summer

Six odd things Germans do in the summer. Spoiler: it involves beer, singing and getting naked...

Yes, these are real and yes, that is a giant floating eggplant that you can ride on. 



Sure, you'd be stupid to bring your phone into the pool with you but that doesn't mean you have to go without expressing yourself exclusively through pictures. Just take these giant emoji pool toys with you. 



Now you can spend your entire weekend floating on a giant poop. What a time to be alive. 

There's more than one way to skin a watermelon.

And YouTuber Mark Rober certainly understands this. After all, he did teach the Internet last year how to make a watermelon smoothie with a coat hanger and a drill.

He's back now with a new watermelon trick. While this one may not be as useful as the smoothie, it can still make you the coolest person at that final summer BBQ.

It's pretty simple, too.

1. Just skin a watermelon.

2. Rub it down with a (new) scrubby sponge.

3. Hollow out ANOTHER watermelon.

4. And slide that first watermelon into the skin of the second.

There you go! You are the proud owner of a very strange looking watermelon creation.

President Obama's tech savvy staff want you to know the Commander in Chief is up on modern music, so they released his Spotify playlist Aug. 14.

According to the description in the playlist:

President hand-picked his favorite songs for a summer playlist. Take a listen to his 20 picks for a summer night.

With that description, it's a little strange that the first song listed is John Coltrane's My Favorite Things. Don't get me wrong, this is actually one of my personal favorite Coltrane songs, but it's most definitely a Christmas-time song, right?

Things pick up a little bit, getting way more modern with a Beyoncé track from her newest album featuring the incredible Frank Ocean.

It's an eclectic list of oldies and contemporary-ish songs from a broader variety of artists that we would expect. There's Nina Simone, Erika Badu and some Miles Davis. Never would have picked Obama for a Leonard Cohen fan, either. That's some good taste.

Things mostly stay at an easy, grooving pace with The Lumineers Stubborn Love as the wildest song on the list.

The weirdest track to us is Frank Sinatra's The Best is Yet to Come. Nothing against Ol' Blue Eyes, it just doesn't seem to fit the rest.

You can rock along to some presidential jams over here and tell us what you think about the President's musical tastes.

WARNING: Language in this video.

Seventy-two percent of the U.S. is experiencing dry or drought conditions, and wildfire season has barely begun.

Careful with those fireworks, and remember -- it could always be worse.

[motherjones]

Because way too many of us are stuck in the office today, counting the hours until summer's most anticipated five-day weekend begins.

[vvv]