Stuff I saw on the internet last week: "these captchas are getting downright philosophical"

Aug 4

Happy Wednesday! I had a very nice week-and-a-half off, during which I napped, watched TV, got a two-hour massage, an ACTUAL HAIRCUT, and saw my friends. It was heavenly.

ALSO! Today is the one-year anniversary of this newsletter! When I started it, I was unsure I’d actually be able to keep it up for a few months, let alone an entire year, so I’m very happy with myself. More importantly, though, I’m grateful to all of you reading this thing! Y’all are awesome, and I hope you stick around. Onto internet things!

I’ve put a lot of work into this newsletter over the past year, and will continue to do so, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d get a paid subscription. It’s just $5 a month (or $50 a year, which is two months free), and you’ll be rewarded with bonus content. A couple of weeks ago, paid subscribers got a bonus post where I wrote about a French horror movie called Meander:

Please believe me when I tell you it should have been called What If Cube, But Tube? Because this shit is basically just the 1997 Canadian horror movie Cube, but instead of there being a bunch of booby-trapped, interconnected cubes, there are booby-trapped, interconnected tubes. And yet somehow, Meander manages to be even MORE ridiculous than Cube ever was.

Click below if you’d like to check that out!

This month on my podcast, I Hate It But I Love It, Jocelyn and I are doing IHIBasebalLI, a delightfuly clunky way to saying we’re doing a month of baseball movies. In today’s episode, we talk about the 1984 Robert Redford film The Natural, which I know is a beloved sports film, but I’m sorry, it’s totally bonkers. He’s 48 years old and plays his 19-year-old self!! Anyway, you should subscribe. (You can find I Hate It But I Love It in all the usual places, including Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts.)

ALSO!! I was recently a guest on the delightful podcast Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, during which multiple Jeopardy! winner Alex Schmidt talked to me and Canadian comedian John Cullen about how, well, secretly incredibly fascinating ampersands are. They really are! You should listen and subscribe to his podcast, too.

Secretly Incredibly Fascinating @SIFpod

NEW EPISODE! 🎉 @AlexSchmidty is joined by @katangus and @cullenthecomic for a look at why ampersands are secretly incredibly fascinating. 🎧LISTEN: linktr.ee/sifpod

TWEETS!

Jeremy Woodcock @jwPencilAndPad

Every container is microwaveable if you’ve made peace with your god.

gage. @itsmegangage

WE WERE LITERALLY BORN ONTO A PLANET THAT GROWS FOOD HOW DID WE FUCK UP SO BAD THAT I GOT A CREDIT SCORE

Drew Janda @drewjanda

Hell yes a charcuterie board. Yeah give me room temperature meat and cheese. Just fuckin, leave it out. Yeah leave it out on the table I want that loose meat and cheese to sweat. Can it be expensive too that would be so sick

JP @jpbrammer

angel: "greetings. do not be afraid. you will conceive and bring forth a son" me: "thank you so much for reaching out! is this a paid opportunity?"

Solomon Georgio @solomongeorgio

I once quit a job because a coworker chewed too loud, so I have no notes for Simone Biles

lily necroid boxcutter queen digi fucking mega!!!! @digimega_

shoutout that time i encouraged a guy to ask out his crush and then he asked me and I turned him down

brooks sterritt @brookssterritt

these captchas are getting downright philosophical

REDDIT!

This is a very weird surrogacy situation, and further proof that you ALWAYS SIGN A CONTRACT:

She's 7 months in and last week she had us visit to discuss things that I thought we'd previously agreed on but she said she changed her mind about and her mom was there too. I heard Brittany out and was shocked when she gave a list of how things should be from now on since she said "there was lot of confusion" in the past cause of me stressing her out by complaining. She requested she gets say in things like baby name after I "deleted" the list of names she sent to my husband. She wanted more access to my husband's credit cards/free time to get stuff done at her place. Also more time with the baby than agreed on. Then wrapped up by saying only my husband should be with her in the delivery room and used the hospital as excuse. I got up and firmly stated I don't agree on her new terms and that she had to stop acting like she was my husband's wife and this was their baby.

A good AskReddit thread on the weirdest things that Make-A-Wish kids asked for and got:

My friend's an aquarist and she told me about one 17-year-old cancer patient who had a wish to smell a sea lion's breath before he died.
He had read it was the worst thing ever and was just curious to experience it for some reason. Plus he liked sea lions, I guess.
She was of course pretty shocked by the request and said "are you sure? I promise you really, really don't want to smell it, I always make sure to hold my breath if I'm getting that close" but he insisted and it was arranged.
He puked, and didn't enjoy it very much.

Wowwwww, you are a terrible sister and I hope she skips your part altogether:

Now I have a sister. She had alopecia her whole life. This means she had no hair on her head or body, no eyebrows, no eyelashes nothing. When we were growing up our mom would get her these realistic and good looking wigs to wear and good make up to give her eyebrows and eyelashes. You never could even tell she had it.
But when my sister was done high school she stopped with the wigs and the make up. She ended up joining the Military. In the Military she doesn't wear a wig or makeup at all. The thing is for my engagement party I want her to wear a wig and make up so she would not look so weird and fit in better. I know my fiance wants this too. I don't want her to upset my fiance or her family. I told my sister she can come to the party but only if she wears a wig and make up because it's what my fiance wants.

DUMP THIS GUY:

It all came to a head today while working from home - he came into the room and said he was hungry and wanted lunch. I said I was planning to order myself food from Panera, and he said he wanted some too. I said ok and asked if he would pick it up (as he was just watching TV) and he threw a fit, saying it was too far (7 min) and that if I wanted him to pick it up I would need to pick a place 5 min away or less. I was frustrated (really, 7 min is too far?), so I told him that we should just do our own thing for lunch, which made him even more upset.

This guy absolutely has a secret girlfriend and/or family, right?

His birthday came, I was alone at home with my sister helping welcoming guests and preparing food and drinks. I called him at > 6:30 to let him know we were waiting for him. But his phone was turned off until > 7 o'clock when I called again. I thought he was probably still in the meeting. It was > 7:40 already and I didn't know what to tell the guests. The cake was setting there. food on table already reheated few times. It was > 8:15 when I decided to call his co worker but didn't do me any good. I felt horrible cause guests kept asking why he didn't come and some have already left after waiting for hrs.

I know this floating table works because of physics reasons, but it still breaks my brain: