Author: Matt Maldre

I work in a popcorn zone at work. It’s called the south side of the 14th floor Tribune Tower. Oh burnt popcorn how thee smell Here comes the cloud, ring the bell, ring the bell! It’s burnt popcorn, I surely…

super-fragglistic definition: 1. Adjective. (to describe something that is really good). 2. Interjection. (used to express delight or happiness). example: as in, “Wow! This is super-fragglistic coffee!” etymology: Fraggle Rock. Because Fraggle Rock rules. You know it.

Baseball fantasy leagues can be too much work. My brother and I have our own league every year–just the two of us. We get all the best players. It’s fun. But this year we are mixing it up. No players.…

Every Tuesday after sunset in 2009 from July 14 to August 25, Chicago will show free movies on a 50-foot by 34-foot screen in Chicago’s downtown Grant Park at 100 S. Lake Shore Drive. (It’s south of Millennium Park, and…

I find it funny when people at work are sitting at their computers and ask what the day is. Um. It’s on your computer. It’s nice and all they are being friendly and socialable by asking another human. But really.…

A search for “declaration of independence” on a stock photo site shutterstock.com results in many images that are not the Declaration of Independence. Sure it looks like the Declaration of Independence, but it does not start with “We the People.”…

Today, April 8th is the 98th day of the year. The 98th word of the Declaration of Independence is: CREATED. As in “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by…

I have a backlog of videos to post to YouTube. About once a week, I’ll post a new video. Here’s one showing the big collection of Hot Wheels cars available at a Shelbyville, Indiana flea market. The end of the…

Carlos Zambrano is sixth all time for are the leaders in a season for home runs without a double. In 2006 he had six homeruns with no doubles.Stat of the Day – Homering Without Doubling

They need to rename April Fools day to be “Skepticism Day.” Post office to release Simpsons stamps. Yeah, right. http://tr.im/simpsonstamps

I have trouble memorizing long verses, but when they are six words long, it’s much easier. Not only is six words shorter, but you can break them up into a structure of 3×3. Or 2x2x2. They are handy little phrases…

On twitter, you are limited to 140 characters per tweet. If your message is too long, there should be a site where you can paste in your text and it will shorten the text down by changing “to” to “2”…

I like how the Millennium Park logo treats the MP letters. My name is Matthew Paul Maldre. I greatly appreciate the MP treatment. That got me curious who has matthewpaul.com. He’s a great web designer. I sent him the following…

Samurais! Cigars! Electric guitars! Here’s a way to spice up the international baseball tournament we know as the World Baseball Classic. Have players wear uniforms designed according to the warrior outfit of their native country. The warrior outfit will be…

Is it just me or does it seem lately that Google docs goes BONKERS on the auto-save? It auto-saves after every sentence. And seemingly every 30 seconds. And I can’t type while it auto-saves. It’s like Google docs is very…

When America messes up so much that people get tired of living here, we’ll joke about moving to Canada. But really. Canada? A) It’s so far away. B) It’s Canada. But what if we lived in Europe. Couldn’t you just…

I love the bookstore in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. They have such a great selection of books. I found nine books that I want. Yes, NINE. Here they are: Amazon.com Widgets Usually, when I’m shopping, I’ll find…

I’ve posted 22 tr.im URLs on twitter (I’m user spudart). What gets the most clicks? Drama and iphones! 41 clicks It’s kinda funny that the Chicago trolley service is ELIMINATED! http://tr.im/chicagotrolly Note: People love drama. Oh no! Service ELIMINATED! Maybe…

Play a fun game at work on your whiteboard. Have people guess what the first 70-degree day will be in your city. We started this competition about a month ago. Guess what today is? THE FIRST 70 DEGREE DAY IN…

According to urbandictionary.com, the 2nd definion for my initials MPM is “Common typo for lol. Most of the time it happens when you don’t look at the keyboard or when you are typing really fast :p” Let’s all take in…

AIGA is a great resource for graphic designers. But the annual membership fee is $315. Ouch. $315 a year. I recently wrote a letter to the AIGA asking if they have considered lowering their annual fee. This isn’t an exciting…

It would be nice to have a setting on Twitter to get only @replies sent as a text message to my phone. Getting tweets from all my friends would be crazy. But getting just the @replies would be really nice.…

Photo courtesy josephp via creative commons license Wow. They moved the entire Sears Tower over to Navy Pier. And they built a huge dome over it. A few questions: 1) How did they get the Sears Tower to fit inside…

Outside Tribune Tower in Chicago today is a promotion by Cricket Wireless and Samsung. I know this because I work on the 14th floor of the Tribune Tower and all I hear today is the guy on the loud speaker,…

“Mountain Dew Monkey” recently added me as a contact on Flickr. What a great name! Can you imagine a monkey drinking Mountain Dew!?

Give me back that filet-o-fish. Give me that fish! Give me back that filet o fish. Give me that fish! What if it were you hanging up on this wall? If it were you in that sandwich you wouldn’t be…

It’s great that Comcast’s Customer Support are on Twitter. They respond right away to your problems and guide you in the right direction. However, in the middle of helping you, the support team is also twittering to each other about…

The following is a letter I sent to the Borders corporation and to the Borders bookstore on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, which right now is planning on closing shop in January 2010. Greetings people of Borders. I heard recently that…

(Above photo: The chips after they were picked up off the ground) Let’s say you are sitting in one of the world’s greatest public spaces on one of the area’s first warm days of the year. Everyone is sitting outside…

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo. This is a great video that explains all this economy stuff. On a side note, in Chicago’s Pioneer was an Obama spending protest (photos). While I’m cautiously concerned about how…

Today is a square root day! 3 x 3 = 9. 03/03/09 I hope your day is full of square roots. And may your happiness be exponentially multiplied