IKEA Monkey

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When you have an opposite schedule than your partner—whether it's because of work or different sleep schedules—it seems like the only solution is to separate. It takes some effort, but you can manage it and live in harmony.

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This takes fandom of Hot Doug’s to a whole new level, which is hard to do when people are now waiting up to nine hours in line. [ more › ]

Have you ever stepped off a plane only to realize that you left something behind? That shock of panic you typically feel may be a little less jarring if you’re flying Royal Dutch Airlines to Amsterdam Airport Schipol, thanks in part to the airlines new lost and found service that employs a friendly, furry, four-legged secret weapon.

While most airlines will do all they can to return lost items to consumers, Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) has taken things a step further by creating a dedicated Lost & Found Team – complete with a beagle named Sherlock, the airline says in a video posted on its website.

“Our main goal is to return lost times as fast as possible,” an airline official says in the video. “I really like that now we are getting some help with that.”

The airline introduced Sherlock to the world this week and quickly showed that leaving your phone or stuffed animal on an airplane doesn’t have to be cause for a minor meltdown.

“When we see the reaction from customers, that is really amazing,” one of Sherlock’s handlers says.

Following a quick introduction, the video cuts to Sherlock running aboard a plane where a flight attendant has found a left cellphone. After Sherlock gets a good whiff of the phone, the attendant stashes it in his blue harness for safe keeping. Sherlock then takes off through an Amsterdam Airport Schipol terminal in search of his target. Once he approaches a passenger, Sherlock’s handler retrieves the cellphone, to the woman’s joy.

“Personally I think he’s an asset to the company and he can really do something no one else can,” a KLM employee says in the video.

KLM launches Lost & Found service [KLM]

Two and a Half Men's final season premieres at the end of October and Esquire's Stephen Marche has some pretty strong feelings about it. To summarize: Fuck this fucking show, its dumb fucking characters, its stupid fucking jokes and everything else you could fucking say about it. Well, fuck.

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If you didn’t manage to get your paws on a Never Ending Pasta Pass to taunt us with, but still crave carbs, don’t fret. Instead, you can pay $10 and get a never-ending pasta bowl that ends after one day. You can choose between five pastas and six sauces, and add meaty toppings that start at three bucks each. Take-out is not an option. This is the 19th year of the NEPB, raising the terrifying question of what the chain plans to do next year to celebrate the 20th year of the promotion. [Olive Garden] (via Brand Eating)

Logan Square will return to its agricultural roots, when the intersection of Logan and Milwaukee becomes the home of Chicago's first urban orchard. [ more › ]

Eleven months after announcing their split, Kris Jenner and Bruce Jenner are officially getting divorced — Kris filed the paperwork on Monday. RIP, America's favorite (?) couple. We will all miss watching Bruce make vaguely annoyed faces while Kris swoops about, scouring the face of earth for attention.

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Hint: It's kind of your worst nightmare. But also amazing.

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At a roadside diner in rural Pennsylvania, I came across a menu item I've never seen before: a "Greek omelet" made with feta and gyro meat. I took a shot in the dark and ordered it, and the result was exquisite. Read More

Police in Maryland say they have arrested a woman for indecent exposure and attempted burglary after discovering her partially nude and passed out.

Justice Elena Kagan has officiated for the first time at a same-sex wedding, a Maryland ceremony for her former law clerk and his husband.

UGHHHHHHH. Emma Watson is being targeted as the next celeb to have nude photos of her stolen because someone is mad she addressed the United Nations about feminism.

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A television reporter in Alaska quit on live TV so she could focus on her work as a marijuana legalization activist in the state. This is too perfect for real life.

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There is no way I am prepared to cry over a damn Budweiser commercial, unless it's one of those elaborate ones that feature puppies and horses during the Super Bowl. Then all bets are off. But on a regular day of the year? HOW DARE THEY MAKE ME HAVE EMOTIONS.

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Paris may be the city of love, but the city is so concerned about love locks, those padlocks that lovesick couples attach to bridges as a token of their undying affection for one another, that officials have announced that they will be replacing the railings of one of their bridges with glass. Impenetrable glass to which you cannot attach shit. Looks like you're going to have to find another cliche metaphor to express your feels.

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Oh man, I know this cat is just trying to scope out the scene on that countertop, unaware of the scene it's about to cause, but in my head, it's actually meticulously scheming the perfect prank. And my does it succeed. That cat's timing is impeccable.

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A city in Missouri could be close to taking a firm stand against catcalling.

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News from the world of heavy metal: A woman is now the gore-smeared face of long-lived horror thrash group GWAR. Apparently she wears prosthetic tits that periodically spew blood and goes by "Vulvatron." (Legal name: Kim Dylla.) If you aren't familiar with GWAR, this clip from Beavis and Butthead pretty much provides the gist:

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PES is Adam Pesapane, a filmmaker whose best-known work is stop-motion animation. His 2012 film Fresh Guacamole (shown below) is the shortest film ever nominated for an Academy Award. I got to see some PES films in person over the weekend, and was blown away; if you've got just a minute or two, I promise these are worth your time. This is all real, fully analog, non-computer-generated imagery, shot over many days.

Fresh Guacamole

My favorite part: dicing the onion.

Western Spaghetti

A precursor to Fresh Guacamole, you can see how some similar ideas are at play here.

KaBoom!

Beware the deadly peanut. Oh, and there's a making of video for this one.

Game Over

Pac-Man's death is curiously satisfying.

The Deep

Moody, dark, awesome.

Tons More

If you liked that, just check out PES's website or his YouTube channel.

Hot Sex Tracks
1. Let’s Get Ready 2 Rumble
2. Get Ready 4 This
3. Whoop! There It Is
4. Strike It Up
5. Tootsie Roll
6. Pump It Up, Go ‘Head
7. Come Baby Come
8. It Takes Two
9. Gridiron Groove
10. Gonna Make You Sweat
11. Hip Hop Horray
12. Pump Up The Volume
13. The Power
14. Uh, Ungawaa!
15. Unbelievable
16. YMCA
17. Pump Up The Jam
18. Twilight Zone
19. The Old Ballgame
20. Rock and Roll Part 2

FOUND by Allie in Bellingham, WA
This was laying in the parking lot on Western’s campus. Not so sure about the temperature of this sex…

We have SCIENCE! that is so cool, we’re going to start with that today. (Look up. Look at the science. Isn’t it pretty?) We also have a Very Interesting Theory, a super absurd conspiracy theory, the future of travel, and a guy who races the subway … and wins.

• Look what NASA found:
  

  Astronomers using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ground observation have found an unlikely object in an improbable place — a monster black hole lurking inside one of the tiniest galaxies ever known.

  The black hole is five times the mass of the one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. It is inside one of the densest galaxies known to date — the M60-UCD1 dwarf galaxy that crams 140 million stars within a diameter of about 300 light-years, which is only 1/500th of our galaxy’s diameter.

  If you lived inside this dwarf galaxy, the night sky would dazzle with at least 1 million stars visible to the naked eye. Our nighttime sky as seen from Earth’s surface shows 4,000 stars.

  The finding implies there are many other compact galaxies in the universe that contain supermassive black holes. The observation also suggests dwarf galaxies may actually be the stripped remnants of larger galaxies that were torn apart during collisions with other galaxies rather than small islands of stars born in isolation.

• Our kid sister Happy Nice Time People reports on this report about the eight hours of Sarah Palin’s interweb teevee show thingy, most of which are “straight-up infomercials for Sarah’s other products.” But Happy has a verrrrrry innnnnnnteresssssting theory about that:
  

  Back when Sarah Palin first published her memoir Going Rogue, the half-term halfwit made headlines when she spent $63,000 in PAC money to buy copies to give away to fans. It would be illegal for the PAC to simply had Palin money, but it’s perfectly okay for her to collect royalties on the books bought by the PAC. Pretty nice way to funnel money to herself, right?

  In the most recent Sarah PAC filing, the money spent on Sarah’s own books has dwindled to just under $10,000. That cash cow is almost out of milk.

  And along comes Sarah Palin TV.

  Go read the rest of it and let us know what you think. Seriously. Happy needs some love.

• Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha:The always-though-not-intentionally comedic tweeter genius behind the official account for the Republican National Committee deleted the referenced tweet, but we have so got your back because we screenshot that sucker for you to also hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha so hard too:For real, always-though-not-intentionally comedic tweeter genius behind the official account for the Republican National Committee, we love your work. Come write for us!
• Offered without comment (because we’re too busy laughing at this too):
  

  David Gregory, the ousted moderator of NBC’s “Meet The Press,” thinks Washington’s political media are too lazy to go against the “narrative.”

• Snowmobile truthers. That’s a thing now.
  

  Alaska Sen. Mark Begich says GOP opponent Dan Sullivan’s latest ad accusing him of pretending to ride a snow machine is a “lie,” and he has the frostbite to prove it.

  In Sullivan’s latest ad, X Games medalist Cory Davis accuses the freshman Democrat of “pretending to ride” a snow machine in an earlier spot and concludes: “I’m tired of the phony politicians and Mark Begich’s laaaaame tricks.” [...]

  Begich likened Sullivan’s ad, produced by FP1 Strategies, to the thoughts of a conspiracy theorist.
  “Did you know we didn’t really go to the moon? That was a conspiracy. That was all done in a studio — I don’t know if you knew that,” Begich joked. “Yes. It was me on the snow machine. … Look at the picture of me when I take my helmet off. That’s what we call ‘helmet hair,’ that’s when you’re riding a snow machine.”

• Watch this dude race the tube in London. It’s kind of amazing:
  
• We may not have jetpacks in the future, but we will have … gondolas?
  

  Laugh all you want (or cower in fear), but cable-drawn aerial transportation just might be the next big thing.

  To hear the evangelists tell it, the skyborne pods that have ferried skiers through the Alps for most of the last century are an integral part of the future of urban transport. Cheaper than terrestrial fixed guideway transit and quicker to build, the gondola is finally taking its rightful place in the urban landscape.

  “Depending on how you measure it,” says Steven Dale of the Gondola Project, “it is the fastest growing transportation method in the world.”

By the way, tomorrow’s Friday. Most important news of the day, right?

Hey Friend! I just made a really cool playlist that I wanted to share with you. It's the Cheesecake Factory's parody of Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" — called "We're So Cheesecake" — repeated again and again, until you either die (of happiness) or your ears start bleeding (also from happiness).

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 This feels more like Maxim to me. Granted, she’s probably wearing too much fabric for Maxim. But unless Golf takes a lad-mag turn, I can’t imagine where else BUT Maxim you’d actually expect to see a pose I can only describe as, “Hey there, Big Boy, am I gripping your driver or your iron?” Especially when you couple it Read More ...

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said he had no problem with how LAPD officers handled an incident last week in which an actress was detained.

   ‘Tis gowns Fug Nation often loves, and ’tis gowns we are bringing you. Who will wear them? Let’s guess. Read More ...

While we continue to wait for the Senate to take up a bill that would make it possible for borrowers to refinance private and federal student, one bank is taking matters into its own hands. Citizens Financial Group announced today that it would begin accepting applications from both parents and students to refinance loans at possibly lower rates.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Rhode Island-based bank will allow holders of federal student loans to refinance into private student loans.

Under the plan, borrowers would need at least $10,000 in federal student loan debt. They would be able to refinance a maximum of $90,000 debt for undergraduate studies, up to $130,000 for undergraduate and graduate studies and up to $170,000 for studies that include medical, dental and law school. Repayment periods would be between 15 to 20 years.

Citizen hopes the new plan attracts new clients to its private student loan business, and keeps them coming back for future financial needs such as mortgages and car loans.

The bank’s goal is “to earn the trust of these customers right out the gate,” the WSJ reports.

Borrowers with good credit scores could get refinancing as low as 2.31% on a variable interest-rate loan – these loans have rates that can change each month. For a fixed loan, rates begin as low as 4.74%.

Citizens says the lowest rates will be given to borrowers with very high credit scores, long-term employment, who have a Citizens’ checking account and enroll in automatic bill payments for their loans.

Parents who carry federal PLUS loans originated since the 2006-2007 academic year are eligible to refinance for a fixed rate between 6.4% and 8.5%. PLUS loans originated before that date carry variable rates.

Those rates should sound a bit familiar, as they are comparable to those included in Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Bank On Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act. Under the bill, which is expected to come up for vote this week, student loan borrowers would be able to refinance at rates set for first-time borrowers; 3.86% for Undergraduate Direct Loans, 5.41% for Graduate Loans, and 6.41% for PLUS Loans taken out by a student’s parents.

Before borrowers rush to refinance at Citizen be aware of a few caveats. In order for borrowers to be approved for refinancing at Citizens they would need at least a 660 FICO credit score on a scale that runs from 300 to 850.

Additionally, converting federal student loans to private loans means that borrowers will lose several repayment options. For example, the federal government allows income-based repayment that allows borrowers to repay loans based on their income rather than the amount of debt they owe. The repayment plans also allow for principal forgiveness – a situation where the remaining balance can be waived after 10 years of repayments.

Lowering interest rates on federal student loans has often been a struggle for borrowers. While the government allows borrowers to consolidate loans into one plan, there often isn’t a change in interest rate.

For all the issues with federal student loans, private loans aren’t much better when it comes to refinancing.

In January, Citizens began allowing refinancing for private student loans. That same month, Charter One joined other institutions, such as Wells Fargo and Chase, that reward borrowers for cultivating good credit and responsibly handing credit cards by allowing them participate in the bank’s new Education Refinance Loan.

As advertised it provides borrowers with rates as low as 5.24% and a variable rate of 2.84%; the lowest rates are reserved for those borrowers with better credit.

Student-Loan Borrowers Have Chance to Refinance at Lower Rates [The Wall Street Journal]