What-What?! Week of March 29th

Thursday, I died.  Actually, I didn't die, I just did all the housework.  So I didn't post.  So that happened.

Took Saffron to her Girl Scouts meeting this week, which is extra fun now, because I have to take the boys with me too.  The two of them can be a terrible handful, between Oz just wanting to run around, and Corwin wanting to be just as involved in scouts as Saffron.  So I took them shopping.

Peter's birthday was yesterday, so I made cupcakes.  Really simple spice cake with cream cheese frosting.  I made two dozen, and there are only five of us here, so there'll be lots and lots of sugar eaten in the coming days.

I went to the store to buy Poptarts, but they didn't have the kind I like, so I didn't.  I have eaten cereal for breakfast nearly every day for something like two weeks.  I need to do some cooking so I have something else to eat.

Top Gear Shouldn't Go on Without Jeremy Clarkson via Wired

If you haven't been following the news, you may not know that Clarkson has been canned from Top Gear.  While his actions are deplorable (berating and hitting producer), the show in its current format is his brain child.  The variety of humor, the pace, the challenges, the topics (useful consumer advice, anyone?), they're all based on Clarkson's vision.  I agree with this author that Top Gear needs to end; it will not be the same headlined by someone else.  Hammond and May have also left the show, so there's very little that will remain the same or even similar.

Probably the most entertaining bit about this whole thing is James May.  He has, without a doubt, released more information than anyone else, while still remaining entertaining.  His Twitter page tells of his daily struggles as an unemployed man, including his plan to play the British Grenadiers on a recorder.  His first piece is Greensleeves, hungover and on a boat:


Next week, I'll have big news and lots more to talk about.  Stay tuned! :D

What-What?! Week of March 16th

This past week has been pretty busy.  I've been at work early the whole week, which has been somewhat stressful trying to create enough activities to fill up all the hours.  Consequently, I have almost nothing prepared for this post.  I have also been sunburned often.  I need to find a new sunscreen, because mine smells too much.  The day that I first wore it, one of my kids looked around and said "it smells like the beach?".  Ha!  I didn't tell him it was me.

Yahoo! Voices published an article of mine, Your Child and the Fourth Grade Reading Slump, which they paid me upfront for!  Yeah!  That's the first time, ever.  So that's pretty brilliant.  After reviewing some spreadsheets, I've also found that my Amazon.com ebook has been making about 2-4 sales a month, which isn't bad for something that I consider a learning experience.

I recently read the kids the book Rosie Revere, Engineer; at the end of the book, my daughter asked me what an engineer is.  So after I explained that it's someone who builds things, both she and Corwin (my older boy) piped up saying how they want to be engineers.  Then they began listing the things that they want to make:  A convertible (car), boat, airplane, submarine, helicopter, computer, and a boat/car/airplane hybrid (of course).  Also, mechs.  So that's pretty cool.  Saffron was pretending to be an engineer a few days later, and had a few books that she was pretending to read plans out of.

News: New Lotus Motorcycles Look Like Tron via Yahoo! Tech

This "hyperbike" amuses me greatly.  If not for Top Gear, I'd probably have no idea who Lotus is (they make the Elise and the Exige, both beautiful cars).  Sadly, Lotus is only going to make 100 C-01 motorcycles.


The 80's are calling, yo'.

Designed by Daniel Simon, who designed the motorcycles from Tron: Legacy.  The style itself reminds me of a cyberpunk anime from the late 1980s, Bubblegum Crisis.  The motorcycles from the show are what originally turned me on to motorcycles as a cool thing (however, the reminder of my own mortality soon caught up with me).

(imgs via Yahoo, zerochan)