Category: Uncategorized

February 17, 2025

Confessions of a Sonic Fan

There are certain fandoms that seem to never die. Fandoms like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Pokemon, and more last for a lifetime. I just so happened to be in one of the most iconic — and cringiest — fandoms of all time.I was a Sonic kid. A huge Sonic kid.

Yeah, I’m very aware that the Sonic fandom has a reputation of being cringe and toxic. Thankfully, I was a child with very limited internet access.

I first laid eyes on the blue blur when I was about seven, with the TV show Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. To sum up the show, it was insane. Sonic and Tails have to fight Dr. Robotnik and his robo-goons, and it goes from 1 to 1,000 in less than five minutes. I had only two thoughts as I witnessed this: Sonic is awesome, and where can I find more?

Suddenly, I was whisked away into a whole new fandom. For the longest time, I was a dedicated Sonic fan. As I got older, I dove in deeper. Since we were mainly a Mario family, the only Sonic games I ever played were the Mario and Sonic Olympic games on the Wii. I learned about a lot of the characters and grew more and more attached to them.

During this time, I’d started developing my art and writing skills. When kids want to learn how to write and draw, they usually go towards things they know. I ended up drawing a lot of Sonic art, specifically in middle school. It got so bad that I got called into my 8th grade history class and asked to stop drawing Sonic characters. I didn’t stop making art, but it transformed into fan fiction. My first fanfiction.net account was dedicated to creating unfinished Sonic fan fictions. Before you ask — yes, I read them, and yes, they suck.

I thought after a while I would grow out of my Sonic phase, but I never really left the fandom. Once the movies started coming out, my love for the series came back in full force. I’ve been watching more Sonic cartoons, listening to the soundtracks, and even playing the games once or twice (change for parallelism) (I’m horrendous at games, so it was worth a shot). One thing I ended up taking away from this was that some things are a part of you, no matter how ridiculous they might be. Sonic is in my blood, and I’ll probably end up supporting this speedy rodent for the rest of my life. So if anyone takes anything away from this, embrace the cringe. You might realize how much it’s formed you today.

February 17, 2025

You’ve reached the place where all the bad, but oh-so-satisfying entertainment exists. Here, in the Trash Vortex, we provide you with only the trashiest, most bingeworthy recommendations. It’s a dark hole you won’t escape!

Trashy Films We Want to Rant About

He’s All That (2021) is the painful gender-swapped reboot of the film She’s All That (1999). The reboot follows TikTok star Addison Rae’s character Padgett Sawyer as she makes a bet with her frenemy Alden (Madison Pettis) that she can take “the loser” character Cameron Kweller (Tanner Buchanan) and turn him into the next prom king. What makes Cameron a loser and Padgett popular? Well, Cameron’s loser qualities in question include his lack of social-media presence and friends along with his interest in photography. He’s the complete opposite of Padgett, who presents to the world a false luxurious life, pretending to be rich in order to stay popular in school and online.

February 17, 2025

NFL Coaching Language: What’s the Deal with It?  

For decades, NFL coaches have been talking to certain players of their team in a particular language and/or code. For example, in the early days of football, coaches would use hand signals and/or less complicated verbal communication, which would be told to the quarterbacks before they’d run out to the huddle for the next play. However, in today’s game, they’re primarily delivered via radio communications and occasionally through hand signals. This has led to many questions about the language including: has the communication between players and coaches always been like this?? How long has it been being used? Why and how do they do this? And finally, what does the language mean?!

Well, the language may have originated as far back as the 1970’s, having been created by two assistant coaches for the New England Patriots, Ron Erhardt and Ray Perkins. It’s used as a way of indicating to the players what plays, formations, and routes to run on a specific drive, and it was delivered in ways that prevented the opposing team from finding out what play was going to be run next. Since then, this practice has (for the most part) stayed the same. The only major changes to occur happened in 1994 when the terminology became more modernized, communication methods advanced with the use of radio headset communication systems, and the overall complexity of the calls became much more difficult.

For example, in the New Orleans Saints modern play call “Hop to Gun Kings Trips Right Tear 52 Sway All Go Special X-Shallow Cross H-Wide,” the “Hop to Gun King Trips Right” indicates the lineup formation. The “Tear 52 Sway” indicates the protection scheme, or whether or not the running back will need to protect the quarterback. The “All Go Sport” is the play time or otherwise tells whether the play will be a “run” or “pass” play. Finally, the “X-Shallow Cross H-Wide” will indicate the receiver’s routes and the “cadence,” or otherwise when the ball will be snapped to the quarterback. Also, when a quarterback shouts out something like “Blue 42!” or “Green 18!” before the ball is snapped, he is signaling to his offense that they are changing the play.

The play-calling language used by NFL head coaches has been around for as long as the game of football has, and it will likely only continue to evolve with the sport as time goes on.

February 17, 2025

Confidence is Key

My own personal tip for self-care is simply getting up and getting moving. Whether that would mean going outside to take your dog for a walk, doing Pilates in your living room, going to the gym for an hour before/after work, etc. Getting your body moving has helped people look good as well as feel good. Some examples/hobbies to get yourself moving are as follows:

Walking/Jogging: The benefits of daily walking or jogging are that these are low-impact, safe, free forms of exercise that can, first and foremost, improve your mental health. They can reduce your levels of anxiety and depression, lower your mood, help you sleep better, boost your creativity, and even lower your risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia. While physically, walking or jogging daily could help you stay fit, lower your risk of heart disease and stroke, and lower your risk of falls.

Pilates: Pilates’ biggest improvement for self-care is that it offers better core strength, balance, posture, and alignment. By working on these physical improvements through Pilates, you can also help your chances of reducing and preventing injury by improving your flexibility. Like walking/jogging, Pilates also helps to reduce stress and anxiety through the controlled breathing techniques.

Gym Exercise: Going to the gym has similar benefits to walking/jogging, as it also gets your body moving. Exercise, in general, could help with your sense of control, your coping ability, and your self-esteem. Many people work out to maintain their physical health, but it also helps maintain a healthy mindset, reducing the levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, as mentioned above.

Exercising helps with self-care, as it helps your brain release the “feel-good” chemicals, known as serotonin and endorphins. While you’re on the journey to improve your fitness, you can also improve your mental health.There are free at-home options from finding the right guides. The UWGB Kress Fitness Center and pool (Green Bay campus) are open at different times on different days. You can assess the hours here. UWGB also offers different exercise classes, which can be found here.

February 17, 2025

Mind, Body, and Soul

Taking care of ourselves is so important for our overall well-being. I love to weave self-care into my daily routine. Self-care doesn’t only involve your physical health but also your social and emotional health.

Physical health is really a top priority for me, so I make sure to set aside time for exercise a few times a week. Whether it’s enjoying a morning jog, joining a yoga class, or simply taking a walk in nature, staying active brings me so much energy, helps melt away stress, and lifts my spirits. Plus, I pay attention to getting enough restful sleep, aiming for 7-8 hours each night to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to face the day.

Taking care of my mental and emotional health is just as crucial. Every day, I set aside time just for myself. This time is essential to ensure that I nurture my well-being instead of dedicating all my energy solely to school and work. One way I accomplish this is by practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness is embracing the present moment with an open heart and without judgment. It’s an excellent practice that allows you to truly experience and appreciate every single moment in your life. You can practice mindfulness during activities including reading, listening to music, coloring, or engaging in a calming hobby during these moments.

Building social connections is a key part of my self-care journey. I make it a priority to reach out to family and friends through regular phone calls, friendly texts, or fun meetups. These valued relationships offer wonderful support and help me remember that I’m never alone, even when life gets a bit crazy. All these habits come together to help me maintain balance, stay grounded, and truly feel my best!

February 17, 2025

AI Personalization

Artificial intelligence (AI) personalization is truly transforming platforms such as TikTok, as well as schools, creating wonderfully tailored experiences that celebrate individual interests. Whether they involve curating a user’s feed or supporting students in their learning journeys, these innovations make each interaction feel special. TikTok is really changing the game when it comes to sharing content. Its fun, short-form video format is capturing the attention of people worldwide. Thanks to TikTok’s amazing success, other platforms like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are jumping on the bandwagon with similar styles. As TikTok keeps growing and evolving, we can’t wait to see how AI will become an even bigger part of the app, making it easier to discover awesome content and edit videos. This will create even more exciting experiences for both creators and viewers alike. Today, technology is evolving rapidly, and we can see how much AI and popular platforms like TikTok are impacting our daily lives. AI has become a key player across various fields, from healthcare and finance to marketing and entertainment. A standout trend is the rise of AI-driven personalization. For instance, TikTok uses AI to curate personalized content feeds, analyzing our behavior to serve up videos that fit our unique tastes. This transformation is really reshaping social media and content creation, making it more engaging and tailored just for us.As technology evolves, AI is here to assist with your schoolwork. It’s becoming a fantastic resource for streamlining research, boosting productivity, and enhancing your learning experience. Influencers on social media rave about tools like ChatGPT, which are excellent for answering questions, clarifying concepts, and brainstorming ideas for your essays. AI-powered research assistants can swiftly help you find relevant sources and neatly organize your information. Apps like Grammarly improve your writing by refining grammar, punctuation, and style. Additionally, math-solving apps like Photomath guide you through problems step-by-step, making math much less intimidating. Even study apps are becoming smarter, personalizing your learning to fit your strengths and weaknesses, making studying not only effective but also enjoyable.

February 17, 2025

Wandering Wikipedia: The Year 1467

This week I was feeling positively historical. So, I chose a year in history, precisely 558 years ago, during the Middle Ages. The time of dragons, alchemists, and wizards, if you’re a fantasy nerd like me. If you’re a historian like these Wikipedia people, you’ll know it is a time full of cruel, ruthless monarchs such as Khan Xälil.This particular year, however, was a great year for war and peace. Interestingly, on October 21 of 1467, a man named Giovanni il Popolano was born to the noble Medici family. He grew up to be a diplomat and studied under his cousins Giuliano and Lorenzo El Magnifico. Unfortunately, he died in the year of 1498 at the young age of 30. His cause of death was unknown.

A hop, a skip, and a jump a little ways northwest to Europe: This year, the first polyalphabetic cipher was invented by Leon Battista Alberti. He, much like Giovanni, is also Italian. A polyalphabetic cipher, boiled down to basics, is simply a cipher where a person swaps letters of their alphabet for symbols, numbers, or other sequences that only they have a key for. Notable examples of polyalphabetic ciphers are the Vigenère Cipher and The Enigma Machine (pictured above).

February 17, 2025

Wandering Wikipedia: Spirit of ’76 (Mango Cultivar)

This week, I pulled up Wikipedia, and in the spirit of my love for mangoes, this is the random article I chose.

The breed of mangoes named “Spirit of ‘76” originates from south Florida. The original mango tree of this variant was grown on land owned by Laurence Zill of Boynton Beach, Florida.¹ LINK TO BLOG HERE. This specific type of mango was reportedly a seedling of the breed Zill, cross pollinated by a bee that had just come off of a mango plant of the Haden variant², which is one of the most widely cultivated types of mango. It is reported to have earned its name when it fruited during a bicentennial celebration of 1776. Though it did not gain traction commercially in the fruit market due to its soft flesh, it did gain stock as a decorative, “dooryard” tree.

This specific cultivar, or variety of mango, also has reserves in the USDA’s germplasm repository,³ and the Miami-Dade Fruit and Spice Park. This park is a 37-acre park/tourist attraction with over 500 different types of fruit, vegetable, nuts, and spices. Visitors are allowed to sample fallen fruit while they walk around and observe the various species of plant. One fun fact about this specific cultivar of mango is that it is completely fiberless, meaning that it has zero dietary fiber. The fruit itself is described as having an oblong shape, with a rounded base and a rounded apex that sometimes has a small lateral beak (That pointy part that’s sometimes on the bottom side of mangoes).

And that’s all the useless knowledge we’ve got for you this week! Tune in next week for the next edition of “Wandering Wikipedia!”

Footnotes:
¹ Which is home to over 250 species of birds.
² Interestingly, after later scientific tests, this was indeed the combination.
³ The USDA’s Germplasm Repository is a collection of plant and animal genetic resources kept for research and preservation purposes.

Feb. 17, 2025

Meme of the Week: Cat Compilations

Everybody knows that cats get clicks. No matter how diverse your feed is, cats will show their cute, little faces whenever they can. But what if I told you that silly cat reactions are all the rage again?

Over the last year or so, cat compilations have shown up on every short-form platform you can think of. They consist of cats being their silly but sinister selves. Sometimes, these compilations have a theme (like all the videos are sleepy cats), or they can feature a variety of cat videos. Some of them include crying cats, happy cats, hungry cats, wet cats, and more.

These cat reactions are not only adorable but make just about any person smile. Even if you have never experienced the beauty and grace of owning a cat, you can see what the creator was going for with the power of cat reactions. Since most of these videos are short-form content, they can be made fairly easily and quickly. It’s quite common to see multiple videos with many different reaction cats posted every day. And, like most trends, once someone makes a compilation with a new reaction cat, that kitty makes its way into more videos.

Overall, this trend is very harmless. The videos feature cats being themselves, and they’re made to put a smile on your face. I hope this trend sticks around, since I always enjoy seeing them on my feed.

Feb. 17, 2025

The most unsettling true-crime cases … 

Lawrence Bernard Singleton

Trigger warning: Mention of violence and sexual assault.

When asked about the most unsettling true-crime cases, most people tend to think of the more infamous ones like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and Ed Gein. While these are each disturbing in their own right, they’re unmatched in comparison to the case of Lawrence Bernard Singleton. Singleton was an American criminal who, in 1978, picked up 15-year-old hitchhiker, Mary Vincent from a freeway in Modesto, California. Once inside his van, Mary introduced herself, and the two began engaging in small talk before she eventually asked Singleton if it’d be alright if she “dozed off” as he continued to drive, to which he agreed.

Some time later, Mary awoke to see that Singleton pulled off the main highway and parked the van on the side of a desolate stretch of road surrounded by trees and woods. She confronted him about this, and he said that it was because he needed to relieve himself. At this point, Mary had a bad feeling about Singleton and knew she had
to escape, so she began thinking of a plan to get away. Just then, she looked down and noticed that her shoe was untied. At that moment, Mary decided that she’d get out and tie her shoe once Singleton got out of the van. So, when he stepped out, Mary did just that. … However, as she bent down, Singleton hit her in the back of the head with a small sledgehammer, causing her to lose consciousness. After coming to, she found herself tied up and pleading to be set free as Singleton repeatedly assaulted her inside the van.

Following the assault, Singleton exited the vehicle with Mary, who was still tied up, and led her to the back of the van before walking back to retrieve a hatchet he’d had with him. Quickly re-emerging behind Mary, he then came back, cut the rope restraining her, and grabbed her arm. Singleton raised the hatchet and, in one swift motion, brought it down hard on Mary’s left arm, severing it completely from her body. He then repeated the process with her right arm before throwing her body down a 30-foot culvert nearby and fleeing the scene. Now free, Mary forced herself to climb back up the culvert and was eventually able to flag down a passing vehicle after walking along the interstate for nearly three miles. The driver was then able to get to a phone and call 911.

Mary was transported by helicopter to the hospital where she was treated for severe blood loss and blood toxicity. Following this, she received two prosthetic arms, and from her hospital bed, began working tirelessly with police to help identify and locate Singleton. A composite sketch was released based on the description Mary gave to police, and ten days later, Singleton was identified and arrested at his home.

The rest of Mary’s heroic story told in great detail can be found in season 3, episode 1 of the television series I Survived, available free on Tubi, SlingTV and Pluto TV.