The “Whirly-wind” explained

This weekend, while florence and I visited her (our) friends Sharon and Brad (and their lovely kids), I played around some with their Whirly-Wind. By the Whirly-Wind I mean the tube thing that you spin around and it makes that howling noise. I only call it a Whirly-Wind, because that’s what the Weakerthans call it in their liner notes.

Which brings me to the Weakerthans song that I mentioned to Brad at some point this weekend. It’s called “Elegy for Elsabit”, and is on their Left and Leaving album.

While searching online for what to call the “Whirly-Wind”, I discovered this lovely explanation for how the Whirly works. Enjoy!

Prince Caspian life captions

I am re-reading Prince Caspian, (second in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series), before the movie opens this weekend. (We actually have sneak-preview tickets for Thursday.)

This morning on the bus, a cute girl sitting next to me asked me if I was re-reading it before the movie, and I acknowledged that yes, I hadn’t read it since high school. We exchanged a few more words before she then got off the bus.

But it occurred to me after that I was almost embarrassed admitting that I was reading it. I actually thought the girl was cuter before she said “It’s so good.” because it immediately made me wonder if the girl was into the books because she’s some religious nutjob.

This is, oddly enough, my fifth time experiencing this book. It was read to me when I was a kid, before I could read, and also happens to be one of the first things I read on my own, around preschool, I believe. I read it again sometime around fifth or sixth grade, and again in high school (when I HATED it because I couldn’t look past all the christian allegories). I actually may have only read the first book that last time, which would make this only my fourth reading of Prince Caspian. I can’t quite remember.

Apparently Prince Caspian in the movie is played by Ben Barnes, who is or was in a boy band called Hyrise.

Here is an interesting review/explaination of the book Planet Narnia’s take on Prince Caspian. Planet Narnia is a book written with the premise that each of the narnia books is about a different planet in our solar system.