Useless Fact!

Minamisfit 's hometown of Reno, NV, is host to The Great Reno Balloon Race, the largest free hot air ballooning event in the country. The GRBR is held the first weekend after Labor day each September at Rancho San Rafael Regional Park in Reno, NV,  and draws in a crowd of 140,000 on average each year, making it the largest free event in Northern Nevada. It is also the largest free ballooning event in the United States. Learn more about Reno, NV...

Bonus Uselessness: Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California. 

Congratulations to Gamesviller Haleymarienana06 of Bremen, GA, who hit the jackpot in Three-Eyed Bingo yesterday and took home $2,115 in cold hard cash!

Useless Facts!

Haleymarienana06's hometown of Bremen, GA, is the home of Hugh McGraw, an expert in the Sacred Harp tradition of "shape note" singing. Shape notes are a music notation designed to facilitate congregational singing. Shape notes of various kinds have been used for over two centuries in a variety of sacred music traditions practiced primarily in the Southern region of the United States. McGraw's Sacred Harp Publishing company is located in Bremen, as is the Holly Springs Primitive Baptist church, where he leads monthly singing schools and an annual all-day singing held in early June. Learn more about Bremen, GA...

What's in the Box?

The Gamesville Mystery Box is like a box of chocolates--you never know what you’ll get. But know you this: It won’t be boring! We're giving all our Gamesvillers a fair chance at mysterious riches beyond your wildest dreams, in our new Mystery Box Sweepstakes!

Check back from time to time here on the GV blog, as we'll be giving you further clues and sneak peaks at what else is inside the Mystery Box. Since we’re feeling fun, we’ll clue you into one of the cool things in the Box: A $250 Amazon.com gift card!

All will be revealed on June 29,2009, when one lucky winner takes home the vaunted, valuable Mystery Box! No purchase necessary--enter to win today!

The NEW GV badges are here!

Today we're happy to announce a minor but exciting update--the new GV Rewards badges are here!

The same great style you've come to love, with a fresh look just in time for spring!

The new badges should be available both in-game and on your GV profile. We'll be rolling out this new feature all day, so if you don't see your new badge yet just follow these two easy steps: 1. Sign out out Gamesville, 2. Sign back into Gamesville and hop into one of your favorite GV games to see your new badge live!

We hope you enjoy this enhancement to the GV Rewards badges! Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

We're puzzled, we're perplexed and we're still trying to wrap our brains around this photo.

According to Dinosaurs and Robots, "Floating rocks are an event rarely captured on film. Very little is known about them, other than they float only for a short time, sometimes only minutes, before slowly returning to the ground." Check out a full gallery of levitating rocks at Dinosaurs and Robots.

What do you think? Real or digitally enhanced? Let us know your thoughts on this odd phenomenon in the comments section.

Distinguishing Personality Traits

Bambee_ says, "I have had Captain Morgan since she was a baby, I thought she was a male until she reached maturity and I discovered 'he' was a 'she'. I kept the name Captain Morgan anyway because she seems to like it. Female parakeets are not as vocal as males, so she does not chatter much. However she can mimic sounds like the microwave beeping and does it everyday when I come for lunch. Sometimes she will mimic the sounds of some of the games I play frequently on Gamesville!"

Good to know, she doesn't have a mouth like a sailor!

Want to share photos of your own favorite pet with the Gamesville community?

Send photos to: members@gamesville.com

In addition to your pet's picture, please be sure to include:

• Your Gamesville member name
• Your pet's most distinguishing personality trait

If we publish your pet as a "Best Pet," we'll give you 5,000 GV Rewards. Submit your pet today!

Today's submission comes from Gamesviller Jesterlady34 of Burlington, MI, proudly displaying her Gamesville pride on the back of her truck:

Jesterlady34 says, "My Gamesville bumper sticker is on the back window of my truck and very noticeable. A fellow Gamesviller saw it and fell in love with it. She said she needed to get herself one soon!" Here's how she can get one too:

Where in the world is YOUR GV bumper sticker?

Show your Gamesville Pride! Send us a photo of your Gamesville bumper sticker in action and we'll send you 5,000 GV Rewards. If we feature your photo in the Gamesville Blog (just like Jesterlady34), we'll send you an EXTRA 10,000 GV Rewards!

Send your correspondence to: members@gamesville.com

(Don't have a free Gamesville bumper sticker yet? Get your free Gamesville bumper sticker today.)

With the return of FOX's scifi series Fringe tonight (airing at 9:00 EST) we had the opportunity to talk with the show's star Anna Torv about the rest of the first season, the progression of her character, and what we can look forward to in season two. Check out the interview and a special sneak peak of tonight's episode "Inner Child" below:

Gamesville: What are some of your favorite characteristics about the character of “Olivia”?

Anna: Her sense of duty. I like that I play a character where I kind of go to work and put her armor on, her dark suits and her badge and her gun. Her sense of duty, her absolute ability to honor her word.

Which do you enjoy more as an actor: an episode in which your character gets lots of action, fighting, gunplay and so on, or when the crazy science elements of the show take center stage?

I love it when I’m in motion. I love doing sort of the rough and tumble, running and gunning. I know that when we’re in the Lab, I just get to be the question machine and I get to watch the boys sort of have fun at “The Walter and Peter Show.” I don’t know which would be my favorite, both for different reasons.

What parts of the science do you like?

I love the stuff that delves into moral and ethical dilemmas, like what people’s boundaries are, what’s appropriate and what’s not. How far do you go in order to find an answer. And particularly with the “Peter,” "Walter" and Olivia dynamic, it’s always changing. Each week, one will be a little bit more gun-ho about wanting to get to the bottom of it no matter what it takes. That's probably the bit that I like the most, actually.

What’s been your favorite scene to shoot so far and why?

You’d think it would be some big, explosive kind of thing, but we shot a scene recently that was just in Walter and Peter’s hotel room, and in it Olivia has just discovered some things about her past and some things that Walter is connected to, and I loved shooting that because it was the first time that I felt like Olivia really inched her way into that dynamic of Peter and Walter. She’s been kind of on the outside, and they’ve got their things to deal with, and she’s kind of wrangling them constantly. But this sort of like gave me just a little of glimpse into what could be like having everything, realizing everything is a little bit entwined. Therefore, there becomes a little bit more conflict, like really emotional conflict between them, and I think that’s fun.

How different has the Fringe experience been versus whatever expectations you had heading into it?

I hadn’t done anything quite so ambitious and so plot-driven before, and when I say that, I mean the stories and the cases that you’re covering. It’s not what I expected at all. It far exceeded my expectations.

You're winding down on the first season of Fringe now. Are you excited?

Yes, I’m really excited. I think because we’re gearing up for the end of the season, we sort of started to get a bit more cemented. We’re shooting the season finale at the moment, and I’m really excited. I’m excited at the prospect of where the show could go. If we’re lucky enough to shoot a second season, I think it’s going to be really great.

How was the first season for you, and what are you looking forward to in the second season?

I’m really excited to come back with a little bit of perspective. You know, you’re working, and so you’re so in it. Sometimes doesn’t feel like anything ever gets finished or all completed. I’m excited to sort of take a step back actually and look at what we’ve done and sort of plot out where everybody is now at the end of it.

Fringe returns tonight and airs Tuesdays, 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time on FOX.

Congratulations to Gamesviller Keicher442 of Niceville, FL, who hit a BIG jackpot while playing Three-Eyed Bingo on Friday and took home $1,284 in cold hard cash! Of course, we couldn't help but highlight the favorite saying on her GV profile, "Who are these kids and why do they call me mom?" Those kids are certainly going to continue calling you mom (and asking for a raise in allowance) after this big win!

Princessmisty took home $488 over the weekend.

And that's not all! Because congratulations are in order to FIVE other Gamesvillers who all took home cash this weekend! Gamesviller Princessmisty of Calumet, MI, hit the jackpot on Friday while playing CatchUp CoverAll and took home $488! And when Princessmisty hit it big, four more lucky players--with the same Lucky Ball as Princessmisty--also won cash prizes! Congrats to Kbbaby1965, Jaddie64, Coltson2, and Rum338 on their Lucky Balls!

A Guinness World Record number of Waldos!

Last night the Rutgers University community broke the Guinness World Record for The World’s Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Waldo from the iconic picture book series, Where’s Waldo?. 1,052 Rutgers students, staff and community members were dressed up and gathered at the State Theatre located in downtown New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers smashed the previous record, set by 577 Acuity Insurance Employees in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, at the Acuity Insurance headquarters. The Rutgers group also collected more than 3,000 books to donate to the local New Brunswick School District.

Article via: NYMag.com
Image source: Classic Media, Inc./Gianni Cipriano