Sporcle Games

Share

Sporcle is a website I would probably never visit if not for its fun games section. I found Sporcle’s games via StumbleUpon (which I highly recommend if you are not already using it). With some practice, I can name all the countries of Europe and South America. I can get most of the countries of Asia, Africa, and North America, but I stink at Australia/Oceana. I do pretty well with the United States and their capitols. My score on the US presidents was abysmal. I did respectable on Shakespeare’s plays, but should have done better as I am an English teacher. I aced Star Trek: TNG crew, but forgot Sulu on the Star Trek crew (and Nurse Chapel, too). I only did OK on Bible books, both Old and New Testaments. I stank at Tom Hanks films. I didn’t even try British Prime Ministers (although if there had been a quiz on British monarchs, I feel confident I would have aced it).

The games are addictive, especially the geography ones. I found myself remembering better each time I played. I always liked geography and used to spend hours looking through my stamp collection and examining my globe. So many changes have occurred with countries created and names changed. Names I remember from my stamp books, like Dahomey and Upper Volta are no longer used, and the break-ups of the USSR and Yugoslavia have changed the the map considerably. I thought it was interesting that the Asia quiz accepted either Burma or Myanmar and the African quiz accepted either Côte d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast, although whichever answer you type, the map will read Myanmar and Côte d’Ivoire respectively. And I learned how to spell Kyrgyzstan, but I still don’t know how to say it.

[tags]geography, games, sporcle, stumbleupon[/tags]


Share

GarageBand.com

Share

So I may be one of the last people on the Web to discover GarageBand.com.  On the off chance that you are, too, I decided to share it with you.  It is a great place to discover new artists and music you likely would never have heard about otherwise.  You will find music in all types of genres from all over the world.  You can search by artist, location, or musical sub-genre.

I have only been poking around the site for a couple of days.  I initially found it through the Facebook application iLike.   When you activate that application on your Facebook profile, you can choose to display short clips from your favorite musical artists.  I happened to select Kelly Richey as one of mine.  If you select an artist that has mp3’s available for download at GarageBand.com, a button appears on the application that allows you to download the song.  I clicked through to discover the site.

—————-
Now playing: Driftwood Groove – Old Susquehanna
via FoxyTunes

[tags]garageband.com, iLike, facebook[/tags]


Share

Wonky WordPress

Share

Ever since I upgraded to WordPress 2.3.2, I have noticed a really strange error.  I am trying a fix found here, and this post is partly a test to see if it works.

Also, a reader of my husband’s gracious donated a used Apple iBook G3 for my use so that I might have computer time to continue to create interesting opportunities for my students to learn.  Thanks, Betsy!  One of the main reasons for the light blogging here is the increasing need to Steve to use our desktop for his writing (which he gets paid for and I don’t).

—————-
Now playing: The Kelly Richey Band – The Blues Don’t Lie
via FoxyTunes

[tags]wordpress, mysql error, apple, ibook[/tags]


Share

Reading Update

Share

Sarah chastised me for putting aside Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in order to re-read the Harry Potter series.  It isn’t that I wasn’t enjoying the book — on the contrary, I was enjoying it quite a lot.  However, ever since I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this summer, I have been wanting to re-read the series from start to finish just to see what interesting connections I could make.  Therefore, while you won’t see Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in my current reading list, it’s just been put on hold on my nightstand, as has The Great Mortality.  I will be reading Thomas L. Friedman’s The World is Flat as part of a professional learning course, so look for my thoughts and a review soon.


Share

Year in Review

Share

In 2007, I didn’t have enough time to do all that I wanted, and that includes reading, but I read the following books (links will take you to my reviews):

That’s a little more than a book a month, which I suppose isn’t too bad. My favorite book was obviously Harry Potter, but aside from that one, the ones I am still thinking about are A Thousand Acres, Ahab’s Wife, and, surprisingly, The Myth of You and Me, which I wasn’t sure would stay with me at the time I finished it.

I also made two great musical discoveries this year: Kelly Richey and Tony Steidler-Dennison’s weekly Roadhouse Podcast. I am finding as I get older that I don’t keep up with musical trends, and I barely ever listened to music on the radio this year. I bought few CD’s. My favorite new CD is by an old band — the Eagles’ Long Road Out of Eden (only available from third party sellers at Amazon because the album is a Wal-Mart exclusive — and incidentally, I thought that was odd given Don Henley’s politics).

My favorite movie this year was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but I also enjoyed viewing Possession. I do like movies, but despite instituting a weekly movie night here at the Huff household, I have not found that too many I’ve seen this year really stuck with me.

I did a small amount of traveling in January, when I had the opportunity to accompany the juniors on a class trip through Birmingham, Tupelo, MS., and Memphis. I absolutely loved Memphis, and I can hardly wait to go back. During the trip, a colleague and I accompanied one of the students to ER when he broke his nose. Some of the most interesting places I saw were Elvis’s birthplace and Graceland, the Rum Boogie Café, the Rock and Soul Museum, and Sun Studio. Actually, the Rock and Soul museum didn’t so much have interesting exhibits to look at, but their musical exhibits were amazing.

Happy New Year, everyone.


Share

Movable Type Goes Open Source

Share

When I first began blogging after moving away from a hosted online journal, I used Movable Type mainly because it seemed to be the biggest game around.  It was, at that time, a bear to install.  I always had difficulty with upgrades, too.  Updating was not easy, as I had to rebuild after each post — a time-consuming process.  Finally, I found tech support to be unhelpful or nonexistent because, as it seemed to me, MT was interested in you only if you paid for a license, which was not something I could afford to do.

I switched to WordPress in early 2006, and I have been very happy ever since.  I rarely have any problems with upgrading, and I love the ease with which I can change themes (templates).  To my way of thinking, what WP got right from the beginning that MT got wrong was going open source.  Yesterday, MT announced they are going open source.  My personal thinking is that they waited too long, but I’m glad they’re making this move.  If I had paid for a license, I think I’d be pretty angry about it.  I think MT will be a much better product as a result, and competition will only be good for WP and MT both.

[tags]mt, movable type, wordpress, open source[/tags]


Share

Urban Posters 2

Share

It looks like UrbanPosters.com shipped my order today, almost exactly three months after I ordered it.  I still have not received feedback regarding the lateness or the multiple e-mails, or the BBB complaint, and I suppose I don’t expect to now, as they will feel they fulfilled their end of the bargain.  I am not satisfied, however, and will still not order from them again.  Three months for posters they said they had in stock is ridiculous.  Amazon does better with out of print materials than that!

Crossposted at huffenglish.com, the Pensieve, and Our Family History.


Share

Jane Eyre

Share

Jane EyreLast night I completed Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre. As a child, I moved around quite a bit, especially in high school. Going to three different high schools has left some large gaps in my literature education, and many of the books one would ordinarily have read in high school I admit I have never read. No matter — I’m not sure I would have been ready for this one in high school, anyway.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the story, Jane Eyre stars the eponymous heroine Jane Eyre, who when orphaned by her parents at an early age goes to live with her cruel Aunt Reed until she is unceremoniously sent away to a harsh boarding school called Lowood. Jane eventually becomes a teacher at Lowood until a beloved mentor leaves the school to marry, at which time Jane decides to leave as well. She advertises for a position of governess and is hired by Mrs. Fairfax of Thornfield Hall, the housekeeper for one of literature’s great Byronic heroes, Edward Fairfax Rochester. Mr. Rochester falls in love with Jane, but he harbors a dark secret in his attic that nearly proves the undoing of both his and Jane’s chance at love and happiness.

Although I liked the novel, I didn’t find it difficult to put down, and indeed, one reason why it took me so long to finish is that for long stretches, I wasn’t really into reading it. However, overall I enjoyed Brontë’s writing style. I found her characters believable, with the exception of the children in the early part of the novel — who talked like no children I’ve ever heard. I admired Jane for standing fiercely by her convictions and valuing herself even when she thought no one else did. It is easy to see why so many literary admirers have borrowed Jane Eyre for inspiration, and I did enjoy the book in its entirety, if not the slower parts. I was inspired to read it after the characters in Diane Setterfield’s novel The Thirteenth Tale (my review here) admired it profusely in one of my favorite passages in the book. My daughter Sarah is reading this book right now, and Iwill be interested to get her take on it.

I am anxious to see how well this novel translated to the screen in one of its many movie adaptations. I am going to start with the 1944 production starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, and I am anxious to read Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea if for no other reason than to see a little more of enigmatic Bertha Mason.

As I predicted, I did not finish my R.I.P. Challenge by Halloween, but I am soldiering forth at any rate, and I hope to finish it by Christmas.

[tags]jane eyre, charlotte brontë, book review, literature[/tags]


Share

UrbanPosters.com

Share

Consider this post a public service announcement.

Back in mid-August, I ordered two posters from the website poster outfitter UrbanPosters.com. September came and went, and they had not arrived. Furthermore, the company did not respond to numerous e-mails regarding my order. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, but the company has yet to respond to that complaint as well. I’m out about $27, which is not a lot, but much more disturbing to me than the fact that I lost money is the fact that the company ignored repeated requests and a BBB complaint. I have rarely received such shoddy customer service anywhere. I would urge you strongly not to do business with this company and to spread the word around.

Crossposted at huffenglish.com, the Pensieve, and Our Family History.

[tags]urbanposters.com, bbb, better business bureau, customer service[/tags]


Share