John Rodriguez arrived at the Rent-a-Center he managed in Brockton, Massachusetts, Tuesday and found 53-year-old Manuel Fernandes pinned to the floor under the metal door at the rear of the building. His first instinct was, of course, to whip out his phone and start recording.
On the video, the Fernandes claims he was just “trying to fix the door,” then claims he confused Rent-A-Center with another address, then finally pleads with Rodriguez to let him go, saying that he hasn’t taken anything. The man said he had been under the door since midnight.
Police freed Fernandes and took him to a hospital to be checked out. They plan to charge him with breaking and entering. Link -via Arbroath
Jeff Cohen's five-year-old daughter decided her three-year-old sister needed a haircut, so she got the scissors. Weeks later, after everyone had calmed down and learned their lessons, he interviewed the girls about the experience. What resulted was the most adorable account of childhood adventure you've heard outside your own family.
First, there's the how. And then there are several good reasons why. Get the charcoal out -I think I'll try this tonight! But just the hot dogs. Bratwurst has a casing and should not be spiral-cut. -via reddit
In this TEDeducation video, George Zaidan explains how different classes of pain relievers work. Animation by Augenblick Studios. It's a chemistry lesson, but the image of a brain driving a car makes it all worthwhile. -via The Daily What Geek
Dean Peterson noticed that the tenth step up on the staircase at his subway stop in Brooklyn was a fraction of an inch taller than the other stairs. That's just enough to make everyone whack it with their foot, because by the time you reach it, your feet know how tall it should be. According to the comments at vimeo, the stairs have been cordoned off with caution tape just today. Maybe this video had something to do with it. -via Metafilter
It appears that two attractive young people wandered into a photo booth together in 1953. You can see more pictures of the young Kennedys taken in another photo booth session at Retronaut. Link -via Nag on the Lake
Fred Armisen asked videographers to submit short serious videos. There are rules, plenty of them, which makes me wonder what he will eventually do with all these videos.
Rule 1: It has to be serious.
Rule 2: It has to be 30 seconds or less
Rule 3: No more than 2 people in it
Rule 4: At least 1 5 second dramatic pause
Rule 5: At least 1 cutaway to an object
Rule 6: Do your best acting
Rule 7: It needs to have a door slamming
Submit your own videos (make sure to include the words "Be Serious for 30 Seconds: somewhere in the title), and check back here to see what people have made.
Should we expect a supercut some day? Despite the fact that there is no end project announced, no payment, and no prizes awarded, there are already 200 submissions. Link-Thanks, David!
Saturday night will be just a little longer than usual, as a "leap second" will be added to the clock. That adjustment comes around every once in a while to keep our clocks on track with the sun.
A leap second has been scheduled for June 30, 2012. A leap second is an adjustment to the atomic clock-based Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to bring it more closely in line with Universal Time (UT), which is based on the rotation of the earth. The two time standards do not agree because the earth’s rotation is ever so gradually and unpredictably slowing down.
I don't know about you, but "unpredictably slowing down" doesn't sound all that reassuring. But no far, I don't see any scientists and chronologists panicking. Link
KFC in the Philippines has a new product they're trying out. What an innovative idea -putting cheese on top of a burger! What could possibly go wrong? Link -via reddit
Putting Nicholas Cage's face on pictures of cats is such a random, creepy, and hilarious idea that it's fired up an entire Tumblr blog. Reminds you a little of the movie Face Off, doesn't it? No? Link -via Everlasting Blort
Ace of Base was a Swedish pop group of the '90s. Aces of Bass is a tribute band that performs cover versions of their music ...on bass fiddles! -via The Daily What
Phones, doorknobs, and keyboards in the workplace are all covered in bacteria, but the dirtiest places of all are men's desks. Scott Kelly and his team from the University of San Diego tested surfaces in 30 offices each in New York, San Francisco, and Tucson for both the amount and kinds of bacteria.
Of particular interest, the bacteria levels the researchers found depended on the gender of the office occupant. "The surfaces inhabited by men tended to have more bacterial cells and more abundance of cells than those inhabited by women," Kelly said.
The researchers have two suggestions of why this might be. First, this could be just because men are frequently larger than women, so they have more surface area to grow bacteria, and therefore end up shedding more bacteria into their environment.
The second idea is not nearly as flattering. Previous studies have shown that men are just dirtier than women; they don’t wash their hands or brush their teeth nearly as often. This could be the cause of their extra dirty offices (and orifices), the researchers said.
However, most of the bacteria found in the entire experiment was "inert," meaning harmless because they are germs we carry around with us all the time anyway. Still, these results make one want to wash one's hands, doesn't it? Link -via the Presurfer
The return of Henri, the existential cat, features a trip to the vet. Sadly, the vet does not listen to Henri's tale of despair and ennui. As expected. -via Buzzfeed
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website. Note: if you haven't seen the film Psycho, this post contains spoilers.
Psycho is, without a doubt, Alfred Hitchcock's scariest film, although perhaps not his greatest film. That honor may belong to Strangers on a Train or Vertigo, Rear Window or The Birds. Whatever your personal taste in Hitchcock movies, Psycho remains not only Hitch's most famous and influential film, but also his biggest moneymaker at the box office.
Filmed in just 30 days with a rock-bottom budget of $800,000, Psycho has, to date, taken in over $50 million at the world's box office. This figure doesn't include TV showings or video and DVD sales. Hitch himself decided to forgo his usual quarter-of-a-million-dollar salary, instead accepting a deal for 60% of the profits on Psycho. He would pocket $15 million from this shrewd move.
Perhaps no film in the history of cinema has set so many precedents and broken so much new ground. The film's star, Janet Leigh, plays Marion Crane, an average workaday office employee. (The female lead's name in the original Psycho novel by Robert Bloch was actually Mary Crane, but when it was discovered that two real-life women named Mary Crane were currently living in Phoenix, Arizona, the name Marion was chosen as a replacement.) Hitch bought the rights to Robert Bloch's novel Psycho, surreptitiously, for a paltry sum of $9,000.
Psycho was to be Hitchcock's last black and white film. The reasons for this were 1) he thought the film would be "too gory" if filmed in color, 2) he wanted it to be as inexpensive as possible, and 3) he knew so many low budget films were lousy and made a lot of money, and wanted to see how a very good black and white film would do at the box office.
Leigh took on the starring role and is the film's central character until midway through, where, to the audience's shock and astonishment, she is killed off. Never before in any film had the lead character died in the middle of the movie. In the Bloch novel, the Mary Crane character is rather minor, only appearing in two chapters.
The film's plot is based around Marion being madly in love and embezzling $40,000 for her and her boyfriend to live on. (As a sidebar, John Gavin plays Janet's lover, Sam Loomis, in the film and was the only actor whose performance the Psycho director Hitchcock disliked. Hitch was known to refer to Gavin as "the stiff.")
Marion is seen in the opening scene wearing a white bra. According to Leigh, this was to show her as "angelic." Later in the film, after Marion embezzles the money, she is seen in a black bra, as she has now done an evil act. Similarly, Marion has a white purse in the early scenes, then a black purse after the crime is committed.
