When I was teaching, once a year I would give students a 3x5 card and let them write anything on it and use it during a test/quiz. Of course it was more a lesson on organizing information. Many students found the cards useless as the information they wrote was not organized. Those who knew how to organize found them useful or in many cases didn't even use them as they had actually learned the basic principles needed to do well on the test.

Do they even make wooden spools in the USA anymore? In college I took a course in Forest Products and we took a field trip to a spool factory in Millinocket Maine. They were made out of white birch. The factory was really neat as it operated of a motor that drove the lathes by an ingenious system of pulleys.

I taught high school biology for 32 years (read being locked up with a thousand teenagers all day)and experienced first hand some of those developmental changes I learned about in adolescent and educational psychology courses in grad school. The human brain never ceases to amaze me. Technology may allow us to peek in on those physical changes, but we still know so little about these changes and behavior. I just wish people would stop thinking of their children as miniature adults.

I laughed. Thanks for the morning chuckle.

Although the Beatles as a group were probably doomed from the beginning, I've often wondered what might have been had Brian Epstein lived longer.

I second Miss Cellania's thought. Some of this nanotechnology is at the least a bit worrisome.

Denmark? Government approved names? Amazing for what I thought was a relatively free nation.

Interesting for sure. I was under the impression that New England accents differed from Southern because the first settlers were from a particular part of England and that influenced the way they spoke words.

It may affect some kids, but my younger Grandson loves SBSP and he is as sharp as a tack. As a former teacher I know one thing. I had to plan my lessons in short chunks of time and information to keep the attention of what I called the "Sesame Street Generation" of students.

Part of my day includes doing the NY Times crossword puzzle, although I've been known to skip Monday and sometimes even Tuesday. The clues on Saturday and even Friday can be downright evil. I thought that a lot of puzzles were constructed by people in prison. No love for Will Weng?

Cool, and if I was still teaching, I would use it in the classroom about critical thinking.

Reminds me of an incident when I was in college around the time short skirts became acceptable fashion. A professor of a class I had decided that an arrangement of chairs in a circle would facilitate discussion. The next class, all the guys rushed to class to sit on one side of the circle, forcing the females to sit opposite. The very next class we arrived to discover the seats were back in the traditional pattern of rows. Damn.

David Johansen and Buster Poindexter ?

I wonder if there's a country where people "sweat like a Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse"? Where's John Belushi when we need him.

I'd add the "Where's Waldo" fiasco at Burger King. Kids bugging every guy who remotely looked like the character, and a lawsuit when an underage kid actually saw the "real" one. Probably another great idea hatched after a three martini lunch.