I have only one rule for this week’s review – no Charlie Sheen. Hoo boy, has that guy worn out his welcome or what? He may have seriously set the record for fastest meme to come and go in Internet history. You know how I know that the Sheen fad reached its end? My mom called this week to check on me and she asked me if I was winning. What made it even worse was when she asked how her favorite goddess-in-laws were doing. Just plain creepy, mom.
But there was plenty going on this week that didn’t involve the now unemployed actor, including some wonderful, heart-warming stories about kind deeds, loving pets and my favorite childhood breakfast cereal. Don’t worry, though, we’ve got plenty of weird and insane news, too, including a blogger that has a sick sense of humor and the creepiest sports fan you’ve ever seen.
On Wednesday, filmmaker and comedian Todd Bieber posted the third installment and finale to an original video he posted on YouTube in January about a roll of film that he found after the massive New York City blizzard. Appealing to the Internet to help him find the owner of the film, Bieber finally tracked down a girl named Camille in France. She had taken the photos while on vacation in the U.S. So Bieber booked a spontaneous trip overseas to return the pictures, and he was accepted as a guest by people across Europe all because of his story and his desire to have an adventure. And you can call it fake or maybe it’s just an advertisement for something, but for a few seconds it made me feel a lot better than the next story.
We’ll call this a developing story, but Gawker staff writer Adrian Chen is at the center of Internet controversy as he may or may not have played a huge prank on Reddit. Earlier this week, a Reddit user named “Lucidending” created a thread on the site’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) section and proclaimed to be terminally ill with cancer. He said that he was ending the use of his medication and was going to die peacefully under the protection of Oregon’s “Death With Dignity” act. Other users posted by the hundreds with sympathy and love for this person they didn’t know. And now it is possible that Lucidending was actually Chen trying to prove that Reddit users are sexist.
Chen had earlier explored the reaction of Reddit users when a girl created a thread asking for donations to help support her friend with cancer. At that time, users bombarded her with questions as to her request’s authenticity. So, as Urlesque points out, if this was really Chen’s attempt to prove Reddit users sexist, it’s a poor attempt, because of the money vs. friendship aspect.
But Chen finally posted his response on Gawker, and he denies having any part in it, other than making a bad joke on Twitter by assuming the identity of Lucidending and laughing at the gullibility of Reddit users. He also curiously rants about his distaste for Reddit in general – distaste being a kind term. Is it possible that Chen really is Lucidending and is now denying it to both avoid Internet troll fury and revel in the success of his prank? Who knows? No. Wait. I means cares. Who cares?
(Photo via The Daily What)
As I pointed out yesterday at With Leather, the 2011 World Cricket Cup is currently being played throughout India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. While many countries are cheering on their teams, I’m pretty sure we already found the event’s big winner. The video above is a standard sporting event crowd shot until the arrival of the best fan cameo since the Ryder Cup cigar guy last year. With a vibrating mustache and the most insane face this side of a To Catch a Predator marathon, this cricket fan is bound to be a meme sensation for at least the next month. Maybe two months if Charlie Sheen keeps annoying us.
Julia Roberts has had a remarkable career, spanning three decades with billions of dollars in box office revenue and probably some awards in there somewhere. What am I, the Hollywood Foreign Press? I’m sure none of it matters, though, at least not as much as guy willing to cover his body in tattoos of Julia’s face. Inspired by her performance in the film Erin Brockovich, 56-year old Milijenko Parserisas Bukovic of Mexico proclaims that he’s not even done yet and will get more tattoos, according to FilmDrunk. This sure puts my tattoos of Ally Sheedy to shame.
An article from Daily Finance caused a riot in the world of breakfast cereal after the author insinuated that Quaker Oats was phasing out the iconic cartoon face of Cap’n Crunch. Luckily the folks at Advertising Age put an end to that concern and talked sugar-loving seafarers off the proverbial ledge by reporting that the Cap’n is hap’n, and Quaker even started a Facebook page for him. If they wanted to kill him, they would have made him a MySpace profile.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/template/utils/ooyala/telegraph_player.swf
Magdalena is a turtle that was recently discovered in Slovakia, and I know what you’re thinking – “Burnsy, chicks must go crazy over your classic good looks, and what’s the big deal about a turtle?” Well, this specific turtle has two heads and five legs. One head is Magda and the other head is Lena, hence Magdalena. While the above report from the Telegraph doesn’t say if the legs are named, I like to think that each of them is named after a Backstreet Boy.
In this week’s GO HUG YOUR DOG RIGHT NOW news, Sugar the boxer suddenly collapsed during a routine training session at the Canyon Crest K9 Training Center and was seemingly dead. As Sugar’s owner reacted in horror, the center’s owner, Ron Pace stepped in and performed CPR on the dog, eventually saving Sugar’s life. And if Sugar’s eventual response doesn’t melt your heart then you can just move along, Skeletor.
While we prepared for Mardi Gras in the U.S., the people of Brazil celebrated Carnival this week with special guest and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Enjoying the festivities with his wife and Victoria’s Secret model Gisele Bundchen, Brady was sporting a new hairdo with a tiny pony tail in the back. Brady’s hair was the subject of many rumors late last year, as a hair doctor claimed that he had been visited by the NFL MVP because he is losing his hair. Of course, if Brady went bald no woman would ever sleep with him again.
Former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson stopped by “Your World with Neil Cavuto” this week to discuss how much old people love Fox News and he dropped some knowledge on us about kids these days. Simpson thinks that kids don’t have any respect for their grandparents anymore and the reason is that terrible rap music. Most notably, he hates The Enema Man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dog, meaning Eminem and Snoop Dogg. It’s even funnier because he has no clue where he is.
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- Americans buy more than 2.7 billion packages of breakfast cereal each year, which is enough to line up to reach the moon and back. At the same time, more than 816 million pounds of sugar go into our cereal, which is enough to make a person sprint to the moon and back. (Cerealizing America)
- For at least the past 22 years, Kellogg’s has been the king of the breakfast cereal world, netting 32% of sales as of 2008 with General Mills in second with 25%. In fact, General Mills has long been the Washington Generals to Kellogg’s Globetrotters, as the closest the two have ever been was a 1% difference in 1999. (Topher’s Castle)
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