What's Your Score?

We are addicted. I'm not sure how often we actually play, but if the game kept a log we'd definitely be in the thousands. The first image is my high score from 2005. Not too bad right? Well, it lasted about two years until Rebecca's great score last month! 605 is the highest I'd heard of, but I went online to see how it stacked up next to scores worldwide. I'm not sure there is an official high score list online, but this one seemed pretty competitive. Rebecca's score puts her at ninth on this list. So now, she likes to say she's the ninth best Yahtzee player in the world. Don't worry, I'm playing way too much as it is; her score won't hold up for long!

We're so excited...

...and we just can't hide it:

The IKEA experience.

I remember a few times in college when my friends and I got hooked on IKEA. (It's kind of embarrassing looking back...) I had built a super-sweet "L-loft" for our room and we needed some accessories to make everything super-stylish. The following is a list of zany, little things that no one on earth really needs but that we knew we couldn't live without. A whole assortment of lights: these for under the loft, these for reading in bed, these to replace the large dorm lights, and of course we had to have a fade switch on each of these so we could set the mood. Then there were other silly things like a bag of 100 tea lights, slippers, or the completely wacky rug which were all the kinds of things you wondered why you actually paid for them by the time you got home.

My most recent trip to IKEA was actually last summer when we were in Budapest. The store we went to was exactly like every other store I've ever been to. We must have spent about four hours there. We ate at the food court and then started our journey through the maze. I can't remember that anyone actually needed to buy anything, but through we went. Rebecca and I ended up with a very nice cheese grater that we brought all the way back to America. We had three little girls with us (one six mos. and one newborn!), so this of course made for a most interesting adventure. And the last thing I remember about that trip was this little Hungarian girl who must have been in and out of every one of these lockers.

And if you wondered what sparked this post on IKEA, this is the hilarious article that got me thinking - mostly because I'm just geeky enough to see how an IKEA visit could be a video game.

Me & MIT

I thought these pictures were amusing, especially since we were in Boston not too long ago. If you look at the three black and white pictures, you can't help but notice the crazy building. That's the MIT Stata Center. Here's a picture some guy took. And here's mine. (OK, so we didn't actually get off the trolley to go see it.) Perhaps subconsciously, I didn't want to go see the building up-close because MIT is SO different than any school I have ever attended. I know at least one guy who is smart enough to go there, but he decided to stay out west where the sun shines more. Oh well, I'll stick with English and the not-so-fancy-pants kinds of schools.

Our Neighborhood

Last night, I took the dog for a walk at dusk. The afternoon thunderstorm was finished tearing through the neighborhood, and the sunset made for beautiful pictures. We are lucky to live where we do; Rogers Park is a diverse and ever-changing neighborhood. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get a taste of city life on the lake.

Here's a few more: the skyline and Spencer the ghost.

Due to high critical acclaim...

...here's another video of Elayna.

Summertime for an academic

The beach is nice in the morning. We can get out there to get sandy and sweaty before the crowds come. Today, Elayna threw sand in her mouth and waded into the lake. She loves it - both the taste of sand and the lake. Summer offers a nice chance to play outside; it's nice because Chicago winters are so dang cold and we have to play inside with the same toys over and over again.

I ran across this pertinent tidbit of information via ALD:

"In the popular imagination, humanities professors don’t have anything to be ambitious about. No one really knows what they do, and to the extent that people do know, they don’t think it’s worth doing — which is why, when the subject of humanistic study is exposed to public view, it is often ridiculed as trivial, arcane, or pointless."

This is where I stumble on to the stage looking a little confused. Someone from the back asks, "Did you really choose a job that is not only pointless, but also low-paying?" I shade my eyes from the white-hot spotlight that is centered on my face and answer, "Um...yeah." To be sure, I don't think of my career choice (English Instructor) as pointless, nor do I think many of you do either. But it seems that there exists a phenomenom in our culture which situates academics somewhere between vagrants and savants. The article in question, describes recent portrayals of male professors in movies - a portrayel that is less than complimentary. It is true, as the article notes, that the perception of professors is changing (as is the field of academics in general). What was once a group of white guys wearing tweed jackets and smoking pipes, has become a scrambling bunch of geeky, young grad students hoping to score even the most menial jobs in hopes of securing tenure. Is it too much to ask to earn an honest living by teaching English? I sure hope not, otherwise, I'll have to look into becoming a professional reader or something.