Author: Matt Maldre

While in McDonalds there was this dude in his 40s talking to himself loudly. He was talking about how this year is the “two double-oh-seven.” That’s a cool name for this decade, “the double oh’s.” And “double oh seven” just…

Sporting events 2006: Winter Olympics, World Baseball Classic, and the World Cup. 2007: No big crazy sporting events Winner: 2006 Chinese Year 2006: Year of the dog 2007: Year of the pig Winner: 2006 Year of 2006: Year of Mozart,…

The number in parenthesis is the number of hits the post got in 2006. list of four-letter words with three vowels (6,163) I’m just amazed that this is number one. Wild Chicago Archives (4,353) No suprise here. WTTW should have…

I couldn’t pick a favorite post from 2006, so here’s my top 25 with notes: Seeing earth for the first time An interesting view of earth we normally don’t see The difference between one million and one billion A baby…

In addition to tracking the typical stats from a baseball game on a scorecard, why not add some fun stuff too.

INSPIRATION/OTHER ARTISTS –Find interesting work online? Let us know. –Anything inspired you? What is it? –What are some past influences on your art? –Mention any interesting conversations you had with other artists YOUR ART –Show progress of your works with…

A list of Whiteboard games, grouped by category Guessing games Guess the number of beans in container Guess when will be the first 70-degree day in your town Question/Answer games Caption contest Draw map of world with imperative, mark where…

Things to observe rooflines of buildings. –How the move when you move. shapes of trees. –big at bottom, small at top –small at bottom, big at top –where trees first split when they come out of the ground number of…

It’s fun searching my address book by first name, because I can see how many people I know with a a particular first name. Here’s the most popular in my address book: 8 Amy 7 Jennifer 7 Lisa 7 Tim…

When something costs ten dollars, the cool person will say, “That jive cost me a hamilton.” Or even, “it bust me out a hammy.” If something costs sixteen dollars, that would be called a “Hamilington” (for Hamilton, Lincoln, Washington) Twenty-three…

How much do you remember from the books you read? If you’re like me, most of the info just kinda disappears. It would be neat to go back through books you’ve read and pull out five quotes from each book…

Take your cell phone number. Enter it into a calculator as a set of digits as numbers, and the dashes as a minus sign. At the end of the phone number, hit the enter/equals button. Let’s take Empire carpet’s old…

(photo courtesy of reiscakes via creative commons) My away message for work on December 25: ============= I’m out of the office Monday and Tuesday, December 25 and 26. Between the years 800-1200 AD, many kings were crowned on December 25th:…

Yesterday we learned that the 19th President of the United States (1877-1881) Rutherford B. Hayes is the least searched-for president online. But now he is my favorite, because he loved to play croquet. Here’s some more trivia about our nineteenth…

Starting in 2007 the US Mint will be featuring presidents on the dollar coins. Every year four presidents will be featured in the order they took office. Which president is the least searched-for? Overture’s keyword selector tool tells us how…

Every year in early May and early september there are wiffleball tournaments in Sycamore, Illinois. Buttermaker informed me about these tournaments through a funny message on 43people.com =============== I have not met Matt yet but I can tell he is…

(Image courtesy bug138) My away message for work: I’m out of the office Monday and Tuesday, December 18 and 19 as December 18th is International Test your Nuclear Weapons Day (btw, i’m not serious). But what is serious is that…

(Photo courtesy of Jurica) If i had a dog, i would give him an email address. People could email my dog and then i would read the email to him. I’m thinking about giving my pet rock an email address.…

The most errors in one season was accomplished by shortstop Billy Shindle of the 1890 Philadelphia Quakers. He bobbled the ball 119 times in one season. At least he was 2nd in the league with 182 hits. Billy was a…

What is the plural of childhood? Childhoods? That sounds weird. The plural of child is children. How about the plural of childhood to be childhoodren?

One of the great avenues of the world is missing something. A red carpet. Chicago’s Magnificent Mile has wonderful shopping, skyscrapers, historic buildings, and even horse carriages. But now imagine a mile long red carpet on the sidewalk. That would…

There’s plans for a new monster 2,000 foot tall building to appear on the lakefront in Chicago. Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune wrote an excellent review pointing out how the old plan had the tower gracefully pointing upward into…

(This post is supposed to appear on Tuesday, December 12, but since I mention this in my funny auto-reply email away message at work, i’m posting it earlier) On this day in December 12, 1930, Major League Baseball changes a…

For all you FOX NFL robot hatas out there, be glad it ain’t like the NHL robots. NHL Transformers: NFL Transformer: The Fox NFL transformer rules. The first week of football this year I thought it was cool and wondered…

Before books they wrote everything on scrolls. And now with computers, we have come back to the scrolls (scrolling up and down a webpage).

1999 Cows on Parade 2001 Couches 2001-2004 Wacker Drive Construction   2003 Bobbleheads 2004 Mickey Mouse (Photos courtesy of Vincent Falk) When Chicago does a public art theme, Vincent Falk photographs himself beside every single sculpture with a matching outfit.…

Let’s say you wanted to find all the words that end in “able.” The dictionary at onelook.com enables you to do that. Just type in an asterick before your search query. (Note, this will not work on dictionary.com or Cambridge…

ways to indicate laughter online acronyms: lol (laughing out loud) lawl (pronounciation of lol) lolol (adds emphasis of lol) llol (literally laughing out loud) lolz (gangsta lol) rofl (rolling on the floor laughing) roffle (pronounciation of rofl) lmao (laughing my…

This fall my kickball team won the league championship! We went undefeated for the entire season therefore making us the undisputed the 2006 kickball champions in Chicago. If you want to dispute it, we dare you to bring the challenge…

83 in text messaging means TD or Touchdown. If your team scores a touchdown, you can send an excited text message to a friend that says, “TD TD TD TD TD TD TD TD.” All it takes is to hit…

Here’s a collection of fonts about jokes and graphic design found around the internet. (thanks to Tom Saaristo for emailing me this first joke) —– Four fonts walk into a bar. The barman says, “Get out! We don’t want your…