Joaquin Garcia of Cadiz, Spain, was a civil servant assigned to supervise the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant. By Garcia’s account, he was the victim of political bullying and found himself assigned to a job where there was nothing to do. As a result, he  went for at least six years without going in to work, and no one noticed, until he became eligible for an award for his long employment.

Spanish newspapers have dubbed him "el funcionario fantasma" - the phantom official.

The court heard that the boss of the water company had not seen Mr Garcia for years despite occupying an office opposite his.

The water company thought he was supervised by the local authorities and vice versa.

The deputy mayor noticed his absence when Mr Garcia became eligible to receive a plaque for 20 years' service.

When the water company found out about Garcia, they levied a fine of €27,000 ($30,000) against him. That’s about a year’s salary, and the legal maximum they could demand. A judge upheld the fine against Garcia, who has since retired from his “non-job.” -via reddit

The Philadelphia restaurant Cantina Dos Segundos has introduced a fusion recipe to celebrate the new Deadpool movie: the Deadpool Poutine Chimichanga. Deadpool is known for his love of chimichangas, and this one is supersized. The restaurant's description is on Instagram:

Braised short rib, French fries, Fried cheese curd Black beans, Bacon, Pickled red onion & jalapeño. served with a side of short rib au jus, topped with sour cream onion, scallion, cilantro

Mark Shrayber of Uproxx tried one, and said it's the best chimichanga he's ever had. Read the rest of his review of this pan-American gastronomic delight.

(Image credit: Rachel R/ Cantina Dos Segundos)

Is your kitten smitten? Simon Tofield has animated his cat in love with the neighbor cat before, but it’s not quite romance and flowers for felines. At least not the way humans do it.  

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Nicky Trevorrow, a cat behavior expert at Cats Protection http://www.cats.org.uk/ tells us about cat mating behavior and the importance of spaying and neutering. Then we get to see Tofield draw his girl cat character, and then we see last year’s Valentines Day cartoon, “Butterflies.”  -via Tastefully Offensive

Not often do we get a critique of a 44-year-old film, but rarely do we see a movie like The Godfather. And it doesn’t even seem like an old movie. Maybe it’s the timeless conflict of greed vs. loyalty. Maybe it’s the rich cinematography. Anyway, Paul Tassi recently watched The Godfather again, and noticed a few things -just a very few- that don’t make sense, and wonders if you noticed them, too. Like how the movie ended.

I’m not saying I don’t get the idea behind the mass hit. Murder everyone who means you harm, or probably means you harm, seems like a good plan. But what about the rest of families? Don’t each of these guys who were killed have a son or two who want to avenge them like Michael is doing for his family? Isn’t killing the dons just like bashing a hornets’ nest with a baseball bat?

In that case, what appears to be a flaw gave us sequels. However, they didn’t know in 1972 that there would be sequels. In that era, it rarely happened and plots weren’t written around setting up possible sequels, the way they are now. So was it as nonsensical to you? Read more about the ending, and the other flaws in The Godfather at TVOM.

We usually do a poll like this before a finale, but as we approach the mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead, we’ve been told that there will be a major purge of characters. Series creator Robert Kirkman said “So many people die.” It’s true that the cast has grown so large that we can go several weeks without seeing some of the major characters. There’s just not enough screen time. And more new characters will be introduced soon.   

The last time we ran a poll, before the mid-season finale, readers correctly predicted who would bite the big one. Then it occurred to me that votes came in after the fact! This time, I will try to make a note of the results just before the show airs on Sunday night. Who do you think will die this Sunday night? You can select more than one character in the poll.

Continue reading for reasons why some of the major characters may be looking at their last episode. Contains spoilers and comic book details.

Well, well, well. I mean, I’d like to grant your wish, but sometimes I get two wishes that are in direct opposition, and at the end of the day, a well’s got to pay the bills, you know? I’m sure you understand. This comic is from Cluster Fudge by John McNamee. -via Pie Comic

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The mental_floss List Show tackles an appropriate topic as we approach Valentines Day: love! But this isn’t just love, it’s the latest scientific findings about love. Yes, romance has been the subject of quite a few scientific studies. Wonder how those scientists look at love after all the science. -via mental_floss

Amanita Design, the folks who brought us the maddening Samorost, defies you to try Questionaut. The premise is that you need to fill your balloon with gas, but you have to answer general knowledge questions to get it. Those are easy. Meanwhile, you spend most of your time on each level trying to figure out what to do to get the questions going. I played this game years ago, but danged if I could remember any of the secrets. If you get stuck, here’s a guy who’s figured it all out. -via the Presurfer  

The caption on this photograph at Aussie Farmer says “Death by Daddy long legs.” Now, what they call Daddy Long Legs in Australia is a different creature from the fairly harmless insects we call Daddy Long Legs in the U.S. This is a cellar spider, which is sometimes called a Daddy Long Legs in Australia. And it’s captured a brown snake. Farmer Patrick Lees took the picture on his property in Weethalle, New South Wales. He said a group of spiders later gathered around the snake. 

The Australian Museum's arachnology collections manager Graham Milledge said while it was not clear exactly how the snake had died, it was quite possible the spider was responsible.

"The most likely scenario is that the snake got entangled in the spider's web. Usually what happens then is the spider will try to wrap the snake and then they'll bite it," Mr Milledge said.

The Australian Museum lists the daddy-long-legs spider as carnivorous and predatory. The venom is not particularly potent, despite rumours it is one of the world's most poisonous.

It’s pictures like these that get those rumors started, I’d bet. -via Uproxx

(Image credit: Patrick Lees)

Valentines were romantic greetings long before Hallmark got involved. St. Valentines Day sentiments of love have been exchanged for centuries, in letters, poems, and artwork.  Nancy Rosin, president of the National Valentine Collectors Association, gives us a rundown on the history of Valentines. The cards sweethearts sent to each other in the early to mid-1800s were the peak in hearts and flowers, so to speak. The intricate and labor-intensive Valentines of the time represented a labor of love, whether they were made by the person who gave them or not.

“Esther Howland was the ‘Mother of the American Valentine,’” Rosin says. “American Valentines had existed before, but she made them more readily available. Her initial Valentines were small and usually marked with an ‘H’ and a number indicating the price or ‘N.E.V.Co.’ for her company, New England Valentine Company. But there are a lot of larger ones that were not signed that we now attribute to her. In 1850, she was the only person in Massachusetts who had access to these elegant European embellishments, and her Valentines had multiple layers of beautiful lace papers. You would lift one layer and then another and another. The message would usually be deep inside because she didn’t like to have you ‘wear your heart on your sleeve.’”

Rosin and fellow Valentine collectors believe Howland didn’t sign her largest pieces because they were embarrassingly lavish and expensive. “There is a story going around that she made such an elaborate Valentine in the shape of a May basket, and it might have sold for $50, which was the price of a horse and buggy at that time,” Rosin says. “We are told that the man was rejected because the woman said she would never marry anyone who would waste his money like that. So we’ve come to the conclusion that she probably avoided putting her name on the back of her fanciest Valentines."

Read about the evolution of the Valentine at Collectors Weekly. And don’t miss the gallery of beautiful antique Valentines.  

Quick, think of a mask that figured prominently in a movie. V for Vendetta, right? Of course, because I had to put a picture here. Think of another one. It’s probably in the list of 15 iconic movie masks at TVOM. Then there are a whole lot of others that you might have forgotten, but you’ll appreciate the walk down memory lane without all that effort of thinking them up yourself. Some were to hide identity, some to hide deformity, and some are just for shock value.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed a series of travel posters and made them into 2016 calendars as a gift to NASA and JPL employees, partners, and friends. There are familiar planets, exoplanets, and moons, plus a couple of tour posters.

Now we all can have these gorgeous creations. All 14 of them are at the JPL site, where you can download them poster-size in case you want to are able to print them out. -via Metafilter

For their latest music video, OK Go teamed up with Russia’s S7 airlines and took a trip in their vomit comet, a plane that flies in parabolic arcs to train cosmonauts for low-gravity space flight. The song is “Upside Down & Inside Out.” Watch the video at the band's website.

From the band’s FAQ:

The longest period of weightlessness that it is possible to achieve in these circumstances is about 27 seconds, and after each period of weightlessness, it takes about five minutes for the plane to recover and prepare for then next round. Because we wanted the video to be a single, uninterrupted routine, we shot continuously over the course of 8 consecutive weightless periods, which took about 45 minutes, total. We paused our actions, and the music, during the non-weightless periods, and then cut out these sections and smoothed over each transition with a morph.

The rest of the story about making the video is pretty interesting. For example, they made 21 flights, and there were 58 incidences of actual vomiting. -via Buzzfeed

Finally- a video that pokes fun at all the presidential candidates. Or at least the ones you’ve heard of.

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Watch this, laugh a little, and then try to get that Marco Rubio jingle lout of your head. -via Metafilter

The new Coen Brothers movie Hail Caesar! is a work of fiction set in 1951. But one of its major characters, Eddie Mannix, was a real mover and shaker who took care of problems for MGM during Hollywood’s Golden Age.   

Remaining on MGM’s payroll until his death in 1963, Mannix is an important figure in Hollywood history. His MGM ledger, which meticulously recorded the secret costs, revenues, and losses of the studio’s films from 1924 to 1948, is a treasure trove for film historians. He is also central in the mythology for the studio that once prided itself on having “More Stars Than There Are in the Heavens,” playing second fiddle only to MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer and Head of Production Irving Thalberg. He also was considered extended family by a number of stars, including Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy.

But primarily, Mannix was the guy that made sure Mayer’s family friendly entertainment stayed “family friendly,” at least as far as the press and moviegoing public were concerned. Alongside Howard Strickling, the unflappable head of MGM publicity, Mannix had a habit for making problems go away, whether they be drunk driving incidents, unplanned pregnancies, libidinous lifestyles, or even the occasional mysterious death, be it of sex symbol Jean Harlow’s second husband or the guy on TV that bullets were supposed to bounce off from.

Den of Geek looks at a few of the more prominent Hollywood scandals that Mannix was involved in, some in his role of covering them up, and some involving his own life.