Pop-up bakery at HP College, plus links for idle hours
Hi everyone,
Between the holiday, the heat, and the happy campers, it really feels like summer here at HP HQ. Hope you’re staying hydrated! OK, I’ll stop with the Hs.
In a recent newsletter, I mentioned that we’re trying new things at Hot Pizza—and partnering with friends and organizations we admire to do so. Last month it was a book launch; this month it’s a pop-up bakery (and a related kids’ art-marking session). More details below!
Julia and I have two kids of our own, and over the years I’ve saved links to various family-friendly sites, videos, quizzes, and games that they love. Since this may find you at a cottage, stuck on a layover, or otherwise in need of some age-appropriate distraction, you’ll find ten of our favorites below. It’s algorithm-free fun!
More soon, as always,
Brian
chi nguyễn pop-up bakery (& Fake Cake session for kids!)
We’re huge fans of Great Canadian Baking Show finalist chi nguyễn, the sweet and savory snacks and treats they whip up, and the way they use their talents to express their values. We’re delighted they have agreed to host a pop-up bakery at our College Street location! And it wouldn’t be HP if there wasn’t art-making, so we have a kids’ fake-cake decorating session, too! The details:
Where: Hot Pizza, 1152 College Street.
Treats: 9 a.m.–1 p.m. (or when the treats sell out, whichever comes first)
Fake Cake decorating with chi & Julia: 10 a.m.–12 p.m.
The bakery is open to the public. The fake-cake decorating is for registered participants ages 6–12 only.
Links for idle hours
Practical Engineering. Grady Hillhouse’s YouTube channel has smart but accessible deep-dive explainers about the infrastructure that governs our world. He’s interested most in hydrology, and some recent favorites include “The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild” and “The Hidden Engineering of Niagara Falls.”
Feels. A simple, online Where’s Waldo? copy that hides one emoji in a sea of thousands.
Roland50 Studio. Playable digital recreations of Roland’s classic drum machines and synthesizers, like the TR-808 and the TB-303.
Type Mirror. Turn your camera’s view into a live drawing made of letters.
Townscaper. Build a cute isometric/3-D village. This is the free web-based trial version of a game you can also get on Switch, Steam, iOS, and elsewhere.
How to juggle three balls, Taylor Glenn’s thirteen-minute video tutorial.
Make your own Jackson Pollock painting. Tap/click once to change color, twice to reset the canvas.
Alphabetical clock. Just try and figure this one out.
100 kids versus 3 Japanese national-team soccer players. In honor of the World Cup. It’s a low-resolution upload from a decade ago, but it’s charming and generated a whole world of “100 kids versus” sports videos.
Indian railways, 1853–2026. Every railway line India has built since 1853, mapped from the original opening records. One of many such fun projects built by a data-visualization company.
Bonus: Wiki Spy. 43,000+ images sourced from Wikipedia. Click to get an assorted me of related images, with info and links to the original Wikipedia pages. Then keep clicking.