Month: April 2023

The story of the season for the Golden State Warriors was their inability to win on the road, as they compiled an unbelievably bad 11-30 record in the regular season away from the Chase Center.

Those road woes took central focus on Sunday as Golden State had to get a win in Sacramento to advance to the second round, facing a Game 7 after the Kings took care of business on the road in Game 6. In the first half, the Kings continued to look sharp offensively, as they took a 58-56 lead into halftime behind some terrific performances from Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk, and Terence Davis. The biggest concern for the Kings was they were only leading by two despite a cold shooting night from the Warriors aside from Stephen Curry, who had 20 in the first half to keep Golden State attached, finding the bottom of the net seemingly every time the Kings opened up a two-possession lead.

In the second half, the Kings shooting went cold, the Warriors others heated up, Kevon Looney dominated the glass, and Curry continued his onslaught en route to a playoff career-high with 50 points on 20-of-38 shooting, including 7-of-18 from three-point range.

Looney was simply unstoppable on the glass, giving Domantas Sabonis more than he could handle inside as he racked up 21 rebounds, including 11 offensive, to go along with 11 points in another sensational performance.

Every time the Kings tried to create the answers they’ve been so good at coming up with all series, Curry or Klay Thompson responded to push the Warriors further in front — including a notable 4-point play from Thompson to end the fourth after a Monk and-1 had cut the Warrior lead to six.

Leading by 10 going into the fourth, Curry simply took over as the Warriors quickly pushed their advantage out to 20 where it remained for most of the quarter.

It was an all-time performance from Curry, who had never put up a 50-point night in his illustrious playoff career. He saved that performance for when the Warriors needed it most in a Game 7 on the road to lead them to a 120-100 win, having struggled away from home all season. Now, despite being the 6-seed, Golden State will get homecourt in the second round as they face a familiar foe in LeBron James and the Lakers, as Curry and James get to continue their nearly decade-long rivalry.

It should go without saying that it’s not cool to steal from your Airbnb. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still happen.

However, when one Airbnb host recently discovered a guest had—for some strange reason—stolen one of her paintings, then replaced it with a completely different painting, she decided to make the best out of a very uncool situation by sharing the story on TikTok.

As a result, viewers got to witness an continuously unraveling, truly bizarre modern-day art heist.

Okay, let’s get into it.

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“OK the weirdest thing just happened,” host Amy Corbett says at the beginning of her video.

She then shows what the living room in the listing normally looks like—with a painting of a map hanging on a wall over a couch.

But when Corbett shows up to the unit, we see that it is definitely not a painting of a map hanging on a wall over a couch. Instead, there’s a painting of an orange airplane.

“I have never seen the picture before in my life!” Corbett exclaims in the video.

@allbelongco The weirdest thing a guest has ever done. #airbnb #airbnbstory #airbnbguest #airbnbthief #crazystory #story #fyp ♬ original sound – allbelong.co

Creeped out, she looks around the apartment to see if the oil painting is anywhere to be found. Nada. Zilch.

Needless to say, commenters had their theories. Several mentioned hearing similar stories involving the same painting, leading them to believe this was all part of some long and involved paint-swapping prank. Others went the more traditional route of assuming this guest was trying to cover up some damage inflicted to avoid fees. Others still thought this person was an artist trying to do some sort of clandestine self-promotion.

In a follow-up video, Corbett debunked those theories, saying that not only could that airplane image be found “all over the web,” but the wall it was hanging on was “pristine,” not to mention the fact that the original artwork was next to impossible to accidentally damage.

@allbelongco Replying to @exploration_of_love Let’s debunk some theories while we wait to hear from Airbnb… #airbnb #airbnbguest #fyp ♬ original sound – allbelong.co

As for whether or not this person had swapped out other paintings, Corbett has reached out to one of the guest’s previous hosts, who confirmed that it had not taken place there.

Corbett kept audiences in the loop with several follow-ups, including actual security footage of the guest caught in the act.

The video shows a man (now dubbed the Airbnb Bandit) walking from his car carrying the airplane painting. Next, he’s seen in a different-colored hoodie carrying out the map painting, which is bundled up in a blanket.

@allbelongco Camera footage doesn’t lie…🤷🏻‍♀️ #airbnbstory #airbnbguest #fyp #airbnb #airbnbthief #allbelongco #story ♬ original sound – allbelong.co

As if things couldn’t get any stranger, when Corbett sent an official claim through Airbnb about the artwork, the Airbnb Bandit did pay, but only a portion of what was asked. Then when she asked when he could pay the rest of it…he asked for a 5-star review.

Wow. Just…wow.

While the actual identity of this unusual art thief remains a mystery, Corbett is being reimbursed by Airbnb. Plus, she has decidedly made her “negative story into a positive one” by hiring a local artist to create a new painting to hang above her couch, one that features a waterfall view and the Jamestown River visible just outside the listing. Plus, she’s raffling off the airplane painting to raise funds for affordable housing in her area.

This might be one of the weirder Airbnb stories out there, but at least it has a pretty happy ending.

Going thrift store shopping is almost always an adventure, even when you leave with nothing. There’s something about going through donated items that have a history all their own that makes you feel connected to the larger world. Plus, you get a little giddy when you find a good deal on something you didn’t know you always needed.

But sometimes a piece of someone else’s history you find is impactful in an unsuspecting way. A woman in Arizona found herself with one such rare treasure on one of her recent trips to Goodwill. Rose Farmer was perusing the aisles of discarded treasures when she came across the book section and noticed a book that an older woman picked up had lost a slip of paper. The paper turned out to be an encouraging letter from a father to his son tucked into the pages of “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers.

Farmer decided to ask the woman if she could purchase the book the letter escaped from, which started the journey of locating the intended recipient of the sweet note.

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When Farmer opened the note, it read, “Believe Trent—Believe,” with the second occurrence of “believe” underlined twice for emphasis, it appears. “You are loved and respected! So let’s get going, the ride may be bumpy but we will get there. When you believe in yourself as much as I do you will be there,” the handwritten note reads. It is simply signed, “Dad.”

Clearly, whoever “Dad” is, he’s extremely encouraging and hoping his son is able to see his own potential. There’s no other information that indicates what Trent was going through that prompted the note, and there was no addressed envelope to know where the letter was supposed to end up. But the note written in bubbly cursive inspired Farmer to find the person who wrote it or the one it’s supposed to go to, even though there isn’t anything identifiable on the letter.

In the age of social media, anything is possible, and Farmer knows that, which is why she took to the private Facebook group “Go Gilbert” to see if people knew who these people could be. So far, no one has claimed the note, but it seems to already be touching people’s lives.

“It just received so many likes and comments from people,” Farmer told Fox News Digital. “Someone said, ‘I’m not Trent, but this note spoke to me.’ Someone else said, ‘My son’s name is Trent and it’s as if this note was written just for him.’ Everybody just seemed really touched by it.”

Farmer told 12News that one comment in the group read, “I feel like maybe all of us were moved by the note are indeed a Trent, thanks for sharing the love note.”

The note was written on stationery from Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa in California, but outside of that small clue, the determined woman has no other clues to rely on. Here’s hoping the power of social media does its thing and brings the writer of the letter or the intended recipient forward. It would wrap things up with a cute little bow if the now-invested internet users know that Trent finally received his letter.

So many people could use the encouragement handwritten on that piece of paper, and now that it’s public, hopefully the people that need to see it most will find it.

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Japanese photographer Kenichi Ohno has viewers scratching their heads with his seemingly doctored image of an egret stepping into shallow water. After receiving an honorable mention in the Nature in Japan photo contest organized by the All-Japan Association of Photographic Societies (AJAPS), the image went viral as folks tried to suss out whether or not it was the work of some kind of tech wizardry.

The photo, titled “Gap,” is in fact real. No Photoshop. No A.I. Just good ol’ fashioned photography know-how.

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Taking a glance at the image below, it immediately looks as though the egret is superimposed against two different backgrounds. Or perhaps the colors were changed using editing software.

However, in reality, the sun is hitting a wall (seen in the top right corner) at just the right angle so that the wall casts its reflection in the water. The wall is also yellow tinted, explaining the stark color contrast.

Still confused? Fret not. AJAPS provided a pulled-back photograph of the location, where the wall is clearly visible. Seeing the top of the wall and without the egret really puts things into perspective.

That certainly helps, doesn’t it?

And if things still aren’t clicking, this diagram really differentiates the different elements at play.

There. That makes sense, right? Phew. We got there.

You’re not alone. Folks online were just as baffled, intrigued and exhausted after finally figuring it out.

“I SAW IT! I SAW IT! I SAW IT AT LAST!” a person exclaimed on Reddit.

Another wrote, “Wowwwwwww…took me 5 whole minutes of shouting ‘wtf???’ Before I saw it. This one is really good.”

“It seems inexplicable until it clicks, and then suddenly you wonder how you could have seen anything but what it is,” wrote another.

Some people, even after figuring out how it worked, couldn’t quite get their minds to believe it.

“After reading all the explanations I understand what it is…But I can’t bring my mind to reconcile this image,” one person commented.

I think this Reddit user pretty much summed up what we were all feeling in this statement:

“Brains are funny.”

On the contest website, AJAPS called the photo “amazing” and applauded its “strong impact.” Judges complimented the effort Ohno must have put in to be in the right place at the right time with near-perfect conditions (apparently this shot would have been impossible on a windy day).

“It teaches us that a small change can make a big difference in a photo. It’s difficult to shoot nature when there are man-made objects, but in this case they play a good supporting role and enhance the photo,” the site said.

Indeed, make one small change and give the internet’s most mind-boggling optical illusion to date. Well done, Ohno.

Can you imagine living life as a digital nomad? You have a job, but your office changes month to month. You spend a few weeks at a ski resort and then a month on the beach. In between, you make a stop in Europe to visit the Christmas markets. It sounds like a millionaire’s fantasy, right?

Not according to Michelle Joy, 35, a travel writer based in Houston, Texas. She recently explained to Business Insider how she cracked the code on how to stay in vacation rentals and Airbnbs long-term while making it cost less than the $1,800 a month she was spending on a mortgage payment, taxes and utilities.

Joy is the founder of Harbors and Heavens, a blog that documents her travels, inspires “others to see more of the world,” and shares tips and tricks on how to do so affordably.

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“When I started researching places to stay, I quickly decided it would be much cheaper to slow travel and take advantage of long-stay discounts at vacation rentals—so much cheaper, actually, that it made me question whether I ever wanted to pay rent or a mortgage again,” Joy wrote in Business Insider.

Her math also works for the average renter in Houston, where the average property will set you back $1,795 a month. Further, living at other people’s properties means you don’t have to pay for costly home repairs, new furniture or gas and electric bills.

Joy’s trick is finding places in the offseason with plenty of available units that can be rented at a lower rate. She may miss out on some seasonal activities but is still on a permanent vacation.

“When I’m searching for a long-term stay at a bargain, I look for popular and seasonal vacation destinations with a large concentration of short-term rentals, like Daytona Beach, Florida, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,” she wrote for Business Insider. “Towns with a lot of individually owned condos typically have plenty of rentals on sites like Airbnb, the platform I typically book on.”

“To get a good deal, I make my reservations for the offseason and book for at least a month at a time,” Joy continued. “Many rentals give weekly discounts, but the nightly rate bottoms out once you hit the monthly rental rate, typically at the 28- or 30-day mark.”

For example, Joy recently stayed at a vacation rental in Snowshoe, West Virginia, between the summer and ski seasons. Her 31-day stay cost her around $1200—that’s $600 cheaper than her mortgage, taxes and utilities.

She also recently stayed in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for 35 nights and paid just $1,360.

Joy’s new life as a digital nomad started when things began to open up in the waning days of the COVID pandemic, and she felt the itch to “revenge” travel. Since then, she’s paid off her home in Texas and has no plans to return to living her old lifestyle anytime soon. She looks forward to living in vacation rentals in affordable international tourist destinations such as Thailand, Indonesia, Croatia and Portugal.

“Being nomadic and hopping from rental to rental may not suit everyone, but my lifestyle and schedule are flexible, so it allows me to combine housing and travel costs into one expense and experience living in different places,” she wrote.

But she hopes her travels inspire others to leave their comfort zones and see the world. “It’s time to make your dreams happen,” she wrote on Instagram. “Don’t put it off until or wait for someone else to do it for you. You are capable of creating a life you love on your own.”

People often think they know how they would react in an emergency situation, especially after details emerge on how someone else handled it. It’s easy to say, “Oh, I would’ve just done this,” but in reality, most people have no idea what they would do in an emergency, especially if they aren’t trained. We hope we would respond appropriately while simultaneously hoping we never have to find out.

One seventh grader found out exactly what his reaction to an emergency situation would be when his bus driver lost consciousness while driving a bus full of children. Dillon Reeves was riding the bus when he noticed his bus driver’s body go limp and her hand fall off the steering wheel. Just a few minutes before, the bus driver appeared to be hot and was fanning herself with her hat before alerting the station that she wasn’t feeling well over the handheld radio.

Before the driver could get the bus to safety, she passed out. That’s when Dillon jumped out of his seat and ran to the front of the bus.

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The middle schooler immediately took control of the situation by grabbing the wheel and bringing the bus to a safe stop. He also made sure to tell the students on the bus to call 911. While it looks like he had trouble figuring out how to shift the gear into park, he was able to hold his foot on the break until help comes, which included two bystanders, according to Good Morning America.

“I asked him, ‘Dillion, how did you know what to do? How did you know how to drive that bus?’ and he said, ‘I watch her do it every day,'” Dillon’s stepmom, Ireta Reeves, said at a press conference.

Thanks to Dillon’s quick actions, none of the children were harmed and the driver was able to get medical care. Currently, the bus driver is still in the hospital for testing and observation.

Watch the heroic action below:

After years of production hell, Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen, aka The Flash, is finally getting a solo movie. But it’s not really a solo movie. He has some pretty big colleagues along for the ride, including the Michael Keaton iteration of Batman/Bruce Wayne. Barry is also joined by Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, the cousin of Kal-El, otherwise known as Superman. It’ll be the first movie to feature Supergirl since 1984’s doomed Supergirl, though the TV version with Melissa Benoist ran for six seasons.

But who is playing Supergirl in The Flash?

Her name is Sasha Calle, and the film’s latest trailer was the first time audiences had seen her take on the famed comic book character. Though The Flash is her first movie, she’s very experienced in TV. From 2018 through 2021 — basically up to when she nabbed the role of Supergirl — Calle appeared on The Young & the Restless. She played chef Lola Rosales (later Lola Rosales Abbott). Soap operas are difficult work, with long hours and herculean amounts of memorization. Over her tenure on the show, which turns 50 this year, she did a whopping 273 episodes, which is mighty impressive.

Calle is of Colombian descent, which makes her the first Latinx actress to play Supergirl. Her character has the same superpowers as her cousin, meaning that right now she’s the only person cast as a character who can do what Superman/Supergirl can do. Then again, newish DCEU co-honcho James Gunn is hard at work on his own new Superman movie, and it’s unclear how Calle — or anyone in The Flash or Aquaman — will fit into his new vision of the franchise. Hopefully she’ll be around for a long time to come.

Diddy is a businessman through and through. Across every era of his career, the producer has birthed a memorable item, whether tangible or intellectual. His success over the decades has earned him enough capital to enter the talk to potentially become the majority stakeholder of BET. But there were a few times when the entertainer gave away free promotion to a company outside that he did not spearhead.

However, those days are long gone. Diddy made that known loud and clear during his surprise appearance at the Something In The Water festival. Joining Pharrell and Busta Rhymes on stage, the entertainers made a slight lyric change to their 2001 song, “Pass the Courvoisier, Part II.”

A track all about their love of smooth liquor and partying, the musicians replaced the cognac brand name Courvoisier with Diddy’s vodka company Circoc. Sharing the performance clip with the caption, “Last night was magical,” fans quickly chimed in to share how clever the modification was.

The original lyrics of the chorus sung by Pharell with the beloved adlib being rapped by Busta, originally was “We gon’ tell that n***** (Pass the Courvoisier) / We gon’ tell that brotha (Pass the Courvoisier) / Everybody sing it now (Pass the Courvoisier) / Everybody sing it now (Pass the Courvoisier).”

While the updated lyric was “Pass the Ciroc this way.” The song originally featured on Busta Rhymes’ fifth studio album, Genesis, has long been used to amp up parties since its release over 20 years ago.

Check out a few fan reactions below.

This isn’t the first time that that lyrical update has been performed. Nonetheless, fans were still giddy over the line as it was performed last night.

This year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a mostly joyful affair. Both headliner Roy Wood Jr. and Joe Biden each delivered sets, roasting the likes of Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Ron DeSantis, even the president himself. It wasn’t a soirée for the history books, like the ones featuring Michelle Wolf or Stephen Colbert (in character as his rightwing blowhard of the same name), but nice is good sometimes, too. There was even a fun little reunion on hand.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, movie star and, lest we forget, former governor of California, delivered a video message, addressing the media, some of whom he’s squabbled with in the past. Nevertheless, he sang the praises of a free press, then brought out an old pal: Danny DeVIto, his costar in Twins as well as the male pregnancy comedy Junior.

The two were seen hobnobbing in what appeared to be Schwarzenegger’s home alongside his two donkeys, Lulu and Whiskey, whom he’s shown off multiple times in the past. DeVito mostly busied himself trying to feed the animals, at one point jokingly complaining, “I come over here, I’m gonna get bit by a horse.”

At one point Lulu nearly chews off DeVito’s finger, to which Schwarzenegger says, “Good girl, good girl.” Perhaps it was revenge for that time DeVito tricked him into getting high by slipping some marijuana into his pasta while they were making Junior.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Coachella 2023 was one for the history books. The beloved music festival in the desert had several high points, including Blackpink and Bad Bunny’s record-setting performances. However, the fallout from Frank Ocean’s seemingly disappointing return to the event is far from over.

Although the “Novacane” singer took the stage for the first weekend, he dropped out of his headlining performance set for the second weekend, which reportedly cost the organizers millions in profits. While Ocean admitted that his solo set was “chaotic” because it had been years since he graced the stage and the live stream was pulled at the last minute, those attending the festival took out their phones to record the performance on social media.

Despite not attending Coachella, according to Variety, Los Angeles-based filmmaker Brian Kinnes was hit with a cease-and-desist by AEG, a festival partner, over unauthorized footage from Ocean’s set. “I’m just combining what’s already publicly available,” Kinnes told the outlet.

Supposedly, Kinnes sourced around 450 Ocean videos posted online over 80 hours. Then Kinnes allegedly sent the best audio clips to a sound engineer to create the final audio file.

“Essentially, [AEG’s] claims are pretty frivolous and almost completely baseless,” said Kinnes as he states, “[I] did not plan on making a single penny” from the video.

AEG disagrees. Although the performance was supposed to be streamed live on YouTube for free, it was not. If it was, the exclusive rights to the footage from Coachella belong to AEG. AEG’s notice demanded that Kinnes “remove and destroy all audio and video content of musical performances from the Festival…failure to do would lead to further legal action.” Kinnes’ footage has since been removed.

However, this isn’t the first time Kinnes has pulled videos across social media of festival footage. In 2017, he created a video of Ocean’s 2014 FYF Fest performance, which was also removed from the internet. Kinnes defends his creations, citing legendary hip-hop group Beastie Boys’ fan-shot 2006 concert film Awesome; I F*ckin’ Shot That!