Nutmeg Poisoning

It's time for another installment of Nutmeg Poisoning. Here are a few more CT-centric stories I've come across lately:

-Everyone is talking about Governor Malloy getting photo-bombed by a beluga whale at a press conference at Mystic Aquarium. But I don't know - to me the whale looked more like it was just interested in the tourism stats. And by the way, this is the same whale who had a moment with a mariachi band in 2011.

-A post on zoning in the land of steady habits, on Heather Brandon's NPR blog Zoned, touched on a bunch of things that are fascinating and frustrating about living in Connecticut. (On a side note, I never realized before how cool-looking zoning maps could be. If I lived in Middletown, I might hang that Middletown map on my wall.)

-Slate looked at Brandiose, the company behind the branding of the Hartford Yard Goats. Their co-founder's assessment of Hartford, after a two-day visit: '“independent,” “territorial,” “temperamental,” “small,” “tough,” “bold,” and “resilient.”'

-Time's Best Places to Live 2015 came out recently. It includes Simsbury, Cheshire, and Tolland.

-Connecticut by the Numbers had a story on Putnam's revival, specifically the Award of Excellence given to the town by the Connecticut Main Street Center. Putnam now joins St. Louis, New London, and several Manhattan neighborhoods in the category of "places that start to become cool again soon after I move away."

-The Connecticut Post rounded up fifteen Connecticut Instagrammers to follow. (And you can follow me, @johnnakaplan for random Connecticut photos and snaps of my life, and @oldschoolct for historic Connecticut schoolhouses. And I just wrote the word Connecticut four five times in one very short paragraph, so I think I'm done here.)