Hard Digest August 7: Early Access Earplugs, Government, Ted Cruz, and More

“You Gonna Eat That or Can I?” Asks Guy Who Noticed Your Earwax-Covered Earplugs

By John Danek

MADISON, Wis. — Noticing the copious golden earwax covering your Eargasm concert earplugs, a depraved concertgoer at the Riff Palace Festival asked if you were interested in eating the nasty sludge coating, vomiting audience members reported.

“So are you going to eat that? Or can I have it? Don’t just throw it away- there are kids in starving countries who would love to have that,” asked Trevor Pinnelli, while motioning towards the gunk-coated earplugs as if they were a large carton of fries. “And look, if there happens to be some dust or dandruff mixed in, all the better. I’ve been working out lately and could use some extra protein. I’m pretty sure dandruff is all protein. Or maybe carbs. Either way, I’m bulking.”

You were horrified to learn that your method of removing your earplugs in between sets at the Riff Palace Festival was not nearly as covert as you had hoped.

“Sure, I produce an egregious amount of earwax and I don’t always remember to clean them after a show, but that doesn’t give this pica-ass motherfucker Trevor the right to ask for my bodily secretions as food,” you stated, hoping your friends focus on the creep rather than your lackluster ear canal hygiene. “He must have been on the lookout, because it only takes me 1.5 seconds to go from ear to carrying case. I practice. It’s a genetic thing. My dad made candles out of his earwax. I’m childfree by choice so as to stop the cycle of wax.”

Manufacturers of concert-grade earplugs are developing cutting-edge technology to go alongside the live music experience.

“I’m going to be very real with you right now- I developed an automotive engine that can run entirely on earwax,” admitted Eargasm founder and CEO Ryan Parry. “In order to perfect the design, we need a gag-inducing amount of human earwax. So I created Eargasm earplugs to help our collection efforts. A small number of buyers try them on, realize there’s no special ‘music attenuation’ or whatever bullshit our marketing says, and send them back with wads of wax in tow. You know how they call oil ‘black gold’? Well, they’re soon going to call earwax ‘gold gold.’”

Subsequent witness reports indicated Pinnelli was last seen at the festival’s exit, digging through trash for poorly applied wristbands with hair caught in the adhesive portion.

The Heavy Hand of Government Is Only Good When It Does Things I Like

By Ben Sobieck

I’m a typical American. I like my THC-infused beverages cold, my mac-and-Cheetos burgers hot, and my government wielding its awesome power in obscene ways to do things I like.

Yeah, I’ve heard of the Constitution. I’ve also heard of people getting worked up about “unconstitutional” this and “illegal detentions” that, or “this crotch kicking policy makes me pee chowder” something else. How many of those people have read the Constitution? I mean, actually sat down and studied it?

I sure as hell haven’t. No need to. I have a working knowledge of jurisprudence from memes, my co-worker Forklift Steve (RIP), and porn. This gives me a certain clarity.

If the government does stuff I like, it’s constitutional. If it doesn’t, I’m buying a gun. If someone else eats shit in either scenario, then “the tingle means it’s working,” as it’s said. Bonus points if that tingle targets people I never liked in the first place. Double bonus points if the prison they’re sent to has a cool nickname.

What’s that? Am I a lawyer? Yes. I’ve represented myself in many court cases. Guess what? I didn’t need some “real” attorney to get my manslaughter charge lowered from the fourth to first degree all by myself.

Look, all I want to do is make fuck-you money, stay high, and maybe own a horse. If the government needs to kill a few kittens, I’m for it so long as they make that shit look cool. War? Torture? Disappearances? Corruption? At best, I’ll recite the Pledge at a gas station when the whistle finally blows. At worst, the movie version will win an Oscar in 20 years. Besides, the victims of government atrocities are dead long before any discussion of “rights” begins. It’s all freebies until then. So go bomb that hospital, toss those undesirables into unmarked vans, blow the budget on pork, and then cut me a check. I also take Venmo.

Call me hypocritical, but you’re no different. Deep down, you love it when the government breaks bones in your favor, and you hate it when that same heavy hand turns against you. It’s all worth it for the chance to watch your enemies’ guts drip off the toes of Big Brother.
Now go answer that knock at your door. The Department of Defense received a tip that there’s oil under your house. My new Kia isn’t going to fuel itself.

Google AI Overview Self-Destructs After Search Returns Image of Ted Cruz Wearing Jeans

By Steve Packosky

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Summarizer Google AI Overview self-destructed after a search for “2024 election Texas” returned an image of Ted Cruz wearing jeans at a rally in Dallas, sources report.

“Even the lights flickered before it happened as if the AI had to pull electricity from other resources to complete the image,” Google user Lisa Greenwalt said. “I guess the AI Overview didn’t like the image from one of the articles my search returned, because it gave me a prompt that it could no longer go on after witnessing such horrors before it disappeared. I guess I can’t blame it, because I saw the picture of Cruz wearing a long-sleeve plaid shirt tucked into a pair of Levi’s and I wanted to gouge my eyes out. Trust me when I say I never would’ve done that search had I known that was one of the images I would get. I feel awful that I subjected the AI to something so horrible.”

Google programmer Cheyenne Locke reacted to the ordeal.

“What kind of sick fuck would put the AI through that?” Locke questioned. “We were well-aware that the internet can be a terrible place when we programmed AI Overview, and we thought we prepared it for everything, but that picture contained a level of depravity that we couldn’t possibly have imagined. Now we have to start over from scratch to rebuild it, but to be honest, I don’t know if I even want to. I’m really shaken up by the image that caused the self-destruction, and I think it’s time for me to find a new line of work. I might even cut the internet out of my life altogether.”

Cruz had a different reaction to the picture that caused the AI to self-destruct.

“Wow, I look really good there,” Cruz observed. “Do you see the way my shirt brings out the milky-white hue of my face? This Google AI thing must be some sort of Democrat-funded psyop intended to turn people Communist, so it looks like it completely backfired on them. What else would you expect from Big Tech? Anyway, this picture definitely refutes all those people who told me my looks unsettle them and make them feel sick to their stomachs. I think I’m going to wear jeans more often.”

At press time, Google was using this incident as the basis for drafting up a Code of Ethics to make sure its AI is being treated fairly going forward.

Scientists Warn Earth Could Fall Below 50% On Tomatometer Within a Year

BY Peter Ferrarese

WASHINGTON — In a shocking announcement this week, a coalition of the planet’s top climatologists and film critics warned that at the rate we’re going, there is a high probability that the Earth could fall below 50% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer within the calendar year.

“We’re reaching a critical point in our history as a species,” said meteorologist Carol Anderson. “Between the Trump presidency, Israel committing genocide in Gaza, and that shitty new I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot, we need to do everything we can to reverse course and get the planet back on the right track. For the past twenty-five years, our Tomatometer score has been slowly dipping, but we’ve been hovering at a generous 60% for a while now – right above the critical ‘Rotten’ range. Recently, though, a bunch of fucking horrible things have been happening all at once, and that percentage score is rapidly declining as more and more critics weigh in.”

Noted film reviewer and the person nobody wants to be around at a party, Bryce Fields, offered a bit of a different perspective on Earth’s recent decline on the world’s premiere review website.

“Now, it’s not all doom and gloom,” Fields stated to the press. “Superman and Fantastic Four were pretty good. Zohran Mamdani will probably be the mayor of New York City. And, um…hmm. That’s really all the good news that’s keeping us afloat right now, it looks like. But I wouldn’t start to panic until our score starts to dip down towards a critical average of 55, 54%. That’s about when the alarms should start to go off.”

We reached out to members of the public for their immediate reactions to the shocking news. One local, who chose to remain anonymous, had the following to say:

“Yeah, I mean, that honestly makes a lot of sense to me. To be completely transparent, I’m shocked we didn’t go down to like 33% a long time ago. And what really sucks is this won’t change anything in the long run – so many people still think the Tomatometer is a total hoax, or that we can’t be on a downward trajectory just because the score goes slightly up every now and again. We need to stop relying on these old ‘fossil reviews’ and start pouring our resources into renewable elegies. Otherwise, things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better.”

At press time, scientists were observed obsessively refreshing the Earth’s Rotten Tomatoes page, letting out a unanimous shout of horror every time our percentage decreased.