Africa!!

Making music with gloves

Tiny Desk concerts are usually pretty cool anyway, but this particular one turns the cool up past 11 with Imogen Heap.

After performing 2 songs, she puts on the Mi.Mu Gloves and puts on an amazing performance using only her voice, her hands and a Macbook Pro.

Powerful stuff.

Small things 30 Aug

• Norway's Navy has bar codes so when they return home they can Scandanavian...........
• What did the pirate say on his 80th birthday? AYE MATEY
• If you see a robbery at an Apple Store does that make you an iWitness?
• If a child refuses to sleep during nap time, are they guilty of resisting a rest?
• Password recovery security questions are easy enough to guess, or research. They shouldn't be asking things like 'city of birth' or pet's name'. They should ask things like 'reason your mother left your father', or 'secret celebrity crush'.
• Now that pay phones are gone, how the heck are we supposed to escape from the Matrix?
• Imagine that your government was replaced by idiots on purpose, because you're all on a reality TV show, to see how long you tolerate them before you do something.

Classic paintings re-imagined

designcrowd.fr has some pretty amazing contests and the first one I ever saw was one where classic painting had celebrities inserted into them.




Here are 2 of my faves from that contest.

This is the ribbon I'm thinking of putting on my car

Things I learned lately 30 Aug

• Movie extras are generally required to sign an NDA, barring them from talking about what they saw on set. Ironically, that means this was almost literally the first rule on the set of Fight Club.
• What is supposed to happen when you land on 'free parking' in Monopoly is.... nothing.
• In the official Monopoly rules, if someone lands on your property and you don't notice and demand the rent before the next player rolls the dice, they don't have to pay you.
• If you land on an unowned property in Monopoly and choose not to buy it, it's supposed to get sold to the highest bidder.
• The actual Monopoly rules don't state that you can't earn money from your properties while you're in jail.
• The Ontario government is forcing gas stations to display anti-carbon tax stickers on every gas pump, or face up to $10,000 fines.

Small things 23 Aug

• Fossil fuels are made from dead dinosaurs and plastic is made from fossil fuels, ergo plastic dinosaurs are made from dead dinosaurs.
• When the Clinton, Trump and British Royal Family assassins all ran into each other at Jeffery Epstein's prison cell. That must have been awkward, yah?
• When the security question on the web site asks "What's the name of your favourite pet?", your pets watch to see what you answer. Oh yes, they do.....
• Bottled water companies don't produce water. They produce plastic bottles.
• Things you can't say to grandma: "I'm not hungry."
• Next time you're in the meat department, grab a steak, 'accidentally' drop it on the floor and say "Whoops, now it's ground beef!"
• Computers were once a huge scientific breakthrough. Now we use them to look at cats.
• Lasers were once a huge scientific breakthrough. Now we use them to play with cats.

Stay calm!!

Stay classy

I don't keep it a secret how I feel about politicians whose policies I don't agree with, or whose values don't align with mine. But I stop myself short of using insulting, degrading or disrespectful language. I don't do it myself and I don't tolerate it from my friends.

The next time you think about using colourful language to label someone you don't like, ask yourself this question: Would you call them out like that in person, face to face? How about in front of their kids and their mother? If the answer is 'no', and you damned well know it is, then don't say it. If you do, you'll either be hearing from me, or if it's a repeat offence, I disconnect.

It is perfectly fine to disagree with people, but you don't have to stoop to back alley gang slang to prove it. Everyone deserves to be treated like a human being.

OK, but not really.....

Things I learned lately 23 Aug

• Researchers calculated that if the entire US stopped eating meat, it'd be like taking 60 million cars off the road (re: greenhouse gas emissions).
• In Indiana it is illegal to attend a public event or use public transport within 4 hours of eating an onion or garlic.
• In Oak Bay, BC, you can be fined $100 if your parrot talks too loud.
• Some Canadian freight trains are as long as 4.3 km (14,000 ft).
• Of the 7 major freight train companies in North America, Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian National (CN), Canadian Pacific (CP) and Kansas City Southern, only CN can service coast to coast.
• More than 250,000 people have signed a petition renaming the stretch of 5th Avenue from 56th to 57th Street renamed. If it is successful, Trump Tower's new street address will be '725 President Barack H Obama Avenue'.
• The Frigidaire appliance brand is owned by AB Electrolux.
• The 2013 Chevy Impala was the last passenger car sold in North America to feature a front bench seat, a feature once commonplace in automobiles.
• There are several long 10 letter words that you can spell using only the top row of a QWERTY format keyboard such as proprietor, repertoire, and—fittingly enough—typewriter.

Half sandwich place

Small things 16 Aug

• Tell any random teen that you used to get Netflix delivered by mail and see if they believe you.
• A different version of you exists in the minds of everyone who knows who you are.
• When you eat spaghetti, just gather some up on your fork and use those kitchen scissors to cut the long dangly parts off, which will fall back into the plate. Double-dare: Do this in a restaurant....
• SAT score, credit score, cholesterol level, then A1C. Your life is nothing but a series of scores.
• A banker, a worker, and an asylum seeker are sitting at a table with 20 cookies. The banker takes 19 cookies and warns the worker, "Watch out, the asylum seeker is going to take your cookie away!"
• Sun: One day, I'll destroy your whole planet.    Humankind: Not if we do it first!
• Do dumplings imply the existence of a large dumple?
• Isn't it weird that women don't name their daughters after themselves? There are no Becky Jr.s

Dumb fish!

Be good

"Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed: compassion, without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity."

~Dalai Lama

Things I learned lately 16 Aug

• Rick Wiles preaches that meatless burgers are a satanic plot to change the DNA of humans so that they can't be born again.
• Since 2007, the fleet of McDonald’s delivery trucks in the United Kingdom has run on biofuel derived from waste cooking oil generated in McDonald’s restaurants.
• The label of Heinz Ketchup specifically calls the product “Tomato Ketchup” because when the iconic brand was introduced in 1876, there were many varieties of ketchup such as mushroom, oyster, and walnut.
• The song "Drinking in LA" got little notice in the US. It charted to 35 in Canada, but broke the top 20 in Europe, the Nordic countries and the UK.
• There are people who peel the coating off chicken nuggets before eating them.

Free speech

Songs that are 50 years old this year (2019)

• The Archies - Sugar sugar
• The 5th Dimension - Aquarius / Let the sunshine in
• The Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Women
• Sly & the Family Stone - Everyday people
• Elvis - Suspicious minds / In the ghetto
• CCR - Proud Mary / Bad moon rising
• Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline
• The Beatles - Get back / Something
• Zager & Evans - In the year 2525
• Stevie Wonder - My cherie amour
• Oliver - Good morning starshine
• The Guess Who - These eyes
• Bob Dylan - Lay lady lay
• Ray Stevens - Guitarzan
• Harry Nilsson - Everybody's talkin'
• Marvin Gaye - I heard it through the grapevine
• BJ Thomas - Hooked on a feeling

Flying with birds

Can you imagine flying with birds in formation so close you could reach out and touch them?

It's for real!

Small things 9 Aug

• Lollipops. When you'd prefer flavoured saliva.
• Industry analysts are finally suggesting what I've been saying for years - by the time Canada builds its full fossil fuel exporting infrastructure, there may no longer be a market for it.
• Hissy fit: A cat tantrum.
• In ancient times, cats were worshipped as gods. They have not forgotten.
• A cat is always on the wrong side of a door.
• You don't really wash your hands. They wash each other and you just stand there and watch.
• Therapist: Your wife says you never buy her flowers. Is that true? Him: To be honest, I never knew she sold flowers....

Oh yeah? Watch this.........

Rediscovering Google Maps

OK, so I didn't actually rediscover Google Maps in the purest sense. I do use it whenever I'm going somewhere I've never been before, especially the maze-like neighbourhoods that we have in Calgary. One could get lost trying to find your way through Bridlewood Common to Bridlewood Way to Bridlewood Lane to Bridlewood Park, etc.

But with the road construction situation being what it is most summers in our city, even getting from a familiar part of town to another familiar part of the other side of town can be a challenge. Google Maps to the rescue.

Now that Maps considers live traffic and is even made aware of road closures in almost real time, it does the kind of navigation job that you could almost never accomplish on your own without opening Maps and checking the entire route manually. It's gotten to the point now where Darlene insists we let Google light the way any time we're headed to another side of the city.

Oh he did, did he?

Things I learned lately 9 Aug

• In the US, for the period Jan to Jun 2019, the Tesla Model 3 outsold (67,650) all other top 10 electric models combined (38,254).
• In the first half of 2019, Scotland generated enough energy from wind power to supply its homes twice over.
• If the earth were represented by a tennis ball to show size and distance scale, the moon would be the size of a Nerf ball and be 7 feet away. The sun would be 24 feet wide and be half a mile away.
• Seagulls with 5 and a half foot wingspans in the UK have been known to pick off small dogs and lambs. 
• Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady of the United States, would only allow female reporters to attend her press conferences; in doing so, she forced newspapers to hire women as reporters in an era when the vast majority of reporters were men.
• Prior to around 1800, shoes designed specifically for the left and right feet were rare; the majority of people wore “straights”, shoes that had no differentiation between the left and right sides.
• PAM cooking spray, introduced in the early 1960s, was an acronym for the inventor: Product of Arthur Meyerhoff.

Tiny waves and werewolves!

Small things 2 Aug

• If you boil a funny bone it becomes a laughing stock.
• You know you're an adult when you're excited about a crock pot.
• "If you lose one sense your other senses are enhanced. That’s why people with no sense of humour have a heightened sense of self-importance."  ~Anonymous
• Just bring your own snacks into the movie theatre and claim it's emotional support food......
• Dice. The original random number generator.
• Thermometers are speedometers for atoms.....
• Do crabs look at humans and think we walk sideways?

OCD Candy

Sometimes photoshopping is awesome

I absolutely love the great way this photographer photoshops herself into iconic celebrity photos.

Flora Borsi is based in Budapest.

Back in the day....

Things I learned lately 2 Aug

• Every 'c' in the word Pacific Ocean is pronounced differently.
• Penny farthing racing is a thing (YouTube it!)
• Oratoire St. Joseph is one of the most iconic buildings in Montreal; so much so that city law restricts any building from being constructed that exceeds the height of the Oratory. The tip of the dome is thus the highest point in Montreal. The Oratory is Canada’s largest church and boasts the third largest dome in the world.
• They used to stage train wrecks for entertainment until the 1930s.
• In the 1500s, it was noted by European visitors that indigenous people in Mexico used chocolate to treat numerous ailments ranging from dysentery and indigestion, to fatigue and dyspepsia.
• Domesticated dogs have special eyebrow muscles that wolves lack. It's what allows them to give us that puppy dog eye look when they have eye contact with humans.
• Analysts suggest we have reached 'peak car', meaning car sales will only start declining from here.
• There are people who refer to the word theory as a scientific 'guess' that is unproven. The actual definition: A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed, preferably using a written, pre-defined, protocol of observations and experiments.
• The tides don't actually go in and out like how we describe it verbally. The earth rotates through the tidal bulge. So when the tide is 'coming in' at the beach, it's just the beach rotating into the tidal bulge that's always there. (Thanks NDGT)
• The moon creates the same tide no matter the phase. The reason a full moon tide is higher is because it's getting a tidal assist from the sun.