Wikipedia defines “looksmaxxing” as “an online self-improvement practice focused on the process of maximizing one’s physical attractiveness.” There seem to be some problematic aspects, but the general desire to improve one’s appearance does not strike me as a unusual.

By contrast, there’s ballmaxxing, which is exactly what you’d guess it is.

Even if the procedure is executed perfectly, doctors tend to warn against scrotal inflation. “The scrotum area is very sensitive and contains delicate structures, including the testes, blood vessels, and nerves, which are not designed to accommodate fluid distension,” says Dr. Shirin Lakhani, an aesthetic physician and intimate health expert in Kent, England. If a scrotum is stretched past its limit and can no longer expand, the skin ruptures.

Yeah, no.

As Karl Arps was teaching about the signs of a heart attack in a CPR lesson, he went into cardiac arrest. Thankfully, his students all passed the test.

Like so many of us, Pope Leo XIV had no luck attempting to get phone support from his bank. Perhaps he should count his blessings that he even managed to reach a human being.

For many years, I’ve contended that the logic of wedding registries has been lost. A gift registry made more sense in the more distant past, where they provided the items needed to outfit a home. A groom and his bride might each have been leaving their parents’ homes to form a new, third household together. In that case, they had need of plates, cutlery, and yes, even their very own chili splatter screen.

Nowadays, it’s far more likely that both members of a couple left home years ago. They may have each been living on their own, in which case they’re about to have many duplicate items. Alternately, they may well have already moved in together. In that case, they already have two of everything, and the registry just provides a way to get a third, even better version.

But a divorce registry? Now that’s a lot more logical.

Perhaps we can take this idea one step further. What if we directly connect the people who are marrying with those who are separating? The newlyweds have too much stuff and the newlydivorceds are in need of that same stuff. And as payment for the material goods, the latter can probably offer some helpful advice on what not to do.

To bypass online age checks, kids in the UK have apparently turned to makeup:

Parents also said they had caught their children drawing on facial hair in a bid to evade the technology. One mother said: “I did catch my son using an eyebrow pencil to draw a moustache on his face, and it verified him as 15 years old.”

Outstanding.

Previously in Fake Mustaches: Lean Into That Name

Renea Gamble, a 62-year-old woman who was arrested when she wore a 7-foot-tall inflatable penis costume to protest the dic(k)tatorial regime of Donald Trump, has been acquitted on all misdemeanor charges. The whole story is farcical, but I particularly liked this exchange with the defendant’s husband:

[The prosecutor] called Gamble’s husband as a witness to testify that he had withdrawn bail money before they attended the protest, as if she knew she was going to break the law in advance.

“I always make sure we got bail money on us,” Larry Fletcher responded, to laughter from the gallery. “I have bail money on me now. Whenever there are this many cops around I have bail money on me.”

There were no fewer than 16 uniformed police officers standing around the perimeter of the courtroom.

That’s some poor prosecuting, but some fine reporting.

Previously in ludicrous prosecutions: Afroman Prevails