Released by HBO Max to remind you they have the majority of Studio Ghibli’s feature films available on their streaming service, this is a 30-minute Youtube ‘screensaver’ of relaxing animations from various Ghibli movies. It is max level chill, possibly even an 11. And I thought falling asleep to that reef aquarium with all the tropical fish last night was a treat, I can’t wait to fall asleep to this. Just imagine the dreams I’ll have. “Probably the same nightmares as usual.” Where the bog witch steals my eyeballs?!

As a good riddance to 2023 *spits for dramatic effect, hits pant leg*, this is a 32-minute compilation of news bloopers from the year. There are some goodies in there. There are also some not-so-goodies. Still, it’s a great way to waste 30 minutes at the office like I just did. Of course waste is subjective, because this was a far more productive use of my time than anything else I would have done. Food for thought. God willing, the bag of Cool Ranch Doritos that’s been stuck in the vending machine since yesterday afternoon.

This is an almost 100 year old clip from Los Angeles that’s been AI upscaled, enhanced, and colorized so it doesn’t look like it was filmed through a potato sack. I lived in LA for ten years, and I have to admit: I didn’t recognize any of it. Of course I probably wouldn’t recognize the street I lived on if I saw it in the 1930’s because– “Things change.” Okay I was going to say my brain is garbage, but I like your take better. Things change.

After seven years of construction, artist Robert Wechsler has finally completed assembly of a giant cube made from 100,000 pennies. Each individual penny has four notches cut from its sides at 90-degree angles so they could be assembled K’Nex style into sheets, then stacked into this 540-pound cube. Damn, 100,000 pennies — what is that, like $10,000? “It’s $1,000.” I knew that, I was thinking dimes. “Were you though?” I was not. I’m a blogger, not a mathologist.

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This is a video of a golden retriever living its best life (I’m glad somebody is) by happily sliding down a ski slope, appropriately set to Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’. That looks nice. I wish I was experiencing the human equivalent to what this dog must be feeling right now. Mine would probably be sitting on a tropical beach somewhere with my toes in the sand, sipping a piña colada. But noooooo, instead I’m writing this from a bathroom so cold my toes are blue and I’m afraid my ass will be frozen to the toilet seat when I try to stand up.

Five years in the making, this is ‘Winter’, a timelapse video beautifully shot by filmmaker Jamie Scott over the course of five winter seasons in New York and Montreal, Canada; with up to six cameras and four sliders at a time. It features a lot of snow and natural water features freezing over time. Brrrrrr! The cold: I don’t like it. “Then why do you live somewhere that’s freezing four months of the year?” I ask myself that same question every day of winter. I seriously f*cked up somewhere though, that much is clear.