Let's play a game!

So I'm stealing this from NPR and numerous other places but I don't care because it's a fun game!

Basically I'll give a headline and then a short description of three stories. You have to pick the true one.

1. Car loses all four wheels on highway
A car traveling on a motorway in Zurich, Switzerland lost all four wheel simultaneously. The car's owners had just changed from winter to summer wheels but had used the wrong nuts for the new set. No one was injured.

2. Woman shoots boyfriend for sleeping with wife
Emma Hendrix from Colbert County, Alabama shot her boyfriend, Josh Morris Sunday because she found out he was sleeping with his wife after his wife got pregnant. Ms. Hendrix claimed that she didn't mind him being married, but that she snapped when she found out he had being lying to her about sleeping with his wife. Mr. Morris was not seriously injured.

3. Woman refuses to leave "swine flu-proof" house
A woman in Sussex, England has repeatedly refused to leave her "swine flu-proof" house according to local authorities. The woman in her mid seventies, has stockpiled her home with disinfectant products for protection. The woman's son and daughter-in-law involved the police when the woman refused to accept visitor or even accept deliveries of her blood pressure medication.

The Answer!

(Side note: that word, "answer", is really disgusting to look at. what the hell is that 'w' doing in there?)

Legos

When I was but a youngling I played with Legos and they looked something like this...



And I built things that looked a bit like this...



But welcome everyone, to the 21st Century of Legos!



My little cousins big presents this year were all Lego related. And I must admit, I was a bit jealous... they've some sweet Lego projects. Apparently, Legos are no longer the giant box of little tiny 2x2 or 2x3 or 2x whatever sized blocks. Now they're full on architectural mini projects of wonder, complete with color instruction booklets and all the blocks necessary to build the Taj Mahal completely out of Legos. My youngest cousin got some kind of Anti-Terrorism mobile airplane thingy and his older brother got this robot that you build and can program from the computer. It's all kind of amazing to me.
The only little tiny problem I have with this new generation of Legos is that it kind of take some of the fun of creativity out of the mix. Sure, my Lego creations never came close to the splendor of the Lego Eiffel Tower you can buy on Ebay now for $180 USD, but I had fun in conceptualizing my own designs for spaceships or houses and then coming up with a totally unique (plus some other adjectives... abstract, ugly) final project.
But on the flip side, I suppose this teaches them how to follow instructions and all that fun stuff. Plus they seem to enjoy it and my mother seemed to enjoy helping them find the right pieces, so I'm not going to complain.

Girl's State and Fun links!

I'm going to be at Girl's State till Saturday, so I'll try and give daily updates about the goings ons here in addition to some fun current events stuff.

First Girl's State.

Can't say I'm enjoying the program to much as of right now. I have described it to several people as a kind of American Hitler Youth and have found no objections to that label thus far. So maybe that label is a bit harsh, but lots of things about this place scare me. They're all ultra patriotic about everything and lots of the counselors are ill informed. One of them was unable to verbalize the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Most of the people running this joint are pretty religious too. It's kind of annoying. We keep hearing "it'll get fun later on in the week!" and "you'll start enjoying yourselves later" but I'm not convinced. My counselor is not cut our for being a leader in my opinion. She is timid and just can't handle all us girls.

Another thing that has been bothering me is the language usage. A number of the staff (especially this one girl) have horrible oratory grammar. Well, not horrible I guess... better than my Spanish grammar... but still, it is kind of painful to listen to. She says things like "There is red and blue shirts..." and "most favorite". I'll discuss why I think she makes the first mistake tomorrow (this comment not directed at Jessie if you are reading this as I have already discussed it with you at lunch today!)

Good things:

I really like my roommate. She is nice and fun to talk to. I also like being able to hang out with my friends on occasion. I joined the chorus which is really fun, even if I don't have a clue what is going on. The songs we are singing are all patriotic (not that there is anything wrong with that...) except one. I know pretty much all of the patriotic songs but since I'm and alto I have to sing it in a funny way that I have not encountered before. It makes for an interesting effect.

I also like hearing the different accents and speaking quirks people from different areas have. My room mate and her friends who are all from the beach like to use nouns and adjectives and there are also slight pronunciation differences between different people, especially on the vowels "a" and "o".

Now link of the day from Language Log (one of my favorite blogs!)

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=248

great story!