VINDICATION!!!

in other news..

Pyzy

So far, the Duck's summer plans are as follows:

1) Undergo wisdom-teeth-removal surgery
2) Learn French
3) Translate things!!! (happy dance)

Alas, this still leaves a lot of spare time just begging to be killed. The Duck spent her first two weeks of spare time at home sitting on her tail feathers playing random Net games and/or whining about how the weather is better in Iceland. But not any more. She has made a list, otherwise known as the Blue Duck Summer Plot list, of some of the ways she intends to kill her summer. Suggestions are VERY welcome.

Here goes:

1) Learn Nuuchahnulth
2) And the Hungarian Bottle-on-Head Dance
3) And how to write Cyrillic
4) Take a ride on the Prairie Dog Express
5) Go to B.C. and/or Komarno, Manitoba (home of the World's Largest Mosquito!)
6) Take lots of pictures
7) Organize existing pictures
8) Finish lopi sweater (ha ha)
9) Stop eating unhealthy sugar that is turning Little Blue into Not-So-Little Blue and spend rest of live on diet of lettuce and alfalfa sprouts (ha HA HAHA)

And for anyone still reading, Little Blue Duck will reward you with the Ultimate Hangman/Scrabble Word:
Yes.. Pyzy! Which seems to mean Polish potato dumplings, according to the package Little Blue and her duck-sister-in-crime found in an Italian store discount bin. Bah, who cares what it means - it's just such a beautiful word! Alas, it is also completely unpronouncable word (unless of course one is Polish and thus desensitized to unpronouncability), which is probably why Duck's sister duck has taken to calling it peawhyzedwhy when she speaks of it.

Ack ack!

Duck has too much free time on hands! Duck needs help!

Ack!

The Duck is attacked by strangely addictive webgames!

Home, Sweet Home!

After a Tragic Incident of Epic Proportions erased Little Blue Duck's humourous - long live Canadian u-hyperinsertion! - tale of being stalked by Halldór Ásmundsson, and after the black period of mourning which followed close behind, she has resumed blogging.

She is now safe and soundly back at home again for the summer. Being a duck, this thrills her to no end as she seems to have arrived smack in the middle of Monsoon Season. If she were not a duck, and thus endlessly fond of water, she would probably be a little bit depressed, but of course she likes water - why else would she move to a country whose very name implies H2O? And WOW - as she was typing the weather has suddenly turned from Monsoon Rain to Sunny Side. And now, because she got distracted for a minute, the rains have started again... She should have quit while she was ahead.

Mosquito Count: Huston, we have rain. Oh wait -
Local Headlines: 62 Concrete Polar Bears on Display Downtown (see your 24-page guide inside)

history is fun

Once upon a time in a faraway land there lived a Queen. She ruled a vast empire on which the sun never set - well, it did set, but not on all of it all at once, just some of it some of the time, barring radical planetary realignment and/or sinister government cover-up conspiracy - and spent her days looking regal, having things named after herself and being Not Amused.

Because of this, on the first Monday before May 25th, Canadians get the day off. She was in fact born on May 24th, when the big party used to be held, but this meant that the celebrations would sometimes land on a week-end. Honest, hard-working Canadians were thus frequently cheated out of a holiday. This was not a good thing. So a law was passed in the land, that instead of taking off Queen Victoria's birthday, Canadians would take off the closest possible date that still guaranteed a three-day trip to the cottage.

And everyone lived happily ever after all long weekend.

THE END.

mosquito count: 1
maple sugar levels: high

Happy Victoria Day!!

Quote of the Day

"To avoid suffocation keep away from children"
- Marks & Spencer grocery bag

This one really quacked the Duck up. For no terribly good reason.

Éeeeeg er frjáls!

Today, Little Blue Duck finished her very last exam!!!!!!!!!!!

Although hopefully you can't see it, she's doing a happy dance right now to the tune of the song stuck irritatingly in her head (for those of you who thought Bananaphone was dangerously catchy... you have yet to hear this one).

(text: ég er frjáls, ég er frjáls, dumdumdumsomethingdum ég er frjáls..)

Although she no longer has homework to avoid, she has not yet broken with her internet addiction - she has just found a particularly addicting game to share with her fellow addicts called Muumipappa kalassa (Moomin Daddy goes fishing or something?) She would tell you more, but it's all in Finnish!
anybody out there speak finnish?? Hyvää päivää??

Muumipappa goes fishing!
http://www.edome.net/muumi/

Mumintrolls, the soft drink!
http://www.koff.fi/en/products/soft_drinks/muumi.html

Learn Finnish - you know you want to!
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/Finnish.html

105 Ways not to do Homework

(a.k.a. What is Somalia doing THERE!?!)

Jæja, Duck's final exam of the year is coming up - and to celebrate the prospect of an entire summer of not doing her homework she has prepared a very special edition in her series examining the lengths to which some birds will go not to put beak to page. Jæja.

This one's called: Fun with Geography. Find Nigeria! Name that island! Memorize your world! A truly educational way to waste your time...

Test your Geography Knowledge: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/ Gives three chances and tells you where you went wrong; with this game it's impossible to have a negative score even if you don't know Australia from Greenland. Not only that, press help and you'll get a well-labeled map for smooth, game-integrated cheating. The Duck tried Oceania and got 40/96. Try your hand at the municipal districts of China!

Everyone should know! http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/geography.asp This one gave Blue Duck 90% on the European capitals quiz on her second try, but it isn't possible to skip to the next capital if you get stuck on, say, Ouagadougou, and so it gets very tedious after a while.

NOTE: For those of you who scoff at the importance of knowing where Ouagadougou fits into the world, listen to a word of friendly advice: You never know when a time may come when you are called upon to answer this very question, so the answer is much more vital than you think. In fact, as one who has learned the hard and bitter way, if Little Blue Duck could say just one thing to the world, it would be know the capital of Burkina Faso.

And finally, for all of you still hanging in there, there is a tricksy and false little set of flash games at Educational Games: games.crossmap.com/category/educational.htm. What exactly is so tricksy about them? The potential for negative scores, among other things - such as the random appearance of Einstein in a biplane attempting to obscure your view. Be on your guard at all times!

Little Blue's Results
Canada: 120/120 (though in this game, P.E.I. has been abducted by aliens and some imposter calling itself Nanavut is hanging out up north)
United States: 0 (after much nail-biting - now how's THAT for a classy result?)
Africa: -525 (with the persistence of an Energizer bunny and some heavy cheating after hitting the -700 mark.. a sad social commentary, or Duck's stubborn insistance that Somalia should be more in the middle?)

Jæja, Góða Skemmtun!

the history of iceland in a nutshell

Recently, Little Blue Duck was ganged up upon by a band of ruthless exams who beat her black and.. well, blue... and then ran away giggling maliciously into the distance. Actually, she has not yet seen the last of this particular mafia - in fact, she will be meeting a rather notorious thug called "Iceland in the 2öth Century" 9 a.m. tomorrow morning - but she feels a certain sense of calm about it. As you can see, Little Blue Duck has really done her homework on this one and is confident of her ultimate victory over the oppression of history.

This one goes out to all the history nuts out there:

The History of Iceland in a Nutshell
by Little Blue Duck

1) 874-1261: There were Vikings.
2) 1262-present There were not Vikings.

CAUTION: unauthorized use of this material for study purposes is strongly discouraged