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Dogs are constantly listening even if we don’t know it. Their little ears perk up anytime they hear something suspicious or tilt their heads trying to understand what’s being said. Some dog owners avoid saying words like “walk,” “ride” or “treat” in front of their dogs because they know it will get the dogs overly excited.

One dog mom decided to test her luck by holding a fake phone conversation while her dog was nearby and it was shared to social media by HrtWarming. The conversation was about as nonsensical as it could get because no one else was on the other end of the phone.

“Yeah, did you get the treats? Well, he specifically wanted peanut butter. Yeah. Peanut butter treats. Yeah because we’re going to go for a ride later,” She says. “I think we’re going to go for a ride and go to daycare. Camp. Yeah.”

At this point the dog is pretty invested in the conversation as he keeps tilting his head from side to side but as the random conversation goes on, he gets more excited.

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The dog mom starts saying some familiar names from either doggy daycare or playdates. He was fully invested at that point. By the sounds of the conversation, he’s in for a pretty busy day of eating treats, going to doggy daycare, visiting several dog buddies and his grandma. The head tilts as he figures out if he needs to go get his own leash are hysterical. In the end it was the mention of tacos that sent him running to the door even though he doesn’t know what a taco is according to his mom. Commenters thought his reactions were adorable.

“I love watching the dogs reaction.,and the way he move his head, so cute,” someone says.

“This is just too funny but dogs actually do know what you’re talking about especially your key words walk treats grandma and the dogs that she her does she knows and this is hilarious thank you for sharing brought my day up,” another commenter writes.

“It’s time you make him a taco! I love watching his face with each word he understood. So cute,” someone else writes.

If one thing is clear from this video it’s that he really likes a dog names Sarah and wants to try some tacos ASAP. See his adorable expressions below:

Mozart blew people away with his composing abilities at age 5. Franz Liszt played piano professionally for the aristocracy when he was 9. Yo-Yo Ma played cello for President John F. Kennedy at age 7.

Musical prodigies have fascinated people for centuries with their mastery of music at unexpected ages. Most of us have the same questions: How and at what age were their abilities discovered? Is it nature or nurture or a combination of both? Can prodigies be created on purpose, or is it something no one can predict or control?

While each musical prodigy has their own unique story, one family is giving the world some early glimpses of what an innate sense for music looks like in a baby who’s still in diapers.

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Plenty of 1 1/2-year-old’s like to pound piano keys to see what they sound like, but Gavrill Sherbenko’s piano play goes far beyond experimenting with sound. He and his chubby little fingers make actual chords and coordinate notes between his two hands.

At first, it might look like he’s randomly playing keys, but it quickly becomes clear that he is purposeful in his playing.

Watch:

Watching more videos of Gavrill at the piano, we see that his musicality hasn’t just appeared out of nowhere. Like most musical prodigies, he’s living in a musical household. In some videos, he sits on his sister’s lap watching her fingers intently as she plays and sings. In others, he sits on his mother’s or father’s lap as he experiments with the sounds of the piano, with or without them.

But sometimes he plays totally on his own, and it’s clear that he’s already got an astounding understanding of the relationships between notes and how to form chords, both from observing what his family is doing and from hands-on practice himself.

But again, even in very musical families, this kind of musicality at this young of an age is astounding.

The best part of the videos of Gavrill at the piano is how much joy and love there are in each one. This is not a Beethoven being boxed about the ears for making a mistake on the piano situation. Yes, his family members are teaching him to understand what he’s doing on the piano, but he seems to be enjoying it and so do they. A sports-loving family would toss and kick a ball around with a toddler; this family makes music together.

A nurturing environment meeting an innate sensibility is what prodigious ability is made of. And when those elements are combined with genuine enjoyment, it’s the best of all worlds—and a delight to witness.

Watch how Gavrill is able to play the solfege that his sister sings. It’s absolutely incredible, not only that he knows the notes to play to go with her pitches, but that he has the manual dexterity and fine motor control to play like he does at his age.

Assuming he continues to enjoy playing it, it will be fun to see where all of this leads as he develops his gifts further. As one commenter said, “Get the tuxedo ready!”

You can follow Gavrill’s progress on YouTube.

On Friday George Santos was expelled from Congress, but he may have already found his second act. He’s joined Cameo, the popular video messaging service that celebrities sometimes use for some extra scratch. He’s even charging a lofty sum: $200 a pop. It seems he’s already making bank, including making videos to troll some of his former colleagues in Congress.

Per Mediaite, among Santo’s Cameo customers was John Fetterman, the famously trolly Democratic senator from Pennsylvania. Fetterman basically used social media to destroy the campaign of his challenger, the Trumpy Dr. Oz. On Monday, he was at it again, this time targeting Bob Menendez, the Democratic senator from New Jersey who’s been indicted on corruption charges but refuses to step down.

“I thought my ethically-challenged colleague @BobMenendezNJ could use some encouragement given his substantial legal problems,” Fetterman wrote while sharing Santos’ video on Twitter/X. “So, I approached a seasoned expert on the matter to give ‘Bobby from Jersey’ some advice.”

Sure enough, there was Santos, a former congressperson who was booted over reams of dodgy behavior, telling Menendez to keep his head up.

“Hey, Bobby!” Santos said. “Look, I don’t think I need to tell you, but these people that want to make you get in trouble and want to kick you out and make you run away, you make them put up or shut up! You stand your ground, sir. And don’t get bogged down by all the haters out there. Stay Strong! Merry Christmas!”

In October, Menendez was indicted for providing sensitive information to the Egyptian government. He was also indicted over federal corruption charges in 2015. Fetterman is among the 30 Senate colleagues who’ve called for him to resign, though so far he’s refused. Maybe a pep talk from a guy who falsely claimed his mom died in the September 11 attacks will make him reconsider.

(Via Mediaite)

Some entertainers, like Ozzy Osbourne and Phil Collins, don’t want old age to keep them from performing. Others, like KISS, though, are ready to step away from it all.

Like 50 Cent’s The Final Lap Tour, KISS’ The End Of The Road Tour is the closing of a professional chapter. So, is KISS formerly retired from touring? Based on the group’s website journal, the answer is yes, in the traditional sense. But according to AP, fans can still see them live in concert — but as digital avatars.

During a video special, the band sat down to discuss the decision. “We want to go out on top with people talking about it in mythical, legendary terms,” said frontman Paul Stanley. “What we’ve accomplished has been amazing, but it’s not enough. The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are… It’s exciting for us to go the next step and see Kiss immortalized.”

Bassist Gene Simmons added, “We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before. The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”

The technological advancement is courtesy of a partnership with Pophouse Entertainment Group and George Lucas’ special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic.

After Jan. 6, Donald Trump did something he’s never done before: He shut up. Not only was the former president booted from Twitter, but he also didn’t try to make news, as he always does. Did he actually listen to his advisers, who didn’t want him to make his problems worse? Or was he down in the dumps? The latter is what Liz Cheney said Kevin McCarthy told her at the time, according to her forthcoming book Oath and Honor. But of course, Trump’s denying that he got a little blue.

“Crazy Liz Cheney, who suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome at a level rarely seen before, writes in her boring new book that Kevin McCarthy said he came to Mar-a-Lago after the RIGGED election because, ‘the former president was depressed and not eating,’” Trump raged, per Raw Story. “That statement is not true. I was not depressed, I WAS ANGRY, and it was not that I was not eating, it was that I was eating too much.”

Trump then claimed that McCarthy wasn’t there to cheer him up. “He was at Mar-a-Lago to get my support, and to bring the Republican Party together – Only good intentions,” Trump claimed. “Liz Cheney, on the other hand, went on to lose her seat in Congress by the largest margin for a sitting Congressperson in the history of the U.S. She then worked with others on the J6 Committee to delete and destroy the evidence and findings of the committee.”

Trump never likes to be seen as weak. He even refused to wear a mask at the height of the pandemic because it messed with his bronzer. Perhaps he doesn’t want his fans to know he has feels and sometimes stops eating McD’s.

(Via Raw Story)

A big parenting trend over the past few decades is people giving their children names that help them stand out instead of fit in. Social scientists say that a big reason for the change in America is the rise of individualism.

“As American culture has become more individualistic, parents have favored giving children names that help them stand out—and that means more unique names and fewer common names,” Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor, told the BBC.

However, being an individualist comes with some risks. One can be an iconoclastic trendsetter or seen as desperate, inauthentic and cringeworthy.

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The move towards unique names has caused controversy in families, especially among the parents-to-be and their in-laws. But, as you’ll see in this story, it can cause problems among friends, too.

A Reddit user who was once known as Shayleigh recently shared her conflict with a friend on the AITA forum to see whether she was in the right.

“One of my friends found out she was pregnant a few months ago, and she’s really excited to be a mother. I’m happy for her and think she’d make a good mom, but there’s one problem; she wants her baby’s name to be unique and special, but the way she’s going about it is terrible,” she wrote.

“What I mean is, the name she plans on using is godawful. If it’s a boy, she’s going to name him ‘Daynger’ (yes, spelled like that to be unique), and if it’s a girl, she’s going to name her ‘Tinkerbelle,’” she continued.

This woman not only wanted to be unique by naming her child after a Disney character, but she combined the names of two characters, Tinkerbell from “Peter Pan” and Belle from “Beauty and the Beast.”

The woman formerly known as Shayleigh leveled with her friend, saying her child would get bullied if they were named Daynger or Tinkerbelle. The former Shayleigh wasn’t just a wet blanket, she knew what it was like first-hand to have a unique name. After all, she was bullied for being named Shayleigh by being called “Gayleigh.” She was also the victim of her parents using the “leigh” for “ly” naming convention, which many see as cringeworthy. Her name caused her so much stress that at 19, she had it changed.

According to Stop Bullying, being targeted by bullies can cause anxiety and depression and the effects can lead into adulthood.

The honest remark led to a falling out among the friends.

“She got really upset and told me I was being unsupportive and I was a shi**y friend,” the woman formerly known as Shayleigh wrote. “She’s been ignoring my texts ever since, and it’s been more than a week. I’m starting to feel kind of guilty over what I said.”

The commenters on the post overwhelmingly supported the poster for being honest with her friend.

“A baby’s name should work for them from birth to school to career to retirement. She’s only thinking of how cute a baby Daynger/Tinkerbelle would be and not thinking of how much her tween will hate her for that name,” Regular-Switch454 wrote. “She needs a reality check. She’s naming adults here. Those names won’t set her kids up for their best shot at life and she needs to accept that,” Thoughtinspace added.

The good news was that the friends eventually reconciled and had a long talk about the woman’s baby name ideas.

‘“I carefully brought up some of your points, and suggested using the name “Belle’ for a girl, with ‘Tinkerbelle’ as a nickname; she thinks it’s cute and liked the idea,” the woman formerly known as Shayleigh wrote. “She did decide to use ‘Daynger’ (still spelled like that) as a middle name, which isn’t nearly as bad as using it for a first name. On the bright side, the kid can tell people, ‘Danger is my middle name.’”

With Christmas just around the corner, it feels beyond appropriate that holiday icon Macaulay Culkin would be getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this past weekend on Friday, Dec 1st.

It was an adorable moment filled with sweet reunions, emotional speeches and plenty of heartfelt nostalgia as the “Home Alone” actor accepted his long awaited award. Not to mention it left several fans proud to see how much the child star had grown up into a healthy adult.

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First off—who better to honor Culkin than Catherine O’Hara, who playfully reminded audiences that she played his “fake mom who left [him] home alone not once, but twice.”

She didn’t forget Kevin this time. 🥺❤️ Catherine O’Hara reunites and honors #HomeAlone co-star Macaulay Culkin during his Hollywood #WalkofFame ceremony. (📷: Getty) pic.twitter.com/DYZxYLSYLv

— E! News (@enews) December 1, 2023

She also credited Culkin’s “sweet, twisted and relatable” sense of humor for surviving childhood stardom after his breakout role.

“Macaulay, congratulations…I’m so proud of you,” she concluded, thanking him for including her in the happy occasion.

Then it was Culkin’s turn to stand behind the podium, where he got emotional in thanking his partner Brenda Strong for her support.

“You are absolutely everything. You’re my champion,” he told her, which made her tear up a bit. “You’re the only person happier for me today than I am. You’re not only the best woman I’ve ever known, you’re the best person I’ve ever known. You’ve given me just all my purpose. You’ve given me family.”

Giving us one last homage to “Home Alone,” Culkin concluded by saying, “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.”

For many, this was the first time Culkin had really been seen or heard as an adult, and it was surprising to see just how similar his voice and mannerisms were to his brother and “Succession” star Keirnan Culkin.

“Just realized I have not heard this man speak since he was 10,” one person tweeted.

Others were just happy to see the young kid who brought them so much joy throughout the years was happy and healthy. Culkin’s early rise to fame did not come without challenges with parental abuse, drugs and mental health, but here he was a seemingly well adjusted, full functioning adult. One could argue that’s an even greater accomplishment than a start on Hollywood Boulevard.

Watch his full speech below. It’s full of that classic Kevin McAllister charm.

On Monday, December 4, music lovers in the Chicago can warm up their holiday spirits at the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball concert. Country, pop, and rap fan bases are set to pack into the Windy City’s Allstate Arena beginning at 7 pm CT. Unfortunately, on Sunday, December 3, Nicki Minaj broke the news that she would be bowing out of her headlining set at the tour stop. But with a network as massive as hers, the “Last Time I Saw You” rapper was able to tap an equally big rap star to fill her slot.

“I won’t be able to perform tomorrow in Chicago for Jingle Ball,” Minaj posted on X (formerly Twitter). However, my beloved brother/boss stepped up for me so that I wouldn’t have to push my album back. His name is Lil Wayne, a.k.a. the GOAT.”

The last-minute shake-up has ticketholders wondering who else is on the bill.

What Is The iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Chicago Lineup?

Monday night’s performance roster features Lil Wayne as the headliner, plus the 2024 Grammy Awards Best New Artist nominee and rising country music star Jelly Roll. Other acts set to grace the stage include Big Time Rush, Doechii, (G)I-DLE, and last but not least, Uproxx cover star Kaliii.

Once iHeartRadio Jingle Ball wraps up all of its national tour stops, ABC will broadcast the special on Thursday, December 21, at 8 pm ET. The program will be available the day after on Hulu. Find more information here.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American life, but what did he know? After all, George Santos is probably going to get one. Last week, after a full year of creatively damning revelations about his sketchy past, the New York representative was expelled from Congress. Now what? Surely he’ll wind up on Dancing with the Stars or Bravo. But for now, he’s trying out a new gig: Cameo star.

Per Newsweek, Santos recently set up a page at the video-sharing service, which allows celebrities to make some extra bucks recording greetings for pay. On Monday morning he was charging $75 a pop. Later that day he’d jacked up the price to $200.

In his bio, Santos describes himself as a “former congressional ‘Icon’! (painted nails emoji)” as well as “the Expelled member of Congress from New York City.”

According to Mediaite, Santos’ first Cameo video was made for Megan Hunt, a Democratic senator from Nebraska. She said her friends requested it as a joke, but he delivered.

“Megan, how are you, darling?” Santos said in the video. He then seemed to allude to some problems she had with a conservative group earlier this year. “I hear that you’re getting some tough heat in the press and that life might be a little rocky now. Let me tell you something: If you believe in what you stand for, and if you fight for what you do, and you stand by those convictions, screw the haters.”

Santos also talked directly about his own woes:

“Look, they can boot me out of Congress, but they can’t take away my good humor or my larger than life personality, nor my good faith and the absolute pride I have for everything I’ve done. So this is about you, Megan! Be yourself unapologetically! Just love yourself, just make sure that you don’t buy into the hate, and stand your ground and don’t let them force you out, don’t let them bully you. You do you, girl! I’m cheering for you.”

Newsweek reports that he’d made over 100 videos available, though as of Monday evening, his page was listed as “temporarily unavailable.” But surely he’ll be back. Till then, we can all await the George Santos movie.

(Via Newsweek and Mediaite)

Did the world ask for a Willy Wonka origin story? Will the world actually pay to see a Willy Wonka origin story? Starting next weekend we’ll find out. Wonka stars floppy-haired Timothée Chalamet as the third onscreen incarnation of children’s literature’s most famous chocolatier. But perhaps everyone should be stoked: After all, Wonka is what lured Paddington 1 and 2 auteur Paul King away from the Paddington series. It must be good!

Perhaps you assume Wonka is all about the guy, as a young pup, building his magical chocolate factory? Not so, according to Uproxx’s Mike Ryan. Instead, this is what it’s about:

Willy has no money, but he’s presented with a contract too good to be true that lets him stay now and he can pay later. Of course, since Willy is illiterate he can’t read the contract that says he now owes 10,000 units of currency for the room and if he can’t pay it off he has to work for the inn for one unit of currency a day for 10,000 days – which comes to roughly 27 years. Willy now has to sell chocolate on the street to try and earn enough money to pay off his hotel bill. So anyway, that’s the plot of Wonka.

Or as Ryan succinctly puts it, “The plot is Willy can’t read.”

But is Wonka actually good? According to many critics, yes. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw went in a skeptic but emerged a believer:

On paper, it is the worst possible idea: a new musical-prequel origin myth for Willy Wonka, the reclusive top-hatted chocolatier from Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who decides in the onset of middle age to offer five Golden Tickets at random for kids to look round his secret confectionery paradise, staffed by a slave labour workforce of Oompa-Loompas. But in the hands of Brit-cinema’s new kings of comedy, writer Simon Farnaby and writer-director Paul King (who have already worked their magic on Paddington), this pre-Wonka is an absolute Christmas treat; it’s spectacular, imaginative, sweet-natured and funny.

Ditto Vox’s Esther Zuckerman:

But, like Paddington, Wonka defies expectations. The movie, which is out in theaters December 15, is absolutely charming and, dare I say, extremely Paddington-core. King has infused that same sort of warm, intelligent energy into his tale of an ambitious, kooky sweets purveyor who arrives in a vaguely European town with the hope of opening up a shop, only to have his dreams stifled by a pair of scheming launderers and an evil chocolate cartel. Timothée Chalamet may not be a furry little bear, but his Wonka is akin to Paddington. He’s an oddball optimist who inspires those around him — all except for the naysayers who see his good mood as an imposition.

The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin says that Paddigton heads shouldn’t expect simply more Paddington:

When it was announced that the creative team behind the Paddington films were making a musical about Willy Wonka’s early life, some cynics speculated that we were just going to get Paddington again, but with more songs, less marmalade, and a different shape of hat. To which the rest of us could only respond: ooh, yes, that sounds lovely, thanks.

Wonka – which is one of the best times you’ll have in the cinema this year – isn’t exactly that film. But it’s far closer to the recent big-screen adventures of Michael Bond’s beloved bear than it is to Dahl’s original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory novel – and, frankly, is all the better for it. This is no conventional prequel, full of bucketloads (or even Bucket-loads) of laborious foreshadowing: there’s no breezy cameo from a hot Grandpa Joe, a la Jude Law’s young Dumbledore, in tasteful midcentury knits.

Although The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey argues it’s still very Paddington:

Yet, Wonka’s inability to imitate its predecessor doesn’t feel like a failure when you consider this: it’s not so much a prequel to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as it is a companion piece to director Paul King’s two Paddington movies. Much like those genteel, ursine escapades – released in 2014 and 2017, respectively – Wonka is old-fashioned, cinematic magic writ large. It whips up wit, warmth, and the beloved memories of classics past: there’s a big dollop of Mary Poppins here, a little Matilda, some Oliver!, and, then, unexpectedly, a pinch of Les Misérables.

Entertainment Weekly’s Maureen Lee Lenker had no doubt Paddington maven Paul King could pull it off:

In many ways, Wonka is far more delightful than it has any right to be (and lightyears better than its dreadful trailers). But that goes to show that no one should underestimate co-writer and director Paul King, the man behind everything pure and good in this world, a.k.a. the Paddington movies. Much of those films’ earnestness, emphasis on kindness, and whimsy can be found in Wonka, even if the movie doesn’t approach that franchise’s level of emotional resonance. Still, Wonka shares a lot more with King’s affable sensibility than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author Roald Dahl’s cynical approach (which, to be clear, is a good thing).

IndieWire’s David Ehrlich spots a perhaps accidental topicality in terms of Warner Bros. Discovery’s current big boss:

At the risk of overstating the political edge of a children’s story about an eccentric entrepreneur whose signature confections make customers float in the air before crapping live bugs out of their buttholes, there’s a delicious irony to the fact that Warner Bros.’ first big release since Discovery CEO David Zaslav (once again) canned a completed film in exchange for a $30 million tax write-off is an anti-capitalist fable set in a city run by a ruthless chocolate cartel who’ve diluted their own product in order to hoard the profits.

One semi-naysayer is The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney. He slams what he describes as “strained whimsy,” and says Chalamet’s Wonka has two modes: “he’s either beaming with almost manic exuberance, as if willing us all to have fun, or pining away for the late mother (Sally Hawkins) who promised to be by his side when he realized his dreams.” Rooney concludes that “so much wide-eyed optimism becomes wearying, and the wistful memories of Willy’s mother, while beautifully visualized in photo flipbook style, are more sentimental than affecting.

Another is Variety’s Owen Gleiberman who calls Wonka “square” in its old-fashionedness, especially compared to more modern movie musicals like La La Land, In the Heights or even the 22-year-old Moulin Rouge!:

Yet I’d wager that it might have been an even bigger hit had it been a little less sanded off for children, and had it tapped more into the Roald Dahlness of it all (which was there in last year’s lively adaptation of Dahl’s “Matilda”). The movie’s songs, written by Neil Hannon, carry you along, though with more rambunctious energy than rapture — at least until you get to the iconic song reprised from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” “Pure Imagination,” which does a lovely job of tickling our sweet tooth of nostalgia. “Wonka” makes you feel good, but it never makes you levitate.

Deadline’s Pete Hammond basically agrees with Gleiberman’s “square” take, except he doesn’t mean it as a jab, calling it a “throwback to that kind of feel-good musical confection designed to be released during the year’s end.”

So which side will you wind up on? Are you a Paddington partisan who’ll leave charmed? Or will you wish you were watching Gene Wilder in the 1971 OG instead? You can find out when Wonka hits theaters on December 15.