Gentleman holding coffee walks into glass door

Update: I've swapped out the video embed in this post with a version that doesn't include obnoxious ads. This embed, and more about the incident, at mullen.com.

This simple video is a thing of beauty: Man holding coffee walks into glass door. (via Jesse Dylan)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Tom Hale

OK – I knew you don’t know him – I was just picking a bit – it’s a slow night.

You sure are different than what I expected – not that I’d actually thought about your personality or anything when I saw you on tv.
- The Lizardman
  
  I’ll tell you from experience (but I’m sure you know) not to make too many guesses about a person from random internet chatter ;)
  
  On TV, I am edited to death.
  
  Yeah, it is a slow night.
BigBlackCoffeeman

No real coffee drinker uses milk! whata phony!!!!!
Tom Hale

Since I learned how to properly maintain a pc I’ve yet to have any problems – most people that have problems w a windows computer don’t install updates or maintain proper virus and spyware protection. 99.9% of windows problems are caused by the user – you know it and I know it.
Antinous / Moderator

This would be funnier if it were Anna Wintour.
littlerunninggag

No ad here. Do I win because I run Chrome?

WRT the video. ‘What is this line of solid air in front of me?!?’
- turingcub
  
  (I’m using Chrome, and I still got a 30-sec ad.)
  
  I’ve BEEN this guy! And yes, you need a moment to just drama-sigh and recoup before trying to clean it.
zikzak

Y’all don’t understand the seriousness of what happened in this vid.

Walks-Through-Walls-Man was just heading out to foil Dr. Mechabrain’s latest plot…this is where he discovers to his horror that Mechabrain’s minions must have slipped weaktonium into his morning coffee, neutralizing his superpower!
gwailo_joe

Huh? Hate to get all “intra-comment-y” on such a blase stance: BG vs. SJ. . .whatevah.

BUT: my crappy, 5 year old, never in need of ANY spyware/anti-whutnot ever, not a glitch, when it gets slow just restart it. . .A to the pple always works.

I surely will not tell you how ‘greatly superior’ an internet browser is. . .I don’t care.

I just want it to work: my shit does. That’s all.
- teapot
  
  when it gets slow just restart it.
  
  This is the defining operational description of apple products from 2000-2010….. lets hope they can turn it around. My LG phone never needs rebooting. My friend has to reboot his iphone every few days when it fucks up.
  
  99.9% of windows problems are caused by the user – you know it and I know it.
  
  Have to agree here.
  
  Dude: whatever works for you is fine by me.. I will be the first to say that Apple is an innovative company who often brings new things to the table, it’s just that I can’t fully agree with your views on reliability, when the professionally maintained network of new apples running OSX used for video editing we had at uni – where fresh installs were applied on a 6 monthly basis – was completely fucked with errors and problems. During uni the little rainbow icon became the bain of my existence.
  
  I ended up just wasting time during class and editing at home because my Windows XP installation of Prem Pro & AE was far more stable than final cut on OSX. Too many lost renders will do that to ya.
Anonymous

This add for 30 seconds is HORRIBLE! Stop doing that!

I was gonna say FAKE because no one can be that dumb, but I changed my mind after noticing his face slammed against the glass along with the coffee. No one is THAT dumb.
Anonymous

Here is the back story and the video without ads.
http://www.mullen.com/2010/02/tim-misses-the-door-or-brooks-brothers-saves-the-day/
Anonymous

It’s just not as funny without witty commentary from Danny Bonaduce or Tonya Harding.
Felton

I didn’t have to watch an ad either. I have Adblock, but how would that cancel an advertisement in an embedded video?

Anyway, zikzak is right. Without Walks-Through-Walls-Man, who will save the city?
Anonymous

HAHA that was great! I love the pause!
cinemajay

No ad, no video either. It’s been removed. :(
Antinous / Moderator

It could have been worse. Much, much worse.
- Felton
  
  Antinous@34: Holy mother of pearl! I thought that kind of thing only happened in movies.
Astin

I can’t get video at work… what happens in this one?
Anonymous

Hehe. I did exactly the same thing last month. Except I don’t take cream in my coffee.
0rac1e

He got cap(puccino)’d!
BookGuy

Oh, yeah? Well, I once walked into a glass door with my Apple and it still worked FINE afterward. Try that with a PC, you Windows apologists!
Derek C. F. Pegritz

Hey, that shit ain’t funny! It’s happened to me TWICE. Well…okay, yeah, that actually is funny.
peter x

Here! Here! Anon #63

It was all downhill after that poseur put milk in his coffee. Everyone knows the gods prefer their coffee black.
Robert

Brain: Right! RIGHT! Your OTHER RIGHT!
misterfricative

It’s lucky he ran into that door. Otherwise he would have tripped over that metal ledge.

Seriously though, is there anything more gratuitously dangerous than a wall or door made out of unmarked glass? Where does this shit even come from, the Road-Runner School of Architecture and Interior Design?

As for cleaning it up, the best way to clean that mess up would be with a freakin’ hammer.
magneticwheels

why did i bother to click on this? a moment of levity, perhaps? all i got was an ad for a moronic movie that i don’t want to see. i’m a nitwit for bothering. thanks bb.
Quiche de Resistance

That’s not even a glass door; there’s no hinges in the metal frame at the bottom. He walked into the glass panel next to the glass door.
Day Vexx

..and he didn’t even attempt to clean it up! You suck, dude!
- Anonymous
  
  If I were going to clean up a mess I’d made on camera I’m not sure I’d find all the supplies needed instantly and in frame, dude.
flatfive

I was all set to make a bitchy comment about a 20 second ad in front of an 8 second video, but dammit, the way he stands there contemplating what he just did simply makes this video.
Rider

Wow this is the death of break you have to watch a 15 second ad to watch a 19 second video.
limepies

?

i didn’t have to watch an ad.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Seconded.
lbigbadbob

What is this? FAIL Blog?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Did he died?
gwailo_joe

When I was in Bangkok, I wanted to watch the Super Bowl. The place I was directed to by the Internet was on Soi 7. Owned by an Aussie. I was the only American there. It was Patriots vs. Eagles. An enjoyable game as I recall (no, Philly didn’t win); but the commercial breaks. . .no commercials at all, they cut to an old MacEnroe/BjornBorg tennis match from the ’80s. Weird. But I enjoyed many (many. . .) drinks of Coronas and Jamesons as the game progressed. After the game most patrons left and I played dice games with a hostess/bartender. I paid my tab. I stood up. I walked. . .directly into the glass door at full brisk walking speed. It was a mercy the damn plate glass didn’t shatter. The African fellow having lunch with his friend on the patio had a great laugh at my expense. It was a rather mortifying experience, but in retrospect, I am glad I was not holding a beverage. . .(and when I met the same guy at a different bar and mentioned how I recognized him, he laughed Again) But I deserved it. And life goes on. . .
footage

I had to watch a 30-sec movie trailer.
benher

I like how he grumpily dumps the rest of the coffee on the floor on his way out the door. Class all the way!
- The Lizardman
  
  He doesn’t dump anything, a small stream (from the damaged cup) runs out of the cup which he holds steady and completely upright. Was he supposed to somehow prevent the liquid from flowing out of the damaged cup by magic? I am a bit perplexed by some people’s need to make him out to be some sort of villian rather than the victim of everyday clumsiness that can and does catch most of us at some point in life which all that can be seen in this video.
  - benher
    
    You’re right – maybe I need my eyes (or my head) examined. Fortunately most of my own hitherto coffee cup spillery has been out of the prying view of CCTV cameras.
  - Felton
    
    Lizardman: I agree. He’s simply a victim of this sometimes logistically confusing modern world. Happens to birds all the time.
  - Tom Hale
    
    OK – I’m guessing you know this guy? C’mon, if he has any sense of humor he’ll realize we’re laughing With him -not at him.
    - The Lizardman
      
      You guess wrong, I don’t know him.
      
      I just watched the video and thought ‘poor bastard’ with a chuckle, caught the backstory link, and responded to commenters here going on about not cleaning up and dumping.
      
      I hope he is laughing with the people who are laughing with him and shrugging off the jerks. There is plenty to have a good-natured laugh about together but if you are saying that calling him classless for dumping he didn’t do or criticizing his not immediately wiping up the spill was good-natured, well it didn’t read that way to me
  - apoxia
    
    I’m with you on this Lizardman. People seem to be reading all sorts of malicious intent into this video. I’m just thinking “poor guy, how embarrassing and annoying for him”. He looks like a nice guy to me – could be any guy in an office.
prunk

ahhh ad-blocker how I love it. Thank you all for subsidizing our internet.
gwailo_joe

Also as a response to the ad-folks commenting earlier: Ad-what? Apple. I click. I see. I move on.
- teapot
  
  Ad-what? Apple.
  
  OK…. go ahead and add another fictional thing to the list of magical shit that Apple products can supposedly do. That is the problem with fanboys…. they often have little to no understanding of how computers actually work. I suppose you’re now going to tell me how greatly superior Safari is?
  
  And whats with all the vitriol about the included ad? No one likes ads, but whoever sent this into BB sent the original video link which, at the time, was probably the only version of the vid online. What was Xeni going to do? Screen-cap the vid, re-encode & upload to youtube before posting?
  
  Well that’s obviously what she did after all your bitching, but how about you send the rage where it should be sent? it wasn’t like BB was getting the dolla dolla bills yo from the ad, as some here seem to think.
- Tom Hale
  
  My computer tells me that Apple products are the Devil.
  
  I read a few months ago that Windows 7 already held more market share than every Mac OS combined.
romulusnr

He almost looks as if, for a few seconds, he still doesn’t know what the fuck just happened.

I mean, it’s like he’s stoned, confused, until suddenly he sees the open door on the other side.

And he looks back at the glass in amazement at its presence. Almost as if to say “what is this hard transparent surface?”
Anonymous

I did the exact same thing, our office kitchen had that full-length glass next to the door. I was talking to someone then turned around and walked right into it.

Wish I’d been videotaped. At least it was a good laugh for my coworkers.
RedShirt77

Remember folks

Step 1: Drink Caffeine
Step 2: do stuff

Or

Step 1: Do Stuff
Step 2: Drink Caffeine to help you clean up the mess you just made.
Tom Hale

Hey, BB’s gotta get some cash to keep all the wonderfulness coming – though I’d prefer the video after the ad to be something more like: ‘Busty woman enjoys skipping rope.’
kenahoo

If that were me and I hit the glass, I wouldn’t clean it up either. I’d leave it there in protest for the giant invisible barrier that just fucked up my morning coffee.
Tom Hale

I have a youtube ad blocker installed but it doesn’t work on this type of ad – it just stops the ones that pop up from the bottom.

I’m getting GameStop and Hot Pocket ads
The Lizardman

How do you know he didn’t clean it up?

If it were me, I would have walked out of frame just like he did…to go let someone know it had happened and to ask for some towels or such to help clean it up, I doubt he had anything with him to deal with the mess right at that instant. I guess I am horribly unprepared compared to the complainers who would have just whipped out the sham-wow they always have on them for just such an occasion.
- BookGuy
  
  Lizardman, I wear a suit entirely made of Sham-Wow to work, just to prevent this very thing. Ain’t nobody going to see footage of me on YouTube not immediately cleaning up a spill!
  
  I’ve also been told the subsequent rubbing of myself against the glass during the cleaning process is quite erotic.
  - The Lizardman
    
    I might actually pay to see that – at least the suit, if not the rubbing. Ah hell, I’d have to watch both out of sheer curiousity
dculberson

No ads here, I have the Adblock Plus plugin for Firefox. I should say, the utterly indispensable Adblock Plus plugin for Firefox.

RE: the guy in the video .. I understand he doesn’t have the supplies to clean it up, but being in the management of an office building, I wish that people in this situation would at least tell someone. I’m more than happy to clean up a spilled coffee, preferably long before it becomes an ooey gooey mess that’s next to impossible for our janitors to get up. But the worst are the toilet offenders. If you have colon problems, please clean up after yourself. Or telecommute. Seriously, would you leave your bathroom at home covered in grodiness? On second thought, don’t answer that.
Anonymous

He sort of looks like police sergeant Harry S. Truman from Twin Peaks.
Tavie

My attention span has finally completely bitten the dust. I clicked on the video, saw the ad start, got bored by the ad and clicked away.
pecoto

More people getting hit in the crotch please.
Tom Hale

“How do you know he didn’t clean it up?”

It’s obvious that he blames the door, not himself for the spilled coffee. Why would he clean up the coffee when it’s the door’s fault? If anything, he went to find someone to let them know they owe him for a cup of coffee.
OoOoOo

I have ad block and still had to watch the moronic ad. What’s worse is that before I clicked ‘play’ I set the sound on mute. but that setting for the video didn’t cover the damned ad. Since I was also listening to something else on the computer I couldn’t just mute it so I had to endure it.

Please don’t post things without a warning that there is spam involved.
Anonymous

He wasn’t even looking down, he was looking straight ahead.
gwailo_joe

Share? Sure. . .Ain’t no doubt who has the market share in that battle. . . The Internet: I don’t live in it, I use it. And my old IbookG4 is holding steady after (5?) years. . .my Windows work computer goes kaput every two months like clockwork. . .