Archives for category: Reference Bomb

Reference Bomb! Conveniently, It Also Sounds Cambodian

March 15, 2011 //

Say what you like; just spell my name right.

I was at a pub, hanging-out with my friend from the world of journalism.

We were chatting with the bartender about off-the-beaten-track places to visit. Well traveled (actually a tour guide for a non-profit eco-tour company), she recommended Cambodia, because it’s cheap and less touristy than Thailand or Vietnam.

Cambodia is interesting in its own right, and our bartender led us on a short aural tour. Some things I knew. Others were new to me.

Like this one: the infamous Pol Pot, was born Saloth Sar. He got his more commonly known name from a French professor who referred to Sar’s “Politique Potentielle.” “Pol Pot” evolved from there. Apparently, he went to great lengths to conceal his birth name.

And, it was a chilling-face-of-evil’s-nom-de-guerre Reference Bomb! Bam!

Reference Bomb! It Really Was a “Great” Vowel Shift (when held in comparison)

February 21, 2011 //

Sometimes you learn something in a random place and when you least expect it. Even better is when it’s off-beat and funny.

For example: this Dinosaur Comic sent to me by an English Professor-type friend (after he used it in a lecture on Chaucer).

And, just like the better parts of Jurassic Park: the Lost World, dinosaurs have served to teach us something important… about ourselves.

And that’s a paleo-linguistic… thump… thump… thump… Reference Bomb! Bam!

Read more:
Wiki entry on the Great Vowel Shift.
History of the English language.
NPR Report on a Vowel Shift happening RIGHT NOW!
Freebie: some Jurassic Park dinosaur biological inaccuracies.

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What is a reference bomb? Find out here!

Email me your Reference Bomb experience! info@dropthereferencebomb.com

Tags Amazing, Change, Dinosaurs, History, language, Lost, reference, trends

Categories Reference Bomb

Reference Bomb – Big Ideas Need Dough

February 15, 2011 //

Anyone following my Twitter feed this weekend knows that I was down in Montreal representing for Winged Beast Outfitters at a craft fair.

The weather was against us, but I and all the vendors did our bests.

Silver lining: the Jane’s Donut girls were out. They are experts at the donut craft.

We got to talking about their plans for the future. Eventually, one said, they want to have a brick and mortar coffee shop. This is an amazing idea, since then I could get one of their maple bacon donuts any time I wanted (when I’m in Montreal)!

To maybe spur them along, I suggested the Young Canadian Business Foundation. They offer loans and peer mentoring to small businesses looking to start-up/step-up their game. I’ve known about this organisation for few years and have heard good things (I too dream of applying one day).

I hope it’s helpful and gets the Jane’s Donut duo a little further down the road to their goals.

And, that was a street-level-small-time-capitalism-dipped-in-chocolate-and-sprinkles Reference Bomb! Bam!

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What is a reference bomb? Find out here!

Email me your Reference Bomb experience! info@dropthereferencebomb.com

Categories Reference Bomb

Reference Bomb – Tasty, Ol’Timey Devastation

February 7, 2011 //

At work, some kind coworkers invited me to sit with them (which was nice, because I’m new). The conversation, twisted, turned and landed on disasters. Landslides in Italy. Then floods in Australia.

This lead to a more unbelievable catastrophe: the Boston Molasses Disaster.

Not one of us had all the details, but we worked together and came up with this (without reaching for our smartphones):

It happened back around the 1920s.

It was caused by the brilliant idea of painting a massive molasses tank black. Heat combined with the expansionary properties of such a viscous fluid, and boom, you get an ooey-gooey black flood.

Something like 2 million gallons of the stuff were spilled down the streets of the city, wrecking buildings and causing havoc.

Rumour has it that you can still smell the molasses on hot days.

It was a sticky, tasty, destructive and collaborative reference bomb! Bam!

Molasses! Destroys! Interpretive plaque.

Where's an interpretive plaque when you need it?

Further Reading:
Wiki entry on the disaster.

Boston Public Library’s flickr gallery on the disaster.

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What is a reference bomb? Find out here!

Email me your Reference Bomb experience! info@dropthereferencebomb.com

Tags Amazing, History, reference

Categories Reference Bomb

Reference Bomb – Cats Command Feline Fealty

January 30, 2011 //

When I visit one of my good friend’s house, a friendly white (fat) cat always meets me at the door.

My friend, though, is less than happy with her house-mate’s pet. The cat has been driving her crazy with its meowing. I think the cat is perfectly civil, but my friend assures me that I’d have to hear it in the morning.

When I came by this week and she complained, I dropped this little fact:

Being smart little fluff-balls, cats raised with people see that we’re rocking verbal communication and seek to use it against us.

Pet cats are raised to be dependent on their owners and therefore need to let us know when they need food, water, cuddling, etc. Loud, imploring meowing or other vocalizing (I had a cat, once, that never meowed, just “merappept” all the time) is the result.

Experience teaches cats that they can get our attention and that our attention gets them stuff like food. Cats will stick to the methods they find that work.

On the other hand, cats who grow up feral (poor, freeborn kitties) don’t vocalize loudly like household cats because they don’t learn how useful it is.

It’s a potentially annoying situation of our own creation. A price to pay for warm furry friends.

Kitty reference bomb! Bam!

Further Reading:
On feral cats meowing.
A fun article on how cats manipulate is with purring.

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What is a reference bomb? Find out here!

Email me your Reference Bomb experience! info@dropthereferencebomb.com

Tags cats

Categories Reference Bomb

Reference Bomb – A Poser Borealis

January 18, 2011 //

One of my friends woke up to an odd sight: strange lights in the sky. His early morning twitter noise wanted to know if anyone else was seeing the aurora borealis near Barrie (actually over a place called Utopia).

Well, it’s not impossible.

Experience led me to think it wasn’t the northern lights, but something else. I tweeted back, and sadly I was right.

You see, one morning I too saw lights in the sky over Ottawa. To wax poetic, it was like hundreds of candles stretched up to sky and merged into a greenish-red glow spilt across the horizon.

Unaccustomed to the sight, I declared “Northern Lights” on twitter, facebook, everywhere, to anyone who would listen.

That evening’s weather report gave me a bit of a smack down. Turns out, the kind meteorologist said, it was in fact an instance of what is called light pillars.

Light pillars are caused by regular man-made light that is reflected by moisture in the air in odd ways. When a lot of pillars are close together they can look, to a hopeful eye, like the northern lights.

Eerie, true, but, ionosphere fireworks it is not. I was crestfallen when I learned the truth. Plus, I’d left a social media trail that forced me to confess my mistake.

My friend, too, soon tweeted back, his words a little heavy: he was seeing light pillars, too.

That is a mistaken sky phenomenon reference bomb, times two… bam…

Reference Bomb – Hurty Qwerty

January 11, 2011 //

Between library contracts, I take what jobs I can. Lately, I’ve been working at a multi-national mega-chain retail cafe stationed among several government offices.

Everyday, I serve hundreds of bureaucrats. Sometimes people will complain about wrist pain from using their computers all the time.

Little do they suspect that a humble barista will lay this string of facts down on them:

1) Early typewriters used key arrangements that were more efficient and ergonomic than the now ubiquitous QWERTY format.

2) The ‘better’ formats were abandoned because people would type too fast, causing the mechanical typrwriters to jam. QWERTY was designed to slow typists down.

3) However, a side effect is that reaching for common keys like the space bar, enter etc. causes some of the ergonomic strain on your hand.

4) And, this is my theory, switching to a more ergonomic and efficient keyboard layout, now that computers are uninhibited by mechanical parts, would be so costly that it may never happen. Remember how confusing switching to metric was for people?

Your latte is ready, with extra Reference Bomb. Bam!

Further Reading: A Brief History of Typewriters

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Categories Reference Bomb

Reference Bomb – Trapped in Line

December 30, 2010 //

I was in line at the Tim Hortons in a hospital, here in Ottawa. As I was getting close to the cash to order, the two teens manning the store were talking…

Teen 1: “Why do they call it a booby trap?”

Teen 2: “Is it spelled the same way?”

I stepped up to order and couldn’t help but jump in. I told them that yes, it was the spelled the same way as the breast-synonym. And, that the term has a etymological relationship to “a boob” or sort of old synonym for buffoon or fool.

My brother was there. He trumped me, saying that a booby trap was a trap for catching boobies, a bird. It involved an element of surprise and a noose, much like the booby traps we see in movies.

And so, my reference bomb was bombed! Hah!