He’s so sweet here, you should see him when he plays Gears of War (updated link)

My friend Mike wanted to surprise his girlfriend with a flash mob engagement and roped his favorite event planner (me) into helping him. Sadly, Mother Nature did not cooperate in the weather department, which spoiled our plans for the park (and diminished our mob) so 12 of us hijacked a favorite local Irish pub and enlisted all their patrons into helping.This is the result:

(The BF shot and edited this, he is uber-talented.)

Kevin Clash “is” Elmo

I’m more of a Kermit girl than an Elmo girl (I’m old school), but I really, really, really want to see this documentary:

I hope all those people who made fun of him in high school are kicking themselves every time their children scream with delight that Elmo is on…

Hungry for reading

A friend of mine teaches at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, CT, one of the poorest cities in our state, if not the US. She is looking for gently used copies of The Hunger Games trilogy to give to the ENG101 students she'll be teaching next semester who might not be able to afford their own. She made book 1 part of the curriculum last semester, and the response was AMAZING. Kids who said they hated reading devoured it and even went on to read books Two and Three on their own. She would love to be able to give all students copies they could keep.

If you have a copy of this book and don’t plan on reading it again, consider donating it to this great cause to help turn these students into voracious readers! Email me and I can give you an address to ship your copy to.

I don’t remember my Othello board having this much functionality

This is genius. And fun!

(Othello game, aka Reversi, for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about.)

Sometimes, girls just wanna have… an air pollution study and a scholarship opportunity

This article about the winners of the Google Science Fair has me seeing red. The story is so inspirational (out of 10,000 entries from 91 countries, three teen girls took home trophies for amazing projects on improving treatment of ovarian cancer, carcinogens in grilled chicken, and reducing reliance on asthma treatment), yet the author ruins it with references to how "cute" the winners are and marvels that despite being girls, they can manage to not mention Bieber! Why do we continue to encourage the idea that girls need to apologize for being smart? It is this type of cultural attitude that keeps young women from pursuing math and science degrees and careers. Fast Company FAIL.

On a lighter note, I am digging the Lego trophies.

Speaking of Google, I’ve been playing around on Google+. So far it is like a vary spare, clean version of Facebook, and similar to Twitter, you can link to people without them “friending” you back. It will be more fun when more people sign up. Email me if you want an invite to try it yourself.