u/Subtleiaint

Are Arsenal going to play seriously, are Palace going to rest players ahead of the Europa Conference final? Is it a good idea to target teams on the beach or do they play better when the pressure's off, will West Ham play like demons and, almost most importantly, what the hell is Pep going to do in his last match?!?

This is going to be such an unpredictable weekend, I want to focus on safe bets but I feel there are none. Has anyone got and words of wisdom for maximising points this week?

Those of you who call Football 'Soccer' may not know what VAR is, it stands for Video Assistant Referee and is a video review system for Football introduced in 2018, it is also very controversial.

The facts are that VAR has improved referee decision making since it's introduction with refereeing errors dropping to less than a quarter of what they were before its introduction. What makes it controversial is that the reviews take a long time, that goals aren't celebrated until after a VAR check is complete (robbing some of the joy from the game) and, even with VAR, referees still make decisions that fans disagree with (football is chaotic and the line between what is a foul or a handball and what isn't is blurry). Despite this controversy my view is that Football is better VAR, my main argument for this is that fans forget just how bad things were before.

Before VAR 18% (almost 1 in 5) of key decisions made by referees were wrong. Matches were regularly decided by refereeing errors and no amount of 'these things even out over a season' satisfied fans. Post match interviews and fan phone ins were dominated by complaints about the standard of refereeing and the sense of injustice that permeated football was toxic.

In 1993 a documentary team was following England manager Graham Taylor, England were playing the Netherlands in a key qualifier for the 94 world cup and England lost, Taylor was recorded saying to the linesman "The referee's got me the sack. Tell your mate he's just cost me my job." This sort of sentiment was not uncommon.

VAR hasn't ended this toxicity, there are still contentious decisions and much of the discourse has moved from blaming referees to blaming VAR but things are much better than they were. Offside goals are extinct, cynical fouls get punished and diving almost never works anymore. There are valid complaints about the utilisation of VAR but these are process issues that can be fixed rather than a fundamental problem with the system.

Fans have short memories, they're angry with the problems they face now rather than remembering how bad things were in the past. Football would be worse off if we got rid of VAR.

We have a 10 week Labrador puppy that's been with us for two weeks now. Whilst she sleeps through the night (from around 2130/2200) she wakes up when it gets light and starts to howl loudly and franticly (any time from 0430). At first we would get up and be with her in the kitchen but my wife and I are exhausted so we've recently tried a new tactic.

When she wakes up we do go downstairs to let her out (we don't play with her) we put her back in her crate afterwards and go back to bed with the aim of ignoring her howling until a more appropriate time (hopefully 0630 but at least 0600). We then have to lie there listening to her cry worrying that she'll wake up the kids. We've only tried that for two mornings so far but it's pretty stressful. This morning she would occasionally calm down but maybe for a minute before the howling starts again.

We do have something over her crate while she sleeps but it's not a black out curtain. She eats around 1800 and gets a treat when she goes into her crate last thing.

What we're looking for is advice on whether we're doing the right thing, whether we just have to stick it out or whether there's a better strategy we can use. Our aim is to get to the point where our first interaction with her is at 0630 when we get up.

This question (or ones very similar) have been asked before in the FAQ but the answers were from 14 years ago when the standards of the sub were a little lower and anecdotes were allowed. Therefore I'd like to see if I can get an updated answer.

I've seen claims that the standard of living in the USSR exceeded America in some ways; that education was better, that healthcare was universal, that there was less crime and poverty. Could you please explain what the reality of being a Russian citizen in last communist Russia was actually like.

Unless you're speaking to someone who hasn't seen the Blue/Red problem then it's become a worthless proposition.

Over the last few days this problem has been dissected ad infinitum. Essentially we are collaborating on our answers and that breaks the problem. With collaboration this problem is simple, it's trivial to get enough people to agree to vote blue, it's so trivial that it's not a problem anymore (and that's before you accept nobody's answering honestly because there's no actual threat of death).

The only way the problem works is if you don't have a good idea of what other people think and then you have to make a genuine judgement regarding what others may do and what your own risk threshold is.

This post refers to pre pandemic norms (PPN), this is a baseline I use to evaluate box office performance. it is calculated as the average box office takings from 2017-19 for any given month. It allows me to compare different months (which traditionally see different levels of business) directly.

Mar Report

Apr total Box Office - $841m (87.8% of PPN)

Mar In Month releases - $651m (62.3% of PPN and counting)

We're out of Q1 and now into the meat of the year where expectations grow. Whilst 60% of PPN is par for Q1 we're hoping for 85% of PPN from April forwards. In that context Apr did fine hitting 87.8%. This was thanks to two big hits, Super Mario Galaxy and Michael, and the excellent legs of Project Hail Mary. Super Mario Galaxy performed broadly in line with expectations, its had a significant drop off from its predecessor but that's normal for sequels, especially when the sequel receives noticeably worse reviews. Michael on the other hand has done really well in spite of its poor reviews with the general audience seemingly preferring a juke box film over the gritty biography critics would have preferred. Expectations were all over the place for Michael with some predicting a billion dollar hit and others a flop, the reality is that it will become the most successful musical biopic in the NABO history although beating Bohemian Rhapsody's global cume is not guaranteed. Project Hail Mary continues smashing expectations and will soon leg out to a x4 multiplier over it's opening weekend, it's done so well it's the second biggest film in Apr beating Michael!

In less good news we have Apr's support acts, whilst the Drama has outperformed expectations Lee Cronin's the Mummy and You, Me and Tuscany both fell well short of theirs meaning, combined, they fell about $40m behind what was hoped for. For the NABO to perform to it's full potential it really needs these smaller films to find an audience and it's part of the reason that Apr 26 fell short of Aprils 23 and 25.

Looking at Mar's in month releases that month should end up around 64-65% of PPN when PHM is finally done (it's just made $8.5m in it's 7th weekend) which puts March above average for a post pandemic Q1 month. Given the over performance of PHM and Hoppers that might be surprising but remember that Mar 23 and 24 saw 4 or 5 blockbusters released in each month whilst 2026 had just 2, it's further evidence that Hollywood has little faith in Q1 releases but, hopefully, the success of PHM and Hoppers will test that theory.

Looking ahead to May I'm feeling cautiously optimistic of breaking 90% PPN. The big releases are The Devil wears Prada 2, Mortal Kombat 2 and the Mandalorian and Grogu. Prada 2 looks like it won't hit the heights some were predicting a couple of weeks ago but it, Fatalities, Baby Yoda and Michael's legs should do enough to make cinema owners happy. The Billie Eilish Tour film, The Sheep Detectives and Obsession are the support acts looking to fill out the schedule. After that we're into June and July with major releases almost every weekend which is where 2026 is expected to shine.