Month: December 2023

The Los Angeles Lakers are the only team in NBA history to call themselves In-Season Tournament winners. Now, they’ll have another distinction based off of their win in Las Vegas on Saturday, as the Lakers will become the only team in NBA history to have a banner in their arena that celebrates a win in the In-Season Tournament.

Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report and Marc Stein brought word that despite some original indications that the team would not put anything up in the rafters if they went on to win the event, the Lakers will hang a banner in Crypto.com Arena.

Eventually, the Lakers confirmed that this is indeed the case, but made clear that they will make it a different shape and color so that it’s different from the ones that they’ve put in their arena to signify the number of times they have won an NBA championship.

Los Angeles flew through the In-Season Tournament, going undefeated in group play and knocking off the Phoenix Suns at the start of the knockout rounds to earn a berth in Las Vegas. Once there, the team ran the New Orleans Pelicans off the floor in the semifinals behind a monster night by LeBron James before riding Anthony Davis to a win in the championship game over the Indiana Pacers.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! returns this week with a slate of guests including George Clooney, Kumail Nanjiani, Keegan-Michael Key, Charles Melton, Carey Mulligan, Alan Ritchson, Zac Efron, and Jason Mantzoukas. Meanwhile, the musical guests include include Lenny Kravitz, Lainey Wilson, Sleater-Kinney, and Queens Of The Stone Age. You can check out more on the musical guests for the week of December 11 – 15 below.

Lenny Kravitz — Monday, December 11

Lenny Kravitz’s last interview caused quite the stir, so perhaps that’s why he’s focusing on promoting his upcoming album, Blue Electric Light with a musical performance this time around — sticking to what you’re good at is always the best way.

Lainey Wilson — Tuesday, December 12

Country star Lainey Wilson is bringing more Bell Bottom Country to the Jimmy Kimmel stage with the title single. It’s also a great time for her to perform as she is nominated for a Grammy and it’s never too early to start winning over voters with eye-grabbing performances.

Sleater-Kinney — Wednesday, December 13

The rock duo has a new album on the way, Little Rope, so why not drop Kimmel’s show to give a late-night performance of their latest single?

Queens Of The Stone Age — Thursday, December 14

Speaking of classic rockers, the Seattle band is currently on their End Is Nero Tour, which promotes their recently released album, In Times New Roman…

Who among us hasn’t witnessed a baby temper tantrum on a plane? Ever wonder what that distraught toddler’s inner monologue might be?

Well, wonder no more—thanks to Adam Driver.

The “Ferrari” star returned for his fourth stint as host during “Saturday Night Live”’s Dec. 9th episode, where he played multiple fun roles, including a very cheeky chocolatier, a partner in a gay couple trying to conceive a baby “the old fashioned way” and a mustached pot luck host whose catch phrase (“beep, beep”) can go from wholesome to foreboding on a dime.

But the sketch that most people seem to be talking about is “Airplane Baby,” where, you guessed it, Driver embodies a newborn on a plane…and his performance captures the id of an infant with almost eerie accuracy.

---

In the scene, we see Sarah Sherman, who plays Driver’s mommy, explaining to passengers that this is her son’s first flight and apologizes in advance.

When a passenger (Heidi Gardner) asks how old the baby is, the camera cuts to reveal Driver—or at least, his head, which is atop a baby doll’s body—saying, “11 months.” This baby is already quite disgruntled.

Things only get worse for Baby Driver as he starts to get a “strange” feeling in his ears, which can only be soothed by his iPad. Or his “‘Peppa Pig’ device,” as he prefers to call it.

That relief is cut short when the flight attendant, played by Chloe Troast, approaches drink orders.

“Who is that woman? She’s not my mother. Now I’m feeling confused and uncomfortable and frankly, I miss the womb!” Driver wails before bursting into a crying fit. Luckily, that too is remedied, this time by a bottle.

The rest of the skit is a roller coaster of emotion. Fixation on fitting his arm into his mouth, followed by delight with his “Pookie bear,” then utter anguish when Pookie bear goes away, then elation when Pookie bear returns once more…all rolling into a dirty diaper situation.

Besides loving how delightfully silly his performance was, people applauded Driver for his commitment which added a level of authenticity to the sketch. More than one person commented on how well he captured what must be going through a baby’s mind as they are thrust into new and uncomfortable situations, and how freely they express their emotions.

“Adam’s baby behaviors are so realistic, it’s like he’s studied them somehow,” one person wrote.

Another added, “I work with babies around that age and this was 100% baby representation at its finest. Such smooth transition between the peek a boo and large poop. The scream after poop is optional, but I liked how Adam D delivered it.”

Full sketch below. Warning: you might never look at babies on a plane the same way again.

If you haven’t heard actor Justin Baldoni’s name, you at least probably recognize him.

Best known for his role as Rafael on “Jane the Virgin,” Baldoni is the epitome of Hollywood’s “tall, dark, and handsome” stereotype. He is every bad boy with a sinister past. Every womanizing billionaire. Every domineering playboy.

---

In a talk at TEDWomen 2017, Baldoni joked about the string of characters he’s been typecast as (most of them appear shirtless a good majority of the time).

“Most of the men I play ooze machismo, charisma, and power,” he said. “And when I look in the mirror, that’s just not how I see myself.”

Baldoni came to realize that it wasn’t just on-screen that he was pretending. In his everyday life, he found himself trying to conform to society’s masculine ideal as well, and it all felt like a lie.

“I’ve been pretending to be strong when I felt weak. Confident when I felt insecure. And tough when really I was hurting,” he explained.

The past few years have been a journey for Baldoni, who has set out to redefine for himself what “being a man” is really all about. In his TED Talk, he shared three major realizations he had along the way.

1. “Real men” make themselves vulnerable — not just with women, but with other men too.

Baldoni’s early attempts at being more open about his emotions publicly on social media went great — until he realized almost all of his followers were women. Opening up to his fellow men was another challenge altogether.

“If it’s about work or sports or politics or women, [men] have no problem sharing our opinions,” he observed. “But if it’s about our insecurities, our struggles, our fear of failure, it’s almost like we become paralyzed.”

He recalled recently wanting to talk to his guy friends about a serious issue in his life and needing almost the entirety of a three-day guys trip to work up the courage to do it. Once he did, however, he found many of his buddies were eager to share with him, too.

“My display of vulnerability can, in some cases, give other men permission to do the same,” he realized.

(If only there were a TEDMen Baldoni could have given this talk at.)

2. “Real men” hold other men, and themselves, accountable.

As he began to engage more with other men, Baldoni started to become even more aware of toxic male behavior around him. It was everywhere.

He recalls an Instagram comment someone left on a photo of him and his wife. The random male commenter called the photo “gay shit.”

So Baldoni decided to message him.

“I said, very politely, ‘I’m just curious, because I’m on an exploration of masculinity, and I wanted to know why my love for my wife qualified as gay shit,'” he remembered.

To his surprise, the man responded thoughtfully about how his own displays of affection had been mocked as a child, and he apologized for lashing out.

“Secretly he was waiting for permission to express himself,” Baldoni said. “And all he needed was another man holding him accountable and creating a safe place for him to feel. The transformation was instant.”

3. “Real men” embrace the good aspects of traditional masculinity — with a twist.

Not everything traditionally associated with manliness is bad. Strength, bravery, and confidence are great things to aspire to (regardless of one’s gender). But Baldoni urges men to think deeply about what those qualities really mean in practice and whether, perhaps, there’s not a different way to think about spending their energy trying to achieve them.

“Are you brave enough … to be vulnerable?” he asked. “Are you strong enough to be sensitive? … Are you confident enough to listen to the women in your life? … Will you be man enough to stand up to other men when you hear ‘locker room talk’?”

Near the end of his talk, Baldoni acknowledges an important point: As bad as the “performance of masculinity” is for men, these rigid gender roles can be far worse for women.

He bemoaned that there wasn’t even enough time to get into issues like the gender pay gap, division of household labor, and violence against women — all issues created and upheld by the toxic male behavior Baldoni’s fighting against.

“The deeper we get into this, the uglier it gets,” he said.

He challenged the men watching and listening to demand better of themselves and those around them.

“If we want to be part of the solution, words are no longer enough,” Baldoni said.

This article originally appeared on 12.08.17

In this super-cool video from Field Day and Cut Video, a young engaged couple is given a rare opportunity to see how they might look 30, 50, and 70 years in the future. With the help of some seriously talented makeup artists, the couple ages before each other’s eyes.

But, it’s the deep emotional impact of imagining a life shared together that is far more striking than their physical transformation.

---

Their love seems to strengthen as they see each other age, and the caring they display for one another is likely to make even the most cynical person a little emotional.

This article originally appeared on 05.15.15

Land ice: We got a lot of it.

Considering the two largest ice sheets on earth — the one on Antarctica and the one on Greenland — extend more than 6 million square miles combined … yeah, we’re talkin’ a lot of ice.

But what if it was all just … gone? Not like gone gone, but melted?

---

If all of earth’s land ice melted, it would be nothing short of disastrous.

And that’s putting it lightly.

This video by Business Insider Science (seen below) depicts exactly what our coastlines would look like if all the land ice melted. And spoiler alert: It isn’t great.

Lots of European cities like, Brussels and Venice, would be basically underwater.

In Africa and the Middle East? Dakar, Accra, Jeddah — gone.

Millions of people in Asia, in cities like Mumbai, Beijing, and Tokyo, would be uprooted and have to move inland.

South America would say goodbye to cities like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.

And in the U.S., we’d watch places like Houston, San Francisco, and New York City — not to mention the entire state of Florida — slowly disappear into the sea.

All GIFs via Business Insider Science/YouTube.

Business Insider based these visuals off National Geographic’s estimation that sea levels will rise 216 feet (!) if all of earth’s land ice melted into our oceans.

There’s even a tool where you can take a detailed look at how your community could be affected by rising seas, for better or worse.

Although … looking at these maps, it’s hard to imagine “for better” is a likely outcome for many of us.

Much of America’s most populated regions would be severely affected by rising sea levels, as you’ll notice exploring the map, created by Alex Tingle using data provided by NASA.

Take, for instance, the West Coast. (Goodbye, San Fran!)

Or the East Coast. (See ya, Philly!)

And the Gulf Coast. (RIP, Bourbon Street!)

I bring up the topic not just for funsies, of course, but because the maps above are real possibilities.

How? Climate change.

As we continue to burn fossil fuels for energy and emit carbon into our atmosphere, the planet gets warmer and warmer. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means melted ice.

A study published this past September by researchers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany found that if we don’t change our ways, there’s definitely enough fossil fuel resources available for us to completely melt the Antarctic ice sheet.

Basically, the self-inflicted disaster you see above is certainly within the realm of possibility.

“This would not happen overnight, but the mind-boggling point is that our actions today are changing the face of planet Earth as we know it and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years to come,” said lead author of the study Ricarda Winkelmann, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

If we want to stop this from happening,” she says, “we need to keep coal, gas, and oil in the ground.”

The good news? Most of our coastlines are still intact! And they can stay that way, too — if we act now.

World leaders are finally starting to treat climate change like the global crisis that it is — and you can help get the point across to them, too.

Check out Business Insider’s video below:

This article originally appeared on 12.08.15

When I was 7, my dad told me a riddle.

“A man and his son are driving in their car when they are hit by a tractor-trailer.

Photo via iStock.

(We were driving at the time, so of course this was the riddle he decided to tell.)

The father dies instantly.

The son is badly injured. Paramedics rush him to the hospital.

Photo via iStock.

As he is being wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look the boy and says:

‘I can’t operate on him. He’s my son.’

How is that possible?!”

Without missing a beat, I answered:

---

“The doctor is his mom!”

My dad first heard the riddle when he was a child in the ’60s.

Back then, most women didn’t work outside of the home.

Few of those who did had college degrees, much less professional degrees.

Female doctors were few and far between.

Back then, it was a hard riddle. A very hard riddle.

By 1993, when I first heard it, the notion that women could be highly skilled, highly trained professionals wasn’t so absurd.

To me, it was normal.

I knew women who were lawyers. Bankers. Politicians. My own doctor was a woman.

To be sure, women still faced challenges and discrimination in the workplace. And even 20 years later, they still do.

But at its core, the riddle is about how a family can work. And that had changed. Long-overdue progress had rendered the big, sexist assumption that underpinned the whole thing moot.

A very hard riddle was suddenly not a riddle at all.

I never forgot it.

Now, I’m 30 — almost as old as my dad was he first told me that riddle.

I don’t have kids, but I mentor a child through a volunteer program.

Once a week, we get together and hang out for an hour. We play ping pong, do science experiments, and write songs. Neither of us like to go outside.

It’s a good match.

One day, we decided to try to stump each other with riddles.

He rattled off about five or six.

I could only remember one: The one about the man, his son, and the surgeon.

I thought it would be silly to tell it.

I was sure that, if it was easy in 1993, it would be even easier in 2014. Kind of ridiculous, even.

But a part of me was curious.

It had been 21 years — almost as long as it had been between when my dad first heard the riddle and when he shared it with me.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy.

Maybe I was missing something obvious, making my own flawed assumptions about how a family could work.

Maybe the world had changed in ways that would be second nature to a 13-year-old but not to me.

So I began:

“A man and his son are driving in their car, when they are hit by a tractor-trailer. The father dies instantly. The son is badly injured and is rushed to the hospital by paramedics. As he is being wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look at the boy and says:

‘I can’t operate on him. He’s my son.’

How is that possible?!”

Without missing a beat, he answered: “it’s his other dad”

Times change. Progress isn’t perfect. But no matter what shape a family takes, at the end of the day, #LoveWins.

This article was written by Eric March and originally appeared on 06.21.16

In the 1988 Disney classic “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” the titular character is in an unlikely relationship with his voluptuous wife Jessica. Roger is a frantic, anxious rabbit with a penchant for mischief, while Jessica is a quintessential ’40s bombshell who stands about a foot and a half taller and isn’t “bad,” just “drawn that way.”

When private investigator Eddie Valiant asked Jessica what she sees in “that guy?” she replies, “He makes me laugh.”

This type of couple may seem like something we only see in the movies, but don’t underestimate the power of humor when it comes to attractiveness. A new study published in Evolutionary Psychology found that being humorous is the most effective way to flirt for both men and women.

---

“People think that humour, or being able to make another person laugh, is most effective for men who are looking for a long-term relationship. It’s least effective for women who are looking for a one-night stand. But laughing or giggling at the other person’s jokes is an effective flirtation tactic for both sexes,” says Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) Department of Psychology.

“It is not only effective to be funny, but for women, it is very important that you show your potential partner that you think they are funny,” Rebecca Burch, a co-author from SUNY Oswego in New York, added.

Unfortunately, this study was only conducted on heterosexual couples.

For men, showing off their sense of humor was found to be the most effective way to flirt whether they were looking for a short-term or a long-term relationship. For women, being funny was the most effective tactic when looking for a long-term relationship. For people looking for a short-term fling, appearing available was the most effective tactic.

According to the study, humor is effective regardless of one’s attractiveness. “Individual differences in age, religiosity, extroversion, personal attractiveness and preferences for short-term sexual relationships had little or no effect on how effective respondents considered the various flirting tactics to be,” says study co-author Prof. Mons Bendixen.

If you see someone you like but don’t think you’re good-looking enough for them, give it a shot. You may still have a chance if you can make ’em laugh.

The most effective tactics for those looking for a long-term relationship:

For women:

1. Makes him laugh

2. Shows interest in conversations

3. Spends time with him

4. Engages in deep conversations

5. Kisses on mouth

For men:

1. Makes her laugh

2. Spends time with her

3. Shows interest in conversations

4. Engages in deep conversations

5. Smiles

The study is proof that looks aren’t everything and shows that having a good sense of humor isn’t just about making someone laugh. A great sense of humor is evidence that someone is intelligent, wise, perceptive, confident, can see things from new perspectives and has good intuition. It also helps people quickly build bonds and share experiences, which is a great way to get close to someone in a fast and fun way.

So why wouldn’t Jessica be with Roger? The guy is hilarious.

This story originally appeared on 05.07.22

It’s not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It’s like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That’s why it’s not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn’t notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn’t fooling her feline siblings.

---

Once the dog was in their house, they noticed that their cats started behaving strangely towards their canine sibling. The cats started attacking the dog, likely trying to get it to tell them what they did with their real dog sister. Cat slaps and a house full of strange people didn’t dampen the imposter’s spirit though, in fact, that’s what helped reveal the switcharoo.

This dog kept handing out face kisses and had no interest in seeing her favorite neighbor. After putting all of those things together, the owners decided to hightail it to the vet’s office to scan the dog’s microchip. Alas, they indeed had the wrong dog.

“We just never even thought that that would happen, and of course we thought we would know right? Like we’re her parents, we would know something was wrong, we would know right off the bat that it wasn’t Emmy,” Kebby Kelley told Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Seems both golden retrievers got to go on a really strange adventure that deserves a lifetime of delicious dog treats for the confusion.

See both sweet pups below:

This article originally appeared on 9.21.23

For every groundbreaking drama that explores the complexity of the human condition, there is a soapy teen show that might technically be worse, but it’s just so entertaining that you can’t look away. It’s how Riverdale made it for seven seasons. But Netflix‘s latest drama is even better than you could imagine, and that’s because it’s based on a Wattpad story from a decade ago. This is an inspirational tale for anyone who ever wanted their early 2000s FanFic to make it to the silver screen. This is your time!!

My Life With The Walter Boys is based on the 2014 novel of the same name, which was originally published on the popular online forum Wattpad. Netflix snatched up the rights after the success of The Kissing Booth, no thanks to Jacob Elordi. The 10-episode series debuted last week on Netflix and is already a hit amongst the tweens as long as you don’t think too much about the plot.

The series follows Jackie, a hardworking 15-year-old who is forced to move across the country after her parents are killed. She is sent to live on a rural ranch with the Walters, a family of 11 boys (and one girl). What could go wrong? Here is the official synopsis:

After losing her family in a tragic accident, 15-year-old Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) is forced to leave her privileged Manhattan life and move in with a large, boisterous family in rural Colorado. There, she becomes entangled in a love triangle between two brothers, Cole (Noah LaLonde) and Alex (Ashby Gentry).

Sure, a love triangle isn’t anything new, but involving adoptive siblings and twins is the Wattpad way!

My Life With The Walter Boys is now streaming on Netflix.