Weiner Cake
Internet round-up for the week of July 27, 2026
Heads up: Substack is telling me this post is too long for email. I refuse to make cuts because that’s what self-editing is all about. You may need to come to the site, app, or click “view entire message” to see everything.
Heya gang, happy Friday! The weather is overcast, humid, and hot here in Chicago — but I’m happily enjoying my final “summer Friday” of the year, writing this newsy and playing video games next to my window unit with a sweatshirt on. Living the dream.
It’s been quite a week over here — lots of ups and downs. As you may have heard, BuzzFeed did some layoffs this week. I was fortunate enough not to be affected by them, but I know from experience just how rough that can be, and definitely lost a lot of lovely and talented colleagues. It took me a couple of days this week to recover from the weird, PTSD-esque cloud that event seemed to kick off, but I’m feeling better now. Hoping they all find great new gigs as soon as they’re ready.
On the positive side: I finished my physical therapy yesterday! After about a year, give-or-take, I’m doing great. Initially I thought I’d only be going for a month-ish, but the whole shoulder issue kind of turned out to be a giant onion with a billion “stop sitting at your desk like a fucking shrimp” layers that had to be peeled back and resolved. It’s been lovely to have a therapist direct me through some exercises, but I’m ready (and excited) to actually go to a real gym now (hoping to find a good spot sometime in August).
I also got a notification yesterday that TMI had a nice little run as #98 in Rising Humor Substacks! 😎
I have no idea what that means, and I’m not looking it up.1 I’m already off the list now but at least I have this screenshot for posterity!
Otherwise, this week has been pretty solid. On Sunday, I went to see my pal asher’s live show at the Lincoln Lodge (he has a couple more upcoming in Detroit and Brooklyn if you wanna go (and you should)) which was really fun. Last night I went to a VERY silly dance class with my pal Katy and we learned2 some ridiculous pop star choreography and sweated a bunch. And I’ve still been deep in my research for a piece I’m working on at work — but I’m nearly finished, so it should be out next week, if all goes as planned!
As far as internet news goes — we’ve got a lot to talk about this week, so let’s dive on in:
Brands a-branding
Pepsi is teaming up with beauty brand Glamlite to release a whole suite of Pepsi-scented/themed products, most notably this Vanilla Slushie Body Scrub:
Hope it smells good!
Red Baron is creating a 50-topping frozen pizza for its 50th anniversary that you can enter to win:
Hmm. I spy extremely normal pizza ingredients cilantro, carrots, white cheddar, white cheddar, and white cheddar. Are we counting each of those cheddars as one individual part of the 50, or are there unlabeled items on here? They’re either cheating or there are some mystery ingredients in here I don’t want to know about. 🤔
And in honor of the Weinermobile’s 90th birthday, Oscar Meyer is collaborating with Milk Bar to sell a “weiner cake” here in Chicago:
It is, of course, exactly what it looks like: a funfetti cake surrounded by hot dogs.
Actually — no notes here, guys. This one’s good.
But what other summer party-related item isn’t good, you ask? Oh, that’s Domino’s UK’s garlic and herb flavored ice cream!
I can’t imagine anything more refreshing on a summer afternoon. Actually my favorite part of the article about it here is this quote:
Opinions were divided, with one fan admitting she “thought this might be an April Fools prank” another confirming “it actually tastes like garlic.”
Yum!
Lastly, if you’ve been here a while you may remember the Pringles x Crocs boot that had a lil Pringles case on the ankle — and if you missed out, a pair is currently on sale on Facebook Marketplace for only $200. What a steal.
Robot uprising
It’s been a minute since we were introduced to a terror-inducing robot. Luckily, the wait is over! Check this thing out:
This baphomet-inspired device is called “Threehalves,” is supposedly a “superhumanoid general purpose robot” and is made by the company Satyress.
I wish the “satyr” part of meant it was satire, and not a horrifying goat-man, but alas. Here we are.
Obviously, I went over to their website to have a gander at our future overlords.
The bot is designed, Satyress says, to assist “in jobs that are dangerous for humans now, or impossible, due to risk of injury or death, extreme heat, bitter cold, pitch darkness, or other inhumane conditions.” It has a “quickconnect wrist interface” designed for power tools, and thankfully they made that clear with this important graphic:
They describe Threehalves as has having “resilient precision” in “uncertain environments,” and then the next thing you scroll down to is this:
You guys mean the opposite, right? That it is NOT more dangerous than it looks? Is this supposed to help sell it? Have you guys seen this thing, like, at all?
Nothing at all disconcerting about a pair of unblinking eyes staring at you from the other side of a glass door!!!
According to them, though, the reason for that image is to show you that the monster can’t come through a “standard American” doorway due to its attached horns (and it can’t turn around in a hallway, either.).
I’m so glad they mentioned that honestly because I hadn’t even considered that the robot would ever need to enter a standard American doorway, and now I can’t stop thinking about it. Also good to know that “2 Threehalves robots fit side by side in crouched position in a pickup bed of 5'6" or longer with tailgate closed.” Thanks, fellas.
Of course, if all else fails (read: it somehow enters a standard American doorway), there is a way to stop this thing, and they’re more than happy to spell it out right there on the website: shoot the robot with a gun.
Quick Q: have y’all considered, like, making the air reservoirs bright yellow or glowing or something? Just for the gamers out there. You know.
Can’t wait to have a nightmare about this.
Billionaire boys
Speaking of nightmares, earlier this week, Bryan made one of his playful little “oh, maybe I’ve changed my mind, maybe I’ll have some fried cheese curds from Culver’s one day” posts.
But if we know anything about Bryan by now, it’s that these statements are a trap designed to get us to pay more attention to whatever unhinged thing he’s about to tell us next.
Exhibit A, just one day later:
Date night!!!
Bryan went on to call menstrual blood “valuable and underutilized,” which is honestly the kind of thing a fellow who just replaced his blood boy with a big glob of clone-adjacent cells would say. Or this guy:
Anyway truly happy for these freaks to have found each other and for Bryan to have a portal to Antarctica in his garage, I guess.
Beej also shared more data about his trip to Australia (specifically what happened to his guts after he ate meat while there), a video about women’s health, and Kate’s daily protocol down to the minute (I would die).
Here’s a quick sample of the end of Kate’s day:
+ 8:08 PM - Log mood, appetite, stool, etc
+ 8:10 PM - Read / wind down
+ 9:10 PM - Spit into tube
+ 9:13 PM - Urine sample for test 5
+ 9:17 PM - Red light mask before bed
+ 9:30 PM - Blow into metabolism tracker
+ 9:33 PM - Insert CGM
+ 9:33 PM - Swallow temperature pill
+ 9:40 PM - Put on sleep ring
+ 9:42 PM - Insert techno tampon device
+ 9:55 PM - Sleep
Can’t believe they’re calling that thing the “techno tampon” but I guess yeah of course they are. Appreciate you taking one for the team, Kate. Can’t wait to hear more about your junk via your boyfriend’s Twitter account.
Shameless self-promotion corner
My friend Nick Coffman released his comedy album today, and he was kind enough to invite me to do a bunch of voiceover for it a while back. It was an absolute blast and the sketches are very silly and fun. Go check it out over on BandCamp and let me know if you can figure out which characters are played by yours truly (hint: one of them is an old lady)!!
Randomly selected animal cutie
I know we’ve already talked about him fairly recently, but I had to share this move li’l Jimbo has added to his repertoire this week:
Hell yeah. Parkour!
PHEW. That’s it from me this week! I’m off to chill and play some more Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers. For the first time in a WHILE we have no plans to leave the house this weekend, and I for one, am very relieved. Have a good one!
K
I looked it up, obviously. It has something to do with the number of paid subscribers relative to subscriber count but I still only have 1 paid subscriber so I have no idea how this happened. (I don’t understand what’s happening and I won’t respond to it.)
I remember the first part and the end.
Your best title yet!
The hot dog cake looks like it was invented by that apocalypsebot tho? 😭