On to this week’s Awesome Things:

Peter Max died last week at 88, and there's a good chance you owned something he touched without knowing it. A lunchbox. A poster. A stamp. A Continental jet, if you flew in the '70s. He turned 1960s psychedelia into a merch empire before "merch" was a word. And here's the fun part: the style he's most famous for, the Yellow Submarine look, wasn't his at all. That was Heinz Edelmann. Max just got so good at being the face of cosmic '60s art that everyone assumed. His later years were messier, with a 2019 exposé on assistants churning out "Peter Max" canvases while he struggled with dementia. Still, few artists got their work onto more dorm walls, cruise ships, and gas station trinkets.

That counts as a kind of immortality. A very colorful, slightly mass-produced one.

Peter Max, Psychedelic Pop Art Icon of the 1960s, Dead at 88

I will tattoo your logo on my a**

Brands outbid each other to get their logo on the a**. One leaderboard, real money, no accounts. The top 22 make it onto the boxers. / A** Auction

911Realtime

911realtime.org replays the media of September 11, 2001 — television, radio, pagers, news, newsgroups, flight radar, even the web itself — synchronized to one clock, inside a Mac OS 8-style desktop.

The clock starts at 8:40 AM Eastern, six minutes before the first impact. From there, every app plays forward together, exactly as the day unfolded.

A documentary archive of a day on which nearly 3,000 people were killed. It is presented unedited and in real time so it can be studied and remembered as it happened. Please explore it with that in mind.

How to think clearly when everything feels like an emergency / Big Think

Pet Owner Finds a Way to Let His Injured Lovebird Experience Flight Again After Cat Attack

Nitya the lovebird’s owner, says the beloved pet is like his “second heartbeart” / People

What happened to North Hollywood’s Star Garden, the nation’s only unionized strip club?

The Los Angeles dancers made labor history in 2023, but their jobs and union protections are in limbo. / Los Angeles Public Press

English professor explains why happy, successful people have one thing in common: true literacy

A few minutes of actual reading per day can boost health, wealth, and longevity. / Upworthy

The Marvelous Reappearing Act of the 1960s Frigidaire Flair Stove

The stove was designed by Jayne Van Alstyne, who joined General Motors in 1955 as a “Damsel of Design,” one of a handful of women hired to make GM’s products more “female-friendly.” She was eventually promoted to the head of Frigidaire, GM’s appliance division, and from there led Frigidaire’s design of the 1956 “Kitchen of Tomorrow,” a display kitchen with the streamlined aesthetics of the Jet Age. As commercial air travel became commonplace in the 1950s, many more appliances adopted the look and feel of aeronautic design, from glass-encased “instrument panels” to sliding oven-door suspension. / Saveur

How color drained from our furniture

Everything is gray now / The European Correspondent

Photographer Captured California Life in the 1980s From Behind the Wheel

A photographer whose fascinating images of everyday life in California — taken from behind the wheel of his car on his daily drive to work — are the focus of a new exhibition. / Peta Pixel

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Leftovers

✅ If I could talk to the animals / Threads

✅ What kids think their parents do at work / Threads

✅ 200 Things To Do Alone / Instagram

// Quotable

“Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence.”

- Atul Gawande

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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On to this week’s Awesome Things:

Listen to a 302-track playlist of Anthony Bourdain’s favorite songs

Unsurprisingly, the dude had some good taste in music. / FarOut Magazine

Rename Lake Ontario

Have fun... / MapQuest

You can watch live cams from dog shelters all over the world here 🐾

You can also watch birds and cats.

How to reclaim your flow state

Based on the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi / Wired

Maggi Payne and the Art of Wiring a Microscope to a Moog

In 1982, Maggi Payne pointed a microscope at crystals as they grew, filmed it, and set the footage against a Moog modular Series III - plus real solar wind data from one of NASA's top physicists. / The Intersect

How Do Polaroid Cameras Work? / How Everything Works

Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama, who transformed hallucinations into art ​and was known for her obsessive dot-covered ‌paintings and pumpkin motifs, has died at the age of 97.

Neo-Etiquette Basics: The New Rules of Being Human / Westenberg

Type designers have created a free font that “poisons” AI

ShieldFont comes in six weights and pollutes unauthorized AI training. / Creative Bloq

Hotel Retro: Vintage Luggage Labels from Tokyo to Buenos Aires

Journey across time and place with hundreds of vibrant steamer trunk labels from the Golden Age of Travel, faithfully reproduced as 330 charming full-color stickers / Letterform Archive

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Leftovers

✅ One of the wildest moments of the Jerry Lewis Telethon. The time when John Lennon and Jerry Lewis “jammed” on Give Peace a Chance. / Threads

✅ If Games of Thrones was a 1950’s movie in Technicolor. 😳 / Threads

✅ Some of you may not be prepared for California Dreamin' as done by Lawrence Welk. / Threads

// Quotable

“There is no one formula for any of us at any point in our lives. Keep being open to adapting, learning, and listening to yourself.”

- Jason Brown

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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The world is, by most accounts, on fire. I am, somehow, not. Both can be true at once, and I’ve decided to stop apologizing for it.

I took the summer off from this newsletter, mostly to sit outside and stare at things that weren’t a screen (unless it was Phillies baseball, the World Cup, or the Tour de France). It worked. I came back with a backlog of tabs, a renewed appreciation for weird internet ephemera, and zero interest in explaining myself further.

So, we’re back. Same nonsense, freshly stockpiled. I’m looking to introduce changes to this newsletter: mainly to see if I can make it into something bigger. I’m also working on a few other weird side projects. Stay tuned.

Hey! I’ve been using Stash to invest—they provide expert guidance and tools to put your money to work effortlessly. Here’s a link to get $30 to invest when you join and deposit at least $5. Make sure to claim before it expires!

On to this week’s Awesome Things:

RIP Dolly Parton. Her peerless career turned country music cliches inside out

Beneath the wig and rhinestones, Parton was the genius behind strings of classic songs from Jolene to I Will Always Love You that continue to inspire new artists./ Guardian

ALSO: NYC street artists work fast….Fulton Street is now Parton Street 🙏 / Bluesky

The online shopping trend where you buy nothing

On South Korea’s “dopamine sites,” the pleasure comes from aspirational shopping rituals like browsing, curating, and tracking — not from a delivery.

“He just doesn’t give a f***”: inside the restless world of Neil Young, by Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Emmylou Harris & more

Friends and bandmates offer their highlights of a fearless, single-minded artist. / Uncut

A Short Film Sheds Light on the Garfield Phones Washing Up on a French Beach Since the ’80s / This Is Colossal

The Lost Civic Life of Movie Rental Stores

Decades before recommendation algorithms, video stores served as social hubs where conversation and camaraderie became a form of taste-making. / The MIT Press Reader

Ciggie Index

Your air quality index, but in ciggies

Pixel Skylines

Urban backgrounds from old video games. / Tumblr

Dark Secret Mystery Woman Funeral Service

A mysterious figure at the back of a funeral has intrigued culture for generations.

The IKEA complexity index

~20k IKEA products, ranked by how long they take to build. / greg.technology

🪎 Construction workers find gold stash estimated to be worth $10 million during renovations in Belgium / CBS news

Mike D: ‘After Yauch died I couldn’t make music. I’d open a computer file and just feel sadness’

As part of the Beastie Boys, the rapper shot to fame and notoriety in the 80s. After bandmate Adam Yauch’s death, he withdrew from the spotlight. He returns with a solo album that sees him reckon with greed, mortality – and his past. / Guardian

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Leftovers

✅ Only Japan could turn a simple bandage into a full 8‑bit hero moment. Love the creativity! / Threads

✅ No modeling contract. No photoshoot. No royalties. Just B.J. Novak accidentally becoming an international product model. 😂 / Threads

✅ A collection of insults so intelligent you don't realize you've been roasted / Threads

// Quotable

“It’s not how long, but how well one lives that matters the most.”

– Audie Murphy

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Someone Finally Fixed Pizza Hut (By Making It 1987 Again)

Somewhere in America, a man named Tim Sparks looked at the soulless, minimalist hellscape that Pizza Hut had become and said: not on my watch. Sparks, CEO of Daland Corporation and operator of nearly 100 Pizza Hut locations, has been on a one-man mission to turn back the clock — restoring over 38 “Pizza Hut Classic” locations (with 12 more under evaluation) to the dine-in glory of the 1980s and 90s, complete with red checkered tablecloths, Tiffany-style lamps, vinyl booths, salad bars, and those iconic red plastic cups. Oh, and there’s a Pac-Man machine in the corner. Yes, really. Someone finally did it.

The response has been, to put it mildly, unhinged in the best possible way. People are driving two and three hours just to eat there — which either says a lot about the power of nostalgia or a lot about what’s happening in their towns, but let’s not think too hard about that. Walk into the Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania location and you’ll even find a “Book It” poster on the wall — the legendary reading program that bribed an entire generation of children into literacy with the promise of a personal pan pizza. It worked then. It’s working now.

Sparks, who got his start as a dishwasher at Pizza Hut, insists this is about more than just red cups and stained glass lamps. His pitch is that if you can get a family in the door, they tend to put their phones down and actually talk to each other — a bold claim to make with a Pac-Man machine ten feet away, but we’ll allow it. Some of the restored Classic locations are now among his top performers, which is either a vindication of his vision or proof that we are all just desperately, hopelessly in the grip of our own childhoods. Probably both. Pass the Thousand Island.

Most popular link last week: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things

Bush's Beans priced their limited-edition summer multi-pack at $5.25 as a nod to Memorial Day (5/25). That's either charming brand storytelling or the most unhinged pricing justification in food history. Either way, Rocket Pop Baked Beans exist now and that's just something we all have to live with. (according to the Bush site, the combo is currently SOLD OUT!)

He Crashed a Beach Fashion Show and Accidentally Became Its Star. David Handley was going for a swim in Sydney when he found himself walking on an Australian Fashion Week runway. “I’ve usurped the spot of the lead model,” he said. / New York Times

End of an era as Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous, pours its last. The iconic lager has quenched the thirst of American beer drinkers for 177 years. / NBC News

Monet for nothing: the famous artworks cheering up UK high streets Reproductions of works by Monet, Picasso and Van Gogh are being hung in town centres to bring art closer to communities. / Positive News

Six Flags to debut roller coaster that shatters 6 world records. / KTLA5

Sorry, Not Sorry: Psychology suggests people who constantly apologize for things that aren’t their fault may not just be polite — for some, it reflects learning to manage other people’s moods. / Space Daily

A web page told me everything it learned about me — without asking. Also, what the world gained and lost while you’re sitting there staring at the page. Fascinating stuff. / Since You Arrived

World’s smallest deer, a Pudu fawn, is born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (cuteness overload) / NBC San Diego

Hooters Says Bring the Kids! Hooters is bravely trying to pivot from an overtly sexualized "girlie bar" to a wholesome, family-friendly "beach-themed restaurant"—because nothing says family bonding quite like eating funnel fries over a table printed with swimsuit calendar models. The chain is even rolling out branded baby onesies to attract the stroller crowd, apparently hoping parents can look past the tight orange shorts and focus on the "wholesome" spirit of corporate crisis management. / New York Times

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Leftovers

✅ Think marijuana is harmless? Think again! (‘80s) / Twitter

✅ The Seinfeld Simulator / Instagram

✅ Art Project: Guitarists Standing On Lego / Threads

// Quotable

“The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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The Hindenburg’s Interiors (Airships.net / Human For Scale on Reddit) May 6th marked the 89th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster, and I’ve been down the rabbit hole ever since.

Here’s the thing most people don’t know: before it became the most famous fireball in history, the Hindenburg was the most spectacular flying machine ever built. At 804 feet long and 135 feet in diameter, it remains the largest aircraft ever constructed. To put that in perspective, it was longer than three Boeing 747s placed nose-to-tail. And it wasn’t just big—it was absurdly big in the way that only things built in the 1930s with something to prove could be. Inside, past the engineering miracle of a pressurized smoking lounge on a hydrogen-filled aircraft (yes, really), passengers dined in a 47-foot dining room decorated with silk wallpaper murals, lounged in a room with a custom-built aluminum grand piano, and strolled promenades with angled windows looking down at the Atlantic Ocean below. A one-way ticket cost $400 — nearly three times the price of a first-class ocean liner passage. It was a flying cruise ship operating at the absolute edge of what human ambition could dream up, and it burned down in 34 seconds. Start with the interiors, then go find the Reddit thread — the human-scale images will genuinely stop you cold.

Personal note: When I was a kid, my grandfather took us to visit relatives in Lakehurst, New Jersey. He took me to the very field where it all happened. I walked around that site completely convinced I was going to find a piece of the Hindenburg on the ground. A bolt, a rivet, or something. I found nothing, obviously. But I’ve never quite gotten over it.

Most popular link last week: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things

Cucumbers used to be called “cowcumbers.”

An 18-Year-Old Is Rethinking Plastic — And She Might Actually Be Onto Something While the rest of us were doom-scrolling, an 18-year-old inventor has been quietly developing a new approach to biodegradable plastic that's drawing serious attention. It's the kind of story that makes you feel better about the next generation — and slightly embarrassed about what you were doing at 18. / Good News EU

I Tried the Pickle Smoothie From Smoothie King and Grillo’s. Here’s What It Tastes Like / Today

A Fox in Alberta Was Caught Stealing an Entire Mouthful of Hot Dogs (UPI) Police in Alberta responded to what was officially logged as "a report of a theft involving BBQ goods" and found a red fox with a mouthful of hot dogs. No arrests were made. The fox was not available for comment. The hot dogs were not recovered. / UPI

A Zoltar Machine Told a Man His Lucky Numbers 30 Years Ago. He Just Won $1 Million. Stephen Huesgen of Fraser, Michigan, received a set of lucky numbers from a Zoltar fortune-telling machine in Las Vegas three decades ago and has been faithfully playing those numbers in lottery games ever since — until one of them finally won him a $1 million Powerball prize. The machine from Big has officially done more for this man's retirement than most financial advisors. Zoltar has spoken. / CBS News

Why saying hello to strangers can be good for you / NPR

Fifty Empty Waymo Robotaxis Invaded an Atlanta Neighborhood Before Breakfast (WSB-TV) Residents of Atlanta's Battleview Drive began noticing driverless Waymo cars circling their cul-de-sac — with one neighbor counting 50 cars passing through between 6 and 7 in the morning. When a neighbor tried blocking them with a children's road sign, eight Waymos got stuck trying to figure out how to turn around. Waymo said it is "committed to being good neighbors." The neighborhood remained unconvinced. / WSB-TV

Life in Weeks: Create a map of your life with each as a little box / Life in Weeks

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Leftovers

✅ A stray cat in Turkey started showing up at the same shop every morning just to hug the man who fed her once. / Threads

✅ What happens when you post a real Monet and say it’s AI? The coolest art social experiment I’ve seen in a while. / Twitter

✅ Why did America have a hotline just for crying? / Threads

// Quotable

“The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day; a movement is only people moving.” - Gloria Steinem

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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The Tinfluencer

Meet Marcus Ansell — better known as @TinnedFishReviews — a Nottinghamshire man who became a TikTok sensation by opening and taste-testing cans of fish from around the world. Usually sporting a fez and seated at his kitchen table like a man who has achieved complete inner peace, Marcus has built an empire on the simple act of saying things like “that’s a lovely mackerel” directly into a camera. His most viral moment — six million views — involved eating Surströmming, a fermented Baltic herring so pungent he had to open the can underwater.

His catchphrase is “Let us decant the tin,” which is somehow both deeply mundane and deeply noble. Co-starring in every episode are his wife Lucy, who films and edits everything and is credited only as “The Cameraman,” and Arthur, a ten-year-old Collie/Great Pyrenees cross who has presumably smelled things no dog should ever have to smell. You can even buy t-shirts.

Find him on TikTok at @tinnedfishreviews and Instagram at @tinned_fish_reviews — and maybe send him a nice tin from your pantry. He’s earned it.
Website: Tinned Fish Reviews

Most popular link last week: ‘When nothing was taboo’: 10 intimate images of a lost, decadent 1930s Paris

Banksy Just Put a Statue in London — Overnight, Obviously A large statue mysteriously appeared in London's Waterloo Place depicting a suited man marching off a pedestal with a flag smothering his face. Banksy confirmed it was his via a video set to Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance. It stands among statues of King Edward VII and Florence Nightingale, which is either deeply funny or deeply pointed. Probably both. / NPR

A 27-Foot Buddha Just Appeared on the High Line in New York (Arts To Hearts) Vietnamese sculptor Tuan Andrew Nguyen unveiled a monumental sandstone Buddha on Manhattan's High Line, replicating two ancient statues carved into Afghan cliffs over a millennium ago, which were later destroyed by the Taliban. It's stunning, it's massive, and it's sitting between 10th Avenue and a taco truck. New York, baby. / Arts of Heart Project

At the St. Francis Monastery in Bolivia, Franciscan monks adopted a stray dog in 2016 and named him Friar Bigotón (Spanish for “Brother Whiskers”). He famously wears a custom, tiny brown Franciscan habit. The monks jokingly share photos of him “preaching” to the fish in the monastery. / Threads

Our guide to puffins / National Trust

The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things Exactly what it says. An imaginary museum — very real blog — that lives in the strange space between art and curiosities. Victorian oddities, macabre automatons, unsettling historical photography. If your idea of a good time is a coin-operated mortuary machine from 1900, you've found your people.

Thom Yorke Has an Art Show and the Press Release Is a Poem Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and artist Stanley Donwood have an exhibition with intentionally vague details — no press release, no artist's statement, just a poster with a string of words reading "joyless/pointless/senseless/worthless / loveless." Which, honestly, sounds exactly like what you'd expect from the man who wrote OK Computer. The show is called "No Go Elevator (Not Without a Keycard)." / Artsy

A Bear Tried to Break Into a Tennessee Bakery for Cinnamon Rolls A security camera outside a bakery in Tennessee captured footage of a bear attempting a late-night break-in, motivated entirely by cinnamon rolls. The bear failed. The cinnamon rolls were safe. We respect the commitment. / UPI

There's a New Spider Named After Pink Floyd, and It Lives in Your Walls Scientists in Colombia named a new spider species Pikelinia floydmuraria in honor of Pink Floyd and the spider's preferred habitat — walls — with "muraria" derived from the Latin word for wall, alluding to The Wall album. It's 3mm long and hunts prey six times its size. Roger Waters would probably find a way to make this about himself anyway. / Popular Science

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Leftovers

✅ This is Takuya Nakamura... a NYC-based artist blending jazz, jungle, and electronic music while playing trumpet live during his DJ sets /Threads

✅ Infinite Jeffs /Threads

✅ Responding to my wife like AI. /Threads

// Quotable

“I am the captain of my soul.” - William Ernest Henley

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Share Awesome Things

‘When nothing was taboo’: 10 intimate images of a lost, decadent 1930s Paris

Exploring the work of the legendary photographer Brassaï, a pioneer of nocturnal photography who captured the hidden layers of Paris during the inter-war years.

He was a Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris between the world wars. / BBC

Most popular link last week: This classic is from when the internet was mostly fun still / Threads

Monkeys Are Kidnapping Babies — For Fun. On a predator-free island off Panama, a group of young male capuchin monkeys has developed a bizarre new fad: kidnapping howler monkey babies and carrying them around like accessories. Scientists believe the culprit is boredom. Turns out, when monkeys have too much free time and zero threats, they invent crime. Deeply unsettling and somehow deeply relatable. / Science Alert

The surprising history of pretzels From monks to malls, how pretzels traveled centuries to become one of America’s most beloved snacks / Salon

Originally, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this, as a die-hard Anthony Bourdain superfan. His estate gave the movie the blessing and go-ahead because it’s not your average biopic and doesn’t attempt to summarize his life. Who am I kidding? Even if it sucked, I’d watch it anyway.

NASA Just Dropped More Than 12,000 Photos from the Artemis II Mission / Collosal

Oklahoma Made Roosters Fighting Robots Legal. Oklahoma passed a law allowing live roosters to fight robots — as long as the birds don't get hurt. Nobody's quite sure whether this is an animal-welfare loophole or the plot of a Pixar short gone rogue. Either way, the future is here, and it's fighting a rooster. / MSN

Valerie the Sausage Dog Is Home. Valerie, the miniature dachshund, disappeared during a camping trip on Kangaroo Island, Australia, and was eventually found after 529 days surviving in the wild. She went in weighing 9 pounds and came back weighing 15. Volunteers spent over 1,000 hours tracking her down. If that's not a movie, what are we even doing? / Smithsonian Magazine

A Man Got Arrested for Photographing the Empire State Building Urban explorer and photographer Isaac Wright, known as "Drift," was charged with criminal trespassing right before the opening of his new gallery show, after scaling the Empire State Building to shoot photos from the top. His response: "Which other artists can say that, if they were facing 50 years in prison, they would continue making their work?" Honestly, fair point. / ARTnews

Nearly Half the World's Electricity Is Now Clean In the middle of all the doom-scrolling, here's something to feel quietly good about: an April 2025 report by global energy think tank Ember revealed that nearly half of all electricity usage on Earth was produced by clean energy sources, primarily solar generation. Baby steps. Very large, solar-powered baby steps. / WatchMojo

The MoMA Is Making Barbie Now In a bid to expand licensing revenue, the Museum of Modern Art partnered with Mattel, resulting in a Barbie in a Starry Night–inspired gown and figurines of Claude Monet and Salvador Dalí. Dalí, who reportedly never met a way to monetize his work he didn't love, would almost certainly have approved. The rest of us are still processing. / ARTnews

Neal.fun One developer. Dozens of completely unhinged web experiments. Spend Bill Gates' money, scroll to the bottom of the ocean, or play The Password Game—which starts simple and ends with you needing to include the current phase of the moon and a valid chess move. Neal Agarwal is doing the Lord's work. / Neal.fun

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Leftovers

✅ Here's what happens when you put a German Shepherd in charge of babysitting Doberman Pinscher pups. / Threads

✅ Some of the ABC Specials from 1978. / Threads

✅ This cat’s rocking Uggs made from her own fur and couldn’t care less 🥺 / Threads

// Quotable

“Real love moves freely in both directions." - Cheryl Strayed

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Share Awesome Things

The latest collaboration between French producer GENER8ION (Surkin) and Swedish artist Yung Lean is making waves with the release of "Storm I" and "Storm II", an electro-rock hybrid out now on Iconoclast Music. The tracks are accompanied by a visceral, 7.5-minute cinematic music video directed by the acclaimed Romain Gavras, known for his iconic work with M.I.A. and Justice. Set in a dystopian British boarding school, the visual features a Lord of the Flies-esque narrative where Yung Lean stars as a "charismatic, chaotic bully" ruling over a world without adults. This performance serves as a high-motion preview of Lean’s acting range before his upcoming role in Gavras’ feature film Sacrifice, alongside Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Evans, and perfectly complements the increasingly experimental musical direction Lean has explored in recent months. / Stereogum

Most popular link last week: Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog’s chip reunites with him after 11 years / CBC

Andy Warhol-Inspired Campbell’s Soup Can LEGO Build Opens up To Reveal the Artist’s Studio / My Modern Met

Rare two-colored lobster caught by fishermen off Cape Cod donated to aquarium

A brief history of instant coffee. Instant coffee seems unremarkable. It’s just powder and hot water. But making it work took decades / Works in Progress

Beekeeper Jailed After Unleashing Swarm During Eviction / Daily Beast

22,580 Drones Glitter in the Sky All While Shattering a Guinness World Record / My Modern Met

Grandmother Gets Help From Her Dog While Gardening: She Points and He Digs / Good News Network

Teacher Finds Unlikely Way to Spice Up Classroom by Letting Kindergarteners Pick Their Names for a Day / People

Silly Photos of Dumped Couch Brought Community Together — And One Even Earned a Prestigious Award / Nice News

Viral cat brushing browser game is as addictive as it is terrifying / Dexerto

The Current Era of ‘Star Trek’ Is Ending With a Fire Sale. Star Trek is boldly going to the big screen again, and that means its TV props and costumes can go to the highest-paying fans. / Gizmodo

Why do dogs tilt their heads? It isn’t just cute. / Popular Science

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Ah, Amazon’s Mother’s Day Shop — because nothing says “I love you, Mom” like panic-buying a $12 luggage tag and a foot massager at 11pm on May 10th. This year’s top picks include a 3-in-1 Shark something-or-other for $150 (she didn’t ask for it, but the algorithm is pretty sure she needs it), a $64 “silk sunscreen” that sounds made up, and a WiFi digital picture frame for $269 so you can beam her photos of her grandchildren she already has saved on her phone. Amazon has helpfully sorted moms into categories — Cozy, Crafty, Plant, Sporty, Foodie, Techie, and Cool — which is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a species that mostly just wants you to call more often.

Two tonnes of mascarpone and 19,000 eggs: chefs make world’s longest tiramisu / Guardian

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Leftovers

✅ So Temu has medical alert cards… here are some of my favorites 😂 / Threads

✅ Best "you are dumb" insults that don’t seem like insults. / Threads

✅ This classic is from when the internet was mostly fun still / Threads

// Quotable

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.”

– Albert Einstein

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Boards of Canada has released "Tape 05," a three-minute recording marking their first new music in 13 years. The surprise drop follows a series of cryptic teasers, including mysterious VHS tapes and street posters, signaling a potential return for the group since their 2013 album Tomorrow's Harvest. / Stereogum

Most popular link last week: This guy adopted a rescued hyena and named her Eddie. He records jokes on video and Eddie does the rest.

Cosmic Odometer is an interactive space travel calculator that tracks the staggering distance you have traveled through the universe based on your birth date and location. It visualizes your movement through various cosmic layers—including Earth's rotation, solar orbit, and galactic travel—while highlighting relativistic effects like time dilation and universal expansion. / Cosmic Odometer

Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog’s chip reunites with him after 11 years / CBC

The Orion "Integrity" 20-minute reentry condensed to 1:33 minutes. Simply majestic. / Thraeds

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He photographs dogs catching treats and it’s pure joy. / Reddit

From Early Nirvana To Phish, A Chicago Fan’s Secret Recordings Of 10,000 Shows Are Now Online / Book Club Chicago

What are some other songs that hit like “Fade into You” by Mazzy Star? / Threads

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A Tech Company Spent $500,000 on a Tropical Retreat. Everything Went Horribly Wrong: A tech retreat for the company, Plex, turned into a nightmare when 120 employees arrived in Honduras to find unsafe conditions and a resort lacking basic electricity and water. The disaster was compounded by a severe medical emergency involving the CEO, who was confined to his room with an E. coli infection while staff navigated the chaotic, "Survivor-style" experience. / Inc. Magazine

Despite Their Tiny Brains, Bumblebees Have a Surprising Sense of Rhythm, According to a New Study by Neuroscientists / Smithsonian

Computer Error Named Baby ‘Unakite Thirteen Hotel’. Her Dad Still Can’t Change It. / Vice

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Ah, Amazon’s Mother’s Day Shop — because nothing says “I love you, Mom” like panic-buying a $12 luggage tag and a foot massager at 11pm on May 10th. This year’s top picks include a 3-in-1 Shark something-or-other for $150 (she didn’t ask for it, but the algorithm is pretty sure she needs it), a $64 “silk sunscreen” that sounds made up, and a WiFi digital picture frame for $269 so you can beam her photos of her grandchildren she already has saved on her phone. Amazon has helpfully sorted moms into categories — Cozy, Crafty, Plant, Sporty, Foodie, Techie, and Cool — which is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a species that mostly just wants you to call more often.

Phone-free bars and restaurants on the rise across the US as patrons increasingly seek to disconnect from digital devices and improve face-to-face socialization. Driven by data showing the negative impacts of heavy smartphone use, the movement is being embraced most significantly by younger generations like Gen Z and Millennials who are intentionally choosing analog experiences. / MSN

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Leftovers

✅ “My 5-year-old just told me that he died 25 years ago when his car fell off a cliff and landed in water” and other tales of kids revealing past lives / Threads

✅ La Choy Chow Mein commercial shot in 1967 featuring Jim Henson's dragon and a sad bride, played by Kelly Wood. / Threads

✅ One of my fave things to do is reverse clips of Hulk Hogan coz they come across as even more coked up and unhinged / Threads

// Quotable

“A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.”

– LAURA INGALLS WILDER

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
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A visual art project by Belgian photographer Barbara Iweins, the site showcases Katalog, an obsessive, deeply personal archive of 12,795 objects from her home, each photographed and categorized.

Most popular link last week: This is what it sounded like when they were shooting this video

The Weather Channel’s desktop website and mobile app rolled out a nostalgic refresh, bringing back the network’s earlier look and feel, along with smooth jazz and the classic visual style that defined its presentation decades ago. / Weather Channel

What technology takes from us – and how to take it back / Guardian

Zigsam: The Austrian Cigarette Museum, a deep collection of cigarette packs run by an interesting guy named Christian

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Golf Shopping Tokyo at The Divot: Vintage vibes are strong in Japan / The Old Ghosts

When I was a kid, this was my dream. Photographs taken by Hugh Holland in Southern California during the mid 1970s / Threads

The Curious 100 - Now in its second year, The Curious 100 is a celebration of one hundred courageous leaders and creative minds across the US who are harnessing the transformative power of curiosity to address today’s most pressing problems⁠ and shape the cultural conversations that define our moment⁠⁠. / Eames Institute

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Turns out your brain is terrible at knowing when to clock out—a nightly brain dump is just you telling it to shut up and put it in writing so you can actually get some sleep. I used ChatGPT to organize my evening brain dump—and it really made my nightly routine smoother.

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J. Stuart Blackton released the world’s first animated cartoon 120 yrs ago: HUMOROUS PHASES OF FUNNY FACES (1906) / Threads

Katerina Kamprani is an artist known for creating inconvenient versions of common objects. Her series, *The Uncomfortable*, humorously questions our ideas of functionality, encouraging us to reconsider the everyday designs we usually overlook. / Threads

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You're Probably Dehydrated Right Now. Just Saying.

Summer's coming, and if you're out here thinking plain water is gonna cut it once it hits 90 degrees [especially in Philly], good luck with that. I've been mixing MAGNA Electrolytes into my water every morning—zero sugar, actual magnesium that doesn't taste like chalk —and I genuinely feel more human throughout the day. It's one of those things where you don't realize how dehydrated you've been running until you're not anymore. Do yourself a favor before the heat hits. [Grab it here before summer wrecks you →]*

Nothing is Random. Unexpected collisions of images and words. Let it run and watch. Or watch with a thought in mind. See what sparks.

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Leftovers

✅ Bob’s Burgers: Transmission (Joy Division Cover) / Threads

✅ Take a moment and enjoy this glorious celebrity roll call from 1976./ Threads

✅ Guy adopts a rescued hyena and names her Eddie. He records dad jokes on video, and Eddie does the rest. / Threads

// Quotable

“A bad story is still a story, and I think that’s beautiful.”

– ALYSIA LIU

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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That Red Roof! Those Tiffany Lamps! It’s a Pizza Hut From the Past.

With heaps of nostalgia but little promotion by their parent chain, Pizza Hut Classics take their fervent fans on a time trip back to a simpler, warmer era. / New York Times

Most popular link last week: The social media influencers now run Washington Square Park

Unlock Your Digital Memories at the Web Design Museum / Web Design Museum

Delivery Robot Drives Through Bus Stop Shelter, Shattering Glass Everywhere / 404 Media

A game about running a 1990s video store has become the #5 best-selling game on Steam. You rent VHS tapes, charge late fees, deal with broken returns, and build your own little shrine to a dead era. / Substack

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Puzzle-solving robot sets new world record for solving Rubik's Cube / Guinness

From Ikigai to Wabi-Sabi: 8 Japanese Philosophies for Purposeful Living

Meet the man who walks around town dressed as a tin of baked beans / DebyshireLive

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Curious golf course groundskeeper discovers a sinkhole. Turns out it’s an ancient wine cellar. / Smithsonian

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Hundreds of people gathered in San Francisco in thrifted or repurposed wedding gowns for the 26th annual Brides of March parade and bar crawl / People

Train Ride to Coney Island in 1987. Great backstory on Kottke

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Three Sauces. Zero Excuses for Bland Japanese Food.

If you’ve been fumbling around with soy sauce and calling it a day, it’s time to meet Bull-Dog Sauce. This Japanese pantry staple comes in three varieties — Tonkatsu, Worcestershire, and Chuno — and yes, you do need all three. Rich, tangy, and just complex enough to make you feel like you know what you’re doing, a splash of the right Bull-Dog sauce over tonkatsu or okonomiyaki is the kind of upgrade your cooking has been quietly begging for. / Amazon*

Ansley Lane (spookyfoodie) finds a dive bar where you grill your own steaks (road trip alert!) / Threads

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Leftovers

✅ Hamster Car / Threads

✅ This is what it sounded like when they were shooting this video / Threads

✅ In 1988, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) promoted its popular Superstars Ice Cream Bars with a memorable television commercial featuring the legendary George "The Animal" Steele. / Threads

// Quotable

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s the power of using your voice.”

– MICHELLE OBAMA

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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The Math Shows Jackson Pollock Painted Like a Child Would

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Most popular link last week: Misheard Lyrics

Clothes really do come back in style every 20 years

The math checks out, so hang on to those jeans.

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The social media influencers now run Washington Square Park

The park, which for decades was known as a hub of counterculture and an anchor for protests in the city, has now been overrun with social media influencers looking to go viral.

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Spelman College students developing AI tool designed to help people talk to their plants

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Chinese Cigarette Museum

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The Most Popular Dog Breeds of 2025

Who was the top dog of 2025?

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Music’s Most Famous Phone Number, 867-5309, Will Now Direct Callers to a Cancer Helpline

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Space Age Turntables That Turned Living Rooms Into Mission Control

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25 Years of Eggs

“Everyone needs a rewarding hobby. I’ve been scanning all of my receipts since 2001. I never typed in a single price - just kept the images. I figured someday the technology to read them would catch up, and the data would be interesting.”

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Ready to say ‘I Dough’? Dunkin’ is giving away ring boxes for free

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The One Supplement I Actually Stuck With

Look, I'm not out here selling miracles — but RAW Nutrition's creatine monohydrate is the one supplement I'd fight someone over. No flavor, no fillers, no chalky nonsense at the bottom of your cup. Just a clean scoop in my morning shake and over time: better lifts, faster recovery, less feeling like a sad bag of bones after leg day. It's boring in the best possible way, and boring works. [Grab it on Amazon here] — your future self will thank you.

A Paper-Thin Magazine Cover You Can Actually Play

Red Bull’s GamePop magazine turns its cover into a working game of Tetris, transforming print into something tactile, playful, and unexpectedly futuristic.

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Leftovers

✅ 103 Chuck Norris Jokes

✅ How many of you expected to see a video of The Osmonds and Kurt Russell jamming to Creedence Clearwater Revival at Disneyland today? (Threads)

✅ The Three Stooges in a Dickies Work Clothes Commercial from 1969 (Threads)

// Quotable

“Possibility is not a luxury; it is as crucial as bread.”

– JUDITH BUTLER

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
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Working remotely or remotely working? San Diegans take WFH to the beach

The event was organized by Scott Muirhead, a social media content creator known for, as he describes it, taking his desk as far as possible.

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Most popular link last week: How to get people excited about transit

Send a clown

Anonymously, to anyone.

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The Shopkeepers: Cable Car Clothiers

Classic Menswear for San Francisco since 1946.

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Channel Surfer is “a retro TV guide that turns YouTube into live cable TV

Each channel plays videos on a deterministic schedule — like real TV, you tune in mid-show.”

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Mapping a Secret City in the US

An ultra-rich Minnesota suburb literally bought its way off Google Street View until a YouTuber flew a drone over their invisible kingdom and briefly put them back on the map—raising the question of who actually gets privacy in a surveillance economy. (via 404 Media)

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INTERTAPES

is a collection of found cassette tapes from around the world. The audio fragments include: voice memos,
field recordings, mixtapes, bootlegs and more.

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Space Age Turntables That Turned Living Rooms Into Mission Control

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Kimchi, made in China: how South Korea’s national dish is being priced out at home

In the first 10 months of this year, South Korea imported $159m worth of kimchi, almost entirely from China, while exporting $137m

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Generation Monologue: How the voice note killed the art of conversation

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Guilty for Looking: Inside Hitchcock’s Rear Window

Alfred Hitchcock was a pure visual storyteller — a director who could make a single apartment window feel like a portal into the entire human condition — and Rear Window is arguably the purest expression of his genius. Jennifer O’Callaghan’s deep dive uses original production papers, censorship battles, and rare behind-the-scenes photography to reveal exactly how Hitch engineered every sightline, cut, and moral ambiguity with surgical precision. If you’ve ever obsessed over how one filmmaker could make an audience feel simultaneously guilty and thrilled just for watching, this book is the definitive autopsy of how that trick was pulled off. [Amazon]​

Positive thinking could boost immune response to vaccines, say scientists

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Leftovers

✅ Hardware people: lets get doom running on a pregnancy test (Twitter)

✅ A collection of misheard lyrics (Threads)

✅ Conan O’brien holding albums

Have you seen anything awesome this week?
Send me the link, and I’ll share it in a future issue of the newsletter.

// Quotable

“I’m a firm believer in that what’s for you is what’s for you.”

– MICHAEL B. JORDAN

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
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Your car has a lot to say about who you are

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Most popular links last week:

Once more: A steady dose of wtf tickets tied with What is a sound or a smell that doesn’t exist anymore, but 50 years ago was so common it was considered background noise?

Fergie’s Pub billboard spoofs glut of ads on I-95 for personal injury lawyers

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Roast My Desk

Upload a picture of your desk and let our AI judge your workspace. Roasts are public, so keep it clean! We'll blur your screens automatically.

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Bringing Baseball Gloves Back to Life

Jimmy Lonetti Helps Baseball Fans Recapture Memories By Repairing Treasured Gloves

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No Views, No Hikes, Just Zzzs: Welcome to the Sleepcation

Tired of being tired, travelers are booking REM-fueled trips; ‘The best sleep of my life!’

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How to get people excited about transit

“It will literally be your best selling t-shirt, it will get you so much PR, and if anyone interprets this inappropriately that’s a them problem”

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Osaka city stunned by anonymous gold bar gift worth $3.6M to fix aging water pipes

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Inspired by local microbreweries, London-based start-up Arda Biomaterials has made a plastic-free leather alternative by altering the protein structures in brewer's spent grain.

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Artist Draws 8,628 Self-Portraits Under the Influence of Love and Other Drugs

After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of self. So I came up with another experiment where everyday I took a different drug or intoxicant and drew myself under the influence

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How I Tricked Myself Into Reading 20 Books a Year

I’ll be honest — I used to say I didn’t have time to read, and I half-believed it. Then I started using Audible, mostly out of desperation during a brutal commute, and something clicked. Audiobooks slipped into all the dead time I didn’t know I had: the drive, the gym, doing dishes. I’ve “read” more in the past year than in the previous five combined. The thing nobody tells you is that listening isn’t a lesser version of reading — for a lot of people it’s actually better, because you stop putting it off. A great narrator pulls you through material you’d never crack open otherwise, and I’ve picked up ideas that have genuinely changed how I think. Turns out I didn’t fall out of love with reading. I just needed to start listening.

Try Audible 30 days free. Listen anywhere. Cancel anytime.

Julia Child makes her famous French beef stew in red wine with mushrooms and onions, demonstrating how to brown meat, how to braise meat, how to make a good brown sauce, how to braise onions and how to cut and saute mushrooms.

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Leftovers

✅ MacGyver, She Wrote! (Threads)

✅ Purposely pronouncing “gnocchi” wrong to my Italian grandma (Threads)

✅ There’s a multipart series unfolding on TikTok of a group of seniors upset their friend Barbara has been cheating at Mah Jong. I’ve been riveted (Twitter)

Have you seen anything awesome this week?
Send me the link, and I’ll share it in a future issue of the newsletter.

// Quotable

“If you don’t know the guy on the other side of the world, love him anyway because he’s just like you. He has the same dreams, the same hopes and fears. It’s one world, pal. We’re all neighbors.”

– Frank Sinatra

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Share Awesome Things

Punch Update

His fame reached a point where searching for "Punch the Monkey" triggered an animation of cascading hearts on the search results page.

Most popular link last week:

A steady dose of wtf tickets

Warhol’s grave site is viewable 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the collaborative project between The Warhol and EarthCam called Figment.

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Happy Map

100,000 moments of human happiness, mapped

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Intimate photographs of 1970s East London squatters discovered decades later

Found after the photographer’s death at 99, Joyce Edwards’ previously unseen portraits document the people who reclaimed abandoned homes and went on to create a rare social housing project that still survives today.

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The Problem With Using AI in Your Personal Life

Using LLMs to talk with your friends is efficient. It’s also bad etiquette.

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What is a sound or a smell that doesn’t exist anymore, but 50 years ago was so common it was considered background noise?

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Floor796

A huge animation scene with many references to memes, games, films, series, anime, music groups. Click on any scene to reveal its origins.

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How Scientists Are Using Old Mattresses to Help Save Lives

Your old, filthy mattress could one day be turned into a fire-resistant building installation grown with fungus.

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I’m a Psychotherapist Who Was Stuck Doomscrolling. This Is How I Broke the Cycle

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I Never Knew I Needed a Rice Cooker Until Now

Got it! Here’s the updated version:

My Nervous System Called. It Says Thank You.

I’ll be honest — I was skeptical, because the supplement industry is basically 90% overpriced placebo in a fancy bottle. But Thorne Magnesium Glycinate and Sports Research Suntheanine L-Theanine have earned a permanent spot in my routine. The magnesium uses the glycinate form — actually bioavailable, unlike the cheap oxide junk that just gives you a bathroom adventure — and the difference in my sleep quality was noticeable within the first week; falling asleep faster, staying asleep longer, waking up like a human being instead of a zombie. The L-Theanine is the clinically studied Suntheanine form, not some mystery powder, and it delivers that calm-but-locked-in feeling that no amount of “just meditate more” advice ever gave me. Together they work on your nervous system from two directions — one handles the daytime stress response, the other handles nighttime recovery — and the combo is honestly embarrassingly effective for how simple it is.

If you’ve been white-knuckling your stress and staring at the ceiling at 2am, maybe stop suffering and just try these.*

➡️ Rice Cookers Under 50 bucks on Amazon

Disneyland Handcrafted is a new documentary about the construction of Disneyland from July 16, 1954 to its opening date on July 17, 1955. The fact that this groundbreaking park was built in one year is mind-boggling. Today, it can take five years to construct one Disney theme park ride! (via BoingBoing )

Denny’s is launching Spring Break Pass for free breakfast daily

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Leftovers

✅ Have you heard of the Fish Doorbell? (Threads)

✅ Fruit of the Loom Japan launches suit packs (Threads)

✅ 49 years ago this week, Sesame Street debuted the iconic Pinball Number Count. This segment ran regularly from 1977-2002 and featured the Pointer Sisters on lead vocals. (Threads)

Have you seen anything awesome this week?
Send me the link, and I’ll share it in a future issue of the newsletter.

// Quotable

“I believe that we can create the world that we want to live in, just as we want to see it.”

– Maggie Doyne

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Share Awesome Things

Most popular link last week:
Middle Schoolers Open Time Capsule from the Year 2000. Some Saw Things They’d Only Heard About from Their Parents

All the Philly People and Places in The Simpsons’ 800th Episode

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Inside ‘The Simpsons’ last-minute addition of late writer Dan McQuade’s likeness to its Philadelphia episode

Just 18 days after the beloved writer's death, the venerable show found a way to pay animated tribute to McQuade.

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The best everyday hot sauce, with a unique sweet heat that upgrades any recipe. It’s the hot sauce that elevates everything. Limited Quantities - BUY NOW

A first look at the interior and interface of the Ferrari Luce.

Every element is meticulously designed and engineered to be functional, intuitive, and thrilling to drive.

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How to keep going

A timeless post from artist and author Austin Kleon, author of two of my favorite books: Keep Going and Steal Like an Artist*

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Cafes in South West London in the mid-1970s

In the mid-1970s, Grenville Horner was out and about in south-west London taking pictures of the local cafes

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Filatelia Grafica’s archive of sports stamps is a treasure trove of design history

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Illinois family’s 33-year-old cockatiel is the oldest in the world

The bird's owner, Northbrook resident Janet Reicher, said Sonny came to live with her family when he was just a few weeks old in 1993. She said he quickly showed an aptitude for music and learned to whistle songs from Bridge over the River Kwai and the theme from the Andy Griffith Show.

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A Tour in Search for the Soul of Seoul

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I Never Knew I Needed a Rice Cooker Until Now

I used to think a rice cooker was just another gadget, but it has completely won me over with how simple it is to use. Now I just rinse the rice, add water to the line inside the pot, close the lid, and press a single button—no watching the stove, no guessing, and no worrying about burning anything. I also now can make single-serve lunches of my variation of Japanese Curry (use the curry blocks, some veg of choice, add water - 20 minutes later, you have a hot lunch).

Cleanup is just as easy thanks to the nonstick inner pot, which typically requires only a quick wash. I went from feeling intimidated by cooking rice to using my rice cooker several times a week, and now I honestly can’t imagine my kitchen without it.

And the best part? They're relatively cheap – my first one was under $20 (although some of the really good Japanese/Korean ones can set you back a few hundo).

➡️ Rice Cookers Under 50 bucks on Amazon

Solar farms can be havens for rare plants

The Mojave Desert species is thriving at a solar farm near Las Vegas, perhaps because the panels slow evaporation.

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90’s Festival Generator

Create your own 90’s dream lineup.

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Leftovers

✅ NASA has successfully captured the sound of deep space — and it’s absolutely mind-blowing (Twitter)

✅ a steady dose of wtf tickets (Twitter)

✅ My dog got into a 500mg edible a few weeks ago while I wasn’t home.(a thread of really stoned pets) (Threads)

✅ In 1969, the number one song in the USA was made by a band that never existed, The Archies. (Threads)

Have you seen anything awesome this week?
Send me the link, and I’ll share it in a future issue of the newsletter.

// Quotable

“The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.”

– Rita Dove

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Catherine O’Hara’s Career in Photos, From ‘Home Alone’ to ‘Beetlejuice’ to ‘The Studio’

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Nerve Tonic Brand Hot Sauce: Fortify Your Flavor.
The best everyday hot sauce, with a unique sweet heat that upgrades any recipe. It’s the hot sauce that elevates everything. Limited Quantities - BUY NOW

Half of Japan’s samurai were women, groundbreaking new exhibition at British Museum says

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Microdosing for Depression Appears to Work About as Well as Drinking Coffee

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What Exactly Is A Traditional Builders’ Tea?

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Merch Alert!

We’ve got new products in the Awesome Things Etsy store

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MTV REWIND - I Want My MTV

Celebrating 44 years of continuous music videos. Stream classic music videos 24/7.

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We may not have flying cars, but we have flying umbrellas

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The Walkman: A Visual History (1979–2004)

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Book Review: Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart is a devastatingly beautiful memoir that weaves together grief, identity, and the profound language of food into an unforgettable meditation on mother-daughter love. Zauner, the singer and guitarist of Philadelphia-based indie rock band Japanese Breakfast, chronicles her journey caring for her mother through terminal cancer and the cultural reckoning that followed her loss.

Through vivid descriptions of Korean dishes—from the crispy banchan to steaming bowls of jjigae—Zauner captures how food becomes a repository of memory and connection, a sentiment that will resonate deeply with anyone who shares your love for Asian cuisine.

Her prose transforms humble ingredients into vessels of longing, making H Mart the Korean grocery store (one of my all-time favorite asian grocers), where she shops for her mother’s recipes, into a sacred space of remembrance.

Raw, honest, and achingly tender, this memoir doesn’t just tell a story of loss—it captures the precise shape of grief and the stubborn persistence of love across generations and cultures.

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Middle Schoolers Open Time Capsule from the Year 2000. Some Saw Things They’d Only Heard About from Their Parents.

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Amsterdam is actually built on millions of wooden piles

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Leftovers

✅ when it's kids eat free night (Threads)

✅ On this day in 1976, Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart appeared on “Dinah!”. They performed a medley of The Monkees hits, including Carole King’s and Gerry Goffin’s “Pleasant Valley Sunday”. (Threads)

✅ Draw a Fish! Make it Swim!

Have you seen anything awesome this week?
Send me the link, and I’ll share it in a future issue of the newsletter.

// Quotable

“Your path is at your feet whether you realize it or not.”

– Agnes Martin

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Artist’s Lifelong Love of Photo Booths Documented in 35 Years of Pictures

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Nerve Tonic Brand Hot Sauce: Fortify Your Flavor.
The best everyday hot sauce, with a unique sweet heat that upgrades any recipe. It’s the hot sauce that elevates everything. Limited Quantities - BUY NOW

Long Live the MetroCard: The Story Behind Juan Carlos Pinto’s Underground Art

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High January Was Bound to Happen

Cannabis companies have a cheeky proposition for anyone who’s taking the month off from alcohol.

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World’s oldest monastic brewery to be sold as German beer sales slide

Brewing tradition of nearly 1,000 years at Weltenburg Abbey in Bavaria to be bought up by Munich company Schneider Weisse

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Progresso Soup Drops

Suck on some pot roast while waiting for your bus.

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How Will the Miracle Happen Today?

Kevin Kelly’s essay “How Will the Miracle Happen Today?” reflects on how much of life is an unearned gift and argues that “miracles” tend to appear when we willingly open ourselves to receiving help from others.

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Vermont’s General Stores

A driving tour of the iconic New England general stores from an auto journalist Vermonter.

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Screw It In, Light It Up, Lock It Down

I'm absolutely loving the Wyze Bulb Cam! Installation was ridiculously easy—just screw it into any outdoor light socket and you're done. The 2K HD video quality is crystal clear, and the color night vision actually works in pitch darkness. Being able to adjust the 800-lumen brightness from my phone is genius, and the 160° field of view covers my entire driveway. No wiring, no battery charging—it's powered by the fixture itself. For under $50, you get a security camera AND smart light in one. Plus, local recording means no monthly fees. Wyze knocked it out of the park again!

➡️ Lights, camera, security!

How to Deal With That Drawer Full of Old Gadgets

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Leftovers

✅ Morning rave in a bakery 🇧🇪🔥 (Threads)

✅ Can you read 900 words per minute? Try it. (Twitter)

✅ Timing is everything (Reddit)

Have you seen anythibg awesome this week?
Send me the link and I’ll share it in a future issue of the newsletter.

// Quotable

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”

– Paulo Coehelo

That’s all for this week, folks. Stay safe, stay sane.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

*This is a product recommendation from our writers. When you buy through this link, Awesome Things may earn a commission.

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Will Ferrell’s Elf suit could be yours for £200k

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Why do only some leaves turn red in the fall? Scientists can’t agree on an answer

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Nerve Tonic Brand Hot Sauce: Fortify Your Flavor.
The best everyday hot sauce, with a unique sweet heat that upgrades any recipe. It’s the hot sauce that elevates everything. Limited Quantities - BUY NOW

The dirty truth about Black Friday from someone who worked the con

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Why We All Tap Our Feet to Music—Even if We Don’t Realize We’re Doing It

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Toyota’s Crab-Like Wheelchair That Walks

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Volkswagen debuts restored vintage blue bus that survived wildfire and melted hearts

A vintage blue Volkswagen bus named Azul became an unlikely symbol of resilience after surviving a California wildfire

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Heinz debuts ‘Leftover Gravy’ condiment bottle inspired by 90s sitcom Friends ‘Moist Maker’ sandwich

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Maldives becomes the first country to impose a generational ban on smoking

The world-first ban prohibits anyone born after Jan. 1, 2007, from ever buying, using or smoking tobacco.

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My Favorite Budget Security Hack

If you’re like me, you want the peace of mind that comes with knowing exactly what’s happening around your home, but you also break into a cold sweat when you see the price tags on most “pro” security systems. I’ve finally found the sweet spot between vigilance and my bank account: Wyze Cams. I grabbed a few of these recently, and honestly, the video clarity and features (like color night vision and motion tagging) rival the big expensive brands for a fraction of the cost. Whether I’m checking in on the dog or making sure that package actually got delivered, these little cameras let me keep a sharp eye on everything without emptying my wallet. Check out the Wyze lineup here to see how affordable peace of mind can actually be.*

➡️ Keep an eye out

Scrolling is the new smoking

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Leftovers

✅ Not the finest quarter zip from Columbia! (Twitter)

✅ AI is out of control (Twitter)

✅ America’s Rewards App Shop, snap and play to earn free gift cards with Fetch!

✅ The dog usually goes for a walk with the husband and stops at the pub for a beer but today his wife is walking the dog!

// Quotable

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

– Henri Matisse

The Digital Focus Podcast

AI, technology, and the future of everything.

Hosted by John Suder and Bart Mroz, each week we break down the trends, tools, and transformations shaping the digital world — and what it means for you.

Stay curious! Stay future-ready.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

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Share Awesome Things

‘Gravy Extinguisher’ being offered by Firehouse Subs to rescue dry turkeys

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This Irish Pub Created One Of The Best Christmas Ads Ever With An iPhone And £700, It Received Over 15 Million Views

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You were asleep but swear you weren’t: what is paradoxical insomnia?

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If we’re being truthful, people are saying ‘honestly’ all the time

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Brain cooked by TikTok? Try filming a video of yourself being bored

Young people online are challenging themselves to sit idle, with no external distractions, and simply do nothing for a set period of time.

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Merch Alert!

We’ve got new products in the Awesome Things Etsy store

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The Science Behind Why Fallen Leaves Smell the Way They Do

There’s a reason why leaves smell a certain way once they’ve fallen off trees

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Nerve Tonic Brand Hot Sauce: Fortify Your Flavor.
The best everyday hot sauce, with a unique sweet heat that upgrades any recipe. It's the hot sauce that elevates everything. Limited Quantities - BUY NOW

Tired of slow browsers packed with ads? Switch to Comet — the AI-powered browser that’s faster, private, and built for creators. Try it today and thank me later!

Barry Williams Admits It Became ‘Hard to Hide’ His ‘Chemistry’ with “Brady Bunch” Sibling Maureen McCormick

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Toe-tally Toasty: Confessions of a Perpetually Frozen Foot Under-Desk Heater Enthusiast*

As someone whose feet are so cold they could double as popsicles, I’ve tried every trick short of microwaving my socks. Enter the WHISPERHEAT Under Desk Warmer—a silent and energy-efficient hero that finally lets me experience what warm feet feel like without resorting to questionable DIY methods. It cozily hugs my legs with three customizable heat levels and doesn’t make a sound (because even my toes are noise-sensitive). The best part? I can sit at my desk plotting my world domination (or just checking emails) while it quietly chases away the chill. Sure, in an Arctic office it might not melt a glacier, but for the eternally chilly, it’s the under-desk hug you never knew you needed.

➡️ Warm Your Toes

“The Gigamoon”: the sharpest public domain photo of the moon ever taken, at 1.3 gigapixels, a mosaic of over 280,000 photos, revealing incredible detail, including the Apollo landing sites

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Leftovers

✅ Stop being nonchalant. You need to be more CHALANT! (TikTok)

✅ Mapping the NYC marathon route (Reddit)

✅ America’s Rewards App Shop, snap and play to earn free gift cards with Fetch!

// Quotable

“People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things.”

– Norman Vincent Peale

The Digital Focus Podcast

AI, technology, and the future of everything.

Hosted by John Suder and Bart Mroz, each week we break down the trends, tools, and transformations shaping the digital world — and what it means for you.

Stay curious! Stay future-ready.

Like what you’ve read this week?
Please forward it along to a friend (or two!) — it’s the best way to support Awesome Things. Or you could always buy me a coffee.

*This is a product recommendation from our writers. When you buy through this link, Awesome Things may earn a commission.

Share Awesome Things