Category Archives: Randomness

The Tribesman Who Facebook Friended Me

A really interesting story about how Facebook has reached into places where you would least expect it. (I sometimes feel like I need to add this to any story I post that I find on MetaFilter but seriously, the MetaFilter comments make the original story 1000x better!)

Cross-Linguistic Onomatopoeia

A discussion of how the song “Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes” is sung with a different melody in Canada then in other parts of the world leads to this awesome Wikipedia article about how a variety of animal sounds and other common noises are conveyed in different languages. (via MetaFilter)

Saturday Snap – Funny Graffiti

Kids, grafitti is wrong and you should never do it.  But if you happen to have a Sharpie in your pocket when walking past an unadorned stop sign, it’s a truism of life that the obvious jokes can also be the funniest.  😉  

Map Porn

I recently discovered an awesome sub-Reddit called r/mapporn which features all kinds of really frickin’ cool maps such as “America 1681“, “Flipping European and North American Cities“, “World Map of Railways“, “Map of Facebook Connections” and I have to stop there or else I’ll just link to all their maps – each one is so […]

Friday Fun Link – One Day on Earth

A recent documentary features a variety of scenes from all around the world captured on a single day.  Here’s the trailer: One Day on Earth – Motion Picture Trailer from One Day On Earth on Vimeo.

Some Thoughts on The 10th Anniversary of 9/11

There’s a lot of commentary today online, in other media and at memorials around the world.   So instead of adding to the noise, I thought I’d do a quick round-up of some of the most interesting things I’ve seen… (Oh, okay – I’ll quickly do my own “Where were you when?” story since I […]

Happy RPL-a-versary to Me!

Today is my three year anniversary of starting work at RPL.  A few stream-of-unconscious thoughts and observations… 1. I started working for the Writers Guild of Alberta at almost the exact same time of year – I know because I was in their office doing my initial training a couple days before September 11.  (I’ve […]

The 50 Best Tasting Foods in the World

CNN conducted an unscientific worldwide poll and after getting 35 000 responses, created a list of the 50 best tasting foods in the world. Canada hits the list at 46 with maple syrup but that’s our only contribution.  Surprisingly (?) the two top ranked dishes are both Indonesian (did Indonesians scam the poll?), neither of […]

Time Travel, Being Violated By A Police Officer and An Early Hint o’ My Librarian Tendencies

We were at a wedding in my hometown about a month ago.  Sitting at the table during the reception, I was chatting with one of the people I hadn’t seen in a long time but who had lived next door to our house for most of her years in Indian Head.  She was a friend […]

A Tragic Coincidence for Saskatchewan Hockey

With the death of Wade Belak, the three young NHLers who have died in recent months (also including Derek Boogaard and Rick Rypien) were all born and/or played junior hockey in Saskatchewan. I suspect their common role as hockey enforcers probably played more of a role in their sudden deaths – two suicides and one […]