Bad Week

 Donna, my new Facebook friend, shared this hilarious post. She found my wallet outside the Big Red Market in Thorold where I’d dropped it, and turned it in. She also asked friends on a St. Catharines Community Group if anyone knew me.  My friend Sean notified me that it had been found and I picked it up. I was very grateful to Donna because I’d had to change all my credit cards when I moved. Shortly after that I lost my wallet and had to change everything again. It was such a relief to have someone go the extra mile to reach out to me and an example of how FB can still perform a valuable community function, despite Zuckerberg. (After hearing this my sister bought me a wallet on a chain to attach to my purse.) Anyhow read this story about someone else’s bad week, it’s brilliant.

The Nag According to AI - I Got a Kick Out Of This

I’ve been doing this for a very long time and sometimes I feel like I’m blogging into a void but apparently someone’s been keeping tabs on my feeble efforts. Mark, a follower and occasional commenter on NOTL, decided on a whim to have AI check me out. The question he asked was “Who writes Nag On The Lake?” and this is what came up (I cut out some redundancies):

Origin & Name (2005)
Marilyn Bellamy started the blog in while living in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario (hence the wordplay "Nag on the Lake"). Initially, the blog mixed regional happenings from her "Old Town" neighborhood with interesting tidbits she found online. Over time, the hyper-local updates faded, and the blog fully transitioned into a pure daily link-sharing site. 

• The Early Years: Bellamy started blogging as a way to compile personal internet discoveries. The site quickly grew a dedicated following among people who loved quirky, thoughtful, and aesthetic media long before algorithmic social feeds took over.
• The "Nag" Persona: The blog features lighthearted running jokes about the "Nag" persona (Bellamy) and her husband, affectionately dubbed "Mr. Nag". This gave the site a cozy, personal, and highly human touch that set it apart from corporate content aggregators. 
• Longevity and Community: Over more than two decades online, the blog has built a collaborative community, frequently exchanging links and shout-outs with classic curation mainstays like Neatorama and Everlasting Blort. Today, it remains one of the few surviving independent "link blogs" from the mid-2000s era that still updates daily.
• The history of Nag on the Lake is closely tied to the golden age of independent internet curation. Launched on Blogspot, it grew from a hyper-local diary into a widely respected hub for global internet oddities. 

The Golden Age Of Link Blogging
During the late 2000s and early 2010s, "link blogging" was a thriving ecosystem. Blogs like Nag on the Lake, Neatorama, The Presurfer, and Everlasting Blort served as human-curated filters for the web before algorithms and social media timelines took over. Bellamy built a reputation for finding deeply fascinating, non-viral content, focusing on: Vintage photography and forgotten historical archives, short independent films and animation, quirky art installations and architecture.

Longevity
While the vast majority of mid-2000s blogs have gone dark or transitioned to social media channels, Nag on the Lake remains entirely active. It stands as one of the longest-running, continuously updated independent link directories on the internet, maintaining its classic Blogspot layout and daily posting schedule for two decades.

Teddy Bear the Porcupine's Halloween Feast

Via Memo Of The Air

Midnight Dance (1996)

This is an animated visual interpretation of Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre, produced by Raw Nerve Productions. 

Via Miss Cellania

Tamara In The Green Bugatti

How Tamara de Lempicka’s life and times shaped her work – from her affluent upbringing and flight from the Russian Revolution to her experience in 1920s Paris.

Via Perfect For Roquefort Cheese

Flower Fairy

This closeup of a jumping spider garlanded with pollen, by John Oliver Dum, won second place in the Nikon Small World photomicrography contest

Via TYWKIWDBI 

A Jumping Spider (with pollen)

Image credit John-Oliver Dum/Nikon Small World

This image won second place in the Nikon Small World photomicrography contest. 

Via TYWKIWDBI

Babel Fish

Arthur Dent's Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like. When put in one's ear it allows for instant translation of any language. It was featured in the 1992 documentary of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Via FB pal Hal.

Iteration

An up close exploration of the complexity of corals.

Iteration | Videos & Movies on Vimeo

Hand Stitched Globe

 

"An embroidered globe made in 19thc US when girls were allowed at last to learn geography. The school couldn’t afford globes so the girls stitched their own, sewing down the boundaries of their New World. The globes were only 5” high" via @ sewingmatters & @ Sirensongs #womensart

[image or embed]

— womensartbluesky.bsky.social (@womensartbluesky.bsky.social) October 14, 2026 at 10:22 AM

Via @muymarcottage.bsky.social