Year: 2012

I like archiving interesting articles by “printing” them as PDF files. Here’s a cool four-part series “Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies.” All the interesting articles get put into a folder on my computer. When I share the article, I…

You know those really cool stained glass things you can make? You drop little plastic pellets into a wire frame and then throw them into the oven, and the plastic pellets melt. When the entire thing cools down, you take…

What’s BBHA, EROG, EEPE, RWSD, TICA, IMEL, REDT, JSDO, AHII, VOEL, and ATTY? I don’t think those words appear in the Scrabble dictionary. It would be rad if the words not only worked horizontally, but vertically too. Here’s a couple…

I tweet as the librarian on the Death Star, @atourriten. Come follow me, I tweet very little with that account, so you won’t get overload. Here’s one of my favorite tweets: I miss @the_management tweeting. He must be bogged down…

Ever call someone crazy in an IM or text? Perhaps you even get a little creative and call that person ker-azee. Now you can never run out of ways to call someone crazee with this list of 96 different spellings…

Comingsoon.net reports, Ricky Gervais in Talks to Lead The Muppets Sequel. I’m just happy that there is a Muppets sequel. Some of the people commenting on that page are saying how Ricky Gervais is box office poison. But it doesn’t…

Paint screams into your brush strokes. Kim Beom teaches us how to capture screaming in yellow paint. It sounds silly, but this is a captivating video to watch. Five reasons why this video of a Korean artist painting screams is…

i like how when i google image “Matt” the three results for me are a Brewster Rockit comic, my bulletin board of baseball cards at work, and some iPad painting that I never knew I posted anywhere online.

Don’t call it Willis Don’t call it Macy’s Don’t call it U.S. Cellular But why? Gapers Block sells a five-pack of “Don’t call it that” buttons. The tagline is “Buttons for true Chicagoans.” To complement this pack, I would like…

When the numbers in the current day make an interesting combination, it’s always neat to acknowledge that day. For instance, July 8, 2009 is 07/08/09. It’s fun to get a memoir recording that unique date, because it happens only once!…

It was quite a challenge trying to re-photograph this pole at the exact same angle. The gumdrops on the sidewalk proved to be a great comparison device. Standing at the pole staring at my iPhone memorizing the exact location of…

Why would I be so excited to see a baseball card folded in half? Find out on my baseball blog: “Fold a baseball card to create excitement.”

Ma ei räägi eesti keelt, mida mälu. Ma ei oska eesti keelt läbi Google Translate. Minu murre on Google Translate murre Eesti. Võin rääkida iga töö Eesti Google Translate olemasolu. Minu väga sõnad siin on tõend selle kohta vööri alla,…

This photo makes me want to take off my shoes, run across the floor, and sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide. The Art Institute’s new modern wing is nice. They should hold annual sock-sliding competitions. Maybe I’ll start an unofficial one with a couple people.…

In the news highlights, I saw a Bulls player wearing what appeared to be number 23. Upon a closer look, his uniform number was revealed to be Marquis Teague wearing 25. Maybe the Bulls should retire all the numbers in…

It’s so much fun throwing things out a 14th floor window. The thing I find frustrating about the NHL lockout: it is prohibiting the possibility of me throwing paper out my 14th floor window again. When the Blackhawks won the…

Would you like to know your intergalactic address of my desk at the Tribune Tower? I will tell you. Matt Maldre435 N. Michigan Ave, Suite 1400Chicago, IL 60611-7551USA, Earth, Solar SystemLocal Interstellar Cloud, Local BubbleOrion‚ Cygnus Arm, MILKY WAY GALAXY…

Some day I want to take a vacation at Messier 36 of the Perseus Arm. It contains no red Giants, but the luminosity of the brightest member is about 360 times that of the Sun.

I know people on other sub-zero-temperature planets who would love to have 28 degrees. When i tell them it’s 28 degrees, they say, “snaaaaap. it’s warm there!” Which planets? Ones in our galaxy. I talk with the peeps over in…

What if you could slide a scanner device across a sheet of paper and have it automatically play the sound? It would be much like a needle making sound from a record. But this would instead be on a piece…

When you google orangutan, look at the cute photo that shows up in the sidebar!

Which superhero is the most urban superhero? And I’m not just talking about the action just happens to take place in a city. I’m talking about a superhero who lives and breaths what it means to be in the city.…

Name one good-guy character who is more dark than Batman. There aren’t any. My cousin Peter asks on his blog post, “Batman is a Creeper” why Batman has to be dark all the time. I agree. Let Batman have some…

How do you pronounce the 2012 word of the year, GIF? I say it with a G. Not with a J. The creators of the word disagree, they say it’s to be pronounced JIF. But that’s stupid. GIF stands for…

I would like to share a cool mashup that Cure4 made with my Trump Tower photo. It’s cool seeing someone make something rad with your work.

When at a sporting event, do you spend more time watching the video on the scoreboard or the field? It’s tempting to watch the big screen, because it’s able to zoom in on the action better. But then, what’s the…

Topps is selling packs of eight cards for $500. That’s right. $500 for one pack of baseball cards. Here is my email to Topps: Dear Topps, your Five Star cards will scare many people away from collecting any cards. This…

Would you sit on the red carpet or the blue carpet? Richard Prouty wrote a blog post about an interesting performance artwork by Jonathan Horowitz. Here’s my thoughts: Cool performance piece. Yeah, we do end up staring at a television,…

1985 $250 1986 $250 1987 $575 1988 $500 1989 $500 1990 $500 (+ $75 bonus) 1991 $500 (+ $75 bonus) 1992 $500 (+ $75 bonus) 1993 $500 (+ $75 bonus) 1994 $500 (+ $75 bonus) Why did he get paid…

If you are voting for president using the new touch-screen computers, give yourself some extra time. The computers use a six-step process that take about three times as long to vote. 1) Registration via pen and paper 2) Confirmation via…

Today’s fun game is to take the first two letters of a word and repeat it twice in a sentence. Today is th-th. [Today is thursday.] I am feeling ti-ti. [I am feeling tired.] This cake is de-de. [This cake…