Author: Matt Maldre

Worldictionary $3.99 4.5 stars (122 ratings) The best app on this list, because it includes 22 languages for one price. No additional in-app purchases needed. Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Germany, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish,…

Looking to write something unique in a wedding card? Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. You see it so often. But what does it really mean? At work a card was being passed around for a former coworker who is getting married. “Congratulations”…

Yesterday my girlfriend put in the winning donation that got Tal & Acacia’s kickstarter to their $12,000 goal for producing a new album. Funding projects on Kickstarter is a lot of fun. You get to help people with their projects,…

Looking for interesting podcasts? My girlfriend was asking for podcast recommendations. Here’s my list of podcasts that I listen to regularly. They are sorted by which ones I listen to first. ChicagoScope Podcast My friend Leigh’s podcast. iTunes description: Audio…

Author Marco Buscaglia asks on his Facebook wall why pomegranates are appearing everywhere. Here’s why: Pomegranate is the magical fruit. One day Pomegranate was sitting on its magical throne in the land of fruit. It waved its magical fruit wand,…

Starbucks is able to make up their own names for sizes. — Trenta (916 mL) — Venti (591 mL) — Grande (473 mL) — Tall (354 mL) I want to make up my own names for sizes. — Redonk (extra…

Whenever we get a new president, it’s tradition that they issue executive orders on their first day. Mine would be to force usage of the metric system.

If you were to space travel, what ship would you want? — Star Trek’s Enterprise — Robotech’s Super Dimension Fortress One (SDF-1) Macross — Star Wars’ Imperial I Class Star Destroyer

You open a yogurt, but then let it sit on your desk and it gets warm after 30 minutes. Is it gross to put it back into the work fridge to let it cool off? Sparxmind said it’s only gross…

The fastest planet in our solar system is Mercury, flying around the sun at 107,082 mph. Can you imagine having the windows open while driving at 107,082 mph? Neptune is the Sunday driver of our solar system. 12,191mph. If you…

My predictions for the 2012 Homerun Derby: FIRST ROUND (8 players) 5 Carlos Gonzalez 5 Carlos Beltran 5 Prince Fielder 4 Robinson Cano 3 Joey Bautista 3 Mark Trumbo 3 Matt Kemp 2 Andrew McCutchen SECOND ROUND (4 players) 12…

Three funny fictional characters to follow on twitter are @darthvader @cobracommander @god_damn_batman I have a twitter list of funny fictional characters at twitter.com/#!/mattmaldre/funny-fictionals/members. Do you have any suggestions for other funny fictional characters to follow?

From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia: Jumpluff can use its fluffy cotton spores to float through the air. These spores can control its flight even in the extremely high winds of a hurricane. Jumpluff drifts on seasonal winds and can…

Have a neighbor that is playing music too loud? Stand outside their window, 10 feet from the source, and measure the sound with a decibel meter. 70 decibels is the limit. How loud is 70 decibels? 60 decibels is half…

In a WBEZ interview about how techno music is like classical music, Mason Bates, composer-in-residence for both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, gives an example of how people are afraid of the symphony. At minute 11:48…

Someone follows you on twitter, and if they look like a normal real person, you might follow them back. That’s what I generally do. Who knows? You might develop some sort of connection with that person. They offer the opportunity…

This sticky note table is right up my alley. Sticky notes are so versatile. There are so many ways to use them. I use them for public artwork. They are non-destructive and able to make a message. If a viewer…

The hand-written tag “FORGIVE” has been appearing all over Chicago for the past three years. Who does these tags? What is the origin and meaning behind this work? I made a flickr gallery of the 11 earliest FORGIVE photos found…

Answer: 5 sheets I previously thought it was 20 sheets, but I was misguided thinking you can mail 3.5 ounces with one stamp. If you mailed something that was 3.5 ounces, it would cost you one dollar. A single $0.55…

Just as my dad turned 65 recently, the Chicago Tribune is turning 165. Sorry, this is for Tribune employees only.

Byliner.com is a pretty cool site featuring short stories. I wanted to join and post some of my short stories from my blog. I have good stories, right? However, on their “submit a link” page they say, “Byliner showcases new…

Free samples at Trader Joe’s are the best. The only thing I don’t like about the free samples is the friendly banter you have to make with the free sample artist behind the counter. On a Monday afternoon I picked…

As Conan O’Brien so eloquently stated to the backdrop of USA USA chants in his show at Chicago today: Conan has nobly donated to Chicago a 17-foot tall bobblehead doll in his likeness and he wants to know where YOU…

The Telegraph reports, “Shakespeare’s first theatre discovered in London.” Buried at end of the article is this clipping, “The site is owned by Plough Yard Developments, which plan to feature the remains as part of a new office, retail and…

Over on my blog about publishing and syndication, read about my adventures trying to get the free Banana Man graphic novel onto my Kindle app.

I can’t believe that PBS actually made this. It’s really good. I want to be Mister Rogers. Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios (hat-tip to Dubplate Dionysus). It‚Äôs good to be curious about many…

Yesterday I tweeted, “One day is 0.00273972603th of a year.” A couple people retweeted it, so that made me think of how to visualize this. I did the first illustration above. And then I thought a pie graph would make…

The Berlin Wall was 96 miles long. That’s longer than driving from Antioch to Joliet. Can you imagine if there was a wall that long built in Chicago? It would separate the west suburbs from the city and nearby burbs.…

The Art Institute posted a one minute video of Roy Lichenstein’s wife talking about her husband’s show now showing at the Art Institute. Out of the 3,745 views, there was one comment. Just one word in the comment, “Lovely.” To…

In my past experiences of hiring people, we’ve had ranging lists of types of experiences in different areas; and we’ve found difficulty in finding candidates with the right mix of knowledge in these different areas. Which rather perplexes me, because…