#432 - Quick, Quick!

I was one of those nerdy kids who loved playing with the typing tutor game on my Atari growing up. (Was it Mavis Beacon? Something like that?) Anyway, I have discovered a new typing game online where you can race other people to see how quick you can type: TyprX Typing Races. My average is hovering between 88 wpm and 90 wpm, but my record is 108 wpm. You don't have to race people, either, if you'd rather just type and see your time... this is a huge time sink for me, I don't know why I've always loved to type fast but I could easily waste half a day on these races.

#398 - Sesame Street Love

Today a memory I wrote about my experience at Muppetfest (in 2001) was published online in USA Today's story about the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street. I submitted the story on Monday, not really expecting to hear anything, and they called me on Wednesday to double-check the spelling of my name and hometown. They said there was a chance it would be in the print edition as well (it wasn't, I checked)... but it was exciting enough to be included in the other great stories that readers sent. I'm proud to be a part of the celebration!

#395 - Wii Fit

After almost a year of looking at the box (purchased late last year, if memory serves), today we got out the Wii Fit and tried it out. It comes with a balance board and a CD with a bunch of different games (yoga, balance games, aerobics and strength exercises). The little guy LOVED it, especially the ski jump and running games (boy, did he ever run!). One cute thing he did, after running in place for about 10 minutes with the game, he said he was sweaty and he wanted to take his shirt off. It was so funny the way he said it (I know I'm not describing it right, just take my word for it.) I liked the hula hoop game, the yoga stuff, and the ski games. My wonderful hubby was preoccupied watching football today and tending to his knee - did I mention he had knee surgery 10 days ago? - so I didn't see him do many activities. I hope once his knees are recovered this will be something we can all do together. One complaint I have so far: we haven't figured out how to get more than one player in a game at one time, so when we want to take turns, we have to back all the way out and start over. That will get old, so I'm hoping we can figure that out soon. But overall, I think it was a hit!

#347 - Wii Mii

Today, our family bought a Nintendo Wii. We have it all set up downstairs but haven't had much chance to play with it yet... however, we did set up our "Mii" avatars, these are characters that look like us to show on the screen while we're playing. We giggled like crazy - TLG included - as my hubby set his up with crazy eyes, a beard, and dreadlocks. So now we have Mii's for all three of us. That took us so long, that when we were done we only had time to play the first game, which was a lot like the old Nintendo "Duck Hunt" with the point-and-shoot clay shoot. I can hardly wait to try some of the other silly games we got with our controllers... I think we're really going to like this! If you're in the neighborhood, come over and play with us, OK?

#328 - Braille

After breakfast (see below), we trooped off to Fairytale Town for a repeat visit with The Little Guy (TLG). They were having a free-admission event today with booths from many local groups, and so I got a personal demonstration of a Braille machine. My maternal grandfather started losing his eyesight around the time I was born, and while I don't remember him reading in Braille, I do remember feeling a little helpless when it came to helping him. The Braille alphabet is made up of only six dot positions, and the gentleman who gave me the demonstration typed a card up for TLG that had his name and a quote about Fairytale Town. He also explained raised "illustrations" for visually impaired people still have to be explained - yes, it's a picture of a horse, but since he's never seen a horse, someone needs to tell him that is what a horse looks like. It was eye-opening (no pun intended) to think about what that would be like.

#287 - New Blog for Band

Last night I started a new blog for the band we play in, and today my wonderful husband spent some time making a slideshow presentation with some of our music to post there. This is our first web project together - and it's looking very nice, if I do say so myself! The idea is to have a website where people can find information about when and where we are performaing, but also where they can find out how to hire our group, etc. Hey, if you're looking for a 14-piece big band to play anywhere, let me know - I'll send you to our website! Hooray!

#247 - Photoshop Disasters

In the past few weeks, I discovered the website Photoshop Disasters. Since I took a class in editing in college, and have a little history with desktop publishing, I love this site. Photoshop can do amazing (and scary) things! Tonight I sent in a submission to the site, taken from page 45 of the July 7, 2008 People magazine (see photo). I think the singing girl's right leg looks like somebody erased half of it, and it's creepy to look at. I hope they agree and will post my submission in the future - but in the meantime, take a look at the site for some other terrible things that have been published... I always get a good laugh.

#229 - Find Your Sleep Number

Last night, at my hotel in Salt Lake City, I slept on a bed where you program in a "sleep number" to determine how firm/soft you want your bed to be. At home, we have a waterbed, so on a scale of 1-100, I chose the number 30 to try as my sleep number. I'll admit it was still pretty firm, and the loud whirring noise it made as it inflated/deflated was a little intimidating. If I had more nights to try to find the right firmness (or lack thereof), this might be a nice feature... but for a beginner, I don't think I had the right one this time around.

#206 - A New Kind of Mix Tape

I used to make mix tapes all the time for my sister and friends, even mix CDs once I got to college and had my own computer. But today I discovered a new website that lets you post your own mix tapes and listen to other people's: http://www.mixwit.com/
I spent practically all afternoon listening to a couple of great mixes I found there, and though I was at work so I couldn't make my own mix, I might have to try it if the mood strikes me. It was great to have some new tunes at work!

#199 - Live Chatting Adventures

I was chatting with one of my new soldier friends LIVE from Afghanistan today. Technology is amazing - it was almost midnight there, but he was on his computer and we had a real-time chat. I have, of course, talked with friends via chat before - but never out of the country and a bunch of time zones away! I was pleased when he also reported that he's coming home before too long... always good news, right?

#198 - Learning the Inner Workings...

My wonderful father-in-law is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to fixing things. Give him a problem, or a broken piece of equipment, he can solve it, fix it or make it better. This evening, I learned how to set-up and tear-down his custom built electric keyboard stand, light and dolly. It was quite a set of steps to remember, and he thought of everything to make it work easily (including building a custom stand light). Learning about how this worked and seeing all the challenges he had to address during the design process was very impressive!

#192 - Evites

I sent my first Evites today, to a party I will be hosting for a friend in a few weeks. I found the system deceptively simple, and yet not very user friendly. On the main page of the electronic invitation page, there was a giant button for getting started, so I did. Ten minutes later, after having finished entering all the e-mail addresses, etc. I thought I was all done - until the "Send" button wouldn't work. My whole computer froze up. So I started all over, and it happened exactly the same way AGAIN. Frustrated, I did finally figure out that I needed to create a user account and sign in before it would send anything. Geez. I know the party will be lots of fun and I sure am glad this process is done! Ei yi yi.

#169/#170 - First Trombone Lesson/Video Post!

Our family and friends have been telling us we need to try this for a while now, so today we gave TLG his first trombone "lesson". He's got quite the lip and he's always blowing raspberries at us, so it's no surprise that he got quite a few good notes blown while I was taking photos/video.

And in a special bonus first, I'm uploading my first video to the site. I hope it works OK.

#144 - TLG Loves the Computer

Our little guy has used the computer before, but always carefully supervised, sitting on my lap. Today, while my hubby was out picking up dinner and I was hanging laundry, I logged on to the Curious George website through pbs.org and set up our laptop on TLG's small kitchen table. Then I handed him the mouse, showed him how to start a video clip and take "pictures" through one of the games, and I walked into the laundry room, giving him free reign of the computer. This is another small step in TLG's growing up album, and I took a photo because it was just so darn cute. We don't usually watch Curious George on TV because it's on at a funny time of day, but he was enthralled with the video clips and thought it was fun to click the mouse to take a still-frame photo. Adorable.

#115 - Airing My Feelings

I'm a lurker on many websites every day. Many of them are news-related or entertainment-related (I know you are surprised about that). I was horrified yesterday afternoon when I first read that one of my favorite young actors, Heath Ledger, was found dead in his apartment in New York City. I've been thinking about it all day today and so tonight I came out of my shell and posted my thoughts on one of Entertainment Weekly's tribute sites. Of course I post regularly on the web - that isn't new - but when I do take a moment to look at the comments on some of my favorite sites (USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, People) I find that people are arrogant, bad with spelling and punctuation, or so adamant about their point that they ramble forever with no point at all! I don't want to be one of those people, so I don't ever put in my two cents. (I save it all for you, dear reader!) So in order to avoid becoming a rambling idiot, here's today's point: I thought Heath Ledger was a very talented young actor, and I'm very sad to think that his daughter (who is the same age as my little guy) will grow up not knowing her daddy. I am also sorry we won't get to see Mr. Ledger mature on the silver screen. How sad it is that another young life has been cut short.

#111 - The Music of Friday Night Lights

I have really gotten into the TV show Friday Night Lights, and I am so pleased that they are still running new episodes despite the writers' strike. Now that our computer is back up and working, I was able to complete today's new thing: I researched the music from some of the recent episodes, and downloaded new songs that I heard in the show. I have purchased music from TV shows before, but only on CDs and it was never so immediate... I researched the songs on the website Television Without Pity (linked to the left here), and within a few minutes had the songs I was looking for. Technology is so cool!

#94 - Teevee

When I opened my big gift from my wonderful hubby at Christmastime, I had no idea how much I would love it. It's a big flat screen TV for our bedroom, and we have it wall-mounted and everything. Tonight was the first time I've sat down (OK, laid on the bed) to watch something on a giant flat-screen TV in the bedroom. I ended up watching a weird movie, "The Last Kiss" starring Zach Braff and Jacinda Barrett, which I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but the TV was awesome. Before Christmas, we had a 27" in a low entertainment center that was a little hard to see from anyplace comfortable in the room. The new one is up high where I can see it, and the picture is so clear! Hooray for new gadgets!

#84 - Dee Vee Arrrr

Today we had a HD DVR installed! I'm so excited to learn how it works... we're testing it by taping the new Elmo Christmas special tonight. This is something I've been interested in learning more about, and decided to buy it for a Christmas gift to my wonderful hubby, who loves TV as much as I do. Merry Christmas to us!

#69 - Language translator

I've been thinking about how strange it is to have so many languages on the same planet. I mean, when Adam and Eve came to the garden of Eden, there was only one language. Somewhere along the line different languages became necessary. And now, many people only speak one language. Today I played with an Internet-based language translator to see how different languages really are from one another. I asked it to translate the phrase "I try to do one new thing every day." and here's what I got:

Intento hacer una nueva cosa cada día. (English to Spanish)
J'essaye de faire une nouvelle chose chaque jour. (English to French)
Ich versuche, eine neue Sache jeden Tag zu tun. (English to German)
Eu tento fazer uma coisa nova cada dia. (English to Portuguese)
Provo a fare una nuova cosa ogni giorno. (English to Italian)
Я пытаюсь сделать одну новую вещь каждый день. (English to Russian)
Προσπαθώ να κάνω ένα νέο πράγμα κάθε ημέρα. (English to Greek)
私は毎日1 つの新しい事をすることを試みる。(English to Japanese)
나는 매일 1개의 새로운 일을 한것을 해본다. (English to Korean)
我設法做一件新事每天。(English to traditional Chinese)

None of these seem particularly similar to me, though the Spanish and Portuguese have a few words in common. No wonder people across the globe don't get along - we can't even communicate very well.

#63 - DirecTV

(Note: again, I missed posting yesterday, so I am posting two new activities today.)
For a while now, we've been unsatisfied with our cable TV service. It's very expensive and the HD picture is terrible (plus it skips). We even bought a separate antenna trying to fix the picture, and that didn't help either. We watch a lot of TV, so this was all problematic. So while I was out this afternoon, the DirecTV guy met my hubby at the house and they installed two boxes for our main TVs. We are now the proud customers of DirecTV and so far I can't say enough good things. When I got home, my hubby was already watching an HD broadcast of the Cowboys football game - and the picture quality was amazing! Plus tonight's game was broadcast on the NFL network, which we didn't receive with our old cable package. This DirecTV is cheaper than the cable was, and we still get the digital music we enjoy (only now it's affiliated with XM satellite radio). A good deal all around, and I think as we play with it more, we'll definitely enjoy it.