u/CrouchingJaguar

I was watching Millionaire Hot Seat here in Australia last night, which is hosted by actress Rebecca Gibney, and had an idea: all the prize money that disappears when contestants get questions wrong should go directly to her.

They should really lean into it. She should openly love getting dumb contestants. Someone confidently gives an obviously wrong answer and she’s jumping out of her chair: “YES! YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT! That’s $50,000 for me!” Then while they’re standing there devastated: “Thank you, honestly. Best contestant we’ve had all week.”

And when someone actually knows the answer she should be visibly pissed off. “Final answer? You sure? Think about it.” Then when they’re right she just mutters “for fuck’s sake” and moves on.

At the end of every episode they show her total winnings for the season and she celebrates every milestone like she’s the actual contestant. Obviously she’d become one of the most hated people on television, but she’s getting filthy rich from it so I doubt she’d care.

After a while people would tune in just to watch her shamelessly cheer for everyone to fail, and desperately hope someone finally wipes the smile off her face.

Honestly, this could work on any game show with prize money.

Hear me out, the equator should be physically marked wherever it crosses land. We spend our whole lives looking at it on maps, and being able to actually see where the northern and southern hemispheres meet would be genuinely useful for education and tourism. It seems weird that one of the most important geographical boundaries on Earth exists everywhere on maps but basically nowhere in real life.

Grass lawns look like the ground has grown a layer of mould. Just a dense green bacterial fuzz that everyone has collectively agreed is “beautiful” because we keep it trimmed to the same height.

I recently got rid of all grass and nearly every plant in my yard and stripped it back to mostly bare earth, rocks and a few weathered features. I was expecting people to think it looked unfinished, but I’ve had more compliments on it than I ever did when it was full of greenery. It now has this ancient desert courtyard vibe, like the remains of a forgotten civilisation.

Bare dirt has texture, warmth and character. Grass just looks damp and biologically hazardous.
The only real downside is that it gets muddier when it rains. But for most of the year, I’d take an ancient desert ruin over a lawn-shaped petri dish.