I missed this wonderful news story from a few days ago and some ladies missed a great opportunity. Nick Schimdt of Nashville, Tennessee placed an ad on Craigslist, offering to be some woman's Thanksgiving dinner date. Schmidt, a convicted felon and high school dropout, was prepared to pretend to be someone's boyfriend during Thanksgiving dinner:

I am a 28 year old felon with no high school degree, and a dirty old van one year younger than me painted like Eddie Van Halen's guitar. I can play anywhere between the ages of 20 and 29 depending on if i shave. I'm a line cook and work late nights at a bar. If you'd like to have me as your stictly platonic date for Thanksgiving, but have me pretend to be in a very long or serious relationship with you, to torment your family, I'm game.

In exchange for a free dinner, he would also:

• talk about politics and religion
• openly hit on other female guests
• pretend to get really drunk
• start a fistfight with a member of your family on the front lawn in full view of the neighbors

Prior to Thanksgiving, he told a reporter that he had secured a date. Schmidt promised to live-tweet the date, but the results of that date are unclear in his Twitter timeline.

We're a happy family. pic.twitter.com/Cwm5mBToua

— Nicky (@Nickyistaken) November 27, 2014

It's now too late to have Thanksgiving dinner with Schmidt, but you can make use of his other services.

If anyone needs an officiate for their wedding, I also happen to be an ordained minister.

— Nicky (@Nickyistaken) November 29, 2014

-via Tastefully Offensive

(YouTube link)

Matt Tribe bought an Olive Garden Never Ending Pasta Pass, and then sort of regretted it, because who needs to eat that much pasta? But he had an idea: giving pasta meals to the homeless! Just hand out lunch, it’s not difficult. This video will warm your heart.  

It's very possible that Olive Garden will not like this. It violates the terms for the Never Ending Pasta Pass, which is non-transferable, and can not be used for anyone besides the pass holder. What if other Pasta Pass holders start to get the bright idea of sharing dinner with the hungry? On the other hand, if Olive Garden raised a fuss against Tribe for his good deeds, it would only make them look bad. All that they reasonably could do is never have a promotion like this again.

Then again, many commenters at reddit say this is viral marketing from Olive Garden, because the Pasta Pass promotion is over. Maybe it will never happen again. -via Viral Viral Videos

For an article in The Saline Courier, a paper in Benton, Arkansas, a number of second graders were asked to share things for which they are grateful. It's a pretty standard question over the Thanksgiving holiday, and the reporter received some pretty standard answers... except from eight-year-old Isabella Jerhigan. Isabella's thankful "for all the dead people, because at least they tried." Now that's an original answer! Perhaps she's a future writer (or a goth)! Either way, she got a laugh out of a lot of people, as her response has gone viral since being posted on Reddit.

 Via Uproxx | Image: Imgur

Imagine a highway that doesn’t bend, climb, or turn. That’s Eyre Highway, which crosses the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia. The highway is a thousand miles long, running from Norseman to Port Augusta in South Australia. It has a 145.6 km stretch that has no bends or stops (and little scenery) between the towns of Balladonia and Caiguna known as the "90 Mile Straight.”

Eyre Highway can be best described as a long and lonely road. While in the East you still find some towns like Kimba, Wudinna and Ceduna, the western three quarters is almost devoid of life. This section lies almost entirely on the Nullarbor Plain. The typical view is that of a straight highway and practically unchanging flat saltbush-covered terrain, although some parts are located on ridges. Spread throughout the length of the highway at approximately 200 km to 300 km apart are roadhouses providing basic services such as fuel, food, refreshments, accommodation and repairs, but not all are open 24 hours. Because of its remoteness, some sections of the Highway serve as emergency airstrips for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. These airstrips are signposted and have runway "piano keys" painted on the road, and turnaround bays for small aircraft.

Read the history and geography of Eyre Highway, and see plenty of pictures, at Amusing Planet. -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Flickr user Chris Fithall)

If you want something challenging and fun to do on your iPhone while waiting in holiday lines and in busy waiting rooms, try Kotaku's list of what they deem are the best game apps for iPhone. As the intro to their article says, sometimes going to the App Store and just looking around can be an exercise in frustration:

"You might not want to just plunge into the App Store. It's a jungle, and it is full of bad games. Here, Let us help you. After all, the games at the top of the App Store charts might not always be the actual best games for the iPhone. We think the ones below are a great place to start."

See their list of the best games for iPhone here.  If you think they're missing some games, feel free to weigh in with your favorites in the comment section. 

Image: Apple 

(Image: Cinema International Corporation)

At the end of the Monty Python film The Life of Brian, the protagonist stands crucified by the Roman occupiers of Judea, falsely accused of insurrection.

Nothing in his life has gone according to plan. Now Brian's efforts will end in a slow, painful death. So he's feeling a bit depressed. But another crucifixion victim played by Eric Idle encourages him to look on the bright side of life. He sings a song along that theme, which is among the most famous in the Monty Python repertoire.

According to a study conducted by The Co-Operative Funeralcare, a British funeral company, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" is the most popular song played at funerals in the UK. You can watch that scene in the video embedded below.

(Video Link)

Video content warning: foul language.

-via Marginal Revolution

French inventor Christian Poincheval makes pills that will perfume your farts into smelling like violets or roses. And now he has a new product for Christmas, a pill that will make flatulence smell like chocolate! Poincheval has been working on his earth-shattering invention for eight years now.

According to Poincheval's website, the idea for the pills apparently came from a dinner with friends during which nobody could stop farting.

"We were at table with friends and after a hearty meal, we almost suffocated as our farts were smelly," Poincheval writes. "The winds were not very pleasant for our fellow diners. I had to do something."

You can buy these pills for ten euros. There’s also a special powdered version for dog farts. -Thanks, Linda Shaw!

Getting hit by a car hurts- a lot. I was lucky enough to have been struck by cars that were only going about 15-25 miles an hour, but the Chinese man seen in this shocking footage takes lucky to a whole new level.

The man, identified only as Li, looks like a deer in the headlights as he stands in the middle of a busy road in Kunshan City, and then he's struck by not one but two motorists who clearly haven't found a use for their brake pedal.

(YouTube Link)

The first car looks like it just grazes him, albeit at a very high speed, but the second car definitely does not miss its mark, and after a hit like that Li is mighty lucky to be alive.

This shocking video brings a couple of questions to mind-what was Li doing just standing in the middle of the road like that, and do these drivers need a refresher course in how to hit the brakes?

-Via Dangerous Minds

(YouTube link)

Welcome to your college dining experience. Food Service Manager Brad Green has a list of rules that will make everything work, and if you follow them, you will also avoid getting punched in the face, or heaven forbid, being beat down by Wanda’s Army. This video is from Kentucky Christian University, but they apply to just about any cafeteria: don’t waste food, don’t be nasty, and don’t make life difficult for the people around you. These are things anyone old enough to go to college should know, but a little reminder doesn't hurt. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

(YouTube link)

There are 106 baby boys born for every 100 baby girls. The folks from MinuteEarth tell us why, as far as we know, in this video. However, the sex imbalance is more severe than birth statistics indicate, and varies over time and place. They offer reasons for that, too. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Beat the holiday shopping rush by getting your loved ones geeky T-shirts designed by the web's most talented indie designers from the NeatoShop.

This winter, celebrate the holidays with NeatoShop's awesome Ugly Christmas Sweater-style tees. Or check out our wide selection of Funny T-shirts, Science T-shirts, Sci-Fi T-shirts, Video Games-inspired T-shirts, and more.

Get FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING (yes, worldwide - whether you're in Canada or Brazil, or the Good ol' US of A, all shirt orders get free shipping) from Nov 24 to 27 (Hurry! The sale will be over before you know it!)

(Video Link)

This video shows a grizzly bear running in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Can you keep up? The Daily Telegraph (warning: auto-start video) says that grizzly bears can run up to 35 MPH, which is well over Usain Bolt's top speed of 27 MPH.

But as the old joke goes: I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you.

Redditor sanofsan writes, “Every christmas my bff and I send cards to random addresses.” Frank provides helpful information in one of them. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get to State Street right now.

-via Tastefully Offensive

So, did Batman watch Frozen, or did he become familiar with the entire story by osmosis, like I did? I finally saw the movie, or most of it, about a month ago. This comic is from DeviantART member nebezial. And there was a great comment underneath:

-via Geeks Are Sexy

In this clip from the BBC One series Life Story, Sir David Attenborough narrates a hermit crab housing chain. If you’ve ever had pet hermit crabs, you know they are always on the lookout for the perfect shell, one slightly larger than the one they have because they are growing. But a shell that is too big will be hard to carry around. In the wild, they’ve worked out their own system for exchanging shells of the proper size. Everybody wins! I love how each of them "claimed" the shell they really wanted, as if they had been watching it for some time. After seeing this, I have to wonder if they leave the smallest shells strategically placed near crab eggs for newly-hatched hermits. -via b3ta