Here’s a St. Louis Wiki I recently discovered. It’s only six months old. OK, I discovered it back in October, when it was extremely new, and then proceeded to forget about it. I recently rediscovered it.

There are a few major differences in the philosophy behind WikiLou and behind Wikipedia.

To quote from the WikiLou Vision:

The main purpose of WikiLou is to provide information. The information here can be about anything to do with the St. Louis area. Everyone knows something about the area, and if everyone puts what they know on WikiLou, we will have the most comprehensive collaborative database of knowledge about St. Louis that has ever been compiled. Don’t be afraid to make a page for the corner market, your street, even your own house. Nothing is too small to be recorded here…WikiLou is a place for everyone in St. Louis to get themselves out there.

So whereas articles will be deleted on Wikipedia if they are on something that isn’t sufficiently ‘notable‘, and contributors are cautioned against contributing to entries about themselves, this is actively encouraged at WikiLou.

Yes, Passover begins on Monday night, April 2nd.

Passover Blues

How to break matza cleanly (in Japanese):

Passover Noir (never done this ritual myself, but this makes it look fun)

Yiddish Passover Medley

Matzo Man

Who Let the Jews Out?

And from last year: They Tried to Kill Us, We Survived (let’s eat)

Is Marijuana Kosher for Passover?

There’s a movement to Reestablish the Sanhedrin, and renew animal sacrifice in Israel. (It’s important to note these are extreme fringe Rabbis, but it’s nice to see they aren’t talking about blowing up the Dome of the Rock, and are only interested in building The Temple next to it. Not that the Muslims are OK with that. And while generally accepted Jewish tradition states the Temple won’t be rebuilt until the Messiah comes, I’d say the moment Islam accepts the reconstruction of The Temple is a good sign of the Messiah. As long as these extremists are willing to wait before they start hammering, they can sacrifice as many animals as they want. Sure, I feel a little for the animals, but I’m not a vegetarian.)

A student has been suspended for dressing up like a pirate. However, the student complains he was practicing his religion – Pastafarianism. Pastafarianism began in Kansas as a parody argument against Intelligent Design — the creator arguing that his religion had to be taught alongside Intelligent Design. But it’s taken on a life of it’s own. Possibly like Discordianism, though no one is certain about the intent of the creators of Discordianism.

Previously I blogged about the relationship between Pirates and Global Warming without realizing the graph was part of Pastafarianism.

A couple weeks ago I blogged about my great-grandfather being born in a town ‘nearby’ Dublin – Warsaw, Poland. The entry provided a link to driving directioins between Warsaw and Dublin.

At the time, GoogleMaps replied: “We could not calculate driving directions between Warsaw, Poland and Dublin, Ireland.” I found that funny.

But in the past two weeks Google Maps has improved their services and now they have the directions It will only take you 1 day and 3 hours. I will admit I actually thought it would involve James Bond’s underwater vehicle, but I forgot about the tunnel underneath the Channel, and there’s a ferry between Holyhead and Dun Laoghaire. (I’m not sure whether it’s a ferry you can take cars on. I may have one or two readers who know, though.)

If you read BoingBoing, you may know that someone posted the driving directions between New York City and Dublin. Google Maps doesn’t flinch with this query either. However, step 23 is “Swim across the Atlantic Ocean – 3,462 mi” (Though one person did the math/s and calculated that’s 4.9 mph for 29 continuous miles, which is pretty fast for a human) If you reverse the directions and you start in Dublin you’ll learn that’s equivalent to 5,572 km. (I think it’s fair they use the units of measurement for the place of origin)

These cross-water instructions aren’t always very efficient, as the instructions for Portugal to Miami illustrates. It seems GoogleMaps is pretty insistent that you start your swim in either France or the UK, and end it in New York. And it’s completely blind to the Pacific Ocean. It gives it’s old “we could not calculate…” error message for even “Hawaii to San Francisco”

But it does show they are always working on ways to improve, so I’m sure given time…

Harry Potter Book Seven Cover art

UK Children’s (with inside flaps) [thumbnail] [Extremely high resolution – 9mb] There’s story description on the inside flaps so if you don’t wish to read it, you might want to view the thumbnail.

UK Adult (with inside flaps) [thumbnail] [Extremely high resolution – 8mb] This has the same story description, but different illustrations. (Direct links to images)

US cover art (All art, no text, and the link takes you to a page where you can move a magnifying glass over an image of the cover, without letting you download it.)

If I were choosing the copy I purchased by cover art, I would choose the UK children’s version. There is no question in my mind.

Hecklerspray’s humorous coverage of the covers.

A statue of Mark McGwire is hidden in an undisclosed location.
(Commissioned in 2002 when his Hall of Fame status seemed a slam dunk, it now gathers dust as this requirement for putting the statue outside Busch stadium hasn’t been met. And may never be met due to the question of steroid use.)

In addition to the humorous images on Jim’s blog, six months ago, which Christy mentioned in the comments to the previous entry, I found the actual post I remembered.

I didn’t post it here, I just saw it on Nobody’s blog. It was July of 2005, which explains my lapse of memory. Unfortunately, the link is to a dead site, and while it’s on Archive.org, the images naturally aren’t archived. And that of course makes the archive of this particular page pretty worthless. With a little search I found it duplicated here

Since I have absolutely no faith in that remaining there…

One of these I’ve seen before, along with some additional creative test answers. I’m not sure if I posted it here, or saw it elsewhere.and maybe linked to it…or perhaps I never posted it here, but saw it on another local blog. If someone out there remembers, and can find that post, I’d appreciate it as I’d like to send the other creative test answers to my co-worker who sent me these.

One of these I’ve seen before, along with some additional creative test answers. I’m not sure if I posted it here, or saw it elsewhere.and maybe linked to it…or perhaps I never posted it here, but saw it on another local blog. If someone out there remembers, and can find that post, I’d appreciate it as I’d like to send the other creative test answers to my co-worker who sent me these.

Yep. Over. In less than a month.

The venerable publication has a storied history that also reflects the changing economics of print over the years — the big, glossy magazine came out weekly from 1936 to 1972, then was reincarnated as an occasional special issue, then as a monthly, and finally as a skinny newspaper supplement. In retrospect, that last move doesn’t look particularly smart. “We hitched our star to an industry that’s not growing,” said managing editor Robert Shapiro.

The unhitching will happen with the last print supplement on April 20, but the LIFE brand will live on the Web in the form of a free archive of the magazine’s renowned photos.