Greetings Webtaculators! I hope everyone was able to enjoy Thanksgiving with their family, friends, and loved ones. If for whatever reason you still have a turkey carcass hanging around, I highly recommend making turkey stock. If you don’t, well, there’s always next year. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Act Of War
Why: Because Russia captured Ukrainian naval ships. This is not good.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (2 min. read)
What: Black Friday Is Going Online
Why: Because online shopping overtook retail.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Judicial Branch Starts Standing Up
Why: Because after unprecedented attacks on federal judges, the third branch of the government is responding.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL
Why: Because unless you scream it at the people who are burying their heads in the sand, they will never listen. And no, “clean coal” is not the answer.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: A Lot Of Football
Why: Because Saturday’s game between Texas A&M and LMU went for 7 overtimes and a combined score of 146 points.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (1 min. 30 sec. watch)
What: NAAAAANTS INGONYAMA
Why: Because a live action Lion King is going to make everyone cry again (and yes, “nants ingonyama” are the first two words of the song Circle Of Life. I had no idea either).

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Mumford Goes Pop
Why: Because I guess the Sons took over and started demanding to play bland modern pop music. Bring back the banjos.

PHOTOGRAPHY THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: America Is Closed Til Further Notice
Why: Because we are cruel.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Some Things To Read In The Waning Days Of November
Why: Because I need to start reading again.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Video Games Are Art
Why: Because the NY Times says so. Welcome to the party, high society – I’ve known that they are for a long time.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Thanksgiving Playlist (?); The Best Black Friday Sale; 25 Years Unplugged
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Jimmy Carter Signed Guitar
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

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

Greetings Webtaculators. We got a dog. His name is Caboose. We like him a lot.

On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Trump Fails California
Why: Because as the death and missing person toll grows from the Camp Fire, Trump again proved that he is entirely incapable of performing one of the primary roles of his job as President – mainly, being an actual leader. He continuously proves he has no idea what he is talking about, and furthermore, does not care.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: How To Use Friends And Influence People
Why: Because the term “influencer” is dumb. And so are the things that they do.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Lawyers Are Human, After All
Why: Because copy-pasting text is a good way to make a mistake. Trust me.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (8 min. read)
What: The Future Of Fire Fighting
Why: Because thanks to climate change, fires are becoming a continuous, severely dangerous problem in the West.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: The Princess We Need
Why: Because Ralph Breaks The Internet manages to be a fun sequel.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (10 min. read)
What: Smashing
Why: Because the Smashing Pumpkins almost entirely reunited to create a new album. I know most of my posts are about bands from the 90s. This article about Post Malone explains why I haven’t really updated my musical tastes. I understand that this makes me an “old,” but I’m ok with that.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: As You Wish
Why: Because the author of the Princess Bride, as well as the screenwriter for multiple films such as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”  and “Misery” passed away.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (many reads)
What: A Number Problem
Why: Because this week saw the release of Fallout 76 (really the sixth or ninth game in the series, depending on how you’re counting), another trip back to WWII through Battlefield V (somehow the sequel to last year’s Battlefield 1, and the twelfth game in the series), and Hitman 2 (the seventh game in the series). The most fun thing that came out this week was probably Spyro Reignited Trilogy, a single updated package of three games that came out twenty years ago. Go figure.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: YouTube Is Finally Showing Movies; Elton Gets A Piano; Sort
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN KIDS OF THE WEEK
What: STEM Games
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

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

Greetings Webtaculators. I don’t know how to keep up with things anymore. In the span of a week, there were multiple stories that in most other years would be something that was broken down and analyzed for months before they were out of the collective memory. Instead, we are stuck with an impossible amount of things that happened. The format of Webtacular was supposed to be able to break down these occurrences into bite sized chunks, with focus on one particular story that stood out. It has been impossible to do that for the last few weeks, and remains a problem for this one. Sorry about that. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK
What: Just A Few Things
Why: Because Blue Wave; Attack The Press; “Patriot”; Mass Murder; California Burns; and The Execution Of Heroes.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: America Does Not Act Like It Has A Single Economy
Why: Because businesses take billions of dollars a year from states.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: fOILed Again (Sorry)
Why: Because the Keystone XL Pipeline project was stalled again due to the Trump Administration’s lack of environmental impact analysis.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Why California Is On Fire
Why: Because its a combination of global warming and extreme wind.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Couch-Side Analyst
Why: Because no other event is explained in real-time like football.

COMIC THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Excelsior
Why: Because Stan Lee, the creator of superheroes like Spider-Man and the X-Men died today. You probably know what he looks like even if you don’t know who he is.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (1 min. 30 sec. watch)
What: Toy Story 4
Why: Because they probably have to kill the toys this time after the last movie.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Muse Goes Back To The 80’s
Why: Because Muse leans heavy on the synths for its newest album.

PHOTOGRAPHY THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. look)
What: California Burning
Why: Because the amount of destruction continues to be impossible to comprehend.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Through Michelle’s Eyes
Why: Because Michelle Obama released her first memoir.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Tetris Is Still The Best Game
Why: Because Tetris in VR is mind blowing.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Insult Politics; Magic; The Worst Videos
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Help Fire Victims
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

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

Greetings Webtaculators. 10 years ago on this day, the United States elected its first African-American President. We can do great things if we choose to. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK
What: VOTE.
Why: Because my life, my LGBTQ friends’ lives, my African-American friends lives, my Latinx friends’ lives, and my female friends’ lives depend on it. Or I guess just continue to let jackasses like this be in charge.

ECONOMY THING OF THE WEEK
What: Student Debt
Why: Because one day the bill for the insane way in which our society has decided to educate its population will come due.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK
What: Trump Is A Moron Who Doesn’t Understand The Constitution: Episode 85.
Why: Because an executive order cannot override the 14th Amendment. This idea has been stewing around his idiot head and the idiot heads of his advisers for a while.

TECH THING OF THE WEEK
What: New Mac Stuff
Why: Because it really just isn’t that important anymore.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK
What: Best Gymnast Ever
Why: Because Simone Biles is that.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK
What: 90s Kids
Why: Because one thing that both this movie and previously mentioned Eighth Grade really nail down is the representation of feeling alone even when you’re with a group, which I recall as being one of the most confounding feelings I had growing up.

TELEVISION THING OF THE WEEK
What: Adam Sandler’s Stand Up Special
Why: Because this proves Adam Sandler is still actually funny and thoughtful, even though most of his recent movies don’t really target either of those things.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK
What: Tenacious D Rise Again
Why: Because, along with their ridiculously purposefully terrible animated show, Jack Black and Kyle Gass put robots, gratuitous sex, robots, and three headed dogs back into rock.

PHOTOGRAPHY THING OF THE WEEK
What: Fall Photos
Why: Because some things in the world are still good.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK
What: Best Illustrated Children’s Books
Why: Because some of you have made new people recently, so here’s some things you might enjoy. Or, if you want something more adult oriented, the surviving Beastie Boys are releasing a giant book about their career.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK
What: Nostalgia 3
Why: Because at its most recent annual convention, Blizzard introduced not only a new version of a 16 year old game, but also a “vanilla” version, meaning non-updated, of World of Warcraft servers.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Vote; Vote; Vote
Why: Because Internet.

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

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