There are a lot of things that delight me.
I am delighted much of the time.
While lots of people blog about things that dismay them (and many of those things also dismay me), I thought I would enjoy noting down some of the things that delight me.
Here are some of the sites I'm visiting the most this month:
Kwiziq Spanish and Kwiziq French
I don't do a lot of the quizzes (although I could be doing more than I am, I should do that), but I find the grammar explanations and the example sentences really helpful. Some sites have example sentences that seem like things that no one would ever say, or that don't really illustrate the grammar point very well; Kwiziq does a really good job here.
I came across this great comment by dutchrick over at MetaFilter recently:
I was watching one of my favorite Explore webcams, the Africam Tau cam, when I saw these amazing tall white birds with long, thick, yellow beaks.
They reminded me of Garfield Goose.
Board Game Geek is a website, database, and forum covering "not only board games but also dice games, card games, tile-laying games, and games of dexterity." It's a remarkable achievement - impressively thorough and detailed. Each game lists facts about the game - how many players, average playing time, age range, game designer and other credits, alternate versions and expansion options - along with community input including ratings, comments, and player reviews, both written and video. There are extensive photo galleries, which are wonderful ways to get a sense of each game.
Over on MetaFilter, beagle posted an appreciation of languagehat's blog, which has been running since 2002; beagle notes that there have been "posts on a daily basis virtually all of those twenty years."
languagehat is one of my favorite members of MetaFilter, and I am always happy to see his name appear as I'm reading threads there.
Somehow I completely failed to know that he had a blog.
It is, unsurprisingly, wonderful.
I was never all that interested in space as a kid. I enjoyed reading The Martian Chronicles and some other sci fi classics, but I was barely aware of NASA or the science of space exploration.
That all changed for me on the Fourth of July, 1997, when I watched the Mars Pathfinder land on the red planet.
I've been so lucky to see oystercatchers lately.
They're some of my favorite birds. They're about the size of a seagull, with black bodies, Silly Putty colored feet, and bright red tube-shaped beaks.
They can be incredibly difficult to see against the dark rocks where they feed. Fortunately, they often cry out just before they take flight. By following the sound, I can often spot them just before they leave their current rock for a different one.
I spent $26 at Goodwill this afternoon, and I feel great.
I love shopping at Goodwill. It makes me feel lucky, and smart, and frugal.
I passed Goodwill as I was walking home from the library. I'd been thinking about getting some new (well, new to me) jeans and a sweatshirt or two if I could find one, so I thought I'd go in to see what they had.
What they had was a sale. Every single piece of clothing in the store was just $2.
A post on Metafilter about the Tokyo National Museum inspired me to visit museum web sites on Mondays and write about them. I am repeatedly awed by the wealth of beautiful images and edifying information provided by museums around the world, and I hope this project will spur me to visit explore the web sites and learn new things.