1. The Processor

Apple’s new A12 Bionic Processor guarantees their new flagship phone isn’t slowing down any time soon, unlike your ill-fated vessel The Howling Doubloon. Running aground 15 miles south of Tortuga Island, the thunderous splintering of the hull was only pierced by the desperate screams of your crew as the ship capsized.

2. The Face-ID System

Fans of this innovative security feature will be pleased to experience a more agile Face-ID System in the new iPhone XS. If only it was as easy to identify the swollen, waterlogged faces of your men as their bodies washed ashore the sandbar. That is, until you saw the exasperated eyes of your most trusted First Mate Cavendish bolt open, his sodden body clinging to a second chance at life.

3. Faster Wireless Charging

Never shy from leading the pack in cutting edge tech, Apple’s new iPhone XS will support even faster wireless Qi charging than its predecessors. Unfortunately, you couldn’t turbo charge Cavendish’s debilitated physical state back to full health; his body a pruned flesh bag of broken bones. Bound by a comradeship forged at sea, you both vowed to get off that shoal together no matter what.

4. The Screen

The 5.8-inch, 2436 x 1125 resolution OLED display screen on the iPhone XS will let you see the sharpest and most accurate display that Apple has yet to offer. Stranded on a sandbar for 13 days with only one other person for company, it became difficult to tell what you were seeing was accurate. Each passing piece of driftwood was a ship coming to rescue you, each cloud passing overhead was a face from your past beckoning you to come home, and after running out of lizards to cook, each wounded First Mate started to look a little bit like supper.

5. Water Resistance

Boasting an IP68 Water Resistance, the iPhone XS will easily be able to survive any accidental drops into the sink or toilet. But Cavendish wasn’t so lucky. The makeshift raft you constructed seemed water resistant enough, it even still floated when you got on. But when you pulled Cavendish’s rigid body on board, your last chance for escaping started to sink. It was too much weight, and in his condition Cavendish wouldn’t be able to help with rowing. The Law of the Sea demands that one must earn his keep, only the strong survive. You kicked your loyal First Mate overboard and watched as the current brought him back to shore. That was the last time you ever looked back.

6. No headphone adapter.

Wait, you still can’t just plug in headphones? And this time Apple won’t even include the clumsy adapter you need? On second thought, Cavendish would have been glad you spared him from this cruel world.

6 Revolutionary Features of the iPhone XS That Will Help You Forget About The First Mate You Left… was originally published in Slackjaw on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This past weekend a papal scandal broke out in the quiet south Jersey suburb of Washington Township.

The drama started on the Facebook page of Township Talk, a community based forum, popular for sharing clip-art inspired flyers for charity fundraising events, promotions for local businesses (their most recent post is for a trivia night hosted by a plumbing company), and general public service announcements like someone saying there was a lot of traffic on the Black Horse Pike.

On Friday afternoon Robin Mcknight-Franke posted on Township Talk’s page that a life size cutout of Pope Francis had gone missing during a fundraising event held at St. Charles Borromeo, a Catholic church in the town. The Facebook page shared her post, which included a picture of the holy cutout, asking residents “Have you seen the Pope??”

A great schism erupted in the comments section.

Marcie Stewart Dewey wrote “How does someone just walk out a door with the Pope?? (and I need this to stop showing up in my newsfeed, because I can’t stop laughing!)”

The official account of Township Talk came to the defense of the faith by answering back “The church isn’t laughing. They want it back.”

Gina Ann Marie Goestschius called for direct action. “Karma is definitely coming your way if you don’t return it. I am going to look around for a replacement and see if we can get someone to plexiglass it”.

Gina also spotted an opening for self-promotion, as her comment continued with “I am The Famous NJ Wedding Officiant & Notary- GINA (🙏) so I am a legit business too PRAYERS TO THOSE WHO TOOK IT”

Soon in the comments section new details emerged of the crime, with an incredible description of the purported suspect of this blasphemous caper:

“An older blonde woman 70ish carrying a shoulder bag with oxygen lines around her neck. The older woman was heard arguing that it was okay to take the Pope because the hall was part of a rec center, and not an actual church, and that her son dressed as the Pope last year for Halloween so he would want the Pope”.

The scandal gained gravitas as the Washington Township Police Department thought it necessary to post a status about the theft of a piece of property valued under $200, late Friday night. The post was shared over 700 times.

However as the story spread, not everyone was taking the pontiff’s disappearance as seriously as the authorities. On Saturday night Township Talk went again on the defensive, posting a long polemic against the unbelievers, the antipopes, who may be asking “Why all the fuss while ‘real’ crimes are being committed?”. For Township Talk, “regardless of what was taken, a planter of mums, a Welcome Sign, a child’s bike!~ it truly doesn’t’ matter it is still theft. And we all want our stuff back-immediately, if not sooner”.

Township Talk went even further, suggesting the pope heist was an opportunity for us to come together as a society. “Maybe it’s time we rally around St. Charles and let them know, we know the feeling. And hopefully the Woman described as taking it…just gives her back. Maybe it’ll restore our faith in People.” The post seems to have been deleted.

The papist saga’s concluded, fittingly, on Sunday. The original poster of missing cardboard pope status, Robin Mcknight-Franke, posted that “The Pope IS BACK HOME at St. Charles!!” Thank you Township Talk and all who got the word out there!”

Perhaps there was justified criticism that a piece of carboard was getting headlines and attention from the Police. But maybe that deleted Township Talk post was right, and that at the moment the missing Pope was miraculously returned, our faith in People was restored immediately, if not sooner.

In response to P.K. Subban’s electrifying first goal being waved off after a controversial offside challenge, the Nashville Predators have learned their lesson. Today players practiced with rulers affixed to their skates to ensure they are always onside, even under scrutiny of several slow motion cameras.

“It was our mistake to assume that hockey was about speedy and creative zone entries instead of constantly being aware of the precise position of your toenail at any given time” Subban said in between drills.

The players were seen skating hard to half ice, where they were then instructed to gently coast to the blue line make sure the rulers never crossed the threshold. Taking personal responsibility for last night’s reversed goal, Nashville forward Filip Forsberg spent most of the practice gliding along the blueline wearing a trench coat and holding a detective’s magnifying glass pointed at his feet.

“You always hear this is a game of inches, but last night showed it’s a game of millimeters” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “Luckily the rulers we bought the guys are double sided and have both.”

Some critics say that the offside challenge ignores the spirit of the rule and runs counter to the fast paced nature of the game. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman responded by clarifying the league’s reasoning behind the rule:

“People are always telling me ‘Booooo, boooo!’ and sometimes ‘Gary, you have to be more like the NBA’. So we took the best part of the NBA, the constant stopping of play, and added it to the NHL with a rule that can cancel a goal because of something that happened 10 minutes earlier.”

Despite the growing number of people who emerged seemingly out of nowhere to boo Bettman, he went on to say “I mean how exciting was it to see a superstar who is the story of this year’s playoffs, blast a shot to score the first goal of the Stanley Cup Final, and then have it followed with 5 minutes of blurry zoomed in shots of a skate blade that all conclude with the fantastic goal being taken away. Now that’s what we call a good on-ice product!”

Although the offside challenge will remain in effect the rest of the playoffs, change may be coming. Bettman hinted that the NHL may begin to review stadium security footage to disallow goals from players who parked over the line.

Predators Spotted Practicing with Rulers Attached to Skates to Avoid Future Offside Calls was originally published in Gongshow on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sabres General Manager Jack Eichel says he believes Jason Botterill is the perfect man for the fake job.

“Jason brings a ton of hockey knowledge and experience to this organization, and I can’t wait for him to start using his skill set in a way precisely dictated by me” said Eichel.

Eichel, the star player and recently self-appointed Buffalo GM (by what he describes as “divine snipe theory”), explained that during their search the Sabres considered tons of highly qualified candidates for the position of being a meaningless figurehead puppet.

“After looking around we just all became really excited by the direction that Jason can take this team“ Jack told us, seated upon a throne made out of hockey tape and empty Bud light bottles in the locker room.

He on went to add “and if it’s a direction I don’t like, well Jason has seen the fate of those who failed before him” as two strikingly familiar new water boys, Tim and Dan, worked diligently to create a moat of dip spit around GM Jack’s throne.

Sabres have utmost confidence in puppet hire Jason Botterill says GM Jack Eichel was originally published in Gongshow on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was a day like any other. I woke up, walked the 57 floors to reach the helipad of my building, and then frantically played Cello for hours while staring directly at the sun. A typical Tuesday. But little did I know that on the geographically ambiguous streets below me, the masses were gathering, and I was about to join the Pepsi Revolution with a fucking cello strapped on my back.

Absolutely drenched in sweat from the walk down to my apartment, I doused myself in baby oil to make sure I looked as wet as possible, and then sat in front of my gigantic brick wall to play cello again. Furiously thrusting the bow against my cello was my only release of the ever present angst I felt, an anguish personified by the beanie I decided to keep on despite my certain dehydration. Having temporarily quelled my demons, I cracked open a delicious Pepsi, and went onto on my sprawling balcony to think about oppression and what I should order for lunch. I took another sip of my Pepsi and, like the color of its limited edition can, soon my vision went black.

Waking from a Pepsi induced Fugue state, I suddenly found myself walking in front of my building, somehow completely dry, with my back mounted by a god damn cello in a hard case. Looking around I realized I was not on my way to try out that new Poke place, but instead I was in the midst of a revolutionary protest. Marching next to my new coiffed hair, Zara clad, under 25 years old comrades, I knew I was now a part of something bigger than myself, even bigger than the heavy ass cello I was carrying.

Together we were out there to stand against…something. I think it had to do with the general concept of peace, or to stop the focus group tested genetic breeding program that must have produced us. Either way, we were so united in our cause that we even created an impromptu jam circle, where some guy started playing electric guitar thanks to whoever brought the two-hundred foot extension cord. To be truthful, I started the whole session by sitting down in the middle of the street and playing cello because I was so tired from walking with the dang thing. But all revolutionaries have their crosses to bear.

Invigorated by the defiant spirit of us bards, the protest marched on until we reached a climatic impasse. The state was out in full force, displaying its monopolized violence with a line of policemen at the ready to crush our rebellion. A frustrated photographer steeled our resolve, preaching that we must stay committed to our cause of upending the very socioeconomic institutions that exploited and pitted us against each other, and we must not back down until a new society representative of all people is realized. We were ready to charge when a figure surrounded by a dazzling white light stepped forward. It was our leader, Kendall Jenner, and she bravely said “wait, I got a better idea”.

Supreme Leader Kendall fearlessly walked over to a cop, and offered him an ice cold Pepsi. At that moment all we knew was silence, for our breath left us as the fate of our revolution to stop something or other hung in the balance. Admittedly, by this point I had fallen on my back from exhaustion and because of the Cello case could not flip myself over. So there I laid like the patient tortoise, waiting, listening, and then I heard it. Pop. Hiss. Cheers.

Thanks to Pepsi, racism was over, peace would be everlasting, and most importantly we could finally Live Boldly. Now that you know our tale, I ask you one thing: can you please come back to that street, help me up, and get this cello off my back?

1. Loud fountains

2. $15 minimums for credit card purchases

3. Platonic Forms

4. The rise of midcentury furniture

5. How geese look

6. Jimmy Wales asking you for $3

7. Anytime someone has waved to you

8. Pablo Honey

9. Bundling of toxic subprime mortgages

10. Having to fold fitted sheets

11. The dread we feel as we stand at the precipice of absolute freedom

12. Starbucks being out of Kind bars