December 27, 2021

Business Insider put out a piece on Christmas that seemed to call for the cancellation of "Elf." It dubbed the Will Ferrell movie "offensive" for its depiction of Buddy. We figured the piece was written by Miles Finch or a South Pole elf, but a better guess might be.... an attention-jealous Kevin McCallister.

Last week, we asked you to send in your favorite picture you took in 2021. You all did that, and the results were amazing. We'll feature 2 per day this week.

― Key Stories

Don't Game and Drive

• Tesla is ending a feature that allows people to use vehicle touch screens to play arcade games while the car is in motion
• Tesla launched the "Passenger Play" function last December. It said it is developing an update that will allow the feature only while the car is parked
• The screen warns that "playing while the car is in motion is only for passengers," however drivers can easily ignore the warning 
• Earlier this month, the US government began questioning the company over the feature

Ukraine Prepares Resistance

• The Ukrainian military is training civilians to form a volunteer resistance against a Russian occupation
• Up to 100,000 Russian troops are positioned near Ukraine, sparking fears of a pending invasion. Ukrainian generals say Ukraine won't be able to stop the Russian military outright
• In the event of an invasion, though, the Ukrainians are planning an extended military resistance
• This fall, a Ukrainian pollster found that 24% of Ukrainians – and 39% of Ukrainian men – would resist "weapon in hand" if Russia invades

Spidey The Billionaire

Overview

• Spider-Man: No Way Home became the first movie since December 2019 to earn $1B+ globally
• No Way Home hit the $1B mark in just 12 days, tying Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the 3rd-fastest film to do so
• The last movie to earn $1B was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, in 2019. Only 48 movies have earned that much
• Before this, a Chinese film, The Battle at Lake Changjin, was the highest-earning film of the pandemic, with a $902M haul. The highest-grossing Hollywood film of the pandemic was James Bond's No Time to Die ($774M)

Flight Cancellations Go Crazy

• Globally, airlines canceled 6,000+ flights over Christmas weekend as omicron pushed millions of people into quarantine 
• In the US, Christmas Eve – one of the year's biggest travel days – was the worst day of the weekend for cancellations. Airlines canceled up to 10% of total flights
• The hundreds of thousands of workers who entered quarantines last week exacerbated the existing labor shortage, which has forced airlines to cancel thousands of flights since summer
• To fight the shortages, airlines want quarantine periods reduced from 10 days to 5 for the fully vaccinated 

See yesterday's answers below the Wrap!

 Popcorn

Culture & Sports 

• Cable news had a rocky 2021, seeing notable departures (Chris Cuomo, Brian Williams, etc.) and a drop in viewership. Tucker Carlson ended #1
• Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, unlike Spider-Man, has proven a box office stinker, grossing just $36.6M despite a $100M production budget
• Desmond Tutu, Anglican archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner, died at 90. Tutu (nicknamed "the Arch") helped lead the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa

• 'Tis the season to be spending! US retail sales soared 8.5% from last year between November 1 and Christmas Eve
• Ireland was GoFundMe's most generous country per capita this year, beating out the US, Canada, UK, and Australia
• Former SpaceX engineers have created a robot pizza restaurant that can crank out a pie every 45 sec. Stellar Pizza will launch next spring

• Secret Earth tunnels? Scientists just discovered an underground passageway running beneath Panama to below the Galapagos Islands
• Rapper J. Cole claims he told Dr. Dre to sign Kendrick Lamar back in the day, saying, "Yo, you gotta sign this kid from Compton"
• Holy gaffe: A British news anchor accidentally pronounced that the Pope was dead on Christmas Day but quickly corrected herself
• The end of $1 slices? NYC pizza shops are wrestling with upping the price of their famous 99¢ or $1 slices as inflation rises

― Roca Wrap

Roca Pics of 2021

 Games

1. Kentucky
2. Wisconsin
3. California
4. Nevada

 Roca Clubhouse

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― Final Thoughts