#in the NBA there's like pools and pools of point guards... the WNBA is just not like that at all

[thebuckblogimo]

Perhaps he makes too much money.

August 15, 2023

Does the name Mat Ishbia mean anything to you?

He was a Michigan State walk-on basketball player who appeared in a couple of Final Fours, including the national championship victory over Florida in 2000.

Ishbia was usually the last guy off the bench. A fan favorite. A feisty little point guard who probably could have been a contributor on just about any small college team in America.

During his senior year, he chose to sit behind the bench on Tom Izzo's staff as a student assistant. Eventually deciding that coaching wasn't for him, Ishbia went to work after graduation for his father's company, United Wholesale Mortgage.

At the time, UWM had about a dozen employees. The young Ishbia immediately began to apply his strong work ethic to building his dad's business. He became its president a few years later, and was named CEO in 2013.

Today, UWM is the largest wholesale mortgage company in America. As of 2021 it had 8,000 employees.

Mat Ishbia is now a multi-billionaire. He is also the majority owner of the Phoenix Suns of the NBA and the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA.

I loved Mat Ishbia during that run of Final Fours. Like most fans, I pulled for Spartan blowouts so he would get his minutes during mop-up time.

Ishbia was a pit bull on the floor. He'd get into the grill of opposing players. He'd bark commands while leading the fast break at the point. And whenever he hit an outside shot, the crowd would go nuts.

I've heard him interviewed a couple of times about Spartan hoops, and listening to him makes has-beens like me want to strap on a jock, get out on the court, and start diving for loose balls.

He is that intense, enthusiastic, positive and inspiring as an interviewee.

A few years ago, Ishbia donated $32 million to MSU, including $20 million to expand its football building. (I hate the facilities war that's been going on in college football, but that's where we're at, unfortunately, in college sports today.)

Then Ishbia donated $14 million to help fund the long-term contract of MSU football coach Mel Tucker.

He also had the idea to launch something called The Spartan for Life Fund to help all student-athletes--past and present--enhance their post-sports careers.

Kudos to him for that. But here is where I part ways with Ishbia:

He knocked down his own, architecturally acclaimed 22,000-square-foot home and five ajacent neigborhood homes to build what will be, at 60,000 square feet, the largest occupied house in Michigan. Complete with a trampoline park, basketball court, batting cage, tennis and pickel ball courts, climbing wall, reflecting pool, a serpentine swimming pool, mini river, artificial islands, waterfall, tree house, artworks, conservatory-and-studio building for bad weather days, and a sprawling "Enchanted Forest" on 14 acres.

There also will be accessory buildings to house security guards and caretakers, a gazebo, 50-foot-long cabana and a six-car garage.

All I can say is, "Really?"

I believe in entrepreneurship, the free enterprise system, market forces and all that. Especially after witnessing how a black market economy took root in Poland while the country was under communist rule before the fall of the Iron Curtain. But I've long contended that there can come a point where someone makes too much money.

I just can't figure out what it is. However, I suspect that Mat Ishbia may have exceeded it.

When you tear down a 22,000-square-foot home to build a 60,000-square-foot monument to yourself, with all the amenities listed above, that feels damn near immoral to me.

When I was growing up during the '50s and '60s, the auto industry was cookin' in Detroit. I knew several families whose fathers had blue collar jobs at GM, Ford or Chrysler and who owned cottages on Lake St. Claire in Canada. I certainly never felt that owning something like a vacation home was decadent. I still don't.

And if I had become an uber-rich professional athlete or been smart enough to attend an Ivy League school, become a business mogul and had earned a seven-figure salary, I doubt that I would have felt much guilt about it. But I'd like to think that I'd know the point where acquiring possessions becomes "not quite right" and would have looked for every possible way to help family, friends and others with my good fortune,

Perhaps Mat Ishbia contributes to a slew of chairities and philanthropic causes. I know that he's donated at least a million bucks to the V Foundation for cancer research. And it's wonderful that he's put thousands of people to work at UWM, including some of his former teammates.

But a 60,000-square-foot home? C'mon, Mat.

[female-buckets]

Sue is a good PG but she's grossly over hyped and exposed because she is an attractive white women. No black woman is going to come out against anything she gets because they don't want to be perceived as aggressive. Perks of being a white women, you'll always be seen as better than BW and anyone who says otherwise is bullying you.

I don't want to overhype white players on this blog. But I've been following the Seattle Storm since 2004 so I have a Storm bias.

I've spent the last few posts criticizing Courtney Vandersloot hype. I do think Vandersloot is hyped over Chelsea Gray due to race. But Gray and Sloot aren't greats yet. They're each still working on their legacies.

I'm a Phoenix fan. I like Skylar. But Skylar is notorious for struggling in clutch moments. Arike's a clutch god, but she'd rather drop 30 than have more than 3 assists in a game. Maybe I'm biased against one-on-one/scoring point guards. But I just don't put these two on the same level as balanced PGs like Gray and Sloot.

Sue is a vet, so she's a player you compare with other vets. I don't believe you can name one GOAT player. Each great player is impressive in a number of categories. But, no two greats are impressive in exactly the same way.

Tamika Catchings is a basketball super sayan. But she was a point-forward like Taurasi. I don't consider either of them point guards. They're too versatile and they each invented their own position and unique role. They both prefer playing with a point guard over being a point guard. This is why people compare Catchings with Taurasi and Swin Cash rather than comparing Catchings with Bird.

Tweety was a shooting guard, but she played point on a few teams. I'd rather compare her with other legendary shooting guards like Cappie Pondexter and Seimone Augustus.

The fact is, when Sue Bird came into the league, there was a shortage of point guards at her level. The style of play for point guards was different from what she was doing. She set a scoring standard for her generation of point guards. If you weren't scoring over 10, you weren't cutting it. Kara Lawson and Becky Hammon were chasing what she was doing, and Becky took it to an extreme.

Dawn Staley was the starting point guard in Athens while Sue barely played. Sue was the more skilled player and imminent champion in 2004, but Dawn was a better leader and respected veteran. Dawn taught Sue what it meant to lead and command respect from veterans. I think Dawn's legend, her impact on the game, her character, that's what makes her great. I love watching her play, even though she played an older style of the game. She just had a powerful aura. That's why she's a great NCAA coach. Successful college coaches all have that larger-than-life magnetic charisma.

Cynthia Cooper and Sue Bird were two different eras. The WNBA wouldn't exist without Cooper. Is there any way to even compare her with other players? If we're talking about hoop gods, she's the head of the whole pantheon. She set the tone for the level of competition in the WNBA.

As for other white point guards, Becky got hype for carrying her franchise. It's not easy to carry a franchise as a 5'5" point guard. Her rosters were mostly lemons and she made lemonade. Opponents facing San Antonio would double team her. Imagine being that intimidated by a mouse. Also, it's hard to avoid press when you play for Russia in the olympics. The whole country branded her a traitor. That's a lot of press.

Arike's a much more deadly scoring point guard than Hammon was. If Nigeria puts together a competitive enough team, she might play for them in the Paris olympics. And if she does, she'll be the next Hammon. And that would be awesome tbh.

[almaasi]

GISH 2019 List of Items

Need a clean, rebloggable, printable, copy-pastable, bookmarkable reference for the GISH 2019 item list in case the official site goes down? I’ve got ya covered. Includes the item number, photo/video type, and point value. List will be updated as the hunt progresses. Good luck, Gishers~

[ see also: 2011 list // 2012 list // 2013 list // 2014 list // 2015 list // 2016 list // 2017 list // 2018 list]

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Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Misha Collins or GISH. I just love the bleeping bleep out of both. c:

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ALL of the Items below should either be captured as "images" (which are photographs) or "videos". When you click “Submit," there will be instructions on how to submit the links to these images or videos. You should only use YOUTUBE for the videos and for images - you may upload them directly on our site.

bUnless otherwise specified, ALL VIDEOS must be NO LONGER than 14 seconds. If you’re a second or two over we’re not going to penalize you (we know how finicky youtube can be), but aim for 14 or under. They can be shorter if you wish!

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1 / PHOTO / 21 POINTS / Make an Assbutt of yourself in public. Literally.

2 / PHOTO / 43 POINTS / TIMELAPSE. Nothing caps off a good, hot summer day like a footlong s'mores eaten by two, Lady and the Tramp Style. (No hands may be used in the creation of or eating of the s'mores.) - Rae M.

3 / VIDEO / 57 POINTS / They say stepping on a LEGO is the greatest pain one can experience. We Gishers laugh in the face of pain. Make shoes entirely from LEGOs - no fluffy socks or insoles allowed- and demonstrate them in use. Post it to social media and tag the LEGO accounts and @GISH. - Deidra

4 / VIDEO / 59 POINTS / Hula hooping is hard, and you're just not ready to go it alone yet. Create a hula-hoop with training wheels for beginners and show it in use.

5 / PHOTO / 36 POINTS / At least 3 grownups working in an industrial mud-pie factory. They must be wearing hair nets. Supervising them is at least one tidy child under age 10 in a suit and carrying a clipboard.

6 / VIDEO / 28 POINTS / 7 out of 10 dentists and dental hygienists recommend Flossing, and they practice what they preach. Show us 7 out of 10 real dentists and dental hygienists flossing (not tooth-flossing. Dance-flossing.)

7 / VIDEO / 113 POINTS / SLOW-MOTION. It's time for the most elegant and beautiful of all affairs: the paintball ballet! 5 ballerinas playing paintball on pointe. They must all be pointe dancers; they can be wearing safety gear, but it must be pink and there must be tutus and pointe shoes.

8 / PHOTO / 47 POINTS / It's summer, and that means it's time to do your civic duty. Take a swim in the jury pool -- complete with flotation devices, snorkel, etc.

9 / PHOTO / 34 POINTS / Bee-drinking poles are all the rage, but your neighborhood bees deserve to really unwind. Create a bee bar - a bee "saloon on a pole" using recycled bottle caps. Install it somewhere public. - Item Written By Misha's Mom

10 / PHOTO / 74 POINTS / A real matador in a real bullfighting ring with any of our GISH/gishwhes "flapes" (these are flags some Gishers purchase during registration). The bull is a Gisher, convincingly dressed as a bull.

11 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 31 POINTS / Listerine Mouse Wash.

12 / PHOTO / 43 POINTS / A child reading a bedtime story to the monster under their bed. The monster should be charmed and cozy and cuddled up.

13 / PHOTO / 36 POINTS / The machines are taking over, and now they're even infiltrating the dating sector. Your blind date tonight at a 4-star restaurant is a humanoid robot.

14 / VIDEO / 58 POINTS / Nothing can shake you up! Show us how you keep centered: meditating on a moving mechanical bull. Keep your chakras aligned! Fall off in less than 2 seconds and score 0 points.

15 / PHOTO / 80 POINTS / Create a "food truck" that sells something incongruous with food trucks. It could be delicious pesticides, microchips, shower caps or anything in between. It can't be compassion, empathy, or anything that "feeds the soul." As loathe as we are to say this: get creative. Your truck must advertise its wares with flashy signage.

16 / VIDEO / 66 POINTS / LOCATION-BASED. Clowns were the original glad-iators. Prove it with Roman clowns fighting in an actual Colosseum or ancient amphitheater in a knock-down, drag-out pie fight.

17 / PHOTO / 23 POINTS / Trip the light fantastic. Literally. - Kelli R.

18 / PHOTO / 53 POINTS / You know that saying: "Christ on a paddleboard!" Well, it's used for a reason - Jesus walked on water and was an innovator in the Stand-Up Paddleboard world. Show Jesus on a stand-up paddleboard, with at least 3 disciples following him in a rowboat, canoe, or scull.

19 / VIDEO / 49 POINTS / The world is in desperate need of more Cheese Balls. Many more Cheese Balls. Many many many more Cheese Balls. Delivered as rapidly as possible. Build a functional Cheese Ball launching/delivery system and demonstrate it shooting cheese balls from a distance of least 30 feet away. You must be able to catch at least 1 in your mouth.

20 / PHOTO / 12 POINTS / A housecat happily flaunting a stylish mustache.

21 / PHOTO / 43 POINTS / You're a real dish. No, really. You and a friend, dressed as commemorative collector plates, donating platelets (that's what plates bleed).

22 / VIDEO / 291 POINTS / People always say, "GISH lights up the night!" Prove it. Get a bunch of drones with lights on them to spell out the word "GISH" in the night sky. The drones must serve as pixels in the sky, so you will need a lot of them. Probably at least 40.

23 / VIDEO / 41 POINTS / (Up to 20 seconds. You may use fast-motion or tight editing). When baking, measurements are vital to the culinary success of your creation. Small missteps will ruin your souffle. Of course, measuring cups and spoons, over time, change size and volume due to humidity and aging. Let's use a measuring device that you trust and know intimately: your mouth. First, figure out exactly how much volume is in you mouth and then use it to source and distribute all ingredients to bake a cake. You may not use any utensils or measuring devices. Grab whatever ingredients you use to make a cake and place them on your counter and then, without using your hands to measure or fill, fill your mouth with the appropriate amounts of each ingredient and then deposit in your cake dish.(Yes, this means you would need to "bob for flour" in your flour bag and then "mouth spout" it into your mixing bowl). Once the ingredients are all safely in the mixing bowl (again, delivered by your mouth), you are allowed to mix it with any device--as long as that device is a part of your face. Bake it and enjoy it with a loved one (without using your hands).

24 / VIDEO / 94 POINTS / Have a child under 8 years old create an original recipe, a la "Cooking Fast & Fresh with West". Record them inventing it, then executing their vision. It must be 100% child-led with an adult-only serving as sous chef. In a blatant cross-promotional stunt, the best recipes will be posted on my social media when my new book, "The Adventurous Eaters Club" hits bookstores. (BTW, you can pre-order now here.)

25 / VIDEO / 68 POINTS / (UP TO 30 SECONDS) You've been bragging you can out-dunk a professional basketball player, and now it's time to prove it: go one-on-one for a 30-second milk-and-cookies dunk-off against a pro-baller. Your competitor must be a current or retired member of the NBA or WNBA. Bonus points if your competition is a household name. Post your video on social media tagging the player with #GISHDunkChallenge

26 / PHOTO / 31 POINTS / Be a stand-in for me! Wearing a convincing Misha Collins mask, have a cup of tea with someone who still has a bonafide original Team 3 Rhino Hunt puzzle piece. The puzzle piece must be visible in the image. If you are on a team and you are a Team 3 Rhino Hunt puzzle piece holder, you MAY collaborate with other teams to help them out on this one. (I will still honor the tea-time for any unredeemed puzzle pieces. This offer never expires.)

27 / PHOTO / 46 POINTS / Food waste is a real problem in many countries. At the same time, food deserts are a problem, making it difficult for some people to get fresh, nutritious food. We're helping both problems in one fell swoop with our GISH Mobile Free Grocers! Get a grocery store to donate the day's "ugly" produce, day-old bread, and any other still-edible fresh foods to you, then go and distribute it as a GISH Mobile Free Grocer to people experiencing homelessness.

28 / PHOTO / 42 POINTS / The tooth fairy is sick and tired of waiting around to collect the teeth under kids' pillows, so she's gone rogue and has started taking them right out of their mouths to meet her quota. Obviously, she needs to be stopped! Create an effective anti-tooth fairy nighttime mouth guard and show it in use, successfully stopping the thieving fairy. -Ant G.

29 / VIDEO / 49 POINTS / (UP TO 20 SECONDS: You may speed up and edit video) The big trend in experience-based restaurants has you eating in total darkness, but these gimmicky restaurants charge a fortune. We're bringing it to the masses: Take a dinner date to an upscale restaurant - the fancier, the better - wear white. There must be a white linen tablecloth. Sit across from each other and feed each other dinner while both of you are blindfolded. You must be serving one another red wine too.

30 / VIDEO / 53 POINTS / The recorder is an under-appreciated instrument, with roots in ancient times. The depth of its mythical sirenic tones are magical and hypnotic. So what better place to play this divine woodwind than amongst the most beautiful sites in the world? Play the Kansas song "Carry on Wayward Son" at sunset on a recorder, overlooking one of the following: the Grand Canyon (Arizona, US), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Machu Picchu (Peru), Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal (India), the Colosseum (Italy), Iguazu Falls (Brazil), Stonehenge (UK), Egyptian Pyramids or the Sphinx, Tikal (Guatemala), Angel Falls (Venezuela), Atacama Desert (Chile), Arashiyama Bamboo Grove (Japan), The Azores (Portugal), Boulders Beach (South Africa), Cappadocia (Turkey), Cliffs of Moher (Ireland), Disko Bay (Greenland), Lake Tekapo (New Zealand), Na Pali Coast (Hawaii, US), Sagrada Familia (Spain), Eiffel Tower (France), Reynisfjara (Iceland), Trolltunga (Norway), Ubud (Bali), Sydney Opera House (Australia), Banff National Park (Canada), Niagara Falls (New York or Ontario), Yellowstone (Wyoming), El Capitan (Yosemite), Statue of Liberty (Liberty Island), Eilean Donan Castle (Scotland), Neuschwanstein Castle (Germany), Matterhorn or Zermatt (Switzerland), or Chichen Itza (Mexico).

31 / PHOTO / 75 POINTS / In the past, stained glass windows usually depicted flowers or devotional symbols like angels and saints. But modern culture venerates a different group. Create a stained glass window of a Kardashian, famous Instagram Influencer, or similar personality with more than 4 million followers. It must be someone who is worshipped simply for being worshipped for being famous. You may not use anyone from the cast of Supernatural. Bonus points if it's installed in an actual cathedral.

32 / PHOTO / 43 POINTS / We're putting you in charge of Supernatural canon for the day. Paint a cannon with an elaborate SPN mural showcasing something that you think should be canon, with a caption like, "It's #SPN Cannon!"

33 / PHOTO / 24 POINTS / In the 2018 GISH Most Premiumerest Registration, we included a Misha Collins MishSqueezie stress ball. And though our concept artist did a great job, something got lost in translation and, well... Nailed it! But somewhere out there, there must be the guy that actually looks exactly like this stress ball. Find him and take a picture of him with the MishSqueezie.

34 / PHOTO / 81 POINTS / The Federation of Stormtroopers has been officially sponsored by the X Games this year. Let's see a highlight from one of their competitions with the stormtrooper participating in an extreme sport.

35 / VIDEO / 41 POINTS / A pop-up card that's for a blind child. Written in Braille, with pop-ups that can be understood completely by touch. Let's see it in action.

36 / PHOTO / 118 POINTS / Like many Americans, I've been trying to get supplies to the families and kids in detention center along the US border, and despite my C-List celebrity status, it's been tough. But we found a way. Go to SPNFamilyValues.com and follow the instructions there, then screenshot it and send that in as proof.

37 / VIDEO / 32 POINTS / I keep losing my stuff. Invent a Misha-proof AirPod-finding solution that is NOT a cord, because that defeats the entire point of AirPods - and one that works when they're not charged. Show it in use.

38 / PHOTO / 48 POINTS / Ugly Holiday sweaters are great, but with the climate crisis heating up the planet, we've got to branch out. Model your best ugly Holiday bathing suit or bikini made of repurposed ugly holiday sweaters. Model it at the beach with a caption touting the virtues of your "Global Warming Holiday Sweater."

39 / VIDEO / 108 POINTS / There's regular golf, and mini-golf, but where are all the maxi-golf courses? We want to see it all - the giant putters, the huge balls, and of course, the windmill.

40 / VIDEO / 45 POINTS / The world is heating up! Time for an old-fashioned kids game that we all know: Hot Planet. With at least 8 people in a public place, play a game of Hot Potato with a reddened globe of the planet Earth. Everyone must be wearing oven mitts and summer wear and not be fazed by the heat, except for one person who is dressed in a suit with a red tie and a Donald Trump mask. Trump isn't wearing mitts and his hands are covered in blisters and while he tries to hide it when the globe gets to his hands, it really hurts.

41 / VIDEO / 67 POINTS / (UP TO 30 SECONDS). A high-speed giant game of red rover played by at least 50 wedding guests. The bride must be the one flung across the field. The groom must be running after her holding her train. - Inspired by mdsteele47

42 / PHOTO / 95 POINTS / TWO PICTURES SIDE-BY-SIDE IN ONE IMAGE. I always feel a lot of guilt about the tattoo items in GISH. The first time I added one, I thought it was funny until I saw the tatts and then I felt a little bad. Of course, it gives me a rush of power when I see them in person, and many of them are actually very cool... So I have an idea that allows me to keep feeling powerful, but takes away all of my guilt: Get a tattoo of the encouraging message you wish your higher self had written to get you through the tough times. Because I know many of you already have inspiring tattoos, you must submit two images. The first is an image of you getting the tattoo when you are �-way done at the tattoo parlor, in the chair, holding a sign that reads, "GISH made me do it." The second image is of the finished tattoo. If you can, include your triumphant face. (Don't include more than 2 images in your submission. Just one image with two photos side by side.)

43 / VIDEO / 24 POINTS / Choose a sport you’ve never played before. Go do it with your coach: a child under the age of 10 who is an experienced participant. - Inspired by Coach Odette Padalecki

44 / PHOTO / 94 POINTS / Recreate a Civil War-era photograph with Captain America, Iron Man, and/or their respective sides using the Woodburytype photography technique. As always, no Photoshop allowed unless specified. This one does not allow it.

45 / PHOTO / 62 POINTS / Why have chain letters, when you can have chain mail? Create an intricate medieval knight’s suit of armor entirely out of junk mail, with chain mail comprised of chain letters. Must include a junk mail shield, sword, and a codpiece (to protect your "junk").

46 / VIDEO / 135 POINTS / Someone turned your local parking lot into your favorite childhood board game! Using sidewalk chalk or removable tempera, transform at least 5000 square feet of pavement into an enlarged version of your favorite childhood board game. Using a drone’s eye-view, show the whole board (complete with people costumed as game pieces playing).

47 / VIDEO / 141 POINTS / (UP TO 30 SECONDS) Garfield phones keep washing up on beaches in France. As you know, that’s because mermaids love cats, so there’s a mermaid call center operation down there selling these phones on QVSea. Show us the QVSea commercial for these phones, as pitched by a mer-spokesperson. Oh, and it should go without saying, but all of this is taking place underwater.

48 / VIDEO / 64 POINTS / A real barbershop quartet singing a passage from the Mueller Report in front of a federally elected political leader’s office.

49 / VIDEO / 48 POINTS / (UP TO 30 SECONDS) Talk to an elderly person over 80 and learn all about the best day of their life so far. Then, create a diorama of their best day in a small empty tin or box and give it to them. The video should show them briefly describing the memory and then you presenting them with the diorama. Make sure we get to see the diorama you made and their reaction, too.

50 / PHOTO / 59 POINTS / Write a formal, one-page letter to Gina Haspel, the current Director of the CIA. In it you must outline a plausible, one-page decoding of the fourth Kryptos. The letter must frame the description as an urgent matter and must seamlessly deploy the term “wild unicorn training centers around the globe”. Post a photo of your letter on social media and tag @CIA.

51 / PHOTO / 27 POINTS / Conspiracy theorists need to get with the times! Update the tinfoil hat to reflect technological innovations.

52 / PHOTO / 33 POINTS / Create MAILWHES, The Most Amazing, Intimidating Letterbox The World Has Ever Seen: a mailbox so amazing, so intimidating, so horrifying that your mail carrier will never dare leave you another piece of junk mail again. There must be teeth around the mail slot or opening.

53 / VIDEO / 64 POINTS / FAST-MOTION. At my friend Philip’s wedding, Giles Duley, myself and a few other forward-thinking innovators devised a new product and we would like to beta test the concept with you. It’s called: SoupFace and it involves eating soup from a bowl made from a plaster mold of your face. First, make a plaster mold of your face. Fill it with warm soup. Consume the soup without using a utensil and when the soup is gone and your face is back in the wet mold. Lift the SoupFace mold off the table without using your hands. Reveal the mask beneath.

54 / VIDEO / 59 POINTS / As all diehard Supernatural fans know, “Assbutt” was a featured player in Season 5, Episode 22 of the show, but the episode ran long and Assbutt’s scene was left on the cutting room floor. Rectify this oversight by releasing the never-before-seen cut of this scene.

55 / PHOTO / 39 POINTS / TRIPTYCH. Dawid Planeta illustrates his depression as mysterious creatures. In a 3-panel illustration, show your biggest fear or struggle as a symbolic creature with which you gradually come to terms. Label it so we know what your creature represents.

56 / PHOTO / 73 POINTS / A lot of people use their cell phones while in the bathroom, which is really gross. We understand that it can get boring in there, though. Help people break society’s screen addiction with our new solution: Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter toilet paper! Re-create a verified social media account on a roll of toilet paper- images and all. Scroll away—but don’t read the comments. (They’re crap.) Install it in a public bathroom as a public service.

57 / PHOTO / 47 POINTS / Send noods! There’s been an epidemic of people sending explicit noodle photos to unsuspecting people. We believe consent is important, and in this case, we consent—with some STRICT caveats: Recreate a TASTEFUL image of a famous nude painting or sculpture in noodles ONLY and then post it on social media tagged #SendNoods. Submit your actual image and a link to the tweet in your comments.

58 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 38 POINTS / Ask a child aged 5 or under what their greatest fear is. Create and photograph or film a scene of you and them conquering this fear together. - Kristin L.

59 / PHOTO / 28 POINTS / Cement your own joy.

60 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 244 POINTS / Angry birds. Flappy birds. Candy Crush. All those other games are so boring compared to GISH: The Game! Build an app game for the GISH App. It must feature a GISH mascot and integrate fully into the GISH App. Full specs for integration can be found here.

61 / PHOTO / 39 POINTS / (F)underwear.

62 / PHOTO / 72 POINTS / Each day, one member of your team must find one broken thing to upcycle and give to someone in need. Take a photo and, at the end of the Hunt week, submit a collage of the 7 now-useful items your team has gathered, refurbished, and donated. (You may not use a bicycle, but you may use a unicycle or tricycle.) - Inspired by Monica D.

63 / PHOTO / 38 POINTS / The ’80s are back, and we can’t escape all that goes with them: including stereoscopic images. Make a stereoscopic “Magic Eye” image of something that scares you as much as '80s fashion scares us.

64 / PHOTO / 62 POINTS / LOCATION-BASED. Outside a migrant detention center, lift a massive banner using balloons, drones, or telescoping poles at least 10 feet high with a message like, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.” Be responsible with your balloons. Don’t let them fly away or burst and leave shards anywhere.

65 / PHOTO / 67 POINTS / An upscale art gallery opening at a landfill. All exhibits must be made from things found at the landfill. One professional art critic must be present to review the works.

66 / VIDEO / 256 POINTS / Plane air painting: A wing-walker on a biplane, painting a picture on a canvas of the landscape from their point of view. Show us the painting as it’s happening, and then the completed painting being held by the wing-walker.

67 / VIDEO / 49 POINTS / A signer performing the National Anthem silently in sign language on a field at a stadium that seats more than 5,000, with a sizeable crowd of spectators.

68 / PHOTO / 42 POINTS / I’m not saying Jared Padalecki is a big softie, but here’s a portrait of him toasted onto a marshmallow. Just the way it should be.

69 / PHOTO / 40 POINTS / Nobody’s more devoted or grateful to firefighters than we are, except maybe a dalmatian. Or Smokey the Bear. Go to your local fire station dressed as a dalmatian or Smokey the Bear and create a relaxation station to thank them for their work. You can bring treats, offer mani-pedis, foot or shoulder massages, aromatherapy... You get the idea.

70 / PHOTO / 69 POINTS / Over the years, Jensen Ackles has been depicted in Skittles, but we all know his character Dean loves pie. Let's do a crossover: Bake a Skittles pie with a portrait of Jensen baked into the upper crust. Lattice work in the top crust should allow you to see the Skittles inside behind Jensen. Here’s some inspiration..

71 / VIDEO / 66 POINTS / TIMELAPSE. Create a thạch rau câu (Vietnamese Jelly Cake) portrait of a classic movie monster. You may not use the blob. We must see the injection process and your completed jelly cake.

72 / VIDEO / 51 POINTS / In Chengdu, China, kung fu tea (long spout, performance tea pouring) is popular. But it was just a matter of time before it was appropriated by other cultures. Show us a barista performing the Mengding Mountain 18 Forms of Dragon Flying Postures Kung Fu Tea pour at a Starbucks.

73 / PHOTO / 47 POINTS / An actual lumberjack working up on a tree with an impressive, long beard made out of googly eyes.

74 / VIDEO / 77 POINTS / (Up to 30 seconds) A stop-motion animation of a life-saving first aid technique (CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, etc.) featuring dolls or puppets in crisis.

75 / PHOTO / 178 POINTS / Danish artist Thomas Dambo creates massive wooden giants from recycled materials and installs them in Copenhagen forests. That’s great, but some giants prefer urban living. Build a hipster giant that’s at least 8’ (2.4m) tall from recycled materials and place it in the middle of a busy city or town.

76 / PHOTO / 22 POINTS / Not all insects aspire to just be insects. Some have ambitions and hobbies! Without harming it, get a live fly, beetle, roach or other insect to sit on a sheet of paper and doodle an environment around it showing it at its job or hobby.

77 / PHOTO / 75 POINTS / An actual space suit with a GISH 2019 patch on it next to the national flag.

78 / PHOTO / 23 POINTS / The Enterprise wasn’t the only vehicle in the not-so-final frontier. Show us Star Trek covered wagons. Tweet your image to @WilliamShatner with the message “Admit it, Bill. This is how you really voyaged.” You may use Photoshop for this item. Submit your image, along with a LINK to your tweet in your submission comments for points.

79 / PHOTO / 72 POINTS / The insect world is under-appreciated, but they are tiny works of art. Create a realistic-looking, oversized detailed sculpture of an underappreciated arachnid or insect out of bread, ice, or marble, the way Michaelangelo would have done if he’d had the time. You may not make a dragonfly, ladybug, butterfly or any other insect that has already been socially normalized as “cute”. - Inspired by Kat F.

80 / PHOTO / 49 POINTS / The Wondersmith makes surprise, fantastical parties in the forests of Oregon, which we find lovely. Set up a surprise party for hikers at least ½ a mile from a rest area that’s clearly been created by forest-dwelling fairies and/or trolls (that’s you). Make sure it’s welcoming, and capture the moment you’re surprising them— both you and the hikers should be in the image. They must be real hikers and strangers to you—don’t bring in ringers, or you’ll anger the fairy queen.

81 / VIDEO / 43 POINTS / Love makes the world go round. Build a machine that uses love to spin a globe.

82 / PHOTO / 160 POINTS / COLLAGE. In the Western United States, there are mountain monograms, giant glyphs of letters that are often there for no discernable reason. Create your own Mountain Monograms out of natural materials to craft a message with purpose. Submit a photo of your glyph message that says something inspiring to the birds and planes that fly over it. Your message must be at least 2 words long, with each letter at least 6 feet tall and each letter must be on separate peaks. You may not do this on protected land.

83 / PHOTO / 37 POINTS / The London Zoo has a pair of penguins who are out and proud, but they didn’t get to march in Pride because they are penguins in a zoo. We think that’s just wrong. Dress up in penguin suits and march through your town with rainbow flags to show your support for Penguin and LGBTQIA+ Pride.

84 / VIDEO / 58 POINTS / TIMELAPSE. This means something… Subtractive food sculpture. Start with a block of cheese or a massive mountain of mashed potatoes and without using tools, eat your way to an ornate re-creation of a famous statue.

85 / PHOTO / 29 POINTS / You’ve heard of a scarecrow, but let’s see a straw-stuffed scarevolleyballplayer at the beach.

86 / VIDEO / 84 POINTS / (UP TO 30 SECONDS) In 2020, we’re gonna need a 30-second GISH ad worthy of airing during the Super Bowl, advertising the latest in summer refreshment: “GISH.”

87 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 45 POINTS / Misha doesn’t have a ton of skills other than “acting on camera”, but he does try hard. He’s also at a potential career transition point. Help him explore other career paths by creating a poster of him photoshopped doing another job you think he’d be suited for.

88 / VIDEO / 31 POINTS / Ben Ferencz started each dinner table conversation with his children by asking them, “What did you do today to make the world a better place?” Wake up tomorrow and take a specific, positive action to make the world a better/nicer/happier/prettier place with a child as your assistant. Then show us what you did.

89 / PHOTO / 34 POINTS / LOCATION-BASED. Some people long to have a picnic at the Longaberger Basket Building, and you and your friends are no different. But size matters! Enjoy a to-scale picnic on the grounds in front of the building- giant fruits and sandwiches, etc. No Photoshop just forced perspective.

90 / PHOTO / 58 POINTS / It’s an ineffable Good Omen to see Azrapahile and Crowley sharing a hot fudge sundae on Sunday. Post your picture on social media tagged #GoodOmens and @neilhimself. Bonus points if the sundae is eaten at a Sundae School in Cape Cod.

91 / PHOTO / 23 POINTS / A Cairn Terrier. (His name is Rocky. He won’t come when he’s called.)

92 / VIDEO / 48 POINTS / One of our Gishers was able to help her mom act FAST and responded in time to help her with a stroke. Last we heard, her mom is okay, but she can’t play this year—so in her honor, it’s time for a quick refresher on recognizing a stroke. Do a rendition of “Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes” with some kind of lyrics like: “Face, Arms, Speech, Call in Time (don’t waste time)! Face, Arms, Speech, Call in Time (don’t waste time)! When someone’s had a stroke their life is on the line! Face, Arms, Speech, Call in Time (don’t waste time)!” with the appropriate movements. Include a link to the National Stroke Association and GISH on a final card of your video. Post it on social media tagged #GISH, @robbenedict, and @natstrokeassn. - Inspired by Nicole’s mom

93 / PHOTO / 41 POINTS / A Mom-and-Pop shop that sells Moms and Pops. (New and used.) Show a young child making a purchase.

94 / VIDEO / 36 POINTS / (AUDIO UP TO 90 SECONDS) We’re auditioning new anchors for G-ISH, GISH RADIO! Send us a clip of your team’s broadcast debut as you discuss the climate crisis’ effect on sea levels with a real, noted expert in the field.

95 / PHOTO / 63 POINTS / Tatsuya Tanaka creates miniature worlds with everyday objects. Her scenes are whimsical, which is how the world should be... but is not always how tiny-world actually is. Create a miniature, dismal and tragic scene using small reimagined objects.

96 / PHOTO / 15 POINTS / Write your resume as a haiku.

97 / PHOTO / 34 POINTS / 8554J46H+FH. You, the Carrot God, have summoned them.

98 / PHOTO / 95 POINTS / (GRID). The hot new trading card battle game is GISHémon! Create a trading card for each of your team mates with their photo and stats (location, Gisher type, powers, etc.) as the powerful kindness monsters they are. We must see each teammate’s unobscured face for it to count.

99 / PHOTO / 55 POINTS / Little known fact: when an avocado is fully ripe, it hatches. Show us the tiny, intricately carved creature sleeping inside (which you’ve carved from the pit).

100 / VIDEO / 24 POINTS / TIMELAPSE. Write a phrase on a piece of wood of something negative you say about yourself to silence yourself or hold yourself back. Burn the wood and the phrase in a fireplace or fire pit. Use the ashes to write something affirming about your strong self on a sheet of white paper.

101 / PHOTO / 30 POINTS / The heir to the throne of France was known as the Dauphin, French for "dolphin". According to Donald Trump, the heir to the British throne is the Prince of... Whales? Illustrate a meeting of these two majestic undersea figures, with Macron and Prince Charles as their respective attendants. (This may be photoshopped or, for bonus points, live action.)

102 / VIDEO / 31 POINTS / Reach out to a senior in your family or community and ask them about a commercially made snack or dish from their childhood that brings them fond memories—something that just doesn’t exist anymore. Try to recreate it based on their description, then share your creation with them and record their assessment.

103 / PHOTO / 23 POINTS / A carbon footprint on a globe.

104 / VIDEO / 58 POINTS / A motorized vehicle with cheese wheels. It can be a motorcycle, tricycle, or 4-wheel vehicle, but it must have cheese wheels made from actual cheese.

105 / VIDEO / 320 POINTS / Get Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, or any other duplicitous, nationalistic high-ranking politician to tell the absolute, verifiable truth about any controversial and uncomfortable (for them) topic they normally lie to the public about. It must really be the real person, not an actor or someone in a mask. You must be able to verify the facts through a nonpartisan, independent source. (This may be our first truly impossible item.)

106 / PHOTO / 48 POINTS / A bacterial culture petri dish portrait of Jonas Salk. Tweet this to Melinda Gates thanking her for her work vaccinating children.

107 / PHOTO / 24 POINTS / Create a haiku for an animal on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species that tells of the animal’s plight and why we should protect it. Next to the haiku, include a hand-drawn picture or origami sculpture of the animal.

108 / PHOTO / 79 POINTS / Stonehenge was cool, but it just wasn't built with sustainability or environmental impact in mind, so now we're stuck with ancient druid clutter by the side of the road. As a modern druidic architect, you know better. Next to a highway, build an architecturally significant henge out of 100% recycled materials that represent our current culture. (Cardboardhenge, Styrofoamhenge, LaCroixCanhenge, etc). Stonehenge is 30’ (9.1m) tall, but don’t worry—yours can be as short as 1:3 scale—but it must include at least one dolmen.

109 / PHOTO / 96 POINTS / An elaborate hinged, Faberge-style Easter egg that opens to reveal Trump & Putin embracing.

110 / VIDEO / 21 POINTS / LOCATION-BASED. Play “the floor is lava” in front of the Osservatorio Vesuviano in Pompeii. If you can’t get to Pompeii, you can play it at any Olive Garden, as long as you get other diners to join in.

111 / PHOTO / 38 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. COLLABORATIVE. Swap-meet day! Use the GISH app to coordinate with at least 5 other Gishers in your area to meet up and hold a yard sale. Except, this is not a yard-sale, it’s a yard-giveaway: the GISH Community Bazaar. Bring as many items as you can bear to part with and set up shop. And remember, no money must change hands and no bartering! All items must be gifted to passers-by and everything must go!

112 / PHOTO / 24 POINTS / A jello mold with a funeral scene inside.

113 / VIDEO / 18 POINTS / COLLABORATIVE. In Uppsala, Sweden, there is a tradition called the Flogsta Scream. Every night at 10 pm, students at university stop what they are doing to let out a collective, primal scream from their rooftops and dorms. This tradition shouldn’t be exclusive to Sweden, so at 6PM on Friday, August 3rd, get together with as many Gishers and other humans as you can in a public setting and let out one deep, primitive, collective howl. 

PS: We’re still #sorrynotsorry, Sweden.

114 / PHOTO / 46 POINTS / The best part about being in the hospital is the couture. Hold a hospital gown fashion show in your local hospital to show off red-carpet-worthy hospital gowns of your creation. Glam it up and walk (or roll) the runway with any patients that might be able and willing to participate… and don’t forget the slip-proof socks!

115 / PHOTO / 48 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. Bring an old bike back to life with a flourish—make it the most beautiful bike in the world. Give it to someone to someone in need. Submit photos of the bike before and after refurbishment, side-by-side. - Item Written By Misha’s Mom

116 / VIDEO / 40 POINTS / MONTAGE. Basic Training can be hell, and the military needs our support! Create a video of you and your team collecting and packing “basics” to send to a currently deployed serviceperson. The catch: your video should emulate a “basic training” montage from a movie-obstacles courses, bucket brigades, etc. (You must actually ship the goods, choosing ONLY from this list or a similar approved list for your country of origin: CLICK HERE) - Jennifer W.

117 / PHOTO / 45 POINTS / This year, we lost a beloved furry friend, Peter Mayhew (the actor who played Chewbacca). In honor of his memory, create a felted Chewbacca out of your pet’s hair.

118 / VIDEO / 46 POINTS / TIMELAPSE. The LGBTQIA community struggles a lot with erasure. Make sure everyone feels seen: create a portrait of an iconic LGBTQIA person by first filling up a page with a rainbow of colored pencils or pastels, then use an eraser to lift out the negative space, leaving the colored portrait behind. Include a message letting them know they are seen and loved. Post it to social media and tag the person, if they’re on social media, then submit your portrait with the link (if any) in the comments. (This may be done in oil pastels as well.)

119 / PHOTO / 82 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. Some people really do have eyes in the back of their head. Before and after images of a person with long hair, and then their head shaved and a recognizable portrait of their own face shaved onto the back of their own head. (Donate the hair to a non-profit organization that makes wigs for cancer patients.)

120 / PHOTO / 26 POINTS / Neil Armstrong stepped on to the Moon 50 years ago. To memorialize this amazing achievement, make your own “One Small Step” monument. Take a Giant Leap for mankind and put your foot somewhere it has never been before and probably should not go, then show us the resulting footprint.

121 / PHOTO / 33 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. You know those garden gnomes that dotted your grandmother’s backyard? Well, it’s been a while and now they have fallen on hard times. They have turned to a life of crime and misanthropy. Their little gnome hearts are filled with despair, hatred, and regret. Show us the before and after.

122 / VIDEO / 131 POINTS / The next time that Earth’s magnetic poles reverse themselves, your magnetic compass won’t be much help navigating. Fortunately, you remember a mention from a history class of a “south-facing chariot” [SFC] invented in China some 2500 years ago. To be better prepared for the coming magnetic mélange, you have decided to build a functioning SFC so that you can always find your way home. Of course, your SFC will be topped with an assbutt and your chariot will be modeled after a 1967 Impala.

123 / PHOTO / 81 POINTS / Everyone goes to visit the Southernmost Point in Key West, FL, but it really never gets to travel. We’re changing that. Make a 1:2 replica of the Southernmost Point and take it on holiday to the Westernmost, Northernmost, or Easternmost points of the US or any landmass. Take a photo with it at the nearest marker or tourist attraction to prove you were there, and submit with the location and coordinates in your comments.

124 / PHOTO / 23 POINTS / Put your face somewhere it absolutely does not belong. Not a picture of your face. Your real face. In that place. Where it should NOT be! (Keep it clean. My mother will see this.)

125 / PHOTO / 33 POINTS / Senator Ted Cruz is worried about pirates in space. Seriously. He is. Well, we are pretty sure that his fears are well-founded. Let’s prove it to him: Show us space pirates in action. Tweet your picture to him at @tedcruz (and be sure to use the #GISHSpacePirates hashtag!)

126 / VIDEO / 71 POINTS / Last year we asked you to put wings on something that absolutely should not fly and prove that it can. One team (Team Schnitzeljaeger) made a pizza box fly. For this year, make a pizza fly (sans box). You may not throw it in the air, drop it, or fling it. It must attain flight through some mechanical means. Just the pizza. Not the box. The pizza must fly from near ground level to at least 50’ high and must travel horizontally at least 100 feet by any means. Must be edible and consumed after it lands.

127 / PHOTO / 46 POINTS / LOCATION-BASED. The Dalton Highway stretches 414 miles from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. About halfway along it, there is a roadside marker denoting crossing into the Arctic Circle. Send us a photo of you standing next to the marker. Having a moose in the picture is optional, but preferred. Being dressed as a moose is mandatory.

128 / PHOTO / 56 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. We’re creating the GISH International Forest! Go out and plant as many trees as you can and add your trees to THIS MAP. Once you plant them, you will become their stewards, so choose your location wisely: make sure you’re allowed to plant there and that the trees are native so they can flourish. Add a small, eco-friendly sign with GISH INTERNATIONAL FOREST, GISH.com and your team’s name on it. Submit your photo along with a screenshot of its place on the map and number of trees you planted in the comments. If you can’t plant a tree on your own for reasons of mobility, hospitalization, etc, a donation to OTP of at least one tree will suffice, but you still have to tell us approximately where they are and how many trees you planted and add them to our map.

129 / PHOTO / 44 POINTS / This year is the 150th anniversary of the first Transcontinental Railroad, which opened up rapid (for the time) access across the United States. The original event in 1869 was celebrated as the Central Pacific Railroad locomotive “Jupiter” and the Union Pacific Railroad locomotive #119 came nose-to-nose as a Golden Spike was driven into the final section of track. Well, we firmly believe that every good anniversary deserves cake! Recreate the Jupiter, or #119, or both, made entirely from cake.

130 / PHOTO / 26 POINTS / A cyanotype photo of junk-food wrapping or junk-food.

131 / VIDEO / 61 POINTS / You have accepted a new position with the Mars Tourism Bureau. To attract potential visitors to the wonderful Mars climate, you plan to inform them of the daily environmental trends. Create a 15-second video weather report, complete with temperature and wind descriptions and get a real weathercaster dressed as an alien to report it on local news during a live broadcast. 

Note: Your Mars weather information must be real and correct for the day you submit your video! We will be checking!

132 / VIDEO / 132 POINTS / A very large balance scale. (The kind of old-fashioned scale that we think of when we say, “the scales of justice.”) On one side, at least 5 very wealthy-looking people. On the other, at least 5 very impoverished-looking people. The scales are tipped in favor of the elite. Find a way to balance the scales.

133 / PHOTO / 22 POINTS / Everyone talks about “viral videos.” We think we know what those are. Share a GISH video of a biological (not technological) virus and get it to go “viral” with at least 1,000 likes. It must include GISH.com in the video and text to count. #ViralVirus

134 / VIDEO / 81 POINTS / (UP TO 30 SECONDS). It’s time for GIFF - the GISH International Film Festival! Create a 30-second horror film. Noted author Neil Gaiman tweeted: “You've got a week to rob a bank using only a rattlesnake, radioactive uranium and a bottle of whiskey.” “Jed here has a week to steal a battleship using a goat, a can of gold paint, and three resin models of Warren G. Harding. Go!" Use either prompt as the plot of your GIFF film. Post your film on social media and be sure to tag #GISH and @neilhimself, then submit the video and the link to your post in comments.

135 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 51 POINTS / The aliens have been in Area 51 for decades. Why do they stay? Because of all the amenities, of course. Show us the leisurely life of aliens at Area 51: the best Retirement Community in the Universe! We want to see elderly aliens playing shuffleboard, mahjong, and bingo, getting alien spa treatments, doing tai chi and pilates... You get the idea. Post your submission to social media tagged #GISH, #Area51 & #SocialSecurityCheXFiles

136 / PHOTO / 37 POINTS / COLLABORATIVE. Join the movement to cross-stitch what you care about: create a cross-stitch picket sign for a cause you believe in. Connect with at least 2 other teams and craft a protest march on a street corner. - Item Written By Misha’s Mom

137 / VIDEO / 38 POINTS / Megan Rapinoe reminds us all that despite equal skill, women are often not treated to a level playing field in business. Show us a team of female office workers playing soccer in traditional business attire opposite men with a ball that says “EQUAL PAY.” The women, of course, should score.

138 / PHOTO / 26 POINTS / The most stressful spa environment ever. - Lynette

139 / PHOTO / 126 POINTS / Recently, a mylar balloon from Disney’s Frozen was found on the bottom of the ocean floor… Clearly leftover from an undersea birthday party. Show us the underwater party, including the birthday person blowing out the candles on their cake. PS: Your mother doesn’t live there! DO NOT leave a mess or impact sea life.

140 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 37 POINTS / Now that Donald Trump is president, people around the world have squandered billions of man-hours talking/worrying/complaining about him. Have an economist calculate the cost to the global economy of these lost hours. They must show their work and be a professor of economics.

141 / PHOTO / 31 POINTS / Part of your job for the Mars Tourism bureau is managing PR. Design a brochure or poster that convinces people to visit our timeshare at Scenic Mt. gishwhes (on Mars).

142 / PHOTO / 33 POINTS / We just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Prove it was faked.

143 / VIDEO / 91 POINTS / Thanks to modern technology, we can relax and watch TV virtually anywhere, even in the loo—but we still can’t kick back on the porcelain throne and relax while we do. Create a toilet recliner to solve this problem.

144 / PHOTO / 37 POINTS / You thought they said, “Get Out the GOAT.” Be the Greatest Of All Time by co-hosting a voter registration booth with a goat.

145 / PHOTO / 70 POINTS / Mary Poppins and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things both loved hanging around in the Upside down! Create a convincing image of you having upside-down high tea on the ceiling with Mary Poppins and a Demogorgon. Post it to social media and tag the Stranger Things accounts and GISH. - Inspired by TessaMac

146 / PHOTO / 53 POINTS / Every year, I send Gishers to visit my grandmother at Roland Park Place retirement home in Baltimore, Maryland, and this year is no different. Visit her retirement community (or any nursing home or community near you) and help the residents escape—metaphorically, of course. Take them on a tropical getaway by staging an impromptu beach party! Between the hours of 1 PM ET—3 PM ET on Monday, July 29 and Wed July 31 only, bring flower leis, small flowers, pre-packaged treats (nothing homemade), postcards with kind notes on them and/or a ukulele or guitar to sing with them. Ask them to reminisce about the happiest summer vacation they ever took. (PS: No bathing suits and leave the sand home, please. Hawaiian shirts are fine.)

147 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 73 POINTS / COLLABORATIVE. The evening of Sunday, July 28 is the event of the year: the #WeJustMetGala! Get together with Gishers in your area at your local museum in the strangest, fanciest attire you can create—go so all-out, you make Billy Porter jealous. Roll out the red carpet and a banner, then convince strangers passing by to pose with you for red carpet pictures. Be fabulous! We must see the museum in the background, and there must be paparazzi.

148 / PHOTO / 31 POINTS / You know that this is the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. But did you know that Woodstock the bird from Peanuts first appeared 2 years earlier? In 1967? So actually Woodstock the bird is 52. He’s drunk a lot of beer over the years and can’t hide it, but he is vain, so he’s had lots of work done. Tons of collagen and botox. He wears a toupee. He dyes his feathers. Show us what he looks like today.

149 / PHOTO / 81 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. A Jackson Pollock paint-by-numbers kit: before, and after it’s been painted. (No cheating- follow the numbers!)

150 / PHOTO / 47 POINTS / A ukiyo-e woodblock print depicting an image of your worst nightmare. (Caption it so we know what it is.)

151 / PHOTO / 21 POINTS / You know how they keep making movies out of games? Like the Pikachu movie? Or Battleship: The Movie? Why don’t they ever go after the real money and make poems out of these properties? Write Battleship the poem, or Pikachu the poem. Must be at least 10 lines long.

152 / VIDEO / 63 POINTS / Birthday wishes are getting fulfilled so much faster since we automated processing. Show us a Rube Goldberg machine that is activated by a child under 10 blowing out candles on a birthday cake, and ends with the thing they wished for being delivered into their hands.

153 / PHOTO / 41 POINTS / I said no more ponies in the living room, and I meant it! But unicorns are totally okay.

154 / VIDEO / 37 POINTS / It’s GISH University, Year 2! Each person on your team must attempt to learn a new skill they have never tried before and document the experience, including the first attempt.

155 / PHOTO / 33 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. Thar’s plastic in them thar waters! A prospector panning for microplastics on a public beach. Craft jewelry from anything you collect and show it to us.

156 / PHOTO / 47 POINTS / LOCATION-BASED. Where do angels go for tea? To the sky garden, of course! Depict two angels having tea while seated on a cloud on the edge of the Liss Ard Sky Garden in Ireland. Photograph them from the central plinth so it appears they are hovering in the sky.

157 / PHOTO / 37 POINTS / A hand-made kite that looks just like the face of that famous person you look up to, high in the sky.

158 / VIDEO / 249 POINTS / TIMELAPSE. Oceanic exploration shouldn’t just be for the elite. Companies are working on making exploration affordable, but we need something now. Drop a camera and a light in a tiny, weighted, protected housing with a window on a line (so you can pull it back up). Just outside the window a common object filled with air. Like an aluminum water bottle, or a balloon animal, or something made of styrofoam. Lower everything at least 1000 feet below sea level. The camera should be rolling so we can see at what point your object gets crushed by the pressure of the ocean. You cannot contract a submersible company and cannot pay for this to be done—this is a DIY project only. Oh, and keep it green: you must retract the line or you will be docked points. If you leave any piece of this in the ocean, including the line, we’re docking you points.

159 / VIDEO / 7 POINTS / Right a great American novel. This is not a typo.

160 / PHOTO / 51 POINTS / The lunar ticks are in the hall… Pink Floyd knew what was up. Show us what the lunar ticks on the dark side of the moon look like (you know, because you have a specimen preserved in a jar in your front hall.)

161 / VIDEO / 81 POINTS / Thirsty for a challenge? Build a puzzle jug. Show you building it, then someone else figuring it out and successfully drinking from it.

162 / PHOTO / 77 POINTS / GRID. Thomas Deininger makes amazing representational sculptures out of found objects. Using EVERY piece of non-recyclable, inorganic trash you generate during the Hunt, create a 3-dimensional, representational self-portrait. EVERY member of your team must do this.

163 / VIDEO / 39 POINTS / Paint a Jenga set red, white, and blue. On each one write a word or phrase from the constitution. Get a real US Republican and a Democratic Congressperson to play (State or Federal). See how many they can remove before this whole thing collapses.

164 / VIDEO / 223 POINTS / “Fake news” was bad enough, but it’s pervading all media now and we can’t believe anything we see. Create a Deep Fake of Misha Collins complimenting Donald Trump. (We put this item in at the last minute after Misha’s final read-through of the list, so he doesn’t know about it. Don’t tip him off. We just want to see his reaction. You know, because he loves Donald Trump so much. This must be actual, digital Deep Fake footage (google it), not you in a mask, and not just a voice over or clever edit, to count. Video must be at least 5 seconds in length.

165 / PHOTO / 42 POINTS / Apparently, once upon a time, the US government weaponized ticks. (Really.) Show us a pinboard with an example of a tiny, weaponized tick, complete with Rambo-style military gear and assault rifles.

166 / VIDEO / 43 POINTS / Love has no borders, and neither does fun. Show two people on opposite sides of an international border crossing or wall playing a game such as charades, Pictionary, or another game that does not require them to touch or pass goods across the border.

167 / VIDEO / 36 POINTS / TIMELAPSE. Last year, we suggested Gishers melt a message into a glacier or iceberg with a laser and received lots of complaints. We now recognize that people melting words into icebergs for scavenger hunts is one of the biggest problems facing our environment today. Have a climate scientist calculate the volume of water produced by, let’s say, 10,000 people melting eleven 6’ tall letters, 2” deep in an iceberg. Then have them calculate the amount of water produced by the additional melting caused by a .5 degree global temperature increase. Show us the numbers and analysis so we know how bad Misha should feel.

168 / PHOTO / 28 POINTS / Check out a book from a local small-town library that hasn’t been checked out in at least 20 years. Submit a photo of you holding up the book with the stamped inner jacket showing the dates or other visual proof of this stellar feat.

169 / PHOTO / 159 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. Tiny homes help those experiencing homelessness be a little safer and have dignity, but they’re hard to move around, and that presents a problem. Create blueprints for a Tiny Home that is durable and large enough for an adult to comfortably walk into through a door, yet can be folded down into a flat cart on with wheels for mobility and made of ultra-lightweight materials.

170 / PHOTO / 119 POINTS / Climb ev’ry mountain! Like most nuns, Mother Abbess was an avid climber. Show us a nun in a full habit, rappelling down a steep grade of mountain.

171 / VIDEO / 88 POINTS / (Up to 30 seconds) Get a well-known sportscaster to do a play-by-play for a real wedding.

172 / VIDEO / 40 POINTS / They say that to perform CPR, you should compress someone’s chest to the beat of “Staying Alive” by the BeeGees. Get CPR certification while dressed in 70s disco attire.

173 / PHOTO / 31 POINTS / Gishers have become nationals of Westarctica and other micronations, but it’s time we claimed our own land. Since nobody else has done it, we’re officially claiming the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as New Gishlandia! Help us with our micronation building: Create a flag, a national anthem, a crest, a statue of our Founder or a propaganda poster (all material items should be constructed solely from plastic trash).

174 / VIDEO / 45 POINTS / The Gabra people of northern Kenya are a nomadic people who believe in living in balance with the environment and live by the tenet, “a poor man shames us all.” Mutual support is imperative in their culture, and no one is allowed to go without food, shelter, or hospitality—something the whole world could learn from. Take a page from the Gabra and go on a nomadic journey through your neighborhood, bringing with you as much food and water as you can carry along with cards with phone numbers and addresses for local shelters. Bring sustenance, hydration, and support to anyone in need you find, and document your journey including how far you traveled and how many people you helped along. Anyone appearing in the video must give permission.

175 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 41 POINTS / LOCATION-BASED. Do something you’ve always been told you can’t, or shouldn’t, do while at (or outside) the Forbidden Corner in Coverham, England.

176 / PHOTO / 68 POINTS / You look so festive with your “real avocado leather” purse or shoes made from avocado peels. - Inspired by Debbie M.

177 / PHOTO / 31 POINTS / Remember FloJo? Florence Griffith Joyner a world-record-setting Olympic athlete whose long, intricately painted fingernails made her an 80s style legend. Times marches on, and now instead of FloJo, we’ve got BoJo—but style trends endure. Paint a portrait of Boris Johnson, FloJo style—on your excessively long acrylic pinky nail.

178 / VIDEO / 28 POINTS / When you want to say something sweet to your loved one, you always use s’mores code.

179 / VIDEO / 90 POINTS / Walking on water is so 2,000 years ago--but it’s a timeless tradition. Construct shoes that allow someone to walk on water. You may not be standing on anything that’s under the water and the water must be at least 6 feet deep. You must be in a lake, pond, river or ocean. NOT a swimming pool. You must take at least 6 steps. No stilts in the water. No super shallow water.

180 / VIDEO / 41 POINTS / Create a 6 ft by 6 ft painting using only your body, paint, and a white sheet for a canvas. Bonus points if you manage to create representational art. - Kamila B.

181 / VIDEO / 36 POINTS / On today’s segment of your cooking show, we learn how to make your world-renowned recipe for dessert haggis.

182 / PHOTO / 16 POINTS / You know that feeling, when there's a word on the tip of your tongue but you just can't seem to say it? Show us that word. On the tip of your tongue. - @baileysaurusrex

183 / VIDEO / 31 POINTS / My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, passed away recently. In tribute, make a video showcasing the top highlights of your team’s week and end it with the quote “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Inspired by The Plaid Fox

184 / PHOTO / 63 POINTS / We've seen the pictures of dogs catching treats by German photographer Christian Vieler. Let's see a high-speed photo of your teammate catching treats in the same style and photographic detail. -Kandace

185 / PHOTO / 28 POINTS / SIDE-BY-SIDE. Hasan Minhaj rightly points out that there are many places in the US (and the world) with offensive names. We’re all for a good Assbutt, North Dakota or ****, Michigan, but if it’s racist or marginalizes a group we’re opposed. Find a place on the map or a street name that celebrates a known racist or slave-holder or war criminal or simply a place name that uses a derogatory term and petition to have it changed to an inoffensive alternative. If you’re in the US, this is where you can start and if you’re abroad, seek out your local organization that manages names of cities, towns, and locations. Submit a screenshot of your proposal, then put your petition here so other teams can sign yours. Finally, make sure you sign at least 5 other teams’ petitions (you’ll find all the petitions here.)

186 / VIDEO / 35 POINTS / It’s not just for fine dining anymore... At a fast-food establishment, get a grill cook to create a McAmuse-Bouche and serve it to a waiting, unsuspecting customer.

187 / VIDEO / 104 POINTS / TIMELAPSE. In Japan, there is a fad of polishing aluminum foil into a perfectly polished ball. You just topped that with your wad of aluminum foil-turned-perfectly polished bust of your favorite celebrity. Tweet an image of the final product to your celebrity crush tagging #GISH, then submit the image and include the link to the tweet in the comments section of your submission.

188 / PHOTO / 69 POINTS / A menstrual Pad-alecki. Create a menstrual product bust of Jared Padalecki... and make sure his hair really "flows." Then, donate at least an equal number of products to a women's shelter. (We don’t have to see you donating: just include your donations receipt somewhere in the image by your sculpture.)

189 / PHOTO OR VIDEO / 49 POINTS / We're not saying the cast of Supernatural is hot, but your fumage portrait of a Supernatural actor or actress speaks for itself. Smokin'! (Be super careful with this one- and have a fire extinguisher at the ready just in case. Remember, GISH doesn't pay medical bills and you're not allowed to hurt yourself - or anyone or anything else. If you can't be sure of that, pick a different item. (Post your video to the actor depicted).

190 / PHOTO / 229 POINTS / Evolution of the selfie: A person with an iPhone taking a selfie next to a person with a point-and-shoot camera who is taking a photo of a person with a Polaroid camera who is taking a picture of a person with a 35mm camera who is taking a photo of a person with a daguerreotype camera taking a picture of a person with a camera obscura taking a picture of someone painting a self-portrait. This should be a single photo, not photos from each camera.

191 / PHOTO / 0 POINTS / We will post an ambitious charity item that we will all collaborate on together shortly. Get ready!

[reneeacaseyfl]

If you hate the U.S. women’s soccer team’s World Cup party, you’re a cop – ThinkProgress

On Wednesday morning, Megan Rapinoe, dressed in her “World Champion 2019” shirt, massive red-framed sunglasses, and her now-signature pink hair, was on a float in the ticker-tape parade in New York City, surrounded by teammates, fans, and, because nothing can be perfect, New York mayor Bill DeBlasio. She had been partying for three days straight with her teammates, ever since the moment they won their second consecutive — and fourth overall — World Cup championship in Lyon, France. But the party was far from over.

Her left foot was propped high in the air, putting her left knee about parallel with her shoulder. The World Cup trophy was in her left hand, and resting atop her knee. In her right hand, was a bottle of champagne. She turned to her friend, Ashlyn Harris — a back-up goalkeeper for the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) whose documentation of the group’s post-victory celebration bender will go down in the annals of women’s sports history — and told the whole world through Instagram stories, “I deserve this. I deserve this. Everything.”

To some, this might be considered an off-the-cuff, light-hearted statement. But it was far from that. This was an earth-shattering declaration, a pointed rebuttal to everyone who has ever told women that their worth was tied directly to humility and modesty; a mantra for women everywhere who feel pressured to tone down their happiness to make others more comfortable, to turn down compliments or brush-off accolades. It was the opposite of, “thank you,” and a complete rejection of, “I’m sorry,” a phrase that most women utter, on average, 100 times a day, often to nobody in particular, as they merely move around the world.

It was a motto that summed up the entire World Cup run of the USWNT. Three months before the tournament began, they sued U.S. Soccer for equal pay, taking the fight for equality onto the biggest stage in the sport. Once in France, they smashed record after record and celebrated with abandon at every turn — drawing massive amounts of criticism for being too demonstrative about their happiness. They didn’t apologize; they just kept winning, and sipping tea. And then, when the last whistle blew in Lyon, France, to solidify their 2-0 victory over the Netherlands in the final, they kicked off a globe-trotting, ass-shaking, champagne-soaked, expletive-laden party, which the players — particularly Harris — shared with the public on social media.

Seeing these women cussing and pouring champagne on one another, holding signs asking for beers, unapologetically flaunting their drunken happiness in public — in a display that rivaled the shirtless shenanigans of J.R. Smith when the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship, or the over-the-top water-fountain antics of Alex Ovechkin when the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup Finals last year — wasn’t just entertaining; it was down-right inspiring.

Other elite female athletes acclaimed the champs.

“I’m kind of obsessed with them right now. I just can’t. Like, they’re so dope,” Ariel Atkins, a second-year player for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, told ThinkProgress. “They’re not trying to flex for the media and trying to be like, all preppy and professional all the time. I mean, they are who they are, And that is professionalism, being exactly who you are and showing people that athletes are humans too.”

Atkins admitted that like the rest of the world, she’s spent a lot of time over the last week watching Harris’s Instagram stories. So has Sophie Cunningham, a rookie for the Phoenix Mercury.

“They are so badass. Having them go out there and being feisty the way they have been, it has been inspiring to me. For them to go out there, to see them having fun, now I want to win a championship so this team can experience that,” Cunningham said.

“They’re not hiding who they are. They are themselves. I think that is so awesome for all women and men to see.”

This all began on Sunday, after the confetti was cannoned and the trophies delivered, when the players got back to the tarp-covered locker room, put on their goggles, turned up the music, and started popping bottles. We got to see what it looked like, in real time, as the weight of the world was lifted off of their shoulders, and the women began to realize what exactly they had accomplished. The early mornings and healthy eating, the skipped parties and long workouts, the time away from family and friends and all the doubts that this team faced when it came to France, it had all been worth it. Heck, the President of the United States had even come after Rapinoe during the tournament, after a clip of her saying, “I’m not going to the fucking White House” went viral, and the team only got stronger after that.

So of course they partied. Alex Morgan twerked. Crystal Dunn chugged beer. Tobin Heath sang, “We are the champions” at the top of her lungs. Harris documented it all, and then turned the camera on herself and said, in instantly-iconic fashion, “You’re fucking welcome for this content, bitch.”

Ashlyn Harris’ instastories are the best thing on the internet rn pic.twitter.com/JLDjftOSpj

— em (@East_From_Eden) July 7, 2019

After the locker-room celebration, the players went to an after-party, where they danced on the bar, took shots, and did a lot more shouting. On Monday, they took a chartered flight back to New York City, and when they landed, they were still singing and dancing and drinking. Tuesday, after waking up early to go to Good Morning America, they had a private roof-top player’s-only pool party, and then took the party to a Yacht in the East River.

Some how, on Wednesday morning, they were still standing and able to participate in the parade, which became about far more than their World Cup victory, and turned into a rally for equality. All along the parade route, fans held signs that read, “Equal Pay.” And the players — who, it must be stressed, were surrounded by the U.S. Soccer officials they are suing during this celebration — actually used their lawsuit as confetti during the parade.

When the players stood in City Hall — still drinking — and waiting to come out on stage for the speech portion of the program, Harris took to Instagram to show copies of the lawsuit in the trees outside, and strewn across the floor of City Hall.

“Our lawsuit is in the fucking trees,” Harris said. Moments later, as Allie Long literally ate the lawsuit, Harris added, “Pay us, bitch.”

Daddy will pay us. He loves his girls.

https://t.co/WuWyb9fnWu

— Ashlyn Harris (@Ashlyn_Harris) July 10, 2019

That afternoon, they got on a cross-country flight, received hair and makeup on the plane, and then took the ESPYs — a sports-centric awards show hosted by ESPN — by storm.

From Sunday morning to Wednesday night, every single thing these women did was about celebrating themselves. It was a flashy, raucous, attention-grabbing, euphoric, and often crude showcase of success. It was revolutionary. It was true equality.

Most of the time, female athletes either lack the time, resources, or platform to hold a celebration like this one — a celebration like we see male athletes have every single time a championship is clinched. Diana Taurasi, a guard for the Phoenix Mercury and the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer, said that because of the year-round demands on female basketball players, they never get the time to celebrate like the USWNT did this week.

“We usually win something, and we never get to celebrate it. We’ve won four [Olympic] gold medals, and the next day, you’re flying back to your WNBA team,” Taurasi said. “It’s like you don’t even get to enjoy winning.”

That’s a big reason why the USWNT’s drunken victory tour meant so much to women everywhere — because most of the time, athletes or not, women aren’t encouraged or even given the time to celebrate their accomplishments.

It’s also why so many pearl-clutchers expressed outrage at the audaciousness of the championship parade. Because the world never gets to see women let loose like this. Under every single social media post about these antics, there are floods of people calling the players classless, arrogant, and embarrassing, and scolding them for not being good enough role models for little girls everywhere. But the best part of the celebration was that is wasn’t about anyone else; this team has worked so hard, not only to be the best at their craft, but to fight for equal pay for the next generation, and to stand up for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, and minorities. This party was about taking a moment to celebrate themselves. Because, as Rapinoe said, they deserved it.

“I mean, they’re just being themselves. I think that’s all you can do. Just be authentically you. They’re great people, and they’re great athletes,” said Mystics’ All-Star Kristi Toliver, who is friends with Pinoe and Harris. 

“And you know, they’re about the right thing. So if that upsets people, [those people are] probably in the wrong.”

Credit: Source link

The post If you hate the U.S. women’s soccer team’s World Cup party, you’re a cop – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/if-you-hate-the-u-s-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=if-you-hate-the-u-s-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186267054737

[robertlchapa30]

If you hate the U.S. womens soccer teams World Cup party youre a cop ThinkProgress

On Wednesday morning, Megan Rapinoe, dressed in her “World Champion 2019” shirt, massive red-framed sunglasses, and her now-signature pink hair, was on a float in the ticker-tape parade in New York City, surrounded by teammates, fans, and, because nothing can be perfect, New York mayor Bill DeBlasio. She had been partying for three days straight with her teammates, ever since the moment they won their second consecutive — and fourth overall — World Cup championship in Lyon, France. But the party was far from over.

Her left foot was propped high in the air, putting her left knee about parallel with her shoulder. The World Cup trophy was in her left hand, and resting atop her knee. In her right hand, was a bottle of champagne. She turned to her friend, Ashlyn Harris — a back-up goalkeeper for the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) whose documentation of the group’s post-victory celebration bender will go down in the annals of women’s sports history — and told the whole world through Instagram stories, “I deserve this. I deserve this. Everything.”

To some, this might be considered an off-the-cuff, light-hearted statement. But it was far from that. This was an earth-shattering declaration, a pointed rebuttal to everyone who has ever told women that their worth was tied directly to humility and modesty; a mantra for women everywhere who feel pressured to tone down their happiness to make others more comfortable, to turn down compliments or brush-off accolades. It was the opposite of, “thank you,” and a complete rejection of, “I’m sorry,” a phrase that most women utter, on average, 100 times a day, often to nobody in particular, as they merely move around the world.

It was a motto that summed up the entire World Cup run of the USWNT. Three months before the tournament began, they sued U.S. Soccer for equal pay, taking the fight for equality onto the biggest stage in the sport. Once in France, they smashed record after record and celebrated with abandon at every turn — drawing massive amounts of criticism for being too demonstrative about their happiness. They didn’t apologize; they just kept winning, and sipping tea. And then, when the last whistle blew in Lyon, France, to solidify their 2-0 victory over the Netherlands in the final, they kicked off a globe-trotting, ass-shaking, champagne-soaked, expletive-laden party, which the players — particularly Harris — shared with the public on social media.

Seeing these women cussing and pouring champagne on one another, holding signs asking for beers, unapologetically flaunting their drunken happiness in public — in a display that rivaled the shirtless shenanigans of J.R. Smith when the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship, or the over-the-top water-fountain antics of Alex Ovechkin when the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup Finals last year — wasn’t just entertaining; it was down-right inspiring.

Other elite female athletes acclaimed the champs.

“I’m kind of obsessed with them right now. I just can’t. Like, they’re so dope,” Ariel Atkins, a second-year player for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, told ThinkProgress. “They’re not trying to flex for the media and trying to be like, all preppy and professional all the time. I mean, they are who they are, And that is professionalism, being exactly who you are and showing people that athletes are humans too.”

Atkins admitted that like the rest of the world, she’s spent a lot of time over the last week watching Harris’s Instagram stories. So has Sophie Cunningham, a rookie for the Phoenix Mercury.

“They are so badass. Having them go out there and being feisty the way they have been, it has been inspiring to me. For them to go out there, to see them having fun, now I want to win a championship so this team can experience that,” Cunningham said.

“They’re not hiding who they are. They are themselves. I think that is so awesome for all women and men to see.”

This all began on Sunday, after the confetti was cannoned and the trophies delivered, when the players got back to the tarp-covered locker room, put on their goggles, turned up the music, and started popping bottles. We got to see what it looked like, in real time, as the weight of the world was lifted off of their shoulders, and the women began to realize what exactly they had accomplished. The early mornings and healthy eating, the skipped parties and long workouts, the time away from family and friends and all the doubts that this team faced when it came to France, it had all been worth it. Heck, the President of the United States had even come after Rapinoe during the tournament, after a clip of her saying, “I’m not going to the fucking White House” went viral, and the team only got stronger after that.

So of course they partied. Alex Morgan twerked. Crystal Dunn chugged beer. Tobin Heath sang, “We are the champions” at the top of her lungs. Harris documented it all, and then turned the camera on herself and said, in instantly-iconic fashion, “You’re fucking welcome for this content, bitch.”

Ashlyn Harris’ instastories are the best thing on the internet rn pic.twitter.com/JLDjftOSpj

— em (@East_From_Eden) July 7, 2019

After the locker-room celebration, the players went to an after-party, where they danced on the bar, took shots, and did a lot more shouting. On Monday, they took a chartered flight back to New York City, and when they landed, they were still singing and dancing and drinking. Tuesday, after waking up early to go to Good Morning America, they had a private roof-top player’s-only pool party, and then took the party to a Yacht in the East River.

Some how, on Wednesday morning, they were still standing and able to participate in the parade, which became about far more than their World Cup victory, and turned into a rally for equality. All along the parade route, fans held signs that read, “Equal Pay.” And the players — who, it must be stressed, were surrounded by the U.S. Soccer officials they are suing during this celebration — actually used their lawsuit as confetti during the parade.

When the players stood in City Hall — still drinking — and waiting to come out on stage for the speech portion of the program, Harris took to Instagram to show copies of the lawsuit in the trees outside, and strewn across the floor of City Hall.

“Our lawsuit is in the fucking trees,” Harris said. Moments later, as Allie Long literally ate the lawsuit, Harris added, “Pay us, bitch.”

Daddy will pay us. He loves his girls.

https://t.co/WuWyb9fnWu

— Ashlyn Harris (@Ashlyn_Harris) July 10, 2019

That afternoon, they got on a cross-country flight, received hair and makeup on the plane, and then took the ESPYs — a sports-centric awards show hosted by ESPN — by storm.

From Sunday morning to Wednesday night, every single thing these women did was about celebrating themselves. It was a flashy, raucous, attention-grabbing, euphoric, and often crude showcase of success. It was revolutionary. It was true equality.

Most of the time, female athletes either lack the time, resources, or platform to hold a celebration like this one — a celebration like we see male athletes have every single time a championship is clinched. Diana Taurasi, a guard for the Phoenix Mercury and the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer, said that because of the year-round demands on female basketball players, they never get the time to celebrate like the USWNT did this week.

“We usually win something, and we never get to celebrate it. We’ve won four [Olympic] gold medals, and the next day, you’re flying back to your WNBA team,” Taurasi said. “It’s like you don’t even get to enjoy winning.”

That’s a big reason why the USWNT’s drunken victory tour meant so much to women everywhere — because most of the time, athletes or not, women aren’t encouraged or even given the time to celebrate their accomplishments.

It’s also why so many pearl-clutchers expressed outrage at the audaciousness of the championship parade. Because the world never gets to see women let loose like this. Under every single social media post about these antics, there are floods of people calling the players classless, arrogant, and embarrassing, and scolding them for not being good enough role models for little girls everywhere. But the best part of the celebration was that is wasn’t about anyone else; this team has worked so hard, not only to be the best at their craft, but to fight for equal pay for the next generation, and to stand up for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, and minorities. This party was about taking a moment to celebrate themselves. Because, as Rapinoe said, they deserved it.

“I mean, they’re just being themselves. I think that’s all you can do. Just be authentically you. They’re great people, and they’re great athletes,” said Mystics’ All-Star Kristi Toliver, who is friends with Pinoe and Harris. 

“And you know, they’re about the right thing. So if that upsets people, [those people are] probably in the wrong.”

  Credit: Source link

The post If you hate the U.S. women’s soccer team’s World Cup party, you’re a cop – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from https://weeklyreviewer.com/if-you-hate-the-u-s-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=if-you-hate-the-u-s-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress

from WeeklyReviewer - Blog http://weeklyreviewer1.weebly.com/blog/if-you-hate-the-us-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress

[velmaemyers88]

If you hate the U.S. women’s soccer team’s World Cup party, you’re a cop – ThinkProgress

On Wednesday morning, Megan Rapinoe, dressed in her “World Champion 2019” shirt, massive red-framed sunglasses, and her now-signature pink hair, was on a float in the ticker-tape parade in New York City, surrounded by teammates, fans, and, because nothing can be perfect, New York mayor Bill DeBlasio. She had been partying for three days straight with her teammates, ever since the moment they won their second consecutive — and fourth overall — World Cup championship in Lyon, France. But the party was far from over.

Her left foot was propped high in the air, putting her left knee about parallel with her shoulder. The World Cup trophy was in her left hand, and resting atop her knee. In her right hand, was a bottle of champagne. She turned to her friend, Ashlyn Harris — a back-up goalkeeper for the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) whose documentation of the group’s post-victory celebration bender will go down in the annals of women’s sports history — and told the whole world through Instagram stories, “I deserve this. I deserve this. Everything.”

To some, this might be considered an off-the-cuff, light-hearted statement. But it was far from that. This was an earth-shattering declaration, a pointed rebuttal to everyone who has ever told women that their worth was tied directly to humility and modesty; a mantra for women everywhere who feel pressured to tone down their happiness to make others more comfortable, to turn down compliments or brush-off accolades. It was the opposite of, “thank you,” and a complete rejection of, “I’m sorry,” a phrase that most women utter, on average, 100 times a day, often to nobody in particular, as they merely move around the world.

It was a motto that summed up the entire World Cup run of the USWNT. Three months before the tournament began, they sued U.S. Soccer for equal pay, taking the fight for equality onto the biggest stage in the sport. Once in France, they smashed record after record and celebrated with abandon at every turn — drawing massive amounts of criticism for being too demonstrative about their happiness. They didn’t apologize; they just kept winning, and sipping tea. And then, when the last whistle blew in Lyon, France, to solidify their 2-0 victory over the Netherlands in the final, they kicked off a globe-trotting, ass-shaking, champagne-soaked, expletive-laden party, which the players — particularly Harris — shared with the public on social media.

Seeing these women cussing and pouring champagne on one another, holding signs asking for beers, unapologetically flaunting their drunken happiness in public — in a display that rivaled the shirtless shenanigans of J.R. Smith when the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship, or the over-the-top water-fountain antics of Alex Ovechkin when the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup Finals last year — wasn’t just entertaining; it was down-right inspiring.

Other elite female athletes acclaimed the champs.

“I’m kind of obsessed with them right now. I just can’t. Like, they’re so dope,” Ariel Atkins, a second-year player for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, told ThinkProgress. “They’re not trying to flex for the media and trying to be like, all preppy and professional all the time. I mean, they are who they are, And that is professionalism, being exactly who you are and showing people that athletes are humans too.”

Atkins admitted that like the rest of the world, she’s spent a lot of time over the last week watching Harris’s Instagram stories. So has Sophie Cunningham, a rookie for the Phoenix Mercury.

“They are so badass. Having them go out there and being feisty the way they have been, it has been inspiring to me. For them to go out there, to see them having fun, now I want to win a championship so this team can experience that,” Cunningham said.

“They’re not hiding who they are. They are themselves. I think that is so awesome for all women and men to see.”

This all began on Sunday, after the confetti was cannoned and the trophies delivered, when the players got back to the tarp-covered locker room, put on their goggles, turned up the music, and started popping bottles. We got to see what it looked like, in real time, as the weight of the world was lifted off of their shoulders, and the women began to realize what exactly they had accomplished. The early mornings and healthy eating, the skipped parties and long workouts, the time away from family and friends and all the doubts that this team faced when it came to France, it had all been worth it. Heck, the President of the United States had even come after Rapinoe during the tournament, after a clip of her saying, “I’m not going to the fucking White House” went viral, and the team only got stronger after that.

So of course they partied. Alex Morgan twerked. Crystal Dunn chugged beer. Tobin Heath sang, “We are the champions” at the top of her lungs. Harris documented it all, and then turned the camera on herself and said, in instantly-iconic fashion, “You’re fucking welcome for this content, bitch.”

Ashlyn Harris’ instastories are the best thing on the internet rn pic.twitter.com/JLDjftOSpj

— em (@East_From_Eden) July 7, 2019

After the locker-room celebration, the players went to an after-party, where they danced on the bar, took shots, and did a lot more shouting. On Monday, they took a chartered flight back to New York City, and when they landed, they were still singing and dancing and drinking. Tuesday, after waking up early to go to Good Morning America, they had a private roof-top player’s-only pool party, and then took the party to a Yacht in the East River.

Some how, on Wednesday morning, they were still standing and able to participate in the parade, which became about far more than their World Cup victory, and turned into a rally for equality. All along the parade route, fans held signs that read, “Equal Pay.” And the players — who, it must be stressed, were surrounded by the U.S. Soccer officials they are suing during this celebration — actually used their lawsuit as confetti during the parade.

When the players stood in City Hall — still drinking — and waiting to come out on stage for the speech portion of the program, Harris took to Instagram to show copies of the lawsuit in the trees outside, and strewn across the floor of City Hall.

“Our lawsuit is in the fucking trees,” Harris said. Moments later, as Allie Long literally ate the lawsuit, Harris added, “Pay us, bitch.”

Daddy will pay us. He loves his girls.

https://t.co/WuWyb9fnWu

— Ashlyn Harris (@Ashlyn_Harris) July 10, 2019

That afternoon, they got on a cross-country flight, received hair and makeup on the plane, and then took the ESPYs — a sports-centric awards show hosted by ESPN — by storm.

From Sunday morning to Wednesday night, every single thing these women did was about celebrating themselves. It was a flashy, raucous, attention-grabbing, euphoric, and often crude showcase of success. It was revolutionary. It was true equality.

Most of the time, female athletes either lack the time, resources, or platform to hold a celebration like this one — a celebration like we see male athletes have every single time a championship is clinched. Diana Taurasi, a guard for the Phoenix Mercury and the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer, said that because of the year-round demands on female basketball players, they never get the time to celebrate like the USWNT did this week.

“We usually win something, and we never get to celebrate it. We’ve won four [Olympic] gold medals, and the next day, you’re flying back to your WNBA team,” Taurasi said. “It’s like you don’t even get to enjoy winning.”

That’s a big reason why the USWNT’s drunken victory tour meant so much to women everywhere — because most of the time, athletes or not, women aren’t encouraged or even given the time to celebrate their accomplishments.

It’s also why so many pearl-clutchers expressed outrage at the audaciousness of the championship parade. Because the world never gets to see women let loose like this. Under every single social media post about these antics, there are floods of people calling the players classless, arrogant, and embarrassing, and scolding them for not being good enough role models for little girls everywhere. But the best part of the celebration was that is wasn’t about anyone else; this team has worked so hard, not only to be the best at their craft, but to fight for equal pay for the next generation, and to stand up for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, and minorities. This party was about taking a moment to celebrate themselves. Because, as Rapinoe said, they deserved it.

“I mean, they’re just being themselves. I think that’s all you can do. Just be authentically you. They’re great people, and they’re great athletes,” said Mystics’ All-Star Kristi Toliver, who is friends with Pinoe and Harris. 

“And you know, they’re about the right thing. So if that upsets people, [those people are] probably in the wrong.”

Credit: Source link

The post If you hate the U.S. women’s soccer team’s World Cup party, you’re a cop – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/if-you-hate-the-u-s-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=if-you-hate-the-u-s-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186267054737

[junker-town]

The WNBA’s new CBA, explained

Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images

Contract wins include higher salaries, better travel conditions, paid maternity leave and more.

The WNBA’s new collective bargaining agreement is expected to come with substantial pay increases, upgraded travel accommodations and paid maternity leave, according to a release from the league and player’s association.

The league and its players union opted out of their current CBA agreement in November 2018 after the W’s top players used their social media platforms to voice displeasure with the league’s revenue split, paltry salaries, benefits and travel accommodations. In the new eight-year agreement, players appear to have won a lot of what they asked for.

This new CBA is a massive turning point for the WNBA, a growing league that showcases better and better play each year. Low WNBA salaries have been the biggest problem facing the league though, resulting in players turning to basketball overseas to earn more money in the offseason. The wear and tear from playing year-round has prevented players from competing at their best, to say the least (in 2019, the league took one of its worst hits when then-reigning MVP Breanna Stewart tore her Achilles playing for a Russian club weeks before the start of the season).

Here’s a rundown of changes outlined in the new CBA:

Player salaries

One of the biggest questions surrounding the new CBA is how much money players could actually make, and whether it would be enough to keep superstars home in the offseason. The answer is maybe, though the WNBA’s elite will profit more than its middle tier. In the 2020 CBA, players who qualify, or are designated as a “core player”, can earn $215,000, a nearly $100,000 increase from a year ago.

The “core player” designation most around the league wanted to do away with has survived in the new CBA, but its powers will shrink. The core player designation essentially works as a franchise tag, allowing teams to force players to stay put. It could have been applied up to four times on a single player, making for very little superstar movement, along with boring offseasons and trade deadlines. In the new agreement, players may only be designated three times in 2020 and 2021, and just twice by 2022 and beyond.

Teams will also have a larger pot to try and keep players from playing overseas. In previous years, teams could dole out $50,000 to any player under contract to convince them stay home and help with marketing efforts in the U.S. Under the new CBA, the league will have $1.6 million to give annually, with a $250,000 cap for a single player, per the New York Times. That’s a substantial amount of money that may convince a team’s best player to stay home in the offseason.

Revenue sharing

One of the biggest points of contention is how the league shares revenue with players. This was a major talking point for players on social media, who argued they weren’t asking for the same compensation as NBA players (who can make more than $40 million per year), but rather the same revenue split. “NBA players receive around 50 percent of shared league revenue within their league,” Las Vegas Aces guard Kelsey Plum said in 2019, “whereas we receive around 20 percent.”

Under the new CBA, players have the potential to earn a 50-50 revenue split in 2021 based on the league achieving revenue growth targets.

Accommodations and player benefits

In the new agreement, players will continue to fly commercial, with seats upgraded from coach to economy-plus or comfort-plus. Players will also have individual hotel rooms on the road, a perk that up until now has been reserved for veterans only.

This comes after years of player frustration regarding travel accommodations. Aside from non-veterans being forced to share hotel rooms, some of the league’s tallest players were often crammed into coach plane seats too small for them, including Brittney Griner (6’8), who was expected to sit in a middle seat on her way to star in the All-Star Game last season.

Parents in the WNBA have also been vocal about how the league accommodates pregnancy and players with newborns. In the old CBA, a player could earn as little as half of her base salary for the year if she missed the season due to pregnancy or childbirth. The 2020 CBA will require full pay instead.

In-season tournaments

The new CBA will also introduce a prize pool for special competitions and tournaments, which have yet to be announced. In 2021, the pool will be $750,000. The NBA has discussed a similar in-season tournament idea to increase the stakes of regular season games. The same effect could prove true for WNBA games, but even more importantly, it serves as another way for players to get paid.

What does this all mean?

The new WNBA CBA should change the landscape of the league for the better, providing bigger payouts for its players and better personal benefits as women’s basketball strives for a point where players can have a true offseason at home. The WNBA should want to keep its best talent playing exclusively in America, where they can better market the league. The WNBA hurts when its best talent is injured or fatigued.

Now, it looks like the WNBA is providing stepping stones for long-term improvement while giving players the immediate change they need.

[teamgishtastrophe]

GISH 2019 / Hunt List

1

21 POINTS

Make an Assbutt of yourself in public. Literally.  

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2

43 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. Nothing caps off a good, hot summer day like a footlong s’mores eaten by two, Lady and the Tramp Style. (No hands may be used in the creation of or eating of the s’mores.) - Rae M.  

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3

57 POINTS

They say stepping on a LEGO is the greatest pain one can experience. We Gishers laugh in the face of pain. Make shoes entirely from LEGOs - no fluffy socks or insoles allowed- and demonstrate them in use. Post it to social media and tag the LEGO accounts and @GISH. - Deidra  

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4

59 POINTS

Hula hooping is hard, and you’re just not ready to go it alone yet. Create a hula-hoop with training wheels for beginners and show it in use.

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5

36 POINTS

At least 3 grownups working in an industrial mud-pie factory. They must be wearing hair nets. Supervising them is at least one tidy child under age 10 in a suit and carrying a clipboard.  

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6

7 out of 10 dentists and dental hygienists recommend Flossing, and they practice what they preach. Show us 7 out of 10 real dentists and dental hygienists flossing (not tooth-flossing. Dance-flossing.) 28 POINTS

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7

113 POINTS

SLOW-MOTION. It’s time for the most elegant and beautiful of all affairs: the paintball ballet! 5 ballerinas playing paintball on pointe. They must all be pointe dancers; they can be wearing safety gear, but it must be pink and there must be tutus and pointe shoes.

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8

47 POINTS

It’s summer, and that means it’s time to do your civic duty. Take a swim in the jury pool -- complete with flotation devices, snorkel, etc.

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9

34 POINTS

Bee-drinking poles are all the rage, but your neighborhood bees deserve to really unwind. Create a bee bar - a bee “saloon on a pole” using recycled bottle caps. Install it somewhere public. - Item Written By Misha’s Mom

NOTE: For the safety of the bees, our resident apiarists ask that you please use sanitized lids with no chemicals or beverage residue on them, and plain water (not sugar water).

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10

74 POINTS

A real matador in a real bullfighting ring with any of our GISH/gishwhes “flapes” (these are flags some Gishers purchase during registration). The bull is a Gisher, convincingly dressed as a bull.

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11

31 POINTS

Listerine Mouse Wash.

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12

43 POINTS

A child reading a bedtime story to the monster under their bed. The monster should be charmed and cozy and cuddled up.

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13

36 POINTS

The machines are taking over, and now they’re even infiltrating the dating sector. Your blind date tonight at a 4-star restaurant is a humanoid robot.

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14

58 POINTS

Nothing can shake you up! Show us how you keep centered: meditating on a moving mechanical bull. Keep your chakras aligned! Fall off in less than 2 seconds and score 0 points.

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15

80 POINTS

Create a “food truck” that sells something incongruous with food trucks. It could be delicious pesticides, microchips, shower caps or anything in between. It can’t be compassion, empathy, or anything that “feeds the soul.” As loathe as we are to say this: get creative. Your truck must advertise its wares with flashy signage.

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16

66 POINTS

LOCATION-BASED. Clowns were the original glad-iators. Prove it with Roman clowns fighting in an actual Colosseum or ancient amphitheater in a knock-down, drag-out pie fight.

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17

23 POINTS

Trip the light fantastic. Literally. - Kelli R.

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18

53 POINTS

You know that saying: “Christ on a paddleboard!” Well, it’s used for a reason - Jesus walked on water and was an innovator in the Stand-Up Paddleboard world. Show Jesus on a stand-up paddleboard, with at least 3 disciples following him in a rowboat, canoe, or scull.

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19

49 POINTS

The world is in desperate need of more Cheese Balls. Many more Cheese Balls. Many many many more Cheese Balls. Delivered as rapidly as possible. Build a functional Cheese Ball launching/delivery system and demonstrate it shooting cheese balls from a distance of least 30 feet away. You must be able to catch at least 1 in your mouth. - Dave L.

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20

12 POINTS

A housecat happily flaunting a stylish mustache.

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21

43 POINTS

You’re a real dish. No, really. You and a friend, dressed as commemorative collector plates, donating platelets (that’s what plates bleed).

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22

291 POINTS

People always say, “GISH lights up the night!” Prove it. Get a bunch of drones with lights on them to spell out the word “GISH” in the night sky. The drones must serve as pixels in the sky, so you will need a lot of them. Probably at least 40.

UPDATE: The purpose of the Hunt is to do things creatively, not to enrich a company. You may not pay a company to do this (see: Commandment 26: Outsourcing). However, in the event that you cannot achieve this as written, we’re offering a one-time analog alternative: you MAY also do this with LED decorated kites. Don’t just do one letter per kite, though... So you will still need a lot of them. Maybe 40? Go BIG.

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23

41 POINTS

(Up to 20 seconds. You may use fast-motion or tight editing). When baking, measurements are vital to the culinary success of your creation. Small missteps will ruin your souffle. Of course, measuring cups and spoons, over time, change size and volume due to humidity and aging. Let’s use a measuring device that you trust and know intimately: your mouth. First, figure out exactly how much volume is in you mouth and then use it to source and distribute all ingredients to bake a cake. You may not use any utensils or measuring devices. Grab whatever ingredients you use to make a cake and place them on your counter and then, without using your hands to measure or fill, fill your mouth with the appropriate amounts of each ingredient and then deposit in your cake dish.(Yes, this means you would need to “bob for flour” in your flour bag and then “mouth spout” it into your mixing bowl). Once the ingredients are all safely in the mixing bowl (again, delivered by your mouth), you are allowed to mix it with any device--as long as that device is a part of your face. Bake it and enjoy it with a loved one (without using your hands).

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24

94 POINTS

(UP TO 45 SECONDS). Have a child under 8 years old create an original recipe, a la “Cooking Fast & Fresh with West”. Record them inventing it, then executing their vision. It must be 100% child-led with an adult-only serving as sous chef. In a blatant cross-promotional stunt, the best recipes will be posted on my social media when my new book, “The Adventurous Eaters Club” hits bookstores. (BTW, you can pre-order now here.)

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25

68 POINTS

(UP TO 30 SECONDS) You’ve been bragging you can out-dunk a professional basketball player, and now it’s time to prove it: go one-on-one for a 30-second milk-and-cookies dunk-off against a pro-baller. Your competitor must be a current or retired member of the NBA or WNBA. Bonus points if your competition is a household name. Post your video on social media tagging the player with #GISHDunkChallenge

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26

31 POINTS

Be a stand-in for me! Wearing a convincing Misha Collins mask, have a cup of tea with someone who still has a bonafide original Team 3 Rhino Hunt puzzle piece. The puzzle piece must be visible in the image. If you are on a team and you are a Team 3 Rhino Hunt puzzle piece holder, you MAY collaborate with other teams to help them out on this one. (I will still honor the tea-time for any unredeemed puzzle pieces. This offer never expires.)

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27

46 POINTS

Food waste is a real problem in many countries. At the same time, food deserts are a problem, making it difficult for some people to get fresh, nutritious food. We’re helping both problems in one fell swoop with our GISH Mobile Free Grocers! Get a grocery store to donate the day’s “ugly” produce, day-old bread, and any other still-edible fresh foods to you, then go and distribute it as a GISH Mobile Free Grocer to people experiencing homelessness.

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28

42 POINTS

The tooth fairy is sick and tired of waiting around to collect the teeth under kids’ pillows, so she’s gone rogue and has started taking them right out of their mouths to meet her quota. Obviously, she needs to be stopped! Create an effective anti-tooth fairy nighttime mouth guard and show it in use, successfully stopping the thieving fairy. -Ant G.

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29

49 POINTS

(UP TO 20 SECONDS: You may speed up and edit video) The big trend in experience-based restaurants has you eating in total darkness, but these gimmicky restaurants charge a fortune. We’re bringing it to the masses: Take a dinner date to an upscale restaurant - the fancier, the better - wear white. There must be a white linen tablecloth. Sit across from each other and feed each other dinner while both of you are blindfolded. You must be serving one another red wine or a similar dark beverage, too.

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30

53 POINTS

The recorder is an under-appreciated instrument, with roots in ancient times. The depth of its mythical sirenic tones are magical and hypnotic. So what better place to play this divine woodwind than amongst the most beautiful sites in the world? Play the Kansas song “Carry on Wayward Son” at sunset on a recorder, overlooking one of the following: the Grand Canyon (Arizona, US), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Machu Picchu (Peru), Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal (India), the Colosseum (Italy), Iguazu Falls (Brazil), Stonehenge (UK), Egyptian Pyramids or the Sphinx, Tikal (Guatemala), Angel Falls (Venezuela), Atacama Desert (Chile), Arashiyama Bamboo Grove (Japan), The Azores (Portugal), Boulders Beach (South Africa), Cappadocia (Turkey), Cliffs of Moher (Ireland), Disko Bay (Greenland), Lake Tekapo (New Zealand), Na Pali Coast (Hawaii, US), Sagrada Familia (Spain), Eiffel Tower (France), Reynisfjara (Iceland), Trolltunga (Norway), Ubud (Indonesia), Sydney Opera House (Australia), Banff National Park (Canada), Niagara Falls (New York or Ontario), Yellowstone (Wyoming), El Capitan (Yosemite), Statue of Liberty (Liberty Island), Eilean Donan Castle (Scotland), Neuschwanstein Castle (Germany), Matterhorn or Zermatt (Switzerland), or Chichen Itza (Mexico).

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31

75 POINTS

In the past, stained glass windows usually depicted flowers or devotional symbols like angels and saints. But modern culture venerates a different group. Create a stained glass window of a Kardashian, famous Instagram Influencer, or similar personality with more than 4 million followers. It must be someone who is worshipped simply for being worshipped for being famous. You may not use anyone from the cast of Supernatural. Bonus points if it’s installed in an actual cathedral.

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32

43 POINTS

We’re putting you in charge of Supernatural canon for the day. Paint a cannon with an elaborate SPN mural showcasing something that you think should be canon, with a caption like, “It’s #SPN Cannon!”

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33

24 POINTS

In the 2018 GISH Most Premiumerest Registration, we included a Misha Collins MishSqueezie stress ball. And though our concept artist did a great job, something got lost in translation and, well... Nailed it! But somewhere out there, there must be the guy that actually looks exactly like this stress ball. Find him and take a picture of him with the MishSqueezie.

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34

81 POINTS

The Federation of Stormtroopers has been officially sponsored by the X Games this year. Let’s see a highlight from one of their competitions with the stormtrooper participating in an extreme sport.

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35

41 POINTS

A pop-up card that’s for a blind child. Written in Braille, with pop-ups that can be understood completely by touch. Let’s see it in action.

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36

118 POINTS

Like many Americans, I’ve been trying to get supplies to the families and kids in detention center along the US border, and despite my C-List celebrity status, it’s been tough. But we found a way. Go to SPNFamilyValues.com and follow the instructions there, then screenshot it and send that in as proof.

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37

32 POINTS

I keep losing my stuff. Invent a Misha-proof AirPod-finding solution that is NOT a cord, because that defeats the entire point of AirPods - and one that works when they’re not charged. Show it in use.

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38

48 POINTS

Ugly Holiday sweaters are great, but with the climate crisis heating up the planet, we’ve got to branch out. Model your best ugly Holiday bathing suit or bikini made of repurposed ugly holiday sweaters. Model it at the beach with a caption touting the virtues of your “Global Warming Holiday Sweater.”

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39

108 POINTS

There’s regular golf, and mini-golf, but where are all the maxi-golf courses? We want to see it all - the giant putters, the huge balls, and of course, the windmill.

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40

45 POINTS

The world is heating up! Time for an old-fashioned kids game that we all know: Hot Planet. With at least 8 people in a public place, play a game of Hot Potato with a reddened globe of the planet Earth. Everyone must be wearing oven mitts and summer wear and not be fazed by the heat, except for one person who is dressed in a suit with a red tie and a Donald Trump mask. Trump isn’t wearing mitts and his hands are covered in blisters and while he tries to hide it when the globe gets to his hands, it really hurts.

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41

67 POINTS

Edited To Add Rainbows:

(UP TO 30 SECONDS). A high-speed giant game of red rover played by at least 50 wedding guests. One spouse must be the one flung across the field. The other must be running after her holding the train of a wedding gown or veil. - Inspired by mdsteele47

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42

95 POINTS

TWO PICTURES SIDE-BY-SIDE IN ONE IMAGE. I always feel a lot of guilt about the tattoo items in GISH. The first time I added one, I thought it was funny until I saw the tatts and then I felt a little bad. Of course, it gives me a rush of power when I see them in person, and many of them are actually very cool... So I have an idea that allows me to keep feeling powerful, but takes away all of my guilt: Get a tattoo of the encouraging message you wish your higher self had written to get you through the tough times. Because I know many of you already have inspiring tattoos, you must submit two images. The first is an image of you getting the tattoo when you are halfway done at the tattoo parlor, in the chair, holding a sign that reads, “GISH made me do it.” The second image is of the finished tattoo. If you can, include your triumphant face. (Don’t include more than 2 images in your submission. Just one image with two photos side by side.)

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43

24 POINTS

Choose a sport you’ve never played before. Go do it with your coach: a child under the age of 10 who is an experienced participant. - Inspired by Coach Odette Padalecki

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44

94 POINTS

Recreate a Civil War-era photograph with Captain America, Iron Man, and/or their respective sides using the Woodburytype photography technique. As always, no Photoshop allowed unless specified. This one does not allow it.

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45

62 POINTS

Why have chain letters, when you can have chain mail? Create an intricate medieval knight’s suit of armor entirely out of junk mail, with chain mail comprised of chain letters. Must include a junk mail shield, sword, and a codpiece (to protect your “junk”).

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46

135 POINTS

Someone turned your local parking lot into your favorite childhood board game! Using sidewalk chalk or removable tempera, transform at least 5000 square feet of pavement into an enlarged version of your favorite childhood board game. Using a drone’s eye-view, show the whole board (complete with people costumed as game pieces playing).

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47

141 POINTS

(UP TO 30 SECONDS) Garfield phones keep washing up on beaches in France. As you know, that’s because mermaids love cats, so there’s a mermaid call center operation down there selling these phones on QVSea. Show us the QVSea commercial for these phones, as pitched by a mer-spokesperson. Oh, and it should go without saying, but all of this is taking place underwater.

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48

64 POINTS

(UP TO 60 SECONDS). A real barbershop quartet singing a passage from the Mueller Report in front of a federally elected political leader’s office.

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49

48 POINTS

(UP TO 30 SECONDS) Talk to an elderly person over 80 and learn all about the best day of their life so far. Then, create a diorama of their best day in a small empty tin or box and give it to them. The video should show them briefly describing the memory and then you presenting them with the diorama. Make sure we get to see the diorama you made and their reaction, too.

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50

59 POINTS

Write a formal, one-page letter to Gina Haspel, the current Director of the CIA. In it you must outline a plausible, one-page decoding of the fourth Kryptos. The letter must frame the description as an urgent matter and must seamlessly deploy the term “wild unicorn training centers around the globe”. Post a photo of your letter on social media and tag @CIA.

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51

27 POINTS

Conspiracy theorists need to get with the times! Update the tinfoil hat to reflect technological innovations.

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52

33 POINTS

Create MAILWHES, The Most Amazing, Intimidating Letterbox The World Has Ever Seen: a mailbox so amazing, so intimidating, so horrifying that your mail carrier will never dare leave you another piece of junk mail again. There must be teeth around the mail slot or opening.

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53

64 POINTS

FAST-MOTION. At my friend Philip’s wedding, Giles Duley, myself and a few other forward-thinking innovators devised a new product and we would like to beta test the concept with you. It’s called: SoupFace and it involves eating soup from a bowl made from a mold of your face. First, create a mold of your face and create a bowl from food-grade silicone or food-safe resin or similar material. (Take all necessary safety precautions.) The exterior of the bowl should look like your face, and the interior should fit your face. Once it’s cured, fill it with warm soup. Consume the soup without using a utensil and when the soup is gone and your face is back in the wet mold. Lift the SoupFace mold off the table without using your hands so you are wearing it as a mask.

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54

59 POINTS

As all diehard Supernatural fans know, “Assbutt” was a featured player in Season 5, Episode 22 of the show, but the episode ran long and Assbutt’s scene was left on the cutting room floor. Rectify this oversight by releasing the never-before-seen cut of this scene.

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55

39 POINTS

TRIPTYCH. Dawid Planeta illustrates his depression as mysterious creatures. In a 3-panel illustration, show your biggest fear or struggle as a symbolic creature with which you gradually come to terms. Label it so we know what your creature represents.

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56

73 POINTS

A lot of people use their cell phones while in the bathroom, which is really gross. We understand that it can get boring in there, though. Help people break society’s screen addiction with our new solution: Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter toilet paper! Re-create a verified social media account on a roll of toilet paper- images and all. Scroll away—but don’t read the comments. (They’re crap.) Install it in a public bathroom as a public service.

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57

47 POINTS

Send noods! There’s been an epidemic of people sending explicit noodle photos to unsuspecting people. We believe consent is important, and in this case, we consent—with some STRICT caveats: Recreate a TASTEFUL image of a famous nude painting or sculpture in noodles ONLY and then post it on social media tagged #SendNoods. Submit your actual image and a link to the tweet in your comments.

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58

38 POINTS

Ask a child aged 5 or under what their greatest fear is. Create and photograph or film a scene of you and them conquering this fear together. - Kristin L.

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59

28 POINTS

Cement your own joy.

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60

244 POINTS

Angry birds. Flappy birds. Candy Crush. All those other games are so boring compared to GISH: The Game! Build an app game for the GISH App. It must feature a GISH mascot and integrate fully into the GISH App. Full specs for integration can be found here.

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61

39 POINTS

(F)underwear.

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62

72 POINTS

Each day, one member of your team must find one broken thing to upcycle and give to someone in need. Take a photo and, at the end of the Hunt week, submit a collage of the 7 now-useful items your team has gathered, refurbished, and donated. (You may not use a bicycle, but you may use a unicycle or tricycle.) - Inspired by Monica D.

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63

38 POINTS

The ’80s are back, and we can’t escape all that goes with them: including stereoscopic images. Make a stereoscopic “Magic Eye” image of something that scares you as much as ‘80s fashion scares us.

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64

62 POINTS

LOCATION-BASED. Outside a migrant detention center, lift a massive banner using balloons, drones, or telescoping poles at least 10 feet high with a message like, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.” Be responsible with your balloons. Don’t let them fly away or burst and leave shards anywhere.

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65

67 POINTS

An upscale art gallery opening at a landfill. All exhibits must be made from things found at the landfill. One professional art critic must be present to review the works.

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66

256 POINTS

(UP TO 60 SECONDS.) Plane air painting: A wing-walker on a biplane, painting a picture on a canvas of the landscape from their point of view. Show us the painting as it’s happening, and then the completed painting being held by the wing-walker.

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67

49 POINTS

A signer performing the National Anthem silently in sign language on a field at a stadium that seats more than 5,000, with a sizeable crowd of spectators. You may not wing it on this one. You must find someone fluent in sign to do this or to teach you how to do it & coach you through it.

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68

42 POINTS

I’m not saying Jared Padalecki is a big softie, but here’s a portrait of him toasted onto a marshmallow. Just the way it should be.

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69

40 POINTS

Nobody’s more devoted or grateful to firefighters than we are, except maybe a dalmatian. Or Smokey the Bear. Go to your local fire station dressed as a dalmatian or Smokey the Bear and create a relaxation station to thank them for their work. You can bring treats, offer mani-pedis, foot or shoulder massages, aromatherapy... You get the idea.

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70

69 POINTS

Over the years, Jensen Ackles has been depicted in Skittles, but we all know his character Dean loves pie. Let’s do a crossover: Bake a Skittles pie with a portrait of Jensen baked into the upper crust. Lattice work in the top crust should allow you to see the Skittles inside behind Jensen. Here’s some inspiration..

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71

66 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. Create a th?thạch rau câu (Vietnamese Jelly Cake) portrait of a classic movie monster. You may not use the blob. We must see the injection process and your completed jelly cake.

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72

51 POINTS

In Chengdu, China, kung fu tea (long spout, performance tea pouring) is popular. But it was just a matter of time before it was appropriated by other cultures. Show us a barista performing the Mengding Mountain 18 Forms of Dragon Flying Postures Kung Fu Tea pour at a Starbucks.

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73

47 POINTS

An actual lumberjack working up on a tree with an impressive, long beard made out of googly eyes.

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74

77 POINTS

(Up to 30 seconds) A stop-motion animation of a life-saving first aid technique (CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, etc.) featuring dolls or puppets in crisis.

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75

178 POINTS

Danish artist Thomas Dambo creates massive wooden giants from recycled materials and installs them in Copenhagen forests. That’s great, but some giants prefer urban living. Build a hipster giant that’s at least 8’ (2.4m) tall from recycled materials and place it in the middle of a busy city or town.

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76

22 POINTS

Not all insects aspire to just be insects. Some have ambitions and hobbies! Without harming it, get a live fly, beetle, roach or other insect to sit on a sheet of paper and doodle an environment around it showing it at its job or hobby.

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77

75 POINTS

An actual space suit with a GISH 2019 patch on it next to the national flag.

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78

23 POINTS

The Enterprise wasn’t the only vehicle in the not-so-final frontier. Show us Star Trek covered wagons. Tweet your image to @WilliamShatner with the message “Admit it, Bill. This is how you really voyaged.” You may use Photoshop for this item. Submit your image, along with a LINK to your tweet in your submission comments for points.

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79

72 POINTS

The insect world is under-appreciated, but they are tiny works of art. Create a realistic-looking, oversized detailed sculpture of an underappreciated arachnid or insect out of bread, ice, or marble, the way Michaelangelo would have done if he’d had the time. You may not make a dragonfly, ladybug, butterfly or any other insect that has already been socially normalized as “cute”. - Inspired by Kat F.

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80

49 POINTS

The Wondersmith makes surprise, fantastical parties in the forests of Oregon, which we find lovely. Set up a surprise party for hikers at least ½ a mile from a rest area that’s clearly been created by forest-dwelling fairies and/or trolls (that’s you). Make sure it’s welcoming, and capture the moment you’re surprising them— both you and the hikers should be in the image. They must be real hikers and strangers to you—don’t bring in ringers, or you’ll anger the fairy queen.

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81

43 POINTS

Love makes the world go round. Build a machine that uses love to spin a globe.

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82

160 POINTS

COLLAGE. In the Western United States, there are mountain monograms, giant glyphs of letters that are often there for no discernable reason. Create your own Mountain Monograms out of natural materials to craft a message with purpose. Submit a photo of your glyph message that says something inspiring to the birds and planes that fly over it. Your message must be at least 2 words long, with each letter at least 6 feet tall and each letter must be on separate peaks. You may not do this on protected land.

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83

37 POINTS

The London Zoo has a pair of penguins who are out and proud, but they didn’t get to march in Pride because they are penguins in a zoo. We think that’s just wrong. Dress up in penguin suits and march through your town with rainbow flags to show your support for Penguin and LGBTQIA+ Pride.

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84

58 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. This means something… Subtractive food sculpture. Start with a block of cheese or a massive mountain of mashed potatoes and without using tools, eat your way to an ornate re-creation of a famous statue.

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85

29 POINTS

You’ve heard of a scarecrow, but let’s see a straw-stuffed scarevolleyballplayer at the beach.

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86

84 POINTS

(UP TO 30 SECONDS) In 2020, we’re gonna need a 30-second GISH ad worthy of airing during the Super Bowl, advertising the latest in summer refreshment: “GISH.”

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87

45 POINTS

Misha doesn’t have a ton of skills other than “acting on camera”, but he does try hard. He’s also at a potential career transition point. Help him explore other career paths by creating a poster of him photoshopped doing another job you think he’d be suited for.

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88

31 POINTS

Ben Ferencz started each dinner table conversation with his children by asking them, “What did you do today to make the world a better place?” Wake up tomorrow and take a specific, positive action to make the world a better/nicer/happier/prettier place with a child as your assistant. Then show us what you did.

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89

34 POINTS

LOCATION-BASED. Some people long to have a picnic at the Longaberger Basket Building, and you and your friends are no different. But size matters! Enjoy a to-scale picnic on the grounds in front of the building- giant fruits and sandwiches, etc. No Photoshop just forced perspective.

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90

58 POINTS

It’s an ineffable Good Omen to see Aziraphale and Crowley sharing a hot fudge sundae on Sunday. Post your picture on social media tagged #GoodOmens and @neilhimself. Bonus points if the sundae is eaten at a Sundae School on Cape Cod.

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91

23 POINTS

A Cairn Terrier. (His name is Rocky. He won’t come when he’s called.)

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92

48 POINTS

(UP TO 30 SECONDS). One of our Gishers was able to help her mom act FAST and responded in time to help her with a stroke. Last we heard, her mom is okay, but she can’t play this year so in her honor, it’s time for a quick refresher on recognizing a stroke. Do a rendition of “Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes” with some kind of lyrics like: “Face, Arms, Speech, Call in Time (don’t waste time)! Face, Arms, Speech, Call in Time (don’t waste time)! When someone’s had a stroke their life is on the line! Face, Arms, Speech, Call in Time (don’t waste time)” with the appropriate movements. Include a link to the National Stroke Association and GISH on a final card of your video (You can hold a sign up or add an end card digitally). You may also add the link in your YouTube description, if you like. Post it on social media tagged #GISH, @robbenedict, and @american_stroke. - Inspired by Nicole’s mom

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93

41 POINTS

A Mom-and-Pop shop that sells Moms and Pops. (New and used.) Show a young child making a purchase.

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94

36 POINTS

(AUDIO UP TO 90 SECONDS) We’re auditioning new anchors for G-ISH, GISH RADIO! Send us a clip of your team’s broadcast debut as you discuss the climate crisis’ effect on sea levels with a real, noted expert in the field.

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95

63 POINTS

Tatsuya Tanaka creates miniature worlds with everyday objects. His scenes are whimsical, which is how the world should be... but is not always how tiny-world actually is. Create a miniature, dismal and tragic scene using small reimagined objects.

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96

15 POINTS

Write your resume as a haiku.

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97

34 POINTS

8554J46H+FH. You, the Carrot God, have summoned them.

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98

95 POINTS

(GRID). The hot new trading card battle game is GISHémon! Create a trading card for each of your team mates with their photo and stats (location, Gisher type, powers, etc.) as the powerful kindness monsters they are. We must see each teammate’s unobscured face for it to count. Photo editing is okay.

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99

55 POINTS

Little known fact: when an avocado is fully ripe, it hatches. Show us the tiny, intricately carved creature sleeping inside (which you’ve carved from the pit).

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100

24 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. Write a phrase on a piece of wood of something negative you say about yourself to silence yourself or hold yourself back. Burn the wood and the phrase in a fireplace or fire pit. Use the ashes to write something affirming about your strong self on a sheet of white paper.

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101

30 POINTS

The heir to the throne of France was known as the Dauphin, French for “dolphin”. According to Donald Trump, the heir to the British throne is the Prince of... Whales? Illustrate a meeting of these two majestic undersea figures, with Macron and Prince Charles as their respective attendants. (This may be photoshopped or, for bonus points, live action.)

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102

31 POINTS

Reach out to a senior in your family or community and ask them about a commercially made snack or dish from their childhood that brings them fond memories—something that just doesn’t exist anymore. Try to recreate it based on their description, then share your creation with them and record their assessment.

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103

23 POINTS

A carbon footprint on a globe.

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104

58 POINTS

A motorized vehicle with cheese wheels. It can be a motorcycle, tricycle, or 4-wheel vehicle, but it must have cheese wheels made from actual cheese.

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105

320 POINTS

Get Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, or any other duplicitous, nationalistic high-ranking politician to tell the absolute, verifiable truth about any controversial and uncomfortable (for them) topic they normally lie to the public about. It must really be the real person, not an actor or someone in a mask. You must be able to verify the facts through a nonpartisan, independent source. (This may be our first truly impossible item.)

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106

48 POINTS

A bacterial culture petri dish portrait of Jonas Salk. Tweet this to Melinda Gates thanking her for her work vaccinating children.

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107

24 POINTS

Create a haiku for an animal on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species that tells of the animal’s plight and why we should protect it. Next to the haiku, include a hand-drawn picture or origami sculpture of the animal.

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108

79 POINTS

Stonehenge was cool, but it just wasn’t built with sustainability or environmental impact in mind, so now we’re stuck with ancient druid clutter by the side of the road. As a modern druidic architect, you know better. Next to a highway, build an architecturally significant henge out of 100% recycled materials that represent our current culture. (Cardboardhenge, Styrofoamhenge, LaCroixCanhenge, etc). Stonehenge is 30’ (9.1m) tall, but don’t worry—yours can be as short as 1:3 scale—but it must include at least one dolmen.

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109

96 POINTS

An elaborate hinged, Faberge-style Easter egg that opens to reveal Trump & Putin embracing.

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110

21 POINTS

LOCATION-BASED. Play “the floor is lava” in front of the Osservatorio Vesuviano in Pompeii. If you can’t get to Pompeii, you can play it at any Olive Garden, as long as you get other diners to join in.

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111

38 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. COLLABORATIVE. Swap-meet day! Use the GISH app to coordinate with at least 5 other Gishers in your area to meet up and hold a yard sale. Except, this is not a yard-sale, it’s a yard-giveaway: the GISH Community Bazaar. Bring as many items as you can bear to part with and set up shop. And remember, no money must change hands and no bartering! All items must be gifted to passers-by and everything must go!

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112

24 POINTS

A jello mold with a funeral scene inside.

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113

18 POINTS

COLLABORATIVE. In Uppsala, Sweden, there is a tradition called the Flogsta Scream. Every night at 10 pm, students at university stop what they are doing to let out a collective, primal scream from their rooftops and dorms. This tradition shouldn’t be exclusive to Sweden, so at 6PM on Friday, August 2rd, get together with as many Gishers and other humans as you can in a public setting and let out one deep, primitive, collective howl.

PS: We’re still #sorrynotsorry, Sweden.

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114

46 POINTS

The best part about being in the hospital is the couture. Hold a hospital gown fashion show in your local hospital to show off red-carpet-worthy hospital gowns of your creation. Glam it up and walk (or roll) the runway with any patients that might be able and willing to participate… and don’t forget the slip-proof socks!

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115

48 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. Bring an old bike back to life with a flourish—make it the most beautiful bike in the world. Give it to someone to someone in need. Submit photos of the bike before and after refurbishment, side-by-side. - Item Written By Misha’s Mom

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116

40 POINTS

MONTAGE. Basic Training can be hell, and the military needs our support! Create a video of you and your team collecting and packing “basics” to send to a currently deployed serviceperson. The catch: your video should emulate a “basic training” montage from a movie-obstacles courses, bucket brigades, etc. (You must actually ship the goods, choosing ONLY from this list or a similar approved list for your country of origin: CLICK HERE) - Jennifer W.

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117

45 POINTS

This year, we lost a beloved furry friend, Peter Mayhew (the actor who played Chewbacca). In honor of his memory, create a felted Chewbacca out of your pet’s hair.

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118

46 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. The LGBTQIA community struggles a lot with erasure. Make sure everyone feels seen: create a portrait of an iconic LGBTQIA person by first filling up a page with a rainbow of colored pencils or pastels, then use an eraser to lift out the negative space, leaving the colored portrait behind. Include a message letting them know they are seen and loved. Post it to social media and tag the person, if they’re on social media, then submit your portrait with the link (if any) in the comments. (This may be done in oil pastels as well.)

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119

82 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. Some people really do have eyes in the back of their head. Before and after images of a person with long hair, and then their head shaved and a recognizable portrait of their own face shaved onto the back of their own head. (Donate the hair to a non-profit organization that makes wigs for cancer patients.)

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120

26 POINTS

Neil Armstrong stepped on to the Moon 50 years ago. To memorialize this amazing achievement, make your own “One Small Step” monument. Take a Giant Leap for mankind and put your foot somewhere it has never been before and probably should not go, then show us the resulting footprint.

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121

33 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. You know those garden gnomes that dotted your grandmother’s backyard? Well, it’s been a while and now they have fallen on hard times. They have turned to a life of crime and misanthropy. Their little gnome hearts are filled with despair, hatred, and regret. Show us the before and after.

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122

131 POINTS

The next time that Earth’s magnetic poles reverse themselves, your magnetic compass won’t be much help navigating. Fortunately, you remember a mention from a history class of a “south-facing chariot” [SFC] invented in China some 2500 years ago. To be better prepared for the coming magnetic mélange, you have decided to build a functioning SFC so that you can always find your way home. Of course, your SFC will be topped with an assbutt and your chariot will be modeled after a 1967 Impala.

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123

81 POINTS

Everyone goes to visit the Southernmost Point in Key West, FL, but it really never gets to travel. We’re changing that. Make a 1:2 replica of the Southernmost Point and take it on holiday to the Westernmost, Northernmost, or Easternmost points of the US or any landmass. Take a photo with it at the nearest marker or tourist attraction to prove you were there, and submit with the location and coordinates in your comments.

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124

23 POINTS

Put your face somewhere it absolutely does not belong. Not a picture of your face. Your real face. In that place. Where it should NOT be! (Keep it clean. My mother will see this.)

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125

33 POINTS

Senator Ted Cruz is worried about pirates in space. Seriously. He is. Well, we are pretty sure that his fears are well-founded. Let’s prove it to him: Show us space pirates in action. Tweet your picture to him at @tedcruz (and be sure to use the #GISHSpacePirates hashtag!)

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126

71 POINTS

Last year we asked you to put wings on something that absolutely should not fly and prove that it can. One team (Team Schnitzeljaeger) made a pizza box fly. For this year, make a pizza fly (sans box). You may not throw it in the air, drop it, or fling it. It must attain flight through some mechanical means. Just the pizza. Not the box. The pizza must fly from near ground level to at least 50’ high and must travel horizontally at least 100 feet by any means. Must be edible and consumed after it lands.

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127

46 POINTS

LOCATION BASED. UPDATE: Bad news! GISH HQ has just received a bulletin that Dalton Highway is a moose-free zone this week, so your new task is: meet-up at any safe landmark denoting the Arctic Circle. If you absolutely can’t make it to the Arctic Circle, you may do this at their other favorite location: any Timmy Hortons. Having a moose in the picture is optional, but preferred. Being dressed as a moose is mandatory.

The Dalton Highway stretches 414 miles from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. About halfway along it there is a roadside marker denoting crossing into the Arctic Circle. Send us a photo of you standing next to the marker.

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128

56 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. We’re creating the GISH International Forest! Go out and plant as many trees as you can and add your trees to THIS MAP. Once you plant them, you will become their stewards, so choose your location wisely: make sure you’re allowed to plant there and that the trees are native so they can flourish. Add a small, eco-friendly sign with GISH INTERNATIONAL FOREST, GISH.com and your team’s name on it. Submit your photo along with a screenshot of its place on the map and number of trees you planted in the comments. If you can’t plant a tree on your own for reasons of mobility, hospitalization, etc, a donation to OTP of at least one tree will suffice, but you still have to tell us approximately where they are and how many trees you planted and add them to our map.

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129

44 POINTS

This year is the 150th anniversary of the first Transcontinental Railroad, which opened up rapid (for the time) access across the United States. The original event in 1869 was celebrated as the Central Pacific Railroad locomotive “Jupiter” and the Union Pacific Railroad locomotive #119 came nose-to-nose as a Golden Spike was driven into the final section of track. Well, we firmly believe that every good anniversary deserves cake! Recreate the Jupiter, or #119, or both, made entirely from cake.

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130

26 POINTS

A cyanotype photo of junk-food wrapping or junk-food.

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131

61 POINTS

You have accepted a new position with the Mars Tourism Bureau. To attract potential visitors to the wonderful Mars climate, you plan to inform them of the daily environmental trends. Create a 15-second video weather report, complete with temperature and wind descriptions and get a real weathercaster dressed as an alien to report it on local news during a live broadcast.

Note: Your Mars weather information must be real and correct for the day you submit your video! We will be checking!

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132

132 POINTS

A very large balance scale. (The kind of old-fashioned scale that we think of when we say, “the scales of justice.”) On one side, at least 5 very wealthy-looking people. On the other, at least 5 very impoverished-looking people. The scales are tipped in favor of the elite. Find a way to balance the scales.

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133

22 POINTS

Everyone talks about “viral videos.” We think we know what those are. Share a GISH video of a biological (not technological) virus and get it to go “viral” with at least 1,000 likes. It must include GISH.com in the video and text in the video to count. Post a screenshot of your post with at least 1,000 Likes on it. #ViralVirus

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134

81 POINTS

(UP TO 30 SECONDS). It’s time for GIFF - the GISH International Film Festival! Create a 30-second horror film. Noted author Neil Gaiman tweeted: “You’ve got a week to rob a bank using only a rattlesnake, radioactive uranium and a bottle of whiskey.” “Jed here has a week to steal a battleship using a goat, a can of gold paint, and three resin models of Warren G. Harding. Go!” Use either prompt as the plot of your GIFF film. Post your film on social media and be sure to tag #GISH and @neilhimself, then submit the video and the link to your post in comments.

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135

51 POINTS

The aliens have been in Area 51 for decades. Why do they stay? Because of all the amenities, of course. Show us the leisurely life of aliens at Area 51: the best Retirement Community in the Universe! We want to see elderly aliens playing shuffleboard, mahjong, and bingo, getting alien spa treatments, doing tai chi and pilates... You get the idea. Post your submission to social media tagged #GISH, #Area51 & #SocialSecurityCheXFiles

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136

37 POINTS

COLLABORATIVE. Join the movement to cross-stitch what you care about: create a cross-stitch picket sign for a cause you believe in. Connect with at least 2 other teams and craft a protest march on a street corner. - Item Written By Misha’s Mom

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137

38 POINTS

Megan Rapinoe reminds us all that despite equal skill, women are often not treated to a level playing field in business. Show us a team of female office workers playing soccer in traditional business attire opposite men with a ball that says “EQUAL PAY.” The women, of course, should score.

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138

26 POINTS

The most stressful spa environment ever. - Lynette

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139

126 POINTS

Recently, a mylar balloon from Disney’s Frozen was found on the bottom of the ocean floor… Clearly leftover from an undersea birthday party. Show us the underwater party, including the birthday person blowing out the candles on their cake. PS: Your mother doesn’t live there! DO NOT leave a mess or impact sea life.

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140

37 POINTS

UPDATED TO REMOVE PATRIARCHY. Now that Donald Trump is president, people around the world have squandered billions of hours talking/worrying/complaining about him. Have an economist calculate the cost to the global economy of these lost hours. They must show their work and be a professor of economics.

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141

31 POINTS

Part of your job for the Mars Tourism bureau is managing PR. Design a brochure or poster that convinces people to visit our timeshare at Scenic Mt. gishwhes (on Mars).

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142

33 POINTS

We just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Prove it was faked.

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143

91 POINTS

Thanks to modern technology, we can relax and watch TV virtually anywhere, even in the loo—but we still can’t kick back on the porcelain throne and relax while we do. Create a toilet recliner to solve this problem.

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144

37 POINTS

You thought they said, “Get Out the GOAT.” Be the Greatest Of All Time by co-hosting a voter registration booth with a goat.

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145

70 POINTS

Mary Poppins and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things both loved hanging around in the Upside down! Create a convincing image of you having upside-down high tea on the ceiling with Mary Poppins and a Demogorgon. Post it to social media and tag the Stranger Things accounts and GISH. - Inspired by TessaMac

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146

53 POINTS

Every year, I send Gishers to visit my grandmother at Roland Park Place retirement home in Baltimore, Maryland, and this year is no different. Visit her retirement community (or any nursing home or community near you) and help the residents escape—metaphorically, of course. Take them on a tropical getaway by staging an impromptu beach party! Between the hours of 1 PM ET—3 PM ET on Monday, July 29 and Wed July 31 only, bring flower leis, small flowers, pre-packaged treats (nothing homemade), postcards with kind notes on them and/or a ukulele or guitar to sing with them. Ask them to reminisce about the happiest summer vacation they ever took. (PS: No bathing suits and leave the sand home, please. Hawaiian shirts are fine.)

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147

73 POINTS

COLLABORATIVE. The evening of Sunday, July 28 is the event of the year: the #WeJustMetGala! Get together with Gishers in your area at your local museum in the strangest, fanciest attire you can create—go so all-out, you make Billy Porter jealous. Roll out the red carpet and a banner, then convince strangers passing by to pose with you for red carpet pictures. Be fabulous! We must see the museum in the background, and there must be paparazzi. Post your images and videos to social media and tag #WeJustMetGala, #GISH & @theebillyporter, then submit your image or video to us with the link to your social media post in the comments.

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148

31 POINTS

You know that this is the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. But did you know that Woodstock the bird from Peanuts first appeared 2 years earlier? In 1967? So actually Woodstock the bird is 52. He’s drunk a lot of beer over the years and can’t hide it, but he is vain, so he’s had lots of work done. Tons of collagen and botox. He wears a toupee. He dyes his feathers. Show us what he looks like today.

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149

81 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. A Jackson Pollock paint-by-numbers kit: before, and after it’s been painted. Don’t try to find an existing kit. Make your own. (No cheating- follow the numbers!)

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150

47 POINTS

A ukiyo-e woodblock print depicting an image of your worst nightmare. (Caption it so we know what it is.)

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151

21 POINTS

You know how they keep making movies out of games? Like the Pikachu movie? Or Battleship: The Movie? Why don’t they ever go after the real money and make poems out of these properties? Write Battleship the poem, or Pikachu the poem. Must be at least 10 lines long.

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152

63 POINTS

Birthday wishes are getting fulfilled so much faster since we automated processing. Show us a Rube Goldberg machine that is activated by a child under 10 blowing out candles on a birthday cake, and ends with the thing they wished for being delivered into their hands.

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153

41 POINTS

I said no more ponies in the living room, and I meant it! But unicorns are totally okay.

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154

37 POINTS

(UP TO 90 SECONDS) It’s GISH University, Year 2! Each person on your team must attempt to learn a new skill they have never tried before and document the experience, including the first attempt.

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155

33 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. Thar’s plastic in them thar waters! A prospector panning for microplastics on a public beach. Craft jewelry from anything you collect and show it to us.

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156

47 POINTS

EDIT: CLIMATE CHANGE HAS THWARTED US AGAIN! Liss Ard is closed due to flooding. But the angels still need to unwind, so let’s see angels shooting pool and knocking back a few beers at a sketchy dive bar instead. Bonus points if there’s a Hell’s Angel in the mix. Note: You will still get points if you completed the earlier version of this item.

LOCATION-BASED. Where do angels go for tea? To the sky garden, of course! Depict two angels having tea while seated on a cloud on the edge of the Liss Ard Sky Garden in Ireland. Photograph them from the central plinth so it appears they are hovering in the sky.

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157

37 POINTS

A hand-made kite that looks just like the face of that famous person you look up to, high in the sky.

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158

249 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. Oceanic exploration shouldn’t just be for the elite. Companies are working on making exploration affordable, but we need something now. Drop a camera and a light in a tiny, weighted, protected housing with a window on a line (so you can pull it back up). Just outside the window a common object filled with air. Like an aluminum water bottle, or a balloon animal, or something made of styrofoam. Lower everything at least 1000 feet below sea level. The camera should be rolling so we can see at what point your object gets crushed by the pressure of the ocean. You cannot contract a submersible company and cannot pay for this to be done—this is a DIY project only. Oh, and keep it green: you must retract the line or you will be docked points. If you leave any piece of this in the ocean, including the line, we’re docking you points.

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159

7 POINTS

Right a great American novel. This is not a typo.

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160

51 POINTS

The lunar ticks are in the hall… Pink Floyd knew what was up. Show us what the lunar ticks on the dark side of the moon look like (you know, because you have a specimen preserved in a jar in your front hall.)

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161

81 POINTS

Thirsty for a challenge? Build a puzzle jug. Show you building it, then someone else figuring it out and successfully drinking from it.

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162

77 POINTS

GRID. Thomas Deininger makes amazing representational sculptures out of found objects. Using EVERY piece of non-recyclable, inorganic trash you generate during the Hunt, create a 3-dimensional, representational self-portrait. EVERY member of your team must do this.

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163

39 POINTS

Edited For Internationality:

Paint a Jenga set with your national flag’s colors. On each one write a word or phrase representing laws from your constitution. Get two real opposing politicians (national or regional) to play. See how many they can remove before this whole thing collapses.

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164

223 POINTS

“Fake news” was bad enough, but it’s pervading all media now and we can’t believe anything we see. Create a Deep Fake of Misha Collins complimenting Donald Trump. (We put this item in at the last minute after Misha’s final read-through of the list, so he doesn’t know about it. Don’t tip him off. We just want to see his reaction. You know, because he loves Donald Trump so much. This must be actual, digital Deep Fake footage (google it), not you in a mask, and not just a voice over or clever edit, to count. Video must be at least 5 seconds in length.

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165

42 POINTS

Apparently, once upon a time, the US government weaponized ticks. (Really.) Show us a pinboard with an example of a tiny, weaponized tick, complete with Rambo-style military gear and assault rifles.

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166

43 POINTS

Love has no borders, and neither does fun. Show two people on opposite sides of an international border crossing or wall playing a game such as charades, Pictionary, or another game that does not require them to touch or pass goods across the border.

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167

36 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. Last year, we suggested Gishers melt a message into a glacier or iceberg with a laser and received lots of complaints. We now recognize that people melting words into icebergs for scavenger hunts is one of the biggest problems facing our environment today. Have a climate scientist calculate the volume of water produced by, let’s say, 10,000 people melting eleven 6’ tall letters, 2” deep in an iceberg. Then have them calculate the amount of water produced by the additional melting caused by a .5 degree global temperature increase. Show us the numbers and analysis so we know how bad Misha should feel.

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168

28 POINTS

Check out a book from a local small-town library that hasn’t been checked out in at least 20 years. Submit a photo of you holding up the book with the stamped inner jacket showing the dates or other visual proof of this stellar feat.

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169

159 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. Tiny homes help those experiencing homelessness be a little safer and have dignity, but they’re hard to move around, and that presents a problem. Create blueprints for a Tiny Home that is durable and large enough for an adult to comfortably walk into through a door, yet can be folded down into a flat cart on with wheels for mobility and made of ultra-lightweight materials.

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170

119 POINTS

Climb ev’ry mountain! Like most nuns, Mother Abbess was an avid climber. Show us a nun in a full habit, rappelling down a steep grade of mountain.

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171

88 POINTS

(Up to 30 seconds) Get a well-known sportscaster to do a play-by-play for a real wedding.

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172

40 POINTS

They say that to perform CPR, you should compress someone’s chest to the beat of “Staying Alive” by the BeeGees. Get CPR certification while dressed in 70s disco attire.

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173

31 POINTS

Gishers have become nationals of Westarctica and other micronations, but it’s time we claimed our own land. Since nobody else has done it, we’re officially claiming the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as New Gishlandia! Help us with our micronation building: Create a flag, a national anthem, a crest, a statue of our Founder or a propaganda poster (all material items should be constructed solely from plastic trash).

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174

45 POINTS

The Gabra people of northern Kenya are a nomadic people who believe in living in balance with the environment and live by the tenet, “a poor man shames us all.” Mutual support is imperative in their culture, and no one is allowed to go without food, shelter, or hospitality—something the whole world could learn from. Take a page from the Gabra and go on a nomadic journey through your neighborhood, bringing with you as much food and water as you can carry along with cards with phone numbers and addresses for local shelters. Bring sustenance, hydration, and support to anyone in need you find, and document your journey including how far you traveled and how many people you helped along. Anyone appearing in the video must give permission.

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175

41 POINTS

Update For Climate Change:

Climate change has us thwarted, but you can’t keep a Gisher down! Do what floats your boat, but do it in a homemade boat of 100% recycled materials. PS: Your boat MUST float. LOCATION-BASED. Do something you’ve always been told you can’t, or shouldn’t, do while at (or outside) the Forbidden Corner in Coverham, England.

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176

68 POINTS

You look so festive with your “real avocado leather” purse or shoes made from avocado peels. - Inspired by Debbie M.

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177

31 POINTS

Remember FloJo? Florence Griffith Joyner a world-record-setting Olympic athlete whose long, intricately painted fingernails made her an 80s style legend. Times marches on, and now instead of FloJo, we’ve got BoJo—but style trends endure. Paint a portrait of Boris Johnson, FloJo style—on your excessively long acrylic pinky nail.

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178

28 POINTS

When you want to say something sweet to your loved one, you always use s’mores code.

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179

90 POINTS

Walking on water is so 2,000 years ago--but it’s a timeless tradition. Construct shoes that allow someone to walk on water. You may not be standing on anything that’s under the water and the water must be at least 6 feet deep. You must be in a lake, pond, river or ocean. NOT a swimming pool. You must take at least 6 steps. No stilts in the water. No super shallow water.

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180

41 POINTS

Create a 6 ft by 6 ft painting using only your body, paint, and a white sheet for a canvas. Bonus points if you manage to create representational art. - Kamila B.

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181

36 POINTS

On today’s segment of your cooking show, we learn how to make your world-renowned recipe for dessert haggis.

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182

16 POINTS

You know that feeling, when there’s a word on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t seem to say it? Show us that word. On the tip of your tongue. - @baileysaurusrex

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183

31 POINTS

My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, passed away recently. In tribute, make a video showcasing the top highlights of your team’s week and end it with the quote “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Inspired by The Plaid Fox

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184

63 POINTS

We’ve seen the pictures of dogs catching treats by German photographer Christian Vieler. Let’s see a high-speed photo of your teammate catching treats in the same style and photographic detail. -Kandace

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185

28 POINTS

SIDE-BY-SIDE. Hasan Minhaj rightly points out that there are many places in the US (and the world) with offensive names. We’re all for a good Assbutt, North Dakota or ****, Michigan, but if it’s racist or marginalizes a group we’re opposed. Find a place on the map or a street name that celebrates a known racist or slave-holder or war criminal or simply a place name that uses a derogatory term and petition to have it changed to an inoffensive alternative. If you’re in the US or if you’re abroad, seek out your local organization that manages names of cities, towns, and locations. Submit a screenshot of your proposal, then put your petition here so other teams can sign yours. Finally, make sure you sign at least 5 other teams’ petitions (you’ll find all the petitions here.)

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186

35 POINTS

It’s not just for fine dining anymore... At a fast-food establishment, get a grill cook to create a McAmuse-Bouche and serve it to a waiting, unsuspecting customer.

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187

104 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. In Japan, there is a fad of polishing aluminum foil into a perfectly polished ball. You just topped that with your wad of aluminum foil-turned-perfectly polished bust of your favorite celebrity. Tweet the video of the final product to your celebrity crush tagging #GISH, and include the link to the tweet in the comments section of your submission.

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188

69 POINTS

A menstrual Pad-alecki. Create a menstrual product bust of Jared Padalecki... and make sure his hair really “flows.” Then, donate at least an equal number of products to a women’s shelter. (We don’t have to see you donating: just include your donations receipt somewhere in the image by your sculpture.)

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189

49 POINTS

We’re not saying the cast of Supernatural is hot, but your fumage portrait of a Supernatural actor or actress speaks for itself. Smokin’! (Be super careful with this one- and have a fire extinguisher at the ready just in case. Remember, GISH doesn’t pay medical bills and you’re not allowed to hurt yourself - or anyone or anything else. If you can’t be sure of that, pick a different item. (Post your video or image to the actor depicted).

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190

229 POINTS

Evolution of the selfie: A person with an iPhone taking a selfie next to a person with a point-and-shoot camera who is taking a photo of a person with a Polaroid camera who is taking a picture of a person with a 35mm camera who is taking a photo of a person with a daguerreotype camera taking a picture of a person with a camera obscura taking a picture of someone painting a self-portrait. This should be a single photo, not photos from each camera.

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191

239 POINTS

CHANGE A LIFE. Each year, Gishers come together to “Change A Life”, making a profound difference in the lives of people or communities facing extraordinary hardship. As most Gishers know by now, unexploded bombs are a significant problem in certain areas of Laos. Since the Vietnam war, over 20,000 people have been injured or killed - over 8,000 of those being children. These explosives lie dormant in fields and some rural areas. Often, a farmer will accidentally strike one, or a child will think it’s a ball and pick it up. One such boy, Kayeng, was injured after his cousins lit a fire to stay warm, You can learn more about his story here.

This year, GISH is teaming up with Random Acts (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit) and our GISH Ambassador, photographer Giles Duley, to help change the lives of Laotian children and families in what is our most ambitious Change A Life to date in two ways:

1. With your help, we’re going to continue clearing unexploded bombs from farmlands. Your support has already helped make hundreds of acres safe already for the children and families of Laos.

2. Our bigger initiative will help fund the manufacture of much-needed prosthetics for countless Laotian children and adults missing limbs. You’ll help provide limbs and arms for children so they can walk to school and play, and farmers so they can provide for themselves and their families. From the funds raised, we hope to improve the lives of thousands in Laos for years to come.

Visit the Crowdrise page here! CHANGE A LIFE DONATIONS ARE 100% TAX DEDUCTIBLE, AND 100% OF THE DONATIONS GOES TO THE THIS EFFORT (for countries other than the U.S., deductions are contingent on your laws).

Your GISH Item: Using the link above, create a Fundraising page for your team, and get family, friends, and others to donate. Since this is GISH and there’s always an extra twist to everything we do, here’s the deal: we also want you to get OTHERS to donate to your Crowdrise page. We know you don’t need “points” as an incentive to help these families, but since it is part of the Hunt, we want to maximize the power of these points to help.

Get at least 10 donations from friends, family, individuals or businesses NOT on your team. You and your team members are welcome to donate to your campaign, but that is not a requirement for points- the Item requirement is to get at least 10 people to make a cumulative total of least 10 donations from donors who are NOT on your team. There is no minimum to donate for GISH purposes, but Crowdrise does require a minimum $10 donation be collected, and let’s all please encourage others to be generous so we can make a profound impact. SUBMIT a screenshot of your team’s page with a minimum of 10 donations on it. (To initially create a fundraising team, click the FUNDRAISE FOR THIS CAMPAIGN button.)

If for any reason your team is unable to (or chooses not to) join this Crowdrise campaign, you may still get points for this Item by collecting goods or volunteering at least two hours of your time with any relief organization providing relief to anyone directly impacted by acts of war-- refugees, disabled veterans, etc. SUBMIT PROOF YOU HAVE DONE THIS.

If your team is in the top 10% of number of donations or dollar amount, you’ll receive double points for this Item, so get in on this.

We need to raise $150,000 at minimum. We know it’s a lofty goal - but we believe in you, Gishers. Let’s do this!

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192

58 POINTS

Tonight’s date is so special, you wore your water ball(oon) gown! Hope your significant other “pops the question...” All water balloons must be filled with water. Remember, this is a zero-waste Hunt, so any water or balloons used must be recycled or used wisely (such as in Items 162 and #9).

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193

34 POINTS

A tiny painting of Misha and the Queen on a coin, made using toothpicks instead of brushes. - Arianne

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194

25 POINTS

Not all angels are 100% sweet and not all demons are all bad. Dress up as a demon and hand out messages of hope and positivity for the future to commuters at a busy bus, train, or subway station.

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195

34 POINTS

Create a HairBnB for head lice. Showcase all the amenities in photos. But don’t post it on AirBnB! Instead, hang your flyer where your clients will see it: at a local hair salon. - Inspired by Maison Collins

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196

28 POINTS

You’ve been out fishing for compliments, and you just snagged a whopper.

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197

53 POINTS

We could all use a little extra help to stay afloat. You wouldn’t go on a boat without a floatation device; why go through life without one? Create an “emergency life jacket” that you can wear when you feel a little underwater, out of your depth, or just like you need to be buoyed a little, customized with whatever will help you keep swimming.

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198

48 POINTS

Maybe hotels are onto something with their door hangers. Create an ornately designed reversible necktie you can wear that says “Do Not Disturb/”Please Tidy Up” or any other appropriate messaging for those times you want to quickly and efficiently broadcast a message but really don’t feel like being social.

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199

33 POINTS

Last year, you participated in the Bellyflop Olympics. But the most artistic activity in the summer Olympics is always the Synchronized Slip n’ Slide. Tandem sliders executing at least 3 beautiful, perfectly synchronized poses will win the gold. You must have judges and large score cards present.

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200

51 POINTS

Crochet or knit a doily recreation of our solar system.

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201

38 POINTS

From Spiderman’s web shooters to Batman’s ability to brood and spend money, if comic books have taught us anything, it’s that what makes us unique is what makes us super. But not everyone has internalized the message. Without being self-deprecating, identify one trait, offbeat skill, or feature about yourself that, properly applied, could be the origin of your new superperson identity. It can’t be an existing superhero in culture. Create a poster that showcases your superperson identity and what your flaw or feature-turned-superpower is. You may use Photoshop for this one.

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202

57 POINTS

Create a compliment vending machine! This machine offers free compliments on activation. Install it in a busy public place... with you safely hidden inside (make sure you have visibility, airholes, etc. See Commandment 6, “Scavenging Safely.”). Offer a sincere, honest compliment to anyone who activates the mechanism and have a friend record the transaction.

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203

41 POINTS

Before he was an Assbutt, our 2019 GISH Mascot was an Asserpillar. Illustrate or create a page from the award-winning children’s book The Very Hungry Asserpillar. (As you know from reading the book, each page features an important life lesson or moral, so make sure yours does, too.)

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204

48 POINTS

COLLABORATIVE. This is not a drill! Your pillow fort is under attack. Build the world’s most impenetrable Pillow Fort ever. You can include pillow cannons, catapults, etc. for defense, or just trust the integrity of your architecture. You may do this at home with family or friends, or collaborate with other Gishers in a public park. Then, defend it against the attackers (make sure there are extra pillows on hand for anyone who wishes to attack.)

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205

28 POINTS

As tournaments go, Wimbledon’s got nothing on Piladex. Show off your prowess at this 19th-century analog game of Pong, which is played by keeping inflated bag or balloon aloft by blowing on it. (For our tournament, you may not use your hands.) You may play one-on-one or a doubles match. Game, set, match!

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206

38 POINTS

Spoiler alert! Nobody has time to really sit down and read anymore. So, bring the stories to them. Recreate major plot points of classic books by acting them out at your local library. But in deference to library “rules”, you must be silent, so you’re going to have to use interpretive dance on this one. Note: If you’ve submitted a photo, you will still get credit.

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207

57 POINTS

Put your friend on display as a human statue at your local art museum. You may use props. Include a didactic card explaining the piece and its significance as a true work of art as well as an Artist’s Statement.

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208

28 POINTS

FAST-MOTION. Everybody always thinks zombies are after their brains, but they’re just really into “tag”, as evidenced by the 3 zombies playing slow-speed tag in your local mall, then speed it up and send it in.

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209

28 POINTS

LOCATION BASED. It’s time to sit for your GISH Global Compliance Exam. Resistance is Futile! Misha says you must meet up at at 8:30 AM on Saturday, Aug 3rd. DO NOT COME early, and definitely don’t be late. No proxies, please: only registered Gishers may attend! Wear your Gishiest hat and bring donations for the Lighthouse Mission Drop-In Center from the list below. If you cannot attend in person, watch our social media tomorrow for further instructions to complete this Item globally.

DONATION LIST:

Hygiene supplies: shampoo, hand sanitizer, soap/body wash (full size or travel size), toothpaste, safety razors, toilet tissue, hand wipes, etc.

First aid supplies (bandaids, etc)

Undergarments (M-XL, new only) and Unisex Socks

Unisex t-shirts and sweatpants (M-XL)

Water or shelf-stable food

If you couldn’t attend today’s meet up you can still score points for your team! Your mission: Take a donation of hygiene supplies or shelf-stable food to your local homeless shelter or food bank. But in honor of the Lighthouse Mission Drop-In Center in Bellingham, you should wear the tallest hat you can, with a light at the top so you can be a beacon to those in need.

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210

39 POINTS

STOP-MOTION. You have too many things in your house, and they’re ready to leave the nest and strike out on their own to find new lives. Create a stop-motion video of at least 10 useful items you’re ready to part with packing themselves into a box, then take it to a local shelter near you.

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211

47 POINTS

You’re a world-famous bodybuilder, but we know your secret: you use the performance-enhancing supplement: cotton fibers. Go to a homeless shelter and strike your award-winning bodybuilding pose out front (no other people should be in the image). Stuff as many packages of still-wrapped, new socks in the clothes on your upper body as possible to achieve bulk and definition and make you look muscle-bound. Then, remove all the socks and donate them to the shelter because your true strength is your kindness.

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212

52 POINTS

TIMELAPSE. Go trick or treating at your office or any large businesses near you, collecting school supplies (pencils, notebooks, erasers, or other donations). Donate anything you get to your local schools.

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213

53 POINTS

@dog_rates on Twitter & @weratedogs on Instagram rates dogs on their inherent dog attributes, but you know there’s a dog at your local shelter that deserves a 13/10 would take home forever rating. Go to your local shelter and identify the dog that has been there the longest or is most in need of a home. Take appealing photos or videos of your canine candidate and create the best, most shareable post you can of this good doggo, including information on how and where to adopt them. Post your creation tagging @WeRateDogs/@dog_rates, using #RateGISHDogs, and DM them your post as well, then submit a screenshot of your post. Bonus points if @WeRateDogs posts your dog before the end of the Hunt (send us THAT screenshot as proof instead if that’s so.) Double bonus points if you can prove the dog was adopted as a direct result.

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214

29 POINTS

(UP TO 60 SECONDS.) Guinness World Records? Been there, done that. This Item is for the GISHess World Records. Set a record for the most acts of kindness by one person in under 60 seconds. You may not speed up the video.

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215

36 POINTS

Tar and feathering is so 1800s. It’s time for an old-fashioned, public Maple Syrup and Glittering Make your own biodegradable glitter for this.

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216

39 POINTS

You’re a _____, Harry! It’s Harry Potter’s birthday today (July 31). Let’s envision what other jobs Harry Potter might’ve ended up doing if Hagrid had failed to make it to the hut-on-the-rock and Harry hadn’t made it to Hogwarts. Post your image to social media with hashtag #GISH and #MuggleJobsForWizards.

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217

17 POINTS

You are an undercover agent for the GISH Bureau of Instigation! Go to a public place looking for someone doing a kind deed. When you spot someone, blow your whistle and identify yourself as a member of the GISH Bureau of Instigation and issue them a citation thanking them for spreading positivity in a public setting (a Section G-2019 violation).

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218

29 POINTS

Have an attorney draft a class-action lawsuit against humanity on behalf of pollinators. Submit your evidence of the attorney, holding the filed paperwork.

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219

47 POINTS

Caregivers of those with life-threatening illnesses or chronic health conditions sacrifice a lot but are often forgotten. Let’s fix that. Make buddy care-bags: one bag for the caregiver, and one for the person they support. Contact a hospital, hospice, care facility, caregiver or person with a life-threatening illness or chronic condition to find out what would be most helpful to include in the bags, then donate them directly or through a caregiving organization near you. Submit a photo of the care bags -- the recipients need not be depicted. Tell us the story of the person you helped in the comments.

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220

19 POINTS

Chewing gum tug of war.

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221

21 POINTS

You better watch out... Santa Clothes just hit up your local laundromat! The jolly old sartorial elf left presents of laundry soap and quarters for the machine along with notes of encouragement for all the good little folks in need of some help getting the most boring of household tasks done.

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222

132 POINTS

Crack the pinata zipline-style! Play pinata with your friends -- but you must use a zipline to get your shot at hitting it. At least 2 people must play in your video or photo, and someone should crack it open so candy can spill to the people waiting below. - Brenda

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223

185 POINTS

You Wanted to See It! Jump the Fonz: Water ski jump over Henry Winkler. Bonus points if it’s a shark or attorney making the jump. -Ghassan

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224

68 POINTS

PUZZLE. New Item, Who Dis? 3x3=9, null=0. And that’s the Tea. Don’t get your wires crossed! When you think you’re done, the fun’s just begun...

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225

99 POINTS

Yeah, yeah. We’ve got like 8 Guinness World Records, so we’re really not impressed by them anymore. But your team loves to collect them, so you went for one anyway. Either on your own or in collaboration with other teams, break the record for the world’s largest sock monkey, made all out of socks. Bonus good karma in the afterlife if you fill it with socks and donate it all to a homeless shelter after it’s been officially accepted as the new record-holder. See the guidelines here.

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226

49 POINTS

PUZZLE. DO GISH.

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227

68 POINTS

LOCATION-BASED. The GISHBUS served us as well as it could, but there comes a time when we have to let things go and move forward-even if the GISHBUS never really could. Soon, it will belong to a new owner who will decide its fate. But we want you to have one last chance to say goodbye. So let’s send it off in GISH style!

Your ITEM:The GISHBUS is currently waiting for you at THIS LOCATION until 4PM PT tomorrow. Keep driving and hang a left. Do not bother the businesses there. Your team’s task: Say goodbye! Bring water-based paints and/or permanent markers and tag the exterior of the vehicle with the following:

Your team’s name

Write something on the bus that you or your teammates want to let go of in your lives

Submit a photo of your team mate (or proxy) with your graffiti on the bus as proof that you were there. Post your image on social media tagged with @GISHBUS, #GoodybyeGISHBUS & #GISH.

Note: Do not write over another team’s messages and leave room for other people! Also, please note that this is an industrial park. Use common sense, follow laws, don’t disturb the neighboring businesses and give high-fives to any Gishers you see. DO NOT ENTER THE BUS OR DISTURB THE TROLL INSIDE. We mean it. Doing so could mean forfeiture of points or disqualification from the Hunt.

[weeklyreviewer]

If you hate the U.S. women’s soccer team’s World Cup party, you’re a cop – ThinkProgress

On Wednesday morning, Megan Rapinoe, dressed in her “World Champion 2019” shirt, massive red-framed sunglasses, and her now-signature pink hair, was on a float in the ticker-tape parade in New York City, surrounded by teammates, fans, and, because nothing can be perfect, New York mayor Bill DeBlasio. She had been partying for three days straight with her teammates, ever since the moment they won their second consecutive — and fourth overall — World Cup championship in Lyon, France. But the party was far from over.

Her left foot was propped high in the air, putting her left knee about parallel with her shoulder. The World Cup trophy was in her left hand, and resting atop her knee. In her right hand, was a bottle of champagne. She turned to her friend, Ashlyn Harris — a back-up goalkeeper for the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) whose documentation of the group’s post-victory celebration bender will go down in the annals of women’s sports history — and told the whole world through Instagram stories, “I deserve this. I deserve this. Everything.”

To some, this might be considered an off-the-cuff, light-hearted statement. But it was far from that. This was an earth-shattering declaration, a pointed rebuttal to everyone who has ever told women that their worth was tied directly to humility and modesty; a mantra for women everywhere who feel pressured to tone down their happiness to make others more comfortable, to turn down compliments or brush-off accolades. It was the opposite of, “thank you,” and a complete rejection of, “I’m sorry,” a phrase that most women utter, on average, 100 times a day, often to nobody in particular, as they merely move around the world.

It was a motto that summed up the entire World Cup run of the USWNT. Three months before the tournament began, they sued U.S. Soccer for equal pay, taking the fight for equality onto the biggest stage in the sport. Once in France, they smashed record after record and celebrated with abandon at every turn — drawing massive amounts of criticism for being too demonstrative about their happiness. They didn’t apologize; they just kept winning, and sipping tea. And then, when the last whistle blew in Lyon, France, to solidify their 2-0 victory over the Netherlands in the final, they kicked off a globe-trotting, ass-shaking, champagne-soaked, expletive-laden party, which the players — particularly Harris — shared with the public on social media.

Seeing these women cussing and pouring champagne on one another, holding signs asking for beers, unapologetically flaunting their drunken happiness in public — in a display that rivaled the shirtless shenanigans of J.R. Smith when the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship, or the over-the-top water-fountain antics of Alex Ovechkin when the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup Finals last year — wasn’t just entertaining; it was down-right inspiring.

Other elite female athletes acclaimed the champs.

“I’m kind of obsessed with them right now. I just can’t. Like, they’re so dope,” Ariel Atkins, a second-year player for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, told ThinkProgress. “They’re not trying to flex for the media and trying to be like, all preppy and professional all the time. I mean, they are who they are, And that is professionalism, being exactly who you are and showing people that athletes are humans too.”

Atkins admitted that like the rest of the world, she’s spent a lot of time over the last week watching Harris’s Instagram stories. So has Sophie Cunningham, a rookie for the Phoenix Mercury.

“They are so badass. Having them go out there and being feisty the way they have been, it has been inspiring to me. For them to go out there, to see them having fun, now I want to win a championship so this team can experience that,” Cunningham said.

“They’re not hiding who they are. They are themselves. I think that is so awesome for all women and men to see.”

This all began on Sunday, after the confetti was cannoned and the trophies delivered, when the players got back to the tarp-covered locker room, put on their goggles, turned up the music, and started popping bottles. We got to see what it looked like, in real time, as the weight of the world was lifted off of their shoulders, and the women began to realize what exactly they had accomplished. The early mornings and healthy eating, the skipped parties and long workouts, the time away from family and friends and all the doubts that this team faced when it came to France, it had all been worth it. Heck, the President of the United States had even come after Rapinoe during the tournament, after a clip of her saying, “I’m not going to the fucking White House” went viral, and the team only got stronger after that.

So of course they partied. Alex Morgan twerked. Crystal Dunn chugged beer. Tobin Heath sang, “We are the champions” at the top of her lungs. Harris documented it all, and then turned the camera on herself and said, in instantly-iconic fashion, “You’re fucking welcome for this content, bitch.”

Ashlyn Harris’ instastories are the best thing on the internet rn pic.twitter.com/JLDjftOSpj

— em (@East_From_Eden) July 7, 2019

After the locker-room celebration, the players went to an after-party, where they danced on the bar, took shots, and did a lot more shouting. On Monday, they took a chartered flight back to New York City, and when they landed, they were still singing and dancing and drinking. Tuesday, after waking up early to go to Good Morning America, they had a private roof-top player’s-only pool party, and then took the party to a Yacht in the East River.

Some how, on Wednesday morning, they were still standing and able to participate in the parade, which became about far more than their World Cup victory, and turned into a rally for equality. All along the parade route, fans held signs that read, “Equal Pay.” And the players — who, it must be stressed, were surrounded by the U.S. Soccer officials they are suing during this celebration — actually used their lawsuit as confetti during the parade.

When the players stood in City Hall — still drinking — and waiting to come out on stage for the speech portion of the program, Harris took to Instagram to show copies of the lawsuit in the trees outside, and strewn across the floor of City Hall.

“Our lawsuit is in the fucking trees,” Harris said. Moments later, as Allie Long literally ate the lawsuit, Harris added, “Pay us, bitch.”

Daddy will pay us. He loves his girls.

https://t.co/WuWyb9fnWu

— Ashlyn Harris (@Ashlyn_Harris) July 10, 2019

That afternoon, they got on a cross-country flight, received hair and makeup on the plane, and then took the ESPYs — a sports-centric awards show hosted by ESPN — by storm.

From Sunday morning to Wednesday night, every single thing these women did was about celebrating themselves. It was a flashy, raucous, attention-grabbing, euphoric, and often crude showcase of success. It was revolutionary. It was true equality.

Most of the time, female athletes either lack the time, resources, or platform to hold a celebration like this one — a celebration like we see male athletes have every single time a championship is clinched. Diana Taurasi, a guard for the Phoenix Mercury and the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer, said that because of the year-round demands on female basketball players, they never get the time to celebrate like the USWNT did this week.

“We usually win something, and we never get to celebrate it. We’ve won four [Olympic] gold medals, and the next day, you’re flying back to your WNBA team,” Taurasi said. “It’s like you don’t even get to enjoy winning.”

That’s a big reason why the USWNT’s drunken victory tour meant so much to women everywhere — because most of the time, athletes or not, women aren’t encouraged or even given the time to celebrate their accomplishments.

It’s also why so many pearl-clutchers expressed outrage at the audaciousness of the championship parade. Because the world never gets to see women let loose like this. Under every single social media post about these antics, there are floods of people calling the players classless, arrogant, and embarrassing, and scolding them for not being good enough role models for little girls everywhere. But the best part of the celebration was that is wasn’t about anyone else; this team has worked so hard, not only to be the best at their craft, but to fight for equal pay for the next generation, and to stand up for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, and minorities. This party was about taking a moment to celebrate themselves. Because, as Rapinoe said, they deserved it.

“I mean, they’re just being themselves. I think that’s all you can do. Just be authentically you. They’re great people, and they’re great athletes,” said Mystics’ All-Star Kristi Toliver, who is friends with Pinoe and Harris. 

“And you know, they’re about the right thing. So if that upsets people, [those people are] probably in the wrong.”

  Credit: Source link

The post If you hate the U.S. women’s soccer team’s World Cup party, you’re a cop – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/if-you-hate-the-u-s-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=if-you-hate-the-u-s-womens-soccer-teams-world-cup-party-youre-a-cop-thinkprogress

[junker-town]

French toast

Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon - Pool/Getty Images

We have that and more in Thursday’s NBA newsletter.

We all knew it could happen, but then it actually did. Team USA got beat in the 2019 FIBA World Cup, and at the worst time to get beat, the quarterfinals. France, led by Rudy Gobert, Nando de Colo, and Frank Ntilikina, beat the Americans by 10 on Wednesday morning to advance to the semifinals, where they will meet Argentina on Friday. Team USA is out of medal contention, and will play Serbia in the consolation bracket on Thursday.

Team USA was capable of losing this tournament because so many stars stayed home and, at this stage, a few international teams are good enough to beat a Team USA that isn’t loaded to the gills with star NBA players. France is one of those teams -- they came into the tournament one of the teams capable, and have actually played even better than projected. Ntilikina as a confident, defense-first point guard is a revelation. Gobert has been as dominant as we’ve ever seen him. It remains a surprise de Colo never came back to the NBA. This is a good, good team. All four teams in the semifinals -- France, Spain, Argentina, and Australia -- are really solid.

Donovan Mitchell scored 29 with better than 50 percent shooting and zero turnovers. Donovan Mitchell was not the problem, and those getting jokes off about Mitchell falling short in elimination games are just getting jokes off, not being serious. (Jokes are good. Just saying: Donovan Mitchell came to play.) Kemba Walker, the other go-to guard on Team USA, had an exceedingly tough game, going 2-for-9 with four turnovers in 25 minutes. The team’s three centers played a combined 16 minutes of ineffective basketball; smallball worked most of the tournament, but it’s not working against Gobert.

Lots of lessons learned here. No reason to freak out, though. It’s alright that Team USA isn’t invincible.

Sky High

The Chicago Sky shredded the Phoenix Mercury in their playoff game Wednesday night, capitalizing on injuries to Diana Taurasi (out after missing most of the season and not being herself when she played) and Britney Griner (who played just 14 minutes due to a knee injury). Diamond DeShields led the way; all hail Diamond DeShields.

In the other Round 1 knockout game, the defending champ Seattle Storm handled the Minnesota Lynx to end a very odd season for the Lynx in a pretty odd way. Come back, Maya Moore. (If you want. What you’re doing right now is extremely important.)

The next round of knockouts comes on Sunday. The Storm will face the L.A. Sparks (3 p.m. ET) and the Sky will face the Las Vegas Aces (5 p.m. ET). Both games will be on ESPN2. GET YOUR POPCORN.

Links

Dan Devine on Team USA’s nightmare scenario and what’s next for the program.

Michael Pina with a fantastic take: Stephen Curry is totally going to win the MVP this season.

Matt Ellentuck’s WNBA awards ballot reflects that this was truly the year of the Mystics.

And finally: Kobe Bryant shamed a 12-year-old on his youth basketball team on Instagram for missing a game for a dance recital, got tremendous blowback on the internet, and edited the IG caption to reflect that he’s actually fine with the girl missing basketball for dance, and besides, she’s obsessed with basketball now. Two quick thoughts here. The first is that, yes, Kobe seems like a lunatic of a youth coach. Is anyone really surprised after the way he acted in the NBA for decades? Of course not. The second is that Kobe’s thought process is way more pervasive than you think among parents, youth coaches, and especially youth coaches who are also team parents! Competitive youth sports is riddled with “I guess you have different priorities than these other players who are giving their blood, sweat, and tears 24/7 for the, uh, under-12 regional championship.” And it’s not just basketball: soccer, softball, volleyball, cheer, football, baseball, gymnastics, hockey. It’s truly unreal how much of the modern youth sports industry is built around guilting kids into singular focus on a single sport and around guilting parents into paying (in time, money, and stress) for the experience. Other parents do most of the guilting! It’s worse that Kobe is involved, because he comes from a place of authority as a basketball legend. Anyways, let kids be kids and stop taking advice on mental acuity from Kobe freaking Bryant.

Be excellent to each other.

[junker-town]

The WNBA’s male practice squads lose to women all the time — and enjoy it

Every professional and DI women’s basketball team practices against men, and has for years.

It’s a lay-up line like any other, with 14 men and two women dutifully tossing up buckets in the Uncasville, Connecticut gym where the WNBA’s Sun practice. The team’s coaching staff watch from the sideline as the players warm up. The men are aiming to snag a spot on the Sun’s unpaid, all-male practice squad; the women are hoping to earn last-minute invites to training camp.

Predictably, one of the guys decides to flex with a dunk. “That was so extra,” assistant coach Brandi Poole, who is supervising the proceedings, tells him. The Sun’s Morgan Tuck and Shekinna Stricklen, standing nearby, roll their eyes. “Jordan, stop showing off,” Stricklen yells, a grin on her face. He’s a returning member of the squad; apparently, his antics are familiar. “We don’t allow dunking in our practice,” she explains. “We’re gonna foul his ass before he does that.”

The laid-back atmosphere belies just how surprising the scene might be to anyone who hasn’t played basketball at a high level: a gym of men competing for the opportunity to be beaten by WNBA players, for free. Registration for the tryout cost $20, and came with lunch and a ticket voucher. If they make the squad, they get a pair of shoes.

“I’d rather be here playing against the girls than out on a court at a park or something,” explains Wes Murphy, a 28-year-old native of nearby Norwich who’s been on the squad since he was in college. “They know the game of basketball better — so many guys just get up and down the floor, throw shots up and have no idea what they’re doing.”

But the men anxiously trying to prove their worth on the hardwood are aware of how they look to so many of their peers, who use social media to share memes that make the same sexism women basketball players have always faced nearly inescapable. “Get back in the kitchen,” “Who cares?” and, of course, “I could beat a WNBA player one-on-one” are all familiar refrains.

“I just laugh,” says 30-year-old Garvin McAlister, who is an assistant coach at Post University, a DII school in Waterbury. He’s been on the Sun practice squad for years, and knows better than most just how implausible those online claims to on-the-court dominance really are. “I’m like, ‘You will get killed, what are you talking about?’”

Women playing at the highest levels of basketball have practiced against men for decades, for reasons expressed in Jordan’s braggadocious, lay-up line dunk. The strength and speed that’s often more easily cultivated in men helps push even the best women athletes in perfecting their game. In the WNBA, the squads are also part of maintaining league parity: teams are only allowed to have men on their practice squads in order to prevent them from hoarding potential players.

“We need their athleticism and size so they can really battle with our women,” Poole explains. “Guys can do some things athletically that most women can’t do — like, if a point guard is skying in for a rebound, there’s not many women that can do that,” says Stricklen. “It makes you have to be better in that way.”

Male practice squads’ ubiquity in college and professional women’s basketball has long been a source of curious press and, occasionally, consternation. In 2007, the NCAA nearly forbade women’s teams from creating male practice squads on the grounds that they took away opportunities for women athletes. But ultimately the coaches and players won out, believing that the best way to try to close basketball’s gender gap is, in a sense, to ignore it.

Finding men willing to do the same is its own challenge — especially for Connecticut, who do not play near a major city. On the flip side, there might not be another state in the union where women’s basketball is more established, thanks to the long-dominant UConn Huskies. McAlister shared an AAU team with Geno Auriemma’s son; Auriemma (briefly) coached their team when he wasn’t manning his legendary post at UConn. Jason Pelham, a 24-year-old trying out for the squad for the first time, was a practice player for the men’s and women’s teams at UConn. “A lot of my friends were doing this,” he explains. “I’m trying to get into a career in basketball, just networking in the best way I can.”

Unsurprisingly, many of the men attending for the first time also practiced with women in college — and there’s a degree to which it’s a self-selecting population of men who already understand just how good women can be. But that doesn’t mean that the first practice alongside the best women players isn’t still a reality check.

“I think for them to even come to try to be a practice player, they already respect the game,” says Tuck. “But it can catch them off guard if they haven’t played against high-level women. They might think it’ll be a little easier, or that they’ll be able to do certain things that they... just can’t do against us.”

“I wouldn’t say I was skeptical, but I definitely came into that first practice and said ‘I’m not gonna let girls push me around,’” says Christopher Lenox, 22, who graduated from the University of Richmond last year where he played with the women’s team for three seasons. “But I mean they’re DI for a reason. I was really impressed by the physicality that they played with — I loved it.”

“I was 1000% surprised,” McAlister recalls of his first practice with the Sun. “Just by how they give it to you. They can tell you what they’re going to do, and you still really can’t stop it. They’ll dominate you just as well as a really dominant player on the men’s side, which was kind of eye-opening... and humbling. But whatever, you get over it. After a while it becomes basketball, and you want to give it right back to them.”

As for the WNBA players themselves, they’re tolerant — to a point. “Some guys come in thinking they’re Joe Macho,” says Murphy. “They have a little swagger to them, thinking that they’re really good. Once the girls see that, they’ll put an elbow in you — they’ll make sure you leave with a bump or a bruise, which is very respectable.”

Even for the players who know what they’re in for, taking a few Ls (or hard fouls) from some of the world’s best makes the constant taunting women basketball players endure seem even more juvenile. Pelham, for example, coaches at New London High School, where students sometimes mock him for having played with the UConn women’s team.

“I’ll tell them, ‘Alright, you guys laugh, but one of these girls could come in here and beat every last one of you,” he says. “Any DI women’s player is extremely fundamentally sound, and that’s where you can get easy points and take advantage of people. You kind of have to humble yourself, put your pride aside and realize these are the most talented women basketball players in the world.”

The men at the Connecticut Sun practice squad tryouts, and others practicing with women across the country, are ultimately there for one reason: they truly love the game of basketball. The teams are littered with aspiring coaches and others looking to work at some facet of the game. “A lot of the respect for women’s players comes from NBA and college players, and a lot of the people who are disrespecting the women’s game are absolutely terrible at basketball,” says Lenox, who wants to work in college sports. “Basketball is basketball.”

“This is like a free coaching clinic for me,” says McAlister. “I watch how they conduct their practices, how they handle their players, how they handle off-the-court stuff — I’m always trying to learn things.”

There are plenty of men who will never be convinced that women can hang on the court, who will continue to be shocked when a woman sinks a three or sets a hard screen. But all over the country there are guys who know women can play better than them, and actively seek those women out, setting aside machismo because they simply want to play against the best.

“If you ask them if they can beat us, of course they’re going to say they can,” says Tuck (although none of them actually said that). “That’s just them being competitors. But they know that we can play just as good as guys.”

[junker-town]

Sixers miss Sam Hinkie so much they tried to hire his mentor

We have that and more in Tuesday’s NBA newsletter.

The New York Times’ Marc Stein broke a doozy on Monday: the Sixers, still looking for a leader for their front office, tried to poach Rockets GM and reigning Executive of the Year Daryl Morey. Philadelphia’s attempt to execute a brazen and stunning coup by hiring away Morey was rebuffed, apparently by Morey himself.

This is absurdly bold! Morey is as close to a front office institution as exists in the NBA right now outside of R.C. Buford in San Antonio and Pat Riley in Miami. The Sixers would be an intriguing, fruitful job for any NBA executive, but Morey just built a team worthy of challenging the Warriors. While this summer has gone poorly for Houston, you think there’s any chance a guy so strongly obsessed with beating Golden State is going to walk away now? No chance.

The ironic twist here is that the Sixers are looking for a GM because they had to fire Bryan Colangelo for his familial Twitter fingers two years after Colangelo replaced the successful but controversial Sam Hinkie. Hinkie, of course, is Morey’s protegé. While Morey and Hinkie followed different team-building paths, the latter’s rationale stems from the former’s central philosophy: you need superstar players to compete in the NBA.

The good news for the Sixers is that Hinkie is, by all appearances, still available. For all we know Philadelphia could call him up right now and offer him the position of president of basketball operations. It’s not Morey, but it’d be a sonic boom in the NBA doldrums, it’d excite certain fans and Joel Embiid, who was one of the targets of those Colangelo family Twitter critiques.

Pocket Ace

Here’s Matt Ellentuck waxing on A’ja Wilson, the reigning WNBA No. 1 pick who is carrying the Las Vegas Aces to shocking respectability. The Aces were awful last season and started slow this year, but have a good shot at the playoffs thanks to A’ja and Kayla McBride.

No. 1 picks don’t always make this kind of impact. The Aces had the No. 1 last year too, of course, and Kelsey Plum (one of the great college scorers) is just now finding her rhythm in the pros. That makes Wilson’s early dominance look so, so impressive.

Wilson will likely be named an All-Star Tuesday evening when the pool of 22 players is announced. The WNBA’s new format is interesting: the 22 All-Stars are chosen regardless of conference by media, coaches, players, and fans. The two captains are the highest vote-getters regardless of conference, and they will draft teams regardless of conference. If it works, the NBA should adopt the last couple tweaks to convert to that system.

Links Galore

Guess who took over Vegas Summer League on Sunday? LeBron James and his $500 Lakers shorts, of course.

Paul Flannery talked with new Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce on what it’s like to move from assistant to head coach, defense, and more.

Since getting Eastern franchise owners to agree to open playoff seeding is a daunting task, I whipped up a proposal to bribe them into saying yes. It includes an 8-team play-in round and not that much more playoff travel.

The biggest free agency news since we last met was Jabari Parker agreeing to a 2-year, $40 million deal with the Bulls, aided by the Bucks graciously rescinding their qualifying offer to the former No. 2 pick. I wrote that despite the unsatisfying break-up, the Bucks did the right thing by picking Parker and by letting him go.

Ricky O’Donnell on the Clippers’ Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who looked like the best rookie point guard at Summer League. I’m telling you, that team is going to be frisky again.

Kristian Winfield lavishes praise on the Nets’ rebuild plan ... and I’m not seeing anything to disagree with. The only caution I’d express is that free agency has never gone super well for the Nets.

David Aldridge points out that both L.A. and New York teams will have cap space next summer.

Trae Young says an airball bothers him for 2.2 seconds before he moves on.

The Kings would reportedly have to make a “stunning offer” to pry Rodney Hood away from the Cavaliers. Your move, Vlade Divac.

Shocking news: LaVar Ball is already talking trash about LeBron.

Tim Hardaway, Jr. on his trials and tribulations.

As a mindset cult member (is there a catchy name for us?), I’m here for the Brad Stevens Book Club.

The Indiana Fever and Pacers are walking away from sponsorships with Papa John’s.

Enjoyable read from Nick Friedell on the art of schmoozing at Vegas Summer League.

What Mike Bibby eats to get swole. (Bibby’s comments about always wanting to bulk up during his career are absolutely true: he came into the 2005-06 season yoked and quickly dropped the weight because preseason went really poorly.)

The NBA coaches’ association is getting proactive on health and wellness.

Kevin Lipe on the life and death and resurrection, perhaps, of Grit and Grind.

Haley O’Shaughnessy puts three teams on Turmoil Watch going into next season.

I wrote about the folly of doubting Isaiah Thomas.

Michael Pina on why Mikal Bridges could be more than meets the eye.

The Ringer’s biggest takeaways from free agency.

Don’t freak out about Jimmy Butler rejecting the Wolves’ max extension offer ... yet.

Meet the women of SB Nation’s NBA team brands.

And finally: Collin Sexton is fricking hilarious, y’all. Brilliant twist on the old Coach K floor slap. I don’t know if the Cavaliers will be very watchable this season, but Sexton sure will be.

Back on Thursday, barring major news sooner. Be excellent to each other.