Various and Sundry, May 6

Let's focus on the fluffiest of the fluffy today, shall we? (Rustling of links...)

Ah...here we go. Let's start with an iPhone app for making tea. A tea app, you ask? Yes, indeedy. Here's the description:

Every tea has its sweet spot. Tea for iPhone is here to help you find it. Create tasting notes and save your brew settings with ease. Share them with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Use Tea’s inventory tracker to keep track of how many brews you have left. A terrific timer is built in too.

Even I am not that hard core.

Some priests swim the Tiber. Others, apparently, ship the church to the local winery. I liked this story about "a century-old church [being] ferried down the Minas Basin on a vessel captained by a man named Lord. The building — formerly St. Matthew's Anglican Church — is being moved to Avondale to become part of the new Avondale Sky Winery." I actually think it's rather sweet.

Futility Closet made me happy this week, first with the Hairy Ball Theorem: "A hairy ball can’t be combed flat — it must always have a cowlick." Just so's you know. And also with this story:

In 1984, Bob Ellis, managing editor of the Eldorado, Ill., Daily Journal, announced a contest “to recognize and honor the American summer tradition, Daylight Saving Time.”

“The rules are simple,” Ellis wrote. “Beginning with the first day of Daylight Savings Time this year, those entering the contest must begin saving daylight. Whoever saves the most daylight … will be awarded prizes.”

He arranged for the contest to end on April 1, and hoped he had inserted enough absurdities that readers would see the joke. No pre-dawn light or twilight would be accepted, and moonlight was disallowed. Contestants could store their light in any container and deliver it to the Journal’s office. “All entries will be donated to less fortunate nations that do not observe Daylight Saving Time.”

But they didn’t. Ellis was contacted by media in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Dallas, “every section of the nation” seeking more information about the contest.

That was all right with Ellis. He’s written the piece as “change of pace from the usual and often gloomy side of the news,” he said, so that people “could laugh at the world, and me, and perhaps even at themselves, with reckless abandon. And feel good. And therein lies the worth of such a diversion.”

Hope you catch some rays this weekend!