“10 Actors That Should Be Cast As Authors” and “Readers Match Their Bodies To Book Covers”

A couple fun book related posts I recently came across – 10 Actors That Should Be Cast As Authors and Readers Match Their Bodies to Books

Music Monday – “Every four way stop that I approached/Hey, I was on the right/When I drove past your house again/Hey, like I always do/I think about the one thing in my life that didn’t come true”

An entire hour and a half long Fred Eaglesmith concert, taped in Holland?

Man, I love the Internet for so many reasons…it eliminates time, distance and provides access to stuff you’d never see otherwise.

I can’t imagine what it’ll be like in 5-10 years when literally everything that’s ever been broadcast, everything we can see can be recorded and all of it is available to watch anytime by anyone…

“Live at the Paradiso, Amsterdam” – Fred Eaglesmith

Blast From The Past

This is the first picture I ever took on my first iPhone 3G after buying it at the Southland Mall…

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Saturday Snap – One Year Check-up

Sasha enjoying her one year check-up with one of Saskatchewan’s best doctors

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Friday Fun Link – 1-Star Amazon Reviews Quoted onto Their Movie Posters

Funny stuff.

What Fact Do You Accept Intellectually Even Though It Still Feels “Wrong” To You?

Lots of cool answers in this AskReddit question

  • There are perfectly nice, reasonable, intelligent people who disagree with my political opinions.
  • You can get from North Korea to Finland by going through one country.
  • That if you don’t have a kid, you’re the first one since your ancestral line started [edit: not just human line but literally going all the way back to the first life forms] to not reproduce.
  • When the sign says Right Lane Closed 1000 yards ahead – the people speeding along in the Right Lane only to merge in at the last moment are… doing the right thing.
  • Tyrannosaurs is closer to today than to Stegosaurus.
  • Everything, including my body, is made up of really tiny particles…most of those particles are themselves composed of empty space.

I’ve highlighted some of my favourites but it’s worth clicking through to read the other answers as well as some of the discussion and follow-up comments these answers provoked.

Ten Random Thoughts

  1. Not sure if the anti-bullying Pink Shirt Day worked for Pace.  He called me a “stupid noob” when I got home then gave me a double shot to the stomach! Time to cut back on the Minecraft I guess… 😉
  2. Talking to people who don’t live in Libraryland often makes me realise that librarians are often our own worst enemies – we’re too controlling, too set in our ways, too unwilling to take risks.  A lot of librarians have observed that if we were a private business, we’d probably be bankrupt.  I hate that I’m often inclined to agree.
  3. Spring is finally here.  One of the weirdest signs?  Pace’s school bus is actually arriving on time in the morning as it can maneuver, make turns, and accelerate a lot better now that the streets aren’t giant skating rinks.
  4. Pace took his first steps at nine months and was walking quite well by age one.  Looks like Sasha’s not going to make it – she can stand for extended periods, crouch and then stand up and even stand from a sitting position without pulling herself up by anything.  But a week to the day to his first birthday and unless we drill her like an Olympic athlete, she likely won’t be walking at her first birthday party.  I recently read a good article that said many infant milestones are based on 50th percentile stuff which is ridiculous since that means 50% of parents could conceivably think their child is “behind schedule”.  It’d be much better to use milestones based on the 10th percentile so 90% of parents are less likely to worry and the 10% who are really far behind on milestones that are really warning signs of potential developmental delays could be better identified.
  5. Current TV Show: “Orange in the New Black” on NetFlix (and continuing to debate cutting the cord completely though haven’t made the leap yet.)
  6. Current Book: Just finished one so time to pick a new one – one of the best feelings in the world!
  7. Current Movie: Finally watched “Frozen” which was actually quite good
  8. Current Music: Nothing I’ve got on constant replay right now. Rdio makes it *so* easy to flip around from country to Eastern European folk music to kid’s songs to chart toppers to whatever strikes my fancy.
  9. Coming out of Wrestlemania XXX, seeing the elevation of Daniel Bryan and a huge number of young talents being brought in, it feels like pro wrestling’s poised for another boom period.  One theory is that the wrestling business is cyclical and each boom period corresponds to the development of a new technology that wrestling capitalizes on – going back to Gorgeous George and television in the 1950’s, Hulk Hogan and pay per view in the 1980’s,  Stone Cold Steve Austin and a broadening cable landscape in the 1990’s and now with Daniel Bryan and the Netflix-like WWE Network which uses the Internet to cut out the middle man (cable provider or whoever) so WWE deals directly with its fans.
  10. Sasha’s birthday theme is going to be The Very Hungry Caterpillar so we’ve bought Regina out of its supplies of butterflies and butterfly-related accessories!

Why UPS Drivers Won’t Turn Left

I’m not so strident as to never do left turns or try to avoid them at all costs.

But I’m not a fan of them generally and, if given the choice, will often do three right turns or go somewhat out of my way to avoid one left turn.

I’m glad to hear UPS agrees.

Music Monday – “A monster, a monster/I’ve turned into a monster/A monster, a monster/And it keeps getting stronger”

Continuing with the Wrestlemania XXX theme I started yesterday, here’s a really cool video package about the rise of the underdog, Daniel Bryan, from wrestling in high school gyms and armouries to winning the WWE World Title at the 30th Anniversary Wrestlemania card in front of 80,000 screaming fans…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cezEEPHRXHI

Monster” – Imagine Dragons

Random Thoughts on #WrestlemaniaXXX Tonight #spoilers

Here are some random thoughts on the 30th anniversary of the biggest wrestling pay-per-view of all-time…

– *loved* the opening HHH vs. Daniel Bryan match and its placement on the card too after some people speculated that it would be right before the main event Triple Threat match which would’ve been really dumb in my opinion.  (Like an LP or a fancy meal, so much of how a wrestling show is perceived depends on how the card is laid out so that things lead from one thing to another, raising and lowering emotions.  More on that later…)

– After winning 21 straight matches at Wrestlemania (pretty amazing, even for a fixed sport, since its unlikely “The Streak” even became a thing until The Undertaker won a few matches in a row) the Streak is gone.  There were two schools of thought on The Streak – never end it to cement Undertaker’s legacy or have him lose to a young up-and-comer to propel that kid to the moon.  This year, they did neither, having Undertaker lose it to former amateur wrestling champion, former WWF champion and former UFC champion, Brock Lesnar.  The crowd reactions after the match tells the story as pretty much *nobody* expected ‘Taker to lose this year given that Brock Lesnar is a part-time, special attraction at best, the build-up for this match was extremely lacklustre, and there were lots of others (Bray Wyatt, Cesaro, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, etc.) that fans thought would be better choices to end The Streak in the future.

– speaking of Undertaker vs. Brock, there was a lot of criticism of the slow pace of the match on the official Reddit thread.  But I didn’t mind it – having a slow brawl means not every match is a spotfest and it reminds me of the old-school, hard-hitting, realistic style of wrestling I grew up watching.

– John Cena beat Bray Wyatt and that match was good too.  Lots of “smart” Internet fans (eg. those who take it way too seriously) hate John Cena but the story of the match – would Cena betray his “ultimate good guy” persona to defeat the cult leader who was trying to undermine what he stands for by forcing him to do evil deeds or give in to his darkest impulses (kinda like Star Wars come to think of it) – but Cena’s good side ultimately prevailed.  When Cena hugged the young kid who was in the front row crying after the match, it makes you realise – yeah, the “smart” fans hate Cena and his goody-two shoes image.  But the WWE needs someone like that for kids to look up to.

– I didn’t watch it on the WWE network but with my interest in the shift from traditional to digital broadcasting methods, I need to do a longer post about the WWE’s huge gamble to create a Netflix-like online-only network featuring on-demand matches and PPV’s from the last 25 years plus live original content including *all* 12 annual PPV’s for what used to cost $60 each and now costs $60 total!!!  The WWE has released their initial subscriber numbers and they’re more than halfway to the 1 million subscriber goal they said they had when the network launched.

– That Randy Orton RKO on Daniel Bryan on the announcer table where Orton actually landed the hardest on a TV monitor that hadn’t been cleared away and left him with a big gash on his back looked UGLY.  Amazing he could continue the match.

– The show started by putting over lots of young talent – The Shield won over New Age Outlaws & Kane, Cesaro won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal (cleverly abbreviated as “ARMBAR” by Reddit’s wrestling fans) beating out the popular choice of The Big Show who is the natural successor to Andre the Giant (and was, in fact, once billed as Andre’s son). (Hogan may have dropped hints about who the true winner would be though when he announced the ARMBAR would be at Wrestlemania.)

– some felt that the Undertaker losing his streak was done partly to plant a seed that *nothing* was for sure since so many people thought Daniel Bryan winning the title was a foregone conclusion.  But the flip side is that move shocked the audience so badly that it almost lowered their emotions *too* much and made it harder for the rest of the card to keep the emotional build going (and talking about match placement, the Divas Invitational match was going to be a “bathroom break” match anyhow.  But following the Undertaker losing his streak???)

The opening segment with Hulk Hogan, The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin in the ring together was amazing – arguably the three biggest money makers in wrestling in the past 30 years.  My only wish is that, instead of Daniel Bryan celebrating alone in the ring after he won, those three would’ve come out to bookend the show, give Bryan a *massive* rub as being on their level (although that could backfire – after all, The Miz won the world title at Wrestlemania only a few years ago and was pretty much a faceless guy in the battle royal this year.)

I’m sure there’s lots more I could say but that’s a quick summary of some of my thoughts.  Pretty amazing show overall.