Uber-crappy 2016 has been an eventful year to say the least, marked by crazy sociopolitical events and technological advancements that can make us feel like we’re living within a dystopian sci-fi show. It can be a scary time to be alive and some of us are weary of the future, so we’ve compiled a list of some of the craziest techy home gadgets mankind has came up with in 2016:
Azumi Hikari
If the Amazon Echo isn’t cool enough for you, you can try the Azuma Hikari, which is clearly the weirdest home technology developed in the history of FOREVER. Like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, this hub does things for you, like make lists, control your lighting system and plenty of other stuff that make our human lives easier. Azuma Hikari differentiates itself from the rest because it adds a face to the technology. An anime face that has a personality and develops a relationship with the owner.
Azumi Hikari’s ad looks like a creepy rom-com, but hey, if you’re not put off by a lovestruck anime hologram, then buy the damn thing. We won’t judge.
Kuvee
For the tech-savvy wine lover, Kuvee might just be the thing you’ve been waiting for. You don’t need to chug that expensive bottle of wine in one sitting or argue over which type of Cabernet pairs best with your dinner; Kuvee’s smart design keeps oxygen from messing up your drink and allows you to do whatever the hell you want.
The fancy container also has a small screen that shows you which type of wine you’re drinking, offers some helpful info, and how many glasses of it there are left in the bottle. It’s like a Kindle for wine! Only for the price of 200 bucks.
SmartyPans
Aside from its cleverly-puny name, SmartyPans provides answers to all the questions you may have while cooking, like the amount of calories in the dish, the exact quantities of ingredients it needs, and much more. This pan will make a chef out of ANYONE, even if you’ve got no culinary skills.
CleverPet
Thankfully, technology hasn’t forgotten about the well being of the most important member of your family (aka, your dog).
CleverPet is a software that focuses on the development and nourishment of your pet’s brain, making them smarter in ways you’d never expect. Also, it provides a distraction for them when you’re away from home, keeping your furniture and home clean and free of messes. It’s a win-win for all.
Savioke Relay Robot
This robot will be a bonus for the lucky – and rich – residents of a new luxury residence in Los Angeles. The hardwired helper, named CHARLEY, will be in charge of maintaining the building and cleaning up after you, very much like Rosie in The Jetsons. This badass robot will tend to your everyday needs, delivering parcels to your door and providing answers to all of your queries. CHARLEY will be the first robot implemented in a residential building, whose M.O. will surely be modeled by others. Here’s to the future!
A company called Dicks By Mail is in hot water after it sent an apparently unwanted package of penis-shaped candies to a Dallas woman, who claims the phallic delicacies are part of a sustained harassment campaign against her.
The Dallas Newsreports that Melody Lenox was sent the package of dick-shaped candies from Dicks by Mail on December 7. Lenox, who works in HR for Axxess Technology Solutions, claims the person who sent her the might be the same person who has recently keyed her car and posted several fake Craiglist ads purporting to be her.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BNXhq9BjqVB/
To combat the perceived harassment, she’s filed suit against Dicks By Mail, demanding that the company release any personal information, including name, address, and telephone number, of the person who ordered the candy dicks.
“Our products are a lighthearted and humorous joke designed to amuse the recipient. By purchasing our products you represent that you are not using them to harass the recipient in any way or for any unlawful purpose,” Dicks by Mail says on their FAQ page on their website. “If you are not completely sure the recipient will understand the comedic novelty of our products, do not send.”
It’s unclear if Dicks by Mail will comply with the request or if they’ll fight it in court.
After the wrapping paper debris has settled and the lights and candles come down until next year, we’re all feeling a little overwhelmed — especially if part of the holiday festivities involved more sweet and salty treats than usual. It’s great to enjoy time with loved ones around food and fun drinks, but with the new year comes some sense of reinvention: How will you tackle what’s on your 2017 plate?
But many diet plans are downright derogatory and encourage shame, not confidence: “Skinny Bitch Diet?” “French Women Never Get Fat?” Pass. And if you’re prone to disordered eating, or recovering from an unhealthy relationship with food, this time of year can be particularly tough.
You might not have heard of these plans for healthy eating before, but their backing by common medical knowledge and encouragement for health, not starvation, make them worth considering.
Barley for Breakfast
Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, a Chicago dietitian, told WebMD that “Barley is the new oatmeal.” Eating barley or rye kernels in the morning helps your blood sugar stay level, so your stomach isn’t growling in the middle of that 10 a.m. meeting. She notes that lower-processed hulled barely, not pearl barley, is best.
No, not as in tidy — staying N.E.A.T. stands for “Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.” It’s everything we do throughout the day that’s not specifically exercise, sleeping, or eating. The research defines it this way:
“It ranges from the energy expended walking to work, typing, performing yard work, undertaking agricultural tasks and fidgeting. Even trivial physical activities increase metabolic rate substantially and it is the cumulative impact of a multitude of exothermic actions that culminate in an individual’s daily NEAT.”
The physical toll that sitting for nine hours a day takes on your metabolism can’t be overcome with one hour in the gym every three days (or whenever you’re feeling ambitious). Little movements count, too.
The Calorie-Cycling Diet
Starving yourself for weeks isn’t healthy, and neither is binging on all the food as you’ve missed out on during yo-yo dieting. Calorie cycling involved periods of lower-calorie intake with higher-calories “refeeds.” For example, you might spend five days eating lean, and two days refueling with more food, and repeat.
There are many versions of this plan — here’s a complete guide for how to try calorie cycling, and how to combine it with exercise.
This one rose to popularity nearly 10 years ago thanks to Oprah — it was started by her personal trainer — but it’s worth revisiting now if you’re looking for inspiration to change your relationship with food. It doesn’t encourage starvation or limiting yourself, but does put you on regimented “phases.” The first involves cutting alcohol, adding more water, and stopping eating before bed. The next two are more aggressively focused on getting more exercise and paying attention to macronutrients.
The emphasis on emotional eating is what sets this diet plan apart. BodyBuilding.com has a detailed description of this plan.
The Personality Type Diet
Know thyself! This is less plan, more personality quiz — with the added benefit of helping you rethink your eating and exercise habits. Find out if you’re a “Nighttime Nibbler,” “Mindless Muncher,” or one of the five other personality types outlined, and get tools for how to adjust to your lifestyle. This diet hasn’t been studied by the science community, but its emphasis on the individual person’s needs, as well as a high emphasis on healthy fruits and vegetables, means it holds up to common medical knowledge.
The year is almost over and sometimes, it feels like we want to stay in bed all day watching Christmas movies while eating junk food, instead of going to work and being a productive human being. During these times of struggle, we could all do with a pick me up, something to help us take our minds out of that slump and reinvigorate us.
With that in mind, we’ve put together a collection of short videos that you can sneak in at any time during the day, showing puppies during their bathtime because that is maximum cute. If this therapeutic set of videos doesn’t relax you and make you feel better, then your problem is much more serious than you originally thought.
This video really makes us struggle, we don’t know whether we want to be that puppy or if we want to be holding him. He’s enjoying himself so much that his neck might give out at any moment.
This puppy is also super relaxed, enjoying his deep tissue massage provided by that water stream. Don’t worry, we’re also screaming with our mouths shut.
Is the person who’s holding the puppy crying? We feel you.
This video should be nominated for best short film at the Academy Awards but we digress. While the young labs look like they’re a little cold and not having a lot of fun, they look unbelievably cute.
This video has a little bit of everything, some snappy music, a very relaxed puppy and a bonus of fun shower hair-dos.
With the possible exception of Halloween, New Year’s Eve is the best holiday to drink and smoke a bit too much, party for too long, and do something that could be considered a true Hot Mess. All the ingredients for a Hot Mess are there: booze, huge parties both public and private, more booze, people looking to forget the year by pairing up with a stranger, music, dancing, even more booze, and a giant ball dropping from the sky at the stroke of midnight.
So do you have a particularly juicy story about a New Year’s Day walk of shame and the events that preceded it? Did you once spend NYE watching your 80-year-old grandmother dance with mostly nude party boys outside of a gay bar blaring “It’s Raining Men”? Did you once black out while partying and wake up in a different city, state, or country? Perhaps you woke up with a dull pain on your back only to discover that you’d gotten a tattoo to celebrate the new year?
Whatever it is, we’d love to hear about it and publish your story! So shoot us an email at taylor@thefreshtoast.com. We will, of course, keep your tale of woe or triumph anonymous (unless you want the world to know who you are!).
Deconstructed food has overstayed its welcome. It’s no longer a trend, it’s an embarrassment. It’s become a Band-Aid for lazy cooking and catfish bait by wannabe chefs, who incorrectly assume people just love fancy plating (who doesn’t love a well-placed smear!).
At its best, deconstructed food is an art form; a style of preparation that is playful and different and absolutely delicious, with each component its own complete masterpiece. What deconstructed food is not is all the ingredients of a dish splayed out like an IKEA assembly line with an instructional sheet. In other words: tomato sauce + a shot of vodka + celery + dish of spices does not equal a deconstructed Bloody Mary. It’s mise en place.
The trend has been growing and morphing for years. If you’re not a molecular gastronomist, the food you attempt to make at home is unlikely deconstructed, rather just unfinished. Here are some examples of how far this “trend” has outgrown itself.
Unless this order is from Instacart, this has got to be a joke or something.
Melbourne this deconstructed food thing is getting out of hand.This is my order of avocado toast#luckyihavecutlery pic.twitter.com/WUVxjXxtAF
The year that is 2016 has been a shit for many, and Apple, the multi-million dollar company, wasn’t excluded. It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t own an iPhone or a Mac laptop, even though they might bitch over their meaningless updates and their extreme changes (*cough* the jackless iPhone). The year that is 2016 marked the company’s first decline in revenue in 13 years.
Some might be surprised, others might claim that they saw this coming a while ago. Here we list some of the biggest WTF moments Apple faced during this sweet 2016:
The Headphone Jack Debacle
There’s no way to talk about Apple’s year without touching on their decision to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, which led to one the biggest freak outs the internet’s ever had. Phil Schiller, Apple’s VP, claimed that this was a courageous move from the company who were striving to do something new and industry altering.
Phil Schiller, you don’t know courage. Harambe knew courage.
During the Apple Event, where these changes were announced, the company also revealed their new wireless headphones, the AirPods, which basically look like the old headphones only with no wires and for the sweet price of $159.
My mum would like to know if the #AirPods are still going to work after I forget them in my jeans and she washes them #AppleEvent
When the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus debuted, people weren’t as hostile as they were during the Apple Event, because headphones (with wires) and an audio jack dongle were included with the purchase of the phone. Apple hasn’t reported its sales, so we don’t know how many phones were bought and if the whole headphone ordeal influenced their sales. Still, the phones were sold out during the day of its release, so Apple took a breath of relief in knowing that they’re still the company who’s leading the phone industry.
The Delayed AirPods
The wireless headphones were supposed to be released on October but were delayed for months due to connectivity issues.
After years of people whining over the inconsequential upgrades that Macbooks went through every year, Apple made a move and released a new MacBook with some substantial changes. The function keys were replaced by a touchscreen bar strip that’s honestly pretty badass and that changes how it looks depending on the app you’re using.
The new MacBooks have been praised by critics due to their innovative changes but criticized by the public due to their graphic glitches, short battery life, and most importantly, their outrageous prices. (1,800$!!!!)
Rumors of this mystical car have been swirling around for a while now, and some people claim it will never happen. This year, Apple reminded us that yes, the Apple Car is still something they want to do. Many sources claim that the company is no longer building the car from scratch but partnering up with someone more experienced in the car making department. The car is rumored to be electronic and that it will have a feature that will allow it to drive itself.
The Nightmare That Is The iPhone 6 Battery
If 2016 wasn’t the year for Apple, then it definitely wasn’t the year for the iPhone 6. The company finally addressed the iPhone’s poor battery life that many users have been reporting since the Stone Age, claiming that the issues were limited to a small amount of iPhones released between September and October of 2015. When people kept on reporting the same problems in iPhones released in other time periods, Apple claimed that the problem was bigger than they initially thought and launched a battery replacement program.
This year, iPhone 6 users also reported a touchscreen bug, called the “touch disease” where the screen would become unresponsive and a gray bar would appear at the top. Then there was also an error that caused the Touch ID to fail and made people freak out.
Long-distance running carries a certain aura to its name. As the original Olympic sport, a weighty tradition courses through it. When we refer to a grueling task or hard-won goal, we label the work necessary to complete it a “marathon.”
This is not coincidence. Running long distances is hard and requires long, disciplined training. It is not a 24-hour cram session. It’s about establishing a process and trusting that process when everything in your body demands you not to. Anyone who has finished a marathon—running or otherwise—that the reward is always worth it, even if it’s not in the way they expected.
This comprehensive app allows you to do exactly as it says: map your route and track distance traveled, incline, calories burned, and more. A great feature of this app is its community, where users upload their own running routes for other members to try out.
Perhaps better served as a social network for runners, this app uses GPS tracking to monitor your distance and route (so it won’t work for you treadmill runners). However, this app allows you to keep notes like weather, your feelings post-run, and the route itself, so you can track your progress as you train.
Training and then possibly running for a half-marathon requires dedication. And somedays, you just don’t have it. MilePost is a running inspiration app that helps you maintain focus and serves as a jumping-off point for those days when you’d otherwise have given up.
While distance running may enable you to eat all the carbs you finally want, it doesn’t mean you can stop watching what you eat. This app will serve as a mobile food journal that includes more than two million foods with their nutritional value. Use this to stop yourself from indulging too much during your training.
Though your first half-marathon or marathon race will be about finishing, eventually you’ll want to race against your own time. McRun will help you do just that. Tracking your mile time, McRun extrapolates what your final time would be whether you’re running a 10K or a half-marathon.
The combination of coffee and weed — odd as it may seem to you — has, to some degree, arrived. It’s on the shelves of your local dispensary. It’s available for order in the murk and mire of the internet. We’re talking about cannabis coffee products. And it’s a thing.
As with any new product, there’s a lot to take in, a lot to absorb before you select which caffeinated form of psychoactive (or not) treat you’ll be sipping on when The Great Weed Wall comes toppling down. To ensure that you’ll have selected the very best method (k-cup, cold brew, etc.), we’ve ranked the options that are currently available to consumers to help guide you as you experiment in the newly awoke world of caffeinated weed products.
(Note: we are discussing methods of intake, not individual products. Yes, we will, on occasion, discuss a particular highlight in terms of each method of coffee/weed consumable, but in general we’re not trying to harsh the buzz of any specific company just trying to get by, we just want you to have the most enjoyable morning cup you can have.)
We’ve placed the consumption of coffee related treats — candies, drops, chocolates — at the bottom of our list because, well, when one thinks of coffee, they think of a steaming cup of beautiful brewed coffee or an frosty glass of cold brew to sip on to prepare for one’s day, not a candy bar. That said, for those opposed to actually drinking coffee, but are still seeking a method of lightly caffeinating themselves while enjoying a strong blast of psychoactive side-affects – the coffee/weed edible is a pretty good choice. We prefer the original coffee/weed candy – the Kiva Espresso Dark Chocolate Bite – a singular espresso bean dipped in a thin layer of THC-laced coffee. But the Kiva product highlights the main reason why coffee-related edibles are mired at the ground floor of our rankings: they’re extremely potent and the caffeine/coffee value is very low. Sure that lone little coffee bean is going to add a touch of coffee flavor, maybe even a hint of a caffeine buzz, but what you’re really getting is very, very high. You can forget sipping your morning cup of joe as the sun rises over the mesa, and start thinking about if you can actually get up from the couch and go about doing, well, anything.
If you’re a coffee aficionado, Keurig cups (or k-cups) are about the bottom the barrel in terms of actual coffee enjoyment. Yes, you will get a piping hot beverage brewed from actual coffee grounds, but these coffee grounds will be the equivalent of taking the extraneous coffee that’s sat on the roasting floor for weeks on end, grinding it, drying it and then stuffing it into a environmentally damaging package. A k-cup offers a fine experience in terms of actual coffee drinking, but Keurig-style “pods” produce an acrid, watery coffee beverage more akin to instant caffeine, then a robust cup from your local barista. But, snooty flavor profiling aside, will this get you high? Tedd Wetherbee, the owner of Fairwinds Manufacturing in Tacoma, Washington – the producers of the Catapult k-cup – told The Cannabist, that his product was like Red Bull and Vodka – it’ll get your energy up, but it’ll also get you hammered, going further to warn that this isn’t your “ordinary cup of Joe.” So, yes, the k-cup will offer you the increasingly less novel ability to get your stone on while enjoying your morning cup, it just probably taste all that great.
Up until recently, if you wanted to enjoy a fresh-ground, high-end cup of coffee with a dose of THC or CBD in it, your only option was to purchase your favorite coffee, grind it and then mix it with some form of tincture or oil. On the surface, that seems like an easy compromise if caffeinated stoniness is what you’re seeking. Brew your preferred coffee using your preferred method, add a drop or a smear of oil or tincture, and you’re off to the races with a decent cup of coffee roiling through your body. We leave the combination of tinctures and oils in the middle slot of our rankings though because, seriously, adding oil or tincture or butter or whatever to your four dollar, micro-lotted cup of impeccably sourced Brazilian coffee is going to have some adverse affects in terms of flavor. Mainly, that your adding an oily substance to a water-based beverage, and then convincing yourself that it just tastes like your favorite coffee. That said, for those fitness-oriented, weed-loving, coffee drinkers who enjoy Bulletproof Coffee – grass-fed butter mixed in black coffee – this might be the greatest thing since, well, brewed coffee. For the rest of us slovenly, coffee slurpers, this might take some getting used to.
In the world of coffee, cold brew is having it’s moment. The shelves are stocked with every variety of pre-packaged cold coffee, and everyday a handful of new companies toss their milk cartons into the ring. So of course, THC/CBD alternatives are making their way to the market as well. For the moment, cold brew still faces the same issue as just adding an oil or tincture to your brewed coffee – flavor and texture take a strange, and often times unfortunate bent. But with cold brew, and marijuana currently as popular as they are, coffee-minded producers are working their asses off to dial in both the consistency of the weed agent (whatever it is they’re mixing with the coffee) and the deliciousness of the actual coffee, to provide a truly lovely experience. And we believe that cold brew is an almost perfect vessel for weed and caffeine, an easily consumed, pre-packaged product that you can schlep out to a park on a sunny day and enjoy with your friends. And when the flavor catches up to the experience, well, it’ll be something special. Until then, cold brew sits at our number two spot.
If you are a “coffee person” then you understand that freshly ground, whole bean coffee is the very best way to enjoy a cup of coffee or a shot of espresso. You are maintaining the original state and flavor of your coffee up until the very last moment before you consume it, insuring that you’re getting most accurate depiction of that coffee’s flavor profile. Up until this point, as our rankings explain, the problem of infusing whole coffee beans with THC/CBD has left coffee drinkers with upscale palates, nursing a cup of oily java. Recently though, companies like Steep Fuze in Colorado have worked towards perfecting a method that infuses whole bean coffee with CBD-oil during the post-roasting process. Translation: coffee drinkers are able to freshly grind and brew their coffee with whatever their preferred method is — French press, pour-over, aeropress, Mr. Coffee, etc. — upping the chance that you’ll be consuming a nice cup of coffee, while enjoying the pain-relieving, soothing effects of, in Steep Fuze’s case, CBD. Even better, Steep Fuze’s CBD coffee removes the potentially less savory effects of caffeine – the jitters, the withdrawal headaches, the hyperventilation – meaning you can quaff a considerable amount of coffee and still maintain a calm, soothing affect. But even our highest ranked method has its downsides: currently, from what we’ve found, there are no THC-infused whole bean coffee products on the market. Meaning that, sure, you can enjoy a heady cup of CBD-coffee and all the wonderful, non-psychoactive effects it’ll bring along, but for those looking to enjoy their cup of coffee and get super high, the pickings are slim to non-existent. For now though, as it always is in coffee, CBD-infused, whole bean coffee provides what we believe is the best experience in both flavor and “medication.” And though Steep Fuze may be the only player in the whole bean market for now, it won’t be long before a plethora of new vendors start gleefully diving into the market.
Binge reading comic events is my favorite way to read them. In a world of Netflix and instant gratification, having to wait for that next issue can make me lose interest. With the finale of Civil War II coming out, I thought it would be cool to help everyone save a little money this holiday season, by trimming the fat.
Much like its predecessor, Civil War II is a sprawling epic with numerous tie-ins. It can be hard to determine which one’s actually “tie into” the main plot, and which one’s just mention it offhand while continuing with their own stories.
Consider this a consumer guide of sorts: I’ve created a “skippable” list for the trade waiters, Marvel Unlimited users, and the general binge reading public. I can’t include everything, so I’ll be focusing on the books with “Civil War II” in the title. Also with a list like this, there may be some minor spoilers, so you’ll have to forgive me if I divulge too much.
Civil War II: Ulysses
Cover Art via Marvel
Al Ewing is at it again! This book makes for a fun look at Ulysses and Karnak as they get to know each other. There are a lot of funny moments and the book succeeds in making Ulysses a likeable character. I recommend this one as a supplement to your enjoyment of the Civil War II event. “Which bucket did you use?” Read It.
Civil War II: Gods of War
Cover Art via Marvel
This book makes for the conclusion of the “All New All Different” Hercules storyline. In it, Herc gathers a team of Demigods to destroy the “New Gods” Catastrophobia, Cryptomnesia, and Horrorscope. To that end, it wraps everything up nicely. It does mention the second Civil War a few times, but doesn’t really have anything to do with it. So, unless you’re already keeping up with the Hercules title, this book does very little to expand upon the actual Civil War II event. You can Skip It if you haven’t kept up with Herc.
Civil War II: Kingpin
Cover Art via Marvel
This is a story about the Kingpin, returning to and regaining his throne in New York City. He discovers that one of his old henchman is an Inhuman with the ability to remain undetected by Ulysses’ precognitive abilities. While it’s a great story, it doesn’t really have much to do the superhero Civil War. One could argue, though, that it provides a street level viewpoint of the event, and because of this, I say Read It! I am biased, I love the Kingpin and this is an interesting and fun story and sets up his own title coming out in February of next year.
Civil War II: The Amazing Spider-Man
Cover Art via Marvel
When Ulysses gets to visit Spider-Man at Parker Industries, he has a vision that Spidey will fight a former villain/current employee “Clash.” Clayton Cole is a reformed villain working for Parker Industries, but is having a run of bad luck, and after Ulysses’ vision, notices that he’s being watched at work more than usual. This leads to him reverting to his old ways and fighting Spider-Man. More importantly it raises the question of morality when involving Ulysses and using him for his powers. Are his prophecies self-fulfilling? In other words, did Clash “break bad” because Ulysses’ vision caused Spidey to investigate Clayton more closely. While I wouldn’t call it a “must read” it does raise some interesting issues. Due to this, if you have the means, Read It.
Civil War II: X-Men
Cover Art via Marvel
With the Terrigen Clouds being toxic to mutants, Magneto doesn’t really need any other reason to go to war with the Inhumans. Ultimately, though, that’s what this series is setting up for: Death of X and Inhumans vs X-Men. It doesn’t really add anything to the Civil War II story, but does set up for those two forthcoming events. If you’re not already keeping up with the X-Men books, then there’s really no reason to read this one. Skip It.
Civil War II: Choosing Sides
Cover Art via Marvel
Choosing Sides is kind of a hard sell for me. While the stories are technically about what certain characters are doing during the second Civil War, I still can’t really call it a “must read.” Unless you absolutely want to know what Nick Fury, Night Thrasher, Kate Bishop and others are up to throughout the Civil War, I personally think you can Skip It.
That pretty much sums up all the tie ins with Civil War II in the actual title. There are other books that do tie into the Civil War II story, but if you’re not already following them, in my opinion they don’t add enough to warrant going out and picking them up, just for reading the event. Except for the Ultimates. If you’re not reading the Ultimates, you should be. It’s really good.
