Author: Matt Maldre

And why do we read left to right? When we face north, the sun moves the opposite direction–right to left. Look down at the earth’s north pole from above, the world spins counter clockwise. Yet our clocks spin clockwise. Baffling!

The following hula hoop advice from hooping.org: Many people try to move their hips in a circle with the hoop. This actually makes hooping much harder. Try this: put one foot in front of the other and just shift your…

Smackless definition: (adj) Spelled Pronunciation[smack-lis] Origin: Starting in 2005 Yahoo Fantasy Football allowed competitors to have “smack talk” appear by their team name. Smack is comments either boasting up oneself or against another team. When one of the teams don’t…

How easy is it for someone to jack a Segway? Considering that you can run faster than the top speed of a Segway, you can’t just jack one and ride off with it. The top speed of a Segway is…

Mayor Daley and Chicago unveiled their logo for the bid to have Chicago host the 2016 Summer Olympic games. VSA Partners’ Chicago office designed the logo. Here’s my critique of the logo: Flame It’s said that the skyline seen in…

I liked yesterday’s photo so much, that here’s a blog post dedicated to just this photo. You can find it on the MLB website selling a “Property of Bonds” tshirt. It’s interesting the depth of committment MLB has towards Bonds–a…

The rooftop of a downtown building in downtown Chicago just got a curious addition built this morning. A white bulbous alien ship/water slide just landed down on top of the Realtor Building on 430 North Michigan Avenue. I work on…

Major League Baseball players with more walks have longer at bats, allowing announcers to talk about them more, therefore they become more famous. All-time walk leaders: 1. Barry Bonds 2426 L 2. Rickey Henderson 2190 R 3. Babe Ruth 2062…

They say you should take 10,000 steps a day to be healthy. You can even count non-walking activities as steps. For instance, universalhealthcare.com says sawing firewood is the equivalent to taking 113 steps a minute. Here’s the top ten activities:…

I have a new piece of art in the art gallery on spudart.org. Feel free to leave a comment at the lego mosaic robot page.

A chalk drawing on a sidewalk will dissolve when it rains. So if you leave a piece of chalk outside in the rain, will the chalk dissolve? That’s a logical connection, but I think when it rains on a chalk…

The U.S. Census Bureau reports in the 1993 Census and You * Second (10,866) * Third (10,131) * First (9,898) * Fourth (9,190) * Park (8,926) * Fifth (8,186) * Main (7,644) * Sixth (7,283) * Oak (6,946) * Seventh…

Out of the existing 720 wrestling names, the most common word is: “Mr.” Here’s the 20 most common words in names of wrestlers: —Mr (13 occurances) —Big (12 occurances) —Jim (10 occurances) —Kid (10 occurances) —Great (9 occurances) —Johnny (9…

While riding the CTA red line this morning, there were three advertisements in succession on the train. They said: 1: BORED? PASS THE TIME WITH A WORD JUMBLE. 2: ULOQOSYIL HRSPIM NUJOROS EENRSE LSAIOABT 3: HINT: THEY ALL START WITH…

It’s shocking that there is no official National Firefighters day. There should be one! Since 2001 there has been a circulating email petition, which is nice, but it doesn’t get anything done. To really get the ball rolling on National…

Every week I design 13 newspaper pages that get syndicated to newspapers across the country. I illustrated the cover of the “Your Life” section that had a lead article about how to say “no” to people.

When composing a text message on a cell phone, the easiest letters to use are the first ones for each number: 2: a 3: d 4: g 5: j 6: m 7: p 8: t 9: w Using just these…

After the two-hour delay Chicago commuters experienced this morning on the purple, red, and brown lines; I suggest you send an email to: [email protected] Here’s my letter. Feel free to copy and send it to the CTA. The more voices,…

My brother was working on a really big photoshop file and he got a dialog box saying “erasing hole”. ERASING HOLE! YOU CAN’T ERASE HOLES! YOU CAN ONLY FILL THEM! Can you erase a hole in reality? Cuz a hole…

The Chicago podcast meetup group is having their first meeting at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 at 7:00pm. So far, 19 people have RSVP’ed “Yes.” You can sign-up at: http://podcasting.meetup.com/72/events/5061382/ (or you could just show…

Would one of these sound amplifiers work at a Major League ballpark to hear what the players talk about in the dugout? Educational Insights Sonic Sleuth $24.99 Sound Receiver WN-077 Spy Listening Device $29.48 Spion Orbitor Electronic Listening Device $59.95…

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It’s rather sneaky that claw vending machines take dollar bills. If they only took quarters, then I wouldn’t be as likely to play them, because I don’t always have change on me–let alone two quarters. Plus the dollar enables the…

This coupon expires 10/31/2006. It got it in an email from LEGO.

How many times can you get a bouncy ball to bounce off the walls and floors inside the elevator with one throw?

Q101 stole my video and put it on their “cool” “chicago site” whatswrongwithchicago.com to promote their station. At that site, scroll down to see “DANCE BATTLE” That’s my video that I shot and put up on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq6iQLJ2f_g. I’m…

The other day I learned not to bounce my bouncy ball on the escalator. I knew it was a bad idea, but figured that one bounce wouldn’t hurt. So halfway up the ride, I gave it one bounce and it…

The dude (Marco Hort) who fit 210 drinking straws in his mouth graced the cover of the sell sheet I designed when Tribune was syndicating Guinness World Records as a column to other newspapers. Now he’s back breaking the world…

(image from ArchitectureChicago Plus blog) The Blue Cross-Blue Shield Building in downtown Chicago at 300 East Randolph is going to double its height by adding another building right smack on top of it. According to the ArchitectureChicago Plus blog, The…

There is a giant potato that orbits around Saturn and its name is Hyperion… Hyperion the potato! That’s one large starchy tuber!

If I was planning a subdivision, I would make one that looks just like a monopoly board. Then you can market your community to tourists as the Monopoly town. And people could actually play Monopoly in real life scale. Although…