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Our primary home computer is down, and in the hands of the Geek Squad. I'm using our laptop to write this.
It wouldn't boot up properly yesterday, and when I did finally get it to boot, it would freeze after about a minute. I described this to the Geek Squad geek at Best Buy, and he said "it sounds like something's going on." It's good to have the experts on your side, isn't it?
It doesn't affect me too much, but it's Jennifer's lifeline, and everything is all set up for her various tasks, including volunteer work she's doing for the school. Unfortunately, when the computer comes back, I'm going to have to set it up again. If it comes back, that is.
We can check our email through the laptop, so it will get read, but the chairs in the dining room are not as comfortable as the one in the study, so don't expect long replies.
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Three more soccer games this weekend, then we're done for the fall. Also this weekend, are trick or treating, school parties, and all the fun stuff that goes with the official Holiday of Obese Children.
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Thursday Update
It's raining, and it's a Thursday. We couldn't have a 2nd grade soccer practice without rain, could we?
Here are a few miscellaneous links. Open up an umbrella and click away...
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A neat website that shows football helmet designs as they've changed through the years. Scroll down a bit to see the NCAA teams arranged by conference. MSU has a lot of different designs. U of M has only three. (Boooooorrrrrring!)
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I love this maternity shirt. If I were female and pregnant, I'd buy one. A big one, of course.
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Atlas Oscura is a neat site. Lots of fun things to look at. I especially like this recent feature on spiral staircases.
Here are a few miscellaneous links. Open up an umbrella and click away...
------
A neat website that shows football helmet designs as they've changed through the years. Scroll down a bit to see the NCAA teams arranged by conference. MSU has a lot of different designs. U of M has only three. (Boooooorrrrrring!)
------
I love this maternity shirt. If I were female and pregnant, I'd buy one. A big one, of course.
------
Atlas Oscura is a neat site. Lots of fun things to look at. I especially like this recent feature on spiral staircases.
Regrettable and/or Unfortunate Things I’ve Done In Restaurants
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* Left my credit card at Olive Garden. (I did this last week.) I’m pretty sure the waiter didn’t bring my card back to the table with the receipt. I didn’t realize until the next day it was missing, and they had it in the manager’s office, waiting for me. (Try the Apricot Chicken dish next time you’re there. But only if you’re a fan of tomatoes and asparagus. It’s really good.)
* When I worked at Wendy’s, I was at the drive-through window, and instead of giving the customer the correct change, I gave her back the price of the food - she gave me a $20 for a $4.50 order, and I gave her $4.50 in change. Considering how much money I handled when I worked there, I’m surprised this didn’t happen more often. Also, I knew her, and she gave me a hard time about it in school the next day.
* Accidentally went into the Women’s bathroom at Lone Star Steak House on Eisenhower. Whoops. I apologized to the lady walking in as I was walking out. She looked like she was winding up to clobber me with her purse. They closed that restaurant sometime later, probably because of complaints of wierdos in the restrooms. Ask J how fast I shooed her and Laurie out of the building when I got back to the table.
* Ate Hunan Chicken at Szechuan West in Ann Arbor. It was December 23, 2005, and I missed the Smith family Christmas celebration that year recovering from food poisoning. A few weeks after, it was reported that a food supplier for many Chinese restaurants in the Ann Arbor area was not following the rules when it came to transporting food. Neglecting to refrigerate it, for example, and mixing raw poultry and vegetables together in the same container.
* Ate the Cajun pasta at a restaurant on Park Lake Rd in East Lansing. I won’t go into the details.
* Ate the Seared Tuna at a restaurant in Novi. Seared meaning “almost raw”. It wasn’t bad at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I remember what it looked like and what “almost raw” means. Now I wouldn’t touch it.
* Once ate Original Recipe chicken at KFC. What’s the point of eating the original when you can have the Extra Crispy?
* Frequented Taco Bell on Grand River in East Lansing as a student. I could get three tacos and a Diet Coke for $2. Taco Bell to me now is kind of like Spaghetti-Os - I loved them when I was younger, and now I think they taste awful.
* Loaded up on chicken wings at the Okemos Ponderosa. They used to have a $3.99 lunch buffet (including drink!), and the Physical Plant crew would go over and stuff our faces. I didn't always win the "Who Ate The Most Wings?" contest, but I was up there.
* Used the ketchup at Crunchy's (East Lansing) in the summer. They kept the bottles of condiments on the tables all summer, and I got a hamburger bun full of sour ketchup one day. That didn't stop me from going back, of course...
* Ate at The Modern Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant in Wolverine Tower (not there any more). The service was very poor. One of my friends noted that he didn't get the peanut chicken he ordered, and the waitress picked up his fork and started sifting through the rice, claiming that the peanuts were "right there." (They were beans.)
At least they never gave me food poisoning, so I'll give them a pass.
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* Left my credit card at Olive Garden. (I did this last week.) I’m pretty sure the waiter didn’t bring my card back to the table with the receipt. I didn’t realize until the next day it was missing, and they had it in the manager’s office, waiting for me. (Try the Apricot Chicken dish next time you’re there. But only if you’re a fan of tomatoes and asparagus. It’s really good.)
* When I worked at Wendy’s, I was at the drive-through window, and instead of giving the customer the correct change, I gave her back the price of the food - she gave me a $20 for a $4.50 order, and I gave her $4.50 in change. Considering how much money I handled when I worked there, I’m surprised this didn’t happen more often. Also, I knew her, and she gave me a hard time about it in school the next day.
* Accidentally went into the Women’s bathroom at Lone Star Steak House on Eisenhower. Whoops. I apologized to the lady walking in as I was walking out. She looked like she was winding up to clobber me with her purse. They closed that restaurant sometime later, probably because of complaints of wierdos in the restrooms. Ask J how fast I shooed her and Laurie out of the building when I got back to the table.
* Ate Hunan Chicken at Szechuan West in Ann Arbor. It was December 23, 2005, and I missed the Smith family Christmas celebration that year recovering from food poisoning. A few weeks after, it was reported that a food supplier for many Chinese restaurants in the Ann Arbor area was not following the rules when it came to transporting food. Neglecting to refrigerate it, for example, and mixing raw poultry and vegetables together in the same container.
* Ate the Cajun pasta at a restaurant on Park Lake Rd in East Lansing. I won’t go into the details.
* Ate the Seared Tuna at a restaurant in Novi. Seared meaning “almost raw”. It wasn’t bad at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I remember what it looked like and what “almost raw” means. Now I wouldn’t touch it.
* Once ate Original Recipe chicken at KFC. What’s the point of eating the original when you can have the Extra Crispy?
* Frequented Taco Bell on Grand River in East Lansing as a student. I could get three tacos and a Diet Coke for $2. Taco Bell to me now is kind of like Spaghetti-Os - I loved them when I was younger, and now I think they taste awful.
* Loaded up on chicken wings at the Okemos Ponderosa. They used to have a $3.99 lunch buffet (including drink!), and the Physical Plant crew would go over and stuff our faces. I didn't always win the "Who Ate The Most Wings?" contest, but I was up there.
* Used the ketchup at Crunchy's (East Lansing) in the summer. They kept the bottles of condiments on the tables all summer, and I got a hamburger bun full of sour ketchup one day. That didn't stop me from going back, of course...
* Ate at The Modern Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant in Wolverine Tower (not there any more). The service was very poor. One of my friends noted that he didn't get the peanut chicken he ordered, and the waitress picked up his fork and started sifting through the rice, claiming that the peanuts were "right there." (They were beans.)
At least they never gave me food poisoning, so I'll give them a pass.
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The One-Hundredth Post
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This is it - this is the 100th post of The DEB Log. Hope you enjoy it.
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Neat collection of hand tools from Ken Vaughn.
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Ray guns!
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For you fans of neat architecture (you know who you are!) here are some some re-designed gasometers in Vienna that are really stunning. You may have to scroll down a ways before the pictures will show up - it doesn't show very well on my computer.
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Letters Of Note is a really neat website that shows letters with historical significance. My favorite one so far is this one from a young Bill Gates to the computer hobbyist community.
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Today I had a class at work about writing better emails. It was a good class - the internal training arm of my company puts on several of these types of classes each year, and they've all been pretty outstanding. I've taken some on project management, holding effective meetings, and some other business topics. It's a nice change of pace.
Things are the same for me at work - same team, same product. We're starting to see some great results for for the work we've been doing this year, it's really starting to solidify and I think we're going to impress a lot of our users during the upcoming tax preparation season.
Hope all The DEB Log fans in Jackson are staying healthy and warm tonight - it's pretty cold and rainy. Just because K and I went to his soccer practice tonight and got rained on for a half hour doesn't mean everyone has to do it. The kids got a little wet but it was a shortened practice, so it wasn't a big deal.
We're working on the kids' halloween costumes - they're being partially made by us, and partially store-bought. J's crochet skills are coming in handy. We'll make sure everyone sees pictures who wants to see them. But I won't give away their costumes quite yet...
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This is it - this is the 100th post of The DEB Log. Hope you enjoy it.
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Neat collection of hand tools from Ken Vaughn.
------
Ray guns!
------
For you fans of neat architecture (you know who you are!) here are some some re-designed gasometers in Vienna that are really stunning. You may have to scroll down a ways before the pictures will show up - it doesn't show very well on my computer.
------
Letters Of Note is a really neat website that shows letters with historical significance. My favorite one so far is this one from a young Bill Gates to the computer hobbyist community.
------
Today I had a class at work about writing better emails. It was a good class - the internal training arm of my company puts on several of these types of classes each year, and they've all been pretty outstanding. I've taken some on project management, holding effective meetings, and some other business topics. It's a nice change of pace.
Things are the same for me at work - same team, same product. We're starting to see some great results for for the work we've been doing this year, it's really starting to solidify and I think we're going to impress a lot of our users during the upcoming tax preparation season.
Hope all The DEB Log fans in Jackson are staying healthy and warm tonight - it's pretty cold and rainy. Just because K and I went to his soccer practice tonight and got rained on for a half hour doesn't mean everyone has to do it. The kids got a little wet but it was a shortened practice, so it wasn't a big deal.
We're working on the kids' halloween costumes - they're being partially made by us, and partially store-bought. J's crochet skills are coming in handy. We'll make sure everyone sees pictures who wants to see them. But I won't give away their costumes quite yet...
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Some Links to Keep You Warm
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Some neat spacecraft models - there are 19 pictures, don't miss any (except maybe for the movie props, you have my permission to skip those.) Check out von Braun's office decor - I'd love to have an office with all those rocket models in it. Do you think that big glass thing on the wall is a TV? If so, it was astoundingly huge for the time.
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Keep your drink cool with some Easter Island head ice cubes.
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I love this table and chair set.
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A neat model of a tank. Really impressive.
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Have a good week!
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Some neat spacecraft models - there are 19 pictures, don't miss any (except maybe for the movie props, you have my permission to skip those.) Check out von Braun's office decor - I'd love to have an office with all those rocket models in it. Do you think that big glass thing on the wall is a TV? If so, it was astoundingly huge for the time.
------
Keep your drink cool with some Easter Island head ice cubes.
------
I love this table and chair set.
------
A neat model of a tank. Really impressive.
------
Have a good week!
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Smart Computers and Human Communication
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A lot of people ask the question “can computers ever be as smart as humans?” The answer, is “it depends on what you mean by ‘smart’”. Computers can do some things faster and more accurately than humans; they can accomplish mind-numbingly boring tasks faster than a human can pick up a pencil. But the human brain is always going to be much more adaptable than a computer’s.
Is a computer that can translate words from English to Japanese intelligent? Or is it just following a series of complex rules, no different from a fancy calculator that knows how to add or multiply? Is the ability to follow a series of complex rules a sufficient condition for intelligence?
Alan Turing, an early computer programming pioneer, proposed a test to determine machine intelligence. Briefly, if a person is interacting with a computer, but is convinced he is actually interacting with another person, that computer can be considered intelligent. (Turing was a brilliant man who helped win World War II for the allies, and his life and accomplishments helped build the foundation of computer science as we know it.)
Filling In The Blanks
We’ve all seen the poster that says “F Y CN RD THS Y R SMRT” It’s the sentence “If you can read this, you are smart” without any vowels. Kids who learn to read are usually impressed with themselves for being able to understand that sentence. There is a part of our brains that is able to bridge gaps in information that it receives. Computers, however, have a rigid processing system, and need to be told rule-by-rule what to do. Would a computer be able to "read" this sentence and make sense of it?
You could program a computer to try out different vowels at each position in the words above, and see if those words match a word in the dictionary. “Y” is an interesting case – it is the only consonant in the word. You could program the computer to know what “Y” means (possible values would be eye, you, yea, aye, etc.) A better way to do it would be to program the computer to look in the dictionary for every word whose only consonant is a “Y”.
But how would the computer know which of the words to choose? It could apply some rules of grammar, like Microsoft Word’s grammar check does, and attempt to piece together a sentence whose words make the most sense together. I hope it wouldn’t come up with this:
FEE EYE CONE ROAD THESE EYE ORE SMIRTA!
I made that last word up. But there are a lot of possibilities.
(A funny note: Before I posted this, I ran the spell checker. When the spellchecker got to the quote “F Y CN RD THS Y R SMRT”, it flagged 'CN', 'THS', and 'SMRT' as misspelled. The rest of the "words" in that quote are apparently spelled correctly.)
Relationships and Assumptions
It is difficult to teach a computer how to derive meaning from a sentence, especially one with shortcuts like pronouns.
“The teacher sent him to the principal’s office because he was misbehaving.”
Who is “he”? “Him?” The teacher or the principal, or another, unnamed person? How do you know? How would you help a computer know the answers to those questions?
“The teacher sent him to the principal’s office because she wanted to see him.”
Is the principal male or female? How about the teacher? Who is “him”?
“The teacher sent her to the principal’s office because she wanted to see her.”
Is the principal male or female? How about the teacher? Who is being sent to the principal’s office? The mother of a student? A female student teacher? The classroom's pet snake? Who wanted to see whom? Context is everything in these sentences, and in some cases we don’t have enough information to answer these questions. It would be important, then, to teach a computer to keep track of the preceding and following sentences to get information to help put together the full meaning, as well as teach it the possible relationships between different people at a school. But doing this would be very difficult.
Context, Implied Information, And Jumping To Conclusions
Context often goes beyond resolution of pronouns or relationships between actors in a sentence, and goes to meaning, assumptions, language variations like sarcasm, and so on.
Person 1: “I’m hungry.”
Person 2: “The sandwich shop is open until 9:00.”
Person 1: “I’ll get the keys.”
Before you read further, picture the above conversation in your mind - who is speaking, are the two people male or female, where are they when they have this conversation? What assumptions are you making about the people who are speaking?
An astounding amount of information passed between these two people, including several implicit agreements and statements. Person 2 seems to be hungry like Person 1 – or does he? They’re going to drive to the sandwich shop, right? We assume it is not yet 9:00, and that they will have enough time to get there before 9:00. We assume Person 1 is driving the vehicle - is that a fair assumption? We assume they’re both going – or maybe not? Maybe Person 2 is not going because he just had Wendy's, and is stuffed to the gills, and Person 1 will have to buy sandwiches on his own. Perhaps Person 1 is a 12-year old boy studying for a test, and Person 2 is his parent, offering (implicitly) to fetch a sandwich for his hard-working son.
Perhaps there is a running joke between the two that they will never visit that sandwich shop again, and Person 2’s response is actually a joke. We would have to know the two people involved and their history before we could say with certainty exactly what the meaning of the above conversation was and what agreements, if any, were made.
In this scenario, how would you introduce the facts of the matter to the computer? Does a computer know that 12 year-olds don’t usually drive a car? Does the computer know what it means to be busy studying and have someone else make a sandwich run on your behalf? Does a computer understand sarcasm? Does a computer know that “I’ll get the keys” implies a car or other motorized vehicle is involved?
It's easy to jump to conclusions based on our own histories. For example, did you assume the keys in question were keys for a car? What if the people are on an island and the keys are for a boat? What if they’re stranded on an island, and the second and third lines of that discussion are a joke between the two speakers? We don’t know for sure unless we know a lot more about the speakers and their situations.
Unspoken Communication
It's common in sports such as football and basketball that players on the same team will use hand signals or other non-verbal cues to communicate. A quarterback who reads the defense and is sure the receiver to his left is going to have one-on-one coverage can give a slight nod to the receiver, and that is all that's needed to let the receiver know what the quarterback is thinking. A quick glance between two basketball players can be an implicit agreement between them that the one with the ball is about to pass it to the one without the ball.
And of course we all use non-verbal communication in our daily lives, like the puzzled or exhausted looks we give our kids when they make the error of acting their age. This non-verbal communication that regularly happens in sports is the kind of communication that humans use all the time, but (and I’m making a strong statement here) computers will never have.
There are computer systems that do can things like use a camera to follow the eyes of its user, moving the mouse pointer or performing some other action when their eyes move; in fact, the graduate student who worked with one of my professors at MSU developed a system that did just that. But in this case, the computer was following a set of rules about what to do when an image captured by a camera changed, not what the user was thinking.
I'm sure there are some exceptions to these statements, and the industry is always inching closer to more intelligent machines that can respond to the user based on that user's history, but as far as true human communication, it will be a long haul before computers can keep up with humans. And once it does, there will always be the next challenge waiting: opposable thumbs.
A lot of people ask the question “can computers ever be as smart as humans?” The answer, is “it depends on what you mean by ‘smart’”. Computers can do some things faster and more accurately than humans; they can accomplish mind-numbingly boring tasks faster than a human can pick up a pencil. But the human brain is always going to be much more adaptable than a computer’s.
Is a computer that can translate words from English to Japanese intelligent? Or is it just following a series of complex rules, no different from a fancy calculator that knows how to add or multiply? Is the ability to follow a series of complex rules a sufficient condition for intelligence?
Alan Turing, an early computer programming pioneer, proposed a test to determine machine intelligence. Briefly, if a person is interacting with a computer, but is convinced he is actually interacting with another person, that computer can be considered intelligent. (Turing was a brilliant man who helped win World War II for the allies, and his life and accomplishments helped build the foundation of computer science as we know it.)
Filling In The Blanks
We’ve all seen the poster that says “F Y CN RD THS Y R SMRT” It’s the sentence “If you can read this, you are smart” without any vowels. Kids who learn to read are usually impressed with themselves for being able to understand that sentence. There is a part of our brains that is able to bridge gaps in information that it receives. Computers, however, have a rigid processing system, and need to be told rule-by-rule what to do. Would a computer be able to "read" this sentence and make sense of it?
You could program a computer to try out different vowels at each position in the words above, and see if those words match a word in the dictionary. “Y” is an interesting case – it is the only consonant in the word. You could program the computer to know what “Y” means (possible values would be eye, you, yea, aye, etc.) A better way to do it would be to program the computer to look in the dictionary for every word whose only consonant is a “Y”.
But how would the computer know which of the words to choose? It could apply some rules of grammar, like Microsoft Word’s grammar check does, and attempt to piece together a sentence whose words make the most sense together. I hope it wouldn’t come up with this:
FEE EYE CONE ROAD THESE EYE ORE SMIRTA!
I made that last word up. But there are a lot of possibilities.
(A funny note: Before I posted this, I ran the spell checker. When the spellchecker got to the quote “F Y CN RD THS Y R SMRT”, it flagged 'CN', 'THS', and 'SMRT' as misspelled. The rest of the "words" in that quote are apparently spelled correctly.)
Relationships and Assumptions
It is difficult to teach a computer how to derive meaning from a sentence, especially one with shortcuts like pronouns.
“The teacher sent him to the principal’s office because he was misbehaving.”
Who is “he”? “Him?” The teacher or the principal, or another, unnamed person? How do you know? How would you help a computer know the answers to those questions?
“The teacher sent him to the principal’s office because she wanted to see him.”
Is the principal male or female? How about the teacher? Who is “him”?
“The teacher sent her to the principal’s office because she wanted to see her.”
Is the principal male or female? How about the teacher? Who is being sent to the principal’s office? The mother of a student? A female student teacher? The classroom's pet snake? Who wanted to see whom? Context is everything in these sentences, and in some cases we don’t have enough information to answer these questions. It would be important, then, to teach a computer to keep track of the preceding and following sentences to get information to help put together the full meaning, as well as teach it the possible relationships between different people at a school. But doing this would be very difficult.
Context, Implied Information, And Jumping To Conclusions
Context often goes beyond resolution of pronouns or relationships between actors in a sentence, and goes to meaning, assumptions, language variations like sarcasm, and so on.
Person 1: “I’m hungry.”
Person 2: “The sandwich shop is open until 9:00.”
Person 1: “I’ll get the keys.”
Before you read further, picture the above conversation in your mind - who is speaking, are the two people male or female, where are they when they have this conversation? What assumptions are you making about the people who are speaking?
An astounding amount of information passed between these two people, including several implicit agreements and statements. Person 2 seems to be hungry like Person 1 – or does he? They’re going to drive to the sandwich shop, right? We assume it is not yet 9:00, and that they will have enough time to get there before 9:00. We assume Person 1 is driving the vehicle - is that a fair assumption? We assume they’re both going – or maybe not? Maybe Person 2 is not going because he just had Wendy's, and is stuffed to the gills, and Person 1 will have to buy sandwiches on his own. Perhaps Person 1 is a 12-year old boy studying for a test, and Person 2 is his parent, offering (implicitly) to fetch a sandwich for his hard-working son.
Perhaps there is a running joke between the two that they will never visit that sandwich shop again, and Person 2’s response is actually a joke. We would have to know the two people involved and their history before we could say with certainty exactly what the meaning of the above conversation was and what agreements, if any, were made.
In this scenario, how would you introduce the facts of the matter to the computer? Does a computer know that 12 year-olds don’t usually drive a car? Does the computer know what it means to be busy studying and have someone else make a sandwich run on your behalf? Does a computer understand sarcasm? Does a computer know that “I’ll get the keys” implies a car or other motorized vehicle is involved?
It's easy to jump to conclusions based on our own histories. For example, did you assume the keys in question were keys for a car? What if the people are on an island and the keys are for a boat? What if they’re stranded on an island, and the second and third lines of that discussion are a joke between the two speakers? We don’t know for sure unless we know a lot more about the speakers and their situations.
Unspoken Communication
It's common in sports such as football and basketball that players on the same team will use hand signals or other non-verbal cues to communicate. A quarterback who reads the defense and is sure the receiver to his left is going to have one-on-one coverage can give a slight nod to the receiver, and that is all that's needed to let the receiver know what the quarterback is thinking. A quick glance between two basketball players can be an implicit agreement between them that the one with the ball is about to pass it to the one without the ball.
And of course we all use non-verbal communication in our daily lives, like the puzzled or exhausted looks we give our kids when they make the error of acting their age. This non-verbal communication that regularly happens in sports is the kind of communication that humans use all the time, but (and I’m making a strong statement here) computers will never have.
There are computer systems that do can things like use a camera to follow the eyes of its user, moving the mouse pointer or performing some other action when their eyes move; in fact, the graduate student who worked with one of my professors at MSU developed a system that did just that. But in this case, the computer was following a set of rules about what to do when an image captured by a camera changed, not what the user was thinking.
I'm sure there are some exceptions to these statements, and the industry is always inching closer to more intelligent machines that can respond to the user based on that user's history, but as far as true human communication, it will be a long haul before computers can keep up with humans. And once it does, there will always be the next challenge waiting: opposable thumbs.
Weekend Update - Busy Schedule Edition (with links)
_
Another long weekend coming up for the Family Chaffeur (me): Two soccer games and three birthday parties. We need to start keeping track of when K's friends have birthday parties - I'm beginning to think some of them celebrate two or three a year.
Michigan State plays Michigan in football this afternoon (not that I'll be home to watch much of it.) I don't know who will win, but it is supposed to be raining and wet in East Lansing, so anything can happen.
On Monday I am taking a day off and going to an orchard with a bus full of second graders. If any of the kids get out of line, I'm going to confiscate their apples. Kids get apple cider, a donut, and an apple.
Maybe the apples will keep the swine flu away.
----------
I hesitated to purchase one of these tailgating grills until I saw it had a flag pole holder. Then I had to have one. Then I realized I don't have a trailer hitch, and that it's been years since I've tailgated. And we just ran out of hot dog buns.
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Objects made from other objects - robots this time. More robots here.
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Ohio has 88 counties; assign a note on the piano to each county, and play your favorite song.
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Another long weekend coming up for the Family Chaffeur (me): Two soccer games and three birthday parties. We need to start keeping track of when K's friends have birthday parties - I'm beginning to think some of them celebrate two or three a year.
Michigan State plays Michigan in football this afternoon (not that I'll be home to watch much of it.) I don't know who will win, but it is supposed to be raining and wet in East Lansing, so anything can happen.
On Monday I am taking a day off and going to an orchard with a bus full of second graders. If any of the kids get out of line, I'm going to confiscate their apples. Kids get apple cider, a donut, and an apple.
Maybe the apples will keep the swine flu away.
----------
I hesitated to purchase one of these tailgating grills until I saw it had a flag pole holder. Then I had to have one. Then I realized I don't have a trailer hitch, and that it's been years since I've tailgated. And we just ran out of hot dog buns.
----------
Objects made from other objects - robots this time. More robots here.
----------
Ohio has 88 counties; assign a note on the piano to each county, and play your favorite song.
----------
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