Meta @wilw

This doodle is a little self-indulgent. Months ago, while following the tweets of Wil Wheaton, I thought "Hey, these would make great doodle fodder!" While doing a bit of background research, I found out that Ken Denmead of GeekDad beat me to it. Rather than let that stop me, I just included the information in the doodle. (Which makes it less of a punch line and more of an inside joke. A good geek would have a link here to the xkcd comic where Randall Munroe comments that there's already a picture on the internet of anything you can think of. But I can't seem to put my finger on it.)

Apologies to Wil Wheaton for hijacking his tweet and to Ken Denmead for embedding his comic!

The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

And the UBTSC winner is ....

Official list of contest entrants:

1	Mary Lynn
2	Carrie
3	Shannon
4	Miss Shops-a-lot
5	Jennyjag
6	Ms. Porter
7	Rae
8	Tiana
9	sandra
10	The Veg Next Door
11	Nora
12	Kerry
13	marywoodrow
14	Capital Mom
15	Jenn
16	Ginny
17	Lanna
18	J Lincoln
19	Jacquie

Random number generation by random.org:

Congratulations Jenn!!

Thanks to everyone for playing!

Check back here at the end of the month -- I'll be offering a coupon code for Mabel's Labels.

People pleaser

The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

The Cataract of Lodore

A fun poem, filled with alliteration, onomatopoeia and wonderful rhymes.

The Cataract of Lodore
by Robert Southey [1774-1843, written in 1830]

"How does the water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon, at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.

From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry.
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till, in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.

The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among;
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound:
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.

Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;

And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;

Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, -
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

Man threatens lawsuit if image copyright owner doesn't replace stolen images

Tom Richmond summarizes nicely:

"This genius actually emailed the copyright owner of images he had stolen off said owner's website, (using hotlinks and stealing his bandwidth no less) and threatened to SUE HIM unless he puts the images back up immediately."

Read the full story at shapelessmass.com

[h/t: Tom Richmond]

Win an Ultimate Back-to-School Combo (now with Teeny Tags™) !

As a Mabel's Labels agent, I'm happy to offer you a chance to win an Ultimate Back-to-School Combo from Mabel's Labels. (Shipping charges may apply.)

To enter:
1. Click through to look at the Ultimate Back-to-School Combo on the Mabel's site.
2. Click on "make my custom labels."
3. Click on the "icons" tab.
4. Leave a comment on this post, telling us what your favourite icon is.
5. Your name will be entered in a random draw for a coupon code for an Ultimate Back-to-School Combo! (Shipping charges may apply.)


It's that easy!

Contest closes Monday, July 13th at 11:59pm (EST). Winner will be announced at http://leesvoice.blogspot.com/ by end of day on Tuesday July 14th. The winner will have 24 hours to claim the prize.

If you win, I’ll need a valid e-mail address from you, for the purpose of sending you the coupon code.

The coupon must be redeemed by August 6, 2009.

Only one entry per person, please!


This year's colour combinations for the Ultimate Back-to-School Combo are:

True Blue
Cotton Candy
Tickled Pink and
Nature Lover

The combo and the colours are available for a limited time only, until September 25th, 2009.

Horray! How to be happy in business

A brilliant Venn Diagram by Bud Caddell of What Consumes Me.

[h/t: Joey deVilla]

This one speaks for itself

Shout out to Debbie Ridpath Ohi for liccensing her works under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

When no means yes

The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

A little Photoshop, anyone?

Have a look at the current cover of the Toronto Fun Guide to the right. Anything jump out at you? Anything at all?

Go on over to Joey's place and read about "City Hall’s Badly-Photoshopped Family."

Oblivious vs hypercritical

The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

MLF&H: Kids too cool for name labels

Question:

My child think's they're too old to have their name on their water bottle, but would like a way of easily identifying their bottle from their peers look alike bottles. (We still have some classic stickies with their name on them.)

Any thoughts?

Answer:

Simply cut the icon off the classic stickies you own. (Be sure to round the corners for longer lasting wear.) Decorate bottle as desired.

Also works with skinny-minis™.

Bonus answer:

If you have children with sibling-germ-a-phobia (as in, "Ewww, I don't want to drink from the bottle top if he's used it before, even though it's been thoroughly washed") consider taking a thin slice of the same colour label and using it to match bottles to bottle lids.

Parenting class attendees

The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

PS22 Chorus Sings “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac

New York City PS22 elementary school chorus singing "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac.

In a school where more than three quarters of the students are eligible for free lunch, the lyrics of the song have resonance, and the performance is haunting, emotive, and delivered with far more soul than one might expect from a bunch of fifth-graders. As Breinberg plays, he makes eye contact with the kids, coaxing performances from them and letting them enjoy themselves. Later, Davoya, one of the chorus members, explains how he does it. "At first, when I sang, I had no emotion," she says. "I didn't move. But Mr. B taught me to sing with feeling. With feeling and heart."

Best of all Stevie likes it! YouTube link.

[h/t: Neatorama]

Belated congratulations!

Belated congratulations to Julie Cole, (one of the brilliant mom minds behind the creation of Mabel's Labels) on the arrival of her sixth beautiful child, Finian Aloysius!

To find out about the secret message in her newborn's name, check out Julie's latest blog post "The Name Game." (Where there is also a nice shout-out to Nightshade Creations! Thanks Julie!)

(To see how lovely Finian is, have a look at this Mabel's blog post.)