Month: January 2022

One thing about rap fans: We will get these jokes off — no matter the target. Even COVID-19, the virus that has completed upended the normal workings of society for the past two years, isn’t safe. Thanks to a news outlet’s tweet of a mutant variant of the virus — a combination of the Delta and Omicron variants dubbed, naturally, “Deltacron” — folks on Twitter are comparing the image to the cover of a fan-favorite trap album.

While the computer-generated images of the COVID-19 coronavirus floating around are mostly just simulated magnifications of what the virus would look like under a powerful microscope, CTV News’ choice of color scheme and the shape of the mutant strain resemble nothing so much as the cloudy, Rorschach-like splotches on Future’s DS2 cover. So, it didn’t take long for fans to spot the resemblance and turn the new strain into the butt of plenty of jokes playing on the album’s title, themes, and lyrics.

“You know we talk that sick talk, that sick talk,” joked one fan over a post that added the DS2 title card to the Deltacron image. “I just took a piss and I seen COVID coming out,” cracked another.

All jokes aside, it looks like we can chalk the so-called Deltacron variant up to a lab error, just like another purported super strain, “Flurona.” For now, it looks like we don’t have to worry about any fusion variants, because the original recipe is still nasty enough. They say laughter is the best medicine, though, so feel free to check out some more of the fans’ jokes and give yourself your daily dose of chuckles below.

A couple months ago, Foo Fighters revealed that they had made their own horror-comedy movie, Studio 666, that’s set to hit theaters on February 25. Now, the band has shared the first trailer for the movie and it’s pretty wild.

The trailer offers an outline of the plot: The band rents an old house to record a new album, but things quickly sour when Dave Grohl becomes possessed by a demonic spirit, which is a good-news-bad-news scenario: It boosts Grohl’s creativity in a big way, but it also turns him dangerously violent and evil.

There are a couple of funny bits in the trailer as well, like when Grohl shares a new song idea that’s actually just “Everlong,” and when he says he discovered a new musical note: “It’s an L,” he declares as he floats out of the room.

Starring in the film alongside the band — Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, and Rami Jaffee — are Whitney Cummings, Leslie Grossman, Will Forte, Jenna Ortega, and Jeff Garlin. Press materials describe the film, “In Studio 666, the legendary rock band Foo Fighters move into an Encino mansion steeped in grisly rock and roll history to record their much anticipated 10th album. Once in the house, Dave Grohl finds himself grappling with supernatural forces that threaten both the completion of the album and the lives of the band.”

Watch the Studio 666 trailer above.

After barely a week on Gettr, the MAGA alternative to Twitter, Joe Rogan is already blasting the social media site as “f*ckery.” While appearing on the latest episode of The Tim Dillon Show, Rogan didn’t hold back his thoughts on the app, which apparently annoyed him so much that he started dunking on Marjorie Taylor Greene and QAnon. At issue is the fact that Gettr artificially inflates your follower count by simply copying your Twitter follows, which Rogan did not appreciate, along with reports that the site is backed by a Chinese billionaire.

“I might be part of the Chinese Communist Party now, I believe,” Rogan quipped before tearing into his experience on Gettr, which he described as “fugazi.” Via The Daily Beast:

The comedian then suggested that he’d consider removing his Gettr profile, but “I don’t know how to get off,” he remarked. “Like if I get off of Gettr, I don’t think I can.”

“You have you have to sit down with Marjorie Taylor Greene, personally,” Dillon joked.

“She’s gonna tell me all about what’s in the basement of Comet Pizza,” Rogan chuckled in response.

In a statement to The Daily Beast, Gettr CEO Jason Miller said that the site has been in contact with Rogan’s team and “hope that we have addressed any concerns he may have.” So we’ll see if Rogan ends up satisfied and walks back his criticism of the social media platform, which he claimed to have joined out of fear that Twitter was getting out of control.

“Just in case sh*t over at Twitter gets even dumber, I’m here now as well,” Rogan posted on his new Gettr account last week. “Rejoice!”

Maybe not so much.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Back in 2020, there were several reunion tours set to take place that ended up getting canceled when the live music and touring industry shut down. ’90s indie rock group Pavement were set to reunite in 2020, and they’re now planning to hit the road in 2022. But there is another ’90s band that has rescheduled their much-anticipated reunion: Golden Smog.

Golden Smog is an alt-country supergroup who formed in the late ’80s with members of several popular midwestern musicians at the time including Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, The Jayhawks’ Gary Louris and Marc Perlman, Soul Asylum’s Danny Murphy, Big Star’s Jody Stephens, and Run Westy Run’s Kraig Johnson. The group have released a number of albums and EPs over the years, including Weird Tales and Down By The Old Mainstream.

Golden Smog were originally supposed to get together in April 2020 to play a show in Minneapolis, and two years later, the Golden Smog reunion shows have finally been rescheduled. Now, the band is set to take the stage in Minneapolis’ First Avenue venue on April 2 and April 3.

First Avenue made the official announcement on social media, saying 2022 also marks the venue’s 50th anniversary.

Tickets for Golden Smog’s reunion dates are on sale now. Get them here.

There’s a whole lot of risk involved if a Twitch streamer tries to change their brand. Gaining a following on the platform is extremely difficult, requires a ton of work, and can take years to build. As a result, when most streamers gain a following, they’re reluctant to stray too far from what got them to that point. This can, unfortunately, lead to burnout, because it’s exhausting doing the same thing every day, but that fear of throwing away what got you to this point keeps many of these streamers doing only one thing.

Esfand, however, took that risk. After gaining popularity through World of Warcraft streams on YouTube and Twitch, he decided to start doing more with football. He didn’t stop playing World of Warcraft because he lost his passion for the game — instead, he wanted to focus on one of his first loves.

“I was making videos while I was between jobs,” Esfand tells UPROXX. “I used to work in college football and I did a lot of recruiting, I did a lot of video. Basically, digital type of stuff is what I did, and I wanted to get into coaching, but I was between jobs and looking for another job at a different school, and I started playing private server World of Warcraft. This is about five years ago. I started playing and I used to play a lot of World of Warcraft 15, 16 years ago, and I was really good back then. So, when I came back and I started playing I was like, ‘Oh there’s no good like guides out there [for my] Retribution Paladin.’

“So I started making these videos just to kind of stay in practice and then slowly, my videos started picking up traction,” he continues. “And then, honestly, within a few months, I was just like, ‘Oh, well, I’m going to start streaming.’ I started streaming because I wanted to record my raids, but I didn’t have enough hard drive space on my computer to actually record my raids and post them. So I started streaming on YouTube initially just because I just wanted to just have, like, four hour videos. I just didn’t have enough hard drive space, so I just threw them up there. And then I slowly became the most watched WoW private server streamer.”

For Esfand, this new popularity was a cool chance to break away from the grind of college football and do something different. That was until he got hit with a DMCA from Blizzard because he was streaming private servers of World of Warcraft. After that, he decided the best move was to give Twitch a try. Thankfully, Twitch had grown rapidly over the years and wasn’t just a video game streaming site anymore. He had an opportunity to put his personality on display through a variety of options such as IRL streams, variety streams, and football — he felt a strong personal connection to the latter from playing the sport growing up, working in the industry, and having friends in the NFL.

But to make football a regular part of his streams, he was going to have to take on the risk of alienating his built-up World of Warcraft fanbase.

“I always wanted to do more football on Twitch and I always wanted to do more sports on Twitch, but it was kind of hard at first because it’s a big transition, right?” Esfand says. “Going from a game like World of Warcraft to real life sports — especially football, because WoW has a heavy European audience, whereas American football obviously has a much more American audience. And it started really last year whenever the new Madden came out. I was like, look, I love Madden. I used to go to every midnight release. Me and my friends back in high school, we would just go play Madden all night the first night it came out. [I decided] I’m just gonna [stream] for, like, a week and have some fun with it. And at first, it did okay. It didn’t do particularly well on my channel, but I just kind of stuck with it and I was like, I’m just going to keep doing this and I’m gonna try and make content around football, but not necessarily make football content directly.”

Getting an audience that cares about World of Warcraft to invest their time and attention in football requires a gigantic personality. Fortunately, you need to have that in order to build a following on a personality-driven platform like Twitch, and Esfand’s bet was that he’d be able to keep people entertained regardless of the subject matter, in part because he placed an emphasis on reducing “the barrier of entry” so that anyone would be able to take in one of his streams and enjoy it, regardless of the topic of conversation.

As Esfand continued to stream Madden and discuss football, he eventually found a way to capture new viewers while making his longstanding fans happy. He created a character, a Texas-accented football coach who rattles through the coachspeak fans of the sport hear every single week. That made his streams a television show where fans were tuning in to watch a character. It would go on to become the best decision Esfand could make.

These days, Esfand is still letting his coach personality get him through seasons of Madden, but he’s starting to get the opportunity to expand what he does. In October, he began a new show called “Let’s Go Football” that mixes the vibes of a podcast and an NFL show on an afternoon slot on ESPN. He has former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier and streamer Grandpoobear as his cohosts. The trio discuss the NFL, watch highlights, and make picks in such a way that Esfand’s usual community tunes in.

“I think the big thing with Twitch that gives it a very unique experience is the chat,” Esfand says. “I think Twitch chat and having a community of people watching the show together or watching a stream, whatever it is, and building that sort of connection with not even just streamer to viewer, but viewer to viewer. My Stream is very community-centric. I have so many people in my stream who have made friends with one another and they’ve started playing games together and it’s kind of hard to explain, but I know a very large portion of my chat. I go live every day and I see a bunch of people in chat and I know who those people are just because I see them every day, right? I talk to them every day. I won’t be streaming and they’ll be sitting in offline chat. I had people sitting in my offline chat all day on my Twitch page just talking.”

It’s a story we hear constantly from people who stream on Twitch: It’s not about what is actually on the stream as much as it’s about the community they build. As fans seek out new ways to enjoy their favorite sports, many of them are turning to personalities and communities they’re already familiar with. When they want to watch a football show they don’t tune into the traditional TV shows. They go on to Twitch. When they want to watch a game they don’t go watch it on a traditional broadcast. They go find their favorite streamer and watch it with them. This is the future of sports and the community around Esfand is an example of that. They’re there to watch the game with the guy who got popular uploading his World of Warcraft raids on YouTube.

Snoop Dogg is a master of branding. While he’s been known to dabble in everything from cookbooks to cannabis (of course), he’s always looking to expand his personal brand. Now, according to Billboard, he’s even looking to move in on Oscar Mayer’s territory, filing an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark “Snoop Doggs,” his own brand of hot dogs and sausages. While that doesn’t mean that any plans are in motion just yet, his lawyers want to make sure the name is available if or when he does decide to sell them.

Filed in December as an intent-to-use application, the trademark suggests that he does have future plans. If so, he’ll have to squeeze in running the company between a bunch of other ventures, including releasing and performing new music as both a solo act and a member of the West Coast supergroup Mount Westmore alongside E-40, Ice Cube, and Too Short. He’s also Def Jam’s new executive creative consultant, a supporting cast member of 50 Cent’s BMF series, and the pitchman for everything from cerveza to homemade soda machines. Along with all that, in just one month, he’ll be joining long-time collaborator Dr. Dre onstage at the Super Bowl to perform the halftime show.

He’s a pretty busy guy, but from those of us who love a good barbecue, we can’t wait for Snoop Doggs to hit the stores — and our grills.

Back in September, Reese Witherspoon dipped her toes into the cryptocurrency waters by purchasing her first etherium coin and letting Twitter know that she was now entering the theoretically lucrative world of non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs. Since then, Witherspoon’s crypto-evangelicizing was contained to an occasional retweet here and there. Nothing too crazy, and basically just your run-of-the-mill social media endorsement.

And then December happened.

In the lead-up to the holidays, Witherspoon started tweeting way more heavily about crypto. Not quite Elon Musk-levels, but the Legally Blonde star was definitely making a concerted push for those sweet imaginary coins.

“Crypto is here to stay,” Witherspoon tweeted at the start of the month. “I’m committed to supporting creators who have pioneered the NFT space, and encouraging more women to be a part of the conversation.”

And because this is Reese Witherspoon we’re talking about, naturally, she managed to rope in another celeb: TV powerhouse Shonda Rhimes.

We’re going to be perfectly honest. We have no freaking clue what this next even means. Your guess is as good as ours.

Witherspoon then switched things up by encouraging all you moms out there to ask your kids about NFTs, which are apparently just like the video games they can’t stop playing, or something.

However, Reese Witherspoon’s love of crypto took a turn in the new year. On January 11, she went a little too hard on the future of crypto life, and the internet was not feeling it. “In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity,” Reese tweeted. “Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?”

While Witherspoon might be excited about this brave new digital world, the rest of Twitter was not on board and definitely let The Morning Show star know about it. Even Velveeta cheese was like, “Lady, what are you doing?”

After Matt Damon got raked over the coals for his recent bitcoin commercial, that now makes two high-profile celebrities who have seen their crypto endorsements get roasted online. Let that be a lesson to the rest of Hollywood. Or, you know… not.

(Via Reese Witherspoon on Twitter)

It can be psychologically distressing for people who’ve had an eating disorder to stand on a scale. For those who have struggled or are currently dealing with a disorder, being weighed can lead to obsession. It can also trigger dangerous behaviors such as purging, binging or reducing food intake.

That makes going to see the doctor a dangerous proposition for many. Most doctors routinely weigh every patient regardless of their body type or whether they’ve struggled with eating issues.

The fear of having to stand on a scale in a doctor’s office can lead those who’ve struggled with an eating disorder to avoid medical care for fear of having to be weighed.

“I myself recovered from an almost lifelong eating disorder. And when I did, being weighed at the doctor’s office was very stressful,” Ginny Jones, Editor of More-Love.org and a parent coach, told TODAY. “I knew that, especially among people with a history of eating disorders, being weighed is not a helpful way to begin every medical appointment.”

So in 2019, Jones created cards to hand to medical practitioners so people could discreetly ask not to be weighed unless it’s a medical necessity. The cards have gone viral multiple times on social media, leading them to become popular among patients and medical practitioners.

The cards’ popularity shows just how stressed so many feel about being weighed in a medical setting. “So many people are avoiding going to medical appointments or feeling incredible stress and anxiety leading into medical appointments,” Jones said.

A tweet by Dani Donovan sharing one of Jones’ cards went viral last month, earning over 27,000 likes.

They have cards at my doctoru2019s office now to tell them if youu2019d prefer not to be weighed pic.twitter.com/6jgbFfiAOO

— Dani Donovan ud83dudc69ud83cudffbu200dud83cudfa8 ADHD Comics (@Dani Donovan ud83dudc69ud83cudffbu200dud83cudfa8 ADHD Comics)
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The tweet started an eye-opening conversation about the discomfort many feel about being weighed by their doctors. It also stirred up debate over the lengths to which patients should go to dictate how they are treated in a medical setting.

I have refused to be weighed since a doc came in and told me to lose weight before she even looked at me. Went home and took this pic to post a rant on FB. I bicycled there and was in head to toe spandex, so I asked her to point to the excess weight. pic.twitter.com/alOqiKZLFN

— Ruth Shelton (she/her) (@Maggie1750) December 16, 2021

Loving the number of people getting upset in the comments but no where on this card does it say its for people who are overweight or obese. Anyone of any size shape and weight can pick up this card, including slim/underweight people and it is justified.

— Me (@motherofsneks) December 16, 2021

As someone who’s trying to recover from an eating disorder, i would really, really like to have something like this.

— AndyLovesBats (@AndyLovesBats) December 15, 2021

Donovan has an eating disorder and the cards have allowed her to avoid unnecessary stress and to be an advocate for her health in a quiet, nonconfrontational way. “I’d heard somewhere that you could refuse or tell them that you didn’t want to be weighed, but I had always felt way too intimidated to say it out loud,” she said.

The success of the “Don’t weigh me” cards is backed up by studies conducted in treatment facilities for people with eating disorders. In these facilities, healthcare practitioners must consider the benefits between allowing patients to know their weight or “blind weighing” them in which their numbers are kept secret.

A recent study from 2020 found that patients in the “acute” phase of their treatment that were blind weighed experienced “decreased anxiety and eating disorder symptoms and as a result, increased their ability to effectively engage in their treatment.” Blind weighing also resulted in patients experiencing “significantly less anxiety” around being weighed.

Having an eating disorder can be an invisible problem that is very difficult to discuss, even in the presence of a doctor. Jones’ cards are a way for people to advocate for their health in a way that is comfortable for themselves and their healthcare professionals.

This article originally appeared on 08.20.19

I occasionally get asked by mothers of young children what the secret is to raising great teenagers.

My initial response is that I have absolutely no clue. My kids are who they are IN SPITE of having me as a mother. (The young moms don’t find that answer too helpful.)

Really, the first thing that I will tell you is to disbelieve the myth that teenagers are sullen, angry creatures who slam doors and hate their parents. Some do that, but the overwhelming majority do not. Every one of my kids’ friends are just as happy and fun as my kids are, so I know it’s not just us.

Teenagers are incredible. They are funny, smart, eager to please, and up for just about anything as long as food is involved. They have the most generous hearts and want desperately to be loved and validated. They are quirky and messy and have the best sense of humor.

So, here is my list of “rules” for raising teens. These are the secrets we have found to be successful.

1. Love them fiercely.

Love everything about them, even the annoying stuff. Love them for their actions AND their intentions. Let them know in word and deed how much you adore them. Daily. Love their wrinkled shirts and Axe-body-spray-covered selves. Love their bad handwriting and pimpled cheeks. Love their scattered brains and long limbs. All these seemingly insignificant details are an amazing, magical process at work. It’s like being witness to the miracle of a diamond mid-formation. All this imperfection is going to one day yield a responsible, serious adult. A loving husband and father. Or a wonderful wife and mother. It’s a privilege to be witness to such glorious growth.

See your teenagers as a privilege, don’t see them as a burden. They’re more perceptive than you can imagine. How you feel about them will be no secret. So just love ’em.

2. Listen and pay attention.

When they walk in the door after school, you have a precious few minutes when they will divulge the secrets of their day with you. Be excited to see them. Put down the cell phone. Don’t waste this time making dinner or taking a phone call. Look them in the eye and hear what they are saying. Make their victories your victories. Be empathetic. It is really hard to navigate high school and middle school. Don’t offer advice at this time unless they ask for it. Don’t lecture. Just listen. It makes them feel important and valued. We all need to feel that way.

3. Say yes more than you say no.

The world is forever going to tell them no. For the rest of their lives, they will be swimming in a stormy sea with wave after wave of “you’re not good enough” and “you can’t do this” crashing down on their heads. If nothing else, I want to be the opposite voice in their lives for as long as I can. I want to instill in them the belief that they are not limited and they can do anything if they’re willing to work hard enough for it. I want to be the YES, YOU CAN in their lives. I want them to leave my house every day feeling invincible.

4. Say no often.

You need to say no to experiences and situations that will set your child up for harm or unhappiness. Don’t let them go to the parties where they will be forced to make a choice about alcohol at age 16 in front of their peers . Don’t let them stay out until three in the morning with a member of the opposite sex. Be the parent. Set up rules for their safety, both physical and moral. You would think this rule goes without saying, but we have known a shockingly large number of parents who don’t.

5. Feed them. A lot.

And not only them, but their friends too. These bodies are growing and developing at an astonishing rate and need fuel to do so — most of which they prefer to be loaded with processed sugar and hydrogenated-something-or-others. When their friends know your pantry is stocked to the gills with treats, they will beg your kid to hang out at your place. This allows you to not only meet and know their friends, but to keep an eye on your teen as well.

6. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

When living with teenagers, it can be so easy to see the backpack dropped in the middle of the living room as laziness. Or the bedroom scattered with dirty clothes as irresponsible. Instead, and before you open your mouth to yell at them, put yourself in their shoes. Find out about their day first. Maybe they are feeling beaten down, and they just need to unwind for a minute and tell you about it. Ignore the mess for a bit and put your arms around that big, sweaty kid and give him a hug. Talk to him about his world. Find out what he did, wants to do, and dreams of doing. THEN, and only then, ask him to pick it up and put it away.

That being said, do I completely ignore the state of my boys’ bedrooms all the time? No, I do not. But I pick my battles, and I pick the appropriate time to fight them. Once every seven to 10 days or so, I tell them their bedrooms need to be picked up. Which they do happily because it’s not the running loop of a nagging mom. They know when I ask, it needs to be done.

7. Stand back and watch the magic happen.

If you let them, these glorious creatures will open their hearts and love you more fiercely than you could possibly imagine. They are brilliant, capable, strong spirits who bring with them a flurry of happiness. They are hilarious and clever. They are thoughtful and sensitive. They want us to adore them. They need us to adore them. They love deeply and are keenly in touch with the feelings of others.

They are just about the greatest gift God gave to parents.

This article originally appeared on 11.06.15

If you just got married, chances are lots of people think they know what your life is like.

These people are totally well-meaning! And also, mostly wrong.

Being married isn’t exactly like it used to be. Which is great, as there are so many different, amazing ways to be newlyweds than ever before. But it’s also occasionally frustrating, as we newlyweds are frequently forced to dispel a lot of myths about our relationships.

So let’s get them out of the way in one fell swoop.

Here are the most common (but mistaken) assumptions strangers make when you’re a newlywed couple, and what our lives are really like.

Assumption #1: We went on our honeymoon already, and we left right after the wedding.

Reality: In our dreams, we definitely did — and we had a great time!

In real life, however, most of us can’t just take a week (or more) off work at will. The office is hella busy, and on top of that, we live in the only wealthy country in the world that doesn’t mandate any paid vacation. Many of us were barely able to get the day of our actual wedding off (ultimately, we compromised with our manager and took a half-day).

We’re planning to get to it … eventually. But it might be a while. We promise we’ll send pictures!

Assumption #2: We’re going to have babies ASAP.

Reality: We love being married! But, you know, we actually haven’t decided? About babies? We’re just enjoying being married right now. But we’ll let you know when it happens. We promise.

Assumption #3: We’re going to move out of “the city” one day.

Reality: It makes sense to assume that, like so many newly married couples in generations past, we’re already planning our escape from our local metropolis to a less population-dense area TBD. But many of us who live in the city really, really like it! The city is great. There are good schools here. We can get nachos delivered at 3 a.m.! From either the good nacho place or the OK-but-cheap nacho place.

Sure, some of us are planning to one day move to the ‘burbs for more space (and many already are), but many of us aren’t. And still others of us who already live in the suburbs are making the suburbs more like the city.

Having a yard is really nice, but so is not having car insurance payments.

Assumption #4: We feel superior to our second-cousin Frieda whose boyfriend of 19 years still hasn’t proposed.

Reality: Even though we’re feeling pretty good about being married, Frieda and Richard are adults and get to make their own decisions — no matter what Aunt Cindy thinks. Maybe they have financial reasons. Maybe they decided a long time ago they don’t want to be married. Maybe they believe marriage is an oppressive, archaic, patriarchal institution that they don’t want to participate in, and also they’re vegan now.

In any case, leave Frieda and Richard alone.

Assumption #5: We’re going to have babies soonish.

Reality: So, yeah. Like I said. Really haven’t decided about babies. Keeping our options open. But probably not soon? You know?

Assumption #6: One of us changed our last name.

Reality: There’s totally nothing wrong with couples who decide that one partner will take the other’s last name, of course. But not all of us do. At least 1 in every 5 women decide to keep their maiden names, according to a New York Times survey. And if you haven’t taken your partner’s last name, it’s kind of frustrating to constantly hear yourself referred to as Mr./Mrs. Someone Else (for opposite-gender couples, this pretty much applies exclusively to women).

If you’re not sure what last name to use, just ask! We’ll tell you what the deal is.

Assumption #7: We’re having Guinness Book of World Records amounts of sex.

Reality: For those of us who waited to have sex until marriage — which is, of course, totally cool — you might need a supercomputer to tabulate. But lots of us have been together for a long time already and may even have been living together already, so we’re probably having whatever amount of sex is normal for us. It’s just a regular part of our lives that throwing a wedding doesn’t really have a magical impact on.

After many years in a relationship, most of us take “Netflix and chill” quite literally. And seriously.

Assumption #8: We’ve finished all our thank-you notes.

Reality: Never. We’ll be writing these until the end of time.

Assumption #9: Hanging out with one of us means hanging out with both of us.

Reality: We’re still different people. Each of us is a self-sufficient being with free will. And we’re probably totally down to hang out with you, even if our spouse isn’t available.

Except you, Greg. We’re totally avoiding you.

Assumption #10: We’re going to have babies ever.

Reality: So um, like I said, there’s actually a chance we might never have babies? We might decide we don’t want them after all. We might find out we can’t — in which case, these questions might become extremely invasive and painful. We might adopt a child … who’s not a baby. We haven’t figured it out yet.

At the end of the day, It’s kinda up to us, you know?

Assumption #11: We never use the garlic press you got us.

Reality: We use it all the time! Thank you so much!

Assumption #12: One of us is going to stay home and take care of the house from here on in.

Reality: Some of us might want to be a housewife or husband. Others of us shudder at the thought of giving up our careers, or urging our spouse to give up theirs. Still others of us might want to, but might not be able to forfeit the second income. There’s really no right — or standard — way to do it anymore.

Assumption #13: We both have all the same likes, dislikes, preferences, outlooks, and opinions now.

Reality: My wife will never convince me to like jazz. And I will probably never convince her to like “Captain Phillips” fan fiction. And you know what? We’re OK with that.

For the things that matter, we’re committed to presenting a united front. But we’re still individuals with different thoughts, feelings, and opinions about what Tom Hanks was up to two weeks before the Somali pirates attacked, ’cause honestly, that’s where the real drama of the story probably is.

Assumption #14: We wear wedding rings.

Reality: Some of us like wearing a physical symbol of our connection and duty to our spouse. Some of us don’t as much. So we don’t wear them. But don’t worry! We’re still extreme double married 5000.

Assumption #15: Making us a pink cake that says “baby” on it is going to change our mind about babies.

Reality: It won’t. But we will definitely eat that cake.

Assumption #16: Our lives are a lot different now.

Reality: Beginning roughly seven seconds after we say, “I do,” lots and lots and lots of well-intentioned people ask: “How does it feel?!” seemingly expecting to hear: “So much has changed! We got matching ponies! Being married really is a whole new world!” It feels like we’re disappointing them when we answer, “Pretty much the way we did the day before the wedding.” Which is silly, since there’s no shame in that.

For some couples, life is a lot different after marriage, and that’s great. But if stuff is kinda sorta the same, that’s OK too! Life was great before. That’s why we decided to get married.

Assumption #17: If we’re not going to lay out a precise plan for having babies, at least we’ll probably get a pet.

Reality: OK. This one is true.