Trivia: August 2008 Archives

Sorry, I had to borrow that line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This is not a picture of bunny stew, but rather of the rental car I borrowed from Enterprise today. (They pick you up!) The minivan was in the shop today for some extended warranty work, and I was put in a VW Rabbit for the day. (Extended warranty paid for it, thank goodness.)

And I must say — not half bad. My 6’6” frame fit in just fine, with plenty of head room (a couple of inches easy overhead) and leg room, and still enough room in the back for a couple of decent sized kids (maybe not long-legged teenagers, but you get the idea). Sight lines were good, pickup was zippy in the higher RPMs, and I’m sure it gets good gas mileage. Still not sure how much trunk room there really is, but it does feel like a bit of nostalgic flashback to see one of these. And I even got to drive one now.

Oh, and by the way — two more weeks of summer left here (before Labor Day, at least). Enjoy it while you can.

Still haven’t pulled together everything I want from the beach week, so that’s on hold for the moment. Instead, enjoy a few of these tidbits:

1. No, this is not about my alma mater. If you’ve never heard of Free Rice before, consider yourself informed. It’s just a simple way to fund . I reminded about this from James earlier this year, and I remember someone else pointing me to it in 2007. It’s just a simple little game to test your vocabulary and earn some free grains of rice for the less fortunate, as part of the UN World Food Program. Not sure where the funds are coming for paying for this, but as far as anyone has been able to determine, this is a very legitimate (and IMO, worthy) cause. And you will definitely learn some new words along the way.

2. Now, if you want something completely right-brained to challenge you, try out this fun little game - Shot. It seems so simple, and level 1 is. But it quickly gets more challenging (though levels 6 and 7, if you get there, suddenly become easy before getting difficult again). In about 20 minutes of playing, I got past level 10 once, and level 7 another time. Otherwise, I seem to peter out at levels 4 and 5, typically. I usually think of myself as being astute and spatial analysis, but this is having me question myself.

3. Lastly, for the left-brained, creative types, I give you the Shakespeare Insult Generator. It appears that very few people had a way with words like the Bard did. After all, who could say: “Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!” (Taken from: Timon of Athens)