Entertainment
Surreal, Must-See YouTube Film Is Equal Parts Comfort Food And Nightmare Fuel
By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you grew up with cable in your house during the 90s or early aughts, you may remember a very specific, but hard-to-describe feeling. You fall asleep on the couch watching one of your programs (for me it was always Golden Era Simpsons), only to wake up hours later. Both of your arms are asleep from dozing off in an awkward position, and your show is no longer broadcasting.
Instead, you find yourself watching late-night paid programming that probably plays pretty normal when you’re more lucid, but comes off as straight from the uncanny valley because you’re stuck in that strange mental state that can only be experienced when you’re on the verge of sleep paralysis.
The short film Indistinct Chatter – Have You Ever Seen a Cow?, created by YouTuber KrainagrzybowTV, captures this hyperspecific mental state through its stop-motion visuals. The whole thing plays out like a TV left on overnight, as the sleeping subject (you, the viewer) absorbs whatever images show up on screen, creating a sort of alternate reality that makes sense in the moment but becomes increasingly disturbing the more you think about it.
Oddly Soothing, But Also Frightening
Indistinct Chatter is one of those shorts you have to see to believe. It clocks in at just over 30 minutes, and there are a handful of follow-up videos that range anywhere from one to two minutes. The content is all the same in the sense that it’s surreal, occupying that strange liminal space between consciousness and twilight that’s hard to put into words, but something we’ve all experienced before.
The main video in the series follows the life and consciousness of a little boy named Rajinder. He’s seen listening to his radio and watching television before bed, and then he’s whisked into a world full of windows and empty rooms, not unlike what’s seen in The Backrooms. From there, the whole thing becomes a stop-motion fever dream where in-universe advertisements (for products like Good Windows and a canned meat known as Bramble Bor) and television characters overlap not only with each other, but with Rajinder’s thoughts as he drifts in and out of sleep.
A Proper Visual Representation Of The Strangest Feeling
Like I said, if you’ve ever fallen asleep while watching late-night cable during your formative years, Indistinct Chatter feels all too familiar. I could be guessing on the inspiration for its title, but it reads like the kind of closed-caption display used when people are murmuring in the background, letting the viewer know something is happening just beyond the spectrum of what they’re supposed to hear. It’s like watching an episode of Home Improvement, falling asleep, and then imagining you’re in the episode too, but everybody is slightly off while acting like it’s just another wacky adventure filmed in front of a live studio audience.
As the film progresses, Rajinder’s imagination becomes increasingly unhinged as he befriends a sentient cabbage creature named Fungela, who is also featured in advertisements and becomes increasingly aggressive as he continues to play with her. By the time the whole thing wraps up, you will feel like a changed person. Not because it’s terrifying at face value, but because you’ll feel seen, as if somebody finally found a way to visually represent that weird, fleeting state of consciousness we all experience at one point or another, but struggle to put into words.
If you like surreal dreamscapes and sitcom allusions, and miss those weird blocks of late-night infomercials, Indistinct Chatter is well worth a watch and can be viewed on YouTube.
Entertainment
SNL opens with another Pete Hegseth press conference
Saturday Night Live returned from a brief hiatus Saturday with a cold open depicting a joint press conference between Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel, with “Master of None” creator Aziz Ansari playing the latter.
Colin Jost’s Hegseth hit the familiar beats at the podium — performative machismo, military bravado, and repeated jabs at the secretary’s well-documented drinking habits. This time, Hegseth arrived at the mic hauling an oversized pitcher of scotch, which he assured the room was his one for the day. He then fielded questions from the press about the administration’s handling of U.S. strikes on Iran, dismissing each reporter with the particular brand of smug confidence that has become central to Jost’s portrayal of the character.
Ansari’s Patel proved to be the sketch’s standout, arriving to defend his tenure at the FBI and proceeding to do so poorly. The bit’s centerpiece involved Patel simultaneously denying and admitting that he had locked himself out of his work email for 36 hours after forgetting he had changed his password to “kashmeoutside69.”
Funnily enough, Patel was reportedly locked out of his FBI email in real life and believed, at least momentarily, that he was being fired. As the sketch demonstrated, the distance between SNL’s Cold Open and the actual news cycle has rarely felt smaller.
Entertainment
NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 3, 2026
Today’s Connections: Sports Edition will require some knowledge of popular U.S. sports and pop culture.
As we’ve shared in previous hints stories, this is a version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.
Like the original Connections, the game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier — so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for the latest Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections: Sports Edition?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication’s sports coverage. The sports Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words, and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake — players get up to four mistakes before the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
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Here’s a hint for today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Here are today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
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Yellow: In Good Shape
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Green: Current NFL Head Coaches
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Blue: Famous Sports “Curses”
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Purple: Starts of Big Ten Names
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections: Sports Edition #586 is…
What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?
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In Good Shape: AGIL, ATHLETIC, FIT, STRONG
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Current NFL Head Coaches: COEN, GLENN, REID, RYANS
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Famous Sports “Curses”: BAMBINO, BILLY GOAT, MADDEN, SI COVER
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Starts of Big Ten Names: BOIL, BUCK, CORN, HAWK
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new sports Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
Entertainment
The DJI Mini 5 Pro drone is $500 off right now at Amazon — save on this content creator favorite
SAVE $500: The DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo is on sale for $1,099 at Amazon. That’s $500 off the list price of $1,599.
$1,099
at Amazon
$1,599
Save $500
What’s going to happen to the drone market in 2026? Due to legislative pressure on DJI imports in the U.S., there is so much uncertainty at the moment. We expected stock issues by now, but we’re actually seeing strong discounts on some of the best drones in the DJI range.
The DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo is on sale for $1,099 at Amazon. That’s $500 off and close to the record-low price.
The DJI Mini 5 Pro offers a huge 1-inch CMOS sensor, so whether you’re shooting 50MP stills or 4K/120fps slow-motion, the dynamic range more than delivers. The DJI Mini 5 Pro also makes use of forward-facing LiDAR that powers the new Nightscape Omnidirectional Sensing, meaning it can dodge branches, power lines, and buildings even when you don’t have eyes on your drone.
This popular drone offers 42GB of internal storage, meaning you can actually capture a full session of 4K footage without needing an external card as backup. That can have a massive impact for content creators.
Mashable Deals
Save $500 on the DJI Mini 5 Pro this weekend.
Kimi Antonelli on Miami GP pole; race moved up due to forecast
SNL opens with another Pete Hegseth press conference
