If you haven't taken a look yet, you simply must check out these pictures.

My March cute quotient is now fulfilled.

Everyone knows and loves captchas, the mini turing tests that more and more blog and forums are employing to help curb spam comments. Some are merely annoying while others rely in images so distorted that it is difficult for even someone with perfect vision to decipher.

That is why I found this alternative interesting:

Asirra (Animal Species Image Recognition for Restricting Access) is a HIP that works by asking users to identify photographs of cats and dogs. This task difficult for computers, but our user studies have shown that people can accomplish it quickly and accurately. Many even think it's fun!

The amusing bit is that Asirra was partially inspired by Hot Captcha, where you have to pick the attractive people to get by. (That one keeps telling me I am a bot. I guess my beauty sensors are perpetually impaired as a result of being constantly bathed in the intense light that is The Queen.)

So the other night at dinner, we were having smoothies. The Queen (May She Live Forever) makes these quite often with fresh (bananas) and frozen (strawberries) fruit, lemon juice, yogurt, coconut oil and milk. Tasty, cold and extremely thick. We did have a smoothie crisis earlier in the week as we ran out of straws but Wal-Mart came to the rescue with a brand spanking new bag of smoothing drinking implements. (They taste better through a straw...seriously!)

So, my son grabbed us all a straw and poked one into each cup. We prayed for the meal and I moved my glass closer to me to take a first drink. As I did, I saw a dark object descend from the top of my straw down into the depths of my blended fruit goodness. My initial reaction was to think I was seeing things, but on second thought I decided to investigate further. I pulled the straw out quickly, aimed it over my plate and blew into the non-drinking end. Out came half a straw full of smoothie, accompanied by a dead housefly.

Since this was a brand new package, this fly had obviously been trapped inside the initial package at the factory. I was honored that he decided to make my straw his crypt. Ok, maybe not. Actually, I went and washed my plate, threw away the wretched straw, got a new one (checking first to make sure it was unoccupied) and we got back to the serious business of eating dinner.

If we had only saved it, we could have sued for millions.

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Mark Twain

As far back as I can remember, we always had Legos. When I was young, there was only 4 sizes of bricks but we still managed to build architectural marvels one after another. The Legos of the current generation are even cooler and I'm always game to camp out on the living room floor with the kids and create whatever I feel like from the tubs of colorful interlocking raw materials we possess.

We always shared although if someone was holding a piece it was theirs unless they put it back into the bucket. (If they added it to their pile or creation, it was out of play for the duration.) More than once we would barter to get a needed piece that someone else found first. We built (and destroyed) Lego compositions of every shape, size and possible function...but one thing we never tried to build was Social Justice:

So they first explored with the children the issue of ownership. Not all of the students shared the teachers' anathema to private property ownership. "If I buy it, I own it," one child is quoted saying. The teachers then explored with the students concepts of fairness, equity, power, and other issues over a period of several months.

At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that "All structures are public structures" and "All structures will be standard sizes." The teachers quote the children:

"A house is good because it is a community house."

"We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes."

"It's important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building."

Perhaps their next project should be a shrugging giant with the earth on his back.

I spent a few days last week running sound for a pastor's conference. It is interesting being in a room full of pastors, and plenty of stereotypical traits were well represented. The thing I found most astounding is the number of times that cell phones interrupted the conference. I figured that pastors would be more sensitive than most about how distracting and frustrating that particular interruption is to a speaker and be more likely to have their phones off.

I was obviously mistaken.

Along the same lines, I was in a training seminar on Friday and someone's phone went off. The person stayed in their seat and took the call. To their credit, they did speak quietly, but this was a small room with a speaker and 8 attendees.

I still don't have a cell phone. Every once in a while, I think it might be a nice thing to have (like when I need to make an important call)...but mostly I just find them annoying. It is ok to be unreachable sometimes; hasn't killed me yet.

While exploring The Electrics and all things Scottish, a found a pretty cool T-Shirt shop at got-kilt.com: Makes me want a kilt just so I can wear the shirt.

A friend lent me a cd he thought I would enjoy, and enjoy it I did. The Electrics are a Scottish band that play a unique and catchy blend of highland and rock. Combine that with their amusing but God focused lyrics, and you've got a winner - at least in my book (as long as you can handle a little accordion and fiddle).

Plus they perform in kilts and Chuck Taylors!