Free Rice, Animal Group Names, etc.

Some Cool Links for Today:

Q: What do you call a group of apes?
A: A shrewdness.

Q: What do you call a group of flies?
A: A business.

Q: What do you call a group of sharks?
A: A shiver.

Q: What do you call a group of toads?
A: A knot.

Q: What do you call a group of peacocks?
A: An ostentation. (seriously!)

Q: What do you call a group of hyenas?
A: A cackle!

All this and much, much more to be found out from the USGS about animal group
names.

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Virtual Haircut (takes 4 minutes 37 seconds) -
Absolutely required instructions if you're going to try the following link:
1. Put on/in a set of headphones.
2. Start this link and close your eyes (or just don't look at the screen).
3. Try not to flinch and completely scrunch up your shoulders and look behind you for the barber.

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Visit FreeRice.com to enrich your vocabulary and apparently donate free rice to the United Nations food project (courtesy of advertisers, theoretically, although I didn't see any advertising on the site, which is odd).

In any case, it's fun for people who like words, like me. I got my vocab level up to 46 at one point (for one whole word). They say people rarely get above 48, and the top is 50. How high can you go? :-)

Apparently they donate ten grains of rice for each word you correctly define. It automatically adjusts for your level, whatever that is. Jason told me about the site. He and Emily together donated 1000 grains, and I did another 1000. They warn you it will change your speech and writing patterns to start including more interesting words.

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You might have already seen this, but it's always fun to watch again: everything a mom says in a day, condensed down to 3 minutes, and sung to the tune of the William Tell overture (by comedian Anita Renfroe).

As a follow-up, here's an interview of Anita on a morning talk show (she tours with the Women of Faith conferences, in case that means anything to you).

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My husband David recently told me, "long-term marriage is excellent" and pointed me to that link with some cool quotes by Emerson, Twain, etc. What a comforting thing to hear from one's husband after 14+ yrs, whilst friends' and relatives' marriages are sadly and potentially frighteningly crumbling around one.

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For the debate-minded or those interested in logic, here's a fun list of recognizable fallacious arguments - great stuff! For example, you have Argument By Pigheadedness,
Argument By Gibberish (Bafflement),
Argument By Selective Observation,
Argument By Half Truth,
Needling,
and Argument Of The Beard.