Month: January 2022

Anyone who’s ever had a 2-year-old knows that they can be … a lot. Adorable for sure, but … a lot. Toddlers are just starting to figure out that they have their own free will, but they have zero idea how to wield it or use it for good. They want what they want, when they want it—except when they change their mind and absolutely do not want what they just wanted—and they don’t really have the emotional maturity or verbal acuity to adequately express any of these things without crying, whining or screaming.

There’s a reason they’re so darn cute.

For parents, handling a 2-year-old’s 2-year-oldness can be a challenge. You can’t rationalize with them. You know they’re not being little toddler terrors on purpose. You know that they’re just learning and that it’s a stage and a phase that won’t last forever, but when you’re in it? Phew.

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The key to getting through it is to be able to find the humor in it. Sometimes it’s just so absurd that all you can do is laugh. And laughing with other parents who have survived toddlerhood—or who are running the gauntlet alongside you—is one of the best ways to not lose your mind.

That’s why former news reporter Kayla Sullivan has gone viral with a fake news report about her toddler’s tantrum at an Olive Garden.

Standing in the hallway outside her son’s room, speaking into a toy microphone, Sullivan puts on her professional broadcast voice and says, “Kayla Sullivan reporting live from outside my son’s bedroom where he is currently being detained until naptime is over. Now, this story does involve a minor so I can’t release specifics, but what I can confirm is my son is a 2-year-old terrorist who held me hostage at the Olive Garden earlier today.”

Sullivan is a former reporter for Indiana’s Fox59 and Indianapolis’ CBS4 and a former news anchor at WLFI who, according to her TikTok description, is “now coming @ you live from #MomLife.”

Her delivery is spot on. People in the comments said they were just waiting for the cut to live footage.

“I brought my son’s favorite snacks, and even risked judgment from other moms by bringing an iPad”—oh yeah, felt that.

“Not even Cocomelon could stop this meltdown.” Yep, been there.

“Chech-up! CHECH-UUUP!!!” Definitely felt that, too.

We’ve all had moments when we feel like we completely suck at the “gentle parenting” thing, but fortunately, the tantrummy toddler years don’t last forever.

Sullivan’s video has been viewed a whopping 30 million times and has gotten praise and shares from tons of well-known people, from Alyssa Milano to Andy Grammer to Nick Cannon. Sullivan hit a comedy nerve that all parents can relate to and did it in an unexpected way.

But she didn’t end there. She also posted a follow-up report with eyewitness interviews, and holy moly, the accuracy.

We’ve all run into some Tammys and Karens in our lives—the moms who just can’t help telling you you’re doing it wrong, despite the fact that they are no more of an expert on parenting than you are. But the caricatures of these moms are hilarious.

Sullivan seems to have successfully carved out a niche for herself in the mom comedy space. Follow her on TikTok @kaylareporting for more.

In today’s episode of UPROXX Sessions, Stockz drops by to talk about one of hip-hop’s hottest topics at the moment, NFTs. The aptly-named cross-coastal advises listeners to get their money up with his laid-back performance of “Bored Ape Yacht Club,” which is named for the popular NFT collection currently occupying the profile pics of many of your favorite entertainers and plenty of crypto enthusiasts.

The Bored Apes belong to a series of cartoon monkeys adorned with various wardrobes and oddball accessories that doubles as kind of an insiders’ club of early blockchain adopters. The whole collection of 1,000 tokens reportedly brought in about $2 million and fans have access to a private Discord server.

While Stockz — who hails from Houston by way of Roanoke, Virginia and currently resides in LA — doesn’t break down the NFT phenomenon so much as use it as a prop to further flex his wealth. “Bored Ape Yacht Club” is one of the standout singles from his 2021 album Seoul Tape, which he released through his own imprint, Buy Money Ent.

Watch Stockz’s performance of “Bored Ape Yacht Club” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

There are few cocktails easier to make than the Aperol Spritz. And while the refreshing and effervescent drink might elicit thoughts of sitting in a hot Roman square on a summer’s day, it’s also the perfect wintry drink — especially if you’re in apres-ski mode.

The crux of an Aperol spritz is, of course, the Aperol. The Italian bitter is a floral and fruity apéritif that focuses on rhubarb, cinchona, and gentian (the latter being flowers) with a sweet edge. It’s sort of like the softer, more floral, and sweeter version of Campari. In fact, you can easily replace the Aperol in this recipe with Campari if you’re looking for a bolder and more bitter-leaning kick.

The rest of the drink is light and bubbly prosecco (a simple Italian sparkling white wine) and some sparkling water. And when we say it’s easy to make, we’re not kidding. You can follow the three, two, one pouring method right into the glass to make these.

That’s really it, so let’s get right into it!

Also Read: The Top Five Cocktail Recipes of 2021

• The Long Island Iced Tea Is Our Official Cocktail Of Summer 2021 — Here’s A Classic Recipe
• The Whiskey Smash Is A Summertime Dream — Here’s How To Make It
• It’s Time You Learn To Make A Real Old Fashioned — Here’s Our Recipe
• Here’s The Iconic Sazerac Recipe From Mads Mikkelsen’s Oscar-Winning ‘Another Round’
• The Black Manhattan Is Our 2021 Thanksgiving Cocktail, Here’s The Recipe

Aperol Spritz

Ingredients:

• 3 oz. prosecco
• 2 oz. Aperol
• 1 oz. sparkling water
• Ice
• Orange slice

Aperol is the must-have ingredient in this mix. Again, Campari is just as common around Italy in spritzes, so if you have some around definitely give that a shot too.

As for the prosecco, you’ll want to lean more towards the dry side of things since the Aperol is bringing plenty of sweetness to the mix. Mionetto Prosecco Brut is always a solid pick that you should be able to find pretty easily.

Lastly, there’s the sparkling water. I like sticking with the Italian vibe and using San Pellegrino. It’s a little sharper / mineral-y than the average fizzy water and works well when mixed with the wine and bitters.

What You’ll Need:

• Wine glass
• Jigger
• Barspoon

Method:

• Fill the glass with ice.
• Add the prosecco and sparkling water then top with Aperol. Give it a small stir. (If you don’t have a jigger and you don’t want to be overly exact, pour each ingredient using the 3, 2, 1 count — count to three pouring the prosecco, two for the Aperol, and one for the sparkling water)
• Slice a thin orange wedge and drop in the glass. Serve.

Bottom Line:

This slaps right now. All those sweet florals and light bitter notes really do transport you to that ski slope somewhere in the Italian Alps. It’s so light and, well, breezy while still holding enough flavor punch to feel like you’re actually drinking something.

The combination of sparkling water and sparkling wine ups the ante on the fizziness of the drink without going overboard. It’s sort of like a tickling in the back of your throat, which is a nice sensation for such a simple cocktail.

Overall, the low-alcohol content (about the same as a glass of wine) means that these go down very easily. So, hell, pour yourself two and watch the snowfall or ready yourself to re-hit those slopes.

Wheel of Fortune is the ultimate word puzzle game. The long-running TV show is famous with thousands of contestants appearing on the show over the decades has seen contestants have miracle comebacks, heartbreaking losses, and solve a plethora of puzzles. It’s really incredible that they continue to come up with so many different puzzles over the years. Especially with that final round bonus puzzle giving the contestants so many letters to work with, thanks to the RSTLNE rule change in 1988.

It may seem like Wheel of Fortune has just been handing contestants a freebie in the final puzzle, but there’s actually a bit of strategy as to why they offer that specific combo of letters. It’s not by random choice. Those letters actually make up 45 percent of words in the English language. If someone was handed a blank board and told with no hints that they had to guess what the words were, that combination of letters would be a strong starting point for a guess. Of course, in Wheel of Fortune, the contestant is given a hint and a few more letters before they have to start making guesses.

Wordle on the other hand, the extremely popular free-to-play daily puzzle game that everyone is talking about, does not give players a hint. It’s a single five-letter word and players get six chances to guess it. No hints, the only tool at the player’s disposal is the alphabet and their knowledge of the English language. As Wordle has gotten more popular it’s led to everyone discussing their general strategy for how they approach the daily puzzle. Some players like to go after vowels, others choose a series of popular words, but a handful are relying on that classic combination of letters popularized by Wheel of Fortune.

The concept of Wordle is very simple. When the player makes guesses, any letters that are in the word but in a different place will turn yellow. If a correct letter is in the right place then it will turn green. This means that, with no hints, the first guess of any particular round should be about gathering as much information as possible. As a result, the majority of players use a strong starting word that features a number of the most common letters and work their way from there.

So with that in mind, when following the RSTLNE strategy, there’s really only one word that’s going to work in the case of Wordle and that is RENTS. So far, the majority of words in Wordle haven’t ended with the letter S, but we need to remember that this first round is about gathering information and not getting a first guess win. If using RENTS reveals that the daily word uses R, S, and E but none of them are in the right spot then that’s a great start. We’re already over halfway to our goal and we have an idea of where the final letters are going to go.

From this point on the game becomes taking the information we’ve gathered and filling in the blanks around it. Some players like to continue using more throwaway words, such as ROAST, LINED, or STORY to gain more information, but how many throwaways you use really depends on how much you want to challenge yourself, or stunt on your friends. The point of the game is to get the word by the end of six rounds, and if that’s all you want to do then that’s satisfying enough, but some players try to finish the puzzle in as few rounds as possible. Not only for personal satisfaction but because they want to show to all of their friends how quickly they solved that day’s Wordle puzzle. If this is you, and you’re trying to get an edge on your friends, then you may want to utilize the Wheel of Fortune strategy. It could be the secret to getting those early greens.

Jennifer Lawrence took the Colbert Questionert last week. Now it’s Keanu Reeves‘ turn.

The Late Show has a recurring segment where host Stephen Colbert asks his guest 15 questions, ranging from what is the best sandwich (“Toasted crunchy peanut butter with honey,” Reeves replied) and what happens when you die (he ] answered this a few years ago). The Matrix Resurrections star is a dog guy, but “I’m starting to really like cats,” and he’s asked for an autograph from only two people: Lou Reed and George Carlin, who wrote, “Dear Keanu, F*ck You.” Reeves thought it was a personalized signature, but “then I met someone else who said that he wrote the same thing to them.”

Reeves was also asked to describe the rest of his life in five words. After initially rejecting the premise (“What kind of question is that?”), he said, “I’m going to be hopeful. Health. Love. Friendship. Create art. Motorcycles.” That’s more five words, but come on, it’s Keanu Reeves. He could have used 75 words, and no one would complain.

Reeves recently invited “all of his reps (agents, manager, publicist, etc.), members of his inner circle, and other key insiders who helped him train” to the premiere of The Matrix Resurrections, according to the Hollywood Reporter, and “took care of private jet travel and hotel accommodations, premiere tickets, and even organized a special post-premiere brunch for invitees, among other gifts.” They should have taken motorcycles.

You can watch The Late Show clip above.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made no secret (especially in recent months) of criticizing Trump’s actions during the Jan. 6 MAGA insurrection. This has not gone over well with Senator Lindsey Graham, who’s still inexplicably worshipping at the altar of a voted-out president who’s still (falsely) insisting that he won the election. Graham even delivered a skeevy “I miss Trump” that looked vaguely like a hostage video, but these days, he’s not seeming conflicted at all.

Graham appeared on Fox News to speak with Sean Hannity on Wednesday night. The host groused over the “swampiness” of McConnell, and Graham made his position known, essentially with a threat to McConnell’s position. “If you want to be a Republican leader in the House or the Senate, you have to have a working relationship with Trump,” Graham declared while adding that Trump would definitely get the 2024 GOP nom. “Im not going to vote for anybody that can’t have a working relationship with Trump.”

So Graham and Hannity are basically telling McConnell to “bend the knee” to a leader who’s taken his party into far-right, alienating territory.

As a result, a certain 2016 tweet from Graham himself — “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it” — is now back in circulation.

Granted, the quote never really went away, and it likely never will disappear, at least not until Graham (if ever) leaves the Senate (or denounces Trump, which probably will never happen).

The Xbox One has an odd legacy. It’s seen by many as a failure for Microsoft after it failed to continue the momentum that was built with the Xbox 360, but in the latter half of the console’s lifespan, it helped propel many of the features that Microsoft brought into the next generation with the Xbox Series X/S. Services like Game Pass, cloud gaming, and having a digital-only console were all ideas Microsoft began exploring on the Xbox One.

As we’ve moved into the next generation of consoles, Microsoft has so far continued to support the Xbox One. New games can still be played on it and most services that have come to the Series X/S have so far been available on the One as well. However, while Microsoft is supporting the Xbox One consoles that are currently out there, that does not mean they’ve continued to produce it. With the recent news that Sony was planning to continue creating PlayStation 4 consoles in 2021, a lot of people wondered how much longer the Xbox One was going to stay in production. Turns out, not very long as it was actually discontinued to little fanfare at the end of 2020. Via The Verge.

“To focus on production of Xbox Series X / S, we stopped production for all Xbox One consoles by the end of 2020,” says Cindy Walker, senior director of Xbox console product marketing, in a statement to The Verge.

This was initially a bit of a surprise to read. Xbox Ones are still readily available at most online or brick-and-mortar stores while the Xbox Series X/S and competing next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 have been extremely difficult to find. Turns out, while supply has been an obvious issue, it’s just an example of how many people want these consoles. According to CEO of Xbox Phil Spencer, on a podcast with The New York Times Kara Swisher, they’ve sold more of the Xbox Series X/S than any Xbox before it.

“When you think about trying to go get an Xbox or a new PlayStation right now in the market, they’re really hard to find. And it’s not because supply is smaller than it’s ever been. Supply is actually as big as it’s ever been. It’s that demand is exceeding the supply for all of us. At this point, we’ve sold more of this generation of Xboxes, which is Xbox Series X and S, than we had any previous version of Xboxes. So it’s our job to get the supply there to meet that demand.”

Still, even with Spencer telling us that the Series X/S is selling more than any Xbox before it, with the console becoming so difficult to find and Microsoft still supporting the One it would have made sense for them to continue producing it the way PlayStation has continued making PlayStation 4’s. However, considering it was discontinued at the end of 2020 and nobody noticed it clearly hasn’t been that big of a problem.

Will Arnett is slated to add another Netflix show to his roster, this time as Detective Terry Seattle, a homicide detective on the streaming service’s latest celebrity-filled shows. But Murderville has a unique twist: none of the celebrity guests are given the script beforehand.

Arnett, complete with a creepy 80’s detective stache, will be assigned comedy icons like Conan O’Brien, Ken Jeong, and Kumail Nanjiani to help him solve various whodunit murder cases. Together, Arnett’s Detective Seattle and his celebrity guests will have to improvise their way to solve various crimes, armed only with clues (and a loose script) to help crack the case. Celebrity guests also include Sharon Stone, Annie Murphy, and Marshawn Lynch, who will have to name the killer before time runs out.

As with most American comedies, Murderville is based on Murder In Successville, an award-winning BBC3 series. Arnett has had success with Netflix this far, with the critically-acclaimed BoJack Horsemen, Wet Hot American Summer, and Arrested Development (no need to mention Flaked.) Arnett told The Hollywood Reporter it was a hard sell, but once O’Brien joined, it all came together. “I have to give these people credit because it’s freakin’ scary as shit.”

Murderville will consist of six episodes, and premiered February 3rd on Netflix.

Grammy-nominated country singer Maren Morris kicked off the start of her new era of music last week with the breezy track “Circles Around This Town,” a song which chronicled her rise to success in Nashville. Now giving fans more information about what they can expect to hear from her soon, Morris officially announces her upcoming album Humble Quest.

Sharing the story behind how her album came to be in a vulnerable Instagram post, Morris wrote that the pandemic made her think deeply about her purpose in music. She reflected on the term “humble” and all the ways she’s been humbled over the past few years:

“I’ve also always found the word ‘humble’ perplexing. It’s more misused than anything. I frequently hear it assigned to people who are ‘relatable’ or ‘down to earth’ despite their rise to success. I even get a chuckle whenever I hear it used threateningly against someone, like humility is something one can lose if they’re not careful with their self-assuredness or confidence. I mostly hear it used by complete strangers who don’t even know the person they’re applying it to. […]

It turns out, this pandemic did humble me. Shooting off my mouth one time too many humbled me, the death of a beloved friend and producer humbled me, motherhood and marriage humbled me. ‘Humble’ began to feel more like a grounded state of understanding oneself; not so much by being relatable to or understood by all. What I also discovered is that the songs I was managing to compose during this time were the most authentic and light lyrics that have ever flowed from my pend. They weren’t fitting with the times, they were distracting and eventually saving me from the times. So, here are the stories of my rises, my overshares, my appreciation of Midwestern guys who stand at least a foot taller than me, my lullabies, my wine-soaked conversations with a dear friend and my final goodbye to one.”

Find the Humble Quest album cover and tracklist below.

1. “Circles Around This Town”
2. “The Furthest Thing”
3. “I Can’t Love You Anymore”
4. “Humble Quest”
5. “Background Music”
6. “Nervous”
7. “Tall Guys”
8. “Detour”
9. “Hummingbird”
10. “Good Friends”
11. “What Would This World Do”

Humble Quest is out 3/25 via Columbia Nashville/Sony Nashville. Pre-order it here.

“Everybody Wants To Rule The World” was a big one for Tears For Fears (to state the obvious): The 1985 single is one of the band’s two No. 1 songs in the US, along with “Shout.” It remains popular today, too, as it’s easily their most-played track on Spotify with well over 600 million streams. It’s also become a karaoke favorite, so much so that even singer Curt Smith busted it out in a packed karaoke bar one time. The way he tells it, though, nobody realized it was him singing.

In a new NME interview, Smith discussed his relationship with the cast of Psych (he’s appeared on the show as himself multiple times) and an anticlimactic night of karaoke they all had together, saying, “They’re all big karaoke singers and dragged me along one time. I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if I got up and sang one of our songs?’ So in the middle of a full karaoke bar, I went up and sang ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ and no one in there paid me any attention. No one realized it was me and it was hilarious!”

He was also asked if he enjoys hearing when rappers like Ye, Nas, and Drake sample Tears For Fears in their music, and he said, “Yes, but only when the song turns into something else. We had issues with the Kanye one [“Coldest Winter“] because he thought he deserved 80 percent of the publishing when all he did was steal the entire song and change the lyric. But the Nas version [“Rule“] I liked. I don’t know the Drake song [“Lust For Life“]. I would have thought my children would have played that to me, but clearly they’re not on the ball!”

Check out the full feature here and revisit “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” below.