Video Game Faces

Mr. Toledano took portraits of people while they played video games.

Spamwatch

I admit, I sometimes get a kick out of the spam I get, the cycles of titles that I run across.

Right now I'm getting a lot of "Breaking Alerts" from the various news organizations.

They range from almost being believable news:

CNN Breaking Alert: Bush says US to drill for oil on Mars.

...to not believable at all:

CNN Alert: FBI says Bin Laden using Groucho Marx disguise.

...to things that news organizations would never bother to release:

msnbc Breaking News: McCain told lies to gain votes.

...to things that people might actually end up looking at, though isn't really an "alert":

msnbc Alert: Find out how to get top returns for minimal risk.

Some funny "headlines" out there.

CNN News Alert:

Man emasculated during Prius test drive.

Study: Eating spaghetti increases risk of being whacked by the Mob.

Consumer Watch: Official cigarette of the Olympics.

McCain, Obama and the search for the good office "chi".

Are lunch breaks really for wimps?

And some that just don't make sense:

Girlfriend better at bowling.

Crunch creep: Blood on the carpet.

And then there's the ones that just don't get it. Are you a news alert, or are you trying to scare me into following your spam-link:

CNN Breaking Alert: You are looking at a lawsuit.

Funny, I thought I was looking at spam.

Canada's Olympic Oak... missing in action...

In the Berlin Olympics of 1936, the gold medalists were given a seedling oak tree as a "gift from the German people." Canada won one medal that year, from Ottawa paddler Frank Amyot, who then donated the gift oak seedling to the City of Ottawa. After the ceremony, the oak went missing, and is now being searched for. The Vancouver Sun put together an interesting story about this missing seedling, and Canada's connection to a strange chapter of Olympic history.

History Round-up!

The next "round-up" of interesting items I've noticed over the last few weeks... this time of history-related tidbits...

Did you lost a coin in Newfoundland around 1627...? If you did, it's been found. The CBC story has a good picture.

Check out the discovery of the HMS Ontario... sunk in 1780 in a Halloween squall.

Here's a great article from the Vancouver Sun written by George Fetherling about the Fraser River Gold Rush of 1858.

Hey! Watch where you're walking: 1200AD Version. (An 800-year-old footprint was found in Manitoba... on the site that a museum is being constructed...)

Paris during the occupation, in photos.

The B.C. Government's statement on the Anniversary of the Komagata Maru. Another example pointing to our province's racist past. No judgement implied, just reporting the fact.

Explore a 4th-Century copy of the Bible. Here's the CBC story to explain, and here's the Codex Sinaiticus site.

The U.S. Civil War Re-enactors don't get all the fun: apparently Canada does the Siege of Fort Louisbourg... here's the lead-up, and here's Parks Canada's info on the Fort.

And the end of this past July marked the 50th anniversary of NASA.

Some cool photos from the Natural History Museum in New York City, and Pruned pulled some of the best ones out.

Brothers in Turin claimed to have "overheard" secret Soviet missle launches in the 1950s and 1960s, some of which you can listen to here... and, of course, the nay-sayers...

European woman's skull found in New Zealand and dated to before Captain James Cook's voyage discovered the place...

The ancient Greek gadget called the Antikythera Mechanism (because it was found near the island of Antikythera) turns out to have the Olympic symbol engraved on it.

Library and Archives Canada discovered what is believed to be the oldest document ever printed in Australia, a playbill from 1796, which they then gave to the National Library of Australia as a gift.

There's a new arctic expedition trying to find the ships from Franklin's doomed 1845 exploration of the Northwest Passage.

Here's a photo set of vintage business signs.

Finally, a video of the 1969 moon landing...

BEAST

Last night Mah tuned me in to a fantastic indie band from Montreal named BEAST.

Check BEAST out on mySpace. All the songs are great, but Mr Hurricane is a great intro...

Kimya Dawson sings The Beer

Vancouver Round-up!

Since I'm catching up on the backlog of tidbits I've been collecting but not posting, let's run through some of the Vancouver-related items of the last while...

There was actually big news today: that bronze statue of the woman that was stolen from Queen Elizabeth Park back in June has been found! Abandoned in a field in Abbotsford, which means that a bunch of kids stole the thing for a lark and didn't know how to melt it down for the metal. So that's good news.

And though not exactly Vancouver news, it definitely touches the hearts of many Vancouverites: coffee... and what comes to mind when you say "coffee" in vancouver: Starbucks. From the "What I Learned Today" site, the 14 ways Starbucks has tried to revitalize its brand.

And because of the three-month long garbage strike last year, we are now experiencing a spike in the population level of rats... my favourite quote from the article is where the Vancouver Coastal Health spokesperson says the rats do not pose a health risk, but "if you don't have a portal, or method or conduit for them to get access to the house, you certainly reduce the risk of exposing yourself to that problem." Uh... is he talking about "doors"?

I know a few folks that get near-giddy when transit-related topics, current or historical, come up. So here's something I found about a new push for bringing back the old BC Electric Railway interurban line.

David Eby, Pivot Legal's Eastside advocate, is seeking a candidacy from Vision Vancouver to run in the fall election. Here's a review of a fund-raiser for him that happened at the ANZA Club.

Chuck Davis, one of Vancouver's most-treasured writers of history, has written about the history of Grouse Mountain on re:Place Magazine's website. It's a great article, and a fantastic site.

This is not good: bus service cut in half?

And a rundown of this weekend's West 4th Summer of Love Festival!

And have you noticed the number of Russell Brewery umbrellas at beverage establishments...? Apparently it's a trend, and they're expanding.

And a little on how the hippies shaped Vancouver.

Vancouver police are giving out tickets for not wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle. Judging from the comments this story got, lots of people feel this is infringing on their human rights. Bite me. This explains why so many people on bikes drive like they think they're pedestrians. Remember: bikes are vehicles, and riders must abide by the laws of the road. As gas prices rise and more people turn to bicycles to get around, the anger between drivers and bikers is only going to get worse as bicycle volume increases. I support getting around by bicycles, but stupid riders piss me off. (And for the record, while I have a car, I drive exactly twice a week: one to a recording studio where we leave after transit finishes for the day, and one to run the weekly errands and buy groceries. Otherwise I walk or transit, and sometimes even ride my bicycle.) Ok, editorializing over.

Here's a list of Vancouver's largest consumers of water.

And that's it for now.

Paris for President

Paris Hilton unveils her energy plan.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Daily Shizu (neither a daily nor a shizu)

Alrighty! Let's get the round-up of diversionary stuff from over the last while sorted out...

Due to an article in the New York Times that postulated Google was becoming a media-company rather than a web-searching company because of its ownership (and searching) of sites like youTube... there is now an (unofficial) search site that searches Google but eliminates most results that are also from Google... it's called Google Minus Google. I wonder how long it will take before The Google Lawyers dive in...?

And given the recent excitement between Georgia and Russia, apparently there have been a lot of people looking on Google Maps... and if you've done any Google-Map-Tourism, you'll already know there are many places on the globe that Google Maps considers to be large grey swaths of empty land... here's the response...

Here's a fun one: the Government of Canada makes cuts to the funding of a program for the arts, then blames the cuts on "certain acts"... one of the acts singled out responds... and Holy F---.

Here's a great letter from a librarian to a patron offended by the contents of a book in the library...

Here's an interesting collection of book ads that ran in the New York Times, from ken kesley to Hunter S. Thompson.

And from the Big Picture on Boston.Com, here's some fantastic photos of the Large Hadron Collider that is being built straddling the border between Switzerland and France.

Amazing photos by Li Wei.

Feel like bucking the establishment? It's done every day by the Flat Earth Society. Check out the BBC article about being a Flat Earther. Almost interested but not sure? More questions? Check out the FAQ.

Mighty Girl has the Top Ten Stupidest Ideas on Flickr.

Take a ride on a (replica) Viking ship!

Today I was reading one of my favourite Vancouver blogs, my local kitsilano.ca blog.

The post was about Erik V. seeing a viking ship plying the waters of English Bay, and looking into it a bit. (For a great synopsis of the ship, sailing times, and how to book, check out his post.)

"The Munin" is located at Vanier Park near the Maritime Museum, and can be booked...

I say we raid White Rock.

Daily Shizu (neither a daily, nor a shizu)

A quick round-up of a few interesting diversions...

First, a look at the "american gothic" done moderne on flickr.

Then, a "cast photo" of the characters in Futurama...

And to round out the short visual theme of today's post, a look at the world's first record album cover.

And then a video of an amazing close-up of a lightning strike...