What better way to teach kids about the “joy of painting” than by dressing up like and following along with the incomparable Bob Ross himself?

As a means of rewarding her students’ hard work and helping them fight school-related stress, Brady Sloane, an 8th-grade art teacher in Abilene, Texas, decided to fundraise for a unique art activity.

The fundraiser titled “Flash Mob? Flash Bob Ross! Paint along for 50 Students” raised $500—enough to buy paint supplies for the 4 dozen students as well as wigs and shirts that comprised surprisingly accurate Bob Ross costumes.

Setting up a projector in the school auditorium, the students donned their “Ross-tumes,” grabbed palettes and music stands as makeshift easels, and dove headfirst into a relaxing afternoon with the zen artist supreme. No mistakes. Just happy little accidents.

“The day of the event was amazing,” says Sloane. “Students came in, got their wigs on and got to work! They worked so hard and had great focus… they are always great workers and do well in my class, but I was so proud of them!”

There’s a certain amount of pride parents get when sharing beloved music with their kids. For true music lovers, it’s like sharing a part of one’s identity, forming a bond that’s difficult to describe yet impossible to deny.

Richard McDeid and his son, Mason, have a relationship built largely on a foundation of shared musical taste. They’ve attended over 1,200 musical performances, during which Richard learned more and more about the ironically relaxing effect heavy metal music has on his son.

Mason has cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that develops before, during, and shortly after delivery and affects a child’s movement, motor skills, and muscle tone. As a baby up until he was a toddler, Mason was crying all the time due to his constant discomfort. One day, during a particularly bad crying spell, Richard discovered something amazing.

“I arrived in from work and his mom took some time out. He would simply not stop, so I put him in his chair and turned on the Metallica ‘Binge and Purge‘ VHS tape. A few minutes later I was washing the dishes and noticed he’d stopped crying. I checked on him and he’d fallen asleep.

“This was the very first time he’d done that without someone holding him. Afterward, it started happening in the car whenever Metallica was on. He would calm down and relax. At first, it was only Metallica and then grew to other bands as he learned to recognize them, he instantly responded and it grew from there.”

Ever since Mason’s first show in 2008 (Rage Against the Machine), he has been hooked. Most venues provide him with front row treatment where the fellow true metalheads are.

“Mason has now seen Metallica eight times from the front row in 6 different states, including the Iowa raceway for his college graduation party,” Richard said in an interview with My Good Planet.

“I teased him for years that Metallica would play his graduation and, as impossible as that sounded, in the end, it was Mr. Mason sitting next to the stage that day.”

In 2017, Mason began experiencing some serious medical problems and had to be hospitalized. With a temperature of 107.9, things were looking bleak.

“Mason is a fighter and a true champion,” Richard said. “And, by definition, a champion is determined not by how many knockouts they have, but on how many times they get up after being knocked down.”

Mason proved, once again, that he was too much of a badass to go down for good, and in his honor, Richard organized a metal festival for the following March during National CP Awareness Month. With a lineup of ten bands and so many of his fans and supporters around, Mason enjoyed one of the best parties of his life.

Completely unexpectedly, the festival was later awarded best show of the year by the local Metalsota Metty Awards.

“All those people were nothing but positive, and it was a turning point in his path to recovery,” Richard recalls. “It means so much as our music scene is behind us boys; we are very lucky to have met so many loving, caring metalheads.”

Now, Richard is planning on making “Mason Metalfest” an annual benefit concert, with the second festival scheduled for March 23, 2019, in Minneapolis.

So, if you find yourself in Minnesota in late March and you’re in the mood for a kickass metal show, make your way to Lee’s Liquor Lounge. Get there early enough and you might even be able to snag a prime spot up front with the man of the hour himself.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

The common phrase typically applies to a person’s career but there’s no reason why such wisdom can’t be applied to daily tasks and responsibilities, which is why Joe Murray of Saskatchewan, Canada has spent the last fourteen years excavating his basement; not with a basic shovel, but with some of his favorite remote-controlled vehicles.

Sure, if you halfway know how to handle a shovel, you could clear out a room the size of Joe’s basement on just a couple of weeks but that’s not the point of the project.

Joe’s day job consists of farming cattle and grain, so his position as overlord of his remote-controlled workers is his preferred way to turn his brain off while still being productive after a long day.

“[It’s] my escape from everyday realities,” he told News.com.au. “Nothing more.”

He estimates that the tiny vehicles move roughly three cubic meters of soil per day—not a lot, but seemingly faster than actual construction jobs I’ve encountered in some cities.

Plus, the hobby has helped Joe develop skills that assist him in his day job as well:

“(I’ve got) greater dexterity in both hand and eye coordination,” Joe says. “I can better judge accuracy at a good distance from me. I can mentally picture several different scenarios of how to best tackle a project, make a better plan for success lessening the chance of a costly failure… and also [have] some specialized tools that I have bought for my hobby and then later used them too to fix my farm equipment myself.”

Despite their toy-like appearance, the vehicles are made to do genuine work like this. The 88lb JD850 excavator Joe acquired in 2010, for example, is armed with an operating hydraulic pressure of nearly 400psi.

Over the years, Joe has uploaded countless videos to YouTube to document the project, which has been surprisingly successful. Altogether, the project videos have earned over 6 million views.

As for where Joe will direct his efforts after the basement is finished, there’s a barn on his property that has already caught his attention.

“The one thing I’m looking forward to about the barn is the much bigger area and it’s flat too, which will work better for bigger, more powerful R/C models,” he said. “I might dig a pond in there with some river channels for tugboats/barges… We’ll see.”

NASCAR is adored for its grand spectacle on race days. With some stadiums being able to seat over 200,000 people, the air is electric with anticipation and excitement.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon.

In a video recently posted to Twitter, stock car driver Kyle “Rowdy” Busch is playing Super Mario Kart with his 3-year-old son, Brexton, who had some insightful ideas for making his dad’s racing a little more exciting.

“Dad, it would be cool if you were in the game,” Brexton says.

“It would be, wouldn’t it,” Kyle replies. “Man, that’s a good idea.”

The video then fades to Kyle’s own version of the Nintendo title, dubbed “Super Rowdy Kart.”

Busch described the process of how the video came about at Daytona 500 media day.

“So Corey Lajoie was making these drift trikes and I asked him, ‘Can we make it into like a Mario Kart?’ like into a four-wheel go-kart looking thing. Make it adjustable where the seat slides forward, the pedals slide backward so Brexton can fit in it; he can actually drive it or a full-sized adult like myself can drive it.

“Corey built these things and as he was building them, he showed me the first one, and I was like, ‘Damn, it looks like a real Mario Kart’,” he added, chuckling. “I was like, ‘OK, let’s theme them then—you know, let’s have a Mario, a Yoshi, and a Donkey Kong, and then we’ll have one for me.’

“So he made them all, built them and then I was like, ‘Now I’ve got to go buy costumes because we’ve got to do something with it,’ and so I found a website that had these costumes on it and ordered them up and there we go: We made a video.”

Besides an obvious misprint identifying Yoshi as Luigi, the video is pretty spot on in terms of Mario Kart accuracy. From items to sound effects to the information on the screen, combined elements from Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 to create his ideal aesthetic for Super Rowdy Kart.

“The filming of the video took about two hours and then editing of the video took about a week,” Busch said. “The final two hours of editing was me and my web guy. We were just sitting there trying to figure out all the sounds and all the effects and getting them right and timed right and all the things to make it to where it was sensory overload for people. It was fun.”

All of the cartoonish racing antics conclude with Rowdy finishing first (obviously) and Mario, Yoshi, and DK grabbing second, third, and fourth places respectively.

During the holidays, gravy is the great emulsifier. No matter how much you manage to pile onto your grandmother’s “fancy plates,” that brown, viscous liquid is there to be poured over into every nook and cranny.

But why should we stop there?

Two fast food behemoths agree that saturating things in gravy shouldn’t simply be an activity delegated to the holidays. In fact, it should be used to elevate current culinary favorites to utter new heights of deliciousness.

So, like a beautiful and greasy fast food Megazord, KFC and Pizza Hut are combining their palatable powers to provide customers with something truly special in honor of National Pizza Day (February 9th).

It’s #NationalPizzaDay and alongside @PizzaHutDeliver we’ve been concocting what can only be classified as a work of art.

The Gravy Supreme. Do we even need to ask if you’d buy it..? 🍕🍗 pic.twitter.com/eVLzzz4MkC

— KFC UK & Ireland (@KFC_UKI) February 9, 2019

“The Gravy Supreme” consists of a standard pizza base with a cheesy bites crust, a heavy slather of KFC signature gravy (instead of tomato sauce), and then topped with popcorn chicken, sweet corn, and garlic sprinkles.

“[It’s] a match made in heaven. Believe me when we say it’s an absolute thing of beauty,” said a spokesperson for KFC UK & Ireland, via Evening Standard.

Whether you think it sounds amazing or just bizarre, you can’t say you aren’t at least a little bit curious to try it. It’s like dubstep music—I don’t really understand it but it still manages to get me excited for some reason.

Unfortunately, The Gravy Supreme will not be widely available anytime soon. It’s currently being tested at a few select Pizza Hut and KFC locations. Depending on the response (which I can only anticipate will be astounding), a larger rollout of the wonderful gravy pies will take place next year.

Eli Manning is usually a pretty popular guy on Super Bowl Sunday. Even though he hasn’t played in the big game in a few years, he remains a consistent sports commentator and has even acted in a number of the commercials during the big game.

This year, however, Eli was noticeably absent from all of the hullaballoo surrounding the championship game; not because he’s through with all that football nonsense (although next year may very well be his final season), but because he had his hands full with something more important… literally.

Earlier today I wrote about Eli Manning’s conspicuous absence from Super Bowl functions & festivities. Turned out he had a pretty good reason.

I’m told Charles “Charlie” Elisha Manning was born a little after midnight on Super Bowl Sunday.

— Tom Rock (@TomRock_Newsday) February 4, 2019

Soon after midnight on Sunday, Eli and Abby Manning welcomed a bouncing baby boy into the world. Charles “Charlie” Elisha Manning is the couple’s fourth child and first boy.

Charlie will likely never get to see his father play professional football live but that doesn’t mean he won’t know plenty about his impressive career. Just this year, despite missing the postseason, Eli threw for 4,299 years, completed 21 touchdowns, and achieved the highest completion rate of his career.

Some might think that being born into an NFL legacy like the Manning family—and on Super Bowl Sunday, no less—is a clear-cut omen or sign of future greatness. We’re not saying there’s any validity to that, necessarily. In fact, we hope Charlie has the freedom to do whatever brings him joy in life.

But if you’re picking teams and it comes down to either him or some schmuck born on one of the other 364 days out of the year, our money’s on the Manning.

Congratulations to Eli and Abby!

“All is fair in love and war.”

It’s unknown whether the original meaning of that quote by John Lyly’s Euphues was supposed to extend to snowball warfare, but in a recent bout with local kids, the Seattle police weren’t going to take any chances.

Due to the overwhelming number of enemy combatants, officers were forced to utilize tactical riot gear and shields to turn the tide of the battle.

(Please disregard all of the smiles and laughter in this video. This is all very serious police business)

Despite their impressive department sanctioned equipment, the officers remained heavily outnumbered and were eventually forced to make a tactical retreat. No news yet regarding what steps should be taken next.

God help us all if such anarchy is allowed to continue unchecked.

There are abilities in this world that people can attain through education, training, or simple, repetitive practice, but being a badass is not one of those things.

Take Marlene Downing of Muskegon, Michigan, for example.

When the 2019 polar vortex swooped down to blast much of the country with icy below-freezing temperatures, this 82-year-old grandma didn’t drape herself with an another afghan and sip chamomile from a pastel-colored teacup—no sir. She was outside maneuvering a snowblower along the sidewalks in her neighborhood, clearing the walkways for her more mild-mannered neighbors, and laughing directly in the face of a blizzard.

Nick LaFave, a reporter for local WZZM-TV, spotted Marlene motoring around and had to snap a few pictures. The images, which he shared on Facebook, quickly went viral.

His caption reads:

“This is Marlene in Muskegon. At 82 years old, she still fires up the snowblower and gets to work. Says she loves being out there… and helps out the neighbors, too! She also says that she grew up in North Dakota and calls herself a ‘tough, old broad!’ That’s awesome, Marlene! Now go put your hat on! You’ll catch cold!”

Marlene only retired a year ago but she loves any opportunity to get outside and stay active, even if it means showing the extreme wintery elements who’s boss.

Her children and grandchildren don’t love the idea of their elderly matriarch roaming the frigid outdoors all alone, but Marlene makes it quite clear that she’s beyond capable of handling a little cold, much fewer orders from her own children.

“They think I’m crazy,” she says to the reporter with a laugh. The best part of snow blowing, though, according to Marlene, is that the sound reminds her of the frickin’ Harley-Davidson motorcycle currently parked in her garage.

Yes, with a sidecar attached for her trusty pooch co-pilot, Marlene has cruised over 135,000 miles on the bike and is ready and raring to fire her back up once all this blasted snow melts.

So, try as you might with your leather jacket, tattoos, and lifted trucks—I’m still going with Marlene when it comes to pure, unadulterated badassery. She’s going to outlive us all.

Being a dad is often a thankless job. Despite the long hours and labors of love they constantly perform for their families, they rarely get the recognition they truly deserve.

Fortunately, when Terry Wallace recently put together a showcase of pro dad moves, the internet recognized him for the amazing father he is.

A couple weeks ago, Terry sent his daughter Michaella a text message soon after she had returned to college saying he had some bad news: The toy bear belonging to their dog, Lucky, had experienced a grave accident outside of their home.

my dogs stuffed animal was left outside and my dad made sure so save him.. pic.twitter.com/ysgViljoxS

— michaella (@oohhhkayyy) January 24, 2019

“He might have passed,” he added to the group chat.

So, on top of Terry’s intention to do everything possible to save the Lucky’s baby, he took the initiative to make sure everyone in the family had been updated: Pro dad move #1.

“I found a slight pulse,” Terry says, expertly keeping all family members abreast of the situation. “I’m doing CPR.”

Laughing in the face of fear and death, Terry miraculously managed to revive and stabilize Lucky’s unlucky bear: Pro dad move #2.

After what was most certainly some of the anxiety-ridden moments in recent memory for the Wallace family, Terry broke the silence, announcing that he had indeed saved Lucky’s baby’s life.

Like a trained battlefield medic, Terry used all tools at his disposal to not only snagged the bear straight from the jaws of death itself but created a comfortable space for recovery. He even fashioned a homemade IV drip bag out of household supplies: Pro dad move #3.

“With the first week of classes starting, my dad wanted to send me a little something for a pick-me-up,” Michaella told the Press Association.

Not only did Terry make his daughter’s day with a goofy story, but it led to her tweet going viral, meaning he made people all over the world smile.

“My dad’s been doing things to make my mom and I laugh my whole life,” Michaella said. “He always has gone the extra mile to bring a connection between the three of us. His time he gets to spend with us has always been limited due to his work schedule, so he has always tried to make the best of it.”

So, despite Terry’s great heroism in the face of adversity, clearly, his “pro-est” dad move of all is always being there to support, love, and connect with his family when they need it most.

Like an omnipresent deity or artificial intelligence run by a multibillion-dollar tech company, children are always listening.

Unfortunately for U.S. Marine and new dad James LaPorta, some parents have to learn this lesson the hard way.

In a video posted to Twitter, James’ two-year-old son can be heard dropping the F-bomb so many times, it would make Samuel L. Jackson blush.

As a former U.S. Marine, now a father, there is perhaps one word I should try to cut out of my vernacular around my soon to be 2-year-old. 😐 pic.twitter.com/HSQZN7bHVn

— James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) September 27, 2017

“As a former U.S. Marine, now a father, there is perhaps one word I should try to cut out of my vernacular around my soon to be 2-year-old,” LaPorta tweeted.

The video focuses solely on James sitting in the front seat, his expressions progressing from shock to embarrassment to complete resignation, while his potty-mouthed son exclaims the f-word literally 26 times.

“I have been trying really hard to be mindful, but sometimes it’s the best word for multiple situations,” James wrote in the tweet mentions.

The video has accrued just shy of 399k views and has been retweeted over five thousand times with many of the commenters either relating to the toddler’s crude exclamations or reminding the regretful dad that kids do indeed hear everything, especially the things you don’t want them to.

“If I didn’t know it before, I do now,” James assures them.

In 2014, Marie Kondo’s guide to professional organization took the world by storm with her internationally bestselling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Her “KonMari” method of decluttering involves sorting through all of one’s belongings and choosing whether or not to keep them based purely on whether or not it “sparks joy.”

In January 2019, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo released on Netflix and has made seemingly even more waves as everyone and their mother has been cleansing their homes of suddenly useless items because they don’t make them smile anymore.

While the KonMarie method is technically only supposed to extend to one’s own possessions, some husbands have noticed a remarkable number of their belongings have gone missing as their wives have begun “tidying up” around the house.

Guys, if your wife is yet to discover KonMari, keep it away from her at all costs. It’s too late for me. My wife has already implemented it. But if it’s not too late for you, don’t let it happen to your house.

— Stile Smith (@StileSmith89) January 15, 2019

WIFE: No.

ME: If Marie Kondo were here, she’d support me.

WIFE: No.

ME: My Space Jam pajama pants SPARK JOY! OK?!

— Joel Vanderheyden (@vanderheydensax) January 14, 2019

WIFE: Ugh. Can I chuck this?
ME: No.
WIFE: But Maria Kondo said-
ME: It’s mine! I love it!
WIFE: But it doesn’t bring me joy…
ME: IT’S TYLER TOFFOLI!

It’s a whole other story when something you love doesn’t spark joy in your spouse #MariaKondo pic.twitter.com/ZzzimUXFSW

— Dan Santat (@dsantat) January 16, 2019

Penn Holderness—father in The Holderness Family—wrote an homage to all the husbands currently suffering through their spouse’s rampant KonMari purge.

“I Just Got KonMari-ed!” Penn wrote in the Facebook video description. “My wife watches Marie Kondo once and now all my stuff is in bags. This does NOT spark joy.”

(Don’t worry—No actual Atari’s were harmed in the filming of this music video.)

Look, we know things are generally terrible nowadays, which makes it really hard to have to tell you this, but the newest trend in revealing a baby’s gender is…

Lasagna.

Yes, because 2019 couldn’t just be a normal year where terrible things didn’t happen, Villa Italian Kitchen had to go and ruin a timeless Italian entree.

For $140, you and your significant other can slice into this giant noodle dish together to discover the sex of your unborn fetus based purely on the carefully food-colored layer of cheese. Also, if you’re more worried about carbs than how objectively horrible that previous sentence was, the package also comes with your choice of a garden, Greek, or Ceaser salad.

Sure, slopping hunks of colored cheese and sauce is objectively better than starting wildfires, but should that really be the gauge we’re using, folks? Just because you aren’t burning down acres of land doesn’t mean you get a free pass to destroy beloved American-Italian cuisine.

Fortunately, the New Jersey restaurant boasts that its colorful creation is still a 100 percent authentic lasagna, with pasta, ricotta, and Alfredo direct from Italy, so it should still taste decent (as long as you don’t look at it directly).

The unnerving Italian meal serves twelve instantly regretful guests who will all cheer and feign smiles as you take your overly surprised Instagram pics. #LasagnaReveal #blessed

There are few things soon-to-be parents love more than broadcasting the gender of their upcoming child to the world. Scroll through your Instagram or Facebook feeds long enough and you’re bound to find a couple using another unique method to shove an outrageous amount of blue or pink in all of our collective faces.

But you can’t just cut into a cake or bake a bunch or gender-identifying baked goods anymore. No, that’s what the Johanssons down the street did last year. Your baby’s sex is somehow special and perfect and under no circumstances can you run the risk of it being overshadowed by some other gender announcement. No, sirree!

We’re assuming this was the general train of thought when Dakota and girlfriend, Karolina, decided to surprise their friends and parents-to-be, Kameron and Alannah, with the most amazing gender reveal method ever (granted, Dakota would probably use the word “rad” or “sick” instead of “amazing”).

In lieu of designing fun mocktails and decorating a living room in pastels, or causing 8 million dollars in damage, Dakota and Karolina jumped out of a plane at 10,000 feet above the Mexican coast.

With Kameron and Alannah watching from the beach below, the daredevil couple deployed their parachutes and activated colored smoke grenades attached to their ankles, leaving a trail of pink smoke behind them as they returned to Earth.

Good luck one-upping that, Johanssons.