IKEA Monkey

One should always have a bag of chickpeas in their cabinet for impromptu hummus or quick meat-free meal, but you can also use the mighty garbanzo to make a rich and creamy pasta sauce.

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The Global G-2 is one of your favorite chef’s knives on the market, and Amazon will sell you one for $65 today, which is within a few pennies of its all-time low price. The dimpled handle might not suit every taste, but its 4.8 star Amazon review average is undeniably impressive.

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This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t:

The Onion, circa 2003

Between 1900 and 1924, Frank E. Buttolph collected 25,000 restaurant menus for the New York Public Library. Nowadays the collection houses 45,000, about a quarter of which are available online. You’re about to see a small sliver of them. For this installment of our weekly quiz, we’re asking you to guess the age of 10 American menus, ranging in vintage from the 1900s to the 2000s. Some are from very fancy restaurants, others from humble diners. Many are from New York City and the surrounding area. See if you can tell the decades apart by their food and their fonts—and their prices.

Happiness, Charles M. Schulz famously observed, is a warm puppy.

This reader makes the most important distinction, I think, in the debate over crying at work:

I really appreciate these curated conversations, thank you. To the woman who said:

I really despise seeing [crying] at work. Unless something just absolutely devastating happened personally (then go home and take care of it), then NO.

I say, you are without understanding and I will restrain myself from using stronger language to describe your unkind attitude. Crying for some is a completely involuntary reaction to stress. Whenever it happened to me, I HATED that I was crying and was FURIOUS with myself for the tears welling out of my eyes. My rational mind was completely divorced from the physical reaction and trying to hide it and re-gain control of my tear ducts as fast as possible, all the while trying to assure anyone around that I really am not as upset as I appear and simply cannot help it for the moment.

One of the few benefits of aging and menopause is that I no longer tear up as readily as in the past, so I presume hormones have something to do with it. But it should NOT be automatically assumed that it is always a measure of distress or a ploy for sympathy.

However, there has to be a distinction between welling up and sobbing; the former is involuntary and the latter is much less so. Have you ever had a situation at work where you simply couldn’t control sobbing? Tell us about it.

7-Eleven's new Wild Cherry Slurpee Donut features a cake donut flavored like the chain's Wild Cherry Slurpee.

I bought one for 99 cents.

Similar to cherry candy or cherry soda (or a Cherry Slurpee), there's a definite cherry-flavored quality to the red icing that I've never really associated with actual cherries. The same flavor carried on in the donut itself although with a mellower note punctuated with little globs of cherry-flavored red syrup.

The donut was a little dry but had a just slightly crisped, fried shell to it.

For crunch, the icing came topped with red-colored sugar crystals that I didn't detect any cherry flavor from. The crunch was reminiscent of chewing on ice, which seems to be the affect they were going for.

Overall, 7-Eleven's Wild Cherry Slurpee Donut pins down that Cherry Slurpee flavor really well, so mission accomplished on that front. But between the flavor and the sugar crystals, there's very much a candy-donut feel here that I'd rather eat take in separately. I wouldn't get it again but it was decently enjoyable.

Michael Jackson’s celebrity chimpanzee, Bubbles, is getting his own movie. The primate was something of an icon in the 80s after Jackson acquired him from a cancer research lab where he was bred for animal testing; the not-quite-human companion became iconic enough to be regurgitated by Jeff Koons as the above work of art. 

Now, Community creator Dan Harmon’s production company Starburn Industries and Andrew Kortschak’s End Cue are making a stop-motion film about Jackson, seen from the perspective of the chimpanzee. According to THR, it’ll be “in the vein of the Oscar-nominated film Anomalisa“; fittingly, Starburn Industries also produced that Charlie Kauffman stop-motion film.

Bubbles often accompanied Jackson to events in the 80s; he went with the musician on tour in Japan in ’89 and sat in on the recording of his album, Bad. He stayed with him until he eventually settled in the Center For Great Apes after the birth of Jackson’s son, Prince Michael II. The film about the chimp/Jackson was written by Isaac Adamson, and was a 2015 blacklist script. Here’s the official description of the screenplay:

A baby chimp is adopted by pop star Michael Jackson. Narrating his own story, Bubbles the Chimp details his life within The King of Pop’s inner circle through the scandals that later rocked Jackson’s life and eventually led to Bubbles’ release.

Service between those stations was suspended around 8:30 a.m. due to debris on the tracks. [ more › ]

Guys, relax. It’s just a balloo—

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Some car maintenance is easier than you’d think, but there’s still a lot that goes on under the hood that can leave you scratching your head. This video breaks down some basic rules to avoid a car repair ripoff.

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A state of the art ship funded by the UK government for polar research may soon be christened "Boaty McBoatface" if online voters get their way.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ruled out confirming President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, in a lame duck session after November's election.

If you have a piano or keyboard already and just need the benefit of a little instruction in the right way to play, the best way to read music, and a little music theory, Skoove can give that to you from the comfort of your browser. It’s free to start, and if you need more instruction, it’s not too expensive.

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Lomography has a list of the Top Five Iconic Female Photographers. I had never heard of Julia Margaret Cameron before -- you can check out some of her fantastic work here -- but Diane Arbus, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, and Vivian Maier are all favorites of mine. Here's a photograph from each:

Tags: Diane Arbus   Dorothea Lange   Margaret Bourke-White   photography   Vivian Maier

In a sign of just how much the Republican presidential primary has turned the party on its head, Sen. Lindsey Graham will headline a fundraiser on Monday in support of Ted Cruz.

The attack happened outside of Robert Zwolinski's Noble Square campaign office. [ more › ]

The FoodSaver V2244, which I’ve been using since early 2014, is a better way to keep your food fresh, and essential gear for Sous-vide. [FoodSaver V2244, $56]

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A lawsuit filed Wednesday by two former servers at one of his restaurants accuses celebrity chef Michael Chiarello of some fairly gross, highly specific sexual harassment. The women say they were “forced to endure a hostile, sexually charged work environment” at the hands of Chiarello, his executive chef, and other management at Coqueta, a restaurant in San Francisco.

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Donald Trump dislikes how Megyn Kelly asks him questions. He dislikes how the Fox News anchor covers election results. So, on Tuesday night, he dubbed her “Crazy Megyn.”

Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, drew criticism in August after claiming that Kelly, a veteran journalist and lawyer, treated him unfairly and had "blood coming out of her wherever." He chose to skip a Republican debate in January because Kelly was moderating. He announced Wednesday that he'd also miss the next Fox-hosted showdown.

The "Crazy Megyn" taunts registered to some as fourth-grade bullying. But questioning a woman's sanity is a 4,000-year-old form of abuse, used to repress women for behavior that men deemed objectionable.

Sigmund Freud perpetuated the notion in Western culture, declaring "hysteria" an exclusively feminine disease — and a justification for taking a woman's freedom. Symptoms matched the behavior of anyone who’s ever been upset: anger, sadness, anxiety.

The idea dates back to ancient Egypt, when “spontaneous uterus movement” was thought to induce hysteria, according to the United States Library of Medicine. People thought the cure was placing “acrid substances” near a sufferer’s vagina. Those who didn't respond to treatment were locked away.

Carolyn Zerbe Enns, a psychology professor at Cornell University, said women had to invent a branch of psychology — feminist psychology, which starts with the belief that women aren't inherently crazy — to combat these old myths, which were used to push daughters and wives into submission.

"The carryover of those cultural things,” she said, “affect women even today.”

Manifestations today are subtle and accepted as normal: Men call female partners “hysterical." Male bosses wonder if female employees possess the mental endurance to carry out difficult tasks. Male politicians dub the women journalists who challenge them "crazy."

Sometimes, Enns said, a man who acts this way believes he's protecting a woman's best interests.

“Donald Trump says, ‘Oh, I love women' — but, of course, they must fit into a certain category,” Enns said. “His hostility is aimed at women who are particularly competent and don’t fulfill his expectations for being a ‘good woman.’”

Men once had the right to lock “perfectly sane” wives in insane asylums, wrote Phyllis Chesler, co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology, in “Women and Madness.” Perhaps the women did not want to have sex. Perhaps they wanted to have too much sex. Perhaps they didn’t feel like making dinner. Perhaps they wanted to change the Sunday School curriculum.

Chesler pointed to the early case of Elizabeth Packard, who was committed to a Massachusetts asylum with “brain fever” in 1835 after disagreeing with her husband over religion. She was released three years later and began fighting for the rights of the other institutionalized women she met, who didn’t seem crazy to her.

Though the chances of unnecessary asylum commitment today are much lower, the assumption that women are crazier than men — even this man — remains prevalent in popular culture.  

Consider the "Universal Hot vs. Crazy Matrix," a recent viral video featuring a 46-year-old man charting the appropriate levels of beauty and insanity in potential mates. “Crazy is measured from 4 to 10,” he said. “Because, of course, there’s not a woman who’s not at least a 4 crazy.”

"Fox and Friends" called it “a handbook of sorts for men around America.”

In modern times, men call women “crazy” or say they’re “overreacting” to project superiority, said Harris O’Malley, a dating coach who blogs at The Good Man Project. The insult plays on the stereotype that men are “logical” and women are “emotional.”

“Small wonder that abusers love to use this c-word — it’s a way of delegitimizing a woman’s authority over her own life,” O’Malley wrote in a column. “When we talk about why we broke up with our exes, we say, ‘She got crazy,’ and our guy friends nod sagely, as if that explains everything. Except what we’re really saying is: ‘She was upset, and I didn’t want her to be.’”

In relationships, trying to convince your partner she’s crazy is known as “gaslighting,” an insidious form of emotional abuse, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. (The term came from the 1938 play "Gaslight," which featured a husband who attempts to drive his wife insane by dimming the lights and then denying the light had changed after his wife noticed.)

Nicole Hemmer, a Virginia historian and co-host of the Past Present Podcast, drew a parallel between the play and Trump’s recent treatment of political reporter Michelle Fields, who last week accused his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski of grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the ground.

Lewandowski called Fields "totally delusional."

Fields, who filed a police complaint, tweeted a photo of finger-shaped bruises. Video showed Lewandowski reaching toward her left arm at a political rally. And Washington Post reporter Ben Terris wrote that he saw it happen.

“If it’s hard to wrap your mind around the gaslighting of a nation, just watch the dynamics at work on a single person: Michelle Fields,” Hemmer wrote. “Lewandowski said Fields was crazy. ‘Totally delusional,’ he tweeted. Trump suggested she made the whole thing up.”

On March 12, Fields appeared on Kelly's show, the "Kelly File," and told the anchor that Trump’s campaign was attacking her character.

“This has to be, aside from my father’s death, the worst experience I’ve gone through,” Fields said.“The hate I’ve received, the email messages… I’m sure, Megyn, that you can sympathize.”

Sadly, it looks like the theme of today is men harassing women online. First, Ashanti was forced to appear in court in front of her stalker, who not only sent the pop star “disgusting, derogatory, disrespectful things” on Twitter, but had already “gone to jail for doing the same thing” to her before more than once. Now, it looks like Chris Brown is making the rounds for something similar: allegedly harassing a woman on social media with violent remarks and death threats. Subsequently, she has filed—and been granted—a restraining order against the singer.

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Jacai Colson, a Prince George’s County (Mary.) cop, was killed over the weekend by friendly fire during a shootout outside PGC police headquarters. Today in a press conference, police chief Hank Stawinski said that Colson was shot not accidentally, but instead “deliberately,” by a fellow officer who mistook him for one of the three suspects who participated in the offensive.

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Things I love in no particular order: tacos, burgers, wrestling, confusing knockoffs of popular things. To wit: I once bought a knockoff Chanel shirt that said “31 Rue Jambon” instead of “31 Rue Cambon” because I am so amused at the idea of the refined fashion houses’s historic flagship being relocated to “Ham Street.” Now, all of the things I love have majestically been combined thanks to this Mexican restaurant my heart may have willed into existence.

Monterrey’s John Cena Burgers & Tacos is a weirdly dated mishmash of take-out food and seemingly unrelated WWE Superstars:

Man, if we can get Randy “Pork Sausage” Orton to catch on as a nickname when he returns from injury, I am TOTALLY on board

I’m sure there are all sorts of sticky likeness-rights and lincensing issues at play here, but look. Let’s get real. I’m sure WWE has all of these fancy plans and (hopefully) pun-based menu items for their proposed Hall of Fame restaurant in Orlando during WrestleMania 33, and that’s great. I, however, would be significantly more inclined to visit if it were just a food stand where I could make tacos appear by pointing at a picture of Arn Anderson’s face. Now that’s the real dream.

h/t Reddit

Here’s a fun video about the dangers of sleeping with non-virgin women because they’re “dumpsters” permanently full of “genes” from previous sex partners. This is a video that a teacher in southern Russia thought would be cool to show his eighth graders, Meduza reports.

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