Irish jockey Chris Meehan was riding in a hurdle race in Merano, Italy, when his horse threw him, and he was kicked in the face as he fell. The kick broke his nose and bloodied his jaw. But help was on the way!
"The starter came over to help me because I was on my back and choking on my blood," Meehan explained. "He put me in the recovery position, with my right leg out straight.
"As if that wasn't bad enough, the racecourse ambulance came up alongside us and reversed up onto my leg. They stopped it on top of my leg so I started screaming; it broke it straight away.
It’s bad enough to be thrown and kicked without an ambulance driving over you, too. Meehan was flown back to Ireland and is expected to have surgery on both his jaw and leg. He won’t be able to ride again for at least two months. -via Arbroath
Noah Droddy was captain of his track team in college, but didn’t stick with it afterward. That was three years ago. Now the 25-year-old considers himself a track fan, and even bought tickets to watch the Olympic track events in Rio. But then he got a chance to train with a prestigious coach, sponsored by a running club that was looking for out-of-the ordinary athletes. And he qualified for the US Olympic trials in the 10K, by the skin of his teeth. That race was last weekend. Droddy had never run in front of so many people. He said he’d never even seen that many people.
In the lineup of clean-shaven, big-brand-sponsored distance stars hoping to make the U.S. Olympic team on a Friday night in Eugene, Oregon, the Joe Dirt doppelganger with bouncing locks and a killer ’stache didn’t fit.
Naturally, social media fell in love.
He was called a “hero,” “majestic,” the “most American athlete to ever live.” Someone suggested bald eagles be photoshopped behind him. Another said he must have lost his way while heading to a house party.
Droddy did not win the race, nor did he make the Olympic team. But he became a social media darling, and says he hasn’t paid for his own beer since that day.
You’ve been dying to know why people from the Slavic countries wear Adidas. Did you even know this was a thing? That’s pronounced “oddy-DAHS.” And he’s not talking about just the shoes, but the whole tracksuit and shoes.
Boris is here to explain to explain this Slav fashion choice. It’s part of his series of videos explaining life in the Slavic nations. You can see more at the YouTube channel Life of Boris. -via reddit
In various wars since the advent of photography, in units from many nations, soldiers have adopted animals and kept them as mascots. Sometimes they are government issue, like horses, and other times they are strays that are looking for a meal. These include dogs, cats, goats, sheep, rabbits, birds, turtles, kangaroos, and more. Shown here is a young fox that took up with the Royal Air Force during World War I, and was said to enjoy flying. See a gallery of these mascots, and click on an image to get what story is known of them. -via History Buff
Eric is a Australian bare-eyed cockatoo. The veterinarian recommended that Eric eat more broccoli. Have you ever tried to get a kid to eat broccoli? Eric is kinda like a little kid.
However, a child who acted like this would be sent to their room. His owner swears he usually likes broccoli. Apparently he doesn’t like being told what to do. -via Tastefully Offensive
In 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were riding through Bluff Creek, California, looking for Bigfoot footprints. They got more than they ever expected when a furry figure walked through a clearing in the distance. Patterson captured some footage of the creature on a rented 16mm Cine Kodak camera.
The final 59.5-second film, which the men would airmail back home to be developed, would soon become the world-famous Patterson-Gimlin film—arguably one of the most scrutinized pieces of video footage ever made. It is the cryptozoological equivalent to the Kennedy assassination’s Zapruder film. The film met immediate criticisms accusing Patterson and Gimlin of being master pranksters who simply filmed a man in an ape suit and laid fake footprints in the mud.
The film tore Patterson’s and Gimlin’s friendship apart. Patterson partnered with his brother-in-law, Al DeAtley, to take the film on a national tour as a way to raise funds for a full-fledged expedition back at Bluff Creek. The three took equal shares in the film, but soon Gimlin felt edged out, and sold his share of the rights for less than $10 to another Bigfoot researcher.
After five years estranged, Patterson and Gimlin made amends in 1972 as Patterson lay on his deathbed, dying of cancer at age 38. Patterson apologized for ousting Gimlin, pleading with him that when he recovered that they would go back to California and catch Bigfoot. He died the next day.
That left Gimlin as the go-to guy for Bigfoot enthusiasts, and it ruined his life. He was the target of harassment from cynics. If he talked about the experience, people would consider him a lunatic. If he didn’t, they’d think he was a con artist. At the same time, true believers considered him a guru -one that wasn’t helping by keeping silent. He didn’t talk about the experience publicly until 2003. Read the story of Bob Gimlin at Outside Online. -via Digg
No matter how long you’ve been cleaning things the traditional way, there’s always someone who discovers a new way to do it that’s easier, cheaper, or more effective. That’s especially true for items around the house that get cleaned so rarely that by the time you get around to it, it’s a tough job. Like your oven.
Sooner or later, you’ll need to clean the walls of your oven, but it’s a nasty chore. Oven cleaners are notoriously harsh: most of them smell horrible, and many don’t even work all that well. To get the grime off your oven without the chemical cleaners, pull the vinegar and baking soda out of your pantry and get to work. To do it, mix about half a cup of baking soda with a few tablespoons of water to make a paste. Slather it all over the walls, ceiling, and floor of your oven (wearing rubber gloves is recommended for this), and leave it there overnight. In the morning, take a damp towel and wipe off as much as you can. Then, spray down the walls with vinegar, let it all foam for a few minutes, and use another damp towel to wipe it down again until everything is completely clean.
Looking back from almost 40 years later, it’s hard to believe that the TV show Mork & Mindy only ran for four years. It left a permanent impression on the world because it was Robin William’s first starring role. Therefore, people who weren’t yet born when the series ended in 1982 are familiar with it, but probably don’t know much about what went on behind the scenes. For example,
1. THE SHOW WAS INSPIRED BY AN EPISODE OF THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW.
You’ve probably heard that Mork & Mindy was a spinoff of an alien character on Happy Days, and that’s true. But the Happy Days character was inspired by an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show called “It May Look Like a Walnut,” which featured an alien played by Danny Thomas. When Dick Van Dyke director Jerry Paris was later hired to direct some Happy Days episodes, producer Garry Marshall mentioned that his Star Wars-obsessed young son wanted to see a spaceman on TV. Paris remembered the success of "Walnut," and Mork's extraterrestrial encounter with the Cunningham clan was created. The episode “My Favorite Orkan” was such a hit that it received its own spinoff: Mork & Mindy.
4. PAM DAWBER DIDN'T REALIZE SHE HAD BEEN CAST.
Pam Dawber had a development deal with ABC where they paid to keep her under contract until they found a project for her or the contract expired. She filmed one pilot called Sister Terri that flopped: "I played a nun who used to be a gang leader but she found God, so she's there to fix up the neighborhood," Dawber explained. It didn't sell, but scenes she filmed for it were later spliced with scenes of Robin Williams from his appearance on Happy Days. The cobbled-together example did the trick, and Mork & Mindy was sold without so much as a pilot. Dawber found out about it when her agent discovered a write-up of the show in Variety. "I hadn't auditioned, I hadn't met, and I knew nothing," Dawber said. "I remember going, 'And who in the hell is Robin Williams?'"
Creative people find inspiration in the strangest places. A musician can recognize the utility of sounds wherever they may be. It might not be enough to write a symphony around, but it’s good for a viral video.
I think they are, although they do have a morbid sense of humor. The yarns are for sale at the Etsy store Dye for Yarn, a shop owned by Nicole and Cordula, both German scientists who hand-dye lightweight natural yarns. Other colors are named Poisoned by Love, Face of Fear, Fury in the Slaughterhouse, Giant Clam Closing Forever, and quite a few others. They are beautiful colors.
Seeing advertising is the price we pay for watching endless videos on the internet. You can’t really fault content creators for trying to recoup at least some of their creative and time investment in a viral video. However, it still bothers me to sit through a 30-second unstoppable ad only to find out the content video is maybe 40 seconds long. And having to sit through an ad in order to watch another ad is a bit much. This comic from CommitStrip addresses the quality of the ad vs. the video you’ve waiting for. It all comes down to money. The ad agency is raking in the dough, while the actual creators are lucky to have a shoestring budget.
Batman v Superman turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. What could have saved the movie? Casting. They should have put cats into the roles of the superheroes. Kaipotainment did just that, with this remake.
We are used to thinking of a Steven Spielberg movie as an automatic masterpiece, but he has made 29 films. Have you seen them all? Some were far from masterpieces, and there are a few you might have forgotten he was involved in. Take a minute and think of which would rank the lowest, and which you’d rank at the top. Then go look at how Buzzfeed slotted all those films, and why.
Aw Chu Kin of Myanmar developed a salve called Ten Thousand Golden Oil in 1870, which we know today as Tiger Balm. His sons carried on the business in Singapore, and one of them, Aw Boon Haw, used a million dollars of his business fortune to build Haw Par Villa, a huge public sculpture garden to showcase Chinese tradition and culture. The garden has undergone changes since it was first built in 1937, and is now a gloriously strange conglomeration of 150 dioramas and about 1,000 individual sculptures. See a gallery of 49 images of Haw Par Villa at Collectors Weekly.
A letter to the blog Ask A Manager details a work experience and asks for advice. It almost sounds fake, but it reminds me of one boss who wouldn’t let me take one day off to get married, then later expected me to cover for him for two weeks while he took care of some family business. And a huge number of commenters offer similar stories from their pasts. Here’s the letter.
I manage a team, and part of their jobs is to provide customer support over the phone. Due to a new product launch, we are expected to provide service outside of our normal hours for a time. This includes some of my team coming in on a day our office is normally closed (based on lowest seniority because no one volunteered).
One employee asked to come in two hours after the start time due to her college graduation ceremony being that same day (she was taking night classes part-time in order to earn her degree). I was unable to grant her request because she was the employee with the lowest seniority and we need coverage for that day. I said that if she could find someone to replace her for those two hours, she could start later. She asked her coworkers, but no one was willing to come in on their day off. After she asked around, some people who were not scheduled for the overtime did switch shifts with other people (but not her) and volunteered to take on overtime from others who were scheduled, but these people are friends outside of work, and as long as there is coverage I don’t interfere if people want to give or take overtime of their own accord. (Caveat: I did intervene and switch one person’s end time because they had concert tickets that they had already paid for, but this was a special circumstance because there was cost involved.)
I told this team member that she could not start two hours late and that she would have to skip the ceremony. An hour later, she handed me her work ID and a list of all the times she had worked late/come in early/worked overtime for each and every one of her coworkers. Then she quit on the spot.
I’m a bit upset because she was my best employee by far. Her work was excellent, she never missed a day of work in the six years she worked here, and she was my go-to person for weekends and holidays.
Even though she doesn’t work here any longer, I want to reach out and tell her that quitting without notice because she didn’t get her way isn’t exactly professional. I only want to do this because she was an otherwise great employee, and I don’t want her to derail her career by doing this again and thinking it is okay. She was raised in a few dozen different foster homes and has no living family. She was homeless for a bit after she turned 18 and besides us she doesn’t have anyone in her life that has ever had professional employment. This is the only job she has had. Since she’s never had anyone to teach her professional norms, I want to help her so she doesn’t make the same mistake again. What do you think is the best way for me to do this?
You can imagine how people reacted. This manager got pretty much the same advice from everyone- the writer of Ask A Manager, the commenters, reddit, Jezebel, and Raw Story. How would you have answered the letter?
