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NORMALLY I CAUTION AGAINST THE PHRASE "IT COULD BE WORSE."
We're not tempting fate this week because if we say that dreaded phrase the universe will certainly hear it and deliver, but this week I'm more showing than telling.
Before we get to this week's fun distractions let's have some birthday cake!
Me furiously shoveling carby comfort into my maw.
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Today's birthday celebrants include:
• Actress and filmmaker Laura Dern, born this day in 1967. Dern is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and five Golden Globe Awards. She's known for appearing in films such as Blue Velvet, Jurassic Park and Wild at Heart, but my personal favorite is 90s era black comedy Citizen Ruth.
• Actress director, writer, and producer Elizabeth Banks, born this day in 1974. Banks is known for starring in a host of films including The Hunger Games, Wet Hot American Summer, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and The 40-Year Old Virgin.
• Songstress Roberta Cleopatra Flack, born this day in 1937. She is known for several number 1 singles, including "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song", "Feel Like Makin' Love"; and "Where Is the Love." Flack is the only solo artist to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in two consecutive years: "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" won at the 1973 Grammys and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" won at the 1974 Grammys.
• Cartoon series Tom & Jerry, which premiered on this day in 1940. Between 1940 and 1958 the series won seven Academy Awards for Best Animated Short Film, tying for first place with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies with the most awards in the category.
OK, OK...you've waited long enough. It's link time!
1. Sick of your own four walls? Here's something to help you appreciate your digs.
Yes, we've all spent entirely too much time in our own homes over the last year, but at least we're not living in New York City's worst apartment ever. I know this sounds like a lofty claim, but click on through and be in awe of a dwelling so terrible, you'll be glad it's not yours.
2. Celebrating Valentine's Day alone? Maybe it's just as well.
This Instagram account has an epic collection of dating horror stories. It'll be enough to make you appreciate the one you're with, even if the one you're with is a house cat and a bottle of merlot.
3. Sure we're living in plague times, but at least we're safe from 50-foot felines.
Artist Fransdita Muafidin re-imagines the internet's favorite critters as larger-than-life menaces taking down cities and countrysides alike. The results are both adorable and hilarious.
4. You might love your comfy pants, but do you love them as much as this guy's wife does?
Music parody creator Penn Holderness takes aim at his wife's favorite pair of lounge pants in this silly re-write of 80's pop classic 'Safety Dance'.
The only thing this will make you appreciate is that Weird Al is still a national treasure.
Boredwalk Community: Good Bourbon and a Giant Ice Cube!
1. What's your actual day job and what's your dream day job?
I am an author, often an author of fiction. I write for adults and I write YA and it's my actual dream job. I've wanted to be a novelist since I was a kid.
2. What's a book you think the Boredwalk community should read?
I'm going to be incredibly vain here and say my newest novel, Mixtape for the End of the World. It comes out May 18th from Blue Handle Publishing and is about a high school sophomore navigating life, love, music, and Y2k — the literal end of the world! It's a fun, nostalgic look back at high school at a time when music was a precious commodity and felt like a treasure hunt when discovering new stuff; a time when everyone had a garage and everyone had a garage band. Plus, there are lots of easter eggs from the 90's sprinkled in that I hope will make readers go, "Hey! I remember that!"
3. If you could have any super power what would it be and why?
I'd like to take Paul Rudd's power of being able to look 35 for the rest of my life.
4. You can curse your nemesis with a minor annoyance for eternity; what do you choose?
That every morning when they put on their shoes, one of the laces breaks and they have to choose to either wear a different pair of shoes or spend five minutes re-lacing it.
5. What experience do you most want to cross off your bucket list?
I have admittedly lived a pretty kick-ass life. I've been surfing in the Pacific, I've seen the Cubs win a World Series, I've had a book debut at #1 on Amazon. I've drank Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. I've got a wife who is much smarter and better looking than me. My bucket list is pretty crossed off.
6. If you drink: what's your go-to drink? If you don't drink: what's your go-to dessert or snack?
Good bourbon with a giant ice cube. Right now my go-to is Longbranch, Matthew McConaughey's collaboration with Wild Turkey. It's Kentucky bourbon through and through, but with notes of mesquite to make you remember you're in Texas.
7. Clear up a misconception (about your job, where you are from, some other topic you know a lot about).
That writers are flighty, head-in-the-clouds daydreamers. This is true but we also pay attention to everything around us, looking for things to put into stories, to build plots off of. And if you piss us off, we'll probably write you into a story just so we can kill you off.
8. Where can the rest of the Boredwalk community find you?
I'm online on all the socials (@writerbrandt) and my website is www.writerbrandt.com. When there's not a pandemic raging through the world, I can often be found at my favorite local coffee joint, Palace Coffee.
...BUT WHAT ABOUT ITS DATE NIGHT?
Happy National Carrot Cake Day! I hope you have slightly spiced wishes and cream cheese frosting dreams tonight...but heaven help you if you ruin this thing with raisins.
NO IT'S NOT, ROB LOWE! #StopTheLie
Also, happy National Golden Retriever Day! Bonus points if you happen to celebrate National Doggie Date Night (which is also today/tonight) WITH a golden retriever, but let's be honest — every pupper, regardless of breed, deserves some quality time with their human companion.
Finally, happy National Women Physicians Day! This day celebrates the life of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the British-born first female doctor to earn a medical degree and practice in the U.S.
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So many birthdays today! Let's put them into categories:
• Music: German composer Felix Mendelssohn, born this day in 1809!
• Medicine: The aforementioned physician (and abolitionist) Elizabeth Blackwell, born this day in 1821! Un-fun fact: it took several years for Dr. Blackwell to gain admittance to medical school. According to the vast majority of rejection letters she received, this had nothing to do with her actual intellectual capability and everything to do with either a.) her "inferiority" due her gender and/or b.) the fear that she might actually be good and that the resulting influx of women into the medical industry would put all of those helpless male doctors out of a job. (Heaven forbid they do what a normal person would do and just BE BETTER AT THEIR DAMN JOB.) Good on Hobart College in New York for being the least-terrible institute of higher learning circa 1847!
• Art: Painter & illustrator Norman Percevel Rockwell, born this day in 1894! Mr. Rockwell's work became synonymous with The Saturday Evening Post thanks to the cover illustrations depicting an idealized (but wildly unrealistic) version of American life, but once his contract with the Post ended he finally was free to explore his favored political themes of civil rights, poverty, and space exploration while under contract with Look magazine.
• Drama: Morgan Fairchild (1950), Nathan Lane and Maura Tierney (1965), Warwick Davis (1970), and Isla Fisher (1976)
OK, OK...you've waited long enough. It's link time!
1. Remember that resourceful maze-running hamster from two weeks ago? Yeah, it has competition now.
This hedgehog must be as bored in quarantine as its human clearly is to put up with learning this sh!t.
Instagram user RumHamRevenge (which might just be the best Insta handle I've ever come across) is doing some next level stuff with cameras and a seemingly never ending supply of monster masks. Check it out...if you dare! (Don't miss the Reels section of his profile. High-quality horror humor abounds.)
3. Happy Fluff Comics is an adorable (and relatable) comic strip from cartoonist Askhara Ashok!
From grooming to periods to dating to shopping, this is all just...wonderful!
Hat tip to Kealan for this one! Welcome to the delightful world of book nooks — tiny 3D dioramas that sit on your bookshelf! As awesome as they are, though, they present a dilemma by requiring valuable shelf space. Which books from your collection would make the cut and remain? Which would have to be re-homed to accommodate the nook? Do tell!
5. Goose.Fight = minimalist comics for fans of the existentially absurd.
I don't quite understand why I find these so funny; I just know that I do.