Year: 2009

First Geocities. Eight years later MySpace. What will come next? I’m guessing around 2012 we’ll have another attack of extremely poor design online. But you still have to hand it to Geocities and MySpace. Despite their total ignorance of design,…

Etymology. There’s no app for that. Dear iPhone developers, Please give the world an app for etymology. Much love, matt

(that is not me in the photo, but that is my Bluetooth headset I won) I won! I won! Here’s how it happened. Pre-game I’m sitting at work in the Tribune Tower. Outside my window at 11 am, I could…

Yesterday we talked about how the word Styrofoam has origins in trees. I’ve put screenshots styrofoam’s etymology on my iPhone, so it can be a conversation starter whenever someone is drinking out of a death cup. Please feel free to…

What does styrofoam mean? Styro. You’d think that’s made up, right? Styrofoam is a trademark name by Dow Chemical Co. in 1950. It’s based from the word polystyrene. (see polystyrene) What does polystyrene mean? Etymonline.com says: 1927, so called because…

Days of the week as verbs. Person 1: How are you? Person 2: I’m frying. You? Person 1: Yeah, it is very hot in this elevator. Tomorrow I’ll be satting. Person 2: Sweet, I love to relax and sat. On…

Twitter has some funny quips about balloon boy, you can read the best ones selected at twitter.com/balloonboytweet. Here’s my ten favorite jokes about balloon boy, Falcon Heene: Is Balloon Boy the new King Of Pop? The Balloon itself was cool…

The Metra train system in Chicago has a new website. It’s pretty nice. They have individual pages for each station with a little bit of info on each station. I wanted to take their idea a bit further and bring…

eHarmony has 13 interesting questions for their online profiles. They are interesting not only for these profiles, but for conversation questions in general for everyone. I’m making these questions into a series of blog posts on spudart.org where I’ll share…

Since joining last.fm a couple years ago, I’ve listened to 2,500 different artists. Cool! (That’s out 12,687 plays). I highly recommend last.fm. It’s free. You can type in artist or a tag, and it will play related music. It’s a…

These shoes need a cool little one-inch button. Please recommend a URL to an image that would be cool for a button for my shoes. I have a button maker, so I can take any image off the web and…

I feel like we are in the wrong year. Today is 10/10/09. Although it is rather comforting that we aren’t living THE perfect 10 day. We have some wiggle room for imperfection. By the way, this is my 2,000th blog…

I’ve been sitting on writing blog post #1,999 for the past week. I wanted to write something introspective about my blog. The timing was pretty funny, because my church (Park Community Church) is doing a series called Pursue. Last week’s…

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…

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…

“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…

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…

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.…

I waited on the CTA Red Line to text my number-loving friend Tom on 09/09/09 at 09:09am. He texted me first. At exactly 9:09.

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…

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 commented photo. I encourage you to leave a fun comment on this photo of people…

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 is available in the mail! Worms traveling through the mail. It’s like they are worming their way through. What a delight! Also,…

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…

Isn’t it pretty? (not my plant, this is a photo on wikipedia)

Reusable bags are great. No wasted plastic. Reusable bags last. They have a little bit of style. BUT. As a man, I have a hard time finding reusable bags with a color that is not girly. There’s lots of reds,…

KFC has a new sandwich where instead of bread for the buns, it has chicken patties: A fried chicken patty 2 slices of cheese 2 slices of bacon and another fried chicken patty. Curious about the nutrition is for this…

Meet at the Plaza in Millennium Park. Where is “the plaza?” Millennium Park is home to the following plaza with the following names: ‚Ä¢¬†AT&T Plaza ‚Ä¢¬†Ameritech Plaza ‚Ä¢ SBC Plaza ‚Ä¢ McCormick Tribune Plaza ‚Ä¢ Plaza at Park Grill ‚Ä¢…