The Happy Gilmore shot deemed a menace to the golfing industry

If you golf, and are a typical guy, you've likely tried the "Happy Gilmore" tee shot at some point. Alcohol might have been involved.

When anyone tries such a thought you'd assume that they'd first make sure there weren't people directly in front of them. Well, the recent case of Bezanson v. Hayter in Nova Scotia suggests otherwise. 

Today's something or other #46

The Jesus in the hizzle?
From Boston.com

Recently separated, Mary Jo Coady was ironing and when she completed the task, noticed the image of Jesus Christ on the underside of the iron.

Perfect for days that end in the letter 'Y'

In addition to making your empty life complete, this would also make a spectacular Xmas gift at a Secret Santa party.

“Just the thing for a cozy night in,” 
Party on, Garth.

Star Wars and Facebook: Together at last

From CollegeHumor.com. See more Facebook feeds here.

Effective pie charting

Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free. http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p.html

There's a lot of funny stuff on this guy's site. Definitely check out Strata Agreement (I posted the link previously). Very funny.

Mercedes, iPhone and James Bond

What do these three things have in common? Well, Mercedes has created an iPhone app that lets you control your Benz. What will the app let you do? Apparently....

• Navigation
• Remote door locking
• Vehicle finding
• Dealer connect
• Stolen vehicle location
• Automatic alarm notification
• Roadside assistance calling
• Automatic collision notification
• If that's not enough, there are premium extras that give you location-based weather and traffic info, and a concierge service that lets you book hotels, find stores, make restaurant reservations and so on.

Other than letting you steer your car through a parking garage while slumped down in the backseat it doesn't get much more James Bond than this.

Can't wait to see what the guys at Pimp My Ride can come up with.

Click here for the article in Fast Company.

A new anger management solution

Next time you're having a bad day don't run down your co-workers or your boss; don't take it our on your partner; don't gorge on unhealthy food, have a smoke or too many single malt scotches. Visit the Japan Trend Shop and order yourself a Shouting Vase. 

Problem solved. Your welcome.

Today's something or other #45

It was just the other day that I remarked to LM that I missed The Wire. I can't watch TV the same way anymore. The Wire spoiled it for me, with the exception of a few comedies (hello, 30 Rock). The next day I saw this on Buzzfeed. The internet is awesome. 

Less tasty than even Steamwhistle?

Beers from around the world are usually designed for their local markets. Some find fame and fortune overseas owing to their superiority over all other beverages (Guinness) or their immense marketing power (Budweiser, Heineken). For many, it is hard to see how they could become popular in foreign markets. Take Chibuku from SABMiller, for example... 

Thanks to Coxy for the find.

Fall in TO - East Side

 

 

 

All photos taken with my Blackberry Curve 8900.

World Cup Qualifying hots up... off the pitch

Behind the scenese diplomatic manoeuvrings before the Ireland v. France match. Funny stuff at the Irish Soccer Insider:

These letters were leaked today showing a major breakdown in communication between the French Government and the Irish over the upcoming World Cup qualifying play-off. There’s now a full-blown diplomatic row brewing.

 For full details on the brouhaha, click here.

Today's something or other #44

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/3413247983_605fbb721a_o.jpg

The Town That Chorizo Built

Mmmm... cured sausage.


From The Atlantic

This weekend I was in Candelario, a village at the windblown foot of the Sierra de Béjar in Salamanca. Candelario enjoys certain renown for its beautiful location and its extraordinary degree of historic preservation: narrow cobbled streets lined with a peculiar style of 18th century construcion, handsome and impeccably maintained.

But what makes Candelario extraordinary, nay, perhaps worthy of pilgrimage, is its proud claim to be the birthplace of chorizo, that object of unstinting devotion in Spanish gastronomy. Granted, people have been making cured sausages with pig guts since time immemorial. But for chorizo to be chorizo, it had to wait for pimentón to arrive from the Americas, for it to be refined--along with other products from the New World--by early agricultural researchers at the monastery of Yuste, and for it to be planted throughout the balmy valley of La Vera. [click here for the rest of the article]

Today's something or other #43

If at first you don't succeed....

A South Korean woman is celebrating after passing the written exam for a driving licence - on her 950th attempt.

Source: BBC

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. Obviously there can't be any significant milestone happening today, right? Wrong! Today is the 40th anniversary of the world's most magical street, Sesame Street.

Ever tried to remember the lyrics to some of those old Sesame Street songs but couldn't quite come up with the words? Well, someone's done the work for you. Enjoy.

The CBC has a few good articles on the impact and importance of Sesame Street, including Things That Go Pop! and Sesame Street Celebrates 40 Years.

Excerpts from those articles:

20 years later....

Here's a pretty cool video of the dominoes falling today in Berlin. Hard to believe it was 20 years ago that the Wall came down (and rendered most of what I learned in high school about how the world worked obsolete).

The CBC also has some interesting photos in their in-depth Berlin Wall section:

• 20 years after the fall
• Checkpoint Charlie: Then and Now

The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall

Today's something or other #42

Economy Has Been Hard On Everyone:

Submitted By: Ted W

Fave Comment: Batman quietly continues his one-man crusade to wipe out grime in Gotham City. – dono1

Well sir, I guess there's just a goodness in this world

From: My Life is Average

Today, I stuck a hand into my coat pocket and found five dollars. Wrapped inside of the five dollars, there was a note. "You have just been reverse pickpocketed. Enjoy this five dollars in knowing that it was forcibly received by your pocket; take that, society." I then proceeded to stick both the money and note into another victim's pocket. MLIA.

Toronto stuff from the web

A bunch of random Toronto stuff found on the web this week:

The Sorauren Park Pumpkin Parade was the biggest ever this year, with organizers counting an amazing 1,620 Jack-O-Lanterns. Read more and see the pictures here.

Tourism Toronto Getting its Butt Kicked by the Canadian Tourism Commission on YouTube. The Canadian Tourism Commission has done a great job putting together what I think are rather honest and compelling depictions of some of the finer aspects of life in Toronto. Two dozen high quality YouTube videos of decent production value and great content are a lot more than Tourism Toronto can say they've done in this realm (they have zero videos to share on their YouTube channel). [Note: The Canadian  Tourism Commission's You Tube channel is definitely worth checking out, and I love that they feature Mercury Espresso Bar in the Leslieville segment. Best coffee shop in town.]

The Samovar Room - a Russian-themed bar - takes over the beautiful space in the Winchester Hotel that was formerly the Laurentian Room. The place looks really cool. What is it with Russian-themed bars when you go east of Yonge?

Bored with wine tasting? Try coffee tasting at Te Aro.

See Toronto Fall colours captured in all their glory at blogTO.

Today's something or other #41

Had to post this:  Princess Leia and her stunt double catch some rays in the Tattooine sunshine. Did I mention she's in her metal bikini? Click on picture for full-size.

Source: BoingBoing

A new look and feel for SWATE

I've been experimenting with a few things at Slightly Worn Around the Edges to improve the reader experience. As you probably noticed, the blog looks a little different:  New image (I'm still not 100% sold on it), different colours and more.

I felt it was time for a bit of a change but, more importantly, I changed the layout to give a wider main column as some items were being cut-off with the old layout. I've also gone with more white space. More white space is going to be a hot trend in 2010 (if it isn't already). I think there still needs to be more differentiation between posts so consider this a work-in-progress.

I've also added some functionality that will make it easier for you to follow the blog and share blog posts. There are Follow and Share buttons in the NAV bar at the top of the page. The Share button allows you to forward a post to Twitter, Facebook or Google Reader (a tool I highly recommend, by the way) as well as by email. The Follow button allows you to follow SWATE on your blogger dashboard (if you have one).  

You can also more easily subscribe to the blog via your favourite Reader (again, I like Google Reader, but many people swear by Stumble Upon). There are a number of choices that will send new content automatically to your Reader of choice. The button for this is just under the About Me section on the right side of the page. Can't miss it. Subscribe and  never miss any of your favourite, super-awesome content.

Another interesting wrinkle to the subscribe option is that you can opt to add SWATE to your iGoogle homepage. Yes, now SWATE can sit on your home page beside such august news feeds as CBC and ESPN. Here's a picture of my iGoogle page so you can see how it could look. Click for full-size image. I'm so proud.

Angry Store Owner Assaults Yelp Reviewer Who Called Her Store "a Total Mess"

From Fast Company:

Man pans bookstore on Yelp. Bookstore owner tracks him down, writes harassing emails, and tries to break into his house. Man responds by calling police--and Yelping about the entire experience.

In what can only be described as a paradigm of Internet justice, a California Yelp user named 'Sean C.' was able to follow up his initial negative review of a San Fransisco bookstore with this gem:



The user created a Flickr set of screenshots containing threatening message that the bookstore owner had sent. Only once he produced the screenshots did a Yelp administrator offer to help Sean C. stop the harassment, according to Gawker.



As Gawker notes, the store owner's swings between plaintive hurt ('I have no money to pay for help') and outright fury ('Do you not have a girlfriend... I can see why') are perhaps unique to that unique brand of Internet passive aggression that allows for brutal, anonymous honesty.

The bookstore owner was arrested and placed in psychiatric holding, and has been served with a restraining order, according to Sean C.

A third way to visit New York

From the New York Times' Frugal Traveler:  Staying With Newfound Friends, for a Fee - By Matt Gross

Last Saturday evening, the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn was drenched in rain, and yet the poor weather did little to deter the crowds marching up and down Bedford Avenue, the neighborhood’s main drag. Slickers hiding their tattoo-covered arms, umbrellas obscuring their asymmetrical haircuts, young New Yorkers came out en masse — as they have for well over a decade now — in search of cheap drinks, thrift-store fashions and the latest underground bands and D.J.’s.

Despite its veneer of affordability, Williamsburg is not a neighborhood in which the Frugal Traveler often hangs out. Partly it’s because, at 35, with nary an ink stain on my body and scarcely enough hair for a symmetrical ’do, let alone an abstract one, I feel out of place among these cool kids. But it’s also because, thanks to iffy service on the L and G lines and my reluctance to take taxis, Williamsburg feels remote to me even though I live in Brooklyn — as it must to many out-of-towners, who basically have two options if they want to stay the night: find someone special to crash with, or check in to the coldly modern Hotel Le Jolie (235 Meeker Avenue; 718-625-2100; www.hotellejolie.com), one of the only hotels in the area and where weekend rates start at $254.

But last weekend I embraced Williamsburg’s pleasures with confidence, because I’d found a third way....

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Today's something or other #40

Goats in trees?! What will they think of next?