Games people play

Had an opportunity to play with Conectaballs (r) the other night.

These are stretchable strings with 8 wooden balls each.

Two or more strings combined together will let you form this or that shape. 

Oh, they can grow pretty huge being connected as series of shapes. 

Natural wood is smooth to touch, addictive like praying beads.

Some adults will find coloured version more attractive, this is a matter of taste.

For young kids coloured version will be easier because you can get prompts from assembled coloured 3D shapes. 

This brain teaser may keep one engaged for hours but at the same time you can get a simple result pretty fast. Possibilities seem to be endless, as your imagination could be miraculously awaken.

It's a versatile game adaptable for early childhood development and for high school mathematics education.

Could be used for theoretical mathematics and stereo-metrical reasoning development: how many 8-ball strings are needed to assemble a 5-beam star? And how about a square pyramid with four beads on the side? How about a cube?

But just playing with the strings of balls without reasoning will work too! 

Very suitable for adult pass time. Trust me, one can be childfree and have fun with the game (yeah, you don't need kids to get kicks out of this puzzle). You can chat and drink with your friends and manipulate Conectaballs creating a new shape at the same time.

What is next? I hope next version will come with a stack of cards with pictures of the assembled shapes, marked with levels of complexity. It's real fun to create outside of the box, people like to say.  For me it's fun to see the target and know that I am advancing to the next game level.

But – bummer! - this item is not sold in any store: nor Amazon neither ToysRUs. Not even in  Learning Express Toys...

This can be changed and you are in control: support Conectaballs @ Kickstarter and wait for  your rewards (they ship internationally) as you help this wonderful product to make it to the stores. Imagine happy people buying Conectaballs for their kids, nephews and nieces, friends, ageing parents and themselves. 

 

Why would you do such a disservice to yourself and eat processed foods? There are few explanations:
=== lack of awareness ===
=== lack of education ===
=== lack of resources: funds & time ===
=== lack of energy ===

Ask me about you favourite processed food and I will tell you  why you don't want it any more (awareness) - how to substitute it with nutritious and healthy food cooked from raw products (education) - how to find either money or time (resources). If you start treating yourself better, you'll replenish the lacking energy.

Buy a number of raw products that do not require time, just the money. Start with brown sugar:

India Tree Dark Muscovado Sugar, 2.8-Pound Jars (have no idea but planning to try it out)

My favourite  La Perruche Brown Sugar Cubes, 500g (1.1lb)

Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields,
Sold in a market down in new orleans.
Scarred old slaver know he's doin alright.
Hear him whip the women just around midnight.
Ah brown sugar how come you taste so good
(a-ha) brown sugar, just like a young girl should
A-huh.

Drums beating, cold english blood runs hot,
Lady of the house wondrin where it's gonna stop.
House boy knows that he's doin alright.
You should a heard him just around midnight.
Ah brown sugar how come you taste so good
(a-ha) brown sugar, just like a black girl should
A-huh.

I bet your mama was a tent show queen, and all her boy
Friends were sweet sixteen.
Im no schoolboy but I know what I like,
You should have heard me just around midnight.

Ah brown sugar how come you taste so good
(a-ha) brown sugar, just like a young girl should.

I said yeah, I said yeah, I said yeah, I said
Oh just like a, just like a black girl should.

I said yeah, I said yeah, I said yeah, I said
Oh just like, just like a black girl should.

(Rolling Stones)

Sex ed

Why I has such a hard time getting thru this NY Times article? Isn't sex an entertaining and engaging subject?

Teaching Good Sex By LAURIE ABRAHAM, November 16, 2011

This is how it ends
“If you’re gonna have pizza with someone else, what do you have to do?” he continued. “You gotta talk about what you want. Even if you’re going to have the same pizza you always have, you say, ‘We getting the usual?’ Just a check in. And square, round, thick, thin, stuffed crust, pepperoni, stromboli, pineapple — none of those are wrong; variety in the pizza model doesn’t come with judgment,” Vernacchio hurried on. “So ideally when the pizza arrives, it smells good, looks good, it’s mouthwatering. Wouldn’t it be great if we had that kind of anticipation before sexual activity, if it stimulated all our senses, not just our genitals but this whole-body experience.” By this time, he was really moving fast; he’d had to cram his pizza metaphor into the last five minutes. “And what’s the goal of eating pizza? To be full, to be satisfied. That might be different for different people; it might be different for you on different occasions. Nobody’s like ‘You failed, you didn’t eat the whole pizza.’

and this is how it starts
“Grand slam,” called out a boy (who’d later tell me with disarming matter-of-factness that “the one thing Mr. V. talked about that made me feel really good was that penis size doesn’t matter”).

“Now, ‘grand slam’ has a bunch of different meanings,” replied Vernacchio, who has a master’s degree in human sexuality. “Some people say it’s an orgy, some people say grand slam is a one-night stand. Other stuff?”

“Grass,” a girl, a cheerleader, offered.

“If there’s grass on the field, play ball, right, right,” Vernacchio agreed, “which is interesting in this rather hair-phobic society where a lot of people are shaving their pubic hair — ”

“You know there’s grass, and then it got mowed, a landing strip,” one boy deadpanned, instigating a round of laughter. While these kids will sit poker-faced as Vernacchio expounds on quite graphic matters, class discussions are a spirited call and response, punctuated with guffaws, jokey patter and whispered asides, which Vernacchio tolerates, to a point.

Vernacchio explained that sex as baseball implies that it’s a game; that one party is the aggressor (almost always the boy), while the other is defending herself; that there is a strict order of play, and you can’t stop until you finish. “If you’re playing baseball,” he elaborated, “you can’t just say, ‘I’m really happy at second base.’ ”

OMG