A final thought on this assignment

This week I continued some of the random websurfing on pages like TVTropes.org and caught up on the local paper and the new issue of Post Magazine, which is a trade magazine about video editing and computer animation. One of the random pages I read on TVTropes.org referenced Mark Twain's “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court” as being “one of the first stories to show history being changed by the time traveler's actions” (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UrExample). It was kind of cool that the first Google book I randomly chose for this class was an early example of the premise of so many time travel stories. I'll definitely finish that book when I have more time in larger periods rather than a few minutes here and there.
I learned a surprising amount from reading strictly for enjoyment and to take a break from reality for a while. With two early posts, I learned that one can post on Blogger from a Kindle. I just learned that Google Docs works like a mobile version of Word so one can write something from a mobile device and later edit it from a computer or vice versa. I even learned a lot about some of the confusing memes and web shows the kids enjoy for some reason. One of the most interesting things this blog experience taught me is just how much one can accomplish in those few minutes of spare time that usually gets wasted. I took different mobile e-readers with me various places where I always seemed to find a few moments that I might otherwise have spent being bored or wishing my phone had more games. This class was long enough to have made this reading into a habit I’ll likely continue, especially since I’ll have a lot more spare time when I’m working full time. Taking four master’s level classes, being a substitute teacher, working on the foreclosure house we bough this summer, and dealing with family issues while trying to make sure the kids don’t forget who the person at the computer in the back room is has been exceptionally challenging.

Imponderables, IMDB, and more randomness

I'd meant to spend more time reading one of the books I got from the $1-a-bag book sale at the library. What little I did read of David Feldman's "Imponderables" was interesting, though not as humorous as Cecil Adams' "Straight Dope". The short encyclopedia-like entries make either of these books great spare-time reading, plus one gets to learn how evil spirits and roses influenced the colors of baby clothing. (Blue was considered most protective since ancient times, while pink was the color of the roses baby girls came from in a European legend centuries later.) Instead, I ended up reading IMDB entries for some movies that were on this week, followed by a lot more information from tvtropes.org. Despite the spoilers which are generally identified, IMBD is good to check before watching a movie because it tells what goofs to watch for and other trivia. Even a boring western was a little easier to tolerate knowing that there would be so many errors. The few scenes I paid attention to included people using guns that hadn't been invented until decades after the movie setting, a German man playing a Commanche by speaking Navajo, and people running up a hill in Monument Valley Utah and running down a hill over 600 miles away in Bronson's Canyon in California.
Finally, I spent "Horton Hears a Who" following links from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HortonHearsAWho after checking out its IMDB page. This page added to the trivia from IMDB as well as explaining a lot of cliches and memes like the "Dreamworks Face" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DreamworksFace Horton makes on the movie poster. This site has a lot of info on things that people assume incorrectly http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OlderThanTheyThink, mentioned several of the people from a website the kids visit almost daily http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/, and the "Music" portion of this even linked to Cracked.com where I had done a lot of random reading last month.