Greetings Webtaculators! This week, I in the spirit of Christmas and those other holidays that no one cares about, I am only going to focus on the good stuff. Well, mostly. First, let’s talk about moving. In one of those life events that only happens to future you until, you know, you’re actually in the middle of doing it, Meagan and I are in the process of relocating to the suburbs in order to make her commute reasonable. Specifically, we’re moving to Pleasant Hill, which I’m sure for those of you who are not familiar with Bay Area geography can readily picture just from its name – 45 minutes or so (without traffic [HAHAHAHA!!!]) from a major city, with plenty of mid-scale “fancy” restaurants, wide boulevards to make sure you can get to the mall quickly, and  mid-priced homes to make sure that you can still feel like anyone can afford some version of the American Dream.

The place we are moving to is great on paper: 1,000 sq. ft., 2 bed 2bath with detached garage and updated appliances, and most importantly, an in unit washer and dryer for less money than we’re currently paying for way less amenities. Great, right? However, thanks to the brilliance of large managed living associations, our “new home” done fucked up, and made our lives much more difficult than a simple “I paid you money for a place to live” agreement should have been.

We showed up early Saturday afternoon to start moving into our apartment that we started paying for over a week ago. Surprisingly, they were not prepared for us to actually move in, as the apartment was lacking things like carpet or finished outlets. Since this is a managed property, meaning that you trade a bit of anonymity to get access to things like a 24/7 repair service and automatic payment options, the management team promised that it would be an “easy switch” to a different apartment that was exactly the same as the one we had signed for, but actually complete. The switch would be easy, you see, because everything is done via software, so, theoretically, our information that was already stored could be magically swapped over to the other location. An easy switch apparently means a 3 hour process of re-filling out new applications, confusing their computer system to show that we owe thousands of dollars more than we should, and forcing a poor maintenance guy to grind new keys and swap out locks at 6:30 PM on a Saturday night way after his shift should have been over. Needless to say, our move has gone wonderfully so far, and I cannot wait until the robots take over everything. On to the good news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (25 min. read)
What: Our Black President
Why: Because Ta-Nehisi Coates is a goddamn national treasure, and the amount of emotion and complexity that this piece delivers is staggering.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: America Is Great Again
Why: Because our country was already on the right path long before Trump decided to ruin everything.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Watching The Watchmen
Why: Because the Orange County DA has already been reprimanded for failing to turn over information required for fair trials.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: GRUVER DO YOUR DAMN JOB
Why: Because Uber released its driver-less cars in San Francisco with a few hiccups.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Hopping On The Raider’s Bandwagon
Why: Because at least one team in the Bay Area can play football.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (7 min. read)
What: Saving Rogue One
Why: Because the new Star Wars movie was really good.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. watch)
What: All I Want For Christmas
Why: Because even though it is entirely contrived, James Corden has truly made pop music fun again this year.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. watch)
What: A Child’s Imagination
Why: Because Stephen King explains why we should continue to think more like children to connect with ourselves and our fears more.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (2 min. read)
What: Mario #1!
Why: Because Nintendo just released its first game on another system. It’s rather addicting. You should play it.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: It’s The End Of The Year; I’m A Mac; Real Americans; Duck Tales-ier
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Replica Lightsaber
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™