True story: had you Googled "starfish and waffles" just last week, one of the search results that would've returned was a Wikipedia article on, you guessed it,
felix's daily starfish and waffles. Cool, huh?
Sadly, for reasons unfathomable to us, the Wikipedia police very recently took down the page. What an outrage! Fortunately, our lawyers had warned us of this possible consequence, so we took the precaution of copying the text of the article - and we've reproduced it below, just to keep the history alive.
Haha, it was a bit entertaining reading about ourselves, if I do say so myself.
The editor works late into the night at the new North American headquarters of felix's daily starfish and waffles in Edmonton, Canada. (2009). Note the unquestioned awesomeness of our IKEA Klippan sofa and Smila Stjärna wall lamp! ***
felix's daily starfish and wafflesstarfish and waffles or, fully titled,
felix's daily starfish and waffles, is a blog that follows the lives of the main author, dingobear (also known by his given name, Felix) and the editor, Peanut, a happy, larger-than-life Canadian brown bear. Since
starfish and waffles' creation during the height of mainstream blog popularity in Spring 2005, it has gained a cult following among a small group of loyal readers. As of 1 September 2009, the website counter resident on the blog had counted 92,898 page views.
felix's daily starfish and waffles, which is subtitled "your picture window to my strange world", has attempted to live up to its sub-billing by following dingobear and Peanut throughout their travels, in-between stints lived in both Canada and Sweden. Although not exclusively a travel blog, as at 1 September 2009,
starfish and waffles has featured posts on dingobear's (and, to a lesser extent, Peanut's) experiences in such diverse locations as Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, and the Vatican City.
Periodic posts adhering to specific themes, organized in separate series, are a distinguishing characteristic of
starfish and waffles. Such series include:
- Six Ways from Sunday, a music column featuring track picks with corresponding links to YouTube music videos and usually posted on Sundays, as the name implies;
- dingobear kitchen recipes, with original recipes created by dingobear;
- Bartending School, with original drink and cocktail recipes developed by dingobear;
- Wild Animal Kingdom, wildlife-related posts, sometimes humorously featuring stuffed animals; and
- My Simulated Reality TV Life, a 22-episode spoof on the proliferation of the reality television craze, which was produced with "simulated" reality characters from the popular PC game The Sims 2 and starring "simulated Felix".
The popularity of
starfish and waffles has inspired several spin-off websites, all of which were created by dingobear and Peanut. These sites include:
- dingobear: miami, which did not survive the transition to the new Blogger and is now defunct;
- dingobear photography, a photo blog which has garnered its own loyal following by differentiating itself through an emphasis on photos and the EXIF info of those photos;
- dingobear photography at Zenfolio, the dedicated gallery and online store of dingobear's photography; and
- starfish and waffles lite, which perhaps can be best described as a stripped-down version of the original starfish and waffles.
PeanutPeanut is the renowned Editor-in-Chief of
felix's daily starfish and waffles. A small brown bear from the Canadian boreal forest, Peanut made his first
appearance in December 2005 and is widely credited with vastly improving the creative content of
starfish and waffles since his arrival as editor. Peanut's cute, cuddly face, larger-than-life persona, and dedication toward building and maintaining the
starfish and waffles media empire have made him a hit with fans worldwide. Highly respected for his charity work, in 2007 Peanut spearheaded an ongoing
initiative where a portion of the advertising revenues of
starfish and waffles are donated to the World Wildlife Fund.
PoliticsAn ultimately unsuccessful
campaign to elevate Peanut onto the labels of
Jones Soda in 2007 garnered the well-liked editor bear significant popular support, raising speculation of a run for public office. To date, these rumors have not materialized.
Personal ProblemsThe difficult demands of being editor, combined with the occasional documentation of his
hard-drinking ways on the pages of
starfish and waffles, have caused some onlookers to express concern as to whether Peanut has a drinking problem. However, such conjecture has always been rebutted by
starfish and waffles brass, who have consistently cited the editor's impressive
ability to drink several times his body weight and excellent tolerance for a small bear.
