Some Time Wasters, a Centre of the Universe Story, and My List of London Regrets

Came across The Birthday Calculator which tells you your date of conception, how many days, weeks, months and years old you are (you probably know that one) on Ian's blog via an embedded Digg link that displayed on his site because he was using Feed2JavaScript, a neat little utility that allows you to embed RSS feeds into web pages easily.  (I really like reading the blogs of people in the Social Software class because it's like I'm getting to take the class for free and without all of that nasty assigned reading!

Speaking of RSS feeds, I'm getting quite addicted to NetVibes.com which uses tabs, a checkered layout (what's that called again?) and other Web 2.0 goodness to make a really effective way to display RSS feeds.  You can share tabs and other modules with other people – I found one that had most of the best library blogs on a tab and ready to import to your own page for instance.  I'm liking NetVibes so much compared to the WizzRSS Firefox plug-in that I used for RSS before that it's getting close to being a contender for my “default home page” setting.  That's the big time real estate, boys! 

The other time waster I found (I think also via Digg through my NetVibes site – I like how you can configure it to only display stories that have 300+ Diggs or whatever so you only get the most popular stuff showing up) was called “How Many of Me” which compiles how many people share your first name (about a million), your last name (about 84 000) and your full name (278) out of the 300 million people recorded in the last US census.  Oops, just remembered – I found this one via a writer's blog that I read on occasion.  (She had 0 matches for her very distinct name.) 

What else?  Oh yeah, the Centre of the Universe story (sorry, not about your blog, Jill).  One of my favourite moments of first term was a classmate who was born in raised in Toronto but had spent some time in Regina collaring me at the Grad Club one night and asking “Tell me the truth – do people in the west really hate Toronto?”  “I actually like Toronto,” I replied “but I hate the Maple Leafs.  Does that count?” 

In what's becoming a mini-tradition here, my Saturday post is about hockey as in about an hour or so, the Calgary Flames are in Toronto for the first game of this week's HNIC double-header and I am sure they're going to trash them pretty good (just as westerners do about Toronto – when they're not being asked by Torontonians! )

The fact that I'm watching on TV instead of sitting at Air Canada Centre in a scalped $200 seat gives me an idea for a list…

THINGS I REGRET NOT DOING WHILE IN LONDON FOR A YEAR
– probably won't get to an NHL game in any nearby city (Toronto, Detroit, Buffalo, even Columbus had some appeal last March if the timing had been better)
– missed a lot of excellent concerts in Toronto as well
– we're likely not going to get to Huron County north of us which is supposed to be beautiful, especially in the fall
– not really a regret but I thought we might get to the States more than once
– we've missed a lot that London has to offer – the Grand Theatre, the Banting Museum, Museum London, the Labatt Brewery Tour, the Kellogg Factory tour
– not visiting more of the libraries in both the small towns and cities I did visit
– I got into Toronto a few times for conferences and conventions and while helping to move people and passing through both by car and train.  But Shea and I only only really had a couple days in Toronto to be tourists.  The good news?  We might get in for a couple days during the research week at the end of this month.  The bad (?) news?  There's a baby show that weekend so we'll be spending a lot of time looking at baby stuff.  Just to clarify so
– I really wanted to get to Port Dover to visit some friends we have down there.  We got to see them at the Fred Eaglesmith Charity Picnic in August but they were working (she works for Eaglesmith as his manager) so we didn't get a great visit.

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