Montréal photographer François Brunelle is working on an interesting project, looking for look-alikes who — other than their appearance — have no relationship to each other. Not necessarily famous people; just everyday folk. He got the project started after repeatedly being told he looked just like Mr. Bean. (Incidentally, that means he must also look just like José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain and a remarkable look-alike to Mr. Bean!) If you’ve seen someone who looks just like you, or like someone you know, get in touch with Brunelle — you could be part of the project!

Appearance and similarity can be pretty subjective. I’ve been told (at various times and by various people) that I evoke popcorn magnate Orville Redenbacher (c’mon!), King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Kermit the Frog and actor Ed Norton. King Orville Norton the Frog? Leaves a lot to the imagination, doesn’t it?

Thanks to chocolatina for pointing out this story, about the fact that Columbus may not have “discovered” the New World (ooh, shocking!). Instead, it seems the Chinese explorer Zheng He may have done so, sometime around or before 1421.

If you’ve got some time to kill, why not volunteer to help Berkeley University researchers discover stardust. They are seeking volunteers to hunt through 1.6 million “fields of view” for interstellar dust impacts in a spacecraft that flew through the coma of comet Wild2 — something they claim humans can do better than computers (goodness, will the wonders never cease?).

Today we are having just a lovely day. The streets and sidewalks are sheer ice — we’ve had rain and freezing rain all night, and it’s still coming down now (still expect 30mm more today). This afternoon, the winds (currently 30-60km/h) will reach 90km/h gusts, the temperature will drop and turn all that water into ice. Hmm, remind you of anything? (don’t worry, we’re a long way from being there…so far!)

UPDATE: So we had something like 65mm of freezing rain today — four times the previous record…in fact there were “only” 100mm of freezing rain during the entire 1998 Ice Storm (which was spread over five days!).