A man celebrating his 68th birthday at an amusement park in the Philippines decided to take a selfie with what he thought was plastic crocodile prop. But as he posed with the "statue," it suddenly attacked him, clamping down on his arm.

From Oddity Central:

The thought that the 12-meter "model" could actually be a real crocodile never crossed his mind, at least until he got dangerously close to it and the reptile sank its teeth into his left arm. …

He was eventually able to break free from the crocodile's vice-like jaws before it could rip his arm off, but he did sustain terrible injuries that required medical attention.

"There were no advisories warning us not to enter the enclosure," Nehemias' daughter, Mercy Joy Chipada, said. "Because if there were, we would never have gone there."

The amusement park agreed to cover the costs of Nehemias' treatment, but a spokesperson denied that they had been negligent in preventing the terrible accident, claiming that the area where the crocodile attack occurred was actually off-limits.

The man, who still had a crocodile fang piercing into his flesh when he arrived at the hospital, suffered "fractured bones and eight wounds on his arm and thigh that required stitching," according Oddity Central.

This video shows the man pulling himself from the crocodile grip, and although not too gruesome, might not be appropriate for sensitive viewers.

A napping cat does not take kindly to being shooed out of its chair just so a human could sit and strum his guitar. As you'll see in the following video, if the cat can't enjoy the chair, nobody gets to enjoy the chair.

Customers who ordered and prepaid for Thanksgiving dinner from Boston Market in Rancho Cucamonga, CA were sorely disappointed. When they arrived at the restaurant yesterday to pick up their food, the doors were locked with a sign that said, "No employees showing up today … We are unable to fullfill [sic] the orders!!! We are sorry!!!"

But there had obviously been at least one employee on the premises that morning to put up the sign. Rubbing salt into the wound (rather than the turkey), the restaurant had left the prepared, ready-to-go food stacked inside the restaurant where customers could see it.

Some customers had driven for an hour to pick up their holiday meals, according to CBS, and were stuck scrambling to come up with a last-minute Plan B.

From CBS:

In a Facebook post, David Kinder, who says he recently returned to work for Boston Market as an hourly shift manager, claims the walkout was the result of several weeks of mismanagement. In a series of posts that included his resignation letter, he wrote the store has been without a working water heater for three weeks, has only one point-of-sale system that work, his general manager was hospitalized last week, and the area manager who had been helping with some catering orders had already put in his notice and is leaving at the end of Thanksgiving week.

"It's time for Boston Market corporate to stop being the 'fat cats' and reinvest in their facilities and their people," Kinder wrote in his two-page resignation letter. "What has been happening here is appalling. Fix it. But you won't fix it with me."

In a statement, Boston Market says they will refund the orders of every guest "impacted by our Rancho Cucamonga store."

Prankster Rob Dobi (who is an illustrator IRL) called into conservative talk show "Life with Liz" in Nashua, New Hampshire to "punk" her and her posse. Although they never caught on, Dobi "slammed" the left with a bit of poetry that included as many punk band names as he could fit in. By the end, Liz and crew, although oblivious to his shenanigans, are laughing hard as they say goodbye to their "Republican" caller. Good times were had by all.

See how many punk bands you can catch by listening. (Or read the transcription below.)

"One of my main problems is I'm a Republican in a fairly liberal area and I feel like everyone is just, like, Against me, so I feel like what we need to do is listen to what our Descendents told us. Because in the past, we Refused to live, like, a Life of Agony. I'm Sick Of It All. Im sick of people thinking we're just a Minor Threat. Enough of that Fugazi. A lot of these people just got Bad Brains, that are Misfits that wave Black Flag and they're practically Anti-Flag. I think we need to Converge and help the Youth Of Today because every time you Blink-182 Kids, they go Missing, so I don't think we should be Exploited anymore. We need to Rise Against, or they're going to have to deal with the Fall Out, Boy. … I'll let you guys go. I'm going to head out and Catch some Reel Big Fish. … [but] not if it tastes Rancid."

[Updated at 8:52am after rereading my transcription and finding a few more bands in there to capitalize! Hope I caught them all this time.]

Via Digg

When a bear paid a visit to a woman's house in Highland Lakes, New Jersey this month, she kindly asked it to close her front door — and although a little hesitant, that's exactly what her lumbering visitor does.

Last spring, a party of four sour sports took umbrage against a restaurant for not allowing them to enter without masks. They then wrote a 1-star review that resulted in devilish good profits for the restaurant.

The anti-maskers in Carboro, North Carolina, tried to get an indoor table at Luna Rotisserie, even though entering without a mask was against the state's executive order, according to The Herald Sun. They were offered an outdoor table but left in a huff, warning they would be writing a negative review.

Which is what they did when they wrote on Google: "This place is full of satanic activity. As free breathing humans, we were discriminated against, the wait staff refused to serve our laughing, smiling faces. I cannot believe the treatment we received here, as if we were 'below' them. If you like freedom, go elsewhere!!"

If their "laughing, smiling faces" weren't frowning at this point, they sure are now, after the owner sold hundreds of awesome-looking shirts that display their review, along with a striking image of a masked devil (see image below).

From The Herald Sun:

In October, a new Luna employee posted a photo of the shirt on Twitter, and the Carrboro restaurant went wild, with more than 9,000 likes and 1,200 retweets.

Luna has sold hundreds of the shirts so far, Stokes said, with another few hundred on back order, Stokes said. The shirts are $20 and a hoodie goes for $48. "We've had to schedule additional shifts to make shipping labels for all the shirts," Stokes said.

Yesterday we posted about an unlicensed driver in Australia who faces charges for the high crime of driving a motorized cooler down a footpath. In today's unlicensed driver news, a man in Germany faces an investigation for driving himself to his driving test (putting the cart before the horse, as it were).

From The Washington Post:

Police in Bergheim, near Cologne, said Tuesday that the 37-year-old drove himself to his driving test, parking an Opel Zafira outside the test center in front of an astonished examiner.

They said he told police officers who were called to the scene on Monday that he had only driven because he wanted to make sure to get to the driving test on time.

His test was immediately called off. The man now faces an investigation for driving without a license. Police also opened an investigation of the car's owner.

Days after a group of anti-science doctors, who don't believe in the Covid-19 vaccine, met at a conference in Florida, seven have so far come down with Covid. And one — Dr. Bruce Boros, a 71-year-old cardiologist — is said to be "seriously ill," according to Daily Beast.

The group of 800–900 doctors gathered for the Florida Covid Summit earlier this month at, believe it or not, the World Equestrian Center — a perfect venue for doctors who prescribe ivermectin, or horse deworming medication, to their human Covid patients. And it was there that Dr. Boros said, "I have been on ivermectin for 16 months, my wife and I have never felt healthier in my life," a sentiment that was short-lived.

From Daily Beast:

The organizer, Dr. John Littell, further reported to The Daily Beast that six others among the 800 to 900 participants had also tested positive or developed COVID symptoms "within days of the conference."

"People are considering if it was a superspreader event," Littell said.

In the next breath, he dismissed the very thought with an emphatic "No." …

Littell added, "Everybody so far has responded to treatment with ivermectin… Bruce is doing well."

But what the event's organizer says about Dr. Boros is quite different from what the doctor's acquaintances are saying. From Daily Beast:

Boros remained seriously ill at his Key West home, according to people who know him but who asked not to be identified. Boros himself did not respond to phone messages and emails.

It's not clear how well the other six infected doctors on ivermectin are doing.

The last time we posted a sketch by comedian Caitlin Reilly, she was pushing a pyramid scheme on her friends. But all pyramid schemes collapse, eventually, and now she plays the GAP employee (every GAP employee is this GAP employee) — you know, monotone fast-talk, empty compliments, speaking urgently into a headset to an unknown entity in the stockroom, promotions promotions promotions. Reilly is spot-on, per usual.

Immediately after Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty for killing two unarmed men with an assault rifle, another battle ensued — this time over his $2 million bail money. Rittenhouse (with defense attorney Mark Richards) filed to have the teen receive the money, according to Daily Beast, but pro-Trump attorney and Qanon conspiracist Lin Wood says it rightfully belongs to him.

A big part of the bail money had been raised with the help of the nonprofit FightBack Foundation, which Wood started. But Rittenhouse says he was "taken advantage of" by Wood — along with former defense attorney John Pierce. And Richards said the two attorneys were "trying to whore this kid out for money to their own causes."

From Daily Beast:

In his first post-verdict interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson that aired Monday night, Rittenhouse tore into both Wood and another former Rittenhouse attorney, John Pierce, claiming he was "taken advantage of" by both men.

According to Rittenhouse, Pierce convinced him that it was "not a good idea" to go home immediately and told the teenager that he'd be "safer in jail" than with his family. Additionally, he said both Wood and Pierce were merely "trying to raise money so they could take it for their own benefit" rather than set him free.

The 18-year-old also asserted that he could have been freed on bond as early as mid-September but his then-lawyers purposely wanted to keep him locked up until Nov. 20 in order to keep bringing in money from donors. …

Wood responded to the claims made on Carlson's Monday primetime show by telling The Daily Beast that "somebody has fed Kyle misinformation, for whatever reason."

And thus, the Rittenhouse Shit Show Act II now begins.

Finnish actor and voice artist Rudi Rok, who competed as a ventriloquist on America's Got Talent a few years back, does an amazing job mimicking 40 animal sounds, including a mosquito, gorilla, lion, eagle, purring cat, begging dog, neighing horse, and laughing hyena. I just came across him for the first time on Laughing Squid, but am now a subscriber to his YouTube page.

A 25-year-old man in Australia was pulled over for driving down a footpath without a license. Not in a car, mind you. Nor a motorbike. But for driving a motorized cooler.

Apparently, Australia takes a no-nonsense approach when it comes to coolers on wheels. Not only did the unlicensed driver have to take a breathalyzer test — which he passed— but the cooler was taken away from him, impounded for 30 days.

From CTV News:

According to a Facebook post, Swan Hill Police Service pulled over a 25-year-old man last week who was driving a "motorized esky on the footpath in Victoria Street Kerang".

Esky refers to an Australian brand of portable coolers. A photo of the motorized cooler shows a bright blue cooler sitting on a metal platform with four wheels, an engine in the back, and a set of what looks like bike handlebars, with the cooler appearing to form the seat of the makeshift vehicle. The entire thing appears smaller than a lawn tractor.

"This motorised esky is considered a vehicle due to the size/engine capacity and must comply with legistlative requirements and road rules," the police statement read.

The cooler has been impounded for 30 days, and the driver is facing charges of driving without a licence and driving "an unregistered motor vehicle."

Here's the little guy getting towed:

It was a free-for-all Friday morning after money flew out of the open door of an armored truck on its way to San Diego on Interstate 5. The paper cash scattered across a highway and people enthusiastically scooped it up — mostly $1 and $20 bills from a couple of bags that had broken open.

One enthusiastic couple took entertaining video of themselves shrieking, laughing and jumping with wads of cash in their hands, the woman shouting, "This is insane!" They looked like they were having the time of their lives. (Video below.)

While many people later returned the cash, two people, who got locked out of their cars, were arrested "at the scene," according to AP.

From AP:

Two people were arrested at the scene, and Martin warned that any others who are found to have taken the money could face criminal charges. He noted there was plenty of video taken by bystanders at the scene and that the CHP and FBI were investigating.

Anyone who took money was urged to bring it to the CHP office in Vista.

Authorities didn't immediately say how much money was lost. However, at least a dozen people had returned money they collected to the CHP by Friday afternoon, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

"People are bringing in a lot," Martin said. "People got a lot of money."

Kyle Rittenhouse's lead attorney, Mark Richards, isn't a fan of how the GOP has been reacting to his teenage client, calling their actions "disgusting," and calling Donald Trump Jr. an "idiot."

Last week, before Rittenhouse — who killed two unarmed men with an assault-style weapon — was found not guilty, Matt Gaetz giddily said in a Tweet (below) that he'd love to have Rittenhouse work for him as an intern.

After the acquittal, Madison Cawthorn posted an Instagram story (later Tweeted by PatriotTakes, below) with the caption, "Kyle, if you want an internship, reach out to me" — while telling his viewers in a video to be "armed and dangerous."

And finally, Paul Gosar, whose own siblings can't stand him, said in a Tweet that he'd "arm wrestle to get dibs for Kyle as an intern." (See below.)

And to these theatrics, Richards responded, telling Insider over the phone: "There's a lot of people trying to profit on this, and I don't think people should. … They're raising money on it and you have all these Republican congressmen saying come work for me. … They want to trade on his celebrity and I think it's disgusting."

The attorney also lashed out at Donald Trump's mini-me, "responding to a since-deleted tweet from Trump Jr. Saturday announcing that a gun organization planned to award Rittenhouse an AR-15, and urged his followers to sign an accompanying a card "in support of Kyle," according to HuffPost.

"He's an idiot," Richards told Insider. "I don't have to expand on that because it speaks for itself."

It's usually the pimple-popping videos that get all the glory. That gross yet strange satisfaction of witnessing an exploding zit even inspired this Pop It Pal toy we posted about a few years back. But what about earwax, acne gunk's less popular cousin?

Well, here is a video by YouTube's Science Insider for those folks who have an odd fascination with earwax extraction. Not only does it give you an up-close, squirm-worthy look at professionals removing the sticky muck from people's hairy ear canals — it also offers informative commentary by a doctor.

Not for the squeamish.

How's about some live McMaggots to go with your Big Mac?

Some customers were treated to a maggot infestation at a McDonald's in Beckton, London, where fly larva made their way across a table and the floor. Twitter user Giles Jackson (@Giles_Jackson) recorded the scrumptious scene (video below), saying he would be getting a refund (whether that would be for the maggots or another menu item wasn't clear).

McDonald's has apologized for the unsavory critters, as reported by Yahoo!:

"Unfortunately, an incident occurred today at our restaurant in Beckton and we would like to apologise to any customers who were impacted. The restaurant was immediately closed, and a thorough investigation has found the root cause which has now been resolved."

"The restaurant remained closed throughout the day for the investigation and we brought in external specialists to carry out a deep clean. It will remain closed tomorrow as a precaution and for further cleaning. We have worked closely with our pest prevention company during this process."

A verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse has been reached: the 18-year-old Proud Boy sympathizer was found not guilty on all charges.

In other words, it is okay in the US (if you are white) to have your mama drop you off across state lines with an AR-15-style rifle, attend an anti-racism protest with other gun-toters with the intent of protecting the businesses (rather than the protestors), and murder two unarmed people.

"I didn't do anything wrong," he said in court in front of Judge Bruce Schroeder, the cantankerous judge who seemed to have it out for the prosecution from the get-go, and who was interrupted more than once by a phone that "rings" Trump's favorite rally-opener, "God Bless the USA."

From CNN:

Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and four other charges on Friday in connection to the fatal shooting of two people and wounding of another during last year's unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. …

A misdemeanor weapons possession charge and a non-criminal curfew violation were dismissed by Judge Bruce Schroeder prior to deliberations.

The charges stem from the chaotic unrest last year in the wake of the Kenosha Police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man. After instances of rioting and fiery destruction, Rittenhouse, 17 at the time, took a medical kit and an AR-15-style rifle and joined up with a group of other armed people in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020.

There, Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum – who was chasing the teenager and threw a plastic bag at him – and then tried to flee the area. A crowd of people pursued the teenager, and Rittenhouse shot at a man who tried to kick him; fatally shot Anthony Huber, who had hit him with a skateboard; and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, who was armed with a pistol.

Prosecutors called up to 22 witnesses over the course of six days as they sought to show that Rittenhouse provoked Rosenbaum by pointing the rifle at him. The prosecution portrayed the three other people who confronted the teen as "heroes" trying to stop what they believed to be an active shooting.

However, the defense said Rittenhouse acted in self-defense and feared for his life when he shot at the men.

Ever wonder what it would be like to be a cartoon? Maybe not as pretty as you think.

Comedian LaBelle compares common behaviors, such as hiccuping, opening a door when angry, and slipping off a treadmill, when performed by a human versus a real-life cartoon.

Finding this laugh-out-loud short to be too short, I was thrilled when I noticed it's "Ep. 9," meaning there had to be more cartoon humor where this came from. I then scrolled through LaBelle's YouTube videos to find "Ep. 8", and the mother lode — a compilation of People Vs. Cartoons (Eps. 1-7) – a true yuk yuk bonanza.

Two chill guys were cooking up freshly-caught, mouth-watering lobster, making a meal of lobster rolls, when an elderly Karen ordered them to get off the property — a large empty parking lot with guest parking spots. The men didn't argue, calmly agreeing to pack up. This prompted her to threaten them.

"You have one minute to get out of here, or I'm calling the sheriff."

"Okay, sounds good," one of them said. The longer they remained cool and polite, the more infuriated she became, until she shrieked, "Pack it up!!"

She first claimed she was on the board of the property, then suddenly she was the owner, only to back-pedal when pressed, becoming a board member once again.

Even though they were packing up, which included making their sandwiches to-go so that they could enjoy them elsewhere, the Karen still called the cops on them. And as a parting shot, she illegally reached into their truck and tossed their freshly made food onto the pavement.

Fortunately they were able to salvage some of it and enjoyed a few tasty bites before leaving the premises, passing the police on their way out.

(Originally posted on Reddit /r/PublicFreakout)

Covid-19's patient zero was not somebody who contracted the virus from a Wuhan lab, and was not an accountant from another city altogether, as many have theorized, according to a US scientist who has extensively researched the coronavirus' origins. Patient zero was, after all, a woman who sold seafood at a Wuhan live-animal market.

Michael Worobey, a virologist and Professor at University of Arizona, who in May seriously considered the theory that the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab, says in a new Science report, titled "Dissecting the Early Covid-19 Cases in Wuhan," that a corrected timeline of the earliest Covid patients "provides strong evidence of a live-animal market origin of the pandemic."

From The Guardian:

The chronology is at odds with a timeline laid out in an influential World Health Organization (WHO) report, which suggested an accountant with no apparent link to the Hunan market was the first known case.

The latest report adds weight to the theory that the virus originated from wildlife sold at the market, rather than as a leak from a Wuhan virology lab, and raises questions about how the apparent error was overlooked in the joint WHO-China inquiry.

In early 2021, a WHO-led team of experts spent four weeks in and around the central city of Wuhan with Chinese scientists and concluded in a joint report in March that the Sars-CoV-2 virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal but that further research was needed. It all but ruled out the possibility that Covid-19 originated in a laboratory.

The experts interviewed Mr Chen, an accountant, with no known link to the market, who had reportedly developed symptoms on 8 December and the March report described him as the first known case.

However, the latest analysis, published in Science, highlights discrepancies in this timeline. In an interview with a Chinese news outlet, Chen described attending a clinic with a dental problem on 8 December, saying he only developed Covid symptoms around 16 December. Worobey concluded that the first known case was, therefore, a female seafood vendor who became ill on 11 December.

And from CBS:

… While the WHO report claimed the man originally identified as patient zero had been ill from December 8, he actually was not sick until December 16, according to Worobey.

That deduction was based on a video interview he found, from a case described in a scientific article and from a hospital medical record that matched the 41-year-old man.

That would mean the first reported case would be the woman who worked in the market, who fell ill on December 11.

Peter Daszak, a disease expert who was on the WHO investigation team, said he was convinced by Worobey's analysis.

"That December 8 date was a mistake," he told the Times.