And just like that, Goldman's day had been brightened by the unwitting kitty.
"I guess you can definitely say he brought me joy while I was walking home. It was mood-lifting, most definitely," she said. "Laughing that hard that early in the morning makes the rest of the day much more positive."
That still doesn't answer the most important question: What has a this cat done with the baby Jesus? -via Boing Boing
Andrew Therrien started getting threatening calls from a collection agent that went so far as to mention raping his wife if Therrien didn't pay up. The problem was that Therrien had no debts. And he was being targeted by more than one collection agency. The salesman took the harassment personally, and set out to find out who was behind it.
Therrien had been caught up in a fraud known as phantom debt, where millions of Americans are hassled to pay back money they don’t owe. The concept is centuries old: Inmates of a New York debtors’ prison joked about it as early as 1800, in a newspaper they published called Forlorn Hope. But systematic schemes to collect on fake debts started only about five years ago. It begins when someone scoops up troves of personal information that are available cheaply online—old loan applications, long-expired obligations, data from hacked accounts—and reformats it to look like a list of debts. Then they make deals with unscrupulous collectors who will demand repayment of the fictitious bills. Their targets are often poor and likely to already be getting confusing calls about other loans. The harassment usually doesn’t work, but some marks are convinced that because the collectors know so much, the debt must be real.
The problem is as simple as it is intractable. In 2012 a call center in India was busted for making 8 million calls in eight months to collect made-up bills. The Federal Trade Commission has since broken up at least 13 similar scams. In most cases, regulators weren’t able to identify the original perpetrators because the data files had been sold and repackaged so many times. Victims have essentially no recourse to do anything but take the abuse.
Therrien did not want to take the abuse and he was after more than just the agent that was calling him. He spent two years investigating the phantom debt scheme on his own until he got to the kingpin. Read about what Therrien did and what he found at Bloomberg. -via Digg
John Green looks back 21 years to the year 1996. If you are shocked that you recall those things, congratulations- you've achieved adulthood. You'll have moments like that to make you feel old for the rest of your life. This retrospective is from the latest episode of the Mental Floss List Show.
On December 15, we'll have a chance to see Carrie Fisher in a movie for the final time in The Last Jedi. It will be hard to say goodbye to General Leia, formerly known as Princess Leia. Remix master Melodysheep put together scenes from the life of Princess Leia as a tribute to her lasting legacy.
Viewers are reveling in the Netflix original movie A Christmas Prince -because it's so deliciously bad. To be fair, I haven't seen any criticism of the actors or the production values, but it appears the plot was written by an algorithm. Every plot device of a little girl's fantasy has been thrown into the mix, no matter how implausible, or how many times it's been used before.
See, it's about a ~quirky~ woman who is worse at being a journalist than Rory Gilmore, and a guy who is literally every bland, handsome, white, quasi-tortured prince with a playboy reputation and a secret heart of gold you've ever watched. There's a Christmas tree in every scene, in case you forget it's a CHRISTMAS prince, i.e. the best kind of prince, obviously. I imagine he smells of cinnamon and wrapping paper IRL. And if you love romance clichés, guess what: THIS MOVIE HAS ALL OF THEM. Every single one.
#AChristmasPrince has everything: The Prince & Me, Princess Diaries 2, Never Been Kissed, Beauty & the Beast, finding out you're adopted /1
Let me guess one of them: the lead is a plain woman until she gets to know the prince. Then he is astonished to see how beautiful she is dressed up for the ball, because she's now wearing a dress and makeup. And they live happily ever after. A true Cinderella story. Read more funny reactions to A Christmas Princeat Buzzfeed. It might even be worth borrowing a Netflix password.
Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2017 is a group. They call them the Silence Breakers- women who have come forward to call out men for sexual harassment or sexual assault by name. The cover of the Person of the Year issue features actress Ashley Judd, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, activist Adama Iwu, musician Taylor Swift, and farm laborer Isabel Pascual representing hundreds of others.
The roots of TIME’s annual franchise—singling out the person or persons who most influenced the events of the year—lie in the so-called great man theory of history, a phrasing that sounds particularly anachronistic at this moment. But the idea that influential, inspirational individuals shape the world could not be more apt this year. “I want to show [my 11-year-old daughter] that it’s O.K. to stand up for yourself, even though you feel like the world is against you,” says Dana Lewis, a hotel hospitality coordinator who is suing her employer over the actions of a serial groper. “If you keep fighting, eventually you’ll see the sun on the other side.” Or as artist and activist Rose McGowan put it, “Why not fight back? What else are we doing?”
You saw that video of the sea lion blocking the way of the crew filming the BBC series Blue Planet II. The world's wildlife may be trying to make a statement that they don't really appreciate people invading their territory, even to make a beautiful television documentary. A pelican in the Galapagos Islands made his opinion known when he checked out the film crew's campsite, especially the tent of director Rachel Butler.
Maybe the pelican is saying,"This is my island, and I'll go where I want to." Or maybe he's just plain curious, and isn't afraid of a mere TV producer. -via Tastefully Offensive
He almost had you there, right? No matter how down or lonely you are feeling, there's always some homeless dog or cat whose life may depend on your love and support. A new pet can go a long way toward fighting loneliness, and research shows that volunteering your time goes a long way to reduce stress and anxiety. Maybe the best thing to do for your mental health is to reach out to others before it gets really bad. This is the latest from Lunarbaboon.
On December 6, Finland celebrates 100 years of independence from the Russian Republic. In honor of the occasion, photographer Hannu Pakarinen documented 100 Finns in 100 Years, meaning a Finnish citizen who was born in each year all the way back to 1917. The Finn for 2017 has not yet been born, but he/she is evident in a picture of his/her mother. Shown here is the Finn born in 2016. There's nothing that says "Finland" more than a baby sleeping outside, unless it's a baby sleeping in a box. Or would that classic picture of a Finn be someone in a sauna? In case you might need a warning, the man born in 1918 is nude, although technically SFW. See all the images here. -via Metafilter
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
Who doesn't love the Marx Brothers? These four (and later, three) masters of mirth gave us 13 classic comedies, each one hilarious- to varying degrees.
Although their fourth film Horse Feathers (1932) is unbelievably hilarious on the funny meter, other Marx Brothers outings are usually cited by critics and film aficionados as either their best or superior. Interestingly and oddly, each of the three main Marx Brothers had their own particular favorite of their films, and none chose Horse Feathers.
The film has certainly held up well and stood the test of time. In 2000, the American Film Institute chose Horse Feathers as number 65 on their prestigious list of the 100 Funniest American Comedy Films of all-time ("100 years... 100 laughs"). Whatever.
Norman Z. McLeod, a rare directing survivor of two Marx Brothers movies (he had also directed the boys' previous effort, 1931's Monkey Business), was at the helm.
Basic scenario: Groucho plays Quincey Adams Wagstaff, the president of Huxley College (Thomas Henry Huxley had been an ardent and well-known advocate of Darwin's theory of evolution). Harpo is Pinky, the local dog catcher, and Chico is Baravelli, a resident deliverer of bootleg liquor. Zeppo plays Frank Wagstaff, Groucho's son.
Blonde bombshell Thelma Todd, playing Connie Bailey, the "college widow," is the ostensible love interest of all four Marxes. Although "college widow" is now, these eighty-odd years later, an archaic descriptive expression, at the time it was a slightly derogatory term, meaning a woman of loose morals who lived near a college so she could be close to the male students (ahem).
About eight years ago, Joe Sikorra was facing the worst thing you can imagine: his son John had a terminal illness. He had already lost his sight and was having trouble with his short-term memory. John had a wish to meet Luke Skywalker- the real Luke Skywalker, not the actor who plays him. The family turned to the only friend they knew in the film industry, screenwriter Ed Solomon. Solomon tells the story from there.
You can read the original Twitter thread as Solomon shared the story yesterday. In the replies, there was one Tweet that stood out.
There's no sweeter sound than a child laughing-I've been so lucky-feel it's my duty 2 give back in any way I can-Much prefer visits 2 hospitals than talk-shows Heartbreaking but inspirational-makes my career seem trivial in comparison-Wish I could do more https://t.co/nXXutNfYsa
One of the big questions we were left with at the end of The Force Awakens was "Who are the mysterious parents who abandoned Rey on the planet Jakku?" The question is important, because the three Star Wars trilogies so far are heavily centered on family ties, at least after the first film. The second reason is because Rey is obviously the lead character of this trilogy, just as Luke Skywalker was in the first three films and Anakin Skywalker was in the prequels. The reasons to assume Rey is a Skywalker are speculation and not based on any spoilers from The Last Jedi.
Yes, you read that correctly: Rey of Jakku, the protagonist who is absent a surname, might as well be called Rey Skywalker at this point, because she is more than the heir apparent to Luke’s Force sensitive heroism. She is quite literally his daughter who will bring balance once more to a Force that her family disrupts with all the frequency of Millennium Falcon thefts.
The last line of the movie could have been, “Rey, I am your father.” And if you search your feelings, you will know it to be true. And then you can read the below list of reasons why…
The reasons are clues from The Force Awakens that you might want to brush up on before you go see The Last Jedi, which opens nationwide in less than ten days. Read them all at Den of Geek.
The Santa Clause is a heartwarming Christmas classic from 1994 that starts with Santa Claus being killed, and ends with Santa being arrested. Along the way, we have the petty squabbles of a broken family to contend with. Screen Junkies found plenty to say about The Santa Clause.
If you always loved The Santa Clause, watching this Honest Trailer might ruin the whole experience for you, because, well, it's honest. -Thanks, Lacey!
Heikki Lunta is the Finnish snow god, born in 1970 in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. That may sound strange, but it's another of those things that just snowball when people want to have a little fun. Houghton County, Michigan, has a large concentration of people with Finnish ancestry, and they know how to enjoy snow. But when you have a snow event planned, and the weather doesn't cooperate, you have to take things into your own hands.
There's a little town called Atlantic Mine about five miles away from Houghton where they hold an annual snowmobile race every winter. In 1970 the race was at risk of being cancelled because there wasn’t any snow. The race was sponsored by radio station WMPL in nearby Hancock. With no snow in sight, one of the station’s salesmen, David Riutta, composed a song called the "Heikki Lunta Snowdance Song." It took him about twenty minutes to invent the lyrics. "Heikki Lunta," it turns out, means “Henry Snow” in Finnish, and Riutta chose the name because his favorite musician was country western singer Hank Snow. Heikki Lunta was said to live in the back woods of a Finnish farming community south of Houghton, and he reportedly had the ability to do a dance which would cause snow to fall from the skies. Riutta’s song asked "Heikki Lunta" to do his dance to make it snow in time for the snowmobile race. They started playing the song on WMLP, it immediately became a local hit, and, lo and behold, it soon began snowing. According to local lore, it snowed and snowed for days. So much so that they had to cancel the snowmobile race.
The snow got the song on the news, and soon other radio stations were playing it. That sparked a backlash from people who didn't care for snowstorms, until Ruitta recorded another song called "Heikki Lunta Go Away," that ended up as the B-side of "Heikki Lunta." The legend stuck around. Da Yoopers recorded a different song, also called "Heikki Lunta" on their album Yoopy do Wah in 1991.
