January 23, 2009

Iambic Tetrameter

Beloved American author and illustrator, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to most as Dr. Seuss, has become part of our household's bedtime ritual. I’ll be honest, I enjoy his work. It’s fun to read his sing-songy poetry aloud. Geisel, by the way, pronounced it “Soice”; rhymes with “voice”. His father and father’s father were both Massachusetts brewmansters and young Theodore really, truly, liked to drink. He likes to drink, and drink, and drink. The thing he likes to drink is ink. The ink he likes to drink is pink. He likes to wink and drink pink ink…and beer. He wrote 51 books under the Dr. Seuss pen name. 13 more as Theo LeSieg (Geisel spelled backwards) and 1 as Rosetta Stone.

Arguably, his most famous literary accomplishment is, The Cat In The Hat. According to lore, after the 236 word text became a hit 1956, Random House publisher, and co-founder, Bennett Cerf (rhymes with smurf) bet the good Dr. that he could not produce a book using only 50 words. Geisel won the $50 bet with…Green Eggs and Ham.

Who can recall those 50 words? I, would not, could not, recall all 50 words. Not in a house. Not in a box. Not with a mouse. Not with a fox. I tried for the better part of my work day, in fact. I did get close though. Could you, would you, attempt to name all 50 words? Give it a whirl and then let me know how you did. I’ll even give you a hint: only a single word in the entire story has more than one syllable.

If you can’t do it, and it’s driving you crazy like it did me, here is the list. Try not to cheat. And if you think you really know your Seuss, here is an actual timed test that gives you 10 minutes to complete the task. Try it and you may I say!

January 12, 2009

Year Of The Ox

Happy New Year everybody! It’s been a while, I know, but the holidays were a busy time for our household. What’s new, right? We did have a wonderful Christmas though. Hope you and yours were filled with the spirit and enjoyed your own festivities as much as we did ours.

So what is new for 2009 here at HQ? Well, as if we don’t already have enough gadgets to plug in and maintain (cell phones, iPods, Leapsters, breast pumps, etc.) the Mrs. and I have allowed a couple new electronic strangers into our home to eavesdrop on our “media exposure”. That’s right, we were asked to be Arbitron…um, Subjects? Guinea pigs? Suckers? I’m not sure, but they’re going to monitor every second of our waking life with a newfangled gizmo called The Portable People Meter.

Arbitron has been spying on American radio listeners since 1949. Until now, they relied on hand written diaries each participant mailed to them every week for a year. But that all changed with the introduction of the PPM; the “next generation of electronic ratings.” It’s a pager sized device that we, for some reason, agreed to actually wear on our person throughout the day. The rep on the phone last night said “we know when it’s on you and we know when it’s not.” That was a little freaky, but I was still interested. Apparently, radio stations embed sonic code within their broadcasts that come out of your speakers, along with the regular audio programming, but are undetectable by the human ear. It’s like a radio dog whistle. Scientists call it "psychoacoustic masking." Arbitron calls it money in the bank.

These little bits of code are not limited to radio either. Arbitron will know when I'm watching broadcast television, HD Cable, TiVo, MPEG video, even streaming Internet radio and Podcasts. They will know the sounds I’m exposed to in the elevator, the football game and the produce isle of my grocery store. It’s kind of neat. Unfortunately, I can’t get detailed info on my unique media exposure, but that’s something Arbitron is “working on”. They do compensate a little for the time too. I don’t recall exactly, but it like $10 for signing on, $20 for plugging it in and, depending on how much you wear the thing, they send cash money - up to $109 a month each. Not bad, I say.

Oh, and if in the near future you start seeing a whole lot more House Hunters International, Classic Albums and The Backyardigans on your tube, sorry ‘bout that. At least the music in the elevator might be a lot better.