Eight years ago today I wrote my first blog post, titled "Long live long tables." Since then I have written 1,998 blog posts (including this one), and have had 17,939 comments. Wow. All over eight years.

Etsy seller robotcamp was selling 14 drawings of robots for the low low price of $1.19. How can anyone resist? Apparently the 91 people who viewed that auction could resist. I, however, could not resist.

Here's a screenshot of the order form:


( side note: Shout-out to Tom for subscribing to my RSS feed. If you subscribe to my RSS feed in Google Reader, let me know and I'll feature YOU in a shout-out like this one.)

While waiting to board an elevator in the Tribune Tower, a fella was walking out and saying to the people around him, "I like to read the WHOLE paper, but y'know, you can't get that feeling with the web."

As an employee of Tribune Company, let me say that I don't know who this person is walking out the elevator. For all I know he could have been a visitor. In fact, he looked a little lost upon exiting the elevator. His words are not representative for Tribune. But they do bring up an interesting point.

He makes a good point that, yes, it is nice to flip through the newspaper as a package. Yes, it is a nice feeling to have completed looking through a whole newspaper. BUT. BUT. You can get that same feeling with subscribing to a website's RSS feed and reading that on Google Reader. You have a set package of stories you can flip through. It's a nice feeling to have that story counter on Google Reader go down to zero and complete browsing through the stories for that moment.

I tell you. Google Reader is still an immensely under-used product with the general public.

"Have a good weekend!" Co-workers wish each other this all the time. How about when you get back to work? I'm gonna start saying "Happy weekstart!"

Not only can you win $1,000,000 if you pick a player for 56 consecutive days that gets a hit, but you also get virtual trophies. MLB.com has a trophy room for your accomplishments in Beat the Streak. I won trophies for getting over 100 hits this season, for getting a 10+ streak, and for hitting over .300 in one month. Oh yeah.

These trophies are soooo cool, I printed them out and hung them up at work. Mr. T loves 'em. There's still time left in the season to beat my longest streak of 10 games and win twenty bucks! More information at Play "Beat the Streak" on mlb.com and you could win $20 in 2009.

Okcupid asks for "The six things I could never do without." Here's my first draft at this list:
Observations, words, people, paper, grace, sleep

What's yours?

Got a load of blueberries you need to carry? Whip out a sheet of paper and make an origami box. Be an Origami McGyver and tranform that stack of paper into whatever you need at the moment. Need a garbage bin? +wah-tish+ Instant garbage bin.

Forgot your anniversary? Don't worry. Create some origami flowers. A mugger asking for all the money in your wallet? Hand it to him--ninja star style right in the juglar.

Loud neighbors in the alley? Teach them a lesson with a legion of origami water bombs. Need an X-wing fighter? The Death Star never stood a chance against your mad origami skillz.

Put your hand on the love-o-meter and see if you love the 2010 Subaru Legacy.

This car is parked in Chicago's Pioneer Court outside the Tribune Tower. It's rather odd that the love-o-meter sensor is right by the gas tank. It's sort of like putting your hand on the car to pledge your allegiance to gas.

Chapter 1:
It's 09/09/09! I wanted to get a receipt from Dunkin Donuts with the timestamp of 9:09am, but I wake up too late to get to the downtown Dunkin Donuts in time. Instead I figure it would be fun to txt my number-lovin buddy, Tom.

While riding the red line CTA train I compose a txt message at 9:07am and wait for the clock to tick to 9:09am.

THEN just before I hit "send," a message comes from Tom wishing me a happy 09:09 09/09/09. We are such number dorks. Can you believe we both sent each other a txt message at the same time about this? Funny.

Chapter 2:
Another interesting twist to this story is that about 15 minutes before it turned 9:09am, I was thinking it would be fun to tell whomever I was sitting next to on the train that it's 9:09am.

I step onto the train at 9:03am and survey the open seats to see who would be a good recipient of such information. There is only one seat open next to this fellow in a suit. I believe he is from India, perhaps? A quick glance at the book he is reading looks like a law book. He seems kinda serious. Underlining parts in the book. Well, maybe he'd like a break in his study when the 9:09am hits.

I was getting nervous about telling him about 9:09am. Will I tell him? I want to, but ohhhh.

As I sit there waiting to send the txt, and then Tom's txt comes in. I laugh. He looks over. Perfect lead-in. I tell my law-reading train neighbor that it's 9:09 on 09/09/09 and how I'm about to send my friend a txt about it, and then he sends me one. He found it humorous. He continues reading his book, and I get out mine.

I glance over at his book and it's some book about Buddhism and law. Ohhh, so it wasn't some lawyer book. Interesting, because the book I was reading was "Way of Wisdom" (a Christian book by James MacDonald). Side-by-side on the train is a guy reading a Christian book and a guy reading a Buddhist book. That was neat.

The crowd at the Oprah taping in Chicago did a special dance to the Black-Eyed Peas live performance of the song, "I Gotta Feeling."

Here's my video of the choreographed dance recorded from the Tribune Tower's 14th floor.


As the crowd was doing this dance to "It's gonna be", it struck me how similar it is to video that went viral a few months ago, "Sasquatch music festival 2009 - Guy starts dance party." In this video one guy is dancing and then eventually a few people join, then the whole crowd joins. I love this video for its spontaneity and fun. Makes you wonder if the choreographers found inspiration in this video and applied the same idea to their dance.


Youtube user awayaday recorded a video that gives insight into the complexity of the choreography behind the dance at the Oprah show.


"There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them." ~Vicki Baum
(for more dance quotes check out QUOTES: dance-dance-a-dancey-dance-dance!)

My brother and I have commented so much on a particular photo on the Art Institute's flickr account, that it is now their #1 most popular photo.

I encourage you to leave a fun comment on this photo of people in skinny jeans standing around the free candy pile of artwork by Félix González-Torres.

I often throw crumble up paper and throw snowballs at my coworkers. Next time I will use Fun Size Snickers.

A friend of mine is ordering a pound of worms for a worm bin. A pound of worms are available in the mail! Worms traveling through the mail. It’s like they are worming their way through. What a delight!

Also the idea of a POUND of worms is interesting. We normally don’t think of worms having any weight. They are just worms. Worms are worms. They don’t weight anything, right? But a pound of them! A pound of wiggly jiggling swerming dirt-loving joy.

I like worms. Here are 36 photos, illustrations, drawings, artwork of worms from flickr:



And 27 worm illustrations from threadless.com:

My top five favorite tweets I made in August 2009 with @spudart:

Wanna see something really exciting? Put an Airborne tablet into near-boiling water.
August 27

RT @jburno "The sin of self-preservation is keeping us from intimacy in our families and our churches" - @jrkerr in @parkchurch
1:36 PM Aug 25

I hereby declare that for the rest of my life I will never buy normal socks ever again.
6:37 PM Aug 14

I just realized that crumbled-up paper makes good snowballs in summer. Office snowball fight!
5:23 PM Aug 5

@VivaSpyGirl GREAT IDEA! Drawing on foggy frozen-food doors! This'll continue the foggy series from the bus http://tr.im/foggy
12:31 PM Aug 4th

If you like these tweets, read more @spudart on twitter.