Today isYesterday was National SpankOut Day. I don’t usually care for these kinds of days of observance — mostly because there’s a day for everything, including the unbelievably trivial, but also because I don’t see much of a purpose to making the days official in some way — but if SpankOut Day helps just one parent stop spanking his/her kids, then it’s worth it.
Chris O’Donnell has collected some posts on his Evolved Homeschooler Wiki.
Meet Ooch (a.k.a. Brett Outchcunis), a professional yo-yoer (sp?). He does the most amazing tricks with a yo-yo, AND he gets paid by Yomega to promote their products and teach people how to yo-yo. He’s especially good with a crowd of kids, which we learned this past Saturday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Family Day in Boston.
How’s “professional yo-yo guy” for an unconventional job? Can’t you just hear the adults (but probably not his parents) in Ooch’s youth needling him with comments like, “Those yo-yo tricks are great, but you can’t get a job as a yo-yoer. Why don’t you apply yourself to school/work/something-serious-but-uninteresting like you do to that yo-yo.”
Heh. And here he is now, still playing with a toy and actually getting paid to do it, a living testament to do what you love and the money will follow.
You hear that kids? Do what you love, follow your dreams, and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t. [/steps off soapbox]
During Saturday’s show, which focused on the physics of yo-yos, Ooch invited my daughter on stage to demonstrate a key physical property of the ever-popular “around the world” yo-yo trick: centripetal force. Ooch is clearly blown away by my girl’s mad cup-swinging skillz. Who wouldn’t be?
Because all holidays have been created by humans and are, therefore, made up, our family decided that we not only could but should make up our own winter holiday. We haven’t finished figuring out just what our holiday will be, but we do seem to have agreed that any quality holiday should at the very least include:
Those items aren’t listed in order of importance, although I would argue that chocolate does, indeed, rank first.
Happy winter holidays, no matter how/if/why you celebrate.
I‘m somewhat new to the medium of comics in general and graphic novels in particular, which is odd because for 15 years I’ve been married to a guy who owns hundreds, if not thousands, of comic books. They’re all bagged, boarded, and stored away where the kids can’t get their sticky little fingers on them — unless they ask first. I admit I’ve been a bit of a book snob, looking down on comics as a lesser form of storytelling, as genre unworthy of my precious little free time, rather than as a legitimate storytelling medium or format that works well for many genres. Until recently, I not only had no interest in comics, but I actively stayed away from them. I mean, really, aren’t comic books for kids?
Why, yes they are! Some of them, anyway. (But many, if not most, are not.) And miraculously one day my kids started reaching the age where they could appreciate comic books. And poof! I was seeing comic books lying around the house. Turns out, comic books are a fantastic medium for my son because he’s still learning to read. He can follow the basic storyline of a decent comic book even if he can’t read the text. And comic books don’t make him feel like he’s reading a “baby book,” as some of the cute-little-bunny-laden early readers make him feel. Plus, even after he’s read a comic book to himself, he still wants me or my husband to read him the book from cover to cover, so he eventually understands the entire story.
Keep reading… »
But some people are “gooder” than others.
Like Wesley Autrey from NY:
A quick-thinking commuter saved a teenager who apparently suffered a seizure and fell onto subway tracks in Upper Manhattan, by jumping onto the tracks himself and pushing them both between the rails, beneath the oncoming train.Cameron Hollopeter, 19, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks at Broadway’s 137th Street station Tuesday. Another subway passenger, 50-year-old Wesley Autrey of Manhattan, was standing on the platform with his two daughters whom he was taking home so he could go to his construction job.
When Autrey saw Hollopeter fall, he quickly took action and left his daughters to jump on the tracks to bring the man to safety as an oncoming train approached.
Amazing! Even more amazing? The train didn’t touch either man, even though two cars drove over them before the train could come to a complete stop. They had about a two-inch clearance above their bodies. That’s it.
It’s only the first week of January, and I don’t know if any other story in 2007 will compare to this tale of bravery, compassion, and quick thinking.
But it’s not like they’re going to make it easy for you to stop paying.
Yesterday, America Online (AOL) confirmed recent rumors that they are dropping fees for broadband users. Anyone who accesses the Internet via a broadband connection can now use AOL’s email, software, parental controls, and other features for free. That goes for existing customers and new members alike.
But if you still use dial-up and need AOL as your Internet service provider, you can’t have a free account.
Neener, neener, neener.
I’ve been an AOL member since 1993. When I joined, I think there were about half a million subscribers. For the past five years or so, if not longer, my husband and I have rarely used AOL. We kept the account as a backup and because we’d given my mother, who didn’t have broadband service, a screen name. We could have closed the account, but we continued to subsidize my mom’s Internet access mostly because it was cheap: we stayed on the $9.95/month plan, which gave us five hours of service, for almost the entire 13 years. My mother was very conscientious about liming her Internet use until about a year ago, when she apparently started chattin’ it up on MySpace or something and routinely going over the allotted hours, costing me at least as much as the $22.95 (at the time) fee for unlimited service. That’s when I switched to the unlimited plan.
But now Mom has broadband (and cable phone service too — you’ve come a long way, baby!). Naturally, because it would save me money, she didn’t want to give up her AOL account, even though she’s paying for email and Web access through her cable provider. (Why do I suddenly hear her lecture long ago about buying the cow and getting the milk for free?) So a couple of months ago, my husband and I talked about just switching the AOL bill to my mother’s credit card. But then we got busy with other stuff and forgot all about it.
Now, I can keep the account live without having to pay or make my mother pay. Oh, happy day. $1500 and thirteen years of AOL customer-hood, and I’m finally getting something — but I’m not sure what — for my inexplicable refusal to cancel the account.
When I first saw the headlines saying that Teen People was no longer going to be available in print, I thought, “There is a checkout counter god after all.”
And then I thought, “Finally, no more Teen People used as a source in college research papers.” (Yes, when I was teaching a few semesters ago, more than one paper used that rag as a source.)
And then I realized Teen People was still going to be available on the Web.
The really sad thing: It was probably the only source that the students had held in their hands in the publisher’s printed form. That means they a) may have bought some recreational reading material and b) actually had to type whatever content they were quoting from the magazine.
No more. Future issues will be available in electronic format only, which makes the copy-and-paste “research” method the undisputed king of college paper writing.
