The Sad Song (single link Vimeo video)
posted by empath on Aug 17, 2009 - 18 comments

The Saddest Cat in the World by Maria Konstantinov
posted by Korou on Mar 15, 2009 - 53 comments

Tony Hart (wiki) has died. Clip.
posted by MrMustard on Jan 18, 2009 - 44 comments

Special 3-page edition of Harper’s Index: A retrospective of the Bush era.
posted by Non Prosequitur on Jan 13, 2009 - 37 comments

Meet Lonesome George. George is the last known remaining Pinta Island Tortoise. That's pretty lonely. He's also, according to some, the most famous reptile in the world. via. But there's good news: George might be a dad!
posted by allkindsoftime on Jul 23, 2008 - 25 comments

Your feel-bad story for the day: as a follow-up to this, true love evidently doesn't conquer all. That having been said, your feel-good story for the day: this guy has freaking amazing powers of emotional recuperation ...
posted by WCityMike on Jul 15, 2008 - 65 comments

The record has finally been set for an Onion article (video, actually) to turn into real life. It's now a real game. You can download it. It's free. time: about 1 day. The subject is MMORPGS (pronounced 'more pigs') and how popular they are. (more inside for descriptions) [more inside]
posted by Miles Long on Jun 11, 2008 - 26 comments

"MY DOG SOPHY" by Thomas Monahan This boy, 9, died in a house fire while attempting to rescue his dog Sophie. This article contains a scan the book he wrote for his companion. Devastating.
posted by lilboo on Dec 26, 2007 - 63 comments

What I Killed Today. I work with a lot of injured wildlife. Also not wild animals that are just in a lot of pain. Sometimes I have to euthanize them. I decided to record each animal I euthanize here.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Dec 9, 2007 - 80 comments

Saved By Jesus! Incrediable story out of the Arizona desert. I just feel really bad for the kid in all this. And wonder how both sides of the immigration debate will handle this.
posted by ShawnString on Nov 23, 2007 - 80 comments

A sad story about Animal Crossing and a dying mother. [more inside]
posted by empath on Nov 19, 2007 - 69 comments

The 'Winners' of the Wired News Saddest-Cubicle Contest The winner -- if you can call it winning -- of the Wired News saddest-cubicles contest is David Gunnells, an IT guy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His desk is penned in by heavily used filing cabinets in a windowless conference room, near a poorly ventilated bathroom and a microwave. Here are some of the runners-up
posted by psmealey on Nov 13, 2007 - 51 comments

The great-grandfather could walk six miles to go fishing; the grandfather could walk a mile to go to the woods; the son can't go more than 300 yards from his house. How children lost the right to roam, including a map illustrating the point.
posted by JDHarper on Jun 15, 2007 - 95 comments

Tape Findings. Every week RJ from Sweet Thunder posts excerpts from one of a kind cassette tape recordings he finds at garage sales. Found due to Week 15 [better recording]. Other greats: Week 49, Week 73, Week 86. Dog damn.
posted by 6am on May 19, 2007 - 13 comments

The 25 most exquisitely sad songs in the whole world. (via I Will Dare)
posted by mr_crash_davis on May 9, 2007 - 357 comments

The US Navy Safety office features a new Safety Yikes! Photo every week. Featuring cases such as: 12 foot Sunroof T; Are 20 splices in a 8 splice box too many?; Trust; I don't need a truck; Ladder trouble, 2, 3, 4, 5; Jack Stands; What's the amp rating on a 5/8^ths lug bolt; and the always popular Humans make good tiedowns. Special mention to this nice try.
posted by Mitheral on Apr 27, 2007 - 17 comments

Thailand has some sad insurance commercials. [via]
posted by Sticherbeast on Mar 30, 2007 - 31 comments

David Gonterman is still alive. Gonterman was last mentioned here five years ago. Gonterman has become a long-time Deviant. Gonterman is accepting comissions via his journal. Gonterman is writing a "part autobiography" about a boy who was teased in school and retreated into a fantasy land. Gonterman has made available the first part of this novel (doc). Gonterman has made available the first part of his new furry PI comic series (pdf). If you don't know Gonterman, you are fortunate: this is Gonterman.
posted by 6am on Jan 20, 2007 - 19 comments

Boris Weisfeiler disappeared in Chile. The authorities claim that the experienced outdoorsman had drowned trying to ford a four-foot river. Uncovered documents tell a different story - that Pinochet's military had mistaken the vacationing mathematics professor for a "Jewish spy" and sent him as a political prisoner to the 37,000 acre German expatriate Nazi apocalyptic cult enclave of Colonia Dignidad. There, he was kept alive for at least two years before Paul Schaefer, the founder of the enclave, a Luftwaffe nurse and a serial child molester, most likely had him killed.
posted by Sticherbeast on Nov 22, 2006 - 20 comments

Some dark thoughts about happiness.
posted by Sticherbeast on Jul 10, 2006 - 29 comments

In middle school during the late 80s, the biosphere was the coolness, but it's since fallen on hard times, and will now make way to the unending housing developments between Phoenix and Tucson (top story). Viva la science!
posted by bjork24 on Jun 19, 2006 - 22 comments

The other religious riots. While much of the world's press has covered the Muslim cartoon riots, not nearly as much ink has been spilled over the continuing violence in Nigeria. A good analysis of underlying factors here. A Shell report points to oil as a proximate cause of violence as well. For oil companies, this may not be a bad thing. (If I was more interested in trolling, I'd have framed this as "Christian Leaders Fail to Condemn Religious Violence." The real world's a little more complex).
posted by klangklangston on Feb 23, 2006 - 15 comments

It's a hard life for Kazakh opposition leaders. Even if you didn't have to worry about the government all up in your grill, or the police picking on your relatives, there would still be people (totally unrelated to the government, of course) trying to kill you over business disputes, or something. No wonder the last guy killed himself.
posted by thirteenkiller on Feb 20, 2006 - 8 comments

RIP Baruchito. The flagship hamster of Baruchito's homeCage has passed away after struggling with the stress of a flea infection and the medication applied to it. Baru was just a couple of months shy of three years -- which is a venerable old hamster age. While he may not have been as notorious as certain late pancake-stacked pets, Baru still lived a full life of fuzzy cuteness and aaaawww-inspiring photos. Those of you with hamsters, won't you arrange them now in missing-man formation?
posted by brownpau on Feb 7, 2006 - 17 comments

Cody the Buffalo has passed away at the age of 19. In addition to being in "Dances with Wolves" with Kevin Costner, Cody was also in the film “Radio Flyer.” He also appeared in several commercials, and even appeared with Jay Leno. Last spring, he traveled to the U.S. Mint in Washington, D.C., to participate in the unveiling of a new buffalo-head nickel.
posted by drstein on Jan 30, 2006 - 11 comments

what is the point of it all
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome on Jan 13, 2006 - 39 comments

Get the blues. Today, one of the blues' finest musicians, R.L. Burnside died. Go on, take a look, take a listen.
posted by klangklangston on Sep 1, 2005 - 44 comments

The Last Days of NYC's Fulton Fish Market. A lovely, Mitchell-like paean to the odiferous old fish market that, like the rest of Manhattan, is being sanitized. Here's another, not quite as well done. Here's a great page of old articles and info. Don't like word pictures? Flikr has some really nice galleries. Forgotten New York has a tour of the area around the market. Or maybe you just want today's prices.
posted by CunningLinguist on Jul 14, 2005 - 24 comments

Confessions of an EBay opium addict - Like anyone trolling the Internet at 4 a.m., I had been looking for some kind of temporary drug fix. I found it on eBay under Crafts>Floral Supplies>Flowers, Foliage>Dried. (via Alternet)
posted by mrgrimm on Apr 5, 2005 - 74 comments

As a sufferer of Seasonal Affective Disorder, I was interested to discover this village's proposed solution. Were they inspired by Gustav Graves, d'you think?
posted by Specklet on Jan 21, 2005 - 11 comments

There's a lot to be said for a town that mourns a goose. While on an early morning walk last month, a newspaper reporter happened upon the body of Lucy the goose, who, up until then, had been holding court on the town's waterfront for more than ten years. Kind of a touching story, from a tiny town in Maryland.
posted by emelenjr on Jan 8, 2005 - 26 comments

Death in the snow - a body is found in the frozen North Dakota woods. The cops say the dead Japanese woman was looking for the $1m she saw buried in the film Fargo. But the story didn't end there.
An interesting read via Follow Me Here.
posted by madamjujujive on Jun 12, 2003 - 50 comments

Pioneer 10 space probe finally packs it in for good. So long, little fella...
posted by 40 Watt on Feb 25, 2003 - 27 comments

Remember Lobster Boy? Looks like his performance art / engineering project met a sadly premature end when his house was dismantled for being a fire hazard. Now we may never know what the point was -- or if there was ever a point at all.
posted by brownpau on Apr 20, 2002 - 3 comments

Tie yourself to a half-constructed house on a school campus and live there in solitary confinement while on semi-public display to the world, pissing into a jug and making conch-shell noises from a piece of cardboard and a bullhorn. And do it all in a lobster suit. If that's not performance art, then what is? (Link from a blogger-friend who got it off NextDraft.)
posted by brownpau on Feb 23, 2002 - 12 comments

How sad! DALLAS--From the Bart Simpson "I didn't do it" school of how to avoid taking personal responsibility, we have what could be the start of a trend. Real men, enveloped in scandal and accused of wrongdoing, don't admit mistakes. They don't apologize. They simply express sadness.
Ken Lay
In Dallas, it was the DA's office that pursued convictions--and did so for four months after learning that the drugs were fake.
posted by onegoodmove on Feb 16, 2002 - 10 comments

In October 2000, in the mountains of Utah, three-year-old Gage Wayment wandered away from his father's truck and died of exposure. In July 2001, his father, Paul Wayment, was due to begin serving a 30-day jail sentence for negligent homicide. Instead, he killed himself in the area where his son was found.

Now, Paul Wayment's parents have filed two million-dollar claims against the search and rescue teams alleging that had they "conducted an appropriate and proper search," the boy and his father would still be alive.

It appears the search teams are protected by the Utah Good Samaritan Act, unless they can be shown to have been grossly negligent, but this lawsuit may still have a chilling effect on future search-and-rescue operations.
posted by mr_crash_davis on Dec 3, 2001 - 29 comments