Zap2it and Yahoo have it listed as:
"F™tbol Soccer Femenil: Juegos por las Medallas de Oro y Bronce."
Uh. yeeeeah. It's listed for August 26, 9:55am and 5:00pm on channel 44 (the spanish channel)... maybe.

The brilliant post by Erik Maldre about how badminton should have more TV time has inspired the formation of a new olympics. An olympics that is based on the sports that everyone can play. The sports that reside in our backyards. The grand sports of badminton, croquet, grass volleyball, whiffleball, running bases. And it shall be called "BACKYARD OLYMPICS."

On the free wall at work there was a free movie pass to the Yu-Gi-Oh movie premeire. Surely I cannot pass this up. It was an interesting experience. Being in a dark movie theatre completely filled with kids. It was like grade school all over again. All the little voices and conversations... Ironically enough, one of the kids had the exact opposite thought of me, "There are SO many adults here."

Some other fun quotes:
"I've been waiting soooo long for this movie."
"I heard they have EVERY monster in it."
Of course, these quotes are more fun when you imagine a kids hyped up on sweets and pure joy of Yu-Gi-Oh magic.

But there was a fun little story of sharing. Before the movie started, Disney Radio was there giving out free prizes. Kids with a special sticker underneath your seat would get a free prize--A Yi-Gi-Oh Duel Disk Launcher. One of the kids next to me won a prize.

Then they gave out prizes to whoever could answer Yi-Gi-Oh trivia. Which one would imagine that would be chaotic, but actually worked out fine. But the same group of kids also got a trivia question correct, and now had two sets of this Duel Disk Launcher.

A few minutes later, one of these kids (without any prompting from his mom) offered another kid (whom he did not know) his toy, "Excuse me. By any chance would you be interested in having this?" It was very nice to see. But it was also very nice the language he used. Those were his exact words.

It would be interesting find abandoned bicycles in the city and to place signs on them saying something like, "Whom have you forgotten" The rusty, beat up, lonely bicycle would be used as a metaphor for those that we have forgotten in our lives. However, I'm afraid that the sign may tie in too directly with the bike. The bicycle would take on a personification role where the viewer merely thinks that the bike was forgotten by someone... begging the question who forgot their bike? Which might be an interesting thought too.

But it would be even more appropriate if the sign was to be put on something where you would normally put a sign onto... Like people normally don't go around putting signs on abandoned bikes. But there may be signs at a construction lot... A sign that looks kinda like a permit. But actually the sign at the construction site is asking the question, "Who have you forgotten?" Tieing in a connection with the past history of that site and what is forgotten there. but also using that as a metaphor for someone forgotten in their your life, because you have torn something down.

Actually, I kinda like the abandoned idea better. Because it's something that was just slipped away. It wasn't necessarily a conscious choice, like construction.

Here's eight posts that will be appearing on spudart.org soon.
ï Sock wrist fashions
ï Mayor Daley causes power outage at Tribune Tower
ï Talking on cell phone performance
ï Big red streak across buildings like a photo
ï Yu-gi-oh movie experience
ï Yu-gi-oh is like croquet
ï Human drive
ï Amazing coins that change
It's like a little movie preview. Coming to a computer near you soon!

This morning on the 14th floor of the Tribune Tower in Chicago, the world record was just set for the longest distance by a Whirly Flying Hand Copter plastic toy. Matt Maldre, sailed a Mini Whirl-O-Copter for an amazing 20 feet 4 inches!

Rules: This record is for how long it travels horizontally, not vertically. The measuring distance is from the participant's feet to where the copter lands. Expert copter flyers know that the copter will often travel far, but then retreat back a bit. You are not to measure how far it flies in the air, but where it lands.

The new record holder was quoted as saying, "I challenge all you Copter Freaks out there to TRY to break my record. Because i know you CAN'T. muhahahaha." Then he was reportedly seen running away laughing holding the Copter above his head in victory humming the Olympic theme, "Daaaa naaaa da na na na da nana dadanana naaaaaaaa."

If you are using a new version of DropZip (i've been using 8.0)...

Let's say you compress a bunch of files with fonts in it.
When you go to uncompress the files, the fonts will be zero k.

But if you use an older version of DropZip (i've got 5.5)...
the fonts will not become 0k when you uncompress. The fonts stay happy and normal.

In other words, watch out if you are using a newer version of DropZip, it may screw up your fonts.

If you have any other information about Drop Zip crushing the crap out of your fonts, please let me know.

New feature on spudart.org! On left hand side of the homepage at www.spudart.org is the growth progress of a sweet potato in my dining room. About every day or so I'll take a photo of it and post it on the site. The entire progress of the potato plant will be archived at: http://www.spudart.org/blogs/potato.

Such sheer joy should not be allowed.
My feet are wrapped in essence of cloud.
Walking along pleased and proud,
A new pair of socks they were endowed.

Ouside the Wrigley Building construction on Michigan Avenue in Chicago:

The kind folks over at Eesti spordi lehek¸ljed sent me an excel document with all the events that Estonia is participating in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.
ï Excel document: Estonia 2004 Olympics (36k)
ï PDF document: Estonia 2004 Olympics (28k)
All times on this are estonian time, so subtract 8 hours to get Central Standard Time.

Fluorite is the official state mineral of Illinois. Yipee! The General Assembly established Fluorite as the state mineral in 1965. Its competitors included galena, calcite, and quartz.

Illinois is the largest producer of Fluorite in the United States.

Fluorite is most valuable as an ingredient of hyddrofluoric acid. This acid, in turn, has many uses. It is used in the manufacture of aerosols, refrigerants, and teflon. It is used as a flux in steel making. Flourite is an oxidizer for rocket fuels and an ingredient of insecticides. It is useful in the aluminum and silver industries and in the manufacture of fiberglass.

But most people associate flourite with a more personal use. Itís a popular ingredient in toothpaste and drinking water used to fight tooth decay!

sources (i didn't write the above copy, it's just copied and pasted from the following): Illinois State Museum, Illinois Facts Section, Illinois Flourite for sale!, Geobopological Survey.

After many, many, many, many, many posts on anti-pigeons, maybe they aren't all that bad. They are tough survivers and add a non-human element to urban areas. They do have nice different colors. And they do walk in a funky way with their heads bobbin. So here's a poem:

Oh pigeons with your funny stride
A positive view you were denied.
Stirring and skipping along curbside,
Do you truly have a good heart inside?

Children cheerfully feed you.
Quietly echoing sounds coo coo
Overhead you joyfully flew
But please don't release stinky poo poo

Yesterday was a very cold day in Chicago for the middle of August. People were out shopping for jackets and pullovers. Good thing the fall fashions were in. Even though August gets very hot (the hottest month of the year here), there are those occasional cool days where people search out something to keep them warm.

how many pennies can you send via 1st class mail (within USA)?

(i have the answer, but am working on some fun graphs to illustrate the answer)

The first person to guess correctly will get that amount of pennies mailed to him/her.

Try eating A LOT of mints at once. Feel the burn.

The comment spam should be much less of a problem now. I hacked into some code on my site and did some banning.

There are four known acronyms for OOH:
* Occupational Outlook Handbook
* Orbital Operations Handbook
* Out of Here
* Out of Hours
And one for OOOH:
* Out of Our Heads

On my way to work, I just exited the Chicago red line stop when someone handed me a very cold can of Lo-Carb Monster Energy. It has 100% of your daily needs of Vitamin C, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, and Vitamin B12. Oh nice. And each can is two servings, that's 200%!

It also states, "Lo-Carb MONSTER energyô still delivers twice the Buzz of a regular Energy drink. (Read: It has a crapload of caffiene)

Then there is a disclaimer stating, "CONSUME RESPONSIBLY - LIMIT (3) CANS PER DAY."

Whoa. THREE CANS! What would happen if you drank three cans? Surely you'd become a MONSTER!

We are always forgetful throughout our entire life. It's just that as we get older, we become more wise and learn what we are becoming forgetful about.

Click on the comments to see how this quote came about.

Yesterday the Colorado Rockies and the Chicago Cubs both wore dark jersey shirts with light pants. Isn't there some rule that one team wears dark and the other light?

Just got an email with specs on sizes for artwork to go on tshirts, mugs, hats, etc. At the top it said, "300 dpi for all..." What a nice notion. Everything in life should be 300 dpi.

Cerulean Studios makes the wildy popular instant message program called Trillian. However they do not have a version for Mac OS X. Here is my email requesting it.
-------------------
Subject: Trillian for Mac OS X and ewoks!

Dear Cerulean Studios,
Please please please make trillian for Mac OS X. It's such a wonderfully great program. Please do not deny us wonderful mac users. Mac users are so soft and friendly--a perfect match for Trillian! It's destiny.

In fact, I see what you are doing RIGHT now. I see... you are nodding your head in agreement. Yes. In fact, you are emailing your developers. What are you typing? Ah yes. It is:

"Hey yo Andy Magoon, Rachel Blackman, and Surjatini Widjojo. We like so totally need to make Trillian for Mac OS X. This totally cool dude like just emailed me and showed me the light. Mac users are so soft and friendly. They are like ewoks, man! Freakin ewoks. We gotta have ewoks using Trillian. I hope to see your prototype by the end of the week? Hope that's not too soon, but we ARE talking about EWOKS here."

Thank you Cerulean-Studio-Customer-Service-Person for writing that email. I'm all aglow.

-matt maldre
matt@spudart.org
http://www.spudart.org

Batman the movie is currently filming in Chicago. It's fun how people try to get sneak peeks at the movie filming. I want to take photos of someone dressed up in a silly batman costume around Chicago. Then post the photos as special sneek-peeks into the movie. Who wants to be Batman?

After two months of having the same item on the "Item of the Day", this section is finally updated. Every day for the next month there will be a new Item of the Day with a post pulled from the spudart archives.

For those who come in directly from the http://www.spudart.org/blogs/randomthoughts link, check out the homepage at http://www.spudart.org for the new Item of Day feature.

It's very nice how a bagel fits perfectly in the Einstein plate. What great joy this brings.