plot scenario generator

I think I’m going to try this with some of my students.

random facts

• Domestic cats have thirty muscles in each ear to control the intricate movements they make.

• As a rule, European carousels rotate clockwise, while American merry-go-rounds spin counterclockwise.

• A person of average size and weight burns about 60 to 70 calories each hour just sitting and watching television.

Find any good ones?

~ from mental floss via The Generator Blog ~

how do you sleep?

What Your Sleeping Position Says

You are secretly sensitive, but you often put up a front. Shy and private, you yearn for security. You take relationships slowly. You need lots of reassurances before you can trust. If you don’t get enough sleep, you are: cranky and a big baby It’s hard to sleep next to you because: you are a light sleeper

What Does Your Sleeping Position Say About You?

All true except the being cranky bit. I never get enough sleep yet I’m actually one of those really annoying ‘happy morning’ people. Well, as soon as I’ve had my first cup of coffee - before that I’m just kinda groggy and zombie-ish.

I found this quiz on Miss Cellania (a fellow insomniac) along with this pic of the most popular sleeping positions.

I usually go to sleep in the foetal position, though I really prefer sleeping on my back and often wake up like that (star-fish style), but when that happens my lower back totally seizes up.

[update: I found the following info relating to the positions shown in this pic over on Jahooni's blog, thanks to a comment left here by upset waitress...]

how cluttered is your mind?

Okay, feeling a bit lazy, so let’s do another quiz…

Your Mind is 45% Cluttered

Your mind is starting to get cluttered, and as a result, it’s a little harder for you to keep focused. Try to let go of your pettiest worries and concerns. The worrying is worse than the actual problems!

How Cluttered is Your Mind?

homespun analogy generator

This is as silly as a dirty red armadillo with a plate of crackers!

Homespun Analogy Generator

~ via The Generator Blog ~

eclipse

Dang! I missed it!

In fact, I didn’t even know it was happening until this morning when I opened an email from “S” (aka Pipocas, popcorn mule and international woman of mystery). She’d sent it at 3.56am, saying that if I was awake I should get out on my balcony now.

Of all the nights not to suffer from insomnia . . .

Anybody else see it?

25 signs that you have grown up

Apparently you are grown and responsible gentlemen/women when :

1. Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
6. You watch the Weather Channel.
7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of “hook up” and “break up”.
8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as “dressed up”.
10. You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.
11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
12. You don’t know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.
14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald’s leftovers.
15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
16. You take naps.
17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.
18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.
19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.
20. A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good shit”.
21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again”.
23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.
25. When you find out your friend is pregnant you congratulate them instead of asking, “Oh shit, what the hell happened?”

Something sent in an email awhile ago … it’s a bit hard to tell whether I’m not totally ‘grown up’ yet or if I was just never that young. How about you?

 

 

procrastination flow chart

 

Gee, I can’t imagine what made me think of this today.
I also can’t remember where I originally came across it.

You can see a bigger version over here…

champion blogazine editor

Well, talk about learning something new every day. Yesterday I found out what a blogazine is and then also that casa az is considered to be one. Not only that, but my old blogging pal Archie has created the Champion Blogazine Editor award for this group of bloggers and I was, very suprisingly, one of the four he chose to give this award to (I’m still blushing!).

Here is how he describes a blogazine editor …

Those who create an online magazine full of interesting and differing articles. Some original work and some work found elsewhere and given a personal spin. Bloggers who give us, not just the minutia of their day but add other content to amuse and educate us. Who trawl the world of cyberspace to bring us the best available news and information.

Those bloggers who give us an online magazine - blogazine editors! Modern day Dewitt and Lila Wallaces. In claiming your award, please pass it on to your four favourite blogazine editors.

I wasn’t sure if we could choose people who have already received an award (since we’re meant to pass it on to four others it would appear not or else we could just end up going round and round awarding each other) or if the award creator was also eligible. Otherwise, both the ’stranger than fiction’ Gimcrack Hospital and the wonderfully eclectic Archies Archives would be on my list.

I shall now pass on this award to the following four blogazine editors (it was really difficult to choose just four!).

• Trailer Park Refugee - daisyfae is a newcomer who started her blog at the beginning of this year. Another ’stranger than fiction’ blogger with her both humourous and poignant accounts of trailer park life, interspersed with intelligent and thought-provoking posts from an amazing woman who escaped the park and has proved that you can not only take the girl out of the trailer park but also get most of the trailer park out of the girl.

• Letters Home - ian is a Canadian who left his native Vancouver 17 years ago and has lived in Quebec, Hong Kong, and is now living in Hamburg, Germany. His blog always has something for everybody who is looking for interesting and intelligent posts - some of you may recall his fabulous Desiderata for Bloggers that I swiped borrowed and posted here awhile back. He is also a very good scrabble opponent (ie. one who doesn’t mind losing! ).

• Collecting tokens - alejna is a collector by nature and her blog is a wonderful collection of day-to-day experiences, her always interesting and educational TH-TH-TH (things on a theme on Thursday), as well as her Kick-ass Women Project and various (often screamingly funny) lists including the word Pants. Not to be missed.

• OmbudsBen - a little o’ this, a bit o’ that, and also an ongoing series of short stories about the staff and habitués of Fletcher’s Bar. It seems that Ben has been suffering from February Funk so please stop by and give him a swift kick in the butt some much needed encouragement to help him de-funk himself.

do you speak ikea?

The Ikea Game

Flickr creator Cal Henderson has come up with the Ikea Game, in which people try to identify what type of furnishings those bizarre sounding Ikea names refer to. According to this Grauniad article there’s a way to win the Ikea game every time, but it involves learning Swedish and a lot of Scandanavian place names.

Ikea product names follow a system: because the company’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, is dyslexic, he found that naming products with proper names and words made them easier to identify.

Sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves, media storage and doorknobs are named after places in Sweden (Klippan, Malmö); beds, wardrobes and hall furniture after places in Norway; carpets after places in Denmark and dining tables and chairs after places in Finland. Bookcases are mainly occupations (Bonde, peasant farmer; Styrman, helmsman). Bathroom stuff is named after lakes and rivers.

Kitchens are generally grammatical terms, and kitchen utensils are spices, herbs, fish, fruits, berries, or functional words such as Skarpt (it means sharp, and it’s a knife). Chairs and desks are Swedish men’s names (Roger, Joel); materials and curtains are women’s names. Children’s items are mammals, birds and adjectives (Ekorre is a set of children’s toy balls; it means squirrel).

Hmmm… I got 4/10.

Looks like I’m going to have to do some serious catalogue cramming.