Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff. Photo / Mandee Johnson via My Favourite Murder
Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff. Photo / Mandee Johnson via My Favourite Murder
Laugh
The problem with true crime podcasts is they're often very serious and fact-laden and a little too CITV for my liking, but My Favourite Murder fixes that.
This podcast is the perfect middle ground for people like me who love to hear about the weird and gory tidbits without all the boring stuff like, you know, the facts.
It's hosted by Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff - two LA comedians who seem to fit right into the "valley girl" stereotype. Women who can call the most gruesome murder details "totally awesome" and talk about how it happened near their favourite brunch spot.
They're the first to acknowledge they're weird, morbid, and far from experts and that's what makes this podcast the best; they're basically me, only funnier.
Binge
Warning: This clip contains graphic scenes:
The second season of Attack on Titan starts this weekend (or now, if you pay for a premium streaming service), so now's the perfect time to binge the first season if you haven't already.
The story (which you can watch via streaming site Anime Lab) takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where society lives in cities walled-off from the outside world to protect them from the Titans - terrifying, human-like monsters who are 10 storeys tall, utterly terrifying people-eaters.
Our heroes join a squad whose job it is to protect the people from the Titans. We get to watch them train and grow into warriors and let me tell you; it is darker and grittier than anything Christopher Nolan has ever done. The graphics are amazing; images of people being torn in two, chewed slowly and thrown around like rag dolls will haunt your dreams, I swear.
I showed this to my highly sceptical mother who then went on to binge-watch the entire season within the week.
Listen
I don't know how I first stumbled across Raja Kumari but I'm glad I did. She's a super sassy, totally badass hip hop/pop artist who infuses her Indian culture into her music in the coolest of ways, which she calls "Bollyhood".
For years she was behind the scenes writing hits with the likes of Iggy Azalea, Gwen Stefani, Fall Out Boy and Fifth Harmony, but last year she released her own EP and it's pretty amazing.
She aims to represent her culture in a world where it's often appropriated. Familiar rhythms, instruments, language and unique singing style from classical Indian music meet bass-heavy hip hop beats, pop production and Kumari's unique voice which sits somewhere between Rihanna and Selena Gomez...if you can imagine that. Give her a listen.
I can't tell you how many times we've sat around this newsroom dreaming about a damn good burger. We love burgers. They're an institution around these parts.
So one weekend I logged into UberEats and ordered from Grill and Shakes in Kingsland, and it was perhaps one of the best burgers I've ever had - or at least, that comes to recent memory.
They're fresh and loaded with salad and - more importantly - meat and gloriously melted cheese, and they have that kind of home-made taste and feel you just don't get at many places these days. Grill and Shakes also has 69 different milkshake flavours and $5 mystery shakes on Mondays.
