I have nothing against this show. I have, despite writing about genre shows and movies for a living, never seen a single episode of Supernatural. I don’t know why, it’s not on purpose, I just haven’t. But it’s going to outlive me.
Supernatural heads into its twelfth season this year. In a year, Supernatural will be a full-fledged teenager. In six, Supernatural will be eligible to vote. (But it’ll be a midterms year so it won’t.)
I’m trying to think of scripted shows—that weren’t anthologies—that made it as long. And I’m realizing that Supernatural had best watch itself before Law & Order comes out of retirement for the express purpose of teaching the upstart. As it is, SVU’s going to start college in the fall, and it’s not a fan of the upstart.
What makes Supernatural amazing is that it’s a show where the two central actors are still around—neither Jared Ackles or Jensen Padalecki [note to self: check these names before publication] have left yet.
And until they do, Supernatural will barrel on to TV immortality. “Jared and Jensen seem very happy,” CW President Mark Pedowitz said today. “If the ratings hold, the show could outlast my tenure in this chair [of the CW].” He might be joking. But he is more likely foreseeing the future.
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Lifehacker has a great explainer on Sous-Vide cooking for you to check out, but the basic idea is that you seal the food in plastic bags, and then cook it in precisely heated water over a longer period of time. It sounds weird, but trust me when I say that it works like magic.
Every time we post this, we get some snark about the Wi-Fi connectivity, so just know that it’s optional. If you connect your phone, you can find a recipe via Anova’s app, and automatically program the cooker with one tap, but you certainly don’t need to use it.
Stick-anywhere LED lights are great for everything from closets and cabinets to bathrooms and hallways, and this OxyLED tap model is just $5 on Amazon today with promo code 4SCSPJDW.
In addition to six different cleaning modes (including one for your tongue), a travel kit, a pressure sensor, and a timer, the Pro 7000 also syncs to an iOS or Android app that tracks your brushing habits and offers personalized feedback.
I know a lot of people are reflexively against the Bluetoothification of everyday household items, and that’s fine. What I’m saying is that even if you never download that app, this is still a fantastic toothbrush at $100. Just be sure to clip the $20 coupon on the page to get the full discount.
Without a subwoofer, this might not be ideal for a main home theater sound system, but it’d be a massive upgrade to, say, your bedroom TV’s built-in speakers. And when your TV’s turned off, it’ll also work as a massive Bluetooth speaker for playing music from your phone.
You probably looked at that image up there and laughed. But let me tell you, there’s nothing funny about using the bathroom in the middle of the night and having to turn on an overhead light to see where you’re going. Because as soon as you hit that switch, you know you’re not getting back to sleep for another hour.
GlowBowl fits on just about any toilet, is motion activated, and can even output seven different colors of light. Most importantly though, it won’t wreak havoc on your circadian rhythms. It normally sells for $20, and is worth every penny, but you can pick one up from Amazon right now for $15, matching a Prime Day deal.
The TiVo for cord cutters comes with lifetime service and a 1TB hard drive, and Amazon’s offering the first deal we’ve ever seen on it today.
The original Roamio OTA sold for $50 with a 500GB hard drive, but you had to pay $15 per month for the TiVo service. The new model though comes with 1TB of space, and usually retails for $400 upfront, with lifetime service. Assuming you’ll use it for more than a couple years, that’s a good deal on its face, but Amazon’s taking an extra $28 off the sticker price right now, while supplies last.
Just note that this model is not compatible with cable services; it’s designed specifically for use with an OTA antenna, such as the top-selling Mohu Leaf.
There are surely more powerful drill/drivers out there, but this 20V model from Black & Decker includes 100 accessories, and a battery that lasts for 18 months all for just $60, today only. That’s unsurprisingly an all-time low price, but this is a Gold Box deal, meaning it’s only available today, or until sold out.
The heat is raging on but that doesn’t mean your mind can’t be on the cooler months. Patagonia’s 30% off sale is full of cold-weather staples like their Nano-Air Jacket and Ultralight Down Vest (plus a few summer styles leftover as well). Stock up on men’s and women’s styles while the prices are way low.
If watching the USWNT has you in the mood to go kick some soccer balls around, Amazon’s running a deal on all the gear you need from Adidas. Inside, you’ll find gloves, shin guards, apparel, and of course, balls. Just note that like all Gold Box deals, these prices are only available today, so don’t wait around until stoppage time.
Settlers of Catan is one of those games that should be on everyone should have on their shelves, and Amazon’s marked it down to $31 today. That’s the lowest price of the year, and within a few pennies of an all-time low. Unfortunately, they won’t trade it to your for two wheats; I asked.
For several months now, single-port Quick Charge 2.0 wall chargers have bottomed out at $5. Today though, you can get a dual-port model from Omaker for just $4 with promo code QOM3OFT3.
If your phone already supports Quick Charge 3.0, you can get a dual-port wall charger and a (non-Quick Charge) car charger for $20 as well. Just add both to your cart, and use code CQERFTDC.
$17 is a great price for a 15,000mAh USB battery pack, but it’s insane for one with a built-in solar panel. Obviously, that little panel would take days to fully recharge the battery, but it’s good to have the option if you’re camping or caught without power for a few days.
It’s 2016, and your vacuum shouldn’t have a cord anymore. The Hoover Linx features an 18-volt battery, a motorized brush that you can turn on and off, and an easy-to-empty receptacle, and Amazon will sell you one for $97 today. That’s not an all-time low, but it’s a solid discount from its usual $110-$130 price range.
Copper string lights are so hot right now (but not literally, because they’re LEDs), and you can choose from two different options on sale today. $8 gets you a 33' strand that plugs into the wall, or you can opt for a $10, 20' set that runs off of solar power.
Rice cookers have their place, but if you’re just cooking for a small group, and don’t have a ton of storage space, this $14 3-cup (cooked) model from Black & Decker might be all that your kitchen needs.
If there’s one thing I have too many of, its striped shirts (or so I’ve been told). But if you, like me, appreciate a good Breton stripe and know that you can never actually have too many, this one’s for you. Grab 20% off sale shirts and sweaters from L.L. Bean, including this awesome striped number. That Heather Grey is calling my name.
If you missed out in theaters, Amazon and iTunes will rent you an HD copy of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight for just a buck right now. As with all digital rentals, you’ll have 30 days to start watching, and then 24 (iTunes) or 48 (Amazon) hours to finish, so you don’t have to find time to watch it tonight.
A small new batch of $20 Nintendo Selects games will be released on August 26, and if you have Amazon Prime, you can get any or all of them for just $16 (discount shown at checkout).
iClever’s BoostCube travel USB charger isn’t as small as the Aukey we highlighted earlier this week, but it can put out 12W and 2.4A per port, rather than sharing that amount of power between both. That’s a ton of power for $7 (with code DEALBIG1).
You don’t necessarily have to have children to appreciate Babyganics’ scent-free, hypoallergenic products, and Amazon’s taking an extra 35% off over a half a dozen products. Head over to this post for the full list!
Speaking of deals to make your bike smarter, this $18 gadget from KMASHI is an LED headlight, Bluetooth speaker, and USB battery pack all rolled into one. That means you can roll between Pokéstops all night long, and be able to hear when a new Pokémon comes into range.
Mpow brought affordable Bluetooth headphones to the mainstream, and today, they’ll sell you a pair with active noise cancellation and IPX4 waterproofing for $15. Awesome haircut not included.
If you don’t already own a water filtration pitcher, this PUR 11-cup model is marked down to an all-time low $23 today. This particular model includes an LED indicator light to remind you to change the filter, and the filters themselves are less expensive than Brita’s.
I’ll tell you a secret: I don’t really care that much about filtration. I mostly like these because they mean I always have ice cold water ready to go at all times.
You all know the drill with these dry bags by now. They keep your phone safe from the elements whether you’re surfing in the ocean, swimming in a pool, or just lounging on the beach, and $7 for a three-pack is about as cheap as you’ll ever see them.
By now, most of you probably have a USB battery pack or two to keep your phones charged, and that’s great! But I’m willing to bet most of them won’t start your car if its battery dies.
The $59 Anker compact car jump starter has your standard pair of USB ports and a 10,000mAh built-in battery, but it also ships with a set of removable jumper cables to jolt your car’s engine to life in a pinch. Once you’re up and running, it’ll even recharge itself via an included 15V car charger, so it never even has to leave your glove box.
Hopefully you don’t need to use this often, but it’s one of those things you’ll be really glad you bought when the time comes. This particular model has been a little cheaper during a couple of Amazon Gold Boxes, but today’s price is still well below its usual $70-$80.
No Man’s Sky, $48 for Prime members. Discount shown at checkout.
There’s a little-known indie game called No Man’s Sky out today on PS4, and if you have Prime, you can snag a copy for $48 (discount shown at checkout).
In case you weren’t aware, this 20% video game discount is available for Prime members on all preorder and new release games (physical copies only), out to two weeks post-release. So if you’re ready to take off an explore the universe, this is an easy way to save $12.
You spend 1/3 of your life in contact with a pillow, so it had better be a good one. This Langria bed pillow is stuffed with chunks of shredded memory foam, and it can be yours for only $24 today with code BACKTOSS. Don’t sleep on this deal.
Amazon bills this buy two and save $5 promotion as a back to school special, but I’m not going back to school anytime soon, and I would still love to buy some of these snacks. Eligible products include everything from Lays chips to Starbucks Refreshers to oatmeal, so head over to Amazon and pick out your two favorites.
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If you thought that there couldn’t be a somehow even more delightful behind-the-scenes story behind the amazing Supergirl moment when Barry brings Kara and James Olsen ice cream, prepare to be proved wrong.
But amidst all the excitement, the joy, and the casting announcements, there was one brief moment where the producers behind Supergirl and Flash discussed the delightful moment in the first Flash/Supergirl teamup, where Barry fetches Kara and James an ice cream cone, because he’s an adorable dork—and it makes us love these guys even more. Here it is, via TV Guide’s liveblogging coverage of the panel on Twitter:
So a) they changed Barry’s treat from coffee to ice cream just to make it cuter, and b) Melissa Benoist ate three of the ice creams during shooting. Melissa Benoist is not just all of us when looking at ice cream, she is all of us when eating copious amounts of it as well. Truly the best spirit guide humanity could ask for.
Between this and the fact she sometimes carries puppies around the set, I’m not sure what else the team behind Supergirl could reveal about Melissa Benoist to make me squeal in delight even more—but I’m looking forward to it. This show is the goddamn best.
If Lando is in the young Han Solo movie, does that mean we’ll get the history of the Millennium Falcon, too?
The news comes from The Wrap, which reports that the film is casting the part of Lando Calrissian. And... that’s it No other details, but that does hint that it’s going to take place once Han’s started working as a smuggler. We know Han and Lando have a long history and that Lando lost the Falcon to Han in a sabacc game. I want to see that game so badly.
If you do a search for “Disney VHS” on eBay, you’ll find plenty of 1990s Disney movies to choose from. You’ll also notice something strange: a lot of people are asking for a ton of money. Literally hundreds of people are asking for more than $1,000 per tape for everything from Beauty and the Beast to The Little Mermaid. Dozens more are asking for over $10,000 per tape. One person is asking for $1.5 million for 12 Disney tapes. What’s going on here?
First things first, you’re not going to get rich from your Disney VHS collection. Literally every middle class family of the 1990s had these tapes, and unless Walt Disney’s frozen head personally signed your copy of Aladdin, its street value is roughly $1.50 at your local Goodwill. So why are so many people asking for outlandish prices on eBay?
It all started with an article in the Tech Times that was published back in May of this year. The provocative title “You May Have Hit the Jackpot If You Still Own This Disney Movie on VHS,” certainly caught plenty of attention and it spread like wildfire from there. Even respected news outlets around the world like the Sydney Morning Herald were tricked into reporting on this non-story recently.
The original article and subsequent viral articles that followed looked at eBay listings for Beauty and the Beast VHS tapes from 1992, which were part of the “Black Diamond Collection.” This collection, like all of Disney’s home video releases, were only available for a limited time to preserve a kind of artificial scarcity, despite the fact that they literally sold millions of copies.
Some of the sellers on eBay from May were asking for nearly $10,000 for this “incredibly rare” version of Beauty and the Beast. The catch? Obviously they’re not so rare since they sold millions of copies. And more importantly, asking for a particularly high price on eBay isn’t the same thing as actually selling something for that price. The original article in Tech Times doesn’t seem to understand that.
It’s certainly possible that one or two people have gotten confused and purchased a regular, old 1990s Disney VHS tape for more than a few bucks on eBay. But that doesn’t mean you should. Unless, like I said, Mr. Disney somehow managed to put his John Hancock on the thing.
Elvis pumped out two and sometimes three movies a year throughout the 1960s. The later the year, the more likely the film would contain a musical interlude that was less song than surreal bit of performance art.
Here we see Elsa “Bride of Frankenstein” Lanchester as an unamused yoga teacher, and the Big E—playing a Navy veteran turned treasure-hunting deep-sea diver who also happens to be a nightclub crooner—as her hopelessly inept student.
The look in Elvis’ eyes as he rhymes “serious” with “posteriors” cannot be described with words, only a sound: uggghhfuckyoucoloneltomgetmeouttahere.
2. “Edge of Reality,” Live a Little, Love a Little
This is the 1968 film—in which Elvis plays a photographer with a very demanding gal pal—that contained “A Little Less Conversation,” a song that enjoyed a resurgence thanks to a funky remix and its inclusion on the Ocean’s 11 soundtrack. But it also has the odd ditty “Edge of Reality,” which contains some of the most self-conscious dancing a man once known as “Elvis the Pelvis” could muster.
This is the closest to a “dude ... I’m totally tripping” scene that Elvis ever got to do, and he does it in a light blue suit, worn over a sequined turtleneck.
3. “He’s Your Uncle, Not Your Dad,” Speedway
Another 1968 entry; this time Elvis plays a race-car driver (as he often did) opposite Nancy Sinatra, one of his better leading ladies. The big conflict is that Elvis’ character has a shady manager who gets his client into big trouble with the IRS by fucking up his taxes.
Clearly, that is a great reason to break into song, with some outstandingly awkward choreography as an added bonus.
4. “Confidence,” Clambake
In this 1967 entry, which has precious little to do with clams and/or baking them, Elvis plays a rich kid who trades places with a water-skiing instructor, as one does, to see how the other half lives. There’s a romance (with frequent Elvis co-star Shelley Fabares), and there’s also this mind-blowing, ever-so-slightly racist song meant to inspire kids who are afraid of playground rides.
5. “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” Double Trouble
Elvis plays a singer yet again in this 1967 film—but this time, he’s in Europe. In this scene, he subverts a classic nursery rhyme by imagining what Old MacDonald’s farm would be like if the farmer threatened to chow down on his noisy animals every time they “got out of line.”
“Hamburger medium rare” has never before sounded so chilling.
6. “(There’s) No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car,” Fun in Acapulco
In this 1963 comedy co-starring iconic Bond girl Ursula Andress, singer/lifeguard/cliff diver Elvis pitches woo with the unfettered joy of a man who has no idea Beatlemania is about to throw a major monkey wrench into his teen appeal.
Fun fact: “rhumba” is a euphemism in this context. Fun in Acapulco also spawned a massive hit for the King in “Bossa Nova Baby,” a celebration of the Brazilian dance craze, which, being such, did not hail from Acapulco, Mexico.
7. “Love Me,” This Is Elvis
This posthumous concert documentary came out in 1981 and it contains this scene of a late-career, visibly less snake-hipped Elvis prowling the stage, handing out sweaty scarves to eager audience members. He’d done it throughout the jumpsuit era, but usually only once or so per show. This particular distribution of neckwear, however, was so generous that a bandmate had to trail behind the King with a fresh supply throughout the song.
The YouTube video title is unnecessarily mean. Look how fucking ecstatic those people are—no matter how wacky he (or his career) became, Elvis never forgot his fans. TCB forever, man.
The computer graphics in Godzilla Resurgence are quite good. Let’s see how they all came together.
While I have mixed feelings about the film itself, I loved the look of it, the camera setups, and the CG.
The CG felt tactile and heavy like the models and miniature sets of the past. As Kotaku previously reported, a Japanese stage actor did Godzilla’s motion capture performance. It’s the 21st century’s version of suit-acting, and it does bring realism to the character’s movements.
The CG is a nice look. I hope it’s the blueprint for future films.
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.
Futurist Ray Kurzweil has theorized that the technological singularity—the moment when artificial intelligence surpasses all human intelligence and brings about the end of humanity as we know it—will happen in the next three decades. In a new series for FX, Seth Rogan is ready to joke about it in the meantime.
Speaking to the Nerdist, Rogen said that he and producing/writing partner Evan Goldberg (Sausage Party, Preacher) were hard at work on the script and were planning to film the pilot next year. Rogen was reluctant to give too many details this early in its development—like, if he’ll be appearing on-camera at all—but he said, “It’s about artificial intelligence. It’s a half-hour comedy about the singularity basically,” before adding that the singularity theory is “super scary and we’re trying to make a comedy about it.”
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of our favorite things because it gives us images like the one above, which not only pictures a number of galaxies, but shows the introduction of two new ones.
Two tiny dwarf galaxies, called Pisces A and B, have left the area of the universe called the Local Void, which is a region sparsely populated by galaxies, and are joining the rest of the party, according to researchers at Hubble. The theory is that the gravity from the larger cluster pulled them in, which is noteworthy in itself, but scientists are watching over it for any changes, specifically in waiting for them to form stars.
Below on the left is Pisces A, which is around 19 million light-years away. On the right is Pisces B, which is around 30 million light-years way.
The galaxy-dense region is denser in intergalactic gas, meaning that star birth has a larger chance of being triggered. In this case, the dwarf galaxies seem to have started “a firestorm of star birth,” researchers said, compared to the lack of construction they experienced while in the void.
By watching the galaxies, researchers hope to experience star formation first hand.
“These Hubble images may be snapshots of what present-day dwarf galaxies may have been like at earlier epochs,” said Erik Tollerud. lead researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute. “Studying these and other similar galaxies can provide further clues to dwarf galaxy formation and evolution.”
Each galaxy contains around 20 to 30 bright blue stars, signifying that they are both less than 100 million years old.
Of course, Tollerud also notes that the galaxies could potentially stop making stars altogether and just become “satellites of a much larger galaxy.”
“So they will use up their existing gas. But it’s hard to tell right now exactly when that would happen, so it’s a reasonable guess that the star formation will ramp up at least for a while,” he said.
The second trailer for the first standalone Star Wars film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has finally arrived, urged forth by the legions of fans (and their memes of fraught anticipation) forced to sit through hours of Olympics coverage to see it. Was it worth it? HELL YES IT WAS. (Heavy breathing.)
We’ll have a full breakdown of the new Rogue One trailer for you tomorrow; the movie opens December 16.
Actually, there is an explanation: algae. Lots of them. Algae thrive in warm, still water, especially when there’s plenty of sunlight to break down pesky, antimicrobial compounds like chlorine. Alternately, the viridescent hue might have been caused by a simple chemical imbalance. But you know what every closeted 12 year old on the internet assumed it was?
Piss.
As reputable outlets like The Guardian and New Scientistfelt compelled to point out, the greening of the pools was not the result of a mass urination perpetrated by Olympic protestors or, I dunno, drunk gymnasts. But as Twitter polls this week indicate, a sizable portion of the public remains unconvinced:
As confusion, fear, and outrage swept the civilized world, my colleagues and I started to wonder: how much pee would it actually take to turn an Olympic pool green? To find out, I spent yesterday afternoon researching the human bladder, color theory, and 10th grade algebra.
The basic premise of my investigation was simple. As every first grader knows, blue + yellow = green. But when you’re trying to figure out how much yellow is needed to get from a particular shade of blue to a particular shade of green, things can get hairy fast. I soon realized I was going to need to make some assumptions.
The first thing I needed was a representative image of Rio’s Olympic pools before and after the Incident. I chose the image below, because it’s relatively well lit, shows us a contaminated and uncontaminated pool in the same frame, and doesn’t have any obvious Instagram filters.
Assumption #1
This is a representative image of the color of Olympic pools in Rio before (left) and after (right) the alleged mass urination. Note that the pool on the left is a diving pool while the pool on the right is a swimming pool, which might affect the color balance somewhat owing to different depths. For simplicity, we are assuming that the color of the two pools should be one and the same.
Armed with a sample, I downloaded the iOS app “True Color,” which allows one to determine the precise, mathematical proportions of red, blue, yellow, and white comprising a user-selected region of an image. At just $2.99, it was a steal.
Scientific research in progress. An example of the data provided by True Color.
After randomly selecting a handful of spots in both pools and averaging the results, I arrived at some rough estimates of their color compositions:
Pool Color Before Incident: 28% Yellow, (72% Blue + White)
Pool Color After Incident: 31% Yellow, (69% Blue + White)
In essence, the diving pool became 3% “more yellow” following the Incident. Now before we figure out how much urine that equates to, we need to make another assumption.
Assumption #2
Human piss is pure, unadulterated yellow.
It looks like this.
Wizz, the way God intended it to be.
This is arguably a much worse assumption than #1, for reasons I’ll discuss momentarily if you haven’t already guessed. But for now, let’s roll with it, because it simplifies the math. Standard Human Urine™ is yellow like a sun-kissed sunflower.
Finally, we must make one last, very important assumption.
Assumption #3
For every bladderful of vivd yellow excrement a human empties into the pool, he or she kindly removes a corresponding volume of pool water. In other words, the total volume of the pool does not change. We can safely assume this is correct, because the pool on the right in our representative image is not overflowing with piss-water.
Whew! Now, we can set up a simple system of equations to solve for the amount of urine needed to turn an Olympic pool green.
Given:
Pre-urination pool (PUP) = 28% Yellow
Post-urination pool (POUP) = 31% Yellow
Estimated volume of an Olympic diving pool = 1886 cubic meters = 1,886,000 Liters (based on an estimated average depth of 4.5 m, FINA), and estimated horizontal dimensions of 18.3 × 22.9 meters (iSport Diving)
Volume of “yellow” in the pool after urine is added = 1,886,000 × 0.31 = 584,660 Liters
x = amount of water left in the PUP after draining
y = amount of urine added to the POUP
We can set up two equations:
x + y = 1,886,000
0.28(x) + y = 584,660
Now, all we need to do is rearrange terms and solve the system for y:
y = 584,660 - 0.28(x)
x+ (584,660 - 0.28(x)) = 1,886,000
0.72x = 1,301,340
x = 1,807,417
y = 1,886,000 - 1,807,417 = 78,583
SOLUTION: It will take a full 78,583 Liters of Standard Human Urine™ to turn that sucker green.
That’s a lot of wizz!
According to Continence.org, a healthy adult bladder can hold up to 600 milliliters of urine. Assuming the Incident was perpetrated by a group of standard, full-bladdered adults, and assuming nobody peed twice, you’d need:
78,583 /0.6L = 130,972 full human bladders to turn an Olympic pool green
That is an awful lot of desperate bathroom-goers—it is close to half the population of Iceland. The mind boggles to imagine that many humans attempting to urinate in a pool over the course of a single night without attracting notice.
What’s more, remember assumption #2, about human urine being bumblebee yellow? Honestly it’s a garbage assumption, especially if the men and women who fouled the pool are well-hydrated athletic types, as one might expect to find at the Olympics. Here is a urine color chart I found via Google image search:
It would seem that standard human urine is more of a pastel color. If your pee is bright yellow, you my friend are severely dehydrated and possibly in need of medical attention.
What’s the implication? The implication is that 130,972 should be considered a lower estimate for the number of full-bladdered adults needed to turn the pool green. Given this reality, I’m sorry to say it’s very unlikely that even a highly motivated and extremely dehydrated group of disgusting people could have pulled this off without somebody suspecting something was up.
Serge Lehman’s critically acclaimed Masqué rocked the European comic world when it released a few years ago—and it’s starting up again, this time as an ongoing monthly. Get a first look at the new series, making its debut here on io9.
Written by Serge Lehman with art by Stéphane Créty, the first volume of Masqué was translated and released as Masked by Titan last year, but now it’s being updated and tweaked for release as an ongoing monthly comic—taking the story beyond the first volume for the first time in English.
Masked follows the life of Frank Braffort, a war veteran who returns home to a near future Paris, to find it transformed into a surveillance state ruled with an iron fist, and the emergence of a bizarre, petrifying phenomena known only as the ‘anomalies’ stalking the city. To fight the threat, Frank is called into action once more, donning a mask to take the fight against these mysterious beings to the streets.
Aside from new design elements and updated artwork, a series of new variant covers for the series by guest artists will accompany the new comic, ahead of it branching out into new stories from Lehman and Créty. Check out the covers for the first issue below, as well as a few pages from the first issue below.
Cover art by John McCreaCover art by Benjamin Carré Cover art by Steve KurthCover art by Stéphane CrétyCover art by Stephan Perger Interior artwork from Masked #1, by Stéphane Créty Interior artwork from Masked #1, by Stéphane Créty
Masked #1 hits US and UK shelves on November 23rd.
We finally got another trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story last night, and it was packed full of new stuff—including, of course, Darth Vader. We’ve gone through it with a magnifying glass and all of our nerdery to see what secrets and details are hiding inside it.
The opening shot is of this city/fortress built on a reddish rock mesa. This is Jedha, a planet that Gareth Edwards has said was once home to Force users. Donnie Yen, who plays blind warrior Chirrut Imwe, recently confirmed it’s the home of the kyber crystals, which are used in lightsabers—but are also important to the Empire as crystals for its new superweapon.
We get more of Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) and Jyn Erso’s (Felicity Jones) conversation, which also featured heavily in the last trailer. We know Guerra’s been waging a war against the occupying Imperial force on Jedha, so we can also bet that that’s where this is taking place.
“The world is coming undone. Imperial flags reign across the galaxy,” he says.
Just in case you were wondering just how occupied Jedha is, here’s a Star Destroyer parked above it.
Another thing that’s more from a scene we got in the first trailer: Erso’s briefing with the Rebellion. “Can you be trusted without your shackles?”
“Let’s just get this over with, shall we?” Erso says after Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) unlocks them.
“We have a mission for you,” says Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly). “A major weapons test is imminent. We need to know how to destroy it.” And a Star Destroyer emerges from the shadow created by the laser focusing dish being installed on the Death Star. It is not, as has been suggested by some, a cloaking device.
“If you’re really doing this, I want to help,” says Cassian. Which is interesting, since it implies that the actual, respected Rebel intelligence officer wasn’t put on the Death Star mission by his superiors, but asked to go.
This is also where we see that Cassian and Erso start off this mission in the newly-revealed U-Wing. It’s got a lovely canopy.
We’ve also seen bits of this shot before, but with what we now know, it seems like this marketplace is on Jedha.
The U-Wing flies through rock formations, mist, and lightning. The rock formations hint that it might be on Jedha, but I’m leaning to it either being another planet or at least a completely different part from the mesa seen earlier. I’ll show you why in a bit.
Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) says, “They destroyed our home” before letting out a volley of blaster shots that take out Stormtroopers at an Imperial station of some kind.
Since rocks and mist match the U-Wing shot from earlier—and a later X-Wing shot—it seems likely that Malbus and Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) are part of the ground team for a coordinated assault. This seems like part of the heist, as opposed to the Jedha scenes, which seem more like recruitment.
Another gorgeous shot of the U-Wing. Probably on Jedha.
“I fear nothing, all is as the Force wills it.” Imwe appears to be saving Cassian and Erso from Imperial captivity. His line also reminds us that he’s got no Force sensitivity, but still believes in it as a religion.
“The captain says you are a friend. I will not kill you,” K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) joins a long line of sociopathic droids. The “captain” is presumably Cassian, since we’ve heard that it’s Cassian who reprogrammed the Imperial droid to work for the Rebellion.
The Death Star arrives at Jedha, apparently upside down. And much closer than we’ve seen it need to be.
A rather ominous eclipse. That also looks like the mesa fortress we saw earlier right under the sun.
Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) arrives on what I assume is a Death Star deck.
And, on a completely different note, there’s a battle going on Scarif, the beach planet which is supposedly where the Death Star was built.
The battle footage from both Scarif and the market on Jedha are both things we’ve seen before.
“There’s a 97.6 percent chance of failure,” says K-2SO. No one has been identified as a Corellian yet, so no one tells him not to tell them the odds.
More on Scarif, with the black “Death troopers” which are Krennic’s own special force.
An exploding Imperial shuttle.
Appearing for the first time in this trailer, Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) as an Imperial—note the arm patch—who defects. This kind of looks more like it might be on the Death Star, but the door behind him is actually the bay of the U-Wing’s transport section.
X-Wings bombard the same Imperial outpost that Baze shot at earlier.
Baze also takes out an AT-ACT, a new kind of Imperial walker, on Scarif.
This looks very much like Erso and Cassian’s U-Wing is escaping from a planet being devastated. Maybe the upside-down and very close Death Star was for a test of its abilities on Jedha? Or the laser isn’t powerful enough to destroy it all, but a very fast way to mine kyber crystals to make the Death Star we all know and love? Either way, Jedha looks like it’s in major trouble.
And they have to jump to hyperspace to be safe.
Rocks and mist again—same planet as the X-Wings and Baze, as some unfortunate Imperial technicians get blown up by a burning TIE Fighter.
This looks like Erso trying to get out of an Imperial station in the day, which might be the one we’ve seen them attacking at night. The beaches and water behind it make it likely this is Scarif—so the team is there trying to get more information on the Death Star. It’s probably the second location, after they pick up Baze and Imwe on Jedha.
Obligatory team shot on the transport.
And the whole thing ends with Vader—apparently a different shot than was shown at Celebration. It looks like he’s standing in front of the kind of sensor system we saw in A New Hope, which detailed the Death Star’s line of attack.
Esmerelda joyfully takes to the pole, gives zero fucks about your slut-shaming. (Image: Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1996)
It’s the last day of Senior Week at Gizmodo, and this is my confession: I am a huge pole dancing fan. Something about the combination of dance and acrobatics, athleticism and grace, gets me every time. Plus it’s sexy as hell—but only if it wants to be, slut-shamers be damned.
I am also a huge physics fan, and pole dancing is chock-full of basic physics. Angular momentum, center of mass, friction, levers, static equilibrium—it’s all there. “This is straight-up Physics 101,” Rebecca Thompson, a physicist who heads up public outreach for the American Physical Society, told me after viewing some of the sample videos I sent her. “I could find a corollary for all these problems in any introductory physics textbook.” That is a physics class I would love to take.
Chances are when you you think of pole dancing, the mental picture you summon is this:
Demi Moore trained for months before strutting her stuff in Striptease (1996).
And you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s true that there is a strong pole dancing contingent among strippers and exotic dancers—hence the stereotype. But that’s a fairly recent trend, historically speaking. The practice, in some form, has been around for hundreds of years. There’s an Indian sport called mallakhamb(loosely translated: “pole gymnastics”), for instance, wherein the performer executes feats of strength and endurance using a wooden pole. The Chinese version used by acrobats features two or more poles, and the acrobats perform tricks while leaping from pole to pole, like this:
In the US, pole dancing acts were common in circuses and sideshows during the 1920s, but it’s generally accepted that the apparatus didn’t make it into actual strip clubs until 1968, when a woman named Belle Jangles took to the pole at the Mugwump Strip Club in Oregon. By the 1980s it was a fixture in striptease routines, and soon there were pole dancing competitions popping up all over the world.
The US Pole Dance Federation Championship (USPDF) held its first competition in 2009, complete with colorful, scanty outfits and five-inch heels for the performers, in keeping with those strip club roots. You may even recognize a couple of the basic moves from the Chinese acrobat video above.
But you don’t need those trappings to appreciate the strength and artistry involved. Here’s the 2009 USPDF champion (and former Cirque du Soleil aerialist), Jenyne Butterfly, performing at a pole dancing convention two years later. She’s barefoot and dressed in simple black workout clothes, the better to highlight her impressively toned physique and jaw-dropping athleticism:
Butterfly’s routine could provide some of those textbook physics problems should Thompson ever decide to teach this in a class. The basics of pole dancing are spinning around the pole (angular momentum) and climbing up the pole (friction and gravity).
A dancer will start by walking around the pole, and then throw herself (or himself) around it to generate angular momentum. According to Valerie Jamieson, editorial content director for New Scientist—who holds a PhD in physics—some poles are static, whiles others spin a little themselves, giving the performer an extra boost of angular momentum.
Calculating angular momentum is a classic introductory physics problem. Just multiply how much force is required to change an object’s motion (rotational inertia), by the rate at which it turns (angular velocity)— say, the number of revolutions per second. Because angular momentum is conserved, Butterfly spins faster when in a curled up, or tucked, position, than when she is leaning out away from the pole. It’s the same reason figure skaters spin faster on the ice with their arms pulled in, compared to when they throw their arms out wide.
When she’s climbing up the pole, or sliding down it, friction and gravity come into play. The classic physics problem usually involves going down a slide, but replace the slide with the pole, and you’ve got essentially the same exercise, according to Thompson. You’d need to know the coefficient of friction, which varies depending on the materials—and that includes not just the pole, but also skin and clothing. (The more slippery the pole, the harder it is to climb.) Multiply that by how hard she pushes against the pole, and you’ve calculated the frictional force involved.
Here’s the thing: You need friction, but not too much, and not too little—it depends on what move you’re trying to execute. “In some of those moves, people are hanging upside down by the crook of their knee, and then they slide down,” said Jamieson. The dancers can pull it off because they have such fine motor control: they contract their muscles and press into the pole to stick, then loosen their hold just enough to slide until they need to stop.
The skimpy outfits can be a boon in that regard because bare skin has just the right friction coefficient to help dancers stick to the pole, perhaps with a light dusting of resin on the hands and thighs to keep the sweat at bay. (Lotion or body oil is verboten if you’re going to work the pole.) That’s also an advantage of those stripper heels, typically sandals made of PVC or plastic. “They protect the top of your foot and give you extra friction as you’re climbing up the pole,” said Jamieson. And you’ll want that extra friction when you’re hanging upside down holding on with just your feet.
It might seem dramatic when the performer is hanging upside down on the pole—and it is, if only because he or she is relying on friction from some small part of their body to keep from falling. But in terms of the strength required, holding your body in a horizontal position as you grip the pole is much, much harder. It’s why gymnastics scoring awards more points for a back flip in a layout position than for a back flip in a tucked position. The former is much more difficult.
According to Thompson, this is a textbook static equilibrium problem in introductory physics, whereby students must calculate how much force is being applied by a hinge or a lever arm. In the case of pole dancing, you would measure where the center of mass falls with respect to the pole, then multiply the dancer’s weight by whatever that radius is to determine how much total weight they actually have to hold up.
“Any time you have a lever, the farther out the center of mass is, the more force is being applied,” she said. “So this is way harder than a chin up.” People with a higher center of mass will find these horizontal moves a bit easier because that center of mass will be closer to the pole.
Speaking of horizontal moves, I defy anyone not to be blown away when Butterfly does a little backwards horizontal “walk” in mid-air. That’s just crazy hard. My abs are sore just thinking about it.
What does it take to become a champion pole dancer? Killer core and upper body strength, for starters, plus a ridiculous degree of flexibility. Check out this training montage from Finnish pole dancer Oona Kivelä (a former gymnast):
In recent years, pole dancing has hit the mainstream, with lots of people—men and women of all ages—taking pole dancing classes for health and fitness, precisely because it offers one hell of a workout—and it’s fun to boot. I haven’t done so yet, mostly because (alas) I lack rhythm and flexibility. I’d probably look like Sandra Bullock resorting to martial arts moves while trying to learn beauty pageant choreography in Miss Congeniality:
Yeah, yeah, it’s not Soul Cycle. But I still think it’s cool. So there.
However sexy the performances might be, actually learning to pole dance is is anything but. You’ll be red-faced and sweaty most of the time, according to Jamieson, and even the most basic moves can be painful for beginners because of all that friction between your skin and the pole. “You can get these screeching noises as your skin sticks to the pole, and it burns as you slide down,” Jamieson (who took a few classes herself several years ago) said.
As Stuart Heritage wrote in the Guardian after taking a pole dancing class last year, “Walking home after an hour of pole dancing was like being kicked in the thigh by a horse and then subjected to a weaponised bout of chub-rub... By the end of the class, my thighs were covered in so many sores and friction burns that I had to nick some of my son’s nappy rash cream to soothe myself.”
That said, there’s still something of a social stigma attached to even the most innocent forms of pole dancing. Consider the controversy that erupted when Disney released Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996. The character of Esmerelda is a street performer who does a flirtatious dance (ending with an impromptu pole dance) for onlookers—to the delight of many, and the morally indignant condemnation of a few. Given what we know of the roots of pole dancing, this is a perfect reasonable depiction. Yet a surprising number of people objected to such a “raunchy” scene in a kids’ movie.
Many of the women in Jamieson’s class—including a partner in a law firm—covered up their friction burns and bruises at work because they couldn’t admit to their hobby without being judged harshly by colleagues and clients. “It would have been more acceptable to look as if they were being abused at home rather than pole dancing,” said Jamieson. “And these were just fitness classes. We weren’t performing or anything.”
There’s really no doubt that pole dancing is just as physically challenging as gymnastics, for instance. The pole is just another apparatus, like the uneven or parallel bars. That’s why there’s been a marked movement away from the strip club image over the last few years, emphasizing the athleticism and grace on display rather than the eroticism—along with petitions in 2012 and 2016 to approve pole dancing as an Olympic sport.
I understand that impulse; my favorite routines emphasize those elements too. But let’s not short-change the erotic element, either. “Let’s face it, all sorts of dancing is sexy as hell,” said Jamieson. “Dancing can be sexy as well as beautiful and athletic, and so what?” There’s no reason pole dancing should be any different. Be as sexy (or not) as you wanna be.
I’ll close with a few more of my favorite online videos. Here’s Michelle Stanek with a beautifully choreographed, sensual jungle-themed routine:
Here’s one of my all-time favorites: a “vertical tango” that won the gold medal at the 2010 Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris:
Finally, we gotta give the guys a chance to show their stuff, so here’s Australian acrobat Hamish McCann (one-half of acrobatic duo The English Gents) with his late-night cabaret pole routine, paying winking homage both to striptease and to Singing in the Rain. There are several versions floating around on YouTube, of varying quality, but this raw Facebook Live clip gives you a ringside seat.
As you may have heard, a real-life supervillain has put Gizmodo/io9's parent company through some shit. io9 isn’t going anywhere, but next week things will be different than they have been, so it is a time of somber self-reflection (as well as ridiculous self-indulgence). As such,we’ve asked io9's greatest writers their favorite posts and moments from the past 14 years.
Charlie Jane Anders (2008-2016)
My favorite thing about working at io9 was always the insane conversations I ended up having. I always thought of io9 as just a place to hang out and shoot the shit, and I got up every day knowing I was going to have some of the weirdest and most fascinating arguments you could possibly imagine. A lot of those debates and weird discussions were with my coworkers—Meredith, Cheryl, Katharine, James and Rob always had some totally bonkers ideas about Captain America’s shield versus Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. But meanwhile, Esther would be listing the 10 best kinds of poisonous mushroom or something, and Robbie and George would be geeking out about whether a black hole could become a supercomputer, and Annalee would be throwing out crazy brilliant ideas every second. Each day, there were a million chats about everything from books to art to music to movies and TV.
But also, my most amazing conversations were with our readers—whatever random observations and bits of info we threw out there, our readers made 1000 times better. The kibbutzing in io9's comment sections felt like the best party ever, every single day. I can’t possibly list every single io9 regular who made my forays into the comments better—there were so many supersmart, hilarious people, I often posted stuff on io9 just to have an excuse to geek out about it with my friends. As far as the one article I wrote that I’m still proudest of? Probably “What If Greedo Really Shot First?”
“When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”? is my all time, favorite io9 story. This was my first year on the job as entertainment reporter, and I spent the majority of my time on the phone with studio publicists trying to explain who (or what) an “EYE-OH-NINE” was.
When Annalee dropped this story, I didn’t have to explain anymore. This was who we were, and what we were about. In a wake of all the “OMG AVATAR SO PRETTY MOAR” articles, io9 was the first to stop and point out the nonsense. It was our “Oh hello” to the rest of the world, and it helped spark some pretty wonderful (and ridiculous) debates right in our own comments section. This is where Moff’s Law comes from kiddos.
We had nothing to lose (fact) and a group of great editors that would back us at every step. Never, not once, did CJ or Annalee push back and ask, “But what if we don’t get invited back to the set of Avatar 2?” (Heh). And believe me, Charlie Jane and I fought about EVERYTHING.
There are many, many other stories I’m proud of at io9. Cult Movie Worship was merely a collection of weird indie films that dropped every Sunday, but it was a celebration of the truly broke filmmaking folk long before Kickstarter. Our own readers responded to the influx of real life, idiot vigilantes with their own real life villain group R.O.A.C.H. purely for laughs. Also have you ever read an article by Cyriaque Lamar? I mean really read it? Here is a line from one of Lamar’s stories entirely chosen at random with the headline, “For $1,200, two handguns sculpted out of dead cats’ bones.”
“They don’t fire gerbil bullets or what-have-you, but these firearms are disconcerting enough to make any cat (or gull) lover on the warpath to momentarily lose focus, furnishing you a morbid escape.”
That’s poetry, and it’s about a gun made of cat bones.
Personally, had a lot of fun working out my relationship issues very publicly through the strange, rapid stream of consciousness recapping True Blood. That was fun, thank you for reading that.
But overall I loved the people, the weird, wonderful people. Charlie Jane Anders said something to me a few months back when she was in LA for a big, fancy book festival (she’s legit famous now) that really nailed it, she called the time at io9 special. It really was, there’s no place on the internet like it. And although many have tried to recreate it, they can’t. There will never be another io9.
Lauren Davis (2008-2015)
It’s no exaggeration to say that io9 completely changed my life. I was a few years out of law school and not sure what I was going to do with my life when Charlie Jane and Annalee plucked my resume out of the intern application pile.
When I first arrived at io9, I was already a pretty good researcher. When Charlie Jane asked me for a list of humans who punched aliens or superheroes who are massive screw-ups, I could provide that, no problem. But I was less comfortable when it came to my own writing. I was making my listicles and writing about my favorite webcomics, but I wasn’t really translating my more personal head thoughts into words.
Then, one October, I hit a turning point. We’d had a meeting about out upcoming Horror Week, and I had pitched nothing. Graeme McMillan, who was weekend editor at the time, asked why. “Do you not like horror?” he asked. “It’s okay if you don’t.” At the time, I didn’t like horror. I had recently lost my brother, and every time I watched a scary movie, I couldn’t help but thinking about the poor families of all those people getting murdered. It left me more sad than stimulated. “Okay,” Graeme said, “so write about that.” That became the germ of “Why Great Horror is Heartbreaking,” a piece I’m still very fond of. Years later, when I was ready, I’d write, “How Science Fiction Helped Me Through My Grief.” It was like a weight lifted off my heart.
At times, working at io9 felt like writing on a dare. When Meredith sent me to the Hobbit event in New Zealand, I casually mentioned that I was thinking about posting drawings from my trip. “You better,” she said. On a few occasions, I cracked jokes during pitch meetings that Charlie Jane and Annalee mistook for genuine pitches. I ended up writing them. The highest compliment Charlie Jane could give you on a post is that it was “bonkers,” and Annalee didn’t just let me post my poorly drawn webcomics about early apocalyptic literature — she encouraged it.
And so when I left io9, it was for something I loved: comics. And it was great to know that, when I announced that I was hanging up my blogging hat to go to comics school, my coworkers who shaped me would totally get it and wish me a passionate future.
I spent most of my time at io9 as the weekend editor and therefore desperately praying the site wouldn’t careen into the abyss every Saturday and Sunday. I actually wrote this on a weekday — I have no memory of what inspired me to write it, but Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders were cool with it because they are lovely. This piece makes me happy because I got to spend 800 or so words mostly dreaming up shark henchmen for Batman’s rogues gallery.
Rob’s fanboy-prodding spoiler FAQs (and the ire they drew from all corners of the Internet, including our own community forums) were my favorite thing about any movie that landed in your crosshairs.
And, okay, not to lean too hard on reviews and recaps, but Meredith’s True Blood coverage remains some of the best television writing to ever grace the internet. Not just TV writing about vampire humping—I mean TV writing, full stop.
That’s because, whether we were covering exoplanets, Octavia Butler, <del>FTL</del> neutrinos, humanity’s origins, wacky GoT fan theories, space elevators, or transhumanism, indie io9 was always about optimism, first and foremost. For close to a decade, it’s been a bastion of humor, humanity, and hopeful futurism in an internet landscape rife with scum and villainy. Whoever scores this starship from the auction lot had better see that it stays that way.
Olympic organizers have made climate change a central theme at the current games—and for good reason. A sobering new study shows that by the 2084 Olympics, rising temperatures will make it practically impossible for most cities to host the summer games.
In a new commentary published in The Lancet, a team led by Berkeley researchers Kirk Smith and John Balmes warn that the future of the summer Olympics is in jeopardy. Seventy years from now, only eight Northern Hemisphere cities outside of Europe will be cool enough to host the games, with only three cities in North America capable of serving as hosts.
The researchers arrived at this conclusion by developing a measurement, called the wet bulb global temperature (WBGT), that combines temperature, humidity, heat radiation, and wind. This tool was used in conjunction with two climate models to assess the viability of future host cities.
For the analysis, only cities with at least 600,000 residents were considered, which is the minimum size required to host the games. Cities with elevations over a mile above sea level, such as Mexico City, were omitted due to other limiting factors, such their thin, oxygen poor air. The researchers also assumed that any venue with more than a 10 percent chance of having to cancel a marathon—a signature event—on short notice would preclude that city as an Olympic candidate.
“If you’re going to be spending billions of dollars to host an event, you’re going to want have a level of certainty that you’re not going to have to cancel it at the last minute,” explained Smith in a statement.
Using this criteria, the researchers were able to identify only eight out of 543 cities outside of western Europe that would qualify as “low risk” sites, including St. Petersburg in Russia, Riga in Latvia, Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. Shockingly, only three North American cities made the cut, namely San Francisco, Vancouver, and Calgary. Western Europe provided the greatest number of “low risk” cities at 25. Latin America and Africa failed to produce a single viable city.
Looking further ahead into the 22nd Century, the researchers predicted that only four Northern Hemisphere cities would be capable of qualifying: Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.
The researchers correctly point out that work-arounds exist, such as running the summer games indoors or eliminating certain events that aren’t suitable for the heat. But that would dramatically alter the complexion and spirit of the games.
Talk about grim. As time passes, and as the threats of global warming come into focus, it’s clear that virtually every aspect of human existence are going to be affected.
Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence fall in love in space aboard a maybe-doomed spacecraft in Passengers, written by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Doctor Strange) and directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game). Look, you had us at Chris Pratt. All that other stuff is just gravy. Advance word on the film is fantastic—and the first images are here to get us even more excited.
Entertainment Weekly has an interview with Tyldum, and he calls Passengers the love story of a generation:
It’s one of those stories that really grabs you and you fall in love with it. It’s very smart and funny and clever and such a page turner I couldn’t put it down. Every 10 pages, something new happens! At the same time it’s a very intimate movie while taking place on this epic scale. For me, it’s a story about what’s important to live a full life. What are the things we need as humans? It’s not afraid to entertain but at the same time it asks big questions about what does it mean to really feel happy. Every generation has its love story. I feel like this is it. I had to do it.
Passengers is out December 21, making it our second-most-anticipated film set in space that’s out that month.
[This is the most Homeric story that’s ever unfolded in my life, that until now, has only been shared as an epic oral history. Every site I’ve ever worked for has asked me to commit it to paper, er, blog, and I’ve consistently resisted.
But seeing as a new chapter of Gawker Media and Gizmodo is quickly approaching, and Gizmodo has meant so much to me over the last two years, I thought I’d finally chronicle the most disgusting thing I’ve ever done in my life. My abasement for your amusement.]
Before I can get to the life-changing drama that unfolded in the year 2010, I actually have to sojourn more than two decades previous—when I was six years old.
In 1994, I had an incredibly high fever. The only thing I actually remember from that illness is sweating profusely on my family’s faded blue living room couch, and that my Grandma bought me a Transformer (Ratchet, I think) to help me feel better or possibly to keep me company in the afterlife. It all depended on the fever, really.
Image: Ratchet
But there was something else going on in my body that I didn’t know at the time. According to several dentists, when my six-year molars were growing my abnormal body temperature did some weird stuff to them. Basically, where your molars are hard and white, mine are soft, brown, and prone to pain. Cold water was agony.
But it’s not really that bad. Where kids growing up would wear their cavity-less status as a badge of honor, my molars were so permanently fucked that getting fillings was an almost annual tradition. Annoying sure, but little else.
Ok, now let’s fast forward to 2010.
At the time, I was a college junior writing for a local magazine in Columbia, Missouri. A week previously I’d gotten my first ceramic molar, which was supposed to be a permanent solution to the teeth problems I’ve had since I was six. But instead of affixing it to my naked tooth, roots and all, with permanent cement, the dentist opted for what she called “temporary cement.”
Oxymoron aside, the dentist assuaged my fears that my tooth would not fall out of my head. They simply wanted to make sure the crown fit properly and everything was good to go before permanently affixing a piece of ceramic in my mouth.
Sure. Fine. You’re the professionals. I will trust you.
So I drove my 2004 Mazda 3 (great car) back to college (about 90 minutes from my hometown in St. Louis) and went about my life. Classes. Drinking. Sleeping. Repeat. It was all wonderfully stereotypical.
Three days later, I was in the middle of a jam-packed Wednesday. I had two stories due to my editor early the next morning that were nowhere close to being finished, I had to meet up with a landlord to look over a new house I planned to move into the next semester, and I had one night class that blocked out my entire evening.
In order to optimize time, I heated up some gloriously disgusting Cup of Noodles (I told you I was college stereotype) and furiously began transcribing interviews. After the third bite. Searing pain. What the fuck? It felt like someone just jabbed a needle into my jaw. What the hell is this? Ow. It happened again. It’s happening every time I take a.....breath.
The slow creep. The infinitesimal progress of realization. After a few moments of tongue gymnastics, my fears were confirmed. I just ate my new tooth whole. It was like every small wince of tooth pain I’ve experience in my entire life condensed into every inhale and exhale.
First, I called my dentist. [The following conversation has been edited to omit my fathomless rage.]
Me: Hello, dear sir/ma’am, I ate my tooth and you told me that wouldn’t happen so now I am quite perturbed.
Dentist office: Oh, dear me. If you’re able to get to the office in the next two hours we can put on your old temporary cap. Sound good?
Me: Why, that is near impossible, friend.
Dentist office: Good luck!
I was now in a race against time. I called my parents, telling them I’d need to crash at the house that evening. I dashed off emails to my editor that read like the ravings of crazed person.
“Hey Andrew. So I ate my tooth and can’t make that deadline. Thanks!”
And then I was gone, speeding down I-70. I did the normal 90-minute drive in 60 minutes and finally arrived at my dentist’s office. Their faces showed only dread as if they could feel me coming like a hurricane. After going through the “I’m sorrys” and the “this has never happened befores,” the temporary cap at least gave me respite from the skull-splitting pain.
By this point, my dad had showed up and began talking with the dentist outside the room. I couldn’t really hear what they were talking about, but I didn’t really care. For the most part, it was over. I wanted about 12 hours and a bed.
The dentist came back in with my dad and a box of rubber gloves. My father’s face was a mixture of “hey nice to see you” with an added smirk that there was some kind of joke I was about to be let in on. The small Korean-American dentist told me that the temporary cap in my mouth would hold for now, but wasn’t a permanent solution. Unfortunately, she continued, we’ve contacted your insurance company and they won’t pay for a replacement. Seeing as a replacement would be upwards of $1,000 (a lot for a college kid subsiding on a low-paying hourly job) there’s only one real option—you could just go get it.
She subtly motioned to the rubber gloves.
They looked like these.
At first, I didn’t really understand what was happening. I think I might have chuckled. Ha-ha. Raise my spirits after such a crazy experience. Funny guys! I looked back and forth between my dad and my dentist. No signs of a response chuckle. This was happening. They wanted me to dig through my shit, find my tooth, and put it back in my face.
The dentist explained the plan like exposition from Ocean’s Eleven. Since the tooth is ceramic it wouldn’t be damaged at all as it passed through my body. I just needed to retrieve the tooth. They’d clean said tooth with anti-microbial, shit-cleaning lasers, then put it back in my mouth. But the entire plan was just background music to the mental strategy playing in my head.
They’re asking me to dig through my own shit. Ok. Have I ever touched human shit before? No! Why would I have? It’s squishy, right? It’s like picking up dog shit? I guess it depends. Oh man, I ate Chipotle for lunch. I also have to work tomorrow. What if it happens there? What are these lasers? Can I see these lasers? Do I have to live my entire life knowing a piece of my tooth has done a full tour of my intestines.
I was soon sent packing, with plastic gloves, back to college and my harrowing task laid out before me. I did some quick Googling and found solace that other brave souls have come before me. So before work the next morning, I packed my trusty box of rubber gloves and went about my day.
At around noon, the time had finally arrived. I went home and did what needed to be done.
The BM was unforgiving. Fun-fact: I never ate Chipotle again. It was like a Where’s Waldo of misery. I won’t go into much more detail, but it’s squishy.
I looked, and looked, and looked. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. I wasn’t about to go through this, miss the tooth, and flush $1,000 down the drain. Of course, in the back of my head I thought that it was possible that this time wasn’t the time. Maybe my tooth was still hanging out in my lower intestine somewhere? But still I kept searching until, Yes! There it is. I have it.
I cleaned off the tooth as best I could, which is to say not well at all, and placed it in a small Ziplock bag. A week later, I delivered the shit-encrusted tooth and was promised it would be cleaned with aforementioned microbial lasers. I got to keep the extra rubber gloves for free.
A month later, the tooth was ready. I gave it much more than a once over. It indeed looked like a tooth. Ok, let’s put it back in, I said. Permanent cement this time, please.
Six years later and the tooth is still in my head. No problem. Unfortunately, I told a group of journalists about the crisis (remember that email?) and lovingly received the nickname “Shit tooth” or some other variation of the same sentiment. During a drunken Gizmodo happy hour on Slack, I made the same mistake.
For those of you who stumbled on this blog because you find yourself in a similar predicament. Take comfort, and forge ahead. The next 24 hours will be gross, but you’ll get through it.
