Heh, this takes me back. I actually got to the semifinals in 1997 as an 8th grader, but promptly got knocked out on a word that I would have recognized in text form but didn't recognize aurally. Oh well. I'll have to find eternal glory doing something whose playing field can't be instantly leveled by computers. :P

It looks like most of the comments about how to get the raisins to blend have been about soaking them first. What about freezing them? If you can get them into really hard little crystalline structures, the blender blades should have an easier time breaking them apart. I think there's a little too much "give" in a regular raisin (and not enough weight) for them to get chopped up, especially if your blender blades are on the thick or dull side. Just my two cents - I might have to go try this now and report back! :)

My family has only had good experiences with mileage cards. My parents travel internationally at least once a year and nearly always do so on flight miles (they rack up fast with my tuition, double-miles on gas and household items, and the miles we earn from the flights in the first place). We never carry balances on the card, so we're not paying any interest in order to get these benefits either.

Man... I've only gotten stuck in elevators a few times (thank you, East Coast institution which shall remain nameless but managed to spend $27 million on a new staircase), but the longest I ever got stuck was still under an hour. Fortunately, I was just coming back up from the cafeteria where I had been studying, so I sat in the elevator, ate cookies and read until someone came and rescued me. :)

oh yes ;)

Lonely Planet has a book out about Micro-countries - I'm pretty sure this is one of the ones in there. The really cool thing is they give you all the information you need to apply for citizenship to them :D I think I'm now a citizen of something like six or seven of them, so I'll have a back-up country in case the entire United States goes under :P