Macaroni Demons
Macaroni Demons
Internet round-up for the week of October 14, 2024
Greetings, friends! Happy Friday.
Fall has *officially* arrived here in Chicago, and I know for SURE because a) I am eating pumpkin spice Cheerios and b) our radiators had to be turned on this week. I’m happy to report that they are wonderfully warm and just as loud and obnoxious as they were last year.
I’ve never lived in apartment with such annoying radiators. Obviously they can be a little noisy if they have air in them, but supposedly the system here is bled every year to let the air out. I am…dubious, at best.
Our radiators seem to have 3 modes:
off/closed
king cobra hiss
loose ball bearing rattling around in there somewhere
The one in the office is constantly set to loose ball bearing, whereas our living room rad is locked into king cobra hiss mode. The bedroom, though — now that’s where it gets exciting — that radiator does either or both of those things at any given time. You never know quite what you’re gonna get.
Luckily, we have a little space heater we can use in there so we can actually sleep if we have to close it up for being too loud. I guess all I really care about is that we’re warm, but warm and quiet would be ideal.
As usual, it’s been another incredibly busy week, but I’m happy to say that by the end of the day I should have most of the stuff hanging over my head wrapped up. I’ve got one larger piece I’ve been working on at Buzzfeed that should be out later today, and I’m excited to get that one out into the world.
It’ll come as no surprise that I’ve been heavily online, so let’s get on in to what I’ve got for ya this week:
Headline of the week
Yes, you’re reading that correctly — a guy paragliding over the top of the pyramids (also: I had no idea that that was a thing you could do) happened to catch a dog, on video, running around barking at birds on the top of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
(I had to include the video here because I just don’t think the pictures really provide the context and scope of just how high in the air the dog climbed to bark at birds. Truly iconic.)
If you, like me, were instantly concerned about how the dog might get down — not to worry — apparently he just ran back down the side of the pyramid like it was no big deal.
A tour guide happened to catch him making his way down (there’s a video of that as well). He seems incredibly unbothered, like this is just a normal occurrence for him. Climb 450 feet, bark at birds, descend for a nap.
I’m obsessed. I’m barely motivated enough to go 450 feet down the street for a cup of ice cream — much less scale a millennia-old historical engineering feat of mankind to spend an afternoon doing one of my hobbies.
Also, I am now of the firm belief that all dogs deserve to visit the Seven Wonders of The World and also to climb them so they can bark at birds.
Billionaire boys
Bryan Johnson has been suspiciously quiet for so long this summer, I’d started to wonder if he’d accidentally aged a day or something and was keeping himself out of the public eye.1
But: behold! He has returned to let us know he’s had all his blood plasma removed and replaced with pure albumin.
Here he is being incredibly normal while holding all of his blood plasma in a bag:
Off the top of my head, I don’t remember anything about albumin except that it’s in egg whites. I’m actually currently working on replacing my entire blood supply with another form of egg white: meringue. (Though I’m just doing it very slowly over a lifetime with a heavy consumption of desserts.)
Anyway — let’s see what ol’ BJ has to say about all this:
Completed my first total plasma exchange (TPE). Removing all the plasma in my body and replacing with Albumin.
This is different from what I did last year: removing 1 L of plasma from my body and then replacing it with 1 L of plasma from my blood boy. I gave my one liter of plasma to my father.
This time around there's no blood boy involved.
TPE removes all of my body’s plasma and replaces it with Albumin. The therapy objectives are to remove toxins from my body. The evidence is emergent.
“This time around there’s no blood boy involved.”
THIS TIME, IT’S PERSONAL.
“The evidence is emergent” is actually exactly how I substantiate my claims about Taco Bell and Chipotle being the ideal human diet.
The operator, who’s been doing TPE for 9 years, said my plasma is the cleanest he’s ever seen. By far. He couldn’t get over it. When we finished, he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. He was imagining all the good that it could do in the world.
Okay, BJ. Take it easy.2 We get it, you’re the best at being healthy. Well guess what? I’m the best at having a Marie Callender’s microwave meal for dinner last night and surviving this morning’s intestinal cramps. We all have our talents.
There is probably a path to auction off or donate my plasma on this next go around. Liquid gold.
Billionaires gonna billionaire, am I right?
BJ — just a thought here — what if you like, found someone who was super ill and then just like, I dunno, gave them some of your weird blood parts? And sponsored them having your special boy olive oil? And like, hooked them up with a pill pile? Just…a thought.
Anyway, I just have to add — so much of the commentary about BJ that I’ve seen makes the exact correct point: This 47-year-old man is spending every dime he has only to look like the most 47-year-old man alive. Good luck, babe. Keep it up.
Brands-a-brandin’
We’ve got a new cross-promotional brand collab this week! Get excited for the *drumroll*…Wicked X …Great Value Macaroni & Cheese Microwavable Cup!3
These flavorful cups start with creamy, cheesy pasta, but the real magic happens when you add water. Watch as the macaroni transforms into vibrant pink or green color. Perfect for kids and the young at heart, this whimsical meal turns an ordinary lunch into a colorful adventure!
Oh, a COLORFUL ADVENTURE! What a MYSTERY!! Which appetizing color of macaroni and cheese will you get: PINK? OR GREEN??
Here’s my favorite part of this collab: not a single piece of advertising, ANYWHERE, shows what the actual color of the macaroni looks like. Do we think…there’s a chance…it could be…off-putting?
Like, here’s another one of their ads:
Could be pink…Could be green! There are TWO options, which is why there are TWO cups shown here! But they are both sealed and closed. Imagine it for yourself! Because once you open this Pandora’s Box and release the colorful macaroni demons, you will regret it for eternity.
I went searching online for ANY images of these and could not find them. The web has been WIPED CLEAN of what the macaroni looks like. I’m serious. Every article promoting it, every mention on a news site…not a SINGLE ONE of them shows the actual product.
Do I want to know what the weird-colored knockoff Easy Mac looks like? Yes, I do. Am I willing to try it to find out? Absolutely not.
It’s giving purple ketchup.
I’m about to age myself (again), but does anyone remember these monstrosities?
My brother was soooo excited about the green ketchup. I distinctly remember wanting to be excited about it, but…I couldn’t eat it. There was just something off about it. It had a…quality. I can’t describe it. But it was…not good. It was not…ketchup.
Anyway, good luck with your brand promotion, Wicked. There’s absolutely no way this’ll end up in a “What were they thinking?” article in a couple decades.
High art
I am incredibly envious of an extremely cool new sculpture on NYC’s High Line that was unveiled this week, titled Dinosaur:
Dinosaur is a “a colossal, hyper-realistic sculpture of a pigeon cast in aluminum” by Iván Argote. Apparently, it’ll be displayed on the High Line until the spring of 2026, which gives me just over a year to get my shit together enough to visit NYC and take a picture with this giant rat of the sky.
What more could you ask for? A giant pigeon that won’t leave poop everywhere! Utter perfection. I wonder if maybe Iván would be willing to loan this to Chicago for a while when its time in NYC is done…
Pour one out for the Disgusting Brothers, who seem to have flown south for the winter. Hope to see ya next year, boys.
Randomly selected animal cutie
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Look at this sweet doggie who came out to support all the people running the Chicago Marathon!! I love seeing the faces of everyone who comes by to pet him and how excited he is for each and every one. Dogs forever.
That’s it from me this week! I’m off to finish up this season of Love Is Blind so I can figure out who I hate before the finale. Have a great weekend!!
K
If an anti-aging billionaire ages a day, but nobody sees him, did he ever actually age at all?
I say as my plasma claws its way around my body looking like water wrung out of an old dirty dishrag.
IT’S ALREADY OUT OF STOCK.
I am with you on the dogs and Seven Wonders of the World idea!