Becca Pizzi has run 52 marathons on seven continents and trained in all sorts of places and conditions, but there's one constant when she hits the road. She's always on the lookout for people who might want to harm a woman running alone. "Every time I go out, my guard is up," said the 36-year-old,...
America is heading down the tubes, and these idiots will never understand why until they’re born into a situation in life identical to mine, and then get raised exactly as I was, and ultimately wind up with precisely the same family dynamic, education, and romantic prospects I’ve had. Listen, if you’re not willing to take the time to grow up in the same part of the country I did, in the same kind of home, as part of the same racial and religious groups, and with the same amounts of good and bad luck I’ve experienced over the years, then I’m sorry, but you’re always going to be wrong.
When 37-year-old Long Beach, CA resident Benita Abraham received some wonderful, life-changing news, she did what many people do in that situation and shared her happiness on Facebook. In an album you can view here, Abraham (and a few friends) can be seen seen posing alongside the reason for their infectious excitement—but there aren’t any uncomfortably caressed baby bumps or shitty future spouses in the photos. There’s something that’s really worth celebrating: a job offer.
Aww, boo. I like Taran. Jay was underutilized but his impressions were the best.
According to a report from TV Line, both Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah won’t be part of the Saturday Night Live cast when it returns to NBC for a 42nd season this fall. Apparently, they’re both leaving “to pursue other opportunities,” but this Uproxx interview with Killam makes it sound like it wasn’t exactly his decision (his contract wasn’t up yet, for one thing), though he does have a big movie to work on. Either way, an NBC representative confirmed the news to TV Line, so Pharoah and Killam are officially out now after six seasons. Pharoah’s exit will deprive the show of its President Obama during the 2016 election season, just like in real life.
TV Line says SNL is “expected to introduce several new cast members before the launch of the new season next month” which seems like a necessity at this point ...
If you're gonna talk shit, you back it up. Well done Lilly King.
If you missed the news the other day, there was a huge race scheduled for Monday night in the pool at the Rio Olympics. It was the women’s 100 meter breaststroke between America’s Lilly King and Russia’s Yulia Efimova. Not only was it intriguing because the two are outstanding breaststrokers, but it made headlines because Efimova had been busted for using performance-enhancing drugs in the past and, after she earned a spot in the finals, King used her platform on NBC to call Efimova out.
So leading up to the race for the gold medal in the event on Monday night, all anyone wanted to talk about was King vs. Efimova. And once the race ended, the American come out on top. It was an intense matchup and the two were close for all 100 meters, but in the end, King – who is a student-athlete at Indiana University so, uh, good luck, Big Ten swimmers! – took down her newfound rival. King swam the race in 1:04.93, which is a new Olympic record, while Efimova registered a 1:05.50.
It was a huge win for a bunch of people: King, the USA swimming team, everyone who hates performance-enhancing drugs, and of course, the internet. Immediately after King won, people on Twitter went wild, celebrating because the 2016 Olympics produced a new American hero. As you can guess, there were Rocky IV jokes. Lots of them.
Lilly King missed the opportunity to do the Mutumbo finger wag right in that Russian girl's face but that was still awesome.
Swimming is one of those sports that shows up every four years and produces a few new stars at the Olympics. Congrats, Lilly King. You’re the latest person to become an American hero for your performance in and out of the water.
Judge finds Katie Ledecky unable to be tried by jury as she has no peers
The thing to understand about American swimmer Katie Ledecky is that she is an athlete without opponents. There may be other swimmers in the water with her whenever she participates in a race, but the only person capable of beating Ledecky is past versions of herself.
Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian in history, and he is widening the gap by a massive margin with his latest win that set him atop the pantheon with 23 total medals, and 19 golds. That’s nineteen golds! Some people don’t have 19 gold anything, let alone Olympic gold medals.
The United States men’s team made the 4x100M free relay look easy, but they were bouncing between second and nearly third place for almost half of the race, while France and Brazil held the front position. Then, when Phelps came off the blocks, everything slowed down as the superhuman swimmer took the lead and never looked back. His teammates, Caeleb Dressel, Ryan Held and Nathan Adrian have joined Phelps in the history books. It was truly a race that added one more thrilling chapter to Phelps’ incredible book.
This cements Phelps as the greatest Olympian of all-time. The next closest Olympian, Larisa Latynina, has 18 medals and *only* 9 golds. Keep in mind that this was the first of six total events that Phelps will swim in this, his final Olympics. It’s entirely possible that Phelps will go on to win over 20 golds, which is incomprehensible, considering he’s the only person to even earn 20 medals total.
It’s only the beginning of August, but I’m already overwhelmed by all the new and returning series premiering this fall: From comedy to drama to sci-fi to psychological thrillers, there’s a show — or two or three or four — to suit any sensibility. We’ve compiled 30 of the most intriguing series hitting the airwaves/internet in September and October. If the upcoming Gilmore Girls miniseries is the only show on your TV horizon (Nov. 25!), then whip out your calendar and start scheduling.
SEPTEMBER
9/6: Atlanta (FX)
I am so excited for this new FX series created by and starring Donald Glover. It’s set in Atlanta, duh, where Glover grew up, and follows Earnest “Earn” Marks (Glover) and his cousin, Alfred Miles (Brian Tyree Henry) as they navigate the city’s hip-hop scene. It’s loose and shaggy and funny and sad and scary, and exists in a world TV rarely bothers to explore.
9/8: Better Things (FX)
Speaking of worlds TV doesn’t often explore, Better Things, created by Pamela Adlon, is based on the Louie actor/writer’s experience as a working actor raising three daughters as a single mother. Part of the reason Gilmore Girls was such a revelation was its depiction of a single mother-teenage daughter relationship, and when it was on the air, it was a life raft in a sea of stable nuclear TV families for this single-mother mama’s girl. Better Things is a much more R-rated version of that story, of course — kind of like if Adlon’s character on Louie got her own show. It’s great. Give her more shows, please-n’-thanks!
9/6: Queen Sugar (OWN)
This highly anticipated series, from Selma director Ava DuVernay and based on the book by Natalie Baszile has already been picked up for a 16-episode second season, and the premiere is still a month away. The series chronicles the lives of estranged siblings in Louisiana who come together to run an ailing sugarcane farm after a family tragedy forces them to reunite — not unlike the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Greenleaf, about a family that owns a megachurch in Tennessee. DuVernay has been promoting Queen Sugar heavily on social media, particularly the fact that every episode is directed by a woman.
9/9: Quarry (Cinemax)
Quarry is based on the popular, long-running series of novels by Max Allan Collins about Vietnam vet Mac Conway (Logan Marshall-Green) who returns home to Memphis, finds he’s been shunned for his involvement in the war, and winds up working as a contract killer. Based on the first episode, Quarry is a little too “white man with gun is sad, so forgive him his trespasses” for my taste. But I’ll give it a chance, if only for its exploration of Mac’s PTSD.
9/9: One Mississippi (Amazon)
In 2012, Tig Notaro got onstage at Largo in L.A. and revealed in a very funny, very candid standup set that she had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer — oh, and also, her mother just died and she had just gone through a breakup. One Mississippi chronicles that four-month period in six episodes, so expect to feel all the emotions when this one drops in early September.
The effort to plant the seeds of white nationalism in the political mainstream, where they might blossom into pro-white political coalitions that appeal to a broader swath of Caucasian voters, will not be easy, according to the chairman of the American Nazi Party.
According to the Associated Press, three people were hospitalized in Oklahoma City on Saturday after a swarm of “30,000 to 60,000" BEES escaped and stung passersby during a BEE deal done wrong in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
When farmers markets abound with colorful, heirloom varieties of tomatoes, it’s time to seize the day.
With tomatoes this good, you could easily sit down to a plate of them for dinner every night without a hint of boredom, but why not have at least one other trick up your sleeve?
Think of this salad as a deconstructed BLT with some corn and fresh green beans thrown in for good measure.
The old adage says it’s better to be safe than sorry, and that is true. However, there are certain times when being cautious can go a little too far, and the 2016 Rio Olympics are a prime example.
The elite swimmers who have trained their entire lives to make it to the Olympics have probably spent more time in the pool than, say, a random lifeguard, so it seems pretty unlikely that they would suddenly forget how to do what they’ve been doing their whole life and start drowning. Should that happen, though, they are protected, as a Brazilian law states that lifeguards must be present at any public pool over a certain size and that includes the Olympics.
The New York Times captured the above image of a bored lifeguard who got a pretty decent seat for an Olympic swimming trial, and reporter John Branch also explained on Instagram that there are 75 lifeguards working the games in Brazil. Branch also noted that in events like Synchronized Swimming, concussions are more prevalent than you may think, which justifies having the lifeguards on duty.
Still, it’s an incredibly odd site to see, and the internet didn’t know what to make of it. Although they mostly went with “and you think your job is boring!” jokes.
At the end of the day, it’s not harming anybody to have the lifeguards on duty, and if somehow an accident did happen, the swimmers would probably be grateful to have them around. Still, I have to imagine that is the easiest money those lifeguards will ever make in their lives.
In the fall of 1996, Tom Hanks, hot off Forrest Gumpand Apollo 13, cemented his role as America’s rose-colored glasses with That Thing You Do!, a directorial debut that looked at the music of the 1960s through the sanitized filter of a fictional pop band called The Wonders. Like the group’s titular hit single, That Thing You Do! floats in a strange, alternate version of the decade completely unmoored from the actual culture that defined it. It’s a world where seemingly no one’s worried about trying to compete with The Beatles, even though everyone’s trying very hard to sound like them.
That Thing You Do! takes place in 1964, but it just as easily could have been about the year it was released—a year ...
Happy birthday to X-Files star David Duchovny, who turns 56 today. The Californication actor’s dry wit and straight-faced style makes him a fan favorite — and Duchovny’s approach probably came in handy when he became a ‘90s-era pin-up. In the upper echelons of the terrible-photo-shoots universe, Duchovny’s name is right up there with other all-timers like Leonardo DiCaprio and New Kids on the Block. We imagine Duchovny’s humor kept him sane while posing in the ridiculous poses and absurd clothes (or lack thereof) that we spotted in these embarrassing photos. We love you, Spooky Mulder!
Lake Tahoe is a very popular destination for humans looking to catch some summer rays and splash about without care. It will remain such a destination, so long as future visitors are willing to share the beach with these bears:
How devious is former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes? Following his July resignation
, amid an internal inquiry into his serial sexual harassment (and worse
) of female employees, a clearer picture of the infamously vindictive Nixon aide’s tactics has begun to emerge. For instance, according to a report this morning from Gabriel Sherman of New York magazine, he used Fox News resources to secretly spy on reporters critical of him and his network—including two employees of Gawker Media:
An inmate being held at a South Carolina detention center unwittingly freed himself by allegedly punching Dylan Roof in the face and back. That’s gotta feel good.
This is Pita Taufatofua. He’s from Tonga. He competes in taekwondo. He’s self-funded. His day job is working at Sandgate House in Brisbane, Australia, where he helps homeless kids develop independent living skills. He has an Instagram.
Hugo is a complete sweetheart and so well behaved for such a young pup. His favorite things to do are sleep on the sofa, play fetch, chew on the grass in the garden and go for walks. He loves the camera; whenever I have it out he holds his poses. Such a fun little guy with so much character, he's a little clown!
Anthony Silva, the Republican mayor of Stockton, California, was arrested at a summer camp he hosts for disadvantaged youth on Thursday after authorities say they found evidence the mayor played strip poker with and provided alcohol to minors, The L.A. Times reports.
In the industry of internet writing, certain truths become doctrine: Anger is effective, outrage more so, and dead girls and women—particularly those abused and victimized and murdered—rule the attention game. They are the internet’s profane saints and they have always fueled the media, selling newspapers and magazines and generating reliable clicks.
President Barack Obama's approval rating got its own convention bump, and now stands at its highest level since just before his second inauguration in 2013.
Some people just can’t stand to see others happy. Just a mere three days from the unveiling of the latest betrothed couple introduced via ABC’s long-running reality franchises The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, some cranky reporter at the TCA Summer Press Tour spoiled the fun by asking network president Channing Dungey about the show’s dismal record on casting diversity.
Granted, the question is timely in more ways than one. Lifetime’s Bachelor-skewing drama UnREALisexploring issues of race in its second season by casting a black man as the star of its Bachelor send-up, which the reality show itself has yet to do after 19 seasons. That season aired as Bachelorette JoJo Fletcher was selecting NFL bridesmaid Jordan Rodgers from a final four of nearly identical white contestants who could easily pass for the Axe Styling Gel street team.
As confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter, actor David Huddleston—probably best known for playing the actual Big Lebowski in the classic Coen Brothers film—has died. According to a statement from his family, he had been suffering from heart and kidney disease. Huddleston was 85.
Born in Virginia in 1930, Huddleston initially seemed set up for a career in the military. He attended the Fork Union Military Academy and became an officer in the Air Force, but he officially entered the world of acting after attending the historic American Academy Of Dramatic Arts. Most of Huddleston’s first acting roles were bit parts on TV shows, including Harrigan And Son, Adam-12, Then Came Bronson, Bewitched, and McMillan & Wife. His first big role in the movies came in 1972’s Bad Company, which starred a young Jeff Bridges—who Huddleston would memorably run into again later in his career.
Did you know that the internal monologue of the entire animal kingdom is actually just Aziz Ansari’s standup routine from Live at Madison Square Garden? Today, scientists a redditor named benmeiri84 may have made the biggest discovery to put us on the path to communicating with the creatures with whom we share this beautiful planet.
He took to the Internet to show the world a beautiful discovery: that Netflix seems (if truth can truly be as wonderful as fiction, and if this isn’t all made up — though if you look closely at the images, they look a little photoshopped) to have glitched and layered the closed captioning from the Ansari special atop what should have been Sir David Attenborough’s narration of Planet Earth. Apparently the glitch, if there indeed was one, was very temporary – and Netflix hasn’t commented yet on whether it actually happened at all.
Luckily for the animal kingdom, the range of topics covered by Ansari in his standup special is vast, so speaking through his routine actually affords them an immense vocabulary and knowledge of the human experience — from bar etiquette to the difficulties of living in Brooklyn to the deaths of famous rappers.
this is fuckin hilarious to me. Also, I've evolved my Magikarp into a glorious Gyarados.
There’s a lot of competition when it comes to the most useless Pokémon. Pidgeys and Rattata are overpopulated, Metapod and Kakuna just sit there, and Psyduck is kind of a hot mess. But if there’s one pointless Pokémon that takes the cake, it’s Magikarp—the flopping goldfish that’s pretty much useless unless you manage to collect 400 Magikarp candies and evolve it into a super powerful Gyarados. But now Magikarp has taken to Twitter to defend itself:
@AlexDalton123 imagine waiting nine months to give birth and it’s you
A small but mighty parade of puppies will pass through downtown Chicago again this Friday, courtesy of the Anti-Cruelty Society. [ more › ]
