Fiddle me this

Normally I don't think too much about the names of musical instruments, however for some reason it came up in conversation what the difference between a fiddle and a violin was.  Well it turns out the answer is they're really the same thing.  OK looks like we're done here, everyone can go home now...


After looking at several sources the consensus seems to be that the instrument in question is generally referred to as a violin when classical music is being played and a fiddle when folk or other types of music are being played.  Some fiddlers may modify the bridge to play certain rhythms easier but this isn't required.  "Violin" seems to be the choice in more formal settings which is illustrated by the quote, "A violin is kept in a violin case, and a fiddle is kept in a sack."

Of dogs and trucks

I've been writing about random stupid things lately and haven't written about any stories for a while.  So here's a story about how my friends and I almost became internet famous from a strange series of events late one night.

We were coming home from somewhere, I can't remember where, and decided to stop for some midnight pizza.  We parked, went in, got some pizza and were just outside eating our pizza when I noticed a truck camper slowly backing up.  Now this wouldn't normally be strange, however the truck didn't have anyone in front of him so it didn't make sense for him to be backing up.

I watched for a few more seconds and noticed that the truck was starting to angle out into the street.  It was at this point I noticed that sitting in the driver's seat was not a human but a dog!  The truck continued to slowly back up, angled so that it would be entering a large intersection fairly shortly.

I was really confused and yelled at my friends to take a look.  One of them was thinking quickly and took out his phone to record what was happening.  The truck was fairly far away at this point and was starting to cross the intersection.  We ran up to the corner to keep watching.  The  truck continued across the intersection until it was a few feet away from a building on the other corner.

Since it was midnight no other cars were at the intersection, though we were curious how they would have reacted.  Anyway, we suddenly see two people running very quickly across the street and they jumped into the truck just before it hit the building.  We didn't get a great look at the people, but we all agreed that they looked like the couple we had seen a few minutes before that were behind us in line in the pizza place!

If the video was decent we knew that it would go viral and and we would make tons of money from the YouTube ads!  Excitedly we looked at the video and it was incredibly dark!  It was dark enough, and we were far away enough, that you couldn't actually tell that the dog was in the driver's seat :(  You could make out the truck backing up slowly and hear us talking excitedly about "a dog driving the car!" though.

Do people still send chain letters?

Recently I had heard someone mention chain letters and I thought to myself, "I don't think I've received a chain letter in a loooong time".  I wondered, "Do people still send chain letters or have we finally gotten over them?"  Apparently before email, people would send chain letters by mail!  I think I'm a bit too young for that because I don't remember receiving any of those.


I do remember when I was younger that I would receive chain letters through email.  I wouldn't say a large amount, but I definitely would receive them every so often.  I always thought they were stupid (or at least that's what I'd like to think I always thought) and I don't think I passed them on...


How are they going to know that I didn't forward the email!  Who is this outside entity that is going to come suffocate me in the night if I don't forward the email to 10,000 people in the next 20 seconds!?  How is Bill Gates going to know how to send the money to me!  I better forward along my home address!


It might be that the lack of chain emails that I receive now is due to a generation growing up and deciding that they've had enough of them.  Or maybe that's only true of the people I correspond with.  Regardless, it's probably true that "a sucker is born every minute" and that chain emails are alive and well among younger and/or more gullible members of the population.

Cesc Fabregas looks like Mark Ruffalo

A couple years ago while watching the World Cup I noticed that the Spanish soccer (football) player Cesc Fabregas bore a resemblance to actor Mark Ruffalo.  Two years passed and I was reminded of this again while watching Euro 2012.  I decided to go to the internet (where else) to see if anyone else shared my opinion.

After typing "cesc fabregas looks like" into Google the suggestions were "zachary quinto" and "sylar".  Not having watched Heroes, I soon learned that Zachary Quinto plays the character Sylar in the show.  Looking at the pictures I agreed they had a point but I was not deterred.  Filled with confirmation bias I carried on in my quest.

Completing the search to be "cesc fabregas looks like mark ruffalo" I discovered that I was not alone!  People had posted Tumblr messages and tweeted about it!  The consensus seemed to be that Ruffalo looks like an older version of Fabregas and my favourite quote was "Cesc Fabregas looks like an I-fucked-your-wife-ier version of Mark Ruffalo".  Check out this comparison to be convinced for sure.