It is with deep sadness that I must inform you of a grave danger to our motherland.

The day we feared the most has finally arrived.

Early this morning, Ukraine attacked our country by aggressively expanding its borders directly into the path of our brave, innocent soldiers.

Under the cover of night, multiple Ukrainian cities have thrown themselves in the way of our peaceful artillery shells.

Our tanks and military trucks are experiencing unimaginable wear and tear while having to traverse Ukraine’s inhospitable roads.

Russian airplanes can no longer drop even a single teeny-tiny bomb without its path being blocked by some form of Ukrainian infrastructure.

It is a nightmare!

This, of course, is not the first time we face such a blatant attack from our bloodthirsty neighbor.

In 2014, in an act not witnessed since the Great Patriotic War, Ukraine had forcefully changed the borders of another sovereign country. It did so by sneaking the entire Crimean Peninsula into the territory of the Russian Federation.

Not content with that, Ukraine then saddled our active military personnel fearless volunteers with exhausting administrative duties in Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.

For almost a decade, we tried to warn the world of Ukraine’s evil intentions. We screamed to anyone who’d listen about the dictatorial regime of Ukraine’s fascistic Nazi junta. But those devilish beasts have disguised their true colors by democratically electing their country’s first Jewish president.

Rather than hearing our pleas, the evil West has instead chosen to bring Russia to its knees by telling not one but several billionaires they could no longer visit their luxury London homes. Truly, the world’s collective cruelty knows no bounds.

Comrades, this unjust treatment of our people must end.

I call upon you to protect your homeland from Ukraine’s unprovoked act of violence.

And there is only one way to ensure that: Do absolutely nothing!

With luck, Ukraine’s geographical location will not shift and their reckless advance will be contained within their own territory.

Pray for your loved ones.

Pray for your fellow citizens.

Pray for the Soviet Un…uh…Russia.

Definitely Russia.

You bolt upright.

Groggy from a sleep cut short, you stay still to let your eyes adjust to the dark. The house is silent, yet you feel an uneasy presence. You scan the room, glancing briefly at the bedside clock. Three in the morning.

Suddenly, a remote, rustling noise.

No. It can’t be.

You hold your breath and listen. Motionless.

Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. Faint shuffle of feet being dragged across the floor at the far corner of the house. A pause.

You take a deep breath. Silence.

You exhale. Nothing.

Then an eerie, unmistakable sound of a door creaking open.

Not again!

The shuffling continues. Louder now. More tangible. Then it stops once more.

You force your eyes to focus.

There.

At the end of the narrow corridor, silhouetted against the living room window, looms a dark, featureless figure. It sways silently in bleak moonlight. Outside, in the distance, a dog howls.

You gulp.

With a sharp jerk, the ghostly visitor swivels and looks right at you. It sees you now, despite the darkness of the bedroom.

You thought this was over!

The ghost starts to amble in your direction. Slow, deliberate steps. It doesn’t speak. All it produces is a rhythmic sucking sound.

You’re frozen in place.

The figure locks eyes with you and speeds up, each step now punctuated by a thud.

This must stop. It has to stop.

The phantom comes to an abrupt halt just a few feet from you. It hovers there, still shrouded by shadows. Reaching into its unseen mouth, the specter grabs hold of something and yanks it out.

It speaks.

“I had a bad dream. Can I sleep with you, Daddy?”

You sigh, then smile.

“Sure, little monkey. Climb in.”

You slide over to make room for her. She snuggles up to you, puts the pacifier back in, and clutches your hand. Soon, she’s sleeping.

Tomorrow. She’ll stay in her bed tomorrow.

Fast forward to today, and we have our own place, two cats, two kids, and two wedding rings that spell “Infinity and beyond” when you put them next to each other.

Only seven years. That’s not such a long time, really. But what a lifetime of difference.

I thought for a while about what word I’d pick to best describe this time with you. The word I keep coming back to is: “Easy.”

Wow, how romantic, right?

Yet it’s true. Hear me out.

I’ve always been told that relationships are tough. That conflict is virtually unavoidable. That, after a while, it’ll all be about arguments, constant push and pull, and half-hearted compromises that leave nobody happy.

Growing up as one of so many children with divorced parents, some part of me assumed that couples sticking together happily was a miracle on par with finding a literal pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

Every clichéd marriage stereotype has been preparing me for this weird life of unspoken grudges and mind games, because “women be from Venus and men be from Mars, yo”…

…and then you came along to prove all of that wrong.

After seven years, I can count the number of serious fights we’ve had on the fingers of Captain Hook’s hand. I fail to recall a single instance of drama for the sake of drama. No meaningless conflict, no blame placing and finger pointing.

Thanks to you, major life decisions—ones that should give people cold feet and keep them awake at night—have been some of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made.

Buying an apartment together? Easy.

Getting married? Easy.

Traveling the world together, getting cats, becoming parents, and then becoming parents again. All easy. I wouldn’t hesitate to do it all over again.

Now, I won’t pretend that parenting is a smooth ride without friction. If anything, these past few weeks have proven that it’s an often bumpy road. But I couldn’t have wished for a better partner than you to navigate these rough waters with.

You juggle so many roles—wife, friend, boss, mother—with such effortless grace.

Whenever I watch you intuitively use the right combination of words to turn Nathan from combative to compliant or soothe seemingly inconsolable Nia gently to sleep, I catch myself being in awe of the endless well of positive energy you seem to draw from.

Your patience and inner strength are a huge part of what holds this family together.

Hell, you often hold me together.

You’re a calming presence when I’m quick to anger. You’re a counterweight to my neurotic brain. You’re a rock-steady constant in an often hectic life full of daily struggles and frustrations.

You ground me.

You’re my home.

You make it so easy for me to be, well, me.

All of this is why it’s just so incredibly easy to keep being in love with you.

If there’s one thing I do find difficult, it’s to imagine anyone else I’d rather spend the rest of my life with.

So what do you say…go for seventy?

You take care of a tiny little human that relies on you for everything and needs near-constant attention. In return, you’re rewarded with sleepless nights, constant worries, and—later—toddler’s temper tantrums. Awesome!

So then you, a rational, sane person, look upon this shitty deal and go, “Hey, I know! Let’s have another baby!”

So then you do.

So then you have two babies, because that’s how math works.

If this intro was too subtle, I’m going to go ahead and spell it out: We have a new TV I’m a father again.

Yaaaaaaay?

To give you an idea of what it’s like to have a second baby when your first one is still in diapers: I’m over two months late with this announcement. The only reason I even got the chance to sit down and write about it now is because my wife left on vacation with the kids and I’ll only be joining them in a week’s time. (And because my brain got so excited at the prospect of finally getting enough sleep that it refused to let me fall asleep at all. I’m literally up for over 24 hours now. My brain is the biggest asshole I know.)

Baby Nia was born on May 16. She sprinted out into this world in just a few short hours because who has the time to wait these days?! She went home with us the very same night and was welcomed by the cats and her brother. She fit right in here, which is why we decided to forego our legal right to return her to the hospital within the first 24 hours. (That is a rule, no?)

And now they’re two.

Nia’s a healthy, smiling little girl…who often refuses to sleep and likes a cry or six every now and then. Nathan is a sweet, caring big brother…right up until he impulsively smacks Nia’s head on occasion. Oh yeah, that’s apparently a common way for older siblings to process the disruptive arrival of a cute-yet-formidable challenger.

Parenting is all kinds of fun!

Understandably, I was doing the happy dance and looking forward to some quality alone time when I saw them off at the airport two days ago…

…but then you find yourself awake in an empty, silent apartment and you realize the real reason you can’t fall asleep is that you simply don’t feel whole without these little bundles of stress anymore. Because they’re your everything. Frustrating, exhausting, wonderful everything.

So you sit down and write a post to let them know this in the most convoluted way possible.

There you have it, Nia. You, Nathan, and your amazing mom, complete me. I feel like that should be a line in a movie or something.

Okay, we’re veering dangerously toward “rambling” territory now, so I’ll wrap up.

I just wanted to capture this feeling while it was still fresh. Stale feelings are the worst.

Plus I wanted to have an early baby post about Nia.

Because she might one day go, “Dad, why did you write a bunch of blog posts about Nathan after he was born but none about me?” (In this particular story, people still give a shit about my blog.)

Then I’ll go, “Yeah, about that, funny thing, you see–whoa, wait, what, you’re, you’re breaking up, I’m losing connection, what, can’t hear you, the line’s reaaaaally bad!”

And then she’ll go, “Dad, we’re sitting at the same breakfast table. Like, what is your deal?”

But now that I wrote this, she’ll instead know that I did it out of some idiotic sense of moral obligation dictated by my fucked-up brain.

See, Nia? Daddy cares about you very much and is also insane.

The point here is this: Don’t start writing long-overdue blog posts after a sleepless night.

That, and: I love you, Nia. More than you will ever know.

In my previous congressional testimony, I have not mentioned Donald Trump in any capacity. Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.

In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of two words that may be pertinent to describing Donald Trump. That case: a casual perusal of the English Thesaurus. The words: “infanticide” and “cannibalism.”

I am writing to inform you that the investigative team has drawn my attention to what those words mean, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate steps to review the words to determine whether they can be applied to the actions of Donald Trump.

We cannot, at this time, say with any degree of certainty whether Mr. Trump does indeed eagerly sink his teeth into baby flesh every morning, but it is my duty to inform you that investigation into the matter may (or may not) be warranted.

Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not Donald Trump is indeed a sinister child-eating cannibal, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to establish the amount of babies he might possibly consume on a daily basis, I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts.

Sincerely yours,

James B. Comey
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Most of you read the articles, chuckled about how silly it’d be if someone naively fell for buying a magic ring that allegedly granted them invisibility, and went on with your lives.

But one man dared to be different. He read the article, bravely ignored the words inside it, and contacted me about buying some superpowers.

That man’s name is Ravi, and this is the story of our brief correspondence, delivered to you in its full, unfiltered glory.

Ravi

hi sir my self Ravi m from india ..
sir ì need u product

1) VERY SPECIAL GOOD LUCK RING FULLY CHARGED!!! WEALTH LOVE SEX POWER

2) Invisibility + 7. Mind Control …

sir I want to know how can I buy this both powers , plzz mail me n send some details I realy need this power .. n important thing is il stay in india tel me how can I get this both delivery here.. plzz reply m waiting. gud day sir.

Ravi, again

hi sir this is Ravi I want this product also *Seeing The Future + 5. Spirit Control… plzz mail me waiting…. gud day sir..

Daniel

Hi Ravi,

Thank you for contacting Daniel’s All-Power Super Spell Emporium & Pizzeria.

Unfortunately, we seem to have misplaced the Invisibility ring, along with the intern who’d put it on a few month ago. We’re sure he’ll show up any day now. Please subscribe to our “Missing Staff Bulletin Board” to receive a notification when he does.

As for the VERY SPECIAL GOOD LUCK RING FULLY CHARGED, we can arrange for a transfer within 3-147 business days. Please note that due to its limited shelf life, the ring is no longer FULLY CHARGED but has only around 78% power left. As such, you cannot expect it to help you win the lottery, but it should still perform admirably in almost any casino.

We will gladly expedite the shipment of Seeing The Future ring ASAP. As an added benefit, upon receiving the ring, its powers can be used to track and trace all subsequent shipments from Daniel’s Illusionist Store of Spells, Magic, and Burgers.

Please provide the following details to help facilitate the transaction:

1. Full name of the recipient
2. Full name of the person who will be using the superpowers (if different from “recipient”)
3. An audio recording (MP3 or WAV file) of you saying the word “Candyman” three times
4. Shipping address
5. A tiny glass vial of salty tears collected from a weeping harp seal. (Optional.)

Thanks for your interest in Daniel’s Elusive Wizardly Shop & Mexican Drive-Thru.

We appreciate your business,
Daniel

Ravi

hi sir I saw ur reply n m very glat u reply me but m not happy because I realy want Invisibility 7. Mind Control but unfortunately u didn’t have … any way can u give me other power like * Seeing The Future 5. Spirit Control. if is possible for u…

Daniel

Hi Ravi,

My apologies. I seem to have attached the “Dyslexia Magic Visual” to my last email, which rendered most of its content incomprehensible to you.

You may indeed get the other powers listed in the original message. To do so, please provide:

1. Full name of the recipient
2. Full name of the person who will be using the superpowers (if different from “recipient”)
3. An audio recording (MP3 or WAV file) of you saying the word “Candyman” three times
4. Shipping address
5. A tiny glass vial of salty tears collected from a weeping harp seal. (Optional.)
6. The answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Pleasure doing business with you. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at Daniel’s Mysterious Kingdom Of Spells & BBQ

Best regards,
Daniel

Ravi

sorry sir but m very disappoint for m not getting what I want.. but any way big brother u take care n have a nice day..

Daniel

Hi Ravi,

You too. Happy to hear that you enjoyed our “Great Big Disappoint” ring. Feel free to leave a Yelp review for Daniel’s Magical Land of Superpowers and Smoked Salmon.

Best of luck on your future adventures.

Daniel

Hey, quick question: What the actual Muslim-banning fuck?! How in the name of molesting Tic Tac can this be true?!

Listen, I understand. You dislike Clinton. You really, really, really dislike Clinton. Crooked Hillary. Benghazi. Emails. “Hillary For Prison.” Loud noises. Okay!

I’m not here to defend Clinton. She does happen to have the next-worst favorability rating of all presidential nominees in history, second only to Trump himself.

But again: Why are you still voting for Trump?

You have alternatives. Vote for a third-party candidate. Don’t vote. Stay at home and pretend to vote for your dog. Write “I vote for Benedict Cumberbatch” on a piece of paper, make a little airplane out of it, and launch it from the nearest window.

All of these are objectively better options than the Trump alternative.

Yet you’re still set on voting for Trump. Why? What aspect of a Trump presidency is appealing to you?

Is it his positive character?

Trump is a demagogue. He scores cheap political points by appealing to the lowest human instincts. He makes sweeping generalizations and dehumanizes whole groups of people based on their religion and heritage. He demeans, degrades, and mocks. At his rallies, he condones – if not outright encourages – physical violence. You didn’t need to hear the appalling Billy Bush tape or learn about the new sexual harassment allegations to know Trump was a misogynist. It’s been palpable in his language throughout his campaign.

Whether he seeks it or not, Trump gets broad support and endorsements from the alt-right, the Neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan. If there ever were a “Horrible Fan Club Lottery,” Trump would score the goddamn jackpot.

Volumes have been written about Trump’s narcissism, bad impulse control, and other personal shortcomings.

Yet you’re still voting for him. Why?

Is it because he “tells it like it is”?

He doesn’t. He tells it like it isn’t, then denies ever having told it. Then he denies denying it. He does this so often and so consistently that we’ve all become numb to it.

Pulitzer Prize–winning fact checkers PolitiFact rule the majority (70%) of Trump’s statements as either “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants on fire.” Incidentally, “Crooked” Hillary has the best truth-telling score of all 2016 presidential candidates and is four times less likely than Trump to tell a lie. (Which might not be saying much, to be sure.)

But you’ll still be voting for Trump. Why?

Is it because he’ll build a wall?

First off, why a wall? Yes, you’re worried about illegal immigration. Data indicates that those fears might be exaggerated and that illegal immigration has been stagnant or on the decline in recent years. But okay, illegal immigration. Is a literal, physical wall the best solution the US can come up with? Wile E. Coyote has had less zany schemes to catch The Road Runner.

Trump’s flagship campaign promise – The Wall – is an insanely expensive endeavor that’s likely to have limited to no effect. Instead, it might do serious harm to the environment. Oh, and then there’s the minor matter of it being an ultra xenophobic thing to even consider doing in the first place.

Why are you voting for Trump?

Is it because of his other visionary policies?

Trump’s political “visions” are mostly empty rhetoric and a collection of catchy soundbites about China, ISIS, and America’s greatness. When pressed, Trump is unable to articulate a coherent position on almost any issue and instead resorts to vague, bombastic statements.

Trump’s plan for defeating ISIS is, and I quote:

“If I run, and If I win, I don’t want the enemy to know what I’m doing. Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to tell at some point, but there is a method of defeating them quickly and effectively and having total victory.”

Okay.

Trump’s plan for healthcare is, and I quote:

“I would end Obamacare and replace it with something terrific, for far less money for the country and for the people.”

Nice-sounding!

Trump’s plan for job creation is, and I quote:

“I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

Awesome stuff.

That’s not to mention that Trump’s stance on most issues is about as consistent as a Michael Bay plotline. Here’s an excellent rundown of Trump’s impressive flip-flopping on topics ranging from immigration to taxes.

Trump’s bewildering statements on foreign policy issues from NATO to nuclear weapons and his continued praise for authoritarian leaders like Putin, Assad, and Kim Jong Un are understandably causing major concern to US policymakers and the country’s allies.

His casual stance on waterboarding is, “If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway.” Think about it. These words are coming not from a cartoon villain but from an actual, current presidential nominee.

Yet you’re still ready to vote for him. Why is that?

Is it because of his respect for logic and reason?

Trump is alarmingly anti-science. He gives credence to the thoroughly studied and discredited link between vaccines and autism. He thinks global warming is a Chinese hoax. His Twitter is a stream of dubious sources and conspiracy theories.

These traits might be sort of acceptable in your kooky friend who shares Facebook posts about the Free Masons vaccinating lizard people in order to take over the world’s supply of genetically modified corn. They’re genuinely terrifying traits for a person running for the highest office in the United States.

How can you seriously consider voting for Trump?

Oh…it’s because he’s a shrewd businessman and knows how to run things, right?

But is he, though? Trump’s history of business failings has been well-documented long before he started running for president. He’s mired in literal thousands of lawsuits. He brags about exploiting loopholes. There’s credible evidence of him having exploited undocumented foreign workers…similar to the ones he’s now telling you are stealing your jobs. He’s been sued for labor infractions by hundreds of his employees.

Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter who’d penned The Art Of The Deal on Trump’s behalf went on record to say:

“I put lipstick on a pig. I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.”

At best, Trump is cynically abusing the US tax code to avoid paying taxes in a country he wants to make “great again.” At worst, he’s a terrible businessman mired in controversy, litigation, and bad treatment of the very workers whose rights he claims to champion.

Why are you still voting for Trump?

Maybe it’s because he has a strong political backing from his own party and the ability to reach broad bipartisan compromise?

Let’s take a look-see…

On August 4, the Harvard Republican Club, the oldest College Republican organization in the country, whose sole reason for existing is to promote Republican principles and support Republican nominees, broke with its 128-year-old tradition and explicitly refused to endorse Trump, stating that Ronald Reagan would be “ashamed of Donald Trump. We are too.”

On September 27, The Arizona Republic, a newspaper that hasn’t once – not ever – endorsed a Democrat since its first publication in 1890, endorsed Hillary Clinton, stating that “being the leader of the free world requires a sense of propriety that Trump lacks.”

On October 9, the editorial board of Alabama Media Group, acknowledging that Alabama has voted for every Republican nominee since Ronald Reagan, endorsed Hillary Clinton, stating that “Trump shows a staggering ignorance of world affairs and the issues the next president faces.”

The same day, the otherwise proudly neutral Foreign Policy issued a statement endorsing Hillary Clinton, which opened with the following lines:

“In the nearly half-century history of Foreign Policy, the editors of this publication have never endorsed a candidate for political office. We cherish and fiercely protect this publication’s independence and its reputation for objectivity, and we deeply value our relationship with all of our readers, regardless of political orientation. It is for all these reasons that FP’s editors are now breaking with tradition to endorse Hillary Clinton for the next president of the United States.”

More than 160 Republican leaders have explicitly refused to support Donald Trump. A good number of them have gone on record to say they’ll vote for Hillary.

On October 11, Trump picked a public fight with House Speaker Paul Ryan and “disloyal Republicans,” triggering what many have begun to term the “GOP civil war.”

But you’re still convinced that Trump is the right person to lead the country. Why?

Maybe you just like a good “underdog” story? A scrappy newcomer appears out of nowhere to stick it to the man and turn things around. Sounds exciting…if it were a movie and if our protagonist wasn’t a man who’s uniquely, dangerously unqualified to lead the world’s largest superpower. But we’re not in a Hollywood movie. You don’t get to leave the cinema and go home after this. This is reality, and it’s scary.

And you know what the crazy part is? I doubt I’m telling you anything you didn’t already know. I’m certainly not the first person to bring these topics up. You’ve heard them all before. They’ve been discussed ad nauseam by everybody and their grandma.

You’re voting for Trump because, somehow, even knowing all this, you find a way to excuse every awful thing he said, every awful thing he did, along with all evidence of his incompetence and his lack of basic qualifications for presidency.

You’re consciously ready to ignore all of this because of…what, exactly? Is there nothing at all that Trump can do to discredit himself in your eyes? Is he actually right when he says he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and [he] wouldn’t lose any voters”?

If so, ask yourself why.

In the meantime, I’ll try and stay well away from Fifth Avenue.

You probably think I spent my alone time having a series of mini-comas to catch up on all the sleep I’d lost during the last year of parenting. That’s because you haven’t met my brain.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Daniel’s brain. I like to keep Daniel awake with inconsequential crap like whether he remembered to cross out an item on his to-do list or whether he should consider starting a to-do list to keep track of crossed-out items on his other to-do lists. I am the worst.”

But enough about my early-stage psychosis. I’m here to talk about food. Specifically, food I discovered in our fridge when hunger finally compelled me to take action to fill my stomach.

I’ve meticulously cataloged no fewer than seven edible items from my fridge and reviewed my eating experience for your reading pleasure. Maybe these honest food reviews will help guide your own nutritional choices. (They won’t.)

Here we go: Seven honest reviews of food from my fridge. With pictures!

7. Mango body butter

Mango + butter? What’s not to like?!

Excellent first pick. Butter made from the body of a mango? Don’t mind if I do!

It smelled absolutely wonderful and was thick and creamy to the touch. How’d it taste?

Taste score

Try to recall the best ice cream you’ve ever had. Maybe it’s a delightful triple-chocolate gelato with crunchy brownies or a refreshing lemon sorbet.

Picture yourself scooping up a hefty helping of this deliciousness. Feel the cold air flowing gently over your fingers as you slowly move it over to your mouth. Savor the sweet mix of flavors as they tickle your taste buds.

Mmmmmmmm! Tastes fantastic, doesn’t it?

Anyways, back to the mango butter.

It’s shit.

It tasted like all of the terrible food choices you ever made had come together to form a giant food Voltron of sadness and regret. Then it puked up this mango butter. The texture was sticky and slimy, covering the inside of my mouth with a thick coat of goo that I couldn’t remove for hours.

Update: Ooooops! Nevermind. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit, but it turns out the mango body butter is a body moisturizer with a smell of mango. My wife keeps it in the fridge to keep it from melting. Now you know: Mango body butter isn’t butter at all.

Let’s move on.

6. Watermelon

Melon + water? What’s not to like?!

It’s green. It’s round. It fits my palm. It sure is a watermelon.

Taste score

I was looking forward to reviewing the taste, but then I imagined the effort it’d take to cut it open and slice it into edible pieces. Nobody has that kind of time. Let’s just agree it tasted like a standard watermelon. Watery and sweet.

Hey, I promised honest food reviews. I never promised to actually eat every item on the list.

5. Crunchy peanut butter

Peanuts + butter? I’m starting to see a pattern.

Yes! Now this is a butter I can get behind.

You know exactly what this is. It’s peanut butter, and it’s crunchy.

Taste score

As you’d expect, it was delicious. Creamy, crunchy, peanut-y.

Yet throughout the meal, I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that it wasn’t quite perfect. Something was missing.

Then it hit me:

HAAAAAAAAALLELUJAH!

Of course! The strawberry yin to peanut butter’s yang! All is right with the world again. 10/10. Would recommend.

4. This fucking thing

What are you?!

I don’t know what this is. My wife says they’re called “yams,” which sounds like baby slang for “pajamas.” I’m calling bullshit. Ha, “yams.” Yeah right.

I tried doing a reverse Google image search to identify the nature of this beast, and one of the results was this weird manatee sculpture made from a potato.

“I should not be. Please, kill me.”

When I tried the image search again, it took me to a fringe porn side and infected my computer with 73 different Trojans (no pun intended).

Taste score

Needless to say, I have no clue what it tastes like. I buried this thing in a nearby park after the clock struck midnight.

We shall never speak of it again.

3. Poor man’s caviar

The label says “caviar,” but my soul says “Your life is a cruel joke”

Don’t be misled by the fancy title. This is the cheapest caviar one can get one’s hands on. It’s salty balls with a fishy taste. (Which reminds me of that fringe porn site from the last entry. But I digress.)

If you were a Russian billionaire who ordered a jar of exotic caviar to be rushed to your mansion via two helicopters and a limo and they brought you this, “they” would be found frozen in the deep Tundra years later.

Taste score

You kidding me?! I love it. I buy it all the time. It’s perfect on crackers and bread. Never mind that the list of ingredients reads like a do-it-yourself poison kit. I’ll pick this over “yams” any day of the week.

Ha, “yams.”

2. Danish liquor brandy spirit firewater cognac

ALCOHOL!

Let me give you a bit of background: This bottle lives in our fridge. It’s been in our fridge for as long as I can recall. I’m almost tempted to believe it was already there when we moved in about five years ago. Neither my wife nor I can remember where it came from, and neither of us is quite sure what it is. This is all completely true, by the way.

It’s definitely alcohol of some sort. The name—“brændevin”—has the Danish word for “wine” in it, but it’s not wine (note the 38% alcohol).

“Google it,” you say? Already did.

Pick one, you maniac!

It’s like someone was rushing to fill in an alcohol Bingo card. Cognac! Brandy! Firewater! Spirit! I especially love the “Scandinavian liquor” line. It’s like saying “American meat” or “Australian fish” – I’d like a few more specifics before putting it in my mouth, thanks.

Let’s all agree that it’s a special type of strong brandy that’s enjoyed in Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia. “Brændevin” = “Brandywine”! Check and mate.

Taste score

Nope. Not trying it.

It’s lived in my fridge for this long. I sure as Hell won’t open it now and risk releasing whatever evil genie is trapped inside.

Have fun living inside my fridge for the next few millenia, Brandy Djinn!

1. Nathan’s breadsticks with cheese dip

As described.

These are my son’s crunchy breadsticks with cheese dip. Probably his favorite food.

These are sacred. I won’t steal food from my own son. What kind of father would do such a thing?!

Taste score

NO! BAD DANIEL!

So I opened his breadsticks. I was hungry, okay? You don’t get full by looking at bottles of alcohol and burying “yams” in the night. I need nutrients. Don’t judge me.

Psyche!

I tricked you. I only opened the box to take that picture and make you think I ate my baby’s favorite meal.

I’m not a monster. I didn’t actually eat my son’s breadsticks.

WHY?! WHY GOD, WHY?!

I TOTALLY ATE MY SON’S BREADSTICKS!

Jesus, man, what the fuck is wrong with me?!

Actually…you know what? No! I’m not apologizing!

The breadsticks tasted great. Easily the best meal on this list after peanut butter and caviar.

Besides, Nathan isn’t here to claim them, is he? No, he’s not. He and his mom left me here all alone, trapped inside this apartment where unidentifiable items mock me from their fridge shelves.

I did what I had to do. I did what any of you would do.

To survive.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see if Nathan has some baby fruit smoothies stashed away somewhere.

Almost five years after its launch in August 2011, the Juno probe just entered the orbit of our solar system’s biggest planet, Jupiter. To call Juno’s journey “epic” isn’t an overstatement. For the first two years, Juno followed a carefully planned path, perfectly timed to return to Earth in October 2013 and use our planet’s gravitational pull as a giant catapult to slingshot itself into deep space and toward its final destination.

Three more years and a total of 2.8 billion (!) kilometers later, Juno performed some insanely complicated maneuvers that saw it decelerate rapidly to smoothly enter Jupiter’s orbit and avoid crashing or succumbing to any of the myriad hazards—from radiation to dust rings—that could’ve put an end to its five-year mission in a matter of moments.

Juno will now orbit Jupiter until February 2018, gathering invaluable scientific insights on topics I can’t even begin to wrap my head around.

Right now, at this very moment, something we’ve put together here on Earth years ago is exploring a remote planet in our solar system. That’s amazing. It’s a marvel of human achievement and what principal investigator of the Juno mission Scott Bolton called “the hardest thing NASA has ever done.”

But this post isn’t about Juno.

Not really.

You see, when Juno left in August 2011, news headlines weren’t much different from today: Assad’s bloody crackdown in Syria, tensions in Gaza, riots in Britain over the police shooting of Mark Duggan.

Our breaking news cycle feeds on constant fear and outrage. Every day, we’re reminded that somewhere out there, horrible people do horrible things. That’s the sad truth: Monsters exist and will continue to do so. That’s been true throughout our history, but never has this reality felt so immediate and almost personal, because it’s right there, in your news feed, constantly. Just click for instant tragedy.

It can be so hard to believe in good when your Facebook drowns in anger and human sadness. I get it.

I get it.

Yet Juno reminds us that there’s another side to humanity. That we’re capable of embracing cooperation and creativity to achieve something seemingly impossible. That by working together, we can do incredible things. That we’re so much better than your daily news diet might sometimes trick you into thinking.

Juno stands for the mankind I want to be a part of. And it proves, unequivocally, that this mankind exists.

Fittingly, Juno didn’t rely on outrage-inducing, attention-grabbing headlines to do this. It just arrived, silently, to do its job in a distant corner of space, 2.8 billion kilometers away from home. An unassuming testament to what our species is capable of.

Today, I’m with Juno and everything it stands for.

Did you order brain pizza?

You must be very confused right now. That’s natural. “Brain pizza? What’s that?!” you’re wondering. I get it. It makes no sense. How about we back up a bit?

On May 18, 2016, you’ve published an article about football goalkeeper Simon Mignolet. You ended that article with a joke about Simon DOING THE SPAGHETTI LEGS. (ALL CAPS – the pinnacle of journalistic writing – are in your original.) Here it is:

To illustrate the doing of the spaghetti legs, you used a GIF. It was a GIF of Shakin’ Stevens doing the alien dance from his masterpiece, “Merry Christmas Everyone.” To be more specific, you’ve used a particular version of that GIF from an old article of mine. This one:

Now, I don’t claim any rights to the GIF. All I’ve done was pull that specific segment from his YouTube video and add a minor caption. I’m not even bothered by the fact that you didn’t explicitly state where you got the GIF from. But here’s what kind of sucked: You’ve linked directly to the actual GIF on my site. You didn’t host it on your own servers, instead forcing my blog to load the GIF whenever your visitors wanted to read about Simon’s SPAGHETTI LEGS.

Maybe that’s standard practice in the tabloid industry. I don’t know. Here’s what I do know: By linking directly to the file hosted on my blog, you’ve surrendered all control over what gets shown on your site. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Say I wanted to mess with you and demonstrate why it’s a bad idea to hijack other people’s files. What could I do? You guessed it: brain pizza!

Wait, that still doesn’t explain anything, does it?

What I’m saying is that I could replace the file you’ve linked to with literally anything at all, and it would show up in your article. Anything: fetish porn, an endless loop of Nyan Cat, a video of a guy eating spaghetti on the toilet. (Damn, I should’ve actually gone for that last one.)

Instead, I went for brain pizza.

You’re getting worried now. Is “brain pizza” code for a masterful video trick that hypnotizes your readers into following my blog? Is it an ancient torture technique?

It’s neither. It’s, quite literally, brain pizza. But don’t take my word for it. Take my videos for it instead.

As a reminder, here’s how the last part of your article looked on May 18, before my “brain pizza” initiative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcuhAgvQhZY&w=600

Now, here’s how that same section looks today, as I write this post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyPyVSQeK_4&w=600

Enjoy your brain pizza!

Special thanks to Quakin’ Stevens (@QuakyStevens) for spotting the GIF on Mirror‘s website.