Yesterday at the Canadian Football League Labor Day Classic in Calgary, the star of the show was a jackrabbit that rushed the field. Maybe he was trying to teach the players a thing or two about speed. Anyway, the rabbit was penalized 15 yards for excessive end zone celebration.

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Honestly, the crowd cheered so loudly when he crossed the goal line, the rabbit couldn’t help but launch himself several feet up. Then he immediately ran the field the other way to score again for the other team. He sure put on a show! A good time was had by all. Well, we don't know about the rabbit- he didn't grant any post game interviews. -via reddit

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

It was 1929 and the legendary comedians "the four Marx Brothers" were about to film their first movie. The boys were currently appearing in their third consecutive broadway hit play Animal Crackers. So, incredibly, Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo appeared in Animal Crackers onstage at night and, after minimal sleep, filmed their movie debut The Cocoanuts during the day.

It was the earliest days of "talkies" (remember, this was just two years after Al Jolson broke the ice with The Jazz Singer), and this presented a bit of a problem. The early movie stages were not yet geared to be quiet and sound-proof as they are today. So, to avoid the sound of ongoing New York traffic outside, the actors and actresses would have to film very early in the morning, before the early traffic rush in the Big Apple.

In a scene where Groucho and Chico talk while reading a map, the crinkling of the map paper sounded like a violent thunder storm. After a few "much too loud takes,” it was decided that the map paper would have to be "watered down" and the damp map proved a workable solution. All paper props for the film were similarly soaked in water to keep them quiet.

But these were minor problems compared to the craziness and unpredictability of the Marx Brothers themselves. According to director co-directer Robert Florey, it was near impossible to get all four brothers on the set at the same time.

Redditor CATS_ARE_FABULOUS has mastered the unstable rope ladder game at Knott’s Berry Farm. Over six months, he has won ten giant bears this way. He was so excited about being able to do it that he didn’t think about whether he should do it.

But now he has ten bears and no room, so he took them all out on an excursion to get their pictures taken. Next, some will go to friends’ kids, and some will go to a children’s hospital.
 

What if all your favorite movie characters showed up at the same nightclub on the same night? The world has never seen a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. It looks like fun!

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Did you notice that some characters interacting with each other were played by the same actors at different ages? This sequence proves that whether it’s long, long ago or sometime in the distant future, or even another dimension, the human dance beat will remain pretty much the same. Contains NSFW language. -via Buzzfeed

The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.

The Letters of Physics
by Jeremy Gorman, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

You’d think there were enough. You’d think
There were no need for tricks.
The letters of our alphabet
Seem plenty— twenty-six.

The choices should be obvious
When making letters stand
For quantities of physics. Well,
Things weren’t quite that well-planned.

The quantities are many,
And the letters not enough.
Some choices feel intuitive,
But some feel off-the-cuff.

Yes, some are fairly obvious,
But others feel make-do.
In case you have forgotten, kids,
Let’s do a quick review.

The K-pop group GFriend performed their new song “Me Gusta Tu” in Gangwon Province, South Korea, Saturday night. The outdoor stage was slippery due to rain. Keep your eye on Yuju- she’s the one with the knee band. She wore it for compression, but after this performance she may be wearing one for injury.

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Yuju must’ve had particularly bad luck that night. She wasn't the only one to fall, but she fell over and over, five times that I could count. Your heart will go out to her before the performance is over, as she keeps getting back up to carry on. Not that she had much of a choice, since this is lip-synched, and the track would have gone on without her. -via Time

The more things change, the more they remain the same. One of the first things that students learn when they go off to college is that it’s expensive to live on your own, out from under your parents’ roof. It was the same way back when college was invented. This letter is from the 1220s:

B. to his venerable master A., greeting This is to inform you that I am studying at Oxford with the greatest diligence, but the matter of money stands greatly in the way of my promotion, as it is now two months since I spent the last of what you sent me. The city is expensive and makes many demands; I have to rent lodgings, buy necessaries, and provide for many other things which I cannot now specify. Wherefore I respectfully beg your paternity that by the promptings of divine pity you may assist me, so that I may be able to complete what I have well begun. For you must know that without Ceres and Bacchus Apollo grows cold.

Ceres, the goddess of agriculture and grains, is a nod to food, and of course, Bacchus is the god of wine. Adding his name might not have been the best idea. You can see more examples of medieval letters home from school at Medievalist. -via Digg

Ugh. I can’t believe they are already coming out with cartoons about how people complain about how Halloween stuff is already out. But seriously, you can blame the school year starting so soon (the first week of August where I live). When the back-to-school supply aisles are picked over and looking empty, the stores have to put something there. Personally, I love it. This summer has been an awfully long one, and now I have a month to plan and purchase my house decorations and a month to display them. Also: candy. This comic is from The Gentleman’s Armchair. -via reddit

The Ludlow Street Jail in New York City has an interesting history. In the 19th century, it was a corrupt operation that had a tiered set of condition, depending on how much an inmate could afford to pay for favors. Pony up enough, and you might have a private cell and spend your days smoking cigars and playing billiards. Of course, this system meant less room, food, and protection for those would could not pay. Boss Tweed himself was incarcerated at the Ludlow Street jail, and he easily escaped from his luxury accommodations. Reform campaigns led to changes, but not all for the better.      

In the early 20th century, almost all of the inmates left in the Ludlow Street Jail were men who had defaulted on their alimony payments. At the time, the laws in New York stated that if a man refused to pay alimony, he would be sentenced to six months in jail, after which he would be free of all further payments. Accordingly, divorced men whom the courts had decreed owed payments to their ex-wives began shrugging their shoulders and heading off to jail for an all-expenses paid vacation at what came to be nicknamed The New York Alimony Club.

Gone were the days of corrupt extortion. The days of gleeful misogyny had arrived. As one member of the club described to the New York Times in 1911, “Many of us have preferred to come here as a matter of principle rather than pay money that was demanded of us practically as black-mail from wives, who, while we were hard pressed, were living in luxury.”  

The Alimony Club would host lavish holiday dinners for the inmates, and lived in a convivial little cabal—one that was “utopian,” according to the Times article. The new warden who arrived in 1912 even began playing music for the delinquent ex-husbands.

That’s just one episode in the sordid history of the Ludlow Street Jail, which you can read at Atlas Obscura.

If you’re a cat. discovering the toilet paper roll is a true epiphany. You can sink your claws into it nicely. It moves! And moving it round and round makes a nice pile of stuff to play with on the floor.   

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This is the biggest exception to the “over the top” rule of hanging toilet paper. If your cat gets in the habit of doing this, having the paper roll out underneath, while not keeping it from being shredded, will at least keep the entire roll off the floor. But as illustrated from the static image at the top, cats can eventually learn to get around this trick, too.  -via Tastefully Offensive

The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader.

Playing board games like Scrabble or Risk against a skilled player can be aggravating. Here are a few devious tactics and tips that may help you win (almost) every time.

MONOPOLY

Tournament players often employ an aggressive strategy at the beginning of their matches. They purchase every property they land on. Then, after a little wheeling and dealing with other players to obtain all the properties of a single color, they start placing houses on their squares. (The cheaper ones first, because funds are typically low early in the game.)

Opinions vary on which properties are landed on the most often, but many swear it’s the orange ones. Buying as many of those as possible should be considered a priority, because the more property you own there, the more you get to collect in rent from the other players. Late in the game, it pays to stay in jail for as long as possible. That way you can collect rent on your properties while you remain safely behind bars, away from your opponents’ rent-earning properties.

BATTLESHIP

(Image credit: Flickr user Andrew Malone)

When setting up your ships at the beginning of the game, it helps to place smaller vessels alongside or beneath larger ones. You should also put at least one ship on the edge of your board, since most players tend to aim for the middle. Another tip: never fire another peg within one space of a miss. This will help reduce your need to randomly guess where your opponent’s ships are hiding by at least half. There’s also the “checkerboard method,” which involves imagining the board with alternating black-and-white squares and firing only on the black ones. Then, once you score a hit, you should fire pegs adjacently until you sink your opponent’s boat.

THE GAME OF LIFE

The brave hunter has been on the trail for some time now. He spots his quarry in the brush. He circles, in order to confuse it. Then the skillful hunter moves in to capture his prize, using only his wits and his bare hands!

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And the prize catch will make this Labor Day picnic the best ever! -via Digg

The use of the word “baddest” may seem a bit odd for an article headline. Your mind automatically wants to change it to “worst.” In this case, it is actually a cleaned-up version of “badassest,” which I would have corrected to “most badass.” You might even read it as “best.”

Anyway, it’s a rundown of American motorcycle gangs with names that should strike fear into their enemies. But not only names; we also get a brief look into the history of the gangs. My eye went straight to the Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington. My husband was surprised I hadn’t heard of them, but he’s from San Bernardino.  

7. PISSED OFF BASTARDS OF BLOOMINGTON

The Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington, or POBOB, is one of the oldest motorcycle clubs in the country. Established in 1945 in Bloomington, a small town near San Bernardino, California, POBOB is also known as the Pissed Off Bastards of Berdoo, a nickname for San Bernardino.

POBOB gained notoriety with its involvement in the 1947 Hollister riot, famously immortalized in the 1953 Marlon Brando movie, The Wild One. However, the "riot" was more of a drunken melee that began when inebriated members of another California MC, the Boozefighters, rode their motorcycles into a bar. After the Hollister riot, a prominent POBOB member broke off and started his own club. You may have heard of it: the Hells Angels.

8. HELLS ANGELS

The Hells Angels (that’s non-possessive, by the way) was formed in 1948. A founder named the infamous one-percenter for his World War II squadron, the Hell’s Angels of the Flying Tigers, an American Volunteer Group that flew in China during the war. That squadron was named for a 1930 Howard Hughes film about combat pilots in World War I. While the Hells Angels are certainly the most famous MC, they are considered "too nice" by the Bandidos.

See there, you’ve learned something already. But notice how far down on the list these names are. You’ll want to read the others at mental_floss. 

Thanks @notjake_fromstatefarm for not coming to your bachelor party. Now I can pick any horse that I want. #navypier #chicagoforone

A photo posted by Robert Chernow (@rwchernow) on Sep 3, 2015 at 4:11pm PDT

New York resident Jake Katz is getting married. He planned a four-day Labor Day weekend trip with the guys to Chicago as a bachelor party. But because of weather and cancelled flights, only one made it to Chicago that day: Robbie Chernow. He was in Chicago by himself. What to do? He proceeded to go to all the planned events by himself, documenting the trip on Instagram under the hashtag #chicagoforone.

Apparently everyone in my section also tried to take Delta to get here. #bears #chicagoforone

A photo posted by Robert Chernow (@rwchernow) on Sep 3, 2015 at 5:15pm PDT

Chernow went to a Bears game, the Hancock Tower, the Navy Pier, and all the places the group were going to visit together, with pictures to prove it. He found the people of Chicago very sympathetic to his plight. Then his Instagram feed went viral, and Chernow’s adventures really stepped up as folks all around the country cheered him on. Friday night, groom Jake Katz finally showed up, and the two are making the most of a two-day bachelor party for two in Chicago. However, he’s still taking pictures of his lonely self to keep the meme going. Read the story at Buzzfeed and see more pictures at Chernow’s Instagram feed.

Eddie is a big man- he barely clears the ceiling in his apartment. But he is afraid of spiders, as is his wife Heather, who insists that Eddie kill a spider in their home.

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The spider is the size of a quarter, according to Heather (eye roll). They should have had the kids get rid of it, because they don’t seem too concerned until they witness their parents’ histrionics. Now they’ll be scarred for life. -via Daily Picks and Flicks