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18 Celebrities You Didn't Know Were Athletes

June 14, 2012, 11:15 am
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  • via izismile.com
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    On any credible Venn diagram of high-school social groups, the circles labeled "jocks" and "theater geeks" overlap even less frequently than the ones tagged "girls" and "that creepy kid with the samurai sword." But in Hollywood, professional athletes routinely cross over into the acting realm, and sometimes even dominate it, as anyone familiar with the ouevre of former Oakland Raiders linebacker Carl Weathers could tell you.

    Sadly, the door doesn't usually swing both ways. As uplifting as it would be to watch Adam Sandler use a putter shaped like a hockey stick to embarrass Tiger Woods at the Masters in real life, the odds that any celebrity will enjoy a second career as a professional athlete are slimmer than the chances that Academy voters will retroactively grant Weathers the Oscar he so richly deserved for portraying tragic golf pro Chubbs Peterson in "Happy Gilmore."

    For now, we'll just have make do with the knowledge that not all theater geeks suck at sports. Here are a few notable actors whose athletic prowess probably spared them from persecution of the swirlie kind.

    George Clooney

    Sport: Baseball

    "Woulda, coulda, shoulda" applies to George Clooney's failed audition for the Cincinnati Reds in 1977. If the future actor, then 16, woulda been better at hitting, throwing and catching, he coulda earned a shot at playing alongside his idols Johnny Bench and Dave Concepcion, but clearly he shoulda practiced more. You totally blew it, Clooney.

  • Twitter
    2 of 18

    Sheryl Crow

    Sport: Track

    Before she was an award-winning singer-songwriter, Sheryl Crow used to "soak up the sun" on her high school's track team. At Kennett High School in Missouri, Crow was an All-State track athlete who medaled in the 75-meter low hurdles.

  • via izismile.com
    3 of 18

    Jon Stewart

    Sport: Soccer

    As a midfielder on the College of William & Mary varsity soccer team in the early 1980s, the honcho of "The Daily Show" racked up 10 goals and, more impressively, never wavered in his duty to gorge on the all-you-can-eat orange slices dispensed during matches.

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    4 of 18

    Gwen Stefani

    Sport: Swimming

    Before she was a pop superstar, the lead singer of No Doubt was a member of her high school's swimming team. According to AceShowbiz, Gwen was "on her high school's swimming team because she was chubby." We guess we now know how she got her rail-thin figure.

  • via izismile.com
    5 of 18

    Ryan Seacrest

    Sport: Football

    The ambiguously metrosexual "American Idol" host, who cameoed as himself in "Knocked Up" and does occasional voice acting, played strong safety on his Atlanta-area high school's football team. Even more improbably, he was known, according to his former coach, as a "feisty" defensive specialist prone to "kicking the crap out of people." But video confirmation is sorely needed, as this is what Seacrest looked like as a freshman.

  • Twitter
    6 of 18

    Tina Fey

    Sports: Tennis

    On "30 Rock" Fey plays an awkward writer who prefers food on the couch and cheese on the toilet, but she's no stranger to athletics. Before she started serving up one-liners on TV, Fey was serving aces as a tennis star at Upper Darby High School in Pennsylvania.

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    Scott Baio

    Sport: Obstacle course

    Scott Baio has been "45 and Single" and "46 and Pregnant," but we liked the actor best when he was 19 and freaking awesome at the obstacle course on "Battle of the Network Stars." After establishing a course record on his very first try in May 1980 primarily by employing a bold strategy on the monkey bars, Chachi spent the next two years effortlessly humiliating a steady stream of sadsack C-listers as if he were Secretariat in his prime or Apollo Creed at the beginning of "Rocky." But much like Baio's cultural relevance circa the fourth season of "Charles in Charge," all things must end. His record time of 18.38 seconds fell, on a gloomy afternoon in May 1982, to former UCLA star quarterback Mark Harmon, whose 17.5-second time Baio would never manage to top. The world hasn't been the same since.

  • Jason Merritt/Getty Images For Showtime
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    David Duchovny

    Sport: Basketball

    The guy who would later warm hearts as Fox Mulder mostly warmed benches during a freshman-year stint on the Princeton junior varsity basketball squad. But Duchovny will always be able to say that he rained a smooth jumper over Reggie Miller at the 1994 MTV Rock N' Jock basketball game. 

  • Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images
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    Denzel Washington

    Sport: Basketball

    Long before he played one-on-one street ball with Ray Allen in "He Got Game," Denzel played junior varsity hoops at Fordham University under future NBA coach (and Latrell Sprewell choke victim) P.J. Carlesimo. Which brings up an interesting question: in their respective primes, how badly does Denzel Washington trounce David Duchovny?

  • Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
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    Edward Norton

    Sport: Rowing

    As a novice sculler on the Yale crew team, Norton didn't have much occasion to cox. By all accounts, the budding Method actor was no coxswain. Forced to quit the sport prematurely after throwing his back out, he will never again know the joy of participating in coxless pairs and fours. Thus begins our quest to employ juvenile rowing innuendo at least once per day.

  • Noah Graham/NHLI via Getty Images
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    Kurt Russell

    Sport: Baseball

    One minute, he's playing Jungle Boy on an amazing episode of "Gilligan's Island," and the next, he's fielding grounders as a switch-hitting second baseman in the California Angels' minor-league system. We shudder to contemplate a Russell-free "Tango and Cash," so we're selfishly relieved that he and his rotator cuff were taken out by some goon while trying to turn a routine double play.

  • Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images
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    Tom Selleck

    Sport: Basketball

    A lost scene from "Magnum, P.I."

    Thomas Magnum, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, is dribbling a basketball while also contemplating his impressive mustache.

    Higgins: Must you dribble, Magnum? You'll wake the lads.

    Magnum: The dogs? What do I care? I was a third-string forward on the USC men's basketball team in the mid-1960s! And I have a mustache!

    Higgins: You leave me no choice. Zeus! Apollo! Attack this mustachioed, ex-Trojan athlete who loves sports so much that he finagled cameo appearances by Detroit Tigers star infielders Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell in a recent episode! Attack him this instant!

    We hear growling, followed quickly by flesh-ripping noise and high-pitched screams. A basketball bounds pathetically past Higgins, who succumbs to an uncharacteristic smile.

  • Spread Pictures/Fame Pictures
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    Jason Statham

    Sport: Diving

    If Greg Louganis in a Speedo is still the first thing that pops into your head whenever the subject of competitive diving comes up, it should benefit you to learn that Jason Statham was a member of the British national team before he started wailing on bad guys in the movies.

  • Mike Coppola/Getty Images
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    Billy Baldwin

    Sport: Wrestling

    Somehow, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame is allowed to exist despite not having a single exhibit dedicated to the Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka or the Iron Sheik. But the shrine has at least drunk deeply from the river Baldwin, honoring the "Backdraft" star, a former varsity standout at Binghamton University, for his tireless support of sweaty dudes who just want to grapple with each other.

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    15 of 18

    Joel McHale

    Sport: Football

    We find it endlessly uplifting that 6-foot-4 "Community" stud McHale was a walk-on tight end (read: tackling dummy) for two Washington Huskies football teams in the early 1990s. That's probably because it gives us the opportunity to make a nonsensical crack about husky tight ends who love to catch balls.

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    Chris Hardwick

    Sport: Bowling

    The diminutive Nerdist overlord, who has dabbled in acting ("Terminator 3," "Johnson Family Vacation"), is the son of Professional Bowlers Association Hall of Fame inductee Billy Hardwick. 10-pin talent must be genetic because Chris' score of 205 in a recent smackdown of Jon Hamm and other "Mad Men" luminaries is PBA-caliber. 

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    Matt Smith

    Sport: Soccer

    Thanks to a 1988 novelty mashup by the Timelords, the unofficial chorus to stadium anthem "Rock and Roll Part II" forever changed from "Hey!" to the far more idiotic "Doctor Who Hey! Doctor Who." This is relevant only because Matt Smith, the English actor currently wearing the BBC cult hero's time-traveling pants, was a teenage phenom in football (pronounced "soccer") until a back injury scuttled his plans to turn pro.

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    Next: The Hottest NBA Finals Dancers

    Marc Blucas

    Sport: Basketball

    Currently appearing on the sports-centric USA Network drama "Necessary Roughness," but best known as Riley Finn, Sarah Michelle Gellar's post-Angel boyfriend on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Blucas is legitimately skilled at basketball. As a starting guard during his senior year at Wake Forest, he got to experience Tim Duncan's freshman year first-hand, and wasn't too shabby himself, averaging 6.4 points per game and knocking down threes at a solid 48-percent clip. But the closest he ever got to the NBA was playing a New York Knicks benchwarmer in the 1996 Whoopi Goldberg stinker, "Eddie."

 

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Absurd Yearbook Photos

June 14, 2012, 10:24 pm
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20 More Inappropriately Hilarious Tweets

June 14, 2012, 11:09 pm
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'Black Death' Plague Strikes in Oregon

June 15, 2012, 4:03 am
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The disease that aniihilated almost a third of Europe's population in the 14th century has struck in Oregon. An unidentified man is in critical condition at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, Ore. due to bubonic plague he contracted after a stray cat bit him. This is only the fifth case of the plague in Oregon since 1995.

The man, who is in his 50s, was bit on the hand while trying to separate a stray cat and a mouse. He didn't suffer the disease's effects until days later, when the disease starting spreading through his bloodstream. The man is presenting all symptoms associated with the plague, including stomach pain; bleeding mouth, nose and anu; and dying tissue.

Officials determined that the mouse was dead and in the cat's mouth when the man came into contact with the cat. The cat has since died and is currently being tested for any traces of the disease.

Victims of the black plague are usually left with dead, rotted tissue around their nose and lips, as well as their fingers and toes.

Rat-borne fleas usually carry the bacterium that causes the plague, which killed up to 75 million people -- a third of the European population -- in the 1300s.

Humans can catch the disease if they come in contact with infected rodents or other animals. While the disease can be treated with antibiotics, one in seven cases of the plague are fatal.

Via the New York Daily News

See a Video About the Case:



Also on Mandatory: These Photos Will Not End Well

 

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Woman Smashes Car with a Hammer

June 15, 2012, 8:10 am
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Most guesses online have this woman destroying a boyfriend's car, but no one knows for sure. Maybe she just likes fresh air and didn't feel like wasting all that time rolling the windows up and down. Props to the camera operator for getting such a good view. Then again, the video does seem to stop rather abruptly. We hope she didn't turn the hammer on whoever was filming once she noticed him or her.

 

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Malin Akerman Photos

June 15, 2012, 9:12 am
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Funny Photo Friday: Baked Potato Hamster

June 15, 2012, 9:32 am
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Man Caught Having Sex with a Teddy Bear (Again)

June 15, 2012, 9:37 am
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What's worse than being arrested for having sex with a teddy bear in public?

How about being arrested for having sex with a teddy bear in public for the fourth time?

This is exactly what happened on Wednesday night to Charles Marshall, 28, of Cincinnati. Marshall was arrested after employees at a nearby health clinic contacted the authorities when they noticed him getting his romance on with the plush temptress in a nearby alley.

Marshall was cited for disorderly conduct, but records from the Municipal Courts show that this is actually the fourth time that he has been brought in for performing the lewd act in public. He was arrested twice in 2010 and once in 2011. After a few short jail sentences and some minor fines, Marshall was out on the streets again preying on all of the unsuspecting and innocent cousins of Fozzie and Winnie the Pooh.

There were no comments from the victim of the incident since the bear was not a Teddy Ruxpin doll.

Via The Smoking Gun

 

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Man Calls 911 to Complain About Deli's Sandwich-Making Technique

June 15, 2012, 9:49 am
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911 is for emergencies only. That includes robberies, assault and, in Connecticut, the amount of mayonaise that goes on your cold-cut sandwich.

Rother McLennon of East Hartford placed an order of 14 sandwiches with the Grateful Deli. McLennon had asked for a very specific type of sandwich: a little bit of turkey, a little bit of ham, a lot of cheese and a lot of mayonaise. When he did not receive a satisfactory sandwich, McLennon complained. Since the sandwiches had already been made, the deli refused to alter his order.

That's when McLennon took the law into his hands. Actually, he took the deli phone into his hands and dialed in his emergency.

While the police couldn't do a whole lot about McLennon's predicament, a patient dispatcher did offer some sage advice. She walked McLennon through the emergency by explaining that if he doesn't like the sandwiches he receives, he should not buy them.

Here's a partial transcript of the exchange:

Dispatcher: You're calling 911 because you don't like the way they're making your sandwich?
McLennon: Exactly.
Dispatcher: So then don't buy it.
McLennon: OK.

Phew. Disaster averted.

Via WCBS-TV

 

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Presidential Movie Posters

June 17, 2012, 8:32 pm
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10 Inventors Killed by Their Own Inventions

June 17, 2012, 9:38 pm
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  • Wikimedia Commons
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    Science can be a dangerous mistress, and the best people to tell you about it would be this list of unlucky inventors. Too bad they can't, because their genius couldn't keep them from dying as a result of their very own creations. Here are ten inventors killed by their own inventions.

    Franz Reichelt - 1912

    The scary part of the inventing process is sometimes you have to put your body on the line to prove that your invention works -- even if it doesn't. Austrian-born tailor Franz Reichelt believed that he was on to something with the "coat parachute," a flight suit that would convert into a life-saving device in the event of an air crash. He petitioned Paris officials tirelessly until they let him do a test from atop the Eiffel Tower, but instead of using dummies (like he'd promised) he strapped himself into the thing and took the plunge. The chute didn't open and he plummeted to the ground below, dying instantly.

  • via Sustopia
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    Thomas Midgley, Jr. - 1944

    This one has sort of a twist ending, so stay tuned. Thomas Midgley, Jr. was one of the men responsible for developing leaded gasoline, and loved to do stunts to demonstrate how safe it was, like huffing from a beaker of it for 60 seconds straight at a press conference. So did he die of lead poisoning like you'd expect? Nope! Midgley also suffered from polio, and designed and built a complex system of ropes and pulleys to support his body in bed without pain. In 1944, he got tangled in this device and suffocated before anybody could set him free. Oh, the irony.

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    Horace Lawson Hunley - 1863

    The invention of the submarine changed the face of modern warfare, with naval warfare now taking place both above and below the water's surface. One of the most important men in the development of the sub was Confederate engineer Horace L. Hunley, who created a number of revolutionary hand-powered submarines in the 1860s. His third vessel, named after himself, was going out on a routine test when Hunley decided to take captaincy himself. The primitive sub sank beneath the waves, killing everybody aboard. However, it was later dredged from the ocean floor and put back into service, becoming the first submarine to sink a ship in military conflict.

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    Otto Lilienthal - 1896

    You don't get a nickname like the Glider King by keeping your feet on the ground. German inventor Otto Lilienthal was one of the pioneers of unpowered flight, putting together a vast variety of gliders and taking them on daring excursions. Unfortunately, his designs weren't quite as stable as he thought they were, and in August of 1896 Lilienthal launched his latest model from the Rhinow Hills. His first test flight went great, lifting him to a height of 1,150 feet. The second try wasn't so lucky, as it hit an air pocket and stalled, dropping him more than 50 feet to his death.

  • Wikimedia Commons
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    William Bullock - 1867

    The inventor of the web rotary printing press, William Bullock was a forward-thinking dude who made printed material affordable and fast to produce. There wasn't a ton of danger involved in his invention, as it was just a refinement of existing ideas and didn't incorporate any toxic materials. That didn't stop it from taking his life, though. When he was installing a press in Philadelphia, Bullock attempted to kick a slipped pulley back into place and the machine fell and crushed his foot. He contracted gangrene from the injury and died from the infection.

  • Wikimedia Commons
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    Henry Smolinski - 1973

    Man has always dreamed of flying, but the development of aviation has taken a lot of lives. One of the most ridiculous was engineer Henry Smolinski. After leaving Northrop-Grumman, he started his own company devoted to bringing a flying car to the market. Unfortunately for Henry, he based his prototype on a Ford Pinto with a Cessna Skymaster tail and wings grafted on it. When Smolinski took his vehicle up on a test flight with pilot Harold Blake, he actually managed liftoff, but then the tail strut fell off the car sending it plunging to the ground and killing both men.

  • Wikimedia Commons
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    Marie Curie - 1934

    This is a tough one, because what killed legendary French physicist Marie Curie was invisible to the naked eye. Curie developed the process to isolate radium from component minerals and found a way to measure ambient radioactivity from "hot" elements. Unfortunately, she didn't discover that exposure to radiation is extremely hazardous to the human body, and she was stricken with aplastic anemia as a direct result of exposure to her lab samples and passed away.

  • Wikimedia Commons
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    Henry Winstanley - 1703

    Architects are inventors, too, especially when their buildings have function as well as form. Henry Winstanley was a shipping magnate who started to get pissed off when several of his boats got wrecked on the Eddystone Rock in the Falkland Islands. His solution was to build a lighthouse, which he designed himself. He was so confident that it would survive anything that he often stated his desire to be inside it during "the greatest storm that ever was." It's not confirmed that the storm of November 27, 1703 was the greatest ever, but it was big enough to topple the tower with Winstanley inside, killing him.

  • Wikimedia Commons
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    Valerian Abakovsky - 1921

    Inventing new means of transportation is one of the fastest ways to get yourself killed - no pun intended. When you strap an engine on something, all hell can break loose. Russian scientist Valerian Abakovsky's pride and joy was the Aerowagon, a high-speed railcar equipped with an aeroplane engine. It was built to transport Soviet officials, but on its maiden voyage it derailed outside of Moscow, killing Abakovsky and everyone else on board.

  • Popperfoto/Getty Images
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    Next: 11 Sad Tales of Writer Suicides

    Max Valier - 1930

    The world of rocketry involves a ton of incredibly dangerous materials, so it's not surprising that scientists die in the lab. One of the best examples is Max Valier, an Austrian engineer who was one of the founders of the German Spaceflight Society. Valier was hired by the Opel car company to design and build rocket-powered automobiles for use as publicity stunts, and in 1930, just a month after the first successful test drive of one of his cars, a rocket engine exploded on his workbench and killed him.

 

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Five Facts and Five Myths About Saving Gas

June 17, 2012, 9:47 pm
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    Gas prices are up! Wait, no, they're down. Oh hang on, they're up again! But maybe just on the West Coast. Wait, you can get a free gallon of premium if you buy ten jugs of milk from the Piggly Wiggly! But that's only on alternating Fridays with a membership card...

    Until Ford finally gets its stuff together and builds that atomic car they designed in 1958, we're all basically stuck with whatever price the gas station has decided on that particular day (unless you own a Nissan Leaf, in which case you're basically stuck within fifty miles of your house or the "fast charger" at the Nissan dealership, which can get you running again in 30 minutes but costs about half as much as the car itself). If you can manage your mileage, you can at least pick and choose what gas station to top off at, but the advice available online ranges from the obvious (don't hit the gas too hard) to the flaky (wave a magnet over the engine block and pray to Petroleus, god of fuel efficiency). Here are five confirmed facts and five confirmed fictions about boosting your fuel economy.

    FACT: Running the air conditioner can hurt your fuel economy.

    Personal note: as the owner of a car with a big thirsty engine living in the heart of the oven-hot Sun Belt, I was really, really hoping that it would turn out that running the A/C hasn't had any real impact on fuel efficiency for years and years, and that modern automotive air conditioners ran on fairy dust or unicorn blood or something else than the power produced by the car's engine. Nope! The compressor for the air conditioner has to be turned somehow, and the simplest and most efficient way to do so is having the engine do it. While modern air conditioners use less power to operate, turning them on is still going to give the tachometer a twitch and correspondingly ding your mileage. Much better-and cheaper-to roll down the windows and enjoy the breeze.
  • Thinkstock
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    MYTH: Running the air conditioner will ALWAYS hurt your fuel economy.

    On the other hand, if you've got your windows rolled down while you're doing 70 on the highway, you're sort of being an idiot and you're also going to be kicked out of your office carpool. At highway speeds (say, above 50 mph) not only is the engine running in top gear and as efficiently as possible, but the increased drag from your open windows is forcing your car to work harder to maintain speed and more than cancelling out the minimal efficiency boost from not using the A/C.
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    FACT: Fuel-injected cars save gas if you turn them off instead of letting them idle.

    While it used to be true that starting the engine of a carburetor-equipped car was one of the most wasteful things you could do with it save setting it on fire, fuel injection and starter motor technology has advanced to the point where if the car is going to be sitting still for more than about a minute it's best to just turn off the engine. In fact, this is one of the reasons hybrid engines are practical today, as they depend on the ability to smoothly start and stop the motor as efficiently as possible. This isn't something you want to do in the middle of traffic, you understand, but if you're waiting outside somebody's house or in a particularly slow and horrible drive-thru line you may want to keep this in mind.
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    MYTH: Fuel-injected cars save gas if you replace the air filter regularly.

    Another holdover from the carburetor era, this myth seems pretty sensible on the surface. Less gunk on the air filter means more and cleaner air for the engine, so it must be doing something good, right? As it turns out, the systems controlling and monitoring the fuel injection process are already set up to compensate for a bit of dirt in the filter and the engine can go for much longer than usual without an air filter replacement. Fresh new air filters will give you a mild boost in acceleration (about 10% more torque than with one you've been using a long time) but it's not the sort of efficiency cure-all that your local lube shop would have you believe.
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    FACT: Avoiding suspiciously cheap gas stations will save gas.

    All gasoline may be created equal, but by the time it reaches your car all sorts of things may have been done with it. The major franchise gas stations typically add proprietary chemicals and detergents intended to keep your engine clean, leading to a miniscule increase in efficiency that they are nonetheless really desperate to tell you about. Smaller franchises or independently-owned gas stations are under a bit less supervision than the larger chains and so might end up putting more ethanol (or alcohol, or half a case of Natural Light) into the gasoline than may be strictly necessary and drastically harming fuel efficiency.

    These places always feature too-good-to-be-true fuel prices some ten cents below the norm, distributed from pumps most stations would have traded in as obsolete years ago. There's been some question about certain grocery-store-based gas stations as well, with Kroger and Wal-Mart coming under suspicion of watering down their fuel, but since these stations are naturally cheaper than regular gas stations they are harder to call out as definitely diluted.
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    MYTH: Buying premium when your car doesn't need it will save gas.

    Now generally speaking, higher-octane gas will boost your efficiency a smidgen, but it's not really a smidgen that you're going to be able to notice when you're paying the extra amount per gallon for premium or even mid-grade gas. Premium and mid-grade prices are set based on the idea that if you're driving a car that actually requires the good stuff, you should be able to afford a little extra at the pump. Consumer service agencies and the EPA have run and/or crunched the numbers on filling your car up with higher-grade fuel than necessary and in the end you'll actually be wasting money.
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    FACT: Non-ethanol gas is more efficient than corn-based "gasohol."

    One of the reasons why premium fuel really is more efficient than your piddling peasant gasoline is that at no point did corn enter the process. Corn-based ethanol is sort of a bad joke in the biofuels industry, since not only has it been proven to screw up your car's personal fuel efficiency, it's also been shown that the process of raising, harvesting, and processing corn into ethanol uses so much gasoline itself that if corn farmers in the United States weren't massively, absurdly subsidized, corngas would basically cost more than regular gas. Brazil (who has been using biofuel additives since the Seventies) uses sugarcane ethanol, which is considerably more efficient, and China ignored ethanol altogether and instituted a biofuel program centered around ethanol's peppier cousin methanol, but neither of these countries hold important political primaries in states that consist of absolutely nothing but corn, so they're free to do whatever they want.

    What can you do about it? Other than expelling Iowa from the United States, not much, but it is possible to use the Internet to find the handful of gas stations that still sell regular-grade 87-octane fuel free from the touch of corn. They'll be expensive, but not as expensive as typical premium gas, and you should see a boost of around four or five MPG. Some gas stations will also have occasional events where they sell midgrade at regular prices and premium at midgrade prices, but if you want to take advantage of that you should be ready for a lot of waiting in line.
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    MYTH: Fuel additives/special gizmos/voodoo magnets will improve your efficiency.

    "If it's too good to be true, it isn't." There are few places that truism applies more than the last five or six pages of a car magazine and the zillions of ads for magic shiny film that makes your license plate impossible to photograph, enchanted sex hormones that will lure women into your Camaro, and always some sort of nifty piece of hardware or fuel pill or completely vague "treatment" for your engine that will lead to unbelievable boosts in performance and efficiency.

    Think carefully about this: virtually every car advertisement you can find, even for trucks and sports cars, makes a big deal about how low its mileage is. If GM or Toyota or BMW or hell, even Porsche could get you the sort of efficiency improvement that bolting a funny trumpet-looking thing to your air filter or waving an enchanted thighbone over your engine block claims, don't you think they would have done that at the factory? Or maybe included something in the maintenance manual about which specific prayer rituals you must perform over your fuel tank to ensure top efficiency?
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    FACT: Driving the speed limit can boost efficiency by 15-30%.

    It's not widely known or understood, but the nationwide attempt to bring the speed limit down to 55 mph during the Seventies wasn't actually part of the government's plan to arrest and imprison Sammy Hagar as part of its War on Fun intiative. In fact, it was part of an attempt to lower reliance on foreign oil after the massive fuel shocks from the Iranian Revolution. Unfortunately, it didn't really work, as virtually everyone just ignored the new speed limit, but research by the Union of Concerned Scientists (who are always concerned about your well-being) shows that nearly all cars are at their most efficient at around 55 mph, with the only outliers being Corvettes and other sports cars with extremely "tall" gearing (e.g. that the highest gear allows the engine to maintain 55+ speeds with minimal effort). Even dropping your average speed from 70 to 60 mph can increase miles per gallon by around 17%, and if you're living someplace where gas is especially expensive (e.g. California, where at the time of this study gas prices were typically worse than $4/gallon) you could save up to twenty bucks a week.
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    Next: 10 Things in Your Car That Came From Racing Technology

    MYTH: Drafting big rigs is a totally sane and practical way to boost highway mileage.

    Okay, yes, you do in fact derive a mild aerodynamic benefit from huddling up close in the slipstream of a tractor trailer. Anyone who's watched enough racing of nearly any kind is familiar with this technique (known as "drafting"). But you know what? You ain't no Michael Schumacher, or Dale Earnhardt, or Tommi Makkinen, or anyone else who has put in the thousands of hours of professional driving practice required to be less than a foot away from another multi-ton vehicle traveling at highway speeds. You know all those shreds of tire rubber you see along the side of the highway? If you draft big rigs, you might have a chance to see one of those shreds actually fly free of the tire directly into your windshield. So yeah-maybe try and get a few car lengths between you and the next truck you see. Your non-glass-shard-encrusted face will thank you for it.

 

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The Ultimate Magazine Cover Model Photoshop Expose

June 17, 2012, 11:51 pm
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Video Bomb Makes U.S. Open Briefly Interesting

June 18, 2012, 1:03 am
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This (apparently) drunk golf fan did us all a favor and spiced up an otherwise boring post-tournament interview. As Bob Costas was talking to newly crowned U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson, a glazed over man ran directly in front of camera one and did the impossible: he made golf interesting. After a couple quick bird calls, he was yanked off the premises. But for that one moment, there was actually a reason to watch golf that had nothing to do with Tiger Woods.

 

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Is Your BBQ Loaded With Chemicals?

July 2, 2012, 8:10 am
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Would you like mustard, ketchup, or a dose of the industrial flame-retardant hexabromocyclodecane (HBCD) with your bratwurst? According to a new study at the University of Texas, your sausage may be topped with more than you know.

Researchers examined 36 foods from Dallas grocery stores and discovered detectable levels of HBCD in 15 foods including fresh salmon from the seafood display, pre-packaged sausages, peanut butter, and canned chili. HBCD is fat-soluble, so it's transported through fat--a common-ground with all of the affected foods. But that doesn't mean something with a lot of fat will always have HBCD--it just depends on how much HBCD the food was exposed to. (Discover What's Really In Your Food.)

It's not clear just how harmful HBCD might be in humans, but animal studies have shown that it causes disruption in the reproductive, endocrine, and immune systems, and also has neurotoxic effects. It can take several months for your body to clear fat-soluble organic chemicals, and you likely consume more and more every day. "As these chemicals stay in your body, they continue to affect your health until they're cleared," says study author Arnold Schecter, M.D., a professor of epidemiology, genetics, and environmental sciences at the University of Texas.

Another problem: It's hard to blame the supermarkets. Fresh tillapia in one store had nearly 15 times the amount of HBCD as tillapia from another store, according to the study. (Should you go organic? Read The Truth About Organic Food.) "The amount of HBCD in different foods could depend on how they were packaged, particles of HBCD in the air, or even what the animals ate, since HBCD will work its way up a food chain," says Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and co-author of the study.

The best way to reduce your exposure: Take in more fruits and vegetables. They absorb hardly any HBCD because they don't have fat, Schecter says. If you love your meat, choose mainly lean cuts, trim off the fat, and grill or broil your meat so the fat drips off. (Discover hundreds of healthy grilling recipes this summer with Grill This, Not That!) That way you'll further cut down on HBCD and other fat-soluble toxins, while still being able to indulge in the occasional chili dog.

 

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Busty Bandit Robs Australian Convenient Store

July 2, 2012, 8:36 am
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The job of a convenient-store night clerk is fraught with problems. Not only do they have to sell processed foods to very drunk people, but they also have a pretty good chance of being robbed at some point during their employment.

But things got a little brighter for an Australian community that is being terrorized by a busty bandit who doesn't appear to be all that bright, as seen in this video. Although she is able to steal money from the cashier and make a successful getaway, she does everything a robber should not do if they don't want to be caught, including giving the security camera full view of her face and leaving her fingerprints on the counter.

She uses a knife to convince the cashier to hand over the cash, but we wish she used some kind of mechanism that was a little more elaborate so we could've gone with a good, old-fashioned booby-trap joke.

 

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Video Slideshow - Embedded

July 2, 2012, 9:56 am
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Kyle Mooney Covers the Miami Heat Parade

July 2, 2012, 11:09 am
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If you are not familiar with Kyle Mooney yet, you have been missing out. He's an up-and-coming, innovative news reporter known for covering the most important events in the most interesting way. Watch him in action as he interviews Miami Heat fans at last week's parade for the NBA Champions. We have a feeling the future is bright for Kyle.

 

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6 Very Awesome Fireworks Fails

July 2, 2012, 12:37 pm
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It's the 4th of July, which means lots of trips to the emergency room with second degree burns. To help celebrate our independence, here are 6 epic fireworks fail videos. These will make you think twice the next time you're about to light a roman candle.

6. Dogs Like Fireworks, Too



5. This One Should Have Gone a Little Higher


4. Fireworks - Prague-style


3. "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no!"






2. Just Wait For It


1. A Little Higher Next Time, Please

 

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10 Amazing Real-Life Police Heroes

July 2, 2012, 12:37 pm
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  • Chris Greenberg/White House
    1 of 10

    "To serve and protect" is the police motto, but some do it more than others. In this feature, we'll spotlight ten incredible police officers who went above and beyond the call of duty to save lives, arrest perps and generally uphold the law. Sure, Robocop might look like a bad-ass on screen, but these amazing upholders of the law pulled off their stunts in real life.

    Sergeant Kirk Van Orsdel, 2005

    A recipient of the coveted Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, California highway patrolman Kirk Van Orsdel started the morning of July 25 like any other day. At 7:43, he got a call from a woman claiming that a man in a gray sedan was chasing and shooting at her. Upon arriving at the scene, Van Orsdel immediately spotted the cars and gave chase, only to have the perp pull out an AK-47 and start spraying his car with bullets while driving the wrong way on the freeway. Van Orsdel gave chase, driving his car in reverse down the shoulder while bullets riddled his car. He eventually cornered the man (who was trying to murder his ex-girlfriend) behind his car, but Van Orsdel was heavily outgunned. Amazingly, the heroic cop managed to pop the shooter twice with his rifle while dodging automatic weapon fire and take him in. 

  • Chicago Police Sergeants Association
    2 of 10

    Sergeant Don Jerome, 2011

    One of the scariest things for a police officer is investigating a crime scene tip on their own. When Chicago cop Don Jerome responded to a call about an armed robbery in progress, the first thing he found in the house was six residents bound and gagged with duct tape. After Jerome confirmed their safety, he went in pursuit of the criminals. Outnumbered three to one, Sgt. Jerome refused to give up, disarming one crook and seizing his weapon before being wrestled through a plate glass window and crashing to the sidewalk below. Amazingly, Jerome kept his wits about him and managed to secure the suspect, while his accomplices were busted by other responding officers. Now that's a classic badass move.

  • policenz/youtube
    3 of 10

    Detective Constable Mark Scott, 2010

    Bravery isn't just a police trait in the United States, and we'll share an international tale of police badassdom with you. When Detective Constable Mark Scott walked into a gas station in Suffolk, UK to get a pint of milk, he instead found a totally terrifying situation. A psychotic one-armed man had soaked the floor with gasoline and was threatening to light it, causing a terrifying explosion and killing everyone in the vicinity. Scott kept his cool and managed to get close enough to the maniac to wrestle him to the ground and seize the lighter, preventing a tremendous tragedy.

  • georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov
    4 of 10

    Deputy Jennifer Fulford-Salvano, 2004

    Male cops don't have a monopoly on heroic actions, as this story will ably demonstrate. In May of 2004, Orange County Sheriff's Deputy Jennifer Fulford-Salvano responded to a 911 call from an eight year old boy who said that "strange men" were in his house. He and his sister hid in the garage, and when Fulford-Salvano arrived on the scene she checked there to make sure the kids were still all right. Unfortunately for the officer, the crooks heard the deputies outside and opened fire on her in the garage. Fulford-Salvano took a total of ten bullets, including her shooting hand, but she was able to pick up her gun with her other hand and return fire, dropping both robbers. The children were unharmed.

  • Sacramento Police Department
    5 of 10

    Officer Kevin Howland, 2006

    Sacramento Police Department officer Kevin Howland demonstrates ably exactly how far an officer needs to go to deliver a suspect. On a May morning in 2006, Howland, along with other Sacramento officers, was conducting a search for a vehicle that belonged to an armed robbery suspect. Sighting what he thought was the car, Howland pulled it over and questioned the men inside. Stepping away to call for backup gave the crooks the opportunity they needed to shift into drive and crush Officer Howland in between their car and his police cruiser. He pulled his gun and clung to the hood of their car as they sped off, firing into the vehicle. The perps made a sharp turn and threw him off, but the injured cop struggled to his feet and gave chase on foot, managing to catch up to the car and take in the surviving suspects.

  • TheJewishSongs via YouTube
    6 of 10

    Detective Brian Glacken, 2011

    Not all of these tales of police heroism involve a violent suspect. Sometimes the police are called into service simply to save us from ourselves. On a hot June morning in 2011, police responded to calls reporting a woman on a New York City rooftop threatening to jump, distraught over being dumped and losing her job on the same day. Police followed the typical suicide script, but nothing seemed to be working and the woman flung herself to the edge. Amazingly, Emergency Service Unit Detective Brian Glacken had maneuvered himself to a position just a few feet behind her, and he dove to catch her falling body, hanging off of the ledge in mid-air and jeopardizing his own life. A fellow cop pulled them both back in. The first thing the distraught woman did upon discovering she'd been saved was ask for a cigarette. Only in New York, folks.

  • MoreCowboybellBaby1965 via YouTube
    7 of 10

    Officer Timothy Greene, 2005

    On an ordinary March day in 2005, a pedestrian flagged down Rock Hill, South Carolina police officer Timothy Greene to report a bank robbery in progress. Greene called it in and immediately headed to the crime scene, only to find the suspect already fleeing in his vehicle. An insane chase ensued, with the robber peppering Greene's windshield with his Sig Sauer machine gun, jumping out of his car every few miles to blast more bullets into Greene, who returned fire at every opportunity. The officer's dogged pursuit even under heavy fire enabled other cops to join the chase and eventually bring the suspect down. Amazingly enough, Greene was mostly unhurt, although a bullet had passed right through his necktie! His only injury was glass fragments to the face from his windshield.

  • David Bohrer/White House
    8 of 10

    Officer Rodney Lee Chambers, 2003

    Coolness in the face of calamity is a key element of police heroism, and Amtrak officer Rodney Lee Chambers is a perfect illustration. In 2003, Chambers was on patrol in Union Station when he was given orders to investigate a man with a grenade on the West Porch. The man had just attempted to rob a store inside the station with the explosive, threatening to detonate it if he wasn't given all the cash in the register. When Officer Chambers stopped the suspect, he picked up the grenade and pulled the pin. Chambers wrestled the man to the ground, grabbed the grenade and took it as far away as possible to minimize potential casualties. The brave officer held onto the explosive for 20 minutes until the bomb squad arrived and disarmed it.

  • Omaha Police Department/Wikimedia Foundation
    9 of 10

    Officer Paul Milone, 2010

    Hostage situations are some of the hardest things for police officers to deal with, and it gets even scarier when the hostage is a child. In Omaha, Nebraska, Officer Paul Milone responded to a 911 call from a woman who told officers her fiancé was threatening to kill her and her 15 day old baby. A tense standoff followed that ended with police breaching the apartment and confronting the man, who was standing over the infant's crib with a samurai sword poised to cut the child in half. Officer Paul Milone, an 11 year veteran of the force, took the shot and killed the swordsman, saving the child's life. He was later decorated for his marksmanship in the most stressful of situations.

  • Discover Policing/facebook
    10 of 10

    Sergeant Marcus Young, 2003

    Let's close out this list with a tale of some of the most extreme badassery I've ever read in all my days. When Ukiah, California police officer Marcus Young took an unarmed high school student cadet out for a ridealong in 2003, it seemed like an ordinary night. Young, who was primarily a desk sergeant, often filled in for the overtime. His car responded to a call from the local Wal-Mart to arrest an 18 year old female shoplifter. Upon taking the girl into custody, Young was accosted by her boyfriend, who pulled a knife. Young disarmed him and got him in an armlock, but the boyfriend then pulled a gun and shot Young five times in the face, arm and chest. He then tried to get into Young's patrol car to get another gun. Bleeding profusely and paralyzed on his right side, Young ordered the cadet to grab his pistol and place it into his left hand. With his non-dominant hand, Young shot the criminal four times, ending his reign of terror before he could hurt others. 

 

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