12/28/2025 - Before We Turn the Page | Thanks

Before the year closes, a pause to reflect, say thanks, and share what’s ahead for Sunday Setup.

12/21/2025 - Bad News Bear | Normalized Noise

A talking teddy bear got pulled from shelves after saying way too much, way too confidently. Turns out when no one asks, “Should we?”, even the cuddliest ideas can go completely off the rails.

12/14/25 - Side Doors & Drone Drops | Scarcity Breeds Strategy

A confiscated drone, a luxury surf & turf, and a lesson in scarcity. Sometimes the real problem isn’t the workaround—it’s the system that made it necessary.

12/7/25 - Acidic Abs | The Illusion of Shortcuts

Tired of doing crunches in search of those elusive washboard abs, one Chinese man spent half a million bucks to buy them. But like all shortcuts, they look impressive at first… until the long-term side effects show up.

11/27/25 - Spiderverse Synergy | Unlikely Collaboration

Two rival spider species just built a 1,100-square-foot web together… without eating each other. Turns out, Mother Nature may know more about workplace collaboration than most corporate training modules.

11/23/25 - A Bag of Fibs | Avoiding Avoidance

A man faked a carjacking to avoid going shopping with his wife — and now he’s facing real jail time for a fake crime. Turns out, there are easier ways to deal with tasks you’d rather avoid.

11/16/25 - Hot Seat Hustlers | Battling Thought Thieves

Spain’s newest crime ring didn’t target banks — they targeted bistro chairs. And strangely, it’s a perfect metaphor for credit thieves at work.

11/9/25 - An Inconvenient Booth | Re-introduce Friction to Increase Awareness

Ever catch yourself mindlessly unlocking your phone? A Colorado startup is on a mission to stop doom scrolling - with a 6-pound smartphone case.

11/2/25 - Apocalyptic Odds | Fear of layoffs

Canadian scientists finally tackled the question no one asked: which American states would survive a zombie apocalypse. Because who needs a cure for inflation when you can prep for the apocalypse?

11/26/25 - Sorry, Not Sari | Handling Tasks You Disagree With

One photo. Two offended cultures. Zero awareness.
A cautionary tale of what happens when companies treat awareness like a buzzword.

10/19/25 - Blind Surveillance | Emotional Hit-and-running

Some people fake it till they make it. Others fake it for decades — like the guy who faked blindness for 50 years before he got caught.

10/12/25 - Hoppin’ Pain Killers | Micromanagement

Some people pop painkillers; others pop frogs. Turns out, “hopping” on the latest wellness trend can have side effects.

10/5/25 - Dirty Carats | Goals (Revised)

They say diamonds are forever, but finding one might cost you three weeks, a sunburn, and your sanity. Instead of shopping at Tiffany’s, one New Yorker went with the “bring your own shovel” package instead.

9/28/25 - TP FaceTime | Workplace Culture

When bathroom breaks require QR codes and commercials, you know we’ve reached peak surveillance. At least at work they only watch our Slack dots, not our squat breaks.

9/21/25 - Mad About Mayo | Conflict Resolution

Turns out mayo really can be spicy — at least when it sparks arson. A café patron in Spain went full Gordon Ramsay meets Pyro after being denied mayonnaise. The sandwiches may have been dry, but his temper was extra crispy.

9/14/25 - Ridin’ Purdy | Positivity

Forget Fast & Furious — this was Slow & Suspicious. A man’s quest for sugar ended not with brain freeze, but with a police stop in the tiniest getaway car ever made.

9/7/25 - Goal Digger | Performance Anxiety

A 54-year-old fan went from cheering in the stands to guarding the net, proving sometimes dreams really do come true — just 30 years late. Perhaps I should dust off my cleats and start practicing my victory dance in case the NFL runs out of running backs.

8/31/25 - Virtual Retribution | Mindful Use of AI

Road rage just got a makeover. Forget iced coffee — drivers can now toss giant emojis at each other, turning traffic into something that looks suspiciously like Mario Kart with clown faces instead of banana peels. It may not fix bad driving, but at least it’ll make gridlock more interesting.

8/24/25 - Bustin Jieber | Perfectionism

Vegas has seen some wild nights, but this one didn’t need a tiger in the bathroom to make it memorable. A Justin Bieber look-alike fooled a nightclub into believing he was the real deal, racking up selfies, shopping sprees, and a $10K bar tab before his Hangover-style stunt ended with a lifetime ban.

8/17/25 - Road Rats | Learning New Skills Lowers Stress

Lab rats in Richmond have mastered driving tiny cars, proving once and for all that some rodents handle stress—and steering wheels—better than humans. Now if only scientists could teach them to deal with New York traffic without honking or throwing paws.

8/10/25 - Beware of the Googlerazzi | What Do You Do?

An Argentinian cop’s sunny afternoon turned into a full moon scandal when Google Street View captured his bare backside and beamed it to the world. Now $12,500 richer from a privacy lawsuit, he’s officially the only man to make money by putting his butt on the map.

8/3/25 - Concert Crasher | Being Present

A London bishop in a dressing gown shut down a church concert for making “a terrible racket” past 10 p.m., proving even holy houses have noise complaints. But the choir got the last hallelujah, leading the crowd in an a cappella “Dancing Queen” on the way to the pub — because when God closes a door, someone opens a bar.

7/27/25 - Spiked Spirits | PTO

A man in Shanghai took “knowledge is power” a little too literally and landed some PTO — minus the “P.” And speaking of vacation, if you suffer from PPTOSD, Pre-PTO Stress Disorder, Leevital may help.

7/20/25 - OOO | Out of Office

Who’s ready for a little PTO?

7/13/25 - You’ve Got (Unwanted) Mail | Managing Expectations

Thanks to a glitch in Amazon’s return system, a San Jose woman spent a year buried under hundreds of unwanted faux-leather car seat covers, turning her porch into a discount auto-parts warehouse. Proof that even the internet’s greatest conveniences can gift you a front-row seat — literally — to retail absurdity.

7/6/25 - Cyborg Salutations | Goals…Again

In Japan, one “strange” hotel chain has replaced friendly front desk staff with robotic receptionists, holograms, and even dinosaur droids — because nothing says “welcome” like the cold, dead eyes of a T-Rex checking your ID. At this rate, the next Jurassic Park sequel might just be a travel documentary.

6/29/25 - Canine Caper | Do You Have People?

An Alabama convenience store was robbed by a man in a full Scooby-Doo costume, proving even cartoon canines can’t resist a life of crime. Police — and possibly The Mystery Machine — are still searching for the suspect.

6/22/25 - Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? | What if…?

In Des Moines, a rogue chicken was caught strutting outside a Buffalo Wild Wings, narrowly avoiding the ultimate case of fowl play. Whether she was protesting, auditioning as a mascot, or just craving honey BBQ, one thing’s certain — this was one spicy escape artist.

6/15/25 - Chaotic Checkout | Difficult Conversations

A Walmart shopper accidentally rang up 999 avocados for $1,300, then went full guac-zilla on staff before calling 911 on himself. In the end, he left the store not with a refund, but with handcuffs—proving Walmart’s rollback doesn’t apply to bail money.

6/8/25 - Wistful Workers | The Art of Listening

In Beijing, young adults are paying $4–$7 a day to sit in fake offices and pretend to work, complete with staged rebellions and imaginary managers. It’s the ultimate roleplay for anyone who misses corporate drudgery — but still wants free Wi-Fi and unlimited drinks with their make-believe deadlines.

6/1/25 - Monkey Napping | Dealing with Passive Aggressive Behavior

In Panama, a gang of bored teenage capuchin monkeys has taken up baby howler monkey kidnapping as a hobby, led by a troublemaker researchers call “Joker.” While the monkey elders seem unfazed, it’s safe to say human parents wouldn’t be so blasé if their teens started swiping baby sharks for fun.

5/25/25 - A Real Shipyard | Work-related Nightmares

In Norway, a man somehow slept through a 442-foot cargo ship crashing into his front yard, only waking when a neighbor rang the doorbell hours later. Forget white noise machines — this guy clearly drifts off to the soothing lullaby of maritime disasters.

5/18/25 - ChatGPTarot Cards | Procrastination

A Greek woman used ChatGPT to read her husband’s coffee grounds, got a digital prediction of his future affair, and promptly filed for divorce. It’s proof that AI can now ruin marriages faster than you can say “double shot espresso.”

5/11/25 - High Momma | Responding to Interruptions with Patience

In Ohio, police busted a woman for drugs and discovered her pet raccoon, Chewy, casually holding a meth pipe like it was just another Tuesday. Now headed for raccoon rehab, Chewy’s probably wondering why the cops had to ruin his “crack-oon” street cred.

5/4/25 - Dude, That’s My Car! | The Inner Critic

A British man accidentally paid $26,000 to buy back his own stolen car, complete with the same candy wrappers, pine needles, and sandwich bag it had when it was swiped. Now it’s in police custody as evidence, meaning he’s basically paying storage fees on his own bad luck.

4/27/25 - Run, Mandroid! Run! | Beginner’s Mind

In Beijing’s first Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon, most robotic runners barely left the starting line, with only six finishing and the winner needing three battery swaps and a wipeout to get there. If this is the future of sports, humans can relax — our jobs as slow, sweaty runners are safe for at least another decade.

4/20/25 - Temptation Island | Office Gossip

An American YouTuber risked five years in an Indian prison after illegally landing on North Sentinel Island and trying to befriend its famously hostile tribe with a whistle, a coconut, and a Diet Coke. Unfortunately, the tribe didn’t bite — but some local fishermen did, serving him up to the cops faster than you can say “Share a Coke and a snitch.”

4/13/25 - There’s a Fungus Among Us | Plan Mindful Breaks

A Chinese man landed in the hospital with a lung infection after repeatedly sniffing his own dirty socks, essentially turning his chest into a petri dish of foot funk. If his insurance makes him foot the bill, it might finally break him of his sole-crushing habit.

4/6/25 - Don’t Look Under the Bed | Goals

In Kansas, a babysitter discovered that the “monster” under the bed was actually a 27-year-old man with a criminal record and terrible hiding skills. Now, thanks to him, one kid’s future budget may include a trillion-dollar line item for night lights and therapy.

3/30/25 - Pass the Diamonds ‘Pon the Backend Side | Setbacks

In Florida, a man posing as an Orlando Magic rep swiped $770,000 in diamond earrings, then swallowed them during a traffic stop in a last-ditch bid to hide the evidence. Two weeks later, police recovered the “brown jewels,” proving that crime doesn’t pay — but it can have a really gross return policy.

3/23/25 - Take My Wife, Please | Trust

In China, a 26-year-old man makes $6,400 a month carrying tired women up the last 1,000 steps of Mount Tai like a fireman with a Fitbit. It’s part fitness, part trust fall — except instead of catching you, he’s literally hauling you (and your real weight) to the summit.

3/16/25 - Beware the Eyes of March | Respond vs. React

A top UK comedy club is banning Botoxed audience members after comics complained they couldn’t tell if the crowd was laughing or just frozen in time. Now patrons will face an “expression check” at the door — because in comedy, a blank stare is the harshest heckle of all.

3/9/25 - Gimp My Ride | Imposter Syndrome

Four Californians tried to scam insurance companies by faking bear damage — only the “bear” was just a human in a fuzzy costume. Their $150,000 payday ended when experts noticed the state’s wild bears aren’t brown, proving even cavemen know not to mess with Geico’s cousins.

3/2/25 - Mitch Betta Have My Money | Group Think

In Paris, two homeless men stole a wallet, bought scratch-off tickets with the credit cards, and improbably won $523,000 — only to realize cashing in could land them in jail. Now the wallet’s owner is offering to drop charges for half the prize, turning their lucky break into the weirdest game of Let’s Make a Deal.

2/23/25 - There’s a Bot for That | The Only Constant is Change

Robots are now spinning DJ sets in nightclubs and calling balls and strikes in Major League Baseball, proving no job is safe from the rise of A.I. At this rate, your next therapist might be a Terminator telling you to “come with me if you want to heal.”

2/16/25 - Make It Make Scents | Focus On What You CAN Control

In the UK and Ireland, Domino’s is giving away bottles of pepperoni-scented perfume so pizza lovers can smell like their dinner long after it’s gone. Because nothing says romance quite like eau de greasy cheese with top notes of hot cured meat.

2/9/25 - Chicken-fired Drake | Be Mindful When You Speak Up

Kendrick Lamar just won five Grammys for a diss track aimed at Drake, turning their decade-old feud into the musical equivalent of losing an argument in public and watching the crowd cheer your opponent. Twelve years later, Drake’s ego isn’t just bruised — it’s basically on the injured reserve list.

2/2/25 - Whisking Whiskers One Mo' ‘Gin | See Mistakes as Growth Opportunities

An 8-year-old cat named Mittens accidentally racked up 4,500 frequent flyer miles in 24 hours after a baggage handler forgot to unload her, sending her on three back-to-back flights between New Zealand and Australia. After a day in the dark with no snacks or bathroom breaks, Mittens may be the first pet to need her own emotional support animal.

1/26/25 - Don’t Smell the Perfume | Do Your Due Diligence

Scammers have been at it since ancient Greece, but modern cons now include fake perfume knockouts and AI-generated Brad Pitts swindling lonely hearts out of millions. When it comes to love, it’s less C.R.E.A.M. and more C.R.I.M.E.—Cash Ruins Intimate Mating Eventually.

1/19/25 - Two Holidays Walk Into a Bar | The Person on the Other End of Your Work

In 2025, MLK Day and Trump’s inauguration will fall on the same Monday, giving us a historic two-for-one holiday — and robbing us of a perfectly good extra day off. You can’t wear two pairs of shoes at once, so why should we have to cram two holidays into one work-free day?

1/12/25 - The Nosy Neighbor in Your Pocket | Words Are Powerful

After a decade of allegedly eavesdropping, Siri’s hush money amounts to a whopping $20 per iPhone user — barely enough to buy a Lightning cable at the Apple Store. For that payout, she might as well start recording my browser history and really make it worth my while.