A random snail mail letter was sent to me from a six-year-old thinking I work at the corporate headquarters of McDonalds. He has some incredible ideas for a McDonalds playground design with crazy tubes, slides, and mazes of various levels.
He must have found me by doing a search for McDonalds online, because I often post about McDonalds. And it's not unusual for people to think spudart.org is some sort of official site for stuff, like the official blog for the Cubs announcers, the official site for the tv shows American inventor and Deal or No Deal, and now the official customer service department of McDonalds fielding wonderful ideas about playground design.
How in the world do I respond to him? Please leave your ideas in the comments below.
Check out all of his crazy ideas in this video of me opening the letter and reading it:
While Joe Biden was smacking down Sarah Palin on the Vice-Presidential Debates, the Chicago Cubs were suffering their second playoff loss to the Dodgers. Since Biden was so dominating, he should have gone over and played for the Cubs! They could use the help.
It was a hard choice to decide to watch the VP debates or the Cubs playoff game. I chose the VP debates. Although I'm sure many Cubs fans skipped the debate to watch the game. I'm glad that of all the teams in the playoffs, that MLB chose the Cubs/Dodgers to be on the same time as the presidential debate. Both Illinois and California are clearly going to Obama. That leaves all the other borderline states open to watching the debate.
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The International Olympic Committee has trademarked a line from the Canadian national anthem, "with glowing hearts," and is threatening to sue anyone who uses the line in Canada, as part of the Vancouver Games.
The committee is so serious about protecting the Olympic brand it managed to get a landmark piece of legislation passed in the House of Commons last year that made using certain phrases related to the Games a violation of law. The list includes the number 2010 and the word "winter."
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Ok, so you can't say the phrase "Winter 2010." You can't say, "with glowing hearts." Oh how I would love to grab "Winter 2010 with glowing hearts dot com" as a domain. But I'm too chicken. Please. Someone do it. I want to see what the IOC does.
Whoever gets this domain should link to this post. In fact, I encourage people to write about this (and you could even copy this post word for word) and then the owner of winter2010withglowinghearts.com could link to all of our blog posts. (thanks to sparxmind for this idea).
(Disclaimer, this is just an idea. This is not for real)
Every newspaper has a unique number printed in it. At night on the 9pm WGN News they announce the winning number with a $1,000 prize. People love to gamble. People love the chance to maybe win something. And you get that chance EVERY DAY with a subscription. WOW. SIGN ME UP!
In the newspaper just below the game number is the claim ID. If you have the winning number, you use your claim ID to get your prize.
But what if people just go to the store, and write down a bunch of number/claim ID pairs? Easy solution. Print the number/claim ID in a different spot every day. Then every night the WGN News tells you where to look in your paper for the number. That way it gets people into different sections of the paper.
The winning number is also announced on the website. More traffic to the website!
And if you don't win, then you can enter your number/claim ID every day for the chance to win the monthly prize! Or stack up your points like Pepsi points where you can use your points to buy stuff. Where do you enter your number? On the website, of course.
And if by some chance two people enter in the same claim ID (perhaps they got it from a paper sitting on the train), then the winner must produce the actual paper to win.
Don't think about bringing any balloons filled with helium to Millennium Park in Chicago. Security will tell you to HIDE the balloon. A visitor to the park recently left a comment on one of my blog posts about their experience with the ban:
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Today we took our toddler to Millennium Park just to have some fun. We got ridiculously surprised when one of the security people from the park approached us and politely asked to hide a helium filled balloon that was tide to our son's stroller. We were told that for some reason helium filled balloons are not allowed in the park. Does someone know why they make such ridiculous rules? People who witnessed the conversation with security guard exploded with laugh ! Does that make sense to anyone?
Posted by: Ag on Sep 28, 08 | 7:25 pm
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I can't tell what's more ridiculous, trying to hide a balloon or why helium balloons are not allowed. Here are four ideas why security bans helium balloons at Millennium Park:
Lift-off
If someone gets too many balloons, the person will lift off--causing a security threat.
High-pitched voices
Someone will inhale the helium causing the person to speak in a high-pitched voice. If a crowd of people start enacting in this action, the result will be a crowd of high-pitched speaking people. They might even start to sing, or imitate Michael Jackson. A crowd of Michael Jackson impersonators? Beat it!
Sky pollution
A child might accidentally let go of the balloon, causing it fly away into the sky that is owned by the investors of Millennium Park. "Our sky! Our sky! Our precious sky!"
Illegal photography
Someone might take a photograph of a helium balloon and try to sell it.
Do you have another reason why helium balloons are banned? Leave it in the comments below. Thank you.
Here's the second spudart iMix available on iTunes. Every four months I create a mix of funky, groovy songs from around the world.
Spudart iMix 2 starts off with four delightful songs from France. I especially like the tropical feel of Koop's "Come to Me." The mix moves onto Germany's Peaches electroclash sound of "Do ya" and then a eurodance diddy "Keep the Spirit Alive" by Jan Wayne, also from Germany.
Then we fall into some Japanese breakbeats and funk by Halfby. After that Junior Senior hops us over to Denmark for some electronic funk. We end on a high-energy bubblegum DDR by Italy's Giovanna (aka Jenny Rom). Don't you want to be a wuki wuki? Come on and be a wuki wuki just for me.
Click on any of the songs below to listen, or check out the entire mix on iTunes at this link: Spudart iMix 2. (also check out Spudart iMix 1)
Here's my location request that I sent to them today:
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Want to know the best new place to put a trader joes? I'll tell you where. In the bustling city of Chicago, there lies a neighborhood that has a lack of grocery store options. That neighborhood is right where I live--in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago.
I'll tell you the nexus of the lack of grocery stores. Right at my my intersection. There are no grocery stores within sight. In fact, there is a blank open field just READY for you to build upon. And it's right next to my apartment! It's on Lawrence (a nice high-traffic street) between Bell and Leavitt.
I tell you what. This IS the perfect spot for the next Trader Joes. This location used to be home to D&L Laundry at 2206 W Lawrence Ave. But it got torn down last year, and nothing is getting built at this location. 2206 W Lawrence Ave is YOUR location. 2206 W Lawrence Ave is THE spot for the next great Trader Joes.
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Let's say you want to know which of your friends are fans of the tv show "Lost." Just search for "lost" and hit the "people" tab, and it will bring up all your friends who are fans of Lost.
Recently I was racking my brain trying to remember all of my friends who are designers. Pretty handy.
There's an "OFFICIALLY LICENSED CHICAGO CUBS 3-COIN SET" being sold that features three accomplishments by recent Chicago Cubs players. But uh, hello. Alfonso Soriano did not join the 40-40 club while with the Cubs in 2006. Soriano got 40 homers and 40 stolen bases while playing for the WASHINGTON SENATORS in 2006.
Nice to see that this is fully Licensed & Authorized by the MLB Players Association.
It's overtime in a NFL football game. Your opponent is pinned all the way down to their one-yard line. Your defense goes in and sacks the quarterback! Safety! Two points! Your team wins!
How many times has this happened in NFL history? A safety in overtime. If you are able to answer this question please leave your answer in the comments, and I will give you a high-five. (If you answer, please give your source. Otherwise, I will welcome guesses, but please state that you are guessing).
Print something mysterious on the printer at work. Let the printout sit there, so someone else discovers it. It's fun to make aliens come out of the printer. Here's what my alien said:
GREETINGS
EARTHLINGS.
THE HP LASERJET 4200
IS ACTUALLY AN ALIEN SPY
HERE TO TAKE OVER YOUR PLANET
JUST THOUGHT I’D LET YOU KNOW
HAVE A GOOD DAY.
You can download this file as a pdf. Print and let the takeover ensue.
The World, Justified--Strange Maps A great idea: the world we live in as only one of four possibilities, the others being a left-aligned, centred and right-aligned world. Our world is a justified one, i.e. aligned with both left and right margins.
Artwork featuring Barack Obama The 31 finalists, chosen from over 1000 pieces of art submitted to the Manifest Hope Gallery Contest by MoveOn.org members and other grassroots artists.
88 Topps Cards: One by one Baseball statistician Andy is going through all 792 cards one by one of the 1988 Topps set, posting bits about what makes the card awesome and cool stats about the player or team featured on the card.
Graph showing public transit increase versus gas prices It's amazing to see how traffic to public transit sites have risen almost exactly to the same increase in gas price. We know that this makes sense, but the percent of increase for both is almost exactly the same.
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