List #71: Best of 2018

The Big Family Cooking Showdown: Best Replacement for the BBC's Great British Bake Off, Rec. #717

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Most Positive TV Twist, Rec. #707

Burn, Burn, Burn: Best Road Trip, Rec. #723

Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Best Return of the '90s Snarky Brunettes, Rec. #743

Captain Awkward: Best Advice on the Internet, Rec. #705

Check, Please: Best Webcomic Now in Print, Rec. #735

Chess: Best Live Musical Performance, Rec. #721

Colossal: Best I-Guess-It's-Technically-SciFi, Rec. #713

"DecaDance/Chicago": Best Live Dance Performance, Rec. #703

Dogs on Twitter: Best Reason Not to Rage-Quit the Internet, Rec. #747

Dr. Gameshow: Best Way to Keep Up with NYC Comedy When You're Not in NYC, Rec. #719

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Best Place to Discover New Sketch Comedy Duos, Rec. #749

An Emmy for Megan: Best Short Form Comedy Concept, Rec. #751

Flo & Joan: Best Musical Comedy Duo, Rec. #709

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee: Best Righteous Fury on the Screen, Rec. #739

Janeane Garofalo: Best Return of the '90s Snarky Brunettes, Rec. #743

Giant Days: Best Continuing Comic Book Series, Rec. #711

Good and Mad: Best Righteous Fury on the Page, Rec. #737

The Good Place: Best Recent Evidence of the Genius of Allison Jones, Casting Director, Rec. #745

The Good Place: Most Deserving of Implicit Trust, Rec. #757

The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4): Best Replacement for the BBC's Great British Bake Off, Rec. #717

The Guardian: Best Photography Curation, Rec. #729

Making It: Best Replacement for the BBC's Great British Bake Off, Rec. #717

Only Connect and Victoria Coren Mitchell: Best Match of Host with Show, Rec. #755

Paddington 2: Best Movie Featuring Sally Hawkins Underwater, Rec. #701

Helen Rosner: Best Insight Into the Food World for Non-Foodies, Rec. #715

Schitt's Creek: Best Serenades, Rec. #733

The Spy Who Dumped Me: Best Buddy Comedy, Rec. #725

Taskmaster: Best Embrace of Meaninglessness, Rec. #731

Louis Virtel: Most Welcome Podcast Guest, Rec. #753

Visages Villages: Best Road Trip That Is Also a Buddy Comedy, Rec. #727

W1A: Best Faux Documentary, Rec. #741

You're on an Airplane: Best Return of the '90s Snarky Brunettes, Rec. #743

Rec. #747: Best Reason Not to Rage-Quit the Internet

***BEST OF 2018***

Dogs on Twitter

  

Dido, via @hels

Brian, via @lindaholmes

Glory, via @BlairBraverman

Helen Rosner (@hels), Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes), and Blair Braverman (@BlairBraverman) are all A+ purveyors of cute dog content, but really --- you have a lot of options.

(See also Rec. #544, Rec. #545, Rec. #547, Rec. #607, Rec. #609, Rec. #684)

Rec. #684: Three Fluffy Puppers Being Cute

Source

 Source

Source

Happy Friday.

Rec. #609: Blair Braverman's Sled Dog Threads on Twitter

What: Dogsled racer and author Blair Braverman has fantastic, amazing, heartwarming, sob-at-your-desk Twitter threads about the sled dogs, and isn't that just what you need on a Friday?

Representative threads:

Two litters of puppies meet one another!

Clean-up party with pups, followed by a bedtime story

Field trip to a cranberry bog

First walk off the farm

Glory makes a choice

Postcards from the pack

... all of this is just from the last month


How to get it: Follow Blair Braverman on Twitter - @BlairBraverman

Rec. #607: Put Your Face in It

What: I do not understand video games, but I do understand dogs. NPR's Linda Holmes examines both, and how they intersect, in this short but satisfying piece.

Representative quote: "He is saying to himself, 'This could be some wonderful and magical key to a benefit yet unrealized! This could be magic! This could taste delicious! This could transport me to another dimension!'"

How to get it: All of Holmes's NPR Monkey See content recently rebranded under the Pop Culture Happy Hour umbrella. Find this article on the NPR site here.

Connections to previous Wreckage: See also List #66 for Holmes on Twitter, Rec. #503 for Holmes as writer, and Rec. #571 for Holmes as host.

Rec. #547: Blanket Burrito After a Bath

Last day of Cute Week. Big goddamn finish.

What: This is my dog, Oona. I gave her a bath. Then she took a nap in a cozy blanket burrito.

Rec. #546: Snoring Hummingbird

Yup. Still Cute Week

What: There is a hummingbird, and it is snoring. Will you find yourself making this your ringtone? Will you accidentally watch this clip twelve times in a row? I don't know! Maybe!

Transcript for your convenience:
"A scientist in Peru [pause for peep] captured this, escaping from the tiny body [pause for peep] of a sleeping hummingbird. [pause for peep] A high-pitched [pause for peep] but unmistakable snore. [pause for peep] Hummingbirds are loved for their beauty and speed [pause for peep] but this one was behaving a little bit like a human. [pause for peep] The perfect cute-response trigger."

Source: This is a clip from the aptly named BBC One program Super Cute Animals.

Rec. #545: Letter Grades for Foxes

Still Cute Week, yes, of course, but also now a midweek treat of additional humorous commentary.

 

 
What: Twitter user Colin J. Carlson laid out 16 definitive fox ratings this past November. The whole thread is glorious.


Representative commentary:

"always look kinda sleepy which i do respect"

"what is this shit. some kind of long dog. some kind of dog ferret"

"i've never seen game of thrones but when i look at this fox i feel an emotion that i think is wanting to watch game of thrones"


Source note: Colin J. Carlson, an alarmingly young bio postdoc, passed the "not an obvious monster" test (see Rec. #517 for first reference to the test).

Rec. #544: Three Dog GIFs

Still doing this Cute Week thing, goddammit.

Source: Posted by Dogs of Instagram (@Insta_dogs), November 2017.

Source: The wilds of Tumblr ... I don't know the original source. I'm sorry. 

Source: Posted by Ranger (@ranger_thegshepherd), January 2018. The original Instagram post has very important audio.

Rec. #543: Bears Playing with a Balloon

OK, that's it. We are having a goddamn Cute Week.

What: It's a short video of three bears playing with a pink balloon. A longer version, with commentary, is available here.

Provenance: It seems to have originated from Xaviera Simons via Facebook in March 2016.