Apparently, I don’t get out much, I only learned about this brilliant online game, Freerice yesterday. When you play you not only work on your vocabulary skills you also help to donate food to the hungry through the World Food Programme.

The advertisers on the page buy 10 grains of rice every time you get a right answer.

You don’t have to sign up, you can just start playing, but if you do sign up you can track your scores through time. I think everyone should give it a try – not only is it for a good cause but it’s fun!

Fair warning, it is addicting! I popped over to just check it out. An hour (or so) later it was awfully hard to turn it off…

If you try it – and trust me, you should – let me know what level you reach. I’m trying to get past Level 46!

Since I’m playing volleyball this summer for the first time in an awfully long time I felt I needed a refresher. Now that I’ve seen this video I understand the game perfectly. It’s like I was born in the Palace of Volleyball. My opponents need to prepare themselves!

Dr Pepper is more than a fizzy drink, check out this recipe for Dr Pepper Candied Sweet Potatoes which I picked up years ago during a visit to the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas. Enjoy!

Nobody really likes Mr. W – and I count myself among that group. But after watching the video I realized, there is a place for Mr. W, a way to harness his energy.

Of course, it wasn’t until the very end that I realized it was a commercial for the wind division of a power company. I’m not the only one who found it to be an ingenuous, inventive, and entertaining bit of advertising. When it was released in 2007 it won a Cannes Gold Lion award and the following year a Creativity Award. This article features an interview with the design team who created the web film for Epuron.

Whenever I get a chance I like to mention to folks back east that since I grew up out here I’ve never mowed grass, raked leaves, or shoveled snow. They just love hearing that. Think of all the hours of free time I had! Plenty of time for hauling water, playing with rattlesnakes, and catching scorpions…

According to his owner, Sparky loves to feel the wind in his face. It looks like patient Sparky is ready to get moving!

One hundred and fifty one years later, most folks down here would agree that this sign is more descriptive of Phoenix. Must’ve been quite a rowdy town back then!

Yesterday, my Aunt Coralie and I took a tour of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Arizona. The tour was titled Mysteries of the Brain, it should have been called the Mystery of Memory, but no matter, it was still fascinating. Their goal is to better understand the processes by which the brain records memories and how that changes with age. The premise is that once researchers understand the whys and hows of normal memory and aging they can develop methods to fend off, treat, or possibly cure dementing diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Our 40 person group was split into 4 smaller units and we rotated through labs, receiving an overview of the research. Our first stop was a room full of desktop computers. We were each directed to a computer and asked to try a memory game. It was a sample of MindCrowd, an online memory test research project. For this project, the researchers are shooting for a million participants (an astronomical number, considered impossible pre-internet). The hope is that such a large sample size will help researchers identify trends and factors that aren’t apparent in smaller projects.

I did fairly well on the demo test and was excited to try the real thing. The process took about 10 minutes and it was kinda fun (but then again, I’m a nerd that way). Give it a try – c’mon be one of a million!