A shopper reacts after learning that her layaway bill was paid by an anonymous stranger.
There are still plenty of kind-hearted folks out there. A recent article on Jezebel.com described a number of instances of anonymous shoppers paying off the layaway accounts of people who were paying off their childrens’ Christmas presents on layaway at KMart in the US.
Syracuse.com reported that “Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers’ layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn’t afford, especially toys and children’s clothes set aside by impoverished parents.”
According to Yahoo! Finance, ”The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.
He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn’t be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.
“She told him, ‘No, I’m paying for it,’” recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. “He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn’t, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears.”
A second case of anonymous charity panned out as follows:
Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.
“I was speechless,” Bremser said. “It made me believe in Christmas again.”
Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.
The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store’s system.”
A KMart staffer explained further, “The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store’s assistant manager.
“She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn’t have the money for it,” Graff said.
He called a woman who had been helped, “and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren’t going to have anything for Christmas.”
“You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people,” Graff said.
Graff’s store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.”
See? There are still some saints amongst the sinners after all.
It’s Christmas, so time for a few feel good stories…
I doubt there’s a single person out there who will not immediately be overcome be the urge to go “awwwwwwwwww” upon seeing this clip.
Meet baby Jonathan, an 8-month old deaf boy who’s having his cochlear implants switched on for the first time and thus hearing sound, and his mother’s voice, for the very first time.
Years after the massive success of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and after a fair amount of delay due to all sorts of production issues, comes the highly-anticipated prequel – “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”.
To be released as a two-part epic, it’s in the same big-budget style and manner we’ve come to expect from His Royal Peter Jacksonness. With a year to go till it’s released in theatres, Warner Bros have released one of the official trailers to whet your appetite.
For those who haven’t read the book, here’s a brief description from the film’s IMDB page:
Bilbo Baggins is swept into a quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum. Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities.
The second part of the franchise, due out at the end of 2013, will be titled “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” (again according to IMDB).
That’s right, this £7 million (approx $9.4 million) monstrosity is apparently up for grabs.
According to a post on eMercedesBenz, “a flamboyant entrepreneur, Swiss businessman Ueli Anliker, turned his Mercedes McLaren SLR into his very own custom red and gold super car. For those of you interested, Ueli is now selling his custom ride for a mere £7 million. At current conversion rates, that is $9,377,900.00.”
Apparently “the Mercedes McLaren SLR took a team of 35 men who spent a total of 30,000 man hours and more than £3.5 million in order to develop Anliker’s McLaren SLR 999 Red Gold Dream.”
Of course the lads over at Top Gear had a bit to say about this (you know, for once). Apparently they felt that the paintwork could “burn a hole through your eyes and into your nightmares” due to the 25 layers of red paint and 5kg of gold dust layered on to it.
Some more specs from the aforementioned article:
Each of the SLR’s wheels are covered in 24 carat gold in addition to the gold covered headlights and door sills.
the interior boasts jewelled indicators, gold trimmed steering wheel and ruby-covered switchgear.
In total there are more than 600 rubies on the inside of the car.
The supercharged 5.4-litre engine has been power boosted from 640bhp to 999 bhp – giving it a top speed of more than 210mph.
Lotto louts of the world – rejoice!
Check out some more pics, compliments of a combination of eMercedesBenz and theChive:
HBO recently posted a teaser clip of the upcoming season 2 of Game of Thrones: Cold Winds.
Take a look:
Do ya wanna know what I’m looking forward to the most about the new season? Nothing – I haven’t seen season 1 yet, although I hear it’s really rather good. Better mosey on over to Amazon to rustle up a copy and check it out. I hear it’s full of swords, duelling, and most importantly, boobs. Win, win and win (obviously) in my book.
Right, time for the “new jocks please” moment of the day.
Do you lot remember this one? The series of pics of an abandoned psychiatric hospital, neatly rounded off with one creepy-as-f@ck gif of a gossamer curtain blowing in the wind?
But it’s not just that horror of horrors that qualifies for I-think-I-just-wet-myself status. No sirree. Plenty of things, once abandoned by the crowds and simply left to rot, become really quite eerie after nature beings to reclaim the place. Take a look at these four galleries over at Environmental Graffiti to see what I’m talking about:
Take a look at this totally-worth-watching 7 minute supercut of every major movie released in 2011, compiled by user hatinhand. Someone give this guy a prime editing job ASAP!
Herewith some further info from the clip’s creator (I especially like his reasons for not including Abduction and Jack & Jill):
The 2011 slate of releases, from The Adjustment Bureau to Zookeeper.
This is where a cathartic and overarching statement would succinctly sum up the year’s displays of creativity, passion, ingenuity, and bravado, but the only thing that comes to mind is: weird shit. Lots of weird shit.
War horses and evil clowns. Hobos with shotguns and super-powered Nazi hunters. Cancer comedies and a silent warrior in a scorpion jacket. Iconoclasts, conspirators, madmen, and crusaders. And a badass David Tennant. What’s not to like? Something for everyone.
STATS:
- 166 films
- 6 songs
- over a month of uploading and editing
- 40 Untitled Sequences in Avid
MUSIC:
1. A snippet of “Hedwig’s Theme” by John Williams
2. “Immigrant Song” by Karen O and Trent Reznor
3. “Down Boy” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4. “The Masterplan” by Oasis
5. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Ingrid Michaelson
6. “Grounds for Divorce” by Elbow
There are a few omissions in this year-end anthology. Missing films include:
- Abduction, because fuck that movie.
- Jack & Jill, because fuck that movie.
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked, Mars Needs Moms, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Bucky Larson, Atlas Shrugged: Part I, and I Don’t Know How She Does It, for similar reasons.
- Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, and The Human Centipede 2, because I edited this in a public place and people would’ve looked at me funny.
- No Strings Attached, because the video had this weird green line at the bottom and I didn’t care for it.
- Win Win, The Sitter, and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, because I found nothing visually striking in their trailers.
- Arthur Christmas, Jumping the Broom, Something Borrowed, and Gnomeo and Juliet, because I was struck by an incredible apathy towards all of them.
Old evidence photos have surfaced. Evidence photos proving once and for all that I may not in fact be a lily-livered spineless girl’s blouse (as discussed in a fair bit of detail here and here). It turns out that I may actually be a Hercules-like figure, with biceps that cause thunderbolts when flexed, calf muscles that could crack walnuts and the ability to impregnate a fair maiden with a simple glance in her direction. And how can I prove this to you mere mortals? Well, because I will now share proof… that I bungee jumped! That’s right: I stared gravity in the face and made it my bitch!
Please see below a series of photos from late 2003, and I stress the importance of knowing that these photographs are in fact nearly a decade old, as you will undoubtedly be somewhat confused by my hairstyle as evidenced in the images.
Let’s put this year, 2003, into perspective: in the mid-to-late 90s I was the proud (if somewhat misguided) bearer of a dashing undercut, a ponytail and the absolutely essential accompaniment thereto – a single earring worn casually in the left ear. Thus, a borderline mullet in the early 2000s is me virtually doing the fashion world a favour! Paul Mitchell himself owes me a debt of gratitude!
But I digress. Back to the bungee, with a quick spot of background info: This bungee jump was off Gouritz River Bridge in the Eastern Cape (near Mossel Bay), and at the time was run by Face Adrenalin, although I see there’s no longer any mention of it on their website. They now seem to concentrate solely on their bread-and-butter jump, still the highest commerical bungee jump in the world (or so I believe), Bloukrans River Bridge. Bloukrans is next on the to-do list (or at least once I manage to scrape together the funds to be able to jump – R690 – it will be. Any sponsors?)
Right, schools out: back to the bravery part – by willingly doing this bungee jump by heroically launching myself off into the void, uncertain of the end result, but with a glint in my eye and fire in my heart, I conquered gravity itself! Gravity, Mother Nature’s most deadly weapon, squared up against me and lost! But do I demand praise, statues, parades and banners. Do I seek the keys to the city and your sister’s hand in carnal gratitude? Well now that you mention it…
Okay, let’s be honest: 100 or so folks screamed “bungee” and I wasn’t just gonna stand there and whimper, so off I went, and spent the next few seconds concentrating not on the feeling of freefall, but on not allowing my bladder to involuntarily void itself. Plus, both my brothers jumped too, so I kinda had to. But overall the 65 metre plunge off the Gouritz River Bridge was an incredible adrenaline rush and over far too soon. Therefore…
Final judgement – AWESOME. Highly recommended. Do it now!
Check it:
Y'all better be pretty darn certain of your knot-tying skills!
Take note of the dashing early-90s borderline mullet
