I will be incorporating these acronyms into my chat vocabulary. Learn them and know what I'm saying when I IM you.
* GI -- Google it
* IIOYT -- is it on YouTube?
* CMOS -- call me on Skype
* JUOC -- jacked up on caffeine
* 12OF -- twelve-o'clock flasher (refers to someone less than competent with technology, to the extent that every appliance in the house flashes "12:00")
"A senior Chinese official said that 85 percent of the more than 20 million toys recalled by Mattel were caused by problematic designs from the US." (source: China Daily)
China's all like, "take that, be-yatch!"
Next thing you know, America will respond with, "yo momma's so fat, she makes defected toys out of sugar and white flour and tries to sell them to America."
You have 30 seconds to yourself in an elevator. What can you do in 30 seconds? Here's an example: Stand upside-down, and then stand back normal before the doors re-open.
Whenever you computer starts acting strange, check to see if any of your keys on your keyboard are stuck.
Just now I thought that my computer was wiggin out. In Quark i could only get the hand tool. In all my other programs, I couldn't use the keyboard to quit. When I rebooted, right at the beginning startup screen, I got this weird icon to choose the hard drive or another drive, so I chose the hard drive. And then my computer booted up and I STILL got the hand tool in Quark.
Then i realized the option key on my keyboard was stuck. bawhawhaw! That's why I got that weird message at bootup, when you hold down option at startup, it asks you what drive to use.
Four window washers dangling down
Cleaning office windows throughout town
Three quietly slide down their rope
One goofedly acts like a dope
He slides down with great flair
As if he's on some sort of dare
Enter your address at www.walkscore.com and find out how walkableness of your neighborhood based on what's nearby.
Here's the scores of my places:
98: Tribune Tower (my place of employment)
95: My old apartment in Chicago's Wrigleyville.
86: My current apartment in Chicago's Lincoln Square.
83: My old college dorm at IWU (Dodds Hall)
80: My sister's place in Andersonville of Chicago
78: My aunt and uncles in Beverly on the south side of Chicago
77: Sales Solutions (my first job out of college in Glen Ellyn, a western suburb of Chicago)
74: My brother in Elmhurst, a western suburb of Chicago
71: My grade school on the south side of Chicago
52: My parents in Beverly on the south side of Chicago
46: My high school, Chicago Christian High School in Palos Heights, a south suburb of Chicago
After (without Dennis Kucinich)
Oddly enough ABC News kept Kucinich in the caption, even though they cropped him out of the image.
source: ABC News
And to make matters worse, ABC News even messed around with the poll. Dennis Kucinich was winning the poll, so they took the poll down, and put the exact same question back up with the results reset! Read more at: Wembleyhead's post.
The lower case j in Futura looks like crap, as unlikelymoose pointed out in his blog post, "Futura Book "j" stinks. However, Futura is such a standard for font choices. Futura is so round, geometric, it exudes a classic feel. If you want to keep that round feel, here are some alternatives to Futura: Avenir, Avant Garde, Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk, Century Gothic, Gill Sans, and Kabel.
A 73-year-old man dangles a long piece of plastic off the side one of the busiest pedestrian bridges in the world. It’s just after the high peak of lunch time in Chicago with the tourists and office workers out in full force on the Michigan Avenue bridge in Chicago.
There stands a man unfurling foot after foot of plastic off the edge of the bridge. Everyone busily walks by, but I’m too curious to pass this up. Is he fishing in the Chicago River? Is he hanging a piece of artwork off the Michigan Avenue bridge in Chicago?
Once the plastic reaches about 40 feet long, he reveals a small plastic kite. He’s flying a kite off the Michigan Avenue bridge! Wow! Just a week ago I was pondering the thought of flying a kite in downtown Chicago, and here this fellow has the stones to actually do it—off the side of a bridge!
He motions me over and he tells me that he once got his kite to fly from the bridge all the way over to the Marina Towers! I am shocked and amazed. And he says, “Yeah, I got over 3,000 feet of string here.”
While he’s continuing to prep his kite, I ask him, “what happens if your kite hits a building? It probably does very little damage at all, it just bounces off the building?”
He responds with a shake of the hand, “awww, I don’t know why, but it’s never hit a building.” We discuss wind patterns in downtown Chicago how they can be crazy. He points to the flag atop the tribune tower, “see how that’s going north and these flags on the bridge are blowing towards west. It can be tricky.” He throws his kite over the bridge and tries to get it airborne, instead it just sinks downward to the river.
I ask him, “How fast do you think this wind is?” He shrugs, “I dunno. This is a decent wind though.” He flies by the feel of the wind, an expert with a finely tuned experience as he points out that Chicago Magazine[1] wrote about him in the July issue last year.
He asks me help him by standing over a little bit away to get the kite started. I gladly walk over as now I’m officially helping to fly a kite off the Michigan Avenue bridge in downtown Chicago. He holds his hand up in the air to feel the wind. Pauses. “Now!” he points to me. I throw the kite dramatically over the edge. And it sinks downward.
He pulls the kite into fix the knot in the line, but then the line breaks. And I figure this is my time to break off as well. I wish him luck, and tell him that I greatly appreciate that he is doing something so creative and fun in downtown Chicago.
More about Kite Man, Mike Illich:
1) Shore Patrol: Chicago Magazine, July 2006.
If your last name is "Com," you should totally make your child's middle name be "Dot." Then whatever your child's first name will the the domain. matt dot com. This would encourage the parents to name their child a domain that hasn't been reserved yet.
Graphic designers use a standard body of text for placeholder text:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Designers often say, "just flow some greek in." Or "What's the body text? There isn't any yet? I'll just greek the text for now." However, it's not Greek. It's mangled Latin.
The original passage is from Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum (On the Ends of Goods and Evils, or alternatively [About] The Purposes of Good and Evil ). The passage starts:
Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit (
Translation: "Neither is there anyone who loves grief itself since it is grief and thus wants to obtain it").
Okay, so what part of the translation is "lorem ipsum?"
• dolorem means: pain, grief. misery, pain
• ipsum means itself
So lorem ipsum means "grief itself." Or "grief alone." Next time you have to "flow in some greek" you can say, "OH HOW THIS GRIEVES ME!"
In the Transformers movie, Optimus Prime says that he used earth's "eBay" to find the glasses imprinted with the Allspark's coordinates.
So I'm thinkin, there's gotta be a user on eBay with the name Optimusprime. Sure enough there is: http://myworld.ebay.com/optimusprime. Being all geeked up, I took the courage to send a message to Optimus Prime:
==========
dude, how did you ever find Sam Witwicky's glasses on eBay? As the leader of the Autobots, do you ever surf over to other parts on eBay in search of items to help you defeat the villainous Megatron?
thank you,
matt maldre
==========
I ask that everyone out there send a message to Optimus Prime via eBay. Please copy and paste your message into the comments below. Thank you.
The only piece of artwork on the moon is a three-inch tall aluminum figure representing an astronaut. This work was created by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck as a dedication to the astronauts and cosmonauts who died from the space exploration field. The sculpture was placed on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15 in 1971.
It's nice how the aluminum figure is laying down. It certainly calls to mind the title of the work, "Fallen Astronaut." It's also fitting that the figure is positioned in a pile of the moon that looks like has been altered by man.
But why does the figure have no arms? The poor alien who comes across this artwork will think, "These astronauts are a being with head, body, and two legs... no arms. They shall be easy to conquer."
Looming over this sculpture is a plaque with the names of the fallen space explorers. The plaque essentially functions as a caption for the artwork, because it explains what the artwork is about. It's odd that the caption is so much larger than the sculpture. But of course NASA had Van Hoeydonck make it so big, because they know how aliens have a hard time reading small type.
What an alien will think of this artwork:
Because the plaque is designed in an invitiation style, an alien will have several interpretations of this artwork.
1) Marriage invite:
The names on the list are 14 people who are all getting married to each other. Silver is the theme color of the wedding as evidenced by the silver figure next to the invitation card.
2) Menu:
This is a list of 14 courses in a meal of humans that was provided at some point on the moon. The arms are the tastiest part of the meal, as demonstrated by the missing arms on the sculpture.
3) Pool party invite:
These 14 people are throwing a pool party on the dark side of the moon. Since the figure is wearing no clothes, this will be a nude pool party.
What else would an alien think upon encountering this artwork?
Don't ever take Interstate-90 when you are supposed to take Interstate-94. I was attending a wedding celebration this weekend in Libertyville, Illinois (northern suburb of Chicago). I took I-90 and instead ended up in Rockford! (A city far, far, far west of Chicago and Libertyville).
In the city I-90 and I-94 are the same highway, so being a city boy, I thought they continued being the same highway north of the city. However, they don't. They split apart just south of where I live.
I hop onto I-90, and merrily drive along for an hour and a half. I notice that there aren't any exits. "That's weird." I think. "There should be some exits around here. I'll just get off at the next exit and check a map at a gas station. I get off at the Belvidere Oasis. And to my shock, I went 65 miles IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.
I hereby declare that ALL Oasises should have a turnaround. How many times did people look at the map in the Oasis, only to realize they were going the WRONG WAY? This Oasis, like all other Oasises, does not have a turnaround. They force you back right onto that same highway of wrong directionedness. When on this highway, outside the city of Rockford, there are NO EXITS. It's a one way path to Rockford. They don't want you getting distracted and maybe going somewhere else.
I finally got to Rockford and took the first exit, figuring I would be able to go over the expressway and turn right back on it going the other direction. Uh no. That would only make sense. Instead Rockford gave me the delight of sticking me on I-39 with no exit ramps in sight. Then again, if I only brought a map with me, I should have been alright.
Lessons learned (granted, they are obvious):
1) ALWAYS travel with a map
2) Don't pick your highways based on feel
3) Plan your entire route beforehand
Funmaster Bernie De'Koven posted about shoe trees. One person would toss a pair of shoes onto a power line, and then other people would join in and throw more pairs of shoes up. The shoes would start to collect and form a shoe tree. I've seen one pair of shoes hanging plenty of times (especially when I went to grade school on the south side of Chicago). But I have never seen a whole batch together. What fun this is!
Has anyone ever seen or participated in a shoe tree?
You will be fined between $25 and $200 every time you use the Chicago seal! If you sell 10 tshirts with the Chicago seal, you could get fined from $250 to $2,000. Yeee-ouch! Chicago takes our seal VERY seal-riously.
1-8-100 Private use of seal unlawful. No person shall fraudulently forge, deface, corrupt, or counterfeit the seal of the city, nor shall any person, other than the duly authorized public official, make use of said seal. Any person violating the provision of this section shall be fined not less than $25.00 nor more than $200.00 for each offense. (Prior code 2-10) source: http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/chiseal.html
Let's see if I get fined for using the seal in this blog post.
Nabaztag (Armenian for "rabbit") is a Wi-Fi enabled toy rabbit sold by violet in France. The Nabaztag grabs the weather and news headlines off the internet and speaks it out loud. It's also an alarm clock. It can alert you of new email. It’s a voicemail system. And it costs $179. Heck, my computer can do all this stuff, only my computer doesn't have cute bunny ears, eyes and nose.
But now you can transform your computer into a Nabaztag with this easy kit! Just print out the Nabaztag transformer kit, and:
Step 1: Cut out the shapes
Step 2: Tape them onto your computer
Step 3: You now have your own Nabaztag for FREE!
Do you identify yourself more with your country, state, or city? I'd say I'm more of a Chicagoan than an American. I can't exactly say why, but perhaps it has to do with that I don't completely agree with our current presidential administration. But I don't always agree with Mayor Daley either.
I'm more Chicagoan than American, probably because I haven't traveled overseas, so I never really have existed outside the context of America. Whereas with Chicago, I can definitely contrast that more against other cities.
Next time you make tea in the kitchen at work, make every movement of your body be like a robot. Focus on doing only one movement at a time and exaggerate the motion by doing the robot dance sort of thing. It's lots of fun!
A week ago I told an AT&T repairman to cancel my service. He wrote it on his paper form, and I thought it was done. I call their customer service line to see if my service was cancelled. AT&T did not cancel my service.
LOOP 1: Matt is nice and normal. Willing to go with the flow.
I call their customer service line at 1-800-288-2020
OPERATOR #1:
The lady totally tries to sell me services when I tell her I just want to cancel. "Oh but this plan is cheaper." Uh. no. Can-cel. She thinks I was saying "can sell." She eventually transfers me to another person after 10 minutes of explaining their cheapest plans to me.
OPERATOR #2:
After getting my name, number, and objective, he transfers me to another person.
OPERATOR #3:
I never land to operator #3, because it's now 30 minutes and counting while on the phone and I have a meeting at work. I leave the phone on my desk and later come back to a dial-tone.
LOOP 2: Matt is upset and angry and thinks his upsetness will show them I mean business.
I call 1-800-288-2020 again.
OPERATOR #4:
The dude answers, gets my name, number, and objective. He says he'll transfer me. I know this drill. I tell him "MAKE SURE TO TRANSFER ME TO THE RIGHT PERSON." I am very direct and emphasize it with all the upper-capital power one can have on a phone.
OPERATOR #5:
I am transferred to the wrong person. Operator #5 is the claims department, not the disconnect department. Operator #5 starts me over by going to the 1-800-288-2020 line.
LOOP 3: Matt is laughing and finds this hysterical. I try complimenting the operator to get on her good side.
I'm transferred back to the beginning with the 1-800-288-2020 line.
OPERATOR #6:
This time the lady starts the conversation different. She asks for my name FIRST. And then my phone number. All the other operators asked for my number first. I explain to the operator lady how I appreciate her different approach, that it makes me feel more like a human to have someone ask my name first. That gets her on my side.
She says that she's sorry but she needs to transfer me, and she tries to find the direct phone number to the disconnect department. She looks for about five minutes and asks other people there, but nobody knows it!
She says she will transfer me, but that she'll stay on hold with me to ensure I get the right person. Sure enough, she gets me to the right person at the "disconnection department", our operator #7.
OPERATOR #7:
Hooray! Operator #6 even gave operator #7 all my info, so I didn't have to repeat it. Phone service gets disconnected.
Conclusion:
AT&T, your system is seriously messed up. I can see how you don't have a direct phone number to disconnect. I can see how you want me to talk with someone first to make sure why I want to disconnect. But don't transfer me. Give that first person the ability to disconnect people's services.
I am never going with AT&T for anything ever again.
Spudart.org has lots of fun stuff by Matt Maldre, a 35-year-old Chicago Christian, artist, designer, illustrator, photographer, webmaster, entrepreneur, curator, goofball, and croquet player. Read more about Matt on the about page.
