Categories
Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

An early interview with Simu Liu (“Shang-Chi” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe)

For those of you whose first exposure to Simu Liu was through Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, you may not know that we’re both handsome Asian gentlemen who grew up in Toronto.

A lot of us know him as Jung from the Canadian TV series Kim’s Convenience (which you can find on Netflix), which in turn is based on a play that debuted in the Toronto Fringe Festival back in 2011. Kim’s Convenience has come a long way in ten years, and so has Simu.

Karim Kanji is a third handsome gentleman from Toronto, whom I know from my time as a developer evangelist at large in Toronto (we met during my Microsoft years). Back in 2017, when Kim’s Convenience was still in its first season, Karim interviewed Simu for his podcast, and you can find it here. Give it a listen, and find out about Simu not just before his hitting the big time!

(There are a lot of very “Toronto” references in the interview. Got questions? Need context? Let me know in the comments.)

Categories
America Stranger than Fiction

Demonyms and Goober Grabbers

In a Zoom conversation earlier today, one of us asked for the English word for “noun that refers to people who live in a certain place, such as a city, or state, or country.” That word is demonym.

In the process of looking up the word, I stumbled across the map above, which shows the demonyms for a number of midwestern U.S. states. The ones that grabbed my attention were:

  • Stubtoes (people from Montana)
  • Bugeaters (people from Nebraska)
  • Pukes (people from Missouri, and I suspect someone from outside the state came up with that one)
  • and my personal favorite, Goober Grabbers, which sounds like people who should be on some kind of registry and banned from living near schools, but actually refers to people from Arkansas. “Goober” is a slang term for peanut, and a goober grabber is someone who harvests them.
Categories
Music

Coming soon

At least Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas is You sounds like they put effort into making it. For the ultimate lazy phoned-in Christmas song that’s popular only because of the artist’s fame, you want Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime.

Categories
Food

It’s the international day for box wine, or as I like to call it, “Cardboardeaux”

It’s September 9th: International Box Wine Day!

You may think of box wine — or as I like to call it, Cardboardeaux — as cheap, terrible and something you had at parties in your university years to feel more grown-up, but:

Categories
The Good Fight

Tweet of the day

Tap to see the original tweet.

This is from June 12, 2017, but:

  • It’s new to me
  • It might be new to you
  • It’s a brilliant idea
  • It’s what I’m doing if and when the opportunity presents itself
Categories
It Happened to Me

Under the watchful eye of “El Pulpo”!

Tap to view at full size.

I’m sprucing up my home office, starting with a little wall decor, as you can see in the photo above. I’m now working under the watchful eye — and arms — of “El Pulpo” (Spanish for “the octopus”).

Here’s a closer look at El Pulpo:

Tap to view at full size.

El Pulpo is a creation of a local artist, Maykel Medina, who creates gorgeous ocean- and seaside-themed art, all of which you can find at his gallery, Maykel Fine Art, in St. Pete:

Tap to view at full size.

If you like beach themes and artwork you’re not going to find anywhere else, contact Maykel (the gallery is by appointment only)!

He’s got a lot of gorgeous stuff, and he was very friendly and helpful, making sure that El Pulpo was safely wrapped up for us to take it home. I’m sure that El Pulpo won’t be our last purchase there.

Tap to view at full size.
Categories
How to be a Grown-Up

It never hurts to have someone else edit your writing

Thanks to Christophe the Insultor for the find!

Here’s your regular reminder that to at least double-check your work, or better yet, have an automated assistant or human editor do it. They could catch things that you might have missed.