Improve your vocabulary and help the hungry at the same time

The website freerice.com was started by a guy who worked for charitable organizations and wanted to help his kids study for the SATs. They ask you random vocab words, and for each one you get right, they donate rice to the UN World Food Program (or "Programme" since the UN uses standard international spelling for their "organisations").

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Amazon.com bought the $4 million copy of the fairy tales from Harry Potter (that Dumbledore left to Hermoine in his will, in case you don't remember). And while they couldn't print the text of the fairy tales on the website, for obvious copyright issues, they do have synopses of each of the stories. Clearly they will be published at some point, but since when that will be is unknown, for now everyone can just be content with the redacted version.

I seemed to have missed the news

I was recently driving behind a truck that listed the states where the company that owned the truck did business. A common enough practice, I'll grant you. Now this particular list included CT, NY, NJ, PA, MD, and VA - all well and good. It also included DC, which while not a state is a state-like entity. But then the list also included the Hamptons. Excuse me. The last time I checked, the Hamptons were part of New York. Did they break off from New York and form their own state without telling anyone? It just seemed an odd editorial choice as I was sitting behind the truck in traffic.

Happy Hannuka

I forgot to say it yesterday, so I'll say it today for the second night. Happy Hannuka to everyone.

Some things just need labels

S and I were putting up our grandmother's Christmas decorations today, and included among the decorations was the new nativity scene that we had gotten her last year (her old one was down to only having one wise man). So Jesus and Mary were pretty easy to figure out, as they were the only baby and woman, respectively. And we figured out two of the wise men (one had a king-like mitre on his head and one had a walking staff, as if he had perhaps followed the star of Bethlehem for a while) and we got which one was the shepherd. But then we were left with two people and we didn't know which one was Joseph and which one was the third wise man. So we made the executive decision that the one kneeling in adoration was the third wise man, but it would have been helpful if the proper designation to each of the figurines was written on the bottom.