Exchange that may amuse only me

Google talk exchange between my sister and I while watching the season premiere of American Idol:

Kelsey [in reference to the commonly-heard excuse of those whose auditions went poorly, "But I have a degree in vocal performance!"]: "I bet it wasn't from a good university."

Me [in reference to the audition location of Minneapolis and thinking of the funniest-named town in Minnesota]: "Yeah, probably Bemidji State University."

Well, it turns out there actually is a Bemidji State University. Who knew?

Fun with Geography, Euro-style

I found the follow-up to the 50 States game. If you'd hated placing U.S. states on a blank map, you'll hate placing European countries on a map even more! Good luck locating Luxembourg!!

Click here. (Apologies in advance for the annoying music.)

compartimiento molesto

For some reason, I've been receiving the Spanish Sports Illustrated in the mail. It's addressed to me! So I'm wondering if I'm getting it as a joke. It figures that something I'd get for free would be something I can't read. Maybe I should use this as an excuse to learn Spanish.

Pretty Fun Game, Educational Too

I found a pretty fun game on the internet. The object is to place each of the fifty states on a blank outline of the United States. If you start with an interior state it's pretty hard to place it right, but not placing a border state correctly is almost inexcusable. As you place more and more states on the map it gets pretty easy, though.

Oh yeah, I guess you want me to tell you where it is! Click here.

Thwarted Attempts at Female Friendship

Most of my friends are guys. I would like to develop more female friendships, but it seems that I really have no idea how. This is not something that comes naturally to me. Events like the following, which happened a few Sundays ago at church, make me think that I'm doomed to never find myself in the right circumstances to meet female friends. I arrived at church on time for a change, so I had my choice of seats. I chose to sit in the back row because two of my friends were already there. A girl came in a few minutes late to the service and sat in my row, with one seat between us. She was someone I had seen before but never talked to. I figured I would have an opportunity to talk to her after the service. About 10 minutes after that more latecomers arrived. Among them was a guy about my age. He recognized the girl sitting near me and asked her if anyone was sitting in the seat between us. There wasn't, so he took that seat. Since they knew each other, they chatted for a while after the service, while I talked to my friends sitting on my left. When I looked behind me the girl was gone. So that's pretty much how things work with me. All attempts to just meet women are thwarted.

Laughing out loud by oneself

Is it okay to laugh out loud by oneself? I say most definitely. I do it all the time, mostly at things on television or the radio. Living by myself, I don't have many opportunities for group laughter. The reason I ask is that I seem to remember hearing or gotten the vibe that there was a stigma attached to solo out-loud laughing. Does anyone know if this stigma is real or did I just imagine it?

Fake babies are scary

The PS3 commerical with the fake baby really scares me.

Watch.