Faceless Cusk Eel
Internet round-up for the week of May 4, 2026
Hello hello, and happy Friday, gang!
It’s a wonderfully sunny day here in Chicago, and I’m tolerating the fact that it’s 60° because everything is so pretty and green outside. This week has been pretty good for yours truly — busy, but good.
Next week, I’m heading back to Williamsport for the St. Nell’s reunion, and I can’t wait! I’m road-tripping this time with some other cool cats from Chicago, which should be a blast. I’m so excited to hang out with funny writers and learn some new tips and tricks for the second time this year!!
Not too much to report on my end otherwise, so let’s go ahead and dive on in to the goods from this week:
Headline of the week
Americans will use anything but the metric system, confirmed. (The researchers are Australians, but they didn’t write this headline.)
Fortunately for us, there’s no photo of this thing, because they only spotted it using “environmental DNA evidence (eDNA), the genetic debris shed invisibly by animals into the surrounding waters.”
“Shedding.” “Genetic debris.”
Very normal stuff happening down there in the deep sea, as always!
All told, the team picked up signs of 226 species, including megafauna such as Cuvier’s Beaked whale and the pygmy sperm whale, as well as some critters that had never previously been recorded in Western Australian waters.
These include the sleeper shark, the faceless cusk eel, the slender snaggletooth, and some species that could be completely new to science.
FACELESS CUSK EEL, huh?
Because I am a glutton for punishment (why do you think I’m online so much?) I looked it up, and since I saw it, now you have to, too:
(Would like at least one person to validate my immediate brain connection from this image morphing into the beginning screen of the Batman The Animated Series intro. Thanks.)
Researchers, scientists, whatever it is you like to call yourselves — this is an intervention.
You don’t have to do this. I love you! You’re worth so much more than this!!!
Please. Stop.
Rat City, Bitch
The above notwithstanding, SOME scientists are doing good research:
Look, I was pretty excited to watch the video on this article because I thought for SURE it was going to sound like human speech. Spoiler alert: it does not.
They make a kind of chirping noise, but the part that “sounds so much like human conversation” is how they wait for each other to finish making noise before the next one begins.
Obviously you need to see one of these guys:
Adorable. Can’t wait to converse with these little fellas in only a few hundred thousand (million?) years of evolution!
And look, I know rats are getting a lot of bad press right now, so I’d like to get ahead of it. And by get ahead of it, I mean become completely riddled with anxiety:
The TL;DR of this article is: Hey, it’s probably fine, maybe!
GREAT! That’s just what I wanted to hear. Really instilling confidence.
Please alert me if you see any excellent deals on giant packages of toilet paper.
Brands a-branding
I don’t know how many times I need to tell Brands™ to calm down, but BRANDS!!!! YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN!!!!!!! Just tell us about your damn sauces and stop the madness.
At least someone said it.
In other news, Portillo’s has released a 60” long Italian Beef Body Pillow:
An interesting development from the purveyors of chocolate shakes with an entire slice of cake inside. Tell me more:
You’ve had a Big Beef. Now meet the biggest beef. Our limited time Italian Beef body pillow is here and ready to take up way more than just your plate. It's soft, iconic, and while it may look delicious, we recommend stopping by Portillo’s for the real thing during Italian Beef Month this May!
Hm. $60. Do I need this?
No. Well…? No.
Also, just need to mention that the site specifies, “Please note: This item is not edible.”
Appreciate the clarification, guys.
Billionaire boys
All right, that’s enough food news. How about a palate cleanser?
Bryan?
Perfect, thank you.
Of course, Bryan goes on to discuss how every man on planet earth has a particulate-filled nutsack except him, but my favorite part of the tweet is actually this bit: “Note, what I did is n=1, not a controlled trial, I cannot prove cause.”
NOT A CONTROLLED TRIAL, HUH? Now how are you gonna sell your “protocol” when you can’t actually pinpoint which of your zillion ball zappers actually DID something?!?
At any rate, he actually managed to reach this er…level of cleanliness WITH the toxic turf still in his backyard (he’s since had it removed). Otherwise, he’s spent the better part of his week posting things like this:
Glad he and Kate are having fun, I guess.
Good read(s)
This may seem weirdly out of place for TMI, but I wanted to share the New York Times’ obituary for Philip Caputo. If you’ve been around here for a while, you may recall that I have a bachelor’s degree in History. Obviously, it’s a liberal arts degree, which required tons of writing — but also a lot of reading. One of my college classes required us to read Caputo’s A Rumor of War, a memoir about his time during the Vietnam War.
Nearly two decades after reading this book for the first time I’ve never forgotten it. It’s incredibly moving. I actually didn’t realize Caputo went on to become a journalist and worked at the Chicago Tribune before becoming an author full-time until seeing this obituary, so this was an enjoyable read for me. If you’re a person that likes learning about history and can stomach some pretty heavy themes, the book is definitely worth checking out. I highly recommend it.
And for a little levity: Infinite Jeffs.
Randomly selected animal cutie(s)
Surprise! It’s rats again (and “sky rats”)!
There’s something about the menagerie of animals here all enjoying pizza together along with “Another Day in Paradise” that I’ve found so compelling I’ve watched this 10-second clip no less than 10 billion times.
I only wish it was longer.
That’s it from me this week! I’m off to finish a massive pile of laundry to get everything ready for my trip. Hope you have a great weekend!
K
That memoir looks amazing! I’m adding it to my TBR.
WE'RE GONNA HAVE A GREAT ROADTRIP!!!