In "The View Master"

I dunno. I watched the video clip (.mov) with an excerpt from the cockroach show. Not terribly impressed, unfortunately.

In "Gmail is for monkeys"

Ok, one invite sent to Reuven, per his email request. I currently have one left.

I have a couple invites. Write me at bookgirl at gmail.com if you want one.

In "Postal Experiments. "

One of my roommates was visiting her parents & the rest of us wanted to let her know we missed her. So we took the burnt, half-eaten pancakes that were left from our dinner & stuck them in a ziplock bag. We put some stamps & an address label on the baggie and stuck it in the mail (no envelope). It went from MN to MA with no problems.

In "Curious George: So how old are you really?"

I was in 7th grade when the Challenger exploded & a senior in high school when the first Gulf War started. Today I'm 31 1/2.

In "Book Rentals.."

My library has a wonderful online request system and they send me an email when something comes in. And if you don't want to wait your turn for a new-release book or DVD you can rent them - $0.25/day for a book or $0.50/day for a DVD.

In "BBC reports on McDonalds brand kids clothes."

I like "chicken nugget" style Quorn. By itself, though, with no breading or sauce or anything, Quorn is pretty blah. I just wish it were easier to find around here; I only know of one store that carries it & the price seems kind of high.

In "Curious George: Languages..."

Fluent in English. Fluent (but rusty) in German. I used to do ok with Italian, but after 9 years of disuse I can't remember much beyond "Don't touch me!" and "I'm a vegetarian." Spatterings of Spanish. Bits of Biblical Hebrew. (I can say "I am Rachel, daughter of David.") And I don't speak French or Latin, but I can read both pretty well thanks to the Italian and I understand a lot of French. (My parents used to speak French when they didn't want us kids to know what they were discussing.) (We lived in Korea for a few years when I was about two. Now that languagehat mentions it, I wonder if that explains why I find languages fairly easy to pick up?)

In ""

I'm next-door to Mpls, but have plans for April 30th and won't be able to attend. Have fun for me.

In "Books cost a bomb, film at 11"

I actually kind of like trade paperbacks. I find the size & paper stock easier on the eyes than my tiny old paperbacks and I appreciate that they don't weigh as much as hardcover. (Every ounce counts when you have to haul all your possessions to a new home every year.) I suspect some of the rising prices can be attributed to escalating marketing efforts. A few weeks ago, a friend who is a magazine editor showed me what she'd just gotten in the mail - a heavy metal briefcase, stuffed with $1 million in fake bills, a few pages of marketing lit, and a copy of "Finding Your Million Dollar Mate." (A truly crappy book, may I add.) She also told us about a previous promotion where they received something (a CD? a book?) and a live parakeet. Seriously, how does that benefit anyone? I know it's all about the marketing, but I really wish that books were simply put on shelves and allowed to earn their readership. I read a couple books a week, but almost all of them come from my library. If I really enjoy one, I'll go ahead and buy a copy to keep and do my best to convince friends to buy it. I'm also pretty vocal about telling them what drivel (DaVinci Code, anyone?) to avoid.

In "It slimed me"

I remember - long, long ago - hearing that eelskin wallets would demagnetize credit cards. Curious, I just checked Snopes & Straight Dope, only to discover that it was actually the magnetic clasps on the wallets that were causing the problem, rather than the residual charge of an electric eel. Sigh. Another childhood belief shattered.

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