Year: 2020

The awesome Christmas ninja toys from Oriental Trading

A great Christmas surprise this year? Christmas ninjas! With these fun little guys around the house, you’ll find everyone asking, “Hey, what happened to the Christmas cookies?” Ninjas. These little guys bearing peppermint weapons will surely bring a fresh breath of air to your Christmas. They could cause all sorts of mischief around your house. …

The awesome Christmas ninja toys from Oriental Trading Read More »

is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?

Marcus Aurelius on getting out of bed to create order in the world

The Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius writes on how to begin each day for optimal sanity and the key to living fully. Brainpickings.org hand-picked out some of Aurelius’ quotes. (They do such a great job quoting and summarizing inspiring works of literature.) Here are some his quotes that stood out to me At …

Marcus Aurelius on getting out of bed to create order in the world Read More »

Video of Barack Obama Election Victory Celebration in Grant Park of Chicago, 2008

As we stand on Election Day, let’s look back 12 years ago when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. The excitement at Chicago’s Grant Park was electric! I updated all the photos on my original 2008 blog post to be high-resolution to fill the page. That magical night, I also recorded a handful of …

Video of Barack Obama Election Victory Celebration in Grant Park of Chicago, 2008 Read More »

This cow has been tipped 2,162 times

[Disclaimer: First let me say that cow tipping is not a nice thing to do. It’s pretty much impossible to tip a cow. They are very squarely built.] In the virtual world of the world wide web, a page exists where you can tip over a tiny little cow gif. Go to: angelfire.com/oh/cow123/tip.html and click …

This cow has been tipped 2,162 times Read More »

Did the Jawas get their design inspiration from Peru?

The Jawa Sandcrawler kinda looks a bit like ancient pan pipes from Peru. The angled shape. The worn surface. The rusty color. These two objects from completely different worlds have an odd affinity for each other. Did the this Peruvian musical instrument somehow land on Tatooine? Jawas found it in the desert, and thought the …

Did the Jawas get their design inspiration from Peru? Read More »

Screenshot of RhymeZone's tool to find descriptive words

Tools beyond the thesaurus to find descriptive words when brainstorming

When brainstorming, you often start with one word, and then come up with related concepts to that word. A thesaurus is often nice, because it gives you synonyms for the word. If you use thesaurus.com, you’d get: detonation, explosion, roar, rumble, barrage, blast, boom, booming, cannonade, clap, cracking, crash, crashing, discharge, drumfire, fulmination, outburst, peal, …

Tools beyond the thesaurus to find descriptive words when brainstorming Read More »

Earliest artworks of fireworks

Fireworks captured in 1782. Very cool to see artwork capturing fireworks from so long ago. The Art Institute of Chicago’s “Art Tab” Chrome extension always displays interesting random artworks. Check out how crazy these fireworks look. The lines streaking across the sky looks like lightning! I’m guessing these early fireworks didn’t always have a straight …

Earliest artworks of fireworks Read More »