Miscellany

Because I simply can't wait until tomorrow! Friday Five:

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?

   Arm & Hammer and sometimes Colgate.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?

   No preference whatsoever. Scott, Charmin, Kleenex Cottonelle, Quilted Northern...I like them all. I actually have a very strong conviction when it comes to toilet paper: If you are out of toilet paper, your house is not a home.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?

   Steve Madden! Aargh, now I'm starting to sound like Barbie.

4. What brand of soda do you drink?

   Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, Sprite. Nothing diet.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?

   I don't chew gum. My dentist told me not to chew gum or crunch ice as I have a poppy-cracky jaw that could be susceptible to TMJ if I were to do either of the aforementioned things.

This has to be a joke! I wonder if you have to cook the meat, or when you cut open the grapefruit-like fruit, the taste and texture are like cooked beef? Is the juice blood-like? The disturbing thing is, I'd probably give it a try.

Edited to add: Link credit goes to Lauren.

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.

What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Huh? I broke my toe after seeing The Matrix Reloaded, after Amy and I tried to re-enact the scene with Neo and all the Smiths! Maybe every end result of the test is Neo. Take it and tell me what you get!

Uh, today must be quiz day, because I just also took the Geek Quiz. I got "27.0217% - Total Geek."

How will you rank?

Geekish Tendencies
Geek
Total Geek
Major Geek
Super Geek
Extreme Geek
Geek God
Dysfunctional Geek

The dullest blog in the world. How can it be so dull (oh, and it is so very dull!) yet so funny?

This is why I love blogs. You can get Wil Wheaton's reaction to Happy Fun Pundit's "Top Ten Things I Hate about Star Trek." I had some geeky giggles over it too.

I just went to a very interesting panel here at the Computers & Writing conference. The title was "e-Racing Social Conditions: Technology and the (Dis)Appearance of Race and Ableness," and the presenters were from the University of Arizona: Ryan Moeller, Ken McAllister, Tracy Morse, and Sung Ohm. What made it great was the interactivity...they each talked for ten minutes and then put two prompts up on the screen having to do with each presentation. We, the audience, wrote for one minute in response to the prompts, and then we had a discussion about the questions.

Ken McAllister talked about how race and ableness are represented in computer gaming, and his questions were:

• What do computer games teach players about race and ability?
• How can we use computer games to teach students about race and ability?

Tracy Morse talked about her observation of classes consisting of hearing and deaf students. Some students had cochlear implants and used speech recognition technology in the classroom, and others had sign-language interpreters. She said that as more deaf children are mainstreamed in school systems (and 70% of deaf children are), we're going to see more classrooms of hearing and deaf students and as teachers, we need to meet the needs of all our students. Her questions were:

• What does technology do to students?
• What demands does technology make of writing teachers and students?

Sung Ohm's presentation was about racist representations of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). His questions were:

• How do these representations of the Ebonics controversy work to maintain racial ideologies?
• What does AAVE mean to composition teachers, especially with its emphasis on standardized English?

Ryan Moeller presented on techno-racial instrumentalism: in other words, how is the issue of race dealt with online? His questions were:

• How does techno-racial instrumentalism play out in the computer-aided classroom?
• As writing teachers, what activities can we employ that would help our students question the roles afforded identity by technology?

A great discussion followed...but it's time for dinner, so I must go! I'll write more about this later.

Aaaah, yes, there is life after Blogger, and it is wonderful! I'm about to take off for the Computers & Writing conference, but after that I'm going to be doing some mad blogging! Just you wait.