We Recommend: Your Friday Freebies
Junkee-endorsed bits and bobs to make your weekend better. Includes the best Wes Anderson supercut, a game for haters of odd numbers, and the happiest photo ever.
Each Friday, our contributors send in a bunch of (legally) free stuff they’ve come across this week to help you waste your weekend. You’re welcome.
–
Photo: ‘The Happiest Picture In The World’
Recommended by: Elizabeth Flux
If you put joy and maniacal laughter together in a blender, tossed in a pinch of serotonin, and liberally seasoned with crack cocaine, then you would be about one-tenth of the way towards replicating the sheer unadulterated happiness ecstasy bursting out of this picture. Apparently the key to happiness isn’t an Oscar or a Patronus or even a squeaky toy — it’s Photoshop. Accio Grumpy Cat!
–
YouTube: Children’s choir sings Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’
Recommended by: Michelle See-Tho (‘Let’s Review The Australian Classification Board, Shall We?‘)
I’m not usually the type of person to fall for super-cute videos of kids, but this one had me smiling and laughing until my cheeks hurt (possibly because it was also a slow work day). Not only is every member of this children’s choir adorable, they’re also incredibly talented. Listen to that bravado!
–
Website: McSweeney’s Recommends
Recommended by: Andy Huang
In which I recommend ‘McSweeney’s Recommends‘, which recommends a variety of delightful things, including food (“Borsari Seasoned Salt: We sprinkle this stuff on everything: meat, poultry, pork, our tongues. You name it. Salty-tangs-up anything. Sex for the taste buds.”); people (“Neko Case: Because she’s great” and “Emma Stone: We are entirely, completely on this bandwagon. Charm, wit, character and all.”); and odd but beautiful experiences (“Remembering the smell of summer air at dusk from childhood: Try it. Just for a moment, try it.”, as well as “Conversations with umbrellas“, “Describing a singer’s voice as ‘serrated’” and “hand-written love letters). It’s also full of recommendations about books, TV shows, websites, podcasts, and stacks more for you to go through this weekend or the next.
–
Video: Wes Anderson, Centred’
Recommended by: Kyran Wheatley (‘20 Young Australian Comedians You Should Know About‘)
I wonder if Wes Anderson is a centred man — like, spiritually or whatever — because the symmetry in his movies is stunning. Every shot always has this almost perfect reflection to it, sort of like those painted butterfly things you did in Year Three art class, where you fold the paper in half and squelch it down. I think that’s how he does it: he shoots half the frame, and then just folds it in half. That’s how it works, right?
–
Website: GraphTV
Recommended by: Katie Booth (‘Twitter’s #FirstTweet Birthday Tool Proves Celebrities Are Just Like Us‘)
Some people are still arguing that the ending of Breaking Bad was predictable (no spoilers, I promise). If you find yourself in an argument with such a person, point them in the direction of GraphTV to prove that it was, in fact, amazing. The new website allows you to search your favourite TV shows and produces a simple graph, based on IMDB information, which “attempts to graph TV show ratings be episode.” Each season is shown in a different colour, alongside its episode title and rating. Here’s proof that pretty much everyone hated the last season of Dexter:
–
Music video: ‘Boom’, by Le1f
Recommended by: Nick Adams
Le1f has been busting out tracks in the rap underground for years now, always on the cutting-edge and just a little bit left of centre. But now he’s finally about to hit the big time.
His flamboyant style is pushed to the next level in the video for his new single ‘Boom’, taken from his first official EP, Hey EP. Sexy dancing in a diner, yes please. Not to mention the song is dope too, even managing to fit in a Mario Kart reference. You should totally watch this, and pretend to your friends you knew about him all along.
–
Game: 2048
Recommended by: Caitlin Welsh (‘Girls Recap: Even Marnie Sucks Less Than Hannah Now‘)
I discovered this diabolical game — available online and as a free iOS and Android app — about 24 hours ago, thanks to yesterday’s XKCD, and it took about ten minutes to start ruining my life. It’s like Sudoku, Candy Crush, and a tile puzzle had an evil little baby. (There’s also a seizure-inducing Doge version already, because the internet.) Odd numbers are basically dead to me now.
–
YouTube: ‘Seinfeld Nothing Supercut’
Recommended by: Edward Sharp-Paul (‘I Marched In March. Now What Happens.‘)
This seems like a funny idea at first: a supercut of all the exterior and establishing shots from Seinfeld‘s nine-year run. Well, all the slap bass is pretty funny for a while, but there’s an inexplicable creepiness that eventually seeps in, and by the end I just felt sad and bereft. If, for some reason, these are emotions that you too would like to experience, watch on.
–