Things That Excite Us: May 2017 Edition
As we’re in the deep spring months and going into the summer, there are a lot of things coming out that excite and inspire us from all different industries. Here are just a few that came to mind this month.
The future of cars
There’s a lot of news out there recently about where car companies and tech companies want to take the automobile, and we’re pretty excited about them. One big news item is the collaboration of Lyft and Waymo on the self-driving car. Waymo, which is under Google’s parent company Alphabet, is one of the technology leaders for the self-driving car market. This partnership hints that they may be beyond the research phase and are looking to push self-driving cars to the main market much sooner than a lot of people thought. There are also other potential partnerships with car companies in the works that could make this a reality soon. Check out this article for more details on the deal, and this one for a detailed breakdown of the self-driving car market. Just think, we could potentially be able to catch more z’s on our way to work every morning if we didn’t have to drive ourselves!
Another cool development is Toyota putting major funds behind the development of a flying car. That’s right, a FLYING CAR!! Even better, they think the company they’re funding, Cartivator, can have it ready by the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020. So we could potentially have flying cars AND self-driving cars out in the world in the recent future. We’d say this is some pretty inspirational stuff.
New TV releases
So many new shows and new seasons of existing shows are hitting us this season. We’ve always been huge TV nerds, so of course we’re excited about a lot of these. One new show that’s caught out interest is American Gods on Starz. It’s based off a book and combines gods from different cultures’ mythology and brings them to life. It’s showing the conflict between the “old gods” and the “new gods”. And the style is very Spartacus-esque, so if that’s your cup of tea then it’s worth watching. Another new show is The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu. Based off a classic book, it’s pretty insane seeing the concept brought to life again on screen. Pretty graphic at times, but definitely an engaging show.
And then there’s Netflix, which has a bunch of its shows returning this month. Half our office has already binge watched the second season of Master of None, which was excellent. And soon we’ll have the third season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and the fifth season of House of Cards. Both very different vibes, but we’re definitely excited to binge those as well.
Big blockbuster releases
The summer blockbuster movies are already starting to arrive and we’re already on board. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 recently released and it’s just as funny and quotable as the first one. Some of the other big ones we’re pretty excited about are Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Since these are all sequels or remakes of big franchises, so we’ll see how they perform. Marvel’s already set the bar pretty high for summer movies, so hopefully other studios (*cough cough. DC) can deliver too. Cinefiles, unite!
True crime everything
One of our favorite topics of discussion is true crime, and fortunately there’s a lot of shows, movies or documentaries that we can discuss these days. One that was a real conversation-starter was HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest. It’s about the murder of a mother named Dee Dee Blancharde, by her supposedly severely ill daughter Gypsy Blancharde. But even more than that, it’s about how Dee Dee’s abuse of her daughter for 20 plus years ultimately led to her death. It really makes you wonder about the human psyche, especially because it’s crazier than fiction. Coming down from our previous obsessions -FX show People vs. OJ Simpson, ESPN documentary O.J: Made in America, and podcast My Favorite Murder – this was a real treat. If you ever watch/listen to any of these, let us know so we can have a meaningful discussion about the messed-up human mind.
The best base for a salad
Salads can be pretty boring sometimes. But luckily, there’s an easy way to spice it up: Add some arugula. Seems simple, but imagine your salad with an added level of dimension, a nice but not overwhelming peppery flavor. That’s what a handful of arugula can do for you. Seems like a strange thing to get excited about, we know, but as much as we like the usual romaine and spinach salads of the world, we’ve just realized recently that replacing the more bland flavors of regular salad greens with peppery arugula can bring excitement back into that daily lunch salad of yours. We promise we’re not getting paid by any produce company to push arugula on the world, we’re creating this love letter to it all on our own. Do yourself a favor, add arugula to your salad. You’re the best, arugula. Love, the Torx team.