Have working conditions really gotten better?

On the one hand, with more work-from-home opportunities, more allowances regarding parental leave, more awareness around the importance of taking days off for mental health reasons, and more businesses adopting four day work weeks…you’d think yes, definitely, things are getting better!

And yet, it definitely can feel like a one step forward, two steps back situation a lot of the time. Many people still woefully lament unlivable wages, having to take on extra work just to make ends meet, and somehow having most of their lives revolve around working. In many ways, all the progress we’ve made toward productivity hasn’t made the common person any freer. Rather, it only moved the goalpost further. Which, needless to say, is exhausting.

It’s this phenomenon that inspired a “cheeky country music duo” named The Doohickeys to make a modern day revamp of everybody’s favorite twangy anti-work anthem: “9 to 5.”

The tune was made famous by Dolly Parton whose character in a movie by the same title bemoaned the common working man/woman’s curse of toiling day in, day out just to essentially be a cog in the corporate greed machine. Serious subject matter…but a very catchy song!

The Doohickeys’ parody cover shows that things have changed a bit…the most notable change of all being that, as the new title suggests, “9 to 5” is out, and “9 to 6” is in.

“Like everyone, we love Dolly’s song ‘9 to 5,’ but we realized that neither of us have ever actually worked those hours — 9 to 6 would be more accurate…Turns out that additional hour struck a chord with viewers ‘cause people started sharing their insane work schedules in the comments, and boy, some of those hours suck!” Doohickey vocalist Haley Brown told Upworthy.

In this version, our singing hero still stumbles outta bed and tumbles to the kitchen. But instead of pouring herself a cup of ambition, she “checks her phone while she eats to see what she’s missin.’”

There’s no time to yawn and stretch, or even take a shower, you see. This working gal has to rush out the door because “there aint no time when your job is 9 to 6.”

Take a listen below. Holy cow, did Brown really nailed Parton’s signature airy twang.

See on Instagram

That’s Part 1. In Part 2, The Doohickeys hilariously sing about the foibles of racking up student debt in college. Surely nothing any Gen Xers and Millennials can relate to. Plus, again, the need to work an additional job…which is 8 to 1.

See on Instagram

All in all, the Doohickeys seemingly did the impossible by making their own unique version of a beloved, almost untouchable classic song, while still holding onto the original’s essence. It’s unfortunate that we still are having these issues, to be sure. But that’s another conversation.

And while we might not see sweeping improvements to the workplace quite as fast, the Doohickeys did immediately fulfill the people’s request to make a full version of the song, which you can listen to on Spotify.

But wait, there’s even more awesome ditties where that came from. Follow the Doohickeys on Instagram here

.

With temperatures rising worldwide, it’s essential to know how to stay cool by reducing your body heat. It’s important to keep hydrated and wear breathable clothing, but if you want to cool off quickly, the military has a trick to reduce body temperature in minutes.

According to a CBS report, research shows that submerging your forearms and biceps in ice-cold water can help prevent overheating. That’s why the military uses arm immersion tables when training in hot weather or stationed in places where the heat is unbearable and it’s impossible to get to an air-conditioned room.

“It’s low-tech, it’s inexpensive, it’s easy to implement,” Lt. Col. Dave DeGroot, who runs the Army Heat Center at Fort Moore, told CBS. “It’s a bucket of water.” Arm immersion tables are long, narrow troughs filled with ice-cold water that stand on four legs.

---

To cool down, soldiers place their hands, arms, and wrists in the cold water for 3 to 5 minutes. Then, they raise their arms above their heads. This allows cooled blood to circulate throughout the body, lowering its temperature. It also allows the water to drip down their arms, cooling their core from the outside.

Soldiers who practice the technique say that while their arms are submerged, they feel the cold water circulate throughout their body, starting in the chest and then moving to their back.

“Your car has a radiator. Well, so do we. It’s our skin,” DeGroot said. “Our blood is going to cool off and circulate back to the core and eventually, with several minutes of exposure, bring the core temperature down.”

Arm immersion tables cool approximately 13% of the body, enough surface area to transfer body heat to the water. According to TechLink, immersing one’s arms in cold water can reduce core body temperature by 2° F in 3 to 10 minutes. Two degrees may not sound like much, but considering that the average body temperature is usually between 97 and 100 degrees, it makes a huge difference.

In severe situations where hot soldiers appear pale, wobbly, or mentally incapacitated, the military uses ice sheets to cool them down. “An ice sheet is nothing more than a simple bed sheet that we use,” Fort Jackson safety specialist Vinson Washington told the U.S. Army. “We submerge these in ice, and when a casualty overheats, we wrap them in these to cool them down until we can get medical personnel on the scene.”

“We put them in a human taco, basically,” 1st Sgt. Brendan Cain, an Air Assault School instructor, added. In the event a soldier goes down with a heat injury, they use the sheets to “cool down the (soldier’s) core temperature,” then “it’s an automatic call to 911.”

Arm immersion tables and ice sheets work because, according to TechLink, the heat transfer of water is 25 times greater than that of air. So, to cool someone off, it’s much more effective to immerse them in water than to place them in front of a fan.

There’s no need to worry if you’re looking to beat the heat and don’t have a military-grade arm immersion tank. You can make something similar by taking a large cooler filled with ice water and placing it on a table or by filling your kitchen sink with water and adding some ice.

LeBron James arrived in Las Vegas for USA Basketball camp ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Friday, as a stacked Team USA roster sets its sights on a golf medal run.

His eldest son, Bronny, will join him in Vegas soon as he begins his NBA career as part of the Lakers Summer League team after signing a 4-year deal with the Lakers after being drafted 55th overall. While those two ply their trade in Vegas, Bryce James is enjoying his last summer in high school, and as any good teenager does, he’s killing time by poking some fun at his father. Bryce decided to go out back to the pool on a sunny Friday afternoon in L.A. and recreate LeBron’s “smiling through it all, can’t believe this is my life” post that became an enduring meme.

It’s pretty great work by Bryce, who followed that post up with a “iykyk” post on his story. I want to know how long he’s been thinking about recreating this, because the original post is six years old — LeBron posted it in response the the infamous “shut up and dribble” remarks. In any case, the moment of inspiration arrived on Friday and he nailed it.

The biggest free agent left on the market after a busy first week of deals is DeMar DeRozan, who has made waves this summer with appearances alongside Compton native Kendrick Lamar, and is looking to leave the Chicago Bulls as they set their sights on a franchise reset. The problem for DeRozan is, almost all of the teams that started this summer with cap space have used it up and the options for a sign-and-trade have gotten a bit thin.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski, DeRozan is looking for $20-25 million per year, and a sign-and-trade has to be for three years, so it’d take a healthy commitment from a team to bring him in at that number. Beyond that, the Bulls don’t want to take back money (especially nothing long-term), per Woj, further complicating matters.

There will be suitors for DeRozan, but figuring out the terms of a deal is a bit tricky given these parameters. For example, there are teams like the Clippers and Lakers that would probably love to bring him home to L.A., but whether they’d want to do so at the cost of Norman Powell or Rui Hachimura to make it work financially is a very different question, especially since they’d need to find a third team to take themm in. Here we’ll look at a trio of possibilities for the former All-Star, including one complicated (but fun) deal to start.

Sacramento Kings

The Kings are the known suitor for DeRozan at the moment (he’s a good wing and they’re interested in all of them), but the trick is figuring out the third team to take salary back, as the Bulls apparently aren’t interested in taking on a contract like Harrison Barnes or Kevin Huerter. You could do a three-team deal and loop in Detroit or Utah and see if they’d be willing to eat a pair of contracts and, at $20 million per year, the Kings could make it work. That’s probably the route they will try to go, but let’s think bigger.

I would like to propose something bolder and more aggressive that I think would help four different teams achieve their goals this summer. The Orlando Magic can get to $8.6 million in cap space if they want to, and while they’ve done well this summer in adding Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, I think they still could use some shooting. If the Kings are ready to move on from Kevin Huerter, feeling he is repetitive with Keegan Murray and Malik Monk, that’s the kind of reserve shooter that would be very helpful for this Orlando team. You can make it work financially (according to the Fanspo trade machine) by having Orlando send Anthony Black to Chicago, where he can provide some point guard depth behind Josh Giddey and fit into their timeline entering his second season while the Magic seem to be accelerating faster than he may be able to keep up. While I understand the Bulls are looking to avoid being a tax team and don’t want to take back money, we can bring the Jazz in as the Lonzo Ball dump site, tacking on Portland’s lottery protected 2025 first (which rolls over all the way to 2028 before becoming a second) to facilitate that part of the deal. The Kings, meanwhile, could send Chris Duarte’s expiring and a future second the way of the Jazz.

All four teams would end up under the tax (I know, throw the parade) and I think it would actually push each of them towards their goal for this season. The Magic get another legit shooting threat and bolster their backcourt rotation. The Kings get the frontcourt upgrade they’ve been desperate for and still could look to move Harrison Barnes for something else. The Bulls get out of the tax and add a young guard. The Jazz add more picks to their stash and don’t cost themselves any future flexibility by eating two expirings.

The Trade
Kings get: DeMar DeRozan
Bulls get: Anthony Black
Magic get: Kevin Huerter
Jazz get: Lonzo Ball, Chris Duarte, 2025 lottery protected Portland first, future second

San Antonio Spurs

Perhaps DeRozan would consider a return to the Spurs, where he spent three seasons and had a lot of success playing with Gregg Popovich. They could give DeRozan the kind of three-year, ~$60 million deal he’s seeking and add another veteran to bring some structure alongside Victor Wembanyama after already adding Chris Paul. The Spurs are reportedly interested in Lauri Markkanen as well, but DeRozan wouldn’t preclude them from making other additions as they could flip Devonte’ Graham’s non-guaranteed deal, cash to cover the $2.9 million he’s owed if waived, and a second round pick to the Bulls to help them create a large trade exception.

The Trade
Spurs get: DeMar DeRozan
Bulls get: Devonte’ Graham, future second round pick, cash

Atlanta Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks cannot tank, because the San Antonio Spurs own too many of their first round picks. That means they really need to remain competitive even as they retool the roster, having already traded away Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans. While Dyson Daniels is a nice piece and they recouped some draft assets, they are severely lacking in terms of self-creation options besides Trae Young. DeRozan would certainly fill that need, and the Hawks have a few deals in the $22 million range that would be able to make the money work. Perhaps they could get the Jazz to take on Clint Capela’s expiring deal for the price of a couple seconds, and send a protected second the way of the Bulls, allowing Chicago to emerge unscathed financially from a DeRozan deal. Ideally, the Hawks would send out De’Andre Hunter, but with three years left on his deal, it’s very hard to figure out who would take that deal on without asking for first rounders that Atlanta won’t want to part with.

The Trade
Hawks get: DeMar DeRozan
Bulls get: Protected future second round pick
Jazz get: Clint Capela, two future second round picks

The Best New Hip-Hop This Week includes albums, videos, and songs from 42 Dugg, Eminem, and Killer Mike.

Holiday weeks are notoriously slow for new music releases, but that didn’t stop several hip-hop artists from taking advantage of the open window to get some new songs out there. Notably:

Eminem continued his rollout for The Death Of Slim Shady with the Spider-Man-influenced Michigan posse cut, “Tobey,” featuring Big Sean and BabyTron.

Quavo teamed up with Lana Del Rey after months of speculation to release “Tough,” the pop star’s latest hip-hop collaboration.

French Montana, Fabolous, and Fivio Foreign celebrated the impending launch of their Gotta See It To Believe It Tour with “To The Moon.”

Killer Mike addressed his Grammy Awards arrest in the reflective “Humble Me.”

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending July 5, 2024.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

42 Dugg — 4eva Us Neva Them

The Detroit rapper’s momentum may have stalled as a result of ill-timed incarceration, but that hasn’t stopped him from releasing what he’s calling his official debut album anyway. After his release earlier this year, Dugg hit the ground running, dropping videos for tracks like “Wock N Red” and “N.P.O.” featuring Sexyy Red. The album is 21 tracks with features from CMG labelmates Blac Youngsta and EST Gee, Jeezy, Lil Baby, Meek Mill, Rylo Rodriguez, and the aforementioned Sexyy Red.

P-Lo & Kool John — Moovie! 2: The Yequel

Bay Area indies P-Lo and Kool John link up for 13 tracks of post-hyphy lyrical shenanigans. This probably isn’t your project if you’re looking for a lot of introspection or thought-provoking wordplay; it’s an unabashed party album, with plenty of upbeat bops and bangers to keep you going dumb through the rest of the summer. Guests include fellow Norcal stalwarts ALLBLACK, Iamsu, Kamaiyah, and Nef the Pharaoh.

YTB Fatt — On Zai

West Memphis, Arkansas native YTB Fatt has been on my radar for a minute, slowly but steadily building a buzz in the Southern underground over the past year or so. That buzz has garnered him a few notable co-signs from fellow Dirty South artists like GloRilla, Lil Baby, NoCap, and Rylo Rodriguez, but on his latest, he handles business himself for the majority of the project’s 19 tracks.

Singles/Videos

Big Moochie Grape — “Fun” Feat. Young Dolph

The owner of one of the best stage names in all of rap music drops a video for a standout from his album, East Haiti Baby: Incarcerated, featuring a posthumous verse from his mentor, Young Dolph. It’s stunning how hard a new Dolph verse can still hit so long after his untimely death, and Mooch makes the most of the moment with this rib-bruising banger.

Chow Lee — “Practice!”

The “sexy drill” movement has been picking up steam lately — largely as a result of the efforts of rappers like Cash Cobain and Chow Lee. The latter makes a play on his new single, “Practice!,” with a video referencing one of the most infamous basketball-related memes of all time and verses addressing just how grimy the dating game can really be these days.

Kyle — “Dirty” Feat. Hit-Boy

Although he’s got a few years of rep as a lightweight pop rapper under his belt, Kyle zigs instead of zags here, employing a soulful instrumental produced by Hit-Boy to address one of his favorite topics — a defunct relationship whose end took him by surprise. Hit-Boy chips in a topical verse of his own, making this something of a departure for both artists — but not too much of one, as they sound completely cozy even outside their supposed comfort zones.

Caitlin Clark came into the WNBA with the reputation for having unlimited range, as we saw over and over again during her time as a standout at the University of Iowa that Clark was comfortable pulling up from the logo and knocking down threes. While she hasn’t quite been able to get into a rhythm from deep as a member of the Indiana Fever, we have seen her frequently launch from back there.

Clark has gotten into more of a rhythm from deep lately — she’s at 38.5 percent from downtown over her last 10 games after connecting on 29.7 percent of her threes in her first 11 games — and seeing as how she’ll participate in the WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix a little later this month, it’s fair to wonder if she’ll participate in the 3-Point Contest. Clark got asked about this on Friday, and, well, she didn’t say that she’s going to.

“Remains to be seen,” Clark said as a smile started to come across her face. “We’ll see. I don’t know. I’m excited, I dunno. I can’t give you guys every answer today.”

Now, I do not want to make any assumptions, but I think Caitlin Clark is going to participate in the 3-point contest. Regardless, Clark will be suiting up in the All-Star Game, which will pit a collection of the W’s best players against the team representing the United States at the Olympics in Paris.

Baseball is a terrific game for a number of reasons. One reason that is especially high on the list: The sport lends itself to completely insane things happening more frequently than just about any of the other major sports, as you’re perpetually one player misjudging what a baseball is going to do away from something ridiculous.

We got a really terrific example of how strange the sport can be during a recent game in the Korean Baseball Organization. Normally, when a player lays down a bunt with one out and runners on the corners, the objective is to drive in the player on third, get the runner on first over to second without an out, and sacrifice yourself as an out. Instead, a game between KT Wiz and Hanwha Eagles saw a bunt get laid down by an Eagles player, which led to total chaos and the extremely rare bunt home run.

Sometimes, you have to wonder if a higher power is involved in a Little League home run, and it really does seem like the baseball gods had their hands all over this one. The really fun part: Earlier in the game, the Wiz were also able to score on a Little League home run, although theirs did not come on a bunt getting laid down.

Sometimes, Jeopardy! viewers will do anything to take a swipe at Ken Jennings, but to be fair, sometimes he does step in it. The game’s host might not be the one writing the clues, but he sure does take the heat for any of the controversial calls, which unfortunately make him the punching bag for fans of things like correct answers and the truth.

The latest Jeopardy! blunder to be upsetting fans is from a clue this week in the category, Waterfalls. The clue read: “A Yosemite fall with a wispy ribbon of water that flutters in the air like diaphanous cloth bears the name of this marital wear.” One-day champion Kelly Proulx seemingly gave the correct answer, responding: “What is Bridalveil Falls?”

Jennings revealed it was incorrect. “It’s actually Bridalveil Fall, so we couldn’t take that.” This made the clue just more confusing, for both viewers and contestants.

According to the official Yosemite website, the waterfall is called Bridalveil Fall. The folks over at the Jeopardy Subreddit seem to agree that the ruling was unkind, even to Jeopardy’s standard. One user wrote, “I typically give long and wide deference to the judges, but f*ck the judges for that ruling. there is nothing pinning the clue to ‘fall,’ so she got the required information correct. that was positively disgusting.” Others called the rule “arbitrary,” while complaining about the inconsistencies in the games.

One fan seemed to offer an explanation that the clue was referring to an actual bridal veil, not the waterfall itself, but then that would still be just as confusing considering the category. It’s times like these when Alex Trebek’s calm demeanor during troubling times is truly missed.

(Via Parade)

The sky’s the limit for French Montana in the video for his new single “To The Moon” featuring fellow New Yorkers Fabolous and Fivio Foreign. The three Big Apple natives throw a block party for the ages in the video, complete with cars doing burnouts, dirt bikes popping wheelies, and dozens of locals vibing out to the boisterous instrumental.

The release of “To The Moon” highlights how hard-working French is — the Bronx rapper is just six months removed from the release of his last mixtape, Mac & Cheese 5, and yet, he’s already dropping new singles like there’s no tomorrow. “To The Moon” samples Jamaican dancehall titan Cutty Ranks’ 1991 staple “The Stopper (Main Attraction Remix),” and also kicks off the tour headlined by the three New York mixtape rap mainstays.

The Gotta See It To Believe It Tour begins August 1st in Wallingford, Connecticut, and runs through August 25th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You can find tickets and more information here. The mini-tour wisely sticks to the Northeast, hitting mid-size venues that the artists are guaranteed to sell out — these veterans are showing the youngsters who have been trying to fill arenas how it should be done.

Watch French Montana’s “To The Moon” video featuring Fabolous and Fivio Foreign above.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is one of the biggest movies of all-time, but most people probably can’t name E.T.’s species (and those who can, like myself, wasted our precious youth on Star Wars lore). The same is true of A Quiet Place, which isn’t E.T.-level big, but A Quiet Place: Day One is doing just fine at the box office. Did you know the noise-hating aliens are called Death Angels? Because I didn’t, and neither did Day One star Lupita Nyong’o.

In a recent interview with Hits Radio, Nyong’o and co-star Joseph Quinn, who also played Eddie on Stranger Things, were asked which is scarier: Demogorgons or Death Angels? “What are Death Angels?” Nyong’o asked Quinn, who leaned over to inform her that’s what the A Quiet Place aliens are named. Without missing a beat, she replied, “It was day one. We didn’t know.”

Give her another Oscar.

To be fair, no one says “Death Angels” in any of the movies. As pointed out by X user @LiamMcI1996, “They’re called Death Angels in the first movie on one of the newspaper headlines in [A Quiet Place star and director John] Krasinski’s workshop. It’s a pretty blink and you’ll miss it reference though.” In a perfect society, no one would be filled with rage about Nyong’o not knowing this very minor piece of lore. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in. But at least a lot of people are on her side.

A Quiet Place: Day One is out in theaters now. There’s a good cat!