Residents of Springfield, Massachusetts were left dumbfounded Wednesday after a tornado ripped through the area, leaving four dead. After watching this video—taken from atop a building as the giant storm formed in the water below—it's not hard to understand why those in the twister's wake were so frightened. [via Doobybrain]
From Curbed Hamptons we have this aerial shot of where once stood the $43.5 million home of "billionaire hedge-funder David Tepper." Why tear down a perfectly good beach palace? Because he couldn't see the ocean from every room, they report. Has anyone ever built a house entirely out of smudge-proof glass? That would be awesome! Views inside views inside views. I bet Donald Trump has one of those. [Curbed, photo credit: Cully/EEFAS via Patch.com]
A reader sent in this clip from an Australian newscast last night. It begins with a short item about a lotto winner who showed up in a terrible Spider-Man costume to collect his prize, so he could remain anonymous. Pretty amusing already, but it gets better. The two anchors then share a few laughs over the eccentric guy, who happens to be Chinese, before the elder one launches into a cringe-inducing description of a Chinese person. Then watch how the other guy handles it. It feels like an episode of The Office, but it's real.
This week, reports suggested that Osama bin Laden offered great HR benefits to al Qaeda members and also kept a close eye on the group's purse strings. So on tonight's Report, Stephen Colbert gave the departed terrorist a tip of the hat for "not just being al Qaeda's charismatic leader, but also their annoying guy from accounting."
Q. How many Sarah Palins does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. Two! One to wander around the country devouring babies indiscriminately on a large-scale media-whoring expedition, and another to confront the first on a Boston street corner with vaguely threatening intimations that this meeting won't be their last. (Oh, and "one of her guys" to actually change the bulb.) [Video via Hardball]
On tonight's Daily Show—after Tom Brokaw and Don Rickles offered some advice on how to cover Weinergate—Jon Stewart pointed out that the way the congressman has been handling the situation is "only making it worse." Then he begged Weiner to come clean about what really happened, even if it goes "against my own interests as a comedian." What a good friend!
"Cymotrichous" is defined as "having wavy hair." But for 14-year-old Sukanya Roy—the winner of this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee, which just wrapped up outside Washington, DC—it means $25,000 cash, a $5,000 scholarship, a $2,500 bond, a Barnes & Noble Nook, and the title of the best middle school speller in the country. Video of Sukanya's triumphant moment is above.
The Telegraph reports on a teenager in China who allegedly sold his own kidney to afford an iPad 2 and iPhone. He told reporters that he had found an advertisement online that offered 20,000 yuan ($3000 US) for a kidney. So he made the journey to the city of Chenzhou in Hunan Province where, he says, a hospital cut him open, plucked out the organ, and paid him for his time.
Unlike a chocolate chip cookie, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus does not taste better in milk. But a new strain of that superbug, aka MRSA, is exactly what British scientists have discovered in milk samples. This news comes on the same day that a "mutant" strain of E. coli was fingered as the source of a severe food poisoning epidemic currently gripping Europe.
A school employee from New Jersey promised students that Lady Gaga would give the kids a talk about bullying via the internet. So she did what any reasonable person with absolutely no access to Lady Gaga would do after making a promise she could not keep: She hired a Lady Gaga impersonator!
Online data miner and private investigator Joseph Culligan has noticed something curious: Bill O'Reilly's wife Maureen McPhilmy purchased a new house about a year ago, just down the street from the Long Island home she's shared with Bill-o since 2002. O'Reilly still owns the old one. And Fox News isn't saying whether they still live together.
In all the hustle and bustle of games of hunger and thrones and superhero adventures, we have forgotten our deeply held romantic passion. And that is a shame. Also today: Josh Lucas is the new Tom Cruise, the return of Tarzan, and a sweet gig for Jane Lynch.
