Lift Up Your Hearts!

On rare occasions I have the opportunity to hear National Public Radio's Car Talk program, which I find amusing as well as informative, which is saying something since I have little interest in cars beyond their usefulnes in getting me from Point A to Point B.  (Okay, so I make an exception for a certain Ford GT, but that has more to do with the people involved than the car itself.)  The shows usually feature a "Puzzler," which since it involves cars often leaves me clueless.  But every once in a while (well, twice) there has been one that I have solved almost instantly, which of course makes me feel great.  Thus the inspiration to share them with you all.  The first was many years ago, and the second I heard today, so you can gather from that how good a Puzzler puzzler I am, or perhaps how often I hear the show.  For a hint, I can say that my ability to solve them both so quickly was due to personal experience with the situations involved.

Puzzler #1

Puzzler #2

I hesitated (briefly) to post this, for fear the person concerned might, if she ever came this way, think I was making fun of her.  That's not it at all; she has, I'm sure, an important and respected job and I know she does it well.  But perspective is everything.  Having changed plenty of diapers in my day, not to mention my grandchildren's more recently, this auto-response to my e-mail struck my funny bone:

I will be out of the office beginning March 25th.  I will return to the office on April 3.  I will not have access to email or voicemail.  If your question pertains to diaper raw material, market or premarket requests, please contact K---.  If your question pertains to Wipes, please contact B---.

Somehow I think neither K--- nor B--- want to hear my diaper and wipe questions: Is it wet or dirty? Are we out of clean covers again? and Where do I put this?

Not until I was writing the date on a customs form did I remember this most numerically felicitous of days.

I found this joke on the official Pi Day website:

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I have over 200 e-mails in my inbox, and though sometimes I can deal with a lot quickly when I put my mind to it, progress came to a screeching halt when I'm confronted with one from my brother, alerting me to the FreeRice vocabulary game.  It's a simple, multiple-choice vocabulary quiz that adjusts to one's abilities, making it suitable for a wide range of players.  For each correct answer, 20 grains of rice are donated (funded by advertising on the site) to the United Nations World Food Program.  All at one site: good turn, mental workout, and addictive distraction.

This game is particularly useful when there are so many other things you need to be doing that your mind can't concentrate on any of them.  :)  In my introductory session, I spent about half an hour and got up to Level 49 (of 50) and 3300 grains of rice.  This is much better than the Reader's Digest "Word Power" for challenging me. (More)

Today's Hi and Lois, not true for us, but too close for comfort.  Good thing Janet's earning her money in CHF.

I came upon this Sheep Dash game in an article on sleep cycles.  Supposedly it provides a measure of how sleep-deprived one is, though they admit reaction time is slowed by aging as well.  I've found I score "Bobbing Bobcat" pretty consistently, and it tells me to go get a cup of coffee.  I only score worse when a head-bobbing sheep tricks me into jumping the gun.  Once I achieved "Rocketing Rabbit" but have not yet repeated the feat.  Maybe after a nap....

I'd be interested in seeing how you video game players score.  I expect you'll do much better, though it won't be a fair contest since none of the video gamers I know are as old as I am.  :)

I don't have enough data yet from my comics survey to make any permanent changes, but I've added a couple of new ones on a trial basis to my comics page.  Sherman's Lagoon was recommended by DSTB, and Stone Soup I just discovered.  I'm reserving judgement on both, but Stone Soup makes it because the currently-pregnant heroine is planning a home birth.  I can't read the archives far enough back to know the beginning, but I need to read the strip at least long enough to see how the idea is handled.

I've also moved Baby Blues to the bottom of the list, which will inconvenience some of you.  The order is not permanant, but for some reason I haven't figured out, going to the Baby Blues site now causes all subsequent comics to open annoyingly in a new tab or window instead of in the frame.

Here are a couple of Stone Soups I especially liked: (More)

Every once in a while the Orlando Sentinel publishes a comics survey, in which they ask readers to rate the comics they read and suggest new ones for the paper to run.  Not a bad idea.  I've been considering revamping the Morning Coffee section of my Sursum Corda home page.  Since I know that several of you visit it regularly, it seems only fair to get your input.  In fact, one person already suggested a new comic—which was the inspiration for this post.

So...what do you like?  Not like?  Do you use any of the other links on the page besides the comics?  What else would you like to see?

Thanks, all!

Today's Frazz:

Since everything turned out all right, I have to post this link to Serina's Crazy Afternoon.  It's as funny as any comedy show, much cleaner than most, and has a happy ending.  Serina writes so well!  Li'l Writer Guy nearly indulged in a fit of jealous pique, but fortunately his sense of humor won out.

Taking up Janet's challenge, I'm attempting to put a YouTube video in this post.  Being perennially out of date and out of touch, I think this was my first venture into YouTube-land.  As one of those whose lives are still affected, for better or (and) for worse, by Judge Green's decision to break up AT&T, I found it hysterical.

Jonathan, who just turned three, met me on the stairs with a blue cable in his hand. As I passed, I remarked, "That looks like a Cat 5 cable." "No it's not," he responded, "It's a USB cord." (He was right.)

Jon's Johari Window was a nice break from cleaning the kitchen, so I decided to set up one for myself. There's more to the Johari Window than a simplistic personality profile tool, but this version is kind of fun. Despite my frustrations with the limited, multiple-choice format, I think it may even be useful in the quest "to see oursels as ithers see us!" (More)

Jon showed me this Speed Bump comic (by Dave Coverly), and it's too good not to pass on.

It's been a while since I've posted a Frazz comic here (I always worry about the line between fair use and copyright violation), but it's one of the best comic strips ever, and deserves all the publicity it can get. Though set in a public school, it often captures what homeschooing is all about, and today's strip made me shout in acclamation: