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Putin Regime Offering 3.9 Million to Expose Tor's Anonymous Network​

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Putin Regime Offering 3.9 Million to Expose Tor's Anonymous Network​

Russia is hoping that 3.9 million roubles will be sufficient to produce a feasibility study on cracking Tor—a nonprofit service that reroutes internet traffic to anonymize user's IP addresses. Turns out: They could have saved over 3.7 million roubles just by switching to whatever these guys at Carnegie Mellon did!

Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs, or MVD, posted their procurement specs (or "tender") earlier this month, calling for "research work on the possibility to obtain technical information about users (user equipment) of the anonymous network Tor." Very quickly, however, MVD rescinded those details as news outlets, like the Moscow Times and (seriously) everyone else, picked up the story:

Or, maybe, Russia was just straight-up ashamed that researchers at Carnegie Mellon's Computer Emergency Response Team had announced a cheaper $3000-method for exposing the identities of Tor users. (MVD's 3.9 million-rouble contract comes out to about $109,723-and-change USD.)

Carnegie Mellon researchers Alexander Volynkin and Michael McCord were scheduled to present a talk this August on the discovery, at the annual Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas. Entitled "You don't have to be the NSA to break Tor: de-anonymising users on a budget," it promised to show how any dedicated hacker-and-thousandaire could "de-anonymise hundreds of thousands of Tor clients and thousands of hidden services within a couple of months." Then, to the disappointment of many, the talk was removed from Black Hat's schedule, its synopsis replaced with the following notice:

Late last week, we were informed by the legal counsel for the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and Carnegie Mellon University that: "Unfortunately, Mr. Volynkin will not be able to speak at the conference since the materials that he would be speaking about have not yet [been] approved by CMU/SEI for public release." As a result, we have removed the Briefing from our schedule.

What really happened, though?

Let's, just for a moment, speculate, shall we?

Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute is "a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)" according to their overview. As the Guardian reported yesterday, Tor received $1.8 million from the U.S. government last year, the majority of it through "pass-through" grants via a third party, but $100,325 came directly from the National Science Foundation and $256,900 came the U.S. Department of State. That's roughly 65 percent of Tor's budget—and it has truly been money well spent, both for traditional espionage, and promoting freedom/regime change wherever American interests deem that freedom/regime change may ring. It would really suck to lose such an expensive asset—even just for the short period it would take to patch up whatever hole Volynkin and McCord discovered—yes?

A lot of journalists asked Carnegie Mellon and the Tor foundation itself, why the talk was pulled, with little in the way of new information emerging. Maybe they should have just asked Dad instead? The global hegemonic patriarchy that is the U.S. Military-Industrial complex, I mean.

Anway: Tor is naturally very popular in Russia, where an ex-lieutenant colonel of the KGB named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has ruled—autocratically and without a shirt—for going on 15 years.

Putin Regime Offering 3.9 Million to Expose Tor's Anonymous Network​

Source: Tor metrics

Russian citizens looking to duck censorship and political repression constitute the fifth largest block of Tor users, a figure that (as you can see in the chart above) has spiked recently due to the passage of a "bloggers law" that required any site with more than 3000 daily visitors to formally register with the government. Registering, as the New York Times clarifies, ultimately means that bloggers "will be considered a media outlet akin to a newspaper and be responsible for the accuracy of the information published." These bloggers will also no longer be permitted to post anonymously. High-traffic not-exactly-news agencies, like search engines and social networks, were required to keep a record of all activity on their sites for six months by the law—in stark contrast to the American method wherein the government secretly stores it themselves outside Bluffdale, Utah.

Still, unflattering comparisons notwithstanding, the suppression of public speech in Russia has been very severe lately, in response to a long string of well-attended opposition rallies since 2011. Three major opposition news sites were blocked by the Putin government in March, as was the blog of anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. (They all now, obviously, can only be accessed in Russia via Tor.) In April, state investigators searched the offices of the very popular Russian social networking site, VKontakte, as well as the home of its boy founder, Pavel Durov, ostensibly over allegations of some kind of traffic violation.

"A year ago, when the protests started, Durov showed he wasn't ready to close protest pages," a source told the Guardian. "That's when his problems started."

That week, a fund belonging to Ilya Shcherbovich, a Russian oligarch and board member at the state-owned oil company Rosneft, unexpectedly bought 48 percent of VKontakte, meaning that "Putin is now the de facto owner" according to the Guardian's source.

Worse still, Putin signed a law recently requiring that all internet companies (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) store Russian user data within the nation's borders, presumably so that it can be readily accessed by the government's intelligence agencies in collusion with the nation's communications providers, like Rostelecom. The law, which goes into effect in 2016, is clearly designed to stifle dissent, as is Rostelecom's recent investment in Deep Packet Inspection technology, which promises to filter internet traffic based on content rather than its point of origin.

Earlier this year, Putin very hilariously dismissed the whole internet as "a special C.I.A. project," which, while partially true, is not entirely fair to the Pentagon's APRANET and DARPA people, or Al Gore, or all the wizards who stayed up late at MIT and elsewhere to bring us the internet. However, it does highlight that Tor, nonprofit though it may be, is caught along with Syria, and Ukraine, and the rest of us in some kind of post-Soviet Cold War right now.

So, in lieu of all this pertinent background, how should Russian MVD's desire for a Tor cracking method be considered?

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on surveillance and security services, has told reporters that it is primarily a veiled threat from a government that, as opposed to China's wholesale blocking of websites, tends to focus more on intimidation.

"It's not important if the Russian government is able to block Tor or not," Soldatov says. "The importance is that they're sending signals that they are watching this. People will start to be more cautious."

However, Russian Pirate Party leader Stanislav Sharikov told Global Voices that the $100,000 contract, which is frankly small by tech company standards, and the contract's origin in the Interior Ministry, suggests that this may have been a true public relations goof-up. MVD, Sharikov suggests, is more interested in conducting genuine police work, ferreting out child pornographers in the Deep Web, and so forth, and should not really be confused with the hardcore spooks at Russia's intelligence agency, the FSB.

For what it's worth, this is exactly the perspective that the Tor Project's board appears to have taken. Engaging in a charming bit of trash talk, Tor's executive director Andrew Lewman told Vice's Motherboard, "What the Russian's have really done is effectively offer a bug bounty program for Tor. We assume many other national police forces are doing the same thing, just not publicly. We have a good track record of reverse engineering attacks and fixing the attack, even when we're not told the details."

Pretty baller, right? Lewman continues, "There are some talented people in Russia who will likely try to get some funding for finding bugs. It will be interesting to see if they find anything; and if they do, if the bugs are around design or more standard software vulnerabilities."

"The bug is a nice bug," Tor Project Leader Roger Dingledine reassured subscribers to Tor Talk group, "but it isn't the end of the world."

Reassuring as this all may sound, the reality is of course simply that Tor is vulnerable right now, to anyone who has been surveilling CERT researchers at Carnegie Mellon, like their DoD paymasters or (Oh, wow!) sexy, college-aged Russian spies at Carnegie Mellon. Are you a researcher at Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute? You might be having sex right now with someone who does not really love you, but is instead a Russian spy. Or a Chinese spy. Who told you that you were really worthy of love? They might also be a spy.

As for the rest of you, this global drama should not directly impact you, no doubt, because you purchased a junk ThinkPad on Craigslist, anonymously, in cash, and have been pirating Internet access from a mile away with a PREMIERTEK Outdoor 2.4GHz 24dBi Directional High-Gain N-Type Female Aluminum Die Cast Grid Parabolic Antenna, like I told you to, right?

Right?

[photo of Putin visiting Gazprom HQ via Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images]

To contact the author, email matthew.phelan@gawker.com, pgp public key.


My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

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My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players


Face-to-face LAN parties—local game gatherings, usually PC-focused—just aren't what they used to be in this modern, always connected age. Not even one of the biggest in the world can escape time. But the thousands of PC gamers who gather in Texas every summer are pushing off the inevitable as heroically as they can.

QuakeCon plays host to one of the largest LAN parties in the world, with thousands of gamers flocking to Dallas, Texas every year to hang out in a hangar for three days straight, play games, and (hopefully) enjoy each others' company.

It's second only to DreamHack in Sweden in terms of pure size, but the two occupy a similar space, even as LAN parties become dinosaurs from a bygone era of gaming. Here's the thing, though: they're not fossils. Not yet.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

(Pic by Owen "O1kenobi" Long via the official Quakecon Flickr)

It's mid-July, and I'm roaming QuakeCon's Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC, for short) area. It's nearly midnight. The perpetually darkened hangar—always awash in the faint glow of thousands of computer screens—is a bit quieter than usual, but not by much. Every couple minutes, someone whoops or shouts at the top of their lungs, and a chorus of similar chants surges through the sea of people and their machines. If dominoes screamed or shouted "Leeroy Jenkins" as they fell over, I imagine this is what it would sound like.

"Hey," I suddenly hear someone say over the din of humming machines, "do you drink?"

"You mean, like, alcohol?" I ask. "Or are you asking if I, as a general rule, consume liquids?"

He laughs.

"Let's say yes to both," I say before joining him and his small circle of friends. They're all playing games on custom-built PCs, one open-cased and hotrod red, another with lights that'd look more at home in a Tron movie, and others still that favor function over form.

He takes a swig from a can of Bawls energy drink (a QuakeCon staple since time immemorial—at this point the drink is an official sponsor of the event) spiked with a less... wholesome beverage and then hands it to me. We get to talking, and the conversation quickly takes a turn for the mournful.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

The BYOC is different than it used to be back in the day, he explains despite not looking particularly old himself. It's still big and full of preposterously nice PCs and people playing games, but everyone just kind of does their own thing now. It's not so much about being around people, interacting face-to-face. Even the perpetual whooping, the BYOC's own signature banshee wail, has died down. The culprit? Technology. Odd, for a show about bleeding-edge PC gaming.

"The first couple years I came here, that was back before the Internet worked well," he says with a look of fond remembrance in his eyes. "It was a true LAN. Everyone was interconnected [instead of playing with non-QuakeCon attendees via the Internet]. If you ran the servers, you had control of the con. You could be like, 'If you don't start whooping, don't start yelling silly shit, I'm gonna shut off the server in a couple minutes.' Everyone would start, and it wouldn't stop for a good ten or fifteen minutes. It was really fun."

People had to meet each other, talk, and joke in person. Otherwise, well, good luck getting anything to run or finding a local server to play on.

"It was good and bad because they used to have a lot of problems with Steam updates, people not being able to login and shit," he continues. "You'd have to go on a local chat channel and post that you had a phone hotspot or something. People would give you Bawls, pizza, stuff like that, just to get Steam working."

"That made it a lot more interesting. There was no Internet, so you had to talk to people to play games."

His cousin, wide-eyed and enthusiastically boisterous, proceeds to tell me that he doesn't even really play games that much these days. For him, QuakeCon is all about the people and the culture. He's sad to see that withering, dissolving from a loud, fun-loving nation into a series of tiny islands.

It's a refrain I'll go on to hear frequently throughout the weekend.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

Twenty or so people are gathered around a single PC. They're like a pack of kids on Christmas morning, practically frothing at the mouth to tear into that most colorful, paper-wrapped prize of all: high-caliber assault weaponry. Or as one giddy onlooker puts it, "knives and excitement."

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

An entire clan has pooled its resources to purchase $400 worth of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive weapon cases. Each case is a sort of digital mystery box containing a prize, and until you open it, you won't know whether that prize is commonplace or rare.

"KNIFE, KNIFE, KNIFE, KNIFE," they all chant rhythmically each time they pop open a fresh crate, hoping beyond hope that they'll win ultra-rare knives, just a few of which could justify the price of every crate. More than half-an-hour of crate cracking passes, but no dice. Some rare guns, sure, but no ultra-rare knives.

They seem to take it all in stride, though. I strike up conversation with one of the clan's founders, Victor Nguyen, and he tells me that originally it was just him and a few friends who went to high school together. Even the clan's name, Have You Ben Burched, is a pun from when its founders were just kids. Now they're out in the real world, working jobs and paying bills, but at least they have the BYOC as a place to come back to, if only for a few days each year.

"QuakeCon and our clan," he says, suddenly far more serious than the spectacle surrounding him, "are about the people."

They've collected quite a merry little band thanks to chance meetings at QuakeCons and things of the like, so to capture the memories they're filming a mini-documentary. Even as people whoop over weapon crates, a video camera hovers.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

"This gathering of people, we're all pretty over-qualified," HYBB's Nguyen later explains. "We're all pretty under-employed. We're kinda brought together in that way. We have all these frustrations about what a normal life is supposed to be like. At the same time, we might want, like, a 'normal' life, but normal is arbitrary. We're trying to find what it is we want on our own."

"Me and a couple other members, we live together in a town home. That's how we prefer to live. If you gave us the opportunity to have significant others or girlfriends or something like that, guys like us don't work out super well in those situations. So you know, on one hand QuakeCon represents this three day celebration of arrested development, but maybe it's also, like, a triumph of the way we live."

"It's awesome," he chuckles. "And it's kind of depressing," he adds, voice souring into a resigned sigh on the last word.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

But he doesn't have a chance to dwell on that for long. It's time to take a picture of the whole group, and shepherding an entire delirious, possibly inebriated clan in front of a burning bulb takes time, effort, and, um, a lot of shouting.

As soon as the shot is snapped, the pack scatters like just-struck bowling pins.

"We gotta get back to a Counter-Strike match!" one person shouts.

"Wait, you mean it's still going?" asks Nguyen, incredulous.

"Yeah, we just ran over here for the picture. The match is ranked!"

Now that's dedication, I think to myself. To what, I'm not sure. It's certainly some form of dedication, though.

"And we're winning!" he adds before dashing away.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

"Oh, you should totally go talk to A2M," like, six different people tell me at various points. "They're crazy. Easily the craziest people at this whole thing."

Apparently they play Quake...without shirts.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

I arrive at A2M's ("Always Too Manly," allegedly) 40-person BYOC empire to discover that they are not, in fact, shirtless. Somewhat disappointed, I ask all about what it's like to be shirtless, given that I haven't been shirtless since early that morning and have entirely forgotten what it was like.

I get stories.

Everbody's favorite touchstone is the time then-id-Software-CEO Todd Hollenshead came down at 2 AM to indulge in their shirtless Quake tradition with them. "But then we realized he was way, way more ripped than us," one member quips, "so we were like, 'No wait, put it back on! Put it back on!'"

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

They had fun with it, though. Apparently they always do. Some of A2M's members have been attending QuakeCon—taking up a bloc or two of the BYOC's glimmering cybercity—for 12 years. They love it. They love the games. They love the environment. They love each other.

They aren't quite as into what the BYOC has come to represent.

"Back in the day people didn't like World of Warcraft and stuff like that because those weren't LAN," explains one member, resplendent in a Bawls-can-adorned hat. "You weren't playing with people in the BYOC. Now it's kinda become more socially acceptable, and it's not that huge of a deal. But there are still diehards like us. We play Quake and Doom, because we can play DOTA 2 and LoL when we're at home. When we come here, we want to play with each other."

"The best memories come from being together with all your friends. Being in the BYOC and playing games is the icing on the cake, but the core of it is all of us being together and having a good time."

He tells me another tale, this time of an A2M member who managed to retroactively fund his entire trip out to QuakeCon by buying up case upon case of Bawls energy drink and re-selling it at a significant mark up late at night. Of course the BYOC would have a Bawls-based mini-economy. Of course it would.

Those sorts of strange, silly, only ever-so-slightly exploitative moments, though? That's the magic. That's what groups like A2M are fighting to preserve, even as time keeps on rocket-jumping into the future.

"I think people are starting to see [how cool this stuff is], because LAN parties aren't big anymore," he continues. "When I started coming to this, there was a LAN party every other weekend nearby. Now there's no need to go to a LAN anymore because you've got fast Internet here. In a lot of ways that's been great, but why play those games when you can just sit at home and do the same thing?"

One of A2M's most well-known members, a QuakeCon longtimer who goes by the handle "Fade," explains to me that he's trying to do something about that. He's trying to build his own Jurassic Park for the dinosaur that is LAN. FadeCon, as it's known, hosted its first event earlier this year, in March. The goal? To make something more akin to "the way QuakeCon started." Smaller, more interconnected—a 100-or-so-person Bawls-chugging family.

"You can hang out and have a beer. It's community, which is what we all liked about this in the first place."

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

QuakeCon has a longstanding tradition of whooping. Every so often, everyone just starts to holler in chorus. Why did the whooping start? I have to know.

I make a habit of asking everyone I talk to. Where? How? When? What does it mean?

Many scratch their heads and tell me that's just the way it's always been, at least for as long as they can remember. One of them attempts to do so, only to be drowned out by a sudden, hangar-wide whoop explosion. A sonic tsunami sweeps him away. I assume he is dead.

Nearly ready to give up, I turn my blinding interrogation lamp (read: phone flashlight) on one last person, a longtime BYOC veteran, who manages to provide me with the most compelling tale I've heard—whether it's the true origin or not.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

"There is a sign somewhere in the hotel that says, 'When the alarm goes off, a light will flash and go whoop-whoop.' That's what started it. People saw that and thought it was funny."

"Other times someone will start singing 'The stars in the night are big and bright,' and everyone else will finish with 'deep in the heart of Texas,'" he adds with a laugh.

I'm tempted to try it myself.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

Fade has been bringing his son to QuakeCon since he was far, far too young to play Quake.

"My first LAN ever was QuakeCon," Fade says, smiling proudly. "I've been going every year pretty much since it started. And as my son's grown up, he's gotten more and more into video games. Being like dad. He's been steadily staying for more and more of it each year, and now he stays for the whole thing."

"Yeah, [it's a great bonding thing], and he's really good. He kicks all of our butts. I used to be that good, but not anymore. Of course he's not drinking so that probably helps."

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

It's not that there aren't any women in the BYOC.

It's just that there aren't very many.

I speak to a few, all of whom say they feel massively outnumbered, but it's sort of par for the course. It's always been this way. Classic shooters like Quake and Doom certainly took aim at dudes first and foremost, so it makes a certain amount of sense.

There's no getting around it: the BYOC is pretty bro-tacular. A carnival of fist bumps and "your mom" jokes. A safari through a jungle crudely drawn phallic imagery.

But it's 2014. Times have changed, and the BYOC is evolving—not always gracefully, but then, no event this popular ever changes gracefully. Doors are opening. Slowly.

One woman I encounter, named Jenna Ruter, agrees, noting that things were pretty dire previously (a few years ago she only saw "maybe ten" women the entire time she was in the BYOC), but they're a little better this year. She even brought her little sister along, to share her love of gaming, this place, and its people.

"We built her a PC and she even won some stuff," says Ruter. "She used to make comments about nerds, and now she's excited to become one."

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

They brought along other out-of-state friends as well. When I ask why they have so many people in tow, Ruter's little sister replies, without missing a beat: "because it's so awesome."

And she means it. When Ruter insists that her sister—still definitely a young kid—goes to bed before the BYOC gets too, er, strange, her sister fires back with an impassioned, "I went to bed at 5 in the morning!" That's later than I stayed up.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

A man dressed up as The Flash casually saunters past me. I can't stop myself from staring because, you know, The Flash.

Immediately behind me, a man then screams into his PC, at the top of his lungs, "GOING TOO HARD. CAN'T GET HIM."

All of this happens in about five seconds.

My Weekend Hanging Out With PC Gaming's Most Hardcore Players

One week before QuakeCon, I attended GaymerX. The two conferences absolutely, positively could not be more different. GaymerX, I wrote, was disarmingly sexy (at least, by game convention standards)—not to mention crazy diverse. QuakeCon and its BYOC are so patently un-sexy that there's an unmistakable charm to them, a calling card that couldn't possibly belong to anybody else.

The BYOC's fingerprint is perpetually stained with Dorito dust and pizza grease. People stay up all night for days on end, don't shower, and eat snack food that probably cuts years off their lifespan. A faint patina of body odor and energy drink residue hangs on the air. It's a mess.

And it's great. As I wander the BYOC, I feel QuakeCon's pulse, and that, at the very least, is one thing it has in common with GaymerX, even if everything else is totally different. Passion. People are so happy to be here, nestled among this collection of memories once again, making new ones all the while.

Time will pass, things will change, but one way or another, the LAN will live on.

Top image by Jim Cooke.

People Are Freaking the Hell Out About This Doll's Tiny Penis

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People Are Freaking the Hell Out About This Doll's Tiny Penis

Toys "R" Us shoppers were apparently sent into a panic by a realistic diaper-changing baby doll that was a little bit more realistic than they expected. The little bit in question is the doll's tiny infant dick.

The main feature of the You & Me Mommy Diaper Boy Doll, marketed by Toys "R" Us, is that it cries when its diaper is wet. Its secondary feature is anatomical correctness, which angry parents on Facebook argue the company should have noted on the box.

People Are Freaking the Hell Out About This Doll's Tiny Penis

"Some parents called the doll inappropriate and unnecessary for kids," the Huffington Post notes. One mother wrote, "Little girls should not be shown that on dolls. The company makes me sick," according to Monica Bayer at SheKnows.com

Others said it should have come with "a warning label."

But it's not as if the company is undertaking a secret campaign to infect our children with anatomical knowledge. When one mom asked on the product description page whether the doll had genitalia or was "just another doll baby wearing blue and called a 'boy,''" Toys "R" Us gave her a direct answer.

To sum up: Realistic peeing action? Appropriate. Healthy. Realistic penis? Kill it with fire. Protect our children.

Bayer hits the nail on the head here: "The doll isn't harmful. What's harmful is the notion that a baby doll is disturbing or sexual because it has a penis."

[H/T Opposing Views, Photos: Toys "R" Us, Facebook]

Prepare for a Harmony Korine Gangster Movie Starring Robert Pattinson

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Prepare for a Harmony Korine Gangster Movie Starring Robert Pattinson

In early May, Robert Pattinson mentioned that he might make a movie with Harmony Korine. Now Indiewire reports that the beautiful little bird's claim is gaining some traction.

Back in May, Pattinson talked about possibly working with Korine before starting production on his upcoming film The Lost City Of Z:

"In the meantime, I might film something with Harmony Korine, with whom I've been dreaming to work since I was 17, like with James Gray. I keep asking him what the film is about but he doesn't want to tell me."

Hmmm! Well, a recent Esquire UK profile states, rather plainly, that Korine is "writing him a gangster movie, set in Miami." Further supporting the idea that Korine is, in fact, writing him a gangster movie set in Miami, is Korine's March 2013 assertion that his next film would be about a southern crime family.

So. What should the title be? Crime Breakers? Crime Humpers? Crimmo? Twilight: Breaking Laws?

[image via Getty]

Nearly Nude Dude Who Fired Gun Outside Pizzeria May Have Been on Acid

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Nearly Nude Dude Who Fired Gun Outside Pizzeria May Have Been on Acid

Andrew Engle — a 27-year-old Michigan man who, wearing only a towel, accidentally discharged his gun while banging on a local pizzeria's windows until one shattered because he was angry that the restaurant was closed even though it was actually open — may have taken acid before his arrest Saturday.

Engle was arraigned on several misdemeanor charges for the incident at Happy's Pizza in Muskegon Township this week: "malicious destruction of property that's valued over $200, but less than $1,000; careless discharge of a firearm causing property damage; reckless use of a firearm; and possession of a firearm while under the influence," according to MILive.com. He also faces charges for firing a gun inside his car, though it is unclear, apparently, whether these shots were related to the one-man showdown at Happy's.

After he was apprehended at his home, allegedly still holding the gun, Engle admitted to police that he had taken four hits of LSD before piling his three kids into the car (ages 3, 4, and, 6), grabbing his .40 caliber semi automatic pistol, and heading to Happy's for a piping hot slice of Muskegon-style street justice, all while basically butt-naked. He told the arresting officers he started the scene because he was upset at not being able to get any pizza, but the shop was open for business at the time (7:30 p.m.), with two employees inside, ready to serve.

Engle is currently out on bail, MILive reports, and Child Protective Services has stepped in regarding his children.

[Image via Jacek Chabraszewski/Shutterstock]

The New York Times has added an editors’ note to an article containing a passage lifted from Wikiped

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The New York Times has added an editors’ note to an article containing a passage lifted from Wikipedia: “That passage improperly used specific language and details from a Wikipedia article without attribution; it should not have been published in that form.”

Justin Bieber on Orlando Bloom Fight: [Photo of Orlando Bloom Weeping]

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Justin Bieber on Orlando Bloom Fight: [Photo of Orlando Bloom Weeping]

Justin Bieber just posted the above photo to Instagram. It's a photo of Orlando Bloom crying, or a photo of Orlando Bloom looking like he's crying, in case you were wondering if Bieber had an official comment on the most hilarious beef of the year/decade/century/millennium/Willennnium.

UPDATE (6:29 p.m.) The photo is back up.

UPDATE (5:37 p.m.) Bieber deleted the photo. RIP.

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Wednesday Night TV Is Very Goddamn American TV

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For tonight's entertainment we have Americans doing super American stuff and having talents, an ongoing fake love affair with fake cultural phenomena about sharks, and teens having sex and dealing with consequences. Kangaroos also fuck.

At 8/7c. the slow and agonizing but ultimately valuable march toward Nice Guy defeat—or supremacy—continues on Big Brother, a rhinoceros joins a family on PBS's My Wild Affair, Rogue ends its second season on DirectTV, and So You Think You Can Dance cuts itself down to a Top 12. Penn And Teller have a new show on The CW but if you're a person who gives a shit about them you already know that, we don't need to discuss it further—just stay tuned for an announcement about a Syfy original film that I think you're just gonna love.

At 9/8c. the El Rey network debuts a new show about movie directors, The Director's Chair, with Guillermo Del Toro, who is fucking adorable. Jesse Tyler Ferguson delves into his gay ginger roots on a new Who Do You Think You Are? on TLC, while #1 America Coolness Indicator Sharknado sequel—Sharknado 2: The Second One, quite droll—airs to a confused audience of half Doritos Taco eaters and half Mia Farrow drunk moms, everybody tweeting harder than everybody else about how zeitgeisty everything is and how plugged into the irony of living they are, never realizing just how queasy it's gonna feel, waking up to that hangover in a week's time. How lovely it could be to actually just like things, on the merits.

But it is also very fucking America at 9/8c. tonight! So choose carefully because in addition to the Talent it's Got on NBC, we're also: American Grilled, in Savannah this week on the Travel Channel; American Muscle on Discovery; and American Pickers ("Alien Vs. Picker") on History. I don't know what any of those things are, but I like muscles okay, and I like grills okay, and even "picking" (presumably through other Americans' garbage?) is closer to okay once you get aliens involved. Maybe today's not the greatest day to be American, though. Maybe just for today a kangaroo.

At 10/9c. things return to just the usual levels of America, with a new timeslot for Extant, new episodes of The Bridge and Graceland, a second episode of Linda Perry's Make Or Break on VH1, and several other shows about smelly hairy creatures fornicating without the gift of language—Sex In The Wild on PBS (Kangaroos! Nature's bodega operators!) and Teen Mom 2—before a new Virgin Territory on MTV, or Watch What Happens: Live on Bravo, tonight featuring prrrrrrobably the worst people in the universe, which is saying a lot considering the Housewives that are often on.

[Awkward, dorky video via PBS]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. What are you watching tonight? What are we missing out on? Recommendations and discussions down below.

Woman Walks Naked Man on Dog Leash, Puts Unknown Object in His Anus

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Woman Walks Naked Man on Dog Leash, Puts Unknown Object in His Anus

Nothing brightens up a Tuesday morning like walking your naked, hooded sex slave down the street with "an unidentified object in his anus." That's what a West Virginia bondage enthusiast did yesterday, according to police reports obtained by The Smoking Gun.

A witness told Ohio County, W.V., sheriff's deputies she saw 53-year-old Barbara Jean "B.J." Geardello taking her boyfriend, Robert Deyell, 56, for a walk on a dog leash. She said he was wearing a hood, and his feet and ankles had been tied. As for whatever was protruding from his butt, she didn't hazard a guess.

Geardello, a resident of nearby Washington, Pa., told police it was a harmless sex game. Her boyfriend confirmed that he had been into it and that he wasn't hurt, although deputies noted he had "obvious ligature marks on his ankles."

Geardello also told deputies "she was offended that a passerby had called her a freak."

Investigators apparently chose not to pursue the mystery of the unidentified anal object. Their report is now with county prosecutors, who will decide whether to charge Deyell with indecent exposure.

[Photo via The Smoking Gun]

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

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Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

Today, in a greater effort to protect and serve, the Lockport Police Department posted a question to its Facebook page. Perhaps unaware of the social media storm that ensued after the New York Police Department asked Twitter users to post photos using the #MyNYPD hashtag in April, Lockport PD wondered:

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

According to the 2010 Census, nearly 22,000 people inhabit the small Upstate New York town and 87 percent of those residents are white. You can imagine, then, what happened next.

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

On a scale of Dumb to I Am A Complete Idiot Who Has No Understanding of History, how confused would you say you are, Jesi?

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

Is that so, Gary? Please, tell me more.

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

Because calling someone fat is the same as calling someone a nigger, right?

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

Lol? More like :-(

But wait, there's a good explanation for all of this. Mark Sanders, lifelong black man and community policing aide, wrote the post. So, ya know, no need to get angry about it.

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

This is about awareness. A-W-A-R-E-N-E-S-S .... Or is it?

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

No word yet from Mark.

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

Like the true American Hero she was meant to become, Chenia Hardy embraces her destiny and swoops in to tell it like it is.

Lockport Police Not Sure If "Negro" Is Offensive Word

So it's confirmed: Lockport is a raggedy city. Glad that's settled.

[Image via Lockport PD Facebook]

Israeli Army Member Crowdfunded Battle Gear for Urban Warfare

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Israeli Army Member Crowdfunded Battle Gear for Urban Warfare

Two years ago, students at ITP, NYU's "high-tech funhouse," built a fake Kickstarter to warn viewers about the possibility that crowdfunding platforms might eventually be used for warfare. That bit of online performance art turned out to be prescient. Earlier this week, a campaign on Crowdtilt successfully raised $22,000 to buy battle gear for the IDF's 97th Battalion, according to the description on the site.

I've reached out to Crowdtilt to confirm the legitimacy of the campaign, but earlier this afternoon Crowdtilt CEO James Beshara retweeted one of his employees asking whether this was "the world's first crowd funded war."

The campaign was initiated by Tzvi Wiesel who claims to be part of the 97th Battalion, which he says polices the West Bank:

My unit, the 97th Battalion is known for it's speciality in urban warfare and counter terrorism. As all units within the IDF, we have been assigned a territory as our primary location. The area given to my battalion is that of the West Bank an internationally recognized hotbed of terrorism. Ever since the tragic kidnapping and murder of the 3 yeshiva students; Eyal, Gilad and Naftali my unit has been working non-stop to locate and arrest terrorists, quell violent riots, and ensure the safety of the Jewish people in the surrounding neighborhoods. Now as Israel's borders are heating up yet again we have been placed on high alert and are preparing for the worst. Due to the recent nature of our brigade, the newest in the army, and our battalion, the newest within the brigade the amount of funds allotted for our gear dwarfs in comparison to that of some of the better known units. I kindly request, in this time of tremendous trouble befalling Am Yisrael and the soldiers who have enlisted to protect it, that you might donate to our unit. This money will go towards buying much needed equipment, such as knee pads, flashlights, waterpacks, tourniquets, bullet proof vests and much more as a means of ensuring the safety and preparedness of the soldiers. I thank you on behalf of myself, my entire unit, and the army as a whole for your contribution.

Wiesel's target was $20,000. He raised $22,241. I have reached out to him via the "Facebook verified" account linked to the campaign to confirm that he is part of that unit and to ask if the IDF approved of his campaign. Crowdtilt, a Y Combinator startup which has notoriously lax standards, seems like the most natural fit to push the boundaries of crowdfunding.

Update: A Crowdtilt spokesperson tells Valleywag in a statement that the campaign "does not violate our terms of use."

The campaign description clearly states: "This money will go towards buying much needed equipment, such as knee pads, flashlights, waterpacks, tourniquets, bullet proof vests and much more as a means of ensuring the safety and preparedness of the soldiers."

This is protective and safety equipment, and therefore, it does not violate our terms of use.

In addition to our automated verification and fraud prevention measures, we also manually verify campaigns (including this one), which we are in the process of doing before sending the funds to the fundraising organizer.

We take this matter very seriously and have even conducted a legal review of this campaign to ensure it does not violate any laws or terms of use (ours or the TOS of any partners we work with).

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

Peace Corps To Evacuate All Volunteers in West Africa

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Peace Corps To Evacuate All Volunteers in West Africa

Officials have decided to evacuate volunteers from the ebola-stricken regions of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, after two Americans were stricken by the deadly virus. As reported by CNN, the two victims are improving slightly, but remain in serious condition.

Those most at risk are medical professionals and volunteers helping to contain this outbreak, due to their frequent contact with the infected.

"This epidemic is without precedent," Bart Janssens of Doctors Without Borders told CNN. "It's absolutely not under control, and the situation keeps worsening."

Janssens also told CNN that if conditions don't improve soon, "there is a real risk for new countries to be affected."

In light of these recent cases, U.S. authorities are considering restricting travel to the area to prevent further spread of the disease. The CDC issued an alert cautioning people against attending the funerals of victims in the affected countries.

According to the World Health Organization, this is the worst-ever Ebola epidemic in history and has caused 672 deaths.

[Image via AP]

Google Eviction Specialist Refuses to Be Served Lawsuit

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Google Eviction Specialist Refuses to Be Served Lawsuit

Jack Halprin may be the head of Google's armada of eDiscovery lawyers, but he's becoming an serial evictor back in San Francisco. After purchasing a seven-unit building in the Mission District in 2012, he quickly began illegally evicting his tenants. But now four of his tenants are suing him for violating a litany of laws, and Halprin is trying to elude the lawsuit.

Halprin even went as far as leaving a case management summons from his tenants on the street when the process server attempted to serve him.

Google Eviction Specialist Refuses to Be Served Lawsuit

The lawsuit is the second filed against Halprin by tenants in the past year. The latest suit, filed last month in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that Halprin has been neglecting the building and harassing the remaining tenants, who are slated to be evicted in February. It claims Halprin has allowed the "excessive growth of mold" in one unit, refused to repair heating systems, and is allowing the building to become "infested" with mice. He's even accused of spying on one tenant:

Google Eviction Specialist Refuses to Be Served Lawsuit

Steven Collier, an attorney representing the tenants, tells Valleywag that Halprin "tried to avoid service for many days." Ultimately, the tenants' lawyers "had to pay a process server to stake out his house" and give Halprin notice of the suit.

When the process server finally did catch up with Halprin, Google's top lawyer became downright petulant. One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Chris 'Johnny' Sideris, explains to Valleywag what happened:

Halprin had bounded down the stairs at 812 Guerrero and quickly headed towards Valencia on 20th St. The process server finally caught up to him on the corner of 20th and Valencia, right outside of Dog Eared Books, and served him the papers. Halprin didn't even acknowledge the server. Pretended he wasn't even there. How cowardly is that? So, after a while, the process server, in front of witnesses, threw the papers down at Halprin's feet and walked away. A half hour later, as I was walking to work, I saw the papers were still there and took that picture.

Collier tells us that dropping a notice at a defendant's feet "is a legal way of serving someone who refuses to accept the paperwork."

However, Collier noted it was "strange" for an accomplished corporate lawyer to behave in such a manner. Collier suggested Halprin may realize he's in the wrong, which could explain why he's avoiding being served.

It's not an unreasonable theory. The first lawsuit against Halprin alleged that he illegally evicted one of his tenants, using his former domestic partner as leverage for an "owner move in" eviction. Just two weeks ago, Halprin was forced to settle that suit out of court for an undisclosed sum.

As Uptown Almanac's Jackson West reported at the time, Halprin's wrongdoing was apparent:

A few months after joining Google, in March of 2012, he and [his then domestic partner Daniel Ortiz] bought the building together at 812 Guerrero and Halprin moved in, evicting a former tenant in the process. Ortiz, however, remained in Venice, California according to tenants. On August 30th of 2012, an eviction notice was served to 20-year building tenant Susan Coss, Halprin's neighbor in an adjoining apartment. Ostensibly, Ortiz would be moving into the unit from his home in Venice and making it his primary residence for the next three years.

Halprin allowed Coss to stay in her unit until November 16th, a couple of weeks after the date on the notice, but according to Coss's attorney Joe Tobener, he and Ortiz filed for separation on November 10th. And after Coss left, the wrongful eviction lawsuit alleges Halprin proceeded to merge her unit into his as part of an unpermitted remodel. A check of the online San Francisco Property Information Map database shows two permits on file for 2013, neither of which were for a unit merger.

One of the tenants of the current suit is Claudia Tirado, a third grade teacher, who made headlines earlier this summer interrupting Google I/O's keynote, yelling "You need to develop a conscience, Google!"

Collier tells us that the four tenants that filed the lawsuit, including Tirado and her two-year-old son, have already been given notice of their upcoming evictions. However, the tenants are "going to contest the evictions vigorously."

Tirado hopes to continue living in San Francisco, but has stated she'll only be able to if she secures below market rate housing—an option that's difficult to obtain in a competitive real estate market, where residents can only obtain BMR housing through a lottery.

Collier believes that potential winnings from the lawsuit will help prevent the tenants from being immediately priced out of San Francisco.

"Any additional compensation may help them stay in the city longer."

You can read the entire lawsuit against Halprin below:

Halprin and spokespersons from Google did not respond to our requests for comment.

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Eviction notice photo: Chris 'Johnny' Sideris

Drew Barrymore's Half-Sister Jessica Found Dead in Car

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Drew Barrymore's Half-Sister Jessica Found Dead in Car

The body of Drew Barrymore's half-sister Jessica was discovered in a parked car near San Diego, Tuesday. The woman who found her body, Marta Lopez, told the ABC affiliate in San Diego that she discovered Barrymore with an energy drink between her legs and white pills strewn across the passenger seat.

Lopez told 10News that she discovered Barrymore's car parked at the end of her driveway early Tuesday.

"Her car was parked right here last night around midnight," Oscar Sandoval, a neighbor who saw Barrymore's car, told 10News. "I thought she was sleeping or waiting for someone."

According to the Los Angeles Times, Barrymore worked at a Petco and would have been turned 48 this Thursday. She and Drew are daughters of the late actor John Barrymore.

"Although I only met her briefly, I wish her and her loved ones as much peace as possible, and I'm so incredibly sorry for their loss," Drew Barrymore told People.

[Image via 10News]


House Republicans Vote Along Party Lines To Sue Obama

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House Republicans Vote Along Party Lines To Sue Obama

Republicans of the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to mount a lawsuit against President Obama. In a measure that operates independent of Senate approval, House Republicans are accusing Obama of exceeding his executive authority in his implementation of the Affordable Healthcare Act.

As reported by Reuters, House Republicans voted along party lines. The measure was passed in a 225-201 vote. While Republicans have made noise about other actions Obama has taken, the focus on the healthcare law is specific. Representative Pete Sessions of Texas said that "it is the option most likely to clear the legal hurdles necessary to succeed."

NBC says that house Democrats, including Obama, have referred to this bill as "a waste of taxpayer's time and money," with others speculating that this is the "first step towards the President's impeachment." The New York Times reports that Republicans invoked the Bible and lessons learned from the American Revolution in the hour-long debate that led to this bill's passing.

In a statement from House Leader John Boehner's press office, he defends the resolution, saying that "the current president believes he has the power to make his own laws—at times even boasting about it. He has said that if Congress won't make the laws he wants, he'll go ahead and make them himself, and in the case of the employer mandate in his health care law, that's exactly what he did."

House of Representative lawyers will draft papers over the five-week summer recess, which begins Friday.

[Image via AP]

Teen Sets Self On Fire for Dumb YouTube "Fire Challenge"

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Teen Sets Self On Fire for Dumb YouTube "Fire Challenge"

A teenager in Kentucky was hospitalized and treated for burns after participating in a "fire challenge," a teen craze sweeping the nation in which you pour alcohol on yourself and light it on fire. WKYT reports that the teen, who did not reveal his name to press, simply "poured alcohol on it, and lit it, and it automatically went and burst."

According to USA Today, once engulfed in flames, the teen said the pain was "unbearable." He elaborated on the extent of his injuries, telling reporters "literally after it got put out it was already blistering."

The teen noted that the consequences of his prank were not immediately apparent, stating that the videos never show the end, once the person is purportedly no longer on fire.

[Image via WKYT]

Brian Williams "Reports" His Daughter Allison's Casting in Peter Pan

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Allison Williams must be so embarrassed right now. Her dad, Brian, "reported" on the NBC Nightly News tonight her casting in NBC's forthcoming live production of Peter Pan. "Family members confirm that she's been rehearsing for this role since the age of three and they look forward to seeing her fly," he said on-air.

"Omigod, dad, corporate synergy is so embarrassing!" Allison Williams probably said. "Even more embarrassing than when you rap!"

[H/T Brian Stelter]

Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

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Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

Comic-Con 2014 was chock full of amazing costumes, cool art, mind-blowing TV pilots and fascinating encounters. Because even a weak Comic-Con is better than most other events. Here's our complete roundup of all the most incredible things we saw last weekend.

Superheroes

As usual, Comic-Con was full of amazing superheroes. Including a glimpse at Avengers: Age of Ultron, which showcased the total destruction of Marvel's greatest heroes. We also got a closer look at Ultron, and other startling props from the film. And Marvel is already making a Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon, not to mention greenlighting the sequel. Speaking of off-kilter Marvel films, we got a new glimpse at Big Hero 6.

Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

But DC also brought the thunder — with a brief but stunning 30-second clip from Batman v. Superman, in which the two heroes confront each other. And the reveal of Wonder Woman's new costume. And the Trinity on stage together for the first time. Picture by Getty Images.

Oh, and some clips from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film were both cute and frustrating.

But this year, a lot of the best superhero action came from television. We saw the pilot for Fox's Gotham and admired the show's anti-hero, Detective Harvey Bullock. But we also saw pilots for Flash and Constantine, and learned what to expect from those shows, plus the return of Arrow.

We also found out all about Marvel's new Agent Carter show. Plus we learned about the new characters joining Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, and we talked to the show's reluctant villains, Brett Dalton and J. August Richards, and they told us what to expect in season two. We learned (And we learned about the science of SHIELD, too!)

And we saw just how strange Tim Burton's Superman movie could have been.

Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

Dark Journeys

The weekend belonged to Mad Max, plain and simple. You've already seen the Fury Road trailer — but we saw a much, much longer version at Comic-Con, in which we saw a lot more of the vicious Immortan Joe and Max's ordeal. The darkest journey of all, though, might have been Christopher Nolan's Interstellar — and now you can see the new trailer for yourself.

The Warcraft movie showed us scenes of incredible Orc/Human conflict, and also revealed some props for the first time ever.

We were charmed and highly amused by an extended look at The Boxtrolls. Guillermo del Toro gave us an exclusive look at his horror movie Crimson Peak, and we're still incredibly creeped out.

Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

But also, we found out that Godzilla's sequel will feature Rodan, King Ghidorah and Mothra! And they're making a King Kong movie, Skull Island, coming in 2016.

We also saw the first trailers for the apocalyptic Air, from The Walking Dead's creator and co-star, and Horns, based on the Joe Hill novel. We were excited to learn Hill's Locke and Key is becoming not just a movie, but a movie trilogy.

There were so many dystopias — Lois Lowry praised the movie version of her novel The Giver. We saw a new trailer for The Maze Runner (which had a screening that pleased die-hard fans of the novel.) And Quentin Tarantino pitched a really bizarre spin on Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

We are totally rooting for Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams to star in the Last of Us movie.

We saw some bedazzling footage from the space opera Jupiter Ascending, and watched the first footage from The Hunger Games: Mockingjaysee it here. And we saw just how dark things will get in the final Hobbit movie — see for yourself. Jack Black revealed some Goosebumps footage, and showed how he would bring R.L. Stine to life in the movie. We also got a glimpse of Neill Blomkamp's robot comedy Chappie.

They're remaking War Games! Really.

And speaking of strange journeys — NASA used Comic-Con to argue for sending people to Mars. Who's up for it?

Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

Television Shows

Tons of television shows brought their "A" game to Comic-Con — but there was one clear favorite: Starz' Outlander, which showed an absolutely brilliant pilot and revealed lots of great secrets.

We were also fascinated by Syfy's Ascension, about a planned community from the 1960s traveling through space. Not to mention BBC America's ultra-weird Intruders. So fricken weird.

Speaking of weird and awesome — Sam Raimi is making an Evil Dead TV series with Bruce Campbell!

We interviewed the stars and creators of Orphan Black, and they told us whether the show has reached Peak Clone. We thrilled to the hilarious Game of Thrones panel — and two actors explained to us why their characters' journeys are diverging from the books.

Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

The Walking Dead showed us a new trailer and told us how these characters' journeys will converge with the comics again — plus someone asked the funniest question.

Supernatural revealed what Dean Winchester is like as a demon. Person of Interest showed us how the team is going undercover. And Sleepy Hollow showed us a brand new clip in which Ichabod hates the banking industry.

We caught our first thrilling glimpse of Star Wars: Rebels, the new animated series. And the creators of Avatar: The Legend of Korra explained why the show is leaving television for a bold new frontier.

And we admired the shiny new Batman '66 Blu-rays, and learned that the whole Firefly cast is back for an online game.

Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

Image by PsikickConphoto.

Costumes And Art

We showcased the best costumes of five days of Comic-Con: Here's day one, day two, day three, day four and the final round-up. Not to mention Baby Rufio. But nothing was better than this anti-Lannister/Baratheon propaganda.

And we saw tons of amazing art — like these cool installations and wild projects from the Comic-Con floor. And these strange reimaginings of Batman's cape and cowl. And this awesome Mondo Ghost in the Shell poster.

We also lusted after 20 amazing collectible toys that would have made our lives complete, if only we'd snagged any of them. Plus these awesome Twilight Zone toys.

And then there's the art of promotion, which gets pretty darn artistic sometimes. Check out the best and worst of Comic-Con advertising.

Comic-Con Wrap-Up: The Shiniest Things We Saw In San Diego!

And Comics!

SAGA! We celebrated Saga's Eisner win, along with all the other amazing winners. And we learned what's next for Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' fantastic comic.

We learned how the Agents of SHIELD are joining the Marvel Comics Universe, and found out what to expect from Marvel's brand new Star Wars comics. Not to mention the Star Trek/Planet of the Apes crossover!

And finally, here's why Comic-Con was actually great for comics creators and fans, from Image Comics' David Brothers.

Red Robin Owns Distinction of Serving America's Unhealthiest Meal

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Red Robin Owns Distinction of Serving America's Unhealthiest Meal

Red Robin is home to the unhealthiest meal in America, according to USA Today. In a report released by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the "Monster" double burger, "bottomless" fries and a "Monster" milkshake clocks in at 3,450 calories. Also on the list were offerings from The Cheesecake Factory, including a "Brulee French Toast," which sounds delicious, but also terrifying.

Red Robin's chief marketing officer Denny Marie Post notes that the meal in question "combines some of our most indulgent items into one meal." She counters that if you wanted to order something a little lighter, "a lettuce-wrapped turkey burger, sans cheese and bun, with a side of broccoli and a light lemonade" would only run you about 540 calories—a relatively light snack for a restaurant that offers a burger that includes a patty and brisket.

If you choose to view this report as a challenge, you should be aware of the work you'd have to do to offset the caloric damage: According to the study, 12 hours of brisk walking would eliminate the Red Robin meal, while just seven hours of lap-swimming would take care of the French Toast.

[Image via USA Today]

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