Hawaii is so cool, they should change the last two "i"s in "Hawaii" to exclamation points. HAWA!! or Hawa!!

Delicious.com is a great online bookmarking service. Use it to bookmark all the cool sites you find, and then in the future when you are trying to remember the name of a site, BADDA-BING BADDA-BANG! You can find it easily.

You might say, "oh well, i can bookmark them in browser." Yeeeeeeah. Well. Do you want a bloated 5,000 bookmarks in your browser? I sure don't. And if they are in your browser, then you have to plop the site into one folder. With Delicious, you can assign as many tags as you want to a site. It makes it so easy to find sites you've bookmarked.

It's ridiculously great.

I also use it to bookmark all the interesting things that I print out online. I assign them with a tag of print. You can take a gander at www.delicious.com/spudart/print.

But for now, I celebrate my FIVE THOUSANDTH bookmark. And it's a dandy too. The "How are you doing today?" project. Just as an example of how delicious tags work. I tagged this site with:
* question (30)
* chicago (562)
* art (116)
* podcast (25)
* goodidea (67)
(The numbers in parenthesis are the number of bookmarks I have under that tag.)

And for those who like to have a backup of your bookmarks, Delicious lets you export your bookmarks for safe keeping. Aaaaand. There's a Delicious extension for Firefox to make bookmarking super easy from your browser.

Just look at how this paperclip box gets totally destroyed in my drawer. I'd love a cute paperclip box. Etsy? Help!

A bucket list going around on facebook has a line item "Have you ever shot a gun?" My brother and I both checked "yes" to it. Which caused curiousity among our friends, "When did you shoot a gun?!"
Matt: erik and i fired guns as cub scouts when we did some camping trip. There was a rifle range. It was fun.
Erik: Matt Maldre is correct. We fired rifles when we were 10 years old. It was the most fun part of camping trip and the entire camping trip was a lot of fun.

I am shocked that Erik declared shooting rifles to be the most fun part of the trip.

What do you think would be more fun on a camping trip when you are 10 years old?
A) Shooting rifles.
B) A skunk walking into your tent while you are sleeping with the blankets covering your head. And then the skunk jumping on top of your head.
C) Baby mice born inside your luggage.
D) Walking out into an area that had quicksand.
E) The outhouse running out of toilet paper and using leaves from the forest to wipe your butt.
F) Catching frogs by a lagoon.
G) Being completely creeped out by horror stories told by campfire.

When the only chocolate in my apartment is the empty chocolate-covered raisins bag in the garbage, it's time for me to get some chocolate. I'm staring at the empty bag with hopes of chocolate in my head.

Pioneer court in Chicago on Michigan Avenue has been called one of the world's best public squares in existence. Surrounded by great architecture on the south with 333 North Michigan Avenue and the London Insurance Building, on the north with the magnificent Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower; I'm glad I work right next to this court and walk by it every day. There's many great photo opportunities. Here's some of my shots:

Budgeted for highways and transit in the stimulus bill:
• $27.5 billion: US highways
• $8 billion: high speed transit
• $6.8 billion: city transit (source: prorebulica.org)
I'd rather see the highway and transit numbers flipped. We don't need more roads and highways. We need more trains and buses.

Just how far can $6.8 billion go for city transit?
Let's take a look at the 2009 Chicago Transit Authority Budget Recommendations:
• $723 million/year: operating budget from public funding
• $600 milliion/year: capital improvement program
• $1.36 billion/year: unfunded capital improvements that are needed.
That's about $2.7 billion/year to run a public transit system in Chicago (both operations and capital funding).

Obama's stimulus package calls for $6.8 billion for the whole country. THE WHOLE COUNTRY. That's 50 states. How much would Illinois get? If it's divided evenly amoung the states, Illinois accounts for about 4% of the USA population. That's $272 million from the stimulus to be for Illinois' transit.

Summary
Illinois' share stimulus' budget for transit would only cover 14% of ONE YEAR for CTA's capital improvements. I wish they put more money in the stimulus for city transit. Everyone could use it. Just wait when gas prices go back up again.

C-SPAN asked 65 presidential historians to rank the former 42 former occupants of the White House on ten attributes of leadership. My favorite leader--the croquet president--ended up being the 10th worst president ever. Hey, at least George W Bush is sixth worst ever.

When you read "cc" what do you think of? (other than carbon copy).

I like to think it says "cool cool," as in, "I'm gonna cool cool you"

Matt is wondering how the mysterious cut got on the top of his head. Brain growing too big? Aliens inserting special chip? That was a status update on my facebook profile last year.

======================================
The responses were funny, so I saved them:

Tom S: ow! Are you ok!?

Elizabeth J: I am convinced it is Aliens!!

Mark A: Maybe your brain IS an alien!

KellyK: Dun dun dun...your brains getting too big it wants out!

Tom K: Matt? Can you hear me? You are now under my control.

Cathie K: It's that your brain wants out to share itself with other people!

Tamima F: maybe you were dreaming of something so amazing it leaped out of your head. a concept such as this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWvBbqpD2Y8

======================================
Matt Maldre: (my responses)

@Tom: Yeah, i'm ok. Just strange how it appeared!

@Elizabeth: I like how you capitalize Aliens.

@Mark: Whoa if my brain is an alien, then... that's insane!

@Kelly: lol, it wants to run around and play!

@Tom: *roger* *roger* you are logged in, what is your first prompt?

@Cathie: Yes! Brain wants as many ways as possible to share, even if ... Read Moreit means breaking through my skull! Makes me wonder if when my nose runs, if that's actually my brain escaping. Whenver I blow my nose on the train, I can tell strangers th

@Tamima: Oh deeear! I was totally expecting something else! It sounds like those gents are trying to squeeze something else out of their hands!

Yesterday I rode six different buses, so I thought it would be fun to shoot one photo for each bus.

To church:
--49 Western southbound
--66 Chicago eastbound

To my sister's:
--8 Halsted northbound
--22 Clarck northbound

To my apartment:
--22 Clark northbound
--81 Lawrence westbound


Is love in the air? The light is gleeming. A hot babe enters the 49 Western bus. The light shines in the interested man's eyes.


Do you think this guy on the 66 Chicago bus ever forgets where he's from? CHICAGO CHICAGO CHICAGO CHICAGO CHICAGO CHICAGO. what? Where do you live? CHICAGO CHICAGO CHICAGO CHICAGO CHICAGO.


The 8 Halsted bus. Yup.


YEEEE-HAW. A cowboy rides the 22 bus like it's a buckin' bronco. That 22, it's a flippin ride. Hold on tight!


I miss the cowboy on the 22 northbound bus. The southbound 22 has no cowboy. Makes me want to sing "where did all the cowboys go"


The 81 Lawrence bus literally had four people run up to the bus at different stops. I was one of the four. CTA bustracker on my iphone said that it was gonna be a very close transfer. Close indeed! After getting off the 22, the 81 was sitting kitty-korner on the other side of the intersection--of lawrence and clark! No small intersection indeed.

I zigged and zagged.

The 81 waited.

And it also waited for three other people at three other stops.

I didn't get a picture of the people running.

Instead I photographed the bald head. His head so smooth, if you tried to run across it, you would certainly slip.

My first answer is: None. and the location is nowhere.

Actually my answer is: a doodle, inked onto the inside of my hand from a pen. Stays for less than one day. The doodle would be a smiley face. Actually, typically on the tip a finger. Sometimes multiple fingers.

So they can dance

and talk.

A friend over at Rule29 recommended Chris Botti a jazz musician (reference: Something New For Your Music Radar). I'm digging on Chris Botti now. It's funny how when someone recommends music to you, it sounds much better than it just being buried among all the other options out there. I like jazz music. I like trumpets. But normally Chris Botti would just be another jazz trumpet player. But since Rule29 recommended it, I'm actually going to buy one of his albums and truly enjoy listening to it. Give Chris Botti a shot on last.fm.

Funny combinations result in the dock of the Mac's newest operating system, 10.5. When a folder is put into the dock on a Mac, it will layer all the icons in the folder. Here is the Adium icon on top of the Firefox icon. It's kinda funny. The Adium duck has sprouted wings of fire.