Year: 2008

In high school and college, I made mix tapes from recording the radio. Occasionally there might be a few songs mixed in from albums borrowed from the Oak Lawn Library. For context, I graduated high school in 1993, college in…

    It’s amazing what you can find in the iTunes music store. I was able to create two albums of songs all based on Psalm 27. My mom really like that’s that chapter in Psalms, so I did a search…

I was recently asked who is a favorite artist of mine. I really haven’t evaluated that in a couple years in the framework of favorite. The true inspiration is the artists that are around me. They influence and inspire me…

The architect’s rendering of the rink at Wrigley Field for the Winter Classic. (Handout photo/NHL) With the Wrigley Field being iced over from the Blackhawks game on January 1, they are going to let regular people ice skate on it…

These are the verbs that Apple’s Mail program shows when it checks for email: checking connecting opening fetching evaluating synchronizing performing That’s a lot of verbs to use when it just checks for mail. Sheesh.

OH HOW I LOVE WALKING IN THE SNOW! The cashier at Walgreens doesn’t think so, “All that cold makes me wanna die, y’know?” I encouraged her, “you need some good boots to go. They empower you to be oh so…

We all often sit like robots on the bus. I’m a reading robot. Being a robot can be good sometimes, because we respect each other’s quiet and space. But we don’t have to be totally robotic. This past Wednesday night…

99.9999999% of German music sucks, but of the 0.00000001% that is good, it’s like REALLY good. There is no middle ground with german music. It either really SUCKS or it really ROCKS. Here is the basic categories of German music.…

Clear logic says that the further north you go, the closer you get to the sun. But then why does it get colder up north? Maybe this whole “the sun is hot” thing is all wrong. The sun is actually…

Beau Bergeron is the artist behind the increasingly popular snow ghosts did an entertaining presentation to IDEO. On his website’s contact form one of the fields is “favorite fourth grade memory.” Here’s my response: learning multiplication. it showed me how…

Before I went to bed, I put this away message on my instant messenger: “Sleeping. Send me a dream through instant messenger.” It’s fun to think that someone could send a dream via instant messenger into my head while I’m…

Help support spudart.org this Christmas by buying your Amazon items through this link: Amazon.com. Thanks! 

It’s ironic that the word conviencne, i mean convienence, i mean convenience, is not convient to spell. I mean convenient.

There are two great websites to post your book library and reviews, librarything.com and goodreads.com. Which service is better? The following is a feature-by-feature comparison between librarything and goodreads. Exporting Librarything allows you to export your data. Goodreads does not.…

I love librarything.com. You can see the 484 books I own. I just added 16 more books. I’m very thankful that we live in such an age where so many books are available on a wide variety of topics. It’s…

When you join the Urban Prankster Network on Ning, a profile is required. One of the fields is “special skills.” Just what sort of special skills does one need to be an urban prankster? I researched many of the urban…

Go out and act crazy with a group of people! Flash mobs! Weeeeee! Chicago has their own organized flash mob! (In case ya don’t know, a flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public…

I’m looking to do a photo series where I photograph nativities in alleys. I’d like to leave the nativity in the alley for someone to find. Does anyone know where I can get a bunch of nativity sets in bulk…

Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center was showing the Great Muppet Caper this past Sunday. I went with my sister, brother and cousin. We love the Muppets! But who doesn’t? Seriously. Tell me one person who does not like the Muppets.…

It would be really cool to have a cake that has the map of the world on it. When you cut up the cake, it’s like you took over the world, and now you are dividing the spoils amoung everyone.…

View the video of me talking about the Smiley Face Stonehenge. ————————————————————————————— Recap from chapter 2: In the sad empty lot a happy town of rock buildings are created by the residents. But the evil owner comes and kicks them…

————————————————————————————— Recap from Chapter 1: Happy laundromat torn down results in sad empty lot. Neighbors use left-behind rocks to build delightful towers to create happy lot. ————————————————————————————— Chapter 2: The Owner Strikes Back These towers entertain people walking by. Curiosity…

Chicago residents get creative with an empty lot by building rock sculptures.

The following question is from Girl: “If understanding was a color what color would it be?” I would say gray for its ability to take on a multitude of colors around it. Gray can take on other ideas surrounding it,…

Take a look at the results for musicians tagged Estonian on last.fm and you’ll get quite an interesting combo for the first two results. Girl band Vanilla Ninja appears right next to sacred minimialist Arvo Pärt. Even the very photos…

Who wants to go to croquet school with me sometime next year in West Palm Beach, Florida? Summary America’s favorite croquet pros, headed by Bob Kroeger, teach this three day intensive course covering all aspects of our wonderful game. Held…

It’s like Illinois is one big sponge. Illinois: the sponge state.

photo courtesy cathibeth, thanks cathie! I was looking for a creative question, and Cathibeth sent me the following: If the trees in Maine reach to the sky and grab ahold… what are they grabbing ahold of? Here’s a few of…

Unlikelymoose’s blog post about “magnet shoes” inspired the following thought: What if the ground of downtown Chicago was made of positively charged magnets, and you wore positively charged magnet shoes? You’d be bouncing all over the place! Ok, so that…

Often the cords on surge protectors are too short to reach the wall outlet. We bend the cord around the corner of a shelf creating a tight turn and causing a hazard. You might think, “Oh, it’s only a slight…

1) Warranty Every good surge protector should have a limited lifetime warranty. Some surge protectors only have a one-year warranty. What? Like who changes their surge protectors every year?! Check them once a year, yes. But buy a new one…