Follow these rules to ensure you never get into a relationship.

It's so freeing to be single!

To an outside party, it probably looks like I've been purposely evading relationships my entire life. This was not my mission, but in retrospect I see the mistakes I made that contributed to my perpetual singledom.

But there's a silver lining: these mistakes can function as a guide to ensure you remain single until you turn 30. And why stop there? Reach for the stars! You can use these tricks to stay single forever.

Here is exactly how to stay single at any age:

This relationship is doomed.

Age 0-3: No flirting.

I'm sure you've heard parents say, "oh, he's such a flirt!" when their baby smiles at other babies or even adults. This is creepy. Don't do this. It's imperative that you never develop any silly baby-crushes; they'll never lead anywhere.

Age 4-10: Keep it casual.

Don't play into whole boyfriend/girlfriend stereotype that society places on opposite-gendered friendships. You're just kids! Now go play games before you learn the frustrating adult meaning of "playing games."

Age 11-12: Develop a crush on someone far, far away.

These pivotal pre-teen years are the perfect time to get a crush on someone from another school, or better yet, another country. This ensures you won't be able to see them or move the relationship to the next level.

What's the square root of penis, I mean Pi?

Age 13: Become infatuated with a teacher.

Fantasizing about a teacher is a way to create an impossible standard for yourself that none of your peers could ever live up to. Also, it sets the wheels in motion for you to date people later in life simply because they look like your 7th-grade Geometry teacher even if they're a terrible match.

Age 14-15: Misread signals. Be oblivious to your surroundings.

Wrongfully assume you're "with" the person you kissed during Truth or Dare. Mistake bus-ride conversations due to boredom for romantic encounters. Ask out people who are already spoken for. Live in a dreamworld. Write bad poetry. Keep thinking about that hot teacher.

Age 16-17: Get busy. Not the sexual kind of busy.

Enroll in every conceivable after school activity, partially to look good on college applications, partially so you don't have to deal with your loneliness. Develop deep crushes on people you don't know, and will never talk to.

Age 18-22: Go to a Liberal Arts school in an urban setting.

I went with NYU. The student body is 60% women, and half the men are still discovering their sexuality. I was guaranteed to never date anyone in college for four whole years. Also, try going out with closeted homosexuals, anyone who looks like your 7th grade math teacher, and/or your best friend's younger brother; you'll definitely remain single.

Age 23-25: Live life as a confident young professional.

Have an office romance. Party a lot. Become obsessed with someone who tells you "I'm not looking for anything serious." Try out another office romance. Refuse to do any type of online dating. Keep attempting office romances until you run out of possibilities and move to other office.

It's a metaphor for dating.

Age 26-29: Hop aboard a doomed dating roller coaster.

Age 26: Waiting in line. Date someone your age who is super hot but super boring.
Age 27: Uphill climb. Date someone older. Waaaaaaay older. Like, older than your parents.
Age 28: Downhill plunge: Date a 21 year old. It won't work out, I promise.
Age 29: Get off the roller coaster. If you have a year long panic attack about turning 30, you won't be able to stay in a meaningful relationship!

Age 30: You did it!

You've lived three decades without being in a serious relationship! It was hard work, and now it's time to celebrate. Congratulations! Now go get on Tinder.

As any engaged citizen knows, Taylor Swift often shows her midriff, but rarely shows her belly button.

A photo posted by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Oct 5, 2014 at 12:11am PDT

Why? It's just one of those classic Taylor Swift mysteries, like "How can one person write so many good songs?" As a result, any glimpse of Swift's belly button is a front page news event (especially if you get your news from Taylor Swift's Instagram).

This week on Reddit, there's a photoshop battle surrounding a rare photo of Swift's actual stomach.

(via Imgur)

Many of the images are inspired. Many are lame. And many are NSFW, because this is still the Internet, and anything fun can also turn horrible. You can look at the entire thread to see them all, but here are some of the best ones:

Maybe her belly button is a black hole, and she keeps it covered so no one gets drawn through space-time. (via Imgur)

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger..." Just kidding, I know that's Kelly Clarkson. Shake it off. (via Imgur)

These monkeys can serve as Swift's backup dancers if Katy Perry keeps stealing hers. #BadBlood (via Imgur)

Krang doesn't know about you, but he's feeling 22. (via Imgur)

Surprised Patrick can't believe Taylor Swift showed her belly button, either. (via Imgur)

Or maybe she really was showing us all along. (via Imgur)

Trying to cover up your emotions with food is much like burying a body in a shallow grave near your home.

Sure, you've gotten rid of it for the time being, but chances are, it's going to come back to haunt you again real soon. However, that's because most people emotionally eat with the refinement of a hillbilly gorging on an extra-large tub of popcorn chicken. Like the right wine pairings, to truly cover up those emotions, you need the right kind of food.

Emotion #1: Shame.

When most people shame eat, they head straight for the sweets, but ice cream and cake are the missionary position of emotional eating: it gets the job done but where is the artistry? The panache? No, to cover up the sting of shame, you need something stronger, something with genuine virtuosity: a heavily-sea salted potato chip.

Only the acrid, mineral taste of the ancient ocean can wash away that faux pas you made at the holiday party when you went in for a hug when your boss went to shake hands, and only the joy of fried starch can rest your mind when it turns to the time you told your friend you loved her and she just stared at you with a horrified look.

Emotion #2: Sadness.

Sadness is a hole from which it is difficult to escape. But what do we do with holes? Fill them in! With sadness, emotional eating isn't about taste but density. I mean, would you rather fill in a pothole with water or cement? Cement! Now, to fill in that sadness, cake could work, but none of that light 'n' fluffy garbage.

This needs to be cake with the density of a collapsing neutron star. Giant plates of ribs or those putrid-looking massive hamburgers in those commercials will also work, or a full bag of potato rolls covered in that hazelnut savior Nutella.

Emotion #3: Ennui.

Ennui is a step beyond boredom. It's an existential weariness with life. How could you ever eat your way out of such an all-encompassing emotion? Why, with something that's going to club that ennui on the back of its head and then wall it up in your brain's basement "Cask of Amontillado"-style. You need something that will treat your ennui like white men have treated everyone else for most of history. And thus the perfect pairing is an extra-large pack of Skittles dissolved in like six or seven 5-Hour Energy bottles.

Drink that sucker down, and then let's see how weary your existential situation is making you. You'll barely be able to form words let alone be able to mope about existence.

Emotion #6: Frustration.

Frustration can be felt through gritted teeth and with a feeling of agitation right below the surface of the skin. It's an emotion right on the verge of bursting out, and thus the food needed to suppress it is the equivalent of the straps holding a frothing mental patient to a gurney. Maybe your parents handed you their guest list for your wedding, and even though you've told them you want a small affair, their list is 10 pages long. I don't care if the Abramsons once invited you for brunch, I don't want them at the wedding! Anyway, with such a surface emotion, the only way to pull it inward with with stretchy foods: your Fruit Roll-Ups, your licorice laces, taffy—both of saltwater and freshwater variety.

Only the elasticity of these foods can properly tie these feelings down, like a mustache-twirling villain tying a damsel to the railroad tracks. And look, here comes the 4:15 to Tulsa!

Emotion #5: Excitement.

Now, you might be asking yourself, why would you ever want to cover up excitement? Oh, you naive asswipe. Emotions of all varieties, even good emotions, can be too intense. And when reality fails to meet the expectations that your excitement build up, you become disappointed. To cut this worse emotion off at the pass, you need to treat that excitement like George treats Lennie at the end of Of Mice and Men. (I've never read it, but we all get the reference, right?) Bang bang. You get it. The point is, because excitement bubbles out of you, you need something that will flatten your body's natural carbonation, and sop it up. And that something is binge eating an entire large pizza from Fabrizio's on Staten Island.

"But I can barely eat three slices," you might rightly say, and to that I say, "Coward!" Only when you are lying bloated on the floor, regretting those last few slices will you ever be emotionally balanced enough to truly greet the world as it is. And remember, all emotional eaters get 10% off of any plain pie at Fabrizio's!

"America's id is running for President." - Jon Stewart

For the sake of argument, let's pretend that you didn't immediately and instinctively start laughing yesterday when you found out that Donald Trump is running for president (or at least pretending to, like he does every four years). Let's just say that you think of him as a successful business person with a reasonable chance of making good on his promise to apply his unique skills to the handling of our nation.

Were that the case, then the above video from last night's Daily Show—in which Jon Stewart, Jordan Klepper and Hasan Minhaj all experience the most intense simultaneous and continuous orgasms ever witnessed on basic cable at the very thought of a 17-month Trump presidential campaign—might confuse you a tad.

And then, if you saw this Internet exclusive from Stephen Colbert and the team of his upcoming late night show, you might get even more confused.

"I don't get it," this hypothetical version of you might be saying. "Why is this funny? He's simply acting like a normal person who could very well be leading the most powerful nation in history in just a few months' time. I find nothing laughable in his general demeanor."

If that were the case (which I'm sure it is not), that would be very sad for you, because that would mean you were missing out on one of the most phenomenal jokes in political history. And by "one of the most phenomenal jokes in political history," I mean Donald Trump. But you knew that, right?

Here's Trump's actual speech, which is somehow the funniest of the three videos:

A collection of some of the wildest and weirdest wedding cakes ever baked.

1. Wedding Cake: The Movie

Action! Suspense! Dutch chocolate sponge with a layer of Bavarian raspberry creme!(via Pinterest)

2. Wedding Cake 2: Bride of Cake

This time, the cake cuts back.(via DumpADay)

3. Wedding Cake 3: The Kong of Groomcake

How nice! A monkey holding chocolatey, brown plops.
Sorry, I'm not hungry anymore. (via imgur)

4. The Nail Salon Mangler Cake

"Someone, or something, is making cakes with our costumers' severed hands."(via CakeWrecks)

5. The Red Wedding Cake

All men must dine... on cake.(via Zap2It)

6. The Bloody Severed Finger Cake

This cake is only appropriate for getting married on Halloween to a Frankenstein monster who owns a year-round costume supply store. (via favoredbyyodit)

7. The Severed Deer Head Cake

A wedding cake adorned with deer trophies, perfect for your trophy wife.
(via Maggie's Farm)

8. The Off-roader Cake

Doesn't look as much like mud tracks so much as it looks like a toy truck is leaking sludge down a wedding cake. (via Maggie's Farm)

9. The Tiered Steel-belted Cake

A beautifully crafted cake made special for a biker couple. I wonder how much the black fondant stains your tongue. (via Pinterest)

10. The Layered Beer Cake

The only wedding cake you can shotgun.(via Pinterest)

11. The Sweet, Sweet Cash Cake

This cake goes great with a powder frosting... of coke. You wanna get some coke? I bet we can buy coke with the cake and use the cake to do the coke! Bro! We are getting this cake coke, bro! Drive me, I know where we're going!(via Pinterest)

12. The Saddest Cake I've Ever Seen

This is the adult version of having a birthday party at McDonald's.(via Pinterest)

13. The Online Dating Cake

"My interests are: rampant consumerism, free Wi-Fi, and getting married as soon as possible. I spend my free time thinking about: what it would be like to eat a computer."(via chefcharity)

14. The Cakeburster Couple Cake

I've always found the work of H. R. Geiger to be lyrical and romantic.
(via Manolo for the Brides)

15. The Han in a Taun-taun Cake

"It's important to me that our matrimony begin with a fondant version of the scene in Star Wars 2, where Harrison Ford is thrown into smelly dead animal guts."
(via Geekologie)

16. The Backside of Jabba Cake

"Better yet, let's make the cake look like that pile of shit slug monster from Star Wars 3 who keeps a princess as a sex slave on a chain. That will create a strong foundation for wedded bliss." (via failLOL)

Bonus Pre-wedding Cakes:

Boobcake

Celebrate your pending nuptials by slicing a pair of breasts into pieces to devour the night before the ceremony.(via thesmilingbaker)

Weinercake

At least take the ring off first. Yeeouch. (via Pinterest)

French Ecology Minister Ségolène Royal urged consumers to stop eating Nutella.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!(Getty)

I hope you weren't having a good day, because this is terrible news. And of course, France is behind it.

In an interview on Canal+, the French Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, Ségolène Royal, urged everyone listening to stop eating Nutella, the beloved Italian hazlenut/chocolate spread. Royal explained:

“We have to replant a lot of trees because there is massive deforestation that also leads to global warming. We should stop eating Nutella, for example, because it's made with palm oil. Oil palms have replaced trees, and therefore caused considerable damage to the environment."

Her comments angered Ferrero, the Italian candy conglomerate that owns Nutella. The company released a statement saying that it is committed to sourcing its palm oil in a responsible way. They claim that as of this past January, all of their products come from certified sustainable plantations.

Nevertheless, the use of palm oil remains controversial. It's found in household products ranging from ice cream to detergent to lipstick. These days, it's also used in many biofuels. The ever-increasing demand is leading to more and more deforestation in critical ecosystems around the world, and contributing to global warming. Despite Ferrero's improvements, Royal believes the company should use "other ingredients." And honestly, the largest chocolate producer in the world could probably afford to.

It might make Nutella a little more expensive, but that wouldn't stop anyone from buying it. That stuff's addictive. You'd punch your mother for a jar and you know it.

At first, he was all like [wheelchair emoji], but now he's all like [hiking emoji].

Take the blue pill, go to sleep. Take the red pill, come to wonderland. Take the gold pill, you can finally live your life without crippling pain.

Coltyn Turner, 15, has been suffering from Crohn's disease since it was triggered by a bacterial infection at age 11. Crohn's is a chronic disease with a strong hereditary component where the immune system attacks the patient's intestines. It varies from individual to individual, but it can cause digestive issues, chronic fatigue, and for some reason eye and skin inflammation because our bodies are weird and poorly understood. Mostly, it causes pain.

Coltyn's parents became increasingly desperate for new treatment after, as he says, "I was just on every pharmaceutical there was out there until I would up in a wheelchair." Said his mother Wendy, "He got sick and we had no other options." So, they moved to Colorado to try the only medicine that people are fairly sure is effective: cannabis oil. "We thought, 'Well, why not try?' And it worked," said Wendy.

Total remission, zero remorse.

Even though many of us have forgotten this fact in the past few years, this makes Coltyn a criminal. It makes his parents even worse, since they're buying their kid drugs. Coltyn has a pretty clear opinion on the topic: "I'd rather be illegally alive than legally dead."

He takes it four times a day, now, and like many Crohn's patients who have tried cannabis oil, his symptoms have gone into remission. Cannabis is not a cure-all, because nothing is, but the chemicals in it do have legit medical purposes. THC, the feel-good part, is good for some things, but the non-psychoactive ingredient CBD seems to have powerful pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties.

Picture's a little blurry, but that smile is loud and clear.

Their case was presented alongside others at a symposium for the potential of cannabis-based medicine at the National Jewish Health medical research center in Denver. National Jewish Health has always been a leader in researching cures for chronic illness, particularly respiratory and immune disorders. This is in part because Denver, dry and sunny, was often a last refuge for tuberculosis patients, and so a research hospital was founded to aid their plight. It's a non-sectarian institution, although it does so happen that Crohn's has a slightly higher incidence in Ashkenazi Jews.

You may think I'm just hyping up the federal-law part for emphasis and clicks, and while that's not wholly untrue, consider this: we have an election in less than a year and a half. That new guy or gal will get to make a whole new decision about whether or not to enforce federal cannabis laws. That could very well land Coltyn in jail.

But at least he'd get government-paid health care, I guess.

(Note: I am not a doctor, and as I already said, Crohn's disease symptoms vary greatly from patient to patient. Please, please, please talk to a medical professional you trust instead of saying "Well, Johnny McNulty's article about a news story said...")

The Internet has found yet another way to combine food with pornography.

No. This is not a euphemism for anything.

Let's face it: Cookbooks are overrated. They're heavy and contain a lot of words. Recipe websites are lame too. They try to be all high-and-mighty with their "preparation times" and "serving suggestions." But without these resources, where is one to go for a recipe? Well, a brave soldier by the name of "OGtan" can answer that question.

Put yourself in OG's shoes. You're sitting down for a routine PornHub session. Just as you are settling in, guess what happens? What always happens? You remember that you need to make a lasagna for your niece's 7th birthday! Do you drop what you're doing and attend to the recipe? OG sure as hell doesn't, because OG is a visionary.

Please confirm that you are 18+ and enjoy a savory pasta casserole. (Source.)

Instead, OG reached out to the comments section of the site for recipe advice, and in turn, utilized the 'hub in a way that's never been done before. The community responded with some solid suggestions, thus living up to PornHub's ideals of civil service. Thank god @GeeCapone was there to capture the glorious moment.

The human race is progressing , this is inspiring. pic.twitter.com/quUaR9HLww
— . xx . (@GeeCapone) June 15, 2015

We must pray that this thread is the only place on PornHub that contains the word "Lasagna."

He can sneeze on command!

Oh, I'm sorry. Does the fact that Jango the dog can whip up a sneeze at the drop of a hat fail to sufficiently impress you? Would you rather watch him sit or fetch a stick or roll over? Maybe you'd like to see him dress up as a pretty lady and do a little salsa dancing. Well, I'm sorry, but Jango doesn't do any of that stuff. He just sneezes!

Tell you what: why don't you demonstrate how easy it is to sneeze at a moment's whim? Oh, you can't do that? You know what? Neither can I. I can sit, fetch and roll over at will, though. The salsa dancing is still tricky for me, but I can come close. So, maybe that sneezing trick is kind of impressive after all, huh?

Bet you a million dollars this salsa-dancing dog can't sneeze like that:

A big corporation became .5% less evil today.

"I'm working in my dreams, I promise." (Thinkstock)

Investment banking interns are stereotypically portrayed as abused, overworked sycophants who will subject themselves to endless torment in order to nab that full-time offer by the end of the summer. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is trying to break—let me rephrase—dent that stereotype with a new workplace initiative.

In an act of divine mercy, the company has told its summer investment interns not to stay past midnight or arrive before 7 a.m. How generous of you, kind master! But wait! That's not all! They are also letting interns take Saturdays off, thus letting their summer employees taste the rare privilege of being a regular human being.

The changes are the product of ongoing debates surrounding the intense, high-stakes work culture of investment banks, which reached an apex when a Bank of America intern died two summers ago. His death was revealed to be the result of natural causes, but that didn't stop the financial sector from have much needed conversations about healthy living. Maybe they should take Arianna Huffington's advice and try this crazy new experimental drug called "sleep."

America's refrigerators have been compromised.

I write these words as a warning to my countrymen: your delicious grapes are not safe!

You might think that you've got all your bases covered by double-sealing your grapes inside a plastic bag, which is itself inside a refrigerator drawer, but this is naught but an illusion of security. There are tiny, adorable raccoons out there who can break through your safety measures with their long and dextrous fingers without a second thought. And they will!

As is plainly obvious in the video above—featuring a young but masterful grape bandit named Lily—these procyonid hooligans will stop at nothing to get to those sweet, sweet grapes. You will be better off accepting this reality and adjusting to it than wasting precious energy trying to prevent it.

They're the raccoons' grapes now. We're just keeping them cool in our fridges.

At Link Elementary School's 5th grade graduation, they called the name of every graduating student — except the one in the wheelchair. And it gets worse.

Hey, you know what nobody likes? Being forgotten. And you know what's worse? Being forgotten at an event that's important to you. Worse than that? When somebody finally tries to correct the mistake, they do a shitty job of it.

That's what happened to Trinecia Blacklock, a student at Link Elementary School, when she attended her fifth grade graduation last week. The school principal read the names of all of the students in the class and asked them to come up on stage... except Trinecia, who uses a wheelchair to get around. Trinecia's parents had to alert school administrators, and only then was her name read — but she still couldn't go up and get her certificate, because there was no wheelchair ramp.

Administrators haven't explained exactly what happened, but this feels like something that would get pitched by a dummy villain in a 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon. "Hmmm, we don't have a ramp for the student in a wheelchair, and I'm pretty sure that's against ADA standards. I know! We won't call her onto stage, and then nobody will notice! Perfection!"

The school district has issued an apology to the family, including a promise that this will never happen again.

Internet quizzes are all a bunch of laughs until you discover that your soulmate is your girlfriend's mom. That's gonna be an awkward wedding.

When your BF takes "whose your true soulmate" quiz and gets your mom... pic.twitter.com/qAdPMIHGLV

— Erica Lantto (@TheWinningGing) June 11, 2015

Captain Quizz's new Facebook soulmate quiz sure seems like a lot of fun. I mean, the website has two Z's in its name — how can it not be fun? But some people have discovered that the quiz — which pulls information from your friends list, likes, and posts — matches them with some less-than-ideal "soulmates," like exes and relatives. People aren't happy about it.

But I have a theory for you: what if everyone is complaining about the quiz because they've realized that the results are so right? And nobody knows how to deal with their emotions upon discovering their problematic mates, so instead they're deflecting by pointing out how silly the quiz is. Like, how awkward is it to realize that your ex is actually your soulmate?

When your ex takes the soul mate quiz on Facebook and you pop up..... pic.twitter.com/zktuJpsDYt

— Maria Valdez (@DarthVader1995) June 14, 2015

Side note: I have to ask, why are you still friends with your ex on Facebook? Do you love looking at a computer and crying or feeling residual anger or BOTH?

Then there's this tender pairing:

I did the soulmate quiz on Facebook and it put me with my grandma pic.twitter.com/5fZsNTCTJV

— Emily Couch (@emilygcouch) June 17, 2015

Grandpa might have something to say about that.

And there's just the people who get paired with themselves:

(via Taylor Cox/Michael James Nelson)

That one's good news; at least he will always be there for himself. Also, I really want my theory that this quiz is accurate to be true, because then that will mean that all Facebook quizzes are true, and I really am Arya Stark!

Alejandro Rhett, J.Crew's vice president of men's merchandising, spent the evening posting bar pics after saying goodbye to 175 co-workers.

Looks like a fun party, if you can afford it.(via NY Post)

If you're not keeping up with the inner workings of corporations that sell variations on tan pants, you probably don't know that J. Crew isn't doing so hot. Their most recent earnings report showed they'd suffered an overall operating loss of almost $521 million. That's a lot! People's hunger for beige sweaters is waning. One of the direct outcomes of this report was 175 lay-offs around the J. Crew offices. That's a lot, too! Think of all those people going home to tell their families and pets and lovers that they've been laid off.

I seeeeee you, being a d-bag. (via NY Post)

Probably a fair share of them went drinking, but it was sad drinking. Alejandro Rhett, VP of men's merchandising, went PARTYING. And he wasn't afraid to show it on social media, using some of these super fun hashtags: #gonegirl #hungergames #maytheoddsbeeverinyourfavor #nofunhere. Presumably, #nofunhere is ironic, because it looks as though they're having lots of fun.

A casual day of laughing at other's misfortune.(via NY Post)

Confirming that people who give the finger to their friends in pics are super cool.
(via NY Post)

Honestly, I understand why they're celebrating. There's probably been an enormous amount of tension and somehow they've missed the guillotine. Sure, feel good. But when you post pics all over Instagram showing off how great you feel when almost 200 people are out of work, folks are gonna call it like they see it. And they see a bunch of tone-deaf assholes. Especially since, according to the NY Post, Rhett personally fired a number of them himself.

Maybe everyone's being too sensitive. There's a recent story of a similar staff purging at Lucky Magazine. That same day Lucky's ex-EIC Eva Chen posted a picture on Instagram that offended some people who'd gotten their pink slips:

at the epic cuteness of this macaron-topped @snowdaysnyc shave ice (with condensed milk, strawberries, red bean, and grass jelly).
A photo posted by Eva Chen (@evachen212) on Jun 14, 2015 at 5:44pm PDT

Um, I guess it's a fashion thing? In that world, a smiling macaroon is a big ole "F*ck You" to the unemployed.

It's unclear whether Rhett is going to get into any trouble for his dumb posts, though they've all been taken down. A rep told the NY Post, “As soon as we were made aware, the appropriate actions took place." High fives all around, maybe?

Supermodel Tyra Banks took a makeup-free photo of herself and put it on Instagram.

A photo posted by Tyra Banks (@tyrabanks) on Jun 17, 2015 at 7:28am PDT

Wow. Did we ever think the day would come when Tyra Banks herself posted a no makeup selfie? Is this the most no makeup (aka the least makeup) you've ever seen in a no-makeup selfie? According to Banks, it is. She wrote a long caption accusing other no-makeup selfie posters of the worst no-makeup selfie sin other than wearing makeup: retouching!

You know how people say #nofilter but you know there's a freakin' filter on their pic? Or maybe there's a smidge of retouching going on but they're lying and saying it's all raw & real? Well, this morn, I decided to give you a taste of the really real me. I wanted to smooth out my dark circles so badly!!! But I was like, "Naw, Ty. Show 'em the REAL you." So...here I am. Raw. And there YOU are...looking at me, studying this picture. Maybe you're thinking, "Whoa, she looks ROUGH." And if you are, great! You deserve to see the REAL me. The REALLY real me. #RawAndReal

So now that America's Previous Top Model has shown you her raw and real self, where can no-makeup selfies go from here? I have some goals for the movement. As we all know, most no-makeup selfies are taken in the home, usually in the morning, and the implication is that this is what the beautiful person looks like before putting on makeup. But if the person has anywhere to go, she will still apply a full non-raw and non-real face of cosmetics before leaving the house. So for the next step, I'd like to see a no-makeup selfie taken at a meeting in the middle of the workday. I'd like to see a no-makeup selfie taken at night while out at an expensive restaurant. And eventually I'd like my grandchildren to see an elderly Jennifer Lawrence post a no-makeup selfie from the red carpet at the Oscars.

When Pizza Hut announced that it was bringing its Hot Dog Bites Pizza to America, I knew I had to try it.

The pizza has 28 cocktail franks stuffed into the crust. It serves 4—or maybe 10, there's no real way of measuring.

(via Pizza Hut)

Yesterday—a day before its official release—comedian Adam Maid and I ate and conquered the Hot Dog Bites Pizza. Or maybe it conquered us. I've been sitting here for the past 3 hours trying to write this review, and I'm so tired that I've only written six sentences, including this one.

New York may be home to 50,000 restaurants, but there is only one single Pizza Hut in Manhattan serving up the hot dog pizza. It's in Times Square, and it's a combination Pizza Hut-KFC-Nathan's-Tim Horton's. There is, frankly, no better place to eat a pizza made of hot dogs than a Pizza Hut made of four other restaurants. Here we go:

Adam: I approached the counter, which was staffed by just one young woman, and suddenly realized that I was conquering one of my childhood goals: I WAS ORDERING OFF-MENU AT PIZZA HUT. The Hot Dog Bites Pizza (HDBP) still wasn't officially released, but after conferring (twice) with the manager, my new best friend told me she could sell me a large for a shockingly reasonable $13.99.

Kristen: Though the official release date of hot dog bites is today, June 18, it seems like individual Pizza Huts were more than willing to serve up the pie early. As a back-up, we also called a location in New Jersey that confirmed they, too, had the pizza, and they were audibly excited we were asking about it. It's like back in the day when you'd get a rogue Borders employee who didn't care about book release dates, so he'd give you Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a day early.

Adam: The wait was an excruciating fifteen minutes. My mind raced with questions. Were we facing a day of agony? Were we embarking on probably decades-long battles with Hot Dog Bites Pizza addiction? As Dave Matthews softly cooed “I am no Superman" over the speakers, I thought, “I'll pick up the slack today, Dave-o."

Kristen: The pizza came before I got to the restaurant. I frantically texted this:

Adam: New thing I learned today: Pizza Hut/KFC presents your pizza to you before closing the box, like the best possible kind of engagement ring. And I am not lying when I tell you that our pizza shined. Sure, it was probably from the grease, but I like to think it had its own internal light.

The first thing you'll notice about the pizza is that there are just a TON of little hot dogs in the crust. Yes, that's the point, but still—seeing it in person vs. seeing it in pictures is a completely different animal. It's kind of alien-looking in real life, but in a cool, sci-fi, hot-dog-exoskeleton way. I almost expected it to grow a second, smaller pizza from the inside. (Domino's, please steal that idea!)

Kristen: I dove right in almost immediately. It looked so good. And the first few bites really were. The crust was doughy and sweet, like traditional Pizza Hut hand-tossed. We ordered pepperoni, which, to me, is essential. When I eat cheese pizza, I feel like I haven't eaten anything at all. I later learned that Hot Dog Bites Pizza comes in two varieties: plain and pretzel. Adam wasn't given a choice, and honestly, I think our crust was somewhere in the middle. It looked and tasted like normal hand-tossed, but it randomly had chunks of pretzel salt on it.

We quickly identified potential improvements. The hot dogs do not need any additional salt. I don't think there's a need for pretzel-crust here. Also, the dough is quite thick. The pigs-in-a-blanket would be amplified with some flakey layers. Get Pillsbury on the horn. The cocktail frank, itself, is pretty smokey. I found myself wishing for a milder dog.

Adam: I'll be honest: The meats fought. You've got pepperoni, which is a stalwart topping for a reason. It can carry a pizza on its own and it knows it. Add to that the strong, smoky flavor of the hot dog, and you have a major conflict. You can't have two Alphas in a wolfpack and you can't have other meats on a hot dog pizza.

Kristen: Adam's right on. Never in my life would I have gone with a plain cheese pizza, but it's essential here. Maybe even some sort of vegetable would work. Like peppers and mushrooms? Dear God, who am I?

Adam: Let the pizza work FOR the hot dog.

Kristen: Exactly. These two elements seemed like two separate entities, instead of one harmonious hot-dog-pizza. And in fact, we ate them separately. First, I ate the pizza. Then I ate the pigs-in-a-blanket for dessert.

Adam: I found that the “eat it backwards" mentality of stuffed-crust is a little out of place here. You just get sauce on your hand and end up pulling off the hot dog bites anyway.

Kristen: That said, one nice element of the hot dog pizza design was that the two outer pigs-in-a-blanket acted like pizza-holding handlebars. It was a pretty ergonomic way to eat a slice of pizza. Speaking of, we should note that every slice of Hot Dog Bites Pizza comes with four pigs-in-a-blanket.

Adam: That's basically a hot dog per slice, folks.

Kristen: If you eat two slices, you've also eaten two hot dogs. And that's what I ate: two slices.

Adam: I almost made it to three slices before a power greater than myself forced me to stop. I was powerless to continue. Game over.

Kristen: I made the rookie mistake of drinking water while eating my pizza. Hot Dog Pizza really deserves to be washed down with a soda. It needs the acid to cut through the grease. I'm pretty sure the water combined with the dough to create hot-dog-pizza-lead in my stomach.

Never in my life have I eaten two slices of pizza and thought, “Wow. I'm full." Hot Dog Bites Pizza did it. Adam had a Pepsi that tasted more like a Diet Pepsi, and I think it really helped him.

Adam: That was the only time I've ever been glad for a Diet Pepsi. It's also a pizza with a built-in timer. As you go from first to second to hitting the wall halfway through your third slice, that golden sheen on its edges starts to fade. It's probably not a pizza you'll want to revisit cold the next morning, unless you are apocalyptically hungover. Or six years old, I guess.

Kristen: I completely agreed with this—at the time. I confidently said there was no way I'd be going back in for leftovers. But I just pulled the box out of the fridge and ate another slice while writing this. Which means my hot dog count is now 3.

We left Pizza Hut feeling wiser, smarter, and also, again, just so incredibly tired. In the cab back, I got this text from Adam:Should you order the Pizza Huts Hot Dog Bites Pizza? Yes. Share it with friends. And remember to enjoy it with a Pepsi.

Would we order the Pizza Hut Hot Dog Bites Pizza again? Probably not. But I am very happy we did it once. I would compare eating this pizza to watching the movie Blackfish. I'm glad that I did it. It was difficult at moments, but ultimately educational, and I'm wiser and stronger having done it.

(Images via Kristen Bartlett)

Plane rides can lower your standards so far that having an empty seat next to you feels like living in a mansion.

(via Thinkstock)

Travel writer Scott Mackenzie has a list of strategies for picking where to sit on a plane, and they've helped him land empty seats next to him multiple times without any special connections. He explained his rules on Travel Codex, and here are some of the highlights:

• Choose a seat in the back, because the gate agents will fill in new seat assignments from front to rear.
• In a 3-3-3 configuration, middle seats on the left and right are more likely to stay open than middle seats in the center. This is because they're less desirable since the person in the window seat has to climb over you to get out.
• Pick a seat next to one empty seat rather than a lot of empty seats, because groups of people will be more likely to go for the group of openings.

I never would have thought of any of those things in four million years. But now that I have, on my next plane ride, I should have a whole extra seat to set up my plane movie theater. It only shows Parenthood and reservations are required.

There's a new trailer for the last drama film that Robin Williams made.

Boulevard is about a closeted 60-year-old bank employee trying to come to terms with his repressed sexuality. That's sad. The trailer points out that this is Williams in "his final dramatic performance." That's sad. My review: sad sad sad sad sad. I'm going to go cry into my keyboard.

The reason the movie is billed as Williams' last drama film, and not last film, is that he also has a sci-fi comedy coming out this summer in which he voices a talking dog. That one sounds more upbeat.