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This student's group project debacle is only further proof that blindly trusting your classmates to do their fair share of the work is never a good idea.

Of course, in an ideal world, you shouldn't have to worry about your partner's ability to do their bit. You should be able to focus on your own responsibilities, and that should be enough. However, if you were a high achiever growing up, you probably learned early on that instilling your trust in a classmate with whom you were randomly paired by your teacher for a group project is a gamble. 

Sure, they might impress you. They might even knock it out of the park. But if you don't check in on them throughout the process, then you might show up on the day the assignment is due with no way to repair or correct that partner's shoddy work. 

This college student had the unfortunate experience of learning in the middle of the night right before the due date that his partner's portion was partially plagiarized. But wait, it gets worse. The other portion wasn't original material either; it was fully generated by ChatGPT. Somehow, this guy thought their professor would not use the plagiarism checkers she literally told the whole class she would use. 

There is an epidemic quietly reshaping our lives, how we live, work, and even rest. We are permanently switched on, tethered to notifications, inboxes, and expectations that never seem to cease. We've become a society where somehow the appearance of being "busy" means more than the actual work itself and the quality of work we're putting forward.

It started with the status lights on team communication software, green for "active," amber for "inactive," and grey for "definitely at the beach and not working today." Now, it has spread to our evenings, holidays, and vacations. 

Constantly required to be present, always connected. If you're out of reach and unable to respond to your boss's messages for even one evening or one day, it's a catastrophe, a betrayal, and flying in the face of your obligation to the company and what the company "Stands for."

I saw something recently that I found quite striking, and it has stuck with me: all of this connectedness and distractedness. It all keeps our minds from being bored and wandering, it keeps us from turning to books and reading, and distracts us from the very things that we know lead to and fuel creativity and ideation.

Is that why, then, we have turned to automation to do our creative tasks? Are we truly and entirely disconnected from the ability to be creative?

As someone who is, by nature, tied to the internet for a living, I find it quite challenging to get away from my laptop and switch off. But I need to be able to do this. As a writer, I need to read to hone my vocabulary, keep those neural circuits firing, and expand my lexicon. Reading away from any screens for extended periods is the best way to do this, but there's this constant push-and-pull between my computer-centric tasks and my actual need and ability to write.

I have found myself, these last few years, reading less than ever, getting further and further away from something that is so important to my work.

So here's what I'm doing in 2026: Greyscale screens, using accessibility and productivity settings on both my iPhone and laptop to reduce dependence on screens for dopamine. Reduce distractions, try to remain offline as often as possible, and dig into deep work periods, allocating time to tasks that won't be interrupted by my phone, email, or messages. The same will go for my personal time and time with my friends and family: be present in the moment and take it in at its fullest. 

What else, really, is the point of all of this anyway?

This diner has a few bones to pick with the local restaurant scene, which has been rather ridiculous for their past few meals out. 

Eating at restaurants with your friends or family members is a great part of life. You really do have some of the best conversations while you're sitting around waiting for your food to arrive. Since you don't have to cook, you get to have plenty of time to chat about your day or make plans for the future. 

But obviously, you and I both live in current day, and it's expensive out here, so going out to eat is a treat for a lot of people. It's not something they do every day, or even every week, so when people do get the chance to eat at a restaurant, they hope that their experience is really great. 

For this person, though, dining has recently brought a few challenges along with it, as you can read all about below. They're not impressed with the level of customer service they've been getting, which seems to be an ongoing problem. There are lots of people looking for work, yet a lot of businesses also seem chronically understaffed. And that means when you go out to eat, you're facing long wait times to be sat, grumpy waitstaff who have been berated by customers all day, and food that you just know used to taste a lot better before restaurants started cutting corners and slimming down their portion sizes. It's not all bad, but… it could certainly use some improvement. 

This person shared their strange experiences recently, and commenters commiserated with them. Check out both stories down below… and weigh in about the whole tea debacle. Was it weird for this waitress to try and charge someone $8 for drinking "tea without the tea?" Maybe she didn't get any sleep before her shift or something, because it's one of the silliest things I've ever heard. Maybe she should try charging them a few pennies for the electricity needed to heat the water, instead of just arguing about whether or not hot water constitutes tea. 

Did you survive the holidays? Congrats! Now, you deserve memes. 

What a wild ride it has been. We don't know about you, but we are SO ready for 2026. Time to shed the old and start the transformation into the new your. New year, new you, and you actually mean it this time, right?! We sure do. One thing we will not be changing, however, is our meme intake. We are constantly scrolling though memes. One could say that us Cheezburger employees are made of memes. Cut us open and all you'll see are LOLs! We even lol at the dark, because it's all about balance, baby! 

So… Like, what are we supposed to do during these days between Christmas and New Years? I'm already eating too much sugar and carbs. If I have one more espresso martini my heart might explode. And don't even get me started on the survival of the mentally fittest in my family home. Like, yes mom and dad, you're right. I AM a grown adult. So quit telling me what to do and how to do it! You're just leading me to want to turn my brain off for even longer and scroll 'til my fingers fall off. 

But we won't let that happen! We're here to share just the right amount of memes with you. Just a dash of memes! That way, you won't get lost in the sauce that is doom scrolling. Here you can enjoy LOLs with the safety of a finite number. So buckle up and get ready to laugh, bestie!