Created by Train Horns
My very first archive was a small binder of stickers, seen above and below:
Today is National Bird Day. Show us a bird that is native to your region
Not from my region, or even from this nation, but the songs and sounds of the lyrebird are fascinating. Love the sounds and camerawork in this clip:
Sweeter than that sickly aroma wafting over Manhattan:
Candy Land...the movie!
The game's manufacturer, Hasbro, wrangled a screenwriter and a director to make a major motion picture, reports Variety. What drama awaits us? Imagine Queen Frostine reigning the tides of the Ice Cream Sea... the education of Princess Lolly in the Candy Castle...busy Gramma Nut, tending a garden in soil made mineral-rich by the nearby Molasses Swamp...while, in a distant corner, Lord Licorice encroaches on the pristine Peppermint Forest.
The game already inspired two creative endeavors:
- Flickr member Peggy Dembicer covered an entire 1970s Candy Land board in beads. The photos show stunning detail:
Candy Land
Originally uploaded by Peggy Dembicer
- To those who denigrate this cheerful board game -- to ye who mock its seemingly simple salute to tooth decay and nervous jitters -- stand corrected by the programmatical and mathematical analysis of Candy Land, by LScheffer.
An excerpt from LScheffer's C++ study of Candy Land:
- You can win in just 4 turns - Queen Frostine, double purple, double purple, purple. This only happens about 4 times in 100,000 games, though.
- Once in a thousand times, it will take you at least 204 turns to finish a 2 person game.
Time magazine reproduced today's schedule for NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
His first obligation of the day is this event at City Hall:
*11:00 AM Reveals Sources of Mysterious but Harmless Maple Syrup Odors
Blue Room
City Hall
MANHATTAN
*Q & A to follow. The event will be fed live on switch port CTY3.
The maple-syrup smell wafting throughout midtown and downtown Manhattan has long flummoxed me. Paris smells of lavender soap and urine, Ann Arbor of baby powder and chocolate, Detroit of clay and vinyl; but why the sugary stench, Manhattan?
**UPDATE: Bloomberg announced that the smell comes from fenugreek seed processing plants in New Jersey! (AP story, 2/5/2008)
Fenugreek, a plant used as an herb and a spice throughout South Asia and the Middle East, is processed by Frutarom in New Jersey. It enhances the color and flavor of maple, vanilla and caramel-flavored products.
**
With its high caloric count, maple syrup is probably more efficient fuel than ethanol. Its production requires far less gasoline, electricity, water and pesticide than either corn or soy. Perhaps the stuff should fill tanks at artisanal, hand-tapped Canadian-import gas stations.
Maple syrup breeds neighborly warmth: "sugaring off" is a maple-syrup-themed party in regions where maple trees are big business. Collectors dash fresh maple sap onto the snow in streaks, which freeze into delicious hard candies; syrup is slathered over roasting ham, dripped atop ice cream and pies, and otherwise converted into fuel for the hardy folks in bitterly cold forests. People gather to sing and dance the night away in a sticky-fingered frenzy.
So, hey, Mayor Bloomberg: care to subsidize some maple syrup parties in Manhattan? Few festivities are as convivial and inexpensive as the sugaring-off.
