I like this one. It’s a story of finding the fittest M&M in a package. Yes, Darwin applied to a popular candy.

Eat the M&Ms in the bag and see which color remains. Obviously that one is the fittest to survive.

It makes me wonder, though… what else can you apply this to? Skittles are just too obvious. Could you find a trait in raisins that makes a particular type tend to be the last in a package? What about rice? We may as well start improving all our foods.

Wait a minute…

Come to think of it, bad idea. I don’t want my food resisting being eaten that much.

Some of my fondest childhood memories of camping were in my grandparent’s trailer. Camping in a tent was fun, but the trailer had just the neatest places for kids to sleep. My sisters and I would argue about who got to sleep in the cabinet over the big bed each night.

Motorhomes and RVs have grown more complex since that time. As a matter of fact, I don’t see a lot of trailers like my grandparents had anymore; toy haulers, certainly, but motorhomes are much more popular now.

I was slightly surprised to find out about RV and American Motorhome Dealers in the UK. Only slightly, because I really hadn’t given it much thought. No, I did not expect them to be just an American phenomenon or anything; it was just not a topic I’d considered in the past, and so was caught a bit off guard.

One of the interesting things they do is in their FAQ section. Rather than have a plain text FAQ, it’s done in video. I learned that RVs started getting imported to the UK in the late 70s, for example, although they had been produced in the US since the 50s or so. It’s really a neat way to do a FAQ, although I’m not so sure I like how it goes straight into the next question as each completes. You can choose which to start, but I would think the running through all of them could be a minor annoyance for some.

Just wandered on over to Amazon.com and saw that they have a count for how many people have ordered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from them. Up to 688,330 so far. They also have a list of the top 100 Harry-est towns, those being the ones which have ordered the most copies.

Now I haven’t preordered my copy. Why not?

I do enjoy the series. But I only own a copy of the first book. I just very, very rarely have the money to spare for books these days, despite being a voracious reader. I haven’t even read all of them yet, despite really enjoying those which I have managed to borrow.

But I do enjoy watching the excitement build. I know one of my sisters is likely to be one of those 688,330 preorders - she’s done it before, and I expect she will again. The fact that you can preorder online makes me wonder about the crowds who insist upon lining up outside the stores for these things. So much easier to have it delivered to your home on the release date than to worry about how many hours you’re going to be standing in line and will the store be sold out already?

Technorati Tags: harry potter and the deathly hallows, books, preorders, j. k. rowling

After all the years of rents going up, in many areas they are actually dropping, due to the lack of demand for all the condos that had been built. There are exceptions, of course, as some cities still have a high demand for housing, but it is becoming more and more possible to find cheaper rents.

That condo demand has gone belly up does not surprise me. I just have to look at how many of the apartment complexes my husband and I looked at the last time we moved, and see how many of them are now condos. It’s quite a number of them. The trend to turn apartments into condos was huge, and paid off well for a time.

But now that the housing market is down, all these condos are going unsold, and so the building owners need to rent them to get some money coming in. That works to bring the prices down.

Technorati Tags: rents, rent, renting, apartments, condos, housing

What is it about doing laundry that does strange things to clothing? I’m not just talking about red leaking into the load of whites, turning all random shades of pink, disappering socks and such. I’m talking about random changes in the clothing.

Such as my husband’s bathrobe.

I bought it for him as a gift, and it had been washed a few times. Not often; he doesn’t wear it all that often or for long when he does. No problems, no color leakage, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Who gets the neat prizes? Well now, that depends. Does your name get drawn as a semifinalist? Can you convince people to vote for you so that you get the prize? That will determine WhoGets it.

I think it’s a really neat concept. The prizes go from little, $10 or so in value prizes up to $600 value. You join for free and decide which prizes interest you. Enter the sweepstakes, hope that your name is chosen as a semifinalist, and if you’re picked, write up why you should win and try to get votes. That’s how it works in a nutshell.

The most fun for people not yet playing, of course, is seeing what’s available to win. Then you can take a look and vote for who should win, if you like.

All in all, it sounds like a lot of fun to me. If you don’t see anything that appeals right now, you can just check back until something you like does appear.