Feet of Clay

Beloit College has issued their Class of 2004 Mindset List. This is a list for faculty and staff to keep in mind when considering the knowledge of the freshmen that are now roaming our college campuses. The list is pretty entertaining, I've posted a few of my favorites below:

Somebody named George Bush has been on every national ticket, except one, since they were born.

The year they were born, AIDS was found to have killed 164 people; finding a cure for the new disease was designated a "top priority" for government-sponsored research.

"Coming out" parties celebrate more than debutantes.

If they vaguely remember the night the Berlin Wall fell, they are probably not sure why it was up in the first place.

Look out for yellow bottlecaps! I'm trying to earn a copy of The Sims by collecting Pepsi product bottlecaps. The caps have a code on them that you can enter over at Pepsistuff.com in exchange for points towards stuff. Each cap is worth 100 points, and I need 9,900 points to get the game that I want, so if you're not going to participate, and want to send me your code, I'll be very grateful! I added a stat over to the left that'll track how many I've accumulated so far. Okay, so this isn't exactly exciting, but I thought the contest was cool because you don't have to send anything in, you do it all via the web! Jeremy thinks I'm nuts to go through so much work to get a computer game, but I raid the recycle can every time I go by it, so I'm hoping to have enough points in a couple of weeks...

If you've never read anything by Terry Pratchett, do so. I finished Feet of Clay last night, and I enjoyed it immensely. If you liked The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, or anything else by Douglas Adams, then you'll love Pratchett. Pratchett weaves marvelously complex plots, in the insane fantasy Discworld, with humor so funny you'll find yourself giggling the whole time your reading. Feet of Clay returns us (once again) to the city of Ankh-Morpork, where two murders have been committed, and it's up to the City Watch (made up of humans, trolls, dwarves, and a werewolf) to find out whodunit. While all of Pratchett's Discworld novels take place in the same world, there's no "proper" order to read them in. Next time you're faced with a long layover, take one of these books with you, just try not to giggle too loudly.