Some things have really strange names. For that matter, so do some people. Or bands. Or…well, you get the picture. If you think that you’re a pro at deciphering what something is just from its moniker, head on over to mental_floss and try out one of these “lunchtime quizzes”:

–Discontinued Ben and Jerry’s Flavour or a Band I Found On MySpace?

– Harry Potter Character or Hideous Skin Disease?

–Super Mario Bros. Villain or Obscure Dinosaur?                            

–Medieval Torture Device or Bed Bath and Beyond Gadget?

–Ben and Jerry’s Flavour or Pottery Barn Paint Colour?

–Actual SkyMall Product or Rejected Invention Patent?

–Celebrity Baby Name or Computer Virus?

–Skin Disease or Dungeons and Dragons Character?

Were you taught that the movement of land mass of lithosphere on earth is due to moving tectonic plates? Well, the tectonic plates theory propose that there are eight major plates and many minor plates and these plates move in three basic ways: Divergent, Convergent and Transforming. Divergent boundaries is the expansion between plates, convergent boundaries is the collision between plates, and transform boundaries is the sliding between plates. The result of today’s landscape is explained by the continental drift theory with tectonic plates theory.

However, theory of expanding earth suggests that the earth is actually expanding. See video below, it’s quite self explainatory:

Why would this theory be popular?

There are various forms of the expanding earth hypothesis including some proposals which say that the Earth’s mass has remained constant (and thus the gravitational pull at the surface has decreased over time), that Earth’s mass has grown with the volume in such a way that the surface gravity has remained constant, or that the gravitational constant of the universe has changed over time (a hypothesis used to explain how the mass and gravitational pull of the earth could remain constant during growth). Many of the remaining expanding Earth adherents are proponents of the ideas of the late Australian geologist S. Warren Carey, whose ideas were popular for a time in the 1950s and 60s.

Why is this theory discredited by many scientists?

 I was planning book talk the Gone series today….But since the books are thicker than the Bible, I am a bit behind schedule. So instead, I’m going to talk about a movie that’s based on a book. The movie is not yet in theaters.

  The movie is called The Vampire’s Assistant and it talks about a teen that turns into a vampire. Most people would say that they movie is copying The Twilight Saga. Those people are wrong; The Vampire’s Assistant is book two of the Darren Shan saga, it was written by Darren Shan the same author of the Demonata series. In fact, the Darren Shan saga was written before the Demonata novels and way before the first book of Twilight.

The Vampire’s Assistant is not as dark as the Demonata novels, and deals with a teenager who makes a deal with a vampire and turns into a half vampire (a vampire’s assistant) in order to save his friend.   

This is a much more child-friendly novel than the Demonata novels and I just hope that the movie is as good as the book. The movie/book should be a fun experience for most people.

Youth from south Calgary needed!!!

Do you want to become a member of a new volunteer club in south Calgary? CYFC is looking for dedicated and committed youth that are interested in joining YVC South.  YVC South provides volunteer opportunities in and around the south communities while gaining valuable experience, receiving volunteer hours and meeting other awesome youth!

YVC South meets every Thursday after-school (4-6pm) at a convenient south location close to transit! Limited spots available so please email yvcclubs2@cyfc.ca to get more information or if you have any questions.

No, it is not Easter yet so put away those baskets of yours because you will not be getting any chocolate today. Instead, hunt for the Pizza Planet Truck! For those of you who don’t know where the Pizza Planet Truck comes from, it is from the movie, Toy Story,  by Pixar. Therefore, ever since Toy Story, Pixar has being putting the Pizza Planet Truck inside all their new movies. This is called an Easter Egg.

Believe it or not, the Pizza Planet Truck has made its appearance in Wall-E, Cars, A Bug’s Life along with all the other Pixar films even including Up! Check the links out and you will be surprised that you never noticed it!

Disney, which owns Pixar, has being putting Easter Eggs, such as Mickey Mouse, in almost every single one of their movies, whether it is just a shadow, a shape or an actual character from somewhere else! You just have to look real hard for them! Here is a list of Pixar film reference and you’ll be surprised at how many hidden things there are in Disney Movies!

As the holiday season rolls around, we experience an (over?) abundance of food, chocolate, costumes and stretchy pants! Every holiday season, we, the fortunate, often get bombarded with pleas for our aid, food, money and time to help those who are less fortunate. This season, with the economic downfall of the past year, it is especially important to give our time and resources to help  out Calgary’s homeless and impoverished.

Help put a smile on someone’s face (not to mention your own) at the Mustard Seed .

Volunteer at the Food Bank.

Donate to the United Way.

Want to do something more? Food drives, Mustard Seed campaign, raise money! Get friends or family involved!

Have a  more fulfilling winter season this year – Happy holidays!

I was having a discussion with some friends about social networking sites and it quickly became a Facebook against Twitter debate. Being an avid Facebooker, I thought I’d check in to see what everyone’s talking about with Twitter.

So here is some basic Twitter information I’ve collected:

Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey. The idea came from his growing interest in the simple idea of being able to know what his friends were doing. Specifically, he wondered if there might be an opportunity to build something compelling around this simple status concept. When he brought the idea up to his colleagues, it was decided that a prototype should be built.

And then I wondered, why do people like it?
It’s a simple, easy way to connect with people. All you do is answer this question, “What are you doing?”

It easily solves the problem of an information overload and saves you from messaging someone on Facebook chat just to say how’s it going.

I’ve heard the word tweet many times in these discussions so I sought to find the definition of a tweet in Twitter terms. A tweet is a short message, typically 140 words or less, sent over the Twitter network. Tweeting is free and you can start by signing up for a Twitter account.

So there’s your basic information on Twitter. Sound like something your interested in? To learn more click here, and if you already have Twitter, follow Youth Are Awesome! 🙂

This Thanksgiving long weekend, Heritage Park is offering free rides with your paid admission. Also a free pancake breakfast served before 10 AM awaits you if you come early enough.

Yes, you read correctly, FREE rides AND pancake breakfast!

During the afternoon if the sudden craving for a mouth watering Thanksgiving dinner arises, you can drop by the Elegant Wainwright Hotel for a delicious 3-course meal.

So bundle up and take a trip down there. Enjoy a day of history and exciting adventure of the West back in the 1930’s. See some sweet ‘vintage rides’ at the Gasoline Alley Museum, enjoy the fall scenery while cruising on the Glenmore Reservoir, get an overall look of the park on the steam train, ride on the fun rides at the midway, browse around in the one-of-a-kind shops or unwind on a horse-drawn wagon ride.

In 2006  singer/songwriter Derek Webb gave away free downloads of his album in exchange for a little demographic information from his fans.  The trade reached 80,000 fans and is said to be responsible for sold-out shows and sale spikes.

This success turned into the foundation for a little company called NoiseTrade.  Today, consumers can either pass along the e-mail addresses of five friends or can pay what they want for music downloads of up-and-coming artists.  If fans choose to pay for a download, the artist keeps 80% of the payment.  In the end, everyone wins.

Head over to NoiseTrade’s blog for more information, or dive right in and get downloading.

Since the Information Technology boom in the 1990s when usage of Personal Computers(PC) increases, a generation of tech-savvy people has embraced technology more than ever before in the history of all man-kind.

This phenomena is apparent when we look at internet usage in comparison to different generation of people starting from the 1950s when commercial computers is starting to spread. It is not until mid-1970s that the first consumer PC is being produced.

When it comes to internet usage, we have to look at one’s online time: the undeniable truth is that in general, the younger generation is spending more time online than the older generation, if the trend in the above figure doesn’t impress you, look at mobile data services.

What really puzzles me is why is the younger generation using mobile data services more than Generation X (age 27-40), after all, it’s people in their 30s and 40s who are doing more business calls and important business communications. I figure the mobile data services should look something like the online shopping diagram. Why? Because younger people do not use cellphones for important matters, they use them to chat with friends and text random messages. (Head’s up: in case you don’t know, sending data takes energy, every message you sent has to go through the local communication tower, if required, it will need to go through the satellites orbiting earth, then the message go through another communication tower and finally to the receiver. Think about this waste of energy when you send your friend a message or talk to your friend on a cellphone who’s 10 feet away!!! This is also true for computers and Internet communications)

Does music run through your veins or are you hoping to discover your inner piano man? Then you might want to look into The Youth Music Experience, a free after school music program  hosted by The New Black Centre and Community and Neighborhood Services.

The program is for ages 12 – 17 and will be two hours every Tuesday from October 6th till November 24th. Participants will learn about Afro beat, underground and electronic rhythms and create mini bands to eventually record a piece of music.

Call 3-1-1 to find out more information and sign up, because it is not too late to join.

Snow. It always depresses us all. With the first snowfall of the year comes the knowledge that from now on we have to always bring a coat with us when we go out, and that we won’t be able to do outdoor sports easily until April.

Every year in Calgary there is 1cm of snow or more on the ground for a quarter of the year, and frost for almost half of the year. And, this isn’t the coldest October (so far) that has been recorded. The record low in October was -25.7 Celsius, and the record low of the year was -45. Brrr!!!!!

The average snowfall a year in Calgary is 135.4 cm, and it has been know to snow from as early as September until May.

This gives global warming a whole new silver lining!

Are you interested in the many theatre, dance, music and visual arts events in Calgary? Are tickets to these events often costly? And are these costly tickets stopping you from attending these events? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then LiveRush is totally your thing! [See, I could be an amazing salesperson.]

LiveRush offers high school, college, and university students in Calgary an easy way to purchase low-cost ($20 and under!), same-day tickets to Calgary Arts events. Participating organizations include Alberta Ballet, Alberta Theatre Projects, Art Gallery of Calgary, Calgary Opera, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts, Lunchbox Theatre, One Yellow Rabbit, Theatre Calgary, Theatre Junction, Vertigo Mystery Theatre, and many more.

So, if you’re a student with a valid LiveRush card (and a valid student ID), you can buy tickets to these events for a cheaper price! (Be sure to click on LiveRush under Event Category every time you look at a new month to see the events LiveRush is participating in.) If you’re not quite convinced yet [by my totally superb (read: lame) salesperson skills 😉 ], click here to learn more about LiveRush.

Best of all? Signing up for LiveRush is free. So don’t miss out, sign up with them now!

Tired of teen magazines with no substance and newspapers with no good news? Grip magazine just might be the solution you’re looking for. A quarter-yearly publication, it tackles real-life issues and throws in just enough fun and interesting tidbits to keep you interested. Even better? If you can’t find it in person, you can check it out online!