The internet is full of one thing: wormholes. They are easy to find: just start clicking. If you aren't sure where to start, try Wikipedia, the links will lead you on a magical mystery tour into the weirdest places.
Today, my journey started with a Facebook status update by Hubby. His use of an implied double-entendre by ending a phrase with "[blank]" reminded me of the 70s era Match Game so I suggested in my comment cuing the Match Game music and added something about Charles Nelson Reilly. That's where things got interesting. I went looking for the Weird Al song, CNR from his latest album (no, I'm not kidding, it's embedded below) but got sidetracked reading the Wikipedia entry for Charles Nelson Reilly. Turns out, he survived a horrific fire I'd never heard about, the Hartford Circus Fire.
In July 1944, a Ringling Bros.,Barnum and Bailey show under the big top was destroyed by a fire -- seems the typical waterproofing of the era was paraffin dissolved in kerosene spread over the canvas tents! After the event (which killed over 160 people and injured hundreds more), Reilly never sat in a theatre audience and Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey left the tents for good, performing only in buildings or arenas as they toured. A few clicks brought me to this page of magazine articles, some contemporary to the event -- I particularly liked the breakdown in Volunteer Firemen Magazine which includes a map of the Big Top (better scan here) showing the origin of the fire, the exits, and basically what went wrong.
One more click into the wormhole and I was watching a clip from Charles Nelson Reilly's stage show, the Life of Reilly about the event -- a lifetime away from the bawdy CNR I knew from syndicated reruns of the Match Game. (If you only click on one link, follow that one. It's well worth the two minutes or so.)
So, anyway, that's how I spent my Saturday afternoon. How about you?
Related fun stuff:
CNR, in the style of the White Stripes:
Typical Match Game tomfoolery:
Showing posts with label chronocide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chronocide. Show all posts
10 April 2010
11 September 2009
Friday Free-For-All
Yeah, it's Friday. It was a short week but in the name of all things holy it was busy. Packed buses, packed campus, crowded streets (I biked to work today, forgetting about the extra people, bikes and cars I'd have to navigate), and a task list four feet long. So here are a few things I found along the way to distract me from all that:
Clever anti-theft stickers -- make your bike or car look like it is a rusted out pos to deter potential theives.
Funniest thing I've read all week (though maybe not as funny for carefree, kidfree readers) was a post from ispuddle.com, "So then there was the preschool picnic." The blogger is also a writer who has published a number of youth and YA books plus one adult novel; I'll be looking for them the next time I am at the public library. (Hey, cool! We actually have some of the titles in our library! I'm gonna walk down the hall and grab em!)
From the "Huh. Clever." files is the promotional bike seat cover. I noticed these earlier in the week, blanketing every bike seat I walked past on campus, they were printed with the RBC logo. As clever as I think they are, I suspect they also pissed off a number of cyclists but not before the point was made:
You may be aware that I am a sucker for behind-the-scenes stuff: dvd making-of featurettes, shows that lay bare how stuff is made, and seeing the back rooms of almost any operation. So I was pleased to see this playlist from the NFB of 8 short films with a how-to theme.
Waaaay back, I had a website called Chronocide** -- filled with links to all manner of ways to kill time. One of those was to a novella-in-progress called She Hates My Futon by Craig Mitchell published on his personal site, My Boot. I actually enjoyed reading each chapter as it came out but he stopped writing it in 2000 and My Boot slipped under the virtual waves about 4 years later.
For no reason but the title popped into my head today, I searched for the novella through Google. The site is gone but someone helpfully collected the chapters and published them as a Feedbook (memo to self, download to iPod) -- after attempting to contact the author with no luck. Through the Feedbook page I found that there is a (small) Facebook group of people who want to see a conclusion to the story... so, Craig, if you happen to see this, what do you think? Can you give us an ending?
It may not be Edwin Drood... but it was a decent story and I've always wondered if she learned to love that futon. Probably not.
**you can see the remaining shell of the categories page here -- I imagine many of the links are now dead.
Clever anti-theft stickers -- make your bike or car look like it is a rusted out pos to deter potential theives.
Funniest thing I've read all week (though maybe not as funny for carefree, kidfree readers) was a post from ispuddle.com, "So then there was the preschool picnic." The blogger is also a writer who has published a number of youth and YA books plus one adult novel; I'll be looking for them the next time I am at the public library. (Hey, cool! We actually have some of the titles in our library! I'm gonna walk down the hall and grab em!)
From the "Huh. Clever." files is the promotional bike seat cover. I noticed these earlier in the week, blanketing every bike seat I walked past on campus, they were printed with the RBC logo. As clever as I think they are, I suspect they also pissed off a number of cyclists but not before the point was made:
You may be aware that I am a sucker for behind-the-scenes stuff: dvd making-of featurettes, shows that lay bare how stuff is made, and seeing the back rooms of almost any operation. So I was pleased to see this playlist from the NFB of 8 short films with a how-to theme.
Waaaay back, I had a website called Chronocide** -- filled with links to all manner of ways to kill time. One of those was to a novella-in-progress called She Hates My Futon by Craig Mitchell published on his personal site, My Boot. I actually enjoyed reading each chapter as it came out but he stopped writing it in 2000 and My Boot slipped under the virtual waves about 4 years later.
For no reason but the title popped into my head today, I searched for the novella through Google. The site is gone but someone helpfully collected the chapters and published them as a Feedbook (memo to self, download to iPod) -- after attempting to contact the author with no luck. Through the Feedbook page I found that there is a (small) Facebook group of people who want to see a conclusion to the story... so, Craig, if you happen to see this, what do you think? Can you give us an ending?It may not be Edwin Drood... but it was a decent story and I've always wondered if she learned to love that futon. Probably not.
**you can see the remaining shell of the categories page here -- I imagine many of the links are now dead.
26 August 2008
So much to do....
Blogging may be scarce for a while as we are busy with prep at home and all I have the energy to do at the end of the night is surf aimlessly or play a few rounds of a puzzle game.
Today, Hubby is finishing filling the U-Pak unit then we still have a bit of packing to do (but now our storage locker and storage room are empty -- all that stuff is in the U-Pak) before we prep for painting this weekend. After that, we start shuffling but we have a bit of a breather before we have to get all the furniture out of the way for re-carpeting.
Once the carpet is in, we have a couple of days to stage the place (gah) before the sale sign goes up. If everything goes according to plan, we will have the first open house on the 20th of September.
While you are waiting, check out this bizarre bit of chronocide. (You have Mental Floss to thank for alerting me to its existence.)
Today, Hubby is finishing filling the U-Pak unit then we still have a bit of packing to do (but now our storage locker and storage room are empty -- all that stuff is in the U-Pak) before we prep for painting this weekend. After that, we start shuffling but we have a bit of a breather before we have to get all the furniture out of the way for re-carpeting.
Once the carpet is in, we have a couple of days to stage the place (gah) before the sale sign goes up. If everything goes according to plan, we will have the first open house on the 20th of September.
***
While you are waiting, check out this bizarre bit of chronocide. (You have Mental Floss to thank for alerting me to its existence.)
07 September 2007
Chronocide
Some of you may remember my website from years ago called "Chronocide" which is the word I started using in first-year university as an erudite-sounding alternative to "killing time." I also created "ProcrastoMan" for a single-panel comic that ran in the Martlet for a year. (I thought I had scanned or photographed some of these... but I can't find any files ... when I do find them (or dig out the originals) I'll share.)
Now that I am spending many hours in my bed, foot up, laptop and TV close by, I have been committing a lot of chronocide (when I am not eating or sleeping)! Here's what I've been up to:
So... what's your favourite way to commit chronocide?
Now that I am spending many hours in my bed, foot up, laptop and TV close by, I have been committing a lot of chronocide (when I am not eating or sleeping)! Here's what I've been up to:
1. I read a lot of blogs; the daily dose currently includes: Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton, WWTDD*, Freakonomics, DIY Life, Lifehacker, Shiny Shiny, Overheard in New York*, MAKE, CRAFT Magazine, and Drawn. (* sites may be NSFW). For most of these, plus other less-frequently updated blogs, I use Google Reader and I save the cool stuff on my del.icio.us (which will soon become the Delicious Service ... ooo, errr.)
2. I wander through eye-candy at Flickr and keep up with friends on Facebook -- oh, and I play Scrabble via the Scrabulous application on Facebook. (Hubby also bought me a portable version of Scrabble, which niceley replaces our classic Scrabble game that is missing one tile (an R; so we sacrificed a blank in its place.))
3. I am working on some game reviews for Game-Boyz.com, and in doing so am playing a lot of PopCap games. Woo!
4. I am working on other projects -- another 2008 calendar (rabbits!), Drupal basic training, FrugalVictoria.com, some story ideas, and whatever else seems like a good thing to spend time working on.
5. I've been watching lots of (mostly bad) TV and (mostly amusing) DVDs and I've been reading (Gaiman's Anansi Boys is what I'm currently trying to get through).
So... what's your favourite way to commit chronocide?
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