Thursday, December 18, 2025
Home Blog Page 584

Meme Of The Week: ‘Baby Yoda’ Becomes The Internet’s Favorite Source Of Cuteness

0

The new Disney Plus series, ‘The Mandalorian’,  has already given us a character for the ages.

Despite the fact that Baby Yoda gifs were taken down from the internet for about a day due today’s wild media landscape, there has been no way of controlling the internet’s affection for the small green creature.

Baby Yoda first began to swirl around the internet on November 12, when “The Mandalorian” first aired on Disney Plus. After the much awaited release of the new series, the little guy went viral. Although we all call it Baby Yoda, the character is really called The Child, and it’s not the Yoda of the original films; it’s just a baby that’s the same species as Yoda.

Still, no one cares about technicalities and Baby Yoda is a much more catchier name than The Child.

RELATED: Meme Of The Week: ‘Gonna Tell My Kids’ Revises History In The Funniest Way

Here are some of the best Baby Yoda memes we found online. You’re welcome for all the sweetness:

RELATED: Meme Of The Week: ‘Ok Boomer’ Is The Internet’s New Way Of Dragging Older People

5 Wellness Gift Ideas That Won’t Break The Bank

0

The wellness trend is at an all time high, making these presents highly desirable and accessible.

As we enter the holiday season and rejoice over the prospect of winter vacations and traveling, we also start to calculate how much money we’ll be spending. With flight tickets, hotels, presents and social outings, the holidays are a festive time, but they’re also super pricey.

With the current wellness and health trend harassing us from all directions, what’s a better gift than something that’s healthy and that will push someone to lead a cleaner life? These presents are varied in styles and in prices. There’s truly something for everyone out there.

A nice water bottle

Water bottles are important, and there’s hundreds of them out there, ranging in style, price and effects. There’s a water bottle that lights itself up in order to remind you to have a drink, a water bottle that’s become a sort of style icon, and ones with filters on them. Think about your price range and the function that works best for the person you are giving the gift to.

Face masks

Face masks are a good option for stocking fillers or as a part of a larger wellness-themed present. These have an unlimited amount of variety and price ranges, from masks that claim to heal your face in days to others that just have a pug face on them. They’re all great.

A tea set

If the person you are giving a gift to loves tea and cute cups, you can give them a tea set and supplement it with some different flavors of tea. There’s plenty of variety in Amazon, with all sets having distinct looks, materials and prices.

RELATED: 4 Perks Of Adopting A Part-Time Vegetarian Diet

5 Wellness Gift Ideas That Won't Break The Bank
Photo by Brooke Lark via Unsplash

A yoga mat

Although slightly passive aggressive if the person you’re giving a gift to isn’t a yogi, yoga mats are extremely useful. You always want to have one of your own, especially if you like to go to the gym or to the occasional yoga class. If the workout fails, it never hurts to have a mat around the house.

A meal kit subscription

Meal kit subscriptions are on the rise right now, with there being plenty of options in terms of the kind of food you’re looking for and your budget. Most of these sites also provide the opportunity of gifting a meal kit, meaning that you’ll only have to pay once and the receiver will figure out if they want to stick to the plan of if they’d just rather enjoy a week of meals and be done with it.

4 Tips To Avoid Gaining Weight Over The Holidays

Here we go again. It’s officially that time of year when we’re left with a few extra pounds that will likely follow us into 2020.

Thanksgiving is a time that mostly revolves around food and somehow seems to extend well into December. Sure, there are family reunions and lots of day drinking, but everyone knows that the true star is the copious amounts of turkey and ham you end up eating. It’s also the time of the year when people officially start to gain weight and to spend less and less time working out.

Holiday weight gain is a misunderstood phenomenon. A study found that people don’t gain all that much weight per season, only about a pound or two by the time the New Year rolls around. The problem most face is the fact that this weight is generally never lost, amounting to a significant amount of pounds accumulated over the years.

Here are 5 tips that can help you avoid too much weight gain.

Keep your workout schedule regular

The main issue with holiday eating is the fact that most of us choose to take a break from our workouts and fitness goals. That, paired with an increased amount of food and alcohol intake, results in weight gain and diminished desire to stay active. No matter how busy the holiday season gets, try to maintain a steady number of workouts per week.

Try detoxing after heavy meals

If you’re feeling particularly bloated after a day of heavy eating, try to detox the next day. There’s no need to go crazy; you’ll instantly feel better if you stick to healthy foods, drink more water than usual and try some green juices. You can also go a step further and try cutting caffeine, sugar, gluten, dairy, or any other elements that may contribute to an upset stomach.

RELATED: What To Drink If You’re Feeling Bloated After Thanksgiving

5 tricks to make your treadmill workout less boring
Photo by William Choquette via Pexels

Don’t punish yourself

There’s nothing worse than feeling guilty about eating delicious food and having a good time. Give yourself the freedom to eat what you want and make yourself feel better by staying active and challenging yourself to work out more than in previous holiday seasons. Try to enjoy every aspect of your vacations, moving around and also spending time with your loved ones.

RELATED: Study: Marijuana Users Gain Less Weight Over Time Than Non-Users

the 6 best ways to include marijuana this thanksgiving
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash

Enjoy the holidays

Lastly, it’s important to enjoy the holiday season since its brief (it just seems like forever). Try to forgive yourself for eating and drinking more than usual and for having a less stable schedule. If you plan on working out more during the season, set realistic goals, giving yourself the room to have some lazy days.

Kevin Durant Just Joined One of Marijuana’s Biggest Companies

Thirty Five Ventures continues investing in the marijuana industry, with a focus on technology and data enterprises.

NBA superstar Kevin Durant will expand his investments in the cannabis space, as he and his business partner Rick Kleiman announced a partnership with Canopy Rivers this week. The deal will be made through Thirty Five Ventures, the investment firm co-founded by Durant and Kleiman.

The pair will join the strategic advisor board of Canopy Rivers, the publicly traded investment firm associated with Canopy Growth. As Forbes first reported, Canopy Rivers will co-invest in marijuana ventures with Thirty Five, as well as follow Durant and Kleiman’s “experience in brand development, marketing, and the sports and entertainment industry,” a Canopy Rivers spokesperson said.

RELATED: 4 Biggest Former Pro Athletes Involved In The Marijuana Business

Earlier this year, Durant and Kleiman backed Dutchie, an Oregon-based software company that tracks and supplies cannabis products to dispensaries across the country. This follows the investment pattern established by Thirty Five Ventures, which focuses on technology-first companies. Previous businesses in which the company invested includes Postmates, the food delivery app, and stock trading platform Robinhood.

why adults with medical conditions use more marijuana
Photo by Norman Posselt/Getty Images

 

In a release, Kleiman stated they were interested in teaming with Canopy Rivers because of the firm’s tech-focused approach to business.

“We’ve recognized that Canopy Rivers has taken a data-backed approach to map out forward-looking opportunities in the industry,” Kleiman said. “We are looking forward to joining the advisory board, and helping to align with some of the most disruptive founders in the space.”

RELATED: Kevin Durant And Snoop Dogg Invest In New Marijuana Delivery Service

Narbé Alexandrian, president and CEO of Canopy Rivers, told Forbes their interest went deeper than expanding their portfolio to sports and entertainment. Instead, the company was impressed with how Thirty Five Ventures’ “incredible success investing in the tech sector.”

“We wanted to partner with a company that shares this vision for the cannabis sector and that’s how we landed on Thirty Five Ventures,” Alexandrian said. “Their experience in venture capital, particularly investing in specialized companies that are the best at one or two things, knowledge of sports and entertainment, and success in CPG investments were all big factors. We believe that by working together we can achieve more.”

4 Ways Cannabis Can Improve Your Holidays

0

A light dose of cannabis can make a family visit more tolerable while not inducing a noticeable or obvious high.

Holiday season is a time for festivities and coming together with friends and loved ones, but sometimes the holidays can be a source of stress, anxiety, and loss of sleep.

Cannabis can help ease some of the negative aspects of the festive winter months as well as make some of the positives even better. Here’s how. 

Family Gatherings

Relatives can sometimes be difficult to be around for an extended period of time, especially when they insist on discussing controversial topics or create discomfort in some other way. A light to micro dose of cannabis can make the visit more tolerable while not inducing a noticeable or obvious high. Many edibles are now made in small dose servings, often in mint or chocolate form, that can be discreetly eaten throughout an evening for example, and won’t have your judgy aunt sarcastically asking you if you just got into a fight with a skunk.

Traveling

The days surrounding Thanksgiving are often the heaviest travel days, with Christmas and New Years also seeing lots of folks getting from point A to point B. Sometimes that sojourning means going long distances traversed via airplane, leading to potential jet lag. Marijuana is a popular sleep aid, and a toke session before it’s time to go to bed can provide the much needed slumber sought by weary and time-shifted travelers.

RELATED: How To Have The Marijuana Conversation This Thanksgiving

4 Ways Cannabis Can Improve Your Holidays
Photo by fauxels via pexels

Feasting

Winter season is a time for parties and celebratory spreads of rich, indulgent food and beverages. Marijuana is known to both induce appetite as well as make food taste better. Sativa strains are particularly renowned for bringing on the munchies. A quick sesh before dinner can make your mama’s mac and cheese or your granny’s garlic mashed potatoes even tastier.

Unwinding

It’s important to take a break from the all festivities and the additional stress that they can bring. Taking a momentary time-out with a calming strain of weed can make the most out of brief moments of respite with a bowl, joint, or vape of a calming, relaxing strain of marijuana. 

RELATED: Marijuana Is The Hottest Accessory For These Big Box Retailers This Holiday

Photo by McKinsey via rawpixel.com

Weed isn’t a cure-all however, and if you’re really feeling overwhelmed and like you might be teetering towards self-harm, reach out to a friend or a qualified individual for help.

Demand For CBD Oil Could Lead To Christmas Tree Shortage

0

Growers are choosing to grow crops that are easier to take care of and that produce more money than seasonal Christmas trees.

Christmas trees take their time to grow and develop, which is why some growers are tempted to plant less seasonal and more profitable crops, such as hemp. This change could make it hard for those who are looking for a Christmas tree to find the option they want.

“If you love Christmas trees, then the key is to come early, so that you can get first dibs,” said John Patton of Patton Christmas Trees. “Especially the people who like to get big trees… the biggest shortage are on the trees that are 8 to 9 feet and above.”

Patton spoke with the CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth and explained that people who buy their trees early in the year should find plenty of options, but those who leave their shopping for last minute might find some trouble. “Originally, the grower said, ‘sounds good, John… we’ll get you your entire order… and then, as we got closer to November, they all of a sudden started saying, ‘look, we just don’t have enough trees to fill everybody’s order’,” he explained.

Demand For CBD Oil Could Lead To Christmas Tree Shortage
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash

Out-of-state growers are choosing to invest their time in growing crops that are easier to plant and that end up making more money. “No doubt we will sell out,” Patton said. “One of the biggest wholesalers in all of Texas, guy named Bill Clem, he said his order was cut by almost 30% this year.”

RELATED: 7 Christmas Tree Alternatives That Will Make The Holiday Weird

Over the years, fake Christmas trees have been growing in popularity, since they’re easier to cleanup and can be reused over the years.

Millennials have reportedly increased the value of natural Christmas trees since they prefer it over other options. We’ll have to wait a couple of years in order to see how serious is the effect of CBD and whether it will have a larger effect over the production of Christmas pines.

Among Heart Failure Patients, Cannabis Users Have Better Outcomes

A study conducted by the American Heart Association shows that cannabis users actually had a lower risk of atrial fibrillation. And the good news doesn’t stop there.

As any cannabis enthusiast will tell you, all experiences with marijuana are not the same. While people use it for its pleasant effects and therapeutic benefits, the experience isn’t fail safe.

Cannabis is known to sometimes cause an excited, even nervous or anxious reaction depending on the user, sample composition, amount consumed and other elements. Doctors call it an adrenergic state. This state is known to increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, the irregular, chaotic beating of the heart’s chambers and is also known as A-fib.

It is this reaction that has caused some concern about cannabis use by people with compromised heart health. Doctors have little information about the effect of cannabis on the occurrence of A-fib in patients with heart failure. A study conducted by the American Heart Association shows that cannabis users actually had a lower risk of A-fib. The good news doesn’t stop there.

First, let’s have a look at the study. Sometimes the best way to see patterns is to simply look back. That’s exactly what this study did by using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample to examine the hospital records of over six million patients in the U.S. admitted for heart failure.

RELATED: What We Know About Medical Marijuana’s Effect On Heart Disease

Researchers compared the health, length of hospital stay and mortality rates of cannabis users and non-users. They “observed significantly reduced odds of atrial fibrillation among cannabis users.”  Not only that, patients who were cannabis users were also less likely to die in the hospital. Also surprising to researchers was the fact that cannabis users also had shorter hospital stays than non-cannabis users. 

Photo by LPETTET/Getty Images

This is not the first time that cannabis has shown a positive proactive effect to reduce the risk of serious health conditions. A study published in Neuropsychopharmacology showed that heavy cannabis users may have a reduced risk of stroke because of increased blood and oxygen flow to the brain. Cannabinoids, active compounds in cannabis, have also been shown to protect against traumatic brain damage.

Despite the good news, prescription cannabis medicine commercials are a long way off as long as cannabis remains listed as a Schedule I substance by the DEA and the FDA has “not approved marijuana as a safe and effective drug for any indication.” However, as the leading cause of death for both men and women in the US. with more than 600,000 Americans dying from heart disease every year, more research is inevitable.

Amazon Announces Next Steps For Alexa World Domination

0

New technology brings us a step closer to a world where Alexa forms an intrinsic part of our daily environment.

If you were thinking that voice assisted AI was a temporary technological development that wouldn’t leave its mark on the world, Amazon is here to remind you that it’s here to stay. A surprisingly casual announcement from the company reports that now, Alexa will be able to run in even the most basic of programs, requiring only 1MB of memory.

While Amazon has released hundreds of devices containing Alexa capabilities, ranging from Earbuds, to kindles, to glasses, this new technology (awkwardly called called AVS Integration for AWS IoT Core) really bridges the gap that normally differentiates “complex tech” to the kind of technology you interact with on a daily basis.

“We now offload the vast majority of all of this to the cloud. So the device can be ultra dumb. The only thing that the device still needs to do is wake word detection. That still needs to be covered on the device,”  Dirk Didascalou, the vice president of AWS IoT, told TechCrunch.

RELATED: 5 Of The Coolest Amazon Alexa Skills

Hey Alexa: Why Isn't Anyone Naming Babies 'Alexa' Anymore?
Photo courtesy of Amazon, Inc.

According to Didascolou, this technology brings us a step closer to a world where Alexa forms an intrinsic part of our environment. Instead of focusing your attention on a device and calling out to it, the focus would be on the software, which could now be present in both your speaker and, say, your coffee mug.

RELATED: 4 Ways Amazon Is Upgrading Alexa

While this announcement suggests exciting tech and a lot of comfort for our future by giving us plenty of different ways to access digital information, it also raises concerns for those who worry about their voice assistants recording their lives and conversations. Don’t worry, this is still a big issue that companies don’t know how to address. We’ve just learned how to live with it.

Thanksgiving Couchlock: The Combined Effects Of Marijuana and Turkey

Consuming turkey and marijuana doesn’t have to result in couchlock this Thanksgiving—you just need to choose wisely.

Everyone eats too much on Thanksgiving. It’s hardly a surprise. With all that delicious food, it’s nearly impossible to stop yourself. But even if you could, would you even want to try? Of course not.

On the surface, Thanksgiving presents a vexing problem for those who prefer cannabis over alcohol. Eating turkey will make you sleepy, right? Add in some marijuana and it appears like a combination ripe to make you pass out on grandma’s couch. No one wants that — you might miss dessert!

Now, if you’re participating in Danksgiving or find yourself in a situation where you’ve accidentally toked too much before the meal, this is an expected probability. That said, a majority of Americans travel many miles to see family they only visit once a year. Missing family time because of turkey and toking would be an unfortunate outcome for most. However, there’s a way to participate in both of your favorite activities — smoking and eating — without ending up on grandma’s cushions unable to talk or move.

RELATED: How To Use CBD To Combat Your Thanksgiving Food Coma

The Thanksgiving myth that turkey makes you sleepy revolves around tryptophan, an amino acid found in turkey. Tryptophan produces two neurotransmitters in your body: serotonin and melatonin. Serotonin raises mood levels and is associated with healthy sleep. Melatonin, meanwhile, is more closely linked to regulating and inducing sleep cycles. This is why many travelers will take melatonin to avoid jet lag when flying internationally.

Photo by Wokandapix via Pixabay

What causes you to pass out, then, is consuming tryptophan-rich turkey in conjunction with all those carbohydrates and sugary desserts. Eating carbs and sugars causes the body to release insulin, which flushes out many amino acids in your bloodstream. Except tryptophan that is. Tryptophan remains, unencumbered by competitors, ready to release its sleepy properties past your blood-brain barriers.

Think of it as tryptophan waiting in line, then his best friend carbohydrate invites him to cut everyone to the front. So if you don’t want to feel drowsy after your meal, maybe skip the dinner roll and avoid that extra heaping of mashed potatoes on your plate.

RELATED: How To Get High With Your Family On Thanksgiving

Another myth to debunk: just smoking weed won’t cause you to pass out. The primary concern is what and how you’re consuming marijuana before Thanksgiving. Using low-THC or 1:1 THC-CBD products will stop you from passing out in mashed potatoes bowl. Tinctures, vaporizers, and edibles are all great to manage your high properly in this way, causing a gentler high.

If you’re committed to smoking flower, however, you can mitigate the risk there, too. Sativa strains are generally associated with raising energy levels and some athletes use cannabis to help them train. Some people use specific sativa strains to increase appetite and allow them to get thirds on Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, indica strains are known to produce more relaxing, soothing effects as typically associated with marijuana. So consuming cannabis responsibly and avoiding some extra carbs could be the difference between playing catch with your nephew after dinner or watching the football game trapped on the couch. Choose wisely.

California Raises Cannabis Business Taxes, Legal Operators Worry It Will Drive Illicit Market Growth

This move will only further oppress an already weak legal market and fuel the thriving illicit market, according to industry insiders.

The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration has announced that it will increase taxes on the regulated cannabis industry yet again. The markup rate for the marijuana excise tax will increase from 60% to 80% on New Year’s Day.

This rate is used to provide the basis for California’s 15% excise tax. This move will only further oppress an already weak legal market and fuel the thriving illicit market, industry participants said. Among the California industry operatives expressing concern as the market struggles to meet expectations and profitability is Ben Larson, board member at the Cannabis Beverage Association and CEO of Vertosa.

“If the state is looking for another way to give a boost to the illicit market and drive more companies out of California that are trying to engage in the legal market — this is it. Well done,” he said.

Will California Protect Off-Work Medical Marijuana Use?
Photo by Mike Fox via Unsplash

RELATED: Op-Ed: California’s Thriving Illicit Market Leading To More Crime

Cynthia Salarizadeh, founder and president of the California-based premium cannabis products company House of Saka, said the taxes are beginning to make profitability impossible.

“[The] cost of goods are so high in the legal cannabis market that any additional taxation kills our margins and will hurt smaller businesses, along with the bigger ones.”

This article originally appeared on Benzinga.

Don't Miss Your Weekly Dose of The Fresh Toast.

Stay informed with exclusive news briefs delivered directly to your inbox every Friday.

We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime.