Thursday, March 20, 2008

Virgin Mary Toast

Item Cost Balance
House, Wellsville, KS 249,950 750,050
Mercedes Benz SL550 Roadster 96125 653,925
Samsung 42" Plasma TV 1399 652,526
WII 388 652,138
PS3 439 651,699
Xbox 360 Elite 519 651,180
15.4" Widescreen Notebook 2149 649,031
A Door 199 648,832
GI Joe Prototype 200000 448,832
18 kt Gold Gameboy 25000 423,832
Virgin Mary Toast 28000 395,832

The goal: spend $1,000,000. That you don't have. All virtual money. It has to be spent, not invested. It can't be used to earn you any more money. You can not have more than 2 forms of transportation, your house can't be more than certain percentage of the total. You can not have more than 4 items that are the same kind of thing...like you can't buy 12 game consoles. The closer you get to spending the entire million, the higher your grade will be.

This is Taylor's project for Pre-honors Algebra.

We thought it a little odd when he decided to buy a house in Wellsville, Kansas, of all places. He could not really explain how he landed there, but he certainly would not budge, despite all our teasing. He was so proud when he bought his first car, which was a Toyota Prius or something like that. Then we explained that he could really spend a lot more than that for a vehicle. A Hummer, perhaps?
When he made the connection with car costs and found the Mercedes Benz, that's when he seemed to really get interested in the project.

The Door? A simple door. 200 Bucks. No explanations. He just wanted to buy this door. No reason. Just a quirk. Then last night he stumbled on a website about the most expensive things. An 18kt Gold Gameboy was right up his alley. But the giggles really started to come when he stumbled upon the Virgin Mary toast.

Here is a BBC story from 2004: 'Virgin Mary' toast fetches $28,000.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Garden & Gun


GardenGun
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
This just really tickles my funny bone on so many levels. The subtitle is "21st Century Southern America."

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Three bodies


3Dbody
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
Mensa boy and his mini built this model of the digestive system for science class. It was really fun listening to them strategize about parts and figure out where they were going to go to procure them. I think the project ended up running the greater part of $40, but to me it was worth it. Taylor will get extra credit and the time the two of them spent together will last in their memory for a lifetime.