Month: April 2021

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You Might Have Grown Up in the 1990s if These Scenarios Make You Nostalgic

We’re around 40 now, but those who grew up in the ’90s still have a fair amount of nostalgia for the decade.

If these scenarios give you the warm fuzzies of nostalgia, then you were definitely a child of the 90s.

Like WWI before it, the era of the 90s was on the cusp of so much new technology, which would be adopted quickly and advance at lightning speed.

It’s fun to think back on some of the common place items that have all but disappeared.

1. Space travel meant the Shuttle

Sure the new rockets are sleek and fancy and touch-screen.

But there was something undeniably special about the spaceship that took off like a rocket and landed like a plane.

Image credit: NASA via Unsplash

2. Cameras with actual film in them

Sure photographers and artists still use film, but the rest of us have basically gone digital.

Now we can take a MILLION shots of the same exact thing, and never print out a single one!

With one of these bad boys, you just better hope you click fast to get a good shot of that Space Shuttle lifting off.

Image credit: Alberico Bartoccini via Unsplash

3. Books filled with phone numbers

What time is that movie showing? Look up the theater in the phone book and call.

Want a pizza? Unless you have a Pizza Hut flyer–check the phone book. (And OMG – remember free personal pan pizzas if you read enough books?)

If only there were a centralized search tool with all the phone numbers AND the other information so you didn’t even have to call…

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4. Along came the internet

Remember the initial excitement of hearing the dial-up modem start to go? And then the boredom as you waited for it to connect…

As soon as it finally did, your mom needed you to get off the internet because she looked up a number in the phone book and needed to make a call…

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With the widespread adoption of the internet, communication leapfrogged into the new millennium.

5. You could phone home from anywhere, for 25 cents

Remember pay phones? I think the last time I saw a working one was in New Zealand, but before that, it was definitely the movie theater in my home town when I was 16.

Sometimes they even came with their own phone books!

Image credit: Maarten van den Heuvel via Unsplash

6. When you called, people would answer

And then they invented answering machines and caller-ID and suddenly, we could screen our calls if we wanted to.

Sure in 90s we mostly still rolled the dice–unlike now. Who even answers their phone anymore?

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7. Conference calling was a luxury

If you wanted to talk to 2 friends at once, you had to convince your parents to pay for 3-way calling. Of course they wouldn’t, because it was too expensive, so then you had to invite the friend with the rich parents.

Now you don’t even opt in–people stick your number in group texts and your phone explodes for hours.

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8. Going to the mall was like planning a covert operation

You had to plan where to meet and what time and god forbid someone be late. And then if you split up, you better have a plan for when and where to be if you wanted a ride home!

Otherwise you’ll be looking for a pay phone and scrounging for quarters.

Image credit: Dieter de Vroomen via Unsplash

9. Thank goodness they invented cell phones

We had one in our car in the late 90s, just for emergencies. You couldn’t really use it, or you’d go over your minutes and get slammed with a massive overage fee!

Going out of town? Take it, I guess, but for heaven’s sake don’t use it or you’ll rack up roaming charges! Basically, it was for emergencies and the Snake game.

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Media of the 90s was pretty great too. Remember learning how to program the VCR?

10. Tapes or CDs: the eternal question

The two co-existed side-by-side for awhile towards the end of the decade. Of course you WANTED CDs. But tapes were so much cheaper.

And also, did you have a discman? Or a CD player in the car?

We couldn’t quite give up those cassette tapes because no one could record to CDs yet, and anyway “mix CD” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Image credit: Mayte Wisniewskit via Unsplash

11. Oops–recorded over again!

Speaking of mix tapes, how about taping your favorite episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation? Just me?

But how many times did you accidentally record over something important? (I meant to keep that one!) Or record the wrong channel and instead, you got the 9:00 news?

Image credit: Daniel von Appen via Unsplash

12. Be kind: Rewind

And speaking of tapes, who didn’t love going to Blockbuster on a Friday night? The new releases might cost more, but if you rented 6, the seventh one was free.

Just don’t be late returning it and rack up all the late fees.

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Toys and games were different in the 90s too.

13. Blowing the dust out of Nintendo cartridges

Videos weren’t all you could rent from Blockbuster, after all. You could rent video games, too!

And if you put it in, and it didn’t play quite right? No worries!

Just blow in the cartridge, blow in the machine, clear away the cobwebs and it worked as good as new.

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14. You know what dysentery is because you died of it on the Oregon Trail

When asked what we wanted on our tombstone, a popular answer in my school computer class was “Pepperoni and cheese”.

Why did we use to specify cheese though? The world may never know…

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15. The loss of a Tamagatchi pet hit you like it was real

They were real to us. They were ours, and we loved them. We didn’t want to let them down.

Tamagotchis

16. At camp, we made tie dye

It was a legitimate arts and crafts project.

Image credit: Sharon McCutcheon via Pexels

Every single one of these takes me back to my childhood. If these situations ring true for you, then you definitely grew up in the 90s.

Which ones hit hardest for you? What did we leave out? Let us know in the comments.

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These Tweets From the Last Blockbuster Sure Are Funny

The last Blockbuster Video is gone with the wind, which is very sad for kids like me who grew up roaming around video stores…

But the good news is that the legacy is still alive with a hilarious Twitter page called “The Last Blockbuster” that imagines what’s still going on inside that one last franchise that’s still holding on for dear life…

We love it and we think that you’ll love it, too.

So enjoy these tweets and have some laughs!

1. God has no place here.

This is where the sinner congregate.

2. Come meet the team!

Sounds like a pretty fun place to work!

3. The Last Blockbuster is never going away.

Don’t even think about it…

4. This place is all about family values.

That’s why I still rent my movies there.

5. You did what you had to do.

You just couldn’t keep your hands off of it, could you, customers?!?!

6. Guys, please help out in this department.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

7. I love this idea!

I’ll take RoboCop 3!

8. Trying to cut out some of the fat.

What about my beloved Horror section?

9. This could get really ugly.

And super duper weird.

10. They are brutal!

Try not to get on their bad side, okay?

11. We don’t get involved in those kinds of disputes.

How else can we help you?

Now we want to hear from you.

What are some more funny social media accounts we should be following?

Please share some links with us in the comments. Thanks!

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Scientists Discover That Pigs Can Actually Play Video Games

There’s a new pig in town, so step aside Wilbur.

In the classic children’s book Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White introduces readers to a very smart little piglet.

As someone who loved the book in 3rd grade, I was only a little surprised to learn that pigs actually are genuinely very smart!

Image credit: Lucia Macedo via Unsplash

Earlier this year, pathobiologists from the Center for Animal Welfare Science at Purdue University in Indiana gave 4 pigs a test originally designed for primates.

They wanted to see if pigs could combine multiple complex tasks to earn a treat.

Image Credit: Frontiers in Psychology

As Rebecca Nordquist, the Assistant Professor of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University explains:

The animals need to understand the link between moving around a joystick and what’s happening on a computer screen, and then link what’s happening on the screen to getting a reward.

The four pigs tested were all able to do that to some extent, showing off their smarts.

Each time the pigs successfully completed their task, the researchers gave them a harder one, like progressive levels in Tetris or Mario.

Image Credit: Frontiers in Psychology

Now pigs, of course, do not have opposable thumbs. They were trained to move the joystick with their snouts.

Unsurprisingly, and probably for a variety of reasons, while the pigs were initially successful, they did not perform as well as their monkey predecessors.

Pigs have long been reputed as being very smart, but there are certain tasks that tend to challenge them.

Again, Professor Nordquist explains:

Mirror use, for instance, is not something all pigs can master, and while they can use simple geometric shapes to decide what response to give, recognising other pigs from photographs proves too difficult.

This was surprising since other farm animals like sheep and cattle are able to recognise their sheep and cattle friends on photographs.

Aside from the fact that it’s really bloody interesting, why do scientists care how smart pigs are?

For three reasons, the first being that it’s just really bloody interesting to get into the mind of a pig.

The second reason is a bit more practical. As farmers try out more ethical and socially responsible farming methods, they need to make sure that what they’re doing actually does benefit the animal.

For example: What good is letting pigs roam free if they can’t easily navigate the larger environment to find the food and water that they need?

And the third reason is to help us understand the pig’s “intrinsic value.”

Professor Nordquist describes this as:

Instead of monetary value as an agricultural product or value to a human as a companion, this is the value it has for being itself, just as a pig, with all of the piggy things it does, such as oinking, rooting for things like truffles, socialising, and natural intelligence.

Image credit: Benjamin Wedemeyer via Unsplash

It makes sense. Because the more we understand a thing, the more we love it.

And whether a pig’s intelligence makes people forgo the bacon or not, it could go a long way towards how the animals are treated.

Maybe that’s wrong–maybe they should all be treated as though they’re as smart or smarter than us, simply because they’re alive. But the reality is that humans assign intrinsic value, and so researchers want to make sure that value is weighted correctly.

Either way, it’s pretty remarkable that pigs can play video games. I would like to challenge one to a friendly round of Dr. Mario–truffles are on me if they win.

Did this absolutely blow your mind, or do you have one of those pets who you’re sure is smarter than most people? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Helpful Wombats Led SomeThirsty Animal Friends to Water

I really love wombats. In 2007 I even visited Australia Zoo, where I got to cuddle the larger-than-expected marsupials.

Like the rest of the world, I was devastated to hear about the wildfires ravaging the Outback, and ecstatic to learn that in some parts of the country, wombats were saving the day.

Image credit: Meg Jerrard via Unsplash

The Outback is vast and sparsely populated, so it’s easy for unusual animal behaviors to go unnoticed.

But on one particular cattle ranch in New South Wales, it became evident that Wombats were helping the ecosystem to thrive despite the drought.

You see, wombats like to burrow deep into the ground.

And on Ted Finnie’s ranch, the wombats burrowed into an underground pool.

Image Credit: Upper Hunter Landcare

As Newsweek reported:

According to Finnie’s estimates, the hole—which looks more like a “crater”–is now around 20 meters (65.6 feet) in diameter and four meters deep.

While some animals had been able to access the water before the wombats got to work, their burrowing widened it up into a nice little billabong that could serve the wider animal population.

Image Credit: Upper Hunter Landcare

Associate Professor Julie Old, a biologist at Western Sydney University, told ABC News:

“It’s almost like the wombats are water diviners, they’re finding the water and digging the holes to get to the water and the other animals are taking advantage of it.”

Image credit: David Clode via Unsplash

They certainly have the claws for it, and lots of other native species are reaping the rewards.

Finnie told the news outlet a recently erected camera trap captured birds, goannas, possums, echidnas and emus drinking at the water hole.

This story was particularly gratifying on the heels of another story earlier in the year that claimed wombats weren’t just digging tunnels but were actually herding other animals into their burrows to protect them from the fire.

I 100% believed this was true, but some experts were not so quick to buy in.

They reminded us laypeople that there’s a fine line between rounding up other hapless species and simply allowing them to coexist.

As one researcher put it:

“I wouldn’t say that wombats are “happy” about sharing with other animals, but they will “tolerate” them as long as they don’t disturb the wombat too much,” Dr. Michael Swinbourne, an ecologist at the University of Adelaide, told AFP.

Honestly, I like the idea that wombats are the marsupial saviors of the Australian animal kingdom.

But I can also accept that they are simply a critical part of a balanced ecosystem, doing their part and letting the others follow.

Either way, they are very good sports, and basically heroes in my book.

What do you think? Should we nominate wombats for a Nobel Peace Prize? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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The Singular ‘They’ Has Been Around for Centuries

FYI, my pronouns are she/her/hers.

When I was a kid, grammar was a big deal. Diagramming sentences… when to use singular and plural…

Sometimes I honestly feel like I am the ONLY person who uses “so-and-so and I” correctly.

And yet, as kids, it felt very natural to use “they” when talking about a person without specifying their gender.

We all did it in the 90s, until it was “corrected” out of us by the grammar police.

Turns out, the kids were all right. We were right.

Image credit: @nadia_bormotova iStock

It can feel confusing sometimes to read “they” in a singular context.

But if the human brain is good at anything, it’s reprogramming itself.

As Lifehacker explains:

We are taught from the moment we start speaking English that the word they is meant solely to describe a plural distinction.

Nonsense.

The oldest written example of the singular they emerged in the 14th century, when it was used in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf.

There’s no telling why they did it back then.

Maybe they weren’t such sticklers for grammatical rules as we are now–they were making up the language as they went along, after all.

Or perhaps they recognized that the generic “he” was discriminatory towards women.

Either way, if you’re a woman who has ever felt annoyed by the generic “he,” then you should probably consider getting on board the “they” train because it’s easier to say and more inclusive than “he or she.”

Image credit: Sharon McCutcheon via Unsplash

It might feel like a new concept, but it’s not.

Just like no one had to teach us to do it when we were kids, delving into the literary canon will find ample examples of writers utilizing the singular they and their.

The Oxford English Dictionary wrote a history of this type of usage, and 5 years ago The Guardian published an article detailing specific historical examples:

Geoffrey Chaucer in 1395, who wrote in The Pardoner’s Tale: “And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, They wol come up…” Shakespeare followed in 1594, in The Comedy of Errors: “There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me/As if I were their well-acquainted friend”.

It took a few centuries for they to pop up in reference to women: Jane Austen uses they in the singular 75 times in Pride and Prejudice (1813) and as Rosalind muses in 1848’s Vanity Fair: “A person can’t help their birth.”

Pride and Prejudice is one of my all-time favorite novels, so I was delighted, but not surprised, to see that Jane Austen employed the singular they.

The fact that it fit so seamlessly into her sentences that I didn’t even notice is further proof that stodgy grammarians shouldn’t hold the modern world back from employing the more inclusive pronouns.

Some examples from Pride and Prejudice, thanks to Pemberley.com include:

“But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable.”

And also:

“I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. … The venison was roasted to a turn — and everybody said they never saw so fat a haunch.”

If you need a reminder, one thing I remember very clearly from 8th grade English class is that “Each, either, neither, all the ones, and all the bodies are singular.”

Image credit: @Erik_V via iStock

Now, more than perhaps any time in history, people are waking up to the need for decolonizing language and making it more inclusive.

And that’s okay. All you have to do is take an introductory college course in English literature to realize that language is constantly evolving.

We don’t use the character thorn ( þ ) any more, and for certeyn (certain) we don’t spell words however we want to most of the time (I’m looking at you, Chaucer).

But still, language necessarily evolves, because if you don’t change, you die.

After all, they added Klingon to the dictionary. So I think we can allow a singular they.

Because if it makes someone feel more truly represented and seen, then it’s totally worth the effort.

What do you think? Does it come naturally to you, or does it take some practice? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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A Woman Found a ‘Candyman’ Portal in Her New York Apartment

There are stories on the internet, usually about people who live in apartments, often those apartments exist in NYC, where something totally freaking scary pops up out of nowhere.

Sometimes it’s ghosts, sometimes it’s scarier than that because it’s actually real, but I have no idea what could be freakier than finding a portal in your apartment…and then trying to figure out where it leads.

That’s exactly what happened in this TikTok video series, when a woman feels a draft and discovers it’s coming from behind the bathroom mirror.

Then, things get really weird.

In Part 1 of the series, she lays out how she found the draft, and she shows us that there’s a draft (because it’s blowing her hair), and that she’s figured out it’s coming from the mirror.

@samanthartsoe

seriously never would I have expected to find this… and I documented all of it #mystery #fyp #nyc #secret #foryou #apartment #storytime

♬ Mysterious – Andreas Scherren

In Part 2, we get the reveal of what’s behind the mirror. Because.

There’s a big ol’ hole.

@samanthartsoe

HOW IS THIS IN MY BATHROOM WALL #mystery #nyc #apartment #secret #storytime #fyp

♬ Mysterious – Andreas Scherren

Part 3 was her going into the hole (it was an ordeal) with her friends there bearing witness.

Oh, and she had a hammer. Good thinking.

@samanthartsoe

TRULY a new meaning to a “hole in the wall” #mystery #nyc #apartment #secret #storytime #fyp #foryou

♬ Oh No – Kreepa

She finds like, a whole apartment that’s not being rented and doesn’t have heat.

What it does have are signs that people have been inside of it, maybe hanging out, and a door to the street that’s unlocked.

@samanthartsoe

crawled through a wall for this mystery so enjoy the finale ??‍♀️ #mystery #nyc #apartment #secret #storytime #storytime #fyp #foryou

♬ Mysterious – Andreas Scherren

I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE WENT IN THERE Y’ALL.

Definitely do not try that at home, because anyone could have been in there.

ANYONE.

She’s probably too young to have seen Candyman, because anyone who is old enough to have seen it would have just made a brick wall in that hole and called a couple of priests. Just saying.

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UFO Chicken Coop Raises Arts and Crafts to a New Level

I think I’m medium-crafty. I knit and crochet. Last year I sewed a LOT of face masks.

But I don’t take on large, ambitious projects that can’t be easily unraveled.

So I am super impressed by people who build actual things, and I loved the story of one couple who took nerdom and crafting to a whole new level.

Back in 2017, Ellen (née DeAngelis) and Brett Wilson of Boise, Idaho expanded their chicken flock.

And as any poultryman knows, chickens need a coop for roosting and to keep them safe from predators.

Being self-described “UFO nerds,” Brett and Ellen came up with a pretty cool plan.

They documented the whole process over on Backyard Chickens so that like-minded and ambitious chicken keepers could do the same.

We quickly determined that the satellite dish would be a stellar foundation. We located two 10 foot dishes on our local Craigslist page and jumped straight into this project.

I didn’t even know you could buy giant satellite dishes on Craigslist, but I guess that’s why I don’t have an awesome chicken coop.

My favorite part of their plan were the mods that they did to make the saucer extra homey and spaceship-like:

We cut window holes for windows and screwed in 6″ acrylic surveillance camera covers we found on ebay. They work perfectly!

They added a laminated wood floor, which can be easily removed for extra cleaning.

After that, the couple cut-to-size 1″ styrofoam insulation, because it’s Idaho and chickens don’t exactly live in igloos.

Next step was covering the insulation with a waterproof barrier. We chose a roofing material similar to tar paper called roofing felt at the local box store.

We cut pie shaped pieces and covered the craft…. hitting the seams with a hardy roofing tape. We then covered the craft with an Aluminum paint to provide waterproofing and a classic UFO color.

This paint is designed for roofing and would also help keep the coop cool in the Summer by reflecting light away.

We had to air the coop out for several days to eliminate any harmful fumes that may be lingering.

I’m just saying, these are some pretty pampered chickens.

After the satellite dishes, the next most ingenious step was placing the whole thing on top of an 8′ trampoline to protect the flock from coyotes and other predators.

Lights were the final touch to truly make it look like a spaceship! (and definitely the best part)

We used 2″ clear tubing to house the LED lights and put the power source on the back hatch door.

The lights are individually addressable LEDs with a 5v 4a power supply controlled by an Arduino mega.

When winter arrived, they added some additional heat that could be monitored remotely using RaspberryPi.

What an amazing home for their chickens.

For Halloween one year, they put out inflatable aliens and more lights, and they were the hit of Boise.

Their next big project was an indoor/outdoor playground for their house cats, which looks like it was also a great success.

Clearly, I need to up my craft game because this is next level creativity!

What do you think? Do they win Pet Owners of the Year?

Be sure to hit us up in the comments!

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