Rappelling Santas are never a good idea

One mall Santa found out the hard way that Old St. Nick should stick to what he knows best --- eating cookies and riding a sleigh.

This Santa gets stuck midway while attempting to rappel down a rope at a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., mall. The cameraman can clearly be heard laughing when Santa's beard gets tangled in the rope while making the grand entrance.

To add insult to injury, the announcer suggests that the children -- looking on horrified as their hero struggles to free himself -- should sing a song to help free him.

She then starts singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

"Magic can happen! The magic can happen when you guys sing," she says as Santa struggles below. "Louder, guys! Sing louder! I can hear the magic."

By the looks of it, the magic never happened.

The beauty of a second

A sleepy cat, a nervous snail, a watch mechanism clicking out a second, a wistful-looking young woman. These are the stunning images in a video making the rounds.

But look carefully. The images last for a fleeting second and they’re gone. They are 60 seconds of beauty submitted by users to the first round of The Beauty of a Second short film contest.

Seconds Of Beauty - 1st round compilation from The Beauty Of A Second on Vimeo.

New show Virgin Diaries puts the awkward in TLC

For most people, that first real kiss takes place far from mom and dad’s view — in a corner of the schoolyard perhaps, or in a dimmed movie theatre.

For others, the path is different. Imagine planting your lips on someone for the first time in front of a large crowd. At a wedding. Your wedding. And you’ve waited 30 years for this.

The Learning Channel’s new show Virgin Diaries, airing Sundays at 9 p.m., chronicles the lives of adult virgins “who reveal the challenges, truths, and anticipations of losing their virginity,” according to the channel’s website. Among the 20- and 30-something virgins appearing on the reality TV show are Ryan and his bride, who share a kiss for the first time upon being pronounced husband and wife.

The kiss, an awkward spit exchange that turns the heads of guests, is prompting loads of hilarious comments on YouTube, where it has received more than 390,000 views since Monday.

“Is this a CPR training video?” asks one poster.

“They look like birds feeding from their mother,” says another.

Others simply aren’t buying the “reality” quotient.

“That has to be fake, no one could possibly kiss that bad — even for the first time.”

Australian gay marriage ad goes viral

A well-shot ad campaign in support of gay marriage from Australia has racked up more than 1.5 million views since being released Friday. The video, titled "It's Time," is shot from a first-person perspective and depicts a relationship that goes from friendship to something deeper with a final moment reveal.

It was created by the Get Up Campaign to motivate the Australian Labour Party to endorse marriage equality at its national conference, which takes place this upcoming weekend. The organization is seeking donations to buy air time to broadcast the ad, although the viral success has to be an unexpected bonanza.

 

Miley Cyrus pot cake an herbal legend

Miley Cyrus proclaimed herself to be a “stoner” at her birthday party last week — but was she joking?

The Disney pop star, who turned 19 on Nov. 23, celebrated with a party thrown by Kelly Osbourne at a Hollywood hotel.

In a video of the event — apparently recorded surreptitiously by someone present —  we see Cyrus first enjoying the 50 Cent song “In Da Club” (notable lyric: “We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday”) — and then receiving a gift; from her reaction, it’s clearly a cake with the image of Bob Marley.

“This is amazing,” she says of the cake, given to her by Osbourne. “You know you're a stoner when your friends make you a ‘Bob Miley’ cake. You know you smoke way too much f---ing weed.”

Osbourne is then seen telling Cyrus “I thought salvia was your problem, Miley.”

While celebrating her previous birthday last year, Cyrus was seen smoking salvia — a legal herb with hallucinogenic effects — from a bong at a party.

A rep for Cyrus could not immediately be reached for comment about the latest incident.

But Osbourne claimed in her Twitter feed that it was all a joke: “let me make something very clear after @MileyCyrus salvia incident we started calling her bob miley as a JOKE!” she wrote. “The cake was also A JOKE! it makes me sick that @MileyCyrus so called 'friends' would sell her out and lead people 2 believe she is someone that she is not!”

 

The hits keep coming on Indian talent show

Gluttons for attention are often a big proportion of what's going viral online at any given moment, but the “Warriors of Goja” are something special.

On a talent show on India's ETV channel, the judges on an America's Got Talent-like show clearly didn't quite know what they were getting when the Warriors began their performance. What they got was a bare minimum of dancing but a litany of stunts in a Jackass-like spirit, ranging from breaking fluorescent lightbulbs on their exposed flesh to stacking comrades atop serial beds of nails to driving over some troupe members in a car (and following up with a motorcycle over the prone man's head).

Then there's the gent being struck with a sledgehammer, and his friend who plunges 20 feet or so through dozens more of those bulbs ...

Your move, Simon Cowell.

Christmas Champ gets really into Black Friday

 

She’s ba-a-a-ck. The cuckoo-for-Christmas Target “Christmas Champ” lady is once again sharing her holiday madness for U.S. retailer (soon to be Canadian retailer) Target and its two-day Black Friday sale. In a series of online ads, she quotes Sun Tzu's Art of War, decorates a gingerbread Target store, hyrdrates with eggnog and makes her own glitter. In the spot above, she trains for the marathon shopping session by speed-wrapping presents and racing down the store's aisle in heels. See the rest here.

The Christmas Champ (played by actress Maria Bamford) also has a Twitter feed and several one-off websites including my favourite: The one that asks the question http://www.whatdoesapanflutemadeoutofcandycanessoundlike.com/

(Answer: it sounds pretty friggin' awesome)

 

Hibernating dormouse creates web sensation, keeps snoring

 

Today's adorable animal video comes to us from Surrey Wildlife Trust in England. A wildlife officer there took this footage of a hibernating dormouse who was too tuckered out from gathering food for the winter to wake up when he was taken from his nest to be weighed. 

The snoozing furball has gotten nearly 150,000 views so far on YouTube.

From the Trust: Dormice hibernate in the winter in nests that they make hidden away on the ground. In Britain the dormouse may spend up to three-quarters of its life in hibernation. Dormice usually enter hibernation at the time of the first frost, when nearly all food is gone. Dormice rely upon fat reserves gathered in the summer and autumn, and during hibernation they lose about a quarter of their body weight.

The video unfortunately doesn't pick up the sound of the creature's snores, which project officer Dave Williams described to the Daily Mail as a "loud whistle". 

This is no dumb bunny

At last, a rabbit that proves useful beyond being the main ingredient for a tasty stew or fricassee.

This unheralded hare has become a YouTube sensation for its quick-like-a-bunny skill at chewing open the daily mail.

Too bad the contents are usually either bills or similarly unwelcome tidings.

Snakes alive!

Snakes alive!

Mondo Crew, part of a group of Vancouver artists and designers called eatART, have created a one-tonne, 35-foot long metallic robot snake that’s sure to be the bane of ophidiophobics (those with a fear of snakes).

The snake, nicknamed Titanoboa after a similarly sized serpent that roamed the jungles of South America about 60 millions years ago, is actually a prototype for even longer, scarier version expected to be completed sometime next year.

Designers hope their mechano-snake will eventually have a realistic-looking skin and be able to move through water.

The same group has previously created the 1,700-pound Mondo Spider (also featured in the video), an eight-legged contraption that is purportedly the world’s first walking vehicle.