Is it Christmas yet?

A useful blog has appeared that will let you know if it is Christmas yet... http://www.isitchristmas.com/. Or you can just subscribe to the rss feed. If only retailers would check the Is It Christmas? site before putting up all their decorations.

Other similarly useful sites would be http://www.isitfriday.biz/, and the Abe Vigoda Status page.

Free Rice

I just donated 250 grains of rice to the UN... http://www.freerice.com/. They give you a word and you click on the matching word. They donate 10 grains of rice for each correct word. You can go up to vocabulary level 50, I stopped at 46 or 47. I'll go back and try again later.

One Laptop Per Child

Want a cheap laptop for a kid and want to have one sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation? One Laptop One Child has a deal where you buy a laptop for $399 and they will send one to a child in a developing nation. This was originally known as the One Hundred Dollar Laptop Initiative. It has a 7.5" screen and a bright green case, so it's not designed to appeal to adults. It might be useful as an ebook reader, or (because it's very rugged and has very long battery life) it might be something you can take on a camping trip so you can type your journal.

2007 Nobel Conference

I'm at the the 43rd Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolpus College. The topic this year is "Heating Up: The Energy Debate". We have heard about peek oil, bio-fuels, and global warming from scientists. Now we are about to hear from an economist. Tonight Will Steger will speak during the banquet (which is sold out, but I JUST managed to get a ticket to). There are 6,500 people here (not including the Gustavus students).

The message everyone is saying..."There are things we can do...it isn't going to bankrupt us...call your representative today!"

Next years topic...."Who Were the First Humans?"...

"Who were the first humans? Where did they come from? How did they live? These questions have traditionally been the domain of paleontologists and anthropologists studying fossils and pottery shards, More recently, molecular biologists, population geneticists, evolutionary biologists, evolutionary psychologists, paleoclimatologists, and even cognitive archeologists have added their unique scientific views to these questions as well." (first paragraph of the description of next years topic).

Free stuff from the Minnesota Orchestra

Now that I'm going to have to spend the next hour listening to Holst's The Planets, thanks to Bjorn...I thought I'd look up the FREE Minnesota Orchestra concerts coming up...
- On October 6th there is a 2007-2008 Season Preview Concert

COPLAND-"Buckaroo Holiday" from Rodeo
GRIEG-Two Elegiac Melodies
SIBELIUS-The Dryad
BRAHMS-Symphony No. 2 - Mvt. IV
BACH/Ormandy-Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
MOZART-Symphony No. 41, Jupiter - Mvt. IV
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV-Scheherazade - Mvt. III
BRITTEN-The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra - Finale

- October 28th - Target Free Family Concert: Folk Music in the Concert Hall
- December 9th - Target Free Family Concert: Sleigh Ride

The Target Free Family Concerts require entering a drawing for tickets

Other non-free, but interesting sounding programs...
- Feb. 1st and 2nd Leonard Nimoy is narrating a Sci-Fi/Space themed program.
- On Darwin Day 2008 they are doing Stephen Paulus' "To Be Certain of the Dawn".

KITTY!!!1

I'm never going to forgive her for this... I'm listening to Last Night of the Proms in the car and get home just as the Fantasia on British Sea Songs starts. I run in and put the headphones on my little radio so I can listen to it in glorious hi-fi stereo... It doesn't sound quite right, a little muffled and crackly and getting worse...it's a shortwave/am/fm/etc radio so it has a switch to optimize it for voice or music, but it was in the right position...then half way through Rule, Britannia I notice that someone has been chewing through the cord on my $50 headphones!!! This is coming out of her allowance.

Help me win an iPod...

Help me win an iPod by NOT linking to the truth.

Jailhouse Rockers

When they come up with a reality program about dancing inmates...the Philippines are way ahead of us. We better get our prisons working to close the prison choreography gap so we can compete.