Spell It: Awesome

Three reasons why the Speak & Spell rocked:

1) It talked.

2) You could play Hangman on it.

3) E.T. used one to phone home.

Texas Instruments made some sweet consumer electronics back in the 80's like the "Speak &..." family of toys. Speak & Spell would command you to spell out 10 different words before you were either congratulated on a perfect score or sternly instructed to try again for a perfect score. I would sit for hours and hours playing with my Speak & Spell trying to master all the words on the A level game. If the word "valiant" or "honor" came around I knew I could kiss my perfect score goodbye.

You know what else was awesome that Texas Instruments used to make...their early version of a personal computer. The "TI" was basically an Atari 2600 with a keyboard. It had a little runway to slide the cartridges into the slot and it had games like Munchman (not to be confused with Pac-Man) and TI Invaders which no one would confuse with Space Invaders. In Space Invaders you shot at little menacing aliens from outer space, in TI Invaders you shot at little Texas Instruments Corporate Logos. Ahh...good times!

You Can Major in "American Idol"

How funny is this? This is an actual class listing from the Harrisburg Area Community College Winter/Spring 2007 catalog. Listed right between Romanticism in France and Spain and Guitar Cord Lab 1 is AMERICAN IDOL STRATEGIES/PREP! Now you too can study the great works of Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest and really dive into what makes AMERICAN IDOL tick. This is for real! Of course, this is also the same school that had a course on GODZILLA a few years ago. Can you imagine telling your friends on a Friday night that you've got to go home early because you've got to get up for your American Idol class in the morning!? Unless this class was taught by Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson, is it really worth it!? But seriously, who can forget the powerful vocals of Instructor Travis J. Grimes!?! Oh, it's so funny!

Next semester at HACC they are also offering Wife Swapping 101 and How to Make Flavor Flav Fall in Love With You.