Sure, you love the buttery, chemical-y, cholesterol-y flavor of a nice bag of hot, steaming popcorn. But who has the time or cardiovascular stamina to place a bag into the microwave, push a button, and wait up to three minutes?

Americans will not stand for having to microwave their own popcorn. ("Stand" should be understood to be a figure of speech.) Today, you, the consumer, increasingly demand that global food science conglomerates cater to your hunger with pre-popped bags of popcorn, ready to be opened and enjoyed immediately. All the artificial flavor, none of the waiting. And twice the preservatives. Ad Age explains what's driving the explosive growth of the "ready-to-eat" popcorn segment:

“Microwave popcorn at its inception was all about convenience, having only to wait three minutes to get warm, delicious popcorn,” said Colleen Bailey, Orville [Redenbacher]'s brand director. But “as times have changed, the definition of convenience has changed.”

“You don't have to take the extra step of opening the box, opening the wrapper,” and “hoping you have the skill to watch it appropriately so you don't ruin the product,” said Beth Bloom, a food and drinks analyst with market researcher Mintel.

You don't have to take the extra step. Opening the box. Opening the wrapper.

Hoping you have the skill not to ruin it. (The microwave popcorn).

[Ad Age. Photo: FB]

Child actors Dylan and Cole Sprouse spent their formative years printing money for Disney.

Between the years 2005 and 2008, the twins, previously known best for appearing as one alongside Adam Sandler in Big Daddy, starred in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, one of the most successful Disney Channel shows of all time.

By the end of its original run, The Suite Life had become one of only three Disney Channel Original to air over 65 episodes, helping the Sprouse Bros. snag a spot on People magazine's list of the world's wealthiest teens.

Disney sought to capitalize on the heartthrobs' draw with the 2008 spinoff The Suite Life on Deck, which went on to become the top scripted series among tweens two years in a row (beating venerable Miley Cyrus vehicle Hannah Montana).

By 2010, Dylan and Cole were the fourth highest paid kid actors in the world — second only to Selena Gomez among Disney's stable of on-screen children.

It was a shock, therefore, when, just one year later, Dylan and Cole decided to walk away from the negotiating table after being invited by Disney to re-up for another season.

Now, for the first time, Dylan is speaking out about what really happened in that meeting that made the twins opt for college in lieu of buckets of cash.

Even if you don't know who these guys are or why they were once billed as "the most successful twins since Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen," the story of their exit from Disney is a fascinating insider's look at how the Mouse Factory treats its talent once it gets old enough to think for itself.

[H/T: Reddit]

New York is forever on the verge of some kind of collapse. We worry about the next big storm. Or a the next economic downturn. Or just a good ol’ rat tsunami. But last year, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (or NYCEDC) called our attention to a very immediate—and underreported—crisis: The decay of thousands of piles that support the city’s riverfront.

Pilings are the wood or steel columns that hold up the piers that edge the city. They're often anchored a dozen or more feet below the waterline, and they need to withstand pummeling by storm surges, sea salt, and plain old wear and tear. The problem with the rotting pilings is that it’s mind-bogglingly expensive to repair them—far more costly than whatever’s being built up top. Over the next few decades, the city will probably spend billions of dollars reinforcing the 300-odd miles of riverfront land they own. It’s either that, or let it all fall into the sea. It’s the kind of unglamorous problem that’s going to confront the city more and more often as it ages.

In December, the NYCEDC launched an open call for alternative ways to fix up the pilings, asking the hivemind of local engineers and designers to come up with cheaper, smarter methods. Several weeks ago, the group announced an unlikely winner: D-Shape, the famed Italian concrete 3D printing company, which received $50k for a concept that would 3D scan the old pilings and 3D print concrete reinforcements.

Here’s how their scheme would work. A team of workers would use a 3D scanner to take accurate reading of each piling. Then, based on the scans, they’d use a generative algorithm to create the ideal structural reinforcements for each piling. The team at D-Shape would print each column and pack it in an inflatable raft, which would be towed into the harbor and slowly deflated. That would allow a team of divers to control the placement of the reinforcements, as they sink into the harbor. All in all, the team estimates the plan could save the city $2.9 billion dollars. And if the city decides to test it, the project could be the first successful example of 3D printing at an infrastructural scale.

D-Shape, if you’re not familiar with it, is the project of Enrico Dini, an Italian engineer who’s spent the past decade (and millions of dollars) building a 3D printer that can print concrete. Some call Dini a revolutionary, others call him a fool—there’s even a documentary about him, The Man Who Prints Houses, that casts him as a hapless guy who’s given up his whole life to a single idea. But he has plenty of proponents, as well. “Think about what the printing press did for type,” says JF Brandon, the CEO of the company’s Canadian arm and its rep in New York. “This has the same kind of potential to revolutionize a whole industry.”

Dini beneath one of his creations.

Brandon is in charge of raising capital for the first stateside D-Shape (he hopes to have one up and running by December, but refuses to say how much it’ll cost). Part of his job is to prove what the D-Shape can do, with projects like the piling reinforcements. He's also heading up a collaboration with the European Space Agency to test the idea of 3D printing habitats on the moon, and recruiting artists to sculpt using the D-Shape. The idea, he explains, is to capture the public’s imagination and pique the interest of companies who might be interested in investing. Piling repair isn’t as exciting as all that, but it combines the benefits of the machine with all the good stuff about precast concrete (it’s cheap!) and cast-in-place concrete (it’s high quality!).

Brandon stands with a sculpture printed on the D-Shape, image via.

The D-Shape itself—and thus the piling repair project—are a long way from being ready for widespread use, and it's likely to be a long time before reliable structural components will emerge from the bed of the machine on a regular basis. But as a think piece about how rapid prototyping could eventually solve unique infrastructural problems, their plan is spot on. Maybe Dini was only slightly off the mark: D-Shape wasn't meant to print new structures, but to print improvements to the old ones.

[Image via Infoniac; Lead image via the European Space Agency]

Support for the death penalty among Americans is hovering around a 40-year low. Nevertheless, enthusiastic legislators from Bumfuck all the way to Hickville are taking it upon themselves to help their states execute death row inmates with greater dispatch.

The WSJ reports that some of America's most friendly, down-home states, like Florida and North Carolina, are working feverishly to make it easier to kill people locked in their prisons. In Florida, for example, the legislature passed a bill to "mandate that the state execute a prisoner within 180 days after the governor signs a death warrant," because why wait around for "appeals courts" or "careful review of the facts" when it comes to the state taking a citizen's life?

Real Americans will not stand for sitting around and "getting it right." The time for action is now.

Though many state legislators are admirably bloodthirsty, none can top Arkansas's Bart Hester, who's working to end his state's eight-year execution drought, for sheer eloquence:

"There was no talk of letting the death penalty linger on, dormant and unused," said Sen. Bart Hester, a Republican who filed the bill that sets up the new procedures. "This was a bipartisan position. Arkansans want to see a working death penalty."

Arkansas should be proud, as always.

[WSJ. Photo: AP]

The Red Cross office in Jalalabad is under attack after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the gate of the ICRC while two other insurgents entered the building. So far, six staff members have been rescued safely.

Her daughter Kate proves herself a hero every day just by being pretty and pleasant, but recently it was Carole Middleton who brought glory and honor to the Middleton name by yanking some random bitch off the street (not Pippa).

One of Carole and Michael Middleton's neighbors, artist Basia Hamilton, told the Telegraph that Mrs. Middleton found the Hamiltons' missing dog by the side of the road a little while back and, instead of killing it or selling it or spray painting its tail black and introducing it as her own black-tailed dog, returned it to its owner.

“Mrs Middleton was driving in her car when she spotted a dog by the road. She got out and, when she saw from the collar that it was ours, brought it home. She is very kind.”

Hamilton told the newspaper that the dog had "disappeared" and that she and her husband "didn't know where it could be." The answer, as it turns out: right there in their neighborhood. That's enough mysteries solved for one day.

Earlier this week, Kate Middleton's boozy, wildcard uncle told papers that the Duchess is planning on bringing her baby to her parents' home for the first six weeks after it's born in July.

However, a sketchy village where the roads are ruled by dirty old street hounds and every once in a while a living thing gets "disappeared" doesn't sound like the safest place for a baby.

[Image via AP]

To contact the author of this post, email caity@gawker.com.

Now that the Crackstarter has closed, you're probably scouring the internet for another worthy cause to crowd-fund. We've found one for you! Zosia Mamet and her sister Clara Mamet, both children of David Mamet, have started a hipster folk band and no one is giving them a penny to make their music video.

Excuse me, that was a rude exaggeration. As of writing, nine people have donated $456 of the $32,000 goal. So there is a full 98.6 percent left that you can fund, if this band suits your fancy.

But why, you might ask, has the internet failed to leap to fund a Girls girl's musical whimsy? Are hipster folk bands with an inept banjo player no longer the latest? Oh, they still are. But here are some items from their Kickstarter campaign that might have turned off possible funders:

• The reason given for the band's existence, according to Zosia: "an excuse to spend more time together."
• The reason for the band's continuation, according to Clara: "I took up the banjo and started playing it very badly but I think that was reason enough for us to continue."
• The reason behind writing their first song: both sisters have just had their hearts broken. Actually, this acceptable reason to write a first song. Continue.
• The reason they want make the music video, according to Clara: "The song just kind of happened, we wrote it in a matter of hours, so to do an actual music video to the song would be really kind of a full circle thing."
• The reason they want you to fund the music video, according to Zosia: they want to get to know you better. "It's also a way for us to get to know you better, our music has been something that we have kept to ourselves, like a sisterly bond, but we'd love to share it with you guys."

The Mamet gals have even cooked up a little teaser video to convince you to dig deep (putting the Crackstarter to shame). It's got a bunch of pretty photos with that weird Ken Burns effect thing, punctuated by a selfie-style video of Clara (sitting in a car?) and Zosia (sitting on a pile of logs outside a cabin).

Oh, and of course, where would a Kickstarter be without the perks? The largest pledge option ($8,000) to fund the Cabin Sisters' music video gets you Zosia Mamet's director-style set chair from Season 2 of Girls with "Shoshanna" embroidered in its back. $2,500 gets you a signed banjo. Both prizes are obviously still available. Hurry.

[image via Getty]

Kotaku Sony President Trolls Everyone | Deadspin Nobody Can Hijack A Playoff Game Quite Like An NBA Referee Can | Gizmodo Behind the Plan To Save New York’s Harbors With a 3D Printer | Lifehacker The Science of Practice: What Happens When You Learn a New Skill

For the time being, at least, Reddit appears to have abandoned trying to find real murderers and is now focused on fictional crimes. First up, the surprisingly convincing "Megan Draper as Sharon Tate Theory."

Tired of passers-by pissing in the alley behind their locksmith shop, a pair of pranksters from Allentown, PA, decided to install a surprise shower for future would-be public urinators.

Using surveillance footage captured over the last year, a highlight reel was produced showing the Allentown alley douche in action.

[H/T: The Blemish]

"Just Buy a Bike!" the editors of the New York Observer encourage their readers today. That is, if you must ride a bike—and the only reason the Observer editors can think of that you might want to is "to feel morally superior"—you should not participate in the Citi Bike bike share program, inaugurated this week.

Bikes, they write, are "cheap" ("less than the price of dinner for two at some of the city’s finer dining establishments," which puts us at, what, $800ish?), and obviously you have enough room to store one in your townhouse.

The Observer objects to Citi Bike not because the bikes are hideous or dangerous—the editors mention, but shrug off, the possibility of "accidents involving goofy tourists," which for many New Yorkers is a plus—but because of... socialism. Yes! Citi Bike "represents another governmental incursion into the private marketplace." THE RED MENACE, slowly pedaling around every corner, in half-hour increments!

Okay, but. This is 180 degrees wrong. It is exactly backwards. Citi Bike, run by Alta Bicycle Share, is a for-profit business, and functions as a massive marketing campaign for Citi Bank (flashback to the Times in 2011: "The department said contractors also had to consult with city officials on all sponsorship plans, to avoid making the bikes into rolling advertisements." HEH). The city government has, essentially, sold some of its parking spaces to a private concern. It has reduced its "incursion."

And anyway, what private marketplace? The government is already "incurring" into the private transit marketplace by, uh, building roads that people can use for free, and owning parking spaces for which it levies artificially low rent, and refusing to charge market prices for the use of its roads. If anyone's receiving a huge city subsidy for their preferred mode of transportation, it's not the people driving the big blue bikes.

(So, I don't know: If I "feel superior to the rest of" New York while riding my Citi Bike, it might because I'm not suckling at the government teat like a car driver.)

What do The Editors want? The Observer thinks that instead of "impos[ing] its own solution," the government should "encourage business to develop creative solutions to gridlock." "Business" can't "solve" gridlock because gridlock is a problem of pricing a good—the road—over which the state has a monopoly. The government needs to "impose its own solution." The market solution (short of auctioning off all our roads) is to introduce a variable pricing model, like a congestion tax, that would internalize the previously external costs of gridlock. Attempts to introduce a tax or fees like this are routinely defeated, usually by politicians who represent people who drive cars.

(The "creative" solution would be to ban cars from New York City forever.)

Fewer people die during economic recessions. So that's something.

A sad new study proves that moms are the top earners in four of ten American households. It may seem like a positive thing that these working women are top earners, but it either means the woman is a single mother or that the "dad" is unemployed.

Even though women are generally smarter than men, they earn less because of the entrenched patriarchy. (Women are not necessarily smart, they're just smarter than men, the way birds are smarter than snails or whatever.) So when a woman is the "main breadwinner," the household tends to have less money than when the man is the top earner—again, because of the entrenched patriarchy. Did you know women were not even allowed to vote or go to bars or even get tattoos not so long ago? History is full of such examples.

Anyway:

"This change is just another milestone in the dramatic transformation we have seen in family structure and family dynamics over the past 50 years or so," said Kim Parker, associate director with the Pew Social & Demographic Trends Project. "Women's roles have changed, marriage rates have declined — the family looks a lot different than it used to. The rise of breadwinner moms highlights the fact that, not only are more mothers balancing work and family these days, but the economic contributions mothers are making to their households have grown immensely."

In 1960, only 11% of moms were the big breadwinners. The rest lounged around in costumes from that Mad Men show. Things have changed. It is now impossible to raise children, three out of four parents say, because mom and dad (if he's even around) both have to work all the time to pay the mortgage and the credit cards and probably the student loans. It's just a crushing grind, ending in death. Plus, kids! Who watches the kids? It's just impossible, this whole situation. And Marissa Mayer is all, "Now you have to come to the office every day so you can read on Google News how Yahoo! just bought American Apparel and the Coachella festival."

One way to be the default Top Earner in your house is to be a single mom. A recent study showed 77% of women under 30 shack up with a dude instead of marrying. And that's fine, except economically it's a road to a place with no money.

The loss of manufacturing and "skilled labor" positions is one reason why so few American men have jobs today. Women are now more likely to have a college degree than men, who are dumber, so those jobs requiring an education are increasingly filled by women. But women are still paid less than a man in the same job, if that man had a degree and could get a job.

At the same time, marriage rates have fallen to record lows. Forty percent of births now occur out of wedlock, leading to a rise in single-mother households. Many of these mothers are low-income with low education, and more likely to be black or Hispanic.

In all, 13.7 million U.S. households with children under age 18 now include mothers who are the main breadwinners. Of those, 5.1 million, or 37 percent, are married, while 8.6 million, or 63 percent, are single. The income gap between the families is large—$80,000 in median family income for married couples vs. $23,000 for single mothers.

It's pretty hard to find even a single sustainable part of the American economy and social structure.

[Photo via Shutterstock.]

A Portland, Maine, physician believes he's found the cure for this country's ailing health care system: No more health insurance.

Dr. Michael Ciampi announced on April 1st that he would no longer be accepting insurance in any form as payment for his services.

But this was no April Fool's joke: Dr. Ciampi says he decided to cut out the middleman and deal directly with his patients.

He even posted a price list on his website — from brief visits ($50) to complete physicals ($150) to minor surgery ($200-$250).

Though he did lose a few hundred patients out of about 2,000, Ciampi told the Bangor Daily News that the new policy has allowed him to reduce his overhead and pass the savings on to the consumer.

"I’m freed up to do what I think is right for the patients," said Ciampi, who is now able to make house calls and even negotiate discounts for patients with financial hardships.

The doctor understands that some patients with insurance might find the hassle of having to seek reimbursement themselves too difficult and would opt for another PCP, but he fully expects to make up for the loss by attracting the self-employed and individuals without insurance or with unacceptably high deductibles.

Or even just people looking for a bargain: At least one patient who was being charged $160 per office visit before is now paying less than half that.

And Ciampi hopes this is just the beginning.

"If more doctors were able to do this, that would be real health care reform," he is quoted as saying. "That’s when we’d see the cost of medicine truly go down."

[screengrab via BDN]

A New Mexico man who was drinking, driving, speeding, and having sex all at the same time unsurprisingly crashed his car into another vehicle after running a red light.

It gets much better.

After his Ford Explorer struck the other car, 25-year-old Luis Briones' road sex partner Natasha Carroll, 21, was ejected from the SUV, landing naked on the 2600 block of Albuquerque's Pennsylvania NE.

Briones stepped out of his car for a moment to observe the scene before attempting to leave the injured Carroll behind.

Luckily, a vigilant witness was able to remove Briones' keys from the ignition, forcing him to flee on foot.

Not quite done being the drunkest driver who ever drank, Briones, naked save for one shoe and a pair of black shorts worn inside-out, decided to hide from the authorities in a nearby cactus patch.

He was ultimately apprehended and taken into custody on charges of aggravated DWI, reckless driving and evading police.

A half-full bottle of vodka was later found in his car.

Carroll was taken to a nearby hospital where she was treated for facial lacerations. It is unclear if she too will be charged with a crime.

[screengrab via KRQE]

A recent study shows that for people with schizophrenia, creating an avatar representation of voices heard in their head helps to alleviate the pressure of these voices and can even cause them to disappear.

An initial study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, examined patients with schizophrenia who had failed to respond to medication. These patients were encouraged to customize avatars to match the voices they were hearing. A psychiatrist spoke to the patients through these on-screen avatars during several therapy sessions. The patients were motivated to criticize the voices and to tell them to go away. The on-screen avatar eventually began to say things like "All right, I'll leave you alone," as well as offering helpful comments.

After six sessions, the majority of patients said the voices had improved. They said they heard the voices less frequently, or they were less distressed by them. Three of the patients said the voices had stopped entirely.

However, only sixteen of the 26 patients who initially started the trial managed to finish the sessions. The researchers say that the low completion rate was most likely due to fear the patients had of their voices, which probably "bullied" them into dropping out.

The trial will expand to include nearly 150 patients starting next month at the King's College London Institute of Psychiatry. The professor who will lead this expanded study, Thomas Craig, says he hopes that if the treatment is helpful, it could be "widely available in the UK within just a couple of years."

[image via Kheng Guan Toh, Shutterstock]

Robyn has a new song and it's tremendous. (But manage those expectations) It's not actually her song, she's just guesting on a new Lonely Island song called "Go Kindergarten." But! Remain interested, because the Robyn parts are sort of like a parody of a Robyn song, by Robyn. Oh and she also doesn't appear in the music video. However, as the video features whacky pants and people shaking it, she would probably approve.

[Vulture]

In the upcoming, ass-kicking video game Wolfenstein: The New Order, the Polish protagonist B. J. Blazkowicz encounters a gray-haired Nazi officer named Engel. Blazkowicz is undercover, posing as a Nazi underling. The officer compliments Blazkowicz on his Aryan features and then puts him to the test. She says she wants to be sure he has pure blood.

Engel shows Blazkowicz some pictures and asks him some strange questions. He answers. She lays a pistol on the table between them. She waits.

Blazkowicz doesn't go for the gun, and the officer lets him walk away. The test was just a meaningless game, she cackles. His answers didn't matter.

In other moments in Wolfenstein, Blazkowicz certainly does go for the gun and doesn't let Nazis laugh in his face. He's the star of this first-person shooter, after all. He uses the heaviest machine guns imaginable to kill Nazi after Nazi. He shoots Nazi robots, too.

In one level, Blazkowicz discovers some Nazi plans. He looks over some documents. They're written in Hebrew. He's able to translate.

The hints are there that B.J. Blazkowicz, video game killer of Nazis since his debut in 1992's Wolfenstein 3D, is Jewish.

If only it was that clear. The new game's creators simply won't say.

"It's never explicitly stated in the game," a spokesperson for the game's U.S.-based publisher Bethesda told me, saying the game's creators at the Swedish development studio Machine Games decided to keep things vague. "They leave it up to the player to interpret."

This feels typical of video games, a purportedly brash medium that seems forever more timid than movies, books and other forms of entertainment. Why not be explicit? Why not say that we're playing as a Jewish killer of Nazis instead of just hinting at it? Why not animate the action of the game with that strong added motivational push?

Consider that video games have long been filled with Nazis, yet they haven't included many Jewish characters. More to the point, games have recreated battle after battle from World War II, but good luck finding a major World War II game that mentions the Holocaust, let alone identifies the Nazis as the genocidal perpetrators of that horror.

Video games have long been filled with Nazis, yet they haven't included many Jewish characters.

The evil of the video game Nazi is usually taken as a given or presented as a generic awfulness. In The Saboteur, a 2009 game featuring an Irish freedom fighter in occupied France, Nazis are simply cruel to everyone in Paris who isn't German. In the more realistic Brothers in Arms games, Nazis are the powerfully-equipped enemy force that poses a strategic challenge to a small crew of American fighting men. There are no concentration camp liberations in Call of Duty.

Let's check in with Hollywood, shall we? The Oscar-nominated film Inglourious Basterds features Jewish Americans killing Nazis. It mentions that the Nazis killed Jews. It has a guy nicknamed the Bear Jew bludgeoning a Nazi with a baseball bat.

And what of video games?

The first of the progressive BioShock games includes a Jewish supporting character, Brigid Tenenbaum, who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz, though the game never refers to the notorious concentration camp by name.

A controversial independent game proposed to give players a chance to violently liberate a concentration camp.

The protagonist of Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned is Jewish. Here's a game called The Shivah. And... surely I'm short a few examples. Pray tell, what are they?

It's curious what's holding games back, though a look at how infrequently major video games touch on sensitive issues such as racism or sexism suggests a general reticence to make their audience uncomfortable.

It's also, perhaps, hard to figure out how to explore unpleasant topics while making a game fun, and "fun" is what so many game creators and game players expect. The result is curious: we're wracking our brains to think of major video games that mention that Nazis killed Jews and we're struggling to come up with any.

There may also be legal and content concerns. Games sell well in Germany, yet depictions of Nazi symbols are outlawed in that country. When Wolfenstein's publisher Bethesda distributed screenshots of their new game, they warned that some shots should not be shown in certain countries:

The images in this folder are not allowed to be used in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It can contain elements which are strictly illegal and which can be fined with jail. Please use officially approved materials in the GSA folder.

When the publisher announced the game, which involves Blazkowicz fighting against Nazis in a fictional future in which the Reich won World War II, it included this proviso:

Wolfenstein: The New Order is a fictional story set in an alternate universe in the 1960’s. Names, characters, organizations, locations and events are either imaginary or depicted in a fictionalized manner. The story and contents of this game are not intended to and should not be construed in any way to condone, glorify or endorse the beliefs, ideologies, events, actions, persons or behavior of the Nazi regime or to trivialize its war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity.

I asked Tom Hall about B.J. Blazkowicz. As lead designer of Wolfenstein 3D, he created the character. He could at least tell me if Blazkowicz was supposed to be Jewish, I figured. There'd been rumors that he was Jewish and of Polish descent.

"That was never specified or intended at the time, though I intended him to be of Polish descent," Hall said over e-mail.

Hall: "That was never specified or intended at the time."

Hall noted that Commander Keen, another video game character, was Blazkowicz's grandson and "was based on my childhood." Hall is not Jewish. "But they are characters and not me," he added, "so...we shall see how B.J.'s story is told over time!"

We'll see. We'll see which stories video game creators can tell and, more importantly, which they're are willing to tell.

And what if Blazkowicz is Jewish? "An interesting angle," Hall remarked. "[It] deepens the meaning of his actions and struggle!"

To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.

Photo: Stephen Brashear/Invision/AP

Good news for people who like good news about cats who like bad news: Grumpy Cat, the Internet's most beloved foul-tempered feline, has signed a deal to star in a "Garfield-like" family movie about a talking cat.

Grumpy Cat's rep Al Hassas and manager Ben Lashes (a cat with a manager and a rep — what an age we live in!) have joined forces with Todd Garner and Sean Robins of Broken Road Productions (Zookeeper, Jack and Jill) to package the as-yet-untitled magnum opus.

In fact, all that is known about the film so far is that Grumpy — whose real name is Tarder Sauce, or Tard for short — will be live-action rather than animated.

"This started off as a picture of a cat, but rare is an image that evokes that much comedy," Garner told Deadline. "You read all of the memes and the comments, and one is funnier than the next. We think we can build a big family comedy around this character."

For her part, Grumpy is no stranger to the spotlight: Named the "most influential cat of 2012" by MSNBC, she's fresh off of winning a Webby Award for Meme of the Year.

[H/T: Uproxx, Nerdcore, image via MikeHandyArt @ RedBubble]

After being all like this is just a one-time thing about Arrested Development, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, now says he would be "willing" to continue the series if the "talent were willing." This playing hard to get is toying with our hearts.