On March 27, Ruth Harrington’s ashes were laid to rest at a plot next to her husband — the same day he was buried, in 2006 — and it also was their wedding anniversary.

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“I feel so desperate and hopeless now. I just want my parents here with me.”

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With much of life on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to practice good social distancing, one of the questions looming over all of this waiting is what will be left of the world we once had before everything changed? Restaurants and businesses of all kinds are particularly vulnerable, and many have made donations to various causes or made sure to order takeout from their favorite places to keep the lights on during a particularly vulnerable time.

One thing that may be overlooked are more obscure businesses, which is why Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch stepped up to save an important part of his creation’s own real-life history. Hirsch may have other projects brewing but he hasn’t forgotten the Disney show that’s still beloved by a legion of fans. And when a California roadside attraction the show was based on was in danger, he asked for help to keep an extremely weird landmark safe for future generations to enjoy.

Earlier in the week, Hirsch shared a GoFundMe for Confusion Hill, explaining that the California roadside attraction served as the inspiration for the Mystery Shack the folks from Gravity Falls called home. The campaign, started by Kai Roath, hoped to raise $9,000 for the attraction, which was estimated would help cover a three-month gap in operation most likely necessary to help encourage social distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Confusion Hill depends on visitors to survive and with the current situation, it will be highly doubtful they will be able to open the train ride season and snack bar in May, which really saves them after the slow, rainy winter.
With no idea when they will be able to re-open, all they can do is stay closed and lose money like so many others.

As the entrance fee to the Gravity House is only $5, I am reaching out to you to with the humble suggestion to donate just that small amount.
If folks can donate $5 each, we can reach this goal together and help preserve one of the few, last unique roadside attractions in California. On a very-very slow day, Confusion Hill can make as little as $100.

The campaign called the attraction’s owner, Carol Campbell, an “honest and wonderful woman,” and it seems Hirsch agreed. His help amplifying the fundraiser got Gravity Falls fans involved in a big way, and he confirmed that Confusion Hill is a direct influence of the show.

He also donated $1,000 to the cause himself, as he clearly feels he owes a great deal of the show’s success to its brain-bending real-life counterpart.

And it seems to have worked. On Friday, Hirsch tweeted in celebration that Confusion Hill had been saved.

It seems like the $9,000 was all it needed to stay in operation, and fans had easily cruised past that mark to crack five figures in donations by the end of the day. It’s some rare good news in a world where many businesses are struggling, and hopefully the attraction can stay a weird part of California’s history for many years to come.

Although he’s ostensibly billed as a rapper, Post Malone makes no secret of his omnivorous musical tastes, especially the works of Nirvana. While he’s been known to cover the band at live shows in past — like this “All Apologies” rendition from 2017 — his first live set of the COVID-19 quarantine turned out to be a whole Nirvana tribute set, with the approval of none other than Kurt Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love.

During the livestream, Post played plenty of Nirvana favorites such as “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle,” “Drain You,” “Come As You Are,” and more. You check out those performances above.

Post has also been productive working on his own music since the quarantine began. His manager, Dre London, revealed at the beginning of the lockdown that the top-selling artist was in “quarantine album mode,” so don’t be surprised to see him emerge with another chart-dominating body of work on the other side — albeit one that probably won’t have Ozzy Osbourne collaborations on it. However, I don’t think anyone would be terribly upset if it turned out to have a few of his trademark Nirvana covers on it instead. A “live” album of quarantine performances probably wouldn’t go amiss, either.

Watch Post Malone’s Nirvana covers set above benefitting The United Nations Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for The World Health Organization (WHO).

The first meme crafted during social distancing has made it to baseball via a home run celebration. Of course, we’re talking about the Coffin Dance/Dancing Pallbearers meme, which features very good dancing from Ghana used to particularly morbid effect.

Not to meme-splain, but you’ve probably seen the Ghanian pallbearers meme in some version in recent days, even if you didn’t know what it was. The video originated from a BBC explainer from 2017 on a group of pallbearers who will dance with a coffin of mourners want a “more upbeat” funeral procession. In early April, footage of them dancing in elaborate costumes were spliced into videos to look like the aftermath of extremely dangerous, often life-threatening activities. It was a very morbid, but big, hit in a world where there isn’t much to do other than circulate old Jeopardy! clips.

Despite being a few weeks old by now the meme still has considerable legs, as evidenced by this Mario Kart-themed version that surfaced earlier on Friday.

It’s fairly common that these memes leak into the sports world, especially via celebrations. And since Taiwanese baseball is basically the only thing going on right now, it was inevitable that the meme would pop up in a celebration first.

Chu Yu Hsien’s second home run of the day here was enough for Lamigo Monkeys to celebrate by grabbing some bats and dancing like the Ghanian pallbearers. Extra credit goes here to them performing the musical accompaniment here as well. It’s really tremendous work all around. Including this response image that you should definitely add to your Twitter rotation.

And yes, this is the same league that has robots cheering for teams in spectator-less venues, proving you don’t need fans to have some extremely viral fun.

Why do kids do the things they do? Whyyyyyy?

This question has plagued parents for millennia, yet we still ask it over and over as we watch our kids use clothing as napkins, use 25 times more soap than necessary (when they use soap at all), and write all over things that should never be written on.

Canadian mom Melissa Dilkes Pateras posted a video to Facebook of what it would look like if adults did the things kids do, and it hits way too close to home.

The video has been shared more than 400,000 times since it was posted two days ago, so clearly, it’s hit parents’ funny bone—that painfully ticklish spot that makes you cringe and laugh hysterically at the same time. It’s just all too familiar.

Now if Melissa could just add a scene where she’s making random noises over and over again for no reason and one where she gets up sixteen times after she’s gone to bed, it would just about be perfect.

The Beatles’ music is universal. So is the enlightened mind of a Buddhist monk. Put them together and you have this treat from Japan performed by a monk that goes by the name Kossan. (The video is great, but so are the YouTube comments.)

“Yellow Submarine” is one of the quirkier songs in The Beatles’ catalog. It came to Paul McCartney one evening in 1966 as he was about to fall asleep. John Lennon helped him out with some of the lyrics and the finished version was given to drummer Ringo Starr to sing.

As for Kossan, his musica career began 13 years ago when he was living in New York City. “When I was playing the sanshin on a bench, a guy gave me a dollar,” he said according to Open Culture. “I was surprised because I didn’t expect that at all. I was playing it there only because it was a nice day.”

And, just like that, a star was born.

Human activity has drastically slowed over the past few weeks giving us a glimpse into what the world might look like if we weren’t around. One of the most dramatic changes that we can see with the naked eye is an improvement in air quality over major metropolitan areas.

People around the world are truly excited to see clear skies and vistas that were previously obscured by pollution.

Improved visibility is a wonderful gift but what’s more important is a reduction in what we usually don’t see in the air: atmospheric particulate matter or PM2.5.

Atmospheric particulate matter has a diameter of fewer than 2.5 micrometers, which is about 3% the diameter of a human hair. It is produced by cars, power plants, agricultural burning, airplanes, and volcanic eruptions.

The pollutant is a major health risk because it can lodge deep inside the lungs and pass into the organs and bloodstream causing damage that can be fatal.

Air pollution, in general, is a major health risk. According to the World Health Organization, it kills seven million people a year.

Researchers from IQAir — a global air quality information and tech company — studied ten major cities around the world that had COVID-19 outbreaks and stringent lockdown measures, to see how those policies affected the air quality.

The cities it studied are: Delhi, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Mumbai, New York City, Rome, São Paulo, Seoul, and Wuhan.

The study found that cities with the world’s worst air pollution saw a reduction in deadly particulate matter by up to 60%. To get an accurate gauge of the lockdown’s effects, researchers studied three-week periods that coincided with the peak number of daily reported coronavirus cases.

via IQAir

New Delhi, India, one of the world’s most polluted cities, saw a 60% reduction in dangerous particulate matter from March 23 to April 13 from the same period in 2019.

Los Angeles, which is known for its oppressive traffic and notorious smog, saw its longest stretch of clean air on record. Particulate levels were down by 31% from the same time last year, and down 51% from the average of the previous four years.

Some estimates suggest that COVID-19 restrictions have taken about 80% of passenger cars off the roads in Tinseltown.

IQAir hopes that after people across the world have experienced the joy of living with clean air they’ll fight to keep it that way.

“In our recovery from the pandemic, it’s important that we strive to preserve the cleaner environment, which protects our health from another invisible killer, air pollution,” IQAir’s marketing specialist Kelsey Duskasaid said according to CNN.

“We hope that the urgency in tackling this global pandemic may be matched in addressing air pollution.”

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Tonight on the WWE Friday Night Smackdown open discussion thread:

All hail The King of Kings!

Friday Night SmackDown is set to celebrate Triple H’s 25th Anniversary with WWE this week. From the early days as Jean-Paul Lévesque, to the iconic days in the DX stable, mind-blowing WrestleMania main events and every stop in between, it’s time to play The Game and look back at some of the most memorable moments.

What will the blue brand have in store to honor one of the greatest WWE Superstars in history?

Tune in to SmackDown at 8/7 C on FOX to celebrate the incredible milestone. (via WWE.com)

Do you feel like you’re not appreciating Triple H enough? Then make sure you’re here for Triple H appreciation week, part one of many, and look back on all of those great Triple H moments. Also on the show: Lacey Evans vs. Sasha Banks, Drew Gulak vs. King Corbin, and a Women’s Tag Team Championship match.

As always, give a thumbs up to any comments from tonight’s open thread you enjoy and we’ll include 10 of the best in tomorrow’s Best and Worst of Friday Night Smackdown on Fox report. Make sure to flip your comments to “newest” in the drop down menu under “discussion,” and enjoy the show!