Niagara Falls on Deck

Mild-mannered Bostonian Jeff Deck crossed the United States unmolested, blithely correcting hundreds of typos displayed in public places , but as soon as he crossed the Canadian border last week he was threatened by "two very large, chain-bedecked men," who told him: "Keep walking, or we’ll fix it so you can’t walk anymore.”

"This sounded like a persuasive argument, so Benjamin and I kept walking," Jeff reported in his whimsical blog http://www.jeffdeck.com/teal/blog/?p=83 on 9 May. " I decided that the whole town [Niagara Falls, Ontario] could go to hell, for all I cared.

"In our first three encounters, we’d been rebuffed, threatened, and condescended to, and from here on I would feel no obligation to point out mistakes to those who had wrought them."

Instead, he contented himself with photographing numerous typos he found in Niagara Falls, and displaying them in his popular blog.

Calming down, the 28-year-old crusader wrote: "My indignation died down when we made our way out of the wretched tourist area and to the Falls themselves. They seemed a bit smaller than they had looked to me the last time I visited, but then again, I’d been around twelve or thirteen at the time."

Before crossing the border, Jeff amended a sign in a fruit store in Erie, Pennsylvania, offering MACINTOSH apples for sale. He changed the spelling to McIntosh.
"We’re not talking about one of the computing products put out by my much-loathed nemesis, after all, so an a is unwelcome," he said.

He's right, of course. McIntosh Red apples were named in honor of a Scottish immigrant's son who discovered seeds of a marvelous new apple in Canada more than 200 years ago. His name was John McIntosh, and today his apples are one of the world's favorites. You can read about him in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McIntosh

There's an interesting link between McIntosh apples (the fruit) and Mac Apples (the computer), explained by TAM, The Apple Museum: http://www.theapplemuseum.com/index.php?id=44

Steve Jobs came up with the name in early 1976. At the time, he was often visiting and working on a small farm friends of his owned. It was a hippie commune where Steve spent a few months of the year.

When he returned from one of those stays, he told Steve Wozniak about his idea. Jobs probably was working on apple plantages. Or he just wanted their startup to be in front of Atari in the phone book. Or it was a tribute to Apple Records, the music label of the Beatles.

Well, perhaps the computer should have been labelled the Apple Mc!

Quirky Couple's Queer Quest

Quirky Couple's Queer Quest
For years, we've been intrigued by bizarre pastimes such as worm charming and egg throwing, and have written about those and other world championships held every year in remote parts of the world.

Now, to our delight, we've found two kindred spirits -- a Welsh couple who take part in as many world championships as they can, if the events are held in the UK. And let's face it, the Brits have long had a reputation for such offbeat activities.We first heard about the couple when we read an interesting story by Katie Norman in the South Wales Echo. Here's how it began:

"Emma Hagerty, 27, and her boyfriend, Mark Rye, 28, have made it their mission to enter as many unusual world championships as possible.The couple, of Whitchurch Road, Gabalfa, Cardiff, entered 30 weird and wonderful international standard events last year.

"As well as competing in many crazy golf competitions, they have entered a conker tournament, a dry foam throwing contest and a tin bath race -- all at world championship level."

We emailed Mark Rye for more details of their strange pursuit of world titles. He replied:

"i am guessing you know what we have been doing over the last year and a bit, but here is a summary. me, the girlfriend and my mate tom spent last year travelling the length of the UK entering as many world championhships as we couldthis led us to northern ireland, scotland, wales, england and even the isle of man. at the end of the year we had entered 30 world championships.

"however i have not been able to leave it at that, so it is now my hobby entering world championships.drop me a line back with anything you want to know, as if it is a world championships in the uk i probably know about it."

Of course we were eager for more, so we asked Mark if he had managed to win any world titles. He told us:

"i did manage to become the dry foam throwing world champion and world record holder, also i defend my title this year.i don't know if i said before but there were 3 of us travelling around last year me, emma and my childhood mate tom.

"we have entered both the conkers and the worm charming. although it does have to be said that our worm charming skills do need to be work on, as we only managed 5 worms in our half hour. tom did manage to go one further and get 6 of them out of the ground.

"as for the most fun, it is hard to say. but dock leaf pudding cooking is up there. there are a few pictures of the event here: [photo 11 is me]in this event you have to cook a dock leaf pudding 'live' on stage while the local brass band plays, i think the word surreal was invented to describe this."

Searching the Internet, we discovered that Emma-Jayne Hagerty, 27, is a health worker and her partner, Mark Rye, 28, an administrator.

A World Circular Chess Championship Web site reported: "Organisers welcomed four new entrants from Cardiff and Edinburgh, Ian Lewis, Mark Rye, Tom Maxwell and Emma-Jayne Hagerty, who have embarked on a mission to enter a series of world championship events staged across the country, including cheese-rolling, wellington-boot throwing, worm-charming and pooh-sticks."

Pooh sticks aren't what you might imagine. The annual championship, held in Oxfordshire, is "based on A.A. Milne's tales about Winnie the Pooh and friends," according to a 2003 BBC report.

We were gratified to read that "In keeping with recent sporting events, the Australians beat the English to first place in the team competition."