This is a Subway contest that you can find online by clicking here. The contest involves writing a story using one of four starting points provided by Subway. There’s only one caveat:

No home school kids are allowed! No reason is given. Judging from the first thing that jumped out at me when I read his ad, I can see why:

Apparently the ad was typed or proofread by a product of the public school system!

I don’t actually buy into the stereotypes of public vs. home schooled children completely. For instance, I know plenty of smart products of public schools. But I think home schooled kids should be allowed the same opportunities as public school kids. I remember a stink a few years back about a kid who wanted to compete in NDHSAA speech events, for instance. I’m all for it.

The fact of the matter is that home school kids wouldn’t be sneered at or excluded if they weren’t often 1) pretty proficient, and 2) Christians of some sort. I don’t know which of these is a threat to Subway, but it’s a bit of a black eye in this instance nonetheless.

Just in case they (ahem) make the mistake go away, you can click here for a screen capture of the original contest entry page as I found it.

I took today off from work because I’ve got some guys here working on my house. I happened to get sucked into the Discovery Channel program How It’s Made for a little bit. I’m a curious sort, so this program tends to draw me in quite handily. I hit the program guide on my satellite remote and immediately spotted an easy typo: aluminium. That’s a misspelling to us Americans, but in many other places it’s the proper spelling of good ol’ element #13.  In any case, it caught my eye.

It’s a disorder. Really. I often spot typos in a flash, many times in my peripheral vision. Last night when Jay Leno was doing funny newspaper clippings, I spotted a typo in something that was up for two seconds or so and wasn’t related to the joke. The National Atomic Museum I posted about earlier? I spotted typos on the placards there right away. I even took a picture of one, because I’m a nerd:

I’m not saying I don’t make the occasional typo, or otherwise plant my foot firmly in my mouth. On the rare occasion when I go back to proofread my work, I tend to spot most of those as well. But it is an odd “gift” to possess, and can cause one to find one’s self nitpicking the Discovery Channel.

My mom saved a recent issue of the Mandan News for me because of this article. It features a certain little blond-haired boy who won the city & county spelling bee. I thought it would be cool for my scrapbook, but then my “typo reflex” kicked in.

I have this thing where I catch misspellings even in my peripheral vision…it’s almost spooky. In this case, a capital N was screaming at me. Now I suppose people will start asking if my mom is a nurse or something! The irony of a typo in a spelling bee article isn’t lost on me. My mom asked me if the article makes me feel old. Of course not.

As far as the full version of “F” goes, I am one of those privacy types. Sure, it’s pretty easy to figure out my last name from other miscellaneous details over the past two years…but I’m not going to just broadcast it. I’m not hiding, just trying to be a little cautious.

It’s that time of year again: the ubiquitous “Restrictions in Effect” signs are popping up around the periphery of Bismarck. Restrictions of what nature, you ask? If your only source of information is these signs, I suppose it’s anyone’s guess.

I saw these signs go up last year and thought they were pretty funny. Obviously it’s because of the load restrictions on Bismarck roads, which I heard about on the radio, but the signs are vague enough to omit that detail. It’s only after someone figured out what was missing and wedged a little “Load” in there that the signs made sense:

This is how the corrected signs looked last year. I was actually surprised to find an unmodified one posted up along Divide Avenue this afternoon. The top two pictures are from today, the bottom picture from last year. In a post from last March I was almost second-guessing whether I’d even seen the signs without the word “Load” inserted. Today’s sighting of one of the original signs is a bit of a vindication, I suppose. Now someone’s going to have to dash up to Divide Avenue with another “Load” sticker!

In the 90’s, the “swoosh” was the most notable logo design cliche’… not that I pretend to know anything about design, other than what I see. I’m a simple caveman when it comes to graphic design…but some things even a caveman can see. Where every logo coming out of the late 90’s and early 00’s had to have a swoosh or other curve conveying motion or speed, now it seems the leaf is trendy. At least, that’s the case in Bismarck.

You may recall my post from last March comparing the new Kirkwood Bank & Trust logo to the already established Lending Tree logo. If I was an executive at Kirkwood, I’d be a little ticked. Corporate identity is not cheap. They probably paid tens of thousands of dollars for that little piece of foliage. Besides, what does Kirkwood Bank have to do with trees?

Now we see this: two adjacent signs, each sporting leaves. Granted, with a name like Aspen, a leaf is a no-brainer. When placed next to the Kirkwood logo, though, it reminds me of that funny similarity between Kirkwood and Lending Tree.

My annoying watermark obscures it, but ironically I noticed later that there’s a THIRD leaf logo hiding in this shot: the Country Suites hotel sign in the background also sports foliage! TRIFECTA.

Have you seen any other local businesses with leaves in their logos?

If you’ve lived in Bismarck-Mandan for any length of time, you must have seen the riverboat-shaped building at the intersection of Tyler Parkway and Burnt Boat Road. Built several years ago, it serves as an information center for central North Dakota. It occurred to me yesterday that I’d never been inside, so I decided to rectify the situation. I came out with a free Bismarck-Mandan poster, a trail map for the area’s Park & Rec trails, and a couple of other informative items.

As for the title of this post, I just have to tease the CVB folks for a minute. The logo of the CVB is nice, but I couldn’t help but analyze two features of it.

First is the buffalo with wings; I always wondered where Applebee’s got my favorite appetizer, and apparently they’re indigenous! Perhaps we could tailor our own version of Home on the Range, “where the geese and the buffalo fly.”

Second is the crescent/stars thing. Initially it looks like a symbol commonly associated with the cult of Islam. Looking up the crescent online shows that it’s not necessarily a religious symbol, but one used by lots of Arab nations. While there were literally hundreds of pagan gods in Mecca, the moon and stars being symbols of some of them, I doubt there’s a giant black cube hiding in Bismarck-Mandan anywhere.

If you, like me, haven’t stopped in at the CVB for a visit, I invite you to do so. There’s always more a person can learn about their hometown(s), and this is the place that’s gathered much of the information. Don’t forget to ask them about the flying buffalo!