During the night, a mysterious benefactor showered the town of Boone, Colorado, with hundreds of pumpkins. I can think of at least three horror movies that started this way.

From the front page of the Sulphur Times-Democrat: “Wrong Turn Sends Cross-Country Walker Into Sulphur … A wrong turn at Davis sent a New England man, who is currently on a mission to walk across America, into Sulphur last week.” Jesse Whitecrow, who started walking in Maine 14 months ago, hopes to reach Alaska, eventually. We hope he enjoys his time in Oklahoma.

Most of your search engine companies are competing by making their programming ever smarter. Microsoft is bucking that trend, and going the other direction. Via Charles, I found “Ms. Dewey,” quite possibly the dumbest search engine in history. The hostess, played by actress Janina Gavankar, is cute (though not as cute as she was in Cup of My Blood). But her jokes are rude and unfunny, and she takes forever to deliver a meager three web page results for whatever you searched for. (She does come alive if you search for “Janina Gavankar,” I’ve discovered.)

Don Danz finds Vimeo a better alternative to YouTube. I agree with Don, the quality of his Vimeo clip is better than what I’ve seen from YouTube; it plays smoothly with no skipping while it loads the file. Thanks for the find, Don.

If you were to order a carbonated soft drink, would you ask for a “pop” or a “soda”? The nation is divided. It’s especially confusing in Dixie, where it is common usage to say “coke” (note the miniscule ‘c’) even when not referring to Coca-Cola brand beverages. ‘Tis a quandary. (Hat tip: Bloggie.)

This exquisite work of art is in fact a microscopic picture of a snowflake.