpful to both ACCD and DPS in getting us moving forward with this in in different ways so I don't know if that answers your question. That's helpful. Can we continue though when we can get another five minutes? I'm sorry. I would just say I like to tell people we're glad to tell you about the mistakes we made so that you'll have to find your own. I totally remember that so I said we're going to look at building a small pilot this year this is so right now we're actually collecting contributions charitable contributions so we'll give you the shakedown pitch right now but it is tax deductible just say but it's on orcas if somebody's watching you anyways we are also in the process of developing a partnership with WAC and there was a comment before about Washington Electric Co-op going out and seeking grant money essentially to work with us in partnership to build a feasibility study business plan to look at does it make sense for them to get involved we also have I'm waiting to hear the results of whether we got an ACCD grant to do the same so we're looking at doing surveying business plan development feasibility study soon but we're going to be working together with WAC to try to do that and as much as possible work with them and sort of push our mission and their mission simultaneously because I think there's a fair bit of excitement over on their part without any legislative stick required and WAC is aware of their need for fiber both for smart grant and some of these other applications that are out there there's one big benefit to working with WAC they own all their own polls they're not in that situation where you have dual poll ownership and if they're on board with making this happen it's that poll make ready process is super fast super fast comparatively I would say so yeah so that's exciting and part of my job I mean as in my day job part of my job is to look at the future so I do spend a lot of time thinking about what Vermont looks like 5, 10, 20 years down the road and I think WAC is coming to that same realization that it's not necessarily going to be business as usual for a number of reasons whether that's how they're dealing with renewables or how they're dealing with balancing power requirements or being able to turn off smart appliances at certain times to smooth out loads or deal with electric cars or batteries or these sorts of things you know do you need a gigantic huge pipe to do it? Nope but future applications could and this could make a lot of things easier I think one of the things that we're running up against is in order for us to really qualify for municipal loans we have to have a certain number of years of audited financials so actual revenues and actual expenditures so we're looking at at least three years before we can even go after those revenue bonds so what do we do for those first three years hope and pray we're going to have to look at promissory notes or some other mechanism so this bridge funding getting us through those first three years the first five years or whatever is really really important and one of the things that I would like all of you to think about making that available we have very motivated communities but not all of our communities have the money to for us to find donors that are going to write us checks that add up to millions of dollars we're going to build something that's in the first year that's going to cost less than half a million dollars but we're going to build something if that's how we have to start then that's fine I was going to kind of pick around the nipple around at the edges we're not sold on building in the electric space there's some technical feasibility issues that we've heard or addressed that we're also rather concerned about the cost of putting the linemen that are working at the electric utility those much more expensive technicians to do that and so a scenario that we envision is so imagine there's an ice storm and it takes down some lines what are the linemen going to prioritize if the utility is managing all of those lines outage they're going to turn people's power on first they then going to go back later a few days afterwards and then reconnect the fiber optic cables I mean is there going to be a delay and that could be that could be really terrible rather than we could have you know line workers working for the utility restoring power service and then folks working for the internet service provider going and repairing the fiber optic cables it doesn't have to be an either or sort of thing it just makes the complexity of their responding to excuse me their responding to emergencies more challenging and more expensive and take longer because there's more stuff that they have to worry about so that and that kind of fiber that lives up in the electric space is not really the kind of fiber that makes fiber to the premises fiber to the home fiber so I think you know looking at the telecom plan that came out of DPS I think addresses a lot of sort of where we are in Vermont and give some good policy suggestions and I want to talk about talk about some of those too and also address some of Christine and Irv's comments redeclering broadband I mean like real broadband as 100 megabits per second I think would be a great step forward because it's completely achievable with more than just fiber technology but fiber makes it easiest one of the so I'm new so when you're saying that are you talking this 100 up and 100 down too or just one way statute says 100 up and 100 down is where we're going to be by 2021 so if that's something that we're at no I know I know I mean if that's something that we're really at seriously then yeah it's going to be symmetric it's going to be 100 up and down so the symmetric is not something that anything really other than fiber can do so cable can get close ish with some really some of the really new cutting edge cable technology thanks looking at so we're a municipality so I'm going to on the select board I'm required to release meeting minutes so we're required to more meetings as a communications union district we have to do the same we're also we also have to abide by if somebody makes a public records request we are obliged to provide those things and it's not terribly clear when we have some of the things that would be to our competitive advantage so we're in this interesting thing we are a competitive entity that's also a public entity we don't have really anything else like that in Vermont so it's conceivable that we could be asked to provide as a public records request something that could be damaging to our ability to compete so I think looking at potential solutions to that you know some way that we could perhaps say we are declaring this as our as our governing board we're going to say that this is competitively sensitive and is not subject to disclosure or maybe there's some other way of carving that out so that we're not compelled to provide those things and I want to say that as somebody who does a lot of research in privacy and you know openness in government in my research and the things that I do I don't say this lightly this is not something we're like yeah we'll just add another exemption to the 150 or so that are out there I mean Jim Kondo would beat me up that's not this is probably going to be a requirement because if it's if it doesn't come out it's going to be settled by the courts and I'm not sure that you know we've got $5,000 in the bank right now probably don't have to do the math to figure out how that would work out if it went to court that is getting access to good data about where the polls actually are I think that's important that's a conversation that someone else on my board are representative from Calis who is he's down in Senate Finance he was talking about that just as I came up I think there's some good things that we could do to make sure that we know where the utility polls are that there is some good data out there in the Vermont Center for Geographical Information System that we can put that together in that way people like me when we're going out and doing these feasibility studies that we actually have reasonable data and that we actually reasonably understand where the polls and where the lines are I don't really care that much about where exactly all of the network components are it's not really useful but knowing where the cables are where the polls are that can help us more quickly decide where the best place for us to start where the best place for us to extend our network into where that's going to be Christine also said something about prohibiting overbuilding where there's already fiber I am very skeptical that you can compel any private entity to force them to open access to their fiber so I'm expecting I'm expecting that we will be overbuilding with fiber and I would respectfully request that you not touch that because there are places where we have to build fiber because that's the only way that we're going to get from you know that's we're going to get out all the way out into by Lake Elmore where we have to swing back over through Morristown to get up there there's already fiber in Morristown we're going to have to overbuild it in order to get into Elmore for example I want to mention that we actually are about Stowe so if Stowe if the Stowe Select Board decides that they want to apply to join the district that is certainly within their own possibility it might not be a terrible idea just saying yeah we've got a couple of good assets in Stowe all right as I understand it there's some new federal funding coming online through USDA I literally got a call from them on the way over here so I'm excited to hear what that's going to look like I'm not I don't know anything about it so what's blocking co-ops from doing this today I don't know that there's really anything blocking co-ops in Vermont from doing this today co-ops are as Christine said co-ops are rather conservative and totally makes sense but I think the writings on the wall and I think the co-ops are starting to understand that getting involved in this process is getting a seat at the table is an important step to making again to hitting their mission and whether that's WAC or whether that's that Velco or Vermont Electric or whatever I think all of the co-op utilities are recognizing this I'm just going to wrap this up saying the administration's proposal I think is an okay start but unless there's actually a reasonably large reasonably accessible to communications union district revolving loan fund unless that's made available this doesn't actually help CV fiber very much at all I mean it's good that we have a feasibility study but we're getting funding to do that through other mechanisms but if there's not a pool of money that we can borrow from until we can go three years down the road go get those municipal bonds and just pay that stuff back then you can give the money to the next folks that are interested in using it this process is going to be much slower we're not going to be larger scale until three or four years later then we would I have a question that I'm financing and this might be two in the weeds but certainly the concept of a revolving loan fund is pretty tangible is there an avenue that you can see by which whether through similar state funding there is a mechanism to credit enhancement for borrowing that a CUD would do by which state funds could be more broadly leveraged where as Herbert testified and I agree some of these loans will work some won't but if there is a buy down of the credit risk by the state in supporting a loan that you get from a private entity that spreads the the lendability if you will much broader with a smaller amount of money I don't know if that's something that you could go in far enough down the path to look at but that's something I'm kind of interested in underwriting our loans I'm not 100% sure whether there's anybody out there right now that would look at us where it's just a bunch of folks around the table saying hey we have a good idea that's kind of Silicon Valley stuff right there but you're just going to say we'll write you alone would the backing of the state of Vermont help almost certainly but still this is a I guess the answer is I don't really know I don't really know if even with that backing if somebody coming from basically we're at $5,000 like I said $5,000 in no infrastructure is anybody commercially going to touch us and say I want you to lend us $10 million so that we can build out half a dozen towns if anybody's going to take us seriously if they're just going to chuckle and walk away so isn't that the purpose of the administration's proposal I think some of it is some of it is to back loans of up to $2 million by Vita $2 million is enough to get up to a an adequate base to attract municipal those will be 5 year loans as I recall Jeremy good to see you I think if we're a Silicon Valley group you'd have people throwing money at you my question is about scale and replicability and is there a size minimum size that this needs to be you know you're talking 17 towns, EC5 has grown to we have if you count Montpey we have 24 members 24 members you know can 5 towns do this sustainably it depends on what they are yeah I agree I mean it really it really depends it also depends on the operational model that they choose you know if they hire they hired ValleyNet like EC5 does they hired ValleyNet to manage that and they had the ability to find somebody who was willing to essentially run stuff I think you could probably sit down and figure out the financial model and the business model to make that work and then come out to the same costs as EC5 are probably not it's going to be more expensive the smaller it is I don't know what that sweet spot is I would say 5 I think you could probably do 5 if I'm just making stuff up here I understand the financing maybe more than 5 depending on which towns they are but 10 is a better bet presumably it's the number of homes bigger uptake we were talking Colchester Essex that's a rather different business model than me building in Roxbury I would say Grandville is one of our members I would say that our 2 dozen is getting near the upper limit of practical size because you've got governance issues with the governing board that big and the territory that you're going to cover it may make more sense to have another similar district than one huge district that's why I used to say we don't have imperial ambitions so on the kind of operating side you have a a valley net type entity in mind is that something you will hold in house we're working on that that's part of our developing the business plan and feasibility study it depends on where we build we have a handful of potential partners WEC being a partner in some aspects of it but we also don't necessarily have to have valley net does basically everything it wouldn't necessarily have to be that way we could also hire our own employees we could lease space and have office and have CV fiber employees but yeah there's other options there's folks with the technical capacity in the area that we've already been talking to about can we get you to do this we could contract out with folks from out of state to do like help desk there's a lot of different angles and what we're going to do when we do our feasibility study and business plan development is figure that out essentially here are the three approaches that we can go to running the show and here's how the money is going to work with that and we will be deciding that I would say within the next 3-4 months I wanted to I almost mentioned this in my testimony our bond underwriters told us that they really liked the fact that we didn't have any employees of our own because that means we don't have any questions of unfunded pension liabilities and potential investors and municipal bonds really look at that so that's a good reason to try to find a one or more partners to work with to do the implementation work for you


Byron! Byron! Byron! You can't scare me with your Aliviper costume anymore, Byron! I can't? That's right! I've been facing my fears. I've been getting hypnotherapy from Crystal Ball. I've been centering my chi. I now have nothing to fear from your vertigo-inducing uniform. Well done, my friend. I'm proud of you. You've beaten your own El Guapo. Well, that's weird. Something's coming through the G.I. Joe Secret Communications Network. Oh, it's just an action figure. This is the show where we review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994, and this week we are looking at Cobra's Urban Assault Trooper. When Cobra would take over a city and rule it with an iron fist, these are the guys Cobra would send in to crush any resistance. Thanks to Chris from the YouTube show Comic Tropes for drawing the title card image for this video, and thanks to my friend Byron, also known as JoeMotionVideos82, for returning for another Aliviper review. I can't think of a better way to do an Aliviper review than to have as many Alivipers as possible, and I'm reviewing two versions of the Aliviper in this video, so you get double the reviews. HCC788 presents Aliviper version 2 and version 3. This is the 1993 and 1994 Cobra Urban Assault Trooper, the Aliviper versions 2 and 3. Version 2 was on the pegs in 1993 only. It was replaced with version 3 in 1994. Version 3 was on the pegs in 1994 only. 1994 was the last year of the vintage G.I. Joe, a real American hero, toy line. As you can see, there is a lot on camera here. We are looking at versions 2 and 3, and version 3 has a variation in both the figure and the file card, so there is so much to cover here. Version 1 of Aliviper was released in 1989. It had a unique mold and accessories. Version 2 was half of a new figure. The upper half of the figure was new, but the lower half of the figure reused the legs and waist from version 1. Version 3 completely reused the mold from version 2. Aliviper is billed as Cobra's Urban Assault Trooper. His first version had riot gear, including a riot shield and a face shield. He was equipped more for crowd control than for urban assault. That figure had a wild zigzaggy orange and blue pattern. The closest G.I. Joe equivalent to the Aliviper would have to be Shockwave, G.I. Joe's SWAT Trooper from 1988. I will start by focusing on the 1993 version 2 figure. After we've taken a good look at that figure, we will turn to version 3 and look at the differences between them. I have the full card back for Aliviper, thanks to Chris Pierce, who sent it to me, so we can see how this figure was marketed back in 1993. We see the G.I. Joe logo here. He is Cobra, the enemy. Then we have the Battlecore logo here, and Battlecore back in 1993 and 94 was just the main G.I. Joe action figure line. It wasn't part of a sub team. The name Battlecore comes from a proposed sound making gimmick that was supposed to debut in 1993. It was going to be called Battle Scan. Well, that gimmick didn't go through, but the name sort of did. Battle Scan was changed to Battlecore. Although it's ripped off here, Aliviper was number six in the Battlecore series. Now we have some card art here, and this is some pretty typical 90s card art. I don't like it as well as the 80s style card art, but it's okay. It's definitely dynamic. It's got the red lasers in the background that indicates an enemy figure. Notice that the shield on the card art is in red, but on the figure, of course, it's just all black. So not bad, not as good as the 80s, but acceptable. Flipping the card around to the back, we have the cross cell, and it has nine of the Battlecore figures that were available that year, including Aliviper number six. This was not all of the Battlecore figures for 1993, not by a long shot. 1993 had a huge number of figures released, and a ton of them were in Battlecore. It does also advertise the other subteams. Well, it has an advertisement for Battlecore there. It has Ninja Force and the Drug Elimination Force. This figure is worth one flag point, and that is a 90s style flag point. It's got an advertisement for a couple of these small vehicles, and then, of course, it has the file card. These 90s file cards had a list of the features on the figure and the accessories. I will be referring to these features when I talk about the accessories later in this video, but we're not gonna take a close look at the file card for now, we'll save that for later. This figure came with a mini comic. Some of the figures of that era were packaged with these. This was sent to me by Chris Pierce from the YouTube show Comic Tropes when he sent me this figure. So thank you for that, Chris. Chris actually reviewed this comic on his own channel for Cobra Convergence a couple years ago. I will put a link to that video so you can see his review of this tiny little comic book. Let's take a look at the accessories for Aliviper. A lot of his black accessories came on a plastic frame like this, and the purchaser would have to cut the accessories off of the frame himself. I'm not a fan of these. I think these accessories trees are kind of lazy, but the Aliviper wasn't quite as lazy as a lot of other 90s figures. Not all of his black accessories came on this frame. He had a face mask and he had a backpack that was less common with these 90s figures, and at least black is appropriate for this guy. Most of the accessories issued on these plastic frames were reissued accessories from earlier action figures, and that's mostly the case with the Aliviper, but that's still not as big a problem with this figure as other figures because of the accessories they chose to reissue for him. Let's start by looking at his shield because that is the most interesting accessory. It is in black plastic. It is a big Cobra emblem. It clips onto his arm with a clip on the back, and this, I think, looks absolutely great. The file card calls this a Cobra laser-proof shield. I like this better than the Version 1 shield, even though it would be less functional as a riot shield. I just think it looks cool to have a black Cobra emblem as a shield. Next, let's look at this submachine gun. This is almost a straight reissue of the Version 1 submachine gun, but there are some differences. That Version submachine gun was kind of weird.  It has this kind of magazine out to the side, which goes outside the arm, makes it a little difficult to have the figure hold the gun. But again, it kind of looks cool with a big scope on it, a short barrel, but it's not exactly a reissue of Version 1. Here is that Version 1 submachine gun. Even though they are both in black plastic, the Version 2 submachine gun is much glossier than Version 1. Version 1 is more of a matte finish. Also, the Version 1 submachine gun had a small foregrip in front, and they've changed that for Version 2. They have thickened that. I don't think that can actually fit in a figure's hand now. It almost looks like another magazine out in the front of the gun. He came with another weapon, this black rifle sort of thing with a vented shroud. This is a reissue of the gun that came with 1986 dial tone. This accessory was reissued many times, including with Super Trooper and Rapid Fire.  It has some eye holes so you can see through it. It also has some fangs and some horns. It looks really fierce. I think it looks great. It can be flipped up to reveal his mask underneath and his eyes. It has holes on the side that fit on pegs on the figure's head. It can be removed. It is a separate piece, but I don't like to take it off because I'm worried about breaking it. So just taking a look at this Ali Viper figure that does not have the mask, you can see where the pegs are, where the mask pegs on. This face shield is an update of the face shield on version 1. Same basic idea, but the version 1 face shield is in those wild orange and blue colors. No eye holes on the version 1 face shield. Not sure how he's supposed to see through it, but it would flip up like on the version 2. That brings us to the backpack. Backpacks were too rare on 1993 figures. It's nice to get one. It is an all-black and it has some amazing details. It has a molded-in non-removable crossbow, has some grenades and some technical gadgetry and a molded-in Cobra emblem. Like the submachine gun, this is a reissue of the backpack that came with version 1. It is almost identical. You can tell the difference though. The version 2 backpack is glossier and the version 1 backpack is more of a matte finish. Finally, we look at the missile launcher. This is a spring-loaded missile launcher. These came with a lot of 90s figures. It was a new gimmick in the 90s and a lot of fans really like these. It is in yellow plastic. It has a black trigger in the back. It has a gatling gun underneath the missile launcher portion. It has both a grip and a clip on the side. And I don't find either of these to be a very good fit with this figure. The grip is just a little too big for this figure's hands and I don't want to break his thumbs. I have seen some collectors clip this missile launcher to the wrist of the figure, but that doesn't fit very well for me either. This missile launcher was shared with another character. This was also used for 1993. Dr. Meinbender version 2. His, of course, was in purple with a yellow trigger. Eleviper included two black missiles. This missile launcher would really fire these missiles. To operate it, you would just press the missiles into the barrel of the missile launcher with the notch side down. Press back until it clicks. Let's test this out with our favorite target, Dr. Meinbender. He doesn't mind. He's made of plastic. You just take aim and press up on this trigger in the back to fire. That's a pretty darn powerful spring in this thing. It didn't have any trouble knocking over Dr. Meinbender. By the way, Dr. Meinbender's purple missile launcher included yellow missiles. So if for some reason you want the missiles to match the yellow of the missile launcher, these are interchangeable. So you can just use Dr. Meinbender's missiles on himself. Look at this, Dr. Meinbender. You're going to get hit with your own missile. The final accessory should never be forgotten. It is the figure stand. It is in black. It's a standard issue figure stand, but I'm always happy to get these with 90s figures because 80s figures did not include them. This I think is the best innovation of the 90s. Let's look at the articulation on Ali Viper and I will use this figure that does not have the face shield in the way. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures well before 1993. He could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up with the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend the arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around. This was an O-ring figure. The O-ring looped around the inside and allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Ali Viper version 2. Only half of this figure is new. The entire bottom half of the figure reuses the mold from version 1. But what a difference a color change makes. Let's look at Ali Viper's head using the figure that does not have the face shield attached. The Ali Viper has a black helmet with a streamlined shape. It has a couple pegs for attaching that face shield. The helmet goes under the chin and has a couple fangs on the chin piece. It also wraps under his eyes. Under the helmet, he has a yellow mask that covers everything but his eyes. I think this helmet and mask look great. It is reminiscent of the version 1 head but it looks more fierce and menacing. On his chest, he has a black vest over a yellow uniform. On that black vest, he has what at first looked like shoulder pads to me but upon closer inspection, they look like pouches but they look like they're upside down. He has a gold collar and a gold zipper that runs down the center of his chest. He has a gold handled knife in a black sheath across the chest. He has an unpainted pouch on the right side of the vest and on the left side, he has a gold grenade. The file card calls this a Cobra canister grenade. On his arms, he has long yellow sleeves. He has black bands around his upper arms molded into the right side black band are the letters UA which I assume mean urban assault. Molded into the black band on the left arm is a Cobra emblem which I think is nice and it's reminiscent of the Cobra emblem molded onto the right arm of version 1. He's wearing black gloves that partially cover his forearms and he has elbow pads. These lower arms are similar to the lower arms on version 1. So similar, I'm surprised they didn't just reuse the lower arms from version 1 rather than sculpt new ones. The waist piece is a yellow uniform with a black panel in front. It does not have a belt. There is a black band around the torso but no belt on the waist piece. This is the same waist piece as version 1. You'll notice on version 1 it has these molded in seams but the camouflage pattern just goes right over them. On version 2, they painted the inside of those seams black and that looks really good and it even accentuates those details. His legs feature a yellow uniform on the upper legs and each of those legs has black tiger stripes on the outside and inside of the legs and I think those are awesome. All the details about this figure make him look like a predator. He has a black painted pocket on the left thigh and he has tall black boots and black knee pads. Once again, these are the same legs as version 1 but notice a couple paint differences other than the tiger stripes. That pocket on the left side just has the camouflage pattern on version 1 and it's fully painted in on version 2 and I think that's better. I think that adds a bit more depth to it. Also on version 1 the black boots stop when they get to the knee pads. On version 2, the black goes all the way up and includes the knee pads and I think that looks better too.  So we have a color mismatch in the hinge on the upper and lower legs and that doesn't look too great. In my eyes, the black and yellow make this figure look like a hornet. It's a bold color choice and intimidating for the enemy. The file card tries to call this urban camouflage which it most certainly is not. Cobra gets a bit more leeway than G.I. Joe when it comes to colors but the important thing is that it look cool and this looks cool. All that went out the window with version 3. Ali Viper version 3 from 1994 uses exactly the same mold as version 2 but with different colors. However, there is a variation on both the figure and the file card so we have two figures and two file cards to look at for 1994. This is close to being just a color variant of version 2 but not only the colors were changed the packaging, the file card and the accessories were changed too. I think that qualifies it as a separate version but it is similar enough to version 2 that I think they should be reviewed together. What they've done here is taken version 2 and just done a color swap. What was once black is now orange and what was once yellow is now light blue. The only color they share between them is the gold paint applications. I think they were trying to take it back to the colors of version 1. Version 1 of Ali Viper was a fairly popular figure so it makes sense they would try to do that. The oranges between the figures are similar but the blues are not. Version 3 uses a lighter shade of blue than version 1. Overall, version 3 looks like a pastel version 1. The accessories are mostly the same as version 2 but the black accessories are now orange and the missile launcher is now light blue. The missile launchers are functionally the same and the missiles are interchangeable. But there's something missing on version 3. Version 3 does not have the backpack so it's not just a color swap you get fewer accessories with version 3. It's unfortunate they made the accessories the same colors as the figure. Choosing a different complementary color or just keeping the black accessories tree would have provided more color interest to the figure. It's true this figure doesn't have fewer colors than version 2 but version 2 has black and black can still have some depth without adding a lot of other colors to it. Just a quick demonstration to show those missiles are interchangeable. Here's where we have to look at the variation of version 3. Some version 3 alley vipers have exactly the same paint applications as version 2 meaning they have the tiger stripes on the leg but the paint is orange instead of black. I presume these to be the earliest releases of the figure. Other version 3 figures which I presume to be the later released ones do not have that tiger stripe paint application. There's another difference between these two figures. The one with the stripes has a country of origin stamp that says made in China. The one without the stripes has a country of origin stamp that says made in Indonesia. Honestly, those orange stripes are kind of washed out by that light blue so they don't make that much difference anyway. So it's no big loss to lose that paint. There's a file card variation that goes with each of these figures and we will take a look at those in a moment. Let's take a look at alley viper version 2's file card. His file card is a rectangle with rounded edges. It is different from the 80s style file folder shape file card. It's got a portrait of the alley viper here copied from the artwork at the front of the card and it has those list of features. I won't read through those. I did refer to some of those when I talked about the figure and accessories. It has a closer portrait above the other one. His code name is alley viper. Primary military specialty is urban assault troopers. Secondary military specialty is parasite driver. The parasite was a cobra vehicle from 1992 that was discontinued for 1993. So this was not available at the time this card was issued. We have a quote here presumably from an alley viper. It says we aren't afraid of taking over any city except maybe some parts of New York. Why New York? If they're in the Marvel Universe too many superheroes there. This paragraph says the alley vipers are an elite contingent of ruthless marauders and true masters of brutality. This first sentence is sort of reworded from the version one file card. Despite their destructive powers and feared reputations Cobra was dissatisfied with them and recently outfitted a new breed of alley vipers that make the old ones look like nerdy wimps. As a nerdy wimp I resent that. Extensive physical and terrorist training programs are standard for these vicious vipers and they soon become skilled villains and dangerously full of hate. Full of hate they must be Star Wars fans. You definitely don't want to invite one of these gorillas to dinner or anywhere else. This is the second time the alley vipers are referred to as gorillas. They are also called gorillas on the version one file card. Now let's take a look at the version three file cards starting with the file card that came with the variation that had the orange stripes. The colors are not updated from version two. It still has the version two black and yellow colors and the text is mostly the same as the version two file card. The list of features is almost the same as version two but version three omits two of the features. It does not have the viper toss hurling attack boa or the urban camouflage. There's one other text difference I noticed on the version two file card where it says standard for these vicious vipers and they soon become skilled villains. On the version three file card it breaks that up into two sentences standard for these vicious vipers period they are skilled villains. Other than that the text appears to be the same. They are even still advertising the parasite even though the parasite had been discontinued for two years by the time this figure was released. Finally we get to the file card that came with the variation that did not have the orange stripes. That card had the country of origin it said printed in Hong Kong figure made in Indonesia. On the file card that came with the figure with the orange stripes that is blank. The text is otherwise the same. Looking at how Ali Viper was used in G.I. Joe Media they were used a few times in the deek era of the animated series. They were featured in the first deek G.I. Joe mini series Operation Dragonfire. They were in their version one uniforms. After that appearance they showed up sporadically they didn't usually have much importance and they were mostly in the background. To my knowledge they only appeared in their version one uniform. Looking at the comic book series published by Marvel Comics the first appearance I can identify is an issue number 92 in the version one uniform. In issue number 94 they were part of the Baroness's raid to capture snake eyes when he was getting plastic surgery. They were occasionally in the background. They took part in Cobra's Invasion of Millville in issue number 100. In the Benzene War a few of them were on the team that pinned down a squad of Joes and eventually killed Sneakpeak in issue number 113. Their appearances in the comic book were sporadic like in the animated series. Occasionally in the comic when a group of vipers would be standing around in the background sometimes an alley viper would be among them. They did appear in their version two uniforms in issue number 139 and they look really good. It's nice to see that update in the comics. However that issue also included transformers and that's all I have to say about that. Looking at the alley viper version two overall I think this is an excellent figure even with the bright yellow. Yes, Cobra gets a bit more leeway when it comes to bright colors and the yellow is offset with black and it looks cool. The alley viper's face mask has been updated to look more fierce with fangs and horns. His shield is now a black Cobra emblem and with his tighter stripes it adds to the appearance of a predator. For the most part his weapons are appropriate. I wouldn't normally give a figure credit for coming with the same accessories as an earlier version but keep in mind this was 1993. A lot of figures came with a frame of generic accessories that often had nothing to do with their specialty. At least the alley viper came with his traditional gun and backpack. As for the spring firing missile launcher it depends on if you're a fan of that gimmick. I know a lot of kids like them. I don't need it. The 1994 alley viper is a different story. I understand they were trying to go back to the version one colors but the version three colors are just a bit weaker. The alley viper looks less fierce with those colors. Also even though they gave us mostly the same accessories in those garish colors they didn't give us all the same accessories. They shorted us a backpack. That makes version three with or without orange stripes my least favorite alley viper. That was my review of the 1993 and 94 alley viper thanks to Byron aka JoeMotionVideos82 and Chris Pierce from Comic Troops. Oh no, I forgot to check on Byron.  No problem. I know a guy named Crystal Ball who can cure him of that fear. See you next week everyone. Thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, I'm making more like it. So please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Hit the notification bell so you don't miss any future videos and share this video with your friends. That's what helps this channel grow. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter and I have a website, hcc788.com. If you want to know if I've already reviewed a vintage GI Joe item that's a good place to check. Special thanks to all my supporters on Patreon including the names you see on the screen now. Support on Patreon helps keep this show going. So if you like this show and you'd like to support this show in that way please consider checking out Patreon. You can get some special rewards including early access to reviews and you can find out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos. Thank you for joining me on this adventure of collecting vintage GI Joe toys. I'll see you next time and until then remember only GI Joe is GI Joe.


It's a brand new era in Cleveland. Nishan Watson will be making a season debut for the Browns against his former team. What are the expectations for Watson down the stretch? The Jets have officially named Mike White. They're starting quarterback. Can he lead the Jets to a postseason appearance? It's because of the postseason on this episode, we're going to be discussing three teams that could be making a miraculous run down the stretch and the playoffs. On a brand new episode of Time 2 Football, glad you guys are able to join us. My name is Hasan Khan, the host of this channel. I appreciate you guys watching. And if you guys have been tuning in every single week, waiting for this podcast, we didn't come out with a podcast last week just because it was Thanksgiving, had to go out of town, didn't have much time. And then this one, we usually come out on Tuesday nights, but I decided let's just experiment with Thursday. Right before the Thursday night football game between the Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots, so if you guys were premiering this right before that game, how's everybody doing? In the comments, leave your picks down below. Who do you think is going to win? The Patriots, the Bills? Is it going to be another windy, bad element type of game as well? We love those AFC East battles between Buffalo and all the other cold weather teams. Love seeing all that. But hit that subscribe button so you can stay up to date when we come out with these podcasts every single week. And then also give me a follow on Twitter as well. At It's Hasan Khan, I love interacting with you guys. And I love to chat with you guys throughout the duration of Thursday night football. By the way, I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know that I did. I was watching all those games, including the Giants and the Cowboys. And Nick Gates, the Giants offensive lineman, actually post-game, came out and said that Michael Parsons was punching him during the game. I don't know whether that's true or not true. I have no idea. But this is why social media sucks, especially Facebook. Dude, Facebook is the worst social media ever. And it's not because of like what Facebook does. It's because of the people that are on Facebook. Because you know how articles are. Okay, the headline will say, Nick Gates accuses Michael Parsons of punching him during the Thanksgiving game. No one actually clicks on the article and reads that. There could be other details we don't know about, but no one's going to find out about it. They're just going to read the headline and then they're going to comment down below. And Facebook is the worst. Because the kind of people that are on Facebook are these kind of people. Oh, it's about leadership. It's about integrity. Toughen up.  You're going to cry about it. Someone's punching you during a football game. Yeah, dude, someone was punching me. I'm going to complain about it. Hey, stop punching me, bro. Okay, so recently I announced that on my fantasy football channel that I'm going to be quitting fantasy football entirely. Not even on the new channel. I'm not doing a fantasy football at all after this season, right? So I stopped doing it on this channel, beginning of the season. And back in March I announced it, man. I announced, hey, no more fantasy football on this channel. So unsubscribe. Unsubscribe from this channel. We're going to have podcasts. We're going to have documentaries. We're going to have player interviews. But we're not going to have fantasy football on this channel. Well, nobody was unsubscribing. That hurt the algorithm because I come out with a video. They get the notification. They don't click on the notification. And they're just like, YouTube's like, okay, well, your video's. Nobody's interested in it. So we're not going to promote it to new people. Well, I need to get rid of all these people that were like ghost followers. And so then I kind of like clickbaited people. It's a click in this video where it said like had the thumbnail, like week 13 starts at 6, fantasy football had the whole title and everything. And then started with a five second intro saying time now for your fantasy football must starts and must sits for week 13. People clicked on it. Time now for a fantasy football must starts and must sits for week 13. And then it was me popping up saying, hey, unsubscribe. Gotcha. Hey, I don't do fantasy football on this channel. Stop asking me about it. If you're subscribed just for fantasy football, unsubscribe.  See you. Unsubscribe. And then I played Rick Roll. I've announced it probably 30 times in different videos on post. I don't do it. So unsubscribe. I would love if people unsubscribed if they only care about fantasy football. If you get rid of the other stuff, hey, welcome in. Welcome in. I would love for you guys to continue to watch. If not, get out of here. Sorry, it was a big heel move, made a little bit of a heel turn on the channel. But whatever. Anyways, let's just move on with today's topic. First, Deshaun Watson returning and making a season debut with the Cleveland Browns this weekend. Hey, guys, Deshaun Watson is back. Ruthless aggression, WWE the best. Deshaun Watson is back, but is he better than ever? This is his first action in over a year. Well, maybe I shouldn't have word it like that. But this is the first time that he's playing football and well over a year. Meaningful football, because the only sample size that we have of him, thankfully, is from him on the Cleveland Browns, was back in preseason when he played against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He went one for five and only seven yards passing. So is it fair to assess Deshaun Watson based off that sample size? Like what are the expectations for him for the remainder of the six game stretch and him going into 2023? Well, you may look at the stats and say, ah, he looks rusty. He might be rusty this weekend against the Texans. Maybe he could be. I'm not doubting that. But if you look back at the preseason game, two of those incompletions were dropped by the ever so lovable Anthony Schwartz. Hey, Cleveland Browns fans are really, really absolutely 100% love Anthony Schwartz. Like I cannot think of a better person that the Browns could have drafted in the third round. But Anthony Schwartz or was it second? I don't know. Schwartz dropped a couple of passes and that's why he went one for five and only seven yards. So that's not a fair assessment for Deshaun Watson. The only sample that we have is him and his tenure with the Houston Texans, which he was absolutely amazing with. So the remaining schedule for the Browns as they sit at four and seven is they got the Texans this weekend, then the Bengals, the Ravens, the Saints, Washington and Pittsburgh. Pretty tough stretch. So you could realistically see them going three and three, four and two. Because let's say the Texans, let's just choose the favorites in all of these. They beat the Texans. They lose to the Bengals. They lose to the Ravens. They beat the Saints. Washington is like the only toss up. Like maybe they could beat Washington. Maybe not. Let's say that they lose to them and then they beat the Steelers. But if they beat Washington, then that's two losses for wins. They could go seven and 10, eight and nine. So pretty much more than likely they are done and they're probably not going to be making the postseason with the competition with like the seventh seed being the New York Jets sitting at seven and four. It's got to be hard to make a wildcard spot or earn a wildcard spot at this point. So you're just starting him just to see what he's got, what he's capable of, get him some action, get him some quality reps, get him some experience for the Cleveland Browns as they move forward into 2023. This weekend against the Houston, Texas, I do think it's going to be close. I don't think that it's going to be a blowout by any means. I don't think if you're thinking he's going to go in there and throw five touchdowns, more than likely it's probably not going to happen. I think the Browns escape it and they probably win by like three or four points or something like that. But he is going to look a bit rusty, but it's because it's his first action. Like if you look at week one of any given season, everybody that you expect to be good is just rusty in week one. Same deal. This is his week one of NFL playing time. But after this week, I do believe that he is going to go back to normal. You're going to see the Deshaun Watson of the past. Like he's still young. He's still talented.  He hasn't suffered many hits. He's healthy. You're going to see the Deshaun Watson of the past and Cleveland Browns fans. You should be excited. But I want to hear from you guys. Like what are your expectations of Deshaun Watson of the Browns in the six-game stretch? Do you think that they can make that miracle turnaround and they win six games in a row, go 10-7, make the playoffs? I don't think anyone's really believing that. But going into 2023, like do you think Watson is like, oh my gosh. Like if we can see the Deshaun Watson just a glimpse of it in the past in 2023, like that'll be huge for free agency. Like everybody wants a sign with us. Like leave your comments down below. I would love to interact with you and hear your opinion on Deshaun Watson. Moving on to our next topic, let's talk about another quarterback that has been named the starter that is Mike White, replacing Zach Wilson as the starting quarterback of the New York Jets. But who is Mike White? We saw a little bit of a sample size last season. Started three games. But we're not too familiar with who Mike White is. Let me go ahead and tell you guys about his past. He didn't become a starting quarterback in football until his senior year of high school, where he threw for 22 touchdowns to just two interceptions. That was good enough for him to get an offer and commit to the University of South Florida. But his freshman season kind of struggled just a bit. Three passing touchdowns to nine interceptions. Decided to transfer after a sophomore year to Western Kentucky, where he excelled, throwing for 8,500 yards, 63 touchdowns to only 15 interceptions. He was good enough to be projected as a third or fourth round pick in the 2018 NFL draft. However, he was invited to the NFL Combine and he struggled. And that hurt his draft stock. He fell all the way to the fifth round to the Dallas Cowboys. After a couple years with them in 2019 preseason, he was fighting for a backup quarterback job behind Dak Prescott. The Cowboys decided to keep two quarterbacks and they cut Mike White. Just a month later in 2019, the Jets decided to sign him. And after the craziness of releasing, waving him, signing to the practice squad, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, he eventually landed on the 53-man roster for the Jets in 2021. And once Zach Wilson got hurt, he came in and was named the starter for three games. He surprised everyone, including a tied, come-from-behind victory against the Cincinnati Bengals, the same Bengals who made the Super Bowl as an AFC representative that same year. But this season, Zach Wilson showed us on-the-field struggles, questionable post-game comments. Robert Sala, under a lot of fire from the media, decided to name Mike White's their starting quarterback. And against the Bears, he lit it up. Over 70% of his passes completed, over 300 yards passing, three touchdowns and zero interceptions. Mike White has now been named the starter against the Minnesota Vikings. And if he continues to do well, we presume that he'll be the starting quarterback for the remainder of the season. Will he lead the Jets to a post-season appearance? But not only a post-season appearance, but something that the Jets haven't seen in a very long time, a post-season victory. Mark Sanchez, over a decade ago, was the last quarterback to lead the Jets to a post-season victory. Can it happen with Mike White under center? Currently, they are the seventh seed sitting at seven and four. The schedule coming up is Minnesota, Buffalo, Detroit, Jacksonville, Seattle, and Miami. It's a tough six-game stretch. Realistically, they need to win three more games to guarantee themselves a playoff spot in a tough AFC wildcard race. I'm a big fan of Mike White because he utilizes his offensive stars the way that they should be utilized. Zach Wilson and Tyler Conklin didn't have the connection like Joe Flaccoon Conklin did, but White, with his first game back with Conklin against Chicago, had him involved in the offense. Elijah Moore is the perfect example of someone who's unhappy, wanted a trade, didn't like playing with Zach Wilson. They kind of hatched it out, talked it out. Now he's staying in New York and he was very well utilized in that game against the Chicago Bears. They use their star players the way that they need to be used. He unlocks the potential in its receivers in a very great way. I want to hear your thoughts. What do you think of Mike White? Do you think that he should be named the starter moving forward? Do you think that Zach Wilson is going to be the jet starter anytime soon? Maybe even next year in 2023? Or do you think that his days in New York are over maybe in his career? Like, is it going to be a starter somewhere else, kind of bounce around from team to team, not really have a permanent home? Leave your comments down below. I would love to interact with everyone. I'm going to talk about three teams that could go on a miracle post-season run. We've all seen it before. 2007 New York Giants, 2010 Green Bay Packers, 2011 New York Giants, 2012 Baltimore Ravens. These teams get hot at the right time and use that momentum to help them advance through the wild card, through the division round, conference championship, and eventually a Super Bowl title. Which teams could do the same in 2022? First, let's talk about team number one, the Los Angeles Chargers. Hold on. They're 6 and 5. And if the playoffs started today, they would be out of it. Why do you have the Chargers on this list? What would it be 6 and 5 and go through the amount of injuries that they've gone through? Justin Herbert, Fractured Ribs, without Kenan Allen, without Mike Williams, their defense suffering some injuries as well. Sitting at 6 and 5, it could be a lot worse. And the reason why I have them as a miracle team now is because once I saw that two-point conversion against the Arizona Cardinals to win the game, I thought, okay, Brandon Staley really actually does not care what everybody else thinks. He's going to do what he feels like. It's a right move. Staley is known for dumb moves. Okay, let's just call it what it is. Going for it on fourth down in his own territory in the third quarter, when the game is on the line as well, he's known and criticized often for these boneheaded decisions. But that two-point conversion, at first, you could have been like, okay, why don't you just tie the game, go into overtime and play it safe.   And if he's willing to take risks like that, believes in his team, let's just go for it. Let's win this game. I know that we can win this game. It tells me that a miracle could be happening for the Los Angeles Chargers. Who knows? The remaining schedule for the Chargers, the Raiders, the Dolphins, the Titans, the Colts, the Rams, and the Broncos. They were favored to win in four out of those six games. Go four and two in the six-game stretch. You end up being 10 and seven.  At that point, you know, it just depends on the matchup who they face. But more than likely, you could see the Chargers pushing for a postseason appearance come week 18. So the Chargers, don't count them out. The second team that could be making a miracle postseason run. I mean, we're just talking about Mike White, the New York Jets. Their schedule coming up, like we mentioned, the Vikings, the Bills, Lions, Jacksonville, Seattle, Miami. They could go three and three. It's going to be tough. Maybe two and four. So they could fall to nine and eight. Maybe 10 and seven. But I believe in the miracle just because of the season that they're having so far. Nobody really believed in the Jets in the beginning. People thought that they'd be competing for a top five draft pick. But not only are they in contention in this current seventh seed in the AFC playoff race, but a switch at quarterback, a better switch at quarterback that ended up being a good move for them could catapult them. I mean, you see miracles all the time with quarterbacks leading their teams to Super Bowl appearances. Kurt Warner, Tom Brady, maybe Mike White could be that guy for New York who hasn't seen a Super Bowl appearance since 1969. The New York Jets, do you guys believe that they could pull off that miracle run? That is team number two on this list. And the last team, we got to give them credit. The Washington Commanders. The things that they're doing with Taylor Heinecke as opposed to Carson Wentz is amazing. And it's kind of baffling because you look at Carson Wentz and say, okay, they got more yards. They got more touchdowns. They were scoring. Like, why is it that Taylor Heinecke all of a sudden is a difference maker? I couldn't tell you, man. They just win games. That's just how it is. Heinecke has been this kind of guy that he'll grit through it, won't put up the best amount of numbers, best stats, maybe only 200 yards passing, one touchdown, one interception, but he gets it done. He knows what he's doing and all he cares about is just winning games. And if you blinked, you would have missed it, but they currently sit at 7 and 5. They sit at 7 and 5, and they are currently the 7th seed in the NFC wildcard race. Their schedule remaining for the season, the New York Giants by week, New York Giants, San Francisco, Cleveland, and Dallas. That's a pretty tough schedule coming up, but they have the benefit of playing the Giants and back-to-back weeks with a by week mixed in there. So you play the Giants this weekend, see what they're capable of, then you take all that information into the by week and you spend an entire week dissecting that and then beating them in the second game. I say beating them because more than likely they would be the favorite if you have two weeks to prepare, but they could split or they could sweep the New York Giants. I don't see them going 0-2 against the Giants. San Francisco is going to be tough, Cleveland with Deshaun Watson, maybe Dallas is going to be tough, we know that, but they could finish 9-8, 8-9. There's going to be a tough hill to climb, but Heineke, his entire career has had a tough hill to climb, jumping around from team to team, and finally Ron Rivera seeing something that he likes bringing him from Carolina to Washington and is now the starting quarterback for the remainder of the season, hoping to lock in the Commanders a post-season berth. So those are my three teams, the Chargers, the Jets, and the Commanders. Leave your comments down below. I want to hear your potential Miracle Super Bowl post-season runs and do you believe in these three teams as well? And to wrap up the show, let's go ahead and talk about week 13 picks. Before Thursday night football between the Bills and the Patriots, we want to go through each game, give you our picks, and let you guys know who we think is going to win each game. So between the Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots, this game has taken place in New England. The Bills are 5-point favorites, and Bills minus 5 would be the spread that I would take. I believe that the Bills are going to win this game. The Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons at home are actually minus 1.5-point favorites. I think the Steelers are going to pull this off. Their defense is much better with T.J. Watt and Mika Fitzpatrick. Arthur Smith just announced that Kyle Pitts is going to be out for the remainder of the season. Not that Kyle Pitts was even in for the season, it felt like. So the Steelers plus 1.5 would be the spread that I would take here. The Denver Broncos versus the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens are 8-point favorites. It's going to continue to look bad. The Ravens defense has actually gotten much better. I will give them credit against the Denver Broncos offense. Every week, it's like, this is the week, this is the week, this is the week that the Broncos are going to get together. No, just for the whole season, they're not going to get together. We got the Ravens minus 8 as the pick. Agreement Packers versus the Chicago Bears. The Packers are 2-point favorites. And I think they could actually do some damage here. And I think the Packers are going to win. Packers minus 2 would be the pick here on the spread. I don't know if Justin Fields is returning this week. I believe he is. He's going to be limited throughout the duration of this week. He was limited last week. Ended up being a game-time decision until Saturday. They activated another quarterback off the practice squad. It was Nathan Peterman that they activated. So I believe that he is going to be playing. But even if he plays Packers, they're often starting to get better Packers minus 2. Jacksonville Jaggers versus Detroit Lions. Lions minus 1 is the Lions are the favorites. And Lions minus 1 is the spread that we would take here. I think it's going to be close. Don't be fooled if it's a revenge game for DJ Chark and he ends up having a big day. The Cleveland Browns versus the Houston Texans. The Browns are 7-point favorites. And I think that's a little bit too much. Like we said when we were talking about Sean Watson, we believe that Watson is going to be a little bit rusty, might struggle just a bit. So we're going to go with Texans plus 7 as a pick for the spread. But I feel like the Browns are ultimately going to pull it off at the end. The New York Jets versus the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings are 3-point favorites. And we're going to roll with that. Vikings minus 3 as a pick on the spread. Maybe Soss Gardner locks up Justin Jefferson. But Jefferson is unguardable. We got the Vikings to win. Commanders versus New York Jets. The Commanders are minus 1.5-point favorites. Man, how much of a benefit is it for the Commanders to face the Giants, have a bye week, and then face the Giants again? I believe that the Commanders could sweep the Giants in the next three weeks. So I'm taking Commanders minus 1.5. Tennessee Titans versus Philadelphia Eagles is one of the games of the week. Minus 5.5 is the spread here for the Eagles. I got Titans plus 5.5. I think the Eagles are ultimately going to pull it off at the end. But Mike Vrable, one of the head coaches of the year candidates, he does a very good job adapting to his opponent. So Titans plus 5.5, I think this game is going to be very, very close. Seattle Seahawks versus Los Angeles Rams. The Seahawks are 5-point favorites. And I'm going to say that the Seahawks are going to beat the Rams minus 5.5. I think John Wolford might be starting in this game if I'm not mistaken. It might be Bryce Perkins, but it's the Rams season is over. Aaron Donald is actually out for this game. So that should go ahead and tell you. Miami Dolphins versus San Francisco 49ers. The other game of the week, the 49ers are 3.5-point favorites. I'm going with the Dolphins plus 3.5. I feel like this game is going to be pretty close. I don't know honestly who's going to win, but if you guys are picking spreads and things like that, Dolphins plus 3.5 would be a pretty safe bet with them being 8-3 at this point. The Kansas City Chiefs versus the Cincinnati Bengals. The Chiefs are 2.5-point favorites. I know that the Bengals have the Chiefs number back to last season. I'm still going to pick the Chiefs though. Chiefs minus 2.5. I think, you know, three times in a row, I don't think it happens. I think the Chiefs pull this one off. The Los Angeles Chargers versus the Las Vegas Raiders. Chargers minus 2 is the pick here that I have. I like Josh Jacobs. I think he's got to have a very good game again. They're killing him. They are killing Josh Jacobs because they know that they're not going to resign him. He's like, let's just go ahead and just see what he's got. But Chargers minus 2 is ultimately the pick that I have. Saturday Night Football, it happens close to the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys are 9.5-point favorites. That's a little bit too much. I think the Cowboys are going to win, but 9.5. I'm going to lead towards the Colts making this a close game. I mean, with Jeff Saturday, they've made every game so far a close one against the Raiders, against the Eagles. And then last week, who did they face last week on Monday Night Football? The Steelers. It was a pretty close one. So I think that this is going to be close as well. I got the Colts plus 9.5. And then Monday Night Football, the New Orleans Saints versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Bucks are 4-point favorites, and they're probably going to beat them more by 4. I don't know why it's only 4. Maybe it's because both of them have losing records. Like, oh, the Buccaneers are only one game ahead of the Saints. Yeah, but have you seen the Saints play? Yeah, I'm going to go with the Bucks in this one. But that's going to do it for this episode of Time 2 Football. So I appreciate you guys watching. And remember, make sure you guys give me a follow on Twitter as well at It's A Son Con. And subscribe to this channel. If you guys aren't already subscribed, you can stay up to date with these podcasts come out. I love interacting with the guys. And thank you guys so much for watching this as a Thursday Night Football pre-game show between the Bills and the Patriots. With all that said, thank you guys so much for watching this episode. And I'll see you next week. Enjoy the game.


Jimaima Makis, a 17-year-old student of Angus Memorial Secondary School in Somolulagos East, on Monday acted for a brief moment as one-day governor of Lagos State. This follows her emergence as winner of the 2020 edition of the Spelling Bee competition. Plus, if you're African State House correspondent, Love Ikuku Oyedokun, tell us more. Jimaima, an indigenous of her state, won the 2020 edition of the Spelling Bee competition. As such, she earned the honor to become the one-day governor of Lagos State. The weekly executive council meeting of the state's cabinet was resided over by her. Governor Somolul observed the proceedings. The one-day governor described Somolul as a transformational leader. She said the governor had recorded giant strides in education, health, housing, infrastructure, renewal, transportation, youth and women development in the last two years of the administration. She hoped underneath to commit more investment to digital literacy across public schools in the state. She urged Somolul to ensure that the metropolitan fiber being laid across Lagos drops in public schools as promised. The one-day governorship program, according to Governor Somolul, is one of the ways employed by the state to raise future leaders. The governor took note of Jimaima's request for more investment in education. The Spelling Bee competition is a context between public schools across Lagos. It is one of the legacy programs in the state's education sector. It was pioneered in 2021 by Senator Ulure Mutinubu through her new era foundation from Lagos, Lafikuku Uiedokun, Poplast TV, Africa.


Could you explain to us the article under which Mr. Guaido declared himself president? It is said that it has expired last month. Could you explain that to us? As to the Venezuelan constitution, the National Assembly has passed a resolution that states that that 30-day period of interim presidency will not start ending or counting until the day Nicholas Maduro leaves power. So the 30 days doesn't start now. It starts after Maduro. And that's a resolution of the National Assembly. What did they do after? They did that roughly a month ago. We could try to find the date for you. When he took the mantle of president, that wasn't there. That's correct. Can you do that post-vecto? When people ask a question, how do you... You know, I was elected for four years to be president, and then two years in, you changed the rule that your term didn't start. It hasn't even started yet. Well, you don't get a vote because you're not in the National Assembly. But we... Does the U.S. view that as constitutional under their system? Yes. I mean, we're taking the... The National Assembly is the only legitimate democratic institution left in Venezuela. And their interpretation of the Constitution, as you know, is that as of the date of this alleged term for Maduro, the presidency is vacant. But they have also said that that 30-day period starts when Maduro goes. So why is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet? The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting because he's not in power. That's the problem. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that from when he actually is in power and Maduro is gone. I think it's logical. He isn't interim president. He is interim president, but he's not able to exercise the powers of the office because Maduro still is there.


Welcome back to the Book Review, and today I'm going to take a look at a fantastic art book. It is Flynn Son of Crimson, the official art book. Always love a good pixel art game, and this book shows off the art in a fantastic way. It's a pretty hefty book. You can see this here. That's how thick it is. You got the spine, front and back. Let's check it out right away. Why waste time? There you go. You got the contents here from Concept Art, all the way down to credits. Six pages as it says. Let's start off with Concept Art, already with strong Zelda Link vibes. This goes between pixel art or actually showing line art. It's really great. Big fan of this. There I say I have not finished the game. When it comes to finishing things for games and books, it takes me quite some time. I am definitely more invested in movies and TV shows as that is my bread and butter, but I do love a good game. I'm still playing Spider-Man on the PS4 with my little one as he swings through the city and I do the battles. It takes us forever. What anyway? You got here all the characters, cool designs. Love the different variations. I love just these pages with art and cool character designs. The thing that I like about this game, there are many things that I like, but character art, the pixel art, the animation is great. Super cool too. Look at that. Love seeing all of this. Cool characters. And as always, for me like stuff like that, the cool poses, I love how those arms go down with the dragging fingers. You're just always great for inspiration, like how could you do with the pose when you do a new animation piece anywhere? So cool. But a little of how it really looks at all the characters. Different poses, different patterns, different color variations. Super cool. You got your friends as it says here, I'm just reading what you have here. So cool though. Look at that. Love it. So cool. When they announced that they're going to do an art of books, I like it. I'm frequently looking at little pixel art tweets that they have showing off the work. It's great. You've got your environments here, the hollow. Of course, this goes into spoiler territory with anything. But there I say, since I am less invested in games in terms of time, I don't spend as much time playing games as I watch movies. My spoiler meter isn't as sensitive, I would say. That's cool. Love seeing this, of course. Cool things from the early beginnings. Stuff like that. Anybody who watches my art of book, page-throughs knows that I love stuff like this. Anything that's kind of a rough sketch and early exploration. Anything that is not just the finished work of art. So cool. Stuff like this I love as well. Kind of design elements, side views. You've got your title treatments here. Posters. So great. But yeah, just anything where you can see the progress and the progression of a piece of art. And that could be just for a single piece of art, for a poster, for a game design, for anything, on animatics, storyboards, all that stuff. Of course, as you can imagine, this is my favorite. And if you look at this here, come on, checks all the boxes. Super cute. Great colors. What you could do is in motion, but then you have this, gives you an idea of the motion and the complexity of it. So yeah. So the moment I saw that, I was like, okay, I need to have that. And also, again, it's going back here, the use of color in the game is great. And just if you go through these pages and you switch to this, you might argue, well, these are just busy colors. I know, I know they're busy colors, but come on, to me, beyond basic. I love it. Cool marriage of color and design, proportions, everything. So cool. Come on, look at these. It's cool seeing from the artwork from before and now seeing that in pixelated version. So great. Maybe it's because I'm old. I just love pixels. So cool. So cool. Come on. How is this not super cool?  That's how old I am. So for me, it was always, always cool seeing, like super early on, I played Atari in television, stuff like that. Phillips, you have the cartridge putting in with the keyboard on the main console. It's great. Love the Intellivision as well. So cute. Love these. And then getting into 8-bit, 16-bit, all that stuff. It's just always great to kind of interpret what you see in those pixels. And back in the day, it's super nicely detailed. It was more through a CRT TV, so it wasn't as clean in terms of the pixel art. It was almost kind of, you know, with that filter over it. Anybody who's young has no idea what I'm talking about, but it just kind of smoothed it all out. It was still just not as pixel clean as it is now. But as I have continued to play games on and off, my fascination with pixel art has never stopped. Maybe it's because my prime time was to look at art's point and click, that type of animation, the backgrounds, come on and conquer that type of stuff, commandos. Come on. It's so great. These are awesome. I love it. So cool. Come on. It's all like that. I see this. I want to play this. It just makes me happy. I don't know. For some people, it's the nostalgic factor of PS1 blurry textures and low poly stuff, which I can see the appeal. And for others, it is photo reel, high fidelity, HDB masters, everything, you know, 4K, 8K, 60 frames a second, all that stuff. And to me, it's just this.  So cool. So cool. I love that we have full two page spreads. It's so neat. I mean, even if you don't play the game, it's a great art hook. All that. Hopefully it's not too dark for the recording. Yeah, yeah. It was super. It goes to goblins, depending on the title. Vibes there. Of course, some Castlevania vibes every now and then. You can't shake off the origins of some of these Metroidvania games. Metroid itself is great. Come on. So cool. Love seeing this. So cool. I love it. Of course, you would think that by now I would have attempted to at least do some pixel or animation or something, or at least my own game. I don't know. That's a lot more involved than just pixel or animation. And maybe one day, one day, when I have time, I definitely want to do something not as complex as this. Definitely more low-poly pixel art and kind of try something out. I do love it so much. I need to animate at one point something. Now, I did have two ideas for a game, actually. And who does not have ideas for a game? Never got to it. And actually, I really wanted to make a game.  And that was 10 years ago, when my little one was born. I was holding as a baby, get some downtime, think about certain things, and never got to it. Actually, one idea was extremely close to the Untitled Goose game. Kind of a midship thing where you move your character around grabbing items to get somewhere. But the act of grabbing that would be to annoy or in one effect would annoy someone around it. Something like that. I still like the idea, though. I don't think it's different enough that I could start. But I do like my other idea. And one day, I will go through another art of book and tell you that idea that someone else did. And that someone else should. Because I never get to it. Alright, look at that. Almost there. Cute. Love this. Credits. The artists. And Flynn story will continue. I hope so. That is the end. There you go. Awesome book for an awesome game. If you have played the game and you finished it, let me know in the comments. If you know of the game, let me know in the comments. I'm very curious. Maybe I'm alone in my pixel art love here. Maybe animation circles, maybe pixel art. It's too old. I don't know. I'm very curious. Anybody who watches my channel who plays games maybe and also knows that game. I'm very curious what your thoughts are. But that is that for the flip through. As I always say, many more books to come. I was kind of busy with the job search just a couple of weeks ago. Got a new job settling in. So I got more time to dedicate to the channel again. And that's that. As always, thank you for watching. Thank you for watching till the very end. I appreciate your time. And if you like this, maybe you want to subscribe so you don't miss any of those uploads. You got reviews. You got a bunch of stuff to go through the channel. Which at the end, which I should do at the beginning, but why not? Check it out. If you like it, subscribe. Maybe not. Maybe dial in a couple of weeks later. Maybe there's something else that you would like. And hopefully I'll see you later. And that's it from me. Thank you for watching.


Knuckle curve to get him so Delan ends up striking out the side picks up save number three This is what he's done in 43 games since May 12th An opponent average of just 120 in an era of one two seven Let's her from Delan with the media and Meredith Tell what allowed you to bear down and get through the rest that ninth base is loading just one out You know you got to make pitches obviously, you know, I know I Have the chance that you know got a big strike I was fan and then you know from there I got two outs one out of way and you know same same thing just try to make pitches and You know, obviously they they're tough tough lineup and you know, you got to be careful with some of their guys So that's what I was trying to do. Romain said he never felt like that and ain't got out of hand How did you remain calm and remain relaxed to make pitches in that situation? Well, I kind of put myself in and in a spot where you know with the first guy I made a mistake with two strikes and You know, obviously now I got a runner on and you know, I gotta be careful with cano and You know Cruz I was trying to expand with cano got him in the back foot and with Cruz He just put a tough at bat, you know, obviously he has a lot of homerun So he don't want him to be you there and then you know once I got bases loaded I just try to bear down and you know make pitches I know I was a couple pitches from getting out of that and the fun thing is kind of new to this season Why why do you think that's happening? I know that your fingers kind of ripping against your you change your grip I haven't changed my grip. Honestly. I don't know. It's weird, you know I've just been an ongoing thing this season and you know, it's annoying The index I mean the ring fingers are Anything you can do to try to I'm trying to do the best we can it's just so raw right now that anytime I just tap it and it starts bleeding So, you know, that's that's the problem, you know, I mean, uh, you know We're gonna try to continue to you get it. We get it better and but it's just Tender right now, I guess Have you been able to heal it at all this season or has it just been consistent? Yeah, I was good for about three weeks and then I got myself pretty good I think it was probably three or four games ago And now it's really I've been getting myself every game. So it's just a matter of hopefully You know Land that here, but I don't know what I you know, I've been trying to do a lot of stuff But it's just one of those annoying things Does it start in the bullpen or just in the games themselves? It's in the games, you know, it's been in the games in the bullpen. I haven't really You know, I don't know. I don't know if it's the intensity and while I'm pitching maybe You know, I'm ripping through some of those pitches and I got big fingers, I guess, uh You know, but I just gotta Do the best I can and you know, hopefully it heals faster than Than what it's been doing recently Letting it go It just bothers me when there's a lot of blood and and the grip Becomes uncomfortable to be honest with you, but You know, that's where it doesn't bother me holding the ball.