The official teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII

Can't wait!

This is what Black Friday would look like as a movie

The scary thing is that it's probably a little too close to reality...

Obama's executive action on Saturday Night Live

"Wait a second. Don't you have to go through Congress at some point?"

"Aw, that's adorable! You still think that's how government works."

Italian cook pronounces 'Worcestershire sauce'

"One chest of shoe shine"? That can't be right.

Exercise in a bottle? Does it at least come with a straw?

I was already excited about the robotic couch I could drive to the kitchen. Now, along comes Nestlé with a product that provides at least some of the benefits of exercise:

"Ideally, we'll be able to develop products that will help promote and augment the effects of exercise," said Kei Sakamoto, who heads the diabetes and circadian rhythms department at the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences in Switzerland.

Specifically, Nestlé is working on a product that would regulate AMPK, an enzyme that scientists have dubbed the "metabolic master switch." The target customer is someone with diabetes or someone who is obese, according to the company.

Researchers at Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences and several other institutions found that a compound acts on the AMPK enzyme in mice to stop their livers from producing fat, according to a study published in July in the journal Chemistry and Biology.

Where can I get a case?

But don't think you're going to drink your way to a beach body.

The product won't outright replace exercise, Sakamoto said in a statement, explaining that even run-of-the-mill exercise has such a dynamic role that Nestlé will "never be able to mimic all those effects in a single product."

Oh. Never mind, then.

Man indicted for teaching others how to beat a polygraph test

Every once in a while you run across a news story with so much irony that it actually starts to rust. Like this one:

For at least the second time since 2012, the federal government has brought criminal charges, accusing someone of training people on how to beat a polygraph test.

On Friday, prosecutors announced an indictment against Douglas G. Williams, a 69-year-old man from Norman, Okla., who's accused of coaching people "how to lie and conceal crimes" during federally administered lie-detector tests.

Mr. Williams, who operates a company called Polygraph.com, says the mail fraud and obstruction of justice charges leveled against him are an "attack on his First Amendment rights." The indictment follows the federal prosecution of an Indiana man who received eight months in prison in 2013 after pleading guilty to similar charges.

So, they're upset over someone teaching others "how to lie and conceal crimes"? I guess the government really does hate competition.

Helpful phone tips from Tripp and Tyler

Because, let's face it, a lot of you are just plain clueless...

How a war-weary vet created 'The Twilight Zone'

Few television shows remain as timeless and influential as The Twilight Zone. In a recent post at The Daily Beast, Rich Goldstein reflects on the contribution Rod Serling made to American science fiction:

A strange mix of dramatic styles, one part satiric morality play, one part science-fiction ghost story, The Twilight Zone challenged the sensibilities of both hardened skeptics and true believers. It was never a huge hit, but its stories resonated with an American public tenuously relearning moral ambiguity.

Creator Rod Serling was compelled by the need "not to just entertain but to enlighten." He wrote 93 of the series' 156 episodes over the course of its five-season run, which began on CBS in 1959. Most modern shows take an average of 7 seasons to produce as many episodes.

Serling, a veteran of World War II, used the show, and his writing, to deal with the untreated psychological trauma he suffered during his enlistment in the U.S. military. Rather than the glamorized affair the war was to become in subsequent retellings, Serling was intimately acquainted with the horrors of America’s attempt to reclaim its Pacific colonies. Almost half of the author's comrades were killed fighting in the Philippines. Serling's best friend, a Pvt. Melvin Levy of Brooklyn, was decapitated in front of the future screenwriter by a "biscuit bomb," a food crate intended to nourish the life of the man it killed.

Serling closed out the war living in the horror of occupied Japan where the American treatment of women, children, and the elderly contributed to the nightmares that plagued the author for the rest of his life. The towns that were not obliterated by the atomic bombs, or burned by American’s firebombing raids, were deeply scarred by famine. The U.S. naval blockade around Japan in the waning days of World War 2 was actually called Operation Starvation.

Several Twilight Zone scripts would return to the subject of survivor's guilt ("King Nine Will Not Return," "The Thirty-Fathom Grave") or long simmering military resentment ("The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms," "The Encounter").

An interesting read for fans of the show.

Orchestra performs while eating world's hottest chili peppers

If you like your classical music a little on the spicy side, then this performance is for you. Here is "Tango Jalousie" as it was meant to be played—by musicians eating some of the hottest chili peppers in the world:


Whew! Makes me thirsty just watching that.

(via St. Eutychus)

Feed the homeless, go to jail

Many people will criticize this man for not following the rules. I would rather see those stupid rules repealed.

Vocabulary wheel helps you put your feelings into words

If you can't seem to find the right words to describe how you're feeling, just carry a copy of this in your pocket:

(via LifeHacker)