Friday, September 26, 2008

Presidential Debate

The Guardian's comment on who is winning, about half way through the first debate between Obama and McCain.

Scorecard so far: Barack Obama is winning if you measure by substantiveness of answers. John McCain is winning if you count number of years spent in a Vietnamese jail.

Lone Ranger Highway

In Lancaster, which is in the North of LA County, there's a road that's been designed to play the Lone Ranger them tune* if you drive on it at 55mph. I only heard about it because the people that live there hate it, and it's being resurfaced. Luckily, thanks to the power of Youtube, you and I can experience it. ('Cos it's 70 miles from here, and I can't be bothered to go there just for that.)







*Or the William Tell Overture, if you are more culturally sophisticated.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Penny Game

At the boys school, they are having a fundraiser which they call 'The Penny Game'. Each grade gets a jar, and they can put pennies into their jars. Whichever grade has the most pennies wins an ice cream party for the grade, and the school keeps the money, and makes a profit.

So we dutifully emptied the jar that we throw change into and counted out 200 pennies, bagged them and gave them to the boys to take to school.

But this is America, and in true American style it's possible for someone richer and more powerful than you to crush all your hard work, thereby destroying your hopes and dreams. And it's just the same in the penny game. You can add coins and bills of other denominations to the jars that belong to other grades - and these count against that grade. So someone sticking two dollar bills into our (first grade) jars cancels our two sets of 100 pennies. So, along with 100 pennies each, we packed the boys off with four dollar bills each - one each for second, third, fourth and fifth grades. And if they look like they are doing well, there are plenty more where they came from.