Monday Fun

Trust me, as much as we're Word Nerds here, we do get captivated by other things than just books.

A few things that might liven up your Monday.

1. The Public Radio Name Generator. I'm a huge NPR listener. I can pick out which reporter is it just from voice alone most of the time. In a perfect world, Scott Simon would follow me around and narrate my life just so I could listen to him all the time. But, most of us don't just come with names that sound like they belong on public radio. Using some of the real reporters names, this generator will bestow on you a new name to launch your public broadcasting career.

2. Tonematrix (Don't try this if you are photo-sensitive. If you are not, make sure you have a good 20 minutes to kill right now, or try it later.) I found this over at Pbackwriter's blog, who got it somewhere else. Unlike them, I am not cool enough to figure out how to embed the flash app into this post. It's a nifty little sound application that lets you create some music -- no know-how needed.

3. The Daily. For you iPad users, this may be the best app that's not a game that I've found. I'm a news junkie at heart (what? really?) You can try The Daily for free for two weeks and then a year's subscription is $39.99. When you divide that out, that's $0.11 a day for news magazine quality journalism, photos, song of the day, crossword, sudoku, and more. While I love newspapers and always will, when this kind of creative journalism is out there, the writing's on the wall that they've got to deliver this kind of product or they are doomed (wow, so my Monday fun just turned into a soapbox... sorry about that).

Have a great Monday.

For NPR, this is Themba Murphy-Pahlavi, reporting from Indianapolis.