A northern Virginia woman, known on the Internet as “Tunnel Girl,” or Engineer Everything, is constructing a massive underground tunnel below her house.
You’ll find her on TikTok detailing her process and journey.
Category: Pop Culture
Popular culture, culture that seems to spread beyond more than three people
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Competitive jigsaw puzzle solving
Sometimes, as they say, the algorithm delivers. In this case, a YouTube video of competitive jigsaw puzzle solving popped up from one of the more well known puzzlers, Karen Puzzles.
There is a surprising intensity to the competition, especially when the competitors are near completion and each only have a dozen or so pieces left. As a sport, and provide plenty of material for ESPN quality commentary – history of competitors, techniques, and more.
In the below video, she attempts to do a speed run of a 5000 piece puzzle, breaking down strategies and approaches for competitive jigsaw puzzle solving.
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Art History hidden in Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s engagement photos
There are too many coincidences for this not to be intentional, but some of these are not commonly referenced artworks. Art historians found numerous references to classical paintings in Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s engagement photos.
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Co-op as affordable housing
The Swiss pioneering a different approach to affordable housing: co-ops.
What if homeownership had no profit motive and no capital gains?
In Switzerland’s member-based cooperative housing, new residents buy shares to gain admission to the building and get one vote in the corporation regardless of how many shares they own. The co-op uses the money to maintain the building, keep rents below market rate and, often, provide communal amenities like child care.
When a resident moves out, their shares are returned at face value. There is no capital gain.
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Play ball, get a car
Back in the day, a college football player getting a car required either subterfuge or other shady creativity. Today, however, with the free for all that is NIL, players can get a car easily, and car dealers are becoming a power broker with programs.
There has always been a mystique around cars in college football. Before NIL, there were whispers, message-board postings and social media photos soft-pedaling accusations of underhanded dealings by boosters.
Paparazzi-style photos appeared in the newspaper, like in 1979, when future SMU Pony Express (and Excess) star Eric Dickerson’s gold Trans Am made national news and became the most famous car in college football history, right up there with the Ramblin’ Wreck of Georgia Tech.
But now, there are thousands of Eric Dickersons. Players legally pose with their new sports car on a dealer’s Facebook page. While it takes some of the cool factor out of the old days, it’s a natural evolution for the combination of sports and commerce. And a Pontiac seems downright quaint in retrospect. Across the country, major college football parking lots might as well be outside the Chateau Marmont.
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Printing The Onion
While not profitable yet, The Onion is making money with subscriptions to its print edition.
Filled with spoof ads and satirical headlines that often take swings at the news of the day, the Onion has more than 53,000 subscribers paying as much as $9 a month. The publication has a new deal to sell its papers at Barnes & Noble, and is expecting about $6 million in revenue this year—up from less than $2 million in early 2024.
The Onion isn’t profitable, but Chief Executive Ben Collins aims to turn a profit next year. “People like getting something in the mail that’s not f—ing awful,” he said.
The publication’s results show that old-fashioned media products can find a niche despite changing reader habits and an unforgiving digital landscape.
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Banana Ball growth pushing up against MLB
As Banana Ball grows, where does it fit in the sports landscape with Major League Baseball?
On a Friday night this summer, the New York Yankees packed Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in a rematch of last year’s World Series. An hour south that same evening in Anaheim, another major-league stadium hosted a sold-out ballgame, but the contest had nothing to do with the nation’s most venerated sports league, Major League Baseball. It was between a troop of dancing ballplayers called the Savannah Bananas and a rival of their own creation, the Firefighters.
MLB officials say they view the independent Bananas not as competition but as a complement, an aid to the number of baseball and softball fans everywhere. To MLB, the Bananas are an entertainment product — not competitive with an established sport and closer to a stadium-filling concert, or a sport-adjacent show like the Harlem Globetrotters of basketball.
But Jesse Cole, the Bananas’ owner, sees what he’s creating as much more than just baseball vaudeville.
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The Rise of the Groomzilla
Perhaps because most of my friends are past the getting married stage of life, but apparently, groomzillas are a new trend.
On subreddits like r/weddingshaming, you’ll find viral posts in which users vent about or seek advice on managing the groomzillas in their lives, like the groom who demanded his groomsmen spend more than $4,000 on an elaborate, multi-day bachelor party, or the guy who insulted his bride’s appearance during the first look, commenting that her makeup and manicure didn’t look good and that her gray hairs “stood out.” Over on r/bridezilla, one post spells out all the ways a woman’s fiancé actually out zilla’d her — reviewing and approving every placecard, centerpiece, and decoration himself, in addition to requiring he and his bride learn the Charleston (and perform it) and hand-roll 75 chocolate cigars to give guests in custom bands and cigar boxes.
The rise of the groomzilla is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, when a groom’s investment manifests in controlling, aggro behavior — well, then we’ve created a monster. On the other, it feels like progress that hetero men are finally helping shoulder the labor of planning nuptials.