Ten Bell Pizza

Over at DialABC.com they have a cool application that takes any combination of letters (your name, for instance) and provides you with a list of anagrams. I entered in my full name (I won't tell you what it is, maybe you can figure it out) and it came back with the following (these are the best): Jenkin's Mermaid Bitch, Jim's Birthed Nickname, Embraced Mint Hijinks.

I tried a shorter version of my name and it came back with "Ed Smith, NBC" among the possibilities. FunkyBizzle returned Inky Elf Buzz, and Planet Bizzle came out as Ten Bell Pizza. You can also set parameters on the number of words that make up the anagram.

To go to the anagram finder page, click here.

I love DialABC! They've got great content, powerful tools and clean, ad-free layouts.

Free Business Advice: Consider Your Product Names Carefully

So Popeye's Chicken has these things called Buffalo Nuggets™. My limited internet research has uncovered that a lot of people swear by them, but it would take a lot to get me to try something called a “buffalo nugget”. They sound like they belong in the same category as cow pies and owl pellets. Hmmm...I’ll bet if Popeye’s sold burgers they would call them “cow pies”.

What’s wrong with “buffalo chicken nuggets” or “buffalo bites”? I mean seriously, “buffalo nuggets”? That just grosses me out and makes me want to keep on driving. Popeye’s is just begging their competition to put them out of business. Again. (They went bankrupt in 1991.)

What’s next, “chicken balls”?

The Interrobang

Okay, so you’re familiar with the umlaut, the ellipsis, the ampersand and the tilda, but you’re still craving more knowledge about strange, rarely used typographical marks. Well my friend, you’ve come to the right place.

The interrobang is a rarely used punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of a question mark and an exclamation mark. The name interrobang comes from interro - from interrogative - and bang - printers’ slang for “exclamation point”. The result is an economical way to say “He did what?!?!?!” without all of those extra punctuation marks.

**HISTORY ALERT** (Those of you who bore easily may want to stop reading now.)

American Martin K. Speckter concocted the interrobang in 1962. As the head of an advertising agency, Speckter believed that advertisements would look better if advertising copywriters conveyed surprised queries using a single mark. He proposed the concept of a single punctuation mark in an article in the magazine TYPEtalks. Speckter solicited possible names for the new character from readers. Contenders included rhet, exclarotive, and exclamaquest, but he settled on interrobang.

In the 60s and 70s, the mark appeard in new typefaces, and was available on some typewrites. The word itself appeared in dictionaries and was featured in magazine and newspaper articles. However, the interrobang failed to amount to much more than a fad. It is still available in Microsoft’s Wingdings 2 character set, and was accepted into Unicode. You can find it in Lucida Sans Unicode and Arial Unicode MS, among others.

It can be used in HTML documents with ‽, and some word processors (including MS Word) will display the symbol under ALT+8253 when working with a font that supports the interrobang.

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More blogs on strange typographical marks/names coming soon! Stay tuned for the solidus, the virgule, the interpunct, the pillcrow, the asterism and guillemets. I know you can hardly contain your excitement!

Dumb Steve Joke III

An American, an Englishman, and Dumb Steve all decided to go hunting in the woods. They loaded up their gear and drove into the forest. Before splitting up, they all agreed to meet back at the truck at 3:00. They also decided that if one of them got lost, he should shoot three times into the air, and the other two would come to his rescue. They all agreed, and set out.

At 3:00, the Englishman came out of the woods to find the American waiting by the truck. They swapped stories and ate some snacks, waiting for Dumb Steve to come out of the woods.

Soon, it was 3:30, and Dumb Steve had still not shown up.

At 4:00, they decided to go looking for him. They searched for the rest of the afternoon, and finally found Dumb Steve sitting under a tree. When the other two asked him why he didn’t shoot three times into the air as they had agreed, Dumb Steve replied, “I did! Repeatedly! But I eventually ran out of arrows.”

Forklifts Are Dangerous...

...I mean, look! There's no seatbelts on this thing!

Dumb Steve Joke II

A Frenchman, A Scot, and Dumb Steve were exploring the Amazon Jungle. As they passed through a small clearing, several bloodthirsty cannibals leaped out of the brush and surrounded them. All three were taken prisoner and transported back to the tribal village, where they were thrown into a large pit.

The chief came to the pit and told the men, “You will all be executed and eaten. We will use your bones for weapons, and your skin for canoes. But first, I will grant you all one dying request.”

The Frenchman thought hard, and then asked for a bottle of French wine. “If I must die, then I want the taste of a fine French wine to be on my lips.”

The Scot thought it over, and then asked for a bottle of Scottish whiskey. “If I must die, I want the taste of a fine Scottish whiskey to be on my lips.”

Dumb Steve considered for a moment, and then asked for a fork.

“A fork?” asked the chief.

“I have my reasons!” said Dumb Steve.

The next day, the chief came to the pit and tossed in a bottle of French wine, a bottle of Scottish whiskey and a fork. The Frenchman lifted the bottle of wine to his lips and said, “To France!”

The Scot lifted the bottle of whiskey to his lips and said, “To Scotland!”

Dumb Steve picked up the fork and started stabbing himself repeatedly, and shouted, “You’re not gonna make a canoe out of me!”

Julian Beever, The Pavement Picasso

Julian Beever (a.k.a. "The Pavement Picasso") is an amazing chalk artist that specializes in "pavement drawings". He has worked in the U.K., Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia and the USA.

It takes a few glances to really appreciate his work - I keep finding new things in the pictures that I didn't notice before. And you've got to admire the attention to detail!

My favorites are the ones where he poses with the work to complete the illusion. In the interest of space, I've only included a few here on Planet Bizzle, but you can check out Julian's website and much larger gallery by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary!

For our 4-year anniversary, Angela and I went out to eat at the Mori Japanese Steakhouse. Our hibachi chef was very entertaining, though the vegetables left a little to be desired. It seems that this is a common trend...the worse the show, the better the food (and vice versa). I don't know, it probably has something to do with concentration.

Anyway, the most surprising event of the night wasn't the chef catching eggs in his hat, it was the fact that the other party at the hibachi picked up our check for us! They were a couple from Americus, Georgia, and were visiting Panama City on their vacation. They said they usually come down once a year, and asked us where we were from. We told them we were locals, and that it was our 4-year anniversary, and they congratulated us.

After dinner, the lady picked up our receipt book and handed us our card back, and told us they would pick up the check. We were shocked! We told them that wasn't necessary, but they insisted. Wow. I was floored!

Of course, the trainee waiter was taking forever to pick up the checks, and we thought it would be rude to leave, so we hung out and talked to them for about 20 nerve-racking minutes. Never did find out their names or what they did for a living, but we thanked them and wished them well. There are still some amazingly nice people in this world, and two of them live in Americus.

Our 4-Year Anniversary

Yeah! Today, 08-01-07, My wife and I celebrate our 4-year anniversary. That may not sound like a long period of time, but it seems like it's really only been a couple of years.

We have now been married for as long as we were dating before we got married...we dated for exactly 4 years before we got hitched.

Man, time flies...

Angela, if you're reading this, I LOVE YOU!!

My Essay for the Samsung 2007 Hope For Education Contest

Recently, my wife asked me to draft an essay for the "Samsung 2007 Hope For Education Contest" that answers the following question:

"What is the single most significant benefit that technology can provide in the classroom?" Essays should focus on: 1) a single benefit or improvement to the educational process, 2) the specific types of technologies that will create this benefit and 3) the features of these technologies that create value in the educational process.

Here's the tricky part...the finished piece can be no more than 100 words! I used 97.

Here's what I came up with:

"The most significant benefit that technology can provide in the classroom is global connectivity. Students can be anywhere, at any time. Whether they are absorbing knowledge from today’s cutting edge research or interviewing societies for tomorrow’s geography project, the latitude of Internet connectivity is unlimited. Our world is moving, changing. Students can travel with a rainforest biologist as she blogs about her daily discoveries. They can gain insight through an Egyptologist’s webinar concerning a recently-discovered tomb. Through technology, students gain access to a global community of experts and resources that could never be offered in yesterday’s classroom."

FYI: this entry was submitted 05-13-07, and the contest closed 07-22-07...so don't get any ideas!