I like to push buttons. Elevator buttons are fun to push. Even more fun to push are BIG buttons. What are some buttons that are really large?
* Soda pop machine buttons (those big ones)
* Car horn
* Those closet lights where the whole light is a button
* One can almost consider a door to be a button, because you push it. But you don't really crawl behind a button like you do with a door. And buttons have more of a spring-like motion, not a hinge motion.
* The CTA heat button (at the train stops there's shelters that have heat lamps, the button is a big metal button)

Last friday there were a few guys out with video cameras scoping out Chicago's Wacker Drive. photo 1, photo 2. There was enough of them, and they looked "real" enough that they were "big-time" movie people planning out their scenes. It's rumored that the next Batman movie will have some scenes in lower Wacker. Maybe these were the filmmakers scoping it out!

The Chicago Film office has announced that the Chris Nolan-directed film will be shooting in the city from July 31 until August 21. The office says that both Christian Bale and Michael Caine will be filming in Chicago at that time.

Dots on the sidewalk left by people's gum. It's quite amazing how so many dots form.

The history of sidewalk gum dots.
A) For all these gum spots to appear, there has to be lots of people who spit their gum out on the sidewalk--not into a piece of paper, not on the street, not on the grass--but right on the sidewalk.
B) The gum has to be stepped on by some unlucky person---not kicked over, not picked up, not rained into the curb--but actually stepped on.
C) Then the gum stays and stays, accumulating dirt through time. Becoming the round black dot--joining many of its friends.

It would be fun to play connect the dots with all those gum dots. Either take a photograph and draw in some lines or use a piece of chalk and draw right on the sidewalk making some sort of image or message with these dots.

Or--one could purposefully place the dots on the sidewalk to strategically create an image or message. (although i don't like the idea of permanently vandalizing public space, maybe the dots could be removed or something)

What sort of image/message should be hidden on the sidewalk?

Gum theme ideas:
* spell out "chew on this"
* spell out "no gum"

Walking theme ideas:
* image of walking person
* image of feet, maybe footprints

Random theme ideas (relating to how one can interpret seemingly random gum dots on the sidewalk to mean something):
* spell out "Be random"
* spell out "look for meaning"

Misc ideas
* make the gum dots be different cities on a map of USA.
* Connect the dots is very simliar to creating your own constellation with stars in the sky. Maybe with this project it could be a Little dipper on the sidewalk. We can't see many stars in the city, so recreating them on the sidewalk would be an urban constellation!

Great news!

An America 24/7 rep sent me an email saying that I was accepted into the Illinois book! I'm waiting for her to respond with which photo was accepted. Here's a gallery of the 50 photos I submitted: http://www.spudart.org/photo/america247. At this page, each photo has the actual description that was submitted to the contest.

From May 12-18, 2003, nearly 4,000 professional photographers and tens of thousands of amateurs participated in America 24-7, the watershed event of the new digital photography age. Over one million photos were taken of America in just that one week. The big master volume is now on sale. Fifty seperate books--one for each state--will be published simultaneously in October 2004. I got into the Illinois book.

That was a crazy week. I took over 2,000 photos, it was a lot of fun running around taking photos of EVERYTHING. Since I hadn't heard back from them in such a long time, I had written off getting into the book, so this is certainly a pleasant surprise. Now I wonder which photo got selected...

UPDATE:
Seven photos were selected to appear in the Illinois 24/7 book! SEVEN! I posted the seven photos in a flickr set at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spudart/sets/72157600145636325/

Listening to a baseball game's tv and radio broadcast is like being at a party and listening to two conversations at once.

This party has the Chicago Cubs' Ron Santo/Pat Hughes on one side, and the White Sox's annoying Darrin Jackson/Ken Harrelson on the other side. In an odd way, i listen to Jackson/Harrelson just to fuel my fire for not liking the White Sox.

For my entire life i always thought someone like a car salesman is called "swarmy." But today I was corrected. It's "smarmy." That just sounds wrong.

GoLive is for the creative individual and Dreamweaver is for corporate cogs...

Both web design programs Adobe GoLive and Macromeda Dreamweaver have windows that control a site. These windows have a side for local files on your computer and a side for server files on the ftp server.



GoLive puts the local files on the left, with the server files on the right. Dreamweaver flip-flops that order. I always work in GoLive and whenever I go in Dreamweaver, i get screwed up.

The interesting part is this represents the spirit behind each program. We read left to right, so the whatever is in the left window pane is the first priority--the area where a project starts.

GoLive has the local files on the left--representing the feisty individual creating files on his/her desktop. Then uploading them to the web for the world to see their unique vision.

Dreamweaver has the server files on the left--representing the corporate cog that has to first go to the ftp server and then downloaded them to their computer to slave away on.

There's this fantastic croquet sweater on ebay. It's so hilarious. Check out the back of the sweater. The guy is in a very interesting position behind the girl. Oh yeah! I would wear it to one of our croquet matches as a joke.

The only problem is that the other person bidding on this sweater has a very high proxy bid. It's already up to $15.53.

It does comfort me that there is someone else out in this world that would wear a sweater featuring croquet. I wonder who it could be. Is this person buying it for real--or like me, as a joke.

Being who you are, and facing against the wind...

The phrase "against the wind" is quite interesting how it functions in nature and society. There are some wonderful parallels... Here's one example:

One of the rules learned by an airline pilot is to fly against the wind when taking off or landing the aircraft, or when seeking to climb above a storm. People learned this rule from the birds. In ordinary flying the bird goes with the wind. But if it meets danger, it turns into the wind, even if it means flying directly into the sun.
--Lutheran Hour Ministries Online: Riding High

If you find any interesting items that speak about "against the wind," please post them here in the comments.

My twin brother Erik has a new interesting blog over at www.unlikelymoose.com/blog. Check it out.

Every Friday at work, we have New Toy Friday. This Friday was three-foot long sticks of gum bought at the dollar store. The challenge was to see if one could fit an ENTIRE piece of yardstick gum into his/her mouth at once.

THE SPECS:
* THREE feet of gum.
* 24 servings in one package.
* 2 grams of sugar per serving, so...
* 48 grams of sugar... that's just like a can of soda.
Surely this would be a breeze.

THE PLAYAZ:
* Billy: Blue Raspberry
* Dave: Strawberry (pictured above)
* Matt: Green Apple

Upon the first couple bites it was deemed that all flavors of the gum were "icky."

Things were going pretty good at first. Happily chewing on gum. *chew* *chew* happy Tribune employees having a jolly good time.

Then it quickly changed into the pure CHEWING CHALLENGE!!! Fellow employees soon became grossed out by the sound of gum smacking. Colored drool was extruding from our lips. It was clear that strategies were needed to be employed to accomplish our mission.

STRATEGIES FOR CHEWING 3 FEET OF GUM AT ONCE:
1) Gum packing:
Billy opted to go with the method of rolling the gum up into a tight package and shoving it into his mouth. Dave and I merely chomped off pieces at a time.

2) Gum stick as tool:
It's easier when you clump all the gum onto one side of your mouth. To achieve this, you can use your unchewed gum as a stick to mush the gum onto one side.

3) Laughter:
Laughing does not help. It only increased the extrusion of drool.

4) Talking:
Talking on a cell phone with 2 feet of gum in your mouth is quite challenging. Leave this only to the pros.

5) Careful chewing
Do not bite your lip. I bite my lip in three different places causing blood to infect my gum. Bloody gum. Not good.

6) Toothpaste and toothbrush:
Essential post-game ritual. This feat is like swishing soda around in your mouth for 15 minutes.

Joe Schmo
By far the best reality show out there. It's a reality show, but everyone is actors except for one person. The show is so good that I would actually watch it over and over. Even though the Apprentice was good, I wouldn't watch it again.

Joe Schmo was just an interesting look into humankind. The non-actor, Matt Gould, was an excellent choice. A nice guy, but then someone who would also get pissed off and stand up for things.

Since February 2002, the most visitors to spudart.org from one country (besides US and Canada) is from the Netherlands. Welcome Netherlanders! "Ik houd van Nederland. Je houtene schoenen passen mij goed. Zou u schoenen maken van bonbon laten?"
.
Here are the page totals from the top countries.
6161 .nl (Netherlands)
3559 .jp (Japan)
3424 .uk (United Kingdom)
2740 .de (Germany)
2625 .se (Sweden)
2341 .au (Australia)
1831 .fr (France)
1487 .mx (Mexico)
1138 .be (Belgium)

After finding a Chicago Cubs mug at the Tribune Tower's shop (see previous post), I wanted to see if any of the stores by Wrigley Field had any more options. So wearing my work clothes, I headed off to Wrigley Field just as the Cubs finished their game with the Athletics. I used to live in that neighborhood, so i was used to the post-game crowd. But this time I was actually shopping in the stores after work.

Even though there were a ton of guys not wearing any sort of Cubs clothes or hats, i still felt like a complete dork. I felt like the yuppies at Wrigley that the Sox fans make fun of all the time.

What store in Chicago has the best selection of Chicago Cubs mugs?
Not any of the stores by Wrigley Field
Not Sportmart
Not any tourist trap in downtown Chicago
Not Walgreens
But our very own Tribune Tower with its tiny little shop in the corner of the building. Great selection.

While on the train home on Friday, two strangers were talking to each other. As one got up and left she wished him a good evening. And he replied, "same to you." How many ways are there to express that you wish the same onto the other person when they say "good evening"?

"you too"
"same to you"
"you also"

There's gotta be some sort of nice old-time traditional phrase which sounds more romantic.

A couple days ago i heard someone on the el say, "I went back to my building after lunch" (in reference to her work building). I like that I don't refer to the where i work, the Tribune Tower, as "my building." It's the "Tribune Tower." There's prestige and honor being able to say "Tribune Tower"--it's got identity, rather than just some "my building."

Thinking about shadows has reminded me about an old project that never got finished. To take a piece of string the same length as the height of the sears tower -- 1450 feet. Attach one end of the string to the corner base of the Sears Tower and then take the string and walk down the street and stretch it out to full length. I wonder how far the string will go. Let's do the math together, shall we?

1450 feet divided by 3.
That's 483 yards.
Crap. That's like almost five football fields long.
Let's think of it another way, because we don't really have football fields right in the middle of downtown Chicago.
A city block in Chicago is 660 feet. That's 2.20 blocks. That's it? That's nothing! I can so do this! How about we map this out.

Here's a big photo with green lines representing where the string might go. And here's a closeup.

Dang, it's gonna stretch across the bridge all the way to union station. Whoa. Maybe I'll just start at the corner of the Sears Tower, measure the distance with my wheel measurer. And then at the 1450 point, I'll mark an X on the sidwalk and take some photos of the X with the Sears Tower in the background--maybe photoshop in a graphic line.

But one of the things this does is to demonstrate the sheer height of the building into other terms that we are more familiar with. We can walk the distance horizontally on the ground. We are much more familiar with distances that are horizontal rather than vertical.

A shadow of a pole going over a manhole got me thinking the other day about shadows. I could make cardboard cutouts of shapes and create my own shadows with this new generator i got. And then take photographs of the shadows.

There could be some interesting compositions to make. What sort of shadows should i make? And where?
-- Godzilla shadow
-- Groundhog
-- foreshadowing--tell future
-- a person's shadow
-- airplane

Ever get hungry while in front of your computer with no food? Now you can pig out on pizza right from your own keyboard! Here's some ascii pizza emoticons for you to devour!
o small pizza
O medium pizza
@ pizza with everything on it
^ slice of pizza
< slice of pizza
> slice of pizza
) just the crust
# one way to cut up a pizza into slices
* another way to cut up a pizza
X and another way to slice up the tasty dish
ñ thin crust pizza from side view
= deep dish pizza from side view
\ cheesy bread!
! cheesy dipping into sauce
6 buffalo wing
ÿ pizza cut in half
© pizza with one really long anchovie
Æ pizza with a really weird shaped anchovie

just to clarify:
funky clunky is good.
dunky clunky is bad.

I'll give one word. The first person to comment will leave a word related to that initial first word. The next person will leave a word related to the second word. The next person leaves one word related to that and so on. The word is: pencil.

Per the request of Laura k to leave a political post, here's one:

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky wants to replace Alexander Hamilton with Ronald Reagon on the $10 bill, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif) wants Reagan on the $20, and Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) prefers to replace John F. Kennedy on the 50-cent piece with the Gipper.

Why not just make a forty-cent piece to feature our 40th president? That way you can pay your highway tolls with a Reagon.

Let's not stop there. How about a coin for each president? The penny would have George Washington. The two-cent piece for our 2nd president, John Adams. A 19-cent piece for Rutherford B. Hayes.

The positives so outweight the negatives:
Postives:
* Americans forced to learn our nation's history
* Boon for coin collectors
* Pay EXACT change with just ONE coin.
* It's fun
* America will learn math--"Well I got a 13-cent Milllard Fillmore and a 29-cent Harding..."
Negatives:
* A little confusing. But look at what we learn!

And of course, all these coins would have to different sizes and thicknesses. Let's make the coin of our heaviest president, the 332 pound William Howard Taft, to be the size of a dinner plate. Not only it be a Supersize Me coin, but you could eat dinner off it too!

Here are domains that were previously registered, but their owners recently have not renewed their license, making them available for anyone to pick up.
absolutchicago.com (deleted on 05-06-04)
chicagocontest.com (deleted on 06-04-04)
chicagobox.com (deleted on 04-27-04)
chicagoportrait.com (deleted on 06-07-04)
chicagoportraits.com (deleted on 06-07-04)
kidschicago.com (deleted on 05-25-04)
tabletennischicago.com (deleted on 05-10-04)
thankyouchicago.com (deleted on 05-26-04)
spudmuffin.com (deleted on 06-01-04)
lovespud.com (deleted on 05-20-04)
abnormaldreams.com (deleted on 05-02-04)
geekoffice.com (deleted on 04-30-04)
ninjadog.com (deleted on 05-22-04)
ninjafun.com (deleted on 06-06-04)
slowninja.com (deleted on 04-27-04)
robotbitch.com (deleted on 05-31-04)
cubspark.com (deleted on 05-30-04)
artcot.com (deleted on 05-03-04)
artbelly.com (deleted on 05-31-04)
One of the most surprising was absolutchicago.com, because every year there is a big art event called Absolut Chicago. These domains were found at deleteddomains.com.

How in the world is craig biggio 5th for outfielders in the all-star voting?

Gosh, i've been making a lot of baseball/sport posts lately. Maybe I need to get some other funky stuff going on.

Of all the sports from baseball (MLB), basketball (NBA), football (NFL) and hockey (NHL) I've recorded the team color combination for each team. Each team got two colors: a primary color and a secondary color.
What would you say is the most popular color combination in sports?

On Monday, June 14 Chicago Cub Aramis Ramirez hit a homerun off Houston Astro Roger Clemens. I enjoyed that homerun, because:
1) I started Aramis Ramirez in MLB's Beat the Streak, so he continued my hitting streak to 3 games
2) Aramis is in my starting lineup in my fantasy league. HR=7 points. Cha-ching!
3) It gave the Cubs an extra run
4) It was against blasted Roger Clemens, while Clemens was trying to extend his undefeated winning streak to 10 games. Yeah, i like to see the Cubs ruin Clemens chances at records. Like when the Cubs prevented him from winning his 300th game while the Yankees where in Wrigley Field. Muhahahaha!
5) The homerun gives the Cubs the lead over the evil Astros who are in the same division as the Cubs.
Five Hoorays!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

Wow, a whole week that we can bring our pets into work. Not just a day, but a WEEK. Do plants count as pets? How about my pet rock? He can do tricks!... Sit. Stay. Play dead. And my favorite, roll over. Here's a cute card from bluemountain.com

Did anybody happen to see Chicago Cubs Todd Hollandsworth's jumping catch last night (Sunday, June 13)? He totally faceplanted himself into Angels Stadium outfield wall. It looked like he crushed his Oakley sunglasses. That dude is so early 90's with his Oakley's and long hair. I bet he's even got a hypercolor shirt underneath his uniform. He was even on the 1989 Cubs!

If anyone has a .mpeg, .wmv, .avi or any other movie file of that catch I'd love to have a copy. I wanna replay him smashing into the wall over and over again.

I thought this was common knowledge, but SOMEONE (and you know who you are) thinks that the term "skelbow" is made up. Y'know... the inside part of your elbow?

Also for a few minutes i thought that it was fascinating that you could not actually SEE your elbow. But then someone pointed out to me that if you straighten your arm, then you can see your elbow. Well, there goes THAT idea.

I bought some new shoes and had to lace them up. There always seemed to be different ways to lace shoes, and sure enough there's a website that explains and rates twelve different ways to lace your shoes. For those who cannot see the link, here it is again: http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/lacing.htm.

Which way do you lace your shoes? I'm trying the "Straight (Fashion) Lacing" method.

While yer at it, get some cool shoelaces on amazon.com:

It's interesting to see what what cartoon characters were done by the same person. This will be a repeating feature on the spudart blog. Each time a different actor will be featured. This post features Corey Burton who played a wide range of roles, mostly cold evil villians. But there are some suprising roles too.

	The voice behind the Old Navy commericials is also a ruthless cutting villian...
	...Cold, brutal, scientific approach to war. Shockwave, secretly seeks to overthrow Megatron as leader of Decepticons because he believes logic says he would be better. He was the real bad-a55 of the Decepticons.
	Another cold calculating villian, Dr. Blizzard of the Justice League cartoon, even looks like Darth Tyranus. It makes you wonder if Dr. Blizzard is a secret Jedi Knight. Corey Burton on voicing Dr. Blizzard:"It was kind of simmering--kind of Clint Eastwoody--[and] slightly British tinged. I must have had a bit of a whisper to it for the iciness. Actually, the most difficult voices to do are whispering ones--it puts so much stress on your voice to whisper loudly and you dry out your vocal chords.It's amazing how a stage whisper can be the hardest thing you can do to your voice. That and hysterical laughter wasn't asked to audition for Dr. Blizzard. I'm sure they were already sold because of Brainiac--the iciness in his characterization" (courtesy of Comics2Film).
	Another smart, evil villian, The Brainiac from the Justice League.
	Tomax, one of half of the Cobra Twins. Cobra's first boyband--the prettiest terrorists ever. Tomax was the one with the scar, what's a good corporate mercenary without one? Experts in international finance and corporate law, their filecard states: "They chase you with paper, wound you with your own laws and kill you with the money you loaned them." Now that's a toy for ya!
	Ludwig Von Drakeof DuckTales (1987). He just looks freakin crazy like he's gonna whip out some machine that will stomp Denver to a pancake.
	But then Corey Burton also did the voices of two rough-n-tuff good guys. The official tech spec card for the Autobot Brawn reads, "The most macho of All Autobots." There you have it. No Autobot is more hard-core than Brawn. *GROWL*
	It only makes sense to pair up the tenacious Brawn with Gruffi Gummi of the Gummi Bears. Testosterone wrapped up in a cute cuddily bear.
	Burton is also the voice behind Rock 'em Sock 'em robots. Here you move into position and brutally beat your opponent's robot until you knock his block off. How much more gruesome can you get? Pure carnal destruction leads to...
	...the roles that make no sense. Chip? the stupid wimpy human in the Transformers that's always tagging along getting into trouble where the autobots have to bail him out? C'mon. But it only gets worse...
	...Dale of Chip 'N' Dale's Rescue Rangers! WTF. Dale is the total moron of the show who has no clue. Side note: That looks like an Old Navy shirt Dale is wearing there.
	And this just falls into the the "What in the freakin World is this" category. Xiao Fung of Jackie Chan Adventures. That thing is supposed to be the wind demon.

There's a message board on Burton's site and I left a message for him:
---------
Corey, which was your favorite Transformer role to perform?
Shockwave, Brawn, or Sunstreaker, or Spike?

Shockwave was so bad and evil he could emit ethal beams of energy from anywhere on the electomagnetic spectrum: gamma rays, X-rays, visible light, infrared rays, radio waves, etc. Then you got Brawn, second strongest Autobot, who can lift 190,000 pounds and knock down a small building with one punch. But Sunstreaker loves his sleek styling, and is a very calm, competent, and ruthless war machine. And of course there's Spike, the young human sidekick who could be annoying, but helpful like the time when he was able to knock of Starscream's blaster with a rock.

That was such a range from cold hard core villian to tough hero to egoist to sidekick human. Was there any favorites?

A big fan,
matt
-----------

Look out kids! New DVDs released today:
For the Mr. T obssessed: A-Team First Season and for robot-lovers: RoboCop Triology. Although I guess RoboCop wasn't really a robot like Transformers, but the movie was so cheesy that I like it.

A search on google for "bird emoticon" yields nothing good. So here is the internet's first bird emoticon:
~*~
the asterick makes it look like it's a bug, let's try this:
~8~
Not bad. Kinda looks more like a bee there. how about this:
-*-
That's too abstract, maybe some more motion in its wings:
\*/
hmm, that doesn't look like a bird. Try this bird face:
:^
or maybe this jumbo bird in flight:
-^ó–ó^-
or a sideways flying bird:
}
That } looks like the type of birds we'd make in grade school, except you'd draw the shape so it goes horizontal, not vertical. Maybe a simple v works just fine:
v
or maybe it should be a w
w
no that w doesn't make any sense. Maybe the v needs a head:
V>
yeah, yeah. now it just needs a tail:
~(V>
is it better with a different tail?:
`-( V'>
haha, now it looks like a mouse.

The plastic bottle. How can we use it for other purposes?

I want to make some art using a platic bottle. Using just stuff from my desk. Maybe some cool action bottle figures or something.

The voice behind Destro and Devastator were both played by Arthur Burghardt!
No wonder why you never saw them both in the same room at the same time!

More radio stations should have streaming audio. It allows them to see EXACTLY when people are listening and when they turn off the radio.

Anyone know of some good streaming radio talk shows?

What? : inquistive.
Whatever. : dismissively shuts down the inquistive.

Two words, so similiar looking, yet so different in meaning.

Tuesday, June 8, 2004 spells the end of the planet Venus as it will smash into the sun. Many scientists believe that Venus will survive its plummet into the sun.

Chicago scientist Matt Maldre was quoted in the Times, "It will go in one end and come out the other. Much like a White Castle hamburger goes in your mouth and out the other end."

Because the sun is made of lots of gases, you'll be able to see Venus while it transits through the sun. It will appear as a black dot while inside the sun. When it comes out, Venus will have pieces of corn and M&M's lodged inside of it.

Belgian artist Benjamin Verdonck sits in a swallow's nest hanging 30 meters up on the glass wall of a building in Brussels, May 3, 2004. Verdonck was trying to hold conversations with passersby on the street below as part of a city arts festival.

As we didn't have enough candy holidays:
* February: Valentines Day
* March/April: Easter
* October: Halloween
* December: Christmas
We now have June as National Candy Month.

Well... this is a good thing. More candy the better. But won't the candy get all soft and melty in June?

biphonal
adj. Holding multiple phones to your ears or in front of you at the same time.

From the Daily Candy

What a cool bike! Stingray Bicycle