Categories
funny

Catmas is Alive!

Cat scratching the word “HUNGRY” on the wall

The Internet’s Powers That Be reserved the domain names example.com, example.net and example.org for use in documentation, instructional manuals and the like as example domain names. If you visit them, you’ll get a terse matter-of-fact explanation of what those domains is for on an otherwise blank page.

At Tucows — the company where I hold the position of Technical Evangelist — we prefer to use the domain catmas.com as our example domain, and rather than use it to house a dull mostly-empty page, we take advantage of the fact that one of the Internet’s raisons d’etre is for sharing funny pictures of cats.

Catmas.com has been neglected for the past few months, but I’ve decided to give it a little jolt by publishing cat pictures on it on a more regular basis. If you ever need to use an example website or are jonesing for a cat picture fix, Catmas.com is there to help.

Categories
Uncategorized

The “Opposite World” Map

Here’s my current desktop background image: a map of an alternate Earth, where land and water have been switched:

Preview image of the “Opposite World Map”
Click the image to see it at full size.
Illustration courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

I rather dig the “Philippine Kingdom”, located on the far right of the map, not far from the equator.

Categories
funny

Chuck Norris Action Jeans

Pair these jeans with Chuck Norris toilet paper, and you’ve got the perfect Chuck Norris-themed present!

Magazine ad for “Chuck Norris Action Jeans”
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Categories
It Happened to Me

It’s Due for a Comeback, You Know

The scene: The kitchen at the house party at Mark Kuznicki’s house last night.

Gainborough’s painting, “The Blue Boy”

Dude 1: So, have you picked a name for your kid yet?

Dude 2: Not yet. Good thing it’s months away. I am taking suggestions, so if you’ve got any, I wanna hear ’em.

Dude 1: Well, I’ve got a great one for a boy…

Dude 2: And it is…?

Dude 1: You’ll love it: Fauntleroy.

Categories
It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Help Identify This Plant!

Plant we can’t identify

While walking a friend’s dog in the Swansea neighbourhood (that’s the residential area south of Bloor between Runnymede and Jane), the Ginger Ninja kept seeing these plants near the edges of many people’s lawns. She wanted to know what they were. Any gardeners or botanists out there care to help?

Plant we can’t identify

While the dog we were walking — Rufus — is an especially good and friendly dog, he was of no help whatever in identifying the plant:

Rufus, our friend’s dog

Categories
Geek

Oooooooh Yeeeeeeah!

Squishy cow and iPhone
Click the photo to see a larger version on Flickr.

Alas it’s not mine, it belongs to the Tucows Marketing Department. But as a member of that department, I’m hoping to get some time on it to test out some iPhone apps I’m writing…

Categories
It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Toronto Moving Companies: I’m Still Getting Comments [Updated]

A Chevrolet box vanLong-time readers of this blog will remember an article titled At Last, My Blog Lands Me in Hot Water!, in which local moving company Quick Boys attempted to threaten me into removing comments about their service. Those comments were in response to a one-line blog entry in which I asked the readers for recommendations about Toronto moving companies. The ensuing commentary across the blogosphere ended up giving the story a high Google ranking on searches for “Quick Boys”; even today, some of the posts about their thuggery are still on the first page of Google results.

(By the way, Quick Boys, I’m still waiting for my apology.)

What’s interesting is that the original blog entry, Anyone Know any Good Toronto Movers?, is still getting comments from readers relating their (mostly bad) experiences with moving companies. The last comment the article got came in yesterday, and it was about a bad experience with Yellow Moving Company. The resulting article about Quick Boys’ vaguely threatening phone call received comments as late as February of this year, the last comment being about how someone had to call the cops on Quick Boys.

It amazes me how moving companies can stay in business even though so many people have such bad experiences with them. Is it because people don’t use them very often? Is it because of the unfortunate collision of relatively unskilled labour meeting your prized possessions? Is it because it’s an attractive business for unscrupulous people? Or are they perceived as being bad simply because moving is a stressful experience for many people?

Let’s keep the conversation going, fellow Torontonians. Feel free to report any experiences and reviews of Toronto moving companies, good or bad, in the comments.