the pod bay door

:: A colleague at work sent me an e-mail, pointing to a site called musicplasma, which “maps” artists of similar musical styles to each other. The idea is, you search an artist you like, and the resulting map will list artists you are most likely to also like, because of similar styles. I searched Steely Dan, and the artists listed as closest to Don & Walt’s sound are Cher, with Annie Lennox and Celine Dion not much farther away. Methinks the program creators don’t much like our boys from NYC. The site is interesting, but there isn’t much explanation as to why it even exists, what the colour scheme represents, etc.

In the same e-mail, however, was a link to Geist, a Canadian magazine “featuring the best in Canadian fiction, non-fiction, photography, comix and what-have you.” Check out Caught Mapping, which features thematic maps in .pdf format. The maps are quite good, but don’t translate well into a .pdf frame. Try these maps: The Erotic Map of Canada, which includes Hump Island, Bare Butt Bay, The Nipples, The Buttocks, and Lac du Pénis de Caribou. However, the funniest collection of names belongs to Newfoundland.

There is also The National Beer Map of Canada, The Doughnut Map of Canada, The Philosopher’s Map of Canada, and many more.

:: The 76th Academy Awards were nice, friendly, predictable, funny in parts, and came in well under four hours. New Zealanders were happy with the results, as well as with Keisha Castle-Hughes’ appearance as a nominee for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, for Whale Rider. Her family in NZ was very excited for her. She wore a special whale pin in her hair. Megan Gibb, reporting for the NZ Herald, provided a moment-to-moment commentary as the evening progressed. Another reporter took the NYTimes to task for describing Jackson as a “bespectacled Australian”.

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