7 Things We Learned This Week 7 of 2011 (books, cats, TV)

Left Neglect

Left Neglect is a kind of brain injury where the person can't see anything on the left side of a page, or the left of the room, or the left of their plate or even know what left of their body is. It's like they do not have a left side at all! I learned about this when reading Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. It's a great read, funny, touching and educational! Both Gerard and I liked this one! Here's a video of the author discussing a little about the book. (Part 1 of 3 is on our book blog with our review, this is part 2):

Snow Boarding

When reading Left Neglected I also learned something about snowboarding that I didn't know! In the book, Sarah, the one with Left Neglect used to ski but she didn't feel like she could so learned snowboarding. To turn left on a snowboard, you lean forward up on your toes and to turn right, you lean pretend to sit down back on your heels.

book reviews

According to our poll at Grab A Book From Our Stack, most people prefer book reviews that are short and to the point and that focus more on the reader's thoughts about the book rather than a summary of the book. I will try to keep this in mind and try to modify mine but Gerard already does his this way.

Birdjam

Birdjam is a wonderful site to hear bird noises. You can actually choose the type bird you want to hear. A sure way to get your cats to come! I found out about this from Freaky Frugalite's post How To Drive Your Cat Crazy--Bird Radio.

DVR

I was really looking forward to seeing Survivor: Redemption Island this week and assumed that my DVR would tape it since I had it set to tape "Survivor" last season. Oops--should NOT have assumed. Apparently, it goes by strictly by the title of the show and this season it's called "Survivor Redemption Island." (click the link to go see the episode) Fortunately, I was able to watch it on my computer. I have reset my DVR though.

Finally-All Free Clip Art!

I finally found free clip art where all I do is right click, save as and boom. I can use it! Quick easy searching for what I want there too. I got this snowboard one above in just two minutes! That's more like it! I found it at www.alfy.com.

Computers Can Now Think!

I watched Jeopardy this week to see Watson, the computer designed by IBM play against past Jeopardy champions--the best! It was amazing to see the computer crush them. It was like a robot. I found it fascinating that Watson could actually "think." There was more involved than just searching a database--it had to understand the answer to get the right question and it didn't take long at all! Watson was QUICK!

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