We have a Christmas tree!

This is the first year in a very long time that we've had a Christmas tree. We even have a Christmas stocking over the fireplace. It's not for either of us though. It's for Ashley, our foster kitty.

Merry Christmas!

Lego

Everything is better when it's made of Lego.

FreeRice.com

Play word games, extend your vocabulary, and donate to charity all at the same time!

Scrabble Score Generator

Pholph's Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 16. What is your score? Get it here.

Voice of the Tube

From the SMH website:

"The woman known as "the voice of the Tube" on London's underground has been sacked after criticising the network and making spoof announcements including making fun of US tourists, officials said today." Read the full article here.

The news article said the spoofs were available from Emma Clarke's website, but when I clicked on the link I got the following message:

"Hi - thanks for stopping by. Unfortunately, my site is currently overwhelmed by the sheer number of people wanting to download MP3s of my spoof Tube announcements. Please check back in a day or so.

Thanks, Emma."

I bet her hit counter sky-rocketed when this news came out!!

IM with Messenger for a good cause

Learning the US state capitals

My knowledge of the US state capitals is not very good. Being Australian, it's not exactly something we learn at school. Now that I'm over here, I decided I should know this stuff.

So I found these fun online quizzes to help me learn! :)

Let's study at Hogwarts

Which fictional school from the movies would you like to attend? This was the question asked in a recent poll by Pearl & Dean. The winner, with 38% of the vote, was Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Here are the top 10:

1. Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Harry Potter movies) - 38%
2. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters (X-Men movies) - 17%
3. Boarding school St. Trinian's (some comedy I've never heard of from the 50s and 60s)
4. Rydell High School (Grease) - 8%
5. Horace Green Preparatory School (The School of Rock)- 7%
6. South Park Elementary (South Park The Movie)
7. Hill Valley High School (Back to the Future movies)
8. New York City High School For Performing Arts (Fame)
9. Shermer High School (The Breakfast Club)
   
10. Lake Forest High School (Ferris Bueller's Day Off)
    

I am with the majority on this one. Definitely Hogwarts.

Crazy cobwebs

From SMH.com.au: Massive cobwebs leave scientists baffled.

"Entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of a sprawling spider web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch of trail in a North Texas park..." read more

Australian citizenship test

Sample questions from the Australian citizenship test.

I passed. Did you?

In case you're curious, here's some more info about citizenship and the test.

Brian Bay? Almond Land? Drunk Island?

Tourism website wotif.com have compiled a list of funny misspellings used in their search tool for some popular Australian destinations. Well, some of these destinations are popular (e.g. Byron, Uluru, Cairns), I'd argue that some are not quite so popular! (e.g. Wagga? Dubbo?)

1. Brian Bay (Byron Bay)
   
   
2. The Big Red Rock (Uluru)
   
   
3. Cans (Cairns)
   
   
4. Clowndra (Caloundra)
   
   
5. Dumbo (Dubbo)
   
   
6. Wogga Wogga (Wagga Wagga)
   
   
7. Erinsborough and Summer Bay (fictional locations from Neighbours and Home & Away)
   
   
8. Almond Land (Arnhem Land)
   
   
9. Drunk Island (Dunk Island)
   
   
10. Permission Beach (Mission Beach)

Driving on the left or the right

Found this interesting Wikipedia article about driving on the left or right side of the road. According to Wikipedia...

"About 34% of the world by population drive on the left, and 66% on the right. By roadway distances, about 28% drive on the left, and 72% on the right, even though originally most traffic drove on the left worldwide."

I was fairly sure we were in the minority in Australia, driving on the left. I knew they also drove on the left in the UK, New Zealand and South Africa, but I assumed that pretty much everywhere else in the world drove on the right.

Turns out that there are many other parts of the world who drive on the left, including Japan, India, Hong Kong, parts of south east Asia, parts of south eastern Africa, and some Pacific countries. I also learned that some countries have switched their side of the road over time. Interesting.

Go here to see a list of countries who drive on the left, and here to see a list of countries who drive on the right.

Podstar Runner

Do you love homestarrunner.com? Do you have an iPod? If you answered yes to both of these questions, then you need podstar.homestarrunner.com. As Homestarrunner would say... "awesome".

Top 10s

Found these lists of interesting Top 10s.

Amici Forever, All Angels, Opera Babes

I've totally been getting into Amici Forever. I bought The Opera Band last year, and loved it. I decided I should buy more, so yesterday I bought Defined. Great stuff.

I was in the mood for this sort of music, so I poked around online and found Beyond Imagination by Opera Babes, and another group called All Angels. I went back to the record store today and found the All Angels CD (and bought it), but no Opera Babes.

It's been ages since I bought new music. I think the last time was a year ago when I bought the first Amici CD!

Pollock or birds?

I did very well on the Pollock or Birds? Quiz (100%!), but not so well on the Machine Translation or Faulkner? Quiz.

Conclusion: Must have learnt something in those years of Art and Art History classes, however must have blocked out the experience of having to read Faulkner in English.

Fine Art Quiz

I found a link to the Fine Art Quiz from Big Cat Heads. I got 83% (10/12) correct. You can check out the analysis of the results here. Interesting.

I did much better on the Fine Arts Quiz than on the Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? Quiz. Only got 6/10 for that one.

Conclusion: I'm more likely to identify a fraudulent piece of artwork than to identify a serial killer!!

Hmmm.

View from the balcony

Took some pictures of the view from our balcony.

A rose by any other name

What's the difference between a child prodigy turned internationally acclaimed virtuoso, and a busker at L'Enfant Metro Station? Apparently nothing on one morning in January. Check out this news article to read the story.