The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad.  These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?

(Image credit: Flickr user Matt Galisa)

The four finalists lined up in the hotel ballroom, all smiling for the photographers and all wearing knee-length aprons, each custom-made apron proclaiming "The Great Dessert Bake-Off." Bob Bullock's smile was genuine. His entry, "Death by Chocolate," had been a runaway favorite in the preliminaries. And the others knew it.

"I'm going up to my room for a nap," the lanky Texan drawled as he folded his apron and tucked it under his arm. "See you gals at the finals."

One of the three "gals" smiled back with a murderous gleam. "Not if I can help it." She waited five minutes, then wiped her sweaty palms on her apron and headed for the elevator.

An hour later, a maid found the body. Bob Bullock was laid out on his bed, still dressed in his cowboy shirt and jeans, his head smashed in by a cooking mallet. Blood was splattered everywhere.

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad.  These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?

"We have a little mystery at the Inner City Convent," the Mother Superior said as she poured a second cup of tea.

Inspector Griffith was immediately interested.

"It's the convent offices. We have three civilian employees there to handle the mail and the bills and the bookkeeping. Alice has been with us for years. Very reliable, even though she has a bit of a drinking problem and a husband who... Let's just say he can use our prayers.

"Barbara is new. She worked at an Alaskan convent before coming here. She's seems wonderful, although we're still waiting for the sisters there to send us a character reference.

"Our third is Claudia. Ever since the city opened up riverboat gambling... Well, I'm not going to point fingers, but there have been some minor irregularities in our petty cash.

"As you know, the office is closed all weekend. On Monday morning I arrive first. I open up, check the mail, water the plants, turn off the alarm. We have this newfangled alarm system. It does all the usual. And it also automatically records whenever the alarm has been turned off. I never quite saw the sense of that. But four Mondays ago when I came in, I checked the log. The alarm had been turned off Saturday afternoon. For five minutes. Then it was switched back on. I didn't think anything of it. Someone probably came back to retrieve some forgotten item.

"The next Monday, I found the same thing. Turned off Saturday afternoon for five minutes. I asked the women—they all have alarm keys. All three denied having visited the office.

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad.  These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?

 (Image credit: Flickr user David Shankbone)

The schedule at Klein Miller Accounting ran like clockwork. For example, on Friday mornings, Arthur Klein always took the train from their Connecticut offices into Manhattan. He would return at 1 P.M. and go immediately into the partners' meeting. Except for this Friday. On this Friday, he was mugged and robbed seconds after arriving in Manhattan.

The New York police held out little hope. "It was just bad luck," a sergeant commiserated. "There's no way a mugger could know you were carrying those bearer bonds."

"I normally don't carry anything," Klein moaned. "But one of our clients needed to transport the bonds to his New York bank. I agreed to take them—as a favor. This will ruin us."

The next train to Connecticut was at 1:10 and Klein was on it. Immediately on arriving, he met with Phil Miller, the other senior partner. "I didn't tell the police this," Arthur confided. "But someone here must have been in on the theft. The mugger was following me. He knew I had the bonds."

The two partners walked past the conference room where Betty, their executive assistant, had just finished setting up for the partners' meeting. "That's quite an accusation," Phil whispered.

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad.  These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?

(Image credit: Flickr user Ann Fisher)

The island of Canary Rock had no police force and none was really needed—not until the fateful morning when Gerald Espy was found dead in his bed. The millionaire had been laid up with a broken leg, and although the local doctor was adept at setting bones, he was not well versed in murder. It wasn't until he saw the dead cat curled up in a corner that he even suspected foul play.

"Poison gas," the inspector guessed when he arrived. An empty glass container on the table was the primary evidence. "Pour one chemical on another." He pointed to the dead flies on the windowsill at the east end of the room. "In less than a minute everything in the room would be dead."

The body had been discovered by Espy's son, Melvin. "I was out with some friends on my boat. I dropped them off at about midnight, then motored back to Canary Rock. There were no lights on at the house, but every now and then the moon would peek through. I figured Dad was asleep. So I locked up the house and went straight to bed. This morning, I went to check up. He was dead."

That’s a very succinct and understandable way to explain what your immune system is doing to you. If you ask me, it’s a fairly decent tradeoff for not dying of the flu or an ingrown hair. A little Benedryl should help. This is the latest comic from Tree Lobsters.

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Working at home is wonderful, but it has its drawbacks. My kids have been on fall break this past week, which makes getting anything done difficult. However, they did clean up the house. The cats won’t do that. They just want your undivided attention while you’re home with them. Cole and Marmalade (previously at Neatorama) demonstrate exactly what working around cats is like. At least I’m in a position to put all the cats outside when they get too annoying. -via Fark

We’ve seen artist Fabian Oefner do some amazing things with space, time, and paint. His latest project involves a wind tunnel, UV paint, and a Ferrari. Yes, he threw brightly-colored paint at a Ferrari, to illustrate the feel of driving one. First I thought, “Cool!” but then the Mom in me wondered if it was washable paint. There were plenty of cameras rolling during the paint process, which were turned into videos of various lengths to be used as Ferrari ads. See those videos, and more pictures, too, at PetaPixel. -via mental_floss

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This is an animation test. Yes, none of these lemmings people exist in real life (not even Waldo), so no one was harmed in the test. Creator Dave Fothergill vfx says,

Crowd dynamics test using Miarmy for Maya.
Shows the new servo force feature which allows struggling animation once the agent has become dynamic

Which means nothing to me, but digital animators will recognize the terms. If you are interested in the technical aspects, there’s more in the comments at vimeo. To most of us, it’s just a hilariously goofy sequence that you shouldn’t feel bad about laughing at. -via Metafilter 

Update: And now there's a looping version with sound effects and music.

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You could invest nine hours or so into watching the The Hobbit movies (after waiting for the last one to be released in December), or you could watch the condensed version in this stop-motion LEGO video from BrotherhoodWorkshop. I tried to read The Hobbit about 40 years ago and couldn’t finish it. I haven’t seen any of The Hobbit movies, either. So I watched this and laughed because even at the breakneck speed of the condensed story, there was still time for jokes. Spoilers? I don’t know; I really don’t feel I’ve been spoiled watching this. One who knows mentioned in the YouTube comments that this was more faithful to the book than the Peter Jackson films. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Do you know any adult who wears a polka-dot onesie (footed pajamas) and has a friend with pink-purple leggings? A pair wearing this clothing was captured on CCTV footage at the Dewsbury train station in West Yorkshire, England. They were recorded taking a computer monitor from the station on October 6th, and are suspected of taking two others on October 5th. 

“We are releasing their images in that hope that, despite their faces being covered, someone may recognise their distinctive dress.

“We believe they may be able to assist our enquiries into this incident and are investigating whether they are linked to the other two thefts.”

The publicity should also serve as a warning to anyone thinking of attending a Halloween costume party in these getups. It could lead to your arrest. -via Arbroath

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A group of Bulgarian folk dancers hoof it to the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck.” It works, because they are obviously having a great time! Whatever this dance is called, it sure looks like old fashioned hillbilly clogging to me, which is probably as universal as AC/DC music. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

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Bosnian Bill has found a lock he cannot pick. Just wait until you see why not! This clever mechanism works in a different way from most locks, as it’s not straight. It’s a rare, complicated, and presumably expensive lock for which most locksmiths could not duplicate a key. Lose or break your key, and the whole thing would be rather useless. I'd never let any of my kids near that key. -via reddit

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If you’ve ever dealt with pneumatic tubes, which are still used at many drive-through bank branches, you’ve probably thought about what it would be like to be inside one. What we have here is the next best thing. A couple of Norwegians YouTubers put a GoPro camera inside a canister and sent it on its way. For the first part of the trip, the camera is pointed out the back end, but the canister eventually reverses itself and we can see where it’s going. Yeah, I believe riding inside one of those would be a pretty dizzying experience. -via Metafilter

Now we know where Professor X is from, and what sweet ride he has! Redditor funboixero spotted this car in Houston. He saw the driver exit the parking lot in a wheelchair, but hasn’t yet mentioned whether he was bald, which is what everyone wants to know. You can get a closer look at imgur.

When Guardians of the Galaxy was translated into Chinese, they cut some corners. The title of the movie shown in China is now Interplanetary Unusual Attacking Team. The insults have been changed to endearments, and other lines just make no sense at all. Some examples:

• Each time a character was meant to insult Rocket by calling him “rodent” or “weasel” it was translated into “small raccoon,” a term of endearment.
• When Gamora says, “Your ship is filthy,” and Star-Lord responds “She has no idea,” the translation came out to “Your ship stinks” and “No culture is terrible.”
• Star-Lord calling Ronan “turd blossom” translated to “big face.”
• Gamora’s “I will not succumb to your pelvic sorcery!” became “I will not succumb to your rhetoric sorcery!”

There’s more at The Mary Sue, and even more criticism of the translation if you can read Chinese.