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Watch out for this angry bird! He's got an AXE and he knows how to use it! Will nothing stop him? -via Buzzfeed

A series of thefts has been solved at the Toledo Police Memorial Garden. Officers had noticed small flags went missing over several days, but found no clue as to the identity of the perpetrator. On Wednesday, two policemen saw who was doing it. One of them snapped a picture of a squirrel in the act of grabbing a flag and a pink flower from the garden! The squirrel fled the scene and took the loot to his nest, which was discovered to be already festooned with stolen flags. No arrest were made, and the suspect is still at large. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Toledo Police Lieutenant James Brown)

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Even zombies need some carefree down time! A short film by Travis Betz. -via The Daily What

Members of the Army's 84th Infantry Division who served together in World War II have been meeting annually for 66 consecutive years. Every year there are fewer survivors among the veterans, who are mostly in their late 80s. Marie McDonald, who attends each year with 85-year-old veteran Brownlee Bush, says traveling has become difficult for many, and the final reunion comes as a relief.

The 84th Division's 16,000 men began basic training in January 1943. They entered combat on Nov. 18, 1944, with an attack on Geilenkirchen, Germany, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and crossed the Rhine River on April 1, 1945. Within two weeks, the unit had reached the Elbe River, where it halted its advance and patrolled the banks until the war's end. The men spent 170 days in combat and earned seven distinguished unit citations.

"These guys fought a war," McDonald said. "We won a war in four years, when now the area they're fighting in is no bigger than Texas, and they've been there 10 years, and it's sad. We had a reason to fight. We wanted to be free."

The group held its first stateside reunion in Cincinnati in July 1946, just months after returning home. About 700 showed up.

Last year, only about 100 veterans attended, quite a few of them in wheelchairs. That's when they decided that this year's reunion will be the last one. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_db888e27-5b8b-5e63-9d8c-4f7b5150159e.html -via Fark

(Image credit: David Carson)

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Take a museum tour like none you've ever seen! Astonish Me is a short film about newly-discovered species created by writer Stephen Poliakoff and director Charles Sturridge to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/50th_anniversary/astonish_me/ -Thanks, Danny Smits!

Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a character from the Star Wars universe here. Can you name them all? You might notice some of the main characters are missing in action, because a puzzle should never be too easy. The answers are at Gamma Squad. Link -via Buzzfeed

Environmental Graffiti has a gallery of images from an underground crypt in Belgium. It was used for burials for decades, but maintenance was discontinued because of the expense. After years of decay, access to the crypt was closed for safety reasons. But you can see it still. Photographer and urban explorer Sven Fennema takes you on an underground tour with fascinating pictures from his book Anderswelten (Other Worlds).

"The air was very cold and wet, and you could see your every breath – also an experience I will never forget. It was as if death was close beside you somehow. The crypt was full of those strange plastic flowers – still with their bright colors – but it was also full of spiders' webs and other kinds of decay.”

Link

(Image credit: Sven Fennema)

Advertising company Ogilvy & Mather put together a campaign for the plastic model company Tamiya featuring kits that you can use to illustrate your favorite conspiracy theory. This one is for the faked moon landing; others have to do with Roswell, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and the Kennedy assassination. Link

Someone got hold of an Arizona Department of Transportation electronic sign on Fort Valley Road in Flagstaff this week, and changed the message about left turns to "Rogue Panda on Rampage."

Authorities said there is no cause for concern.

"We want to assure all citizens of Flagstaff that there is no problem with rogue pandas," said Lt. Ken Koch with the Flagstaff Police Department.

He does, however, encourage anybody who spots a member of the endangered species roaming Flagstaff streets to call the police department.

The sign, which had been altered in the middle of the night, was corrected by 11 AM. No suspects have been identified. The good news is that the publicity may cause motorists to read electronic signs more carefully in the future. http://azdailysun.com/news/local/police-no-rogue-pandas-about/article_420be32f-7571-5507-9ce9-58b6f6ea8d4f.html -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Jake Bacon/Arizona Daily Sun)

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Have you ever noticed that middle school American history classes tend to rush through the War of 1812 in order to get through the Civil War before the school year ends? College Humor imagines what it would have been like if the participants understood the conflict just as well as we do.-via Buzzfeed

There are some websites that are so interesting and extensive they are known as "black holes" or "time sucks," because once you get started, you may not be able to escape. Wikipedia is near the top of the list. Even more perilous to your workday than reading is joining Wikipedia as an editor. Before you decide to take that step, you might want to learn something about the culture of Wikipedia editing. The Awl looks at the editing history of one provocative entry:

Since 2001, the Wikipedia entry on Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita has been edited 2,303 times. It's a popular entry, too: of approximately 750,000 Wiki articles out there, it ranks at 2,075 in traffic.

In the past ten years, the entry has grown from the four-sentence description, shown above, to the detailed, 6,000-plus-word monolith of today. The two Lolita films now have their own pages, while the entry on the novel has expanded to include sections on such subjects as Lolita's Russian translation and its literary allusions. An edit is made, on average, about every other day.

Not only is the entry constantly edited, but those edits are discussed among editors. The road to the perfect entry is long and involved, and sometimes resembles sausage making. Link -via Boing Boing

You've probably heard by now that Steve Jobs has resigned as the CEO of Apple, which saddened many fans who assume the move is due to his health. As a tribute to his career, Ranker has posted The Top Steve Jobs Keynote Moments, with videos of his most memorable speeches, highlighting the expected "surprise" unveiling of new Apple products. The earliest features a new Macintosh computer that referred to Jobs as "a man who's been like a father to me." The image here is from the 2007 iPhone introduction. There's even a compilation of bloopers! Link

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You know it's true -kittens will play with anything you leave within their reach. So put your light sabers away! -Thanks, Zach!

In case you've ever wondered who decided the world needed fake vomit, the story can now be told, courtesy of novelty historians Stan and Mardi Timm. Professional prankster Irving Fishlove began manufacturing plastic puke in 1959. There are two plausible stories about who invented the stuff, but Fishlove bought the idea and went on to perfect it.

Not only did Irving Fishlove buy the idea to mass-produce and sell, he also took matters into his own hands. His son, Howard Fishlove, told the Timms about coming home as a schoolkid to find his kitchen counter covered in various types of fake barf. Turns out, Dad was so excited about this upchuck gag, he was experimenting with his own formulas of brown or yellow latex mixed with chunky bits of colored foam. “He told us it was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen,” says Mardi Timm.

The formula they settled on has been a closely-guarded secret ever since. Read all about the history of "Whoops," the original latex barf at Collector's Weekly. Link -Thanks, Ben!

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Storycorps listened to cousins James Ransom and Cherie Johnson as they remembered their childhood Sunday school teacher Miss Lizzie Devine, "the only woman who scared them more than their grandmother." Animated by The Rauch Brothers. Link -Thanks, Krisi!