Usually when you're booking a stay through Airbnb or Vrbo, you're just looking for a home base to rest and plot out some local adventures. But sometimes, there's a listing so unique, like a house in the shape of a Dali-esque seashell, it becomes the destination itself.
Staying at one of these listings is a guaranteed one-of-a-kind experience. So even if you don't have a good reason to travel to any of these destinations, they're each worth the trip for the bragging rights alone.
1. A futuristic pod in the desert (Opens in a new tab)
In 1968, Finnish architect Matti Suuronen conceived of the "Futuro house(Opens in a new tab)," a prefabricated structure designed to be used as a portable ski chalet. Less than 100 Futuro houses were made and today there are only 63 left in the world, including this one in Joshua Tree, CA. There's no skiing to be found in the arid climate of Joshua Tree, but the flying saucer design of the Futuro house lends itself perfectly to Joshua Tree's martian-like landscape and supposed energy vortices.
Like life of Mars... on planet Earth.Credit: Airbnb
2. A cozy yurt on a goat farm(Opens in a new tab)
You can't get much more rural than staying in a yurt surrounded by farm animals in upstate New York.
Get to know the host's goats who apparently have big personalities, then take a pre-ordered picnic lunch for a walk in the woods, and come back for a solar-heated outdoor shower and some stargazing — even inside through the oculus skylight. The yurt is also heated by a wood stove making it a cozy off-the-grid escape from the city grind.
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Airbnb will now let you search for barns, caves, castles, windmills, and more
A yurt plus goats is the wellness plan you didn't know you needed. Credit: Airbnb
3. A converted helicopter for military-style glamping(Opens in a new tab)
When you hear helicopter, you don't immediately think comfortable lodging, but this listing somehow made it possible.
Located on a campground near Liverpool, England, this Lynx military helicopter has been retrofitted with custom-shaped beds, a kitchenette, a TV, and amazingly sleeps up to four people. What better way to live out your action-hero fantasy?
Answering the question that no one asked: What's it like to sleep on a helicopter?Credit: Airbnb / James Jebson
4. A 1960s-era spaceship(Opens in a new tab)
This one takes the '60s space-age obsession to the next level.
Walk up the ramp through the entry hatch and you'll enter a spaceship complete with retro control panels, plenty of Star Wars memorabilia, and yes, a bar called the "Lunar Lounge." According to the hosts, the ship landed at its present Washington state location 30 years ago, but that shouldn't stop you from trying to make extraterrestrial contact.
Live out your space nerd fantasy.Credit: Airbnb
5. Rustic grain bins for corn cosplay(Opens in a new tab)
Not to be confused with silos which are taller and narrower, these two grain bins have been have been converted into tiny accommodations in Phillipsburg, MO. The bins were renovated with lofts that look down on a living room and kitchen with retro-style appliances to authenticate your agrarian fantasy. In case this listing has you feeling a little claustrophobic, don't worry, the grain bins have windows and plenty of light.
Grain bins have never looked so inviting.Credit: Airbnb / Brandy Triplett
6. A wild west watering hole(Opens in a new tab)
So it's not actually a saloon, but this listing in Tetonia, ID is pretty authentic to its cowboy legacy.
Hitch your horse or wagon, and kick up your boots in this wood-paneled cabin decorated with western tackle. Play some pool and chill by the fire inside, or soak in the saltwater hot tub and gather 'round the fire pit outside for views of the Grand Tetons and some soothing stargazing.
Cowboy-cation is definitely a thing.Credit: Airbnb / Maison Tetonia
7. An architects' abstract vision come to life(Opens in a new tab)
According to its listing, the construction of the Bloomhouse in Austin, TX started with "some hippies and a dream."
Two Austin-based architecture students built this house in the '70s to be "in harmony" with its surrounding environment. Is it a seashell? Is it a meringue? It's hard to say. What can be certain is that this house is entirely unique and almost devoid of right angles (except for the rectangular doors, as the host points out).
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Check out these pet-friendly road trip destinations
No right angles, but definitely right vibes.Credit: Vrbo
8. An otherworldly dome home(Opens in a new tab)
This Minnesota listing's two connected domes isn't even its coolest part. as the whole concept feels like a children's book fantasy. There's a slide to get from the loft to the main floor, an indoor putting green, a ping pong table, and a mini stage. Outside is a backyard oasis with a pond and a trickling waterfall that looks like you've stepped into Neverland. There's even a workout room, but you might be too busy living out your childhood dreams to care.
[said in the Stefon voice] This place has everything.Credit: Vrbo
9. Your own private castle with a personal chef(Opens in a new tab)
For fans of The Crown who want to live like royalty, look no further than this castle in... North Carolina.
For $2,400 a night, this listing is definitely on the splurge end of the spectrum, but what would you expect from a castle with catered meals? Wake up like Princess Margaret in a lavish Victorian bedroom, then traipse through the North Carolina woods on a hiking tour while pretending it's Balmoral. Afterwards, take a cooking class with the five-star chef and then book a massage to round out your exhausting day of "royal" duties.
You don't need to go to England to live like royalty.Credit: Vrbo
10. Sleep(less) in (a) Seattle houseboat(Opens in a new tab)
Be like Sam Baldwin in the iconic rom com and escape your past to the soothing sound of water lapping against your very own dwelling at the end of a dock. This Seattle listing obviously has amazing waterfront views (of Union Lake to be exact) and provides everything you need for watersport activities. Now get on that paddle board and orchestrate a meet-cute.
Rom-com goals.Credit: Vrbo
Website of this article:https://dointy.com/?m=home&c=View&a=index&aid=65087
Cut his mic, dont kill the debates: What Trumps terrible night taught us
There is, so far as we know, only one moment in Donald Trump's long and privileged life in which he was actually made to shut up: the mashed potato incident.
When Trump was 7, his elder brother Fred dumped a warm bowl of mash on Donald's head at the dinner table "because he was being such a brat" towards their younger siblings and wouldn't listen to his mother, according to Mary Trump's family tell-all Too Much and Never Enough. "Everybody laughed, and they couldn't stop laughing," she wrote. "It was the first time Donald had been humiliated ... from then on, he would never allow himself to feel that feeling again." The incident still stings: Trump glowered at the family when they brought it up during a White House lunch in 2017, Mary wrote.
When, in all the long years since, has Trump ever faced actual consequences for running his mouth off? Certainly not in the 2016 presidential debates, where Trump repeatedly talked over Hillary Clinton with impunity. I'll leave you to decide what it says that the outrage only really arrived when Trump did the same to a male candidate, Joe Biden, in Tuesday night's debate. Clinton did reveal that she had longed to say(Opens in a new tab) what Biden made the signature line of a difficult night: "Will you shut up, man?"
One of the defects of the American political system is that the president never faces anything like Prime Minister's Questions in the UK, where the PM is routinely hectored by his or her opposition in Parliament and has to sit still until it's his or her turn. The media can't perform the same function. Rare is the hardball question from an interviewer or reporter at a press conference that Trump doesn't interrupt with his trademark "excuse me, excuse me," always said in a tone that suggests he has never understood what those words actually mean.
So it was a major leap forward for common sense when the Commission on Presidential Debates said Wednesday it would adopt(Opens in a new tab) "additional tools to maintain order" at the second Biden-Trump face-off. According to CBS(Opens in a new tab), this includes "cutting off a candidate's microphone if they violate the rules" — like speaking after your allotted two minutes is up or interrupting your opponent. Such a rule is long overdue, and it doesn't only apply to Republicans, either. I may be one of the few who remembers the Tim Kaine-Mike Pence debate in 2016, where Kaine embarrassed himself by talking over Pence repeatedly, making the latter look almost reasonable.
Giving the moderator mic-cutting privileges may seem like the smallest concession to order that the commission could possibly make; it may seem like nowhere near enough. After all, Trump has adopted the strategy of one of the former campaign managers he disavows, Steve Bannon, who once advised his boss to "flood the zone with shit(Opens in a new tab)." Trump lied so often on Tuesday night, it would take an army of fact-checkers to correct the record in real time. You may have decided after the Tuesday night debacle that you have debate PTSD and cannot watch any more of this crap; having refused to watch Trump on live TV since 2017, I'm right there with you.
That doesn't mean the debates should be abandoned altogether, even though anti-Trump pundits quickly clustered around that opinion Monday night. Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, April Ryan and Bill Kristol all tweeted to the effect(Opens in a new tab) that Biden should treat the proceedings as beneath contempt and refuse to debate again. The Atlantic(Opens in a new tab) and Slate(Opens in a new tab) both ran stories stating exactly that. Nancy Pelosi has been saying since August(Opens in a new tab) that Biden shouldn't share the stage with someone who routinely flouts all rules. Doesn't it normalize Trump's nonsense to stick him on a stage like he has any interest in discussing actual issues?
But the tale of Tuesday night tells us something different. First of all, it reminds us that there are actually undecided voters out there. Yes, I know, and I'm going to pause here for whatever comment you'd like to make about these rare beasts, but they are less endangered than you think. According to one recent poll, they make up 11 percent of the electorate(Opens in a new tab). Yes, that's lower than normal; yes, people are unusually engaged this year. Not everyone is as engaged as you are, however. And if all of those 11 percent are actually shy Trump voters, Biden's remarkably stable 7 percent lead looks way less assured.
For many of the 65 million TV viewers(Opens in a new tab), the first debate was their first glimpse of Joe Biden the man, not the dementia-addled caricature the Trump campaign has been drawing. They also saw a different Trump than the one shown at his rallies: confident, unbounded by time, riffing off the top of his head like a stand-up act. Here was a grown man with the inept fury of a toddler: ranting, red-faced, waving his arms, pouring forth deep rivulets of orange-colored sweat. In one of the most memorable responses of the night, a 2016 Trump voter named Ruthie from Pennsylvania told GOP pollster Frank Luntz that Trump looked and sounded like "a crackhead;"(Opens in a new tab) she was now switching to Biden.
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Add in the fact that the Biden campaign had its best fundraising haul(Opens in a new tab) ever on Tuesday night — $4 million in one hour, almost $10 million over the course of the debate — and you can see why the Vice President isn't keen to do any canceling. Biden told(Opens in a new tab) the press he was "looking forward" to the second debate, in Miami on October 15. Official "Shut up, man" shirts(Opens in a new tab) were doing brisk business at $30 apiece. Post-debate polls saw a modest amount of movement among undecideds, and one(Opens in a new tab) found that even voters without a college degree — Trump's base — thought that Biden had won(Opens in a new tab), 52 percent to 38 percent.
So much for a debate that allowed Trump unfettered access to his microphone. How would he respond if it is shut off after every two minutes of speaking time on October 15 — which is, by the way, a town hall with undecided voters asking the questions directly? Would he suddenly become the model of comportment and grace, or at least sit on his stool and look sulky?
Your guess is as good as mine. But when it comes to a 74-year narcissist who has never been reined in his entire career, is not being told the truth by his advisors, and has demonstrable problems with impulse control, my guess is that Trump will go into meltdown the first or second time his mic is cut. He will try to talk over Biden anyway — something that would clearly be heard by the voters in the studio, but not broadcast to the viewers at home. That's the best of all worlds for Biden, who now has two weeks to craft a raft of you-love-to-see-it zingers along the lines of "will you shut up, man?" And if we're lucky, Trump may storm off the stage altogether.
Let us hope, therefore, that the commission sticks to its guns on microphone-cutting. But if we really want to keep the yapper-in-chief in line, perhaps it's worth considering a more drastic measure: Refuse to shut your trap enough times and you get a bowl of mashed potatoes dropped on your head.
Trump announced he has COVID-19, so of course, Twitter descended into chaos
Whenever big news breaks, it tends to take over Twitter within minutes. Surprising nobody, the president of the United States announcing via tweet that he and the First Lady have contracted COVID-19 sent what seemed like every user on the Bird Site diving for their phones.
Trump's tweet came in the middle of the night on the East Coast, and there are unlikely to be many further developments until the morning — meaning that Twitter is obviously rife with speculation, conspiracy theories, and memes of various taste levels.
There's also no shortage of attempts to game out the next few weeks, as though literally anybody has any idea what happens when a sitting president contracts a potentially deadly virus 35 days out from a presidential election he's actively trying to undermine while behind in the polls(Opens in a new tab).
SEE ALSO:
Donald Trump tweets that he and Melania have tested positive for COVID-19
And understandably — given the anger and grief across a nation that's been devastated by a catastrophically incompetent federal response to a pandemic and that president's months of downplaying its severity — a wave of schadenfreude that can probably be seen from space swept across the platform in minutes. It was chased by feebler calls for the very civility and generosity of spirit Trump himself has failed to display for the 208,000 Americans who have lost their lives to COVID so far.
Anyway, literally nobody knows how to process this right now, so here are some tweets about it.
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And as always, there are the meta tweets about how bananas Twitter gets during these moments.
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In sum:
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President Trump taken to Walter Reed Medical Center after COVID-19 diagnosis
President Donald Trump was admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday evening, just hours it was announced he had contracted COVID-19.
The Washington Post (Opens in a new tab)reported(Opens in a new tab) that Trump was being taken to Walter Reed on Friday evening, citing " two administration officials" as its sources.
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Officials have said Trump has had mild to moderate symptoms, including a fever. There have not yet been any updates or indications if his condition has worsened. He is, according to a statement from the White House, being treated with Regeneron's polyclonal antibody cocktail, which is still experimental.
The White House maintains this step is being taken in "an abundance of caution," and that the president will be "working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days."
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After being flown to Walter Reed, Trump himself posted a video to Twitter about his trip to the hospital.
"I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support," he said. "I think I'm doing very well. But we're going to make sure that things work out."
Trump walked under his own power to the Marine One to be transported to the hospital.
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The president first announced in a tweet after 1 a.m. ET on Friday that he and first lady Melania Trump had contracted coronavirus. The first indications that it was possible the Commander-in-Chief had contracted the virus came when it was revealed on Thursday that top adviser Hope Hicks had tested positive.
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"Tonight, @FLOTUS(Opens in a new tab) and I tested positive for COVID-19," Trump wrote at the time. "We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!"
The president was first described as having mild symptoms. Vanity Fair reported on Friday(Opens in a new tab) that his first symptoms included a cough and fever. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany later on Friday released a statement from Trump's doctor that said that the president had received a dose of Regeneron's antibody cocktail a "precautionary measure." Trump was described as "fatigued" but "in good spirits."
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Other world leaders, such as U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson(Opens in a new tab) and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, have previously contracted the virus and recovered. Johnson had to be hospitalized, while Bolsonaro reportedly had(Opens in a new tab) a mild case.
Before contracting the illness, Trump had long downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus — which has killed more than 200,000 Americans(Opens in a new tab) — and even mocked Vice President Joe Biden for always wearing a mask during the first presidential debate.
In the days after the debate, it was revealed a number of people in Trump's orbit had contracted COVID-19. Among those infected were RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins, and Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee.
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In the wake of the news that the president had coronavirus, news broke that there had been a number of events in Republican circles that did not adhere strict social-distancing or mask-wearing guidelines.
Much of the Trump family did not wear masks(Opens in a new tab) at the presidential debate, a number of events surrounding(Opens in a new tab) Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court were unmasked, and Trump fundraiser in New Jersey reportedly(Opens in a new tab) wasn't socially distanced or masked. It isn't yet clear where or how exactly Trump contracted the virus, however.
Trump tweets Dont be afraid of Covid, despite 209,000 American deaths
With a single tweet, Donald Trump has blatantly put the lives of the American people at risk.
On Monday afternoon, Trump tweeted to announce that he will be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center at 6:30 p.m. ET, and then proceeded to tell his 86.9 million followers not to fear COVID-19, the deadly virus that has already killed 209,199 Americans.(Opens in a new tab)
Trump was admitted to Walter Reed on Friday night following his positive COVID-19 diagnosis, and in the days since he arrived there's been a great deal of confusion surrounding the diagnosis timeline, his treatment, and his health.
After announcing that he'd be leaving the medical facility, Trump wrote, "Feeling really good! Don't be afraid of Covid. Don't let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!"
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The fact that the president of the United States would tell the people of his country not to be afraid of a deadly virus that's killed more than 200,000 Americans in the past several months, is almost too irresponsible to even comprehend. And it's crucial to remember that even if Trump fully recovers from this virus, he received excellent medical care as the president that so many other Americans wouldn't have access to if they were diagnosed.
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On Sunday, Trump was criticized for putting the health of several secret service agents at risk by taking an accompanied drive around Walter Reed Medical Center so that he could wave to his supporters outside. And in the days since his diagnosis, his team has continued to downplay the severity of the virus and show reluctance towards making masks mandatory(Opens in a new tab) at the White House. In the past week multiple people in Trump's orbit have also tested positive for the virus, including first lady Melania Trump, Trump's senior aide Hope Hicks(Opens in a new tab), and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany(Opens in a new tab). This makes Trump's callous comments about the coronavirus even more perplexing.
When it comes to taking proper precautions for this virus, Trump can't be trusted to give sound, scientific advice. You must rely on the guidance of medical professionals and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(Opens in a new tab) going forward. Enforce social distancing and wear face masks to protect yourself and others. And no matter what the president of the United States tweets, know that you need to take this virus seriously.
UPDATE: Oct. 5, 2020, 5:26 p.m. PDT: After returning to the White House from Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday evening, Trump continued to downplay the impact of the coronavirus on Twitter. In a produced video on the White House balcony, Trump said, "Don't let it dominate. Don't let it take over your lives. Don't let that happen."
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Of course, Trump and his administration are responsible for letting the deadly virus dominate American lives. The president has often scoffed at mask wearing (he wore one as he exited the hospital but took it off when he arrived at the White House as a publicity stunt for the news cameras) and taken steps to politicize the pandemic. Americans have died, lost their jobs, and are worried about their children's educations and futures. The president's message: "I know there's a risk, there's a danger, but that's OK."
Related Video: Why is the U.S. failing at coronavirus testing?
An inside look at how Bidens campaign is winning the viral merch game
Joe Biden's campaign has mastered the art of making memorable merch.
As with any candidate's site, the vice president's online shop(Opens in a new tab) is full of apparel, accessories, and other unique ways for supporters to publicly show their Biden/Harris pride. But over the past two weeks — since the New York Times(Opens in a new tab) reported(Opens in a new tab) that Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and another $750 his first year in office — the Biden campaign has seriously stepped up its merch game.
After seeing people express outrage over Trump's shockingly low income tax payments, Biden's campaign released buttons(Opens in a new tab), stickers(Opens in a new tab), and shirts(Opens in a new tab) that said "I Paid More In Taxes Than Donald Trump." Then following the first presidential debate on Sept. 29, the team created "Will you shut up, man?" shirts to commemorate Biden's blunt reaction to Trump.
On Wednesday night, during the first and only vice presidential debate, the team once again had a pitch perfect response to the fly that landed on Mike Pence's head mid-debate: a Biden/Harris fly swatter featuring the clever pun, "Truth Over Flies."
The Biden team has been heavily praised online for so quickly responding to the news and finding ways to take part in viral moments. Mashable spoke with Zach McNamara, merchandise director for the Biden campaign, about the team's successful merch strategy and how they've managed to brainstorm, design, and sell these products in such a timely manner.
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McNamara gave us a little behind-the-scenes peek into how the merch gets made, explaining, "When something like the tax story comes up, or we have unifying moments during debates, like we saw last night […] there is a Slack channel where we come together and start to throw out ideas. And you know, like nine out of 10 them will not work. But a lot of times one of them will."
Once the now infamous debate fly started trending on social media and the campaign tweeted an old photo of Biden(Opens in a new tab) holding a swatter, everything fell into place merch-wise. The team found fly swatters that were union-made in the U.S. (like all items in the store), they came up with the pun that played off of Biden's "Truth Over Lies" quote (which is featured on other campaign merch(Opens in a new tab)), and they created the product mockup.
Within an hour of the fly landing on Pence's head, Biden's team had the fly swatters for sale on the site. Within 24 hours, the campaign had completely sold out of them. In the end, supporters snagged nearly 35,000 swatters, and though the product had some lighthearted inspiration behind it, Biden's team hopes people focus on the deeper message it carries.
Bye, fly swatter.Credit: store.joebiden.com
"Yes, the fly swatter thing is cute and of the moment, but what's printed on it — the allusion to truth over lies — I think is a key reason why it resonated and why we sold so many, because we consistently see that those products that feature those short, simple phrases are among our bestsellers always," McNamara said.
The "Will you shut up, man?" shirts, which featured Biden's quote atop an image of Trump's face, were also massively popular and sold out the day after the first presidential debate. But the clever merch isn't just there to make people laugh. It also helps drive current and potential supporters to explore the site, inspires them to learn more about Biden and Harris as candidates, and, of course, raises money for the campaign.
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The witty items that piggyback on viral moments clearly get a lot of attention online and are a big hit with supporters, but interestingly they're not the campaign's biggest sellers — not by a long shot.
"Biden-Harris yard signs are the most popular item on the store virtually every hour of every day, every week. And we've sold just an ungodly amount of those. Ever since we put them up the day Senator Harris's selection was announced," McNamara said.
"Lighthearted and fun is not something that we get a lot in Donald Trump's America."
The online store also features other items including apparel printed with Harris and Biden's go-to fashion accessories(Opens in a new tab) (Chuck Taylors and aviator sunglasses), virtual Animal Crossing merch, bottles of hand sanitizer(Opens in a new tab) with Biden's COVID-19 plan printed on the label, and several campaign collabs with professional designers(Opens in a new tab).
Though the team will be winding down rolling out new production as November draws near, supporters can expect a few more surprises to hit the shop before election day.
Ultimately, the goal is to strike the perfect balance between stressing the political gravity of this election and providing some much-needed comedic relief.
"It's a very, very serious campaign. Everybody knows that. There's possibly never been a more serious time for our country, certainly in all of our lives. But that doesn't mean that we can't have some lighthearted moments," McNamara said. "Joe and Kamala themselves, they are fundamentally lighthearted people. We don't only love them for their policies and their experience and what they've done for this country. They're good people. And lighthearted and fun is not something that we get a lot in Donald Trump's America."
Pete Buttigieg once again uses a Fox News interview to calmly dismantle the Trump campaigns logic
Pete Buttigieg is certainly making the most of his time on Fox News this week.
On Wednesday he was interviewed by Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier, and managed to completely turn around their question on policy differences between Senator Harris and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden using a simple comparison to the Trump campaign.
Then, on Thursday, he popped up on the network once again — this time chatting to Steve Doocy of Fox & Friends about Trump's refusal to appear in a virtual debate.
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"Well it's too bad, I don't know why the president's afraid to participate in a debate. All of us have had to get used to virtual formats," says Buttigieg, before attacking the president's decision directly in relation to safety.
"It's not something I think most of us enjoy, but it's a safety measure. And I think part of why the U.S. is falling behind, is badly behind the rest of the developed world on dealing with the pandemic is because every time there's been a choice between doing something that's more safe, or less safe, this president seems to push forward less safe.
SEE ALSO:
Trevor Noah unpacks Trump's controversial return to the White House
"Of course, the only reason that we're here in the first place is that the president of the United States is still contagious, as far as we know, with a deadly disease," Buttigieg concluded. "I don't know why you'd want to be in a room with other people if you were contagious with a deadly disease."
You can watch the full interview, which also includes some fairly scathing comments from Buttigieg about Trump's denial that he called fallen troops "suckers" and "losers,"(Opens in a new tab) below.
Spotify is coming for your perfectly curated playlists with Niche Mixes
Finally, there is a custom "Meme Mix" on Spotify.
Today (March 28), the streaming giant launched "Niche Mixes," its latest attempt to recommend more music to users. Every day Spotify will now serve you five to 10 playlists organized by wacky themes like "Angry Whistling" and "Egg Punk." What does "Egg Punk" mean? I have no idea.
To access these Niche Mixes, click on "Search," tap "Made for you," and scroll down to "Your Niche Mixes." My Niche Mixes include "Aggressive Heavy," which features a combination of artists I've never listened to (Slayer, Slipknot, and Poppy), and "Dark Moody," which appears to be more in line with my typical listening habits.
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Spotify's big update isn't just annoying, it misses the point
Niche Mixes come after Spotify unveiled a new video-forward home screen that features snippets of songs, audiobooks, and podcasts and an AI DJ that also distributes algorithmically generated recommendations to users. It's part of Spotify's effort to double-down on being the go-to destination to discover new content.
You can also search for custom Niche Mixes based on the "activity, vibe, or aesthetic that describes the moment you're in" by adding mix to a search term. Some Niche Mixes that came up from various searches include "Goblincore Mix," "Murder Ballad," and "Extreme Pirate."
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However, the new mixes detract from some of the fun of the platform. I would hate to see users relying on Spotify's Niche Mixes instead of creating their own hyper-specific playlists. Previously, you might search a particular mood and be greeted by dozens user-generated playlists. User-generated playlists are at the center of modern music consumption and sharing. As a fellow user, they remind me that every silly little feeling I have someone else has had, too — and they've already chosen the perfect Taylor Swift song for it.
Personally, I would rather my abstract Spotify searches yield a playlist created by a 16-year-old girl than an algorithm.
Trump flagged by Twitter after tweeting false claim that hes not contagious and is now immune to COVID-19
Twitter has once again flagged one of President Trump's tweets for violating their rules on spreading misinformation about COVID-19. This time it was because of his false and dangerous claim that he is now immune to the coronavirus and can no longer spread it.
In the tweet, he wrote, "A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday. That means I can’t get it (immune), and can’t give it. Very nice to know!!!" The letter from the doctors he is referring to was issued on Saturday night and does not explicitly say that the president tested negative(Opens in a new tab) for the virus.
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A short time later, Twitter slapped a warning label on the tweet, which reads:
"This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible."
This is far from the first time the social media platform has flagged the president's tweets for violating their rules. These warning labels, which also make it impossible for the tweet to be retweeted, are a fairly toothless rebuke. They've also deleted videos and other people's tweets(Opens in a new tab) that the president has shared. Still, the platform has long resisted calls to ban the president entirely from tweeting.
While Twitter has stepped up their corrective actions against the president's habit of making false claims in recent months, they seem to be doling it out on an uneven basis. For instance, Twitter did not flag several videos Trump posted last week that claimed they now have "a cure" for COVID-19. (There is no known cure, and the drugs Trump was given by doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center are still highly experimental and not available to the general public.)
Facebook, which is also a massive stew of misinformation, has had a similarly haphazard approach to cracking down on the president's blatant lies. They've previously removed posts from his account, but as of publication the president's post claiming he's now immune to COVID-19(Opens in a new tab) is still up and getting lots of engagement.
Despite Trump's claims, the public still knows strikingly little information about his illness. We have yet to be told anything official about when he is believed to have been infected and how severe his illness really was, both of which could impact the length of isolation(Opens in a new tab) that's recommended.
Trump's condition does appear to be improving, and on Saturday afternoon he spoke publicly for the first time since being released from the hospital, at a rally at the White House. But that does not necessarily mean it's safe or advisable for him to end his period of isolation. He is scheduled to begin traveling to campaign events(Opens in a new tab) again on Monday.
What's most galling about his Sunday tweet is his claim of immunity to the virus now that he's been infected. For one thing, scientists do not yet have a complete understanding of how exactly immunity to this virus works or how long it lasts. Reinfections appear to be uncommon at this point, but experts, including Trump's own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommend(Opens in a new tab) that those who have had COVID-19 behave as though they are not immune and continue to take precautions such as wearing masks and maintaining social distance.
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Since Trump did almost none of that before his infection — even hosting a now-infamous superspreader event(Opens in a new tab) at the White House on Sept. 26 — it's hard to imagine him starting now.
MSCHF has long been outspoken about their disdain towards the capitalist system, with games like Card V Card and stunts like rendering medical debt into art and selling it. Though MSCHF itself has raised at least $11.5 million(Opens in a new tab) in "outside investments" since the fall of 2019, according to the New York Times, it's undeniable that their biweekly drops often comment on our crumbling late-capitalist society.
Take, for example, their latest drop: Anti Advertising Advertising Club(Opens in a new tab) (the name a clear reference to Anti Social Social Club). MSCHF created nine TikTok sounds(Opens in a new tab) to "attack" different brands (including TikTok itself). If you make a TikTok using one of the sounds and it hits a certain view count, send MSCHF proof and they'll pay you cash.
If this sounds like the opposite of a sponsored post, it basically is. In its manifesto for the Anti Ad Ad Club(Opens in a new tab), MSCHF calls sponsored posts a "cringe-y ubiquitous evil of social platforms" and laments the rise of "sell out" culture.
The brands, view counts, and payouts are spelled out in this neat chart:
Credit: mschf
Some of the sounds are song parodies. For example, the Facebook attack sound(Opens in a new tab) — a $4,000 payout for over 2 million views — spoofs The Beatles' "Hey Jude" by replacing the repetition of "better" with "boomers." Others, like the hit on Comcast, are really just sounds (in this case, fart sounds):
@antiadadclub(Opens in a new tab) ♬ farty wifi - use this sound - get paid $$$$(Opens in a new tab)
"If every user's desire is to sell out, we'll happily enable that impulse if it means we can punch at the companies doing the buying," MSCHF's manifesto reads. Let's see if any 'tokkers succeed in killing brands and/or getting paid as they sell out.
Related Video: This box was worth $1,000 if we didn't open it, so we opened it
If you thought 2020 couldn't get any worse, you were obviously wrong.
On Monday morning, one of the last wholesome presences on the internet, Mr. Ryan Creamer, announced his retirement from doing comedy on Pornhub.
"Today, 2 years to the day from when I started it, I am ending my Pornhub career. These videos added so much fun to my life and I hope they did for you too. Thank you all for watching," Creamer tweeted. "Now, I leave you the way all porn must inevitably end."
Before Creamer bid Pornhub farewell, he posted one final video titled, "THE MONEY SHOT," in which he can be seen holding a $20.00 bill and saying, "I got you something. Don't spend it all in one place. Well, bye bye."
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Earlier this year, Creamer told Mashable that he started making wholesome Pornhub videos in 2018 after realizing how easy it was to create an account and get verified. After his first video(Opens in a new tab) — titled "I Tuck You In After You Have Cum" — received such delightful praise, he decided to keep the bit going and went on to make 83 videos, which received more than 11 million views combined.
Full disclosure: Ryan and I were Mashable interns together in 2016. When I texted him for comment, he asked that I share the following message with his fans: "A genuine thank you for watching — and though I may be gone I shall be in your hearts and incognito windows for the rest of time."
While you may miss seeing Ryan's giant smile, navy blue sweater, and admirable respect for boundaries on screen each week, you can always revisit some of his greatest hits — you might want to start with the forehead kiss compilation(Opens in a new tab), a hug(Opens in a new tab), or a warm shoulder to cry on(Opens in a new tab).
You can learn even more about Ryan's successful Pornhub career here. He also has a new comedy podcast, American Detour(Opens in a new tab).
Farewell, our sweet platonic porn prince. You will be missed.
Related Video: Why sex is better with the lights on
YouTube celebrates International Cat Day with a fur-tastic playlist of iconic felines
To celebrate International Cat Day, YouTube is paying homage to the animal that made it a household name: the noble feline.
Visit the YouTube homepage today and you'll see a cotton candy-colored kitty replace the YouTube logo, hypnotizing you in an anime-inspired sequence. Click on the cat and a blue banner will appear. Select "Explore" on that banner and you'll then be taken to a playlist of YouTube's most iconic cat videos(Opens in a new tab).
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The list begins in 2007 with Keyboard Cat and revisits 20 others, from Grumpy Cat and Nyan cat, to more recent favorites like Pusheen, Bongo Cat, and the "Cat Vibing To levan Polkka"(Opens in a new tab) meme. The most recent video on the list is a 2022 tribute to Maru(Opens in a new tab), a Japanese kitty who has been on YouTube for 14 years.
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For many people, watching early animal content on YouTube was their first time participating in the kind of collective online experience we now take part in every day. These videos helped us understand what was funny, not just to us personally, but to millions of others. The videos are an endearing reflection on internet culture and — as I discovered while rewatching them — are just as silly and delightful today as when they were first posted to YouTube.
Mexican-style street corn recipe is easy to make in the air fryer. And tasty, too.
The best Mexican-style street corn you'll ever have will not be cooked in an air fryer. In all likelihood, it'll be corn cooked over charcoal, or fire, or some other heat source that imparts that delicious grilled flavor. But I'm here to tell you that this summer you can use your air fryer to make perfectly tasty elote without much work.
I cooked up this recipe for folks who might not have a grill and have been charged with cooking a side for a cookout. Or maybe your grill is all filled up with burgers and you need to cook indoors. Or maybe all you have is an air fryer. Whatever your situation, this street corn recipe involves just a few minutes of cook time and very little prep, which should have a delicious result. Here's what you need to know.
Ingredients
4 ears of corn, left on the cob
Canola oil
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cayenne
1/2 cup finely grated cotija cheese
Juice of one lime
Directions
Brush the corn with oil then season generously with salt and pepper.
Set your air fryer to 400 degrees and 10 minutes. Toss the seasoned corn in the air fryer and let it cook during both the preheating process and the entire ten minutes. Shake the basket every once in a while.
While the corn cooks, make the elote sauce. In a long, shallow bowl or rimmed plate, whisk together the mayo, sour cream, cheese, paprika, cayenne, and lime juice. If you like it spicy, like I do, add extra cayenne and smoked paprika.
After 10 minutes the corn should be ready. Some of the kernels should be blackened. If not, cook for a bit longer.
Using tongs, dip and roll the cooked corn in the cheese mixture. Make sure all sides are coated. At this point you can enjoy it as is — that's what I did for simplicity's sake. But if you want more cheese and spices on top of the mixture, feel free.
SEE ALSO:
The best air fryers for making crispy food faster than the oven
The Details
There's really nothing too complicated about this dish. It's designed to be simple, quick, and easily customizable for your preferences. Cooking the corn is straightforward. Ten minutes worked for me when I tested the recipe a few times, but basically, just let it go until some kernels blacken. Shake the basket around and you'll be good.
The only complication you may run into is finding cotija cheese. If you can find queso fresco, that would work as well, though it is milder than cotija. When you roll the corn in the mixture, just do you best to get things totally covered.
The mixture being made.Credit: Mashable
Make sure you coat your corn well. Credit: Mashable
A note: This isn't the most authentic recipe in the world. The goal is to make an easy version of elote in the air fryer and that's what you'll get. In fact, if you wanted to go even a bit more inauthentic, you could cut the corn off the cob once it's air fried. Then you could stir together the corn and the cheese mixture and create a spoonable side dish, instead of the messier cobs. It'll taste good, however you decide to serve it.
Here's how my final product looked.
Corn! Messy delicious corn. Credit: Mashable
The final verdict for air fryer elote? It's tasty. And messy. Very messy. But summertime corn is amazing and sweet. Pairing that with the creamy, salty cheese mixture really works. This will be a hit at any cookout and will take you no more than 15 minutes of total work. You can't beat that.
What is a borg? The water jug drink college kids are making viral on TikTok, explained
Things have a way of spreading from college campus to college campus: recipes for jungle juice, squirrel lore(Opens in a new tab), or some website called Facebook.
Enter the latest TikTok trend: the borg. You read that right: borg. It apparently stands for Black Out Rage Gallon but "borg," not "B.O.R.G." has seemingly become the only way it's referenced. In essence it's a (slightly) new way for college kids to binge drink on the go, and it's all over TikTok.
The borg is, effectively, a rebranded, tweaked version of jungle juice. But instead of being a communal thing, it's a personal drink. Frankly it sounds better and (in a relative sense) healthier. Basically, you take a gallon jug of water and dump out about half of it. You then add some alcohol (typically vodka) in whatever amount brings it to your desired strength. You then squeeze a bunch of Mio(Opens in a new tab) or other similar low-cal mixer. I've seen some kids then dump in some Liquid-I.V.(Opens in a new tab), which is basically an electrolyte-heavy hangover reducer. Shake it up and you've got a borg to carry around the day party in college.
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Now that's just the beginning of what a borg can be. First things first: They're not new. They date back at least(Opens in a new tab) a few years(Opens in a new tab) — if not further — to around 2018, according to a much younger and cooler colleague. But they are now going viral on TikTok because Old People like me are seeing them for the first time, which is probably why you're here reading this.
It makes sense. TikTok is relatively new, and your FYP serves up a lot of random users' content, unlike Instagram, which primarily serves the content of people you follow. So if you were out of school (or school age) by 2018, why would you have been following college kids on Instagram back when the borg was first created? Long story short, TikTok posts are the first you're hearing about this, and it's making you feel old.
On the other hand, I can also see Gen Z-ers making these wild concoctions on TikTok and wonder what in the hell is a borg? even though they're the right age. Everyone finds themself out of the loop from time to time.
After all, borg subculture is already elaborate. Oftentimes kids go around and show off their borgs(Opens in a new tab), proudly giving it a punny nickname(Opens in a new tab) like Ron Borgandy or Soujla Borg. Or they'll give a tutorial(Opens in a new tab) on how to make their favorite borg recipe. Or an expert will talk about how it's actually not totally the worst drink(Opens in a new tab) they've seen college kids down — after all, the drinker knows what's in the drink and they are consuming a heck of a lot of water. Though I have seen some kids pour an entire bottle of alcohol into a borg and, please, for the love of God do not do that. It'll be fun for no one.
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Borgs, on display on TikTok.Credit: Screenshots: TikTok / @dariennrinn / @redcupnews / @bellaalonzo
All in all: The Borg is a classic college thing. Every campus, hell every group on campus, probably has its own crude delivery system for alcohol. This is just the latest way to rebrand a potent but easy-to-guzzle mixed drink. It's been spread around the country, and now everyone is posting about their borgs. It's like me and my friends carrying around skippy(Opens in a new tab) in gas cans back in the day because Superbad did it. Party drinks come and go, but now, everyone sees it all because TikTok exists.
Long live the borg until, you know, the next big thing in binge drinking comes around.
7-foot video screen: Better than Zoom or a portal of doom?
For nearly two years during the pandemic, office workers across the globe have acclimated to only seeing their coworkers as floating heads on video calls. But a French startup at CES showing off its 7-foot digital video chat system wants you to see colleagues from head to toe, even when you're far apart.
While it may sound like a solution to our collective Zoom dread, the massive video portal has an intrusive element that makes using it as a work-from-home device ripe for mishaps.
Called le Vitre, which translates to the window, it never turns off. Like the two cabinets at Hogwarts and Borgin and Burkes that form a passage, la Vitre is "permanently opened to another space," the company says. While it "can be blurred for privacy reasons," having something that's always on in your home office has the potential to get complicated.
The screen is currently used mostly in office settings and at events to present speakers on stage, but Romuald Boulanger, co-founder and CEO of la Vitre, said in an email that expanding to home offices could be in the company's future.
"Why not, one day, open it to other scenarios such as homes?" he said.
It isn't the first company to try to make virtual interaction at work more lifelike; a video-conferencing robot nicknamed "FaceTime on wheels" comes to mind. But unlike a tablet on a rolling stick-shaped robot, la Vitre is designed for optimal realism.
"It was designed to provide the most immersive experience possible," said Boulanger. "Sound and video quality, elimination of external noise pollution, everything was thought of to make discussions more fluid."
But whether you're at work or working from home, would the sudden lifelike appearance of your colleague be a little too immersive?
There's no hiding in sweatpants with la Vitre.Credit: la Vitre
To video chat with a colleague, users tap on the screen "as if they were knocking on the door of the neighboring office," according to the company. When you hear a "knock," one would simply move in front of la Vitre to engage in the conversation. Nothing like a friendly knock from a digital abyss to start your work day.
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Users can upload and share documents and media while awkwardly standing face to face as they converse. The interactive touchscreen, which is compatible with LG and Samsung, also allows users to write messages like "help" or "I'm watching you." OK, hopefully not those messages, but it could happen. The product can also translate what's being said in 60 languages into text on screen, la Vitre says, but we haven't seen that in action.
"Ultimately, la Vitre is a huge time saver, and it is more efficient to see each other for 5 minutes through it than the long email conversations which often become unintelligible," Boulanger said. However, there are plenty of office workers across the globe who wish more meetings could be emails.(Opens in a new tab) The screen is available for 36-month leases, but when asked about pricing, Boulanger said the company has yet to set a price for the U.S. market and didn't share pricing in other markets.
If la Vitre does eventually make its way into remote home offices, just make sure to wear pants if you're walking near the portal.
Ones gotta go and its probably Microsoft Edge: The 7 funniest tweets of the week
The weekend has finally arrived and, like always, not a moment too soon.
It was one of those strange, weird weeks where it's not quite winter but not yet spring. Snow sometimes, in some places. Rain or sun elsewhere.
But you know what was a constant? People tweeting. Even as the bird app slowly collapses in on itself, the tweets kept rolling in. Because that's what the internet does.
So we went ahead and collected the seven best tweets of the week, because that's what we do every week. Please enjoy.
1. 'One's gotta go' viral tweets taken to its logical extreme.
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2. Another one of God's little tests. We must be strong.
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3. A simple can of Diet Coke holds an intense amount of power. It can fix just about anything.
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4. Think about all the good this could do.
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5. Somebody help him. Good lord, somebody help him.
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6. What a truly bonkers thing to ask another human being. Like what are you talking about?
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7. And finally, this gem. To be clear, this isn't even meant to be funny or some kind of joke. It just a thing that happened in the real world. But what an absolute pinnacle moment in the history of human accomplishment.
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An inside look at how Bidens campaign is winning the viral merch game
Joe Biden's campaign has mastered the art of making memorable merch.
As with any candidate's site, the vice president's online shop(Opens in a new tab) is full of apparel, accessories, and other unique ways for supporters to publicly show their Biden/Harris pride. But over the past two weeks — since the New York Times(Opens in a new tab) reported(Opens in a new tab) that Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and another $750 his first year in office — the Biden campaign has seriously stepped up its merch game.
After seeing people express outrage over Trump's shockingly low income tax payments, Biden's campaign released buttons(Opens in a new tab), stickers(Opens in a new tab), and shirts(Opens in a new tab) that said "I Paid More In Taxes Than Donald Trump." Then following the first presidential debate on Sept. 29, the team created "Will you shut up, man?" shirts to commemorate Biden's blunt reaction to Trump.
On Wednesday night, during the first and only vice presidential debate, the team once again had a pitch perfect response to the fly that landed on Mike Pence's head mid-debate: a Biden/Harris fly swatter featuring the clever pun, "Truth Over Flies."
The Biden team has been heavily praised online for so quickly responding to the news and finding ways to take part in viral moments. Mashable spoke with Zach McNamara, merchandise director for the Biden campaign, about the team's successful merch strategy and how they've managed to brainstorm, design, and sell these products in such a timely manner.
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McNamara gave us a little behind-the-scenes peek into how the merch gets made, explaining, "When something like the tax story comes up, or we have unifying moments during debates, like we saw last night […] there is a Slack channel where we come together and start to throw out ideas. And you know, like nine out of 10 them will not work. But a lot of times one of them will."
Once the now infamous debate fly started trending on social media and the campaign tweeted an old photo of Biden(Opens in a new tab) holding a swatter, everything fell into place merch-wise. The team found fly swatters that were union-made in the U.S. (like all items in the store), they came up with the pun that played off of Biden's "Truth Over Lies" quote (which is featured on other campaign merch(Opens in a new tab)), and they created the product mockup.
Within an hour of the fly landing on Pence's head, Biden's team had the fly swatters for sale on the site. Within 24 hours, the campaign had completely sold out of them. In the end, supporters snagged nearly 35,000 swatters, and though the product had some lighthearted inspiration behind it, Biden's team hopes people focus on the deeper message it carries.
Bye, fly swatter.Credit: store.joebiden.com
"Yes, the fly swatter thing is cute and of the moment, but what's printed on it — the allusion to truth over lies — I think is a key reason why it resonated and why we sold so many, because we consistently see that those products that feature those short, simple phrases are among our bestsellers always," McNamara said.
The "Will you shut up, man?" shirts, which featured Biden's quote atop an image of Trump's face, were also massively popular and sold out the day after the first presidential debate. But the clever merch isn't just there to make people laugh. It also helps drive current and potential supporters to explore the site, inspires them to learn more about Biden and Harris as candidates, and, of course, raises money for the campaign.
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The witty items that piggyback on viral moments clearly get a lot of attention online and are a big hit with supporters, but interestingly they're not the campaign's biggest sellers — not by a long shot.
"Biden-Harris yard signs are the most popular item on the store virtually every hour of every day, every week. And we've sold just an ungodly amount of those. Ever since we put them up the day Senator Harris's selection was announced," McNamara said.
"Lighthearted and fun is not something that we get a lot in Donald Trump's America."
The online store also features other items including apparel printed with Harris and Biden's go-to fashion accessories(Opens in a new tab) (Chuck Taylors and aviator sunglasses), virtual Animal Crossing merch, bottles of hand sanitizer(Opens in a new tab) with Biden's COVID-19 plan printed on the label, and several campaign collabs with professional designers(Opens in a new tab).
Though the team will be winding down rolling out new production as November draws near, supporters can expect a few more surprises to hit the shop before election day.
Ultimately, the goal is to strike the perfect balance between stressing the political gravity of this election and providing some much-needed comedic relief.
"It's a very, very serious campaign. Everybody knows that. There's possibly never been a more serious time for our country, certainly in all of our lives. But that doesn't mean that we can't have some lighthearted moments," McNamara said. "Joe and Kamala themselves, they are fundamentally lighthearted people. We don't only love them for their policies and their experience and what they've done for this country. They're good people. And lighthearted and fun is not something that we get a lot in Donald Trump's America."
I challenged meal delivery service FreshlyFit to be my WFH chef for the week
Hey internet, are you hungry? Maybe you hopped on the sourdough train or flipped some tiny pancakes during the past year. Maybe you got fancy with new recipes or supported local restaurants with frequent takeout orders. However you’ve been feeding yourself during pandemic times, there’s a good chance you’re experiencing some level of cooking fatigue at this point.
In the Before Times, one of the main benefits of meal delivery services was not having to cook after commuting home from a long day at the office. Now that your commute might take you from your bedroom to your living room, the thought of a kitchen detour culminating in a halfhearted home cooked meal might have lost its appeal.
I have never cooked as much in my small, dishwasher-less New York City kitchen as I have since last March. I’ve also never scrubbed as many dishes. So, I happily agreed to spend a week trying FreshlyFit(Opens in a new tab), a meal delivery service featuring a wide menu of healthy chef-prepared options that are ready to eat in just a few minutes. Notably, all of FreshlyFit’s meals are gluten-free.
If you want to give it a try, take $18.75 off each of your first four orders with code MASHABLE75AFF(Opens in a new tab) through March 1 — that's $75 off, total. Here’s how FreshlyFit brought some much welcomed variety to my week.
Convenience factor
My FreshlyFit order arrived at the perfect time: I’d just come back from a long walk, hungry for dinner and mentally rummaging through my barren fridge for inspiration. The box was heavier than expected, thanks to nifty insulated packaging and two giant ice packs that give you some leeway with immediate refrigeration.
If you have a microwave, you’re in luck: just pop the meal in for three minutes and serve. I don’t have a microwave (see tiny NYC kitchen), so I went the oven heating route, which took slightly longer but yielded good results. Simply heat at 325 degrees for 25 minutes and lunch or dinner is served — no prepping, cooking, or cleaning required.
Tastiness
The FreshlyFit(Opens in a new tab) menu was an obvious choice for me, as I work out nearly every day and tend to crave protein. The Southwest Powerbowl was a tasty little fiesta of seared chicken, roasted cauliflower, and black beans topped with a fiery ranchero sauce — basically a fajita in a bowl (I may have added cheese and tortilla chips to the equation). My other favorite was the Sausage and Peppers entree. It won on flavor, fillingness, and riced cauliflower that lent a nice texture and may have paired better than actual rice.
Lifestyle fit
Eliminating cooking and dish duty is one less thing to worry about during a WFH day with back-to-back video meetings. Freshly has lots of options, from lean protein packed meals to riffs on popular takeout dishes. Each meal is sized for one person to heat and eat (appealing if you’ve been cooking for one for the past several months). So what’s my verdict on FreshlyFit? It’s a great way to shake yourself out of cooking fatigue, try new flavor combos, and treat yourself to one less thing on your to-do list. Because there’s already enough to think about in 2021.
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Credit: Freshly
Take $75 off your first four orders ($18.75 off each order) with code MASHABLE75AFF through March 1
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Tinder will now let you block phone contacts from showing up in your feed
Sifting through the masses on a dating app can be difficult and discouraging enough on its own, but nothing is worse than when you see someone you'd really rather not see while swiping. After years of it being a problem, Tinder's introducing a solution.
After a testing phase in India, Korea, and Japan, Tinder is rolling out(Opens in a new tab) the ability to block personal contacts from appearing in the popular dating app's feed of potential partners. Users can dig into the new feature by going to the settings menu and selecting the "Block Contacts" option. From there, they can go through their phone's entire collection of contacts and block anyone they'd like to avoid for any reason.
Tinder contact blocking in action.Credit: Tinder
The benefits here are obvious: It can be emotionally distressing to see an ex on Tinder, even when the relationship ended amicably. Whether it's an ex you've simply moved on from or an abuser, the ability to filter them out of Tinder's algorithm entirely is eminently useful to just about anyone. That said, it's not completely positive, thanks to privacy implications.
The new feature asks users to grant Tinder permission to access their contact lists. Some folks will be uncomfortable with that, and for good reason, as giving an app permission to do almost anything is a slippery slope that can end in personal data being tracked for advertising purposes or, in the worst-case scenario, outright stolen.
Mashable heard from a Tinder source that the company intends to only use contacts info to ensure a user won't see someone they've marked to block. But for what it's worth, Tinder has been implicated in personal data overreach stories before. So it wouldn't hurt to at least be careful before using this new feature.
For those who could go the rest of their lives without seeing a particular person in their contact list, though, there's at least a way to ensure they won't show up on Tinder. Better than nothing.
In a year where anything could be an era, it's fitting that TikTokkers are ending the year by revisiting their various eras.
Soundtracked to a sped-up version of "Celebration" by Azealia Banks, the "my 2022 eras" trend consists of users posting a series of photos that encapsulate their year. Each image is captioned with the "era" is represents. So far, over 340,000 videos have been posted using the song. On the internet, the term era describes a period of one's life. For example, when someone says "I'm in my girl-boss era," what they mean is that, right now, they're ambitious and independent.
These eras tend to be hyper-specific and can be anything from "lives with mom era" to "nursing student who should not be on vacation era." Of course, it's normal for someone to cycle through multiple eras in a calendar year.
SEE ALSO:
It's not a phase. It's an era.
If you did anything this year, you can slap era to the end of it and upload it to TikTok. It's the type of trend that's becoming rarer on the platform, one that attracts both regular users and creators like @not.even.emily(Opens in a new tab) and @oliviaamcdowel(Opens in a new tab)l. @not.even.emily's eras include, "kpop concerts nonstop," "chasing my actress dreams," and "wearing black nonstop."
SEE ALSO:
Is the TikTok trend dead?
The combination of a series of photos and hyper-specific captions makes the trend feel like the final boss of photo dumps and the fad of describing everything as an era.
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The obsession with eras on the internet began with the "flop era,"(Opens in a new tab) a term that originated on stan Twitter to describe an album cycle that didn't live up to expectations, and has since gone through eras of its own. There's been the villain era, Fleabag era, Reputation era, etc. But at a certain point, era lost almost all meaning, becoming a quirky add-on to any activity or state of being. Eras aren't even limited to just humans, dogs like @frankscreams(Opens in a new tab) got in on the trend too.
While haters have been quick to call out the (primarily) young women participating in the trend for referring to a week-long vacation as an era, the trend aims for something ephemeral — the perfect embodiment of another year around the sun.
Windshield woes: Mashable drivers share their favorite lessons learned via broken glass
Any driver has a go-to cache of great on-the-road memories with their car: a favorite long weekend road trip with a great playlist, a nighttime cruise with the windows down, a drive-in movie with your partner. Of course, along with the stories of good times, every driver has at least one less-than-fond memory of an unwelcome surprise. We’re talking about that flat tire in the middle of nowhere, or the sunroof that decided not to close during a sudden downpour, or that errant rock that wreaked havoc on your windshield.
Since we can laugh at these experiences in retrospect, we’ve rounded up a few of our staffers’ favorite “windshield woes” — the stories that taught them how to deal with a broken or damaged windshield. Read on to see how your own Ah-ha! moments compare, and to discover how Safelite(Opens in a new tab)® can be your windshield hero.
The “my friend’s a mechanic” lesson
Mashable staffer Anna Kate reminds us that, sometimes, it’s best to leave vehicle maintenance to the professionals:
“Back when I was a financial recruiter, my main responsibility was to go to college campuses and try to attract students to come work for the firm I represented. This meant I spent a lot of time in my Toyota Yaris, a Christmas gift from my parents my senior year of high school. This particular time, I was going all the way down to Tifton, Georgia, which is about a five-hour drive from Atlanta. The day before my journey, I brought my car over to my good friend Will's house. We are from the same small town in Georgia, and he assured me he would give my car a good looking over and tune-up. He's a real know-it-all so I didn't really ask any questions when he was done, I just trusted he got it done. I drove home on the back roads, no faster than 30 mph the whole way, and everything was just fine.
Later, as I was driving to go get tacos with my best friend Alec, I got onto highway 85, hit 65 ramping up to 70 miles per hour — and, suddenly, the hood of my car flew up and cracked my windshield, completely blocking my view on a four-lane highway! I freaked out, and Alec helped me navigate to a safe location, where I called Will and cussed him out. Knowing I had to leave for Tifton at 6 AM the next morning, I immediately thought of the ‘Safelite Repair, Safelite Replace’ commercial jingle and contacted them. A nice man came and tolerated my tear-stained face and my ranting while he replaced the entire windshield. (I made Will pay for it!) Best of all, I still wound up getting tacos and making it to the career fair the next day.”
Safelite®(Opens in a new tab) to the rescue! Safelite’s dedication to convenience means Anna Kate could rest assured — (Opens in a new tab)a Safelite MobileGlassShop™(Opens in a new tab) came to her and (Opens in a new tab)replaced her windshield.(Opens in a new tab)
The “my fiancé is a driver’s bad luck charm” lesson
Alice, another Mashable staffer extraordinaire, can at least blame her fiancé for some less-than-charmed moments on the road:
“It was my first-ever trip away somewhere with my fiancé, Lucas, and we were road tripping out to Marfa in West Texas (a 7-hour drive from our place in Austin). We were in Lucas’ car, and out of nowhere, a rock flew up and cracked his windshield. We were able to continue driving, but because we were going to West Texas in January, we knew we had to have it repaired or else it would crack more — it gets really, really cold at night there, which can make windshield cracks worse.
Then, not too long after that, Lucas was driving my car (which I had bought less than six months earlier) to Georgia, because he was coming with me to my hometown for Christmas for the first time. Same thing: bam, a rock came out of nowhere and cracked the windshield. Merry Christmas, I guess!”
True, getting a cracked windshield can be inconvenient. However, (Opens in a new tab)Safelite(Opens in a new tab) offers precision care from experienced technicians, (Opens in a new tab)easy scheduling(Opens in a new tab), and (Opens in a new tab)they even worked with Alice’s insurance(Opens in a new tab) while away from home — another potential headache avoided.
The “small rocks carry a big punch” lesson
From Mashable staffer Sasha, a David-and-Goliath tale of a small rock versus a big windshield:
“While parked under a freeway overpass, I returned to the parking lot to find my back windshield completely shattered. It appeared a rock or something small had hit my car from above. Physics being what they are, my rear window didn’t stand a chance.”
A classic case of physics ruining your day: It can happen even after you leave the high school classroom. Although, speaking of the classroom, (Opens in a new tab)Safelite(Opens in a new tab) trains their replacement specialists to (Opens in a new tab)replace(Opens in a new tab) broken auto glass to the highest standards — all technicians receive thorough classroom and hands-on training so you can rest easy knowing you'll receive the best experts in the business. Plus, when rear windshields are installed, you'll receive a nationwide lifetime warranty for workmanship.
As drivers, we can’t avoid windshield woes all the time. Luckily, for the times a tiny pebble gets the best of us, Safelite(Opens in a new tab) is ready to help.