Yeah, yeah, I know… long timey no typey. Well if you must pry, I have been failing miserably at passing a kidney stone and succeeding victoriously at finishing up our online store (should be up by the end of the week?) and putting together XMas 3: The War on Christmas (more on that soon).

ANYWAY…

Now on to the reason I brought you all here today… A while back I heard rumblings of a laptop being developed that could be hand cranked for power and be sold to developing countries for under $200 a piece to get them in the hands of poor kids. What do poor kids need with laptops you say? Well sure, food and clothes are good but the only way to truly help impoverished nations is to help educate the children so that they can create a better future for the entire country (and in turn, the world). The laptops can be loaded with a thousand or so books and when they are in proximity to one another they create an automatic network - meaning that if each kid in a village had a different collection of books on their laptop it would be a virtual library for a place that may otherwise have never gotten books other than the Bible (shudder).

When the project was announed it was said that they would never be available in the States because they didnt want to have all of the stock going to people who could afford a standard computer. However this morning as I was eating my Vanilla & Almond Special K (or my lady cereal as I call it) I caught a story on CNN about a special promo where for the next two weeks you can buy two of them for $399 and one will be sent to a third world child in need and the other will be sent to you. Not only do you get to help kids AND get a kickass looking little computer that can be powered up in a blackout or whatnot (mmm… apocalypse laptop) but $200 of the cost is also tax deductable as a charitable donation (if any of you are into that paying taxes thing - I kid, I kid).

If you are interested click HERE to check out more info on the computer, the Give One Get One program and purchasing.

Look at how pumped those kids are? Seriously, don’t you want to make kids that pumped? I thought so…

Posted by ryan on 14 Nov 2007 at 01:01 pm

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The ongoing debate over whether or not children are lemons has escalated in recent days. Ronald Marquez of Phoenix, Arizona, firmly entrenched in the “children are lemons” camp died because of his beliefs. Local Arizona news stations reported yesterday that police found Marquez “allegedly performing [an] exorcism” on his 3-year-old granddaughter, and had to taser him to get him to stop choking the girl. The taser attack proved fatal. Police believe it was an exorcism because the little girl’s mother was “naked and clutching a religious icon and was covered in blood,” though honestly I think that’s circumstantial at best. The truth, I’m afraid, may be much more lemony.

Did Marquez believe his granddaughter was a lemon? Investigators claim that Marquez was “trying to squeeze or extract demons from the child,” which is even more worrying if you consider the likely possibility that the “d” in “demons” is an unfortunate typo.

And what of these police that resorted to lethal force to end the toddler-juicing? I think it’s clear that they were believers in the Not Lemons Doctrine, likely bolstered by recent Youtube videos claiming to prove that children and lemons are incompatible.

Will we ever know the truth? No. Maybe. I don’t know.

Posted by Mat on 30 Jul 2007 at 04:22 pm

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