Morning Perk: Pre-Recorded, Points, Pius XIII and More

Friday morning. It’s been a long week but you are almost there. Just a few more calls, one more meeting and then the weekend and freedom awaits. We know you need a little extra boost to get you through the final day of the work week and luckily, Poker Central and Death Wish Coffee have you covered. The world’s strongest coffee gives you a “Morning Perk,” bringing you the best of the internet from the past week.

“Life moves at you pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

The internet wasn’t around when Ferris Bueller gave everyone the perfect high school yearbook quote but his words are just as powerful today as they were in the late 80’s. The internet, more often than not, moves faster than life itself and while we’re sure we missed some of it, these were our favorites from the past week.

Is anything real anymore? Fake news and alternative facts are expected to come from the media and politicians but not Lady Gaga! After what might have been the greatest combination of Super Bowl halftime performance and game of all-time, Tom Brady’s jersey goes missing and Gaga’s epic opening turns out to have been pre-recorded. Now, just because it was pre-recorded doesn’t mean it was fake and the use of 300 multi-colored Shooting Star Intel drones is still the coolest thing we saw on Sunday, aside from this Julian Edelman catch.

hey shaq ???? pic.twitter.com/YCrSufiyk7

— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) February 5, 2017

We knew Shaquille O’Neal was tall. We knew Simone Biles was short. We just didn’t know he was that tall and she was that short. The four-time NBA Finals champion is 7’1” and the four-time Olympic Gold Medalist is 4’9” and their height difference showed in this Biles tweet from before Super Bowl LI.

The most points Shaq ever scored in an NBA game was 61, when the Los Angeles Lakers beat the New York Knicks in 2009. This past week, high schooler LaMelo Ball put Shaq’s career high to shame, dropping 92 points in a lopsided Chino Hills victory over Los Osos. The sophomore has already committed to UCLA, where his older brother Lonzo, the family has really cool first names, is already turning himself into a NBA Lottery pick. Some talking heads have debated whether a 92 point scoring effort is necessary in LaMelo’s development. Whether he develops into a talent at the next level isn’t important, whether any high schooler in California can guard him for the rest of the season is though.

Video games and sports have been intertwined for years but this week, the National Basketball Association announced plans to partner with Take-Two Interactive for an official NBA 2K e-sports league. Other professional sporting leagues have attempted this, to an extent, but the NBA seems to be fully committed to their new league that will start in 2018. The five-month long season will operate just like the NBA, with a regular season, playoffs and a finals match-up. Teams of five players, each with their own custom NBA 2K characters will compete. My dreams of playing in the (e)NBA aren’t dead yet…

It’s no secret that I have been very bullish on HBO’s new limited series The Young Pope for weeks now. The main reason, aside from Pope Pius XIII, played expertly by Jude Law, is the musical score that accompanies Pius from scene to scene. The opening credits drag out to British rapper Devlin’s “Watchtower” but the best music pops up in nearly every episode, just at the right time. “Levo” by Recondite is a simple beat but Pius and The New Pope use it perfectly. The Ringers’ Michael Baumann said The Young Pope has the best music cue since The Right Stuff, I’ve never seen that 1983 film but I did see The Social Network and Pius beats that.  

The “Morning Perk” is sponsored by Death Wish Coffee, the world’s strongest coffee. Get yours today and follow Death Wish Coffee on Twitter.