Monday evening’s game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears was largely uneventful, at least when it came to scoring plays. Chicago’s offense struggled mightily throughout the night, ultimately committing three turnovers and giving away a sizable advantage in total yards. Minnesota did just enough to secure what felt like a comfortable win despite generating fewer than 200 yards (and a majestic Kirk Cousins arm punt) and, in the final seconds, the Vikings held a 14-point lead that was quite safe.
However, handicappers were still very much invested as the clock ticked down and, when Justin Fields threw a 19-yard touchdown pass as time expired, it looked briefly as if the Bears might cover, or at least push, from a point spread perspective.
Ainda tivemos tempo para um TD dos Bears com 1 SEGUNDO no relógio… aquele bom e velho ‘garbage time’! pic.twitter.com/Si56uZyGm8
As seen above, the touchdown brought Chicago within eight points and, with the extra point, the Bears might have lost by seven. In some places, the final point spread was Vikings -7, meaning that Bears backers were eager for the team to kick the otherwise meaningless extra point. With that said, the NFL changed its rules a handful of seasons ago, eliminating the need to attempt the point after in a situation that would not materially affect the final result.
ESPN’s Steve Levy and Scott Van Pelt, along with many others, made passing reference to the final point potentially mattering for some, and an extra point attempt would have certainly been welcome for those who were invested in Chicago. Alas, the rule was interpreted correctly and, frankly, the Bears gave away so many other scoring opportunities that there were plenty of other things to be annoyed by when rooting for a Chicago cover.
According to reporting from Variety, now that he’s been suspended from the conservatorship, and legal proceedings are needed to tie up loose ends, Jamie has asked the court for “confirmation, authorization and direction” to have Britney pay for the lawyers who are “participating in proceedings concerning Jamie’s ongoing fiduciary duties relating to winding up” the conservatorship. While he was her conservator, Britney was required to pay Jamie’s legal fees, even while she was petitioning to be free from him. “Prompt payment on account of Jamie’s attorneys’ fees is necessary to ensure the Conservatorship can be wound up quickly and efficiently to allow Britney to take control of her life as she and Jamie desire,” the petition continued.
Britney’s lawyer, who she was only recently legally allowed to hire, Matthew Rosengart, called Jamie’s request calling it “legally meritless” and an “abomination” as Spears was “suspended ignominiously.”
“Mr. Spears reaped many millions of dollars from Britney as a conservator, while paying his lawyers millions more, all from Britney’s work and hard earned money,” Rosengart’s statement began. “The conservatorship has been terminated and Mr. Spears was suspended ignominiously. Under the circumstances, his petition is not only legally meritless, it is an abomination. Britney poignantly testified about the pain her father caused her and this only adds to it. This is not what a father who loves his daughter does.”
Monday night’s matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears went fairly well for the Vikings in the first half. Minnesota took a 10-3 lead into halftime and, given that the Vikings were on the road, a seven-point edge is nothing to sneeze at in a divisional game. From there, the half’s only touchdown came from the arm of Kirk Cousins, and the veteran quarterback had a few nice moments in the first 30 minutes.
However, Cousins uncorked perhaps the most memorable play from the first half and it came with an epic “arm punt” in the final minute before the break.
It was relatively unclear as to who this pass was even targeting but, as you can see, it had the look on television of a punt returner standing under a pop-up. Perhaps the throw was intended for Justin Jefferson, who got tripped up and possibly held on a no-call as he tried to run up the seam, as many of Cousins’ attempts are, but the dots don’t really paint an encouraging picture of what transpired.
Next Gen doesn’t know what to do with this pass. It assigns it a –% probability of being completed. That seems generous. pic.twitter.com/SDJLGddaN9
The damage was relatively minimal here, as the Bears did not score before halftime, as their field goal attempt following this got blocked, and the 10-3 margin was secure. However, it is possible that the Vikings left at least three points on the board if the third down was converted and, well, Cousins might be razzed by teammates in the film room later this week.
Last week, there was some unexpected news concerning an actor most people assume is jolly and laidback: Jeff Garlin agreed to leave The Goldbergs, the long-time sitcom set in the ‘80s amongst a Philadelphia outskirts family (that has nothing to do with actor Adam Goldberg). The reason? Some on-set behavior that left cast and crew so uncomfortable that he’d been approached by HR three separate times. The movie left people wondering how they would handle the departure of the brood’s patriarch. Well, now we know.
As per Variety, Garlin’s Murray will stay on the show — through creative editing. The team will use “off-camera dialogue pulled from earlier episodes and unused takes, as well as previously shot images of Garlin.” What there won’t be are deepfakes, that incredibly dangerous tool that makes digital fakery look scarily real, and which could easily be used for nefarious real-life purposes. (Seriously, please stop using it.)
Garlin will be rewarded for…well, nothing, exactly. But if they’re going to use older footage of him to fabricate new storylines, then he ought to be compensated. This isn’t entirely new. As Variety points out, Garlin’s stand-in “has already been used, shot from the back, in group scenes since his departure.”
Besides, The Goldbergs had been phasing Murray out somewhat. By the end, Garlin was only working one day a week. When he was there, however, he reportedly kept doing things like using one word in particular that people didn’t like hearing:
Overall, Garlin’s go-to jokes that a number of people on the show found offensive were talking about grandma’s vagina, balls and brassier, a co-worker said. Additionally, he would not address some longtime female crew members by name, using instead nicknames that some also considered offensive.
Garlin also reportedly swore at his double’s wife, which launched the HR investigation that has ended with him being asked to leave — and yet still remain, sort of, through the magic of editing. Let’s hope they do a better job than the editor of the Radioactive Man movie from The Simpsons.
It takes a special type of person to work in retail without losing their mind. Retail jobs are both mentally and physically taxing and the pay isn’t usually that great either. Most retail workers spend all day on their feet and they have to have a pleasant attitude even when dealing with the most difficult customers.
On top of customer drama, there’s inevitably a boss or manager lurking around to make sure you didn’t take too long of a lunch break or that you’re wearing the appropriate amount of flair.
One great thing about retail is being able to bond with coworkers who are going through the same thing. Retail employees tend to be friendly, social people so it’s a great environment to build friendships. You’re gonna need somebody on your side after you’ve spent an hour dealing with a customer who keeps demanding they speak to your manager.
The Retail Problems Instagram page does a perfect job of explaining what it’s like to work in retail through hilarious memes that anyone who’s ever had to work a cash register understands.
The first thing you lose after taking a retail job is your love for Christmas music. Having to hear the same 25 songs on repeat for eight hours a day is seriously traumatizing. I left my retail job in 2004 and it took 15 years for me to be able to listen to Christmas music again.
You’ll never truly understand what the general public is like until you’ve spent at least six months on the floor of a retail store dealing with people from all walks of life.
A great way to see what someone’s character is like is to go out with them to a restaurant. You can learn a lot about someone by watching them interact with a server. Good people go out of their way to be nice. Entitled people do whatever they can to make the server’s life miserable because they can’t fight back.
There should be a law making it illegal to subject anyone to more than four hours of Christmas music a day. It gets burned into your head and never goes away, even when you’re not at work.
Seasoned retail people know to avoid their managers at the end of the day. They’re known for suprising you at the end of your shift with one last task. “Could you go clean up the register on aisle six? Do you have some time to put up the new signs for the sale tomorrow?”
Retail people are the masters of going from joking around with a coworker to quickly throwing on their professional smile to ask, “How may I help you?”
A chance meeting between an Uber driver and an 88-year-old man with dementia has completely changed both of their lives for the better.
In March 2020, Paul Webb of Columbus, Ohio called for an Uber to take him to the Verizon store to fix his broken cell phone. Luckily for Webb, he was picked up by Jenni Tekletsion, 52, in her Toyota RAV 4 for the short trip.
“When he called for a ride—when he just talked to me by phone—I knew this guy, I’m going to take care of him,” she told ABC6.
Two decades ago, Tekletsion emigrated to the United States from Ethiopia. She drives an Uber on the weekends to send money back to orphanages in her country of birth. At the same time, she had a job as a banker for a financial institution while simultaneously working on her doctorate in business administration.
This Uber driver left her full-time job to become a caregiver for one of her passengers. @bobwsyx6 has the story here.https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/uber-driver-quits-full-time-job-to-help-care-for-canal-winchester-man-she-met-during-ride-11-23-2021u00a0u2026
A few minutes into the ride, Tekletsion began to feel bad for Webb. “I could tell how lonely he was,” she said. “I had a feeling that he needed help. I told him I live nearby his house, so I said, ‘From now on, when you need a ride, just call me.’”
The next day, Webb took her up on the offer for a ride to a nearby gas station to get some milk.
Over the next few weeks, he continued to call Tekletsion and she also would stop by his house to check on him. “I started coming here every single day after work to take him out to eat,” she told The Washington Post.
Jenni Tekletsion met Paul Webb driving Uber, her side job. She was also a Banker. She learned of his Dementia, so for 2 yrs she drove him to all his errands. They became close. When he fell ill, she quit her jobs to become his caregiver! There is only one race, the human race! pic.twitter.com/EKlzGovtvb
For a year, the two shared a meal together every day, alternating between who would pick up the check. Tekletsion also drove him wherever he needed to go, whether it was the supermarket or a doctor’s appointment.
As their relationship grew, Webb’s health began to decline and in April of this year, Tekletsion decided to quit her job to become his full-time caregiver. The pay was half of what she was used to making, but the benefit of helping her friend more than made up for the difference. Her husband works three jobs so she had the financial flexibility to make it happen.
However, at first, she had to convince Webb’s two children, Keith and Melanie, who were skeptical of their relationship.
“The hardest part was to build trust with his children,” Tekletsion told The Washington Post. “I explained to them who I am and where I come from, and that I don’t need anything from Paul, but I want to take care of him and help him in his daily life.”
But she soon won his children over with her pure dedication.
“Consistency. She was real. She did what she said she was going to do, and she did it in a way that was genuine,” Keith told ABC6. “She’s the same. In a world that’s ever-changing, rarely will you find someone who does not change. She’s the same. To this day, it’s mind-blowing.”
Tekletsion and Webb’s friendship is a wonderful example of what can happen when people who need help are able to find big-hearted people who are ready to give. And to think it all began with a simple rideshare.
“How lucky am I to get to spend my days with Paul?” she said. “It was the best decision I ever made.”
Google has become such a ubiquitous part of our lives that the data it reveals is a pretty decent indicator of our collective reality. It’s a weird phenomenon, considering the fact that Google has only been a thing for 25 years—basically a single generation—but here we are.
Now that we’re wrapping up 2021, we can look back and see what people were searching for the most throughout the year. Reddit user u/V1Analytics pulled together the top trending search terms from Google’s 2021 Year in Search summary (for the period before mid-November 2021) and from Google’s Daily Search Trends page (from mid-November to now) and illustrated the daily trends for each state in a one-minute video.
It’s fascinating to see what Americans were looking up—as well as what they weren’t looking up—the most this year.
We start with January 6, 2021, which shows most people Googling “Capitol” and “Biden,” which isn’t surprising considering the attack on the U.S. Capitol as insurrectionists tried to overturn Biden’s presidential election win. What is surprising are the six states that were more interested in the Mega Millions jackpot that day. Like, OK people. Really?
Biden dominated searches through January. Soon we collectively turned to the Gamestop (GME) stock phenomenon before a widespread interest in Valheim (video game launch), The Weeknd (Super Bowl performance) and some random power outages. Valheim was apparently super popular before a universal interest in the government’s stimulus checks took over the entire second half of March.
In April, Lil Nas X made a splash, followed by rapper DMX. Then Prince Phillip died and Jake Paul had a first-round TKO.
May through early July brought Dogecoin, Dogecoin and more Dogecoin, followed by AMC stock—a very financial period, with some more power outages thrown in for funsies. (Also, Mississippi really likes Dogecoin. Holy moly.)
Then Jeff Bezos went to space and Simone Biles got the twisties, and hey, more power outages! August brought Afghanistan, Hurricane Ida and Jake Paul once again.
In September, Gabby Petito’s disappearance had everyone riveted for a solid two weeks before Squid Game, Urban Meyer and Alec Baldwin took over.
October into November saw Travis Scott, Kyle Rittenhouse and Adele dominating people’s searches.
Don’t blink at the end of November, or you’ll miss the school shooting at Oxford High School that piqued people’s interest for a day or two before Spotify Wrapped yanked everyone’s attention back to what’s really important.
Yikes! Tornado in December and then Elon Musk as Time Person of the Year, and that’s as far as we’ve gotten into this month.
It truly is fascinating to see what people were most interested in looking up this year. It’s a bit disconcerting in some ways, as well, considering the fact that not one of the top searches had anything to do with the viral pandemic that is still raging and has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans this year alone. Is that a sign that people are tired of the pandemic or just more interested in new things as they come along? Trends can be both organic and driven by what’s being covered in the media—and both things can play off of each other—but it’s interesting to think about what is missing from this search term synopsis. When we look back at 2021 and its place in U.S. history, is Jake Paul really going to play a bigger role than the coronavirus? Doubtful. Do these search trends offer some indication of why a significant portion of the population is woefully uninformed or misinformed about the pandemic? Possibly.
At any rate, it’s an interesting glimpse into what Americans are paying the most attention to.
(A note from V1Analytics about the way the data was collected and presented: “Google Trends provides weekly relative search interest for every search term, along with the interest by state. Using these two datasets for each search term, we’re able to calculate the relative search interest for each state for a particular week. Linear interpolation was used to calculate the daily search interest.”)
It’s amazing what you can do with perseverance, optimism and a single bobby pin.
The Today Show recently highlighted the incredible success of 30-year-old Demi Skipper’s “Trade Me Project,” where Skipper documented her 28 trades that landed her the keys to her very own dream home.
And it all started with (you guessed it) a bobby pin. The real crazy part: It happened in the span of just a year and a half.
You might be thinking, “wait, I’ve heard this story before, haven’t I?”
Indeed, Skipper’s idea was inspired by Kyle MacDonald, whose initial red paperclip trade landed him a house within a year, back in 2005. He even has a TED Talk about it:
What if you could trade a paperclip for a house? | Kyle MacDonald | TEDxVienna
I’m fairly certain, though I have no hard evidence to prove it, this is the concept behind a hilarious scene from “The Office,” where Dwight Schrute tries to educate us all about “The Art of the Swap.”
Spoiler alert: The swap doesn’t go quite as well for Dwight as it does Skipper and MacDonald.
Since Skipper recorded her bartering journey on Instagram and TikTok, the story of a bobby pin magically transforming into a home—and more importantly, what that represents—has gone mainstream yet again.
Across social media, Skipper would note which items got swapped, along with their retail value. In this case, something worth a penny got traded for something with a thousand times more monetary value.
Yeah, some people were not jazzed about this one, and called it her worst trade. To be fair, free Chipotle every day for a year, plus a catered meal for 50, that racks up.
“You’ll be lucky to get $500 for it,” one user wrote.
As it turns out, luck was indeed on Skipper’s side.
Skipper made one Chipotle fan an offer they couldn’t refuse. In exchange, Skipper received an off-the-grid trailer worth about $40,000.
There was one caveat: The trailer would require a drive from Skipper’s home in San Francisco over the border with Canada to pick it up. But I mean, once you’ve made it this far, what’s a few thousand miles?
And then came the final chapter when a house flipper in Tennessee, who had been following Skipper’s bobby pin saga, reached out showing interest in a trade. One solar-powered trailer for one house.
And it happened on the day after Thanksgiving, no less.
Running up to her new home, a teary Skipper is seen in the TikTok video saying, “This just shows you: it’s possible!”
According to Today, Skipper reports that people have been “overwhelmingly positive” in their response, saying that “people really have doubted me, and I certainly did at times during the journey too. But I learned a lot about myself in the process, and I was really amazed by my ability to stick with it.”
Now what?
Well, first there’s the big move from California to Tennessee. Then, renovation. Followed by … doing it all over again. Skipper revealed her plans to “donate the next house … to a person who needs it, no mortgage, no rental” and that would be the start of a brand new trade journey.
“There’s been a couple of people who have done this once, but no one’s crazy enough to do it twice,” said Skipper.
After hearing this story, I can’t help but think of what other amazing things might occur as a result of really working toward something every day.
Or, when viewed from a lens of something other than success, I think about how our world might be changed with the simple commitment of one kind act each and every day.
There are people, like Skipper, who are leading by example. And it certainly makes that first step seem much more doable, whether that’s a bobby pin, a good deed or even a kind word.
Ask a random woman if a man has ever made her question her safety just by talking to her, and chances are you’re going to hear an immediate yes. Not all interactions with strangers lead to discomfort, of course, and sometimes it just comes down to basic gut instinct. There are also varying levels of discomfort when men talk to you as a woman, from “Oof, this is awkward” to “I feel creeped out right now” to “I wonder if this guy is a serial killer.”
When a man starts talking to us in a way that makes us uncomfortable, we generally make it known in some way. Most of us won’t come out and say, “Back off, dude,” unless the behavior becomes super egregious, because 1) it may not be in our personality to be blunt, 2) we expect that the guy will take the hint eventually or 3) we sense that confronting the man would make us even more unsafe than we already feel.
More often than not, we make our discomfort clear in our body language and the way we respond to questions. Long story short, if we don’t show we’re interested, we’re not interested.
A viral video from TikTok News shows an interaction between a 19-year-old woman selling stickers at a retail shop and a man who kept asking her questions about herself. It’s a masterclass in what not to do as a guy and a perfect example of what signs to look for to determine that a woman isn’t picking up what you’re laying down.
Watch the interaction:
So first of all, after the first few questions about her age and where she goes to school, the guy should have gotten the clue that she was not interested in conversing with him further. Her answers were short and to the point. She didn’t offer any additional details, nor did she reciprocate with questions about him. If a woman is interested after you strike up a conversation, she will not answer your questions this way.
She didn’t add what she’s studying or whether she likes school. She didn’t ask, “How old are you? Do you go to school?” She shows no interest whatsoever in keeping the conversation going.
Second of all, her body language is a clear indicator. She’s not smiling warmly. She’s not leaning casually over the counter toward him. She doesn’t go over to him when he asks for help. She stands still, fidgets sometimes and only moves when she needs to in order to do her job.
This is the body language of a woman who is uncomfortable. Not “just shy.” Not “playing hard to get.” Uninterested and uncomfortable, clearly.
Why wouldn’t she just refuse to answer his questions, or be direct and tell him to leave her alone? For one, she’s working. He’s her customer. There’s a certain level of courtesy and friendliness that is customary and expected from an employee working with the public. And it’s not always easy to gauge exactly when it crosses the line into inappropriate-enough-to-say-something. While this guy’s behavior got creepier and creepier as he ignored her cues that she wasn’t interested, nothing he said was clearly problematic.
That’s part of what is so frustrating about interactions like this. It’s not like the guy is being gross or saying anything over the top. It’s the relentlessness that’s the issue. Question after question about her life. Some might say he was trying to be friendly or “just making conversation.” No, he wasn’t. Conversation is a two-way street. It’s not a man peppering a woman with personal questions continually as she gives one-word answers and clearly doesn’t want to keep talking.
Is it possible that he just isn’t good at reading social cues? Sure. Is it possible that he thought he was flirting and that she would feel flattered by it? Sure. Is she still uncomfortable? Yes. Is his refusal to give up still creepy and inappropriate? Yes.
I’d venture a guess that nearly every woman out there has been in this young woman’s shoes, unsure of whether our safety is at risk. It’s easy to say, “Oh, come on. He was just talking.” But this is a man who doesn’t seem to respect boundaries in conversation—why would she expect him to respect boundaries in any other way?
Women constantly have to calculate whether men who make us uncomfortable are just awkward or if they are a threat, and it sucks. Just as we have to look for signs of potential danger, we certainly should be able to expect men to look for signs that we’re not interested.
And if the man actually did notice her signals and purposely ignored them, then she was right to be wary. Being friendly is one thing. This is entirely another.
Spider-Man joined the MCU back with 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, and since then everyone’s been happy. Well, almost. He’s only there out of some complicated deal between Sony, who owns his wing of the Marvel-verse (including Venom), and Disney, who own all the rest. There was that time Disney almost lost Spidey, but that all worked out in the end. The merger, though, didn’t start so swimmingly either.
After Spider-Man: No Way Home’s freakishly strong weekend at the box office, The New York Times published a chat with Sony producer Amy Pascal and MCU honcho Kevin Feige. The two revealed, among other things, that they initially warned stars Tom Holland and Zendaya that they can’t date. (They did anyway.) But they also discussed the time Feige first floated the idea that Peter Parker should come hang out with the Avengers.
It was Pascal who reached out to Feige, after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed (which is to say it still grossed over $700 million worldwide). Her request was simple: She said, “Help.” Specifically she wanted him to help her beef up some ideas they had for the character’s future. Feige said he told her, “I’m not good at that — giving advice and leaving. The only way I know how to help is if we just make the movie for you.”
“And then I threw a sandwich at him,” Pascal said.
It was, Feige said, a “pretty low-key sandwich.” But it was clear to him that “she did not like that suggestion.”
But Feige was not discouraged by being pelted with food, as Pascal recalls:
And then Kevin called me and came over to the house and said, “I have an idea. What if Tony Stark makes Peter’s suit?” And as soon as he said that, I understood the possibilities of what we could do together. To have Iron Man and Spidey in the same world, one rooted more in technological innovation — the new suit — and less in medical experimentation, which is where we were confined before, felt so much more modern.
Cut to 2021 and it looks like Spidey ain’t leaving the MCU any time soon.. Enrage Amy Pascal by suggesting an idea she’ll eventually come around on — and which will earn you a ton of good will and, of course, money — and she might hit you with a BLT or, who knows, maybe something else like a Scotch woodcock.
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