Drunk teenagers driving up Mount Maxwell on Salt Spring Island. They ‘announced’ their arrival by driving into/onto a boulder at the edge of the parking lot. Lovely, no?

Random fact: did you know that Cumberland, BC is the "Luckiest Town in Canada"? In 2002, Labatt gave this honor to Cumberland based on the incredible rate of consumption of this beer – it took up a whole wall of the local liquor store. [wiki] I lived in Royston at the time, right next to Cumberland. I have never consumed Lucky Beer.

Well, as you might have guessed, it was for a movie.

According to People, Jack is filming a Rob Reiner film called The Bucket List in which he stars as a terminal cancer patient trying to complete a list of goals before he dies.

And so now you know. :)

Tags: jack nicholson, bald, oscars

The rules:

1. Post a blog with your six weird habits/ things as well as the rules/ instructions;
2. Add to your blog a list of your six victims to be tagged;
3. Leave a comment for your six victims that says "You are tagged! Read my blog" (but you cannot tag the person who tagged you).

Six weird things you don’t know about me:

1. I hate it when people touch my nose. Ianiv does it to bug me. Drives me bonkers.
2. I won’t sing Happy Birthday. When I was in high school, I worked at McDonald’s and was the "party girl" for about 2 years, every weekend, hosting birthday parties up to 3 times a day. Happy Birthday is now an evil song that likes to get stuck in my head.
3. If I have a song stuck in my head, I will walk to the beat of said song. Usually a nursery rhyme or children’s song, or something I heard on the radio. Never anything good.
4. I hate working in silence. I have to have on music or the tv. I used to study, even in University, while watching tv. Something about letting part of my mind drift off and do something interesting…
5. I want to write a book someday. I feel completely capable of the writing, just not yet the idea generation. I’ve always felt like I needed to "do more" first. After this week, maybe I’m getting there.
6. I’ve always felt like being a teacher was not a fulfilling lifelong job, but I’ve come to realize that the passing on of knowledge is one of the most amazing gifts you can give, and it often gives more in return.

So, there I am. Now, whom to tag. I think I’ll tag Leora, Gloria, Grace, Boris, Christina and Jeremy. Sorry folks!

Tags: meme, tagged, you’re it, tag, lists, weirdness  

Take Word Association Test

I think "issues" depend on your time to respond to the words. These ones I had the biggest delay on, and I can understand why.

What are yours?

Via Maryam ; Tags: issues, test, personality, fun

Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions (your "carbon footprint"), reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in "green" technologies such as solar and wind power.

The rise of carbon neutral reflects the growing importance of the green movement in the United States. It’s more than a trend, it’s a movement, which is why the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have declared carbon neutral the word of the year for 2006. It will be added to the next update of the dictionary, due in early 2007.

Other words considered include community-supported agriculture (CSA), DRM, dwarf planet, elbow bump, fishapod, funner (dear G** my grammar insides are melting), Ghostriding, and Pregaming.

I think elbow bump should have got it:

elbow bump: a greeting in which two people touch elbows, recommended by the World Health Organization as an alternative to the handshake in order to reduce the spread of germs.

Via PR Newswire ; Tags: word of the year, dictionary, words, oxford, elbow bump, carbon neutral

1. An aesthetic with varied meanings in popular culture.
2. A relatively low temperature
3. COOL, short for Classroom Object-Oriented Language
4. An alternative name for Cumhail, a figure in Irish mythology
5. "Cool" (song), a song performed by Gwen Stefani
6. Cool TV (Central Europe), a Hungarian television channel
7. Cool TV, a Canadian cable television channel
8. Bindaas, Hindi equivalent-Slang
9. Jhakaas, mostly used in Maharashtra, India slang

- Wikipedia

Anything missing? Suggestions?

Tags: Cool

Tylenol [acetaminophen] was discovered by David W. Young, a graduate of Covington Latin School and the University of Kentucky, while working on chemical patents at Standard Oil of Ohio in Cleveland, Ohio. – Wikipedia

When acetaminophen was discovered, it was thought to be useless. Therefore, the patent went with no problem to David Young himself, rather than to the University employer. Sucks for them. Young later discovered its use and sold the patent to Johnson & Johnson, who marketed the drug as Tylenol in 1955, first to children, then to the widespread marketplace.

Tylenol is one of those brands that has become so household in nature that it has lost its brand value (in monetary terms) – the name becomes a common term for the drug and has little footing when it comes to brand name infringement.

Arieanna fact: I have consumed more than 500 Tylenol this year alone (moderate guess).

Today I learned that coffee is used to reduce soil acidity. Apparently farmers will dilute coffee four times its volume in water, a dilution which is very common to reduce soil acidity when growing tomatoes, chili peppers, blueberries and other plants prone to high acidity.

Spent coffee grounds are a good fertilizer in gardens because of their high nitrogen content. Starbucks, and some other coffee shops, have a specific policy of giving away their used coffee grounds to gardeners. While they tend to be only slightly acidic, they also tend to improve the acidity of garden soil through the same chemical processes which cause sawdust to do the same thing. Coffee grounds raise soil acidity more immediately if they are added fresh, instead of after brewing.

Tags: coffee, fertilizer, soil, acidity, fact

The Oreo cookie, which has been around since 1912, is created of two chocolate wafers and a white sugar-based filling (not a cream one, despite its name). In fact, they are kosher-dairy – no milk at all.

This post was inspired by tonight’s dessert: Oreo Cookie Ice Cream. Horribly off-diet, but incredibly satisfying.

For more oddball facts about Oreo cookies, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Tags: oreo, oreo cookie, cookies, fact, sugar, treats, junk food, ice cream

The main plaza in Gouda has at its centre a town hall (see here) surrounded by open areas (this was because two fires made the town wary and thus protective of this central building). Anyway, around the outside you can find this building:

This is the cheese weighing house, where farmers used to come to weigh their cheese. It was the most ostentatious cheese weighing house in Holland. You see, you don’t need much space to actually weigh the cheese, but they made this building extra fancy. And were quite snooty about it.

So, although many incorrectly assume loads of Gouda was made in Gouda, it was rather weighed there.

And wikipedia has this wrong :)

BTW, if you ever go to Gouda, visit the old church to view some of the best stained glass in Holland/Europe – it’s incredibly vibrant. From the 16th & 17th Centuries.

Tags: fact, funny, gouda, cheese, holland