AArisings Blog

Sorry for the lack of updates.  Been on vacation, dealing with sick kids, sick wife, and trying not to get sick myself.  Things settling down again, I think.  Thanks.

Anybody have a resource for finding old books?  I’m looking for a book referenced in “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles” (which I’m currently reading and will have review on AArisings soon).  The book is called “Practical English for People Working in Chinese Restaurant” by Yuan Dai.  Got a few Google hits but nothing from anybody that has the book in stock.

A few nights ago my 4 year old son wanted to play on the computer so he started up the laptop and I opened up the browser and sent him off to the PBS Kids site (www.pbskids.org for those curious). He went to the “Super Why!” section of the site since he enjoys that program. “Super Why!” is a show that is about superheroes who go into classic fairytale stories and go on spelling and reading adventures. Anyway, one of the online games allows you to create your own superhero but you need to pass spelling challenges in order to get costume options. They start off with easy 3 letter words and work their way up to 6 letter words in the later rounds and you select the letters from a pool of 6 letters in random order to fill in the blanks. They give you hints by telling you what the letter sounds like.

So, my son is playing this and I’m sitting next to him working on my desktop computer. He’s doing pretty well and he gets to a 6 letter word. The first two letters in this six letter word are I and N and the game is telling him that the third letter sounds like “seh” so he clicks on the letter he thinks it should be and it tells him that is the wrong letter and to try again. He gets a bit frustrated and asks for my help. I turn to the laptop screen and to my disbelief this is what I see on the screen.

Of course, it turns out that the word isn’t quite what you may initially think it is from seeing what is on the screen and after my 30 seconds of disbelief, I figured out what it should be (but took a photo just because people wouldn’t believe me without the supporting photo).

Here’s what the word actually was after we figured out what letter that sounds like “seh” was supposed to be in the third spot .

(Yes, I have informed the PBS Kids people about word possibly causing some raised eyebrows - at the very least - if not complaints)

I’ve just posted the A-Profiler interview with Dani Miura an actress, model, vocalist who may look younger than she is but has veteran experience in the entertainment world. Perhaps most recognizable as her role as young girl on Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator, she also is working on her current album which she hopes to release at the end of 2008. Find out how she got started, if her young look has hindered her, and how she has managed to overcome anorexia. 

http://www.aarising.com/aprofiler/danimiura.htm