Normal boy Justin Bieber seems poised to turn his weird, bad week into a weird, bad fortnight. The singer abruptly canceled the second of two scheduled Portuguese concert appearances just days before he was expected to perform.

Concert promoter Everything is New said on its website Friday, that Bieber's March 12th show was canceled "due to unforeseen circumstances," and added that ticket holders had 30 days to request a refund. Bieber's first (and now only) show in Portugal is scheduled to go forth on Monday as planned.

Bieber has yet to address the cancellation on his Twitter page, but did express enthusiasm for having a fun Sunday yesterday:

After leaving Portugal, Justin Bieber is scheduled to travel to Spain, then France, then Switzerland, then Italy, then France again, then Germany, then France again, then Belgium, then the Netherlands, then Norway, then Sweden, then Oman, then South Africa, then the United States, then Canada, then back to the United States.

Yeah, there's no way he's making all those.

[Billboard / SeatGeek // Image via Getty]

One day last September, Chelsey Feole was in her car blasting some "Runaround Sue" and waiting on her nana.

Little did she know that as soon as Dion's dulcet tones struck 88-year-old Nana Feole's aging eardrums, she would be transformed in an instant into "Dancing Nana" — an ageless, joyful Terpsichore inspiring others to delight in her happy-ho-lucky dance moves.

Nor did Chelsey know that, by the video's untimely end, Nana will have coined a catchphrase for the ages: "I could dance all fucking day."

[H/T: Daily Picks and Flicks via Tastefully Offensive]

After a chunk of ice was inadvertently dislodged by another mountain climber above him, Mark Roberts was sent shooting down Parsley Fern Gully in Snowdonia without any means of slowing down.

Finally coming to a stop some 100 feet later, Roberts was lucky to be alive. Luckier still, his helmet cam recorded the entire incident from start to crash landing.

From the British Mountaineering Council (BMC):

During the rescue, the [Mountain Rescue Team] noticed he was wearing a helmet-cam on, and afterwards he offered the footage to the team, and the BMC, to help others understand just how accidents can happen. Sharing such an intense and personal experience online is pretty brave, but Mark felt other climbers might learn from his experience.

A member of the Mountain Rescue team credited the helmet with saving the 47-year-old's life.

Roberts, a safety consultant by trade, later told the BMC he recognized the irony inherent in his fall. "You have to laugh sometimes," he said, "but, seriously, even with experience of risk assessment and making decisions, sometimes things just happen. When it all happens so quickly, you just try not panic and hope there's some luck with you."

[H/T: The Sideshow]

The official US unemployment rate fell to 7.7% last month, its lowest in four years. For the long-term unemployed, however, the outlook is still extraordinarily grim. Each week, we bring you true stories of unemployment, straight from the unemployed. Thirty volumes deep and still coming. This is what's happening out there.

There are so many of us out there

I've been a reader of Gawker for a long time and I was also unemployed for almost 6 months. I can't imagine how anyone who was unemployed longer than that could have anything left to give. I don't want people to know my email address because it contains my real last name and I pretended for months to my family and friends that I was optimistic and that everything was fine and that I would get a job soon. In reality, I wanted to die almost every day. My one year long job ended in June and my parents had to pay my rent because I couldn't get out of my lease and no one wanted a bedroom that would only fit a twin sized bed and a dresser for $600 a month. My mom and dad aren't rich, my dad works overtime so they can afford their mortgage, and I ended up causing my mom and dad to overcharge their balances on their bank accounts multiple times so I could pay my rent. I got food stamps, but I almost stopped eating because I was worried about not having enough money. Instead I started visiting my parents, paying for some of their groceries and then asking for cash so I could buy alcohol. I was drinking to forget how absolutely miserable I felt every day that I interviewed and got the "Sorry, we found someone more qualified" email or phone call. I applied to local Subways and gas stations, but they all said I was too qualified for the position. I seriously considered just ending it multiple times. Finally my parents' sat me down and told me that they wanted me to go to a local outpatient rehab clinic because they knew I was drinking a lot because I was exhibiting some of the same behaviors as my parents' alcoholic friends. I never went, but I finally found a temp position and have stopped drinking because I want to be the best I can be, even if I am just doing mailings and answering phones. Some temps are very chatty and get yelled at for talking too much during their shifts, I like them, but they scare me; I'm afraid if I do the same that I will wind up back where I was, unemployed and feeling like I failed everyone who ever believed in me. I try to work as hard as I can to get as much done as possible so I can keep getting positive reviews from the companies I am sent to. I can't face unemployment again. Every day I pray and wish upon stars (things I never believed in) that I will get a permanent job or that I will continue being called for temp jobs, because I have never felt so inhuman as I felt when I couldn't get a job and was a burden to everyone who knew me. I felt like everyone secretly knew what I felt and was pitying me. It was the worst feeling in the world and I wish no one would ever have to go through it for a minute.

I just want people to know that there are so many of us out there, and it sucks, and it turns us into people we never thought we would become. I hope everyone else who is unemployed and has told you their story finds a job, because I know what it it like to deal with so much you never thought would happen and to then still constantly worry that nothing is permanent and that you could be back where you were in a matter of moments. Thanks for listening if you happen to read this. I'm sure you get tons of stories exactly like mine, but it helps a little to read the stories, know there are people going through the same thing as me, and to put my own story into words.

The IT specialist

I've had a long and successful career in IT. Between 1988 and 2010, I was unemployed for about 10 months — yes 10 months in 22 years. I don't know why I tell you this, except so that you can note that I'm not some slacker.

In 2009, the company I worked for (which is large and successful, and was so even in 2009) went through a round of layoffs. On my team, half were laid off. I was not laid off, but my position was eliminated and I was moved to a new team. I am not kidding here: in the first meeting with my manager, he said "You haven't had a promotion in three years. That raises all sorts of red flags." He then spent the next 18 months getting ready to fire me, which he did, for underperformance. It was a classic set-up, i.e., make it impossible for me to succeed. So I went on unemployment for seven months, looked for a new job, and finally landed a contract gig, from which I was laid off after three months due to a reorganization.

Now, fifteen months later, I've run out of unemployment benefits and still have no job. I've interviewed for many, averaging one or two a month. For some openings I've been invited back for multiple interviews, which probably means I was a finalist, but I invariably lose out, often to the dreaded "internal candidate". Sometimes I get feedback from a potential employer. I'm told I interview well and have a good skill set. But apparently that's no longer enough. At other times, I've been told I'm overqualified or underqualified. "We don't hire people who aren't employed" is my favorite.

Did I mention I'm 59 years old? Too old to go back to school and have any hope of recovering the expense of that. I could try to get a teaching certificate, but I don't know if degrees earned in the '70s are still valid.

I had an interview for a contract position last Thursday. It pays less than half of what I typically have earned over the last decade, but that's fine with me. It is income. I haven't heard back from them yet. I dread calling the contract agency to see what the status is.

And then there is the matter of my now year-long employment gap. Just what have I been doing? They invariably ask. At a certain point, one begins to feel toxic.

Look, I'm more fortunate than most. We have savings to get us through a year or so. My wife has a job, but her income doesn't even cover the mortgage payment, so savings it is.

And I keep applying, and keep interviewing, and try to stave off depression.

Chasing a dream

I've read a couple of these unemployed stories, and the prevailing theme of "Nobody's Fault But Mine" strikes well with me too.

I majored in non-profit management, graduated in 2008, and then decided to "follow my dreams" and move to LA to become an actor. I was young, single, and figured you only live once. Let me say that I did not have a hard belief in being an overnight success. Of course I dreamed of being in the movies and winning an Oscar by 25, but I was also realistic. After research, I realized that I would have to spend a good five years, if not more, of unpaid, low paid acting gigs before I would even think of trying to make it my full time job. I immediately looked for non-profit work when I moved. But alas, we were just starting to hit the market crash. People weren't donating, places weren't hiring. I worked at Starbucks part time.

I found a job at a non profit, but we had to close down due to lack of funding. Alas began my first long term stretch of unemployment. Because the non-profit was small, I didn't pay into the unemployment program, and therefore, didn't qualify for benefits. The next year that followed was one of asking my parents for rent money, using gas station gift cards to buy eggs, and a four month stint of sleeping on friend's couches. The most humiliating was asking my parents for money. Hadn't they raised me right? But they never brought the hammer down on me. They were stern but gracious. There were nights where, cuddled up in my sleeping bag, on my friend's floor, I would ask myself "What went wrong?". And I know looking back I could have worked harder to find a job. This is nobodies fault but mine.

I got hired by a different non-profit some time after that, only to be let go after around six months. I did receive unemployment benefits, and was living in a much cheaper area, which helped immensely. What followed was a year long stretch of no work, with some occasional temping.

I had friends tell me to go on food stamps but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I had friends get promotions and I thought "WHY?". I had one or two people tell me to move back home. I stopped talking to those people. I even had one person tell me that I was in a better position than they were in, because I didn't have to deal with the stress of the office. I WILL GLADLY TAKE THE STRESS OF PUTTING OUT PETTY OFFICE FIRES OVER THE STRESS OF NOT KNOWING HOW I WILL EAT THIS WEEKEND, THANK YOU. Please, if you've never been long term unemployed, do not try to relate to your friends who are. You do not know what we're going through. "Hey man, find anything this week? Ahh that's ok man. This one time in college when I was backpacking in Europe I was really low on cash, for like a week. I washed my clothes in my hostel's sink! Duuuuuuuuddddeeee, being unemployed is like an adventure, right?!"
And if you have been unemployed, please don't try to relate either. Being unemployed makes you question everything about yourself- your skills, your choices, your dreams, your values. The best thing you can do is take us out for lunch on the weekend and talk about anything that is not related to jobs, resumes, or money.
I've had friends take me on vacations, though, too. Life is too short, it helps to have some fun. And that's so important when you're unemployed. You think that you can't have fun. That you don't deserve fun. "Man, this DVD is a great deal at $5. But I didn't get any interviews this week. No- I don't deserve this small sliver of happiness. I am a rat." (Goes home, eats chocolate and feels sorry for self).
I've read a lot of self help books from the 50's to keep me positive- Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peele stuff. I've developed little voice in my head that tells me to Believe to Achieve and Count Your Blessings, Not Your Hardships.

The thing I worry about the most is wasted time. I feel like the past four years have been a waste, more or less, career wise. But at the same time, I'm still able to chase my dream. Had my 9- 5 job been my main source of pride, I don't know what I would have done. It helps to have ourselves attached to multiple things. When one fails, we have other options.

I still do theater and have been steadily since I moved. It does take time, but not so much that I can't look for or keep a job. And I work out. I believe those two things have kept me sane.

I dated a couple of girls. That was the most surprising thing- that girls would want to date an umemployed actor. Like, well adjusted girls. Who have jobs. Good jobs. But it happened. So thank you, ladies.

Being unemployed hasn't made me humble. I still want cars. Lots of cars. And houses. And new computers. I think it has made me more patient. And more afraid to stand up for myself. Your self confidence slowly erodes away. But I know that I can build myself up. Believe to Achieve.

Attempting a career

It's been almost six months.

Over a year and a half ago, I moved back to California while finishing up an MA in a social science that skews more toward science. I wasn't done yet with my degree and therefore wasn't employable in my field yet (they want to see a finished degree or better yet, a PhD) but I could finish up the non-classroom work and get a full-time job elsewhere. My reasoning at the time was that my large metropolitan hometown was a better job market than all of the fly over state I had been living in and I really needed to be back among friends and family again just for my sanity. Within a month of being back, I landed a contract job with a nationally recognized retail corporation. I had put myself through my BA and MA working office jobs in accounting and finance roles, so I had experience and the recruiter who headhunted me assured me that though I was starting as a contractor- I would be hired on. The company was growing and they needed staff and the details would be worked out and it would all be fine.

And for nine months, it was. The goalposts on when I'd be made permanent kept moving but I was constantly assured that I would be hired. Just give it a little more time, they said, and I was willing to do that because I liked my job. My job was interesting and sometimes challenging. I liked my co-workers. The pay wasn't amazing but it was better than average. Then two things happened: We switched software programs and our manager quit and they hired a new one...

Our formerly happy department had people in tears at their desks all the time because the new manager had few people skills as she alienated everyone left and right. I didn't get the worst of it but I wasn't spared, either. I was very good at my job and tended to finish projects way ahead of deadline. Instead of being given more responsibility as I asked, the new manager decided that my role should be part time because I was 'too good' at my job. My hours were cut from 40 to 28 a week. I knew the writing was on the wall but I was holding out hope that I could move into another department in the company since I'd made friends with other managers before I was cut. And it was some hours vs. no hours. My budget didn't have time to adjust anyway because it all went to shit overnight. All the goodwill towards these consultants finally dried up, the company execs canned the huge software conversion, rolled everything back to the former platform, and sent the consultants packing. To make up for all this lost money and time, they announced that they were going to be cutting our department in at least half and they were likely going to outsource the actual work on top of that. From that day, it was over.

Since then, my life is a daily grind of applying to anything that I sound remotely qualified for down to things I know I'll be straight up passed over for because I'm too overqualified by education or experience. I don't mention my advanced degree unless it might help but I don't think it ever has. I still haven't finished my degree anyway. I'm too depressed at the prospect of finishing up my thesis only to have another thing that I worked so hard for not really matter and pointing out that I wasted precious time I could have been working elsewhere attempting a career.

I wake up every morning and faithfully check every job list and employment lead I know of and crop dust the Internet with cover letters and resumes. The worst part of that process is the hope you feel at the beginning of the day and week that wanes into despair by the end of the day and the end of the week when you don't get a single response. Filling out my bi-weekly unemployment census for my next check makes me feel like I'm completely worthless but I need the money, so I fill it out. Most of my friends who lost their jobs early in this recession are all back working again; I'm the only person who doesn't have a job. I don't see them much because I can't afford to do what they want to do. I mostly watch a lot of TV and eat microwave popcorn and cry as the only social outlet I have anymore.

I've started to look for jobs out of state hoping that my chances might be better outside of California. Plus, I want to feel like my life isn't forever dangling at the end of a string waiting for something to happen- this includes being able to move forward in my relationship. My boyfriend has been very lucky, he's in a secure job in a secure field and his star continues to rise. The economy seems better in his state and the cost of living at least is a lot better. Even there I feel trapped. I don't have a job so securing an apartment is going to be nightmare and I can't move without a job. I refuse to take help from my boyfriend and he doesn't have a lot of help to give anyway. I don't want to move out-of-state and move in with him only to sit there and apply and apply and apply to jobs, come up short, and have him grow to resent my freeloading. He's the only good thing in my life and I refuse to ruin the only good thing in my life so I just can't - won't- do it.

I keep hoping it'll get better but for the first time in my life, I don't know that it will. I've never felt so hopeless or worthless.

Divorce and unemployment

My story is a result of possessing a lot of drive but not a whole lot of a concept of what to do with it and, as well as being cursed with the problem of thinking I should enjoy whatever it was I ended up doing. I started off well enough – I graduated fifth in my high school class, went to an excellent liberal arts school in the northeast, spent a semester studying abroad, and graduated with honors. Then I found myself – in the summer of 2003, not a devastating time for the economy but not the boom of the late ‘90s either – living back at home, working in retail, and not knowing what to do next. What I did know was this: that I liked the idea of marketing and communications but had tried to intern in advertising one summer and didn't like it and didn't really know what else to do, that I'd always wanted to move from my hometown to a bigger city, and that I'd just started dating a guy who had no plans to leave that hometown. I ended up staying at home for a year, until he realized he wanted to leave too, but by that point I felt like everyone else had gotten a head start on me.

We eventually found our way to Washington, DC. I got a job in the legal world, which wasn't what I wanted to do, but paid the bills for a few years… I loved everything about DC – my friends, the city, our social life, our apartment – except for my job, and I thought I needed to fix that one thing to make myself completely happy. I started applying to graduate school and decided to change career paths. I'd married the guy by this point, and he was incredibly supportive. He knew (or at least I know he knew) that finding a career I loved was really important to me, and so he agreed to uproot our life and move to New England.
So I went back to school, to a prestigious program in a field where I could really see myself making a career. I knew that leaving the work force for two full years and ultimately taking a pay cut when I returned was a risk, but one I felt was worth it for the opportunity to say I actually liked my job. I loved school and did well in year one. I found an internship right in my wheelhouse for the summer, and I really felt like things were coming together. Then, right at the start of my second year of grad school, I found out my husband was cheating on me, and my entire world collapsed. I couldn't quit school or postpone classes, and so I fought through the year, determined to finish my masters degree and move to New York. It was the only thing on my mind for months – I got through all of the pain and the process of filing for divorce while far away from home by concentrating on New York.
I'd wanted to live in New York since I was 16 years old. When I was in college, I did a summer internship there, and I always expected to be back. But my ex hated the city, and once we started dating seriously, I came to give up on that dream. I had accepted it and made peace with it, but as soon as split up, it became an all-encompassing goal, almost an obsession. The only reason I made it through those months – besides the consumption of a lot of alcohol – was by channeling all of my energy into finding a job that would take me to New York. I was going to start over in a huge city where no one knew me, and I was going to show him by doing something he'd never have agreed to let me do.

I spent two years and almost four months in New York before losing my job. The company I was working for was having a rough year, and I was just one of several casualties. I knew we were having a rough year, but I still didn't see it coming, not until a few hours before it happened when I got a meeting request from someone I typically didn't meet with. At first, I was strangely ok with the situation… I had a terrible commute, which I wasn't sad about giving up. I spent a few weeks traveling up and down the eastern seaboard and took the opportunity to use my free time to see friends. I took long walks through Central Park and watched the entire first season of Homeland in three days.
Then the money started to run out.

New York isn't an easy place to live even when you have an income; it's nearly impossible when your severance runs out and you know unemployment won't cover your expenses. I made the decision to move back home two months after losing my job, justifying the decision with the reasoning that it was the holidays, and that I'd be going home anyway, and I could easily get out of my lease. I thought being back home without rent and groceries and the everyday struggles of being a Manhattanite would be relaxing.
There are a few things I love about being home. I love rediscovering a city I haven't lived in in eight years. I love being close to old friends, even if it's tough to see them with jobs and babies and life in the way. I love being able to go to football games. But I'm on the verge of losing my mind.

I went from living in the middle of the biggest, busiest city in the world to living on a secluded street in a suburb where the biggest news is that an Applebees just opened. I had sold my car when I moved to New York, and both of my parents work, so I'm trapped inside this house all day, every day. I could take one of my parents to work and use their car, but I don't even know what I'd do with it, since almost all of my friends are working like normal people do. I went from having complete freedom to come and go as I please to having to ask my mom or dad if I can use their car. I feel like I'm back in high school again.
The worst part, though, is thinking back five years to what my life was like – I had a husband, an apartment I liked, a job that paid me pretty well, and an active social life. I went on vacations and out to dinner without counting pennies. I thought I had most of my life figured out, and if I had just sucked it up and dealt with a job that wasn't ideal, maybe I'd still have all of that.

The way I think about it is that I gave up everything – literally everything – to pursue this career, and karma kicked me down and told me it wasn't enough. I drained my savings going through school, divorce, and a move to New York, and I lost my husband because I had ambition and drive and wanted to further my education and my career. He never actually said any of those things, but that's how I read it… that if I'd just sucked it up and never moved us to that town for that school, that he wouldn't have met that other woman, and he wouldn't have cheated, and we'd still be married. I ask the universe every single day why, on top of taking my husband away from me and putting me through that hell, why I couldn't just have kept the job I liked, in the city I loved.

I'm bitter and angry. I look around me and I see people who aren't as smart or talented as I am who have great jobs. I recall people who didn't like working for the company I was with and wonder why they couldn't have lost their jobs instead of me. I have wonderful friends who I'm irrationally angry with, because they have a well-paying job and a house and a seemingly happy relationship. I haven't let myself get too close to the guy I'm currently seeing, because sometimes talking to him – with his house and his job and his disposable income – just amplifies everything I'm unhappy about in my life. I know I'm fortunate to have a family who was willing to take me back in, and I've had interviews and meetings, and all in all, it's only been three months. That's a nanosecond in these sorts of things. But with everything that's happened in the past few years, I don't know how much more I can take. I'm sick of feeling worthless. I want to leave the house and accomplish something during the day. I want to wear something other than sweatpants. I want to stop feeling like everyone pities me. I want to feel like it was worth it to go through a contentious divorce – that despite the hurt I still feel, that it was necessary to get to where I was supposed to be.

I spent years telling myself that karma existed and that everything happened for a reason. I'm not sure I believe that anymore.

Previously
The full archive of our "Unemployment Stories" series can be found here.

[Thanks to everyone who wrote in. You can send your own unemployment story here. Image via AP.]

While performing the musical equivalent of twinkletoes, "Suit & Tie," on Saturday Night Live this weekend, Justin Timberlake altered one of its lines in an apparent jab at Kanye West. "My hit's so slick got rappers acting dramatic," sang Timberlake instead of the usual, "Shit so sick got a hit and picked up a habit." Oooh, burn. Calling Kanye West dramatic is like calling him a rapper or an oxygen breather.

The drama in question most likely refers to a rant Kanye unleashed at a London show last month, in which he stated, "I got love for Hov, but I ain't fucking with that 'Suit & Tie.'" ("Hov" refers Kanye's Watch the Throne partner Jay-Z, who guests on the Timberlake track.) With that, Kanye kicked off the obviousness: Implying that the midtempo comeback single "Suit & Tie" is underwhelming is just a half step away from calling it a midtempo comeback single. We know.

How far will these superstar demands for satisfaction go? A game of Connect Four to settle things? A thumb war? I, for one, look forward to the next chapter of this, the Great Dandy War of 2013.

[via Vulture]

Looks like anyone hoping to see a grown woman battle a 14-year-old 24-year-old in the press will be going home disappointed; Tina Fey has neither the time nor the patience for you to make her nonexistent feud with Taylor Swift "a thing."

The latest skirmish in the War on Women, by Women, for Women took place last week on the streets of New York City, when a paparazzi photographer attempted to cajole Fey into saying something like, "If Taylor Swift were here right now, I'd kick her ass " or, "Taylor Swift is one nutty bitch" or even, "Taylor Swift momma so fat, she jumped in the air and got stuck."

"Do you think Taylor Swift overreacted with the joke?" the photographer asked Tina Fey as she crossed the street, even though we already know what Tina Fey thinks ("It was a lighthearted joke") because she told us.

"Go fuck yourself," smiled Tina Fey.

"Do you think she took the joke a little too far?" the photographer continued, clearly not having yet fucked himself. "Can you comment on anything?"

"You can go fuck yourself," said Tina Fey, as she pretended to answer a lot of texts, like we all do when we feel uncomfortable.

The photographer then told Tina Fey she was not being nice. Tina Fey responded, "Get a job, dude."

Unfortunately, E! appears to have scrubbed video of the incident from the Internet since it was shot last week; but, like all moments that have ever occurred, it has been preserved in .gif form:

There's a special place in hell for women who don't help photographers who accost them on the street.

[NYDN // Image via Getty // .gif h/t Buzzfeed]

A tubby middle-aged man traveling by plane to the Northeast Chinese city of Harbin chose vanity over his veins last week and ended up in the hospital as a result.

According to local media reports, the unnamed passenger found himself seated next to a very pretty woman, and, fearing she would think less of him if she saw his beer belly, decided to refrain from drinking the entire flight to avoid having to use the restroom.

Additionally, the 40-year-old shunned stretching of any sort, keeping himself in a static position for the duration of the flight.

Landing at Fujian Changle International Airport five hours later, the man quickly discovered that he had become immobile, and soon thereafter became unconscious.

He was rushed to a local hospital where it was determined that the man was suffering from Deep Vein Thrombosis — a condition often associated with air travel.

Flight Health suggests reducing the risk of DVT by drinking plenty of water during the flight and "regularly go[ing] for a short walk to the restroom to keep your legs moving."

Unfortunately, the site fails to offer alternatives for portly passengers who are worried about looking fat in front of good-looking people.

[photo unrelated via Kieran Daly/Flightglobal]

A tipster—identifying himself as cub scout parent in Texas—forwards us part of a new poll the Boy Scouts of America is asking him and other parents to complete. As the BSA gets closer to making a decision about whether to lift its ban on gays, the century-old organization is gauging how BSA parents feel about the possibility of openly gay scouts and scout leaders within its ranks.

Some of the poll is made up of direct yes-or-no questions like, "Do you believe the current policy prohibiting open homosexuals from being Scouts or adult Scout leaders is a core value of Scouting found in the Scout Oath and Law?" But others, like the ones pictured below, ask respondents to decide how "acceptable" they find different scenarios. For instance, is it acceptable or unacceptable—or somewhat unacceptable—for a gay adult to take a troop of boys camping overnight? And is it acceptable for a gay 16-year-old to be a vaunted Eagle Scout?

Boy Scout leaders are expected to vote on the gay ban at their annual conference at Texas' Gaylord Resort and Convention Center on May 22. (Click image to enlarge.)


[Image via Flickr user cometstarmoon]

Beloved New York day trip destination and shithole Coney Island was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. Not to worry: Matt Chaban reports that, with the official opening of CONEY SUMMER 2013 FUCK YEAH CLAM STRIPS *VOMITS* just weeks away, the rebuilding effort has successfully rehabilitated the charming hellscape. Buildings, completely remodeled! Businesses, spiffed up! Rides, scrubbed and repainted! The very sand on the beach sifted for debris, leaving the beaches "cleaner than they probably have been in a century!"

It's all a little scary, frankly.

"There are a lot of words that people have used to describe Coney, and one of them is 'gritty,'" said Nicole Purmal, marketing manager for Luna Park. "There was a lot of water that literally washed away a lot of undesirable elements, and now paint is going onto a clean surface."

Well, that's a... somewhat disturbing way to put it.

Also coming to Coney Island this year: Applebee's.

[Crain's. Photo: David Reilly/ Flickr]

For six months, a new lawsuit alleges, Chau Van (pictured), was one of Oakland's "most wanted criminals," according to the Oakland Police Department. The only problem? He wasn't actually wanted for anything—even though his name and photograph were published on a KTVU feature about Oakland's most wanted.

Van discovered that he was one of Oakland's most notorious in February of last year, when a friend saw him on KTVU, which reported that he was responsible for "a shooting" (with no other details). He called a lawyer, Stuart Hanlon, who in turn called the cops—who openly admitted that there was no arrest warrant.

Van hid out for a week, and then, ever a responsible citizen, turned himself in. He was held for three days and released without being charged. And then Oakland Police released a statement bragging that they'd got one of Oakland's most wanted:

Yet on Feb. 14, the Oakland Police Department released a statement, "Most Wanted Turns Himself In," which began: "One of Oakland's four most wanted suspects has been taken off the streets. Last week, Oakland's Police Chief Howard Jordan named Van Chau as one of the City's four most wanted criminals. Today, the Oakland Police

Department reports that Van Chau is off the streets of Oakland and is safely behind bars after turning himself in due to media pressure. Chief Howard Jordan said, 'A week ago I stood with community members and asked the community to stand with me to fight crime and today we have one less criminal on our streets. Today a victim is one step closer to justice.'"

The press statement includes a mug shot of Van, and claims that he "was identified as the person responsible for assaulting his victim with a deadly weapon, leaving the victim hospitalized with serious head injuries, on December 9, 2011, at 12:23 a.m."

Van is suing the Oakland Police Department and the City of Oakland, as well as two media relations officers, seeking damages for defamation, false arrest and imprisonment, civil rights violations, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. But at least OPD got their man.

[CNS]

Beachgoers rushed to save a young boy from drowning off the coast of Napier, New Zealand, yesterday, forming a human chain that helped pull the struggling lad back to shore.

12-year-old Josh McQuoid said the rough surf took him by surprise as he was playing along the water's edge with a friend.

"It was only knee deep - that was what surprised me, and it swept me off my feet," he recalled.

Josh had a hard time keeping his head above water as the waves crashed on top of him one after another. "The waves smashed me so much, there were five really big ones," he told TVNZ. "They flipped me around quite a few times."

A passer-by and two Napier police constables rushed to his aid, but the waters proved too strong for them.

"A few times under the waves I was thinking, ‘Have I done the right thing charging in here? Is it going to be two bodies they're looking for?' Constable Paul Bailey told One News.

Josh thought he was a goner for sure, but Constable Bryan Farquharson wasn't quite done trying to save him.

Thinking quickly, he called on other beachgoers to form a human chain Voltron-style, anchoring Constable Bailey as he made one more attempt to save the boy.

This time it worked.

"It was amazing to watch and a huge relief to see the boy brought to shore," said an eyewitness. "I really think if the police had not arrived at the scene so quickly he would have drowned."

Josh echoed the woman's sentiments: "I'd love to thank them so much for what they did, they saved my life, if it wasn't for them I'd be dead."

Napier's Marine Parade beach has been the scene of just five drownings since 1996, but authorities are warning the public to remain vigilant particularly following the end of live-saving season on March 3rd.

[videos via LiveLeak]

Jon Lee Anderson, a writer for a weekly magazine called the New Yorker, got angry on Twitter today. A reader with the Twitter name of Mitch Lake (@mlake9) had tweeted at Anderson (@jonleeanderson) to dispute a claim of fact in Anderson's online story about the death of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Anderson had written that Chavez had left his country as "one of the world's most oil-rich but socially unequal countries," and Lake countered that in fact Venezuela was the second-least unequal country in the Americas.

Lake was rude, using the internet idiom "wtf," which is an abbreviation for "What the fuck?" Whatever high ground may have belonged to Anderson, however, turned into a mudslide within the next 140 characters:

There's probably a useful conversation to be had about Jon Lee Anderson's recent coverage of Venezuela and Chavez. His work is marked by weird internal stress points of fact, where the story he seems to be trying to tell about Chavez fails to align with the history of the country. In his January profile of Venezuela and its then-dying president, "Slumlord," he described Chavez's Caracas as a tragically fallen city, but located the "height of its allure" in 1983, or 16 years and six presidencies before Chavez ever took power. Likewise the Tower of David, the unfinished high-rise overrun by squatters that he presents as the monument to the Chavez era, was by Anderson's own account aborted in 1993—still six years and a few presidencies before Chavez—during a collapse of the country's banking system. Given the amounts of atavistic propaganda in American news coverage of Chavez, it felt as if Anderson hadn't quite gotten himself clear on the question of how broken Venezuela really is, or to what extent that brokenness is Chavez's work.

But we're not having that conversation right now, because Lake was too busy telling Anderson to "fact check your article dick" and Anderson was telling Lake to "clean your mouth out" (and, again, to "get a life"), and then they were both sighing to their respective friendly Twitter audiences: "Depres 2 c how pple want 2heckle w/out rreading"; "I guess people don't like to be called out when they make a mistake."

The trouble here is that though Twitter can be a great medium for getting into fights with people, Jon Lee Anderson went in with a common and damaging misapprehension of the rules. He was the guy who asks, Don't you know who I am? And the answer to that question, on Twitter, is: You're one more dipshit with a Twitter account. Nothing more, nothing less.

The internet in general and Twitter in particular are a challenge to people who've succeeded under older standards of prestige. All these bloggers and amateurs and God knows who, throwing words around—throwing words at you, for pity's sake. Many of them are genuinely rude and dumb and unqualified, by most standards, to say anything to you. Yet you Twitter-search your own name, and there they are, taking it in vain. Who are they?

Answer: They also are dipshits with Twitter accounts. You are free to ignore them. It is entirely within your power to ignore them. You are also free to retweet them, without comment, and let the world judge. You are free to disagree with them politely or severely or obscenely, as the mood strikes you, and have a nice dialogue or brawl, as much as your writerly powers will allow. You are free to block them, even, if you want to formally concede a piece of the internet to them.

What you can't do is appeal to your credentials. If Jon Lee Anderson wants to exercise his superiority over Mitch Lake, he can write a blog post for the New Yorker and have it read by thousands of people. He can't do it by telling Mitch Lake on Twitter that Mitch Lake doesn't matter, that he's a "little twerp." Get a life? He's typing on Twitter ... just like you are. One hundred forty characters apiece. No difference there.

Reminding Lake that he only had 169 Twitter followers was the saddest gambit of all. Jon Lee Anderson has 17,866 followers. And Kim Kardashian has, as I write this, 17,489,892 followers. That is: Jon Lee Anderson is 1/1,000 as important on Twitter, by his own standard, as Kim Kardashian. He is 10 times closer to Mitch Lake than he is to Kim Kardashian.

Or at least he was before he called Lake a twerp. Now Lake is up to 210 followers.

[Image by jim Cooke.]

One day before Mayor Bloomberg's ban on large sugary drinks was to go in effect in New York City, New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling blocked the restrictive new regulations saying they are "fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences," reports the Wall Street Journal.

From the outset, the loopholes in Bloomberg's soda ban were numerous—7-Elevens and supermarkets could continue selling whatever size sodas they wanted, for instance—and criticism for the new law was rife. Still, Bloomberg pressed on, telling reporters that New York City, where more than half of adults are obese or overweight, is "about doing something [about the obesity problem]."

Beginning at midnight tonight, food vendors in the city were going to be forced to stop selling sugary sodas and beverages in cups or containers larger than 16 ounces. But Tingling's decision blocks that, giving legal weight to the loopholes laymen had complained about for months. "The simple reading of the rule leads to the earlier acknowledged uneven enforcement even within a particular city block, much less the city as a whole," read Tingling's ruling ."[T]he loopholes in this rule effectively defeat the state purpose of the rule."

Drink a big bucket of bacon grease to celebrate!

[Image via Flickr user The Eyes of New York]

As you may have heard, Justin Bieber had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week last week, fueled in part by paparazzi fatigue.

To the rescue is Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle with a Jonathan Coulton-esque response to the Bieber/paparazzo brouhaha that borrows heavily from Wheaton's Law to make a self-evident point in short-song form.

"You don't have to leave Justin alone," Darnielle croons pensively, "but don't be an asshole."

Considering how catchy "Short Song For Justin Bieber and His Paparazzi" is, hopefully the message will endure — and not just for Justin Bieber and his paparazzi.

[H/T: Uproxx]

There is something about achieving great financial success that seduces people into believing that they are life coaches. This problem seem particularly endemic to the tech millionaire set. You are not simply Some Fucking Guy Who Sold Your Internet Company For a Lot of Money; you are a lifestyle guru, with many important and penetrating insight about How to Live that must be shared with the common people.

We would humbly request that this stop.

Meet Graham Hill. Graham Hill became a multimillionaire at a very young age when he sold his internet company in 1998. Good for him. We would not be telling you about Graham Hill at all, except for the fact that he wrote a remarkable op-ed in the New York Times Sunday Review yesterday in which he instructs you, the common man, on the virtues of "Living With Less." He bases this prescription on the wisdom he has learned on his own personal journey, from millionaire with a big house and many material possessions to millionaire with a smaller house and fewer material possessions, but just as many liquid assets. And what did it take for this millionaire to learn that his 3,600-square-foot Seattle home, personal shopper, and cars and furniture and other expensive baubles just weren't worth it?

For me, it took 15 years, a great love and a lot of travel to get rid of all the inessential things I had collected and live a bigger, better, richer life with less.

Aha! All it takes is a leisurely decade or so of world travel with "Olga, an Andorran beauty" to come to the conclusion that less is more. Make a note, average Americans.

I followed her to Barcelona when her visa expired and we lived in a tiny flat, totally content and in love before we realized that nothing was holding us in Spain. We packed a few clothes, some toiletries and a couple of laptops and hit the road. We lived in Bangkok, Buenos Aires and Toronto with many stops in between...

The relationship with Olga eventually ended, but my life never looked the same. I live smaller and travel lighter. I have more time and money.

By jet-setting around the world with Olga after already becoming wealthy, Graham Hill found himself with more time and money. What is your excuse for not doing the same? Simply sell your house, get rid of your possessions, and take a few round-the-world excursions to get a good feel for the importance of experiences over possessions. Anyone can do it.

The problem here is not the message. The problem is the messenger. More specifically, it is the messenger using his own life as supporting evidence for the message. Were Graham Hill to simply write a fact-based essay arguing that Americans should cut down on material possessions in order to save the environment and gain peace of mind, he would doubtless hear a chorus of support. But for Graham Hill, a young millionaire who was fortunate enough to sell his "pre-Netscape browser" at the high point of the internet bubble, to say to the average American, "My journey through the perils of great wealth has bestowed me with wisdom that is directly applicable to you" is simply false. It is no wonder that Hill loved the recent TED talk by millionaire musician Amanda Palmer, in which she argued that it was perfectly fair for her to, for example, accept a free night of lodging in the home of poor Honduran immigrants and not pay them for it, because the beauty of her music is payment enough. Both are insulated enough from the realities of personal finance to forget about them entirely.

A millionaire does not have the standing to tell regular people that money is overrated. Graham Hill moved into a smaller apartment and sold some of his stuff. But he sure as fuck didn't empty his bank accounts. It's easy not to have material things when you can just buy whatever you need, whenever you need it. " My space is small. My life is big," writes Hill. Of course it is! You can buy anything and go anywhere at any time, thanks to your vast wealth! The fact that a millionaire's "life is big" offers little valuable wisdom to the common person. The presumptuousness is akin to a fat food critic walking out of a restaurant after a huge meal and telling a starving beggar on the curb, "Trust me—you don't want to eat at this place."

Money doesn't matter at all, as long as you have too much of it.

[NYT. Pic of Graham Hill in his humble abode via Gizmodo/ Vimeo]

Here's everything you need to know about this eminently entertaining video, courtesy of the "big nature nerd/mountain man boss" himself, John Griffith:

California Conservation Corps members Antwon McCoy and Leonard Patton aren't just hard workers. They are also very good dancers who have taught their big nature nerd/mountain man boss more than a few dance moves. When they aren't busting moves, all three do a lot of trail building, salmon habitat restoration, and tree planting in the CCC.

Griffith claims McCoy and Patton taught him how to move, but watching the video you'd swear it was the other way around.

[H/T: Reddit]

Caye Caulker, Belize—

When you feel yourself crumbling, fading out, you usually react in an impetuous, flakey manner, and succumb to your id, despite the protests or concerns of those close to you. It's a dramatic, selfish shriek for help because it's dark where you are. Hurry, someone trip the circuit breaker before someone gets hurt or, you know, jams a Q-tip into their brain.

Three characters in this week's Girls are shrieking:

1. Hannah
2. Marnie
3. Adam, oh, Adam

Fuck Shoshanna and her Ray problems cuz this swim is for young adults only.

Hannah struggles with her e-book and visits her editor for guidance, OCD still in full bloom. Her first draft is dreadful and much too safe, he says. She's crestfallen by his reaction but understands. "I fucked a teenager last week," she says, offering a solution for the dullness. The editor's eyes light up the way all editor's eyes light up when a writer courts danger. Hannah's on it. Yolo.

She goes home, sits on her wood floor, begins to stare at her laptop in search of the perfect opening sentence. (How about, "I fucked a teenager with a weird haircut in a graveyard last weekend?" That's grabby.)

But first she needs to stand up to yank on her vagina 8 times. She sits too quickly on the old wood floor and gets a splinter in her ass. It's that kind of day. She takes it upon herself to get it out, though, Rambo-style, with Tweezers, some rubbing alcohol, Band-Aids, and Q-tips. The Q-tips are too tough to resist though and she sticks it in her ear, searching for wax, missing buttons, loose change, what have you. She pushes too far. Pop. Hiss. Shriek. She calls her parents for help but they don't, so she heads to the hospital alone. Her attending doctor plucks the Q-tip out with great exasperation. Go home, he tells her, it'll be fine. Now stop shrieking.

I've moved locations to write about Marnie because she's so stupid. So the rest of this recap comes to you two beers in this morning with this as a view.
I'm fine, thanks for asking. All the locals are nice and accommodating, especially all the ragamuffins down by The Split. They call me "Albert" because that's what the name on my credit card says. They pronounce it "El-Burt" and I'm okay with that.

Yesterday I got lost three times on the way back to my cabin and almost pissed myself twice. One time I cut off into the bushes off the sandy path, away from as many people on bikes as possible. It turns out I pissed on a grave site. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the ghost of this Belizian baby. Sorry, baby. XO, ELBURT.

Speaking of pissing on baby's graves, dim Marnie is still serious about this singing thing and decides that her first live performance will be at a work party thrown by Charlie's new company. She stands up in front of a roomful of Charlie's new employees and sycophants and dedicates this song to them. "This is such a big deal, this premature success you've all had." Then she sings the song she wrote, a spastic, Lana Del Ray crooner, of which a certain NBC news anchor would most likely pan. Charlie's also not impressed. He grabs her arm and marches her back to his office for some real talk. He asks her what's wrong. Things are tense. Charlie says she's flailing. Marnie yells she's not. Before they can make a mockery out of Bell Day, Charlie grabs her close and kisses her hard. They fuck on the desk. Bell Day is saved, but Marnie is most likely not.

And now, Adam. We last saw him, reasonably composed, gleeful, even, after he begins a new romance with the daughter of a woman he met in AA. Things have progressed nicely with Natalia, and when we first meet them this episode they're about to have sex. She gives him specific instructions on how she likes to be done and he's impressed, relieved even. "I like how you're so clear," he says, right before they start to bone. But, of course, it can't stay so clear forever. Later, Natalia brings Adam to her friend's engagement party. He senses a bubbling, familiar discomfort inside himself at this party. He's introduced to one of her friends and she says this: "Take care of this girl, she's our Mother Teresa— that is if Mother Teresa blew one of your cousins." Ha. Ha. Ha. "It was a long time ago," the friend adds. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Like it MATTERS.

Adam falls off the wagon. Natalia doesn't seem to mind. He drinks like an alcoholic full of rage would drink the rest of the night and, yet, she still agrees to go back to his place even though things are bound to get weird. "Get on all fours," Adam commands her. She does. "Now crawl to my bed." Reluctantly, she does. Before she reaches it, Adam grabs her and begins fucking her from behind. He has no patience to wait for her instructions this time. He pumps her and commands her to say pleasant things about him . In under ten seconds, he's flipping her over. "No not on my chest!," she protests. Too late cuz here comes the jizz bomb. He wipes her down with his shirt even though she didn't ask him to do so. "I didn't like that all," she says. He's scared her. He knew he would. "So is this it?" Natalia just stares, makes a face that doesn't seem promising.

Good. Both of them should run right now. Before it gets too dark.

A high school teacher in Israel incited a major student protest today after she accidentally emailed several juniors an internal "burn book"-like document containing many disparaging and insulting comments made by the school's teachers about their students.

The teacher was reportedly put in charge of collecting information from the teachers at the Yitzhak Rabin High School in Kfar Saba about potential troublemakers ahead of a field trip to various Holocaust sites across Poland.

Though some students were described as "pleasant" and "quiet," many others were given insulting labels such as "big baby," "sicko," and "not too bright."

One student was said to "have a voice like a 4-year-old girl," while another was flagged for having "a thing" for boys.

Students showed up at the school this morning with their individual put-downs taped to their shirts.

One of the students who found themselves on the infamous spreadsheet said she would have a hard time looking her teachers in the eye after this. "We are very angry," she told YNet.

The school's principal, Ruth Lazar, released a statement saying, "we will draw conclusions about our behavior and the way we express ourselves."

But Israel's Ministry of Education, which called the incident "unacceptable," said in a separate statement that it has launched an "in-depth and thorough investigation" of its own into the matter.

"This is not about a human error from a teacher who accidentally sent the email, this is about the fact that the document should not have been created in the first place," said education activist and Member of Knesset Karin Elharar.

[screengrab via YNet]

It's been almost nine months since Ann Curry's body was roughly shoved into a supply closet marked "FOR EMERGENCIES" at 30 Rockefeller Center, and her former co-host Matt Lauer has just given birth to a whopper of a story about her departure.

Things haven't been great for Lauer since Curry left. Today's ratings are tanking, his hairline is quickly receding into memory and, worst of all, everyone still blames him for Curry's abrupt, tearful goodbye.

On Monday, the Daily Beast published a profile of Lauer that revealed he is not only a morning show host, but a mourning show host, smashed all to pieces because America hates him.

America doesn't even confine its hatred of Matt Lauer to America. It goes out of its way to hate him overseas:

People would stop Lauer on the street and complain about Curry's banishment. While Lauer was riding in a London elevator at the Olympics, an American woman got on, saw him and said: "I hate what you've done. I will never watch you again."

Now, however, Lauer appears to have retroactively decided that he's on Curry's side. When he thinks back on it, he was all for phasing Ann out slooowly, delicately, and with the utmost sensitivity for her feelings. It was NBC—an angry entity kept alive on a miserable diet of gristle and the dreams of those who gave up too soon—that gave her the axe.

[Former NBC News president Steve Capus] and Lauer maintained that they needed to take their time and make sure Curry was comfortable with the change. Others in the room were unmoved.

But Matt Lauer? He's a—well he's just a real swell, stand-up guy. Come to think of it, Matt Lauer (says Matt Lauer) is very, very mad at NBC for being so cruel to dear Ann Curry, the best worst friend he ever ha[te]d.

"I don't think the show and the network handled the transition well. You don't have to be Einstein to know that...It clearly did not help us. We were seen as a family, and we didn't handle a family matter well."

For its part, NBC fills the role of the villain well. There's even a line in the piece about how senior executives were "furious" that Curry cried on television when she left. (The Atlantic Wire points out that many of the anti-NBC, pro-Matt Lauer "sources" quoted by the Beast sound like NBC representatives eager to cast Lauer as a hero in order to save ratings.)

The best anecdote in the whole profile, though, is this paragraph describing an awkward lunch Lauer and Curry had at the Four Seasons just before she was given the boot, in which he essentially admitted he'd never been nuts about her, and she warned him that if Today fucked her over, Today would get fucked over (What were they drinking—truth serum?):

Lauer and Curry had a candid talk over lunch at the Four Seasons. He acknowledged she hadn't been his first choice for co-host, but said that was in the past. Curry said that both Lauer and the show would take a hit if she was thrown overboard, and he agreed. Lauer suggested that she try to get a meeting with [NBC Universal chief executive Steve Burke] and resolve the situation. He also advised Curry, who didn't employ an agent, to hire one quickly.

There's that old Matt-Ann chemistry America loved.

[Daily Beast // Image via Getty]

Clogged arteries, or in scientist talk, "atherosclerosis," has long been associated with our modern, gluttonous ways, including our propensity for smoking and obesity. Americans, naturally, considered such diagnoses a matter of national pride, an example of their freedom to choose. But according to a recent study, this particular form of heart disease was relatively common thousands of years ago, with roughly one third of the ancient mummies examined showing signs of the disease.

The study measured signs of atherosclerosis in 137 mummies, some over 4,000 years old, from places around the world, including Alaska, the American southwest, Peru and Egypt. Of the 137 x-rayed, 47 of of the mummies, or 34%, showed signs of clogged arteries. The fact that the disease was found in mummies from different geographical locations and social classes was significant, according to the study's leaders.

Study leader Professor Randall Thompson, of Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, said: "The fact that we found similar levels of atherosclerosis in all of the different cultures we studied, all of whom had very different lifestyles and diets, suggests that atherosclerosis may have been far more common in the ancient world than previously thought.

"Furthermore, the mummies we studied from outside Egypt were produced naturally as a result of local climate conditions, meaning that it's reasonable to assume that these mummies represent a reasonable cross-section of the population, rather than the specially selected elite group of people who were selected for mummification in ancient Egypt."

He said it is commonly thought that if modern humans could emulate pre-industrial or even pre-agricultural lifestyles, that atherosclerosis would be avoided.

"Our findings seem to cast doubt on that assumption, and at the very least, we think they suggest that our understanding of the causes of atherosclerosis is incomplete, and that it might be somehow inherent to the process of human ageing."

So is this an excuse to smoke and eat all you want? Because you'll probably get clogged arteries once you're old anyway? Alas, no.

Maureen Talbot, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "This small study takes us back in time to give an insight into the heart health of people in the ancient world.

"However, we simply don't know enough about the diet and lifestyle of the people studied to say whether behaviour or genetics lies at the root of the heart problems observed.

"We can't change the past, but lifestyle choices can help to affect our future.

"By eating well, quitting smoking and keeping active, you can help to protect your heart."

[BBC/Image via AP]