Low Hanging Fruit

Everyone is dying to know, I’m sure, how it is I go about preparing material for the blog. Well, I have a big ol’ folder on my iMac, full of ideas and articles and links that might be suitable. Some entries I spend a few days working on, others are cooked up in a few minutes (hence the Stockholm Syndrome SNAFU).

But the folder is heaving, with over 100 files, so I want to clear out some of the rubble, since I can’t possible comment on even five percent of the material I have archived. To help me tidy, I offer a hit-and-run on interesting bits from the past few weeks:

Thursday, August 28, 2003 was the first annual Towel Amnesty Day, a PR maneuver by Holiday Inn. * On Tuesday of this week, my friend Graeme told me about Meatzza, a doughless pizza with a "meat crust," designed for idiots on the low carb diet. * Right wing lunatic Mark Steyn spoke lucidly and with passion recently about the decline of the National Post (bottom of page). * The battle between the One-Minute Film Festival and the World's Smallest Film Festival continues unabated. * David Wallis, the founder and editorial director of Featurewell.com is editing an anthology entitled "Killed: True Stories You Were Never Meant to Read," which will be published by Nation Books next spring. * On September 12, a protester rolled a nut to Prime Minister Tony Blair's doorstep with his nose, completing a 7-mile journey across London aimed at highlighting the issue of student debt. * According to AP (September 7), a new action figure of a frumpy-looking librarian who moves her index finger to her lips with "amazing push-button shushing action!" is prompting librarians around the world to raise their voices in protest. * Ben McGrath, writing in the New Yorker (2003-09-01), coined the term "blews" to describe "something between a newspaper and a rumor-mongering blog." * McDonald's is testing an adult Happy Meal (called a Go Active meal) which will include a salad, an exercise booklet and a pedometer meant to encourage walking. * Jillian Clarke, a summer intern at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois put the "five- second food on the floor rule" to the test and discovered that unless there is E. Coli on the ground, you’ll be fine. (Plain Dealer, 09/25/03). * Toronto restaurant aficionados can visit Dine Safe to see what happened when their favourite eatery was visited by the Health Inspector. * There is a word for "being in love" with someone, as opposed to "loving" someone, and that word is Limerence. * According to leesburg2day.com (09/04/2003), a Department of Motor Vehicles employee reported to police that she received a suspicious postcard from a customer that showed a banana being shot with the wording (banana=DMV). * The Globe reported on Saturday, September 27, that KidsFutures is about to launch in Ontario, a new loyalty program that will convert diapers, band-aids and laundry detergent into postsecondary tuition -- an announcement worth noting because it sounds like mykidsbenefit.com, minus the ill-considered customizable magazine. * Finally, the debut issue of Chill, a magazine so bad it’s bad, is available free through the Beer Store, a branding maneuver designed to try and get more people into the BS and out of the LCBO.