Protest toque, #CAJ2012 and the Caturday Linksplosion

I said brrrr, it’s cold in here. I said there must be some carbon in the atmosphere! I said ohheeohheeohhh – Frick, frick, frick.

I’m not taking this toque off until spring starts acting a little bit more like SPRING. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again (which is what I’m doing right now): Canada is the best country in the world, minus the weather.

Winter, I’m over you.

HAPPY CATURDAY though!

I woke up this morning to find Groundskeeper Willie staring at me all intense-like. He had managed, somehow, to rip my suuuuuper long-lasting helium heart (Sean gave it to me on Valentine’s day and it’s STILL floating!) down from a high shelf and just sat that there with it for a very long time. Quiet. Freaky.

It’s been a busy week between work and the gym and prepping for ROFLcon and… watching TV with Sean. I moderated a panel yesterday on “Twitter Tips & Tricks for journalists” at the Canadian Association of Journalists conference.

Collected wisdom and some neat tricks: The twitter panel at #caj2012 twitter.com/PaulBerton/sta…

— Paul Berton (@PaulBerton) April 27, 2012

Sarah, William and Ron shared a wealth of information about how Twitter can be used in the newsroom and out on the field for journalistic purposes. I was actually pretty blown away by some of the things I saw (Uh, hi William’s self-built Twitter RSS-pulling Google spreadsheet.)

Ron Nurwisah from Huffington Post Canada made his presentation notes available online and you can view the entire panel’s live-blog here. I highly recommend that you do.

Actually, you’ll learn a ton just creeping the conference’s hashtag. So many smart people and interesting sessions around.

Not to be all me-me-me-milennial, because I’m pretty much less impressive than every other person on the speaker page, but this is my blog so HEY HEY LOOK AT MY BIO I AM SO COOL AND PROFESSIONAL LOOK LOOK:

*ahem*

Moving on.

Here’s the Caturday linksplosion for April 18, 2011:

- The “F*ck-It list” gets this guy into the Cannes Young Lions Academy with less than a month to spare. Nicely done.

- How CISPA would affect you (like, if you’re American)

- Carlton Banks flashmob sets world record (I wrote this one. My job is the best. Carlton Banks is the best.)

- This little boy is the best Carlton dancer ever, mostly because he’s soooo cute:

- You can buy canned air from Paris now. Meh.

- Good read: Our “white people problems” problem: Why it’s time to stop using “white” as a pejorative

- This poster changes the song you’re listening to when you throw something at it, which is dope if you don’t have a remote control and / or like to throw things.

- The first 4,000,000 digits of pi visualized.

- Why cats are better than dogs, according to the Internet.

- 80-year-old Twitter user on mission for 80,000 followers

- Autocorrect thinks it’s soooo funny. I nearly threw my iPhone at a fire hydrant for this.

- Depressing “We are Young” parody makes my 30 year old friends cry.

- Hilarious “I’m 24″ video makes my 24-year-old friends cry (and me laugh.)

- This article about 9 Ways Twentysomethings Screw Up Their Lives would make me cry if I could feel things inside anymore. It’s terribly depressing but also kind of kick-your-butt-into-gearish.

The brain caps off its last growth spurt during our 20s, but that doesn’t mean twentysomethings ought to wait around for their brains to grow up. Our 20s are wiring us to be the adults we will be. So step away from the videogames and pick up a book. These are use-it-or-lose years when neurons that fire together wire together. Whatever you want to change about yourself, now is the time to change it.

Right?

Finally, THIS:

Have a great Saturday night! I’ll be spending mine editing a video and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning… so much cleaning. Film crew in my house tomorrow. Mess must be removed / hidden. You know how it is.