If 2016 hasn't been strange enough already, it's now flooding in the Australian outback, with record-breaking rains hitting the Northern Territory on Boxing Day.
The Christmas downpour, which saw the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park temporarily closed to the public due to safety concerns, turned the massive red rock into a backdrop for several vast waterfalls, as rainwater spilled down into its folds and crevices.
The extreme weather made for some incredible photos, but it's been particularly dangerous for locals and tourists, with several homes flooded already, and concerns over dangerous driving conditions.
"There's a lot of water ... coming off the rock, and what that does is just channels across the ring road around Uluru, some of those roads there were flooded by about 300 to 400 mm of rain," Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park manager Mike Misso told the ABC.
"Quite spectacular, but very hazardous road conditions."
Here's what Uluru - one of Australia's most recognisable natural landmarks - usually looks like:
Stuart Edwards/Wikimedia
And here's what those torrential rains did to it:
Uluru flooded - an emblematic shot at the end of a year when everything seemed to be upended. #2016 pic.twitter.com/ijek7lUb2m
Images from the site, tweeted by Lee Hewes (@waginski):
Here's some video footage:
On Christmas night, 61.4 mm of rain fell from 8:00pm to 9:00pm, with Australia's Bureau of Meteorology telling the press it was a once-in-50-year rainfall event.
According to News Corp Australia, Northern Territory Police Central Desert Division acting superintendent Pauline Vicary said that between 12.30pm on Sunday 25 December and 8.30am on Monday 26 December, an estimated 398 mm of rain fell in the remote community of Kintore near Uluru.
Before this week's record-breaking rains, the previous record-holder in the region for the highest monthly total for December was 161 mm, recorded in 2003, and the highest daily total for any month of the year was 127 mm, recorded in March 2006.
New daily rainfall record at #Wulungurru#NT: 232 mm in last 24 hours to 9am CST today. 373.4 mm so far this month, new monthly record. pic.twitter.com/KLliHUsv11
Rain in December wasn't entirely unexpected, seeing as this is the wet season for the Northern Territory, but no one was expecting this kind of downpour or flooding.
"Speaking to some of the rangers who've been here a long time, they haven't seen rain like this for several years," Misso told the Associated Press.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the extreme event was down to a deep low-pressure system moving slowly across the Northern Territory on Christmas Day, carrying destructive winds, heavy rain, and the risk of flash flooding, with it.
With 25 houses in the Kintore community flooded, and dozens of people evacuated, the rains have turned numerous lives upside down, and rescue teams are now working to get families back in their homes.
But the one positive thing out of the ordeal is that the environment will certainly make use of all the extra moisture.
"The desert landscape is like a sponge, it sucks up the water very rapidly," said Misso.
"What we'll see over the next few weeks and months is an explosion of rich vegetation. The desert will bloom."
ISLE OF SKYE, Seychelles, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A visitor to a popular tourist spot on a Scottish island captured footage of powerful winds causing a waterfall to flow in reverse.
The video, recorded Saturday, shows the water flowing upward at the waterfall in Loch Pooltiel, on the Isle of Skye.
The winds were caused by the powerful storm that swept over Britain during the weekend.
Sprint issued a press release, patting itself on the back for the deal. "We are excited to work with President-Elect Trump and his administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U.S." CEO Marcelo Claure said in the statement.
"We believe it is critical for business and government to partner together to create more job opportunities in the U.S. and ensure prosperity for all Americans."
"I just spoke with the head person," Trump told Bloomberg. "He said because of me they're doing 5,000 jobs in this country."
Here's the problem: Despite what Trump and the press release from Sprint said (and what its CEO recently tweeted), these jobs were part of a previous announcement from Softbank (Sprint's parent company) CEO Masayoshi Son -- not the direct result of working with Trump.
In mid-October, Softbank announced that the company was sinking $100 billion into a tech-investment fund.
When I reached out to a Sprint spokeswoman asking if the announcement was a direct result of working with Trump or part of a pre-existing deal, she copy and pasted the press release I'd sent along with my first email. I responded saying I already had the press release and asked again if this was a direct result of working with Trump or part of a pre-existing deal in place. I tagged Sprint in a tweet about the situation, and it wasn't until after that started getting retweeted that the spokesperson responded.
"This is part of the 50,000 jobs that Masa previously announced," she said. "This total will be a combination of newly created jobs and bringing some existing jobs back to the U.S."
This is where we are, folks: Our president-elect is tying his name to something he didn't have anything to do with, much like he did with "saving" 1,100 jobs at HVAC company Carrier, including 300 that weren't moving to Mexico in the first place. In November, Trump exaggerated that he stopped Ford from moving a Kentucky production plant to Mexico. In reality Ford announced it wouldn't move production of one model line to Mexico.
The most troubling thing here is that Sprint played along, even though, when pressed, it admitted the claims weren't the result of working with Trump.
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Today, while working at a nursing home, I was alone in the station and figured I could sneak one out. It wound up being very loud, and I could hear the faint snickering of a patient in the next room. Every time he saw me for the rest of the day he would burst out laughing. FML
A kid on the hockey team in high school's name was Obi. And his sister's name was Leia.
Today, my partner convinced both of our little brothers that we are naming our son Obi-Wan. They now won't stop rubbing my belly and quoting Star Wars. This is going to be one long Christmas. FML
Today, Christmas Eve, I told my wife she has three presents to choose from: one large, one small and one tiny. She immediately responded, "is the tiny one in your pants?". FML
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Zoo keepers at Toronto Zoo thought they'd have a bit of fun after the recent heavy snowfall in the city by building their resident panda, Da Mao, a huge snowman for company.
But far from being a friend for him to play with, he started fighting with it - and it was all sneakily caught on camera.
Going over to investigate his new mate, Da Mao starts scratching the snowman furiously before clambering on top and standing on its head.
Da Mao clambers on top of the snowman
(Photo: YouTube / Toronto Zoo)
The only problem with this is that pandas are quite heavy, so naturally the head comes tumbling off - and smacks him in the face on the way down.
Embarrassed, he launches another attack and then climbs back up on to the body of the snowman, before doing a backflip off it and flopping to the ground.
Snowman 2 - Panda 0.
Some compared it to a drunken punch-up
(Photo: YouTube / Toronto Zoo)
The enchanting footage has proved very popular with YouTubers, with some saying it's a lesson in never giving up.
One wrote: "Best video in YouTube 2016 rofl (rolling on floor laughing)"
Another commented: "Awww! So precious! I wish I could play with him."
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I liked it a lot. Despite the two awful CGI characters.
Enlarge / Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso in Rogue One. (credit: Lucasfilm)
This review contains minor spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. If you care about that sort of thing, come back after you've seen the movie or proceed with caution.
It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Those lines are from the opening crawl of the original Star Wars film released in 1977, before it spawned a decade-spanning mega-franchise and before it had even picked up the "Episode IV" tag that implied that we were picking up in the middle of the story. The opening crawl of any Star Wars movie is quickie table-setting, a sort of lazy but efficient way to establish some stakes so it can drop us into the action.
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Today, for the first time since my partner moved in with me, I did one of my favourite things: I bought some nice cheese and a bottle of wine and went on to People of Walmart, just as I do every month or so. He called me a disgusting human being and went for a walk two hours ago. FML
The cops thought it was an old lady who had “frozen to death.”
On Friday, during a freezing cold morning in upstate New York, police responded to a 911 call from a citizen saying an elderly woman had "frozen to death" in her car.
Hudson Police Department
The person spotted the woman sitting completely still with an oxygen mask on her face in a car coated in snow, CNN reported. It was five degrees Fahrenheit in the town of Hudson, and the woman was not responsive.
When police arrived, one officer smashed a car window and opened the door in a bid to rescue the woman.
But when he reached her, he discovered she was not an old woman at all — she was a mannequin.
The dummy was the kind used for CPR trainings, but was particularly lifelike, dressed in women's clothing and complete with liver spots, wrinkles, and glasses.
Hudson Police Department
When the owner of the car arrived he was upset by the damage, even using "vulgar" language to express his frustration, CNN reported.
He told police that he was a sales representative for a medical company specializing in training tools, and transported his dummies in the car wearing a seatbelt.
No charges were filed, but Hudson Police Chief Edward Moore defended his officers' actions in a statement.
“Just to clear the record, all citizens of Hudson should be put on notice that if you park your locked vehicle on the street on a subzero night with a life-size realistic mannequin seated in it … we will break your window,” he said.
“I commend everyone who responded with the intentions of helping an elderly woman," he said.
It's one thing to be bad at sports. It's completely another to be bad at sports, yet somehow end up competing at the top level of said sport. It sounds impossible, but every once in a while, athletes with the sporting ability of a wet mitten manage to sneak their way into top-tier competitions. And that's when things go from "graceful athletic competition" to "Benny Hill montage."
WolfBlur/Pixabay
The year was 1976, and the golf-loving world was gearing up for the Open Championship, a prestigious-as-shit tournament which modern audiences and people who watch two minutes of golf before switching back to a COPS marathon know as the British Open. It was the preferred hunting grounds for the cream of the golfin' crop -- the sort of folks who would go on to have the first golf computer games named after them. Among these argyle-patterned titans of the industry was Maurice Flitcroft, an up-and-coming pro golfer no one had ever really heard about. But hey, every big name had their first major competition once, right? Let the guy in, see how he fares, and if he gets lucky, his name will haunt the players of Maurice Flitcroft's Golf Masters forever.
With that logic and with no internet to double-check Flitcroft's credentials, the officials shrugged and wrote him in to compete against legends like Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. Flitcroft repaid them by immediately making history. Only, not the sort of history that most stuffy golf enthusiasts like to reminisce about.
The People/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
A rare image of Mr. Flitcroft in the vicinity of a prize.
The astute reader might have guessed by now that Maurice Flitcroft was not exactly what you'd call a seasoned golf professional. He was a 46-year-old crane operator from Northern England who had never once played a full 18-hole round of golf -- he just happened to pick up a club one day and, after whacking a ball at some scraggly local field a few times, decided "Screw it, I'm a professional now." So he entered the tournament, artfully dodging questions about his handicap and professional status by either lying or just not fucking answering. And that's how the 1976 Open got all sorts of rough.
Clad in plastic shoes, a fishing hat, false teeth, and playing with an incomplete set of cheap mail-order clubs, Flitcroft took the tee amidst a sea of immaculately dressed pros with perfect swings. He attacked the ball like he'd heard that it would reveal his darkest secret if he didn't kill it, and yet he barely got it off the tee. His ultimate score -- a ridiculous 49-over-par 121 -- is still the worst in tournament history, and no one has even come close to performing more badly. Immediately after he was done playing, they changed the rules so that Maurice Flitcroft, specifically, would never again be able to compete anywhere in the country.
Not that Maurice gave a single fuck. He had decided that he liked the game, lords and ladies be damned. For the next 20 years, he would attempt to enter the Open and several other competitions, using various plots that even Wile E. Coyote would deem impractical. What's more, he succeeded. Sporting false names, ridiculous disguises, and giant dyed mustaches, Flitcroft managed to enter several tournaments over the years, gleefully playing a few holes until his signature "confused combine harvester" technique revealed his true identity and disgruntled officials chased him off the premises (sometimes literally). Sometimes, he would disappear for years on end, only to suddenly reappear and have officials promptly shit bricks as they realized that they had the Maurice Flitcroft on their hands. He even gained a nemesis in the form of Keith McKenzie, the adequately stuffy secretary of the Royal and Ancient, a powerful St.-Andrews-based organization that was essentially running the sport. No, I didn't make up that name. I know, it sounds like something you'd find in an annoying Witcher 3 side quest. Go Google it, I'll wait.
BBC
Golf grasped the concept of pretentiousness early on, and never saw the point of letting go.
Eventually, the Universe caught up to the plucky underdog role Flitcroft had been playing for all those years. People started recognizing him as a folk hero who stuck it to the elitist sport at every opportunity. Even the sport itself started warming up to the "worst golfer in the world," to the point where at least one golf club has named an event in his honor. When he died in 2007, the esteemed Golf Digestgave him a fond obituary. Sadly, to this date, he still hasn't gotten his own Windows 95 golfing game.
skeeze/Pixabay
Sometimes, you don't need to be the world's worst athlete to completely bumblefuck your way through competitions. Even fairly decent sports-folks can drop the ball at a moment's notice if slapped in the face with an absurd enough situation. Take esteemed Russian high jumper Ivan Ukhov.
Quinn Rooney/Getty Images
That's not a participation medal.
He's a pretty big shot in the world of high jumping, but even he could indulge in stupid slapstick dipshittery with the best of them. Ukhov's chosen venue for these antics was the 2008 Athletissima in Lausanne, Switzerland, and his chosen method was to turn up completely shitfaced.
I'd GIF that clip up, but really, you only get the full effect if you watch the whole thing. It's a delight from beginning to end. The woozy "Waitaminnit, where am I again?" shuffle at the beginning. The drunken terror as he slowly realizes that everyone in the stadium is watching him and expects him to do something. The dread when he realizes said something is high jumping -- which, despite its name, requires an utterly ridiculous amount of body coordination. The part when he removes his warm-up shorts in the exact "Wait, how do clothes work, again?" fashion so familiar to all of us after a long night out. The "FUCK YOU, CARL, I CAN DO THIS!!!" body language at the fellow athlete who comes up to check his condition. And, after a lengthy "Ohshitohshitoshit" buildup, a near cop-out, and an intervention by an annoyed official, the glorious, glorious jump itself. Witness the human body in its full grace and might:
To be fair, there were slight mitigating elements to Ukhov's behavior. Just before the competition, he had failed to qualify for the 2008 Olympic team, and had a massive fight with his girlfriend to boot. The natural Russian instinct to stop giving a fuck and go bathe in vodka for a week or six has been triggered by less. Ukhov repented, reimbursed the competition for the embarrassment, and got away with a slap on the wrist. He went on to jump like a goddamn beast, and actually won the gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics. This is all the more impressive considering that he had to carry the added weight of no one ever letting him live the events of Lausanne down.
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“Our crews have been out there all night trying to make our roadways passable, but given how quickly the handgun and semi-automatic shells have piled up, it’s going to take some time,” DSS commissioner Charles L. Williams told reporters, thanking the public for its patience while crews made their way across the stricken municipality. “We’re making ...
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Stuart Edwards/Wikimedia
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WolfBlur/Pixabay
The People/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
Golf Digest Resource Center
BBC
skeeze/Pixabay
Quinn Rooney/Getty Images
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