Imagine deciding to take up a hobby that usually requires many years to perfect at age 35, and three years later ending up in the top 30 in the world at the highest international competition for it.
That’s what happened to a 38-year-old math and physics teacher from Diepenbeek, Belgium. According to Netherlands News Live, Mieke Gorissen has jogged 10km (a little over six miles) a few times a week for exercise for many years. But in 2018, she decided to hire a running trainer to improve her technique. As it turned out, she was a bit of a natural at distance running.
Three years later, Gorissen found herself running her third marathon. But not just any old marathon (as if there were such a thing)—the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics. And not only did she compete with the world’s most elite group of runners, she came in 28th out of the 88 competing in the race.
With the heat and humidity in Tokyo, even completing the race was a major accomplishment. (Fifteen women competing did not finish the marathon.) But to come in in the top 30 when you just started focusing on distance running three years ago? Unbelievable.
In fact, Gorissen could hardly believe it herself. A video of her reaction upon hearing her results has gone viral for its purity and genuine humility. “No,” she said when a reporter told her she came in 28th in the race. “That’s not possible.”
Then she burst into tears.
Her emotional disbelief is so moving. “I was already happy to finish the race,” she said through sobs. “I do think I have reached my goal and that I can be happy.”
“I also think I lost a toenail,” she added, laughing.
Even after the English translation ends in the video, it’s clear how much this finish meant to her. A remarkable accomplishment for a 38-year-old who knits and reads for fun and who has only run two marathons prior to competing in the Olympics.
According to her Olympic profile, she’s glad she got started with distance running later in life. “If I started running in my teens, it wouldn’t have been good for me,” she said. “I wasn’t really happy then, I would have been too hard on myself and I would have lost myself in it in a way that wasn’t healthy. It came at exactly the right time.”
Congratulations, Mieke. You’ve given us all the inspiration to set new goals and dream bigger than we ever thought possible.
We all know parenting can be tough, but if there’s one thing that makes the roller coaster of emotions totally worth it, it’s seeing our children’s faces light up with joy.
Children’s smiles are infectious, and not in the scary pandemic kind of a way. There’s simply nothing better in this world than the face of a bright-eyed little human beaming with happiness, which is why a recent TikTok trend has people grinning from ear to ear themselves.
The premise is simple: The parent asks the kid to record them dancing to Taylor Swift‘s “Love Story” with the screen facing away from them (under the guise that the parent dancing needs to see themselves). So instead of recording the parent dancing, it’s actually recording the kid’s face watching them.
And oh, the love and joy on these kids’ faces is so, so sweet to witness. Watch:
The end did it for me 🥹😭I birthed such a sweet, loving and encouraging little boy!! #momtok #toddlersoftiktok #taylorswiftchallenge #lovestorychallenge #boymom #toddlermom
Seriously, seeing close-ups of kids’ joy should be a daily thing.
Had to jump on the trend! Love this beautiful girl!
Of course, part of the beauty of having kids is you simply never know what they’re going to do. While some youngsters gaze lovingly at their parents while they dance, others have a … well … different reaction. Check out this girl’s facial expressions:
Hilarious. And because this is the internet, naturally someone had to do the TikTok trend with their dog. Gotta admit, Ellie’s toothy grin is pretty darn cute as well.
TikTok trends can sometimes be strange, annoying or problematic, but once in a while one comes along that brings people together in surprisingly delightful ways. Seeing people’s kids’ pure enjoyment watching their parents being silly is simply the best.
A paparazzo caught actor Jennifer Garner performing a touching act of kindness. Instead of being annoyed at having the moment filmed by the photographer, she asked him to help.
Garner was at the beach in Santa Monica, California, handing out bags of necessities to the homeless when she came across a man in a wheelchair who had no socks or shoes. Garner took the socks off her feet, gave them to the man and then attempted to hand over her shoes, but they were too small.
Garner then briskly walked over to the photographer filming her and asked him for assistance.
“What size feet do you have?” she asked the photographer repeatedly. “Can I buy your shoes for him? He needs a shoe.” When the random paparazzo asked what size feet the homeless man was, Garner replied, “10 and a half.”
Jennifer Gardner lead with kindness … takong the time to help out a homeless man in LA. Her shoes must not have fit because she rushed over to the photographer and offered to buy his shoes. #kindness #jg #jennifergarner #homelessman #spreadlove #alwayshelpothers #hockeyhelpsthehomeless #fyp #tmznews #trending #foryou
“Oh, I’m 11! Want me to give it to him? I can give it to him,” he responded, adding that Garner didn’t have to pay him for the shoes. The photographer had a blanket to give to the homeless man as well.
When Garner came across the man in the wheelchair, she was handing out plastic bags filled with necessities, similar to those Upworthy reported on in March of 2022. Garner created a viral video for Instagram that showed how the average person could make bags to give a “random act of kindness” to someone in need.
The underlying message of the post is that with a bit of forethought and preparedness, we all can help people experiencing homelessness.
“Gather these essentials in a quart-sized Ziploc bag and keep them in your car to give away when you see someone in need,” she wrote on the post before listing some items that can really help a homeless person get through the day. “A pair of thick socks. Kleenex. Hand wipes. Disposable toothbrushes. Chapstick. A couple of granola bars. I forgot this time, but like to add feminine hygiene products, too. Add $5, $10, $20 and a smile.”
Homelessness has steadily risen in the United States by about 6% yearly since 2017. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, roughly 421,000 people were homeless in 2022, and nearly 128,000 were chronically homeless, meaning they didn’t have a place to stay for a year or more.
The rise in people on the streets is distressing, and we all hope our leaders can get together to stop the steady increase. But until then, we are all called to do what we can to help alleviate the suffering we see on the streets.
Garner is a beautiful example of taking direct action to make the world a better place. Whether she calls a senator to help pass gun control legislation, buys boxes of books to help school teachers, or helps the homeless, her philosophy seems pretty simple. If you see something wrong, do something. It’s everyone’s responsibility to make the world a better place.
Lifestyle influencer Alexandra Lee, 29, was shocked to learn that she and her mother have opposite showering stances and it kicked off an important debate on the platform: what’s the correct way to stand in the shower?
It all started when Lee decided to renovate her bathroom and wasn’t sure where to put the bench in the shower, so she asked her mom for her advice. “When I shower, the shower head is behind me, so the water is like on my hair and down my back. Of course, I’ll turn around occasionally and move around,” Lee said in her video before noting that her mother stands in the opposite direction.
“But she showers primarily facing the shower head, so the water hits her in the face and down her body,” Lee continued. “She’s shocked that I do the opposite and I’m shocked that she does the opposite. I feel like the normal way to shower is with the shower right behind you and you’re facing that way.”
now I need to know, what is the normal way to shower?!? 🚿
now I need to know, what is the normal way to shower?!? 🚿
It may seem strange that Lee hadn’t considered that there’s more than one way to stand in the shower. However, it was a big revelation for many people because it sparked a pretty intense debate on Lee’s TikTok page and the video received over 5.8 million views.
“Is anyone else surprised by this?” Lee asked.
The comments suggest there is an equal number of nozzle-facers and nozzle face-away-ers. But the most passionate folks in the debate were those who shower with their backs to the nozzle. They can’t seem to understand why anyone would intentionally stand in front of the nozzle and have water continuously shot in their faces, especially when it feels so nice to have hot water sprayed on your back.
“Who the hell faces the water?”user2778056546386 wrote. “Facing the water is unhinged,” Not Jennifer Lawrence added. “If I face the water, I’m gonna drown,” Denise Pettersson commented. “Voluntarily getting waterboarded doesn’t sound fun at all,” Kristina Kubrick wrote.
“I face away! What the hell, people FACE THE WATER?!?” Erin Trent Hohman exclaimed.
There are also those with no preference and alternate throughout their shower session. “I rotate continuously like a kebab,” gentledreams wrote. “I constantly move around like a rotisserie chicken! Equal time on both sides,” Stormi Booke added.
It would seem that there is no wrong way to stand in the shower, but Dr. Cameron Rokshar, associate clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital, says that one way better protects your skin.
“The real scientific answer behind it has to do with moisturizing your skin,” Dr. Rokshar told Today.com, noting that facing away from the nozzle has a distinct advantage. “The more exposure you get to water, and especially hot water, the drier your skin becomes. If you face the shower and have a whole bunch of water hit your face for 10 or 15 minutes, and you get and out and do nothing about it, that has a drying effect. Water, as it evaporates, takes more water with it.”
Paul Giamatti, Best Actor. When his career first started, the actor seemed destined for a career as a first-rate supporting actor; the kind who routinely steals movies out from under more classically handsome leading men and leaves you wishing the industry were such that he could be a star himself.
Perhaps this is that industry. After his breakout role as Kenny “Pig Vomit” Rushton in 1997’s Private Parts, Giamatti worked steadily in The Truman Show, Saving Private Ryan, The Negotiator, Safe Men, and Man on the Moon. It wasn’t until 2003 that he found a lead role to suit his talents in American Splendor, and then again the following year in Sideways. The parts were similar: intelligent curmudgeons who lack people skills. They could easily have been rendered unsympathetic in the hands of a different actor, but Giamatti’s inherent likeability drags them to a middle ground where we root for them to succeed and fail at once. Through his interpretation, the characters become so complex that we shrug off our need for heroes or villains and simply accept them as they are. It’s an incredible balancing act, although it helps that he is constantly making us laugh.
Still, it would have been easy for Giamatti to view American Splendor and Sideways as a high-water mark in his career as a leading man, and simply become the most demanded character actor this side of Philip Seymour Hoffman. But here he is as a first-time Best Actor nominee for his nuanced work in The Holdovers. How did he get here? By following two tracks concurrently: as a supporting actor in studio films and a lead actor in independent fare. While earning his paycheck with lesser roles in films like Cinderella Man, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and San Andreas, he kept himself in the leading man conversation, which is paying off now. It also paid off in real time with fascinating performances that demonstrated Giamatti’s rare and indefatigable charisma, and his penchant for choosing roles that challenge it.
If you have a character who is tough to root for, give him to Giamatti, and he’ll make a meal out of it. That’s what he did in Barney’s Version, an adaptation of Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler’s fictional autobiography of a philandering TV producer who finds and loses love several times over, is accused of murdering his best friend, and eventually develops severe dementia. The film doesn’t quite come together but is best appreciated as a dramatic reimagining of a Judd Apatow comedy in which an overconfident schlub has sex with someone—or in this case, several someones—far hotter than he is. On the page, Barney is one of the most despicable characters Giamatti ever played; he drinks to excess, stalks women, cheats on his spouses, and bears no discernible charisma. He somehow gets characters played by Minnie Driver and Rosamund Pike to marry him. We should hate this guy. And yet Giamatti creates sympathy without ever begging for it. At every turn, he plays Barney like a man simply looking for the real thing, misguided as he may be.
He pulls off a similar trick in the vastly underseen Win Win, which writer-director Tom McCarthy made a few years before winning Best Picture for Spotlight. It’s a classic in-betweener, the place where Giamatti makes his living: too smart and adult to be a conventional hit, but also too subtle to be an Oscars contender. Giamatti plays Mike, a lawyer in small-town New Jersey who takes guardianship over a client with dementia just for the stipend, then sticks him in a nursing home because he doesn’t have time to properly care for him. He’s not as bad as he sounds. Mike needs the money to keep his floundering practice afloat, and the nursing home is a pretty good one. Things get more complicated when the man’s grandson arrives, and Mike takes him in, partially out of guilt and partially so the kid doesn’t sniff out his misdeed. The film precisely identifies the blurred lines between adolescence and adulthood, and Giamatti’s performance is crucial to its achievements. While not quite as despicable as the protagonist of Barney’s Version, Mike is the kind of complicated person we often meet in life but rarely see in film. He’s neither a good guy or a bad one. His choices frustrate us, and we’re not sure if he deserves redemption or punishment. The film essentially dares us to write him off, but Giamatti finds the right wavelength—quiet desperation—and rides it until we can only accept the character, warts and all.
Giamatti has also displayed a quality most movie stars can’t even claim: the ability to save mediocre movies from the brink of disaster. He did it in M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water, a film of big ideas and middling execution, which Giamatti holds together through sheer will, and All is Bright, where Giamatti goes against type as a taciturn ex-con selling Christmas trees in New York City. A similar thing happens in Cold Souls, a Kaufmanesque bit of literary sci-fi in which Giamatti plays himself. It’s a smart move; playing yourself, especially in a lead role, signals a level of fame worthy of leading man roles. Giamatti didn’t get the bump John Malkovich did from Being John Malkovich, perhaps because Cold Souls is dry, humorless, and not nearly as celebrated as the Spike Jonze-directed marvel. Nevertheless, Giamatti puts on a clinic, playing himself with his normal soul, with no soul, and, at one point, someone else’s soul. It’s a flex of his acting muscles in a role that reinforced his status as a leading man of stature.
The Holdovers fits right in with these other leading man roles, which is why it would be so fitting for him to win his long-overdue Oscar for it. Paul Hunham is an alcoholic prep school teacher with a talent for insults and little else. He is, in essence, Miles from Sideways, if he never knocked on Maya’s door and instead moved on to harder stuff. We’ve seen a lot of cruel prep school teachers over the years, but few of them come around like Hunham does, ultimately sacrificing his job to protect a kid who, days earlier, had been the bane of his existence. It’s a decision worthy of a leading man, not a supporting player, and the Giamatti twist is that we never end up seeing Hunham as a hero. He doesn’t reveal a heart of gold. He just manages to muster the courage to do the right thing for another person, once and maybe never again. We remain a little conflicted about him, even as he drives off into the sunset. It’s a Giamatti special, and he does it so often that he makes it look easy. That’s probably why he won’t win the Oscars — and why he should.
Over the past few years, former Uproxx cover star Russ has really earned the respect of the hip-hop community despite sometimes making abrasive comments. His love for the genre and culture are evident, and his skills on the mic have earned him co-signs (in the form of features) from the likes of rap vets Busta Rhymes, Ghostface Killah, Jadakiss, Rick Ross, and more, with multiple collabs with Gang Starr’s DJ Premier. Premier and Russ have linked up once again, this time for a preview of Premo’s upcoming album. The song, “Work It Out,” is a mellow, reflective track revolving around lush keys and steady, Premier-signature drums.
Over the past few months, DJ Premier has been sharing stories from his long, illustrious career on social media, detailing the creations of collaborations with acts like Black Eyed Peas, Brandy, Jay-Z, and more. Preem’s truly fulfilling his role as a hip-hop vanguard, preserving history for future generations, while maintaining his contemporary relevance by sharing his production skills will a wide array of current and up-and-coming artists.
Paul Giamatti has been racking up rave reviews and award nominations for his performance in The Holdovers, but what he’s most excited about is everyone tuning into his podcast where he talks about UFOs, Bigfoot, and even time travel thanks to Tom Hanks. Over the past few months, Giamatti’s audience has increased “threefold,” and he’s itching to get back to making new episodes.
Launched last year at SXSW, the Chinwag podcast came about thanks to Giamatti and philosophy professor Stephen Asma connecting over Zoom during the pandemic. As the two started to have more lengthy conversations about paranormal activity and extraterrestrials, they realized they might have something here. More importantly, it gave Giamatti a chance to talk about anything but himself or acting.
“I know from being interviewed over the years that I often get most excited when the conversation goes off topic and I get to talk about something other than me,” Giamatti told The Hollywood Reporter. “I get bored talking about myself, or a particular project, I gotta be honest.”
Thanks to Giamatti’s Hollywood connections, he was able to book celebrity guests who were also interested in discussing eclectic topics like monsters and haunted subway tunnels:
Giamatti and Asma have covered time travel with Tom Hanks, swapped ghost stories with Billy Bob Thornton, talked cults with Kathryn Hahn, investigated the Mandela effect with Patton Oswalt, listened to Amy Sedaris gush about Japanese subways, heard Don Cheadle share how religion helps tame the ego, covered Jungian archetypes with Stephen Colbert, and listened to Natasha Lyonne double down on her belief in extraterrestrials, ghosts and bigfoot.
Unfortunately, Giamatti has been tied up with the Oscar campaign for The Holdovers, but he’s ready to get back to talking weirdo topics for his much larger audience.
“I’ll be able to fully concentrate on it again soon, because for the past three months, my attention got completely taken away,” Giamatti said. “Hopefully all these things will come to fruition in different ways.”
Every awards season has a breakout star, whether it’s an actor who earned it in the moment or just an actor who has been around long enough that they feel they deserve some sort of award. However, this year’s breakout star was a figure who actually deserves not only an Oscar, but also an Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, and Kid’s Choice Award while we’re at it.
Messi is the adorable border collie who plays Snoop in the French drama Anatomy Of A Fall. Messi won the coveted Palm Dog award at Cannes and has been making the rounds in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the pup is just too busy to attend the Oscars.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Messi will not appear at this Sunday’s ceremony, much to the dismay of everyone who has ever looked at his cute little face, which includes Ryan Gosling and Billie Eilish. He probably wouldn’t really know much about what’s going on anyway, so it’s okay if he sits this one out.
But not everyone loves the pooch! According to THR, “multiple companies” with nominated films complained to the Academy that “allowing him to attend the event gave Anatomy of a Fall an advantage during the voting window.” Have they considered that the dog was just being a cute dog with no hidden agenda?!
Meanwhile, Messi’s trainer and dog mom Laura Martin told The Hollywood Reporterthat his fame has skyrocketed since he started making the rounds in Hollywoof. Sorry, Hollywoof. “The big moment was with Billie Eilish, who bonded with Messi for almost 10 minutes. They were hugging and petting and they really had a vibe. Then Bradley Cooper bumped into him in the hallway. The dog went right to him, so they also had a connection.” It was nice that Messi went straight for Bradley Cooper so he could share some tips on how to win an award. Cooper is surely interested in that.
Even without John Blackthorne’s literary-accurate massive dong, Shōgun is a ratings hit. FX pulled out all the stops, and as a result, 9 million views in the first six days of each episode’s release says a lot in the streaming age when there’s also a buffet of every other type of show imaginable. Truly great historical epics, however, are few and far between, and between this and The Bear, the network’s Hulu partnership is bringing the views in spades.
Will there, however, be a second season of Shōgun to further James Clavell’s Asian Saga series of books? Co-creators and executive producers Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo sat down with The Hollywood Reporter, and although the husband-wife duo are thrilled with the show’s reception, they both sound wistfully prepared to bid it goodbye if there is no renewal by FX. They both would enjoy doing more, but in particular, Marks sounds content with the season finale as “a period” to this adaptation:
“We took the story to the end of the book and put a period at the end of that sentence. We love how the book ends; it was one of the reasons why we both knew we wanted to do it — and we ended in exactly that place. And I’ve been party to this in the past with shows like this, where you build a whole factory, and it only pumps out 10 cars and closes up shop. It’s a bummer.”
Kondo further declared, “It feels a lot like parenting, where you get really good at, like, washing bottles, or all the other things that babies require, and then suddenly they don’t need any of that anymore. And you’re like, ‘Aw, I got so good at that.’” So, is that a negative on a second season? Marks suggests that postproduction phases ran so long on this series, “that’s just our bodies talking. Like, do you want to have another kid right now?” In other words, fingers are crossed, but Blackthorne’s “problematically huge penis” isn’t trying to impregnate anyone else yet.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – Get ’em, Ike
The celebrities are officially coming for Jeopardy. First, a few months ago, it was Emma Stone, while she was out on the promotional tour for Poor Things, which ended up earning her a nomination at this weekend’s Oscars, saying this about her passion for the show.
“I apply every June. I don’t want to go on ‘Celebrity Jeopardy.’ I want to earn my stripes. You can only take the test once a year with your email address, and I’ve never gotten on the show. I watch it every single night and I mark down how many answers I get right. I swear, I could go on ‘Jeopardy.’”
I respected it then and I still respect it now and I still can’t get over how funny it would be for like some realtor from Minnesota to fulfill their lifelong dream of making it on Jeopardy and flying out to Los Angeles for the taping and then blammo there’s world-famous Hollywood star Emma Stone standing next to you. Think about that person’s brain in that moment. It might just melt. Tough to win a trivia contest with a melted brain. I have always said this.
And then, just this week, there was a new and fascinating development in the celeb siege of our trivia-related game shows. Ike Barinholtz, he of The Mindy Project and The Afterparty and the most recent champion of Celebrity Jeopardy, was invited to compete in the show’s Tournament of Champions and defeated two mega-champs in the first round. Like, real, legit Jeopardy champions, including 13-time winner Ray Lalonde. That… is kind of wild, right? It feels kind of wild. Not that celebrities can’t be smart. A lot of them are theater dorks at heart. But still. Good for Ike, man.
Vulture caught up with him for an interview about his early-round success in the Tournament of Champions, and I really do recommend reading it if only to get an idea of how seriously he takes this. He’s name-dropping other Jeopardy champs, citing strategy, all of it. My favorite part of the interview was this chunk, though, where he discusses how he hit the answer in Final Jeopardy that locked in his win.
How confident did you feel going into Final Jeopardy, especially after seeing the category would be “Poets of Ancient Rome”? What was going through your mind?
I knew a couple of Roman poets. I knew Virgil and Horace. But for some reason, the first name that popped into my head was Ovid. I’m definitely someone whose strengths are more aligned with art, literature, movies, and media. Have you ever seen Eyes Wide Shut?
Yeah, but it’s been a while.
There’s a first scene where Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman go to the party. That creepy Hungarian guy starts hitting on Nicole Kidman and is like, “Have you ever read Ovid and The Art of Love?” For some reason in my mind I was like, Well, Ovid is a poet, and I thought of that line. Maybe that could be okay as an answer. I was incredibly nervous. I was definitely sure Ray and Melissa were going to get it right.
Couple really cool things here. One is just how powerful it must feel to say “I knew a couple of Roman poets” in that answer. I have a college degree and a law degree and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars acquiring them and I straight-up could not name a single Roman poet if you offered me $5 billion and a cheeseburger. Everyone who played for my beloved Philadelphia 76ers since 1996? Absolutely. No problem. But a single Roman poet? Zero chance.
The second cool thing is that this is almost certainly the first time there has been a semifinalist in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions whom I have a screencap of where the subtitle reads “[urinating intensifies].”
APPLE
So it’s a big week for both of us, really.
Me and Ike.
For different reasons.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – This is too much money for a booth
The Sopranos ended over 15 years ago with a cut to black that people are still debating and/or angry about today, which is a hell of a thing to wrap your head ahead in a few different ways. It just… ended. Boom. Done. I was confused and annoyed in the moment but have grown to like it a lot more with continued distance from it all. Tony was in that booth in Holsten’s eating ice cream, but he could have been anywhere. He was going to have his head on that swivel for the rest of his life, whether it ended right then or not, and if he never knew what was walking through the door then I can understand why we didn’t get to know either. I’m also fine with you disagreeing with me on this. We don’t have time for your counterargument right now, though, because we have to talk about the booth. Sorry.
You see, the booth Tony was sitting in during that final season was recently put up for auction by Holsten’s. The New York Times has the full story but here’s the necessary background.
Holsten’s in Bloomfield, N.J., which is preparing for a renovation, put the burgundy booth and yellow Formica tabletop up for auction on eBay on Feb. 28. Chris Carley, a co-owner of the ice cream parlor, set the opening bid at $3,000, hoping he might get $10,000 for it to help cover part of the estimated $60,000 cost for a new floor and new booths.
Okay, cool. Fine. And honestly good for Holsten’s. The scene gave them a bump in popularity and made it a necessary stop for fans of the show, but still. Running a restaurant is hard. Staying in business over the last 17 years is not nothing, especially considering what the restaurant industry has been through over the last half-decade. I support everything going on up to this point.
But here is where we must stop to ask the important question: How much did the booth go for at that auction? Did they get the $10,000? Did they get more? How much are we talking here?
Within 24 hours, the price had jumped to $52,000. By Monday afternoon, there had been more than 230 bids, pushing the price above $82,000. When the auction ended just after 7 p.m., the booth sold for $82,600.
Jesus Christ.
That is entirely too much money to spend on a booth. Any booth. Even the one Tony may or may not have been murdered in. There are so many better things you can do with $82,600. You can give it to charity. You can start a scholarship for kids from your high school to go to college. You can spend $300 to buy a regular booth that you just tell everyone is the one from The Sopranos — who is going to question something that weirdly specific??? — and then give $82,300 to me. You have so many options.
In conclusion, I am going to put together a team to steal this booth from whoever won the auction. Just to teach them a lesson. You should not spend $82,600 on a booth. We are doing them a favor, really.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – I need the collaboration between Tenacious D and Britney Spears at once
The facts here are straightforward and not in dispute:
This is a video of Tenacious D — the two-man band consisting of Jack Black and Kyle Gass — performing “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, which is still a perfect pop song
Last week, Jack Black and Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass covered “…Baby One More Time” and shared it on social media.
Now, he’s letting the ’00s icon know what a big fan he is. “Britney, if you’re watching, I love you. I love the song,” Black told Entertainment Tonight at the L.A. premiere of Kung Fu Panda 4.
“We’re very proud of it, [and] I hope you like it, too,” Black said, addressing Spears.
There’s more we need to get to here but I need you to know that this section opening with “last week” immediately lodged this song into my brain and it has not come out since. None of this should be construed in any way as a complaint.
Moving on.
ET’s Cassie DiLaura pointed out that Spears also likes posting dance videos to Instagram, and the two should collaborate. “I’m here! I’m ready when you are. I’m waiting by the phone,” Black said, again addressing Spears.
I have been a fan of both Britney Spears and Tenacious D for north of two decades now and this is the first time in my entire life that I have considered the possibility of this collaboration. I… need it. I’m not joking. This isn’t me being cutesy about a fun news item. I want them to do an entire album together. All covers. Not just their own songs, either. Like, yes, get Jack Black in the sparkly nude bodysuit from the “Toxic” video, but also let them do, like, “Islands in the Stream.”
Someone. Someone, please. You can just put this into the universe and then take it away from me. Think about it.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Jennifer Coolidge is the best
Getty Image
The Oscars are this weekend. You probably knew that. If not… well, surprise. But that’s not really the point here. The point here is all the stuff that goes along with the Oscars. Stuff like, for example, the Green Carpet Fashion Awards, an invite-only event co-chaired by Zendaya, Helen Hunt, and Annie Lennox, which itself would be an all-timer of a table to sit at for a wedding reception. But that’s not even really the point either.
The point is that the event was held at the 1 Hotel West Hollywood on Wednesday. Which is where Jennifer Coolidge happened to be staying the same night. So Jennifer Coolidge just, like, showed up. Even though she wasn’t on the invite list for the fancy event. Look at greatness in action.
“I am sort of an imposter here tonight,” the “White Lotus” star told the crowd. “I am just staying in the hotel. I didn’t know about this. I didn’t know it existed. I didn’t know how incredible [it is]. I got in on this in a sneaky little way. I just want you to know I am so impressed. And I am going to give some money tonight. I made great friends.”
So, as far as I can tell, one of two things happened here. Either someone working for the event noticed Jennifer Coolidge hanging around the hotel and was like “oh snap, let’s invite Jennifer Coolidge,” or Jennifer Coolidge saw some fancy Hollywood event going on and put on a nice dress and invited herself.
I can’t decide which one I like more. The second is definitely funnier — I really do like the idea of Jennifer Coolidge crashing events in the hotel she’s staying at, from fancy galas to bar mitzvahs — but the first is cool too because, like, you should invite Jennifer Coolidge to events. All of them. Let’s go ahead and consider this her official invitation to my birthday party. I don’t even have one scheduled yet. But she’s invited to whatever we settle on. I’m leaning toward… oh, let’s say Dave & Buster’s. I want to see her do one of those car-racing games. You guys can come, too, as long as you promise to be cool.
Anyway, now that I think about it all, the actual point in all of this is just that Jennifer Coolidge is the greatest. Everything else was just the build-up to that. Most things are, really. Good chat here.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Please be more stupid sometimes
What we have here is a very silly and half-baked little bit from Late Night where Andy Samberg showed up via Zoom and conducted an interview with Seth Meyers in character as Steve Winwood. “In character” is probably a stretch. He basically just put on a wig he found and did a C- impression of Steve Winwood singing some of his hits like “Higher Love.” It’s really just very slapped together and stupid and at one point he looks dead into the camera and says “It’s me! The real Steve Winwood!” and it made me laugh very much.
I don’t want to over-analyze the comedy right out of this but I will say one thing: I appreciate how stupid this is. A lot of late-night comedy is very political because, well, look around. But it’s also really nice that a big-time network show that just had the President on found time to throw something this silly against the wall, too. There’s room for that stuff. There has to be. Otherwise, we’ll all go bonkers. It’s a public service in a way, which is a hell of a thing to say about a dumb bit where Andy Samberg is unsure if the dude he’s impersonating is British or American. Whatever. I stand by it.
More like this, please.
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From Eric:
I suggested to my wife that Maria’s Dad [from this season of The Bachelorette] should be in every movie. Drama, comedy, horror, don’t care.
Also, I feel like he must have been in a band with Bret Michaels.
Skim through til you get this guy, the producers using Godfather-like music underneath is chef’s kiss.
Okay, I was skeptical here. I am not a Bachelor or Bachelorette fan and I find a lot of the stuff there to be contrived and weird, which I know is not the high ground I should be trying to stake right after singing a love song to that Steve Winwood bit up there, but whatever. I’m happy for people who enjoy it and I mean no one any ill-will over how they get their harmless kicks, but yeah. Not for me.
But then I watched the video Eric sent with the email. Please skip ahead to about the 3:30 mark. Look at this man.
Three notes here:
Hair
Shirt
Voice
I love this man. He looks like if college football coach Mike Gundy had an older brother who was really into reptiles. That reference might be too specific for some of you but I promise it’s pretty good.
A man who took his dog out for a walk in France two years ago made an astounding discovery — one that he’s been keeping a secret, until now.
In 2022, Damien Boschetto stumbled upon a massive, 70 million-year-old fossil that turned out to be a nearly complete skeleton of a long-necked titanosaur, he told ABC News.
This is nice and all but I’m already annoyed that we’re not giving the dog the 50 percent credit he deserves here. He was there, too. It was his walk. Let’s not just gloss over that.
Boschetto — who has a “self-taught passion” for paleontology — discovered the exposed bone fossils, which led to the excavation of a 70% complete, 30-foot-long fossilized titanosaur.
“It happened one morning like any other, during an ordinary walk,” Boschetto told local FranceBleu in February. “While walking the dog, a landslide on the edge of the cliff exposed the bones of various skeletons.”
“THE DOG”?
I THINK HE HAS A NAME, DAMIEN
THIS IS AN OUTRAG
Boschetto, along with members of the Archaeological and Paleontological Cultural Association (ACAP) at the Cruzy Museum, kept the findings secret in order to protect the paleontological site while they excavated the massive skeleton.
YOU KNOW WHO ELSE KEPT IT A SECRET?
THE DOG
WHOSE NAME I AM JUST GOING TO GO AHEAD AND ASSUME IS ROCKY
WHICH I HAVE TO ASSUME BECAUSE HE IS NOT IDENTIFIED BY NAME A SINGLE TIME IN THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE
HE FOUND A DINOSAUR
YOU CALL THIS JOURNALISM?
I AM DISGUSTED
Since his discovery two years ago, Boschetto said he’s left his job in the energy sector and now hopes to pursue a master’s degree in paleontology to continue his work in Cruzy.
LET ROCKY GET HIS MASTER’S TOO, DAMIEN
YOU ONLY FOUND IT BECAUSE OF HIM
THIS IS ROCKY ERASURE
WHICH WOULD ALSO BE A GOOD FAKE NAME
DAMMIT
I NEED TO FOCUS
GIVE THE DOG A MEDAL
HE’S A GOOD BOY
IT’S HIS DISCOVERY, TOO
I SWEAR TO GOD
DAMIEN
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