So I found a great source of graphs that shows the problems the US is going to have economically in the near future. It helps to pinpoint the problems to the bush administration and their blatant overspending mostly due to the war effort.
The more I write here, the more I want to write here. It’s a good escape from the drudgery of my daily work. It’s also a challenge, can I find something new and interesting enough to post about every day? Can I find something good yet hold off on posting it until tomorrow? How long can I keep posting daily and have no one comment? These are all great questions, but not having the answers just makes me want to try harder.
The teachers here only have 2 days to work this week before we are on the second 1/2 of our spring break. Hopefully I’ll find a job over this one. At the very least, I want to get something content oriented for Gateway Games. If you’d like me to write about something, please let me know. Who knows when I’ll run out of ideas or be unable to find some qwerky news about Russia to entertain the masses.
I’m not really sure in which direction I should take this blog. I could do what everyone else does and make it a personal blog, but besides acting like a diary, I ‘m not sure people will come back. I could post news that I find here, but I don’t want to be one of the thousand blogs that post and repost each others’ news to oblivion. Speaking of which, soon I’ll have a post tracking tech blogs and how they don’t actually have much unique information, and its quite a headache to sort out duplicates of news articles from different sources. Until then, enjoy the (double) daily goodness.
As of this moment, I have graded exactly 1 midterm of the 40 some odd I need to have done by tomorrow. I might take some home, I might come in early tomorrow, or I might leave it until late tomorrow like I always do. It gets done, everyone is happy.
In the meantime, I’ve been stumbling across the internets and found 2 websites which I wanted to bring to your attention. The first is 245 countries in 10 minutes. It starts right when its done loading, so start typing right away, no abbreviations. I know they say most Americans don’t know jack about world geography, I tend to agree but I want to test this theory. Please comment on how many countries you got. Anything under 100 in ten minutes is shameful.
The other website is about the top 12 awesomest games of 2010. Yes, 2010 isn’t around yet, but the games and images shown here are amazing, and most of the game concepts are sound and I’d love to play almost all of them!
Update: For the curious, I got over 150 in ten minutes.
The United Arab Emirates gets all the cool things. Them and Qatar. How do I know? Well, the only English speaking channel I get here in Vladimir is BBC World. The commercials are almost exclusively travel advertisements to go to India(and a thousand territories within…), Turkey(welcome home?), Malaysia(truly Asia!) or UAE/Qatar. The UAE has, by far, the best commercials. And they only cater to the rich and powerful. Its no wonder I’m looking for work in that region of the world.
Today I find out the UAE will be building the Louvre II. Yes, they will be building a satellite museum as part of the original in Paris, France. They are also building a Guggenheim museum thing too. When I find a job there, you should come visit me.
[-Via Gadling]
I haven’t actually gone to the theatre recently. But I did find some interesting news about them. Alexandrinsky theater in St. Petersburg, Russia’s oldest theatre, has installed a cellphone network block device. No phone will get reception inside, stopping russians from answering their phones during a performance. Who would do that? Well, its not very common in the US, and most people leave the theatre before answering. In Russia, on the other hand, people aren’t against having a 20 minute conversation in the seat during the performance. This goes for movie theaters too. Not to mention classrooms…
Speaking of theaters, Russia has quite a novel way to sell tickets. Assigned seating. This makes for graduated pricing and lets you arrive late and still have the exact seat you purchased waiting for you. Movie theaters in the US could learn something from the Russians. Would you go to the movies more often if you could get cheap 2$ tickets up front, or 3$ tickets against the wall? I know I stopped going when prices topped 7$ a movie.
[Reuters]
Bob G is a travelling, professional ESL teacher. He writes about his ESL experiences, and experiences living abroad. You can find him in Moscow.
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