GUYS AND DOLLS

“There’s a Ken doll with a man bun’’ isn’t just something you repeat to yourself to loosen your mouth up before a big speech, it’s also a fact: There’s a Ken doll with a man bun. It’s just part of a sweeping renovation of Kendom, as Mattel launches its diverse selection of 15 new Kens inhabiting three different body types with seven different skin tones. The new Ken will also have nine different hairstyles and a wide array of cute outfits and accessories. (Barbie, gurl, I think we need to have a chat.)

TURN DOWN FOR WHAT

Never underestimate the power of humans to find something bad and make it exponentially, almost beautifully worse. Case in point: Those volume control thingies on Internet videos. Most of us had already arrived at some unconscious consensus that they are, objectively speaking, the worst. But a competitive band of restless Web developers and designers on Reddit observed the lightly challenging and swiftly upgraded it to the maddeningly impossible.

FAKE SNOOZE

Also: Never underestimate the power of humans to find something bad and just kind of leave it there indefinitely. A Pennsylvania man named Jerry Lynn decided to inform a local news affiliate (who may have then mentioned it to the entire Internet) that an alarm clock he’d lowered into a wall in 2004 as part of an attempted cockamamie home improvement hack had remained there, stuck and sounding its daily alarm call from the behind the drywall for 13 years. On the upside, their mice haven’t been late to work once.

SO MUCH WINNING

I know nothing seems to be going right out there in the world right now — there’s war abroad, discord at home, corruption and mendacity at every level. But I have some good news to share. Turns out you can beat “Threes’’! That stupid addictive game I’ve been playing/coping with for three years? Someone beat it. Translation: The world is a place of wonder and anything is possible. Or, there’s nothing left to look forward to. One of those.

MICHAEL ANDOR BRODEUR

Michael Andor Brodeur can be reached at mbrodeur@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MBrodeur.